by Tracy Sharp
She watched the door and waited.
Soon May’s small image appeared at the door. Creeper-man pushed it open for her and May walked through it. Robyn could hear his voice, speaking in pleasant tones, as he asked her questions.
“Do you see your mom out here?”
May shook her head, one balled fist pressed against her mouth. She looked left and right, her eyes wide.
Don’t worry, baby. I’m right here.
May knew that Robyn was supposed to be out there, but by the look on her small face, she wasn’t sure. That was good. The uncertainty was authentic. Creeper was buying it.
“Do you want me to help you find her? Maybe she’s at your car waiting for you.”
“Maybe.” May’s voice was tiny and high, and Robyn could hear her nervousness in it.
The idea that this creep would take advantage of her vulnerability made a white-hot rage roil in her stomach. She realized something at that moment. There was no place on the planet the guy could go where he would be safe from her now. She would catch him. He was as good as dead. She just needed to take his soul first.
Robyn stood, went around to the rear hatch of the Escalade, and opened it. She leaned in and watched them approach through the back window. The creeper’s eyes darted around, making sure nobody was watching. The key was to be fast, and he stayed close behind May. He didn’t pick her up, because then people would see her with him and might recognize her from the “Missing” posters that would be shown around the media after May was gone. Instead, he let her walk, because she couldn’t be seen behind the cars. It appeared that he was walking by himself.
Robyn’s nerves buzzed as she waited for them to come closer. Her fingers tightened around the .38, and her index finger twitched on the trigger.
There. They were mere feet away.
In one fluid motion, Robyn backed out of the back of the Escalade and pointed the .38 at Creeper Man.
“Get in.”
His face registered shock. His mouth dropped open.
“I said, get in. Now,” she said between gritted teeth. “Or I’ll take you out right here.”
“You can have my wallet,” he stammered.
“Well, that’s very nice of you. But I don’t want it. Now get your ass in the car.”
“M-m-my daughter—”
“Oh, please. She’s my daughter. And I believe I told you to get in the car.” Robyn motioned for May to come to her side. May ran to her and stepped behind her.
Toby and Juno came up behind him. Toby gave him a shove forward.
The creeper yelped in surprise. He stared at Toby and Juno, realization dawning on him.
“Yeah.” Robyn nodded her head. “Now you’re getting it.”
“It was a setup,” Creeper man said.
“Yes,” Toby said, “it was.” He shoved him forward. “Now get in the back of that car before I break your face.”
“It’s not what you think,” Creeper Man blathered, panic making his voice high and breathless. “She was lost. I thought she was really lost. I was helping her find you. That’s all.”
“Riiiiight,” Juno came up beside him, looking him up and down like he was a walking piece of shit, which he was. “We were watching you drooling over the little girls,” and she snatched the wallet from his hand, flipped it open, “Laurence. You go by Laurence or Larry?”
“L-L-Larry,” he whispered. His breaths were coming short and fast.
Robyn could smell sweat and fear coming off him. She smiled.
“Juno,” she said, “would you take May to the other car, please. I think she’s seen enough for one day. Toby and I can take it from here.”
Juno nodded and took May by the hand. “Surely. Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go get some McDonalds.”
“Can we go to the play land?”
“Not today, sweets. I’ve had enough of freaks watching little kids play. We’ll watch a movie at home.”
Their voices faded as they walked away.
Robyn stepped back as Toby shoved the guy into the back of the Escalade.
“Put your hands behind your back,” Toby said.
The guy whimpered and did as he was told.
“Turn around.” Toby shoved him some more.
The guy turned around, openly crying now. “Oh God. Just let me go. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I swear.”
“Save it,” Robyn said. “You’re pathetic.”
Toby put the cuffs on the guy. “Nice and tight. Listen, you scumbag. You try anything back there, and I’ll blow your nuts off. You dig?”
Larry bobbed his head up and down. “Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll see soon enough.” Toby slammed the back hatch closed, and he and Robyn climbed into the SUV. Robyn drove while Toby pointed his gun at Larry.
“This is a day of reckoning for you, Larry. You had to know it was coming.” Toby grinned, nice and wide.
Larry blubbered. “I wasn’t going to hurt her. I wasn’t.”
“Well, now, see? Here’s where our definitions of the word ‘hurt’ differ, Larry. Like what I’m going to do to you once we get you alone in a place where nobody can hear you scream. There’s hurt, and then there’s hurt. You know what I’m saying?”
“Oh my God,” Larry cried.
“No, Larry,” Toby said. “Not God. The other guy.”
Chapter 18
Robyn placed a boot on Larry’s lower back and shoved. He fell to his knees on the bloodstained floor of Zed’s barn.
Larry looked at the dark stains all around him. “Oh Jesus. What is this place?”
Toby stepped forward and stood over him. “This place is the last place you’ll ever see, Larry. How do you feel about that?”
A foul smell filled the air around Larry.
Toby’s face scrunched up against the odor. “Aw, fuck. Come on, Larry. You serious?”
“I’m sorry,” Larry sobbed. “I can’t help it.”
“Just like you can’t help molesting little girls?” Robyn said, perusing the wall of weapons.
“It’s so hard,” Larry whispered. “I try. I really try.”
Tony glanced at Robyn. The look on her face was disconcerting. She looked happy. Truly happy for the first time since he’d laid eyes on her.
“Please,” Larry whispered. “I’ll do anything. I’ll get help. Anything. Just please don’t kill me.”
“Larry,” Robyn said, choosing a particularly nasty-looking machete from the wall of weapons, “you don’t want to live anyway. Eventually you’ll get caught for raping and killing little girls, and they will do the same to you in prison. Only they knock out your front teeth, Larry. So they don’t get in the way, if you know what I mean. Did you know why they do that in prison?”
Larry stared at Robyn as if she were insane, which Toby thought she just might be. At least at that moment. She had a spooky, crazy light in her eyes.
Robyn smiled. “I’ll explain further. They knock out your front teeth so that when you are forced to blow them, your teeth won’t scrape against their dicks.”
“Oh Lord,” Larry said, big tears rolling down his cheeks. “Please. What can I do to convince you?”
Robyn squatted down a few feet from Larry. “You really stink, Larry.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you willing to do to live another day?” Robyn asked him, stroking the handle of the machete as if it were a pet.
“Anything,” Larry said, hope brightening his face.
“Would you sell your soul for another day?”
Larry frowned, but barely missed a beat. “Yes! Yes I will! You’re devil worshippers? I get that. I can help you. Any way you want. You need sacrifices? There are lots of guys like me. I talk to them on the internet every day.” Larry was babbling.
“You’re kind of the sacrifice today, Larry,” Toby said.
“I can get you more,” Larry said. His glasses hung lopsided on the end of his nose.
Robyn and Toby glanced at each ot
her.
“Is the address on your driver’s license current, Larry?” Robyn asked him.
“Yes. I’ve lived at the same place for fifteen years.”
Toby knew what she was thinking. Once they offed the scumbag, they could go to his house and use his computer to connect with more pedophiles. Lure them to come out and play.
Toby watched as Robyn dropped the head of the machete onto the ground and balanced her hands, one on top of the other, on the other end of it. She rested her chin on her hands and watched Larry for a moment, a tiny smile touching her mouth.
A shiver went through Toby. She was really enjoying this. Something was happening to her, and he wasn’t sure if it was good. Wasn’t even sure if it was necessary. But it was helping her do what needed to be done.
“Please,” Larry whispered, his pale face shiny with sweat. His lips quivered. “I’ll do anything.”
“If you want me not to kill you right where you are—and believe me, I really am itching to—you need to trade your soul for your life.”
He nodded. “Okay. I trade my soul.”
Robyn tilted her head. “For what, Larry? What are you trading it for?”
“For you not to kill me.”
Robyn smiled. “Good boy, Larry. I won’t kill you today.”
“Oh, thank you. Thank you.” Larry heaved a sigh of relief. Then another.
Robyn stood, then planted a boot on his chest and shoved him backward. “You are filth, Larry. Do you know that? There really is no reason for you to be breathing the air right now. But your time is coming. You get that, right?”
Larry watched Robyn with cautious eyes.
“I mean, you didn’t really think you could get away with your nasty little reindeer games forever, did you?”
Larry wouldn’t take his gaze off Robyn, as if doing so would lead to her going at him with the machete.
Robyn stared down at him for a moment, a look of absolute disgust on her face. She knelt down and faced him, her voice a low purr. “I want you to understand something. There is a special kind of Hell for slimy douche bags like you. And you’re going to find that out very, very soon. You got that?”
Larry was trembling under her gaze. “Yes,” he whispered.
“Good. I hope I get to see it when the devil comes collecting, Larry. And believe me, his collectors are nasty. You’re really going to wish I’d killed you with the machete.”
A steady beat had begun on the roof of the shed. The rain had come suddenly, and soon the beat became a furious drumming above them.
Toby watched as Robin stood up again. She was done scaring the shit out of Larry. Now she stepped back, grinning. “Get the fuck out of here.”
Zed was dead, but Toby and Robyn had seen the devil’s work. The collectors would come collecting soon.
Larry pushed himself up and almost launched himself toward the door, as if he was afraid that Robyn would change her mind. He ran out the door into the downpour.
Robyn and Toby stood in the doorway, watching as Larry stood for a second, orienting himself, before running toward the road. He lifted his face to the rain, as if he’d thought he’d never feel the rain on his skin again.
“Get in the truck, Robyn. Let’s get out of here.”
Robyn walked to the Escalade as if she had all the time in the world, never taking her eyes off Larry. She climbed into the driver’s side and leaned over the steering wheel, watching him through the sheets of rain.
Toby pulled the shed door closed and ran to the passenger side of the truck. “You okay to drive?”
“Oh, yes. I’m fabulous.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
“Toby, I need to see it happen.”
“Robyn, they’re coming for him. We don’t want to be around when they do. You might still owe. You know?”
Robyn sat for a second, then started the truck. She came up behind Larry and drove slowly, staying close behind him for a minute.
Larry ran a little faster, his panicked cries coming through the rain, muted and forlorn.
Toby knew she was considering finishing the job herself. He watched the spooky smirk on her face as she thought about it.
“You know the way this works. You have to do it right. Let them come get him.”
She laughed and veered away from Larry, passing him and splashing him in mud. “Dickwad.”
As Toby watched, turned around in the passenger’s seat, the grey shape of a truck came through the rain toward Larry. Something about how it slowed, then picked up speed, lifted the small hairs on the back of his neck. “Step on it, Robyn.”
Hearing the tone of his voice, she glanced in the rearview.
She slowed instead of speeding up. “I want to see it.”
“Jesus,” Toby said. He watched as the pickup raced toward Larry, hitting him.
Robyn’s laugh was filled with delight as Larry’s body sailed into the air, then landed on the hood of the truck.
Toby drew in a shaky breath. “Go! You saw it, now let’s get the fuck out of here!”
Robyn gave a relieved sigh, and pressed her foot down on the gas. “That was awesome.”
“You know something?” Toby moved a hand over his face. “You are really giving me the creeps.”
Robyn glanced at him, a little smile on her face. “I’d hate to be Larry when whatever’s in that truck gets out and grabs him.”
†
Back at Juno’s house, Toby and Robyn each had showers and then joined Juno and May in the living room where they were playing a game of Concentration. Playing cards were laid facedown on the thick, plush carpet and it was May’s turn. The queen of spades was lying faceup on the corner of the bottom row, near her left foot. She hid a grin behind a little fist and giggled. After a long moment of looking at the layout of the cards, she reached forward on her hands and knees and flipped a card over. The queen of spades.
She gave a gleeful squeal. Toby and Robyn clapped and cheered.
“You are way too good at this game, little girl.” Juno leaned forward from the couch and ruffled May’s soft, dark hair.
“You’re letting me win,” May said.
“Nope. I’m not. You’re kicking my butt all on your own.”
May smiled brightly. “I’m kicking her butt,” she said to Toby.
“I can see that,” Toby said.
Robyn sat with her feet tucked under her, her hands wrapped around a cup of strong coffee.
“You two should get a nap. It’ll be night before we know it,” Juno said, low. She didn’t want to ruin May’s fun. The kid clearly hadn’t had much fun in her short life.
Robyn nodded, but her hands seemed to tense on her mug.
“Robyn, you need sleep to be able to keep on keeping on, you know what I’m saying? Gotta stay on your toes out there. There isn’t any room for error.”
“I know,” Robyn said, gazing out toward the window. The rain had stopped, but the day remained cloudy. The air was damp and chilly. The kind of day where the cold went right through you.
“Your debt will be paid off soon,” Juno said. “Might even be paid off now. Who knows? But it’s somebody else’s debt that will take some time to work off, I think.” Children’s souls were at a premium because of their purity and innocence. It would take some time for them to be squared up on May’s soul.
She looked at Juno, her gaze a little far away. “When do you think we’ll be squared up?”
“I think you’ll just know. Or maybe a message will be sent.”
Juno watched as Toby watched Robyn, his eyes squinting just the slightest bit, and Juno realized all at once that Robyn might want to be squared up for May’s soul, but she didn’t want to stop what she was doing. She enjoyed ridding the earth of its filth. Sending them to Hell to be dealt with properly.
Juno couldn’t blame her, really. She agreed with the philosophy. It was the joy with which Robyn did the job that was bugging Toby. But Juno understood that sometimes what they were doing was necessary; i
t just needed to be done. It was a license to kill slimeballs. It didn’t matter if it made them as bad as the dirtbags whose souls they collected. The ends justified the means.
Maybe they would continue long after they needed to. Maybe this is what Juno had been waiting for, all those mornings she sat in her chair, watching the sun rise through the slats in her blinds.
She watched Robyn for a moment. Her far-off gaze. The little curve of her lips as she replayed something in her memory.
Juno had read about what had happened to the professor and his wife and daughter. Seen it on the news. And she’d dropped her face into her hands and sobbed.
She had been in his English class with Robyn. It was mandatory for her Physics degree, though she’d never known why. But she had known what was going on with Robyn and the professor after class. She had picked up on it before it had even really started. Known it was coming. The heat between them was undeniable. All she could do was watch, even though she felt in her bones that it would end badly. She never would have guessed just how badly.
Robyn hadn’t known the danger. Hadn’t felt it.
Now she had found a way to redemption, at least in her own eyes. But there would never be forgiveness.
She’d found her reason to keep living.
†
Juno changed the channel to a local news station. “I’ll turn it back to the cartoons in a bit, okay, peanut?”
May nodded. “Okay.” She flipped over a playing card to find her king of clubs match. She smiled widely and added it to the small pile of matched cards next to her on the carpet.
Toby shook his head. “Kid, you are way too smart for me. You know that?”
May grinned. “Yeah. I’m smart.”
Robyn sat on one end of the sofa with her feet tucked under her. Juno sat at the other end, her knees tucked up and leaning on the couch’s armrest.
One local story moved into another. Nothing stood out.
Until the story about a woman found raped, beaten within an inch of her life, and left for dead. The scene was of EMTs carrying a woman on a stretcher and placing her carefully into an ambulance. They then cut to a city park where the young woman had been jogging. The area was surrounded by woods, which is one of the reasons the park was so popular.
