Prey Drive

by James White, Wrath

  “Thanks again, Fausto.”

  “No problem, hermano. I mean, I was planning on raping you. I guess this is the least I could do, huh, right?”

  Joe smiled.

  “Right.”

  “Those teeth of yours are fucking crazy! You’re fucking loco for real, huh, right? You take care of yourself and I’ll see you back in the cell.”

  Fausto left and Joe sat silently on his bed. He thought about his mother for the first time since her last visit. He wondered if he should try to see her again when he got out, but knew the Federal Marshals would have her place staked out for sure, expecting him to try to make contact. In all likelihood, her last visit was the last time he’d ever see her. Joe sighed deeply and tears welled up unexpectedly in his eyes.

  His life had changed so much in the last few years. He’d fought so hard to maintain some semblance of normalcy when he first felt the psychotic urges overwhelming him. He’d done everything he was supposed to do. He went to counseling. He tried to lose himself in his art. He even spoke to his professor about it before taking the matter into his own hands and seeking out his own cure. Now, his entire life had changed. Before he’d been afraid he would grow fangs and fur and turn into some sort of werewolf or vampire. Ultimately, he had fashioned his own fangs and become something as bad or worse than the mythical creatures whose legends he’d looked to for a solution to his problem. His life had now changed in ways he would have never been able to imagine. The idea that it might all be over soon was exhilarating. He only wished Alicia was still around to share it with him. He missed her so badly it was like physical pain. Again, his thoughts drifted to Alicia’s sister, Lana. She was so different from Alicia in so many ways, but so similar as well. If he could make her love him, his life would be complete. But he knew that was impossible. And what about Selene and his grandfather? They both had to be handled before he could even think about loving anyone or being loved. Even after he escaped, Joe knew the myriad of obstacles in his life would be far from over.

  Joe sighed deeply, overwhelmed by the magnitude of his problems. Nothing was ever simple, but Joe was resolved to getting his life back. Anything or anyone that stood in the way of that was in for a very short life. When Joe looked up and casually scanned the room, noting his fellow patients, the stern nurses who seemed to double as corrections officers themselves, two of the less than half-dozen full-time doctors the prison employed, Fausto busily mopping up some mess caused by one of the other patients while glowering at the patient murderously, Nathan helping transfer a coughing older inmate who looked to be in his seventies or eighties from a gurney to one of the beds, he spotted officer Belton standing outside the infirmary again, peering in at him and scowling. Belton was definitely going to be a problem. And Joe couldn’t allow any problems. Not when he was so close to regaining his life.

  Part V

  Ikizukuri

  One small adult

  One large lemon

  Soy sauce to taste

  Two bottles of saki

  When eating raw long pig, just as in sushi, freshness is critical. Refrigeration hardens and dries the meat. The fresher it is when served, the juicier, more succulent, and softer the meat will be. Ikizukuri literally means “prepared alive.” There is no fresher meat than one that is still twitching, moaning, and screaming. To begin, prepare the meat by getting the long pig to imbibe both bottles of saki. This is preferable to drugging the victim as certain narcotics can interfere with the taste of the meat and the saki will add flavor. Restraints will still be necessary.

  Surgically slice off the flesh of adult long pig, avoiding all the vital organs and major arteries to keep the long pig alive. Cut the flesh into paper-thin sheets. Drizzle with lemon and soy sauce. Reassemble it in the long pig's body and serve with wasabi and soy sauce.

  Forty-Two

  Cindy came for him exactly at midnight. There were other inmates still awake. He could hear them mumbling, whispering, and moaning in pain in the dark all around him. They all knew better than to say shit about his visitor. Ratting out a CO was a good way to get yourself killed. Ratting out the most dangerous inmate in the penitentiary and a CO was a guarantee of certain death. Cindy held up a finger, a needless reminder for Joe to be silent as he slipped from beneath the cover into his prison slippers.

  There were no nurses on the floor when Joe and Cindy crept out of the infirmary and down the hall. Joe’s excitement was at a fever pitch. They turned down another hall and started toward the stairs leading down to the prison morgue. That’s when Joe heard the first footsteps and smelled the familiar testosterone musk of his old friend, Officer Belton. He was following them.

  There were cameras in every hall and room except the morgue. Evidently, Belton was looking for something more than just proof of Joe’s romantic involvement with Cindy. He wanted to catch them red-handed and make some sort of scene. Joe was having a hard time figuring out the man’s angle. The number of people Joe was going to have to kill before he could be free of this place was continuing to grow. Unlike what he had to do to Cindy, killing Belton was something Joe knew he would never regret.

  Joe’s predatory instincts were now fully engaged. The monster was awake and in a fury. It hated being pursued. It wanted to taste blood. Joe took note of the security cameras he passed, looking for a blind-spot where he could end the pursuit. They passed a room meant for temporary solitary confinement and the door was ajar. Joe paused and peeked inside. There were no cameras.

  “You want to go in there?” Cindy asked.

  “No. I was just curious. Let’s go down to the morgue. Do you mind if I stop to take a piss? I’ll catch up to you.”

  Cindy stood her ground.

  “I’d better stay with you in case somebody finds you.”

  “I’ll tell them I came down here on my own. It’s better than them finding us together. That would be harder to explain.”

  Cindy thought about it and nodded.

  “Okay. Be quick though.”

  “I will. I’ll see you down in the morgue. I know the way.”

  Joe watched Cindy enter the stairwell and listened for her footsteps fading away down the stairs and the door at the bottom opening and shutting before turning to focus his attention on the stealthy footsteps advancing from the opposite direction. He slipped into the isolation cell and waited, peering through the crack in the door. It wasn’t long before he saw the bald head and wide shoulders of Officer Belton slip past the cell door. His radio was turned down low, but Joe could still hear it squawk. Belton whispered a curse then turned the radio volume down even lower. Joe flung the door open and dragged Belton inside before he could so much as scream. Belton was built like a football player, heavy and muscular, but he was still no match for the enormous super-predator. Joe’s body was built for killing. His arms were thick as pythons and his body was like a suit of armor—hard, unyielding, and nearly impervious. Belton fought his way free, twisting and throwing punches and elbows, but not before Joe stripped him of his radio and pepper spray. He turned off the radio and dropped it to the floor. Now, the only sound in the room was their combined heavy breathing.

  Joe could almost hear the man’s heartbeat like a powerful pneumatic piston pounding in his chest. His heart sounded like it was about to come right through his ribcage. Belton’s eyes widened, taking in the six-foot-six, two hundred and sixty-pound cannibal with muscles that seemed to have been chiseled out of iron, as if seeing him for the first time. Joe could see the exact moment when Belton realized he was about to die. He heard him swallow hard and struggle to catch his breath. He was almost hyperventilating.

  “Come on, mutherfucker! I ain’t afraid of your crazy ass!” Belton yelled, raising his fists in a boxer’s stance. Joe lifted his knee to his chest and brought the heel of his foot up into Belton’s chin, putting his back and hips behind the kick like he was breaking down a door. Teeth cracked and spilled from Belton’s lips. He held his bleeding mouth and staggered backwards. Joe dropped down
onto one knee and grabbed the officer’s groin, hooking his fingers into claws and seizing Belton’s cock and balls in one massive hand, just as he’d been practicing for months. He twisted and jerked and felt something give and tear. Blood and urine poured into Joe’s hand and trickled down his arm. It stank of ammonia and raw meat.

  Belton screamed and collapsed, writhing on the floor in agony and holding his bleeding genitals.

  “AAAAAAAAAaaaaaah! Aaaaaaah! FUUUUUUCK! YOU RIPPED OFF MY FUCKING BALLS!”

  Joe dove on top of him, mounting the big CO and straddling his chest. He began pummeling Belton with elbows, dislodging more teeth, shattering and pulverizing the man’s nose, smashing his cheekbone and orbital eye socket, reducing his face to a bleeding ruin. Joe was in an ecstasy of raw carnage, delighting in the violence, feeling all his pent-up frustrations flow down his arms, lending more ferocity to every blow.

  He could hear the officer moaning and gurgling through a mouthful of blood as Joe continued hammering him with elbows, twisting his waist and shoulders into every blow, determined to crush Belton’s skull and end this before Cindy came back upstairs looking for him. He felt Belton’s skull crack like a pumpkin and spill blood and brain matter. The next elbow met less resistance, and the next sank into something squishy. Finally, Joe leaned down and tore a huge avulsion in the officer’s hamstring, jerking his head back and forth as he lacerated Belton’s tendons and tissue like some voracious beast, no longer thinking, all instinct and appetite. Blood sprayed from Belton’s femoral artery, painting the walls red, emptying the officer’s body of vital fluids with each pump of his heart.

  The blood lust was now a frenzy. Joe bit deep into Belton’s throat, ripping out large chunks of his esophagus and spitting them on the floor. He chewed through to the man’s vertebrae and crunched down on that as well, thrashing his head from side to side, snapping Belton’s spine and nearly decapitating him.

  He didn’t eat any of the meat this time. This kill wasn’t for enjoyment, but necessity. He’d have plenty of time to enjoy himself with Cindy before the mortuary van came in the morning to take his coffin away.

  Joe walked away, leaving Belton’s head a misshapen pulp bleeding out on the floor and his head connected to his body by a few stubborn tendons. After months of abuse from the man, killing him had been anticlimactic. He wished he’d had time to get creative and savor the man’s death. Luckily, there would be many others in the next twenty-four hours. Of that, he was certain.

  Joe wiped Belton’s blood from his face and hands with his shirt, then tossed the shirt aside, and dashed down the stairs. Cindy was just opening the door and stepping out into the stairwell with a concerned expression scarring her painfully cute face when Joe ran down into her arms.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  “Everything’s perfect except … well … you’re still wearing your clothes.”

  “We can fix that,” Cindy replied with a smile.

  Cindy pulled her shirt tails from her pants and began unbuttoning it. Joe leaned in and kissed her, moving Cindy out of the stairwell and into the room where the prison kept its most successful escapees, the ones who would never return to their cells, the ones that were finally free. He pulled her Sam Browne belt from its loops and tossed it, along with her radio, handcuffs, and pepper spray, onto a stainless steel gurney, one of the few unoccupied ones in the room. Joe was struck by how much the morgue resembled the infirmary above it, except that the bodies filling the tables in this room were no longer moaning, fidgeting, and complaining. There was also the ominous bank of steel cabinets that lined the walls, where the bodies were stored post-autopsy.

  Already entwined like two mating serpents coiled around one another, Joe and Cindy fell atop one of the few empty tables, kissing and hurriedly undressing. Cindy’s lips kissed their way down the gigantic killer’s sinuous neck to his massive chest, his chiseled abdominal muscles, the trail of hair that led to his groin, and down to the root of his manhood, where the monster lived … and it was happy to see her. Joe could hear the blood rushing in his ears. He could hear his own heartbeat, smell Cindy’s musky pheromones, and he could still taste Belton’s blood and flesh on his tongue. He wanted more. His lust for the flesh was voracious and Belton’s death had only increased his appetite.

  Right up until he’d murdered Belton, he had been considering letting Cindy live. She might have been able to cover his tracks if he could convince her that escaping was the only way he would be safe and they could finally be truly together. But now it was too risky. He had murdered a CO and the manner of Belton’s death and all the DNA Joe left behind on the carcass would leave no doubt who the killer was. Cindy would be questioned and she’d spill everything. He reached down and removed the shank Fausto made for him from his pants pocket before stepping out of them and kicking them aside.

  “I love you, Joe.”

  He felt bad lying to her. Cindy really was a nice woman, but telling the truth was inefficient. The truth would not set him free.

  “I love you too, Cindy,” Joe said as her tongue trailed along the underside of his cock. All the affection he felt for her was summarized in his craving for her flesh. He’d kept it in check for weeks to avoid freaking her out, but now the monster wanted to feed and there was no reason Joe could find to deny it sustenance. His stomach growled and his erection swelled. A pearl drop of pre-cum dribbled from the head of his massive cock and Cindy lapped it up. She eased all eight inches down her throat, sending tingles of pleasure through Joe’s tumescent sex organ.

  Joe seized the back of her head and began slowly fucking Cindy’s throat. He felt the head of his cock slide past her tonsils. She gagged once and pulled away slightly, then swallowed and coughed several times, blinking tears from her eyes, before taking his erection in her mouth again and slowly easing it back down her throat, grabbing Joe’s muscular buttocks as she forced him to thrust deeper. She had gotten so good at sucking cock, Joe could already feel himself missing her, but there were other things he wanted far more than a good blowjob. Just as he neared orgasm, he withdrew his cock from her mouth and stroked himself as she stuck out her tongue to take his seed like a sacrament. Her lovely, cherubic face with the pudgy cheeks, dimples, and puppy dog eyes, stared up at him as he came with a roar that emptied his soul. He ejaculated onto her tongue, lips, cheeks, chin. She smiled appreciatively and licked his seed from her lips. It was such a beautiful sight, he felt a tug at his heart. It was easy to imagine himself falling for a woman like Cindy. But that would have to wait for another life— one without monsters.

  Lifting her up from the floor and onto his shoulders so that her legs hung down his back and her sex was pressed firmly against his face, Joe began licking her labia and clitoris gently at first, then more aggressively as the taste of her transported him out of himself. He became a part of her where his lips joined her sex, feeling her kegel muscles contract around his tongue as he thrust it deep inside her and licked her vaginal walls. She grabbed the back of Joe’s head and ground her clitoris against his mouth, moaning and thrusting, fucking his face the way he had so often fucked hers.

  “Oh God, Joe! That feels amazing! Oh my God! Keep going! I’m going to cum!”

  Joe flicked his tongue across her engorged clitoris faster than a hummingbird’s wings, feeling it throb and pulse as he sucked it and swirled his tongue around it. Her orgasm, when it finally came in a screaming, hissing, scratching fit was like an avalanche. Wet warmth spilled into his mouth. Her body bucked and convulsed and Joe’s muscles strained to hold her in place on his shoulders. Her juices cascaded down over his tongue as he continued licking and sucking the tiny nub of sensitive nerve endings. She tasted marvelous. Like blood and honey. It was the taste of blood that brought the monster forth.

  He bit deep, tearing into her delicate flower with a savagery born of years of abstinence. He’d been imprisoned for five years, and all his fantasies had been about the moment he would once again consume a woman’s flesh.
Man flesh was tough and chewy, but the taste of woman was heaven, an extravagant confection that melted on his tongue like warm pastry.

  “AAAAAaaaeeeeiiiiii! Aaaah! AAAAaaaaaahh! NO! OH GOD, JOE! STOP! NOOOoooooo!” Cindy screamed.

  From the first bite, a wave of ecstasy rushed through Joe’s loins followed by an explosive orgasm. His swollen cock spat its seed into the air as he bit large avulsions in Cindy’s succulent loins, rending her sex with his saw-like teeth. He almost dropped her, overcome by the most profound rapture he’d felt in half a decade.

  Cindy punched at Joe’s head and screamed again and again. If he didn’t silence her, Joe worried, someone might come to investigate the commotion. He pulled her from his shoulders and she fought him harder, scratching and biting. Joe palmed her entire face in his massive hand, tilted her head back, and slashed her throat with Fausto’s shank.

  Blood spurted from her severed arteries and rained down her chest, streaking her tiny, milk-white breasts red. She continued to scream, louder, shriller now. Joe cut deeper, sawing through her esophagus, through her larynx, choking off her screams. He leaned down and drank the gouts of warm blood as it spurted from her severed arteries, intoxicated by the taste of her life flowing forth in a river of red down his gullet. He laid Cindy down on the table and continued to lap at the fountain of blood pouring from the ear-to-ear gash in Cindy’s throat.

  Joe leaned down and tore off her tiny breasts with his serrated teeth, chewing and swallowing the fatty meat in a frenzy, exposing her ribcage as he cannibalized her diminutive mammary glands. Cindy was still fighting, punching and scratching at him even as her strength dwindled. Joe was impressed, but the curse pumping through his veins demanded more. He could see her heart beating behind her ribcage and he wanted to consume it as well, to rip it still beating from her chest. The monster was ravenous tonight.

  He climbed up onto Cindy’s chest and looked down at her. Her eyes rolled in her skull, unable to focus. She made gargling sounds deep in her brutally savaged esophagus, as blood gurgled from the wound and she drowned in her own blood. Joe brought the shank to her throat again and cut completely around to the back of her neck then began peeling the skin off her throat like he was removing a ski mask. He jerked the skin free of the bubbly, popcorn-colored fat and striated muscle tissue beneath it. She began to convulse, thrashing on the steel table.