Berserk

by Tim Lebbon

  “Dale!” Jonah coughed. “I can’t breathe!”

  The maniac released Jonah, but kept up with the begging and pleading. “Jonah, you have to go back now. Please. I’m begging you.”

  “Get ahold of yourself. You’re acting like a crazy man. Stop being such a crybaby.”

  Dale took on a sudden hurt look. “I thought you were my friend.”

  “I am your friend.”

  “Then why do this to me? I told you I couldn’t come back here. Take me back. Now!”

  Jonah wanted nothing more than to grant that single request, but four lanes of traffic and no available means of egress made it a very hard thing to do, indeed. “I will as soon as I can. Let me find an exit.”

  Before an exit presented itself, something else did. Over the honks and aggression of the other drivers, a familiar noise arose: the whine of a siren. And with it came the steady pulse of blue lights in Jonah’s rearview mirror. A motorcycled officer waved for them to pull over.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Jonah said.

  In a faint whisper, almost too low for Jonah to hear, Dale said, “God has nothing to do with it.”

  Jonah wondered what this meant as he eased the car into the far lane and onto the shoulder, as a good driver should.

  “What are you doing?” Dale asked, aghast.

  “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m pulling over.”

  “Don’t pull over.”

  “What?”

  “Keep going.”

  “Dale, it’s the cops. We have to stop.” Jonah put the car in park and cut the engine.

  The sudden silence produced a heart-wrenching wail from Dale. “No! Keep going. Go! Go! Go!”

  At this point, Jonah began to wonder about Dale’s sanity. There had been times in their past when Jonah had contemplated the idea that Dale might be a bit off his hinges, but this was the first time he bore witness to such a livid display of psychosis. Dale twisted and squirmed in his seat, shooting glances at the cop dismounting from the motorcycle behind them, then back to Jonah. As the officer approached the car, Dale pawed at his door handle, but Jonah had long since child-locked the thing. The big man grew more and more agitated, clawing at the door as he whimpered and begged Jonah to let him escape. But Jonah would not be moved. He remained a shore of sanity against Dale’s swelling tide of madness.

  Until Dale started to crawl across the front seat.

  “What are you doing?” Jonah asked as Dale scooted toward him.

  “If you won’t get us out of here, I will!” Dale yelled.

  Jonah squealed as Dale attempted to usurp the driver’s seat by force. “Stop that! We can’t both be in the driver’s seat!”

  “Then get out of my way!” Dale was all arms and legs and wild intentions. “Move over!”

  “I can’t!” Jonah tried to push Dale away, but it was no use. The man rolled onto him like a train—almost as heavy, nearly as unstoppable—shifting his full weight straight onto Jonah’s lap, among other places. Pain bloomed from Jonah’s groin, firing warning signals of eminent collapse to his overworked brain. “Jesus! You’re squashing my nuts! Get off before you castrate me!”

  A tap sounded from the driver’s window. Dale fell still somewhere between the steering wheel and Jonah, who had fallen still somewhere under and around Dale. And this was how the officer found them, tangled in a mass of limbs and frustration and painful testicles, stuffed into that narrow space between the driver’s seat and steering wheel. A space meant for one man, not two idiots.

  The officer lowered his helmeted head to window level. He stared at the pair from behind dark sunglasses. He didn’t look pleased.

  “Hello, sir,” Jonah said, his voice oscillating from boyish to mannish to boyish again.

  In an act of incongruity, Dale whispered, of all things, “Too late. Too late.”

  The officer continued to look very displeased. He tapped on the glass again, then motioned that he would like for the glass to be gone.

  Jonah granted his swish by rolling down the window as best he could with a lap full of Dale. He glanced at the eye-level nametag, but couldn’t make out the man’s name. It wasn’t that the name was obscured. The letters were perfectly visible, they just didn’t make any sense. Every time Jonah tried to make the letters form a word, the whole thing slipped away in a puff of confusion, and he lost the idea of what it could have been.

  “Afternoon, Officer,” Jonah squeaked. “Can we help you?”

  The officer looked to Jonah, then Dale, before he did the last thing Jonah ever expected the man to do. He smiled. It was a wide, leering grin, an ear-to-ear white, shining light of a grin. It was not the smile of a happy man. It was something else. Something uncomfortable. Something unsettling.

  It was the most frightening smile Jonah had ever seen.

  The officer then removed his glasses, revealing a pair of eyes so blue that Jonah winced at their electric glow.

  “Looks like you boys are in a bit of a pickle,” the officer said.

  If Jonah had been in his right frame of mind, he would have realized that the officer’s accent wasn’t native to California, nor was the man’s choice of words. He spoke with a low, country twang. A rich, Southern brogue. If Jonah had been in his right frame of mind, he would have realized that the reason the man’s grin was frightening was because he had way too many teeth for a normal person. Jonah, if he had been in his right mind, would have also noticed that the man’s eyes and teeth shone brighter than the California sunshine, which was also unnatural—though not impossible, thanks to better living through chemistry. But these things were neither here nor there, because Jonah was most certainly not in his right frame of mind. He was, at the moment, in a very wrong frame of mind. The frame of mind most psychologists would define as panic.

  “Pickle,” Jonah echoed, unsure what the word meant.

  Dale said something entirely different, though not unexpected. He said something that Jonah was afraid Dale was going to say, though it was Jonah’s fervent wish that he wouldn’t.

  “Fuck you.”

  Want to keep reading?

  Check out the rest of the story here:

  TONIA BROWN - BADASS ZOMBIE ROAD TRIP

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  GARY BRANDNER’S - THE HOWLING

  1

  The September heat lay heavy on Los Angeles. In the condominium community called Hermosa Terrace all the windows were tightly closed. The only sounds were the hum of exhaust fans and the muted growl of a power mower.

  In the living room of Unit Two, Karyn Beatty stood on tiptoe to kiss her husband, Roy. Lady, their miniature collie, wagged her approval from the sofa. It started as a casual husband-and-wife first-anniversary kiss, but it quickly became something more. Karyn drew back her head and looked into Roy’s clear brown eyes.

  “Are you trying to start something?” she said a little breathlessly.

  “Darn right,” Roy replied, taking her in his arms.

  Roy pulled her close, his big, gentle hands warm through the thin material of her summer dress. He kissed her neck where the blond hair curled forward below her ear.

  “Won’t Chris be here soon?” she said, her lips close to his ear.

  “We won’t answer the door.”

  “You couldn’t do that to your best friend. Especially after we asked him to come by for an anniversary drink.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Roy admitted. “Anyway, he won’t stay long. He has a date.”

  “Anybody we know?”

  “A new one, I think.”

  “Doesn’t Chris ever get serious about anybody?”

  “Who knows? I think he’s secretly in love with you.”

  “You don’t mean it?”

  “Why not? All my friends have good taste.”

  * * *

  Max Quist shut off the power mower and took out a soiled handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his face. He watched as a young couple in sparkling tennis whites climbe
d out of a sports car and ran laughing across the lawn. They didn’t pay any attention to Max. Nobody living in Hermosa Terrace paid any attention to Max. He was like another piece of shrubbery to them.

  No, he thought, not even that much.

  Max hated these people. He hated them for having all the things he would never have. He would quit this lousy job in a minute if it weren’t for his parole officer. Just once he would like to show the smug sons-of-bitches that Max Quist was somebody.

  * * *

  The telephone rang in Unit Two. Roy Beatty picked it up and frowned as he listened to the voice on the other end. He spoke briefly and hung up.

  “Anything wrong?” Karyn asked.

  “I’ve got to go to Anaheim. Deliver some books.”

  “On Saturday? On our anniversary?”

  “Dammit, it’s my own fault. I promised to drop off a set of inspection manuals at Aerodyne yesterday. Had them in the trunk of the car and forgot all about it. I don’t know how it slipped my mind.”

  Karyn smiled. It was very unlike Roy to forget anything. He was always thoroughly organized, like one of the technical manuals he edited. When she had first met him she had thought Roy Beatty was as stodgy as a church deacon. However, she had soon discovered his warm sense of humor, an open-minded willingness to listen, and a depth of intellect that was not apparent in his All-American good looks. Karyn had been working as a convention hostess for the New York Hilton at the time. Roy was in the city for a gathering of engineers. For the first time, she had broken the hotel rule against socializing with the guests. Roy had stayed on for a week after the convention, and they had been together constantly. When he had returned to the Coast he had said he would be back for her on his vacation. She had not expected him to come, but he had. That was when she had finally admitted she loved him.

  “Don’t be long,” she said as he stood at the door. She kissed him and watched him walk down the winding path through the neatly trimmed shrubbery. Karyn could not imagine how she could be happier. She had Roy and she had an excellent job with a hotel near the airport where she was in line for convention manager when her current boss retired. Tonight she would give Roy her special anniversary gift––the news that he was going to be a father. Yes, her life was just about perfect.

  * * *

  Max Quist watched the blond young man come out of Unit Two and stride down the walk past him without a flicker. Max might as well have been invisible. The woman stood in the doorway watching him go. Good-looking cunt. Too good-looking. Both of them. Like people in a magazine ad. Young, beautiful, healthy, rich. Max spat on the cropped grass. How he wanted to show them what it’s like to be hurt. Hurt them. Yes… hurt them.

  * * *

  Karyn was in the kitchen putting the lunch things away when the doorbell chimed. Chris was early, she thought. She dried her hands and walked out through the living room to the door. She did not bother to look through the tiny viewer. She never did. There was no danger here. This was Hermosa Terrace, not East Los Angeles.

  Karyn opened the door and the heat pushed against the cool inside air. The man in the doorway was not Chris Halloran. He smiled at her.

  “Yes?” Karyn said when the man did hot speak right away.

  He had thick black hair that was poorly barbered. His cotton work-shirt was dark with perspiration under the arms. He seemed vaguely familiar.

  “I’m supposed to check the pipes in your bathroom,” he said.

  “There’s nothing wrong with our pipes.”

  “It’s in the apartment next door. Their shower don’t drain right, and it might be plugged up where your drain pipes come together.”

  Something in the way the man spoke was wrong. The short speech sounded rehearsed. Something about the man himself was wrong. He continued to smile.

  “You’d better come back when my husband is here. He knows about those things.”

  Without making any sudden moves the man had somehow come through the doorway and was standing in the living room. He was still smiling, but it was a different smile. “That’s okay,” he said. “We won’t need your husband.”

  Over on the couch Lady raised her neat little head and pricked her ears at the strange male voice. After a moment she put her head back down on her paws, but remained watchful.

  “I’m sorry, but I’d rather you didn’t come in now.” Karyn fought to still the tremor of fear in her voice.

  “But I am in,” the man said. He reached behind him and closed the door. Without taking his eyes off Karyn he turned the small knob, shooting the dead-bolt lock into place.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Karyn wanted her voice to be angry and strong, but the fear was in her now. She could not hide it.

  “You know what I’m doing,” the man said.

  “I–I don’t keep much money in the house. You can have what there is. And my jewelry.”

  “I don’t want your money or your jewelry. But you know that, don’t you? You know what I want, and you’re going to give it to me.” He reached out suddenly and squeezed her breast.

  Karyn jumped back as though from an electric shock. “Please, leave me alone!” The sour smell of his body was sharp in her nostrils. “M–my husband will be home.”

  “No he won’t. He just left. We have all the time we need.”

  She took a careful step backward. The man’s eyes traveled over her body, probing at her. His hands shot out and seized her wrists.

  “No!” she cried.

  “Relax,” he said. “You’re going to like it.”

  “Please… you can’t…”

  The man pulled Karyn against his body and mashed his mouth down on hers. Karyn clamped her jaws together as his tongue pushed in past her lips. He tasted of stale cigarettes.

  “Where’s the bedroom?”

  Karyn shook her head from side to side, afraid to trust her voice.

  With a sudden movement the man twisted one arm up behind her back, forcing her to walk in front of him. He marched Karyn into the hallway that opened between the living room and the room Roy used for a den. She stumbled along in his grasp past the bathroom to the open door, through which they could see the bed.

  All the things she had read about rape tumbled through Karyn’s mind. All the advice for women. Fight back. Don’t fight back. Scream. Stay calm. Blow a whistle. Run. Reason with the man.

  Lovely advice, all useless. Fight the man? He was at least seventy pounds heavier than she, and certainly stronger. Scream? Who would hear? Hermosa Terrace Townhomes were proud of their soundproofing. Reason with him? Reason with an animal?

  They were in the bedroom now. The man spun Karyn around and pushed her backward onto the bed.

  The thinking part of her mind shut off and instinct took over. She crossed her arms protectively over her breasts and drew back her feet to kick out at the man when he came at her.

  The man laughed at her efforts and batted the kick aside with an easy swipe of his hand. He grasped her by the ankles and forced her legs apart. Karyn writhed on the bed, helpless against his strength.

  The man grinned down at her, showing large, strong teeth. Droplets of sweat stood out on his forehead and upper lip. His eyes moved down to her crotch. Karyn felt open and exposed with the thin velour pants pulled tight between her legs.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said suddenly.

  “Bullshit.”

  “I am,” she insisted. “Three months.”

  “Then you don’t have to worry about getting knocked up, do you?”

  He released one of Karyn’s ankles and took hold of the velour pants at the waist. He yanked them down, exposing the smooth, pale skin of her belly. The snap and zipper held at first, but he tugged again and the material tore away.

  Then she screamed. Not with any thought of summoning help or frightening the man off. A visceral scream of outrage and terror.

  “Shut up.” he ordered. He leaned forward and slapped her hard on the face. She stopped screaming.

  A
sudden high-pitched barking behind the man spun him around. Lady stood braced on her little legs, yapping angrily. The man swung his foot in a vicious arc; the toe of his heavy shoe caught the little dog just below the ribs and lifted her off the floor.

  Lady yelped in surprise and pain. Never before had anyone deliberately hurt her. She crouched on the floor whimpering, her eyes pleading for an apology, a comforting pat.

  “Get out of here, mutt,” the man snapped.

  Still whimpering, Lady moved uncertainly toward the door. She stopped and looked back toward her mistress. The man made a threatening motion with his hand, and the dog retreated into the hall. The man kicked the door shut behind her.

  “Hell of a watchdog you’ve got there.” He grinned and came at Karyn again.

  “Please don’t do this. Please don’t hurt me.” Even as the words came out, Karyn knew they were useless. This unspeakable thing was actually going to happen to her. Was happening to her. What had she ever done that she should be brutalized this way?

  The man was upon her again, and Karyn’s mind ceased to function logically. He tore away the nylon bikini pants, and his fingers crawled over and into her.

  Abruptly he dropped to his knees and thrust his face up between her legs. He clamped his mouth on her, and Karyn could feel his tongue like a thick, wet worm probing, probing at her. She pummeled his head with her fists, but the blows had no effect.

  Then he pulled his face back and bit her high on the soft inside of the thigh. He bit down hard, and his teeth sank into the clean white flesh until the blood flowed. Karyn’s back arched up off the bed in reaction to the pain.

  When the man at last unclenched his jaw and stood over her again his lips were crimson with her blood. Breathing in short, harsh bursts, he reached down and unzipped the front of his pants. Karyn twisted her head away, but could not shut out the sight as he freed himself from the damp jockey shorts and bore down on her.