"Fuck off." Clint chuckled to push back the pain. He watched as Haley staggered back to her handsome boyfriend, oblivious to Clint once again.
Clint left them alone to play tonsil hockey and wandered into the woods.
The forest was mysterious at night, and Clint loved to lose himself in the shadows. There was an entrance to the woods behind his house. After his parents fell asleep, he would unlock the basement door and venture into the night with nothing but a joint and a sense of adventure. Unless he was getting drunk at the Watering Hole, that is.
Clint hated Matt and Alison, almost as much as he hated himself. They were his friends, sure, but the envy grew in Clint. He would never have a chance with a hot chick like Haley.
Matt ran through the ladies pretty quickly. Every couple of months there would be a new girl to conquer.
Clint was the other half of the teenage world. The ones not getting laid or pretending to be cool, the nobodies. All he wanted to be was normal, but since that could never happen, he got trashed instead.
The twenty-one year old boy walked around shit creek, the narrow river that ran through the length of the woods. Everyone called it shit creek because Playboy Tunnel dumped the town's turds into it. Funny thing is, it didn't smell like shit, it smelled like rain, nature. In a way it smelled like adolescence.
Clint walked a little further until he got to the edge of an open field and stopped next to a weeping willow tree. The full moon reflected on the water, shimmering against the boulders.
Dog Head Lake.
The beer filtered through his kidneys and needed an escape. Clint whipped out his pecker and drained it.
Maybe he was just too drunk, but he didn't notice someone was behind him until a firm palm covered his mouth.
The predator's pointy teeth protruded Clint's neck. Strangely it didn't hurt.
As a matter of fact, it felt magnificent.
Clint enjoyed the sensation until his blood was half drained. Then he dropped to the ground.
The sad loner hemorrhaged in the wet grass, covered in piss. Suds spewed out of his lips like a rabid dog. After the seizures ceased, his pupils grew to the size of silver dollars.
* * * * *
Haley rubbed Matt's bare chest and sucked on his tongue.
Subtle soft breaths escaped between kisses. He nuzzled at her neckline and slid his hand between her thighs. She pulled him close and lightly ran her purple acrylic nails across his spine as Matt massaged her crotch.
Haley leaned back and guided Matt's hand with hers. He knew what he was doing, but every man needs a little help.
* * * * *
The predator swam through Dog Head Lake, a familiar body of water from his childhood. Clint's a-negative blood gave him a rush of energy and strength.
When he arrived at the cliff that housed Playboy Tunnel, he used his monstrous muscles to climb the wall.
Once on top, he could see for miles around. The full moon lit up the night sky. Housing developments, the baseball diamond, Bayside apartments, the whole town was visible from the mountain.
At the same time, though, none of the town's population could see him, a one way mirror without a reflection.
He looked closer at the weeping willow. It wasn't the first time he saw someone suffer there. It brought back a lot of memories.
His intoxication heightened his senses. He smelled the two lover's pheromones and knew at once that they had to be friends of the other camper.
It wasn't just that he enjoyed killing, but the nourishment was akin to heroin or quenching a longing thirst. Of course, playing God never goes out of style.
* * * * *
Haley's panties were in the dirt, she disregarded the ugly third wheel walking around the forest. Clint would probably enjoy the show anyway.
Matt maneuvered his guitar plucking fingers. He strummed up and down, and slowly moved in and out. Haley loves musicians.
Most boys seem to forget about the clitoris, that's why Haley enjoyed Matt so much. His attention to detail.
Her hand stroked the front of his jeans, and then unbuttoned them. She pressed on the bottom of his bulge and the pants unzipped on their own, like pushing up on the bottom of a banana peel.
She grabbed the inside of Matt's forearm, signaling him to stop mapping out her insides.
"My turn," she said.
She grabbed his crotch and led him to Devil's Rock. Haley pushed his toned body on the cool stone, his ass pressed against the granite.
Haley got down on her knees and pulled Matt's pants off, slowly, popping his dick out like a diving board.
Matt spread his legs allowing her as much room as she needed. Haley licked the salty sweat up Matt's thighs, then suctioned the skin around his crotch.
Matt's arms tensed in excitement.
* * * * *
The monster followed the smell of sweet secretions. His hand gripped onto the concrete tunnel, and with a swift movement, he swung his body into the tunnel.
The monster remembered as a kid he would never go through Playboy Tunnel in the dark, spiders, rats, God knows what resided in there, it still does, but with the victim's blood in his veins, fear was obsolete.
* * * * *
Matt shivered as Haley's hands and jaw played magic tricks on his testosterone levels.
He held on to the back of her head for balance. She slowly bobbed up and down, tugging on the most vulnerable skin of his anatomy.
Her silky brown locks separated between his fingers as his knees weakened. He tightened his wobbly muscles to keep from triggering. He thought about baseball practice in the rain, mom's fresh baked cookies.
Anything.
Haley backed off. Women somehow know when a man is going to blast a wad. Haley was never one to just swallow and run, she liked to enjoy herself.
The brunette escorted him to a blanket next to the fire. Her warm hands pressed against his chest as she gently pushed him down on the blanket.
* * * * *
The predator walked through the notorious tunnel. Graffiti on top of graffiti, decades of teenage turmoil surrounded by toilet water.
His leather boots squished in the water. Once out of the tunnel, he kicked them off and went barefoot. He scaled around the water's edge, incognito. For not being a member of the advanced race for very long, he's learned there are different taste profiles of human blood. Scared, sad, sedated, and of course, sensual.
* * * * *
Haley unsnapped the hook of her bra. It slid out from the bottom of her shirt, leaving the two mounds of flesh to hang underneath the polyester-cotton blend of her tank top. She tossed her bra to Matt.
"Look earmuffs," he playfully put the cups over his ears, "these things would be awesome in the wintertime."
She covered her mouth and laughed.
Matt's hair was curly from a day of swimming and sun, his blue eyes beamed like aqua headlights. And his dimples, youth personified on each of his cheeks.
Summer love.
Slowly, she pulled her shirt up. The magnificent outline of her smooth, tan, stomach danced from the shadow of the camp fire. As her under-boob started to show, she stopped.
Teasing can even work after a blow job.
* * * * *
Closer now, the Hunter felt her presence. The young woman, she couldn't be more than twenty-two he thought to himself.
He's never had another woman's blood. The thought makes him salivate.
The monster watched the foreplay develop into coitus. Although the show was nice, he wanted to get into position.
* * * * *
Matt held on to Haley's plump, round, ass. Her strong legs rocked her tone body up and down, slamming Matt deeper each time.
Her thick thighs slapped against his slender ones with every stroke. The sound of the Kobe night synchronized with their sexual melody.
When the warm hands cupped her large breasts, she thought it was Clint.
* * * * *
Her nipples swelled as he squished he
r tits, kneading them like pizza dough.
His diamond sharp fingernails barely touched her skin. The Monster's thick fangs pierced above her clavicle and attached to her carotid artery.
Haley held on to the back of the Predator's neck as he fed, getting closer and closer to the finish line. He withdrew his teeth when the endorphins finished pulsating in Haley's brain.
High as a star in the sky.
His hands were still cupped on to her when she looked down and screamed.
The monster's claws stabbed into her perfect breasts and cut through them like butter, all the way through her chest.
The predator gripped on each side of her ribcage, and pulled back her bones. Haley opened up like a good book and exploded on her favorite blue eyed beefcake.
Matt couldn't do anything but stare at the monster before it crushed its fist through his breast plate. The predator snapped the coronary arteries from their host organ.
For a split second, Matt's eyes locked on to his own beating heart.
The monster chomped his teeth through Matt's aorta and squeezed the juice down his throat. After the heart was drained he threw it aside like an empty soda can.
The monster had come a long way from a boy running the town as a child.
Hunter, the teenage hero that saved Karen from certain death all those years ago, grew up to be a monster far more powerful than those hillbilly mechanics could have ever dreamed of.
Chapter X
Regrets & Razorblades
You know you're too high when you kill your own mother.
Skaggs looks down at Tina's naked corpse, then at her head on the end of his hatchet. The same head that told him how much of a piece of shit he was, the same head that was going to kick him out on the streets without a friend in the world.
"Fuck that cunt," he says to himself.
He leaves his regrets in the hallway and walks into the bathroom. The mirror is still foggy from Tina's shower. The subtle scent of flowers lingers from her shampoo.
Nothing sobers you up quicker than a whiff of death before noon. Well, not sober, but it gets Skaggs alert enough to get his ass in the shower.
Water pounds on his face, for a few moments he just lets it drip over his dirty flesh. The washrag turns black as he chips away gore and gunk piled on from the last few days.
The bath salts still zoom around his brain, but the Xanax and Percocet have progressed into his blood stream. Still crazy, sure, but not 'nailing a razor through your fingernails' crazy.
Xanax is a hell of a drug.
It makes the world warm and soft, every concern washes away. Tina needed Xanax because she thought Skaggs was a terrible son.
Skaggs took it because he thought he was a terrible son, too. He never killed anyone before today, he never even won a fight.
The only person that ever stood up for him was Leroy. Every time some asshole tried to steal from Skaggs, or beat him up, Leroy would knock the dude out. Leroy Brown was the one person that did right by Skaggs. And Skaggs did right by Leroy.
Skaggs isn't the worst person in the world. At least, that's what courses through his mind as the water moisturizes his crackled complexion. He didn't rape her, right? There has to be someone worse, there always is. This is what we train ourselves to think. Regardless what we do, or how bad it gets, someone has to be worse.
His long grimy hair balls up into knots, the shampoo battles to break the tangles. After a few minutes, Skaggs starts to smell human again. He dries himself off and staggers out of the shower. The Xanax and Percocet not only help to erase the negativity in his mind, but they also dull his motor skills.
Everything slows down.
The wide mirror reveals Skaggs' nemesis. His reflection makes him sick, it always has. The gaping craters and butter yellow teeth. As long as he doesn't look in a mirror, he can pretend the world doesn't hate him so much.
He started out just being an ugly troll, not able to kiss girls or play sports, a dork that needed to find a way to escape the painful reality of being unattractive.
He wraps his hand in a towel and ties it. It takes him a while with his self-inflicted handicap, but he manages to get dressed. Despite the high levels of dope in his system, he knows time is a factor, and escape is essential.
Three lines of speed-racer bath salts glisten on the mirror until they travel up Skaggs' nostrils. In moments, his brain and body begin operating at optimal levels.
Skaggs takes everything that can help him; money from Quinn, any pills left in his mom's purse, a couple cans of food from the cupboard. Last but not least, he makes up a fresh batch of murder powder in the mortar and pestle and puts it into an empty pill bottle.
Tina was a friend to everyone in the neighborhood, people are going to know she's missing. Skaggs' only thought is to spend the money where he needs to and get out of the Bay. If anyone sees what he did, they'll kill him.
His little brother Quinn is going to find someone, and fast.
Skaggs picks up his bag and puts a winter glove loosely over his bladed fingers. Thank God, the neurons are still switched off in his mind, as soon as they turn back on, he's done for. The drugs are keeping him alive, strangely enough.
He throws a sheet over Tina, grabs his bag, and leaves.
* * * * *
Skaggs knocks on the door of apartment 1408. His glove seeps and stains around the fingertips. His teeth, slide back and forth; grinding. The Xanax and Percocet move to the backseat again, Speed-Racer takes the lead.
Another knock.
He races over to a window down the hall and looks outside for Billy's car, but it's nowhere to be found. Last day in the Bay, he might as well rob the only dealer that still trusts him.
He turns the knob, hoping and wishing, but it's a no go. Skaggs fishes in his backpack and pulls out a small crowbar the size of his hand. The doors in Building F are cheap and easy to pop open with very little noise. Skaggs gets inside and closes the door quickly.
Skaggs goes right for Billy's stash box under the couch. Inside are baggies full of brown powder, four bottles of pills, and five or six crack sacks full of God knows what. Instead of picking and choosing, Skaggs throws the whole box into his backpack.
He reaches underneath the couch cushion and there it is; a cure for being a coward.
A Desert Eagle.
It feels good in his hand. Warm. Safe. Powerful.
Skaggs flips over the couch cushions and looks in all the possible hiding spots in the living room, and then makes his way to the bedroom.
The zooted junkie checks underneath Billy's pillow for another gun, then underneath the bed for some more drugs but he comes up short.
He makes his way to the closet where he finds a box of bullets, an extra clip, and a shoebox full of money. He grabs it all. Last but not least, a revolver. A thirty-eight is much easier to handle than the hand cannon he found under the couch cushion.
Skaggs throws the .50 Desert Eagle in his backpack and opts for the six-shooter.
Skaggs removes the glove that covers his blades and tosses it. It's time to show the world who he really is, not some pussy that never fights back, but a man, with his new nickel-plated confidence, he exit's Billy's apartment.
* * * * *
Billy and Jessica wait patiently in a booth at the BBQ Pitt. His large paw wraps around a cold glass of Zed's micro-brew. The condensation drips onto a disposable coaster.
"What time do you work today?" Billy asks his beautiful girlfriend, Jessica. Her complexion is soft white, not pail, just naturally light and her hair is thin, like strands of silk.
"I'm off," Jessica says.
"We hanging out?" Billy raises the beer to his lips.
"Probably not, I'm going over to my Mom and Dad's for dinner later, and I haven't been home for a few days, so I want to clean up a little. Get some stuff together. Maybe hang out with Krystal for a while."
"That's cool." Billy burps. "I'm supposed to meet up with some people at The Watering Hole at about ten or
so. Just text me if you wanna tag along."
Krystal delivers two brunch entrees; a breakfast burrito with home fries for Billy, and a loaded omelet for Jessica.
"Thanks, babe." Jessica un-wraps a set of silverware. "What time are you off?"
"I'm supposed to be off at noon, but Katie didn't show up today, again." Krystal leans on the table. Her light brown hair is pulled back with just a little hanging by her cheek.
Jessica ignores her meal for a moment and casually puts the hair behind Krystal's ear. "Has anyone seen her?" She asks.
"Not for days."
Billy scans Krystal's frame. Her perfect stomach muscles hide under her uniform. Not a six pack from an infomercial, just a flat, sun-soaked stomach. "Hey Krystal," Billy shoves a fork full of crispy potatoes in his mouth.
"Hey Billy." Krystal rolls her eyes as Billy deposits images into his x-rated memory bank.
"Something happened to her." Krystal slides into the booth and Jessica scoots over a little. "People just don't disappear. She wasn't that sort of person. She would've at least called. I mean, she was at our house at least twice a week."
"I didn't know her as well as you did. Was she dating anyone? Anybody she'd leave with?" Jessica asks between bites of her omelet.
"Just Zed's creepy brother, Curt. He'd come in and flirt with her, leave her fat tips and hang out after close. He did the same thing last year with Reagan, remember? And then one day Reagan stopped coming in. They even look alike."
"What are you like a detective now?" Billy says with his cheeks full of steak and salsa. Billy focuses on his food, but can barely hide the images of the two girls sucking on each other's tongues. He ponders how to get Jessica to fuck her friend, or, at least, get naked and kiss with him in the room, oh the possibilities.
"No Billy," Krystal says curtly, "I'm a superhero that moonlights as a waitress."
"You're working during the day, what do ya mean moonlight?" Billy shovels another fork full down his gullet.
"I talked to those cops that always come in at lunch," Krystal says.
"Oh yeah?" Jessica offers a piece of her toast to her friend.
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