It couldn’t happen yet, not with the batch of newcomers that had just arrived, but soon enough. No reason to give any of them any doubts about the stability of the pecking order in the camp. Even if he did find Megan intriguing.
She wasn’t attractive; at least not at first glance. She was physically weak and sickly looking, with dark circles beneath sunken eyes and pallor that was the norm for those who had spent the past few weeks either hiding or running in fear. And yet, there was a sparkle in her eyes which was hard not to notice and traces of what she might have looked like before her world had been shattered haunted her face. There was beauty hidden there, and given time and nurturing, it would return. And for Michael, more important than any physical potential she possessed, she was a normal human being. Megan was feisty, no doubt about it, but she wasn’t a sociopath, which elevated her status dramatically in his eyes. She was a suitable match for him, and he doubted that anyone except Cindy would disagree with that.
But that could wait. He could woo Megan after she, Jeff, and George understood their place in his little world. It wouldn’t take long for them to realize they were better off doing things his way, rather than resisting the inevitable, or they would suffer the consequences.
Given enough time, Megan would regain the weight she’d lost and a healthy glow would return to her skin. She would also come to her senses. Life was a struggle, but it would be much easier with Michael at her side. No amount of animosity she felt for him now would keep her from seeing the truth in the coming weeks.
The only thing standing in the way of that vision was Cindy. She would have to be dealt with, and it had to happen soon. Their relationship had grown more and more twisted with every day and night they spent together.
Michael knew that “dealing” with her wouldn’t just be a matter of kicking her out of the RV they shared or telling her it was over between them. No. It would require something a bit more drastic than that.
Perhaps a trip beyond the walls of their little fortress for just the two of them might be in order. A trip she wouldn’t return from. It wasn’t as if anyone would miss her anyway.
As he ran his finger along the razor sharp edge of the knife he kept strapped to his wrist, a nervous smile twitched at his lips. He could deal with her. He just had to work up the courage.
Then everything would return to normal inside of Michael’s head. All the sinister urges Cindy had put in there would evaporate, disappear. The dark cravings would be gone, and he would become the leader he had always wanted to be; the one everyone admired and respected, and not just feared. All he had to do was get rid of her vile influence on him and everything would be just fine.
Soon. He would do it soon.
Michael and Cindy
This sequence starts out on the night that Jeff, George, Megan, and Jason arrive in the camp in the confines of Michael and Cindy’s RV.
He grabbed her coarse blond hair and pulled her head back. Biting at her neck, he listened as she moaned in pleasure.
“You like it rough, don’t you, bitch?” It was a harsh whisper as his lips traveled up her neck and towards her earlobe.
“You know it, baby.” The voice was unstable, shaky. If you didn’t know her you might think she was afraid. But for the few who truly knew Cindy, of which Michael was the only one still alive, it was obvious there was no fear in the woman. She was pure adrenaline and rage bottled up in a healthy young female package. At twenty-three she was already savvy enough to understand how things worked in the world (even this particular variation of it) and vicious enough to achieve any objective that she set her mind to.
The tattoos on her neck covered up the hickeys and bite marks that Michael gave her. The scabs might be noticed, but no one would say anything. It was odd enough that Michael, a graduate of the Michigan School of Business and the son of extremely wealthy and prestigious parents, was shacked up with her in the first place. The additional ‘wounds’ that adorned her seemed to stretch comprehension levels to the breaking point. Who would ever believe that the prototypical ‘boy next door’ was the culprit responsible for those?
When Cindy had wandered into his little clan, it was clear to her that since Michael was in charge, he was the only person for her. He was far from her type, but her type was all dead, and that was just fine with her. He bit and scratched in bed, but only because she had taught him so well. She had unleashed his kinky side. Michael in turn had shown her that all men have one, it just took a strong and harsh enough woman to pull it out of them, kicking and screaming if need be.
Michael was all the power in the universe now. It was the only drug left to her after the last hit of ecstasy was gone well over a month ago. Cindy had been an addict at one point or another in her illustrious career to nearly every drug and intoxicating substance known to mankind. In essence, she was addicted to addiction.
Michael was just as addicting to her as anything she had smoked, sniffed, drank, or injected into her veins in the past. He was a royal prick under his nice guy persona and it tripped her trigger that she knew it and had known it from the moment she laid eyes on him. At first, she had repulsed him. It made no difference to her and in no time she was able wear him down. After all, geography might be the only thing they had in common in their relationship, but that was all she needed.
But some bony bitch had arrived in the camp and threatened to change the landscape drastically. She was sweet, she was demure, and she was everything that Michael would have found appealing in the past, before Cindy had corrupted him. Certainly the woman had the whole anorexia theme going, but beyond that she was perfectly “normal.” Attractive even. The jealously Cindy felt didn’t extend to any desire to be like that woman at all. It was strictly raw rage at a potential threat to her existence as the Queen Bee.
That was not all of it. Not by a long shot. None of it would have bothered her (or so she had herself convinced) except that it was very clear that Michael had been eyeing the other woman. Within the first five seconds the battle lines were drawn in Cindy’s mind. She knew her man well enough to know that when he fixated on something, it would not be long before he went after it. Michael was not one to take no for an answer. He had little inclination to deny his own base needs either. So far he had been satisfying them with Cindy, but now that Megan was here, she would be the new candy for him.
It was obvious. He did not hide it very well. She knew that sooner or later he would go after Megan and kick Cindy’s skanky ass to the curb. Even if that other bitch did not return his interest, it would make no difference to him. He would dump Cindy just to prove himself worthy of Megan.
What a lousy piece of shit name: Megan. Everything about the other woman was something to despise.
Cindy had felt hatred from the moment she saw her. That was nothing big, she hated Lydia too. Most men pissed her off pretty fiercely as well. The teenagers had looked at her with lust in their eyes at first and that was amusing. She had joked with Michael how she was going to break Ray and Teddy’s cherries at the same time. She asked him if he wanted to watch while she did it. In response, Michael had smacked her in the jaw so hard that she had been knocked unconscious. When she came to, he was wringing his hands over her, in a panic, worried that he had killed her. When she smiled up at him and licked at the trickle of blood on her chin demurely, he nearly fainted. Then, when she insisted they have sex right then and there he almost had a nervous breakdown. Still, he complied and it gave her a sense of power over Michael that nothing else could. She owned him. That bitch Megan could never have that sort of a control over a man. Never.
The sex was interesting and Michael was willing to experiment, though he was amazed at how depraved Cindy’s mind could become. It was all boring to her though. She gave thought to cheating on him with that filthy scumbag Frank. Or maybe Frank and Marcus together. They were disgusting and they leered at her when they did not think she was looking. She knew it would be a hell of a challenge to get them into bed though. They were scared s
hitless of Michael and the idea of crossing him like that was probably the equivalent of committing suicide to their pea brains. That turned her on even more. Imagining having Michael walk in on something like that was delicious to think about. He would beat the living shit out of her but he would kill them, just as they feared. She knew she could get him to do it, especially if the look on her face when he burst in was of pure ecstasy. Those two slime buckets couldn’t turn her on if they slapped an electric motor to her ass, but she would play it up for all it was worth if it did a number on Michael.
Later, as they lay side by side, panting, with their sweat soaking through the sheets, Cindy jumped on top of Michael, knocking the air out of him. Anything that made him feel uncomfortable was a good thing.
“So what are you going to do about those new people?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
Michael looked up at her in disgust. “Bah, screw you tramp. I do know what you mean. You’re asking about Megan.”
A wicked grin creased her face. In the darkness and shadows it was disconcerting, but Michael knew it was no better in daylight and was grateful that he could only see part of it now.
“Of course I am.”
The smile disappeared as she moved her hand up his hairless, muscular chest and grabbed at his nipple, squeezing it. She moved her face directly in front of his, less than an inch away, and pinched his nipple as hard as she could as she hissed at him.
“So are you going to screw that whore?”
Cindy went flying, hitting the wall opposite the bed where she slumped to the floor.
“Bitch! You might be into fucking pain but I’m not!” Michael screamed as he stood before her. She stared up at him, her eyes gliding down his naked torso. She smiled.
She reached up and grabbed at him as he swatted her hand away. Grabbing a hold of her other wrist, he wrestled her up on the bed again, jumping on top of her and holding her down.
Cindy purred like a kitten and Michael stared down at her, exasperated, but unable to deny that she had him aroused once again.
Michael hated Cindy.
But as much as he hated her he hated himself even more for ever having hooked up with the psycho bitch in the first place. She was a piece of trash, pure and simple. Somehow, as much as she appalled him, her trashiness was the root of everything that turned him on about her. There was absolutely nothing he couldn’t do to her. He could beat her to within an inch of her life and she would come crawling back for more. When she had first provoked him he had resisted the temptation to smack her, but she cried out for it. She dared him, taunted him, and did her best to humiliate him.
Michael had not been that violent of a man before he met her. He’d never laid a finger on a woman in his entire life, and thought anyone who did was scum. He’d beaten the crap out of a few losers, true enough. A drunken brawl back at college had sent a guy to the hospital, but Michael’s father, with his many connections, was insurance that a little problem like that never became a big problem.
Michael had taken martial arts training to teach him balance and patience, but all it had done was allow him to bury the anger he felt a little deeper. It didn’t rear its ugly head as much. Still, he could be cool and calm one moment and explode violently the next, as it suited his needs.
His temper had all been well under control. There was some rage inside of him, but that was fairly normal for most red-blooded American guys, wasn’t it? Except these days there were plenty of excuses for rage to shine through and no one to question it anymore. In fact, rage was an excellent motivator. It drove Michael in his quest to survive and thrive in these dark times. He had refused to yield to the undead, refused to believe that everything was over and done with just because some virus had torn the human race to shreds. This was a new beginning. Whoever was strong enough to stay alive and adapt would reap the rewards.
Cindy had just amped things up a little bit. It was okay to unleash all that pent up rage in front of her, around her, and upon her. Every impetuous desire he had been repressing his entire life could see the light of day. In fact, he could use those impulses to help his followers to survive and prosper.
It frustrated him that Cindy had been the only piece of ass in his age range for miles around, possibly anywhere anymore. So her aggressive tactics when they first met wasn’t a total turnoff. What other options did he have, anyway?
Cindy was a tattooed and pierced freak that he would not have given the time of day to when he’d been wearing his Canali business suits and was climbing the corporate ladder. The bleach in her hair was erratic and left her hair a mess of black and white scattered across her head. It had originally been shaved on one side and spiky on the other, but as time went on she let it grow out and got rid of the dye. Not that she had much of a choice. Supplies they had collected did not include much in the way of hair care products outside of shampoo.
They made an odd pair and everyone knew it. He made it clear from the moment they fell in bed together that he would tolerate no crass acts from her in front of the others. Whatever she wanted to do with him, or more specifically to him, was to be limited to when they were in private; at the factory at first, and then in his RV when they had set up the camp in the woods.
Soon after they had gotten together she began provoking him. At first it was simple taunting, but it turned into getting rough in bed. Punching, kicking, and biting. Part of him wanted to kick her to the curb right away. But every time she would do something to him, she would pretend to be sorry. She would promise him she would never do it again if he would forgive her. Then she would blow his mind in the sack and he would be left trying to convince himself that the pain was worth it.
But finally, after a while, something happened. In a fit of anger after one of her mocking abuse sessions, he hit her. It was a slap, hard, across her face. A little trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth was the result, plus a welt that would be hard to imagine makeup hiding like it did the hickeys he’d already given her. After realizing what he had done, he lost his mind. He begged forgiveness and apologized profusely, swearing he would never do something like that again. For all the minor abuse she had heaped on him, hitting her had never crossed his mind. But when she grinned and asked him to do it again, he was speechless. He refused, so instead she jumped on him and practically raped him, which only served to confuse Michael even more.
But not for long.
The hit that knocked her unconscious was next. From there it became easier for him to do whatever Cindy wanted. The guilt was fading into the background as he let the rage inside of him come to the surface. After that, they learned to keep the bruises and welts hidden to avoid any questions from the others.
Over time, Michael began to dread the encounters he had with Cindy. But it was dread drenched in an undeniable craving for what she offered. Because she had unleashed a part of him that he didn’t know existed, a part that wanted to cause pain. Specifically, pain to Cindy, which he could rationalize as okay—she wanted it, so he gave it to her. But it was how that desire to administer pain was spilling over to everything else he did that was disturbing him.
And now, as he sat above her in what was supposed to be a position of complete control, she was the one in charge and deep down, Michael knew it.
Cindy’s purring stopped. “So, you gonna screw the whore or am I going to slit the bitch’s throat?” She smiled up at Michael, taunting him, prodding him onward.
The fist crashed down on her stomach. Cindy gasped in surprise as the air whooshed out of her. Her vision blurred and a thousand stars appeared before her eyes. When her eyes were able to focus again, Michael was already lying next to her, pretending not to care about how badly he had hurt her this time. She had taught him well.
Cindy was a masochist and enjoyed the pain, partly because after years of abusing her body with drugs and anything else she could get her hands on, her nerve endings had dulled to the point where excruciatin
g pain was about the only thing she could feel anymore. But even that was a fleeting sensation.
As the pain faded, her mind fixated on Megan once again. So what does he see in that bitch anyway?
Megan looked pretty hideous to Cindy. Although run down and so thin she was almost transparent, there was an aura of confidence and toughness about her. She was “normal” on top of that. That more than anything drove Cindy batshit crazy. Megan was someone Michael could be seen with by the others and not be embarrassed. She was the antithesis of everything that Cindy was or believed in.
And there were the others that had come into the camp with Megan. Two men and a black kid. The kid was nothing, just like those other little brats that Lydia dealt with. The bigger man looked like some sort of whiney wimp. That was obvious to Cindy almost immediately. He moped around like he was already dead and in general irritated her.
The other, Jeff, was more interesting. He appeared to be with the woman. Not that it would stop Michael. If he wanted Megan, not much would stand in his way. In a twisted way that was yet another thing that turned Cindy on about him. Society may have dulled that caveman edge out of him, but society was dead and Michael was the one making the rules these days, so he could take what he wanted.
Cindy didn’t so much care if he got his rocks off with the bitch once or twice, as long as that was all there was to it. Hell, she would hold Megan down and get off watching him rape her if that was something that could be arranged. Screwing meant nothing to Cindy. It was all about control. Being controlled and controlling the other person.
The Dark Trilogy 02 - Into the Dark Page 19
