Stalked

by Louise Krieg

Logan nodded his head as he watched Cindy walk past the front window.

  “Women,” he said. “So damn sweet when you first meet them. Then it changes. It changes for the worst always. It just varies in degrees. And with that one”

  Logan shook his head in disgust.

  “She doesn't seem so bad,” Terry said, following Logan's eye line as he watched Cindy.

  “Go find out for yourself,” Logan laughed. “Keep an eye on her for me, okay? We have a few more shots to go.”

  Terry looked out the front window, watching as Cindy ran her fingers through her hair and stretched out. The sun hitting her blouse from behind, showing off her curvaceous figure.

  “In the Greek myths,” Logan said. “Actaeon was a hunter who stumbled upon Diana bathing in a sacred pool. For stealing a glance at her divine body, the hunter was transformed into a deer and then ripped apart by his own dogs.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “Go and find out,” Logan said, stepping away from the young drifter.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Cindy leaned back against the tree with her eyes closed, absorbing the rays of sun.

  Terry stepped in front of her, casting a shadow above her.

  She opened one eye and looked up at the man, her face creasing in to a lustful smile.

  “Nothing feels better than sunshine,” Cindy said, reaching over and holding up a bottle of scotch. “Well, almost nothing.”

  “It's really beautiful out here,” Terry said, taking the bottle of liquor. “Hot but beautiful.”

  “Sit down. Let's talk.”

  Terry looked back at the garage, wanting to see if Logan was still watching. He saw nothing through the front glass window then he sat down.

  “You look like you have something on your mind,” she said.

  “I don't know if it is my place to say,” he said, drinking from the bottle before handing it back to Cindy. The Scotch flared on his tongue.

  “Well, you may as well say it anyway.”

  “If you hate him so much, why do you stay?” Terry asked.

  “Good question,” Cindy said. “There are good questions and stupid ones. But that's a good one.”

  “You're smart,” he said. “And pretty. Isn't there anywhere else you can go?”

  “Pretty doesn't last,” Cindy said, looking up at the sky.

  “What did you do before you came here?”

  “I was a performance poet,” Cindy smiled at the memory. “Played in Reno of all places. Not exactly a place where expect to experience high art. Bu I had a five piece rock band behind me. Guitars, keyboards, bass, drums and my poetry and singing.”

  “You were a singer?”

  “A lousy one,” she said. “But I could write. I should have found someone with some talent that could front a band. Then be the producer or something. I wrote songs about spending holidays alone. Taking long walks alone.”

  “Sounds depressing.”

  “I call it recreational depression,” she said. “That is what I saw in Logan. He was obviously disturbed but there was something about him. He gave off these cues, you know, really subtle at first, that he wasn't on the same road as anyone I'd ever met.”

  “I never met an artist before,” Tyler said.

  “What did you want to be when you grew up?”

  “A magician.”

  “Why?”

  “So I could disappear.”

  The two said nothing for a few moments until Cindy looked up at the sky and closed her eyes.

  “God, this is the time of day I hate the most.”

  “Why?”

  “Sundown,” Cindy said. “I hate the night. Feels like I'm being closed in. Like someone is shutting the coffin door over my dead body.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  Cindy turned and looked at Terry with the saddest eyes he'd ever seen. “Let's run away.”

  “What?”

  “We can run away together,” she said. “It doesn't matter where. We'll figure it out.”

  “I've got nothing,” he said. “I can't..I can't provide for you...The way he can.”

  “Is that what your momma told you?”

  “What?”

  “Guys who think that way always have mothers who bad talked their fathers. Like they didn't do enough. So the son inherits the bad vibes.”

  “It ain't like that.”

  “So come with me,” Cindy said, standing up and wiping the grass off her buttocks. “We'll figure it out.”

  Logan watched from the window as Cindy led the young man into the barn.

  Cindy opened the barn door and then slammed it shut when Terry entered.

  She pulled the latch down, locking them in.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  She unbuttoned her blouse and threw it on the haystack, revealing her ample bosom held up by a white lace bra.

  Terry mouth gaped as he couldn't help but marvel at her ivory white flesh in stark contrast to the darkness of their surroundings.

  “Come closer,” she said, smiling at his hesitation. “Think about it. We can steal the Mustang and ditch it as soon as we're far away. Just the two of us. A fresh start. Doesn't that sound romantic?”

  Cindy pressed up against the drifter. She took his hand and let him feel her breasts.

  “Jesus,” he muttered, kneading the softness of her bosom.

  Cindy moaned as she felt the roughness of his hands that felt like padded leather gloves.

  “God, you're beautiful,” he whispered.

  She ripped off his shirt to reveal a rudely muscled bare torso and broad shoulders.

  “The feeling is mutual,” she said. “I know you're younger than me. Don't let that stop you. Don't be shy. Do the things that you've always dreamed about.”

  Terry nodded, looking at her breasts as if they were the first pair he had ever seen.

  Cindy started to unbuckle his pants. “These should have been off by now,” she said.

  Terry began kissing Cindy's neck. Softly at first then and losing himself in his own lust, running his tongue up and down her neck.

  Logan studied both of the wax figures of Terry and Cindy on the display. He blew off the excess saw dust off the replica of Terry's head.

  “My finest work,” he said. “My finest work ever.”

  He then placed the bodies closer together. He tossed some gasoline over the figures before attaching the blowtorch to his back and pulling the release button. The flames ignited the display, lighting up Logan's face. He then set down his blowtorch and began snapping pictures with the camera, weary about getting too close to the fire.

  Logan watched as the legs of Cindy's figure began to melt into a dark, slug-like shape. He quickly snapped pictures of that happening before turning to Terry's figure.

  Through the lens, he watched Terry's wax face melted into a dark viscosity as the flames worked there way up, the heat extending the features of his face, stretching and distorting them in strange ways.

  He removed the blowtorch from the counter and sprayed more flames onto Cindy's face. Her head then began to melt, her facial expression looking like that of a drowning woman just about to go under for the last time and knowing it.

  Logan smiled as he snapped off shot after shot.

  “I want you to fuck me hard,” Cindy whispered as she laid back down on the haystack. “Pull down my pants. Unhook my bra. Slid my panties down to my ankles.”

  Terry obeyed, entering her womanhood.

  “Pound me,” she said.

  Terry began thrusting inside her, giving in to her unashamed carnality. He tensed and tightened his hips, cupping his hands around her shoulders.

  She screamed and dug her nails into his back, then she pushed him back and mounted him, her hips gyrating.

  “I've been so lonely,” she whispered as he began caressing her breasts. “I've been waiting for you. Been waiting for you for so long.”

  Cindy reached down over and squeezed his balls, bringin
g him to a loud and thunderous climax.

  He came hard and she leaned forward into him, resting her head on his chest.

  “Are you going to take me with you?”

  “I am not going anywhere without you by my side,” he said, lust pouring out of him like a fever, whatever resistance he had toward her now incinerated by her passion.

  They sat back in a lover's embrace on the haystack., laying there for the better part of an hour. The hay was soft. Terry's eyes began to droop.

  “Terry!”

  They both flinched as they heard Logan's voice.

  Terry looked at Cindy for her to give him a cue as to what the proper response should be.

  “See what he wants,” she said.

  He sprang up and put on his blue jeans, his underwear still somewhere in the haystack.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Where have you been, boy?” Logan asked from the second story of the loft. “Been looking for you everywhere.”

  “Smells like something's burning,” Terry said, noticing the smoke behind Logan.

  “The hell were you? I didn't say go and make hay with that little whore.”

  Terry balled up his fists and tightened his jaws.

  “Don't stand there with your jaws clenched up,” Logan said. “Come on up.”

  Terry came up the steps, stopping at the top of the wooden stairwell.

  “I don't bite,” Logan said, motioning for Terry to come closer.

  “Don't call her a little whore,” Terry said.

  “With persuasive words she led him astray,” Logan said. “She seduced him with her smooth talk.”

  “The hell you talking about?”

  “All at once he followed her, like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose, till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life.”

  “You're a religious kook.”

  “My father was a pastor,” he said. “We had two phones in the house. Mom hadn't been home for awhile. I was waiting for her to call home Call to tell me that everything was okay. Then finally the phone rang and Dad took the call in the bathroom. I went to listen on the other end, in the living room. She told my Dad she slept with the drifter. This asshole from the church that my Dad hired to help paint the church. Mom started to cry. Ashamed. Said she was running away with the mother fucker. I hung up and my Dad heard the click. I walked over and he looked at me, his face filled with darkness. Then he started pacing around the living room, the entire house felt like a cage.”

  “Doesn't justify treating her the way you do. She's not your mom.”

  “No, she isn't” Logan said as he reached into Terry's hair and pulled out a piece of hay. “She's just a woman who has weakness for drifters like you. Strays. Guys who are just meandering through life. Guys who have defects that isolate themselves from the rest of society. Then she can come alone and make everything okay. Design you to her own specifics.”

  “Doesn't make her a whore.”

  “Makes her a woman who can't be trusted,” he said. “Hook up with her and you'll find her naked in bed with another man so fast it will make your head spin. Shit, you've never been with a woman like Cindy. I can just by looking at you.”

  Terry shook his head and smirked. “If she cheats on you why do you stay?”

  “It makes me want her more,” Logan said.

  “You're a sick man. One of these religious nuts that talks in riddles but really doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.”

  “Look at you. You don't even see yourself. Let me guess, she gave you the old damsel in distress routine? Or maybe the romantic 'let's run away together', like you guys are sixteen years old or something.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Terry said, reaching out to grab Logan by the shirt but the artist caught his wrist then pushed him back.

  “How did I know she was going to do that?” Logan asked. “She said 'I've been waiting for you. Let's run away to Los Angeles. See the palm trees. The beach.' Right? I know all about it, Terry. Proverbs 8:27, her house is a highway to the grave, leading down to the chambers of death!”

  Logan walked over and opened the coffin.

  Terry gasped as he looked inside and saw Cindy's likeness.

  “Picasso said that all art is a lie that tells the truth,” Logan said, pointing down at Cindy's figure. “Do you believe me now?”

  Terry's heart pounded in his ears. His tongue dead in his mouth, he could only nod his head.

  “Now get this little whore out of our lives, son,” Logan threw the keys of the Mustang at Terry.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Cindy entered the dark garage with her coat and suitcase.

  “Terry?” she whispered.

  Terry stepped down the stairs, not making a sound until he hit the bottom step creaked.

  “Terry? Is that you?”

  The young man cloaked himself in the dark, sliding inside the Mustang and turning on the engine. The lights flashed on, startling Cindy.

  “Terry! Terry!”

  “An adulterous generation seeketh after a sign,” Logan cried out, his blow torch in hand. “Leading down to the chambers of death.”

  Cindy backed toward the garage wall, frightened as Terry revved the engine.

  “Terry!” she said. “Don't do this.”

  With the car in park, he pressed on the gas again. The Mustang rumbled.

  Terry laughed.

  Cindy ran toward the car and got into the passenger side. She grabbed Terry's shirt and pulled him close.

  “Kiss me,” she said.

  “I can't.”

  “We can put all of this in the rear view mirror! Everything about bad about your life. My life. We can leave it all behind now.”

  She kissed him hard on the lips. Terry resisted.

  “Forget about him,” she said. “You can be with me. We can live. Or you can be with him and be dead. Become part of the blackness. Part of his sick world.”

  Terry said nothing as Cindy kissed him again.

  “We can live,” she said. “We can run away together.”

  “Whore!” Logan slammed his fist on the hood of the Mustang.

  Terry didn't argue anymore. He obeyed the woman's commands.

  Terry hit the gas and the Mustang plowed through the wall of the barn as Logan leapt out of the way.

  It skidded down the gravel road, weaving around as Tyler lost control of the wheel.

  Logan leapt onto the hood, spraying the windshield in flames with the blow torch. “You ain't leaving me!”

  Blinded by the fire, both Terry and Cindy lowered their heads as the Mustang sped headlong into the farmhouse wall.

  The gas tank of the car ignited and blew upon impact.

  Engulfed in flames, the screams of all three tortured souls echoed into the night.

  SCALPED

  JEFF VAN ZANT

  Chapter One

  Sliding out from under the desk, Tom Henderson gave the new wiring to the computers one last look over, and then stood up slowly. Didn’t want to bang his head against the edge of the table and pass out. Again. No reason to go through that embarrassment again.

  He brushed the dust off the front of his jeans and then smiled at the office manager while he resettled his glasses on his face. She was a beauty. Sasha Verdun was an Asian beauty with dark skin and slanted almond eyes. Her hair was cut close to the curve of her head except for a long, thinly braided tail. Her purple dress left very little to the imagination, including the fact that Sasha preferred thongs.

  Tom was kind of partial to them himself.

  “All done,” he said, straightening the collar of his checkered shirt. He wasn’t the typical geek, or at least he liked to think so. Thin but athletic, his eyes were a deep blue and his smile had been described as “delicious” by one former girlfriend. Not that he’d had many, but the fact was he was intelligent and funny even if most people only saw him as the computer nerd who understood the difference
between ASP and ISP. He was even moderately rich, because the IT field paid better than people realized and up to now he’d only had himself to spend money on.

  “Good,” she told him in that lightly-accented way of hers. She smiled at him, and oh damn how he wished that smile was for more than just him being the IT guy, somebody she had to be polite to, somebody she only called when the computer needed a new power source or she’d forgotten her password.

  Ifucku. He had it memorized.

  His pants began to get tighter as he stood there, and he knew it was time to go. Sasha was a wild thing, and if he could just find a way to make her see that he liked to be wild as much as the next guy, then he knew they could have a good time. As it was, she was already checking her watch and wondering how much longer she was going to have to stand here talking with Tom the guy from IT.

  He smiled back, letting his fantasies make his manhood twinge just one more time, and then he turned away to leave. He could almost hear her sigh in relief that he was going. He picked up his backpack of tools and devices as he left. Someday he’d show her that he was a man worthy of taking into her bed…er, life. Into her life, he meant.

  The executive offices of Jansen and Howe took up the entire fourth floor of this highrise office building. When he got to the front of the suite, where elevators waited to take him back to his cubicle on the second floor, he smiled at Audrey Simms at her secretary’s desk. She smiled back shyly. Her dark brown dress hid her curves, and her shapely legs, just like her long and curly hair hid the contours of her cheeks. He’d seen her lift that dress to adjust her pantyhose on her creamy white legs, though, and he’d seen the tattoo that she had inked at the small of her back. Audrey was a bad girl. He’d be willing to put money down on that.

  Only, she was afraid to show it to people. She waved to him but then quickly put her head down again, typing away at her computer screen, avoiding eye contact. Tom was willing to bet that if he could get Audrey alone, just the two of them, then he’d be able to coax her out of her shell. He’d be able to experience the inner woman she kept caged inside. Only, she wouldn’t give him the time of day. Just like Sasha. Both women looked at him and only saw a geek who was here to do a job.