Jo Robertson - The Avenger

"Remove your clothes," he ordered, brandishing a small, but nasty-looking knife in one hand and the tire iron in the other.

Hysteria bubbled up in her. No shoes, boy shorts for underwear and a skimpy tank top, she could hardly be described as clothed. What was left?

He tossed away the tire iron and his fingers pinched her upper arm while the knife nipped at her ribs. He hauled her closer to the sink. His eyes dilated wildly as if he were on drugs. A nasty snarl hurled from his mouth. "You really don't want to make me ask twice, Olivia."

The fighting strategy hadn't worked against Howard. She'd have to be more cunning if she were going to outmaneuver him. If she could just reach the tire iron or get him to discard the knife.

Olivia jerked the tank top over her head and pushed the shorts down to her ankles where she stepped out of them and kicked them aside. Goose bumps rose on her body and she rubbed her crossed hands up and down her arms. What now? Howard's eyes glittered and his body tensed. Angry because she'd hit him and nearly escaped? Or crazy with lust?

He reached behind her and grabbed soap and a rag from a shelf she hadn't noticed. With the other hand he turned on the water faucet. "Wash," he commanded.

"Why?"

The madness in his eyes clambered to the surface. "Because you are filthy," he said. "Because you are unclean." Spittle spewed from his mouth and spattered her face as his voice rose to a shout. "Because I command it and you dare not disobey."

Not sexual frustration, but insanity.

When she still hesitated, he threatened, "Unless you'd rather I do it myself?"

Undressing in front of Howard and performing such an intimate act as bathing disturbed her more than if she'd done the same things before a complete stranger. She wet and soaped the rag under the icy stream. Wringing out the cloth, she wiped her arms and legs. The sting of the soap burned in the raw cuts and scratches. She bit back a wince while Howard watched her carefully.

When she finished, he tossed her a large, clean towel which she used to dry off. Her skin was red from the abrasive soap and the freezing water. She dropped the towel to the floor, put her arms down, and stood defiantly before him.

Bastard! She wouldn't show him her fear.

Grabbing her upper arm, he dragged her to the bottom of a flight of wooden stairs. After climbing to the landing, he opened the door at the top and whirled her around to face him, pressing her close against him. She felt his growing erection against her naked body.

His mouth hovered over hers. "My intention was to use you, Olivia, use that perfect little body that you've been enticing me with all semester." He ran his fingers across the top of her naked breast. "You'd be good for a quick fuck, right?"

She flinched at his crude language and he laughed. "And I may do that yet. But you're such a perfect specimen I couldn't resist offering you as the penultimate sacrifice."

Forcing calm she didn't feel, she summoned the courage to fight Howard in a way that might give her an advantage. "You'll never do it, Howard," she jeered. "You didn't rape the other victims. You don't have the balls."

He ground his mouth into hers, his teeth cutting, his tongue trying to push through her tightly-closed lips. Then he released her abruptly. "Maybe we'll do both." He smiled and pinched her cheek viciously. In a flash his manner changed from the vicious would-be rapist to the mild-manner professor. "Now, wouldn't that be fun?"

Although she didn't see the hand that held the syringe, she should've anticipated it. Right before she lost consciousness again, the prick of the needle told her what he'd done.

Jack left the Blazer at the foot of an inclined wooded area off the highway, and hiked on foot the rest of the way. The Blazer could've made it up the narrow dirt road, but he didn't want the engine to alert his prey.

When he arrived at the clearing, the trunk of the sedan was partially open. He nudged it with the tip of his knife blade, and it swung smoothly upward without resistance. He ducked his head into the empty trunk and inhaled deeply.

Beneath the Olivia-scent and the fetid animal-scent, his heightened faculties imbibed the faint residue of an unfamiliar smell, the odor of incipient life, the human zygote. The implication drew him back from the trunk's gaping maw. It wasn't possible for Olivia to be pregnant, his human mind insisted. But the beast growled, a deep guttural sound low in its throat, a warning call to the predator, the animal's protection in defense of its young.

He turned around slowly, his cat-like vision scanning the woods for signs of them.

That way, he decided, and crouching low, followed the scent of Olivia and the enemy. The sunken footsteps in the moist dirt and the small, lighter prints indicated two people – a heavier person and a lightweight one – running fast.

Less than a quarter mile down the overgrown path, he glimpsed what looked like the front of an abandoned church rising like Hawthorne's seven-gabled house some hundred yards off a narrow, paved road. But that was not where the enemy had accessed the building.

An empty parking area, overgrown with weeds pushing up through the cracks and crannies of cement, stretched in front of the edifice. The entire erection looked like a giant dollhouse, tossed into the wilderness and forgotten, only to be taken over by the encroaching forest.

Jack padded carefully around the perimeter, sniffing cautiously, seeking the strongest scent left by the killer. He nosed his way around to the side of the building where a short flight of concrete steps led below the ground level. A basement.

When he jiggled the knob, it turned beneath his hand. Unlocked, though a barred door wouldn't have stopped him. As he stole inside, he found himself among a series of pipes and storage cages, dust and cobwebs and general clutter. A set of wooden steps in the corner wound upward. Even from the outside entrance he could hear the clear sound of footsteps above him.

She was naked.

The pungent odor of incense filled the room where Olivia lay on her back, her head cushioned by some soft material, her legs straight out, and her arms crossed over her breasts. The dim room was lighted by dozens of candles that cast eerie shadows on the walls. The vaulted ceiling stretched far above her head and domed in a set of paneled religious carvings.

She lay naked inside a church.

"You're awake." The disembodied voice echoed off the walls. A figure rose up from the floor to her right.

A priest, she thought at first, even though she knew. Not a priest, but Howard dressed in a priest's double-breasted black cassock and white clerical collar. He came closer and peered at her curiously. She shifted to cover her nakedness and realized that her legs and arms were immobile. She couldn't move. Couldn't speak. She blinked her eyes rapidly and tried to open her mouth.

Was she dead already?

No, he'd given her something. Something in addition to the initial pinch of the needle. Some kind of drug that affected her muscles and rendered her helpless. Panic as strong as a tidal wave smashed over her. He'd paralyzed her! Her respiratory system would shut down and she'd die. She gulped in a series of harsh gasps. Sweet air filled her lungs and fury settled in her mind.

The son of a bitch! For months, he'd worked alongside her, used his slick, cloying manners and arrogant airs to fool her. And all the while, he'd been on a murderous spree, leaving all those helpless victims in the wake of his insanity.

She slanted him a look from the corner of her eye. No, she amended, Howard wasn't insane. She took in the costume he wore, his sacrilegious posture as a priest, a holy man of the clergy. Howard was driven by religious mania, not madness. By sexual perversion, not lunacy.