Bryan Smith - The Killing Kind

March 17

A car loaded with teenage boys drove by Julie Cosgrove as she walked down the narrow residential road. One boy leaned out a rear window and made a rude comment. Julie’s thumbs moved rapidly over the buttons of her cell phone as she entered a response to a text from Alicia, her best friend. She heard laughter from the boys in the car, but barely perceived it. They weren’t worth her attention. She didn’t bother flipping them off either, as that would only reward their obnoxious behavior. Balding tires screeched on asphalt and the car zipped away.

Julie rolled her eyes.

Boys.

They were so stupid. Oh, she liked them on a physical level, but she couldn’t stand how immature most boys her age were. These losers, for instance, with this half-assed driveby come-on. Too chickenshit to get any closer or deal with her on a face-to-face level. She smirked, knowing how they would blush and mumble if forced to spend more than two consecutive seconds in her presence.

She hit a button to send the text and snapped her phone shut. Seeing she was only a block away from the house owned by John and Karen Lee, she picked up her pace. It was a little after three in the afternoon. Karen usually didn’t get home from her bank job until around four. But John was a CPA and often worked from home. She saw his car in the driveway, a black BMW. She felt a little flutter in her stomach at the sight of it. She knew John had a thing for her. He was always trying to look at her when he thought she wasn’t watching. It was cute how innocent he tried to act when she caught him in the act.

She’d been thinking of him a lot just recently. A man his age would know how to treat a woman right. He wouldn’t always be making crude cracks or laughing like an idiot at his own jokes, like most of the boys she knew. And John was pretty fucking hot for an old guy. Julie sometimes wondered what it might be like to kiss him. The thought made her feel naughty. It was “inappropriate,” as her mother would say. But the hell with her. Julie smiled. Truth was, she had all kinds of naughty ideas about all kinds of things running through her head all the time. Things that would absolutely horrify her mother. It was a good thing the woman barely knew how to turn on or operate a computer. Her laptop was full of things that would cause a snooping parent to freak the fuck out.

She couldn’t wait to see his eyes get big when he got a look at her sexy body in very short denim cutoffs and tiny halter top. He would struggle not to look at her tits and fail. The only guys who could avoid checking out her tits for long were the gay ones. And sometimes even they stared. She would ask for last week’s babysitting money and he would invite her inside, maybe offer her a cool drink while he counted the cash from his wallet. And he would joke with her, flirt with her in that goofy old-guy way, like he had at little Nancy’s birthday party the week before. Only this time Julie thought she might respond with some suggestive comments of her own, and, well…

She smiled.

We’ll just see how things go from there.

But the smile dropped from her face as she spied the blue Mini Cooper parked on the other side of the BMW. Karen’s car. So the bitch was home early from her stupid job. Julie had a quick fantasy of punching the older woman in the face.

Her phone vibrated and she flipped it open to see a new text from Alicia. U cant be serious, he’s like a thousand yrs older than u.

Julie sent a quick text back. I know. Shut up.

She turned the phone off and flipped it shut again.

She crossed the Lees’ immaculately tended lawn and climbed the front porch steps to ring the doorbell. A little chime sounded inside and she heard a male voice say something indistinct. That had to be John. She hoped he would come to the door instead of Karen. She badly wanted to see that lustful look in his eyes. That would be enough to sustain her until her next shot at having some time alone with him. While she waited, she pondered again the question of how far she might let John go when that finally happened. She wanted to kiss him. God, yes. But would he be satisfied with that? He might think she was just a tease.

But maybe-

The doorknob started to turn and she quickly summoned her brightest smile, hoping to really dazzle him. Her first hint something was wrong was the stink that assailed her nostrils as the door began to open. When it was fully open, her face paled at the grinning nightmare standing before her.

A man with wild, filthy hair sticking out in all directions stood naked before her. His eyes looked wild, too, like the eyes of a feral animal. He was so scrawny, like a flesh and blood stick figure, but there were hard muscles under the stretched-taut skin. A substance that might have been dried blood was matted in his chest hair. And as Julie watched, his limp penis started to rise.

Instinct drove her back a step, but he seized her by a wrist and yanked her inside the house. He slammed the door shut and dragged her screaming into the living room.

He snarled at her. “Shut up, bitch!”

He backhanded her and she went stumbling backward. Her feet got tangled and she fell. The glass top of a coffee table shattered beneath her as she landed on it. Shards of glass cut her and drew blood. She screamed as her assailant seized her slender throat with one strong hand and lifted her up again. She felt his penis leap against her and tried to scream again, but the hand clamped to her throat limited her to a barely audible gurgle. The man laughed and licked her face with a tongue that felt dry as sandpaper. The feel of it on her flesh made her insides curdle.

He sucked on her lower lip and breathed into her mouth. His stink made her eyes water. Bile rose into her throat and she wondered if she would choke on it-the man’s iron grip allowed only a very thin air passage. He pressed himself against her and said, “Gonna fuck ya now, sweet thing.”

The tip of his engorged penis poked through a rip in her torn halter. The feel of it sliding over her flesh repulsed her. But even through her terror, Julie saw how she might have a slim shot at extracting herself from this nightmare. He was so intent on sampling various parts of her anatomy-his free hand ripping the halter to pieces to paw at her breasts-that he had neglected to fully restrain her. Or maybe it wasn’t neglect. Maybe he didn’t consider her a threat. Or thought she’d be too terrified to fight back.

Think again, you freak.

Her right hand came up and long fingernails jabbed into an eyeball. He howled in agony and let go of her. Julie staggered backward and struggled to catch her breath as she watched the man flail about with a hand pressed over the wounded orb. Blood streamed between his fingers. He stopped thrashing long enough to look at her with his one good eye and screamed at her, “you’re gonna die for that, bitch!”

He started to come at her again, but screeched as a piece of broken glass pierced the bottom of his foot. Julie took a quick look around while the crazy man hopped about and mewled like a baby. The living room was outfitted in the standard way. Large entertainment center. A long sofa and a couple of recliners. And a large liquor cabinet with an impressive array of bartending tools arranged in a rack above it.

Yes!

Julie grabbed a corkscrew, flexed the handles to extend the screw to its full length, and charged her attacker. The man was sitting on the edge of a recliner as he worked to pull glass shards from his bleeding foot. He looked up and saw her coming, but not in time to retreat or ward off the attack. The fear evident in his remaining eye as it widened was gratifying. The corkscrew slammed into his temple and his body began to convulse. Julie yanked the screw out and plunged it into his other eye. Now the eyes sort of matched again-pierced and bleeding. The thought made her giggle inappropriately even as a new wave of sickness rose up inside her. She pulled the corkscrew out of his eye. She stared at his throat, watched the slowing pulse ticking beneath the flesh.