Bryan Smith - The Killing Kind

There, she thought. That’s where the carotid is.

The corkscrew slammed into the man’s throat and there was another leap of blood. Julie was covered in it now. Her own and that of the man who’d tried to rape her. She giggled again. We’re all the same on the inside.

Julie stabbed him with the corkscrew several more times. She kept doing it even after she knew he was dead. There was a strange sort of fascination to watching the instrument puncture flesh. It was sort of the way she felt when pulling the petals off a flower, ruining it a little bit at a time. And the really weird thing was how little any of this bothered her now that he was no longer a threat. It was actually sort of fun, the way she’d always imagined it might be. But she did finally tire of stabbing the corpse and climbed off it.

She stood panting in the center of the living room, wondering what she should do next. Call 911. Obviously. But something made her hesitate. The man she’d killed was clearly an uninvited guest here. The thought made her laugh. Like, no shit, right? Like John and Karen would have this freak over for dinner or whatever. No, he was an intruder. He’d probably killed the whole family. And their bodies were somewhere else in the house. It was this thought that kept her hand from going to the cell phone in her pocket.

She wanted to see.

Yeah, it kind of sucked that John was probably dead. She could never kiss him now. Or fuck him. She could admit it now. That would have been the ultimate goal. But now she was just as hot to see his corpse. She had a vast collection of crime-scene and autopsy photos stored on her laptop. And here fate had dumped her into a situation where she had an opportunity to make a prolonged inspection of the real thing. It was a chance she simply couldn’t pass up. And hell, the cops would never know she’d lingered over the scene a while.

She crept out of the living room and into a long hallway she knew led to the bedrooms. There was probably no real reason for stealth at this point, but she couldn’t be certain everyone in the house was actually dead yet, so she moved forward with caution. About halfway down the hallway, she began to hear a sound she identified at once as the squeak of bedsprings, that rhythmic motion associated with intercourse. The sound was coming from the master bedroom at the end of the hall. She moved a little closer and was able to hear a series of muted grunts. The bedroom door was partly open. She could see a corner of the bed. She pressed her back against the wall to her right and edged carefully down the remaining length of hallway. After reaching the bedroom, she peered around the doorjamb and reeled at the horrific scene.

John’s head was on the floor. His headless body sat slumped in a chair against the far wall. His legs were spread and she could see a gaping, bloody hole where his genitals had been. Nancy was on the floor. She had been gutted. Her abdomen was a bloody, ragged mess. A length of intestine was coiled about her slender neck. There were several large, dark splotches on the beige carpet that could only be blood.

Karen was on the bed, legs spread wide as the big man on top of her continued to grind away and make those grunting noises. Karen’s legs were long and sleek. Julie noted with some surprise a pretty butterfly tattoo on her right foot. But the muscles in those shapely legs looked strangely slack for someone having sex. Then awareness of what was actually happening on the bed seeped in and Julie reached into her pocket to pull out her cell phone. She flipped it open and stared at a black screen.

Fuck.

She’d forgotten about turning it off after responding to the text from Alicia. If she turned it on now, that stupid chiming tone it made would alert the powerfully built necrophiliac to her presence. And then he’d kill her, of course. She had no illusions of handling this man as easily as she’d handled the other one. He’d just take the corkscrew from her and jam it up her ass. Or some other orifice. Her stomach knotted at the thought. The smart thing here would be to scoot back down the hallway and get the hell out of the house. But she desperately wanted a picture of the atrocity occurring on the bed. It would be the crown jewel of her morbid photo collection. She could maybe hurry down to the kitchen, turn the phone on there, and hurry back. But no, judging by the increasingly frenzied nature of the man’s grunts, it would all be over by then.

She thought, This is the single stupidest thing I have ever done or ever will do, the end, no doubt about it at fucking all.

She pressed the phone’s power button. Then she clasped both hands tightly around the phone and pressed it to her chest. The hope was to muffle the electronic chimes enough that the man wouldn’t hear them. But of course, the sound came through clear as a bell.

The man paused in midthrust and looked over his shoulder at Julie, who stood framed and vulnerable in the open doorway. His hair was long and white, and fine, like the hair of a hermit in a fairy tale. Only this hermit was built like a lumberjack on steroids. His nostrils flared and his lips curled in a snarl. His pitiless eyes conveyed a promise of pain and savagery. He climbed off the corpse and Julie saw Karen’s head lolling on the pillow, mouth slack, eyes still and staring at nothing.

The man grinned.

Then he charged her.

Julie screamed and bolted back down the hallway. She flew through the living room and made it as far as the foyer before the big man caught up to her. He grabbed her by the hair and jerked her to a stop, eliciting another scream. Then he slammed her to the floor and fell atop her. He pressed a powerful forearm against her throat and pawed at the remains of her shredded halter with his free hand. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t get her hands free to jab at his eyes. She felt his erection swell against her and knew there’d be no stopping the rape this time. She cursed her stupidity. She’d been dumb not to get out when she had the chance. Obviously. And she cursed her morbid nature. The two things seemed inextricably tied at the moment.

The man abruptly stopped groping her. The pressure on her throat eased and Julie coughed and spluttered. The man’s face was turned away from her. Shock etched itself across his features, deepening the age lines and making his face resemble a Halloween ghoul mask.

He looked down at her again. “You killed my friend.”

Julie coughed again and cleared her throat. “I didn’t have a choice. Look, you don’t have to force me to do anything. I’ll do whatever you want. I’m sorry about your friend.”

The man’s teeth were clenched tight. His whole body shook with rage. He closed a hand around her throat and began to squeeze. “You fucking whore. Fucking little slut. You killed my only friend!”

A detached part of Julie’s mind marveled over the absurdity of a man as depraved as this stone psycho feeling grief for the loss of anyone. But the emotion did appear genuine. His eyes watered. A thin stream of moisture began to move down one cheek. The pressure on her throat increased and Julie’s vision began to blur. Realizing she was likely in her last moments of life, she thought maybe she ought to ask God for forgiveness. She had allowed a number of evil and wicked thoughts and ideas to live and breathe inside her brain. Surely God would frown on that. But before she could begin to consciously form her plea, the pressure on her throat eased up again. She blinked moisture from her eyes and stared up at the curious sight of a man listening to something only he could hear.

His head was tilted to one side and his brow was furrowed. He stared up at the ceiling. He shook his head and said, “No. It’s not right.”

Julie frowned.

What the fuck?