Richard Laymon - Fiends

Behind Charlie, something thudded against the redwood fence. He turned and looked up. A blonde woman grinned at him over the top. He heard a grunt. The woman seemed to leap. She towered over him for a moment, then folded at the waist. Charlie jumped out of the way. He gaped at her. She hung there, swaying slighdy, like the body of a gunslinger draped over a saddle. Another grunt came from behind the fence. Her legs flipped high, slender and pale in the moonlight. Then she dived to the grass. She performed a somersault, and lay still.

Charlie glanced toward the garage. Its side door stood open. In the darkness of its gap was the red glow of Lou’s cigar.

He motioned frantically for Lou to join him.

Quickly, he crouched at the corner of the fence. The wood jolted against his back, and he saw an arm hook over the top rail. After a gasp and a scuffling sound, a leg appeared. Then, in one quick motion, the man swung over and dropped to the grass. He landed silently on his feet, less than a yard from Charlie.

Crouching, he lifted the body. He flung it over his shoulder.

‘Now,’ said Charlie, ‘you may kindly toss her back over the fence and take her away. Clutter someone else’s yard.’

Still holding the body, the strangler turned to Charlie and said, ‘Huh?’

‘I said take her away!’

‘How come?’ he asked. He was younger than Charlie had imagined. His shaved head was shiny in the moonlight. In his tight T-shirt and jeans, his stocky body looked dangerous.

‘Because,’ Charlie answered in a subdued voice, ‘you’ve been putting them in my lawn chair.’

‘I thought you liked it.’

‘Liked it?’

‘Sure.’

Charlie was relieved to see Lou ambling toward them, puffing vigorously on his cigar.

‘You took good care of ’em,’ the younger man continued. ‘You know?’

‘Why’d you bring them here?’ Lou asked.

The man spun around. Charlie dodged the woman’s left heel. ‘Did you know about me?’ Lou asked. ‘Is that it?’

‘Know what?’

‘I’mThumbs O’Brien. The Riverside Strangler.’

‘No fooling?’

‘Did you read my book, kid?’ Lou’s voice was eager.

‘What book?’

‘Never mind.’ Lou sounded disappointed. ‘So how come you’re leaving stiffs in our backyard?’

‘Like I was telling this guy, you took good care of ’em. I mean, the first, I was bringing her up through the alley here. It’s dark, you know. So I just heaved her over the fence.’

‘How did she get in my chair,’ Charlie asked.

‘I got to thinking, you know? How comfortable can it be on the grass? So I hustled her over to the chair.’

‘Decent of you,’ Lou said.

‘You guys took care of her real good.’

‘Thank you,’ Lou said.

‘That’s why I came back. I figured I’ll let you take care of the others, too.’

‘Tell me this,’ Lou said. ‘Why’d you do it?’

‘I just told you, you took real good…’

‘He means,’ Charlie explained, ‘why did you kill them?’

‘Oh.’ He grinned. ‘She told me to.’

‘Who did?’

‘Isadora.’

‘Who?’ asked Lou.

‘Isadora Duncan. You know, Isadora! She wants ’em for her dance troupe.’

Lou tapped a column of ash from the tip of his cigar. ‘They won’t do her much good dead.’

Charlie groaned at Lou’s display of ignorance. ‘She’s dead,’ he explained. ‘Isadora is. Her scarf caught in the wheel of her car. A long time ago. In the twenties, I believe.’

‘No kidding?’ Lou nodded at the young strangler. ‘So you’re fixing her up with a bunch of dancers. I get it.’

‘May I ask,’ Charlie inquired, ‘how large a group she requires?’

‘Oh, big. Real big.’

‘How big?’

‘Fifty-two.’

Charlie imagined fifty-two more bodies in the backyard on his lawn chair. ‘I won’t have it!’ he blurted. ‘Lou!’

' 'Fraid that’s too much, kid.’

‘Too much?’

‘Yeah. Sorry.’

Charlie watched the woman fall. He watched the brief struggle. It was no contest, really. The kid didn’t have a scarf handy, but Lou had his thumbs.

On a sunny, cool morning toward the end of the week, Charlie carried his coffee mug outside and stopped in surprise.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

Lou, in sunglasses and a Dodger ballcap, was sitting on his own lawn chair. A cigar tilted upward from his mouth. Propped against his upraised right knee, he held a spiral notebook. ‘How’s this sound?’ he asked. ‘Save Your Last Dance for Me: the True Story of the Swan Lake Strangler in his Own Words'

‘It sounds like a lie,’ Charlie said.

‘You gotta take liberties,’ said Lou, ‘when you’re a ghost-writer.’

The outlaw women, wailing and shrieking, fled from the encampment. All but one, who stayed to fight.

She stood by the campfire, a sleek arm reaching up to pull an arrow from the quiver on her back. She stood alone as the men began to fall beneath the quick fangs of the dozen raiding vampires.

‘She’s mine!’ Jim shouted.

None of his fellow Guardians gave him argument. Maybe they wanted no part of her. They raced into the darkness of the woods to chase down the others.

Jim rushed the woman.

You get her and you get her.

She looked innocent, fierce, glorious. Calmly nocking the arrow. Her thick hair was golden in the firelight. Her legs gleamed beneath the short leather skirt that hung low on her hips. Her vest spread open as she drew back her bowstring, sliding away from the tawny mound of her right breast.

Jim had never seen such a woman.

Get her!

She glanced at him. Without an instant of hesitation, she pivoted away and loosed her arrow.

Jim snapped his head sideways. The shaft flew at Strang’s back. Hit with a thunk. The vampire hurled the flapping body of an outlaw from his arms and whirled around, his black eyes fixing on the woman, blood spewing from his wide mouth as he bellowed, ‘Mine!’

Jim lurched to a halt.

Eyes narrow, lips a tight line, the woman reached up for another arrow as Strang staggered toward her. Jim was near enough to hear breath hissing through her nostrils. He gazed at her, fascinated, as she fit the arrow onto the bowstring. Her eyes were on Strang. She pulled the string back to her jaw. Her naked breast rose and fell as she panted for air.

She didn’t let the arrow fly.

Strang took one more stumbling stride, foamy blood gushing from his mouth, arms outstretched as if to reach beyond the campfire and grab her head. Then he pitched forward. His face crushed the flaming heap of wood, sending up a flurry of sparks. His hair began to blaze.

The woman met Jim’s eyes.

Get her and you get her.

He’d never wanted any woman so much.

‘Run!’ he whispered. ‘Save yourself.’

‘Eat shit and die,’ she muttered, and released her arrow. It whizzed past his arm.

Going for her, Jim couldn’t believe that she had missed. But he heard the arrow punch into someone, heard the roar of a mortally wounded vampire, and knew that she’d found her target. For the second time, she had chosen to take down a vampire rather than protect herself from Jim. And she hadn’t run when he’d given her the chance. What kind of woman is this?

With his left hand, he knocked the bow aside. With his right, he swung at her face. His fist clubbed her cheek. Her head snapped sideways, mouth dropping open, spit spraying out. The punch spun her. The bow flew from her hand. Her legs tangled and she went down. She pushed at the ground, got to her hands and knees, and scurried away from Jim.