Edward Lee: The Black Train

You better haul this one’s ashes right now…

But Collier knew he couldn’t.

Just then her hands slid down to his groin.

“Mmmm, yes,” she murmured. “You’re clearly a man who senses the needs of a lady.” Then she opened the robe and pressed against him. Her nipples felt like hot coins.

“But this is my daughters’ room—and God knows where they are at this hour. Out being little girls, I suppose, with that annoying dog of theirs. But we had to get them the dog. They don’t have any friends to speak of, and don’t mix well with the other children in town, due to our elevated social standing.”

Collier shivered with his eyes closed as her hand kept playing with him.

“Oh, but I’ve digressed,” she whispered into his neck. “Let’s retreat to the next room, shall we? It’s my… secret room, reserved for my pleasures alone.” She tried to pull him toward the door.

“No,” Collier said through gritted teeth.

She paused through a sigh. “You might be a bit nervous, which I understand—many of my men are at first. But you needn’t be worrying about my husband. He’s halfway to Maxon right now, and only comes back every month or so.”

Now she pressed harder against him.

He could sense the outrage of his darker self.

Listen to me, buddy boy. If you don’t ball the daylights out of this hunk of angel food cake, you’ll be a disgrace to all of masculinity—

“Put your clothes on,” he told her, pushing her back. “We have to leave…”

“All right.” She ignored him. “If you don’t want to go into the next room, we’ll do it here,” she said, then started to take off his robe.

Collier whipped her hands away. “We’re leaving!” he tried yelling at her. “Now!”

What a loser, his id conceded. I give up…

Collier grabbed her shoulders and shook.

“Your name is Dominique Cusher! You’re a brewmaster and a celibate Christian! Your name is NOT Penelope Gast!”

Had Dominique’s eyes…yellowed? Hatred and disgust tightened her face and next—

flump!

—Collier was thrown to the bed. Her bare thighs fastened his hips to the mattress as securely as a metal girder, and her hand—

Collier began to choke.

Her hand squeezed his throat so hard he thought his vertebrae would separate.

“You will indulge my fancy, sir, or I will kill you—”

Her strength was beyond fathoming. When he grabbed her forearm, it remained firm as a steel post. The hand was digging into his trachea.

“Jesus Christ, you’re killing me!” he gagged.

“Um-hmm.” She lowered her crotch. “Unless you fuck me right now…”

For a split second, she released his throat and Collier dragged in a breath just before he would’ve passed out. He tried to lurch up—

In an inhuman blur, she grabbed one of the pillows and was now vising it against his face with both hands.

Sightless, Collier felt his lungs start to expand.

Her accent sounded so sweet around the ultimately profane words: “You will fuck me, sir, and then you will void your bladder—”

Collier was convulsing.

“—or I’ll smother you right now.”

Collier wasn’t sure if he’d passed out or not. Some reflex hooked his fist in an arc; then he felt his knuckles crack into the side of her head.

Dominique fell off the bed.

He jerked to a sitting position, wailing as he sucked in air. Black spots before his eyes began to dissipate. He saw Dominique sprawled on the floor, but—

Something unidentified seemed to cover him. The pillow she’d been smothering him with had torn open…

Feathers?

He brushed the unpleasant substance off his face.

What IS this stuff? He almost threw up when he realized it was human hair.

Mostly brown but with swathes of blonde and some streaks of red…

Next, he threw himself off the bed, revolted, but he moved like a madman. Dominique was out cold. He hauled on his clothes, then flopped Dominique around on the floor and redressed her. He skipped the hassle of putting her underwear on but when he paused and noticed her cross twinkling on the bedpost, he put it back around her neck.

Collier’s adrenaline more than made up for his negligible physical strength. He flung Dominique over his shoulder and plodded out of the room.

Oh, Christ…

The stench of urine in the hall choked him like tear gas. He took a few steps, blinking hard, and then suddenly Dominique’s unconscious body felt heavy as a sack of bricks. Collier stopped a moment, to reestablish his balance…

Did he hear these words?

“Come inside…”

He looked to find himself standing immediately before the door to the next room.

Room two.

The room that was always locked.

“Come inside my secret room,” came the plush accent.

Collier’s eyes were riveted to the doorknob. Very slowly, it began to turn.

Something clicked…

The voice started to warble.

“Come inside, sir, and oblige a lady…”

The door swung open, revealing a black void. The stench quadrupled and slammed Collier in the face so hard he could’ve staggered backward and flipped over the rail with Dominique still on his shoulder.

He trudged away just as he thought he detected a shapely nude figure stepping out of the room.

Senseless, Collier tore off like someone wading through mud. He almost fell down the stairs but probably wouldn’t have minded because it would’ve gotten him to the bottom all the more expediently. The stench followed him as though it meant to run him down.

Only a few yards to go! his mind yelled when the vestibule doors surfaced in the murk.

“But, sir,” a squawky male voice rose. “Why did you not sign your check? You must know that cash money cannot be rendered without your signature…”

The scrawny man sitting at the writing table looked perturbed, wearing an odd red hat.

A gold nose flashed.

Collier actually used his head to bang open the vestibule doors. Then he banged through the next set and was scrambling out into the night.

Before the doors could close behind him, her wanton voice beckoned him one more time:

“It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Collier. I trust you’ll be back to see me again very soon…”

Collier flopped Dominique into the car, then drove away from the house. In the rearview, he thought he glimpsed four figures standing between the pillars of the front porch, two of them short, and two taller.

The sound of a dog yapping faded as he sped away.

He parked in front of the restaurant. The town lay dark and silent before them.

But it seemed normal.

Dominique murmured something in her unconsciousness, then curled in the seat, asleep.

A final silent throb of lightning marked the end of the storm. Collier’s adrenaline rush finally drained. He fell into a black and gratefully dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN I

Collier awoke to a wall of sun in his eyes, and an agitated rapping sound.

Ugh. What the—

A frowning man in a police uniform was knuckling the window. Collier rolled it down, shielding his eyes.

“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Collier,” the cop said. “I heard you were in town. I’m Sheriff Legerski. Here’s your ticket.”

Collier tried to shake off his grog. “Ticket for what?”

“Not even big-time TV stars can illegally park.” The sheriff indicated the sign right next to Collier’s lime-sherbet fender. NO PARKING 9-5.

Collier looked at the ticket. “A hundred bucks?”

“Usually it’s twenty-five, but you get the celebrity rate.” The sheriff guffawed. “Just kidding. But thems the breaks, you know, Mr. Collier?”