Creatures of Appetite (24 page)

“Y
ou fucker
!” Thorne screamed into the phone. “I’m fucking coming for you, you hear me?”

Johnson gripped the wheel even tighter as the truck slid on the snow and ice on the highway.

“Fuck me! Motherfucker!” Thorne slammed his phone into the dash, breaking it.

Johnson began to lose control of the truck. “I can’t see where I’m … shit!”

The truck hit a large drift piled up on the highway and then spun into the ditch until they came to a stop with an explosion of snow. Johnson gunned it, the tires spinning, but the truck didn’t move.

“Goddamn it! Punch it!” Thorne yelled.

“We’re stuck, the snow’s too heavy, we’ll have to wait for a plow. You didn’t break your phone, did you? How are we gonna call for …”

“What’s that light over there?” Thorne pointed out into the darkness and blowing snow where a light could just barely be seen.

“I think it’s a farmhouse or something,” Johnson replied.

Thorne gave Johnson one of his looks.

“What?” Johnson asked.

“D
on’t you fucking
say a word!”

An elderly farmer and his wife, both clad in pajamas and bathrobes, stood in their kitchen and watched as Thorne screamed into their telephone.

Johnson stood shivering, microphone in hand, next to the farmer’s Citizen Band radio. Both Johnson and Thorne were completely covered in snow.

“Forsythe, I don’t want to hear any of your mealy mouthed SHIT, I don’t care WHO you have to wake up, I want you to … Forsythe? Forsythe? Motherfucker HUNG UP ON ME! MOTHERFUCKER!”

Thorne threw the telephone furiously across the room into a wall.

“Told you he didn’t want to talk to you. I finally got hold of Denton PD on the CB,” Johnson said. “Couple of part-time cops. Gerry lives only a couple miles outside of town, they’re gonna swing by as soon as they can.”

“Would anyone like coffee?” the farmer’s wife asked.

“They won’t BE there anymore! FUCK!”

“It’s no problem, if you want some coffee,” she opened the freezer and took out a can of Folgers.

“I’d love some coffee,” Johnson said.

“No, you don’t want any fucking coffee, Johnson, we’re moving out of here right now,” Thorne said.

“To where? Where are we going? If they’re not at Gerry’s house, then where are they?”

“Only one place it could be but we have very little time. How far are we from town now?” Thorne asked the farmer.

“A good five, six miles.”

“Can we borrow your truck? It’s an emergency.”

“We won’t make it, not even with a truck. We had a truck,” Johnson objected, although he did so carefully, mindful of the evil look in Thorne’s eye. “The plows aren’t even getting through, we got hit with three feet of snow and it’s still coming down.”

“Then we’ll WALK it, Johnson!”

“You don’t hafta walk,” the farmer said.

“I’m not going to just sit … what was that?”

“I said you don’t hafta walk, if it’s an emergency like you said it was.”

Thorne looked at the farmer, who in turn looked at Johnson.

Johnson sighed.

M
oments later
, in the blinding wind and snow, Thorne drove a large snowmobile wildly through the dark white night, hopefully in the direction of town. Johnson hung on for dear life behind him and wondered what he’d done to deserve such punishment as he was getting at this very moment.

K
ane opened her
eyes and blinked a few times to orient herself. She tried to speak and realized that it was not possible. Her mouth was covered with duct tape. Kane tried to move and realized that she couldn’t do that either.

She was handcuffed firmly to a metal chair, facing a big metal cooking table.

Looking around, she recognized where she was, having been all over this place just a few days earlier. She was at Denton Elementary School, in the kitchen of the school cafeteria, to be exact.

Darcy Mullens sat on the other side of the table opposite of Kane; the young girl’s mouth also taped shut and hands taped to a chair. Darcy’s eyes were wide open with fright and filled with tears.

The Iceman entered the kitchen, whistling.

He set a cloth-covered tray on the table between them. He wore surgical gloves on his hands. He stepped to the counter behind them, picked up a mini-grill and lugged it over to the table, setting it on top of it. He plugged it in so it could warm up.

The Iceman unloaded some groceries from a box, setting down green onions, cabbage, flour and eggs next to bowls and plates on the table.

He took the cloth off of the tray with a flourish, revealing knives of different shapes and sizes. The Iceman sat down next to Darcy, who whimpered in fear. He reached across the table and in one smooth motion ripped the tape from Kane’s mouth.

Kane gasped, letting out a breath.

“Why didn’t you want to have dinner with me, Emma?” Jeff Gilday asked.

“I
 
mean
, Gerry’s a good guy, but dumb as a rock,” Gilday calmly started chopping up onions. “How could you pick him instead of me for dinner?”

“In retrospect,” Kane answered, “I can’t help but think that I made the best possible choice.”

“Barb Mullens did the same thing in high school, chose Gerry over me. Never understood it.”

“Maybe she was allergic to killers.”

“I never killed anybody when I was in high school, although I probably should have. Besides, she hooked up with Gerry again a few years ago and he killed people in the war.”

“They didn’t hook up again, Gerry told me about that. Nothing happened.”

“Yeah, I was listening and I couldn’t believe you bought that bullshit story. They definitely had an affair years ago. I know because I followed them. Chad caught on and they almost divorced. Him and Barb ended up staying together for this little snot-nosed kid here. Didn’t socialize with Gerry anymore, that’s for damn sure.

“Gerry liked to spin it as a rumor thing, he played that card really well, but I know better. They were definitely making the beast with two backs. I staked them out. I took pictures. I dropped the note to Chad. I just could not believe it. She picked Gerry over me not once but twice. I was really pissed off.”

“So you decided to vent a little anger by killing children?” Kane asked.

“Actually, I primarily wanted this one here,” he gestured to Darcy. “Teach Barb and Gerry a lesson, you know. I couldn’t really start with her, however, too dangerous, so I decided to start west and work my way here. That way by the time I got to her she would be just one victim out of many.

“I will admit it was a lot more fun than I thought it could be. I had a lot of really great meals in this very kitchen. But Darcy was the one I originally wanted. She has lovely blue eyes, don’t you think? Just like Barb. You know who else has blue eyes like that?”

“Who?” Kane asked.

“Come on, you know who. Who were you playing naked twister with a few hours ago?”

“You think Gerry …”

“I’m not saying anything, I’m just saying. Different shades of blue, though, and that should be considered. That’s what I think. Gerry sure did get worked up when I took her though, didn’t he? Laughed my ass off, this fucking guy, always acted like his shit didn’t stink. All bullshit and Barb never saw through it.”

“I thought Gerry was your friend!”

“Gerry was varsity; he thought everyone was his friend. He was varsity and I was always second string, since we were twelve. That’s what’s so ironic. Tonight was supposed to be a quiet dinner just between Barb and myself, that was the original idea,” Gilday moved on from the onions to the cabbage, chopping with quick deliberate strokes. “Barb Mullens was supposed to be sitting where you are right now.

“But I just couldn’t believe you picked Gerry over me as well. I couldn’t fucking believe it. As mad as I had been at Barb, I was even more pissed off at you. You didn’t know me as a pimply fucking teenager, you have no excuse in picking Gerry over me. None,” Gilday paused, eyes now hot with anger. “So tonight I cook for you.”

“You planted everything on McNeil,” Kane stalled, trying to think of something, anything.

“It was easy, too. I forced him to touch her eye. I thought Thorne would never get the eye clue, for Christ’s sake, I practically had to spell it out for him. Some expert. I also made McNeil share some dinner with me, just in case you checked his stomach contents. He bawled like a baby, but he finished his meal. Put a gun to a person’s head, it’s amazing what they can make themselves do, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know, let me have my gun back and I’ll find out.”

“Oh, you’ll be finding out, don’t worry.”

Gilday finished chopping the cabbage. He cracked eggs into a bowl and whisked. Darcy Mullens whimpered again, mucous running down from her nose.

“For dinner tonight we’ll be starting with seasoned hot blood soup. It comes out hot, did you know that?”

“How can you do this, Jeff, how can you eat children?”

“They taste good. It’s not that different from eating veal, really. If fact, it tastes better,” Gilday finished with the eggs and poured some olive oil on the grill. It sizzled.