Don't Read After Dark: Keep the lights on while reading these! (A McCray Horror Collection) (3 page)

“Shh!” Andrew said to Back.
To Back
. He’d actually just stood up to Back. He must really be ready to take on the woman. However, he wasn’t Back or Door or Clyde or Esau or even Papa. Andrew could remember his manners, even at such an exciting time as this.

He held out his hand. “Hi, I’m Andrew. And you are?”

The woman did not reciprocate. Instead, her eyes shifted back and forth. Her voice was all cracked and wobbly. “Where am I?”

Andrew spread his arms to include the entire dungeon. “Casa de Lun. Psycho Central. Club S.K. Take your pick.”

The woman still seemed anxious. Nervous, and not very polite, if you asked Andrew. Perhaps she just needed to be led by example. “I’ve been here for a little over eighteen months.” He waved away his words, “But enough about me. What was your name, again?”

“Evelyn, but most people call me Evie.”

“Goddamn it!” Back yelled as Back was want to do. “There’s fresh meat within lunging distance, and you’re hosting a fucking tea party?”

The chime sounded, ending Back’s unfortunate tirade. He really was uncouth, that one.

“Gentlemen,” the voice cooed. “You have won the lottery. We are going to have a hootenanny. All cell doors will open on the count of three.”

“Oh dear,” Andrew exclaimed.

Andrew sighed as the other men went crazy, rattling their doors. Everyone except, of course, Darion, who still sat on his cot with his back to the wall. It was going to take more than a hootenanny to get Darion excited.

But this did spell the end to Andrew and the woman’s alone time.

He reached out to the woman.

“No, please. Stay back,” she begged.

Didn’t she understand that he was trying to help her?

“I’m not the one you need to worry about,” Andrew explained, hoping she could understand how earnest he was.

“Stay back!” the woman screamed, thrashing her hands in front of her like he was a common mugger.

“They want to hurt you. Do indecent things to you. Make you bleed…bad.” He tried to explain, but she seemed beyond reason.

“Three,” the chime voice stated pleasantly. He always appreciated how kind the voice sounded, even when all hell was going to break loose.

The woman stopped backing up and looked into Andrew’s eyes.

“And you? What do
you
want with me?”

Finally, she was making some sense.

“Oh, I want to kill you,” Andrew explained, with a smile on his face.

“Right, like you’re going to do it while she can still walk,” Door criticized from his cell.

Andrew could tell the woman was upset at his statement, so he tried to explain. “No, no, no. I didn’t mean I’d kill you right away. Murder all willy-nilly is so not my thing. I promise it will be totally fun, and then, in the end, super peaceful.”

He took great pride in that. Both the fun part and the peaceful part.

“Actually, my specialty is taking people in their sleep.”

“Sicko!” the woman announced, and pushed him back.

Well, that was just rude.

* * *

Back’s body was pressed against the bars. If ever there was a time when a human could walk through matter, now would be a great time. Now that Andrew and the chick were finally entertaining.

The woman slapped Andrew hard across the face.

“Ouch!” Andrew said. “That was completely uncalled for.”

Andrew then slapped the bitch back, which then descended into a slapping fight. Leave it up to Andrew to be so girly. Next up should be hair pulling—by Andrew.

“Jesus Christ,” Back yelled. “Backhand the bitch! Punch her in the fucking teeth!”

Andrew just kept slapping, though. “She’s got deceptively strong upper body strength!”

That was no excuse.

“Two,” the chime announced. Soon, very soon, Back would show Andrew how a man acted.

Evie slapped again, and this time a fingernail scratched Andrew’s neck.

“No!” Back yelled. “That should be
me
!”

Andrew dabbed the blood at his neck. “Jeez, you didn’t have to hurt me.”

“Please, please, just leave me alone.”

Oh, that was not going to happen. Adrenaline surged through Back’s body. He wanted to see her in pain. He hadn’t always been like this. As a matter of fact, he could point to the exact moment when he’d become like this.

He’d just been an average teenage boy, whacking off in his room, when his foster mom found him. He’d been bumped from that home, and worse, he’d gotten a “SAY” designation. An acronym that had announced he was a Sexually Aggressive Youth. Which meant he got put into an SAY group home, where the older, bigger boys who were actually SAYs had their way with him.

From there on out, for some funny reason, Back didn’t give a shit about anyone else’s feelings. He only cared what felt good to him. And him being the aggressor worked just fine for him.

“One,” the chime announced. Oh, so close, he could taste what her sweat tasted like.

Andrew, however, was still trying to reason with the bitch. “The last time we had a woman? It took Igor over a week to clean up.” He pointed to the dirt floor. “Intestines leak into the cracks and don’t come out very easily.”

“Bingo!” the chime finally announced as the sound of locks springing open filled the room. The woman screamed as Back leaped from his cell.

Andrew tried to block him. “Finders keepers!”

He backhanded the teen. “Come here, bitch!”

For a big hick, Clyde was pretty damned quick out of his cell. Door wasn’t half bad, either. But he got to Andrew first, jerking the woman from his grip.

“No fair!” the teen squealed.

“I get the top half!” Clyde yelled as he grabbed the woman’s other arm.

Papa was wailing on both of them. “Leave her alone!”

Esau was in the mix, biting Papa in the arm, but the old man was no slouch and elbowed Esau in the nose. Blood gushed. Back grabbed the woman around the waist and pulled her to him. He nuzzled his nose into her hair. She smelled like spring. Like the season it was when he was first abducted and locked away here. How many years had it been? Two? Three? You kind of lost track.

“You’re going to get very, very, very familiar with the meaning of the word excruciating, whore.”

The woman struggled in his arm, but Back was not about to let go of his prize. He dragged her deeper into the cells. Finally, the other men started to retreat.

“See that?” Back demanded. “I rule.
I
am God here.”

The woman lashed out and dug her fingernail into his cheek.

“That’s more like it!” he yelled, just before he punched her. Her head snapped around. She slipped from his grip and stumbled forward. The other men didn’t even attempt to claim her. That’s right, Back was that powerful.

Then he realized that the bitch had fallen into Darion’s cell. Even Back didn’t want to go into
that
cell.

“Get out of there!” Papa screeched behind him.

Was today the day he was going to challenge Darion? Finally take the prick down a peg or two?

* * *

Darion had watched the scenario play itself out. It was quite predictable. Even the slap fight. Back looked like he was trying to screw up the courage to finally do something about all that seething rage he had against him.

The woman’s eyes had dilated to saucers.

“Don’t worry,” Darion said, trying to reassure her. “I only kill
men
.”

The woman stood up, eying first Darion, then Back, then the men lined up behind Back. Not many options there.

“Why?” she asked.

“You’re called the weaker sex for a reason.”

“And he thinks rape is fucking beneath him,” Back added. Always so helpful.

The woman shook her head though. “No, I meant
why
?” she indicated to the dungeon around her.

“Puta, you haven’t figured it out yet?” Back sneered behind her, although the woman’s eyes never left Darion.

Darion felt a slow smile turn his lips up. “Why? Because we’re all serial killers.”

CHAPTER 4

Jake continued playing his game. Okay, not so much playing as getting his ass kicked. The damn thing was rated for 13 and up, and he couldn’t get past the seventh level. What did that say about him?

Finally, though, he had some nonjudgmental peace and quiet. The janitor was long gone, taking his mop and condemnation with him.

Then the sound of the bullpen’s door opening crushed his plans for an all-nighter.

“Detective Braut?” a woman’s voice asked. He glanced up to find an older redheaded woman who kept herself put together entering the bullpen and heading toward his desk.

“Only if you can tell me how to get past the ugly-ass monster on level seven.”

The woman cleared her throat as she approached. “I think something’s happened to my friend,” she squeaked out.

“So far, fireballs have been ineffective, and shock arrows are downright useless.”

The woman, however, was turning out to be less than useful.

“Um, Missing Persons can’t take a formal report for forty-eight hours, but Marion said that I might try you.”

Of course Marion did. That sneaky chick. Guess he wouldn’t be hanging up on her anytime in the future.

“And hand-to-hand combat?” Jake continued. “Against an eight-legged scimitar wielding beast? Not very likely.”

* * *

Suddenly, Nancy worried that she was in the wrong place.

“I’m sorry, but you
are
Detective Braut, correct?”

The detective apparently lost whatever battle he was waging on his phone and finally looked up at her. It wasn’t until then that she realized he was bald. Attractive, with deep brown eyes and a playful tug at his lip, but bald. Not that she had anything against that. Patrick Stewart was always a turn-on.

“That’s what the badge says,” the detective said as he rotated his thumb around. “You’ve got until my thumb cramp goes away to convince me that I should care about your friend and her possible predicament.”

Nancy took a deep breath. She somehow thought this would be easier than it was.

“Evie...” It was hard to speak her name. Nancy felt so guilty. What had she been thinking, going off with Phoebe and Cassidy? She should have walked her friend home. “Evie’s new to town and, well… shy. I think the idea of heading over to Dietrich’s—”

The detective interrupted and, for the first time, seemed interested in her story. “For appletinis?”

Nancy took another step closer. The detective did not rise—however, he did keep rotating that thumb, so she did have a little more time.

“Um, yes, she left, and we were hailing a cab and I turned my back for a second…” The detective’s eyes glazed over again. Nancy didn’t have much time, so she hurried on. “I caught something out of the corner of my eye.” That didn’t seem to pique his interest either, and his thumb was slowing, so she rushed. “And I haven’t been able to reach her. I even went by her place, but she’s not answering.”

Finally, the detective put down his phone. “Okay, did you consider that she didn’t want to be disturbed? Say, because she was having sex?”

Nancy shook her head. “She doesn’t have a boyfriend.”

“That doesn’t rule out having sex, my dear. Self-service? Girl-on-girl—”

Nancy put up a hand to stop his line of thought.

“Look, you don’t know her like I do.” She reached down and touched his wrist. “Something
awful
has happened to her.”

The detective breathed out heavily. “Okay, fine. After you say this ’something awful’ incident, you went to investigate and…”

* * *

“Well, um…” the woman sputtered, and even though his thumb was feeling pretty good about now, he let her finish. “The taxi pulled up, and…”

Jake looked askance at the woman. “Okay, so let me get this straight,” he demanded. “You think ‘something awful’ happened, yet you didn’t bother to check it out, and now—” Jake checked his watch. It was after eleven pm. “What time did you say this ‘something awful’ happened to her?”

“Eight forty-five,” the woman reported.

“Oh right, so now, three hours and fourteen minutes later, you expect me to get off of my butt,” Jake took in a breath, “right when, I might mention, it is supposed to start raining, and you want me to go out into the storm and check on your friend’s safety? Now that’s what I call concern.”

The woman bowed her head as Jake picked up his phone again. “I’m sorry. You’re right. If she doesn’t show up for work on Monday, I’ll contact Missing Persons.”

Finally, she was out of his hair. Now back to the game. “Maybe Icicle Rampage will take him out.”

His eyes flickered to the woman’s back. She didn’t seem like an alarmist or a crazy person, saying that her friend was missing just for the attention. How he almost wished she was. No, that had been real concern on Nancy’s face.

“Fine!” Jake called out, just as she was about to walk out of the bullpen. “You can quit nagging me, already.”

Nancy stopped and slowly turned around.

“You’re going to help me?’

Jake just nodded to his desk. “Give me her contact information and this ’something awful’ location, and I’ll look into it.” He paused for just a moment to clarify his position. “
After
I beat this level.”

She rushed back to his desk and scribbled down several numbers and addresses. Nancy offered it to him, but he was too busy playing to take it. Finally, she pressed the sticky part of the note onto his blotter, took off a red scarf around her neck, and laid it on top of the note.

“Thank you—and this is her scarf, in case it might help.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jake said. Once you gave these people an inch, they took a mile.

Finally, the chick got the hint and left, just as Jake lost again to the damned monster.

“Or maybe the beast has titanium armor with magical resistance to cold.”

That was it. Jake was tapped out. He didn’t have any other weapon to go up against the beast.

As he let that failure sink in, Jake looked to the note. The address wasn’t that far away, and looking out the window, it hadn’t started to rain yet.

* * *

Darion lounged back on his cot, his back against the wall, doing his best James Dean impression. He couldn’t show fear. Let him repeat, he couldn’t show
any
fear. Not with that lot just outside his cell. Right now, it was seven to one. He couldn’t let even a single bead of sweat form on his brow.