Fresh Flesh (22 page)

"Why are you doing this? Please, don't."

He had her wrists tied, spread eagle, one to
each pole, and was working on the legs.

"Why are you doing this?"

He fastened her right leg first, then left,
leaving the knots so tight the rope burned her flesh.

"WHY—"

"Be quiet," Kyle said at last, and came from
behind her and peered into her face.

For the first time she saw what Kyle Roberts
looked like and gasped.

His face looked burned. Huge zits waited to
be popped on a face so pale a red it was almost violet. His eyes
lay beneath two of the bigger bubbles (acne? warts?) darkly green,
depthless eyes. His nose was all wrong, barely a visible lump
beneath the outlandish, bubbling flesh. A couple of black scabs
marked each cheek like Wrangler brandings on a pair of jeans. His
mouth was completely toothless and his breath was foul.

"Welcome, my name is Kyle Roberts. What's
yours?"

"J—Jessica."

"Nice to meet you, Jessica. You've been here
awhile it seems and, no thanks to Richie, haven't stopped by. What
do you think of my home?"

"Please let me go, I don't belong here."

"Now, now. If you didn't belong here," he ran
a finger up and down her cheek, "then you wouldn't be here right
now."

She spit in his face.

He slapped her.

"I don't care how you acted on Richie's side
of the island. But now that you are over here, you'll learn that
there is a proper way to behave. You will learn real fast to
respect me. Understand?"

Her eyes widened.

Kyle Roberts walked over to the fire and
removed a torch. He turned and waved the torch in front of her, the
hot dancing flames reaching close enough to sting her flesh.

"Now there are some basic rules over here for
you to learn. Rule number one: there is no escape. Rule number two:
you serve at my pleasure."

You serve at my pleasure.

"Look, maybe we can work something out."

"I'm sure over time we will work a lot of
things out. You women are all the same. You want to try and do
things for us. As if doing anything for us changes what you do
to
us. We are the hunters, Jessica and you are nothing but
tagging along and getting in the way."

"Richard taught me to take care of myself on
this island."

"Richie taught you how to get caught. If you
had been over here you would never have been caught so easily. I
guess you washed on the wrong shore."

"Please, don't."

"Oh, I will do everything you're thinking and
more. No wonder Richie so greatly appreciates your company. It's
really too bad, he'll never have it again."

She struggled against the ropes.

"Actually, he will have your company again.
You see, my pretty one, of all the things Richie being predictable
stands at the top of the pile. He will try to come here and rescue
you."

She couldn't stop herself from speaking her
thoughts. "You make me ill."

He didn't slap her this time.

He brought the torch up to her bare leg and
burned her instead.

The white-hot sensation struck pain centers
in her brain. She flashed back on a time when she'd touched the
stove burner when it was bright red, burning small round welts on
her palm. The pain had been bad before, but the pain of fire, a
raging yellow-red flame on the flesh of her calf stung worse.

Roberts held the torch on her calf long
enough to bring several sand-dollar blisters. He smiled satisfied,
and withdrew the torch.

"I don't want to hurt you," Roberts lied,
"but if you insist upon having outbursts like that. . ."

The thirteen college girls
, she
remembered Richard telling her that he killed, cut them into tiny
pieces and burned or scattered them in the woods.

"I can see from the look in your eyes, you
know I speak the truth." He moved forward and—with the hand not
holding the torch squeezed her breasts with cold sensitivity.

"Nice tits."

"Bastard," she murmured.

"Pardon me?" He stopped squeezing and twisted
instead. The pain from his grip replaced the recurrent stinging of
her burned calf.

"Please don't do this."

He stopped hurting her. She breathed once
again as the pain in her breasts dissipated, only to reignite the
pain in her calf. The pain which seemed to diffuse, up to her
knee.

Butchered. HE BUTCHERED THEM.

At that moment, two men came to the camp a
large, husky man with a beard, and a thin-figured man with black,
greasy hair, and a gruesome, poked-out eye.

"All taken care off," the husky man said

"Nice work," Roberts handed the torch to the
man with one-eye. He cupped his hands as if he were making a
snowball.

Or was maybe nervous?
Nervous that
Richard wasn't as predictable as Roberts believed?

Jessica wouldn't describe Richard as
predictable. And then she remembered Richard saying he had
something to show her. She hoped it was something that would help
him rescue her.

Don't let that be another lie, Richard.

Roberts told the two men something she
couldn't quite hear, but recognized the tone as being an order of
some kind. They went away into the dark night, and once again
Roberts and she were alone.

"Oh how rude of me, Jessica. I didn't
introduce you to Donald Walkins and our recently one-eyed friend,
Seth Everson. Mr. Walkins had to put out that eye when Seth crossed
me. You see, crossing me is a bad, bad thing."

He showed Jessica an odd, toothless smile. He
put his index finger—

(Dozens of tiny black bugs crawled through
their masters fingertips, crawled down her shirt, crawled over and
under and down her breasts.)

—on her neck. He caressed it without
affection or love. More like appreciation.

"I won't hurt you," he lied again, and then
he expanded the lie: "I will never hurt you." She wondered if
that's what he told those thirteen college girls.

She tried to look away, but he forced her to
gaze at him. "Maybe I should tell you about a girl who wore a
butterfly scarf? You remind me a little bit of Stacy."

The fire crackled, pleased.

In the bushes near Robert's camp, Walkins saw
a ghost.

"Randy? Man, you're back?"

"Yep, Walker."

Randy never could get his name right, it was
Walk
ins
, not Walker. "And I haven't changed a bit,
either."

Don Walkins nodded. Randy and he had once
been best friends, until a tragic motorcycle accident peeled most
the skin from his body. Randy died in Walkins' arms moaning,
whimpering and hallucinating at the end. And the last time Walkins
had seen him, the night of the shootout, he'd looked the same way:
a lobster-like monstrosity with bright white eyes.

"Jesus, man, shouldn't you be somewhere
else?"

"Is that how you greet a friend? Hey, I had
to walk through hell to get here."

Walkins wondered if a pun was intended. "Fuck
no! It's great seeing you, man. What do you think of this
place?"

"Bummer. But that chick? Wow, good
stuff."

"Yeah, but she's," Walkins couldn't face his
friend, "not mine."

"Hey, are you getting pussified on me, again?
I came to tell you something: it's time."

"Again?"

"You don't have to be so brutal this
time."

"Who?"

"You know
who
, dummy."

Walkins did. "He really is some kind of
bastard."

"That, he is." Randy nodded, scratching a
piece of meat near his chin. It fell off, landed somewhere in the
dirt and vanished before both of their eyes.

"Randy, man, I'm not crazy, am I? I mean, I'm
not cracking up, right?"

"No way."

"Good. For a second, I was worried."

"I guess I better be going," Randy said, "but
do me a little favor, will ya?"

"Sure, anything."

"Bang that chick for me. That ass of hers. .
.ow! Ow! Good stuff."

Randy disappeared.

Walkins stood staring, his torch brightly
illuminating the dark ravine. Would he ever see Randy again?

He hoped someday he would.

Walkins unsheathed his knife.

For eight long years he'd taken orders, taken
lives and taken shit he didn't believe in.

It was his turn to take something.

I'll be waiting for you.

Richard jolted awake. Beside him lay the
knife that had carved a hole in his leg. The pain was dull and
aching but he could suffer through it.

He had to get to the east side of the island.
Jessica was in trouble and he didn't want to think how long it
would take for Kyle Roberts to violate her in ways she never even
imagined.

He struggled to his feet, trying to ignore
the pain. He reached down and grabbed the knife.

"I'm coming, Jessica," he said several times
while Kyle Roberts' cold voice replied.

Waiting for you
.

"Don't touch her, you bastard."

Richard hobbled toward the camp as fast as
his injured leg would allow.

"I'd like to play a game, Jessica." Kyle
said, approaching and winking his left eye. "I think you've
realized by now that I enjoy sports."

Thirteen college girls
.

"What I have in mind doesn't involve your
mind. Are you curious?"

"N—No." She shuddered.

"Oh, that was absolutely perfect! That's the
word I want you to moan for me."

"J—Just let me go. Why can't Richard and I
stay on the other side of the island and you can keep your—"

"He had his side of the island," Roberts
snapped, "and when he came upon you, my pretty one, he didn't
share."

"Maybe because he understands I'm not a
slave, I'm not property."

"All these years I've shared this island with
him." Kyle reached out and grabbed her neck.

"Y—You said you wouldn't hurt me."

"All these years he wouldn't be part of our
group." His grip tightened.

"Please—let—me—go."

"I've waited for . . ."

"Don't—please—choking—don't—"

He let go of her neck. "Yes, my pretty one.
It's time to play together."

She tried to distract him by being
hysterical: "Please, I never asked to come here—"

"No," he whispered and began to stroke her
legs, spread before him. He grabbed her neck again. The rage in his
eyes was replaced with wanton lust. "But a pretty woman like you
asks for this. . ."

Her eyes involuntarily slid down to his
swelling erection. She shuddered.

He reached with cold hands up her red blouse
and up her thigh.

Up—up—up!

He touched her vagina and smiled.

"Dry," he said, still whispering.

Jessica saw the savage look in Kyle's eyes
that had been in Bobby's. A look which conveyed the lack of sex for
years. A serial rapist's sexual hunger.

She remembered reading stories of how he'd
raped the college girls before killing them. And the story of the
one young woman, Amanda Worley, who escaped being killed but not
being raped. None of Roberts' female victims escaped being
raped.

"Dry," he said again, playing with her
vaginal lips. Thrusting his finger up inside her with rough,
awkward motions. He played inside her with two, three and four
fingers.

The nausea rose in her throat. She couldn't
hold it back this time. But she didn't retch, she begged him to
stop.

"
Dry
," he said again and again with a
chilling tone.
Dry.
But her insides weren't dry, not
anymore, they were starting to moisten. She thought of pissing
herself if he raped her. She thought of his fingers as the heads of
serpents probing inside her.

He withdrew his fingers, smiling sensually.
He guided his penis, maneuvered it in place and started thrusting
inside her.

"Please, no, stop, no, stop. . ."

His eyes rolled back in his head. After a few
short thrusts he came.

"Couldn't wait. Too good my pretty one. Too
good. "

"No. . ." Jessica said, sobbing.

"Enough!" someone yelled.

"Stop, goddammit."

Richard?
She hoped, turning to see who
was there.

Not Richard.

He thought for sure it was Templin but it was
not.
The problem child
.

"Can't you follow fucking orders?" Kyle
shouted, marching toward Walkins who stood rigid ten feet away. "I
told you to leave us alone."

"No, Kyle. It's my turn." Walkins voice was
cold, foreboding. Roberts kept marching closer until he saw the
glint of Walkins knife.

"I've had enough of your bullshit orders,"
Walkins said. "Come any closer, Kyle, and I'll cut you."

Problem child
, Kyle's mind reeled,
PROBLEM PROBLEM PROBLEM CHILD
.

"I can see you ain't listening to me. Doesn't
matter because I ain't taking your BS orders any more. I'm going to
be giving them from now on."

"So, this is your big stand, little man?"

"I'm not like the rest, Kyle. I know who I
am, where I've been sent and who you are. I'm Don Walkins from
Detroit, and you best know that I could carve you up inside of five
seconds, and will, if you step one more inch towards me."

"If you're not like the others then you know
what happened to those who tried me, don't you?"

"I should have done what Templin did and gone
solo. I didn't belong in this camp any more than him. Or maybe have
teamed with the Mexicans, they had the right idea too."

"I'm going to give you thirty seconds—"

"You ain't giving me shit, Kyle! I ain't
playing fucking games!"

PROBLEM CHILD PROBLEM CHILD PROBLEM CHILD
PROBLEM—