HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (59 page)

Despite the fact he
was a medical doctor, he was not a surgeon. He couldn't fathom how
anyone without knowledge of animal anatomy could perform such
delicate surgery in the middle of an open field. Or why they'd want
to. People who perpetuated hoaxes had never made sense to him.

Alan shivered,
though the night was warm. He saw some cows in the distance, like
black dots at the horizon in the fields behind the fences. God, he
was glad he was not a cow. Eating grass and waiting for something to
descend upon them to surgically and cleanly remove most of their
blood and vitals. Or if not that, the slaughterhouse.

He walked another
mile, keeping far back from the old man, always alert and ready to
fall down into the high grass of the ditch if he thought the old guy
might look behind him. Not far ahead he saw lights illuminating a
house. A very large house, tall in the middle and long on both sides.
There were small domed pathway lights along a gravel path leading up
to the massive doors.

That's where the
old man was headed. He was not crazy, he was just being careful. Alan
watched him near the house, and then enter it after a moment or two
at the door.

Going up the gravel
driveway was out of the question. It would be like turning on a
foghorn to announce his presence. Instead, Alan walked on the thick
lush lawn, now wet with dew, skirting the front and approaching the
windows from an oblique angle.

When he got to the
wide, leaded-glass picture window on one side of the door, he crept
close and peered inside. He saw two women in bathing suits, sitting
on a sofa together. They weren't talking. They weren't doing
anything, but sitting, looking kind of spaced out. Drugged? He
couldn't really tell, but it sure looked that way to him.

To the right of
them, he saw the old man talking to a younger man dressed in bathing
trunks. There was something about this man that gave Alan the
willies. He was handsome and fit, very tall and broad in the
shoulders, but there was an unmovable cruel expression on his face
that could make you go jelly-kneed. Alan couldn't make out what the
two of them were saying.

He looked around
and found a thick stand of cypress near the corner of the house,
close to the window, and stepped behind them. He was just in time.
The door opened again and the old man stepped out. He heard the
younger man call to his back, "Are you sure you won't have a
taste of my lovelies before you go? When was the last time you had a
warm meal?"

Taste of his
lovelies? The girls inside? Taste them, as one would a . . . a . . .
meal?

Alan cringed,
knowing without doubt that the man meant exactly what he said. He
wasn't talking about tasting them sexually or he wouldn't have added
the stuff about a meal. Jesus, were they cannibals? This was too
bizarre for words.

The old man made
some reply, then stalked off into the night, back down the road
toward Dallas. Alan watched him go and heard the younger man close
the door. He stood up, watching and waiting. As he tried to decide
when he could leave his cover and follow, he saw the old man
disappear into the night. Alan stepped out from behind the cypress
trees and took a step forward. He stopped, staring hard at where the
old man had been walking, sure he had made a mistake. It was a trick
of the night, the lack of light along the highway, the utter
isolation of this place. It was because he was tired and felt dumb
for playing at detective work. Surely a person could not just vanish.

He began to walk
toward the highway, searching everywhere, hoping for a glimpse of the
old man. Maybe he had suffered a spell or seizure and fallen down so
quickly Alan hadn't seen it happen.

When he neared the
spot where he had last seen the man, he looked around on the
pavement, in the ditch, even over the fence and into the pastures.
The old man had simply vanished, all right. He was nowhere. There
were no hills, no obstructions, no place where he could have hidden
himself. He was just gone.

Just then Alan
heard screams from the house and he turned, hunching his shoulders.
He hurried back to the cypress trees near the window. The man inside
had drawn the curtains, but Alan could see through a slit into the
lighted interior.

The screams were
from the women he'd seen on the sofa, and they were unending. The
screams rose from the house and into the night like sirens at full
blast. Peering through the slit, Alan saw what was occurring, but his
mind could not comprehend the scene. He fell back, putting both hands
over his eyes, his lips tight and teeth gritted. He lowered his hands
to look again.

The man had
straddled one of the women, bending her back over an ottoman. He held
her arms down with one hand and her head down with the other. She was
screaming piteously. The man had torn flesh from her throat with his
teeth. A gout of blood gushed from the wound, covering the ottoman
and the tiled floor. The man chewed the flesh as one would a mouthful
of steak.

The other woman
seemed to have come out of the trance she had been in and was
standing, screaming, beating at the mart's back with her fists to try
to stop him.

As Alan watched,
sickened and stupefied, the man whipped around, dropping the wounded
woman onto the ottoman where she slipped limply and unconsciously to
the floor. He grabbed the other woman who had been fighting against
him, bent her over his knees, held one arm against her forehead so as
to bare her throat, and then he leaned down and bit at her savagely.

She screamed until
the scream changed to a strangled gurgling.

Alan turned from
the window, stumbled back, and vomited into the grass. His dinner at
Landry's Seafood Restaurant came up, all of it, and the beer mixed
with it. He retched dryly, stumbling farther and farther from the
house and into the darkness. He hurried to the road that would lead
him away from the bloody massacre, afraid to look behind him.

17

Dell rode Lightning
as fast as she dared, crossing a ravine in the darkness, past low
hanging limbs that whipped past her face, around and through stands
of cottonwoods and pine and soaring oaks. Something had entered her,
and she was trying to get it out again. It was the memory of the dark
wood where the moon shone blood red and the giant Predator, king of
them all, swooped down toward her from out of the crimson sky like a
monstrous prehistoric dinosaur with wings.

It felt as if The
Maker was here again, coming for her in the night as she rode the
horse. She raced from him, flying as fast as she could, as fast as
the horse could be made to run. "Go, Lightning!" she
yelled, swatting at his flanks with her reins, leaning forward so
that she was as close to him as possible. Branches pummeled her back
and whipped across her lowered head.

"Hurry,
Lightning, hurry!"

The remembered
dream that was now so real had come on her in a flash. She'd just
been trotting along in the darkness, thinking about Ryan and Lori at
the Loden party. She thought she had done the right thing showing up
and confronting them, but she couldn't seem to get rid of the anger.
She knew where it originated. Ryan was with someone else. He should
be with her. He had to be with her.

Maybe she should
have stayed home and talked it out with Carolyn. Or maybe she could
have visited Cheyenne and asked for advice. Instead, she'd come here
on her own, and now the memories raged through her unsettled mind.

When she had first
saddled Lightning and taken him out along the riding path, it was
delicious to know she had slipped away from everyone, taken the car
to Loden's party and then to the stables. After leaving the party,
spending time alone was what she needed most.

She had never
disobeyed her parents before or done anything remotely rebellious.
Her conscience gave her a twinge when she thought they might be
wondering where she'd gone.

But now that she'd
done what she pleased, she realized how much fun it was to feel like
a runaway, a brat, an unbridled spirit who had no master. She could
say anything to anyone; she could ride in the night like a blithe
spirit.

She glanced up once
at the moon risen partway into the sky, and saw that it was a full
milky orb surrounded with a halo of silver. Without warning the dream
came on her, returned to reality. The tremendous fear it had
instilled in her very soul when she lay dying returned full force.
Suddenly it burned in her mind with clarity and emotion. All thoughts
of Ryan and Lori left her. Fear was at her back, lifting a clawed
hand to capture her brain.

She had kicked
Lightning to send him off on a marathon race, plunging through the
thickets and woods as if the very hounds of hell were on their heels.

Now that they were
spinning out of control, she didn't want to stop it, wanted, in fact,
to run the horse until he could run no more, lose her way without any
thought as to how she might get back.

The monster was at
her back, and she would outrun him. Together, with the help of her
marvelous steed, they would show him that he could not have her,
never. Never would he have her!

When they reached a
shallow creek running silver in the moonlight, Lightning dashed
across it, sending sprays of water to each side. Laughter erupted
from Dell and fell around her like diamond droplets, filling her with
so much pleasure at her escape that she thought she might burst.
Beyond the creek lay an open field where she could push Lightning
flat out and no one could catch her. She would ride across it and
into another world, ride over the horizon and into oblivion.

Then she saw him
appear. Mentor. He stood ahead of her, straight in the path. She
hauled back on Lightning's reins, trying to halt him before he ran
down her only friend. Lightning was responsive, but not quick enough
to avoid a collision. The two of them, girl and horse, ran through
Mentor as if he were a ghost.

Dell turned the
horse, got him under control, and trotted back to where Mentor waited
patiently, none the worse for being run through.

"What's gotten
into you?" His voice was stern.

"I'm . . . I'm
sorry, Mentor. I didn't see you in time." She was wet with
bloody sweat, her hair hanging in dark damp strands around her face.
The horse was breathing heavily, foam dropping in huge globs from his
mouth. He lifted his head, hoping to take off again on a run,
prancing yet, unable to still himself.

Mentor walked
closer and put his hand on the horse's nostrils. Immediately
Lightning settled and hung his head as if full of patience now, eager
to please the old man.

It was as if Mentor
had touched her, too. She could not remember why she had been racing
the poor horse and why it was so important to treat him that way. She
remembered being upset over Ryan, but she didn't know when that had
turned into a nightmare about the giant Predator. She slid off the
saddle, holding onto the reins, and stood shakily. It was as if all
the bones below her waist had liquefied. She held onto the stirrup to
keep from falling on her face.

"I don't know
what happened," she said, "I was riding, just riding along
slowly, and then . . . I thought . . . Oh, Mentor, what's wrong with
me?"

He came to her aid
and helped her sit on the ground. He took the reins and patted the
horse's neck, calming him further. "You can't do this," he
said.

"I know! I
didn't mean to. Something came over me and I . . . I . . . got
scared."

"You shouldn't
have left your house. Your family is worried sick about you. They
asked me to find you and bring you home."

She looked up at
him guiltily. "I didn't think it would matter. I wanted to be
alone with Lightning. He's my . . . my friend."

"I'm your
friend, too, Dell. And I'm telling you that you can't go off on a
whim. You can't give in to whatever urge strikes you. It's dangerous.
It's what Predators do. Dell, do you hear me? You're treading down
the wrong path. It could lead to your destruction."

"I'm sorry,
Mentor." She wiped sweat from her face and then dried the bloody
dampness on her jeans. She was as tired as she'd ever been and
wondered if she could even stand up. She was hungry, too, her veins
screaming for blood.

What might have
happened if Mentor hadn't found her? How far might she have gone; to
what lengths might she have driven her animal in order to escape a
phantom?

"You could
have killed the horse," he answered her thought. "You might
have run him until he died."

"No!" She
struggled to her feet and reached out for Lightning. She fell against
him, her head against his side, and put an arm over his back. "I’d
never hurt him."