Hunted Past Reason (35 page)

"No,
don't
!" she begged. "All right, all right."

Doug let go of Bob's hair with a thin smile. "Isn't she accommodating, Bobby?" He looked at Bob with hooded eyes. "Didn't want to kill you anyway. Want you to
watch
. Watch me shove my cock right up into her hot cunt.
N'est-çe pas?
" he added, laughing at his humor.

Bob couldn't speak. If only he could attack Doug, golak or no golak. But he was still dazed and weak. He considered standing quickly, and trying to hit Doug with the chair but knew it wouldn't work, Doug would be too fast, able to sidestep easily. Then what? Hack open Bob's throat right away? He shook his head involuntarily. He had to wait for a better chance. He couldn't leave Marian alone with Doug.

Doug had placed another of the kitchen chairs facing the one he was in, putting it next to the table. He lay the golak on the table and unbuckling his trousers, dropped them to the floor, then dropped his underpants. "Ooh, lookie, Marian. He's getting hard already, dying to get buried in your sultry snatch, Hey, that's like poetry, aren't you impressed?"

Marian had only taken off her jeans and unbuttoned her blouse.

"Goddamn it, I said
strip
!" Doug told her savagely. "I want you naked, understand. Completely
naked
."

Marian looked over at Bob with a pleading expression.

"Marian, he's going to kill me anyway, don't let him do this to you," he said.

"Goddamn it, I am going to cut your fucking throat right now!" Doug said, infuriated.

"No!" she cried. "I'll strip."

Doug grinned at her, teeth bared. "Now that's a good girl. Do it fast. I want to see all of you."

Moving quickly, Marian removed her blouse and dropped it to the floor. Reaching back, she unhooked her brassiere and dropped it beside the blouse. Doug groaned. "
Look
at those luscious tits," he said. "Why couldn't Nicole have had a pair like that? I'm going to suck them dry."

"Doug, goddamn it,
please don't do this
!" Bob cried out in anguish.

"Don't
do
it? Are you crazy, man? I'm going to do it 'til she screams."

Marian took off her pants and dropped them. "Nice and
bushy
," Doug said. His face grew suddenly angry. "The fucking shoes and socks, I said
naked
!" he told her.

Bending over, she quickly untied the laces of her Reeboks and pushed them off, pulled at her socks. "Ooh, ooh, ooh, look at that ass," Doug said, staring at her. "That comes second."

Marian stood on the floor, immobile, shivering. Bob closed his eyes, then opened them again. He couldn't watch this. But he had to.
No
. He
couldn't
.

"Open your eyes, Bobby boy," Doug told him. "This show is for you."

"Oh,
God
, but I despise you," Bob said, through clenching teeth.

"
Oh
, dear, dear, dear. How
un
spiritual. I thought you loved all mankind."

Despite his semiconscious condition Bob tried to stand, his face a mask of hatred.

"Wouldn't
do
that, Bobby boy," Doug warned. "Unless you want to see the golak sticking out through Marian's chest."

Bob sank down on the chair, shaking his head, struggling to regain consciousness. I can't let this happen, he thought.
I have to stop it
.

Doug sat down on the other kitchen chair and shook off the logs of his trousers. Leaning back, he spread his legs apart.

"Come sit on Daddy's lap now, little girl," Doug told her. "Don't straddle me, sit with your back to me, I want hubby to see you getting fucked by a
real
man, not some pussy who keeps babbling about afterlife and reincarnation and all that stupid shit."

Marian avoided Bob's eyes, her expression one of agonized shame.

"That's it, sit on Daddy's cock. A little more. A little more. Ooh, your wife is all wet, Bobby boy," he said mockingly. "She's just dying to—"

Abruptly Marian lurched back, knocking Doug off balance so the chair began to fall. Before it hit the floor, Marian was on her feet, grabbing for the golak.

With a snarl of rage, Doug twisted around to get up. By then, Marian had the handle of the golak gripped in her right hand. She slashed down violently at Doug's back, in her desperate rage only managing to hit the edge of his left shoulder. Doug cried out in astonished pain.

Marian tried to pull the golak loose, but the blade was stuck in Doug's shoulder. She looked around with a groan of desperation, then suddenly rushed toward the front door. Bob's mouth fell open. "Marian," he called, unable to believe that she was leaving him. He struggled to his feet, an incredulous look on his face.

Doug was stumbling around the room now, making sounds of animal pain, trying to reach the golak. Every time he turned Bob saw blood running down his back.
If he gets the golak . . .
he thought, still stunned by Marian's deserting him.

On shaking legs, he hobbled toward the cupboard to get the carving knife, but Doug's stumbling lurches blocked his way and, turning, Bob weaved over to the shotgun and, falling to his knees, picked it up.

"Now,"
he heard Doug say in a hoarse, choking voice.

Jerking around, Bob saw Doug moving at him slowly, obviously only half conscious but fiercely determined, the golak gripped tightly in his right hand. The end of the blade was dripping his blood. Bob extended the shotgun to defend himself.

"You go first," Doug muttered groggily. "I am going to cut your fucking head off." He was breathing hard, eyes going in and out of focus. "Then your bitch wife. I am going to jam this golak up her cunt so far it'll come out her mouth. Get ready to get butchered, you son of a bitch."

He raised his arm, wincing at the pain in his shoulder, and slashed the golak down at Bob. Throwing up the shotgun barrel, Bob was able to block the downward slash, grunting at the impact.

"Wanna duel, huh?" Doug muttered, teeth clenched with pain. He swung the golak sideways and Bob just managed to twist the shotgun barrel down to deflect the golak blade.

"Might as well give up, you motherfucker," Doug gasped. With shaking hands, he gripped the golak with both of them and started to raise it for another blow.

They both jerked around as Marian came running back inside.

"All right, you die first then," Doug told her, barely able to speak now. He staggered around.

"Wrong,"
she said, gasping for breath.

Bob hadn't noticed what she carried. Suddenly she raised the flare and pulled its cord, igniting it. Lunging forward, she held it up to Doug's face. He screamed in pain and lurched back, throwing up his arms to protect his face, the golak flying from his hand.

A look of remorseless fury on her face, Marian kept moving at him, pointing the hot white sparking of the flare at his face. Doug screamed again, then, tripping over the fallen chair, toppled backward, landing hard.

Marian held the flare pointed at his chest as he twisted and writhed on the floor, shrieking with pain.

Bob shifted the shotgun around so that he held the barrel in his hands. He swung at Doug's head as hard as he could. The shotgun's butt end struck Doug's temple squarely and he crumpled to the floor. With a crazed sound, Bob snatched up the golak to kill him.

Marian shouted his name and he looked at her, his expression maddened.

"You're not like him!"
she cried.

He stared at her in silence, breathing hard. Then, exhaustedly, he placed the golak on the table. She ran to him and he held her tightly, eyes shut. "God," he murmured. "Oh, dear God."

6:29 PM

Bob had almost finished lashing him to the bars on the Bronco roof when Doug's eyelids fluttered. As Bob tightened the final knot, Doug stared at him. "What do you think you're doing?" he muttered, his expression distorted by pain, his face and chest burned by the flare. Bob had tied him naked to the roof, his right shoulder bandaged tightly.

"I don't
think
, I
know
," Bob told him. "Hunters tie their trophies to their car roofs, don't they? You're my trophy and I'm carrying you away from here. I doubt if we'll get very far before a sheriff's car stops us. But far enough to satisfy me."

Doug twisted on the rooftop. "Cut me loose, you bastard. Or
kill
me. You're entitled. I raped you and almost raped Marian, I killed that hunter. I deserve to die. Send me to the hell you're sure I'm going to."

"No," Bob answered. "You have debts to pay on this side first. Later on, you'll pay a second time."

Doug replied through gritted teeth. "If they don't execute me, Bobby boy," he said, "I'll get out somehow and kill you. You'd better
hope
they execute me because the next time—"

He broke off with a grunt of pain as Bob clutched at his hair and banged his head down on the Bronco top. "If there's a next time," he said, "I may not be able to stop myself from killing you."

"What, and blacken your soul?" Doug said, drawing back his burned, blood-crusted lips in a deranged smile.

Bob answered,
"It might just be worth it."

Stepping down, he got into the front seat of the Bronco next to Marian.

"Is it the only way?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, "I'm not going to kill him but this is what I want. It's the least he deserves. It's the least
I
deserve." He made a sound of strained amusement. "Don't worry, it isn't going to last too long. As soon as we're sighted . . ."

He sighed heavily.

"I should have gagged him, he may scream." He grimaced angrily. "But that's all right too, let him scream. Oh,
Jesus Christ
."

She put her hand on his arm. "What?" she asked.

"Maybe he won after all," Bob said.

"I don't understand."

"Much good my belief system did me," he said. "I finally had to descend to his level to beat him."

"You had no other choice, Bob," she said. "Neither did I. It doesn't mean we sank to his level."

He thought about it; sighed. "I hope you're right," he said.

He glanced at her. "What made you think of that flare anyway?"

"I saw them in the Bronco when we first arrived on Sunday. It just . . . came to me."

"You saved me, Marian."

"We saved each other." She squeezed his arm. "How are you, sweetheart? You've been through a horrible time, I know. How
are
you?"

His smile was one of weary satisfaction.

"
I'm alive,
" he said.