Let Him In (Let Him Trilogy) (6 page)

“Sure she is,” Zane said as he pulled into the driveway. “A woman, just like the rest of them.”

That is not what I meant, my child. You could slaughter all of the others and no one would care. But this one—

“Is an appetizer, not the main course.” Zane jerked the gear shift into park. “Just like the rest of them.”

What if you were to lose control?

“I will not.”

Accidents happen. You must be prepared—

“I am.” Smirking, Zane picked up the pink bakery box that was on the passenger seat. “I have charm and chocolate, two things a woman cannot resist.”

My child—

“Sorry,” Zane said, climbing out of the van, “duty calls.”

He whistled as he crossed the front yard, only half-listening to Blodbad’s tyrant about needing to be serious or not taking things seriously or some similar bullshit.

Zane refused to pass up on an opportunity to add to his menu, and the human inside the dilapidated house would be mouth-watering item number ten, the freshest one yet. Plus, he could not beat the prime location—a quarter of a mile from his house meant she would be the equivalent of fast food.

Blodbad stopped in mid-sentence when Zane stepped onto the porch. “About goddamn time,” he murmured, rapping his knuckles against the window pane.

Once, twice, three times.

He tilted his head forward. Listened. Heard nothing—no voices, no breathing, no footsteps.

Zane inhaled deeply. No blood, either. “Fuck,” he exhaled.

A loud creak made him pause in mid-turn. Smiling, he faced the door.

No one there.

Frowning, he knocked again.

Heard another creak.

Cupping his hand above his sunglasses, Zane peered into the house. Swept his gaze around the foyer, up the stairs. His smile returned when his eyes landed on a pair of feet. “Hello,” he said, holding up his hand.

The girl didn’t move or speak.

Zane lifted the bakery box. “Welcome wagon.” 

She moved down two steps.

Come on, baby. You know you want a taste...and so do I.

“I do hope you like cake.”

Three steps this time, and then a soft voice. “You brought me a cake?”

Success.

Zane nodded. “Devil’s Food.”

“Why?”

“Why?” He shrugged. “It seemed the neighborly thing to do.”

She moved down two more steps. Her closed hand flew up to her mouth as she glanced at what Zane assumed was the lock, no doubt to make sure it was engaged. She began chewing on her thumbnail as she fixed him with a wary, scrutinizing gaze.

Blodbad had been right—she was not like the others. This human was going to be a challenge, an unexpected and unwelcome realization that made it difficult for Zane to keep his calm facade as he said, “I will leave your housewarming gift on the porch.”

He was about to turn away when the girl descended the rest of the stairs. Perhaps I was wrong, Zane thought as she moved to stand in front of the door. She indicated the bakery box with a jut of her chin. “You don’t really think I’m going to accept that, do you?”

And perhaps not.

Zane frowned. “Why would you not?”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Uh, how about because I learned a long time ago to never accept candy from strangers?”

“Not candy, cake.”

She rolled her eyes at his attempt at humor. “Still a stranger.”

“Not completely,” Zane said, removing his sunglasses. “We met yesterday...sort of.”

Brows dipping, she leaned forward until her nose almost touched the windowpane. Her eyes darted back and forth, up and down as she studied his face, and then widened in recognition. She took a small step back. “What do you want?”

A little nibble here and there.

“Just to welcome you to the neighborhood.”

“Consider me welcomed.” Straightening her back, she crossed her arms over her chest. “And it not necessary to do so again.”

Zane’s smile faltered a fraction as his hand twitched, itching to introduce itself to the little brat’s bare ass. She would lose her mouthiness along with the ability to sit for a week.

“Very well then.” With a heavy sigh, Zane bowed his head. “I apologize for disturbing you.” He paused in mid-turn to fix her with a wounded yet hopeful gaze. “May I leave my gift?”

The girl shook her head even as he heard her stomach rumble. Zane was surprised to feel more offended than angered by her unspoken accusation. “I assure you I am not the kind of monster you think I am.”

He held up the bakery box with one hand, flipped the top with the other and then tilted it slightly. She eyed the cake as he tore off a large chunk and then followed his hand, her lips parting as he slipped the tasteless food into his mouth. He chewed slowly, swallowed. She licked her lips a moment before he did the same. 

Zane smiled. “Please...accept my gift.”

And then invite me in for a bite.

The girl inhaled and exhaled a deep breath. “Fine—but just this once. Don’t bring me anything else.”

Yes, definitely in need of a spanking...

“Thank you,” he replied. “And I promise not to.”

“Leave it beside the door.”

...a very hard one...

Zane placed the box where she had instructed and then unhooked his sunglasses from his belt loop. “Enjoy,” he said, slipping them on.

She did not thank him.

...with my goddamn belt.

Zane wondered how courageous she would be without a piece of wood and glass separating them. Instead of kicking down the door and finding out, he returned to the van. After he climbed in, the front door creaked open. The girl grabbed the cake and then darted back inside without a glance in his direction.

‘Tis for the best, my child. That one—

“Is not worth the effort,” Zane snarled, gently closing instead of slamming his door.

He grabbed his cell off the passenger seat, pressed one. Barbie answered on the first ring with a surprised, “Zane!”

He growled.

“S-Sorry—Master. I meant Master.”

“Call in tonight,” he ordered. “I have a much more satisfying punishment in mind for you.”

“Yes, Ma—”

He hung up, threw the cell back on the seat. After a not-so-calming breath, Zane started the engine and jerked the gear into reverse. He slowly backed down the driveway instead of shooting out of it in a cloud of flying gravel and dust like he wanted.

Lacey gnawed on her not-much-left-of-it thumbnail as she stared out the kitchen window. The Man’s head turned in her direction as he shifted into drive. A smile followed by a raised hand.

He knows I’m watching.

The van lurched forward. His hidden gaze remained on the house as the vehicle crept down the road, eventually disappearing behind the trees. Lacey’s hand dropped, hitting the table as she looked down at the cake. Had the bite he’d taken been big enough to prove that it wasn’t poisoned? What if it hadn’t been poisoned at all but made with some kind of knock-out drug?

Lacey returned her gaze to the window and her thumbnail to her mouth. He could be out there waiting for her to eat enough to pass out so he could come back and—

She pushed away the bakery box.

But would he really go to so much trouble? She wouldn’t be able to fight him off if he wanted to rape, torture and/or murder her. And if that was his intention, wouldn’t the sicko want her awake for it all?

She pulled the box forward.

Unless, of course, he didn’t want to do all those things here. He had no way of knowing whether or not she lived alone, right? So he’d want to kidnap and then take her to his basement lair where he could act out his twisted fantasies in private. And if she were unconscious, he’d be able to get her there without incident.

She shoved the box back.

But what if he really was just a friendly neighbor? He hadn’t said or done anything that would indicate otherwise—quite the opposite, in fact. Yesterday, he’d thought she was in trouble or hurt and had rushed over to make sure she was okay. And then today he’d brought her a housewarming gift. It would be a shame to throw away a perfectly good cake simply because she’d seen one too many episodes of crime television.

Lacey pulled the box forward, leaned over it and inhaled deeply. Saliva pooled in her mouth. Swallowing hard, she ran the tip of her pinkie finger through the creamy frosting, sniffing it before sticking out just the tip of her tongue to take a tiny lick. Her taste buds wept with joy.

Devil’s Food cake.

Devil’s!

Why not Angel Food cake?

“Oh shut up, brain,” she grumbled, tearing off a large piece from the same spot The Man had. Before she could think herself out of doing it, she shoved it into her mouth. Her eyes rolled back.

Lacey allowed the moist, rich cake to liquefy before swallowing it and then jammed another even bigger chunk into her mouth. At that moment, waking up naked and chained to a cement wall seemed like a small price to pay for such heaven.

Barbie shrieked, tightening her grip on the long chains of the metal handcuffs glinting in the flickering candlelight. “I’m s-sorry, Master! I’m so so s-sorry!”

Knelt between her splayed legs, Zane sneered at the large wet spot on the wedge-shaped sex prop pillow underneath her glistening, dripping cunt. “I believe you are enjoying your punishment far too much, Pet.”

Barbie looked over her shoulder, eyes half-closed and a trace of a smile on her slightly opened mouth. Her shallow breath turned into a sharp hiss as Zane ran the leather belt over one of the narrow red stripes crisscrossing her raised ass. “I think I know how to change that, however,” he said.

Zane wrapped the belt around his hand until only a couple of inches remained, and then raised his arm. Barbie stiffened in expectation, stopped breathing.

After a long pause to build the tension, he brought his arm down hard and fast. Her eyes snapped wide open when the end of the belt struck her engorged clit. She screamed as if it had been cut off with a pair of dull scissors and began thrashing, making the chains of the hand- and leg cuffs clink against the head- and footboard.

Leaning over her, Zane grabbed a handful of Barbie’s hair and then jerked her head back. “I am going to ask you this only one more time,” he snarled. “Why are you apologizing?”

“For lying and crying and touching you!”

Zane pressed his crotch hard against her sensitive flesh, began grinding his hips. With a sharp intake of breath Barbie squeezed her eyes shut tight. Saturated with pain, the scent of her blood awakened the thirst within, his gums tingling a moment before his canine teeth transformed and elongated. He sank his fangs into her neck, eliciting another sharp hiss.

After swallowing four mouthfuls of blood Zane shoved Barbie’s face into the pillow and then pushed off of her, propelling himself to the end of the bed. He held his breath, fighting to remain in control as his eternal thirst demanded more than what he could safely take. When the crushing pain in his chest became unbearable, he sucked air in between his clenched teeth, filling his lungs to capacity. With a harsh exhale, he shot off the bed.

Barbie reared up as Zane snatched the small silver key from atop the night stand. He undid the cuff on her right ankle and wrist and then stormed to the other side of the bed. “Master?”

Ignoring her, Zane freed Barbie’s left wrist and ankle, threw the key on the bed as she rolled on to her back and sat up. “May I please speak?”

“No,” he snarled.

As Zane charged across the bedroom the scent of fear filled his nostrils, bringing with it a realization that made him freeze in the doorway: for the second time, he had not been able to detect the girl’s blood.

Blodbad sighed, the sound like a miniature hurricane inside Zane’s head.
Your senses are impaired and will remain so until you give your body what it requires in order to fully repair itself.
  

Zane shook his head as he all but ran out of the condo. Once he was in the privacy of his van, he argued, “My diet has not changed in years, and never before have I been unable to smell human blood.”

Trust me, my child, I know what you need. Now leave here. The city awaits you.

“And the scourge of the earth contained within.”

Beggars cannot be—

“I am no beggar,” Zane snarled.

No? I seem to recall you begging for the attention of a certain human earlier this day.

Growling low in his throat, Zane started the engine and cranked the stereo.

Blodbad laughed.

Zane gnashed his teeth as he stomped on the gas. He would gladly gorge himself tonight if for no other reason than to be free of the annoyance that was his creator.

I’m dead.
 

The luminous glow surrounding her had to be the proverbial light coaxing her on. 

With a soft whimper that quickly turned into a loud grumble, Lacey opened her eyes and discovered it wasn’t Heaven beckoning to her but Hell in the form of a new day not so subtly telling her to get her ass out of bed.

Shielding her eyes from the sunshine spotlight coming through the window, Lacey glanced at the alarm clock and did a double take when she saw it was two-thirty in the afternoon. Thanks to the major crash resulting from the previous afternoon’s sugar overload, she’d slept for almost twenty-three hours.

Not that there was anything else to do.

She was actually starting to look forward to school; at least then she’d have homework. But the start of her senior year was still a week away. Seven more days of...what? Overdoses of junk food followed by marathon sleeping?

Thrashing her legs, Lacey kicked off the comforter, making Casper—who had been underneath it—shoot off the bed like a white fireball. She whipped around, slammed her feet down on the floor. “I’ll be batshit crazy by then,” she grumbled, swiping the back of her hand across her damp forehead as she stood up.  

Lacey stomped over to the window. After a couple of shakes and a string of obscenities she managed to pry it open. Leaning against the sill, she sighed as a gentle breeze cooled her heated skin. It had to be at least ninety degrees outside—and in.

Of course the house would hold heat only when she didn’t want it to.

Her gaze drifted down to the gravel driveway where her scooter stood alone. She wondered how many towns Clint had given a paper makeover to so far. Quite a few she imagined, knowing he’d want to get as many covered as he could before he started his new job at the poultry plant. 

Closing her eyes, Lacey listened for a few moments to a Blue Jay’s boisterous, hawk-like call before heading into the grungy bathroom. She was as reluctant to use it as she was spending some of what little money she had, but she had no choice in either matter. She needed a shower and boredom killers—STAT.

An hour later, Lacey pulled into the Walmart Supercenter parking lot with a Phyllis Diller voice and Arnold Schwarzenegger thighs as a result of screaming obscenities at the scooter while Fred Flintstone
ing
it up the mountainous terrain in between Hermit and Woodstock. The damn thing had stalled twice, both times dead center of roller coaster-like hills. The second time she actually got flipped off by Farmer Ted as he passed by on his sputtering farm tractor. 

No wonder The Beave had wanted to get rid of it.

As she entered the store, an arctic blast of conditioned air thick with the scent of rotisserie chicken welcomed Lacey with a one-two punch that left her head aching and her stomach growling. “Welcome to Walmart,” chimed the door greeter, who was almost as round as he was tall. He sported a novelty headband with dark blue stars atop the two long, glittering silver wires that shot out of the base.

“Thrilled to be here,” she mumbled, storming past him. When the deli came into view she stopped abruptly, shoe sole’s squeaking. She licked her lips as her hungry eyes devoured the hot case filled with potato wedges, General Tso’s, corn dogs, macaroni and cheese and all sorts of other scrumptious looking things that were not Ramen noodles. 

“Help you?” asked the hair-net clad female leaning against the backside of the hot case. Her slack jaw and glazed eyes made her look like a severely doped up mental patient—either that or a zombie. It was a close call.

“Not unless you’re giving the crap away,” Lacey replied, eliciting a snicker from the lanky, orange-haired boy stocking the produce section across from the deli/bakery. She scowled at him. “What are you laughing at?”

“My life,” he exhaled as he tossed another bag of onions on to the teetering pile in front of him. 

Lacey felt the corner of her mouth lift—misery really did love company. She ducked into the book aisle as a wrinkly, blue-haired demon on a motorized cart zipped by and was almost run over by a Britney Spears look-a-like in Happy Bunny pajamas pushing a cart overflowing with Pop-Tarts, diapers and children. 

“Just Say No doesn’t only apply to drugs,”  Lacey told the young girl who didn’t seem to notice the wails coming from the baby strapped inside the carrier seat attached to the cart’s front basket.

“Screw you,” she said, yawning as she picked up a copy of Seventeen magazine while the toddler inside the cart tried to gnaw open a box of cereal.

“Sorry, I don’t swing that way...but you probably should more often.”

The girl mumbled something under her breath as she threw the magazine back on the shelf and then sped off like a race car driver at the sight of a green flag.

Lacey leaped over the flailing arm of the Superman-channeling boy stretched out on the bottom of the cart and then knelt in front of the row of Stephen King novels. After a quick sweep she found what she was looking for: a copy of
Pet Sematary
, which she’d started reading a month ago at a different Walmart in a different town.

After grabbing a deck of cards, two coloring books and a  box of crayons from the toy section, Lacey went to the pet aisle, picking out three toys for Casper before becoming lucky number thirteen in the Express Checkout. For some reason, the snow-white hair of the elderly man standing in front of her made Lacey think of Ghost Boy. Scowling, she focused on the heaping pile of extra-saucy BBQ chunks in the deli thirty feet away from her, exorcising GB quicker than Peter, Ray, Winston and Egon ever could. The doped up mental patient zombie was still leaning against the hot case, and this time it looked like she was drooling.

Lacey felt on the verge of drooling herself as she remembered the Burger King right down the street. The smile that had begun to creep onto her lips at the thought of sinking her teeth into a juicy Whopper with melted cheese vanished as her wandering eyes landed on an all too familiar sight: in between the bathrooms was a giant board with missing person fliers attached to it, and of course Amelia, with her condescending, blinding white grin (
I have to have the bleaching, Clint, all the A List celebrities do it!
) just had to be one of them.

“Will there be anything else?” asked the ogreish cashier.

Lacey blew out a harsh breath as she dumped her stuff on to the conveyor belt.  “Do you see anything else?”

With a deliberate slowness, the cashier swept the items across the barcode scanner, depositing them one by one into a plastic bag. Picking it up, she held it out to Lacey—who roughly grabbed it out of her pudgy-fingered hand—before hitting a button on the register. “Your total is fourteen sixty-nine.”

Handing her a twenty, Lacey returned the cashier’s smirk. “Here ya go, Princess Fiona.”

The cashier’s grin slid off her reddening face as she handed Lacey her change. “Thank you for shopping at Walmart,” she bit out through clenched teeth. “Please come again.”

Lacey gave her a parting wink before leaving the freezer for the oven. By the time she pulled out on to Route 42—after dodging several cars whose drivers apparently couldn’t care less about right-of-way laws or stop lights—she was wishing she’d worn shorts instead of jeans.

Less than a minute later she entered a fast food junkie’s paradise: McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Pizza Hut and KFC on her right, Burger King, Taco Bell and Arby’s on her left. No contest, of course—all hail the King. She didn’t know what they put into their Whoppers but the things should come with warning labels just like alcohol and cigarettes. Good thing she didn’t gain weight easily because lounging around in bed reading Richard Bachman was a helluva lot more appealing to her than
Sweatin’ to the Oldies
with Richard Simmons.

Lacey parked in the first available spot and then dashed inside, beating to the counter a middle-aged man wearing blue coveralls splattered with white paint and a baseball cap with CARL embroidered on it. “Whopper with cheese and a large—”

Don’t forget you have an hour long ride-walk back to the house of horrors.

“—make that a small root beer.”

The spindling girl behind the counter  (Olivia was printed in white letters on her red name tag, though to Lacey she looked more like an Olive, as in Oyl)  flashed a much practiced smile and said, “For only a dollar more—”

Lacey’s hand flew up, silencing Popeye’s girlie as effectively as Jason Voorhees’s machete.

A couple of minutes later she was sliding into a booth at the back of the restaurant. Her taste buds tap danced as she took a bite that would’ve made Jaws feel inferior. 

Ohmuhgawd.

Lacey swallowed after only three chews and then wrapped her lips around the straw of her drink, sucking hard and fast as she glanced out the window, almost strangling when she realized she had an audience. Leaning against the front of a white van was a raven-haired woman. Her sequined blouse, leather pants and stilettos were the same scarlet red shade as her long fingernails and lips, which were parted slightly because of the black sunglasses dangling from between her obviously bleached-to-blinding-white teeth.

The corners of the woman’s mouth curled up as their eyes met. 

Lacey was about to mouth
Can I help you?
when the woman suddenly spun around. She greeted Carl, who was trying to sneak up on her, with a hard slap that sent the Burger King bag he carried flying out of his hand. The woman laughed as Carl—grinning, no less—snatched the bag off the ground.

With a roll of her eyes, Lacey returned her attention to her meal. Woodstock’s inhabitants were even weirder than Hermit’s.

As she drove into the three car garage, Alexis struggled to get the female she’d seen inside the Burger King out of her head. Raging within the human had been almost every emotion imaginable except for happiness, Alexis’s least favorite scent and flavor of blood. What would it be like to feast upon the one-woman buffet? She couldn’t get the appetizing thought out of her mind. 

Licking her lips, Alexis turned to the man seated next to her whose bite removed almost half of the Double Whopper clutched between his stubby fingers. “Sorry,” he said after swallowing the large chunk of beef, cheese, lettuce, tomato and bread.  “Starvin’ here.”

“Bon appétit, ma chère. It’s like a pinch of salt and pepper to my V-8.”

Carl scowled at her as he chewed through another monstrous bite of food. “You like a vegan or something?”

“Oh, I like them all,” she responded with a wicked giggle. “My brother would argue but I have found it’s true that you are what you eat.”

The man offered her a wolfish grin. “Then I guess that makes me a pussy,” he grunted, crumbling the burger wrapper into a ball that he tossed onto the floor. He licked a spot of mayonnaise from the corner of his thin-lipped mouth as he leaned in close. “And I’m ready for dessert.”

Alexis wagged one long finger at him as she resisted the urge to claw out his beady shit-brown eyes. “Not until I get to know you a little better—call me old fashioned.”

“An old-fashioned prostitute?” He chuckled. “That’s a first.”

“Escort, Carl.
Escort.
And unless you wish for me to escort you off my property, you’ll play along. Did I mention that each answered question deducts one hundred dollars off my entertainment fee?”

Carl flung an arm over the back of the passenger seat. “Then by all means, honey, ask away. Five hundred bucks is pretty steep for a night of—ahem—
entertainment
.”

“And as I told you, sugar, my oral skills are unsurpassed. I really could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.”

“Keep talking like that and you won’t have a chance to prove it,” he grunted as he unzipped his coveralls. After freeing his stiff, slightly crooked penis, he started stroking it. “I’m hornier than a four-nutted Tom cat.”

Alexis fought to keep the smile on her face as her stomach lurched forward. Greasy take-out again. It simply wasn’t fair. She hungered to sink her teeth into a mouth-watering beefcake studmuffin like her big brother—now that would be a meal she could truly savor.

Clearing her parched throat, she asked, “Is the little wifey not keeping up with her end of the bargain?”

“Bachelor for life right here, honey.”

“Children?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“You close to your family?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“No siblings. Never knew my dad. Mom’s doing her own thing in Florida.” He gave her a sly grin. “One more question and I get you for free, honey.”

Alexis slithered out of the driver’s seat and onto his lap, straddling him. She removed his baseball cap with one hand, grabbed a handful of his dirt-brown hair with the other and then jerked his head to the left. “Sorry, Carl,” she moaned against his throat as her canine teeth became a pair of razor-sharp, half-inch fangs, “everything has a price.”

The man was in shock from severe blood loss before he could even begin to register what was happening to him.

And then, he was dead.

Licking the blood off her lips, Alexis retrieved the  Polaroid camera she’d had since she was a teenager from the glove compartment. “Say cheese, Carl.”