Ravenous (3 page)

He's going to rape me!
she thought.

And then she screamed, a long ragged scream that was swallowed up by the night's silence, a silence that towered over them like some invisible dome, holding her scream down, keeping it from reverberating or carrying, smothering it. She tried to close her legs, but he was already between them.

She was dry and it hurt, but he was soon lubricated by his own fluids, and she continued to scream and fight as he pounded into her again and again.

He panted furiously and continued to slobber on her, releasing a low growl each time he exhaled.

He laughed then as he thrust into her harder, a deep, throaty laugh, nails scratching her and drawing blood. His long hair fell down over her face. His smell enveloped her like a filthy, oily blanket. Something happened to his throaty laughter—it became deeper, rougher.

Emily's hands began to claw the ground, searching desperately for a weapon, for something, anything she might use to stop him, to get him off of her.

The thing on top of her screamed. It was a sickening sound, a sound that made her wish she were unconscious so she did not have to hear it. The ragged scream collapsed into a howl.

The howl ... the one she'd heard earlier ...

Her right hand found something on the ground beside her. It was hard and cold, made of metal. She closed her hand on it and swung her arm back, then plunged it forward. She drove the metal object home hard, and something crunched beneath it.

The long howl stopped.

Her rapist stopped moving.

He collapsed on her heavily, suddenly still and silent, not even breathing. He was so heavy on top of her, she found it difficult to breathe. But he had stopped. He was still inside her, but he had stopped slamming into her.

Is he dead?
she wondered.
What did I do to him?

She remained there for an endless time, unable to move at first. Then, when she did move, her movements hurt, as if her entire body were raw. Emily tried to crawl backward, out from under him. When that did not work, she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed. She threw her whole body into it, all her weight, and heaved him off of her to her left.

When his body hit the ground beside her, it expelled a long, gurgling breath, its final sound.

Then she crawled backward, away from him, until she reached the flashlight. She rolled over and closed her right hand on the flashlight as she struggled to her feet. Her torn clothes dangled from her in wet tatters, and dirt and gravel clung to her exposed skin. She turned around and shone the beam down on him.

The long, dark hair looked unwashed and matted. Dark stubble grew all around his gaping mouth, covering the lower half of his face. He was a man of medium height, pale, arms spread at his sides. His filthy clothes were torn and tattered into strips. His right eye was no longer silver, and there was no longer anything wrong with it. It was open wide, like his mouth, a blue eye, perfectly normal. There was, however, something wrong with his left eye—something protruded from it. She stepped toward him, bent down, and turned the light on it.

It had a fat black handle, caked with damp earth. Emily reached out, closed her hand on it—the black handle was plastic. She pulled on it, not very hard at first, and it did not come out. She put a little more strength into it, and it came out with a wet sound. It lifted his head off the ground for a moment, then his head flopped back down as it was released.

It was a long rusty corkscrew—with the man's left eyeball impaled on the end, something long and wet and jiggly dangling from the back of it.

Emily gasped and dropped the corkscrew as she stumbled backward. Her right heel hit something—a rock embedded in the ground, maybe—and she fell backward, flailing her arms for balance, trying to come out of the fall.

The back of her head struck the edge of the paved road hard, and blackness overcame her.

 

* * * *

 

Hugh Crane closed his hands on Vanessa Peterman's round breasts and his thumbs flicked over her nipples, which stood rigid beneath them. Vanessa straddled his lap in the back seat of her white Chrysler 300 with darkly-tinted windows, which was parked in his driveway. She bounced up and down on him.

The children were planted in front of the television in the living room, enraptured by the Cartoon Network, or the Disney Channel, or Nickelodeon, or whatever it was they'd been watching when he'd left them there. They were avid television watchers, and he knew they would stay right where they were, their attention focused on the screen, until he called them away.

Vanessa made high-pitched sounds behind tightly closed lips, and her hands closed on his chest, her fingernails clawing him through the cotton of his unbuttoned shirt as she came. Hugh quickly followed her, crying out short, staccato sounds as he thrust his hips upward, driving himself into her.

It was the second time for him—he'd lost count of Vanessa's orgasms. She was wildly orgasmic. It was one of the things about her that drove him crazy.

They both gasped for air afterward, their skin moist with perspiration in spite of the night's biting cold. She fell limp against him and he embraced her with weak arms. Their scents mingled—his cologne, her perfume, their sweat. The air in the cab was heavy and warm, and the tinted windows had fogged up.

Vanessa laughed between gasps. “That was hot,” she breathed. “So hot.”

“
You're
hot,” he said, his voice trembling just a little.

She laughed again. “We sound like Paris Hilton.” She put on her goofy Paris Hilton face and spoke in a breathy, brainless voice: “That's hot.”

It made him laugh. That was the other thing about her that drove him crazy—she was smart, and she made him laugh a lot. He put his mouth to her ear and whispered, “You do it to me, Vanessa, I'm serious, I've never known a woman who's done to me what you do.”

They sat there for a long time, winding down, their breaths steadily coming slower, their heartbeats gradually slowing down.

Hugh lifted his left arm and looked over Vanessa's shoulder at his digital watch. It was eight forty-nine. Emily usually got home from her club by nine fifteen, nine thirty.

“It's late,” he said.

He flicked the switch on the door that rolled down the window, but nothing happened.

“What're you doing?” Vanessa said.

“Trying to roll down the window to check on the kids.”

“It won't work unless the ignition's on.” Vanessa slowly rolled off of him to his right, until she was sitting beside him. “What time is it?” she said.

He told her. “We should wrap this up.” Hugh sat up and reached down, pulled up his pants. He raised his hips off the seat, pulled them all the way up, and fastened them, zipped up the fly, fastened the belt. Then he slowly buttoned his shirt up.

“I need to shower before she gets back,” he said.

“Sure you don't wanna try to go one more time?” Vanessa said.

He laughed. “You kidding? My dick is raw.”

She leaned over and kissed him, then started to pull herself together.

Inside the house, the phone sounded its high, shrill, chirping sound.

“Oh, shit,” he said.

“What?”

“That's probably for me, and the kids will come looking for me.”

“Run in and get it, then. I'll wait.”

Hugh opened the door and got out. As he walked to the front door, he checked the windows. The vertical blinds were still closed—no one peered out at him.

The phone continued to trill.

He broke into a jog, went up the front steps, and into the house.

Annie was heading for the phone.

“I'll get it,” Hugh said. He picked up the receiver, put it to his ear. “Hello?”

“Is this Hugh Crane?” a woman said. Her voice was pinched and she sounded officious.

“Yes, it is. Who's this?”

“You're married to Emily Crane?”

Hugh frowned. “Yes. Who
is
this?”

“I'm calling from Sisters of Mercy Hospital, Mr. Crane. Your wife is here, in the Emergency Room.”

His forehead relaxed and the crooked frown lines disappeared as his face went slack. His eyes widened a little. “Oh, my God, is she all right?” he asked, then realized what a stupid question that was if she was in the Emergency Room.

“Why don't you come down here, Mr. Crane? She's been asking for you.”

“I'll be right there.”

He dropped the receiver back in its cradle, then stood there a moment. A list of possibilities scrolled through his mind—a car accident, a shooting, a heart attack, a stroke, on and on they raced through his head, bringing with them pangs of guilt that shot through his chest like ice-cold bullets.

Hugh turned around and clapped his hands once. “Okay, kids, get your coats, we're going out.”

They whined in response, annoyed to be dragged away from the television.

“Come on, get your coats on, let's go,” he said. Then he remembered Vanessa in the car outside. “Oh, shit,” he muttered. He hurried out of the house, went to the car, and opened the door. “You've gotta get out of here,” he said.

“What?”

“Emily's in the hospital, I've got to go to her.”

“What's wrong?”

“I don't know.”

“I'm sorry, I—”

“Thanks, but you should just go, okay?”

She scooted across the backseat toward him, and he stepped back so she could get out. Vanessa stood taller than Hugh. Auburn hair cascaded over her shoulders and part of the way down her back. She bent down to kiss him.

Hugh pulled back and hissed, “Not out here, dammit!”

She frowned as she stood up straight, then turned and got back in the car, behind the wheel. “Okay, I'm going.”

“I'm sorry, I'm a little, you know, I'm—I don't know what's wrong with Emily, and I'm upset.”

Vanessa pulled the door closed, started the car. She lowered the window and he bent forward, gave her a quick peck on the mouth.

“I'll call you, okay?” he said.

“Okay. I hope it's nothing serious.”

She raised the window again.

Hugh hurried back into the house to get the kids and his black leather jacket.

 

* * * *

 

Sisters of Mercy was a small hospital on a hilltop overlooking Big Rock. There were a couple broad weeping willows in front of the hospital, a patch of lawn, a huge statue of the Virgin Mary in front of the entrance.

Hugh drove the blue RAV4 around to the Emergency Room entrance in the rear of the building. Back at the house, he'd told the children that Mommy was in the hospital, and they had not stopped grilling him ever since. They wanted to know why she was there, what was wrong, what had happened, and he kept telling them he didn't know, until finally, he'd snapped at them and told them to be quiet for the rest of the ride or they all were gonna get it. They fell silent. He could hear Donald and Annie whispering in the backseat, while Jeannie sniffled quietly in her safety seat.

Inside, he went to the front desk, carrying Jeannie, with the other two trailing along, and told the woman there who he was and why he was there. She told him to come into the back. Hugh herded the children through swinging double doors in the Emergency Room, where a tall doctor with dark hair and a mustache approached him.

“You're Mr. Crane?” the doctor said.

“Yes.”

“I'm Dr. Lattimer. Look, your wife has been—”

“What's wrong with her? What happened?”

“Calm down, Mr. Crane, please. She needs you to be calm right now, okay?”

“Okay, okay. What happened?”

“It seems your wife's car broke down on Seaside Trail. She was attacked there. By a man. She was not too badly beaten. But—” He took a step closer to Hugh and lowered his voice to a murmur. “—she's been raped, Mr. Crane.”

“Oh, my god. Is she—what was—do you know who attacked her?”

“Well, she managed to defend herself quite well. She killed him.”

“She
what
?”

“Her attacker is dead.”

Hugh clenched his teeth as he felt rising up in his chest a warm swelling of pride for his Emily, then he said in a hoarse whisper, “
Good
.”

“It might be a good idea to put the children in the waiting room for now.”

Hugh took them out to the waiting room and told them to sit still and wait for him. There was a television suspended high in a corner, playing the news. He went to the front desk and asked the woman behind the frosted-glass window if it would be possible to change the TV to cartoons, or something else the kids might be interested in. She came out with a remote and switched channels until she found Scooby Doo. She told Hugh not to worry, that she would keep an eye on them from her window. He went back through the swinging double doors.

Emily was lying on a gurney, dressed in one of the flimsy white, blue-speckled gowns they make patients wear in hospitals, the kind that ties in the back. A thin white blanket was drawn up to her chest. Her beefy right forearm was resting across her forehead. A pale green curtain had been drawn around her to give her privacy.

The moment she saw him, she dropped her arm and sat up, her mouth and eyes open to their limit.

“Oh, Hugh, oh
God
, Hugh!” she said, and her face screwed up as she began to cry. Her arms reached out to him and he bent forward and embraced her, held her close. His hands moved over her back, over the rolls of fat she'd been trying so hard to lose. She pushed away from him and looked up into his eyes. As she spoke, her voice gradually grew louder and louder. “Oh, Hugh, he-he, his face was—he didn't have—his eyes, Hugh, his
eyes
!” She stopped talking long enough to sob a couple of times. She gripped his upper arms, squeezed them hard. “He growled at me and, and he made this sound, this high screaming sound, luh-like he was trying to, I don't know, trying to
howl
, like some kind of
animal
, and his eyes, my God, his
eyes
, they weren't
right
, Hugh, something was very wrong with his eyes and his face because it changed, his face, it
changed
!”