Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (16 page)

An addict.

Being an addict would make
her desperate and extra responsive to the lure of money. She was
perfect, in a way. She would go with him, almost definitely. Logic
said take her. But there was something besides logic. Something
about her being an addict made her repugnant to him.

She made it right up to him
and said, “Hi, cutie.”

Jonah turned from her. He
saw that both the other girls had stopped, not far from him, but
spread away from each other. He moved toward them, around the
tables of men, some of which stared at him like he had already
committed a crime, no doubt jealous of his allure.

The next girl to get to
Jonah was the tallest of the three. She was by no means heavy, but
she had a little pooch on her stomach, which she was trying to hide
with the high cut waistband of her negligee.

“Hi,” she said, nervousness
in her voice. He looked at her face, which was also nervous. This
girl was not resourceful enough to hide her emotions. She was not
intelligent. He moved past her to the third girl.

The third was the most
attractive of the three. She was also tall. She was thin, but
healthy looking. Her smile was seductive, but at the same time
natural. She was a diamond in the rough and would do
nicely.

“Well, hi there,” she said, getting
right up close to him, the two of them crowded in a mass of
men.

Jonah held the money right up in front
of him.

“Like a dance?” the vulture
asked.

Jonah nodded.

She leaned forward, letting
her covered breasts brush against him. She kissed him on the ear,
then whispered, “Put your money away, honey. We’ll get to
that.”

Jonah folded the bills and
placed them in his front pocket. The vulture took his hand and led
him through the crowd. She had on a teddy that hugged her body.
Right now, nothing more was showing than what a one-piece bathing
suit would reveal. Jonah couldn’t wait for her to take the teddy
off. He couldn’t wait to be in her. He knew one way or the other,
he would be in her. But he had to get her out of here, where he
could take. If he couldn’t get her out of here, to somewhere
private, he would take anyway. He would try other means, safer
means. But he would, in the end, take.

The vulture led him by the
bar, where there was a clearing that led to a back area. There were
five booths, each with a couch. In one of the booths, a mostly
naked dancer rubbed her tits in the face of a man sitting on the
couch.

The vulture led Jonah to
the back booth. She sat him down on the couch and then sat beside
him. She rubbed a hand on one of his legs. She put her mouth up to
his ear and whispered, “You must be a cop.”

Clever
, Jonah thought. She was going
to insure that she wouldn’t be busted for any illegal activity.
Jonah reached for his wallet. He opened it and showed her his
professional license. “No, I’m a shrink,” he said, quietly, knowing
she didn’t want the people in the other booth to
hear.

“Wow,” she said. Then, for
a few seconds, she thought about it, then said, “That doesn’t prove
you’re a not a cop. That could be fake.”

As much of a hurry as he
was in, his urge ready to overwhelm him, Jonah liked her
cautiousness, and he liked that her questions were clever. She
hadn’t committed to anything that could buy her legal troubles,
yet.

Jonah used his right hand
to undo his jeans. Then he bought out his erect cock, which, as he
had suspected earlier, had grown in size. “Now,” Jonah said.
“That’s indecent exposure, and possibly sexual assault on my part.
Would a cop do that?”

Again, the vulture seemed
to think. Then she said, “No. A cop wouldn’t do that.” She reached
over, put away what he had pulled out, and then fastened his pants
for him. “So,” she said when she was finished. “What can I help you
with?”

Jonah smiled, resisting a
very strong urge to throw her down and rip into her cunt. “I want
you to leave here with me,” he said.

The vulture smiled and
lifted her eyebrows. She wasn’t going to offer up
anything.

Clever.

“I’ll pay you one thousand dollars,”
Jonah whispered.

The vulture whispered in
his ear, “I can make that in one weekend of dancing. And there’s no
risk.”

Jonah nodded. Inside, he
wanted to whip an elbow into the vulture’s greedy face. But he was
able to resist that urge. He whispered, “Two thousand, but I want
you to come with me now.”

Again, the vulture smiled,
calmly, good at her trade. She whispered, “I can’t leave now. But
when we’re through here, go out to your car and head west on this
road until you see the Pines Hotel. Go in and ask for the suite.
I’ll be there in less than an hour.”

Jonah hesitated. He didn’t
know if he could wait. But he forced himself to nod
anyway.

“I want five hundred now,” the vulture
said.

Jonah reached into his
pocket. He pulled about half of the bills from the wad and handed
them to her. She didn’t take time to count them, quickly folding
them and hiding them under her garter belt.

Jonah hadn’t wanted to give
her the money, but he figured he could take it back later. He
started to get up, but the vulture grabbed his arm.

“I have to dance for you.
Just in case someone comes back here and sees us, I want it to look
good.” The vulture got up. She waited a few seconds as the current
song ended. Then, when the next song came on, she began to move.
She turned in circles, shaking her hips, shaking her top, showing
him what she had but through the teddy. The dance angered him. He
didn’t care to be teased. He wanted to take.

The vulture finally brought
down one of the thin straps on her shoulder, then she did the same
thing on the other side. She turned a few times around and then
stopped, closing her eyes as she moved her hands to the cups over
her breasts. Jonah was somehow not interested in what she was going
to do next. He was more interested in the look of seduction on her
face. That look pissed him off even more. How dare she play this
game with him? He wanted one thing from her. He wanted to
take.

In a slow sweeping motion,
the vulture lowered the cups and her breasts were on display. Jonah
paid very little attention to the size and shape of those breasts.
He was only mildly interested in breasts at all. He wanted to be in
her, to use her for exactly what he wanted her for.

The vulture came right up
to him. She put one of those breasts on his face then swept it
over, then did the same with the other breast.

How could she have the
gull? Did she really think that she was so special? All she had was
the same thing so many other women had. Did she really think he
enjoyed this that much? Did she really think he was going to give
her the money? She was not worth the money. All she was worth was
meeting his needs, then being out of his way.

The stripper backed away,
then turned around a few more times. She stopped with her back to
him. She moved her hands to her waist, where the teddy still hung.
She began to slowly lower that teddy, going from one side to the
next. Jonah had had enough. He first undid his pants and pulled it
out. Then he curled an arm forward and hooked the vulture. With her
standing between his legs, in a matter of a second, he used his
free hand to pull off her teddy, then her G-string. He moved his
hands to her waist and pulled her onto his cock as she
struggled.

She was wet and slid down
easy, but he could feel her on his sides. He felt his climax coming
immediately. Caught up in the sensation, Jonah loosened his grip,
which allowed the vulture to stand up. Jonah felt two things at
once. There was the throbbing as he sprayed cum all over the place,
and the rage he felt at the vulture. She was not supposed to get
up. She was supposed to take it inside her.

But the rage dwindled fast.
In fact, a lot of what he had felt dwindled fast, and he became
afraid. What the hell was he doing? He released his grip on the
dancer. She quickly slipped on her thong. Then she picked up her
teddy, and struggled to slip it on.

“I’m sorry,” Jonah said.

The stripper peered around
the corner, then let out a sigh of relief. She turned to Jonah as
she pulled the teddy the rest of the way on. “What the hell were
you doing?” she said in a quiet but angry voice.

“I don’t know. I’m so
sorry,” Jonah responded.

“You were supposed to wait
until we got to the hotel. I can’t do that here.”

With that, Jonah was
somewhat relieved. This woman was not upset because she had just
been violated. She was upset because she had been violated in a
place where she wasn’t supposed to let that happen. Suspecting he
knew where her priorities were, Jonah pulled the rest of the money
from his pocket. “Here,” he said, pushing it forward. “Take it
all.”

Without hesitation, the
stripper reached out and took the money. She disposed of it
quickly, just as she had before.

“Is this the full two-thousand?” she
asked.

Jonah took out his wallet.
He had around fifty dollars inside. He handed her that. “It’s all I
have on me,” he said.

For a few seconds, the
dancer glared at him. Then she shrugged. She seemed to think. Then
she smiled, pleasantly, and said, “I can’t take the last of the
money you have on you.” She pushed the wallet money at
him.

“No, go ahead,” Jonah said, relieved
that she wasn’t acting as if she were going to have him beat up or
arrested.

The dancer smiled
gratefully at him, then put the rest of the money away. She leaned
forward and kissed him.

“All right,” she said. “But
next time, let’s do this the right way.” She kissed him again, then
left him sitting there.

Jonah immediately buttoned
himself up. He noticed a few little blotches of white on his shirt,
but he doubted that they would be too noticeable in the dark club.
He got up and walked out, though he wanted to run.

Jonah did not see the
stripper again on his way out to his car. He knew there were a
thousand things to think of right now, but he was mainly just
relieved. He had just done something incredibly stupid, and it
looked like he was going to get away with it. He was going to get
away with it because he had money. He knew that was wrong and
should bug him, but it didn’t. He was just glad he hadn’t thrown
his life away.

In the parking lot, Jonah
found his car. He wanted away from here, and he wanted away from
here quickly. He would just go home and stay there. He could sort
out the details of what was going on there.

Jonah was in his car, about
a half-mile down the road, when he thought he saw something. But it
could have just been his imagination. Maybe he didn’t see a wolf
standing at the side of the road.

#

Again, it was the road, the
clinic and then being ripped alive. Then Jonah awoke to the sound
of scratching. He was shaken from the dream and frightened by what
had woken him, but he didn’t bother getting up to check it out. He
went back to sleep.

Again, it was the road, the
clinic and being ripped alive. This time, when Jonah awoke to the
scratching, he thought he could localize it a little better. It
wasn’t coming from in the room, or from just outside the room, and
that made him feel a little better. He started to go back to sleep
again. But the next time he heard the sound, it wasn’t bringing him
out of sleep. No, he had not had time to go back to sleep yet. The
scratching was coming from the front of the apartment. It lasted a
few seconds and then went away.

Jonah hoped it would not
come back, and he felt that it was less likely to if he stayed
awake. That was what it wanted, wasn’t it? It, whatever the hell it
was, just wanted him to stay awake.

Jonah lay
there for a little while, and the scratching did not return. Then
he began to doze off, and there it was. He got out of bed. He went
to the bathroom and splashed water on his face. It seemed like fair
enough of a deal.
Stay awake, and I’ll
leave you alone.

Next, Jonah went into the
kitchen and started coffee brewing. It was 3AM now, and Jonah’s
body was protesting, his stomach sour, and his head extra foggy,
but Jonah was going to stay awake. Staying awake kept the noise
away.

With the
coffee brewing, Jonah went to the living room and turned on the
television. There was an Adam Sandler movie on HBO. That would do
just fine. He’d laugh and forget about the noise. He’d forget about
the dreams, about being ripped apart.
Maybe whatever made the noise is what’s going to rip you
apart.

Jonah’s initial reaction
was to push the thought out of his mind, but he knew better than to
try such a thing. You didn’t push an unwanted thought away. You let
it flow without resistance. Then, it would go away on its own, just
pass through. So Jonah tried this. He allowed the thought to be. He
allowed his fear to be. Maybe he was destined to drive down some
road. Maybe he was going to fuck a few different women in his
clinic. Maybe he was going to be ripped apart.