The Hollow Men (Book 1): Crave (6 page)

Each time Laura rejected his advances, Bill desired her even more. The more he wanted her, the angrier he got, and the more he hated her. He grew hungry to possess her, to destroy her confidence and to tear her happy life apart.

Now Bill followed Laura and two of her daughters as they left the championship football game. The farther they walked from the stadium, the more isolated they became. He began to fantasize about what it would be like to have her. Carnal thoughts swirled in his mind. He dropped back twenty more yards and let his fantasies run wild.

CHAPTER 10

G
HASTLY
T
ROPHIES

L
aura and Maddy sensed that they were being stalked. They spontaneously broke into a jog.

Tall pole lights bordered the walkways. They were spread far enough apart that Laura and her girls entered sections of blackness before stepping into the range of the next light. The LED bulbs tinged everything a peculiar white-blue. It was disorienting to see the world washed in it. Shouts and screams echoed in the darkness.

One bend in the sidewalk away from their car, they saw two college-aged men blocking the way ahead of them. They smiled wickedly when they saw Laura and the girls.

“Ladies, it’s not safe here. We’ll walk with you,” one of them said with mock gallantry and an obvious leer. He had a two-day growth of black stubble on his pudgy cheeks and soft jawline. The other appeared to be too young to shave. Their skin flushed.

“You’re beautiful,” the clean-faced one breathed while staring at Maddy. “I’ll
take
you.”

“And I’ll take the MILF,” said the other, his eyes hungrily traveling the curves of Laura’s body.

She had worked for years as a nurse practitioner and knew how to handle herself. She was accustomed to getting her way. It wasn’t the first time she’d been exposed to harassment.

“Boys! That’s not going to happen. Go find some willing sorority girls who will happily let you ‘escort’ them. Now, get out of our way.”

She tried to keep her poise, believing her boldness would back the young men down.

Maddy didn’t have the practice her mom had. However, she did have the disposition. She stood at her mom’s side and glared ferociously.

Indecision flickered in the men’s eyes. Laura, anticipating it, used the moment to push her way past them.

“Hold on,” said the scruffy one in a voice heavy with lust. He grabbed Laura around the waist. The jostling woke up the baby, who started crying at the top of her little lungs.

“I said no!” shouted Laura.

The man holding her pressed himself up against her and she attempted to push him away.

“Show me you are going to be nice, and I'll let you put the baby down safely.”

He tried to thrust his tongue into her mouth. She gagged. His breath tasted like he had poured Scotch into a tennis shoe and pickled his tongue in the brew.

“This is going to happen either way. Make me believe you want it, or I’ll make you watch when I really hurt your baby.”

The smaller one struggled with Maddy, dragging her off the path. He paid for it in kicks and punches delivered more savagely than expected from a fourteen-year-old girl. He slapped her hard and shook her. “I’ll make it as rough as you want!”

She spat in his face.

Just then Laura spied Bill. Though he gave Laura the creeps, she believed God had thrown her a lifeline and she clutched it desperately.

“Help! Help us, Bill!”

CHAPTER 11

S
ILENT
W
AIT

B
ill had seen the boys when they first approached Laura. “They’re coming to get you,” he whispered under his breath. It was playing out just like the plot of a bondage porn movie, a favorite genre of his. He didn’t need to hear them speak to know what the men had in mind. The beautiful, untouchable Laura was about to have her pedestal smashed. He felt a spasm of excitement, although it angered him that these two unsophisticated slobs would be the ones to do it.

It occurred to him suddenly that this really was his opportunity, too. He would never have had the guts to do something like this before now, and he could never have taken Laura by himself, especially with her oldest daughter nearby.

Here, the three of them could do it easily and it would be even more soul-crushing than Bill doing it alone. He could manipulate the college guys into letting him lead the way. Though he hadn’t really considered it before, he decided he would have a taste of the teenaged girl, too. He believed he deserved it for being scorned for so long.

It all sounded delicious.

His decision firm, he started shuffling over, hands forward in a placating gesture, showing he was no threat. Bill’s heart pounded and his mouth dried. He drew a sticky tongue across his wormy lips, barely moistening them enough to speak. “Hey guys, wait,” he wheezed out.

From the darkness behind him, Scott charged past, knocking him down violently and destroying Bill’s plans in an instant.

CHAPTER 12

C
RIMSONED
T
EETH

S
cott had seen most of it unfold. His run to catch up with his family had turned into a full sprint when he saw the men grab the girls. For him, it wasn’t a question of reaching them in time. He knew that he would. The question was whether or not he could stop himself from killing the men who were about to try to hurt his family.

He didn’t see Bill until he caught him gawking. When Laura called out, Bill turned away for a moment. It wasn’t the craving etched in the fat man's expression but his visible erection that revealed his intentions to Scott: either direct or voyeuristic participation in the sexual assault about to happen.

Scott knocked Bill down with as much force as he could on his way past, intending to come back for a reckoning.

He approached the men about to assault his wife and his oldest daughter. He slowed to a jog and shouted, “Hi Laura, Maddy. Sorry to be so late. Why don’t you take the baby to the car while I talk to these guys?”

The two men glanced nervously at each other and let go of the women, who hurried away.

Scott's genial tone knocked them off balance. He held his hand out as if at a church barbecue. “I’m Scott. And you?”

The baby-faced one spoke up. “Uh… wait. You know, we didn't do anything to them. They're fine.”

Scott tilted his head in pretended confusion and changed from offering a handshake to reaching for his wallet. Opening his billfold, he feigned gratitude. “Hey. That fat creep back there followed them to do who knows what. And you made sure my girls were OK. I just want to thank you for what you did for them.”

They relaxed and prepared themselves for the cash. “We're just glad we were here to help.”

Scott’s friendly tone continued. “Or rather what you were trying to do
to
them.”

His smile never changed, but the air turned sour. Blackness gathered behind Scott’s green eyes. His anger gathered force the way lighting builds its charge before striking. He threw the bills on the ground.

Realizing it was about to get nasty for them, the stubble-bearded one began to plead. “Wait. It wasn't what it looked like. We were teasing. Putting a little scare into them. That's all. Just a little fun. No harm.”

“Want some fun? Why didn't you just say so? Let’s have some fun!” Scott snarled.

Scott’s hands shot out, and he squeezed the balls of both men through their baggy shorts, one scrotum crushed in each hand, severely rupturing both sets of testicles. Then, still clutching tightly, he yanked his hands away, ripping skin and partially de-gloving one of the men.

They fell to the sidewalk, throwing up, their hands cupping themselves as if to put their genitals back together. Their moans stopped when they had passed out from the pain.

Without so much as a glance back, Scott walked over to deal with Bill, who began to make conciliatory motions, at first flinching in fear before his typical smugness took over. “Close call, Scott. It’s good you came when you did. I was just about to…”

Scott whipped his left hand out and clubbed Bill over the ear, rupturing the eardrum and making it bleed. Scott hit him again, this time with his right fist, opening Bill’s lip and filling his mouth with blood.

“I know exactly what you were about to do.”

Bill covered his bloody mouth, “Stop. I was only going to…”

Scott smacked him hard across the side of his head, leaving a white mark on his cheek that quickly turned crimson. Scott’s hand stung from the strike. “Shut up, Bill.”

Bill looked ready to erupt. Scott could tell it wasn’t just the physical pain of his slap, it was the embarrassment of being caught.

Scott smiled encouragingly “Good, Bill. Let’s finally have this out.”

Instead, Bill backed down, his eyes watering and his jowls quivering with rage.

From behind him, a cluster of people shambled into the light. They walked with an awkward lurch; the scraping of their shoes was the only sound they made.

Scott sensed they would be a threat if they caught up to him. The world had changed so much within just a few weeks, with people devolving into violence out of fear or opportunism. He wasn’t afraid for himself, but he did worry about his family encountering more dangerous people before he could get them safely home.

Scott spat at Bill’s feet. “Coward. If I catch you within sight of my family, you will spend the rest of your life crippled and in pain.”

He pointed to the unconscious men on the ground, then ran to catch up with his family.

Bill didn’t sense the danger creeping up on him. When Scott ran away, Bill felt pleased. It was easy to threaten. Not everyone had the guts to follow through. He was strong. Stronger than most suspected. In the right circumstance, he felt certain he could beat Scott into the ground.

He shouted after him, “Who’s the coward now?” And immediately gave a high-pitched scream when a hand clutched his arm from behind.

He broke the hold and scurried away as fast as his tree-stump legs would carry him, which wasn’t very. Fortunately, most of the group had broken away to feed on the two injured men on the ground, who were shocked into consciousness when a half dozen hungry mouths tore into their flesh.

Bill turned around briefly when he heard the screams of the men behind him. He was briefly mesmerized, watching their torture. Then he saw that two members of the deadly group were still pursuing him, albeit slowly.

He tore his gaze away and ran for his car again. The sound of his own grunts kept him from hearing any more screams.

During his drive home, he was deeply preoccupied, dreaming of what he wanted to do to Scott.

The world really was different now, he told himself. Rules were getting broken all the time with no punishment for the offenders.
Anything goes.

He decided to bide his time until the right moment when he would slip from the shadows to administer a lesson in what happened to those who wronged him. He would make the man suffer by putting Laura and Maddy in his control, exhaust himself on them, maybe in front of Scott himself, then he would kill the whole family.

He smiled the entire way home.

CHAPTER 13

V
IRTUOUS
A
ND
V
ICIOUS

L
aura got them safely into their silver minivan, locked the doors, and waited for Scott to arrive. She shuddered at what could have happened to her and her daughters. The close call left her afraid of what else might be out in the night. She started the car and pled quietly, “Come on Scott. Hurry!”

When her husband arrived, she slid over to the passenger seat. She was too shaky from adrenaline to be able drive. Before he could say anything, she said, “Just drive, Scott. I don’t want to talk. I only want to go home.”

“Are you OK?” he asked as he closed his door.

Before she had a chance to respond, a heavy thump came from the rear of the van. Scott scanned the empty parking lot in his rear view mirror, finding nothing. He waited a moment and shifted into drive. Again came a heavy thump, this time hard enough to rock the van.

A blood-smeared face pressed against his window, looking like a possessed man. The man’s eyes wandered as if sightless. His hair was wild and thick with mud.

Scott had had his fill of stupid for the night. He stepped on the gas. The wild-looking man fell away from the van, his mouth leaving a trail of mucus on the glass.

In his rearview mirror, Scott saw the man’s body lying on the ground, wracked by tremors, curling and thrashing on the blacktop like a fat spider burning under a magnifying glass. The story of the Good Samaritan had been pounded into Scott from a young age. He couldn’t ignore the man, especially on such a dangerous night.

He stopped the van and opened the door to the humid night, muttering as he got out, “I’ll take another scoop of crazy, please.”

“Don’t.”

The quiet warning from Laura compelled him to pause, and he glanced at her. He turned back to discover the man already on his feet, staggering toward him.

There was something in his manner that repulsed Scott. A whiff of curdled milk reached his nostrils.

It wasn’t in him to back away from helping or hurting if necessary. But Scott surprised himself by announcing, “Right. We’re out of here.” He folded himself back into the van and drove away.

CHAPTER 14

H
OLLOW
S
OUNDS

T
hroughout the game, Ridley bounced around the living room furniture as she cheered Chase on, limiting her yells to full-throated whispers to allow Katie to rest. When her son broke through the line with only open field ahead of him, ready to score the winning touchdown, she was on her feet, jumping up and down on the black leather sofa. She forgot herself and chanted at full volume, “Go! Go! Go!”