3 comments/ 20782 views/ 4 favorites The Night Crawler By: GeneralBethlehem Copyright © 2006 De Rozario Jesse All rights reserved. Portions of this document may not be reproduced through any means, including, but not limited to, scanning, uploading, reproduction, transmission, and distribution via the Internet or any other means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying or recording in any form, without express permission of the author. Any reproduction or redistribution of this document must be done wholly and in its entirety. * 1 The woman watched the crowd and marked its people, but so far there were no potentials. The evening started out optimistic as any. Zodiac was packed to canned food tightness on any Friday night, and tonight was no exception. The heavy techno-bass thrummed through her body—through all their bodies—fusing with the drink and dope that most were hyped up on by now. The glaring, colorful lights wailed and flashed like sirens. The woman drank a little, danced some, laughed a lot; she didn't shoot or snort—such things made one weak. She was here alone. Always her eyes, her body, every sense, were searching and scanning the oblivious crowd for that certain kind of man. She walked through the moving throngs of sweaty bodies and wasted, high faces—her body systems more alert than normal, sensing and interpreting every touch and brush and jostle against her. Even those that came near were picked up by her senses and analyzed for compatibility. She watched every pair of eyes—like laser scanners checking for retinal blueprint, only she searched for something else, for that look of twisted, comprehending desire, that abnormal flash of heat spurred neither by drink nor drug. That compulsion. Lust. That need. Just the anticipation of meeting such a man was enough to switch her hormones to a raging magnitude. But she was taking her time, being choosy. The Old Ones would have chosen at random any that chanced their fancy. But times were dangerous now. Different. Besides, this selective method lent a greater challenge; and the one she chose would merit his rewards. Why give medicine to a healthy man, or food to those not starving? The woman smiled. There were so many of them nowadays. She was certain that every nightspot had at least one; it was only a matter of finding him. As of tonight, she'd never left empty-handed, and had no intention of starting that fad now. Time passed. Hours. Nothing. The woman resigned herself to a long wait. She leaned back against the bar. She was twenty-five or thirty. It was hard to tell. Sometimes her white face looked innocent as a teenager, and at others, she looked old enough to be that girl's mother. It might have been the light. It might have been something entirely different. Her slim legs were drawn tight together in their black leather. The fabric glistened like wet plastic, but the leather was genuine. Her hands were clenched on her knees like a hunting cat waiting for prey. Her black singlet matched her pants. Heeled boots ended in pointed toes. The woman's hair was jet black—so dark it looked blue—pulled back into a single bunch that didn't swish when she turned. She was not smiling and her lips were parted a crack, but the white points of her incisors peeked out like sprouts. They reflected the lights of the club. Each ear had steel studs through them—four in the left, three in the right. The studs sparkled too. Her lips looked as if she'd just finished putting to waste a handful of blueberries without the juice staining farther than the borders of her curved lips. She sat there, not hearing the music but the heartbeats, seeing not the lights but the eyes, feeling not the heat of sweat but that of hormones and brain waves and instinct. She was prepared to wait all night, if that's what it took. He would come. She was sure of it. "Hey, lady." The bartender's voice did not startle her. "Lady, can I get you anything?" The woman turned slowly. "No thanks," she said. The music was hellishly loud and of bad taste, and the bartender had to holler his rockers off to be heard, but the woman made direct eye contact and spoke with a calm softness. He heard her fine. Too fine. The clarity frightened him. As if she'd spoken through his mind instead of ears. The man scurried away to the far end of the bar counter. The woman went back to watching and listening. There were over three hundred guests here tonight, but none that suited her. A middle-aged man in a silk suit and wide face hidden by giant bee-like sunglasses sat alone in the deepest corner with his Cuban and Martini. He had a whole table to himself; he sat back and watched with displaced interest as the hours dragged by. Perhaps he would do. Most of the cocaine here tonight was his doing. But he was fat. Fat men tended to last longer. She did not want that. She wanted quick satisfaction. At the other corner, two blondes were draped over a steadily stoning young man. All three were laughing and smoking and shooting. One of the blondes was massaging the man's groin through his pants. Both of them had a Ruger .22 each. Though it could not hit a man from twenty yards, it might do a good deal of damage at close range—enough to scare the man into surrendering his wallet and cash without a story to the cops. The women also had a notebook of all the targets they had gunned and robbed in the past month. They might do. No. Women were always, somehow, strange. They left her feeling queasy after all was said and done with a bitter aftertaste in her mind and on her tongue. But other than these, there were none that caught her fancy. She would wait. Then an idea came to her. There were actions she could do to speed up the noticing and perhaps draw that man to her. Grinning with impish knowledge, the woman slid off her seat and turned towards the Ladies', swinging her hips, moving her arms to the music. Her tight, all-black leather caught a few stares and eye-gropes, but none that interested her. When she returned their appreciative glares, even the most wasted fled in panic. The restroom was lit with glaring white light, trashed and deserted. Soiled tissue and Carefrees, used condoms, wrappers, bottles: they decorated the place wonderfully and overwhelmingly. The smell was that of old lime and rotted urine. Females can be so atrociously abhorrent of public hygiene, she thought. But at least it was empty. A flashing light from the club behind her glinted off one of the mirrors, reflecting the vibrant color of her eyes: Clear and brilliant as sapphires. The woman closed the door and turned the lock. When she was done, she would drink a little more, but just a little; she would dance much more, perhaps get on stage and show the crowd what the steel poles were for; but she'd never touch the needle or powder. They would dull her senses, and she needed every bit of that for later on. Tonight was hunting night. 2 Zodiac was not his favorite nightspot for finding girls—the kind that could be easily manipulated to supply his need, the kind that was either too stupid or too trusting, or a healthy measure of both. Craig Joner staked out every Friday night unless he was out of town on business. He wandered through the club from early that night when it had just opened. It filled quickly on Fridays, but tonight there weren't any takers. This need started a year ago, when he managed to chalk up substantial debt to a certain Mr. DePulez, but Joner's kind was as old as the dust. They adapted their methods throughout the millenniums of human mutation, the essence remaining unchanged. When Craig told Mr. DePulez that he didn't have the money to pay him—not yet—the east European only laughed. "I know you don't, mister Joner," he laughed darkly. Only it sounded like Ah noo ya don, meestah Jonahz. "Of course not. They never do." Av cooz nat. Dey neva doo. Mr. D explained to Craig how he could save his fingers from getting sawed off before his wife and daughters were auctioned to some brothel in cold eastern Europe. Ya dough-ter izz steel vary yong. Sheed fesh a high prize. The money lost would have to be regained, he explained, and he knew jas da waay. Craig was choiceless. A few days later, he took his first victim. Craig drove the van while Mr. D and the woman got acquainted in the rear compartment. All Craig heard for the hour-long drive was her screams and Mr. D's cackles. But it was done. There was no turning back. When the Bulgarian was convinced that the merchandise was satisfactory and would fetch high on the underground auctions, Craig was dropped off and he never saw either the woman or Mr. D again. His debt had been paid. But that was only the beginning for him. Three weeks later, Craig found himself back in front of that club where his nightmare first started. He stood there at the entrance, gazing up at the flashing neon sign like a man seeing the sky for the first time. He almost got away. He might have escaped the clutches of this inexplicable need—this hunger—had the bouncer decided he didn't like his face and told him to take a hike. But he didn't tell him any such thing, and Craig was out two hours later with his second victim. By the time they got to the outskirts of town—over on the far side of Loral Highway where no cars drove in either direction on weekend nights—Craig Joner was having fun. He'd let that one go when he was done with her, knowing she was frightened bad enough keep their secret unshared. Even if she did spill, Craig was confident she'd never be able to identify him. And no one would believe the jerky, uncertain tale of a woman who'd been seen clubbing by herself, then gone off with a man while she was lost high in the colorful land of tequila and Bolivian-grade cocaine. Craig wasn't thinking of this, though. After he dropped her off at the expressway shoulder, he just laughed and blasted his music and roared the old engine of his dying Toyota Crown like a mad hyena celebrating after the kill. He hot-wheeled all night across the highways, stopping only to refill his tank twice, working to slow the metabolism now that his need was temporarily satiated. But he soon realized that the fires burning within him were not abated—the more he gave it, the hotter it roared. That woman was the first of several that passed his eye and through the doors and backseat of his purple Japanese car. He'd taken his pleasure from all of them, roughed up and frightened most, and beaten a few so badly that they'd shun a mirror for a few weeks. It was just for kicks. For that need—but often he got carried away. With those of the latter, it was sometimes so bad that Mr. DePulez almost didn't want them. Oh yes, that frightful Gypsy was back in the picture. You rune da merchendize, he'd say, and scowl. Mr. DePulez's ghoulish face had reappeared in Craig's side window as Craig enjoyed his third victim in the Crown's back seat. The Bulgarian looked worse than Craig had ever seen him or imagined he could look. Pale moonlight shone from behind his head, silhouetting his oily black curls like tendrils of some graveyard plant. His skin was paler than rotted wax. And when he exhaled, his breath didn't fog up on the window like it should've. Even the woman knew not to expect help from him. She didn't try screaming for help though Craig had taken her to the backseat over an hour ago and done things to her she'd only vaguely heard of. She looked at the face in the window and opened her mouth to scream, but the sound refused to form. After the Bulgarian took his turn with the newly-wed, he stated his conditions for silence, for though there was no proof of their first abduction, Mr. DePulez had captured enough video evidence of this recent torment to put Craig away for the better part of the next millennium. Da nehz mee lahnoom. The terrified woman was bundled into the back of Mr. D's battered van. Craig never knew what happened to her, but he saw Mr. DePulez again. Many times again, thank-you. Their business became a weekly arrangement, and after the fifth transaction, Mr. DePulez paid Craig a commission—maybe to keep him quiet, but mostly to rule out any chance of blackmail Craig might hope to pull over him. But Mr. DePulez needn't have worried. Craig was hating the job as a bee hates the hive or a banker his money. An evil bone in him had been struck after his first job, and now he found that he couldn't stop—that dormant side of him now lively and vigorous. It was worse than addiction. It was a compulsion. A need. The money was good, so were the perks that came along with sampling the merchandise, but at the end, Craig did it because he loved doing it. It gave him thrills. Joy. A hunger he could not quell from any other source. When Mr. DePulez explained how the younger ones brought in seegnifi kant-lee greytah prowfit, Craig changed his targets. Out went the college girls and housewives and single professionals, exchanged for a more tender breed. But his hangout was always the same; he thought that changing it might ruin his so far good luck. To the date, he'd never failed his employers. Until tonight. His regular club closed when several women, all frequent patrons, had disappeared. It had closed on Monday, when Trisha was finally reported missing. Craig smiled as he remembered her and the four hours they spent together before he sold her to the Gypsy. But with the closing of the club, Craig could have stopped right there and then. He could have rejected his bosses. He owed them nothing. But he was addicted. Craig could have thrown in the towel, but he persevered because of his need. And so he came to Zodiac. 3 Craig prowled through the flashing sodium arc lights and burning smells of sweat and alcohol and cheap air freshener. A colorful assortment of partygoers patronized tonight—peculiar for any club; they mostly catered to a certain type of customer. Some were young as high school students, others old as professionals living in the houses that neighbored his own, punks and Barbie's alike. That was good. It would be easier to find his mark. But it was also riskier. He would have to be careful. At the same time, Craig wondered why he hadn't chosen this club in the beginning. It was a disaster waiting to happen. He saw the stoned young man with a blonde in each arm, his mind vacationing to Never-Never Land from the fat suit's coke. He regarded the man smoking the cigar and was frightened shitless for a moment when he thought it was Mr. DePulez, bloated as if he'd swallowed a whole pig. After a couple hours of surveying, Craig realized this night might be the first where he left empty handed. It started out hopeful but cautious; now he was beginning to think that his luck had all run out. The techno-bass was getting to him. He wandered past the bar, music vibrating his brain, the orange and green lights stirring the vision in his eyes, the laughing and screaming adding to the confusion. It was around the time he remembered this was Friday night—tomorrow was a special school day for most on this last weekend before summer—thus the disappointingly low number of young students and high school kids, when he saw a lone girl prance past him, dancing and swaying to the music that had long ago melted into a throbbing headache. She was beautiful. Young. Craig smiled. The girl wore a lime tube top and short plaid skirt that didn't quite do the job of covering her ass. Heeled sandals covered her toes. Streaked blonde hair was tied in three ponytails. He caught her gaze and she entertained it for a moment, then the beat changed and she skipped over to the bar, pulling out a fake ID from her purse. Craig had no doubt she was underage, trying to dress up and drink to feel older, but those eyes had told him enough. She was confident. Self-assured. He could not ignore the arrogant way she danced and drank and flirted with the guys before turning around and walking away casual as pancake syrup. Craig watched a couple men move to the point where they might have been ready to say something. She'd look at them blankly, then laugh and wave her hand in their face before walking away. Craig smiled. This one would be good. He would love breaking her in—seeing first the arrogance then fear in her eyes, listen to her shout then scream then beg then do nothing but cry and give in. And she was stunning. She would do. In fact, the more he watched her, the more he saw she was perfect. Craig made his move. Emptying the martini to the back of his throat, Craig straightened his cuffs and walked over to where his target had just got off the dance floor with two boys—slightly older than her, but nothing compared to his mid-forties label. The boys looked confused—even angry. Craig laughed to himself, then his face fell and the deep hollow boom of expectation dropped from sky-scraping heights to shattered pieces at the floor in his gut. His girl walked into a circle of another eight or nine girls, all of similar age and dress. They high-fived her and slapped her back, laughing and congratulating her on that great show, good moves, sure showed those boys and hee hee giggle giggle now it's Marsha's turn but you should've got them to buy us some drinks first. And then the song changed again. Craig ground his teeth and stepped back to the bar. It was all setup fine. She would have done more than fine. She was made of the stuff that guys like him set their standards and records by. She might even get him a bonus from Mr. DePulez, not to mention an extra kick in the back seat of the Jap-mobile. But now the only thing she gave was rage. Mr. DePulez's first and only warning to him was never target those in a group. Craig never bothered to ask why, but figured he'd do best to stick to those rules. No witnesses. Craig went back to the bar, straightening his teal-specked maroon shirt, resigning himself to a long wait. Someone took his seat, so he moved to an empty one next to it and sat down. "Hey, man," the bartender hollered over his left shoulder. It startled him horribly, nearly sending him off his chair. Craig recovered and turned on the young man drying out glasses. Then he saw the man's eyes. They were afraid. Very afraid. Smugly satisfied, not knowing that the fear came not from him but from the seat's previous occupier, Craig did nothing further. "Hey," the bartender said again, looking pale and sweated as a Greek out of a steam bath. "Sorry, but that seat's taken." Craig looked at him, stunned. "What did you—" But the man cut him off. He had to shout to make himself heard, but he did it anyway. "You better leave that seat for her. She left to the toilet, and I think she'll be back." Craig could only stare. The shock was too strange and he was caught unprepared. He stared wide and blankly at the bartender before backing away. He was shocked at his own meekness. He backed away another step, slowly, watching the bartender with his hand stuck up the glass like a doctor trying to extract a trapped baby from the crushing walls of the birth canal. Craig Joner stepped away, balls shrunken to pea-sized things for no reason whatsoever, and walked in the direction of the little boys' room, cursing himself, trying not to trip over his own feet. 4 Craig strode quickly to the lavatory but found it not. He thought he followed the signs correctly, but something was clouding his mind—making it unreasonably stupid. To add to the tragedy of the misplaced restroom, his bowels were suddenly demanding release. He was sweating and dizzy from the pressure in his nether regions despite the pills he'd taken earlier that were supposed to help him keep on top of things during trauma. Slight fatigue or an abnormal sense of humor could be expected—but not nausea or this weird sense that tonight his luck was jinxed from the time he left the house. The Night Crawler First, the closing of the club at which he hunted with a patriotic sense of routine, then the empty withdrawal of potential targets. Then the bartender—in all his forty-three years of walking this lonely planet, he'd never met such a disrespectful bartender. And now this sickness. A meek and tiny voice advised that he'd best pack up and go home. He'd still have the skin on his back that he came with, and, luckily, his clothes and wallet and car. If he was further lucky, Marianne might still be up and in the mood for a tumble or two. He'd have lost nothing more than a few dollars on drinks, and— And pride. I don't think I'll be able to do this anymore if I quit tonight. And wouldn't that be a good thing for the world? But if I pull through now, nothing will be able to stop me next time! Never! Do you hear? Besides, I enjoy this job! Craig smiled; he could sense that voice starting to back down. But it wouldn't leave without one last fight. C'mon Craig don't be an idiot you win some you lose some. Your wins so far were just luck. You don't have any promises to Mr. DePulez or his associates. They aren't even expecting you tonight, remember? You'd surprise them with sudden merchandize, and probably not get as much from it anyway. Call it off now, we all walk away from this. Perhaps Mary will even give you a weekend blowjob. Who knows? Huh? Whaddya say? But if you don't quit now—and I mean now, Craig—you might never get another chance. There's a bad feeling about this one. A really bad, bad feeling, Craig. If I could beg you, I'd be down on all fours begging like a whipped pup, follow your instincts, not your pride, you know this is a bad one, a setup, like there's someone here looking for you! That last phrase hit him through the spine and cerebrum and every single neuron in his body with the force of a million high-watted volts. His whole body shuddered. There was a moment when Craig considered following his instincts, when he thought he'd pay his tab, get behind the wheel and go back to the wife, then see what became of that. But it wasn't about the sex. Not tonight, anyway. This was about a way of life. If he quit now, he saw that he'd never pick up the guts again to try this. And he loved this hobby. It gave him a thrill that no other adrenaline booster or the hottest turns with his wife or any woman young or old could give. Craig thought that if tonight his mission was to apprehend an eighty-year-old man, he would be just as unwilling to drop it. The Voice of Advice said nothing. Craig rejoiced in the fact that not only was that irritating, cowardly voice vanquished, but that he'd also located the bathroom. His penis surged powerfully in anticipation of its forthcoming treats, but Craig bade it relax for now. Pissing with an erection was hard work. Thankfully, it complied. He closed his hand around the shining brass knob and pushed the door in when a thought suddenly filled his mind with cold, dreadful certainty: Tonight, the city will have its last abduction. Craig choked in shock. He tried blinking back the fright that jolted through his bones like a tuning fork. He hadn't thought those words, but he'd heard it nonetheless from somewhere inside him. That untrained voice surfacing for one last word, no doubt. He was about to brush it completely off and enter the cubicle when a click came from the Ladies' opposite his, and the door opened. Craig saw her and suddenly felt well again. The pangs and cramps fled, taking with them the nausea. His bladder and bowels were no longer full. Where their filling had gone left him puzzled, but he didn't want to dwell on the negative. Now was time for reveling in the positive. His mind beamed and Mr. Softee twitched and began to grow hard. He felt life flowing through him again at the prospect of this wonderful taker. That a person could have such an effect on him was thrilling in itself. He found his mark. 5 The girl was petite—a little short, but in her heeled boots, she stood the perfect height. Her straight blonde hair was neat and dropped to the nape of her neck. It swayed outward like a skirt of leaves when she stopped and looked up at the man outside the door. He smiled at her. She smiled back. The girl was cute, too—not as young as the junior student he'd targeted earlier, but enough to perhaps have just finished high school, or to be almost graduating. A perfect row of pearly whites gleamed up at him from between naturally pink lips, straight in alignment and perfection as the rest of her wonderfully attractive body. He thought of what he would make her do with those lips later and had to suppress a great squeal. "Uh...hi," Craig managed to say, finding that elusive word somewhere in his collection of phrases and deep grammar. She smiled wider, blushing. "Hi," the girl beamed, clutching her hands behind her back and fidgeting like a nervous schoolgirl. She looked up at him with the surprise and furious interest of a deer suddenly caught in the glaring spotlights of a speeding rig—a slender, vivacious deer that would instantly put any stag into a burning desire to reproduce. But the thing that caught his attention most of all was not her dental perfection or her Hollywood smile and hair, nor the pert, firm body that awaited him under that shiny leather outfit. Above all, it was her eyes. Wide, huge spheres that shone in the flashing club lights. Innocent. Blazing with a so far undiscovered hunger he would help her realize. Hypnotic eyes that would make Greek goddesses hide in shame. They sparkled with the vibrancy of choice sapphires. 6 When the drug he slipped into her Shirley Temple took effect, it was nothing so sudden that she—or anyone else dancing and stoning around them—noticed. The girl felt weak. Dizzy. He asked her if she wanted to sit down and helped her to a seat in the back of the club. She still had enough wits to engage in reasonable conversation and keep the glasses of spiked Shirleys empty. The simple subject of age eventually surfaced and Craig told her the truth. She just laughed as if him being older than her father was the funniest thing in the world since genital deodorant. Craig asked hers but she refused to tell, saying only that a friend's ID got her in. He smiled a shit-filled grin, said, "No kidding," then leaned in and kissed her. He insisted on being told her age. Craig gloated on his perverted accomplishment. Blushing again, the girl whispered something in his ear. Craig suddenly realized that the leather outfit and lights were making her look older than she really was. He'd been wrong about her age by at least a couple—or triplet or quadruple—of years. Laughing for no reason, Craig thought he might go out to the payphone first and call Mr. DePulez. Perhaps he might be able to twist a heftier charge from him for this one. Craig laughed again and she joined in with him. She introduced herself as Marlene. He told her his real name. No point in trying to connive a lie to someone who would never see him beyond tonight. "Craig?" she slurred. "Your name is Craig?" "Yes," he smiled. The only thing better than screwing a cute thing was doing one that thought you were someone else. "Why?" He tried to look as innocent as possible. She bent up as if to kiss him, but instead put her nose behind his ear. The sensation was so erotically charged that Craig's mind blurred for a moment. "Craig Joner?" she asked. Craig felt his heart skip one beat, then another. It wasn't until the fourth skip that he realized his entire skin had gone cold and numb, racked in goosebumps and raised hairs. His mouth was dry. It took him awhile to find back his voice. "Y...yes," he said, all good humor gone. "Craig Joner...that's me." He tried to force a smile, but it refused to come. "Oh, wow! Craig Joner!" She was thoroughly wasted, but that was more than common interest in her voice. Marlene was shouting. A couple from another turned around to look at them. When she spoke, it was in a voice suddenly void of all intoxication. It was excited but sharp. Alert. Craig misinterpreted it for lust and teenage sexual infatuation. He was well-versed in the intoxicated version of such a phenomenon. "I've heard so much about you!" Now he was uncomfortable. His day business was lucrative but small. No one should have heard of him, especially not a young girl who probably couldn't yet get her driving license. And his night activities were not something he wanted to be famous for—not among the normal folk, anyway. "What have you heard?" he asked, trying to stay calm. "Oh. Not much," she said with sudden wariness. "Just I've been waiting so long to meet you." Her smile dropped entirely. That did it for him. Craig smiled. He was sure that was the alcohol and powder talking. "Really? Well, that's wonderful! I've always wanted to meet someone like you too. What do you say we get out of here? Maybe to my car?" Marlene was happy to agree, but she decided to give him one last chance. "Sorry," she said, tilting her head to the side and looking into his face. "I have to go home. My parents will be waiting for me." "But—" "Besides," she smiled, getting up from the couch, "I have school tomorrow. High School, you know?" It was all out now. If he persisted, there would be no mistake about his nature. "Oh," he said, then watched as she swayed like a tree and fell back on the couch. "Oww," she groaned. "My head! It hurts. It hurrrrts." Marlene sat next to him and leaned over his lap in feigned sickness. She stayed that way for awhile as he ran his hands through her hair and caressed her face. Then she sat up and downed the rest of her tampered cocktail. It was against her code to abuse substance—such would make one weak and dull senses needed for later on—but the façade was necessary to uphold. Again, he suggested they leave. Marlene made sure she was only able to gurgle an incomprehensive reply as he helped her out of Zodiac. 7 They stumbled out into the night, his arm wrapped around her hips. Outside his car, Craig pushed her against passenger door and kissed her. She looked up at him with those wide, innocent blue eyes, and a chill suddenly ran through Craig, from the base of his spine to his brain and throughout his entire body. Last abduction, those eyes seemed to say. I know you! Craig steeled himself against the guilt threatening to fill him for the first time since he began this wicked hobby. "You'll remember this night forever," he said, then gave that charming smile. Marlene could only grunt a reply. Craig shuddered and bundled her into the car. Getting in on the other side, he backed quickly out of the parking lot, crunching gravel under his worn tires, and sped out of the vicinity. 8 They were speeding over the deserted country road in open-aired silence. Craig put his hand across the space between him and Marlene and rested his large palm on her thigh. She jerked from the sudden contact, moving her leg away and turning up to his face with a fearfully restrained look. Craig looked away from the road just long enough to return her gaze with one as menacing as hers was terrified. He did not remove his hand. He slid it higher up her leg till it breached the hemline of her leather skirt. She was still staring at him. He looked at her again and laughed. Then she smiled and his blood thickened to slushy meat puree; he was clothed in a skin of gooseflesh. heard so much about you been waiting to meet you tonight the city will give up it's last victim— A bolt of lightning rent the sky and struck the road ahead of them. Craig snapped his head back to road. The light blinded his vision in the front, erasing all but the blazing white column of sparks and Nature's power. For that split-moment it flooded his car with burning luminosity, but from the corner of his eye, Craig saw the girl change. He screamed and let go of the wheel and— (oh no don't do it Craig don't turn around!) —turned back to her. She was as he'd seen her all along: A cute, innocent schoolgirl with erotically pale blue eyes and Barbie-straight blonde hair, more afraid of him and what he would do to her than the approaching storm. The wind that had been rocking the car slowed. The only sounds were the distant retreat of black thunder. Craig forced out a chuckle, more to comfort himself than to express humor, and faced back to the road. He eased the car down when he saw the needle quivering past the one-hundred-miles-per-hour mark. His hands were shaking. Marlene shifted farther away from him. It was all right. Everything was all right. He was tempted to turn back to her—to make sure, just to make sure that everything he saw was a piece of his imagination catalyzed by his tired, frustrated mind—but willed against it. She should be afraid of him. Not the other way around. The next few hours of her life would be filled with greater fear and humiliation and uncertainty than she'd ever known or ever would know—until she met Mr. DePulez. Then Craig would personally oversee her punishment for his moments of fear. Oh yes, that sounded about right. Everything was all right. She rustled in the corner but Craig refused to look. She was just scared. Yes. That's it. Afraid. Terrified of him and her obscured future. Craig breathed in slowly and exhaled, watching as his hands stopped shaking over the wheel. But if everything was going to be fine, then why did he refuse to look at her? 9 Craig stopped the Crown on the shoulder of Loral Highway—not so much a highway as a dirt-and-gravel shortcut from the main town to the suburban residential—in a desolate portion surrounded by forest on either side. It was not a preserve. These trees were wild—ancient as the sun, and they looked even older, like trees straight out from a fairytale's enchanted wood: Gnarled, twisted branches that reached out with grappling fingers; massive trunks that twenty men couldn't have formed a circle around, the rough bark peeling off in sheets resembling overcooked bacon. At night, no light from the city or town reached into the thick woods, and the treetops covered all traces of light that the stars or moon might have bestowed. The road slithered through the dense labyrinth of pines and sequoias. The trees towered above the tiny vehicle like club-bearing ogres and Cyclopses preparing to beat hapless midgets. When the wind blew, the tops of the trees bowed forward, only adding to that suspiciously real impression of animated life. But the road wound safely through the silhouettes, a safe path through treacherous woods. Ordinarily, Loral Highway would have made a convenient—if not safe and quick—route from urban to rural, but lately, heavy rains had washed away most of the road, making travel through it as hazardous as trekking through the Mojave Desert on foot without a map or water. Trees were scattered randomly, as if whoever had first built the road did so with the intention to confuse all but the most veteran travelers. Because of the faint visibility of the road, it had been officially closed a month before Craig started using it, but such only made for his increased convenience. They were alone in the woods—she was alone with him—without any chance of disturbance. That was why he always brought his victims here. 10 Craig looked at his passenger, Marlene: Terrified, gorgeous, young; fifteen, if what she said was to be trusted. Craig thought she had no reason to lie. "I...is something wrong, Mr. Joner?" she asked in a shaky voice. The fear was oozing from her like strong musk, and Craig groveled in the scent. "Move to the backseat, Marlene," he said, his voice suddenly cold and commanding, devoid of the terror that had gripped him earlier. It was a moment of great intensity. What Marlene did now would dictate the way the rest of the night went. She knew what was going to happen to her. The difference lay in her choice to resist or accept it. Sometimes they tried to run. The first runner had pissed off Craig, because he hated running. Chasing after them meant his ploy—whether charm or terror—had failed, and that did nothing to better his mood. He had chased that first runner into the woods—she wasn't young like this one, and she ran like a state representative—caught her at long last when she fell over a tangle of ensnaring vines, and shoved her hard into a tree trunk. He did her as she writhed in semi-consciousness, but the adrenalin of the raw deal was gone. But she had been a good piece, screaming and crying as he used her six ways from Sunday—all that running and fighting spirit gone. Following that, Craig had been more cautious. He always kept the child-lock on, making it impossible to open the door from inside. So far, none of his victims had broken the windows. One woman had tried, but her fear made her weak. Marlene sat still, nervously glancing up at Craig's grim expression. She was beautiful. Craig Joner gently ran a hand through her blonde hair. He leaned his head back against his headrest. "Don't make this any harder on yourself, Marlene," he said. "Just get in the back, please." This one was obviously not a fighter. At the start of tonight he thought he wanted someone to tame—someone to subdue and break in with force—but as the night escalated, Craig was glad this one was weak. He didn't think he would be able to summon enough energy to deal with a fighter after everything that happened so far. He wanted a slow, relaxed session. Then, he might kill her or let her go. Or sell her to the Bulgarian. Marlene tried to open the door. Not desperately, hopefully. The handle turned down but the door did not open. She looked back up at Craig, a shimmering fear floating in her pale blue eyes. Was she caught? "Just climb back between the seats," Craig said softly, willing to pretend to himself that he truly believed that had she opened the door, she would have obediently stepped around to the back and got back into his car. Marlene squeezed herself into the narrow space between the front seats. Craig watched her in his rear-view mirror. As she climbed, her short black leather skirt rode up, revealing a glimpse of— Oh my God ohmyGod what IS THAT? Craig jerked his eyes away from the mirror as if the glass had reflected a demon. His whole body began to shake, his lungs pumped with the violent exertions of a suffocating man. "Is anything the matter?" her voice wafted in from behind him, but he barely heard. Though he refused to look back at her, even through the mirror, Craig could feel her smile. That made it worse. God oh god what's going on here? It took awhile before his body managed to control itself and subdue the shivering. Then, he spoke. "Marlene," he said, "you've done okay so far." He paused and took a breath. "I think you know that you don't have to get hurt tonight." But it was all an act of self-reassurance. Something was wrong. Something was so, so wrong, but he did not know what. Until Craig could identify the crisis, he could convene no other option than to continue with his original plan. "When we're done," he continued, and gulped down a cold lump in his esophagus, "I can drive you home or somewhere to catch a bus or...or a cab," he lied, "and you can never think about this night again." He paused, looking into those mysteriously helpless blue eyes. "If you're good. But if not..." He left it unfinished. He knew she was a smart girl; she understood that if she fought him, things would only be worse for her. "I'm willing and prepared to follow through with either option tonight, Marlene," Craig said. "Makes no difference to me. The choice is up to you, whether in the next twenty seconds I see your clothes up here in the front seat." The Night Crawler Her breaths were coming in hard, frightened bursts. "All of them. Except your boots." Craig smiled, not looking in the rear-view mirror but knowing she was looking at him and seeing that smile. That sneer of cruel confidence. "If that happens, you can go home tonight in one piece." Craig Joner looked out the side window to the rows of spruces that soared into the black sky like painter's brushes. They shouldn't have been that big, but (neither should leathery black skin and hair grow on young girl's thighs) they were. He started counting. "One...two..." There was first a silence so overwhelming that Craig swore something was sneaking up on him from behind. He was about to spin around when he heard rustling in the backseat. He relaxed. Just nerves Craig she's so hot all your thoughts are up in a bunch. Relax do her good then sell her to the Bulgarian. You need her. You need to do this. Nnnneeeeeeed... "...three...four..." Grunts and hurried movement. Whimpering. Something heavy flew past his right shoulder: A leather skirt. "...five...six..." Another matching black piece landed on the shotgun seat. "...seven...eight...nine...ten..." He waited hesitantly. "...eleven?" Craig paused, furrowing his brow. There was silence from the back again. His victim was now down to her underwear and clearly faltering in fear. Craig smiled and resumed the count. "Twelve...thirteen...fourteen...fifteen..." When the girl saw there would be no leniency on his demands, sounds of movement came again. Craig glanced sideways at the leather skirt and blouse on the seat beside him. And it all suddenly occurred to him what was wrong about the girl. Black stilettos and tight leather were common attire for a girl aiming for the Gothic outlook. Leather that hugged the body so tight it looked painted right onto her skin. But the girl's clothes had been loose. Horribly loose. So loose it might have been borrowed from her older sister or mother, or that she didn't know what she was trying to look like but just wore it because it looked good, or as if she'd first come to Zodiac dressed in those clothes, but— Craig thought of what he'd seen in his peripheral vision when the lightning struck. He thought of the bat-like patch of flesh that vanished from the back of her thighs just when he registered it. He thought of the sweet, innocent way she'd asked him if anything was wrong when even a child would have seen he was terrified enough to need diapers. This girl only looked like a teenager. Hell, even her eyes, behind that innocent sheen of simulated naivete, were blazing with...with hidden words. Like she was... —wearing another body! Craig screamed. 11 Craig Joner didn't know how long he sat unconscious, but it couldn't have been more than moments because when he came to, the doors were still all locked, and he could still hear Marlene's frantic grunts as she tried to strip off her underwear. Perhaps it was just in your mind... Clinging on to the façade because he knew that if it slipped for even a moment, he would be dead. Craig continued counting. He no longer desired her flesh or the pleasure in taking her body, but the need remained. He was helpless to back down from it as a lemming can go against the maddened urge of suicide or a goldfish can resist worms, and such would lead to his death. "Sixteen," he said, then forced down an apple-sized lump that had risen in his gullet. "Seventeen." He did not want to see this through anymore, did not want to continue, but lacked choice. The movement from the back became more hurried. Desperate. "Eigh—" "Okayyy!" "Nineteen..." "Mr. Joner! I'm done. Please!" Craig turned to the seat beside him, avoiding the reflection of his victim in the back seat, and looked at the clothes: Matching black leather skirt and singlet, mesh panties and bra, also black, also matching. Again, Craig was reminded about the terribly wrong way the clothes had draped loosely over his victim. "Please, don't hurt me," Marlene's voice wafted up to the front like a distraction. Craig Joner slid his seat back to make more room to turn around. Marlene was in the middle of the rear sofa, knees bent up to her chin, hugged against her breasts. He climbed into the backseat, smiling. Already he knew she was not a fighter. He saw that in the way she curled herself up in a ball and simply stared at him with those gentle blue eyes. Now settled in the back, Craig pushed his driver's seat up as far as it would go. He kicked off his shoes and tugged the shirt over his head without unbuttoning it, but left his pants on. Only the zipper came down. "Do you know what I want, Marlene?" She took a moment to respond. "Not exactly." Her voice cracked. Her eyes were reddening. Craig reached out and took her arm. He pulled her next to him, putting one arm around her shoulder, pushing her knees down with the other. Marlene began to cry. Craig hugged her, shushed her, and whispered, "Nothing bad is going to happen to you, Marlene." He caressed her waist. When her sniffling lessened, he kissed her forehead, then gently eased her head into his chest like a comforter. "Have you ever done this before?" he asked. She only cried and shook her head. "Are you afraid?" Marlene didn't do anything for awhile, as though she was trying to decide how to answer that simple question. It was only when she shook her head, as if to say she was not afraid, that Craig realized her sobbing sounded more like laughter than sorrow. Craig absorbed this horrifying suggestion when he felt her mouth spread into a smile against his belly. He opened his mouth to scream but his arms were frozen and could not move her face away, her face was stuck against his belly like a leech and he couldn't get her off, just couldn't couldn't couldn't, and that was when he felt her hidden face morph. Craig felt her face go wide and soft, like it was only wax that had melted. Her eyeholes expanded against his flesh to five times their size, sprouting long wriggling eyelashes. They tickled his tummy like spider legs. A wet piece of flesh that should have been her tongue came out and licked circles round his chest. Her head stayed against his chest, but the tongue worked its way down to his navel. To his pants button. Down to his knees. Craig screamed again and shoved the abomination away, leaping as far away from her as he could go. But he realized all the doors were locked and she was between him and the release button. Marlene retreated back into the space between the two front seats, her innocent face a reflection of utter fear and confusion. She began to bawl. "No!" She screamed at her attacker, weeping. "D...don't! Don't hurt me. P...please don't hurt meeee!" Marlene looked at Craig in the rear seat, bright alarm in her eyes. Craig shouted and leapt forward, snatching her up by the hair. "Owww," she screamed. "You're hurting me! Leave me alone! Please, just leave me alone!" "Hurting you, huh?" Craig sneered as he forced her to kneel against the back of the seat, her head crooked in the small space between the rear window that became a horizontal shelf. "Hurting, you? You don't know pain, bitch! You don't know anything!" He knelt behind her squirming torso, using his weight to hold her in place. "No!" she screamed again, reality suddenly striking her with what was going to happen now. "Don't do this! I...I've never done this before..." sobbing, frenzied sobbing, "please...don't hurt me...don't do this to me!" But her weeping was in vain. Craig looked out the back window as he leaned over her shoulder, jerking her head back by her long blonde hair. "Don't? And what if I do? Didn't think of that one, did you? Think you're so smart!" Craig was panting and sweating furiously, fear and rage bursting out as one. He pushed himself behind her and forced her thighs apart with his hands. She fought and kicked him, screaming till he thought her throat must vomit blood, but found herself matchless to his anger-fueled strength. "What are you going to do, huh? Turn? A vampire, perhaps? A werewolf? Or how about a wraith?" Marlene screamed as he broke into her, pushing and holding it in, then pumping his hips back and forth, in and out, tick tock tick tock like a tomcat's tail. "Yes," he grunted, thrusting in time with his words, alternating drive with curse, shove with threat. His pelvis slapped hard against her ass and he could see it growing red. "A witch (thrust) on a flying broom (thrust) might do the trick (slap)! Too late (thrust) though! You found (nnggg) your match today." He collapsed on her, panting into her ear. "What's that you've got on? Some kind of mask?" He dug his nails at the edges of her face, trying to tear off the imagined mask, but came away fruitless. Marlene screamed and cried. "Change," he yelled as his nails cut at her skin. "Go on! Change, damn you, change!" He used her mercilessly, his screams of rage and fear and frustration joining with hers. When a second bolt of lightning shrieked down and struck the littered forest floor not fifty feet from the rear of his car, he saw only the blinding light and not the reflection of her eyes and face in the black glass of the window. And as he was lost in the fervor of his rape, Craig did not notice the difference between her screams and giggles. 12 When he was done, Craig pushed her flat on the seat. Marlene lay there, unable to move of her own volition. He thought she looked like a pet suddenly thrown into the wild, unsure of how to act now that it was free; for the first time since crawling to the backseat over three hours ago, Craig was just looking at her, not telling or making her do something. He understood what was going through her mind. So close to being free and finished with the bad, bad man in the car, yet so far away as the path to safety was hidden from her. Craig grinned at her. Something about the night had used her to frighten him, but he'd showed them, hadn't he? Oh yes. He was sure he had. For a long time from now, sweet little no-longer-innocent Marlene wouldn't dare change her face with anything but a paper bag—definitely not make-up—and wouldn't dress in anything more alluring than her father's overalls and windbreaker. Craig smiled again. But of course, she was going to belong to someone else after tonight, and they would dictate what she wore. "You can sit up," Craig said at last. "You're almost done." Tentatively, as if she thought it might be a joke, Marlene sat up and crawled into the corner. "W...wh...what else?" she stammered, fearful of punishment for speaking. Without a word, Craig climbed to the driver's seat and stuffed her clothes into the glove compartment. Marlene drew a hard breath when she saw them disappear. Craig put the key into the ignition and started the engine. The familiar sound soothed his mind. When they were about halfway back to the main road, Craig answered her. "I'm not finished with you yet, Marlene," he said, his voice piercing the dense darkness of the cabin. "But after all the trouble you put me through, I think you paid up pretty well." He dared to look back in the mirror at her, pleased to see her so terrified, drawn up so far into the corner like she thought she might be able to pass through the door that way and escape. "S...so why don't you l...let me g...go?" she whimpered. Craig turned around to her. "Can't do that now," he said, smiling. All along, she'd thought he would let her go in the end if she cooperated with him. Now that hope she'd clung so desperately to was dashed into a horror worse than anything she'd imagined. "I have some friends that would like to make your acquaintance," he said. "You're never going home." 13 It was drizzling. The thunder that had previously retreated now returned in full-fledged assault, bringing with it a company of fresh lightning. Armies of stray and fallen leaves were stirred up, swirling in the air like wedding confetti. Craig switched on his headlights and wipers. He felt a shiver pass through him and looked back at his captive. All in order. He pressed on towards escape. Something dark whispered that he was— gonna die gonna die gonna die! she'll change 'cuz she's heard so much about you and been waiting to meet you and now she's here the city will never lose another victim to you Craig Joner! —never going to make it out of these woods. Ever. He drove anyway. "Yes," he said, to reassure himself more than anything, "you're gonna meet my friends, and they're gonna do more things to you than I could even invent!" Craig laughed. "I'd rest while I could, if I were you. Ha-ha! You've got about twenty minutes." The rain specked his windscreen faster than he could wipe. Craig continued driving through the storm that tormented the dark forest. It was a place that well could hold legions of werewolves and vampires. The gargantuan trunks shielded unseen monstrosities that prowled behind, but he was the hunter tonight, not these woods, nothing that lurked in these woods, and most definitely not one scrawny fearful shivering fifteen-year-old blonde girl trying to dress grown-up and tough who fell so easily for his ploy and went down without a fight and who— changed into something changed into a creature you'd not want in your worst nightmares changed changed CHANGED!!! —was now sitting naked in his back seat oblivious to her fate that would find her passed from hand to hand from owner to owner or who might even become the private property of Mr. De-Frankenstein-Pulez and who'd— been waiting to meet you heard so much about you can't wait this is your last night never leave the woods never never never the city will be safe after I'm through with you did you see what I changed into let me show you again and get a good look get a really really GOOD LOOK!! The girl-thing spoke. "I'm sorry," she said in a deep corpselike voice—full of earth and gravel and blood. "But I can't wait twenty minutes." Craig jerked and the wheel spun out of control. The car hadn't been speeding but the dirt was slippery. Even as the Crown ran off the makeshift road and slammed into a tree trunk thicker than thrice the width of his car, shearing great chunks of bark and metal and sparks from the collision, Craig was unable to stop himself from turning round. "Wh—" His mouth went dry, as if instantly filled with dust, his tongue stuck to his pallet. He looked in the corner of the back seat and saw her change. For a glimpsing moment she became a striking woman in prime age beauty. Sparkling crystal eyes framed by jet-black hair so dark it glimmered blue. A Goth babe stripped naked of her leather, waiting in the back seat for her fate. And then the change became complete. The thing got off the seat, took hold of his hand with her own, and slowly pulled herself to him. What Craig saw only had time to register on the unconscious level of his mind. Had he been granted the opportunity to remember that moment, he would have remembered (she came first in another body that's why the clothes didn't fit her this isn't her true form she can change to anything she wants!) her face first of all: The features lost every trace of color and ran all together like decayed yogurt, drawing and melting into the center. A deep hole sunk into the middle of what was once a young girl's face, stretching and growing teeth till there were no more eyes or ears or lips, just a fang-lined, gaping orifice. The air chucked up bore the rich smell of blood and disease. The smell of long dead meat. The thing's blue eyes dripped red blood, then jellified into coagulated globs of blood in their sockets. But somehow they could still see him. The mouth opened and yawned at him, screeching with the high pitched shriek of twisting steel and dry ice shards scraping along blackboards. Craig slapped his one free hand to his ear and screamed. His larynx erupted blood and burst, but he kept on screaming. He would also have remembered feeling his bladder and bowels suddenly fill with the essence that had been robbed from them in Zodiac, and then losing all muscle control of those organs. Their contents blasted out from him like a vacuum pump spewing sewage, adding to the bitter copper smell inside his car. And he would have remembered noticing that it was still raining, hard, but that the drops falling on his windshield were crimson red. Craig never did get the chance to comprehend those, for as he screamed, her small hand gripped his wrist with unparalleled strength, crushing the bones, and her other hand reached out and took his neck. The fingers grew suddenly long and supple enough to encircle his neck with extra room, their points thinning and hardening to talons. In one fluid motion, she broke his arm and flung his head into the window on his right, exploding the glass and the left side of his skull. Craig Jones was still screaming. He should have died on impact, but a cruel twist of fate, paying him back with interest for every perverted act of cruelty, granted him only madness. He was still alive and conscious when the Marlene-thing pulled him to the back seat of the car—like a predator insect dragging paralyzed prey to its lair—and began the long process of draining him of all fluids, beginning with the blood in his guts, and ending with the grey paste of his slowly rotting brain. By then, the rain had stopped and the crickets were boisterously noisome. The humidity matched a swamp. It was her thirst to consume the fluids of her victims, her need, as she had been his. When satisfied, Marlene left Craig a dry husk of skin draped around his bones, sprawled in the back seat like a sleeping Halloween costume. There was just enough life and blood in him to draw the mosquitoes. She found it suitable that he would be finished off in this way. As she pressed the lock-release button for the doors, she could still sense his mind screaming. Marlene stepped out of the car—tall, junoesque, lithe once more, raven-colored hair returning again to her head in such clarity it shimmered blue, face morphing back to that beautiful form that left her victims stumbling over themselves to discover her secret and their doom, her eyes glistening like polished sapphires. She returned her clothes to her body—pleased at how well they fit again—checked herself once in the black glint of the car's window, and began the lonely walk home. It was a long stretch of tree-lined darkness before she would reach civilization. The wildlife hushed for her as she moved along, the night creatures retreating from the range of her senses. It was far to the main road, and there would be no cars to offer assistance. That was why she always brought her victims here. * Jesse De Rozario Singapore, August 2004 Copyright © 2006 De Rozario Jesse All rights reserved. Portions of this document may not be reproduced through any means, including, but not limited to, scanning, uploading, reproduction, transmission, and distribution via the Internet or any other means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying or recording in any form, without express permission of the author. Any reproduction or redistribution of this document must be done wholly and in its entirety.