Succulent Prey by Wrath James White Read online

  BLOODLUST

  "What do you want, Joseph? What do you want from me?"

  The air between them became hot and

  thick with a palpable lust. Joseph licked his lips. He was imagining what it must be like to consume a woman's entire

  breast.

  "I want to make love to you." She leaned forward and took his hand.

  Together they rose from the table and

  walked out into the parking lot.

  "You'l be gentle with me, won't you? I haven't been with anyone since my

  husband and I divorced five years ago.

  You'l take it slow, won't you?"

  They were almost to her car. She pul ed out her keys and opened the car door.

  "Promise you'l be gentle with me."

  "No," Joe said.

  His huge, powerful hands clenched tight around her throat....

  SUCCULENT

  PREY

  WRATH ,JAMES WHITE

  LEISURE BOOKS

  NEW YORK CITY

  To Mom. A LEISURE BOOK®

  December 2008 Dorchester Publishing

  Co., Inc. 200 Madison Avenue New York,

  NY 10016

  If you purchased this book without a

  cover you should be aware that this

  book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for

  this "stripped book." Copyright OO 2008

  by Wrath James White Al rights

  reserved. No part of this book may be

  reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,

  including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval

  system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. ISBN 10: 0-8439-6164-3 ISBN 13:

  978-0-8439-6164-5

  The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "L" with design are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Visit us on the web at

  www.dorchesterpub.com.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to Brian Keene, Ed Lee,

  and Jack Ketchum for support and

  inspiration. Thanks also to my ex-wife

  Rosie who was with me through the

  writing of this and put up with the

  weirdness. And to Zondria, my biggest

  fan, who was also with me through the

  writing of this and who was always

  supportive and encouraging and helped

  me get through the rough patches.

  SUCCULENT

  PREY

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Joey tasted nickel and copper. Blood.

  His mouth was fil ed with his own blood lying thick on his tongue. He tried to spit it out but the duct tape strapped across his face made it impossible. He had no

  choice but to swal ow it, gagging as a

  wad of blood and phlegm slid down his

  throat in a warm lump. Joey tried hard to keep from crying. He'd been crying for

  hours and it had done him no good. The

  fat kid seemed to enjoy his tears.

  Why me? Why is he doing this?

  It was a pointless question with no

  answer that would have made a bit of

  difference. He was suffering and he

  would continue to suffer and there was

  nothing he could do about it.

  At first he had been confident that his parents would rescue him and punish the fat kid. He was sure that as soon as they realized he hadn't made it home from

  school they'd be kicking down every

  door on the block looking for him. But

  that had been many hours ago and no

  one had come for him. Now he was

  afraid that no one would ever find him; that he would die down there in the dank basement.

  The rusted fiberglass-on-steel tub in

  which Joey lay was rapidly fil ing with blood. Joey splashed about in a river of red, slipping farther down into the tub. He'd heard that you could drown in three inches of bathwater and wondered how

  many inches of blood were already in

  the tub. He knew he was bleeding to

  death. His flesh had been split open like overripe fruit and was leaking in a

  steady sluggish drip down into the large bathtub.

  Joey didn't know how many times he'd

  been stabbed and cut. Slashes

  crosshatched his thighs and buttocks,

  many of them going clean through to the bone, yawning wide like toothless smiles fil ed with bleeding pink gums. He could see the red muscle fibers and stringy

  sal ow fat boiling up out of one

  particularly deep wound in his upper

  thigh. Luckily his genitals had been

  spared the fat kid's attentions. His anus, unfortunately, had not. He'd cut him there too and then he'd done worse. Joey tried his best not to think about that pain.

  Several times now the fat kid had come, dipped a glass into the tub, fil ed it with Joey's blood, and brought the glass to

  his blubbery lips to drink. His squinty little eyes would flutter in absolute ecstasy as he gulped down the red liquid, making

  sickening smacking noises. Even

  through the pain Joey found amusement

  in knowing that he had pissed himself in the same tub from which the fat kid was drinking.

  Time stal ed as Joey slipped into and out of consciousness. The basement was a

  perpetual night, an endless nightmare

  from which he could not awaken. The

  windows along the tops of the basement

  wal s were spray-painted black. Faint

  glimmers of light leaked between the

  cracks in the frames and cast eerie

  shadows on the damp wal s. The only

  genuine il umi nation came from the

  fluorescent light at the bottom of the

  basement steps and that was only turned on when the fat kid came down to play.

  Joey was beginning to fear that light. In the dark he was alone. Safe. Whenever

  the light came on the pain started al

  over again.

  Joey's throat was raw and hoarse from

  the agonized shrieks that had torn their way up from his bel y and out into the

  moist, stagnant basement air. Even after the fat kid covered Joey's mouth with

  duct tape he had continued to scream at every thrust and slash of the knife,

  scalpel, sharp steel pins, and needles. Not to cal for help, but to drown out the pain with noise.

  Joey lost track of how many times the fat kid came down to torture him or drink

  from his wounds. The image of the

  teenager's chubby cheeks splashed with

  Joey's blood, his eyes glazed and

  sparkling with hunger and lust, made

  chil s dance along Joey's skin. He

  wondered if the kid was a vampire.

  Vampires were supposed to be thin and

  beautiful and this kid was al lumpy and misshapen with pimples exploding al

  over his acne-scarred face, but he had

  drank an enormous amount of blood.

  Only a vampire could have drank that

  much blood without getting sick. But if that kid was immortal then he was

  fucked because that meant he'd have to

  look like that forever.

  Maybe he just thinks he's a vampire?
r />   Joey wondered. Or maybe he is a

  vampire but just a different kind than the ones in the movies. An uglier kind.

  The basement door creaked open again

  and sunlight spil ed down the stairs,

  il uminating the cobwebs and rat

  droppings and chasing away the

  cockroaches that had come to lap at the blood splattered around the outside of

  the tub. A few tepid rays of sunshine

  struck metal and cast their gleam farther into the room. Joey's eyes fol owed the sun rays back to their reflection in the stainless surgical steel and he

  shuddered.

  Several cruel-looking implements were

  laid out on a metal table a few feet from where Joey lay bleeding. Razor-sharp

  scalpels, knives, and needles, arranged the way surgeons did on TV-in order of

  practical use. They were al stained with Joey's blood.

  The basement door closed again and

  the lone fluorescent light at the top of the basement steps flashed on. The bulb

  was broken and flickered continuously,

  casting eerie shadows around the room.

  Joey cringed as the fat kid came back

  down the stairs, backlit by the strobelighting fluorescent bulb. He was just one great malformed shadow.

  The fat kid was naked. His pale flesh

  was stained with Joey's blood, including his short, fireplug-shaped cock, erect

  and straining beneath the weight of his low-hanging gut. Joey began to whimper

  as the kid's gore-streaked smile came

  swooping down at him and he felt those

  clammy hands and blubbery lips, that

  slimy wormlike tongue, and blunt little teeth worry at him, probing and digging into his wounds, ripping them wider. He began to scream against the duct tape

  sealed tight to his lips as he was turned facedown in the tub and he felt the pain lance through him again in rhythmic

  thrusts, drawing more blood.

  Joseph Miles woke up with his heart

  thundering in his chest, his lungs sucking in air and forcing it back out in rapid bursts. His old scars screamed as if

  they'd just been made. His eyes slid

  back and forth, sweeping the room,

  looking for the fat kid. He reached out and stroked the large powerful forms of Hades and Beelzebub, his guardians,

  nestled beside him in the bed, one on

  each side. The rock-hard muscles coiled beneath their fur reassured him. They

  would've torn that fat kid to pieces.

  Anyway, he was locked up now. He'd

  never hurt Joey again. Stil , Joey was

  grateful for his two guardians.

  He squinted against the harsh invasive

  glare of the morning sun lancing through the cracks in his vertical blinds and tried to wil the clouds to shield him from it. Hades and Beelzebub did not appear to

  mind the sunlight nearly as much as he

  did. Joey found that surprising. Weren't monsters supposed to fear the light?

  That's what the books al said. But the fat kid had snatched him off his bike in

  broad daylight and Hades and

  Beelzebub loved the sun. They lay

  snoring steadily in the warm morning

  light.

  Their heavy rumbling breaths vibrated

  through the mattress like a revving

  engine. Joey could stil smel the meaty steel-and-copper scent of flesh and

  blood in each exhalation. He cringed,

  remembering their last meal.

  Joey stared at the two massive beasts,

  admiring their fearsome jaws with the

  savage, lethal-looking canines. Their

  mouths could easily have crushed the

  largest bones in his body. Their necks

  were as thick as his waist and their legs and shoulders were broad and muscular.

  The combined weight of the two

  monsters was nearly three hundred

  pounds, three times his own weight, and with them lying on the blanket he was

  trapped beneath it, unable to move.

  Beelzebub was the first to notice that the young boy had awakened. He leapt up

  and ran to the head of the bed where he began happily licking Joey's face.

  Hades woke up next and soon Joey was

  being covered in saliva as the two huge beasts showered him with affection.

  Joey hugged them, running his hands

  over the smooth black fur coating their muscular bodies, and began to cry. He

  knew that if anyone found out what they'd done they would destroy the two beasts

  and he'd be alone again. Defenseless.

  It had been over a year since Joey had

  been attacked and nearly kil ed. That's when his parents had brought home the

  two monsters to protect him. For the last six months Joey and his friend Mike had been teaching the two predators how to

  kil from a book they'd ordered from

  Soldier of Fortune magazine on building prey drive and a Schutzhund video on

  bite work. Using a dummy they'd made

  of old clothes, they'd taught the two dogs to leap up and rip out a man's throat on command, how to dive for a man's legs

  and crush his ankles or rip off his

  quadriceps or hamstring muscles with

  their massive jaws to bring him down,

  how to rip open a man's bel y and tear

  out his intestines. They were learning

  quickly. Joey had been dying for a

  demonstration of their abilities.

  Right up until Hades and Beelzebub split little Mikey like a wishbone, Joey had

  been confident that he could cal the

  dogs off before they went too far. The

  fountain of arterial red that splashed his face moments after giving the attack

  command had proven him wrong.

  He had been standing next to Mikey in

  the park. They both had their shirts off and Joey kept catching Mikey staring at the scars on his chest and stomach from where he had been attacked. He knew

  that Mikey was about to ask him about

  them, that he would have to remember

  that horrible night spent in Damon Trent's basement tasting his own blood. The last thing Joey wanted was to remember. He

  whistled and pointed at his friend. The two rottweilers turned in unison, baring their fangs. Hades was the first to attack. Mikey had his arm wrapped in a bite

  sleeve made from a stolen leather jacket and two thick pil ows, but Hades ignored it. Mikey's eyes widened in fear as the massive beast charged. He held out the

  bite sleeve and she dodged it as if it

  were a gun, just like she'd been trained to do. She went straight for his throat. Joey couldn't help but be impressed as

  he watched that thickly-muscled

  instrument of destruction launch herself into the air like a missile, leaping nearly three feet off the ground, her fangs

  bared. Her jaws clamped onto Mikey's

  throat and she brought him down to the

  park floor in a cloud of dust. She began thrashing and jerking her head from side to side, snapping Mikey's neck and

  tearing his esophagus to shreds. Blood

  erupted from the boy's throat and

  soaked the animal's snout. Blood from

  Mikey's punctured carotid artery and

  lacerated jugular sprayed al over the

  ground and doused young Joseph in a

  shower of red. He licked his friend's

  blood from his lips and a shiver vibrated down to the root of him, giving him an

  instant erection.

  Beelzebub was just seconds behind his

  sister. He dove into Mikey's stomach

  and began ripping and tearing at his

  abdominal muscles, burr
owing his way

  to the boy's organs.

  Joey's legs trembled. His jaw fel open and his eyes widened in shock. He

  reached out his hand toward the dog but hesitated. Something about the sight of the blood, the torn flesh with the white bone and pink-and-purple organs

  gleaming through, the sound of muscle

  and tendons being ripped by those

  merciless fangs, transfixed him. It was so horrible ... so beautiful.

  The boy stood frozen, staring as Hades

  attempted to tear Mikey's head from his shoulders. Joey tried to shut out the

  rattling whistle coming from Mikey's

  mangled throat as the boy continued

  trying to suck air into his lungs even as Beelzebub tore into him. Joey clapped

  his hands and yel ed for the dogs to

  stop.

  "Down! Down, Hades! Down,

  Beelzebub!"

  When Hades unclamped her jaws from

  Mikey's throat the boy's head was

  twisted at an acute angle. There was

  little doubt that his neck had been

  shattered. His pupils were fixed and

  dilated and his chest had ceased its rise and fal .

  Joey looked down at his murdered friend and began to cry. He hadn't meant to kil him. His sorrow rained down on him like a summer storm. He was relieved by the

  immediacy and intensity of it. Joey knew a lot about serial kil ers. He'd read about them, had almost been kil ed by one,

  and had an irrational fear of becoming

  one, becoming like the perverted freak

  that had kidnapped him and carved him

  up in his basement. But he was relatively sure that serial kil ers did not feel

  remorse for their victims. As long as he could cry he was sure that he was

  normal, even if his tears were more for the two massive rottweilers than for his dead playmate. He knew they would be

  put to sleep once the police found

  Mikey's body and figured out what had

  happened.

  Two days later the dogs were destroyed, but not before Joey had taken them

  back to the park to watch them feed on

  Mikey's remains.

  When they arrived at the spot where the attack had taken place the boy's

  savaged corpse was stil lying in a heap on the park floor just where Joey had left it. Only now it was seeping fluids other than blood and myriad insects had

  begun making a meal of him. Joey found

  himself becoming aroused as he

  watched the two dogs bite off and