Succulent Prey Read online

  At times he imagined that they had never been there at al, that he'd never slaughtered and bled them dry, never drank their blood until it sloshed in his distended stomach, pregnant with life force. At times he imagined that that their blood and souls had final y worked their way through his system and passed through his bowels.

  But he knew they were stil there. Their blood was forever bound to his. He felt like Renfield, Dracula's little acolyte, only the souls that Damon had devoured were not those of spiders and flies or even rats and birds. He was in many ways much more like Dracula himself than Renfield. Damon had fed on human lives. Uncorrupted innocent lives, too young to have been sul ied by the world, too young to have acquired the taint of lust and hatred. Years ago he had gorged himself on them, on their waterpure essences, until his own blood had burned like molten lava in his veins, searing with their memories and emotions. He had felt like a force of nature then, like a walking, breathing world, like a god. But that was long ago. They were old lives now, withered and decayed. They no longer burned in his blood like electricity as they had when he'd first drunk their souls through the holes he'd cut and gouged in their flesh. They were dead now. Ghosts. They fluttered listlessly in his empty stomach like butterflies, or rather the protoplasmic phantoms of dead butterflies. Their voices were a tepid draft that raised goose bumps on the back of his neck.

  Only one life stil warmed him as it traveled his circulatory system. It was only a tiny spark, yet compared to the ghosts it was as radiant as a star and growing stronger. It was from the one he'd only taken a tiny piece of. The one he hadn't kil ed. The one who was stil out there becoming just like him, acquiring lives just as Damon had done himself before they had locked him up and chemical y castrated him. He could feel his last living victim drawing closer like a minnow lured by the glow of a luminescent lure right into the jaws of an anglerfish. Only this was no min now. It was another predator and it wanted to consume him. He knew. But he would consume it first. He needed it to warm his stale blood.

  He stuck out his tongue and tasted the air.

  "So close," he whispered. He could sense the man drawing nearer, dragging other souls with him. More souls to warm Damon's blood.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  They had been on the road for more than ten hours, driving al day and wel into the night along Interstate 5. They stil had at least another five hours of driving ahead. It was pitch-black now but morning was fast approaching.

  Frank was delirious with shock. He lay in the back of the van, slipping in and out of consciousness, ranting incessantly about past lovers and injuries and, most disturbing to Alicia, he kept quoting recipes for the consumption of human flesh. Everything from testicles ceviche to fingers in lemon butter. It was making her nauseous and it seemed to be her nauseous and it seemed to be turning Joe on. Frank regained consciousness for a moment. His eyes cleared and his mind swam through the miasma of pain and fever to reach the surface for a moment. What he had to say was even worse than his ranting.

  "Joe? Joe? I know you can't take me to Seattle with you… not like this. My wounds are infected and I'm stil bleeding. I'd stick out like a sore thumb. I know you're gonna have to kil me before you get there. Please, just do me one favor and let me go the way I want to go, the way I've always dreamed of dying."

  "And how is that?" Joe asked. Alicia couldn't believe she was hearing this conversation.

  "I want you to roast me alive on a spit, and then I want you to devour every piece of me. Don't leave a single scrap. Promise me that if you do this you won't leave until you've eaten al of me. I don't want the worms and coyotes picking at my remains. I want to become a part of you. I want al of me inside you.

  Joe had read long pig fantasies on the

  Internet for months, and being roasted on a spit was the number one fantasy.

  For al their talk and al their teases and come-ons, he'd always doubted that any of the message board masochists had the nerve to go through with it. It was hard to imagine that even such a severe masochist as Frank would real y want to undergo something so brutal and painful. Joe had read al the sweaty dialogues between long pigs and eager chefs with skepticism. Who would seriously offer their flesh up to be consumed by a stranger they met on a message board?

  And to be roasted alive at that? Yet here was one of them-and he was absolutely serious. Joe was positive of the man's sincerity and he was certainly wil ing to give the little man his fantasy and fulfil his own in the process.

  "I promise."

  "No, no, no! You can't do this!" Alicia said. "You can't be serious! You can stil get him to a hospital. He can live. You don't have to do this. This is crazy!"

  "It's already done. He's right. I'd have to kil him anyway."

  "How the hel are you going to cure yourself if you keep giving in to the curse and kil ing people?

  Every time you eat somebody it'l only get stronger and harder to quit."

  "This isn't a twelve-step program. Every time my stomach growls or my dick gets hard you're both in danger. And the more I fight it, the more the hunger grows, the more I'l need to eat to calm the hunger when it eventual y overcomes me. Like I said before, it's either him or you. And in a few hours I'l be hungry again. I'l be very hungry. I've been fighting it for hours already. A decision has to be made soon."

  "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God." Alicia rocked back and forth with her knees drawn up to her chest and her handcuffed wrists tucked tight between neck and shoulder, staring at Frank, who seemed to have slipped back into dreamland and was grinning stupidly as he once again began quoting recipes.

  She imagined him with a skewer going through his ass and out his mouth, twisting on a rotisserie, and her stomach heaved.

  In Portland, Oregon, they pul ed off I-5 onto Patton Road. Joe drove along the dark road for a mile before he noticed a gas station under construction and leapt out to search the solemn structure for supplies. He came back with a piece of rebar six feet long and tossed it into the back of the van. They stopped again at a little store that sold camping supplies and Joe bought two bags of charcoal, some lighter fluid, and some hickory chips. The hickory chips bothered Alicia more than anything. They had obviously been purchased to add flavor.

  They entered Forest Park and the darkness redoubled, swal owing them in a stygian gloom. Joe drove another half hour into the park before he stopped the van.

  The back of the van was now tacky with

  Frank's blood, urine, and excrement as his body evacuated its contents. Joe wrinkled his nose as he hefted the little man onto his shoulders and charged off into the woods. Before he'd left the van, he'd once again bound Alicia's ankles and switched her handcuffs to behind her back so that she wouldn't be able to escape. She sat in the dark praying for Frank.

  Joe carried his half-conscious meal deep into the park before dropping him to the ground in an area that was obviously used for cookouts. There were smal metal barbecues bolted to concrete slabs next to picnic tables.

  They were far too smal, however, for what Joe had in mind. Then he spotted the hole just on the edge of the picnic grounds. It was about five feet wide and four feet deep and fil ed with ashes from a charcoal fire.

  Someone had themselves a luau, Joe thought as he considered his good fortune. He'd have to make it a little bigger, but it would work. Al that remained was to prepare Frank.

  Joe returned to the man lying in the grass and knelt to pick up the rebar. He then walked over to the picnic tables and began sharpening one end of the steel reinforcement bar on the edge of the concrete slab. It took him nearly ten minutes before it was sharp enough for his purposes. Frank was wide-awake when the huge predator walked back over to him.

  "There's some Ruffles in my back pocket. Rufinol. It wil dul the pain and slow my heart rate so that I don't bleed to death too quickly. It's in my pocket." Joe reached into Frank's pocket and pul ed out a smal box that looked like cold medicine but was covered with

  Spanish writings.

  "You
sure you don't want me to kil you first? You real y want to be alive for this?"

  "I want to watch you consume me. I want to see the pleasure on your face when I become a part of you."

  Frank swal owed a fistful of Rufinol and in minutes he was drowsy and sluggish.

  Joe shrugged his shoulders and rol ed him over on al fours. He spit on a finger and then slid it into the man's anus to lubricate it as best he could.

  "This is going to hurt," he said as he slowly began threading the sharpened steel bar up through the man's rectum.

  Frank began to scream, thrash, and convulse against his restraints as the bar forced its way into his anus, tearing the soft tissue and ripping deep into his rectum, puncturing his smal intestines and leaking septic fluid into his bloodstream, throwing him into anaphylactic shock. Blood and fecal matter began to spray out of his vandalized asshole like a faucet, drenching Joe's arms and chest in a chunky brown and red deluge. Ignoring the explosion of excrement and gore,

  Joe shoved harder and the rod pierced

  Frank's stomach as it plowed through him.

  Frank was hyperventilating. His blood pressure rose quickly and then began to plummet as bile and stomach acid poured into his thoracic cavity and began eating away at his liver and lungs. He tried to curl up into the fetal position but the rigidity of the steel bar would not al ow him to bend.

  "I can angle it toward your heart and kil you quick."

  "No! Don't!" Frank said as he began to shiver. His pulse rate dropped further. He was dying from shock. His eyes were now fixed and dilated as the gutwrenching agony assailed his nervous system in response to the gouging, puncturing, and tearing of his vital organs. Then the Ruffles went into ful effect, dul ing the pain only marginal y but enough to stabilize his blood pressure and heart rate. He was slowly coming out of shock though he was now completely paralyzed, unable to offer even the slightest resistance even if he'd been inclined to do so. It was a good thing too. The next part would be the worst.

  Joe angled the bar to the right and slightly up and shoved with al his might. The steel rod slid along the inside of

  Frank's rib cage, narrowly missing the heart and lungs before exploding out of the top of his shoulder. Frank's eyes went wild in lieu of the scream his paralyzed vocal chords were unable to form.

  It was nearly half an hour before Joe returned to the van. His arms and chest were covered in gore. But not his face. He hadn't eaten yet. He reached in and grabbed Alicia, lifting her onto his shoulders. That's when she smel ed the smoke permeating his clothing. Hickory smoke, like a barbecue.

  Joe carried her almost a mile into the park before she spotted the fire. The big carnivore had dug a pit and fil ed it with charcoal as if he were roasting a Khalua pig. Frank lay across the open pit with the piece of rebar going straight through him. His eyes were glazed in horror but he was stil alive and in agony. His skin baked and sizzled as the flames licked at his flesh. The hickory smoke wafted from the open pit. Alicia began to cry, then her stomach growled in hunger, reacting to the delicious smel of roasted pork, and she regurgitated in revulsion.

  "Oh my God! You're cooking him alive!

  He's in so much pain! Don't let him die in pain!" Alicia sputtered out as vomit and bile burned its way up her throat and out onto the cool grass. She began to fight against her handcuffs, trying desperately to reach the agonized man burning on the flaming pit. She wept uncontrol ably and screamed out to the night. Joe stalked over to her and grabbed her by her jaw. His piercing blue eyes burrowed into her skul as he turned her head to face him.

  "Look at him, Alicia! He's already dead!

  This is how he wanted to die. You can't save him. He's already been saved."

  "Then kil him quickly! Don't just let him suffer!"

  "He'l be dead soon enough. But first he'l get his wish. I promised him, Alicia. I owe him this much. Let him have his fantasy."

  "His fantasy? This isn't about him. Al of this is about you! It's your fantasy! You're the one kil ing him. You're the one who's going to eat him! And what about me?

  What about me, Joe? Is this what you're going to do to me? Truss me up like some pig and roast me on a spit?"

  "Alicia-"

  "You're evil! You're just fucking evil! You don't want to be cured. You just want to stay a monster! You're enjoying this! How could I have possibly thought I loved you? After al that you've put me through. How could I have possibly thought that you wouldn't hurt me? That maybe you loved me too? You're going to kil me just like al the rest!"

  "I-I-" Joe let her go and turned to look at Frank. The man was suffering. His entire body convulsed as the flames boiled the blood in his veins. But al Joe could think about was how delicious the man looked. How good he would taste. Joe knew then that his humanity was almost gone. The only person he stil felt anything for other than hunger and lust was Alicia.

  Alicia curled up on the cold wet grass and began to sob. Joe felt her pain reach out to him and he crushed it before it could lodge in his heart. He knew that his increasing attachment to

  Alicia was becoming a hindrance. His massive muscles tensed beneath the fabric of his shirt as he stared down at the helpless woman weeping at his feet and pul ed the knife out of his ankle strap.

  She looked so beautiful in the dark, her black hair shimmering in the campfire and starlight. So innocent and vulnerable. The predator in him howled. His monster leapt to life. He imagined fucking Alicia hard in the grass and his stomach roared in response. Quickly the fantasy changed to one of him sawing off her calves and quadriceps and greedily cramming them into his mouth.

  There was now no difference between the two appetites.

  Frank's eyes were glazed in shock and rapturous anguish. He was far away, barely alive. Joe leaned in to saw off a piece of his hamstring with the serrated diver's knife.

  Joe stared into the dying masochist's eyes as he consumed his blackened meat in great gulps and thought he saw a contented smile cross the man's face before he shivered one last time and expired. Joe shivered as wel as he felt the man's essence slide down into his bel y. That familiar ecstasy washed over him, as he felt al that the man had been merge with his flesh. Joe cut again, tore off large hunks of Frank's flesh with his bare hands, barely even chewing before swal owing them, singeing his fingers in the broiling flesh, eager to consume every ounce of the man's dwindling life force. Instantly he felt an entire lifetime of Frank's joys and sorrows, including the voluptuous agony of his death charge through him like a lightning bolt. It was overwhelming. Joe fel to the ground, writhing with an orgasm that threatened to break him apart as waves of excruciating pleasure ignited his nervous system.

  From where Alicia lay in the grass she watched Joe's orgiastic convulsions with awe and confusion. Human flesh was so much more to him than mere sustenance. He seemed to be possessed. He was in the throes of a passion that defied description as he ripped poor Frank to shreds. A part of

  Alicia longed to know such intensity of pleasure herself. Her mouth watered and a moistness spread between her thighs.

  Another part of her longed to inspire it, once again jealous that another person had given such ecstasy to the beautiful cannibal she was beginning to think of as her own.

  With her arms and legs stil bound she began to inch her way closer to the campfire, inhaling the mouthwatering aroma of hickory-smoked human flesh.

  Joe now had his pants down around his thighs and his enormous erection in hand, furiously masturbating as he continued stuffing steaming handfuls of broiled flesh into his slavering mouth. He looked down and spotted Alicia, who was now almost at his feet. Instantly he recognized the hunger and lust in her eyes.

  After shedding the rest of his clothing he dropped beside her and offered Alicia a piece of Frank's blackened calf muscle. Stockholm syndrome, Alicia thought, even as she opened her mouth wide to receive the gift.

  Without chewing she slurped down the hot flesh and felt a chil vibrate through her as the horror of what she had just don
e gripped her. This was soon fol owed by a tingle of arousal at having done it in ful view of her lover and captor. Joe began ripping off more of the flesh and feeding it into Alicia's mouth as he kissed and caressed her neck and breasts, building her passion. Boiling-hot blood dribbled down her neck and cleavage as she consumed more and more of Frank's corpse. Joe lapped the stream of liquid life from her skin and used his knife to cut the duct tape from around her wrists, then her ankles, al owing him to kiss his way up her thighs to her moistening sex.

  Lost in rippling waves of ecstasy, Alicia blindly reached out and ripped off another piece of Frank's flesh. Even without looking at it she knew what she had grabbed as soon as her hands closed around it. Stil she tugged hard until it tore free. Joe rose up from between her legs and slid himself inside of her as she brought Frank's severed penis to her lips. She clenched the charred organ between her teeth and

  Joe bit down on the other end as he thrust his own hardened flesh deep between her thighs. They reached a mutual screaming, snarling release almost immediately as they shared the exotic delicacy. Alicia col apsed into the arms of her captor and together they lay in the glow of the campfire, watching

  Frank's remains sizzle, crackle, and burn to a charcoal cinder.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The two detectives had been waiting al day for the autopsy report from the body they'd found in that old apartment building south of Market Street. They both had a bad feeling about it.

  "You think that could be our librarian?" Volario asked.

  "No reason to assume that yet," Montgomery said. "That building was pretty far from the campus."

  "Yeah, but did you see her shoes?

  Kenneth Cole. Not Prada, but not exactly Payless either. Pretty nice for a homeless woman or a streetwalker."

  "Which stil leaves a whole host of other possibilities. A lot of people get kil ed in this town besides prostitutes and derelicts."