Final Victim

Chapter 7

Tashay Roberts had been trying to decide. whether to get a nipple pierce like Satan T. Bone wanted. There was very little she wouldn't do for him, but punching holes in her titties was close to the limit. She sat on the purple shag carpet in her older sister's Tampa house in shorts and a halter, and opened the mail wearing latex gloves. Her sister had been traveling in Europe and she and Satan had the place to themselves. One thing was certain: The new Southern tour had produced results. The mail was mostly from Atlanta and Shreveport, but there was stuff from Midland, Texas, and that little town in South Carolina she could never remember the name of, because she'd been dusted the whole time they'd been there, and it was a blur…

The thing about the nipple pierce that worried her was, she was afraid it would hurt. Satan had two nipple pierces and he said it didn't… But it wasn't like a nose pierce or tummy button, or even the eyebrow pierce she'd had done last summer-which, by the way, hurt like a bitch, even though the hard-on who did it said she'd never feel a thing.

She suddenly realized that Baby Killer's new album, Chant to the Dead, was already past her favorite cut, so she got up, stretched her long tanned legs, padded across the purple shag to the CD player, and set it to replay "Redneck Burnout." She thought the Chant to the Dead album was a musical leap forward for Baby Killer. "Redneck Burnout" was by far the best cut on the album, the best song they'd ever done. She listened as Satan T. Bone's raspy voice screamed the almost incoherent lyrics:

"Fuck the bitch and cut off her tits," the song began. "Fill her neck with cum…" Baby Killer was one of about twenty U. S. Death Metal bands. They operated on the extreme edge of rock 'n' roll. Tashay loved the lyrics. They celebrated sex with the dead, baby killing, and mutilation. The audience for this music was small but rabid, and Death Metal operated ih an outer orbit of the music business.

Tashay moved back to the pile of mail and sat down. She'd been saving the interesting-looking brown-paper-wrapped shoe box with no postmark for last. She swayed with the rhythm of the song as she opened some more mail. Her job was to separate the "wet mail" from the dry. More and more, Satan had been getting blood-soaked things and he was afraid of AIDS, so she had to sit there, wearing the fucking latex gloves, and open the mail.

Satan T. Bone was tall and skinny. He had black tattoos under each eye, making him look almost like a vampire. He had stringy black hair that he never washed, and had twenty pierces. It seemed he got a new pierce every time he got really wasted. Satan's real name was Bob Shiff, but he had been so influenced by the music of Peter Van Wilkinsen, who called himself Satan Wolf, that Shiff had taken the stage name Satan T. Bone when Van Wilkinsen was arrested in Oslo, Norway, for killing that guy on stage.

She could see bloodstains through the white envelope on one of the letters and knew it should go in the wet pile. She thought it was way cool that Satan's fans sent blood-soaked letters, even though she suspected that it was just animal blood. Still, it was on there, and it was beautiful and gross. Satan T. Bone was really talking to his audience, small as it was. She decided finally, fuck it… She couldn't wait to see what was in the box, so she got the sharp serrated knife and cut it open, slitting the paper along the top, then the side. She slowly pulled the top back and saw that whatever was inside had been carefully wrapped in cellophane, and then placed inside a plastic bag.

"What is this?" she said to herself, a smile on her tiny, vacant features. She pushed back her blond hair with her gloved wrist and reached for the object in the box.

"Cool," she said as she touched the object, then gently lifted it out. It was heavy, maybe almost two pounds. It was squishy yet hard at the same time. She pulled it out of the Baggie, peeled back the tape that held the cellophane, then slowly and carefully unwrapped it.

A human hand fell onto the purple shag. It had been severed at the wrist and it lay there like a small dead thing. Satan T. Bone's voice screamed through the expensive speaker system:

It is a very strange night. The bitch didn't fight.

Tashay Roberts stared at the hand and then slowly picked it up with her latex-gloved fingers. She looked at it carefully. It was delicate, probably a woman's hand. She could see that the fingertips had been surgically removed.

"This is so fucking cool," she said softly, but she was also afraid. There was no postmark; the box had been hand-delivered by someone. Whoever sent it was definitely way out there… way, way out there. Tashay wondered if she should call Satan or Carl. She knew if she told Satan, he would want to keep the hand. He was a crazy son of a bitch. Keeping the hand could be trouble. Her first boyfriend, Carl Zeno, was a county sheriff. He was also her stepfather. He'd started fucking her brains out when she was just fifteen. He'd kept it up all the years her mother had been on the night shift at the drugstore. Occasionally, when Satan was on the road, she would still go and see him. Carl was her secret addiction. She knew the hand was very bitchin' but very dangerous. Carl would know what to do. After all, he was a cop. She looked at the hand, which was lying on the purple shag, fingers up. If Satan didn't know it had been sent to him, then he couldn't be angry at her.

She decided she'd go ahead and get the nipple pierce the way he wanted. It was a way to make up for her little deception. She moved to the phone and dialed a number.

"Carl," she said, the excitement ringing in her voice. "The coolest thing just happened."

Behind her, through the speakers, Satan T. Bone screamed his degradation.