Hot Blood: Tales of Erotic Horror

REUNION Michael Garrett

"But you don't really love me," Carla sighed as she pushed Jason's persistent hand from her unsnapped jeans.

Jason Strong slumped against the back seat of his '66 Mustang, then rolled down a steamy window. Cool air rushed inside, bringing with it the endless chant of night creatures from the rural darkness outside.

Jason returned his attention to Carla. Moonlight glistened from teardrops that dampened her cheeks as she sobbed quietly at his side.

"We've been over this," Jason complained. "I've told you a thousand limes that I —»

"But not like you really meant it," she interrupted. "Not like it means forever."

With a groan of frustration, Jason massaged his temples between the outstretched fingertips of his left hand. College was getting rough, and Vietnam was breathing down his neck. And now this unexpected restraint from Carla. He had hoped she would at least give in to heavier petting tonight. They had dated for weeks, both of them virgins, and Jason was determined to end that condition soon.

"Jason?" she interrupted his thoughts. "Do you promise we'll always be together?"

"Of course!" he stormed impatiently.

Moments of awkward silence numbed the stand-off until Jason squeezed between the two front bucket seats to switch on the radio. Their favorite song was playing — «Cherish» by The Association. Jason edged closer to Carla and met her lips in an extended kiss. She sighed at his embrace, at the stroking of her breasts. His right arm around her tightly, Jason dropped his left hand to her lap where her jeans remained open and inviting.

This time she offered no resistance.

At last, Jason thought. His fingers slipped inside the scratchy denim lining of the zipper, under the elastic band of her panties, then crawled spider-like through a tangled web of pubic hair. He felt himself growing unbearably aroused as he pushed his hand further to the velvet dampness between her legs. Jason exhaled to relieve the tension. God, she felt warm down there.

Her musky fragrance scented the confined quarters of the automobile. Beads of sweat bubbled across Jason's face and neck as bis left hand grew wanner and wanner. He wanted to explore her secrets further but she practically sizzled at his touch. Something's wrong, he thought. Nobody can be this hot…

Jason gasped for air, sensing a sudden shift in Caria's mood. No longer tense, she moaned softly into his ear, squirming with delight as the temperature inside the car climbed steadily higher.

Jason closed his eyes. His fingers… they felt raw and began to sting… to burn…

He jerked his hand from her denims and stared with disbelief. A ribbon of smoke trailed the motion of his hand and drifted toward the fogged back windshield, his palm sweltering with a pale orange sheen. Candle-like flames flickered from his fingertips, and he began to scream — a coarse, hollow shriek barely audible above the verbal elation of his companion. Caria's eyes glowed like crimson coals as she looked on in approval.

A torch-like blaze flared from Jason's outstretched hand, consuming his shirt sleeve as it crept slowly up his arm, the stench of burning flesh tainting the air.

Frantically Jason beat his arm against the seat to extinguish the fire. He jerked and screamed as the pain grew more intense — And then he awoke.

For the fourth consecutive night, the same dream awakened him — not entirely a product of his imagination, but instead, a flashback from twenty years past, an incident all-too-real except for the nightmarish fiery conclusion.

The illuminated numbers of the digital clock shone dimly through the darkness — 3:43 a.m. Jason Strong, a family man in his late thirties, struggled through another interruption of sleep, his heart racing from both fear and sexual excitement as Kathy, his wife, slept undisturbed at his side.

Carefully Jason pushed the covers away, wiped perspiration from his face, and took another deep breath.

As before, the graphic vision left him not only frightened, but aroused and unfulfilled as well. Unfortunately, Kathy hated being awakened to make love, and would likely question his inopportune horniness. So Jason lay awake the remainder of the night, and worried for the first time that he might be losing his mind.

"Jason!" Kathy's voice shrilled. Jason's head jerked in response.

"Uh… yes, honey?"

Kathy stared at him across the cluttered remains of dinner at the kitchen table.

"What on earth has been wrong with you lately?" she asked. "You hardly spoke to the kids tonight, and now you're staring into space again. Are you feeling all right? Is something wrong at work?"

"Oh, no," he answered, dabbing a napkin at his lips with nervous embarrassment. "It's nothing, really. I was just thinking."

But when he looked at Kathy, he saw Carla instead. Jason remembered every inch of his first love's body, and could almost feel her youthful flesh again. In his mind, he re-experienced the sensuous cupping of her ass in his palms as he faced her naked in the shallow waters of a moonlight swim. He sensed her fingernails clawing at his back, her hot breath at his ear, her —

"Jason!" Kathy snapped. "Will you please speak to me?"

Jason swallowed hard and shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Kat," he said. "I guess I'm just exhausted. Please try to understand."

Kathy began to clear the table, wearing expressions of hurt and aggravation. "I really don't understand," she complained as the dinnerware clattered loudly into the sink. The faucet ran a stream of hot water over the dirty dishes as Jason cleared his throat and stood beside the table.

"Do you mind if I skip the shopping spree tonight?" he asked. "I'm really bushed…"

Kathy frowned, then reconsidered. "I know you're not feeling well, honey," she said with a semblance of a smile.

Jason hung his head, feeling a nervous twitch in his cheek, his eyes watering as if he were about to cry.

"Why don't you slip into your pajamas and watch football while we're gone?" Kathy suggested with a loving hug.

Jason exhaled and sighed. "I love you, Kat," he muttered.

And with his voice breaking, he added, "And I always will. I promise."

The Dolphins were ahead by two touchdowns when the telephone jarred Jason from the doldrums of Monday Night Football. He yawned and twitched at the cold hardwood floor on his bare feet as he padded to the kitchen and grabbed the receiver.

"Hello?" he mumbled.

Silence.

"Hello?" he repeated impatiently.

The line crackled with static interference, then a favorite oldie from the sixties drifted faintly from the receiver, "Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye" by The Casinos. Caria's transparent image materialized before him, a telephone receiver pressed against a mass of matted brown hair at her ear, her free arm extended toward him. Tears streaked her eye makeup, and coagulated blood oozed from a fresh cut at her wrist. Jason's eardrums pounded, his mouth suddenly dry and cotton-like.

"Carla?" he muttered into the receiver.

There was no response.

"Carla, is that you?"

He remembered making love in the back seat of his car and the first time they had made it in a bed. He could almost feel the texture of her skin, the warmth and sensitivity of her touch as the past events sharpened with clarity.

But then the memories changed, as if directed by an external source. Scenes from his youth were suddenly engulfed by rising mental flames, like film transparencies curled and destroyed by fire. Jason's hand began to tremble as he reached to hang up the phone. His pajamas were soaked with perspiration — he felt dizzy and needed to sit.

At the kitchen table Jason considered what he might do next. It was early yet. Kathy would be out at least a couple more hours.

He desperately needed someone to talk to.

Jason stared across the candle-lit bar room table at Bill Reese, his best friend. The Hogs-Eye Saloon, a favorite of theirs, was quiet as usual tonight except for the sound of Monday Night Football that whispered from a big-screen television across the room.

"She's really getting the best of me," Jason groaned as he lowered a half-empty mug to the tabletop.

"I never knew Carla. What was so special about her?" Bill asked.

Jason took another sip, then continued.

"She was my first lay! That makes her pretty damn special, right?"

"Yeah, but I'm not going ape-shit over my first lay," Bill countered with a shake of his head.

Jason stared blankly ahead. "She was not only my first, but she was also the best I ever had. It's like a curse — my sex life has never been as good."

"She was just a kid, for Christ's sake, and according to you, a virgin!" Bill crowed. "How could she possibly have been such a good lay?"

Jason tried to describe the way Carla performed. "It never really occurred to me till now," he said. "Since she was my first, I had nothing to compare her with. I thought all girls could screw like that. But, brother, was I wrong!"

Jason slumped against the back of his hardwood chair, the alcohol beginning to loosen his nerves. "There was something unique about the way she… you know… felt inside," he blushed. "It was such a tight fit and yet, once I was inside her, it was as if she wouldn't let go, like she had complete control of her muscles down there."

Bill sipped his drink. "Maybe it was a quirk of nature, like being double-jointed or something," he said.

"It was so intense, the way she drained me, that I could seldom last longer than four or five strokes before I'd explode inside her. She was fan-tastic."

Bill shook his head in apparent disbelief. "If she was so great, why did you dump her?"

"I told you," Jason countered. "She was my first lay. I thought all girls could screw like that." Growing uncomfortable, he turned his head and stared at the mirrored reflection of an attractive waitress leaning over the bar behind him.

"The strange thing about it," Jason finally went on, "I remember most of our relationship so clearly, and yet beyond a certain point it all seems different now — like my memory of her has been changed somehow. I used to get excited when I thought about her, like she was a fulfilled fantasy from the past, but since that damned phone call tonight, I feel mostly nervous… and afraid."

Bill drained his mug. "Why are you feeling this way now?" he asked. "Hell, it's been twenty years!"

"Dammit, that's just it — I don't know why!" Jason growled. "Everybody gets dumped at one time or another. Barbie Williams gave me the axe in college. She sure as hell didn't show me any mercy…"

"Hey, calm down, man," Bill said. "Don't get strung out over Barbie, too."

Jason ran his fingers across the five o'clock shadow that sandpapered his cheeks. He leaned forward across the table and lowered his voice.

"Last night, sometime after the last dream, I woke up on top of Kathy. I had been kissing her neck in my sleep, stroking her thighs. We were about to make love. But in my mind she was Carla. I thought she was Carla, and it scared the shit out of me when I realized she wasn't!" Jason slammed an open hand hard against the table surface, rattling the mugs and ashtrays. "I'm afraid I might be losing it," he added. "I've never been this way before: " Nearby drinkers looked on in amusement as Bill leaned over to pat his friend on the shoulder.

"Hey, relax, Jase — relax," Bill whispered. "Take a deep breath and calm down."

Jason drained the rest of his beer and loosened his collar. "You know what else is so shit-kickin' strange?" he said in a voice that had turned strangely tranquil.

"What?"

"Right now, sitting here with you, I can see her in my mind more clearly than ever. It's almost as if her image was branding itself into my brain with a hot poker, and I can't get rid of it."

Jason ordered another beer and stared at Bill through eyes that began to sting and feel swollen. Either the beer was getting to him… or something worse.

"She loved me," he slurred. "She loved me, but I didn't really love her. I told her I did. I promised her I'd be with her forever. I lied to her, just to get into her pants."

"Hey, you were just a kid yourself," Bill countered. "And, besides, most guys do that at one time or another."

"Does that make it right?" Jason snapped. "She was a great piece of ass, so I used her. She trusted me and I took advantage of her."

Bill shifted in disgust. "Jason, you're a grown man, and this happened years ago. Why let your conscience bother you now? It's all behind you, and I doubt she's losing any sleep over it nowadays. You probably never even cross her mind anymore."

"She was more mature than me. More serious," Jason said, ignoring Bill's point. "She wanted us to be together always, and I was only interested in sex. And when I got tired of her, I dumped her."

Jason paused to wipe a sheen of sweat from his forehead. "She cried. God, how she cried," he continued, tears pooling in his eyes. "She was still in high school, and I was a freshman in college. I never saw her after we broke up. Never returned her calls. I shredded her letters without even opening them. Hell, I was a big shot. A stud. Why did I need her anymore? I was ready to move on to someone else."

Bill cleared his throat, then smiled. "You're making too much out of all this," he said. "Why don't you just call Carla? Hell, all you need is to talk to her and get this out of your system. You'll feel a hundred percent better."

Jason raised his brow. "That's not a bad idea. But Kathy wouldn't like it."

"She doesn't have to know. I mean, it's not as if you intend to ball your old girlfriend again, right?"

Jason hesitated, then slowly nodded. "Good point," he said. "But Carla won't be easy to find. She's probably been married at least once by now. Her name's changed. Hell, she might even live in another state for all I know…"

"Take it one step at a time," Bill suggested. "Start with the telephone book. You can check with her parents, with mutual friends. It might take awhile, but you'll track her down eventually."

Jason smiled. It was certainly worth a try.

He awoke the next morning exhausted again from loss of sleep, his eyes red and swollen, his body sluggish and unresponsive. Carla had clearly become an obsession, one he knew would have to be resolved soon.

At work he stayed secluded in his office and spent the day trying to locate her. He checked several possibilities in the telephone directory, but found nothing. Not even her parents were listed.

His efforts temporarily stalled, Jason considered how isolated his relationship with Carla had been. They had had no mutual friends. In fact, they had shared very little in common. Regardless, the difficulty of locating her seemed only to fuel his desire, and he was more determined than ever to find her. But maybe it had become more than just a passing fixation. Maybe he really wanted to fondle Carla's breasts again, to experience her extraordinary sexual prowess just one last time. At this point it was difficult to define exactly what he had in mind. He only knew that he had to keep searching.

After work, and an apologetic, excuse-ridden phone call to Kathy, Jason skipped dinner and drove directly to Carla's hometown in the next county. Much of the previously wooded terrain along the way had been cleared for new housing, and a country store he and Carla frequented looked long since closed, its doors and windows now boarded over. As he rounded the final curve toward her old driveway, he almost expected her to be standing in the yard, waving her usual warm hello — but instead was shocked to find her entire neighborhood erased by a recently completed interstate highway, its asphalt surface carving directly through the hill where Carla's house once stood. Gone also was the opportunity to inquire of neighbors as to Carla's current whereabouts. It was as if all traces of her existence had been wiped away.

Jason sat in anguish behind the steering wheel and rolled down the window. He imagined her old house at the top of the hill, her Dad's new cherry-red Chevy parked in the carport, her dog Buster scampering across the yard. With his head out the window for a breath of fresh air, the whisper of the breeze against Jason's face brought memories of another special place where he and Carla had spent countless evenings long ago. Without hesitation, he stared at the purple skies of the setting sun and floored the accelerator.

The old church was still standing, but badly in need of paint, and from its side extended the same dead end road that once served as Jason and Carla's private lover's lane. Jason backed the car over loose gravel to the end of the road, killed the engine, and doused the headlights, just as he'd done almost every Friday night twenty years before. A full moon crept from behind an errant cloud, illuminating the church steeple that spired above a cluster of pines. Moon shadows danced across the empty road.

With a rush, Jason could somehow sense it all again — the sounds and scents as they made love in the cramped back seat of the car. He remembered how, when the act was done and perspiration covered their bodies, a gentle breeze would pass through the open windows, chilling their naked skin.

From the stillness of night a gust of wind swept beneath the car, rocking its frame as if in mock imitation of their lovemaking motions. Fallen leaves swirled across the road ahead, and particles of dust thickened the air. Jason stepped from the car to clear his lungs and stopped dead in his tracks, pivoting to face what he felt surely had been someone behind him. No one was there, though the familiar presence he'd longed for seemed to surround him, as if Carla were once again somewhere very near.

"Carla?" he whispered. The silence of the darkened countryside was still and lifeless, and the unusual warmth grew stronger still. The church was dark, not another person in sight. Jason pocketed both hands and followed the feverish, luring force.

He stepped from the road into dense overgrowth, pushing aside branches from obstructing trees as he made his way along a narrow path to a clearing behind the church. Across a hill before him lay the scattered tombstones of an unkempt cemetery, and it seemed odd that he'd never noticed it when he and Carla had parked nearby before. An eerie stillness broken only by intermittent blasts of wind enveloped the hillside, coaxing him forward. He paused only to wipe sweat from his neck, then continued.

Surrounding the hill was a six-foot wall with crumbling sections of brick and a rusted arch that towered above a front entrance. Nervous, but unable to turn back, Jason stepped beneath the archway, torrents of wind urging him up the weathered concrete steps. Moonlight grave markers glowed faintly in the distance as tall blades of unmown grass stirred in the wind and whipped against his ankles.

As Jason trudged across abandoned graves, his eyes darted from headstone to headstone, blood pulsing faster and harder through his veins. He noticed the heat growing more intense as he was irresistibly drawn to a simple marker near the top of the hill. Without reading its inscription, Jason knew he had finally found Carla.

He trembled with remorse. Had she taken her own life because of him?

The air was hot, humid and heavy. He shuddered and took a deep breath as a burning fear singed his skin. Abruptly, the wind died; the cemetery was still again. Jason dried his eyes, trying to regain his composure, but as he attempted to turn away, he found his feet anchored firmly to the ground above Carla's grave. Panic-stricken, Jason tried with all his strength to pull away, but he was hopelessly stuck.

The silence was broken by an unspoken voice.

I want you, the wind whispered — or had the words come from within his own mind?

A gust of wind roared up the hill, lifting rotted floral arrangements from other graves and scattering them in pieces across the grassy slope. Tiny plastic flowers pelted Jason's cheeks as he attempted in vain to break away.

Oooooooooh.

He heard a moan — her moan, like years before, at the point of orgasm.

Jason held his breath, his collar tight against his neck as he envisioned Carla's grief-stricken teenage face the last time he'd seen her, the night they'd broken up. He remembered how her tears had suddenly ceased, how she'd stared him coldly in the eye and snarled, "You'll come back someday. Just wait and see."

Jason's eyes refocused on her polished granite headstone. He leaned over and, using both hands, pushed hard to free himself, but Carla's will remained unbroken — he had been drawn to her, trapped like an insect on flypaper.

Come, her panting voice persuaded from beneath the ground. I want you. Her breath came in passionate gasps, the same way she'd responded in the back seat of his car.

Abruptly, the ground softened and churned against Jason's feet. He stretched his arms in a futile attempt to catch hold of something for support, but the ground was steamy and mushy. His feet having sank several inches already, Carla's headstone was now out of reach.

Jason's thoughts whirled. What had attracted him to Carla in the days of his youth? She hadn't been especially pretty, and her personality was nothing special — but of course neither had really mattered at the time, for he had been blinded by a teenage fascination with sex.

Deeper! Deeper! Carla's voice begged as Jason's knees slipped below the surface. He could feel the loosened soil sucking past his ankles and closing around his legs. He remembered how Barbie had dumped him in college, and for one brief moment he sympathized with the pain Carla must have felt when he'd callously done the same to her.

Jason sank waist deep, clawing desperately at the ground above the grave, stems of weeds breaking off into his hands, his arms flailing wildly to grasp anything for support, the loose soil repacking itself around his legs as he slipped lower. Finally his shoes came to rest against something solid. Oh, my God, he thought — the top of her coffin. The force grew stronger, pulling him closer to hell until his shoes crashed through the lid of the time-weakened casket. Tiny shards of rusted metal pierced through his socks, jabbing into the flesh of his ankles.

From below, the heat lapped at his thighs. Jason twisted and jerked, trying to free himself as the fetid stench of his own searing flesh made him gag.

An unwanted erection strained against his pants. Jason tried to resist but instead felt his pulse quicken with involuntary sexual excitement, as if he were a mere puppet in the fondling hands of the devil himself. Waves of terror-inspired release clashed with the fiery torture at his legs.

In his mind, he could see Carla again. She was reaching for him, unzipping his pants. The heat — oh, God — the heat…

"No!" he screamed in horror. "This can't be happening!"

The last sound he heard was Carla's ghastly voice screeching to climax as the simmering earth closed over his head…

Barbie Edwards jerked a sheet of paper from her printer and crushed a cigarette butt into an ashtray atop her cluttered desk. The steady tap-tap-tap of other keyboards around the large corporate office clicked almost in unison. She exhaled a final plume of smoke and stared at a framed photo of her husband on her desk.

Roger — was their relationship in danger? she wondered. God, it seemed forever since they'd made love. Two-career marriages were plagued with pressure, she'd been warned, but somehow she'd always believed that she and Roger could withstand just about anything.

Well, it was probably nothing. She simply hadn't been in the mood for sex lately, that's all. Still, it was puzzling how memories of Jason Strong had recently returned. Gosh, it must have been at least ten or twelve years since he'd last crossed her mind.

Jason had been such a sweet guy — sometimes selfish and a bit insecure — but they had certainly had good times together. Of course, that had been in the wild college days of the late sixties. Dropping acid, making love. And, my, could that boy get her off! In fact, Jason Strong was likely the best she'd ever had. At the time she hadn't realized how foolish it had been to let him get away. And Jason had been devastated when her interest had been drawn elsewhere.

Poor Jason. Funny how those broken promises never bothered her until now.

Barbie inserted a clean sheet of paper into her printer and glared at a seemingly endless stack of correspondence on her desk. Suddenly she stopped and stared blankly ahead.

She was feeling that untimely warmth again between her legs. There was certainly no reason to be aroused. And yet, without a doubt, she was wet. Barbie squirmed in her seat and spread her legs a bit further apart. God, she felt hot.

She shook another cigarette from a near-empty package and thumbed the ridged wheel of her cigarette lighter, momentarily hypnotized by the dancing flame that sparked forth.

It reminded her of a dream she'd had about Jason just the night before. Barbie shrugged and reached for the telephone directory.

Maybe he still lived nearby…