Steamy Screams: Anthology of Erotic Horror

ELECTRIC LOVE Chris Reed

Morgan stood in front of the television, biting her bottom lip, watching the radar, the massive yellow-red cluster heading straight for Genesee County. Within this storm would be the possibility of strong winds, hail, and of course, lightning.

Lightning. The very thought of it made Morgan wet. Her skin tingled, nipples erect beneath her t-shirt. She took one of them between her thumb and index finger and pinched gently as she watched the storm creep across the television screen. She bit her lip harder.

The phone rang. Please let it be Mike, she thought as she picked up the phone and said, “Hello?”

“Are you watching the news?” Mike asked. She knew he’d call. Ever since she told him about the lightning, he called every time so much as a rain shower was in the forecast.

“Yeah,” Morgan said. “Are you ready?”

“Just have to grab my coat and I’ll be over.”

“Hurry!”

Morgan hung up and looked out the window for the third time in the last five minutes. The sky above her apartment complex was growing dark. She went into the bedroom, grabbed a pair of socks from the dresser and pulled them on over her toeless feet. Technically, she wasn’t entirely toeless—her left foot had managed to retain its pinky toe, thwarting the lightning’s attempt to render it completely devoid of digits. But, as deformed as her feet were, she wasn’t disgusted by them. They were a constant reminder of the lightning’s gift. It did more than just steal her flesh that day when she was thirteen and masturbating in the boxcar. It gave Morgan her first and only orgasm. And here she was, ten years later, still searching for her second.

Morgan’s television was permanently set on The Weather Channel as, day after day, she watched the forecast for impending thunderstorms, studying the activity on the radar, praying for the swirls of yellow and red that meant her wait might be over, that her electric lover had returned. She had even considered moving to Oklahoma, to be in the heart of Tornado Alley where violent thunderstorms were an everyday thing, but Mike refused to go. His family was here in Michigan, and Morgan respected his decision to stay close to them, even though it meant that her chances of achieving another orgasm were greatly diminished by her staying here. Of course, she had the option of finding another lover, one who might be more willing to relocate, but Mike was the only one so far who was willing to brave the lightning and screw her on train tracks in the middle of an electrical storm.

Yet so far, they’d had no luck. They had been to the tracks and made love in many a downpour, waiting for the bolt of electricity to caress them, only to return home soaking wet and defeated. Sometimes, Morgan stripped out of her soggy clothes and masturbated for hours, only to collapse on the bed exhausted, unsatisfied. The lightning was the only thing that could bring her to climax, that throbbing surge of electricity coursing through her veins, that thief of toes, rapist from the clouds.

She stepped into her shoes, eyes glued to the television, and watched the roving tempest of amber and magenta crawling towards the county line as she massaged herself through her pants.

The doorbell rang. Morgan hurried to the door, yanked it open and found Mike standing there, fidgeting with his keys. He was always nervous before a storm, but he never bailed. Morgan didn’t know if it was because she was so hot or because he was overweight. Right now she didn’t care. All that mattered was the storm.

“You ready?” he said.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

They took Mike’s truck because it was faster than Morgan’s car. The railroad crossing was just under a mile away and they were there in less than five minutes. They turned down the dirt road that ran parallel to the tracks, bouncing over ruts and dips as the first drops of rain dotted the windshield. The road was reserved for track maintenance vehicles, but they’d visited this stretch of tracks many times before, and only once had they encountered a railroad employee. He had been on his way out, tipping a bottle of liquor, apparently too drunk to care that they were trespassing. They had made love on the tracks that day, waiting for the lightning to bring them to mutual climax. But the clouds rolled past, paying no heed to the naked lovers below and Morgan returned home wondering if it would ever happen again.

Now, after months of waiting, they would try again.

They drove until they were far enough away from the main road to not be seen by passing motorists. Mike parked the truck and they got out. As they trudged up the rocky slope to the tracks, a bolt of lightning flickered in the distance. Morgan started counting. She made it to eight when a peal of thunder stopped her.

“It’s less than two miles away,” she said.

“This is what we’ve been waiting for,” Mike said as he stepped onto the tracks and unbuttoned his pants. They undressed each other as the rain fell harder. Pitch-black clouds loomed over them. Wind bent the trees.

Morgan lay down on her back between the gleaming tracks, Mike climbed on top of her. As they made love, Morgan watched the clouds crawl overhead, barely aware of the jagged rocks digging into the soft flesh of her back. Rain pelted her face as she reached out with both hands and grabbed the railroad tracks.

It wasn’t long before she felt a static presence in the air. She recognized it the same way one recognizes the voice of an old lover. Mike’s body suddenly went stiff, then he began to jerk wildly as the electricity entered his body. His violent pelvic thrusts made Morgan feel like she was being rammed with a jackhammer. Mike’s eyes rolled back in his head and spittle flew from his pursed lips as Morgan cried out.

She was about to cum when Mike flew off her. He landed several yards away, his body hitting the railroad ties with a wet thud. He writhed and moaned as wisps of smoke rose from his skin. The air smelled like burnt meat.

Morgan tried to get up, but she was paralyzed from the waist down. She could see Mike’s mouth working, but she couldn’t hear anything; a terrible ringing in her ears blocked out every sound. Her mouth tasted like it was full of nails, and her head throbbed like her brain had grown too large for her skull.

Through the downpour, Morgan saw a set of headlights coming down the tracks from the direction of the main road. When the lights stopped moving, the driver’s door opened. A man got out, grabbed something from the bed of the truck, and walked up to the tracks. As he moved closer, he became more visible. Rain dripped from his white hard hat and soaked his brown overalls. His black work boots crunched over the shifting rocks as he walked towards Mike. If he was here to help them, he sure was taking his time.

Morgan watched him bend down to check on Mike’s condition. That’s when she noticed the spike maul in his hand.

The rain was thinning and Morgan could see the man more clearly now. He was the same man they’d seen before, the man with the liquor. And she could see what he was doing to Mike. He had taken a railroad spike out of his pocket and had positioned Mike’s right foot so it was flat on one of the ties. He then held the spike with its pointed end against the top of Mike’s left shoe and raised the spike maul above his head. Morgan tried to scream, to startle the man and prevent him from going through with this, but when she opened her mouth, only a stream of vomit shot out.

The Railroad Man brought the spike maul down, driving the six-inch nail through the top of Mike’s foot, pinning it to the wooden plank. Blood oozed out of his shoe and Morgan could hear his screams even over the din of the thunder and the ringing in her ears. The Railroad Man positioned Mike’s left foot in the same manner and drove a second spike through it. Confident that his prey was trapped, the Railroad Man stood up, leaving Mike writhing on the tracks beneath him. Then he turned his attention to Morgan. She flipped over onto her stomach and tried to crawl away, but he grabbed her by the hair of her head and yanked her backwards. Then he rolled her over and removed two more spikes from his pocket.

“Didn’t think anyone was watching, did you?” he said. “I’ve been here every time, parked right over there behind those trees, waiting for the day when that train would come along and put an end to you and your boyfriend’s kinky little fuck sessions. And somehow you always got away. Well not this time.”

“Please don’t,” Morgan whimpered.

But the Railroad Man ignored her pleas and grabbed her right foot. She couldn’t feel it, but she knew what he was doing to it. Moments later the spike maul came down, followed by the clank of metal on metal. He grabbed her left foot, slid another spike from his pocket, and hammered it through the leather of her shoe, down into the wood of the railroad tie. He straightened up and looked down the tracks behind Morgan. He smiled. “There she is,” he said. “Right on time.”

Morgan turned and saw the headlamp of a train cutting through the wind-blown rain. She could feel the ground vibrating beneath her. As many times as she had risked her life flirting with lightning along this length of track, she never thought she’d die from the most obvious danger.

“I’ll leave you and your boyfriend alone to say your goodbyes,” the man said.

As he turned to walk away, Morgan lunged at him and grabbed his pant leg, tearing the fabric away to reveal a prosthetic leg.

The man looked down at his plastic appendage. He grinned at Morgan. “That’s what happens when you play on the train tracks. See, even veterans of the rails like myself get careless once in a while. Drink too much and pass out on the tracks. But what you kids were doing, that goes beyond carelessness. That’s just downright stupid, and you need to be taught a lesson.” He stepped off the tracks. “And here comes your teacher.”

The train was only a few yards away when it blared its deafening horn. Instinctively, Morgan rolled sideways and came out of her shoes. Her momentum carried her over the edge of the rocky bank, where she tumbled down into a ditch filled with bushes and briars. Above her, the boxcars rattled past, rocking and creaking. Morgan pushed herself up into a sitting position, unsure of what had just happened, wondering how she had gotten free. She looked down at her stumpy feet and realized the railroad spikes had nailed her shoes to the tracks, but not her feet. It was the first time she ever felt grateful for her disfigurement.

The last boxcar rushed past, rain swirling in its wake. Morgan clawed her way back up the hill, dragging her paralyzed legs through the rocks behind her. Mike’s body lay scattered down the tracks in shapeless chunks and smears of rain-washed gut. The Railroad Man was back on the tracks, examining Mike’s ruined remains as he walked between the rails towards the point of impact.

Morgan dragged herself back through the bushes and onto the muddy road, the sound of her movements masked by thunder. She crawled as fast as she could until she made it to the Railroad Man’s truck. She looked behind her, saw that he was still engrossed in the mess on the tracks, and then pulled herself up into the driver’s seat. Her first inclination was to leave with the truck, to put as much distance between herself and this psychotic bastard as possible, but she still couldn’t feel her legs below the knees, so there was no way for her to work the gas and brake petals. Besides, the sky was still alive with flashes of lightning, and even as the primal part of her brain screamed at her to leave, to get away before this man killed her, her throbbing crotch demanded something else.

Morgan snatched the keys from the ignition and the engine died. She then slid back to the ground, crawled around to the back of the truck and used the rear bumper to pull herself up. She crawled over the top of the tailgate and collapsed into the bed of the truck, which was cluttered with tools. Among them was another spike maul.

She peeked over the side of the truck and saw that the Railroad Man was now on his way back. Because of the din of the storm, he wouldn’t know the truck’s motor had been killed until he saw that the keys were missing. But Morgan wouldn’t let him get that far.

He was close now. Just a few feet away. Walking past the tailgate. Morgan took a deep breath and swung the spike maul over the side of the truck. The steel head struck his face, knocking him backwards. He stumbled, fell to the ground, and lay sprawled on his back, his orbital bone shattered, eyeball destroyed, blood gushing from the hole in his face. His good leg twitched.

Morgan dropped the tailgate, tossed the spike maul to the ground, and then rolled out of the truck. She hit the ground hard, sending needles of pain through her body. But her will to survive kept her conscious. She grabbed the spike maul and slipped the wooden handle between her teeth, then crawled past the dying Railroad Man. She dragged herself up the hill, over the rail and onto the tracks. Body parts were everywhere. Mike’s severed arm lay on the rocks with the hand palm-up, as if trying to cup the rain drops. A leg lay on the opposite slope, a bloody L among the patches of weeds. And there was his head, now just a sack of brains and shattered skull fragments, an eyeball peering up at her from the twisted mass of flesh that had once been a handsome face.

But Morgan had no time to dwell on past lovers, not while her soul mate waited in the clouds. She opened her mouth and let the spike maul fall from her aching jaws. She pulled herself up into a sitting position, grabbed the spike maul and raised it high above her head. Her arms ached from the weight of the tool, but she refused to give up. She knew her lover would return.

It wasn’t long before static fingers caressed her skin. She closed her eyes and licked her lips as the sensation dance down her spine and settled in her crotch, throbbing… throbbing… “Come on,” she whispered. “Come and get me, baby. Come and—”

A horn blared in the distance. Morgan opened her eyes and saw a light on the track. “No!” she cried. She couldn’t stop, not when she was so close. She clenched her teeth and thrust the spike maul higher. Rain lashed her face, the ground shook. Her arms trembled as her shadow stretched out long and thin behind her. And when the lightning finally flashed, she didn’t see it. The train’s light was too close, too bright. As bright as the sun.