The Killing Kind

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

March 20

The guy seemed really nervous and she guessed she couldn’t blame him. It was a pretty weird situation. Not to mention highly illegal, as he thought he’d been approached by a very young prostitute. So he was pretty fucking gullible, too. She was way prettier and fresher-looking than the usual crack-addicted, street-trawling whore.

They were in the parking lot outside the 21 Up Adult Video store. The man clutched a brown paper bag that appeared to contain several DVDs. He was fidgeting and kept glancing at the door to the smut shop. “You’re sure you’re not with the cops?”

Julie smiled and licked her lips seductively. “No, baby. I just want to make you feel good and make a little money.”

He was staring at her breasts, which strained the fabric of the tiny halter she was wearing. “How much?”

“Fifty for a blow, hundred for a fuck.”

“I’ve got the cash, but I don’t have any rubbers on me.”

Julie almost laughed.

I’m sure you don’t, you ugly fuck.

“That’s okay, baby. I’ve got you covered.” She nodded at the BMW parked on the other side of the lot. “That’s my old man’s car over there. Get in the back with me and we’ll set this up.”

He frowned. “Your…old man?”

She smiled. “My pimp.”

The man turned partially away from her and stared at the BMW. Zeb wasn’t visible through the car’s tinted windows. Good thing, too. Dude would be spooked for sure if he got a load of the crazy homeless man. And Julie didn’t want him spooked. This guy was perfect. He was just the kind of slimy pervert the world would be better off without.

He faced her again. “I guess that’s okay. That’s a hell of a nice car. You and your…old man…must be doing well.”

She smiled and kicked at a little rock with the toe of a sneaker. She kept her hands clasped in front of her and gave her hips a little swivel, really playing up the whole Lolita thing. “You could say that. We’re picky, you know. We drive around and find people who look like they have a little class to ’em. Like you.”

The man blushed. “Oh…thanks.”

She started walking toward the BMW, glancing over her shoulder at the mark. He was staring at her ass now. “You coming?”

He hesitated just long enough to scan the parking lot again, probably still checking for cops, not quite trusting her denial. Then he took a deep breath and hurried after her. She opened the back door on the passenger side and stood aside for him to slide in. She climbed in after him and pulled the door shut. Zeb hit a button up front and the car’s locks clicked shut.

The sleazy little fuck drew in a startled breath upon seeing Zeb.

Julie laughed. “Chill, baby. I know he’s scary-looking. But a girl needs a tough guy around to survive in this business.” Julie doubted any real-life whore said things like this, but the guy was clueless and horny, so it was probably okay. She put a hand on his leg and squeezed, eliciting a shudder from him. “Yeah. Feels good, huh?”

He gulped. “Y-yeah…”

“Let’s get out of here, Zeb.”

Zeb started the BMW and began to back out of the parking space.

The guy sat up straighter. “Wait! Where are we going?”

Julie scooted closer to him and draped an arm around his shoulders. “You shush, sweetie. We have a special place we go. You didn’t really think we were gonna do business in the parking lot of a porn shop, did you?”

He clutched the brown paper bag in his lap with both hands, the paper crinkling as his fingers shook. Nervous? Shit. He was terrified. Julie figured he’d never been intimate with a girl on any level before. It didn’t make her feel sorry for him. The sad sacks of the world only had themselves to blame for their problems. He wasn’t fat. He could clean himself up. Maybe get some cream to clear up those zits. Pathetic. The guy was maybe in his midtwenties, but he still looked like some high-school loser. No one would miss this waste of space. It made her feel a little better about what she was about to do.

Zeb pulled into traffic and began to head for the spot they’d found earlier. The town wasn’t tiny, but it wasn’t terribly big either. It was one of those countless bland, midsized communities dotting the landscape between the larger cities. It took maybe ten minutes to return to the abandoned warehouse in the town’s failing industrial area. The place was perfect. The empty lot behind the building wasn’t fenced off and there was no evidence of any kind of security presence. Zeb parked the BMW at one of the empty loading bays at the back of the building. He turned the car off and pocketed the keys.

He got out of the car and threw the door shut without a word.

Julie grinned. “It’s just you and me now, baby. You ready to have fun?”

She heard the paper bag crinkle again. A glance at his lap showed that his hands were shaking harder than ever. She smiled and touched the bag. “Can I see your goodies?”

“Um…I don’t…”

She kissed his cheek. “It’s okay, honey. You don’t have to be embarrassed about anything. I want to see.”

Julie took the bag from him and pulled the DVDs out of it. There were four of them. The one on top featured a picture of a very young girl kneeling between the legs of another very young girl, who was sitting on the edge of a bed, with one leg dangling toward the floor and the other splayed along the edge of the mattress. The girl on the bed was squeezing her breasts and staring at the camera. The name of the DVD was Teen Sluts 4: Lesbian Fantasies. The rest of the discs were in the same vein. She sorted through them and made fake noises of arousal.

“Oh, wow. I wish we could watch these. I love shit like this. Makes me hot.”

He was staring at her breasts again and wasn’t shaking quite so much now. The edge had come off his nervousness as she’d sorted through the discs. She glanced at his crotch and saw how swollen it was. The physical intimacy was a big part of it. He probably knew it’d be a long time before he ever got this close to a girl as hot as she was again.

She set the discs aside and touched his leg again. “You ready?”

“Yes. God, yes.”

Lips puckering, he leaned toward her, but she placed a hand flat against his chest and pushed him back. “Kissing is fifty extra bucks.”

“I’ve got a hundred eighty in my wallet.” He was breathing faster, the intensity of his desire overwhelming any other impulses. “You can have it all. Just let me kiss you a little before we…you know…”

She giggled. “Fuck?”

He gulped. “Yeah.”

“Okay. We’ll make out some. Just promise you won’t tell Zeb. He doesn’t like it when I cut customers a deal.”

“I won’t tell. I promise.”

“Cool. Take your cock out while I get something from the front.”

She disengaged herself from him and leaned forward, angling her lean body through the gap between the seats, positioning her ass so that it was pointing right at his face. With any luck at all he’d be distracted by its round lushness long enough to get this done. The big hunting knife was in the passenger seat. The fingers of her right hand curled around its heavy handle.

Something touched her ass. The mark’s hand. The greasy little fucker was copping an unauthorized feel. Yet another mark against him in the grim reaper’s ledger of doom, she figured.

She smiled and glanced over her shoulder at him. “Little impatient, are we?”

He squeezed her ass cheek. “Yeah. What are you doing up there?”

“You needed a rubber, remember?”

He nodded. “Oh, yeah. Right. I forgot. Hurry. Please.”

“Okay, baby. Here I come.”

She waited one beat longer.

This is it, she thought. No going back from here.

What surprised her most in that moment was her total lack of hesitation. I want this. Holy shit, I really do.

Keeping her back to him, she began to slither back into the rear of the car. She heard him groan in anticipation. Then she snarled and whipped around, jabbing the big blade at his throat. Instinct made him flinch to the side, his quick reaction time surprising her. But he wasn’t quite fast enough. The serrated edge of the blade cut through his T-shirt and glanced off his collarbone, etching a deep, bloody groove in his flesh. He screamed and scooted away from her as she reared the knife back for another strike. He held his hands up and the blade jabbed into a palm, triggering another gusher of blood as it cut through muscle and hit bone. She yanked the blade out and pulled it back again. Blood leaped from the wound and struck her face. She felt some of it enter her mouth and realized she was grinning. It made her giggle, knowing how crazy she must look to him right now. He was pissing his pants, the little baby. He cried out and turned away from her, grasping for the door handle. His bloody hand curled around it and yanked, but the door stayed shut. Zeb had enabled the childproof locks on the back doors.

“You’re trapped, motherfucker.”

He looked at her and put his back against the door. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why not?”

She plunged the knife into his thigh, aiming for where she thought the femoral artery would be. He screamed and kicked out at her with his uninjured leg. The counterattack caught her off guard. His booted foot hit her stomach and drove her backward. She hit the door behind her and cried out. She stared at the man, panic blooming inside her. She didn’t have the knife anymore. It was still buried in his thigh. He reached for it in the same instant she propelled herself away from the door in a screaming leap. She was faster. She drove the blade deeper into his leg, giving it a savage sideways twist. He screamed and bucked against the door on his side. Julie yanked the knife out of his leg and stuck it in his throat.

A jugular bull’s-eye.

She pulled the blade out, releasing the biggest geyser of gore yet. She felt its warmth splash her chest and laughed. She leaned over him, got close as she could to his face, and taunted him in a singsong voice. “You’re gonna die-eye, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

He was still breathing, but his eyes were starting to glaze over.

Zeb opened the front driver-side door and leaned in to check out the carnage.

Julie beamed at him. “So what do you think? Did I do good? Did I pass Lulu’s fucking test?”

Zeb smiled. “You did good.”

“Yay. You know what?”

“What?”

“I want to do it again. Tonight.”

Zeb just stared at her.

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know. I’m a mess. I’m covered in fucking blood. But I’m not gonna be picky this time. We don’t have to do it the same way. Let’s just grab somebody. Anybody. A woman, if you want. I don’t give a shit. Let’s just do it. Okay?”

“You need to calm down.”

“DON’T FUCKING TELL ME TO FUCKING CALM DOWN!” Julie took a deep breath and summoned a smile. “I want to kill somebody. Please?”

Zeb looked wary, but he nodded. “Okay.”

He disengaged the childproof locks, pulled the body out of the car, and dragged it over to a Dumpster. Julie climbed up front and settled herself in the shotgun seat in time to watch Zeb heft the body and drop it in the container. Christ, but he was a strong bastard. He came back to the car, fired up the engine, and began to drive away from the warehouse.

Julie started laughing, was unable to stop for more than a minute.

Zeb glanced at her, frowning. “What?”

Her smile was playful. “Oh, nothing. Well…I was just thinking…wouldn’t it be a kick if I turned out to be even more fucked-up than you?”

She laughed some more.

Zeb stayed glumly silent and stared at the road ahead.