The Killing Kind

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

March 27

Rob glanced at the Subaru’s rearview mirror for maybe the hundredth time in the last half hour and again felt that strange delayed shock of self-recognition.

That’s me. It doesn’t look anything like me, but it’s me.

The face was the same, of course, but his hair had been shaved down to the scalp. Roxie had done the job, using scissors and a razor from the old man’s house. He ran a hand over the smooth dome of flesh and again felt a pang of loss. Women had always liked his thick, wavy hair. He felt naked without it. But though it pained him to admit it, the loss of his hair did make him look like someone else, at least at first glance. And right now that was pretty fucking important.

He squinted at the reflection. “I look like a fucking skinhead.”

Roxie laughed and picked at her newly blonde, spiky locks. “Yeah. You do. Sorry, babe.” She twisted in her seat and glanced at Julie in the back. “You, though…you make the bald thing look sort of hot.”

Julie removed her Myrtle Beach souvenir ball cap and rubbed her own shorn scalp. “I guess I do, huh?”

Roxie nodded. “You ever read Helter Skelter?”

“Of course. I read all that kinda shit.”

Rob thought, Why doesn’t that surprise me?

“Remember the pictures of those cute little Manson chicks gathered outside the courthouse? That’s sort of how you look. Only hotter.”

Julie giggled. “Maybe I should carve a swastika on my forehead. Or have you do it.”

Roxie laughed. “I will if you want. It’d fit right in with Rob’s white-power look.”

“You totally should. We all should. Think of how freaky that’ll be for those preppy fucks when they see us.”

Both girls laughed at that.

Rob experienced that gut-squeezing feeling of encroaching doom again. His companions were completely insane. Earlier in this adventure, he’d derived some comfort in thinking he could ditch them anytime and run back to his old life. But that option was no longer on the table. He was a wanted man. Doom was on the horizon. He was sure he would either be dead or in handcuffs by the time the sun rose tomorrow.

Julie thrust an arm through the gap between the seats, pointing at something ahead in the road. “There it is!”

Rob leaned forward, squinting again because he couldn’t make out what Julie was seeing. Apparently her night vision was much better than his own. They were on a winding seaside road. To their right, beyond the dunes, was a long stretch of beach and the vast ocean. To their left, acres of apparently empty land.

Except that-

Julie jabbed her finger forward again. “Right there!”

The road twisted, moved farther inland. Julie’s finger was pointing to the right. Rob craned his neck as far as he could in that direction and the impression of emptiness was revealed as an illusion. Now he could discern the shapes of houses in the darkness, a big cluster of them along the beach. They were almost invisible beneath the dense cloud cover, through which only the faintest glow of moonlight penetrated. There was a scent of rain in the air, the promise of a storm approaching. He spotted an access road and began to slow the clunky old Subaru. The car’s engine coughed and sputtered, almost died again. He cursed the poorly maintained junker and tried not to think of the corpse in the trunk.

Just a harmless old man, he’d been.

No threat at all.

There’d been no reason to kill him.

And yet they’d done it. The girls, that is. First they’d broken into his shabby home on the outskirts of town. That he understood. They needed a place to hide and lay low. The torture, though, had not been necessary. That had just been fun and games. Rob didn’t want to think about it. It sickened him. Just as all the rest of it sickened him. And yet he was still with them.

Why?

He didn’t know. And he’d like a real answer to that question. Not the crazy one Julie had proffered: It turns you on when you watch us kill.

It couldn’t possibly be true.

Could it?

No. Hell, no.

He steered the car down the access road and came to a stop. A gate blocked the way into the beach-house community.

Julie swung her arm to the left. “Over there.”

Rob saw it. He backed the Subaru up and pulled up alongside the electronic keypad, which was inset on a metal pole. He cranked the window down and looked at Roxie. She unfolded the sheet of paper she’d dug out of her tote bag earlier.

“The code is…”

Rob punched in the numbers as she read them. Then there was a click and the gate swung open. Rob put the car in gear, made a sound of frustration as the engine sputtered again, then slammed the gas pedal down as it finally caught. The old car shot through the opening an instant before the gate started to swing shut again. He tapped the brake pedal and slowed back down as they began to navigate their way through a web of very narrow sandy roads. Roxie kept glancing at the scrap of paper in her hand, reading off directions while he drove.

“Stop here.”

Rob pulled to a stop at the side of the road. It was actually a bend in a road between two clusters of houses. He glanced past Roxie and saw the dark ocean. A cold breeze stirred the tall grass on the dune separating road and beach. He’d vacationed with his grandparents in places like this when he was younger. He longed to journey back to those days. Or to any saner phase of his life. He didn’t want to die. Didn’t like this feeling of being swept along by fate. And yet he was powerless to do anything about it.

Roxie flipped open the cell phone she’d taken from the Subaru’s deceased owner. She punched in a number and a brief text message. A silent moment passed. The car’s interior was thick with tension. It was almost choking them.

Don’t answer, Rob thought.

Please, please don’t answer.

Then the cell phone buzzed and Roxie flipped it open again. She read the message on the screen and smiled at Rob. “Let’s go.”

They got out of the car and set off down the road on foot. Rob’s stomach twisted. He’d seen a lot of people die this last week. Many of them horribly. But this was personal and would be about a thousand times worse.

After a walk of some fifty yards, they arrived at the driveway of a three-story beach house. Roxie moved quickly down the driveway, not quite running but advancing with the long strides of someone anxious to get somewhere fast. Julie hurried to catch up to her. Though it pained him to do so, Rob picked up his own pace. That urge to turn and run was still there, a mental voice growing more frantic by the moment, but he knew he wouldn’t heed it. It was too late.

They circled the house and then continued around a tall fence surrounding a swimming pool. They entered through an open gate. Rob moved carefully over the cement deck. It was dark out here and the last thing he wanted was to fall into the pool. Though the lights were off, he could make out the shapes of inflatable rafts and beach balls floating in the water, bobbing in the lazy currents like little corpses.

They stepped off the deck onto a wooden patio, where a set of sliding glass doors stood open. A beautiful woman who looked a little like Roxie before the bleach job stepped through the opening and stood on the patio with them.

Roxie smiled. “Hi, Emily.”

The woman looked at Roxie. “Hello, Missy. So glad you could make it. You have no idea how ready I am for this.”

Rob frowned.

Missy?

“Uh…Roxie? What did she just call you?”

“It’s my real name.”

Rob’s frown deepened. “But…how did she know it? And…”

Roxie-Missy-laughed. “Why didn’t I tell you?”

“Yeah.”

She shrugged. “I call myself different things all the time. It’s not real important. Let’s get this party started.”

She clasped hands with Emily and they went on into the house.

Julie started after them, but glanced back at Rob. “You coming?”

Rob felt dizzy. He felt like the whole world was coming undone around him. Roxie wasn’t who she said she was. At least not completely. And if she’d lied to him about her name, what else had she lied about? He laughed. Did it really matter? None of it changed the essential core truth about her.

She was a killer.

She lived for it. Thrived on it.

Julie went on into the house, leaving him alone on the patio for a moment. And this was it. Finally. His very last chance to turn and run. To maybe turn himself in or summon the cops.

But that was another lie.

That chance was gone forever.

He drew in a deep breath and followed the rest of them inside.