Dangerous territory. He didn’t want her bawling again. ‘Suit yourself. It’s yours, if you want it.’
‘Well, I don’t. You probably poisoned it.’
‘I didn’t poison nothing.’ He ate more fries, drank more beer. He finished the fries and the beer at the same time. He tossed the oily bag into the fire, and watched the flames take it. Then he got himself another beer. This time he shook the can and aimed it towards Joni, intentionally shooting the spray into her face. She bit her lower lip. Beer dripped from her nose and chin. Roy laughed. ‘You should see yourself.’
He took the remaining Big Mac out of the sack and unwrapped it. ‘Want it?’
‘No.’
He raised it. He opened his mouth wide. Joni’s eyes flashed towards it, then away. ‘You do want it.’
She shook her head.
‘Yes you do. Here.’ He held it towards her face. She tightened her lips. ‘Open wide.’
Again, she shook her head.
Roy brushed the burger against her closed mouth, leaving a wet trail of juice and dressing. Then he lowered it and waited to see her tongue sneak out.
Her mouth stayed shut.
‘Come on, open up.’ Again, he rubbed the burger on her closed mouth. ‘Do what I say.’
‘Mmmm-mmm.’
Roy put down his beer can. He got to his knees.
‘Eat, Joni.’
She shook her head.
With his left hand, Roy pinched her nostrils shut and pushed her backward. He held her down tightly against the sleeping bag. For along time, she kept her mouth shut. Finally, with a gasp, she opened up. Roy stuffed in the hamburger: twisting it, breaking it, mashing it into her mouth and chin and nose. When she started to choke, he let go. He flung the remains of the hamburger towards the trees.
Joni sat up, coughing. Her fingers scooped wads of beef and bun out of her mouth.
‘Don’t get crap on the sleeping bag,’ Roy warned. He shoved her forward.
On hands and knees, head close to the fire, she coughed and spit.
Roy watched the rear of her short, pleated skirt, and remembered dressing her that morning. He’d chosen a fresh white blouse, and green skirt. Joni, on the bed, had neither struggled nor cooperated. It had been like dressing a doll. Only different. This doll had real parts, and he’d enjoyed the feel of them. He hadn’t put underwear on her. He liked the idea of nakedness under the skirt.
The choking had stopped, but Joni stayed there on her hands and knees, crying.
Roy patted the back of her leg. His touch made her go rigid. He slid his hand up and down, enjoying the curve of the leg and the cool smoothness of the skin. He moved his hand higher. She turned and knocked it away.
Grabbing her arm, Roy pulled her to him. Her mouth was dripping. He wiped it dry with his handkerchief, and threw the handkerchief into the fire.
She hit at his hands as he unbuttoned her blouse. He ignored it. Then she hit his nose. That hurt. He grabbed her hair and twisted it tightly so the pain made her gasp. He kept hold of the hair. She didn’t srike him again. When the blouse was off, he let her go. She hugged herself, shivering, while he folded the blouse and set it inside the pack.
‘Cold?’
She said nothing.
Roy crawled behind her. He stroked her shoulders and back. He unbuttoned her skirt and lowered its zipper.
‘Stand up.’
She shook her head.
Roy pinched her back. ‘Stand up.’
She did. Roy pulled the skirt down.
‘Keep standing.’
‘I’m cold,’ she murmured.
‘Stand closer to the fire.’
She seemed reluctant to step off the smooth nylon cover of the sleeping bag, but she did. She moved close to the dwindling fire.
‘Put more wood on it, if you want.’
He watched her bend down, lift sticks from the pile, and toss them on to the fire. He watched the flames rise. He watched the fluttering orange glow they cast on her skin. He watched her crouch down close to the fire, giving him only a side view of her body.
He unlaced his hiking boots. Pivattas. Bob had good taste in camping gear. He pulled off the boots.
‘Stand on the other side,’ he said. ‘Facing me.’
That’s when she ran.
Roy slid up his cuff, pulled his knife. Flipping it, he caught the blade between his thumb and forefinger. He hurled the knife. It whipped end over end, its blade flashing firelight.
The girl almost reached the dark border of the clearing when the knife hit her. Roy heard the thud of its impact. He heard the girl’s startled gasp and saw her tumble forward.
Roy took his time pulling on his boots. He didn’t bother lacing or tying them. He simply tucked the loose lace ends under the tongues, and got to his feet.
Twigs and pine needles crushed under his soles as he walked towards the sprawled, white body of the girl.
Chapter Eleven
1.
A quiet knocking on the door woke Donna. Raising her face from the pillow, she saw that the window was wrong: off to the side instead of directly over the bed. Strange room. Still dark outside. Somebody knocking. Fear made an uneasy flutter in her belly.
Then she recognized the room, and remembered.
Jud. It must be Jud.
She rolled out of bed. Cold. No time, in the darkness, to find her robe. She stepped quickly to the door and opened it a crack.
Larry stood there in striped pyjamas, hugging himself against the chilly wind.
‘What is it?’ she whispered, alarm knotting her stomach.
‘Judge. He’s back. He’s been hurt.’
She glanced over her shoulder at Sandy’s bed, and decided not to wake the girl. Twisting the handle button, she locked the door. She stepped out, pulled the door shut, and made sure it was secure.
Following Larry across the parking area, she felt the cold breeze and the sway of her breasts inside her nightgown as if she were naked. It didn’t matter. Only Jud mattered. Besides, she could borrow something over there to put on.
‘How bad is he?’ she asked.
‘The beast got him.’
‘Oh my God!’ She remembered the wax figures, shredded and bloody. But he couldn’t be like that. Not Jud. He’s hurt, but not dead. He’ll be fine.
Larry opened the door of Cabin 12. A lamp was on between the beds, but both beds were empty. One had obviously not been slept in. Donna surveyed the room. ‘Where is he?’
Larry shut the door and locked it.
‘Larry?’
She saw how he looked down her body as if surprised and distracted by the way it showed through the nightgown.
‘He isn’t here,’ Donna said.
‘No.’
‘If you think you can . . .’
‘What?’ Larry asked, and looked up from her breasts. His eyes were vague.
‘I’m leaving.’
‘Wait. Why? I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. I . . . I was just . . .’
‘I know what you were just doing. You just thought you’d use Jud as a pretext to lure me over here so you could . . .’
‘Oh heavens no. Good heavens.’ He laughed nervously. ‘Judge asked me to get you.’
‘Well, where is he?’
‘Over here.’
She followed him across the room.
‘Judge didn’t want to leave blood on the bed, you see.’
He opened the bathroom door. Donna saw a pile of clothes on the floor. Then she saw Jud sitting on the empty tub. Blood sheathed his back and stained the rear of his Jockey shorts. He finished taping a wide bandage on to his thigh.
‘That takes care of that,’ he said, and looked up at Donna.
She dropped to her knees, leaned over the side of the tub, and kissed him. She pushed a hand through his damp hair.
‘You look awful,’ she said.
‘You should’ve seen me before I showered.’
‘Do you always shower in your shorts?’
&
nbsp; ‘I didn’t want to shock you.’
‘I see.’ She kissed him again, longer this time, taking pleasure in the warm spread of desire through her loins, and wishing Larry would go away.
‘I wouldn’t spend all night smooching,’ Larry said. ‘After all, the man is bleeding.’
‘Would you like to bandage my shoulder?’ Jud asked her.
‘Sure.’
‘Larry’s too squeamish.’
‘Blood nauseates me,’ Larry said, and left the bathroom.
When Donna squeezed a washcloth above the shoulder wounds, water spilled down, rinsing off blood. ‘The beast did that?’
‘Something did,’ he told her.
‘They look like claw marks.’
‘That’s how they feel, too.’
She patted them gently with the washcloth.
‘Pour on some hydrogen peroxide,’ Jud said. ‘It’s probably by your knees.’
She let it spill over his cuts, fizzing and foaming. Then, with a large gauze pad from the first-aid kit on the toilet lid, she covered the wounds. ‘You sure come prepared,’ she said, taping the pad in place.
‘Mm-hmmm.’
‘Any place else need fixing?’
‘That should do it. Thank you.’
‘Now let’s clean you up. Can you keep your leg dry, if we run water?’
‘If it isn’t too deep.’
She plugged the drain and turned on the water. With his knee up, Jud kept his thigh bandage above the rising water level. Donna shut off the faucets, and began to scrub his back with a soapy washcloth.
‘Did you go into the house?’ she asked.
He nodded.
‘Boy, that’s the height of something.’
‘You don’t approve?’
‘You might’ve been killed.’
‘I came fairly close.’
‘How did you get away?’
‘I threw gas on him. I guess he was afraid he’d go up in flames.’
Jud’s back was clean and slick. Leaning over the side of the tub, she kissed it. The skin made her mouth wet. ‘All done,’ she said.
‘Thank you, ma’am. Could you hand me a towel?’
She gave him one, and watched him press it against his upper leg, to keep water from running on to the bandage as he stood.
‘I’ll be out in a minute,’ he said, climbing from the tub.
‘Will you?’ she asked, smiling at him and trying to look as if she didn’t know he was asking her to leave the bathroom.
‘Oh, you prefer to stay?’
She nodded. Reaching behind her, she pulled the door shut. Its handle made a snapping sound as she locked it.
‘This isn’t the most comfortable place in the world,’ Jud said.
‘It’s fine with me.’
Hands brushing her shoulders, Jud slipped the straps of her nightgown down. She let the nightgown fall. The effect on him was immediate. Dropping to one knee, Donna freed the erect penis from his shorts and tugged the shorts down his legs. Then she stood naked in front of him. First, his eyes caressed her. Then his hands traced the curves of her shoulders, the slopes of her breasts. He pulled her against him, the stiff penis prodding her belly.
As they kissed, Donna’s hands explored the dips and rises of his back, the firm globes of his buttocks. She moved a hand to the front, and fingered his scrotum, the long smooth shaft of his penis. She felt his fingers down low between her legs, and moaned as they stroked.
Jud kicked the pile of clothes aside. He spread two bathtowels on the floor, and Donna lay back on them, knees high and parted. Jud knelt over her.
She felt the light touch of his tongue, first on one nipple, then on the other. Then came the slippery pushing. He went deep inside her.
Gasping through her open mouth, she tried to stay quiet. Didn’t want Larry to hear. But her breath was coming louder now, and she couldn’t help the trembling sound of it. Then she no longer cared. There was only Jud on top of her, inside her, filling her, stroking her to an unbearable urgency that tightened and tightened and finally broke. He muffled her outcry with his mouth.
2.
‘For heaven’s sake, what took you so long?’ Larry asked, looking up at them from the television.
‘I thought it was rather quick’ Donna said, smiling.
Jud, wearing only a towel and his bandages, took a robe from the room’s closet. He put it on and removed the towel.
‘So,’ Larry said. ‘Now that we’re both here and you’re nicely patched up, would you be good enough to tell us what happened to you?’
‘Do you want to stay?’ Jud asked Donna.
‘I want to know,’ she said. ‘I’m chilly, though. May I?’
‘Help yourself.’
She pulled back the covers of the bed that had not been slept in. She sat on it, propped the pillow against its headboard, and leaned back. ‘All set,’ she said, and pulled the blankets shoulder high.
Jud told them what had happened: He told of watching the house from the hillside, of seeing the woman enter, of following her inside, of finding the gasoline can on the stairway.
‘Ah,’ Larry said. ‘Good woman. She was going to reduce the filthy place to ashes.’
‘I wonder why she waited so long,’ said Donna.
‘Could be a lot of things. She probably left town after the killings, to bury her husband and boy. Do you know where they’re from?’ he asked Larry.
‘Roseville, out near Sacramento.’
‘It’d only take a few days to bury them and get back here. What was she doing the rest of the time?’
‘Trying to figure out how to take her revenge, maybe. Then planning for it, making preparations. When I left there tonight, I used a hole under the fence. I think she probably dug that hole, herself. Once her preparations were made, she probably had to work herself up to actually getting in there and doing the job.’
Larry frowned. ‘Why, for heaven’s sake, did you try to stop her?’
‘I didn’t go inside to stop her. I went in to find out who she was, and what she was up to. Until I heard the scream.’
‘Oh my God.’ Donna could feel a chill, in spite of the covers. ‘How badly was she hurt?’
‘She was dead.’
‘The same as the others?’ Larry asked.
‘The same as the gal in the parlour. Ethel? This one was in fairly much the same shape, if the wax figure was accurate. I gave her a close look, after the . . . killer . . . got away.’
‘Could you tell if she’d been sexually molested?’ Larry asked.
Jud nodded. ‘It was fairly obvious.’
The thought of it made Donna press her legs tightly together. She became aware that she could still feel Jud inside her, as if he had left an imprint. Her fear and repulsion subsided. She wondered, for a moment, how she might arrange to be alone with him again.
‘I knew she’d been molested,’ said Larry. ‘The beast . . . that’s its motive. Sexual gratification. Of course, I should be glad, I suppose. That’s what saved my life. The creature was more interested in satiating its lust with Tommy . . .’
‘I don’t think sex is the main thing.’
‘Oh?’ Larry sounded sceptical.
‘Let me give you my theory. I think this beast is a man.’
‘Then your theory’s shit.’
‘Just listen. It’s a man in a costume. The costume has claws.’
‘No.’
‘Listen, damn it. You too, Donna, and see what you think. The original killings, the Thorn lady’s sister and kids, were done by Gus Goucher, the man they hanged.’
‘No,’ Larry said.
‘Why not?’
‘They were torn apart with claws.’
‘According to whom?’
‘According to morgue photos?’
‘Have you seen those photos?’
‘No, but Maggie Kutch has.’
‘If you believe her. Who has possession of the photos?’
‘Maggie, I suppose.’
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‘Maybe we can get a look at them.’
‘I rather doubt it.’
‘Okay, we’ll let that go for the time being. It’s not that important. Gus Goucher’s jury must’ve seen the photos, must’ve heard testimony . . .’
‘According to the old newspaper accounts, they did.’
‘And what the jury heard was sufficient for them to condemn the man.’
‘Granted.’
‘We ought to check this, but I have the impression that, until the Kutch murders thirty years later, Goucher was pretty much accepted as being the Thorn killer.’
‘It Was made to look like he was. They needed a scapegoat.’
‘No. They needed a suspect. He was a likely one. And he was, quite possibly, the guilty one.’
‘They hanged Goucher,’ Donna said. ‘So he certainly wasn’t responsible for the attack on Maggie Kutch and her family.’
‘In a way, he might have been. Look at what Maggie did after the killings. She moved out of the house, took in Wick Hapson, and opened Beast House for tours. I think she and Wick decided they’d be happier without Mr Kutch, killed him using an MO similar to the Thorn murders, and cooked up this business about a beast to cover themselves. When they saw how much interest there was in this fictional beast of theirs, they decided to profit from it by opening the house for tours.’
Larry shook his head and said nothing.
‘One thing,’ Donna said. ‘I can’t see a woman murdering her own children.’
‘That part threw me, too. It still throws me, in fact. For their beast story to hold up, though, the kids had to go.’
‘She wouldn’t do it. No mother could do that.’
‘Let’s say it’s unlikely,’ Jud corrected. ‘Mothers have been known to murder their own children. What’s more likely, though, is that Wick took care of the kids.’
‘Your theory is ridiculous,’ Larry said.
‘Why?’
‘Because there is a beast in that house.’
‘The beast is a rubber suit with claws.’
‘No.’
Donna frowned. ‘Do you think it was Wick Hapson tonight?’
‘If it was Wick, he’s damn strong for a man his age.’
‘Axel?’
‘It can’t be Axel. He’s too short, too broad in the shoulders, too awkward in his movements.’