Succulent Prey (16 page)

beast then he would forever appear as a monster and transformed him into the

Wendigo. Now he is said to prowl the

forests and frozen wastelands of North

America, starving for human flesh.

"They say that anyone who commits the sin of cannibalism wil likewise be

cursed with the spirit of the Wendigo,

becoming a monster that must now eat

other humans to survive."

The students were silent as kids sitting around a campfire listening to a real y good ghost story. They seemed to be

waiting for the traditional shock ending. Most of them were looking at Joe as if

expecting him to suddenly grow hair and fangs.

"Once you become one of these

monsters, how do you reverse it? Does

it say how they're cured?" Joe asked. The professor shook his head in

exasperation and sighed deeply.

"They aren't cured, Joseph. Once they cross that line and become cannibals,

they remain monsters forever."

"But that can't be! There has to be a cure!"

"Settle down. It's only mythology. No need to get yourself al worked up." Prudence was not one of Joe's strong

points and he had once again drawn the

snickers and stares of his peers. He

lowered his head and crossed his arms

over his chest as he settled back into his chair.

The professor continued. "Wel , then. Normal y in Native American folklore, the ability to take on the shape of animals was used for purposes of spiritual

enlightenment, healing, and personal

growth. Even evil shape-shifters didn't general y attack and eat humans. This

horrific trait was solely that of the

Wendigo, and the legend of this creature appears to have been used to warn

against the practice of cannibalism."

"Was there any truth to the legends? I mean, did anyone claim to have actual y seen one?"

The professor closed his eyes and

cupped his forehead in his hands, trying to maintain his composure.

"It's an old legend. And though I'm sure there were a great many who believed in it a century or two ago, "Wel , maybe they should," Joe replied.

He fel silent, his eyes daring the

professor to inquire further. The

professor stared back with the unasked

question lying flat on his tongue.

Did you kil that woman?

Suddenly Joe felt claustrophobic in the little classroom. He stood quickly, nearly flipping his chair over as he snatched up his backpack and made for the door.

The professor flinched when the huge

sophomore stormed past.

"That's a very disturbed kid," he whispered as Joe left the room and the

door shut slowly behind him.

I'd be surprised if anyone gives it much credibility nowadays."

Chapter Twenty

Alicia trembled as she lay on Joe's filthy sheets, which stil smel ed of blood,

sweat, cum, and urine. Her legs were

spread wide and bound along with her

wrists. She had never been more

terrified. The room stil stank of death even beneath the overpowering

chemical smel of Pine-Sol and bleach.

In her mind she could stil see the body of the heavyset woman her captor had

devoured where it had lain on the floor. The wood where her blood had pooled

and coagulated was now bleached

lighter than the rest of the floor. Alicia's ears stil rang with the woman's

screams, sending shivers up and down

her spine. That woman had died in

unimaginable pain.

Alicia knew she was going to die next.

No matter how kind the big col ege kid

had been to her before he'd left this

morning. No matter how he'd tried to

reassure her that he would never hurt her that way. The Band-Aids on her nipples

said otherwise. She was dead.

Even if he was right about the serial

kil er virus, that it was something like the vampire or werewolf curse, Alicia was

stil not convinced they could reverse its effects. Especial y not after last night. Joe had consumed both blood and

human flesh. If he had not been damned

before he was certainly damned now

and that meant Alicia was fucked right

along with him. Stil , as long as he

believed he could cure himself there was hope for her to escape.

Her wrists were getting infected where

her skin had abraded from her daily

attempts to wrestle free of the restraints. They would have time to heal now,

though. Alicia had given up on trying to break free. She laid her head down on

the pil ow and dreamt about her father. In her dreams he came to her, wiped the blood from her stomach, undid her

restraints and told her he loved her and forgave her. He looked younger now,

though, stronger, as if death had

restored his youth. He wiped the tears

from her face and kissed her forehead.

Then he began to comb her hair. She

couldn't remember her father ever being this gentle and nurturing in life. He

looked so different now. He looked ...

Just like Superman.

Chapter Twenty-one

After leasing the Ford cargo van for their trip, Joe had gone back to the apartment to get Alicia ready to travel. He'd found her in a deep sleep, mumbling to herself. She'd woken up just as he'd started to

dress her.

"Joe! I thought ... I had a dream that my dad was here."

"You looked so happy."

"I was."

Joe knew what she meant. She had

been happy until she'd woken up to find herself stil locked in an apartment with a murderer.

"We're going on a trip."

"We're going after that child kil er, aren't we?"

"Yes. We're going to Washington."

Chapter Twenty-two

The big muscular col ege kid hadn't

been to an SAA meeting in almost a

week. And Frank hadn't seen

SuperPredator online lately either. His ass stil hadn't healed from his last

encounter with the gorgeous cannibal.

Stil , al he could think about was another private moment with the clean-cut

muscle-bound man with the hard blue

eyes that scurried over every inch of you as he spoke as if sizing you for the kil , eyes that seemed to rip their way inside and invade every inch of you. He wanted him again, but he feared what another

session with the SuperPredator might

do to him.

He'd had a hard time explaining his

wounds at the emergency ward. Luckily

he was such a regular that they had

barely listened to a word he said. They just cal ed for a psychiatrist to visit with him while they bandaged up his

mutilated ass. Once he'd managed to

convince the bored psychiatrist that he wasn't suicidal or delusional, he'd been released with a prescription for

painkil ers and a recommendation to

seek professional help. Frank had

smiled warmly and left. He'd

masturbated to the memory of the pain

as he drove himself home, nearly

crossing the yel ow line into oncoming

traffic when he recal ed Joe's reaction as he slurped down the sliver of flesh

sawed from Frank's buttocks.

It had shocked him to see the man

ejaculate by merely tasting a smal

morsel of his flesh. He'd never felt so loved as he had seeing the pleasure his meat had brought to the big carnivore.

The hunger that sprang into the man's

eyes after the orgasm subsided had

been terrifying but extremely erotic. He wanted to give more of himself to Joe, to see the predator's eyes rol up in his

head and his body shudder as the

ecstasy of blood and meat erupted from

him. It had been obvious that the man

had wanted more of Frank ... much

more, perhaps more than Frank could

survive. Stil , Frank was wil ing to risk it. He hadn't been able to think of anything else since he'd run in terror from Joe's rundown apartment building.

Reading the cannibal fantasies on the

Long Pig site had almost convinced him

it was worth losing his life for the

experience of being consumed by such

a powerful predator, to bind his flesh

forever with that beautiful man. Final y, Frank couldn't resist any longer and

decided to go visit his SuperPredator

again.

He'd had more than a few whiskey sours

when he walked brazenly up to the front door of the rundown building and rang

the bel to the apartment where Joe was supposed to live. He couldn't imagine

that anyone real y lived in such a place though, especial y not the beautiful wel groomed Clark Kent look-alike. But this was where he'd met him for their little rendezvous just a few nights before. He rang the doorbel a few more times

without an answer. Then he pushed on

the front door and it swung open easily, revealing the same dusty old lobby

where he and Joe had exchanged flesh

and blood for sweat and semen. It was

empty and looked like it had been that

way since before Frank was born.

"Hel o?" Frank cal ed out softly and heard only his voice echoing through the dank stagnant air. The place smel ed like a damp moldy basement.

Frank crept cautiously inside and closed the door behind him. The oppressive

darkness that swooped in on him,

choking al light from the room, panicked him. Without the glare of the streetlights outside it was total blackness. A chil of dread scurried over Frank's flesh,

raising goose bumps, as the old building seemed to swal ow him in one great

gulp. Frank quickly swung the front door open again to let a little light in. Even with the faint light creeping in from the street, Frank had a difficult time

navigating his way to the stairs. There was no way he was going to risk

climbing into the building's rickety old elevator and getting stuck inside. From the way this place looked it would be

decades before anyone found him.

He remembered what apartment Joe

had told him to ring and began making

his way up the stairs toward it. The

alcohol coursing through his

bloodstream had made him a little

braver than normal, along with the fact that he was as much addicted to the

adrenaline rush of fear and pain as he

was to that of orgasm. Stil , he jumped at every sound as he crept his way up the

darkened stairway toward the apartment

on the fifth floor.

"Joe! Joe, are you up there?" He was cal ing out mostly for the

reassurance of hearing his own voice

echo back at him, the one familiar sound in this tomb of squeaking stairs and rats. When he reached the fifth floor he stuck his head out and was assaulted by the

odor of urine, fecal matter, and decay. Again he wondered if anyone but a few

stray cats, some rats, and perhaps a

dog or two, lived in this place. He could see some of the hippies who wandered

up and down Haight Street begging for

change and reeking of marijuana and

patchouli oil living in a place like this, but Joe would have been horribly out of

place. Perhaps this was just the place

where he took his lovers (To murder and eat? What was that sickening smel ?) to fuck.

Frank nearly ran down the hal to room

510. He skidded to a stop just outside

the room in which his dream lover was

supposed to reside, surprised to find the door open.

"Joe? Are you in there?"

There was no response except for a loud thump from somewhere deeper inside

the dingy sparselyfurnished apartment.

Frank crept in and surveyed the

apartment. It looked like a jail cel . There was only one lamp, a smal eighteeninch television and VCR atop a milk crate, two folding chairs, a table, and the paintings.

The wal s were lined with acrylic

paintings of figures bathed in red. Frank moved closer to them and realized that

the figures in the paintings were not just bathed in red. They were bleeding.

Slowly his eyes began to make sense of

the chaos on the canvases. The pink and tans represented human flesh. Meat

opened up so that the muscle and

sinews showed through the skin. The

white was bone. And the red was

obviously blood. The paintings looked

like people turned inside out. And there were pieces missing from them. Some

were missing legs or arms. Some were

obviously women without breasts. Some

had no heads. Some had heads with no

faces. Many were of men or women with

their sex organs removed. In the place of each anatomical omission was a ragged

hole, bleeding down the canvas.

Frank heard the loud bump again. It was coming from the bedroom.

"Joe? Are you okay in there? It's me. Frank."

Frank pushed open the door, saw the

woman who was now handcuffed by her

wrists and ankles with duct tape

wrapped around her mouth. He looked

down at her breasts and could see the

Band-Aids over her nipples. Whatever

had happened, the panic in the woman's

eyes told him that it had not been

consensual.

There was a slight trickle of blood from a smal cut on her forehead, presumably

from where she had fal en off the bed.

Her ankle cuffs were stil attached to a chain in the ceiling that would have

made it impossible for her to move more than a few feet from the bed. She was

flopping around, trying to get to her feet, and when she noticed the diminutive little man standing there her eyes began

pleading with him for help. She held her wrists out and shook them at him,

imploring him to remove the handcuffs,

but he had no key and was beginning to