Succulent Prey (5 page)

Joe wouldn't have cal ed himself gay.

What he felt when he looked at the male athletes' thick muscular thighs and tight wel sculpted asses, their heaving

pectoral muscles, and even their thick

cocks dangling limply between their

legs, was something far more visceral.

He didn't want to fuck them. He wanted

to eat them alive. To rip their supple flesh from their bones, taste the warm blood

and meat as it washed over his tongue

and down into his bel y.

Joe finished his shower and removed a

fresh change of clothes from his

backpack. He shrugged quickly into his

jeans and T-shirt before running off to class. He could hear the guys whispering at his back as he left the locker room. They al thought he was a pervert. But

they knew better than to say it to his

face. Joe was not exactly a smal man.

Chapter Five

The tweed-wrapped and bow-tied

professor busily scribbled on the huge

blackboard at the front of the lecture hal . Flashes of multicolored young flesh

whisked by as students hurried to take

their seats. Smooth chocolate browns

and tans. Creamy whites and yel ows.

Joe tore himself with effort from the

entrancing glimpses of bare arms,

slender necks, and naked thighs and

calves to give attention to the names the professor had scrawled across the

board.

Andrei Chikatilo. Ed Gem. Gary

Heidnick. Jeffrey Dahmer.

Heidnick. Jeffrey Dahmer.

"Al of these men are murderers.

Signature kil ers with a very unique

signature."

Joe recognized the connection between

those four names before the professor

even spoke and he immediately perked

up, suddenly very interested. They were not just serial kil ers. They were kil ers who had at least partial y cannibalized their victims. Each of them had tasted

human flesh. Many on more than one

occasion. Some, like Dahmer and

Chikatilo, were famous for it.

"Al of these men murdered, butchered, and ate their victims."

A shudder ran through the lecture hal

like a group wave, fol owed by a moan of utter revulsion. Joe smiled. This is what he had come here for. He'd been

delighted when he'd seen the course

offerings for criminal psychology. It had taken a fight to get into the class due to its overwhelming popularity but as soon as he had read the title of the

course"Abnormal Psychology: Serial Kil ers and Why They Do It"-and seen who the professor was, he knew that he

had to sign up.

Joe knew many more names he could

have added to the professor's list. Ed

Kemper, Albert Fish, Issei Sagawa, even Ted Bundy had engaged in mild

cannibalism. It was a common final

stage in the evolution of the serial kil er. Some of them just got there sooner than others. Some were caught before it ever advanced to that stage. But Joe's theory was that al serial kil ers, if not

apprehended first, would eventual y

escalate to cannibalism. It was a

progressive disease and he feared that

he himself might have been infected.

Professor Locke was one of the leading

authorities on forensic and criminal

psychiatry. He had worked with the FBI

back in the late eighties, developing

serial kil er profiles in their Behavioral Sciences Unit. He had authored many

books on serial murderers, sex and

cannibal kil ers specifical y, before he came to end his days teaching the next

crop of psychiatrists and criminologists. He was the reason Joe had come to this

school.

"So, why do they do it? Any thoughts?" Joe's hand crept slowly into the air

before he'd even ful y decided to raise it.

"Ali! The footbal player. You have a theory?"

"Actual y, I'm not in the athletics program. I'm a psychology student."

The professor peered over the top of his thick bifocals at the enormous young

man in the front row, looking him over

with new interest. The kid was huge. He was at least six feet five inches tal and nearly 260 pounds, al of it apparently muscle. He would have been a terror on

a footbal field.

"Wel , let's hope you are not wasting your talents. Tel us, what do you think makes them do it?"

"I think it's a disease. Not just a mental deficiency but a contagious,

transmittable virus."

Everyone in the room began to giggle,

including the professor. He held up his hand to silence the other students.

"No, let's hear the boy out. Go ahead." Joe hesitated but couldn't hold himself back.

"I think it's a progressive disease that in its initial stages may manifest as only the need to inflict pain and humiliation but eventual y builds to murder, mutilation, and final y to necrophilia and

cannibalism. It may in fact be the very disease that spawned the werewolf and

vampire legends. Perhaps it's

transmitted through saliva or blood, like with a bite or a scratch just like those legends say. Maybe even through semen

or vaginal secretions like AIDS. Perhaps you're most susceptible to the disease

during childhood and it has a long

incubation period, maybe decades. That

could explain why most serial kil ers are in their late twenties and early thirties. And why almost al of the real y violent ones experienced some type of trauma

or abuse as children. I think that at some point in their youths they exchanged

bodily fluids with another kil er or

perhaps just a carrier and they acquired the contagion themselves."

"That's a very interesting theory, son. Very interesting. I'm not sure it has any merit, but I'l tel you what. Why don't you pursue that. Research it and turn

something in to me at the end of the

semester. Everyone has to do a paper

for his or her final grade anyway and this is what we are here to try and find out this semester: what makes these

monsters do it. You convince me of that one and you are guaranteed a 4.0." Joe was encouraged by the fact that Dr. Locke hadn't shot his theory down

completely. The man seemed to be

honestly intrigued. Perhaps he was on to something after al . But Joe wanted

more than a perfect grade. He wanted

the professor's help in isolating the serial kil er virus and finding a cure.

Joe sleepwalked through the remainder

of his classes that day. His desire had reached a feverish intensity and he was having a hard time concentrating. His

head swiveled like a gun turret as

students passed in shorts, tank tops,

and miniskirts, a buffet of luscious

bodies whose every movement was a

maddening temptation. He could smel

the sweat on their skin, the musk of

recent sex between a woman's thighs,

the coppery twang of menstrual blood,

the acrid bleachlike aroma of semen

drying inside them, the humid sweat

beading beneath the hairy scrotums of

the jocks. The most maddening aroma

was that of their youthful spirits. Joe could smel their souls burning beneath their skins like an unseen inferno as

furious as a forest fire. He wanted to tear into their flesh to get at it. To devour that energy and make it his.

With effort Joseph Miles wrenched his

eyes from the heaving bosom of a

passing coed. Joe could almost see the

light of her soul swirling like a rainbow and exploding like a nuclear blast. It

made him dizzy just looking at it. The

scent of it was even more radiant, like fruit and wine and meat and blood al

combined into one delirious fragrance.

Life. He wanted to taste it so bad it

made his stomach cramp. He was so

thirsty for the taste of her blood that his throat felt parched and dry. His saliva felt thick and tacky in his mouth.

A riot of emotions swirled through Joe's mind. It had only been recently that his passions had taken such a morbid turn.

Before it had been enough to fuck

anything and everything he could get his hands on. But lately the normal suckand-fuck rituals had begun to bore him. His typical fantasies of multiple sex

partners had turned to blood-soaked

orgies of torn and ravaged flesh. He

could no longer even masturbate without imagining biting into a woman's tender

buttocks or engorged breasts. He knew

there were places on the Web where he

could talk freely about his desires, where they were appreciated. He had sought

them out when he first discovered his

predilection for the taste of human flesh. He'd been surprised when he'd

discovered how many professed

cannibals were out there stalking

cyberspace for human prey and even

more surprised when he discovered that

there were women and men who sought

these cannibals out, offering their bodies for consumption. Al he could think about now was going online to seek solace in

his fel ow perverts.

Chapter Six

There was a cybercafe just off campus

where a lot of the students hung out. Joe often went there to surf the cannibal sex sites with the hope of finding others with his unique fetish and perhaps someone

with whom he could assuage his hunger.

The Long Pig Message Board was his

most frequent stop. "Long pig" was the name given to human flesh because it

was said to taste like pork. Joe had

never tasted it before except for a few harmless nibbles here and there, but he knew that it wouldn't be long before he indulged himself. The hunger was

increasing exponential y with each

passing day.

Many of the people on the site claimed

to be wil ing cattle. The site was fil ed with flowery romantic fantasies written by these long pigs about feeding the

appetite of their dream lovers. Al of

them were eager to serve as meat for

the hunger of human predators, or so

they claimed. Joe wasn't so sure that any of them did anything more than

fantasize.

They would post long descriptive

appeals for a chef to prepare their flesh to be eaten alive or roasted on a spit

and then the supposed cannibals would

write them back with lascivious details of just how they would cook and

consume them. Sometimes they would

swap e-mail addresses, presumably to

hook up offline. But since the same "long pigs" would be back the very next day tempting someone new, Joe presumed

that it was al bul shit. Occasional y, however, a few of them would disappear

and never return. Joe liked to think that those had been the real deal and had

final y fulfil ed their fantasies; that they were now digesting in someone's

stomach, happy and content, if

somewhat diminished.

The only problem with the long pigs

available online was that they were

almost exclusively male. In fact, he had only seen one female on the message

board in the entire time he'd been

frequenting it and she had been an

obvious fake; getting off on the fantasy of being consumed but too terrified to try it for real. Joe was so worked up today that he didn't care. He began posting

long descriptions of how he'd rip apart a long pig with his own blunt little teeth and consume them piece by piece. He could

feel someone reading over his shoulder

as he typed and hear their gasp of

astonishment.

"Oh, my God, that's sick!"

It was the voice of one of the girls from his mythology class. She was the type of bubbly airhead that had probably been a cheerleader in high school and had

blown half the male faculty for better

grades.

Joe ignored it. Even when the girl

brought a couple of friends over to read what he had written and they began to

speculate on his sanity, Joe continued to tap away at the keyboard. That was the

only problem with the cybercafe. No one minded their goddamned business! Stil , Joe didn't want to go on his roommate's computer during the day. The guy would

have a heart attack if he knew the kind of person he was real y living with.

On the message board Joe went under

the screen name of SuperPredator and

was fairly wel -known. He was a regular. So much so that he had begun to think

of himself more and more in terms of his online persona, a voracious

ultrapredator at the top of the food chain above even other human beings. He

finished his long post and hit SEND. The replies came almost immediately.

A man cal ing himself "Meatforthetable" was the first to respond.

HEY SUPERPREDATOR! YOUR

APPETITE SEEMS PRETTY LARGE

BUT I THINK I CAN FILL IT. I'M SMALL

AND PRETTY LEAN BUT I'M LARGE IN

ALL THE RIGHT PLACES. I'VE GOT AN

8" COCK AND A NICE PLUMP REAR

LIKE A YOUNG TEENAGED GIRL.

COME AND GET ME! He left his e-mail

address at the bottom along with a link to his website where he promised there

would be pictures.

Next was the tease. The woman who

cal ed herself "SweetFlesh" sent a long sweaty reply that sounded as if she'd

written it with one hand.

HEY SUPERPREDATOR! I HAVEN'T

HEARD FROM YOU IN A WHILE. I WAS

STARTING TO THINK YOU DIDN'T LIKE

US ANYMORE. I TELL YOU WHAT

BABY, IF YOU'RE REALLY AS HUNGRY

FOR LONG PIG AS YOU SAY THEN

YOU'D LOVE SOME OF MY SWEET

TENDER MEAT. THAT MAN MEAT IS

TOO TOUGH FOR A REAL