The Killing Kind (24 page)

Emily had closed to within ten yards.

She smiled as Zoe’s eyes locked with her. “Hi.”

Zoe didn’t return the smile. She didn’t want to talk to
Emily. Not right now. She didn’t want to start bawling. But she couldn’t just ignore her and walk on by. Well, she could, but it didn’t feel right. “I was just about to go back inside.”

Emily’s smile faltered slightly. “You mind if I at least walk back with you?”

Zoe suppressed a groan. “I don’t know, Emily.”

Emily came closer, stopping just a few feet in front of her. “Look, I know this has been a rough week. Nobody’s happy with me. Not even Joe, believe it or not. But you’re the only one who matters, Zoe.” Her voice became thick with emotion. She sounded on the verge of tears. It made Zoe feel bad. “You…you’re my
best
friend. My only
real
friend. Please just let me walk with you and say a few things. We don’t have to have a real talk until you’re ready.” A single tear traced a slow trail down one of her cheeks. “Would that be okay? Please?”

Zoe felt her heart begin to melt. And though it went against her better judgment in light of all that had happened, she found herself unable to deny Emily’s request. She really was her best friend. Still. Even now. Accepting this frightened her because she had no idea how things would shake out in the end. There were her other friends to consider. They all hated Emily. It wasn’t fair. She was an adult. Shouldn’t she be able to choose her own friends? She sighed. “Okay. But—”

She gasped as Emily grabbed her and pulled her close. Emily kissed her. Her tongue slid between her lips and tangled with Zoe’s tongue. Zoe braced her hands on Emily’s shoulders and tried to push her away, but Emily tightened her embrace and kept kissing her. The towel came loose and slid to the ground. Zoe tried to wrench her head away, breaking the kiss for the slightest moment before Emily’s mouth found hers again. This time she kissed back.

Jesus fuck, what am I doing?

She braced her hands on Emily’s shoulders again and shoved with all her strength. This time the embrace was
broken and Emily staggered back several steps. The strange thing was, she didn’t look pissed. She was still smiling. She licked her lips. “You always taste so sweet.”

Zoe scooped up her towel again, grabbed her tote bag, and gave Emily a wide berth as she started up the beach toward the house.

Emily hurried after her. She slowed a bit as she came up alongside Zoe, matching her stride for stride. “Remember that night in the hotel room?”

Zoe didn’t say anything.

Emily laughed. “You sure didn’t have any inhibitions that night. I guess the coke helped loosen you up. I’ve still got some, you know.”

“I don’t care.”

“Liar.”

The dune and the little bridge beyond were coming up fast. Anxious to be back inside and away from Emily’s discomforting insinuations, she picked up her pace to trudge up the grassy dune.

Emily gave her a little sideways shove as they reached the bridge and moved into the narrow space ahead of her.

Zoe glared at her as she followed her onto the bridge. “Hey! What the fuck was that?”

Emily laughed and kept moving. She didn’t respond.

Zoe’s anger surged. “Seriously, that was really fucking rude. What’s your problem?”

Even as she asked the question, Zoe figured she knew the answer. Emily wasn’t used to having her advances spurned. She was very self-centered and couldn’t abide rejection in any form. Some of Zoe’s anger subsided as she realized it was at least partly her fault. A lot of her recent behavior had laid the groundwork for situations like this. If she’d always rejected Emily’s amorous overtures, this wouldn’t be happening now.

“I’m sorry.”

Emily stopped at the far end of the bridge and turned to face her. She had moved fast and was some twenty yards ahead of where Zoe stood. Her figure was a dark outline in the dim moonlight. “Really?”

Zoe stopped five feet away from her. “Yeah.”

Emily smiled. “Wanna go back down to the beach?”

“No.”

Emily’s smile vanished. “Whatever.”

She turned away from her again and stepped off the bridge, but she moved slower as she continued down the dune to the gate at the back of the fence. Emily opened it and they stepped inside. Zoe paused inside the gate to wash the sand off her feet with the hose. Emily lingered, waiting for her. It struck her as passing strange. She sensed their conversation was over. There was no more to say on the subject of their endangered friendship until later. But Emily seemed to want to stick close anyway. Whatever. It didn’t matter. She’d head back to her own room once they were back inside. No way she’d want to hang around upstairs with Chuck, not after this afternoon’s debacle.

Zoe shut the hose off and started across the deck, angling toward the staircase leading up to the balcony.

Emily followed, hanging close, almost on her heels.

Zoe glanced over her shoulder at the other girl.

She frowned.

Emily was smiling, but her eyes looked hard, malevolent.

Weird.

She started up the stairs and heard the slap of Emily’s sandals on the stairs beneath her. The first little flutter of alarm hit her as she glanced down and again saw that same vaguely evil expression. But that was forgotten as they reached the balcony and Zoe saw the broken shards of glass sprayed across the wooden beams. An accident, she assumed. But why hadn’t someone cleaned it up? This could be dangerous. She wasn’t wearing shoes or sandals and would have to—

“zoe! run!”

Zoe frowned again.

Chuck?

She heard pain in that voice. And terror. Something was horribly wrong here. She heard something else in the house. A whimper. A female sound. More evidence of something very bad happening. Then terrible, gleeful laughter. The laughter of a sadist. Followed by a scream.

Zoe moved back a step.

And she felt a hand at the small of her back.

The hand shoved her forward. She cried out as broken glass slashed at the soles of her bare feet. Emily grabbed her by an arm and wrenched her toward the space formerly occupied by a large pane of glass.

A glimpse of hell made her weak in the knees.

Emily shoved her again. Shards of glass still embedded in the door frame ripped at her flesh as she flew through the empty space and crashed to the hardwood floor. She rolled onto her side and stared straight up at Chuck. His face was streaked with tears. His mouth moved as he tried to speak, but he couldn’t force the words out.

Oh, Chuck…

She felt a foot on her shoulder. It pressed down, forcing her to lie flat on her back again. She looked up and saw a familiar face above her. Familiar, but not the face of someone she knew. It was
her.
She looked different, but it was definitely her. The girl Chuck had picked on at the coffee shop.

The killer.

Missy Wallace grinned. “Glad you could join us, Zoe. Now we can finally get this party started.”

March 27

Julie held her hand a few inches over the burner. Heat warmed her palm as the metal coil began to glow a bright red. The kitchen was spacious and modern, with an island and lots of gleaming fixtures. To the left of the stove was a counter crowded with various snack foods. Bags of chips and boxes of cookies, among other things. She reached into an open bag of tortilla chips and plucked one out, popping it in her mouth and savoring the salty taste. She was tempted to gobble down the whole bag. There hadn’t been a lot of opportunities to eat since yesterday. The pantry and fridge in that old guy’s home had been pretty bare. She’d been kind of irritated about that and hadn’t felt at all bad about sawing his ear off.

Her palm was hot now.

The big hunting knife was on the counter. She picked it up and placed the blade across the glowing burner coil. Someone screamed in the living room. A sound of unimaginable agony. Missy was probably doing something pretty interesting to one of the college kids. It wouldn’t be Rob. He never participated. She turned away from the stove and saw him standing several feet away from the action.

He sure looked nervous.

Maybe she could calm him down.

Leaving the knife on the burner, she walked into the living room. “Hey, uh…Missy?”

Missy paused in the act of torturing the one called Joe with a pair of pliers and looked at her. “Yeah?”

“Can I borrow Rob for a few minutes?”

Rob stopped staring at the floor long enough to look up and frown.

Missy clamped the pliers around one of Joe’s fingers again. “Sure.”

Julie took Rob by the hand and began to drag him out of the living room and down the hallway toward the master bedroom. Once they were in the room, she removed her clothes and stretched her naked body across the luxuriant bed.

“Fuck me, Rob.”

Rob glanced at the open door. Julie could see the backs of the people tied to the chairs from her vantage point. Rob wiped his mouth with a trembling hand and looked at her. “Shouldn’t we close that?”

“No.”

Rob sighed.

“I want to hear the screams clear as a bell. It’ll make it hotter.”

The look on Rob’s face was priceless. She saw horror and disgust. And fear. He was afraid of her. But not
too
afraid, apparently.

He began to unbutton his shirt.

The orgasmic screams emerging from the master bedroom disturbed Annalisa almost as much as anything else that had happened so far. How could anyone sane pause in the midst of committing atrocities to screw?

The answer to that was obvious.

These people weren’t sane. They were vicious and cruel.
They derived great pleasure from acts of sadism. Well, the two girls did. Their behavior bothered the guy, she could tell. But his presence made him equally complicit. And maybe he wasn’t a sadist, but he was clearly twisted in his own way. He was screwing a young girl’s brains out while listening to people out here scream and cry. He was just as sick as his female companions. The only real difference was his apparent cowardice.

These people meant to kill them all. She had no illusions about that. This was the last night of her life. It scared her. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to hurt like Joe was hurting now. Her only comfort now was her firm belief in an afterlife. She was smarter than the average person. Her grades and IQ scores confirmed that. A lot of smart people didn’t believe there was anything beyond this life, but her faith in something bigger was strong and came from a place of calm, even in the face of all this horror. She would exist somewhere else in some form after her life here was over. She only hoped Sean would be there with her.

She looked at Emily.

Zoe was still lying flat on the floor, but now she was on her stomach. Emily sat on her back, pinning her there. She looked totally enthralled as she watched Missy torture Joe. All five fingers of Joe’s right hand were mangled wrecks. The digits were twisted in different directions. In more than one place a bit of broken bone poked through torn flesh. Joe was shaking and sobbing in his chair. This was the man Emily supposedly loved. She hadn’t actually loved him, of course. It was just another of her many deceptions. She didn’t know or understand the connection between Emily and these psychos, but it didn’t matter. Knowing wouldn’t change anything.

She heard footsteps from the hallway and glanced that way to see the bald duo returning from their bedroom romp. The guy wouldn’t look at them. He shuffled off out of view again while the girl went back into the kitchen. She returned to the
living room a few seconds later, the big knife she’d threatened them with earlier in her hand again. Annalisa felt a pit open up in her stomach as the girl came right up to her.

“Look at me.”

Annalisa raised her head and looked the girl in the eye.

The girl smiled. “You’re pretty.”

Then she grabbed a handful of Annalisa’s hair and wound it in a tight knot to hold her head steady. Annalisa’s eyes jittered in their sockets as she watched the girl’s other hand slowly bring the big blade toward her face. She felt the heat of it as it closed to within inches of her flesh. She cried and started breathing faster.

Someone was saying, “Nonononononono…”

She realized it was her own voice.

The girl placed the blade flat across one of her cheeks. Annalisa screamed as she felt her flesh blister and sizzle. The girl tightened her grip on her hair and managed to keep her head relatively still while continuing to press the blade into her flesh. Her cheek melted and a scent of cooked meat filled her nostrils. She sucked in a deep breath and unleashed another ear-shredding scream. Her lungs felt ragged, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t about to stop screaming. Maybe if they all screamed loud enough someone who could help would hear.

The girl at last relinquished her grip on Annalisa’s hair. The hot blade came away from her face as she stepped back to admire her handiwork. She looked pleased. “There. Now you’re not so pretty.”

She giggled.

Annalisa’s cheek throbbed and burned. It was near unbearable. She wished they would just kill her and be done with it, but she knew they were just getting started.

A crushing guilt assailed Chuck as he watched Missy go out to the balcony and return with another chair. This was all
his fault. It was undeniable. This wouldn’t be happening if he hadn’t unleashed his inner asshole at the coffee shop that day. The truth was more complicated than that, another voice in his head argued. This was really all down to Emily. She had steered Missy Wallace here. And while that was true, it did nothing to lessen his guilt.

Missy set the chair in front of him and sat down.

She smiled. “Hello, Chuck.”

He glared at her, didn’t say anything.

She held out a hand and said, “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced. My name is Missy Wallace. I’m a famous murderer.” She glanced at her hand and lowered it, her smile becoming a smirk. “Oh, I’m sorry. You’re hands are kind of tied at the moment.”

The comment elicited a giggle from the bald girl.

Missy leaned toward him. “So…Chuck. What happened to you, man? You look like someone used you for a punching bag.”

“They did.”

“When did this happen?”

He sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”

She slapped him. “Tell me.”

The slap wasn’t a hard one, but he was still tender from the abuse Emily had dished out and it hurt like a bitch. “It happened in the early morning hours the day after…I insulted you. I…went off by myself. The others weren’t there. I drank all night in a bar across the street from the motel where we were staying. A place called Big Sam’s.”

“Where was this?”

“Little town just inside the North Carolina border. I was there after closing time. Some people who worked at the bar dragged me into a back room and beat the shit out of me. Guy named Joe Bob, he was the bartender, and a couple of his friends. I was too busy getting stomped to get their names.”

“What?” Zoe was looking up at him from the floor. “That’s not what you told us at all.”

“I know. This is the truth. What I told you was a lie.”

“But…why?”

Missy twisted around in her chair and glared at Zoe. “Shut up! You don’t have permission to speak. I hear your voice again, I’ll cut your fucking tongue out.”

She turned to face Chuck again. She flashed a smile of false sweetness. “So why did you lie to your friends, Chuck? Is it because you’re a fucking dirtbag not fit to lick the shit off a bum’s shoes?”

“They threatened me. I could’ve gone to the cops, but I was afraid of them.”

Missy laughed. “So you’re really a big fuckin’ pussy?”

“I was that night, yeah.”

Missy pursed her lips and looked away from him, staring at some vague middle point behind him. She was thinking seriously about something and that worried him. The situation was already awful and hopeless. But he didn’t kid himself. This girl was a monster, but she was also smart and creative. She could—and probably would—devise ways to deepen and prolong their misery.

She focused on him again. Her smile this time was smaller and more mischievous. “That girl on the floor is your girlfriend?”

Chuck’s eyes misted. “Yes. Don’t hurt her. Please.”

Missy’s expression turned serious. “What if I told you I’ll let her live if you help us torture and kill the rest of these fucks? Would you do that?”

“No.”

He heard Zoe sniffle and he frowned. Would she want him to do that? He didn’t believe the Zoe he knew would want her own life spared as part of some twisted bargain. But maybe he was wrong. You never really knew the ugliest truths residing in any person’s soul until you placed them in a situation like this.

Zoe’s sniffle gave way to a whimper. “Chuck…I don’t wanna die.”

Missy’s nostrils flared as anger lit up her face. She stood up and kicked the chair aside.
“Didn’t I tell you to keep your fucking mouth shut?”

Zoe whimpered again.

It was barely audible over the moans of agony from Joe and Annalisa, but Chuck heard it and it tore at his heart.

Missy kicked Emily and sent her scurrying away across the floor. “Turn over, bitch.”

Zoe whimpered and didn’t move.

Missy kicked her.

Zoe cried out.

Missy kicked her again.

And again.

Zoe turned over with a great groan of exertion. Her whole face was wet from her tears. Missy took the hunting knife from the bald girl, then knelt and straddled Zoe. “This should be fun, if a little messy. I haven’t cut out a tongue in a while.”

She squeezed Zoe’s mouth open and lowered the blade to her face.

“I’ll do it.”

The words surprised him as they came out of his mouth. The bargain remained a loathsome, sickening thing, but with the prospect of Zoe’s mutilation and death right on the cusp of happening, it was suddenly much more palatable. And now he was seeing very clearly into the ugliest side of his own soul. Yes, he really could murder innocent people if it meant saving the life of the woman he loved. She wanted him to do it, after all.

She’d voiced the darkest wish imaginable.

And he was the only one who could grant it.

Missy let go of Zoe’s jaw and stood up. Her smile as she approached him had a hideous knowing quality to it. She moved behind him and started slicing through the layers of
duct tape binding his wrists. The blade was still warm and moved through the tape with ease. “Julie, get the gun and keep it on him. You’re not gonna try to play hero are you, Chuck? Tell me you’re not that stupid.”

“I’m not. I’ll do whatever you say.”

She stood up and patted the top of his head. “Good boy.”

Chuck brought his newly freed hands around to his lap and began the process of peeling the tape away from his wrists, wincing as the adhesive pulled out hairs.

Emily was on her feet again and she looked pissed. “What the fuck is up with this?” She looked like a spoiled child on the edge of a serious tantrum. Chuck expected her to start stamping her feet any moment. “You can’t let her live. She knows I’m part of this and she’ll fucking talk. You have to kill her.”

Missy stepped back into view and approached Emily. “Really? That’s interesting. Because I’m pretty sure I don’t have to do anything I don’t fucking wanna do.”

Chuck saw it coming before it happened, but he guessed Emily never did. It was part of her bottomless arrogance. She saw herself as a real, integral part of Missy’s little gang, but she was dead wrong.

Missy stabbed her in the stomach.

Then yanked the blade out and stuck it in again.

Emily gasped and her eyes widened in disbelief. She staggered backward and clasped her hands over stomach, blood jetting between her fingers and staining the front of her black dress. Missy stalked her as she continued to stumble backward, moving slowly, in no hurry at all to finish the job. Zoe sat up and watched. They were all watching. The bald girl, Julie, had turned away from him and was tracking their progress toward the kitchen.

“Yo, Missy.”

“Yeah?”

“That burner’s still on.”

Missy laughed. “Cool.”

Missy caught up to Emily, seized her by an arm, and dragged her into the kitchen. Chuck craned his head and caught a glimpse of the red-hot burner coil. His stomach twisted in anticipation of what was coming. Missy pushed the wounded girl up against the stove, turned her around, and took one of her hands by the wrist, guiding it toward the burner. Emily struggled, tried to twist her hand away even as blood from her wounds fell and patted on the kitchen tiles. Missy poked the tip of the knife into her side, making Emily scream and lose focus on the struggle with her hand. Missy seized the opportunity and pressed her hand to the burner.

Emily’s wail of agony scorched Chuck’s ear drums and he looked away.

Looked right at Zoe.

Who was free. And unwatched and unguarded. She had a chance. A very, very slim one, but she had to take it. He whispered her name and she looked at him. He nodded at the open balcony door. “Go.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. She got up and started running and was all the way to the door before the one called Rob shouted a warning. “She’s getting away!”