The Killing Kind (25 page)

Julie whirled around and saw her disappear through the door.

Missy screamed at her. “Get that bitch!”

Julie took off after Zoe, disappearing through the door seconds later.

Chuck heard footsteps pounding down the balcony staircase and prayed his girl could outrun the other one. But the other one had a gun. Zoe was pretty athletic, but she was wounded. And she couldn’t outrun bullets.

Missy stabbed Emily again and let go of her to join the chase. She vanished through the balcony door as Emily moaned and crawled back into the living room, dripping a trail of blood across the hardwood floor. She came to within
a few feet of Chuck and raised a shaking hand toward him. The underside of the hand was visible, and his stomach twisted at the sight of the ruined, blistered flesh. The reaction was purely physical reflex. He felt no real sympathy for her.

“Please…help…me…”

“No.”

He balled his right hand into a fist and punched her dead center in the face. He heard a very satisfying crack of bone as she pitched onto her side. She moaned softly and didn’t move. Chuck started working at the layers of tape binding his legs to the chair. His heart was pounding. Maybe they all still had a chance after all. If Zoe could outrun the girls long enough, he could get loose and get to a phone, get the cops out here.

Footsteps, someone in motion.

Rob.

He went into the kitchen and started opening drawers. Chuck heard a clatter of silverware and his struggles with the tape became more frantic. He cursed. If only he could make his hands stop shaking. The fuckers had used so much tape. It was taking forever.

Rob came back into the living room.

He had a big carving knife in his right hand, the kind you’d use to slice up a Thanksgiving turkey. He waved it at Chuck. “Stop.”

Chuck kept unwrapping the tape. He didn’t have a choice. Maybe he could talk some sense into the guy before the girls came back. If he was ever going to exploit this dude’s obvious conflicted feelings, now was the time. “I can’t. I’m not gonna sit here and do nothing. Stab me if you want. I don’t give a shit.” Chuck continued unwinding the tape from his right leg. It was coming off faster and faster now. “You should help me. I’ll tell the cops. And I’ll tell them you didn’t do any of the really bad shit. Maybe they’ll go easy on you.”

“It’s too late for that.”

Chuck screamed as the knife slashed across his face.

He didn’t feel what the girls felt when he did it. He watched the blood pump from the guy’s wound and felt no surge of adrenaline. He felt revulsion and a renewed sense of self-loathing. This wasn’t for kicks. It never could be for him. He was just doing what needed to be done.

The girl with the burned face screamed at him,
“You son of a bitch! Why are you doing this?”

Rob told the truth. “I don’t know. Not really.”

She called him a son of a bitch one more time and went back to sobbing.

A distant but sharp sound snapped Rob’s gaze toward the balcony door. The sound came again and this time he recognized it for what it was—gunshots. Julie was out there blazing away on the beach. The beach was probably pretty empty this time of night, but someone from one of the neighboring beach houses might hear the shots and call the cops. Or maybe not, this late at night. Rob put the odds at maybe fifty-fifty. Strangely, his anxiety level stayed about the same.

“
ZOE
!”

Rob flinched.

The one he’d cut—Chuck—was also staring at the open balcony door. The guy was beyond agitated. Rob couldn’t blame him. That was his girl dodging lead out there. He was a well-built guy. A workout addict. Every muscle in his body was bulging. It looked like a nest of snakes was trying to pop out of his skin. Blood poured down his face from the gash in his cheek, spilling past his lips and down his chin. He let loose a cry of rage at the sound of another distant pop. Then he kicked his right leg free of the remaining layer of tape, got his foot planted solidly on the floor, and drove himself headlong at Rob.

Rob shrieked and tried to backpedal, but the guy’s rage-driven
momentum made it impossible to get out of the way in time. The top of his head slammed into his gut, blasting the air from his lungs. They both hit the floor hard, Rob falling flat on his back and his attacker landing awkwardly with the chair still attached to his left leg. The rest of them were screaming and cheering Chuck on, urging him to kill the son of a bitch. It was a surreal moment for Rob. How had he arrived at this point in his existence? He knew how, of course, had been there for the whole ride, but it still didn’t seem possible. He’d always thought of himself as basically a nice guy, yet now he’d become something others wanted to see dead.

It was fucked-up. Seriously.

Chuck had rolled onto his back and was working to remove the last of the tape from his left leg. Rob realized he’d somehow held onto the carving knife after taking the hit from the human missile.

And he realized something else.

He’d never stand a chance in a fair fight against this guy.

He sat up and jabbed the knife at Chuck.

Zoe fled down the beach in the dark, her long and toned runner’s legs allowing her to put some distance between her and her pursuers. She was somewhat hampered by the sliced-up soles of her feet or it would have been no contest at all. She would simply have run until they could run no more. And then kept on running, until she was far, far away from that house and the horrors inside. But the places where the glass had chewed up her feet were sizzling slashes of white agony. Tears streamed down her face as she focused all her will on the task of keeping her legs pumping in spite of the pain. And it seemed to be working. She glanced over her shoulder and saw them falling farther back, becoming pale, dreamlike figures sliding through the gloom. She began to hope again. She was going to make it. She wouldn’t die. Not
tonight. A fierce, exultant joy rippled through her, overriding the pain, and she glanced backward again. She heard a pop and glimpsed a small spark in the darkness.

A gun!

They’re shooting at me!

The knowledge triggered a rush of primal terror. She imagined a piece of flying lead penetrating her body at unbelievable velocity. They weren’t likely to hit a moving target in the dark, especially from this distance, but they might get off a lucky shot.

But it wasn’t a bullet that brought her down.

She hit the sand castle and let out a gasp as she went sprawling in the sand.

Get up! Get up! Get up!

Zoe obeyed the voice in her head. The fall had amped up the pain in her feet, but she ignored it and clawed her way to her feet again. The pale figures behind her had drawn a little closer, gotten a bit more distinct. She saw another spark in the darkness and got moving again. This time her right foot landed square on the metal arm of a folded-up beach chair. She screamed as the pain staggered her and made her fall again.

Get up! Get up! Get up!

She tried, but she just couldn’t. She made it to her knees, but her right foot throbbed mercilessly, as if someone had poured battery acid inside the gashes. The pain was too much. She could go no farther.

And then they were on her.

The bald girl tackled her and drove her to the ground. She cried out in triumph and straddled Zoe, shoving the barrel of the gun into her open mouth. The gun’s sight scraped the roof of her mouth and drew blood. The salty tang stung the back of her throat. The feeling reminded her of having strep as a child. She wished she could be a kid again, safe within the sheltering embrace of her family.

Mommy…

The bald girl, Julie, grinned and leaned close. “End of the line, bitch. I’m gonna watch your brains blow out the top of your head. That’ll be fun. For me. Not so much for you.” She giggled. “You just get to
die.
”

Missy caught up to them then and stood panting near where the back of Zoe’s head rested in the sand. “Don’t…do…that.”

Julie frowned and glanced up at her. “Why not?”

“Because you’ve damn near emptied that thing. Too much noise.” Missy dropped to her knees and stared down at Zoe. The girl’s smile was weirdly serene. “Boy, you sure fucked yourself there, girl. I was really gonna do it, you know. Let you live if Chuck helped me do the rest of them.”

Zoe swallowed more blood as she struggled to talk around the gun in her mouth…“I…couldn’t let him do that.”

Missy laughed. “Oh, sure.”

Julie eased the gun’s barrel out of her mouth. “Yeah. You’re all noble and shit now. You were singing a different tune a few minutes ago.”

Still smiling, Missy shook her head. “Doesn’t matter now. I’m rescinding the offer. You’re gonna die, just like the rest of them.”

Zoe’s eyes filled with tears as a bleak hopelessness overtook her. “Please…”

Missy leaned closer, her expression more intent now. “Say that again.”

Zoe coughed. “Wh-what?”

“What you just said. Say it again.”

Zoe couldn’t think straight. Her fear was overriding everything. She couldn’t remember what she’d said just a second ago. Then it came to her and she made her mouth form the word again. “Please.”

“Again.”

She whimpered. “Please.”

“Please what?”

Another whimper. “Please don’t kill me.”

Missy made a sensual sound deep in her throat. It was the kind of sound you made when biting into something delicious. “I always dig the begging part.”

Julie looked almost bored now. “So what do we do with her?”

Missy lifted her head and looked out at the ocean. The gentle roar of the incoming tide was louder at night. Zoe remembered how soothing the sound had seemed on previous nights. But now it just struck her as ominous.

Missy sat up, leaned back on her haunches. “I have an idea.”

A corner of Julie’s mouth tipped up. “Yeah?”

“I was just thinking…I don’t think I’ve ever drowned anyone.”

“
NO
!”

The word erupted from Zoe’s sore throat, that one powerful syllable somehow invested with enough raw anguish and terror to express the entirety of the horror engulfing her. Desperation possessed her and she thrashed with all her might, nearly dislodging the younger girl until Missy got her hands around her throat and began to squeeze. Her hands were strong, surprisingly so, like a band of steel drawing tighter and tighter against her flesh. The pressure only let up when she stopped struggling.

Missy let go of her throat. “Let’s do this.”

They hauled Zoe to her feet again and began to drag her toward the ocean. She was weaker than before and let herself be dragged at first. She felt numb. Defeated. She was about to die horribly and there was nothing she could do about it. Then an inch or so of salt water tide rolled over her feet and reignited the agony in her wounds. She screamed and tried to tear out of the grip of her captors. But it was no good.
They held on and steered her deeper into the water. She stepped on a rock invisible beneath the water and screamed again. And she heard the most awful thing. Their laughter. Her misery amused them. Christ, they were barely fucking human. They continued to wade deeper into the water. She stepped on more rocks and shells. By the time they stopped, the water was up to their waists and Zoe had been reduced to a gibbering, insensible mess from all the pain. She couldn’t scream anymore. Couldn’t even plead anymore.

Missy laughed. “Big breath.”

Julie’s hands were at her waist and the small of her back. Missy had one hand at the back of her neck and the other wrapped firmly around a bicep. They were really going to do this. Drown her. How could anyone, no matter how cruel, do this to another human being?

She drew in a breath just before they plunged her into the water. She thrashed against them and tried to break free. If she could break free, she could swim way out there, a mile or more, whatever it took to make them give up. But they clung to her with a maddening tenacity, refusing to let go. They danced around her, shifting positions, pinning her under the water. She twisted her head and could just make out the shapes of their heads and the moonlight-limned clouds above. The surface was so tantalizingly close, but it may as well have been a million miles away. Missy’s grip on her neck tightened and her head was pushed farther under the water. A minute passed. Longer. Her lungs burned with the need to breathe out and breathe back in. She knew it was time to start praying. She didn’t believe the way Annalisa believed, but the possibility of something on the other side, no matter how slim, was the only hope left to her.

They held on to her. Never let up.

And the inevitable happened.

Her mouth opened and the salt water rushed down her
throat and into her lungs. Her struggles increased and became more frantic for a few seconds longer. She experienced a sensation like being crushed from within.

Then she stopped feeling anything.

They held on to her a while longer to be sure she was gone. Two or three minutes. Then they exchanged a look of mutual, silent assent and let go of her. They watched the body float beneath the currents.

Julie scratched the side of her head with the gun sight. “I thought they were supposed to float.”

Missy shrugged. “Maybe the body has to get all bloated and gassy first.”

“Huh. I guess. Anyway, that was fun.”

“Yeah.” Missy lifted her face as a pleasant breeze rolled over them. She stared out at the ocean. The endless expanse of inky blackness seemed to beckon to her. “Nice night. It’s really beautiful out here.”

“I guess.”

“We should get back.”

“Okay.”

They slogged their way out of the water and began making their way back. The house they had invaded was some hundred yards or so distant. It was easy to distinguish because it was the only house with all its lights on. Missy had to give Zoe some credit. She’d given them a real run for their money. Had almost made it, in fact. Probably would have made it, if not for a little bit of dumb luck.

“Hey.”

Missy glanced at Julie. “Yeah?”

Julie smiled. “I liked it when she went limp. That was my favorite part.”