The young woman and her date had provided some genuine entertainment. The man was stretched across the hood of the Lexus. His fly was open and his limp penis poked like a thick white grub through the folds of his trousers. The dead woman’s blouse was unbuttoned, her white bra pushed up; she wore no panties. Ruger had watched from the shadows as the young couple fumbled in the little shell of the car. It was a real kick to watch the man cajole her into going down on him, sometimes pleading, sometimes browbeating her. It jazzed Ruger to hear the man’s almost feminine shriek as he had come in her mouth, his hands clamped down on the back of her head, ignoring her struggles and gagging coughs. It had been obvious to Ruger that it was the young woman’s first foray into oral sex, and she hadn’t been all that fond of the experience. Ruger had known women who had been spoiled for it forever because some tough guy had held her head down with strong fingers, all the time promising he wouldn’t come in her mouth. Hell, Ruger had done it himself enough times, loving the struggle, loving the fact that the blow job he was getting would be the last one the woman would probably ever willingly give. It made such events rare and special for him, especially the knowledge that he could actually reach into a woman’s mind and leave his own mark, a scar that could never be erased. That was a rush better than the resulting orgasm.
The young woman—teenager actually—he’d watched had been going through that process, and while it was fun to watch, it wasn’t Ruger himself who was leaving the mark but some pimple-faced young jock who was only getting some because he had his daddy’s fancy car. Ruger couldn’t just sit by forever and let the bozo have all the fun. So, just as the jock came, Ruger rose up beside the car and yanked the door open and the jock fell halfway out. Ruger caught him by the hair and jerked him the rest of the way out of the car, handing him back to the hungry ones behind him. The twins and the Carby kids. They didn’t go for the kill right away—they beat the living shit out of him first. Just for fun.
This was not the first hunt for the Carbys, Jilly and Tyler, whose farm had been overrun by Ruger’s first recruits two weeks ago, or for the twins Demian and Adrian, who had been turned a few days later. Each of them had been involved in group hunts and solo kills, but there was always something new to learn from Ruger. Everyone worshipped Ruger. He was like a rock star to them. The actual Cape May Killer and Ubel Griswold’s cold left hand.
The Carbys had brought along their cousin, Chad, whom they had turned last night, and they wanted him to learn the art of the kill from a kickass bloodletter like Ruger. Over the last few nights Ruger had let all the kids make kills, but more than that he’d let them kick the shit out of the victims. Even the twins, who were just grade-school kids, had been fully blooded on Ruger’s field trips. Now it was Chad’s turn, and Ruger had made him watch as twelve of the youngest members of the Red Wave swept through the Passion Pit, kicking ass, taking lives. Having a grand fucking time of it.
Now all the sweating, huffing, moaning young lovers were dead. Ruger snapped his long, thin fingers, the sound firecracker sharp in the cold air. A dozen faces, pale as the watching moon, turned toward him, expectant and silent.
“Clean it up,” he told them. “No traces.”
They looked disappointed. One of them, one of the newer ones, spoke up. “Why? We can wake them up, get them to clean up their own shit. Why do we have to do it?”
Ruger turned toward Chad and fixed him with the full impact of his stare. “Because I said so, Chad,” he said, inflecting the boy’s name with contempt, smiling like a crocodile, his top row of teeth like a serrated knife.
Chad Carby shrank visibly, but still he held his ground. Some of the others smirked at the speaker’s discomfiture, but Ruger kind of admired the kid’s spunk. It was even okay, in the scheme of things, because this was the way it worked. The alpha teaching the pups how the pack works.
Ruger turned in a slow circle, making brief but scintillating eye contact with each of them. Like a good general he knew how to rally as well as how to chastise, and he laid a cold hand on Chad’s shoulder. “Just be patient, kiddo,” he said with his icy whisper. “A good soldier knows when to go quiet and dark and when to burn the trees. Until Halloween, it’s all about keeping it on the down-low. You with me, pardner?”
“I…guess so,” Chad said, his eyes shifting toward Ruger’s and then falling away.
Ruger pretended to find a drop of blood at the corner of his mouth, dabbed it off, and licked it with a darting tongue. “Tell you boys what we can do,” he said. “Once we clean this shit up…why don’t you wake up the girls first?” He gave Chad a wicked wink, making sure the others saw it, too.
They all laughed, low and mean and hungry.
“Halloween’s coming soon, kids,” he said, and then nodded to Chad. “You know what Halloween is, don’t you?”
Chad Carby lifted his eyes to meet Ruger’s. “You told us it would be trick or treat.”
Ruger chuckled softly. “Lots of tricks,” he murmured, “and lots of treats.” He gave Chad another quick wink. “Now let’s clean this shit up and have some fun.”
(4)
Vic’s cell rang again and this time the display said GOLUB. He set down the timing switch he’d been tinkering with and flipped it open.
“This had better be important.”
“Vic? Look, we had a bit of problem out here. Karl had me swing by to check on Dixie McVey. He was doing some car stops near the Black Marsh Bridge. Dix had some of the Dead Heads with him and he faked out a couple of tourists. Young couple from Erie, no local ties, at least as far as I can tell.”
“I don’t give a shit. Get to a point or get off the line.”
“Dix did okay—he took out the guy and we’ve already recruited him—but the Dead Heads jumped the schedule and hit the woman.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, they went all George Romero on her.”
Vic sighed. He hated the fact that every jackass in this goddamned town loved to throw pop-culture references around as if it made them cool. Even recruits like Golub. Vic would love to just push the plunger and nuke the whole frigging lot of them. Fanboy assholes. “What did they do?” he asked, though he thought he already knew.
“Well…they kind of ate her.”
“Shit.”
“There’s not enough left to recruit. Tore her arms off, tore her…”
“All right, all right. Son of a bitch.” He rubbed his eyes. “Put McVey on.”
There was a rustle and then McVey spoke. “Hey, boss, sorry for the screwup.” Unlike Golub, who could pass, McVey was a different species of vampire and his teeth had already grown so huge that his voice was muffled by trying to talk around them. Worse than Ruger.
“Where are those assholes now?”
“Dave and I quieted them down, got them sitting in the woods just off the road. We had to cuff them together around a tree.”
“How bad’s the mess?”
“Bad enough, but Dave and I both brought cleanup stuff in our car, like you told us to.”
“I don’t like hearing that you let this get out of hand.” Silence on the other end of the phone. “You understand me?”
“Sure,” McVey said, his voice thick. “But…those Dead Heads are pretty hard to handle. Won’t listen, and sometimes they just go off, y’know? They don’t even drink, not the right way—all they want to do is eat. I’m not even sure they can think, let along take orders—”