Bryan Smith
The Killing Kind
© 2010
PROLOGUE
Diary of a Mixed-up Girl blog entry, dated March 27
Holy shit, this geezer looks so funny with his ear cut the fuck OFF.
OH MY GOD.
2 comments
lord_ruthven: Where are you? You need to call your folks ASAP. Everybody’s worried sick about you (and nobody believes this ear-mutilation bullshit, okay?)
darkest_rogue: LOL. Yeah. Love ya, but SOMEBODY’S just wanting attention.
CHAPTER ONE
March 22
The girl looked like one of those goth rocker chicks he was always getting friend requests from on MySpace. They all had sort of the same look. Pale, clear skin. At least one visible tattoo. Hair always that same alluring shade of raven black, usually cut in a style at least vaguely reminiscent of Bettie Page. Interests always included body modification, metal, rockabilly, burlesque, and horror movies. The overall look-hot groupie backstage at a Marilyn Manson concert. Pinup models for a dark new age.
Sexy?
Fuck, yeah.
And this one was rocking that gothic-slut look as well as any chick on MySpace. Black pumps, thigh-high black-and-white-striped socks, very brief (and tight) black skirt, black Misfits skull shirt, plump lips a shade of scarlet so vivid it was almost blinding, the requisite black-as-night hair framing a pretty, pale face, subtly applied makeup accentuating intense blue eyes, thin silver necklace draped about her slender throat, from which dangled what, holy shit, looked like a pentagram pendant. She was fucking gorgeous. Satanic eye candy. Slender, but not so skinny that she looked like one of those starving Hollywood bimbos, with some nice but not too dramatic curves that stretched those socks and that tight little skirt in some very interesting ways. And that tantalizing glimpse of creamy thigh visible between the tops of those socks and the hem of that skirt…Man.
Rob Scott always approved those friend requests. His page was full of horror graphics and his interests all skewed in the same direction-dark. He listed Asia Argento as the person he’d most like to meet. He knew the girls only added him as part of a relentless drive to pump up their friend counts, but he didn’t care. He was their natural audience. As he leaned against his car with his right hand squeezing the handle of the gas pump, he idly wondered whether this chick had a MySpace page. Probably. Hell, she might even be on his list. Wouldn’t surprise him, from the looks of her. Or maybe not. Even among the many dozens of girls on his list with the same basic look, this one would stand out.
He was so entranced by her he at first failed to notice that she was looking right at him. She was on the opposite side of the street from the Kwik Mart, standing at the edge of a little strip mall’s parking lot. Rob’s heart fluttered a bit when he became aware of her scrutiny. But then he decided she was merely looking in his direction, not at him specifically, though it was hard to tell from this distance.
Then the traffic cleared and she started across the street.
Toward the Kwik Mart.
Toward him.
No.
That was just stupid wishful thinking. As soon as she was on this side of the street, she would almost certainly veer into the store, where she would buy…hell, whatever chicks like that buy at shitty little convenience stores. Cigarettes? Gum? A can of Red Bull?
Who knew? And did it fucking matter?
No.
She reached the Kwik Mart’s parking lot and continued in a straight line toward him.
There could be no doubt now. Her eyes were locked on him. The subtlest hint of a smile twitched the corners of those bloodred lips. His breath quickened. He had to force his hand to relax its grip on the gas pump, which had already clicked off anyway. She was close now, ten yards away, too close by far for a more analytical part of his mind to wonder why on earth one of the most mind-numbingly attractive women he’d ever seen was so focused on him. But the sexy, subtle sway of her hips turned his brain to mush. Too bad. Because if he’d been thinking at all, he might have detected a hint of something predatory in her.
But then she was standing in front of him, those startling blue eyes still locked on his. He figured he should say something, so he opened his mouth. But no words came out. He didn’t have the first clue what to say. As it turned out, it didn’t really matter.
A canvas tote bag was slung over her right shoulder. Her eyes never left his as she reached into it and removed something.
She stepped closer to him.
Close enough to touch.
Rob swallowed hard, struggled to breathe for a moment as he felt his face turn hot.
Then he felt it.
The thing pressed hard against his belly.
He frowned.
That can’t be…
He glanced down and excitement gave way to confusion and terror. The barrel of a revolver-a.38?-was pressed into his midsection, the sight digging painfully into his navel. Rob didn’t know much about guns, but he knew enough to understand this was no toy.
Holy shit, he thought, I’m being mugged by a fucking hot chick.
It was crazy.
She could have just asked him for his money and he would have given it to her. Every cent.
“Look at me.”
Rob looked at her. “What…I…I don’t…what…”
“Shut up.”
Rob closed his mouth.
The girl twisted the gun barrel harder into his stomach, eliciting a small whimper. “I need a ride. I like your car.”
“You can have it.”
She smiled. “No shit. You’re coming with me.”
“But…why?”
She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper as her lips grazed his own. “Simple choice, boy. Come with me or”-she laughed softly-“bang bang.”
Rob made himself swallow and cleared his throat. “I guess…I could go for a ride.”
That soft laughter again-seductive, but insidious. “That’s what I thought. Let’s go.”
The wheels started spinning in Rob’s head. He had to think of a way out of this. He couldn’t let this girl carjack him. Hot or not, she had a gun. She was threatening him with it. She was a fucking criminal. The crazy bitch might even kill him once she was able to get him somewhere isolated and quiet.
He had an idea. It wasn’t much, but it was all he could think of with this much stress bearing down on him, so he seized on it. He gestured at the convenience store with a slight tilt of his chin. “I have to go inside to pay for the gas.”
That little laugh again, her breath warm on his face. “I don’t think so, asshole.”
“Fine. Whatever. We’ll just drive off without paying.” Rob couldn’t believe how calm his voice sounded to his own ears. Not even a hint of a quaver. Of course, his heart was racing and his guts felt like they were trying to rearrange themselves into new and deeply uncomfortable configurations, but at least he didn’t sound rattled. It might not count for much, but maybe, just maybe, it’d render the fib he was telling a touch more believable. “Hell, I think it’s a great idea. The cops’ll be on our ass fast and I’ll be rescued from your psycho clutches, so let’s go.”
The girl pressed the gun even harder into his stomach, which he wouldn’t have thought possible. If she had a knife in her hands instead, she’d be disemboweling him right now. “I saw you swipe your card at the pump from across the street, you lying fuck.”
Rob’s heart sank. Fuck.
The girl’s expression hardened, but strangely, this only enhanced her prettiness, emphasizing her cheekbones and the elegant curve of her jaw line. “You know what I hate?”
Rob looked at her lips. God, he hadn’t known Revlon or whothefuckever made a shade of lipstick that bright, that red. And the way the lips looked, so plump and moist…holy hell…he ached to kiss her. Which was about six thousand shades of fucked-up, given the circumstances. He made himself swallow again and said, “What do you…hate?”