I’m still me, he thought. I‘m not the monster.
A fucking pansy, maybe, but nope, not a monster.
The thought triggered a helpless laugh.
“What’s funny?”
Rob stifled another laugh. “Nothing.”
“I don’t like not being in on the joke. Maybe I should come over there and be mean to you. And I mean really mean, Robin. Not like a few minutes ago.”
Rob knew she meant it. So he told her.
“That’s not funny.”
Rob sat up and shrugged. “I’m sorry. It just made me laugh.”
Roxie grunted and her attention went back to a magazine spread open on the table. She had one leg crossed over the other, foot jiggling as she slowly turned the pages. Her toenails were painted black, like her fingernails. The polish was beginning to fleck away. The sole of her foot looked soft and free of calluses. She had the kind of slender ankles that always looked good in high heels.
Roxie chuckled.
Rob flinched and lifted his eyes. “Huh? What?”
Another chuckle. “Foot fetish, Rob?”
He felt heat in his cheeks. “I guess I was staring.”
“Yeah. I don’t mind. I do have nice feet.” She laughed. “The rest of me ain’t bad, either.”
Rob swallowed a lump. “Yeah…”
Roxie turned another page, appeared to read a few paragraphs, and then directed a cool, level gaze at him. “So…this sex thing. It’s gonna happen.”
Rob lowered his eyes. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“Look at me.”
He looked at her. Waited.
She turned yet another page of the magazine, but this time didn’t even glance at it. “Ain’t no guessing involved. Rob.” She smiled. “Question is, we go for it right now or draw out the anticipation a little longer?”
“I don’t know, Roxie. It’s whatever you say, obviously.”
“No shit.”
“But before it happens…I have a question or two for you…if that’s okay.”
Roxie shrugged. She flipped the magazine shut, the bright and garish cover drawing Rob’s attention for a moment. It was an old issue of Rue Morgue, the one with Lux Interior on the cover. She laced her fingers over her knees and leaned back in her chair. “Ask away.”
“You’ve killed six people today.”
She smiled. “Impressive. Little Robbie can count.”
“Is this…a normal day for you? Because I don’t see how you could still be walking around…”
She shook her head. “No, Rob. Duh.” She put special emphasis on the last word and rolled her eyes. “I’d be, like, the most prolific serial killer fucking ever if I were doing that.”
“So…what’s the deal?”
She shrugged again. “I don’t kill people all the time. Hell, I go months without doing it sometimes. Then something happens, some kind of trigger, like this morning, and I go off on a fucking spree. It’s just something I have to get out of my system and then I’m back to normal for a while. Well…normal for me.”
“How many times have you done this? How many people have you killed?”
She made her head swivel around on her slender neck, pulled her features into an expression of exasperation. “Christ, Rob, I don’t know.” She unlaced her fingers, moved the digits up and down and silently mouthed numbers as she pretended to count. “Let’s see…first time I killed a dude I was sixteen. That was my dad.”
“Jesus.”
Roxie ignored the comment and went on. “I’m twenty now. I’ve had a bit more than a half dozen of these…explosions. And in between I’ve offed a few random fucks when it was convenient for me. Needed money, a car, or something. Shit, I don’t know. I’d say I’m up to at least thirty, maybe forty.”
“Holy fucking shit.”
Rob felt dizzy. He gripped the edge of the mattress to keep from pitching over. The enormity of the number rocked him, forcefully reminded him this wasn’t just some cute girl he was having a flirty conversation with in a bar. Based on all he’d seen today, he had no reason to doubt her or suspect exaggeration. If anything, the number she’d come up with was probably a conservative estimate.
“You look sick.”
“I feel sick.”
“We should probably fuck now. It’d get your mind off it.”
Rob massaged his eyes with the heels of his hands, blinked hard, and stared at her. “You like killing, don’t you? Jesus, you actually enjoy it.”
“No shit, Rob. Any other observations, Captain Obvious?”
“Another question.”
She sighed. “One more. That’s all.”
Rob hesitated. This was the big one. The one he was most afraid to ask. He had to force the words out. “Why am I still alive? Why lure that boy here instead of just killing me?”
“You are so fucking dense.”
“What do you mean?”
Another sigh. “Thing is…I think I like you.”
“What?”
“I like you.”
He stared at her and his mouth worked for a time with no words coming out. Then he closed his mouth and thought for a minute before at last managing to squeeze out two simple words: “Like…how?”
“As in like like, stupid.”
“But…you don’t even know me.”
“I know you enough. I can’t really explain it. Being next to you all day just sort of felt…right? You know?”
Rob shook his head. “No. I don’t know.”
“I think you do. You do, and you’re just trying to hide from it.”
“No.”
“Yes. It’s that simple human-chemistry thing. That special heat you feel only once in a while, with someone really special. I felt it almost from the beginning.” She slid out of the chair and came across the floor to him on her hands and knees, moving right through the big, wet stain where the boy had bled out on the floor. She crossed her arms over his knees again and smiled up at him. “Yeah, I’ve been a fucking cunt to you. But that’s just how I am.”
Her hands were moving up his thighs again, pressing firmly as they reached for his crotch.
Rob gulped. “Oh, God…”
She slithered up his body and pushed him backward onto the bed. She straddled him again and leaned close, her soft lips less than an inch from his. His hands went to her knees, brushed flakes of drying blood, and almost jerked away again. Almost. “You want to stay alive, Rob? Here’s my advice to you.” Her tongue flicked his lower lip, eliciting a shudder. “Stay interesting. Let me know you feel it, too.”
Rob’s hands moved from her knees, up silken thighs, over her delectably round ass, and settled at the small of her back. She let the full weight of her body settle against him and they writhed slowly against each other, maintaining eye contact, still not kissing.
Then his hands went to her shoulders and he rolled her over.
She laughed.
A sound he silenced with his mouth.
It was hungry, fierce, desperate.
Electric.
And Rob screamed at the end.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
March 18
The hours passed in a haze of half-remembered horrors and confusion. The stench of the corpse filled the tight, hot space, covering her like a suffocating blanket. The smell of her own vomit beneath the death smell, steadily tickling her gag reflex, a slow torture that never seemed to end, though there was some small measure of relief after she at last managed to work the strip of duct tape off her mouth. The car’s tires hummed over interstate asphalt. She heard the roar and buzz of countless other cars and big trucks, along with the occasional blare of horns or blast of passing sirens. So many people so close to her, all of them passing her by, totally oblivious to her plight. She drifted in and out of sleep. Once she woke up and knew they had stopped. She heard voices from the car. A man talking. The crazy man. And a woman. The woman laughed. And just as Julie was summoning the strength to scream, the mystery woman screamed. The sound was pure fear at first, but then it changed, became more shrill, and went on and on, an awful evocation of blinding, desperate agony.