Crossing the Line (12 page)

With a swing that would have been a hole in one on a golf course he sliced straight through Clint’s neck and sent his head rolling away. Blood jettisoned from the stump of the neck, but it did not last long. The trauma his body had already been through had depleted much of his body’s supply of blood.

Brute retrieved the head and the horse bit. He put them away in his sack as well as his skinning knife. He left the meat hook hanging, knowing that time was growing short and he still had work to do. He picked up a long handled, double-sided axe and set the pickaxe/scythe in its place. After a moment’s consideration he put his bowie knife in the bag, too. The knife was replaced with short handled sickle which he strapped to his thigh. He strung the axe over his shoulder and looked over at the corpse one last time.

1
6

Marty and Quentin had already returned to the living room with their captives. Now that they have all been violated the women seemed defeated. Thad had managed to keep himself from coming long enough to penetrate all three of the girls that remained downstairs with him. He had purposely timed it so he would ejaculate in Anna’s anus, though. He had wanted her to know that her rape was something special to him.

Marty mentioned how long it seemed to be taking Stan, but Thad blew it off. He was far more concerned with Fritz’s absence. Fritz was known to snort quite a bit of coke and meth from time to time, but he had been out there with Ivy long enough to have made several pornos.

“Quent, come with me,” Thad said. “Marty watch after the bitches. Keep Stan off of them if he comes down stairs.”

“Okay. Do you care if I knock a couple more back?” Marty asked.

“Go for it, but don’t fucking pass out. We shouldn’t be long. I’m just going to check on Fritz and make sure he’s not falling in love or something. If any of the whores try to escape kill them. I’ve had enough pussy that losing one or two of them ain’t going to break my heart.”

Thad laughed as he made his way past the somber cluster of women.
Great, you give a bitch some dick and all of the sudden they go emo on you.
He laughed even harder at his wittiness.

Quentin followed behind him. He lit a cigarette and dropped two morphine pills
. He washed the drugs down with a long draw off of a bottle of Jim Beam.

Quentin had been good enough of a sport to wait until Thad was done with her before he took Lynne upstairs for a rendezvous. She had almost seemed to enjoy it. And he absolutely adored it. Black girls were the best fucks on the planet. Their pussies did things that no other race could do. He had planned on fucking Marcy before the night was over, too.

He hoped it didn’t take too long to find Fritz. He didn’t even know the guy and he already didn’t like him. There was just something a little
too
shady about the young man. He definitely wasn’t all talk, not like Thad. Half of the shit Thad said was nothing more than him blowing off steam. That was, at least, until he started hanging out with Fritz. Now it was like he felt like he had to constantly prove himself. Quentin figured it had something to do with who Fritz was before he came to LA. He was some kind of player, but Quentin did not like him enough to find out what kind.

As soon as they were outside Quentin knew something was seriously fucked up. The aura around the house had shifted. There was a stillness to the air that brought little electrical charges and made the hair on the backs of his arms stand on end. He felt the way he always did before he got into a fist fight.

There was no sign of anyone on the raft at all. “Where the fuck did he take that cunt?” Thad asked.

Quentin took another long draw off the bottle of Jim Beam and scratched his chin. “Maybe she got away from him. He could be chasing her through the forest right now or something.”

“That’s a possibility,” Thad said. He didn’t seem convinced at all, though.

Quentin wasn’t convinced, either. Something felt downright
wrong
out here. He turned back to the house and frowned. “We ain’t going to find him out here in the dark tonight.”

“You’re right,” Thad nodded. He too felt eerie.
The turned to go back inside and something caught Thad’s eye at the edge of the porch. “What the fuck?”

He cautiously walked over to the lump sitting in one of the lawn chairs. The awful smells rising up off the body filled his nose first. “This better be some kind of joke,” Thad said. The body-sized lump was covered by a plastic table cloth. He tentatively pulled at the table cloth and groaned when the body fell over with it.

Something moist and grayish splattered out of the top of the tarp. The smell assaulted his nose forcibly now. He covered his mouth with his forearm, trying to block out the terrible stench.

“I don’t want to know what’s under there,” Quentin said.

“Me neither, but we’ve got to know, man,” Thad said.

He grabbed the lip of the cloth and gave it a hard yank. It slid out from under the body and came free. Thad retched with repulsion and tossed the cloth behind him. It nearly struck Quentin, who cried out in protest and stepped away.

“Motherfucker!” Thad screamed and kicked another one of the chairs. It tumbled end over end. He looked at the corpse and shook with outrage.

“That’s Tommy isn’t it?” Quentin asked.

“Yeah, what’s fucking left of him,” Thad snarled. He slid his arms under Tommy’s waist and flipped him over.

This time both of the men did more than retch. They puked where they stood. Tommy’s face was gone and the skull had been carved away. The shit that had fallen out of the tablecloth was part of his brains.

“We need to get inside
right now
,” Quentin said.

Thad made no protest as he followed his friend into the house. The
y
closed the door, threw the bolt and pushed the kitchen table in front of it. As they came back into the living room they were still shaking with repulsion and fear.

“What the fuck happened out there?” Marty asked.

Thad
twisted the cap off a brand new bottle of Bacardi 151 and chugged down a third of the bottle. When he finished he coughed and wheezed for a moment before launching the liquor across the room. The bottle hit the far wall and shattered.

He pulled his pistol and aimed it at the girls. “Who the fuck is up here with you?”

“It was only us,” Marcy said.

“Don’t you goddamn lie to me, bitch. Who the fuck is up here with you? What sick fuck of a body guard did you bring to protect you?”

“We don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!” Chandra screamed.

Thad stomped over to her and bashed her across the face with the butt of the gun. Her nose and eye socket cracked as her head twisted to the side. She tried to fall over, but Thad stopped her by grabbing a handful of her hair. He twisted the gun around in his hand so that he could use the butt like a hammer.

Chandra screamed out in terror, but it did her no good. Thad began beating at her breasts and shoulders with the gun. He quit after a moment and kneed her in the face, knocking her onto her back.
She sobbed loudly. Another shrill scream of pain escaped her when Thad stomped down on her pelvis. He repeated the action three more times.

He then turned the gun on the other women. “Don’t fucking fuck with me you worthless cunts. I know you brought someone with you and I want to know who it is!”

“I promise you, Thad, we didn’t bring anyone else with us,” Anna said. Her voice was calm and calculated. She willed him to hear the sincerity in her voice.

Thad turned the gun on her and shook his head. “Tommy
didn’t do that to himself and it su
re as hell wasn’t one of my boys. Now tell me who is out there killing my friends.”

“Someone is killing your little gang?” Anna asked

“Yes, and I
want to know which of you invited him here.”

“We don’t tend to keep company with killers, hence our not inviting you,” Chandra said.

Thad’s face grew bright red with fury. He kicked Chandra in the crotch again, “Get on all fours, bitch,” he snarled.

“Please just leave her alone. We don’t know anything about a killer!” Lynne sobbed.

“Don’t fucking lie to me. I’m tired of your worthless little cunts lying to me,” Thad said. A cold, calculating look of ill intent was apparent in his features. He meant business. No matter what the women said to him at this point he wasn’t going to believe it. He had lost at least one of his friends and someone was going to pay.

He stomped on Chandra’s belly. “Do what I fucking tell you and get on all fours!” he sc
reamed at the top of his lungs.

Chandra rolled over and after Thad had cut the bindings from her wrists she rose up into the demanded position. Thad knelt behind her and without hesitation shoved the stubbed barrel of the .357 into her battered sex. Chandra screamed out in shock and general discomfort. Thad used his free hand to grab her shoulder and pul
l
he
r back on the gun.

He felt blood run down from her torn orifice onto his hand. His index finger and the trigger guard grew wet with it. “Give me a name or I swear I’m going to fire off the last load you’ll ever get right up your rank snatch.”

“There was no one else with us. Please, I swear to God, we didn’t bring anyone up here. It was supposed to be a drama free vacation. No guys, no school books, complete relaxation.”

“
She’s telling the truth. You’ve got to believe her!” Marcy pleaded.

Thad looked to Quentin and Marty. “What do you think guys? Do you think they’re trying to fuck with us?”

“They seem like
they’re
telling the truth,” Marty said with a shrug. “Besides if the dude was with them we would have seen him before we came across the lake.”

Thad nodded his head. He gave Chandra a pat between the shoulders. “It’s unanimous. We don’t think you’ve got anything to do with the killer.” He drew back the hammer. “But we would have never come here if you hadn’t stolen my shit so you’re responsible for killing Tommy.”

Chandra started to say something, but it never made it out of her mouth. The gunshot was muffled by the muscles of her sex. The high power round tore straight through her body and exploded out of her throat just beneath her chin. Blood and hot hunks of flesh splattered her friends. A group scream of revulsion and shock came from the women.

Thad pulled the gun out of Chandra’s sex and a trail of smoke came from between her legs. She fell forward and blood pumped out of the wound in her throat. Thad kicked the body in his insane fury. He handed the gun to Marty and picked up an empty wine bottle from the floor. He threw it into the fireplace and it exploded. What little liquor was left made the flames grow.

He turned to Quentin and Marty. H
is limbs shook w
ith rage. “There are two rifle
s in the trunk of my car. I want you guys to go get them. If we’re going to survive this shit we need more weapons.”

“Fuck that shit,” Marty shook his head. “If there’s some kind of serial killer out there I’m not going to go marching through the forest like an idiot.”

“You’re going to do what I tell you to do or I swear to God I’ll blow your fucking head off just like I did to Justin and that fat fucking cow,” Thad said. There was absolutely no emotion in his voice. The lack of emotion was somehow more terrifying than seeing him kill.

“Are you at least going to let us have the g
un?” Quentin asked.

“No, the gun stays with me. Look around the house and find something you can use in case you run into the motherfucker. If you kill him I want to see his dead body. Have you got me?”

“Yeah, we got you, man. You’re a fucking pussy. You’ve been walking around all goddamn day like you’re some kind of badass. Now that there’s someone out there killing us you’re going to hide in the house like the bitch you are. Fuck you, Thad. You’re not some kind of gangster, you’re a stuck up loser with a pencil dick and no backbone,” Marty said.

Thad took a step toward him, curling his fists at his sides. He stopped dead
in his tracks when Marty raised the gun. “Give me my pistol, Marty,” he said.

“Get on the floor, curl in a ball and suck your own dick, fuckhead. I’m not giving you back this gun. And I’m not going to risk my ass running out to your car to get your rifle. The way I see it we’re all relatively safe if we stay put right here. You’ve got a couple of rounds left in the gun. If the psycho comes in here to take us out I’ll put one in his fucking head.”

“You’re calling me a pussy, but the only reason why you grew a pair is because you are too big of a wimp to go out and get better guns. There’s a thirty-ought-six and a twelve gauge out there. You don’t even have to have good aim to kill someone with either of those guns. They are
right out there in my trunk.”

“Then you go get them and I’ll stay here with the girls. Seems to me like we’ve already lost one of our men under your command,” Marty said. “And I don’t remember you ever telling us that you were planning on killing all these girls either. You’ve been running this show like some kind of mob thug and you’re nothing but a drug dealer in UCLA.”