Prey Drive

Prey Drive

Wrath James White

Sinister Grin Press

Austin, TX

www.sinistergrinpress.com

June 2013

“Prey Drive” © 2013 Wrath James White

All characters depicted in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without the publisher’s written consent, except for the purposes of review.

Cover Art by Kyushik Shin

Cover Design by Shane McKenzie

Text Design by Brian Cartwright

To Mom.

My sincere gratitude goes out to Monica O’Rourke. It’s not every woman who can read such a nightmarish collection of perversions with enough calm and composure to point out grammatical errors. To Tod Clark, for catching all my little blunders. Special thanks to Shane and Travis for having the guts to publish this piece of depravity. Thanks also to Jamie La Chance. If it wasn’t for your glowing endorsement, the original Succulent Prey would have never seen print. Only fitting that you should be a pre-reader on the sequel.

Prologue 

The prosecutor was a thin, fastidious man with narrow, rectangular glasses behind which his green eyes appeared enormous. He wore a dark gray suit and a pink shirt and tie that he was continually readjusting, looking as if the thing was on the verge of strangling him. His head was shaved bald and it turned a livid red when he spoke passionately, which he did frequently when describing Joseph’s crimes to the jury. Earlier that day, the young district attorney had painted a picture of Joseph Miles that made the accused murderer sound like the biggest threat to the safety of mankind since the invention of the atomic bomb.

His shoulders rolled inward and his chest was sunken in as if he had received a tremendous blow to the upper torso and feared subsequent blows, avoiding them by remaining in that cowed posture. Contrary to the rest of him, his jaw was strong and square, his chin tilted high in the air, looking almost aristocratic.

He stood just barely more than five feet, five inches tall and was anemically thin. When he spoke the heavy bass timbre of his voice was almost comical issuing from such a diminutive man. His eyes challenged Joe from across the courtroom, focusing on him throughout the cross-examination of the prosecutor’s expert psychologist by Joe’s court-appointed attorney.

The judge, a large black woman with long dreadlocks salted with gray and pulled back into a ponytail, nodded to Joe’s lawyer. “You may continue with your cross-examination, Mr. Leyendecker.”

“Doctor, do you think it’s possible for anyone, including the defendant Joseph Miles, to have an irresistible impulse to rape, murder, and cannibalize fellow human beings?”

Dr. Sabine, an Indian man with bushy eyebrows and piercing eyes and an unsmiling face that appeared to have been hewn from stone, cleared his throat and took a sip of water before he spoke in tight, clipped sentences, trying hard to suppress his accent. “It is certainly possible, yes.”

“Would you say it was probable in the case of the defendant, Joseph Miles?”

“Objection,” the prosecutor interrupted.

Joe’s attorney nodded his assent before the judge had even sustained the prosecutor’s objection. Joe couldn’t imagine what had been said that was out of order, but everyone else seemed to understand and accept that the attorney had somehow overstepped his bounds in the questioning of the prosecutor’s psychologist.

Mr. Leyendecker began again. “Is there a distinct line between neurosis and psychosis, or are they the same?”

“Those terms are used to differentiate between degrees of mental illness. What differentiates between the two is the person’s ability to perceive and react to reality in a true sense.”

“And would you say that someone who believed he was turning into a werewolf was reacting to reality in a true sense?”

“Objection!”

“Withdrawn. What exactly differentiates between these two terms, doctor?”

“It’s sometimes difficult to make a clear distinction. It’s not black and white. There’s some gray area. A psychotic person does not perceive reality as we do. A milder psychotic condition might mistakenly be interpreted as neurotic. Very severe neurosis may likewise be mistaken for psychosis. We can generally differentiate between them, although the lines do blur and there’s some overlapping. Generally speaking, a psychotic person perceives the world incorrectly and a neurotic person sees the world correctly but reacts incorrectly, overreacts.”

“Is the defendant, Joseph Miles, neurotic?”

“Yes, in my professional opinion, he is.”

“Earlier in your testimony, you said the defendant had a tendency toward paranoid delusions. Would that indicate Joseph Miles may suffer from psychosis?”

“Objection,” the prosecutor said. He was still staring at Joseph Miles and only watching the proceedings from the corner of his eye. He turned to face the judge, only to object before returning to stare at Joe. He seemed more interested in how Joe was reacting to the psychologist’s testimony than to the testimony itself.

Joe felt uncomfortable in his chair. It was too small for his massive frame and the crowded courtroom distracted him. The aroma of flesh, sweat, perfume, aftershave, menstrual fluid, soap, shampoo, semen, and fear—delicious, intoxicating fear—formed a luxuriant miasma that enflamed his olfactory senses and kicked his salivary glands into overdrive along with his libido. Joe had to swallow several times to keep from drooling.

There was another scent in the air that Joe recognized all too well. It was the scent of female arousal. It was the smell of vaginal fluids moistening the walls of the female sex, preparing it for the intrusion of a stiff cock. Some of the women seated in the gallery were getting off on this.

The urge to turn toward the gallery and hunt through the crowd for the source of each scent, to follow each delectable human fragrance to its origin and taste it, devour it, and make it part of him was overwhelming. Joe shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, but the instant his eyelids descended and darkness rushed in, carnal images of violence and passion succeeded the soothing blackness and the monster came roaring awake, pressing hard and insistent against the buttons of his orange jumpsuit, commanding him to feed.

With a shudder of unsatisfied desire, Joe struggled to regain control of his passions, succeeding with great effort that etched itself across his features in lines of anguish. Joe looked back in the direction of the district attorney and saw the man studying Joe’s expression with his eyebrows knitted in concentration. Joe had the distinct impression the man was trying to read his mind. He turned back to watch his semi-competent lawyer do his worst.

The judge had overruled the DA’s objection and Mr. Leyendecker had resumed his questioning of Dr. Sabine.

“Would you please answer the question, Dr. Sabine? Could the anxiety symptoms you described to the court earlier, the paranoid delusions you said Mr. Joseph Miles exhibited, result in deviant and abnormal behavior?”

“No, I’m afraid I cannot. I don’t quite understand what you mean by ‘deviant and abnormal.’”

“Eating other humans is certainly deviant and abnormal, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Objection!”

“Sustained.”

“Is it possible, in the defendant’s case, that his normal impulse control was lower because of these paranoid delusions and he was not capable of controlling the irresistible impulse toward cannibalism and sadism?”

“Objection!”

“Objection sustained.”

“Dr. Sabine, would you consider psychoneurosis a mental defect?”

“I would consider it a mental disorder.”

“Not a defect?”

“Defect is not a psychological term.”

“It is a disorder then?”

“Yes.”

“Did your examination show this mental disorder in the defendant, Joseph Miles?”

“Yes.”

“Would you say the cannibalistic tendencies the defendant has are a mental disorder?”

“Objection,” the prosecutor said wearily. This time he didn’t even turn his head from his study of Joseph Miles.

“Sustained.”

“If the evidence were to justify the prosecutor’s belief that over a period of three to four days, the defendant vivisected and consumed the flesh of the deceased and that while doing so, the defendant believed himself to be under the influence of a communicable disease that he says turns people into monsters, like lycanthropy or vampirism. If it were to be proven that during the torture and mutilation of Alicia Rosado, the decedent, the defendant not only disclosed no remorse but actually derived sexual enjoyment up to the point of orgasm, would that behavior pattern suggest that he was insane?”

“Objection.”

“The objection is sustained.”

“Do you think the defendant is afflicted with any mental disease whatsoever either now or at the time of his crimes in December of 2008?”

“Yes, I would say it was a neurotic delusion.”

“Not a psychotic delusion?”

“Objection. Asked and answered.”

“Sustained,” the judge replied, waving her hand dismissively. She appeared riveted by the testimony and annoyed at the interruptions, however valid.

The defense attorney turned his back on Dr. Sabine and paced over to the jury, locking his eyes on each juror one by one as if directing his question to them rather than to the witness.

“Please indulge me for one final question, Dr. Sabine. I would like your professional opinion based on your evaluation of my client, the defendant, Joseph Miles. Seeing the pictures of the victim’s remains”—he gestured to a television screen, upon which was the image of Alicia’s corpse. It was just a pile of gnawed bones stripped of flesh, some of them cracked open with the marrow sucked out—“and your testimony here in the courtroom today, do you believe that his meeting with Alicia Rosado at that sex club in the South of Market district of San Francisco and her subsequently accompanying him back to his apartment could have ended any other way?”

Joe stared at the photos of Alicia’s remains, remembering the succulent taste of her, how her soul had burned in his belly after he had consumed it. He remembered the expression of profound love on Alicia’s lovely face as her spirit went the way of her flesh, devoured bit by bit to be merged with his own.

“Objection!” the DA shouted. He stood up in his chair and held out his arms as if pleading with the judge to intervene. It was the first time he had taken his eyes off Joe for any length of time.

“Withdrawn, your honor. I’m done with this witness.”

Joe sat through several more days of testimony, including testimony from his former professor, Dr. John Locke.

“Dr. Locke, please state your credentials for the court.”

“I have a doctorate in criminal psychology and a master’s degree in psychotherapy. I worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation for fifteen years in the behavioral science department where I interviewed close to thirty convicted serial killers. I currently teach abnormal psychology at the state university.”

“You were the defendant’s teacher for an entire semester, correct?”

“Yes.”

“At any time during your acquaintance with my client, have you had cause to examine him?”

“Yes, I have.”

“And what did you conclude from this examination? Would you agree with Dr. Sabine’s testimony that Joseph Miles suffers from a neurosis rather than a psychosis?”

“No. I would not agree. Joseph is incapable of distinguishing between his delusion and reality. He believes himself to be powerless before a disease. In his mind, unless he finds the source of this disease, the first cause of the infection, he will forever be a slave to it. That’s what he was doing when he murdered Damon Trent at the state hospital. That’s what he was doing when he murdered his father. Both crimes which he has already been found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was trying to cure himself the only way he knew how, by destroying the source of the infection. He was trying to cure himself before this overwhelming homicidal impulse caused him to kill the woman he loved, Alicia Rosado,” Professor Locke said.

Joe felt a slight tinge of betrayal listening to the professor’s testimony. He was saying Joe was crazy, that his disease was a mental one rather than a physical virus. While Joe knew the professor had to say these things in order to save his life, he couldn’t help but wonder if his mentor really believed what he was saying.

“Does this psychosis inform every decision the defendant makes? Does it affect every aspect of his life?”

“I can’t say with absolute certainty. It would not necessarily have to.”

“It would not necessarily have to, but it might?”

“It might.”

“Do you have any personal interest in the outcome of this trial, Dr. Locke?”