into the old man with the mass and
velocity of a stampeding horse. They
col apsed onto the hard concrete floor
with a wet smack as the back of Lionel
Ray's head cracked against the cement.
Joe bared his fangs and clamped them
down onto his father's throat. There was something terribly satisfying about
hearing the man's screams.
Forty-five
Detective Montgomery had cal ed ahead
to his partner to meet the Hayward
police at the home of Lionel Miles. He
then cal ed the Hayward police chief and gave him a rundown on the situation.
"If he's heading home I doubt it's to reminisce over old times. He's got a
major bloodlust going and if we don't get there fast you're going to have a body to clean up-and believe me, Joseph is
quite a messy eater."
The detective set his phone in the
charger and waited for the chief to cal him back with what would hopeful y be
some good news for once-like, that
they'd captured Joseph Miles. He stared out his windshield, barely aware of the traffic, barely even seeing the road,
thinking only about the big, maneating
col ege kid as he raced down the
highway back toward California. He'd
been on the road for over an hour when
he final y got the cal .
"We missed him. He must have gotten there just a few hours before us."
"So what happened? Did he kil his father?"
"He did more than kil him. Much more." The previously robust voice of the
Hayward police chief faded to a faint
whisper. Montgomery recognized the
symptom. The man was going into
shock. Whatever he'd found at the home
of Lionel Miles must have been more
horrible than the detective had been able to prepare him for. Montgomery
stomped down on the accelerator as the
chief fil ed him in on al the ghastly
details. Six and a half hours later, he pul ed up outside the home of the late
Lionel Ray Miles.
If Montgomery hadn't prepared the
police chief for what he might find at the home of Lionel Ray Miles, he had
prepared himself even less.
"Jesus Christ!"
Lionel Ray lay on the hood of his prized 1969 Lincoln Continental with his chest torn open and his heart ripped out. The gaping chest cavity had been fil ed with garlic and a rosary lay atop the piles of fresh cloves. A wooden stake, driven
through the spot where his heart should have been, pinned him to the hood of the car. His head had been removed and lay
on the floor at his feet, stuffed with cloves of garlic. The body was smoldering from where his murderer had tried to set him on fire. The Hayward police had arrived just in time to douse the fire before it did much damage. The entire street smel ed
like roasted garlic and barbecued pork. The most disturbing thing was how
delicious the aroma was. It made the
detective even more aware of the fact
that he hadn't eaten in almost twenty-four hours.
Montgomery knew that the arson had not
been an attempt to destroy evidence but rather a way to ensure that this demon
would never rise again. He walked over
and looked down at the sizzling corpse.
"You poor bastard. What did you do to deserve this?"
"Detective!" A young officer, who looked like he was fresh out of high school, ran into the garage with his eyes wide. He
was sucking in breath in big gulps like a guppy in an empty tank.
Montgomery turned around quickly,
recognizing the excitement in the young rookie's voice. He knew that excitement. It meant they had found something
unexpected.
"What is it?"
"We found more bodies. Lots of them! In the basement. "
"What? Show me."
The young officer led the detective
quickly out of the garage, around the
back of the house, and into the
basement. There a big German
shepherd from one of the K-9 units was
busily digging up the dirt floor. Two other officers were down there beside him with brooms and shovels, uncovering a
skeleton. There were already two others partial y exposed.
"How many are there?"
"I don't know. They're piled on top of each other. Some of them are pretty
"They-they're children!" Montgomery started to get woozy.
"How old did you say the suspect was?" one of the officers asked. "Because these bodies look pretty old. Look at the clothes. I haven't seen shoes like those since the eighties."
Montgomery stared down at one
exposed leg wearing an old pair of
British Knights. He had owned a pair of sneakers just like them years agoback
in 1992. That would have made Joseph
around ten years old. These weren't
Joseph Miles's victims. They were Lionel Ray's. That's why Joseph had come
back here, to destroy the real source of the curse.
His own father.
It took them several days to unearth al the bodies. When they were done the
count stood at twenty-five, ranging in age from six to sixteen. The oldest corpse
was at least a decade old. They had al
been cut to pieces. A slash across the
throat was the kil ing blow. None of them bore any of the marks of cannibalism,
confirming the detective's theory that the senior Miles had been the culprit rather than his son. It looked as if Joe had
done the world a service by taking out
his father. But where was he now?
Forty-six
Alicia winced as the hot water sprayed
from the showerhead onto her raw,
pinkish skin. It had been months since
her ordeal with Joseph Miles and she
had only been out of the hospital a week. She was scheduled to see a plastic
surgeon at the end of the month to
discuss prostheses to replace her stolen mammary glands. She had already gone
through six surgeries, painful skin grafts to cover the gaping hole in her chest
where her breasts had been. Now they
were going to see if they could give her some kind of implants to make her chest look more normal, more like it had
looked before her abduction. Alicia
scoffed as she watched the water
cascade down her smooth, nippleless
chest. She had no il usions. She knew
she would never look the same.
She stepped out of the shower and
appraised her scarred and disfigured
torso. Her chest was now little more than a thin veneer of skin stretched over a rib cage. She could almost see her heart
beating beneath it. She began to cry. The man she had fal en in love with had done this to her.
"Why didn't he just kil me? Why leave me like this?"
They stil hadn't captured Joe, but there had also been no more cannibal kil ings. He appeared to have just disappeared.
Either that or the cure had worked. In a way she hoped that it hadn't. Every night she prayed that he would return for her. To finish the job he had started.
She heard a noise coming from her
bedroom as she gently wiped away the
bathwater and tears with her towel. It
sounded as if someone had opened her
window. Minutes later she heard the
unmistakable sound of footfal s.
"Hel o?"
She clutched the bath towel to her
vandalized chest and peered into
the
room. She was not surprised at al to
see Joe standing in her bedroom.
"You got my note? On the message
board?"
"Yes." His expression was almost sad.
"Then you'l do it? You'l do what I ask?"
"Are you sure you want this?"
"I'm sure. I've got a ton of pain pil s from the hospital. I'l take a whole handful. I won't feel a thing."
"I've missed you, Alicia." A tear drizzled down his cheek.
"I missed you too."
"I even set us a table."
Joe turned toward the little kitchen, and indeed a large table, way too big for her tiny apartment, stretched from the
kitchen into the little dining room nook area and partial y into the living room. The table was solid oak and looked
expensive. It was set with a silver serving tray, big enough to hold a large pig and one dinner setting at the head of the
table. A large carving knife sat on top of the tray.
"The table's an antique," she said. "I bought it just for this occasion. Just in case you came back."
"I love you, Alicia."
"I know you do. But I can't live like this," she said, gesturing toward her chest.
"What about plastic surgery?"
"Look at me." Alicia dropped the towel, revealing the hideous scar that
transversed her chest. Joseph sucked in a breath, shocked at his own savagery.
"They can't fix this."
"This may take a while. My appetite isn't what it used to be."
Alicia stepped back into the bathroom
and opened the medicine cabinet. She
had a few Fentanyl patches they had
given her at the hospital to replace the morphine drip she'd been hooked up to
after her last surgery. She peeled one of them out of the box and stuck it on her neck. There was also nearly a ful bottle of Darvocet and a half bottle of
Percocet. She scooped them off the
shelf and took a whole handful of each
and went back into the bedroom. Her
legs began to wobble as she turned and
staggered into the kitchen. The room
spun just before she lay down on the
table. The Fentanyl was kicking in.
"I want you to eat al of me. Don't leave anything. I want to be a part of you
forever."
The Percocet and Darvocet kicked in
now and Alicia could no longer feel her own body. She felt like she was floating. Joe was crying when he raised the knife. He was stil crying when he began to cut through her soft plump flesh. And tears stil fel as he slid the blood moist meat between his lips and swal owed it down. She tasted just like he remembered.
It took him a couple of days to
completely consume her. She was
awake for the first few hours, tel ing him how much she loved him. How happy
she was to bring him so much pleasure.
How she'd wanted this al along. And,
despite himself, Joe did feel those
familiar jolts of ecstasy as he chewed
and swal owed her soft muscle and fat.
She passed away that same night, yet
Joe had continued eating as he had
promised. He ate until her entire body
had been consumed-skin, muscle,
organs, fat, her brain. He even sucked
the marrow out of her bones. He could
feel her life inside of him as he walked out of the apartment with his stomach
distended, fighting back nausea. He
could feel her love coursing through him. He barely noticed the police cruiser until it was right on top of him.
"Freeze! Stop right there! On your knees! Hands behind your head!"
The cop was muscular, middle-aged,
and scared. His partner came from the
other side of the car looking even older and more scared. Joseph hadn't
showered and was stil covered with
Alicia's blood, but that wasn't the only reason the men were scared. Joe had
seen their car across the street three
nights ago when he'd first snuck into
Alicia's apartment. They had both been
behind the wheel, fast asleep. They had been assigned to protect Alicia and they had failed. Joe didn't care anymore. He watched with curious detachment as
they handcuffed him, cursing and praying at the same time.
"We fucked up big time!"
"What did you do to the girl? Go check on her, Nate. I've got him. Fuck! Man,
we're going to be crucified when they
find out we lost a witness!"
"At least we caught the bastard. Who knows, they might even cal us heroes." The middle-aged cop looked at his older partner and shook his head. "I doubt that. I seriously doubt that. See al that blood? It ain't his. And you know what he does to his victims."
The older man's eyes went wide. He ran
up the walkway and into the apartment.
Less than a minute later he was back
out on the sidewalk, throwing up into the gutter.
"Bones! There's just bones up there! He ate her! He ate al of her."
Joe watched the man regurgitate and
tried to hold his own enormous meal
inside of him. He concentrated on
digesting his meal. He knew that they
would want to pump his stomach and he
wanted to keep as much of her inside of him as he could.
They were just putting him in the
backseat of the squad car when another
car pul ed up. A black detective that Joe thought he recognized was behind the
wheel, and next to him sat Professors
Locke and Douglas. The two professors
sprang out of the car before it had even come to a complete stop and ran over to him.
"Don't worry, boy. We won't let anything happen to you. We're going to help you. We're going to cure you." Professor Locke's eyes were beaming with joy. It
looked like he had just won the lottery.
Epilogue
Joe sat behind the glass partition,
staring across at the petite young lady who'd come to visit him. It was the model from his art class. The one who'd
purchased the painting from him.
"How are you doing, Joseph?"
"I'm fine. You don't have to keep coming here, you know."
"I know. I like seeing you, though." She smiled at him in a practiced, seductive way meant to communicate that she
wanted to do more than just see him.
Joe noticed that the woman had begun
putting on weight. Her breasts, thighs, and hips al looked ful er, almost plump. She caught Joe looking and smiled.
"Do you like it?" She stood up and turned around so that Joe could get a
good look at her ass, which had also
increased in size. It was stil smal but now it had some jiggle to it.
"You look good."
"Good enough to eat?"
Joe didn't reply.
"What do you want?"
"I just want to make sure that you're being treated wel , that you're
comfortable. I heard they were
experimenting on you?"
"Yes. I volunteered for the experiments. They are using serotonin inhibitors to
suppress my urges, to help me with my
addiction. Professor Locke is heading
the experiment. He thinks it wil get him a Nobel Prize if he can cure me."
"So? Is it working?"
"I don't know. I guess so. I don't have the urges anymore. Not often, anyway. But
then they keep me locked up and
isolated al the time. No outside stimuli. Nothing to bring the urges on. Except for you. You're my only visitor outside of
doctors and media."
"Do you
get urges when you look at me?
" There was an obvious excitement in her voice when she asked the question.
"Yes," Joe replied without looking at her face. His eyes continued to roam her
body. She was starting to look good. No longer the anemic waif he'd first met at his art class months ago. She'd
obviously been studying up on him,
learning more about the type of women
he liked. A few more pounds and she'd
be almost irresistible.
She'd started writing to him after the trial. At first there had just been questions and then the letters had turned almost
pornographic, describing al the things she wanted to do to him and al the
things she wanted him to do to her.
She'd asked him to marry her on more
than one occasion. She claimed she
was in love, that she had been ever
since the day she saw his portrait of her. Now she'd started putting on weight to
make herself more appealing. And it
was working.
Joe's eyes landed on her breasts. That's where the most dramatic change in her
appearance had taken place. When he'd
first seen her she'd had little or nothing up top but now the extra weight had
caused her breasts to swel two or three cup sizes. They looked good, but
something was wrong with them that Joe
couldn't quite grasp.
"I brought you something. Something from me. To show you how much I care
for you. How much I love you." She reached into her purse and pul ed out a napkin. It was folded over to conceal
something inside of it and there was
blood soaked through it. The woman
then reached over the glass partition and shoved it into Joe's hand. He didn't even bother to look at it. He opened the
napkin and dumped the contents into his mouth as the guards charged in to
separate the two of them. They dragged
the young model out of the room and
tried to pry Joe's mouth open,
suspecting that she had passed him
some type of narcotic.
One of the guards had his arms around
her waist, lifting her off the floor and carrying her out of the room. Her shirt came up as she tried to wriggle out of
their arms. Joe suspected that she'd
done it on purpose. Exposing herself for him. She wasn't wearing a bra, which
gave the other inmates a quick glimpse
of her pert medium-sized breasts. Their howls and catcal s were cut short as they noticed that one of her nipples was