After Midnight

50
THE AWAKENING

Earthquake!
That was my first thought. I’d been through some bad ones. They nearly always hit while you’re asleep, roaring and shaking you furiously and scaring the crap out of you.
Falling sideways, I was halfway to the floor when I figured out this wasn’t any quake.
This was Steve.
My right shoulder hit the floor, and I rolled. Rolled and tumbled as fast as I could, hanging on to the saber. The chair toppled over. Part of it pounded my back, but not very hard.
Clear of Steve and the chair, I scrambled to my feet.
He was already sitting up, but still trying to free his feet from the electrical cord.
“Stop!” I shouted.
He looked up and saw me coming at him.
Even though the kitchen was dim with the gloom of dusk, I must’ve been quite a sight charging across the kitchen in nothing but my panties, my breasts leaping, my saber high.
One glimpse of me, and Steve let out a yelp.
He quit fooling with the cord and stuck up his hands. “I give!” he yelled. “Don’t do it! Please!”
I slid to a halt beside him. Still holding the saber overhead with both hands, I said, “Lie down and don’t move.”
He sank backward until he was stretched out flat.
Never turning away from him, I sidestepped to the nearest light switch. I flicked it up and brightness filled the kitchen.
As I approached Steve, he lifted his head off the floor. He winced and flinched, but didn’t take his eyes off me. Fingering the dish towel that I’d taped to the top of his head, he asked, “What’s…going on?”
“I won, that’s what.”
“I don’t remember.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“What happened to my head?”
I shook the saber.
“You chopped my head open? Oh, my God!”
“Don’t blow a gasket,” I said. “I just gave you a few raps with the handle, that’s all. If I’d used the blade, you wouldn’t be asking me questions about it. Lie still, and I’ll take care of your feet.”
“Okay,” he muttered.
“I’m not even gonna warn you about trying something.”
He eased his head down against the floor.
With the saber in my right hand ready to strike him, I squatted near his feet and used my left hand to unwind the cord. “As long as you cooperate with me, you’ll be fine.”
“I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Good. I went ahead and ate, by the way. I couldn’t wait for you.”
“That’s okay.”
“But I saved you some.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
When his feet were no longer bound together, I stood up and backed away, the end of the cord in my left hand.
He pushed himself up to his elbows, looked, and saw how I’d fashioned a tether for his left ankle. “Cute,” he said.
“It’ll let you get around.”
“I guess so.” Meeting my eyes, he said, “I can’t say that I blame you for not trusting me.”
I laughed at him. Then I said, “Get up and come over here.”
He made it to his feet, and I led him over to the counter where his plate was waiting. I was careful not to let him get close to me.
“Where do you want me to eat it?” he asked.
“Right there.”
“What about a fork?”
“So you can stab me with it? Use your fingers.”
He started to pick up the plate.
“Put it down,” I said. “Leave it on the counter.”
He set it down. Then, bending over, he started picking up pieces of steak one at a time. He got a couple into his mouth before he really started chewing. “Mmm,” he said. He shoved more in. “Good.”
“I know it’s not human, but it’s the best I could do on short notice.”
“That was Milo’s gig,” he said. The words came out mushy because of the meat in his mouth. “Not mine.”
“You don’t eat people?”
Grinning over his shoulder, he said, “Not that way.”
“Very funny.”
“He was nuts. Milo.”
“He was your mentor.”
“Yeah, but he was a f*ckin’ cannibal. I’m no cannibal. Shit, he did all kinds of weird stuff. Not me.”
“Not you. Sure.”
“This is really good steak. Really delicious.”
“You should’ve had it when it was still hot.”
“Well. Can’t have everything.” He shoved more into his mouth.
“I want to hear the rest of your story,” I told him.
“What do you want to know?”
“You said you watched me in your camp last night. When I took care of Milo and stuff. And then, after I left, you killed Judy. Then what?”
“Did I say that?” He gave me another grin. His lips were shiny with steak juice. “I don’t believe I said anything about killing Judy.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“If I said that, I must’ve been mistaken.”
I felt a strange, fluttery tightness inside. I don’t know quite what it was. Hope? Fear? Excitement? In some ways, I wanted Judy to be dead. She was a loose end. She could get me in big trouble. But in other ways…Hell, I liked her.
“You didn’t kill her?” I asked.
“No, no, absolutely not.”
“Bad choice of words, pal.”
“Huh?”
“‘Absolutely not.’ Makes me you think you’re lying.”
“Oh. Jeez. I see what you mean. Protesting too much, huh?”
“What did happen after I left?”
He shoved a couple more chunks of steak into his mouth, chewed for a minute, and said, “How about something to drink?”
“The sink’s right there,” I said.
“A glass?”
“Use your hand.”
So he sidestepped to the sink, ran some water, cupped his hand under the faucet and took a few drinks.
“What about Judy?” I asked.
He slurped some more water out of his hand, and said, “What about her?”
“If you didn’t kill her, what happened to her after I left?”
Steve sighed, wiped his wet hand across his lips, then shut off the faucet and turned around and grinned at me. “I cut her down.”
“You cut her down?”
“The ropes, the ropes. I freed her from the ropes from which she was so cruelly hanging, thanks to you.”
“I didn’t do that to her.”
“But you didn’t cut her down.”
I didn’t need to be reminded of that.
“Are you done eating?” I asked.
“No!” Losing his grin, he turned away and hurried over to his plate and stuffed more steak into his mouth.
“Okay,” I said. “So what happened after you…took her down from the ropes?”
“Plenty.”
“Tell me.”
“F*cked the daylights out of her, for starters.”
I struck him hard across the ass with the flat of the saber blade. He shrieked and arched his back and clutched his buttocks. For a while, he stood there gasping for air. Then he bent forward a little and braced his hands on the counter top. I could see him shaking.
“You forgot who has the sword,” I told him.
“You asked…”
“I didn’t like your answer. I don’t want to hear about that stuff. What else happened?”
“We…we buried the bodies. Milo and Marilyn.”
“Where’d this Marilyn come from, anyway?”
“The tent. Milo had her in the tent.”
“Where’d she come from? Is she from around here? Did you catch her in Miller’s Woods?”
“Huh? No. We grabbed her when we were on the road.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Well, we spotted her at a gas station. That was a few days ago, when we were up north. We’d stopped for a fill-up, and there she was, pumping gas into her Toyota. A real babe. She wore these short shorts…” He glanced back at me and at the saber. Then he went on. “Anyway, we followed her when she left the station. We wanted her to rear-end us, so we got ahead of her, then slowed down. This Marilyn was impatient, so she tailgated us, trying to get us to speed up or pull over. A real bitch move. So then, when we came to a place where nobody was around, Milo suddenly stomped on the brakes. Wham! She rear-ended us. Well, we all got out to check the damage and exchange information. And that’s when we snatched her. We threw her into the back of the van, I jumped in with her, and Milo drove off.”
“You have a van?” I asked.
“Sure. You’ve gotta have a van.”
“Where is it?”
“Oh, we’ve got it hidden in the woods. Not too far from a road, but far enough so it’s out of sight.”
“So you brought Marilyn here to the woods?”
“Right. And put up our camp and had ourselves…” He gave the saber an uneasy glance. “We kept her as our guest in the camp for a couple of days, and then she died.”
“Died, huh?”
“Well, Milo cut her throat.”
“Milo, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“How many other people have you two killed?”
“Between the two of us? Quite a few. I couldn’t say for sure.”
“How long were you together?”
“Milo and me?”
“Yeah. Traveling around in your van, killing people.”
“A couple of years.”
“My God.”
He grinned at me. “Just doing some population control. Environmentally speaking, over-population is a real…”
“Shut up.”
“Sorry.” He faced forward again.
“So what happened,” I asked, “after you and Judy dug the graves last night?”
“Nothing. Well, we threw Milo and Marilyn in and covered them with dirt, of course. Then we went to sleep. That’s all.” Reaching out, he picked up a single piece of steak. He looked at me, then stuck it into his mouth and started to chew.
“But you came back here today,” I told him. “What’d you do with Judy when you left camp? Where is she?”
“Still there…in camp.”
“Alive?”
He nodded.
“Tied up?”
He grunted, then said, “Tied and gagged. In the tent.”
“And in what condition?”
“Fine. She’s fine.”
“She can’t be fine.”
“I didn’t hurt her.”
“Sure you didn’t.”
“Not much.” He leered over his shoulder at me. “I’d be glad to take you to her.”
“Not interested,” I said.
“Sure you are. You’re very interested.”
“You know what I want?”
“Judy.”
“No. I want this house cleaned up. I want you to haul Elroy’s body out—and get his head out of the pool. Then we’ll take a little trip. You buried Milo and Marilyn somewhere near your camp?”
He nodded and stuffed more steak into his mouth.
“You have shovels?”
“Sure. Tools of the trade. Got a couple of them.”
“Okay. Then I guess we will go to camp. You can bury Elroy there with the others.”
“And you can have a nice reunion with Judy.”