Chapter 9
"Where the fuck have you been?" Steele said, surprising Danny with language he rarely used.
"I woke up... I had to go to the can."
"Well, where's Crow? The car's gone." Danny thought fast, his mind flipping like the dials of a computer. "Shit, I don't know. He might of gone into town to get a piece of ass. He said last night that he was horny as hell."
"He's always homy." Danny knew that it was probably impossible for Crow to handle any more after what he had seen the previous night, but with any luck he figured he could be gone before the two of them got together again, no matter where Crow might be.
"What'd you want?" Danny asked. "I mean besides Crow?"
"Get some clothes on and take a look around outside the house. Something's screwy around here and I don't like it."
"Okay," Danny said, heading for the stairs. Halfway up, he paused and turned back to face Steele. "Oh, by the way, Beatrice can talk. You know the older one of the two?"
"Oh," Steele said, "so what?"
"Well, I got a confession to make. I got a little homy myself last night... "
"So?"
"So I sneaked into her room last night. I thought maybe I could get a little and... "
"Yeah?" Steele still didn't seem to be paying very much attention, but Danny went right on, hoping. "Well, it was no dice but she did say she had the hots for you."
"Shit," Steele said. "Get moving!" Danny bounded up the stairs and into the room. He climbed quickly into his clothes and waited in the room with the door slightly ajar, hoping his guess that Steele was human would pay off after all. Sure enough, about ten minutes later Steele sauntered past the door on down the hall. He paused at Bea's door, looked back over his shoulder and entered.
Laughing to himself at how easy the whole thing was turning out to be, Danny grabbed the bag of money and ran down the stairs and out the back door. "I'm glad you could make it," Bea said, lowering the covers to the swelling tops of her billowing tits. They were visible down to the nipples. "Danny said you wanted to see me."
"Is that all that kid said? Jesus, that's a polite way to put it."
"Put what?" Steele said. "I don't just wanna see you, lover," Beatrice said, throwing the covers from her nude body and moving up to a crouching position on the bed. "I wanna suck and fuck you." Danny had been right in his assumption; even Steele was human. The sight of such classic beauty lying there stark naked, wanting him, searching the front of his pants for a bulge, reminded him of all his father's wealthy female friends. The ones he had fucked when he was just a kid.
"Well, you in the market or not?" she said, cupping her hands under her huge jugs and squeezing them tantalizingly together, forcing the large nipples to protrude from their tips as if they had a life of their own in their fullness.
"I never turn down a lady in need," Steele said, dropping his coat to the floor and crossing to the bed.
He took her in his arms and pulled her to him, ramming his mouth down on hers and crushing her lips under his. As his tongue found its way between her lips and searched for hers, he dropped his hand and savagely grabbed and twisted the furry muff that covered her cunt clear down between her soft thighs.
"Jesus, baby," she said, jerking her mouth from his, "you gotta be so rough?"
"Yeah," Steele replied, his mouth turning into a hard, thin line. "I like it rough, honey, real fucking rough. Lay down!"
Without waiting for her to do as he commanded, Steele pushed her roughly back to the mattress, unzipped his fly, and brought his rigid cock into the open, fisting it with his hand, and causing the already gigantic head to swell with blood.
"Nice," she said, smiling but unable to stop her lower hp from quivering at his callous onslaught. She hoped that Danny would get back upstairs in a hurry before Steele went too far.
"I'd like to have you suck it, honey," he said, spreading her legs and kneeling between them with his cock in his hand, "but I like the looks of your pussy, and it's been a while since this has been dipped in a sweet, warm cunt like yours. So spread!"
He fell across her with a grunt and started poking between her legs with his cock in blinding lust, searching for her hole.
"For Christ's sake!" she cried. "You can at least take that damn gun off. It's tearing the shit outta my tits. I wanna enjoy it, too, ya know."
"All right... all right," he said, noticing that she had clamped her legs together and deciding that an argument at this point wasn't worth the hassle. Besides, all he wanted was a good, quick piece of ass.
He stood by the side of the bed, still between her legs, and shrugged out of the shoulder harness. He dropped it behind him on the floor and started forward again.
"Drop your pants, too," she said.
"What for?"
"At least to your knees. I wanna play with your balls and your ass, too."
Shrugging, almost smiling at her wanton matter-of-factness, he undid his trousers, letting them and his shorts fall to his ankles.
"Now, goddammit," he growled, "we're gonna fuck. Open up your fucking snatch."
"Gladly, lover," she said, smiling. "Come feed Mamma your sweet meat."
He was on her in a second, falling across her body, and immediately running the head of his cock up and down her wet slit with his hand. When the head itself was well-lubricated and pushing through the velvet folds of her labes, he shoved forward with his hips and buried his shaft to the balls in her tight cunt.
"You got it, baby," he said, working his hips in an arc, loving the sweet milking her educated cunt was giving his cock.
Beatrice thought it was Danny when she heard the door close behind Steele, out of her sight. She quickly writhed away from his cock, not wanting to be in the middle of what might happen.
Steele also heard the sound and rolled around on the bed, slipped to the floor, and reached for his gun.
"Well, well," he said, his eyes roaming up and down Retha's naked body as she walked towards him across the room. "It looks as though everybody's homy this morning."
Retha didn't speak; she just continued walking, her full, bouncing tits jiggling in front of her body like two dark-tipped beacons.
"Don't let her close to you, Steele. Don't trust her!"
"Don't trust her?" Steele said, laughing, watching the twisting gyrations of Retha's beautiful young pussy coming closer and closer to his face. "You crazy? All your little girl wants to do is join the party. Isn't that right, Retha? Well, honey, with a body like that, you can join right in."
"Steele... Steele," Bea said, putting all the warning she could in her voice. She would prefer her chances with Steele and Crow as opposed to coping with Retha's deranged mind.
"Shut up, honey," Steele told Bea, "an' come on down here and stretch your cunt across this cock while I suck up a little of the lady's sweet muff... Ummmmm... good, good, good... Ummmm-mmm."
Retha reached his face, parted her legs and spread her pussy over his waiting mouth. His tongue just entered her pussy when he felt a momentary stinging, a slapping pain in the back of his neck and rolled over.
He was dead by the time his head hit the floor.
Outside, far from the house, in the ravine, Danny dug furiously in the soft ground with his hands.
It was all going to be so easy, he thought. Bury the money, split with Beatrice, eventually dump her and disappear for a year or two, then come back and dig up the money for easy street.
Suddenly he was rocked back on his heels, and then forced to stand back away from the hole. The odor was horrible rising from where he had been digging.
He turned his face away and retched on the ground. At last, with some color returning to his face, he covered his mouth and nose with part of his shirt and returned to the hole.
The man's body was three-quarters exposed. Sitting directly on what was left of his chest was the remnants of what had been a uniform.
Between the smell, which Danny recognized as the same odor that had permeated the attic, and putting the man's body together with the mail bag they had found in the hall, pieces started to fall into place in Danny's head.
Grabbing the briefcase containing the money, he took off for the house.
Half-crawling, half-tottering on weakened legs, Beatrice had managed to stumble and drag herself down the stairs.
Retha stood for a long time over Steele's body, staring at him, as if she had to make sure that he was dead. Then, in a semisomnambulant state, she turned and followed Beatrice down the stairs.
She caught up with the woman in the living room by the fireplace. Beatrice had managed to crawl that far and get her hands on one of the heavy pokers. She turned back towards the girl and, propping herself up against the fireplace, held the poker in front of her in an attempt to ward off the younger woman's advance.
"I remember it all now, Beatrice, you bitch. Everything's suddenly as clear as a bell in my mind."
Her voice had lost all of its strange, ethereal quality; it had sureness and strident clarity in it as she clipped the words out as if sanity had completely returned her mind to her body.
Her eyes, too, lost their faraway look, and darted-to and fro, seeing and understanding all they saw.
"Stay away from me, Retha," Beatrice said. "Stay away from me or I'll kill you, too."
"I guess we both recovered at the same time, didn't we, Beatrice? Me from shock and you from the blow he gave you on the head. You must not have hit him quite hard enough that night, or maybe not enough times when he left my room. Is that what happened, Beatrice? Did he just have time to push you down the stairs before he died? You must have hit some nerve somewhere. Is that why you couldn't talk... or walk?"
"I'm warning you, Retha... "
"We're just alike, aren't we, Beatrice... in so many ways. We're both a little sick." At that point Retha lunged and wrapped her own hands around the poker. Danny took the back stairs three at a time, completely missing the first floor. Ripping open the attic door, he bounded up the stairs, nearly tripping several times in his haste.
The adrenalin was flowing so fast in his body and his mind was turning over the events of the last few days so quickly that he was even oblivious to the odor in the attic. He kicked at the catches on the first trunk until they sprang open. He flipped up the lid and gasped in amazement at what greeted him. "Jesus, Crow, even you didn't deserve that," he said, and moved to the second trunk. He performed the same operation on it. "Oh, my God... whoever you were, you... " He couldn't say any more. He slammed the lid down and retraced his path, even faster, down the attic stairs. He started for Bea's room when he heard the women's voices downstairs. • Danny found them both nude, body to body, up against the fireplace. Retha had managed to pull the poker upward until its shaft was pressing into Bea's neck, slowly but surely strangling the hfe out of her. He filled his hand with Retha's hair and threw her across the room. The poker fell to the floor. He picked it up and stood between them, his body shaking as much from fear and ignorance of the situation as it did from exertion.
"All right," he said, a tremor he couldn't control in his voice. "I found Crow... where's Steele?"
"She killed him," Beatrice croaked, pointing a finger at the girl. "She killed them all."
"You he, Beatrice, you he. Not all," Retha said, and turned her now-darting, watchful eyes up to Danny from where she lay, sprawled on the floor. "If you found Crow, then you probably found my father, too."
"Oh, Jesus," Danny gasped. "You mean the mess in that other trunk was your father?"
"She killed him," Retha said. "It's a he, Danny!" Beatrice screamed, hobbling to him and throwing her arms around his waist.
"It's the truth!" Retha shouted. "She found him with me and couldn't stand sharing me with anyone, even him... "
"Sharing you...?" Danny said, his mouth dropping open in amazement. "Don't believe her, Danny," Beatrice said, trying to crawl up his body. "I did love her once, that's true. But after the other night with you, I'm changed... really changed."
"Get away," he said, looking down at her and trying to pull away from her grasp. "You're crazy, both of you. Crow was right, you're both loonies."
"No, Danny... take me away with you. She's the crazy one. She'll kill me if you don't help me," Beatrice implored.
"Oh, no, Beatrice," Retha said, her evil laugh echoing lewdly in the room. "I won't kill you... at least not right away. Ill make sure it takes years and years for you to die."
"Let go," Danny said, raising and threatening Beatrice with the poker. "Danny... Danny, Steele's in my room. Go see for yourself. She stabbed him with Crow's knife. She's crazy... she'll kill anyone... she'll kill me... she'll kill you!"
"Let go! GODDAMMIT, LET GO!" Danny shouted and brought the poker down on the back of her head. She crumpled to the floor. He stood for a few seconds, confused. Then, dropping the poker, he bolted for the stairs. He was like a man possessed as he rushed into Bea's room and pushed Steele's body out of the way so he could get to the gun.
His mind was so confused that he could only think along certain, specified lines--get Steele's gun, get to the car, get away. Danny had the gun in one hand and the briefcase in the other. He hadn't heard Retha come into the room behind him. He was on his knees beside Steele's body, just starting to rise, when she hit him over the head with the poker. It momentarily blinded him. He managed to roll to the side, avoiding the instrument's second swing to his head, absorbing it instead on his left arm. He dropped the briefcase and fought to clear his head as a third blow struck him across the base of the nose. Raising the gun, he tried to find her through the foggy haze in his brain and the sticky blood seeping into his eyes.
He fired a shot at what looked like movement, and heard the bullet ring off metal.
Rolling up to his knees, he gained his feet and headed for what he was sure was light coming through the bedroom door. The two deputies halted their car at the head of the lane and started walking the rest of the way to the house. "That does look like the stolen Ford out back," one remarked. "Yeah, and with young Ted Hastings missing this long... and this place on his route...
well, it's worth a check," said the other.
Just enough blood had cleared from Danny's eyes as he hit the front porch to see the two men coming up the drive. He waved at them, forgetting the gun in his hand. Guns appeared in their hands. They were shouting something at him. He continued running towards them. Anything, he thought, to get away from that crazy girl. He waved again. Danny never heard the shot or felt the bullet that killed him. Upstairs, Retha locked the attic door and hid the key. Quickly she pulled on a robe as her mind rushed over the story she would tell the police, who were pounding up the stairs.
Retha parted the drapes and stared down into the now-quiet front yard. At the end of the lane, the last of the three ambulances pulled out and sped away down the road. They hadn't even looked in the attic after Retha had assured them that only two of the killers were hiding out in the house.
"The kid or Steele probably killed Crow, before they even got here," the officer had said. "Wow, he was something else, that kid. Really blood-thirsty. Amazing, isn't it--two old pros like Steele and Crow being taken by a punk kid like Danny whatever-his-name was?" offered a second officer. Retha watched all but one of the remaining police cars pull out of the lane. Below, on the front porch, she could hear the last of the officers preparing to leave.
"She's some kind of woman, isn't she? I mean, to tackle that kid with nothing but a poker when he's got a gun and he'd already killed Ted Hastings and Steele?"
"Yeah, she's a brave girl. What about the stepmother?"
"Sad. Same... She's been like that for over a year, the Doc said. Nothing he can do for her. No need even to take her to a hospital."
"That's a shame."
"Yeah... Doc said she's alert in her head, but she'll never be able to walk or talk again." Retha watched them move off the porch and climb into their car. As they drove away, she turned and walked to the bed.
"Well, Beatrice," she said, her eyes glinting clearly and her mouth turning down into a strange smile, "here we are... just the two of us." She reached out and placed her hand on the woman's tit. She massaged it until the nipple became hard and rigid. Then she took it between her thumb and forefinger and squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed. She could see the pain reflected in the woman's eyes, even though it was impossible for her to cry out.
"With all the money that was in the briefcase, Beatrice, we should be comfortable together for a long, long time... probably years." Retha raised her head suddenly. Her nose twitched, and she looked back down into Beatrice's face.
"Yes," she said, smiling, "I must do that. Next week, I'll clean out the attic."