Body Rides (78 page)

‘Is that possible?’

‘Who knows? This ain’t exactly ever happened before. Not that
I
know of, anyhow.’

‘Just be really careful, okay? And don’t stay away for long.’

They parted. As Marta rubbed the tears from her eyes, Sue took a few steps away. She sat down on the concrete, then stretched out on her back. Her skirt was wide open where the Creeper had split it up the middle. She drew its edges together and tucked them between her thighs. ‘Don’t go in till I get back,’ she said.

‘You can count on that. But hurry. Please. I don’t like this much.’

‘This time, try and keep the perverts off my body.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘
Adios
,’ Sue said. She turned her head, raised her right arm slightly, and kissed the bracelet. Immediately, her arm flopped onto the concrete.

‘Hurry back,’ Marta whispered.

Sue didn’t bother with the open door. After rising out of her body, she stayed outside the house and sped along the back wall. In what seemed like half a second, she banked hard to the left and soared through the plate-glass door of the master bedroom.

She slipped through the glass as if nothing was there. As she rushed over the bed, she saw a strip of light at the bottom of the bathroom door.

How come it’s shut?

She slowed down.

Had Glitt shut the bathroom door while she’d been in Vince? She didn’t think so. Of course, the doorway had been out of sight the whole time. It couldn’t be seen, at all, from Vince’s position inside the tub.

Glitt
had
disappeared in that direction a time or two.

Don’t worry about it, just go on in and make sure he’s there
.

As she glided closer to the door, however, Sue had an urge to turn away.

She had a pretty good idea of what Vince would look like; she could live without seeing that. And the last thing she ever wanted to do was see Glitt again.

She wished she’d never set eyes on him.

Bad enough that Glitt looked like such a spook, but now she knew a few things about his tastes in perversion. Until a while ago, she wouldn’t have believed that a person could
think
of such things, much less
do
them to anyone.

Now she knew better.

On the other side of this door . . .

She hovered in front of it, her dread growing.

Do it! Ya can’t chicken out!

Moaning, she glided through the door. On the other side, the bathroom was brightly lighted. Glitt and Vince were out of sight; she shouldn’t be able to see them from here – not if they were still in the tub.

Here goes
. . .

She headed for the tub. Along the way, she passed over a few
small puddles of blood, Vince’s shoes, his warmup suit and his jockstrap.

Then she turned her eyes to the mirror over the sink.

She saw no trace of herself.

Invisible girl
. . .

But suddenly glimpsed the reflection of a raw red shape, arms stretched out as if it wanted to hug her. She jerked her eyes away from the mirror, but not nearly fast enough. In the moment before looking away, she saw that the thing had a crusty, hairless scalp. Pits where its eyes should be. A screwdriver handle for a nose. Teeth huge and white because there were no lips.

And in that moment, she also saw nobody else.

Where’s Glitt?

Not trusting the mirror, not
wanting
to believe what it showed, Sue glided toward the tub. She fixed her gaze on the floor to avoid seeing Vince again.

A bloody towel on the floor near the tub.

Down at the bottom of the tub, Vince’s bare feet. Some fleshy pieces of him, some meaty parts of him, and lots and lots of blood.

Nobody’s feet except his.

Glitt was not in the tub.

Sue found her gaze sneaking over to Vince, climbing his shiny red ankles and shins.

Don’t! Don’t look! Gotta find Glitt. No tellin where the dirty
. . .

She veered away from Vince’s remains. Rushing through the wall above the toilet, she suddenly found herself in the dark garage. There, she swung around and plunged back into the house. She was in the bedroom again.

No Glitt here.

She swerved through the doorway. The corridor ahead of her was long and dark.

No sign of Glitt.

He’s gotta be down there. But how come he quit messin with Vince?

At the time Sue had fled from Vince, she’d expected Glitt to continue working on him for another half-hour, at least. Maybe even for an hour or two.

Havin himself a fine ol’ time. How come he quit?

Hope he don’t know we’re here
.

Maybe it’s just ’cause Vince up and died on him. That’d take most of the fun out of it, Vince bein dead
.

Maybe, or maybe not
.

Sue made a quick detour through the guest bathroom, then continued down the hallway toward the den.

Anyhow, Vince didn’t die on him. Glitt polished him off, stuck that screwdriver in his nose
.

How come? Why’d he do that when he was havin himself such a grand time?

He knows we’re here
.

Does not. How could he?

Don’t matter. Just find him
.

In the grayness of the moonlit den, Sue saw the revolver on the carpet where Vince had dropped it.

But no Glitt.

She wondered if he might be hiding behind the bar, the way Vince had done.

Not Glitt
.

So she didn’t waste time checking there. Instead, she returned to the hallway and drifted on into the living room. It was somewhat darker than the den. The furniture made black clumps in the gloom.

She saw no Glitt.

Marta looked as if she hadn’t moved at all from her position just outside the glass door. Her silhouette was black against the pale, moonlit drapes.

If he ain’t in the kitchen, I’d better see if I can find his car. Can’t let him
. . .

Marta’s right arm came away from her side.

Her pistol looked like a knife.

That’s kinda
. . .

Reaching high, Marta used the point of the knife to sweep the curtain out of her way.

Huh?

That ain’t Marta!

Sue hurled herself through the living room, aiming at the back of the dark figure, and slammed into Glitt as he took a stealthy step over the threshold of the sliding door.

He was almost within reach of Marta. Two or three more steps . . .

‘
Turn around!
’ Sue shouted at her.

But she heard the warning only inside her own mind.

The fingers of Glitt’s right hand ached from their fierce grip on his knife.

‘
Marta! He’s right behind you! Turn around! Shoot him!
’

Glitt was breathless, his heart thudding fast, his body oily with sweat, his stiff penis pushing against the front of his leather pants.

His mind rambled.

Oh, this is my night, oh yes. Whoever she is, she’s mine. All mine. Stick her in the back? Yeah, yeah. That’ll take the starch out of her. Start with a quick one in the back, then turn her around and go for the goodies
.

Hope she’s not a fucking dog
.

‘
MARTA!
’

Marta waited, her back to the open door, her eyes on Sue’s body.

Can’t be very comfortable, lying on the concrete like that
.

Come on, Sue. Get back here. What’s taking so long?

Had something gone wrong?

Maybe she went into Glitt and found Neal.

God, I hope not. It’d be better if he never got out of his own body, than
. . .

‘LESLIE GLITT!’ Sue didn’t sit up, didn’t open her eyes, just suddenly yelled it at the sky in such a loud, rough voice that Marta, stunned, could hardly believe it had come from Sue. ‘POLICE! DROP THE KNIFE, GLITT! STEP AWAY FROM THE WOMAN!’

Marta whirled around, bringing the pistol up from her side.

She didn’t really expect to find someone behind her.

But she was still in the midst of her turn when she glimpsed a black shape so close to her that it might have been her own shadow.

She squealed with fright.

The knife struck.

She fired.

In the next moment, Glitt was staggering backward as the pistol tumbled toward the concrete and Marta flung her right hand high.

Black against the moonlit night, her fingers were hooked like claws. A hunting knife stuck out of the back of her hand.

She cried out, ‘Shit!’

Glitt had fallen onto his back. He was starting to push himself up.

Marta swung her hand down. She only meant to bring the knife close to her body so she could grab it with her other hand. But she didn’t pay attention and slapped it against her belly. The knife point, jutting from her palm, poked through her shirt and stabbed her.

She yelped. Her hand jumped away from her stomach. Then she clutched the knife with her left hand and jerked the blade out.

Knife clutched in both hands, she raised it overhead and dived at Glitt. She landed on him, her face in his belly, and pounded the blade into the middle of his chest.

He grunted.

‘Marta!’ Sue blurted. ‘Get off him! I got the gun.’

Leaving the knife in his chest, Marta pushed herself off Glitt and scurried backward away from his legs.

He lay sprawled on the concrete. He didn’t move.

Sue didn’t fire. She stood near his feet, her legs apart, her knees bent, her right arm straight out but angled downward, pointing the pistol at him.

‘You’d better do it,’ Marta said.

Sue nodded, but didn’t shoot.

Marta got up and stood beside her. She felt blood spilling down her hand, heard it splashing on the concrete.

Sue glanced at her. ‘Y’all right?’

‘He stabbed me in the hand.’

‘Looks like ya stabbed
him
in the heart.’

‘Shot him, too. Doesn’t mean he’s dead.’ Keeping her eyes on Glitt, she jerked open her shirt. There were quick, soft popping sounds as several buttons gave way. She pulled the shirt off, wrapped it quickly around her right hand, and clenched her fist to hold it in place. ‘We’d better make sure he’s dead and then get out of here. Somebody might’ve called the cops.’

‘Call ’em for sure if I go ahead and pump him full of holes.’

‘We’ll be gone.’

‘We don’t gotta bother if he’s already dead.’

‘This is Rasputin, remember?’

‘I know. I know, all right. But that don’t mean we gotta shoot him. There’s quiet stuff we can do.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like cut his head off.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘What’s he gonna do without his head? If he
did
live through it, which ain’t real likely, he’d be blind as a bat.’

Marta found herself smiling. She couldn’t
believe
she was smiling at a time like this. She looked at Sue and shook her head. ‘You’re nuts.’

‘Got a better idea?’

‘What would we use, the knife?’

‘How about an axe? I seen one in the garage.’

‘No good,’ Marta said. ‘We can’t split up. And if we both go, we’d have to leave him. He might pull a disappearing act.’

‘Reckon we’ll just have to use the knife.’

‘If we don’t do something quick, the cops are going to show up and bust us.’

‘Yeah. They’ll run
you
in for indecent exposure.’

‘They’ll run us
both
in. God only knows what they might charge us with. And they’ll probably end up searching my apartment. When they do that, they’ll find the money. We’ll have a shitload of explaining to do. Plus, they won’t let us keep it.’

‘They won’t?’