Futile Efforts (24 page)

A sheen of burning yellow blazed across his eyes, flickering white lights dappling the edges of his vision.
 
He heard something shatter and hoped it wasn't his skull.
 
He tried to stand and his knees gave out but he didn't hit the floor this time.

Their hands were on him, tugging and tossing him onto his back across the nurse's desk.
 
They got his pants down and Megan let loose with that giggle again.
 
It was really starting to piss him off.

Holder struggled to hike himself up but the nurse had some meat and power behind her and kept shoving at his shoulders, pinning him down.
 
He swung a fist, or tried to, but his hands were bound together with something.
 
Freddy's necktie.
 
Ain't this some shit.

Shards of glass covered the desk.
 
Must've been a paperweight.
 
Who the hell actually had enough free papers around that he needed a big globe of glass to hold them down?
 
He was suddenly filled with an intense dislike for Freddy.

He wanted to fight but it was too late, they'd yanked his pants off and gotten him up and were already toying with him.
 
Megan licked and let him hook along her top teeth.
 
It was a pleasant feeling until the nurse wrapped her hand around Holder and stroked way too hard, like pulling a fire alarm.
 
Oh Rosy, help me!
 
He'd already climaxed a half hour earlier and was still sensitive.
 
It hurt like a bastard at first.
 
He clenched his teeth and groaned, and Megan took over and slowed the pace, much more gentle.

Holder let out a moan of relief.
 
He almost said thank you.
 
She kneeled on the floor while the nurse crouched over him, laying across his waist, using her tongue to probe.
  
Now this was therapy.
 
No wonder no one ever got any better.
 
She started moving her mouth in circles, too quickly, everything too rough.
  
Freddy never had a chance, the poor fat bastard.

Megan moved around savagely, teasing, the kind of shit that made men burn down whorehouses.
 
He couldn't stand it any longer and shoved.
 
They both used their tongues covering every inch of him, working up his thighs now, across his belly.

The nurse finally mounted him, easing herself open with one hand while guiding him in with the other. He noticed a few spots on her chest that could've also been puncture scars.
 
Was he imagining things again?
 
Did the
Icepick
wander the halls just sticking the pick at everybody he came across?
 
Did all the patients wear his hideous work in their flesh?

Black hatred filled him and a part of him wanted to give in to the fury, release it, go hog wild, but he didn't have his old man's delight.
 
One man's pleasure could leave blood on the walls.
 
He twisted his hands in a way that tightened Freddy's tie around his wrists.
 
Some of the insane knew nothing of insanity, and the rest of us do.

He wanted to ask his father, Did you ever make it with two deranged inmates at the same time with a murdered porker laying twelve feet away in another room, with a killer possibly loose in the halls, stabbing folks in the night?…he had to wager against it.
 
A trace of pride filled him.
 
It was a fair bet but still not a guarantee.
 
Dad definitely had stories left to tell at the end that never got said.

Nick was nearby.
 
The nurse kept their movements slow, rocking lightly as he pushed harder.
 
She was wonderfully tight and gasped aloud as he found the rhythm and started enjoying how her chest bounced each time he moved.
 
He tried to focus on the marks but sweat stung his eyes.
 
Megan had herself poised over them, just observing now, elbows on the desk, her chin in her hands.
 
He'd seen a porno like this once, some boring piece of French crap.
 
A sudden bout of insecurity gave him a few doubts, but he slogged on, and soon the nurse began trembling.
 
She kept her gaze locked on Holder as she swayed above his body.

No wonder Freddy's clogged arteries had given out.
 
He'd eaten baby back ribs for lunch and his tie smelled of grease and barbecue sauce.
 
The nurse dropped, clung to him and drew her nails across his chest in the same spot until thin lines of blood oozed free. She let out a harsh "
ngg
" noise that actually made him feel pretty good, despite the strange lay.
 
She kept her eyes on him and so did Megan, both of them staring, deranged.
  
Almost enough to put him off his game, but not quite.

The nurse shuddered so hard that her knees cracked.
 
Did the
Icepick
make her feel that good when he was stabbing her, cutting her up?
 
Megan leaned over him and said, "Do it again for us, let me see you do it again."
 
Under normal circumstances it was the right kind of talk that would've set him on fire, but now it just brought him back to where he really was, staring down at his bound hands and seeing dead pigs in his mind.

Holder almost lost it for a second but the nurse wouldn't let him fade out.
 
She slapped herself down hard on his groin and kept up with those "
ngg
" sounds, her face darkening as she flushed.

He stiffened and bucked, trying to ride the wave--that tickle doing good things to him in the right place.
 
When she was satisfied that she'd finished him off completely, the nurse slowly moved away.

 
"You are two very fucked up chicks, you know that?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, "we do.
 
But we don't mind.
 
Do you?"

There was no point in trying to figure any of it out.
 
He held his wrists out and Megan carefully unknotted the necktie.

Holder wandered around the place until he finally found a phone and called the police.
 
He left then and made his way back across the lawns and the woods to his father's grave.

It was evening but the bright moon squatted three-quarters full.

Dad down there smirking, pleased with his boy.

The old man would've told him to have fun, and Holder looked forward to visiting again in a few nights.
 
He still had Freddy's keys.
 
He'd make copies and leave the originals somewhere on the property, near the front doors.
 
Cutbacks, everything was cutbacks, and the state wouldn't want to pay to change all the locks.
 
He'd find the
Icepick
killer if he was hiding in the hospital.
 
Holder would walk the halls and hunt his prey, whether it was actually there or not.
 
Sometimes you couldn't go wrong, and sometimes you could.

You must.
 
You had to be ready for just about anything.

He needed to have one last drink with his old man.
 
Holder uncapped the whiskey, took a long pull, and poured the rest into the dirt.
 
It vanished immediately and he took the empty bottle with him as he staggered into the darkness, grinning so wide that his teeth lit the way.

By Brian Keene

T
om Piccirilli's words are like bullets. Sometimes he fires a warning shot. Other times, he unloads a full magazine. I've often thought that his muse must be a
Kimber
1911, with a box of
CorBon
ammo on the side.

Imagine him, sitting there at the computer. Loading the gun, round by round. Sliding the magazine into place with a satisfying click. Thumbing off the safety. And then, with a squeeze of the trigger, he begins to type.

At point blank range.

 
He's gunning for you. These words have your name on them.

 
BAM. There's one in your brain.

 
BAM. One in your heart.

 
BAM
BAM
. Two in the eyes...

–Brian Keene, author of
THE RISING
and
TERMINAL

H
urricane Thomas sat about forty miles off the coast, crouched out there with immense patience and resolve, waiting like a well trained pet ready to play but unwilling to move until given the right word.

Over the last two hours the horizon had begun to shift from azure to a thinly banded crimson-purple, the skies darkening to an array of intense, moody color. The darkness hadn't blown in yet but hovered at a distance, eager to descend. Briar nodded to it, wagged his chin in that direction, calling the storm closer.

Second week of October, beginning of the off-season, and the island was already catching the brunt of an untimely freeze. The tourists did nothing but bitch about their rotten vacations, and the Manhattan traffic had turned south to Atlantic City, Charlottesville, and on down to Lauderdale.

Il Mare
Sanguinante
lay like a shipwrecked schooner on the east end of Fire Island. The
Ganooch
was set up just off Sailor's Haven, far enough from the predominately gay community of Cherry Grove to keep his skin on, but still close enough to allow his homophobia to thrive. The town had slowly transformed over the past few decades from weather-whipped crumbling shacks and storefronts to quaint little summer shops, boutiques, and restaurants.

The breeze kicked up billows of dust, and tendrils of sand swirled across the drive. The
Mare
's parking lot was dappled with salt-encrusted cars: family vans, Chevy Blazers, S-10 trucks, and a couple of Lincoln Continentals for the old guys still trying to hold on to some kind of class.
 
But really, considering all the swag around, nobody driving anything with any real flash to it.

Briar stepped into
Ganooch's
place and a burst of wind broke across his back as if the world were giving him an extra push.

"Hell, we're closed!" Socco Merullo shouted from the bar, leaning against the cash register and giving Briar the full death-stare. It didn't take much to set a maniac off. His voice was already full of resentment and murder.
 
"Private party tonight!"

Briar scanned the room and saw three couples having drinks, a family with four kids under ten all sharing a pizza in front of the bay windows, the clouds over the rising breakers beginning to blacken.

Socco sneered, but Briar didn't get paranoid. He realized he was being singled out because he was alone, and Socco didn't want to serve him at the bar because he didn't really know how to work the cash register. The other men sipping beer were all running tabs that would be settled from their earnings as they watched the 49ers getting their asses handed to them by the Broncos.

The
Ganooch
and his crew sat at a table past the far end of the bar, picking at plates of calamari and antipasto, drinking home-pressed wine.
 
He thought he was cute calling the pub
Il Mare
Sanguinante
—the bloody sea—bearing in mind how many bodies he personally dropped out beyond the reef, where his sins would be hidden in the deep blue.

Ernesto "Popgun" Fusilli, who never used anything bigger than a .22, remained at
Ganooch's
right hand, pressing a thin slice of Genoa salami between his fish lips. He liked to get up close to a guy and put two in his face—pop, pop—then walk off before the poor bastard even had time to hit the ground.

Briar's dad used to tell him about this place. Twenty-five, thirty years back it was men only, an old country Sicilian tap house reeking of olive oil, where the wiseguys would party with whores and do a little gambling in the back. They still did. The Feds had trouble bugging the spot because of the noise from the tide and shifting sand. In the mid-80s, the
Ganooch
turned it into a strip club but the Fire Island Ladies Coalition gave him such hell that he had to convert again, make it a family restaurant with mechanical mice playing guitars, lots of video games, balloons, while he ran heroin out the back door. Now it was a local tavern, a touch less upscale than neighboring bistros and cafes but still elegant enough.

"Missed the last ferry back," Briar said.