Last Rites (12 page)

The rest of the kitchen looked adequate, if cramped. Not much counter space, but she’d learn to make stuff. How hard could it be? Might be fun, playing house with Will for a change. My God—they probably had food here you didn’t have to catch yourself, stuff in cans and jars and frozen from last summer. Yes, this could be nice.

Rachel had gone all the way around and emerged in the living room from the other side. The tramp was standing closer to Will than she needed to, showing him the numbers and a generous view of cleavage. He was still acting all chaste and nervous. He immediately noticed Rachel and stepped back from the temptress.

“Rach, this place is a little less than the others,” he said. It seemed to be all he thought of, and this fact appeared to have made him happier than before. “We could be out in about a month.”

Rachel hid her disappointment. “That’s great,” she said, flashing a smile at him and ignoring the bitch. “If this is the one you want, honey, it’ll be great.” He looked so relieved, so much more relaxed than before, that she couldn’t help but respond to his happiness. If it made him feel better to stay less time, that was fine. She’d wheedle a few more days out of him, probably, and everyone would have what they wanted. You had to compromise.

“I’m glad you found something to fit your needs,” Julia said with that annoying hair-tuck again. “Normally, you’d have to wait for the paperwork, but given your circumstances, I’m sure you can stay here tonight and I’ll come by with all the paperwork tomorrow.” Slut even dared a pat on Will’s shoulder at that point. You had to give her points for being brazen. “You should carry her across the threshold. That’d be so cute.”

Her? Who was that? The cat’s mother? A normal woman who wanted to be friendly would’ve addressed it to Rachel, like, “Oh, Rachel, Will should carry you!” But of course, the bitch didn’t.

Will didn’t pick up on the slight, nor did he know to what she was referring. He looked around, confused.

“You know, it’s a tradition,” Julia said. “When a couple moves in—the man carries the woman in the front door. I know when I get married I’d love for my husband to do that. It’s so romantic.”

“Well, maybe later,” Rachel said as she moved between them and steered the short-skirted annoyance toward the door. “Thank you so much for helping us find this place.”

Julia took the implication. She was too sweet and cloying by half, but Rachel saw she could take a hint. Rachel also figured there wasn’t much to be gained by hanging around, even if Will had the same jungle-boy appeal to her that Rachel had toward the men of the town. She let Rachel herd her out the door, smiling and promising to be back tomorrow.

“Whew!” Rachel said when they were alone. She walked over and pulled the curtains closed over the big living room window that faced toward the street. “Our own place! Isn’t that weird?”

“Yeah,” Will said, still looking around in something of a daze.

Rachel put her arms around his neck. God, his muscles were all knotted up. “But it’s nice, too, don’t you think? Comfy. We can relax a little. Things have been hard. We need a break.”

Will finally seemed to ease a little, as he let his hands rest on her hips. “Yeah. That’ll be nice. I’m so glad you’re better. I love you.”

“I love you too.” Rachel pulled him down, touching the tip of her nose to his, rubbing it back and forth and giggling. When he laughed a little in return, she knew he was out of his funk enough for her to continue. She tilted her head to kiss his chin and the corner of his mouth. “We haven’t done it in forever,” she whispered. “And we finally have some privacy, not like on the boat. Come on, let’s just have some fun.”

His lips finally found hers for a full, deep kiss, as his hands went around to squeeze her butt and pull her close. God—one kiss and he was already so hard? Maybe his body had responded to that slut Julia, even if his mind were on other things. Or maybe Rachel just needed to do it to him extra good today, after such a long hiatus—hump any bothersome thoughts right out of his head, please his body the way she’d been wanting to have hers satisfied for so long. Her insides felt good for the first time in ages—warm and strong, their very neediness a source of so much overwhelming power. Rachel kissed him back more hungrily, her own arousal exploding at the idea that he needed to take her just as urgently as she longed to draw him in and possess him.

Truman had been at the Dead End a few days now. Doctor Jack had been too busy with all his various undead amusements to bother much with him. At least he’d put Truman in a cage in one of the tents, so he didn’t have to stand outside, exposed and alone. Truman’s tent seemed to have some carnival or freak show theme. Next to his cage, the Great Lardo was chained—an enormous, fat dead man with wild grey hair and beard, dull eyes, and a mouth that always hung open. His nose and one cheek were torn off; his ears looked crooked, too. He was huge, not just in girth but height as well. They’d dressed him in overalls, with a giant belt around his waist; affixed to the buckle was a big metal medallion, the size of a serving platter. Truman thought he looked intimidating for about thirty seconds, before his sad demeanor made the poor man seem merely pathetic.

The Great Lardo was one of the two big attractions in the tent. Twice a night, with an extra show on weekend afternoons, three men would haul the unfortunate corpse to the middle of the tent and hold him there; two held the chains attached to his neck collar, while the third wielded a whip with great fanfare and noise. It was hardly necessary for controlling the dead man, who was completely docile. But the crowd loved it, and the Great Lardo knew to put on some show of hostility and aggression when the leather was cracked in front of his ruined face.

As they tormented him, Doctor Jack would wheel out a small cannon and train it on the growling pile of flesh. With a slack, irregular drumroll from another dead man—this one dressed in a marching band uniform—Doctor Jack would make a show of loading and aiming the weapon. A scantily-attired female assistant would quickly put aside her tray for selling peanuts and popcorn to the crowd, so she could come out and plead with him to fire the cannon and save the city from the monster.

“Oh no!” she’d squeal. “He’s sure to break free from those chains and kill us all! He’s so big he could probably eat everyone! Help!”

Doctor Jack would turn aside and smirk to the crowd, “I know one person in here I’d like to eat!” The men in the crowd would howl with laughter at that; some of the women would twitter more politely, while those who’d brought children might cast an embarrassed glance at them.

That was the penultimate signal for the act. The last was Doctor Jack shouting, “Step aside, woman! Those chains can’t hold much longer!”

That was the sign for the assistants to drop the chains, as Doctor Jack lit the cannon’s fuse. The crowd would gasp at the report, which was painfully loud in the enclosed space. The men had practiced their work enough that the projectile always hit its tormented target right on the metal disk at his waist; it gave a dull clunk as the impact sent the large man flying through the air. He’d land with a thud and the crowd would break out into wild laughter at his plight. Then the two assistants grabbed the chains, as the third man cracked the whip over and over to the crowd’s applause. The people would shuffle out at that point, though photos were available with the Great Lardo for an extra fee. Truman almost imagined that the dead man looked happy at that point, with people paying him attention without trying to hurt him. Truman hated the smell of gunpowder after the show.

The tent’s other big show was put on by Ravishing Ramona, Truman’s neighbor on the opposite side of his cage. Her name said it all, so long as you made allowances for her being dead. She was tall and slender, with long, wavy hair that had remained remarkably dark, even after all these years. Truman didn’t think she dyed it, as he’d watched her getting ready and had never seen her use anything on her hair but a brush. Against her pale skin the black mane was captivating, as was the red lipstick she put on. There wasn’t a mark on her lean, sinuous body—not that Truman had ever seen, and most of her flesh was exposed for her act.

Ramona only had to do one late show each night, after the Great Lardo had been slammed into the ground for the second or third time of the evening. Her shows were only attended by men, the lights turned down low, and the whole spectacle accompanied by loud music with a driving, pulsing beat. Ramona would slink seductively out to the middle, her handler holding the chain slack and attaching it to the tent support there. As Ramona swayed to the music, the assistant brought out a bucket and laid it on the ground next to the woman. Ramona took her time peeling off two elbow-length gloves and a silver, micro miniskirt. She’d then roll down her gold, sequined top to expose her breasts, which were still perfectly shaped. The rose pink nipples provided the same mesmerizing contrast as her lips and hair. She always kept her midsection covered—Truman thought that was probably where the wounds that had killed her were hidden. When she revealed her buttocks and crotch, and then again when she uncovered her breasts, the crowd briefly erupted in shouts and applause, then settled back down to a rapt silence. That first night in the tent, even Truman couldn’t take his gaze away from her, not knowing what she’d do next, and whether he’d find it to be hideous or erotic. He looked away for a moment when he thought it might be both - but only for a moment.

The dead woman reached into the bucket and brought out a gold-colored chain. It was covered in some oily liquid that dribbled off it on to her hand and arm. She kept pulling it out until she got to the end of it, where a metal orb a little bigger than a golf ball was attached. She lewdly mouthed it and rolled it around between her legs before the final segment began. Leaning her head back, she swallowed the ball, letting the chain trail down her throat after it. For a long time she kept feeding the chain into her mouth. Truman looked at the crowd. They couldn’t make a movement or sound they were so entranced by the motions of her body. She paused, opening her mouth wider and reaching one hand down between her legs as she bent her knees. Finally, with a gasp she pulled the ball free of her vagina and showed it to the crowd, which roared its appreciation. She attached both ends of the ball and chain to the tent support, so she could rock back and forth on the chain, dragging it in and out of her body at both ends and loudly simulating masturbation for the crowd, which had again sunk into silence, to better and more fully revel in the woman’s degradation.

Truman had finally been able to tear himself away from the scene at that point, though he couldn’t block out the sounds she made. The chain in her throat made her choke and gag as she moaned, but that seemed to excite the crowd more. Ramona crescendoed from groans and sighs to finish with frenzied screams of feigned pleasure. Truman heard applause at that point, and looked up to see Ramona—the chain now gone, thank God—gathering up her clothes and blowing kisses to the retreating crowd. Like the Great Lardo when he had posed with children, Ramona looked almost happy, or even slightly patronizing, toward the living men.

That night, in the dark, after all the living people had left, Truman heard her moving around; the chain attached to her ankle rattled as she came closer to the wire and metal barrier that enclosed Truman. “What’s your name?” she asked in a whisper. Her voice matched the rest of her—beautiful, thin, mysterious, though far less forceful and daunting than her body.

She’d spoken? Truman moved closer to where she was standing so he could see her better in the shadows of the tent. Some light seeped through the flaps, as did the sounds of living people—laughter, music, voices. After her act, she’d wrapped herself in a long, faded winter coat. It was made of some kind of fake, black fur, and although it was tattered and matted, it still gave her an exotic but much more demure look, with her long, black hair framing her thin face. With the color of her hair and the coat, Truman would barely have been able to see her in the semi-darkness, were it not for her pale skin. Her brown eyes were nearly as clear as Lucy’s single blue one.

“You speak?” Truman said.

“Yes. So does Lou.”

“Lou?”

She pointed over Truman’s shoulder. “The other guy. The one they shoot at. He doesn’t much, though. But when he wants to he can. We don’t talk in front of the bosses.”

“All right.”

“So—what’s your name?”

“Truman.”

She repeated the name. It sounded nicer when she said it. She’d wiped off the lipstick and her mouth looked much more delicate now. “You can call me Ramona. It’s a nice name they gave me. They gave poor Lou a stupid name, so I called him Lou instead and he liked it.”

Truman nodded. “How can you do that?” he asked after a moment.

“Do what?”

“What they make you do. That show you put on for them.”

“Oh. I think some stuff is missing inside, so the ball just goes through. I still have to work at it, but it’s not too hard.”

“No, I meant how can you do that at all? Don’t you mind doing it?”

“Mind it?” She might’ve shrugged under the oversized coat, or she might’ve just been shifting her weight. “Sure. But they like it and it keeps them from shooting me. And it’s comfortable enough here the rest of the time.”

Truman didn’t know what to say to that. They just stared at one another for a moment before she added, “I’m sorry if you don’t like it.”

“No, that’s not the point. I just feel sorry for you.”