The Woman on the Beast Read online

  People were dying like flies all around him and so his closest living neighbor was three houses down. Being too close to people was dangerous, but being too far from them was also suspicious. If there were too things rich white assholes didn’t care about, it was old people and somebody else’s fat kid. He had layers of invisibility to protect him.

  Using the local library he checked the stats on the house to find out it had been vacant for three years. Betty Mae McAllister had lived there all her life. It was auctioned at the tax sale for $300 and either no one noticed or no one wanted to machete through Kudzu. Either way, he was safe there until their Historical Victorian Restoration project began, which he had a feeling never would.

  He’d stolen all sorts of things from people at the airport on the way home, so he had everything he needed but internet. Trying to get cable internet was too risky, and so he settled for the much slower satellite internet provided by a national satellite company. He signed up using Betty’s information and no one bothered to notice that according to her birth date she was 101. He said he was setting it up for him and his elderly grandmother. It took a lot of digging in the attic but he managed to dig up her birthday and social security number. Betty had an impeccable score, and that was all it took to get approved for service. Companies really had no clue who was dead or alive. That’s why there was no safer disguise than Betty. The dude who put the satellite up lived three cities away and could have cared less about why a freckle-faced fat kid living alone was putting up a satellite in a Kudzu cave. Why he was so fat but never ate anything had always been a mystery. Destiny said it was because he was born fat.

  Once he had his headquarters set up, it was finally time to have a look at the very intriguing Skeleton Key. He did not want to power up the laptop Destiny had stolen in case it was traceable. Instead he pulled out the Dell he’d swiped at the airport coffee shop when the idiot college kid put it in his North Face book bag and left it sitting on the table to go get another cup of coffee. Inside was a wallet and $200 dollars.

  Score. Atticus had known at one glance he was a rich kid. For some reason rich boys liked to grow their hair out over their eyes like Justin Bieber, and then flip it constantly to look cool. It was a tell-tale sign.

  He powered it up to find it password protected. He knew how to reset it, but then he’d have to re-install windows and that would be a painfully slow last resort.

  Instead he plugged the external device into the USB port and wasn’t surprised to see the password screen fall like a domino and allow him immediate access to the desktop screen.

  Awesome.

  A very strange looking control panel then popped up labeled Skeleton Key Advanced Control Panel. Before reading the manual, he was curious to see if he how much he could understand on his own.

  It seemed the Skeleton Key provided him the following highly intriguing options.

  Scan and access all networks worldwide and all connected databases.

  Target networks, databases, or individuals with key words using the search engine.

  Group and organize networks and connected databases for targeted access to similar groups.

  Hmmmm…. Like banks.

  Scramble databases.

  Scramble network connections.

  Disable networks.

  Delete databases.

  Invisibly transfer information between databases.

  View or alter communications within networks or between individuals.

  View information transfers within one database and invisibly alter them.

  View information transfers between multiple databases and invisibly access to make changes.

  Target individuals and access email and GPS location using the search engine.

  Target and alter communications between organizations.

  Alter or delete any communications between targeted individuals.

  Intrigued, Atticus opened the manual to ensure he understood correctly. It appeared to Atticus that the firewall designer intentionally left hidden loopholes encrypted in their firewalls in case they wanted personal access to the information they were in charge of protecting.

  Ha! Now he was the Ghost in the Darkness.

  He had a feeling that Skeleton Key could open any computer in the world from a bank CEO’s to the President’s.

  It made perfect sense. The person in charge of protecting the top secret information would be the one to easily and invisibly access it and make changes by leaving secret loopholes like tunnel entrances.

  You horny back-stabbing little hacker nerd. Thank you.

  Smart enough to be in charge of the world’s information, yet dumb enough be lured away by a whore for a cheap fuck.

  Well she fucked him alright and she fucked him good.

  Now, through him, she really was going to fuck the whole world.

  BICYCLE BONER

  Now that he had the keys to the kingdom and a break from babysitting Destiny, he felt relaxed and calm. He wasn’t in a hurry, and he felt a well-deserved break was long overdue. After all, they had worked hard, and it was time for a little play.

  He knew driving the stolen car was dangerous, but he took one last risk by driving it to the Walmart in Cooper City, a much larger city twenty miles north.

  It was worth the extra miles, since someone recognizing him in Applewood would have been considerably more dangerous.

  He used the $200 to buy a gigantic pair of corny plastic nerd glasses, a generic polo shirt, a baseball cap, a bag of beef jerky, a basic tool kit, and a cheap bicycle. No one in Sterling Heights would ever know a ghetto kid from Applewood, but a disguise could never hurt, especially considering his bright red hair, or as Madame Cleo had said, his flaming locks that spoke of knowledge and Wizardry.

  He felt a sense of relief when he pulled the black car back into the metal garage. The metal would block signals from any tracking devices he had missed, and he wasn’t stupid enough to take such a risk again.

  The car was now only for serious emergencies.

  He had assembled his cheap blue bicycle in no time.

  Ah …. What a breeze!

  He floated by the old people hobbling in and out of their old houses behind their walkers and probably wishing they were able to mow their ten-foot high lawns.

  He even crossed the Sterling Heights Bridge and rode through Fancy Land. With his polo shirt, nerd glasses, and baseball cap, he now looked like somebody’s fat dorky rich kid. His flaming red hair was safely hidden under the cap which made him more invisible than ever, or so he thought.

  “Hey! Hey you,” a lady shouted from her mailbox.

  Shit.

  He stopped. It would have been too suspicious to keep riding.

  “I’ve never seen you around before. You new to the neighborhood?”

  Uh oh … Maybe he should have sprung for a name brand shirt instead of the bicycle.

  “I live in the historical district with my grandma. I’m taking care of her.”

  “Young man, that is the best thing I’ve heard all day. Nobody cares about their elders anymore, and that’s so sad, because it’ll be us one day, too.”

  She wasn’t that pretty, but there was something striking about her. She had a big goofy smile and hazel eyes that twinkled with little yellow stars. Her frizzy mousy-brown hair made a pathetic and disheveled pony tail that made her seem approachable. She was down-to-earth.

  “I’m Pamela.”

  “Justin.”

  “I need to get out and ride my bike like you. My husband bought me a bike for Christmas and I haven’t gotten on it once. Just not motivated.”

  “Go grab it and come on.”

  Atticus wasn’t normally the social type, but for some reason she made him feel instantly at ease.

  She laughed.

  “What the Hell! Why not?”

  She lifted her garage door only to be knocked onto her back by an avalanche of baby strollers, broken furniture, and big glass vase that broke right over her frizzy head.
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br />   “Are you O.K.?”

  It hurt just watching it.

  “Oh I’m fine,” she said as the big bloody gash on her forehead dripped blood down her face.

  She didn’t notice.

  She kept rummaging through random junk in search of the bike as the tower of random items continued to crack over her over the skull.

  “You want me to help?”

  “Nope. I got it.”

  She rode out triumphantly with large bloody scratches all over her face.

  “Let’s go, kid!”

  “You know you have blood pouring down your face, right?”

  “Eh, the wind will dry it up.”

  He laughed. What a nut.

  They were a sight to see riding down the streets of Sterling Heights, and Atticus had a feeling she didn’t fit in with the other moms. She seemed more … like a Democrat.

  After five minutes Pamela was breathing so heavy she couldn’t talk.

  “Must go back,” she choked out.

  She looked like total shit, but still Atticus felt a crush coming on.

  Poor Pamela finally had to dismount and walk the bike back, and since Atticus had a phantom boner for some reason, he was happy to walk with her. He would never understand why men’s bikes were made with a giant metal ball-busting bar one inch below the crotch. Bikes and boners were catastrophic when combined, and every time he stopped too quickly it was like a swift kick in the nuts.

  “You don’t have to wait for me, kid.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  It was a slow and silent walk back as Pamela was too out of breath for chit chat and Atticus was painfully limping from bicycle boner abuse.

  When they finally reached her driveway, she plopped the bike down in the middle of her driveway and lit up a cigarette she pulled out of her bra.

  “You smoke?”

  He was thirteen. She was the only adult who’d ever asked him that question.

  “I’m good. I gotta get back home or my grandma will be worried if I’m not home by dark. But it was nice meeting you, Ms. Pamela.”

  “Please, call me Pam.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you around, Pam.”

  “Yeah, sure kid. It was nice meeting you, too.”

  As he rode away he couldn’t get her off his mind. How could a chick that homely be so instantly arousing?

  Maybe after living with Destiny his whole life, meeting a woman who could complete a sentence flat out blew his mind.

  When his phantom boner finally subsided, he hopped back on and toughed it out for the half mile up-hill journey home. He could hear the voices of women drifting over the fences.

  He assumed they were discussing frivolous issues such as an upcoming Tupperware party or arguing over the best smelling laundry detergent.

  It was only when he stopped mid-hill to take a breath that he realized their topic of conversation was surprisingly more insidious.

  “Did you see her?”

  “Who?”

  “Pam. She was riding bikes with some ugly fat kid.”

  The other voice cackled like a hen.

  “That’s probably the best she can do.”

  Both voices laughed.

  “She does have a thing for ugly redheaded guys.”

  “Her frizzy afro wasn’t even moving in the wind, just like a nigger’s.”

  What the Hell?

  “You know she had the nerve to light up a cigarette at the neighborhood pool?”

  “She IS from Applewood.”

  “Well that explains the hair. She probably does have a little nigger in her.”

  The hens cackled again.

  “My husband would leave me in a heartbeat if I let myself go like that. I mean, her muffin top was hanging over her jeans like an inner tube. And that kid? Talk about falling from the ugly tree and hitting every branch. People like that make me wish I was blind. He must their long lost kid.”

  Cackle, cackle, cackle.

  Now Atticus came to a full stop, parked the bike and rode up to the fence to make sure he was hearing correctly.

  “Oh Sarah Beth stop it. You are so WRONG for that.”

  Sarah Beth.

  “Ugh! I gotta go grocery shopping. I’ll call you when I get back if you wanna come back over for a Margarita.”

  Atticus quickly turned down a side street and watched from afar as white witch number one flew off on her broomstick.

  He casually rode back by to notice Sarah Beth haphazardly tossing her cell phone on top of her car as she fumbled in her purse for her keys.

  He’d seen his mother put her phone on top of the car a million times and she always drove off as it smashed into the pavement.

  Women.

  “Dammit! I left the keys in the house!”

  As the door shut behind her he hopped off his bike and snatched up the phone.

  He looked around suspiciously as he drove off but he didn’t see a single soul. Everyone was too busy running their mouths behind closed doors apparently.

  With an irritable sigh she pulled off just like Destiny, completely forgetting her precious phone. He knew it wouldn’t be long before she discovered it missing and had to take a Xanax.

  Shit! Now I really gotta haul ass.

  Losing her phone was the worst tragedy that could happen to a woman like that. He would have bet his life she had a GPS app for it.

  It’s like taking candy from a baby – a racist asshole baby.

  His Kudzu-covered house was the last on the street before a sprawling and convenient patch of woods.

  He left his bike in the garage, grabbed a wrench from his tool kit, pulled off his tube sock and balled it up in his fist. He noticed an old dusty rope lying on the garage floor and quickly draped it loosely around his neck.

  The razor blade he used to sever Destiny’s ear stayed in his pocket at all times, sharpened and covered. Now he sandwiched it in his teeth the way he always did.

  But his mouth still wasn’t as sharp as Sarah Beth’s.

  He trudged a path deep into the overgrown-wooded area farther and farther. He didn’t want to be too close to his house.

  It was getting dark now, and the woods were even darker.

  It may have been twenty minutes; it may have been thirty, but just as he suspected, a dumbass with a flashlight came tumbling through the woods cussing like a sailor.

  She was looking at her ipad in disbelief.

  “WHAT THE HELL? HOW FUCKING FAR CAN A PHONE FLY OFF THE TOP OF A CAR?”

  She was expecting it be on the side of the road, not deeply nestled within’ the woods.

  The little heels of her shoes loudly crunched the leaves beneath, making it sound more as if a Sasquatch on stilts was approaching. Her big mouth made it even easier to precisely locate her than her flashlight.

  “WHAT THE FUCK! MY GPS MUST BE WRONG.”

  As she crunched past his tree, he crept up behind her and knocked her over the head with the wrench casually. He didn’t want to kill her or give her any serious brain injury. Fortunately, she fell out like a light with the first tap.

  He kicked her over and tied her hands with his dusty old rope. Pain had a way of waking people up and he couldn’t have her thrashing around like a bull in a china shop.

  Or a bitch in a china shop.

  He propped up her flashlight on some branches shining it directly into her eyes to blind her.

  With one hand he opened her mouth and yanked out her tongue. With the other he pulled out the razor sharp blade and sliced it off, making sure to leave a nub. He wanted to hear her babble like a baby seal – a retarded baby seal.

  Say nigger now, bitch.

  Her eyes opened wide, but she couldn’t scream and she was blinded by light. He wrapped the tube sock around her tongue tight and yanked the pony tail out of her hair to use as a make-shift tourniquet.

  In a second he snatched up the evidence and bolted through the dark woods so fast he did hit every branch on the ugly tree after all.

&nbs
p; For Atticus, severing a woman’s tongue was its own genre of orgasm.

  Exhilarating.

  Damn that felt good. He’d sure done the world a solid.

  TOUNGE -TIED

  Sarah Beth thought someone had crammed a watermelon down her throat.

  Severing nerve endings of highly sensitive tissue was likely as painful as being set on fire. Even a slight nip of the tongue when chewing could bring a grown man to his knees.

  Now Sarah Beth’s remaining nub had swollen to the size of a volley ball.

  She tried to scream but nothing came out.

  The pressure from the swelling felt as if it were crushing her tiny brain like a car compactor.

  Hands tied, she thrashed around in the darkness in complete confusion and delirium.

  Tears of torture poured out of her eyes.

  Chills ran down her spine.

  Lightning bolts of intense aching pains shot through her body, electrocuting every cell.

  Even with tied wrists, she reached for her salvation – her cell phone.

  She tried to get up.

  She fell back down.

  She staggered and stumbled and tumbled her way out of the woods in the most excruciating pain of her life.

  Not knowing where she was, she staggered in the direction of the houses. Halfway home the blood loss overtook her, and she fell face-first onto the newly paved street.

  Headlights came from out of nowhere.

  Tires squealed as the driver saw a lifeless human face down in the middle of the road.

  It was her gossip buddy, Anna Kate.

  “OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!”

  Women had a way of freezing with fear and doing absolutely nothing but saying “OH MY GOD” when faced with trauma.

  He wasn’t sure why, but Destiny had always done the same thing.

  Her frozen friend finally managed to find her cell phone in her purse and call 911.

  “SARAH BETH IS DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” she screeched as she began to go into shock herself.

  Thankfully the 911 system had a way to locate a call, because so much blood rushed to Anna Kate’s head she fell straight down on top of her best friend’s already lifeless-looking body.

  The Sterling Heights paramedics were on the scene in no time to scoop up the women lying in the middle of the street like a steaming pile of gossiping soccer mom dog shit.