The Woman on the Beast Read online

  She wailed like a Banshee as her naked body hit the floor. Her large fake gold earring clanked onto the wood with the severed ear still attached.

  “Don’t you ever touch me again you fuckin’ white-trash bitch or I’ll chop off the other hoochie hoop.”

  He hated to mess up his shiny new floor with all her diseased blood, but she didn’t need that ear. Ears were for listening. Destiny didn’t listen.

  “And to answer your question, I did kill the boys, and if you tell a single soul, your tongue will be next!”

  He slammed his door in her face and sat back down in his empty room.

  Her symphony of screams wasn’t so blood curdling through a closed door.

  In fact, it was music to his ears. Both of his ears.

  Atticus laughed at her through the door.

  It felt good to have two ears so he could hear her scream.

  He knew she’d be just fine. No matter what tragedy came her way, Destiny Gail Fletcher was sure to land straight on her back.

  CAN’T WAKE UP IN A NEW BUGATTI

  Sam froze in his tracks as he beheld the black Bugatti Chiron parked in the very back row of his frat house parking lot.

  There were plenty of other rich guys in Sam’s fraternity, but Derek Schneider’s red Lambo had always been the envy of the entire fraternity until now.

  “Holy Shit! Who the Hell drives a Bugatti?”

  For Sam, the news that his own brother drove the Bugatti was as shocking as the news of his recently deceased parents.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he marveled as Haiku unlocked the doors.

  A car junkie, Sam knew there was no such thing as a Bugatti rental. Bugattis were hand-made and home- delivered by the world’s leading sports car drivers.

  If Haiku was driving a Bugatti, then Haiku owned the Bugatti.

  “Your mom must have been one Hell of a hooker, Haiku!”

  Haiku cracked a lop-sided grin. It wasn’t possible to offend him. Instead, he nodded in agreement.

  “If I saw a hooker in a Bugatti, I’d know she had some sexual superpowers for sure.”

  There were only 500 Bugattis made that year and Haiku had somehow acquired his months before the release date.

  Daphne assumed he had paid significantly more than the going rate, 2.6 million dollars, just to be the first owner of the year.

  Haiku had no tolerance for driving yesterday’s news.

  “Seriously bro, how did you afford this?”

  Daphne stayed quiet. She didn’t want to make Sam feel inferior, so she didn’t mention it was Haiku’s second Bugatti and that he upgraded Bugattis every year as if they were cell phones or ipads.

  It was insane.

  Since Daphne had accompanied him during his latest purchase, she knew there was no such thing as waking up in a new Bugatti unless you stole it while sleep walking.

  Haiku’s ridiculously opulent lifestyle involved a flight to the Bugatti Estate in Molsheim, France, and then a lavish dinner with company executives, designers, and engineers. Afterwards, they took a trip to Remise Sud – the library and private customization lounge where buyers hand-picked every color and option. Any buyer who could pay 2.6 million dollars for a car, had the right to customize every detail of its production.

  While any normal person spending millions of dollars on a car would have taken time to tediously scrutinize every decision, Haiku was finished customizing his car in less than ten minutes.

  While most buyers opted for a flashy two-color exterior to accentuate the Bugatti’s signature c-shaped design, Haiku chose only one color for the entire car.

  “I’d like the entire exterior paint to be soft black with a matte finish. Not even a hint of gloss, please, but only a smooth sheen and understated metallic finish. It will be my moonlight chameleon racing invisibly through the shadows of the night with only brief flashes of silver if illuminated by the moon. I want only one color for the entire car, interior also – matte black. Rims can have a light sheen metallic finish but still matte and also gunmetal gray. No gloss. No bling. No shiny aluminum except for the standard Bugatti emblem. Subtle, please. Think ‘camouflage.’ I want to move fast and efficiently without the hindrance of car stalkers slowing down traffic to take pictures. I’m buying this car because I’m a real car enthusiast and speed connoisseur, not a desperate pretentious dick who has to buy sports cars to get pussy.”

  Daphne shook her head once again as Haiku’s ability to speak both eloquently and callously at the same time had always been an enigma for her.

  The crew of designers were in no position to judge a billionaire and scribbled his orders as if their life depended on it.

  “Inconspicuous. Subtle.”

  Haiku only planned to drive the Bugatti at night and on back roads to avoid rubberneckers slowing down with their cell phones hanging out their windows. He had a black chromed out Dodge Charger for any trips required during daylight hours.

  “Manual windows.”

  Manual windows?

  Haiku seemed to read her thoughts.

  “Automatic windows are heavy, Daphne. They limit maximum speed.”

  A 2.6 million dollar car with manual windows! Hell has frozen over and pigs are flying by!

  All gauges including the speedometer were old-school analog that reminded her of a plane from 1942 she’d once toured at a military museum with her Father.

  “Unless I personally design it, I don’t trust anything digital. It’s too glitchy. People are stupid.”

  The only upscale amenity Haiku added with no hesitation was the state-of-the-art Bugatti sound system that contained four one-carat diamonds.

  Now as Daphne crawled into the two-seater car and attempted to find a comfortable position on Sam’s lap, he was so distracted by his car lust, he nearly snapped Daphne’s right foot off when he shut the door.

  “Geez, Sam! Take my leg off why don’t cha?”

  But Sam wasn’t even listening.

  What a dipshit.

  “Oh my God! Your speedometer goes up to 310 miles per hour!”

  “Yeah, but I haven’t maxed it out yet. It just came out, so 261 miles per hour is the fastest street speed so far, but I’ve found an aircraft landing strip I plan to max out the record on.”

  “Wow. I’d like to see a cop try to catch you in this thing.”

  “I don’t have to worry about that. Cops love giving speeding tickets to douche bags in Lambos, but they stop the Moonlight Chameleon out of reverence and awe, and typically ask if I’ll take them on a ride around the block.”

  “All jokes aside, bro … are you a Coke dealer?”

  “No, I prefer Pepsi. I saved up for this beauty by loading watermelon trucks all last summer. I had to lift a lot of melons to pay for this.”

  “I lifted melons all last summer, too, but the chicks with the melons drove off in the sports car instead of me.”

  Daphne stifled a giggle at Sam’s unexpected response. For not being rocket science material, Sam’s wit, charm and sense of humor more than made up for not possessing bionic superpowers like his brother.

  The ability to make her laugh went a long way when it came to crushes and she found it surprisingly refreshing to have a funny man around for once.

  If Haiku’s personality had been a continental breakfast, Daphne felt it would have been burnt toast with fat-free Splenda jelly, and if Sam were James Bond, Haiku would have been the Oriental guy who threw the bladed hat. They both had their own special qualities, and Daphne didn’t think Sam to be inferior just because he couldn’t genetically engineer a sheep with a giraffe neck. Sam made her laugh unexpectedly and she found his witty banter and devilish charm to be just as intriguing as Haiku’s genius.

  Haiku really had loaded watermelon trucks the previous summer but only to get in shape for an MMA tournament. Sam knew there were not enough watermelons in the world to buy a Bugatti, but was too excited about the car to care.

  Not wanting Sam to feel inferior, Daphne didn’t menti
on the fact that Haiku collected Nobel Prizes like tee-ball trophies in addition to making the Guinness Book of World Records for having the highest I.Q. ever before even turning seven years old.

  But as impressive as all that was, Haiku’s ability to design never-before-seen weapons of mass destruction was the real bread winner. Sam didn’t look like the type to watch the Discovery Channel unless he was looking for naked tribal boobs, making it unlikely he’d ever discover the real story behind Haiku’s millions.

  “So, what year is this, bro?”

  “2017 Bugatti Chiron.”

  “Really? Next year’s model? I thought they hadn’t released it yet.”

  Haiku stayed silent and let Sam draw his own conclusions.

  “This is fuckin’ AWESOME. What are the stats? Don’t hold back on me.”

  Haiku yawned as he tapped the blue engine start button and revved up an engine that was only built for speed, and hadn’t the slightest regard for permanent hearing damage.

  Now Haiku had to yell over the vicious rumbling of the four turbo engine.

  “1500 horsepower, W-16 engine with two banks. Each bank holds eight cylinders each and the engine has four turbochargers,” he shouted as he shifted the car into Autobahn mode.

  Acutely aware that Sam’s information processing time was slower than his own, Haiku waited to continue until his peripheral vision caught a light bulb going off in Sam’s cotton colored head.

  “0-60 in 2.2 seconds, 1,180 lbs of torque, 7-speed dual clutch automatic transmission, hand-sculpted from billet aluminum, gear shift time is 100 milliseconds, and I had to put down a $1 million dollar deposit and rent an airstrip to test drive it.”

  Sam’s overwhelming excitement canceled out any feelings of inferiority.

  “Can I drive it?”

  “Sure, why not? Volkswagen has a private test track in Ehra-Lessien, Germany, where we can finally go over 250 mph.”

  Daphne shifted to Sam’s knee to avoid being poked by Sam’s phantom car lust boner that pitched a tent at the mere thought of getting behind the wheel.

  Men. They disgust me.

  Sam couldn’t believe his brother’s casual response. He knew driving a Bugatti was not for amateurs, and he felt as much fear as did excitement.

  “You think I can drive it? What if I wreck it?”

  Haiku shrugged as if Sam dropped an ice cream cone onto the sidewalk.

  “Then we’ll get another one.”

  As the world’s leading aerospace engineer, Haiku had clearly already reached billionaire status. A science celebrity, he had nicknames such as the Magician, da Vinci Kid, Haiku the I.Q., and the Wizard of Laws, because his revolutionary articles had already discredited the basic laws of physics in science publications throughout the world.

  Haiku was ‘quiet rich’ and he wanted to keep it that way. American paparazzi were too busy stalking Kim Kardashian to worry about a science nerd who produced the first particles to ever travel faster than the speed of light, which finally made time travel a legitimate scientific goal instead of an unattainable sci-fi fairytale.

  It should have been a thirteen-hour drive back to Sterling Heights, Mississippi, but Haiku’s Bugatti made the trip in six.

  Major companies and world militaries were constantly trying to outbid each other for sole access to Haiku’s revolutionary new weapons of mass destruction, but he refused to choose sides.

  After turning down 13 million dollar salaries from both NASA and Boeing, Daphne finally asked, “Are you crazy?”

  Cocky as usual, Haiku retorted, “Why make millions, when you can make billions?”

  He opted instead to start his own outsource company and sell his new technology to all world companies. While he had no problem selling his minor weapon technologies, survival equipment, and basic drone designs, there wasn’t a monetary price tag in the world high enough to buy his revolutionary weapons of mass destruction. To gain access to such a powerful arsenal, a leader would have to pass Haiku’s personal test to prove pure intentions, unparalleled integrity, and nobility of character. Furthermore, the weapons would remain under Haiku’s security systems as according to Haiku, “I wouldn’t trust a human with a herd of cows.”

  Every world power on earth wanted Haiku’s weapons expertise at their disposal and he was well aware of his value.

  While companies could purchase Haiku’s three-dimensional and complex designs, they had no hope of executing his blue prints without his constant supervision and instruction via conference calls.

  That was because Haiku’s designs were precise replications of nature that had never before been replicated by a human. His scuba suits required no oxygen tank, but instead utilized a complex system of fish gills that allowed a man to easily breathe under water indefinitely. He designed a flight suit that allowed a human to fly as a hummingbird or an eagle. Using those same technologies along with a combination of electrical and solar energy, his stealth drones were faster than a blue angel, flew higher than an eagle, and used Hummingbird Mode to land as precisely as a helicopter.

  His inventions needed no patents, because there was no such thing as stealing an idea from Haiku Makanura. His precise calculations involved microscopic subatomic particles smaller than any atom or quark and often involved plotting the paths of electrons.

  For a scientist who could easily measure and calculate on a subatomic particle level, cloning was as simple to him as learning his time tables, or ABCs.

  He took the science world by storm at only fifteen when he made the cover of Science Quest Magazine for genetically engineering a goat and a zebra to create a unicorn with zebra stripes.

  The magazine’s front cover read: Child Prodigy Genetically Engineers First Zebra Unicorn. Haiku Makanura: Human or God?

  By the time he graduated high school, he’d won Nobel Prizes for redefining the concept of infinity, creating small-scale nuclear fusion weapons patterned after the sun chemical reactions, designing light-weight, flame-retarded space-age polymers, redefining the concept of zero mass within’ black holes, designing stealth drones that traveled faster than the speed of light to create the first radar-proof drones to date. Instead of flying under the radar, he created devices that flew so far over the radar there was no longer such a thing as a no-fly zone. He’d made stunning discoveries regarding both anti-matter cancellation and particle entanglement theories and had completely redefined the study of Quantum Physics with one dissertation. From the time Haiku’s theories hit the science world, every top scientist on earth had been reduced to a Kindergarten level. Furthermore every world power had offered him billions for his secret weapons of mass destruction, only to have their offers refused time and time again. “There is no price tag. I will decide if I part with those weapons, and will contact you if chosen.”

  National leaders were astounded by his arrogance. They had never before come across anything or anyone who couldn’t be bought with a price, but according to Haiku, “There was a first time for everything.”

  Daphne had noticed Haiku’s recent collection of hummingbirds, but was clueless as to what rabbit Haiku was going to pull out of his hat concerning them. In her egocentric mind, she imagined he was planning to make her into the first brunette Tinker Bell who could really fly with real wings like a hummingbird.

  As a result of his stunning scientific conquests, Haiku purposely chose to live in the United States – a country where the only people who cared about scientists were other scientists. Americans were obsessed with celebrities, not scientists. American paparazzi chased Kim Kardashian to red carpet events. They didn’t stalk Stephen Hawking on rollerblades and attempt to snap photos of his latest telescope.

  Haiku intended to keep it that way. There wasn’t a price tag on Haiku’s privacy and peace, and therefore he purposely chose to live in the shallowest nation on earth – for his own protection.

  Daphne knew she could never tell Sam of Haiku’s accomplishments. Sam’s worst nightmare was to feel like a “dumb girl,” and if c
ompared to Haiku, he would feel like Kendra Wilkinson.

  Haiku and Daphne exchanged concerned looks as the Bugatti rolled around the circular driveway that curled around Sam’s sprawling estate.

  They knew that seeing his old house would make him feel like an “orphan.”

  Sam looked at his house for the first time in a year and for a brief second forgot that his parents were not waiting for him inside.

  Little tears streamed down his face in the darkness as the overgrown bushes and dark vacant windows instantly reminded that everything had changed, and changed for good.

  He slowly followed the stepping stones to the door, as somber and hopeless as death-row prisoner.

  The garden was overgrown with weeds. The tall misshapen bushes were torturous towers of truth that Sam could no longer deny.

  “Dad always kept his bushes trimmed. Always.”

  “I wish Daphne did,” blurted Haiku.

  Sam cracked with laughter at the unexpected joke that broke the ice and shielded him from sorrow.

  Daphne wasn’t amused.

  “Good for you, Haiku. You finally said something funny.”

  “I’m not being funny. I’m serious. You need to be like our Dad and make bush trimming a priority. You look like a porn star from 1975.”

  Now Sam laughed hysterically. He needed his brother more than ever now.

  Sheltered Sam had been booted from his sheltered nest like a baby bird and now only Haiku could teach him to fly.

  WHITE-TRASH WITCHCRAFT

  Atticus was used to walking into his house to find his mom lying naked on a trucker.

  He was not used to walking in on redneck idiots having a blood drinking ceremony using red plastic Dixie cups.

  White-trash witchcraft? How hilarious.

  And even more surprising was that the ceremony was so important, Destiny actually put on clothes.

  I guess there’s a first time for everything.

  Maybe the other witches had taught her how to get her arms in the sleeves and put her big head through the center hole. Maybe they’d demonstrated the art of pulling a zipper up. So far she’d only been proved to be an expert at taking clothes off in less than five seconds.