Crane, R [ Southern Watch 03] Corrupted Read online

  He went slow at first. Felt her biting her lip because it probably still hurt. She was damned tight, tight and a little dry to start, but she got wetter as he went. By the time the wheel clicked down again to between ten and eleven o’clock, he could feel things starting to build. His dick was leaden, and when he thought it couldn’t swell anymore, it damned sure did, the pressure building. He was still a good ways off, though.

  Mick felt his eyes roll as he kept going. It was all through him now, the pleasure. How could this feel so damned good? He didn’t know, didn’t care, just wanted it. His head was rushing, too, both of them, but the one atop his neck was getting into the act. Any minute now, it was going to open up, going to—

  Here it went—

  Mick felt his mind expand as he ground his cock into Mandy. Before it was like he could just feel her, here in the box and car of the Ferris wheel, locked in between ten and eleven o’clock on the arc. His dick was calling out its pleasure, every nerve shouting its enjoyment of the sweet slide in and out that he was grinding out on her. He could feel his pubic hair matted and pushing against hers with every thrust, could feel his balls slap just below her pussy.

  But when his mind opened up, suddenly he wasn’t just living the pleasure in the car on the Ferris wheel.

  He was elsewhere, too.

  He could sense the girl in the car at twelve o’clock, twenty-two years old, sitting next to her boyfriend whose name was Mark. Hers was Caroline, and she had dark hair and small tits, and Mick could feel himself in her, too, like he was there. He could hear her moaning in his mind, her body slumped against the back of the seat with her boyfriend beside her. She smelled like peaches, tasted like cinnamon and sugar when his tongue met hers, and she wasn’t nearly so sweaty as Mandy. She’d fucked before, knew what it felt like, and she leaned into him as he put it into her. Her moans were stronger, her whole feel was stronger, and she was ignoring the boyfriend next to her in favor of the strange sensation of amazing pleasure sliding into her, blotting out everything else around her—

  It was the same in the car below, with a woman married twenty years to the same man. Her name was Gail, and Mick could feel her too, feel her at the same time he could feel Mandy and Caroline. She had an older-lady perfume, but he didn’t care. She was ready as he entered her, throwing her head back and moaning as he did it, her eyes glazing over as he kissed her neck the way he did with Mandy. Her husband was next to her, said something to her, but she didn’t even hear it because she was completely wrapped up in Mick and what he was doing to her.

  Mick could feel his mind expand away from the Ferris wheel, covering the ground around him. He was with all those women at once, every one of them, and it felt SO. AMAZING. Like it had with Mandy by herself but times a hundred, then two hundred as more and more of them found their way into his path. He could feel his brain expanding like a balloon getting blown up and more and more women feeling him inside. Too many to name, even though he tried. Jillian, Cathy, Michelle, Patty—old, young, who gave a shit? It felt so damned good.

  So.

  Damned.

  Good.

  The Ferris wheel started to move again as Caroline above them moaned so loud Mick could hear it with his waking ears down below. He wondered if Mandy noticed, but he didn’t care as his mind expanded again to the town around them. He could feel them all, all the women who’d had any awakening, who’d felt this kind of passion, he could feel every last one of them, and he was inside them, could smell the perfumes and the sweat and the night air and taste their skin and tongues and salty sweetness as he moved toward that explosive climax—

  When he came, he didn’t pull out, not at all, just felt himself jerk in Mandy and keep going until it was done. He could feel the cum shoot out, squirting like he’d had his balls in a tight grip and then someone had loosened it. His body went slack, and he lay his head down on the girl’s shoulder, sweaty hair against the sheen of perspiration.

  The world shrunk around him, and he said goodbye to all the women he’d just loosed himself in. His breathing was heavy, and he was still in her, still in—what was her name? Mandy—and he didn’t want to move even though his knees hurt like fucking hell.

  His crotch was sticky and damp, pubic hair matted down where it touched hers. He felt the soft cloth of her t-shirt against his chin and wished he’d been able to take it off so he could rest his cheek on her soft, pale shoulder where the sun hadn’t tanned her skin. But they were clicking into the nine o’clock position now and he only had a couple minutes before they were down and Richie was opening the door to let them out.

  It kind of tickled and kind of hurt when he pulled out, that sticky, dried out feeling like his dick had gotten glued into her. She cringed when he did it and he saw the hint of blood tingeing the swollen, red-purple skin around the head of his cock. “Damn that was good,” he whispered. She didn’t answer. He had a feeling she didn’t feel the same.

  He got up on his knees and pulled his underpants up first, felt his dick stick to the cloth, still hard. He’d still be hard when he got off the Ferris wheel, there was no avoiding that. Walking around with a big old hard-on was embarrassing, but he had no concern about it. There was this dim sense of relief over him now, like all his cares had just gotten washed away—or more likely, gotten shot out at the end of their little tryst.

  Mick fastened his pants and put his ass up on the seat. He didn’t spare a glance to Mandy, who was still lying flat on her back, watching him, with her jean shorts and white cover-all underwear hanging off of one foot, bra pushed down and her shirt up to expose small, pale breasts. “Ride’s gonna end soon,” Mick said matter-of-factly. “Might want to get dressed.” He let out a long, heavy breath and felt all the tension bleed out of him.

  “Okay.” Her voice was small, and she extended a hand toward him so he could help her up. He glanced at it and ignored it, putting his eyes to the slatted window that afforded him a view of the fair beyond. They’d missed the view from the apex.

  Mick could feel the last of his cum drying in his underwear like concrete. It always hurt to clean that off later, but it was worth it. After a moment of waiting, Mandy sat up on her own and fumbled to fasten her own bra. It took her a minute, and Mick wondered idly why they didn’t make them fasten in fucking front.

  “Ohhh,” Mick said, like a man who’d just let a huge burden off. He had, really. He put his arms up and folded his hands behind his head, and watched Mandy fumble back into her underpants and shorts out of the corner of his eye while he sat like a fucking king who’d just gotten crowned. “Damn, that was good.”

  Mandy was looking at him; he could see that from the little he was watching her. Looking at him like she was a dog he’d kicked, not sure if she should come around him again. “Was it?”

  “It was,” Mick said, nodding. He could feel his sweaty, tangled hair against his hands, and the faint aroma of her pussy was still on his fingers, he could smell it all the way around the back of his head. The whole Ferris wheel car smelled a little like sex, and Mick fucking loved it. There was nothing like these moments after the urge was relieved. If he could have taken a nap right now, he would have and loved it.

  “Was I …” Mandy’s voice was small, “was I … good?”

  “Hell, no,” Mick said, almost laughing, “you were terrible. You just lay there, like a dead body or something. That ain’t sexy.”

  Now he looked at her full on, and that innocence, it was all damned gone and replaced by a stricken look that turned to horror in the eyes that had been so sweet before. “I … I …”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said breezily as the car clicked down to the last position between seven and eight o’clock on the wheel. “It’s not like I needed you to be amazing or anything.” He thought about petting her on her tousled hair but didn’t want to move his hands from cushioning the back of his head against the metal car wall. “Still, learn to move, baby. Get into it so you’re not so boring for the next guy.”
/>   “Next guy?” Her lip quivered with her voice.

  He shrugged. He could say something fiercely mean and utterly truthful to that, but what was the point now? He’d got his rocks off, she’d let him use her to expand his mind, and it was all good for him. She was sitting there with her pants halfway pulled up, little trail of blood and other ooze working its way down her inner thigh. He stared, thinking about how he’d like to do that again but knowing he couldn’t because even if she’d wanted to—and he was under no illusions she would—he was leaving town in just hours.

  “I thought you … felt something for me,” Mandy said quietly. It was all hurt from her, like she’d got shattered by what he’d said and did. Mick could pick up on it; hell, a deaf and blind man could have picked up on it from this distance.

  “I did,” Mick said with a laugh, “and it was called a raging hard-on.” He waggled his crotch at her from where he sat. “Thanks for helping me take care of it.”

  The Ferris wheel started to move that last time, ratcheting down to the six o’clock starting point. Full circle. She started to speak again, but the sound of Richie unlatching the door from outside stopped her, and she turned her head like a rabbit toward its hunter as the door opened.

  “Hope you had a good ride,” Richie said with a knowing smile. Mick knew if Mandy had been a little older and a little wiser, she’d have figured out it was all a big setup. “Everybody out.”

  She wasn’t that old, though, and she wasn’t that wise, though she was getting there now, Mick knew. She looked crushed as he stood up and hopped out of the car. His feet hit the solid ground, the subtle rocking motion he barely noticed anymore stopping as he landed. He didn’t put out a hand to help Mandy down, not this time, just walked away from her without a care or a goodbye. He didn’t need to look in her eyes to know that innocence he’d thought was so wonderful earlier in the evening was gone, blissfully and blessedly. He’d taken it. Taken it and loved every minute of it.

  He passed Gail, the housewife that had been in the car below them, leaning against a railing on the edge of the platform. She was still flushed in the face, and her big, fat husband was next to her. “I just don’t know what came over me,” she was saying as Mick passed. She started to say something else but stopped and stared at him as he went past her. He didn’t say anything to her, didn’t even look at her, but he could tell she knew. He didn’t care, though. He got those looks all through the carnival as he made his way out—women being attended by the guys they were with, all of them wondering what the fuck had happened that had left them all weak in the knees and uncertain.

  Mandy would probably feel it the worst tonight, though, Mick knew as he threaded his way between the Fortune Teller’s tent and a ball-throwing game. But he didn’t need the Fortune Teller’s crystal ball—she was a fraud anyway, that old bitch—to tell him that they’d all be feeling it tomorrow, and the day after, and in the weeks and months to come.

  ***

  Mandy woke up the next day still feeling it. And for the next weeks, too. Her mother called it “being blue,” but she didn’t know the why. Not that it mattered; she thought it was just a little lovesickness. And then a regular sickness, when she started to throw up in the mornings a few weeks later. It took about a week for her mom to work it out after that.

  It took another week for them to put together that every woman her age and older in the town who hadn’t already been pregnant was now. Married, single, even the divorced ones. Young and damned near impossibly old.

  Mandy had cried for weeks, and when she found out she cried some more. When she found out she wasn’t alone, she cried again, like that wasn’t any consolation at all. It was still terrible, still a fresh wound, still the end of her world like someone had burned down everything and killed everyone that mattered to her.

  But then, nine months later, all of Hobbs Green really did burn down, and everyone that mattered to her got killed.

  And all that was left was Mandy—and she damned sure didn’t feel innocent anymore.

  1.

  “This is such a fucking goddamned mess and a half,” Sheriff Nicholas Reeve opined, standing in the middle of Berg Street. Arch might have shared that assessment, minus the colorfully added swear words, but he didn’t feel a need to voice it now. It was a mess and a half, no mincing words on that score.

  “I know we’ve seen some weird shit this last week,” Erin Harris said, standing off the curb, straddling the cracking pavement as the sun beat down on the trio, “but this is monumentally fucked. Not quite the Mount Rushmore of fucked, but maybe like the Lincoln Memorial of it.”

  “Ahuh,” Arch said, more than a little preoccupied, and not just by the grisly mess in the middle of Berg Street. There was blood every-dang-where, splattered all over the pavement like it had been dripped on a canvas by a painter trying to make a statement— the statement being, “Let’s drench this beast!” Though some avant-garde painter who covered an entire canvas in red probably wouldn’t use the word beast.

  Still.

  “I’ve seen a lot of traffic accidents in my day,” Reeve said, shaking his head, “but I ain’t never seen nothing like this shit.” He waved a hand at the remainder of the body. “If he didn’t have his damned wallet on him, you’d never even know that was Tim Connor.”

  Arch nodded and caught Erin doing much the same out of the corner of his eye. Tim Connor had been a pretty active guy, always running. He wasn’t gonna be running no more, that was sure and certain.

  “Whoever fucking did this had to be going a hundred and twenty on a residential street,” Reeve said. “Kids play here, people jog—like Tim.” He indicated the remainder of the corpse. “This is so goddamned reckless I can’t even define it.” Arch could tell Reeve was shaken because he was dropping the Lord’s name in vain at ten times the usual rate. Arch had gotten over flinching every time the sheriff violated the Third Commandment by now; if he hadn’t, dealing with Lafayette Hendricks would have been well-nigh impossible for him.

  Arch shook off the thought of the cowboy-hat-wearing demon hunter and looked back at the sack of butchered meat that had been Tim Connor. He’d been a middle-aged guy, in good shape, always drinking protein shakes whenever Arch ran into him somewhere. He’d seen him at the diner a few days ago, and the guy ordered a bare fish, no fried topping.

  “He was such a healthy motherfucker,” Reeve said. “Always running, eating right, trying to push the damned envelope.” Reeve unconsciously reached for his own belly, which hung over his belt. “Son of a bitch should have outlived me by a long shot, but he didn’t because some cocksucker ran him down going a hundred miles an hour in a thirty. This is whole fucking town is turning into a fucking slaughter fest out of goddamned control—”

  “Sheriff,” Erin said, catching Arch’s eye as she spoke. Probably to avoid looking Reeve in the eye. “It ain’t your fault.”

  “I’m the law in this goddamned town! When County Administrator Pike,” Reeve put a special sauce of sarcasm on that title, “gets wind of this, the blame’s gonna come one way, and it’s mine.”

  Arch drew a breath and felt a certain tightness that had nothing to do with how well his shirt fit. Unlike Reeve, he did tend to do that whole exercising, eating right thing. Or had, until a couple weeks ago when things had got suddenly busy in his life. “Still ain’t your fault,” Arch said.

  “I appreciate your support,” Reeve said without an ounce of sincerity, “but I doubt the voters are going to share your enthusiasm for the results of our law enforcement efforts this last month. Disappearances, kidnappings, entire families getting wiped out, some sort of crazy highway massacre, and a hooker that got burned alive from the inside. Not to mention those security guards up on the Tallakeet Dam.” Reeve pulled his hat off his head and ran his fingers through thinning hair. “Yeah, I can’t see how I could possibly be blamed for anything.”

  “At least the town didn’t flood,” Erin said sympathetically. She shot Arch a sidelong look that was
full of meaning—and the meaning was “What do you say at a moment like this?” Arch didn’t say anything because he didn’t know either. It wasn’t Reeve’s fault.

  It wasn’t like he’d set out a sign inviting every demon in North America to Midian, Tennessee. Heck, he probably didn’t even know that was the source of his problems. It wasn’t like mass murders and slaughters and burnings of people alive automatically brought to mind the idea that demons were real and walking among humans like regular people. That was crazy talk.

  But then, these were crazy times.

  Arch glanced at Erin and found her looking at him. Thought maybe she was thinking the same as him—that they were both crazy and bound for the same asylum. “How long ’til the corpse wagon gets here?” Erin asked, drawing her gaze back to Reeve.

  “Who fucking knows?” Reeve said, and for a moment, it looked like he was gonna spike his hat.

  “We should probably get back out on patrol,” Arch said, shrugging his shoulders. “Unless you want us to stick around to help you guard the scene?”

  “Get the hell outta here,” Reeve waved his hat at them. “Maybe you can do some good elsewhere, because there ain’t nothing going on here other than me trying to keep the lookiloos from peeking at the hamburger someone made of Tim.”

  Arch’s gaze danced over to Connor’s body again. Hamburger wasn’t far off. Limbs were missing, knocked clean from the body. There was a straight line of blood from the site of the impact some fifty feet or more from where the body rested now to where it had started, and the terminus of that line near the corpse was filled with the evidence of a long, skidding roll that it had undertaken before it came to rest in its current position. An arm was missing at the elbow, and one of the legs was hanging by a string of flesh so narrow it looked like an onion straw. But drenched in blood.