Desperation

The cop carried Billy Rancourt’s body across the street, stepping between the two fallen bikes and past the one with its wheels still whirring and its spokes shining in the evening light. He tromped over the knocked-down piece of picket fence, climbed the steps of the house behind it, and shifted his burden so he could try the door. It opened with no trouble. Joh

He’ll have to kill the people inside, he thought. That’s pretty much automatic.

But the cop only bent, offloaded his burden, then backed out onto the porch’s little stoop again. He closed the door and then wiped his hands above it, leaving smears of blood on the lintel. He was so tall he didn even have to reach to do this. The gesture gave Joh

The cop walked back to the cruiser, got in, and drove sedately back toward the intersection.

“Why’d you take him into there.” Joh

“What did you want me to do.” the cop asked. His voice was thicker than ever; now he seemed almost to be gargling his words. “Leave him for the buzzards. I m ashamed of you, mon capitaine. You’ve been living so long with so-called civilized folk that you’re starting to think like them.”

“The dog-”

“A man is not a dog,” the cop said in a prim, lecturely voice. He turned right at the intersection, then almost immediately hung a left, turning into a parking lot next to the town’s Municipal Building. He killed the engine, got out, and opened the right-hand rear door. That at least spared Joh

Joh

“Why didn’t you kill me like you did that guy back there. Billy. Or does it even make any sense to ask. Are you beyond why.”

“Oh shit, we’re all beyond why, you know that,” the cop said, exposing bloody teeth in a smile Joh

Erin go bra gh, Joh

“Free! Like a bird out of a cage.” The cop flapped his arms to demonstrate, and Joh

“Yes.” Not that he believed his new playmate had the slightest intention in the world of letting him free; oh no. But said playmate was shortly going to be nothing but blood—sausage held together by the casing of his uniform, and if he could just remain whole and functional himself until that happened…

“All right. Here’s the deal, bigshot: suck my cock. Do that and I’ll let you go. Straight trade.”

He unzipped his fly and pulled down the elastic front of his shorts. Something that looked like a dead whitesnake fell out. Joh

“Speaking in the lit’ry sense,” the cop said, gri

Joh

He didn’t know what the cop expected-screams, revul-sion, tears, melodramatic pleading—but he had a clear sense that he wasn’t feeling what the cop wanted him to feel, what the cop probably thought he was feeling.

You don’t seem to under.Lta, ci that I’ve seen a f worse things in my tune than a cock dripping blood. /‘vot just in Vietnam, either.

He realized that the anger was creeping up on hut again, threatening to take him over. Oh shit, of course it was. Anger had always been his primary addiction, not whiskey or coke or ‘hides. Plain old rage. It didn’t have anything to do with what the cop had taken out of his pants, and that might be what the guy didn’t understand It wasn’t a sex issue. The thing was, Joh

“I’ll get down on my knees in front of you if you want he said, and although nis voice was mild, something in the cop’s face changed-realiy changed for the first time. It blanked out somehow, except for the good eye, which narrowed suspiciously.

“Why are you looking at me that way. What in the hell gives you the right to look at me that way. Tak!”

“Never mind how I’m looking at you. Just hear me out. — mothertucker: three seconds after I put that trouser-rat of yours into my mouth, it’s going to be lying on the pave-ment. You got that. Tuk! — ’ He spat this last word up into the cop’s face, standin—on tiptoe to do it. and for a moment the big man looked more than surprised-he looked shocked. Then the expression tightened into a cramp of rage, and he shoved Joh

The cop’s face had tauteaed. The skin on it now looked like makeup, or a thin coat of paint-unreal. Even th—blood-filled eye looked unreal. It was as if there was another face beneath the one Joh

The cop’s good eye fixed on him for a moment, and then his head lifted. He pointed at the sky with all five fingers of his left hand. “Tak ah lah,” he said in his gut-tural, gargling voice. “Timoh. Can de lach! On! On!”

There was a flapping sound. like clothes on a line, and a shadow fell over Joh

There was a harsh cry, not quite a caw, and then something with scabrous, flap-ping wings dropped on him, its crooked claws gripping his shoulders and folding themselves into the fabric of his shirt, its beak digging into his scalp as it uttered its inhuman cry again.