Free GRAVEWORM by Tim Curran Page A

her hands. She stood there and smoked a cigarette, trying to feel something, but was only aware of that chill emptiness within.
    We’re going to play a game, Tara.
    A game.
    That’s what this was. Like a college frat hazing. A secret society with secret rules.
    “ I’m going to get you out of this, Lisa,” she said. “Somehow, some way, I’ll get you out.”
    It was a good thought and one that filled her with a reassuring strength, but it was not enough to think such things. She must believe them. And in believing them, make them a reality. Somehow she had to get to Lisa, had to find her and set her free from this madman. Even if it meant sacrificing herself, even if it meant—
    “ Shit.”
    A car.
     
    2:37 AM
    The lights came sweeping up the road in the distance.
    Panic jumped in Tara’s belly.
    She dashed behind the cover of some trees and dove into the grass. The police. That’s what she was worried about. She had just buried a body and if they found her now, started asking all the wrong questions, she didn’t honestly think she could lie.
    The car came up the dirt road.
    Its lights flashed over her hiding spot.
    They found her Stratus.
    The car slowed. Tara’s belly was filled with light, feathery things.
    Then the car sped up and was gone, navigating a turn in the distance. She listened to the sound of it vanishing and the night crept back, covering her, coveting her cheek to jowl and she felt at one with it. The sound of the breeze in the trees. The foraging nocturnal things. Even the leggy creature which moved across the back of her hand. She could smell the earth, black and rich and forever. She wanted to press her face into the leaves, to taste them.
    The threat had passed.
     
    2:39 AM
    She crab-crawled to her car, and felt that emptiness inside her begin to fill with something else. Something primordial almost. Some instinctive thing that told her in no uncertain terms that it was capable of doing the job at hand.
    Of finding Lisa.
    And killing her kidnapper.
     
     
    19
    He had her now.
    He had her the way he wanted her.
    Right there on the dirt floor of the cellar. He had her spread-eagle, naked, and he was pushing himself into her and liking the cold feel of her flesh, how she did not move, how she accepted his mastery of her like something dry and dead that had no choice. Her dirty blouse was thrown up around her shoulders and he was licking her white throat, her shoulders, then biting them. Not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough to bring pain. His hands were gripping the pale mounds of her ass as he thrust himself into her, biting her, nibbling her, showing her the pain and loving the fact that she still did not move. That her eyes were wide open, dark and glassy, staring sightlessly.
    (that’s it, henry: it’s the only way to discipline a cunt good and proper they understand nothing less)
    He pushed into her harder and harder. She smelled of dirt and oblong boxes, nighted and breathless places where there was only the scratch of the rat and the fleshy caress of the worm. Yes-yes-yes, she did not move and her skin was so cold and it was more than he could take, he couldn’t hold back his excitement any longer…
    (harder, henry, HARDER)
    (mother… oh… please)
    Jesus.
    He emptied himself into her and lay panting atop her, sweat dripping from his face and his tongue lolling from his mouth in the sweet aftermath of it all.
    Finally she blinked, pressing her hips against his own. “I am so pretty, Henry. Such a pretty little thing.”
    “ Yes,” Henry said. “Yes.”
    “ Where is my friend? Where did you put my pretty friend?”
    “ She’s in a safe place, Worm. You remember.”
    “ Go get her and bring her here,” she said. “I want to play with her.”
    “ I will. But you have to promise me you won’t do bad things to her. Not yet.”
    “ I won’t, Henry. I like to do what you say.”
    “ That’s a good girl.”
    (because if she doesn’t, henry, she’ll need