He closed his eyes and whimpered. Her mouth was on him, that obscene worm of a tongue wrestling with him, entwining and tugging, fouling him but bringing him up. He fought it, tried to conjure images in his mind, things that would stem his arousal. Yet, despite his revulsion, somewhere deep inside on a purely mechanical level, he felt the physical sensations and reacted to them.

Georgetta sighed mock-happily. “Oh, Russy. You do love me.”

“Please, Georgie,” he stammered, “please, don’t do this. In God’s name . . .”

Putting a hand on each cheek of his buttocks, the big woman picked him up from the chair and carried him to the bed. Her mouth found his again for a long, probing, soulful kiss, but there was no soul to it. It was a cold, violent act, offensive in the extreme, not like love or passion or kissing a woman at all.

It was like kissing a man, Rusty thought.

A dead man.

Rusty Sanders knew then, and he began to cry.

She laid him back on the bed and straddled him. “I want you in me,” she licked her lips. “All of you.”

“Please . . .” he sobbed. “Please . . .”

“But, Russy,” she purred playfully. “I only do it because I love you.” Then she laughed and eased herself down.

He was deep inside her when she started to feed.

Across town, at the Tri-Lakes Inn, in the Walnut Suite two doors down from the clattering ice machine, Chris Stiles began to stir.

12

Chapter Twelve

He awoke slowly, in stages: his numbed senses were cognizant of little more than a dull buzzing in his ears. But it became steadily louder and more distinct. Marching music . . . laughter . . . The television set.

Gomer Pyle came to Stiles’s ears, and at the same moment: Pain.

It was a dark and angry being, this pain, and it waited for him to surface with unerring patience so it could caress him again and flay his senses raw. It centered mostly in his crotch and throbbed in rhythm with his heartbeat, but just out of sync with the diesel rigs that roared between his ears. The nausea was thick as well, clogging his nose and throat, making it hard to breathe. But he fought it. He fought hard and he pushed it back into a corner and held it there. Only then could he feel his way outward and take stock of himself and his situation.