The Night Crawler

Her breaths were coming in hard, frightened bursts.

"All of them. Except your boots."

Craig smiled, not looking in the rear-view mirror but knowing she was looking at him and seeing that smile. That sneer of cruel confidence.

"If that happens, you can go home tonight in one piece."

Craig Joner looked out the side window to the rows of spruces that soared into the black sky like painter's brushes. They shouldn't have been that big, but (neither should leathery black skin and hair grow on young girl's thighs) they were. He started counting.

"One...two..."

There was first a silence so overwhelming that Craig swore something was sneaking up on him from behind. He was about to spin around when he heard rustling in the backseat. He relaxed.

Just nerves Craig she's so hot all your thoughts are up in a bunch. Relax do her good then sell her to the Bulgarian. You need her. You need to do this. Nnnneeeeeeed...

"...three...four..."

Grunts and hurried movement. Whimpering. Something heavy flew past his right shoulder: A leather skirt.

"...five...six..."

Another matching black piece landed on the shotgun seat.

"...seven...eight...nine...ten..." He waited hesitantly. "...eleven?" Craig paused, furrowing his brow. There was silence from the back again. His victim was now down to her underwear and clearly faltering in fear. Craig smiled and resumed the count. "Twelve...thirteen...fourteen...fifteen..." When the girl saw there would be no leniency on his demands, sounds of movement came again.

Craig glanced sideways at the leather skirt and blouse on the seat beside him.

And it all suddenly occurred to him what was wrong about the girl.

Black stilettos and tight leather were common attire for a girl aiming for the Gothic outlook. Leather that hugged the body so tight it looked painted right onto her skin. But the girl's clothes had been loose. Horribly loose. So loose it might have been borrowed from her older sister or mother, or that she didn't know what she was trying to look like but just wore it because it looked good, or as if she'd first come to Zodiac dressed in those clothes, but—

Craig thought of what he'd seen in his peripheral vision when the lightning struck. He thought of the bat-like patch of flesh that vanished from the back of her thighs just when he registered it. He thought of the sweet, innocent way she'd asked him if anything was wrong when even a child would have seen he was terrified enough to need diapers. This girl only looked like a teenager. Hell, even her eyes, behind that innocent sheen of simulated naivete, were blazing with...with hidden words. Like she was...

—wearing another body!

Craig screamed.

11

Craig Joner didn't know how long he sat unconscious, but it couldn't have been more than moments because when he came to, the doors were still all locked, and he could still hear Marlene's frantic grunts as she tried to strip off her underwear.

Perhaps it was just in your mind...

Clinging on to the façade because he knew that if it slipped for even a moment, he would be dead.

Craig continued counting. He no longer desired her flesh or the pleasure in taking her body, but the need remained. He was helpless to back down from it as a lemming can go against the maddened urge of suicide or a goldfish can resist worms, and such would lead to his death.

"Sixteen," he said, then forced down an apple-sized lump that had risen in his gullet. "Seventeen."

He did not want to see this through anymore, did not want to continue, but lacked choice. The movement from the back became more hurried. Desperate.

"Eigh—"

"Okayyy!"

"Nineteen..."

"Mr. Joner! I'm done. Please!"

Craig turned to the seat beside him, avoiding the reflection of his victim in the back seat, and looked at the clothes: Matching black leather skirt and singlet, mesh panties and bra, also black, also matching. Again, Craig was reminded about the terribly wrong way the clothes had draped loosely over his victim.

"Please, don't hurt me," Marlene's voice wafted up to the front like a distraction.

Craig Joner slid his seat back to make more room to turn around. Marlene was in the middle of the rear sofa, knees bent up to her chin, hugged against her breasts. He climbed into the backseat, smiling. Already he knew she was not a fighter. He saw that in the way she curled herself up in a ball and simply stared at him with those gentle blue eyes.

Now settled in the back, Craig pushed his driver's seat up as far as it would go. He kicked off his shoes and tugged the shirt over his head without unbuttoning it, but left his pants on.

Only the zipper came down.

"Do you know what I want, Marlene?"

She took a moment to respond. "Not exactly." Her voice cracked. Her eyes were reddening.

Craig reached out and took her arm. He pulled her next to him, putting one arm around her shoulder, pushing her knees down with the other. Marlene began to cry.

Craig hugged her, shushed her, and whispered, "Nothing bad is going to happen to you, Marlene."

He caressed her waist. When her sniffling lessened, he kissed her forehead, then gently eased her head into his chest like a comforter.

"Have you ever done this before?" he asked.

She only cried and shook her head.

"Are you afraid?"

Marlene didn't do anything for awhile, as though she was trying to decide how to answer that simple question. It was only when she shook her head, as if to say she was not afraid, that Craig realized her sobbing sounded more like laughter than sorrow. Craig absorbed this horrifying suggestion when he felt her mouth spread into a smile against his belly.

He opened his mouth to scream but his arms were frozen and could not move her face away, her face was stuck against his belly like a leech and he couldn't get her off, just couldn't couldn't couldn't, and that was when he felt her hidden face morph.

Craig felt her face go wide and soft, like it was only wax that had melted. Her eyeholes expanded against his flesh to five times their size, sprouting long wriggling eyelashes. They tickled his tummy like spider legs. A wet piece of flesh that should have been her tongue came out and licked circles round his chest. Her head stayed against his chest, but the tongue worked its way down to his navel. To his pants button.

Down to his knees.

Craig screamed again and shoved the abomination away, leaping as far away from her as he could go. But he realized all the doors were locked and she was between him and the release button.

Marlene retreated back into the space between the two front seats, her innocent face a reflection of utter fear and confusion. She began to bawl.

"No!" She screamed at her attacker, weeping. "D...don't! Don't hurt me. P...please don't hurt meeee!" Marlene looked at Craig in the rear seat, bright alarm in her eyes.

Craig shouted and leapt forward, snatching her up by the hair.

"Owww," she screamed. "You're hurting me! Leave me alone! Please, just leave me alone!"

"Hurting you, huh?" Craig sneered as he forced her to kneel against the back of the seat, her head crooked in the small space between the rear window that became a horizontal shelf. "Hurting, you? You don't know pain, bitch! You don't know anything!" He knelt behind her squirming torso, using his weight to hold her in place.

"No!" she screamed again, reality suddenly striking her with what was going to happen now. "Don't do this! I...I've never done this before..." sobbing, frenzied sobbing, "please...don't hurt me...don't do this to me!"

But her weeping was in vain.

Craig looked out the back window as he leaned over her shoulder, jerking her head back by her long blonde hair.

"Don't? And what if I do? Didn't think of that one, did you? Think you're so smart!"

Craig was panting and sweating furiously, fear and rage bursting out as one. He pushed himself behind her and forced her thighs apart with his hands. She fought and kicked him, screaming till he thought her throat must vomit blood, but found herself matchless to his anger-fueled strength.

"What are you going to do, huh? Turn? A vampire, perhaps? A werewolf? Or how about a wraith?"

Marlene screamed as he broke into her, pushing and holding it in, then pumping his hips back and forth, in and out, tick tock tick tock like a tomcat's tail.

"Yes," he grunted, thrusting in time with his words, alternating drive with curse, shove with threat. His pelvis slapped hard against her ass and he could see it growing red. "A witch (thrust) on a flying broom (thrust) might do the trick (slap)! Too late (thrust) though! You found (nnggg) your match today." He collapsed on her, panting into her ear. "What's that you've got on? Some kind of mask?"

He dug his nails at the edges of her face, trying to tear off the imagined mask, but came away fruitless. Marlene screamed and cried.

"Change," he yelled as his nails cut at her skin. "Go on! Change, damn you, change!"

He used her mercilessly, his screams of rage and fear and frustration joining with hers. When a second bolt of lightning shrieked down and struck the littered forest floor not fifty feet from the rear of his car, he saw only the blinding light and not the reflection of her eyes and face in the black glass of the window.

And as he was lost in the fervor of his rape, Craig did not notice the difference between her screams and giggles.

12

When he was done, Craig pushed her flat on the seat.

Marlene lay there, unable to move of her own volition. He thought she looked like a pet suddenly thrown into the wild, unsure of how to act now that it was free; for the first time since crawling to the backseat over three hours ago, Craig was just looking at her, not telling or making her do something.

He understood what was going through her mind. So close to being free and finished with the bad, bad man in the car, yet so far away as the path to safety was hidden from her. Craig grinned at her. Something about the night had used her to frighten him, but he'd showed them, hadn't he? Oh yes. He was sure he had. For a long time from now, sweet little no-longer-innocent Marlene wouldn't dare change her face with anything but a paper bag—definitely not make-up—and wouldn't dress in anything more alluring than her father's overalls and windbreaker.

Craig smiled again.

But of course, she was going to belong to someone else after tonight, and they would dictate what she wore.

"You can sit up," Craig said at last. "You're almost done."

Tentatively, as if she thought it might be a joke, Marlene sat up and crawled into the corner.

"W...wh...what else?" she stammered, fearful of punishment for speaking.

Without a word, Craig climbed to the driver's seat and stuffed her clothes into the glove compartment. Marlene drew a hard breath when she saw them disappear. Craig put the key into the ignition and started the engine. The familiar sound soothed his mind.

When they were about halfway back to the main road, Craig answered her.

"I'm not finished with you yet, Marlene," he said, his voice piercing the dense darkness of the cabin. "But after all the trouble you put me through, I think you paid up pretty well."

He dared to look back in the mirror at her, pleased to see her so terrified, drawn up so far into the corner like she thought she might be able to pass through the door that way and escape.

"S...so why don't you l...let me g...go?" she whimpered.

Craig turned around to her.

"Can't do that now," he said, smiling.

All along, she'd thought he would let her go in the end if she cooperated with him. Now that hope she'd clung so desperately to was dashed into a horror worse than anything she'd imagined.

"I have some friends that would like to make your acquaintance," he said. "You're never going home."

13

It was drizzling.

The thunder that had previously retreated now returned in full-fledged assault, bringing with it a company of fresh lightning. Armies of stray and fallen leaves were stirred up, swirling in the air like wedding confetti. Craig switched on his headlights and wipers. He felt a shiver pass through him and looked back at his captive.

All in order.

He pressed on towards escape. Something dark whispered that he was—

gonna die gonna die gonna die! she'll change 'cuz she's heard so much about you and been waiting to meet you and now she's here the city will never lose another victim to you Craig Joner!

—never going to make it out of these woods.

Ever.

He drove anyway.

"Yes," he said, to reassure himself more than anything, "you're gonna meet my friends, and they're gonna do more things to you than I could even invent!" Craig laughed. "I'd rest while I could, if I were you. Ha-ha! You've got about twenty minutes." The rain specked his windscreen faster than he could wipe.

Craig continued driving through the storm that tormented the dark forest. It was a place that well could hold legions of werewolves and vampires. The gargantuan trunks shielded unseen monstrosities that prowled behind, but he was the hunter tonight, not these woods, nothing that lurked in these woods, and most definitely not one scrawny fearful shivering fifteen-year-old blonde girl trying to dress grown-up and tough who fell so easily for his ploy and went down without a fight and who—

changed into something changed into a creature you'd not want in your worst nightmares changed changed CHANGED!!!

—was now sitting naked in his back seat oblivious to her fate that would find her passed from hand to hand from owner to owner or who might even become the private property of Mr. De-Frankenstein-Pulez and who'd—

been waiting to meet you heard so much about you can't wait this is your last night never leave the woods never never never the city will be safe after I'm through with you did you see what I changed into let me show you again and get a good look get a really really GOOD LOOK!!

The girl-thing spoke.

"I'm sorry," she said in a deep corpselike voice—full of earth and gravel and blood. "But I can't wait twenty minutes."

Craig jerked and the wheel spun out of control.

The car hadn't been speeding but the dirt was slippery. Even as the Crown ran off the makeshift road and slammed into a tree trunk thicker than thrice the width of his car, shearing great chunks of bark and metal and sparks from the collision, Craig was unable to stop himself from turning round.

"Wh—"

His mouth went dry, as if instantly filled with dust, his tongue stuck to his pallet. He looked in the corner of the back seat and saw her change.

For a glimpsing moment she became a striking woman in prime age beauty. Sparkling crystal eyes framed by jet-black hair so dark it glimmered blue. A Goth babe stripped naked of her leather, waiting in the back seat for her fate. And then the change became complete.

The thing got off the seat, took hold of his hand with her own, and slowly pulled herself to him.

What Craig saw only had time to register on the unconscious level of his mind. Had he been granted the opportunity to remember that moment, he would have remembered (she came first in another body that's why the clothes didn't fit her this isn't her true form she can change to anything she wants!) her face first of all: The features lost every trace of color and ran all together like decayed yogurt, drawing and melting into the center. A deep hole sunk into the middle of what was once a young girl's face, stretching and growing teeth till there were no more eyes or ears or lips, just a fang-lined, gaping orifice. The air chucked up bore the rich smell of blood and disease. The smell of long dead meat. The thing's blue eyes dripped red blood, then jellified into coagulated globs of blood in their sockets. But somehow they could still see him. The mouth opened and yawned at him, screeching with the high pitched shriek of twisting steel and dry ice shards scraping along blackboards. Craig slapped his one free hand to his ear and screamed. His larynx erupted blood and burst, but he kept on screaming.

He would also have remembered feeling his bladder and bowels suddenly fill with the essence that had been robbed from them in Zodiac, and then losing all muscle control of those organs. Their contents blasted out from him like a vacuum pump spewing sewage, adding to the bitter copper smell inside his car.

And he would have remembered noticing that it was still raining, hard, but that the drops falling on his windshield were crimson red.

Craig never did get the chance to comprehend those, for as he screamed, her small hand gripped his wrist with unparalleled strength, crushing the bones, and her other hand reached out and took his neck. The fingers grew suddenly long and supple enough to encircle his neck with extra room, their points thinning and hardening to talons.

In one fluid motion, she broke his arm and flung his head into the window on his right, exploding the glass and the left side of his skull.

Craig Jones was still screaming.

He should have died on impact, but a cruel twist of fate, paying him back with interest for every perverted act of cruelty, granted him only madness. He was still alive and conscious when the Marlene-thing pulled him to the back seat of the car—like a predator insect dragging paralyzed prey to its lair—and began the long process of draining him of all fluids, beginning with the blood in his guts, and ending with the grey paste of his slowly rotting brain.

By then, the rain had stopped and the crickets were boisterously noisome. The humidity matched a swamp.

It was her thirst to consume the fluids of her victims, her need, as she had been his. When satisfied, Marlene left Craig a dry husk of skin draped around his bones, sprawled in the back seat like a sleeping Halloween costume. There was just enough life and blood in him to draw the mosquitoes. She found it suitable that he would be finished off in this way. As she pressed the lock-release button for the doors, she could still sense his mind screaming.

Marlene stepped out of the car—tall, junoesque, lithe once more, raven-colored hair returning again to her head in such clarity it shimmered blue, face morphing back to that beautiful form that left her victims stumbling over themselves to discover her secret and their doom, her eyes glistening like polished sapphires.

She returned her clothes to her body—pleased at how well they fit again—checked herself once in the black glint of the car's window, and began the lonely walk home.

It was a long stretch of tree-lined darkness before she would reach civilization. The wildlife hushed for her as she moved along, the night creatures retreating from the range of her senses. It was far to the main road, and there would be no cars to offer assistance.

That was why she always brought her victims here.

*

Jesse De Rozario

Singapore, August 2004

Copyright © 2006 De Rozario Jesse

All rights reserved.

Portions of this document may not be reproduced through any means, including, but not limited to, scanning, uploading, reproduction, transmission, and distribution via the Internet or any other means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying or recording in any form, without express permission of the author.

Any reproduction or redistribution of this document must be done wholly and in its entirety.