job of pretending;otherwise.
Pointing to the floor at his feet, Candy said,
“Come here and kneel, you mother-killer.” The cats fled from the
section of the cracked linoleum which the madman had indicated.
The twins stood hipshot but alert. Bobby had seen cats feign
indifference in the same way but reveal their actual involvement by the
prick of their ears. With Violet and Verbina, their true interest was
betrayed by the throbbing of their pulses in their temples and, almost
obscenely, by the erection of their nipples against the fabric of their
T-shirts.
“I said come here and kneel,” Candy repeated.
“Or will you really betray the only people who ever lifted a hand to
help you in these last seven years? Kneel, or I’ll kill the Dakotas,
both of them, I’ll kill them now.
Candy projected the awesome presence not of a psychotic but of a
genuinely SUPERNATURAL being, as if his name were Legion and forces
beyond human ken worked through him.
Frank moved forward one step, away from Bobby’s side.
Another step.
Then he stopped and looked around at the cats, as if something about
them puzzled him.
Bobby could never know if Frank had intended to evoke the bloody
consequences that ensued from his next act, whether his words were
calculated, or whether he was speaking out befuddlement and was as
surprised as anyone by the tune that followed. Whatever the case, he
frowned at the!” looked up at the bolder of the twins, and said,
“Ah, is Mother still here, then? Is she still here in the house with
us?” The shy twin stiffened, but the bold one actually appeared to
relax, as if Frank’s question had spared her the trouble deciding on the
right time and place to make the revelat herself. She turned to Candy
and favored him with thesubtly textured smile Bobby had ever seen: it
was mocking, it was a would-be lover’s invitation, as well; it was
tentat with fear, but simultaneously challenging; hot with lust, with
dread; and above all, it was wild, as uncivilized and fe cious as any
expression on the face of any creature that roa any field or forest in
the world.
Her smile was met by Candy with an expression of stark horror and
disbelief that made him appear, briefly and for the first time, almost
human.
“You didn’t,” he said.
The bold twin’s smile broadened.
“After you buried her, dug her up. She’s part of us now, and always
will be, part us, part of the pack.” The cats swished their tails and
stared at Candy.
The cry that erupted from him was less than human, a the speed with
which he reached the bold twin was uncan He drove her against the
refrigerator with his body, crushed her against it, grabbed her by the
face with his right hand and slammed her head against the yellowed
enamel surface, again. Lifting her bodily, his hands around her narrow
was he tried to throw her as a furious child might cast away a!” but
cat-quick she wrapped her limber legs around his waist and locked her
ankles behind him, so she was riding him with breasts before his face.
He pounded at her with his fists, she would not let go. She held on
until the blows stopped raing on her, then loosened her lock on him so
she slid do far enough to bring her pale throat near his mouth. He
seing the opportunity that she thrust upon him and tore the life of her
with his teeth.
The cats squealed hideously, though not as one creaturetime, and fled
the kitchen by several routes.
To the sound of his anguished screams and her eerily ero cries, Candy
extinguished his sister’s life in less than a minute Neither Bobby nor
Julie attempted to intervene, for it was clear that to do so would be
like stepping into the funnel of a tornado, ensuring their death but
leaving the storm undiminished. Frank only stood in that curious
detachment that was now his only attitude.
Candy turned immediately to the shy twin and destroyed her even more
quickly, as she offered no resistance.
As the psychotic giant dropped the brutalized corpse, Frank at last