Serial Uncut - J. A. Konrath [12]
She rode down in the elevator with Orson and his friend, Luther, a tall, pale-faced man with long, black hair who was seriously creeping her out. He kept watching her with his big black eyes that held such an intensity she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to see them alone.
They ate breakfast downstairs, the three of them sitting at a table in a corner, and the fourth time she caught him staring at her, Lucy couldn’t help herself.
“Take a picture, dude. It’ll last longer.”
Orson looked up from his bacon and eggs. “What’s wrong?”
“Why does your friend keep staring at me like that? It’s weird.”
Orson grinned and glanced at Luther, then back at Lucy. He leaned toward her and whispered. “He wants to kill you, Lucy.”
She felt a coldness spill inside her gut.
“Why?”
“It’s what he does. He can’t help himself. He’s sitting there imagining draining you in our bathtub. But don’t worry. I’ve told him you’re off-limits. Told him you might even be one of us.”
She glared at Luther. “You don’t scare me.”
He said. “You look like you’re scared, little girl.”
“Oh, you can read my thoughts? Well, if you could, you’d know I’m thinking how pretty your dark blood would look running out of your snow-white neck.”
Orson laughed out loud. “Isn’t she great?”
Lucy hadn’t averted her eyes from Luther, soaking in the psychotic malevolence.
“All right, listen,” Orson said. “I think we’re all a little hard-up for some fun. I had an idea while I was falling asleep last night. Darling’s room is already a wreck. Why don’t we all, together, find someone to take there this afternoon?”
Lucy’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Yeah, we’ll go right after Andrew Thomas’s speech.” Orson smiled. “I wouldn’t want to miss that.” He looked at Luther. “What do you think? You brought your toolbox, right?”
Luther smiled, and it was the scariest thing Lucy had ever seen.
For some reason, Orson didn’t want to sit on the front row for Andrew Thomas’s speech, so Lucy sat by herself, her heart pumping as the man walked up onto the stage.
She stood with the rest of the crowd and applauded the guest of honor, then sat with rapt attention as Andrew read an excerpt from a work in progress, one of the most gruesome and awesome things Lucy had ever heard.
The book was called The Passenger, a horror novel about an unnamed, psychopathic hitchhiker who travels around the country getting free rides from people, then robbing and killing them most horribly. In the section Andrew read, the Passenger ties a man to the back of his own car and drags him down the highway for five miles.
The signing line stretched all the way around the bookroom. The eight books in Lucy’s arms were heavy, and by the time she got close to the table, her muscles were beginning to cramp.
She couldn’t take her eyes off of Andrew as he signed books and made small talk with the fans. When it was finally her turn, she set her stack of books on the table and smiled and reached out her hand.
“Mr. Thomas, I am your biggest fan. I’ve read everything you ever wrote. I’m Lucy. I love what you read today. Will you sign my books?”
He shook her hand and smiled. “Of course.”
“Um, I’m sorry, Mr. Thomas can only sign three books.” Lucy looked at the woman standing behind the writer, a large woman in a horrific dress who looked like a librarian.
“But I want all of them signed.”
The woman pursed her lips. “If everyone brought eight books, we’d be here until Christmas.”
“But everyone didn’t bring eight books. Most only brought one.”
“Pick three. You’re holding up the line.”
Lucy glanced down at Andrew, flashed her puppy dog eyes.
“Margie, I think it’s okay to make one exception,” he said, grabbing the top book on Lucy’s pile and opening it to the cover page. As he looked down to sign, Lucy stuck her tongue out at Margie.
“So are you in high school, Lucy?