Sex and Murder Magazine

By Rob Shelsky

CRACK! Not close lightning nor distant thunder; Paul ducked behind the maple tree. He flattened against the textured roughness of its bark, burrowed into its shadowed obscurity as the reverberations died away. His chest heaved. His pulse sprinted. Paul was on an adrenaline high. He had often reveled in this heightened sensation when hunting, but this was his first time feeling it from the quarry's terrified perspective. It was far less enjoyable.

He waited for more gunshots, the first bellows of alarm that should follow, noises crashing through the black woods, coming closer, but nothing came. There were no yells of challenge echoing at him from out of that well of darkness, no frantic screams of warning.

The night remained quiet if glacial, undisturbed except for the soughing of a bitter wind caressing leafless branches, the dry scrapings of seasonally withered twigs, sounding like so many skeletal fingers rubbing against each other.

Paul let out a long, soft sigh, like that of a dying man. Relief slowed the racing rate of his heartbeat. He was not the target, not the one they were after. Probably, it was just some hapless hunter, still out stumbling about in the woods, even at this late hour, desperate to make his weekly quota of venison out of fear of exile. Nobody wanted that, at least no sane person did. Banishment was a sure death warrant these days. Out there, the plague lurked, waited for all.

Now Paul dared to lean out from behind the tree to stare at the log cabin. A modern style structure, with a prow-shaped front, it had floor-to-ceiling windows. No damn good for protection, but it was a great design for viewing those inside.

Yes! He was in luck. Marilyn and Greg were going at it again. They did almost every night, it seemed. He could see them by the glow of the fire that burned in the large flagstone fireplace. The two lay entwined on the couch, arms and legs akimbo. They writhed and twisted as they tore off their clothes, ripped away shirt and blouse, pulled at pants and panties. They frantically exposed each other's pale nakedness, baring their gleaming flesh to that ruddy light, revealing all in the fire's flickering glow.

They were in rare form tonight. They were doing better than he'd ever seen, like goddamned rabbits. It was a real turn-on. Paul fumbled with the buttons of his BDU's, struggling to open them. This was going to be good. The adrenaline rush already had excited him. He was more than ready.

The jealous thought crossed his mind, as it always did on these occasions, that it should be him in there, not Greg. Why was he the lucky one? Why shouldn't Greg have to lurk outside in the sub-zero night, watching others in order to get his jollies? Just because she happened to be vacationing here when the pestilence broke out, and Greg happened to own the damned place -- how unfair was that?

Of the women still alive in the area, Marilyn was the only exceptional one. Even now, her flaxen hair glinted like molten gold in the reflected shimmer of the firelight, a gilded liquid flow, blond tresses cascading down over her shoulders.

The two rolled over. Marilyn lay on her back and Greg swarmed up over the top of her, face moving over her flesh like a vacuum cleaner. As he stretched forward, his pale but hairy buttocks rose, as if some furry moon climbing above a horizon.

Lucky bastard.

What she saw in Greg, Paul couldn't imagine. He was not particularly good looking, being soft and on the heavy side. The man couldn't hunt worth a crap either, never could, for that matter. He always ended up drawing from the village's common food supply. This was the same one to which Paul had to so heavily contribute, or face exile himself. Still, Greg knew how to make money, to acquire things, like this cabin. Even now, in the middle of this apocalypse, he knew how to survive relatively comfortably.

In his own mind, Paul was sure he would make the much better partner for Marilyn. Well, maybe not in bed. He had to admit that Greg's technique was better than average there. The man had talent when it came to women, no doubt about it. Probably, he'd had a lot of practice. Money bought opportunities such as those. But Paul felt sure he could hold his own, in the figurative sense at least, instead of the current literal sense, if only given the chance. And how he wanted that chance! At times, he felt he'd die for such an opportunity, to be with Marilyn.

Besides, sex wasn't everything. Paul, at least, could see to it that Marilyn ate well and stayed warm. He could love her, look after her, and protect her. With him by her side, there would be no chance of some perverted and desperate loner lurking in the darkness outside their house at night, watching them. He would see to that.

Now Paul stared as Marilyn wriggled in ecstasy. She arched her back up from the sofa, her long shapely legs wrapping tightly around Greg's hips. Marilyn's breasts, like twin, palest melons, pressed voluptuously against Greg's chest as she encircled him with her arms.

Like a physical thing this time, another wave of jealousy swept over Paul. Damn the plague! It was responsible for all of this. Before it struck, he would just drive over to Wheeling and find the sex he needed, when he needed, but for a price, of course. The regular city women there had called him a red neck, a rube, or even worse, trailer trash. They wouldn't date him - said he had no prospects, no education, that he was a loser. That had hurt, a lot. Could he help it if his old aunt had raised him in this backward place, one that offered him no chance for a future, or proper schooling?

So, he had instead sought out prostitutes in the low streets, paying heavily for a brief moment of transient physical ecstasy. Always, afterward, it had made him feel unwanted, dirty, and ashamed. A quick fumble followed by an even quicker, barely satisfying orgasm. No kind words, no affection, and certainly there was never any love involved.

But there was also no other choice left to him. Paul had to pay. Then, didn't everyone always pay for it, in one way or another? So why shouldn't he then get his share of the benefits?

Paul felt he had a right to these sentiments. He did his part, didn't he? He worked hard without complaint, and with no reward. He had to hunt every day, all day. He had to do it in every kind of weather, dry, wet, or snow, to help feed everybody in the village. But nobody gave a damn about him or his needs.

Live alone, work alone, and die alone. That was Paul's unwanted creed. It was the maxim by which forced him to live these days. The constant loneliness -- sometimes he felt crushed under the burden and despair of it.

"If you want to stay here, you have to pull your own weight. You have to help supply food. Otherwise, we've got no use for you. That's the deal - take it or leave it."

Yeah, right, like he had any choice. Thirty-two men Paul helped feed. Weren't those fat city boys capable of shooting their own meat with their fancy new rifles, night scopes, and all? They dominated by sheer numbers, a bunch of out-of-town softies who happened to be in Beaver Hollow for the hunting season when all hell had broken loose. Besides them, there were only a few local men.

Sixteen women for all of them and half of those were too old for Paul to want to look at, let alone touch. Besides, it wasn't a good idea. Locals knew how to protect their women-by sighting down the length of a steel barrel. Still, Paul wasn't unattractive. He was tall, angular, somewhat lanky, but not disproportionately so. He might have managed something if the city boys hadn't backed the local men. They said it was "the civilized thing to do." Just wait until more long months of loneliness dragged by, Paul would like to see how "civilized" they acted then.

Shoving aside these unwanted feelings, he continued to watch the two inside. They were in the full throes of their passion, as they worked steadily toward a heated conclusion. Paul was moving in that direction himself now. Vicariously, he made love to Marilyn by pretending that it was he, and not Greg, who was with her.

Rashly, he decided to move closer. Paul had never done this before, but they were now much too intent on what they were doing to notice him, or so he hoped. He edged out from behind the tree, crouching low. Then he scuttled forward, crab-like, one arm outstretched for balance, the other hand still clutching himself, still moving. Awkward this, especially if caught, and no doubt it was ridiculous looking, but it was only a matter of yards.

There was no moon yet. The partially clouded sky shrouded what little light the stars afforded. His hunting camouflage offered him some protection. He blended with the shadows that pooled wide, inky-black, in front of the cabin. He knew the moon would rise soon. It would be almost full. That limited how long he dared stay.

Still, he had some time, and the way those two were going at it, it wouldn't be much longer now anyway. And he wanted to be closer, to feel more a part of it than he ever had before. Paul warily approached the glass window, stooping as low as he could without actually having to crawl.

Yes, this was much better. He could see everything clearly from here, his nose practically pressed against the plate glass. So close was he, that his warm breath fogged on its cold surface, if he wasn't careful.

Paul stared into the cabin, a part of him knowing how he must appear, must have a lean and hungry expression on his face. Hell, he could practically feel this. Paul's avid eyes greedily searched out details of their partially shadowed, but frenziedly working bodies. He was very excited.

It was not just the sex, he realized with the remaining part of his rational mind. A measure of his growing ecstasy was stimulation from fear they might discover him out here, leering in at them, slavering over their naked antics. If either of them should happen to even glance his way, they would see him crouched there like some feral beast, his eyes no doubt burning with lust, his mouth hanging loosely open with what must certainly be a drooling sexual rapacity.

They were really going at it now. Paul had never seen them so heated before, at such a sexual fever pitch. That's when it happened. Lying on her back, with her head propped against the arm of the couch, Marilyn slowly turned her head sideways and stared over Greg's heaving shoulders. She looked directly at Paul.

He froze, panicked. He hoped she somehow didn't see him. Paul prayed that he blended in with the shadows. In reality, he knew this was a hopeless idea, even as he thought it. He was too close to them for that to be possible. She saw him. There could be no doubt. She saw him there, just outside her window, pathetic creature that he was.

Their eyes met. They had to. They locked gazes with each other, held this for a long moment. She stared darkly at him from darker eyes, ones that reflected the flames of the fire. Then Marilyn's red lips parted, gave him a slow and lascivious grin. This shocked him.

Greg remained oblivious to what was passing between the two of them, apparently too consumed by his own building needs, his frantic thrusting urgings. Primal, that's what he was now. It's what Paul was too, enthralled by the absolute primitive. As for the dark-eyed Marilyn, he had no idea, no inkling as to what was motivating her. She remained the enigma in all this. Then, women usually did, or…

That was when it hit Paul. She knew! She had known all along that he was out there, watching them from the shadows, spying on their rutting, and she hadn't said a word to Greg. She must not have, or Paul would have reaped the deadly repercussions long before now.

The next thought struck like a physical blow. She wanted him there. Marilyn liked it, liked him out there staring in at them!

Paul stared back, entranced by this turn of events. All three of them now somehow seemed locked together to him, bound inextricably by the ties of the strange drama playing out between them, a triangle forged of the two active participants and the third, the solitary and desperate voyeur.

Suddenly, Greg flipped Marilyn over, and now he lay on his back with her straddled on top of him. He reached up with both hands. Paul thought this was so he could grab Marilyn by the shoulders, perhaps the better to control her movements.

Instead, starting at the base of her neck, with the fingers of both hands splayed wide apart like some mythical monkey's paws, Greg's rough thick nails bit and then dug deeply into her flesh. He raked his fingers slowly, deliberately down her back. Blood welled and flowed from the deep gashes left behind, spilled out like crimson ink from multiple parallel gouges. The sanguine liquid flowed, streamed down onto her frenetic lover's body as he heaved like a mad thing beneath her.

Paul's mouth dropped even farther open, if that were humanly possible. This wasn't sex anymore. It was something else, something terrible in its dark purity, its degenerate yet opulent extravagance. Marilyn threw back her head and howled like a wolf, her mouth wide open, her cheeks hollowed, her neck muscles taught, straining with the effort.

Then Greg convulsed in reaction to this, as if jolted by a sudden shock of high-voltage electricity. Using his hips and legs, he arched upward, bodily lifting her up, shoving her high off the couch. Now he threw his head back, exposing his neck. Greg's pronounced Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he repeatedly swallowed. With another unearthly noise, which was part scream of triumph, part ferocious howl, Marilyn, like something possessed, fell over him. Her mouth closed on Greg's unprotected throat.

Paul caught a glimpse of parted waxen lips, the depths of her luscious red mouth, the white glint of pearly teeth, as Marilyn sank them deep into the man's jugular, crushing through cartilage, grinding into ligaments. Greg gave a loud bubbling moan, more of a sob really, as the blood gushed, but he didn't attempt to stop her. His feet twitched. He still arched his back and hips, thrusting upwards as if he felt no pain at all. She clamped her jaws shut on his throat, tenacious, unrelenting, a human moray eel, her teeth buried fully into the side of his throat, seemingly never to let go.

Blood spurted! It jetted out darkly red in the dim light of the now dying fire. It sprayed in thin vermillion geysers onto their bare skin, all over the couch, and even onto the carpeted floor. Marilyn jerked her head from side to side now, dragging Greg's head with her. She was like a dog trying to snap the neck of its defeated prey.

During all of this, Greg never relinquished his hold, but neither did he offer any resistance. He held Marilyn, skewered on those embedded nails of his fingers. They made a squirming crown of thorns entrenched hard and deep, crucifying her immaculate flesh.

For just a brief second, so swiftly that it just might have been Paul's imagination, Greg, too, looked directly at him. Was that a sardonic smile? Or, was it just a death's head rictus of a grin distorting those grim lips of his?

Had he known about Paul, too? This idea astounded Paul, not so much by Greg knowing of his presence there, but by that seemingly knowing smile. Was it in fact a smile? How could he manage this under such circumstances-the man was bleeding to death, for God's sake! Perhaps, it just a grimace.

Then, a second later, and with another shake, Marilyn's clenched teeth physically jerked Greg's head in the other direction and away from Paul. Now, he could not even be certain if it had really happened, that smile. But real or not, it was enough. If Greg could die happy, so could Paul. He needed that final push, the one delivered by that demented and last tantalizing fillip of deadly perversity.

Paul shook all over. He trembled like a palsied old man. A sudden burst of intense euphoria flooded through him, filled him. Stars literally exploded in front of his eyes. His legs buckled under its power. He barely remained upright; he shook so with the spasms of an incredible release. It was a triumphant pleasure he'd never known before.

Then relief washed over him. He slumped forward against the cold glass of the window, exhausted, enervated, spent. Several long moments passed before this feeling of release, of impossible pleasure, faded, dissipated like a dream in the morning light. The whole thing had left him gasping for breath. Paul was stunned. This had been the most profound, if most decadent sexual experience of his life.

Finally, after more long moments, he refocused his attention on the couple inside. A forbidding reality gripped him now, a dawning realization of the atrocity that had just taken place. Greg was slack and limp; his naked body sprawled in casual disarray, one bare foot resting negligently on the floor. His head lolled to one side. Wide dark eyes stared sightlessly toward the window, as if even in death watching Paul, asking for his final approval.

Blood, looking now like India ink, still seeped from a large ragged wound in Greg's throat. It was as if someone had cut and stabbed at him with a pair of blunt pinking shears. Skin lay shredded and torn away from the raw red gash.

Marilyn was laying full length atop Greg, the side of her blood-smeared face now pressed against his, as if in some bizarre, post-coital act of deep affection, a blissful requited endearment. The ends of her golden hair were sticky with blood. The stuff was everywhere. Her eyes now stared in the same direction as Greg's-right at Paul.

Marilyn raised her head. Was it a trick of the light from the dying fire, effects of the shadows, or were her eyes that black? Paul couldn't discern her pupils or the whites of them. Those eyes stared at him blankly, twin gems of gleaming anthracite, obsidian death jewels, regarding him with a shameless, even pointed coldness.

Feeling a true horror now, Paul backed away from the window. Marilyn lifted her right arm, the one that had lain draped over Greg's hairy body. Crooking a pale index finger, she gestured for Paul to come to her.

Without realizing it, he shook his head, not speaking. Slowly, in complete silence, he backed away from the glass, away from her.

The moon climbed above the woods now, its baleful ashen light suffusing the cabin and trees around it in a dull and argent glow. Paul stumbled farther backwards, seeking refuge in the waning shadows that were even now retreating, as if fleeing in fear from the front of the building, the strange woman inside it.

Marilyn gestured again, a more abrupt, demanding movement this time. Then, bracing her left hand against Greg's still chest, she pushed herself up, and swung her feet onto the floor. She stood, facing the window, facing Paul.

Slowly she moved forward, panther-like, approaching the window, coming out of the shadows of the room and into the cold silver-white of the spiraling moonlight. She stood there naked, frozen, an alabaster goddess of death. Her eyes were black! There could be no mistake!

Looking into that bituminous, coal-dark stare of hers, panic seized Paul. It gripped his heart like a vice, squeezing the very breath from his lungs. This was the plague! This was how it started. That was the rumor. Some claimed there was sexual madness, and then frenzied self-destruction in its fulfillment.

Paul realized he didn't want to die to have Marilyn, not really. Now, he almost stumbled as he turned and ran, heading for the sanctuary of the deeper woods and the trail that would bring him eventually back to the refuge of the village of Beaver Hollow.

"Plague," he whispered to himself, as he ran headlong through the trees. "Plague," he shouted to the sky. Branches whipped at him, stinging his face and body, leaving welts and lacerations on his skin. He was oblivious to them. Running in sheer desperation, plunging onward, he tripped over some dark object, perhaps a tree root, and fell to his knees. He struggled to his feet. Ignoring the sudden sharp pain in his left ankle, Paul started running again, this time a limping retreat.

Was this how it truly started? A disease kindled by sexual heat? The infection had begun in the cities, first New York, followed by Boston. Then it had mushroomed up and down the coast, springing forth like some demonic beast, spreading devastation in city after city. In short order, the plague had jumped borders, had proliferated across the entire continent, its deadly contagion infecting and decimating one vast metropolitan area after another. Finally, it had spread around the world, a final conflagration of disease, death, and ultimate chaos. And it had all happened so unbelievably fast, in just weeks.

The few that somehow survived the ravages of the plague looted and preyed upon their own weaker members. Fires, wanton destruction, and mayhem filled the cities. Communications fell apart-no phone, no radio, and no television. People grubbed for existence amongst deserted steel and glass towers, deserted that is, except for millions of rotting bodies and the swarms of attendant rats. There was no means for the human survivors to get out. Even if they did, there was no place for them to go. They were marked, stamped by plague, branded as possible carriers. Paul mentally cringed at this thought. He could not imagine being in such a terrible predicament.

But it hadn't come to this area. Somehow, Beaver Hollow was still clean. Some of the small places had avoided it, although the disease was still spreading, slower now, but inexorably. A place would be okay for weeks, free of disease, and then suddenly it would appear there. Once it started, there was no stopping it.

But Paul should still be all right, uninfected. He had been outside the whole time, through that strange, and yes, he had to admit it, strangely exciting event. There was no way he could have contracted the plague, surely? Bacteria and viruses couldn't get through glass, could they?

He continued running. His breath came in deep gasps and a painful stitch developed in his side. So panicked had he been that he had even forgotten to put himself to rights, to tuck himself away, and button his pants. As Paul neared the village, he slowed, too out of breath to continue his run. He fumbled with the buttons of his BDU's, adjusted himself as best he could.

Reason clamped down on him. He knew that he did not dare yell "plague," to warn the inhabitants. He would be the first one shot or evicted from the little town, tainted by association with the word. Where would he go if they kicked him out, what with winter coming on, and no other place willing to harbor a patently unsafe stranger? He would die in short and terrible order.

No, it was best to keep quiet, to say nothing. The townsfolk would discover the truth soon enough. When Greg didn't report for hunting duty tomorrow, they would soon check to find out why. Nobody shirked his or her responsibilities here, no matter what. Those in control forbade this.

He should be all right, Paul reasoned, if he didn't lose his head, kept calm. Paul wasn't infected. He couldn't be. After all, he had not actually been with them, touched them, or even breathed the same air.

Then a new thought occurred to him. Maybe, it wasn't germs passing it. Was it something else, something entirely new? The look in her coal-dark eyes, that same bizarre look in Greg's just before he had died. It had been so powerful, so...so seductive. Could it be possible?

He shook himself. No, don't be stupid, he thought. Sheer looks could not pass diseases, cause people willingly to sexually annihilate one another. Everyone knew that. He'd learned that much in school if nothing else.

Calmer now, he entered the outskirts of little Beaver Hollow. His breathing slowed almost to a normal level, as he headed for what passed for the main street of the tiny village.

Beaver Hollow, a town under quarantine. No one came in. If you were crazy enough to leave, you could not come back. Not that he had any desire to go. Wheeling was the only place he ever visited. The plague had hit there months ago. And Paul wasn't into necrophilia.

He mentally shrugged at this callous thought. He was a caring person. But what could he do about it? There was no cure for the plague. But at least he'd survived, just barely, this night.

So life wasn't very pleasant anymore, even dreary, a matter of sheer survival at best. Paul still wanted to live. He had enough to eat. Meat, they had, supplied by the deer in the area, but power had been off for several months. Drinking water was bucketed from streams, and sometimes, by the unwise, from stagnant ponds. Vegetables and fruit were at a premium, almost impossible to come by. And there was no entertainment - just work and more work, in order to stay alive. Still, it was a life.

Now he went past the little red grocery store-cum-gas station, the tiny restaurant (closed now and for some time), and headed for his own little single-walled, constructed bungalow at the far end.

He breathed a deep sigh of relief. It was amazing how his fears had multiplied, had exploded like maggots overnight on some rotting piece of necrotic flesh. Common sense was such a fragile thing in the face of such terrible panic, such morbid hysteria. A disease spread by a simple look? As if, looks could kill! What had he been thinking? How stupid could he be?

Paul decided to be gone early the next morning. He thought this a wise move. He had another long day of hunting ahead of him. Well, every day was a long day of that. What had once been a sport for him was now a tedious necessity.

But what would happen to Marilyn if she were still alive when they discovered Greg's body, Paul could only guess, but he didn't want to be in town when they did. He wanted nothing to do with it, no sense of taint, and no knowledge of what would follow. Forget all that. Avoid all that.

He was almost home. He would soon be safe. This sudden need for safety almost made him break into a run, but he stopped himself. To run was to show fear, to aggravate a limp he was trying to conceal. No, it was best to walk slowly, almost as if one were just out for a stroll. Any eyes watching would see nothing strange, nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing to arouse any dreaded suspicion.

Suddenly, Paul was aware of a new feeling, a tingling, and a spreading sense of warmth in his loins. Even as he became aware of this, the sensation rapidly turned to a white-hot desire. How it burned! Despite everything that had happened this night, Paul was acutely aware he was being overwhelmed with an urgent and undeniable need.

He had to have sex, he realized dimly through a gathering mental red haze that was rapidly incinerating all efforts at preserving logic, even basic instincts of self-preservation. Paul lusted. He wanted it, craved it with an animal hunger. What's more, he knew he would do anything to get it.

Like a creature possessed, a zombie from some ghastly, third-rate movie, he limped down the street, guided by the improbable divining rod of his own tumescence, a turgid need for fulfillment.

There was a dim light glowing in the front window of Old Lady Grayson's place. Her house was right across the street from his bungalow. Without thinking, without hesitating even to consider the consequences of his actions, and acting on basic instinct alone, Paul swerved, veering to take a new path. It led directly for her home.

Paul crept to the lit window and stood there, just outside it. A female figure moved inside, approached the glass. Priscilla Grayson, her faded-blue eyes large, stared out at Paul. Apparently recognizing him, her hand flew to her mouth, but she didn't scream, didn't cry out any alarm. Instead, her eyes locked with his. Like a cobra hypnotizing its victim, Paul gazed back at her. Long minutes passed this way, until he felt he could bear the wait no longer, his need for lust and blood now so great, so overwhelming in its intensity.

Then, as if in a trance, without saying a word, the woman motioned for him to go to the front door. Paul gave a slight nod. He silently slipped down the gravel path that led there. She was already waiting in the open doorway for him when he arrived. Eyes already larger and now black, she regarded him with feral anticipation as she swung the door even wider for Paul, allowing him unfettered access.

He entered. Now nothing else mattered to Paul, not life, not survival, nor love and affection, and not even the fact that the plague had finally come to Beaver Hollow. It had crept there in the dead of a brittle wintry night. Quietly, it had stolen up on Paul like a sudden evening snowfall and had claimed him as its unwitting casualty, catching him at a weak and wanting moment.

Not that it mattered to him any longer, being no longer rational, but if he had still needed such consolation, it was that he, Paul, would not be the last victim. Others in Beaver Hollow would follow him, Priscilla Grayson first among them. There was one other comfort for Paul, as well, if he had needed it. He was about to die an insanely happy man.



















































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