Succulent Prey

LEISURE BOOKS

NEW YORK CITY

To Mom. A LEISURE BOOK®

December 2008 Dorchester Publishing

Co., Inc. 200 Madison Avenue New York,

NY 10016

If you purchased this book without a

cover you should be aware that this

book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for

this "stripped book." Copyright OO 2008

by Wrath James White Al rights

reserved. No part of this book may be

reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,

including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval

system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. ISBN 10: 0-8439-6164-3 ISBN 13:

978-0-8439-6164-5

The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "L" with design are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

Printed in the United States of America. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Visit us on the web at

www.dorchesterpub.com.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to Brian Keene, Ed Lee,

and Jack Ketchum for support and

inspiration. Thanks also to my ex-wife

Rosie who was with me through the

writing of this and put up with the

weirdness. And to Zondria, my biggest

fan, who was also with me through the

writing of this and who was always

supportive and encouraging and helped

me get through the rough patches.

SUCCULENT

PREY

Part I

Chapter One

Joey tasted nickel and copper. Blood.

His mouth was fil ed with his own blood lying thick on his tongue. He tried to spit it out but the duct tape strapped across his face made it impossible. He had no

choice but to swal ow it, gagging as a

wad of blood and phlegm slid down his

throat in a warm lump. Joey tried hard to keep from crying. He'd been crying for

hours and it had done him no good. The

fat kid seemed to enjoy his tears.

Why me? Why is he doing this?

It was a pointless question with no

answer that would have made a bit of

difference. He was suffering and he

would continue to suffer and there was

nothing he could do about it.

At first he had been confident that his parents would rescue him and punish the fat kid. He was sure that as soon as they realized he hadn't made it home from

school they'd be kicking down every

door on the block looking for him. But

that had been many hours ago and no

one had come for him. Now he was

afraid that no one would ever find him; that he would die down there in the dank basement.

The rusted fiberglass-on-steel tub in

which Joey lay was rapidly fil ing with blood. Joey splashed about in a river of red, slipping farther down into the tub. He'd heard that you could drown in three inches of bathwater and wondered how

many inches of blood were already in

the tub. He knew he was bleeding to

death. His flesh had been split open like overripe fruit and was leaking in a

steady sluggish drip down into the large bathtub.

Joey didn't know how many times he'd

been stabbed and cut. Slashes

crosshatched his thighs and buttocks,

many of them going clean through to the bone, yawning wide like toothless smiles fil ed with bleeding pink gums. He could see the red muscle fibers and stringy

sal ow fat boiling up out of one

particularly deep wound in his upper

thigh. Luckily his genitals had been

spared the fat kid's attentions. His anus, unfortunately, had not. He'd cut him there too and then he'd done worse. Joey tried his best not to think about that pain.

Several times now the fat kid had come, dipped a glass into the tub, fil ed it with Joey's blood, and brought the glass to

his blubbery lips to drink. His squinty little eyes would flutter in absolute ecstasy as he gulped down the red liquid, making

sickening smacking noises. Even

through the pain Joey found amusement

in knowing that he had pissed himself in the same tub from which the fat kid was drinking.

Time stal ed as Joey slipped into and out of consciousness. The basement was a

perpetual night, an endless nightmare

from which he could not awaken. The

windows along the tops of the basement

wal s were spray-painted black. Faint

glimmers of light leaked between the

cracks in the frames and cast eerie

shadows on the damp wal s. The only

genuine il umi nation came from the

fluorescent light at the bottom of the

basement steps and that was only turned on when the fat kid came down to play.

Joey was beginning to fear that light. In the dark he was alone. Safe. Whenever

the light came on the pain started al

over again.

Joey's throat was raw and hoarse from

the agonized shrieks that had torn their way up from his bel y and out into the

moist, stagnant basement air. Even after the fat kid covered Joey's mouth with

duct tape he had continued to scream at every thrust and slash of the knife,

scalpel, sharp steel pins, and needles. Not to cal for help, but to drown out the pain with noise.

Joey lost track of how many times the fat kid came down to torture him or drink

from his wounds. The image of the

teenager's chubby cheeks splashed with

Joey's blood, his eyes glazed and

sparkling with hunger and lust, made

chil s dance along Joey's skin. He

wondered if the kid was a vampire.

Vampires were supposed to be thin and

beautiful and this kid was al lumpy and misshapen with pimples exploding al

over his acne-scarred face, but he had

drank an enormous amount of blood.

Only a vampire could have drank that

much blood without getting sick. But if that kid was immortal then he was

fucked because that meant he'd have to

look like that forever.

Maybe he just thinks he's a vampire?

Joey wondered. Or maybe he is a

vampire but just a different kind than the ones in the movies. An uglier kind.

The basement door creaked open again

and sunlight spil ed down the stairs,

il uminating the cobwebs and rat

droppings and chasing away the

cockroaches that had come to lap at the blood splattered around the outside of

the tub. A few tepid rays of sunshine

struck metal and cast their gleam farther into the room. Joey's eyes fol owed the sun rays back to their reflection in the stainless surgical steel and he

shuddered.

Several cruel-looking implements were

laid out on a metal table a few feet from where Joey lay bleeding. Razor-sharp

scalpels, knives, and needles, arranged the way surgeons did on TV-in order of

practical use. They were al stained with Joey's blood.

The basement door closed again and