Pure Hate Read Free Page B

and his eyes grew
large with surprise as he found himself staring at his father’s face on another
man. His eyes drifted to the darkness behind the daddy-clone. Something out
there in the night was grinning at him with long silver fangs. Fear raked its
icy talons across his spine even as the darkness reached for him. He tried to
grab his sister and pull her from the doorway but it was too late. The darkness
swept into the room and scooped him and his sister off the floor in arms that
felt like what it must be like to be hugged by a granite statue.
    “Reed!” the darkness yelled as it
hurled the two terrified children into the living room. Their small, helpless
bodies slammed headlong into the far wall, knocking the wind from their lungs.
Dazed and frightened, they huddled together, crying for
their father. The long- haired guy who looked like their daddy charged into the
kitchen and attacked their mother, smacking her to the floor and dragging her
across the linoleum by her hair. A huge, curved knife with a spiked knuckle
guard was pressed against her throat, and as
she thrashed to free herself, it cut into her
skin drawing blood. That’s when Reed charged in looking like he was ready to
kill.
    “Daddy!” the kids yelled, confidant
that he would be able to save them. They were confidant until the huge black
vampire turned to greet Reed and their father’s face drained of all color. He
looked small and helpless next to the tremendous black man with the shotgun.
    “What the fuck is—”
    Reed’s protest died in his throat as
his eyes widened with recognition and he came face-to-face with all his guilt
and fear.
    “Malcolm?”
    “Reed. I’m so glad you remember me
after all these years. I never forgot you. I almost didn’t recognize you with
the haircut but I never forgot . . .”
    Malcolm leered at Reed, his face mere
inches away as if he were about to embrace him, that malevolent grin spreading
even wider, splitting his face like a jack-o-lantern.
    “. . . Not for a second.”
    “What the hell do you want, Mal—.”
Again Reed found his words choked off in midstream. This time it was due to
Malcolm thrusting his thumb into Reed’s Adam’s apple. He fell to his knees,
gagging and coughing, his eyes wide and teary.
    “Do you know what I was doing while
you were going to college and getting married and writing your cheap little
books? Well, I’m going to show you. ” Malcolm’s eyes flashed with an almost
unbearable hatred. They burned into Reed as if he were trying to immolate him
where he stood.
    “See, your death had to be perfect
because I can only kill you once, Reed. What a pity that is. I wish I could
keep killing you over and over again. There are so many ways I could make you
suffer. I have dreamed about it so many times. But I can only do it once. I
have to choose one death for you. One perfect death. It has to make up for the
pain you caused me all these years. So I’ve been practicing.”
    Reed swallowed hard. He looked from
his son to his daughter, and then back to Malcolm.
    “W-what do you mean, practicing?”
    Malcolm smiled again.
    “I cruised the little back-alley bars
on Pine Street, picking up pretty little long-haired white boys, taking them
home and cutting them up . . . practicing.” He spoke calmly and evenly as if he
were giving a lecture, but that searing hatred and madness still burned in his
eyes and his smile kept curling up on one side making it look more like a
snarl.
    Reed looked over at the man who was
threatening his wife and noticed for the first time that the man looked exactly
like him. He wondered why Malcolm hadn’t killed him? If what Malcolm said was
true and he was the slasher who had been killing homosexual men plucked from
the seedy little gay bars on Pine Street, then surely that’s where he had found
this guy. So why hadn’t he killed him too? The Malcolm Davis he remembered
certainly didn’t need this anemic looking queer to pull off something like
this,