Fiends SSC Read Online Free PDF

and tied the robe shut.
        The bell rang once more before she got downstairs.
        She opened the door. Seeing a total stranger took her by surprise, but there was nothing menacing about his skinny body or his crew cut or his black eyebrows meeting above his nose. His big ears made him look funny.
        ‘Good morning,’ he greeted her, bowing his high, narrow head. ‘Can I talk to the master of the house?’
        ‘He isn’t home right now,’ she said.
        ‘When do you expect him back?’
        ‘What’s this about?’
        ‘I do odd jobs.’
        ‘Well, I don’t know if he’d…’
        ‘Can I talk to your mother about it?’
        ‘She isn’t…’
        Marty suddenly realized that she shouldn’t be saying such things to a stranger.
        ‘She isn’t home,’ he said. It wasn’t a question. ‘I know.’ His thin lips curled into a grin. ‘They shouldn’t have left you alone.’
        The door crashed into her. She tumbled backward as the stranger rushed in.
        Looking up from the floor, she saw the knife in his hand.
        ‘Stand up,’ he said, waving it.
        ‘What do you want?’
        ‘I want you to stand up.’
        It was hard getting off the floor because her bones felt soft and wobbly. But she did as she was told.
        ‘Your bedroom’s upstairs, right?’
        She nodded.
        ‘I know. I know all about you, Marty. I’ve been keeping an eye on you for a long time. Ever since I saw you at the car wash with your old lady. You had on white shorts and a red blouse. I wanted to rip ’em off you and fuck you right there. But I’m not stupid. I waited for just the right time. And guess what. This is it. Let’s go upstairs.’
        ‘I don’t want to.’
        ‘Start walking.’ He waved his knife under her chin.
        She began to cry.
        He walked behind her, the knife point biting through her robe and pajamas, nipping her back. Up the stairway. Down the hall. Into her sun-bright bedroom.
        When he began to strip her, she said, ‘Don’t. Please.’
        He didn’t bother to move Jane Eyre before shoving her backward onto the bed. By the time he finished, the book’s slick dust jacket was ripped off. The covers were broken. The spine was split, and loose pages were scattered over the sheet, spoiled with blood and semen.
        Lying back, Marty covered herself with a sheet, curled up on her side, and watched her forefinger draw a line along the edge of the mattress pad.
         Why did he have to come back? What does he want?
         Me.
         He wants me.
         Again.
        

9
        
        The parking space in front of Willy’s motel room was empty. He pulled into it.
        With a grocery bag in one arm, he opened the door of his room. Air-conditioned. Nice and cool.
        He dumped the bag onto his bed. Out fell a plastic bottle of aspirin, his filthy wadded T-shirt, and a coil of clothesline.
        He pulled off his boots and jeans, staggered into the bathroom.
        In the mirror there, he saw what had been done to him. The crusty gash at the base of his nose. The bruises.
         I’ll kill his ass, the cocksucker.
        Willy took four aspirin tablets, washing them down with handfuls of water. Then he made his way back to the bed. He threw off the blankets and crawled in naked between the sheets.
        And moaned.
        Slowly, his pain faded.
        Everything faded.
        In half-sleep, he saw Marty sprawled on a bed, her arms and legs tied to the corners, the sunlight golden on her bare skin.
        She looked fifteen for a while.
        But then he imagined her changing, growing, getting better, until she became the Marty he’d seen last night.
        Before sinking into deep sleep, he made her scream.
        

10
        
        A young woman named Peggy climbed out of her car. She rubbed