Clown in the Moonlight by Tom Piccirilli Read Free Book Online

shadow men pulling away from strip malls and hole-in-the-wall bar parking lots, hitting the streets, following.   I steel myself and wait for the Mustang to go skidding in fresh puddles of blood spread out across the road.
    By the time the moon rises, Linda is burning up and in need of serious antibiotics.   She's hallucinating and keeps crawling down into the footwell, screaming that crows are stuffing their beaks into her ears and pecking at her brain.   She's not lying.
    I sit her up, roll down both windows, and turn the fan up high trying to cool her down a little.
    She whimpers the names of witches' familiars.   "Pommerance, Tico-Tico...Bathal, Bathei, Winter's Leg..."
    I take her to the emergency room but she won't get out of the car until we fuck.   She climbs on top of me in the driver's seat, her sickly sweat pouring off her, hot as a furnace about to blow.   To touch her is to burn.   Good, I'm glad, I prefer it this way.   Her infection is the only true thing about her.   She whimpers for Gwen.   She loves and hates Gwen as she loves and hates herself.   She rides me hard, slamming her back against the steering wheel, sounding the horn.   She grabs the sides of my face and holds my head in place.   She tries to kiss me as we struggle against each other, she seems to think it's very important that she kisses me.   I check her mouth for hidden razor blades.   I know that I'm an offering to the next dark god.  
    Linda giggles as she thrusts down on me, harder and harder, louder and louder, her nostrils flecked with yellow crust, blisters forming at the corners of her mouth.   On her belly are growing red lines of blood poisoning.   She smiles without humor, mercy, or sexuality.  
    I know the next move.   I see it clearly.  
    She lets loose with a ghastly laugh she can't control, can't hold inside anymore.   It goes on and on.  
    "Three-Together-in-the-Blind-Eye, Hildegrance...come for me, Black Shuck!"
    As we reach our peak her thumbs begin to slide across my beard stubble and she goes for my eyes.
    This is what she needs as her orgasm tears through her.   I grip her wrists in my fists and hold her tightly while she wails in ecstasy, hysteria, and madness.  
    "I love you!" she moans.   It almost sounds like I wuv you .   "Let me!" she demands.   "Let me!   Please!"  
    "No."
    "Say you love Satan!"
    "No."
    "Say you love Satan!"
    I clip her on the chin and she almost goes out, but not quite.   Her head lolls and she starts sobbing, even while she murmurs and begs.   Her fever is critical, waves of heat brushing against me like a brushfire.   I finish ejaculating inside her and zip up.   I carry her to the emergency room entrance.   She presses her face into my chest and keeps crying while I shush her and kiss her forehead.   An intern spots us and raises a clamor.   They take her from me and place her on a gurney.   Linda's eyes stay focused on mine as they wheel her up an overly lit white corridor.  
    A nurse at the ER desk questions me and demands I fill out papers.   I turn away and a passing security guard places a hand on my chest in the same spot where Linda's tears have soaked into my T-shirt.   He tells me to stop.   He tells me I'm not going anywhere.   He's as bald as Anton LaVey.
    I can feel Ricky's frenetic presence looming.   He's like a swarm of gnats, a murder of crows, rising up against the building and finding a million ways in towards me.   I push against the guard's hand while he orders me, "Stop.   Stop right there, buddy."
    He reaches for his walkie-talkie and spits out some code numbers.   I push against him again and he shoves me back harder this time. The rage wants me to lash out.   Ricky wants me to kill.  
    It's almost unbelievable that the guard can't feel the forces of the cosmic game swirling around us, moving us, presenting us as opposing pieces.   How dim can someone be?
    "Hold it, buddy, just stay there.   We need you to answer some