he was examined.
Tiffany pushed the rear passenger door open and jumped down onto the gravel.
Spaz and Blake prodded the Mathews folks with their rifle barrels and ordered them to get out pronto.
âGo ahead,â Tiffany said. âTake them in and cage them.â
The two hired thugs herded Albert, Meg, and Stevie into a barnlike building.
Then Tiffany cooed to Hawk, coaxing him seductively. âCome on, donât be afraid. You can follow me. I wonât hurt you.â
After a little more coaxing, Hawk stepped down from the van and let Tiffany lead him by his hand. The fang marks on his neck still glistened, oozing a bit of blood.
âThatâs it, Hawk,â Tiffany coaxed softly. âCome on, now . . . come to Tiffany. Youâre such a good boy, Hawk. Youâd follow me anywhere, wouldnât you? You know that I gave you your life back. Now come with me. If you behave, weâre going to feed you.â
Tiffany was used to her strange powers now, and she actually relished them. At first she had hated finding out that, after she had recovered from porphyria, she had developed a blood craving. But she enjoyed it now, not just the taste of human blood, but the fact that along with the craving came a special power. If she bit someone and drank enough of his or her blood to cause death, the victim would arise again as a zombie and would be under her complete control. This made her feel invincible, all-powerful. Hawk was a big man, stupid but strong, and an ordinary woman would be no match for him if he turned brutal. But this cut no ice with Tiffany. She enjoyed dominating big, blustery men like him. And she could do it any time she wanted to.
She hated the underlying stench of the cages in the barnlike building that adjoined her fatherâs laboratory. It was masked by an exorbitant use of bleach and disinfectants, but Tiffanyâs sense of smell was as strong as a bloodhoundâs, and the odor of old or dead things came through to her in spite of extraordinary attempts to mask it.
However, she wanted to visit the new captives that Spaz and Blake had brought in two days ago, for she was always curious about people who seemed to lead the ordinary sort of lives that she felt had to be quite boring and useless; in fact, it gratified her to think that because it made her more satisfied with her own circumstances. Thatâs why she had decided to lead Hawk into his cage while they took care of the Mathews family and got them into their new accommodations.
After Hawk was prodded into a cage by himself, still muzzled so he wouldnât, in his hunger, start gnawing into his own arm, Tiffany went over to the cage that imprisoned the known serial killer Chub Harris. He didnât know it yet, but he was going to become zombie feed. Or maybe he did actually know it by now. Maybe he had figured it out.
âHow many women have you raped and killed?â Tiffany asked him.
âWhatâs it to you ?â
âI like murderers,â she said. âThey turn me on. If what you have to say pleases me, I could set you free, get you out of here.â
âHa! Why should I believe you?â
âBecause my father owns this laboratory.â
âThen heâs not going to risk letting me go. I might tell on him.â
âTell on him for what?â
âKidnapping. Holding me against my will.â
âHavenât you done that to quite a few women?â
Chubâs dry, chapped lips formed a sly, gloating smile, and the lip-stretching smile made one of the chapped places crack open and bleed.
Tiffany looked at the trickle of blood on Chubâs lips, but she had absolutely no urge to lick it. Everything about this creep turned her off. She felt that his blood would poison her. Just looking at it made her want to puke.
âI fuck the womenâs brains out,â Chub boasted. âThen I make sure they canât give their filthy pussies to anyone else but