The Sex Monster’s Eye – Pulp Story

It had been a good take this year; the little vampire tossed the crumbled blanket aside and emptied the overstuffed plastic grocery bag onto his bed. A cascade of tiny colors and shapes, with browns and oranges speckled throughout.

Separating the booty into piles, he rasped a violent cough and wiped his nose along a patch of forearm exposed through white makeup; he’d had the cough when he was little and it had returned since they’d moved back, but since Mom didn’t yell at him anymore for wiping his nose on his arm it was no matter to him.

The little vampire separated the spoils into two piles, candy bars and everything else. He stuffed a couple bars into his mouth and cut the rest into a bag that he shoved under the bed. Then he picked through the remaining stack, making a chewy pile, a hard candy pile and a gross pile. He even got three dollars. In the hard candy pile, yellows and blues moved to the gross pile. Then he found something strange.

It looked at first like a gross green and white swirl. Then he recoiled. It was an eye.

It remained still, staring at him.

He tapped with a cautious fingernail; it was hard, either plastic or glass. Cool and weighty in his palm. Probably the most awesome thing he ever got trick-or-treating. Still, weird….

“We’re feeling pain, aren’t we?”

“Y-y-yes.”

“We’re angry at our cold parents, aren’t we?”

“Yes.”

“To heal, we need to tell them we’re angry, don’t we? I want you to tell them… Chevette, I want to hear you say, ‘Mommy, Daddy, I’m angry.’ Chevette?”

“Go on, tell them,” the vampire’s mother encouraged from the Stairmaster. “Say it. Let them have it.”

Eerie bauble in hand, the vampire stood at the foot of churning, perspiring machine-and-mother, waiting for a break in Oprah. He called twice over the television. “Mom?”

“Huh? Hi, baby.” She turned back to the screen, daubing her eyes with a hanky in her fist. She didn’t comment on his costume. The machine roared ahead, in place.

“Mom, can I show you something?”

“Hun, this is Mommy’s time, right?”

“I know, Mom, but this is important. Please?”

Tears streamed down Oprah’s fifty-inch face, and down a succession of others too. “Gerard Paul, can it wait? Mommy’s time is almost over. We’ll talk about it in a bit. Right, hun?” She turned, but he was gone. Ensconced in the television’s glow, she sobbed to the whine of television and exercise machine.

The same blue corona pulsed from a room upstairs, but the accompanying voices were male, calling an L.A. Kings game. The vampire snuck in the doorway and spied around the entry at a man lying on the bed like a corpse.

Best not to disturb him, thought the vampire, who figured he might know something about this stuff. The man never called the vampire by his name. He called him Jerome.

Back in his room, the vampire pulled the bag from beneath his bed and dropped the eye inside, and hid it again. In the mirror, he admired his costume. But for his nose and eyes, the white makeup remained on his face, and his hair looked as slick and pointed on his forehead as it had that afternoon. The rotten fangs he’d ordered were gnarly. He did a great job. To think that only the year before he was B2 from Bananas in Pajamas.

The little vampire rummaged on his desk and extricated a well-crushed tube of model glue. He pulled out a fresh baggy and squeezed a fat line of clear epoxy inside and held it to his face, sucking–the plastic imploded–blowing, sucking, blowing, over and again until he dropped the bag and steadied himself.

Through the tinny ringing, he daubed fresh white to his nostrils and upper lip, bared his fangs and hissed, hands like claws above his head.

He stumbled to bed and curled around the bag of candy, snuggled in his cape.

“The way you creamed that guy in the end zone.” Bubblegum lips curled around the words: “Did you hurt him?”

“Yes.”

“Oh god,” she writhed and pulled at his chest hair, pricked his nipple in her nails.

“I knew you liked it,” Troy huffed, “I did it for you.”

“Oh-oh-oh my god” was Melody wet. “All the girls on the squad, oh, they all want you.” He always liked that line.

“But they can’t have me, sugar. I’m only sweet on you.”

“Are you?” then, “I want sweets, too.”

“I’ve got your sweets… right ‘ere!”

“No, I want something sweet. For real. I’ve got a craving. I want candy.”

He sighed. “Whatever. You mean, now? Do you have any ice cream downstairs?”

“Don’t take that tone with me. And no, I want candy.”

“Come on, let me take your mind off of candy.” He nuzzled her neck, his hands pushing to her bra.

“No! Troy Ontario!” She shoved. “I’m serious.”

He grunted in disgust. “What! Do I have to run out and get you candy?”

“No, silly. You don’t have to go that far.” She bounded to her feet and waved him follow. She stopped in the hall and looked over her shoulder, pointing to a closed door. “Paulsy probably has a ton of Halloween candy.” He locked fingers below her ribcage and nestled his erection along her ass through her skirt. “We can swipe some after he crashes.” She returned one of his nudges. “Right?”

“Absolutely,” and followed her back into the room, closing the door behind him. She lay back on her elbows, sweater on the floor, her nipples dark tents in her diaphanous bra. Troy dove atop her.

Kisses deep and spitty, fingers on muscles and tickle spots, the lovers saw one another through touch. He was so strong, she so soft. He moved on to business, trailing down her throat and shoulders while she ruffled his golden hair and inhaled the scent of shampoo. His tongue snaked between her breasts as he pulled the straps and unwrapped his prizes. His mouth followed one beautiful slope and fastened around its straining nipple. She shuddered.

“Bite them,” desperately.

Teeth delicately scraped her erect ends, top to bottom, as she liked. She arched her back in surrender. He played between her breasts until her chest was shiny and heaving, jutting with need. Fingers burrowed into her skirt.

Suddenly lucid, she called, “Troy, Troy, I want some candy. Troy, go, get me some. Troy.” He looked up, incredulous. “Yes.”

He rose and hurled a “Dammit, Melody” at the girl covering her breasts in her arms. He fought into his pullover and grabbed his jacket. He stopped as she plucked dark blue satin panties from around a lacy ankle sock, a patch of wetness in the crotch.

“Look what you did to me. My pretty’s all wet.” Legs parted beneath the skirt. “You want to play with my pretty, don’t you?”

He wavered like a compass needle.

Very gently, she directed, “Check if Pauly’s light is on.”

He was out in the hall and then back again. “It’s on.”

“See if he’s awake. Tap on his door. Go.” He left, sighing, and returned shaking his head. “Get his bag. He won’t hear, just be quiet. He won’t, I do it all the time.”

He came back a couple minutes later. “At first I didn’t know, but,” she lay in a short kimono, “but, man, was he out.” He tossed down the sack and lay behind her, fondling luscious legs while she poured out candy.

“Bastard! Where’s the good candy? I want chocolate!” She hurtled out of his clutch. “I know where he put it! I’ll show him!” and she was gone. He was up and trailed her as if a leprechaun.

She was on her knees and reaching under Paul’s bed, her pouty lips matted and blowing a kiss across the room. Troy adjusted his dick. She walked past him carrying another bag.

She was already stretched on the bed when he closed the door behind him. “This is better,” she clucked through a full mouth. “Pervert’s got a hole in his bedframe. There’s a gross magazine in there. God, all I had today was rice cakes.” She reached into the bag and unwrapped another, quite oblivious to him yanking off his pants and mounting her. Over his flexing shoulder she inserted another chocolate bar.

There was a void inside, a desolation he couldn’t rub or blow on, so with his palm he kneaded the side of his face, not because it hurt so, but because he couldn’t caress himself where it really did. This shuddering chasm drove him staggering onward, lost but knowing exactly where he was going, only vaguely aware of objects passing around him.

Some moved in blurs, especially the smaller, louder ones who gathered in packs about him, though they didn’t disturb him unless they poked him or fell into the striding turbines of his legs, and then were easily dispersed with a terse bark. Even the more aggressive beasts, with their glaring pairs of eyes and wailing horns, charged past but earned little of his attention. Delirious beyond time and reason, his only object was succor.

The torment stretched endlessly, and yet as he felt himself drawing near, his gait became a clumsy gallop, heedless of the others fleeing in terror. He moaned, the proximity tempering the mad longing like a spike.

Plunging through thick shrubbery, he discerned the dim outlines of another, climbing from a building. Closer, he saw it emerge from a window and lower to the ground. It turned, too late to scream. Enraged by its obstruction, he dashed it away. The soaring body left a gurgling skid along the length of the wall, innards exploding onto the decorative bushes.

He bounded into the window.

It was here! Searching frantically, he located it, handled it, drew it home.

Clarity! Joy! The eye was again in place.

Paralyzed by sensation and emotion, he stood and trembled, spraying a tinkle of excitement. And then, if it could be, he discovered something even more astounding.

On the bed before him lay his vision, the one he stared at in his cold corner for so long that she continued dancing and smiling when he slept each night. He shut his eyes and saw her; when he opened them again she remained unchanged. Long golden hair, citrus lips and brilliant teeth, with unblemished bronze skin from sculpted face to bounteous domed breasts and long legs. Missing was the form-fitting white cloth which in the vision partially covered her, but she was close, so very close.

As the young woman’s scream found root in her larynx, the giant stepped forward and she swooned. It gathered her limp body and climbed through the window.

Sweating, eyes moist and bloodshot, Andromeda replaced the sports drink in the refrigerator and turned out the remaining downstairs lights. Traipsing up the steps, the bathroom, undressing, drifted past in a daze. She felt so centered after her body-and-soul sessions, solitary and able, serene, while cool water ran over her body, and she inhaled deeply and touched herself.

In the heat lamp, she dabbed her body with her softest towel and glided into a white silk robe.

She stepped into the world again. The carpet welcomed her toes. Love brought her closer to her family. Melody’s door was closed, and she respected that statement in accords with their agreement: such a fine young woman she had become!

Pauly’s door was shut, too. She opened it and peered inside. Her little man lay sleeping so adorably. She tiptoed near, brought the sheet over her peaceful angel, kissing his forehead. The dear was still in costume. That’s right, it was Halloween!

Her eyes scanned the room. Mommy had a sweet tooth. She lifted discarded clothing, some papers. Then her face brightened, because she knew where he hid the bag.

Outraged, he pushed the brat’s door open. She was gone, all right. The room was a sty, shit thrown everywhere, every square inch. The curtains twisted in the chill breeze. He stormed off.

The boy’s door was open. There was his batty wife bent underneath Jerome’s bed, her old cunt hanging out of her robe.

“Andie!” he barked. She slammed her head against the bed frame. The boy didn’t stir. “Get out here!”

“What is it?” she grimaced, rubbing her head.

“Come out here, I’ve got something to show you,” he commanded and pulled her to her feet, dragging her by the wrist through the hall and into their dark bedroom. He pointed at the screen. “Half of L.A. is watching this game, and look what they’re seeing.”

“We’ve now received dozens of calls. Bravado, West Hollywood, Beechwood, Mulholland, all reporting sightings. Again, we cannot certify the credibility of these eyewitness reports, but apparently we have an unfolding hostage situation, details of which are unclear, and still police will not comment or confirm our inquiries. We’ll go back to Click Berman in the Newshound Minivan, but first let’s have another look at that dramatic footage captured by the security camera at a convenience store.”

Andromeda scratched her smarting scalp. “Jesus, George, you dragged me here to see another freak show?”

“Knock it off. Watch.”

“These, these are only cigarette-buyers, I mean, the kind of people who stand in line to buy cigarettes in stores such as these. And here, entering from the left, let’s freeze here, you see, obviously a mammal, humanoid, of stunning height and, uh, proportions… let’s back that up, and freeze, again, a view of the captive…”

George tap-tap-tapped the screen: “Huh? Huh?”

“An as-yet unidentified Angelino, apparently unconscious and in her late teens-early twenties, Caucasian, thin, long blondish hair, with really, really outstanding… yes, well, we can safely conclude that both captor and captive are without clothes, which the staff and management here at your news channel note for purely journalistic reasons (yes, and AP is now confirming this fact, thank you). And while the visual quality is less than perfect, clearly this compelling clip is raising concern around the entire Valley area, concerns that a monster is loose with a naked girl on the streets of Hollywood!”

“Huh? Huh? What’d I say? Trouble, that’s what she is!”

Andromeda slumped to the bed. “My Melody,” she said through her fingers, “my baby.”

“Your Melony.” He snapped a clip into his 9mm and thrust it into his shoulder-holster. “I’m going to the station. Sit tight, I’ll get your baby back.” Slipping on his jacket, he went into the dangerous night.

She rocked to her feet, taking tiny steps to her daughter’s room. She stared at the incomprehensible wreckage, moving only when her feet got cold. Treading past Gerard’s doorway and down the stairs, she clicked on the Stairmaster and the television:

“This is Click Berman at the In-And-Out Burger on West Sunset, and you can see behind me the extensive property damage, mangled cars, broken windows…” and began stepping.

Noise and brightness pursued him at every turn, and though he kept moving in search of some peaceful corner, the riotous chaos relentlessly followed. The furies uncovered each restful backyard and dim alley, with harsh reds and blues, shrill sirens, or roving mobs, twittering, jeering, shouting, throwing. In this hostile landscape, madness besieged him like unleashed water, an alien sensation–panic–seized the giant ape like hands about his throat.

Even the beautiful creature in his arms set herself against him. Sometimes docile, draped in his arms like a sublime tapestry, or clinging to his hairy chest with its complex of rippling muscles, in the next instant she could stir and flail at him with her little arms, and her dangling feet became weapons jabbing his ribs, though not as effective as her persistent screams, which shocked and irritated him at first, then had a wearing, depressing effect on him, a morose tug he’d never before experienced. This hadn’t happened in the vision. Out of his confusion coalesced the understanding that what appeared to be a fair and dainty creature would not be so easily managed; in fact, would need to be heeded. And just as his frustration grew so overwhelming that he might flee howling into the darkness, she would again be silent and surrender in his arms, nestled to his chest.

Melody had never been so afraid in her life, not even when her parents divorced and she almost had to move to Missouri, but luckily Mom remarried quickly. But this was far more serious, she might even die. She had no clothes. And the thing wouldn’t let her down, and people wouldn’t go away, no matter how she screamed.

But that wasn’t why she fainted: the creature smelled of onions and Paulsy’s wet socks.

The goliath barreled through a six-foot stockade fence and onto the boulevard, a rottweiler snapping at his heels. Cars swerved frightfully, and as a set of canines was sinking into his calf muscle, its adjoining body was thumped skyward and down the hill.

Two, three, five cars piled into one another. With the woman under one arm, the monster did not slacken its pace when it reached the far parking lot, until it saw the Oreo sign in a 7-11 window. Stricken, it entered the store.

Inside was flouescent bright, with more noisy people who scattered like ants. Rampaging through the room stacked high in vivid packaging, the monster searched for the familiar blue, and when it found it, unmistakable, it shredded the wrapping and crushed tray after tray into its yawning mouth, this good taste of home the first semblance of gladness in a long unsettling day.

A bullet tore into its shoulder. A second whizzed by its ear. Puzzled, it shook crumbs from its fur, and might have returned to his feast had not the woman been roused to consciousness by the gunfire and resumed her distressing cries.

Flustered by the loss of this state of grace, the monster shuffled from foot to foot, bellowing obscenely in its version of cooing, and finally offered the girl a cookie. She bawled even louder.

Now enraged, the beast glared at the quivering clerk, who shook with such intensity at its charge that the pistol clattered to the floor and he barely ducked in time as the Slurpee machine flew through the glass and into the parking lot. He crawled behind the counter and escaped through the shards to safety, just as flashing squadcars squealed to a halt outside. Their quarry was long gone.

The monster and his captive emerged from the rear door, and stole into the brush and downhill.

Bitch was getting uppity.

All night she waved her fat titties in his face, in a little halter top that showed off her nipples (so juicy this time of year), one that slipped down more often the longer they raved, the more tequila she drank, the tighter she grabbed him. They knew they were going to fuck: it was in her eyes, she wanted it.

So he drove her home, when he didn’t want to leave in the first place, but he was a good guy and she was with him, and he did what he had to do. And now she wasn’t doing her part.

When he pulled over a couple blocks from her house, she started getting weird, but even then she was up for a good time. She put her hands up, but he kissed her and told her how pretty she was, and she would relax (“I like kissing”) and let him slide her skirt down, and kiss some more and then her pantyhose, and later her top, and then she wouldn’t let go her panties until he stripped down. (“See?”)

Then she came up with this “Lick me, please lick me,” and he told her, “Fuck that, I don’t do that shit.” Then she said, “I want to suck you down,” and he could go for that, but he could tell she was stalling and besides she wasn’t no good at it.

He went down on her and she punched and kicked and yelled loud, forcing him to crank the radio way up, and he had a pretty bad set-up so there wasn’t no one going to hear her. It was sort of funny until she started kicking on his dashboard and CD deck and windows, and then he wasn’t playing any more. If she would just get busy it would get done faster.

He broke her down. For a minute, she stayed quiet and he was smooth, with the whole Jeep rocking back and forth. Then–scared the shit out of him–this chick started screaming in through the window. This wigged-out naked chick, floating on the other side of the window.

Actually, Melody wailed when she spotted a dead jawless dog on the roof of the Jeep.

Violetta opened her eyes and saw the naked chick and she screamed too. Then the naked chick saw the couple inside and she screamed back.

But the naked chick wasn’t really floating. They didn’t know until the giant stooped and squinted through the glass. Ho, fucking ugly! Violetta sprang against Tucci as he hiked his pants. The thing pushed the Jeep until it rocked as before, its god-awful face pressed to the window.

Tucci slammed the door. “You got a problem, ugly motherfucker? Fuckin’ with my ride? You’re dead, man!” He gave up two feet to the beast. “Say, you got a nice mama. That’s the way.” He stroked Melody’s legs and reached for a nipple, erect from cold. The monster slapped the hand away. “God, do you stink!”

With a furry paw, it plucked the burning cigarette from Tucci’s lips.

“Hey, you fuck! And get that thing out of my face!” The beast’s massive erection pointed threateningly at Tucci’s chest. Tucci slapped it aside.

The monster jumped and retaliated with a tap to the shoulder.

Tucci leapt and swiped at its face. It slapped him back.

Like a broken marionette, the youth’s head dropped askew. The body crumbled to the road.

Cigarettes rolled out of the corpse’s tee-shirt onto the pavement. It lifted one tenderly. Just like the vision.

Much to Violetta’s further consternation, the monster lowered itself to the window once again. She shouted in terror, but the creature had no interest in her whatsoever. Carefully, it placed the cigarette behind his ear and cocked it just so, like in the vision. It grunted with pleasure and raised himself to its full height. And saw an amazing thing on the dark hillside above.

Upon the lighted billboard towered the vision. Like in the magazine in the cellar, but larger than life, stretched across the sky. The bare-chested hunk carried the young woman as effortlessly as the cigarette behind his ear, and her wispy blond hair, her coquettish limbs and the thin white material of her swimsuit all suggested she was light as air. Something differed from the page the monster had secreted in the masonry at home, but it wouldn’t know that the green ad copy of the billboard proclaimed “I’m going to live forever!,” in place of the wry observation “What do they know about fun?” on its home copy.

This did not matter, as the piece evoked such happiness. The savage had not a clue as to that warm sensation, yet the buoyant ingredients–the sunny yellow background, the laser-white smiles, the mirth of play and expectation–conveyed an unmistakable message, and in this combination of goods lay the invariable formula of elation. The primitive knew an immeasurable awe, and a purple, bobbing penis. And the signs did not cease there.

In the background of the gigantic photograph lay the final element, just over the billboard girl’s outstretched palm. And there in the distance, beyond the billboard, stood a larger, three-dimensional representation of this same puzzle piece. Stunned with a mystic’s epiphany, the creature solemnly affixed the cigarette in place, and embarked on the last leg of its quest, starting uphill into the bush, blond companion screaming, as a convoy of blue-and-whites skidded around the corner toward a body and a car with a shocked and bleeding occupant.

Kennedy slammed the door of his unmarked and jogged to the entrance. Charles “Hondo” Heston was waiting for him inside the glass doors, and followed Kennedy’s brisk pace through the foyer.

“How you holding up, mick? How’s Andie taking it?” he asked while Faye the brunette receptionist buzzed them in.

“Well, Hondo,” he spun into the break room and pulled a Styrofoam cup, “I could say that we haven’t had sex in months and this won’t help things,” and the three chirping rookies standing in front of the television fell silent and looked. Kennedy scowled and poured some joe. “But we’ll pull through this, dammit. She’s a tough little girl. And I’m gonna get that boat, and we’ll leave this stinking town.”

Heston gave him a beefy pat on the shoulder.

The convenience store videotape played, now computer-enhanced. Kennedy wandered near. The sequence repeated and repeated, fast, slow, backward, louder, forward, with and without expert commentary. The officers sized up the situation.

“Will you look at the pumpkins on her?” commented one shavetail.

“That’s not where I was looking,” said another.

“You sons of bitches, that’s my daughter!” Kennedy cold-cocked the first one, then threw coffee in the other’s face, spun and landed a roundhouse kick to the side of the head. He would have gouged the third’s eyes out, if Heston hadn’t locked his arms.

“Get the hell out of here!” he yelled at the youngster, straining against his berserk partner. In a minute he let go, both men huffing.

Kennedy tossed the empty cup at the prone bodies. “Thanks Hondo, I owe you one,” he said and lit a smoke.

“You gotta cool down, mick. The Old Man’s just waiting on you to slip up, you know.”

“I know, I know. Come on, we haven’t got all night,” and he was off down the hallway.

“Mick, the Old Man expressly said he doesn’t want you anywhere near the War Room on this one. He’s going to bust your ass down.”

“Don’t you worry, I’ll behave myself. Besides,” he paused outside the door, “it’s my daughter they’re talking about, and he’s got nothing to say.” He slipped inside. Heston shrugged and followed.

The room was dark but for the lamp of an overhead projector. Frazzled by the momentary interruption, a pear-shaped officer in thick glasses stood open-mouthed in the glare.

From the conference table, Chief Borgnine glowered at the newcomers standing in the corner. “Detective Hackett, you were saying? About the forensic data?”

“Yes? Oh yes, the most fascinating aspects of this current situation may be found in an apparently unrelated homicide occurring this afternoon a few blocks from this cluster of earliest sightings. Hadda Teller, white, early eighties, found bludgeoned in her living room, laying in a pool of blood and Halloween candy. Teller was the widow of renowned cryptozoologist Anton Spelczech…”

“Cryptozoologist, Detective?”

“An expert in mythic and disputed fauna, Chief Borgnine. Spelczech immigrated from Hungary after the Soviet crackdown in ’56 and settled in California, and died in 1989. He signed a yeti track casting for me at my first conference, a truly brilliant specimen that…”

“Yes, yes, Hackett, get to the point.”

“Indeed. Spelczech was renowned for his studies of the North American sasquatch, popularly known as Bigfoot.” With his fingers, Hackett framed caustic quotes around “Bigfoot.” “Spelczech consistently produced evidence of the sasquatch arcanus that was distinguished for its biologic uniqueness. In a field where concrete evidence is rare if not spurious, his samples were never shown to be hoaxes.”

Impatient rustlings traveled around the table. “Hackett…”

“Of course. Judging from the massive trauma to Ms. Teller’s body, the perpetrator had to be tremendously powerful. In fact, superhuman. And Homicide too discovered hair samples at the immediate site that are thus far unidentifiable, not belonging to any creature, human or otherwise. We found more of these samples here, in the basement, which smelled particularly rank, and where we also uncovered other evidence, including these oversized stool specimens, which I’d recognize anywhere as similar to this, Spelczech’s famous Sample #12/77, which he claimed was the verified stool of… sasquatch, the Bigfoot!” He switched to a transparency showing side-by-side still frames from the convenience store tape and the famous Patterson-Gimlin film of the sasquatch. “I believe that further examinations of the Teller premises will confirm my hypothesis.”

The room was in an uproar. “Detective Hackett, are you proposing that a mad biologist brought one of these Bigfoot creatures to West Hollywood, and it’s now running loose in our city?”

“I am!” he thundered above the din, riding the wave of discord the grandest manner. “It is obvious to me that Spelczech held a sasquatch specimen in his home for years, and for whatever reason the creature has now escaped and is at large in our fair community!”

“This is all rather outrageous…”

“Gentlemen, we are presented with a historic opportunity to capture a live sasquatch. With proper planning and care, this day may prove a boon to science and to our own department.”

“You freak.” The lights glimmered on; it was Kennedy’s hand on the switches. He staggered forward, clumsy with rage. “There’s a monster out there, damn you! We already have one body on our hands, and you propose we coddle this… this… thing, until we have bodies stretching from here to Pasadena.” He dove across the table, where he struggled with a dozen pairs of arms, and the lecturer hopped atop the projector. Dragging out the door, Kennedy spat, “We need to destroy this monster, before it rapes more of our women and children!”

A minute later, the men straightening their uniforms, Borgnine emerged and signaled over his shoulder. “Kennedy, my office,” and kept walking.

“You’re in it now, mick.”

“Yeah, time to face the music. Thanks, guys, l got drinks later.”

“Good luck, Kennedy,” they muttered as he shambled away.

The heavy door was ajar at hall’s end. Kennedy rapped.

“Come in. Sit. Cigarette? Meredith and the doctor’ll have my balls if I don’t quit soon, but they don’t work 15 hour days and answer to the mayor. Know what they have me eating?” He lifted a plastic bag like holding a mangy rabbit. “These. A chief of police, eating fucking rice cakes.” Leaning forward, his voice became grave. “You probably think I’m going to tear you a new asshole, but I’m not. You must be going nuts with that girl out there, what’s her name…”

“Melony.”

“Melanie. Kennedy, we’re on the same side.”

“I appreciate that, Borg.”

“You want your family back, and we both know all the copy-catting this is stirring: there’s no way all those flags come from the same perp. This monster (if that’s what it is) has got every nutso and dimestore johnny out on our streets. It’s a world of evil out there, and we’ve got to shut it down.”

“I realize that, Chief, but what are you going to do about it? Go out there with white gloves and leashes and bring back a little something for the zoo? Collect our guns and make us wear control-top pantyhose and…”

“Kennedy! Kennedy!” the other interrupted. “Kennedy, you’ve got to trust us, we’ll get the girl back, but… you’re off the case. I’m sorry, but you’re too damned close to it, and the last thing we need with all this bedlam on our hands is…”

“Is an honest cop who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. Or don’t you remember cop work, Borgnine?”

“Now Kennedy, let’s not get nasty about this.”

“People are getting torn to shreds, windows breaking, out there, and all everyone talks about around here is bureaucratic rules.”

“That’s enough out of you, Kennedy. You’re off the case, and that’s that. And I’ll bust you down to janitor if I find you anywhere near it.”

“Oh yeah?” He rose, his scarlet forehead and ears turning his crew-cut hair lighter. “I want to give you a shoe up the ass, but I’ll give you this instead.” He slammed his badge on the desk. “I don’t need it anymore.”

“Yeah? Thanks.” He fingered the famed bullet-ding on the shield. “I’ve been looking for this a long time. You’ve been marked ever since you planted that glove!”

“You son of a!” he rushed, but Hondo pounced from his listening spot outside the door and pulled Kennedy from the chambers.

A lieutenant sidestepped the entwined wrestlers and entered the head’s office. Inside, he reported, “Sir, we have positive confirmation of the perpetrator’s forty: the Hollywood Hills, the vicinity of the sign, sir. We also have another body and an apparent sexual assault.”

Kennedy and Heston were already in the parking lot.

“I must be nuts or something.” Heston gunned the engine.

“Just a routine arrest, Kimosabe,” Kennedy answered and slapped the flashing cherrylight on the roof. Heston observed his jaw tapping the way it did whenever there would be trouble. He pulled away.

They passed no less than three roadblocks They didn’t need the scanner to know they were on the right track. The traffic leading there was astounding–VW vans, Star Trek freaks and Entertainment Tonight, beside the usual throngs of gapers and well-wishers.

“Scumbags,” Kennedy hissed as they passed on the shoulder. He hadn’t seen so many patrol cars in the field since Northridge.

Hondo expertly wove a route through relatively clear access roads. Ironically, despite all the activity on the hills, they passed a dark spot from which stretched a panorama of the Valley, so beautiful on that clear evening that Kennedy remembered for an instant why he had stayed in L.A. so long ago. It was like a reflection of heaven, a beautiful bowl of stars. Except for the smoke clouds billowing from the brushfires to the southwest.

They rounded a bluff and the scene unfolded before them. Floodlights blasted the Hollywood sign a few hundred yards uphill. Flashing emergency vehicles blocked the access way, so they parked the squad and went on foot. A tank ground to a halt ahead, gun tilting skyward. Snipers held at least two positions in the foreground. The cops who didn’t notice and fall away from Kennedy’s approach, squinted through binoculars and elbowed each other, searching. The grizzled veterans pushed their way through to the command center, headed by an old friend, Captain Brown.

“Jim, what do we have here?”

“Mick, Hondo, glad you’re here. They’re up there somewhere, but we haven’t spotted them.”

“Nothing?”

“We’re doing the best we can. Can’t very well pack any more hardware and manpower on this rock, can we?”

“I know. Sorry, Jim.” A second later, the binocular boys snapped to, and rifle carbines clicked. The searchlights focused on a single spot, and the crowd wailed its surprise. Scaling the letter D, the hirsute man-beast stood, carrying the shrieking nude woman.

“Holy god in heaven,” gasped Kennedy.

Raising a hand to unsuccessfully block the glare, the gargantuan leaped to the adjacent O and the next O, but he could not escape the swiveling beams. With each jump, the onlookers oohed. It hurtled to the W, and then back again, where it roared in frustration and challenge. The captive shrilled louder.

“Don’t worry, mick, my boys are under strict orders to avoid collateral damage.”

“Jim, does this thing respond to speech? I mean, have you tried talking to it?”

“No dice, but what would help is if you tried calming that little girl down, make our job a whole lot easier, diffuse the situation.” Brown handed him the megaphone.

Kennedy scratched his head, cleared his throat, lifted the horn. “Uh, ahem, M-Melony, Melony, this is your father, daddy, I’m down here.” His wide eyes surveyed the cameras and watchers on both sides. “Now listen honey, I know we’ve had our tough times, and, see, but you’ve got to quiet down up there, settle down, and you know I’m no good at this speaking stuff, and how can I put this, well, I, I need you so, uh, Melony, that I could cry, yeah, and, and I love you so, and that is why, whenever I want you…”

But he was almost immediately drowned out by the deafening thumps of a helicopter ascending the ridge. It drew nearer the sign, trained its gaze at the monster and hovered menacingly as a cobra. Viper-quick, it buzzed the swiping, defiant creature and circled around.

Monster and beauty disappeared from view, while the chopper scanned the length of the sign for long seconds.

Brown spotted them in his night goggles. “It’s destroying the sign!” he barked in his headset. “Act now! Do not hit her!” just as the copter’s beams locked on the crouching figures, the monster kicking at the support of the letter on which he stood. The first O wobbled and teetered.

The monster shook a fist at its foe, and the gun spit a staccato flurry of lead, in only two seconds creating dozens of explosions of blood and fur, and as many tiny craters in the girl’s creamy flesh. Red cascaded down the O, and two bodies tumbled like a spider down the ravine.

They did not hit the sign.