Reaper III: Rookies Read online

  “Oh my God!”

  “You fit me like a fucking glove…”

  I couldn’t believe it…I was about to come again. He had a magic stroke. The missionary position had never done for me in the past what it was doing for me now…

  This was my third and most powerful, most mind-numbing orgasm yet. It shattered the world around me, leaving me feeling weightless and dizzy. As I faltered, Neal seemed unable to wait any longer. With urgency, he pumped into me more quickly now, wanting to catch up to the orgasm I had achieved.

  I wrapped my legs around him.

  “Come for me,” I told him breathlessly. “Come with me.”

  I was feeling the heat of another orgasm building, when suddenly, he began to throb wildly inside of me. He groaned aloud, losing control of himself and I knew that he had come too. He made the last few strokes count, driving deep inside of me, making me cry out.

  He felt so good…

  He propped himself up on his elbow and, still inside of me, I felt myself throbbing again when he muttered an apology, “Sorry, I couldn’t hold back any longer.”

  “Shhh. Don’t apologize. That was amazing.” I grasped him closer with my quivering legs, not wanting to let go.

  It was a beautiful moment.

  Our moment. Ours.

  Unfortunately, the afterglow couldn’t last forever.

  We both began to feel sticky from the various bodily fluids we had exchanged and so, I suggested we shower together, to which he, of course, complied.

  When we entered the bathroom, he grumbled about the tight fit in the shower.

  “I warned you it was small,” I told him.

  “We’ll make it work.” He assured me, as the steam rose around us. He poured a dollop of body wash into his hands and proceeded to smooth it all over my breasts, my waist, my ass… and lathered my body back in the direction from which he had started.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, with laughter.

  “Just giving you a little wash,” he said mischievously. “I could never get enough o’these breasts, they’re two perfect handfuls and heck, I have big hands.”

  “So I noticed.” I fondled his thickening manhood. “Ready for round two already?”

  “Not yet,” he confessed.

  “It’s a shame.”

  “Why? You ready?”

  “Well…”

  “I have a better idea, if the lady is in need.”

  Neal got to his knees, careful not to knock me over in our cramped quarters.

  “Neal, what are you-?”

  He looked up at me with all the eagerness of a puppy trying to please its master.

  “Spread ‘em.”

  I swatted his prying hands away. “Oh, Neal…I haven’t even washed there yet.”

  “You think I’m afraid o’the taste o’my own cum?”

  “Well…”

  “Are you afraid o’my-?”

  “No.”

  “Then spread’em.” He tried to bury his tongue into my slick crevice. “Come on, darlin’.”

  I sighed and relented, offering up my pussy to him…

  After the shower, we sat cuddled up on my futon, watching a late night talk show when I felt it. Something was tugging and beckoning at my very core.

  Something…dark and disturbing and demanding.

  Something hungry.

  I recognized it as the call of the Dark Thing.

  Moreover, it was getting more insistent with each passing minute.

  I stood up and faked a loud, almost obnoxious yawn. “Well, Officer Schroeder, it’s definitely way past our bedtime.”

  “Are you inviting me to stay?” He asked, smiling.

  “My bed’s too small for two.” I told him, hoping that I wouldn’t hurt his feelings as I walked away from him into the kitchen.

  “Well, what about your futon?” He suggested, gesturing at my couch.

  “What about your clean change of underwear?” I countered, arching an eyebrow at him.

  He shrugged his surrender and followed me into the kitchen. “So – you’re kicking me out so soon?”

  “We both have to work in the morning, so yes.” I tried to keep the conversation lighthearted with a smile. “I am.”

  He gestured at our untouched teacups. “Do you often invite strange men up for tea that they don’t drink?” He asked, as I poured the contents of the cups down the sink.

  “No, actually, I don’t.”

  I went to my bedroom to put on a nightshirt. He followed to collect his clothes. We both dressed in silence. I sat on the bed and watched him wrestle his way back into his navy sweater. Man, he looked as good in clothes as he did out of them…

  “Neal,” I started, hoping that I would find the right words to describe how I was feeling.

  “Is this the part where you tell me you regret our being together like this?”

  “What? No, God no.”

  “Then what?”

  “I know that this is going to sound like a cliché of the worst kind, but I want you to know, I don’t make a habit of sleeping around with men I work with – or, with men in general.” I poked him in the ribs and smiled playfully. “…and certainly not on the first sushi date.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t make a habit of asking women out for sushi.” He paused, let out a sigh and then met my glance. “So…when can I see you again?”

  “Soon.”

  Back in the living room, I fetched a piece of paper and a pen from my coffee table, so that I could quickly scrawl out my digits. The Dark Thing was beginning to make my skin itch with its relentless hunger and that was never a good sign.

  Trouble was brewing somewhere in the City.

  Whatever the Dark Thing was, wherever it had come from, two things were certain. It was never wrong and it was always impatient where the threat of unchecked criminal violence was concerned.

  I handed him the paper.

  “What’s this?” He grinned at me.

  “I’m giving you my cell number.” I told him, trying to sound calm, despite my urgency. “You can call me anytime, leave me a message or text me if I don’t answer.”

  I watched him as he put on his boots and then his jacket. My body hummed with the memory of how he had touched me and despite all that we had done together, I still wanted to have more of him.

  Just a little more time, I promised the Dark Thing, whose call was becoming more urgent with every beat of my heart.

  “Well, if nothing else, I know where you work,” he teased, trying to sound dire.

  “You most certainly do.” I kissed him lightly and opened the door for him. “Goodnight, Neal.”

  “Goodnight, Samantha.” He left my apartment. “Sleep tight.”

  “You too,” I said and closed the door.

  -4-

  Two Months Later

  Then there was the morning in early March that started normally enough.

  Shortly after my arrival, the district sergeant took a squad car roll call for the second shift of the day. We were briefed by the Captain on the most notable incidents and details from the previous shift. Phil and I did our equipment check and then set out together to patrol our assigned zones in the division: Zones One and Seven.

  Zones One and Seven were primarily residential areas, with the occasional support service thrown in the mix. There were two walk-in clinics, two pharmacies, a few convenience stores, small restaurants, a few strip malls, that sort of thing. Zone Seven was just below Zone One and Zone Two on the large wall-sized map of our division that occupied the better part of one wall in the briefing room. We seemed to receive mostly domestic dispute calls out of Zones One, Two and Seven, as well as the regular break and enters and the occasional assault causing bodily harm.

  It wasn’t long after we had responded to our first domestic dispute of the day that the radio crackled, again coming to life. “Base ten to nine-zero-five Tango, copy?”

  “That’s us, kid,” said Phil, stating the obvious to me before replyi
ng over the radio: “Copy, base ten – go ahead.”

  The radio continued, “There’s a ten forty-seven—“ —a robbery in progress— “—in Zone Seven at the Circle One Convenience Store at three-thirteen Evans Street. Suspect is a six foot tall black male, wearing a black ski mask, black hoodie, black pants and is armed with a handgun. Nine-zero-five Tango, please acknowledge?"

  Three thirteen Evans Street was only a few blocks away.

  Phil fumbled for the radio, hands quivering slightly with adrenaline. Even a veteran with as many years on the force as Phil was prone to get a little excited at the call of the dispatcher. A dispatcher with news of an armed robbery, no less.

  Armed robberies were rare pretty much unheard of in this area of the city, due to the low concentration of businesses in the locale.

  “Ten four!” Phil responded with our location and then ended the call. “You heard her, kid. Three thirteen Evans street! Drive as fast as you dare and try not to hit anybody.”

  “Yes, sir, Phil, sir. Just like at the academy!” I said to him with a nervous smile as I began to accelerate the car. I flipped the switch to activate both the lights and sirens and sped toward our destination.

  Up until this shift, in my career as a Rookie cop, I had never been on an actual robbery in progress call.

  Much less, an armed robbery in progress call.

  As my Training Officer, Phil was no doubt nervous because he had a Rookie to take care of.

  Me – I was nervous because I had a veteran to impress.

  We both headed into the call with our breaths coming quicker from the excitement tingling down our spines.

  The convenience store looked just like every other convenience store in America. You know the kind—the usual hole in the wall shop that every neighborhood seems to have, with bars on the windows and hand-written advertisements plastered across the glass. Tacky posters also covered the windows of the doors to the establishment, a place no bigger than your average size beer and wine store.

  I pulled the squad car up to the parking lot and was just about to put the car into park when a man dressed head to toe in black burst out the front door and ran around the corner like a bat out of Hell, disappearing down the back alley.

  It was him—the suspect in question, no two doubts about it.

  Phil was out of the car first, running after the guy and I second, right behind him, the both of us chasing the suspect down the back alley.

  About a half-block away from the store, the suspect paused, turned and opened fire, shooting in our direction twice.

  He got a lucky shot in.

  A bullet struck Phil square in the chest, making my partner stumble to the snow-laden ground. The other shot struck a garbage can a few meters from us, resulting in a loud hollow metallic bang that made me flinch. I knelt down next to Phil on legs that were shaking with adrenaline, to see how bad the damage was.

  “Phil!”

  “Got my vest.” Phil declared.

  He fingered the bullet hole where he had been struck in the chest. He tried to get up, but winced with the first breath he took and sat back down.

  “Gonna bruise like a bitch from the impact. Maybe cracked a rib. Go get him, kid. I’ll call, see what’s holding up our back up.”

  As he reached for his radio, I got to my feet and ran after the perp, using my sensitive hearing. I located him running nearly a block away from me. I gathered my wits about me and chased him down. I made visual contact as I turned the corner and sprinted after him as fast as the Dark Thing would carry me.

  Too busy looking over his shoulder at me, he unwittingly ran into the loading bay at the back of a Safeway shopping center, where I now had him cornered between the chain link fence and the loading bay itself.

  I came to a halt, in the classic weaver stance—feet shoulder width apart, hands outstretched before me, gun drawn. “Drop your weapon and get down on the ground, or I will shoot.”

  He was turning, raising his gun to fire at me – but I didn’t give him the chance to shoot.

  I pulled on the trigger once and the gun bucked in my hand. The sound of the gunshot rang in my ears. I saw the suspect take the slug in his right shoulder, making him drop the handgun.

  He didn’t fly back from the gunshot, like people did in the movies.

  However, this wasn’t TV, or the movies—this was real life and I had just shot somebody.

  My resolve was still firm.

  “Get down on the ground, hands where I can see them!” I called out to him in warning.

  He leaned forward toward the ground, but something told me that he was not about to surrender. The Dark Thing was humming within me, heightening my sense, warning me of certain danger.

  I didn’t need the Dark Thing to know that the perp wasn’t giving in just yet. It was something in the way that he didn’t take his eyes off of me. His left hand was outstretched toward the fallen weapon.

  “Don’t do it, or I’ll shoot again.” I warned him, but he wasn’t stopping.

  He was reaching more toward his right side, toward the gun that had fallen to the concrete before him.

  “Don’t do it, asshole.”

  He reached for the gun, had just brushed it with his fingertips when I pulled the trigger for the second time. This second bullet tore through the left side of his chest and this time sent him careening to the left. He slumped to the ground, surrendering at last.

  I approached him with due caution and knew, from the small, but spreading pool of blood beneath his body, that this guy was in rough shape.

  I felt the Dark Thing’s tremendous hunger, urging me to let it feed from him. It had been a while since it had been fed—three nights, to be exact. It wanted the blood of this criminal.

  It seemed like the Dark Thing needed the blood with vicious urgency and this made my skin nearly itch with its hunger.

  While I reached for my radio to call up the ambulance, I couldn’t see the point in wasting the blood that was spilling to the concrete. I figured that it might as well be put to use…

  Upon holstering my weapon, I knelt down, next to him and placed my left hand over the wound in his left breast, letting the Dark Thing feed. I willed the Dark Thing to spread in secret, in a thin layer covering the palm of my hand, out of sight...

  I willed it to lap up the blood pouring from the criminal’s chest wound.

  With my right hand, I retrieved my radio and called our dispatcher. “Base ten, this is nine-zero-five Tango, requesting medical assistance. The robbery suspect is down, we need an ambulance behind the Safeway on Deighton Avenue, please acknowledge.”

  The passage of blood from the criminal to my body brought with it images of his crimes against humanity.

  I saw the gang related activities – the beatings, the shootings, the many other robberies and victims he had left in their wake. His crimes, though many, didn’t seem to justify me ending his life intentionally, so my thoughts weren’t set to murder him, since he had never committed a murder himself.

  The Dark Thing wasn’t asking for his death either, but fed from his guilty blood just the same.

  Even though I wasn’t going to take his life intentionally, there was a good chance that he was going to die anyway.

  He seemed to be fading fast…

  Though I had no medical training, I knew that he had lost a lot of blood already. The Dark Thing had not yet drank its fill and there was more of rich warm crimson still in the pool that had formed under his body.

  Things weren’t looking very good for the gang banger.

  My dispatcher responded. “Base ten to nine-zero-five, ambulance has been dispatched to your location, copy?”

  “Nine-zero-five to base ten, copy, over.” I replied, ending the transmission.

  “What are you doing to me?” The young black man asked weakly, as though sensing that something was wrong with the way I was helping him.

  “Stop—“

  “I’m just putting pressure on your wound.” I told him,
a blatant lie.

  Soon after my comment, the Dark Thing seemed satisfied with the amount of blood that it had drawn and so, I willed it to conceal itself into my hand, back where it belonged.

  Now, I really was putting pressure on the wound, with the genuine intention of delivering First Aid.

  He should have been glad that the Dark Thing hadn’t wanted him dead.

  “The ambulance is on its way.” I tried to reassure him, the taste of copper in my mouth. “What’s your name?”

  “Gary.” He said simply.

  “Gary, you’re going to be okay.”

  “I don’t want to die,” he sobbed, tears rolling down his face. “You plugged me good, cop.”

  I was somewhat surprised that the Dark Thing hadn’t wanted more of this perp’s blood – that the small amount it had taken was enough to purge its thirst. Normally, a simple sampling would have just made its hunger worse. I guessed that it simply wasn’t interested in whether the perp lived or died.

  If his crimes against society had been more severe, the man would have been dead already, with little or no argument from me.

  I heard footsteps behind me, slowing from an awkward run to a weary walk.

  It was Phil. Breathing heavily.

  “I heard your gunshots,” he rasped breathlessly when he arrived at my side. “You okay?”

  “Yes. But he’s in rough shape.”

  “I see that.” Phil was sticking with short sentences. “Two shots in him?”

  “He’s lost a lot of blood.” I answered, keeping pressure on the chest wound. “The ambulance is on its way.”

  “Good job.” Phil breathed. “Taking him down.”

  He breathed again, as deeply as he dared with his tender ribcage.

  “Thanks.” I said, yet I actually felt a small amount of pity for guy I had just shot.

  “You should be wearing gloves,” Phil remarked, chastising me because I should have known better. The vinyl gloves came as part of the standard equipment we wore on our belts, which we were supposed to use if we happen to come into contact with bodily fluids. “They protect us from hepatitis. HIV. AIDS…You put yourself. At risk. Unnecessarily.”

  “Uh, dumb Rookie mistake,” I told him, not exactly in a position to explain the feeding that I had just taken. “Thanks for reminding me.”