Robert Walker - Unnatural Instinct

From an extremely limited vantage point, her head duct-taped to the face of a dead man's cheek, the slightly overweight woman could only see her left hand-tied as it was-to the right hand of a decaying corpse.

Pounding of someone's heart so loud in her ears. Her own heart pounding itself against the chest wall. Her gasp flowing into the open mouth of death to which she is lashed.

She studied the width and texture of the brown orange leather tie that bound her-wrist to wrist-to the deceased.

Her heart sent out a surge of power all its own.

The ties wound several times around in figure-eight fashion between the two wrists-live wrist to the dead wrist.

Strange mix of commingled pleasant odors of earth, hay, and sweet pine with the unpleasant: urine and feces, and decay. Sensation of large space wrapped about her, but all senses overpowered now by the pounding heart that threatened to wake death beneath her, where it lay cold and unresponsive.

A lengthy, flesh-cutting rawhide strip allowed only her fingers to rise off the dead man's skin. She could feel but not see that her right hand was likewise lashed to the dead man's left hand. Her torso had been wrapped about the corpse in what felt like larger, wider bands of rawhide, and she felt cold and nude against the ties. She and her dead executioner both nude, strapped together at the midsection.

Her heart wanted to explode to find silence.

Nerve endings in her feet told the same story for her other extremities. Someone had lashed her feet to the dead man's feet, her right to his left, her left to his right, all in an obscene gesture of lovemaking, her atop him, him facing up. She guessed the dead body to be that of a man by the size of the single hand she could view, that and the size of his blunt nails. An aroma of burned flesh filled her nostrils as well.

Heart now like a crazed, frenetic bird fighting to break free from its cage, all flutters and palpitations.

Jimmy Boy said it best, said he wanted to fuck you till you were dead said it in open court, didn't he? When had she heard this grotesque question that now coiled about her brain for a voice, a face, and features to go with it? She remained drowsy, as if she had been drugged, but her heart insisted she pay attention. It also continued its own threat. She sought relief from the insistence of her heart, her lungs, her very breath. She recalled once having made a trip across country with Miss Wiggles-her cat-named for her inability to sit still. She had doped up the animal on advice from a vet friend. Bad idea, for the animal had gurgled and moaned and bitched all the way, every night, not allowing Maureen any sleep.

Maureen that's my name. Now where the hell am I, and what the fuck am I doing lashed to a dead guy? This is too much to bear, too much for anyone to bear. God in heaven, help me or kill me, but put me out of this misery. And what's become of Miss Wiggles? Who is going to feed Wiggles?

Ogod-how'd-Iget-f-f-f-uck-king here'n dis wretch-ed- estate-aaah, she moaned under the duct-tape gag, unable to enunciate.

There was a stir of a response like soft feathers being punched from a pillow. Someone heard her mangled plea. Then silence, save for the telltale heart. Then a deep, guttural laugh from a male diaphragm and voice box, coming from the darkness somewhere out of her vision. A laughter filled with derision at her plight yet mysteriously in sync with her drumbeat heart and tortured circumstances. The bastard monster who had done this to her had also been listening to her churning and vexed heart.

A deep, abiding hatred began to build and replace bewilderment and agitation inside her heart and soul, when suddenly the unseen figure standing overhead plunged a three-pronged, rusty pitchfork into the earth inches before her eyes. Simultaneously her body rippled in response, animating the body lashed to her.

Kinya dig it? he asked and paused to spit a wad of brown syrup from his mouth to her face-chewing tobacco. My granpap always said a chaw of tobacco could cure any hurt. Course he never reckoned on anythin' like this.

Youuu-summa-bitch'll payfar'isbygad, she cursed under the gag.

Dancing with death takes on a whole new meaning for you now, don't it little dear? He again erupted in an ugly derision of sound, a twisted laugh.

Still feeling the effects of whatever drug he'd used on her to keep her submissive, Maureen thought she recognized her abductor's voice. Could it be the old man? Jimmy Purdy's prune-faced, skin-puckered father? From halfway across the country?

He spat another mouthful of dark liquid, and it slapped her bare behind, trickling down between her legs. Jimmy always liked a good chew. Prefers Cherokee Red. He'll like my spicing you up for him, so's he can take whiffs of you- all up through eternity.

Fut you-you-you motherfutt-king-sonofa-hog's-pussy! she cursed beneath the gag, knowing that all the withered, old creep heard came out as a single, angry animal keening. She also knew that it was exactly the response he'd wanted. She tried desperately to hold on to her sanity; she did so by thinking of her adopted son, two daughters, her granddaughters, and mentally chorusing 1 Corinthians 13, perhaps the loveliest attempt ever to define love. She must hold on to her love. Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one

Already he had stripped her of any similarity to the woman she had been. She must hold on to her mind and soul.

The blood and heartbeat thrumming madly through her calmed in her ears, and she gasped and fainted into an oblivion she'd earlier prayed for.

Dr. Jessica Coran, FBI medical examiner, had almost forgotten that the letters M.E. followed her name. The two months off since Richard Sharpe's arrival at Dulles International Airport had been a godsend-and amazingly enough, no calls from the office or the lab. Nothing but a blissful opportunity for her and Richard to orient themselves in a new life that would change and align their futures, most certainly for the better, Jessica believed.

Richard had relocated from England to be with her. As a former police detective at New Scotland Yard, with expertise in working with Interpol, the largest crime fighting organization in the world, Sharpe had looked into and gotten consulting work with the FBI. He had told her in no uncertain terms, I have been self-sufficient and independent since my divorce, seven years now, and I have no intention of becoming Mr. Jessica Coran, M.E., thank you.

I can accept that, she'd told him, laughing in response.

They had had a wonderful reunion after he had landed. They had wined and dined at Anatole's Riverfront, and he stayed the first week with her at her Quantico apartment, but since then they had been house hunting, both of them knowing they needed far more space than the apartment provided. Jessica's and Richard's books alone would need an additonal room.

I have known relationships and marriages that have overcome great obstacles and painful hurdles, Richard had told her, but none can overcome shoulder-to-shoulder crowding.