"deLuca, Sandy - The Hunter's Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Deluca Sandy)

I felt bad saying goodbye to him. He looked so awful when we left him in his apartment, lying on his couch—a bullet in his chest.
It goes without saying that we got to take the jewelry back—and a little extra to boot.
*
After that we headed further South and then West. We claimed other lives before we ended up in Denver almost a year later; among them a young business man in Washington D. C. He had a Mercedes that we were just itching to drive.
He kissed real good.
He died real slow.
There was an old lady in Jacksonville. We followed her home after she’d made a withdrawal from the bank. She begged us not to take the money.
It was supposed to be for her grandson’s first semester at college.
We didn’t believe in higher education.
I wondered if her grandson found her body. She said he’d be by later that day.
I used to dream about the people we’d killed. They’d be lying in the shallow graves we’d dug—waiting to be buried—and the Hunter’s Moon shined in their eyes.
By summer—late August to be exact— we landed in Denver. The day we got there we rented a room at some fancy hotel downtown—I can’t remember the name, but it cost us a hundred fifty bucks. We didn’t care. We had a few thousand in cash and more in stolen jewelry.
We spread the money on the bed and counted it as we sipped Champaign and smoked grass.
Life was good.
We got hungry around supper time and went downstairs to have a burger and beer.
That’s where we met Byron Jasper.
It seems as though people of like minds were always drawn to us—they seemed to smell us and what we were all about—other hunters on the prowl.
We were sitting in a booth, eating, laughing and drinking. This guy with dark hair, tattoos on his arms and a scar over his right eye sat across from us at a table.
He kept looking at us. He smiled and a minute later the waitress brought over a couple of glasses of burgundy with his compliments.
Before we knew it he was sitting with us. He looked at Andra like she was some kind of movie star. As if I wasn’t even there.
He took us on a tour of Denver that night, then he came back to our hotel room.
Later that night I heard Byron and Andra getting it on. I was pissed cause I wanted him too. This time Andra didn’t want to share—not like with Moe.
Byron let us stay in the basement apartment he rented in the wretched part of the city. He was happy as long as Andra gave him sex.
Sometimes it seemed like I was invisible.
Andra and me never talked about it—but she knew what I was feeling—she knew.
Over the next few weeks we learned that Byron liked to hunt—to kill for the pleasure of it. He didn’t give a shit about stealing his victim’s money, or taking their cars. He just liked to watch their faces as they died.
It got him hot and later he always got in the sack with Andra.
One night we picked up two college girls from a bar downtown, brought them home. Byron sliced them up—taking his time—watching their expressions as they begged him to stop.
I knelt beside them, awed at how their eyes filled up, the way their bodies twitched and how quickly or slowly the blood flowed from the different places Byron had cut them.
He let Andra finish them up. She slit their throats nice and slow.
Andra and Byron did it right next to the bodies that night.
Later we put the dead chicks in plastic garbage bags, along with the bloody sheets and blankets. We drove high into the mountains and left them there.
One night Andra asked Byron if she could borrow his car, go for a drive. She said that she needed to clear her head.
Andra and me didn’t talk much anymore, but I could tell something was bugging her.
He gave her the keys. She kissed him on the cheek before she left. She didn’t say a word to me.
*
"Want a drink?" he asked as he watched the car’s lights disappear around the curve.
"I can get it myself."
I got a can of beer from the frig. When I turned around Byron was behind me. He slipped his hands on my waist and spun me around. He kissed me hard.
Before I knew it was I lying beneath him, doing what I’d yearned for.
"I thought Andra was somebody different at first," he said as he lifted me gently and kissed me. "She can be a self-centered bitch."
He turned to me and said real soft, "I’m learning she’s not right for me."
I slid into my jeans, thinking about what I felt for Byron—especially now—and how me and Andra were like partners in crime—together all this time.
*
None of us talked much for the next few days, but Byron and me had an understanding. I could tell when he looked at me, nodded his head when Andra wasn’t looking
Byron slept on the couch and Andra slept in his bed. I crashed on a futon in the corner of the living room—like always.
One night in mid-October Byron announced that he wanted to have some fun. "I say we hit some downtown bars—cause some trouble. Shit, they stopped talking about the missing college girls. I say we add some excitement to the news—tonight."
I remember walking out into the chilly October night, looking up at the full moon and thinking that it was the same moon as the night me and Andra left Rhode Island—the Hunter’s Moon was back—shining down on us.
Andra got in the car first, moved up close to Byron. He kissed her and I thought that maybe he’d changed his mind about him and me.
He drove around the city for a while, then pulled into an alley in between some deserted buildings.