Part I
She likes to think of herself as a spider, menacing and predatory. Spiders have webs, and so does she. Her web is her motel, a rundown little place off the I-40 in New Mexico, near Albuquerque. When she thinks about those things, which isn't often, she feels a sense of satisfaction with the place. It's lonely here, where days without sunshine are few and the sky is blue and clear, endless. The adobe-plastered walls are missing chunks, the toilets in two of the motel's 8 rooms run continuously, and the screen door out the back slaps against the frame in never-ending thumps.
The loneliness extends to the people who come here as well. The winding black asphalt brings them to her by ones and twos, straggling travelers and strung out junkies. Half-sober Indians and AIDS-ridden prostitutes. Teenage runaways and balding, middle-aged men tired of paying child support. They come in a steady, trickling stream, all of them damaged goods, but some of them more gloriously fucked up than others. She chooses only the worst of them, the most destitute, the most isolated. She doesn't do this out of fear for the authorities, not really. She buries the bodies a couple of miles in the back country, during the dead of night, has been doing so for a long time and no one has caught on to her yet. No, she chooses them because their turmoil feeds her like a thick, raw, blood-soaked steak.
The more they come, the more she feeds, and the more she sees the changes in her body. Her skin, once pale and unblemished, has become thicker, rougher, and speckled with freckles and moles. Muscles swell under her skin, whipcord strong and tight, but encased in thick, deceptive flab. Her fingers have lengthened, her nails have grown to dagger-sharp points. She loves the strength she feels growing day by day, feeding by feeding. Power has begun to radiate from her like a high wave radio frequency. It's getting better and better at drawing only the sweetest victims to her.
But it has never brought her anything like them before.
They come late at night, pulling the big rumbling black car over the gravel to stop it right outside the window of her office. She takes one look at the two young, handsome figures in the front seat, and a thrill like mainlined heroin sizzles through her veins. They're tired, she can tell that by the stiff way they exit the car. Still, they bicker amiably while shuffling toward her as she waits patiently in the motel office.
Laughter erupts from the tall one as they open the door and come inside. He's lanky, young, healthy looking, with a tousle of dark hair and baby-sweet dimples in his cheeks.
"You are such a pansy," says the other one, snorting. He's shorter and bow-legged with a face far, far too pretty for a man.
The tall one says, "Takes one to know one, Dean my man." Then, to her in a polite, sickeningly well-mannered voice: "One room, two queens."
She shoves a form at him, sees his large hand scribbling out his name and license plate number. The name on the form is Sam Walker.
She leers at his smooth young profile, both despising him and marveling at him. She can see what others can't, beyond the merely physical to the emotional, and because of that Sam nearly blinds her. He shines like a beacon, pure and good and compassionate. Strong, too. But the pain is there, too. Yes. He couldn't have come to her at all if it wasn't for the pain. His lies tied up all nice and neat around his heart, in a pretty little bow. But instead of weakening him, it makes him strong, and fills him with calm and a steady, driving determination. Fills him with love. Cloying, candy crackle sweet love. It both disgusts and challenges her.
"$43.50," she rasps, handing over the key to room 8, the special room. "Checkout's at noon."
The other one, Dean, fishes a wallet out of his back pocket and palms a credit card, passing it to her pressed between his middle and index fingers. The name on the card is D. R. Waters.
She watches him out of the corner of her eye while running the card through the machine. He doesn't shine like the other one. No, he's different. Walled off and potentially violent. Angry. Yet underneath all that, leaking through the cracks, is love. Deep, deep love like the ocean is deep, but spiked with fear and sacrifice and grief. The fear, that's the best. Delicious and nectar sweet. It intoxicates her, totally and completely.
As she hands Dean the credit card receipt to sign, she sees that Sam has noticed her, is staring at her in a vaguely troubled, knowing way. She meets his gaze, then runs her tongue slowly and lewdly across her lips. She knows what she looks like. A hag, foul and ugly. She can tell that he wants to flinch, but holds himself back from it. Of course he doesn't, because that wouldn't be polite.
He seems about to say something, to change his mind about staying there. But that impulse is fleeting, never really something to worry about. He follows Dean out the glass door, dirty with smudged fingerprints.
Watching their backs as they climb into the car to park it in front of their room, she discerns something unexpected about them. Some sort of connection between them. A blood deep connection. What … ? Then it strikes her. Oh--how delicious! How terribly, devilishly delicious. They're brothers.
Sweet, good, kind, honest, moral, upright brothers. Brothers who would never, ever consider doing the things she's going to make them do to each other.
Oh, this is going to be fun.
So very, very fun.
---
Sam doesn't think it's possible, but this room is even uglier than the last one they stayed in: burnt orange bedspreads, stained, worn-down carpet, dirty-white walls "decorated" with black velvet pictures of matadors and little girls in pink Spanish dresses. The room's sole light source is a naked 50-watt bulb dangling from the center of the ceiling.
"I'd like to find the people who decorated this room and shoot them," Dean says, closing the bathroom door to block out the noise of the toilet's continuous running.
Sam dumps his duffel bag on the floor and sags over to lie on the lumpy mattress, suddenly exhausted. He presses his thumb and index finger to the bridge of his nose, trying to massage away the sudden tenderness there. The sight of the hotel clerk's ugly face looms in his memory: a heavy, shapeless body, greasy straight hair, a barely noticeable chin atop rolls of fat. Her eyes disturb him the most, though: small, piggish, and full of pure, unadulterated venom. And the way she licked her lips, leaving a slimy trail of saliva … he shudders.
Dean notices, and cocks his eyebrow at his brother.
"Man, that hotel clerk gave me the willies," he says by way of explanation.
"Well, you gotta expect that sometimes, Sammy. You're a hot young guy. The babes are bound to want you."
Sam would punch him in the arm if he didn't have to get out of bed to do it. He settles for scowling weakly.
"I'm grabbing first shower," Dean says, digging out his shower kit and disappearing into the bathroom.
Sam sighs, drags himself up to slide the chain lock in place. Although he admits that it's a damn unlikely possibility, he doesn't want that hotel clerk to come and molest him in his sleep.
---
It's three a.m., and she's wide awake. The lights are off in the office, and she's sitting in the squeaky office chair, polyester pants and flowered underwear pulled down around her ankles, looking out at door number 8. She slides a dildo with increasing urgency in and out of her wet cunt. The rubbery, plastic feel of the dildo is so different from the warm, living cock of a human man. It's just a device, a thing, with no energy to draw into her, no fuel to work the transformation she craves. But soon, she'll have that. Soon.
Headlights from an errant sedan glance over her as she comes, grunting and whining, sweat dripping into her eyes. She gulps in harsh breaths as her galloping heart slows. With a slick pop she pulls the dildo out of her pussy, brings it to her lips and sucks the tip. It's foul and pungent, with a taste that she loves.
She knows they are deep asleep, behind door number 8. She feels their thoughts, circling in dreams, quietly assessing the day's experiences, winding in and around each other. This is the right time, when their bodies are so still and relaxed and unsuspecting.
Pulling her pants up, she tosses the dildo into the desk drawer, snags the keys off the hook on the protective wall surrounding the desk, and walks out into the night, toward room number 8. She almost pauses as she passes it, but instead just gives a little smile of anticipation. Just past the room, she stops. In the dirt, here, is an underground cellar, accessible through a solid steel door. Bending down, she unlocks the heavy padlock and pulls back the handle, propping the hatch slightly open.
She gets up, then, and heads over to her room for a few hours of sleep. They'd come in late last night, after all. She wants them nice and rested up for tomorrow.
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