Silent Prey

nurse. She ran an operating suite, took no crap from anyone.
    And she was just the right size.
    Bite-size, Bekker’s brain said when he saw her.
    At five-two, she barely reached a hundred pounds when she was fully dressed. Aware of her inviting size, she was careful about the ramp. Tonight she walked out with Michaela Clemson, tall, rangy, blonde and tough; a lifelong tennis player, both a nurse and a surgical tech. They were still in uniform, tired from the day.
    “Then you heard what he said? He said, ‘Pick it up and put it where I told you to in the first place,’ like I was some kind of child. I am definitely going to complain . . .” Clemson was saying.
    Bite-sized Shelley Carson encouraged her: nurses were not less than doctors, they were members of adifferent profession. They should take no shit. “I’d certainly go in . . . .”
    “I just can’t ignore it this time,” the blonde said, building her courage. “The asshole is a bad surgeon, and if he’d spend more time working on his surgery and less time trying to pull rank . . .”
    Bekker slid in behind them. They saw him, peripherally, but neither really looked at him until they started into the ramp together, and then up the stairs.
    “I definitely would,” the small one was saying. Her dark hair was cut close to the head, like a helmet, with little elfin points over her ears.
    “Tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock I’m going to march in . . .” The blonde looked down at Bekker, then back up at her friend. Bekker climbed behind them, one hand on the stun gun.
    Halfway up, the blonde said, “Tomorrow, I go for it.”
    “Do it,” said the elf. “See you tomorrow.”
    The blonde broke away, stepping into the main part of the ramp, peering out. “All clear,” she said. The blonde started toward a Toyota. Bekker and the dark-haired woman continued up, Bekker’s heels rapping on the stairs.
    “We have an arrangement,” the elf said, looking down at Bekker. “If one of us has to go out alone, we watch each other.”
    “Good idea,” Bekker squeaked. The voice was the hard part. Rayon had said it would be. Bekker put a hand to his mouth and faked a cough, as though his voice might be roughed by a cold, rather than forty years of testosterone.
    “This parking garage, somebody’s going to get attacked here someday,” the woman said. “It really isn’t safe . . . .”
    Bekker nodded and went back to the purse. The elf looked at him, a puzzled look, something not quite right. But what? She turned away. Turn away from trouble. Bekker followed her out at the top floor, heard the Toyota’s engine start below. Brought the stun gun out, got the tank ready in the bag. Heard the hiss. Felt the action in his feet . . .
    The woman saw him moving. A fraction of a second before he was on her, she took in the violence of his motion and started to turn, her eyes widening in reflex.
    Then he had her. One hand over her mouth, the other pressing the stun gun against her neck. She went down, trying to scream, and he rode her, pressing the stun gun home, holding it . . . .
    She flapped her arms like the wings of a tethered bird. He dropped the stun gun, groped for the tank, found it, flipped the valve and clapped the mask over her face. He had her now, his hair a bush around his head, his eyes wide, feral, like a jackal over a rabbit, breathing hard, mouth open, saliva gleaming on his teeth.
    He heard the sound of the Toyota going down the ramp as the bite-sized woman’s struggles weakened and finally stopped. He stood up, listening. Nothing. Then a voice, far away. The little woman was curled at his feet. So sweet, the power . . .
    Bekker worked all night. Preparing the specimen—wiring the gag, immobilizing her. Taking her eyelids; he held them in the palms of his hands, marveling; they were so . . . interesting. Fragile. He carried them to a metal tray, where he’d collected some others. The others were drying now, but kept their form, the lashes still shiny and strong . . .
    Shelley Carson died just before seven o’clock, as silently as all the rest, the gag wired around her skull, hereyes permanently open. Bekker had crouched over her with the camera as she died, shooting straight into her eyes.
    And now he sat in his stainless-steel chair and gazed at the proof of his passion, eight ultraviolet photos that clearly showed something—a radiance, a presence—flowing from Carson as she died. No question, he