Black Melt

  MAD RAVINGS IN FAVOR

  OF INDY MCDANIEL!

  “I love the idea of being abducted by the McDaniel's!!”

  (Eric Gamache, How to Sell Your Soul)

  BLACK MELT

  “We didn’t know whether to throw up or spank it, so we did both!”

  (Mike & Ike)

  “Dark, twisted, sick, exciting & sexy!”

  (Tony Longworth)

  “This is a squishy, gooshy, squelchy story about ravenous appetites of many descriptions…”

  (The Horror Fiction Review)

  NADYA’S NIGHTS: ROAD TO VENGEANCE

  “There is barely a page of respite from the violence…”

  (The Books of Blood)

  “Packed with action and topped with my favorite brand of gallows humor…”

  (Beewolf)

  Black Melt:

  Mother Fountain

  By Indy McDaniel

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s twisted imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons – living, dead, or undead – is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Indy McDaniel

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  ISBN-13:978-1502342836

  ISBN-10: 1502342839

  First printing March 2018

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Britt.

  TIMELINE

  November 28th, 2015 - Some British Chick

  November 28th-30th, 2015 - Road to Vengeance

  December 1st-3rd, 2015 - All M.A.D. Here

  December 5th, 2015 - Dark Hero

  June 14th, 2017-Lycanimator

  November 2019–Black Melt

  March 2020–Black Melt: Mother Fountain

  Other books by Indy McDaniel:

  BLACK MELT: A Sci-Smut-Horror-Fi Tale

  NADYA’S NIGHTS: Road to Vengeance

  NADYA’S NIGHTS: All M.A.D. Here

  NADYA’S NIGHTS: Some British Chick

  NADYA’S NIGHTS: Dark Hero

  THE CASE OF THE NIXEN

  LYCANIMATOR

  RANDOM ACTS OF HORROR: An Anthology

  CONTENTS

  [Prologue - Snow Day]

  [Chapter One - Signs of Life]

  [Chapter Two - False Positives]

  [Chapter Three - Pulling at Threads]

  [Chapter Four - Field Trip]

  [Chapter Five - Wolfe Tracks]

  [Chapter Six - Unwelcome Messengers]

  [Chapter Seven - Home Invasion]

  [Chapter Eight - Love’s Labors Melted]

  [Chapter Nine - Protective Custody]

  [Chapter Ten - Point of Ignition]

  [Chapter Eleven - Scorched Earth]

  Spreading the Blame

  Prologue

  Snow Day

  Winter. 2019.

  The snow was grey and sludgy and no fun at all.

  Felicia Davis normally loved the snow. But not this snow. It wasn’t the usual pure whiteness she’d come to expect throughout the month of December. This wasn’t Christmas snow. The young girl stared gloomily out the bay window at the front of her house, focusing hard on the sloppy snowflakes plopping across the soggy lawn. She tried to force them to change. She didn’t want muddy snow. She wanted proper snow. The kind you made rotund, carrot-nosed men and feather-armed angel outlines out of. But as hard as she focused, Felicia couldn’t change the weather.

  Felicia’s sour face brightened as she saw the sleek black VW sedan pull up to the curb in front of her house. She didn’t recognize the car, but she knew who was inside. Without waiting to see the driver leave the vehicle, she spun around and darted away from the bay window. She scampered her way through the family room and down the short hallway leading to the kitchen. When she pushed the door to the kitchen open, her grin was so wide it looked as if her head might hinge off at the jaw.

  “Mommy’s here!” the little girl proclaimed with proud triumph to her father and Aunt Kari.

  Felicia didn’t take much notice of how quickly her father’s hand moved away from Kari’s upraised posterior as her aunt shimmied the ham-filled platter into the pre-heated oven. She wasn’t old enough to know all of the particulars of why her mother and father no longer lived together and why instead daddy had decided to ‘shack up’ – as Mommy put it – with Aunt Kari, but she was clever enough to have gotten the general idea of what had happened. Walking in on her father and Aunt Kari in the middle of ‘night swimming’, as they’d told her it was, a week after they’d moved in together had only made things more clear to the girl.

  Still the two seemed set on trying to keep the mushier details of their relationship hidden from Felicia. Aside from the occasional wandering hand, she never saw them do anything more than peck each other on the lips, which was tame enough that Felicia didn’t seem to notice it at all. In reality, she’d come to the conclusion that grown up business was far too complicated to sort out and had decided to leave it to the grownups. She loved her father. She loved her mother. And she thought Aunt Kari was pretty cool, too.

  * * *

  Kari nearly toppled the well-basted ham onto the tile floor of the kitchen when Felicia burst into the room with all the grace and subtlety of an out of control semi-truck on the freeway. With the main course of that evening’s Christmas dinner safely tucked into the oven – and with Allen’s hand safely not tucked up against her ass – Kari closed the oven door and turned around to face the beaming girl. “Say it a little louder, squirt,” she replied with a smirk. “I’m pretty sure there’s a small collective of Martians who didn’t hear you the first time.”

  Felicia responded as she normally did to the playful jabs Kari sent her way. By defiantly sticking her tongue out at her aunt and giving it a waggle before blowing a raspberry.

  “Your Martian dialect sounds a bit rusty,” Kari said, continuing the banter. “Have you been practicing like I told you to?”

  Felicia’s tongue popped back into her mouth and she gave a firm nod that was far too serious given the silliness of the question she’d been asked. “Mommy’s gonna stay for dinner, right?” she asked, hopeful yearning in her eyes as she looked from Kari to Allen.

  Kari looked to Allen as well, noting his look of unease as he took a long sip from his Corona. Five years later and face-to-face time with her sister hadn’t gotten any easier. They all managed to stay civil around one another for the rugrat’s sake, but the tension in the air only grew thicker the longer Madison was around. After the unfortunate discovery of Allen’s infidelity, Kari had attempted to explain things to Madison from her point of view. She’d never planned to steal her sister’s husband out from under her. She hadn’t even known Allen was Allen for the first month of their pseudo-relationship. Seriously, she thought. Who the fuck expects to fall in love with some anonymous viewer on a camgirl website?

  But that was exactly what had happened, on both sides of the monitor. Allen still maintained that he hadn’t actually gone searching for Kari. He’d stumbled onto her camgirl profile accidentally one late evening while Madison had been out studying at the local coffee shop she liked to frequent. While the discovery hadn’t been intentional, Allen had been fairly blunt about why he’d paid for that first private chat performance. “How often does a guy get the chance to see his wife’s sister finger-bang herself on camera?” he’d asked her. According to him, he’d meant for it to be a one-time thing. A tiny taste of forbidden fruit in a moment of loneliness. The problem was, as Kari made herself cum for Allen, he’d done the same for her. And from there, the lust grew.

  And if it had remained as simple lust, the proper affair would have ne
ver happened. Felicia wouldn’t have had to suffer through her parents’ divorce. But after a half-dozen private chats, something happened. After the sticky fun of the cybersex was over, the proper chatting had begun. Allen told her of the growing distance between himself and his wife – although he still didn’t mention that the wife in question was Kari’s own sister. Kari, in turn, ranted about her own loneliness, about how most dudes couldn’t handle what she did for a living due to jealousy and insecurity. She tried to explain how performing on camera for faceless young men made her feel, not just the arousal she got from knowing that she was arousing others, but the occasional bouts of disgust she felt – not only with the ones watching her, but with herself.

  Then came the comforting period. Kari stopped taking off her clothes and sticking things inside herself during the private chats. Allen kept his pants zipped up. And they just talked. Kari felt guilty about charging him for the private chats, considering how far their anonymous relationship had grown. So she’d started talking to him through emails, instant messenger. She’d suggested powering up webcams so they could have a more personal face-to-face encounter. Allen – still a nameless, faceless entity on the other side of the computer – declined. Instead, he suggested they meet in person. Kari had been hesitant – images of her lifeless carcass found strangled, raped, and ditched in a field somewhere fluttered through her mind – but had finally agreed, making sure the meeting place was somewhere public with plenty of witnesses.

  The first meeting had been short, shocking, and just a bit heartbreaking. Kari had gone home and did her best to ignore Allen’s persistent emails and her own tumultuous feelings, but in the end, she found it impossible. She set up a second meeting – one more private – in order to set right what had gone so horribly wrong. During the drive to the out of the way motel, Kari had told herself repeatedly that she was going to sort things out and end things with Allen once and for all. When she got there, she couldn’t recall exactly how they wound up with their lips locked together and their hands wandering across one another’s bodies. By the time Allen slipped inside her for the first time, Kari knew she didn’t have the strength to end whatever the hell their relationship was. And she kind of hated herself for that.

  The simmering embers of that self-hatred still lingered within Kari, and she knew Madison felt the same way. She didn’t blame her sister. She didn’t even blame Allen. It was a shit situation that had just sort of happened. And it’s not as if Madison was completely blameless in the whole thing, Kari thought. Of course, she didn’t go so far as to cheat on Allen or anything. In cases of dealing with her sister, she found it easier to just rely on Allen to make the decision. “Up to you,” she said to him. “You and her, I guess. I’m cool either way.” A prolonged visit would be uncomfortable and guilt ridden, for sure, but Kari was willing to endure that pain so that Felicia could spend a bit more time with her mother.

  Allen shrugged. “It’s fine with me.”

  Felicia let out a joyous cheer and did a spinning dance on the tile floor which Kari couldn’t help grinning at. Felicia’s spirited dance routine was abruptly interrupted by the ring of the doorbell. The little girl spun on her heel and darted out of the kitchen as speedily as she’d entered it. “I got it!” she called back as she ran.

  Kari could see that despite what he’d said, Allen wasn’t all that enthusiastic about the prospect of spending Christmas dinner with his ex-wife. “Hey,” she said, attempting to infuse some hopefulness into the situation. “It might not be that bad. She just got back from some super-secret science project. So she should be in a pretty good mood from that already. Felicia will talk her head off for half the evening and the rest of the time, we can just deal with it.”

  “So best case scenario, there’ll only be half a night of cold stares filled with unspoken obscenities,” Allen muttered before draining the rest of his beer. “I guess it’s better than actually having to endure the verbal tirade.”

  “That’s my sister, as foul mouthed as she is brilliant,” Kari smirked. She slid up beside Allen and let her hand return the ass grope he’d given her while she’d been working the ham into the oven. “Just remember, this is for Felicia. And if you’re a good boy, maybe Miss Klaus will let you have an all access pass to her winter wonderland playground later.”

  “All access, you say?” Allen replied with a mischievous eyebrow lift.

  Kari grinned. “Please, you know I’m a sucker for giving up the ass in the spirit of Christmas.” Her grin turned serious. “But only if you’re a good boy,” she warned. “You make so much as the hint of a scene and I’ll be sharing the bed with Felicia and you’ll be regulated to softcore cable porn. Maybe even until the new year.”

  “Harsh.”

  “The harshest,” Kari nodded. “Now let’s go welcome my sister into our loving home and have a kickass Christmas experience.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t Madison at the door.

  And it became very clear very quickly that there would be no kickass Christmas experience.

  The somber faced suited man at the door wasn’t there to sing carols or spread holiday cheer. “I’m Bob Cordroy,” he announced with a brief handshake to both Allen and Kari as they came to the door. “I’m with CyberWolfe Industries. May I speak with you? It’s rather important.” Felicia was confused, especially when Kari asked her to head upstairs to her bedroom. The girl trudged her way up the stairs one slow step at a time as Kari and Allen welcomed the man into their home.

  After the customary offer of eggnog was extended and accepted, the three of them took a seat at the dining room table. Then Bob Cordroy calmly explained that Madison Davis would not be coming to Christmas dinner. He was big on the official apologies on behalf of himself and the company and small on the details of how Madison had died, but it didn’t really matter. Through the burning tears and the monotone drone of Cordroy’s voice, Kari could only think one thing.

  What the hell are we going to tell Felicia?

  * * *

  But Felicia already knew.

  She’d gone upstairs, as she’d been told. But something about the suited man struck her as odd, so she’d silently crept her way halfway down the stairs and strained her ears to catch his soft-spoken words. She joined Kari in crying, although her tears fell silently down her flushed cheeks. Unable to listen to anymore, she went back upstairs. She pushed the door to her bedroom closed and went over to the window. The snow falling outside was thickening, growing a more vibrant white. Looking out at the beautifully white Christmas, Felicia’s sobs overwhelmed her.

  Nothing would be the same ever again.

  Chapter One

  Signs of Life

  Spring. 2020.

  “Beyond this door lies the future of mankind; scientific knowledge the likes of which have never even been dreamed of. The kind of stuff that changes history books. The kind of stuff that people will look back at a hundred years from now and say this is where everything changed. And nothing will be the same ever again.”

  “Yea, cuz we’ll be rich as fuck on our own private island. Now shut your face and open the damn door, Gavin.”

  Gavin grinned as he turned away from Alyx and flipped the welder’s mask down over his face. Lighting up the thermal torch, he stepped closer to the thick-walled elevator door and began to cut his way through it. The heat of the torch had both of them sweating in moments. Alyx Kurylenko turned away, keeping her eyes averted from the blinding white light of the torch as it melted away the steel door. She hazarded a glance upwards, out of the elevator and up the impossibly long shaft they’d repelled down. Not that there was much to see. Even with the small hatchway open at the top, the darkness of night didn’t even allow her so much as a glimmer of sunlight to gage how far down they truly were.

  How long’s a piece of string? Too damn long, she thought. “You almost through?” she asked. “This goddamn sweat box is getting old real fast.”

  “I’m cutting as fast as I can, babe,” Ga
vin shot back. “The last thing we want is for this heavy ass door to come falling back on us. We’ll be squashed like bugs under a boot heel. Try spending a lifetime’s worth of riches when your head’s as flat as your tits.”

  “Dude, unlike this elevator, that’s fucking cold,” Alyx snapped, cupping her less than bountiful bosom. She gave her girls a pout and considered kicking Gavin in the ass. “You know I’m self-conscious about that shit.”

  Gavin focused on cutting through the door. He hadn’t been lying about the delicateness of the situation and – all jokes aside – getting scooped up off the floor of the elevator with a spatula was not on his list of things to do that night or any other night. “C’mon, baby. You know I love your itty bitty titties. Besides, any real man knows it’s all about the nipples and those sexy nibblets you got are damned chewable.”

  “That’s fucking bullshit, man,” Alyx grumbled before brushing her thumbs across her nipples. “My nips are pretty awesome though. Maybe I should get em pierced.”

  “The part of me that jerks off to Suicide Girls photos when you’re asleep says yes, but the part of me that’s adverse to tasting a mouthful of steel every time I suck on your breasts says hell no.”

  “You jerk off to those skanks?” Alyx asked, her face scrunching up in disgust. “Dude, go Burning Angel or go home.”

  “That doesn’t even make any sense,” Gavin said as he finished carving through the elevator door and flicked the torch off. “I was already home. Besides, sometimes I prefer artsy pics to hardcore anal banging.”