The Secret of Evil Read Online Free Page B

threatens the Mexicans. This gives the colonel’s son a chance to grab
a few sweets from the counter and beg Julie to get out of there with him, but
Julie has gone back to the raw meat, and as she tears into a steak, she begins
to cry and says she doesn’t understand and implores young Reynolds to do
something. The Mexicans start brawling with the storekeeper. They pull out their
knives and flash them in the bluish light of the food store. They manage to get
hold of the storekeeper’s pistol and shoot him. He drops to the floor. One of
the Mexicans goes to the counter where the alcoholic drinks are kept and grabs
some bottles without bothering to see what kind of liquor they contain. As he
passes Julie, she bites him on the arm. The Mexican howls. Julie sinks her teeth
in and won’t let go, despite the pleas of the colonel’s son. Another
gunshot.
    Someone shouts, C’mon, let’s go. The Mexican manages to pull his arm
free and catches up with his companions, crying out in pain. Young Reynolds
examines the storekeeper’s body lying on the floor. He’s alive, he says, we have
to get him to a hospital. No, says Julie, leave him, the police will take care
of him. Their steps, as they walk out of the store, are quick but unsteady. They
see a black van parked outside and break into it. Just as young Reynolds manages
to get it going, the storekeeper appears and begs them to take him to a
hospital. Julie looks at him but doesn’t say a word. The storekeeper’s white
shirt is stained with blood. The colonel’s son tells him to get in. When he’s in
the van and they’re about to go, they hear the siren of a police car. Then the
storekeeper says he wants to get out. Can’t do that, says the colonel’s son, and
tears away.
    The chase begins. It doesn’t take long for the police to start
shooting. The storekeeper opens the van’s back door and shouts, That’s enough.
He’s cut down by a hail of bullets. Julie, who’s sitting in the back seat, turns
and peers into the darkness. She hears him crying. The storekeeper is crying for
the life that’s slipping away from him, a life of ceaseless work and struggling
in a foreign land to give his family a better future. And now it’s all over.
    Then Julie gets out of her seat and goes into the back part of the
van. And while the colonel’s son shakes off the police, Julie starts eating the
storekeeper’s chest. With a radiant smile on his face, young Reynolds turns to
Julie and says, We’ve lost the cops, but she is crouched on all fours in the
back, as if she were a tiger or were making love, and her only reaction is to
breathe a satisfied sigh, because she’s assuaged her appetite; momentarily, as
we shall soon discover. All the colonel’s son can do, of course, is cry out in
terror. Then he says: What’ve you done, Julie? How could you do that? It’s clear
from his tone of voice, however, that he’s in love, and that although his girl’s
a cannibal, she is, in spite of everything, his girl. Julie’s reply is simple:
she was hungry.
    At this point, while young Reynolds is mutely venting his
exasperation, the police car appears again and the young pair resume their
flight through dark, deserted streets. There’s still a surprise in store for us:
when the police open fire on the fugitives, the back door of the van opens, and
the storekeeper appears, but he’s become a ravenous zombie. First he tears open
a cop’s throat, then sets on the guy’s partner, who empties the magazine of his
gun at him, in vain, then freezes in horror, before being devoured in turn. Just
then two cars from the military base close off the alley, and using two rather
strange weapons, like laser guns, neutralize first the storekeeper and then the
two zombie policemen. Colonel Reynolds gets out of one of the cars and asks his
soldiers if they’ve seen his son. The soldiers reply in the negative. Another
car appears in the alley and a woman, Colonel Landovski, gets out. She informs
Reynolds