Bestial (39 page)

“Royce!
Royce
!”

His eyes widened as he looked to his right, up the center aisle. Several of them stood on the stage up front. Through gaps between their bodies, he saw Bob lying on his back, being held down, naked and pale. Royce glimpsed his friend’s face, wide with terror as it searched for him.

“Run!” Bob shouted. “Hear me, Royce?
Run
!
Get out of here
!
Now
!”

There was an urgency to Bob’s voice, as well as a finality. It made Royce feel that if he did not do as Bob told him, if he did not run
now
and try to get out however unlikely the possibility seemed, he would never escape. It would be the end for him.

His body exploded with energy. He began to flail his arms and kick his legs, to fight the hands that held him. Claws tore through his clothes and skin as he pulled away, lips open and pulled back around clenched teeth, tendons in his neck pulled taut.

He was free—for a moment. He could not think clearly enough to do anything but throw himself forward, to keep moving, dodging the others, darting left and right and—

Flames of pain burned his scalp as something closed on his hair and jerked him backward hard, making a reflexive grunt sound in his chest.

Something wet touched his ear and a low growl filled his head as hot, smelly breath blasted against him. He was spun around violently.

Royce’s head tipped backward, pulling his mouth open wider and wider, his eyes feeling as if they were about to pop from their sockets. He was so completely paralyzed by his terror that for a long time—
days
, it seemed, long slow summer days—all sound was swallowed up by a throbbing silence and he was able to focus on nothing more than a single quivering drop of saliva that dangled precariously from a narrow, curved fang.

It dripped.

Sound rushed back.

Somewhere far away, Royce heard Bob shouting his name over and over with terror in his voice.

Royce was able to scream once before his life ended.
 

Thin black lips and deadly fangs swallowed up his field of vision and engulfed the whole world.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A Congregation of Beasts

Across Crozier Street from the Seventh-day Adventist church, the sandwich shop, cell phone store, insurance office, and small comic book shop in the small strip mall were closed. Behind the strip mall was a grove of oak trees and brush, and beyond that was Miller Street. A white van was parked at the curb on Miller. Karen and Gavin made their way from the van through the dark patch of trees and brush with George and Abe, all led by Ella and Cynthia.

Karen was tired, but at the same time, adrenaline coursed through her. She was dreading whatever awaited them, but she tried not to show it.

They walked around the strip mall and stood in the parking lot. Across the street, tall sodium vapor lights illuminated the church parking lot, which was crowded with cars. A few people were making their way into the church.

George was pale and a little winded. He had shuffled along with them wearily and now looked as if he were having difficulty standing.

“I don’t feel so good,” he said, his voice weak and hoarse.

Ella put a hand on his shoulder. “Hungry, George?”

He turned to her and nodded heavily.

“That’s a good sign,” she said. “There’s food across the street.” She turned to the church.

From the corner of her eye, Karen watched Ella in the dark-grey night and noticed her nostrils flare as she sniffed the air, saw her head turn this way and that in short, staccato movements as her eyes narrowed. Karen realized that she had been right—at night, she and Cynthia looked like they were wearing jumpsuits of some kind because of their fur.

“There he is,” Ella said quietly.

A Sheriff’s Department cruiser slowed on Crozier and pulled into the church parking lot. It eased through the lot until it found an empty slot, then parked.

“He’s probably got her with him,” Ella said.

As they watched, the cruiser’s lights went off and the driver’s door opened. A tall figure got out, walked around to the back of the car and opened the door on the passenger side. Another figure rose slowly and walked with the first toward the church.

“Okay,” Ella said. “He’s taking her inside.” She turned to them. “There’s no point in trying to sneak in. Obviously, they’re everywhere over there. I’ll take the lead. You follow me in. Gavin, Karen—don’t hesitate to use your guns. The rest of you, use your knives and forks.”

Ella walked into the street, and the rest of them followed.

Taggart opened a side door and stepped back to let Lupa into the church. She walked cautiously, uncertainly, sniffing the air along the way. She was unaccustomed to being outside the house and everything was new, unfamiliar, and a possible threat. She wore a simple cotton periwinkle blue shift with a low neckline and a skirt that fell just above her knees. She looked delicious, like a voluptuous teenager.

Taggart’s eyes darted around the parking lot. He’d assigned a few deputies to hunt for Ella and Cynthia. When they were found, they were to be brought to the church. He hoped to see the deputies driving in with the two women in custody. He was furious at Ella. He should’ve known better than to trust that cunt. He thought being turned would change her, that spending so much time with him would condition her. But apparently she was still the widow of the former sheriff and her aim was to cause trouble. They would find her, though, he was certain of that. She and Cynthia wouldn’t get far.

They went into the church and crossed the main corridor to follow the branch that led behind the sanctuary. Taggart could hear the gathering.

“Sounds like they’ve started without us,” he muttered, smirking. The organ’s peals rose and fell. It took a moment for Taggart to recognize the song because he’d never before heard it being played on a church organ—it was “Born to be Wild.”

The sounds seemed to alarm Lupa. Her body became tense and her silver eyes darted around cautiously.

“It’s okay,” Taggart said reassuringly. He took her hand. “This way.”

He led her through a door and into a small alcove, then through another door. They went up a few steps and through a passageway behind the baptistery, around a large planter holding shiny green artificial plants, and out onto the sanctuary stage.

Taggart stopped, still holding Lupa’s hand. He saw Vanessa’s back as she ground her hips on a man who was naked except for the socks on his feet. The man was stretched out on the overturned pulpit and was being held down by others around them, most of whom had one hand on him while they masturbated with the other and chanted, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

He turned to his left and looked out over the crowded sanctuary. Clothes, some ripped and tattered, were scattered in all directions. One corner of his mouth curled up into a slight smile.

The sanctuary reeked of them—of their bodies, their fluids. As the church organ bellowed, they writhed and convulsed, growling and grunting and panting. Some were stretched out and entwined on pews, while others were bent over the backs of pews being fucked from behind. They were on the pews, on the floor, on the steps leading up to the sanctuary stage, and all over the stage itself—bodies moving with frantic, savage rhythm.

Taggart’s eye was drawn to a rectangular sign above the double doors at the rear of the sanctuary. It read:

“This do in remembrance of Me.”

Luke 22:19

He remembered going to church every Saturday as a boy, led by his mother’s hand, having to sit through Sabbath school, and then the church service, having to stand while his mother chattered with her friends before and after the services, all of them towering over him like great monoliths. He remembered the accusing tone of the pastor’s voice, the scowling, disapproving faces of all the adults around him, the stiffness and discomfort and smothering repression of it all. And he remembered a bible verse that was carved into the front of the pulpit in the sanctuary of that church. The same verse was displayed on the wall of that church’s multi-purpose room, as well. The verse was Luke 22:19, a popular verse among Adventists that always brought to his mind the Seventh-day Adventist “communion” ritual, which was done “in remembrance” of Christ.

Part of communion involved eating little pieces of unleavened bread and drinking grape juice from tiny glasses—never wine, of course, because Adventists didn’t drink wine and believed that when the bible described Jesus drinking wine, it really meant grape juice. The rest of the communion ritual involved the segregation of men and women into two groups in separate rooms, where they ritualistically removed each others shoes, socks, and stockings and washed each other’s feet in shallow pans of water. This practice was known as the “Ordinance of Humility.” It symbolized the biblical account, found in the Gospel of John, of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet at the Last Supper, and was intended to remind Adventists of the importance of serving one another with humility.

Watching the group ritual taking place before him, Taggart chuckled as he thought how much more honest it was than the Seventh-day Adventist group ritual of foot-washing that so floridly reeked of sublimated fetishistic homosexuality. Still chuckling, he turned to Lupa and said, “Stay right here, okay? Don’t move. I’ll be right back. I just want to greet my friends.”

As “Born to be Wild” continued to play on the organ, Taggart made his way down from the stage and carefully stepped around and over the preoccupied figures. As he moved through the crowd, he stopped occasionally to bend over and quietly say something to the thrusting, slurping, panting bodies all around him. He grinned and chuckled as he said, again and again, “This do in remembrance of
me...
this do in remembrance of
me...
“

Among all the wet thrusting and gasping and growling, Taggart came to a splash of dark red. A few more steps later, he saw the part of the torn and bloody remains of a human body surrounded by fragments of torn, soaked clothes. Just beyond that, he found a couple of hairy figures chewing the meat from that body, gnawing it off of bones while they fucked, their fur matted and wet with blood. Around them, a few others ate pieces of the same body as they rutted.
 

He wound his way back around to the stage, walked up the steps, and went to Lupa’s side. Facing the crowd, he raised his arms and shouted at the top of his lungs, “This do in remembrance of
meeee
!” His laughter rang out through the sanctuary as he clapped his hands together hard three times to get their attention.

The organ music hit a sour note and abruptly stopped. The panting and grunting rapidly died down as a lake of silver eyes turned to Taggart. Soon, the church was silent but for the sound of movement as some sat up and some stood, all focusing their attention on the sheriff.

After Bob heard Royce’s gargled, strangling scream cut off abruptly, tears finally began to cut hot trails across his temples and into his ears. He felt whatever hope he had left pump out of him in throbbing jets, like blood from a severed artery.

Since then, he had been lost in a bleary miasma that blended the intense pleasure of sex with the most nightmarish horrors he could imagine. As they chanted, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” the faces around him lost their humanity and became hairy, slavering animals. Vanessa climbed on top of him and slid down on the erection he had been unable to defeat. She moved on him, sometimes grinding slowly, other times bucking as if she were riding a mechanical bull. The music added a touch of surreality to it all—hearing “Born to be Wild” played on the church organ made Bob feel as if he were lost in a sweaty fever dream.

The sensation of being inside Vanessa was intoxicating, even in his terrified, sickened state of mind. But he kept thinking—

virusvirusvirusvirus

—of what it would do to him—

I’ll be like them please Jesus no don’t let that happen

—of what he would become because of it—

like Rochelle I’ll be like Rochelle and eat human flesh and blood and

—and it made his guts twist into knots, even as he was panting and thrusting his hips upward in the throes of passion.

Every now and then, he lifted his head and looked around, hoping against hope that some chance of escape would crop up, some opportunity to get away from them. Even though he knew it was most likely too late to escape the virus that no doubt already infected him, perhaps he could find some way to spare his own life. If nothing else, maybe he could find some way to hurt
them
, to go down fighting, maybe take one or two or three out with him. Each time he lifted his head, there was Vanessa, hovering over him in various stances: Hands leaning on his chest as she bent forward, head down, breasts swaying, hair draping each side of her gasping face, flesh smooth and silky; sitting up and grinding on him, one hand clutching her breast, the other fingering her clitoris, auburn hair appearing on her body and covering her quaking breasts; clawed hands buried in her hair, jutting elbows up, head back as she humped, snout open wide. Before long, the beautiful voluptuous woman on top of him had become a ravening animal.