The Devil's Touch (7 page)

Sam was conscious of cool air on his groin, but he felt it wasn't worth the effort to open his eyes and look. He realized his underwear shorts had been removed. That seemed all right to the young man.

Roma touched his groin, brought him to stiffness. She brought him almost to the point of ejaculation with her skillful fingers. Then, with one swift movement, the witch mounted him, laughing as she did so.

Everything returned to Sam, coming in such a rush it almost overpowered him: the warnings he had received from his dead father; the sight of his father struggling with the witch through boundless space. This woman! Roma was the woman his father had been fighting.

Young Sam began struggling with the witch, attempting to dislodge her from his erection. Her strength was incredible. He exploded within her. She milked him of every drop of semen. Leaving the young man exhausted and confused on the couch, Roma padded naked to a table and drank deeply from a small bottle of fresh blood.

Sam was too weak to move as she began speaking in a language he could not understand. She was calling on the forces of the Dark One, the incantation evil as it rolled from her tongue. Lightning licked around the mansion, thunder boomed, ripping the countryside, the smell of burning sulphur strong in the stormy air.

Laughter reached Sam's ears, spilling from the room where Nydia lay in her coffin. Dead, or so Sam thought. He stumbled into the room.

The scene that greeted his eyes was of the vilest imaginable: Nydia had been lifted from the casket, pillows placed under her. She was naked in death, her lifeless white arms hanging over the sides of the coffin. Her legs were widespread, knees to feet hanging out of the coffin. Falcon was between her legs, his gross maleness swollen to full erection. He was fucking the dead girl.

Sam shouted his rage and charged toward the sickness. Someone tripped him, sending him sprawling on the floor. He was kicked and beaten into semiconsciousness, vaguely aware of the hideous necrophilia before his eyes.

Nydia's head was thrown back, her mouth open, a gaping black hole, eyes closed in surrender on her voyage to the stygian shore.

Sam could but lay helpless, bloodied and weak on the floor, watching through a red mist as Falcon rammed his long thickness into the dead flesh of Nydia. The man began howling like an animal as he ejaculated.

Falcon rose arrogantly from the satin-lined casket like some monster from the grave. He stepped onto the floor and wiped his penis with a towel handed him by one of those as lost as he.

Sam put his head on the carpet and wept for the dead young woman he loved.

Roma's laughter reached him. "Oh, don't be such a crybaby, Sam. You may have her now."

Sam lifted his head as Roma raised her hand toward the casket. A quick movement of her fingers and the sounds of weeping came to him.

Sam thought he was going utterly mad as Nydia's eyes opened and she looked around her in confusion. She looked at her nakedness, then at her temporary home, and screaming joined the weeping.

Sam got to his feet and staggered toward the casket as Roma's words reached him.

"Take your darling, Sam. Take her, and witness when the time comes, what marvelous parturient pops from her womb. How does it feel to be beaten, young man?"

Sam ripped drapes from the walls and covered Nydia's nakedness. When he turned to face the witch, she hissed with fright, drawing back from his burning eyes.

Sam said, "We're not beaten, you whore. I'm whipped for now, but I'm not out for the count. But I have realized something from this—ugliness: You can't kill us. God won't let you kill me, and you have to keep Nydia alive. So, yeah, bitch, I'm going to beat you."

Jeering sounds followed his words. A party began as Sam and Nydia walked from the room with as much dignity as they could muster.

Father Le Moyne crossed himself as Nydia finishing her telling of the rape. He visibly paled when she said, "And Sam and I are not certain if Little Sam is our child, or the child of Satan."

"You have no way of knowing?" he asked.

"No," Sam said. "Do you think you can tell?"

"I—don't know. Perhaps it is not yet time for the true body of the child to surface."

"That's what we think, too," Nydia said.

"But with the sightings of the Beasts," Sam said, "we both feel that time is not far off."

Father Le Moyne walked to his kitchen and poured a tumbler half full of whiskey. He downed it in one gulp. He started to refill the tumbler, then thought better of it and put the cap back on the bottle, screwing it down tight. He put the bottle in a cabinet and shut the door hard.

When the priest turned to walk into the small living room, there seemed to be a fresh new strength to the set of his jaw.

"All right," Le Moyne said. "Let's go see your Devil Beasts. Let's face them."

Jon Le Moyne listened to his mother and father leave the house. He had already told them goodbye, see you late Sunday, have a good trip, and all that bullshit. He didn't give a damn whether they had a good trip, a bad trip, or even if he ever saw them again. Fuck you both! he thought bitterly. The vulgarity did not shock the young man any more than his thoughts of their never coming back. A month ago it would have. Now it was just a natural part of him. As much a part of him as the sex magazines he kept hidden in his dresser junk drawer. But the magazines were rapidly becoming inadequate for him; did not give him the kick, the heady erotic feeling they had originally produced a few months back.

Jon wanted to feel real breasts beneath his hands; wanted to touch the flesh of a real female; wanted to feel female hands on his body, touching him, their pretty pouty mouths going oohhh and aahhh at his hot, heavy long erection. And he knew—if and when he got the chance—they would do just that, too, for Jon had studied pictures of other men, and knew he was equipped large in that department. He wasn't as freakishly built as that black guy he'd seen in sex ads; wasn't as hefty as that Texas fellow; but he sure as hell wasn't average, either.

Jon felt a flush spread over his body. His face felt feverish and his hands were trembling. His mind replayed pictures of high eroticism. But he vowed he was not going to masturbate.

He was going to find a woman. Or a girl. Didn't make shit to him. Long as it was female. He was going to experience the sensation of getting some pussy.

"Jon?" a voice called to him in a whisper.

The boy spun around, his face pale, his mouth hanging open in shock and fright.

He knew the house was empty. Supposed to be anyway.

"Who—who are you?" Jon whispered.
"What are you?"

"A friend."

"Invisible!"

"But very real. Talk to me, Jon. Tell me your troubles. I'll listen and give you real answers, real solutions to your problems."

"All right," Jon said, taking the first step into the dark arms. "I want a woman."

"Then you shall have one."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

The room began to fill with a slight odor, not unpleasant.

"I know someone who desires you," the voice said. "She is not fully aware of that desire, but it is there."

"Who desires me?" Jon was becoming more relaxed. Something seemed to be calming him. He didn't know what; he didn't care. He was in such a high emotional state he was ready to accept anything; ready to believe anything… just somebody, anybody, do something to relieve the high sexual frustrations that had reached the boiling point within him.

And that somebody had arrived. Had waited for just this moment in the young man's life. That somebody would not fail this time.

"You have prayed for help, have you not, Jon?"

"For all the goddamned good it did me, yes."

"I see. Well,
I
keep my promises. You shall see this afternoon."

"Who desires me?" Jon pushed for an answer.

"Patsy Catlett," the voice whispered.

"Patsy? Nobody gets to Patsy. She's untouchable. Not even the school jocks can get to her. She's a religious freak. Like I used to be before I wised up."

"You have—ah—wised up?"

"Oh, yeah. Believe it. I've rejected quite a lot of that shit I was taught about God."

"I'm glad to hear that, Jon. You know, quite a number of the young people here in this community have done the same."

"Yeah? Well, that's good. It was gettin' kind of boring around here."

"But I need your help with Patsy."

"You got it."

"No—" the voice laughed obscenely,
"you'll
get it. The way is open. Patsy is waiting for you. She will be at the spot where she always goes on Saturday afternoons, when the weather is nice. Do you know the place?"

"No."

"By the banks of the St. Regis," the voice whispered. A strange giggle reached Jon's ears. "She'll be reading her Bible."

"She'll be reading her Bible and waiting for me to fuck her?"

"That is correct, Jon. Now, Jon—want to do me a favor?"

"Sure."

"Take your Bible and tear it apart; throw it on the floor."

Without hesitation, the boy did as ordered. It seemed funny. He kicked at the pages, scattering them. The urge to shit came over him.

"You know what to use to wipe yourself, Jon," the voice came to him.

The boy picked up the pages and went into the bathroom.

Will Gibson tied the rope around his waist and with a small smile of farewell to Chief Draper and Joe Bennett, descended into the dark stinking hole in the earth. He was out of sight in two seconds.

Joe said, "I got a bad feeling about this, Chief."

"So do I, Joe. Too many strange—" there was that word again "—things occurring. Marie Fowler's body disappears. The paramedics are found dead. Don't know what killed them. Judith Mayberry falls or was pushed into this hole, and the people of this town are behaving—at least to my way of thinking—damn weird."

Will keyed the small radio attached to his belt. "More rope," he said. The signal was strong.

Will crawled on through the darkness, the gloom penetrated only by the single light on his hard hat. The smell was awful, and getting worse. Will thought he heard something just up ahead. He stopped. Using the flashlight from his small backpack, he cast the hard beam forward. He could see nothing. He crawled on. There it came again; that sound. Like an animal's growl.

He slipped forward cautiously, just the first twinge of fear touching his belly, like a snake's crawling on his bare skin. God! That smell! He lifted the yellow/white beam of light. Will scampered backward as wild, red eyes were caught in the single beam of light. He scraped his knees on sharp rocks. Something grabbed at his arm, missed, then clamped down hard on his wrist. He was jerked forward. Terror gripped him with numbing force, paralyzing his vocal cords. He could only make tiny grunting sounds. The flashlight fell from his hand, shattering on the rocky floor. His hard hat was knocked from his head, but the light did not go out. The beam from the hard hat picked up a shard of gold from one of the creatures that held the man pinned to the floor of the tunnel. It was an earring dangling from the lobe of one now pointy ear. It matched the earring Chief Draper had found. It belonged to Judith. The Beast looked long at Will Gibson. Recognition flared in the wild eyes.

My God! Will thought. That's
Judith!"

The beast with the single earring leaned forward, her breath stinking on Will's face. The foulness made Will gag, vomit pushing up to his throat.

"No!" a voice spoke from the blackness. "I must do that."

While clawed hands held Will numbed and frightened to the floor, the rope was removed from his waist. He was dragged into a large underground room. A human form knelt down and sank her teeth into Will's neck. Pain lanced through his body as blood was sucked from him. A darkness crept upward in the man's body, beginning in his feet and moving slowly, coldly, throughout his entire body. Will Gibson sank into unconsciousness.

"Release him near the opening when the men have gone," the woman said. And the Beasts trembled with fear.

On the surface, Joe gently tugged on the rope. He looked at Monty. "We lost him, Chief."

Monty spoke again and again into the radio. Only silence returned to the men.

The men waited for half an hour. Joe said, "We lost him, Chief."

"But to what?" Monty looked at him.

One more time Monty knelt down and shouted into the hole. "Will! Will Gibson! Answer me."

Only the awful stench and the darkness greeted Monty's words.

"Shit!" Monty said. He turned around. Every window facing the orchard was filled with a grim-looking face, unblinking eyes staring at the two men.

"Crazy," Monty muttered. "It's just—crazy!"

Joe started to pull the rope topside. Monty stopped him. "Leave it, Joe. Maybe Will is all right and he'll find the rope. That'll help guide him back up."

"He ain't comin' back up, Chief." There was a dead quality to Joe's remark.

Monty looked at the man. "Say what's on your mind, Joe."

"I always thought it kinda foolish, Chief."

"I thought flying saucers were foolish until I saw one one night."

"You saw a UFO?"

"I saw something I couldn't explain. Yeah. So tell me what's on your mind."

"Let's get out of this orchard and away from them goddamn starin' eyes."

"They make me uncomfortable, too," Monty admitted. "What in the hell is going on with this town?"

"Evil," Joe said. "Pure evil."

"There is a perfectly logical explanation for all this," Monty said. But he could feel … something crawling around him; an invisible … he didn't know what. Couldn't put it into words. But he was glad to be leaving the orchard. And from that stinking hole that was claiming lives.

But what was claiming them? Not just the hole. It was something in the hole. But what? And what in the hell was the matter with the people of the town? They seemed to have turned into a bunch of liars, zombies, and unwashed. Strange. Crap! That word again.

"I never liked people starin' at me," Joe said, as the men got in the prowl car and pulled out.