It slammed Balls
in the face like tear gas. "Smells worse than a pile'a dead
buzzards in there—"
The first thing
they noticed was a woman's leg right by the door. Balls grabbed it,
expecting to pull out a dead woman.
Instead, all he
pulled out was a leg.
They he pulled
out two severed arms and another leg. All of the limbs were
beginning to decompose.
"That there's
some fucked up shit, Balls!" Dicky exclaimed.
"Ya gots ta be
shittin' me... "
Then Dicky
gulped. He shined his light into the back of the haul. "Balls.
Ain't just arms'n legs in there."
"Huh?"
"Looks like
three bodies too."
Balls shined his
own light in and made the same observation. Two women and a man, it
appeared, all bound and gagged. Balls took a breath against the
stench and hauled the first woman out by the
ankles.
"Fuck."
The body flopped
to the ground. A brunette in her twenties apparently, cut-off
shorts and a halter. She would've been a looker... if she hadn't
been dead for several hours. Her skin had turned to the hue of
spoiled cream, while the undersides of her arms and legs were a
disturbing purple-black.
"That there's a
waste'a prime splittail," Balls related. He pulled the corpse's top
up to gander the breasts and blue nipples, just for good measure.
"But I'se wonder what the fuck's this all about."
"Looks like we
picked the wrong U-Haul ta rip off," Dicky offered. "Shee-it, I
thought it'd be full'a old junk or something. Instead, it's full'a
dead bodies."
"Not quite
dead," a muffled voice floated out from the dark
compartment.
Dicky and Balls
nearly keeled over.
"The fuck!"
Dicky yelled.
Balls hauled the
next body out onto the ground.
FLUMP!
A man in a white
shirt and glasses sluggishly churned on the ground, wrists and
ankles twisting against rope bonds. He'd managed to half-remove his
gag by the force of his tongue. Balls whipped out his Buck knife
and cut the gag fully off.
"Thank God!" the
man wheezed.
"You look
familiar," Dicky remarked.
"Yeah," Balls
added. "Shee-it, you're that dude hangs out at the Crossroads.
Barkeep tolt me you was a Writer."
The Writer
nodded, face smudged. "That's me, and thank you for rescuing
us."
"Us?"
"There's another
woman inside. I think she's still alive."
Balls yanked out
the third occupant of the U-Haul.
FLUMP!
"Dang!" Dicky
railed. "It's that bar ‘ho—"
"Cora!" Balls
finished.
All ninety
pounds of her squirmed in the dirt. Her eyes bugged above her gag,
which Balls, too, cut off.
"Balls! Dicky!
Ya saved us from that awful man!" Her voice shrilled. Balls, Dicky,
and the Writer as well all flinched at the tenor of her voice.
Nails across slate would've been less annoying.
"What man?"
Balls asked.
"Some old
philosophical psychopath named ‘Lud," the Writer said. "He conked
us both out behind the bar, then tossed us inside. But... when this
happened, the U-Haul was hooked up to a red pickup
truck."
"It was until we
stolt it," Dicky said.
The Writer
peered. "Why... would you steal it?"
Balls was wholly
aggravated by this new monkey wrench. "We stolt it ta clean out
that house," he pointed upward. "But lookin' at the dump now, I
doubt there's anything inside to steal."
The Writer took
a long look at the Crafter house. "Interesting."
"What's that,
Writer?" Balls snapped.
"Well, did you
ever read ‘The Purloined Letter' by Edgar Allan Poe?"
"No."
The Writer
frowned. "The moral of the story is that things of the most value
can be effectively hidden in plain sight. That house, for
instance."
"What about it,
Writer?" Dicky urged.
"From the
outside, indeed, it appears to be an abandoned dump. But aren't the
windows curious? They look brand-new. Why install brand-new windows
in an uninhabitable hulk?"
Balls and Dicky
peered. Then they cut the bonds at the Writer's and Cora's ankles,
hoisted them up, and they all approached the leaning
house.
"Damn if he
ain't got good eyes," Dicky said, studying a bow window with his
flashlight. "It does look brand-new." He squinted at the corner. "Some
winder company named Lexan."
The Writer
laughed. "It's not a company, it's a composite
material—bullet-proof glass, in other words. It's indestructible,
which proves even more curious. Lexan windows are as effective as
iron bars, and very
expensive. The owner of this property
obviously wants people to think
it's not worth breaking into, yet he
installs Lexan to insure that they don't."
Balls muttered,
"Indestructer-able?" and then the Writer jumped back and Cora
shrieked when Balls pulled the big Webley pistol from his belt.
"Ain't nothin' indestructer-able if'n I say it ain't!"
BAM!
Everyone jumped
an inch, and Cora shrieked even more annoyingly loud. When the
smoke cleared...
"Dang," Dicky
muttered, scratching at the window pane. The big bullet barely
scuffed the surface.
"Looks like the
Writer's right," Balls admitted.
Then Cora
shrieked again.
"Shut up, girl!"
Balls yelled.
"L-look! There's
a face lookin' at us in the next winder!"
They walked
over, if a bit cautiously. Balls shined his
light.
"Ain't no face.
It's a—"
"A bust," the
Writer said.
"Bust?" Dicky
scoffed. "Ya mean like titties?"
"No, no...
"
The curtains of
every window in the house had been drawn but this one sported an
overlooked gap, and in the gap, indeed, a face peered out. A marble
face.
"Think of it as
a statue head," the Writer said. "It's propped up behind the
window, for decoration." When he looked closer, he went "Hmmm...
"
"What'choo,
hmmin' about?" Balls demanded.
"It appears to
be Italian marble. Very expensive."
"Well hot dog!"
Balls hooted. "Tooler weren't lyin'!"
The Writer said,
"But even more curious is the brass plate beneath the bust. It says
Phillipe Marquand, 1674-1728. Marquand, if I remember correctly,
was a famous French medium who is said to have been able to
communicate with the dead."
Balls, Dicky,
and Cora all gaped at him.
"And this, over
here," and the Writer led them up the front steps onto the ruined
porch. "I almost didn't notice it, due to the torn screens. Shine
your light up there, sir."
Balls did, and
almost gasped.
Above the front
door was a half-circle composed of ornate stained
glass.
"It's called a
tympanum. See the face?"
They all
squinted further.
"Well, dang if'n
he ain't right," Cora said.
"Don't that beat
all?" Dicky added.
The mosaic
formed a face below which ornate letters read ALEXANDER
SETON.
"Who the fuck's
he?" Balls asked.
"The most
notorious of all alchemists," the Writer explained. "In 1604, Seton
is said to have turned lead into gold."
"Bullshit,"
Balls scoffed, but after another moment of staring at the
puzzle-piece face, he turned away.
The Writer
smiled, amused. "Looks like the house you gentlemen picked to break
into... belongs to a dedicated occultist."
"Occult?" Dicky
asked, a spike in his voice. "You mean, like, devil-worship'n shit
like that?"
"Um-hmm...
"
"Fuck this,
let's leave!" Cora shrieked again. "And, Balls. Come on! Untie my
hands!"
"I'd appreciate
the same," the Writer said.
"Stay here,
both'a ya," Balls ordered, and took Dicky down off the porch out of
earshot.
Dicky's bulbous
face was pink with stress. "Shee-it, Balls, this caper's
gone all fucked up."
"Tell me about
it, Dicky. Just our luck to rip off a fuckin' U-Haul that's gots
two people in it who can identer-fy us."
"And this
fuckin' house, man. What's this guy talkin' 'bout devil-worshipers'
turnin' lead inta gold'n shit? I cain't make heads'ner tails'a
this."
"Neither can I,
Dicky." Balls rubbed his hands together. "But at least we'se gonna
make a score. You heard that Writer dude.
Italian marble," but—oh, goodness, he'd pronounced the
word Italian as "Eye-taller-un." "Bet Crafter's house is et up with
it, so's we'se gonna take it off his hands, and shit knows what
else's in there."
"Yeah, man,
shore, but—" Dicky cast a fretting glance toward the porch. "What
we gonna do with them two?"
"Well, I reckon
we'll make 'em help us load the U-Haul, and then I reckon we'll
kill 'em."
(IV)
The Writer found
his existential resolve being tested, yet at the same time he found
he had passed the test. The fact was, by the greatest fluke, he'd
been accidentally commandeered by two redneck thieves in the
process of committing a criminal act; hence, his future looked
rather dim, for more than likely once the criminal act was
completed, these two characters would have little choice but to
dispose of him.
On spiritual
grounds, the Writer was... okay with that, for he'd lived a full
and aesthetically enriched life. His only
regret?
I'll never be able to finish
White Trash
Gothic...
"Those two
crackers are gonna up'n kill us," Cora whispered to him.
"Believe me,
miss. Even the most brief reflection has illuminated me to that
probability."
Suddenly, the
skinny wreck of a girl looked doleful. "Ya know? I gotta step
sister turns tricks up in bumfuck South Dakota where the meth is
all over the fuckin' place and cheap. She tolt me I could come up
there'n turn tricks with her'n we'd have a great time, man. But I
never went." She looked around, more at the predicament than the
location. "Shore as shit wish I did."
"Let's look at
the glass as though it were half full, not half empty, Miss," the
Writer advised.
"Whuh—what glass?"
The Writer
sighed. "Let's not give up hope. We may be able to get out of
this."
The skinny girl
frowned. "What we gonna do?"
"It seems
logical to me that for as long as we make ourselves useful to them,
we extend our lives, and in that time... an opportunity for escape
may strike."
She fidgeted in
place. "Aw, man, I fuckin' hope so 'cos if I don't get me some
crystal soon, I'll start throwin' up my brains... "
The comment
shocked the Writer. "Let's, uh... hope that doesn't
happen."
"That's what
jones-ing from meth feels like, man. Ya start upchuckin'‘n it feels
like yer brains're gonna fly out'cher mouth, and ya wish they would
'cos it's so bad, ya wish ya could just up'n die."
"Ah... how
regrettable... "
As the Writer
tried to think of a possible solution, something nicked his
attentions: the door-knocker. It had been mounted on the ornate
door's center stile, an oval of tarnished bronze depicting a morose
half-formed face. Just two eyes, no mouth, no other features. He at
once considered the potential literary symbol:
Man, human
features eroded by a corrupt universe, leaving him speechless. The
existential mask...
"And who was
that awful guy who knocked us out in the first place?"
The Writer
blinked away the abstraction, feeling spiritually drained. "Oh, the
old man at the bar, ‘Lud? He's a Christian phenomenalist, if you
can believe it."
"Huh?"
"Shhh. Here they
come."
The one called
Dicky trudged up the porch steps, poker-faced, while the one called
Balls... came bearing a long, stout piece of polished
wood.
"Step aside,
Writer. I'se gonna bust that front door down with this here hickory
pick-handle. It's one'a the few thangs my shit-head Daddy left to
me that weren't worth less than a rummie's shorts." Balls poised
the handle with authority. "Oughta have that door open in 'bout two
swipes."
Forty swipes
later, and after an undo cacophony, the door finally split down the
middle. The Writer winced at the noise, then winced harder when he
noticed tufts of hair sticking out of Cora's armpits. He couldn't
decide which was more annoying.
"Jaysus!" Dicky
exclaimed. "That's one tough door!"
"Shee-it," Balls
muttered. He sat down against the porch rail, to rest after the
exertion.
"More of the
same," the Writer offered. "The deception of appearances: a
security door on a house that looks worthless." The Writer looked
directly at Balls. "You might want to pause to take
heed."
"What'cha
mean?"
The Writer
shrugged. "Expensive windows and an equally expensive security
door? The owner may well have more precautions waiting inside."
"Ya mean like
maybe a security guard or somethin'?" Dicky's pea-brain
speculated.
"Sure. Or some
other counter-measure."
Balls wasn't
affected by the possibility. One hand hefted the pick-handle, the
other hefted the pistol. "Here's yer counter-measures, Writer.
Now... Inside. You two first."
The Writer and
Cora led on, Dicky and Balls backing them up with flashlights. One
of them flicked a wall switch but nothing
happened.
"Shee-it.
Crafter must'a had the ‘leck-tricity turnt off."
Flashlight beams
crisscrossed over the ornate foyer and sitting room, carving slices
of more statues and busts, and brooding faces that seemed to scowl
at them from framed paintings.
"This place is
creepy as shit!" Cora whined. "And... I need some meth!"
"Shut up," Balls
told her.
"There are
plenty of candles," the Writer observed of the many globed candle
sticks along a spacious fireplace mantle and various wall
sconces.
"Daggit!" Balls
complained. "I ain't got a lighter."
"Me's neither,"
Dicky admitted.
The Writer
sighed through a cringing hope. "Well, it just so happens that I do
and, Mr. Balls? I would be forever in your debt if you'd cut my
bonds. Naturally I give you my word I won't try to escape. I'd be
more than thrilled to light all these candles and—to be perfectly
honest, sir?" The Writer's shoulders slumped. "I'm
dying for a cigarette."
Evidently Balls
appreciated being addressed as "mister" and "sir." He snapped open
his Buck and cut the Writer's lashes.
"You have my
unflagged gratitude."
Balls grinned,
showed the pistol again. "Any funny business and I'se'll blow a
hole in yer back bigger than Dicky's head."
The Writer
nodded. "I have virtually no doubts as to your
credulity."
"I like the way
he talks, huh, Dicky?" Balls noted.
"Dang straight.
Must'a gone ta collerge."
"Harvard," the
Writer elucidated. "Not just any college." He lit a cigarette, then proceeded to
light the candles about the sumptuous room.
"Do mine now,
please!" Cora pleaded. She was hopping up and down with her back to
Balls, showing her lashed wrists. "Please,
Mr. Balls, sir! Pretty please!"
"Shut up," Balls
smirked, then rammed his bootsole against her rump and sent her
toppling across the room. "And quit whinin' else I'll sit on yer
face'n shit in yer mouth while's I'se crankin' holes in yer belly
with my manual drill."
Dicky blurted a
laugh.
Once the Writer
had lit a dozen or so candles, all eyes roved the sitting-room, in
awe.
Someone said,
"Shee-it my drawers."
The room's
candle-lit darkness seemed alive with glittering. Several
chandeliers hung overhead, catching the light, while from nooks and
shelves sat more crisp-cut crystal. Many of the candlesticks were
of silver and gold, and much of the furniture—hundreds of years
old—was inlaid with more shiny gems. Even some of the Iranian throw
rugs were stitched with myriad gemstones.
"It's all of
Crafter's hair-looms," Dicky whispered.
"Just like
Tooler said was here... "
Even Cora,
dragging herself up with her hands behind her back, looked stunned
at all the treasures about the room.
"This Crafter
man," said the Writer. "He's quite a collector." He stooped to
inspect a William and Mary table, and several armoires and
rare-wood chairs. Many pieces were crafted from inlaid satinwood,
mahogany, and teak. Half-tables and vase stands sported
neoclassical motifs and fine hand-carved traceries. A serpentine
settee that should've been in a museum sat mid-room, and along the
walls were window seats with scrolled arms and tiny servant bells
dangling. "Most of the furniture's Hepplewhite and Sheraton.
There's a fortune in this room alone," and next the Writer perused
more of the busts and paintings. "Hmmm."
"What's that,
Writer?" Balls asked.
"Just like
outside. Alexander Seton and Phillipe Marquand are in appropriate
company. Two different portraits of Cagliostro, one of de Sade,
busts of Ludwig of Flanders and Cristoph Vocolai—all well-known
practitioners of the occult arts: satanism, black magic,
sorcery."
Balls frowned
through the following hush, which was then severed by still another
loud whine on the part of Cora, "Let's get out'a this shitty place!
It looks haunted."
Balls pointed a
finger. "Cora. If'n ya say one more
thing, I'll
punch ya in yer peter-sucker."
"But—"
WHAP!
Balls' fist
smacked Cora right in the lips. She squealed and went
reeling.
"That
means keep it shut."
Dicky's big
pumpkin face looked around with some apprehension. "This
joint is kind'a creepy, Balls."
"You, too?
Shee-it," Balls smirked. "I don't give a rat's dick 'bout a bunch'a
paintings'n statue heads. Let's git ta work, and you—" He reached
down toward Cora. "Git off yer ass and help."
Cora lay dazed
and bloody-mouthed at the foot of the fireplace. She kind of
flopped there with her hands behind her back, but then Balls
grabbed one of her tit-flaps through her halter and, using it as a
handle of sorts, lifted her to her feet.
Cora squealed
again.
"Guess we should
check the rest'a this floor, then look upstairs."
"And out back,
too, I'd advise," the Writer said, peeking out a heavily draped
window. "Looks like a garage in the back property and, well,
naturally a creepy-looking graveyard."
"A... graveyard?" Dicky muttered.
Balls' glare
seemed to even take the scowling portraits aback. "I don't care
'bout no graveyards or no creepy houses. All's I want is a nice
paycheck fer a night's work. Dicky—you and the Writer go check
outside—" The girl mewled when Balls pinched her nipple and twisted
hard. "I'll keep an eye on this stringbean with a pussy, and check
the rest'a down here."
Cora opened her
mouth to object, then thought better of it. "Come on, Writer,"
Dicky said and shoved the Writer toward the back
door.
They both
stepped out into the night. The moon was so bright they scarcely
needed their flashlights. Now's my
chance, the
Writer realized. I can brain this ignoramus with my
flashlight and head for the hills,
but then he laughed to
himself. Who am I kidding? I'm a writer. Writers don't have balls
like that...
"So's yer a
writer, huh? What'cha write? Like, books'n shit?"
The Writer gave
his stock answer. "I'm a speculative novelist. I infuse relatable
modern fiction scenarios with charactorial demonstrations of the
existential condition. Allegorical symbology, it's called, rooted
in various philosophical systems."
Dicky nodded
with approval. "That's what I thunk. I read a book once, see? They
made us in school. It was kind'a dumb though. A retard watchin'
golf balls or some shit."
The Writer
nearly howled. Absalom,
Absalom!
They wended
through tilted gravestones, some with crudely etched dates going
back to the late 1700s. Toward the rear of the yard, near the
treeline, a newer building, like a garage, grew
larger.
"Maybe Crafter's
got a bunch'a fancy cars in that there garage," Dicky
speculated.
"Perhaps. But
what do you know about this man Crafter?"
"Nothin'. Just
that he's some old weirdo who's got a house full'a ‘spensive
junk."
"I wouldn't call
him merely an old weirdo." The Writer looked at Dicky. "He's an old
weirdo who also happens to be a student of the black
arts."
Dicky remained
silent. When an owl hooted, he flinched. The garage was unlocked.
They both went in, flashlights beaming. No cars were in evidence,
but there was a riding lawn mower, various tools, and a dozen tanks
of liquid propane. "Check that barrel there," Dicky ordered in a
feeble attempt at authority. "Might be full'a gold or
jewels."
Greedy of filthy lucre,
the Writer quoted the first letter
of Timothy. He pried off the barrel's lid and found it
curiously full of—
"No gold or
jewels, Mr. Dicky. Just... salt."
"Salt? The hail?"
"Not table salt,
either." The Writer tasted it. "Uniodized. It doesn't snow this far
south, does it?"
"Naw. Why's the
old coot gotta a barrel full'a salt?
"I couldn't
guess. And that's quite a load of propane. I didn't see a grill out
back anywhere."
Next the Writer
looked in a metal can.
"What'cha got
there? Jewels?"
The Writer shook
his head. "Try dead frogs."
Dicky looked in.
"Yer shittin' me!"
The can was full
of petrified bullfrogs. The Writer noted an even odder anomaly. "It
looks like all of their toes have been cut off. Then they were just
tossed in here to die."
"Shee-it...
"
Another can was
full of desiccated newts, all missing their eyes. "Eye of newt, toe
of frog," the Writer's voice echoed in the
dark.
"This is right
fucked up. We'se leavin'."
Back outside the
Writer combed his light behind them. "Let's go look
at those graves."
"The fuck
for?"
"I detect an
incongruence."
"Huh?"
The Writer
smiled and walked over. "How curious... "
"A half-dug
hole? Big deal."
Indeed, there
were several areas in their proximity that had been dug down to
about a foot, trenches, in a sense, about six feet
long.
"What's that on
the ground? Cement?"
"Crude cement. It's called tabby," the Writer explained.
"You know what this place is, Mr. Dicky? It's an unconsecrated
graveyard."
"Shee-it...
"
"The more normal
stones in the area have dates from the 17 and 1800's, but these...
"
They weren't
grave markers at the foot of each trench but simply splotches of
old cement in which someone had inscribed a name and date with
their fingers. "Back in the day, common criminals were buried in
unconsecrated ground. Relatives would come in later, pour some
quick tabby and render an inscription. Look at this one."
An old
finger-scrawl in the cement read ELSBETH -
1689.
The Writer eyed
Dicky. "Or I should say, common criminals
and witches."
"Fuck...
"
"Or warlocks.
Anyone accused of soliciting the Devil."
Dicky gulped.
"Witches'n warlocks are buried here?"
"It would seem
so. And... what on earth... " The Writer strode off several yards,
to the edge of the woodline. He aimed the flashlight
down.
A simple wooden
post stuck out of the ground about two feet, and nailed to it was a
crucifix.
"A cross," Dicky
observed.
"Not just one
cross... " The Writer shined his flashlight to either side. The
entire woodline had a similar post and cross every six feet or
so. It's almost like a fence... of crosses. A...
barrier...
"If Crafter's a
satanist, how come them crosses ain't upside-down?" Dicky made a
surprising query.
But the Writer
didn't answer, for now he noticed something else. "How do you like
that?"
Dicky looked
down. "What's that? A line'a sand?"
"A line
of salt, Mr. Dicky. Let's follow it."
Flashlights
down, they followed the line of salt which oddly ran unbroken just
inside the cross-mounted posts. In a few minutes they were in the
front of the house, and could see the salt and crosses continuing
on.
"The salt and
the crosses completely encircle the property," the Writer said. He
lowered the light to the driveway which, too, was crossed by a line
of salt. "Now that's interesting."
"I'se don't get
it."
"Ancient
metaphysics, Mr. Dicky. Salt was once more valuable than gold, and
it eventually became a favorite constituent in alchemy, divination,
and spells."
"Spells," Dicky
intoned with some trepidation.
"This Mr.
Crafter fellow seems to have deliberately enclosed his property
with two powerful totemic symbols."
"Totemic," Dicky
intoned.
"And to respond
to your previous query, I suspect the crosses aren't inverted for
that very reason. Between the salt and the cruciforms, Crafter
seems to be covering his bases."
Dicky made yet
another astute remark. "A magical fence?"
The Writer
nodded, impressed. "I think so."
"To keep bad
stuff from getting in?"
The Writer lit
another cigarette, and sighed smoke as he looked down at more
crosses and salt. "The crosses are facing
toward the house, Mr. Dicky. So it would seem that Crafter's
intentions are just the opposite. He wants to keep ‘bad stuff' from
getting out,"
and then they both slowly turned their gazes back toward the
house.
««—»»
"We'se gonna be
rich men, Dicky-Boy," Balls enthused when the Writer and the more
globose redneck went back inside. Balls already had several boxes
full of gold and silver gimcracks set aside on the William and Mary
table. "The dinin' room alone's chock full."
"Cool," Dicky
tried to sound excited.
Balls caught the
downcast tone of voice. "‘S'matter with you?"
"Aw, nothin'.
Just kind'a weird outside."
"The premise is
surrounded by an occult barrier," the Writer baldly stated.
"Crafter obviously has some overtly ritualistic beliefs."
"Don't know
what'cher talkin' 'bout, don't care," Balls ignored him. "Now git
yer writer-ass in gear ‘fore I start kickin' it. Find a box and
start loadin' it up with ‘spensive-lookin' loot."
"Where's Cora?"
Dicky asked.
Balls pointed to
the other side of the room where, in the candlelight, Cora could be
seen lying unconscious. "Punched her a tad too hard last time she
started runnin' her yap again. Leave the ‘ho be. She'll just get in
the way."
They made
several trips to the U-Haul, depositing a few of the valuables from
the dining room, but back inside, the Writer suggested, "Shouldn't
we check the rest of the house first? Since you
gentlemen are thieves, it might be more efficient to identify
the most valuable booty initially, and that's just one
reason."
Balls paused,
carrying in a silver service tray. "One reason? Gimme
another?"
"Well... to
discern beyond all doubt that the house is, indeed,
unoccupied."
Balls and Dicky
traded uneasy glances but then Balls scoffed. "There ain't no one
else here, Writer. My buddy Bud Tooler tolt me so."
"So this Mr.
Tooler—his knowledge of the house is unimpeachable?"
Balls shot the
Writer a funky look, which would be the first of many such looks.
"What? Peaches?"
"What if this
Mr. Tooler happens to be incorrect?" the Writer posed, "and there's
someone upstairs right this very moment, calling the
police?"
Balls and Dicky
traded another uneasy glance. "He's gotta point there, Balls,"
Dicky said.
But Balls shook
his head. "Look, Crafter ain't married and he ain't got no kids or
reller-tives. I'se know for a fact there ain't no one else in this house."
Just then, quite
loudly, a television clicked on upstairs.
"This is CNN
Headline News," a woman was saying, "and this is Lynn Russell
reporting on all of the nation's up to the minute headlines. In
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, today alleged serial-killer Jeffery Dahmer
was arraigned on six counts of capital murder... "
Balls pulled the
other two aside, into a dim hall beside another door with, of all
things, a cross on it.
Now here's a cross INSIDE,
the Writer reflected.
Crafter's
obviously no Christian, so why would he mount a cross on THIS
door?
Balls and Dicky
weren't the least bit interested. All of their faces glowed eerily
in the candlelight.
"Keep yer voices
down," Balls whispered. "There's someone upstairs watchin' fuckin'
television. Whoever it is... we gots ta get rid of 'em so's we can
finish the haul."
"But
who is upstairs?" Dicky whispered after huddling
closer.
No answers were
forthcoming.
All the while,
the Writer considered: How can a TELEVISION be on when the
power's cut off? But he did not give voice to this
curiosity.
"Yer buddy
Tooler fucked up," Dicky sniped. "Crafter didn't go to fuckin'
Spain. It's probably Crafter hisself sittin' upstairs, waitin' fer
the police."
Against the
wall, a mahogany stand inlaid with crisp amethysts stood with a
phone on top. The Writer picked up the phone and listened. "No
dial-tone. Crafter probably did go on this trip of his and had his
phone turned off. So whoever is upstairs couldn't have called anyone."
"Good thinkin',"
Balls said. He tiptoed across the expansive sitting room and
straddled Cora. He slapped her face several times till she roused,
then pressed a palm across her lips. ""Shhh. Not a word. Someone
else is in the house, upstairs... "
He helped her up
and led her back to the hall.
Cora's objection
was a whining whisper. "Someone else in the fuckin'
house? You're fuckin' shittin'
me! We gotta get
out'a
here!"
"Only person
goin' anywhere is you," Balls informed her. "Upstairs."
"My fuckin'
ass," Cora illustriously stated.
Balls' face set.
"Listen, Cora. I'll'se make a deal with ya. We needs ta know what
we're up against, so you go upstairs and take a peek, see who's up
there, then come right back down. You do that, and I'll untie yer
wrists and let'cha go." Then Balls cocked a brow. "And if'n
you don't do that, I'll cut'cher head off and piss out'cher
mouth, then I'll scalp yer dirty pussy'n wipe my ass with it next
time I take a corn-shit."
The Writer had
to chuckle. "Not exactly an affable alternative, hmm?"
"Shut up." Balls
whipped out his Buck knife and flicked it open, eyeing
Cora.
Cora sighed. "I
should'a never offered that old man a blow job back at the bar."
She blinked, took a deep breath, then began to walk very slow up
the plushly carpeted steps.
From upstairs,
they could hear the TV channels being changed. CNN switched off,
replaced by some man with a German accent saying, "But... this room
has other qualities—in 1436 it was here that Prince and Princess
Von Hart had their throats cut while they were sleeping." A woman's
voice: "Their throats cut?" The German man: "Yes, madam, but that
was in 1436. Will you excuse me?" and then the channel switched to
a baseball game, "David Cone has just won his next shut-out for the
Yankees! What another tremendous acquisition by George
Steinbrenner, folks!" and next, a commercial, "Not available in
stores! Call now while supplies last! Get the patented
Therm-O-Fresh Food Saving System for just four easy payments of
$49.95. That's right, just $49.95!"
The Writer
rolled his eyes.
Then the TV
switched off.
Had Cora been
discovered by the unknown sentinel? Balls pulled out his pistol,
and Dicky very courageously suggested, "Fuck it, let's just leave
her, Balls. We'se can git out'a here while Cora's still
upstairs."
"No way, Dicky.
You seen the loot in this joint. We ain't splittin' till our kick
is full up."
The three of
them waited, pinned by shadows against the wall. A clock ticked
somewhere. The Writer noticed again the other door behind him, with
the cross on it, and without thinking he opened it. Cinderblock
steps descended into darkness, and an awful smell assailed his
nostrils.
"Shee-it, what's
that stink?" Balls complained.
"It's coming
from down there, presumably a basement."
Dicky saw the
cross. "Just like the ones outside goin' ‘round the whole
yard."
"It's
interesting," the Writer reflected. "An occult afficionado... using
crosses as some kind of transitive emblem."
Balls shot the
Writer a funky look. "Close that fuckin' door. The stink's pissin'
me off."
The Writer
quietly reclosed the door, then went back to listening for any
noises from upstairs. Then—
Tiny footfalls
were heard padding fast down the stairs carpet.
Cora ducked
around the hall. She looked more perplexed than
anything.
"Well?" Balls
asked. "You see who's up there?"
"It's a gal,
weird-lookin'," the addict-prostitute enlightened
them.
"A gal? Old, you
mean?"
"Naw, don't
thank so." Cora's eyes thinned. "And she looked weird 'cos she was
all, like, black."
"A colored gal,
you mean," Dicky presumed.
"Guess Crafter's
got a maid," Balls supposed.
The Writer
frowned.
"Naw, naw," Cora
insisted. "I mean she was all black
and wet.
Like she been painted with black paint. And she was buck
nekit."
Balls sighed. "A
nekit woman painted black, huh? Shee-it. What else could I expect
from a meth-head? You're seein' things, ya asshole."
"I am not!" Cora
objected, almost too loud. "She was painted
black, she was all wet'n shiny. And I don't mean black like a
nigruh. I mean black like... black.
Like road tar or somethin'. And she
were layin' on a big fluffy bed, friggin' herself."
"What?"
Balls asked for reiteration.
"She was playin'
with herself. Feelin' herself up'n rubbin' her cooter. That's what
I seed when I looked in. The first bedroom. She were workin'
herself up inta a swivet, too, and just 'fore I come back down it
looked like she was tryin' ta stick her whole fist in herself.
That's what I saw."
Balls sputtered
through a frown. "A gal painted black fistin' her own cooze. You're
high, Cora. You've sucked so much dick ya got jizz fer
brains."
"If'n ya don't
believe me, go look fer yourself!" she countered. "But first ya
best keep your end'a the bargain. Untie me'n lemme git out'a here,
like ya promised."
"Shore,
baby—"
WHAP!
Balls bopped her
in the back of the head with his homemade blackjack, and once again
Cora collapsed.
Balls jerked his
head toward the stairs. "Dicky, git upstairs'n take care of this.
Don't know what the fuck Cora's talkin' 'bout but I'se guess there
really is a chick up there. So's you go punch her lights out'n tie
her up."
Dicky's jaw
dropped. "Why me, Balls?"
"'Cos I said so.
What, you's afraid of a splittail?"
"Naw, but...
It's dark up there, and—"
"Just git on up
there like I tolt ya."
Dicky's hooded
eyes shot to the Writer. "Send him!"
"Shee-it, Dicky.
He's a writer. Writer's are pussies."
The Writer
interjected, "I'll admit, I am—to use your colloquialism—a pussy,
but please know that not all writers are. Ernest Hemingway, for instance, was a
boxer, a combatant in the Spanish Civil War, and a certified bull
fighter. More recently, I'll mention the indisputable machismo of
popular literary novelist John Irving. He would read Shakespeare
and Percy Shelley in redneck bars, and when the patrons laughed at
him? He'd give them all quite a pranging."
Balls stared.
"Shut up. And Dicky? Git'cher ass upstairs and take care'a that
splittail now."
"Aw, but,
Balls... "
"Be a man,
goddamn it!" then—
FWUMP!
Balls gave Dicky
a hard kick to the pants.
"Awright,
awright!" Dicky hurried for the stairs.
"And be quick
about it. I'se don't wanna be here all night—"
Dicky, however
reluctantly, disappeared up the stairs.
Balls gave the
Writer a shove. "Come on, Writer. Let's git more loot loaded
up."
(V)
Ain't fair, Dicky thought. It should'a been the
Writer... His
flashlight played over the wall, but then he quickly turned it off
when he noticed the wedge of light in the gap of an opened
door. That must be it...
Dicky mounted
the landing as quietly as a clumsy fat redneck slob could, then
edged toward the door.
A clock kept
ticking but along with it he heard moaning, or at least he thought
he did. Could Cora be right? Was there really a naked woman in
there, masturbating? He didn't know what to make of the "painted
black" part but—
I'se'll just barge right in there and bust her in the
chops, he
resolved. Dicky was, for the most part, a monumental coward, but he
wanted to make Balls proud. I'll show him I'se got what it
takes, too...
But before he
could summon the courage to actually do it, a voice seemed to float
out of the room, a quiet yet wanton
woman's voice...
Come in, young man, and bestow me...
Dicky really
didn't know what "bestow" meant, nor was he terribly convinced by
the nature of the voice. It was more like words in a dream, not
words actually detected by his ears.
How could this
be?
Bestow me with your youth... and your surging
virility...
Dicky froze
against the wall.
I can smell your manfulness, I can smell your
sperm...
Dicky didn't
realize it but the bizarre flutter of psychic vocalization had put
him into a trance. Like a fat zombie, then, he pushed the door open
and stepped in.
Lamp light
raved, overly bright, like the bulbs burning too hot, and of course
it never occurred to Dicky now—in his half-wit trance—that there
could be no lamp light in a house with the power shut
off.
I am the Night-Mother and the Queen of the
Labyrinth, a
shadow rising from the bed informed him.
My cunt beats
with your paltry heart, and your soulless lust and my evil are
predestined to fuck...
Kind of an odd
thing for a maid to say, but then Dicky saw that it was no maid
that rose smokelike from the high, four-poster bed. But it was a
woman, all right, as voluptuous a woman as he'd ever seen, even
in Hustler. High melon breasts; protruding, poker-chip nipples; a
flawless hourglass contour. Long sleek legs rose to a hairless
pubis dark and shiny as chocolate icing, and the flat stomach
seemed to shiver around the slit-like navel. Yes, like the body of
a Hustler centerfold save for one quirk:
She was as black
and shiny as newly poured road tar.
Dicky could
sense more than see her face; it was more of a symbol—an
enigmagram—something that existed in an unglimpsable state. Hair
just as black and wet as her skin seemed to
radiate that same blackness.
It has been eons since my infernal womb has gulped human
seed, the
voice flowed.
As she moved
gingerly from the bed across the room, the electric lamp on the
Edwardian nightstand began to dim, but as this took place,
her blackness seemed to glow within itself, as though she were
composed not of flesh but electrified darkness.
I need to be
filled. A
sleek hand that was hot and cold at the same time traced Dicky's
fat cheek. He began to blubber like a baby, and with no volition on
his part he dropped his dungarees to reveal a thumping, prong-like
erection that felt so insanely hard he feared it might split like a
hotdog in a microwave.
Give me succor, the voice fluttered in his head.
Let my night-cunt
be the vessel for your lust, and then Dicky seemed to float backwards to the
floor, levitating, until he lay on his back, his erection
spiring.
When the black
woman sighed, the walls seemed to buckle. The cleft of her pubis
parted as if by a specialized musculature until it gaped, and then
she sat right down on Dicky's groin. His spectrally hard penis sunk
deep.
This otherwordly
intercourse generated sensations that Dicky would never have
thought possible. To him, a nut was a nut—the old Southern Boy
Credo—and they all pretty much felt the same, whether he was raping
a hot sixteen-year-old, having a go in a cow's backside, getting
fellated by his uncle, or jerking off. But
this?
His brain seemed
to turn to baby food from the intensity of the sensations: it was
like a hundred wet, hot tongue-tips cocooning his penis
simultaneously as the cocoon slowly rose up and down. When he
looked up bug-eyed at his unlikely lover, he saw that her desire
seemed to gorge her breasts even more, pushing the nipples out till
their tips leaked a glistening black fluid. All the while more
fluids at her groin gushed.
My name is Pasiphae...
Her breast
lowered to his chest, then she rolled him over onto her, the black
legs spreading wider to invite deeper penetration.
Fill me now, fill me to the brim...
Dicky's body
froze up and his jaw locked open. His fat stomach heaved and then
his eyes seemed to roll all the way back in their sockets until he
was looking at his brain. He gibbered as he came, sperm rocketing
up out of his penis as if by a hand-pump. The orgasm did not abate
but instead magnified; it was as though he were taking a long hard
beer-piss but with sperm instead of urine. His rotund body
continued to quiver on top of her as his glands kept kicking his
semen down into the hot satchel of her sex. Eventually he caught a
glimpse of her eyes but saw only lidded holes through which could
be glimpsed an insane, smoking city which smoldered beneath a red
sky and black sickle moon, and when her lips parted to release a
final blissful sigh, Dicky saw only a sparkling black chasm that
went on without end. Black crystalline drool trickled from the
corner of her lips, and then a black tongue
lolled.
Her soft hands
gently pressed up against his fat-cushioned chest, and—
THUNK!
—she shoved him
off of her body as though he weighed no more than a straw dummy. He
collided with the wall. A painting of a woman named Elizabeth
Bathory fell down and hit him in the head. Dazed, he looked
on...
Now she lay
painfully spread-eagled, her tight buttocks actually arched up off
the floor several inches as she masturbated fervently. Wet, slick
clicking sounds filled the room as her black fingers plied the
sexual fissure. More sighs of desperate pleasure rose up and up,
until Dicky thought he could actually
see those sighs, like rampant spirits amid the
impossible black light...
Good Gawd! Dicky thought.
He scrabbled
around on the floor, pants still down, until he found his
flashlight and snapped it on. He shined it on the mysterious
woman...
The desperate
masturbation continued, her hand a blur at her genitals. At a
critical moment, then, her pelvis tensed as two fingers V'd open
the abominable vagina, then the swollen black vulva puckered like
grouper lips and began to spit out foot-long loops of some viscid
fluid.
She's comin', Dicky observed in the utmost shock,
but like a
dude!
Indeed, the
ejaculatory spurts did not abate until at least a dozen had
transpired, collecting in a great glistening splotch between her
legs.
The woman's body
tremored one more time, then fell still.
Now I can die again,
flowed the voice.
Again and again
and again...
The room fell
into utter darkness and for a moment was filled with a sound like a
hundred rattlesnakes.
She lay limp and
quite dead, her sink-hole eyes half-opened and black tongue still
aloll from the dead mouth.
Dicky dragged
himself up, shaking, his penis shriveled to a mushroom stem from
the toll that his abyssal orgasm had exacted. When he'd retrieved
his breath, he took a closer look at what the woman's genitals had
expelled on the rug: what had to be several gallons of
sperm-marbled slop.
The fuck in tarnations is goin'
on?
The woman's body
began to erode in the air, until it had disappeared
completely.
Dicky didn't
even pull his pants all the way back up when he barged out of the
room.
(VI)
The Writer and
Balls both froze with boxes in their hands when Dicky plunged down
the stairs into the mire of candlelight.
"You bust her
up, Dicky?" Balls asked.
"I—"
Balls smirked at
Dicky's half-pulled-up jeans and
limp-as-a-the-pinkie-finger-of-a-rubber-glove
penis.
"What the fuck
you doin' standin' there with yer dick out? You punch the maid's
ticket or not?"
"I-I— Well, ya
won't believe it, Balls," Dicky jabbered, "but Cora were right,
there was a nekit lady up there so's I-I-I—"
"You what?"
Balls yelled.
"I fucked her...
"
Balls
frowned.
"And
then-then-then—she got's ta playin' with her pussy a mite fierce,
and when she got herself off, she-she-she—"
"She what?"
Dicky's eyes
bloomed. "She ‘jacker-lated... "
"The
fuck!"
"I'se swear,
Balls! While's she were comin', her pussy was squirtin' out a
bunch-a goo—"
"Goo?" Balls
infuriated.
"No lie. She
come just like a fella, only with her cooze. Squirted a giant nut
out on the carpet—there's a big puddle of it."
"A puddle
of what?"
Dicky fidgeted.
"Well, it looked like all'a my cum mixed up with a bunch of this
black... goo."
Balls frowned
harder. The Writer thought: This is some high-brow
crew.
"Writer? Balls
stood with his arms crossed. "Git upstairs'n see what the hail
Dicky's talkin' 'bout. Shee-it. This here is gettin' blammed
ree-dicker-luss."
"Oh! Oh!" Dicky
exclaimed. "She tolt me her name!"
"Yeah?" Balls
challenged. "Lemme guess. Everclear?"
"Her name's...
Pasiphae," Dicky blurted.
"Pasiphae, huh?
You're more fucked up than that meth-whore with the hairy armpits."
Balls' glare dug into the Writer. "Git on up there ‘fore I start
carvin' me some college-ed-jur-kated cold cuts."
But the Writer
had been taken aback. By the name Dicky had
mentioned:
Pasiphae.
"Go on!" Balls'
knife snapped open. "Git!"
"As you wish,
Mr. Balls," and with that the Writer mounted the
steps.
Pasiphae, he thought, climbing. Greek
mythology. He
thought briefly of Nancy's phone conversation earlier, the
mentioning of a dream-baby with a bull's head.
But why would a rube like Dicky make such a
reference?
The Writer
couldn't hypothesize.
His hand slid up
the bannister as he moved toward the second-floor landing, the
darkness seeming to magnify as he ascended. On his palm he felt odd
but regular bumps in the vanished wood, and when he shined his
flashlight, he frowned, noticing triplets of sixes finely
engraved. Lucifer's cliché, he thought. The first thing he noted upstairs was an
exquisite oil painting, tinged by age and very Rembrandtesque in
its style: horned demons with skin spotted like slugs pushing aside
the boulder which sealed Christ's tomb on Golgotha, as peasants
moaned. Yeah, Crafter's really got the occult
bug. The Writer
found it amusing. The only supernaturalism that truly
exists is math, he knew. But Crafter's trite fanaticism
notwithstanding, the Writer found it uncanny how the man could fill
the disguised house with priceless antiques, busts, and art but not
have a single bookshelf in view. Crafter was a cliché in and of
himself; surely an "occultist"—especially one with money—would have
a veritable library full of pricy occult tomes.
Yet he'd seen
none since they'd entered the house.
Perhaps upstairs...
The first
bedroom he slipped into was obviously the one where Dicky had
experienced his calamity. The flashlight revealed a bed chamber
that went hand in hand with the rest of the house: a mini-museum of
various archaic styles, save of course for the television sitting
upon—the Writer winced—a genuine Robert Gillow half-table made of
Brazilian rosewood and well over three hundred years
old. I wonder where Crafter gets all his
money? but then
he laughed. Probably a pact with the Devil.
The room smelled
funny: a meaty, musky scent that was close to foul. No woman in
black paint lay on the bed, though the sheets and blankets on the
finely crafted poster were disarrayed. Then he shined the flash
down to the fabulous hand-woven carpet and was surprised to
discover Dicky's aforementioned "goo."
It looked like
black gelatin surrounded by another gel-like substance that was
clear but milkily lined. The Writer was mystified. Alcohol or
cerebral defect obviously accounted for the younger man's account
of this woman's ejaculating after her intercourse with him.
Nevertheless...
What on earth
could this substance be?
It lay in a
gelatinous puddle, shimmering in the light.
Finally! A book! Another sweep of the flash revealed a night-table with a
small book on it. The Writer scanned the cover, intrigued: THE
ACCOUNT OF THE INCUBI OF VASR MONASTERY BY THE REV. M. BARI. The
spine crinkled when he opened to the copyright page.
London,
1787.
"Incubi, huh?"
the Writer mocked aloud.
Nevertheless he
stuck the book in his back pocket. It was probably worth some
money...
Nothing here except some crap on the floor, some...
goo, he
deduced and turned to leave, but he stopped at the door as his
light raked the carpet.
He shined it
down and stared.
How peculiar...
The inchoate
mass of black and clear gunk was now not so inchoate.
How did I miss
that when I first looked? It seemed to take on a configuration that he
hadn't noted previously: something akin to a starfish shape, and
the top "arm" possessed two small protrusions, like
hooks.
The Writer fixed
his gaze.
All five arms
slowly extended.
You know what? the Writer posed to himself.
I don't think I'm
seeing things. I think that slop is really
moving, and
with that, he made his exit and hastily rejoined Balls and Dicky
downstairs.
"Well?" Balls
demanded.
The Writer lit a
cigarette. "There's good news and there's bad news. The good news
is—there's no woman wearing black paint—"
"I
done told ya she weren't there no more!" Dicky raged. "She
disappeared after she cum'd all that spunk'n goo on the
floor!"
The Writer
looked more resolutely at Balls. "I'm in concurrence with, at
least, the latter component of Dicky's statement."
Balls shot him a
funky look. "Huh?"
"There is indeed
an odd substance on the floor that no manner of speculation on my
part can account for."
"I told ya!"
Dicky cut in again. "It's my load all mixed up with some black shit
in her cunt, and then it all squirted out while's I were
watchin'."
"Shee-it," Balls
snapped. "I don't know which one'a yawl's more fucked up in the
head! Guess I gotta see fer myself!"
But before Balls
could bound up the stairs, the Writer interjected, "Mr. Balls? It's
my deduction that we can go up and down those stairs all night, and
we won't find any answers to our questions. However, I have an
inclination—er, I should say I have a hunch... that there is a more
likely place in this house where we
will find those answers."
Balls smirked
his irritation. "Where?"
The Writer
pointed. "The basement."
"The fuckin'
place stinks. Why there?"
"Because, as
I've said, I have an inclination."
Balls and Dicky
paused. "All right," Balls said. "Let's go. Dicky—bring that dirty
cum-dump and drag her ass down with us."
The Writer led
the way, steeling himself against the rotten aroma coming up the
cinderblock steps. Balls swore behind him, gagging. Dicky trudged
down, too, with the still-unconscious Cora slung across his
back.
The stench
thickened once downstairs. The flashlights lit up circles of
strange doors, tables, and—yes!—shelves of books. The Writer
flicked his Bic to light numerous sconce-set candles, and
then—
The
low-ceilinged room was alive now in squirming light. Dicky, Balls,
and the Writer all stared speechless at the same
thing.
"No fuckin'
wonder the joint stinks," Balls muttered.
"Jaysus Chrast!"
Dicky exclaimed, and in his disconcertion actually dropped poor
Cora on to the cement floor.
"This place
looks more like a temple than a basement," the Writer noted, "and
how appropriate... A sacrificial
temple."
Three of the
room's walls were ornamented by Doric pillars, however short, and
between them were a total of six shoddy wood-plank doors hung
within keystoned arches. But it was what hung in one of these
arches that flagged their concern:
A naked woman's
corpse.
Only the Writer
dared to approach, to register details. A rive had been made from
navel to throat, separating two flaccid breasts the color of
oatmeal. A pair of surgical retractors remained in place on her
chest, which forced the rive open, much like double doors, to
expose the cardiac cavity. Said cavity was
empty.
"Now that's what I call a ruckin'," Balls remarked with a
crook in his voice.
"Looks like
someone... sacker-ficed her," Dicky
contributed.
"Indeed, her
heart's gone," the Writer told them, then shined his light on
various areas about the room. "And by the looks of that crucible,
that crematory, and that old book on tephramancy, I'd say she was
sacrificed in grand style. Look. See these ashes?" The Writer gestured
the smear of ashes over the door's stone transom. "Tephramancy is
an occult science which utilizes the ashes of a sacrifice victim
for a variety of dark arts, including incarnation."
"You're talkin'
more'a that satanic shit, like what Crafter's into, ain't'cha?"
Balls needed clarification.
"Oh, yes. This
man Crafter has quite a hobby."
Dicky fidgeted
at the sight of the girl. "What's that big college word you just
used?"
"Incarnation? It
means ‘to make flesh,' in other words, Crafter solicited this
tephramanic ritual to summon a netherwordly spirit or even... a
demon."
Balls and Dicky
stood silent.
The Writer lit
another cigarette and made a closer inspection. The unfortunate
woman had been hung on the door by means of a sharpened iron spike
sunk directly through the hollow of her throat. Much blood was in
evidence, naturally, running down her pallid body and
cellulite-pocked legs, to pool at the floor. The blood was dry and
browning. Her feet and lower legs were a murky blue. "I'd say she's
been dead a day or two," the Writer estimated. "The decomposition
of the body is not yet acute, and I'd also say... she's not the
first to suffer such a fate in this room." Now his flashlight
tracked along the floor. More splotches of dried blood existed
before each of the six wood-plank doors in the bizarre
room.
The Writer
opened the door to which the girl had been impaled. There was
nothing behind it except for crudely lain
bricks.
"The fuck's that
all about?" Balls asked. "If Crafter did all this devil's jazz to
get a demon here, a hallway to hell's what should be behind that
door, not just bricks, right?"
The Writer
chuckled. "While the ritual is active, yes, but of course only in
Crafter's mind. There are no real doorways to Hell or demons, Mr.
Balls."
"Yeah?"
"Let's not get
carried away here, gentlemen. Crafter is an occult fanatic.
He believes himself to be a retainer for the Devil, by serving him
in such ways. But the notion is actually no different from someone
rubbing a rabbit's foot for good luck, or avoiding cracks on the
sidewalk. It's superstition.
Crafter is probably just delusional,
and thinks he's summoning demons or whatever, but it's really
just hoopla."
Dicky
squinted. "Hoopla?"
"You know.
Ballyhoo."
"What's
ballyhoo?" Balls asked.
The Writer
slumped. "It's bullshit,
gentlemen! Occult science does not
exist. It's not functional.
Its supporters merely
believe it is."
"Oh." Balls
stroked his goatee.
"But if it's all
bullshit," Dicky posed, "then you's mean the chick I'se fucked
upstairs all painted black who dumped all that slop out her
pussy... wasn't a demon?"
"No, Mr. Dicky,"
the Writer insured. "She was a hallucination. The kariolytic fumes
from this corpse made you and Cora see the woman and made me see
that growing starfish shape upstairs. Or something along those
lines. Let me make myself perfectly clear. Have you guys even heard
of Emmanuel Kant?"
"No," Balls and
Dicky answered in unison.
Ask a silly question...
The Writer thought of a way to dumb
things down. "Kant was the greatest philosopher to ever live. He
disproved every philosophy and in this disproval he
thereby proved something else: that mankind must have been
created by a higher being—God, in other words. He proved this with
mathematical theorems. It's incontestible. The only entity that can
possibly exist beyond man is God. There's no room for anything
else, including the Devil, demons, Hell, etc. For God and the Devil
to exist simultaneously, then human volition would have to be
teleologic—and we know that this cannot be. It's all
math."
Balls' eyes
seemed mistrustful. "So God ain't nothin' but a bunch'a
numbers?"
"In a sense,
yes. He exists by means of a never-ending equation that created
everything, and God is the beginning of the equation.
Understand?"
"No," Balls and
Dicky answered in unison.
The Writer
sighed smoke. "Listen, just trust me. Crafter didn't bring any
demons here—he merely thinks he did."
"Then what's
that writin' on that little plate over the door, above the dead
chick's head?" Balls pointed.
The Writer
squinted. "Oh, I didn't see that." He shined his light right
up.
And
stared.
A tiny brass
plate had been mounted in the keystone, and engraved upon it was
were several Greek letters.
The Writer made
a rare departure from his avoidance of profanity. "Holy shit...
"
"What is it?"
Balls urged, impatient.
"It's Greek...
"
"You
speak Greek?"
The Writer
rolled his eyes. "Of course."
"Then what the
fuck's it say?"
After a
difficult pause, the Writer told him.
"It says
‘Pasiphae.'"
««—»»
The Writer tried
to assess every conceivable angle of the situation. Dicky had said
this "woman" had called herself Pasiphae.
How could he make
that up? These two guys are white trash, not scholars of
myth. Still, the
Writer had to ask.
"Gentlemen, if I
may. Are either of you familiar with the legend of Theseus and the
Minotaur?"
Balls and Dicky
looked at him cockeyed.
"That's what I
thought." The Writer sat down at the table full of books and
instruments. "I'm trying to reckon a conclusion: how Dicky could
have heard the name Pasiphae upstairs earlier, and then we come
down here to find the name written in its original Greek on the
transom of that door. So when you gentlemen were children, in
school, you never learned any Greek mythology?"
"Writer," Balls
began an honest answer, "when we was kids, we was cuttin' class,
stealin' hubcaps, and peepin' inta chicks winders so's we could
gander some hair pie'n beat off. We didn't learn no Greek
shit."
"You talkin'
'bout stuff like Herck-a-lees?" Dicky ventured.
Eureka! The Writer cracked his hands together. "Yes! This is a
story along similar lines. Greek mythology comprises the first
stories of sophistication in the history of mankind. The first
genuine allegories. Thousands of years ago, it is said, the great
god Poseidon gave Minos, the king of Crete, a splendid white bull
to be sacrificed, but before that could take place, Minos' wife...
became, uh, attracted to the bull and, well, she decided to have
sex with it."
Dicky stared,
mouth open. Balls frowned. "The chick fucked the bull, you
mean?"
"Actually, yes,
Mr. Balls. The chick... fucked the bull, a bull that was intended
to be sacrificed to the gods. By circumventing Poseidon's will, big
trouble would ensue. Minos' wife later gave birth to the product of
her aberrant union: a terrifying creature stronger than Hercules
himself, a creature called the Minotaur. This beast was, for all
intents and purposes, a demon. It possessed the body of a man and
the head of a bull." Then the Writer glanced at Balls and Dicky for
effect.
Balls slammed
his fist down on the table. "What kind of a a-hole are you? We'se
got some serious whacked out shit goin' on here and you're
blabberin' 'bout some king's squeeze who got the blocks put to her
by a fuckin' bull! What the fuck are we'se supposed to do with
that?"
The Writer
half-smiled. "The king's ‘squeeze' was a woman of untold beauty,
and her name was Pasiphae."
Balls' anger
dissipated, giving over to puzzlement.
"That's what the
splittail upstairs tolt me her name was," Dicky re-clarified, "‘Fore I'se fucked
her and then she started squirtin'—"
"Yes, yes," the
Writer severed the viscid retelling. "I'm simply trying to find a
way to justify the coincidence."
Balls gave a
mirthful laugh. "So's this time, instead'a fuckin' a bull, she
fucked Dicky?"
Dicky laughed
back. "Well, I'm damn near hung like one!"
"Yeah, well your
mamma tolt me she'd seen bigger cigarettes."
"Yeah? Well your
Daddy tolt me when you's were a baby you spent more time suckin'
his dick than suckin' your momma's tittie!"
What am I going to do with these
guys? "Gentlemen,
gentlemen, please. We're in a conundrum here, and we need to take
some action." The Writer gestured the floppy breasted corpse
hanging on the door. "Crafter's occult delusions are obviously of a
very extreme nature, and whether you believe in the occult or not,
a murder has been committed. Our most logical course of action is
to leave without delay. If we get caught in this house, or are seen
by passersby anywhere in its proximity,
we could be accused of this murder."
Dicky responded
to the Writer's logic by posing the most
illogical question. "So's what was all that spunky lookin'
goo that this Pasiphae gal spat out her pussy all over the rug
upstairs?"
The Writer
rubbed his temples. "You're missing my point, Mr. Dicky. I don't
believe that Pasiphae ever was upstairs—"
"But Dicky seed
her with his own two eyes," Balls interjected, "and so did
Cora."
"—nor do I
believe there was ever any ‘goo' on the carpet upstairs."
Balls' face
screwed up. "But you done said ya saw it yer own self!"
"No, I said I
believe that everything any of us think we saw was an
hallucination," the Writer reasserted. "A stressful situation, a
sinister house, an unknown set of circumstances, plus the fumes of
human decomposition. I believe that all these elements have
aggregated and caused us to have a manner of shared
hallucinations—a mirage, so to speak." He pinched his chin. "The
only thing I can't figure out is how Dicky believed this imaginary
woman referred to herself as Pasiphae when he was previously
unfamiliar with the mythology... "
"Then maybe
you're fuckin' wrong," Balls suggested. "Maybe it
ain't a hallucination. Maybe it's all real, somethin'
from Crafter's devil-worship'n shit." Now Balls struck the most
contemplative look of his life. "So's far, all of us've seen
somethin' in this house ‘cept me... "
"Ah, you've
harnessed your powers of deductive reasoning," the Writer enthused.
"Therefore?"
Balls rubbed his
hands together. "Guess it's time fer
me go upstairs'n check it out myself... "
(VII)
Balls mounted
with steps up with confidence. What I got to be afraid of? Some
crazy black chick? Bunch'a shit on a floor?
Gun in belt, hickory pick handle in
one hand and flashlight in the other, Balls reflected his current
state of actualization: I ain't afraid'a
nothin'.
He yelped when
he turned on the landing and saw a figure facing him, which turned
out to be a decorative suit of armor.
Shee-it... He closed the basement door behind him, ill at ease, for
some reason, by the look of the cross hanging on it. Candlelight
shifted over the walls, and for a moment he thought he could see
faces forming... but he knew that couldn't be. When he looked up
the stairwell to the second floor, a depthless black void looked
back at him. Don't be a
pussy! he
yelled at himself, and then he patted his pistol for good measure
and began to climb the steps.
The boards
beneath the carpet creaked like old ladies laughing. Each step up
seemed noticeably higher than the previous. The flashlight bored
through darkness thick as insulation, and once he set foot on the
landing, he froze, startled, at a strange thumping sound but then
smirked when he realized it was his own heart.
He turned into
the first room and snapped the light to all corners.
This must be
it, he knew by
the smell. Smells like cum'n pussy in
here. A
fancy bed with mussed covers sat against the wall; then he shined
his flashlight down and stared.
The
indescribable starfish-shaped goo lay there...
moving. I don't care WHAT that writer says—this ain't no
halluci-fuckin'-ation... Each elongation of the milk-marbled configuration seemed
to grow like a slow trickle. Whatever this stuff was, though, Balls
could not construe it as a threat.
Waste'a time. We should be loadin' up the
haul... Disgruntled, he checked the other rooms, which offered
more of the same: old-style furniture, old paintings and the
like.
Fuck this. Time to git back to work'n git
out'a this freaky joint. He headed back toward the stairs but paused.
Something unbidden made him hesitate... and he peeked back in the
first room...
The muck on the
floor was beginning to... get up, two of the viscid configuration's
extensions serving as legs. A vague tumescence misted about the
room, and even some of the bulbs in the lamps flickered—as though
the rising thing carried some inexplicable static electricity with
it. Balls couldn't know, of course, that this phenomenon came from
the flux of its Death Force, the residue of which carried over from
its genetic origins which were rooted not of this earth but of the
Labyrinthine District of Hell. Soon the spindle-form mass stood
upright and close to six feet in height. Balls' sensibilities were
now essentially high-jacked by his witness of what was taking
place: a Para-Planar Birth.
He just stood
and stared as the featureless stick-figure began to evolve before
his eyes.
A crush of
sounds percolated about the room, something like hardboiled eggs
being peeled, and rushing sewage, and emphysematic respiration. The
clock he'd heard ticking previously now seemed to tick ten times
faster, all the while the thing before him growing in girth and
taking on more details, until—
Balls' breath
locked in his chest.
The thing stood
complete: a beautiful nude woman with large, high-riding breasts,
indefectable curves, and a plump, hairless pubis. Her skin shone
fresh, poreless, and alabaster-white.
And one last
detail: this "woman" had the head of a bull.
It appeared to
be of the Angus variety, with shimmering black hair flowing down
the arched muscular neck, then over the woman's sleek shoulders.
Eyes green as backlit emeralds glittered in the small round
sockets. But of this entire being—this monstrous crossbreed—the
most notable feature was the pair of long, curved horns sprouting
from its head.
It stood for
several moments, seeming to stare at Balls as if uncomprehending.
Then its delicate white hands caressed the burgeoning bosom. Thumb
and index fingers teased the puckered dark-pink nipples, then the
hands slid down over the flat abdomen and glided over the pubis.
Then—
It looked again
to Balls, snorted, and charged.
Balls came out
of his stasis fast enough to yell, leap backward out of the room,
and slam to the door. A bang and a crunching sound were heard
immediately thereafter, and instantly two splintering holes
appeared in the door through which jutted the tips of the entity's
horns.
Balls fumbled
for the pistol, then—
BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!
Six .455
bullet-holes tracked up the center of the door, right between the
horn-points. Balls stood wide-eyed in the sequent silence, waving
away smoke. No way in fuckin' holy hail I
missed, he
thought.
The door
exploded, splintery shards flying, and the unfathomable creature
stepped through, jerked its head, and snorted a string of
mucus.
Balls had a
half-second to notice the six bullet-holes in the back bedroom
wall, then he ran down the stairs as fast as he'd ever run in his
life.
(VIII)
During Balls
excursion upstairs, Cora remained unconscious on the floor while
Dicky meandered around the strange room of bookshelves, Doric
columns, and old doors. The Writer continued to smoke as he
examined the pile of very old books set around the
table.
Every second
that transpired felt more like a minute. Dicky kept looking up at
the ceiling. "What's takin' him so long?"
"Relax, Mr.
Dicky. He seems like a pretty thorough man."
"But what if...
What if the black chick came back and now—now she's
fuckin' Balls?"
"I have every
confidence that that's not the case."
Dicky groped for
any distraction. "What's with all them books?"
"These are some
very interesting books indeed, Mr. Dicky," the Writer said.
"Hundreds of years old, and more proof of Crafter's devotion to his
satanic delusion." There were a number of tomes that Crafter had
obviously taken down off his shelves for the ritual he'd engaged
in. One wasn't a book at all but a yellowed manuscript which the
Writer was leafing through now. "But this holograph is the most
interesting of all. They're hand-written notes by an infamous
astrologer and occult translator named Dr. John Dee. Evidently he
compiled these missives between May and December of 1581; he was
translating ritualistic techniques from various sources, for his
own use. This passage here—" The Writer pointed to the yellowed
sheet of vellum. "It was translated from an older book, thought to
no longer exist, called the Magnum
Maleficarum, originally penned in Old Latin. The passage copied here
is entitled ‘The Proper Procedure and Use of Eibon Wood.'
"Never heard of
him."
"It's not
a him, Mr. Dicky. It's a type of conditioned wood, and
you may be intrigued when I explain what's written here. It tells
of how wooden planks can be ritualistically conditioned by burying
them in a graveyard of unconsecrated ground that served as the
final resting place for condemned witches."
Dicky's brain
could almost be heard clicking. "The graveyard we seed outside!
Lots of 'em were half dug into."
"Precisely. It's
a solid bet that the wooden planks that Crafter used to make the
six doors in this room are made of such wood. Each plank was buried
over the graves for a total of 666 days; then they were nailed
together and used to fashion the door-faces. This manuscript here
is quite concise. Dee calls these doors a ‘Talismanic Traversion
Bridle.'"
"Huh?"
"Think of it
this way. Each door is a magic
door, Mr. Dicky. They've been ritually
charged with an occult power to close off the passage to a
netherworldly domain—six such passages, I'd say. And when the
proper ritual is enacted... that barrier—that
bridle—comes down, and the door opens to a predesignated
supernatural realm." Again the Writer's eyes gestured the corpse
hanging by the spike through its neck. "Lowering this barrier, of
course, must involve a human sacrifice. Before Crafter left on his trip, it's
clear he engaged in such a task, and that poor girl was the fodder
for the rite."
Dicky whispered,
eyes wide. "He opened that there door to some place full'a
demons... "
"A place, yes. A
realm, obviously one that's associated with the damned demonness
known as Pasiphae. In defying Poseidon and falling in love with her
own hellish offspring—the Minotaur—she was eternally
condemned."
"So that's how the shiny black chick got here—through that
door," Dicky figured.
"Well,
Crafter believes that, yes. But I don't, and you shouldn't either.
It's all part of his delusion—nonsense, ultimately. It is funny,
though. We were astounded by how Crafter could leave a house full
of treasures virtually unprotected. Perhaps he thought that
summoning Pasiphae would serve as his alarm system... "
"All's right,"
Dicky insisted. "But let's just say that it
is true, and that this Pasiphae gal come out that
door when Crafter kilt the girl... What about these other doors? It
say what they are in them papers?"
"Not in these
papers, but in this,"
and then the Writer held up a very old book with metal hinges and
faded gold gilding. "The Incarnologie
Daemorium, translated into English in 1839 by Rev. Montague
Thomas Alexander in Wales. The author is quite a sinister chap who
went by the name of Comte Michel Lemoine Willirmoz, who had been
burned at the stake in St. Claude, France, in 1680 for black magic
and molestation. He was reportedly a lithomancer, that is he
practiced magic through stones. If you look carefully, the keystone
of each door, just above each brass plate, has been set with
various stones."
Dicky peered and
indeed noticed the tiny stone chips of myriad colors, affixed to
each center block. "They diamonds'n rubies'n shit?"
"I'm afraid not,
Mr. Dicky. They're only semi-precious stones, such as amethyst,
onyx, galena, quartz—no monetary value but to a lithomancer,
they're the source of his magic." Next the writer pointed to an odd
smock-like garment hanging inside an opened armoire. It looked made
of black sack cloth, yet the garment dazzled, for into its fabric
had been stitched hundreds more semi-precious stones. "No doubt
Crafter wore that tunic there during the rite... his sorcerer's
surplice. All magicians and warlocks wore such cloaks when
practicing their art."
"Dang. A magic
jacket?"
"Precisely." The
Writer turned back to the Incarnologie
Daemorium. "Willirmoz
was black magic's most notorious sorcerer, and in this priceless
grimoire, he specifically identifies each of the six supernatural
domains he was able to supposedly access. Door One we already know:
the domain of Pasiphae. Door Two accesses a creature from
pre-Islamic folklore known as a ghala
but what is better known as a ghoul.
Door Three? The Lycanthrope, otherwise known as a werewolf. Door
Four opens to the realm of the Nosferatu, or vampire. Door Five:
the Khmoc, which is an Asian version of a zombie that predates
voodoo by thousands of years. And Door Six reveals a creature I'm
not familiar with, something called a Spermatogoyle, which,
according to this book, hails from a region in Hell called the
Flesh District." The Writer raised his brows over the thing's
official name. "I have no idea what
that could be, but I can hazard a guess that it's got
something to do with semen."
Dicky jerked his
gaze. "Ya mean, like, man-batter? Petersnot? Dick
loogie?"
The Writer
slumped. "Uh, yes. Dick loogie... "
Dicky scratched
his overhanging beer belly, then cast the Writer a more suspicious
expression. "How you know so much 'bout all this devil
shit?"
"Only from a few
history of metaphysics courses I took in college to accommodate my
double major in Philosophy. It's really no different from any
manner of folklore; we don't study it because we
believe in it, we study it to analyze an aspect of our
intellectual evolvement. Before mankind was smart enough to think
rationally, we made up stories and superstitions to explain the
things about our existence we didn't understand. It's all quite
silly when you get right down to it. It makes the human race look
like a bunch of buffoons."
"A
bunch'a balloons?" Dicky questioned.
"Never mind...
"
A groan
resounded from the corner. Cora was rousing. She blinked, shaking
her head, and managed to hitch herself up to sit against the wall.
"The hail? That mean fucker knock me out again?"
"Shore did,
Cora," Dicky told her. "Balls don't like it when chicks talk too
much."
"Fucker," she
muttered, blinking out the rest of the stars. "And where is he
anyway?"
"Upstairs,
checkin' things out."
Only now did the
malnourished prostitute notice the foul stench. "Aw, shit. Smells
like—" and then she shrieked when she saw the dead woman hanging on
the door.
Dicky and the
Writer both ground their teeth and clapped their hands over their
ears.
"What the hail
is this? A horror dungeon're somethin'?"
"A modern
equivalent, you could say," the Writer replied.
"What's
goin' on down here?" she pleaded. "I can't stand this!
Dicky, please! Cut my wrists loose!"
Dicky hemmed and
hawed. "Aw, shee-it, Cora. I cain't do that."
"Why!"
"Aw, ya know...
Balls'd get a right pissed."
"Fuck him!" she
spat. "Let me go! Ain't right fer you ta keep me tied up like this!
And that stink is killin' me! Let's all get out'a here! Lemme
go!"
"Just be
patient, Cora. Balls'll let'cha go soon."
The girl
squirmed where she sat, trying but failing to snap her bonds. Then
she began to sob.
"She's harmless,
Mr. Dicky," the Writer suggested. "It can't hurt to untie
her."
"Naw. Balls'd
pitch a fit, he would."
Now she was
panting, "Dicky! Dicky! Lemme go and I'll'se let'cha fuck me...
"
Dicky shuffled
his feet. Aw, naw... "
"Look, look,"
and then Cora was cumbersomely pulling her shorts down from behind.
"Just you take a look at my beautiful pussy and then you'll'se
be dyin' ta
fuck it!" and with that promise, she squirmed some more and managed
to get the shorts down to mid-thigh. "Take a look at
that! Ain't that just a scrumptious-lookin'
cunt?"
Dicky and the
Writer both nearly howled at the sight.
"Dang, Cora,
that's the blammed ugliest snatch I ever saw!" Dicky complained.
"Looks like two dead rats pushed together. Don't be flashin' that
shit."
"Well then...
how's 'bout my ass?" she tried next. "You's kin fuck it ta high
heaven! Take a look!" and then she rolled over and stuck her bare
rump in the air.
This time Dicky
and the Writer did howl. Cora's buttocks strained open, revealing an
anus that looked more like a clot of steel wool... with a hole in
it. Hair grew rampant in the rank cleft, tracing all the way up
past her tail bone.
Dicky yelled,
"Fuck, girl! Pull them shorts back up or I'll kill ya! Ya done
fucked up my sex drive fer a year!"
Cora collapsed
to more sobs. The Writer sighed in relief, now that he didn't have
to look at the ghastly cleft. I'll bet she doesn't make very much
as a prostitute... .
Cora bawled for
several more minutes, hitching the shorts back up but eventually
her eyes roved back to the pallid corpse on the door. She stared,
her mouth falling open. "My fuckin' gosh—I
know that bitch... "
"Ya do?" Dicky
said.
"Aw, yeah, I
used ta see her a lot back when I were turnin' tricks up the truck
stop. She kicked my ass one night 'cos I was low-ballin' truckers
fer blowjobs... the bitch."
Dicky laughed.
"So's she's a whore, too?"