Anathema (15 page)

Molly jumped from her Schwinn. It wobbled a few feet before crashing into the statue, then fell to the ground. She jumped into Bill's lap and gyrated her pelvis against his groin.

"Miss me?” she cooed.

Bill's eyes lit up like a Fourth of July celebration. She was a real wild child.

Molly pulled him close, pressed her lips to his, and stuck her tongue in his mouth.

Bill opened the front of her blouse and found her breasts. He was surprised at their firmness. The titties of all the other girls he'd bedded had always been soft and squishy, like an old baseball that had been used for too many games.

Bill broke the embrace. “I know a better place. More private."

"Is it far? I don't think I can wait much longer."

"No, it's not far at all."

"Then, show me.” She slid off his lap like a cat in heat.

Bill took her hand—her small, child-size hand—and led her around the statue to a cluster of mature lilac bushes. The lavender blooms had withered long ago, but the rich, lush leaves provided perfect cover. Bill fumbled with the button on Molly's jeans. He snapped it open and stuck his hand inside. The sparse thatch of hair felt like wet cotton. He probed her sex. God, she was tight. So much so he feared her sex lips might clamp around his finger as tight as a vise and he'd be unable to pull himself free.

Molly pushed him back against the nearby oak tree. “I want to taste you.” She fumbled with his pants. “I want to take you in my mouth.” She pulled Bill's Levi's down to his ankles, then with a single, crazed movement, tore his underwear off.

Bill's sex popped out like a fishing bobber and waggled in front of Molly's face with his every heartbeat.

Anxious, Molly ran her tongue across her lips to moisten them and kissed Bill's anaconda. It bobbed its approval. She kissed it again. This time, she took some of the shaft in her mouth and flicked her tongue across the head.

Bill's body stiffened. “That's nice,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “Real nice."

Molly swallowed the rest of his shaft.

Bill gasped. The inside of her mouth was velvety soft and as warm as melted chocolate. He put his hands on the sides of her head and worked her back and forth. He slid in and out of her like a well-greased piston.

Then, she bit him. Not hard, but enough to make him jump.

"No rough stuff,” Bill chided.

Molly bit him again.

"I said no fucking rough stuff! I'm not into that scene!” Bill slapped her upside the head.

But Molly ignored his outburst and bit him a third time—bit him hard.

"Fuck!” Bill howled, “I told you not to bite, bitch!"

He pushed her face away from his crotch. He balled his hand into a fist. Angry now, he was going to show her he was not someone to fuck with. When he told someone to stop, they'd damn well better do it. But when he looked down, his anger turned to anguish.

His crotch and thighs were painted red. So was Molly's face. Dark liquid pooled in the folds of his jeans. Flecks of it spattered the tops of his beat-up Nikes. Next to his left shoe lay a long, finger-shaped object. Like everything else, it was painted bright red.

Then came the pain, and he realized what he saw wasn't paint at all. He realized what Molly had done.

Bill's face twisted into a mask of agony. He grabbed his crotch to staunch the flow of blood, but the gore oozed between his fingers as it continued to pump from the stump between his legs. He dropped to his knees. He was cold. An inky blackness crawled across his vision. Colors evaporated as things around him turned monochromic. Then he fell, face first, into the bloody mud.

Molly smiled and wiped the blood from her lips with the palm of her hand.

About the time Molly arrived at the park, Pastor Timothy cowered in the corner of the narthex with a silver cross held out in front of him. He had just finished his evening prayer and was about to leave the church when he heard the odd scraping sound. He'd gone to investigate, was hit from behind, and thrown into the corner of the darkened room. Then came the awful stink.

Somehow, the three dead whores were in the church. Timothy had visions of these creatures before, but they were only visions. Real evil could never enter a church, or any sacred place. Unless ... unless things were beginning to break into the real world.

Timothy shoved the cross at the beasts.

The whores hissed like a trio of teakettles. They brought their withered hands to their faces to block out the purifying glow.

"Our time is near,” they hissed through parted fingers. Their putrid breath polluted the air as they spoke. “You waited too long. You're too late."

Then, Timothy felt a stirring in his loins he hadn't experienced in years. Lust. The women noticed his arousal and clawed at each other in a sexual frenzy.

"Let me suck your holy cock,” one of the whores cackled. She opened her mouth to display double rows of yellow, jagged teeth.

"Stick it inside me,” another wailed and offered her vagina. Her sex pulsed and puckered. A milky secretion leaked from it like honey from a hive.

"Fuck me in the ass,” cried the third one.

The hand that held the cross began to falter, and Timothy felt his will being sucked away. His mind was flooded with thoughts of abominable pleasures and forbidden acts. He longed to taste their sweetness again; to feel their ancient skin against his flesh.

The whores cackled and moved closer.

"No!” Timothy roared. He would not be drawn in by their filthiness. Not this time. Not again.

He brought the cross back behind his head and threw it at the creatures. The gleaming silver tumbled end over end as it flew toward the target.

The whores covered their faces and screamed. When the cross hit them, they shattered like glass. Then the pieces turned to roaches and scurried away from the pastor in one black, crawling mass.

The creatures were gone, but only for a while. They'd be back. They always came back. The words of the whores echoed in his mind:
Our time is near. You're too late.
Trembling, Timothy reached for the cross and picked it up, but dropped it. The cross had become too hot to hold.

Whether or not Jarvis and the others could convince Jim Anderson the urgency of this situation, plans had to be made. With or without Anderson's help, those same plans had to be carried out.

Able to pick up the cross at last, Timothy put it back on the shelf. Then, he bowed his head and asked for strength.

While the preacher was battling demons, Diane Anderson was dealing with terrors of her own.

She was walking down the serpentine path that led from the back door of the house into the woods. An odd, green mist swirled around her feet and ankles. The trees leaned toward her, whispering. Told her things. Wicked things. Forbidden things.

Dressed in her nightgown, Diane followed the winding path through the trees. She came across a small pond and stopped to gaze into its murky water. Instead of her reflection, the faces of three dead whores stared up at her.

"Our time is near. You're too late,” the whores whispered. Then, the water rippled and they disappeared.

Diane's face twisted into a mask of shock and disbelief. She never should've wandered from the house. She should've stayed in bed where it was warm and safe. Diane turned to run back to the house, but the path was gone, swallowed by the branches and underbrush that quivered with unnatural life.

Now the ground rumbled, and a fissure opened beneath her bare feet. Diane fell into the abyss.

Golden eyes stared at her as she fell through the darkness. Invisible hands reached for her. Unseen fingers groped at her sex...

Diane snapped awake. The bedding was a twisted heap on the floor, her nightgown twisted around her waist. Her mouth felt full of cotton. Her throat was dry and raspy. She reached for the alarm clock. The green numerals dutifully reported the time as eight-fifty at night.

Diane straightened her nightgown, got out of bed, and padded down the hall. Drifting up from the kitchen was her husband's voice and several others she'd heard before, but couldn't quite place the owners. After she got her water, she'd go downstairs to make sure Jim and his friends weren't planning something against her. He'd do that kind of thing, she thought. After all, look what he did to Travis.

Diane was almost to the bathroom when she saw a greenish light leaking out from under Jim's office door. She moved to the door, grabbed the knob, and pushed it open.

At first, she thought she was still asleep—that what she saw was still part of her dream. But it didn't feel like any kind of a dream she ever had.

Suspended in mid-air in the center of the room was Travis. He was surrounded by a half dozen albino children with yellow eyes. They were giggling and laughing as they poked at Travis with claw-like hands. When they saw Diane staring, they stopped playing and looked at her.

"What have you done to my son,” Diane cried.

"Our time is near,” they said. “You're too late."

Then one of the children ripped an arm from Travis's body and threw it at her.

Screaming, Diane crumpled to the floor.

Jim pulled another beer out of the fridge and cracked it open. He was beginning to wonder about his so-called friends. With all their stories, they were starting to sound like characters out of the
Twilight Zone.
He was especially surprised by Jarvis's behavior. For the short time he'd known him, Jim thought Jarvis was much more levelheaded and realistic than most people, but Jim wasn't too sure anymore. These things they were saying were not the thoughts of rational men. Maybe they all should reserve a room at Honeybrook.

Jim returned to the table and looked at three men whose expressions were so serious they'd probably shatter like glass if any of them attempted to smile.

"So, you're telling me my house,
this house,
is haunted.” Jim took a sip of beer.

"Yes, that's part of it.” Jarvis absently traced the outline of the cross he wore under his shirt. “Your house was built from lumber harvested from the woods behind your house, and the woods have always been haunted. But like we said, the house, the woods, the land are only part of it."

"Okay, say I do believe you—not that I do, understand—but for argument's sake, why would Larry sell me the place to begin with?"

"That's the point,” Carl said. “He wasn't supposed to. But Larry's always been a money-hungry sonofabitch, and if there was a way for him to make a buck, he'd do it."

A light bulb flashed in Jim's mind. He understood, at last, what this was really all about.

"I get it now,” he said, smiling. “There's something valuable buried here, and you don't want me to know about it. You guys never wanted the place sold so you could have it all to yourselves. All right, which one of you came up with the ghost story thing?"

"There's something in the ground, all right,” Jarvis admitted, “but nothing like you'd ever imagine."

"Look, Jim, this is no joke.” Sheriff Ebert leaned across the table. “There's been some strange shit happening around town. Before I came here, I was out at the quarry looking at what used to be Vincent Mardell. He'd been pulverized by Russ Harvey. And I sent a deputy downtown to check out a story about a street brawl that involved a couple of eighty year-old men."

"And you're telling me this because..."

"Because I knew Russ since he was a kid, and he'd never do anything like that under normal circumstances. And Wojciehowski and Seymour Standish were best buddies."

"Well, maybe they just snapped and got tired of all the bullshit. According to you guys, there's a lot of that going around lately."

"Damn you, Jim,” Cal spat. “Why are you fighting us like this?"

"Damn me?” Jim growled. He slammed his beer down on the table and it foamed over the rim. Upstairs, he heard Diane get out of bed. “I buried my son today. My wife's so grief-stricken she barely gets out of bed. And my daughter refuses to talk to me. So damn you, gentlemen, for coming into my house and expecting me to buy some kind of fuckin’ ghost story!"

"But what about what happened at the church?” Jarvis asked. “Remember what you saw?"

"Yeah, I remember. I remember seeing my boy laid out in a box. That's what I remember!” Jim stood up. The vein in his forehead began to pulse. “I want you out of my house. All of you. Now!"

"Jim, calm down,” Jarvis said. “Go talk to Pastor Timothy. He can explain this a lot better than any of us can."

"The preacher man?” Jim scoffed. “So, the good reverend's in on this little scheme, too."

"Jim, this isn't a scheme. Just wait..."

Then Diane screamed.

Ebert's cell phone rang.

And Jim ran up the stairs to his wife.

Jim found Diane on the hallway floor. The office door was open, and she was staring inside the empty room. Jim touched her trembling shoulder.

"I saw Travis,” she croaked. Her voice was weak and hoarse. “He was in there, floating on the air in the most beautiful light I've ever seen.” Her face hardened and her eyes grew wide. “But they were there."

Jim squatted beside her. “Diane, honey, Travis died. He was buried today. Remember?"

"Jim,” the sheriff interrupted. Jim looked at him and shooed him away like a pesky fly. “Jim, it's about Molly. They found her downtown."

"Molly?” Diane asked and started to stand. She glared at Jim. “What's wrong with my daughter? What have you done to her?"

Jim threw a cold, dagger-filled stare at Ebert. “Nothing's wrong with Molly,” he said to Diane. “She's fine. She's in her room."

"No, she isn't,” Jarvis said. He stood by the open door to Molly's room.

"What?” Jim said, his arm around his wife's waist.

"Like I said,” Ebert repeated, “my deputy found your daughter downtown with Bill Daily."

Daily. Wasn't he the hoodlum he saw at the Stumble Inn on his first day in town? He was bad news, wasn't he?

"Christ,” Jim whispered. He could tell by the look on the sheriff's face he wasn't kidding. He also knew by the way Ebert looked at him there was more to the story that he wasn't telling.