He didn’t like to think about the last part of the Lenore story, wasn’t sure what about it was real and what might have been a hallucination. He didn’t even remember it very coherently, as if it had all been a dream. It was in the woods. There had only been moonlight. First Shannon had her on the ground, had gotten her blouse open and her dress pulled up. She didn’t have any panties, he remembered that. He wasn’t sure whether Shannon was fucking her before he’d somehow noticed Jaime Tales spying on him from behind a tree.
“Fuckin’ Tales, you little cocksucker!” he’d raged, and when Jaime ran, Shannon had jumped up, chasing after him, trying to yank up his own pants as he ran. Dewey ran after him, God knows why. Why should Shannon even care that much about Tales watching? He could run him down later if he really wanted to.
Lenore sat up, turned her head and looked at Todd, exasperated. “Can any of you guys actually fuck?” she said.
Challenged, he’d gone to the task, taking the rest of her clothes off and tossing them aside while she struggled teasingly and laughed. He’d gotten really hard and feared he might even shoot off before getting it in, which probably was the drug, since he’d never had that problem before. She’d grabbed his dick and guided it in like she couldn’t wait either, and it had seemed great, but despite the way it had felt before, he couldn’t seem to come when he was actually fucking her. She was thrashing so much it was like riding a bucking bronco, he’d thought, not that he’d ever had that experience.
He didn’t think he’d even been choking her. He’d just put his hands around her throat to try and hold her in place a little. He was shocked when the gout of blood or bloody flesh or whatever it was came out of her mouth, slid down his hand and off to the side. He’d thrown himself back, tried to see what had happened, but it was dark, suddenly much darker than before, as though the moon had disappeared. He’d spoken to her, yelled even, “are you awright” or whatever he’d said, but there was no answer. He’d stumbled to his feet, called for Shannon and Dewey. No response to that either and too dark in the woods to see. He tried to run but kept banging into trees or tripping on underbrush. Finally the moon reappeared, larger than before, and he stumbled back into an open expanse. Shannon and Dewey were there, staring at him, surprised. “Was she with you?” said Shannon.
“She was, but she got sick, and I went looking for you guys.”
“Where is she now? She was right here.”
“I don’t know. She was… she threw up some blood or something.”
“Look, her clothes are still here,” said Dewey. “Is she running around naked somewhere?”
This struck Shannon as funny. “What a weird chick.”
“No, she was sick. She was unconscious, I think.”
“It’s fucking Tales’ fault. If I ever catch that little jerkoff again…”
They’d looked around for some time, but she was gone. Shannon got bored of it and started insisting she’d probably gone out to the road and caught a ride hitchhiking. “Naked?” Dewey had said. “Sure. I’d pick her up, wouldn’t you?” Shannon ever after insisted on the hitchhiking idea, except when he’d get tired of hearing about it and instead say a UFO may have landed while they were running around and aliens abducted her. Dewey stayed quiet. Todd thought something bad had happened, but didn’t know what. Maybe something that was his fault. That was why he’d never wanted to try the drug again, even after he scaled down the Bald Cat in the recipe.
Sighing, he opened the Plan 666 book again, at random.
The A.O.A. retained its widespread reputation as a devil-worshipping cult, while its spinoff, known as The Kindred, was seen by many, especially those with giddily enraptured conceptions of the counterculture in those pre-Manson days of the 1960s, as a proudly warm-and-fuzzy phenomenon of the Aquarian Age. Even so, some of the most bizarre and ultimately murderous tendencies of the A.O.A. were practiced as well by their love-bombing cohorts, who’d themselves germinated in Haight-Ashbury in late 1966. The love-bombing practice itself is most famously associated with the group and, as noted elsewhere, was largely a fund-raising scheme that amounted to little more than ill-disguised prostitution. But according to some, there were Kindred factions that engaged in the truly horrifying “De-braining ritual,” a symbolic act of separating the mind from the body, in which corpses were—
His reading was interrupted by a piercing scream from the bathroom, followed quickly by another. He leaped up, tripped over his own feet and hit the floor hard, but scrambled up and ran down the hallway. He found Sky standing naked and dripping wet outside the bathroom, shivering from fear, cold or both, breasts bouncing, dark red public hair. She embraced him as he reached her, the sensual feel and aroma of soaking-wet girl nearly overwhelming him.
“There was some guy looking through the window at me. I just, I freaked out.” He let her go, hurried into the bathroom and looked out the window. Nobody was there. Fucking Jaime Tales, who else. He’d been caught looking in people’s windows before, and he’d suspected the little retard had been spying on him since Clare had departed.
Sky still stood in the hallway, naked, hands crossed on forearms, shivering.
“I bet I know who it was,” he said.
“A friend of yours?”
“No. Little guy with dark hair, beady eyes and no chin?”
She nodded. “Uh-huh, that’s him. Let me look for him outside, he might still be around, but he usually runs.”
“Is he dangerous?”
“Just a big pussy, is all.” He was immediately sorry at the word he’d chosen. “I mean, wuss. You probably scared him away but good.”
She tittered. “I scared him, God! I’m still shaking.” She hugged Todd again, squirming against him. Put her mouth to his ear, whispered, “I’m so glad you’re here with me.” Then, oh man, lightly twirling her tongue in there.
Todd was scared himself, and not of Jaime Tales.
CHAPTER 15
RONI GOES TO WORK
Roni groused about the encounter with Shannon as she was tolerating the long and bumpy ride on the bus to work. She actually only took the bus because she saw one coming just as she passed the bus stop. It wasn’t that far, but she was beat. The bus route took her all over hell and creation before winding up at her destination, which wasn’t really very far away. She watched the familiar buildings as the bus went past them. Mad at herself for putting up with the whole place, the whole shebang.
She was still fuming when the bus pulled into the parking lot. Now she’d get to deal with crazy control-freak Hobie and, very likely, his whiny little faggot boyfriend, who’d try to collar her to talk some more. She’d be too busy to bother with him and would tell him so.
Once she got off the bus near the theater, she saw a couple of media trucks with satellite dishes atop them in the parking lot, guys with cameras walking around, and a dolled-up woman reporter with a microphone, apparently interviewing a couple of people, one of whom held a protest sign that read “Satan is Not Lord, But Deceiver!” This, she knew, was about those “Satan Is Lord” posters Hobie came up with. Naturally, local Bible-thumpers were going to be outraged about it, which was just what he wanted. He’d already been crowing about what a great idea it was, that and all his other stuff, the scarecrows and all, even though all that was probably not going to help attendance at the show.
But something else was going on as well. A small crowd was assembled before an outside wall of the theater. It was the wall Todd Dewolf, the so-called artist, was supposed to be painting a mural on, but the only part of it he’d finished was a little picture of a silver flying saucer up in the upper left-hand corner. However, now something else was there, below that. It was pretty fuzzy and crude but appeared to be an image of a person with their two arms upraised and stretched out. There wasn’t much of a face, just a jagged line that could indicate eyes. One arm was bigger than the other, and the smaller one seemed to have not only a hand but what might be a couple fingers. The person didn’t have any legs, but there were lines going down either side from where the armpits might be, so it looked like the person could be wearing a kind of gown. Did Hobie get that put up since last night? She really doubted Todd came out and did it, though it was so crummy it looked like someone could do it pretty fast. From what Shannon told her, all he did since Clare left him was sit around and drink.