Of course. The maintenance shed, outside. Lawn equipment and… Gas, he thought.
He dashed back outside, around the side of the church. He was giddy with excitement. What a perfect way to announce his homecoming: burning the entire church to the ground. The studs in the basement would carry to the ceiling, then everything would go. He rummaged through the shed where they kept the mowers, and there it was, shiny red. A five-gallon gas can. It was almost full.
The pinkened moon followed him back to the stairs. It made him feel watched. Protect me, God, protect me, he thought, or prayed. When he was back in the cirice, he looked for the best way. Yeah, perfect, he thought. A full cord of wood lay neatly stacked against one wall. It would catch the studs, leading the flame to the wood rafters above. By the time the fire truck got here, the whole church would be in flames.
He unscrewed the cap, was about to douse the pile of wood with gas, when he stopped. Had he heard something? No, he felt something. He felt…
He set the can down, turned. Erik, Erik, he heard, but not in his ears, in his head. He stepped forward. Now a faint glow seemed to rise in the cirice, from the nave. Light like mist, like luminous fog. The fog seemed pink…
Erik. Brygorwreccan. Come.
“No,” he croaked in his ruined voice.
He was standing before the nihtmir. Its dead gray stone seemed to glow. Yes, he could see it, could see into it.
Something moved there, in the pinkened depths.
A face. A—
Her face, he thought, staring.
He couldn’t take his eyes away.
Protect me, God. Protect me.
The face smiled at him, a great maw jammed with teeth.
Hello, Erik, it said.
The smile lengthened, drawing up.
Erik screamed. He ran out of the cirice, up the stairs, and into the woods, his fear propelling him like a missile, away, away from that hideous unholy visage.
«« — »»
He lay awake now in the front seat of the van. He was staring up through the trees at the moon. The moon was pink. “Protect me, God,” he whispered. “Protect me.” But in his desperate prayer, he didn’t see God. All he saw was the perverse pinkish moon, and suffused in its sphere, the memory of her horrid face remained. Grinning at him.
—
Chapter 25
It was a dream. Of course it was.
It had to be.
Milly was unwrapping her warm legs from Ann’s face. Ann had no breath. “That wasn’t bad,” Milly said. “You’re learning.”
Milly’s naked body shined pale white in the lamplight. Excitement filled her nipples. Ann sat up, wiped her mouth off on her wrist. Where am I? she thought. She was sitting on a carpet. When she looked up, she gasped. She saw a bed, but why was she on the floor? Then she heard grim, steady beeping. This wasn’t Milly’s room at all. It was her father’s.
“Let’s see if I can find it,” Milly said. She was bending over one of the dresser drawers, looking for something.
But Ann was aghast. Her father’s pallid form lay still in the bed, his face sunken. Needles jammed in his arm led up to inverted IV bottles on wheeled stands. Suddenly, his old mouth popped open, and he groaned.
“You seemed to like the black one a lot last night,” Milly was commenting. Was that a bottle of milk on the dresser? “Ah, here it is. I think you’ll like this one even more.”
Ann wanted to scream when she saw what Milly was talking about. From the drawer, the nude nurse had extracted another strap-on phallus. But this one was flesh-colored, longer, and much thicker. Milly was on her knees now, calm as she strapped the grotesque apparatus onto her hips. She turned, still kneeling. The rubber prong pointed at Ann. “Suck it awhile,” Milly said. “Pretend it’s a real cock, and suck it.”
Ann felt shrinking. Her will tore like frayed fabric. She was repulsed, but she could not disobey.
As instructed, she commenced. Milly tittered. She leaned her groin forward, hands on hips, grinning. “That’s it, that’s a good little cocksucker.”
Ann, eyes squeezed shut, could barely get it in her mouth. She could feel the hideous molded veins. Against her tongue she could feel the hole centered in the bulblike glans.
“This one’s got balls too,” Milly said.
Ann remembered the molded rubber testicles of last night’s phallus. This one, though, was different. She brought her hand beneath it and felt a rubber bag of some kind, filled with some warm fluid. Then she saw the rest, a tube leading out, attached to a rubber squeezeball, a pump.
“Keep sucking,” Milly ordered. “Suck me like you do Martin.” She was sighing now, as though she really felt something. Ann was mortified, at Milly, and at herself for doing this. Why couldn’t she stop, get up, leave?
“Yeah, I wish I had a real cock,” Milly was saying, “just for tonight. A great big long real cock to fuck you with, to come all over your face with.”
Ann tried to perform her task more intently, for she knew when Milly tired of this, she’d want to put the monstrous thing somewhere else.
“Almost real, huh?” Milly was grinning. Then she pushed Ann’s mouth off. “Hold still,” she said. She began to stroke the rubber penis in front of Ann’s face.
“I—” Ann queried. “What are you—”
“Lean up.” The odd pale pendant lay between Milly’s breasts. “I’m going to come in your face.” Her other hand began to squeeze the rubber ball.
Ann flinched, closed her eyes. With each squeeze, the phallus squirted a jet of warm milk into Ann’s face.
“There. You like that?”
Ann could not respond. More milk jetted from the artificial glans. One spurt went right into Ann’s mouth. The rest ran down her breasts and legs.
Why is she doing this? Ann wondered in turmoil. Milk dribbled from her lips. Why can’t I leave?
That was certain. The more she wanted to flee from this perverse masquerade, the more she knew she couldn’t.
It’s a dream, she assured herself. Just a dream.
“Hands and knees,” Milly ordered.
“Milly, please. Don’t—”
Milly slapped her face. “Just do it.”
Milk dripped off Ann’s nipples. She shut her eyes, humiliated. Milly knelt right up behind her and inserted the rubberized phallus into Ann’s sex.
She nearly yelped. The thing was huge, it bulged her. She almost fainted when she felt how deeply the prosthetic probed her. Her mind seemed like a jigsaw, throwing pieces. Part of her thought, Thank God Dad’s unconscious, thank God he can’t see this, while another part continued to reassure, Don’t worry, it’s just a dream. It’s not real.
She gritted her teeth as the thing slid hugely in and out. Each thrust nudged the bulb of her cervix. “You like it, right?” Milly asked.
“Please, Milly, I—”