At the same time, Norm and two other men hauled Jennie roughly onto the table, quickly moving to opposite ends of the "altar" and pulling the girl's ankles and wrists in opposite directions. The result was that Jennie's body was stretched like a tightly pulled rubber band. Her white skin glowed even in the dim auditorium light as Matt revealed what he'd pulled out of the drawer. It was a twelve-inch carving knife, approximately three inches in thickness and sharp as a surgical blade. The handle was made of black ebony wood with strange astrological signs embedded in it.
"Oh no!" Diane groaned as she saw him raise the knife high above his head and mutter something in Latin that she couldn't understand.
"Diane!" the brunette shrieked, craning her neck back and seeing what Matt was doing. "Noooo, don't! Oh God in heaven, don't!"
"Matt! Stop it! Don't!" Diane pleaded along with the brunette as she struggled to break free.
But her husband didn't hear her. He was muttering some obscene prayer, holding the knife as if it were a holy chalice. Finally he finished with a loud grunt, bringing down the knife slowly until it was even with his waist. He turned around and slowly moved behind the table where Jennie was stretched out. Diane's eyes widened with terror. The girl was on display like a piece of meat on a butcher's counter. She glanced at the naked men in the audience. They were transported into some obscure region of the mind Diane knew nothing about. She could feel the excited expectation in the room as everyone seemed to be holding his breath. The dog fucking was obviously a preliminary rite. As Matt moved forward until his thighs pressed against the back edge of the table, Diane realized that the red velvet cloth was actually an altar cloth used in most Catholic churches during Easter. She'd been too frantic before to recognize it. But now she could see the gold cross embroidered on the material. It was pure and simple desecration – the byword of the Black Mass. She'd performed an act of bestiality on that cloth. And now – now, Jennie was going to be sacrificed to their obscene Gods on it.
CHAPTER NINE
The brunette whimpered desperately as Matt lowered the big gleaming carving knife. Her eyes bulged out with horror and her mouth gaped open wide as the pointed tip finally touched just above her right tit.
"Nnnnngh!" the girl gurgled out as she felt the cold, metal tip land on her quivering flesh.
"Matt! Don't!" Diane screamed. Her voice echoed in the silent room as her husband seemed to hesitate for a second. Matt flashed a quick glance at his horrified wife, then pressed down slightly. The gentle pressure on the handle was enough for the sharp tip to slice into Jennie's tender skin.
"AAAAGHH!" the girl screeched out, stiffening her body and arching it high in the air as a tiny trickle of blood oozed out from the half-inch puncture and ran down her right side.
"Animal!" Diane shrieked, turning her head away from the table where Jennie lay screaming and sobbing. Then the air was cut with another scream, louder than the first. Diane jerked her head back and saw that Matt was carving the shrieking brunette's skin freely. The knife dug easily into Jennie's flesh, parting it the way a boat's prow parts the sea as he drew some kind of star-shaped figure on her chest.
"Ahhh! Arrghhh! Nngghhhh!" the girl shrieked over and over. Her body shook violently as she pulled and pushed with her legs. But she was held too tightly for that to do any good. Blood oozed out or the wounds, trickling down to the tabletop and soaking into the soft red velvet. Diane watched with her stomach churning sickeningly as the brunette was being carved up before her eyes.
What seemed like an eternity was finally over – at least for a while! Matt finished his first drawing and pulled back as two men blotted Jennie's bloody belly with a large white cloth. Diane could see that the cuts were relatively superficial. But that didn't take the horror out of the event. Obviously they had just gotten started. What Annette told them earlier suddenly rang back in her mind – the discovery of a dead coed with strange carvings all over her body. They were going to turn both of them into Satanic roadmaps!
"And now…?" Matt said, holding the knife high in the air, directly above Jennie's heart.
"Nooo!" the girl screamed, her eyes bulging out further as her ankles and wrists worked frantically at the leather bonds that tied them together.
"Nooo!" Diane echoed the brunette's cries.
Matt stopped in midair, turning slowly and looking hotly at Diane. He seemed to be enjoying her pleading.
"It's too late for both of us, Diane," he muttered, slipping out of his role of high priest for a second.
"Ohhh Matt, where did we go wrong?" Diane whimpered.
But he was back in his role of priest again. He raised the carving knife again over Jennie, muttering something softly in the air as everyone in the room held his breath again. Jennie howled and twisted on the table in spite of her wounds. Her eyes were glazed over with sheer terror as they riveted themselves onto the tip of that sharp blade dangling only a few feet above her chest.
"Okay! Everybody stand still! This is a bust!" a loud voice suddenly thundered out.
Diane jerked around and saw several campus police running down the aisle to the right with their guns drawn. Behind them was a squad of Los Angeles police. The lights suddenly brightened, startling nearly everyone in the room.
Diane felt the grip on her arms relax. Quickly she shrugged herself free, running up to the table and pushing Jennie off it roughly. Matt seemed dazed for a second. Then the knife shot down into the now-empty tabletop. It was his last act as high priest. While two policemen cuffed Matt and forced him up the side aisle to the first-floor corridor, Diane bent down and untied the moaning Jennie.
"It's okay, honey. We're safe," Diane said, loosening the girl's wrists. "Somebody, get a doctor!" she shouted as she and a policeman fumbled with the leather bonds on the girl's ankles.
"I'm sorry I took so long," Annette said, running up to the table, then around it. "Ohhhh, God!" she said, shrinking back and covering her mouth. "I'm gonna be sick," she whimpered, running back out of the room.
"Ohhh! Ohhh!" Jennie groaned, raising her arms to her carved belly.
"You'll be all right, honey," Diane said, raising her head and watching as the police rounded up all the naked men in the audience. As she stood up and took a blanket handed to her by one of the police, the blonde looked for Jack. She finally spotted him, threading his way through the crowd of police and complaining men. He waved and ran down the aisle as she sighed and leaned against the table, wrapping the blanket tightly to her body. The long nightmare was finally over!
"Never thought I'd wind up in this kind of thing just selling jewelry," Jack said, smiling broadly at her as Diane poured coffee into his cup. The two were sitting in her living room. It was three in the morning and both of them were exhausted. They had had to go to the police station and make out separate reports as to what had happened. Considering the facts, it was a minor miracle that they were out so soon.
"Maybe you should have gone to work for Avon," Diane said, smiling gently as she poured coffee into her own cup, then sat down next to the big man. The two of them sipped the hot liquid silently for several minutes, each trying to sort out what had happened that night.
"You know, what gets me is how something like that could go on in the middle of a university without getting noticed," Jack said, shaking his head slowly back and forth as he put his cup back on the cocktail table in front of the couch.
"Well, I guess it's not too hard to understand if you take a look at who was involved. Almost everybody who had any say about what went on in Haines Hall belonged to that group," Diane said, leaning back and crossing her long legs.