Brown Overalls gave Talytha a shrewd look, asking, “You related to Maleeka?”
The crone rolled her eyes and shook her head, screeching, “Of course, she’s related to Keeka! Just look at her!”
The guy who’d been mostly invisible up until now was forty-something, with a bushy, graying mustache. He looked up from his cowboy boots, shot a disgusted glare at the wrinkled lady, and apologized. “You’ll have to forgive my mother. She’s old and feebleminded.”
Talytha giggled nervously when the old bag retorted, “Feebleminded, my dust-fartin’ ass!”
The face of the man in brown overalls was no longer so red. His eyes, however, hadn’t lost any of their mad-frantic glint. He ignored the others and asked Talytha directly, “You are Maleeka’s sister, aren’t ya?”
Since he at least correctly pronounced her sister’s name, Talytha said, “Yes.”
“Well,” said Brown Overalls, shoving both hands into his pockets, “Dave’s place isn’t hard to find at all. He’s just a couple miles outside town.”
Talytha didn’t question them talking about a David Johnson instead of a Darnel Johnson. This was exactly what she secretly suspected: Maleeka was living with a white man.
When Maleeka told Talytha on the phone that her new boyfriend was from Paintersville, Montana, Talytha automatically assumed he was white. Maleeka became indignant and swore Darnel was black.
The sad truth was that Grandma Diana was racist herself. If one of her granddaughters were to bring home a white boy, she’d disown her. Talytha loved her grandmother with all her heart but she also recognized how bigoted the older generation could be about race, which was probably why Talytha didn’t let this old Caucasian woman get to her too much.
Talytha knew Maleeka would lie about her boyfriend’s skin color, turning David into Darnel, simply to appease an old woman 1,300 miles away (who was likely to die before she ever met the guy.)
So Talytha asked, “Can you tell me how to get there?”
The man in brown overalls pointed vaguely, saying, “You go back out here to the main highway and head north. Go about six miles, until ya get to the—”
The guy in the green baseball cap startled the hell out of Talytha by shouting, “Why are you doing this? You know what happened to her sister!”
Alarmed, Talytha looked directly at Green-cap and asked, “What happened to my sister?”
Green-cap’s face was cold and bloodless but his eyes were hot and bloodshot, gleaming violently. With frenzied gestures, he implored the other men, “You know we can’t just let her go! You know he’s going to want her!” He jabbed a finger at Brown Overalls, bellowing, “Tell me I’m wrong!”
Talytha didn’t have a clue what’s going on here and had no desire to find out. Genuinely frightened by this crazy man’s outburst, she decided it was time to seek out the local authorities.
She didn’t exactly run but she hurried away without saying another word.
As she turned the corner down the aisle that led to the front door, she heard five cries behind her.
Green-cap screamed, “You know I’m right!”
A man shouted, “She’s bolting!”
Another man whined, “We don’t want to make him angry!”
To which the old crone replied, “He’s gonna be tickled to death when he gets a load of this’un!” She laughed a cackle that sounded like a gurgling brushfire.
And the woman with eyes puffy from crying shouted louder than any of them, “DON’T LET HER GET AWAY!”
Talytha ran.
Suddenly there was a loud slam beside her, startling a squeak out of her. She was nearly to the end of the aisle, nearly to the door, when the entire section of soft drinks received a jarring blow from the other side, causing cartons and two-liter bottles to spill onto the floor, directly in her path. As long twelve packs of Coca-cola bust open, sending dented cans rolling, Talytha stepped on one of those cans, tripped, and fell on her butt.
Someone (the owner of the Paintersville general store in all likelihood) shouted, “Oh, why’d you have to do that, for God’s sake! Don’t tear the place up!”
“Don’t hurt her!” wailed the young woman.
“GET her!” shrieked the old crone.
Talytha clamored to her feet, looking back in the direction of the threat, back up at the mirror. She saw the cluster of people was still near the counter. Virtually no one had moved, except she didn’t spot either Green-Cap or Plaid Shirt. Wincing, her ass hurting, she turned and saw the only thing between her and the door were cans, bottles, and a growing cola slick. Several two-liter bottles were hissing out of their broken seals.
She hopped and leapt and made her way past the obstacles. At the end of the aisle, just as she reached the front door, she caught a glimpse of someone to her right, turned, and yelped when she saw Plaid Shirt standing there.
Pointing a long fingernail at him, Talytha yelled, “You stay away from me!”
She heard the floorboard creak behind her as Plaid Shirt backed away. Someone was sneaking up on her.
Before she could react to that realization, she was bashed in the back of the head.
She had a brief flutter of consciousness from the floor. She was looking up at Green-cap, who was looking down at her, a shovel in his hands.
Then, for a long time, Talytha Taylor knew nothing more.
******
She awoke to pain and the talk of cruel men.
Her head throbbed and she almost moaned aloud. Somehow she managed to keep still.
“— any wonder he snapped?”
“We’re all on edge. Things will get back to normal after tonight.” Talytha thought she recognized this guy’s voice. It was Brown Overalls, the red-faced guy from the store.
“I still can’t believe he hit her like that. I swear, a year ago, Pete Proctor was the quietest guy in this town! He didn’t even hunt, for God’s sake! He wouldn’t hurt a fly!”
“A lot’s happened in the last year.”
“Fuck, yeah. And none of it good.”
She realized she was in a moving car when they hit a pothole in the road. The jar to her body caused her head to flare. She bit back a moan, grimacing, tears squeezing out of her closed eyelids.
From the front of the car, Brown Overalls said, “I can’t believe we’ve sunk this low. This really sucks.”
“Stop saying that! We do what we’ve gotta do! To save both ourselves and our loved ones! Christ on a stick, man! Don’t you remember what happened to the last do-gooders who defied him?”
“Oh, I remember all right. If I ever do live to see an end to this, I’ll never forget their screams.”
“You’ll live to see the end of this. Most of us will. Eventually we’ll figure out how this fucker does it. I still think it’s the paint. There’s something bizarre about that paint he uses.”
Brown Overalls laughed, totally without mirth. “There’s something bizarre about all of this! Wrack your brains if you want, Sheriff,” Sheriff? Talytha jumped as if goosed, “but there’s no logical explanation for what this guy does. There’s no radioactivity or mutant whatever in the friggin’ paint!”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re one of those fools who actually believes he’s some kind of devil from Hell!”
“Not a devil, no. But a demon? Damn straight. Just look what he did to the church!”
“What about you, Doc? You’re being awfully quiet back there. What do you think?”
Talytha was startled again when she heard someone right next to her say, “She’s awake.”
“What?”
Talytha’s heart was pounding so hard— in both her head and her chest— she found it difficult to think, difficult to breathe. She was in a moving vehicle with three men— Brown Overalls, a Sheriff, and a Doctor. She was too frightened to open her eyes, she wanted to go on feigning unconsciousness, but she didn’t know what good that would do.
Doc said, “How are you feeling, Talytha?”
An involuntary m
oan escaped her when he said her name.
The Sheriff asked, “She gonna be all right, Doc?”
“Yeah. Pete must have restrained himself.” The direction of his voice changed, aimed again at Talytha. “She’s going to have a helluva headache for a while though.”
Talytha opened her eyes and, wincing, she sat up, saying, “Can’t you give me something for the pain, Doc?” She couldn’t believe her own bravado. Her mouth always got her into trouble. When she was frightened or upset she often became flippant.
The doc was not at all what she expected. She had mentally pictured an elderly man but this guy looked like he was struggling to hit his mid-twenties. Dressed in a tight-fitting black suit, he had the face of a teenager. He even had a touch of acne; zits dotted his chin and his forehead along his hairline.
He stared at Talytha with an expression of sad distress.
Talytha realized she was riding in a police vehicle. A grated screen separated her from the men in front. The white-haired man she thought of as Brown Overalls was driving. Riding shotgun was a big, burly, bald man dressed in a brown Sheriff’s uniform.
It was the Sheriff who addressed her, turning around in the front seat so he could look at her with tiny green eyes. “I didn’t handcuff you but I can if you give us any shit. So don’t give us any shit, okay? Just shut up and enjoy the ride. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
The pain brought out the sassiness in her. Wincing, she told him, “It’s too late for that.”
After a moment of silence, Brown Overalls said, “It was Pete Proctor that hit ya.” He met Talytha’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Trust me when I tell ya, he’s gonna pay dearly for that.”
The Doc said, “Amen, brother.”
The Sheriff shook his head and grumbled under his breath, “Fucking demon from Hell, my hairy white ass!”
Talytha realized she was wearing a bandage wrapped around her head. She reached up to feel her aching skull and the doctor said, “Don’t touch it. You don’t want to start it bleeding again.”
Talytha rasped, “How do you know my name?”
The Sheriff recited, “Talytha Tomeka Taylor, age twenty-four, sister of Maleeka, daughter of Terrence and Betty. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. So far, still not married, and you have no kids, but you do have a pet ferret named Cassio. Right?”
Suddenly, she couldn’t stop panting. There was so little air at the moment, she wouldn’t give up any of it to form words.
The Sheriff growled, “Just shut the fuck up until we get there, okay?” He shot a furious glance back over his shoulder. “You too, Doc.”
The car was buffeted by another strong blast of wind. God seemed to be trying to blow them off the road. Talytha hoped He succeeded. She didn’t want to meet whoever was waiting at the end of this drive.
Silently, she began to pray.
When more strong gusts hit the car, Doc exclaimed, “Goddamn! Keep this thing on the road, will ya?”
Brown Overalls snapped, “You wanna drive?”
The door had no handle; there was no way she could jump out even if she wanted to (and she really didn’t want to, considering how badly her head hurt). Talytha looked out the window. She saw nothing but darkness and trees. They were cruising through a forest.
A distant flash shuddered across the sky.
“How bad is it supposed to get?” asked Brown Overalls.
“Bad,” said the Sheriff. “I saw the Doppler on TV right before I left. Everything west of here is lit up for miles.”
Talytha couldn’t believe they were talking about the weather. Dizzy, she leaned over, until her head was almost on her knees. She rode like this for the last five minutes of the journey and didn’t see the church from her window.
Eventually the Sheriff’s car came to a stop.
Talytha’s head was still down. If she had sand to bury it in, she would have done so gleefully.
The men in the front of the car opened their doors to get out. A blast of muggy air rushed in.
A moment later, the doors in back were opened. Brusquely, Talytha was told to, “Get out.”
She raised her head and looked up at the Sheriff. She didn’t know what possessed her to say, “Nice town you got here, man. Do you treat all tourists like this or am I getting special treatment because I’m black?”
The Sheriff slapped her across the face. “I told you not to give me any shit!”
Crying, a red handprint rising on her cheek, her head throbbing, Talytha shrieked, “Fuck you!”
The Sheriff shook his head. “Just like your sister. Full of attitude.” He drew his gun. “All right, Sweetheart. I’m not about to mess with you.” A blast of wind hit the Sheriff so hard, he momentarily staggered. She noticed he hadn’t bothered putting on a hat. Loudly, he informed her, “If you run, I swear to God, I’ll shoot you.”
Spit flew from her mouth as she snapped back, “What? You wanna end up like Pete?” She was bluffing. She wasn’t even totally certain Pete was Green-cap but she thought he was and it sounded like Pete might have gotten into trouble for hurting Talytha.
Whatever the case, the bluff seemed to work. The Sheriff’s eyes narrowed almost to the point of nonexistence. Looking worried, he took a couple of steps back from the automobile. His expression then turned stony, just before he pointed his pistol and yelled, “Get the FUCK out of the car!”
She did as he demanded. She got out of the cruiser.
She found herself in a parking lot, with thirty or more parked cars. The wind howled in the high branches of the trees surrounding this isolated place.
When Talytha turned around and saw the church, pain and fear were both briefly obliterated by unbounded revulsion.
Talytha was raised Baptist. Unless she was deathly ill, every Sunday until she was eighteen years old, she was expected to be in church with the rest of her family. She never sang in the church choir like Maleeka or taught a Sunday school class like her mom but she did consider herself to be a devout Christian.
When Talytha Taylor saw the church sitting on the hill hidden in the forest outside Paintersville, she was shocked to her very soul.
A simple pillbox of a structure, the one-story rectangular building had a gabled cupola on the roof and atop that was the most perverted thing Talytha had ever seen. The steeple had been replaced by a gigantic phallus, complete with a gargantuan set of testicles. Thirteen feet tall, the wooden penis had been painted Caucasian flesh color and was topped like a mushroom instead of a cross.
It was absolutely obscene.
As was the rest of the church.
She imagined it must have been painted white at some point in the past, with maybe hunter green shutters, but now the building was glossy black with scarlet-colored shutters. The front door of the church had been painted bright red and mounted above the entrance were two huge erect dildos, crossing each other, as if they were swords.
And all across the outside walls of the chapel, Talytha could see portraits of nude people engaged in various sex acts.
Her first thought was, It’s Satanic. She considered the possibility that these men who abducted her were devil worshipers. But as she was herded toward the building— wincing into the wind— Doc, the Sheriff and Brown Overalls all behind her— she realized there were no pentagrams or swastikas on the church.
It was more like a temple devoted to Dionysus than Lucifer.
The closer she got to the chapel, the more unnerving details she saw. Like the depiction of a man fornicating with a sheep, one so realistic Talytha could see hairs on the man’s naked ass and slobber drooling from the muzzle of the ewe. Elsewhere she saw two naked men engaged in sodomy. Beside them was the painting of two elderly men having sex with a young girl. The entire structure was heaped with naked bodies, displaying a perverted painted orgy that was so realistic, she would have sworn she could see some of the participants squirming.
The Sheriff stepped up beside Talytha, saying, “My portrait is around back, if you wanna see wha
t I’m packing.” He grabbed his crotch with the hand not holding his gun.
Overalls said to the Sheriff, “I swear to God, you enjoy this shit.”
The Sheriff shrugged. “When in Rome....”
All around them, trees swayed and shook and hissed and clattered from the continual blasts of fast winds.
“Come on,” said Overalls, giving Talytha a shove.
The moment the doors to the church were opened, Talytha heard Sean Kingston performing Beautiful Girls and she wondered if this hellhole was some kind of brothel.
“Go on,” demanded the Sheriff, poking her painfully in the back with his pistol.
Stumbling up three small steps, she crossed the threshold.
Behind Sean Kingston’s damnations, Talytha heard the sound of weeping.
Pushed and prodded across a small lobby, Taliltha entered the sanctuary.
The church could accommodate two hundred people but there were only about seventy or eighty people here tonight. There were three aisles, two columns of ten pews, and each pew was able to seat ten people. As Talytha was driven down the middle aisle, a murmur shuffled through the congregation. Numerous people turned around to view her entrance.
She only saw the good citizens of Paintersville with her peripheral vision. Her attention was focused on the naked man on the raised stage where the pulpit should be.
Her first view of the Painter was his bare ass. She raised her eyes, looking at the back of his head, his bushy black mane. Paintbrushes in both hands, he seemed to be both making art and directing the music, waving his arms in wild flourishes. Talytha could see a painting just now taking shape in front of him, the portrait of an infant.
To the left of the easel was a boombox on a pedestal. To the right of the easel was the crib where the Painter’s subject lay sleeping.
When the Painter suddenly stopped directing with one hand and clasped it in front of him, onto the woman’s head— only then did Talytha realize he was currently receiving fellatio. Talytha caught just a glimpse of the middle-aged woman giving the Painter a blowjob.
Like an automated reaction to this scene, Talytha turned without thinking, intent on fleeing.
She found the Sheriff’s gun hanging in the air three inches away from the end of her nose.
Fishing in Brains for an Eye with Teeth (Thirteen Tales of Terror) Page 5
