“And for about thirty seconds, the drag truck will be separated from the others.”
“Not much time.”
“Enough for what we have to do.”
Five minutes later, Sam glanced in his rearview mirror, uttered a low curse, then pulled over, stopping.
Chester walked up to Sam’s pickup. “What’s wrong?”
“Only four trucks. Jimmy and Peter are gone.”
They backtracked over the trail, slowly, nerves tense, looking. But they found nothing. No tire tracks, no sign of a struggle. Nothing.
“Where are they, Sam?” Miles asked.
“On their way to Hell. Come on, let’s go.”
“SAM, LOOK!” Doris screamed, pointing to a low hill just to their right.
Eyes swung, mouths opening in disgusted horror. A band of disfigured, almost non-human forms lurched down the hill toward them, waving clubs and sticks as they grunted along. They drew closer, Sam and his group recognizing the madness in them, the grotesque disfigurement making them appear almost subhuman.
Sam lifted his Thompson, clicking the SMG off safety.
You’re not going to kill them!?” Tony said.
What choice do we have?”
“But they’re not themselves, Sam! It isn’t their fault. It would be wrong.”
The slobbering pack of lunatics came closer, grunting, snorting, waving their clubs and sticks.
“That’s just fine, Tony,” Sam said. “You want to stand here and reason with them?” he pointed to the rapidly approaching band of inmates.
“They’re homicidal, Tony,” Wade said. “That’s why the government sent them here. One of the reasons,” he added.
“They’re sick people, Wade,” the doctor stubbornly held on to his convictions.
Sam leveled the Thompson and squeezed the trigger. The answer yammer of Chester’s Greaser joined the staccato. The hill was quiet except for a man moaning in pain and a woman speaking in a series of bizarre grunts of agony.
“I’ll get my bag,” Tony said.
“No, you won’t,” Sam contradicted. “Not unless you want to stay here with them—alone. We’re pulling out.”
The doctor met the minister’s steady gaze. “You’re a cold bastard!”
Sam’s grin was tight. “Keep him here, Ches.” He walked up the hill and put the escapees out of their multiple misery with single shots to the head.
Sam knelt down beside one of the mutants, studying him. The face was almost non-human, with large bumpy nodules growing from the skin. Hands, arms, and upper torso was deformed, the skin a sickly gray color.
“You want to see this, Tony?” he called.
“Hell, no, Reverend Balon!” the doctor slurred the “Reverend.”
Wade met Sam on his way back from the scene of death. “He’s still pretty young, Sam, and more than a bit idealistic about life.”
“He’d damn well better get over it. Or he’ll never make it through the next few days. I’m not carrying any dead weight.”
Peter Canford screamed out his pain, refusing to deny his God. He lay naked on the floor of the parsonage, his hands and feet nailed to the floor.
Jimmy Perkins lay whimpering on the bed in what had once been Michelle’s room. Strange music played, covering the now dull screaming of Peter. Heavy Eastern incense filled the room, blunting Jimmy’s senses. Nydia lay naked on the bed beside the young man. The room was darkened with heavy drapes, only one small candle burned, illuminating the scene.
Nydia kissed his mouth, sliding her tongue between his lips, slipping her hand to his crotch, fondling him through his jeans.
“Look at me, Jimmy,” she whispered, and he cut his eyes to her beauty. “I’m not a bad person. Oh, lots of people say bad things about me—about those like me, but they’re not true. Have we hurt you, Jimmy?”
“No,” he slurred the word, touching her bare shoulder, silky under his hand. His resistance weakened as he thought: No, they haven’t hurt me; they’ve been good to me. Maybe Sam was wrong? Yes, he was pretty sure Sam was wrong.
The strange incense and the hypnotic music worked on his mind.
Nydia lifted a heavy white breast with her hand, touching the nipple to Jimmy’s lips. His mouth closed around the nipple as she stripped him. He lay naked on the bed, aroused and thickening.
“We’ll be good to you, Jimmy,” she moaned, feigning great pleasure and passion. “I’ll be good to you. I won’t be like Judy.”
“That bitch!” he mouthed, his tongue busy at the nipple. God! This woman was everything he had ever dreamed of. To hell with Judy.
“She is a bitch,” Nydia said. “She needs to be punished.” She stroked him to full erection, slipping down on the bed, taking him in her mouth, asking, “Would Judy do this for you?”
“No. She said it was—dirty.”
“This is not dirty. This is good. And if it feels good, what can be wrong with it? It feels good, doesn’t it?”
He nodded, unable to speak. The music seemed to grow heavier in his head. The thick incense filled his nostrils, flooding his brain. Jimmy stroked her silky hair, loving the clean feel of it.
“How would you punish her?” Jimmy groaned, as Nydia’s mouth worked at him, licking him.
She withdrew, kissing his belly. “Oh, I’d leave that up to you, my love. Anyway you would like, that would be fine.”
She straddled him, working his hardness into her wetness, groaning with great passion. “Your God is not real, Jimmy. You can see that now, can’t you?”
The words came easy to his tongue. “Yes, yes!”
“He’s a fake—denying you real pleasure.”
“Yes! He is a fake—He’s not real.”
The music mingled with the incense, drifting around him, clouding his reason. The woman straddled him, lunging on his maleness, pumping up and down, telling him how perfect he was, how there had never been a man quite like him—ever.
She spoke the ultimate blasphemy, Jimmy repeating the hideous words, as he began believing them. He had never known this much pleasure.
Nydia, impaled on his manhood, leaned forward, touching her breasts to his chest, her mouth working on his. “We’ll punish Judy,” she whispered. “You and I.” And she told him how.
Her mouth moved to his neck, her lips pulling back, teeth bared and needle-pointed as a snake’s. Mortal beings knew nothing of this pleasure: the deliciousness of drinking warm, sweet/salty blood while in the throes of a shivering climax. She began to moan in climax as her teeth sank into Jimmy’s neck, sucking a small amount of blood from him. She knew he would not notice the slight pain—until it was too late—far too late; until he was her personal servant, to do with as she pleased. Just as Sam Balon would be hers—someday.
In the living room, standing over the sobbing body of Canford, Wilder listened with extraordinary sensories to the witch. His smile was sardonic, evil, hateful. Nydia would go too far someday, he knew. Then he might have to destroy her—if the Master would permit it. But the Master was mildly amused by her antics, and Wilder knew the day would come when he himself would be replaced. And Nydia wanted his position very badly.
He pulled his attentions back to Canford. The fool still resisted, and Black was growing weary of the game. He looked at George Best.
“Take him to the Undead. Tie him securely and leave him for darkness.”
Best licked his lips. “The young girl you had last evening?”
“Yes?”
“Are you done with her?”
Wilder smiled. Best was obsessed with anal lovemaking, male or female, it made no difference to him. It was written in the Book, as were the darkest thoughts of every human on earth. “You may have her for a time. After you take care of this matter,” he glanced down at Canford.
Best followed his eyes. “May I—?”
“If you wish.”
Best smiled.
Thirty minutes later, Peter Canford, bent over and tied, was screaming out his pain and humiliation at
this insult to his masculinity.
As the caravan drew nearer to the Sorenson ranch, signs of the devil’s influence became more obvious. They saw strange carvings on trees, upside-down crosses, blasphemous writings on stones, and hideous stone statues of demons.
“No wonder Karl kept this place under fence and heavy guard,” Jane Ann said. The caravan had passed through a half dozen chain-link fences and guard posts just getting onto the huge ranch property.
The guards lay dead under the summer sun. They had been careless, and Sam was a master of the ambush, showing the others he could be a cold killing machine.
The guards on the close perimeter of the ranch house fell to Sam’s knife, one by one, as his friends lay on a low ridge, watching him work.
“Why don’t we just blow up the place?” Miles asked. “Like you all did the first ranch?” he looked at Chester.
“Sam wants to inspect the Sorenson house. He thinks this is the Cult headquarters; where it all began.”
Gunfire stopped the conversation, followed by a series of explosions. They watched the bunkhouse disintegrate under the fury of a dozen sticks of dynamite. Nothing inside could have lived through that destructive blast of TNT.
“Let’s go!” Chester yelled, running for the trucks.
But it was almost over by the time Sam’s group reached the yard. The minister had been a one-man death squad. He had gunned down the people in the house as they ran into the yard after the first explosion.
“You!” Sorenson spat the word at Sam. He glared up at the preacher through eyes that mirrored hate. His hands clutched at his stomach, perforated with .45 caliber holes.
“Me,” Sam said calmly.
“They’ll get you,” Sorenson spat up blood. “You can’t kill us all.”
“I can try,” Sam lifted the muzzle of the Thompson and squeezed the trigger. He looked at Chester. “You people stay loose. Anything that moves, shoot it. I’m going in the house. I’ve got a bad feeling about that barn, so wait for me before you try going in.”
He walked into the house, knowing what he would find. He was not disappointed. The home was a repository for everything evil.
Chains and whips and torture instruments lay everywhere. Contrivances of sexual perversion could be seen in every room. Huge artificial penises, torture racks, and much more. The sight disgusted Sam. He went from room to room, setting the house on fire.
As smoke billowed around him, Sam stepped out on the porch, watching Chester. The man moved from body to body sprawled in the yard, a .45 in his hand, putting one round in the head of each devil worshipper. Sam glanced at Wade, watching the man work. The editor’s lips were tightly pressed together, his face pale.
Sam knew Wade had never killed before this day. He stepped off the porch. Don’t leave any alive. Kill them, then burn them.” He walked toward the barn.
“Wait!” Wade called. “I’m coming with you.”
The minister’s eyes were cool, a half-smile on his lips. “Then be well cautioned, Wade. What you’ll probably see in there, if they are in there, is something you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life.”
“Taking everything into consideration,” the man retorted, “that might not be all that long a time.”
“Then come on.”
Wade looked behind him one more time. He looked a little ill; he could not take his eyes off Chester, or the manner in which the head exploded as the .45 caliber slug smashed through brain. The bodies seemed to dance on the ground under the impact. He had known Chester all his life, considering him to be one of the finest men in Fork County. An elder in the Church.
“You get used to it after a while,” Sam said. “At least, I did. And I think Chester did, too. In World War II. It’s something every combat vet has to live with. Once a person has learned how to survive, and what must be done, that instinct lies just below the surface, very thinly covered with a civilized veneer.”
Sam swung open the doors to the barn. A stale, musty odor struck them. The odor of evil. The barn was dark.
“God!” Wade said.
“Godless,” Sam corrected. “Like those people lying dead in the yard.”
“Why don’t we just burn this barn down?” Wade asked, as the men stepped into the darkness.
“Because I want to meet those inside. And beat them.”
Outside, Chester had moved his people around the barn, covering all exits. Only one of the women stood at ready: Jane Ann, with the slug-loaded shotgun in her hands. Faye, Anita, and Doris had received a couple of hours of instruction in the use of firearms, but they were not yet mentally ready to use them. Killing is entirely a state of mind, with very little physical effort required, and with most people, it takes time to prepare the mind for what society deems wrong. The women were still in a mild state of shock at the sight of so many dead bodies, and the seemingly ruthless manner in which Chester had disposed of the wounded.
Sam handed Wade his stake, picking up a pitchfork. His smile was hard. “This won’t leave much room for doubt.”
Wade moved to his left, away from Sam. A small bit of hay and dust suddenly drifted down from the loft. An almost inaudible creak of timber.
The barn doors slammed shut behind the men, plunging the barn into darkness. Only a few shards of dusty sunlight leaked through cracks in the barn walls.
“Sam?”
“I heard. Coming.” The minister walked through the gloom. At Wade’s side, he looked up at the disturbed dust filtering from the loft. Back up,” he whispered, lifting the Thompson. When Wade was out of the way, Sam pulled the trigger and held it back.
Splinters flew in all directions. Dust poured down from the loft as the slugs ripped through thin wood flooring. A howling, once-human form hurtled downward, crashing on the barn’s lower level. The thing lurched to its feet, screaming, its yellow eyes glowing in the semidarkness. Still-smoking bullet holes leaked putrid odors from the body.
There was no blood left in Glen Haskell.
“Father Haskell!” Wade shouted.
The thing offered no sign of recognition. Haskell’s hands resembled claws as he moved toward the men, his mouth open, exposing fanged teeth, a thick red tongue. Unable to push words out of its mouth, the creature uttered animal sounds. Haskell howled, then charged.
Sam lifted the pitchfork chest high and the ex-priest ran into the tines, the needle-sharp points driving through lungs and heart and out his back. Filth flew from his mouth as clawlike fingers wound around the wooden handle.
Sam forced the Undead to the floor and savagely drove the pitchfork in and out of its body. Haskell died on the manure covered floor, wallowing in animal excrement. His mouth opened and closed, teeth snapping, snarling sounds from his dying throat fading away into silence.
“SAM!” Wade yelled.
The minister spun around. “Open the doors!” he shouted. “Chester! Open the doors—let the light in!”
In the murkiness of the barn, before Chester could throw open the doors, Sam saw Wade backed up against a wall, a small Beastlike creature stalking him, heavy, hair-covered arms held up, claws working as the editor fumbled for the gun at his side.
Sam tore off the cap from a canteen of Holy Water and hurled it at the Beast. The creature screamed in anguish as the blessed water hit its body, searing the hairy flesh. It spun, and Sam recognized it.
Max Steiner’s youngest boy, Ralph.
“Dear Lord!” Sam said, disbelief in his eyes.
The Steiner boy was half a Beast, from the waist up, as if the transformation had somehow failed to work.
The results were hideous to look upon.
The doors to the barn were thrown open, sunlight pouring into the cavernous building. The half-Beast screamed at the raw light from God, throwing up its arms to protect its eyes.
Wade shot the half-Beast with his .38. But the .38 did not have the knock-down power of Sam’s big .45. The small creature fell backward against a stall wall, shuddered, and charged at Sam. The
minister jerked his .45 from the holster, leveled the muzzle chest high, and pulled the trigger three times. The creature flipped backward as if hit with a mighty foot and bounced off a wall, dead.
Sam ran to Wade’s side, jerking him toward the door. He shoved him outside. “Get out of here!”
Sam backed out of the barn as snarling rolled to him, coming from closed stalls. Roaming Beasts had chosen the Sorenson ranch to hide during the day. Sam slammed a fresh clip in the Thompson and emptied it into the barn, into dusty forms. Screaming filled the barn as Sam yelled over his shoulder, “Chester! Cocktails—now!”
Before leaving camp, the men had prepared a dozen Molotov cocktails, whiskey bottles filled with gasoline and a small bit of flour, with a cloth fuse sticking from the top. The flour, wet, would stick to whatever it struck, burning like napalm.
Chester threw three of the bottles into the barn, the flammable liquid exploding as they smashed against the inside wall, turning the barn into an inferno. As the Beasts attempted to escape the flames, they were shot down.
The cocktails, igniting with the dust particles in the barn, acted as a super bomb, blowing the building apart, the walls and roof caving in. Some ... thing, some non-human form, not a Beast, but yet not a human, crawled from the broken beams and burning walls into the sunlight, its entire body ablaze. It screeched and howled in the light, drumming its bare feet on the ground, then died.
Anita, crouched behind a pickup truck, vomited. The nausea was infectious—as it almost always is—and many of the others followed suit. After a moment, there was heavy coughing and mumbled apologies.
Sam jarred them all when he roared, “Burn the bodies. Drag them in a pile, pour gas on them and burn them!”
When the bodies had been dragged into a makeshift funeral pyre, saturated with gas, and blazing, Sam said, “Wade! Take the point, head straight for Little River Ranch, and don’t slow up. We’ve got the High of combat going now, so we’re going in shooting. Move it!”
Jimmy Perkins screamed out his pleasure as he beat the naked Judy with a piece of rope, marking her white body with red welts, punishing her as Nydia had promised him he could. He fell on her, working out his rage, abusing her with his fists.
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