by Ray Garton
“I think it more than mere coincidence, my Lord,” the man went on, “that of all the disciples, past and future, ’tis I you turn to for this weighty task. So, my Lord . . . what shall be my reward?”
There was silence for a moment and Sylvia realized she was shitting and wetting herself and her only thought, weak and somewhat muddled, was, The chair . . . the chair . . . it’ll have to be reupholstered . . .
“Do what I demand,” the voice finally said, “bring together all three parts . . . and you shall be Him.”
“Him? Lord . . .” The man did not understand.
“My only begotten son.”
The man took in a stunned breath and whispered solemnly, “Lord of Bedlam . . .”
“He who shall rebuild in my image,” the voice said grandly. “He who comes not in peace . . .”
“But in wrath. It . . . shall . . . be me.”
A tingling arose in the lips of Sylvia’s vagina and the desire she’d felt minutes ago returned in an overwhelming rush. She inched her hand down between her legs to ease the longing, clutching her vagina hard.
“Do as I have told you,” the voice said, fading now. “And let my eyes be your guide . . .”
Something drained from inside Sylvia as she pressed down on her most private part.
“Yes, Lord,” the man said, stepping between Sylvia’s legs. “Your eyes . . .”
He reached down and cupped her breasts in enormous hands, sending shivers through Sylvia’s body. Bending down, he kissed her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks, mouth, and throat, working his way down to her breasts, where he licked and sucked passionately, squeezing and caressing them. Then he stood again.
“No!” Sylvia rasped desperately, surprised to hear her own voice. “No, d-don’t stuh-stop!”
The man opened his pants, let them fall down his legs, and stepped out of them, stroking his cock.
Sylvia’s mouth stretched open as if yawning, but the gesture was one of surprise, not fatigue.
The man was deformed; short of surgery, it was the only explanation she could think of for the size of his penis.
He hooked his fingers below her knees, pushed her legs back as far as they would go and then some, and plunged himself into her.
Sylvia tried to scream but the pain was so great she could only retch.
“Did you hear, spiritualist?” he panted as he shoved himself in again and again. His voice became a shout with each thrust. “Are you utterly impressed, woman? You are the first to lay eyes upon the new messiah!”
Sylvia felt as if she were being gutted with a baseball bat.
He kneaded her breasts, squeezing them hard just below the eyeballs. Bending forward, he put his open mouth over the eyeball in her left breast and sucked.
Sylvia felt it pulling, disconnecting itself from her flesh until it popped into his mouth with the sound of an oyster being slurped from its shell.
He spat the eyeball into his palm, never once losing his brutal rhythm, then did the same with the other.
She felt warm blood running over her breasts.
Grunting with each thrust of his hips, the man held the eyes before him, one in each hand, and growled through clenched teeth, “The eyes . . . of Satan!”
What was left of Sylvia Malette’s mind had had enough.
She lost consciousness.
After he had emptied himself into the woman, the warlock put his pants on and held the eyes before him, looking at them expectantly.
They were side by side in his cupped hand, staring back at him until—
—they rolled slowly upward.
The warlock followed their gaze—
—to the door that led outside.
He smiled, knowing they would indeed lead him wherever he needed to go.
The woman was sprawled in the chair, blood flowing from the tattered holes in her breasts, from the gaping mouth of her sagging vagina—
—which the cat was contentedly licking.
The warlock gently stroked the cat’s head and said, “ ’Tis here we part, my friend. I’ve much to do.”
Then he left the shop following the direction pointed out by the eyes.
5
More Company
Kassandra parked her Corvair in front of the house but did not get out. Her face was sticky with drying tears that she’d thought would never stop.
The radio played—
“. . . as forecasters predict a return of the Santa Ana condition experienced last night, with winds up to . . .”
—and the digital clock on the tapedeck softly clicked away another minute.
Kassandra sat in the dark, staring at the unlit house. She dreaded going inside but saw no way of avoiding it, so she got out of the car and steeled herself as she went up the walk.
Remnants of yellow police tape were still attached to the house and snickered in the wind.
The shattered window had been boarded.
A coroner’s seal was on the door, broken by entry.
Kassandra stepped inside, stood in the dark and listened for a moment.
There were no delicious aromas coming from the kitchen . . .
No clattering pots and pans . . .
She couldn’t even hear the tick of the clock on the mantel.
Kassandra felt a lump rising in her throat and quickly turned on a light, hoping to stop it. She’d cried so much already that her throat ached.
There were smears of fingerprint powder everywhere—doorjambs, light switches, furniture—and for a moment, Kassandra’s stomach sank with dread because she knew how pissed Chas would be when he saw the mess in his living room . . .
Then she remembered he wouldn’t see it.
Kassandra tossed her bag onto the sofa and headed to the kitchen for a Coke, trying to think of a place to crash for the night, a few nights, even, because she was not going to stay in this house—
—with blood on the carpet.
She stood with one hand on the doorknob, about to go into the kitchen, when she spotted two sloppy shoeprints on the carpet heading in the opposite direction.
Maybe they hadn’t cleaned it up.
Maybe the kitchen was just as they’d found it that morning.
Maybe she could pick up a Coke later at the 7-11.
The shoeprints on the carpet made Kassandra nervous and even more anxious to get out of the house. She took her shoulder bag from the sofa to her room. She picked up her cordless telephone and stared at it a moment, deciding finally to call Rick. They’d had a thing a few months ago—a very brief thing—which Kassandra had ended because she’d slept with bosses before and found it only led to one thing: unemployment. But she did not want to be alone that night and, although he was her boss, Rick was one of the few men she knew who could have a real conversation about more than just one thing.
So she punched in his number, cradled the phone between ear and shoulder and began packing a few essentials into her bag—insulin kit, makeup, tampons, sparkle stockings—as she listened to the voice of his answering machine.
“Hi, this is Rick. Sorry I’m not in but you can talk to my machine when it beeps. Catch you when I can.”
“Fuckin’ machine,” she grumbled when she heard the beep. “C’mon, Rick pick up the phone.” She waited but heard only a hissing silence. “Okay, look. It’s me, Kassandra, around nine o’clock. Just thought I’d come over and keep you company tonight. I know how spooked you get on nights like this.” She went to her dresser, grabbed her diaphragm, and packed it, too. “I’ll be there in—”
Something moved within the house.
Kassandra spun around and stared at the open door of her room, squeezing the receiver so hard it crunched a little.
The shadows of blowing tree branches outside her window danced on the walls.
Maybe there was a mistake, she thought. Maybe Chas is okay and he has come back—
—with no tongue, a finger gone, bite marks all over, and a big red-black stain in the seat of his pants?
>
She laughed nervously and sniffled, saying, “Okay, so . . . I’m the one who’s spooked. And . . . lonely. Oh, Rick, it’s been a bad day. Such a bad day. Um, figure an hour or so, ’kay? Be there.”
Kassandra started packing again, faster now, zipped up her bag and—
—something creaked.
She turned very slowly toward the door again, because the sound had definitely come from the hallway. Her heart thundered in her ears.
A shadow oozed over the hallway floor just outside her bedroom.
A shadow with arms.
Kassandra pressed her lips together to keep from crying out and quickly looked around her for a solution.
If she tried to shut the door, the intruder could be through it before she’d even crossed the room.
She could sneak over to the window, throw it open, and crawl out. He wouldn’t be prepared for that because he couldn’t see her.
But he could.
She saw him in the mirror above her dresser, he was pressed to the wall just outside her door, staring at her reflection.
Kassandra dropped her bag and bolted for the window with pounding footsteps close behind her and—
—she reached the window, fumbled with the latch, but—
—a strong hand clutched her arm, spun her around, and clamped over her mouth.
“Sh-sh-ssshh!” the intruder hissed. He was not the man who’d come through the window as she’d suspected, but his appearance was just as odd. His reddish brown hair was a mess, falling to his shoulders and tangled in his beard. He wore a patched old fur coat that reached past his knees and, although he had no reason to, he looked frightened.
His free hand dangled something before her face: the thumblocks that had belonged to Chas’s killer.
“Did he bleed?” the man asked. “The one who wore these? Did he bleed whatsoe’er?”
He waited for the question to sink in, then removed his hand.
Kassandra screamed.
The man slapped her hard in the face, shouting, “Peace, woman!”
“Peace?” Kassandra barked, holding her stinging face with one hand and doubling the other into a fist. Diving toward him, her rage outweighing her fear, she screamed, “Here’s some peace, you son of—”
The man shunted the blow, spun her around, wrapped an arm around her chest, and steered her out of the room, muffling her cries of protest with one hand. He wrestled her down the hall, through the living room and—
—toward the kitchen door.
Kassandra bit his hand and, when he pulled it away, she screamed, “No! No, I’m not going in there! Nooo goddamn—”
He pushed her in, let go of her, and Kassandra tripped, falling to her knees, eyes turned to the floor.
Dried blood was spread over the floor before her in a nightmarish design.
Not wanting to but unable to resist, she slowly raised her head.
It was everywhere, dried to the color of rust. It was splashed on the walls, spattered on hanging copper pots and pans, and baked onto the stove. Bloody handmarks were smeared over cupboards and the refrigerator door. Blood even speckled the ceiling.
“He was here,” the man said. “His signature I know. But I can find the beast only if his blood was spilt.”
Kassandra heard him, but his voice sounded far away because all her attention was focused on the blood . . . Chas’s blood . . .
It was too much. Her stomach clutched and she slapped a hand over her mouth as she retched.
The man lifted her by her arm and impatiently led her out of the kitchen to the boarded window.
“He came through this window-glass, did he not? Landing here?” He pointed to the floor.
Kassandra was trembling and still fighting back her gorge and there was no fight left in her. She managed to squeeze out a few words.
“Big guy? Him?”
He nodded and said, “Was he cut?”
Kassandra shook her head and started to say no, he wasn’t, but then she remembered.
“Wait. He . . . yeah, he was c-cut, but . . . they healed. Fast.”
“Show me where.”
“Well . . . here,” she said, waving at the floor.
“I see no blood.”
She scrubbed her face a moment, trying to calm herself and get the smell of old blood from her nose, and was struck with an idea.
Kassandra hurried to the hall closet where she got the vacuum cleaner, detached the bag, and took it to the living room. She opened the top and dumped the contents on the floor before her.
“Here,” she said, kneeling beside the messy heap, “this is the glass that cut him.”
Glass shards glinted in the pile of dust and lint. The stranger knelt beside her and gingerly sorted through the glass until he found a piece crusted with blood, then another.
“They may do,” he said, inspecting the fragments.
From his coat, he removed a small glass vial, and from his boot a long dagger. Making agile use of his fingers, he used the dagger to scrape the old blood from each piece of glass and into the vial.
Watching him, Kassandra realized he’d become totally absorbed in his task and took advantage of the opportunity to carefully crab-step away from him. She went down the hall to her room, grabbed the phone and dialed 911.
“Nine-one-one emergency,” a quiet male voice said.
“Yeah, listen,” she whispered. “There’s some guy in the house with me. I don’t know how dangerous he is but, um, he’s got a thing for blood, so, y’know, draw your own conclusions.”
She could hear the man tinkering around in the living room.
“And somebody was . . . my roommate was killed here earlier today, so . . . you know, if you could . . .” She was trembling again, sick with fear at the thought that she might meet the same fate as Chas.
“Address?” the voice asked.
She gave him the address and added, “My name’s Kassandra Kaye, Kassandra with a K. But, hey, don’t expect me to be waitin’ around for you guys.” She tried to sound confident, tough, more to convince herself than the man on the phone. “ ’Cause I’m skatin’ right about now.”
Kassandra hung up the phone, crossed her bedroom, and tried to quietly open the window. Once the sash was up, she leaned over the sill and started crawling out.
A hand clutched her ankle and pulled.
“No!” she shouted and began screaming out the window.
She was silenced when she hit the floor with a thud.
Kassandra waited.
She waited for him to pounce on her and begin stabbing her with his dagger—
—or strangling her—
—or ripping her clothes off—
—but he didn’t.
He towered over her, still holding his glass vial, patiently waiting for her to move.
When Kassandra brought herself uncertainly to her feet, he said, “Your well. Where would it be?”
“My whale?”
“Your well. The place you draw water.”
“Oh. My well. Yeah.”
He’s insane, she thought as she led him into the bathroom. The other guy, too, both of them, loopier than rollercoasters, talkin’ wells and shit, Jesus God make those motherfuckers get here!
She pointed to the sink.
The man stepped toward it, eyeing the single-levered faucet with suspicion. Tossing a sidelong glance at Kassandra, he reached out, took the lever in hand, and pumped it up and down.
Kassandra watched in disbelief thinking, This guy is confused.
He caught a few trickles of water in his vial and shook it; the water turned a murky reddish brown. Holding it up before his eyes, the man whispered, “Now, brute . . . one last time will we play the game out.”
Kassandra started to back out of the bathroom, but the stranger stepped forward and kicked the door shut.
Nailing her to the floor with stern eyes, he took from his coat pocket a wooden box, opened it, and removed several delicate rods of copper and brass. With the rod
s, he erected a pedestal which fit into the wooden box lid and stood straight and firm on the corner of the sink. Atop the pedestal, he set a small rod, like a pointer, and attached to it the vial of rehydrated blood which hung down the center of the pedestal. He waited for the pointer to level.
In spite of herself, Kassandra was intrigued.
“What is it?” she asked.
He laid a finger to his lips. “Peace. Do not even breathe on it.”
She whispered, “Some kinda compass?”
“Witch compass,” he said, eyes locked on the pointer.
“This one here.”
“What of it?”
“What is it?”
He turned to her and spoke with annoyed deliberation. “As I say, ’tis a witch compass.”
“Oh, that kinda witch. Like . . . Samantha?”
“Like the warlock.”
“Oh. So . . . like, that guy was, um, a warlock?”
“The rudest that ever troubled daylight.”
Kassandra was gripped by a powerful urge to burst into laughter. It was fluttering in her chest, working its way up, a great big gut-jerking laugh. But she gulped it down, afraid that if she laughed, he’d put that long dagger into her.
“And . . . and so this little jobber’ll . . . find him?”
“The needle shall point up his direction. The quicker it swings, the closer is he. The slower, the more distant.”
Tears stung Kassandra’s eyes as she was struck by the certainty of her death. The man was completely gone, so far gone that he’d constructed an entire bizarre world order by which he lived, a complete restructuring of things. He was like Charles Manson, one of those guys whose insanity had become a living, breathing reality that only he understood.
She felt on the verge of unraveling and leaned weakly on the edge of the sink.
The man frowned intensely at the pointer, waiting . . .
“In time,” he muttered. “The blood was thin.”
Through the darkness outside the small bathroom window, Kassandra saw a red and blue flash growing brighter and brighter as the police car pulled up the drive.
The man noticed the lights and peered out the window. After staring a moment, he spoke in a voice filled with the surprised confusion of a little boy lost in a department store.
“Though first I did think this was New Castle . . . or a township of the Carolinas . . . now I think I am . . . a bit . . . farther . . . removed.” He glanced at her, then looked back out the window. “Much farther.”
