The Haunter Of The Threshold

by Edward Lee

  Finally. Some decent luck. When Hazel got out, she immediately saw the feisty, old Clonner Martin sitting by himself in his wheelchair just outside the front door.

  “Clonner!”

  “Well, hey there, Hazel!” the old man cracked a greeting. “Stoppin’ by fer a late one, I’se see. Well, we’re always glad to have ya.”

  She rushed right up. “Clonner, I came here to talk to you–”

  “Somethin’ wrong? You look a tad troubled. Well, whatever it is, I’se sure I can help out.”

  She leaned closer, eyes wide in the dim lights. “There’s a whole bunch of things happening that aren’t right. Some of the people around here have...changed. I know this sounds nuts, but there’s some kind of weird cult activity going on, and it all has to do with Henry Wilmarth and some things we found in his cabin.”

  Clonner’s wizened face seemed suddenly contemplative. “If’n ya wanna know the truth, Hazel, that don’t sound nuts at all. And you’se right ‘bout some folks changin’. There’s some other really queer stuff I been hearin’ too, like folks waitin’ fer passports, of all things, and—”

  “And some very unlikely locals anticipating trips to other cities, some of them international cites.”

  A look of dread came to Clonner’s eyes. “I heard the same type’a stuff, just over the past two days. And I heard somethin’ else, just tonight...” Clonner looked to either side as if checking for eavesdroppers. “Come on in, we’se’ll go talk in my office...”

  So it’s not just me, Hazel thought in a wash of relief. Strange, though, that the tavern was so quiet in spite of the full parking lot. She opened the door for the old man, waited for him to roll in, then entered behind him.

  There must’ve been thirty people inside, all sitting at tables or at the bar, chatting quietly as they sipped beers. “Low-key night,” Hazel said.

  “Aw, yeah, we’se not all rowdy rednecks here.” Clonner moved his wheelchair to a table, where Ida the barmaid immediately brought him a beer. “Actually, we’se just havin’ our nightly meeting, hon.”

  Hazel’s eyes scanned the interior. She saw several women amongst the patrons, but mostly men. Several she’d seen before, like Nate Peaslee, whom she’d met earlier. Hadn’t his name been on that list? she asked herself. Also, the man and woman—Cal and Emma, she thought—who’d been arguing the other day, with the sheriff playing referee. Plus some others she’d seen around town.

  Very slowly, every single person in the bar turned their heads to look at Hazel...and grin.

  Hazel shrieked when the door banged open behind her, and in walked Clayton and Shot Glass, carrying Sonia inside.

  Several men rushed her in a blur; one got her in a neck-lock, the other picked her up by her ankles.

  Both had scarlet-crystal rings on their fingers.

  “Not you too, Clonner!” Hazel wailed as they carried her to a table and slammed her down on her back. “I thought you were a good person!”

  Clonner guffawed from the chair, cracked, “Then ya thunk wrong,” and took a swig of beer by denturing the can’s lip. “We’se amazed that a gal with yer college smarts could be so blammed stupid. How come ya didn’t leave town?”

  “Because I trusted you! ” and Hazel squirmed uselessly against her marauders as they flipped up her denim skirt and pulled her T.S. Eliot T-shirt up over her breasts. A woman stepped forward and handed them some rope. Hazel instantly thought of the pistol—then wilted when she realized she’d left it in the car.

  “The Fish Boys tell me you’se’re one hail of a dirty girl,” Clonner remarked.

  “Ee-yuh she is,” Shot Glass agreed. “En’t never met one dutty-ur. Drinks piss like a champ, eats the nut, begs fer it in the ass, and comes when yew choke her aout.”

  “Dirtiest dang whore you ever seed,” Clayton contributed, and then they both carried an unconscious Sonia back into the kitchen.

  Clonner showed gleaming but misaligned dentures when he grinned. “So you think yer dirty?” He winked. “We’ll show ya dirty.”

  The harder Hazel struggled the more violently she was man-handled. “Haow’s thet for a pile’a hair?” one commented and cracked her exposed pubis hard with his palm. Then Ida, the fat barmaid, wriggled her fingers through it. “Aw, naow, Wilbur Whateley, durn’t yew be disrespectin’ my li’l friend heer,” and then— Kuuuuur-HOCK! —she spat into the rust-colored tuft. Next, a man with a bent spine hobbled up, and said, “Shee-it, Ida, if I curn’t dew better’n thet, my name en’t Charlie Ward”; the twisted codger stuck both thumbs into Hazel’s labia, pulled the thumbs apart, then leaned over and—Kuuuuur-HOCK! —expectorated right into her vagina. “Thar yew go, honey. Mebbe yew’ll git’cherself a hock baby naow.” One of the other men who’d tied her up addressed them next: “Yew light-weights durn’t know nuthin’.” Smack! He rammed his fist into Hazel’s jaw, knocking her senseless, but as her mouth gaped—Snnnnnnn-ORT! —he blew a wad of mucus into it after thumbing a nostril closed. Then he pushed her jaw closed and forced her to swallow. “Haow’s thet, eh?”

  The room all applauded.

  Hazel reeled on the table. She’d been trussed up with some expertise: her right wrist lashed at the crook of her left knee, and vice-versa; she was a human ball. Two other overweight women played gigglingly with her breasts. “Sech a cute little thing, en’t she?” one of them complimented.

  “I could et her up!” shrilled the other.

  Hazel snapped her gaze to Clonner, gnashing her teeth. “What did you mean when you said it was your nightly meeting?”

  Now it was Clonner who played with her breasts—with his stumps. “Don’t’choo know yet?”

  “It’s Frank, isn’t it? The emissary! ”

  Clonner’s bushy brows elevated. “That it is. See, the whole list’s in-dockter-nated now. Takes a day for most, but a few, like, Nate Peaslee there, it takes two, three days.”

  She remembered Peaslee telling her his dream. The black mist. The man with sunglasses... Nate grinned at her, then pinched a nipple till she gave off a shrill shriek. He, too, wore one of the marble-sized scarlet rings.

  “It’s something about sending people to other cites— big cities,” she grated.

  “Aw, now, just you don’t worry ‘bout that,” Clonner said. “What you need to be worryin’ ‘bout instead is what shape you’ll be in when we’se done with ya.” The old head on the skinny neck craned up, and he shouted to the back, “Clayton! Fetch the Crisco!”

  Clayton’s fat face appeared in the opening in the kitchen wall. “What fer?”

  “Don’t question me, boy! Just do it, ya useless, no-rent-payin’ fat waste’a space!”

  “Awwwww....”

  “What are they doing back there with Sonia?” Hazel demanded. “Do anything you want to me, but— please! —don’t hurt her.”

  “Oh, we’ll do anything we want, hon,” the old man said.

  “For God’s sake, I’m begging you!”

  “God’s sake? The Devil’s? Naw, it ain’t ‘bout none of that,” and then he wheeled around to the other side of the table.

  Now that she was trussed up in a ball, they’d arranged it so her ass was just past the table’s edge. When she looked around again, she saw everyone in the room circled about her. Several women—all decidedly unattractive and middle-aged—but mostly men, and she saw now that they all wore the scarlet rings. Those rings HAVE to be made from the same mineral as the Shining Trapezohedron, she felt sure. But the original crystal remained in the car with the pistol. Maybe she could barter with it, because if her loathsome dream about Frank had really been true, then the crystal was something they wanted very much. And they DON’T know that I have it...

  From the back, Clayton waddled out, beer belly swinging. He carried a can of Crisco...

  Hazel didn’t wonder what it would be used for.

  “Make yerself useful, Clayton,” Clonner ordered, holding up his stumps. “Slick me up.”

  “Shore, grandpap.” Clayton scooped out
some of the Crisco and began to spread it over Clonner’s stump-ends.

  “I’ve seen the list, Clonner,” Hazel barked a distraction. “Everybody in this room is on it, aren’t they?”

  “Just about. A’course, I ain’t on it ‘cos I ain’t got no hands. Cain’t work the box.” He glanced over. “You do know what the boxes’re fer, don’t’cha?”

  “To hold the Shining Trapezohedron.”

  “Yep. These all folk’s’ll be doin’ the work; my job’s just to watch over ‘em’n keep ‘em out’a trouble ‘fore it’s time for ‘em to go.” Now he was rubbing his stumps together, like a chef stropping two knives. “I’m gonna prime ya up now, girl.”

  She felt the nub of one stump rubbing against her vulva. Before he could insert it, though, she blurted, “But aren’t you one man short?”

  Clonner hesitated. “Ya don’t know what’cher talkin’ ‘bout. Not countin’ me, we gots thirty-three here. Twenty-eight men, five gals.” He looked to Peaslee. “Ain’t that right, Nate?”

  “Uh, well, I think so, Clonner.”

  “Yeah?” Hazel challenged. “What about Pickman, that fruitcake from the knickknack shop?”

  The room stilled. Clonner traversed his chair. “Pickman’s here, ain’t he?”

  Everyone looked around, then someone said, “Shee-it, she’s right. He en’t heer.”

  Someone else interjected, “Aw, forget it, Clonner. The bitch just tryin’ tew bide for time.”

  “Time shuhly durn’t matter for this ‘un,” voiced another redneck.

  Clonner eyeballed her between her thighs. “Where’s Pickman?”

  “Let me and Sonia go and I’ll tell you...”

  “Hmm, lemme think...Aw, ya know what?” Clonner raised his greased stumps. “I don’t give a shee- it! He’ll turn up.” He wheeled up closer between Hazel’s legs. “And now I’m gonna stump-fuck ya till yer eyeballs switch sockets.”

  “Eeeee-doggie!”

  “Give huh a fuckin’ she’ll never forget!”

  “Git ‘em all the way in, all the way in, Clonner!”

  It’s a psycho-redneck hootenanny, Hazel thought in the grimmest awareness. She tried to relax her groin—knowing what was surely coming–but couldn’t help but flinch when Clonner pushed the first stump into her vagina. In and out very slowly at first, but then faster and deeper, each slick, perverted penetration stiffening every muscle in her body. Then—

  Not there too...

  The other stump was punched into her anus and shoved deep.

  Hazel’s scream concussed throughout the room.

  She was being churned; when one forearm went in, the other pulled back, and soon the grotesque trespass took on a regular rhythm. With each penetration, the crowd clapped, like following organ notes at a baseball game. “Come on, gals!” someone hooted. “Get in line and get ready to squat!” Squat? Hazel managed to wonder through the consternation. The forearms pistoning in and out made her feel as though her internal organs were being rearranged.

  “Oh, me fust!” Ida giggled, floppy tits bobbing as she approached the table. She pulled up her dress and peeled off her panties—

  Two men helped her up onto the table.

  “What this heer floozy needs is a good face-warshin’.”

  “Ee-yuh!”

  The other four women stood in line, removing their panties as well, while Ida squatted over Hazel’s face. The woman’s spread pubis looked horrendous, a great sprawl of hair which even trailed down the insides of her thighs. Two fingers pressed into the top of the rooster-wattle vulva, baring the urethra. “Heer yew go, hon,” Ida said and began to piss.

  The rank stream bored into Hazel’s face. Ida swivelled her hips to sway the urine back and forth, up and down; it gushed down the sides of Hazel’s face. Once the stream sprayed across her eyes and leaked in, stinging. When the urine-flow retarded, Ida flinched her inner muscles, flexing out the last few jets right against Hazel’s lips. “Yew like thet, baby?” she inquired, then tensed, cracked a gassy fart, and got off the table. The crowd roared.

  One after another, the remaining four women followed suit, each middle-aged vagina more ghastly than the previous. One’s looked like a tumbleweed with a pile of chewed beef jerky in the middle, and another’s piss smelled like asparagus. Hazel could barely breathe throughout the entire process; occasionally one of Clonner’s forearm penetrations derricked so deeply that her mouth shot open, permitting a flood of urine.

  When the women were finished, the applause raised to a din, and in a final gesture they all leaned over and spit in Hazel’s face.

  Dripping piss, Hazel croaked, “Why are you doing this to me!”

  The entire room answered in perfect unison: “Why not? ”

  At last, old Clonner’s arms began to tire. Just a few strokes before Hazel thought sure she’d be ruptured internally, the greasy stumps were dragged out, then Clonner wheeled around to rub the stinky sticks across her face. Hazel wished her head could somehow withdraw fully into her body, like a turtle’s.

  “Yes, sir, that shore was a dandy time,” Clonner exclaimed amid more applause. “Back where’s I come from, they call that a ruckin’.” Hazel whirled a dazed glance around and saw now that all the men had their pants open and were idly masturbating. She relaxed against her bonds, then glared at Clonner.

  “I killed Pickman, back at Horace’s trailer.”

  “Oh, did ya now?”

  “Yeah, and then I called the police and told them I was coming here,” she lied.

  “Jew heer thet, gang?” someone exclaimed. “She calt the cops!” and then everyone laughed when the man stepped out of the crowd.

  A man in a county sheriff’s uniform.

  “Lyin’s a sin, girlie,” Clonner chided. “And by the way, this here’s Sheriff Tom Malone.”

  Fuck, Hazel thought.

  “You didn’t call no one, and if’n ya had, it wouldn’t matter. ‘Cos we’se protected.”

  “Yeah?” Hazel spat. “By Frank? Then where is he?”

  “Naw, not Frank—”

  “By Nyarlathotep?”

  Clonner’s beady eyes widened. “You know more’n we thought. What’chew know ‘bout Nyarlathotep?”

  “He’s the Messenger, and—what?—he comes here through the Shining Trapezohedron? Is that how it works?”

  “What’d’ya think, folks?” Clonner addressed the crowd. “Think we oughta tell her...or ya think we oughta fuck the shit out her?”

  The crowd roared, men frantically wagging their dicks.

  “Nyarlathotep’s the messenger for the greatest god of all, honey.”

  “Yog-Sothoth!” the room cheered.

  “And the rest’a the Great Old Ones.” He rolled himself back to the table and looked deeply at her. “Yog-Sothoth’s the gate, and he’ll come though that gate once Nyarlathotep’s message has been delivered. A’course, that’s the least’a yer worries right now, sweet cakes.” He shot his gaze to the clamoring crowd. “Line up, fellas, one at a time! We ain’t done fuckin’ this ‘un up—not by a long shot!”

  It was then that twenty-eight men—all having fondled themselves to hardness—lined up at the table’s edge.

  “Tramps like this needs ta be reminded what they’se here for!” Clonner incited like a team coach. “They’se also need ta be reminded that their butt-holes ain’t just fer shittin’! So give it to her hard, men! I want each’a now to give her a good throttlin’ right up her backside first, then finish up in that big red-hairt pussy’a hers. With any luck we’se’ll get her pregnant and give her a great big shit-infection up her cooze!”

  The men rallied, cat-calling, whistling, stirring into a psychotic hormonal frenzy. Get ready, Hazel droned to herself. What point was there in being terrified? This’ll probably take a while...

  And take a while it did.

  Each man in turn stepped up and deftly sodomized her. They all seemed to stay their orgasms for an inexorable amount of time, and one of them, Nate Peaslee, she thou
ght, pounded his erection in and out of her anus for ten solid minutes. But several stokes before they’d come, each and every one pulled out, slid their penises right into her vagina, then ejaculated. The entire ordeal lasted at least two hours, and was accented by the incessant sound of their hips slapping her buttocks. She was relieved upon each release of sperm into her sex, if only because that meant another one was finished. She felt the separate ejaculations—some quite hefty—slowly ooze out, whereupon each drooled down between her ass-crack and splatted on the floor. Men who’d fi nished sat back with a beer to watch the rest, and a number of them—to her misery—took a second turn. One man, however, did not spend his seminal wares in her...

  Oh, no, she moaned when she saw him and his bobbing erection come around the side.

  Walter “Shot Glass” Brown.

  “Curn’t be greedy naow,” he said, standing spread-legged and jerking off in a manual blur. “I know haow much’ya like it—” and then he clenched up, slowed his strokes, and positioned the shot glass. “Ee-yuh, theer it ‘tis, ee-yuh...” One thick, milk-white spurt after the next fired into the glass until it was—

  “Filled ta the blammed top every dang time!” Clonner celebrated, and then the rest resumed their applause.

  Hazel didn’t bother resisting now, for she knew that if she did it would only bring a worse death for her and Sonia. She didn’t even need to be told to open her mouth.

  “Heer ya go, reddy-head, jess the way yew like it—straight up’n neat!” Shot Glass emptied the shot glass into her mouth; its contents slid out in a single, viscid lump.

  Hazel’s throat clicked when she swallowed.

  “Naow is thet a down’n dirty hoo-er or is it not?” someone shouted.

  “Good job, missy,” Clonner rolled up. “Ya done took all these horny fellas without battin’ an eye. We’se proud’a ya.”

  Hazel barely heard the snide babble. The pain at her sex and rectum throbbed right along with her heart.

  Clonner announced to the room, “All right, folks, fun’s over fer now. You best all git home. It don’t look like the emissary’s comin’ tonight, so we’se’ll just all meet here tomorrow same time.”