Lords of Salem

by Rob Zombie

  Oh God, she thought, what’s happening? She tried again to cry out, and did cry out inside, but outside she felt her lips curl into a smile. The beast was enjoying her body, enjoying having control of it, and wasn’t likely to give it up willingly. How had she released it? It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t what she wanted. No, it had been the music. The music had done it. Turn off the radio, she tried to say to Jarrett. Turn it off before it’s too late!

  But even as she struggled to say it and failed, she knew it was already too late.

  She felt her body grinding and flexing, felt the beast pushing it harder and harder. Jarrett’s chest was red and scratched by her nails and maybe she’d hurt him a little. She could still hold the beast back a little, couldn’t stop it but could brake it a little, slow it down slightly. But that was fading, too, and she was afraid of what it would do to Jarrett, or to herself, if she lost control. The song was coming to an end, she hoped, building to a crescendo anyway, and if she could just hold on, could just keep some measure of control, maybe once it was over she’d be able to get hold of herself again and force the beast back asleep. She fought it, fought it hard, and the beast felt her fighting and snarled at her and clawed at Jarrett using her hand, and grinded even harder.

  The demon let her go just enough that she could really feel how it felt. Oh God, it felt good to let go like that. The beast was her and not her. She could feel herself—things she had done, ways she had given in to her desires and impulses over the years—in it, in what it was doing now. But it was frightening, too. It wouldn’t stop, she knew. It would go too far. She’d always felt she had that in her, the desire to go too far—maybe everybody had it, maybe she wasn’t the only one with a beast, but most people could keep it in check. She had always been able to keep it in check, too, but that had been because she was in charge—she would wake the beast up just a little, let it join in the fun but keep it groggy, and knock it unconscious again right after. But the music, something about that song, had pushed things the other way, so that now it was she who felt groggy and almost overwhelmed as desire swept through her. It felt so good! Maybe she could just let go a little, just a little more, and then still get back in charge after, push the beast back down. Or maybe the song would end and that would be enough and she’d get back in charge before the beast did something really rash and slaughtered Jarrett.

  Because that was where this was heading, she suddenly knew. It was great having sex with Jarrett, the beast was thinking, but how much better would it be just to go a little further, to let Maisie’s nails not just scratch their way along his chest but gouge out his eyes and pop them, tear his throat out, beat his head in until it was a wet pulpy mass, not only fuck him but kill him, and then once he was dead see what else she could do with him? With what was left of his body.

  Inside, she recoiled, started screaming. But she wasn’t in charge. No, the beast was in charge.

  The song has got to end soon, she told herself. Please, dear God, let this song end.

  Back in the radio station, the whole bank of phone lines had lit up. The song was still playing, with Francis and the Big H team waiting for it to end.

  “Total Christmas tree,” said Herman, gesturing to the phone bank. “I guess this crap struck a nerve. Either that or the FCC is calling to pull our license.”

  Francis, on his way to the door, stopped and turned around. He touched Heidi lightly on the shoulder. She jumped a little and then looked at him questioningly.

  “I wanted to apologize. I’m very sorry I overreacted to your question,” Francis said. “I take everything so seriously. God, I must have sounded like such an ass.”

  Heidi shrugged it off. “All good,” she said. “We should have gotten a better sense of you and your book first, I guess. It was a dumb question anyway.”

  He was tempted to say, as he’d said in his classes back when he taught, that there were no dumb questions. But he didn’t exactly believe that. Never really did. And the apology wasn’t really why he’d stayed around. “You’d mentioned that, for the movie…,” he said, then let his voice trail off.

  “Yeah, sure, man,” said Herman from next to her. “Pick a couple up at the front desk on your way out, tell the receptionist there I said it was cool.”

  Francis nodded his thanks, but didn’t look away from Heidi. “May I ask you,” he said to her in a quiet voice, “where exactly did this music come from?”

  She’d already turned back to the papers in front of her, getting ready for the next segment. “Huh?” she said. “The receptionist said it just appeared with nothing but a note for me. Probably somebody dropped it off while she was out to the bathroom or something.”

  “So it was specifically sent to you?” asked Francis.

  “Yeah, very specifically,” she said. “Check this out.” She reached into her pocket, removed the crumpled note, and handed it to him. He took it, and then took out his reading glasses to get a better look at it. The paper was handmade rather than mass-produced. Strange script, too, he thought. A very good imitation of seventeenth-century handwriting, and probably done with a quill, too, or something very much like it. For Adelheid Elizabeth Hawthorne, it read. From THE LORDS.

  “Adelheid Elizabeth Hawthorne,” he said. “That’s you?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I didn’t even think anyone knew my real name. A little creepy, right?”

  “A little,” he said. He held up the note. “Do you mind if I take this?” he asked.

  She looked a little surprised, but shrugged. “Whatever. Go ahead,” she said. “Why do you want it?”

  He weighed in his mind whether to tell her the truth. No, he decided, it was silly in any case, no point in alarming her with some wild story, particularly not after having come out so strongly against irrational ideas and the supernatural. He faked a smile. “I collect examples of interesting handwriting,” he lied. “Just a hobby of mine.”

  When Maisie came she saw things, had visions almost. They flooded her and crowded in on the little space that was left to her, overwhelming her. She saw Jarrett lying there with his throat cut, the bed soaked with his blood. She saw him strangled, her hands locked around his neck. She saw him tied to the posts of the bed and then slowly pricked, over and over again, with needles. She saw him with his eyes gouged out and she crouched over him, slicing off his genitals with a razor and letting the blood spurt warmly over her belly. She saw herself claw his chest bloody and then claw deeper and push her hands in through his flesh and tear out his heart, then slowly begin to eat it. It was rubbery and hard to chew, like poorly cooked calamari.

  She saw herself standing in a circle around a fire, her body smeared in the blood of a newly slain infant, a symbol inscribed on her chest. A circle, with an upside-down cross in it, the top of it touched by a crescent moon, the bottom of it cut across by a hillock of ground, two stars lying at the extremes of the arms of the cross. Beside her, standing in the circle with her, were other women, like her but not like her. Their clothes were outlandish and old, as if they were from another time. And as she watched them, they stripped their clothing off and collapsed one by one, moaning and writhing, giving themselves over to libidinous pleasure, the same pleasure that her body felt when, in the real world now, with Jarrett, she came so hard it nearly tore her head off.

  After that, lying exhausted next to Jarrett, she expected the beast that had filled her body to disappear, to curl up and go back to sleep and let her take over again.

  But it did not disappear. And it did not let her take over again. It was as if she had lost the right to do anything with her body. She could see out through her eyes, but nothing more. She no longer had any sort of control.

  Help! she cried silently to Jarrett, trying to plead from behind her eyes. Help me!

  But Jarrett was lying there out of breath, covered with sweat, exhausted.

  The beast within her licked its lips. Licked Maisie’s lips, rather. It was still hungry. She could feel it taking the imagined image
s of a slaughtered Jarrett into its mouth and rolling them around on its tongue. Yes, they tasted good to it, and since she was there with it, she could taste them, too, could taste what it wanted her body to do to Jarrett next.

  “Whew,” said Jarrett. “What was up with that?”

  Jarrett, she cried silently. Run!

  She felt her body throw off the covers. Carefully, as awkward as an automaton, she stood and walked jerkily out of the room.

  “Babe, I meant that in a good way!” she heard Jarrett call from the bedroom behind her. Please, she prayed. Please, dear God, let this be a dream.

  The song was ending. Heidi watched the old writer, Francis whatever his name was, leave, still a little perplexed. Strange turnaround there at the end. Why the sudden interest in the Lords, and in the note? He didn’t exactly seem like the type to be a headbanger, but it took all kinds, she guessed.

  As the song faded, Whitey clicked over to the first caller.

  “Okay, are we dealing with a smash or a trash?” he asked.

  “Come on, dude,” said a gruff male voice. “I’m at work right now listening and it’s making my day worse. That is fucking shit!”

  “Whoa!” said Herman. “No F bombs or S bombs please. One for trash. Next caller.”

  Whitey clicked over to the next one. “Smash or trash?” he asked.

  “What?” said a voice that might belong to a man, might belong to a woman. “I just wanted to make a request. Air Supply’s—”

  Whitey cut the call off, went on to the next line. “Smash or trash?” he asked.

  “Trash!” said another male voice, angrily. “Total trash! My band Tuesday Weld Overdrive kicks ass over that! We are playing—”

  “We already did a smash or trash on Tuesday Weld Overdrive and the verdict was trash. Next!” said Heidi, just as Whitey cut the call.

  “Trash it or smash it?” asked Whitey.

  “Oh my God, it’s beautiful,” said a woman. Her voice was breathy, almost fluttery.

  “Beautiful?” said Herman. “Lady, you might like it, but there’s no way in hell anybody can think of that crap as beautiful.”

  But the woman didn’t take the bait. “Keep playing it… Please play it again…”

  Who is that? wondered Maisie briefly, feeling sluggish and then thought, Oh God, it’s me. She was looking out at her body all right, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Only it didn’t quite look right, didn’t quite look like her. There was something wrong; the lines of her face were a little off, the tilt of her head different than normal. Something glowed in her eyes, too, something that she’d never seen there before. Her naked body was holding a small porcelain cat, stroking it very slowly, as if it were real. It kept running its hands over the cat’s surface, nails clicking against the porcelain.

  She tried again to take control of her body, but now that the beast had tasted freedom it wasn’t about to give that up. It kept its thumb pressed to her, holding her firmly pinned, making her squirm.

  She watched her reflection in the mirror as if through a red haze.

  In the background, the radio rambled on.

  “Smash or trash,” said Herman’s voice.

  “Smash!” screamed a woman’s voice. “Smash! I love it!”

  Yes, she heard the beast think: Smash. Time to smash. Her hands swiveled and held the cat out over the hardwood floor. For a moment they held it there and then they let go.

  The cat tumbled end over end and then struck the floor, breaking into thousands of pieces.

  “What was that? Are you all right, dude?” she heard Jarrett call out. She didn’t answer. Instead, she tentatively lifted one foot, brought it down among the broken bits. She ground the foot down, feeling the pieces cut into her flesh. She brought it away and then stepped down on it again, and when she lifted it the beast within her was pleased to see the red stain that was left behind. She watched her body smile, and then watched it open the top drawer in the dresser below the mirror and reach in. Within her, the beast smiled. In the reflection, her face smiled in exactly the same way.

  When her hand came up, it was holding a pair of scissors. It lifted them slowly, lethargically, turning them, examining them, watching how the light caught and glittered on them. Her hand spread them open and snapped them together. And then she watched her reflection open its mouth and give a short, barking laugh.

  Slowly, her hands lifted the scissors and opened them, then put her neck in the V the spread blades made. No, thought Maisie, and she heard the beast laugh inside her head. She felt the blades tighten, felt the pressure on either side of her neck, her carotid artery pounding against the sharp blade. Her hands left them there a moment and then slid them away. In the mirror she saw where blood had beaded on one side of her neck. Slowly, it formed a drop and slid down. The beast used her mouth to lick its lips.

  Her hands lifted the scissors again, higher this time, and began to cut away her black curls. She watched her locks fall down, all her lovely hair going away.

  The cutting continued up and around the back until her hair was shorn down nearly to the scalp in some places, irregular and a little longer in others. She looked like a mental patient. It was a look the beast liked. Again her mouth smiled.

  I’m dreaming, she told herself. I’m dreaming. Soon I’ll wake up.

  But there within her she heard the beast chuckle. No, it said in a deep voice. You’re not dreaming, child. You belong to me.

  She tried again to struggle, tried again to take control of her body, but the beast held her effortlessly. It laughed within her, and she saw the laughter bubbling like blood from her own mouth. No, there was blood, too; the beast had bitten partway through her tongue and she could feel the new cut in it. If she bit again, she’d probably bite it clean through. Her mouth was full of blood. She could taste it, distantly. As she watched, it began to slip out of her mouth and down her chin, spattering over her bare breasts.

  Her hands opened the scissors and held them spread, bringing one point down close to her chest. It hesitated there, over her heart, and then pushed slowly against the skin until it was uncomfortable to breathe. She could feel the blade there, just on the edge of her breast, tight against the skin, and then she saw in the mirror a drop of blood form on the end of the blade, then a line of blood begin to flow.

  All I need to do, she heard the beast within her say, is push this a little farther, then a little farther still, and then that will be the end of you.

  She waited for the beast to do just that. In her head she felt it watching her, smiling, waiting.

  But, Maisie, it said, that would bring an end to all our fun. No, I have so much more in store for you.

  Her hands lifted the scissors away and then brought them down again between her breasts, cutting deep through the skin this time. It carved a slow, meticulous channel through the skin as her mind filled with pain. The face in the glass stared at her the whole time, smiling.

  Feel that? asked the beast. Are you having fun now? Self-mutilation is always the heart of the party.

  When the scissors were lifted away, she saw that the beast knew exactly what it was doing. It had hurt her, had done permanent damage, but had not carved deep enough to incapacitate her. She was bleeding, yes, lines of blood now oozing down her stomach, and the muscles in her breast hurt, but she wasn’t going to die any time soon. At least not from these cuts. No, it wanted her to suffer before it killed her, wanted to light her mind up with pain. And each time she experienced pain, she realized, the creature seemed larger within her, seemed to have grown in size and in confidence.

  It smiled again at her with her mouth, and then lifted the scissors again.

  May I have this dance? it asked her. And then, without awaiting a response, began to carve again. A straight, vertical line starting just above the midpoint of the circle and descending through it to close the bottom of the circle. Then a crosspiece near its top, painfully tearing through the muscle. Then a kind of head, but open at the top, a U, and
legs, too, with the bottom of the vertical line of the cross like a tail between it. The pain was almost unbearable. She felt it, could hardly stand it, but her body seemed not to notice it at all. Inside, she was screaming and panting, trying not to lose consciousness. Outside, she was calm and collected, almost meditative, as she carved the symbol into her own chest.

  The beast stopped for a moment, regarded its handiwork in the mirror. Then it smiled. Very carefully, near each end of the crosspiece, it used the end of the scissors to bore a tiny round hole. Her chest was slick with blood now, but even with all the blood, the symbol was still visible, its lines darker, more definite. She watched her mouth twist, then smile again.

  “You belong to the Lords now,” the beast whispered with her voice, her mouth, to her reflection. Or maybe it was the reflection whispering to her.

  “Maisie, where are you?” she heard Jarrett call from the other room. “Are you coming back or what?”

  She heard the beast within her prick up its ears. It had forgotten about Jarrett, but now that it had been reminded, it felt hungry. It licked her lips.

  “Coming, honey,” she called back. Or the beast within her called back.

  But there was something weird about her voice, something strange about the way the beast used it. It was too deep, not right somehow. Jarrett heard the difference.