Plebs

by Jim Goforth

  Finally, another section of rope hung around his throat, not tight but drooping loosely, a hangman’s noose looped around his neck.

  Slowly he swiveled his head, trying to gaze up to see if the rope around his neck stretched upwards towards the roof, maybe slung over a beam.

  It didn't.

  It hung slackly in the air, level with his shoulders, until it reached a lectern in the centre of the sermon stage area where it was looped around a metal spike in the corner of the lecterns top which Corey realised was a candle holder hammered into the wood.

  The end of the rope trailed down the lectern and out of sight, possibly gripped in the hand of the person standing behind it.

  Looking like a demented priest about to deliver a hellish apocalyptic sermon with his face bathed in blood and dark pools of shadow created by the constant flickering dance of the candlelight was Errol Haskell.

  Over on his left, rigged up in a booby trapped chair extensively tied up just like him with a similar rope leading to the lunatic pastor of perversion was Desiree.

  The fear that constricted Corey in his flashback dream of the bloody disintegrating ghost was here right now, escalated tenfold, a thousand fold.

  He tried to thrash, tried to move, but could barely move a muscle. His hands and feet were starting to go numb, feeling thick and clunky like they weren't even his own appendages and pretty soon he probably wouldn't even feel them at all.

  At least Desiree's clothing appeared to be intact. For now.

  She wasn't staring back at him as he tried desperately and without success to catch her gaze, and wondered whether she might still be unconscious.

  Unconscious. So that was how he ended up in a scary dreamworld taking him back into the past and that was how his head ended up with a pounding pain comparable to the knockout blow he'd given himself trying to dive away from a blood splashed spook.

  He remembered now, making it just inside the front door of St Agnes. Fearful the door was locked, thinking the brutal Plebs were about to swarm him and Desiree, relieved to discover that wasn't the case.

  Then apparently being brained by somebody still in the church.

  Someone had been waiting inside, left intentionally behind while the rest of the psychopaths charged out in a crescendo of violent noise to flush their victims out of hiding.

  Errol Haskell had been smart enough to keep men behind. Either him or Raven in any case, probably Raven. She was the cunning one, the strategist, the thinker who covered all the bases that Haskell didn't.

  It didn't really matter who the brains of the operation was because the plan to leave someone stationed inside the Spot most certainly reaped rewards.

  Now they had Corey and Desiree.

  But that wasn't all.

  There were others inside the candlelit church, quite a few others.

  Most of the pews that would have served McCoy's congregation and filled St Agnes from the back of the room to the front had been ripped out, moved elsewhere to suit the likings of Haskell and his gang, modified to become either reclining seats for the crew of devices of torture for victims. Only a few still stood in their original positions; two rows up the front before Corey's position and the same on the other side in the area in front of Desiree.

  The walls of the hellhouse were covered in posters, naked women, serial killer pictures, corpses, weapons and a grotesque display of things so horrendous they virtually defied description.

  Bones, chains, beer bottles, ropes, dangling pieces of barbed wire, items of clothing hung from the high roof, from crossbeams and exposed pipes like some deviant idea of house decorations.

  Among this collection Corey acknowledged a plethora of women's bras, dangling in the fashion of some bizarre child's mobile, their cups and straps making weird shadow shapes on the stones and wood of the floor.

  Other atrocities lurked inside this nightmarish realm which plunged Corey back into the place where the Plebs resided up on the mountain, but he had other horrors to take in as well.

  The other people inside the church.

  Sprawled on the pew at the front before Desiree was a bloodied naked body, unmoving, a hand hanging off the edge and dripping blood from the fingertips.

  Corey couldn't see the persons face, but he knew from the auburn curls atop the lolling head that this was Caroline.

  Had been Caroline.

  There was no telling what had been done to her, but she was as dead as could be.

  Corey beat down the urge to scream, moan in despair or vomit, or a combination of all the above, and averted his eyes from the woman's corpse.

  They moved to the centre of the room.

  Just back behind the rows of pews laid another figure on the cold stones of the floor, pooled in shadows, surrounded by standing people.

  Over in darker corners where candles didn't fling enough radiance there may have been other human shapes splayed on the floor, but Corey couldn't say for certain.

  For now, he needed to know who was prone, spread-eagled on the floor, but with members of Haskell's posse milling in front of the person he couldn't tell.

  CHAPTER 42

  "You awake yet Somerdick?" Haskell's harsh voice suddenly barked and the noose around Corey's neck abruptly jerked tight, gripping his throat like a thin vicious fist of rope, causing a paroxysm of choked coughing. "I'll take that as a yes."

  "How about you sweetcheeks?" This time Haskell addressed Desiree. "Your fine ass ready for the show?"

  With this he gave a rough yank on the left hand rope, the one that looped a noose around Desiree's neck, pulling it tight and engendering the same response it had done with Corey.

  "Well alright then," Haskell sounded immensely pleased and even rubbed his hands together in a satisfied expression of glee. "Rip Van Fuckle and Sleeping Slutty are finally awake. Fucking took you pair long enough to come out of it; you'd think you hadn't been smacked in the skull before. Since you both decided it was fucking nap time I'm sorry to say you've already missed some of the festivities, but never fear heavy sleepers, there's plenty more in store for you both."

  "What festivities you degenerate fuck?" Corey managed to croak out, his mouth feeling like it had a wad of cotton wool stuffed in it.

  The noose snapped tight around his throat again as Haskell gave it another yank.

  "Not very polite of you Somerjerk!" He blared. "And if you can't keep your tongue in line I might just have to do this..."

  With that he tugged cruelly on Desiree's rope, tightening her noose so she gagged like a dog on a choke chain, struggling in vain against all her restraints.

  Corey raged, seething furiously, wanting to explode from his chair and strangle Haskell to death with his bare hands, but he was powerless, helpless, useless.

  "Now now Corny," Haskell chuckled, pleased with his own appropriation of Raven's inane nickname. "You know she is a fine looking bitch looking good with a tether around her neck. Reckon I might leave it on when I've got her naked on the floor."

  "Raven isn't going to like that," came another voice from the cluster of people in the middle of the church, and Corey observed that the speaker of this statement was Jett.

  "Well your fucking sister ain't here right now is she?" sneered Haskell. "So I say whoever gets to this saucy slut first gets to her first. Besides, you've got your piece of meat right there. Dumbass Collis killed my bitch so I'm claiming this one."

  "Your funeral," Jett murmured, but didn't push the issue any further.

  Corey noticed that Raven was not among those out on the floor.

  Jett, of course was, so too Gordon Cooper, about five other guys from Haskell's group and five or six of Raven's renegade girls.

  Haskell's usual second in command Vickerman was also conspicuously absent and aside from whatever dark lumps might be in the shrouded areas of the Spot, no great amount of light spanned so Corey couldn't tell if anyone else was in the room.

  Two of Haskell's men he didn't know, but the other three were brothers, Albert
and Allan Lombardo and their cousin Spike Alessio.

  Finally the group milling around the prone figure on the floor separated and mostly retreated away into dark corners allowing Corey his first proper look at who it was.

  The person was half naked, topless at least and from the muscled upper physique and strong chest, Corey could tell that it was Ryan.

  "Okay," Haskell clapped his hands together with a meaty slap. "Get on with it you horny wenches."

  Jett moved into the frame, standing over Ryan's splayed form with candle light splashing dark shadows across her body and cruel face, and sending capering wraiths of black across the man on the floors exposed chest and abdomen.

  "Get 'em off," Jett commanded, and two of her underlings scuttled out of their spots lurking on pews that lined the walls and crouched at Ryan's legs.

  Corey wondered whether Ryan was unconscious like he and Desiree had been for he didn’t seem to resist when the two girls began to pull his pants off.

  Then he realised that Ryan was also tied, ankles and wrists bound to pews on either side of the aisle, stretching him out like he was on a rack.

  "Professional crew," Haskell sneered mockingly, leaning forward on his lectern. "Bit of thought on how you're getting his pants off wouldn't go astray."

  Jett cuffed one of the girls across the back of the head as Gordon Cooper and the Lombardo brothers joined in the jeering laughter.

  "Cut them off, stupid." She advised.

  As one of the girls withdrew a knife from a sheath on her belt and began to slice and saw at the legs of Ryan's pants Corey leaned forward as far as possible, craning his neck.

  He didn't know who ether of the two crouched by the lower half of his friends body were, but he recognised the one standing further up the aisle at Ryan's head, resting her forearms on a standing axe handle.

  She was the big scowling woman with the blonde Mohawk who first made an appearance with her wispy waiflike partner back in the woods at the girls’ camp when he, Lee and Tim originally encountered it.

  She didn't look any less imposing now that she had apparently swapped the crossbow she'd wielded then with a razor sharp axe implement that gleamed sporadically as the spots of candlelight caught it.

  "What are you doing?" Corey bit out.

  Desiree's head snapped back again and she cried out in a cut off gargle as Haskell nonchalantly tugged her neck rope.

  "Fuck up Scummerset," He suggested. "You're just mangling your bitch’s throat by flapping your gums. Black Barbie's gonna get her freak on with Ken. Seems she ain't quite the rugmuncher her sister is."

  'What the hell?' Corey said, but finally he said it only to himself. Saying anything at all just meant more abuse for Desiree, every single word that spilled out of his mouth was like a cruel weapon and Haskell was the medium that turned it into solid physical form, yanking the choke chain.

  Pulling on Corey's noose was no fun for Haskell; his sadistic streak was tickled more by hurting Corey via tormenting Desiree.

  Corey seethed in a gigantic swelter of helpless, hopeless frustration and desperation.

  He couldn't help Ryan; he couldn't save Desiree, hell he couldn't even save himself.

  Hell, he hadn't even been awake to save Caroline. How she must have suffered...

  "Good job girls. Finally," Jett announced as the duo wrestling with Ryan's pants eventually got them free, along with slicing the elastic at the side of his jocks and wrenching the fabric away, leaving him completely naked.

  Now Ryan made some sort of protest groan which came out muffled, Corey surmising that he must somehow be gagged.

  "Let's see what we have here," Jett hunkered down and though she was on the left of Ryan, her back towards Desiree and probably mostly obscuring her view, Corey could see everything clearly, wishing he couldn't.

  Jett reached a hand between Ryan's thighs and took hold of his flaccid penis.

  "Good size,” she murmured with an approving click of her tongue. "Let's get it bigger still."

  Muffled protests from Ryan were to no avail and pretty soon despite whatever humiliation, revulsion, desperation he might have been feeling Ryan's body betrayed him.

  As Jett knelt beside him and toyed with his organ, stroking and masturbating him Ryan grew erect.

  "Haha, yeah. Look at that," Haskell crowed. “Richards has got a hard on for you Jett. Fucking who woulda thought it."

  Jett stood up.

  "Keep him hard," she directed at one of the girls still crouched by Ryan's legs and the woman did so, encircling his erection with a firm hand and pumping it.

  Corey couldn't bite his tongue though he knew Desiree was going to cop another throat squeezing rope choke.

  "Why don't you freaks just fuck Haskell's boys? They're the ones hard up for sex. You fucking bastards should all just have an orgy with each other and leave us out of it!"

  Haskell didn't jerk furiously on Desiree's rope.

  Instead he left his lectern position, stalked over in front of her and smashed her face with a vicious backhand that knocked her head sideways.

  As blood begin trickling down the corner of her gorgeous lips she kept her eyes fixed on Haskell the whole time, and Corey had seen friendlier expressions in the eyes of a snake than he saw in Desiree's.

  He murmured a silent sorry, inwardly begging for her forgiveness for not being able to hold his tongue.

  "You're going to die Errol," Desiree said calmly, her voice a flat hard monotone.

  "I think not. I don't think you're in any position to be dreaming either, slut."

  "Oh I don't think you're going to die Errol. I know you're going to die."

  Errol delivered another callous backhand to slam her lopsided the other way, but he couldn't knock that icy chilling stare out of her eyes.

  He walked back to his lectern and turned his gaze on Corey.

  "Orgy hey Somercunt? That's a good idea. Only all your slutty gal pals are gonna be involved in it. Willing, unwilling, dead or alive. For now, shut your motherfucking trap and enjoy the show. Shit, it could be a horny bitch riding your dick. Tell me, does that sound like a bad thing?"

  There were a million things wrong with it, with the whole situation, but sounding off about it was just escalating the mistreatment of Desiree so Corey sat there hating himself for being the catalyst of it, hating himself for being rendered so helpless to do anything, impotent, futile.

  Jett was wearing long pants too, black leather by the looks of them.

  She unfastened them and pushed them down, bending over to get them to her ankles.

  Her dark buttocks aimed in Corey's direction glinted temporarily in the candle glow then she straightened and stepped out of them, demonstrating no shame whatsoever.

  She apparently had no concern about partially undressing and preparing to have sex with a trapped unwilling man in a room full of rapists and murderers.

  Corey felt no arousal at seeing Jett's naked ass, she was virtually a carbon copy of Raven and he couldn't think of any single woman under the sun less attractive to him than the snake eyed renegade leader

  Haskell whooped and altered his position to catch a better glimpse of Jett's posterior.

  "Yeah, that's the way! Gonna give me some of that black ass when you're done with Richards, Jett? Get them tits out too; let's see those puppies as well."

  Ignoring him Jett swung astride Ryan, who was thrashing in a futile endeavour though the girl masturbating him was still doing so.

  She stopped and took her hand back, backing away ever so slightly.

  Haskell rubbed his crotch and leered lecherously as Jett mounted Ryan, sank down on him, impaling herself with an audible grunt of satisfaction, her buttocks touching his thighs.

  "Shoulda tied him round the other way," Haskell lamented. "And gotten your tits out. I'da had one of these two up here whack me off. Unless you girls wanta get up here and administer the Richards treatment. Or some sucking."

  Apparently none of the girls were in a hurry to administ
er any type of treatment of either variety for nobody took heed of Haskell's words; most sets of eyes were on the spectacle in the middle of the aisle.

  With Ryan buried inside her, his erect organ saying yes even if the rest of his body screamed no Jett began to ride him, her hands pressed down on the trapped man’s chest.

  Corey squeezed his eyes shut, but they refused to remain that way, they popped back open again drawn morbidly to it as though watching a car crash unfold.

  Only he and Desiree must have found the forced sex not to be a scene of arousal.

  Everyone else in the room were evidently finding lustful stirrings in themselves, watching as Jett's movements quickened, her buttocks rising and falling, the slap of her flesh against Ryan’s sounding loud and obscene even with a series of encouragements, vulgar statements, whistles and the like issuing from the cluster of deviates around the inside of the church.

  Tearing his eyes away from the dark moving globes of Jett's ass, Corey tried to find somewhere else to fix them on though there wasn't too much else that didn't push horrible thoughts into his brain.

  He stared at the first set of stained glass windows in the wall as if they could drag his mind away.

  Up where he, Desiree and Haskell were was the end of St Agnes where no windows were in existence. It wasn't until just after the first couple of rows of pews left intact by Haskell's hoodlums that the large windows begin their march down the long walls.

  This one Corey tried to use as a neutral focal point was one of those intact, though its religious scenes had been warped and disfigured by spray paint.

  A terrible suggestion slipped insidiously into his thought patterns as he attempted not to turn his head back to Ryan's rape, but the idea tossed up by his brain made him do so anyway.

  Was this it here in the church? Were all the people assembled here in St Agnes all that were left of the assorted factions that had traveled to the Spot? Had the marauding band of bloodcrazy Plebs decimated the numbers to such an extent that those now inside the church were all that remained, driven to seek refuge with the Plebs keeping them bailed up?