The Cult

by Mink, Jason

  ~*~

  After what seemed to be an eternity looking, Baxter found his way back into the garden. Cut, bruised and no longer high at all, he was simply glad to see light again. In the wood the darkness had been total, impenetrable; wherever Annie had gone she would certainly be there until morning. Baxter wandered back into the circle of torches, where only Zak remained. He sat sullen in his chair, arms crossed, a nearly-empty bottle of Chateau Lligori on his lap.

  Baxter dropped into the seat beside him. "Where is everybody?" he asked, picking the burrs from his sock. Zak did not reply. He was staring into the now-ebbing light of the torches. Their glow steeped the scene, cast a flickering veil across his friend's grim face. Baxter searched for something to say but exhaustion had sucked his brain dry. He untied his shoe and peeled the prickly sock off. The night air felt good on his foot. He rubbed the red irritation that ran from his heel to his ankle and tried to remember when he'd first picked up the burrs. His recollection of the past hour was fractured, unrecognizable.

  Zak finally spoke. "Where did you go?"

  Baxter looked up. The trip through the woods had been a blind one. He'd been assaulted at every turn by root and thorn, had been clawed, gouged and battered by bushes, branches and unidentifiable things in the darkness. At one point had even fallen into a narrow ravine or channel. And then there was the drug. "Into the woods. Annie ran off. Said she heard something."

  Zak furrowed his brow. "Uh, Annie is up at the manor. I saw her, like, a half an hour ago."

  "You've got to be fucking kidding me!"

  "Sorry, man. She was going up to her room to read."

  Baxter heard himself laughing, a disconnected jangle. He shook his head, then allowed himself to fall backwards into the damp, soothing grass. "Man, it was a fucking nightmare in there."

  Zak nodded, passing the bottle over. Baxter drank the warm backwash gratefully, so cracked and dry was his throat. "Yeah, that was pretty stupid, man."

  Baxter could not argue. In the heat of the moment he'd felt it was his responsibility to look after Annie. Now the thought was embarrassing to him. Had he run after her, or run away from what was happening here?

  "So what happened to the big orgy?" Baxter asked.

  Zak shrugged. "I was uninvited." Baxter was willing to let the matter rest, but Zak had already began speaking again. "Fucking Adam, man. I hate that son of a bitch. I was about to go down on Chloe and he just shoved me out of the way. Fucking alpha male asshole!" He practically screamed the last three words. They echoed off the manor walls, rolled back to them through the now-gathering mist. "And of course she didn't say shit. She was willing to be taken like some fucking bitch dog. He didn't even go down on her, he just started fucking her right there on the spot! I left, man. Fuck that shit."

  Baxter was stunned but unsurprised. "This is some weird shit we're getting into, Zak," he began. "This drug. It was just…I was seeing the most insane shit. It's not like acid. I don't know what it's like."

  "What did you see, Baxter?" The question was direct, devoid of Zak's previous emotion.

  "Things in the air. Indian things, I don't know; Native American shit. Spirit animals. No, no. More like… I dunno, weird amalgams of living creatures and mythological monsters. Woolly, snake-like. Finned things. Feathered heads, fish-body wings, claws and beaks. Living totems."

  Baxter had to stop. It was coming back now a little too readily, leaving him wanting less, but Zak pressed him on.

  "What were they doing?"

  Baxter shrugged. "Honestly, I have no idea. I noticed one when I fell into the ditch; at first it looked like the mists that gathered around Chloe and Erica when they were dancing, but more tangible somehow. This thing, it zipped past me while I was down there. I followed it with my eyes, saw more of them in a clearing further into the woods. At first they were vague, indistinct, but the longer I watched them the clearer they became. It was… I mean, it was just some kind of fucked-up hallucination. Right?"

  Zak looked at him fascinated. "Indian things…" he said wonderingly.

  "I don't wanna talk about it anymore," Baxter said, draining the bottle.

  "Aw, c'mon, Baxter! I didn't get to see any kind of fucking spirit animals. All I got was a case of the blue-balls. What were they doing?"

  Baxter exploded. "Jesus, man! They were swarming!" He stood up. "At one point I saw hundreds of them. It was if they were attracted by us, by what we were doing. They were coming out of the ground and the trees and the sky. And each other, all of them screaming. I couldn't hear them but I know they were screaming. There was a rage in the air, a fear that seemed to be whipping them into some sort of frenzy. There was nothing I could do but watch, but then… then they saw me." Baxter realized he was shaking. He dropped the bottle to the grass, clenched and unclenched his fists. "You got anything to smoke?"

  Zak nodded, removed a small, bullet-shaped pipe from his breast pocket. Wordlessly he passed it to Baxter, along with a cheap plastic lighter.

  Baxter toked up, smoked in the silence for a good five minutes. The buzz centered him, helped deaden the now-familiar creeping sensation that slowly made its way up the nape of his neck. "I ran, of course. Glad it was in the right direction."

  Zak nodded sagely.

  "Anyway, I want to know what that shit is. I need to know. What it does, what its side effects might be."

  "All right. I'll find out. James will tell me."

  Baxter looked squarely at his friend. "So what do you think?"

  "I think it is entirely possible the drug is what he says it is. I can see it being useful under certain… ritual circumstances. Perhaps it opens a sort of third eye, or stimulates some sleeping sense. It was different tonight than the last time, more physical. James could have cut it with something to make it more conducive to his goal."

  "What, of getting everyone to fuck?"

  "Well, not everyone…"

  "Err, sorry, man. You know what I mean."

  Zak shook his head. "Yeah. I know what you mean. The whole thing just keeps getting more and more bizarre."

  "Are you staying?"

  Zak considered this carefully. "I don't know. After tonight I just don't know. You?"

  Baxter shrugged. "Ask me tomorrow."

  Zak laughed, gestured to the lightening skyline. "Buddy, this is tomorrow."

  ~*~

  Things had changed. Nearly a week had passed since the Fourth of July celebration. In that time a kind of division became apparent between those who had stayed in the circle and those that had not. While it didn't seem a deliberate move on anyone's part (except, perhaps, for Adam) the difference was undeniable nonetheless. A distance had sprung up, a gulf only growing wider as the days wore on. Chloe and Erica had bonded during their experience and were together often in the following days. Ashton and Adam were usually with them, seemingly happy to squire the young women about. The four had eaten dinner in town several times, coming home late (or not at all) and generally keeping to themselves.

  Zak had tried to insinuate himself into this new sub-group but found he was unable to make much headway. It wasn't that the four of them had tried to exclude him; they simply no longer shared a common frame of reference. The four had obviously been changed by their night together, had moved past the other three into whatever it was they were all in the process of discovering. It was hard to say what Annie thought of the situation, as she was almost never around. Since the Fourth she had been invisible, a presence barely felt even when she was physically in attendance. She seemed to have tuned into some unknown channel, spending all of her time intently listening.

  It had been a hard week for Baxter. The inspiration which had come so easily had slowed to a trickle, too feeble a stream to harness. At a loss, his time was an endless commodity seemingly worth nothing. He spent it sulking about the old house, smoking Zak's pot and discovering dusty secrets which had long since ceased to have any meaning. The third floor held a special appeal to him. He would linger for hours in its quiet
hallways, watching afternoon burn itself out through the room's long, lead-pane windows. From there he could see across the span of treetops, to the sloped roofs and chimney-stacks of the town far beyond.

  Baxter had come to know the view well. Who had looked through the glass before him? What had they felt staring across that wedge of earth and sky, as it had slowly, inevitably transformed? What had they thought gazing at the changing terrain, as the skies blackened and the forests fell? In the end there were no answers to these questions; no spectral ancestor bothered to speak up and Baxter's imagination remained damnably silent. He was frustrated, angry and more than a bit confused. Still he stayed, though why he could not say. While the future filled him with a sense of the foreboding, he found he could not bring himself to leave. Something unique was happening here. Though he lacked the words to describe it and the perspective to put it in any sort of context he knew he was unwilling to miss what was about to happen next, whatever that might prove to be.

  "Saturday night," Ashton suggested over drinks on the veranda. "We'd like to have another little get together."

  Baxter placed his foot against the railing. "All of us?" he asked.

  Ashton looked surprised. "Well, of course all of us. Why not?"

  Baxter turned. "Well, it's just that we haven't seen you guys all that much lately. You know, Zak and Annie and I. We've kinda been out of the loop."

  Ashton harrumphed. "You three haven't been around much lately, Baxter. Zak is always fooling around in the library, you're off somewhere; Annie doesn't seem to be with us, even when she's with us."

  Baxter finished his drink with a wince. "Yeah. I'm not quite sure what to think about her."

  Ashton clapped his shoulder. "I wouldn't worry about it, old man. I've known her for years. She's always been the moody and mysterious type. She'll come out of it eventually. Always does."

  "Eh, I suppose you're right," Baxter conceded. "But before I do anything, I wanna know what you have us smoking."

  Ashton nodded, a brief smile on his face. "The substance is known as Atramentum Glandium, or the Black Crown. The Dadan Indians called it Paq'qa. It's a unique type of fungus which grows under very… specialized conditions. This area of Pennsylvania is one of the few places in the world it can be found. I wasn't lying when I told you the local natives used it in their spirit-quests; it is one of the most powerful unrefined hallucinogens known in the world today. While it sometimes turns up in caves of this area it is notoriously difficult to actually find in full fruit; fortunately, it grows quite happily in the mines."

  "So it's your perpetually-renewable little secret stash?" Baxter asked warily.

  Ashton smiled wider. "Well, yes. Until I've amassed enough to turn on the entire world."

  Though he was smiling there was something in his eyes which gave Baxter pause. It was a look he would remember for a long time to come.

  NOW

  Baxter's dinner was brought to his room. The food was unrecognizable: a thin slab of pale meat cooled in its own juices, contaminating the colorless vegetable matter and what he could only guess were mashed potatoes. He poked at the meat with his fork; the tines sank in with a sickening ease, clear liquid oozing from the wounds. Revolted, Baxter set the plate aside, turning his attention to the dusty bottle Metathias had provided.

  "Ah, Chateau Lligori," he said, lost for a moment in memory. Baxter removed the previously-loosened cork from the bottle's neck and poured himself a tall glass. "Uhkkk!" He spat it out, tossing his glass to the floor. His throat burning, Baxter hacked, gagging on the vile liquid and his own acrid bile. Obviously He had gotten into the wine cellar. A tragic loss. The knock at the door interrupted his lamentations. "Yes?"

  The door swung upon, to reveal Chloe. Clad in a flimsy white gown, a half-smile was at play across her face. In her left hand she held the narrow tube of an old bone scroll-case.

  "I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't realize you were eating."

  Baxter looked at his plate. "Actually, I wasn't. What do you want?"

  She looked taken aback. "Why, Brother. No need to be rude."

  Wordlessly Baxter stepped aside, allowing her admittance.

  She strode in purposefully, sidestepping the wine stain and walking over to the window. "I'd forgotten what a lovely view this room had," she said, her fingers touching the pane.

  Outside the last dregs of day were draining out, autumn's colors nearly invisible. The sky had run together, its subtle washes blotted into a sodden blue. It framed his unwelcome guest, the darkness making her paler still.

  "I assume you stopped in for a reason?"

  "Of course," Chloe said, smiling. "Perhaps more than one." She gave her hair a toss and leaned forward, lips pursed. If Baxter didn't know any better he'd swear… "Ashton wanted me to go over the new ritual with you, make sure you're up to speed." She twisted a wax-sealed cork from the end of the bone and removed a tightly-curled parchment, handing it over to Baxter. He noticed it was bound around the middle with string. Ignoring the oddly-bound knot he slipped the string off with his fingers and tossed it to Chloe.

  "You can hang on to this." Baxter unfurled the tightly-curled parchment and began to scan it. "What is this?" he asked after thirty seconds of reading. "I don't know shit about shit and even I can see this is nonsense."

  Chloe maintained her smile. "I don't know what you mean."

  Baxter looked at her squarely. "Don't try and bullshit me, Chloe. You know as well as I do this is just a bunch of mumbo jumbo. It reads like something out of an old issue of WEIRD TALES. It's nothing like the original ritual. I mean, look at it!" He thrust the parchment in front of her face.

  Her smile became strained, but Chloe soldiered on. "Well, brother, to begin with we must recharge the circle."

  Baxter blinked. "Recharge the circle?" he questioned "And how do you propose we… Aw, no. No. No. Fucking. Way."

  She drew close. "Yes fucking way."

  And his senses were filled with her then, her beauty, scent and warmth all commingling into a sweet delirium. Baxter tried to step back but he was already against the wall.

  "It is what we must do, Baxter. We must re-open the circle, finish the cycle so that life may begin again. Look around you. You've seen what's happened to our lovely manor, to our own brothers and sisters. It is up to us to end this, here where it began." She pressed her chest against him, looked up into his eyes.

  "Really, Brother Helios. Would it be so bad… to be with me?" As she asked her hand grazed his crotch. To Baxter's dismay he found he was already aroused.

  "Oh," she said in a little voice. "Well, I see at least part of you has warmed to the idea." She grasped his cock through the silk pajamas, a hungry look in her eyes. Baxter cleared his throat, then spoke.

  "You know, my grandmother once told me a gentleman never lays hands on a lady."

  She looked at Baxter expectantly.

  "To Hell with that." He grabbed Chloe's face with one hand and shoved, sending her sprawling backwards. She tumbled gracelessly to the floor with a hollow thump.

  To Baxter's astonishment when she looked up she was grinning. "Fight it all you want, brother. I will have you."

  She rose without another word, leaving Baxter alone again. He found himself pacing, his adrenaline surging, his cock still hard. His erection actually ached, lodged hotly against his ill-fitting silk pajama-leg. Confining and uncomfortable, it made pacing a chaffing experience. He realized that, for the first time in more than a year, he felt the urge to jerk off. The more he tried to ignore it the more insistent the urge became, almost a cramp. He wrestled with his disgust for this place and its inhabitants, for himself at being so easily manipulated. Worst of all was that old familiar sensation, the warm softness that began at the nape of his neck but quickly spread through his body, the horrible flood of endorphins tripped up by that wretched mechanism. And though he fought in the end Baxter relented, taking himself at last in hand.

  The sensation was overwhelming, a growing, glowing bliss
that left him wondering why he didn't do it more often. He came quickly, spraying heavy seed. He watched it arc, peak and fall to the threadbare carpet. The orgasm seemed to last for a full minute, left muscles he'd forgotten he'd had taut and twitching. Then Baxter abruptly remembered where he was. Sheepishly he looked for something to clean up with, but the bedroom was empty. He shuffled into the bathroom to retrieve some tissues. Angry and sickened by his behavior he tried to put it out of his mind. Still the thoughts persisted. Obviously he had the self control of a twelve-year-old; how could he possibly resist the truly great temptation when the time came? How could any of them?

  He found his introspection derailed by a curious hissing from the bedroom. At first he could not place the source of the sound. Grim, insistent, it seemed to whisper from all sides of him, a sibilant wetness loathsome to his ears. He tracked it through the now-dark room, at last to where his seed had been discarded. There, the congealing pools of white liquid bubbled and blackened, emitting a wretched stench. Before his eyes pale questing tendrils sprouted, flipping and squirming in the growing gloom.

  "Son of a bitch!" Baxter brought his slipper-clad foot down. Again and again he pounded, crushing the offending mass back to jelly. Even as it burned through the slipper and into his foot he stomped it, grinding the remaining slime into the carpet. There it steamed, seeping into the fabric and the floorboards beneath. After determining the stain inert he collapsed onto the bed, kicking his slippers as far from him as possible. The room still stank but he found himself unable to rise and open the window. Spent, it was all he could do to roll to his side and curl himself tightly into a fetus-like ball before he dropped off to sleep. He dreamt of his mother.