The Hungry Dead

by John Russo

  Nancy raised her voice, trying to drown out Cynthia, trying to counteract one kind of prayer with another. “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven . . .”

  Sharon’s screams weakened still more and became dry, husky moans. She had probably ruptured her larynx. Gwen wrapped herself tightly in the dirty blanket in her cage and pressed her body against the wire bars, numbed and horrified, unable to comprehend why some of the people in the congregation would not be moved to mercy and pity. Were they not human? How could they all be such demented lunatics? In the face of such evil, Nancy’s prayers seemed futile and pathetic, overwhelmed by Cynthia’s depraved incantations: “Lucifer, we ask you to bless her, the source of our communion. May her blood give us strength to do your bidding. Amen.”

  There was an eerie, expectant silence out in the church that lasted for long moments. Then Sharon emitted one last pitiful scream, lacking in volume, which was cut short . . . and became transformed into a bubbly, gurgling sound. The congregation started moaning and squealing ecstatically while the gurgling continued . . . and finally stopped. From the evil ones out there, a great cry went up, almost a sound of unanimous orgasm.

  “Oh, my God!” Gwen wailed. “They’ve killed her! They’ve killed her!” She threw herself onto the floor of her cage, sobbing hysterically.

  CHAPTER 17

  On Saturday morning, Holy Saturday, Bert Johnson drove slowly on a dirt road near the area where Sheriff Cunningham had said the missing deputies had abandoned their squad car. Bert kept glancing left, then right, checking out everything, hoping to be lucky enough to spot the white van or maybe some other clue, if one existed. He didn’t really expect his search to yield results. The van was probably long gone from this part of the United States. Why would the kids stick around, especially if they had had something to do with the disappearance of the deputies?

  Bert’s heart jumped into his throat when he rounded a sharp bend and saw exactly what he did not expect to see: a white van up ahead on a stretch of straight, narrow road, obscured by a cloud of dust. It would probably never turn out to be the right van. But Bert stepped on the gas to catch up and have a look at the license plate. Then on second thought he decided he’d better drop back a little, so as to not panic whoever he was following.

  After a couple of miles, the van slowed down, as if the driver was looking for a place to turn off. Bert allowed himself to come up closer—an impatient motorist not wanting to slacken speed. Now he could read the license number, and it was the one Sheriff Cunningham had given him. When the van turned off onto a narrow weed-grown road in the surrounding woods, Bert didn’t pursue. Instead, he nonchalantly drove past, keeping his eyes straight ahead. He was able to note that there were two men in the cab of the van.

  Going slowly over the ruts in what was little more than a cow-path, branches on either side swatting the windshield, Luke said to Abraham, “Was that sucker following us?”

  “Naw. I don’t think so. Why should he? Let’s not be jumpy. Let’s finish up and get back.”

  They came out of the woods into a grassy clearing. Out in the middle of the clearing, Cyrus, in his bibbed coveralls, was just finishing digging a deep grave. The big man grinned when he saw his brothers approaching and used the sleeve of his workshirt to wipe sweat from his broad forehead.

  “Shit!” said Luke. “I told you to have him dig back among the trees, not out in the open.”

  “I know. I showed him right where to do it. He seems to be gettin’ dumber lately, know what I mean?”

  “Don’t I ever.”

  “Well, it’ll be okay. Nobody comes around here, anyhow.”

  “Maybe we ought to fill it in and go someplace else.”

  “Naw. That’d take hours.”

  Having parked his car in a cul-de-sac that offered some concealment, Bert Johnson took his service revolver out of the glove compartment and tucked it in his belt, under his jacket. He got out and, began walking, keeping to cover as much as possible, picking his way back toward the place where the van had entered the woods.

  Luke and Abraham opened the rear door of the van and lifted out Sharon Kennedy’s body, wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket which had been on the floor of her cage. They dumped the corpse into the hole as if disposing of garbage, and Cyrus began shoveling in dirt.

  Bert Johnson watched, hiding at the edge of the clearing. He saw the two who had arrived in the van take spades from the back of the vehicle and help with the shoveling. In a while, the grave was filled in. The men covered the evidence of their work with leaves and brush, taking their time, doing a thorough job. When they finally piled into the van and the engine started up, from the distance away that Bert was hiding he could hardly make out where the ground had been disturbed.

  He stayed hidden, gripping his revolver as he watched the van drive off. He wondered who had been buried. One thing that occurred to Bert was: if it was Nancy, she’d never be coming home to cause him any further trouble with Harriet.

  Creeping out of his hiding place, he stayed close enough to the departing van to make it out through the trees. When it humped onto the dirt road, it turned left, headed back in the direction it had come from.

  Bert walked back to his car and got in, pulled out of the cul-de-sac, and drove slowly in pursuit of the van, not wanting to catch up so quickly that he got himself spotted. When he rounded a bend obscured by trees, he just caught a glimpse of the van making a right turn. So he crept up and made the right, also.

  There was the van, about a quarter-mile ahead on a straightaway, making an abrupt left. Bert took a chance and picked up some speed, figuring to make the left, too, but when he got there he saw that it was a gravel driveway and the van was just pulling into a garage, several late-model cars parked to one side. Adjacent to the garage was a large red-brick house with white pillars. Startled to have come up on the place like that, Bert made a snap decision to just cruise on by, hoping he didn’t call undue attention to himself.

  Several hundred yards down the road, he pulled over and waited for a good long while, the engine idling and his pistol in his hand in case somebody came after him. Nobody came. He turned the ignition off and got out, looking all around. Then he made his way back toward the house with the white pillars, keeping to the cover of woods on the left side of the road. When he got within viewing distance, he hid in a clump of weeds and peered out. The three grave-diggers had come out of the garage and were talking, near enough for Bert to hear.

  “I think we ought to get rid of the van,” Luke said. “It could be somebody will eventually come lookin’ for the owners.”

  “Tomorrow,” said Abraham. “We’ll drive it a good ways off and ditch it. Strip it and set it on fire.”

  Luke clapped Cyrus on his brawny shoulder. “You can come and watch, brother,” Luke said merrily. “You’d get a kick out of that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Fire,” Cyrus said, grinning.

  “You two get on in the house and see if Cynthia needs anything,” Luke ordered. “I’m goin’ over to the chapel to make sure the two girls are comfy and not up to any tricks. That incident with the palette knife wasn’t a damn bit funny.”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Abraham said. “Let me go with ya to help ya fool with the girls.”

  “I ain’t gonna be foolin’ with ’em,” Luke snapped. “Get in the house like I told you. Both of you. Pronto!”

  “Aw, shit, Luke, you always get to have all the fun,” Abraham grumped, but he and Cyrus got moving while Luke glowered after them, making sure they obeyed. They went into the house, slamming the door.

  Bert stayed in his hiding place, watching Luke cut between the house and the garage. He appeared to be headed toward some kind of church out back, about a hundred yards away, across a freshly mowed field. Bert waited till Luke unlocked the door and went inside. Then he skirted along the edge of the road, keeping to cover till he could cross out of sight of the house. Th
en, circling wide of the route Luke had taken, he cut across the field toward the church. He came up in back of the church and hid behind a large boulder at the foot of a hillside. It took him a while to catch his breath. Just when he was wondering what his next move should be—should he try to creep up closer to the church, or not?—he was startled by the sound of a door opening.

  Edging his paunchy body around the side of the boulder, gun ready, Bert heard a door slam, followed by a metallic scrape and click. His diagonal view of the church entrance did not enable him to actually see Luke till he had gotten thirty or forty strides out into the field, on his way back. Bert stayed put, waiting for Luke to walk to the house and go in by the back porch.

  A light went on, then off, and the rear of the house was dark. It didn’t seem as though Luke would come back out. Bert came around the side of the boulder and crept as softly as he could to the back wall of the church, ducking under a window. This was a regular window in the corner, while all the rest were stained glass. Bert raised his head slowly and peeked in. He saw Nancy in some kind of cage, talking to another girl who was also caged. Nancy looked gaunt, disheveled, beaten up. So did the other girl. Bert couldn’t hear what they were saying; the way their lips were moving, they seemed to be whispering—could be they were arguing. The other girl had the last word and then turned away, a wild desperate look about her. Nancy tugged on some kind of ratty blanket she had around her, and Bert got a glimpse of her bra strap. When her head turned abruptly in his direction, he ducked down out of sight.

  He sneaked away from the window, cutting a wide swath around the field, out of sight of the house, till he was able to cross the road again. On his way back to his car, he kept to the woods at the edge of the road, glancing back over his shoulder frequently to make sure no one was coming after him.

  He opened the car door and got in, laying his service revolver on the seat right beside him. He was breathing hard and perspiring, badly shaken; his mouth twitched; his hands trembled as he unlocked the glove compartment. He took out a pint of whisky, uncapped it frantically, and swigged down a third of it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then turned the bottle up and drank again. Laying the bottle on the car seat beside the gun, he turned the key in the ignition, scaring himself by the noise of the engine starting up. He took a long look back in the direction of the place where Nancy and the other girl were imprisoned. Then he put the car into gear and drove away.

  CHAPTER 18

  On Holy Saturday, near midnight, Luke and Abraham came for Gwen. They had their robes on. The rest of the congregation had already filed into the church.

  “No! Take me instead!” Nancy pleaded when Luke began unlocking Gwen’s cage.

  “Nope. Got to save you for Easter,” Luke said. “You should feel honored.”

  “You bastards!” Gwen hissed, fearful and helpless as a wild animal in a wire trap.

  “Heh-heh-heh!” Abraham chortled. “Don’t give us any trouble now. Come on out of there!”

  Gwen scrambled out fast, taking Luke by surprise, tackling his ankles and bringing him down. He hit hard, grunting his pain, flailing clumsily in his loose-fitting black robe, as Gwen got halfway up in a mad dash for the door. Abraham stumbled over Luke but made a diving lunge for Gwen, slashing her naked shoulder with his nails. His fingers momentarily clutched her bra strap, but it came unsnapped. Luke yelled for help. Gwen yanked the door open and ran straight into Cyrus, bouncing off his chest. His big heavy right arm came at her in a lumbering roundhouse swat, clubbing her on the ear and batting her sideways so hard that she staggered and fell. Fighting to stay conscious, she tried to crawl, but Cyrus stomped on her spine and ground in the heel of his boot, giggling while she wriggled and screamed.

  Abraham and Luke were outside now and so were several other robed figures carrying lighted candles, casting long, eerie shadows into the dark night. Roughly, Abraham and Cyrus yanked Gwen to her feet.

  “Back inside!” Luke shouted. “Stinking bitch!”

  The people with the candles preceded Luke, Gwen, Cyrus, and Abraham into the church, and Abraham slammed the door. Nancy was praying, trying to ignore everything that was going on. Gwen tried feebly to resist as she was dragged past Nancy’s cage, but Abraham punched her in the stomach, knocking the last remainder of resistance out of her. She sagged limply in the arms of her captors, who dragged her down the center aisle toward the front of the church. Her ears were ringing and she was so dizzy she wanted to throw up. Through her pain and nausea, the congregation filling the pews was an amorphpus blur of leering faces and black velvet, unearthly in a haze of incense and flickering candlelight. Her head swam and for a moment she lost consciousness.

  When she came to, she raised her head to see Cynthia standing before her, less than two feet away, robed in white. Cynthia’s attitude was regal, her features ghostly, her pupils dilated. “Welcome!” she intoned solemnly. “Tonight you shall be our guest of honor.” There were excited whispers and murmurs of approval from the congregation.

  “You insane bitch!” Gwen said, squeaking it out with all the defiance she could muster. Abraham smacked her in the chest with his open hand, knocking the wind out of her, and as her knees went all rubbery the brothers twisted her around and shoved her down onto a solid wooden chair similar to an electric chair in size and construction. Quickly they encircled her wrists and ankles with leather straps, buckling them tight, and strapped her head back so it was held rigidly upright against a vertical post that was part of the chair, preventing any sort of movement.

  “Undress her completely!” Cynthia commanded, and Luke took a knife from under his robe and sliced away Gwen’s panties, tearing the tatters of the filmy garment away rudely, leaving her totally naked and vulnerable.

  Cynthia stepped aside and Gwen shrieked when she saw she was sitting across from an elderly woman who was dead and mummified. “Meet my mother,” said Cynthia.

  Gwen once more lost consciousness, she was so weak from the beatings she had taken. Her vision blurred, as her eyes went shut. Her body relaxed, her head pulling downward against the leather strap.

  Audible spasms of lust stirred among the congregation, under-the-breath sighs and throaty groans of arousal. Beneath their black robes, the witches were nude, coarse folds of fabric teasing their groins and nipples. Some reached hands under their own robes or the robes of others in the pews, to fondle and caress aroused and moistening flesh.

  The door of the church opened and Morgan Drey was wheeled in by the two chiropractors, Harvey Bronson and John Logan. Behind them Stanford Slater shut the door then followed the procession up the aisle. Morgan was tied with coils of rope to a cushioned chaise longue with a redwood frame. He could feel nothing from the neck down, as Logan, the man who had made him a paraplegic, propelled him helplessly down the aisle of the church by lifting one end of the longue and rolling it along on its wooden wheels.

  Luke, Cyrus, Abraham, Cynthia, and their deceased mother were seated around an altar, which was in the shape of a large, five-pointed star. Their faces appeared grotesque, demented, in the wildly flickering candlelight. At each point of the star stood a human skull and each skull supported a tall red candle, bloodlike rivulets of wax running down over the skulls’ foreheads and dripping like tears from their eyesockets. The centerpiece of the altar was a huge black-and-red sculpture of an evil-looking goat-god with wild, curving horns and a pair of claw-like hands made to hold a silver dagger and an ornate silver chalice. On the wall behind the altar, above the mummified Mrs. Barnes, was an upside-down crucifix illuminated by candles in silver sconces.

  Morgan stared as he was dollied nearer to the altar and the chiropractor brought him to a halt a few feet away. “A ringside seat like we promised,” said Slater.

  Rolling his head to one side, Morgan saw the tortured, unconscious girl in the executioner’s chair. He felt sorry for her, and sorrier for himself. He didn’t want to go on living as a cripple. His worst fear now was that maybe they wouldn’t
kill him. Cynthia’s face, her very presence, the mocking memory of his infatuation with her, were nightmarish aspects of the overall nightmare of what had been done to him. He looked up at Cynthia, her perverse beauty looming over him, her lips curled in an evil, triumphant smile.

  Suddenly Morgan thought he heard someone praying and he couldn’t believe his ears. It was coming from somewhere inside the church: “Our Father. who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name . . .”

  Immediately the congregation began chanting in unison, drowning out the Lord’s Prayer, overriding it with Latin or Greek that Morgan didn’t understand. Cynthia stood in solemn majesty, lifted the altar’s silver chalice in her two hands, and began her own incantation in a high, shrill voice that carried above the congregation’s chant.

  “Lucifer, we beg you to accept the sacrifice of this child whom we now offer to you, so that we may receive your blessings. Bless our deeds, that we perform in your almighty name. Consecrate the blood that we have come to offer you, the blood we drink to show our oneness with you, the Lord of hell.”

  All that Morgan had read and written about witchcraft and its obscenities was no match for what he was experiencing now. Helpless as he was, he wanted to get up and run, fleeing from the mindless chanting and the revolting ugliness of Cynthia’s prayer.

  “Oh, mighty Lord Satan, we worship you with all our hearts and humbly submit to your desires and commandments. We believe, with everlasting conviction, that you are our creator, our benefactor, our lord and master. We renounce Jehovah, his son Jesus Christ, and all their works. And we declare to you, Lord Satan, that we have no other wish but to belong to you for all eternity.”