“Better than I remember my first fuck. Mary Therese O’Toole, she had the longest, silkiest, dark brown hair.”
“So, you always liked brunettes, huh? First fuck?”
“Her name was Barbara, she was blonde. She cried the whole time. Geesh.” He shuddered.
“I think Jeanie’s growing up just fast enough,” Rachel assured him.
“Yeah. She was.”
“Locan, I want to be the one to take this prick out . . . for what he did to Jeanie.”
“He’s yours, kid.”
“Something else is eating at you, isn’t it?”
“Fucking guys, we’re so hard-wired, you know.”
“When she was coming on to you, you were responding?”
“Yeah, I’m loath to admit it, but damn, all the bells and whistles went off.”
Rachel shrugged. “You’d never take advantage of a girl like that.”
“I’m not sure that’s the point.”
“Of course, that’s the point.”
She threw the covers back exposing his growing cock, took it in her hands and licked its length from base to tip and back.
“Want me to be an innocent little girl; want me to cry?”
“Rachel?”
“Please, don’t hurt me . . . you’re so big, I’m so scared. Are you really going to rape me?”
“Rachel!”
She slid underneath him and coaxed him on top of her. His cock dangled at her gate.
“Oh, you’re going to . . . please don’t tell my parents. Oh, please, I’m scared.” She began to weep.
Locan’s cock was steel. He slid it into her cunt.
“Owww! Please, oh no, don’t rape me . . . don’t . . . oh God; no, don’t make it feel so good. I don’t want it to feel good. I’m a good girl . . . noooo!”
She was sobbing now, he couldn’t tell if she was faking or not. He increased the pace of his thrusts as she wailed for mercy.
“Urrrgh! Bitch! You want it!”
“No, please, don’t make me . . .”
“Slut! You’re a slut!”
“Don’t . . . don’t make me say it.”
“Cocksucking whore!”
“Don’t . . . I’m so ashamed.”
“Slut! Say it!”
“Slut!” she sobbed. “I’m a slut! Oh, please . . .”
She cried so sweetly.
“Jesus!” His fluids rocketed out of his cock. The release was so sudden it hurt, but it felt so good.
He held his cock inside her as it deflated. He felt wicked, cruel, giddy. Rachel lay beneath him, still weeping.
He lay beside her and scooped her into his arms. Her tears wet his shoulders.
“God, Racey. Are you, did you really . . . ?”
“Shhh, I can’t just break character like that, you know. Let me cry a while.”
“Yeah . . . sure.”
She quieted, then she began to snore.
“Mr Osgood, it’s none of my business, but that fax that came in for you, well, I noticed it was from the FBI. I wasn’t snooping, mind you, but I noticed.”
“Yes, Mr Sprague.”
“I think maybe there’s more going on in Salem than some punk moron dropping LSD on unsuspecting people; I think maybe that’s why you’re here. I don’t want to know, or need to know anything and I ain’t asking. Just one thing I want to say to you.”
“Yes, sir?”
“That son of a bitch that screwed around with my girl, you get that bastard.”
“You have my word, sir.”
Locan and Rachel left the B&B after breakfast and walked a block past the House of the Seven Gables to the Salem–Boston ferry dock. The high-speed catamaran had just discharged a full load of tourists. They waited for the crowd to thin and for the vessel to back out into the harbour fully loaded for the return trip to Boston. Mullens and DiLeo approached from different directions. They all gathered at the quay.
“Where do you need us to set up tomorrow night?” DiLeo asked.
“Nowhere. Like I said, I don’t want him scared away. He’s not expecting anyone to show up except whoever he told to be there.”
“What are you going to do with him? You said no charge would stick.”
“Don, you don’t need to know that.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Rachel said. Her tone was so flat, cold. No one said anything for a moment.
Mullens cleared his throat. “Which graveyard? You figure that out?”
“Not the Burying Point; it’s the one all the tourists flock to, and even if Halloween will be over, there’ll be a few stragglers around. He wouldn’t take the chance. Broad Street would be a good choice, just outside the central downtown area, and the Corwins are buried there.”
“Who?” Mullens asked.
“Jonathan and George, judge and sheriff during the witch trials. George oversaw the torture of Giles Corey. So their graves give the place a certain creepy cachet.”
“OK,” DiLeo nodded.
“But I think it’ll be Howard Street. It doesn’t get much attention except from bums and vandals. It’s a big dark patch in the city. I think he’ll show up there, and that’s where we’ll be. We’ll wrap it all up. It’ll be neat.”
“Guy should get a trial,” DiLeo said.
“He’s had one,” Rachel said.
Rachel and Locan sat with their backs to the wall of the old brick lighthouse at the end of Derby Wharf. Except for a few couples who strolled to the end of the pier and back, they remained mostly alone in the dark. Behind them and all about them they heard the sounds of a city in revelry. Halloween in the trick-or-treat capital of the world. They were good sounds mostly, people having fun, laughing, shouting.
“A ship would push off from this pier and wouldn’t come home for a year or maybe three, but when it did, people got rich overnight with the cargo it brought home,” Locan said. “Can you imagine the adventure, the risk and the payoff? Did you see those mansions lining Chestnut Street?”
Rachel snuggled into him in the chill air.
“What about the women?”
“They stayed home, took care of the kids, and prayed to God their man came home.”
“And if they didn’t?”
“They had their little social safety nets. But it was do or die, boom or bust.”
“The stars are brighter out here,” Rachel mused. “It’s the kind of night I could run naked through.”
He squeezed her hand and tried to put the idea of ever losing her out of his mind.
The feast of All Saints dawned as a grey November morning. It was Sunday, a day to recuperate from a particularly immense party. The crowds were gone, leaving their trash and detritus behind. The city wasn’t about to pay overtime to clean it up. It could wait until Monday.
The streets were empty. Now after a celebration of all things weird and unnatural, the city genuinely felt like an eerie place. Sunset seemed to linger close by even at the height of the day.
“I always hated Sundays,” Locan said as the gloom grew deeper. “I could never enjoy a day knowing I had to get up for school the next day, or work.”
“I liked school,” Rachel said.
“Figures.”
It was after 10 o’clock and they had scoped out the burial ground.
“I want you to wait by the copse of trees by the old jail,” Locan said. “I want you flanking me when I confront this guy. I’ll try to convince his toadies to run along; if not, they go down too.”
“I hope it’s not a long wait.”
“Rachel . . . stay dark.”
She nodded and they separated. Locan spotted a tomb cap in deep shadow, sat down upon it and waited.
He heard Tovan’s toadies first, still a distance away, young guys’ stupid bluster. They followed behind Tovan along Howard Street. Locan studied his body language and compared it with the careless antics of the group several steps behind.
“He’s cutting them loose,” Locan whispered to himself.
Tovan entered the c
emetery and strode towards a tabular monument; it could have been an altar.
A tall blond kid peered into the dark corners. “Shit man, where are all the little cunts? You must have spelled a few dozen.”
The rest of the group of five young guys mumbled. One said, “Yeah, weren’t we going to have one big fuck party first?”
Tovan didn’t answer. The blond acted as his mouthpiece.
“Fuck it! After tonight, we’re all gonna be kings.” He spun around and faced Tovan. “That’s right, isn’t it, magic man?”
“You’re nothing . . . but food.”
“Huh . . . what?”
“Here it comes,” Locan whispered.
“Food for the old ones. Just like the little bitches, and they’d be here too. But someone’s been working against me. It doesn’t matter though. It all changes tonight. You’ll know the terror of his jaws.”
“But . . . but you said . . . Hey man, you’re the man, the magic man. You said we’d rule—”
“Fucking Neanderthals . . . I don’t need you anymore.”
Locan thought the tall blond guy was going to cry. Then he turned to the others. “Shit! Let’s get out of here.”
They ran like hell was chasing them, tripping over tombstones, stumbling through the gate.
Tovan laughed. “There’s nowhere to run, idiots!”
Locan let him have his last laugh before he stepped out of the shadows.
Tovan’s back stiffened. “You!”
“Yeah, me. The guy who’s been gumming up your little party.”
“LSD? You couldn’t tell them the truth, could you? You couldn’t tell them their phony world and all their false beliefs were going to end in horror. They’d panic just like those fools.”
“People can understand being the victim of a malicious twerp dropping acid on them. That way there’s nothing to excuse or forgive. It’ll help some people regain their good name.”
“Who the fuck . . . ? Ah, it doesn’t matter. When they come . . .”
“No one’s coming, chump.”
“I will call them down . . . you’ll digest for eternity in the belly of Shub-Niggurath.”
“Shub-shlub. This isn’t about mouldy old gods that some fruitcake from Providence dreamt up.” Locan chuckled. “What did that town ever produce besides nerdy writers and low-level Mafiosi?”
“You’ll see, I can call them; I will call them.”
“That girl really fucked up your head, didn’t she?”
Some of Tovan’s bluster escaped him.
“Poor Marshall. Poor nerdy Marshall. You couldn’t buy a date with a girl, could you? I’ll bet you prayed and prayed one day that some girl would give you the time of day. And not just any girl, a beautiful blonde, with lots of money and all the class you’d never have.”
Tovan stumbled back as if reeling from Locan’s words.
“You better shut up!”
“Or what? Is Marshall going to call on some dumb fuck of a god to slap me down? Jesus, why the hell would anyone want to venerate Azathoth? Even Lovecraft said he was an oblivious idiot stumbling around the cosmos like a big retarded baby. What the hell did you expect a god like him to do for you, even if he did exist?”
“He does!”
“No, Marshall. I understand the kind of kid you were, creepy, awkward. All the nerds got into Lovecraft, at least the saddest ones did. Meanwhile, you still expected God to hand you sex on a platter. And why not? You were smarter than everyone else; you deserved it. You thought you had some special arrangement going with God. You enrolled at the theological college and that’s where you met Mercy.”
Tovan’s face soured as if his stomach had regurgitated.
“We talked to her, Marshall. She told us how she felt sorry for you, how maybe if she gave you a simple hand job you’d be satisfied and stop pestering her.”
Locan laughed out loud, grabbing his belly.
“Jesus!” He laughed, trying to wipe his eyes. “You didn’t even rate a sympathy fuck; all you got was a sympathy hand job. That’s just too funny, too . . . fucking . . . sad.
“Of course, you misinterpreted the whole thing. You thought she loved you. What the fuck did she say to you when you barged in on her and her boyfriend? Really, what could a girl say to someone like you that would leave you even more fucked up and twisted than you already were?”
Tovan couldn’t reply. Locan could hear his breathing laboured by rage, his teeth gnashed into a snarl.
“Did she tell you that you were a pathetic creep? That she’d die before your pokey little worms ever had a chance to swim into her belly?
“You caught her alone a few days later; you hit her. Got your ass booted out of school in exchange for no charges brought. It was worth it to her and her family that the world would never know that you even briefly darkened her day with your shadow.
“So, what did you do then?”
“I studied, I searched, I acquired the power!” he roared back. “I’ll turn their virgins into whores, their shamans into filthy, carnal pigs!”
“What power? You’ve done nothing a decent stage hypnotist couldn’t do. Oh, I’ll grant you, you’ve got some talent. I figure you met someone in your wanderings, someone who showed you how it was done. An entertainer, maybe, maybe even a clinical hypnotist. You had a real knack for it. And then what? See, that’s what I couldn’t understand.”
Tovan’s fists clenched at his sides.
“You see, Marshall, that’s the primo Nerd Fantasy, being able to charm women out of their clothes, hypnotize them into wanting to give you all the sex all the ways you want it. But you weren’t satisfied with that. And then it came to me, how Mercy so unmercifully fucked you up. Her tirade was so traumatic, you can’t get it up, can you Marshall?”
“Shut up!”
“God, that’s it, isn’t it? Now you can have any woman you want, but you can’t do shit about it. You poor slob.”
“It all changes tonight; they’ll all see . . .”
“Mercy was your idea of an innocent Christian girl sent to earth especially for you. Then it turned out she wasn’t so innocent after all. So you set out on this bizarre revenge mission; you were going to soil the very notion of innocence, turning young kids into crazed carnal idiots. You were going to take it out on the churches too, target any clergy you came across; the Revd Wright and his wife, they were just going to be the first . . . or have there been others?”
“They marinade in their own hypocrisy. The old ones will nosh on their bones. Just like you, look at the ooze; watch it seep out of the putrefaction of this ground. Sink, drown in it!”
Locan took a look around. “You know, Marshall, I’m just not seeing what you’re seeing. No ooze, just solid ground.”
“No, it’s sucking you under.”
Locan took a few loping strides towards Tovan and drew his revolver from the small of his back. Without any hesitation he swung the pistol up aside of Tovan’s head and fired. Tovan reeled from the report going off in his ear. He rolled on the ground and shook himself. He stood slowly and looked around.
“What do you see now, Marshall?” Locan taunted.
Tovan frantically scanned the darkness. Over on Howard Street a few lights had gone on in the darkened homes. He stamped his feet on the ground.
“You poor dumb shit,” Locan said, his voice even. “You hypnotized yourself . . . hypnotized yourself into thinking this Lovecraftian nonsense was real.”
Tovan stepped back and sat down hard on the tomb cap. “I . . . I didn’t do anything. You can’t prove . . . you can’t prove anything.”
“I’m not here to prove anything, Marshall. Except what a worthless piece of shit you are. Lots of people get handed the shitty end of the stick; they aren’t so smart or good-looking. They suck it up and get through life, lonely as it is, maybe no one ever notices them, but they get through life with dignity. Then there are the mewling little shitheads like you who take what little you have going for you and try to get back at
the world. You selfish, self-centred little creep. You think the world owes you an apology.”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“Marshall . . . yes you did. You damaged lives. You had no right to do that. And now you gotta pay.”
“I . . . you can’t . . .”
“You wanted to bring horror down on this world? You don’t know what horror is. I’ll tell you what horror is, and I’ll tell you what eternity is. Horror is fangs . . . fangs you see in the split second before they close around your neck and squeeze like a vice until they puncture your arteries and snap your spine. And in the billionth of a second after your head separates from your body those fangs are the only thing you’ll remember; and that, for you, you pathetic shit, will be eternity.
“Racey!”
Tovan turned his head towards the darkness and then all he could see of the world shone with a lurid blue luminescence. He was blind to everything except the fangs coming at him at an impossible speed. His neck was in their vice.
Locan had looked away from the flash. Now he turned in time to see Tovan’s head launch off his body, arc through the air and then land with a thump. His lifeless body was being shaken, twisted and worried like a rag. Then it was left draining on the sod.
The animal was dark and sleek, its eyes glowing, its fangs whiter than marble on a tomb and blood-streaked. It began to drag the body away. Locan followed, stooping to pick up the head. He followed it across Bridge Street to the railroad tracks along the North River where it had left Tovan’s body. Locan tossed the head a little further along the tracks.
The animal turned and loped back towards the cemetery. Locan found it pacing amongst a row of tombstones.
He knelt and held the animal’s glowing blue gaze with his own.
“Please, Racey, come back. Come back to me.”
She hopped onto a stump and raised her head. Her howl echoed about the silent city, haunting all its dark corners.
Locan closed his eyes. The blue light shone through his lids and then subsided.
Rachel lay naked on the grass.
It started to rain, a cold, soaking rain. His practical mind told him this was a good thing. It would obliterate the blood trail.
Locan covered her with his jacket and lifted her into his arms.
“I forgot to bring a change of clothes,” she said in a hoarse whisper. Raindrops trickled like tears off her face. She laid her head against his chest. He carried her out of the graveyard and down the dark-shadowed streets, bereft of any other soul. Through the common and down to the waterfront, along Derby Street past the maritime site. He was drenched to his skin. At the B&B he fumbled for the key and pushed open the door. The tiny lobby was dimly lit. He carried her upstairs.
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