Seventy
Before the lights went out, Amanda saw a lot of new people coming in. They seemed even younger and more virile than most of the congregation who’d made it there on time. Amanda welcomed them and they seemed to be glad. One of their cocks was in her mouth, one of them was in her cunt, and yet a third was in her ass. She didn’t know how they managed to make it work and she didn’t care. She felt like she was going to explode. She tried to cry out but her mouth was full.
Then the lights went out only... maybe they didn’t?
The Church still glowed. A hellish orange. Amanda didn’t know if she was supposed to be happy about that or not. She felt happy right now.
Maybe that was all that mattered.
She felt ecstatic.
Then she heard gunshots and felt that Officer Viled had finally made it out of the bathroom.
Seventy-one
Crank didn’t feel really scared until the gunshots started. He didn’t know where they were coming from. He needed to find Whitney and see if she knew where Doug was. He grabbed a hymnal or a Bible or whatever the fuck it was and started smacking at people, hoping he would catch a glint from Whitney’s cross.
He thought he could hear it.
Bullets ricocheting off the steel.
He looked to see who was doing the shooting.
Silhouetted against the glow from outside, he thought he saw him.
Officer Viled.
Not a surprise.
He was within arm’s reach.
Standing there with his pants off and smelling like sex and shit and just unloading that gun into the crowd.
And maybe Whitney was somewhere in the middle of all that.
Crank began hitting Officer Viled in the head with the spine of the book.
It must have surprised him enough to get him to drop the gun. Crank picked it up, having absolutely no idea how it worked, and charged toward the crowd.
Something giant and stinking ran past him.
He plunged his arm into the group of people, past all the sweaty flesh and, when he felt burning metal, he latched on and pulled with everything he had, which wasn’t very much.
Seventy-two
Since first seeing Doug, Whitney hadn’t taken her eyes from him. She was knocked onto her back. She kept one hand on the cross, hacking away as much as she could. Her clothes had been torn from her body. Someone was between her legs, going to town. Since she wasn’t wet in the least, it hurt and tore more than anything. Then she watched as the Beast grabbed Doug and charged for the front door. Some asshole had grabbed onto the cross and wouldn’t let go. Whitney wasn’t about to let go either. She felt herself being dragged down the aisle. The penis that had been violating her slid out and thrust increasingly farther down her leg. She stomped her foot when she thought it would be about there. Hopefully she damaged him in some way.
She scrambled to her feet and stood face to face with Crank.
“Crank!”
“Yeah, you can thank me later. Know where Doug is?”
Whitney quickly assessed where they were. They were at the wrong end now. Near the pulpit.
“They’re gone,” Whitney said.
“Gone?”
“Out the front door.”
“Shit.”
Whitney noticed Pastor Don Larsta slouched and naked, resting a hand against the pulpit. He looked like a man whose dreams just died and, Whitney guessed, he kind of was.
“Hang on,” she told Crank. She hoisted the cross high and brought it down on the unsuspecting pastor’s skull.
His head exploded at about the same time as the western wall of the Church erupted into flame.
“Good work!” Crank said.
“There has to be a door back here somewhere.”
They found a door and stormed toward the front of the Church. Whitney looked for tracks. She’d tracked the Beast before. She felt like she had its scent now. She told Crank to follow her and then asked him what time it was.
“11:55.”
Seventy-three
Doug opened his eyes. It didn’t really feel like he had woken up. It felt more like he kept trying to wake up. There was this constant movement that made him feel like he wanted to throw up. He felt so weak. Too weak to even get out of bed.
But he wasn’t in his bed.
Where was he?
The hospital?
The last thing he remembered was getting stung in Mindy’s car and then...
What?
Nothing.
So where was he now?
The first thought he had was that he was being carried by a giant.
Then he remembered the beast that had pinned him down that one night in the woods. His test of faith. But he thought he’d been good enough since then. Perhaps he’d been too harsh in his judgments of Crank and Whitney.
Why was he even thinking about any of this? He should be trying to get away.
But there was no strength.
He felt damp and weak and sick.
Drugged. Exhausted.
He gave everything he had and flailed his body. Whatever was carrying him came to a shuddering stop to better secure its hold before picking up the trot again.
He thought he heard a voice calling from behind him.
Two voices.
Crank and Whitney...
Seventy-four
“Doug!” Whitney yelled.
“Hang in there,” Crank rasped. The cigarette and pot smoking had not been kind to his lungs.
Whitney saw where they were headed.
The Tabernacle.
That was where her mother had wanted her to go. Part of Whitney had wanted to go just to find out what went on in there. But she had trusted the rumors. More importantly, she had trusted her instincts. Whatever happened in there was probably terrible.
The Beast burst through the door.
Seventy-five
And dropped Doug onto the sticky stinking floor. Doug looked up into the eyes of the Beast and thought he saw something familiar. Wherever they were, it smelled like the Beast times a thousand.
The Beast dropped to its knees and straddled Doug.
He didn’t have the strength or the will power to even try to kick it off.
So this is how it ends, he thought. It seemed appropriate. Just a pointless act of violence between him and a creature he didn’t even understand. Something that came from the bowels of hell. Something that was pure evil.
And evil was going to win again.
And so it was here as it was all over the world.
He closed his eyes and waited for the death blow.
Seventy-six
Whitney hit the doorway and didn’t even pause as the stink smacked into her.
The Beast’s claws were headed straight for Doug’s already damaged neck.
Whitney threw the cross with everything she had.
The Beast was so filled with bloodlust it didn’t even look up.
The cross didn’t hit the arm that Whitney had aimed for.
It hit the Beast in the skull and its head exploded, a rain of blood and gore spilling down onto Doug.
He didn’t even try to wriggle out from under the corpse.
Crank approached the Beast and kicked it off Doug. Now lifeless, the body began to revert back to the form of Doug’s mother but, without the head, it was mostly unrecognizable.
Saturday, June 21 st
Seventy-seven
Doug waited for the blow that never came. He felt the weight of the Beast on his body. He heard a victorious cheer from Crank and Whitney.
He kept his eyes closed and let unconsciousness take him once again.
He felt safe.
He felt loved.
Seventy-eight
“We have to get him out of here,” Whitney said.
And it was true. The fire still raged outside.
Whitney grabbed his arms and Crank grabbed his legs. They walked quickly, not entirely sure where they were going.
Seventy-nine
Around one, they came to America Pantry.
“Shit, Patel’s here,” Crank said. “You stay out here with Doug.”
Crank opened the door and walked into the brightly lighted store.
“Hey, Mr. Patel, I’m here for my shift.”
Patel looked surprised. “First time in three days, yes? And you’re not wearing the shirt I made you. And you look like dog shit and stink a lot. Know what I think? I think you and your friend are both bullshitters. I think this town is all bullshitters. All crazy.”
“Well, yeah...”
“I also think you’re in trouble.” Patel moved his right hand and for a horrified instant, Crank was sure he was going to grab his gun and shoot him. But he was just reaching for the register. The drawer slid open. Patel emptied it and put the pile of cash on the counter. “You take this,” he said. “Get help.” Next to the pile of cash he placed the keys to his Mercedes. “And take that. I’m going to call my wife and she will bring the children and we will drive very far away from here. Collect insurance and laugh like loonies.”
He pointed at the television. Aerial footage of the fire engulfing Clover.
Crank didn’t think he’d heard about Clover on the news for anything other than school cancelations and delays.
Crank took the money and the keys.
“Thank you, Mr. Patel.”
Mr. Patel laughed. As Crank was leaving Patel said, “I hope that wasn’t caused by a thousand and three Duraflame logs.”
“A thousand and six,” Crank said. “The inventory was off.”
He went out into the glowing night.
Eighty
Doug awoke in a motel room sometime the next afternoon.
Crank was asleep in the other bed, exhausted from driving all night. The only question had been whether to go north or south. They had chosen south. Decided they would try and find work in Florida and monitor the news from Clover. If their names were never mentioned, maybe they’d stay in the States, maybe they’d stay together. If any authorities were looking for them, they’d hire a boat to take them to some island in the Caribbean. After what they’d been through, they felt like they could do anything.
That left Whitney to explain to Doug what had happened.
Almost before she even started he apologized to her, told her he knew. Knew that his real father was out there.
Whitney almost considered letting him have this belief. Letting him believe his mother had died in the fire and his real father was still out there.
But she couldn’t.
She couldn’t because he had been lied to his entire life and it was time for that to stop.
Besides, in the end, maybe a person’s quest for religion is really just that person wanting to believe that magic exists.
And she had a magical story for him.
Eighty-one
Doug lay on the bed and listened to Whitney’s crazy story about Clover and the people who ran it. About how every eighteen years there was a child born to a woman without the act of intercourse. How that woman became a beast. An incarnation of Satan himself. And about how they had to go out and hunt, killing the men of the town and fucking the women, which made most people in the town related.
She told him about the one special child, usually a male, who had to be kept a virgin until the summer solstice of his eighteenth year. And how that virgin would then be sacrificed so the Beast could keep its Satanic form.
How they performed the same ritual every eighteen years and never made it work.
But this time it was close. Closer than ever.
She reduced his life to something that took less than an hour. It explained everything. The fake religion. His mother’s protectiveness. Even the crazy lust of the women on what was almost his last day on earth. They sensed the power.
If that was what his mother had been, then what did that make him?
He felt, somehow, special... and realized he didn’t want to be.
Listening to Whitney talk, he didn’t know if he should believe her or not.
He didn’t really know what to believe and there was something that opened in his mind or his soul and told him he didn’t have to believe in anything at all.
Doug felt his entire body relax with this knowledge.
He could believe nothing or he could believe anything he felt like believing which was maybe everything.
All of it.
Doug smiled.
He felt like he was starting at the beginning.
It was a pretty great feeling.
Other Grindhouse Press Titles
#011 – Pray You Die Alone: Horror Stories
by Andersen Prunty
#010 – King of the Perverts
by Steve Lowe
#009 – Sunruined: Horror Stories
by Andersen Prunty
#008 – Bright Black Moon: Vampires in Devil Town Book Two
by Wayne Hixon
#007 – Hi I’m a Social Disease: Horror Stories
by Andersen Prunty
#006 – A Life On Fire
by Chris Bowsman
#005 – The Sorrow King
by Andersen Prunty
#004 – The Brothers Crunk
by William Pauley III
#003 – The Horribles
by Nathaniel Lambert
#002 – Vampires in Devil Town
by Wayne Hixon
#001 – House of Fallen Trees
by Gina Ranalli
#000 – Morning is Dead
by Andersen Prunty
Satanic Summer Page 17