by Conrad Jones
He used the smooth side of the dagger to cut her bonds. “He’s telling you the truth,” he said, throwing the blade onto the floor. “This is not what it seems.” Jennifer ran and stood behind me.
“I don’t give a fuck what it is.” I turned the gun on him again. “Throw me your clothes, all of them!”
“What?”
“You heard me.” The two uninjured men exchanged concerned glances and gathered the four sets of clothes in their arms. “Get their trousers, Jennifer,” I ordered. “Get their wallets and their mobile phones.”
She paused momentarily before approaching them. She snatched the trousers roughly from them. “Here,” she said. She held them out to me like a mother giving her child a birthday present. “I knew you would come,” Jennifer said. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she turned to face me. “They were going to rape me again!” She sobbed uncontrollably.
“Are you okay?” I turned to look at her. Her eyes were darker than ever, and despite her tears they seemed to sparkle. She didn’t look scared at all. She just looked sad. I rummaged through the pockets and collected their personal belongings. I resisted the urge to look through them; getting distracted now would be a fatal mistake. I stuffed their keys, wallets and phones into my haversack alongside my pipe bombs. “This lot will open a few eyes when it lands on the Superintendent’s desk.”
“Thank you for coming for me.” Her lips quivered as she spoke. “I’m okay, but they were going to hurt me again. Kill him, Conrad,” she nodded to the injured man. He cried out and tried to crawl away again, but a swift kick in his ribs stopped him. He curled up in the foetal position gasping for breath.
“No, Jennifer, don’t let him kill me!” he begged. “Tell him the truth. Tell him the truth!”
“You snivelling little shit.” I kicked him again as I spoke. He flipped over onto his back. “You brought her here to rape her and now you want her to help you?”
“No,” he tried to speak, but I kicked him again. I shouldered the gun and aimed at his groin. “Is there anyone else coming here tonight?”
“No, listen to me,” he said.
“Kill him,” Jennifer shouted.
“Why is nobody else coming?” I didn’t believe him.
“Kill him!” she screamed. Her voice resounded in my head. “Kill him, kill him, kill him!”
“No one comes anymore because of you. Listen to me, please,” he tried to explain again. I thought that he might be telling the truth. They were lying low because of the fuss I had caused on the Internet. They daren’t meet while the focus was on them. “I can explain this!” he babbled. “Don’t listen to a word that bitch says!”
“Kill him,” she screamed again. Her voice was piercing. Spittle flew from her lips. “They raped me, Conrad. They raped my brothers and sisters. Don’t let them do it to me again!”
“Jennifer, calm down.” I turned on her. She was becoming hysterical and her voice was grating on my mind. I was confused. “Have you seen a young girl called Constance? I think they’ve taken her.”
“They have taken her.” Jennifer’s eyes lit up. “Ask him where she is. That fucking pervert there!” She pointed to the man who had cut her free.
“I don’t know what she’s talking about.” His lip quivered. “I don’t know anything about any young girls.” His voice was well-educated and I thought that I recognized it from Knowles’s recordings.
“He’s lying, Conrad,” Jennifer snarled. “She’s been here for days.”
“Where is she?”
“Up there.” She pointed to a small cupboard door that I hadn’t noticed. It was built into the wall at the top of the staircase. “They keep them in there until its playtime. Don’t you, you bastards!” Her voice reached a deafening pitch. “God knows what they’ve done to her already.”
I looked at the door and I could see that it was padlocked. I had a conundrum. Two of the men were badly wounded, one was nearly dead. The other two were unhurt and dangerous. “Who has the keys to that door?” I asked the two men. One of them had dyed his hair black, which didn’t match his grey eyebrows, and the other had a comb-over that Bobby Charlton would have cringed at.
“I don’t know,” Comb-Over shrugged nervously.
“He does.” Hair Dye pointed to the man who was bleeding to death against the wall. I walked over to him and kicked his feet. He opened his eyes for a second and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
“Where’s the key to that door?”
“He has it,” he gasped, pointing back to Comb-Over.
“I fucking don’t!” Comb-Over shouted in fear. “He’s lying!”
“Kill him!” Jennifer was cowering against the wall, covering her eyes with her arms. “Kill him!” Her screams were driving me to distraction.
“Calm down, Jennifer!” I shouted. “Last time, where is the key to that door?”
“She’s not in there, you fool!” the injured man near the altar laughed.
“Where is she?” I pointed the gun at him.
“Fuck off, you idiot!” he spluttered. “You have no idea what you are getting involved in. Your daughter is already dead and that’s your fault. Either call the police or fuck off!”
I’d had enough. I pointed the gun at his face and squeezed the trigger. The gun kicked and his face disintegrated beneath the force of the blast. Flesh and blood splattered the two unhurt men. Comb-Over frantically wiped the viscera from his face and he made a strange mewing noise.
“Where’s the key?” I screamed. They stopped smearing the bloody mess from their bodies and looked at each other. I shouldered the Remington and aimed at Hair Dye. “Three seconds, two, one.”
“Wait, I’ll check his clothes!” Hair Dye held up his hands and reached for the pile of clothes. “He keeps it under his belt.”
“They raped me last night.” Jennifer spoke calmly this time. “They were going to rape both of us again!” She nodded towards the locked door.
“What do you mean, ‘both of us again’?” I snarled at the two men. Jennifer started screaming again and it was driving me to frenzy. I couldn’t hear my own thoughts. “Have you touched Constance?” I felt spittle spraying as I spoke. I felt the blood pounding through my brains and I slammed more shells into the gun.
“Don’t listen to her!” Comb-Over tried to scramble backwards, away from the altar. “She’s lying! We haven’t raped your daughter!”
“How the fucking hell do you know that she’s my daughter then?”
“It’s all over the newspapers!”
“He said she was already dead!” I was losing it.
“She probably is, but she isn’t here!”
“Kill him!” Jennifer was screaming repeatedly.
“Did you rape her?” I was steaming. Anger was taking control and Jennifer was adding fuel to the flames.
“It isn’t like that,” he tried to explain. “It isn’t like that, she insists that we do this; she demands that we come here!”
“I bet she does. Look at you! You sad, lonely, fucked-up, sick-in-the-head geriatric! Where’s the key?”
“She’s lying to you!”
“Kill him or he’ll never stop!” Her voice became a sickening wail.
“Don’t listen to her!” he shouted. “She’s the cause of all this! She’ll get us all killed in the end!”
I couldn’t take any more. “Tell it to someone who gives a shit,” I said as I squeezed the trigger three times. The gun roared and Comb-Over twisted and bucked as the lead shots slammed into his body. A fragment of his skull hit the roof and dropped onto my arm. Sparse grey hair still clung to it.
“Kill him!” she screamed as I reloaded the gun, and it roared again. The blasts ripped the delicate flesh from his nether regions and his genitals disintegrated into red mush. He screamed in agony. I raised the barrel and fired two shots into his face. His legs buckled while I reloaded and turned to the others. Nine shots later the men were dead. The walls were covered in blood and brains, and th
e smell of urine and excrement pervaded the cellar. The corpulent odour filled my senses and clung to me. I fought the urge to puke.
I looked at Jennifer as sweat mingled with my tears. They ran down my cheeks in warm rivulets. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. I thought she was going into a fit. She grinned like a mad woman and she smiled at me as I bent to touch her hands. “I knew you would come. I knew that you would come for me!” she shouted, but her tone was odd.
“I thought you were dead,” I said, confused. “I came to the hospital and the doctor told me you were dead.”
“Thank you, Conrad.” She smiled as her hands became free. She stood up and flung her arms around my neck. Her mouth moved towards mine. As I looked into her eyes, I felt my strength waning. The need to unlock the door and search for Constance was replaced by a far more urgent desire. She pulled my head down and put her mouth over mine. She forced her tongue between my lips and gripped the back of my head as she probed my mouth. Her tongue felt hot and swollen. It filled my mouth, almost choking me, but it felt so good. I kissed her and waited for her to pull away, but she didn’t. She pushed her tongue further into my mouth, withdrawing it to her lips before forcing it back again.
Unfamiliar lights and sounds filled my mind as she tore my clothes from my body. She literally ripped them apart and I shook them free as we writhed against each other. She pulled back, her mouth exploring my face.
“You killed them for me,” she gasped. Her breath was tainted with something rancid. I felt her teeth nipping and biting my ears and neck. Her nails scratched my back and chest, drawing blood where she raked deeply. She placed her mouth over my nipple and bit down hard as she took me to the floor. Her strength was incredible. I didn’t fight her because I wanted her. Her body was lean and muscular and she smelt musky. Images began to fill my mind, images of sex and of blood. As she lowered her body onto mine, I heard her howl with pleasure.
She howled like a dog, but the sound seemed to be so far away. I could feel her body grinding against mine. Her pussy was tight and wet and it seemed to grip my shaft as she slid up and down on it. Her hips bucked against me painfully, but I couldn’t get my cock deep enough. No matter how hard we thrashed our bodies together there was no satiation, just an overwhelming desire to drive deeper and deeper until it hurt. I could smell her sweat mingling with my own. The musky smell of her juices filled my nostrils and there was an uncontrollable urge to bite her hard and draw blood. Her body was becoming tense, hard and taught. The muscles and sinews in her neck were protruding and they pulsed as she bit my face and neck. She was pulling me deeper into her, thrusting herself down onto me, and a deep growling came from her throat as her movement became more desperate. “You’re a killer,” she moaned.
I felt her nails ripping the flesh on my back and her teeth bit into the skin on my throat. I felt her tear a nick of flesh from my neck and a trickle of warm blood ran from the wound over my collarbone and onto my chest. As her thrusting became more frantic, so the pain increased. She was reaching her climax, but I wanted to slow her down. I tried to push her off. I wanted to taste her body and make her writhe on my tongue, but she was too powerful. I felt that she would draw blood before she climaxed. Part of me welcomed the pain. Part of me desired the intensity and the violence. She was right. I was a killer. I stopped struggling, opened my mind and let her take me away with her.
The place she took me to was vile. It was like walking into a dream so real you cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality. I have never tried drugs, but I can only imagine it is like tripping. We were fucking like animals and she was becoming frantic, but I was suddenly aware that we were no longer alone. I saw images in my mind. They were terrible images. The cellar was full of people. The floor was a writhing, stinking mass of people fornicating in the vilest and most perverted ways imaginable. Men, women, animals and demons were present at this orgy of nightmares. Many of the participants were bound and gagged, unwilling victims of the insatiable crowd. I heard women screaming and babies crying. Men groaned in ecstasy and agony. Their screams haunt me to this day.
“Join us!” they screamed.
“Join us, Conrad. Be with me. You’re heart is as evil as mine. You’re a killer,” I heard her whispering in my ear. Men cried out in pain and animals howled. I heard Jennifer howling as she thrust down harder and harder. I let her ride me and as she reached her orgasm, I filled her with mine. I opened my eyes and looked for her, but she was gone. She was on the altar at the head of the room and the evil in the room seemed to magnetize towards her like smoke through an open window. Sperm mixed with blood dribbled down her inner thigh and she wiped it away and sucked it from her fingers.
She was the centre of the violence and the focus of their energy. Jennifer Booth wasn’t their victim, she was their princess. I could hear chanting. The frantic screams of the consensual and nonconsensual were reaching a fever pitch. I heard them chanting “Baphomet”. I remembered that Baphomet is a sinister entity and is depicted as a beautiful, mature woman, naked from the waist up, who holds in her hand the bloodied severed head of a man.
I watched as she walked across the altar to a spot where a man was being buggered by another dressed in a goatskin jacket. He was wearing horns on his head. The receiver was bound and the expression on his face told me that he wasn’t consensual. Jennifer swung her arm once and a boleen flashed in the candlelight. As she raised the severed head in the air, the man in the goatskin ejaculated over the corpse. I suddenly knew much more than I ever had. Jennifer Booth is the dark, violent goddess to whom human sacrifices were made. She ritualistically washed in a basin full of the blood. She was not a victim, she was the centre of their worship. She was their vampiress, their goddess.
As the realization hit me, the sick tableau vanished and I was back in the cellar. Jennifer was thrusting down on me and I could feel every nerve ending in my body tingling as I neared a second coming. Although I knew that my climax would spell my death, I couldn’t stop her. Her body tensed as she came again and she howled like a dog in pain. This time it was a high-pitched whine that cut through my brain. I heard a growling – the deep, ripping growl of an animal savaging its prey. I felt her pulling away from me, her thrusts were fading and her struggle was no longer against me. Her howling became more intense and the growling grew deeper and more guttural. I felt her letting go of my mind and my body. I reached up and moved from under her, tossing her aside. She screamed in pain and frustration as the Staffie savaged her.
Evie Jones had attached her teeth into her neck below her left ear. The Staffie was twisting and turning her body trying to maintain her grip. Jennifer stood up and ripped the Staffie from her throat. Arterial spray exploded from the wound. Evie Jones bounced off the wall at the far end of the room, but she was up in a flash and she launched herself back towards Jennifer.
I dived across the concrete for the gun. I heard Evie Jones howl as I turned and watched Jennifer take her true form. She was no longer the helpless victim, she was an enraged animal. Her jaw opened wide, her lips curled and exposed her teeth, still stained with my blood. Her eyes were as black as the night and evil oozed from them. She snarled at Evie Jones and the Staffie stopped in her tracks, growling and barking, but obviously scared of the monster Jennifer had become. For a second there was a flash in my mind. She was desperately disappointed. I’d caused her kind no end of problems and she’d set the trap to lure me in and kill me. I was weak and I let her into my mind and surrendered to her.
Only Evie Jones stopped her from taking me. I grabbed the gun, but she moved like lightening. She was on me in a second. As I turned the gun towards her, she struck me in the chest and launched me across the cellar. I hit the wall and cracked my skull hard against the plaster. I squeezed the trigger and the blast hit her square in the face. A plume of red mist splattered the ceiling. Pain flashed through my brain and I crumpled to the floor as unconsciousness enveloped me.
Chapter 27
Aftermath
Where are we now? I can’t tell you for obvious reasons, but we are safe. When I woke up, Jennifer – or whoever she really is – was gone. The Staffie was licking my wounds and the sun was coming up. She was gone, but the bodies of the men she used to trap me were still there and they were stinking. Sticky blood stains congealed on the concrete around them. All the evidence of her being there was gone apart from a blood trail which ran from the cellar, up the staircase and into the hallway. Why didn’t she kill me? I don’t know. Maybe she was too badly injured. Maybe Evie Jones attacked again. I have asked the Staffie a thousand times what happened when she knocked me out, but she just looks at me and sticks her tongue out. I’ll never know.
As my senses cleared, I gathered my tattered clothes and retrieved my bag. I found the key to the door at the top of the stairs, but all it contained was a water meter. The back of the door was scratched and there was a finger nail in the wood. They had imprisoned some poor soul in there. We scoured the farmhouse; each and every room we searched was empty. There was another cellar beneath the barn, but that was empty, too. I couldn’t find anything of use. The Mercedes was gone and the outhouses held no clues. I thought about calling the police and waiting there for them, but the more I digested the situation the less the idea appealed. What was there to gain?
What would I tell them? Hello officer, I’ve broken into this farm, shot another four men dead and had sex with Jennifer Booth before shooting her in the face with a Remington. By the way, her body has disappeared, but there’s plenty of blood on the stairs and carpet to back up what I’m saying.
The whole thing was madness. I decided that leaving the bodies and blood stains there could only make my case worse. I placed my bag of pipe bombs onto the electric hob in the kitchen and switched the ring on. Evie and I were safely into the treeline when they exploded, and according to the pictures in the Mail, the place burned to the ground before a single fire engine attended. I know one thing for sure: they are still looking for me. They will regroup and begin their insidious recruitment again. I can only tell the world about them and hope that someone listens.