Bestial (38 page)

As she walked through the church, it seemed odd to see it crowded with people who were dressed so casually—jeans, T-shirts, shorts, tank tops. She was accustomed to seeing only people who were dressed up and scrubbed clean, with their hair perfectly coiffed. It gave her a strange out-of-place feeling that was almost dream-like.

Rochelle left the foyer and wandered down the corridor, looking for Harry. She turned left and made her way into the multi-purpose room. There were others there, standing around talking, laughing.

Finally, she decided to go into the sanctuary and find a seat. That was why she had come—to sit in a pew and listen to... something. She wasn’t sure what, or why, but she was supposed to be there, she knew that much. She went back to the front of the church and walked through the open double doors into the sanctuary.

She looked around for Harry but did not see him in there, either. She made her way down the center aisle and ducked into a pew on the left, near the front. She sat on the very end of the pew because she wanted to be able to get up if she saw Harry. She would join him, and maybe they would wander off somewhere together. She was wet and her vagina seemed to thrum with the need to be filled. Rochelle got horny often enough, but she could not remember the last time she’d been
this
randy, and she’d been feeling that way ever since she’d finished feeding earlier.

More people came in and began to seat themselves in the pews. The light coming in through the tall rectangular windows to the left grew dimmer as night fell. In the front of the sanctuary, three steps led up to the stage. The modest, narrow pulpit of blond wood stood in the center, its microphone jutting up like a rigid penis. Rochelle was accustomed to seeing a large, colorful bouquet of flowers standing directly in front of the pulpit during church services, but there was nothing there now. The baptistery—a large covered tub that was opened and filled for the immersion baptism ceremony—was to the right, with a peaceful woodland scene on the section of wall directly behind it. Behind and to the left of the pulpit was a column of empty pews where the choir would be during a Sabbath service. Behind and to the right of the pulpit stood an American flag. Above and behind the pulpit, suspended from the ceiling, were three pale tan fabric banners, with the image of the cross on each one, the center cross suspended above the other two. To the left of the stage was an organ, to the right a piano.

Rochelle looked over her shoulder, searched the faces of the crowd, looking for Harry. He still had not arrived. There were plenty of other uniformed deputies, though. She wondered where Harry could be.

A commotion in the front left corner of the sanctuary got Rochelle’s attention. Just inside the side door that led out into the corridor stood a milling clot of people. Their voices rose in a celebratory tone. Laughter broke out in the group and a few people applauded happily. The side door was open and others were coming in. The group expanded and spilled into the sanctuary, then opened up to let someone through.

A familiar woman entered the sanctuary. There was a thin coating of fur on her face and she was smiling around small, unfinished fangs. She was flanked by two men. Both her arms were stretched out and she clutched a handful of each man’s hair, leading them in by it as she grinned. Those around her cheered.

Rochelle recognized the woman as Vanessa Peterman, a friend of Sheriff Taggart’s. When she recognized the two men, she gasped as she rose abruptly to her feet.

The one on the left was Royce Garver. The one on the left was her brother Bob. Suddenly, Rochelle was confused. She didn’t know what their presence at this gathering meant or what was about to happen. Jaw slack, she slowly lowered herself back into the pew. She decided to watch and see what happened.

Even as she did that, she was distracted by the hot moisture between her thighs and her gnawing hunger for sex.

For the first time since he was a little boy, Bob found himself on the verge of crying. He fought the urge, gulped repeatedly, tried to ignore the sting of unspent tears in his eyes. He feared not only for himself, but for his friend.

In the sanctuary, they became the center of attention as Vanessa led them through the crowd by the hair, showing them off like a fisherman proudly displaying his catch.

“Look what Vanessa caught!” someone in the crowd said, eliciting some raucous laughter.

Another onlooker joked, “Nobody said anything about a buffet!”

“No, no,” Vanessa said, “this isn’t dinner. At least not
yet
. This is the floor show. See this one here?”

Bob’s scalp burned as she shoved him forward, tightening her hold on the clump of his hair.

“He’s been wanting something for months now,” she said, “and tonight I’m gonna give it to him. He’s been wanting to
fuck
me.” She jerked his head around toward her and grinned at him. “Haven’t you?”

Bob was repulsed by the auburn hair that grew on her face, by her shiny argentine eyes, by the way her mouth protruded slightly from her face, by the fangs she licked with her glistening tongue. Then, within seconds, all of that went away—the hair, the silver eyes, the fangs. It was gone. The beautiful Vanessa Peterman who had stirred so much lust in him smiled and pulled him close, until his face was just a couple of inches from hers.

“Here,” she said, pushing Royce toward a man who stood nearby. “Hold him for me.”

The man smiled cruelly as he grabbed Royce’s shoulders and held him close. Vanessa let go of Royce’s hair and put her left hand to the side of Bob’s face. She loosened her hold on his hair but did not let go. She pressed her lips to his and sucked his tongue into her mouth so hard that it hurt. Her left hand moved down his body, never losing contact with him, and squeezed his crotch repeatedly, rhythmically, until he felt himself hardening. It was the last thing he wanted and he tried to fight it, but he had never been kissed so fiercely, and she seemed to know precisely how to touch him, where to squeeze, how to squeeze.

A cheer rose up in the crowd as more people turned their attention to Vanessa and Bob.

Vanessa ended the kiss, pulling her face back just a little, smiling. Her hand stopped fondling his crotched and unbuckled his belt, then unfastened his pants and jerked his fly down. She slid her hand beneath the elastic waist of his undershorts and curled her fingers around his erection. He gasped involuntarily.

“You want to put this in me, don’t you?” she asked, squeezing his cock hard.

Bob felt a cold, withering sensation in his abdomen. He knew what would happen to him if he did as she said. He remembered what Karen had told him about the virus. The words
sexually transmitted
flashed on and off in his head like a garish neon sign.

Grinning, Vanessa said, “We need to get rid of those clothes.”

As if she had given them an order, the crowd moved forward, cheering and laughing, and began to tear at Bob’s clothes. His shirt was ripped off, his pants pulled down. Hands roughly jerked his shoes from his feet. Then his feet left the floor as clutching hands lifted him and began to move him toward the front of the sanctuary. He struggled at first, but the hands pinched and clawed and hurt him, so he stopped.

Bob tilted his head back and looked at Royce. Now two people held Royce in place. He was pale with terror, his eyes bulging as he watched Bob being taken away. He didn’t even struggle against those holding him—he looked too weak, too afraid.

Naked except for his undershorts and socks, Bob was carried up the steps to the stage. Others disconnected the pulpit’s microphone and placed the pulpit on its side on the floor in the center of the stage. They put Bob down on the overturned pulpit, as if it were an altar, and hands held him down rigidly. Some of the hands pulled at his undershorts and slid them down his legs, while others groped roughly at his genitals, the laughter growing louder.

The pulpit was cold and hard against Bob’s back. His penis and scrotum shriveled and his utter humiliation made him feel small, like a helpless, naked child. An oval of leering, grinning faces hovered above him, some sporting the beginnings of fangs and a few tufts of hair on their faces. Bob felt the sharp scrape of claws from some of the hands touching him.

Those at Bob’s feet parted and Vanessa stepped forward. She stood naked, smiling down him, back straight, her firm, round breasts thrust forward. She bent at the waist, leaned one hand on his leg and reached forward with the other to wrap her fingers around his cock. She squeezed and stroked it as she looked directly into his eyes. In spite of his terror and humiliation and withering helplessness, Bob’s penis began to harden.

A chant began in the rowdy crowd. It was scattered at first, but became more unified, then louder and louder.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

As she enthusiastically stroked his erection, Vanessa’s eyebrows rose high above her eyes and her mouth formed an O in an expression of mock surprise. “Sounds like
they
want us to do it as much as
you
do, Bob!”

Bob begged God for help. And just in case he was living his final moments, he begged God for forgiveness, as well.

Rochelle had been standing for a few minutes now, her hands clutching the back of the pew in front of her as she leaned forward and watched what was happening. She was confused and a little afraid and extremely horny. Her eyes moved back and forth between Bob and Royce a few times, then settled on her brother as he was held down, naked and pale, on the overturned pulpit by the chanting crowd.

Something stirred in Rochelle as she watched her naked brother, unable to keep her eyes from lingering on his genitals. She felt shame—but only for a very brief moment. In spite of the spectacle, she could not get her mind off of her own crotch, now sopping wet. She could not divert her attention from her own nagging desire. It was a hunger, a thirst, a need.

Then she saw Vanessa standing up there on the stage, naked under the cross-bearing fabric banners. For just a moment, Rochelle was struck by the oddity of seeing a beautiful woman where she usually saw Pastor Edson preaching, or someone praying or singing a religious song.

As if it were a party, someone began to play the organ loudly. Rochelle looked to the left to see a dumpy, housewifey woman in her thirties, hair on her cheeks, grinning leeringly as she played the organ with elaborate motions of her arms. It was a tune Rochelle had heard before, but she did not recognize it—something secular and very inappropriate for a church, whatever it was.

Others in her pew shoved at her as they tried to make their way to the center aisle. She glanced to her left and saw an unfamiliar man in a T-shirt and jeans, with some hair on his face, trying to nudge by her. She felt a low buzzing in the spots where the man touched her. Then she touched him back.

In a heartbeat, they were pawing each other. He squeezed her breast hard, reached around and dug his fingers into her ass as he put his mouth over hers. She clutched his shoulder with one hand and groped at his bulging crotch with the other.

All around them, the chant was joined by growls and gasps and low, throaty moans. One of those growls came from Rochelle as she felt the man’s hands move all over her, felt his fangs against her neck, felt him get hard against her. The sound of clothes tearing rose from the crowd like the hissing of beetles.

The next thing Rochelle knew, she and her new friend were in the center aisle with the others. She looked around and saw penises standing erect, saw hairy hands groping pubises that glistened wetly through hair. She felt as if she were caught up in something out of her control, as if she were being helplessly tossed by a powerful wind.

The man was rough with her, and she loved it. She caught glimpses of others around her fucking and grunting, and she loved it. She breathed in the strong combined scent of all the others, and she loved it.

She leaned her bare hips against the edge of a pew, spread her legs, and let the stranger enter her. Their panting growls were lost in the growing peal of savage sounds that filled the church.

Royce’s terror was a rope around his neck that grew tighter and tighter, cutting off his breath, making swallowing almost impossible. He felt dizzy with fear, sick with it, crushed under its weight. It became so great that he cast his eyes down, too afraid to look around.

As the hands that held him tightened their grip, Royce felt sharp points piercing his clothes and threatening to break through his flesh. Without moving his head, his eyes turned to the hands holding his arms. They were hairy now, and sharp, curved claws stuck out of the fingertips, digging into him.

The voices all around him became deeper and began to growl. As they grew louder, a rank, gamey smell filled the sanctuary. He heard sounds he recognized, no matter how animalistic the voices—the sounds of sex.

He was pushed forward, then jerked back, nearly knocked over. He could feel the threat of violence in the air, as thick as the odor he could smell. When he finally stirred up the courage to lift his head and look at his surroundings, he saw them fucking all around him. They were violent in their rutting, slobbering as they growled. Then he saw something that would have made him gasp if his throat did not feel so constricted.

Rochelle was leaning against a pew, naked, her legs spread as a man pounded between her thighs. Both were naked and hairy, and their bodies undulated in the midst of their transformations.