Helltown (31 page)

“I’m in the mood for the blonde,” Jesse said. “See if she really
is
a blonde.”

“I’m with Jess,” Weasel said. “We haven’t done a real blonde yet, have we?”

“Cleave?” Spencer said. “Your call.”

“The fuck does it matter?” he grumbled. “We doing both of them, ain’t we? So it don’t matter two flying shits to me what order we do them in.”

“The blonde it is then,” Spencer said.

Jenny was nearly insane with fear. She didn’t know how anything could have been worse than lying beneath the bed in that house, knowing Noah and Steve were dead, knowing someone was coming for her. But this was. Because at least when she was beneath the bed she’d had an inkling of hope she might yet get away. Not now. Now she was strapped down on an altar, stripped naked, the number 666 painted across her breasts with what smelled like sour blood. Now… God, now she was being
sacrificed
. These men were going to sacrifice her to their dark lord. They were going to rape her. Then they were going to bury her in a hole somewhere.

How is this happening?
her mind screamed hysterically.
I’m a second-year medical school student. I’m supposed to be attending microbiology and pathology on Monday. I’m supposed to be studying all week for Dr. Mann’s exam on Friday. I’m supposed to be a doctor one day, helping people, saving lives. I’m certainly NOT supposed to be strapped to an altar and sacrificed to the devil
.

A gong rang, reverberating loudly. Then organ music began to play, what sounded like corrupted church hymns.

God, it’s happening, it’s started, it’s really happening!

Jenny thrashed so violently the rope securing her limbs sliced into her skin. Warm, syrupy blood spilled down her wrists, her ankles.

Abruptly two of the men appeared before her. One wore a black hooded robe that concealed his face, the other the habit and wimple of a nun.

Jenny shook her head from side to side, screaming, but the gag in her mouth turned the screams into a muffled whimpers. Sobs wracked her body.

A third man appeared between the other two—the leader with the beard. He wore the same navy blazer, crisp white shirt, and red and yellow striped necktie he’d had on before.

The hooded man rang a bell nine times. The leader raised his hands, palms downward, and began chanting in Latin.

And right then something inside Jenny snapped with a dry, delicate
whick
, and she believed this to be the sound of one losing their mind.

Cherry could close her eyes but she couldn’t close her ears, and she was forced to listen to the horrible organ music and chanting and wild shrieks—and near the end of the ceremony, the grunts of pleasure from the men as they mounted Jenny one after the other.

And Cherry knew she was next. They were going to gang rape her like she was a piece of meat. The irony of the situation was not lost on her. She had spent her entire life following the Roman Catholic decree to abstain from sexual intercourse before marriage. She had upheld this edict even as she worked for a sleazy massage company with men propositioning her on a daily basis. Yet now she was going to be violated a half dozen times within the span of minutes—all on the altar of a Roman Catholic church.

If God had a sense of humor, He would surely be laughing at this. And suddenly Cherry was furious. How could He sit by and let this happen to her? If He was so omniscient and omnipotent, how could He let horrible acts of savagery like this occur in His creation?

She knew the answer. The last several hours of horror had pulled back the curtain on life and shown her the cruel truth.

God was not sitting on His throne in heaven in all His glory, surrounded by His angels, beckoning for her to join Him at His side.

God didn’t exist, He was dead, and very shortly she would be too.

After Spencer plunged the ceremonial sword into the blonde’s chest to conclude the black mass, he turned to the assemblage and said, “I must admit, gentlemen, I have enjoyed myself thus far immensely.”

“And we still got one more,” Earl said excitedly.

“That we do.” Spencer stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Cleave, what would you think about leading the next mass?”

“Me?” Cleavon said, surprised.

“You don’t want to?”

“It ain’t that. It’s just…I don’t know none of that Greek mumbo jumbo.”

“Latin mumbo jumbo. And the mass doesn’t have to be led in Latin. You can recall most of the English parts can’t you?”

“Sure…probably.” He shrugged. “I guess.”

“Then you’ll do fine.”

Cleavon cocked an eye suspiciously. “Why you offering to let me lead the mass?”

“It seems in our excitement we forgot to post a sentry out front the church.” A brief uproar followed this announcement, which Spencer promptly cut off. “Calm down, gentlemen. Calm down. We simply won’t make the same oversight twice.”

“I’ll go, Mr. Pratt,” Jesse Gordon said. “I don’t mind. The old pecker’s not what it used to be, and I’m not sure I could get it up for another go anyway.”

“Thank you, Jesse,” Spencer replied, “but my libido isn’t what it used to be either. Also, to be perfectly frank, without my robes and headgear I don’t feel comfortable leading the mass. The psychodrama is not at the level it should be.” He started walking toward the double front doors. “Collect yourselves, gentlemen,” he added over his shoulder. “Take your time with her, enjoy her, for she will be our last sacrifice for some time.”

“You holler you see that girl!” Cleavon called.

“You’ll hear me.”

Outside, beneath the black, weeping sky, Spencer went to the Volvo, popped the trunk, and retrieved the two lengths of half-inch chain and the two heavy-duty padlocks he’d kept there since deciding on Mother of Sorrows church as the venue for his contingency plan.

He secured the doors on the east side of the church first, looping one chain through the sturdy brass handles several times before attaching a padlock. He repeated this procedure with the front doors. Both times he tested his handiwork, tugging the handles quietly.

Spencer had always been curious as to how he would feel when the occasion inevitably arose when he would have to murder his brothers. They weren’t nameless, random women. He had grown up with them, went to school with them, opened presents on Christmas day with them. They were blood. He had hoped he would feel regret or sadness—those would be the appropriate emotions one should feel in such a situation—but as it turned out he didn’t feel anything. Their deaths would be meaningless to him.

Back at the Volvo’s trunk Spencer withdrew the red jerry can, unscrewed the cap, and walked the circumference of the church, splashing a line of gasoline behind him. When he met up with where he’d begun, he lit a match and dropped it in the gas. Flames whooshed to life and chased the flammable fluid around the wooden building like a line of falling dominoes.

A sense of accomplishment filled Spencer. It was done. Everyone inside the church would meet their fiery deaths shortly. There would be no one left who knew about the Mary Atwater incident. Moreover, they would take the fall not only for the murders this evening, but for each and every murder over the past twenty-four months. The police would raid the House in the Woods and find eight skeletons buried out back. They might not be able to explain who was responsible for locking and burning the church to the ground, but they wouldn’t have any reason to suspect Spencer. It would remain a mystery, which, in the big picture, wouldn’t matter anyway—because the main culprits were dead, justice was served.

Spencer, of course, could not continue with the Satanic masses on his own, at least not in Boston Mills. This would be a shame. He had become comfortable with the arrangement he’d orchestrated. Nevertheless, a return to his old ways would be its own relief. He would no longer have to worry about other people talking, other people screwing up. He would once again be wholeheartedly in control of his fate.

“Goodbye, gentlemen,” Spencer said as the heat from the quickly escalating fire rose against his face. “Be sure to give our fair Lucifer my salutations when you see him.”

CHAPTER 26

“It’s been a funny sort of day, hasn’t it?”

Shaun of the Dead
(2004)

The storm continued to strengthen, the torrent of driving raindrops turning the surface of Stanford Road into a furious boil. The first peal of thunder rumbled ominously in the dark sky, almost directly overhead.

Greta, more skipping than walking, said, “How are you feeling?”

Beetle rubbed rainwater from his eyes. “Wet.”

Greta laughed, tilted her head to the heavens, and stuck out her tongue, to catch the raindrops on it. “I love walking in the rain.”

“You’re in the minority.”

“Then you should have brought an umbrella, Herr Beetle.” She smiled crookedly at him. “Are you still drunk?”

Yeah, he was. Drunk and stoned and a bit squishy inside. But walking in the midst of a storm had a way of sobering you up. “I’m fine,” he said.

“You don’t talk much, do you?”

“We’re talking right now.”

“Because I’m talking to you. I think if I never said anything, you might not either.”

Beetle wondered about that. He supposed she was right. He’d never been much of a talker, especially with strangers. And although Greta was no longer really a stranger—more like the talkative girl at a party who wouldn’t leave you alone—he was in no mood for chitchat. In fact, he was already beginning to second-guess his decision to come along on this witch hunt or whatever it was.

He hunched his shoulders against the rain and dug his fists deeper into his pant pockets.

“See!” Greta said.

“Huh?” he said, glancing sidelong at her. Her eyes were sparkling, her wet face glowing. She was really getting off being out in a storm.

“I didn’t say anything, to see if you would say something, and you didn’t.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

Greta rolled her eyes. “Nothing. That isn’t the point. Talking doesn’t have to be about something. You can just talk to talk.”

Beetle nodded, realized this didn’t qualify as speaking, didn’t want to get reprimanded again, and so said, “Got it.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

The question surprised him—and angered him. “No.”

“I don’t either,” she said. “A boyfriend, I mean. I’m too tall.”

“To have a boyfriend?”

“No man wants to date a woman taller than themselves. Only movie stars don’t seem to care. Unfortunately, I don’t know any movie stars.”

Beetle glanced at Greta again. She must have been six feet, maybe six-one—his height, though likely two thirds his weight. She wore a red rain slicker over a white T-shirt. The slicker was unzipped, the tee soaked through. She wasn’t wearing a bra.

“You know,” she said, “it’s nice walking next to someone as tall as I am. I don’t feel like a freak.”

“You’re not a freak.”

“I was at a zoo last week, the one in Toronto. There were these young children there with their teachers on a school field trip. You should have seen how they all looked up at me, with these big, curious eyes, the same way they looked at the animals. I stick out like a blue thumb.”