Beware

walking. I looked everywhere—up and down the aisles, back in the storage room. I even checked the meat locker. No one in the store but yours truly. Then the cash register opened on its own accord, and that did it. I closed up.”“Maybe you’ve got a ghost,” Frank said, half grinning.“That’s what I wonder,” Elsie said. “What do you think, Lacey?”“I think we should drive over to your store and take a look.”

Lacey swung her car into the parking lot of Hoffman’s Market.“Why don’t you wait here,” Frank told his wife.“And miss the fun?” She flung open a rear door, climbed out, and smiled at Lacey. “You think we’ll make the paper?”“That depends on what’s inside,” she said, and followed Elsie to the door.“We’ll make the paper for sure,” said Frank, “if we all get slaughtered in there.”Elsie frowned over her shoulder. “You do talk, Frank.”“If you’re so ner vous,” Joan told him, “maybe you should wait in the car.”“And let you get slaughtered without me? How would that look?”Elsie peered through a window. “I don’t see anything. Course, I didn’t before.”“Let’s go in,” Lacey whispered. She rubbed her arms. In spite of the night’s heat, she had goose bumps. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea, she decided as Elsie pushed the key into the lock. But it had been her idea. She could hardly back out now. Besides, she did want to find out what had caused the trouble.Elsie pushed open the door and entered. Lacey followed her in. The hardwood floor creaked under their footsteps. They stopped near the counter. Except for the light from a ceiling fixture near the door, the store was dark. Lacey could see only a short distance up the aisles.“Maybe you could turn on some…”“Holy shit!”She swung around. Frank’s hand was still on the door. He’d stopped in the midst of shutting it. He and Joan stood motionless, staring.“I’ll be…” said Elsie.Lacey walked to the door and crouched. “Wickedlooking thing,” she said. The meat cleaver was buried deep in the wood only inches beneath the lower windows.“A little higher…” Frank muttered.“That’s what hit the door!” Joan cried.“That’s right.”“God, you could’ve been killed!”Lacey stood up. “I think we’d better get out of here.”“Yeah,” Frank said. “And quick. Whoever threw that sucker isn’t fooling around.”“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Elsie asked.“From the bar. Come on.”

Oasis Tribune Saturday, July 12BURGLAR ATTACKS LOCAL MANFrank Bessler, local T.V. repairman, narrowly escaped injury last night when he interrupted a burglary in progress at Hoffman’s Market.Bessler and his wife, Joan, arrived at the market shortly after it was closed for the night by its proprietor, Elsie Hoffman. As Bessler peered inside, the front door was shaken by a cleaver thrown by an unseen assailant.Police were summoned after Bessler notified Mrs. Hoffman of the occurrence. The responding patrolman, Ralph Lewis, searched the market and determined that the assailant had fled.No signs of forced entry were found. According to mrs. Hoffman, no money was taken. The empty wrappers of two T-bone steaks were discovered behind the meat counter, along with an empty bottle of wine.Elsie Hoffman, who has operated the market alone since the demise of her husband, admits she is troubled by the burglary and the assault on Bessler, but has no plans to change the store’s hours of operation. “Fear can run your life if you let it,” she states. “I won’t let it run mine.”Says Bessler, “I went in for a beer and almost bought a farm.”

Oasis Tribune Tuesday, July 15MARKET HIT AGAINHoffman’s Market, over the weekend, was again the target of an unknown vandal. Opening her store for business, Monday morning, proprietor Elsie Hoffman found the empty wrappings of beef, potato chips, and other edibles scattered about the floor.“Looks like someone had another feast,” commented Mrs. Hoffman, whose store was the scene of a similar invasion on Friday night. On that occasion, local T.V. repairman Frank Bessler barely escaped serious injury when the surprised vandal hurled a meat cleaver at his head.Police believe that both incidents are the work of the same individual. To date, nobody has seen the perpetrator. Nor is it known how he gains entry to the store.Red Peterson, bartender at the Golden Oasis and a longstanding friend of Mrs. Hoffman, has offered his German shepherd, Rusty, to guard the market’s premises. “I’ll put Rusty up against any ten hooligans, and we’ll just see who takes a bite out of what,” says Red.Mrs. Hoffman has agreed to use the dog in hopes of preventing further losses.

CHAPTER TWO

Dusk settled over Bayou Lafourche, and the participants began to arrive. They came in dinghies and skiffs and canoes, silently paddling or poling their way around the bend, landing on the high ground and dragging their vessels ashore.The man’s black, sweaty face looked grim in the telescopic sight of Matthew Dukane’s rifle. “Smile,” Dukane said. Though his whisper seemed loud, he doubted anyone would hear him. He was sitting astraddle a branch high in the tree. Even in total silence, those below would be unlikely to catch his whisper; in all this din, they didn’t stand a chance.A Chicago boy, Dukane didn’t know what the hell was causing such a racket. The place sounded like the Brookfield Zoo gone manic. Or the jungles of Vietnam.He sighted in an old, white crone. A teenaged girl with corn rows. A fat white man who looked like a good ol’ boy. A bony red-haired gal. A strikingly beautiful mulatto woman. A black fellow with the build of a Sumo wrestler.Quite a congregation, Dukane thought. But then, Laveda was quite a woman. Hard to imagine anyone so beautiful could be so damned evil.She hadn’t shown herself yet. That was her style, though. Like most ladies who thought too highly of themselves, she had a fondness for dramatic entrances.The drums began. Dukane glanced at the three drummers. They were all black men, naked to the waist, squatting at the edge of the clearing with their drums between their legs. They thumped the skins with their open hands.Dukane looked away, and saw another skiff land. Its lone occupant climbed out. A white girl in cutoffs and a T-shirt. Quite attractive. He found her in the scope. The girl was Alice Donovan, no doubt about it. Though her hair was longer now, she still bore a striking resemblance to the graduation photo given to Dukane by her parents when they hired him.Even as she walked toward the clearing, she began to sway with the low throb of the drumbeats.The ceremonial fire was lighted.The drumbeats quickened, and the dancing began.Resting the weapon across his lap, he watched. The tempo was picking up, the drummers pounding out a frenzied beat. The dancers twirled and leapt in the firelight. Several were already naked. As he watched, Alice skinned off her T-shirt. She whirled, waving it like a banner while her other hand opened her cutoffs. She didn’t pull the shorts down. She danced as if forgetting them. They hung in place, at first, then slowly slipped lower and lower until they were halfway down her bare rump. They suddenly dropped. Dukane thought they might hobble the girl and trip her, but she jumped gracefully free. He turned his gaze to the mulatto woman with skin the color of tea. She was glossy with sweat, writhing as she rubbed her breasts.Plenty of guys, Dukane thought, would pay through the nose for a show like this. He was slightly aroused, himself, but frightened. He’d heard people say fear is an aphrodisiac. Maybe it was, for them. In Dukane’s experience, he’d found fear to be a great shrinker of erections.Erections. Plenty of them down there. No coupling, though. Not yet. Nobody was even touching—not each other, anyway. They danced alone, jerking to the wild race of the drums, stroking themselves as if no one else existed.Suddenly, the drums stopped. The dancers dropped to their knees.A single, low voice said, “Laveda.” Other voices joined it in a slow chant. “Laveda, Laveda, Laveda…”Dukane flinched as something dropped onto his head. It moved in his hair, scurried down his forehead. He brushed it away. Probably a goddamn spider. The swamp was full of them.The group kneeling around the fire continued to chant.Out of the darkness behind the drummers stepped Laveda. Dukane had kept her under surveillance for two weeks in New Orleans hoping she would lead him to Alice—but he’d never seen her like this. He stared.She wore a sheathed dagger at her side, suspended from a belt of gold chain. She wore a gold band on each upper arm. She wore a necklace of claws. And nothing else.Her thick, blonde hair hung past her shoulders. Her skin glistened as if rubbed with oil. Dukane couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was sixfootone of the most stunning woman he had ever seen.The chanting stopped as she walked among her congregation.“The river flows,” she said.In unison, the others chanted, “The river is red.”“The river flows.”“Flows from the heart.”“The river flows.”“All powerful is the river.”“Its water is the water of life,” she said.“All powerful is he who drinks at its shore.”“Who, among us, would be all powerful?”“I,” answered the chorus.Dukane spotted Alice. She looked ecstatic.Laveda drew out her dagger. Standing near the fire, she raised it high and slowly turned in a circle. “Who, among us, would drink at the river?”“I.”“For he who partakes of the flowing river shall inherit all powers.”“The power of life, the power of death…”“…shall vanquish all enemies…”“The strong and the weak shall perish at his command!”“…shall do what he will!”“What thou wilt shall be the law!”“Who shall drink at the river?”“I!” they roared.The drums rumbled. The congregation, still kneeling, swayed to