'Not strike to cause physical pain,' a voice entered his head. 'But there is a way to seek revenge for her unfaithfulness.'
Sam listened as the voice gave him instructions. He smiled his satisfaction.
'Yes,' Sam murmured. 'That's what I'll do.'
He was left with no conscious memory of the voice or the instructions.
Sam turned at Desiree's footsteps behind him. She was carrying a silver service, a pot of coffee on the tray. She smiled at him and said, 'Let's sit over by the window. The view is so nice from there.'
A lot better than what I just viewed, Sam thought. He did not question how he was able to bring to his mind's eye the infidelity. Something nagged at him, but he was unable to pinpoint the cause.
'1 apologize for what happened back there on the side of the road,' Desiree said. 'Something—something came over me. I don't know how to explain it. I've never experienced anything like it before.'
'You don't have to apologize to me, Desiree. Truly, I enjoyed it.'
'Truly,' she said shyly, 'so did I.'
They drank their coffee and nibbled on small cookies in silence. They studiously avoided any eye contact until it became obvious to both of them they had best either play the hands they were dealt, or fold.
'Why are we behaving like this?' Desiree asked. 'Something is the matter with me.'
Sam struggled for full use of his senses. She watched the young man's face dot with sweat. She looked at him curiously. Sam gripped the small table's edges with his big hands.
'Desiree!' he blurted. 'Can't you feel this—'
Sam could not finish the sentence. He could not remember what he was about to say. He knew only that he wanted the woman seated across from him.
Desiree smiled and put a small soft hand over his big hand. '1 know what I felt back on the road's edge, when you kissed me. I know that 1 have been drawn—somehow, to you from the first day I saw you, at Nelson. And those feelings have grown stronger by the hour. I want you, Sam.'
She rose from her chair and came to him, drawing his head to her breasts.
Sam gave up. He was weary of fighting something he could not understand; weary of combating his failing memory and forces that were beyond his present level of comprehension. He gratefully placed his head against the softness.
With her standing, and Sam seated, he let his hands drift from her waist to her buttocks. She sighed longingly as his hands gripped her buttocks. He rose to his feet and pulled her to him, kissing her open lips, feeling her tongue meet and explore his own.
Sam did not see Jimmy Perkins watching them from the outside, peering through the window. The ageless spawn of the Devil grinned grotesquely. It was all going as planned. The Master would be so pleased.
Jimmy hoped the young couple would perform the sex act where he would be able to watch them. Jimmy enjoyed watching people fuck. But that was not to be.
Desiree and Sam left the sitting room and disappeared into the depths of the huge mansion.
'Shit!' Jimmy said. He was disappointed, but not too much so. For the Master had promised him he could have his choice of any of the young local girls very soon. Jimmy could wait that long.
In an upstairs bedroom, clothing became tangled on the carpet and male flesh touched female flesh. Breathing became tense and hot and excited. Sam tongued the nipples of Desiree until they ached from passion. He slid his mouth lower, tracing patterns on her bare belly. His tongue explored the soul of the woman as she moaned under his mouth.
She breathed love words as she gripped his erection, heavy and hot under her fingers. She cried out in pain as he entered her. Blood dotted the sheets as he penetrated the maidenhead.
Passion overrode pain and she began meeting him lunge for stroke.
The day promised much for all concerned in Logandale. On both sides of the line separating the firmament from the nether world.
None were to be disappointed.
All whirled at the sounds of Mille's screaming. All were shocked into silence and momentarily frozen in place at the sight facing them from the hall.
It was a man, but a stranger to them all. The man was pale, whiter than any living human being any had ever seen. His clothing reeked of a foulness none were familiar with, and when he opened his mouth, his breath was that of a newly opened grave.
He shuffled up the hall toward the archway, his mouth open, his tongue a horrible sickly red color, his teeth fanged, his eyes wild with a fury no human could comprehend. No one except Noah Crisp and Father Daniel Le Moyne.
The priest lunged to his feet, the large cross in his right hand. He rudely shoved Monty and Mille aside and stood in the dimly lit hallway. He held the cross up to Max Oberlin.
'Spawn of
Max screamed as if in intense physical pain, the breath from him fouling the close hallway, the stench drifting into the den. He shielded his eyes with his hands, deflecting the silver light from the cross of Christ.
Father Le Moyne rushed the undead, slamming into him, knocking the man backward. Max grabbed at the wall to keep from falling to the floor in the narrow hallway. The priest kicked at the living dead, hitting him on the leg. Max howled, not in pain but in confusion. Max stumbled from the hall and staggered into the kitchen, knocking
