taught him that these types of feelings could come up unexpectedly when given a stressful situation. However, those classes were more for plane crashes, or shipwrecks, or becoming lost while hiking, not for some lunatic distortion of a town by these torturous entities hiding in the mountain.
Then he began to wonder why it was they had assaulted the town. He did not know, but was certain that what was going on here was coming from the mountain, coming from those nightmarish forms he had escaped. They wanted something, a vengeance probably. He did not care. He would find his way out of here and continue his life with or without Shannon. He would start seeing his doctor again, get rid of this bum, and lead a normal life.
He stood, gently letting the girls find the floor and cuddle amongst themselves, and began walking a circuit around the store. He checked the stock room first to make sure nothing had worked its way past the large rolling door over the loading dock, then the front of the store to make sure those doors were locked as well.
The outside was still pitch, the fog barely perceptible as it roiled just beyond the glass. He began walking the length of the windows towards the doors when he heard the sound of flesh rubbing against glass. He spun around with the shotgun, telling himself if he fired through the glass, the store would be open to anything that wished to come in.
There, pressed against the glass was a naked Madison. She moved herself against the window like a stripper, undulating and pleading with her femininity for him to come to her. She grabbed and rubbed at the parts of her body that did not make contact with the glass, and Ethan found himself instantly aroused. She was so incredibly gorgeous that it took every ounce of fear not to rush to the doors and let her in.
Her breath fogged the glass around her mouth as she pleaded almost soundlessly for him to come out. She was working her groin with her hand and pulling roughly at her full breast. Ethan’s breath came in rapid gusts as he watched, transfixed and unable to turn away. He discovered that his hands had found himself like some teenager with a dirty magazine.
He approached the glass and gently touched it with his hand. Madison immediately tried to suckle on his fingers, her body jerking as she came closer and closer to her own orgasm. She turned slowly, allowing her body to maintain contact with the glass, and bent over far enough to continue her efforts and allow him to watch from behind. The glass was becoming an unreasonable obstacle to his desire, and the importance of keeping out the outside evil was losing the battle. He realized he was rubbing himself against the window as well, trying desperately to make contact through the thick glass.
Madison began to slide her finger in, her other hand grabbing at her crotch and opening herself for him to see. Ethan began to lose control with his thoughts, wanting nothing more than to feel her from the inside, as she was doing right now. He would stop breathing right now if he could plunge in her, seek out the deepest parts of her, and leave that little part of himself there. In a sudden decision, he started heading for the door.
“Ethan! Don’t open that door, Ethan!” Shannon called to him from behind.
He knew he should not, but he had to have Madison. Nothing mattered more than to take that petite but voluptuous girl and have his way with her. He began clawing at the rather strange locking mechanism that held the automatic doors closed, desperate to have them open.
Shannon spun him around and forced him against the door. “Ethan, you can’t open that door!” She could tell by his rapid breathing, the pulse surging beneath her grip on his arms that he was close to being lost.
“I have to! God, I have to!” he hissed, his eyes clenched shut against the battle raging within him.
Shannon stared at him for a long moment, holding him against the door with all of her strength and the last of his waning self-control. She knew that when the self-control failed, she would be helpless to stop him. He would open the door and either go out to this naked woman or allow her to come in. She did not know who she was, but if she was out there naked and doing what she was doing, then she was part of the town’s trouble and not a survivor.
The solution suddenly came to her, and with the desperation of survival and the pent up disgust with her own self-loathing, she grabbed Ethan by both the neck and his crotch and kissed him hard, searchingly, longingly. He responded immediately, his groin already stiff, his mouth more hungry than hers. Their paired desperation to survive, to continue beyond this point and the over-powering sensuality of that wonderfully sexy woman pleasuring herself beyond the glass fed the fire between them, and they embraced even harder.
Deep in Ethan’s mind, he remembered the violation Shannon had suffered and so did not attempt to find her most intimate places, but she was hungry with hand and mouth, and soon he was sated and in control once more.
Outside, when Madison saw his release, saw him fill Shannon’s mouth with what should have been hers, she began to scream the scream of a tormented soul, scream the scream of the eternally damned, then fled away deeper into the concealment of the fog.
Chapter 30
Ethan woke with a start, his heart pounding at the dream he just escaped. Madison had returned somehow…and wanted him. She was here trying desperately to make him open the door, let her in with her hidden brood of whatever. Shannon…she had saved him from himself, she had come to him and did what a woman raped not more than a day ago should never have to do. He had a sudden chilling thought that somehow this was all real.
“Morning,” Shannon said sheepishly.
Ethan rolled over and saw her, the swelling of her eye and jaw line were receding and the deep reddish color was becoming an angry mixture of purple and blue. Still, with her hair brushed out and fresh clothing, she looked radiant. “Did we…?” Ethan trailed off.
“Yeah, I hope it was okay, but it looked like you were about to open the door.”
“Yeah, I was,” he replied weakly. “I thought for a moment it was just a dream.”
“Do you know who that woman was out there?”
“Yeah. Remember what I told you about the mountain, Heart House? That was Madison.”
“She is alive?” Shannon tried to sound calm about the idea, but failed.
“No, she is dead, or something close to it.” Ethan dropped his eyes from Shannon’s. “Thank you…”
“My pleasure. Next time, let’s wait until I am done healing; can you stand it?”
Ethan looked back up at her to see a sly smile playing across her teeth. “I’ll try.” Ethan smiled back at her. “Where is Kayla?”
“Sleeping, still. Do you ever remember being able to sleep like that?”
Ethan stood and walked towards the campsite, his back stiff from sleeping on the cold floor. He found Kayla barely protruding from the top of her cartoon sleeping bag. “I don’t think I ever slept like that.” He looked at Shannon again, her face so close to his, and he kissed her, long but not with passion. “Thank you for saving me last night. I imagine it was pretty hard considering…”
“Well, it’s fine. I was just not entirely sure I was ready; we’ve only known each other for what, a day and a half now? But I am an adult.”
“Still…thank you,” Ethan said into her eyes.
She gave him a crooked smile and embraced him for a bit, longing to stay there but releasing him in the end. “The sun is just starting to come up. We should get ready to go.”
“How long did I sleep?” Ethan asked as he stole a sip of flat soda from an opened can.
“About three hours.”
“Let’s get our stuff together then, and make our way. The granola bars and trail mix and, of course, Twinkies should be edible. We could also carry a couple of bottles of water each. I don’t remember how far it is to the next town, but I remember it was pretty far.”
“It’s about thirty miles or maybe a bit more. My sister lives there. You’ll like her, she actually is crazy.” Her smile took any sting out of what she had said.
“Then let’s go visit her. There are backpacks in that aisle. A small tent might be a good idea, also.”
It took them a bit to gather as many supplies as they could then sort through the most important. Kayla finally woke and studiously rolled up her sleeping bag as if she were at a sleep over. She then started on the
