'Leave it. We don't have that many hours to spend in this house. Why bother with it?'
She walked to the painting, staring at it. 'It's evil!' Picking up a long fingernail file from the dresser, she ripped the painting to shreds, hacking at it until it was no longer recognizable.
Marching to the kitchen, Jane Ann found a large bag and stuffed Michelle's Satanic possesions into it, along with what was left of the picture. She carried the bulging bag out to the back yard, dumping it into the garbage can.
Neighbors watched from their windows, their eyes wild with hate.
Sam had watched her with mild amusement. When she returned, he asked, 'You feel better, now?'
'Some,' she returned the smile. Her smile faded as she looked outside. The sunlight was beginning to wane. Night was slowly creeping upon the town.
She walked to him, putting her arms around him, pressing close to him. 'Tell me everything will be all right.'
He stroked her hair. 'I wish I could,' he replied honestly. 'But I'm afraid I'd be telling you a lie.'
Night fell heavily on the prairie town, shadowing the lighted streets, deepening the gloom of alleys and back yards, bringing with the darkness an almost tangible aura of evil. The streets were murky. Red-rimmed eyes looked out from dark windows, heavy breathing could be heard. An occasional snarl ripped from once-human throats, and savagery began to stalk the town.
At full dark, a gang of drunken teenagers smashed the back door of a drug store and helped themselves to a selection of narcotics, washing down the highs and lows with raw whiskey. Patrolman Vickers of the Whitfield Police Department watched them stagger down the street. He chuckled as he touched the medallion around his neck, then laughed and drove away into the night.
Fifteen minutes later, he sat in his patrol car and watched an elderly woman walk her dog. Vickers took his .38 from his holster, took careful aim, and shot the old woman in the head. The slug tore through her brain, blowing away part of her face. She sprawled in a front yard. The dog ran away into the night, barking its joy at being set free.
Vickers laughed wickedly and drove away.
He did not see the huge Beast shuffle out of the darkness, dragging the old woman into the shadows, where others of his kind waited, lips wet with drool. Their teeth flashed a dull, slick yellow as they feasted on the still- warm flesh.
Ruth Cash heard something prowling in her back yard. Fear made her heart pound in her chest. Those teenagers were back. They circled her house, calling out from the night, telling her what they were going to do to her. She had called the police and the sheriff's department, but no one came to help her. Now her phone wasn't working.
An attractive woman of forty, a widow for ten years, Ruth stepped out on the back porch. 'You boys better get away from here!' she yelled. 'I'll call your parents!'
They laughed at her from the darkness, and the taunting, jeering chilled her as they shouted filth at her.
''You're all dirty!' she screamed. 'I'm going to call the police.' She began to weep. 'Dear God,' she whispered, calling on Him for the first time in years. 'What is happening in this town?'
She backed away, off the porch, into the kitchen.
'Help me. Please help me.'
The young men came at her, knocking her down, dragging her into the living room. They stripped her, spread her legs, pinning her to the floor. Ruth watched as one young man removed his jeans, exposing himself, his hardness leaping free.
'What is she?' a teenager asked. 'How come she ain't one of us or Them?'
'She ain't nothing,' was the reply.
Then they raped her.
They took turns with her, in all positions. Ruth screamed her pain and outrage as they sodomized her. But no one came to help her. They beat her, forcing her to engage in oral sex with them.
And the night wore on, painfully. Ruth lay sobbing on the carpet, bruised, aching, and humiliated.
'Reckon she can still breed?' she heard a young man ask.
'I don't see why not,' another replied. 'We'll take her to Them.'
Hours later, Ruth's sanity had left her, as had her former shape. Mercifully, she had fainted when the young men had dumped her over the fence at Tyson's Lake—and she got her first glimpse of the Beasts. She had regained consciousness to find herself on her knees, a Beast mating with her, his organ driving deep inside her, his fangs biting her on the neck.
She now squatted deep inside the earth. Her body was covered with coarse, thick hair. She mumbled and snarled and growled, and the others seemed to understand her, and she them. She had no recollection of her former life. No remembrance of the God she had once loved, then had forsaken after her husband died, for a belief in nothing. Dimly, as a female Beast, she understood she was going to breed new life in a few months. There were several young Beasts crawling around on the earth floor of the cave. And Ruth was happy.
'I don't like it,' the young woman said, 'Honey, we haven't seen one person in over an hour. No one. It's spooky!' she moved closer to her husband, placing a hand on his leg.
They had been married less than a week. It was their honeymoon.
'Aw, don't be scared,' he tried to reassure her. 'Besides, this is the only road for miles. We'd have to go a hundred miles out of our way to get to the main highway if we didn't take this country road through—what is the name of this county? Fork. Sure is a big county.'
'Okay,' she sighed, looking around, making certain all the doors were locked. 'But I don't like it—just remember that.'
'Yes, dear,' he smiled.
Ten minutes later, a patrol car pulled them over, its flashing lights turning the highway red.
'You were speeding,' she told her husband in an accusing voice.
'Get out of the car!' the deputy told them.
'Me, too?' the young bride asked.
'You, too.'
Outside their car, headlights and flashing red lights almost blinding them, the young couple did not see the men rush them until it was too late. The young husband was beaten into unconsciousness with saps, then shot through the head at close range, his brains splattering on the blacktop as his head bounced from the impact of heavy slugs.
The woman screamed herself into hysteria as the possessed lawmen ripped off her clothing, forcing her to stand naked in the glare of the headlights.
'Look at them tits,' one laughed, pinching her nipples, rigid from cold and fear.
They raped her and tossed her into the caged back seat, with her dead husband.
They drove to Tyson's Lake.
And the Beasts were pleased this night. Two fresh females, both of them breeders, in one night. The Beasts feasted on the dead newlywed, and then the leader mounted the bride.
The young woman screamed her fear and revulsion as the Beast mounted her. In moments, though, she began to moan and snarl, her body beginning the rapid transformation from human to Beast.
After a time, she sat on the rocky floor of the cave with what had once been Ruth Cash, speaking in a language of mumbles and snarls and guttural lashings.
And they were content.
Neither Sam nor Jane Ann wished to sleep in either of the parsonage's two bedrooms, for evil seemed to hang in the rooms, and the foul odor to the carpets and drapes. Jane Ann made the couch in the living room—which Sam learned folded out into a bed—and they slept there.
After making love, they slept fitfully for a few hours. But the night sounds of Whitfield soon awoke them. Sam
