Coven

entrance. She stopped and turned around.

Wade tried to sound casual. “Hey, I really had a good—”

She came right up to him and kissed him. One second he was standing there, trying to act in control, and the next second she had her arms around his waist and she was kissing him. It was a wondrous kiss, which seemed an absurd way to describe a kiss, but nothing else fit. It was soft, warm, delicate, wet, fervent, precise, and a hundred other things at once—a subtle mystery in moonlight. Her lips parted; the tips of their tongues touched. He could feel her bare shoulders in his hands, her breasts pressing. Her hair smelled lovely, clean; her skin felt hot. Pine needles brushed his back, their aromatic scent mixing with hers. Suddenly she was squeezing him so tightly it almost felt desperate.

When they stopped, they didn’t say anything. She was just looking at him, her eyes big and bright. She was beautiful. She was stepping slowly back. Back, back, his own eyes fixed, and she was smiling half happily, half sadly. And then she was in the door and gone.

««—»»

Tom poured Penelope out of the box.

It was very late, a quiet, warm moonlit night, and perfect for the work ahead. Tom had driven them in the Camaro to a suitable clearing back in the woods. Besser rode up front, and one of the sisters in back. Tom could see the idiot kiddie grin and sunglasses in the rearview. The sight pricked his nerves.

Penelope rode in the trunk, in a sturdy cardboard box.

Tom had dug the first hole in minutes, nearly breaking the shovel once or twice. He’d dug eight feet deep and six around. This was no easy feat but it was a milk run for Tom. Strength was one of the Supremate’s gifts. Tremendous, indefatigable strength.

He buried Mr. Sladder’s remains, then dug another hole. The low yellow moon glowed through tall trees, dappling the hidden grove. Besser stood in supervision with a Coleman lantern; he looked a bit pale. The sister stood right next to him, grinning. Tom dug the second hole with the lackadaise of a gardener hoeing a bed of petunias.

Penelope was blubbering something. She lay boneless beside the hole, a rubbery mass of flesh. She smelled good, though, like barbecued pork or something. He could see her collapsed face, her widely spread eyes, the formless mouth trying to talk. Her tongue lolled out and sputtered, slobbering.

Besser was paling at the sight.

Break time, Tom thought. He leaned against the shovel and chugged more Spaten—nothing like a cold beer after hard work, whether you were mowing the lawn, laying shingles, or burying girls alive.

“She’d been in some of my classes,” Besser lamented.

“Too bad she didn’t take,” Tom said.

“We’ve got it all worked out now.” Besser looked fearfully to the hooded sister. “No more mistakes.”

A froth of foam and bubbles drooled from Penelope’s mouth. What a grosser. The gelatinous loops of her arms and legs slopped uselessly, like tentacles on a speared octopus. Tom figured she was folded in half backward, her big wet breasts lolling at her armpits. At least she smelled like good barbecue.

The sister pointed to the hole.

“Bury her,” Besser said.

Tom pushed her into the grave with his boot sole. She didn’t fall in, she oozed in, like muck. Besser held up the lantern and groaned when he looked into the hole.

At last Penelope’s words blubbered up. “Plub plub please don’t bulup bulup bury me, Tom!”

“Don’t let the minor fact that she’s still alive dissuade your heart,” Besser regretted to Tom. “It must be done.”

“W where’s where’s my blay blay baby?”

Besser cleared his throat. “Regrettably, dear, your baby’s dead. Don’t blame yourself. You simply didn’t take.”

“I lyly rup want m m m my baby!”

Where was it? Tom looked around. Ah, there. The jellyish thing was crammed in the corner of the box. Tom picked it up by what he guessed were its feet and held it up to the lantern light. It hung limp as a rooster’s wattle.

Penelope blubbered a high pitched shriek.

—Give me it! the sister ordered. She held out her white hands.

Besser recoiled. “Oh, for God’s sake. Please.”

Tom shrugged. He gave it to the woman in black. Grinning, she let its bloated head swing back and forth like depended pizza dough, throwing a pendulous shadow. Tom watched with little interest. It wasn’t like it was a real baby, right? Not like the kind he’d been once, not like the kind mothers cuddled and loved. Not really anyway.

“Please,” Besser objected, nausea in his face. “Please don’t.”

—Shut up! the sister said like an irked grade-school girl. Her bleating wet giggles palpitated up. She turned the dead baby thing in her white hands and squeezed its head till its eyes popped out.

Penelope was flopping madly in her hole, shrieking, trying to get out. Motherly love, Tom supposed. He was amazed at her sudden ability to move. For a moment he feared she might actually churn herself out of the grave.

Besser winced. “Just throw it in the hole. Please don’t—”

Gnarled doglike teeth bared through the sister’s grin. She bit into the top of the dead baby’s head with a sound much like biting into a crisp apple. The sister sucked its brain till the boneless bag for a head collapsed. Then she giggled, munching. Someone should teach her some manners, Tom thought. Judith Martin would shit railroad ties if she could see this.

Wet smacking sounds followed, and slurping. The sister chewed her meal heartily; a big lump slid down her throat when she swallowed.

Revolted, Besser dropped the lantern. He stumbled away rubber kneed, fell between some trees, and vomited in grand style. Now, this was not something you got to see every day, a three hundred pound college professor throwing up like a sludge pump in the middle of the woods. Watching a black cloaked woman eat a dead baby’s brains wasn’t something you got to see every day either. Even Tom had to raise a brow at these shenanigans. The sister’s giggles splayed out into the grove, quite loudly. Tom still hadn’t gotten used to that awful sound—that giggling. Who could giggle while eating a baby’s brains? They were one wild crew, that was for sure. Yeah, real party animals.

She flung the head sucked baby into the hole. Splap. Penelope was still flopping in throes of absolute amorphous rage. Her high pitched blubbering shriek blurted out loud like a faulty train whistle.

—Bury her.

“Yes, ma’am,” Tom said. The shovel bit into the ground. He tossed in the first load. Ba bump! Penelope squealed again. Tom dropped the second load into her opened mouth. That should quiet her down some, the little dickens. She gagged and coughed up wet clumps of earth.

—This is so much fun, isn’t it, Tom?

“Yes, ma’am, it sure is. I haven’t had this much fun since the last Polanski Festival.”

He buried Penelope without reservation. He whistled that great old Guess Who song “Share the Land” as his shovel gradually filled the hole. Burying girls alive wasn’t exactly fun for the whole family, yet despite the grimness of the task, Tom supposed it was a fair trade.

Shit, he thought. For immortality, I’ll dig graves from here to Seattle.

—