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Coven at World's End
Eleven
Gordy followed Jessica Montegarde up the stairs to the bathroom.
"You've got blood on you. What's that black stuff all over your clothes?
It smells like coal dust."
Jessica shucked off her clothes and climbed into the shower. She
gasped as the icy water shocked her and slowly warmed. She put her face
under the spray, desperate to be free of the blood and dirt, wishing the
water could carry away the black creatures that had taken refuge inside
her.
Gordy closed the lid and sat on the toilet. "Where did you go,
Jessica? What happened?"
Jessica didn't know how she was going to answer his question. He
would expect a prompt response, or his short-fused temper would flare.
But she needed time to think before Gordy lost it.
It happened quicker than she would have guessed. He leaped to his feet
and dragged her screaming from the shower. He twisted her wrist until she
dropped to her knees. "I asked you a question!" he roared.
"My mother's dead, damn you! My mother's dead!"
He paused in surprise. Jessica burst into tears knowing she was going
to divulge a truth that Gordy would never believe. "Okay? She's dead! I
saw her, and I had to go and see for myself!"
Gordy looked stunned. "Your mother? The twin that lives in World's
End?"
Once it began to pour forth, she couldn't stop it. "Yes, damn you!
Agnes killed my mother! Gordy, they were attacked! Something terrible is
happening!"
Gordy let go of her arm. Jessica crawled on hands and knees back into
the shower. She sat cross-legged beneath the comforting rain of warm
water.
Gordy sat back down on the toilet seat. "Jesus Christ, Jessica, you
just killed a deer. You don't have to flip out like this over a damned
animal."
"It wasn't the deer! I saw my mother dying! She called to me!"
She saw energy drain from his body. "From World's End?"
"Yes, from World's End!"
"You told me it was some magical place you couldn't find it by yourself."
"I found it anyhow! And I found my mother and now Agnes is dead, too,
and something attacked me!" Jessica beat herself on the chest. "Gordy, it's
inside me! It's inside you, too, now! I saw it go between us!"
Gordy raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, really?"
Jessica choked on her own sobs. She turned aside and vomited, but saw
nothing of the inky creatures in the mess spiraling down the drain.
Gordy shook his head sadly. "Jessica, you've really flipped out this
time."
"You don't believe me," Jessica said despairingly, knowing perfectly
aware than she could expect nothing from him in that regard.
Gordy snorted derision. "What's there to believe? A town ten miles
away that only witches can find."
"They're not witches."
"I've heard the story, Jesse. Hell, everyone in Oak Grove has heard
the story. They tell it every Halloween."
"They're not witches!" Jessica took a deep breath to calm herself.
"They're just different from ordinary people. They have powers."
He nodded. "Yeah, that's right. You're one of them. A half breed,
you said. I remember you telling me about that once. You can
read minds."
"It's true, Gordy! I swear!"
"And now you've been attacked. What's that supposed to mean? What are
we supposed to do about it?"
"I don't know, but it's in me, Gordy! I can feel it!" She went cold
with memory of the motorcycle accident. "And that boy! It went into him,
too. I saw it go into his face."
Gordy's face drained of color. "Boy? What boy, Jessica?"
Her inadvertent confession startled her. Why couldn't she learn just a
little self-control? Now Gordy was staring at her blood-stained clothes
and thinking about the way she had smashed the front of his car. "He's
okay, though," she said quickly to dampen his surge of anger. "I didn't
hurt him."
Gordy's expression turned from anguish to utter desperation.
"That's my mother's blood, Gordy! And Agnes' blood! I didn't hurt the
boy! I swear!"
Gordy rose to his feet. His hands clenched into fists. "Did anyone
see you?"
She shook her head. "Nobody saw me."
"No matter. The cops will be here sooner or later regardless. They
always are." He eyed her with a cold stare. "I can't count of you to
keep a level head, Jessica."
Jessica scrambled to her feet. She crossed her arms against her
breasts and stood trembling in the stream of water. "Gordy, please, I'm
telling you the truth! I didn't hurt the boy!"
Gordy sighed. He looked down dejectedly and Jessica felt his thoughts
grow dark with anguish. He was thinking she had hurt or killed a young
man in an automobile accident and that she lacked the courage to be
truthful. She would bring the police to his door. When they arrived, she
would gush out her confession on the spot. The station wagon had no
insurance. The car was in his name. She'd go to a hospital. He'd go to
jail.
He had been in jail before. Jessica didn't know why, or for how long,
but she could taste his terrible fear. Claustrophobic nightmares still
woke him at night. An image of gray stone walls and cold iron bars evoked
the deepest dread she had ever sensed emanating from a human mind.
In fact, he had been in jail for a long time. When she had met him, he
had been a beaten and humiliated shell of a human being. If he went to
jail again, he felt certain he would die screaming in a panic attack that
would never end.
His thoughts raced about like wild animals. He was thinking that he
had to hide her. More than just that, he had to get rid of her. She
wasn't going to work out.
He could do it. He had done it before. He could do it again.
With that settled, his thoughts grew calm with cold determination.
They had caught him the first time, but they had never caught him
poaching. The crimes were similar, were they not? In a manner of
speaking, they were identical. Police had searched the farm without ever
finding a shred of evidence that he had killed Martha Kruse. Not a sliver
of bone or meat.
Jessica's eyes widened in horror as the pieces of the puzzle of Gordy's
pass began to fall together. There had been another woman in the past.
Gordy had killed her.
"Gordy, no." Her voice croaked. She backed against the wall of the
shower stall. "What are you thinking?"
The look on his face was perfectly calm now. And very unfeeling.
"We're going down to the shed, Jessica. I want to show you how to field
dress the deer. I'll show you exactly how it's done."
Except that he wasn't thinking of what he would do to the deer. He was
looking at her naked body. He reached for her, grabbed her arm in his vise-like
grip and dragged her from the shower.
"Gordy, you can't do this!"
He didn't want to. His eyes filled with tears at the thought of
loosing her. But he gave no thought at all to her useless protest or
feeble struggles. He dragged her down the stairs and through the house.
He paused at the back door, giving himself one last chance to find another
way out of his predicament.
There was none. She had failed him. He had told her from the very
first that he feared letting another woman into his life. She had never
asked about that other woman, and he habitually suppressed memory of that
terrible part of his life. But she had known the risk she was taking.
They had both taken a chance.
She tugged at the grip on her arm. "Gordy, please. Let me get dressed
first. Someone might see. I'll help you with the deer, I promise."
He chuckled at her feigned naivety. They both knew the score by now.
He pushed the screen door open.
"Gordy, no!"
He dragged her thrashing and screaming across the yard to the shed.
She screamed as loud as she could in hopes that someone might hear, and
for far longer than she would have thought possible as Gordy wrapped rope
about her ankles to bring one of his darkest desires into the terrible light of
reality.
