The Shadow in the Dark (Part Eleven)

 

Dogs.

 

The barking was distant, but audible. 

 

Probably too distant for them to have picked up my scent or even heard me, assuming they were even guard dogs, that is. I sprang quickly to my feet and considered what I should do. In a film I would have waded through the river, but the Miskatonic was deep and I would be taking an incredible risk to enter the water in the dark. If the strong river current didn’t endanger my life, the freezing cold water would probably give me hypothermia once I emerged downstream. 

 

With the setting of the sun the trees began to take on an eerie appearance with their branches seeming to take on the aspect of monstrous tendrils reaching up towards the night black sky. I was reminded of films like the Blair Witch Project where the woodland seemed to be a hostile and overbearing force of nature trying its best to lure you to your death. I’m a city girl and I don’t really feel at home amongst nature. Woodland at night is not a place that puts me at ease. 

 

Were the dogs looking for me? Had I tripped a motion sensor located near the bridge? If so it made sense not to be anywhere near the bridge if that was where the dogs (and their handlers?) were headed. Just who owned this land, and why were they so very hostile to intruders? What had happened to Shelley? Where had she been taken? 

 

It suddenly occurred to me, for no reason at all, that I hadn’t seen any of Shelley’s discarded clothing on the grass when I had emerged from my hiding place. I hadn’t even given that thought any consideration at the time, but now, hours later, the switches in my brain clicked into place. Had the men bundled up Shelley’s garments and taken them away? I suppose they must have. There was no other explanation. Which meant they didn’t want to leave any evidence behind that the girl had passed through the woodland.

 

Which meant she wasn’t going to be seen again by anyone.

 

Which meant I could not let them find me. 

 

The barking resonated from the east, and so I turned towards the west and moved swiftly through the spindly bushes. I didn’t know where I was heading, and for all I knew I would blunder into another steel fence blocking my escape, but I had few other options available to me. I suffered innumerable scratches to my arms and legs as I blundered through the darkening night, but it seemed to me that the further I went, the more distant the barking became. Was I really outpacing the dogs? If so they must be on tight leashes, controlled by their handlers, and not left free to pursue prey at their leisure.

 

My feet were wet where I ran through pools of squelchy mud. I tried not to stray too far from the river bank – just far enough that I was unlikely to run into any motion sensors planted there, but not so distant that I would lose track of where I was. I felt the blissful surge of adrenalin that comes from being in a heightened state of danger as I ran with renewed strength and speed. 

 

A branch struck my cheek and drew blood. Thorn bushes lacerated my arms as I drove headlong, not seeing the obstacles until it was too late. But the adrenalin meant I felt nothing. 

 

And then I saw a faint glow in the distance, or rather several glowing lights that flickered briefly between the pine trees. The light sources were moving, and so I came to a halt, crouched low, and proceeded in a semi-circle around their source. As I moved further forward I heard what sounded like a couple of bodhrán drums being played in sequence. It was a steady beat that filtered through to where I crouched and shuffled forward. 

 

The lights seemed to be glowing spheres held aloft on long poles, and the bodhrán drums gave a sense of a procession moving through the woodland. The barking of the dogs hadn’t drawn any nearer and now I began to think that the dogs weren’t hunting me, but rather were chained somewhere on guard duty. 

 

I saw three women illuminated by the light from pole mounted globes that they carried in their right hands. Two of them were dressed identically, and they wore steel collars about their throats. Attached to the collars, all the way round the lower rim, were small steel rings, like curtain rings, from which long strips of red fabric, like broad ribbons, fell to ankle length. Were the girls to stand still, and were there no wind, the lengths of ribbon would essentially conceal their bodies, but moving as they were I could catch brief glimpses of their breasts, legs, thighs and arms. It was clear they were both naked beneath the ribbon lengths.

 

The third woman was dressed very differently. She wore a loose and very concealing white gown, unbelted so that the fabric didn’t contour to her figure, and with it she wore a white face veil that concealed the features of her lower face. The gown she wore came with a wide hood that was raised, meaning only her eyes were visible. The effect was both mysterious and compelling. She was obviously a Mistress, while the red ribboned girls were subservient to her. She was flanked either side by naked men, or rather, naked save for shaggy overly large animal beast masks worn over their heads. The snout of the mask was flat, with wide nostrils and large pointed ears. The mouth displayed two rows of fangs with pronounced canines, top and bottom. It was these two men who caried the bodhráns and beat them with the aid of a short double headed drum stick to some savage and primal rhythm that stirred my blood.

 

My eyes were drawn to the naked loins of the men. Both men seemed rather well endowed, though I was hardly an expert on phallic size, virgin that I was. But still, I could imagine their lovers would not be disappointed. 

 

I lay down on my belly, feeling a strong fascination as this procession past me by. The woman was chanting some words I didn’t understand. They seemed alien, bestial, hardly designed to be pronounced by a human tongue and yet she seemed to cope somehow.

 

“Y' syngg ot dasag yogfm'll. Y' syngg ot daedal shugg,” she sang as the bodhrán drums continued to beat out their pagan rhythm. 

 

I saw and heard that the red ribboned girls were belled. The bells seemed to be fastened around their ankles and wrists, and they moved with a supple grace that I had never seen before in a female. Compared to them I was surely graceless, clumsy, numb, lacking in feeling, and oblivious to any notions of sexuality. The hair of each of the red ribboned girls was extremely long, draping down to the small of their backs. In contrast, it seemed that the woman clad in the white veil and loose gown had her hair gathered up and fastened with pins and ribbons beneath the hood of her garment. It was another detail that distinguished her from the red-ribboned girls.

 

I gazed at the two men again from my hiding place. They looked strong, tense with corded muscle. Each man was broad shouldered with little in the way of surplus fat. Their bodies were not abnormally muscled in the way a weight lifter might be, but rather composed of a lean physique with layered muscle that would develop naturally over time if that man was hardened by nature. 

 

I felt myself blush as I watched them pass me by. 

 

I rarely saw such specimens of manhood.

 

Their presence excited me, stimulated me, made me feel extremely feminine by way of response. 

 

I had to concede to myself that these men were desirable. I imagined how hard their bodies would feel if I ran my soft hand lightly across their arms, their shoulders, their torsos. Despite the seriousness of the situation I found myself feeling rather heated. My breath grew shallow as they strode past; the men showing no shame at their state of nudity. They seemed like primaeval hunters of a bygone age, if not for the savage beast masks they wore. The full face masks were out of proportion to their bodies, for the men would have to have been nine feet tall at least for their heads to seem normal.  

 

I had no idea what I had stumbled into, but I was intrigued enough to follow quietly, keeping my distance from the eerie procession as it made its way through the pine trees. 

 

“Ng ot ghtan, ng ahogog ah'n'ghayarr, ng lyr, ng n'gha, ng byth,” chanted the woman in the white gown. The globe she carried on her pole cast light about her for at least ten yards in every direction. Whatever the power source might be, the effect was impressive. It seemed that the women walked through a pool of daylight. Suddenly, one of the shaggy headed beast men turned his gaze in my direction. I froze, still lying prone in the wet mud, hardly daring to move. The bestial eyes swept the area of thorn bushes as if sensing something. His great snout raised itself slightly as if scenting the air, as if that was even possible through a shaggy headed mask. But I held my breath and lay still. The moment passed, and the procession moved on.

 

What was this? I felt like I had stumbled on some archaic pagan ritual. I recalled what Sheriff Root had told me earlier in the day about the occult history of this region, and of the cult leader, Joseph Curwen, and his supposed magic ritual in the woods hereabouts in the late nineteen seventies, when he claimed to have conjured a demon from the night sky. Curwen was long since dead, along with most of his followers, in the bloody shootout with law enforcement in Puwtuxet, Providence, but had he possibly left behind some men and women who continued his work? It seemed the most obvious explanation. 

 

The rain began to lessen, much to my relief. I was already damp and didn’t relish being actually soaked to my skin. I followed the procession as it snaked its way through to a distant clearing. Here I saw a great statue carved in the shape of a primitive beast in black stone. It squatted on its haunches, but would have been over nine feet tall if fully upright. The head of the beast was the same as the great shaggy masks that he two men wore. Its forelegs were larger than its hind legs, but the forelegs resembled arms and hands with six digits, several jointed, almost like tentacles, which terminated in claw like growths. There were similar claws on the feet of its hind legs which seemed retractable. The carving seemed old and was overgrown in places with moss and ivy. Directly in front of it were two flat stone slabs, each one about seven feet long and four feet wide, and raised three feet above the ground. 

 

I saw heavy iron rings bolted to the corners of both slabs.  

 

“Ng ng Y' chang'd ya papys, syngg ahh mgyogor vale ot maenalus. Y' cain kajira ng casen reyd,” chanted the woman in white.  

 

Now the two red-ribbon girls made their way to the stone slabs and lay down upon them, spreading the ribbons about their bodies in the process and revealing much of their naked flesh. They both raised their wrists towards the iron rings nearest the great beast carving. The two men ceased beating out a rhythm on their bodhráns and now they addressed themselves to binding the wrists of the girls to each iron ring instead. 

 

“R'luhhor ng shuggothh, c' ah nilgh'ri makk!” cried the woman in white as the beast masked men made the other two girls helpless. 

 

I gasped softly for I saw that the close proximity of the two girls had now made the men sexually excited. Each man’s penis was stiff as they secured the last of the ties. I was secretly fascinated, for I had never actually seen an erect penis before. And these ones were big. I chewed my lower lip, wondering whether such monstrous appendages could ever fit inside a woman. Surely they would hurt?  I felt my own tight sense of virginity. A man like that would surely tear me open if he dared to thrust his penis between my thighs. I would surely bleed and scream, for I sensed he would not be gentle in his taking of me.  

 

The two girls now spread their legs wide. There were iron rings at the corners of the slabs furthest away from the beast statue, but the men seemed disinclined to secure the ankles of the girls. The girls were obviously compliant, obedient, and submissive. I gazed at the steel collars about their throats. Presumably the girls were able to remove them as they wished? I could not imagine they would be locked in place. No girl would ever permit a steel collar to be locked about her!

 

And then I held my breath again and gazed with fascination as the two shaggy masked men first mounted the stone slabs and then mounted the girls themselves. Oh God! They were…

 

Each man pressed his loins between a girl’s thighs and swiftly penetrated her. There had been no foreplay, and yet the girls must have been ready to some extent for they did not scream in pain. 

 

How could that be? I would be dry. I would need many minutes of…

 

I suddenly realised I wasn’t dry, not in the slightest. I felt excited by these men and I felt sure I was already moistening between my thighs. How shameful! Just the sight of these men and what they were now doing was actually preparing my body for sex! They had not touched me. They didn’t know I was here, but I was already aroused. 

 

I heard the girls gasp as they were roughly taken and penetrated. I saw them writhe on their backs as the men entered them. 

 

“Nilgh'ri wert, Iiahe Y' ahlloig both ye hai wann,” chanted the woman in the white gown. All three pole mounted globes had been planted in the wet soil around three sides of the stone slabs. She seemed to be presiding over the orgy that was now taking place. I watched as she raised her arms high into the air and seemed to beseech the black stone statue that gazed down with its dark set eyes as the red-ribboned girls bucked and writhed in time to the deep thrusts of the men.  

 

The men were in no hurry. They mastered the girls, bringing them close to a point of abject release and then bringing them down again to a heady mass of simmering frustration. The girls screamed for orgasm and each time were brought closer and closer towards it. 

 

Is this how men took women? Real men, that is? It seemed brutal, but exciting. How must it feel to have your wrists spread and tied, to be helpless, to have your thighs parted and to be penetrated like that? 

 

How horrible.

 

How very wrong.

 

But how exciting.

 

And natural?

 

My own thighs were quivering as I watched. I was engrossed in the orgy, so much so that I didn’t hear the third man approach until suddenly his hand clamped down over my nose and mouth with a damp cotton pad. I screamed sharply as I inhaled the astringent solution soaked into that thick wadding. I struggled in panic, but immediately felt dizzy. I couldn’t see who was behind me, who was pressing down on me with the full weight of his body as he held that thick cotton pad over my nose.

 

I breathed in more of the chemical and within moments passed out.

 

************************

 

I woke slowly to a warm shaft of sunlight streaming through the dormer window, teasing my face.

 

It was one of those lazy mornings when I sensed instinctively that I’d enjoyed a really good night’s sleep, with vivid dreams that faded the moment I left the lands of Morpheus. Above me, pinned to the sloping sides of the attic roof, a poster of Elsa from Frozen looked down at me. There was a quote on the poster that read:

 

‘Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let it show.’ 

 

For some reason the quote stirred a momentary pang of frustration as I lay on my back gazing up at it. 

 

Don’t let it show.

 

I mustn’t ever let it show.

 

The thought came unbidden into my head, and just as quickly vanished.

 

I became aware I was lying under a Frozen bedspread that I’d partly kicked away as I’d tossed and turned in my deep sleep. And continuing the Frozen theme, I wore a silky bedtime slip with Elsa printed on the front. From where I lay in the single bed I could see other pictures from Frozen pinned to the walls, often with motivational quotes from the cartoon film. My eyes focussed on one of them:

 

‘The best way to get what you want is to just be who you are.’

 

And there on the attic door was Elsa imploring me to ‘let it go, let it go, can’t hold it back anymore.’

 

My left hand strayed to the silky slip where it settled against my breasts. It wasn’t real silk, of course – just some synthetic silky material, but it felt strangely nice. I didn’t normally wear such things to bed, so it was a new sensation. 

 

My fingers brushed the silk that lay against my left nipple and that felt nice, too. I smiled a guilty smile as I lay there and began to stroke both my nipples through the silk-like slip. I felt content, good with myself, happy in my body as I lay there, waking up slowly.

 

With the arrival of bright daylight, all the fears and anxieties and the stress from last night were gone. I didn’t know what time it was for there wasn’t a clock in the tiny attic dormer bedroom, but I allowed myself the luxury of stroking and fondling my nipples for a while through the slip. This wasn’t something I normally did, but this morning it felt comforting. I thought of Sheriff Root, and pictured him frantic with worry when finally I’d make contact with him, later today. I pictured our reunion, as he put his arms around me and held me to his body, telling me how worried he had been when he had lost me in the woods.

 

Thinking of Sheriff Root made the stimulation of my nipples nicer still. I lay back, gazing up at the Elsa poster as I felt those nipples swell to my touch. 

 

I could…

 

I could always…

 

I sat up abruptly in the bed, my mind suddenly focussed on where I was.

 

I was lying in the bed in the dormer bedroom belonging to Rosemary’s Frozen obsessed daughter. I was wearing the silk-like Frozen slip again, as I had done last night. Everything was as it had been earlier this morning.

 

But the clearing… the orgy… the steel fence…

 

How was I here?

 

I leapt out of the bed and gazed about the room. Fresh clothing had been laid out for me on the dresser; a school style pleated skirt in navy blue, a white long sleeved cotton t-shirt with Elsa from Frozen lifting her right hand up as magical fairy dust rose from her palm, and a pair of white ankle socks with a fringe of lace around the ankles. A set of very adult silk underwear was laid out with the outer garments, alongside a shiny black pair of Mary Jane shoes.

 

I gazed at my bare arms and legs. There was no sign of any scratches or lacerations. I rushed to a mirror and saw that my cheek as smooth and clear. But I had been struck there by a sharp branch?  

 

For a brief moment I felt like I was going mad. 

 

And then I hurried downstairs on bare feet. 

 

Like before I could smell bacon and eggs cooking in the kitchen.

 

I rounded the door and stopped in my tracks. Rosemary stood by the cooker, tending some pans. She looked up as I appeared in the doorway.

 

“Good morning you sleepy head,” said Rosemary with a friendly chuckle. “Just look at you. I was beginning to wonder whether I’d need to scoot upstairs and wake you.”

 

“What?” This couldn’t be happening.

 

And then I heard HIS voice from the kitchen table.

 

“Morning, Elsa.”

 

It was Sheriff Root. He was drinking coffee as if nothing last night had ever happened. I stared at him, speechless for once. 

 

“Doesn’t she look adorable,” said Rosemary. “Reminds me so much of my young Ada. It was lovely to have Ashlee in the house last night. I do so miss Ada.”

 

“Got tired of waiting for Rosemary to open up the diner, Miss Ellis. It’s gone past ten. Thought I’d call round and pick you up. I presume you’re still on for showing me where you abandoned your car last night?”