WARNING! This page contains adult material. If you are under 18 years of age, or are offended by adult themes, please leave now.


The Acolyte
Copyright 2007 by Mary Harris [aka redplanetes]

Chapter 1

Cicadas buzzed in waves in the late afternoon heat. Helen held the weeping glass of iced tea against her forehead and closed her eyes, pretending her whole body was enveloped in that cool, fragrant moisture. She normally hated summer and its draining temperatures, but oh, this was going to be a special one, and she was going to enjoy every second of it.

A deep rumble was approaching on the dirt road leading to the house. The corners of Helen's mouth curled up slightly in appreciation even before she could see the vehicle. After a moment an electric blue muscle car pulled around a curve; its throaty engine revved slightly as it rolled up to her porch, then shut off. She set the glass down and went to the porch's screen door as a beaming girl emerged from the car.

"Maenad!"

"Aunt Hel!"

They embraced tightly. "Oh, I'm so glad you came, Mena." Helen held an arm around the girl's waist.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world, you know that. Whaddaya think?" the girl asked, doing a Vanna White at her car.

"I so thoroughly approve, Mena. You make me proud. Ford, huh?"

"Well, Chevy didn't make Mustangs in 1970, Aunt Hel," Mena laughed, looking over at her aunt's well-loved and ancient red truck.

* * *

After supper they sat on the dark porch, sipping tequila and listening to the crickets. "You still make the best roast in the world, Aunt Hel, I don't know how you do it. I'm not leaving without the recipe." Helen sighed and smiled. "Well, I promised you an interesting summer, so I suppose I can let you in on a few secrets." She was silent for a minute, then asked, "What are you armed with these days?" To anyone else it would have been a strange question, but Mena answered eagerly. "Oh, let me show you!"

She turned the porch light on, and displayed the pistol on her hip, and the four knives she wore. A boot knife; a long, serious-looking Arkansas toothpick tied to her thigh; a delicate, feminine blade in a sheath between her breasts; and a tiny, razor-sharp knife in the back waistband of her pants. "You never know -"

"- when it might come in handy." Helen finished the admonition she had preached countless times to her neice. She fingered the blades, noting with satisfaction that they were well-honed, and slightly worn with use. She handed them back to the girl. "Show me what you can do."

Mena took the knives, pointed at a wooden chair at the other end of the porch. She focused, looking like a hawk sizing up a rabbit, then flicked each knife at the chair. Thock, thock, thock, thock; the chair's back sprouted four blades before toppling backwards to the floor. Helen clapped. "Good girl!" She poured them each a new drink, raised her glass. Mena held hers up, clinked glasses with her aunt. "The unexpected!" they shouted in unison, then laughed and downed their tequila.

"Mom didn't want me to come, you know." Mena smirked and continued. "She says you were a bad influence on me."

"And what do you think?" Helen asked, peering at the girl, head tilted.

"Oh, definitely."

Helen barked out a laugh. "And have you been a bad girl?"

Mena stuck her tongue between her teeth as she grinned mischievously. "My probation officer would say so. Don't worry, I'm not on probation anymore. I learned after the first time, don't get caught."

Helen cackled. "When are you going to get a tattoo?"

"I'm way ahead of ya, Aunt Hel." Mena smiled and pulled her sleeve up to display the brand-new ink sprawled across her shoulder. "I got this the day after my birthday. Mom was so pissed." A huge white wolf, head lowered, eyes glaring, mouth dripping blood. The ink was so new that the skin was still slightly bruised, and was peeling a little. "Very nice!" Helen said. Mena turned the light out again so they could enjoy the darkness.

"Aunt Hel, do you remember when I was a little girl, and you said you had a man? That you'd introduce me to him when I was eighteen?" Helen could tell Mena had been dying to ask this all evening. She couldn't help grinning.

"Oh yes, my little maenad. That's why I insisted you come out to visit me this summer." She could see Mena's face light up.

"You never told me anything about him. I've just had to guess..." She waited for her aunt to speak, in vain. "So... when do I get to meet him?"

Helen leaned forward, peered at the quarter moon just beginning to rise above the treetops. "Mmm, about ten more days, I think..."

* * *

A few days later they were driving down the highway in Mena's car, Helen studying the landscape earnestly. A few times she asked the girl to slow so she could look closer, but didn't find what she was searching for. Finally, she muttered, "Yes, ...yes!" and motioned for Mena to pull over. They got out, and Helen led her niece off into the trees. There was no trail but memory.

After a time they arrived at a small clearing with a stone outcrop at one side. Helen bent down stiffly and began sidling under the ledge, then turned to reassure the girl. "It's a cave. It's ok, I've been here before." She rolled into the opening, turned on her flashlight as Mena followed. The dusty tennis shoe still lay in the rubble by the faint path. A broad smile was plastered on Helen's face as she took the girl's hand and led her to the cavern.

Helen stepped into the larger space, leading Mena, and handed the flashlight to the girl. Mena shone the light around, illuminating dusty worktables, cabinets, old washtubs, and toolboxes. A leg. The light traveled up the leg; it joined a body frozen in mid-scream against the wall. "Whoa..." Mena breathed, stepping forward slowly. Helen stood and watched. The girl lifted the light to see the bodies strewn all over the curved cavern ceiling; she turned in place, staring open-mouthed.

"Are they real?" she asked breathlessly.

"Oh yes. They're stuffed. Taxidermied."

Mena continued her exploration. After a minute, she asked, "Are they yours?"

Helen laughed heartily. "No, they're not mine."

"They're his. Aren't they? This is his place. Your man." Mena's voice was full of wonder and excitement. Helen breathed a silent sigh of relief. The world hadn't ruined the girl, turned her into a fearful herd animal. She knew the girl was ready for the next surprise. "Yes, Maenad. This is one of his places. The one where I first found him. C'mere..." She pulled a cloth-wrapped object from her pocket.

As Mena shone the light on it, Helen uncovered the beautiful ulu her creature had made for her years ago. She held it out for her niece to see. The girl took it, studied it carefully. The handle was carved with a scene; some kind of creature with huge bat-like wings and claws and teeth, an ecstatic look on its face, a woman astride it wearing the same joyful expression. "That's him," Helen said.

the ulu

It was several minutes before Mena looked up and spoke. "If you'd shown me this before I'd seen this place, I'd have thought you were as crazy as Mom says you are."

Helen chuckled. "Yeah, I know."

"And all this time I thought he was in prison or something! This is just ...so ...wild!

Helen grinned. My exact words.

"What is he?"

"I don't know. He doesn't know really. Called himself an 'eater'. That's what he does. He eats. People."

Helen laid the ulu on the edge of a worktable, and wrote with her finger in the dust: COME GET ME, SEXY. Mena giggled at this. Aunt Hel, a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper hair, who hasn't even had a boyfriend all my life. Helen jerked her head to the tunnel, followed Mena back up to the surface.

* * *

They stopped at a run-down gas station late that afternoon. It was a place Helen hadn't been to in the years she's lived in the area; it was far enough from her house that it meant nothing but a landmark on an endless stretch of country road. Inside was much as she'd imagined - dark, cheerless, dirty bordering on squalid, not a hint of nostalgic charm. Mena paid for the gas while Helen perused the tiny selection of cold drinks. As she stood pondering which out-of-date bottle of juice to take, she heard teenagers talking in low, earnest voices around a corner. "...fuckin' huge wings..." caught her instant attention. She pretended to gaze into the cooler while she eavesdropped.

"It was real, I'm tellin' ya!"

"You're such a spaz, no way was that thing real. It was just that crazy farmer's joke on dumbasses like you."

"Fuck you, Dolan, you saw the looks on their faces. They thought it was real. They were really scared of that...'bat outta hell' thing. Even dead and dried up and nailed to their own wall, they were freaked by it."

"Taggert's just an inbred sodbuster, an' so's his old man. They probably forgot they made it in the first place. C'mon, let's get outta here."

Helen was intrigued. "Bat out of hell". "Fucking huge wings". Something no one could believe was real without being scared shitless. Sounded like her creature... Her eyes narrowed as a tiny smile crept over her face.

Mena had finished paying for her gas and candy bars. Helen grabbed a suspicious-looking bottle of tomato juice and brought it to the scruffy woman at the register. As the woman tacitly rang it up, Helen asked, "Say, you wouldn't happen to know where the Taggert farm is, would ya?" The woman frowned, pursed her lips, then mumbled, "Taggert. Naw, sorry, haven't heard of them."

Damn.

"No, wait a sec. I think there's a Taggert lives out on Route 37. About sixty miles or so from here. Did some years back anyway, I don't go that way much anymore."

Helen held the grin inside, thanked the woman. Mena looked questioningly at her aunt as they walked back to the Mustang. "What's up, Aunt Hel? You're up to something."

"I think we'll go for another drive tomorrow, go see some sights."

Mena knew better than to try getting any more information out of her. Aunt Helen was the most secretive person she knew.

* * *

Back at the house, the two women sat on the twilit porch, eating sandwiches and homemade pickles. Halfway through the meal, Helen put her sandwich down and looked hard at her neice. "The recipe for my roast."

Mena smiled through a mouthful of the said meat, raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"He taught it to me."

The girl continued chewing, thinking. She swallowed, sucking her teeth. After a minute she said, "It's not beef, is it."

"No."

"It's not pork, either."

"No."

"It sure as hell isn't chicken."

Helen just laughed.

"You're an 'eater' too, huh."

"Yeah, I acquired a taste for it."

"I'd say I have, too." Mena grinned, taking another bite of her sandwich.

End of Chapter 1

Music for Chapter 1: 'Summertime' as sung by Janis Joplin, and 'Mustang Sally' by Wilson Pickett.


The Acolyte and illustrations Copyright 2007 by Mary Harris [aka redplanetes]
~plagarists will be flayed alive~


redplanet@trinidadusa.net



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