Rob Zombie - Lords of Salem

Because that was where this was heading, she suddenly knew. It was great having sex with Jarrett, the beast was thinking, but how much better would it be just to go a little further, to let Maisie’s nails not just scratch their way along his chest but gouge out his eyes and pop them, tear his throat out, beat his head in until it was a wet pulpy mass, not only fuck him but kill him, and then once he was dead see what else she could do with him? With what was left of his body.

Inside, she recoiled, started screaming. But she wasn’t in charge. No, the beast was in charge.

The song has got to end soon, she told herself. Please, dear God, let this song end.

Back in the radio station, the whole bank of phone lines had lit up. The song was still playing, with Francis and the Big H team waiting for it to end.

“Total Christmas tree,” said Herman, gesturing to the phone bank. “I guess this crap struck a nerve. Either that or the FCC is calling to pull our license.”

Francis, on his way to the door, stopped and turned around. He touched Heidi lightly on the shoulder. She jumped a little and then looked at him questioningly.

“I wanted to apologize. I’m very sorry I overreacted to your question,” Francis said. “I take everything so seriously. God, I must have sounded like such an ass.”

Heidi shrugged it off. “All good,” she said. “We should have gotten a better sense of you and your book first, I guess. It was a dumb question anyway.”

He was tempted to say, as he’d said in his classes back when he taught, that there were no dumb questions. But he didn’t exactly believe that. Never really did. And the apology wasn’t really why he’d stayed around. “You’d mentioned that, for the movie…,” he said, then let his voice trail off.

“Yeah, sure, man,” said Herman from next to her. “Pick a couple up at the front desk on your way out, tell the receptionist there I said it was cool.”

Francis nodded his thanks, but didn’t look away from Heidi. “May I ask you,” he said to her in a quiet voice, “where exactly did this music come from?”

She’d already turned back to the papers in front of her, getting ready for the next segment. “Huh?” she said. “The receptionist said it just appeared with nothing but a note for me. Probably somebody dropped it off while she was out to the bathroom or something.”

“So it was specifically sent to you?” asked Francis.

“Yeah, very specifically,” she said. “Check this out.” She reached into her pocket, removed the crumpled note, and handed it to him. He took it, and then took out his reading glasses to get a better look at it. The paper was handmade rather than mass-produced. Strange script, too, he thought. A very good imitation of seventeenth-century handwriting, and probably done with a quill, too, or something very much like it. For Adelheid Elizabeth Hawthorne , it read. From THE LORDS .

“Adelheid Elizabeth Hawthorne,” he said. “That’s you?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I didn’t even think anyone knew my real name. A little creepy, right?”

“A little,” he said. He held up the note. “Do you mind if I take this?” he asked.

She looked a little surprised, but shrugged. “Whatever. Go ahead,” she said. “Why do you want it?”

He weighed in his mind whether to tell her the truth. No, he decided, it was silly in any case, no point in alarming her with some wild story, particularly not after having come out so strongly against irrational ideas and the supernatural. He faked a smile. “I collect examples of interesting handwriting,” he lied. “Just a hobby of mine.”

When Maisie came she saw things, had visions almost. They flooded her and crowded in on the little space that was left to her, overwhelming her. She saw Jarrett lying there with his throat cut, the bed soaked with his blood. She saw him strangled, her hands locked around his neck. She saw him tied to the posts of the bed and then slowly pricked, over and over again, with needles. She saw him with his eyes gouged out and she crouched over him, slicing off his genitals with a razor and letting the blood spurt warmly over her belly. She saw herself claw his chest bloody and then claw deeper and push her hands in through his flesh and tear out his heart, then slowly begin to eat it. It was rubbery and hard to chew, like poorly cooked calamari.

She saw herself standing in a circle around a fire, her body smeared in the blood of a newly slain infant, a symbol inscribed on her chest. A circle, with an upside-down cross in it, the top of it touched by a crescent moon, the bottom of it cut across by a hillock of ground, two stars lying at the extremes of the arms of the cross. Beside her, standing in the circle with her, were other women, like her but not like her. Their clothes were outlandish and old, as if they were from another time. And as she watched them, they stripped their clothing off and collapsed one by one, moaning and writhing, giving themselves over to libidinous pleasure, the same pleasure that her body felt when, in the real world now, with Jarrett, she came so hard it nearly tore her head off.

After that, lying exhausted next to Jarrett, she expected the beast that had filled her body to disappear, to curl up and go back to sleep and let her take over again.

But it did not disappear. And it did not let her take over again. It was as if she had lost the right to do anything with her body. She could see out through her eyes, but nothing more. She no longer had any sort of control.

Help! she cried silently to Jarrett, trying to plead from behind her eyes. Help me!

But Jarrett was lying there out of breath, covered with sweat, exhausted.

The beast within her licked its lips. Licked Maisie’s lips, rather. It was still hungry. She could feel it taking the imagined images of a slaughtered Jarrett into its mouth and rolling them around on its tongue. Yes, they tasted good to it, and since she was there with it, she could taste them, too, could taste what it wanted her body to do to Jarrett next.

“Whew,” said Jarrett. “What was up with that?”

Jarrett , she cried silently. Run!

She felt her body throw off the covers. Carefully, as awkward as an automaton, she stood and walked jerkily out of the room.

“Babe, I meant that in a good way!” she heard Jarrett call from the bedroom behind her. Please, she prayed. Please, dear God, let this be a dream.

The song was ending. Heidi watched the old writer, Francis whatever his name was, leave, still a little perplexed. Strange turnaround there at the end. Why the sudden interest in the Lords, and in the note? He didn’t exactly seem like the type to be a headbanger, but it took all kinds, she guessed.

As the song faded, Whitey clicked over to the first caller.

“Okay, are we dealing with a smash or a trash?” he asked.

“Come on, dude,” said a gruff male voice. “I’m at work right now listening and it’s making my day worse. That is fucking shit!”

“Whoa!” said Herman. “No F bombs or S bombs please. One for trash. Next caller.”

Whitey clicked over to the next one. “Smash or trash?” he asked.

“What?” said a voice that might belong to a man, might belong to a woman. “I just wanted to make a request. Air Supply’s—”

Whitey cut the call off, went on to the next line. “Smash or trash?” he asked.

“Trash!” said another male voice, angrily. “Total trash! My band Tuesday Weld Overdrive kicks ass over that! We are playing—”

“We already did a smash or trash on Tuesday Weld Overdrive and the verdict was trash. Next!” said Heidi, just as Whitey cut the call.

“Trash it or smash it?” asked Whitey.