Rob Zombie - Lords of Salem

“Maybe I can untangle you,” he said. “How would that be?”

He knelt down and helped guide the dog’s legs free of the leash until he was doing all right again. One of the dog’s haunches was a little bloody and at first Francis was worried, looking for a wound, but no, there was nothing there. The dog wasn’t cut; something had gotten blood on the dog. Maybe it had been in a fight with another dog? It didn’t seem like the fighting type.

The owner hadn’t come back by the time the dog was untangled. He looked at the dog’s collar, but there wasn’t an address, only a phone number and a name: Steve. Steve, what kind of name was that for a dog? He stood up, patted the dog on its head. Steve just wagged. Well, if it was still here when he came back, maybe he’d take it to the house and call the number on the tag. He chuckled. That would certainly surprise Alice, him showing up with a dog.

He continued down Flint Street and crossed over the river and the local train tracks, then from there went left on Essex Street until he was at the Salem Library. For a moment he thought he’d remembered wrong, but no, there it was, partly hidden behind the bicycle rack: a newspaper vending machine.

He put his coins in and opened the gate, took the top newspaper. He’d folded it up, put it under his arm, and was starting to walk away when he suddenly stopped stock-still, wondering if he’d actually seen what he’d glimpsed. He stood there on the sidewalk and unfolded the paper. The headline read:

SECOND NIGHT OF RITUAL MURDER IN SALEM

“Oh my God,” he said aloud, and read on.

For the second time this week, Salem was rocked by murder.

Virginia Williams, 51, a lifelong resident of Salem, has been arrested for the murder of her husband, Keith Williams, 60.

“I don’t know what came over me,” responded Virginia Williams to this reporter’s question, “Why did you do it, Virginia?” She continued: “I mean, I really don’t. I was resenting him or whatever and then suddenly things got out of hand. But I don’t even remember that happening. It was like I just woke up in a pool of blood.”

Mrs. Williams is alleged to have repeatedly stabbed her husband with a knife, and then to have mutilated and dismembered the body.

Friends of the Williams’s report that Keith allegedly had a history of abusive behavior. Said one, who wished to remain unidentified, “I’m not surprised. He sure had it coming.”

This murder is remarkably similar to the murder of Jarrett Parsons by Maisie Mather earlier this week. Police have speculated that there is a link between the two murders.

Said Chief of Police Jon Greenhalgh, “We have no doubt that a connection exists between the two murders, and even that Mather and Williams conspired in the killings.”

When asked to be more specific, he mentioned that both women had carved the same symbol into their own chests before committing the crime.

According to another member of the police department who wished to remain anonymous, there is clear evidence that these murders are ritual in nature.

Police are not releasing more specifics at this time.

Another murder , thought Francis, and this one identified as ritual. Or rather as a second night of ritual murder, so that means the first was ritual as well. Williams, though—it was a common enough name, but not a name readily identified with the witch trials. Maybe Maisie Mather had just been a coincidence. But still, it was strange. And he was willing to bet that the symbol they’d carved in their chests was a symbol he’d seen before: the Lords symbol.

Lost in thought, he hurried home.

Chapter Forty-four

Steve?” Heidi called. She was lying slumped on the bed, a little confused. “Steve?” Where was that dog? She’d had him just a minute ago, had been walking him, and then things got a little blurry, a little fuzzy, and well, she was back here now, wasn’t she, and so Steve must be around here as well. That made sense. No, Steve was a good dog. He was around here somewhere. She didn’t have to worry about him. He probably was just in the kitchen or something, sulking. And she was okay now, too. All she needed was another hit or two, something to calm her down, and now she felt great.

The TV was on. On the screen a group of ballerinas ran down a staircase and fluttered by a giant devil’s head with a gaping mouth large enough to swallow any of them. They clung to one another in fear. She pressed the channel changer and with a click the TV switched to local news, a picture of a woman in handcuffs being led into the police station. She pressed it again and the channel changed to the opening credits for Bewitched .

Fuck me! thought Heidi, giving a weird laugh. I was just looking at your statue! She tried to smile, but it didn’t come off right. There was a dead look in her eyes and her mouth had gone slack. She stared at the screen, hardly seeming to see it. Meanwhile, her hand was feeling around next to her, first on the blankets and then on the bedside table. When it returned, it was holding her lighter and a small piece of tinfoil, and a glass tube.

She shook a little onto the tinfoil, then grabbed the square by one edge. She flicked the lighter on. Her eyes still on the TV she fired up the tinfoil, then sucked in the fumes with the glass tube. God, it felt great. She held the smoke in until she could feel her blood slowing down, beating slower and slower in her ears. Her vision had begun to go dark around the edges, and then she exhaled and fell back against the pillows.

How had she lived without this? Now she felt good again. Now she was sure everything was going to be okay.

From the other room she heard a knocking at her front door. She ignored it, began to drift off. When the knocking came again, she slowly lifted her head and gathered her lighter and the drugs. She felt like she was moving underwater, or in a dream. Thinking about dreams gave her, deep below the blissful surface she was riding on now, a stab of anxiety. Slowly, she slid the drawer of the bedside table open and dropped everything into it. Closing it was a little harder, but she managed.

The knocking came at the door again. Mumbling to herself, she managed to get her legs off the bed and her feet under her and wove her way across the room and into the living room. From there, she could move along the wall of records, dragging her hand over the milk crates to get to the kitchen and from there to the door.

The door turned out to be harder to open than she remembered. It was like they had made it more complicated since the last time she had had to use it. She played with the knob for a bit but nothing was happening. Finally, she remembered she had a peephole and slid her face up to it, found it, managed to get an eye to it. Outside was her landlord Lacy, and to either side of her those weird sisters of hers. What were their names again? The blonde was Sonny. She remembered that because the sun was yellow and Sonny’s hair was, too. The other was named Morgan or Megan or Mona or something like that. Lacy was holding something, a small tray with a teapot and cups on it.

She moved her head back and tried the door again. Oh yeah, locked. She turned the dead bolt and now it opened just fine.

She swung the door open. “Hey,” she said, her voice hoarse.

Lacy gave a big smile. “I might be wrong, but I had a feeling that maybe you could use some company,” she said.

Heidi gave a slow smile back to her. Wow , she thought, she can’t even tell that I’m high. Or maybe she doesn’t care . “I definitely could,” she said, struggling to keep them in focus.

And then she just stood there. It took Sonny coming forward and pushing her gently to the side for her to understand that she was blocking the door.