Dark Incarnate - Chapter12 Book1

Dark Incarnate

By Mr. Black

Chapter 12

Out of the Pan and Into the Fire

Kelly popped her head over the edge of the loft looking down at Billy while the cogs and machinery chugged between his ears.  “Billy?” 

He looked up at her, “Yeah?”  She looked better able to talk, and her eyes weren’t pinched in pain anymore.  She didn’t tell him the whole story, only made him promise he would make a call for her. 

Kelly rolled over onto her back after hearing Billy clear the edge of a fallen tree.  She was hardly aware of her nakedness anymore.  The loft did feel warm dry and safe plus her cramps had ended too.  She felt so weak, when had she eaten last?  An angry gurgle came from her stomach at the thought and she clapped her hands over it, she couldn’t feel them anymore.  The absence made her feel better but she remembered how long the water had taken to get rid of.  At least she didn’t feel bloated anymore.  The suns bright rays cut through the ailing boards and painted her face and bare breasts with warmth.  Her big brown eyes looked up refusing to wince at the brightness of it.  She would never take such simple beauty for granted again.

Billy made his way down the hill after pressing through a downed tree.  At least she was alone, finally in private.  She sat up with a grown, hardly aware of how weak she was until she tried.  Her panties were plastered to her with a mix of her body’s fluids and a drying crusty black stuff complemented with a sprinkle of dying worms.  She was running off some greater ancestral instinct.  The fear and revulsion had mostly gone.  Sliding the panties off, She held the stained garment up to the light a symbolic and subconscious gesture.  Her face was somber and she started on her shoes next.  Even her socks were stained by sickly yellow and brown dribbles around the rim.  It was over, she had won.  Looking between her legs, she wasn’t so sure, but she had survived and perhaps against that thing, it was the best she could have hoped for. 

The bed of straw was warm and spongy, but she really needed a clean towel.  Standing was a battle of its own, but her weak knees held.  She didn’t want Billy to see her nude, but there was no way she’d be putting those panties back on.  The loft was dry, and the scent of hey was overpowering and almost sent her into a sneezing fit.  It was comforting in a way she couldn’t quite place.  Bales of hay were stacked to the high to the arched ceiling and old timber columns.  The western architecture made the place feel both alien, yet homely.  Alas, she didn’t see anything to wipe off with.   

Billy’s brother was looking for him, but he was looking in the fields.  One of the neighbors had agreed to cut the hay in the pasture the week before.  They would bail and take the hay, in return the Mason’s could continue to write off the land as farmland for a tax break.  The government had these little incentives for the dying farms.  They even got paid a little not to put up tobacco, albeit very little.  This year the fields had to be bush-hogged, and next they’d put up the hay.  Even a big tractor and bush-hog couldn’t do anything to the malfloura rose.  And that’s what Billy was for.  The Jackson’s were supposed to come over later in the week and if Billy didn’t have the malfoura rose cleared it might jeopardize the plan. 

Josh finally saw Billy disappear into the house.  The screen door slammed behind him and he started over.  Billy ran up to his room.  Everything he had would swamp Kelly, not to mention most of his clothes were ratty and full of holes.  A pair of old cutoffs and his kid batman t-shirt would have to do.  He also grabbed his cloth army belt, it could cinch up as tight as she needed.  He had one more thing to do. 

Officer Higgins got back to the school hours ago and headed to his office.  Things looked different.  Children looked different.  He would swing by the Post Office after work, that’d make it better.  It was just after the lunch bell when his office phone rang. 

He answered a bit distracted, “iee-yeap?”

“Mr. Higgins?”

“Speaking…”

“I’m calling for Kelly Evans.” 

His blood ran cold, “Who?”

“She says you’ve got a big problem on your hands.”

His mind raced directly to the six shooter holstered at his hip.  “Really?”

“Yeah.” 

He’d eat a bullet before he went down for this, “What kind’da problem we talkin bout?”

“There’s a dead guy at the train station, he’s your problem.”

His brow furrowed confused, “And what am I suppose-to-do bout that, eh?”

“I don’t care, you fuckin listenin?  It’s your problem.  Oh, and she says drop that post office box key in her locker.  Her Aunt works down there ya know, I’d hate for you to be caught on camera.” 

He looked up as the drafting teacher paused at his door and gave a friendly wave and smile.  Higgins kicked Kelly’s backpack further under his desk.  He had forgotten it in the front seat of his cruiser and planned on putting it in her locker.  The bag worried him, that’s how people get caught.  He should have ditched it but couldn’t chance it’s being found.  Higgins and the drafting teacher Mr. Minton shot the shit together at lunch so he felt safe so far.  He turned shying away him and into the phone, “Just who the hell is this?” but he got nothing but an empty click.  He checked the ID, the number was from the Mason’s.  Butch Mason was crazy as a loon but it was the only place near the train yard for twenty miles.  The voice wasn’t Butch’s, but it made sense.  His heart thundered in his big chest, one too many BigMacs would get him one day.  A cover-up was easier than a .38 slug to the roof of his mouth…

Josh caught his brother as he hung up the phone, “Whut’n the hell are you doin?  Yur suppose’t be workin.”  His cro-magnon forehead and unibrow made him forever look angry, which he usually was. 

Billy looked up with eyes his brother had never seen before.  “I’ll get it done.” 

“What the’ hell you doing with those clothes?  Having a costume party?”  Josh hadn’t seen him wear the batman t-shirt since he was eight years old. 

“I’m the one going to be up to my neck in briars, so WHAT THE FUCK DOES IT MATTER TO YOU!” 

Josh had never heard him like that before and stood back watching him leave.  He didn’t move until the screen door bounced closed.  He stood for a moment longer.  The wheels did go slow for him.  Did his brother have a friend?  “If so, he must be a puny lil’ fucker.” 

Billy took the long way back to the barn in case his brother tried to follow him.  They could set out for Kelly’s place just as soon as he got the clothes to her.  Maybe she’d tell him a little more about what’s going on too.  He had no intention of getting to the briars today, and if he got kicked out so bit it, he’d stay in the barn.  He had slept up there before in the summer just to get out of the house.  He was thinking of what he might do when winter came as he climbed the ladder and didn’t see Kelly anywhere. 

“Kelly?”  He called gently, and got no answer.  “Kelly, where’d you go?”  He looked around at the stacks of hay.  He and Josh would play hide and seek back when they got along better, and the loft was off limits because it was too easy to move and restack hay to disappear entirely.  Why would she hide from him?  He bent and picked up the discarded panties.  They were drying and nearly stiff, smeared with black and brown stains and riddled with bug carcasses.  He looked around and still didn’t see a sign of her.  Surely she wouldn’t have run home naked!  He leaned over to look around the stacks and his heart sank.  That part of the loft was bare, not even any loose straw on the floor.  It was so weak nobody went over there more-less stacked hay on it.  

“Kelly!”  He yelled and shrank back, his brother might hear.  He carefully went around and sure enough, found a hole cracked in the boards.  He couldn’t even get his weight close enough to look down.  He raced out and around, jerked the big doors open and ran inside.  The lower barn was nothing but mud, and especially on the shadowy side.  The old stalls were empty and hadn’t been used for years.  Horses like to chew on wood sometimes and the stalls had gnawed divots that allowed him to look in without going to each door.  He found her face down in a mud puddle.  He was scared to death of falling through the floor and when he saw her he feared the worst. 

Her eyes were closed and he couldn’t see her chest rise or fall because she was face down, but tiny ripples fluttered in the watery mud at her nose.  Most of her legs were under water and her arms were half sunk, but they didn’t look twisted or broken.  Her ribs or maybe even her back could be hurt.  O-oo-or her neck!  This wasn’t like when he tried to help Candace.  This was KELLY.  

“She’s fine.” The voice entered his mind with such startling clarity that he plopped back on his butt in the mud.  It was his voice, the one he thought with.  Water soaked into his pants seeping between his butt-crack coldly cradling his balls. 

How could that be my thought, he thought, but it was true he’d never been so sure of anything.  Kelly wasn’t hurt, not from the fall and not from the day’s events.  He leaned back bracing himself with his hands finally able to relax.  She was scared to death but given a little time she’d be back to normal.  Given the reprieve his mind began to wonder, but not to the intrusive thought. 

She looked so peaceful, her milky features finally able to relax.  The day was already hot and Billy squished mud though this fingertips as he sat.  The water must feel good to her, let her rest a bit.  Standing he looked down at her watching the quiet stir of water in front of her nose.  Her shoulder blades and lower back were dry with only a few splatters.  The soft curve of her but rose above the water accentuating her tiny waist and thin hourglass figure. 

Billy’s eyes faded and half lidded he began to hurl insults at himself looking at her perfection.  She had been so angry at him and he deserved it.  The thought was just as unnatural as the voice, but he didn’t question it.  What kind of a friend was he; who was he to be by her side now?  It should have been someone else.  A jock from school, someone she could love and have a future with.  He was nothing but a lowlife pervert chasing at her heels in hopes of a momentary glace at her panties.  It was true. 

“Now’s your chance, remember what you did to Candace.”  The thought blended seamlessly with his own.  What had Candace said about him?  What had THEY said about him?  He made a great manservant?   He wasn’t their friend he was their manservant.  The girls had only included him because they had to.  The girls despised him, hated him, and hurled constant insults at him like beating a cowering dog.  All he wanted to do was love and protect Kelly, but when the time came she would discard him like an old newspaper.  Hadn’t she already?  He peered down at her helpless body, his chest heaving and heart racing.

“You know she’s already given it up to that other man.  She hardly knew him.  She’s nothing but a heartless bitch, a slut, a piece of meat.  She sucked you off to buy your cooperation remember?  Look at your perfect innocent little Kelly now, see her for what she really is.”

Josh was still in a confused sort of shock.  He went to his special place.  Under the staircase was an old door to the dirt floor cellar.  It was always cooler down there and quiet.  The house had seen several generations of the Mason family and the old cellar was once the lifeblood, storing the yearly canned goods and harvest, but it was the twisted and poisoned heart of the farm now.  The old house even tried to keep it shut.  The door was jammed by the house settling and for the longest time only Josh could get it open.  Billy could get it open now that he was bigger, but he knew better.  Not only was it Josh’s place but he was scared of the dark.  Most of all Billy was scared of the cellar.  It was a place of death.

Shortly after his Grandfather died, Josh started keeping Billy’s dog in the cellar.  He hated the creature and would leave it for days in the dark without food or water.  Billy screamed and yelled but his dad refused to help.  He took a hammer to the door after listening to his beloved dog whining and starving for three days, but the door was too strong.  On the forth day Billy couldn’t hear him anymore and after a week Josh opened the door.  The smell was overpowering but Billy went down to collect his dead pet.  Josh was standing by the door when Billy started up the stairs, his face smiled and he began his hoarse laughter and slammed the door on Billy.  His sociopath humor didn’t understand fear.  After an hour or so in that hell Billy’s father came and opened the door with a grunt and went back to his chair.  It was the only time Billy really felt his father watched over him.

Josh was just sitting in the darkness, “Ya know, your bother’s a pig fucker.”

Of course!  It all made sense, the small clothes, the strange attitude.  Why hadn’t he thought of that?  Well… he did.  He even guessed which one it was.  There had been a couple little piglets this spring and Billy must have wrestled one up into the loft and even dressed it up.  The idea wasn’t a hard one for Josh to grasp.  His cock started to stiffen in his shorts just thinking about sheathing it in a squealing piglet.  But dressing it up, that was sick! 

Billy sat back down in the mud stretching his legs out in the water and rolled Kelly over into his lap.  Half of her face was covered in thick stall mud and her hair was a hopeless mess.  Billy wrapped an arm around her chest feeling her radiating warmth, and tried to brush her hair and wipe away the mud from her cheek, forehead, and lips.  She was so calm, beautiful and serene now.  His heart wanted nothing more than to hold her in this loving embrace, but she would never have him.  If only she could love him and cuddle watching a movie together his life would be complete. 

He pulled her closer to his chest and he sent a shaking hand to touch the a mound of her breast.  He decided he wouldn’t take any indecent liberties; he was just wiping the mud away, but his fingers paused and caressed the hard pencil eraser of her nipple.  Pulling his shaking hand back he looked at the cleaned lines where his fingertips scraped the mud from her pale skin.  He closed his eyes unable to stop and wrenched a handful of her other titty pinching the nipple hoping she would wake and stop him.  In a drugged ecstasy he shoved his groping hand down over her toned stomach and paused before her mons raking his fingernails back scraping away the muck to reveal the impossible beauty.  The thinnest patch of juvenile pubic hair, which wasn’t even her natural brown yet, held a mess of clinging mud.  Billy clamped his hand over her mons pulling at the tiny hairs to clear it away savoring the luscious bliss and lying that each touch would be the last. 

“Here, you little pig fucker you!”  Josh was making his way up the small ladder into the loft.  A part of him felt that maybe he and his brother might finally have something to share. 

Billy’s blood ran cold and he froze.  It would take Josh a minute to find the hole where she fell through, but her shoes were right there!  Kelly’s limp head lulled over and rested against his cheek.  He got up careful not to let her fall or make any noise and started to drag her out of the stall and down the short hall.  Her heels drug and left tracks in the mud; he was too afraid to try and carry her.  If he fell or made any noise Josh would know immediately where they were. 

“I know you’re up here, Pig-Fucker!  Where you…” His words trailed off when he saw the clothes, then the pink shoes… and socks.  Josh’s eyebrows rose wrinkling his forehead in surprise.  With his thick eyebrows up he looked half normal.  Shoes ok, Billy must be really fucked up, but the socks were too much, and they were dirty from tiny feet.  He felt stupid for being so loud.  He was hoping to catch Billy in the act, but now his hardon subsided and his face returned to his normal angry/serious state. 

Billy pulled Kelly to the dry side of the barn and stood in front of an old door that used to hold the saddles and riding gear.  The old rusty hinges hadn’t been used in who-knows how long, but it was the safest place to leave her and try to head off his brother.  He threw the latch and winced at the groaning and popping hinges as the big door wafted open a horrible dry musty smell.  It would have to do, if only he could find a lock but there was no time.  Most of the room was dominated by old tires, rusting tools and cobwebs.  He pulled her in feeling horrible about dragging her and left her lying limp in the middle of the floor.  Dry dirt and sawdust along with caked mud covered her lower half like tights, but Billy had no choice and closed the door and threw the latch. 

His brother would be down any second and he wouldn’t come from the muddy backside.  Billy kicked dirt over the drag marks hoping Josh wouldn’t go any further down the hall.

Josh popped in the front door moments later, “There you are.” He looked at the mud covering Billy’s pants and half of his shirt.

“Yeah-yeah, I’ll get to the briars later it’s too damn hot right now.”  He had to sound as normal as possible.

“Sure there’s nothing else you’re busy with right now?”  It must be a pig; maybe he stole the shoes from school.

“Just leave me alone, I’m trying to find Ed’s halter.  I checked in the takelroom, but it’s all spiders now.” 

“What do you need Ed’s halter for?  You cleaned out his stall last night.” He was peering over the chewed diviots into the first few stalls.  If he went much further…

“What is it to you?  I want to let him out in the field with me while I’m workin.” 

Josh turned when Billy didn’t seem too worried about his looking in the stalls.  He was covered in mud but he must have moved it.  He paused at the big wood plank door.  Billy was petting Eddie the mule trying to act uninterested, but he’d have to do something soon. 

Josh’s hand reached for the latch, “Say, uh I found an interesting pair of pink shoes up in th—“ 

“Leave my stuff ALONE!”   Billy raced out the front door and up, he had to lead him away from Kelly.  Josh took the bait and followed until Billy stopped next to the old grain silo.  The soil was still rich from spilt grain even after all these years and the grass was bright green and springy.  He paused and Josh started to back him up against the cinderblock structure.

“Come-on now, tell me.”  Josh stood a good six inches taller than Billy and outweighed him by a hundred pounds.  He started to shove at Billy’s shoulders lightly, but still threatening. 

“It’s none of your business Josh!  Leave me the hell alone!”

“My little brother’s dressing up pig’s and fuckin em, and you say it aint non-my business?” 

Billy took his first sigh of relief, but couldn’t stifle a laugh.  Josh hated to be laughed at and flew at him in a fit of rage.  “Ain’t FUCKIN FUNNY!”  He hit Billy more than shoved him in the chest and Billy went flying backward stumbling over chunky sod until his butt hit the Silo window.  Josh got a mild satisfaction watching his brother tumble inside the Silo.  The idea that he might be dead in the bottom didn’t bother him in the least, he even giggled at the scream and muddy splash as it raced up the chimney and out the top.   Josh went back to check out the loft again. 

Billy had fallen backwards heels over head but luckily landed mostly on his feet and fell back on his elbows.  The Silo was pretty big, maybe twelve feet in diameter, but only a small island of dried mud and a tiny tuff of grass existed at the edge of the tilt, the rest of was deep mud and standing water.  It must be sinking mud he thought, because he didn’t see any of the stones or big rocks he’d tossed in over the years.  The sides were rough concrete blocks, but nothing he could hold onto.  He jumped and grabbed until his fingers were raw but Josh wouldn’t even stick his head in to answer his screams.  He sat back trying to keep his feet dry on the little dry patch and cried his eyes out.  All he could do was hope that Kelly would wake up.

This Is a Work of Fiction

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.