Literary Yard

Search for meaning

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Before she remembered what happened, the runner heard voices. Somewhere in the psychotropic haze and the deep recesses of her dulled mind, warning bells were ringing. They were telling her to run away, run harder than she had ever run before. Something bad had happened to her, though at the moment she could only vaguely remember what that was. The warning bells were ringing, but they were far away and becoming less and less a concern.

The voices sounded strange. She could comprehend the pace and cadence of speech, though the language might have been Eastern European if not for the occasional sounds her mind could not explain. Those sounds were guttural, almost like the bleating of farm animals. If not for the interplay of voices, she would have sworn she was in a barn with sheep, or was it goats?

Little by little she became aware of what was going on around her. She was seated in a chair; the metal frame cold on her skin. Rough cloth bound her wrists, arms, ankles, and legs. Her throat was dry. But these physical sensations were distant, secondary to the spectacle of light and pleasure in her mind.

When she tried to open her eyes, everything was a blur. She saw flickering shapes. Demons manifested and dispersed before her eyes. They danced in shades of red and yellow; joining in lurid postures before merging into a greater whole. Surrounding her, the demons stuck their pitchforks at her breasts, her legs, her buttocks and her womanhood. They tried to put their dirty fingers in her mouth and ears and eyes. She shook her head to knock them away, but nothing worked. They only laughed. Desperate to fight them off, she screamed.

The voices went silent. The last of their echoes died.

Only cowed for an instant by her ferocity, the demons came back. Pulling at the bands that strapped her wrists, she struggled to fight them. She kicked so hard with her athletic legs that she knocked the chair over. She screamed again as she fell onto her back. Now everywhere she looked demons, demons, demons of fire.

Like the bleating of lambs, she thought she heard laughter. Afraid, she froze, holding her breath. Something large stepped up behind her and looked down. The thing had the body of a man. His legs and arms were thick with muscle. Showing off his physique, he wore only a loincloth. It looked like a red and white striped, extra fluffy, beach towel. A woman’s belt, leather painted a bright gold and a belt buckle the size of a hubcap with a stone figure of a bull rider, was strapped around the beach towel to keep it from falling down.

Intrigued, the runner looked up from the belt buckle, eyed the rippled midsection and swollen chest, and expected to find some handsome cowboy come to rescue her. What she saw was no comfort. It wasn’t even human.

Atop the creature’s broad shoulders was the head of a goat. Big, blue eyes bulged in their sockets. A black nose ran with slime, thick and green, down its snout into a mouth filled with crooked yellow teeth. Worst of all, its head was crowned with curling horns, jutting forward like daggers.

No, no,” the runner screamed, “the devil, not the devil! Save me lord, forgive me!”

The devil only bleated like a child, taking hold of the chair behind her head and jerking her upward. She was righted once again.

Stay put,” the goat devil said. “We needs you in good order but not too good, see?”

Yes,” the runner replied weakly, surprised she could understand what was being said. Sufficiently intimated, she was too afraid to ask questions.

Right, drink some of this.”

The goat devil reached behind his back and pulled out a bag. Momentarily confused, the runner blinked her eyes. The bag was purple. It was a Coach bag. She loved Coach bags. The style had gone out a year or two ago. The goat devil fumbled with the clasp. With a closer look, she saw that his hands were not quite human, were in some way reminiscent of cloven hooves. She too remembered having had some difficulty getting the clasp open one handed at the store, but not as much as he was having. Finally, the goat devil stopped trying to be smooth and focused all his attention at getting the bag open. With two hands, he was barely able to manage it. Successful, he peered inside, shifting through a few items before finding what he wanted.

I had that in suede,” the runner said, admiring how the well the strap rode on such a muscular shoulder.

What?” said the goat devil, momentarily distracted.

That purse, they never should have stopped making it, fits everything you need.”

It’s a man-bag,” the goat devil snorted. “They’re very popular in Europe.”

In his hand was a glass vial. He pulled the stopper with his teeth. It gave a satisfying pop as the pressure was released. White smoke fizzled from the opening. He let it breathe for a moment and then set it to her lips.

Then why is it purple?” she asked, the drugs in her system making her dreamy.

It was left out in the sun too long.”

No way,” she laughed, “you could leave a bag like that out in the desert for a week and it still wouldn’t fade.”

Shut up and drink this,” he grumbled. “We need you awake.”

What?” she said, pressing her lips tight as the smell of it wafted into her sinuses.

Drink it.”

The goat devil stuffed the end of the vial into her mouth and pushed her head back. Rough liquors ran down her throat. All the way into her gullet, it felt like molten metal was burning her insides. The more she struggled, the faster it ran until the goat devil cast the vial away. Glass shattered in the distance.

That will chase the spiders away little missy,” the goat devil taunted, much to the delight of his fellows. “Now behave, you. We’ve got work to do and the night ain’t getting’ any blacker.”

As promised, her head began to clear. The difference was remarkable, as easy as waking from a dream. With every breath she was that much closer to her usual self. She didn’t even have a headache from whatever it was they had used to keep her compliant.

Of the abduction, she had no memory. She knew she had been out for a run. She had made it as far as the marina and was tackling the rock pile when a hole opened up beneath her. She remembered the sensation of falling; gravity like a bowling ball in her stomach, the primitive fear that no human ever really overcomes. She remembered nothing between then and waking to the sound of voices.

The goat devil and his companions were ignoring her. They had returned to their conversation. Their language was English, but thickly accented. With the occasional barnyard guffaw and the horrible echo of the room, it made what they were saying as difficult to understand as before.

Besides the bare chested goat devil, there were five others. Unlike their leader, they were dressed in robes that hid their true shape. The robes were a mishmash of colors and fabrics. They had been regular bathrobes once. Hoods had been sewed on but only half of them bothered to cover their heads. All of them had strands of cheap costume jewelry encircling their waists.

Down at her feet were white lines. The lines were only a few inches wide, just like the baselines on a ball diamond, but these lines were not made of chalk. The muddy floor would have soaked that up in moments. It looked like some kind of spray paint had been used. The lines radiated outward from where she sat. She followed them with her eyes, watching them crisscross and meet again at points. A candle holder was at each point.

That was what the demons had been, she realized. Not hellish imps come to torture her, but the flickering flames of candles. The wicks had been trimmed so the flames were inches in height. The little fires danced in time with the movement of the air, barely perceptible in the close quarters she found herself. It had all been her imagination.

Maybe not all, she told herself a moment later. There certainly was devilry at work here. There were five candles. Each candle was placed at the apex of a five pointed star. The star was encircled by a final line of white. She was sitting in the center of a pentagram.

Thoughts racing, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, focusing like she did each morning before her run. There were six of them, all large men. She would have to assume they were armed and sought to do her harm. What the goat head masks were for, she could not guess, except maybe that they imagined themselves some sort of practitioners of the satanic arts.

They finished their conversation. Their echoes faded to nothing.

The runner watched them as they walked single file into the darkness. The candlelight didn’t allow her to see far beyond the circle where everything else was utter blackness. Soon there wasn’t even a flash of reflected light from their costume jewelry. There was no way to know how far they had gone, but she could still hear them moving around.

A flashlight was turned on. It wasn’t so close that she could see what they were doing, maybe ten or fifteen feet away. They seemed to be standing in a half circle looking at something on the floor. Their backs were to her. Someone opened a chest. The hinges creaked. Tools clanked dully against each other as they were taken out and distributed. A great deal more went on that she couldn’t make sense of.

Flashlight leading the way, the men started back toward her. The first carried a wooden stand, what might have been a pulpit in a church once. The wood was hacked up and defaced. Rude scrawls marred its surface. Any nobility had been sullied long ago. They set the stand down in front of her, making sure it was level on the ground before the next goat-man came along and placed four tablets upon it, stained dark as night.

This she had almost expected from her memories of Hollywood horror movies, novels that spoke little of history in their ancient rituals. What came next surprised her. A large bowl was set on the ground and filled with water. Next were added soap and a sponge.

No thank you, I’m fine. I showered yesterday,” the runner said, her voice shaking, not nearly as confident as she wanted to sound.

The goat devil, the leader, only laughed an insane, Billy-goat laugh. A pair of scissors was in his hand. He opened and shut the blades. The sound was like the scraping of a butcher’s cleaver on a sharpening stone.

One of the goat-men, his robes less dingy and more colorful than the others, began reading from the tablets. It was no language the runner understood. The others backed away, giving their leader plenty of room for his work. The goat devil stepped over the circle, avoiding the crossing lines of the pentagram as he approached her.

No” the runner screamed, toppling herself backward in her chair.

Stop that nonsense,” the goat devil said, “or I’ll carves you up good just for the sport.”

You there,” the goat devil said, jerking his head. “Pick her up and make sure she ain’t go nowheres, got it?”

Got it boss,” one of the two replied.

The runner felt herself lifted and set upright. A goat-man was at each side of her, holding onto the chair. There was nothing she could do. The goat devil laughed and slipped a single finger under the leg of her running shorts. The silken fabric lifted like skin. He opened the blades of the scissors, sliding cold steel up her thigh.

There was a loud bang from the far side of the room. The goat devil froze. He barked an order and the reading of the incantation stopped. There was another bang, louder than the first. The goat devil stood, carefully making his way out of the pentagram and toward the noise.

The two remaining goat-men took the opportunity to draw their weapons. They had short swords, clumsy things that might have been made from lawnmower blades. With their leader, they made their way toward the sound.

Open up,” the goat devil commanded.

The runner could tell he was in no mood for argument, and hoped to gain some advantage by being compliant, so she opened her mouth. A waded up rag, not entirely foul, was unceremoniously shoved in her mouth. Not entirely unexpected, the gag came next.

Trouble boss?” one of the goat-men asked.

Ain’t no one knows about this here place,” the goat devil replied. “But if they is, I tell you they’s find they get more than they bargained for.”

Something large, either a rock or a door, was rolled away. Light as bright as the sun flooded the chamber. The goat-men and their leader howled and shielded their eyes with their hands. The runner could not cover her eyes and even squinting she couldn’t see much at first.

The goat-men were arguing amongst themselves. They were talking fast and their accents were growing more pronounced. She couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it seemed they were not expecting this. Remembering countless police dramas, her lips curled into a smile. Perhaps she had not been as alone that morning as she had thought. Perhaps time had run short for the goat-men and their games.

Now that her eyes were beginning to adjust to the light, she could see she was in a small room. The walls and ceiling were a poorly constructed combination of rocks and timbers. The area in which she sat was only thirty feet across, though the dimensions were irregular to say the least. The back of the chamber where the chest had been was only a small niche in the wall. The tunnel at the far end where sun was shining was maybe ten feet long.

Time’s up, fun’s over,” a voice called into the cave. It was a man’s voice, clear and confident.

The runner was expecting something more along the lines of, “Freeze, police.” She strained to look down the tunnel, but there was nothing to see.

Who’s that?” called the goat devil.

Yeah,” said one of the goat-men, “come on out so we can see you.”

But I’m standing right in front of you,” said the voice, seeming to be very close but coming from every direction at once. “I have nothing to hide.”

The goat-men looked about them, frantically searching, bleating comments back and forth. One of them spotted something and pointed excitedly at a spot on the floor. There seemed to be a thin shadow on the muddy ground, but nothing more. No one was standing there.

The runner barely had time to recognize what she saw before the two goat-men reacted. They threw themselves forward, swinging their swords down upon the empty air. Acting like they had expected to hit something, they stumbled when they missed, knocking each other into a heap on the ground. One of them had broken his sword in the fall.

A man appeared, leaning casually against the wall opposite them. The light must have kept them from seeing him as it had her. The man didn’t look like a police officer. He had long, curly hair, jeans, and a black t-shirt with the logo of a metal band printed on the front. He was big; over six feet tall. His arms and chest bulged with muscles, even more than the goat devil.

The runner was hoping he might have a weapon of some sort, like a shotgun, but she couldn’t see that he was carrying anything. As far as recues went, this wasn’t going as well as she had hoped. Afraid, she sat quietly and waited for whatever would happen next. There was little else she could do.

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