HSA-17: Harvest Day Part II

Ben had a hard time noticing anything other than Molly for the next two days. They spent their lunches on the other side of the lawn with one another, and Molly slipped down to the corn fields in the afternoon. She insisted they remain discrete. Ben had no intention of alienating her father, who he had not even seen up close. Jimmy kept silent about their tryst, but it became obvious quickly to the others mainly due to Chuck talking all too loudly about it during lunch. Ben told him to lay off with the rumors, but secretly felt proud and wanted to share his exploits with someone. That someone turned out to be Anders on the Friday night that ended their first week.

“She seems like a nice girl,” Anders said, sitting on the side of his bed wearing a pair of pajamas that fit him poorly. Anders had said little through the week. So little that it surprised Ben to hear him at all.

“Sorry? Who’s a nice girl?” He didn’t think the pretense was necessary, but knew Molly would want him to keep it up. He put away his toiletry bag and climbed into the bed, lying on his back and appreciating the cool breeze coming in through the cracked window.

“Molly. It’s no secret you two are together. She’s very pretty. Nothing to be ashamed of that’s for sure.” Anders leaned back against the wall. Though his demeanor had not changed through the week, his physique had. The pajamas had once been oversized, a hand down from some older man in his family, but now they stretched tight to the seams over strong limbs and a broad chest. “Everyone around here is pairing off.”

This was news to Ben, at least. He’d been so wrapped up with his infatuation with Molly that he hadn’t kept track of the others much outside of breakfast. “How’d ya mean?”

“Chuck and Beth, Norman and Amy, John and Betty, Jimmy and Kathy. You and Molly, of course. It’s one of the most damned things I’ve ever watched.” Anders stared ahead with his cool gaze, unblinking. “Like they picked you out, one by one. It’s a quarter past eight, so by now Hank will have slipped down to Mira’s room. They’ll screw all night before he crawls back up here to shower and head down to breakfast.”

Ben didn’t understand Anders’s point. The other man didn’t sound jealous or left out. Anders was stating facts as though demonstrating some obvious logical puzzle. Ben had noticed Chuck hanging around with Beth, and it sort of made sense that Beth’s twin and Chuck’s shadow, Norman, would start spending time together. The two waitresses at the boarding house, Kathy and Betty, had been fawning over Jimmy and John since the first morning. It all seemed a little quick, but otherwise not alarming. “So, what’s the big deal? The girls were hard up for some attention, maybe. We all come along, and it’s a matter of supply and demand. I haven’t seen any other guys our age, have you?”

“No,” Anders answered quickly, his eyes brightening. “That’s another part of it, don’t you see? The men are all old. Not forty or fifty, but ancient. Willard might be the youngest one of the lot. And you know what else? We’re different too. Before this week, how many times had you shaved in the past month?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” But Ben knew the answer to his own question. Careful, he warned himself, these are questions that might ruin everything.

In answer, Anders rose out of bed and pulled off his night shirt. The once narrow shouldered, almost sickly young man had transformed. His chest had rounded out into a muscular barrel. Hair had grown in like a pelt that turned into a narrow line of fuzz leading down his stomach, a solid cord of muscle that heaved in and out as he breathed. His shoulder muscles arched into his neck, twisting as he moved his arm to show off round and defined biceps. “It’s happening to all of us.”

Ben shook his head dismissively. He knew, like a rotten seed in his mind, that these were topics better ignored. Admitting them would risk everything. “I mean, what do you expect. We’ve been busting our asses all day for a solid week. We’ve been eating like horses. All of it has to go somewhere!” He could feel the anger rising up his throat. Why was Anders challenging a good thing? Wasn’t everyone happy? Weren’t they all enjoying the work and the food and the girls? So what if it meant having to ignore a few odd things here and there. The bitterness filled his mouth with an acrid taste, “You’re just jealous.”

Anders had been expecting the words, but still he winced at them. “In a way, yes. Maybe that’s all it is, really. Blind jealousy. There’s no girl here for me. But I’m not the only one. Nathan doesn’t have an opposite either.”

“Why does that sound like a threat?” Ben bristled.

He pulled his pajama top back on and went back to his bed. “Things are not right in this town. For some reason, I’m the only one that sees it easily. I thought about trying to tell Chuck we should go, but figured you’d be easier to convince. I was wrong.” He rolled over.

Ben mused on his roommate’s words, something nagging at him that he finally couldn’t let go any more. “Anders, how come you’ve moped around since the moment I met you? What’d you mean by saying there wasn’t a girl here for you?”

Anders didn’t turn to face him. “I left home six months ago. There was a girl there, Elizabeth. She was my sweetheart from the time we were old enough to know what sweethearts really were. I enrolled in a technical college upstate, promised to get my degree and come back and marry her. When I went back for winter break before my last semester, Elizabeth and I went out for a walk. Another fellow comes up to us and starts saying all this nonsense to me. He tells me that my girl is a whore. That she’d fucked half the town and had a waiting list for the other half. He said she’d fucked him too. Said that if she wasn’t fucking me then I was a fool, and if she was fucking me then I should make sure to go to the doctor when my dick started to burn or itch. She said he was crazy, but I could see it in his eyes. Pure truth, rage, embarrassment, and hate. Part of me thinks he followed us hoping to somehow prove he was better than the others to Liz. The other part thinks that he wanted to pick a fight so he could lose.

“My dad taught me to fight when I was little. I scrapped with other boys same as you most likely. Not this fella. He’d grown up soft. Maybe that’s why he took it so hard. Even though I knew she’d done it, I wanted to show this guy some manners. I warned him off once, and then I clocked him. He got up. I warned him off again. He pulled a knife.” Anders raised the back of his pajama shirt and showed a two inch scar along his lower flank. “I hit him again, caught him in the temple, and he crumpled like a dropped cloth, whacked his head on the street like a ball bouncing.”

“Did it kill him?” Ben asked.

“Not right away. I told Elizabeth to go to hell and turned myself over to the police the next day. They didn’t lock me up. Said it was self defense, and that they’d heard about Liz. The way that cop looked at me, I knew it about him too. She’d bent over for half the town, why not that cop? Saw her once more after that. Told her that if she wanted to get screwed by the whole goddamn world then she should at least start charging for it. Better to be a whore than a slut, I reckon. Packed up my stuff and left town three weeks later. Didn’t see much point in staying around cause everywhere I looked I saw what she’d done to me. She’d caused me to rot from the inside out. Cause even after all she did, that level of betrayal, I still loved her. I still love her.”

The tremble in Anders’s voice both frightened and saddened Ben. “So what’s that got to do with Ulster Rock?”

“That same drifter, the one who found you and all the others, found me in a dive bar where I was busing tables. Came right up to me with this wicked smile on his face. Said I was the right kind for some work in a town during harvest season. I called the number, talked to Willard, and here I am same as you. And everything went on fine and normal until breakfast that first morning. Couldn’t get my coffee filled. The girls kept walking past me until I tugged on one of their sleeves. No one noticed, not really. Same thing happened at lunch that day. Molly handed me a sandwich, but it was like she was looking right through me. They all barely act like I’m even there. Thought it was just me for a while, but as the week’s come on and all the other stuff started happening, I began to wonder. I don’t think they can see me, it’s like I’m a ghost walking around.”

“And you think that has something to do with how you treated, Liz?”

He rolled over and met Ben’s gaze, no hint of joke or falsehood in his eyes. “I think it has something to do with love. I think they need you to love them. I’m not asking you to believe me, but keep an open mind. Can you do that?”

Ben felt the coldness of the town flow into him. Molly went out of his head, and all the strange things about Ulster Rock piled up. “I’ll think about it.”

The work went on. At the end of the first week, a little over half of the fields had been cleared. They worked through Sunday morning, but Willard told gave them the afternoon off. Molly and the twins planned to go into town to help with decorations, and it was decided that a group lunch would be had at the boarding house. The time for pretense had passed. After the talk with Anders, Ben couldn’t put aside the obvious strangeness of the town any longer, but he still saw nothing sinister in it. Isolated towns develop their own habits and customs that can seem peculiar to outsiders. Many such places struggled through the war years going a little leaner and a little crazier than the rest of the country. To get out of that, the local men signed up for the army and many had not come back. It sufficiently explained the girls’ interest in the migrant workers. Molly and her friends were all of marrying age yet lacking prospects, which Ben knew could create a desperation that otherwise wouldn’t have crossed their minds. It even explained why she’d been so forward with him, making love on their third encounter. Ben did not deny the fire he felt between them or the madness that took them both when they were alone together, but surely that fire could have been stoked by years of fearing becoming a spinster.

With the morning’s field work done, they put away their tools and headed back into town. As it turned out, there were other citizens of Ulster Rock after all. Chuck and Ben stood outside smoking while lunch was laid out. They watched a few other girls that looked close to their age as they hung streamers and banners down the street. Some older, yet still remarkably beautiful, women directed another squad of old timers in constructing booths. Up the street, the black stage cast a shadow across the square, even at midday. Ben found himself looking at Chuck, sidling closer to him to try and measure his height. “The heck are you doing?” Chuck asked, scrambling back.

“Have you gotten taller?”

Chuck looked back and forth conspiratorially. “Why? You want a turn on my stretching machine?”

“I’m serious,” Ben barked. The nearest group of workers looked up, giving him the empty stare that seemed to follow him around the town.

“Betty said they shrank in the wash is all,” he shoved his hands in his pockets and pulled his pants out flat. The hem of his pants reached an inch above his ankle. “She said she didn’t have time to fix the hem, but she’d get it next laundry day. To be honest, I don’t think she has much experience washing men’s clothes. Some of my shirts have shrank too. She’s putting them in too cold water or something.”

Shrinking clothes. Another oddity whisked away by a somewhat plausible explanation. Ben changed the subject, “So what’s the ruckus this evening? First time we’ve had more than twenty minutes to ourselves all week.”

“The girls said we should go down to the bar. Play cards, have a few. Beth and Ann are going to be helping with the decorating until this afternoon, but after that they said they’d come round. Molly too, I’d bet. And that’ll keep us out of sight lest Willard regrets his decision and puts us to work building some other damn thing. Come on, let’s go in.”

Chuck ground out his cigarette and tossed the butt in the trash. Ben did the same and followed him inside. Mira and her two serving girls had whipped up another miraculous meal for them. Baked chicken with smashed potatoes, peas, corn on the cob, okra, squash, and bread with butter. The aroma made Ben salivate as he took his spot at the table. Molly slipped in beside him, her hand going down to his thigh and giving him a playful squeeze under the table. He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek before a shock of nerves burst in his stomach. He looked around, hoping no one had seen. Friendly conversation was one thing, but stealing a kiss in front of everyone could ruin them. Chuck had his arm around Beth, his lips near her ear whispering jokes. Norman and Amy, too, were deep in private conversation. Ben looked around the table and saw quickly that no one cared. They were all too absorbed in their own romances to notice. All except one.

Nathan sat at the end of the table, alone. His head hung down, staring at his plate. Fists rested on either side, still protecting his space like a starving man. Dead eyes bored into the plate as he gnawed at his food, contempt oozing out of him like oil into water. It was clear that he was apart from the rest of the group. Isolated and miserable for it. For a brief moment, Ben pitied him, but as Nathan’s head rose to look down the table, the two men’s eyes met and Ben saw nothing in those eyes but pure hate. Ben pulled back from Molly and turned his attention to the food. A few minutes later, Nathan got to his feet and went upstairs. Other than the moment of fright when the burly man stood up, Ben and the others were relieved to be free of his company.

The food went quickly. Even from half a day’s work, they were still starving. As Ben shoveled the rich tasting vegetables into his mouth, he relished the feeling of Molly being closed to him. As their hunger slowed, the men made conversation and before long, the table turned into a rambunctious group of friends. The girls shared stories from their growing up together, each trying to out embarrass the other. Chuck led the way telling about his own younger days with the others joining in with their most outlandish tales whenever they could. Ben noted the competition among the men, each trying to outdo the other, but the women only tittered. The pairs became more forward with each other and more comfortable expressing it around the other couples. Norman’s arm drooped from Amy’s shoulders to rest on her lower back. Jimmy didn’t seem to care that others could see his hand groping the side of Kathy’s breast. Nor did the girls seem ashamed. They encouraged it, Molly most of all. She took Ben’s hand and pushed it to her thigh where she’d hiked up her dress under the table. She guided his hand up until he found her sex, hot and wet. Molly smiled and kissed his ear and went right back to chatting with Beth about how many flowers they would need to make harvest bouquets.

The party broke up when Mira and Hank sneaked off to Mira’s office. The landlady ordered her staff to clean away the dishes and their beaus insisted on helping, intending to spend a little alone time with Kathy and Betty in the kitchens. Molly, Beth, and Amy left their other halves much worse for the hour of teasing to go continue decorating. Molly promised to find Ben later and alluded to a few secret spots where they could be alone. Ben guessed Chuck and Norman received the same promise. In the end, the four who had serendipitously found themselves in Chuck’s car were left sitting at the empty table. Norman brought up the girls’ suggestion of going to the bar and the group, even Anders, quickly voted in favor. Chuck and Norman wanted to go upstairs for a while. Ben and Anders decided to head on to the bar themselves rather than wait and listen to Mira moan and squirm in the next room.

Between the boarding house and the bar were two alleys. It was a stretch to call them alleys at all. In truth they were mostly poorly planned gaps between the buildings, narrow paths that could fit one man comfortably down them at a time. The first went by with Anders and Ben glancing down it to see a stray cat looking contemptuously at an empty can. They passed two more buildings before they crossed the next. In that short spate, the nigh familiar chill returned to Ben’s core. Anders walked on his left and he to right, closer to the street. They stepped from the porch of the Ulster Pharmacy to the dirt track in front of the alleyway. Ben paused, knowing something he was seeing was wrong.

In the alley was a shape, obscured by the building’s shadow. He thought it was a heap of trash until he made out the eyes, the slack jaw, and that hungry look. Nathan crouched, his weight resting forward on his knuckles, and stared right back at Ben. Anders wheeled on his heel to see why Ben had stopped. Seeing the brute move out of the corner of his eye, Anders yelped and tripped, falling luckily out of the way.

Nathan stormed out of the alley, swiping his arm at Anders in a mad grab. The smaller man dodged the lunge, but took a kick to the ribs, knocking out his breathe and leaving him gasping on the ground. Nathan gave him no more notice, his eyes turning to fix on Ben. With a speed that defied his size, Nathan slashed upwards with his left hand. Ben danced out of the way, but not before the cutting glove’s scythe sliced up his arm, sending a flash of blood into the air. Ben scrambled back, looking wildly for anyone to help him. Another slash, but Ben had his balance and dodged. It wasn’t good enough though, Nathan shifted his weight and brought his right hand around, landing a blow to the side of Ben’s head.

Ben saw stars and a ringing pain shook his head. He went down to a knee, but knew that collapsing would mean getting his guts pulled out by the blade. Nathan was too big to fight one on one so Ben did the only thing he could think of, “What? You’re here to win Molly from me? You’re too late, bud. She already gave it up for me. I gotta tell ya, I didn’t think I wanted a tramp that would have spent more than a second looking at your ugly ass, but once I had her bent over and begging for it, she wasn’t that bad. Her real talent is in licking my cock clean though. What do you think we do during lunch every day? I give her a quick fuck and eat my fucking ham sandwich while she cleans my balls with her tongue.” Blood trickled down from the wound on Ben’s arm as he danced back on lighter feet than he knew he had, narrowly missing Nathan’s lunge. “You thought she’d give a shit about a pea brain like you? Mouth breathing shitpile who can barely tie his own goddamn shoes?”

The bigger man sliced again and again, driving Ben back until he fumbled to keep his feet. The blade swept higher, and Ben ducked right as Nathan’s right hook planted into his gut. The wind went out of him and stitches of hot pain went up his side. Ben fell to his knees and waited for the sickle to slam into his neck. Nathan opened his mouth to say something, but instead made a wet gurgling noise His eyes lost focus and rolled up in his head. His hands went limp, and he fell over like a chopped tree, creating a plume of dust in his wake. Ben’s eyes focused to see Nathan on his side, the old blank stare in his face once again, blood trickling down into his eyes. A gash had been opened up in the side of his head, the skull caved in, and brain matter sprayed out from the crevice. Nathan’s lower lip trembled, and he spoke in a whisper, “It didn’t want me…” Shocked and confused, Nathan died.

Standing behind him, holding a hammer smeared with gore and hair wedged between the claw, was Mira, naked as the day she was born. Specks of red blood had splattered on her stomach, and her eyes blazed with fury. She looked terrifying and beautiful, her full figure the first fully naked woman Ben had ever seen. The young man looked at her with a stunned silence, wondering what he should say and feeling he should offer some explanation. Mira said nothing, but dropped the hammer, turned and walked back toward the boarding house. Hank appeared, stomping outside in his boots and underwear. Others appeared in the street, Molly among them. She went to Mira, throwing a blanket over her and guiding her back inside. Beth and Amy followed. Ben crawled back from the corpse in the street as Anders came over to him and helped him up. They waited. The old men working looked at them with those empty stares, but no one made a move to help. Chuck and Norman came outside, but were as dumbfounded as Anders.

After an eternity, they heard Willard’s familiar shuffle. His good eye looked at the two boys standing by Nathan’s body. He sucked his teeth and spat. Grabbing hold of Nathan’s collar, Willard dragged him from the street, leaving a puddle of blood in the dirt. “Aight then, I called the sheriff. You two cocksuckers go on in and get a beer. This part is done.”

The builders went back to work.

Harry stood up from his chair. He paced back and forth during Ben’s final descriptions of the scene in the street. Ben stopped talking and looked expectantly at the older man. Harry didn’t notice when it started, but as he stretched his legs, he realized a pit of dread had formed in his stomach. It wasn’t the first time an investigation made that ball of dread wake up. As the hours ticked by with Ben laying out his tale, they had come no closer to answering Harry’s basic question. Harry decided to press harder, “So did the sheriff show up?”

“Yes,” Ben answered. “A fat man with horrible body odor from several miles away showed up with two deputies. They collected the body. They talked with me and Anders. We told them what happened. Why he’d attacked me, or why we thought at least. They took down our names and told us not to leave town. After that, they had a long conversation with Willard and Mira. Then they were gone.”

Returning to his seat, Harry pulled out yet another file. “This is the case file for Nathan Puckett. His body was found washed up north of St. Louis. Doctors had a hard time figuring out what exactly killed him since the fish or current took most of his skin off. They thought he’d hit his head on a rock or something, maybe when he fell in. Figured out who he was from a missing persons report filed with some dental records. Eventually, I caught wind of it. So, how’d he get there? We went and checked with the county sheriff for Ulster Rock. He’s not a ‘fat man with body odor’ as you say. Young fella that took over from his dad when he got back from France. I asked him about Ulster Rock, and he says they’ve never had a single call to go out there. I went and talked with his daddy. Asked him the same question. Know what he told me?”

“That no one lives in Ulster Rock,” Ben said.

“That’s right.” Harry flipped to another file and pulled out a newspaper dated November 7th, 1918. “’Spanish Flu wipes out Ulster Rock,’” Harry read. “’The death toll continues to rise nationwide, but this small town knows the full price of this deadly disease. Eloise Morrow, wife of the deceased local farmer, Grant Morrow, is one of the few left to mourn. By God’s grace, Eloise’s children have survived, but they see nothing but bad memories in Ulster Rock. Eloise says that she has prayed for guidance and received her answer. The Morrows will remain in Ulster Rock and rebuild their town.’”

Harry dropped the clipping back into the file and picked up another sheet. “This is a list of all the dead. Seventy-eight people died from the flu. The last certificate of death with the location as Ulster Rock was filed on January 4th, 1919. Since then, not one official document has come into existence from Ulster Rock. The land is owned and taxed through a man named Jacob Morrow whose residence is listed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But no such man exists.” Harry pushed all of his papers and files aside, grabbed his pen, and tapped his notes. “Ben, we’ve come to the point in your story where we must step beyond the realm of possible. You tell me that a naked woman whose beauty outshines the stars took a hammer to the head of a young man in the middle of the street, and I believe you. I believe you because of those marks on your arms and that substance on your finger tips. I believe you because of what I’ve seen in the past few years — abominations, heresy, and outright demons. There’s gaps in the world. And there’s one in Ulster Rock. You know it already, but you’re not the first to go missing. Your friends aren’t the first to talk to an old man offering work harvesting corn. What happened to them has happened to others. The gap closed when you left and the world poured back in to find something horrible. It’s time, I think, to talk about the night of harvest.”

Ben nodded. “I could have told you what happened that night. I could have began at the moment I set foot on that black stage, but you needed to understand. It wasn’t only that ritual. Anders had the core of it. They needed us there for two weeks. We had to fall in love. We had to build trust. That was all part of it. That’s why they put Nathan down like a dog gone mad. That’s why Anders was a ghost in a town of ghosts. They had no trust in them.” Ben holds his hand up in front of his face. “You want to know why I look like this and still draw breath. You think if you learn how this happened then you can write it down to make sure it never happens again. I got these scars because of trust. Think of a diesel engine. It has the pistons and valves that make the truck move, but without the diesel it’s only a hunk of metal. We were the engine and trust was the diesel.”

Harry’s ears perked up. He jotted the phrase down in his book. “I think that’s the start of me understanding. Now then. They disposed of Nathan’s body. Willard soothed things out with you. Then what?”

“’Don’t leave town,’ they told us. So we went back to what we’d been doing. It was easy by then. Murder or not, we still had jobs to do. I didn’t want to leave anyway. Not without Molly.”

They didn’t see the girls for the next three days. Mira remained at the desk, smiling and willing to chat. Hank no longer bothered pretending to stay in his room. That meant Jimmy and John could have rooms to themselves which they thought would let their girls stay with them at night, but even Kathy and Betty had disappeared. Mira served breakfast and dinner by herself. Out at the farms, the work went twice as fast even without Nathan. Conversation dried up, and the two groups found each other’s company less than pleasant every day. Tuesday afternoon, shouting from across the road drew Anders and Ben’s attention as they wheeled the cart to the silo. John and Hank started a brawl, thankfully without the use of the cutting gloves. When Ben reached them, it didn’t look like Jimmy wanted them separate at all. The two men fought like wild animals, scratching and gouging at one another while nearly frothing at the mouth. Jimmy stood there watching as though he were listening to CBS Mystery Hour on the radio. Anders managed to get them apart, but not before Hank turned John’s face into a bloody mess. In a strange way, all of them hoped the injuries might necessitate the girls coming out of hiding, but it was Willard who played nurse with the cure all from his paper bag.

By Wednesday, Ben was crawling up the walls. Mira had not so much as mentioned what happened in the street. The sheriff had not returned either. Ben’s one attempt to bring it up again to Willard was met with a harsh glare. “Ain’t no need in talkin bout it. What’s done is done. That’s over now.” And what was there to mourn? None of them had known Nathan or even liked him in the short term. The poor man snapped for reasons no one wanted to question much and tried to kill Ben. But it was Mira that worried Ben.

She showed no sign of worry or embarrassment for having walked across the town naked. On this point, Hank had offered some explanation. They’d been together, lying in each other’s arms after making love when they heard shouting in the street. Hank said he was half asleep, or he’d have been out the door first. Before he knew it Mira was out of the bed and out the door. He figured she must have known something terrible was happening to not grab a robe or anything, but Ben could see that Mira’s behavior concerned her lover, too.

A second brawl started Wednesday morning. Chuck, who had lost much of his loquacious tongue over the week, snapped at Norman over the last plate of bacon. Before the others realized what was happening, Norman had Chuck by the collar and dragged over the table. He threw the smaller man to the ground and rained blows on him before Jimmy managed to pull him off. Ben finally saw what they had become. They’d arrived in Ulster Rock as thin and wiry young men who looked six days between meals. Now they were all hulking chunks of muscle. What had been subtle now was laid bare in front of the whole room. Each of them was a muscle bound fool with nothing but pent up aggression. They’d had outlets for it so long as the girls were around, but left to their own devices, fighting was the best way of expelling energy.

Hank was the only one who remained somewhat in control of his aggression, but he had other problems. Ben talked with him about Mira’s reaction on Sunday evening when they all returned to the boarding house. By the time he and Jimmy had their scuffle the day after Nathan’s death, Hank’s vocabulary had shrunk by half. By Wednesday, he only grunted and pointed. The fight garnered a laugh from a mouth crammed full of food as he groped Mira’s ass. Seeing what they all could become, Ben’s final doubt vanished. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew the town was poisoning them. The first step was to talk to Molly.

Ben went looking for her during lunch. He’d never been up to the farmhouse before, and it made his stomach churn to even knock on the door. No one answered. He knocked again. The windows were dark, and he could hear no movement within. Determined to find his love, he opened the door and went inside, hoping she wasn’t over at the twins’ house. The interior of the Morrow home was decorated with the same sparse practicality as the rest of the town. A small den to the right of the entrance held a few old recliners and a small radio set on the hearth mantle. To the left was a short hallway leading into the kitchen which still smelled of baking bread. He called out, but no one answered. Moving further into the house, he heard movement coming from one of the bedrooms followed by soft moans. He called out again, “Molly?”

“Ben? Is that you? Oh, Ben, I’ve missed you so! Come in!”

He opened the bedroom door, and his mouth dropped. Lying on the bed, her knees up in the air and spread wide was Molly. Her naked body glowed, illuminated by thin rays trickling in from a shuttered window. Full breasts heaved on her chest above criss crossed arms which laid on her stomach, hands between her thighs. She bit her lip and looked at him, a splash of red filling her cheeks. Ben couldn’t meet her gaze. His eyes remained fixed on her naked sex. It was the first time he’d seen her openly, even with their closeness and previous sex. Ben had come to imagine her looking like Mira, terrible and beautiful, but she was nothing like that. Molly was soft and delicate in her vulnerability, yet carnal in her manner. Unlike Mira, she was smooth below the waist. Her hands curved against that bald mound as her fingers toyed with her lower lips. “What…what are you doing?”

“Come, please, I need you so much.” Molly’s hands did not stop moving, but she spread her legs wider.

No part of Ben could resist. He stripped down from the waist, letting his jeans crumple around his ankles as he climbed on top of her. He positioned himself carefully and plunged into her, feeling her warmth wrap around him and draw him in. He groaned with a relief he’d not realized he’d needed. The need for her built for a week, growing ever stronger in her absence. Ben felt her arms moving over his strong back and to his neck. She brought his lips to hers as he thrust into her. She tasted of sweet bread and wild berries. Ben hunched over her as she began to writhe beneath him in pleasure. His mouth trailed down her neck and finally to her breasts where he kissed the soft mounds before taking her hard nipple into his lips. She gasped as his tongue swirled around the nub and Ben felt her pussy clench around his invading cock. Her lips found his ear, “It’s true, you have gotten bigger!”

Was it possible? Had even his manhood increased in size without him noticing? Molly rolled him over onto his back, pinning him to the bed with strength she should not possess. A wild need in her eyes kept him enthralled as she rode him mercilessly. Within seconds, orgasm rocked through his body. He emptied himself deep inside of her as she too seized and twitched with pleasure. They remained in that tensed position for a few seconds before Ben’s senses returned. Molly lowered herself, lying her head across his muscular chest. He fumbled to find his tongue, panicking that he’d been struck dumb like Hank. “Molly? Why haven’t I seen you since the…incident?”

“Did Mira not tell you?” she asked not raising her head. His manhood remained inside of her. She flexed her muscles, squeezing him and encouraging his hardness to return.

“She hasn’t spoken with me either. She killed a man in broad daylight and all of you disappeared. Then I find you…like this?”

Again she wriggled her hips. His concerns couldn’t outweigh his physical needs, and he began to swell again. “She forbade us from seeing you. It’s tradition, but she’s never enforced it before. I think Nathan is why.”

“Tradition?”

“Harvest Night? I’ve been picked as the Harvest Queen, which means you get to be Harvest King! Isn’t that wonderful?” Her hips started to rock once again.

“No, no, that’s not right. None of this is right. We have to go. We have to get out of town. I wanted..to take you with me.”

She bent down to kiss him, her breasts pressing against his chest as his hands moved up to grope her ass. “Don’t be silly, Ben. This is what you want. You want to stay for the harvest festival. You want to see me put on the crown. And you want to fuck me at every chance you get until then. Until the big moment! Isn’t that right?” She ground her hips down hard, pushing him fully inside of her. Her lower lips squelched with a mingling of his cum and her own arousal. She pressed her mouth against his, hard. Ben felt a twinge of pain and met her kiss with equal enthusiasm. He tasted his own blood in his mouth, a small cut from his lower lip. “The moon will rise tomorrow night. Mira said it’s come sooner this year. I can’t wait. I love you so much, Ben. Promise me you’ll stay.”

Astonished and puzzled, Ben parroted, “I love you, too.” His tongue felt thick in his mouth. Molly consumed his senses. He could taste her lips on his, smell the scent of her sweat, and everywhere she touched his skin sizzled with heat. “I won’t leave you. I’ll stay, as long as you want me to. I’ll stay.” Ben erupted inside her.

No one came to look for him. The others spent the afternoon in the field, finishing three days ahead of schedule and down two men. Ben returned to help with the last load. Anders asked where he’d been, but only received an annoyed grunt in response. They piled in the cars and headed back to town.

The street was packed with tables. At every spot sat one of the old men, their eyes wet and lively. Grease and butter covered their lips and cheeks as they shoveled food into their mouths. The sound was appalling, a slurping, mashing noise that would turn any sane man’s stomach. No crumb went without being devoured. If something fell to the ground, one of old men would drop to his knees and scrap it up with his tongue. From the look of things, they’d been eating as long as Ben and the others had been in their euphoric trance. The old men’s bellies jutted out in distention, and they wore grimaces on the verge of retching as they crammed more cakes and more beans and more pork into their mouths.

When they spied the gang of six moving out of the boarding house, they cheered and hissed. Some raised their mugs or bottles, but most ignored the newcomers. The sky was black, and autumn’s chill had pervaded the air. Willard, who looked desperate for a taste of the food, led them toward the stage. Ben followed first in line with Chuck behind him and the others in lockstep. Their hearts rose when they saw the women on the stage. Six platforms in two rows made out of the same black timbers as the rest of the stage had been raised in the center. They were square and roughly six feet in length. Mira met them as they reached the top of the steps. She sent Willard away with a swipe of her hand before taking Ben and guiding him to the center pedestal closest to the street. She did the same for the others, never speaking a word. The only sound in the street was the gnashing of the old men’s jowls. The clouds broke and brilliant yellow moonlight shone down on the black pedestal.

The girls came to their chosen men wearing their harvest day dresses. Ben smiled at how beautiful Molly looked. Wearing a crown of thorns and leaves, she undressed him. The others did the same to their men. Mira spoke as she fumbled with the buttons on Hank’s shirt, her voice striking out clear over the platform. “The time of the harvest moon is special to us. We took a vow many years ago that we would not pass from this world. We came together and called out to God for help. He did not answer. Something else did. A voice from the moon spoke to us. It told us to celebrate life and love. In that celebration we would reap vitality through sacrifice. The land would become bountiful. Crops would grow with ease, rivers and ponds would team with fish, and livestock would grow fat and plentiful. For that gift, we were told to build an alter.”

The men were naked. Mira directed Hank onto the platform, lying him down on his back. Ben and the others did the same, none ashamed of their nakedness. They laid under the sky, looking up at the glowing moon, their manhoods throbbing and erect, blood pumping in their ears. The void above them gaped, hungry. As one, they turned away from that endless horror and looked instead to the beacons of earthly light standing beside them. Eager smiles grew on their faces as the women stripped down, leaving their dresses in puddles beside the black pedestals. Molly kept her crown on as she crawled on top of Ben. She kissed him lovingly before pushing his length inside of her. On either side of him, he saw his friends in the same position, their cocks impaling their destined woman who awaited further instruction. “And on that alter, we would act as conduits. This love we have between us is given up to the darkness beyond. We feed our master!”

The rutting began. Slowly at first, but then the women’s greed became apparent. The men writhed beneath their consorts, groaning and wailing as pleasure wracked their minds. Ben was lost once more in the sea of Molly’s body. He could feel something being pulled from him and knew it should stop, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t stop it any more than an opium addict can put down the pipe or an old drunk can put down the bottle. Once more his seed poured into her and all around him, the men he’d come to call friends emptied more of themselves into the beauties shaking and squirming against them.

Chuck screamed first. Black ichor oozed from where he joined with Amy. It coated his crotch and seeped down his legs. His hands had been resting on Amy’s hips, guiding her movements back and forth. From every spot that he touched her, bubbling tar appeared on his skin. Amy leaned forward, as though to kiss him and quail any fears, but instead more of that black, viscous poison vomited from her lips and coated his face. Ben watched with a detached horror, still feeling his cock throb and erupt inside of Molly’s persistent cunt. His head lolled to the other direction and saw Hank and Norman coming to similar fates. Mira’s breasts oozed the black fluid, dripping down onto Hanks chest where it spread out like an amoeba covering his skin. Jimmy, at least, tried to escape, but only made it so far as rolling off of the pedestal. Kathy kept her prey locked between her legs and his cock firmly planted inside of her, milking out his humanity as the creeping tar covered him and froze him in position.

With each soul claimed, the crowd of old men jeered. Ben could hear the hate and contempt in their voices. He realized they too had once felt the love which had led him astray. The tar on Chuck’s face cracked and broke open revealing a withered husk of a man that had once been a boy who told jokes in a corn field. Amy rose off of him, leaving a trail of the black ooze as she stumbled back, drunk off of her witchwork. Ben looked up into Molly’s kind eyes. “Don’t worry, my love, it doesn’t hurt. And you’ll be with me forever.” His hands slid up her thighs and his fingers pressed into her flesh, welcoming what fate would bring. Searing pain reached into his fingers, branching up into his arms. He kept his eyes on Molly’s as a single tear streamed down her face.

A wet thwack broke the stare. A shimmering glint of bloody steel emerged from behind Molly’s eye. Her body went limp and fell aside. Ben felt as though his soul had been torn out. He grabbed for her lifeless body as it fell to the stage. Screeching filled the air, causing Ben’s ears to ring. He looked up to see the scythe plummet down once again, ripping through Amy’s chest like it were paper. Anders did not pause or show remorse, moving from Amy’s gutted body to the next woman. Mira and the others emitted a high pitched wail that burned in Ben’s mind. It commanded him to stop the murder. It told him to rip and tear until Anders was nothing but greasy sinew.

Ben rolled off the platform, banging his knees on the ground beside Mira’s body. He reached for her, but saw the black ichor gushing from her wound. Not blood, but black poison that had sustained her for years beyond her time. The wail grew louder, and Ben realized he wasn’t the only one to hear it. The thralls, poor souls who had been through this ritual and sacrificed their life and vitality to the witches, were obeying their mistress’s command.

Anders was quick with his work and another two of the women fell silent, leaving only Mira and Beth. The old men swarmed around their mistresses and Anders backed away. “Can you walk? Ben?!”

Ben scrambled to his feet, suddenly very aware of his nakedness. “What have you done?”

“Fuck that self righteous bullshit, c’mon,” Anders stepped over the bodies he’d left behind and Ben followed. Chuck’s car waited a few feet from the bottom of the stage staircase, but the old men had started to move faster. Despite their decrepit appearance, neither Ben or Anders doubted a single one of the creatures had more strength than they could match. They ran for the car, the scythe still in Anders’s hand. A crowd of the thralls appeared from inside a building, lurching forward as though pulled by puppet strings. They swarmed between the retreating men and the car. “Shit.” Anders wheeled around as two more of the thralls caught up. The scythe sliced through the air and cut open the two men’s chests. A wave of relief appeared on their faces as they dropped. The wounds showed no blood, only more of the blackness.

They changed directions and headed toward the town hall, but didn’t make it far. Willard appeared, shotgun in hand, aiming it at Anders. “That’s enough now. Time to put an end to all this.” The screeching stopped, and the thralls parted as Beth and Mira made their way over to them. Willard spoke quickly, “I’m sorry about all this. I truly am. Never thought it would get so out of hand. They’re fast when they have their senses. You’ll have to be quick.”

The beauty in Mira’s face was gone. Fury and contempt remained. Some of the black ichor drooled from the corners of her lips and her eyes were coal black. Beth looked worse. She’d not been able to finish consuming her prey. Ben saw a glimpse of what they truly looked like. Hags with paper thin skin, oozing pustules, and rotten teeth. “You killed my sisters,” Mira hissed. “At least this eunuch made use of himself.”

“Fuck you, bitch,” Willard said, plainly. The shotgun cracked like thunder and a spray of pellets blasted off the right half of Mira’s face. Beth screeched and her hands whirled out like talons, but Anders was quick. He plunged the scythe into her gut. With a hard spin, he pulled the blade from her flank, spilling her rotten innards onto the ground. Beth collapsed on top of Mira’s body. The two shriveled quickly into husks that were shadows of their true selves. The men planted their feet and turned to face the oncoming horde.

Afterward, when Anders and Ben thought of the moments that followed, neither could remember whether what they heard was a real sound or some type of ghostly scream. As Beth’s body fell, a frustrated wail rose like a scream on the wind, growing louder until the three men’s teeth clenched in fear and pain. The ground shook and Ben thought something very old and very angry passed through them, yet it found no purchase in their souls. Or at least, not enough of one. With the moment gone, the two young men and one old readied to face the remaining gang. To their surprise, the withered men had gone still and turned their eyes up to the sky. The thralls dropped one at a time, each with a smile of relief and a few with thanks on their lips. When the last fell, the town of Ulster Rock was finally dead. Ben, Anders, and Willard looked out over the piles of bodies, expecting some new horror to present itself, yet nothing came. Each, in his turn, felt palpable loneliness and the unceasing watch of something beyond the world in which they stood.

“They’re all dead?” Harry asked.

“Yes.”

“What happened to Anders?”

“Don’t know. We left Willard behind and headed out of town. He gave us the week’s pay for everyone, and we split it between us. I wasn’t in good shape by the time we reached a city. Whatever shit they’d been feeding us wore off. I had it worse than Anders. I set myself up in a hotel, and we said our goodbyes. We worried someone would come looking for us and want answers so we thought it would be best to split up. I never thanked him for coming back for me. Found a room for rent with an old widower and laid up there for a while. Can’t tell you the feeling that I had lying in that room, like all my insides were being torn out. Cursed Anders plenty for not letting me die. The widower thought I had the shakes and let me ride it out. Took weeks to get back on my feet, when I did, I headed to my aunt’s. Time passed and now I am here.”

Harry nodded, writing his last sentence of notes. He looked over them and started to gather up the sprawl of documents. “I want to thank you for your time, Ben. I know that story isn’t easy to tell.”

Ben’s eyes frantically followed Harry’s hands, “Wait, what happens now? Have you found Anders? What’s left of the town? How did they start it? What were they?” The questions poured out of him with desperation.

Harry went still. “You want answers, that’s understandable. The work we do is to try and find those answers. Your story answers many of our questions. You thought they were witches?”

“Yes, what else would they have been?”

“Not sure, son, but I haven’t seen a witch yet.” He flipped through the folders and took out a clinical photo of one of the black timbers from the stage. “You said in your story that you didn’t know what these were made of. Neither do we. We’ve run every test and trial we can think of. The only thing that really changes is their weight. Know when it changes? Based on how far apart they are.” He produced another picture of the stage. “This thing is like a living creature. During the flu, a new graveyard was started northeast of Ulster Rock. They dug down to bury the coffins and found these things buried there. Some fool dug them all up and brought them back to town. I don’t know how ritual sacrifice began after that, but that’s it source right there.”

“But, Molly and Mira? They told us what to do. They did everything to get us there.”

“Appendages of a bigger organism. They were this thing’s legs and ears and eyes. I think given enough time those thralls as you call them would have turned into these timbers. Maybe it was a way of reproducing, spreading its blackness over the world. But you boys put a stop to it.”

“Where are they now? The timbers?”

Harry’s eyes narrowed. “I can’t tell you that, but they’re safe. Separate. And now we have a clear account of what happens when they get put together. So we won’t let that happen again. Now then, let me put these things away, and I’ll walk you out.” Harry got up and left the room as Ben’s eyes drift off into nothing.

Ben held his hands in front of him. He could still feel the touch of her skin against his. He closed his eyes and thought of the pitch on his fingers, reaching out with his mind and seeing the void behind the moon once more. “Can you help me? Can you bring her back?”

Silence, but not an empty silence. Finally, a faint and tremulous voice pierces Ben’s mind. “Build my altar.”

Report of Special Agent Harry Dean
Case #17
October, 1953

The artifact itself is a collection of unique pieces of wood apparently covered in tar. We recovered them from Ulster Rock in western Missouri. See in file interviews for further information regarding the nature of the incident. I should note that Holcomb’s account does not go into detail on the specifics of residents who did not participate in the Harvest Day ritual. Outside of the bodies of the ‘thralls’, our team found dozens of other desiccated bodies, presumably belonging to the other men and women Holcomb mentioned in his account. To be clear, no survivors were found.

Based on those interviews, we’ve discerned that the items possess a collective consciousness which can extend into host bodies. It’s also reasonably assumed that the consciousness is hostile toward human life. The modus operandi of the entity revolves around luring human prey to the fully constructed state of the altar. It utilizes human sexual drives to accomplish this goal and falls under our purview as such. Accurate body counts remain difficult, but the entity was active between 1919 and 1951, taking at minimum eight lives per year.

Some outstanding questions remain:

First, how did the thing arrive in Ulster Rock in the first place? We have accounts of a similar artifact in Europe circa 1640. It is possible someone shipped the artifact over, and I’ve directed research into shipping manifests around that time.

Second, the method of recruitment and selection of these young men seemed to matter in some fashion. We do not know the identity of the stranger who visited each town or if he was among the casualties. If he retained some agency over himself like Willard, it is possible he survived. It is also unlikely to be coincidence that all the young men were born within the same short time period.

Third, the whereabouts of Gregory Anders. The account given in Holcolmb’s interview is accurate as far as we can tell. Prior to his arrival in Ulster Rock, Anders was attacked by one Roger Birchfield. Birchfield suffered a head trauma during the encounter which resulted in a cerebral edema and ultimately his death two weeks after the fact. Elizabeth Fairview, the young woman Anders described as his true love to Holcomb, was institutionalized several months after Birchfield’s death. The nature of her malady is officially listed as psychosis brought on by extreme trauma, presumably the Birchfield’s death and Anders’s abandonment of her. As part of her therapy, Fairview has given vivid descriptions of nightmares which line up almost identically to the events of Harvest Day in Ulster Rock. I mention all this to suggest a deeper connection between Anders and Fairview. One that he will possibly try to revive, giving us the opportunity to apprehend him.

Finally, what do we do with the artifact itself? Sixty were recovered from the stage’s construction. Another seven have been located around Ulster Rock. Our search continues for others kept hidden. The individual timbers are impervious to fire, coming out of a furnace still cold to the touch. Some of them can be superficially damaged with blade or hammer, but the damage heals like a wound. Due to their method of erratic storage around Ulster Rock and their fluctuating weight, we believe some critical mass of timbers is required for the entity to become truly active. We’ll continue to experiment with methods of destruction. Potential ideas include sinking a portion of the timbers to the bottom of ocean in various locations, including some of the timbers at the center of atomic bomb tests, and, failing all else, entombing some of the timbers in statues located around the world, hiding them in plain sight a safe distance from one another.

In the meantime, we’re keeping them under guard in REDACTED and REDACTED.