Chapter 15

Mike dropped the half-eaten cheeseburger onto his plate, bumping the thick pile of fries and dumping a few onto the faded tablecloth. Ketchup dripped and pooled, forming a new stain to join those already a permanent part of the decor. He lifted his eyes and peered at his rig through the grimy window.

Having been on the road for ten hours straight, he had been ravenous when he had arrived. Now that the adrenaline rush of keeping an eighteen-wheeler straight on an icy road had faded, he had too much time to consider the dream he had had on Thanksgiving Day; he barely had an appetite anymore.

Not that he did not want to think about his son. He thought about Richie every day. His last clandestine visit to Haven would not have been his last had he not encountered the county sheriff in convenience store just south of town. Mike was sure the man had recognized him, for he had taken a keen interest in what direction Mike was driving.

That chapter should be closed. He had no way to change what had happened. He was not a convicted sex offender, but everyone who knew anything of the false circumstances surrounding the loss of his job in Randall treated him as one. Mike believed that in this "think of the children"-crazed era, the accusation of possessing child porn was as good as a conviction.

Mike sighed and stared at his plate. He forced himself to pick up one of the fries -- raw on one side and charred on the other -- and raise it to his lips.

"You're gonna kill yourself with that stuff, you fat fucker."

Mike's head snapped up. He narrowed his eyes at the balding, pot-bellied man who loomed over him. The man's gaze blazed from a haggard and scarred face atop a neck almost as thick as his head. "Better to be dead than to have a face that looks more like an ass," growled Mike.

The man kicked the leg of the table with his steel-toed boot, knocking the bottle of ketchup over and spilling half of the remaining fries into a tomatoey mess on the tablecloth. "You got the balls to back up that, or are you just a big, hairy pussy?"

Mike bolted from his chair, where it nearly toppled backwards. Other patrons started to back away. "Yeah, and I'll take your balls and shove them up your fucking ass. The real one, that is."

"Hey, hey!" shouted a frizzle-haired woman from behind the counter. "No fighting in here!"

Mike and his adversary stared daggers at each other for another few seconds before the latter's composure cracked first. Seconds later, they laughed and gave each other a brief hug, slapping each other on the back. "Fuck, Mike, where the hell have you been for the past few months, living under a rock?" the man said as he took a seat opposite Mike.

"Aw, you know how it is, Carl," Mike drawled, picking some of the stray fries from the table. "Just get busy going over hell and yonder. Rig ain't gonna drive itself."

Carl smirked and helped himself to one of the fries. "You mean you're making yourself busy."

"I could use the money."

"Bullshit."

Mike picked up the burger and took a large bite. Seeing his old friend made him feel less like he was a tiny speck in the universe, and he could delay answering for another minute. "Seriously, there's some decent money in the cross-country routes," he said while chewing.

"That's not what I mean."

Mike frowned. "That fucker Harve better not have put you up to this." He glanced down as Carl took another fry. "And you call me fat."

"Haven't talked to Harve in a long time. Prob'ly should go and do that sometime."

"Yeah, tell me another one."

Carl shook his head and leaned back in his seat. "Shit, what bee just made a hive in your ass?"

"Look, why are you gettin' on my fucking case about this? I haven't seen you for months, man. Can't we just shoot the breeze? Anyway, I'm just doin' what I had to in the first place. You know all that."

Mike had been out of work for six months after leaving Haven. Somehow the rumor of the child porn had followed him, likely distorted into things even more grotesque. Carl had befriended him and convinced Harve to give him a chance.

"But you're gonna have to work your pretty ass off," Carl had told him when Harve hired him. "He's not gonna be totally convinced you ain't no closet kiddie-fucker until you get in some serious road time."

"But you don't have to bust your butt like that no more," Carl of the present said. "Hell, Mike, you had him convinced inside a month."

Mike scraped his burger in some of the excess ketchup before he took another bite. "What convinced you?" he said through the mouthful of food.

Carl tilted his head. "Y'know, it's been long enough I don't recall. Sorta doesn't even make sense now. Guess that's it. I look at you and don't see no kiddie-fucker. Same as back then. Really gets my goat when someone gets a bum rap."

Mike took his time chewing before he swallowed, as he had no idea what he should say. He had plenty of things he could say, but all would lead to more questions. "So what's with you? You decide you're gonna give up truckin' and be a shrink?"

"Just concerned about you. I sorta feel responsible for you."

Mike paused and frowned. "Well, you can stop wasting your time worrying about me. I'm just fine."

Carl sighed. "I've been in this business when you were still a pimple-faced teenager wondering how you can cover 'em up enough to get laid. Ever since I met you, you've always hinted you were getting away from something."

Mike rolled his eyes. "Oh, brilliant, Einstein. Whatever gave you that idea? That your big fucking revelation?"

Carl shook his head. "No. There's others in the business like that. But you, the last few months, it's like you're trying to run away from something. Something that has you spooked."

Mike stared at his friend and threw down his burger with enough force to scatter the remaining fries to the tablecloth. "So that what you're gonna say next? That maybe you think now the rumors were true after all? That behind all this shit about being responsible for me? Afraid it's gonna bite you on the ass now?"

"Calm the fuck down, Mike," Carl growled. "If I thought that, we wouldn't be havin' this conversation. Your ass would be sittin' in a nice jail somewhere."

"Yeah, I'm freakin' touched," Mike muttered, though there was less of an edge to his voice.

"Mike, seriously, take the fucking chip off your shoulder and shove it up your ass."

Mike paused. All trace of amusement was gone, either from Carl's tone or his eyes. "All right, fine," Mike said in a clipped but less hostile voice. He stared at the remnants of a lunch as his stomach already churned with indigestion. "Yeah, okay, maybe I've been thinkin' on the past a little too hard lately."

"Miss your son?"

"Christ-on-a-pony, what kind of question is that? I missed him since I left Haven."

"Why don't you ever go back and visit him? I mean, unless the ex slapped something legal on you that--"

Mike shook his head, and then cursed himself when he realized he could have lied and made it easier. He struggled for the right words and none would come to him. "It's complicated," he finally said.

"You don't have to tell me what it is."

"Good, 'cuz I don't intend to. But is that it? You think I'm running away from him?"

"No, more like you're running away from yourself."

Mike snorted. "Carl, you're a great friend, but you don't know shit about my situation."

"I probably don't and never will. I just know something is eating at you. Look, I gotta take a rig over into Nevada in a week or so. You want me to swing through Haven and check up on him? Just to see if he's all right?"

Mike felt a tiny shudder and hoped Carl did not see it. He would not have wished a visit to Haven on his worst enemy. The more he thought about that town, the more alien it seemed. Since these strange nightmares began, he started recalling little details of Haven he had missed, details which disturbed and sometimes chilled him to the bone. It felt like a veil slowly lifting.

He wanted to do everything in his power to pull the veil back down.

"Naw, that'll just take you outta your way," Mike drawled. "Really, it's a nothing little town."

"Other than your son still lives there."

If he had enough sense, he wouldn't be, Mike thought, immediately realizing how ridiculous it sounded. "Carl, please. Don't do this, okay? Just don't go near that place."

Carl looked about to say something when he paused and stared at his friend, eyebrows raised slightly as if in surprise. Did he sense the fear Mike had felt for a moment? Carl finally nodded. "Okay, Mike. He's your son. I suppose I just should butt out."

"I appreciate your concern, though," Mike said. "You're a good friend, even if you annoy the fucking shit out of me."

Carl glanced out the window at Mike's rig. "Hey, you pullin' outta here soon?"

"I was probably gonna catch some sleep first."

"Got time for a drink? There's a bar just up the road. Five minute walk, tops. On me."

Mike smirked. "You're buying? I'm not gonna pass up free booze. Come on, let's--" His cell phone warbled just as he stood. "Fuck, if this is Harve, I'm gonna..." He trailed off as he gazed at the caller ID. "Huh. No name, and I don't recognize the number." He flipped it open and lifted it to his face. "Hello?"

He heard a tiny sound, like crackling, then silence.

"Hello? Someone there?"

A low rumble, like air moving across a mouthpiece, then nothing.

"Hello!" Mike snapped. "I can't hear you. Speak the fuck up."

More silence, yet there was the persistent background buzz of an open line.

Mike sighed and snapped the phone shut. He glanced at the phone display. "No wonder. Only one freaking bar of signal."

Carl clasped his shoulder. "If it's important, they'll call back."

"Yeah, likely just a wrong number anyway." He went to the counter and paid for his lunch as he slipped the phone back in his pocket. "Okay, let's go. I could use a drink by now."

Richie's white-knuckled hands trembled as they tried three times to place the receiver back onto the pay phone's hook. He finally hurtled the receiver into the kiosk, chipping a piece of plastic off the mouthpiece. He punched the side of the kiosk, ignoring the pain which flared across his skinned knuckles. He fled, running as fast as his legs would take him.

He did not slow down until he had ducked down several side streets, emerging near the northern edge of town. He wandered across the street and collapsed at the base of a tree. He draped his arms on his drawn knees and rested his head upon them.

A drop of blood oozed from his still-clenched fist and rolled down his finger. He swiped it against his pants and realized it still held the post-it note only when it fluttered to the ground.

Richie stared at it, his teeth clenched. His legs trembled with the urge to stand up and stomp on it until it was an unreadable pulp. Instead, he snatched it up and stuffed it in a pocket of his jacket. His other hand fell on the large bulge in his other pocket.

He yanked the baseball out. He turned it one way, where it still bore the char from where it had found its mark against the wooden box in which Melissa had imprisoned the spirits of the Heather and Diane. He turned it again and saw the reddish-brown splotch of dried blood where it had smashed the nose of a cultist when they had come for Melinda.

He tried to relive those moments of triumph in his head. Instead, all he saw was the day he had been given the baseball by his father. He heard the voice in his head as if it had happened only yesterday. His eyes misted, and he sniffled once.

"Stop it," Richie growled, shoving the baseball back in his pocket. He wiped his eyes and stood. "Just fucking stop it."

What are you afraid of, Richie? came a mocking voice in his head.

"SHUT UP!" Richie screamed before he ran again.

Jo rocked her hips to the rhythm of her quickening breath. She spread her knees apart further and settled back on her feet, a hand cupped behind Melinda's head. She uttered a husky sigh as she was rewarded by another rise of pleasure, lips stroking her folds along her labia while a tongue lashed at her clit with each back sweep of her hips.

"Oh yeah," Jo moaned. "Oh nice ... such a good little pussy-eater you are, Melinda."

Melinda gurgled out a moan at the praise, her head bobbing in time to her aunt's movements. Her breath came in irregular gasps and sighs, her nose nearly submerged in Jo's wetness with each forward thrust of Jo's pussy across her mouth. Her cheeks glistened and ran with copious moisture, her tongue coated and slick.

Jo smirked. "Bet you're getting all horny again, aren't you?"

Melinda trembled and drew her feet towards her, then let her knees fall to either side. She squirmed and lifted her hips as if to an unseen lover, her pussy aching and dripping. She shuddered when Jo's hand settled on one of Melinda's breasts, squeezing it like dough and pinching the nipple. Melinda arched her back as hot, wet pleasure flooded her sex.

Jo let out a husky sigh. "God, seeing you get so helplessly horny really makes me hot."

The hand behind Melinda's drew upward. Jo's hips rocked faster and harder, and musky, wet flesh was plastered against Melinda's face with each incessant, overpowering stroke. Melinda trembled when she could no longer breathe, and it felt like Victor's cult all over again, when her need had become so great she would die if it were not satisfied.

She nearly panicked as everything fell into place. Her hands along Jo's thighs trembled, fingers curling like claws.

"Tilt your head back, silly girl," Jo said in a breathy, strained voice. "Don't make me stop ... fuck, I'm so close..."

Coherence ran sluggish in Melinda's mind, where fear and desire fought for dominance. When her lungs ached, she finally tilted her head back as instructed, then stretched her neck when that did not work. She drew in a gasp of air still laden with Jo's arousal.

With her air restored, desire won out. Her fingers flattened and pressed into the flesh of her aunt's mature thighs. She pursed her lips as Jo's clit stroked hard against them. Jo gasped and removed her hand from behind Melinda's head. She leaned forward, the bed shaking when her hands came down, her hips dropping until Melinda was once more smothered by needy, wet flesh.

Jo gasped and tossed her head back, her thighs squeezing Melinda's head, muffling all sound. When Melinda could hear again, Jo was moaning, her pussy pressed hard against Melinda's mouth. Melinda flicked her tongue against Jo's clit until her aunt's moans became deep pants of prolonged pleasure. She ignored the ache in her lungs this time, intent on finishing her lover's pleasure.

Jo finally shuddered and drew her hips back. Melinda gasped in air, coughing when she sucked in some of her aunt's moisture still dripping from her lips and cheeks. Light returned when Jo lifted a knee and pivoted on the other until she loomed over Melinda on her mother's bed.

"Such a nice little sex toy you are," Jo said in a soft, sultry voice.

Melinda shivered in both lust and revulsion when she finally understood. Heather had been wrong about everything; their mother had not sought to protect them but to prepare them.

Jo took Melinda's hand and draped it over Melinda's needy pussy. Melinda's fingers sank into her folds and began stroking until pleasure rippled through her squirming body, settling over her mind as another haze of mindless bliss. This time, however, it was slow to dampen the fire which now blazed in the full light of her revelation.

Melinda believed she had witnessed the final betrayal by her mother. As Heather had been handed over to Laura Bendon, she had been given to the cult. That Victor himself was gone was little comfort.

"I've waited a long time, Melinda," Jo cooed as she traced her fingers in swirls around one of Melinda's nipples. "First Victor and his silly arbitrary rules about how young is too young, and then your mother keeping you from me."

Melinda moaned as her pleasure rose, and she slipped her finger into her helpless pussy as she knew her aunt would want her to do. No words would come for any other intent. Her mother had properly prepared her to be the perfect, sexy, obedient sex slave.

Jo squeezed her breast, and she writhed in delight. "But now you're going to be seeing a lot more of me, and a lot more of my pussy." The bed rocked as she crawled back and stood beside the bed. "Now, be a good girl and play with yourself for awhile. Think of me when you cum."

Melinda could only moan in response as Jo smiled and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Diane's breaths were slow and deep, her mind finally settling into an amorphous haze that she could convince herself was of her own doing. Her lips were parted slightly, her naked body occasionally writhing in response to the slow and steady pleasure from her sex. Now and then a breath would emerge as a husky sigh as fingertips moved in a slow swirl around her clit. In the quiet between her breaths, she heard the faint squish of moisture.

She shifted her torso so she could feel the slide of warm flesh against her arm, over which one of Debby's breasts lay draped. The touch was as comforting as it was erotic. She spread her legs wider in a silent display of trust, and was rewarded by a firmer press of fingers to her clit, slowly stroking the entire length until Diane wanted to rock her hips in time to it.

"Just remain still as you have been," Debby said in a soft voice. "Don't focus too much on the pleasure itself."

Diane let out a slow, contented sigh. The words had drifted to her through a fog, failing to disrupt the near-meditative state she had taken so long to achieve. The rise in pleasure remained gentle, and the muscles around her hips relaxed. She settled back and was still save for the rise and fall of her bosom.

"Oh, you're doing very well, Diane."

Diane managed a small smile, the pleasure becoming a diffuse wave which spread over her body, as if originating from no one particular place. The bed felt more comfortable, as if the blanket were barely touching her skin.

Reaching this point had been difficult. Everything reminded her too much of what she had gone through the day before. She was still wary of the telltale blue-white glow in the depths of her mind. Even it fell away now, letting her sink deeper into herself.

She envisioned her pleasure as a whirling mass of energy, springing into her head in the midst of the void. She did not recall willing it into existence, it was simply there. She let out a quavering sigh as a single finger parted her labia and slid into her depths. Her hips twitched once, but she resisted the urge to rock them in time to the gentle thrusts which slid over her clit and into her tunnel.

The vortex wavered as part of her mind again asked from where it had come. The moment passed, and the energy quiesced, rising like a column of pastel light. She found something comforting in the swirling, rhythmic patterns. The sensation of lying on the bed faded, and she simply floated, everything falling away save for the pleasure rising from her needy pussy.

For an instant, a memory flickered across her mindscape. She saw the inside of an office, a clock's ticking pulsing inside her mind, and a man's soothing and enchanting words.

Diane's eyes flew open as she uttered a gasp, the energy in her mind vanishing along with the fog. She bolted into a seated position, and for a moment, she did not know where she was. When reality finally reestablished itself, she closed her legs despite the ache in her pussy, her nipples throbbing with her now pounding heart.

She nearly flinched when Debby placed a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, Diane," Debby said in a soothing voice. "You came really far in your initial attempt."

Diane let out a despairing sigh, draping a hand over her eyes. "I feel so stupid. I don't know why I ... well, I do, but... " She looked up, her eyes flicking over Debby's nude body, her cheeks growing pink. "It was like I was falling into a trance."

"Well, you were, but it was one of your own doing," said Debby. "That's essentially what meditation does."

Diane sighed and wrapped her arms around herself, averting her eyes. "I-I'm not sure I can do it, then."

"You got this far. That's wonderful for a first attempt. Were you able to sense your sexual energy at all beyond the raw pleasure?"

"I saw something. I'm not sure if that was it. I was also worried about that damn line and whether it would try to come into my head again."

Debby squeezed her shoulder. "I know. But you must not think of it as it coming into you, but you drawing upon it."

"But that's not what it felt like last time."

"I think you were driven by some other need. You were working on a intuitive sense that a fellow Harbinger needed help, namely me."