Chapter 7
Mrs. Whipple was an excellent cook and housekeeper if not an especially interesting companion. She insisted that they sit in the library after supper and read books. Mona, unable to think of an excuse, reluctantly agreed and found herself curled up in one of the window seats, a book opened on her lap while she watched the hearth fire.
The older woman sat in one of the deep leather armchairs before the hearth, a book of poetry on her lap. Aloud, she admired the color of the leather. "Oxblood red, nice coloh. Deepens more and more with age." She was talking to no one in particular.
The thought wasn't appealing to Mona. She pretended to be interested in her book.
"You like poetry?" the woman asked. "Youah uncle did. One of his favorites was Crossing the Bah. Notice it above the mantle? 'Let there be no mourning when I cross the bar.' "
Mona wondered why some people had to be so morbid. But Moll seemed to be oblivious of it, so Mona let it go. Before she could answer the woman, Moll was saying, "My favorite was always Poe. 'Many a year ago in the kingdom by the sea . . .' You know that one? Annabelle Lee? 'The winged seraphs of heaven went envying her and me . . . and that is the reason as all men know, in that kingdom by the sea, that wind came out of the sky by night, chilling and killing my Annabelle Lee . . .' He had real feeling, that man." She sighed. "Or maybe you like someone more recent, like Edgar Lee Masters. Wasn't his Spoon River Anthology tremendous? Those epitaphs really made those people live on. Doesn't writing like that really move you?"
Mona thought of her grandmother's little red notebook of funeral orations and recalled what the bus driver had said about his aunt writing down the epitaphs of interesting graveyard headstones. She thought of her uncle and his death. What would his monument say? Murdered by an unknown assailant? Murdered by the ghosts of Blood Island? With Perk for a sheriff or whatever he was, she was sure no murderer would be caught. Perk seemed totally uninterested in anything outside his pipe and meditations, and he wasn't even worried about the thing that had attacked her last night. Didn't he believe her? Maybe he hadn't even cared about her uncle. Maybe Rolf Hecht had reported something about intruders, to no avail!
She became aware of a soft steady tapping at the window beside her. Tapping? She didn't remember seeing any trees outside this window. Not daring to look up, she continued to watch the dancing firelight while Mrs. Whipple chattered on about poetry and how it soothed and stirred the human soul.
"Mo . . . na! Mo . . . ooo . . . na!" wailed a wind that buffeted the panes of the bay window. "Mo . . . na!"
It was her imagination-it had to be! She picked up her book and almost ran to sit by the fire.
"Are you cold?" asked Moll.
The young woman nodded.
"Probably best thing for you to do is crawl undah the covahs," the older woman told her.
"Owen brought some blankets ovah this aftahnoon. You'll soon get wahm."
"Oh, I'm really not tired," the girl protested.
"You don't have to sleep, child. Just get warm."
"But the fire's so nice and cozy."
"You scared?" Mrs. Whipple demanded. "Is that why you don't want to go up? I'll be up shortly, and I'll leave my door open. We'll be right across the hall from each othah."
"Please, may I wait for you?" begged Mona. "I know I shouldn't be frightened, and I'd have had to be alone tonight if it weren't for you. It's just that . . . well, tonight you're here. As long as there are two of us together, maybe he won't come again."
"I'm sure he won't, not when he realizes Moll Whipple has taken you as a friend," she spoke as if her name and presence were invincible, all-powerful.
Mona wondered if it would be so easy as she watched the woman tend to the fire and place the screen before the glowing coals. Then they went upstairs, turning the lights off behind them. They bade each other good night and retired to their rooms, changing into their nightgowns and climbing into bed.
It was dark, pitch-black. Mona longed to leave the hall light on but was afraid of incurring Mrs. Whipple's further disdain. The quilts on the bed were warm and heavy. She was glad for Hansen and Moll, for the warm covers they'd provided.
The branches outside her window scratched at the panes as the wind mounted, circling the house with its wailing moan. Insistent and demanding, it rose and grew louder, rattling the window and whistling through the loose chinks of the building. Didn't it bother Mrs. Whipple? Wasn't it making her cold and shivery?
In the darkness she could hear the older woman's nasal breathing become abrupt snores as Moll lapsed into the blessed limbo of sleep. Mona prayed for the oblivion of sleep, too, but it wouldn't come.
She drew the covers over her head as the shadows and darkness emerged in phantom shapes around her and the adamant gusts outside her window seemed to grow to whirlwind proportions. Soon it took up the chant of the catbird in the woods. "Mona" it called again and again. She couldn't block out the sound of it, couldn't blind herself to the images that taunted her from the darkness. Every board in the house seemed to whine and join the chorus of her name. "Mona! Mona!" Oh, God! Grant me sleep. Don't let me imagine all this! I wish Carl were here again to hold me, even if I do have to pay dearly for his protection. What good is a snoring old woman across the hall? Would she hear me if I screamed?
Louder and louder shrieked the wind. More persistent grew the clawing branches at her window The room seemed to vibrate with the whining woodwork. She dared not look from beneath the covers. She wouldn't.
"Ah, Mona. Mona, you didn't leave," came a sad thin voice. "I told you to leave."
She lay paralyzed with fear. No! God, no!
A hand gripped the heavy quilts and tugged them back from her clutching hand. Her eyes opened and saw the figure she dreaded, the hulking shadow with the long whispering robes.
"Why did you come back? Didn't you understand? You will die!"
No! No! The words caught in her throat. She could smell the damp saltiness of the sea from the shadow. It was big and clammy with the dampness of the ocean as if yet shrouded in a mist of fog.
"Oh, it is too bad, my pretty. Such a shame to hurt you."
Please don't! Mona wanted to cry out. / won't bother you, honestly. Why hurt me?
Those cold, wet hands reached out to caress her face. Her flesh was frozen, drained of warmth at the touch of this awesome specter. She could hear him breathing hard in short gasps, deep and hissing. Him? Or her? She didn't know. Didn't want to know. If her lungs would only respond, she would scream-scream until her entire body vibrated with the action of her lungs and vocal cords. Straining every muscle and clenching her fists, she opened her mouth, but a heavy hand stinking of dead sea life was laid like a lifeless rock on her lips, to muffle whatever sound might have come from her.
Suddenly it ripped the bed covers from her, the air was cold on her skin, causing it to prickle into little bumps of goose-flesh. Her eyes watched, spellbound in dread of what might happen. The hand was still clamped over her mouth. In her fright, she could barely breathe. Choking and whimpering, she struggled to be free, tried to wriggle from the phantom's clutches and push away that gruesome hand.
It was strong, strong and forceful, pinning her wrists together on her breast. In another moment, the long leathery robes whispering, it was stretched out on top of her, heavy and freezing cold, the dampness of its body chilling her and leaving her trembling.
No, please, not again! she longed to cry out. But its hands were powerful and bruising, staying her impotent attempts at freedom.
She was soaked and shivering through the thin nightie. Fear, cold, and wetness plagued her along with the horrors of the night. She felt she was about to die, she was so chilled and trembling. The apprehension and terror mounted within her. Her heart beat loudly and she feared that hulking shadow atop her would feel and hear it too in its tremorous palpitations.
The stench of the hulking figure was suffocating. It was the smell of rotting life and the sea. Decay and death was dripping from it with horrid putridness. She thought she would vomit. She couldn't breathe, because every breath drew in those wretched, malodorous fumes. Deep into her lungs and belly it was sucked. Her insides felt contaminated with the filth of decay and death.
Is the sea where he comes from? her mind queried. All life comes from the sea, so does death too call from there? Her brain reeled with the cataclysmic thoughts spurred by the fantastic fears of her heart. Does this then represent death? It is death! It's come for all those I love, and now it comes for me!
Mona tried to scream, but the hand was insistent on her mouth.
"Remember the knife? Scream once and it will slice your throat from ear to ear. Then you will squeal like a stuck pig with good reason!"
The cold blade lay on her neck once more.
"Understand?"
Trying to nod, she registered the answer that she did quite well understand.
A freezing, clammy paw went to her breasts. Manipulating them like elastic dough, the intruder massaged them into firm fullness. With seeming delight he squeezed her nipples into hot blossoms of fire.
Oh, God! This is worse than with Carl. Worse than last night! So much worse! Carl was human and handsome. This? What is this? Ugliness hidden in shrouded robes that comes in the dead of night to threaten and hurt.
Its breath came in short rasping gasps. It was torture to listen to its harsh, throaty rattle. Like the final rattle of one dying, its breaths clattered in the echoing chamber of its throat.
Those gnarled, chilly fingers ripped at her nightgown, wrenched it downward to expose her breasts more fully to the onslaught. Dripping its hot saliva on her naked tits, it began to gnaw at her flesh like a hungry dog. Its jagged teeth chewed at the delicate, fragrant flesh until it was raw and bleeding. Leaving her with a burning ache of shame and humiliation, it nibbled at her brown aureoles until they were broken and ragged.
Stop! Stop! Mona tried to cry out, but the words choked within her. Wrestling beneath the creature, she heard it hiss, "The knife! You forget the knife?"
Mona didn't forget and she was stilled.
The fingers, dank and freezing, pressed into her crotch. Again she sought to check the invasion. But the knife, cold and unyielding, slipped beneath her gown to press on her nude belly.
Her wrists locked by powerful gripping hands at either side of her hips, she felt the hoary face of the hooded figure lean toward her crotch. Locking her thighs together, she refused to open them.
"One more time," hissed the voice in warning, "and no more!"
Reluctantly her legs parted, and into the soft fur of her pubic mound dived the gluttonous head, unseen but felt on her most sensitive anatomy parts. Oh, never, never again! To die might be far better. Surely, the traumas of the unknown world can not be so shattering. Oh, God, forbid it!
Slathering loudly and animal-like into the succulence of her pussy, the thing was obviously enjoying itself. Appalled and devastated, Mona could feel the sensation of its teeth and hoary face in her slit. It devoured the juices of her cunt with pickled relish. Ravishing her, tantalizing her clitoris, it drove her wild with excitement and craving lust.
Her mind rebelling but no longer controlling her anatomy, Mona felt destroyed. Annihilated! Her surrender was nearly complete. Brain reeling with the multiple traumas of fear, repulsion, hate, lust and pain, she felt driven beyond the realms of control. Into the depths of abandon and raucous degradation she hurtled. Sensations of pain, lust, filth, decay and reptilian leatheriness-slippery cold clamminess-gripped her. Above all was the catastrophic sensation of hanging precariously, tottering on the brink of passion and ecstasy. Hating herself, she felt the overwhelming desire of her loins envelop her. She was lost. Lost and forever destroyed!
Practically insane with savage abandon and lust, she spread her thighs wide for the intruder's huge, fantastically monstrous cock. As it filled her cunt, she lifted her buttocks in welcome to give it greater access. Longer than any prick she had ever felt before it plunged deeply, fathoming the depths of her vagina. It was so thick and hard-a rock-like column that seared her with a violence and maliciousness that would leave her forever ragged and scarred.
"Yyeeeeiiiieeee!" she cried.
Her muscles clenched and unclenched as the voluminous cock pumped in her tight little pussy. Like a plumber's plunger in a tiny toilet. The tight circles of elastic membrane stretched and enfolded it, but still the silk-like sheath wasn't big enough. The searing pain caused by the monstrous cock's tearing of her delicate tissues brought tears to her eyes-tears of humiliation, distress, and terrifying pain.
Ramming into her womb, it continued the rhythmic in and out motions of fucking. Hard, long and fast came the thrusts of the palpitating, swollen rod of flesh. Nothing so catastrophic, so burning and aching, had ever filled her as did this thing. Stop! Stop! You'll kill me, she wailed silently. You'll kill me, kill me!
The sensations produced by the sliding in and out motion of the prick caught her reeling mind as the driving thing rammed forcefully through her belly. She was becoming like an animal driven by lust and savage fury, her pain turning to ecstasy. In unison with the stinking shrouded creature lying on top of her, she began to gyrate, rock and careen in the ancient, timeless ritual of sexual intercourse. Deep in the throes of coitus, they rose to the pinnacle of orgasm.
When they reached it, they froze, holding tightly lest they lose the magic blend. Her legs locked tight around the cold, wet, leathery body, Mona clung desperately, as if for her life. Then she felt herself coming.
From the well of her womb bubbled forth the nectar of orgasm, the sticky-sweet juices of fruition. They erupted and flooded her loins, spilling out of her uterus to drown the spasming cock to drown and mat her pubic down and the genitals of the creature.
Then he, too, was coming. She could feel the rumbling explosion deep in the unseen testicles as they slapped against her upturned buttocks. The spastic jerks of the huge cock became long measured lunges into the furthest reaches of her belly. Then, with a final bed-shaking plunge, the prick drove its load home.
"Eeeee!" she screamed as his sperm jetted into her.
Hot spurts of thick, torrential cum filled her cunt and flowed out to trickle down her naked butt. In long bursts it filled her womb until she thought it would rush upward and pour out of her throat.
It's so forceful, so monstrous! Her mind cried out again and again. It'll fill you to bursting. You'll explode and die! Die! Ramona Jahn, you're going to die.
It shoved its enormous impaling rod into her for the final time, then withdrew. But the membranous sheath of her snatch couldn't let go, fastened to it by sheer resistance to the stretching as well as their glue-like cum, so torn bits of bloody flesh remained on it as it was yanked out.
With the rush of blood from her pussy. Mona felt all her strength drain away.
The fog laced through the windows and under the door, swimming up to envelop the bed. She saw it swallow the intruder and leave her alone with nothing but its own gray mist and her fears. Then . . . nothingness.
When she awoke the room was still in blackness. The weight of that terrifying torso was gone, but the sounds of the wind and branches still clamored and wailed at the window, and the smell of decay and the sea was still in the room. Then it is here! The shadows seemed to move in affirmation as she tentatively ran one hand between her legs and it encountered her sore and bleeding vagina. So it is true! It did happen! I had intercourse with that repulsive, hoary creature of the night!
"Want more?" croaked a voice from the shadows, approaching her. The dark hooded figure with its long noisy robes and that permeating stench of death came toward her.
Mona sat bolt upright in the bed, shrieking hysterically. She didn't even hear the noise across the hall, but the creature did. Cursing her, it fled through the hall, up to the attic and the widow's walk.
"What is it? What is it?" cried Mrs. Whipple, running into the room with her gun.
"It was here!" sobbed Mona, pointing toward the hall. "It's gone through the attic."
They heard a strange, crazed laughter from outside and Mrs. Whipple threw open the window. She fired into the darkness. The laughter stopped.
"Well, that one's got some buckshot in his pants," the woman assured her.
She seemed overly confident to Mona. Nothing could convince the young woman she'd ever be safe again.
"You hurt?" the older woman questioned.
Suddenly Mona felt despair. Mrs. Whipple was so sure the intruder was just a harmless trespasser, yet the young woman knew better. How could she explain to this stalwart protector that while she'd slept her charge had been raped? The formidable Moll would think the girl should have put up a better fight or at least screamed sooner to ward off the assailant, and since she hadn't, it must mean Mona had willingly submitted and was therefore less, far less than the proper young lady they'd assumed her to be.
"A few bruises, I guess," the girl told her woefully. "He had his knife and meant business when he threatened me."
"Nonsense! If he'd wanted to, he could have killed you long ago."
That settled that! She could never tell Mrs. Whipple the truth about the incident, couldn't let her know she'd been raped. The woman would never believe Mona's explanation of how and why she'd let it happen.
"Sure you're all right?" the older woman asked again. Her tone implied she didn't need an answer; she was already positive very little had happened and the intruder was harmless, and after firing the relatively harmless buckshot, she assumed that warning would be sufficient to keep the man away.
"Yes, Mrs. Whipple," Mona returned in a tired tone.
"Now, you get some sleep or you'll be exhausted in the morning," the older woman told her as she started on her return to her bedroom.
In a few moments they were settled again in the blackness of night. Again came the familiar sounds of the house, the wind, the tree . . . and the shadows seemed to loom into a thousand hooded intruders.
From across the hall, Mona could hear the snores of Mrs. Whipple peacefully slumbering once more. How can she? this house? On this island! She pretends to be my protector, but she sleeps through his threats and rape. What will I do?
Unable to sleep, she lit the small bedside lamp and rose to walk around the room. It was cheerless, but at least the blackness and ominous shadows had fled. Pacing the floor, she longed for sleep and the relative peace of mind she'd known just a few days before in New York. It seemed like centuries ago!
The next thing she heard was the ring of bullets ricocheting off the ceiling. She jumped to the window, off to one side, to see where they were coming from.
"You little fool!" shouted Mrs. Whipple as she dived through the door and doused the lamp. "Get away from that window! If he really wanted to kill you, you'd be a sitting duck!"
They waited in the darkness, but no more shots came. All was silent.
"What'd you do to turn him against you so much?" demanded the older woman.
"Me?"
"He really wants you off this island. He could've killed you if he'd wanted to, but he's just trying to scare the hell out of you!"
The woman watched her suspiciously. She didn't trust Mona at this point, but Mona didn't care. Moll Whipple was no friend to her. The old bitch was siding with the intruder-a rapist, marauder and now a potential murderer!