Divine Evil

thing she'd ever done. They'd really pay attention then. Everyone would pay attention.
    She dozed awhile and woke cramped and groggy. After swinging on her pack, she tromped back to the edge of the road and cocked her thumb.
    Christ, she was dying of thirst. Crumbs from the cupcakes seemed to be lodged like pebbles in her throat. And she wanted another smoke. Her spirits lifted a bit when she hiked past a sign.
EMMITSBORO 8 MILES
    Sounded like Hicksboro, but as long as they sold Coke Classic and Marlboros, it was fine by her.
    She was delighted when, in less than ten minutes, a pickup slowed and pulled over. Earrings and bracelets jangling, she trotted to the passenger door. The guy inside looked like a farmer. He had big hands with thick fingers and wore a baseball-style cap with some feed-and-grain store advertised over the bill. The truck smelled pleasantly of hay and animals.
    “Thanks, mister.” She hopped into the cab of the truck. “Where you heading?” “South,” she told him. “Florida.”
    “Long trip.” His gaze skimmed her backpack before he pulled out on the road again. “Yeah.” She shrugged. “Well.” “Going to visit relatives?”
    “No. Just going.” She shot him a defiant look, but he smiled.
    “Yeah, I know how that is. I can take you as far as Seventy, but I got to make a stop first.”
    “Hey, that's cool.” Pleased with herself, Carly settled back.
    Deep in the woods, deep into the night, the cold, clear note of a bell sounded. As the moon rode high in a black sky, the circle of thirteen chanted. They sang a song of death.
    The altar writhed and strained. Her vision was blurred because they'd taken away her glasses and given her some kind of injection when they'd tied her up. Her mind seemed to be floating up and down. But deep inside it, there was an ice-cold fear.
    She knew she was naked, that her arms and legs were spread wide and tied down. But she didn't know where she was, and her groggy mind couldn't pin down how she had gotten there.
    The man in the truck, she thought, straining. He'd picked her up. He'd been a farmer. Hadn't he? They'd stopped by his farm. She was almost sure of that. Then he'd turned on her. She'd fought him, but he'd been strong, awfully strong. Then he'd hit her with something.
    The rest was all a blur. Being tied up in a dark place. Howlong had she been there? An hour, a day? Men coming, talking in whispers. Then the prick of a needle in her arm.
    She was outside again. She could see the moon and the stars. She could smell smoke. It rolled in her head, as did the silver ring of the bell. And the chanting. She couldn't make out the words, foreign maybe. They didn't make sense.
    She wept a little, wanting her mother.
    She turned her head and saw the black-clad figures. They had animal heads, like something out of a horror movie. Or a dream. It was a dream, she promised herself as her eyes heated with tears. She'd wake up. Her mother would come in and wake her for school any minute, and all of this would go away.
    It had to be a dream. She knew there were no such things as creatures with men's bodies and animals′ heads. Monsters only existed in movies and stuff, the kind she and Sharie Murray rented for the VCR when they had a sleep-over.
    The thing with the goat's head put a silver cup between her breasts. In her drugged state she wondered how it could be that she could actually feel the cold metal against her flesh. Did you feel things when you were dreaming?
    He lifted his arms high, and his voice boomed inside her head. He placed a black candle between her thighs.
    She began to cry hard now, afraid she wasn't dreaming. Yet everything was shifting in and out of focus, and the sounds seemed to come from very far away. There were shouts and wails and keening, much too human a sound to come from those horrible animal heads.
    He tipped the cup over, pouring the liquid in it down her body. It smelled like blood. She whimpered. He was touching her, drawing signs on her body with the red liquid. She could see his eyes gleam in the goat's head as hebegan to do things to her with his all too human hands, things her mother had warned her would happen if she hitched rides and teased boys.
    Even through her fear, she felt shame, a hot, liquid sensation in her belly.
    Then they were naked, the men beneath the cloaks and the heads of goats and wolves and lizards.
    Even before the first one crouched above her, his penis hard and ready, she knew she would be