The Barn Ch. 01

To the world at large Winston Winslow is unknown, and even to those few individuals who have delved deeply into the occult, he is a passing footnote amongst the more famed practitioners of the forbidden arts. However, Winslow was a master of the mystical arts, who delved deep into obscure practices and unlocked secret rites and rituals, which had best been left forgotten. During the first decades of the Twenty Century, he used his considerable fortune to acquire a vast amount of material drawn from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. His wealth allowed him to fund various archeological expeditions around the world. In this manner, he was able to unlock secrets, which had been buried since before the building of famed Ur or Babylon. Winslow built around himself a cult, which carried on the ancient rites, which had not been practiced in thousands of years. He shared his knowledge freely with his followers, but one thing Winston could not tolerate was disloyalty. Once a person became a member of his cult, he or she was a member for life, unless Winslow decided to allow them to go, which was something he never did.

The year was 1936. The Ford roadster raced down the Sacramento California Valley dirt road through the dead of night. Heavy storm clouds covered the night sky and in the far distance, behind the racing car, lightning occasionally flashed. The driver was risking his life by out driving his headlights, but he knew that if he slowed down for even a second, a terrible fate would overtake him. He knew that no matter how fast he traveled, the odds were that the thing, which pursued him, would shortly overtake the fleeing car.

The driver's heart beat like a sledgehammer against his chest, his eyes were wide, and his breath came in quick gasps. He cursed himself for the thousandth time for being such a fool as to join Winston Winslow's cult. Those esoteric truths, which he had sought from Winslow's forbidden knowledge, had led nowhere but down an evil filled spiral path, whose ultimate end must surely result in damnation.

Through the night sky behind the car something moved, which was darker than the storm filled clouds, something that moved with a speed far greater than the wind. The flashes of lightning did nothing to reveal the entity's form. It was as if what moved through the night was a hole in normal time and space. The thing moved with a purpose, as if its entire attention was focused solely on the speeding car, and before the creature blew an unholy wind, stronger than a hurricane. Ever so quickly the thing was overtaking the fleeing vehicle.

The first blast of that terrible wind hit the car, causing it to skid on the dirt road. The driver skillfully brought the vehicle out of the skid, but carried by the wind was a thick, billowing cloud of dust, which had been lifted from all the sounding countryside. Suddenly the man's vision of the road was completely obscured by the roiling airborne soil. He vainly fought to keep the car steady as he hit the brakes, but all to no avail. The car suddenly slid from the road, to plunge down an embankment and into a ditch.

As the vehicle entered the ditch it rolled over onto the passenger's side, tossing the driver across the seat to hit into the passenger door. The impact of the crash stunned the man, and for a moment he hovered in that limbo between consciousness and darkness; however, the cold water, which poured into the car brought him to full awareness. He realized that death hovered very close to him and that if he were to survive, he must move quickly. Although his body was wracked with pain, he rose up and grabbed the driver's side door. For a moment it seemed as if the door was jammed, but with his remaining strength he was able to force the door upward, where the force of the wind blew it wide open allowing him to crawl out of the car.

Blood poured into his eyes, but through the gore he could see, with horror the thing was almost upon him. Crying out in terror the man fled through the ditch water, knowing that at any second the entity would have him in its grasp. In that moment, when hope died in his breast, he saw a small culvert, which opened in the road's embankment allowing the water from the ditch to flow into fields on the other side of the road. He dove into the culvert and crawled wildly inside. Behind him he heard something crashed into the ditch behind him. A tentacle-like arm reached out for him, but the force of the displaced water pushed him along the culvert and away from the grasp of the being.

A terrible cry of rage and frustration boomed through the culvert. Seconds later he heard the sound of rending metal as his car was mangled and pounded into the silt of the ditch. Suddenly everything went silent and the wind died. For a moment his heart filled with hope that he had escaped what had seemed like certain doom; however, his horror returned with renewed strength as he saw, in the direction he was crawling, two large crescent shaped eyes glowing with red fury before him. The water in front of him churned wildly, as the thing reached out to grab him. Quickly he moved backward out of the reach of the raging creature. Moments later he heard the sound of heavy pounding coming from the road above him as the being made its way across the road.

The man franticly crawled through the water of the culvert in a desperate attempt to avoid the clutches of the thing that sought him. His shrieks of pure terror reverberated through the culvert drowning out the sound of the churning water caused by the being's efforts to grab the man. To the man it seemed like an eternity passed, as the creature went from one side of the culvert to the other in its effort to take its prey; however, always the man eluded the thing of darkness, slowly but steadily his strength ebbed and his screams became whimpers.

From outside the culvert came a numbing howl, which the man felt in his nerves and his bones, rather than heard. Following that awful cry there was only silence and the thing which had sought him appeared no more. The man wildly looked from one end of the culvert to the other, but nothing outside moved. As the minutes became hours, the man remained where he, feared that the creature was lurking outside. The coldness of the water spread through his body causing him to shake uncontrollably, and at last the man knew that if he remained where he was hypothermia would kill him.

Slowly he went through the culvert and emerged on the side opposite from that which he had entered. As he pulled himself from the ditch, his mind was too numb to care if the being waited to pounce upon him. He lay down upon the rich soil of a field and passed out until sometime the next morning. He then pulled himself up the embankment and onto the road to walk along it until he flagged down a passing farmer. He said only that he had an accident and made no mention of the horror, which had come upon him in the night.

As the man sat in the farmer's truck, he stared out the windows with unseeing eyes. His soul had been touched by a darkness, which would haunt him the rest of his life. For years to come he would awaken in the dead of night screaming as he relived the awful night when he had almost been taken by the evil entity. His horror was only intensified when he heard the news of the events, which took place that same night at the headquarters of the cult of Winston Winslow.

In the barn at his farm Winston Winslow stood naked at the center of a pentagram drawn in alternating red and blue rays. Before him one of his female follows sucked deeply upon his rigid cock, while she rubbed her clit. At the point of each ray of the pentacle, within a white colored circle, a man and a woman were performing various sex acts. In one circle a man feasted deeply upon a woman's rich pussy as he rubbed his cock. In another circle a man was fucking a woman doggy style, his rapid thrusts bringing cries of ecstasy from her lips. A third circle contained a woman and a man engaged in anal sex, as the man fucked the woman, she rubbed her pussy bringing herself to repeated orgasms. The forth circle contained a couple fucking in the missionary position, while the fifth circle held a woman tossing her head back and forth as she rode the man below her to orgasm.

All the participants of the strange orgy had taken a rare and costly potion, which allowed them to cum and cum again without losing sexual vigor. The women and the men in the circles directed their sexual energies toward the focal point of the pentagram where stood their master, Winston Winslow. The obscene sounds of cum filled pussies being continually fucked filled the air. Of all the members of the cult only Winslow had held himself back from climaxing. Instead, he held concentrated upon a chant, which was ancient before the pyramids arose from the dust that was to be Egypt.

The rite, which he performed, required the powerful energy released through sexual contact. He gathered the force of his followers' orgasms and sent that power forth into the darkness to summons and sustained a being of infinite evil. One of the members of his cult of thirteen had decided to leave, and Winslow could not allow such a defection to go unpunished.

Using a blasphemous and dangerous ritual, Winslow called across the void, which lies between the spheres and brought forth into the world a demonic being of total evil. When the thing first manifested itself above the scene of the lustful rite, Winston Winslow sent it forth to hunt down the man who had broken his covenant with the coven, promising it the man's blood and life energy.

In his mind, Winslow saw the demon rending its prey into bloody pieces, and the thought of destroying his wayward follower caused Winston's prick to throb. With a roar Winslow came hard and long in the mouth of the woman. His cock slowly became limp, but the woman continued to pleasure him with her lips until his cock regained its vigor.

Winslow knew with certainty that the creature, which he had summoned would carry out a form of vengeance that would ensure that none of his followers would ever break ranks with him. He would replace the defector with another person who would remain true to the coven and its master's will.

Little did Winslow imagine that the demon's mission would fail due to a simple culvert. Nor could he imagine the rage of the creature at being cheated out of its promised reward of life and blood. Filled with an unholy anger the demon rose from the culvert where its prey hid safely beyond its reach. The promise which had bound it had been broken, and it turned back toward the place where it had been called from the darkness between worlds. It flew through the oncoming storm causing the clouds to part and lightning to flash at its wings; however, the flames of the heavens were no match for the fire of hate, which the demon held at being cheated of its prey.

Filled with a wrath beyond description, the thing came and broke through the doors of the barn. The demon filled the barn with its darkness and the participants of the orgy shook in terror at the two hate filled eyes, which gazed down upon them. The entity moved slowly downward with an awful purpose.

Winston Winslow had forgotten the cardinal rule, which should never be broken when summonsing a creature of the shadows, "Never call forth that which ye cannot bind unto thy will." Winslow looked upon the demon and his mouth moved to utter the words to cast down the being; however, his vocal cords were frozen as surely as if a giant hand were clutching at his throat.

Then the demon broke through the protective boundaries of the pentacle and fell upon its helpless, naked victims. One by one the thing embraced Winslow's followers, draining them of life and blood, to leave only broken husks of flesh and bone.

By sheer chance only one person escaped from the barn. Somehow, Winslow managed to evade the clutches of the demon, and ran screaming into the night. Behind him Winston heard the fatal yells of his coven and the awful sounds of them being mangled beyond description. He was only halfway to the farmhouse when the sounds behind him died. He looked back to see the entity's glowing eyes staring out from the barn at him, and he knew that only moments remained until he too would feel the embrace of the demon.

On the limb of a great oak tree, which stood before the farmhouse, hung a noose that Winslow had assured his followers would await anyone who decided to quit the coven. Below the noose stood a wooden barrel and toward that barrel Winslow ran, drained of all hope, he sought only to elude the embrace of thing, which he had called up from the void. Filled with madness and despair he faced the entity that was beginning to move out of the barn doors.

"You won't have me, damn you!" He yelled at the demon. "I have called you forth from the darkness, and if I cannot put you down, I will bind you for all eternity. Foul demon, with my life's spirit I bind you to the place of that barn from this day forth. Yallanna ellwaith phug Challung!"

Uttering his final curse at the creature, Winslow jumped down from the barrel and kicked it aside. As his life was slowly choked from his body, the demon was caught and stopped at the entrance to the barn. Thus Winston Winslow died and the demon was bound in a cage it could not break. In frustration the creature retreated into the shadows, fusing its being with the fabric of the structure, which had become its prison and for a long while it lay dormant glutted from the life's energies it had devoured.

The police came, called by a horrified neighbor who had seen a body hanging from the tree in front of the house. They found the indescribable scene within the barn, where Winslow's followers lay mangled and bloodless. Their investigations made them believe that some sort of satanic ritual had taken place; however, they could never explain where all the blood had gone. The authorities thought there must have been a rival coven that came in and slaughtered Winslow and his people.

The press got wind of the story and for a day and a half it was on the front page, but as those things do, it was quickly replaced by other stories to fade from memory. The matter may have been forgotten by the public at large, but for the local people the terrible events, which happen at the Winslow farmhouse, would never fade from their minds. As time passed the story only grew in its gruesomeness and the house and the area around it were called cursed. The place became shunned with not even the most foolhardy of school children daring to set foot upon the property.

As time passed the demon slumbered and grew weaker. At time it would awaken to upon the life energy of various small creatures, which sought refuge in the barn only to fall victims of the horror that dwelled there. With the passing of the years, the being became a thing of shadow without shape or substance.

Winslow's heirs tried to sell the propriety, but found that the reputation, which surrounded the place kept all local buyers away. They did manage to lease out the surrounding farm land, but it was only after seventeen years had passed that the Winslow place was bought by a family from West Virginia.

The year was 1964, a station wagon raced down the Sacramento Valley dirt road toward the turnoff to the Winslow place. Behind the wheel of the vehicle sat a seventy-something year old man, Amos Clayton, who has driven across the county with the four other passengers in the car. With Amos were his grandson Luke's wife Sarah, their son Luke Jr., their baby daughter Eve, and Sarah's sister Rachel.

Amos's eyes shone bright with the hope of a new life in this promise land. His grandson, Luke has been able to purchase prime farmland at a bargain price.

For long years the Clayton clan had farmed their West Virginia land, but then a series of events caused them to look elsewhere for new horizons. The first of those events had been a terrible tragedy, which occurred when Amos's wife Rebecca, along with his son and daughter-in-law had driven into town to get groceries and were killed in a head-on collision with a drunken driver. The drunken driver had been a wealthy man and the lawsuit, which followed greatly, enriched the Clayton's. However Amos continued to be haunted by the memories of his departed kinfolk. He remembered them everywhere around the homestead, and as time went on his health declined. When a coal mining company discovered a vein of coal beneath the Clayton land and had offered a fair price for the land, Amos quickly agreed to the deal. He sent his grandson Luke to California to find some good farmland where the family could settle down to begin a new life.

Luke Clayton drove to California in the family truck and for two months he had searched for a home for his family. At last Luke came across the old Winslow place, which the heirs to the estate were more than willing to part with for a bargain price. While the land, around the house was leased until the fall, Luke had jumped at the deal to purchase the property, knowing that while it was still spring, come the fall all the land would soon become ready for the Clayton's. He rapidly sent word to his family to head west.

The station wagon churned up a cloud of dust behind it but slowed as the numbers on the mailboxes became closer and closer to the address, which Luke had said was their new home. Then they saw, at the right side of the roadway, an archway with the words Clayton Ranch boldly emblazoned upon it. The old man slowed the vehicle and turned up the drive toward the house and the nearby barn.

Sarah's heart beat faster at the desire to see her loving husband from which she had been separated for longer than at anytime during their married life, now she would see him and feel his loving arms wrapped around her. In the backseat sat her nineteen year old sister Rachel holding Sarah's four month old daughter Eve, and next to them sat Sarah's nine year old son. Everyone in the station wagon looked around at their new home with wide eyes and new found hope.

As the car neared the large oak tree, which stood in front of the house, two men came out of the house to greet them. It was obvious that the younger of the two was Luke, he stood tall and handsome, and his face glowed with joy at seeing his kinfolk arriving. The other man was short, stocky and obviously of Hispanic heritage. Although the shorter man was a total stranger, he was laughing and waving his straw hat wildly in greeting, as he was an old friend of the family's.

It was only seconds after Amos had stopped the car that the front passenger side door flew open and Sarah sprang from the vehicle to run into Luke's waiting arms, followed shortly by Luke jr. and the other occupants of the car. For the next few minutes the scene was chaos as everyone hugged and tried to talk at once.

"It is really great to see you all again," Luke said. "But I'm forgetting my manners. This here is my friend and helper Jose Ortiz. He has been working with me fixin' up the place so it is livable."

"Mucho gusto," the smaller man smiled. "I am so glad that Senor Luke hired me to work for him. He has told me so much about you I think maybe I know all of you already."

"Well, if Luke says you are a friend," Amos laughed. "Then you can consider yourself one of the clan. This place sure does look mighty nice!"

"It surely does," Sarah said her voice filled with admiration. "I can see you two have been paintin' and doing all sorts of work. Luke, honey this place is a wonder. I just know we are all goin' to be very, very happy here."

"Grandpa," Luke's voice trembled with enthusiasm. "Wait till you see the land hereabouts, it can grow anything. Right now the land is leased out, but in a few months that ends and we can start working our own land."