HSA-17: Harvest

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.

***

Thursday morning, Anders was gone. He tried to talk with Ben the previous night, but when the latter responded only in hand waves and irritated grunts, Anders knew his only ally had been lost. Ben saw the extra bed and closet were empty. His first thoughts weren't for the whereabouts of Anders, but of the prospect of having Molly stay with him at night now that they could have some privacy.

The men gathered downstairs one last time for breakfast. The mood had changed dramatically from the previous days of the week. With Nathan and Anders gone, everyone felt like things finally made sense. Mira invited the twins and Molly in for breakfast with Betty and Kathy back at work as well. The twelve of them sat down together and feasted. None of them felt any shame or discretion was needed. They felt among them a bond more powerful than social norms. The usual old men who populated the boarding house in the mornings were out in the street setting up tables and stocking booths. The private meal was a surreal miasma of food and flesh. The girls came wearing their harvest day dresses, skimpy things that would make a French woman blush. Corsets and high skirts with no underwear or brassieres. At one point, Betty pulled down the front of her shirt and let her breasts swing free, garnering a wealth of giggles from the other women. The men all leered, and the women's hands went to their mate's crotch.

Time bent. The breakfast cleared away and lunch arrived. More men appeared in the streets, taking their spots at the different tables. The stage was finished and awaited the crowning of the harvest king and queen. Lunch arrived. Amy let her top fall away completely and pushed Norman's face into her enormous bosom. Beth had Chuck over in a corner chair, his legs spread apart and her head obscuring his crotch while her ass flashed into view each time she bobbed her head up and down. Molly kissed and stroked right along with the rest of the madness as Ben shoveled more of the intoxicating food and drink into his gullet. He fully expected someone to rake the table clear, throw their woman on top of it, and fuck her while the others cheered before joining in.

Ben believed he'd actually transcended into heaven. Time had no meaning, food was plentiful, and life was warm. Molly remained by his side, their bond of love so strong that it felt like a physical link. He could live and die in this paradise of sinful pleasure, free from the harangues of society, the demands of propriety, and the expectations of mortality. He heard the oaths being sworn around the room as seed was spilled somewhat discretely into whichever orifice was available. They all swore to love the women forever, to never leave Ulster Rock, and give anything for one more hour of pleasure.

And then the women were gone. Everything lurched to a stop, and the men's heads cleared. The sun had risen and set. Willard appeared at the head of the table, looking his worst. "C'mon now, it's time."

***

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!"