Succumbing to Menudia Ch. 02

"Three brunettes and a blonde ... a very nice start, a very nice start. Italian, Mexican, Irish, Polish -- let it never be said by my enemies that I am not a melting pot! The massage skills of the blonde, I think, should come especially in handy -- with a little development, of course.

"You know, I can't recall the last time I had this much fun! Probably not since that unsuspecting wedding reception three years ago. It's always so intriguing to lean back and see the ways in which different personalities 'react' to a crisis ..."

*****

"Quiet! Quiet! You hear that?"

The five panicked picnickers who'd found themselves hiding in the café section of the quaint old general store -- its aged wooden walls littered with hokey road signs, its shelves littered with useless knickknacks, and its floorspace littered with a few more postcard racks than necessary -- instinctively jumped when they realized that the front door was letting out a series of sharp, sudden creaks.

They weren't exactly in the mood for unwelcome visitors.

"Oh shit! They're coming in!!"

"Wait, wait, it's only --"

Crashing through the thick wooden door, Haley and Curt caught their breath as Danielle, Ellis, Emily, Julie, and Mason looked up from the circular table they'd commandeered and shot the new arrivals simultaneously relieved and worried glances -- relieved because they could see that Haley and Curt were definitely OK, but worried ... because someone else was clearly missing.

"Talk about a relief!" Julie said. "You scared us for a moment there. We thought you were one of --"

"But where's Angela?" Danielle wondered.

"Was Angela with them?" Julie quietly asked Mason and Ellis, the three of them bunched together awkwardly on an old leather couch.

"I thought I saw her running off with the two of you?" Of course, in the heat of the chaos, even the astute counselor wondered if she's lost track of who'd gone where. But the newly-arrived pair simply stood by the doorway in a catatonic stupor.

"Did something happen?" Ellis asked.

"She ..." was all Haley could utter.

"So Angela wasn't with you?" Danielle said.

"She ..."

"Wait, you don't mean they ..."

Curt and Haley nodded a horrified "Yes." A silence permeated the room, broken only by Emily's solitary cry of shock.

"OK, OK, everyone just ... remain calm," Danielle said, pushing her hands toward the floor in a "take a breath and cool down" gesture. "We just need to gather all the facts as we know them, put two-and-two together, and then ... we'll decide what to course of action to take next." She turned to the recent arrivals. "Where was she taken?"

How that information might have aided the beleaguered group at that precise moment was rather unclear, but it was a moot point regardless, as Curt and Haley were too traumatized and confused to elaborate, merely pointing in the direction of the water tower.

"They took Jen too," Ellis explained. "We were hiding in the bushes, but we heard Liza and Jen talking and then we saw them ... uh ... 'flying' away." He pointed to Emily and Julie. "The three of us just got here a couple of minutes ago."

"So where's Karen and Rachel?" Julie asked.

"Probably doomed," Mason replied.

"Do you want me to smack you?" Julie retorted. It was so easy to get her goat, but he suspected a part of her secretly found it refreshing.

"They ran for it, just like everyone else," Mason continued. "Some lot we are. Soon as we saw Vanessa, it was like a bomb went off."

"I'm sure they'll find us," Ellis said. "If we just can stick together somehow, I feel like we'll probably be stronger."

"But I doubt we can stay here long," Danielle mused. "There's probably more of them on the way -- they'll be coming any minute now. We need a new strategy."

"All I can think about is Liza saying, 'There will be a proper time for that,'" Ellis added. "Like they have some 'grand plan' up their sleeve."

"This lull is creeping me out," Emily said.

"If we just don't engage them, you know, we'll probably be fine," Mason theorized. "Like when you're downtown and you see a bunch of homeless people."

"But as they keep taking control of other passersby, doing whatever it is they're doing, they're only going to multiply and completely outnumber us," Ellis responded.

"So then maybe we should just split up again?"

Upon hearing a faint scraping against the little screen door behind them, the seven inhabitants of the room jumped right out of their seats -- Julie instinctively clutching Ellis's arm and Emily instinctively clutching Mason's, like two '50s teenagers at a drive-in.

But when the door finally opened, and the familiar figures of Karen and Rachel stumbled into what only an hour before had been a homey, innocuous country shop, quick sighs of relief spread through the group like an invisible balm (and Julie and Emily quickly pulled their hands back).

"Oh thank God!" Danielle stated. "Are you OK?"

"We only saw a couple of them, but they were a ways off," Rachel explained between breaths. "Looks like everyone else ended up here too. Except ... uh ... where's Angela? And Jen?"

The others gave her a look that rendered words superfluous. Rachel put her hand to her mouth. Karen leaned against the wooden walls near the vending machine to steady herself from the trauma of the news.

"There's got to be a way to combat them," Danielle pondered, more than a little desperately. "How were they taken? What did you see?"

Emily spoke up. "It was sort of like how Jen had described Liza earlier. Like, Liza was quietly, but intently, walking along, and then Jen went up to her -- talk about stupid -- but Liza didn't really ... sound like Liza, and then ... something happened between them ... and ... we heard this bizarre sort of 'whirring' noise, and there was a flicker of a breeze and then ... Jen began floating and talking in the same flat, subservient tone of voice that Liza was using, and then the last thing we saw, they were floating away, and ... I guess we just ..."

"Did you say anything? Do anything to try to stop it?"

"You kidding?" Emily shouted. "We high-tailed it out of there!"

"And Angela?"

Neither Haley nor Curt could deliver a word.

"What did you see?" Silence. Danielle held each of them by the collar, almost doing her best "interrogator from a bad cop movie" impression. "What-did-you-see???"

Haley's voice quivered as she attempted, at last, to recount the experience. "This stranger, like, a man, he was ... he was walking along a trail, and Angela went up to him ... asked him if he'd seen Vanessa and then ..."

"Well?"

"And then ... she started floating, and then ..."

"Out with it!"

"He took off her sweater and he started grabbing her ... uh ..." She motioned toward her own chest. The other faces in the room turned pale.

"Oh my God," Emily blurted out.

"It's worse than we thought," Danielle said.

"I'm not letting this happen to me," Julie swore defiantly.

But Danielle needed to hear all of it. "Then what?"

"And then the man ... started lifting up her ..." She motioned toward her own legs. "And then ... there were these sounds and ... I didn't wanna look and ... we started running."

Everyone else gave each other panicky glances, seeking out some sense of communal resolve or comfort. Most eyes fell on Danielle.

"Funny how I never really put much stock in all those legends, and yet obviously, they were truer than we could have ever imagined," the trained therapist concluded with an odd mixture of grimness and intellectual satisfaction.

"You mean Angela and this stranger started ...?" Ellis didn't want to be the one to say it.

"Doing it?" Emily put it right out there. Haley timidly nodded "yes."

"No way," Julie stated. "No fucking way. I am not going to let some creepy, evil sorceress tell me what to do with my body."

Mason made a mocking raspberry noise.

"It's not funny, asshole!"

"Did you ever consider that this isn't about your little pseudo-feminist bullshit, Julie? Whoever or whatever this 'Menudia' is, she's operating on a whole different frequency."

"OK, fine, I'm just saying." She folded her arms across her thin green dress. "Well, at least it's a woman sorceress trying to take over our bodies. So I guess that's not as bad."

"I don't care how attractive that guy with Angela might have been," Emily mused. "I'm not into this. What happened to, like, getting to know you first?"

"Oh come on Emily," Mason groaned. "If everyone in the crowd suddenly became a Menudian, you'd jump right in and become a Menudian too."

"Shut up. Like you know anything about sex anyway, it's not like you've gotten any."

"But if becoming a Menudian means what we think it means," Ellis interjected, "then this isn't loving, meaningful sex -- it's a total perversion of sex."

"Yeah, says the holy roller," Emily snapped back. "Gimme a break Ellis. You're the kind of guy who'd get married and only do it missionary style for thirty years straight. Who's gonna be the lucky devout Christian bride?"

"And don't even get me started on the Catholic Church and women's rights," Julie inevitably inserted. "I mean, why are you still clinging to that passé theological institution? Honestly, a mature, thoughtful guy like you ... I think it's beneath you, Ellis."

"Enough!" Danielle's perturbed shout brought the discussion back around to the matter at hand. "What I don't understand is ... how someone who's already become a Menudian is going about ... 'transforming' a regular person. Like, are they doing something?"

"I knew it. We're going to be stuck in the village all day," Rachel fretted unhelpfully. "Kyle is going to freak out and wonder if something's happened to me."

"Maybe this is a little bigger than you and your precious Kyle, did you ever think about that?" Emily retorted.

"Was there any sort of weird 'sound' they emitted?" Danielle asked.

"No," Emily and Julie replied.

"Maybe like a subtle sort of ... sonic wave," Ellis explained, "but ... not like a sound that Liza made to 'take' Jen, if that's what you're thinking. It was more like a sound that we heard because Jen was taken."

"A weird smell?"

"No."

"Some sort of 'trigger phrase' or 'code word' she said?"

"No."

"Just kind of a ... breeze," Ellis said.

She turned to Haley and Curt.

"Was there something the boy did with his face?" Danielle asked.

The two witnesses to Angela's Menudian transformation continued to sit there dumbfounded, unable to reply. Although she took pity on them, Danielle could see they were useless in this rather urgent scenario.

"There's got to be an answer. Once we establish how they're 'taking' people, then we can establish how to resist." She suddenly paused in thought. "Of course, from a strictly psychological perspective, this whole drama is rather fascinating. So many questions it raises about the nature of free will, biological impulses, subconscious desire, the gradual accumulation of collective social pressure ... if it weren't so threatening, it might make for terrific research material ..."

She shook the idea out of her head, practically slapping herself in the face.

"But that's beside the point! If we can just get a little closer, without being seen ..."

"If we could just know what Liza, Vanessa, Jen, and Angela didn't know," Ellis theorized, "then we might be able to escape."

"And maybe we can make it out of the village without ... succumbing." Surprised at hearing Karen speak, the others glanced in her direction.

"Whatever we do, we must all resist for as long as we possibly can," Danielle declared with grave solemnity. "Agreed?"

The eight others responded in unison: "Agreed!"

*****

But amid the collective resolve, one unspoken dividing line quietly lingered in the air, and only Curt, Ellis, Karen, and Mason felt it -- although to a certain extent, it was present for Haley as well: the double fear.

Of course, for experienced dating pros like Emily, Julie, and Rachel, or a married mom like Danielle, sex was practically akin to sipping the morning coffee, but for the others ... it was an act was still loaded with the menace of the unknown. To the virgins of the group, such a fate was almost too strange to even contemplate -- in a different context, it might have even been laughable.

What convoluted, distracting, disconnected thoughts cluttered their anxious little minds?

For Curt, the very fresh and equal-parts terrifying and provocative sight of that seemingly emotionless Menudian male preparing to have his way with the suddenly possessed, levitating Angela was something he still found himself coming to terms with.

Part of him was ashamed that he couldn't protect her, part of him was frightened for the fate that had befallen her, and yet another part of him ... it must have been the stress fogging up his brain but ... well, who wouldn't have liked to do exactly what Greg was doing to his blonde, health food-obsessed, tie-dyed loving, ample-chested school mate?

No way could that ever be him -- the boy who could hardly even look pretty girls in the face, let alone place his own genitals anywhere near theirs. Right?

But as much as he wanted to avoid doing so, the specter of Menudia's mysterious, amorphous, seemingly inevitable threat caused his thoughts to wander to his history with the girls who'd joined him on the picnic, and those exciting little flirtatious moments where some of the girls who were sitting in that very general store with him, scared out of their wits, or who were now, at perhaps that very moment, roaming the woods doing Menudia's sinister bidding, had hinted at the attraction they'd felt for him.

Like that party at Liza's a couple of months back, where he'd been sitting on the couch, minding his own business, and, just for shits and giggles, Angela and Liza had plopped down on either side of him, sandwiching his body between theirs, enjoying the sensation of Curt involuntarily squirming with arousal and discomfort.

Or that time Vanessa had strolled past him in the school gym, and, just as she'd finished riding her exercise bike, out of nowhere, lightly pinched his firm little butt cheek, causing him to jump spryly into the air.

Or that time Julie had unexpectedly given him a quick, affectionate sideways hug and told him, "You know, Curt? I wish more guys were like you. Considerate, sensitive -- it's a shame that only the asshole guys seem to get all the action, don't you think?" He'd never blushed so hard ... and later than night, he'd never stroked himself so hard either.

And what about that bizarre wet clothing fetish -- imagine this so-called "Menudia," or any of the other girls, finding out about that little wrinkle? What could possibly be more embarrassing? And yet ... he suddenly imagined Emily relaxing under a stream of rippling water, her pink blouse and black denim jeans growing soaking wet, or Julie, in her tight white top and midi cami dress ... oh yeah. They certainly had the right outfits for that sort of thing ...

And somewhere in the back of his fragile, timid mind, he began to wonder if being "taken" by some spirit-invading sorceress was almost what a shy young man like him might actually need, or benefit from. If it was only a matter of time, then perhaps it wouldn't be so bad after all ...

Wait, wait, wait. This creature and her servants were out to destroy him, his classmates, the village, perhaps the whole town below, and everything he held dear. He knew he needed to run like the wind from Menudia, and from all who followed her!

*****

Ellis found himself equally confused and agitated, but for markedly different reasons.

To him, falling under the control of this "Menudia" would be an outrageous affront to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, a defilement of the act that ought to be sacred, pure, and performed within the boundaries of holy matrimony. Remaining chaste had been a constant battle for him -- imagine losing that battle to some demented, supernatural goddess, in some bucolic little village!

Yet part of him began to wonder if any actions he might commit while under the power of a force like Menudia would truly "count" as sin, or if he could simply rest assured that he had been obeying a will that was not his "own."

His eyes absent-mindedly wandered across the store lounge and fell upon Rachel, in those curvaceous skinny jeans (so tight they were practically leggings), and that denim blouse all tied up in a playful little knot around her navel. Whoo boy. Menudia could certainly have had plenty of fun with her.

Or Julie, in her skimpy green dress and that snug white top. Talk about a great body. Too bad he and Julie were pretty much bickering all the time. Hell would've had to freeze over for it to happen, of course, but honestly, if Julie had ever magically experienced some spiritual epiphany, or just out of the blue straight-up converted to Catholicism, not only would Ellis have proposed to her without a second thought, but he would have gladly done his sacred duty to impregnate her every single night and bless her with 16 kids or more.

Funny but, although he was straight as an arrow, there was nothing he absolutely loved more than admiring the tasteful, casual, playful fashion sense of his collegiate female peers -- picking apart his favorite outfits, ranking his own personal preferences, admiring the smart little touches. There certainly weren't any girls around to admire at the all-boys Catholic high school he'd attended, that was for sure. The jump to co-ed at Sacred Saints had been quite the shock for his embryonic libido to handle.

Maybe it was due to his complete abstention from porn, but whenever Ellis fantasized about girls (which he knew was a sin, but ... what was a guy to do?), he rarely fantasized about them stark naked. For him, nothing beat the sight of an attractive girl-next-door-type strutting her stuff in tight denim shorts and a colorful graphic tee, or a tasteful blouse-and-skirt combo. Maybe fornication would be less sinful if the participants mostly kept their clothes on?

Then, for some reason, his gaze randomly fell on Karen -- not exactly the paragon of alluring street style. He tried to picture her wandering around in the fields like he'd just seen Liza doing, her clothes halfway sliding off her body, her hips swaying with a seductive gait -- you know, maybe it was the stress and paranoia talking, but he could ... almost envision it?

Yet just as a tiny voice in his head contemplated the potential appeal of all this, a much larger voice swore that it would never even be an issue, as he and the others would surely avoid Menudia's grasp.

He especially!

*****

An outside observer might have assumed that the inner concerns of Curt and Ellis were being shared, at that very moment, by Mason and Haley, and while that observer would have been making a solid guess, they would not, unfortunately, have been making a particularly accurate one.

For as those two terrified, apprehensive students of Sacred Saints sat huddled in the general store, instead of panicking about the threat to their own sexual autonomy and privacy, their thoughts instead began to wander toward the unofficial leader of the group, Danielle.

And this was because, unlike the rest of the students sitting uneasily in that quaint, wood-paneled structure, who hardly knew Danielle from the school janitor, both Mason and Haley had been utilizing her therapeutic services in the college counseling center. And also, funnily enough, they were both in a complete and utter state of denial as to how badly they wanted to jump her smoking hot MILF bones.