Jumlin's Spawn Read online

  “Shit…please, baby…do it,” he groaned.

  While her pussy gripped his cock within, she humped his body, harder and harder. She reached out for Oliver's erection and pumped it with her hand just as hard as she grasped Yancey from within.

  She rode him until she felt the orgasm jerk violently through him. Until his whole body arched up and his head leaned back and there wasn't an inch of tension left in his body. She jerked off Oliver until he cried out and then spurted hot streams of cum across her hand.

  Laughing with her victory, a sweaty Elfie collapsed back against the bed beside Yancey.

  The Sioux man rolled over to stare down into her face. “You haven't come yet,” he said.

  “You didn't really think you'd get away with not coming.”

  His lips encompassed her wetness again as he lapped his tongue feverishly up and down over every spot that made her shiver and cry out.

  Elfie felt the burst of pleasure closing in on her. She tried to keep herself from crying out, but it wasn't possible.

  Yancey grinned down at her as the last of her pleasure ebbed away. He was drying his face again. “What in the fuck did you just do?” he asked.

  “Showed you that invasions can be overcome from within,” she said.

  “What? You didn't like the invasion?” he whispered, his tongue darting out to lick at the end of her nose.

  “Oh, yes, I did,” she said.

  Oliver moved around to sit in their circle. He pressed his lips tenderly to Yancey's and then leaned across to do the same to Elfie.

  “Next time is my turn,” Oliver said into her face. “I think we all know this is permanent, right?”

  “Do you see me going anywhere?” she asked.

  Coming out of nowhere, a loud sound, like the world's biggest windmill, swooped above them. It seemed to encompass the sky. They all looked upward.

  “That's one big damned helicopter,” Elfie said.

  Oliver shook his head, tossing a look of challenge at Yancey. “More like a UFO.”

  “Please,” Yancey said, shaking his head as jumped into his jeans and boots. “I'll go look. It has to be military aircraft.”

  “Or a UFO,” Oliver said, standing up quickly to dress himself and follow Yancey out the door.

  The men gazed upward as what looked like bat-shaped kites soared in a larger circle far above.

  “Could be cliffhanger sailplanes,” Yancey said, “or birds.”

  Oliver shook his head. “Gliders couldn’t fly in that tight a formation. And those can't be buzzards or any other kind of bird. Even from this long distance, they look six feet tall at least.”

  Elfie, clad in her gym clothes, stepped out into the garden to join them. She shadowed her eyes with a hand and squinted in the objects' direction. They looked huge and menacing. Big black birds of prey on a mammoth scale.

  “Advanced, weird military aircraft?” Elfie suggested.

  Yancey looked back at her. “We're a long way from Area 51. No, they're birds that just look big,” Yancey said with what sounded like forced certainty. “It has to be a moisture lens effect from the storm or something.”

  An explosive bang behind them came from the cottage.

  “It came from the roof,” Oliver said.

  Yancey climbed up a side fence outcropping to the cottage's eaves and then pulled himself on top. He stood up, like a shadowman against a threatening sky, staring away across the land beyond the walled garden.

  His hand extended his weapon, like some kind of shamanic totem to ward off an unknown evil.

  “Holy shit,” he said, taking a step back, as if something crawled up the roof's other slant toward him.

  Yancey aimed and fired several rounds until Elfie heard something slide over tiles and fall off the roof.

  “What is it?” Oliver yelled, about to boost himself up.

  “Hit the flood lights on the garden!” Yancey called down, as he shoe-surfed the roof tiles until he hit the eaves, then jumped straight down to dirt.

  Elfie scanned the garden quickly until she saw the control box. She hit the biggest lever with the bottom of her hand. The lights blared to full life.

  Yancey appeared, jogging slowly, almost disjointedly. He grasped onto her shoulder as if needing to cling to an edge of reality. “My God,” he coughed out. “I don’t know what that was. Baby, I'm sorry I doubted you.”

  She combed her fingers back through her hair. “Like Molly said, we don't have to know what they are, only what they do. How many are out there?”

  He shook his head and shrugged at the same time. “A hundred, maybe two. Maybe more.”

  “Molly said that light destroys them, right?” Oliver asked as he joined them. “Shouldn't the light keep them out of the walled garden? She said we'd be safe here.”

  “Molly also said the mature ones were stronger and much harder to kill,” Elfie said.

  Yancey stared upward, at the still-circling wheel of flying black arcs. “And she said that, close-up, they appear to be black angels.”

  “We have to make a run for it,” Elfie said.

  Oliver shook his head in an attempt to hurry his thought process. “Make a run to where? We're surrounded by those little fuckers. And we've got God knows what flying over us.”

  As if summoned by his words, the black shapes began their glide down, like arc-shaped kites, from the clouds. They stopped at a hovering pace, still keeping their distance.

  “We'd better head to the cottage,” Yancey said, pulling both of them with him.

  Panic and sweaty palms made the doorknob hard to turn, but Yancey opened it. They banged through the door to the cottage, one person after the other. Oliver slammed the door and locked it behind them.

  The black-feathered angels descended slowly from the sky.

  “What in the hell do they want from us?” Yancey said.

  “Um, to kill us maybe?” Oliver asked.

  “I get that, Madam Savant,” Yancey said. “But, why? I mean, aside from Molly's theory about the Wakinyan. There must be something we have that they're after.”

  “Oh, my God,” Elfie said. “The artifacts.”

  Oliver looked around. “Where are they?”

  She covered her face with her hands for a long moment. Finally, she said, “In the jeep. I left them there. I have to go out and get them.”

  “Like hell you do,” Oliver said.

  “I brought the antiquities here,” she said, “and they're my responsibility.”

  “Oliver’s right. They can stay in the damned jeep,” Yancey replied.

  Elfie looked around at him with a sudden dose of incredulity. “What? You're still unconvinced that something is going on here?”

  “No,” Yancey said, “but I only believe in the parts of it I can see.”

  “Oh, that's right, don't worry about the whale's teeth, Captain Ahab. All we can see is its fluke.”

  “I'm not about to jeopardize your life for supposition,” Yancey shot back.

  “I can do this!” Elfie said. “You guys would be in as much danger out there as I'd be. I can run as fast as you guys can. I know how to shoot a gun. I am responsible for the artifacts. I've brought them this far. I want to see them returned to where they came from. It’s the fastest, easiest way to do it. I'm the obvious choice to go out there and you both know it.”

  “Maybe,” Oliver said, “but you'll be faster on a dirt bike.”

  “We have a dirt bike?” Yancey asked.

  “I saw it earlier. It’s in the garage,” Elfie said. “I don't know how to ride one.”

  “I do,” Oliver said. “You ride on the back, I'll drive. Like our old bike trip days.”

  Elfie thought for a long moment. “This isn't your battle, Oliver. I'm the one who made the decision to go work with this jerk.”

  He shrugged. “It’s the fastest, easiest way to do it. It’s the obvious choice to go out there, and you know it.”

  “I hate it when you use my own logic against me.” She la
ughed a little. “Okay. I agree, that would be faster.”

  “I'll give cover,” Yancey said, checking his handgun. “I shot one of the little bastards off the roof. Bullets might not kill the big ones, but they probably faze them a little.”

  “I can carry a flashlight for the little ones,” she said, reaching for one of the short wand flashlights she brought in with supplies and provisions. She clicked it on. “No time like the present.”

  A one-car metal shed that seemed to lately be used for garden tools, the garage contained the dirt bike, propped up against a wall. The bike bore no trace of dust or spider webs, both of which told Elfie it had been used in recent days. Ergo, it would run.

  “The garage lets out on the side trail that comes up over the property, remember?” Yancey asked. “Be careful, though, because the next ramp up is Angel Peak. This way will let you come around the side of the jeep. Once you grab the artifacts, you can drive the bike around through the main gate. I'll be waiting to open it.”

  Oliver wheeled the dirt bike toward the garage door. He straddled it, started it, and gunned the engine. Elfie hopped on the back.

  “Ready?” Oliver asked her, and Elfie nodded. Oliver looked back at Yancey. “When I nod, open the garage door.”

  Elfie switched on the flashlight. Yancey reached for the lever. Oliver nodded. Yancey yanked up the door.

  The dirt bike scooted hard through pebbly sand that kicked up debris behind them, as Elfie sprayed the dark clouds with light. Movements toward them became frantic and haggard. Behind them, the sound of Yancey's gunshots rocketed off, aiming at threats they couldn't see.

  Elfie heard the angry hive sound form around them. In the dark, she could barely see them, so she swung the flashlight in every direction. A flash of blue dust occasionally laced through the gray, followed by silence.

  The dirt bike circled around to the back of the jeep, to the hatch where supplies were kept. Oliver stabbed a key in the lock, and yanked it open. Elfie handed him the flashlight while she reached up to claim the case filled with artifacts. Oliver kicked at one of the spawn, and then killed it with a flashlight.

  “Ready,” Elfie said, clutching the artifact case between them.

  Oliver sped off around the front of the jeep, skidding fast across the pavement and around the edges of the garden wall. The dirt bike made another long pass to move around a cluster of spawn, grasping out at them without success. The bike slid through the gate, and Elfie thought for a moment their race was won.

  Yanked backward, Elfie flew off the bike like a rag doll pitched into a garden corner. The artifacts’ case slid sideways. The creature jumped toward her, its black wings extending to cover her body. Its face peered out from its tattered feathers – the face that had possibly once been human, a red spot at the center of its forehead buttressed by needful eyes pulsing with power.

  She felt repulsed, but drawn...a paradoxical lust bursting through her with the thoughtless ferocity of fire. It seemed that the force had radiated from the black angel and shot through her. She fought to push it away.

  Yancey stepped between them. He aimed and blasted the creature. It withdrew only to drag Elfie with it. Oliver grabbed her arm to pull her free and the creature returned the attack. Yancey emptied his gun into the creature. The creature flew upward. As if caught in a whirlwind, it was forced upward and then swallowed by the dark.

  Yancey grabbed the artifacts’ case, and they dragged themselves, the case and the dirt bike back into the cottage, and then slammed the door.

  Elfie reached for the artifacts’ case to push it to safety. She slumped against the wall on the far side of the bed.

  Yancey rammed the dirt bike into the garage again. He then surrendered to the floor beside Elfie.

  Oliver dropped back against the bed to catch his breath. Each breath was only fleeting, but it felt like hours before any of them could exhale.

  ****

  Elfie's watch revealed it had been one hour. She had risen with effort and walked across to the window. With the sky fully dark outside, the low-hanging moon appeared distant in the wake of the garden lights. The gentle quiet felt palpable, as if it transfused the hub of the house with something warm and comforting.

  “The light keeps out the spawn, I get that,” Elfie said, the first of them to speak, “but why did the older ones vanish so quickly?”

  Yancey rubbed at his forehead and sat forward. “Maybe they didn't expect us to fight? The gun surprised them?”

  “Why didn't they follow us into the house?” Elfie asked. “They're supposed to be mortally afraid of us. They just retreated when we took refuge inside.”

  Yancey shrugged. “Molly said the cottage was safe.”

  “What?” Oliver asked suddenly, his voice harsh and unexpected. “Before, you didn't believe any of this and now, you're quoting a medicine woman?”

  “Before, I hadn't had the boogeyman attack people I love right in fucking front of me!” Yancey barked back. “Yeah, strangely I'm inclined to believe her more now, thanks very much. I’m a skeptic, I’m not stupid.”

  “Sorry,” Oliver said quietly. He winced a little as he stretched out his arm. “My wrist hurts. So, I'm cranky.”

  “Let me take a look at it where there's light,” Elfie said, walking across to accompany him around the corner to the kitchen sink.

  Yancey stood up and moved toward the corner storage cabinet. “I'll grab the first aid kit.”

  Elfie switched on a light, then plugged up the sink and turned on the tap. Warm water spilled into the basin as Oliver unbuttoned his sleeve. As his arm extended into the water, it became pink. When Elfie turned on the overhead light, they both could see his shirtsleeve soaked with blood. Oliver unbuttoned it to roll it up but Elfie reached for scissors to split the sleeve's seam.

  “Yikes,” Oliver said, flinching at the sight of the gash in his arm. “You wouldn't think all the adrenaline in the world would let me ignore that.”

  “That'll need stitches when we get back to the city,” Yancey said, looking over his friends' shoulders as he handed Elfie the first aid kit.

  “We can disinfect it now and wrap it up,” Elfie said. “I believe this disinfectant is that packet kind that hurts like hell so put on your big boy pants, okay?”

  “Yes, Ma'am,” Oliver said, grinning until he winced as the disinfectant did its job.

  Elfie handed one end of the gauze roll to Yancey. “Feed that back to me while I wrap his owie, would you?”

  Yancey took the roll and did as ordered. “Elf, did you get a good look at that thing?”

  “Hell, yes,” she said. “Too good. It had…you know those Native American headdresses they wear in cowboy movies but that no real Indian ever actually wears?”

  “A war bonnet, you mean?” Yancey asked in reply.

  “Yeah, like that, except it was all black feathers.”

  “The creature had a weird energy emanating from it, too,” Oliver said, blanching as the disinfectant salve reached his wound.

  “Sorry,” Elfie said, wincing in sympathy as she wrapped the gauze around three times. She snapped off tape and sealed the dressing.

  “No, I'm sorry,” he said. He stretched his fingers out, as if to try the bandage on for size.

  “For what?” Elfie said, squinting to discern any possible reason for his regrets.

  “Senior prom,” Oliver said. “Honey Trowbridge.”

  Confusion ran rampant through her face. “Who? Oh, you mean, that girl you went out with back in high school?”

  “That's the one. I knew you didn't have a date for the senior prom. I knew you wanted to go. But I took Honey Trowbridge.”

  “That was, like, a hundred years ago, Oliver. Who cares?”

  “I care,” he said. “I know it's a weird time to bring it up, but I've always felt guilty about it.”

  “Girls in the chess club aren't often asked to the senior prom. It's a badge of honor for the breed. Anyway, you liked Honey.”

  “I liked yo
u too,” he said.

  “Not like you liked Honey. You can't change how you feel. Life is like that.”

  Oliver shook his head. “The main reason I didn't ask you out is the guys from the track team razzed me about you having a crush on me. I didn't want them to think – I don't know –”

  “That a girl nerd was the best you could do?” she asked, chuckling at the thought.

  He sort of nodded and shook his head at the same time. “I'm afraid so, yeah.”

  She smiled at the thought. “That's a very high school thing for a guy to do.”

  “Yeah, but it hurt you. Badly. And I knew it would.”

  She retrieved the gauze roll from Yancey and closed it in the first aid kit again. “So?”

  “So, it's like what I did to you…this last time. I said I'd never do that again, but I did.”

  “Back in high school, Yancey and I did a group baby-sitting gig for all of the high school faculty who had to chaperone the prom. We pulled in major bucks that weekend. Remember, Yancey?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Yancey said, nodding.

  “I bought a used car with the money from that weekend,” Elfie said, “and our new relationship grew out of the thing with you two. Everything works out for the best.”

  “I'd like to think so,” he said, moving forward to reach his arms around Elfie.

  He stared down into her eyes with a power that seemed to echo inside of her. It felt like she was hearing his thoughts on the inside of her head.

  Oliver didn't hug. Not like this. When she felt his tongue taste her throat, she knew there was something wrong.

  She gently pushed him away and tried to laugh it off. “Come on, you've been injured. You can't possibly be in the mood for this now.”

  “Sure I can,” he said, reaching to pull her back.

  She stepped back again. “Well, I'm not.”

  “Why?” he snapped. “Are you backing off again like you did before?”

  She squinted at him and shook her head. “I can back-off whenever I like, Oliver.”

  “So, you are backing off?” he said, walking toward her again. “We've told you we love you. We've given you every reason to stay--”