The Cult of the Seven Wenches by Kevin North - Chapter 01

Genre 1963: Vintage Sleaze / Sex Cult

A startling story of sex cult members who indulged in such primitive pagan passions they made the Roman orgies seem mild!

Here is the shocking exposé of ravished virgins ... of women forced to breed like cattle ... of uninhibited eroticism and carnal lust en masse!

Figures were on the sand now, hips grinding, hands reaching in erotic foulage, passionate mouths and bodies seeking satiation.

Now something new was taking place. Two of the women, their own sex desires temporarily satiated, ran up the sandbar, grabbed one of the clothed girls. And suddenly vicious hands were on the girl's body, cloth was tearing, and the girl was nude.

The seven women danced around the frightened girl. Then the circle opened to admit one of the men. He started fondling the girl, disregarding her screams, her beating hands. He threw her to the sand at last, forced his body into position.

Flossie's fingers were hard on my arm. “Bill, that girl isn't one of them. She's being forced, ravished—”

I handed the glasses to Flossie. “Focus on the girl being ravished. She's wearing a belt, similar to the one I cut off Joan—"

"That means she's a prisoner." Flossie's words stopped.

CHAPTER 1

THE GIRL WAS running—hard. Because she was rather provocatively put together, especially in the breast department, she jiggled. But as she broke cover from the woods, looking back over her shoulder, I forgot about the jiggle. There was the blank, staring look of fear haunting her young face.

Evidently she had been running for some distance. She pulled up now, leaned against a tree trunk, pulling in air in big gulps, trying to regain her breath. Her face constantly turned to the back trail, and there was about her that sense of animal awareness that told me her ears were sharply attuned for some sound of her pursuers. She was much like a fox fleeing before hounds, or a prisoner before a posse.

All I had to do to change both the locale and the time was to close my eyes, and the scene shifted to a woods near the Iron Curtain border. This girl, too, was running for her life, with terror high in her Slavic face. And as she ran, I heard the dogs, then the crack of a high-powered rifle, back somewhere in the woods. The girl stumbled and fell, and I saw the blood gushing from her mouth. I couldn’t help her, even if that was possible, for I was running, too. I hovered there in the cold stream, hoping the dogs wouldn’t catch my scent. And later, after the border guards had gone, taking their vicious dogs, I crawled out of my icy bath, and wormed up the slope of the dead, naked trees, to where the girl lay sprawled in the leaf-fall.

She was long dead now, stiff and cold. But before her body had grown rigid they had, one by one, ravished her. I counted four of them, and it was quite a party. What they said about her went unavenged, because I didn’t have a gun.

They didn’t even have the decency to pull down her dress.

I dug into the frozen earth with a sharp stick, until my hands were bleeding. But finally I had a shallow grave, and I buried her. And all the time the tears kept blinding me, and the curses tumbled from my lips.

This wasn’t an Iron Curtain satellite country. This was America. But this girl was running, and the terror in her young face seemed very real.

It didn’t quite make sense in this year of astronauts and atoms for peace. It didn’t quite make sense for this was picturesque vacation country, with noisy mountain brooks, age-old trees, and the bald cliff-lines still showing the pictographs and petroglyphs of the Osages, now long back to their native dust. It didn’t make sense because this was a fine blacktop highway winding deep into this picturesque, untouched land of many resorts and fishing camps.

But the fact remained that the girl was running from some terror—something she dreaded and feared. It was all there in her Reubens-like face as she ran.

She stumbled out of the woods, onto the highway. She saw me at this moment, as I stood beside the car, checking my road map. Her eyes widened, and she had the look of a startled fawn, cornered. She was so exhausted that she couldn’t run much further, so she merely stood there, in defeat, watching me, waiting for me to approach.

It was pitiful, the defeat, the frustration, registered in her young face.

“All right!” she panted, “you win! I'll go back! But I’ll run away again, and you can’t break my spirit with a whip—or your hands. And I'll never be one of the seven!”

She stood there, glaring at me, defeated yet defiant. What she said was puzzling.

I didn’t move. She was so near hysteria that any wrong move at this moment would be fatal.

“What are you talking about?” I challenged, my voice calm and soft.

“You're one of them, aren’t you?”

“I’m a stranger here,” I continued. “I believe I’m lost. I'm trying to locate a town called Fulton’s Mill.”

“You're merely acting, trying to trap me.”

“Honey, why should I trap you? And what are you running from?”

“You know what I’m running from! You're the new one. The young, good-looking one they call Rocky—”

“My name is Bill Severn.”

She still doubted, stood there, shaking her head negatively, eyes hard in disbelief.

I pointed to the license tag on my car. “That doesn’t look local, does it?”

“It could all be a trick,” she insisted. “A trick to get me into your car— “Honey, if it was a trick, I could leap forward and grab you.

I’m not winded, and you are.”

She thought that over, and all the time her blue eyes were on my own, hoping, praying perhaps that I was telling the truth.

‘If only I could believe you— I pulled out my billfold, unzipped the identification pad, and tossed it to her.

“Read it,” I urged. “The name’s Bill Severn, home town, Philadelphia. My employer: Harclay Books, Inc. It’s all there, in that identification pad—my social security number, my driver’s license, credit cards—”

Her eyes dropped to the pad, nervous fingers were flipping the accordion pleats. She stepped closer, and handed back the pad. The fear was still there in her eyes, but she wasn’t going off the deep end, I was positive of that.

And then, back in the woods, I heard a hound. A second dog took up the baying. That decided her in a hurry.

“I'll show you how to get to Fulton’s Mill,” she said, and ran toward the car.

I started the motor, pulled back to the blacktop. So far, the hounds hadn’t broken cover.

“Straight ahead!” she said. Her hands were clenched; she was tight as a drum-head on a rainy night.

I glanced at her, out of the corner of my eye. The first noticeable thing was her dress. There was nothing radical about it—except both the middy and the skirt were blue. She wore long, black stockings—and high-top shoes, the kind that women wore at the turn of the century. Her thick, carrot hair was pulled back tight from her forehead, and hung in two plaited braids, over her shoulders. The neckline of the dress was cut in a deep square, with a suggestion of cleavage each time she moved.

I noticed something else. The left side of her face was scratched, and the red welts were on her neck as well, as if someone had raked their fingernails across her tender skin.

She kept looking back, as we headed down the road. We climbed now, and the highway turned and twisted as it threaded through a range of jagged, hogback hills.

At last she pulled in a big lungful of air, seemed to relax a bit.

“They won’t come this far,” she said in relief. Her smile, suddenly, was wistful and appreciative.

Up ahead, at the brink of the climb, a simple highway marker announced a “Scenic View”. She motioned, and I pulled off the road, parked.

The spot commanded a breathtaking view of the valley, if one happened to be interested in the topography of the area.

To the left nestled a town. A sizeable river threaded through the valley, and above the town itself I could see what looked like new concrete forming the spillway of a dam, with a lake of impounded water behind it.

“That’s Fulton’s Mill,” she said.

“It looks like Switzerland.”

“Let your eyes follow the river, to the South of the town.

See that old grist mill? That’s where the town got its name.”

“Very picturesque,” I assured her, “Follow the river further South, away from the mill,” she directed. “Now lift your eyes to that bald hill—”

“It looks like a huge, stone castle.”

“It was a castle, long ago.”

“What is it today?”

“It’s the home of the Seven Lost Tribes of Israel—”

I was ready to say something explosive at this absurdity, thought better of it, and merely turned questioning eyes toward her.

“That sounds legendary, or Biblical,”

“Could it be the home of some kind of religious colony?”

She nodded. “The estate itself is called Moseanna.”

“Would it by any chance be the home of a man named Lionel T. Shepherd?”

Her eyes widened. “Yes—the Shepherd. How did you know?”

“It’s a very long story,” I said. “Suppose we find some little place where we can get some food, and we'll talk about it—”

“Yes, I’d like that,” she agreed.

“How long have you been running?” I asked.

“Since last night. I stole some food, but I had to leave all of my things.”

“What were you running from?”

The fear was back in her eyes. “I—I can’t tell you, just yet.”

I smiled patiently. “It can wait. Let’s go into town.”

Her face brightened, then sobered just as quickly. “I couldn’t go into Fulton’s Mill, looking like this?”

“Why not?”

Her hands smoothed the blue frock. “This dress—it’s a uniform of the cult. All the girls at Moseanna dress like this. The people of Fulton’s Mill hate us—”

Suddenly I was thinking of a little town in a distant state, It was an Amish community, and the women dressed in simple homemade clothing, much like this. But no one thought much about it. They mingled in the towns, unmolested. But this girl was afraid to go into a little mountain village, because of her clothing. Why?

“You mean you would be afraid to go into Fulton’s Mill with me, because of the way you are dressed?”

“Yes,”

“Then we'll have to do something about it, won’t we?” I said cheerfully.

“I don’t see what you can do,” she argued. “This is the only dress I have.”

I laid my hand on hers, squeezed her fingers, grinned at her.

“It so happens that I’m here on business, I have an expense account that is a bit elastic, especially today, for I haven't abused it for a long time. I think we might find some new clothes for you, in Fulton’s Mill.”

“I couldn’t repay you.”

“Who said anything about payment?”

I opened the car door for her.

She was still protesting. “They would spot me, even in the car.”

“I'll fix that,” I said. I had a sports jacket on a hanger. I held it up for her, and she slipped into it.

It was a tight fit, especially over her breasts. But at least it was a suitable disguise.

I got out a pad and pencil, grinned at her.

“Now, we'll go into Fulton’s Mill. You remain in the car. I'll go into the first women’s shop we find and buy the clothing you need. Now give me some sizes; dress, hosiery, slippers, housecoat—”

“I—simply can’t.”

“Give me one season why?”

“You're a stranger. Even if you're a friend, you're still a stranger, and this would be a gift.”

I tried a new approach. “Will you accept the clothing if I in turn let you pay for it?”

Her eyes came up quickly, startled. “You mean, live together?”

“No, I don’t mean that, but it is a pleasant thought. Look, honey, I’m down here on a particular job. I need help and I’m sure you can give me the help I need. I’ll buy the clothing for you, if only you'll help me find out the answers to a few things.”

She pulled in a big lungful of air, evidently in relief. “All right, Mr. Severn.”

“The name is Bill. And that reminds me: I don’t even know your name?”

“Joan,” she said. “Joan Evarts.”

“All right, Joan. Let’s take a look at Fulton’s Mill.”

Her hand, suddenly, was on my arm. There was something she wanted to say, and still she seemed hesitant to say it.

I waited.

“Will you buy two other articles of very necessary clothing?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Panties, and a bra.”

It was hard for her to say it.

I nodded, pocketed the notepad, “No one at Moseanna was ever issued any underclothing,” she explained.

The bitterness and terror was in her voice again.

I knew now why she had jiggled so violently as she ran.

She was a healthy, athletic-looking girl; her breasts were full and unconfined under the blue middy.

My eyes held her own. “Is that why you were running away?”

“One of the reasons,”

“Joan, what is back there, at Moseanna?”

Her eyes searched mine, her lips trembled, but the fear was still too great, or she didn’t fully trust me.

“All right,” I added hastily. “We won’t talk ‘about it now.

We'll get that new clothing first.”

We started down the winding slope toward the picturesque little town in the valley called Fulton’s Mill.

It was the usual inland town, I saw presently. A red brick courthouse in the center of the town square; the stores and offices ringing it on four sides. The residential streets didn’t look overly prosperous, and the town itself had a jaded, down-at-the-heels appearance.

I did find an apparel shop, however, that had a fair assortment of feminine things on display.

“Birthday present for my wife,” I told the woman clerk, “I'll leave it to your judgment: Dress, hosiery, slippers—and the unmentionables.”

She was about thirty, a dark, attractive woman.

“There is such a thing as sizes,” she grinned.

I grinned back. “I’d say she could be your twin.”

She was a bit heavy in the bosom department, no doubt a fact she was conscious of. And at the moment it seemed to bother her.

“You positive you want the bra in a thirty-eight?”

“She’s a good, healthy girl—”

“Humm!” she said, and brought out some lacy things in assorted colors.

“Black,” I said, choosing a sheer little thing that looked about ninety percent revealment and ten percent lace.

She made the same sound again, “Hmm!” with her lips clamped, as if she knew that black was the sexiest color of them all.

I came out of the store with seventy-two dollars added to the firm’s expense account. When I itemized: the bill, I was quite sure that J. Humphrey Dobbs, my boss, would scream loud enough to toll the nearby Liberty Bell. But even so, I knew it was justifiable once I explained to him.

I came out to the car, handed Joan the boxes.

“Birthday present to a very beautiful young lady,” I said.

She was on the verge of tears. No doubt it had been a very momentous day in her life.

“Now, the next problem—find a motel.”

Again the startled look of the cornered fawn came into her eyes.

“Honey, you’ve got to have someplace to change, to live—”

I reached over, got hold of her left hand. “Won't you trust me?”

Her eyes bored into mine. “There was no one to trust at Moseanna,” she said. “I suppose I’m being unfair—”

“Moseanna is in the past,” I assured her. “Look, honey, this motel is necessary. I’ll register for both of us, individually.

You'll have your own room—”

Her hand squeezed my own. “All right, Bill.”

The motel, like the rest of Fulton’s Mill, wasn’t anything to write home about. The woman in the office had a friendly, sensitive face, but she reeked of cheap perfume and my first impression was positive: She was either an ex-stripper or a vaudeville hoofer. Her dyed hair needed a touch-up, and even a too-small girdle didn’t quite restore her figure.

“Adjoining rooms?” she asked.

“Okay, but see that the connecting door locks from the lady’s side.”

“Well now, that’s a new twist—”

“I’m funny that way.”

Her eyes raised, her lips grimaced. She was about to say something nasty, perhaps remembered that she no longer was on the runway, and said nothing. I picked up the keys, ready to go, then turned back with a question.

“Tell me something. Who are the Seven Lost Tribes of Israel?”

She looked startled. “Mister, that’s a bad word in Fulton’s Mill.”

“What are they—queers?”

“Fanatic jerks. They’ve made war on us, have you heard?”

“I just got into. town, a few minutes ago.”

She came up closer; perhaps the friendship was pseudo, but it was there, in her confidential smile, her frank eyes.

“No one knows what goes on out there in the hills,” she said, “It isn’t healthy to snoop around. But I’ve got my opinion,”

“Such as?”

“It’s a sex cult, if you ask me. There’s five women to every man out there, and they’re mostly girls—young girls.”

“Where do all these women come from?”

“I’ve got my idea about that, too, but I can’t prove it.”

I had the door knob in my hand, ready to go. She edged still nearer, and her eyes were sharp on my Own.

“Mister, you're not a cop, are you?”

“Do I look like one?”

She gave me the eye treatment. “Yes, you do—college boy with the FBI, or some other government service.”

“You're not even warm,” I said, grinning at her.

She shrugged. “It’s none of my business, but if you are a cop, and you’re going out there in the hills, better not go alone.”

I sobered at that. “You're serious?”

“I’m serious.”

“Would you go with me?”

She considered. “To the river bridge gate, perhaps.”

“What’s that?”

“Boundary line. You don’t go past the guard there, unless you have business atop the hill.”

She turned back to her desk, checked a register. “Some magazine gal came out here, about six weeks ago, a reporter. Said she was going to do a story on the cult.”

Her finger traced the register page. “Here it is. Gal’s name was Jane Weathers. She had a room here—number seven. She never came back to pick up her luggage—”

“You mean, she’s out there—a prisoner?”

“No, I think she went out there to get a story, and they chased her off—but good. Maybe had some bed fun with her first. I think she got so scared that she pulled out without ever coming back to town.”

It sounded unreal, like some lurid piece of fiction. Then I found myself thinking of Joan Evarts, running blindly through the woods, in her escape.

Someone had to brief me: This woman was talkative, and willing. I lingered a bit longer.

“This cult—how many people do you suppose are out there?”

She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, but there’s a lot of them.

Two hundred or more—”

“There would be children and families, wouldn’t there?”

“Kids? An explosion! And more coming.”

“These children—they had to attend school, didn’t they?

Here in Fulton’s Mill perhaps?”

She smiled. “That’s what started the war. The Shepherd came into town one day with a dozen of his men and pulled out every kid in the local elementary and high school—”

“What did he do that for?”

“First, he denounced the schools, the books used, and lastly said the teachers were all brainwashing the kids to Communism, that the school books were full of it.”

I felt a sudden quickening. She had pinpointed the reason I — was here. Harclay Books is a national school book publishing concern, the second largest in the nation. The reputation of the company is something that has had a prestige label on it back to the days of the Pilgrims. Well, almost that far! The various school manuals published by Harclay are rated at the top of the list by educators, not only in the U. S. but in a dozen — more democracies.

But here at the little hill town of Fulton’s Mill, a man had ) suddenly made a vicious outcry against the Harclay books that were shaping the lives and minds of young America.

He put a Commy label on them.

J. Humphrey Dobbs, the company president, is not an excitable man. I know personally that he has weathered several business recessions, the sinking of an ocean liner upon which he was a passenger, and only recently an airplane crash. But this particular thing excited him no end. I was here to find out what it was all about, and I had instructions to spare no expense to clear it up.

On the spur of the moment I decided this slightly-washed-out blonde motel keeper might be a very good person to have as a friend. She was earthy, flashy, spontaneous—perhaps on the brazen side, even. But she was also the mother-hen type, and her cooperation would come easy. Possibly she might become too friendly, even.

I shrugged at that. She looked in her middle thirties, and if I read her rightly, she might welcome a change in pace—say an evening’s soiree with a new face.

She scanned the register again.

“Bill Severn, Philadelphia!” Her eyes suddenly got a look of far-off places. “I remember three weeks in Philly—”

I made a stab in the dark.

“The 24th Street Theater?”

It rang a bell, a hundred-to-one chance, right on the line.

“How did you know?”

“My mother played a vaudeville circuit until I was eleven,” I explained. “I suppose it’s an ingrown sense, recognizing another performer—”

“I’m Flossie McCall,” she said. “They billed me as ‘Flossie, the Flame’. I played the bump and grind circuit until TV put us out of business.” She patted a hip. “Got too much beef to try any other field.” Her hand moved to her breasts. “And a little too much here. So I married a jerk who sold me on the motel business. Then what does he do? He goes out fishing for bass one morning and gets himself drowned. So I’m in a jerk town with a shabby bed business—”

“It’s a small world,” I said.

“A small, lonesome world—”

She dropped a hint in that assertion, but I let it slide, momentarily.

“One last question: Could you suggest someplace where the food isn’t exactly ptomaine?”

She chuckled at that. “Honey, there aren’t many. Down the road, about two miles, on the left. Place called Huckleberry Hill.”

I held out my hand. “I'll be around for a few days, so don't sell the bed from under me. Perhaps we can get together—for a talk?”

Her eyes brightened. “Any time, kiddo. I mean, any time—”

I think she did mean it, too.

I went back to the car, got the packages for Joan, and looked at the keys. I unlocked the door to No. 9 and handed her the key, went inside and deposited the packages, smiled at her.

“I'll be next door, if you need me.”

I unlocked my own door, No. 10, carried in my gear. The room, inside, was better than I had supposed. Clean, for one thing, good furniture, a portable TV, a phone, and coffee service. I glanced at the connecting door, shrugged.

I decided I'd take a shower and change before we went out for dinner. I was unbuttoning my shirt when Joan knocked on the connecting door. |

“Bill?”

“Yes?”

“May I come in?”

“Of course. Can you unlock the connecting door?”

“It bolts from my side.”

I stood back, heard the click of the lock. The knob turned, and Joan stood there.

She was still in the blue dress, the cult uniform. But she had turned up the blouse, so her midriff was exposed. She stood there, a wistful look in her eyes, and I suppose I stared at the grotesque picture challenging my sanity.

What I saw was so utterly fantastic, so unreal, that I felt myself cursing under my breath. I choked back the words, trying to assure myself that this was all a bad dream of some kind, an optical mirage, a hallucination of some kind due to the strain of the day.

But it wasn’t.

“I wonder if you could help me—in some way—to remove this,” Joan said.

A belt. That was what it was—a belt of some kind, tight about her abdomen, riding her hips.

Then I saw something else. Where the belt joined, it was riveted together, and there was a small iron loop on either side, to accommodate a rope or chain. Evidently the belt had been fitted to her own particular body, and once in place there was no way to remove it. It was something like the leg-irons used on prisoners at work on road gangs. Only the belt was made of canvas.

I don’t usually curse. But the words were explosive now.

“What is this, Joan—the middle ages?”

“All the girls at Moseanna who resist get the belts,” she said.

“And there are chains and rings on the bunks—”

It was unbelievable, but it was there. I went forward, knelt at her side, fingering the belt.

It was fitted very tightly, and under it, I could see her skin was chafed.

The belt was fully two inches in width, strong enough presumably to lift an elephant.

“Honey, how long has this belt been on?”

“They put it on very soon after we came to Moseanna and I tried to run off—”

That ‘we’ posed a question.

“My step-father,” she explained before I could question her.

I pulled her into my room, led her to a chair. I knelt in front of her, fingered the belt. It looked tough as alligator hide.

“We'll cut it off, honey—in some way.”

“It hurts,” she said, and no doubt that was the understatement of the year.

“Wait until I get something out of the car,” I said.

I had a small tool kit that I used in making mock-ups. For one thing, there was a cutter in the kit, one of those things in which you insert a razor blade.

Now another problem posed itself: Even if the blade would cut through the tough canvas, how could I keep from cutting her skin?

Then I thought of the long, slim aluminum bookmark, also in the kit.

I came back in, grinning, explained the procedure.

“First, we'll slide this bookmark underneath the belt, so the razor blade won’t nick you—”

I started the task, and she winced, and I knew that the belt had chafed her skin to the point where she was sore.

“Perhaps you’d better do it,” I suggested at last. “At least you'll know when it hurts.”

She pulled in her abdomen, and slowly slid the bookmark downward. At last it was in place. I picked up the cutter, knelt down in front of her.

Seated in the chair, she was too low for good leverage. She stood up, and I knelt in front of her.

“Better position your hands on my shoulders,” I suggested.

She moved in, did as I directed. “Now don’t move, whatever you do.”

I could feel the tremble in her fingers, as she grasped ‘ay shoulders. I could have kissed her breasts, under that thin middy, merely by raising my head. I put one hand on top of the belt, and carefully drew down on the cutter. The sharp razor blade nicked the canvas, but that was about all.

“That belt is tough as elephant hide.”

“I know,” she agreed. “I stole a knife from the kitchen. I couldn’t touch it.”

I kept pulling the razor blade’s cutting edge through the tough canvas. I was positive now that it was reinforced with small steel screen or mesh of some kind. A dozen slashes, and the razor blade was dull. I reversed the blade, and started again on that alligator surface.

I knew she was in pain. Pressure of my own hand, on the blade, pushed the tight belt into her chafed skin. But she made no complaint.

It took three razor blades. I was sweating now. Then suddenly the belt parted, and fell away from her hips.

The anger came up fast, when I saw what that hackle had done to her body. Her skin was so inflamed it was near the bleeding point.

I stood up, and it was instinct to pull her into my arms. I kissed her. At first she was passive. Then I felt her response.

Her arms tightened, and she mashed her lips against my own.

I held her, fondling her, and suddenly her entire body was trembling, and the tears came fast.

Words were superfluous at that moment. I merely stood there and held her, stroking her hair. Her breasts were digging into my chest.

I picked her up at last, carried her over to the bed, and sat her down on it. I started examining the chafed skin. The belt had cut in deepest on each side, no doubt by the action of her hips as she walked or ran.

“You need some medication,” I said.

“It feels—so good—to be rid of that,” she said. She was still choked with emotion.

I knelt there, looking at her. I fingered the scratches on the side of her face, saw the same marks on her neck.

“That looks like fingernails—”

She nodded. She looked very tired. Only then did I realize what an ordeal the day must have been.

“Honey, you slip out of that dress. Take a hot bath, just as soon as you can get into the tub. I'll go out and get some type of medication—”

As I pulled her up from the bed, the dress gaped. I could see the cleavage deep between her breasts. And I saw something else.

I stood there, hands on her shoulders,

“Honey, there’s something else—”

She looked away, too quickly. “No, I’m all right.”

I cupped my fingers on her chin, until her eyes met mine.

“Joan, I don’t think we’re exactly strangers anymore, are we?”

Her smile was wistful. “No—”

“You've been tortured in some way, besides the belt—”

Her lips were trembling again, but she shook her head.

I took the initiative then, because it seemed necessary. I slowly but steadily worked loose the buttons on her middy.

Her hands raised to mine, and there was a feeble effort to stop me. I don’t think she was afraid for herself. There was something else.

I smiled at her, lightly kissed her lips.

The middy was open, and I was looking at girlish breasts, saucy in their protrusion. But for once in my life I was seeing something besides those inviting cones.

There was an angry sore, deep in her cleavage. It looked like a burn.

It was more than a burn. It was a brand—in the See of a cross!

The anger was back again. This time so blinding that all I could do was close my eyes, and pull her tight into my embrace, while I choked down the words, And I was trembling now, more than she.

“Honey, who did this?”

She shook her head. “I—don’t really know. I fainted—”

“But it was done at that cult’s hideaway?”

“Y—Yes—“

I picked her up, carried her back to her own room, started the hot water tap flowing in the bathroom.

“I'll be back, soon as I get the medication—”

I was in the act of leaving, when her voice stopped me.

“Bill!”

I turned back from the door, and she walked into my arms.

She was crying, no doubt an emotional letdown that was only natural. I held her tight, and I couldn’t help but think of that brand between her breasts,

“You’ve been so good to me—”

“That’s what friends are for.”

She mashed her lips tighter. It would have been so easy at this moment. No doubt she sensed it the moment I did. She pulled away, pulled the middy tight.

I headed back for the door. “Get into that tub, and stay there for a long, relaxing bath—”

I walked the half dozen blocks to the business district, trying to force the anger out of my system. But all I could see was the hackle—and the brand mark.

I picked up some zinc ointment and the necessary bandages at a drug store on the town square.

As I came out of the store, I saw this paneled truck, turning into a side street. On the side was a neatly lettered sign: The Seven Lost Tribes of Israel.

A man on the sidewalk jerked up, staring at the truck. Then he cursed.

I walked over to his side, grinned. “Pardon me, but may a stranger ask a question?”

He was a square-faced man, about fifty. His smile was friendly, but now it was forced.

“About that truck?”

“Yes—that sign on the panel.”

His eyes met mine; there was anger in his eyes, and a sudden rage seemed to build inside him.

“Mister!” he said, “Cuba’s got her Castro. We got the Seven Lost Tribes of Israel. That’s about as good as I can explain it.”

Please let us know if you like this story in the comments. If there is enough interest, we will publish more of this story.