The Cthulhu Cult

 

“Although long a devotee of weird tales and unsettling stories, it never once occurred to me that true, life-wrenching, and some might say blasphemous horror would ever overturn my own life, as it did in the Spring of 2007. And as for what befell my friends Shelby Tyree and Conrad Laughton, that is a fate no augur or oracle could ever have foreseen. I count myself fortunate indeed that I escaped that fateful season with my mind and body relatively intact, although the scars both psychic and physical remain prominent to this day, and my life stands forever altered from its previous course.” That, I think, is how Lovecraft might have begun my story, and having now lived it, I can see why. Sometimes the only way to protect yourself from your own terrible, horrifying fuck-ups is to hide behind a labyrinthine damn of words and sentences and hope the terrible truths come out in drips and drops rather than in a raging flood. Too much truth all at once can shatter fragile minds and make things much worse rather than a little better. And I want things to get better, if that's even possible anymore, and so I'll start at the entrance to the maze and hope I'm brave enough to carry on to the nasty, brutal center. For me and Conrad and Shelby, matters began to go wrong in the old house on the bay, with what was, in those innocent days, one of the more disturbing experiences of my life.

 

The house off Indian Point Drive was an economic anomaly. Built in the 1920's and added onto over the decades since, it always verged on total dilapidation even though it sat on a million dollar waterfront lot sandwiched between multi-million dollar homes along Sarasota Bay. Only a never ending succession of current and past New College students kept the place from sliding into complete decrepitude, and their stopgap fixes and amateur carpentry tended to be in the experimental, artistic style, rather than anything like traditional architectural techniques. With no air-conditioning and five bedrooms sometimes occupied by as many as eight or nine or even ten residents, the house was always a crowded, hot, den of activity. Most of the residents were students because no one else was adventuresome or poor enough to brave the Florida heat in close quarters with so many others. Those who did stay on after graduation tended to be the type who retained the curiosities and passions of their student years long into adulthood, and of these there was no one who'd lived in the house longer than my old grade-school friend, Shelby Tyree.

 

It might sound strange to hear that those dark days all began at a party, but this was no typical summer soirée. This was one of Shelby's events, and those were always more spectacle than celebration. Parties at the house honored ancient or unusual events. Over the years I'd attended a birthday party for Karl Marx, a costume-wake for Ronald Reagan, and more than one Saturnalia feast. This particular party seemed almost mundane by comparison – a celebration of the Summer Solstice. I'd not been to one of Shelby's parties in quite some time. Being in my mid-thirties now, I often found the presence of drunken college students more annoying than enticing. But our mutual friend Conrad had asked me to come along, and after a week's cajoling from him, I finally relented. I needed to get out of the house and away from my computer in any event – my writing was growing stale and predictable, and my editor was not being shy about pointing this fact out. A night's escape might do me some good.

 

We heard the drums from a block away, which was the closest parking space we could find. At my insistence, we'd stopped by a new restaurant downtown for what we'd hoped would be a quick meal. Slow service and excellent food meant that by the time we made our way to Shelby's, feeling fat and a little drunk on good Spanish Rioja, it was almost 11:00 PM. The place was already packed, and we followed a trio of young women in flowing skirts and loose tank-tops down Indian Point Drive toward the music. Conrad, married for eight years, liked to live vicariously through me as his best and most single friend. He nudged me, and we both watched with tremendous appreciation as the attractive young women walked along in front of us. I didn't put my chances of seducing any of them at much more than zero (mostly because I doubted I'd summon up the courage to try), but it was a pleasant diversion as we ambled down the street.

 

The parked cars clustered close in and around the driveway, crowding into the dark, cave-like canopy of tree branches that arched over the entrance. I could see the house past the cars, twinkling candles set in every window and a dim orange glow emanating from the far side. Conrad and I picked our path through the dozen or so vehicles and made our way to the front door. The three women chose to bypass the house completely and slipped around the side towards the backyard where all the real action was. But we had beer and wine to drop off in the kitchen, so Conrad and I went through the front door, which stood wide open to the night.

 

A shirtless, heavily tattooed man was bent over before the open refrigerator door, removing an enormous watermelon from the freezer compartment. His body gleamed with sweat, and as he turned toward us gave us a two-faced smile – one with his natural-born crooked, gap-toothed grin and the other from the grimacing horned demon tattooed onto his chest. He was older than I'd expected when I saw him from behind, in his forties with the deep tan and carved-from-wood musculature of someone who spends long hours outside working with his hands.

 

“Some party, huh?” he said to us, his crooked teeth flashing dully in the candle light.

 

“We just got here,” said Conrad. “But it seems like it. We brought beer.”

 

“Good on ya, man! Lemme help you with that.” He shifted the watermelon to the kitchen counter, and after some awkward fumbling he took the two six packs and broke them up to make room for them in the crowded refrigerator.

 

“Are you a friend of Shelby's?” I asked him.

 

“Who?” the tattooed man asked in return as he stuffed beer bottles into available nooks.

 

“Shelby. The guy throwing the party.”

 

“Nah, I was just walking by and heard the noise.” He stood and turned towards me, using his belt buckle to pop the cap off a bottle he'd kept for himself. “Then I saw some hot little number heading in here and I decided to follow her. Shit was I surprised when I came 'round back.” He took a swig of beer. “You should see it back there.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a distressingly large knife which he opened with one flick of his wrist. I took a step back as he waved the thing in my general direction, then suddenly plunged the blade into the flesh of the watermelon on the counter. “You guys want some nigger melon?” he asked.

 

“That's OK,” I said, taking another step back. “We just ate.”

 

“Well, nice meeting you guys. Enjoy the party!” the tattooed man said as he turned and walked towards the rear of the house.

 

“Who the hell was that guy?” Conrad asked, pulling on his shirt collar and staring after the man. “We should probably tell Shelby about him.”

 

“Yeah,” I agreed, taking a deep breath to try and calm down a little. I wasn't nearly drunk enough to have some stranger flashing knives in my face.

 

After taking a few moments to let him go on his way without us, we followed the knife man's path down the corridor from the kitchen that led into the backyard. I glanced to my left, and in the flickering candlelight of the living room could make out several small knots of people lounging on the blanket-covered couches and Persian rugged floor. The smell of incense wafted from the room, mixed with quiet murmurs and at least one low moan of pleasure from the small crowd. I could see one topless woman with long hair laid out on a rug face down, a well-muscled man in just loose fitting shorts straddling her back as his hands dug deep into her shoulder muscles. We continued down the hall, decorated with abstract paintings culled from art department gallery shows over the past decade, and then the door to Shelby's bedroom, which was closed and, if he was smart, locked. The sound of the drumming drew us along and I could see the bright bonfire burning in the backyard now. As we stepped out into the heart of the party, I scanned the crowd in a wary search for the knife man, but there was so much else to see I could scarcely take it all in.

 

Shelby's backyard stretched fifty yards into darkness, beyond which I knew was a small, bay-side beach. A large banyan tree rising in a cluster of dense ferns to my left dominated the scene, which had dozens of red Chinese paper lanterns hanging from its tendril-like branches and roots. Even before Shelby's time, the house's student residents had dug a large fire pit in the center of the grass-covered lawn, and now a great bonfire raged in the pit's center, the flames reaching five feet high and releasing a stream of firefly sparks into the night sky. I'd expected to find a ring of drummers encircling the pit, as was usually the case when Shelby held a drum circle, but in this case the musicians had all clustered in one area on the opposite side of the pit from the banyan tree. There were only four of them, but they were as good as drummers get, pounding out a complicated, deep-thrumming rhythm that filled every nook and shadow of the yard with an inescapable beat. I could see perhaps fifty other people, most of them college age or in their early twenties, with a few older folks here and there.

 

But all these details only made a fleeting impression on my subconscious. The dancers held every other part of my attention. There were five of them, two men, three women, swirling around the central fire, naked. They moved with am effortless grace in a dance that seemed highly choreographed because of its intricate movements, but which had the raw energy and passion of spontaneity to it. The dance was blatantly erotic, with the participants rubbing against one another for brief, lustful gropes before spinning away with a twirl and shrug, only to couple again with one of the others. Both men had prominent erections, and the three women gave as much attention to them as they did to each others bodies. It was a striking and, I must admit, an arousing scene that I found more than a little embarrassing. All the more so when I realized that one of the two male dancers was in fact my old childhood friend Shelby. His shoulder length dirty blond hair swept free of its normal ponytail and he twisted and contorted his lithe, swimmer's body to the music. His cock stood out long and hard from a thick patch of light colored pubic hair, and in a trick of the light looked almost like it was of a piece with the famous serpent tattoo that ran up the length of his leg from ankle to hip.

 

“I don't know that I wanted to see that,” Conrad said, although when I glanced over at him his gaze remained fixed on the spectacle with unwavering attention.

 

I turned back to watching as well, saying, “Although there are other sights I don't mind seeing at all.” The three women were each quite attractive and young. College girls I felt sure.

 

“It's like girls gone wild in hippie town,” said Conrad. “If only we had a camera.”

 

“Lauren would love that.”

 

“Lauren would probably enjoy watching it as much as you and me, but she'd lay me flat first for not getting signed consent forms from them all first,” Conrad breaking his gaze away from the scene to grin at me.

 

“Too bad she couldn't come and see this for...” I started to say, and then stopped, my sentence forgotten as the erotic tableau around the fire went from suggestive to explicit. That sight might well have been beyond even Conrad's wife's liberal limits.

 

“Damn...” said Conrad, the tip of his tongue running along his front teeth. “What the hell have we walked into?”

 

Two of the women had all but stopped dancing and stood in a tight embrace, kissing deep and running hands over sweaty bodies as their hips swayed against one another to the music. Shelby's spinning dancing took him into orbit around the entwined pair and after a few quick circles he joined in, pressing against the rear of the taller of the two and sliding his hands over their bodies. They seemed to appreciate the attention. Across the bonfire from them, the remaining two dancers had found one another as well, and the man was on his knees before the woman, pushing his face up in between her legs while she ran her fingers through his dreadlock bound blond hair. I'd never seen two people having sex in front of me before (discounting computer monitors and TV screens), let alone five. Despite the rising embarrassment, it wasn't something I could – or wanted to – turn away from.

 

Conrad and I stood and watched for something more than a moment or two or three, beers warming in our hands, while a few of the other party goers began to take their cues from dancers. I could see shirts being pulled over heads and skirts unwinding and falling to the ground in several places around the fire. I shifted uncomfortably where I stood and looked around for someplace to sit and hide the signs of arousal my body was betraying.

 

“We should've come early,” Conrad said with a nudge. “You could have found a friend for yourself.”

 

“I'm a little old for this crowd,” I said, although I wondered if Conrad was right and now wished we hadn't lingered over dinner.

 

“Thirty-five's not that old.” He gave me a playful jab to the shoulder. “Besides, it doesn't seem to be stopping Shelby.”

 

“There are all kinds of things that don't stop Shelby that would stop me.” I felt warm and flush and maybe even slightly woozy from the overstimulation.

 

“You and me both,” Conrad agreed, taking a swig from his beer and watching as one of the women worked her mouth down Shelby's body. “Not that I wouldn't trade places with him in an instant right now if I weren't married. Damn...”

 

We found a place on a stone bench under the banyan tree after an amorous couple too shy to be exhibitionists but too horny to wait abandoned it and disappeared around the other side of the house. Shelby and his fellow dancers had switched positions and partners while we relocated, and the drummers were beating an even more furious beat.

 

A few yards to our left a woman wearing just a pair of what looked like bathing suit bottoms, or possibly panties danced in a style I categorized as Balinese, her wrists flexing and elbows jutting in ways that would make me and most others look awkward, but which she made elegant and seductive. She caught us both looking, and threw a coquettish smile our way. Conrad grinned back at her and nodded. I managed a smile too and kept myself from looking away in embarrassment at being caught peeping. Not that it was peeping. Not at this party.

 

She snaked over to us, head bobbing between her upraised arms with the music, still smiling, still topless. Conrad beckoned her over and said something to her I couldn't hear over the drumming. She bent down to move her ear closer to his mouth. She listened then laughed. She moved closer to Conrad, almost rubbing up against him. He leaned back in a way to suggest that he was avoiding the contact without in any way actually avoiding anything. Then she was rubbing against him and he whispered in her ear once more, his tongue flicking out and not quite licking her earlobe. She turned and smiled at me. Then she started to move my way.

 

Now it was my turn to lean back, opening my legs wider as she moved between them, dancing that hypnotizing, swaying, Balinese pattern again. They were panties, dark green, no lace. I felt hot, beer drenched breath in my ear. “You're welcome,” Conrad said. And I silently thanked him. If it were the old days and him still single, this wouldn't be happening. But he he'd hung up his spurs (with some regret no doubt) and all that he had left was to play my occasional wingman. It had never worked out this well for me before though. Not even close. The woman was close now, smiling eyes looking me up and down and only glancing back at Conrad once. We weren't too late after all it seemed.

 

I wondered just how far things were going to go when Conrad grabbed my wrist in a vice-like grip. “What's going on over there?” he asked, pointing across the fire. I saw a flash of movement that was decidedly un-erotic. A body falling much too fast to the ground in the shadows. When I spotted the mangled, partially eaten watermelon on the ground nearby the source of movement, I jumped to my feet to get a better look. My new friend might have thought I was getting ready to join her, and she spun away towards the shadows, a beckoning hand trailing towards me, but I was focused on whatever was happening over there.

 

“I think that's...” I started to say, but Conrad was way ahead of me, and was already making his way past the copulating bodies towards the other side of the fire. I followed close behind.

As we circled around the blaze, I saw a flash of reflected light in the darkness under a palm tree where two or three figures were moving in the shadows. Conrad leaped forward at the flash, sprinting the twenty or thirty feet to the base of the tree where he disappeared into the shadows. After a moment's startled surprise I chased after him just as the yelling started.

 

It was the knife wielding man from the kitchen, who sat astride a half-naked young woman with his blade in his hand. The girl looked frightened, but had a dirty rag or sock stuffed in her mouth that prevented her from shouting for help. Conrad was looming over the two of them, but hadn't moved within arm's reach of the man, no doubt fearing the knife as much as I did. I glanced around, but everyone nearby was too swept up in their own carnality to realize what was going on.

 

“Get your own,” the man snarled at Conrad.

 

“Come on, man, leave her alone,” Conrad said, his voice calmer than mine would've been. “Just leave her be and take off and we won't call the cops.”

 

“No reason for that...” the man said, looking down and grinning at the woman. “She likes it. No harm being done here.” His victim's pleading eyes and shaking head said otherwise.

 

“Just leave her be. Then we won't have to call the cops ...” I took Conrad's hint this time and started to back away from the trio and draw my cell phone from my pocket.

 

“Anyone calls the cops,” the knife wielder slurred, “And someone's like to get cut...”

 

“No one's calling the police,” Conrad soothed. “You just need to...”

 

“Oh I know what I need to do. I need to get me some college girl pussy right here. That's what I need to do...”

 

I had the phone out now and was dialing 911 when I felt a hand on my wrist. It was Shelby, naked, standing beside me. “I'll take care of this,” he whispered in my ear.

 

Shelby, his erection still stiff as a board and leading the way, continued past me and walked straight up to where the knife wielder held the girl. Both Conrad and the would-be rapist looked at him in surprise.

 

“What the fuck? Get that fucking dick out of my face before I cut...” the man started to say, before Shelby's right hand slashed out and with a powerful blow that slapped the knife from his hand, sending it spinning off into the darkness. Before the disarmed man could express more than surprise, Shelby tackled him, tearing the bastard off the woman and rolling into the grass beyond. She kicked out at him as he fell off, tearing divots in the grass as she pushed herself away from the fray and to her feet.

There was a scramble, and Shelby somehow maneuvered his yoga-toned, nude body around behind the other man's and sunk a deep hold around his neck. The man gurgled and choked, clawing at Shelby's forearm and then, as blood flow to his brain cut off, he passed out. Shelby applied the submission for a few more seconds just to be sure and then rolled out from under the man and let him collapse to the ground in a heap.

 

Conrad rushed over to the young woman. She'd spat out the balled up sock from her mouth and was sobbing and cursing the “fucking shit-eating bastard” who'd tried to rape her. Conrad removed his shirt and offered it to her to cover herself up and she took it with a tearful nod. I looked back to Shelby, who still had a raging erection much to my surprise, and saw him standing over the rapist. I was about to go try and find the knife in the darkness when he called out to me.

 

“Rick,” he said. “I need your belt.”

 

“Why?”

 

“To tie him up.”

 

“Umm, sure.” I started to undo my black leather belt. “Do you want me to call the cops now?” I asked as I handed it to him.

 

“I do not,” he said, leaning down and rolling the unconscious man onto his stomach and pulling his hands behind his back. “I can't have cops here right now. Look around you man.”

 

I did look around and, despite all the commotion we'd caused, no one seemed to be paying us any attention. The two couples by the fire continued to, well, couple, and beyond them I saw others groups of twos and threes and fours doing the same. And those that weren't were passing around joints and pipes that I knew probably contained high quality marijuana. Odds were, there were some hallucinogenic mushrooms being consumed out there too, maybe some LSD. The cops would have plenty of arrests to make if they wanted.

 

“We could clear everyone out first,” I suggested.

 

“Or we could take care of it ourselves,” Shelby said, standing up

 

“Take care of it how?” I asked, uncomfortable as hell with the idea. This wasn't some little fight or drunken altercation. We were talking attempted rape here. Or worse.

 

“Let me think for a minute,” Shelby said. He looked over to where Conrad was still comforting the woman, who was now wearing his shirt. “I need to talk to her, make sure she's cool. Keep on eye on this fucker, ok?”

 

I stood and watched as he stepped over and relieved Conrad of his comforting duties. The girl seemed to know, or at least recognize Shelby, and seemed willing enough to talk to him. Shelby leaned over to Conrad, whispering in his ear. Conrad stood up and retreated to where I was standing guard over the knife man.

 

“Is she OK?” I asked.

 

“I think so. I hope so. He'd only been after her for a minute or less when we came over and broke things up. She's pretty shook up, but he didn't have time to really hurt her, thank God.” Conrad looked down at the attacker and nudged him in the ribs with his foot. “The cops are on their way?”

 

“Shelby wants to keep them out of it, which seems...”

 

“Pretty fucking insane!” Conrad yelled, but the drums drowned him out. “How can we not call the cops? This guys a fucking rapist menace!”

 

“I think he's afraid of what'll happen to his other guests.” I waved a hand towards the rest of the party.

 

“And to him, what with all the drugs and sex and stuff.”

 

Conrad looked around. “Yeah, well, that's too bad. The rest of these hippie college kids getting their rocks off and toking up aren't very important compared to seeing someone like this behind bars.”

I agreed, but neither of us moved to call 911 on our cell phones. Instead we stood in smoldering, angry silence, our gaze shifting between Shelby and the girl, who were in earnest conversation, and the rest of what could only be described as an orgy at this point. I felt some pang of regret at missing out on participating in my first real orgy, and for a wistful moment wondered what my Balinese dancer friend's name was. The woman we'd helped save was angry, her arms cutting arcs through the night, but Shelby seemed to calm her down. After about five minutes, a voluptuous but fully clothed dark-haired woman appeared at the victim's side in response to Shelby's call. She escorted the grim-faced victim back towards the house while Shelby came over to us.

 

“He's still out of it, huh?” Shelby asked, pointing with his chin towards the knife man. “That's kind of a surprise. He must be on something.”

 

“We need to call the police,” Conrad insisted.

 

“That's up to Genevieve,” said Shelby in a calm, quiet voice. “She's the one who got attacked and right now she's OK with us handling it.”

 

“And what the hell can we do about it?” Conrad moved towards Shelby, his face aggressively close.

 

“When I say we, I mean me and my house mates.” Shelby stepped forward too, and when his penis brushed Conrad's hip, Conrad, stepped back in surprise. “No need for you two to get involved.”

 

“We are involved,” Conrad said, even as he backed away another step.

 

“You saved her and she's grateful for that. I'm grateful for that. But you have to let me handle this now, OK? I've agreed with Gen on a punishment. She's a friend of mine and she doesn't want the cops busting this celebration up any more than I do. Just leave it be, all right? It's not your problem anymore.”

Conrad was about to say something but two more men approached our little group in the darkness. I recognized one of them as Shelby's fellow fire dancer. He was naked, like Shelby, and although his erection had at least subsided as he snapped off a condom and tossed it into fire, he'd obviously had his fun. The other man, a heavyset fellow with bodybuilder arms and chest, and a beer drinker's gut, wore shorts and a tank top. Shelby stepped aside to give them access to the knife man and they bent down to pick him up.

 

“Where are you taking him?” I asked.

 

“Inside,” Shelby replied. Then to the two men he said, “Up into the spare room. Kick out anyone who might be using it.”

 

After the two had carried away their captive, Shelby turned back to us.

 

“What are you going to do with him?” Conrad demanded.

 

“I'm having Benji tattoo the word 'RAPIST' in six inch high letters on his stomach and ass,” Shelby said with a malicious grin.

 

“No, really, what are you...?”

 

“No, really,” interrupted Shelby. “That's exactly what we're going to do.”

 

“You can't...”

 

“That's what he is, isn't it? He's a rapist. Or at least he wants to be. And now everyone will know.”

 

I looked at Shelby as he stood there, his eyes wild, his penis still shockingly erect and realized that he was certainly high on something and not in a place to be dealt with logically. The adrenaline of the dance and the sex and the fight had amped him up to the heights of excitement, mixing with whatever other substances he'd ingested to produce a kind of mania in him. He might sound coldly logical, but inside I suspected his brain burned with incoherent urges and thoughts.

 

“Maybe we should just go,” I said to Conrad. He turned to me and stared in surprise.

 

“Why go, Rick?” asked Shelby. “You've hardly had a chance to join the fun. I know at least two or three young things who'd love to spend some time with a man of letters like your self. You too Conrad, assuming you've got Lauren's permission to play.”

 

Conrad shot Shelby a withering glance and then turned on his heel and headed back towards the house. “I'm going to make sure that girl's OK, and then I'm leaving,” he said.

 

“Suit your self,” Shelby said with a laugh. “What about you, Rick? Are you sure you won't join us?”

 

I looked around at the intertwined bodies, watching a woman ride a man bucking underneath her while a second man suckled on her left breast. “No...I don't think so.” I turned away and followed Conrad into the house. I looked back just before I walked through the back door and saw that Shelby was already back with the two women he'd abandoned earlier, as if nothing had happened. I shook my head in amazement and went inside.