Sex-crazed stallion

CHAPTER SIX

Lucus Simpson stood on his porch, a feeling of unexpected calm settling onto him like the dusk spreading over the lawn.

He watched the strange procession emerge from the woods, and though he knew nothing of whatever the specific facts would turn out to be, fingers reach up from the dark mists of his past and caressed him with their familiar touch of malice.

Again and again this scene had played itself through his dreams, with variations but leading always to this exact point, this moment surrounding him now…

Their self contained world had been broken. They had been, until now, a singular entity, like a cell, all life functions reduced to their simplest form, existing purely for the continuity of their survival.

A cell. One that had at last been invaded. Lucus had no delusions about the figures crossing his lawn, his daughter among them. They were a virus, an infection that had to be attacked at once, destroyed before the damage compounded itself.

The question in his mind was whether or not he at last had the strength. For too long he had played the game of lying to himself, of pretending that the reality he had invented was his only reality. He knew now, that whatever else transpired, he could never again permit himself the luxury of forgetting the past… his senses must remain finely tuned always…

He'd seen Carrie leave again. After lunch, as soon as she thought he had returned to his work. Their confrontation had simply widened the gulf between them, irritated an already open wound. What was he to think of her now? How could he still treat her as one of his own? She had betrayed him, in innocence perhaps, but it was she who had broken the seal of their existence, who had shown the invading disease the way in.

He felt the muscles in his stomach grow tense. Yet the calm stayed with him, clearing his thoughts, amplifying the power of his logic, his reasoning, his whole mind. He would meet this challenge. He would remain intact. He would survive.

Rod sipped his cup of coffee, letting the warm liquid slosh around his throat, savoring the perfect taste of a freshly perked pot. It was a taste he'd prepared himself to do without for the next two weeks. Packets of instant were to have been all that he and Johnny had available. Well, he thought, plans change. They sure as fuck did.

"The leg should be all right, in time," said Dr. Simpson entering the living room. Rod tried to find some clue to the girl in her father's face. There was nothing. A face bleached of all emotion. Calm, professional, polite even… but no human warmth. No sense that he had any interest in them as people at all.

Only a detached scientific curiosity. There was something about him, a sense of a hidden dimension, an unseen depth to the man that Rod could not quite define for himself, yet it lingered, that feeling that somewhere, somehow, he was familiar…

"How long before he can travel on it?" Rod asked the man.

"That is a good question. One, I fear, that has no answer that I find pleasing."

"And why is that, Dr.?"

Rod felt strong animosity in the man's words, in spite of the easy, almost casual way in which they were spoken.

"I would prefer that you had never entered our world. I say this not with malice, but as a simple statement of fact. I have, through my own free will, chosen to withdraw from your world. My daughters and I function quite nicely here. We have had no need for contact with the rest of the world. To put it frankly, you are trespassers. Invaders, if you will."

"But I am a man of medicine, your friend is hurt, I of course shall observe the oath I took when I was first initiated into my select fraternity. But I do not wish your company and I shall look forward eagerly to the moment when you are able to depart."

He spoke this whole time in a voice that was almost friendly, almost casual, but far enough off to show the whole speech as a rather bad act. The man scared Rod, and he couldn't even say why.

"I assure you, Dr. Simpson, we had no desire to stumble into your life. As a matter of fact, when Johnny and I take these trips up here into the mountains, if we go the whole two weeks without seeing a bloody soul, that suits us just fine. We'll be only to glad to get out of your hair. When do you suppose that might be?"

"Well, I could radio for a helicopter to lift him out, were it absolutely essential, which it isn't. There's a chance that the leg would be hurt worse by the vibrations of the flight. Perhaps in a week… till then, of course, you shall be our guests. My daughters and I will do everything we possibly can to make your stay a comfortable one."

He turned to Carrie who had been sitting wordlessly on the couch for the whole conversation. Then he looked over at Sherry, standing in the doorway.

"Girls, why don't you tend to dinner? I have a few things I'd like to discuss with Mr. Barrett alone."

A momentary flicker of annoyance crossed Carrie's features, while it was simply resignation that showed on Sherry's face. Rod caught both reactions. After a moment the girls left the room.

"Mr. Barrett," said Lucus when they were alone, "let me be blunt. I treasure my daughters greatly. They are my single joy in life. Aside from my work. You see, I am engaged in delicate research here, such that I must cleanse my life of all distractions."

"My daughters make it possible for me to exist with a measure of comfort and pleasure added to what would otherwise be a very sterile life."

He paused a moment, almost as if he felt all this an unnecessary annoyance, having to deal with this topic at all.

"Unfortunately, the secluded nature of our world has resulted in a certain innocence when it comes to my daughters' awareness of the world, of the kind of mature adult life taken for granted in your world. I would appreciate it if you took that into consideration during whatever limited contact you may have with them in the next few days. I would of course prefer such contact to be kept to the barest minimum. As I said, we shall make you comfortable. We will not make you welcome."

Rod nodded. He doubted that any statement was desired or needed. The old man had laid his cards on the table and there really wasn't much else to say.

"I assume we understand each other?"

Well, maybe a small statement…

"Dr. Simpson (where had he heard that name before!), I assure you, you have nothing to worry about."

Lucus gave him a single nod of his head.

"I know," he said, rose and left the room. Well, what the fuck! thought Rod, finishing the rest of his coffee. If that wasn't the strangest damn thing he'd ever encountered.

What the hell was that old buzzard's problem anyway? Every sensor in Rod's brain was tingling. Every warning buzzer and bell was screaming, the console of his brain was a mass of red warning lights.

Face it, he told himself, the man simply didn't appear rational. No way! The way his eyes would keep darting to your shoulder like you had a parrot sitting there or something, then quick jump back to see if you were still looking at him and quickly darting away again when he saw that you were.

The way his fingers kept weaving in and out of each other with a steady rhythm, and his left foot kept tapping at a tempo totally unrelated to his fingers. There was a lot of tension in the man. More than he could bare to let come to the surface.

He looked around the room in which he found himself. Surprisingly comfortable, yet lacking anything that suggested contact with the outside world, at least as it had developed within recent memory.

There was, of course, no television. But also missing were magazines of any sort and newspapers… nor were there any gadgets to speak of… it was a very simple looking lifestyle that resulted in this room.

He walked over to the bookshelves. Pulling several books a random he saw that there were none with copyrights more recent than twenty or twenty-five years ago.

He hadn't been kidding when he said that they lived an isolated existence. It was a house that time had passed by. A moment frozen, and the old man saw he and Johnny as a serious threat… what had he called them… invaders. Christ! What the hell had they stumbled onto?

"Would you like some more coffee," a female voice asked behind him.

He turned and saw the older sister standing in the doorway, watching him with a neutral expression.

"Certainly. It tastes pretty good after that instant crap we were drinking over the campfire."

She smiled thinly as she picked up his cup and carried it into the next room.

OK, thought Rod, if that's the way you want it, that's OK, by me. Don't want to go upsetting anyone's apple cart, do we?

She returned with his coffee.

"We'll be eating dinner around six-thirty. Father likes it early so he can get work done in the evening. Perhaps you'd like to rest till then?"

"Oh, no that's all right. I'll tell you what though, I sure could use a shower. I feel like a real grit after being out in the wilds like that. It's OK if you know you're going to stay there, but around folks as refined as you all, I'd sort of like to get cleaned up."

Again a thin, polite smile, a nod of acknowledgment and she led him to the bathroom, showed him where the towels were, and then showed him where he would be staying.

"Father has an extra cot that I'll put in here. It should be satisfactory."

Rod thanked her, but she made no response. Damn! he thought, and so beautiful too. Somehow though, he doubted her capable of the scene he'd witnessed today in the fields. What an incredible difference for them being sisters. About the only similarity was the delicious shape of their bodies.

Rod had to admit he was in a dither. Everything he'd encountered so far told him that there was something as screwy as could possibly he going on here, and he really didn't want to explore too much. Keep away from the bushes, you avoid snake bites. That was one of the little axioms he'd always carried with him when he went into the wilderness and it seemed apt here.

But his reporter's instincts were alerted. Why, why, why, did that crazy senile old doctor seem so… not exactly familiar. More like someone he'd once heard of…

He thought about it. Assuming he'd taken off into the mountains around twenty years ago… hell, Rod would have been eight, maybe ten or twelve at the very oldest. Not surprising that the bells weren't ringing too clearly.

Still, they were ringing. Lucus Simpson was somebody, and he was hiding out. It was as simple as that. There was absolutely no reason to suspect that to be the case. Nonetheless, Rod would have bet his job on it. Whether or not what he was hiding out from was anything serious, that was another question. But there was no doubt he considered it serious. Serious enough to be nervous when they'd walked up to his back doorstep. Serious enough to try to keep the entire world away for almost two decades…

Face it, that was fucking off the wall. The amazing thing wasn't that he'd tried, but that he'd succeeded. It hardly seemed possible. How did they eat. How did they survive?