19 - Wolffe Wife

"As I'm sure many of you have picked up on, the stories of Dagon's Hollow—both the cave and the town—are generational. Sure, we got some one-off craziness," Latoya smiled at that, as she leaned against Leroy's shoulder, one arm stretching out to grab another candle. "But this place has history. People carry it with them. Which is what happened in the story of the...

WOLFFE WIFE

Prohibition came into Dagon's Hollow near the end of the war. The brewery shuttered, putting people out of work. The economic depression that settled over the town was the beginning of a rough decade—but not for everyone. The Wolffe family had money enough to build the new house, which still stands there today.

Juan Guzman was a truck driver, with Dagon's Hollow on his regular route. He had been sweet on the youngest of the Wolffe daughters, Maria, since the first time they he had seen her at the soda counter of Wolffe's **** Store on Main St. He had bought her a Coca Cola. She had spiked it with something from a flask.

Was it love, or just infatuation? The matriarch of the family, old Mother Wolffe, didn't seem to mind her youngest's choice. If the marriage was a bit rushed, well, that was no surprise in the 1920s. It was more respectable for Maria Wolffe to be a young wife than a flapper with a baby bump. In truth, the only strangeness in the union was that Maria kept her family name. Perhaps because Juan's new in-laws built a house for the new couple was within sight of the main house, as if Mother Wolffe could keep a close eye on her youngest, especially when Juan was away.

As he was frequently.

Juan never told her who he was working for, exactly, though Maria had reason to guess that it wasn't a normal shipping company. There was the revolver her always carried, for one thing; and the bottle of Canadian rye he always seemed to have on hand, the money that was always in cash, never a check of bank account. For that matter, Juan never asked where the Wolffe family got their money, besides the **** store in town. Or why there was always good corn whiskey available at the dinners in the big house, or why cars sometimes pulled up right to the mouth of the cave.

It was on that mutual understanding of not asking too many questions that their marriage was built.

Every time he went away, Juan would bring back a little present for his young bride, her waist a little thicker each week away. St. Louis, Chicago, down to Texas sometimes. He would bring her back little gifts. A box of chocolates. An erotic novel they could read together in bed. A new dress. A pair of steel handcuffs. A rubber ball gag. An electric massager, so she wouldn't be so lonely without him.

Juan liked to watch her. He would sit in the big chair by the open window, which let the breeze in, and watch his wife with her swollen stomach and sore breasts, running the vibrator over her hairy muff. There was something about Maria's naked body that fascinated him. Something about the way the bones sat under the skin. The vestigial sixth toes on each foot, a Wolffe family trait. Those bright blue eyes that locked on his as her hips bucked against the buzzing massager. Sweat poured down them both during those summer nights, and from somewhere in the direction of the cave came that soft howl of a coyote or dog.

Then, one day when Maria was late in her eighth month, he brought back a baby. There was blood on his shirt, and a haunted look in his eye. Maria accepted the lie about a sister who had died in childbirth, but the other Wolffe women noticed the bullet holes in Juan's truck, as they had noticed the lipstick on his collar, the empty boxes of prophylactics in the glove box.

It was night when Juan snuck out of the house. A snub-nosed .38 special in one hand, a bag in another. He skirted the barbed-wire fence that ran around the Wolffe property in those days, and went through the family graveyard—the cast-iron gate didn't squeak, after a few drops of oil, and there were no barbs to tear at his clothes.

The big house was dark. Juan had a flashlight with him, but dared not use it. Not until he came to the cave itself. Bag and flashlight in one hand, the revolver in the other. He saw those strange paintings on the walls and ceilings. The earth hard-packed from the many feet that had passed this way. The cave sloped down and twisted to the right in a slow spiral. Juan's clothes were sticky, but he kept going as he lost sight of the world above. Aware that the paintings on the wall were growing more elaborate. That here and there, human bones had been heaped in strange little piles, the skulls on top.

There was a breeze from below. Juan could feel it on his face. It reminded him of the smell when he went down on Maria, burying his face in her hairy twat, tongue working in and out and around. Then he heard the howl through the cave. A low, plaintive sound that raised the hairs on his neck. Immediately, his flashlight winked out. He froze in place, panting, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

So Juan never saw what knocked the gun out of his hand. Only the long, six-toed feet that closed on his neck. He strained and struggled in the dark. The tips of his toes left the dirt floor of Dagon's Hollow. He beat the metal flashlight against the toes...and then went limp.

A splash of water in his face brought Juan back to consciousness. The handcuffs he'd gifted Maria were on his wrists, the chain fed through a thick iron loop set in the wall. The ball-gag in his mouth had been another gift, something they'd intended to use but never had. Juan was naked, on a wide double bed which he recognized as the guest bedroom they'd set up in the basement of his own house. Maria stood there, the baby in her arms, her distended abdomen tending the front of the dress he had bought her. Mother Wolffe, silver-haired and blue-eyed, stood at the foot of the bed...and to her left...

Juan couldn't scream. The pale, shaggy thing with the blue eyes and rows of teats was hunched. It's strange flat nose twitched. He watched, with growing horror, as the pale nipples on its body swelled and hardened.

"You needn't worry about the baby, Juan. We'll raise him as one of our own," Mother Wolffe said. "In fact, we rather do need some fresh blood in the family. You can still be of great help to us in that regard."

Maria grinned as the white horror moved toward the bed. It creaked beneath the weight. She watched as against his will, Juan grew hard...and then the lower body descended, engulfed him. A pale tail whipped back and forth happily as it began to move.

It was her turn to watch.

Latoya sighed. "They buried him in the family cemetery. Many years later. He and Maria had five children together. And as for his other children...well. As I said, the story of Dagon's Hollow is a generational one. They are far from done."

With that, Leroy leaned over and blew out the candle.