The Devil's Touch Read Online Free PDF Page A

touch of approaching winter cooling the morning air. It was a morning for woolen skirts and shirts; the type of fall morning that makes a hearty breakfast more appealing to the palate. Steam colored the air white at the expulsion of breath. Kids jumped and ran and played in the coolness of this Saturday morning in upstate New York. People busied themselves raking up the multicolored leaves that fell in profusion, painting the landscape a joyous color of bronze and gold and green and red.
    But for most of the people in Logandale, the acts were superficial, disguising the evil that lay bubbling just under the human surface. The evil that blanketed the area would soon burst forth, showering all who came close with its stinking pus of depravity.
    And … it was also the Saturday morning that Judith Mayberry found young Marie Fowler hanging upside down in the apple grove behind her house. Hanging by her ankles. Marie was naked. Or perhaps it would be better to say what was left of Marie who was naked. Certain parts of her anatomy had been quite crudely hacked off. Definitely not the work of a skilled surgeon.
    Judith, when she recovered from her fainting, thought she'd better call the police. She was not conscious of eyes watching her movements from the homes around her. Eyes that contained evil in its blackest form. Judith was on her way to the house when she heard the low growl behind her. Judith Mayberry turned around for the last time—in her human form—and froze rock-still in shock.
    She dropped the basket of late-blooming wild flowers she had just picked to decorate her kitchen table.
    She opened her mouth to shriek out her fright when a pawlike hand clamped around her left ankle and jerked. Another pawlike hand dropped over her mouth, stilling her yet unleashed howl of terror. She was dragged to a thicket that ran on the north side of the orchard and pulled down into the earth through a hole she never knew existed. When Judith came to her senses she was naked and cold and wished she were dead.
    She soon would be. Sort of.
    Judith was thirty-six years old, and while no one would ever call her beautiful, she was attractive, with long legs and full breasts. The attractive part of her was about to undergo a drastic metamorphosis. She sat on the cold rocky floor of the cave, or tunnel, or whatever the hell it was—she wasn't certain—and looked at the Beasts who sat squatting, looking at her.
    She had never seen such horrible-looking creatures in all her life. Not even in the movies.
    An old Beast—one might call him a silver-back—grunted a command. Two younger Beasts seized Judith and forced her to a knees-and-hands position, her buttocks elevated.
    The old silver-back then mounted her.
    Judith began screaming out her pain and outrage.
    The old Beast bit her on the neck several times as he mated with her.
    When the sex act was over, Judith was allowed to crawl into a corner of the huge cave room and huddle in pain and shock. After only a very short time, Judith wondered why she was suddenly getting warmer. She looked at the back of her hands. Thick coarse hair was sprouting, not just on the back of her hands but all over her body.
    Her face, especially her jaw, was beginning to ache. Her teeth felt odd to her. She ran her tongue over her teeth and found they were fanged. And now, as the rapid change spread over her entire body, it did not seem odd to her. Her jaw swelled to accommodate the new growth of teeth.
    Several of the Beasts were talking, and Judith found she could understand them. She crawled over to them and they welcomed her.
    She was one with them.
    She tossed her head, glad of her new strength and body. One earring gleamed dully in the gloom of the cave room, as it remained pierced in place.
    All that was left of the woman once known as Judith Mayberry.
    "Sam?" Nydia called to him on this glorious Saturday morning.
    The two of them were working out in the yard; more specifically, working by the fence that