Putnam Ch 05

Sheriff Jacob Creech might been born in the dark, but it wasn't last night. Days without a rape were something he cherished at this point but he knew that day two weeks ago that Angela was just in a better position to deny it then most.

Truth is, he had just breathed a real sigh of relief when he saw Angela walking bow legged the next day. That by itself would of gotten written off maybe, but then the news of Doc Stevens fatal heart attack in his office hit town. Angela's reaction was one of depression and grief, yes - but Doc Stevens was her boss, her mentor, and as far as Jacob knew he was like a father for Angela. She seemed to be, and probably was, bummed out that Doc had died but actually sad about it? Maybe a little, but nowhere near as sad as she should of been.

She's still helping him with this case, sort of - but he knows he can't trust her. This goat-rapist guy got her too, and whatever he was doing to the other women he did to her too. Oh sure, when he talks to them or is in earshot when Angela talks to them about what's happened to them they'll sound depressed and sad, some even manage a few tears for his benefit, but - as he said - he may of been born in the dark but it wasn't last night. He's played enough poker to catch on when someone is bluffing.

Three Weeks since Natalia and he felt like his town was under siege. Unofficially, he's been dropping hints for women to lock their doors, get weapons, learn how to defend themselves but it doesn't seem to matter. 21 days later and all they've got to show for it is 17 raped neighbors, and the most aggravating part was that not one of those ladies has even hinted that they're willing to file a report or press charges. Sure, when he talked to them about it they'll sound hurt but he doubted that traumatized victims of a brutal rapist turned around and immediately made plans to have the resulting babies as a rule.

The pregnancies, Jesus! Angela was keeping him up to date with that, who knows why. Maybe this thing likes bragging about it, he didn't know. He just knew that according to Angela of the 17 victims you could probably count the ones that didn't get knocked up on one hand - Angela herself included among the new moms-to-be. Like clockwork, they'd talk horrified at the idea of having their rapist's baby but then a week later they were having doctor's appointments and talking about diapers and cribs. One or two, he could buy seriously planning to have their rapist's baby - but all of them?

What was this guy doing to these women? Well, if this thing was expecting everyone to be docile while it worked its way though the womenfolk of Putnam, it had another thought coming. He was going to stop this thing, by God - he was going to stop him. He couldn't trust Angela, that was for certain. When she wasn't around he'd get out a map of the county and was using stickers to mark out what he knew about the 17 attacks and counting, from Natalia's rape in Heavenly Kingdom Park all the way to the latest - Ellen Sachs, just inside the front doors of the library last night.

When he made the map he'd noticed instantly that over half of the rapes were either in Heavenly Kingdom Park or within about a mile. For the past week-and-a-half he's spent every available moment in the park with a rifle, trying to end this. Nothing, not even a trace of the man with horns. Today he thought he'd try a different track first, seeing if he can find something about the horns that he could use.

"I'm sorry Dr. Swain, but this is a delicate situation and I'm running out of ideas. Is there anything else you could find out from all the semen samples we've been giving you. Anything at all? Something that could explain the horns, maybe?"

Dr. Alice Swain shrugs while Dr. Richard Panson stands in the doorway, scratching his scalp under his trilby hat as he joins in on the shrug, "I'm sorry Sheriff, but so little is known about the human genome that I don't know anything that could explain the horns. A mutation, maybe? I can't think of any human ancestors that would of had horns - nothing about that would help you."

Sheriff Creech is no less frustrated by that as he pulls out Julie's drawing and lays it out on a lab table, the light catching his aged beard is clearly stubble and he probably could of stood to get more sleep. Especially at his age.

"THAT is what these women describe when you ask about what attacked them. What could do that to a man? Or all they all hallucinating and happening to come up with the same thing? Is that even possible?"

Dr. Swain gives the picture a quick looking over and hands it back to him.

"Looks kind of like a Satyr."

"A what?"

"A monster, from Greek Mythology." Dr. Panson speaks up from the doorway as he stands straight up from leaning on it, "Kind of like Sasquatch, but Hornier if I recall correctly."

And in his exhausted, stressed, and desperate state Jacob Creech considers that some sort of progress. Maybe it was a Satyr, maybe it was a nutjob obsessed with them - something to go on.

"Know anyone who could tell me more about these things?"

Drs. Panson and Swain look between each other and eventually shrug, "Alison Nunn teaches the Comparative Religions and Mythology classes, her office is in the other building on the 4th floor."

"Great, you've been a big help." Sheriff Creech responds, heading out immediately toward the closest thing he's had to a lead in weeks, and even he catches just how sad it is that its a story from Greek Mythology. Still, maybe this was a crazy person obsessed with Satyrs - might give him a clue of something to do.

Alison Nunn office was pretty much the opposite of the Sheriff's, like she was. The blonde's office was absolutely cluttered with idols and symbols of gods and spirits whose worshippers all died long ago, it was hard to imagine finding anything in there. But she was young yet, with short hair tied back as she typed away at a paper in a casual t-shirt and jeans while the old Sheriff was in his uniform and looking ragged for it.

"Miss Nunn?"

"Sheriff Creech! Hello! Want some Gum?"

"Much obliged, but I was wondering if I could ask you about something."

"I'm not in trouble, am I?"

"Far from it, I need your help. What can you tell me about this?" he asks, showing the drawing. Alison takes Julie's drawing and looks up with a raised eyebrow but nods, putting the drawing down as she got back to work on her paper.

"A Satyr. Legend says they were wild men who served the gods while rejecting civilization to live lives based on their more animal drives. Usually in service of Dionysus, the God of Wine and Celebration, or Pan, the God of Nature and the Wild Places. Sometimes considered to be minor gods of male fertility in their own right."

"So what kind of things did they do? Like to Women?" he asks bluntly, and Alison pauses before she answers and looks at Jacob like he's gone insane for a second there.

"The Ancient Greeks were advanced in many ways, but their treatment and attitudes towards women weren't among them. Satyrs were wild and horny men. In some stories they were said to be so charming and seductive that Greek men were to be warned to keep their wives and daughters under control, as they wouldn't be able to control themselves. In other stories, they had supernatural sexual appeal - we'd say they got women to sleep with them by mind control. And in still other stories, we'd say they just chased women down and raped them when the mood struck."

"And they were considered servants of the Gods?"

"Like I said, Ancient Greek attitudes toward women weren't the most enlightened. The Ancient Greeks believed that in some circumstances Rape was considered perfectly acceptable behavior, and a big one was if Gods were involved. In the original stories, the Medusa was a cursed priestess of Athena who had been raped by the God Poseidon. She complained before the Gods, but the Gods not only flat out told her that Rape was okay when it was Divine on Mortal but Athena used it as evidence that she'd broken her Vow of Chastity and turned her into a monster for it. Keep in mind that in much of Ancient Greece rape was considered a crime against the woman's husband or father - or in the case of a priestess her deity - not the woman herself. In quite a few areas, it was actually considered a worse crime to seduce a married woman then it was to rape her - because they knew for the second at least she didn't want to see him again. So if you were a farmer whose wife got pregnant because a Satyr raped her, you were supposed to take it as a compliment to her beauty and fertility."

In a fevered way, it feels like he's made some sort of breakthrough. Sure, these were just stories - but what was happening in Putnam sounded a lot like one of those old stories.

"So, how do you kill or capture one of these Satyrs? In the stories, I mean."

Okay, this was kind of weird to say the least, Alison goes from just a raised eyebrow to a nervous look.

"You didn't have too. Most Satyrs were just men, transformed a bit by the Gods to reflect the inner natures they embraced. They got old and could be killed just like a normal man could, just were harder to find is all."

"Only Most?" he asks, but holding back the real worry in his head. So if this thing was a Satyr - and Satyr's were just transformed normal men, does that mean this thing working its way through the women of Putnam was intelligent?

"Pan was also considered the God of Male Fertility and the Patron God of Satyrs. He even looked like a Satyr himself. In the legends, he was pretty much sexually irresistible to both genders. If he had sex with something female, from animals to mortal women all the way up to goddesses, they pretty much always got pregnant. In the case of Mortal Women, the babies were all male demigods called Panes. Demigods always have a chance to inherent the immortality of their divine parent, and with Panes there was a chance he would just be born a Satyr instead of having to dedicate his existence to the Gods."

"Thank you," Jacob replies, visibly shaken. So, if the old stories were true and if he was dealing with a Panes-Satyr in this time, what's that mean about how he got to be that old?

He refuses to think about it and tries to shut out the idea that maybe, just maybe, the impossible rapist he was dealing with was a holdover from Ancient Greece that was still around because he wasn't just a Satyr but the Son of a Pagan God, and himself Immortal to boot. No, that wasn't something he was going to consider. Jacob was a church-man anyway, the only God that exists died on the cross for him. Yes, best to just forget about this idea entirely.

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Alison Nunn would still be in her office typing away at that paper at 8:30 PM and nursing the result of her only break, a sandwich from a fast food chain, when she got her visitor. The man in khaki pants and, a polo shirt, and a trilby hat snickers as he knocks on her door and she looks up with a smile.

"Hey, you! How are things down in the Sciences?"

"Slow, not many students want to take a lab science course over the summer. The Dean even cancelled all the summer Chemistry classes from lack of students." Dr. Panson says as he steps inside and shuts the door with a smirk, "I'm pretty sure I've told you that already."

Alison smiles and looks up from her seat, clicking to save her work, "That's right, you did. Sorry, I was a bit distracted."

"Oh really? Whatever could of you been distracted by?" Richard chuckles as he steps hits the light-switch and steps toward the Mythology instructor, and instantly the only light getting into Alison's office becoming a sliver coming in from the window in her door.

Alison giggles, shutting off her computer monitor then slipping out of her seat onto her knees facing back toward it and allowing Dr. Panson to take the seat of "honor". It was funny, when she first heard about the things Dr. Panson was doing with large swathes of the female staff and faculty she remembers feeling disgusted at the lack of professionalism and outright revulsed when the rumors that he was doing them with students as well reached her. Up until the moment he started offering to do them with her as well, and showed what he "brought to the table".

When he's sat down and comfortable, she reaches forward and unzips his pants to reach for the prize inside. "Pornstar Panson" indeed!

"Same deal?" she asks before she really gets started.

"If you can deep throat me, we go back to your place and I let you tie me up. If you can't, my spot in the Park and I'm the alpha dog." he chuckles as she moves her hands up and down him to really get him started. He leans back, and smiles.