[18+] 1953. Hard-boiled Detective Spade is hired to investigate a cult that worships an ancient god, only to discover the myth is anything but.

Today’s story is the first of two parts of “Followers of the Jackal” by Domus Vocis, who has an addiction to electro swing music and bad fanfiction, and published his debut novel “The Adventures of Peter Gray” in 2018. You can also find more of his stories on Patreon or DeviantArt.

Today’s story will be read for you by Crimson Ruari, the Mountain Smith.

This week's two-parter is an adult story for mature listeners.

If that's not your cup of tea,

or there are youngsters listening,

you can skip these

and there'll be new stories for you next week.

week.You’re listening to The Voice of Dog.

Today’s story is the first of two parts of

“Followers of the Jackal”

by Domus Vocis, who has an addiction to electro swing music and bad fanfiction,

and published his debut novel

“The Adventures of Peter Gray” in 2018.

You can also find more of his stories on Patreon or DeviantArt.

Today’s story will be read for you by Crimson Ruari,

the Mountain Smith.

Please enjoy “Followers of the Jackal”

by Domus Vocis, Part 1

of 2 I always preferred asphalt to alpine trees.

Nothing personal against Mother Nature or anything.

Inner-city life always possessed a...rush,

a claustrophobic ecosystem amidst a

jungle of concrete

that always made me feel at home.

Seeing all of the farmland turn into immense trees and thick greenery,

feeling the asphalt beneath the police cruiser turn into uneven gravel, didn’t disturb me.

What did though was the unnatural quiet that replaced the shouting,

honking cars, distant sirens

and smell of rotting garbage dumpsters that made me miss downtown Milwaukee.

“So, you comfortable?” “Tch.”

I addressed the deputy in the driver’s seat left of me with a single

grunt. “It’s mighty brave of you to go in there all on your own,” he tried initiating a conversation from me. “Those beatnik commies have been bothering us for too long…”

My eyes remained on the winding road ahead of us.

Not on his handsome features such as the emerald eyes, well-toned body

or black wavy hair that belonged more to a farmhand rather than a deputy from some hick town.

The guy, whose badge read

‘Police Officer Jim Martins’, seemed nice enough,

but I preferred to spend my time focusing on what to do once I made it to the compound on the hill.

The last thing I needed to do was listen to his voice.

Or, imagine what Officer Martins looked like underneath his—

I blinked back to reality,

willing myself not to get too distracted.

Between last Friday and the phone call from Kimberton’s Mayor Hill,

another day spent packing my suitcase and taking the next drive from Milwaukee all the way to a town I’d never been to in northern Wisconsin,

I hadn’t gotten any action in bed.

Tommy visited me in the dead of night as planned,

slipping into my apartment and locking the door before dropping to his knees.

The way he feverishly choked down my length,

gasping and slurping on it like the tastiest of hotdogs while locking eyes with mine,

almost caused me to alert the neighbors with whatever noises rose in the back of my throat.

Granted, Tommy and I knew better than to do something like that,

but I still felt tempted back then.

Hell, I always did.

Tommy knew how to service men like me.

In privacy, in dark alleyways or the homes of closeted faggots.

By the time we were finished hours later,

that talented hustler drained me of sixty dollars and all the jizz I could muster.

Not even an entire night of self-love and sinful memories could trump the real experience of a man’s willing asshole.

Yes, I was a sexual pervert.

A homosexual. A deviant.

My line of work made it essential that nobody could ever know, which was why I’d been reluctant at first to take the damn case.

The farms surrounding a close-knit community reminded me too much of home.

I was prepared to say no,

until they offered me a $50 deposit.

Basically, motivation for me to take Kimberton, WI as my client. “Alrighty

then,

here we are.” Officer Martins slowed the car down until we stopped at the side of the gravel road.

If it weren’t for the mile marker indicating we were nearing the town limits, I likely would’ve guessed it to be like any other part of the stretch.

He awkwardly unlocked the car,

then didn’t say anything as I lifted myself out of the passenger seat,

brown trench coat draped around me and instruments of investigation hidden in its deep pockets.

We didn’t say another word to each other.

Whether it be his fear for my destination down deeper in the woods,

or maybe he wised up about making conversation for someone like me, I didn’t know.

Either way, I didn’t look back to see the car circle back to town.

Part of me would scoff at the way he burned rubber back onto the highway,

like the Followers were

boogeymen or shit.

Still, if the rumors were to be taken at face value…

“Focus, dumbass,” I murmured to nobody but myself and some owl hooting in the trees nearby.

“Just get going. Get going.

They’re just some hippies.”

As I began my trek down the gravel road into the Wisconsin wilderness,

I recalled what Kimberton’s burly, balding mayor told me hours ago, in his main office with the blinds closed shut.

The small town I arrived in was nothing special compared to everything else in the state;

vintage, full of families and old people,

an occasional greaser or two standing out in the school shared between villages.

Seemed like a nice place to retire with a wife and kids,

if you hated the city enough and wanted to go back to the farm.

Me? The only reason I decided to travel to that hick town was my new case.

If things went well, then I’d be made in the shade for some time.

“Kimberton...has always been a nice town…”

Mayor Hill told me earlier that day at his desk,

the Sheriff and his assistant fidgeting beside him as he explained to me my new case.

“Truth be told though, Mr. Spade, we wouldn’t have called you all the way up here if we weren’t in serious need of your…expertise.

your…expertise.” Some called me a ‘commie hunter’, even though ‘J. Spade Investigations, Inc.’ advertised many other services to provide from my Milwaukee office.

If the client had enough cash, I could provide them photos of their spouse sneaking out behind their backs, investigate the

evidence held against them by a prosecutor in some court case,

or even search for some precious memento like a diamond bracelet that belonged to their grandmother.

More often though,

thanks to Senator McCarthy’s witch hunt against left-leaning citizens,

my clients desperately wanted to know if their neighbor/acquaintance/colleague

had secret fantasies involving a hammer and sickle with the Soviet anthem in the background.

Either way, I still got paid in advance.

Mayor Hill and Sheriff Baker explained to me that after the war, Kimberton was one of many towns in the Midwest in desperate need of revenue.

Most of their money came from the farms and a few hunters wanting to escape the suffocations of the suburbs,

but one nasty drought resulted in the previous mayor getting desperate enough to sell some of town’s land off to whoever could afford.

That man would be Langdon E. Dowe;

retired archaeologist-turned-convert who desired the land so he could build a small commune for his fellow congregation.

It was assumed they were a new sect of Christianity or the like,

so the sale went through.

Months passed as the townsfolk saw construction material be brought to the private property, as well as men and women not from their plot of Wisconsin.

In spite of their…less

than former attire

(some women wore pants and men togas),

Kimberton and the Commune even got along as they sold home-grown food,

clothing and even wood carvings at the local market,

being described as ‘incredibly friendly’, in spite of the secretive congregation preferring to keep to themselves. However, that all changed several months prior when it was discovered what the congregation called themselves:

The Followers of the Jackal.

You could see the problem there,

not in the name, but how it could be perceived by a town of three-thousand God-fearing people.

Rumors and hushed panic spread like wildfire the next day.

Now, whenever a member of the congregation ventured in for supplies, they were either given hateful, questioning stares or accusations

that sometimes resulted in violence towards the Followers.

What really started spooking Kimberton’s residents though

was when several of them actually left everything behind to join the Commune.

These individuals ranged from a choir boy that recently turned eighteen,

a widowed grandmother,

a secretary, a few locals at the town’s tavern and even one of the Sheriff’s former deputies, a family man with three children.

They regularly get payments after the deputy divorced his wife to become a Follower.

“Franklin left everything after he and his partner Malcolm went in to bring the Lucas kid back to his parents,” Sheriff Baker told me,

showing a picture of Franklin Fitzgerald in his deputy’s uniform.

As a family man in his late thirties, one didn’t need to squint their eyes to notice the greying in his close-cut black hair,

the darkening bags under his eyes

or the notable second chin forming under a strong jawline

(likely thanks to the largescale breakfasts,

lunches and dinners made by the missus.

That, or sneaking away too many doughnuts at work).

“They went to the Commune on the outskirts.

All that Malcolm says he can remember is going inside the gates and walking back out without a recollection of what happened.

Month later and I bring half my men up to try it again, to convince Franklin he’d gone mad. Guess what happens then?” “You can’t remember a thing?” I answered for him, examining the photo.

“Not a goddamn thing!” the sheriff grumbled.

“My men are refusing to go back, and none of us know why.

I tell ya, they gotta be either worshipping Satan or brainwashing us to become communists.”

“Whatever is happening,” Mayor Hill added in,

“we need you to investigate what in the name of God they’re doing up there.

Will you please take the case, Mr. Spade?”

It didn’t matter what I found inside the commune.

Whether it be a dirty pack of communists or the Devil himself, I would see the Commune for myself.

I would get it over with and return to Milwaukee next week with two-hundred dollars in my suitcase.

After all, the last thing I believed in was superstition,

but I did believe in the American dollar bill.

*** The Followers’ entire property spanned over 20,000 acres, from what the mayor and sheriff had warned me.

If I didn’t return within forty-eight hours, then they would assume the worst and call in more men from Wausau to get a warrant.

Basically, from the moment my surveillance started,

I’d be all on my lonesome.

The property line didn’t have a chain-linked fence, or barbed wire, or barrier walls that would rival the one built in Berlin, cutting it in two.

That surprised me, but not as much as the fact of how…beautiful

the Commune looked from my vantage point.

The small valley it was situated in seemed pretty enough, with a babbling brook cutting through

and circling the edge of a large hill in the center.

Even from where I concealed myself, nobody could miss the sight of human civilization atop it.

Beyond a tall chain-link fence, nobody could rebuke the evidence of a large clearing,

where half an acre of flat land revealed

beautifully fresh, grown stalks of corn and what I believed to be vegetables.

Nobody could miss the sight of two and a half dozen log cabins neatly lined up in circular rows around two structures.

Nobody could certainly mistake one of them being a cross-shaped priory near the other side of the property,

and the other a stone pyramid-like temple.

Unlike its more titanic counterpart,

it seemed no larger than any of the two-story log cabins.

I started wondering how they transported the stone when I noticed movement within its confines.

True to the Kimberton residents’ word,

the attire of each inside Follower Seemed...

Seemed...odd, though not ways that deemed them insane.

Indeed, the Commune’s choices of clothing seemed like a mixed hodge-podge of cultures.

Men and women of the Commune alike dressed in pants or skirts unashamedly as they carried wicker baskets of plucked food,

relaxed along the grass under the sunlit sky,

or appreciated a running leaf whilst watching over a group of scampering, laughing children playing tag.

I needed to know if Franklin Fitzgerald was still inside.

Vying for a closer look,

I crouched down and inched myself closer to the Commune. Minutes of self-taught sneaking later led me to distancing deeper into the autumn-covered valley.

Closer to the group of buildings but far enough to not be seen, plus giving myself more of a view of the compound behind a thicket of bushes.

Unfortunately, I still couldn’t spot Fitzgerald yet among the groups of people, but I did notice a necklace on each of the Followers’ necks through my binoculars.

The mayor and sheriff mentioned the Followers of the Jackal often wore a strange symbol on their clothing or around their neck,

back before they isolated themselves on the property.

Basically, it looked like any cross except the top line was replaced with an upside-down teardrop.

The Ancient Egyptians called it an ‘Ankh’, or the ‘key of life’;

many of the civilization’s various gods carried it around with them to symbolize life and even the rebirth of life itself.

One of whom happened to be—

A crow startled me from my thoughts.

“Ack…goddamn birds…” I muttered under my breath, then placed the binoculars back to my narrowed eyes.

“Can’t wait to…to…Heh,

bingo.” Thankfully, my frustration towards Mother Nature dissipated when,

who else first appeared in the scope by the edge of the rows of houses?

Well, I’d give you a couple guesses.

Franklin fucking Fitzgerald, in the far-off flesh,

exiting from one of the dwellings with a wooden staff in hand. Dressed apart from the rest of the congregation in a thick black tunic that draped over his waist like a kilt,

the man looked almost different than he did in the photograph I saw hours prior.

Outside of his deputy’s uniform, he seemingly lost some weight,

to the point a simple belt held his tunic together alongside his grey cotton pants.

What perplexed me though was how…lively

he was. I witnessed him smile a genuine smile to some of the Followers,

pause to speak to them without so much as looking bored,

as well as to wave to a group of children who called his name from their makeshift playground near the center of the Commune.

Franklin had some kind of…sparkle in his eyes as walked,

like he felt some form of

completeness. He joined with another similarly dressed member

—a younger black man with close-shaven hair that nearly made him bald

—and I watched them travel past the houses and then down the hill towards the valley.

They were guards, I realized.

My position didn’t provide a decent view, what with the trees blocking my sight,

yet I managed to find them dawdling along the chain-linked fence.

They then stopped by a crook in the see-through barrier, Franklin turning to the black man to set their staffs alongside the barrier…and

kissed. What the fuck?

They didn’t give me any further time to process the sight until I next witnessed Franklin lowering himself to his knees,

his hand pulling up the kilt to reveal a black maleness even I could recognize as impressive from the distance between us.

Slick and shiny, slightly curved and reddened at the dark, bulbous tip as it disappeared into the white man’s enthusiastic,

less-than-virginial lips.

And enthusiastically,

Frank bobbed back and forth on that nice member while feeling up his lover’s chest and dark-skinned thighs.

Providing me a perfect view of his curved buttocks.

Oh dear Lord that is beautiful, I reminisced back to a time during my teenaged years, when I’d imagine the size of a handsome older man’s Johnson, especially…

Shaking my head back to reality,

I placed my eyes closer into the binoculars whilst making sure I wasn’t seen behind the faraway bushes.

“Surprising to say the least,” I murmured to myself.

“No wonder you left the missus, old boy…”

As much as I tried to focus on something else, the sight of Franklin orally servicing the black guardsman mesmerized me like no other.

Without thinking, I slowly reached down to fondle myself without daring to take my eyes from the binoculars.

A jealous moan leveled up the back of my throat,

breaking the ambience of chirping birds and fallen leaves, though I believed the noise did not travel far.

Otherwise, I’d have likely been spotted by the duo lost in their homosexual lust.

Unfortunately, good things eventually came to an end when they paused their taboo homosexual act.

Franklin wiped his chin, helped himself up with the black Follower’s assistance, planted a kiss on his lips

and returned to their patrol deeper into the woods.

Whether or not they’d continue from sight, I could never know.

I sighed in (mostly sexual) frustration,

returning my hardened member inside of its refastened trousers.

“Dammit…” I muttered,

scoffing as I could no longer find them in the greenery.

“Well, that certainly complicates things.

Not like I can tell Hill that his deputy’s a fag…like

me.” Lounging in the woods, surveying the property and watching the earlier exhibition through the binoculars as I hid behind canopies of trees,

it made me wish I’d brought my carton of cigarettes.

I had work to do though, which involved getting inside the Commune and finding whatever else I could.

the strange pyramid-shaped stone temple.

Twilight turned to nightfall before I dared to retreat from my hiding spot.

As soon as the next shift of guards weren’t in sight, I climbed over the chain-linked fence with as much majesty as possible,

landing on the other side with a soft thud.

No guards came, so I made haste in the shadows of moonlight in-between each dwelling,

careful not to be heard let alone seen.

No guards at the stone temple.

Good. Staying low and quick, I zipped for the front of the entrance and noted the lock holding the two wooden doors together.

Breaking and entering often came with the job description for private eyes.

Luckily for me, after pulling out my lockpicking kit from my trench coat pocket and shuffling around for the tumbler,

the lock easily detached with only a small click.

My left hand blindly closed the door shut while I raised my right hand to peer down a narrow hallway, one ordained in strange symbols I couldn’t understand let alone describe.

Some were hieroglyphs, others just lines doodled together,

like the languages of some extraterrestrial or shit.

Whatever the case, they covered each wall, bathed in shimmering candlelight that faintly came from the room on the other end.

Cautiously, I stepped forward,

then reminded myself time was of the essence unless I wanted one of the

Followers to find me there.

The room’s interior impressed me much more than I expected.

Candles lined along the carved wall as the only sources of light, casting everything in a golden glow.

The other hieroglyphs on the wall, the ceiling, the steps of a wide altar and the items placed on each carved tread. I cautiously stepped forward to examine them.

Memories of the War resurfaced, but instead of feeling another adrenaline rush of survival instinct in the middle of a battle, nostalgia washed over me.

I recalled my unit visiting a destroyed village on the frontlines of northern France,

torn apart by Axis bombs save for their church.

Inside lay huddled civilians waiting for the Allies to liberate them, which we did, but my unit also found the altar covered entirely in tithes, offerings,

letters from loved ones lost or passed.

Candles lit and residents kneeling in perpetual prayer.

The altar in the temple certainly had plenty of offerings, tithes, photographs and letters, some of which began to litter onto the neighboring floor.

Except, instead of a decently intact stained-glass window, adorned with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ hanging on the cross,

the subject of devotion was a bronze statue.

Specifically, a bronze statue depicting a tall man in a loincloth, holding some kind of a special scepter in one hand

and a large Ankh in the other,

holding it by the circular loop.

The most striking part of the statue

involved the figure having a dog’s head.

Perked ears and even a curved tail visible behind him.

No, not a dog, I realized, mentally kicking myself for confusing the species,

It’s a jackal. Mindlessly, my eyes traveled from the statue to the walls as I listened for any distinct noises nearby.

Especially down the hallway or beyond the door.

However, all I could hear besides the autumn winds outside,

causing a howl to echo down the hall like the ghost of summertime.

The candles flickered in sudden succession, distracting me before my eyes traveled back to the statue…Wait,

did its head just move?

My muscles immediately tensed up, one hand frozen as I almost grabbed my holster under the trench coat.

I could have sworn that the statue’s jackal-shaped head had been staring forward.

Instead, its head tilted to the left, its neck curved slightly down towards me.

“What the fuck…?” I whispered in alarm,

eyes wide and skin suddenly feeling clammy at the fact I knew what position the statue’s head had been.

“D-Did that…No, it couldn’t…”

Abruptly, the next thing I saw had me questioning whether the entire temple’s shrine room had been filled to the brim with incense:

it blinked. The bronze statue fucking blinked down at me,

then smiled across its metallic muzzle.

One second passed,

followed by two until my feet finally found the strength to sprint for the exit.

Whatever that thing did back there, I didn’t care. I wanted the fuck out!

My hand gripped the doorhandle, but it did not budge.

“Fucking kidding me?!”

I desperately pulled it inward, only to no avail.

Frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me if my curses and pulling at the door awoke the entire cult.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit!

Open, dammit! Open!!” The heartbeats inside my chest raced like a piston.

My sweating hands slipped from the metal knob as I tried opening it again and again.

Did a Follower lock me back in?

Did they do that, then fill the entire temple up with some chemical gas? Was that why I saw the statue of their deity move? There

had to be no other explanation—

Everything grew dark, as if every candle in the shrine room behind me had been snuffed out.

The only source of light came from the faint moonlight outside the door, creeping through the cracks and barely able to let me see my trembling hands.

Silence. Not even the night wind could be heard beyond the ringing in my ears when I finally heard something else.

Movement. It didn’t come from outside the door though.

It came from the shrine room.

Calm down, I told myself, gulping down whatever fear started to rise in me.

Think logically. There’s no one else here.

You’re imagining things.

These hippies— “Mortals of logic are always the most amusing to meet.”

I abruptly turned around and gasped at the tall, imposing figure made of black fur,

standing at the end of the singular hallway.

He resembled the bronze statue,

except I knew he wasn’t made of metal.

His black ears pointed towards the ceiling,

nearly touching it due to his height,

while his eyes glowed an intense white, which caused the golden collar,

wrist bracelets and even the Ankh necklace around his neck to sparkle.

Beyond the initial horror,

my wide, disbelieving eyes traveled to admire how built and muscular he was,

presenting a chiseled chest and

a bulge that lay beneath his loincloth.

Any arousal I felt transformed back into confusion and fear though,

when his tail curled,

and my vision returned to the jackal’s face.

The jackal man stepped towards me.

“Do not be afraid, John Spade…”

he spoke in a deep, welcoming voice.

“I will not hurt you.”

“Y…Y-You won’t?” I continued staring as he stepped closer,

back pressed against the wooden door that I’d long given up on opening. “I…N

-No, you…you can’t be what I think you are.

Y-You can’t be! But…”

“But…?” he echoed with a bemused eyebrow.

“You…look too real to be a fucking Halloween costume…”

The jackal suddenly laughed boisterously, then sighed in amusement while taking a final step towards me.

His head still tilted downward in order to maintain eye contact with me, who paled in comparison to whatever visible strength this…thing

possessed. “I mean it though when I say I do not wish to harm you,”

he spoke, lowly rumbling as he lifted a clawed finger to my forehead.

My body refused to budge.

“I do wish to speak to you about the nature of this sanctuary, Mr. John Spade…”

My mouth dried up, looking away from his finger into those glowing orbs of his. “H

-How do you know my na—”

Frightened awe transformed into an intense flash,

and I blacked out.

This was the first of two parts of

“Followers of the Jackal”

by Domus Vocis,

read for you by Crimson Ruari,

the Mountain Smith.

Tune in next time to find out

how John Spade comprehends such a revelation.

As always, you can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog,

or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for listening to The Voice of Dog.