Titans of Chaos

She also held a wand tipped with a pinecone, but in her other hand she held a little baby, upsidedown by the foot. I did not see the baby moving; I thought it might be dead.

This second girl sang out: "Fall upon her, wild maenads! Tear and bite and rip and slay! Thedaughter of the Daystar-Htan shall be our raw pork!"

I saw blood was coming out of her mouth. I wondered if she had bitten her tongue.

I have heard a crowd scream before, at a rugby match Headmaster Boggin took us all to once, atreat for doing particularly well that semester. The crowd there was men and boys, and theirvoices were deep, and their roar, when they roared, was like an ocean noise. There were womenin the audience that day, but I doubt if they had screamed with such bloodlust and abandon as themen.

Now I heard a noise not unlike the roar that rang when the final winning score was made, and thecrowd of men had screamed in joy. Except this noise was an octave or two higher. I had neverheard so many high-pitched voices scream at once.

In horror movies, girls scream only when they are terrified, not to terrify. Of course, in horrormovies, the buxom blondes are usually not breaking rocks in two with their feet, knocking treesaside with their hands.

A throng of girls, all of them young and shapely, some in torn dresses, some in panther or leopardskins, some nude, some running upright, some running (hips impossibly high) on all fours likebeasts, some bounding from tree to tree like frogs, now came through the forest like anavalanche. The noise of timber falling was like the noise of the end of the world.

Did I mention that I was running away at this point?

Maenads

By pure lucky mishap, I had not had time to don the evening gown I had entered the store to buy.

Instead I was in my lightest pair of sneakers, the running shoes Vanity had bought me in Paris. Iwould have hated to try to run, leaping bushes and rocks, dodging around trees, wearing heels.

Also, I was wearing blue jeans like a proper American girl. Thank God for blue jeans.

Ululating, shrieking, screaming, the maenads tumbled and thundered and flew through the treesafter me.

There was no one giving orders. Had they merely sent two teams of runners to my right and left,they could have surrounded me. But no: The mob just all came in the straight line toward whatthey saw, trampling each other.

But they were so strong and so fleet of foot, they really did not need a plan. Every moment as Iran, they cut the distance between us in half.