by Mark Allen
But even in the midst of hellish pain, Jack’s prayers were not for himself, but for Kevin. Please, God, keep my son safe from these sons of bitches.
Not the prettiest prayer ever prayed, but definitely one of the most earnest and heartfelt.
Jack somehow found the strength to raise his head and look up into the sky, as if to make sure his plea reached the heavens. Just stay away, Kevin, he thought. Don’t come back for me.
And then his body, overloaded with pain, could take no more. Sweet, merciful unconsciousness rushed over him. His head fell forward as blood pooled at the base of the cross.
******
Inside the cannibal’s cabin, the woman in the cage stood and stared out the window at the man nailed to the cross. This was hardly the first crucifixion she had witnessed, but this one hit her harder than most. Tears trickled down her filthy cheeks as she said to Mr. Brown, “Oh my God, I think I know that guy.”
Mr. Brown didn’t respond. The woman turned and looked at the spider’s web.
It was empty. Mr. Brown wasn’t there.
She felt a brief moment of panic. But when she turned back to the window she noticed something moving across the ground, a small dot of darkness journeying over the white frost. Mr. Brown had exited the cabin and was now outside, scuttling over the rocks and bones, making its way toward the dying man on the cross.
It looked like a spider on a mission.
******
As Kevin neared the ridge overlooking the cannibal’s cabin, he stopped running and dropped onto his stomach. Heart pounding, he slithered through the last few yards of brush until he found an opening that gave him a view down into the hollow.
He brought up the shotgun and looked through the scope to assess the situation. He wanted nothing more than to charge down there and try to blow the mutants to hell in a gun-blazing rescue attempt, but he knew such recklessness would only get both him and his father killed. Better to pause a moment to gather information and formulate a proper plan. He just hoped he wasn’t too late.
That hope died in a withering wave of horror when he saw his father nailed to the cross.
For the first time in a lot of years, Kevin felt tears sting his eyes. “Oh my God. Dad … no…”
He brushed away the tears and then peered through the scope again just in time to see a huge spider crawl up the blood-stained cross and settle on his father’s shoulder. It paused for a moment, then turned away and sidled up to his dad’s ear, putting its two front legs right on Jack’s earlobe. Kevin knew his mind was playing tricks on him, but he would have sworn the spider was actually talking to his dad.
Jack suddenly lifted his head and looked directly at Kevin, who felt a chill run through him. There was no way his father could know that he was up here on the ridge, but he looked right at him anyway. The spider darted back down the cross, hopped over the pool of blood, and raced back to the cabin.
Through the scope, Kevin locked eyes with his father, even though he knew his dad couldn’t really see him. At this distance, it was impossible for Kevin to hear what Jack was saying, but the scope’s magnification allowed him to see the movement of his father’s lips.
To read his father’s final words.
“I love you, son.”
Kevin felt his heart break. He set down the shotgun and pounded the ground with his fist, punctuating each impact with a whispered, “No, no, no, no,” through grief-clenched teeth as tears streamed down his face. He choked back sobs as he picked up the gun and tucked his eye to the scope to look at his dad again.
Jack’s body drooped on the cross with the finality of death, limp and lifeless as it hung from the nails.
Rage rose up inside him to add fire to his grief, but before he could do anything about his turbulent emotions, he felt the cold, hard barrel of a gun press against the back of his head.
A gruff voice said, “Sorry to intrude, son, but I ain’t got time for your blattin’. Need you to roll over real slow and don’t even think about having a go at me with that there shotgun or I’ll blast a blowhole where your head used to be.”
Kevin hesitated. He didn’t know why—with a gun to his head, it wasn’t like he had any options—but instant compliance just wasn’t in his genetic makeup.
The gruff voice said, “You’re thinking bad thoughts, boy, the kind of thoughts that’ll get the top of your spine blown out the front of your teeth. Now roll over, real slow like. Won’t ask you again.”
Kevin slowly obeyed, rolling onto his back, keeping his hands well away from his shotgun. He looked past the .30-.06 bolt-action hunting rifle aimed at his face and focused on the man wielding it. He suddenly realized he had seen the man before. “I know you,” he said.
The man nodded. “Big Bad Bill's the name and guns are my game,” he said. “Kind of like the one I got right here. At this range, it would blow you right in half, so don't try no funny business, you read me, son?”
“I’m not your fucking son.”
“With your mother rotting six feet under and your dad so recently deceased, looks like you’re nobody’s son,” Bill said. “Now let’s go. I know you already met my boys, but I think a more formal introduction is in order, then you can all get reacquainted.”
“Your boys? You mean those … things?”
“That’s right,” Bill said. “My boys. So watch your mouth when you talk about ‘em.”
“Those sons of bitches killed my father,” Kevin seethed. “Nailed him to a goddamn cross.”
Bill chuckled. “Yeah, they do that sometimes. Couldn’t tell you why. Makes you feel any better, he won’t go to waste. Now let’s go.”
Bill marched Kevin down into the hollow, the muzzle of the rifle never straying far from the middle of his back. He seriously considered making a suicide play right here and now. Even though it would probably end with him getting shot dead, he would bet his last dollar that death by a bullet would be preferable to what these monsters had in store for him. But he decided to wait and hope that an opportunity with a higher chance of success presented itself somewhere down the road.
Of course, it looks like I’m running out of road.
Despite the coldness of the morning, when they passed his father’s crucified corpse, the flies were already swarming on the fresh meat. Kevin turned away, but there was nothing he could do to stop the loud, insectile buzzing that invaded his ears as the flies feasted on his father’s mangled flesh. Kevin wasn’t really sure what he believed about life after death, but he prayed that wherever his father was right now, he could only hear angel-song, not this hellish buzzing.
Kevin clenched his jaw as fresh tears burned his eyes.
Bill paused to stare up at Jack’s tortured body. “Ya know, kid, I heard all them stories ‘bout your dad being a gutless coward and, well, honestly, I kind of believed ‘em. But I reckon I may have misjudged, because it's pretty obvious that in the end, your dad actually did have a spine.” He chuckled cruelly. “Look, you can see it from here.”
Furious, Kevin whirled around, only to find the muzzle of the rifle touching the tip of his nose.
“Cut your shit, boy,” Bill warned, “or I’ll blow a brand new asshole where your fuckin’ face used to be.”
Kevin saw that Bill’s finger had taken up nearly all the trigger slack. It would only take another ounce or two of pressure to turn the man’s harsh threat into gruesome reality. Kevin defied the gun for a few tense heartbeats, staring defiantly into Bill’s eyes. But when Bill’s finger twitched on the trigger, Kevin decided he wasn’t yet ready to eat a bullet. He let his gaze drop and resumed walking to the cabin. He felt like a condemned man marching to the execution chamber.
When they reached the cabin, Bill shoved him through the doorway so roughly that he stumbled over the threshold and nearly did a face-plant on the filthy floor. Bill followed him inside and called out, “Look what I caught, boys!”
The three grotesque mutants had been hunkered over a table, cauterizing Mongus’ wrist stump wit
h a blowtorch. Kevin’s stomach churned at the reek of charred flesh and a black, meaty smoke hung in the air like a miasma.
It smelled like the devil’s barbecue.
Upon seeing Kevin, Mongus immediately growled and reached for his axe with his remaining hand. His eyes blazed with hatred like scorching hot coals burning in the smoke.
“Put it away,” Bill ordered. “Playtime comes later.”
Mongus continued to glare fury at Kevin, but did as commanded and set the axe down.
Bill looked at Boss and said, “Put him in the cage with that one-armed bitch. And you—” He looked at Cyclops. “—go fetch his would-be hero of a father off that damn cross and bring him in. We’ve got some work to do.”
Cyclops lumbered out of the cabin while Boss tossed Kevin into the cage as if he was nothing more than a rag doll. The door was then slammed shut and padlocked.
Kevin knew he should be feeling hopeless and afraid, but right now the only emotion he felt was total shock as he stared at the maimed and filthy woman trapped in the cage with him. But it was not the shock of revulsion—it was the shock of recognition. “I know you,” he said.
The woman nodded. “Yes, you do.” Her voice was dry and coarse, as if rusty from lack of use, spilling over chapped, cracked lips. “I’m Holly Wainwright. Pastor Wainwright’s daughter.”
Kevin couldn’t believe it. “Holy shit!” he said. “You’re supposed to be dead!” A sobering thought suddenly struck him and he took a hard, serious look at his surroundings, then asked, “Are you dead? Am I dead? Is this … Hell?”
“I’m not dead and neither are you,” Holly said. “Not yet anyway. And no, you’re not in Hell. But you are in a world of hurt.”
“They killed my father.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Not that it helps, but I know how you feel. They killed mine too.”
Kevin blinked at her, confused. “What are you talking about?”
“My dad,” Holly said. “Pastor Larry. When they took me, they killed him.”
“No, they didn’t.”
Now it was Holly’s turn to blink in confusion. “What?”
“He’s alive,” Kevin said. “He’s fine. What made you think he was dead?”
“They told me they killed him,” she said, pointing at the cannibal crew who seemed to be listening to their conversation with bemusement.
Kevin curled his fingers through the links in their cage and gripped it tightly as he glared at Bill and his three mutated sons. “Guess that makes them liars as well as murderers.”
Holly seemed to be struggling with the revelation that her father was alive. A lot of different emotions played out on her face. “I’ve been here for two years. If he’s alive, why hasn’t he come for me?”
Bill walked over to the kennel and kicked at Kevin’s fingers. He pulled them back just in time to avoid having them crushed by the heavy boot. The whole cage rattled. “I believe I can shed some light on that subject,” Bill said.
Cyclops chose that moment to crash through the door carrying Jack’s corpse over his shoulder, his shredded back on full display, arms and legs dangling limply to reveal the nail holes in wrists and ankles. Kevin turned his head away and shut his eyes, but he couldn’t shut his ears. He winced as he heard the thump of Jack’s body being slammed down on the cutting table.
Kevin opened his eyes again just in time to see Bill grin and let out a bellowing whoop. “Fire up the fryin’ pan!” He donned a blood-spattered apron and grabbed the biggest meat cleaver Kevin had ever seen. He wielded it with practiced ease, as indifferent as any butcher slaughtering a cow or hog. The fact that it was a human body he was cutting up seemed to bother him not a whit. Meat was meat and bone was bone and the cleaver carved through both like a razor.
Bill talked while he worked. “The reason Larry hasn’t come for you is because unlike this cowardly piece of shit here—” The cleaver smashed into the body again. “—Larry actually cares whether his family lives or dies and he knows the second he tells anyone about us, your ass is deader than a blind skunk trying to cross a six-lane highway at rush hour.”
He flipped something into the frying pan and Jack’s severed fingers started to sizzle. Kevin felt his face blanch but forced himself to stay strong. He couldn’t afford to break down in front of these sons of bitches.
Bill continued chopping and chatting. “Larry also knows that if he stops sending us fresh meat, you’re dead. It’s a supply and demand kind of world. We make the demands, your daddy is the supplier.”
Holly slipped her fingers between the links of the cage and gripped them tight enough to turn her knuckles white. Beneath the grime, her face was just as pale. “What are you saying?”
“The day we snagged your perky little ass, instead of deep-sixing you and your dear ol' dad right there on the spot, we struck a deal with him,” Bill said. “A deal with the devil, so to speak. At least, I'm sure that's how he figured it. He shuffled on back to town and told everyone you were dead. We even gave him a finger from another woman, a previous visitor, and put your class ring on it to help sell the story.”
Bill paused for a moment as the cleaver got stuck in a thick section of femur. Grunting, he yanked it out, then resumed talking. “Of course, that story was a bunch o’ bullshit. Truth was, we kept you alive and in return, Larry keeps sending people our way. Every time someone mentions they'd like to go for a hike, commune with nature, he suggests here. Whenever a couple needs some alone-time, he offers them the lodge. Every time some sissy-ass father and his derelict son need to bond, he suggests a hunting trip to Scar Lake. You getting the picture yet? Your daddy sends us lambs for the slaughter and in return, we don't slaughter his little lamb.”
Holly looked horrified. “No, not my father … he’d never … never do something that evil. He couldn’t.”
“He could, he can, and he does,” said Bill. “You’d be surprised what someone will do in the name of love.” He put down the cleaver and picked up a filleting knife, using it to point at Jack’s body. “Case in point right here.”
Bill put the knife to use, slicing off chunks of flesh. He started with the meatier parts, methodically stripping them off the bone. Some of it went into the frying pan, some of it went in the kettle. Sautéed or boiled, Kevin knew it would all soon go in their bellies.
Trying not to focus on the desecration of his dad’s body taking place right in front of him, he asked, “Why do you do it?”
“Do what?” Bill didn’t even look up as he ran the knife completely around Jack’s neck to separate his head from his body.
“Why do you eat people?” Kevin winced at the sharp crack as Bill snapped his father’s spine.
“Because we’re hungry, boy, that’s why,” said Bill. “Love to give you a more existential answer, but when it’s all boiled down to brass tacks, that’s pretty much it.”
Kevin stared daggers at the man. “You assholes ever heard of a fucking grocery store?”
Bill stopped cutting and pointed the knife at Kevin. A ruby red morsel of raw meat clung to the tip. “Let me tell you something, boy, I came to these here mountains before there were towns, before there were Mickey Ds and Burger Kings and cafes on every corner. And back then the winters were hard. Not sissy hard like they are now, but true hard, man-killers. Back then, if a man didn't want to be murdered by Mother Nature or wasted by Old Man Winter, then a man did whatever he had to do in order to survive. That's what it's all about—survival.”
“What a bunch of bullshit,” said Kevin. “You’re trying to tell me you’ve been around since the end of the 1800s? That the kind of smoke you’re trying to blow up my ass? That’d make you, what, at least a hundred and twenty years old?”
“I ain’t trying to tell you anything, boy. But I will say this: you’d be amazed what regular exercise—” Bill held up the knife with a chunk of Jack on the tip. “—and a healthy diet can do to prolong a man’s life.”
He popped the knife in his mouth and slurped off the
meat. The blade went in crimson and came out clean. He chewed loudly, mouth open, deliberately tormenting Kevin and Holly. They both shuddered as he swallowed the flesh with a noisy gulp.
“Fountain of youth right there, kids.” Bill let out a contented sigh and smacked his lips. He positioned Jack’s severed head in front of him, picked up the cleaver again, and raised it overhead. “Time to make head cheese,” he quipped, and then slammed the cleaver down, chopping Jack’s skull in half. Brain matter spilled in soggy clumps from the split bone.
Kevin slumped in a corner of the cage and watched in grief and revulsion as Bill finished butchering and cooking his father. He didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t look away either. He owed it to his father. He had been a dick to his dad and now his dad was dead. Had willingly sacrificed himself so that Kevin could live. Kevin felt obligated to watch every moment of that sacrifice, including the final violation of consumption by the cannibal pack.
Bill and his boys gathered around the table and tore into the meal with something close to religious fervor. No utensils; they went about their morbid feast with bare hands, shoveling chunks of Jack’s vivisected body into their mouths as if it was the last meal they might ever have.
Mongus picked up a finger, snapped in half, and slurped off the flesh. He gagged for a moment, then reached into his mouth, pulled out a fingernail, and flicked it toward Kevin. It hit the floor and tumbled to a stop just outside the cage. Kevin stared at it. Soon that fingernail would be the only thing left of his father. Nails and bones.
“See, son, I told you he wouldn’t go to waste.” Bill popped a piece of Jack’s heart between his greasy lips, chewed slowly for a few moments, then said, “Maybe you would understand better if I told ya how it all began. Sit back and let me tell you a story.”
Chapter 8
The Beginning
Bill knew his wife Hettie was half an idiot—hell, probably closer to three-quarters—but he loved her anyway. Still, just because he loved her dearly didn’t mean her constant crazy cries didn’t rub his nerves rawer than a scrotum dragged over rusty metal.