The Hungry Dead

by John Russo

  “Why can’t we go to the bathroom in here?” asked Nancy.

  Gwen flashed a look at Nancy to tell her to shut up. If they didn’t get outside, how were they ever going to escape?

  “We ain’t lettin’ you into our bathroom, where there’s stuff like glass and razor blades,” said Luke. “You might get feisty, or you might try to slash your wrists.” He unlocked the padlocks on the dog cages and let Nancy and Gwen out, keeping his pistol trained on them. Abraham backed him up, both brothers warily alert, not about to lose their captives and take flack from Cynthia and Mama.

  Nancy and Gwen unbent slowly and stiffly, massaging and stretching their cramped muscles.

  “Get a move on!” Abraham snapped. “This way. Out the back door.”

  Prodded in the back with the guns, Nancy and Gwen marched through the dining room with scraps of food still on the table, out through the large country kitchen and down off the back porch. Gwen looked at Nancy out of the corners of her eyes, signaling: Be brave and our chance will come.

  It was a crisp spring morning with dew still on the grass. The two girls shivered and got goosebumps; they were wearing their underwear and nothing else. Barefoot, they stepped gingerly through the cold, wet grass. They were headed toward an outhouse adjacent to the cemetery and chapel across the field. The thought that Cyrus was out there filled Nancy with trepidation. “Where are we going?” she asked, playing dumb.

  “Make any difference to you?” Abraham countered snidely.

  “You can do your business right here where we can watch,” said Luke, snickering.

  “I can show you a better way to get some kicks,” Gwen told the two brothers, stopping in her tracks and turning to face them seductively. “Why don’t you let me and Nancy take the two of you into the woods for a while? Cynthia doesn’t have to find out about it.”

  Luke chuckled derisively, but Abraham seemed interested. “If they already ain’t virgins, what difference could it make?” he suggested to his brother.

  “It’s a trick,” said Luke.

  “But you both have guns,” Gwen argued. “How could we get away with anything? Nancy and I talked about it last night, and we figured that if we were really nice to you, maybe you’d be nice to us.”

  “Maybe we would, at that,” said Abraham shrewdly. “Why don’t we have us some fun, Luke? Then we’ll see if there’s a way of helping the two girls.”

  “Well . . . maybe,” Luke debated. His lusts were getting the better of him. He told himself that the risk would be minimal if the girls were willing to have sex in return for possible favors. Of course, the favors wouldn’t ever be forthcoming, but they wouldn’t have to know. It would be nice doing it with a pretty girl who was putting her all into it for a change, not having to be forced. “If you were real nice to us, maybe we’d let you go and capture two more,” he said slyly.

  Nancy was panicked. The way Gwen had talked, Nancy and Gwen both would have to give in to Luke and Abraham, or at least lead them on. What if it got out of control, and they never escaped at all? Or what if they were let loose and two other girls took their place? That would be a mortal sin for sure. Letting someone else die to save your own hide.

  “I’ve got my mind made up to show you the best time you ever had,” Gwen purred breathily, unsnapping her bra.

  Abraham and Luke ogled her large, firm breasts. Following her lead, as if in a trance, Nancy took off her bra, too. The two brothers’ eyes gleamed lecherously, darting back and forth, taking in first one girl, then the other. It was easy to believe that Nancy’s wide-eyed stare was one of desire.

  “Over there behind the trees,” Luke said, gesturing with his gun. He had turned briefly, glancing over his shoulder, and when he turned back he was jolted by the sight of Abraham already fondling Gwen’s breasts, his revolver stuck carelessly in his belt.

  Luke felt he was moving in slow motion, as Gwen reached for the butt of Abraham’s gun. But he got to her in time and smacked it out of her hand. Nancy saw it fall. Paralyzed for an instant, she was too late diving for it on the grass. Luke kicked it away, then gave her a savage chop behind the neck that sent her sprawling, nearly unconscious. By that time Abraham had recovered and was repeatedly slapping Gwen, beating her with his fists on her face and breasts, then punching her in the stomach, sending her writhing to the earth. She stayed down, moaning in pain, and Luke kicked her in the ribs. He picked up Abraham’s pistol and handed it back.

  “Filthy teases!” Luke snapped. “Tried to make blasted fools out of us, didn’t they?”

  Luke and Abraham dragged Nancy and Gwen to their feet and pushed them behind a clump of bushes and waited while they relieved themselves, then marched them back into the house, shoved them down into their cages, and locked them up. “Nothing to eat for you now!” Luke barked before stomping away. “They tried to escape,” he told Cynthia, who was in the dining room cleaning up.

  Gwen and Nancy lay on the bottoms of their cages, in pain and despair. Their escape attempt had failed miserably, and it was not likely they’d get another chance.

  Out in the dining room, Cynthia was saying, “Tomorrow you can take them down to the chapel, Luke. In the evening you’ll be building a fire in there, and it will be warm enough so they won’t die of pneumonia. Locked up in the chapel, they’ll be hard put to give us any more trouble.”

  “I was under the impression you wanted only one down there at a time during the services, and only the one we’re working with, at that,” said Abraham.

  “Put them in Uncle Sal’s office,” Cynthia instructed. “That way they won’t see anything that’s going on till we want them to. You understand, I mean for you to keep them in their cages.”

  “Yeah, I get the picture,” growled Luke.

  This last part of the discussion killed a ray of hope Gwen had been nurturing through the agony of her injuries. She had thought maybe they’d be locked up in a room, with more freedom of movement, rather than in the escape-proof wire cages. Now, that hope gone, she was overwhelmed by the knifing pain in her rib cage, which felt as if the whole side of her upper torso had been kicked in by Luke’s heavy brown boot. More demoralized than ever, she gave in to thinking that maybe she never would see her daughter again.

  Sitting back in her cage, wrapped in the ragged, musty blanket, Nancy began reciting a rosary. Luke and Abraham scoffed at her as they went out the front door. She heard them backing the van out of the garage at the side of the house; the garage door shut, a door slammed as one of the brothers hopped into the cab, and the van drove away. Cynthia came into the living room and stared down at the two girls in their cages. To Nancy she said, “Why do you pray? It will do you no good.”

  “Don’t you believe in God?” Nancy inquired softly, after saying the amen at the end of a Hail Mary and then taking a deep breath before confronting Cynthia.

  Cynthia smiled patronizingly. “You believe that your God is good and merciful, yet He has allowed such bad things to happen to you.”

  Nancy swallowed hard, her mouth and throat dry. She spoke softly: “We’re taught not to question His wisdom. He sent His only begotten Son to earth to suffer and die for our sins. Maybe He is asking me to suffer a little, too, so that I can be saved.”

  “Were you such a great and terrible sinner?” Cynthia said, amused.

  Nancy lowered her eyes. Wrapped in her blanket and holding her ribs, Gwen gazed in open contempt at Cynthia’s face.

  “Some of your holy priests, even the ones you call saints, weren’t so humbly able to accept pain as you are,” Cynthia told Nancy. “Allow me to enlighten you. Have you ever been permitted to read eyewitness accounts of the bloody witch trials carried out in the name of your God? Fascinating, I assure you. For instance, in the 1500s a certain parish priest was condemned to be tortured until he should admit he had a pact with Satan—the inquisitors were convinced of his guilt merely because he was knowledgeable about some excellent herbal cures and had nursed some badly ill people in his village to tot
al recovery. It was thought in those days that any unusual talent, beauty, or skill had to come from the Devil; in this way mediocrity and obedience were encouraged, while those with exceptional physical or mental attributes were put to death. So they hung the good priest on the rack and pulled his limbs from their sockets, and applied the thumbscrews till the blood spurted from the ends of his fingers, striking the wall five feet away, and all the while he kept praying to his God, as you have been doing now. He couldn’t believe that this merciful God, who knew his innocence, would not intervene and put an end to his suffering. But no such intervention happened—the heavens did not open up; God did not descend in a ray of light—and the pious priest died horribly, his religious beliefs shattered along with his mind and body at the end when death finally took him. You see, there are times when evil will have its triumph, and nothing can change that fact. Evil is more powerful than good. Your God sits indifferently on His celestial throne, entertained by the agonized antics of His subjects, who writhe and jerk like dismembered puppets. Why are you so vain as to imagine He cares a whit about you? Don’t you recall that even Jesus, the Son of God, cried out in His final agony on the cross: Why hast Thou forsaken Me?”

  Nancy could not answer. Her faith was not shaken by Cynthia’s tirade. But she could not intellectualize her beliefs, especially not in the face of a challenge from someone who had nothing to lose, whose life was not at stake. The rote memorizations of catechism class were of no use in such an existential argument.

  “For now, you will pray mindlessly,” Cynthia said. “But in the end you’ll know that your God has forsaken you and I am your master.”

  “Get out of here, you bitch!” Gwen spat viciously, giving all her energy to impotent hatred. Crying out so vehemently gave her excruciating pain in her ribs.

  Cynthia merely laughed and left the room, scornfully turning her back on her victims.

  In a little while, Nancy resumed praying her rosary, reciting it from memory, keeping count of the Our Fathers and Hail Marys by imagining herself fingering the beads.

  CHAPTER 11

  The sign still said Peterson’s Country Store, although the place was not run anymore by Mr. Peterson, who had been driven away by grief ten years ago, after the mysterious disappearance of his young son and daughter. Now the owners were a nice elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Jamison; they used the few extra dollars they made in the store to supplement their Social Security. Sitting in a squeaky rocking chair behind the counter, Mrs. Jamison looked up from the red wool sweater she was knitting for her husband and watched fifteen-year-old Sharon Kennedy browsing among the aisles.

  Sharon was always intrigued by the almost nonsensical variety of goods for sale, which included meat, poultry, coldcuts, and produce; fresh milk, eggs, and butter; dog collars, handkerchiefs, and shotgun shells; rifles, pistols, and handguns; fireworks, baby rattles, toys and games, and handbags; socks and underwear and toothpaste and non-prescription medicines. Just about anything and everything might be found in the country store—except sometimes just the thing you wanted.

  “Got any Easter egg dye?” Sharon Kennedy called out.

  “Let me see, now,” said Mrs. Jamison, making the most of the opportunity for conversation, “I believe I saw some just the other day, when Mrs. Casper was in with her tribe of young ones. Oh, yes, Sharon, you look right over there on the third shelf, beside the toothpicks.”

  Delving and pulling out a packet, Sharon asked, “Do you think it’s still good?” The package was so faded and old, having been in the store since God knew when; but the price was only twenty cents, which was typical of the sort of bargain that could be had sometimes in the country store if the goods hung around for years and years till just when you needed them.

  “Oh, stuff like that never wears out!” exclaimed Mrs. Jamison.

  Sharon began reading the directions so she could estimate how many packets she’d need to color eggs for her younger brothers and sisters. They weren’t getting baskets this year because Daddy couldn’t afford them, but at least Sharon could see to it that they each got a couple of Easter eggs. She would do the eggs at night after the younger children had gone to bed, so they’d be surprised on Sunday. She intended hiding the packets of dye in her jacket when she went into the house, bringing Daddy the aspirin he wanted for his cold. To buy the eggs and dye, she was using money one of her aunts had sent for her birthday.

  “When the hell is she coming out?” Abraham mumbled impatiently under his breath. He and Luke had the van parked out in front of the country store, by the gasoline pumps. The store was located at a crossroads several miles from the Barnes estate.

  The elderly Mr. Jamison, in bibbed coveralls and faded plaid shirt, finished pumping gasoline into the van and hung up the nozzle, then took his time screwing the gas cap back on. He hobbled around the side of the vehicle and spoke to Luke, the driver. “Some damn fine weather we’re havin’, ain’t it? Old man winter can stay away for good, for all I care. Cold weather makes my bones ache. This here oughta make a real swell Easter.”

  “Yep,” said Luke.

  Chuckling as if a joke had been mutually enjoyed, Jamison said, “She didn’t take a full tank. That’ll be ten dollars.”

  Luke already had his wallet open, and he handed the old man a ten-dollar bill.

  “Thank you kindly,” said Mr. Jamison. “Have a nice day, now, y’all hear.”

  “Right, you old fart,” said Abraham for Luke’s ears only, barely moving his lips.

  Luke took his time getting ready to pull out, slowly starting the engine and putting the van into gear. He and his brother watched Mr. Jamison limping toward the store. As the old man held the door open, Sharon stepped out with her bag of purchases.

  Jamison smiled, saying, “Bye, now, Sharon. You tell your daddy me and Martha said hello, and hope he gets over his cold real soon.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Jamison. So long.”

  Sharon walked briskly across the gravel lot, turning left at the crossroads. From the van, Luke and Abraham watched, beguiled by her long brown hair and the youthful stride of her shapely legs and buttocks, encased in tight blue jeans.

  Luke said, “This is the one, brother. Purty ’nough for ya?”

  Abraham grinned lewdly. “Yup . . . this one’s gonna make Mama real happy.” In the cab of the van he leaned forward, tingling with anticipation of the cat-and-mouse game he and his brother would play with the girl before capturing her.

  Luke pressed the gas pedal lightly, easing away from the pumps. The van crossed through the intersection, going in the same direction as Sharon and cruising slowly past her as she walked off the berm of the narrow, lonely blacktop road. She stopped, watching the van suspiciously, but felt relieved when the vehicle continued past her, going down a slight grade and disappearing around a bend in the distance.

  “Thinks she’s seen the last of us,” Abraham chortled.

  Luke found a suitable spot and pulled off to the side of the road. He turned the engine off and both brothers sat very still, watching and waiting for Sharon.

  She was always frightened of walking alone, even in the daylight. The house where she lived with her widowed father and four little brothers and sisters was almost three miles from the country store. She was aware of the things that could happen to young girls like herself; the newspapers and TV were always full of stories of brutal rapes and murders. This was incomprehensible to her; it seemed too callous and unreal to believe in; yet she knew it happened, all too often. Her father was always admonishing her to be careful, not to trust anybody, even the boys or the teachers at school; he didn’t even like her going to the store by herself, but she had done it to fetch him the aspirin.

  When she rounded the bend and saw the white van parked less than fifty feet away, she stopped in her tracks. What could they be doing there? There were no houses around, and no other vehicles on the road. For an instant, Sharon considered turning around and going back and phoning her father to come get her at the store.
But that would be silly. He was sick, and she shouldn’t panic over nothing and make him get up out of bed. The two men in the van didn’t seem to be paying her any mind. They were talking about something. Maybe they were lost and were waiting for her so they could ask directions. She resumed walking, picking up her pace so she could get past this white van as quickly as possible and be less scared.

  But when she got closer the two men looked up, staring at her, steadfastly watching her approach. They both had disturbing grins on their faces; the looks they gave her were brazen, insulting, as though they were undressing her with their eyes. She lowered her gaze to the ground, feeling shrunken and frightened and demure. She clutched the brown bag she was carrying tightly to her breasts and walked in a mincing gait, wanting suddenly to seem as young and immature and unsexy as possible, so that maybe these two men would leave her alone.

  When she was almost past the van, the horn blared loudly, shaking her so badly that she dropped her bag. She turned, expecting to be attacked. But the engine started up and the van peeled out, screeching and spraying clods of black dirt, and the man on the passenger’s side turned around laughing at her as the vehicle sped down the road.

  “Darn idiots!” she said aloud to exorcise her fear. She was upset, but glad that the men had gone. The sun was bright in a cloudless April sky, but that was not the only reason she was perspiring. She stooped and examined the carton of eggs she had been carrying in her bag. Two eggs had broken when the bag hit the asphalt at the side of the road. Smarting from the loss, she removed the good eggs temporarily and scraped the mess from the broken ones out, then wiped her fingers on the grass. In a little while she had the good eggs back in the carton and the carton back in the bag. She started walking again, hurrying, her trip to the store having become an ordeal.