by Urban, Tony
“River isn’t going with them,” Wyatt said.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re taking me to the cannibal’s camp.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Wyatt took his pistol and the .38 his mother typically carried. He also had his knife, but hoped he wouldn’t have to use that. Up close battling against these savages was a death sentence, as Trooper had found out the hard way.
He and River had been walking nonstop all day and throughout the night. Part of Wyatt, a big part, understood that River might be full of shit. That he had no way to find his way back to the cannibal’s camp. That they might be wandering across these bland, featureless plains for eternity. But if there was one chance in a thousand that he could find his brother, he was going to take it.
A few hours later pinpricks of orange appeared against the black landscape. River pointed as if only he could see and Wyatt had succumbed to hysterical blindness.
“There!” He said. “That’s their camp. Right there. River did his job like he promised. Now can he go back?”
Wyatt knew that River was scared. The man had been suffering from full-body tremors for the last several miles. As much as he was annoyed with the man for letting Seth be taken, he had no right to force him to continue.
“Do you have any idea where they might be keeping Seth?”
River nodded. “Yeah, they keep the food - I mean, the people - in cages outside the camp. They say it’s so we don’t ruin their fun with all our screamin’ and beggin’, but I think it’s so we don’t get in their heads.” River tapped his own head. “I think they know what they’re doing ain’t right. And they kept us separate, so we didn’t spoil their meal.”
Wyatt could see the terror on the man’s face. As much as River annoyed him, he couldn’t even begin to imagine what the man had endured. And nobody deserved to go through that. He extended his palm. “Thank you, River.”
River looked at it then took it in a clumsy handshake. “I hope you make it out. You and your brother.”
Wyatt turned back to the fires in the distance. They were brazen, almost cocky. Daring someone to come and find them. And he was ready to do just that.
Chapter Fifty
As Seth came to he watched Red spin the axe end for end, like a cheerleader twirling a baton during the halftime show. The blade was bloody, dripping crimson. He sat it at the gate to the cage, then flipped open a lock, pulled the door, and joined him inside. That’s when Seth remembered what happened and the earlier events crashed into him like a freight train.
He was still bound to the table which wasn’t really a table at all. It was a pile of logs arranged into a type of altar. Or, as Seth thought of it, a butcher’s block.
Thick belts constrained his arms and head. They hadn’t bothered with securing his legs, and he wasn’t sure if he should be insulted or grateful. Since he wasn’t going anywhere, he supposed it didn’t really matter.
What did matter was his agony. His entire body throbbed in pain which ricocheted from one spot to another, like a pinball bouncing off bumpers and shields. His lips betrayed him and allowed a moan to slip free.
Red had been rummaging around in the corner of the cage and glanced back at him. “Sorry if you’re hurting. We’re fresh out of ibuprofen.”
Seth remembered being taken. Remembered his chair getting stuck in the mud near a lake and River being unable to break him free. Remembered the thundering stampede as the cannibals rushed him and he told River to run.
“My family,” Seth said. “Did you get them too?”
Red came to him, having traded in the axe for a well-used chopping knife. “Most of them got away. Left you behind. I can see why.”
“What do you mean ‘most of them’?”
Red gave what passed for a smile and licked his fingers clean of the blood. “Americans have a stigma against raw beef, but eating it is perfectly normal in many countries.”
He reached into a bowl and came out with a chunk about an inch around. “In Korea is called Yukhoe. In Japan Tataki. In France it’s Tartare. I bet you can’t guess what it’s called in Belgium. Try for me.”
Seth wanted to remain stoic and silent, but that had never been his bag. “Fucking sick is what I call it.”
“Oh, now, don’t be so judgemental. I bet the first time someone pulled an overgrown insect with massive claws out of the ocean most people wouldn’t have dared eat it. But today everyone loves lobster.”
He popped the piece of meat into his mouth. “Toast Cannibal.”
Seth stared at him, confused.
“In Belgium, they call it Toast Cannibal. Now, I personally think that’s a little too on the nose, but it’s damned delicious. They serve it on toast, of course, with shallots and mayonnaise and gherkins and just the right amount of Worcestershire sauce.” He made hungry, savory sounds and rubbed his belly.
“What I wouldn’t give for some more ingredients though. The meat itself, without anything to dress it up, it gets so routine.”
Seth had already decided that he wouldn’t beg for his life, that he wouldn’t lower himself to that. He was fascinated, in a morbid way, by the man who he’d initially assumed to be a brainless brute who could do nothing but fight, eat, and shit. “So you were always a savage then? Just one with a better cookbook?”
Red laughed, a guttural noise that jiggled his body. “When I was about your age, I was an Eagle Scout. Then I studied abroad. Fell in love with all the different cultures and cuisines of the world.”
“And now look at you,” Seth said.
Red reached back into the pail and extracted another hunk of meat. He stepped toward him and held it above his face. “How long’s it been since you’ve had meat? Real meat, not something sitting in a can or bag for a decade.”
Seth stared up at the moist, raw morsel.
“You have to be craving it. It’s only human, after all.” Red squeezed the meat and some blood seeped out. A fat drop of it collected on the underside, then rained down.
Seth pinched his lips tight and turned his head sideways. The blood landed on his cheek and dripped across his face and into his ear.
Red laughed again, then popped the bite into his own mouth. “Your loss.”
“Fuck you, you Jeffrey Dahmer knock-off. Go ahead and eat me. I hope I give you the shits so bad your asshole prolapses.”
Red ran his hands across Seth’s chest, which had been stripped bare. He massaged his muscles using blood as a lubricant. “You’ll make a fine meal, young man. Good and tender. Unlike your friend over there.” He threw a look to the corner where he’d retrieved the knife.
Seth strained to see, to find what - who - the man was talking about. His neck gave an electric shock as he pinched a nerve craning too far. And then he saw the body.
There wasn’t much to see. There was no head. It had been stripped of flesh and meat from the chest to the waist. But when he saw the legs, and their loose, black skin, he knew. It was Trooper. This bastard had butchered Trooper and tried to feed him to him.
Seth felt a new pain, this time in his heart, in his soul. It took every bit of emotional strength he possessed not to dissolve into a blubbering mess. “You motherfucker. You better kill me because if I get off this table I’ll rip your throat out with my teeth. I promise you that.”
“Idle threats,” Red said. “You aren’t going anywhere. Not in your condition.” He motioned downward with his eyes.
Seth peered down at himself. He saw his chest, his waist, his right leg. And nothing more.
His left leg was missing from above the knee. A rope tourniquet was tied tight around his thigh. And there was so much blood.
“What did you do to me?” Seth asked. His breathing quickened and he felt like his body was covered in biting ants.
“Easy now. You weren’t using it.”
Seth continued to hyperventilate. He felt his thoughts blur, his thinking slow.
“Seriously, boy, calm down. Otherwise, you’re just goi
ng to pass out and when you come to, I’ll have to explain this to you all over again.”
“Why’d you kill Trooper and not me?”
“The old guy didn’t give us a choice. We had to kill him.” He patted Seth’s useless, numb right leg. “Because of your… limitations, we can keep you around a while. That way the meat stays fresh.”
He grabbed the knife and moved it toward Seth’s right leg. “You’ll last us a couple of days, maybe even a week if we ration you properly. So, you get to stick around, live a little longer, and we get more pleasing meals. Everybody wins, right?”
Red danced the knife across Seth’s leg, toying with him, and Seth couldn’t watch it anymore. The man was right, he was teetering on the edge of consciousness and he was about to fall into the abyss.
He looked past the big man, out of the cage, and into the night. Then, he saw a figure silhouetted by the firelight. He knew the shape as well as he knew the sound of his own voice.
It was Wyatt. And he didn’t hesitate.
Wyatt swung Red’s own ax, raising it over his head and bringing it down on the cannibal. Red crumpled to the ground, motionless.
“Did you kill him?” Seth asked his brother.
“I sure as hell hope so.” Wyatt went to quick work on Seth’s restraints.
“Trooper’s dead,” Seth said.
“I know. But we don’t have time to talk about that right now.” He freed Seth’s wrists.
“You’re such a fucking idiot for coming after me.”
“Your gratitude is overwhelming,” Wyatt said while he loosened the strap around his neck. “Where’s your chair?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know?”
Seth winced as Wyatt pulled him into a seated position. “Does your leg hurt?
Seth stared at his stump. It looked like it should, but it was numb as always. The pain that should have been firing there like lightning bolts had redirected itself everywhere else in his body. “Nah.”
“It looks so fucking gross,” Wyatt said.
“Thanks, brother. I needed that.” Seth grinned and Wyatt managed one back.
Then he squatted in front of him. “Hop on.”
In any other situation, Seth would have protested, but this was not the time for pride. He did as told and let Wyatt carry him from the cage piggyback style. As they passed Red, Seth saw the axe protruding from his head. He hawked the biggest ball of phlegm and snot he could manage and spat it into the bastard’s corpse. “Fuck you, freak.”
After escaping, Wyatt galloped away from camp while Seth gawked at their surroundings. He saw another dozen cages, each holding a prisoner, some more than one. He recognized the Captain who had burst into their campsite weeks earlier. The bearded man paced back and forth in his pen like an animal and Seth saw his arms had both been amputated.
Other prisoners were missing legs, like himself. One man was nothing but a head and torso. Each cage brought some new horror and Seth had to look away. “Run, brother.”
Wyatt did, but they’d only made it twenty or so yards when the screaming started.
Two cannibals, both smaller than Red, chased after them. One clutched Red’s axe which still dripped with his blood. The other held an aluminum baseball bat. As neither was carrying a man on their backs, they quickly closed the distance and within seconds were on their heels.
Seth felt a burst of pain and heard a crack as the bat slammed into his back and a rib snapped. The force of the blow sent them stumbling forward and both Morrill brothers hit the ground.
The cannibal with the bat swung again and Seth got his arms up just in time to save his face. He saw Wyatt draw and aim his pistol at the man with Red’s ax. Then the gun went off and that man took three staggering steps backward. A nickel-sized hole in his shoulder oozed blood, but it wasn’t enough to put him down. He came at Wyatt again and Wyatt shot again.
Seth didn’t get to see what happened because the bastard with the bat was back at work on him. He battered his arms which Seth still used as shields, but he felt like he was on the verge of broken bones.
The man screamed as he raised the bat for another swing.
Before the man could follow through, River exploded from the darkness. He tackled the Babe Ruth wannabe to the ground and wailed on him with furious fists. Punch after punch, landed on the cannibal’s face.
“You ate my friends, you did this to me!” River screamed.
The cannibal struggled, but River pulled a rock the size of his hand from his pocket and went to work with it. The first blow shattered the man’s nose. The second caved in his right eye socket. The third finished him off.
River bounced to his feet and then he looked to Seth. “You lost a leg, friend.”
Seth flashed a wry smile. “Observant as always, River.”
“River sees things. River knows things.”
Seth noticed things too. He saw Red’s discarded axe lying on the ground and grabbed it. Even if he didn’t need to put it to use, it would be one hell of a keepsake.
Wyatt grabbed Seth and set him up. River helped him onto Wyatt’s back. And then they heard the entire clan of cannibals running their direction.
Seth sighed. Why couldn’t any of this be easy?
Chapter Fifty-One
“That don’t look good,” River said. “That don’t look good at all.”
“Brother, this is the part where we get the hell out of Dodge,” Seth said.
Understatement of the century, Wyatt thought as the horde barrelled down on them.
He spun them away from the coming cannibals, running as fast as his legs would carry them which wasn’t nearly as quick as usual with Seth riding shotgun on his back.
“This way.” River pointed toward a grouping of rocks that funneled in the land below. He took off in that direction and Wyatt, and Seth by default, followed.
The course through the rocks was maze-like and Wyatt hoped to hell River knew what he was doing. They zigged, zagged, and zigged again and the sounds of the attackers at their rear faded with each turn. Maybe the man wasn’t completely crazy after all.
Another series of turns and they broke free of the labyrinth, into open land. And almost ran smack into three cannibals who huddled around a small fire.
They were emaciated and haggard. The runts of the litter, Wyatt thought. They looked like the walking dead and he wondered if they were infected with some disease and sent away to die.
Whatever their malady, their reason for being cast out, they scrambled to their feet when Wyatt and company arrived. Before they could do more than that, River ran straight at them, flailing his arms like he was doing some kind of manic dance move.
He rambled incoherently, making noise and uttering sounds Wyatt couldn’t decipher aside from his name - River - dropped in at random intervals. The cannibals stared at him, then gave each other a look that Wyatt read as What the fuck is up with this loon?
And then they charged.
Wyatt felt Seth’s hot breath in his ear. “Wyatt, run.”
He did as told, breaking past River and toward the two cannibals. Seth swung the axe as if he was a mounted knight riding his steed into battle. He lopped off the head of the nearest man, then pivoted and chopped into the chest of the second. Both fell to the ground, bleeding and motionless. The third man must have seen enough and fled in the opposite direction.
River reached into their fire and pulled out a blazing tree limb. He held it over his head like a torch.
In the distance they could hear the main group of cannibals getting closer. Not within sight, but it wouldn’t be long.
River pointed toward a dry creek bed a few hundred yards away. “You go that way. Follow it until you come to the granite rock. It’s real big, you can’t miss it. Then go east. That’ll take you back to where you came from.”
“Why are you telling me this? Just come with us.” Wyatt said.
River shook his head. “River has some amends to make,” he said. “I think my friends would b
e proud. Even though I don’t have any.” He threw a wink at Wyatt.
“We’re your friends, River. So let’s go.”
But River scrambled in the opposite direction, casting one last look back at them. “Remember to be like River. Keep runnin’.”
The man took off like an Olympic sprinter and soon all they could see of him was the light of his torch.
“No time to be sentimental,” Seth said.
He was right. Wyatt ran toward the creek, Seth bouncing along for the ride. When the cannibals broke free of the rocks, the brothers saw them follow River’s light into the desert. And Wyatt managed to catch his breath because this battle was finally over.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Wyatt walked all night and for several hours after daybreak. He was exhausted almost to the point of delirium but didn’t plan to quit until they got back to the farmhouse. They had to get back before the others left them. Why hadn’t he given himself more than 48 hours?
He paused, twisting at the waist to stretch out his aching core. “Dude, you’re one heavy motherfucker.”
Seth’s head rested on his shoulder and Wyatt felt it move.
“You really need to rethink that sentence,” Seth said. “That’s your mom you’re talking about.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Wyatt sighed and resumed his trek wondering how his brother could always be so sharp. Like he never gave his mind a rest.
“Besides, I should be approximately eleven pounds lighter than I was before.”
“Eleven pounds? That’s oddly specific. How’d you come up with that?” This wouldn’t have been Wyatt’s first choice when it came to subject matter, but the conversation was the only thing keeping him from collapsing where he stood.
“I figure I weigh about one-twenty. Maybe less since we hit the road. We’re all a bit thin, aren’t we? Either way, I was thinking about a pound and a half for the foot. Another four point five for my calf. And five-ish pounds for the chunk of thigh that bastard chopped off.” He raised his eyebrows. “Eleven pounds.”