“We have your wife,” she said.
A stab of terror flashed through him.
She smiled at him, nodding. “And your daughter.”
He was not sure where they were taking him, but wherever it was, it was far. Although he was struggling as they hustled him out of the building and into their van, no one tried to help him or tried to stop them. A few onlookers smiled indulgently, as though they were witnessing the rehearsal of a play or a staged publicity stunt, but that was the extent of the attention they received.
If only they hadn’t been wearing those damn costumes, Mike thought. His abduction wouldn’t have looked so comical if they’d been dressed in terrorist attire.
He was thrown into the rear of the van, the door was slammed shut, and a few seconds later the engine roared to life and they were off.
They drove for hours. There were no windows in the back of the van, and he could not tell in which direction they were traveling, but after a series of initial stops and starts and turns, the route straightened out, the speed became constant, and he assumed they were moving along a highway.
When the van finally stopped and the back door was opened and he was dragged out, it was in the country, in a wooded, meadow area that was unfamiliar to him. Through the trees he saw a building, a white, green-trimmed colonial structure that he almost but not quite recognized. The Washingtonians led him away from the building to a small shed. The shed door was opened, and he saw a dark tunnel and a series of steps leading down. Two of the Washingtonians went before him, the other three remained behind him, and in a group they descended the stairway.
Mt. Vernon, Mike suddenly realized. The building was Mt. Vernon, George Washington’s home.
The steps ended at a tunnel, which wound back in the direction of the building and ended in a large warehouse-sized basement that looked as if it had been converted into a museum of the Inquisition. They were underneath Mt. Vernon, he assumed, in what must have been Washington’s secret lair.
“Where’s Pam?” he demanded. “Where’s Amy?”
“You’ll see them,” the woman said.
The tall man walked over to a cabinet, pointed at the dull ivory objects inside. “These are spoons carved entirely from the femurs of the First Continental Congress.” He gestured toward an expensively framed painting hanging above the cabinet. The painting, obviously done by one of early America’s finer artists, depicted a blood-spattered George Washington, flanked by two naked and equally blood-spattered women, devouring a screaming man. “Washington commissioned this while he was president.”
The man seemed eager to show off the room’s possessions, and Mike wondered if he could use that somehow to get an edge, to aid in an escape attempt. He was still being held tightly by two of the Washingtonians, and though he had not tried breaking out of their grip since entering the basement, he knew he would not be able to do so.
The tall man continued to stare reverently at the painting. “He acquired the taste during the winter when he and his men were starving and without supplies or reinforcements. The army began to eat its dead, and Washington found that he liked the taste. During the long days, he carved eating utensils and small good luck fetishes from the bones of the devoured men. Even after supplies began arriving, he continued to kill a man a day for his meals.”
“He began to realize that with the army in his control, he was in a position to call the shots,” the woman explained from behind him. “He could create a country of cannibals. A nation celebrating and dedicated to the eating of human flesh!”
Mike turned his head, looked at her. “He didn’t do it, though, did he?” He shook his head. “You people are so full of crap.”
“You won’t think so when we eat your daughter’s kidneys.”
Anger coursed through him and Mike tried to jerk out of his captors’ grasps. The men’s grips tightened, and he soon gave up, slumping back in defeat. The tall man ran a hand lovingly over the top of a strange tablelike contraption in the middle of the room. “This is where John Hancock was flayed alive,” he said. “His blood anointed this wood. His screams sang in these chambers.”
“You’re full of shit.”
“Am I?” He looked dreamily around the room. “Jefferson gave his life for us, you know. Sacrificed himself right here, allowed Washingtonians to rip him apart with their teeth. Franklin donated his body to us after death—”
“There was no Benjamin Franklin.”
The man smiled, showing overly white teeth. “So you know.”
“Shouldn’t you be wearing your wooden choppers?”
The man punched him in the stomach, and Mike doubled over, pain flaring in his abdomen, his lungs suddenly unable to draw in enough breath.
“You are not a guest,” the man said. “You are a prisoner. Our prisoner. For now.” He smiled. “Later you may be supper.”
Mike closed his eyes, tried not to vomit. When he could again breathe normally, he looked up at the man. “Why this James Bond shit? You going to give me your whole fucking history before you kill me? You going to explain all of your toys to me and hope I admire them? Fuck you! Eat me, you sick assholes!”
The woman grinned. “Don’t worry. We will.”
A door opened at the opposite end of the room, and Pam and Amy were herded in by three new Washingtonians. His daughter and wife looked white and frightened. Amy was crying, and she cried even harder when she saw him. “Daddy!” she screamed.
“Lunch,” the tall man said. “Start up the barbecue.”
The Washingtonians laughed.
The woman turned to Mike. “Give us the letter,” she said.
“And you’ll let me go? Yeah. Right.”
Where was the letter? he wondered. Hartkinson had had it last. Had he destroyed it or ditched it somewhere, like a junkie flushing drugs down the toilet after the arrival of the cops?
And where was Hartkinson? Why hadn’t they kidnapped him, too?
He was about to ask just that very question when there was the sound of scuffling from the door through which Pam and Amy had entered. All of the Washingtonians turned to face that direction.
And there was Hartkinson.
He was dressed in a red British Revolutionary War uniform, and behind him stood a group of other redcoats clutching bayonets. A confused and frightened youth, who looked like a tour guide, peered into the room from behind them.
“Unhand those civilians!” Hartkinson demanded in an affected British accent.
He and his friends looked comical in their shabby mis-matched British uniforms, but they also looked heroic, and Mike’s adrenaline started pumping as they burst through the doorway. There were a lot of them, he saw, fifteen or twenty, and they outnumbered the Washingtonians more than two to one.
Two of the Washingtonians drew knives and ran toward Pam and Amy.
“No!” Mike yelled.
Musket balls cut the men down in midstride.
Mike took a chance and tried his escape tactic again. Either the men holding him were distracted or their grip had simply weakened after all this time, but he successfully jerked out of their hands, broke away, and turned and kicked one of the men hard in the groin. The other man moved quickly out of his way, but Mike didn’t care. He ran across the room, past arcane torture devices, to Pam and Amy.
“Attack!” someone yelled.
The fight began.
It was mercifully short. Mike heard gunfire, heard ricochets, heard screams, saw frenzied movement, but he kept his head low and knew nothing of the specifics of what was happening. All he knew was that by the time he reached Pam and Amy they were free. He stood up from his crouch, looked around the room, and saw instantly that most of the Washingtonians were dead or captured. The tall man was lying on the floor with a dark crimson stain spreading across his powder blue uniform, and that made Mike feel good. Served the bastard right.
Both Pam and Amy were hugging each other and crying, and he hugged them too and found that he was crying as well.
He felt a light tap on his shoulder and instinctively whirled around, fists clenched, but it was only Hartkinson.
Mike stared at him for a moment, blinked. “Thank you,” he said, and he began crying anew, tears of relief. “Thank you.”
The professor nodded, smiled. There were flecks of blood in his white Disney beard. “Leave,” he said. “You don’t want to see what comes next.”
“But—”
His voice was gentle. “The Washingtonians aren’t the only ones with . . . different traditions.”
“You’re not cannibals, too?”
“No, but . . . ” He shook his head. “You’d better go.”
Mike looked at Pam and Amy, and nodded.
From inside his red coat, Hartkinson withdrew a piece of parchment wrapped in plastic.
The letter.
“Take it to the Smithsonian. Tell the world.” His voice was low and filled with reverence. “It’s history.”
“Are you going to be okay here?”
“We’ve done this before.” He gestured toward the tour guide, who was still standing in the corner. “He’ll show you the way out.” He shook his head, smiling ruefully. “The history biz is not like it appears from the outside.”
“I guess not.” Mike put his arm around Pam, who in turn pulled Amy toward the door. The tour guide, white-faced, started slowly up the steps.
“Don’t look back,” Hartkinson advised.
Mike waved his acquiescence and began walking up the stairs, clutching Washington’s letter. Behind them, he heard screams-cries of terror, cries of pain-and though he didn’t want to, though he knew he shouldn’t, he smiled as he led his family out of the basement and into Washington’s home above.
SCENT OF FLESH
JESSICA MARIE BAUMGARTNER
“Where are you, you damn varmint?” Annie clutched her father’s busted up muzzle-loading rifle. Her ragged hair rustled in the wind. The chill didn’t bite her though; she preferred hunting in winter.
Too easy. Her father had laughed when she expressed her fondness of it as a child. The game got no place to hide, “‘specially if it snows,” he had said.
The frayed ends of her skirt were pulled tight over her thick boots. She held steady, squatting in layered pairs of thick pantaloons. Fighting off her father’s memory, she focused on the shadows, darted her gaze from side to side.
She had already laid down a deer, and caught a couple of rabbits. The meat would feed her family well. The money earned from the Willowdell butcher often nourished them more than a meal could. But the fleshy scent of the carcasses was what she relied on at this moment.
“I know you’re out there.” She growled through her teeth.
Her sharp eyes had glimpsed something unnatural. Its image followed her, haunted her waking hours, until the past dredged through her dreams. Dreams they were.
Annie refused to believe in nightmares. Anything she feared at night, she knew she could kill once awake.
“Phoebe,” the unmistakable baritone of her father’s voice called from her left.
She breathed slow and tilted her head toward it. Long lines of timber and fur jetted through the grey darkness that dimmed with each moment.
Night. Her mouth curved. Night hunts brought peace once the bullet was released. Her fingers itched for the trigger, but she held steady.
It’s a wallop of a game, she thought.
The ground crunched on the hill some forty yards to her left. She narrowed her eyes and met the glowing yellow gaze that crested the hilltop for only a second.
Gotcha! She fired. But the lanky frame brushed aside, like a tree in a storm.
She slapped her knee and grabbed her rifle rushing forward, weaving through trees left and right, working to confuse the giant before her. Its grey flesh matched the moonlight on the tree trunks. She fought off the urge to hold her nose against the putrid smell of death that wafted around her. She knew the haggard breathing better than anything. The croaking rasp was often mistaken for dead branches swaying, but she had hunted enough to decipher the difference.
Nearing the icy cannibal, her pulse thumped from her ears to her toes. Her chest drummed with each drop of her quick feet, until she froze.
Her legs shook and she whimpered. “Daddy?”
“Phoebe?”
How dare it mimic her father’s voice. Only he had ever called her by her first name. To everyone else she was Annie.
“Daddy?” She lowered the rifle, relaxed her grip.
“I’ve missed you, Phoebe.”
She glanced around the darkened branches. Scanning the conifers with hope she sighed. “Me too, Daddy.”
“Stop hunting and come with me.”
“Okay.” She let the rifle fall.
With one sharp jerk, the festering monster raced toward her with long sharp teeth ready.
Annie fell to her knees, caught the rifle with her left hand, and pulled up enough to get off a clear shot. Straight between the eyes. They’re getting smarter. She cried out, howling like a wolf, into the night.
“I hate having to play the sad little girl.” She stood and prodded the dead creature with the barrel of her gun. The beast’s tongue protruded from its mouth. Ice clung to the mats in its wiry fur.
Annie scratched her nose. She pulled her collar over her face and inhaled through her mouth to dull the stench. “One deer, two rabbits, and one less monster to terrorize the town.”
Daddy’d be proud. She closed her eyes for a moment and took in the silence. Soon the wolves would be back. Coyotes could howl in safety again. Foxes and owls would roam.
She walked back to her pack and untied her shovel. I’ve lost two fathers to these beasts. Ain’t gonna lose another.
Despite her hatred of the ice creatures, she couldn’t leave the slain. Even after being attacked, her father had made it home to die with dignity. Her step-father hadn’t been so lucky, but it never settled her stomach to leave any kill behind.
***
“You cain’t keep running off so late.”
Annie eyed her mother’s new husband with a straight face. Lord knows he wouldn’t make it a day in the woods. She bit down on her tongue and held in the laughter.
His tailored jacket and perfect pants said it all.
“Mama.” She turned in her seat.
Her mother set a plate of biscuits before her brothers and sisters.
“You scared me half to death.”
“Ain’t nothing to fear for me,” Annie said.
“Phoebe.”
The children stopped.
Annie glared at her new step-father. How dare he call her by that name.
Her mother rushed to him and patted his back. “Joe, let me handle her.”
Annie stiffened. She sat up with perfect posture.
Her step-father raised his coffee to his lips and grunted.
“Annie, it’s been hard enough to keep tabs on everyone what with me and your father working all day.”
Her third father seemed less prepared than her second, who was nothing of note compared to the man who bore her.
“Nobody gets a shot past me. And if it weren’t for my efforts, we’d all starve.” Annie rose, anxious to escape back to the hunt.
Her step-father shot her a dark scowl. His beady eyes were as black as his coffee. His moustache twitched.
“You may be excused,” her mother called after her.
Excused? She grabbed her father’s Kentucky rifle this time and pulled her pack over her shoulder. Mama’s always excusing something.
It seemed to be her mother’s place to brush off what she couldn’t understand. She had never accepted the truth of Annie’s importance. Even after losing a second husband she refused to believe anything Annie had tried to tell her about the monsters.
I’ll leave her to her fancies. Annie straightened her skirt and marched out. The clearing around their meager home ended in a tangled brush. She pushed beyond the burrs and stepped around a few vines.
She scanned the leaves coating the ground before her. Their thick bed made it easier to walk, but her heel toe movements were harder to stifle.
Slowing her steps, she gripped her father’s gun. No shadows reached for her. No limbs quickened to grab for flesh. Disappointment nearly took over, but she had a job to do.
The exhilaration of destroying a monster had worn off. It left the dull duties of attempting to appease her mother more burdensome than ever. Annie grew angry at the denial.
She grabbed some sticks and propped them in the knobs of a sickly tree. How can she be so blind? Annie jogged away.
The freedom of the clean air cut her lungs with a burning chill. She glanced over her shoulder and slowed to a walk. “I will always look for what my eyes cain’t see.”
Turning to face her mark, she contemplated stepping further back. The twigs stuck out of the tree like mere match sticks from the distance, but she needed to shoot. The heat of her rifle would cool her senses.
Setting up, she blasted off her first mark. It struck the stick in half. Annie frowned. Nope. Too close.
She put more space between the range. Forty paces. Spinning around once more, she didn’t even need a breath. The squeeze came off the trigger like a born reflex, and the tip of the next twig was shot off.
“Hooey!” She grinned. “How’s that for keeping tabs?”
She backed up fifteen more paces and fired again, and again, and again; until the sticks and the knobs on the tree were shot off.
The smoke darkened the air with a musty curtain of powder. She breathed it in. “Nothing like gunpowder to get a girl going.” She laughed to herself and moved deeper into the forest.
Distance from civilization always cleared her head. She softened her movements and carefully held her skirt with one hand. Focusing ahead, she sought her favorite tree. The sturdy Pin Oak that offered a crooked smile with its empty branches.
She slung her rifle on her back and spit onto her hands. Moving in, she gripped the nearest branch to her head and pulled up. She pushed off the tree with her boots, swinging herself onto the bough, and a few small twigs scratched her cheeks.
Again, she climbed. Her dress snagged. Strands of hair broke loose from her braid and tugged on some wayward branches. Annie tucked the folds of her skirt close. She tilted her head away and didn’t stop ascending until her palms throbbed.
Fantastic Tales of Terror Page 31