by D V Wolfe
“It’s weird,” Noah said, his mouth full of hash browns. “I’ve only ever seen Bane eat like this when she’s eating here.” Both of us turned to look at him. He seemed to realize he was talking with his mouth full of food and he quickly closed it, swallowing hard. “Just saying…”
“We have a couple of theories about that,” Rosetta said, setting her glass back down.
“But we’re not sure about any of them,” I said, glaring at Rosetta. The last thing I needed was Noah to start acting weird around me because of Rosetta and I’s theory that my appetite was at its best at her house because we were on a Hellgate.
I went to the fridge and pulled out the pan of Huckleberry Buckle. I ate out of the pan with a fork while Rosetta chased me around the kitchen with a wooden spoon. I didn’t care. Rosetta’s Huckleberry Buckle was what I imagined heaven would be like. And I didn’t care if it only tasted that good because we were close to Hell. At that moment, while Noah and I laughed and Rosetta called me a raccoon, and swore at me as she chased me around the table, I felt happy. It was odd. Like seeing an old friend years after you had forgotten they even existed.
The sun was rising when we headed back out to Lucy, Rosetta following close behind us. We loaded the truck and I put the grocery bag from Rosetta in the toolbox, behind the cab.
“Are those my hedge clippers?” Rosetta asked, looking over my shoulder into the toolbox.
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “I haven’t made it to Blacky’s yet.” I held my breath, hoping she didn’t notice the dried blood on the blades.
“Well,” Rosetta said, stepping back. “You’ve been busy. If you could find the time to get them sharpened and drop them off on your way back, I’d be eternally grateful. My hydrangea in the front yard is threatening a coup de grace against the blackberry bushes .”
I nodded and closed the toolbox lid. “Thanks, Rosetta,” I said, turning to her. “For everything.”
Rosetta pulled me down into a bone-crushing hug. I hugged her back and after a second, she released me and moved to hug Noah. I watched his look of shock as her boa constrictor-strong arms crushed him.
“Wow,” Noah gasped. “I’d have never thought you could hug so hard.”
“It’s her Baptist protein shakes,” I said, opening Lucy’s door. “She can hug the sin right out of you.”
Rosetta scoffed. “If that was the case, there wouldn’t be anything left of your sorry hide, Bane.”
Noah was quiet and I turned to look at him as he studied the truck, his face worried. “So, we’re going to find the cannibals who took Festus, right?”
“Right,” I said slowly, not sure what line of questioning Noah was about to go down.
“How do we kill cannibals?” Noah asked.
“Shoot ‘em,” Rosetta and I said together.
Noah looked surprised. “Really?”
“They’re cannibals, kid,” Rosetta said. “Just humans who eat other humans. They’re not gods or anything.”
“Although,” I said, “The fact that they’ve been snacking on demon skins might mean more than just super-human strength. Regular ammo might not do it.” I looked at Rosetta. “Any suggestions?”
Rosetta shook her head. “Maybe spray them with holy water, then shoot them?”
“I want the gun,” Noah said.
I grinned at him. “Never thought I’d hear you say that. And there is no way in Rosetta’s tulip beds that I’m giving you the gun. I’ve seen you shoot before. You get the spray bottle.”
Rosetta rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you two will work something out. Do you have enough holy water?”
I nodded at the toolbox. “There’s a two-liter in there. It’s not quite full, but there’s still a good amount left. I just had a hand on it.” I held up my hand to show her the blister on my palm. “Someone,” I cut my eyes to Noah. “Didn’t screw the cap on tight enough.”
Noah threw his arms in the air. “We were almost dead, multiple times. We’d just burned the mark off that witch and I guess I was still a little shocked. Sorry, I forgot to double-check the cap on the damn holy water!” He stomped around the truck and got in, slamming his door behind him.
Rosetta turned back to me. “You two stop back in for a refuel after you pick up that shifty bastard. You make sure and tell him I’m mad as hell at him for abandoning us right before the big showdown in St. Louis.” I opened my mouth to protest and she held up her hand. “I don’t care what his excuse was. He should have stayed with you all instead of getting kidnapped.”
I grinned. “I’ll be sure to tell him that after we save his ass.”
I turned to get into Lucy and I felt her hand on my arm. I looked back at her. “Be careful,” she said and I nodded. She looked like she wanted to say more but decided against it and stepped back, letting her hand fall to her side. I climbed into Lucy and closed the door, before rolling the window down.
“Huckleberry Buckle when we get back?” I asked.
Rosetta raised an eyebrow. “Child, you’ve nearly cleaned me out of huckleberry preserves. Those aren’t native to West Virginia, you know.” She looked stern for half a second more before rolling her eyes. “I’ll see if I can find one more jar.”
We rolled out of Ft. Hope and headed east on 64. Noah reached over and flipped on the radio. There was a Free song playing and Noah surprised me by singing along as we took the on-ramp. Traffic was light and the cab was warm from the sun. The summer breeze coming in through the open windows was fresh and carried something sweet and floral.
“Breath deep,” I said to Noah. “Nothing smells this nice where we’re going.”
5
We picked up 81 heading north out of Lexington and Noah surprised me by declining my offer to stop for food in Harrisburg.
“Trying to watch your figure?” I asked as we sped past fast food joints.
“No...I,” Noah trailed off. He clearly hadn’t understood that I was teasing him. His expression was serious.
“What’s up?” I asked.
Noah shook his head. “I was just thinking. These cannibals….they were chasing you when I first met you, right? I mean you said there were bad people after you and…” I turned to look at him and saw his gaze locked onto my right arm where the scar tissue was beginning to form around the cauterized flesh. “And that wound, that was from them, right?” Noah asked, gulping so hard it looked like his adam’s apple was punching him in the chin.
I nodded. “Yeah, Sister Smile did that. Just a love bite, really.”
Noah put his head in his hands and groaned. “What are we going to do?”
I snorted. “I thought we’d covered this.” Noah glanced up at me. “Step one, shoot. Step two, find Festus. Then repeat step one as needed,” I said
Noah shook his head. “You make it sound like it’s no big deal.”
“Remember that under the demon juice they’ve been chugging, they’re still people,” I said. “People that eat people. Like praying mantises,” I paused. “Praying manti? Praying mantease?”
“Praying Mantease, yeah that’s the one,” Noah said, rolling his eyes.
After that, the mood in the truck got a little lighter. I could still feel the worry in Noah’s voice when he asked again about how we were going to handle the cannibals.
Bless him. I took the exit off of 81 to head south of Lancaster and almost sooner than I would have liked, we passed the blindingly white barn on the right side of the road. It stood like a beacon in front of the dark overgrown forest that sloped away from the road behind it. It wasn’t until we took the dirt off-roading path that led behind the barn that we saw the first smiley face. It was brown and flaking, clearly not fresh, and splashed across the back of the barn. I’d seen them draw these before and their favorite finger paint of choice was arterial spray.
I saw Noah shudder slightly beside me and lean away from his window as we passed it.
“Real ‘Martha Stewart homey’ touches everywhere, huh,” I said.
“Why do
they use the smiley face as their symbol?” Noah asked.
“Well, they’re called the H.A.N.D. tribe, short for Have A Nice Day. Legend goes that Sister Smile used to be the checker at a grocery store and they used those plastic bags that say ‘Have a nice day’ with a smiley face on them. The story goes that she just snapped one day and took a bite out of some entitled prick that was giving her hell. Then, once she’d tasted human, she couldn’t get enough of it.”
“I guess I should have put the smiley face together with the name Sister Smile,” Noah muttered.
The path twisted down the hill and everything grew darker as the dense overgrowth surrounded us from all sides and above. I flicked Lucy’s headlights on as we followed the path around a sharp left curve. I sighed to myself, remembering what was coming next.
“I don’t think we’re going to fit through that,” Noah said, motioning to the path ahead which had narrowed. The path passed between a gap in a stand of aspen trees. Despite it being the largest gap through the trees, Noah and I wouldn’t even be able to push through it, walking side by side. I knew there was a side road the cannibals had used to move their RVs and Town Cars into the campground but there wasn’t much cover going in that direction and I had no idea what was waiting for us.
I eased Lucy to a stop next to the trunk of a tree with low-hanging branches, just to the left of the path, and then I thought better of it and k-turned so that her nose was facing back up the road.
“All the better to make a quick exit,” I said to Noah when he gave me a confused look. He nodded but swallowed hard again. I dropped my head so that he wouldn’t see my smile. His adam’s apple looked like the ball shooting up to hit the bell in a carnival game.
“Well,” I said, staring between the trees and straining my ears for any sound coming from the clearing ahead. “Blood and splatter, let’s get at ‘er.”
Noah was quiet beside me as we outfitted ourselves. I pulled the backpack sprayer out of the toolbox and in a minute, had it on Noah.
“Uh, no thank you,” Noah said, as he struggled, trying to take it off.
I shook my head. “I told you; you spray, I shoot.”
“I’m not suicidal, Bane,” Noah said. “I know what this wand does. I saw it almost lift you off the ground and you are way luckier than I am. I’ll probably light myself on fire and explode.”
“Not a strong grasp on how electricity works, huh?” I asked, taking the wand from him and unscrewing it along with the power cell. I tossed them back into the toolbox. “Fine, plug the hose hole with your thumb.” He did so and I carefully unscrewed the cap on the two-liter and dumped it into the backpack sprayer. In the process, some spatter hit me in the face and I sucked in air through clenched teeth as I felt tiny angry welts breaking out on my cheeks and forehead.
Rosetta, Stacks, and I had been trying to work out why I was so sensitive to holy water for years. The best explanation we could come up with was the possibility that it had something to do with the piece of me they kept in the pit as collateral when the rest of me came topside.
I slid the .45 into the back of my jeans and loaded the sawed-off. I stuffed a military-issued frag grenade Into my front jeans pocket. If we got completely ambushed, I’d toss it and Noah and I might be able to escape. Hell, it had worked last time. I dug around the toolbox some more and found the purple fanny pack Rosetta had thrown in for me to wear to carry ammo. I snapped it around me and I heard Noah chuckling.
“What?” I asked.
Noah was laughing harder now. “It’s just. I keep thinking you’re this badass, but then you put on a freaking fanny pack to carry your ammo.”
“What?” I asked. “It’s handy.”
“And dorky,” Noah said.
I had been about to hand Noah the machete so he’d have something to defend himself with, in case the holy water didn’t work, but I paused and raised an eyebrow at him. “Maybe I shouldn’t give this to you,” I said. “I mean if you think I’m that dorky, you could just come up with your own way to fend off those cannibals that are going to look at you like a buy-one-get-one burger sale.”
That wiped the grin off his face. I handed over the machete and he studied it, staring at a spot on the handle. He quickly pulled it away from his face and his expression became a grimace.
“What?” I asked again.
“Nothing,” Noah said. “I was just remembering what I watched you do with this two nights ago.” He sighed. “Well cannibals can’t be as bad as necro-witches, right?”
I turned away from him and started up the path, winding through the aspen trees.
“Right?” He called after me, his voice cracking a little.
We were quiet as we wound our way through the trees. Noah was terrified. I could hear his rapid breathing and I knew I was imagining it, but I swore I could hear his heart beating in his chest as we got closer to the campground. Trees were halfway chopped down to our left and right. This was where men and women, more interested in terrorizing their next meal, had hacked at the branches, just to get enough fuel to cook their victims, like little kids rushing chores so that they could go play.
We passed a piece of thin plywood that had been screwed to a four-by-four post. The post itself leaned heavily to one side, the dirt around its base, loose. The plywood had been spray-painted white, and stapled to it was a white plastic bag, with the yellow smiley face printed on it, encircled by the phrase, ‘Have a Nice Day’. I pulled Noah back when he leaned in to look at what was nailed all around the smiley face. They were fingers, some still with the press on nails attached, all pointing at the smiley face in a circle around it.
“Someone’s stretching their artistic wings,” I grunted, gently pushing Noah up the path.
He didn’t say anything as we moved on. Twice I had to move him physically to the other side of the path when we’d pass shallow graves full of insect-infested human remains. None of the usual flying insects that hung around a freshly dead body were present. I held out a hand to stop Noah from moving around. I could feel his nervous energy coming off of him in waves. He stilled when I put a hand on his shoulder and I strained my ears to listen. Silence. A little part of me breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t had high hopes of success for Noah and I, walking barely armed, just the pair of us into a den of cannibals all hopped up on demon meat. At the same time, a hollow feeling was pulsing against the inside of my ribs.
“I don’t hear anything,” Noah breathed next to me.
I nodded and we climbed the last embankment side-by-side. Someone had built a railing of sorts for the older cannibals to use, no doubt, to make it up the hill. It looked to be made entirely out of femur bones and two by fours. Noah hadn’t been paying attention and put his hand on the railing. He paused as his hand registered the texture under his fingers and he quickly withdrew it as if it had burned him.
“Fuck,” he said through gritted teeth. I crested the hill beside him. We paused and just looked around at the sight in front of us.
The campground looked like ground zero after a bomb had gone off. In the center was a patch of bare and cracked earth, surrounded by a few burned-out RVs, up on cinder blocks. The RVs were all marked by the bloody smiley face. There was something that looked like a huge coffee table made out of heavy iron grill plates, sitting dead center, charred wood bits littering the area under and around it.
Anger and annoyance had finally won out over the brief feeling of relief that I’d had up to this point. I pushed past Noah and kicked a bucket of charred ashes next to the table. The bucket sailed through the air and bounced off of a car hood that looked like it had been ripped off of one the old Town Cars. Someone had set it up behind a rocking chair on a platform. Her throne. That was where Sister Smile had sat as she went into her trance and told me about the Rawhead and the family it had been terrorizing. And also where she had demanded her payment. The nerves in my arm spasmed as if they remembered this place as well.