by D V Wolfe
Sicily looked like an average small town. The main street was before us and two paved roads split off of the main street in either direction and looked like they skirted around the town.
“Uh, left,” Noah said. I turned and we were now driving right into the wind. Lucy roared and I shifted to a higher gear. The road we were on was full of potholes and I had to slow down. With the red dirt wall in front of us, I was having to guess where the curves in the road were. We could see the few street lights that had lined the main street off to the right as faint glowing lights through the dirt clouds. Sicily was small. Only a couple of thousand people based on the population sign we’d passed on the way in. Maybe the whole town had gone on vacation and was safely missing this hellish storm and the tribe of cannibals or the gathering of demons that had taken up residence. Nothing like some wishful thinking and a healthy dose of delusion to distract a person from the pieces of sheet metal that were somersaulting across the road ahead. The clouds of red dirt were getting thicker, Lucy’s headlights were only able to punch through them a foot or two at a time. I leaned forward, trying to see the road as far as I could. I had to slow down again. The wind was howling through the tiny gap in Noah’s window where the rubber insulation had fallen off.
“Bane,” Noah shouted. “We have to turn back! The storm is too…” suddenly, the air was still. There was no hail. The sky was clear overhead and the stars were out. I paused at an intersection and we both listened. I rolled down my window. Crickets. Cicadas. The temperature was back up in the sixties. The moon was out, almost full now.
“What the…” Noah started. He pressed his nose to his window. “What happened?”
A memory of something Tags had told me, years ago, surfaced. “I think we drove into the eye of the storm,” I said. Noah turned to look at me.
“The eye? Like a hurricane?”
I nodded. “Tags was hunting a coven of vampires a couple of years ago and he told me that they had put up a storm barrier, like this one. He’d read that supernaturals will do this kind of a thing to keep hunters away from whatever bullshit they’re about to do. It usually means they’re more vulnerable which is good for us, but they’re also doing some really bad shit, usually to make themselves stronger, which is bad for us.” I moved us down the road and we started squinting into the dark night around us, looking for a sign that we were getting close.
Green-tinged area lights were illuminating a row of warehouses to the left of us. A warmer, yellow light blazed in the distance to our left. I stuck my head out of the window and sniffed. Campfire. I slowed down as we passed the warehouses and moved towards the flickering light in the distance.
“Do you think…” Noah breathed. “Is...is that a bonfire?”
There was a trailer park ahead and the light was coming from somewhere in the heart of the park. The sign at the side of the road said, Blue Ridge Estates.
“Winner, winner, chicken dinner,” I sighed, coming to a full stop, several hundred feet back from the edge of the park. I turned around in the road and headed back towards the warehouses.
“What are you doing?” Noah asked.
“Well, I’m not as sure about my shooting and ‘putting cannibals down’ abilities as you are at present. I thought it might be smart, since there are just two of us, and pretty likely more of them, that we park Lucy somewhere out of sight and go in on foot.”
“Oh,” Noah said. “Yeah...yeah, that sounds good.”
The warehouse at the end of the row didn’t have a fence around it. I turned down the white gravel driveway and headed for the back of the lot. I pulled behind the warehouse and flipped around so if we had to make a quick escape, we were already facing the right direction. I cut the headlights and looked at Noah.
“Now, again, there’s just the two of us. We’re going to figure out what’s going on and then we’re going to come back here and come up with a plan. No shooting, unless you absolutely have to. We don’t want to be the pinatas at whatever supernatural birthday party is happening here. Got it?”
Noah nodded and we both got out. I pulled the seat forward so he could grab the ten-gauge. I loaded the .45 and handed it to him with an extra clip. I loaded my .357 and slid it under my jeans, at the small of my back. I took a Solomon’s Spice stake and handed Noah the other one.
“Just in case it’s demons and not cannibals,” I said. I grabbed my duffle bag out of the back, clipped on my duct tape and carabiner holsters, and slipped my machete and sawed-off into them. I snapped on the fanny pack and then doled out shells to Noah and me.
“Left pocket is more rock salt,” I said, pointing to his cargo short pocket and holding up a red shell for him to see. I moved around him and dumped black shells into his right pocket. “Right pocket is regular shot, just in case it’s the cannibals. I don’t want a shoot-out tonight, but if there is one, better to be prepared.”
I thought about taking the cell phone but I didn’t really have anywhere to put it. And, knowing Gabe and I’s record for perfect timing, he’d probably call just when I was poised behind the big baddie. I left it in the seat and we closed Lucy’s doors as quietly as we could.
We both winced as they squeaked. “Seriously, Bane, WD-40,” Noah muttered. I paused and gave him the finger. “Wow,” Noah said and I saw him tip his head back to look at the moon. “With the moon almost being full, I could see your finger and your pissy expression.”
I looked up at the sky. “Yeah, double-edged sword.” I looked back at Noah’s confused expression. “Means it’ll be easier for the baddies to spot us if we aren’t careful.”
Noah nodded and I moved past him, towards the back edge of the white gravel lot. Except for the insects, the night around us was silent. It was better than the night being full of screaming and crying but it still unnerved me.
We moved through the scrubby weeds and chunks of red rock that had been broken up to level the ground for the warehouses but just shoved to the side instead of hauled away. We stumbled through waist-high weeds, tripping over rocks and stepping in prairie dog holes, pausing now and then to listen for any sounds that might indicate that we’d been spotted. As we reached the edge of the trailer park, I could see flickering light dancing around and between a line of haggard-looking trailers in front of us. There was a smell on the air that I recognized. There was sulfur, but also the smell of burning flesh. I felt a jolt of excitement and dread rush through me.
“Cannibals,” I muttered to Noah. There was no fence around the outside of the trailer park. We slowed our pace and crept between two trailers at the furthest edge. There was a bonfire going in the middle of the park. The twisted frame of a swing set and a blackened jungle gym jutted out of the flames.
“Assholes,” Noah whispered. “They burned the kids’ playground?”
“Hopefully that’s all they did to them,” I whispered back. There were the sounds of something like spurs on boots approaching, and Noah and I hit the ground. The trailer nearest to Noah was missing a few of the boards meant to shield the trailer’s frame and foundation from the elements, so Noah crawled through the gap to hide underneath it. I had no such luck on my side. Cinderblocks, from end to end. I crawled backward and I’d just rolled to a sitting position, behind the back corner of the trailer, when I heard the jingling draw closer. It echoed off the sides of the two trailers where Noah and I had just been standing. I held my breath and pulled the .357 from the small of my back. There was a yell, followed by a bark of laughter somewhere past the next trailer over and a man’s voice, very close to where I sat yelled back. It wasn’t words, more of a shout of acknowledgment, answering the first shout. Then the jingling sped up, moving away.
I’d heard those shouts before. Right after Sister Smile had given me some information and she told me she didn’t want money as payment. Instead, she’d shouted, and the tribe had answered. This was the cannibals. We’d found them. I crawled back between the trailers and stuck my head into the gap of a crawlspace where Noah had gone.
Silence.
I squinted into the gap under the trailer and realized I could see all the way under the trailer and out the other side. Noah was gone.
My guts twisted themselves into painful knots and I couldn’t breathe. The shout. Had that been someone finding Noah? I got to my feet and backed back down the narrow row between the two trailers. I moved around the trailer Noah had been hidden under, looking between it and the next one over. Nothing. I could see more of the bonfire now. Shadows were moving quickly back and forth in front of the flames. They were...excited. Chanting and laughter was echoing off the aluminum siding of the trailers. Not good. If this was one of their rites, this was very, very bad. I needed to get closer to see if I could spot Noah. I tried the doorknob on the nearest trailer. Unlocked. I inched the door open, hoping the owner had taken care of it and it wouldn’t squeak or groan, or do something else shitty to announce that I was there. I slid sideways through the gap into the trailer, afraid to tempt fate and open the door any wider than I needed to. The trailer was a single-wide, with a bedroom at the far end, closest to the cannibal’s fire. Luckily, it was deserted. I blew out a silent sigh of relief for fate at least granting me that. I crawled into the bedroom and raised up enough to move aside one of the curtains over the window, just enough to peek through. There was an RV that had been backed into the open space in the middle of the u-shaped line of trailers. I recognized it as Sister Smile’s. There was a bloody smiley face on the side that had dried and started to flake off. Behind the RV, only a few feet from the trailer I was spying from, there was a platform made from wooden pallets. Sitting on top, in a brand new throne, was the tall man. He was shirtless, with an angry, red brand covering his chest and upper abdomen. The smiley face. His throne looked like it had been made for travel. At first glance, it looked like a normal aluminum-framed lawn chair. I was close enough, however, to see that instead of nylon, they’d skinned and tanned someone to cover it. A mottled tattoo was visible on the side closest to me. Poor bastard didn’t think he’d end up as a chair for a cannibal leader when he got that tattoo. The man’s profile was hunched slightly. Two young men stood on either side of his throne, keeping watch. I turned my head to try to see what they were all watching. Three pairs of tribe members were parading around the bonfire. Each one had one end of a two by four on their shoulder. From each board, a limp, lifeless female body hung, tied to the wood by their hands and feet. The tribe was going nuts, reaching out to touch each body as they passed.
The tall man held up a hand to silence the tribe.
“Who feeds you, children?” he said in a booming voice.
“Mastick!” the tribe yelled.
“Who provides for you, children?” he asked, louder still.
“Mastick!” the tribe yelled again.
“Who bent the mind and will, conquering your former leader, exposing their weakness and replacing that weakness with the strength to lead this tribe?”
“Mastick!” the tribe yelled, going ape-shit now. Mastick. Not ‘master’. That’s what Mr. Disembowelment had been trying to say. Someone turned on a boombox at the back of the crowd and a Cyndi Lauper song blared out. The ‘going ape-shit’ intensified.
The tribe members carrying the bodies of the women paused in front of him for his inspection of the bodies. Mastick took a long knife from the ground next to his throne and moved towards the bodies. “I have tested the fruit of these offerings and blessed them with my essence. They will sustain you and you will carry the mantle of our glorious tribe!” He yelled to those gathered. They all whooped and hollered and I wanted to gouge this asshole’s eyes out and puke. Probably puke first, and then eye-gouge. Not only had he taken them, but then he’d raped them? Before killing them? I watched him laugh and dance as he moved around the bodies. This. This was what pure evil looked like.
“Tonight we feast and prepare for the Red Moon Rite and the final transformation of our divine strength!” Mastick shouted over the music. This was going nowhere good. I scanned the crowd around the bonfire. The limp bodies strung up on the boards were all women. I felt a stab of guilt for feeling relief that Festus’ body wasn’t hanging there, ready to be eaten. I looked around at the crowd. Festus wasn’t amongst them and there was still no sign of Noah. I counted all of the cannibals I could see and then I stopped after I hit forty-five.
We were definitely going to need some help.
I had to find Noah and get him out of here. I should have forced him to stay back at Rosetta’s. Fucking up was getting really, really old.
I moved away from the window and crept back to the trailer’s door. I turned the knob, opening it an inch to listen to see if anyone was nearby. The chanting had turned to singing along with Cyndi’s song, but all of the noise seemed to be coming from the campfire. I slipped out the trailer door and moved away back to the edge of the row of trailers, away from the fire. I crept down the line of mobile homes, squinting between them, searching for Noah. My heart was pounding so hard that it was blurring my vision.
I paused when I saw a figure, squatting in the shadows between two trailers. I took a chance.
“Noah?” I breathed, moving behind the figure.
The figure got to its feet and turned to me. Not Noah. Fuck. It was a spindly man. He wore a necklace of fingers around his neck and when he saw me he smiled and spit the finger he’d been chewing on, out of his mouth. I mean, that can’t have been sanitary. I drew my machete. He opened his mouth and tipped his head back to yell and I whacked him in the throat, the blade sinking into muscle and tissue. I expected him to gasp, grab his throat, maybe stumble around. Instead, he paused, his gaze settling on me, dark in the low-light but I still recognized the madness that came over the tribe members during one of their feeding-frenzy rites. I hadn’t stayed to see the whole thing when I was last with the tribe, but I remembered seeing them all passing around a jug of something that Sister Smile had put together. It had turned the rest of the tribe into rabid dogs, biting anything and everything, and it made them hungry. His face broke into a vicious smile and then, he dove at me. I side-stepped him as one of his hands clawed at my shirt. I swung the machete again, this time slicing deeper through his throat. I grabbed him by the hair, waiting for him to stop twitching, and then I laid him on the ground as quietly as I could. I stumbled back to the end of the trailers and kept searching for Noah. I’d made it all the way around the “U” of trailers and was almost directly across from where we’d come in. I was on the verge of hyperventilating. Where the fuck was Noah? He hadn’t been trotted out in front of the fire like an appetizer. Had he somehow slipped past me and made a run for the truck? I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping that’s where he was. I kept moving, back towards the road.
I reached the last trailer and moved from the end around the side. There was a small prefabricated shed that looked like it had been turned into a front office for the park. I felt myself beginning to breathe again when I saw Noah, standing behind the shed, about twenty yards beyond the last trailer. His head was bowed, looking down at a tiny bonfire of his own. The breeze shifted and the smell from his My First Bonfire was hauntingly familiar. In the tiny amount of light thrown by the fire at his feet, I could see his face was smudged with ash and his hands were smoldering.
I moved towards him as quickly and quietly as I could, relief pouring into my joints and my digestive system. He was alive. He was standing and I didn’t see any cannibals around him. I got next to him and looked down at what he’d been burning. Oh. Who he’d been burning. His bonfire was courtesy of a blackened corpse at his feet.
“I hope that was a cannibal,” I whispered, scooping up handfuls of dirt to dump on the body. The last thing we needed was some cannibal, bored with Cyndi Lauper and the ceremony, to get a whiff of roasted long-pig, and come looking for the source. The smoke from Noah’s fire alone was making me anxious enough. It was lucky that the cannibals had bonfires wherever they went, so hopefully, they wouldn’t
notice a little extra smoke. I glanced up at Noah who was just standing still, looking at his hands in horror. “Help me,” I hissed. Noah dropped to his knees and began piling more earth on the body. The earth came with bone-dry, dead brush and weeds which caught like tinder in Noah’s smoldering hands. The second time Noah heaped a burning chunk of earth onto my hand, I told him to stop helping. I got the body half-buried and I grabbed Noah by the sleeve. He was in shock. I yanked my shirt off over my head and wrapped the fabric around his hands, hoping to smother the flames. My shirt was damp from sweat and the arterial spray of the cannibal I’d had to silence, so it had a decent chance of not making Noah’s problem worse. We moved as quickly as we dared back around behind the trailers, back to the side of the park, closest to the warehouses, and then headed for Lucy. Noah’s hands were still smoldering, wrapped in my shirt, giving off a nice trail of smoke showing exactly where we were. When we hit the white gravel lot where we’d parked Lucy, I picked up speed. There was a spigot on a crooked pipe protruding from the gravel at one edge of the lot as if it was frequently backed into by big trucks. I motioned Noah to follow me and I twisted the knob. Noah held his hands, still wrapped in my shirt, under the spray of water and a cloud of steam hissed and rose above us.