Hunting Season (25 page)

Nate sat in the helicopter, the vibration of the aircraft shaking his whole body. He’d given up looking out the door, the sight of the blurry trees speeding by creating a mind-screw of a headache.

The air crewman in the back had told him they had to refuel in about an hour. That meant a trip to Pensacola and back because there was no regional airport closer. Before they left, the pilot would set down and let Nate out. Until then, he had to deal with the headache and the vibration.

Might as well check in one more time, Nate thought.

He cued his headset microphone built into the helmet. “Fred, Nate: Anything, over.”

A burst of static and then Fred’s voice said, “Nope.”

“Roger. Deputy Driscole, Sheriff Lewis: Anything to report, over.”

“Negative, Sheriff. Not a damn thing.”

Shit, Nate thought. “Roger, out.”

Nate switched off the mike. How much longer do you keep this up? he thought. He didn’t have an answer yet.

Then Nate closed his eyes and listened to the thwap-thwap of the rotor blades slicing the air.

*  *  *  *  *

Henry gave up trying to keep track of landmarks. Everything looked the same. They could be twenty miles away from the parking lot or two for all he could tell.

While they traveled, Henry replayed the attack over and over again in his head. He repeated the words Pa had spoken.

The dialect sounded nothing like Henry imagined a backwoods family would speak. Not broken language. No real accent. Simple words, yes, but all three of the clan spoke English as well as any local born in Cainswell.

And the sword. He stole glances at it and tried to place it. Curved blade. A single edge. Looked like a weapon a Civil War cavalry officer would wield.

Henry kept his mind busy, plotting possible escapes, reliving the attack, and studying the family. Did everything he could to avoid thinking about the danger Claire and he faced. But those thoughts eventually crept in there. When they did, fear followed.

It would have consumed him if not for Claire. And the pain in his leg. The wound had clotted but the ache spread up his thigh and into his torso. With every step it reminded him the situation they were in was nothing less than dire.

At that moment, when he started to think no hope existed for them, Henry heard Claire humming around the rag in her mouth. He didn’t know the tune, didn’t care. The fact Claire could still remain herself, to not lose her mind or surrender to despair, rejuvenated Henry. It threw fuel on the diminishing fire of Henry’s will.

“Shut up,” Boy said but Claire didn’t stop.

The energy, the desire to fight, rose in Henry. He swore he’d die before he let these primitives beat him.

Hog ran up from behind and went to push Claire in the back. Pa, though, grabbed Hog and pulled him away.

“Let her hum, Boy,” Pa said. “It’ll help the time pass.”

The pines grew denser the longer they walked. Henry had lost track of time. A little bit of sunlight penetrating the treetops dimmed. He hadn’t seen any wildlife, birds, rodents, or deer. Only bugs the last few hours. Lots of flies.

It didn’t seem like they traveled to a remote setting in a state forest. To Henry, it felt like they journeyed to another world, unseen and untamed by any civilized person. Wild and primal and cruel.

Chapter Eleven

A Wall of Skulls

Henry saw the skulls first, spitted upon wooden stakes. He didn’t count but knew there were more than fifty, forming a boundary around a small camp of lean-to’s.

Claire’s humming stopped, replaced by a gagged scream. She tried to resist, tried to flee but Boy pushed her and then dragged her into the camp.

The skulls reflected various stages of decomposition. Many, completely picked bare, didn’t shine white but a dull yellow with green blotches of mold. Others still had leathery skin rotting on them. All of the eye sockets, though, sat empty, the eyes eaten long ago by birds.

Henry didn’t try to keep his bladder from emptying.

“Pretty ain’t they.” Pa pushed Henry forward past the skulls.

Henry stumbled forward but kept himself from falling. He watched Boy shove Claire into a cage made of wood stakes and tied with leather straps. She continued to scream after Boy shut and locked the door.

Pa squeezed Henry’s arm and tried to force him toward the other side of the camp. Henry resisted, walking toward Claire.

The edge of the sword slid up gently underneath Henry’s chin. He looked at Pa and saw the smile again.

“Easy. You go where I tell you or your head will end up on a stake quicker than you can blink. Understand?”

Henry stood still. He’d never wanted to kill someone, to utterly rip them to pieces but the desire to do exactly that to Pa found a home in Henry’s heart.

“Understand?”

Henry sensed the edge of the blade millimeters from his throat and surrendered. Pa nodded approval and forced him away from Claire.

They moved through the large barren center of the camp. Henry’s gaze fixed on a statue, carved from stone, standing tall in the middle with its right hand held skyward and its left at its side holding a large knife. It looked like a man in all features except one: the face. Rather, the lack of a face. Henry stared at a blank slate with no eyes or nose or mouth, like an egg on a neck.

“The Faceless Nomad,” Pa said.

Henry turned to Pa and saw him smiling at the statue, admiring it.

Pa looked at Henry. “You’ll understand soon enough.”

Then Pa led him away from the statue toward what appeared to Henry to be an old trailer. On the side, he saw the faded painting of a dancing bear. Then he saw the bars and realized it was a cage from a carnival or circus.

Inside, Henry found another man wearing camouflage pants and an orange vest. A hunter now a prisoner like himself. He sat in the far corner, hugging his knees.

Pa reached in and yanked the rag from Henry’s mouth. “Now you keep quiet and I won’t put the rag back in. Understand?”

“Yes,” Henry said. His mouth hurt but it felt good to speak again. “Food?”

“Maybe, if you’re good.”

Pa closed and locked the cage and walked away.

Henry tried to see Claire but couldn’t. One of the lean-to’s blocked it from sight.

“Who are you?” the hunter said.

Henry turned to the man. Dirt and grime covered him from head to toe. Dried blood stained the right side of his clothes. His eyes were wild and lost, like a man who didn’t know who he was anymore.

“My name’s Henry.”

“Ed.” Ed pointed a finger at his own chest. “What day is it?”

Henry rolled his eyes up, trying to find the answer as he counted the days he and Claire walked lost around the woods.

“Tuesday, I think. Maybe Wednesday.”

Ed nodded. To Henry, the guy looked broken.

“Been here over a week,” Ed said after a few moments of silence. “Pa, the bearded one, and Boy snuck up on me while I was hunting. Never saw them coming. Hit me right up side the head with a rock.”

“Did they leave your rifle?”

“No, it’s in one of those lean-to’s I think.”

Henry wondered why Pa carried the sword if he had a rifle, probably dozens of rifles from dead hunters.

If I can get out of here and get a hold of a gun, Henry thought. Then he tried to remember the last time he shot one and if he still knew how.

“Did they rub animal blood on your feet, too?” Ed said.

“Yes.”

Ed laughed. “Smart. Smart damn hunters.”

“What?”

“They do it to mask your scent. It’ll throw any search party with dogs off. Keeps anyone from tracking us here.”

Henry looked down at his feet and wished he’d fought harder.

“Were there any other prisoners when you got here?” Henry said after a few minutes of silence.

Ed shook his head. “Just me. You want to know what’s up with the skulls, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re set up like totems surrounding the camp. Way I figure it, these primates practice some kind of old religion. Keep mentioning the Rebirth. Talking about sacrifice. Figured they were talking about me. Figured I’d be the next head on a stake. But now that you’re here, I don’t know.”

Henry’s thigh throbbed. He lowered himself down gently to a sitting position.

Sacrifice? Henry thought.

“You think they sacrifice people? To what?”

Ed shrugged. “To that statue, I figure. I think it’s their God. You see, I remember seeing a show on one of the cable channels about the Mayans. They used to sacrifice people to their Gods for all kinds of weird shit. Shit like protection from bad weather, bad harvests, bad whatever.”

He spoke fast, like a man consumed with a conspiracy theory. Henry had trouble keeping up with his words.

“These people aren’t Mayans.”

“I know that. It’s the skulls that made me think of the Mayans. On that show, they talked about this thing called the Wall of Skulls. It’s where they displayed the heads of those sacrificed. It looks like they’ve got their own Wall of Skulls here.”

The idea hit Henry like a right hook from a prizefighter. Sacrifice made sense with the timing of the captures. The Rebirth probably meant the coming of spring. But these people didn’t farm. The only thing they harvested seemed to be skulls. Henry felt like he had part of an answer but not a whole.

An overwhelming need to vomit filled Henry the more he believed these people wanted to sacrifice them to some pagan god.

The Faceless Nomad, he thought. Is that what Pa called it? What the hell kind of a god is that?

He choked bile down. No time to feel sorry for their situation. Henry needed to figure a way to get Claire and him out of there and do it now.

“When is this Rebirth?” Henry said.

“Don’t know for sure,” Ed said. “But it sounded like it was soon. Another day or two, probably.”

Henry assumed he had a day or less. Not much time but better than none.

“Have you tried to escape?”

Ed nodded. “This cage is sturdy. Doesn’t look that way, you know, since it’s older than dirt. But the sucker is built well. I couldn’t budge any of the bars.”

Henry looked from Ed to the side of the cage nearest him. “Maybe two could.”

Ed’s eyes squinted and his body shivered slightly but enough for Henry to notice it. The guy acted as if Henry’s idea frightened him. Like inside the cage was safer than outside.

*  *  *  *  *

“Nothing yet,” Nate said. His voice grew louder and he pressed the cell phone tighter against his ear as the helo approached, returning from its refueling trip.

“How long are you going to search tonight?” Sarah said.

“I’ll keep the search parties out until twilight. Probably keep the helo until it has to refuel again. Might have better luck with the infrared tonight. It works okay during the day but I guess it’s supposed to be used in the dark.”

“It can’t see body heat during the day?”

Nate smiled. Sarah had a thing for police and military equipment. “It can but the radiant heat messes with it. At night, it’s colder so body heat stands out more, or something like that.”

“Well, learn something new everyday.”

Nate could barely hear her now over the spinning rotor blades. “Got to go, my rides here. Love you.”

Then he hung up and waited for the helicopter to land.

One more chance tonight, he thought. Let’s make it count.

*  *  *  *  *

Boy’s head popped up. The sound of something loud beating the air, like a giant bird, came from somewhere in the distance. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard the sound and Pa had told him it was a sort of flying machine from the towns.

It passed and he paid it no further mind until it flew back, closer this time.

“They’re looking for their people.” Pa walked up beside Boy, his head tilted up toward the sky.

“Who’s looking for who?” Boy said.

“Prepare for the Rebirth.”

The words of Pa had caught him off guard.

“Now? I thought it wasn’t for another day.”

Pa turned his head from the sky and fixed his cold eyes on Boy. The eyes said more than words.

“Now,” Pa said. “We will sacrifice to Rerutrot tonight after sundown. We have been given a gift and we won’t let them take it from us.”

“What gift?”

“The woman, Boy. We haven’t had a female sacrifice since your mother. Rerutrot longs for a female and your sister is not of age yet. And she still must produce offspring. The woman must be given and given now.”

Boy remembered the night they sacrificed Ma. He’d been Hog’s age at the time. Ma had sounded so happy to give herself to Rerutrot.

“I’ll get everything ready, Pa.” Boy rose inside the lean-to.

“No,” Pa said. “Make Sis get the altar ready. Hog can prepare the knife. You prepare the woman.”

“You always prepare the sacrifice—”

“It’s time you did it. Clean her well.”

Boy nodded. This meant Pa saw him as a man now. Soon it would be his time to perform the sacrifice.

“Go.”

Boy left the lean-to. He walked by the cage holding the two men. He wondered if the husband had any idea what he would witness tonight.

*  *  *  *  *

Henry had heard the helicopter and knew then Nate was searching for them and prayed he’d find them sooner rather than later. He searched the darkening sky for the flying savior but didn’t see anything but orange rays of light through the tops of trees. Then people started moving within the camp, tearing Henry away from his search of the heavens.

“What do you think they’re up to?” Henry said.

Ed still sat in the corner of the cage. “What?”

Henry motioned through the bars at the open space in the center of the lean-to’s.

“The daughter’s setting up some kind of table.”

Ed crawled over to Henry’s side and looked. “They don’t eat dinner in the center. Always take their meals in the lean-to’s. I don’t know what this is.”

Henry watched the daughter finish setting up the heavy wooden table. Then she staked torches into the ground around it.

“This doesn’t look good,” Ed said.