The Savage(34)

A glint went from a spark to a bonfire in Bill’s eyes. “How ’bout a test of this professed survival?”

All Dorn could think was, React! React before this stone-cold-crazy son of a bitch uses you as a human sacrifice for his ill-willed God.

But before Dorn knew what was going on, he felt a heavy whack to the rear of his thigh. A hand reached for his pistol. Though it was not his hand. Another hand placed a blade at his throat and another squared a rubber mallet to the side of his temple. Lids batted and things began to start and stop until another thwack came. Dorn’s world darted and pricked like a cold wind to flesh and his face met the solid surface of the shack’s syrupy floor.

*

Something sandy and wet lapped Dorn’s face. Scents of coagulated seepage and sweat lay on the inhale of each breath. Of things dead and rotted. Surrounding him as his head bulged and roared. It hurt to move, but not to expand his lungs with air. His arms were not tied nor his ankles bound. The rush of fluid came quaking as Van Dorn sat up. Pushed himself to a planked wall in a room. The hound sat eye level and stared at him with its Reese’s-tinted fur, panting.

“Son of a bitch,” Van Dorn said. The breath of the hound was what he smelt. He reached for the dog. Slow, guided his palm over the cold, wet nose of scars. Up his snout and rubbed his head. Focused his eyes on the room, taking in the walls of barn wood that ran up and down with no hint of light between the cracks and the high tin roof overhead.

On the dirt floor, several feet away, he made out three squared shapes no bigger than a suitcase. And beyond that was the door. As he got to his feet, the boxes looked to be honed of plywood bottoms and two-by-four sides with screens for their tops. Like dens or cages for keeping something. He could make out coils of shape. The dog sat behind him. Whined as Dorn started to approach the boxes, when a voice spoke that was of the flesh.

“Name’s August.”

Dorn turned his attention to a far corner, where a young boy stood up. Came from the shadows, hugging himself with a slight shiver. His features smeared of dirt, hair wild and ratted. He’d a U of L T-shirt on with a pair of jeans, Nike tennis shoes. Wormy and pale.

Dorn towered over the boy, whom he guessed to be fourteen or so. “The hell you come from?”

“Your dog let me pet ’em. Stinks, though, it’s all about my hands.”

“Asked you a question.”

“Big crazy man and his daughters come to my home in New Salisbury. Killed my daddy. Took me, my mother, and my sisters. Locked us in here. Said we’d be traded to a man named Cotto for a higher purpose.”

Van Dorn spoke his thoughts aloud, trying to understand. “Traded?”

“Yeah. Hocked my sisters first. Just came in one day and took ’em. Then a week later, took my mother. My turn’s coming. He done said, like the others.”

On the dirt floor next to August’s feet lay a ceramic plate. Dorn eyed it. Said, “Others?”

“Yeah, when we got here they’s two girls. Was traded within a day. But they told they was a mother and her son before them.”

Turning things over in his mind, Dorn’s questioning of the hordes, Bill’s words. Watched. Going from house to house. Looting the fathers. Pointing a barrel to a skull.

Was Bill who done that, not the hordes. But for what reason would he have to trade mothers and children, let alone murder fathers?

“He feeds us. Won’t give no utensils.” Boy went from hugging himself to palming his face, trying to hide the wet that fell from his eyes as he whimpered. “I’s scared. Things is gone crazy. I don’t understand.”

Weak, Van Dorn thought, this August is weak. Exactly what his father never wanted him to become.

Dorn stepped toward August. “I’ll get us from this place. But, I say run, you gotta haul ass. Don’t stray from me, stay with me.”

“Can’t leave. I’s scared what he’ll do. And them woods is plum dark. Don’t know where I’m at.”

Taking August’s hand, feeling the tremors, he led the boy over to the hound. “Pet ’em some more. Be easy. He’s feral but seems in need of companion.” August reached a hand slow to the dog. Began to rub its dank hide when the clicking of a padlock came and the door burst open.

The three girls came in front of Bill. The hound raised his ears, snarled. Dorn turned. “Easy, boy, easy.”

“Knew I should’ve pierced that mongrel’s plate but Mary said to let him be as he’s brought no harm to us. Regardless, you got a proving to offer, Van Dorn.”

Cocking his head, Van Dorn sized up Bill, his burly girth, bedrock belly blocking the opening with Dorn’s pistol tucked down his front. Each of the girls held a weapon, Mary an axe, the others skinning knives. And Dorn said, “What is it that I am proving?”

Stepping between his daughters, Bill approached the wooden boxes that lay on the dirt floor. He’d changed his shirt. Rolled the sleeves of his flannel up to the elbows of each arm, where the pink of fang scars lined each inner arm between the ink of tattoos. Bill kneeled down. A hinged latch kept each box closed. Bill fingered the one latch. Levered the screen. Said, “You professed to be a survivor. I profess you must do so by proving your faith. What we Pentecostals refer to as receiving the gifts, having a triumph.” Bill reached his digits below the opening.

And Dorn came with sarcasm, asked, “A triumph of what?”