Scary Rednecks & Other Inbred Horrors (21 page)

The funeral had been a closed casket affair.
 
Not the way she’d wanted it, but the coroner had thought it best due to the condition of the body.
 
The Chief of Police had told her on the phone that her father had been found by fisherman, his body burned almost beyond recognition.
 
“He’d been camping,” they said.
 
And like he was a whale-bellied tourist from Yankee Land, they said he must have rolled into the campfire in his sleep, his nylon sleeping bag going up like a match.

Her father would have never been so stupid.

To make matters sadder, even with all the friends he’d had, only three other people had attended the funeral.
 
In retrospect, it was probably because the rest were having a Mary Kay party.

When the funeral ended, she’d finally some time to think. With all the weirdness in Tellico Plains and seeing Henry in garters and ready to pop, a nagging feeling grew within her.
 

The feeling started at midnight two days ago when she’d finally confirmed her fears with a shovel and a lantern.
 
Not a single burn marred her father’s body.
 
With trembling fingers, she’d unbuttoned his suit and shirt, revealing a long ragged incision the length of his stomach.
 
It was nothing that any skilled doctor would make.
 
Even a veterinarian could have done a better job.
 

It was as if her father had made the cut himself — a self-made abortion.
 

And her perplexity had turned to rage.

The hunter had become the prey.

Greta had just left Leroy’s Bait and Ammo, a bag of assorted ammunition gripped in her arms, when she’d noticed her stalkers. At first she’d chuckled.
 
She could pick them out of a crowd, now.
 
She knew what to look for.
 
And the three men dressed in 1950s women’s clothes,
criss
-crossing the street behind her like poorly trained spies, fit her mental profile perfectly.

But it was daylight and she missed the comfortable feeling of the Mossberg shotgun that had become her nighttime companion.
 
Under her leather jacket hung the .357 colt python, snug in a quick-draw shoulder holster, but that only held six rounds.
 
Granted, they were six rounds that could turn a rampaging bear on crack and intent on tasting her long juicy legs into upholstery, but it wasn’t her Mossberg.
 

She finally managed to give them the slip near the back door of the Silly Goose.
 
She was safe for now, but what then.
 
The fact that she’d been followed meant that they knew about her.
 
She couldn’t return to the house.
 
They’d probably be waiting.

The image of Henry Jenkins sitting on her father’s living room couch and aiming his police special at the front door sent her in the other direction.
 
She needed time to plan.
 
She needed to quell her rage and remember the lessons she’d learned in the Army.

Two hours later, she sat in a hotel room in Sweetwater sipping on a Coors Light, forming a plan.

She’d counted thirteen pregnant men.
 
Henry, George from the shoe store, Alvin from the garage,
Jimbo
, Steve, Rick —- the rest she’d recognized but really didn’t know.
 
On her third beer, she’d made the connection.
 
All had been members of the Benevolent and Protective Brotherhood of Elks: a group of men who got drunk, played bingo and in some miracle of modern medicine had gotten themselves pregnant.
 
And, if they hadn’t changed their schedule for some reason, they had a meeting tomorrow night.

It wasn’t until all twelve beers were scattered around the bed like discarded large-caliber bullets that she fell into a deep and drunken slumber.

She was in a forest, the tall long-leaf pines of Fort Bragg surrounding her, penning her in.
 
She was in her battle rattle: a belt with two canteens and ammo pouches stuffed with magazines of 5.56 mm blanks, a rucksack filled with enough food and sundries to keep her alive for days, a Kevlar helmet, and an M16A2—deadly except for the clunky, red blank adapter that tipped the barrel.
 

And she was alone.

She’d been kneeling deep within an azalea bush for over an hour and many of the super stud soldiers trying to complete the last week of their special forces training had blundered by.
 
She could have taken any of them, at any time, but she had a specific target in mind.

Fifteen minutes later, an A-Team slipped into view.
 
Of all those who’d passed by her, these were the quietest.
 
They made the forest a part of them — each tree and bush an extension of their limbs.
 
Five men functioning as one.
 
The very best of the United States Army.

When they finally crept within the kill zone, she smiled.
 
“Don’t fucking move,” she’d whispered.

The A-Team halted.
 
Greta felt them tense, especially the leader, Sgt. Henderson.
 
He’d been caught by a woman and he’d never live it down.
 
Sgt. Henderson was of the old school where women had no place in the Army and no place in combat.

And Greta had made it her personal goal to prove him wrong.

“I got two claymores in a V-shape ambush and you’re dead fucking center.
 
Throw your weapons down.
 
And do it now, Old School.”

It was just a game.
 
War games to make the soldiers better.
 
Hone and
sharpern
their skill.
 
Too many people cheated, however.
 
That’s why the special forces had invented their own unique claymore mines.
 
Instead of firing enough ball bearings to kill everyone within a forty-five degree arc and out to thirty meters, these sprayed red paint pellets.
 
She held the clackers in her left hand, ready to paint the men red if they decided to cheat.

She heard their cursing and counted as five rifles hit the ground.
 
Greta stood and left the protection of the bush.
 
She couldn’t help but laugh.
 
As Sgt. Henderson turned around with the other men and she caught the agonized look in his eyes, she’d laughed harder.
 

Her only mistake.

He’d launched himself across the five feet that separated them and she’d squeezed the clackers.
 
The rest of the A Team was suddenly covered in the violent propulsion of plastic and red dripping paint.
 
But Sgt Henderson was outside the arc.
 
She saw the fist as it hit the side of her face, and then she saw blackness.

When she’d awoken, she’d simultaneously felt the throbbing from her cheek and the minute breeze that teased her naked skin. She’d felt the roughness of pine bark against her back and buttocks and the rope, impossibly tight against her wrists and ankles.
 
She’d opening her eyes, but realized that they already were open.
 

She’d been blindfolded.
 

And tied naked to a tree..
 

She began to pray.

“You can’t do this,” she’d cried.
 
“This isn’t fair.”

“War isn’t fair, bitch.
 
Did you think you could kill us?”

“But the rest of the team’s dead.
 
You killed them,” she said, reasoning and happy that the instructors would discover the deaths and the man’s incompetence as a leader.

“Those uniforms are trash.
 
We changed them.
 
Now, it’s your word against ours,” he said, his voice changing from confidence to speculation.
 
“I wonder what we should do to you?”

She felt hands move along her legs and wanted to scream.
 
She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
 
More hands grasped and pulled painfully at her breasts she bit back a scream.
 
Fingers wound through her thick mound of pubic hair and she still refused to scream.
 
It wasn’t until the end of the M16 entered her private place that she’d finally screamed and felt her soul withdraw to a safe dark place.

She’d swirled in the blackness of pain.
 

Misery was in her every breath.

She couldn’t feel her body.

She couldn’t feel the men.

She was in a different place.

A safe place.

“Why do you care,” came a voice, silky and warm.

“They raped me,” she heard herself mutter, rage and pain shuddering against her soul.
 
“I want them to die.”

“Why do you care,” repeated the same voice.
 
The words were a salve to her pain.

“It isn’t fair.
 
I won,” she whimpered.
 
“I’m a soldier.”

“You aren’t a soldier,” said the voice, the sound changing to nails.
 
“You’re a woman.
 
And women are meant for one thing.”

“No!” she heard herself scream.

“You’re nothing more than a baby-maker.
 
You recycle sperm.”

“No!”

“You aren’t strong enough.
 
You are weak.
 
You are a woman,” the words scraped her like broken shards of glass.

“No!”

“Then what do you want?” it asked, soft and warm again.

“I want... I want them to feel what I feel.
 
Let them be what I am,” she heard herself say.

“All of them?” asked the voice.

“Every fucking one of them,” she heard herself say.
 
“Every fucking one of them.”

Her last words trailed off and the darkness left her.
 
The ropes disappeared.
 
The men disappeared.
 
When she opened her eyes, she saw the cheap wallpaper of the hotel room and the beer cans scattered across the floor.
 

A memory of the warm metal of the barrel of the M16 still teased her insides, and as always after the dream, she wept.

Greta huddled in the bush.
 
She was going to finish what she had started.
 
Inside, the meeting had already begun.
 
She heard them, laughing and drinking.
 
Their very frivolity made her throb with anger.

She wore her battle rattle again, one of the only things she’d kept from her four-year stay in the Army.
 
This time, there were no blanks.
 
She carried enough ammo to kill a hundred pregnant men.
 

Greta slid from the bush and followed the shadows along the side of the clubhouse.
 
She reached the corner and peaked around.
 
When she saw that it was all clear, she sprinted around the back.
 
With bolt cutters, she removed the lock from the basement door.
 
She slipped the bolt cutters back into her rucksack and opened the door upward.
 
She stared onto the depths of the basement and trained the Mossberg into the darkness.

After a few seconds of listening, she descended the stairs and tugged the door shut behind her.
 
From atop her head, she pulled down the AN-PVS 7 night vision goggles.
 
Flicking the switch, she was greeted with a small whine.
 
She blinked twice to get used to the eerie sensation and the darkness of the basement came to life in green and white.
 
She stepped quickly to the fuse box.

It was less than a minute from when she shut off the power until she burst into the upstairs room.
 

While she’d been waiting, she’d counted twenty-seven pregnant men and three who appeared normal.
 
She scanned the room quickly.
 
White shaped figures milled in confusion.
 
When her vision reached the small stage at the other end of the room she stopped.
 
Atop the stage were three white shapes.
 
Two stood, and one knelt, his head bobbing in a familiar rhythm.