Izzy looked back at the cave for a moment, and then turned and moved to join Callum on the rock. La Roux followed her and hunkered near their feet.
“Your attack isn’t the first the camp has ever suffered.” Izzy began as she looked in the direction of her former imprisonment. “Since it was first built, the camp’s been attacked at least two or three times a year. Mostly the raiders were after just two things; women and food. Nearly all the raids failed before they ever got a chance to turn and run. The men of the camp would out gun, or out fight those who attacked, and then they would feed ‘em to the undead. Sometimes though, the raiders would get away with women, food and other supplies.” She shook her head slowly. “When that happened all hell would break loose.
“Pa soon learned that if you couldn’t catch the raiders—and more importantly the women they’d taken—in the first few minutes of the chase, then a different tactic was needed. Something more than just running into the woods blindly hoping to find those ya hunted. You see, as mad as my Pa is, he’s still a real smart man.”
Callum shifted position, and winced as a lightning bolt of pain shot up his arm. With a grimace that caught La Roux’s attention, he settled again and turned to Izzy. “It’s been hours since we escaped. Any chance of picking up our scent is all but gone. That is, unless he knows about this cave. No, I think our trail is well and truly cold, and I think he stands little chance of tracking us.”
“He won’t be tracking you, he’ll be tracking the women he’s lost.”
“What do you mean?” La Roux asked.
Izzy stood and moved to the edge of the small clearing. As if a sudden chill had settled on her, she wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered. She then turned and looked back at the Rangers.
“He has Hunters for each of the women in that cave. Hunters who will never tire or give up.”
Callum stood and move to her side. “What do you mean?”
“Ya have to understand, my Pa is more of a monster than any Lingerer could ever be. The undead hunt and kill because something has taken away what makes them human, but my Pa kills because he’s crazy. He’s far worse than the undead, because he knows exactly what he’s doing … and worse of all, he enjoys it.”
Izzy slowly rolled up both her shirt sleeves to reveal her forearms. Each arm was covered in a tight latticework of scars, each no more than an inch in length. So tightly woven were the scars that barely any untouched flesh could be seen.
Callum moved closer and peered down at her arms. He grimaced and said, “I noticed scars like this on Tilly and Mary. What be they?”
“Every woman from camp Maxwell has them. My Pa made each and every one of these scars himself.”
“Why?” La Roux asked as he gently took her arms and examined them more closely.
“Pa values the women of the camp above all other things. We breed his young folk, and we pleasure his men. He would rather us dead than see anyone else have us, and that’s where these marks come in.
“He cuts each woman every couple of months or so, and then feeds the blood to a Lingerer on a piece of bread. He makes a big ceremony of it … kinda like the Catholics do. Only, it ain’t the blood of Christ he’s feeding to those things; it’s our blood. Each woman has her own Lingerer, he calls ‘em, ‘Hunters’.”
Callum’s jaw dropped and he simply stared at Izzy in disbelief. “But if ya ain’t cut or bleeding, then how can those things track you?”
She shrugged. “I truly have no idea, but they do. As soon as a girl becomes a woman, Pa will select one of the most aggressive undead he can find, and he’ll then move it to the Hunters’ compound. From there on in—except for the small amounts of our blood soaked bread—he never feeds it again.
“If one of the women is due a flogging, then he brings out her Hunter and chains it up just out of reach. With every lash of the whip, the thing gets more crazed by her blood. Often, the men have to beat it back to keep it from breaking loose and ripping her to bits. We’re all forced to watch as she screams for mercy.” Izzy’s shaking hand went to her pale face, and she wiped away a tear. “As the Hunter gets more and more inflamed by her blood, the man doing the flogging always increases the force behind each lash. It doesn’t stop ‘til the flesh on her back is nothing more than raw meat. It’s both terrible, and terrifying.”
“Jesus,” Callum breathed.
Izzy nodded. “And that’s not the worst of it. If a woman really gives him cause to punish her, then he might cut off a finger or a toe, sometimes even a hand, and he’ll feed it to the Hunter too. He’ll make the woman watch as her Hunter eats part of her own body. I’m telling ya, once those things get a taste of your blood, they’ll follow ya to the ends of the Earth. The thought of being chased down by one of those things is more terrifying than watching it eat part of ya.”
Callum placed a hand on her shoulder. “Yer talking as if you know the fear first hand.”
Izzy bent and pulled off her left boot, to reveal three of her five toes were missing. She then turned and pulled up her shirt. Her back bore more scars than Callum’s own, and they were more tightly laced. It almost looked as if the scars were the result of flames rather than a whip. Her whole back appeared to be one massive scar, which looked hard and knotted.
La Roux made a retching noise, and vomited in the dirt. After two more dry retches, he cuffed his mouth clean, and then uttered, “Sweet Jesus. And that man is supposed to be your pa, and this is how he treats ya! God damn if that don’t make me want to rip off his head with my own two hands!”
Callum moved forward and gently lowered Izzy’s shirt. “I still don’t understand how the Hunters can track you if ya not bleeding. I’ve seen those things track the scent of blood, but never the scent of an uninjured person.”
“I’ve seen it before,” La Roux said as he settled on the edge of a rock. “Back before ya joined our unit, we had a rookie called O’Toole. Anyhow, we were on a mission to flush out about thirty Lingerers from the basement of a church. As the undead weren’t biters, everything went pretty much to plan. We led ‘em out of the building, but there weren’t enough wagons to take ‘em all at once, so we were left with four to watch over ‘til the wagons got back.
“We tied them up and set about fixing some grub. Well that fool O’Toole cut himself as he peeled the potatoes, and it sent the undead we was watching into a frenzy. They were tied, so we weren’t too concerned. I told O’Toole it was his fault they’d got ornery, so he had to take care of ‘em. Well, he shot the first three straight between the eyes, but with the last one—which by the way was making the most noise—he took off his bloody glove and shoved it in its mouth. I guess he was trying to look tough in front of us, but ya know how strong those things can be when they taste blood.”
Callum held up his stump. “I sure do.”
La Roux patted his friend on the back, and then continued. “Well, of course the thing broke loose of its ropes and it went for him. O’Toole panicked, dropped his gun and fell to the ground. I ran over and I managed to pull him free of the thing. Once he was clear, I belted the Lingerer in the face with the butt of my rifle. I damn near caved half its head in, and it fell to the ground. It looked deader than a rock, so I turned back to O’Toole and gave him a piece of my mind. He just sat there with his head hung, and took everything I threw at him. Back then, we still used to bury the undead, not burn ‘em. As part of his punishment for being a fool, I made O’Toole dig all four graves and then deal with the undead on his own. Sure enough, he buried all four.
“Six months went by, and we were some twenty miles from that there church when O’Toole met his end. Ya see, I may have caved that things face in, but I sure didn’t mash its brains up good enough.
“We were sleeping and O’Toole had watch. Next thing I know, he’s screaming, and we’re waking like God himself is calling to us. I find O’Toole with half his guts torn out, and the Lingerer with the mashed in face is feeding on him. That thing dun dug itself out of a grave, then found O’Toole some twenty miles from where we’d left it. And all because it got the taste of that fools blood.”
Callum shook his head. “Why have ya never told me that before?”
La Roux just shrugged and said, “Boy, if I told ya every gruesome thing I’ve seen, then we’d never sleep at night.”
“True,” Callum agreed as he looked back at Izzy. “But it still don’t explain why your pa ain’t marching his way up here right now.”
“Pa’s a showman. He likes to make everything bigger than it needs to be, so he always starts the hunt at noon. All the men head to the Hunters’ pens to watch ‘em being released. They keep a fair ways back, but they follow those monsters ‘til they find their prey. Then they watch as the Hunter rips the woman apart. Normally, there’s only one Hunter … today I think he’ll release all fifteen.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this before,” La Roux growled as he pulled out his pocket watch and checked the time.
“We—I mean my women kinfolk and me—needed rest before we ran. Plus, Callum was hurt and he needed some fixing up. No way could we have moved ‘til day break at the earliest.”
“She’s right,” Callum said as he placed a consoling hand on her shoulder.
“Well, right or not, we have a little under five hours ‘til he lets loose his undead hounds. Tell Mary the food will have to wait, we have to run now.”
Izzy took La Roux’s big hand in hers. “But they’re starving, Pierre. They won’t make it more than a few miles without food. We all think we’re going to meet our end, at least let us do it with full bellies.”
“Again, she’s right,” Callum said as he looked back toward camp Maxwell. “Izzy, where does your pa keep these Hunters?”
She turned and looked in the same direction as Callum, she then pointed to his left. “See those rocks?”
“Yep.”
“Well they’re about two miles from the camp, the Hunters are there.”
Callum then turned to her. “Why didn’t your pa use the Hunters to find your sisters, Tilly and Alice?”
“Alice were with child and Pa wanted the babe. If he sent out their Hunters, they would’ve ate ‘em.”
Callum nodded and turned back to look at where the Hunters were kept. “I think we need to take those undead out, and we have less than five hours to do it.”
La Roux moved to his side. “I don’t know what it is yer thinking, but yer in no shape for a fight.”
Callum looked at his friend and smiled solemnly. “Whether I’m in shape for a fight or not really doesn’t matter. What matters now is keeping the Hunters off the women.”
“And ya think we can do that?” La Roux said as he followed Callum’s gaze.
“Maybe, maybe not, but we have to try. First things first, let’s get that food cooked and the women fed.”
Jacob Maxwell stared up at the mountain above him, and pictured his daughter—as well as the rest of his women—cowering in a hole somewhere. He had to admit, the sensation brought him a certain amount of satisfaction.
His hands went to the wide expanse of his stomach, and he caressed it in much the same way as a pregnant woman might caress her own child-filled abdomen. His girth however was the result of living to excess, while others around him starved. He knew others in his group went hungry while he gorged, but the knowledge of their discomfort brought him neither pain nor pleasure.
As far as he was concerned, all of mankind was doomed. So if his people starved, then all the better. Besides, as the voice of God, he had earned the right to eat and drink as he pleased. God had made it abundantly clear to him that he was to be his mouth piece on Earth, and as such, he could enjoy all the world’s bounties without fear of retribution. So with God’s blessing, he indulged in all the pleasures afforded to him. He enjoyed sex with his women, and he also found great pleasure in the pain he inflicted, but above all things, he enjoyed his food.
His mind then turned to the heathens who had taken his most precious of treasures, and his sense of satisfaction evaporated in an instant. Now a sense of rage and injustice started to seep into every fiber of his being. How dare the godless of the outside world invade the sanctity of his camp. How dare they take that which is not theirs to take. God spoke through him and The Lord told him to punish those who defied his will. The women defied him daily, so he would punish them, as would he punish those who had taken them.
The women, it always came down to the God damned women! It was indeed true that God had cursed every member of the gentler sex. Ever since Eve took a bite of the forbidden fruit, God had cursed them for their sins. He punished them each month with bleeding loins and cramping stomachs. However, Jacob knew that the Devil tried to protect women, and by doing so, turn them to his dark and evil ways.
The Devil made their breasts large and their hips inviting. Worst of all, the Devil had given women a fruit every bit as sweet as that of Eden’s. He himself found the sweetness of their loins too hard to resist. He punished himself for his failings by destroying the offspring his weaknesses had created. This was why God had created the Lingering, to punish those whom deserved to be punished. The undead were the tools by which God would bring on the End of Days, and he, Jacob Maxwell, was yet another of The Lord’s tools.
He turned and looked at the pens holding his Hunters, and smiled. The pens held eighteen of the creatures, but he would only need fifteen of them for his hunt. The remaining three were the Hunters for his two daughters, Tilly and Alice, but he had his son, Junior, taking care of them. The final Hunter belonged to Jane, his niece, but she had died in child birth two weeks earlier, so her Hunter would be of no use. He then made a mental note to return Jane’s Hunter back into the general population of Lingerers back at the camp.
Junior
, he thought,
why haven’t I heard back from him? It’s been days since he went out looking for those two ungrateful whores. He should’ve been back with the child by now.
He then wondered if the heathens who had taken the women might have something to do with his son’s late return. He shook his head. Junior was far too clever to be caught by such people as mere raiders. No, more than likely the two he chased were just playing hard to catch.
Mind, it was a pity Junior would miss the hunt. His son did so enjoy watching those who ran being ripped to bits. It was a pleasure that he too enjoyed. The thrill of the hunt, and the subsequent kill, always managed to exhilarate all concerned … well, not quite all. He felt sure the women were not exhilarated by their imminent deaths. A smile traced his lips as he pictured his daughter, Izzy, being disemboweled.
Feeling satisfied with himself, Jacob looked up at the sky and guessed he still had around three hours until noon. He smiled an almost toothless grin through his thick, gray beard, and drew strength from the thought of unleashing his Hunters on his disgusting women folk. He shook his head and reflected on the disappointment his whores had brought him. Of course, he knew they would need to find new women with which to breed, but he could see no real difficulties in finding replacements for those soon to die. He and the rest of his men would simply do to others, what others had done to them. They would simply raid camps and take the women they needed, and all in the knowledge they had God’s blessing.
Jacob left his caged Hunters, and casually strolled back toward his waiting men. He opened his arms in a wide and welcoming gesture as he entered the clearing a few hundred yards from his bloodthirsty monsters.
“Brothers, sons … friends,” he said as he smiled and looked at each of the heavily armed men individually. “Soon we will rain our vengeance upon those who have done nothing but shown us contempt. The whores and harlots shunned our teaching words and gestures, for this, they are about to pay. Soon the daughters of Jezebel, the thorns in our sides, shall meet with their Hunters and they will truly feel the wrath of God. For they are the forsaken, and as such, it is our duty to rid the world of ‘em!”
The assembled men began to mumble their agreement, and a few started to wave their guns above their heads. Many of the filth covered gathering resembled Jacob in both build and looks. Near all were his kin, but those that were not, were still treated like blood. Whether Maxwell blood ran through the men’s veins really did not matter to Jacob. What mattered to him was that they would blindly follow his every command.
“Now, we must offer up prayers to The Lord. Bow your heads.” Jacob waited until every last man’s head was bowed, and then he began his prayer. “Lord, guide our Hunters toward their prey so that they might deliver your justice. Guide our hands and our eyes so that our shots are true. Lord, watch over us—your righteous and true followers—and help us smite those who ya wish smitten. We are your servants, and we love ya, Lord, but we are but men among heathens and the fallen. We are weak, but we take strength knowing we do your bidding. Lord, we will never stray from the path ya have seen fit to show me. We are yours, now and always. Amen.”
The gathered men let out a low, almost guttural singular word. “Amen.”
Slowly, the group began to move toward the Hunters’ pens, and a young, lean and clean faced man moved toward Jacob.
“Pa Maxwell,” the man said as he drew to his leader’s side.
Jacob looked the man in the eye and beamed his most beguiling—all be it an almost toothless—smile. “Ah, Matt, did ya enjoy our prayer?”
Matthew Maxwell, Jacob’s youngest nephew, nodded and then cleared his throat. “Pa Maxwell, do we really need to send the Hunters out after the women? Couldn’t we just try and round ‘em up ourselves?”
Jacob noticed that a number of the men leaving the clearing had stopped to listen to their exchange.
“Yer just like your father … far too forgiving. No, the women allowed themselves to be taken, and therefore they are as guilty as the raiders for their crimes.”
As if looking for encouragement, Matt looked toward the dozen or so men who had stopped to listen. He straightened, and looked back at Jacob.
“Well, a few of us don’t see it quite like that. We reckon the women are our kin, so we should rescue ‘em from the raiders, not kill them.”
Jacob exaggerated a nod, and said, “So that’s what some of you think … interesting. Don’t it matter to ya that God has told me different.”
Matt began to move nervously on the spot. “Er … well….”
Jacob placed one of his beefy hands on the younger man’s shoulder. “I know your sister is one of the women we hunt, but she is a sinner, and deserves to die.”
“Well … I’m not sure….”
“Ya don’t have to be sure, because I am,” Jacob said as he led Mathew toward the Hunters’ pens. “I’m sure because I hear the voice of God. Mathew does God speak to ya?”
Matt looked over his shoulder and saw the small group of men who had been listening to the exchange. They were now following them to the pens, but they still seemed to be listening. He looked back to his uncle. “Well … well no, but….”
“I didn’t think so. So what gives ya the right to question the voice of God?”
“Pa Maxwell, I’m not trying to….”
“Oh but ya are. Every time ya question me, ya question God, and that’s a mortal sin.”
The two now stood before the pen that housed the Hunter for Jane, Jacob’s dead niece and one of Matthew’s dead sisters. “This creature was kept in case your poor sister Jane ever decided to run. She’s with Satan now, so this here creature is no longer needed as a Hunter. He looks mighty hungry, don’t he.” Matt tried to pull away, but Jacob’s grip on him tightened. He pulled his nephew closer and then whispered in his ear. “But he ain’t going to be hungry for long.”
In one quick move—a move that surely should have been too quick for someone so old and fat—Jacob pulled his knife and plunged it into his nephews gut. As Matthew screamed with pain, Jacob hauled his thrashing nephew above his head, and then threw him into the pen with the Hunter. Now the growls and howls of the Hunter joined Matthew’s screams, but soon all that could be heard was the sound of ripping flesh and the slurping down of warm intestines.
Jacob turned and eyed the men watching him. “Do any more of ya question my authority, or the fact that I speak for God!”
No one moved, or spoke. Jacob stood staring at them a few moments longer, and then started walking off.
“Good, now begin the preparations for the hunt. We release the Hunters at midday, and I don’t want their release hindered because some fool forgot to do their job.”
A smile lit his face as Jacob moved back into the clearing where he had just held his impromptu service. Matthew had always been weak, and feeding him to the undead seemed a fit ending for someone such as he.