Austin landed a fist in Cleavon’s face, then another. Still, Cleavon wouldn’t relinquish his grip on the blade.
Abruptly Cherry disappeared, lifted free from the skirmish. A moment later the left side of Austin’s head went numb. Cleavon had walloped him with his free hand. The world canted, his vision blackened, but he didn’t release Cleavon’s other hand, which was still holding the machete. Cleavon struck him again, this time catching his chin. Austin tried to head butt Cleavon, but his forehead deflected off the asshole’s temple. White-hot pain tore through his face. Cleavon was biting him! He shoved himself free, his hand going to his bloody cheek.
The chaotic scene around him registered in a heartbeat. Earl holding Cherry off the ground, arms around her chest, her feet kicking wildly. Mandy on her butt, as if she’d been pushed over, her hands held protectively in front of her face. Cleavon shoving himself onto his knees, glaring at him. He didn’t see Floyd anywhere, and knew the man must behind him—
Something heavy slammed into the back of his head.
Mandy was still dazed from Floyd’s open-handed slap across her face. Her eyes watered, her cheek smarted, and when she blinked away the stars she saw Floyd looming up behind Austin, swinging a tree branch. It struck the back of Austin’s head with a snappish crack. His eyes rolled up in their sockets and he fell limply onto his chest.
This happened so quickly Mandy had no time to react. Now she leapt to her feet and ran at Floyd, screaming at him to leave Austin alone. Floyd kicked Austin in the side of the head twice before she reached him. She grabbed his arm, trying to pry him away. He shoved her aside and kicked Austin again. The impact of his foot striking the side of Austin’s skull made a heavy, dead thunk. Mandy felt ill, and all she could think was: This can’t be happening! This isn’t happening! He’s going to kill him!
Shouting hysterically—she hadn’t quit shouting the entire time—she flung her weight into Floyd, knocking him off balance and away from Austin. While she drummed her fists against his chest, he clutched her around the throat with his hand. She gripped his wrist but could do little else except make rusty, rasping noises. He squeezed tighter, crushing her windpipe. His eyes were shining like a rabid animal—intense yet emotionless.
“…stop...” she gasped.
Her body was going weak. Blackness seeped into her vision.
She tried to rake the freak’s face with her fingers, but his arm was outstretched at full length, and his arm was longer than hers. She swiped at air.
He’s killing me. He’s going to kill me right here.
The realization was like a shot of adrenaline to her heart. She kicked with all her strength and connected with his groin. He bellowed, sagged, and released her.
She ran.
Encouraged by Mandy’s escape, Cherry raised both her legs and drove her four-inch heels into Earl’s shins as hard as she could. He grunted and dropped her to the ground. She fled in the opposite direction Mandy had gone. The forest was a blur of darkness and fog, shadows layered upon more shadows. Still, she didn’t slow. She knew her life had boiled down to two scenarios: escape and live, or get captured and die.
Mandy thrashed through the scrub, out of control, like a drowning swimmer. Her throat, already raw from being strangled, was now on fire. Her breathing came in gasping sobs. The scent of rot and evergreen seared her nostrils. She dodged vegetation left and right, leaping and ducking obstacles she saw at the last second, praying she didn’t poke out an eye. She raised her arms for protection against the brittle branches clawing at her face, but she could do little to prevent them from piercing the thin Spandex of her costume, scouring her stomach and legs, drawing warm blood from a half-dozen different cuts.
Cherry thought she had lost Earl when a hand suddenly seized her shoulder. She felt resistance, felt herself slowing. Then a loud tear. Her top. She was free, picking up speed. But she only made it a few more steps before Earl seized her shoulder again, this time dragging her to the ground.
She scrambled forward on all fours, the giant clawing her back, her rear, searching for purchase. He snagged her leg, his fingers pinching her flesh. She kicked her foot, once, twice, and connected with his face or shoulder. Yet he wouldn’t let go. She rolled onto her back, gasping for breath, struggling to free herself. He raised a fist. She brought up her arms in front of her face to block the blow. His swing came from the side, plowing into her left ear, knocking her senseless. He raised his fist again. She yelled and squirmed. He smashed her jaw.
Holding onto consciousness by a thread, Cherry shoved her hands into his face, pushing him away. One of her thumbs found an eye socket and she dug deep.
Earl reared up with a startled cry. She wormed out from beneath him, flipped onto her front, and crawled away. She didn’t get far. A moment later he appeared next to her and mumbled something that might have been, “Nice try, little girl.” He kicked her in the stomach, lifting her clear off the ground, turning her turtle onto her back. He kicked her in her side again and again, relentless. She heard her ribs snapping with twiggy, gristly sounds, and the certain realization that she was going to die filled her with an incomprehensible terror the likes of which she had never experienced.
Mandy blundered blindly into a glade of waist-high grass and cattails. She tripped on a root, pin-wheeled forward, and fell, slamming her chin against the ground so hard her upper teeth punctured her lower lip. Blood gushed into her mouth. She attempted to push herself to her knees, but didn’t have the strength. Instead, she was reduced to pulling herself forward, like something primordial that had just slithered out of the ocean for the first time.
When a shrill cry shattered the night, Mandy knew it belonged to Cherry. Still, she didn’t contemplate turning back. What could she do? She’d tried to fight them, and she’d failed. She was too small, too weak, outnumbered. Cleavon and his freak brothers were animals, crazy, sick. They would surely do to her…whatever they were doing to Cherry.
Cherry wailed again in abject pain and misery.
Somehow Mandy regained her feet.
She ran.
Chapter 9
“I’m the guy that’s gonna save your ass.”
Feast (2005)
“Here we are, I guess,” the driver of the white Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am said. “Boston Mills.” He had only spoken a few words since he’d picked up Beetle fifty miles back on Interstate 77, mostly to tell him he could take him as far as the Ohio Turnpike. “Sorry it’s not someplace bigger,” he added. “But I’ll be heading east now to Warren. You’ll be fine here for the night?”
Beetle nodded. His real name was Frederick Walker, but in the army you got nicknames, and they stuck—enough at least Freddy still thought of himself as Beetle, which he’d received because of his thick eyebrows and square face. “I’ll be fine,” Beetle said, “and thanks for the ride.” He got out and watched the Firebird drive off, vanishing into the fog, there one moment, gone the next, like a ghost ship glimpsed momentarily at sea.
The street was deserted. The only light came from a nearby sodium arc streetlamp that cleaved an inverted copper cone through the mist.
Beetle glanced at his wristwatch. 8:40 p.m. Not so late that there shouldn’t be a coffee shop open, or a couple out for a walk. Then again, it being Halloween night, he supposed everyone had closed up to take their kids out trick-or-treating in the residential neighborhoods.
He started walking in the direction the Firebird had gone and passed the typical businesses you found along the main drag in most small towns: a barbershop, a bookstore, a diner, a druggist, a real estate office, a shoe store. The exteriors were weatherworn, most in need of a coat of paint, the display windows as frost-blank as cataracted eyes. Graffiti covered the boarded-up entrance of an out-of-business tavern.
At the end of the block the street signs told him he was at the intersection of Main Street and Stanford Road.
While deciding which way to go he made out voices and laughter from somewhere ahead of him. Some ten se
conds later two silhouettes materialized in the gray gloom before resolving into teenage boys. They were sixteen or seventeen, both dressed in torn jeans and wool football jackets with leather sleeves. The one on left had a buzz cut, the one on the right a mushroom cut with bangs that went to his chin. They were each gripping open wine bottles by the necks. They stopped when they saw Beetle. Their bantering ceased. Then, realizing he was too young to be a parent, they continued toward him with the awkwardness of kids who knew they were doing something wrong and were hoping you didn’t say anything about it.
“Excuse me,” Beetle said when they were a few feet away.
They slowed but kept walking. Buzzcut eyed him warily. “Yeah?”
“Can you tell me where the nearest motel is?”
Buzzcut stopped. Angry red splotches of acne marred his face. His mouth hung open slightly, and he could have done with a pair of braces, maybe one of those full headset deals. Mushroomcut slouched against a newspaper box and cleared the bangs from his face with a quick, neat jerk of his neck.
“You a soldier or something?” Buzzcut said, eyeing Beetle’s woodland camouflage shirt.
“The motel?” Beetle said.
The kid shrugged. “Only two in town. The Pines has an indoor pool, but it’s way over on the south side. The Hilltop’s closer, down that ways a bit, but no pool.” He pointed north along the cross street. “Keep going for a couple blocks to the edge of town. Then keep going maybe five more minutes. You’ll see it right up on a hill like the name says. Can’t miss it. Oh, and so you know, the church with the upside down crosses is another five minutes farther on, right on the edge of the national park.”
“Upside down crosses?” Beetle said.
Buzzcut nodded. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“To see the church?” Beetle asked.
“The church, the graveyard, the slaughterhouse.” His face lit up with an idea. “Hey, you want a guide tomorrow? I can meet you at Hilltop. Five bucks and I’ll show you everything.”
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t know about the legends?”
“What legends?”
“You know you’re in Helltown, right?”
Beetle shook his head.
“So what you doing out here?” Mushroomcut said. “Passing through or something?”
“Or something.”
“Huh,” Buzzcut said. “Don’t get many passer-throughers. Most visitors come to check out the legends.” He frowned. “So you don’t want a guide?”
“No, but thanks for the directions.” Beetle started away, then hesitated. He took his wallet from his pocket, turned back around, and handed Buzzcut a fifty-dollar note. “Split it,” he said.
“Holy Christ! A fifty! Thanks, mister!”
Buzzcut took off down the street, hollering like an ape, dollops of wine jumping from the mouth of his bottle. Mushroomcut followed on his heels, grasping for the bill, telling Buzzcut they had to share it.
Beetle continued down Stanford Road, in the direction of the motel.
The houses he passed reminded him of those you might find at a military base that had long since shuttered its doors and had been frozen in time, forgotten by the world. Most were dilapidated things with weed-infested front yards littered with rusted bicycles and neglected toys and garden equipment. From inside a bungalow bunkered behind a corrugated iron fence, a woman cried out in a bitter, hysterical voice, something about the dog and dinner and “getting off your ass and helping out!” The husband shouted back, punctuating every few words with expletives.
The arguing made Beetle think of Sarah—or, more precisely, his relationship with Sarah, how it had been at the end. It was funny, he thought, how something so good between two people could go so bad. But that’s how it worked, wasn’t it? If he and Sarah hadn’t loved each other the way they had, they wouldn’t have bothered hating each other the way they had.
Beetle had met Sarah shortly after he’d finished Ranger School. He’d already completed Basic Training, Advanced Individual Training, Airborne School, and the Ranger Indoctrination Program. And he’d already been assigned to the 1st Ranger Battalion for the previous eleven months. Ranger School was more of an old tradition than anything else, but it was a requirement for leadership positions within the 75th Regiment.
To celebrate graduating the two-month course, during which he’d managed on less than three hours sleep a night and one and a half meals a day, Beetle and a few other soldiers secured thirty-six hour passes for the weekend. They rented rooms in a Sheraton in downtown Savannah, Georgia, went for dinner at a steakhouse recommended to them by their commanding officer, then moved on to the bevy of Irish pubs the city was famous for. By midnight only Beetle and a guy named Tony Gebhardt remained from the original group of six; the others had either gone off with girls they’d met, or hookers. Beetle and Tony were contemplating calling it a night when Beetle spotted Sarah at the bar. With her dark hair tied into pig tails, and a splattering of freckles across her nose, she was cute rather than sexy, though still quite attractive.
Tony wiggled his eyebrows at Beetle, and Beetle decided what the hell. He went to the bar, waved to get the bartender’s attention, and said to Sarah, “Hi, I’m Beetle.”
“Hi,” she said, giving him a quick up and down. Drinking and smoking were prohibited while on pass, so he was dressed in civilian clothes to avoid drawing attention to himself.
“I know how this sounds,” he said, “but you remind me of someone.”
“Punky Brewster, right? I get it all the time.”
Beetle laughed. Because she was right. She did look like Punky Brewster, albeit a grownup version. “Maybe that’s it,” he said.
“So—did you come over to buy me my drink?”
“Sure,” he said as the bartender arrived. “Coors for me, and put, uh—”
“Sarah.”
“—Sarah’s drink on my tab.”
Sarah smiled at him, raised her blue cocktail, then started walking away.
“Hey,” he called after her. “Where’re you going?”
“My table—join if you’d like.”
And so he did. Tony did too, given Sarah was with a girlfriend. The four of them drank and smoked, played billiards and darts, and danced to the occasional song. At last call Tony and Beetle invited them back to the Sheraton. The friend was game, but Sarah wouldn’t budge on her “I don’t go home on the first night” policy, and Beetle settled for a telephone number and a brief kiss.
In the weeks that followed garrison life at Hunter Army Airfield went on as usual. Physical training, paperwork, squad and platoon evaluations, parachute jumps. Beetle never called Sarah. The army was his life. He could be deployed anytime. A relationship would be messy. Nevertheless, the next time he was in Savannah on pass he found himself thinking about her, the fun they’d had, and he discovered he still had her number in his wallet. He called her from a payphone. He expected a snub, but she said she was getting ready to go out with friends and, whatever, if he wanted to come to Congress Street, maybe they could meet up. He got the name of the place she would be at and convinced the guys he was with to change venues. They were all keen except for Tony Gebhardt, who didn’t want to see the friend again. But Tony was outnumbered, and they went.
While searching the Congress Street club, Beetle realized he couldn’t remember exactly what Sarah looked like, and when he found her on the patio out back, he was surprised by how beautiful she was. They were both more sober than they had been at the Irish pub, and they spent the rest of the night at a secluded table, talking, touching, making out. This time it was her suggestion to return to the hotel.
After that they saw each other as often as possible, and they fell madly in love the way only the young and naïve could. Beetle proposed on the anniversary of the day they’d met. They married a short time later on a beach on Tybee Island. He moved out of the barracks, and they rented a house off post together on
a cul de sac in a quiet Savannah suburb. Sarah chose it because of the mature vegetable garden in the backyard. The idea of being able to step outside and pick basil or tomatoes or chili peppers delighted her to no end. Also, they had been talking about having children, and the house had a spare bedroom, which they could convert into a nursery.
Sarah found employment as a receptionist at a small law office, while Beetle was promoted to Specialist, then Sergeant, given a team leader position, and eventually his own squad.
Their lives had been near perfect.
Then, in October of 1983, President Regan issued orders to overturn a Marxist coup. Beetle kissed Sarah goodbye in the middle of the night, and within hours he was on an Air Force C-130 Hercules four-engine transport, configured to carry paratroopers, heading for the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada.
Beetle arrived at the motel before he’d realized it. Directly to his left a stand of pines had been cleared to make room for a parking lot, which was currently empty. A sign perched atop a twenty-foot metal pole announced in red and yellow neon: “Hilltop Lodge - Vacancy.” A tacky, flashing arrow pointed to a cement staircase that carved a path through the trees to the top of the hill.
An icy wind blew in from the west, sneaking down the throat of Beetle’s shirt and causing his skin to break out in gooseflesh. Rubbing his arms to generate warmth, he climbed the steps, seventy or eighty in total.
The motel rose two stories behind a grove of twenty-foot fir, which, given their calculated spacing, had been planted some years back. The shiplap siding was rotting in places, though someone had attempted to give it a facelift recently with a rich brown coat of stain. A thick hedge of privet lined the perimeter of the plateau and substituted for a fence to prevent visitors from plunging down the steep slopes. On a clear day those same visitors would have been afforded a sprawling panorama of Boston Mills and the national forest those kids had mentioned, though tonight little was visible behind the drab gray curtains of mist.
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