The Hunters Series Box Set

by Glenn Trust

  She wanted to believe in her survival, and so she did.

  Turning right onto the main road, they drove north. The state line was another twenty miles up the road….Georgia. Georgia was on his mind.

  9. Just Away

  Lyn jerked her bedroom door open and saw her mother lying on the floor in the middle of the room. Blood trickled from her head. The beer can that her father had thrown was on the floor beside her. He stood there, a wolfish grin on his face, proud of what he’d done.

  “You son of a bitch!” Lyn screamed at him as she ran to her mother’s side.

  Trying to stand, her mother held a hand to the side of her face where blood seeped down under her fingers.

  “What the hell did you call me?” her father said, a tone of incredulity in his voice. Then recovering he shouted, “You ain’t gonna talk to me like that you little fucking bitch!”

  Lurching across the room, he made a drunken grab for his daughter. Lyn dodged, but he fol­lowed up with a backhand that caught her across the face and sent her reeling against the wall. Beer soaked as he was, he was still a powerful man. He reached down, grabbed her arm pulling her up with his left hand and balled up his right fist to strike her.

  “No!” Mama screamed.

  An instant later, her father’s grip relaxed and he tumbled forward to the floor on top of Lyn. She dragged herself out from under his dead weight and stood up, a look of revulsion, mingled with dread, on her face.

  Mama stood there, shaking with anger. Tears, mixed with the blood from the gash, streaked her worn face. A heavy iron skillet was in her hand. It had been on the old stove on the other side of the room.

  Lyn had been wrong. This was not like every other night. Somehow, tonight had just gotten worse…much worse. Or maybe, she had just become aware of how fucked up they all were. All of them. Her father’s evil bullying, her mother’s acceptance, and her own silence in the face of it all. Everything that had been bottled up for so long had just come out at once. She looked down at her father.

  “Is he…”

  “Dead? I doubt it, but no loss if he is.” Mama replied and then knelt down to check him.

  Lyn saw a nasty lump forming over his right temple.

  “He ain’t dead,” Mama said standing. “Just drunker than usual. That thump in the head was what he needed to put him out.”

  Lyn started crying and then sobbing. Her mother took her by the shoulders and pulled her to the threadbare sofa. Sitting her down, she held her, rocking back and forth, keeping an eye on the unconscious man across the room and a washcloth over the gash on her head.

  After a while, Lyn’s sobbing eased. Her mother sat her up straight and held her wet face in her rough hands, looking her in the eye.

  “You have to leave now, baby girl.”

  “But…no, Mama…”

  “Quiet.” Her mother’s voice was calm and firm. She continued, “I know you been planning to go for a while...for a long time. Well, tonight’s the night. You are leaving.”

  “But, no... What about you?”

  Her mother cut her off again. “We ain’t arguing about this baby. I’ll be fine. At least he won’t do any worse to me than he has before. But you…you’re his conscience. You’re what makes him feel guilty. If you stay, he’ll hurt you, maybe hurt you really bad. I won’t let that happen. No, you’re leaving…tonight.”

  There was finality in Mama’s voice. And she knew Mama was right. Daddy would never tolerate her in the same house again. But where? Where would she go? How could she go?

  Mama’s eye softened and tears welled up and followed the others that had streaked her face.

  “I know baby. I know what you’re thinking. You go somewhere…anywhere. I can’t say, but it has to be to a better place than this. We ain’t got no family and there is no one around here that you can stay with. Daddy would find you. You have to go far away. I hate that it has to be this way, but it has to be. You go on now.”

  With that, Mama pulled her close and held her tight against her breast for a long time. She felt her mother’s soft sobs and hugged her back tightly. After a while, Mama pushed her back, turned her face and stood up quickly.

  “Come now,” her voice was firm again, “Let’s get you packed and out of here.”

  Mama walked towards the bedroom. Lyn sat there for a minute in a haze, hearing the heavy breathing from the man on the floor. Could he really be her father? This big, mean, drunk man? Was there a time when he could have been a real father?

  A small framed picture sat on the table beside Lyn. She picked it up and peered closely at it. A big man in overalls sat outside on a kitchen chair in the yard in front of the house holding a small baby in the crook of his arm. The baby was Lyn. The man was her Daddy. At least that’s what Mama had told her. Was it really him? Was it really her? Lyn couldn’t remember.

  She sat there until the small room seemed to close in on her so that she had to stand up to escape. She moved numbly into the bedroom where her few things were already being neatly folded and stacked on the bed by her mother.

  Ten minutes later, she stood by the front door, clutching the old woman by the neck. She could smell the plain soap she used, the detergent in her clothes, the musty, earthy fragrance of her gray, thin hair. She tried to soak in everything about her that she could.

  Finally, the old woman pried the girl’s fingers off her neck.

  “You have to go. Go,” she ordered through her sobs.

  Opening the door, she pushed her daughter out into the night.

  “Go…now,” she choked the words out and slammed the door.

  She stood on the front porch of the only home she had ever known. Mean and rough as it was, it was all she had known.

  She didn’t know how long it was before her feet started to move numbly. First one, then the other. Unconsciously, they carried her to the dirt road and out to the two lane highway about a mile away. Her small bag dragged in the dust as she walked.

  A soft moan escaped the old woman’s lips. She was slumped on the floor against the door she had closed behind her only daughter. Her breast heaved in pain at the thought, and she sobbed.

  A muttered prayer came trembling from her lips and echoed softly in the room. But the house seemed a black hole. It sucked everything into it, allowing no escape. Words, thoughts, happiness, prayers. It seemed that nothing made its way out of the dark house.

  But her daughter had made it out. And she would do whatever she could to make sure the young girl kept going. Anywhere. Just away.

  10. He Was Hungry

  Across the Georgia line, the countryside was dark. On a section of deserted highway, he spotted what he was looking for.

  The old wooden church with a dirt parking lot looked perfect. Surrounded by trees on all sides but the road frontage, it was dark and secluded. Not likely that any churchgoers would be around this time of night. Churches were usually deserted when the flock wasn’t there praying or singing, or doing whatever it is the flock does.

  The area was transitional between the busy city and the remote backcountry of northern Florida and southern Georgia. The little wooden structure had probably been there for seventy-five years. It had no parking lot lights, and the rear could not be seen from the road. The car rolled to the rear of the old building with its lights off. Yes, just what he was looking for.

  This project started so quickly, he had no time to scout around for the spot. But then, he had always been lucky this way. This spot felt safe, and he was hungry. It was time to feed.

  The wheels of the car crunched the gravel as it came to a stop behind the church at the far end of the lot. He put the knife to her throat again.

  “I’ll be right with you, sweetheart,” he said holding his face so close his lips touched her cheek as he spoke. She shivered at their movement against her soft skin. He knew she could feel it, smell his breath. Her trembling thrilled him.

  Opening the driver’s door, he walked around to the passenger side, chuckling a l
ittle as he walked to the rear and then around. Closer to go around the front, he thought to himself. He found the irony amusing, that he was like everyone else in this little eccentricity.

  Stopping for a moment, he breathed deeply. The night air was thick, humid, and pungent with the smell of vegetation and life. The buzzing, chirping, and humming from a billion insects and frogs filled his ears. Life rustled in the trees and scurried and slithered along the ground. It was all around him, and he was part of it.

  Glancing at the car, he could see that the trembling girl was not. He exulted in the life swarming around him and filling him. She only awaited the fate he had selected her for…and for her. She was no longer part of the life teeming and swirling around in the night.

  It was a curious thing to see her through the spotted car glass, isolated and separated from the life. He was part of it, the life. She was…something else. Separate, different, alien. Her separateness and isolation and difference excited him. It made him powerful.

  Jerking the passenger door open, he slit the plastic tie holding her wrists to the door’s armrest with a quick motion. She almost fell out onto the ground as it released.

  11. Rocking on the Porch

  “You hear that?”

  The old man hunched over in his rocking chair on the front porch of the old house and squinted, as if that would sharpen his hearing. Light filtered out through the curtains of the living room behind him. The window was open and moths fluttered against the screen.

  “What?” The equally old woman was sitting a few feet to his left in an identical wooden porch chair. Focusing on the cross-stitch embroidery she was working on in her lap, her peripheral vision picked up the side-to-side movements of his head as he tried to pick up the sound again. It was distracting. She dropped her work in her lap, turned her head and asked more sharply, “What?”

  “Nothin’,” the old man said leaning back in his chair. “Thought I heard something through the woods, over by the A.M.E. Church. Must have been nothin’.”

  “Maybe you should walk over and check around,” the old woman said. “You usually hear pretty good for an old man.”

  A wheezy soft laugh escaped the old man. “Right, maybe I should.” He reached over and patted her thin knee. “Old man, huh. Where’d you learn to talk like that?”

  “From you I reckon,” she looked over at her husband whose hands were bracing on the arms of the chair to push himself up. “You thinkin’ you’re not old?”

  He chuckled and shifted a little, trying to push his old bones up from the chair.

  “Young buck would be more right,” he said, rising stiffly and shuffling his feet in a little jig to show his wife how spry he still was.

  Her response was a shake of the head and a short, “Go on now. See what’s going on through those woods.”

  “Why, yes, ma’am. I’ll do just that. Wouldn’t want nothin’ to happen over at the church. I ain’t never been a church person and don’t suppose I ever will be, but still, I don’t need any more points against me with the old man upstairs if something was wrong over there, and me just sittin’ here passing time with an old woman.”

  “What makes you think you get any points at all out of this? It was my idea for you to check it out. You are forgetful, old man.”

  “Well, old girl, I guess you could say I identified the problem and organized the expedition. That ought to be worth somethin’,” he drawled back with a smile.

  The screen door banged as he walked into the house and through it to the kitchen. A minute later, the door banged again.

  “Think you’re makin’ enough noise? Not likely you’re gonna sneak up on anyone with all that door bangin’ goin’ on.”

  “What makes you think I’m trying to sneak up on anyone? I want them long gone by the time I get there. No need to be overly ambitious or under cautious about such things.” He smiled at his wife, still seated in her chair.

  He clicked on the flashlight and shined it across the yard toward the tree line. The batteries were old, the light dim and yellow.

  “Better hurry,” she encouraged him. “Not much light left in them batteries.”

  “Yep. I better get movin’.”

  When he was half way across the yard, an uneasiness bubbled slightly inside her and she called out from the porch, “You take the gun?”

  He turned, and reaching behind, the old man pulled the .38 Smith and Wesson, two-inch barrel revolver from his back pocket. He held it up for her to see as he walked toward the trees.

  12. Appetizer

  He smiled again as he jerked the girl roughly to her feet. The knife was at her throat. His body pressed hard against her forcing her against the side of the car.

  “Don’t make a sound, honey. Do you understand?” The grin was still on his face.

  She nodded slowly, trembling.

  “We’re gonna have a little fun. Then I’ll take you somewhere and drop you off. You can find your way home. Right?”

  Again, the slow, quaking nod.

  He glanced around and saw no lights through the trees. Just the woods and dark. Reaching into the car, he retrieved a roll of duct tape he kept under the seat. No need to worry about being spotted now.

  With a quick motion, he circled the girl’s face with the tape sealing off her mouth and any possible sound she might make other than the soft, muted whimpers she was trying to control. Her fear and pathetic effort not to make any sound as he had instructed was an electrical charge, buzzing through his loins.

  Roughly, he jerked her away from the door and pushed her towards the front of the car. With one hand, he grabbed the back of her neck and bent her over onto the hood, banging her face against the metal. He knew she could feel the heat of the engine radiating through the hood onto her face.

  The knife went down the back of her pants slicing through them and the panties beneath. She gasped as the cold steel continued down between the cheeks of her buttocks and rested there for a moment. An excited shudder ran through the man as he leaned against her, and she sobbed more heavily.

  Stepping back, he looked at her pale skin just visible in the dark. Her bare, quivering white buttocks gave off a ghostly luminescence. Opening his pants, he moved back to her. This time, she would have screamed had she been able.

  It only took a couple of minutes—painful, terrifying minutes for the girl. After, he stood quietly in the dark, leaning against her still trembling body. The powerful heat and force of his attack on the girl faded into a satisfied warmth. Not the afterglow of a pleasant sexual encounter, it was the desperate relief of drinking after a trek through the desert without water. This was the appetizer for what was to come. Soon, he would experience the belt loosening feeling of feasting after a long fast.

  He could feel her shivering in fear against him. He drank in that which he had missed for too long.

  13. A Walk in the Woods

  “Maybe we should just call the sheriff,” she called after him. “You might be too old to go traipsing through the woods in the dark.”

  “I’ll be all right old girl. Most likely just a raccoon pulling on the back screen door, or some youngsters looking for a place to park,” he called back. And now he was determined to check things out and show his woman that after sixty odd years of marriage, he was still a man. Maybe an old shriveled up man, he chuckled to himself, but a man nonetheless.

  At the tree line, he stopped for a moment looking for the small path that led about a hundred yards through the woods to the back of the old church. Finding the entrance, he threw one backward look at his wife, still sitting on the porch. She watched him, and then conscious of his glance, looked back down at her cross-stitch work.

  He scanned the ground ahead with the flashlight. Most anything out would scurry away as he approached, and there wouldn’t be any gators here. No water nearby.

  Snakes…that was a different matter…there were lots of them, and they tended to lie on the paths at night in the cool air. They weren’t very active at n
ighttime, even in this warm climate. But they could get downright mean if you stepped on one in the dark. He was careful as he walked. He didn’t like snakes.

  Emerging from the woods, he clicked the flashlight off and stood quietly at the edge, trying to blend in with the tree line. Without the light, he would be nearly invisible from a few feet away.

  He could make out the church across the rear gravel lot. Nothing seemed out of sorts and he could see no one. Walking as softly as he could through the gravel, he went to the back of the church building. The crunching sound his shoes made in the rocks caused him to wince at every step. Clicking the light on for a few seconds, he could see no signs of prying on the back door.

  He walked around to the front of the church, trying to stay in the narrow patch of grass surrounding the building so that his steps were muffled. The windows were intact.

  At the large double wooden front doors, he checked again with the flashlight for any signs of a break-in. There were none. The two large, wooden doors revealed chipped and peeling white paint, but no signs of prying or other damage. He stepped from the church’s front porch.

  Crossing the gravel lot to the road, he could not make out anything unusual. No way to tell if anyone had pulled into the lot. The gravel didn’t hold tracks, and he wouldn’t know what to look for if it did.

  Shining the light around from the driveway of the church, he could see nothing unusual. The light sparkled brightly back at him from the reflectors marking the centerline of the road in front. No traffic, but that was not unusual here. In fact, any traffic would have been unusual this time of night. Something scurried in the brush across the road. Probably a possum, or maybe an armadillo.