Devil Hunters

by R. Gualtieri

  CHAPTER 23

  The approaching footsteps were accompanied by something Danni hoped to never hear again – the chuffing, labored breathing that told her the devil was near.

  There came the clink of something being tapped against the bars of a cage, followed by a cruel chuckle that sounded far more human than the thing they’d cornered out in the bog. The devil wasn’t alone.

  Backing away from the bars, Danni was tempted to follow Abby’s lead and curl up into as small of a ball as she could, but she also knew full well it was likely to only encourage her captors.

  Holding on to the memories of all she’d done in the past year, she crossed her arms in front of her and did her best to look defiant.

  A large, misshapen body stepped in front of her cage, looming over her. The dim light of her prison did nothing to make it ... him ... whatever this thing was any less repulsive than it had looked out in the woods. Not helping was the lopsided leer it wore upon its face or the fact that it was naked, aside from a few bandages covering the wounds it had sustained battling them.

  It grasped hold of the bars with its clawed hand and she realized that was what had made the sound she’d heard. Leaning down, it peered in at her, giving her a chance to note that even its eyes didn’t match. One was milky white, as if riddled with cataracts. The other was a clear blue, almost normal except for the vertical iris.

  “H...ullo, Sssarah,” it wheezed.

  Danni forced herself to meet its gaze. “Where are my friends?” she asked in a voice that was as calm as it had been the prior day while she had walked the campus with Arthur. She’d almost felt like a normal girl in that moment, a stark contrast to the waking nightmare she now found herself in.

  If the creature understood her, it didn’t give any indication. “You wanna be mine, Sssarah?” The brute pressed himself up against the bars and Danni was horrified to see its erect manhood pushing through, pointing her way. “I think, you’d l-like t-that.”

  The way it was talking, you’d have thought it was asking her out on a date. If she hadn’t been nearly terrified out of her mind, she’d have thought it almost surreal.

  “Put that thing away, Noah,” another voice cackled. “You wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway.”

  Noah? That man in the swamp had called it that, too, spoke of it like it was a person. And that’s when it clicked. It was, or he was. But what could do this to a man? She knew about birth defects, but what stood before her was a far cry from even the case of Joseph Merrick, the so-called Elephant Man.

  Someone else stepped into view besides Noah. He was smaller, but not by much. Both of his eyes were nearly black, like a dog’s, and one side of his face was turned down in what appeared to be a perpetual frown. A large growth lay on his right shoulder, poking out through the overalls he wore. Though far more normal in appearance than Noah, he would have had a hard time walking down the street unnoticed.

  He looked at her, avarice freely showing on his face as his dark eyes drank in her barely covered body. Danni suddenly found herself feeling far more naked than she was. She wondered if he was the one who’d undressed her while she lay semi-conscious. “This one’s gonna be my wife.” Wife?! “Don’t that sound grand, Sarah?”

  Danni realized she was right to be scared when she’d woken up. The way these things were looking at her was as if she was little more than a piece of meat.

  “M ... my name is not Sarah,” she replied, trying to keep herself together.

  She expected to be screamed at. Perhaps the door to her cage opened and these things to launch themselves at her for her impudence.

  Instead, the calm, almost jovial way the second man answered her was somehow far worse. “Of course it is. It’s always been and it always will be. It’s a good name. A good, God-fearing name.”

  The devil, Noah, turned and gave the smaller one a shove. “Nuh uh, N-nathanial. She’s mine. P-papa said so.”

  Nathanial laughed and pushed him back, albeit not moving him much. “You sure are stupid, you know that? He was having fun with you, that’s all. You ain’t never getting a Sarah of your own.”

  Noah hissed at the smaller man, then raised one of his hands as if to strike him.

  “That will be more than enough!”

  Danni turned in the direction of the voice. A third man stepped into view. She recognized him as Ezekiel, from Francis’s video – the bastard who ran the museum and had been in charge of the ambush that brought her here.

  Both Noah and Nathanial backed up several steps and lowered their heads as if they were little more than chastised children. Ezekiel spared one glance at her, then turned to address them. “You boys know the rules. Adam gets first go at them all. Nothing has changed. After that, he’ll decide who Sarah will wed. Until then, you both keep your mitts off her.”

  Danni wasn’t stupid. His declaration brought her little comfort. It was a small reprieve, nothing more, that bespoke of future horrors.

  Though she knew it would be futile, she decided to confront her captors nevertheless. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Why?” Ezekiel replied, smiling as if pleased she had asked. “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. Proverbs 18:22. It’s simply what we’re meant to do.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t.” He stepped close to the bars. For a moment, she was tempted to launch herself at him. She would have liked nothing better than to break his jaw. But where would that get her? She’d still be locked in, and she doubted the others would react kindly to any aggression on her end. “A woman is a simple creature, but she is good for one thing, and it is that which we need badly.”

  “What?”

  “Children, of course.”

  Disgusted and horrified, Danni’s mouth opened seemingly on its own. “But...”

  “Female births have always been rare in our family and they’re even rarer whenever a special child, like our dear Noah, is sent from Heaven to grace us. So we do what we must to continue the line. You should be honored. My family has lived in these parts since the American Revolution, and we’ll continue to live here for so long as God wills it. You’ll be a part of our clan, and your children will grow up to carry on the tradition.”

  “You can’t ... I don’t want...”

  “It matters not, Sarah, what you want or what you don’t want. We need you. My family needs you.”

  At that moment, realization hit. These things had a purpose for her, a terrible purpose she’d rather die than see come to fruition. But that same need they claimed to have for her wouldn’t have been extended to... “Where are my friends?”

  “Claimed by the bog, as it was also ordained. Don’t feel sad, child. Their bodies will nurture the forest which in turn nurtures us. So, in a sense, they’ll be here with you always.”

  Danni clamped a hand over her mouth and sank onto the hard pallet that served as her bed. Though she didn’t want to cry in front of these monsters who masqueraded as men, she felt the tears begin to fall regardless. Derek, Francis – they’d both been so good to her, heroes to be admired. They didn’t deserve this.

  She looked up, blinking away the tears long enough to see Ezekiel smile at her once more before turning away, toward the cage across from hers.

  Abby whispered, “Please, no more,” as the three converged on her cell.

  “Kindly collect my wife,” Ezekiel said to the two others. “Sarah’s ripe and ready for my seed.”

  He turned and began to walk away, but not before calling over his shoulder, “Be quick about it, boys. I’m in a sharing mood tonight.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Derek heard the sound of another engine approaching. Though he was groggy from blood loss and pretty certain he was on the verge of passing out again, the noise perked him up.

  They had to be close to Shilough by now, even moving as slowly as they had been. He needed to get back, make a plan, and
return in force – a concentrated effort by the police to comb these woods and weed out the Lesterfields, wherever they were holed up.

  The sound of the approaching ATV grew closer and Julia applied the brakes, gently bringing them to a halt as they spied headlights closing in on them.

  She was helping Derek to the ground when Mitchell parked and came racing over to them. “What the hell happened?”

  “He’s hurt,” she replied.

  “I can see that. And you are?”

  “She’s a friend, Mitch,” Derek said, every part of him hurting. Pain was good, though. It was when everything went numb that he’d have to worry.

  Mitchell unshouldered his pack and began to pull out supplies. While doing so, he glanced back up at Julia. “Thank you for helping him.”

  “I did my best.”

  “That’s all anyone can ever ask.” Mitchell pulled back the gauze of the field dressings to inspect Derek’s wounds. He grimaced as he examined them. “Call me crazy, but it looks like you were shot.”

  “Give that man a prize,” Derek wheezed.

  “You trip and fall on your own gun again?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Julia asked.

  “Yeah. Keep that flashlight on us.”

  “You got it.” She did as asked, then added, “They were ambushed.”

  “Ambushed?” Mitchell turned toward her, eliciting a grunt of pain from his patient as his hand slipped. “Sorry about that.”

  Derek let out a tired sigh. “No problem.”

  “So who did this? I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume the devil was fake after all.”

  Derek shrugged. “Nope, he’s real.”

  “You got ambushed by a monster with a gun?”

  “More like ... his family.”

  “Okay, this is starting to get weird. Where’s Danni and Frank?”

  “Don’t know.” Mitchell moved to take something from his pack, but Derek grabbed him by the jacket. “We need to regroup.”

  “You need a hospital.”

  “That too.”

  Mitchell turned to Julia. “You’re going to need to get him back. I’ll go after the others.”

  “No,” Derek said, putting as much authority into his voice as he could. “You don’t get it. There’s too many. Can’t ... go alone.”

  “But...”

  “You won’t be helping them if they get you, too.”

  Mitchell looked torn. Derek completely understood the sentiment. He wanted nothing more than to rearm himself and go hunting these monstrosities, but he couldn’t help anyone if he dropped dead of his injuries first.

  “Fine,” Mitchell said after several seconds, kneeling down and starting to work on bandaging Derek up again. “I’m going to give you something for the pain and you’ll ride back with me. Don’t die in the meantime.”

  “No promises, but I’ll try.”

  “I won’t lie and say it’s going to be a comfortable trip, but we’ll take it slow.” He turned to Julia. “You got a name?”

  “Julia Wilhelm,” she replied.

  Mitchell made a face as if he wanted to say something, but then apparently thought better of it. “You follow right behind us. Keep an eye on him from the rear.”

  She nodded.

  Mitchell glanced at the ATVs, then back to Derek. “And you ... next time I tell you we should ask for a couple of Side by Sides in the budget, I want you to remember this moment.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  One eternity later, or at least it felt that way, the ATVs rolled out of the forest and into the outskirts of Shilough. Derek tensed up as they left the tree line. Ezekiel’s museum was close by. There was no telling how many in this town were members of the Lesterfield family or whether they were driving into another ambush.

  He couldn’t help but envision worst-case scenarios: returning to find Zeist’s people dead, or their SUVs gone and them surrounded.

  A few minutes later, though, found him nearly overjoyed to be proven wrong. Over Mitchell’s shoulder he saw the lights from their small caravan of vehicles, right where they’d left them.

  “Son of a bitch!” the medic cried.

  “Huh? What?” Derek asked, suddenly wishing he had a gun in his hand.

  Mitchell ignored him and continued onward until they saw Eric Zeist and his men waiting for them.

  “I thought I told you to call 9-1-1,” Mitchell said as he killed the engine.

  “I alerted the governor. He said no ambulances.”

  “Are you a freaking...? No. Hold that thought.” He pointed to two of Eric’s men, then at the closest of the SUVs. “Clear the back of that one and put the seats down. We need to get him in there.”

  The men hesitated for a moment, but then their boss nodded and they got to work.

  “Help me with him.” Mitchell got off the ATV, careful to not dislodge Derek.

  Eric, however, stepped past him toward Julia. “Who the hell are you, and what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  She looked him defiantly in the eye. “If you’re not going to call an ambulance, then I will.”

  “No, you’re not.” With a quick movement, he snatched the phone from her hand and tossed it away. “You’re under arrest.”

  “What? You can’t do that,” she and Mitchell said simultaneously.

  “Watch me.” He dragged her off the ATV, leaving the medic to help Derek by himself.

  “What should we do?” Mitchell asked in a low voice.

  “Keep ... an eye ... on things,” Derek whispered. “If he does ... anything but ... detain her, shoot him.”

  “I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.”

  “Neither ... can I,” Derek replied before promptly passing out.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Derek awoke again when the SUV hit a pothole, stirring him from a troubled sleep in which he’d been surrounded by those things, helpless to save his friends.

  His eyes opened and he saw Mitchell leaning over him, with Julia on the other side. She was holding a saline bag attached to an IV in his right arm.

  “Why don’t you try driving on the road,” Mitchell growled at whoever was upfront.

  “Sorry,” Eric replied. “That’s your New Jersey tax dollars at work.”

  “Wh-where...?” Derek asked.

  “Don’t talk,” Mitchell ordered. “I’m doing what I can while we head back.”

  “Back?”

  “To Rutgers,” he said, a grimace of distaste on his face as he produced a large syringe. “Now hold still.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A cocktail of antibiotics designed to stave off flesh-eating bacteria. You aren’t going to be much help if I have to saw your arms off.”

  “Lovely.”

  “It’s not exactly FDA approved, so apologies if you start hallucinating ... or grow a second head.”

  Derek raised an eyebrow, then turned to Julia. “How ... are you doing?”

  She glowered down at him. “These bastards are looking at the biggest lawsuit I can throw at them. I’m going to own the governor’s mansion once this shit is finished.”

  Derek smiled, but said no more. He was too tired, not to mention he didn’t have the heart to tell her there would be no lawsuit. Though he would have loved to see the governor try to explain his actions in court, he knew she’d be stifled by the same mountain of paperwork they had to give to everyone they rescued in the course of their jobs, the irony being that she’d been the one to rescue him. Regardless, his superiors weren’t about to let a reporter shine a flashlight on this. If she tried, they’d do whatever they could to discredit her, whether it was true or not.

  That was a concern for later, though. Once they got back and his body was no longer being bounced around like a basketball, he needed to call Norah and request backup. Try as Yarlberg might to keep a lid on this, there wasn’t much he was going to be abl
e to do once a unit of armed ATF agents were out in the woods.

  The thought brought a smile to his lips as he once again closed his eyes and waited for them to reach their destination.

  CHAPTER 25

  After a time the silence, broken only by the never-ending drip of water, became too oppressive. Danni stood and approached the bars, straining to see on either side of them. The way looked clear so far as she could tell, but that didn’t mean anything. “Are you there, Sa...?” She hesitated, realizing she had almost said Sarah. “Sophie, can you hear me?”

  After a few moments, the other woman replied, “Yes.”

  Though she didn’t want to ask what she’d been thinking, she found the words forming on her lips regardless. “You said there was another woman here. That she was close. What did you mean by that?”

  After several long seconds had passed, Danni feared she wouldn’t answer. That she was perhaps reaching the same fugue state that Abby had been in, a place where a person became so damaged, so terrified, that they retreated deep into themselves, the only safe place left for them.

  But then Sophie spoke up. “They took her away to give birth. She ... Sarah’s been here longer than the rest of us.”

  “Don’t call her that. It’s not her name.”

  “It’s the only name we have here,” came the bleak reply.

  “I told you. I have friends.”

  “And what good is that? My husband worked for the state.” Sophie’s voice broke. “Have they come looking? Have they found us?”

  Danni considered her next words carefully, but then realized the truth probably didn’t matter. What could they do to her? Punish her for saying it? They’d have to find her first. If so, she’d gladly welcome whatever they decided to do to her in retribution. “The state is why me and my friends are here. They called us in to search for you. We’re a ... special team. We have guns.”

  “Didn’t seem to help you much.”

  Danni wanted to punch the bars in frustration at her response, but she knew the other woman was right. “They caught us by surprise, an ambush. We were searching for one ... perpetrator. We didn’t realize there were so many.”