Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse

A cup of hot coffee.

He marched on. Lie down and sleep. Go ahead, his body said. Slip into that final dream without thought or pain. The idea was so seductive. That he could give up, curl into a ball and simply drift off forever.

A hamburger would have been nice.

Through the dense trees up the bank, Mortimer glimpsed a flicker of orange. He jogged toward it, wove a crooked path among the trees. The fire was farther than it had seemed at first, and Mortimer soon slowed to a ragged walk, stumbling in the dark, tree branches scraping his face, roots catching his toe.

He tripped, fell face-first flat into cold leaves and mud.

Mortimer sighed, heaved himself up on his elbows and summoned the energy to get to his feet.

He heard the scream and went flat again.

The second scream was worse than the first, a panicked, terrified, agonized howl.

Mortimer could not make himself move forward. Petrified. The screams came again, a series of hopeless cries mixed with indistinguishable pleading and sobbing, each wail turning his spine into jelly.

Even worse than the screams was the chanting, low and guttural. Mortimer couldn’t quite make it out, but it seemed to be the same word over and over again. He had to know, had to find out. Even as he told himself Run, he found himself slinking forward, crawling on his belly like a lizard, slithering through the dead leaves and the sparse undergrowth.

It seemed to go on for hours, the hideous screaming and chanting, Mortimer’s edging closer an inch at a time. It must have only been twenty minutes.

A lifetime of pain and evil could be packed into twenty minutes.

Mortimer was close enough now to hear the many voices chanting.

“Meat. Meat. Meat.”

Turn around. Run, you dumb son of a bitch.

“Meat. Meat. MEAT!”

Another scream punctuated the chant. The crowd paused to raise an ugly, jeering cheer before resuming. “Meat. Meat. Meat.”

Mortimer flattened himself against a fallen tree. Raise your head and look. You wanted to see this. Look.

He raised his head but suddenly squeezed his eyes shut tight. He could feel the heat from the bonfire on his face. Open your eyes. Do it. Look now. Do it.

Mortimer opened his eyes.

It took him a long moment to completely realize the scope of the horror.

He looked into a large compound, a group of Appalachian savages swaying and pumping fists around a big bonfire. Meat meat meat. They all wore ragged denim, many in overalls. Beat-up hats pulled tight on greasy heads. Some macabre version of the Hat-fields and McCoys. Some held rifles, but many others clutched crude spears with heads of jagged metal.

Just to the left of the fire, several figures had been tied to poles stuck in the ground. Like a captured safari party in a bad Tarzan movie. He saw two of the musclemen and Tyler. Bill was there too. Even at this distance, Mortimer recognized their terror-stricken expressions. They waited to be eaten.

Much closer to the fire, a table made out of a large wooden door had been propped up at a forty-five-degree angle. One of the muscle guys had been tied spread-eagle on the table. A splash of red gore stained the table where his left leg used to be. He stared vacantly into the night sky. Catatonic.

Mortimer realized he was watching the whole scene through some sort of makeshift fence only three feet away. A closer examination turned his stomach. The fence had been constructed of old, bleached bones. Toothy skulls capped the posts. How many gruesome meals did those bones represent?

A loud voice snapped Mortimer’s attention back to the bonfire.

A tall figure, gaunt, hands raised like some savage priest’s. Dark paint around his eyes, making him look like a raccoon. “We have conquered the train that dares invade the clan’s territory!”

A cheer from the crowd.

Mortimer propped himself up on the fallen tree, craned his neck for a closer look.

The priest wore a large necklace of finger bones. A wide black belt from which hung a rusting cavalry saber. High black boots. A black cape, probably looted from some costume shop. He’d have looked almost comic if not for the glint of fire reflecting in his demon eyes.

The priest’s voice carried over all. “We are the clan, and we absorb the strength of our enemies through blood. Nothing is forbidden us!”

Another cheer.

“Bring forth the butcher! Take the other leg!”

Wild cheering, followed by the chant. Meat meat meat!

A hairy brute emerged from the crowd. A short man but wide, a bulging fireplug. He wore a stained leather apron, various knives and cleavers dangling from his belt. An orange Tennessee Volunteers cap. He clutched a gleaming hacksaw in his thick hand and approached the muscle guy strapped to the table.

Dear God…But Mortimer couldn’t turn away. He watched, transfixed.

The butcher bent over the muscle guy’s leg, prodded it with thick, stubby fingers, nodding to himself, egged on