by the chanting crowd. The muscle guy still stared ahead at nothing, deep in his horror-induced trance. The butcher set the saw’s teeth against flesh, high up the thigh.
Meat meat meat!
The saw blade bit deep, the butcher leaning all of his weight into it. Bright blood fountained. The muscle guy was yanked back to reality, screamed and thrashed against his bonds, eyes bulging. The butcher was relentless, sawing back and forth with long, hard strokes. Blood sprayed his apron and face.
Mortimer turned away and vomited.
At last, the screams stopped. Perhaps the muscle guy had passed out, or maybe he’d simply died from shock and blood loss. Mortimer poked his head up again, fearing what he might see.
The legless muscleman twitched and drooled, eyes hollow, seeing nothing. The butcher carried the leg to a small group of cannibals who already had the other leg lashed to a spit attached to two long poles. Once they’d attached the other leg, the cannibals held the legs over the fire. The smell of roasting human almost made Mortimer throw up again.
“Break out the fermented blood,” the priest shouted. “Tonight we party!”
The most enthusiastic cheer yet. A group of cannibals produced instruments: mandolin, guitar, harmonica and bongo drum. They played-something between bluegrass and adult contemporary. Some danced around the fire. When the meat had cooked, portions of leg were sliced off and passed around. Lips smacked. The butcher brought the arms and torso to be cooked.
Mortimer went flat on his belly again. He couldn’t watch any longer. He crawled around the camp trying to edge closer to the prisoners. The thought he could free his friends was laughable. But he had to see, had to be able to tell himself in the deep dark of future restless nights that he’d tried.
The music, the hellish orange of the bonfire, the chanting and dancing and occasional scream all mixed to form a portrait of hell that would have made Dante piss his pants.
Mortimer belly-crawled until the cold and wet and the long night sapped all that was left of him. He curled against a stump, clapped his hands over his ears in a futile attempt to keep out the nauseating racket of the vile barbecue only a hundred feet away. He lay exhausted and defeated. Sorry, Bill.
Sleep took him finally, and he dreamed of unspeakable things.
XVI
Soft voices woke him. Mortimer’s eyes pried themselves open. Darkness. He blinked a few times, and shadows took shape. The bonfire had dwindled, but there was just enough light to see after his eyes had adjusted. His subconscious had mercifully padlocked the nightmares into an unused corner of his mind. Still, a vague dread weighed heavily on him.
He lay perfectly still, listened. The cannibals’ party had waned and finally petered out. But those voices, somewhere close in the night. He tilted his head only slightly. The voices were just around the other side of the stump, two women.
The first voice: “I’m so tired. Some party.”
The other: “Yes. Roger’s sleeping it off.”
“Isn’t it your anniversary? I thought Doris was on guard duty with me tonight.”
“She’s not feeling well, and Roger couldn’t get it up anyway. He had so much fermented blood.”
“I get a little tired of the fermented blood sometimes.”
A pause. “Really?”
“It seems so long since I had a nice glass of wine or a Dr. Pepper.”
“You really don’t like the fermented blood? Seriously?”
“Oh, I like it. Don’t get me wrong. The fermented blood is great. Love the fermented blood, but…”
“A little bit overkill with all the human flesh and everything?”
“Exactly. Sometimes I’d trade it all for a nice green salad and a glass of Shiraz.”
“I hear you. But you wouldn’t give it up. The blood and the human flesh and the whole lifestyle. You don’t mean that, do you?”
“No, of course not. All my friends are here.”
As the women spoke, Mortimer had stealthily slunk around the stump, froze when he saw a pair of slim legs wearing pink-and-black cowboy boots stretching away from the stump. The women appeared to be leaning against the stump, facing back toward the compound. They probably should have been facing out instead. A little luck at last. Now Mortimer could slink away without their seeing. He prepared to do just that, when one of the women stood and stretched.
“I’m going to take a wee-wee. Back soon.” She picked her way through the bushes and out of sight.
Mortimer changed his plan, hardly even thought about it.
He circled the stump and grabbed the remaining woman, pulled her toward him. She drew breath for a scream, but Mortimer quickly clapped a hand over her mouth. His other arm went around her throat. She struggled, kicked.
Her hands came up, tried to claw his eyes, but he pulled her down, squeezed. He wanted to end it quickly, crushed her windpipe with his forearm. She went stiff briefly, then limp in his arms. He put her back in front of the stump, arranged her to look as if she’d curled up asleep. A crude spear leaned against the trunk and he grabbed it,
