did not.
He just looked up at her with eyes that were shocked and glassy. They looked very wet. He was frightened and she could smell it on him.
Frightened. Yes, Louis was frightened. More scared than he’d ever been before in his life. This girl…Jesus, painted white like something dead, completely naked, red bands of paint on her face, red slashes across her breasts and belly and arms. And her skin…it was beaded with welts like she had been burning herself, only the welts were formed into symbols of some sort, concentric patterns and diamonds and half-moons. Like those tribes on TV with the beads under their skin. She hovered over him. Teasing him, rubbing herself against him…he guessed she was no more than thirteen. Younger than the other girl who sharpened stakes in the corner. The older woman at the fire must have been their mother.
And this…this house of horrors…their den.
Their warren.
Louis saw human remains scattered over the dirt floor, bones and scraps of meat. There was a head in the corner. Severed limbs were dangling from the beams overhead on ropes of gut. There was garbage and filth everywhere. The air stank of putrescence, burnt meat, smoke, and excrement. The girl toying with him smelled like urine.
Grinning, she licked his face.
Elissa came over now. She turned to make sure the dam was still occupied; she was.
Kylie gripped the man’s throat with her hands. Spreading her legs wide, she rubbed herself on him faster and faster until she began to tremble. The man’s face was a contorted mask of dread. This excited Kylie more as she rubbed herself against him harder and harder, making communion, feeling her heart pounding, her skin hot and moist.
Still, he resisted.
“ Get the fuck off me,” he suddenly said.
Kylie brought her face to his own and he flinched. She buried her face at his throat and licked him, tasted his skin. As wave of ecstasy rolled through her, she bit down on the bare flesh of his shoulder and kept biting until she drew blood, until it filled her mouth. He screamed and she bit down harder, harder, filling her mouth with the taste of his blood, his flesh.
“ No!” the dam cried.
She grabbed Kylie by the hair and tossed her aside. She kicked Elissa and then kicked her again when she dared snarl at her. She dragged the man over to the fire and pressed her mouth to his bleeding shoulder. She sucked the blood away and then pressed a rag to the wound. He was shaking, squirming.
The dam poked the gut sack. Hot juice sizzled into the fire.
She drew a rib bone from the coals. It burned her fingers. She gnawed at the meat and pressed it to the man’s mouth. But he would not eat of it. She hissed at him and struck him in the face with her palm. When he refused the meat again, she struck him harder. He was defiant. But she was confident that she could break him. And if not, she would slit him open and yank out his intestines. While he still moved she would roast them and eat them.
It was an ancient punishment.
Kylie and Elissa crawled over. The dam bared her teeth at them. She crouched over the man and scented him with her urine. Then she clawed out at the girls.
“ Mine,” she said. “Mine, mine, mine…”
77
The Baron’s pack now numbered upward of a hundred. As they moved through the night, raiding from one neighborhood to the next, driving prey from hides, holes, and coverts, none dared stand against them. They raced up streets and down avenues, scattering other hunters and hunting them down if they did not flee. The Baron’s strategy was simple: seize anything worth taking, slaughter the stragglers, burn the houses, and generally lay siege to anything in their path with a horrendous scorched earth policy.
They ran afoul of other hunting packs, of course, and put them down or enslaved their numbers, always moving, always taking more territory and leaving a trail of butchered corpses, dead animals, and flaming neighborhoods in their wake. Soon, the Baron’s ranks included not just children but adults, dozens of them. They wielded axes and pikes, spears and knives, hammers and baseball bats with spikes driven into their ends.
Women were raped and men skinned. The elderly used for sport. And tiny children of no use to the pack were given to the flames, for all knew that a sacrifice must be offered to ensure a successful campaign.
And on it went.
They were an irresistible, relentless force.
Then, on the south end of Providence Street, they were met by another pack. Just as determined. Just as ferocious. Just as territorial. The only difference was this group came with dogs. What seemed to be hundreds of barking, yapping, howling dogs. Things driven mad by the scent of aggression and the rich, tantalizing odor of blood in the air.
Battle was joined.
Energized by bloodlust, hysterical fury, and animal ferocity, the two opposing armies of savages-all painted for war, some naked, others dressed in rags or fresh hides, many brandishing death totems of human scalps, heads, and assorted body parts-charged at each other in howling groups. To a casual observer, it was a deranged display of psychotic frenzy unmatched since the barbarian invasions of Europe. But to those involved it was strictly territorial, the sort of manic blood-rite that the tribes lived for.
The Baron led the first charge, hacking and cutting his way through the intruders. Bodies were cut down by spears and hatchets and machetes. Bones splintered and heads were smashed in, limbs were sliced free and bodies fell disemboweled in the streets. The first five minutes was nothing but wholesale murder, the packs beating one another down, slitting throats and chopping on the fallen.
Then the dogs charged in.
The Baron, pulling back with dozens of wounded, watched them tear through the ranks, biting and clawing and feeding on the injured. A huge shepherd gripped the head of a boy and shook it in his jaws while three others fed on his writhing body. The dogs ravaged both sides and even themselves. When an axe dropped a Doberman, its head nearly cleaved in two, a group of beagles tore it apart, fighting over the bloodiest chunks of meat. Men killed men and children killed children and both killed dogs and were killed by them.
As the Baron watched the atrocities, there was a vague memory in the back of his mind: driver ants. South American driver ants cutting a killing swath through the jungle. Trees and bushes stripped, animals eaten down to bones. Nothing escaped them, not even men who were stupid enough to get in their way. It flashed through his mind and vanished as quickly.
The dogs were like that.
The main force was an army of teeth and claws and hunger. A huge and voracious machine of destruction. The smell of blood, meat, and death drove them wild.
They attacked people. They attacked parked cars. They charged through screen doors and dove through windows. They tore sidings loose and chewed at woodwork. They ran roughshod through gardens and tore small trees up by the roots. If they couldn’t kill it or maim it, they pissed on it.
The Baron saw dogs fucking. Dogs eating people. Dogs eating each other. A fearful feeding frenzy. A group of armed women had been caught in their masses and the dogs went insane tearing and ripping and biting. Pretty soon so many dogs had pressed into the melee, you couldn’t see the women. Just dogs biting each other. Biting themselves. Blood was flowing, was gathering in a heaving, stinking mist over the streets. And still the killing continued.
Both packs were under siege now by the animals and fought side by side.
Tribal affiliation was forgotten.
A raging group of men with machetes, most homemade, tried to slash through their numbers. But the dogs were like ants sacrificing themselves madly for their queen. They literally piled up their own crushed bodies until
