Chapter Two

Stomper

Dez’s body had turned to stone the moment the man had seized him, but now his mind unlocked and his thoughts became a swarm of panicked rats scurrying inside a burning house.

The ambush had been coordinated. That much was obvious, even before the one who’d fired the arrow at Kenta – the arrow now buried in the boy’s right thigh – appeared on the path.

You’ve failed again, the cutting voice in his head declared. You weren’t alert enough, and now, because of your weakness, more will die.

Dez could scarcely breathe, so powerfully did the forearm compress his windpipe, and what air he could draw was tinged with the sickening raw-meat odor puffing out of his captor’s mouth. Yet he could still see too well the hellish scene unspooling before him:

The massive, heavily muscled archer striding out of the forest.

The shorter but somehow more imposing figure who followed him, a man with militaristically short hair, a neck festooned with crudely drawn tattoos, and a garish gold chain dangling over the chest of his tight black tank top.

Rikichi hurried toward Kenta, the boy howling with pain and grasping his leg wound, the arrow wagging like some dreadful joke as Kenta thrashed.

“Nice one, Paul,” the man with the neck tattoos said. He had a raspy voice like a habitual smoker’s and a thick Irish accent. He moved with a fluidity that reminded Dez of an accomplished athlete, a fleet running back or a champion wrestler. “Was afraid you’d nail the kid in the guts. Unleash all those nasty fluids into his bloodstream.”

Dez had forgotten Gentry for a moment, but when the gaunt man spoke, Dez could see the abject terror on his face. “You guys are maneaters, ain’t you?” He licked his lips. “You’re…you’re cannibals.”

No one answered him. Even if one of the new arrivals had said anything, Dez wouldn’t have been able to hear it over the horrible caterwauling of the wounded boy. Rikichi was cradling his son and reassuring him, though his voice kept breaking.

The sight made Dez sick. It seemed he felt that way every day now, but this…this was an especially harrowing tableau.

Dez couldn’t help remembering his own son. God, if Dez were half the man he should be, he would have saved Will. He would still have his little boy.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Rikichi said, his voice trembling. He slid a shaking hand over Kenta’s forehead, slicking his son’s sweaty hair back. “Just breathe for me, okay? I’ll fix it in a second.”

Dammit, Dez thought as his eyes shifted to the massive archer and the scrappy-looking man who appeared to be the leader. Goddamn these sons of bitches to hell.

As if sensing his thought, the one holding Dez captive pressed harder on his voicebox. Dez began to cough, his eyes watering. He lifted his hands, but the muzzle burrowed into his temple, the cozening voice laced with warning: “Hands down, friend. Unless you want a hole in your head big enough for my cock.”

Kenta wailed.

“Quiet your boy,” the leader of the group said, the Irish accent lending his words a singsong quality.

Kenta didn’t hear, or was in too much pain to notice the command, but Rikichi turned, shot a fierce glance at the leader. “You ruthless bastard.”

The leader’s mild expression didn’t slip. “Attend to the boy, Paul.”

The archer’s eyes were riveted on Rikichi and Kenta. “Want me to finish him, Stomper?”

Stomper nodded.

Paul, the mountainous archer, whose bulging arms were bare despite the chill of the night, strode over to where Rikichi clutched his son. Paul tossed his bow aside, bent, and tapped Rikichi on the shoulder.

Rikichi didn’t turn.

“Hey,” Paul said and tapped Rikichi on the shoulder again.

“Get away from us,” Rikichi muttered without turning.

With almost loving care, Paul reached around to position one huge hand on the father’s throat. “Come here now,” he said, and swung Rikichi away from his son. Kenta’s head, unsupported, thumped down on the forest floor, and Kenta let out a strident wail. Rikichi’s arms were flailing about as though he were being electrocuted, but the size disparity between Rikichi and the archer made it impossible for Rikichi to connect with anything but the archer’s immense shoulders.

Holding Rikichi at arm’s length, Paul straddled Kenta’s midsection. Rikichi was frantic, smacking and raking at Paul’s arm. Bloody contrails bloomed on the archer’s biceps, but Paul betrayed no sign of pain, only reached toward his ankle.

Retrieved a wicked-looking buck knife.

Involuntarily, Dez’s hand twitched toward the Ruger.

The muzzle dug into his temple, setting off a vicious throb. “Last warning, friend,” the voice said, the gagging stench of his breath making Dez’s eyes water.

“Don’t—” Dez managed in a strangled voice, but Paul’s buck knife was out, and though Dez was more than a dozen paces from the ghastly drama being played out on the ground, he could see Kenta’s frightened eyes, and infinitely worse, Rikichi’s crazed expression as he fought wildly to save his son. Rikichi tore at Paul’s forearm, his shoulder. Rikichi kicked at the huge archer, but the blows deflected fruitlessly off Paul’s hip.

“Shhhh…” Paul said, and as Rikichi looked on, the giant archer placed the buck knife against Kenta’s throat, just under the left ear. Kenta thrashed his head against the blade, but that only made the damage more acute. The blade opened a yawning slit in Kenta’s throat, a slit that bubbled and spumed as the boy thrashed berserkly against his murderer. Through it all, Rikichi’s vast, staring eyes remained fixed on his son, the sounds tumbling from Rikichi’s lips a mixture of horror and sorrow.

Dez felt tears sting his eyes. He’d often believed himself beyond tears, but each time he was proven wrong. Before the end of the world, he’d heard the human psyche possessed a mechanism that closed the floodgates of negative emotion once a certain threshold was reached. The mechanism, he seemed to recall, was designed to prevent a mind from going insane. But if such a threshold did exist, Dez’s mind wasn’t equipped with it. God knew he’d witnessed enough atrocities to trigger that safety valve a thousand times.

Tears streaming down his cheeks, Dez watched the giant archer complete the indelicate incision, place the buck knife on the ground beside the dying boy, and reach into Kenta’s ragged, jetting throat.

Rikichi was still fighting madly, but when he saw the giant pull a stringy mass of pulp and cartilage from his son’s throat, he let loose with a blaring howl of heartbreak.

Unconcerned with Rikichi’s reaction, Paul brought the handful of viscera to his open maw and began to chew. The blood, black and oily in the early dawn light, painted the archer’s chin a glistening obsidian.

Rikichi continued to wail. Stomper appeared beside Paul, and without speaking, took hold of Rikichi’s shoulders and laid him on the ground beside the motionless Kenta. To Dez, the gesture was hideously reminiscent of a parent laying his child down in bed for the night.

Dez had a memory of Will, of his little boy. The bedtime routines they used to share. His son’s insistence that Dez lie beside him until he fell asleep. The warm, soft feel of his son’s forehead. The sweet smell of his hair.

Dez choked back a sob.

“Your boy is dead,” Stomper murmured to Rikichi. “See? He’s at peace.”

The words apparently broke through because Rikichi turned his head to look at his son, and that’s when Stomper raised a boot and stomped on the side of Rikichi’s face. One eye plopped out of the socket, the cheek and nasal cavity giving a horrid crunch as the face crumpled. Rikichi’s body jittered and spasmed, and Stomper brought his boot up, slammed it down again. This time Rikichi’s forehead folded in on itself, the sound similar to an egg dropped on a tile floor. Rikichi’s quivering face was a mask of wine-colored blood. Before Dez knew it, Stomper was on his knees beside Paul and scooping up the dangling eyeball. With a graceless tug, Stomper plucked it loose from the ocular cord and popped it into his mouth.

“Save the other eye for me!” the man holding Dez called.

The words jerked Dez back to his own plight, but it was the yearning, insatiable quality in his captor’s voice that galvanized him. Dez was going to die, and this man was going to dine on him as emotionlessly as the other two cannibals were dining on Rikichi and Kenta. Dez realized the man’s pelvis was jammed against him. Unbelievably, the man was erect.

“I want the boy’s tongue too,” his captor called. “Don’t get it dirty before—”

Dez swung his head back as hard as he could and felt the man’s nose implode. The forearm slipped away from his throat, and Dez sucked in his first unobstructed breath since the nightmare had begun. Peripherally, he saw his captor stumble, the man’s hands slapped over his spewing nose. Dez bolted toward the southern edge of the clearing, where Gentry stood watching him with an amazed look. Dez spotted movement from his left and discovered Paul the Cannibal Archer already nocking an arrow into his bow.

“Down,” Dez shouted at Gentry, and in one motion draped an arm around Gentry’s shoulders and dove forward. They skidded on the dirt as an arrow whistled over their heads.

“Up,” Dez commanded, hauling Gentry to his feet and breaking toward the treeline.

“Don’t have a chance,” Gentry moaned.

“Move,” Dez answered.

As they punctured the vale of forest, Dez heard a snatch of shouted conversation:

“Get them!” Stomper commanded.

“…my nose….”

“Fuck your nose. It’s your own goddamned fault!”

Dez was dragging Gentry as they raced past elms and aspens, thorn bushes and pines.

“No way we’ll escape,” Gentry groaned. “They’ll eat us too.”

Dez gritted his teeth. “If they only send one, we’ve got a chance.”

They veered around a broad oak tree, found what might have been a disused trail. Gentry was moving on his own now, but his gait was a staggering, inefficient one. If Dez set off by himself, his chances would improve considerably.

Sure, his conscience spoke up. Abandon this man the way you did Kenta and Rikichi.

Dez said, “I didn’t abandon them, dammit. I had a gun to my head.”

From the corner of his eye he sensed Gentry’s wondering stare. “Who you talking to?”

“Nobody,” Dez snarled. “Get your ass moving.”