The Flesh Eaters (23 page)

“We must be half a mile into this cave.”

“It’s so dark we must be going into hell.”

“It smells like it. This is the stink of the mouth of hell.”

“And it’s getting worse.”

“Keep it quiet back there!” the Captain says, but it is true that the smell gets worse as they proceed. What was merely a sickly, unpleasant odor, is now an overwhelming stench of excrement and rottenness.

“I may be damned, but I never thought I’d walk into hell like this,” one of the soldiers says. “This smell is making me sick.”

“Me too.”

In the darkness, there are sounds of retching and vomiting, which causes more retching.

“Cover your noses and mouths. No more talking,” the Captain orders.

“Whoa!” says a voice.

“Is that you, Sheriff?”

“Aye, Your Majesty.”

“What’s the trouble?”

“The damn bottom here is all slimy and slippery with something. It’s like walking on—ohhhh!” A loud splash is followed by thrashing and sputtering. “Oh, shit! I’m half drowned!”

Coarse guffaws are heard.
      

“Keep your chin up,” the King says and there is a fresh burst of laughter.

Silence for a few minutes.

“The water is getting shallower,” the King says.

“That’s right. I’m on dry ground here,” the Captain adds.

“So am I now,” the King says. “It feels as though the cave has opened out here.”

“Aye, it has,” the Captain responds. “Spread out, men.”

“I’m up against a wall here,” the Sheriff reports. “Hey, don’t push... keep back, you fool, give me some room! Here, give me a light... now, look—aaah!”

The light of the Sheriff’s torch has revealed the upper half of a badly decomposed body hung from the wall, one hand of which is resting on the Sheriff’s shoulder. He screams, jumps back, drops his torch, and is immediately sick.

“Did you see that?”

“What was it?”

“What’s happening?”

“Half a man’s body hung on the wall.”

“Aw, shit!”

“Order! Keep in order!” the Captain shouts. “More light up here.”

Men come forward, and the accumulation of torches makes a great burst of light. The men gasp. In the darkness ahead, the light is reflected by numerous pairs of eyes.

The Captain barks a command. “Draw your weapons, men! Advance slowly!”

The torches are advanced, and now the family is revealed. They are grouped closely together. They do not move or speak. Their eyes show a combination of fear and hatred, shock and disbelief. Each group, the family and the soldiers, appears to the other as something totally alien, something out of a nightmare world.

The soldiers display remarkable discipline. Cautiously, swords and pikes held in readiness, a number of them surround the family; others take torches to investigate the cavern. The more they explore, the more horror they discover. The light of the torches reveals many more dried and rotting pieces of men, women, and children hung from the walls, and the soldiers find the pickling barrels—pale, bloated pieces floating in them like obscene forms of marine life. As each terrible discovery is made, some of the men gasp or mutter prayers, but most maintain a stunned silence.

The full impact of what they have encountered does not hit them until they come upon the huge piles of moldering clothing. The men stare, struck silent by the significance of these mountains of garments. How many victims there must have been to produce such a quantity!

And then in an alcove off the main cavern, the soldiers come upon the great pile of bones. The pile is more than ten feet high, completely filling the deep indentation in the cave wall. The bones, many of them skulls, are recognizably human, and the fact that there are a few animal bones in no way alters the magnitude of the sight.

“Holy shit! Look at this!” The exclamation comes from a soldier who has strayed to die far side of the cavern. As heads turn, the soldier points to chests and barrels overflowing with gold and silver coins, rings, chains, necklaces, bracelets, more wealth than these; soldiers have even dreamed of.

An awed voice rises from the group that surrounds the family. “It is true! This is the mouth of hell. And we’re looking at the devil’s offspring.”

A silence follows this observation, and then the Captain speaks in a controlled, reassuring voice.

“All right... let’s finish with this. I want them tied or chained. Be careful now. Take them one at a time. You, you, you”—he points to several of his most reliable men—”start securing them. Make sure the ropes are tight!”

The soldiers tie the members of the family securely, but with a surprising lack of roughness. This is partly through fear—they are genuinely afraid of these devils—but more because of revulsion; they are reluctant to touch the filthy, foul-smelling bodies.

The family offers no resistance. They have long taken advantage of their own numerical superiority in the hunt; now that the situation is reversed, they know better than to engage inconflict. Moreover, they are psychologically unable to resist. For more than twenty years they have lived unchallenged, supreme in their domain. Now they have been challenged by the sheep, captured by the things. The natural order has been reversed and they can only react with stunned passivity.

Soon the soldiers have chained or tied everyone except the babies. The family is marched from the cave. Not a single member makes a sound.

On the beach, the prisoners are surrounded by a circle of soldiers.

The King, who has regained his composure in the fresh air, observes the family with satisfaction. The outcome of this incredible endeavor will resound to his credit throughout the Kingdom; he is sure that now the grumbling he has heard in several quarters will diminish.

The Captain comes to receive orders.

“We will fire the inside of the cave so that no trace of the horror will remain,” the King says. “But first have your men bring out the chests of money and jewels. These now belong to the Crown, as the rightful owners are long gone.” He returns the Captain’s smile. “And tell your men that they will share in this booty.”

Soon a number of soldiers struggle out of the cave with the chests and barrels of loot. “These are placed before the King, who observes them with some pleasure. These monsters have been more effective than my tax collectors, he says to himself. He turns to the Captain. “Are you ready to fire the cave?”

“All is ready, Your Majesty.”

“Say a blessing, Bishop,” the King orders, “for all those poor souls who met such a terrible fate.”

“My lord, I do not think it is proper under the circumstances. Doctrine states that—”

“If the Church wishes to share in the bounty that has been found on this black day, I am certain that the Church will manage to find some compassion for those who died at the hands of these fiends.”

The Bishop’s heart goes out suddenly to all the poor unfortunates. “You are right, my lord. Compassion must be shown.”

The Bishop says a hasty prayer, and then the King signals the Captain, who gives orders to the soldiers in the cave. The soldiers set piles of straw on fire and then run out, followed by billows of black smoke.

The family watches impassively, totally silent, as their home is destroyed.

When the fire has done its work, the King nods in satisfaction. “Captain, have your men seal the entrance of the cave with rocks and boulders so that no trace of it remains. This place of abomination will be no more.”

The cave is sealed, and still the family remains silent.

The family is marched away along the beach, surrounded by soldiers. At the rear of the procession rides the Sheriff. Since the discovery of the family, he has been completely ignored. He played no part in that discovery, nor was he of any use in their capture. Moreover, because of his dip in the foul water, he smells very bad and looks worse. Sodden, besmeared, humiliated, he wonders miserably how these events can be converted to his credit.

The family begins to chant slowly as they are herded along, their voices barely above a whisper.

“Stick... stock... stuck.

You’ve run out of luck.

Kill... kill... kill

We will eat our fill.”

Under the circumstances, these words ought not to be threatening, but the soldiers are made uneasy, and clutch their weapons tighter.

All is still about the cave, except for the rhythmic splashing of the sea on the beach.

From the bushes on the hillside beside the cave, two pairs of eyes watch the army with its prisoners moving off, far down the beach. These eyes saw the approach of the soldiers, saw them enter the cave, saw the family brought out in shackles, saw the smoke pour from the cave mouth, saw the entrance sealed, saw the family led away.

The pairs of eyes are set in identical faces, the pale faces of the only twins born into the family. The twins are called He-Cub and She-Cub. From birth, they have always done everything together. On this day, they were off fetching fresh water when the army arrived.

The twins are about fifteen years old. She-Cub is slightly smaller than her brother, and her body is becoming that of a woman. Otherwise they are the same; and such a harmony exists between them that it is not necessary for them to speak.

They have watched without emotion as their family was taken away. Now the past is no more and the future is unimaginable, but as they look at each other, they know what they will do at this moment. Stealthily, taking care to remain unseen, they follow behind the army.

Bound and chained, the family marches in silence along the road. Occasionally someone slips or slows down and is prodded by a soldier with the end of a pike to get him moving again. Those who are prodded do not react—not even the children—though it is surely painful. They seem not to notice the jabs.

Such stoicism makes the soldiers nervous. These people, even when they are stuck with swords, do not notice! The soldiers shake their heads in disbelief. One crosses himself.

The King and the Captain ride at the head of the army. A messenger is dispatched; he is to make haste to the town to tell what has happened, and to have a place of execution prepared. The King wants to be sure that there will be an audience for his triumphal return.

At the rear of the procession, the Sheriff is far from well. His bowels are churning fiercely, and he decides that something will have to be done. Dismounting, he tethers his horse, goes into the bushes, drops his breeches, squats. Suddenly he becomes aware that two pairs of eyes are watching him from the bushes several feet away.

The Sheriff has seen enough of the family for these eyes to be unmistakable. Making a strangled sound, he stands and tries to run, but his breeches are bunched around his ankles and he falls forward onto his face. When he rolls over, he sees the twins standing above him. She-Cub, laughing, points to his exposed genitals, which are shriveled by his terror. The Sheriff covers himself with both hands, and a strange, mewling sound rises from him, higher and higher until it becomes a barely audible squeak. His eyes grow wide, as if he were puzzled by the sound he is making. Then the sound stops, but his eyes still stare, unblinking. It is possible that the twins might have decided to kill him, but the Sheriff—bare-assed, clutching his balls—dies at that moment of a heart attack.

He-Cub and She-Cub smile at each other. They leave the body and move on through the woods after the army.

It will be several days before the absence of the Sheriff is even noticed.

As the party nears the town, the results of the King’s planning are evident. Citizens line the road, eager to catch a glimpse of the monsters, the man-eaters, the human devils. As the family passes, some people point and exclaim in wonderment; most, however, only stare in silence, as if regarding creatures from another world. A small boy breaks away from his mother, runs into the road, and throws a piece of mud at one of the prisoners. The boy’s mother rushes to pull him back to the safety of the roadside, then scolds him, not for throwing mud, but for getting close to the monsters.

The family’s stony composure begins to crack when they enter the town; some show signs of curiosity or bewilderment. Except for Sawney Beane and Meg, none of them has ever seen a house, much less a town with houses, shops, and a large cathedral. This strange new world, following the shock of their capture, upsets them.

As the family is marched through the town, the hostility of the spectators increases. The jeers and curses are louder, more frequent. Confident in the security of their own world, the townspeople grow more abusive.

Several young boys show off by going up close to the prisoners and taunting them.

“What’s the matter? Lost your appetite?”

“Look at the monster! Look at the monster!”

“They look like slime under a rock.”

“They look like dog puke.”

“Look at me—what I have done? I ate my mother just for fun. And so his feelings would not be hurt, I had my father for dessert.”