Bad Men

“I don’t know. I checked just now and he was gone.”

Scarfe joined them, placed his fingers to his lips, and whistled. The sound was loud and shrill, even allowing for the dampening effect of the falling snow. There was no reply. Dexter leaned close to Moloch’s ear.

“This is turning to shit.”

“What do you suggest we do?”

“Go back.”

“No.”

“We’re down to three men and we got no means of communication. I say we head back to the boat and wait this thing out.”

“Then what? You think they won’t clear the roads come morning?”

“First light, man. First light and we can do this thing, be gone before the people on the island start making breakfast.”

“She knows we’re here. First light, she’ll be gone. Worse, maybe she’ll figure that the best thing to do is to come clean with the cops. She does that, my friend, and we are royally fucked. We go on.”

“Listen-”

Moloch shoved him hard.

“We go on! The bitch is running now. We don’t have much time.”

It didn’t take Shepherd long to figure out that he was lost. After all, the forest should have been thinning out by now. Instead, it seemed to him thicker than ever, even though he was still heading northeast according to the compass. He was forced to push low foliage back from his face. His gloves were sticky with sap and his cheeks were scarred by errant branches. The only consolation was that the snow was not as heavy on the ground, the great trees above and around him sheltering him from the worst of it.

He leaned against a tree trunk, took out his Zippo and lit up, keeping the cigarette shielded in his palm. He took a long drag, closed his eyes, then released the smoke through his nostrils.

When he opened his eyes, there were three men moving through the forest about fifty feet ahead of him. Shepherd whistled loudly but they didn’t respond, so he flicked the butt into the snow and started to go after them. He had closed the gap by about twenty feet when the man bringing up the rear turned around.

It wasn’t Dexter.

First of all, Dex had been wearing a black jacket and green combat pants. This guy was wearing some kind of hooded arrangement made from skins and fur. His face wasn’t visible beneath the hood. When he stopped, the other men paused too, and all three of them stared back at Shepherd.

Then the man bringing up the rear raised his weapon, and even through the snow Shepherd could see that it was an old, old gun, a muzzle loader.

Shepherd dived for cover as the gun flashed and smoke rose and a noise like cannon fire echoed through the forest. When Shepherd looked up, the men were spreading out. He could see the one who had fired at him reloading as he moved, his hand ascending and descending as he pressed the ball down.

Shepherd aimed his own weapon and fired two shots. He didn’t give a damn about the need for silence or for concealment of their presence. Right now, his need was to survive. Shepherd saw one of the men rise and he fired again, the shot tearing through the layer of furs, and watched with satisfaction as he went down.

And rose again.

“No way,” said Shepherd. “That’s not possible.”

They were surrounding him. He could see one of them trying to flank him, to get behind him and cut off his retreat. Shepherd retreated, firing as he went, using the trees for cover. Twice he heard the great eruptions of the muzzle loaders, and one shot came so close that he felt its heat against his cheek as it passed.

He had been backing away for about a hundred feet when he found himself in the clearing. To his rear were a number of rough-hewn houses built from tree trunks. There were six or seven in all. In the doorway of one he spied a woman’s body, naked from the waist down. There was blood on her face and neck. Other bodies lay nearby, in various states of undress and mutilation. He could smell burning.

“No,” he said aloud, remembering the layout of the island from Moloch’s map. “I was going toward the boat. This is-”

The south. I could not have gone so far astray.

The image faded, and now he was surrounded only by broken rocks and old graves and a huge stone cross that cast its shadow on him.

He registered the shot at almost the same instant as his belly exploded in agony. His dropped his shotgun and fell to his knees, clutching his stomach. His body began to burn, as though wreathed in flame. The pain was too much. He took his hands away to examine the wound, but his jacket was intact.

But I feel pain. I feel pain.