I’ll decide what to do with her in the morning. Get her hoisted.”
Klaus nodded. “Yes ma’am.”
The butchers abandoned their work on the dead woman and approached Daphne. Floyd relinquished his hold on her as he and Cletus moved out of the way. Daphne started crying as the butchers got to work, pleading insensibly while Klaus shackled her wrists and affixed the iron manacle to the long length of heavy chain. Once this was done, the other man started turning a crank and the chain began to rise, sliding inside the pulley wheel’s groove.
Daphne shot a pleading look at Vivian. “Don’t do this. Whatever it is you want from me, you can have it.”
Vivian said nothing.
Floyd scowled at Daphne. “My advice, girl? Next time your pussy better be wet.”
The last loop of coiled chain came off the concrete floor and began to rise, tugging Daphne’s wrists upward with it. “What?”
Cletus brayed laughter. “You sure are slow on the uptake. Next time Mama Hunt plays with your lady parts, get turned on. That way, you get to live, maybe, and we get paid.”
Then they were all laughing—Vivian, the redneck goons, and the blood-spattered butchers. The chain kept rising and Daphne’s feet came off the ground. Soon she had an aerial view of the cluster of grinning maniacs. She was surrounded by madness, trapped in a place where cannibalism was a proud tradition, and her best hope was that one of these human monsters would opt to keep her as some kind of sex slave rather than eating her.
Daphne finally started screaming again.
And the monsters kept on laughing.
7.
Sienna Baker struggled with the weight of a heavy, loaded-down backpack as she trudged down the long, tree-shaded country lane leading to the old antebellum home where her cousin Arlene lived. From a distance, the house looked as grand as she imagined it must have in the pre-Civil War days, with its gabled roof and tall columns. But she had been here many times before and knew the illusion crumbled well before visitors could reach the porch. Some of the windows were boarded and paint was peeling everywhere you looked. Walking on the porch was always an exercise in queasiness, with the way the old planks bowed beneath even a light tread. Sienna always fancied she could hear the termites chewing their way through the ancient, rotting wood.
There was no evidence of anyone around as she climbed the steps to the porch. In the olden days there would have been a constant buzz of activity. Her imagination supplied vivid images and sounds from that bygone time. She could almost hear the barked commands of the white minders the family had employed to oversee the activities of the slaves. And if a slave failed to adequately perform his or her duties, the crack of a whip would have resounded through the countryside. Sienna didn’t have to close her eyes to conjure the image of the whip biting into brown flesh or any of the rest of it. History was very close here and ghosts were all around her.
And so was the lingering legacy of all that human misery. Sienna was a student and fan of the dark side of history. All that endless pain and suffering down through the ages fed into her own darkness, which had been growing ever since the death of her father and the fall of Hopkins Bend. And soon it would be her turn to inflict misery on a great many people, including some of her kinfolk.
Sienna’s scheme revolved around the wild notion that she could raise the dead. Most folks would have deemed this a dubious idea at best, but she had never shared her plans with anyone. This was in part because she had no one to tell. Her sister was a useless idiot and she had no close friends. But the secrecy had more to do with her intent to resurrect her father, which would have been perceived as crazy by just about anyone, the man having been dead for years.
People in these parts had good reason to believe in the existence of the supernatural, but true command over
Klaus nodded. “Yes ma’am.”
The butchers abandoned their work on the dead woman and approached Daphne. Floyd relinquished his hold on her as he and Cletus moved out of the way. Daphne started crying as the butchers got to work, pleading insensibly while Klaus shackled her wrists and affixed the iron manacle to the long length of heavy chain. Once this was done, the other man started turning a crank and the chain began to rise, sliding inside the pulley wheel’s groove.
Daphne shot a pleading look at Vivian. “Don’t do this. Whatever it is you want from me, you can have it.”
Vivian said nothing.
Floyd scowled at Daphne. “My advice, girl? Next time your pussy better be wet.”
The last loop of coiled chain came off the concrete floor and began to rise, tugging Daphne’s wrists upward with it. “What?”
Cletus brayed laughter. “You sure are slow on the uptake. Next time Mama Hunt plays with your lady parts, get turned on. That way, you get to live, maybe, and we get paid.”
Then they were all laughing—Vivian, the redneck goons, and the blood-spattered butchers. The chain kept rising and Daphne’s feet came off the ground. Soon she had an aerial view of the cluster of grinning maniacs. She was surrounded by madness, trapped in a place where cannibalism was a proud tradition, and her best hope was that one of these human monsters would opt to keep her as some kind of sex slave rather than eating her.
Daphne finally started screaming again.
And the monsters kept on laughing.
7.
Sienna Baker struggled with the weight of a heavy, loaded-down backpack as she trudged down the long, tree-shaded country lane leading to the old antebellum home where her cousin Arlene lived. From a distance, the house looked as grand as she imagined it must have in the pre-Civil War days, with its gabled roof and tall columns. But she had been here many times before and knew the illusion crumbled well before visitors could reach the porch. Some of the windows were boarded and paint was peeling everywhere you looked. Walking on the porch was always an exercise in queasiness, with the way the old planks bowed beneath even a light tread. Sienna always fancied she could hear the termites chewing their way through the ancient, rotting wood.
There was no evidence of anyone around as she climbed the steps to the porch. In the olden days there would have been a constant buzz of activity. Her imagination supplied vivid images and sounds from that bygone time. She could almost hear the barked commands of the white minders the family had employed to oversee the activities of the slaves. And if a slave failed to adequately perform his or her duties, the crack of a whip would have resounded through the countryside. Sienna didn’t have to close her eyes to conjure the image of the whip biting into brown flesh or any of the rest of it. History was very close here and ghosts were all around her.
And so was the lingering legacy of all that human misery. Sienna was a student and fan of the dark side of history. All that endless pain and suffering down through the ages fed into her own darkness, which had been growing ever since the death of her father and the fall of Hopkins Bend. And soon it would be her turn to inflict misery on a great many people, including some of her kinfolk.
Sienna’s scheme revolved around the wild notion that she could raise the dead. Most folks would have deemed this a dubious idea at best, but she had never shared her plans with anyone. This was in part because she had no one to tell. Her sister was a useless idiot and she had no close friends. But the secrecy had more to do with her intent to resurrect her father, which would have been perceived as crazy by just about anyone, the man having been dead for years.
People in these parts had good reason to believe in the existence of the supernatural, but true command over
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