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NOTE: These stories are
intended for a mature audience.

Within the Fold
A "Vorare" Story
By
Ivan Ewert
Start at the beginning of the Vorare series

"The Farm ? and the other properties of the Gentlemen Ghouls of America ? was set up as an outpost of civilization." The Master Farmer returned his attention to Gordon. "Understand that we have been here nearly as long as the nation itself. For over a century we have committed ourselves to the ideals of strength, progress, and civilization. For this we have sacrificed, and for this we have been rewarded, as you have seen. When you first took your meal and sated your hunger, you were gifted."

"I spewed my guts out."

"In the church, as I understand it. The god of Abraham is territorial about who presents and who accepts sacrifices. He gave his son. I believe he considers that sufficient."

"And you don't?"

"No. How many subjects of the Prince of Peace could avoid several groups of experienced trackers for the harshest months of winter clad in so little as you, stopping neither to eat nor sleep? When Christ died, the miracles ceased. It was a fine gift, but it was his last, and as the miracles ceased so too did the expansion of once-mighty Rome. The empire was miraculous, and it was ended."

The door opened, and a third man entered with a wooden platter covered in steaming slices of fresh bread.

"Brother Paul, please. Stay a while as we talk." The Master Farmer motioned, and Paul responded with a nod. Gordon saw that Paul's hands were red and raw, small pieces of callous-whitened flesh rising across his palms. One of those hands went to his forehead, wiping sweat from the wide brow beneath his cropped blonde hair.

"When the empire ended, so too did civilization. Barbarism and savagery took the world. It was centuries before another empire arose, and it lasted but a single generation. Understand this, Gordon. Man alone can do but little against his hunger ? his desire to return to savagery. Without some outside force of correction, or some miraculous intervention within the man himself, he will ever and always seek to return to the animalistic state of his original birth."

Gordon moved his hand to the platter of bread. He saw that some were already buttered, and with the thought of what animals this Farm might raise, he took up one of the unbuttered pieces. It smelled perfectly natural and wholesome.

"Eat. You won't offend me." The Farmer smiled. "Honestly, I'm amazed that you've waited as long as you have. Control, Gordon, that is what I was referring to."

"You're talking about savagery and civilization, but you're ... ghouls. You eat the flesh of other men. I can't imagine anything more savage."

The Farmer shook his head. "You confuse us with cannibals, Gordon. A cannibal is either desperate ? starving to death and no longer capable of defining right from wrong, only eating to survive ? or he is misled by generations of superstition and incorrect thinking. Cannibals are indeed savages, and must be treated as such. Some must be put down. Others may be corrected, gently or otherwise, until they come to acknowledge their errors and embrace truth."

Gordon had seen the light in Mike's eyes that night in Sylvie's apartment. He had thought it madness, pure and simple, but now he was coming to realize that it was something more. It was belief in a mad idea that drove him, him and all the others.

"Tell me your truth," he said. The Farmer was all too willing to talk, and while there was no chance of escape at the moment, playing along might get him somewhere safer. He could go to the police and call the world down on the Farm and its ghouls.

"The truth, Gordon, not mine. The one truth. That man and miracle must be one and the same, one flesh, one body, one spirit, dedicated to the advancement and civilization of mankind. Dedicated to empire.

"It was realized as our forefathers headed west. This land had never known empire, not as it was meant to exist, under the hands of the righteous and guided by miracle. Its people were nothing more than scattered bands of savages, without guidance or correction."

"Manifest destiny?"

"Yes. Yes." The Farmer nodded. "It's a term that stays with you after so much of your schooling has faded away, isn't it? It resonates within you, strikes a chord; fills you with a sense of truth and wonder."

"I remember it. I don't know about resonation."

"All those who pass through your school system remember it. They present it as misguided in these days, but everyone remembers it."

"You home-school as well, then."

"I think Brother Paul will speak for our educational pursuits."

"The children of the Farm are too important to us to send out into the world unprepared." Paul's voice was deep, and his speech slower than the quick tones of the Master Farmer. "My own twin boys are being raised here. You might meet them later today."

"And Sylvie?"

The Master Farmer nodded. "From a certain age," he said. "She was born to the world without, but her grandmother was able to persuade her parents to send her here."

"Is that why she says she's not one of you? Because she wasn't born here?"

"Possibly. She's not truly born to the blood. Her grandmother required some correction to escape the error of savage cannibalism, and her parents were innocent beasts. But we consider sweet Sylvie our sister, whatever her own feelings of worthiness may be."

"Tell me something," said Gordon. "Is there a ritual you use before eating? Or is it something in the ... body itself that changes?"

"A fair question. You believe this may not be miraculous, but a psychological or physiological change."

"Psychology didn't give me the kind of endurance I had in the woods."

For the second time, the Farmer grinned, showing all his teeth. "That's truth. You're willing to entertain the notion of a spiritual change, then."

"I've believed in ..." Gordon cast his mind back to Sunday school, searching for the proper word, "... transubstantiation all my life. The body into spirit. I am not willing to believe that anything short of God can cause that kind of change, but I'm willing to believe that it can happen through His grace."

"That'll do, for now. Yes, there are rituals to be attended to before sating one's hunger. It is not a casual thing, to be done at leisure or as a habit. For the most part, we live on the bread and soup we've provided you, and the flesh of the four-legged beasts. When the hunger must be spoken to, or when extra fire is necessary for the greater good of our society and the empire of civilization, then we will see to the proper blessings and rituals."

"But are they necessary?"

"Ah, well." The Master Farmer placed his hands on his knees and stood. "There really is only one way to find out, Gordon. It's not a question which matters to me, so I have never tried. If it gnaws away at you, however, there will plenty of time in which you may experiment."

Gordon looked at the slice of bread still in his hand. He fought down a slight rise in his gorge, and bit into it, feeling the slight warmth and moisture as it gave beneath his incisors, feeling the bread soak up his saliva and press against the roof of his mouth, cleaving to it for a second as he savored the taste of food for the first time in months.

It slid down easily, and with the second bite he showed no such hesitation. He had thought himself hungry, but with the smallest morsel he realized the word was no longer sufficient for what he felt below his bones. There was something that went deeper than hunger, a sense of loss that might never be fulfilled, a grasping bitterness which said the world was not enough, could never be enough, that everything there was existed for him and him alone.

He had felt it before. In sex without love, in the throes of a drunken argument with friends, in the thick, sleepless summer nights of Charleston when the power was out and the air conditioning fled ? the late watches that knew no sound or motion, only heat and hunger.

He had felt it before, and hated every moment of it. His eyes were closed, and he felt the bread slide into the emptiness with no more chance of filling him than a drop of water in a long-dead desert ocean.

"Does it stop?" He asked quietly.

"I spoke of sacrifice, Gordon. Did you think I only spoke of the devoured? Now come ? we mean to show you the Farm."

***

The Master Farmer led Paul and Gordon across the broad green stretch of land which separated house from barn. The tractor's steady growling still rumbled through the distance, sowing seeds the fruits of which would one day fill the ghouls and children of the Farm.

Gordon saw a few of those children at work less than a stone's throw away, hanging clothes to dry on a line stretched through the clear sunlight. The clothes were similar to those worn by Sylvia and Paul, plain, sturdy, single-colored affairs. Herding clothes, he found himself thinking.

"Will they be workers here," he asked. "Or are they sent out into the world like Sylvie was?"

"You're very concerned with our sweet Sister, Gordon. These children are unplaced. The stronger of back will remain here, where we can direct their muscle in those ways which will benefit them most. Those quicker on their feet, or who show a better rapport with the things of the world, will be sent out as stalking horses."

So as not to challenge you, thought Gordon. All the trappings he understood to be part and parcel of cultism; laid out plainly for any and all to see. He wondered why local authorities had not yet come to realize what was beneath their noses ... but so far from town or city, who knew that the police weren't already members? It would make sense. Send the wiser ones into the local area, to a police academy, or set them up as dispatchers. As he recalled the hunting party which had accompanied Mike in his retrieval, Gordon could hardly dismiss the idea. Those had been men familiar with weaponry.

"Paul," he asked, "Which do you want for your boys? To work the Farm or go out into the world?"

"A father would always rather keep his sons at his side. But if necessary, I'll let them fly, like any other father."

"Have they ..." he recalled the phrasing, "sated their hunger? Or do you keep them on normal food?"

"I'd put no child on the food of paradise," said Paul, looking toward the Master Farmer. Seeing sign of disapproval, he continued. "It's a sacrament for those who understand the way of the world ? and our sacred secret."

"Do any of the children leave before they learn?"

"Some," said the Master Farmer, before nodding at Paul to continue.

"Yes, some do. We've seen a few too sensitive to ever know, and a few too sickly to continue the tradition in any fashion. We've a few in each generation who might never pass the age of ten on the Farm. We'll generally find a placement for them through adoption agencies."

"So you don't maintain tabs on them?"

"Oh, yes. We must. The old bloodline might come back, like yours. Or they might start hunting for their parents. That happens more and more these days, but we make sure the adoption papers talk about any hereditary sickness, so hospitals have less cause to interfere."

"And if they do?"

"We set up a false father near one of our other properties, and set up a meeting."

The Master Farmer nodded. "The Farm is one of several, Gordon. There is a Ranch in the west and a Commons in New England. The Chainfields have their own peculiar institutions which make it both more and less than our ideal, but a small disagreement among family members is hardly a good reason to break away entirely."

"Only in America?"

"We are all Americans, Gordon. There have been whispers of other branches elsewhere in the world, but we won't concern ourselves too much with world history. The foundation and continuation of the western empire is our great cause, and so long as our rivals fail to capitalize on our success stories, I see no reason to dabble in their affairs."

 "So it isn't war you want?"

"There's little need." The Farmer shrugged. "The old civilizations have faded away. The new ones which are rising might give me pause, but I don't believe they'll unlock our secrets. To grow something of this nature one needs a frontier, great and vast and empty. Until and unless one of the eastern nations develops a means of colonizing the ocean bed or outer space, the frontiers are gone away. We were the last, and we shall remain the only, hard at work and firm of purpose."

They had stopped before the entrance to the barn, chatting on the lawn as if discussing the weather, or the crops being grown in the fields across the way. The long shadow of the barn kept the spring sun from their backs, and Gordon felt a chill breeze in his face.

"You were talking about my family. About my grandfather."

"We were discussing it, yes. Are you prepared to continue in that vein?"

"I think I am. I want to know what he did ? what part he played in setting up this ... society."

The Master Farmer nodded. "Good. I was hoping it would come up soon. You understand, however, that there's something I have to know first. I want to know if you mean to join us here on the Farm, for even a little while. We would be honored to receive the Velander bloodline back in the fold, but I won't be giving you something for nothing."

Gordon shuddered, and crossed his left arm to grip his left bicep, hoping the breeze would pass as cover for his disgust. "I won't have to sate myself."

"Not until you're ready."

"I'll need to contact my mother."

"I can arrange for that. You'll be observed, of course."

He nodded. "Then ... I'll stay."

The Master Farmer smiled. "Good. In the barn you'll find all you need to settle the arrangement between us. Now, I want to remind you of something."

He walked toward a woodpile at the side of the barn and single-handedly leveraged the axe from the stump in which it had rested. Walking back, he held it handle-first to Gordon, who took it up. It dipped toward the ground, and he realized it was heavier than the Farmer had made it look.

"You may get a certain idea with this in your hands. Remember what I told you this morning. I've finished my breakfast, and Paul, too, has sated his hunger. We're prepared, Gordon. So think about who your friends might be before you do anything."

Gordon let the head of the axe fall toward the ground, swinging its weight in his single hand, testing the pendulum feel of it. The Farmer and Paul were workers of the field, one older but still clearly vital, the other young and strong, both powerful with the stolen essence of human flesh. Gordon had tasted that power.

From what Sylvie had told him, he benefited more than she had seen in others on the Farm. Even with that assurance, the point was well-taken. He'd get little from trying to fight his way off this land and back into the wilds, now that his strength was faded and his hunger grown.

"I'm guessing you think I'm slow," he said, "because I don't immediately accept all you say as factual and rational. But I'm smart enough to know when I don't stand a chance at something."

"Then we both understand." Paul opened the barn door as the Farmer nodded. "Go on in. When you come out, you'll be welcome on the Farm."

Gordon walked in, the cool breeze following as he went. The hayloft doors stood open, allowing the golden sunlight to come through from above and cast its beams across the floors below. In the center of the floor stood Sylvie, dressed as before in her simple farming clothes. Her hair was pinned beneath a bonnet, kept out of her face and away from her neck.

A butcher's block stood before her. Gordon let the axe fall from his hands.

"Gordon," she said, "It's all right."

He didn't speak for a minute, and she continued. "I'll be useful here afterwards as ever I was in a single body. I will be manifest and manifold in the body and memory of the Farm, and I will be all the greater for it."

"I'm not going to do it."

"Gordon," she said again.

"No. I'm not going to do it." He took up the axe, turning toward the doors. "Warning or no, this isn't going to happen."

"I did this to you," she called. "I knew what it would mean and I did it to you. I cooked human flesh, Gordon. I've eaten human flesh."

"Stop it."

"I'm insane in your eyes, aren't I? Aren't we all? I'm dangerous, Gordon. I don't look it, but I am."

"You're right," he said. "You are insane. But I'm not going to kill anybody."

"If you don't, they will," she said, a little more quietly. "I died the day I came back to the Farm. Every day since then has been prayer and study and preparation for this. I made you a criminal. I drove you from civilization for three months. Your mother must be worried sick, thanks to me. I served you the roasted and tender flesh of a boy, Gordon, no more than sixteen. Hate me."

"Christ, please, stop it," he hissed, but his knuckles turned white around the axe handle. "You're right. I do hate you. I do hate you, Sylvie, I hate you with all my heart for what you did to me and for why you did it. But I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill anybody."

"It's the only way," she said. "If you don't, then you won't live either, and we'll both die. Do you know what my grandmother used to say?"

"Your grandmother was insane."

"She was in error. But she told me that when you die, you spend the afterlife chained to the person you died next to. Walk out that door without killing me and you and I will be chained together for all eternity, Gordon, you and the woman who did this to you, inseparable, together, forever."

"You've become a romantic," said Gordon, his eyes clearing. "But I've always been one. That's why I'm never making the right choices." He pushed open the door to lazily toss the axe onto the ground between Paul and the master Farmer.

"I felt that hunger. I felt it this morning. I know that it felt like suffering to eat anything in the world after you've been lifted up that high, and I don't believe there's anything romantic or beautiful about suffering. But sometimes it's the right thing to do. You talk a lot about sacrifice, Farmer. I'm going to teach you what it really means.

"Either you're going to kill me and lose this bloodline forever ? no children, no siblings ? or you're going to keep me alive, suffering under the weight of my hunger, until you think you've broken me or until I find a way to escape and bring God almighty down on this entire sickness.

"But until I get to you ... I'm not killing anybody."

The Farmer regarded him without expression. "You picked a bad time to play hero." The academic was suddenly gone from his voice, replaced with tones as flat and stark as the land around them. It was the voice of an ordinary farmer facing someone over land which he had called his own for generations. "And you picked the wrong folks to play it against."

"I didn't pick or choose anything," said Gordon. "Until thirty seconds ago. So kill me or put me away somewhere safe, and quiet, and secret. It won't ever be secret enough."

The Farmer spit onto the ground and turned to Paul. "He's weak as a kitten. Take his arms." Paul did so as the Farmer picked up the axe. Gordon took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Though I walk ..."

"It ain't for you," said the Farmer, and Gordon opened his eyes to see the man walking toward the barn. Walking toward Sylvie, axe in hand.

"Take him to the stall," called the Farmer over his shoulder. "Put him in. But do it slow. And let him hear."

Gordon struggled despite himself as Paul turned him and slowly walked him away, but he didn't shout, and he did not call her name, and whatever the Farmer may have done, she did not scream. There was only the sound that he would never forget, the sound of something sharp and heavy falling through something soft as love.

Story and Photo by Ivan Ewert, Copyright 2006