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NOTE: These stories are
intended for a mature audience.

Green Hells
A "Vorare" Story
By
Ivan Ewert
Start at the beginning of the Vorare series

"Gone?"

The Farmer's eyes were shuttered, closing himself off from the world. The man shifting from foot to foot before him was a barrel-chested youth, clutching a handful of collars in one hand.

"Yes, sir. Every last one of them, all the dogs we had on watch last night."

"Tracks?"

"They've been dragged into the woods, sir."

"And nobody heard a thing."

"No, sir. There wasn't any sign from the dogs, and it wasn't until morning that the gatekeepers saw they weren't coming to the whistle."

"Blood?"

"Some." The young man passed the collars to his other hand. He had not served the Farmer long, not in such a capacity of authority. When the fire had broken out last year, as George and Gordon escaped, many of the Ghouls had been caught in the chaos. Some perished in the fires, others from friendly fire or to George's berserk attacks. Of those who remained, the Farmer had purged any who might have contributed to the escape, including Brother Paul.

It had been a rash act, he now thought, though careful not to express such in word or motion. The Ghouls were in no shape now to stand up to any kind of assault from without, and while the Farm had been quiet through the winter he lived now in a state of anticipation. The escape had shattered his routine, the careful steps through which the Farm was raised and run. What had happened once could happen again, and the Farmer dreaded what might come next.

"Show me," he said, standing.

The site of attack was trampled and muddy. Rain had fallen steadily the past two days, rain which had been sadly absent through the spring. Now, in early summer, the sun seemed elusive. It would do the fields no good, but looking at the flattened grasses where his hounds had been dragged he was happy for the weather. It made tracking simpler.

"Here's the blooded area," said the youth, lifting one corner of a tarpaulin. "I ordered it covered before coming to see you."

"Well done, Brother Marcus." The Farmer knelt alongside the tarp, running his hand over the dampened grass and lifting it to his eyes. The rain was still falling, running down the brim of his hat and dripping crystal-clear before him. He sniffed at the blood, then closed his eyes and placed his fingers in his mouth.

"Dogs," he said with some disgust. "Or some other animal. Too bad."

"It couldn't be a wildcat, could it, sir? Remember that report last year, some cougars moving in from the Dakotas?"

"If it were only one or two dogs gone, I might be willing to believe that. Or a bear, maybe. We've had them come by now and again. But six dogs, without a sound?" He shook his head. "No. No, it's no animal. This is our dogs' blood, and whoever took them did it properly."

He stood, looking into the green wall of the woods. "Been waiting on this," he muttered to himself.

"Sir?"

"Nothing. Get Thomas, and rifles for both of you."

"Hunting vests?"

"No. Season doesn't open until July, we won't be needing them. Meet me on the porch."

"And the tarpaulin?"

"Take it up. I've seen what I needed to."

The Farmer turned back to the farmhouse, his boots moving slow across the muddy ground. In the mud room he removed those boots, went to the gun racks in the dining area and took down a Remington Magnum designed for elk and other big game.

Checking the gun was routine, yet he cautioned himself to move slowly and methodically, to perform the task as carefully as a novice might. His thoughts were elsewhere, and it wouldn't do to let a lack of focus cause a foolish mistake.

Setting the weapon across his lap, he looked out the bay windows toward the woodlands. There had been a time, as a young man, when he had loved the green. He was a hunter before becoming the Farmer, and had taken his joys as a young man in bringing down rabbits, deer, and once - on a trip to the Rocky Mountains - a bear.

But all he had learned told him to beware. He was brought into the Farm, and now he knew the strength and power of boundaries and fields, of the importance of law and order. He had been taught to hunt not to bring down animals, but to find those who escaped the fences or went mad with the shock of their first taste of flesh.

Every time, they had followed the roads and highways. The trucks were still faster than any Ghoul, and by watching the bright spark of hunger move from space to space, they could track whichever roads they quarry went near without resorting to the actual forest itself.

He had not eaten since Walpurgisnacht, the last of their celebrations. They no longer had the numbers to make sacrifice a routine - it would be All Saint's Day before he ate again, if the schedule were to be kept. The strength of the meal still flowed through him, but the edge of his hunger was growing each day. It could not be a distraction.

When he got to the porch, Brother Marcus was ready with the others. The Farmer nodded to them as a group and took a deep breath.

"This is easy, Brothers. We're going into the woods just far enough to find the dogs. We'll see what we need to see and then come back. We're not hunting anyone just now, and I'm not looking to find any real trouble from anyone. If you see a person in the woods, give the signal and follow my lead. If you see any animals, let them go unless they're an actual threat - cougar, bear. If it's one of those, take it down; but otherwise I don't want shots fired. Understand?"

They nodded, and Marcus spoke up. "How far into the woods?"

"Not far, if I'm guessing right. Either something took those dogs to eat them, in which case we'll find some soon; or else someone took them to make a point of some kind. You're not going to make much of a point if you go too far from your target's house."

Thomas cleared his throat. "Who?"
 
"I've just got guesses right now, and they aren't going to serve us. You focus on the task at hand and leave what's behind it all to me for the time being, understand?"

They nodded in assent and fell into a group behind him.

***

The bodies of five dogs had been arranged in a circle around the cold ashes of a campfire. They sat in positions unnatural to the animals, their backs propped against fallen trees or stones, legs splayed toward the fire.

The sixth dog was suspended over the fire on a spit. In front of each of the seated dogs lay a plate of fine bone china, the type kept by grandmothers throughout America. On each plate sat a few thin and graying strips of flesh, sliced from the flanks of the spitted hound.

Marcus began to shake. He had tended the hounds since he was an adolescent, had trained and raised them. It was for this that he had been rewarded with Brother Paul's duties after the fire. To see his hounds - his charges, as he sometimes regarded them - in such a freakish storefront display struck him deep within his soul.

"Marcus." The Farmer's voice was low but firm. "You step back a moment. Thomas, give me a hand here."

The two of them moved into the display, where the Farmer took to one knee and checked the carcasses and decorations for tripwires, traps, or other diversions. Finding nothing, he crooked a finger to Thomas. "Help me get this one off the spit."

It took some effort to remove the branch from the flesh, after which they threw the branch away in disgust. The Farmer knelt again and took up one of the china plates, handing it to Thomas. "Carry that back for me. I want to take a good look at it once we're sitting down."

"Yes, sir."

"Check for tracks. And make sure Brother Marcus is getting his wind back."

"Yes, sir." Thomas moved off, looking to the ground. The Farmer, meanwhile, cast his eyes skyward, searching the branches around him.

"You wanted to make a point of some kind, you did one hell of a job," he remarked to the empty air. "I don't know who you are, yet. I have my guesses and I have my thoughts, and I'll be working to that direction, you can rely on it. If you're close by, you might want to think about decamping a while. Check on some people you left behind a long time ago."

The Farmer began walking around the perimeter of the campsite, eyes now sweeping through the underbrush. "Maybe your mother. Maybe your husband. Or maybe your friends back south in the Chainfields didn't finish the job, and you have a litter stashed away somewhere. Whoever they are, they aren't dead - yet - and I was content to leave that be.

He looked back over his shoulder to where Marcus sat. Thomas had one hand on the big youth's shoulder, speaking to him in low tones which the Farmer could not hear, but understood. With a quick look back into the woods, the Farmer spat once.

"You wanted to make a point. Well, you did it. But whoever you are, you just unleashed nine kinds of hell."

Story and Image by Ivan Ewert, Copyright 2007