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NOTE: These stories are
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Down Home
A "Vorare" story
By
Ivan Ewert
Start at the beginning of the Vorare series

Brother Marcus flipped the sunshade down in the pickup, his lips moving a toothpick in a lazy dance. He and Thomas had driven for three days through the rolling hills of Wisconsin, through the flatlands of Illinois and the fields of Indiana, into the dark and bloody ground of Kentucky and through the mountains of Tennessee, and into the uplands of South Carolina.

He'd found the mountains unnerving. Stark and black in the dark of dawn or evening, squatting heavily in the light of day, they ran counter to everything he was familiar with. If it weren't for the highways, it would be utterly alien territory - he knew the flat black earth of the upper Midwest, and the vertical terrain of the Appalachian chains was discomfiting.

"This the town coming up?"

Thomas opened his eyes, blinked heavily, then reached down into the glove compartment for a map and their directions. Rubbing at one eye with his right hand, he nodded and gave a yawn.

"Whitmire - that's the one. Pull off at seventy-two." He rolled the window down and watched the passing greens and browns of the roadside trees. "What is it about this trip that's making me so tired? It's like everything went dark once we got into the hill country."

"I got it too," agreed Marcus, "figure it's got to be the up and down on these hills, kind of like being rocked to sleep."

"Trees are darker, too." Thomas reached a hand out the window, playing fishes in the water with the rushing wind. "Lots more undergrowth than we get, don't you think?"

"Yep."

"You look outside the Farm, there's not so much brush. The trees aren't packed so thick."

"Uh-huh."

Silence stretched for a few moments as they made the turn and began the final leg of their journey. Then Marcus said, "Being so tired and all, we going to get a room for the night?"

"No," said Thomas, "less people see us and know we're about, the better off we are. Matter of fact, let's pull over here and get the license plates switched."

They had temporary plates from the state of Indiana, registered in the name of one of last year's willing sacrifices. Putting the actual Minnesota plates beneath the front seat, they moved once more toward the town.

"You ever done this before?"

Marcus looked over. "Like this? No, sure haven't. Usually it's in the woods for a hunt."

"Isn't too hard," said Thomas, "so long as the neighbors aren't snoops, it's quick and easy. Can't say I care much for it, but long as we got the right address it's never as hard as you expect."

Marcus shook his head, but cracked a faint smile regardless. "That'd be a hell of a thing, getting the address wrong."

"See? That's the way to look to it. You've got to keep a sense of proportion."

"I've got no trouble keeping myself ready to go," said Marcus.

The bloody display of his dogs - his children, really, when he allowed himself to think of them - had driven him to ask the Farmer's blessings. "You tell me who you think most likely did this thing, and let me go with whoever else heads for their kin. I know you've got a better idea than you're saying, sir, and I don't question that judgment, but I do think I've got a right to go after them, better than most."

There had been no argument from the Farmer on that count. "There's a few it might be. There aren't many of the Bloodlines that get themselves loose and turn down the lives we offer, but those that do, we remember. A few of them have vanished, either suicides or just plain gone. Some others decide to make a stand. I wouldn't have pegged Velander for a fighter, or for having the imagination to set up something like this one did. But he's one of three currently unaccounted for, and the only one who came to the Farm and not one of our brother holdings."

"Show me his kin, and tell me what to do," Marcus had asked, and so the two found themselves now in South Carolina, looking for the home of Carol Velander.

"I promised I wouldn't touch her, but that was an escape, a fire and a lifetime ago." The Farmer glanced down, then back to Marcus. "My word's no matter stacked up against such ruin as we've had visited upon us. We're going to keep this one simple, though - he's got other openings, and this is just a warning. You drive down, you shoot her dead, and you come back home to the Farm." He had thought a moment, turning over a paper at the kitchen table where they two sat.

"No - wait a moment. Shoot her dead, and then take a piece. Something small, a finger or the nose, something quick you can take along in a handkerchief. She's not got the bloodline in her, so it won't do you any real good to eat of it, but it'll give him something to toss and turn over in the nights that follow, wondering if you did."

"It won't do me any real good to eat of her flesh, no. But what if I want to?"

The Farmer reached for a pot of hot coffee. "Why would you want to?"

"To show him what we're about. Or maybe, if something goes wrong, and that little piece would be enough to get us in prison."

"If anything goes wrong you won't need to worry much about the evidence," said the Farmer coldly, "and showing him is exactly what you're about to do. Eating of the flesh without the bloodline is what makes a man a primitive. Eating out of vengeance is a cultist's doing, not a Gentleman's. So you do as you're told, and you bring that little piece home to the Farm."

***

The house was a quiet ranch, with white siding and a black shingle roof that sloped toward a skylight. It was near the end of Vanlue Lane, with a house to its left and another behind.

Thomas shook his head. "Had to have neighbors. Don't like having that streetlight so close, either, but we don't have the luxury of taking that away without raising some eyebrows. Keep driving, go around the block once and come back the other direction."

Evergreen hedges stood sentinel around much of the house, the flowerbeds in front a riot of orange and purple against the greens and browns; and a deep forest stood behind the house proper. A wraparound porch showed two doors into the house, and a third was promised by the location of a short driveway and carport.

"Well, at least we got the plants in our favor," sighed Thomas. "Okay, here's how it goes. We come back tonight and first thing we do is cut the phone lines - the hedges ought to block us from the front view, and with nobody behind it should be easy enough. Most everyone's got cellular these days, but it never hurts to go after the landlines. After that one of us is on the porch, one in the truck watching the carport. You have a preference?"

"Porch," said Marcus shortly.

"All right then, it's my turn to drive anyway. You take a knife for the phone lines and to claim the trophy, and a shotgun in case she won't open the door all the way for you. If she just opens it a little, pull the trigger, grab her foot, get a toe and sprint for the front - I'll have the truck pulled around by that point. But if she does open the door, then you use the knife. It's quieter and we'll have less chance of being spotted, so do what you can to get the door open."

"Forget the shotgun," said Marcus, "I don't want to risk that noise and I haven't met the lock I couldn't kick in yet."

"Sure, but I'll bet that was after you'd fed? Been some time since either of us ate properly, and if we miss this chance I promise you we're not going to get another."

Marcus swore under his breath. "All right - your way, then. But I aim to get that door open without a sound."

"Good on you if you can do it. I'll be watching the carport with the Remington, so if she makes a run for it I'll have her down. If that happens then we've got to get out quick, trophy or no."

"It won't come down to that," said Marcus, "leave it to me."

***

Night fell, and the darkness grew beneath heavy clouds. Thomas pulled to the side of the road along Clinton Highway, put his blinkers on, and turned to Marcus.

"You head on through the woods here - I'll drive up to the house, but you're sure to be seen if you come through the front. It isn't far and you can just follow the lights from most of these houses to get where you're headed. Got the knife?"

"Got it."

"All right then. Phone line first, then the porch. Nobody's coming, so let's go."

Marcus opened the passenger's side door and slid out, knife in one hand, shotgun in the other. He moved quickly through the woods before dropping into a crouch to come closer to the house, watching the light come through a rear window and the flicker of a television, and easily slit through the telephone cables.

Thomas' truck rolled to a slow stop alongside the carport, headlights out. With that Marcus moved to the front porch, out of his partner's view but the logical place for a 'stranger in trouble' to stop and ask for help.

He transferred the knife to his pocket for a moment to stretch one finger toward the doorbell, but on pressing it he found that it was sticky - coated in something familiar, like thick honey, or like blood ?

No sound came from the doorbell, and only a muffled cry from Marcus as a forearm locked itself around his thick neck. He felt that stickiness again, the miserable tack of half-congealed blood being pressed against his throat, and realized that an open gaping wound was torn in the arm that had swiftly shut off his air. His shotgun was kicked swiftly away from his spasming hand, rattling against the porch railings as it went flying from his grip.

He had instinctively reached for the arm to pull it away, to scrabble for breath and air, yet in seconds his right hand went for the knife in his pocket. The breath in his ear was hot and shallow, but gave a grunting snicker as the blade came up and stabbed frantically into the wound of the strangling arm.

In it went, just like a rat's head diving into its hole, up to Marcus' fist. There was no cry, no resistance, nothing to indicate that the knife had struck anything at all - only that humid snickering at his ear.

"Say hello to the hounds," Gordon whispered, "and your friend in the truck. He'll be along shortly."

Marcus' eyes rolled back as he let go of the ineffectual knife, working to throw his body backward and hurl Gordon down the stairs - but his feet no longer found purchase on the wooden porch, slipping and sliding along a pool of blood which had not been there before. He tried to move his neck, to see the face of the man who was killing him, who had killed his dogs, but the grip was too strong. He tried to speak, to scream, to ask why; but to no avail. His broad chest felt ready to burst open, shoulders heaving and fingers now scratching desperately, limply, before the pressure left his chest, his arms and shoulders fell, and he slumped in Gordon's grip.

"Get rid of the blood under his feet," muttered Gordon, "and thanks. I hadn't thought of that."

"Your ease is my sole concern," replied his ally, as the pool blood crept up Marcus' body and sucked itself back into the wound. "He is quite dead - you can release the body."

Gordon did so, turning then to pick up the shotgun. "How can we best get to the truck without him knowing?"

"Why do we not wait, and lay a similar trap for the second?"

"I don't think he'll be dumb enough to leave the truck and come looking. If something seems wrong he'll drive off and leave his friend here to face the music."

"Are you so sure?"

"Are you?" Gordon's mouth curled up. "Come on."

They moved in a crouch toward the shadowed corner of the wraparound porch. Gordon hissed in annoyance. "Why couldn't they have taken out the streetlight, anyway? It would've made this easier."

"Do you wish it to be easy, O blood of man?"

"I want it to be quiet. And I want it to be away from here, ideally. And yes - I want it to be easy."

"Then return me to the body," said his ally, "and we shall see what may be done ?"

Story and image by Ivan Ewert, Copyright 2007