Neil McMahon - Revolution No.9

He crouched over the buck with a long survival knife, using its serrated edge to saw from the buck’s throat down through its sternum, then flipping the blade to slit the belly to the genitals. The entrails slithered out in a steaming slippery mass. His hands plunged in, forcing the rib cage open, then going in again with the knife.

“Out in the jungle, the tribes got secret societies that control everything,” he called out, hands working to cut something free. His voice was powerful and resonant, like a revival preacher’s. “They name themselves for hunters, the strongest and fastest. Cheetahs. Leopards. They understand that life is power, and that taking life gives them power.”

He stood, holding up the buck’s heart in one hand. It was about the size of a man’s fist, ruddy and glistening in the fire’s glow.

“Here we think we’re civilized. But it’s really just another jungle, made of freeways and shopping malls. When you go out into it, you got to have the heart of the hunter, and eat the heart of the deer.”

Freeboot sliced into the heart with his knife, cut off a three inch long strip, and put it in his mouth. He chewed slowly, taking his time, pointedly making eye contact with each of the men in turn. They stared back at him, mesmerized. He swallowed the raw flesh, raising his chin so that all could see his larynx move. Then he stepped to the man closest to him, Hammerhead, and offered him the bloody heart.

Hammerhead took it without hesitation, cut off another strip, and crammed it into his mouth. He passed the heart on to the next man. The smell of the buck’s charring hair and flesh was getting stronger, an evil, atavistic reek of carnage.

Monks had read about the secret societies that Freeboot touted. He had also read that children being initiated were sometimes forced to eat human flesh-even of their own murdered parents. It was a dark, mystical communion, intended to bond them to the group in a way that plunged into the most savage roots of mankind.

The heart circulated to more of the black-clad warriors, each man hacking off a chunk and chewing, until it came to one that Monks hadn’t seen before, a lanky young man with a big Adam’s apple. He took it hesitantly, his gaze darting around.

“You got a problem, Sidewinder?” Freeboot barked.

Monks recalled that he had heard the name Sidewinder before-the sentry who had taken over for Captain America. There was something viperish about him-his tongue flicked in and out constantly to wet his lips, and his sinuous body seemed to vibrate with vaguely menacing energy.

“Can this make you sick?” he blurted out. “Eating raw meat like this?”

Monks realized, with astonishment, that Sidewinder was talking to him.

“What?” It was Freeboot who answered, erupting in incredulous outrage.

“I heard this dude’s a doctor,” Sidewinder stammered. “I just thought-you know, maybe we shouldn’t be doing this, in case there’s diseases or something.”

“‘In case there’s diseases or something,’” Freeboot mimicked viciously. “Diseases are for the two-legged deer running around out there. Is that what you want to be, one of them? Get your ass over here.”

Sidewinder jumped to obey the command, tongue flicking nervously. Freeboot wrenched the heart out of his hand and tossed it to Hammerhead.

“Strip,” Freeboot commanded.

“Oh, man. Why?”

“You don’t fucking ask me why when I tell you to do something, shitheel. You do it.”

The gathered men watched tensely as Sidewinder sat on the ground, unlaced his boots and pulled them off, then got out of his fatigues. Naked, he looked thin and pathetic, his skin made paler by his darkened face.

Freeboot kicked the carcass. “You want to be a deer? Fine. Put that on. You got balls, you can stand up and walk around. Otherwise, crawl in and lay there.”

For a few more silent minutes, the group watched Sidewinder wrestle the buck out of the fire, clumsily finish cutting loose the entrails, then struggle to stand with the carcass over his shoulders like a cape. Even gutted, it would weigh well over a hundred pounds.

Finally, he staggered to his feet, the antlered head lolling on his chest and the hind legs dragging behind his own.

“You want to be a hunter again?” Freeboot said to him.

Sidewinder nodded miserably.

Freeboot took the deer’s heart back from Hammerhead, hacked off a slice, and stuffed it into Sidewinder’s mouth. He chewed for what seemed an interminably long time, before he managed, gagging, to swallow it.

“You stay in the woods tonight,” Freeboot said. “You can have your man skin back tomorrow. Now get the fuck out of here.”

Sidewinder shuffled painfully off into the dark forest, wrapped in his bloody burden. At least, Monks thought, it would keep him warm.

“I’ve told you about the Old Man of the Mountain and his assassins,” Freeboot boomed out to the others. “Let me tell you how much his men trusted him. He could point at one of them standing guard high up on a cliff, and snap his fingers, and that man would jump off. And because of that trust, they could make any king in the world do whatever they wanted. But if any one man does not trust, it weakens all the others. That, we will not tolerate. Anybody else got a problem with trust?” He stared from face to face.

The deer’s heart finished making the rounds, with no more hesitations or questions. When it came full circle, back to Freeboot, he tossed the remains into the fire.

Monks didn’t know if there was danger in eating the raw flesh, but he was relieved to see it go. He had feared that he might be expected to join in.

“Everybody get behind a good hard hit of this eyeball,” Freeboot said. He took out the Copenhagen can of speed that Monks had seen before, dipping in his knife blade and inhaling. The others all did the same, breaking out their private stashes, in a parody of a military smoke break.

“Now, you better run hard tonight, and you better run fast,” Freeboot said. “Some of you haven’t done this before, so here’s how it goes. You move up a rank for every chunk of hair you bring back. You lose your own hair, you move down a rank. No guns, just knives and Mace. No drawing blood. If you get Maced, don’t fight back, ’cause knives can slip. Okay, stack up your firearms.”

The men came forward one at a time, laying their rifles and pistols at Freeboot’s feet. Some looked self-assured, others apprehensive.

“You’ll hear a gunshot in ten minutes,” Freeboot said. “That’s when it starts. You come back with somebody else’s hair or without your own. That’s when it ends.”

He snapped his fingers. The men took off in crouching runs, scattering in different directions.

Abruptly, one of the figures veered like a football running back sidestepping a blocker, and lunged straight at Monks. He barely had time to raise his forearms, covering his torso like a boxer, before Hammerhead’s shoulder slammed into him. It knocked him sprawling, skidding on his tailbone.

Hammerhead charged on, never even slowing down.

Monks struggled to his feet, trying to get his breath back. Freeboot was watching him. It was the first time he had seemed aware that Monks was there.

“You’re a noncombatant, Rasp,” Freeboot said matter-off-actly. “But I’d get on back to camp, if I was you. Somebody’s likely to make a mistake.”

Monks started back along the trail at a fast walk. He had only gone about ten yards when he heard a voice hiss from the trees:

“There are no noncombatants.”

He spun around, searching the darkness with his gaze. The words had come from only a few feet away. But the speaker was invisible.

He headed toward camp again, this time at a jog.