Tim Curran - The Devil Next Door

But the Baron was too intrigued by the other odor: that delicious stench of rot.

He pissed on the trail to obliterate the smell of the other. Several other hunters, male and female, did the same.

Still, the Baron could smell the other’s urine. He did not like this. It was an affront to him. It raised his hackles, challenged him, usurped his authority. It made him angry. It made him want to seize another by the throat Still, that other smell… he needed to find it, to cover himself with it.

He was getting furious. The urine smell was female. There was no mistaking it. There were a series of scent trails laid out in the vicinity of this yard, all leading up to the darkened house before him. It was confusing. The Baron knew that it was necessary to proceed with caution, but his blood was up. The scent trail. The other delicious odor of rot. It made him feel very aggressive. He let out a low growling sound and several other males imitated him even while many of the females pulled back, suddenly concerned about the nature of this place.

They had been led here. There was no doubt of it.

But the Baron didn’t care. He was challenged. It was now a matter of territory and dominance. He would find the females who had sprayed these conflicting scents-there were several, he knew that now-and make them bow down to him.

The pack was tense.

The Baron cast several of his males forward. They peered in bushes, around the garage, pawed through flower beds. One of them made a sharp yelping sound of surprise and pleasure; he was calling to the pack. The others followed him around the garage, past the potting shed…there was a sudden cry of surprise, a crackling sound, and then a drawn-out whine of agony.

The Baron rushed forward.

His male was down in a pit about ten feet, the walls of black earth carefully squared off. The male cried out a few times, shook, and went still. The entire pack smelled his death, his terror, the blood trace he left in the air. Whoever had dug the pit, had lined its bottom with four-foot stakes that were sharpened to lethal perfection. The young male was impaled upon them. They were thrust through his groin, belly, and throat. One pierced his arm and another thrust from his wide open mouth.

The Baron let forth a bloodcurdling cry that echoed throughout the neighborhood. The other males, again, imitated him. This was an insult to the pack, a blood crime that would have to be avenged.

Much more cautious now, the Baron crept towards the house on all fours…

Maddie tasted the blood in her mouth and savored the pain.

She had marked this man as her own. She would mate with him and perhaps produce offspring…but he was defiant, he was willful and arrogant. She would not have that. If she brought him in for a breeder and spared him the knife, then there were things expected. She would not be rejected.

Not here in her own lair.

Not by this pig who spurned her offered meat.

In the hazy corridors of her mind she could remember other men, shadowy figures without faces, and never had they rejected her like this. She always had her fill when the season was upon her.

Grinding her teeth, she watched the man by the fire. He was well-muscled, firm, he would have made a very good breeder. Too wiry for the eating, but that did not mean he wouldn’t know the knife. As she sharpened a carving blade against a dull stone she knew there were ways to break pigs like him.

The heat inside her was almost unbearable…pulsing, wet, hungry. It would need to be fed and if he would not feed her then another would be found. But maybe this one. Maybe if she punished him, cut a few things off, let her daughters toy with him a bit.

Then he would beg for what she offered.

Because it was his and she had already selected. He would fill her needs or she would flay him alive…

Wearing the shadows, Angie’s tribe remained hidden.

For some time they had been trailing the Baron’s pack. It was not too difficult. At first, Angie had been impressed by the Baron…his strength, his cruelty, his knowledge of hunting and stalking. But the more he killed, the more drunk with power he became and the more careless was his leadership.

Angie’s tribe had watched with amusement as the Baron’s pack waged war with the other pack on Providence Street. He had lost the majority of his hunters. His bravado was stronger than his wisdom. Such was the way with males.

Now they had been drawn to the house.

Angie had known it was a trap for she had been past the place several times that night and each time did not linger. But the Baron had been drawn in effortlessly. Just by a hanging bag of rotting meat and dead fish outside the back door. It drew males from blocks around. This combined with the crisscrossing female urine scents was enough to drive any male wild.

And so it had.

As Angie watched, she saw the females of the pack hang back. They knew instinctively that the yard was not a good place to be. But the Baron would not submit to their fears just as he would not submit to his own.

The tribe waited to see what would happen next.

That there was death in the house, Angie knew without question. Her only concern was that the females who lived there would get the Baron before she did. And she needed to bring him down.

Even now, she could taste the juice of his heart in her mouth…

Louis heard screams and instantly jerked out of his fugue.

One of the woman’s daughters-Elissa-stumbled down the stairs with a spear punched clean through her. She clutched it and clawed at it, her own blood that was very dark in the firelight gushing from the wound, dripping off the shaft. There was more than just pain on her contorted face, but surprise. Absolute surprise.

A group of savages rushed down the stairs.

They were children.

Louis saw them and was amazed, though he shouldn’t have been by that point. Just kids. Most of them were grade school age, a few teenagers amongst them. All naked and painted up with blue, brown, and red stripes, brandishing spears and hatchets, their eyes flat black and predatory.

They converged on Elissa and brought her down with their hatchets, chopping on her until she was a writhing, red-splashed thing, her head split open, her face hanging by a thread, one arm on the floor.

The children went wild.

They screamed and shrieked their primal delight, hacking on the girl and splashing themselves with her blood. The oldest amongst them, a boy, shoved the others aside and peeled the girl’s scalp.

Louis knew they would see him by the fire.

He was next.

Where was the woman and the other girl?

Good question and one soon answered. For now they charged out of the shadows with axes. Four children had split skulls before the others could organize themselves. Maddie and Kylie, still painted ash-white, were soon spattered with blood and meat. The other children were terrified as these ghosts attacked them. They could see the scalps at their throats. The meat and limbs hanging from the rafters, the human remains and refuse scattered over the floor, smell the gut sack that smoked over the fire.

While Kylie swung her axe from side to side, Maddie hobbled about, circling the invaders who bunched together. She sang a high, shrill song that clearly frightened the children as she lumbered about them, her axe held high for the taking of lives. Even though Louis knew she was no ghost, he wondered if the children were frightened of her for that very reason.

By the looks of them, they weren’t exactly the passive, non-violent types.

But the woman had struck dread into them.

She circled them, singing her song louder and louder and something about it even chilled Louis. He did not know what any of it meant-it did not even sound like English or any other language that he had ever heard-but the threat behind the words was without question.