Tom Piccirilli - Hellboy by Emerald Hell

Author:Emerald Hell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-05-15T21:10:26+00:00

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Chapter 14

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After wetting a bandana and wrapping it around his neck, Duffy Ferris pointed to the inlet at the base of the dark lake and said, “I see they broke camp over that’a’way this mornin’. There’s still a faint trail of smoke risin’ from the last of their embers.”

“I see it too,“Deeter said. “That’s gator ground.”

“Crossed over to the other side and goin’ deeper into the morass. Notice where they tore up the twigs passin’ through? All the mud they raked up and log litter they broke past? We comin’ up to the marsh prairies. We’re only two, three hours behind ‘em.”

“I spot two cold camps,” Deeter said, shielding his eyes from the sun.“One a bit aways from the other. Them teenage girls come through this way too, mayhap the night before. None’a them are gator bait yet.”

“Which ain’t to say there ain’t still a chance for it.”

“No, which ain’t to say that at all. Gotta admire them girls’ pluck though. All of ‘em with child. Ain’t a one of ‘em that’s what you might call weak-willed.”

Duffy grabbed the pole and began stobbing again, his muscles corded and the thick veins twisting along his arms. “You think Dorrie Mae Wilkes is among ‘em?”

Deeter furrowed his brow. “Which one’s that?”

“Pretty young thing, blonde hair halfway down her back, fine shapely figure on her. She won Miss Peach Pit over in Waynescross last summer, rode up front on the float during the Peach Pit Parade. You don’t recall?”

“Wilkes’s got four girls, so I’m havin’ some trouble decipherin’ which particular one she might be.”

“Don’t matter none.” With nostrils flaring, Duffy sniffed the air. “You smell it?”

“Can’t smell me nothin’ but that ole boy gettin’ riper in the back of the damn boat.”

“Corn griddle cakes. And fried turtle eggs. No breeze here to carry the aroma off,”

“Yeah?” Deeter put a hand on his belly as it emitted an audible growl. “Them boys are livin’ the honeyed life out here, for certain. Wish we could stop for some food. It’s gettin’ on lunchtime.”

Duffy whispered, “That Jester don’t eat but what he finds flattened dead on a broken white line, so I guess he expects the same of us. How I do wish we never run into that hell preacher.”

“No more so than me,” Deeter said. “Bless my ears, I hear him still conversin’ with that deceased codger.”

“Naw, he done quit that a while back. Guess ole Plume Wallace wasn’t reciprocatin’ enough. Now preacher’s just prayin’, except they ain’t like no prayers I done heard any man mutter before.”

The Ferris boys turned together to check on Brother Jester, who sat in the stern of the skiff with the corpse, doing little besides mumbling and staring. The flies were so heavy back there that a dark cloud hovered and wreathed about Jester, who didn’t seem to notice.

They both thought, He gonna eat that old boy?

Jester’s shadows let him know this. It almost made him smile.

He’d eaten much worse things than human flesh. He’d supped on his own venom, he’d swallowed the tenets of God’s law.

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