Ritual Chill by James Axler

Author:James Axler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worldwide Library
Published: 2013-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

They lay in the huts, the drugged meat making them sluggish and torpid. Stripped of their clothes, stripped of their weapons and, more importantly, stripped of the will to fight back, each of them began to warm through in the log cabins, the tallow and wood-burning stoves filling the air with the thick, sweet smell of wood smoke. Most was funneled efficiently through the chimney stacks attached to the stove that ascended through the roof, but as with all such ageing dwellings, there was enough give in the stack to allow a little of the smoke to escape.

It was a soothing odor, overpowering the sour smells of their own sweat and the stench of fear. Because each of them was now afraid.

Fear wasn’t a terrible thing. If it wasn’t kept in check, it could overpower a fighter, prevent him or her from performing to his or her full capacity, ruin timing. It could stop a person attacking at the right moment, from defending successfully. But in essence, fear was a good thing. A healthy dose of it was a remarkably efficient early warning system. Fear was that nagging in the gut that forced a person to act, that put a person on the defensive when danger was near.

For each of them, individually, fear was something that they lived with every day and that they welcomed as a friend. It had kept them alive and ahead of the game this far, and there had been no reason to suppose that it would continue doing so for some time to come…until now.

The lack of clothes and the lack of weapons was a problem, but hardly an insurmountable one. They had faced such obstacles many times before. At least they were warm, and were given a day’s grace in which to rest and recover. In previous experience, that had been enough for them to formulate some kind of plan, either as a group or individually. And at least they were two to a hut, meaning that some kind of team work could be used.

But not this time. This time they lacked something that worked in conjunction with the fear to drive them on, spur them to action. This time, they were lacking the will to act.

They knew this. Their fear knew this. And instead of nagging them to action, it did little other than gnaw at their vitals. A kind of hopeless despair started to seep through the velvet blanket of torpor, invading the darker recesses of the mind. This perfidious drug that they had been fed in the meat had now left them without the will to survive.

And without that, they would surely buy the farm.

KRYSTY AND MILDRED were in one hut, Jak and J.B. in another, with the third containing Doc and Ryan. It was to this hut that Thompson and McPhee, the medicine man, went first.

Ryan huddled into the blankets and furs that covered him as the door to the hut swung open briefly, admitting the two Inuit before slamming behind them.

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