Erik Handy by Hell of the Dead Read Free Book Online Page B

again. Please find her. And don't be gentle."
     

Chapter 26
    Angelina, Marie, Anna, and six other women sat around the small fire. Not recognizing those six other women was understandable to Marie. Only the men in the village were really allowed to socialize. Marie cursed herself for allowing herself to be taken to this jungle by Rosalo. To be taken by him. She still couldn't figure out when it was that the man she once loved had changed so. In fact, she had difficulty remembering anything specific before this exact moment. She resigned herself to the present and joined the others in staring at the fire, lost in their anguish. They all lost precious pieces of themselves to the village. This was their dead end.
    Marie hugged herself around her chest. Her entire body throbbed sharply. She was getting used to it. The knowledge and acceptance of her dim fate was numbing her to the pain.
    She didn't have much time left. Either her life, like her memory, would give out or Rosalo would find her here. And kill her in his brand of brutality. She almost smiled at that. Then, she would be dead. But, no. She would never give him the pleasure. She had to hang on for herself and Jean Paul. Why? What did it matter?
    An old woman dressed in a battered, dirty white housedress slumped out of a tent. All the women except Marie turned to her. A few got up to join the old woman to discuss something quietly and hurriedly. The elder watched Marie as they spoke to her.
    The old woman stepped over to Marie and rested her wrinkled hand on her head. Marie tried to smile at the kindly matron.
    "Marie, this is Sari," Angelina said. "She's a magic woman."
    "What," Marie tried, but her mouth was dry. "What does that mean?"
    "She's been through what all of us have," Anna chimed in. "They took so much from her."
    The old woman, Sari, opened her ancient mouth to reveal that half her tongue had been cut out.
    Marie recoiled.
    "They sacrificed our children," Angelina said. "Our sisters, everyone we loved. And for what? They took so much from us. Marie, will you help us take from them?"
    "How? Take what?"
    The look in each woman's eyes was cold, hard, detached, save for Sari's. She sadly smiled. With difficulty, she answered, "Life."
    "Our vengeance," Anna said, "requires a sacrifice from each of us. A final sacrifice."
    "Sacrifice?" Marie said. "What is it?"
    "Ourselves," Anna answered. "Our lives to allow those who've fallen by their," she pointed to the jungle, meaning the village beyond, "hands to unleash death upon them."
    Marie's head was swimming. The images of the women around her seemed to drown her, their words riptides. "I don't understand."
    Angelina: "My brother, killed by them because he spoke dissent."
    Another woman: "My husband, betrayed by his brother."
    Another: "My oldest son who tried to save his sister."
    Another: "My mother --"
    The women's voices blurred into one wave for Marie. Noise. Indecision. Drowning. Until --
    Anna: "We will wake the dead and they will break those horrible men. Break their faith and their bones. We will die so vengeance can be born."
    Marie shook her head. "I don't --"
    A rusting in the jungle startled everyone.
    "We must go," Angelina told Marie. "With or without you. Your baby is dead. Your husband the murderer. You are already wounded beyond our repair. What do you have left?"
    The women began to file out from the camp, leaving the tents and their few scant belongings behind. Sari led them.
    "The choice is yours," Anna said.
    What choice? Marie thought before replying, "What must I do?"
    Angelina offered her hand to Marie. "Come with us."
     

Chapter 27
    The women steadily made their way through the jungle, even in the dark. Led by Sari, the women, at first a solid group, splintered into trios and pairs. They thought that would make the villagers' search for them more difficult.
    Marie found herself with Anna and Angelina, away from the others.
    Male voices filtered through the night and trees.
    The women