“Pull that there tarp back over the hole, boy. We best be on our way.”
Esau obeyed, unflinching at the waft of corpse-gas when he replaced the flap. He scratched his crotch with one hand, his ass-crack with the other, then loped after Enoch to the Nissan. They drove deeper into the island, toward still more things they had to hide. Just as the gully was camouflaged, so were the sheds, each of which existed for different reasons. The smoke-house, the curing house, the place where they did their marinates. “We still got them two curin’,” Enoch reminded. “Figger we better check on ’em.” What he referred to was the pair of young men he’d picked up on 101, hitching to the point where they said they had relatives. Spunky fellas, they was. Matt’n Mike they said their names was. They fought like reg-ler buggers when Enoch took ’em down with his slapjack. One fella was shaved-headed, with tattoos, and a devil-looking goattee, the other looked like a college boy in a Yankees hat. Enoch had cracked both their noggins with the jack, then cut off their peckers and chewed ’em as jerky on the ride back.
Fresh-cut dick was always a good chew.
Now them two boys was split’n hangin’ in the curin’ house. Esau was cold-smokin’ ’em, he was; the house was filled with fragrant leaves and herbs as they rotted. It was necessary to come out here twice a day ta drain ’em which was fairly simple. Just run a sharp knife down their legs’n let ’em drip.
“How they look?” Enoch asked when Esau come out.
“They’se gettin’ there. Few more days, I’d say.”
All the “houses,” by the way, were as effectively covered with branches’n leaves as the tarp-hole. Damn near impossible to see unless you was lookin’ for ’em. Two of ’em had chimneys: the smoke house’n the hot house. They hung ribs and sausage in the smoke house, and cooked the drums in the hot house. All the pine’n ash out here in the woods made fer great cookin’ fuel. The chimneys puffed away their soot-black smoke into the high trees. Good viddles in there, fer sure!
The fourth shack was were Esau did his marinatin’. One fella Enoch had picked up near Dungeness ’bout three weeks back, he was still alive on account of how regularly Esau fed’n watered him. Several times a year, Esau liked ta corn-feed one, so what they did was they tied a guy up tight in strapping twine, put him in an old canoe, then nail sheets of roofing tin over the canoe. The fella’s head would stick out through a hole at the top, which allowed Esau to pump corn mash down his throat with a bellows. It made the liver real big’n sweet, whiles the rest of him would marinate in his own corny shit’n piss.
The lone head sticking out from the canoe pleaded, “Please! Let me go! Why are you doing this?”
“Quit’cher yammerin’,” Esau said. “It’s feedin’ time.” He filled the bellows from the big can of corn mash, then stuck the nozzle down the kid’s throat and squeezed. The bellows promptly displaced its contents into the kid’s gut. “That should hold ya fer a while, huh?”
When Esau pulled out the bellows, the kid coughed, his eyes bloodshot and nose runny, like he had a cold.
“Damn! Ain’t that some luck!”
“What’s that?” Enoch asked.
Another cough ruffed up.
“He’s done caught hisself a cold!” Esau celebrated. From a big pocket in his overalls, he withdrew a small Tupperware container. “My spinach salad! Grandpa Ab loves it!”
Esau looked at the head sticking out of the hole. He grabbed its throat. “Blow yer nose. Ya hear me?” he ordered. “If ya don’t, I’ll shove yer head down into that boat so’s you’ll drown in your own shit. Ya hear me?”
Desperately, the head nodded. Esau clamped his mouth over the boy’s nose; the boy began blowing.
The boy blew his nose heartily into Esau’s mouth. Long and hard and noisily. At the task’s end, Esau pulled his mouth off the victim’s nose, cheeks stuffed. He spat the lumpy snot into the Tupperware container and sealed it shut.
Esau smacked his lips, pointed to the boy’s wet nose. “You want a hit off this? It’s damn good, fer sure. Nice’n meaty.”
“What’cha gonna do with that bowl’a snot?” Enoch asked.
“I done told ya. My spinach salad. We ain’t got no Feta cheese—snot’s better, anyway.”
“Oh…yeah.”
“Go on. Take a hit.”
Enoch leaned over, covered the boy’s nose with his mouth, into which more bronchital mucus was expelled.
Enoch sucked and swallowed, nodding. “You’re right. That was damn tasty.”
“Told ya,” Esau said with a wink.
««—»»
WELCOME TO HARSTENE ISLAND AND THE BEAUTIFUL TOWN OF HOTH’S LANDING! a wooden sign announced.
“Here we are,” Ashton stated the obvious.
Sheree had never heard of Hartsene Island or Hoth’s Landing. A mud trail led up from the boat ramp to a series of buildings—shacks, really—whose wood-slat walls had long turned gray when the paint had bubbled off.
Higher in the trees, another wooden sign read:
HOTH’S LANDING
POPULATION: 2
“Two?” Carol cited. “There’s only two people on this island?”
“Seems so,” Bob answered, and patted her ass. “What do we care? The fewer people, the better.”
“Yeah,” Ashton agreed. Streaks of sweat trailed down his beige silk shirt from the underarms. “This is perfect. No one else out here fishing? We’re probably the first people here this season. More Crackjaw eel for us.”
You and your fucking Crackjaw eel, Sheree thought in loath. She looked in utter distaste as Ashton’s love-handles rode up and down under the sides of his expensive shirt. The back of his black Armani slacks were riding up his giant ass-crack.
Why don’t you do me a big favor? Have a heart attack.
Yet another wooden sign, over the first dilapidated shack, read BAIT SHOP. COME ON IN!
“Look, there’s another truck,” Carol observed. Parked next to the bait shop was a red Nissan four-by-four, the same odd red as the Ford truck they’d seen on the other side of the lake. Carol peered, as if trying to read small letters. “Isn’t there something…weird about the paint on that truck?”
Bob pinched her ass. “Forget about the truck, sweetcakes. We’re here to—”
“PAAAAAR-TEE!” Ashton shouted. “We’re gonna drink our asses off, get in ON, and catch all KINDS of Crackjaw eel! Anyone care to second the motion?”
“PAAAAAR-TEE!” Bob yelled.
Sheree and Carol traded wearied looks.
Several other buildings—similar shacks—descended into the woods behind the bait shop. Sheree briefly spied a television satellite dish on the back incline of the roof, and a rutted trail leading into the forest. Movement flicked high in the trees; Sheree was almost startled.