The Skin Worshipper

Chapter 4

  John Kerry is putting on his coat by the front door when his eleven year old son, Tim comes up to him.

  "Dad, you said you would help me with my project today."

  He looks down at the blond child with his big blue eyes looking up at him.

  "We can do that in the afternoon, I have to go out for a while, and if you help your mother I’ll pick up some ice cream on the way back, how does that sound?"

  "Great dad, chocolate chip, OK?"

  "Sure son," says John and ruffles the boy's hair.

  In his truck he turns on the radio and hums along with the music. It’s a beautiful day, and the drive up the mountain is a delight, almost no traffic on the road, and no rain clouds in sight. It takes him just over an hour to reach a dirt road where he turns left.

  Driving slowly under the canopy of trees he makes his way up and deeper into the mountains. After another forty five minutes he turns off the dirt track and parks the truck. He gets out and from under a big tree he pulls out webbing, similar to what the military use to camouflage their vehicles or buildings. He drapes it over the truck and makes sure it’s snug. He takes out a small backpack with a thermos, and a sandwich. Then he takes off along a trail leading away into the forest. He walks for a while and then enters a clearing where he heads for a big rock on the other side. When he reaches it he bends down and using his fingers pulls the rock wall up. It’s not a real rock, just another camouflage and under it there is a powerful Quad.

  After he starts it he makes sure his backpack is comfortable on his back and then drives along the clearing, and right through some bushes. On the other side there is a wider trail, and he takes off down it.

  It took him almost six months to build this trail from the cabin to the clearing. He had built the cabin after and it took almost two years to do it. The windowpanes and doors he had sent to a PO BOX where he picked them up and drove them out here. Electricity comes from a generator in the basement fueled by diesel. The room it’s in is sound isolated so when it runs it can’t be heard from outside. The exhaust fumes are pulled out by a system of fans in tubes that end fifty yards into the forest behind the cabin.

  When he reaches the cabin he parks the Quad and walks up the porch, and there he stops staring at the door. It’s ajar and he can see several muddy boot prints going in and coming out. He kneels and lets a finger trace one of the prints, still humid. They must have been here less than half an hour ago. He stands up and looks around him, scanning the tree line surrounding the clearing, nothing. No sounds apart from birds and insects buzzing. He sighs and steps into the cabin.

  "Hello people, how are you today?"

  Silence.

  "I see you had visitors, anyone I would know?"

  Silence.

  "I see, OK then, I’ll go and look for them and bring them back here, how does that sound?"

  Silence.

  He walks past the living room and into one of the bedrooms where he opens a closet. On the floor there is a hatch which he pulls up and reaching inside he finds the switch for the light. He carefully steps down on to a set of wooden steps and moves down.

  When he is standing at the bottom he finds another switch and turns it on, one by one several rows of fluorescent lights come on. Straight ahead of him is the wooden construction he uses for skinning, and behind it is the metal cage where he keeps his prey.

  The room is an underground cave that he found by accident while hunting. He was up here and when he walked across the clearing heading back to where he had parked his truck, he fell through a hole and landed on the rocky floor. The fall wasn’t long, maybe ten feet and he was lucky, he only sprained his foot. Using his lighter he walked around the cave and noticed it was dry, no water coming in. After searching he found another entrance, a long tunnel leading a hundred feet underground and ending in the forest. He figured that at some point in time, this cave was used to hide things, maybe weapons or something more valuable. He decided to come back with a torch and have a better look at the place, a plan had formed in his head.

  He takes off his clothes and hangs them neatly on wooden pegs on the wall. When he is naked he crosses the cold floor to a big wood cabinet, it’s almost six feet high, eight feet long and about four feet deep. He opens the double doors and turns on the light inside. When it comes on he sighs with pleasure. There are shelves on one side with knives and scalpels. On the other are different crossbows hanging from pegs, and in one corner are several bamboo tubes of various dimensions, the shortest about three feet and the longest as tall as the cabinet. He whistles while he chooses a crossbow with six bolts hanging under the bow, and then he picks up one of the bamboo tubes, he chooses one of the midsize ones. Closing the doors he moves to the left where there is a small fridge, he opens it and takes out a box about twenty inches long and five inches wide. Inside are thin wood spikes with a cotton ball on one end and the other is sharp as a razor. He closes the fridge and moves back to where he hung his clothes. From another peg he takes a leather strap and ties it to his leg, he inserts the wooden spikes carefully and then straps the bamboo tube over his shoulder using another leather strap. He grabs the crossbow and turning off the lights he heads up the stairs, across the living room and out on the porch where he stops and kneels. His face turns up against the sun, and his nose twitches like a rabbit, then he says in a voice quite different from the one he used with his son," the hunt begins."