TheJudgingNovel

Prologue

“Rabbit! Give it up! You don’t have a chance!”

Schaffer cringed at the sentiment and he tiptoed faster along the tin wall. Up ahead he could see the exit; a huge door that emptied out into the dark night beyond. The warehouse sat on the river’s edge—how far from the pier was he? Maybe fifty feet once he cleared the threshold. There was a good chance he could jump into the water and swim away. Didn’t these aberrations of nature abhor running water? Schaffer didn’t have time to think too hard about it. Taking one deep breath to gather his nerve, he burst forward suddenly, commanding his legs to propel him faster than they ever had before. But it wasn’t fast enough.

Not by a mile.

Schaffer slammed into the outstretched arm of his enemy after only four strides.

“Oops. Down you go, Rabbit.”

Schaffer struggled to get to his feet, but the monster had him by the collar and was dragging him back the way they had come. Schaffer’s boot heels plowed the red clay in the dirt parking lot, making furrows no one would notice.

“Come on, silly Wabbit…we have a big night ahead of us.”

Schaffer wrestled against his attacker’s grip but to no avail. The creature that held him fast was not his master, but he was still one of them. One of the Brethren. A Rakum. A devilish creature with ancient roots no one remembered; whose strength was only outdone by its cruelty. And they would be sure to punish Schaffer for the stunt he pulled against their Elder, Rufus.

Schaffer fought futilely until they reached the creature’s aged and dented Dodge pickup parked in the unlit abandoned lot. He got a glimpse of the Rakum’s face—it was not one he recognized. But that mattered little—once he was marked as a Rabbit, he understood they would come from all over.

“In ya go, Rabbit.”

The Rakum grabbed Schaffer’s belt along with his collar and tossed him into the passenger seat in one fluid motion. Schaffer grunted with discomfort as his attacker quickly zip-tied his hands together. He then zip-tied his wrists to the headrest behind, yanking his arms up above his head. Schaffer cried out but only a few syllables escaped his lips before the monster shoved a greasy rag into his mouth to quiet him.

“Where’re your matches now, Rabbit?”

Schaffer had set Rufus on fire. Yeah, it had been a glorious sight. But he didn’t get away fast enough. He blinked back tears, gagged and watched with round eyes as his attacker climbed into the driver’s side and switched on the truck.

“Might be fun to burn you up, Rabbit. See what that smells like.”

Schaffer moaned. An hour after he set Rufus aflame, he had been captured and marked by one of the Elders. The creature told him to start running.

Schaffer looked out the window of the truck as they sped through a thick forest. If only he’d planned an escape route. Now this monster was taking him to his private killing field. A morbid thought crossed his mind; a small Airstream trailer emerged from the woods on the side of the grassed-over road.

“Oh my. All for me.”

The Rakum hit the brakes hard and didn’t bother to come around to extricate his catch. Instead, he jumped down and reached in to yank Schaffer out the driver’s side. The stiff plastic ties raked across his flesh and he yelped through the filthy towel as his skin gave way to the power behind the pull. His wrist bones fractured as his hands popped free of the bonds. The Rakum chuckled and tossed Schaffer bleeding and crying over his shoulder to carry him into the house.

Schaffer watched the weeds go by in the moonlight, his bloodied fingers dangling off and on in his line of vision. They no longer stung but he was too terrified to really notice. They entered the trailer, the door was closed and locked, and he was dropped onto a tattered yellow couch. Schaffer grimaced as he hit the sofa hard but one glance at his wrist and he could see the skin was not ripped as he had thought. Was it the dim light?

 “Now you’re in my house, Rabbit. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Do you know what happens to Rabbits, around here?”

Schaffer’s eyes grew wide and he shook his head with growing terror. His tongue pushed at the rag in his mouth but it would not budge. He watched his attacker’s face and pleaded with his eyes to no avail.

“We eat Rabbits around here. Yep. But we take our time.”

Schaffer cringed as the monster approached him and stopped only inches from his sweating face.

“And Rufus wants to be sure you suffer.”

Rufus? In the present tense? Are they fireproof? Schaffer choked back a scream as the monster withdrew a knife from somewhere outside of his vision and brought it up to his chin.

“We ain’t in no hurry, Rabbit. We can go on all night…”

Schaffer felt the sharp thin blade press into his throat until it broke through the skin with stinging pain. Hot blood coursed from the wound and spilled out from before him onto the monster’s chest like a torrent. But as his assailant hovered over him, an evil grin on his dark face, Schaffer felt something else entirely. The fiery pain in his neck subsided and was replaced with a peculiar tightness. The blood that had spurted forcefully from his body ebbed and then stopped completely.

His knife wound had healed. 

As if he was one of them.

The marking procedure did this. Horrified as the gravity of his situation sunk in, Schaffer twisted aside violently. The Rakum backhanded him into place and then straddled him on the couch, holding him down with his body weight.

“See, Rabbit. Now you get it.”

Schaffer straightened up in his bonds as the monster raised the knife and slashed him again, this time across the chest. The wound was deep and the dark oxygenated blood oozed down his shirtfront. But once again, the pain subsided and the flow eased. Schaffer’s face twisted into a mask of horror.

“Yep. That’s right. We’ll just go on all night. And tomorrow night. And the night after that…” 

Schaffer watched as his attacker brought the bloody knife tip to his mouth and cleaned it with his red tongue.

“And when I get tired of you…we’ll have my brothers over and let them see what fun you are.” 

The knife was raised again and plunged deep into Schaffer’s middle. He grunted, his gag still preventing him from screaming no matter how his lungs fought in his chest to expel his terror.

“And we’ll never get tired of you.”

The knife came out and was thrust in again, this time into his side, into his ribs.

“And you’ll never die. You’ll never die, Rabbit. Never.”

As Schaffer felt the skin tighten and knit itself together in his middle, he knew the monster was right. And his punishment would go on. 

Schaffer knew finally that he was in hell. 

And his hell would last forever.