Fear! by Steven Nedelton (me reader txt) 📕

they liberated you from that oppressor, and I, the man who was forced to fight the big cat alone, was badly hurt,” he lifted his badly mangled left hand, “I say that our leaders deserve the best. I say they get his women and let them chose the ones they like.”
“Give them his wives! Give them the wives!” roared back the crowd.
“And I propose that they split the knives and the belt and everything” continued the weak son of the blood-thirsty hag. As he turned around, some noticed a beautiful dagger tucked into his waist belt, but out of politeness no one said a word.
“Give them all of it! Give them all of it!” the cave reverberated again.

It got very hot in the Big Cave that night. One of the largest fires ever was lit up and the people danced, young and old. Then they drank something that one of the hags had prepared—a brew that came from the grapes, they said. They drank it and laughed and danced deep into the night. Finally, the wives of the new leaders danced, was quite a show to remember.
It happened in the wee hours of the next morning. By then, the men and women were dead asleep.

And the new leaders with their brand new wives, now comfortable in the old leader’s dwelling, were asleep too. Only two older men were left, still sitting in the back of the Big Cave by a dying fire, still talking on, when one said to the other: “Did ya see how that weak pup, that son of that fuckingly ugly hag, sold us all out for that one damned dagger?”
“And we got nothing. No women, no knives, no belt. Nothing is what we’ve got!” said the other.
“Oh no. We got something. We got us three of them instead of one!” mused the first one.
“Yeah, we got three chiefs instead of one!” agreed the second.
“How much are they going to take from us?” wondered the first aloud.
“I’d say three times more. Three times more of the best meat, three times more of the best women,” answered the second man. Then he added: “You know something? I think I remember one of them new leaders hit me on the back when they were after that wretched fool, the spear maker.
“Let’s go to sleep,” said the first resignedly. And with those words the Great Feast ended.

Chaos

Several blood-red moons had passed since the Great Feast. Many hunts the men went to and many a good catch they brought home. But the world had changed in more than one way. Oh yes, there was more of the best meat that went to the three leaders and there were more of the best looking young women who went to the leaders’ cave and returned a couple of days later to be replaced by younger and better looking ones. But what had changed the most was the hunting itself. The leaders did not participate in the hunt any more. They stayed at home and sent the pups to make the catch. Now many pups died because they were inexperienced and there was no one to teach them how to hunt; when to throw the spear and when to turn their backs and run for their lives. And there were always meetings. There were meetings every couple of days. And a lot of chanting. Always the same words: how great were the new leaders and so on and on. And it got boring. Quite boring. The most bored were the pups. Chanting, bad luck in hunts and always the worst meat. And no good looking wenches. Life stank.

It was then that the young minds decided to improve the lives of the rest of the tribe. Feeling that they were being betrayed by the new leaders, that all their support for the new leadership was in vain, they decided in one of their secretly held meetings to end the lives of the three crooked men.
Strangely enough, the most vocal was the son of the now deceased, blood-thirsty hag: “Men,” he shouted as he lifted his mangled left hand and fist high above his head: “They have lied to us!”
But no one said a word.

“They have lied to us and have taken the best of everything from us!” he yelled.
But again the silence was complete.
“I say we kill them. Yes, I say we kill them—all three of them.”
This time the voices rose and the young men unanimously agreed: “Death, death, death unto them!” the pup crowd roared.

It all happened rather unexpectedly just a couple of days later. One early morning while most of the cave people, old and young alike, were still hard asleep, a horrible scream woke them all up. They were all confused. As they tried to get up they were savagely attacked by a number of men they’d never seen before. They were beaten and pushed and pulled out of the Big Cave into the clearing, where they found themselves encircled by a tight ring of armed, strange hunters.

At that same moment, four men stepped in front of the captives, their three leaders and a young man with a badly mauled left hand. They said something to the leader of the stranger-hunters and, by some miracle, he seemed to listen to them, quite respectfully.
“My dear comrades,” shouted the young son of the dead blood-thirsty hag, “we were betrayed by a group of ambitious and greedy men. They wanted to kill our worthy leaders; they wanted to make slaves out of us all. But we prevailed. Comrades, we will now punish the villains and we will continue to prosper under the leadership of these three selfless men!” He pointed his right, good hand at the three leaders who stood there and smiled benevolently at the frightened but now thankful Bear Cave dwellers. Bring the villains forward!” he ordered the armed stranger-hunters.

A group of five or six pups, hands and feet bound, were slowly shuffled into the clearing. They were obviously already badly beaten; their heads were bleeding and they were unable to stand straight. The Bear Cave dwellers soon recognized their sons. Their mothers started wailing and the confused pups began crying too.

“Punish the villains!” the son of the already dead and blood-thirsty hag shrieked. At the same moment the armed stranger-hunters dropped the unfortunates to their knees. The stranger-hunters began hitting the bound pups with heavy clubs until they broke their backs, legs and arms. The bandits forced their mouths open and, with a swift move of their sharp daggers, cut the tongues of the poor wretches. Horrible moaning and shrieking of the maimed was mixed with cries from their parents, but no one made a move to help. And then, quite suddenly, as if even the heavens could not bear it any longer, it started to rain. A few drops fell on the unfortunates but that was not to be the end. The son of the dead and blood-thirsty hag, his maimed left hand raised high above his head, gave the final order: “Kill them now! Kill them!” he shouted, “so that all will know what happens to those who disobey the word of our great leaders!”
The armed bandits swung their heavy clubs again and the six young men, his former friends, were finally no more.

“Comrades…” the son of the dead, blood-thirsty hag triumphantly shouted at the enslaved people of the Big Cave. “Comrades, you are now free to go back to your home. The villains have been punished and our tribe, led by our great leaders, will prosper for many, many moons to come!”
And then he started chanting: “Glory to our leaders, glory, glory, glory!” At first the little crowd stood nearly silent, although one could hear the sobbing. Then the armed stranger-hunters tightened their circle around them. The son of the dead, blood-thirsty hag shouted again: “Glory to our leaders!”

This time one could hear a couple of weak voices seem to join his chant. The stranger-hunters tightened their circle again and the group started responding in an unearthly discord of broken-up voices, as if crying for mercy: “Glory to our leaders! Glory...” Until the caves were echoing this phrase. Eventually the echoes and his voice merged into an angry, mad roar, a cacophony of indistinguishable shrieks.

Then, as if in response to this vile madness, as if God himself was saddened and angered by the inhumanity of his own creation, the dark skies opened and lit up. There was a deafening thunderclap, the ground shook and the Bear Cave people shuddered as large rain drops started falling in torrents like the mighty river falls, washing away blood and tears and cleansing the living and the dead alike.
A new era of slavery had begun...


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Text: Steven Nedelton
Publication Date: 02-10-2012

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