Jed’s head snapped right and left, then focused on Mark again. What in the world?

“Yes, twice,” the man said as if what he’d just done was totally normal. “And again, it both saddens and humors me that you don’t see the importance of the events. It means your mind hasn’t evolved yet to be able to see them for what they really are.”

“Demons,” Mark said, almost rolling his eyes before he stopped himself just in time.

“Demons. Yes, demons. They burned my face, melted it into what you see today. That way I can never forget my calling. And then came the little arrows from the ships, filled with their hatred. It’s been two months now, and we still mourn those who lost their lives that day. It’s why we build the fires and sing the songs and dance the dance. And we fear those from our village who decided not to join us. They work with the demons, undoubtedly.”

“Wait, two months?” Alec asked. “What do you mean, two months?”

“Yes,” Jed replied slowly, as if talking to a confused child. “We count the days solemnly, every one. It’s been two months and three days.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Mark said. “It couldn’t have been that long. It happened to us just a few days ago.”

“I don’t like it… when people doubt my words,” Jed said, his tone changing drastically in the middle of his sentence. It suddenly turned threatening. “How can you sit there and accuse me of lying? Why would I lie about such a thing? I’ve tried to make peace with you, give you a second chance in this life, and this is how you repay me?” His voice had risen in volume with every passing word until he was shouting, his body trembling. “It… it makes my head hurt.”

Mark could tell Alec was about to explode, so he quickly reached over and squeezed his arm. “Don’t,” he whispered. “Just don’t.” Then he returned his attention to Jed. “No, listen, please. It’s not like that. We just want to understand. Our village had the… arrows from the ships rain down on us less than a week ago. So we assumed the same about you. And… you said that people died the day it happened. We saw bodies of people who seemed to have died more recently. Just help us understand.”

Mark had the feeling that there was some important information to be learned from these people. He didn’t think the man was lying about the time frame. There was something here.

Jed had raised his hands to place them where his ears should’ve been on his head and was slowly swaying from side to side. “People died right away. Then others later. More suffering as time passed. More dying. Our village split into factions. All the demons’ work.” He started moaning, almost chanting.

“We believe you,” Mark said. “We just want to understand. Please just talk to us, tell us what happened, step by step.” He tried to keep the frustration out of his voice, but he couldn’t. How was he supposed to do this?

“You’ve made the pain come back,” Jed said tightly, still swaying. His arms were rigid, his elbows sticking straight out as he continued to hold his head in his hands. It looked as if he were trying to crush his own skull. “It hurts so much. I can’t… I have to… You must be from the demons. It’s the only explanation.”

Mark knew his time was running out. “We’re not, I swear. We’re here because we want to learn from you. Maybe your head is hurting because… you have knowledge that you’re supposed to share with us.”

Alec dropped his head forward.

“They came two months ago,” Jed said, his voice distant somehow. “And then the death has come in waves. Taking longer each time. Two days. Five days. Two weeks. A month. And we have people from our own village-people we once called friends-trying to kill us. We don’t understand what the demons want. We don’t understand. We… don’t… understand. We dance, we sing, we make sacrifices…”

He fell to his knees, then collapsed to the ground, still pressing his hands against his head. He let out a long, pain-filled moan.

Mark had reached the end of his patience. This was complete lunacy as far as he was concerned, and there was no way to deal with it rationally. He looked over at Alec, and he could tell by the fire in the man’s eyes that he was ready to take another shot at escape. Their captors were still kneeling, faces lowered in some kind of sick worship of the man writhing in pain. It was now or never.

Mark was just about to consider his next move, trying to focus over the moans and groans coming from Jed, when new sounds arose in the woods behind them. People yelling and screaming, laughing. Making birdcalls and other animal noises. Accompanied by the crunch of footsteps on the dry undergrowth of the forest, the creepy sounds continued, getting louder as the people got closer. Then, more alarmingly, the noises spread in a circle around the clearing of the bonfire until it was completely surrounded by a chorus of caws and cuckoos and roars and hysterical laughter. There had to be several dozen people making the noises.

“What now?” Alec said with clear disgust.

“We warned you about them,” the woman said from where she knelt. “They used to be our friends, our family. Now the demons have taken them and all they want is to torment us, to kill us.”

Jed suddenly reared up on his knees again, screaming at the top of his lungs. Violently, he jerked his head down, then left and right, as if he were trying to knock something loose from his skull. Mark couldn’t help but scoot backward, crab-walking until the rope around his neck grew taut. The other end was still in the hands of one of the kneeling men.

Jed let out a piercing, horrific sound that cut off all the new ones coming from the forest around them.

“They’ve killed me!” he yelled, the words ripping from his throat. “The demons… finally… killed me!”

His body went rigid, his arms stiff at his sides, and he fell over, a last breath rushing from his mouth. His body stilled, and blood began to seep from his nose and mouth.

CHAPTER 26

Mark was completely frozen, staring at Jed’s body lying in an unnatural twisted position. In all his life, Mark was pretty sure he’d never endured such a strange hour as he had since arriving at this camp of madness. And as if it couldn’t have gotten any stranger, now crazy people surrounded them out in the woods, making animal sounds and laughing hysterically.

Mark slowly looked over at Alec. The man was stunned into silence, motionless as he stared at Jed.

The movement and noises in the woods continued. Catcalls and whistles and cheering and hooting. The cricks and cracks of footsteps.

The men who’d been kneeling-and before that beating up Mark and Alec-stood up, looking at their ropes as if they weren’t quite sure what to do with them. They glanced at their prisoners, then at each other, then back at the ropes. The two lines of singers behind them were doing much the same, searching about like someone should be telling them how to react. It was as if Jed had been some kind of link they all shared, and now that it had been severed, his followers were confused and unable to function.

Alec acted first, clearly wanting to take advantage of the situation. He began fumbling with the rope tied around his neck, finally getting his fingers underneath it enough to work it loose. Mark was scared that would snap the men out of their dazed state and cause them to retaliate, but they actually dropped their ends of the ropes in response. Mark immediately followed Alec’s example and worked at his own noose, finally getting it loose. He pulled it up and around his head until he was free, just as Alec was slamming his to the ground.

“Let’s get out of this place,” the older man grumbled.

“But what about their friends out there?” Mark asked. “They have us surrounded.”

He let out a big sigh. “Come on. We’ll just have to fight our way through if they try to stop us. Leave them to these yahoos.”