I ran, but the beetle stayed. He hissed at the horsemen and began scuttling toward them on all fours. He left a trail of yellow blood in his wake.
The door we had come out had locked behind us, and I wasn't strong enough to break it down in time. I pulled myself behind a dumpster and waited to see if the beetle and the horsemen would kill each other before they could find me.
The beetle was fast, but he was also blind and bleeding. The horses circled him and always managed to stay just out of reach. One by one the horsemen lowered their rifles.
"Fire!" the leader shouted.
The thunder of horse hooves was drowned out by bullets. The windows all flashed red and orange above me as the horsemen fired into the beetle. My nose stung with the smell of smoke.
The beetle's armor was thick, but nothing was indestructible. I watched as he was forced to the ground by the fire and left unable to move. At first the shots only dented his carapace, but soon yellow ooze began to seep out of his shell.
Somewhere in the crowd of horsemen the leader threw up his hand and shouted an order to stop. The gunfire trickled down to a few stragglers, then stopped completely. The silence left my ears ringing.
The beetle was dead. I could smell death on him the same as that boar I'd killed the other day. I couldn't hear a heartbeat either.
The men were less certain than I was. They milled around apprehensively with their guns still at the ready. A few were looking in my direction, but none of them approached my hiding spot.
"Hunter," the leader called. "My name is Albert. If your mind is intact tell us. Otherwise we shall have to put you down too."
"My mind is intact. I believe his was too, I spoke with him a moment before you arrived."
Albert chuckled and nudged the man closest to him. "Listen to how polite he is," he said softly. "Come out, we have a proposition for you."
I poked my head out. The men were watching me, but their guns were either pointed at the ground or the sky. I took a few steps from the dumpster ready for the shooting to start again, but it never did.
I walked up to the group but stopped near the edge. The men were watching me like I was a wild animal. A few gripped their guns tighter.
"We need to dispose of him." Albert nudged the beetle with his foot. "We brought someone who can, but he might need help."
Another horse emerged from the woods. The rider held a rope in his hands, and the rope was tied to the arms of a man following behind the horse. His shirt and pants were tattered and he had no shoes.
They cut his binds with a knife and the man approached the beetle. He dropped to his knees then looked up at me. I must have been a sight with my missing antler and arm. I still had part of the beetle's mandible in my remaining hand, along with the cleaver.
"Hurry up Jon; none of us want to watch him eat the whole thing."
Jon bent his head down to bite into an eyeball. I stepped up to the corpse and held up my hand before Jon could touch it. Everyone was watching, which made me feel self conscious. I wondered if deer could blush underneath all the fur.
"Wait here for a moment," I told Jon.
The prisoner made no move to start eating as I headed for the forest. I came back with an armful of sticks. I piled most of them next to the beetle, then made a crude spit with some of the longer sticks. It took a few tries with the cleaver, but eventually I managed to light a fire.
"What are you doing?" Jon asked.
"I'm cooking him," I replied.
Jon looked at me, then over at the horsemen. Albert shrugged his shoulders, and the rest of them were busy starting their own fires.
"Why cook him?"
"Because people don't eat raw meat, it's dangerous."
I speared the mandible on a stick and began rotating it over the fire. Steam drifted off the mandible and the shell began to crack. I took a bite and found the texture similar to eating a roasted snail.
"I can eat all of him if you want me to," I offered Jon. "You know what will happen if you touch him?"
"I know, and I accept it. It is my penance."
"Pennace for what?"
"Last winter the crop failed. I turned to drink, and some people close to me starved. It was decided I would dispose of the first demon the riders killed."
I imagined Luke or my parents starving. The thought of it being my fault was terribly heavy.
"If your mind is set on it then eat with me." I cut one of the beetle's legs off and began roasting it.
Jon eyed the first cut I handed him apprehensively. He looked over at Albert and the others. Albert was reassembling his rifle after cleaning. The last piece clicked into place, and Albert racked a bullet into the chamber. Jon took a hasty bite before he had time to doubt himself.
The two of us sat there, passing meat back and forth. The beetle's enormous corpse shrank until we were arguing over who had to eat the eyes.
"You're older," I said.
"You look the part," Jon shot back.
We each ate one.
When the beetle was gone Albert walked over to our campfire with two men behind him.
"Do you feel redeemed Jon?" he asked.
"This is penance, not redemption."
"Penance comes later tonight. You may as well feel fulfilled now."
Jon was about to say something else, but the words caught in his throat. He grabbed at his face as his muscles began to contort. I could see them squirm like snakes under his skin.
The men behind Albert grabbed Jon under his arms and dragged him toward the woods. I stood up, ready to say something or make them let Jon go. In an instant a dozen guns were pointed at me.
"Easy big fella. You've been a great sport so far, and Jon's in no state to eat another one."
"You don't know what he's about to go through," I said.
"I've seen it, more than most people. Bones crack and rearrange themselves. People turning into monsters overnight. The world will be a better place when they're finally wiped off the earth."
"Most people back home thought they were."
"You're from a small town then. We'll make contact with them and start sending messengers back and forth."
"I thought you were out hunting demons?" I asked.
"We're out saving the world however we can. A big part of that is rebuilding."
"Would there be a place for Jon and I in this new world you're building?"
"If you find a way to turn back then I'll welcome you myself."
Albert left to return to the other campfires. I was left alone on the outskirts of their camp. The men talked and laughed with each other while I nursed my wounds. I had a strange feeling that my arm would be back. Sitting by myself made me realize how tired I was, so I went to sleep surrounded by the sounds of men talking and Jon screaming in the woods.
