FEAR! - Preview

Midwest Book Review--"Reviewer's Bookwatch" features 'FEAR!' five years, July 2011"

As the world goes to hell, it proves very difficult not to go with them. "Fear!" is a novel from Steven Nedelton who tells of a future where mankind is falling apart and oppression is the name of the day. One family tries to hang onto their humanity, as Nedelton tells their endeavor to stay together and stay united in a miserable world. "Fear!" is novel of a potential terrifying future, well worth considering."

This is an excerpt from the novel FEAR! The book is available in all formats at Amazon.com, B&N, etc. All novel details are available at www.snedelton.com.

Prologue

“Today it is 2035 and look where we are,” he said as he gestured in despair with the back of his hand at the walls of the MPS, the Maximum Protection Shelter. “History does not change, it just repeats itself, they say. The stories I could tell you...I swear are a bit embellished, perhaps, but they’re stories of ruthlessness and the destruction of our natural dignity. You have never heard tales like these, all in the name of some ideal… of another new, false faith. And quite a hell at that. One of them lasted decades. It repeated itself again and again, always with a different label.” And it was there he began...

Hunt

The quarter-sun is barely up, shining between the mountain’s flanks. The horizon is already aglow in pink, red and yellow streaks. The air is fresh, almost freezing, and there’s not a wisp of a gale. Heavy, dark clouds are still overhead, leaning upon each other, overlapping here and there as if whispering down to men from the mouths of gods that the rains will be coming soon. It is another early summer morning millennia ago.

The Bear Cave people are still asleep, growling in their dreams, pawing at the invisible beast. Last night’s fires are extinguished and the warmth and the stench of the pelts inundate the sleeping. But the hunters are already up, spears and axes having been sharpened the night before. They are lively this early dawn, chewing the dried meat the women readied the last evening. Meat, cornbread and water is their diet. Food is hard to come by. Corn does not grow well and hunting wild beasts is the job for any man able to run, hurl a spear and shoot arrows.

In the semi-darkness surrounding the fire, the men are dark, undulating shadows, with reds and yellows whipping across and licking their faces, dancing on them and lighting up their eyes as they argue and grumble about who is going hunting this morning. There are always a dozen men with the leader. Most hunters are old, grisly from their thirty summers, yet strong, weather-beaten, bony and muscular; their faces so like the beasts they kill: sly, fox eyes, fierce and cunning; teeth of a wolf, yellowed and pointed; fingernails long, blackened and bent like the claws of a raptor; all ready to tear one’s heart out with fingers alone. A few hunters are still young—pups really—just learning to kill. Most will die but some will live, and they know it; it is the will of the gods.

The leader is broad shouldered, muscular. His eyes are fierce, alert, darting from face to face, probing, as if trying to read their innermost secrets, as if ghosts are lurking in their own skulls. They need him, yet he must know that they hate him, too. His gaze is in constant motion, on each one of them as if insulting them yet coaxing them on. It is his voice they fear most. That deep, resonant blast which carries the magic power that equally intimidates and cajoles. That voice that sometimes roars and booms throughout the Bear Cave like thunder striking down from above. Demons are within him, they secretly think, and sometimes they whisper to each other about him when he is not there. He imbibed witches’ milk, they believe, and when he speaks they know to listen well. A few nights ago, a younger man, a pup, failed his leader and he’ll be punished soon. The group expects it. They know that to obey is to survive, to defy is to be punished. That is the Bear Cave’s Law.

The leader has many wenches, while others share and at most have two. The leader may choose anyone he wants, even one of theirs, and they’d understand it. His needs are greater, for he is the Man. While he lives in the Big Cave like the rest, he also has a smaller one where his women sleep. They do not mix with others. Mixing is not proper. There are secrets to keep.
The group hunts in early mornings when animals are still asleep and hiding, not ready for a fight, because surprise is everything and numbers count. A single hunter does not have a chance, and even if he did have the luck, he would still share the kill with the group, and the leader would get the best of it all.
Today they are after a big catch; a full three days ago they dug a large hole, a trap, inserted into the bottom of it many pointed wooden shafts and then covered the opening with branches and leaves. A large elk would be fine. Occasionally a mountain lion falls in and does not die; sometimes it is not even hurt. That is the danger and that calls for the group’s effort. Scouts have checked the trap several times in the past two days, but there was no luck. Then last night they announced a big catch. An elk it was, and a good sign too. A gift from the gods. There will be a lot of merriment when they arrive home with the load. And then, a great fire and the succulent smell of roasted meat. A great feast ending in dance and festivities. And so the days will go on and the nights will pass.

But the tribal life is not all peace, feasts, hunts and merriment. Like the dark clouds before the rain, like a deadly quiet before a whirlwind, there are also black clouds and windstorms in the tribal life. The leader was not always the Man. Just in the past two summers there were three strong ones who led the tribe in succession and then suddenly and inexplicably disappeared, as if by magic, one by one. There were rumors amongst folk that the Mountain Man caught them at night, killed them and carried their bodies away to devour them later. People fear the Mountain Man. Though some wenches dared think differently and although none ever spoke about it aloud, their eyes, their darting glances pointed questioningly at the new Man.

The people of the tribe, the cave people, although all similar, are not all alike. As anywhere else, there are always oddballs. There’s one who, unlike the rest, spends most of his time making tools and gadgets. Others laugh, play, fight a bit and chase wenches but he is always busy working; if it is not spear tips then it is arrow tips or other contraptions. Most recently, he is spending all his time fashioning an odd object. And it is something no one has ever seen before. It looks like a wooden corn pie, all round and flat and thick. And it makes the wenches laugh and laugh but they’d laugh if one showed two fingers. And the thing has a hole in the middle. And he has made two of those pies. What will he do with them? The gods would certainly know but who there could ask them? And then, of all things, he stuck one end of his spear handle into one pie, through the hole, and then the killing end of the spear through the hole of the other one. And the thing, whatever it may be, became a solid object. Then he nudged it and it turned and moved all by itself as if alive. It was c-r-a-z-y, a shear folly.

People stopped talking, eating or whatever they were doing and meandered over to see this mysterious self-moving wonder. They touched it, very cautiously of course—one doesn’t fool with magic even if the crazy one contrapted it. Then they just nudged it a bit, like the oddball did before, and it moved again. Yes it moved. It did not move like any other gizmo but for the lack of a better word, it turned. Gods would only know how and why. There was this incline, and when the round thing began turning, as of itself, it ran down the hill, faster and faster until it hit the flat on the bottom, rocked a bit, and stopped dead before some stones. As if showing respect for them, the foolish wonder. The crowd burst into a roar and ran down the hill after the object too. Again they approached it carefully, though it lay still. It did not budge anymore. Yet it had been alive a moment earlier, and it must be alive now. Perhaps it was relaxing.

The older folk started arguing, saying it was no magic, just a daft pair of wooden pies stuck on a very good spear handle. And then a debate started about its usefulness to the tribe. Some very deep thoughts were thrown around. And while the old ones did all the heavy cogitating, the wenches, especially the young ones, played with it, and when it moved they screamed and giggled mischievously. As if they knew all about it. But who’d listen to them, their little heads full of silly thoughts. Then the kids touched it, made it turn, and then ran around it, just for the fun of it all. Pretty soon everybody was showing off and everyone was plenty happy. And this affection for the new and like alive object lasted for most of the afternoon, believe it or not. Finally, just when most of the tribe was gathered around the famous oddball and his crazy wonder, the leader’s wives arrived and started giggling and wondering too. And, to be fair, they giggled much louder than the rest of the crowd for they were the Man’s wenches, not to be taken lightly either.

Of all the people in the tribe, only the leader and several of his men remained sitting together, staying away from the spear maker and his new contraption, totally disinterested in all that simple-minded jabber and all. In fact, the leader paid no attention until the object moved, as of itself, and the crowd roared in delight. It was only then that he looked at them and there was that momentary very somber, cloudy, worried look in his dark eyes, as one of his men described it later. But the more the fools talked and screamed in delight, the braver they got with their new game (for it was nothing to them than but a mere toy), the more upset the leader became. Then, quite suddenly, he started laughing too and pointing at the spear maker, then at the object, and then at the spear maker again. The men around him began laughing too, his men later said. And they laughed hard and then harder, much harder. And a bit later, they were slapping each other on their backs and laughing even louder, much louder. Finally, they were stomping with their feet so hard, and they were howling like a bunch of wolves, the men said.

It was just about then that the leader’s wenches arrived. And now, quite abruptly, as if scorched by the very Holy Fire itself, the leader’s laughter turned into a sudden bear growl. He got up and shouted something angrily at the other three men so they got up too. The fools stopped laughing, stopped gawking at the object, and turned in fear toward the Man. For he was not merely a leader now, he was the Master. And for a few moments there was a total hush. No one spoke; no one giggled; no one breathed. Then, as if provoked by that very silence, the Man, angered beyond all control, grabbed the nearest club. Three of his men grabbed theirs, and all four rushed into the crowd and started hitting the fools on their heads. They hit them left and right and right and left; the old, the young, the weak, the females and the pups. They hit them on their heads, on their backs; anywhere and everywhere. Blood spurted, children whimpered, women shrieked in fright and men in agony. But the bullies kept hitting left and right, right and left. By then they had reached the weird object and the spear maker. The leader growled and his three men started hitting and destroying the toy. The spear maker began screaming in anguish and even tried to protect his work. But the Man turned around and hit the spear maker right on top of his bushy head and brought him down like a thunderstruck ox.
And that was the end of tribal happiness.

As if touched by gods and instantly cured from his manic fit of wrath, the leader suddenly quieted, stopped hitting people, lowered his club and, without looking around, walked back to his previous place, head down, his men by his side. Quiet reigned now; only the subdued sobs of pups and wenches could be heard. The leader’s wives had gone back to their cave. The crowd dispersed. The spear maker woke up and crawled on all fours back into the Big Cave. The fun was over. Gone. The Evil One had shown his ugly maw. And then a thick, dark night fell like an enormous bear pelt blanket and embraced all—the bad, the good and the evil. The fires slowly died off and the members of little tribe soon fell into a sound sleep.

Conspiracy

Many very pale moons have passed since that bad day, yet the memories linger on. It would appear, however, that the world is again the same as it used to be. The leader is quiet now, maybe even ashamed of his fit of jealousy, but the cave people are not so sure and feel betrayed. A couple of his wives were quickly returned to the Big Cave right after the beatings and were very quickly replaced by two of the most handsome young ones. At least his appetite was not lost as well.

One morning early in the first days of the new midsummer while the hunters were gone, a group of older men were sitting together taking in the sun and discussing the event.
“He is bad—bad. Only human though! When I saw him that mad, damn, I just picked myself up and ran…” One of the cave dwellers tried to laugh off the episode.
The others joined him in his merriment because, in truth, the oldster couldn’t have run if you promised him the best wench in three tribes. Forty moons he was, the oldest dog still alive. Too damn ancient for running and ‘wenching.’ And he had no teeth…
“Yeah, we believe ya,” the others guffawed while actually eyeing him skeptically.
“Only fools stayed waiting for those clubs… numskulls…” One of the other oldsters came to his rescue.

Yet, in spite of these elders’ general indifference, most of the tribe was disappointed.
The first rumors of something about to happen were started by two of the oldest women in the Bear Cave. They must have been almost as old as forty summers, although no one knew for sure. They had no more teeth. That much everyone could see.

“Wouldn’t it be just right if we all got together and got rid of that man?” suggested one toothless hag to another, during one of those slow mornings when the hunters and the leader were away and the old ones were left all alone to mill the corn.
“Did ya notice that he has the nicest knife and spear and stone dishes, that his wives show off ever so proudly, and they are the best you can get in three tribes?” cackled the other hag somewhat jealously.
“Yeah, and he always takes the best parts of the kill. And yet my son is so weak because he does not get enough good meat,” mused the first hag.
“He’s so rich. If we could just kill him and share his goods, we would be all wealthy. I tell ya, if the whole tribe and your weak son could have one of those golden-haired beauties he hides in his cave with the chesty one, I am sure that your son’s health would improve very quickly,” the second woman agreed with her best toothless smile.
“He’s no better’n us,” continued the first one.
“He’s no better’n us, you’re damn right. And did you notice how fat he is getting to be?” added the second hag.
“How could I miss it? I’d like to kill that fat, rich, son of a dog, drink his blood and be young again. Hah…He thinks he’s better’n us!” said the first hag.
“We have to talk to our sons and daughters tonight and then to the council,” concluded both, almost in unison.

And that is how it all started. The conspiracy, the rebellion, the killing of the leader and the final chaos. All of that big mess just because of two toothless old hags. The young ones were the first to join the group of the dissatisfied. The leader always picked on them; they were always the first to be sent to check out the trap after the catch was announced by the scouts, the first to face enraged mountain lions caught in the trap. And the fight was not always even. Stone knives and spears of ten local men proved time and again unequal to the claws and teeth of the big and powerful cats. The leader claimed that it all was part of the training, of growing up, but the young men, often badly mauled and sometimes worse, did not believe it, nor did their mothers.

The first successful meeting of the dissatisfied happened after the three of the leader’s best friends joined the group. The leader was absent, off to one of the other two nearby tribes to barter for a new dog. The leader was known to have the best hunting dogs in all the tribes and now he wanted another one. Why? The young ones, emboldened by the presence of the older hunters, started shouting:

“He thinks he’s better’n us. He takes all the best, youngest women. Has the best dog, many fancy knives and the best spear but is that not enough?”
“He is rich. Look at his belt and that flashing dagger, and...” another young one joined in.
“Kill him and divide his riches between us. I think that be right. We want to be rich too,” said a third.
“Kill him, kill him, kill him!” responded the crowd from the cave.
“We are equal; we all should get his dogs and his women!” added the first young speaker.
“Men, men! Look here men! Listen to me! I have a word for you!” shouted one of the three elder hunters, who was perched on a stone in the middle of the Big Cave.
“Listen to me! We are in this together. We do not need this leader,” the first young one spoke again.
“Kill him, kill him, kill him!” the crowd roared back at him.
“Listen to me, friends! Listen to me. We must stick together. Later we will decide how to split his wealth,” the first young speaker continued.
“By the luck of the draw. That’s good for all,” shouted the new speaker from his elevated position.

“The draw, the draw. We want the draw,” the crowd shouted back at the speaker. But the crowd could not count too well. There were twelve men in the group, and five wives, two dogs, five knives, five spears, and one belt. And the men all wanted the leader’s women and dogs and knives. And the belt.

“Hunters, hunters! Listen to me! Listen to me!” this new speaker of the people of the Bear Cave was shouting again. The pups felt proud in their young hearts of being called “hunters.”
“Friends! Friends!” the voice called to them again. “Listen to me! Comrades, listen to me!” the speaker was yelling now.
“We are all equal! He’s not better’n us!” yelled back the crowd.
“He must die!” the speaker shouted back.
“Die, die, die! He must die!” the crowd was chanting.
“And we will share his wives and his dogs,” the speaker shouted back.
“His knives, his belt,” answered the crowd.
“Friends, friends! Comrades!” the speaker was yelling again. The cave was reverberating and the young men felt proud of being comrades of the older, tougher, hunter man. Yet they were also wondering if this man had ever been known as a good, tough hunter.
“We must decide who is going to lead us. Now!” by this point the speaker was yelling hysterically.
“You will!” yelled one of the other three older men.
“You will, you will!” the young picked up the cry.
“Friends, friends! We need three leaders!” the speaker shouted back.
“We need three leaders! We need three leaders!” repeated the young men.
“I say you select them!” the speaker responded.

Three old, formerly tough hunters were selected to be the new leaders of the Big Cave people. The killing of the old leader was done the same night, while he was sound asleep. His wives were shrieking, frightened that they were going to meet the gods together with their ill-fated master. But they were quickly assured that there was nothing to worry about and peace was quickly restored. Two hags grabbed the former leader’s body by its hands and legs and dragged it out into the fields, where the wolves would take care of that son of a dog. At least that was what the hags told the people later.

The body did disappear, but what really happened to it nobody knew for sure. The rumor was that the body was moved to a secret cave where one of the hags cut the throat of the dead leader and lapped his still warm blood in the hopes of a miraculous rejuvenation. But that did not work at all, for the blood-sucking hag died of old age soon after. Some women thought that it was the revenge of the dead man’s spirit, so the legend goes. After the killing, the whole tribe had a very long meeting, the first of very many that were to come. The meeting was led by a brand new speaker of the people. From his elevated position he yelled for quite a while: “He is dead, he is dead! We’re all equal! Comrades, listen to me!”
“Great are our new leaders!” yelled back one of the three old men, now one of the three new leaders, hidden somewhere behind the speaker.
And the crowd roared back: “Great are our new leaders! Great are our new leaders!”

That went on and on for quite some time. After that unanimous show of loyalty to the new leadership, the speaker pup, also the only son of the blood-thirsty already dead hag, stood up. He proposed to the Bear Cave people that the former chief’s wives should go to the new leadership: “Listen men, 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...

Impressum

Texte: Steven Nedelton
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 11.02.2012

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