Disclaimer: Even if I owned Jack, I wouldn't use him to make moneyâ He would be mine, all mine!!! And no one may touch him!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Author's Note: So, uh coughs it's been a while, hasn't it? I'm sorry. I have no excuse. I mean, I've been doing stuff, but, but sobs I'm sorry!! Please don't hate me!! I'll do better! I've defeated Writer's Block, and I now know what I'm gonna do with these guys, and I've even had ideas about a sequel (if you guys can stand me for that long). And yeah. Please don't hurt me.
As usual, tell me if there's a typo or something doesn't make sense.
Oh! If anyone's interested, I now have a livejournal . Might be handy to check if I'm still alive.
Warnings: Ummmâ Nothing too bad happens here. It's a short chapter (I'm sorry) that discusses some of the non-con, and fighting and stuff. This is really a bit of an "explanation" chapter, where nothing really happens but there's lots of talking.
Sing the Little Children
Nine
Sam watched it all. Tears trickled down his dirty cheeks and he cowered into the dirt below his belly, but he watched. He watched Jack scream and thrash as Roger laid his body over the slimmer boy's. He watched the blood. He watched the pain.
It was only when Roger had rolled off Jack that Sam buried his head in his arms and cried. He cried for Jack, he cried for himself, he cried because there was nothing that he could do or say that would change what had happened.
A heavy hand fell on his shoulder and he looked up to see Maurice's red face.
"You're next," the large boy said. "When the Chief is ready, you're next." His grin would haunt Sam for many years.
There was movement about the clearing. Small bodies were filtering out of the trees, some dragging wood, others fruit. One group of little'uns had with them the carcass of a piglet and Sam could not hold back a groan, as Jack's first rule was broken. No piglets, he had said, or else there would be no pigs. Of all the new hunters who brought back meat, only one group had an adult pig.
Roger was speaking, proclaiming something to his followers, but Sam didn't listen. He was crying again, afraid of what would happen to him. Jack's scream rang in his skull, echoing louder to block out the sounds in the clearing around him. It was almost a relief, as he didn't want to listen to Roger insult Jack anymore.
Sam's tears were interrupted again, by the weight of a body falling beside him. He looked up, then flinched away as he saw the red hair and blood-streaked skin. Jack's face was turned toward him, but it was completely slack. His mouth was slightly open and his eyes were puffy red slits. Sam swallowed heavily and pulled away from the former Chief.
"Don't let him die." Maurice loomed over them. "Roger will do to you what he has planned for him." Without waiting for a reaction, he left to join the feasting.
"Don't die, Jack," Sam whispered, choking on the words. He could not bring himself to touch the dirty, soiled skin. "Please don't die."
Soon after nightfall, before Ralph and Eric were able to decide what to do, Jack's three hunters came around the bend of the path, breathless and pale faced. Robert was the first to come to a skittering stop in front of the cave.
"Where's Jack?" He was barely able to fit the words between great, gulping breaths of air. "Something happened!" He was staring at Eric, though his gaze slipped to Ralph once before he wrenched it away again.
"Who screamed?" Bastion came up behind Robert, less breathless but far paler. "There was a scream!" He had lost his spear. His empty hands clenched at his thighs.
Eric was silent, backing away from the hunters until he hit the cliff wall by the cave's opening. His eyes were wide, glittering in the shadows. He was lost.
"Speak up!" Robert advanced, spear held at his side. Although he was of smaller stature, Robert's expression was edged, dangerous. He slapped Eric's shoulder. "Tell us what happened."
"I-I don't know." He was shaking. "There were little'uns, and Roger, on the beach. There was a fire."
"Roger!" Robert turned to Bastion and Bill. "Those other hunters – you don't think" He trailed off, unwilling to say what could not be possible.
"What happened to you three?" Ralph spoke carefully, quietly. He stepped up by Eric, emerging from the darker shadows of the cave. The hunters winced and averted their gaze from what he knew was a strange and eerie sight. None of them answered.
Perhaps I don't exist, he thought, then shook his head.
"Listen to me," he began again. "That scream was Jack. Something happened to him. If we don't work together, we won't get anywhere." It was easy to talk to them, surprisingly easy. His voice was hard, belying the weakened body that spoke.
None of the hunters seemed to know what to do. They looked at each other, shuffling nervously. It was Robert who spoke first.
"Roger did this," he said. He still wouldn't look at Ralph. "He did something to Jack and we gotta do something."
"We'll sneak on him!" Bill exclaimed. "We'll stab him." He was breathing easier. Bastion and Robert nodded, but Ralph shook his head.
"What about his hunters?" Ralph moved closer, forcing them to look at him, to acknowledge him. "Maurice, Luke, Collin, and the others? You're outnumbered. There must be eight of them--"
"Seven." Bastion's face was in shadow. "There are seven hunters."
Ralph nodded once. "You are three, they are seven."
"Don't forget me!" When all eyes turned to Eric the boy scratched at a bite on his belly, slumping his shoulders. "Sam – Sam is there somewhere. He didn't come back."
Ralph counted him in without objection. "Even with four, you're still outnumbered." He felt cold, analytical, as though the part of him that had been locked in a cave was retreating and he was becoming the Chief he once was. He narrowed his eyes as he looked at them. "And you don't know what he did. What happened to Jack. You don't know nothing!" They disgusted him suddenly, these children making plans for fighting a war. Then he returned to himself and remembered that he was fighting with them.
The hunters flinched when he yelled, ducking their shoulders in submission. It gave him a sense of satisfaction and he nodded.
"What if we watched them?" Robert offered. "From the bushes, like. From hiding?"
"Yeah!" Bill was quick to back up his closest friend. "Then, when we see what's goin' on, we can do somethin'."
Ralph nodded. "Good. You can't fight them without knowing what's going on." He looked about himself, then nodded again. "You three go and see what happened, without being seen, then come back." The three straightened and nodded.
"But, Ralph--" Bastion paused, blinking. They were all surprised by Ralph's name, spoken outside of whispers. After several seconds, he continued. "Ralph, Roger's huntersâ Some of them fought us, said that we weren't hunters no more. What if some of them come here?"
Ralph grunted. "Me and Eric'll go somewhere." He thought hard, mind going over what he remembered of the island. "There's a stream, not too far from here. One of the ones with the walls around it, and black sand. We'll be there with Petey."
The hunters nodded. "Alright, Ralph."
Then they were gone.
"Come on, Eric." The younger boy still had a haunted look in his eyes. He stared at Ralph and nodded, following the pale ex-Chief inside.
Roger's clearing was bustling with activity. Boys were cutting meat with rudimentary stone knives, then spitting them on sticks and putting them over two fires that were set in pits on opposite sides of the clearing. Some boys, little'uns, were dancing around the fires, singing and chanting. Roger watched them and was not satisfied. These were children, stupid children, who knew nothing of the darkness that was taking hold of the big'uns. They were innocent.
Roger turned to look into the darkness beyond the clearing's borders, where another shallow pit had been dug close to his "nest." Within the shadows was a pale smudge.
Innocence did not belong on this island.
