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Rennae's Tale

Chapter One

© Cederwyn Whitefurr

25th July, 2019

All Rights Reserved

Rennae's car skid on the gravel of the driveway, all four wheels locked and sent plumes of gravel and dust flying from the wheels as it threatened to tip, so sudden was her braking. Leaping from the car, she fumbled with the padlock to the gate, her worst fears becoming a reality as she sniffed once; the unmistakable fragrance of burning timber, as subtle as a touch from a feather, caressed her nostrils.

With desperation, Rennae tore the padlock open and threw it to the gravel driveway before attacking the thick chain that held the mesh gate shut. Tears streaked down her pale cheeks, as the scent of smoke grew stronger and stronger. Finally, the chain clattered loose of the gate and Rennae violently threw it open, before rushing back to her car and slamming the door closed.

Rennae floored the accelerator, a thick rooster-tail of dust, dirt, and small stones ricocheting of the mudguards of her car. The car fishtailed up the camphor-laurel lined driveway, the dappling shadows from the thick trees making Rennae squint her eyes as she tried to focus.

Without thought or even conscious reasoning, Rennae placed a hand on the passenger seat, instinctively clasping the pistol that lay there. Her fingers closed about the pistol, and fresh tears began to streak down her cheeks. Instinctively, she knew she was too late. Something inside her cried out with wordless grief, knowing everything she had ever known, her family, her friends, all of them...

Sliding to a violent halt, Rennae stared through tear streaked brown eyes at the scene before her. Where once a beautiful high-set farmhouse had stood for over a hundred and thirty-five years was nothing but smoking ashes and charred timers. Her eyes snapping to the right, Rennae uttered a low, moaning cry as the full horror of what she was witnessing, struck her between the eyes like a hammer. Where the large shed had stood, for almost as long as the house, also was nothing but charred timbers and smoking ashes...

"No..." Rennae moaned, as she stumbled from the car, her face as white as the uncaring clouds above her raven-black haired head. "No...they...they can't be..."

Rennae's will shattered like fine crystal, and she fled towards the barn, screaming names of her loved ones and friends before she saw the blackened chains that had locked the barn doors closed, trapping whatever had been inside to a death beyond anything one could imagine.

Even now, the stink of petrol lay all around; and it didn't take much to see a few buckled and blackened Jerry-cans near the edges of the shed, the sight nearly driving Rennae mad with grief. Here and there, a human-arm poked through the splintered barn walls - in other places, the charred remains of... something, still lay where it had fallen. Its twisted, charcoal-like remains contorted in some agonising pain, a few wafts of smoke still curling from its almost carbonised remains.

Rennae become a mindless automaton, moving slowly from one charred body to the next. Some were human, like herself. A few, having somehow escaped the conflagration that had engulfed the shed, lay face down, pools of sticky blood surrounding them. It didn't take a medical practitioner to see the holes in their backs where they had been shot whilst trying to escape being burned alive.

Other corpses were animals, their bodies so blackened and charred they were beyond recognition. Some were vaguely human-like, but only by the longest of stares could their forms be even vaguely recognised.

Rennae screamed in growing grief and rage, sickened by the horrors she witnessed: innocent animals. One, she saw, lay with its charred muzzle showing the snarl of agony on its blackened and charred lips. Others gunned down, shot in the back as they had fled, screaming and terrified in all directions, their lifeless bodies lying sprawled where they had fallen. Some had tried to crawl away and been mercilessly shot at point blank range or bludgeoned to death by whoever had burned this farm to the ground and murdered the inhabitants and their companions.

Grief built upon a white-hot rage inside Rennae's body before she collapsed to her knees, throwing back her head and uttering a shriek of pure, unimagined anguish. Her life as she knew it had been taken from her in a night of blood, violence, and death.

*

Rennae buried those she could. Others whose remains crumbled to carbonised ashes when she tried to move them, she bowed her head and uttered a silent prayer for their spirits to find peace in the afterlife. All in all, thirty-two freshly dug graves lay side by side. Thirty-two out of the ninety-four souls who had gathered here three nights ago. Gathered to celebrate Selena's coming of age ceremony.

Exhausted, sickened, and wracked with guilt and grief, Rennae dropped the shovel she had used to bury the dead and with fresh tears coursing down her cheeks, screamed and fled to the south. She headed for a thicket of camphor-laurel trees where she knew her fondest memories lay.

After her exertions, Rennae staggered into the thicket, her lungs screaming and a painful stitch burning her right side, before she became aware of a low, gurgling moan from deeper in the thicket. Her hand immediately closed on the pistol hidden in her waistband. She flicked the safety off before freezing as the weak cry come again, noticing the blood trail that led deeper into the dimly lit grove.

Sliding the pistol free, she clutched it in a tight grip keeping the barrel down at a 45 degree angle as she knelt on one knee and touched the blood. It was tacky so it wasn't fresh. Again that low, gasping moan called to her, and Rennae bit her lip, before brushing past some thin bushes, uttering a low cry herself as she saw the blood which had dappled the leaves a faint crimson. As she closed in on the creek, the cries became louder and louder before resolving themselves into a twitching figure bound to the trunk of a camphor-laurel tree with what looked like dozens and dozens of metres of rusty barbed wire.

Rennae gasped, the pistol falling from her nerveless fingers as her eyes took in the ghastly sight. A young anthropomorphic whitetail doe had been cruelly tortured. It was beyond cruel. Nothing Rennae could think of could describe what her eyes showed her.

This poor doe's body had been cut with razor sharp knives, stabbed dozens of times, and her blood soaked through her fur making it almost impossible to see her natural beautiful fur colours. Her paws had been crossed one over the other and a long nail had been hammered through fur and flesh so she hung from them, her cloven hooves about six inches above the torn and blood-spattered ground.

Her back was hard against the bark of the Camphor Laurel tree. Lengths of rusty barbed wire had been wrapped around her neck, chest, belly and each hind leg, then cruelly twisted until they cut deep into the fur and flesh and bound behind the tree. How the barbed wire which was buried in the doe's throat hadn't severed her arteries or windpipe Rennae didn't know. It was a miracle this poor, tortured whitetail still lived. A weak, gasping croak come from the doe's lips before she squeezed her eyes closed and a tremor ran through her tortured, violated body.

Rennae was speechless at realisation of what had been done to this Doe. Rennae was no veterinarian, but she saw the deep slashes, stab wounds and worse, only imagining what terrible injuries this doe had endured.

Sickened, Rennae began to sob heart-brokenly, as she realised by the markings, who this doe was. It was one of her closest friends. This poor doe had been brutally sexually violated, that much was evident from the glistening semen that still clung to her thighs and lower belly, even over her udder.

"Oh, you sick, twisted fucking bastards!" Rennae moaned. "This was only a youngster, she had barely developed into a young, beautiful woman!"

Nausea clawing at her, noticing the blood lathering her belly and groin, Rennae's horror grew worse, as she realised this doe had been a maiden. She was too young to breed, only eight months old, yet those who had done this were the vilest of the vile. They were monsters, capturing then torturing this poor doe before more than one, at a guess, took their perverted sexual pleasures with her.

Again the doe struggled to utter a cry that would encapsulate the fear, agony, and suffering she had endured, but again nothing came forth from her body except a gagging cough, blood flecking her lips.

"No..." Rennae wept, placing her hands either side of the doe's muzzle and staring into her eyes. "Damn you Selena! Don't you dare die on me!"

Convulsing against the barbed wire, Selena gagged and shook wildly before she uttered a choking gurgle, then her body went limp.

Rennae screamed, pounding the doe's chest with her hands as if that would bring her back. "No...no...you can't...you can't die...you hear me...you can't!"

*

For over three hours, Rennae lay curled in the fetal position at the doe's feet. The blood, sickening sight, and smell of human males semen, all of it, made Rennae convulse and writhe before she rolled away, oblivious to the blood that coated her clothing. She gave three sharp convulsive retches and began vomiting helplessly.

*

When her grief had exhausted itself, Rennae returned to her car, rummaging through the boot before she found a small hammer then returned to the creek and the lifeless corpse that hung like some sick, twisted, and broken puppet.

Summoning strength she never knew she had, Rennae fought to free Selena's corpse but the wire held tight. Rennae tore and ripped at it with her hands until they looked like she had put them through a meat mincer. Finally, the twisted wire frayed and snapped, the corpse falling to the ground.

It was almost dark when Rennae finally finished, wiping her bloodied hands across her forehead, oblivious to the streaks it left on her lilly-white skin. Rennae found the shovel she had used to bury the others, before digging a grave and laying Selena's corpse to rest.

"You were my favourite..." Rennae sobbed, speaking from the very depths of her heart. "You loved me and you died for what? All of you...why? What did we do Selena? How did they come to find us? After all these decades? Had we not been careful...had we not guarded ourselves... had we not done all we could, to live in peace?"

Rennae slowly rose from the torn and bloodied ground, a new resolve filling her body. To say she was driven by the horrors and unimagined pain and agony of her friends and her family was an understatement. She had no words, just an incurable and unquenchable urge to find those who had committed this atrocity. When she did, she would hunt them one by one and visit upon them fear and suffering beyond their worst nightmares before they were given the chance to die.

*

Rennae drove along the gravel road, her emotions overwhelmed. She did not know who had burned down her family home and murdered her friends, her family, her pets. Rennae prayed to the spirits of her ancestors. It was a heartfelt prayer that those who perished on this farmstead would find peace in death, free from the pain and agony they had endured. Next, she swore an oath to the spirits of her bloodline going back thousands of generations.

I, Rennae Blacktail, do hereby swear I will find those who committed such aggression and suffering to my kind - they shall find no rest, no solace and no peace. May their dreams be haunted by that which they done! May the spirits of those they tortured and murdered haunt their waking dreams! They will know the fear and the agony they bestowed upon us - for only then - shall I come to hunt those who hunted my people - and I shall extract their righteous vengeance.

*

Glancing down at the floor, Rennae took her eyes off the road for just a second - as she hid the pistol back into its holster, and set the holster beneath the seat.

In those precious few seconds, Rennae's life would change forever. She heard a loud horn blast and her head snapped up. There was the screeching of locked brakes but the speed and angle were too great and Rennae had a second to react before the car broadsided her own. There was the crunch of twisting metal and the tinkle as glass exploded. Rennae's car slammed sideways into the roadside ditch.

With a scream she felt her right arm snap before her neck whip-lashed from side to side and her head smacked solidly against the windscreen stanchion. It happened in seconds, but to Rennae, it felt like an eternity.

Rennae tried to scream in terror and pain while the world whirled and twisted. Her car began to roll, the roof crushing down on her and darkness rushed into her mind like a hammer as her consciousness fled the traumatic accident.

*

Fragments of vision...

Voices, indistinct...

Sounds of tearing metal...

Rennae gurgled, blood filling her mouth and throat, as a human hand, clad in a latex glove touched her shoulder.

"She's alive - barely!" Come a masculine voice, almost drowned out by the screech of metal as something bit through the door frame.

Consciousness fled her again, plunging her back into blessed relief from the agony of her injuries.

Again, reluctantly, Rennae was brought back. The agony making her try to scream but only a weak moan come from her throat. Hands moved her delicately as she was placed on something firm but giving.

Gloved hands touched her here, there, somewhere, everywhere. it felt like agony and she struggled to push them away. A mask was slipped over her face, before her nostrils were filled with the smell of a strange gas.

"Breathe slowly - " Come a female voice, as the mask was held to her face. Rennae weakly lifted a hand, trying to pull it away.

"No..." Rennae murmured, more dazed and in shock than any chance of sentient thought and thinking. "No...don't...don't put me...put me under..."

"Shhh..please...breathe..." Whispered the woman, swimming into Rennae's blurred vision. "It's alright, we're taking you to hospital!"

"No-- " Rennae gasped. "You...don't...please!" Rennae gurgled, then took another breath and her eyes flickered as the gas began to calm and soothe her..

Barely conscious, Rennae was lifted and loaded into the Ambulance by the two officers.

"You're the lucky one," whispered the woman as she climbed in beside Rennae and started hooking her up to machines. "The other driver wasn't so lucky..."

*

Rennae murmured something, as a needle was slid into her upper arm and in moments, she lapsed into a deep, drug induced unconscious state.

*

Rushed into the Emergency Department, Rennae was heavily sedated. The Doctors and Nurses cleaned, disinfected and checked the wounds. They were surprised, due to the speed and nature of the crash, that Rennae's injuries weren't far worse from initial examination.

They intubated her, her eyelids were taped shut and numerous instruments and their leads attached to her body, like she was some half-constructed robot.

"Doctor...I - " Whispered a Nurse, her forehead creasing. "This..this can't be right - body temperature is forty-six point nine..."

"Impossible - " Snapped the Doctor, as he took a tool from another Nurse and washed away the dirt and loose gravel that had embedded itself in the deep wounds. "You're reading it wrong - "

"Heart rate is up too - " Another commented, checking monitors and double-checking. "Doctor..."

"I know damn it - I know! Sponge...quickly now - she's going to go into full cardiac arrest..."

*

Rennae reluctantly returned to consciousness, finding herself laying in a soft bed with a warm blanket covering her. Without warning, sickening bile rushed up her throat threatening to choke her. As he struggled to turn her head, Rennae felt a cold bowl placed on her chest. Unable to help herself, Rennae began vomiting.

Again and again she retched and vomited, a sickly green mucus being wrenched from her body before she collapsed limply back onto the hospital bed. Sweat soaking her body and violent convulsions making her writhe helplessly.

Once again, those hands gently held her down, until the convulsions eased, and a straw was held to her mouth. Gratefully, Rennae took a few long slurps from the straw before a new bowl was placed under her chin and she washed her mouth out. Taking it away, the young male Nurse nodded and offered her the straw again. This time, Rennae took a few more sips before he smiled and took it away.

"Not too much just yet," He spoke quietly to her. "You've had a terrible trauma, and the anaesthetic seems to have hit you hard."

Her eyes flickered open and she squeezed them tightly closed again before she felt a cold, wet cloth draped over her forehead and eyes.

"Shhh - " Come the Nurses voice again. "Its alright...you're back in the ward. Just...just take it easy. You've come through some pretty rough surgery. You'll be disoriented, nauseous and..."

Again, Rennae began gagging and the bowl was once again held to her chin, her unseen assistant rolling her over and tenderly patting her back comfortingly. This time, Rennae didn't vomit, only began dry retching; her throat convulsing each time as her empty stomach tried to purge things which weren't there.

"Hey!" Whispered the man, as he tenderly stroked her back soothingly. "Hey...it'll be alright - you just lie back...that's it...easy...you'll be fine...a few days for your blood work results and..."

Rennae snapped bolt upright in bed, her hand flashing out and grasping the man by the collar, before she stared horrified into his eyes, then a great convulsion seized her and she crumpled bonelessly back onto the bed, unconscious.

To Be Continued...