Page 518 of Chaos has a Name
Wyler kept walking, and Lance was silent beside him since he was still gagged.
“Why are you eating them?” he asked.
Tom didn’t mind sharing the information. After all, it wasn’t like they’d live to tell anyone.
“Well, honestly, we didn’t at first. Only, when we ended up killing my useless son, Stephen, as one of the victims, the boys were curious. I’ve tasted human flesh, and it’s meh. They liked it though. They killed their brother, and to take on his spirit, they consumed him.”
Well, that explained where the man’s third son was. They could have kept this going had Lance’s daughter not found the clothing and bones.
Wyler hoped someone found him so he could be laid to rest with his father and first wife.
William has his gun.
“We don’t waste what is killed,” William Redbear said. “Plus, our brother couldn’t keep his mouth shut. We could have madeThe Hollowpleased.”
Tom smiled at them.
“You did please me, my boy.”
Then, he focused on Wyler.
“They are a father’s true joy,” he admitted. “They might not be from my body, but they come back to see me. I lied to your daughter. I never ever leave,” he said. “My spirit is here forever, but your‘smart’daughter-in-law never realized that I can lie with the best of them. I have been for ages. Now, you two know who we are, whoThe Hollowis, and that means you have to die. I’m The Hollow, Wyler. When I die, they will be. They pleased me, as usual.”
The two boys were grinning wildly.
This whole thing was insane.
Wyler realized this man was out of his mind, and so were his two sons.
“The Hollowisn’t a thing,” Wyler said.
Tom corrected him.
“Over one hundred years ago, my great-grandfather found a way to offer a sacrifice to the Wendigo. Another Native traveling through with white men who hired him as a tracker told them about it. From that day on,The Hollowwas born. It’s not them, it’s me,” Tom admitted. “Like I just told you, when I die, one of them will be the newHollow. We are empty inside until we fill ourselves with Native spirits. We’re the container, and our duty is to do what is needed to protect our people.”
Yep.
He was all kinds of nutters.
“I can’t do this much longer. I’m glad my wife had sons from other relationships. She got pregnant by brothers. No one knows that. Everyone thinks they are biologically mine, but I can’t have children. I’ve never been able to. So, William and Josh became the ones I would call my own. They learned so our family can continue its duty to the reservation and Wendigo. If they don’t, it ends with me.”
When Wyler came to a halt again, the son with the gun in his back, shoved him.
The other had an ugly knife in his hand near Lance’s throat.
“How could you kill your other son?” Wyler asked. “How, Tom?”
He shrugged.
“On top of his drug usage, when I told him I would make him clean up, he threatened to go to the reservation police when he found out what we do. I never included him becausehe was weak. He didn’t like what we were doing. What we were doing was saving the reservation. He dared to say I defiled our heritage. Me! Can you imagine?”
Lance said something into the gag, and Tom stared at him.
“You are being chosen since you caused this mess. You shouldn’t have let your daughter go to the FBI,” Tom admitted. “You’d both be living if everyone turned a blind eye to this. The ground was fertile, and the hunting plentiful. It worked. It was the meddling that caused this. I had to handle it once before, and I did again.”
Tom’s DNA, and his wife’s were clearly passing down mental illness along with a sense of twisted ideologies.
This was a cult.
