***DREAM***

Tom watched from his hiding place under a sand-covered rug as the smelly guy – Vol, that’s his name – waltzed into Tom’s house. A moment later faint smashing noises could be heard.

Tom was tempted to go in there and throw down right then and there, but a few things held him back.

Reason number one: none of it was real.

Reason two: Vol would probably win. Tom was a city slicker, and that estimate was before he included every Vith’s supernatural ability to boost physical strength and resilience.

Reason Three: The bastard probably hid his stuff somewhere, knowing Nema would start searching houses, starting with Vol’s, since the two were in a feud.

From what Tom could gather, anyway.

So when Vol emerged with a bulging sack over his shoulder and the blood-sword in his other hand, Tom simply watched and waited until the Vith was out of sight, then slipped out of his hiding spot.

Tom tracked the creep through the village until he got to the desert. After the last hut, there was simply no place that could hide someone as big as Tom, and the moment Vol looked backwards, Tom was screwed.

Tom quickly memorized the angle Vol was walking in relative to two of the nearby huts, then followed after him. He could always hope Vol didn’t look behind him.

No matter what happened, Tom would find out more if he followed the man than if he didn’t.

What he learned was not cool.

Vol appeared to not look behind him the entire trip out to his distant hideout, where a small hill formed a natural cave. Tom followed him inside, stopping for a moment to adjust to the stench of blood.

Inside the cave was half a dozen flayed animals of various sizes, with trophies of more on the wall. Normally Tom would be excited about the alien animals, but this was just…

It was definitely not hunting, or skinning them once they were dead. The ropes around their legs dug in deep to their legs, with blood welling around it. Signs the animals had struggled violently against their bonds.

Okaaay… so if crime dramas have taught me anything, we’ve got a baby serial killer on our hands. Now’s the time to just back away slowly, and ‘nope’ right out.

“Welcome Tom.” A voice said from behind him.

Ah, shit.

Tom spun to defend himself, but hunched over as he was inside the cave, he didn’t really have a chance.

Vol kicked him in the gut with the force of a mac truck, sending Tom shooting backwards, his head impacting against the rock multiple times and sending white light and stars to cloud his vision.

He then broke Tom’s jaw with a dismissive backhand.

The sensation of bone rubbing against bone inside his mouth sent shudders through Tom’s entire body while his hair stood on end.

While Tom was discombobulated, Vol wound scratchy fiber ropes around his wrists and began securing them to sturdy wooden posts embedded in the walls.

Tom was pretty sure Vol was monologueing at that point, but between the concussion and the language barrier, he could only make out a word in three.

“You know, I couldn’t do this to anyone in the village, no matter how much I’d like to. They would tap into their well and shatter their restraints in a matter of seconds, and then the village would hunt me down. I heard from Gunn that you might know a way to pull from another’s well. Shall we see if that’s the case?”

Tom took a moment to organize the man’s words as best he could, before giving up, since it was still gibberish.

“I’m hungry,” Tom said, in an attempt to demonstrate how bored he was with the entire situation. “See you tomorrow.”

Vol paused in the middle of pulling out torture implements, giving him a strange look.

“I don’t think that means what you think it means. Someone has had a bit of fun at your expense.”

Vol’s gaze turned distant and angry. A moment later he turned back to Tom, his face lighting up with the creepiest smile Tom had ever seen in person.

Okay. Time to hit the escape button.

Tom began twisting his neck hard, focusing on hypercontracting it and causing a cramp. Meanwhile he moved just a faint thread of his magic into the muscle. Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up wake u-

***AWAKE***

“Ow!” Tom hissed, rubbing his neck. He’d pioneered the Escape Button as a response to Carol’s threats to break his mind through torture.

It sure as hell came in handy today.

Tom opened his eyes and studied the room. The broken shelves and table had been repaired last night after they showed the mess to the chief. When Nema saw his magic ratchet magically putting things back together, she had immediately stopped him before pulling him out to the gazebo and summoning half the village to watch in awe as he fused wood and stone back into a single whole.

Clever girl.

That was something Tom could do that was more valuable than grinding grain, and didn’t make anyone particularly angry at him.

Well, except for Vol, who looked pissed. And now Tom understood why. Tom had more magical mojo than Vol. Magical mojo was the determining factor of who should be the village ‘Etsuken’. Some kind of shaman or medicine man.

His social value was also growing. After the ‘great repairing’, several young women tried to feed him, but they withered under Nema’s glare.

Speaking of Nema…Tom thought, glancing under the covers.

The young woman was sleeping under the covers with him, using Tom as a body pillow. She was also one hundred percent naked, wrapped around him like a koala. He could feel the heat flowing back and forth between them as the warmest parts of their bodies pressed together, staving off the chill of the freezing night.

Between being awake and dreaming, Tom had actually been in the village for a little over a month, rather than simply two weeks, and he spent every night gossiping as much as possible to strengthen his Vith.

Of course it was laughably easy to find out more about Nema. It took a lot of halting conversation and pantomiming, but the women humored him.

Nema was, in crude terms, considered ‘the village bicycle’. Tom was absolutely sure there was more to the story, though. When he pried further, he learned that she’d courted four men before him and it hadn’t worked out with each of them, through bad luck, bad timing, or rival girls, she’d been cut loose each time. None of it had been her fault, but it had left her with something of a stigma.

Tom knew how vastly inaccurate gossip was, so he boiled it down to the simplest aspects that he could verify with his own observations:

Nema was risk tolerant, had an oral fixation, got intense sexual gratification from making her partner happy, and a strong attraction to the male form specifically.

You do the math.

Tom glanced toward the curtain separating them from the cold air outside. The dim light that was beginning to gather around the seams of the curtain indicated it would be dawn soon. Almost time to get up and prepare for the day.

Now how am I gonna entrap Vol? Tom thought, glancing back down. That guy’s gotta be removed from the equation ASAP. He’s a freaking baby serial killer, and I’ve gotta figure something out right NOW.

Tom adjusted, getting ready to get up for the day, and in the dim light, he spotted Nema’s eyes blink open.

“Good morning,” She said in Vith, giving his waist a full-body hug. “Can I help with this?”

A light touch fluttered against him, sending a burst of tingles through his entire body, more than if she’d simply grabbed him. A moment later, she began kissing and licking his chest, creating a constant stream of tingling feedback that swirled through his head.

He saw her hips rise into the air, the covers conforming to her feminine curves as she gradually worked her way deeper under the covers.

Her generous lips drifted over his clavicle, his chest, his ribs, his stomach, his belly button…

You know what? I’m feeling nice. I’ll give the psycho an extra…half an hour before I take him down. Tom involuntarily clenched his fists as Nema’s lips found what they were looking for, her raised hips twitching in vicarious pleasure.

Give or take.

***One Hour Later, Give or Take***

“Thanks for walk with me,” Tom said in broken Vith. “I from place very good walk make…happy?” Tom struggled to string the few words he had memorized into sentences people could understand.

“Of course,” the chief said. “It’s an honor to learn more about your foreign customs. Although walking in and of itself doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. I admit it is refreshing to walk for no other reason than to chat in private.”

“Just ask him about the gold discs already, sun bleach it.” Gunn said from the side of their line, peering past Nema at Tom suspiciously.

Vol was quiet, but he grew paler and paler as Tom led the chatting group of village leaders on their ‘health walk’.

Naturally a health walk is a fat American concept, because hunter-gatherers get more than enough exercise in a day, so there was actually no tangible benefit for any of them. The tangible benefit was Tom’s.

First thing in the morning after…breakfast, Tom had explained his plan to Nema as best he could in his broken Vith. She hadn’t been able to make heads or tails of it until he showed her the cave of horrors.

She had looked horrified and disgusted until he pointed out his blood sword embedded in the stone wall and the truck’s mirrors, and said a single word:

Vol.

After that, she got the idea pretty quick.

“Wow, look at that cool rock formation over there, I wonder if it has a cave?” Nema said, her voice oozing innocent curiosity as she pointed at the cave of horrors.

“You want go there?” Tom asked, acting as best he could. If his acting revealed his intentions, hopefully the language barrier would conceal them.

“No!” Vol shouted, and everyone craned their necks to look at the youngest leader in the village. His eyes swam as he tried to come up with a reason.

“There could be a dangerous animal in there. It’s not safe to approach.”

“Didn’t Elder Gunn insist we bring half a dozen warriors specifically to protect us?” Nema asked.

“He did,” one of the warriors chimed in, looking exceedingly bored. Vith warriors were on average, five foot eight, and covered in scars and lean muscle. While they weren’t tall, they were at the peak of natural human fitness, and possessed a deeper well than most civilians.

“Are we just doing everything the comfort woman wants now?” Vol said with a sneer.

“Don’t worry, Vol, I’m sure if there were a dangerous animal hanging around, Tom would protect me.” Nema said, prancing toward the cave.

The chief scratched his head, watching Nema in confusion, but Elder Gunn’s eyes were fixed on Vol.

Vol’s eyes widened as he glanced between Nema, Tom, and the cave. Tom saw the moment the lightbulb blinked on in his head, and he realized it was a setup.

There was a momentary snarl before all emotion was stuffed behind a mask of indifference.

That’s gonna make things harder. Tom thought, scowling. Psychopaths are really good at lying, and since we can’t catch him in his cave torturing animals, we’ll have no irrefutable evidence it’s Vol’s fun-room.

Tom was fairly sure it couldn’t blow back in his face, though. Some of the corpses in there had been there for a lot longer than two weeks. Tom counted the seconds as nema disappeared inside the cave, a warrior chasing behind her with a long-suffering groan.

3, 2, 1

As expected, there was a shriek echoing from the cave entrance as Nema ‘discovered’ the tortured animals.

Tom put on his ‘concerned’ face and joined the other warriors in chasing after her.

They spotted Nema, pale and shaking, in the entrance of the cave, staring at the horror show beyond. Girl can act.

Tom clasped her to his chest, patting her back as she broke into sobs while the other warriors gawked at the butchery.

None of the villagers were strangers to dead, flayed animals. They lived with it every day, after all. No, it was the signs of deliberate cruelty that turned their stomachs. The stench of rotting blood that hadn’t been cleaned afterward, and beneath that, the faintest body odor of someone who hadn’t been able to get their clothes washed for half a month.

Tom was only able to put it together because he already knew where the smell was coming from, so he didn’t expect the Vith to register the faint scent consciously.

“What madness is this?” The chief demanded, poking his head into the cave as the warriors moved out to give him space to enter. Like the others, he turned a little green around the gills, not wanting anything to do with the contents of the cave.

“Wait a moment,” Nema said, peeking from around Tom’s waist. “There’s some of Tom’s possessions!” She pointed at the missing truck mirrors.

“Are you saying Tom did this?” Gunn asked, looking almost eager.

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Vol said. “He was the one who led us here, after all. Nobody’s found this before, either.”

Tom didn’t know what Vol was saying, but it sounded shifty.

“No, look at this trophy.” Nema said, pointing to a skull that was bleached white and resting on a rock. There were gauge marks around the eye sockets. “It takes months for the desert to wash away all the flesh.”

Gunn seemed disappointed, but he nodded in agreement. “Yes, between his time spent working the mill and Nema, the foreigner hasn’t had enough free time to do something like this. This must be someone who’s lived in the village for a while.”

Vol’s mask of neutrality slammed back into place.

“And this person must have been the one who stole Tom’s things.” Nema said, pulling the blood-sword out of the wall.

They didn’t accuse Vol. That would give the psycho ammunition. What they did was give the man plenty of rope to hang himself with.

“What kind of horrible wounds this unfortunate soul must carry inside them.” Nema said, her tone saccharine stage-sympathetic. The tone felt genuine to the layman, but to Tom and the subject, it would sound condescending and fake.

She continued, tears welling in her eyes.

“I can only imagine how much they were abused as a child. Raped by an older man maybe? Betrayed by their mother? Maybe this is what they do to make themselves feel powerful. In Control.”

Nema used the vague tidbits Tom knew about the formation of serial killers and ran with it, really hamming it up.

Vol had been slowly reddening as Nema poked at his childhood, his dark skin taking on the faintest tinge of crimson as he appeared to boil over.

“Just say it! Just accuse me! You’re just acting like a deceitful whore to gain these people’s sympathy! Then you’ll try to turn them against me, the one who doesn’t fit in, all because you can’t stand me! How long have you been planning this, you bitch!?”

And there’s the noose.

The nearby warriors focused their full attention on Vol. Elder Gunn’s eyes narrowed.

Vol’s mask was slowly wrenched back onto his face, but it took effort. His snarling lips slowly slid back down his teeth to conceal his vitriol. It was too late, though. Everyone had seen it.

Now all Tom had to do was wait for nature to take its course.

“Now, now!” The Chief said, stepping between Vol and everyone else with a big, fake grin on his face. “Let’s take this walk back to the village so we can have a talk about what to do about this,” He motioned to the cave. “We’ll see if we can figure out who’s responsible for wasting meat and thieving Tom’s effects. Mark my words. Vol, why don’t you go back to the village and let them know about the mess here?”

Vol nodded and left while Tom watched his well-orchestrated ambush get torn apart. The chief distracted everyone from the ‘moment’ they had just experienced, giving them meaningless tasks to divert their attention.

“What the hell just happened?” Tom whispered in English. Nema might not have understood the language, but she knew what he was saying, and she enlightened him.

“Vol is maybe Chief’s son.” Nema said with a sour face. Tom guessed the last word through context.

Fuuuck. Nepotism just screwed over our ambush. Tom’s ignorance of that dynamic had sunk his ship.

“Vol is going to strike back at us now,” Nema whispered.

“Yeeah. That cinches it. I’m making an undead bodyguard.” Tom muttered to himself.

Kid’s gloves are coming off.