The Horrors on Blood Mountain Part 2

A hard-hitting and stoic hero finds a woman on the side of the road dying and begging him to save her daughter, but is there more to the task than being a hero?

*Warning graphic language*

Abel opens the door to the tiny bedroom where he found a sacred fifteen-year-old girl tied on the bed. The four men who had raped and killed the girl’s mother laid dead in the other room. One of them painted the white snow outside in a pool of his blood, and all their souls racing to the fiery pits of Hell. But the girl couldn’t see what had happened, all she could do was hear the violent raging outside. The shotgun blast had deafened the world until the screaming from the oldest brother brought everything back, and then it went still.

                Abel cut the ropes from the girl's wrists and legs, stepping back from her. “Get up,” he ordered, and the blonde hair girl with green eyes and a sweet doll face sat up. Nothing seems to be wrong with her other than the rope burns and the wounds hidden under her moonflower skin. She slowly turned to look at Abel.

                “Who are you?” She asked, oddly calm.

                “Abel Solomon,” he growled.

                “Did one of the New York families send you?” She asked.

                “No,” Abel shook his head. “What is your name, child?”

                “Emma, Emma Ar - “but she didn’t let the last name come forth. “Just call me, Emma.”

                “We need to go before more of them show up,” Abel said, stepping towards her reaching for her arm, but she pulled away from him. Abel stopped following her eyes to the knife in his hand still dripping with blood. He sighed cleaning the blade off on the bed putting it back under his coat.

                “Ma’am, I’m not here to hurt you,” he told her, trying to soften his rough voice. “I’m just here to save you. Now let get going.”

                “Are you the law?” Emma asked, slowly crawling off the bed.

                “No, ma’am,” Abel said, watching her and then nodded at the coat against the floor. “It’s cold out there, you are going to need that.”

                Emma stared at it, seeing the dried blood on the brown coat from her mother. They were racing away from his mad father, trying to get out of the life, when her father, Jackson Arkansas, sends his men to get her back and make her mother paid for running off. There was only one way out of the family -death.

                Emma’s mother got out in the more brutally way possible. They made Emma watch even when they shot her in the back, letting her die slowly. She kicked Charles’s body on the way of the cabin wishing she could have cut his throat herself.

                “Who are you?” Emma asked, standing on the porch of the cabin in the middle of the night watching the snowfall.

                Abel sighed, keeping the shadow of his hat hiding his eyes. “I found your mother on the side of the road,” he said, “and she asked me to save you.”

                Emma fought back the tears stepping back from him.

                “I give her my word I would get you to her brother’s house,” Abel said, grabbing her arm, “and I am a man of word. Now let’s go.”

                They both dashed from the porch racing into the dark woods with the snow breaking under their boots, but headlights from cars lite up the path to the cabin. It seems to be six cars climbing up the hill to the bodies waiting for Arkansas’s men.

                “Is that my dad?” Emma gasped.

                “I guess so and with a lot of firepower,” Abel said pushing her behind a tree and forcing them to kneel. Abel watched the men in hundred dollars suits sporting Tommy guns along rifles pouring out of the cars. They all ran into the cabin and then came rushing back out quickly.

                A man, tall with a dark beard cut cleanly against his face and a scar dancing down from his right eye snarled at the men standing around. He wore his teach coat over his shoulders and started to shout for the men to search the woods. Any of the killers would know their men had only died moments ago.

                “Stay on my heels,” Abel whispered, “unless you want to go back to dear old dad.”

                “No, I’m never going back to that monster,” Emma whispered.

                He turned from the tree, keeping low and rushing down the hill, not too fast, but faster than the hunters on his tail. If they ran too fast, the snow would give them away, or one of them would lose their footing, and he could afford the mistake. His car had been parked down the hill, a good bit from the cabin, but close enough to where they could get away in a flash.

                Hopefully, the snowfall would keep their footprints hidden.

And then Abel stopped dead in his tracks forcing Emma to run into him. She didn’t move him one bit. “What is the matter?” She asked, rubbing her head from hitting his back, which felt more like nailing a wall.

                “They found my car,” Abel hissed. Emma looked over his massive shoulder to the beat-up 1933 Pontiac to see two men leaning against it holding hunting rifle and smoking in the cold.

                “What do we do?” She asked.

                “Stay here,” Abel ordered, “and don’t make a sound, you understand me?”

                “Yes, sir.”

                Emma watched this man step into the shadows of the night and blending into the darkness like it was a cloak. She lost him for a long time until he got up behind one of the men at his car. He grabbed the man by the neck throwing a knife into the other man and then bashing the other’s man head into the side of the car. He dropped the body waving for Emma to join him.

                She moved and then stopped looking around. She could flee into the woods, get to a small town, maybe, find a bus, and get to Uncle Remy. The man dropped his hand staring right at her and then, in a quick movement picked up one of the rifles. He pointed it dead at Emma, she screamed, but the gunshot beat out her cries of fear as the man behind her collapsed dead to the ground. She rolled from her spot, seeing the man, one of her father’s hitmen, dead on the forest’s floor.

                “Are you coming?” Abel asked, tossing the rifle into his car and jumping into the diver seat. Emma wasted no time jumping into the passage seat of the car, watching a few shouts come from above the hill trying to get to where they hear the gunshot.

Author's Note

I came up with Abel Solomon after reading Solomon Kane and looking into the Question a bit. I wanted a hero who was very black and white in his moral code while at the same time quick to action. Abel will react without thinking in almost all situations, the cost of those actions might come back to bite him. This story was simply me getting to know Abel and seeing how I could write for him. It took me a bit longer to get to the end because I’m trying to move quickly in these stories, but I think you’ll enjoy it.

Reviews

[Christoph]

I did, in fact, enjoy it.

It's paced very well, and the characters act rationally, for the most part. Emma is a bit hard to understand for me, but we can chalk that up to mystery, something we might find out later.

The story is more about Abel, anyway. I think you succeeded in creating a character that is very active, decisive. It can be difficult to write a character who is sure of himself, but you've placed a wealth of conflict all around him. Good.

As for criticism, all of mine would be focused on mistakes in grammar, punctuation and tense.

There are a few problems with punctuation, like "Abel stopped following her eyes to the knife in his hand", which reads is if he had been following her eyes previously, but no longer.

"Emma fought back the tears stepping back from him" is a similar example. I know what you mean, but this technically says that the tears are stepping back, not Emma, and it takes the reader out of the story when they have to work to parse the text.

For an example of a tense issue, where you switch from past to present tense mid-sentence: "They were racing away from his mad father, trying to get out of the life, when her father, Jackson Arkansas, sends his men to get her back and make her mother paid for running off."

I'm not sure that you're really looking for this sort of feedback, since you did say you're moving quickly and just getting ideas down on the page. It's easy stuff to fix.

Overall, yeah, enjoyed it.

Also, "moonflower skin" is a surprisingly effective description.

[CLCurrie]

Thank you so much for the comment and I'm glad you enjoy it. I normally dread seeing a comment left on my work here because most the time it seem people are just trying to tear you down, but thanks for being kind in your criticism. They are fair and to the point and is something I'm working on. I struggle with dyslexia which can make it hard to see some grammar, punctuation and tense errors, but it is something I'm active working on getting better at.

Again, thanks.