by Patricia Dexheimer

Created on: May 30, 2008   Last Updated: July 10, 2008

DAUGHTERS OF THE MOON

Excerpt from Chapter 28

Just as I reached the perimeter of the village I heard what sounded like the scream of a Jaguar in the distance. Eyes wide, ears alert, I whirled around, searching the denseness. The next muffled cry pierced my heart like the point of a spear. Feet taking flight, I raced to my hut and grabbed the knife hanging from a peg next to the door. The second my hand closed around the weapon I turned and began to run.

My breath came in short painful spurts as I raced over the sandy path back to the river. Just as I turned the bend I saw them. There were three in all. Two men, wearing nothing but shirts, were standing near the tree where I had been sitting a short time ago. When the taller man bent over to retrieve his jeans I saw what they had done.

Hanging by the neck, Nuito's face was dark blue. Her gaping mouth was open wide, and her eyes bulged with horror. There was a river of blood that ran from her body, which had been sliced almost in half. Her intestines spilled out, covering her legs to her feet, and the fetus, a baby girl, hung obscenely from her belly, and had turned the color of a piece of coal.

Over six-feet tall the third ugly monster, with his white belly exposed, rose above my beautiful daughter who lay crushed between his feet. He had greasy brown hair, and his bushy beard moved with his laughter.

The sounds that erupted from my throat were not human.

The two men that had slaughtered Nuito darted into the jungle like scared rabbits. As I sailed through the air the tall man turned, and I saw stark fear in his blue eyes as he stared into the face of death. Screaming, clawing, spitting, and kicking, I buried six inches of steel into his blubberous belly. Like a frenzied killer, I withdrew the blade and struck him again just above the heart. His cry was only a gurgle.

The deadly weapon became a part of me. My arm was like an automatic door that kept opening and closing. Hate, like poison, bubbled through my veins. Gasping, grunting, and screaming, I struck him over, and over until his body turned into a bloody mass of trembling jelly.
With the fatal blow I swiped the deadly blade deep across the left side of his neck, and a fountain of blood soaked my hair, my face, and ran into my mouth. Like a felled giant, he crumpled to his knees and fell face down into the river.

Too frightened to speak I scrambled to Katie's side and lifted her head to my chest. I looked at her bruised and swollen body, and my screams drove the

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