Free Primal Scream by Michael Slade

flight, judging the elevation required to hit the target by instinct, and relaxed his fingers to let loose the shot. The slingshot effect of the bow "picked up" the peak weight stored in both cams and hurled the arrow at the naked man.
    Shhhhewwww . . .
    Frozen to his soul by the terror of the moment, Cy Flint could not believe this was happening to him. Arms churning and legs struggling through the freezing snow, his face flushed from this desperate trudging away from certain death, his teeth chattering from stark fear and hypothermia, his breath gasping raggedly like a whipped dog's, he knew he must keep moving moving moving on, as only the dead and the earth could remain fixed in this white hell.
    Shhhhewwww . . .
    Cyrus Flint was one of Seattle's cultural elite, a nature artist whose overpriced prints graced mantels of Yups and Boomers from coast to coast, his Polar Bears and White Wolf at Dawn commissioned by the first lady for the White House. When Cy heard Disney had airlifted a log cabin here to film King of the Mountain in Canada this spring, leaving it for several months to weather a Skeena winter, he'd offered to paint the promotion bill in exchange for two months of bush work alone until the film crew arrived.
    Helicoptered in yesterday with all his supplies, a detour required because the Mounties had imposed no-fly restrictions around Totem Lake, Cy had spent the afternoon sketching wolves that wandered across the plateau, before snuggling in for the night with a snifter of brandy by the fire.
    A fire requiring wood to see him cozy through till dawn.
    So, before retiring, Cy had poked his head outside to grab some maple rounds, and that's when— crack! — a fire log smashed down on his skull. When Cy came to, he found himself crucified naked to the floor, paints from his art supplies used to smear a Catholic cross on wood planks near the fire, spikes hammered into the floor at the tips of both cross arms, Cy's arms stretched out and wrists tied to the spikes, wondering vaguely why he was facedown instead of faceup, until hands behind grabbed his hips and raised his butt in the air, hands so large the palms covered the spread of both cheeks, as fingers curled underneath to meet above his groin, while thumbs flanking his anus . . .
    Cy screamed . . .
    And cried . . .
    And screamed again.
    If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one to hear, does it make a sound?
    All Cy could think about was Deliverance , with him in the role of Ned Beatty which firelight played out on the walls, Cy grasping he'd fallen into the clutches of some mad Canadian hillbilly or worse, oh God, he wished he'd stayed in the civilized States, this shadow play a horror the imagination saves for godforsaken times like this, the shadow behind riding Cy's rump as it wrenched on the reins of his hair and cursed, "Take it, Reverend," between grunts.
    All night long.
    Rape on rape.
    Until Cy was cut free and shoved out into the snow with the cryptic warning, "Run for your life. May Saint Sebastian be with you."
    Shhhhewwww . . .
    The arrow streaked into the evergreens whitened by snow, zipping over Cy's tracks like some cruise missile reading the terrain, the broadhead winking as it passed from sun to shadow to sun, the shaft gone stealth where cam kept the sun from splashing off, then Shhhhewwww . . . Thhhunk! it sliced through Cy's arm and pinned him to a bare-limbed tree.
    His gasp was quick and sharp.
    Blood crisscrossed the snow as he struggled to rip free, an ordeal as arduous as the sundance performed at Totem Lake, this thrashing that which seizes a man when life is in the act, then Thhhunk! a second arrow pinned his leg below.
    Blood bubbled warm from the wounds, and pain sapped his strength.
    Cy tried to turn, but the arrows held him fast.
    Shhuugh . . .
    Shhuugh . . .
    Shhuugh . . .
    Snowshoes approached behind.
    Freaked out and teetering at the last extremity of fear and despair, gibbering Cy ground his tongue in the gears of his