Cure for Cannibalism

"Shit! What are you hiding from me?!" The leader of the Murfree Brood, his face a contorted mask of fury and desperation, slammed his fist into the terrified man he held captive. "Damn it! Was this place bombed by the United States Army?! Damn it, look at these bullet marks, look at these explosion marks! These must be the undeniable marks of Maxim gun strafing and artillery damage! Damn it, what exactly did you see before you escaped? Speak, you miserable worm!"

He furiously punched the man's already bruised face, making him scream repeatedly, a high-pitched, pathetic sound.

"Ow! I was wrong, Boss! I was wrong!" The man wailed, tears and snot mingling on his grimy face. "I really didn't see anything! I swear! I fell asleep while standing guard nearby and only heard the roar of machine guns and the sound of bombs! I was too scared, Boss! I just ran away without even daring to look! I was wrong, I was wrong!!!" He dissolved into hysterical sobs.

A week ago, the entire Beaver Hollow, their hidden, squalid sanctuary, had suffered an unimaginable, cataclysmic blow. He genuinely didn't know what had happened, nor who had unleashed such a terrifying attack.

He only remembered the deafening, continuous gunfire and the booming, earth-shaking artillery. Even the agonizing screams of his own people had been utterly drowned out by the overwhelming din of gunshots and cannon fire. The very ground had shaken violently beneath his feet, and this shocking, visceral sensation had terrified the man to his very core. He hadn't even dared to get close, to take a look, turning around and running directly, blindly, into the night. It turned out, he was right to run. If he hadn't fled, he would probably be one of these mangled corpses now. Damn it, he thought, a chilling realization settling in, could it be that the United States Army actually attacked this place? He had hurriedly gone to inform the Murfree Brood members at their other scattered strongholds, his panic contagious.

Under the frantic rallying of the Murfree Brood's leader, the remaining sixty-odd members of their twisted, inbred clan had gathered together, their faces grim, and rushed back towards Beaver Hollow, a desperate, morbid curiosity drawing them home. At this point, they finally saw the true, horrific, tragic state within Beaver Hollow.

"Oh, shit!" The leader raged maniacally, his eyes wide, bloodshot, as he pulled out a crude dagger and fiercely, brutally, cut off a chunk of the man's ear, the raw flesh tearing with a sickening sound.

"Ahhhhhh!!!" Screams erupted from the man's mouth, a new wave of agony. He shrieked, begged for mercy, but it was utterly useless.

"Damn it, this can only be the United States Army!" The leader roared, his voice hoarse, as he continued to hack off chunks of his subordinate's face, a grotesque, bloody act of frustration. He spun the man's head around, making his entire skull loll loosely amidst his tragic, gurgling screams. "Damn it! What did you all do?! Why would the United States Army come to encircle us?! Shit! Shit! Shit!!!"

Blood continuously gushed out, painting the ground in a horrifying crimson. The struggles and screams of the subordinate he held in his hand continuously weakened, fading into pathetic gurgles, but the leader's inner madness and incandescent anger showed no signs of diminishing. Beaver Hollow was not their main base, no, but all the supplies, all the stolen wealth they had meticulously plundered, was gathered and hidden in Beaver Hollow.

This was their vital food storage, their very lifeline. Now that the entire storehouse was blown up, utterly obliterated, he was naturally furious to the extreme, a raw, uncontrollable rage consuming him.

"Ahhhhh! No matter who it is, I will kill them, I will kill them!!!" The leader roared maniacally, his voice a guttural, animalistic sound. He kicked his still-breathing subordinate to the ground, the broken body flopping sickeningly, and then furiously stomped on his head, which had been spun and mangled until there was barely any good flesh left.

The entire ground was completely stained red by the subordinate's mangled head, with flesh paste and bone fragments splattered everywhere.

However, at this very moment, a playful, chillingly calm voice suddenly rang out from above Beaver Hollow, echoing eerily in the desolate clearing.

"Is that so, mister? I didn't expect you cruel scumbags to be so… united. Dutch was indeed right; he said you would definitely come back for your little treasures! Oh, my God, I feel like Dutch is becoming more and more amazing!"

The sudden voice, utterly unexpected, made the leader and the other remaining members of The Murfree Brood quickly, frantically, look up. It was only then that they discovered a man had appeared on the rugged rock wall, dozens of meters high, on the very peak of Beaver Hollow, at some unknown, impossible time. And this man, a grim smile on his face, was Mac, whom Dutch had specifically left behind, fearing that The Murfree Brood had not been completely annihilated.

"Oh, shit! Kill him for me! Kill that bastard!" Almost at the first sight of Mike, The Murfree Brood's leader shrieked maniacally, his voice a high-pitched, desperate demand for blood.

However, his voice had just sounded.

Suddenly, from the crevices on the Beaver Hollow mountain, from every shadow and every hidden cranny, gun barrels extended, a terrifying, densely packed array of dark muzzles, all aimed squarely at the bewildered, terrified members of The Murfree Brood below. Roughly speaking, there were at least forty or fifty grim-faced gunmen, perfectly concealed, perfectly positioned. These dense gun barrels, each one a harbinger of death, terrified the members of The Murfree Brood below, making them tremble violently with fear.

Fighting from a low, exposed position against a hidden, elevated one was already an extremely difficult, almost suicidal task. These gunmen on the mountain were also hidden behind cunningly placed cover, while they, the Murfrees, were exposed in the open air, utterly vulnerable. This was simply an impossible battle to win, a pre-ordained massacre. The leader's face was extremely pale, and his heart was filled with a paralyzing terror and utter despair.

However, before his anger and fear could fully subside, dense, rustling sounds rang out again in the woods surrounding Beaver Hollow, on the dusty road behind them, and even in the nearby, muddy river ditch. Subsequently, more gunmen in their stark black uniforms, each carrying a deadly semi-automatic rifle, appeared from the surrounding woods and river ditches, seemingly materializing from thin air.

Some of these gunmen were perched high in trees, silent, lethal hunters. Some were hidden, almost completely submerged, in the murky river. Some were expertly concealed within the dense undergrowth of the woods, and some were prostrate on the ground, barely visible, aiming with deadly precision. Roughly speaking, there were probably sixty or seventy more of these dense gun barrels. If you added the more than forty people on the mountaintop, there must be at least a hundred guns aimed at these sixty-odd, doomed members of The Murfree Brood.

Almost every single member of The Murfree Brood had two gun barrels constantly, unblinkingly aimed at their foreheads, a terrifying bullseye, which made them dare not move again, frozen by fear.

The leader's face was now a mask of extreme pallor, and his heart was utterly filled with an overwhelming terror and despair. Damn it, he thought, his mind racing frantically, what the hell are these things?

This is the United States Army, right? This is definitely the United States Army, right? What have we been doing all this time?! Why would we provoke the United States Army?! Damn it, he internally wailed, is it really necessary to send out so many people to encircle us? Damn it, those gleaming, brown rifles scared him so much he almost soiled his pants!

However, this horrifying display was not the end!

"Rumble rumble…" Accompanied by the ominous, grinding sound of heavy carriages, five carriages slowly, deliberately, squeezed out of the dense grass on the higher terrain on both sides of the Beaver Hollow road.

Five black Maxim guns, their cold, deadly forms mounted on the five carriages, reflected a desperate, chilling color in the fading sunlight, and their water-cooled barrels were chilling to the bone, a vision of imminent doom. Under the terrifying aim of five Maxim guns, no one could help but feel a profound, soul-crushing fear, even losing the courage to take a single, desperate step.

Yet, this was still not all.

Two long, dark cannon barrels slowly, ominously appeared at the very end of the road. No, not just cannon barrels, but massive carriages pulling the deadly artillery pieces themselves. The barrels of two artillery pieces, black and unforgiving, were aimed directly, undeniably, at the huddled members of The Murfree Brood in front of Beaver Hollow.

The next moment.

"Boom boom!!!"

Accompanied by deafening, concussive cannon fire, the acrid smell of gunpowder, and the blinding flash of explosions, two large, devastating cannonballs burst out of the barrels and exploded with brutal force into The Murfree Brood's huddled, terrified crowd.

"Boom!!!"

A huge, unseen airwave, a monstrous force, directly knocked over a dozen members of The Murfree Brood who were clustered around the cannonball's impact point. The massive shock directly blew apart the seven or eight people closest to it, their bodies disintegrating, with severed limbs and blood splattering across the surrounding ground, a gruesome, unspeakable mess.

"Ahhhh!!!" Wailing screams, a chorus of agony, erupted almost simultaneously with the terrifying, continuous sounds of the Maxim gun and the precise, deadly Marko semi-automatic rifles. The 11.43mm super-caliber Maxim gun bullets were incessant, a relentless, crimson torrent, appearing almost as a solid red line in the air, a laser of death. Five Maxim guns strafed simultaneously, five crimson bullet lines, like searing lasers, cutting through all things, sweeping indiscriminately across all objects, all bodies, in front of them. Bullets shot into the bodies of The Murfree Brood members who had been hit by the artillery and had not had time to dodge, the bullets brutally cutting them in half at the waist, their bodies flopping grotesquely. And the Marko semi-automatic rifles, fired by hundreds of grim-faced gunmen simultaneously, were like a close, intimate beckoning from the Grim Reaper himself.

Under such overwhelming, devastating firepower, the sixty-odd members of The Murfree Brood, despite their ferocity, couldn't even last thirty seconds before being completely, utterly wiped out, reduced to a bloody, unrecognizable pulp. Countless severed limbs and broken arms covered the entire Beaver Hollow, a horrifying, macabre carpet. Countless bullet holes, gaping wounds in the very earth, showed just how brutal, how utterly merciless the battle had been.

And the twisted, inbred family, The Murfree Brood, those last vestiges of barbarism, were completely annihilated under the endless, screaming barrage of bullets, their reign of terror brought to a definitive, bloody end.