Horny upon escape??

Well, let's see. They are heavily armed. So much for any resistance they might get from the man of the house. Surprise and terror go far toward slowing a person's reactions when one moment he's quietly reading the paper and the next moment three out-of-control maniacs, heavily armed, ruthless break in your door and grab your wife, daughter and son. Most men confronted with such a situation would be afraid of doing anything that would cause the maniacs to harm or kill their loved ones, and would probably react by saying something, rather than by going for a weapon. Remember, Luke sees the action from outside, presumably already has his gun, and is able to surprise the escapees, rather than being surprised by them.

Second, they are drunk. So much for their judgement about lying low. Drunk and violent = not very good judgement.

Third, they are in heavily rural area. How did they get the weapons and the alcohol? Possibly by breaking in on some other family living in an isolated place? Surely they didn't walk into a store and buy those things (unless they stole weapons from guards - but the alcohol?). If they've already had a success escaping and/or breaking into another house and possibly killing other unsuspecting rural folk, that, the element of surprise, knowing that everyone is probably living in terror of them and the booze gives confidence.

Fourth, they are being hunted. They may not really believe that they are going to get away with their escape, and so are hell-bent on raping and pillaging as much as they can while they are at large.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for them to be together, actually, and if they were rural-bred, they'd know that. They'd know that dogs would be after them, and they'd take to the water as soon as possible (not at all hard in geography dominated by tides). But they would also have known that splitting up would have effectively split up the search teams and possibly confused the dogs, who would want to go in three different directions.

The only way it makes perfect sense for them to be together is if they escaped not very long before (which I think, in the book, is mentioned: that people knew about the escape, heard about it on the radio or something, and it hadn't happened more than 24 hours before). They might be sticking together because they are making their way to some person who they think will help them. Or they might be sticking together because they are sure they'll be caught, and figure they can have more 'fun' terrorizing people as a threesome than alone.

I suppose you'd have to read the book to see if all the details hang together. It's been about 18 years since I read the book, so I can't remember.

Of course, I could guess better what I'd do if I just escaped from prison if I'd ever BEEN in prison. But I haven't. So I just have to use common sense.

In the book they didn't just break out and go looking for some random family to torture, if I remember right one of the men was obsessed with Toms mother and had attempted to get at her before when her and the kids were staying with their grandfather, and he would have succeeded if it weren't for the fact that the grandfather kept and breed black widow spiders. I think they ended up busting a whole bunch of jars open on him and letting them all loose in the room to scare him away.