Untcigahunk: The Complete Little Brothers

by Rick Hautala

  With a couple of nimble jumps, he made his way across the stream and then, ducking low, ran up the slope above the cave entrance. The hill was steepest on the side of the cave entrance and was covered by a thin stand of maple saplings. Twigs and dried leaves snapped and cracked underfoot, but Kip was counting on the muffling effects inside the cave to mask his movements.

  There was thick brush all around the entrance to the cave, but from years of playing out here, Kip knew the best place to hide while spying on anyone who was inside the cave. Several boulders to one side of the path provided good cover, and from there he knew he could get a pretty good look into the cave. By going up over the crest of the hill, he could approach those rocks with the least chance of being detected even if Marty knew he was there and was watching for him.

  Kip moved cautiously on the hill above the cave entrance, confident Marty didn’t know he was up there. But as he was starting down the other side, he slipped on the smooth stone. As his feet flew out from under him, his body twisted around. His knee hit the ground hard enough to send a jolt of pain up his leg. Feet first and belly down, he started sliding down the slope, pushing a leafy spray ahead of him.

  His shirt rolled up to his armpits, and hidden rocks and roots scraped his stomach and chest. He whimpered softly as he fell, knowing that mere yards away the slope dropped off a cliff of about eight feet. The only thought in his mind was that, when he catapulted out over the edge in an explosion of rocks and leaves, the fall probably wouldn’t be enough to kill him, but it was going to hurt like hell.

  But just when he had given up all hope and was preparing himself for the pitch over the edge and the hard landing in front of the cave, his hand snagged onto a maple sapling. His fingers reflexively tightened even though it felt like his hand was going to rip off.

  Quickly, he scrambled to his feet, brushing the dirt and leaves from his pants. His T-shirt was stuck up high on his sweat-slick back, and the many lacerations on his stomach were already stinging like cat scratches.

  Once Kip had his feet planted solidly on the ground, he leaned forward, hanging onto one of the thin trees. He took a few seconds to inspect his wounds. Thin pink lines beaded with blood had raked in cross-thatch designs over his winter-whitened skin. The sweat that trickled down across them sent pain zinging along his nerves. He could see the cuts weren’t all that serious. They certainly weren’t as serious as the injuries Marty would give him if he found him out here spying on him. Standing completely still, he tried to slow his breathing as he held his shirt away from his chest with both hands.

  He tensed, waiting for Marty to react and come screaming out of the cave and accuse him of following him here. There was no way he couldn’t have heard the commotion. Rocks and leaves had showered down in front of the cave entrance, but as he waited and listened, the only sound he heard was the wind, fluttering the leaves overhead. No burst of yelling exploded from the cave. No anger-twisted face appeared over the edge of the hill. No threatening, looming hulk scrambled up the hill toward him.

  Nothing.

  No Marty.

  Kip couldn’t believe it. How would he ever have convinced Marty he was doing anything but spying on him and the more he thought about it, the more certain he was that’s what he’d say to him if Marty caught him. After months of planning, he wasn’t going to let something as foolish as a little fall ruin everything.

  While Kip leaned against the sapling, hurting but grateful he hadn’t been discovered, a sudden scream—nearly inhuman—issued from the cave. It was oddly magnified by the stone walls, and it filled the peaceful forest like the ringing of a gunshot.

  Kip froze.

  He’d been found out.

  Clenching his fists, he glared down the slope while his mind filled with horrible images of what Marty was about to do to him. He glanced back across the stream, knowing he couldn’t run that way. His best and safest escape route was the path that led back to town. Maybe he could outrun his brother.

  With terror twisting his bowels with its icy grip, Kip raced down the slope he had intended to sneak down, leaping over stones and mossy deadfalls. His feet seemed almost not to touch the ground, and he ignored the branches that whipped his face and arms as he dodged and darted through the brush. He made it to the path and—so far, at least—no pressing weight hit him from behind, carrying him to the ground. He was just starting to think he was going to make it when he glanced back over his shoulder. What he saw at the cave entrance made him skid to a stop so fast he tripped and fell.

  Instead of his brother, face contorted with rage, charging after him, he saw Marty in front of the cave. He was leaning forward clutching one arm to his chest. It was the sight of blood—a lot of it—splashed across Marty’s white T-shirt that stunned him. At first, he thought he had been fooled by Marty’s “Road Kill” shirt, but then he saw blood streaming down Marty’s arm and dripping from the point of his elbow and smearing his jeans.

  “Jesus Christ!” Kip shouted as he got to his feet and stared at his brother, who was contorted with pain. As far as he could tell, Marty didn’t even realize he was there. If he ran now, he’d be free and clear.

  But he could see that Marty was hurt. And no matter how many times his older brother had beat up on him, he couldn’t just take off and leave him here, cut and bleeding.

  “Marty!” he yelled. “What happened?”

  Marty looked up, his eyes gazed and widening with surprise when he saw Kip standing there on the path. He took one lurching step forward but then faltered and bent forward, clutching his arm to his chest.

  Kip stared, horrified, for several seconds at his brother’s chalk-white face. The blood continued to flow, dripping onto the ground. In the odd silence that had settled over the woods, he was sure he could hear the steady plop-plop as it hit the ground.

  Finally realizing how bad this could be, he ran over to his brother.

  “What happened?” he asked again. His voice was shaking like he’d just gotten off a two-hour spin on a Tilt-a-Whirl. Not knowing what to do—if there was anything he could do—Kip stood gaping at the splashes of blood. His hands fluttered like confused butterflies in front of Marty’s face.

  “Just leave me the fuck alone, will yah? Fuck!” Marty wailed. His lips were pale, almost white, and his voice was strained as if steely fingers were squeezing his throat shut.

  “Let’s go down to the stream,” Kip said, as his mind began to focus on the emergency at hand. “We can wash the cut off.”

  Kip tried to take Marty by the elbow and direct him over toward the stream, but Marty twisted violently away from him. He wasn’t about to let Kip help him, but he started walking toward the stream. His steps were lurching and unsure. Kip followed close behind, his eyes focusing on the drops of blood as they splattered on the ground. Each drop looked like a big, red asterisk on the ground.

  Once at the stream, Marty lowered himself onto a rock. He didn’t seem to notice or care that his feet were nearly ankle-deep in the swift-moving water as he slowly extended his arm to inspect the damage. Kip squatted down beside him, taking a quick glance over at his campsite to make sure no one could see it from here. Thankfully the brush hid it, so he turned his full attention back to Marty.

  “How’d that happen?” Kip asked when he saw the three parallel lines that ran down the inside of his brother’s forearm. He had forgotten all about the scrapes and cuts he had gotten from his clumsy fall. This looked a lot worse.

  “I didn’t cut myself,” Marty said, wincing with pain. He leaned over the stream and, cupping water in his hand, splashed it onto the wound. The blood turned into wide pink streaks that dripped into the water and quickly disappeared.

  “Jeeze,” Kip said, whistling through his teeth. He could see, now, that the cut probably wasn’t going to kill Marty, so a bit of the cautious reserve he habitually used in dealing with his brother returned.

  Marty finished washing the wound and then blotted it with his T-shirt. When the bleeding had pretty
much stopped, he held his arm up and gingerly probed the edges of the wound.

  “That’s gross,” Kip said. He had a mental image that the narrow cuts were thin lips, and he shivered, half-expecting to see teeth and maybe a tongue in each of the three slices.

  “Who asked you?” Marty snapped. “If you don’t like it, don’t watch.” Marty glanced at Kip over his shoulder, and Kip shrugged as he hunkered down, hugging his knees while he watched his brother.

  The pressure Marty applied to the cuts made them start to bleed again, so Marty scooped up another handful of water and rinsed. His heartbeat was throbbing all along the length of his arm. He wondered if that meant the cuts would get infected.

  “So,” Kip said, after clearing his throat, “how’d it happen?”

  Marty glared around at him, his eyes narrowing. “Was that one of your asshole friends in there?” he asked. “Besides, what are you doing out here? Dad was wondering where you went this morning.”

  Marty’s voice was still unnaturally high, and his eyes had a weird, almost milky glaze. Kip wondered if he might be going into shock although, actually, he didn’t quite know what going into shock was.

  “What d’yah mean, was that one of my friends?” Kip finally managed to say. Again, his eyes shifted in the direction of his campsite, but only for a second. Now that the emergency had passed, Kip felt the sting of sweat running into his own scrapes and cuts. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “Was one of your asshole friends hiding in the cave?” Marty asked with a deepening scowl.

  It was only with a small measure of relief that Kip heard firmness coming back into his brother’s voice. He shook his head from side to side. “No way,” he answered in a trembling voice. “I was...uh, I was supposed to meet the guys here to play today, but none of them showed up yet.” He hoped his lie wasn’t too obvious.

  Marty shook his head as he leaned forward again and filled his hand with water. He splashed the cut and dabbed it some more with his shirt. “Well someone’s in there.” He hooked his thumb in the direction of the cave. “Someone’s hiding behind that rock at the back wall. Either that, or one helluva mean animal.”

  Kip started to say something, but his mind suddenly blanked, and he kept quiet. Of course he and his friends knew about the opening in the back wall, the one blocked by the large stone, but—at least to his knowledge—no one had ever dared to go behind it. Certainly not him or his friends.

  “Well I saw someone,” Marty said before he spit into the stream. It sounded and looked like a big bird turd when it hit the water.

  Kip narrowed his eyes, regarding his brother carefully. Only in the last year or so had he had learned something about dealing with Marty. Whenever he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to do, he would accuse Kip of doing the very same thing. Say Marty was sneaking a soda before supper. At supper, he would accuse Kip of having done so. Dr. Fielding told him this was called “guilt projection.” Kip had been running away from home—that’s why he was out at the Indian Caves—but he couldn’t help but wonder what Marty was doing out here alone. He decided to try the direct approach.

  “What are you doing out here, anyway?” he asked. The effect his question had on Marty was riveting. If it was possible, Marty’s face turned even paler. His eyes narrowed to slits, and he bit down on his lower lip, making it as white as it had been when he first came out of the cave.

  “What the fuck’s it to you, anyway?” Marty snapped. Kip nodded knowingly, and a smile spread slowly across his face.

  “Well, knowing you, I figure it has to be one of two things—either girls or drugs.” He scanned the area. “And since there don’t appear to be any girls around, I’m guessing drugs.”

  “Fuck you,” Marty said, but when he stood up and raised his arm as though to strike him, the sudden motion sent a bolt of burning pain through his arm. He sat back down, glaring at his little brother. A thin trickle of blood wound slowly down his arm to his wrist.

  Kip was ready to run if he needed to, planning to head in the opposite direction of his campsite, of course.

  “I’ll bet that’s what it was,” he said, his voice taunting. “I’ll bet you’ve been hiding you pot in the cave. Is that it?”

  Marty’s eyes were twin gleaming, angry slits. He clenched good hand into a fist, and he shook it at Kip.

  “If you ever breathe a word of this to Dad, I’ll put you into the hospital. And if I find out which one of your asshole friends was back there and cut me, I’ll put him into the hospital along with you. Did he have a knife or something?” When Marty held up his arm, Kip once again thought the wounds looked like distorted mouths.

  “But there’s—” Kip said, but then he fell silent. He’d been thinking all along that Marty had cut himself on the jagged edge of the rock when he reached in to get his stash, but now that he thought about it, maybe there was an animal back there. The cuts certainly looked like some kind of animal had clawed Marty, and earlier in the day, Kip had seen something weird outside his tent.

  “I saw someone in there,” Marty said, his voice lowered and firm. “I couldn’t tell who it was, but he was looking at me. I saw his eyes, ‘n if I ever—” He was trying to look and sound scary, but he had to lean against the rock for support. “If I ever find out who it was, I swear to God I’ll kill him. You tell him that.”

  Marty started walking back toward the cave. His steps were unsteady, and he looked wrung out from the blood loss. He turned to look first at Kip and then at the cave entrance.

  “I know you’re in there, you little asshole,” he shouted into the V-shaped opening. His voice echoed back from the cave with an odd distortion. “You ain’t worth my time to hang around here and wait for you to come out. But when I get you, you’re gonna be one sorry little asshole. You hear me? You hear me?”

  Kip had followed his brother back to the cave, but he was keeping a safe distance between them even though he knew Marty wasn’t feeling well enough to beat him up. Not now, anyway. Gnawing at his mind was the knowledge that there weren’t any of his friends in there, and he had no idea what had cut Marty’s arm.

  “There’s no one in there,” Kip said softly.

  Marty spun around and looked at his brother. His good hand clenched and unclenched into a fist, but Kip knew until Marty was feeling better, he’d have to postpone getting even with him.

  “Cut the shit, will yah?” Marty said as he finally turned and started walking down the path.

  “You gotta believe me,” Kip said. He ran to catch up with Marty and tugged at his shirt. “I was out here alone. I hid when I heard you coming. I don’t like the way that cut looks. What if it was—you know, like a wild animal something?”

  Marty snorted with disgust and shook off Kip’s hold on his shirt before continuing down the path.

  “Honest, Mart. You gotta believe me,” Kip said in a whining voice. “I think you ought to have Doc Kimball check that out. What if that animal had rabies?”

  Stopping suddenly in his tracks, Marty turned and made a sudden grab for Kip. He caught him by the shoulder with one hand and held him tightly.

  “Listen, jerk-off, it wasn’t no animal that did this to me,” he said, giving his brother a rough shake. “I saw someone behind the rock, and I know it was a person. One of your asshole friends. So don’t go trying to convince me otherwise, got it?”

  Kip nodded but was too scared to say anything. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the line of cuts on

  Marty’s forearm. He couldn’t get it out of his head that they looked like tiny mouths about to speak. Panic much stronger and deeper than fear of anything Marty could do to him started to gather in his chest until he thought he was going to black out. The backs of his knees felt rubbery, and tiny pinpoints of light spun across of vision.

  And then darkness swirled across his mind like storm clouds. He was barely conscious that he was being shaken by his brother as he sank like a stone into the blackness that seemed always to be n
ibbling at the fringes of his mind.

  Only an immense mental effort kept him from losing consciousness, but even as he broke free of Marty and pulled away, he thought being unconscious might be better than having to stare into that darkness. It was the same darkness he had seen swirling outside his window until it resolved into pale, glowing eyes and grasping claws, and it was the same darkness that had swallowed his mother five years ago.

  But how can I see through that darkness to what lies beyond? And why would I want to? Because there are claws in that darkness.

  “Come on, dip-stick,” Marty said. His voice seemed to come from far away, and it was distorted as though Marty was speaking from inside the cave. “You comin’ home or not?”

  Kip shook his head from side to side, unable to speak.

  “Dad was kinda ticked off that you took off so early,”

  Marty said. “He even wanted me to call him at lunch time to let him know if you shown up.”

  Kip was still unable to speak. The darkness had receded like a withdrawing wave that pulled across the sand as it fell back into the sea; but Kip was afraid that, also like a wave, it might be swelling on the horizon, building up and getting bigger and stronger.

  “See you later, then, jerk,” Marty said and without waiting for an answer, he started down the path. For several seconds, Kip watched him walk away. Shadows from the leaves danced on his back. Kip realized it was foolish to stay out here for now. When he didn’t show up at home tonight, Marty would tell his dad right away that he’s seen him out at the caves, and then his hidden campsite would be found for sure.

  Casting one last, longing look over his shoulder at the cave and shivering as he wondered what was in there and had cut Marty, Kip started down the path behind his brother. Now that worst had come to worst, he would have to go home and pretend everything was back to normal. Maybe tomorrow, if he could get another early start, he’d head out here, pack up everything as fast as he could, and take off for New Hampshire.