Untcigahunk: The Complete Little Brothers

by Rick Hautala

  Of course, Kip had a lot of explaining to do to his father, and a lot of wounds—some much deeper and older than Watson’s—had to heal. But at least they were talking now. How could they not after what Bill had seen. Kip knew it would be a while before he told his father that he had seen the untcigahunk kill his mother, but that, too, would come with time.

  Lying on his bed, even as exhausted as he was, Kip found sleep elusive. Images of dark, grasping claws no longer tormented him, but still, swirling at the edge of his mind, there was an impenetrable blackness. Only a small portion of that blackness in his mind had taken on the shape of the little brothers. He knew—and accepted— that the blackness would always be there and, at the end of his life, he would finally sink into it. Already, he realized that acceptance of this fact would take him a long way toward whatever the hell “growing up” was all about.

  His thoughts had been drifting all afternoon, gliding from the little brothers to Watson to how close he had come to killing his father to contemplation of how close to dying they had all come.

  But he had some other, more disturbing concerns, such as what had he seen squirming in the bat shit that covered the chamber floor. He couldn’t stop thinking that, like the worms that eventually became cicada, those thick, sluglike things might be another form of the little brothers. He never wanted to go back to the caves to find out, though, even to find Marty’s knife.

  If he could believe that all of the untcigahunk were dead, he would rest much easier, but he knew they couldn’t have killed them all. And he knew that in another five years, if not sooner, they would emerge once again from their underground lairs.

  Maybe five years from now—God, I’ll be seventeen years old!—he’d have figured out a way to get rid of all of them. Or maybe they’d do something sooner if Parkman believed his and his father’s story. He tried not to think that five years from now, Watson might not be alive to help.

  A heavy hammering on his door suddenly interrupted his thoughts. It took him a moment or two to orient himself as he sat up in bed.

  The hammering stopped, then began again, louder and stronger.

  “Yeah—yeah,” he croaked. His throat still felt dust-caked from the bat shit in the caves. “C’mon in.”

  He rubbed his eyes, expecting to see his father, but when Marty loomed in the doorway, he remembered that his father had left for the afternoon, first to go to visit Gail Fleischer and then to try to convince Parkman of what they had seen in the caves. He had overheard his father talking on the phone and had heard something about one of the other policemen—maybe Holden—being missing.

  “Hey, Mart.How you doin?” Kip swung his feet to the floor, draping his blanket over his legs. He always slept wearing just his underpants and a t-shirt. He was surprised by his sudden modesty in front of his older brother.

  Marty approached the bed, and as he got closer, Kip could tell he was boiling mad. His face was nearly white, and his hands were clenched into fists at his side. He looked like he was trembling.

  “I just got one question for you,” Marty said, towering over his brother. “And if you don’t give me the right answer, I swear to God I’ll bust your head open.”

  Kip swallowed dryly and then suddenly spun around to the other side of the bed. He stood up and hurriedly pulled on his pants, all the while watching his brother’s anger-filled face. The bed between them wasn’t enough protection, he knew that.

  “What do you want?’ Kip said, forcing the words out.

  “You know damn-right well what I want.” Marty started coming around the edge of the bed, his clenched fists raised. “I want to know what you did with my fucking hunting knife!”

  Kip almost asked what hunting knife?...but he knew he’d been busted. Panic flooded him. The last thing he remembered was putting it down just before he and Watson poured gasoline into the little brothers’ breeding area. Maybe he had lost it then. He wasn’t sure, but he must have left it there when he had picked up the shotgun and run.

  “Oh, shit,” he muttered. His eyes darted frantically from side to side as he backed away from his brother who approached him inexorably.

  Marty came closer and raised his bandaged arm, shaking his fist under Kip’s nose.

  “You know how much that knife means to me, ‘n don’t try to get out of it by lying. I know you took it.”

  Kip nodded agreement, nervously running his teeth over his lower lip. Sweat had broken out across his forehead.

  “I, uh—I had to borrow it a couple of days ago,” he said. “I was, uh, going to camp out in the...the woods, and I needed it.”

  “So where is it now?” Marty kept his voice low and menacing.

  Kip swallowed, but the dry lump in his throat wouldn’t go down. It didn’t even move.

  “I...I think I might have lost it,” he finally said weakly.

  “You what?”

  “I said I think I might have lost it. In the caves.”

  “D’you know how much that knife cost me?” Marty bellowed. He stepped even closer. His clenched fists curled up and did a threatening dance under Kip’s chin.

  Kip took another half step back, struggling to stay calm, but he knew what was coming. After everything he had faced in the caves yesterday, Marty shouldn’t seem so scary, but he was terrified of the beating he was sure he was about to get.

  “I already talked to Dad about it,” Kip said meekly. “And I promise I’ll buy you a new one just as good.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Marty said, “but I just wanna make sure you learn your lesson. You leave my shit alone!”

  With that, he jabbed his right fist out. The move was quick, but Kip was quick, too. He ducked to the side, and Marty’s knuckles glanced harmlessly off his shoulder. Thrown off balance, Marty was just straightening up when something fast and hard slammed into the side of his head, making his ears ring. Zig-zags of bright light tracked across his vision.

  “You prick!” Marty shouted as he clutched his head and looked at Kip, who was lost in an indistinct blur. The high-pitched ringing in his ears sounded like cicada, whining increasingly louder in the summer heat.

  Kip relaxed a little and bounced on his toes, flexing his knees. With his mouth set in a hard line, he waited for Marty to explode. But when the expected punch came, he was ready for it and ducked it easily.

  With more force behind his punch this time, Marty was off balance. When Kip let fly his second punch, he connected solidly on his brother’s jaw. There was a loud crack, and Marty did a sloping half spin as he fell back-wards. His shoulder bounced off Kip’s mattress on his way down.

  “I’m sick and tired of you picking on me all the time!” Kip wailed. He stood over his fallen brother and shook his clenched fists wildly. His pulse was hammering in his ears, and he was scared shitless that Marty would really kill him now; but he also had a feeling of incredible elation.

  Marty groaned as he rolled over onto his back. Wide-eyed with confusion, he looked at his brother while fighting back the waves of pain that spiraled in his head.

  With a feeble groan, he struggled to get up off the floor, but it was too much for him and he slumped back down. “I told you I’d get you another goddamned knife!”

  Kip screamed, still trembling. It frightened him to see his older brother down like this and know that he had done it, but nothing was going to dilute the pleasure he felt at finally striking back.

  Marty shook his head groggily, then made a deep rumbling sound in his chest. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and whimpered when he saw his wrist smeared with blood. A thick, red clot ran down from his nose.

  “If that damned knife means so fucking much to you, I’ll get you another!” Kip’s voice cracked, and tears were streaming down his cheeks. “But don’t think you’re gonna get away with beating up on me all the time. I’ve had enough!”

  Saying that, he carefully walked around his brother, fearing Marty would reach out, grab his leg, and drag him down and utterly destroy him.
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br />   But that didn’t happen.

  Unable to say anything, Marty stayed on the floor, staring dazedly at his blood-streaked hand as Kip walked, boldly and confidently, from the bedroom.

  3

  The night was alive with crickets singing as Woody parked outside the entrance to the town dump. He grabbed the tire iron—the same one he had used to level Officer Doyle—from under the car seat, then got out and quickly approached the chained and padlocked fence gate. The moon cast an eerie blue light that was bright enough to read the chipped and faded sign that listed the dump’s business hours. He was glad the moon was close to full. He didn’t want to risk using a flashlight unless he had to. No sense drawing attention to himself.

  “Sanitary Landfill and Reclamation Area,” he read out loud. Inhaling deeply, he flared his nostrils and added, “Huh. Still smells like a fuckin’ dump to me.”

  The fence surrounding the dump was about eight feet high. Woody and his friends had scaled it any number of times, but tonight he didn’t want to hassle with the barbed razor wire strung along the top.

  “I ain’t leavin’ my balls up there,” he said, and then cackled with laughter as he inserted the tip of the tire iron into the hook of the shackle. He flexed his grip, and then, grunting, pulled down with all of his weight. The padlock snapped open and fell to the ground. He swore softly under his breath as he carefully unwound the chain and let it slide, clanking link by link, to the ground.

  He lifted the latch and swung the gate open, but before he entered, he had what amounted to a brainstorm for him. He scooped up the broken padlock and chain, stepped inside the gate, then swung the gate shut and laced the chain back through the fence. He smiled to himself as he hooked the broken shackle through a couple of the chain links. This way, nobody would even notice anyone was in here, and he could take his time.

  Woody walked the quarter of a mile down the road to the dump. All along the road, the moon-cast shadows wavered. They spooked him a little, but he felt a little better when he reached the shack where Fats McCoy stationed himself during business hours. Woody’s lips curled back on his teeth when he remembered that Fats still owed him fifty dollars from last year’s Super Bowl. Feeling spiteful, he went up to Fats’ shack and popped out three windows with the tire iron. The glass fell to the floor inside the building, tinkling like breaking ice.

  “There you go, asshole,” he muttered before he continued down to the dump. “But that don’t make us even yet!”

  The wrecked cars were at the far end of the dump. As Woody walked past the mounds of bulldozed garbage and trash, he couldn’t help but think this was some kind of alien landscape, like something out of Star Wars or something. The road was grooved by the thick treads of Fats’ bulldozer. Woody had to step carefully so he wouldn’t trip.

  All around him, rounded piles of brush and dirt loomed black against the night sky, but Woody was headed toward the hollow down by the cattail-choked creek where Fats pushed all the junk cars after he had stripped them for spare parts. Fats made a pretty good living, selling old tires and spare parts from the cars. Sneaking in here to steal car parts was one of the reasons Woody had broken into the dump before tonight.

  But Woody had never been here alone at night, and as much as he tried to buck himself up so his uneasiness wouldn’t get the better of him, he couldn’t deny that the place worked his nerves. He quickened his pace until he was panting, nearly out of breath when he crested the hill and looked down at the automobile graveyard.

  By now his eyes were adjusted to the dim light, and he immediately recognized Suzie’s black Mustang at the top of the pile. From where he stood, trying to catch his breath, he could see the rounded dent dead center in the front. Thin smoke drifted like fog from one of the smaller mounds of burning trash not far from the cars.

  Woody glanced nervously over his shoulder, making sure the coast was clear, then skidded down the slope to the wrecked car. A dull sense of loss filled him when he touched the side of Suzie’s car, and he chuckled when he looked inside, remembering how many times he and Suzie had screwed in the back seat. Amazing what can be done in such limited space.

  But he and Suzie were through, and tonight he was here strictly on business, so he walked quickly around to the back of the car. He was just about to slide the tire iron in under the edge of the trunk when a sound caught his attention. Tensing, he straightened up and looked all around. Except for the thin trail of smoke rising from the trash, nothing was moving. Only the sounds of frogs and the call of an occasional night bird broke the eerie stillness.

  Woody shifted his weight forward as he prepared to pop open the trunk, but as he was positioning the tire iron, a loud clanging sound filled the night. Looking up quickly, he saw something—an old hubcap—roll down from the mound where the smoke was rising. It spun around, making a hollow wobbling sound as it came to rest on the bulldozer-flattened ground.

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” Woody hissed as he tried to pierce the darkness and see if someone was over there. Maybe someone had seen him and was trying to play a trick on him. Maybe Fats hadn’t left for the night and had decided to give him a little scare. But that couldn’t be it, Woody thought. The gate had been locked.

  Then again, something had made that hubcap roll down the slope.

  For close to a minute, Woody stood stock still, breathing shallowly as he looked and listened for motion from the mound. Once he was satisfied the hubcap had probably just tilted off balance as the smoldering mound shifted and settled, he went back to work.

  He placed the tip of the tire iron under the trunk latch, jiggled it up and down a few times to make sure it was secure, then, grunting loudly, jammed it downward. The car bounced as its shocks gave, and the tire iron slipped out, clanging loudly on the fender.

  “You fucker!” Woody shouted, his voice echoing from the surrounding hills of trash.

  “Come on, you rotten mother-fucking son-of-a-bitch!” He jammed the tire iron back under the trunk lock and tried to focus his thoughts on how goddamned happy he was going to be if he was right and Suzie had stolen his marijuana and it was in the trunk. He promised himself he’d have one happy, healthy toke on some of it before the night was over.

  After several more attempts, each one ending with the tire iron slipping out, Woody finally lost his patience and broke the trunk lock. The hood popped up, almost hitting him in the face. He threw the tire iron to the ground and because it was so dark, he started feeling around inside the trunk.

  Suzie had never been a very neat person, so her trunk was full of empty cans and bottles, old clothes, some rope, a spare gone flat, and a couple of bundles of old newspapers. Pawing through the junk, he tossed every- thing out over his shoulder where it landed behind him in a clattering pile; but at last he had to admit defeat. There was no package of marijuana.

  “Fuck!” Woody shouted, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Slamming his fist against the trunk hood, he ground his teeth and started thinking of ways he could get to Suzie in the hospital if only to beat the living shit out of her for fucking him up.

  He stood there staring blankly at the now empty trunk. The floor of the trunk was fuzzy blue from the pale moonlight, and Woody’s shadow was a looming black stain across the middle of it. His breath came in short, hitching gasps, but no amount of wishing was going to make the stolen marijuana suddenly reappear. It’s gone! And he was in some deep shit with his connection in Portland.

  Swept up with anger and hostility, Woody didn’t notice at first when the smoking mound of trash beside the car shifted again. He didn’t look up as something small and dark emerged from the ground and, crouching low, moved silently down the slope, dragging a thin, moon-cast shadow behind it. What finally got his attention was when something moved behind him near the crap he’d emptied from Suzie’s trunk. A beer cans clanked on the ground, drawing his attention.

  “What the—?” Woody said, but as the words were leaving his mouth, the ground around him suddenly exploded upward. Trash and loose dirt f
lew high into the night sky as loud, buzz-saw squeals cut through the peaceful silence. Dozens of small figures erupted up out of the ground.

  Woody reached for the tire iron he had dropped, but as he crouched down to get it, before his fingers touched the cold metal, strange and twisted shapes that looked like deformed children closed in, encircling him. Facing the moonlight, all he could see were their silhouettes and the long, rippling shadows they cast. When he glanced behind him, he saw more of them. Small, ratlike faces, thin but strong-looking bodies, and upraised arms with curved, hooked claws drew closer.

  “Jesus Christ!” Woody screamed. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He had to be tripping or something. All around him, the ground churned and seemed simply to open up as these things clawed their way up into the open air. Before long, it seemed as though there were hundreds of them sprouting up out of the soil.

  Woody started to back away, but the back of his legs caught on the bumper of Suzie’s car. His knees buckled, and he sat down, hard, in the open trunk. When the trunk lid dropped, it smacked him on top of the head. A jolt of pain shot down his neck. He wasn’t aware that his bladder had let go until a warm flood of liquid spread across his thighs.

  “Oh Jesus,” he moaned. “Sweet fucking Jesus!”

  The circle of figures closed in on him, and as they drew closer, Woody could distinguish their features more clearly in the moonlight. These things weren’t even close to human, he realized, as the beaked faces closed in on him. Several of them looked as though they had been burned. Large blisters and flaps of puckered skin hung from their sharply lined faces.

  The moonlit sky cast a cold powdery blue over the scene as Woody looked up from inside Suzie’s trunk. The sky was suddenly cross-hatched by dozens of upraised arms. The moonlight made their claws and eyes glow with a cold yellow gleam. The scream that had been building up in Woody’s chest finally found its way out.