“Pla-pla-pla. Here’s how we play,” he said and grabbed one of the bones.
“Later. Don’t play that now,” said the mommy.
“Yeah, Q, you don’t know how to be nice. He doesn’t know how to be nice, does he, Mommy?”
“Oscar. Let’s just show her Oscar; how about that?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Q got up off his stick legs that were the color of worm dirt. Lyric put a hand in her pocket and felt the plastic Buzz Lightyear toy. Should she show them? Would they take it?
“Lemme-lemme-let me show her Oz-kar. Let me.”
“Hang on, Q. He’s got claws.”
“Just grab him by the shell. I can do it. I know how.”
They were fighting, so Lyric looked away and saw the mommy changing her clothes, right there next to her. Her skin underneath seemed snaky too, with little lines where the skin wasn’t so dirty near her underwear parts. Lyric looked away.
This wasn’t right. It had been too long, and her mom wasn’t there. Each time the shadow flickered, she waited for her mom to come down the ladder into the room to give her a hug. She wanted to feel her mom’s clean skin and breathe in the smell of her face lotion. She wanted to see the flower tattoos on her mommy’s skin. Lyric liked to pretend the flowers were growing bigger and could even grow onto her own arm if she hugged her mom close enough.
“Here’s Oscar!” The girl in the dress came out of the shadow holding a big turtle. The claws opened and closed, and the turtle turned its head side to side. “Watch.”
The turtle tried to swim in the air. The claws were held up in front of him, and he was snapping away and finally latched onto the boy’s finger. The boy howled in pain and had to shake his hand. Shake, shake, shake, and on the third shake the turtle fell back to the ground.
Lyric winced as the boy jumped up and down grabbing his finger. She looked up at the mommy to see if she would help and saw her eyes partly closed.
“Angel. You are so clean. You are pure. You’ve never been here. You’ve been everywhere.”
Lyric felt the mother’s scaly arms wrap around her and tried to be still and not to breathe. She wanted to be held, but this didn’t feel right.
“Milk. Your mom fed you from her breast in a clean room; I am sure of it. Your birth was a miracle, young angel-child.”
The woman was behind her, and Lyric could feel her heartbeat against her back. The mommy’s skin felt like a bunch of tiny hairs raised up onto dry flakes of skin. Long, black hair fell onto Lyric’s head, some of it all the way down to her own bangs so that it seemed as if her own hair had turned to black. The woman’s fingernails touched her skin and felt hard, like a dog’s toenails that needed to be clipped.
But something else was wrong. There was no little finger. On the woman’s hands, where the pinky finger was supposed to be, there was only this little stump that moved a little.
Lyric felt her stomach unclenching. It was like she may go to the bathroom in her pants since her belly was loosening. Her lips were ready to open up, and a scream was coming up out her throat, ready to explode. It was all too much, and her head felt hot and boiling. Then she heard it, barreling through the cave like dragon’s fire.
“Foddd-dddeeerrr! Foddd-dddder’s here! Come on now. Come on Q and T. Hey Q. Hey T! Come on now. Come on now.”
The children perked their heads up in the air and then dashed off in a race. The boy was ahead, and his sister was chasing at his heels. Lyric wondered if she would beat him. Would Max have been a fast boy? She wanted the girl to catch him. The cloth of her shirt fluttered, and Lyric wished she could give chase as well.
They ducked up the ladder. Lyric heard them scurrying through the rocks, and then tried to curl herself into a ball.
“Angel-child. My Angel,” said the mommy, who had crossed her arms over Lyrics shoulders and was sitting behind her. She seemed to be purring like a kitten, and her hands twiddled with Lyrics hair.
Lyric sat still and tried not to breathe. If she just sat still like a statue and didn’t breathe, then all of this would be over soon.
Chapter Nine
Cords of rope wrapped tightly around Erin’s wrists. Her hands were cold and numb from no blood circulating. The knot was efficient and had been tied with no concern for her well-being, and she could feel the cords lodged into her flesh like fishing wire. Her clavicle ached from being bent backwards.
A dirty and wet cloth wrapped over her face and stuck in her mouth, and it seemed she could taste people who had this in their mouth before her. And whoever these people were, they knew what was about to happen to her. She was part of something that had happened before.
Lyric. Her spine, her heart, ached for Lyric.
Visceral prayers spun out of her; prayers that came from a ready-to-explode force desperate to save her child.
Save my child.
Breath flowed rapid in and out of her nose and was barely enough air to sustain her. When fury built up, she’d try to calm it, in fear of passing out, because losing consciousness seemed so close.
Save my child.
The ground was hard and moist. A dirty puddle, like an oil slick, lined the surface. The hole they dragged her into seemed like a drainage tunnel, but she could see another crude passage leading somewhere. It was not shaped with any sort of perfection. It was more like a connecting cave than the original cement-squared tunnel that had been busted into.
She’d been carried, then dragged after her legs were tied, just yards from the opening. He’d hit her in the face just once, a closed-fist punch to the cheek, but she was sure there would be more to come if she resisted.
She was not blindfolded, but that was unnecessary, since darkness was all around, except for flashlights and electric lanterns that scattered beams of light off and on the walls of this underworld. Near the entrance, shadows and bodies shuffled back and forth. Is that Lyric? Lights flashed deeper down the cave, and she could hear the faint echoes of children, but it was clearly not Lyric she heard. Her last glance of her daughter was in the stroller.
Raging blood boiled up, and she knew in time it would burst. Wait for the right time.
Rocks became embedded in her back, and sweat from her body soaked into the tunnel’s ancient dirt. Bruised bones and aching muscles covered her body, and she felt scratches where her assailants’ claws had dug into her.
Oh God, oh God, be with Lyric.
A man and a woman, at least two of them, had done this. The man had arms made entirely out of bones, and the woman seemed just one of his appendages. Erin could feel her obeying him. And they had two offspring. All of them were living under here.
The beast was nearby and approaching. She could sense his presence, smell his breath. Everything in the cave moved when he walked, and he sulked, business-like, with heavy boots. He was fumbling with things in his pocket and the light of the lantern swung upon his torso. She tightened every muscle in her body.
He knelt before her. The light quickly flashed over his face, and he appeared like a coal miner, smeared with soot. It was unclear what color his flesh might be under that dark soot, but out of the black she saw tiny, pinhole dots for eyes. They flickered and looked through her.
“People that will pay for you. Do you got any?” he asked in a raspy voice that sounded like he’d been a throat-cancer victim. He ripped off her gag and she gulped for air.
“My daughter. Please. My daughter.”
Frantic fears drove her, and she wanted to rage in hysterics, yet she knew if she screamed she’d be hit again.
“Safe, if they pay. Safe, if they pay. Will they pay… pay for you, pay for her? Do you have people who will pay? Yez er no?”
A hostage. She was a hostage.
“Yes, yes, but where is she? My daughter. Where is my daughter?”
“Who will pay? You choose.”
A blue light, like a tiny flying saucer seemed to illuminate from his hand and cast a hue over his face. Tiny black pores of his skin soaked in the glow. Eyes of insane
focus glared.
He had retrieved her cell phone from the jogging stroller.
“Amy Webster, Babysitter Shelly, Dentist, Dental cleaning, Ear-nose-throat doctor.” He was reading alphabetically down her cell phone contacts.
“Macon. Macon, call Macon,” she interrupted, “Macon, with an M.”
Call Macon. It echoed in her head. He was all she had. He was it, but could he pay? Her daughter’s life and her own depended on it.
Macon told her he’d been putting away a third of his check the past few months. She had disregarded it immediately, but now it was important. All the ink he had etched into the flesh of others had to have made enough money to pay this slug.
But even if he does pay, will they let me live?
Yes, they will, she tried to convince herself. They are just a poor, hungry family with needs. She watched his fingers, like long tentacles, tap away on the phone. His dotty black eyes, as dark as his skin, were glowing in the blue of the cell. “Macon, Macon,” the creature mumbled, in his voice that was from an ash-filled throat.
Then he held out a long utensil of some sort, and then another. The electronic light gave her eyes a quick flash, and she realized it was a knife. She had seen the type before: silver, metallic, with screw-on tips. The one in his hand seemed dark, whether dark by natural color or due to age and use, she couldn’t tell, but she could sense it was a blade by how he handled it.
As if reading her mind, he held it still in the air. Yes, it was an X-Acto knife. She was familiar with the cold slice of their metal. They gave a clean, precise cut, and created an immediate rush. She’d used them before on her skin as a teenager, right on the fat of her thighs.
Her legs wrestled with the knots, but couldn’t move. Her arms were cramped and shoulders felt pulled out of their sockets. He barely noticed her. She wanted him to look at her, to be human to him, but he wouldn’t look into her eyes.
If her arm was free, she could snatch the knife from his hand—she was sure of it. She was quicker than he could ever know. Not only were her hands tied secure, but everything felt weak and tingled with growing numbness.
“What are you going to do with me? Please, let me go, and I’ll pay. You can come with me, and I’ll pay.”
He didn’t flinch. His face was still lit up in the blue light and he held the X-Acto knife in the air like a scientist. He put the cell in one pocket, capped the knife, and fumbled with his hands in his other pocket.
She heard the sound of metal clanging on metal and watched as the man held a collection of knives in his hand, maybe a dozen of them. Some were black. Others were silver, but all of them glittered in the yellow light of his electric lantern.
He returned the handful of knives to his pocket, and then shuffled off without a word, leaving her in the dark. She could still hear him, not far from where she lay. On the trail. They had to be near the trail still. There was perhaps no cell reception otherwise.
Whispers and murmurs continued under his breath until she heard his voice go bold and serious.
“Yer wife, yer daughter—we have ’em. There’s ’bout ten of us. Firearms—we have ’em too. You want to see your girls again you give us ten thousand dollars. If you don’t call us back, we’ll start with your wife. You call us back, and I’ll tell you where to leave the money.”
Ten thousand dollars… does Macon have it? Does it matter? They wouldn’t let her out anyway.
Erin couldn’t help but think this was some terrible hostage movie, and FBI and SWAT teams were forming right now, ready to come to her rescue. They would track the phone call and arrive to her aid. Hundreds of friendly flashlights would be shining down the tunnel, and men armed with rifles and trained for this very moment would come get her and her daughter.
That would happen soon. There are people looking over us that we never notice, until things like this happen, and then they help, right?
Or Macon would come. He wasn’t carrying his cell; it still sat on the hotel desk connected to the charger next to the car keys, but he was running back down the trail right now, not far from where they were.
If she could just yell to him.
Nobody knew where she was—nobody besides the hotel clerk, and there was something wrong with him anyways.
If she could just see her daughter. Where was Lyric? The sound of skipping feet and the high pitches of children’s voices came from further deep in this cave.
Was that Lyric’s voice? She was not sure. Maybe her daughter ran away. Maybe she was gone… hiding. They didn’t even have her. She was going for help, had found someone to help her right now even. They’d be hugging each other soon.
The gag made it hard to breathe, but Erin rolled her tongue and used it as a muscle to push the rag to the side. There was a crack, a tiny crack now where air would come in. It was a small victory.
If she could just get one hand free, she would fight, punch, tear, claw, and rip this man up with a fury. She tightened her core and started to rock. If she could rock herself, side to side, maybe she could flip herself over. Yes, she could. She could flip and roll to the opening and then call for help. She engaged her abs like no other time before.
A few back and forths with straining her shoulders moved her a bit, but she stopped all this when she heard something. First she thought she imagined it, but then it came again; an “ummph” noise, not from the lungs of her captor, but from another… something smaller.
There was a scuffle breaking out. The noise was coming from near the trail. Someone was there. Someone was at the trail. It was more than just this man; it was someone else. The noise made her imagine a tackle, a quick tackle. Not a fight like she had just put up—no, it was nothing like that, but more of a drag now, something being moved along.
Grunts from moving something, scuffles of feet, then sliding noises drifted on the ground.
Slide… pause. Slide… pause. Slide… pause.
Something was being dragged her way. The cell light was fully gone, but his tiny electric lantern swung from his belt, making movie shadows on the wall. Her insides begged that this was not Lyric, but she was sure it must be; it had to be her who was captured too.
Or was it Macon? Macon had been running by, and, just like her, had been nabbed. No way. Macon would destroy this man as well… unless he was tricked—tricked like me.
Like a sack of yard waste, the man moved the body and flopped it down next to her. The sound was louder than a six-year-old body would make.
She turned her head and just a few yards away from her; she caught a glimpse. Yes, it was human, but nearly a carcass. A rail-thin man, like a skeleton covered in cocoa-colored skin, was now lying beside her.
Another hostage.
His head turned to the side, and she saw his eyes were open but unfocused, not blinking, looking at her with either emptiness or hopelessness. She was not sure which, but it was obvious he was too tired to plead for mercy.
Homelessness. It was written all over this new victim. He was homeless and lost, and surely not to be missed.
The creature stood above them like a doctor readying to operate. He reached into his pocket, and she heard the metallic scrambling of a pocket full of X-Acto knives.
“Foddd-dddeeerrr! Foddd-dddder’s here!” he yelled toward the back of the cave. “Come on now. Come on Q and T. Hey Q. Hey T! Come on now. Come on now.”
He held an X-Acto knife in the air. Erin heard the pop of the plastic cap go off, saw the man examine its sharpness, and then watched as he bent down to his victim, the rail-thin, black man. A trace of life remained inside him, and enough breath that tiny coughs came from his lungs. His eyes remained open, certainly somewhat aware but devoid of fight.
Erin was about to see what happens when you have no people to pay. This man clearly had no people pay.
I will live. I will live, Erin repeated to herself. She needed to hear this and let the rhythm sink in.
I will live. I will live.
Chapter Ten
Macon
wanted home. His knee felt a tad bruised, but that was probably fading and would be nothing. The scrape on his leg needed some soap and water, or maybe the chlorine of the hotel pool would wash it away.
Either way, he wanted back, and he was going to ramble in fast and furious, going faster than he should, but he’d make up for it with rest for the remainder of the day. Lying in the pool, napping in the room with sheets wrapped around his legs, and staying off his feet was the schedule.
The bikers ahead dipped down under the last overpass, and Macon got ready to shoot by the tent city. He expected to get glimpses of staggering, tired bodies, but what he found instead was an industrious group. A small grill was cooking, blankets were being folded, and folks were scurrying down the trail, heading to who knows where the day took them.
Up ahead, the tiny crack of light sky promised daybreak, and if they were awakened by this natural alarm or because of the commotion he had caused earlier, he was uncertain. He did not want to know and ran by them with blazing speed he knew he should have saved for tomorrow’s run.
A slight uphill section taxed his thighs one last time, and then the road flattened. Cars started to bustle a bit on the highway above, their headlights still shining, but the darkness was no longer as thick.
Up ahead, the adjacent ravine went around a bend, and beyond the trees was the clearing to the baseball fields. Macon made his last steps out into the field, noticed that the one armed man with the Dobermans seemed to have quieted as well, and sprinted through the diamond like a center fielder after the last out of an inning. Head down, he ran with a purpose, to his home-field dugout.
Then it was to the pavement of the road, which was still empty, and the plastic in his shoes pounded down the street to the green sign that read Comfort Lodge. In front of the hotel Maria the shuttle driver was planting flowers, and she greeted Macon’s return with a sparkling, angelic smile.
On the Lips of Children Page 8
