On the Lips of Children

by Mark Matthews

  The recycled air of the hotel lobby hit him. He couldn’t tell if it was cooler air, but it was certainly recycled by appliances with the feel of carpet dust.

  “My friend the pronghorn. Your run, you like it?”

  Macon finished his last puffs of breath, felt the sweat that always seemed to wait until he stopped running to really pore out, and saw the hotel clerk, Marcos, smiling.

  “It was good, thank you. Interesting scenery. All of it.”

  “Your wife, she catch up with you?”

  “No, no, she’s waiting for me. Good thing probably. Lots of things packed into that trail.”

  “But sir, she was on her way, right after you, her and your daughter.”

  She’s not my wife, he wanted to say. At least not yet. “Are you sure? You mean, she went running after all?”

  “Yep, said they were running for you. Thought you’d all be together by now. Sure she’ll be back.”

  What to do? The trail wasn’t safe with a camp of homeless men shuffling folks back and forth like it was some trade route. The dogs, the bridges, and she had Lyric. Part of him said to run up to the hotel room, check and make sure, and see if she changed her mind. The other part said run back quick; just catch up to her on the trail before she gets too far. Turn her around. Then again, she probably never found the trail or else he would have seen her.

  Go ahead, run farther and see what happens tomorrow, he heard her voice warning him.

  “How long ago did she leave?”

  “Oh, my. A good thirty minutes ago. She was getting your daughter a Pop-Tart and they were off.”

  Macon made for the elevator and hit the button. He’d go up to the room, check for sure, and if there were no sign of her, he’d walk down the trail.

  Being separate. That didn’t feel right. No matter what happened tomorrow, they were connected—connected by their daughter and by his humming tattoo gun.

  He stood alone in the elevator, riding the four flights up and looked at his reflection in the shiny elevator doors. The metallic reflection gave him a robotic look, the piercing in his brow just an iron bolt keeping him together, and his recently shaved head seemed squared off, as if he were a marine standing at attention. Down his arm, sleeves of tribal tats and barbed wire were vaguely traceable. Weaved into his shoulder, underneath his shirt, was a dragon’s head with green scales, and Macon imagined the scales were metallic and covered his whole body. His body was now armor, and his training was over and about to be tested. Tomorrow he would run the race of his life. Tomorrow he would squeeze everything out of himself and find out what he was made of. He looked forward to the pain.

  He had gone so many runs with Erin but these times were always quiet. They never said much, but you could perfectly hear each other in the silence, always soaking in one another’s breath. When the pain and exhaustion hit, Macon soaked up the energy of her soul like a vampire, biting into it and blasting past the pain again and again. Tomorrow’s run couldn’t give him anything he hadn’t already felt. It was at the finish, when he presented her the ring, that he was worried about.

  “Will you marry me?” He practiced saying it in his head. Or maybe he’d say nothing and just present the ring.

  Or maybe he would get carted off the course, and she’d visit him in the medic tent. If that were the case, he was saving the ring for better days ahead.

  He felt the ring in his zippered pocket. He had done it. He had made it to this moment, saved for and bought the ring, and couldn’t wait to open up the plastic baggie, unwrap the tinfoil, and then pull the ring from its tissue and present it to her.

  The elevator door opened, and he hurried to his hotel room. In the hallway light, he got a closer look at the scratches on his calf. The cuts were red stripes, like four branches or four fingers of a hand.

  Either way, it needed washing, and he opened the door to a silent room. A slight mist of humidity hung in the air, as if from a shower. The white hotel towels were strewn about the bathroom. Between the two beds, little plastic Disney princesses and a handful of McDonald’s happy-meal toys were pushed into one pile, Lyric’s way of cleaning up. She just steamrolled them all into one spot.

  The jogging stroller was gone. Macon took off his sweaty shirt, grabbed the t-shirt he had worn for pajamas the night before, and checked his watch.

  He had been gone nearly an hour and his legs were tingling, ready to run more, really, and he wished it was tomorrow, but for now, he needed to talk to Erin. Yeah, he’d run too far; she would tell him that, but he needed to find her soon. Maybe he should leave a note first or just a voice mail. He grabbed his cell off the nightstand.

  Missed Call—Erin, (630) 464-8505 was on the face of his smartphone. A touch of the button, and it rang to his messages. He waited, and when he heard the message that was left, he knew it was certainly not her voice.

  “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.”

  Blood rushed to his head and bile to this throat. He wanted to laugh, expected to laugh, waited for his brain to figure out whose voice this was and who could be playing this joke. No voice like that was any friend of hers. But he couldn’t laugh. He couldn’t because he could tell this was true and not a joke.

  Sounds swished in his brain; he needed to act. He dashed out the door planning to grill the hotel clerk but didn’t need to go far, for there was Marcos, not two doors away, pushing a cart down the hallway.

  “Mex. Mr. Mex, I mean Marcos. Listen. Stop. Stop right there; I need you.”

  Macon ran to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Where’d she go? My wife, my girls—where did they go?”

  “To the trail to find you, like I said.”

  “Fuck!”

  “Is there something wrong?”

  Macon walked in circles, looked at his phone, scanned the messages and texts once more, but nothing. Someone’s playing a joke… got to be.

  “Someone left me a message and said they have her. How long after me did she leave?”

  “Oh, it was a while. I know she took a shower.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Oh, we know things here. And I know your daughter ate a Pop-Tart. Or I think she was going to. I had zoo coupons, and she wanted to go. You didn’t see her?”

  “No, those people there. Those people on the trail…”

  Macon thought about calling the police, and then thought about running down the trail, but first he hit redial. He needed to talk to these people. His fingers shook like a strung-out junkie while he listened again to the voice mail and heard every word. There was nothing in the background but deadness.

  He called Erin’s cell, (630) 464-8505, and waited for each ring, praying it would be interrupted by her voice, but each ring was an empty echo. Finally, five rings later, the sound of a voice-mail greeting said, “Hello, you’ve reached Erin. If you think we need to talk, you need to leave a message. Peace be with you.” It was followed by the standard beep.

  Macon paced in a circle, waiting for the recording to begin. He tried to speak in a clear, concise voice, but instead felt his voice cracking like the words of a dying man. “I am returning your call. Please don’t joke about this. You say you have my wife and my child. I will give you all that I can. Call me back. I’m waiting and ready. I need to speak with them to know they are safe. I need to know now.”

  The urge came to threaten them, to call them worthless and explain that they didn’t know the lengths he would go to in order to protect his family.

  Marcos was listening and his jaw hung slack and his eyes were solemn. “What’s that you say? Oh, my. What is that you say?” he asked.

  “You heard me. They called and said they have my girls.”

  “Who has them? Like hostages?”

 
“Yes, like hostages, whoever they are… those people. Where the hell did you send me? There were freaks up and down that trail. What do you know about them?”

  Marcos stepped back.

  “Oh, mister, I don’t know anything. You just ran, right. Sure, there are people there, like people everywhere. They have no places to stay. They stay by the road, under the road. They’re just everywhere.”

  “People? Homeless men surrounded me and some kids licked blood off my leg. There’s a one-handed man with some dogs, and now someone has my wife.”

  “You going to call the police,” Marcos asked. “You do that or not do that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Macon, but this sad, chubby-faced Mr. Mex knew more than he let on.

  The police?

  He stared at his phone, looked at the tiny icons on the face, waiting for the cell to light up and buzz with an incoming call. He had programmed Erin’s icon to appear whenever he received a call from her. It was a picture of her smiling behind a pair of sunglasses, strands of blond hanging over the dark lenses, and a smug smile on her face. All of it said, Talk to me. He’d always pick up.

  Nothing. The time ticked. Mr. Mex stood silent, unalarmed, stoic, and Macon was ready to explode.

  He was going to start walking, running even, and go down the trail and comb every area. He would see every bit of it, look for a trace of her, and at least speak with those who lived there.

  He could call 9-1-1 later, on the way. He would face the group of men, perhaps, and would have them all interrogated if necessary. They had no idea he was her husband, or at least was about to be, and tomorrow and the rest of his life was going to go as planned.

  The tiny wound in his leg throbbed, and he welcomed it. The pain was more fire for his body that was about to explode.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Foddd-dddeeerrr! Foddd-dddder!”

  The bellowing of the cave-man echoed in Erin’s ear. She looked up at him, able to see shadows dancing on his cheeks, but the dark recesses of his eyes kept evidence of what was inside his mind hidden. Hands fiddled in front of him, and noises clicked.

  How long had she been there? What did Macon say? Did he call back?

  Lyric, Lyric. Her brain pounded with waves of energy, wondering where Lyric was, and with each brainwave her muscles strengthened and her wrists wiggled against the rope. Her core got ready to rock a bit, to thrash herself right out if needed, and if it came to it, to fight somehow.

  Her tongue pushed against the tiny opening in the cloth, burrowing for more space. Cold, dusty air came into her lungs, but it was much easier to breathe than when the cloth had fully gagged her.

  She thought of screaming for help again, or of asking the cave-creature a question, but the time wasn’t right. She didn’t want him to know she could breathe, that the cloth was loose, or to even suspect she was trying to escape. And she didn’t want him to come over and check the rope, or decide to kill her.

  But where was Lyric?

  “I said Fodder,” he screamed again, “Foodd-deeerrr,” and Erin winced. She had wiggled a few more inches away from the body lying next to her. The person was perhaps from the tent-city she had run through earlier, probably unknown to anybody, yet still, a person who was alive. The wretch leaned over this body like a coroner, ready to perform an autopsy.

  The creature grabbed at the man’s chest, and Erin heard a ripping noise. The shirt he was wearing was shredded by one of his knives, and a few groans came forth. Unconscious or not, there was some life left.

  Erin started to slide again. She used her butt cheeks to creep over, shifted her weight left to right, but getting her legs to follow was near impossible since they were tied tight and stuck together as if they were one. She had been made into a mermaid like the ink on her belly. Her ears listened for anybody nearby who might be walking the trail, but all she could hear was the raspy breath of the victim next to her. Her tongue had dried from poking at the cloth gag, but a clear gap had developed, and a good scream would get through.

  She wiggled her fingers and grasped the ground underneath her for something sharp. Most of it was smooth, either cement or rock; she could not tell which, nor could she tell if this was a constructed sewer system or some kind of cave or tunnel—it seemed to be both. The sound of water somewhere hummed in the background, but she was not sure if it came from inside her head, deeper in the tunnel, or outside on the trail.

  Footsteps were approaching; tiny patters, and then the children appeared like ghosts out of the blackness.

  “Pa-pa-pa-poppa, whatcha got? Whatcha got?”

  “Just line up behind me.”

  “Daddy, we got a friend now.”

  “How lovely for you. Get in line and get ready.”

  “Stop pushing.”

  “Na-na-na-not. I’m not. Yer always first.”

  “Cause I’m the oldest.”

  “Ba-ba-by a second, and I’m a ba-ba-boy.”

  “And you don’t know how to be nice. Q doesn’t know how to be nice, Daddy. Mamma says…”

  Her voice faded and if she wanted her poppa to take her side of the argument, he would have none of it. He barely noticed them; treated them like they were flies buzzing around him as he worked. The light of their flashlights combined with his lantern and sprayed rays in all directions, as if the three of them were the sun of this hellish cavern.

  “Q doesn’t know…”

  A stiff forearm came from the wretch, punching out to his side without a glance, and he caught his daughter smack in the face. Whap! Erin heard the smack, saw the little girl’s face jerk back like a boxers, felt her own body jump as if she herself had been hit, and then felt everything go silent.

  The children filed in quietly to his side—message received.

  Erin was just out of arms reach from the body next to her, unnoticeably sliding over when she could, and the two children paid no attention to her. When she had first seen their shadows appear, she hoped one of the stick figures might have been Lyric.

  But still no sign of her daughter.

  She’s off down the trail toward home, Erin tried to convince herself.

  But the children spoke of a new friend. This was her Lyric.

  Beads of sweat from her run mixed in with the wetness of the ground and made her shiver. The air was cold and wet in this dungeon, as if never having been heated by a sun. She was in a chilled, forgotten cellar.

  Both children looked in the air as the creature held up the knife. Erin’s eyes widened; her mind’s eye imagined him killing people right in front of his children, like it was some ritual, and he made them watch, or worse.

  Victims have been here before—this was clear, and her gut filled with rotten bile that started to creep up her throat.

  The creature used his forearms to weigh down the man’s abdomen, and his knife went down.

  Grunts, barely audible, and a slight motion to fight came from the homeless man, but the wretch just added more weight and pressure to make his victim surrender and resign to the cutting. The creature’s elbow bobbed in the air, making a jerking motion, up and down, his hand clearly cutting.

  Like little pups the children gathered, kneeling down at both sides of the black man’s body and burying their heads into the bloody mess.

  The girl was the first to pull her head up from the body, and when she did, Erin saw the liquid all over her chin. Just the feint trace of dark red in the light splattered amongst her cheek. And then the son came up for air as well, but not for nearly as long. He quickly returned to feed.

  Grunting noises came from the daddy creature as he put more weight and strength into the cutting, grinding away as if sawing at a tree limb. Then he paused, put the knife down, and started lifting up pieces, tiny pieces of something, which he stuck into his son’s mouth first, his daughter’s second. Slurping and swallowing noises followed, as if they were eating oysters.

  Erin kept shuffling, moving centimeters at a time by shifting her weight, using her ass cheeks
pressed against the ground to ever-so-slightly slide. She had to do something, had to move. This was worse than she thought; she was in some kind of hell and needed to move.

  Each time a murmur came forth from the homeless man, Erin was sure it would be his last. She hoped he would just die. Just die already. But he didn’t, and the cutting moved on to different parts of his body.

  Noises from supping children seemed to stick to the cold moisture in the air.

  Erin tried to be quiet, but she felt her own mouth ready to give, ready to make noises; she was sure of it. She needed to scream. Instead she pretended she had no mouth and let the terror shoot into her stomach and mix with the sickening bile.

  Then she heard it: a buzz, the buzz of her phone. Zinnnggg… zinnngggg. It was vibrating in the wretch’s pocket; someone was calling for her. She tried to stop breathing, to stop her heart from beating, and to focus her energy on her ears to listen.

  Zzinnnng… zinnnngggg.

  No movement by the creature.

  Answer it. Answer it. Answer it!

  The ringing stopped. She was ready to break; it was all too much. But then he moved. The creature got up and shuffled out of the cave, in and out of the shadows the way only someone who lived within them could.

  They live here. How long have they lived here?

  I will not die. We will not die. I’ll get free and find Lyric.

  She could feel it… needed to feel it.

  I have people who will pay. I have people who will pay.

  She kept pushing with her tongue on the rag, which was halfway off her mouth. Her hands were numb, but fingertips were free to give tiny pushes and help her scoot. She heard the plop of the creature’s boots and realized he went through the exit, onto the trail.

  By the sound she was maybe fifteen yards away.

  How could Macon get that kind of money? Why would they let her go anyway, even if he did pay? They won’t. Even if it made sense to, they wouldn’t let her go—they wouldn’t let her live.