On the Lips of Children

by Mark Matthews

  The knives appeared, at least five of them, and he rolled the round-shaped handles in his hand. Metal scraped on metal.

  Erin’s legs tightened. They would kick, but then what? She’d be stopped. Cuts would come. She closed her eyes, prepared to feel the cuts in her flesh. Red explosions of rage that had been building in her body would come shooting forth. It was the same rage she had been cutting at for years.

  But the warmth from years ago that was released by razors and safety pins was gone. This was going to blow her open, stab her heart out. This was her fault, and now her daughter had to see her at this moment, this moment that used to be private behind locked doors, in front of clean glass mirrors and porcelain sinks, or sitting atop toilet seats with shaky hands, yet brilliant concentration.

  Lyric was soon to be left alone in the cave, stuck with the two children, learning how to live like them even.

  Facial tics jerked at the man’s cheek, tiny electric shocks making his face spasm. His boney, grey fingers grasped the knives, and his eyes darted from her eyes back to his arsenal of weapons. His hands shook like an aging pope about to die, but his breath was rapid, his mouth white with foam. The pop of a plastic cover of a knife coming off echoed through the room, and he held the knife up in the air, studying it for a moment.

  Children next to the mother leaned forward. Erin squeezed her shoulders, pulling at the rope, stretching its fibers so she could wiggle her fingers. She clawed at the ground behind her for something, but there was nothing, just dirt and tiny, harmless rocks.

  If there’s a God in heaven, please take my daughter now. All of Erin’s dreams for Lyric came down to this morbid prayer for her young life to end so she did not suffer.

  “Stop, don’t do it. A hostage—she’s just a hostage, who will stay with us like before.” It was the mother Lupita speaking in a tone of voice Erin hadn’t heard yet. “She’s a hostage. People who will pay for her—find them. Get us out of here. Get us clothes, water. Bring us home.”

  “Late. Too late, but yes, yes, you want to see his face. I’ll bring it to you. Face—take it off. Take it off.” His voice spoke in twisted tongues, but finished with, “Boys at my side. Girls stay in hell.”

  Erin caught her breath and watched as the man sprung upwards, tapped his boy on the shoulder, and bounded to the ladder. The little boy’s bare feet slapped the floor of the cave, following after the heavy booms of the man’s boots, but soon they were both up the ladder. Erin heard them close the entrance, sliding the wooden plank over the opening and then the scrapes of the boulders to weigh them down.

  She was trapped in this dark chamber with her little girl by her side. The mother Lupita and her child were sitting across from Erin, staring. She knew not what they wanted, nor how this would end.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Face. Gotta take it off. Take it off. Hiding. He’s hiding behind his face.”

  The man was approaching. Macon heard the screech of his spastic voice, and the pitch seemed to get higher as the decibels bounced off the walls. Macon clenched onto the plastic lighter in his hand, but feared it would shake loose from the vibrations of the man’s feet reverberating through the ground. A lantern swayed at his hips making an erratic spotlight that hit walls, bounced off the ground, and shot in circles like a disco ball.

  Macon thought of the centipedes that always dashed out of the dark places in his basement. Their tiny furry legs made him gulp for breath and feel helpless when he had to visit the centipedes’ lair under his house. Once in a while he came upon their carcasses in the ceramic basement sink, which they could not escape from, so they became stuck and starved. Their hairy legs and body had curled up and mummified.

  Macon was a little boy again, back in his basement, trying to stomp out a centipede, but unable to. Their legs moved too fast, and Macon’s skull had been smashed open by a rock, as if he himself was the bug.

  The boom, boom, boom of the man’s boots approached, and Macon needed to act.

  “Hostage—have people who will pay. Have people who will pay,” the voice repeated in a high-pitched noise that sounded like he was mocking a woman.

  “Now they can’t follow us, Q. Can’t follow us like they had been, and it’s just me and you. So go. Go now.”

  Macon felt the hard plastic of the lighter wrapped in his fingers and the jagged edge of the metal under his thumb.

  The man was nearly upon him. Macon gave the lighter a flick. The flame responded, and he waved it back and forth near the rope. He forced his wrist to stay in the flame, tensed his back and grunted with an internal roar, a silent howl in his chest as the flame burned his skin. When the heat faded from his flesh, he knew that was because it was burning the rope. Roast, motherfucker. Roast, he thought.

  “Listening. Listening, and they’re listening to us think. Shhhh, don’t think.”

  Macon looked up just as the man took a full swing of his leg and his hard, plastic boot delivered a kick to Macon’s ribs that knocked the wind clear out of him. He gulped for air thinking he would never breathe again, and his fingers spread open in shock, dropping the lighter. It bounced away with a plastic ting once, twice, three, four, and five times, and then more.

  His hands trembled. The lighter was gone.

  “Yes, they listen to us, and they hide—hide behind faces… but we got things. We got things. We got things. Wee-burr, weee-burr, we must remove them.”

  Macon’s head cracked open with each noise the man made. The pitches penetrated his skull and wrenched the crack apart like a rib spreader. The man reached down to a crate across the way, ripped open a packet that looked to Macon like Kool-Aid, and sniffed deep, letting out an orgasmic groan.

  “No more listening. No more hiding… darkly, darkly, darkly. No more hiding in the dark for the start. Remove the walls; smash the tunnels. Cave them in, and take off the faces…”

  Bargains, deals, and promises of money and ATM machines—none of this would help now. Macon’s fingertips searched for the lighter, but were slow to respond due to tendons that felt burned and mangled.

  The centipede-man then shot across the floor as if many legs were propelling him, and he knelt next to the homeless man at Macon’s side. Macon saw the tweaker’s lips open and the shadowy flashes of brown teeth. Then Macon gasped so hard he coughed, felt spit stick in his throat, and got ready to puke. The creature dipped his head into the man’s face, right at the meat of his cheek, and began chewing… chewing, chomping, and groaning, like a dog on a bowl full of food. The man gnawed away, like he hadn’t eaten in a year and warm stew was presented before him.

  The cadaver barely moved, but move it did, and it was no cadaver. Blinded and helpless, his weakened hands came up, but the fingers were pushed down. Moans came from either the creature or his prey—it was hard to tell which.

  Macon’s fingers fumbled. I’m next.

  He rolled to his side, rooting with his hands on the tunnel floor, but came up with nothing. He tugged at the rope, pulling at his hands then his legs in desperation, but still nothing. What else could he try?

  His hands felt at his shorts, then in his pocket. The ring was still safely tucked away. He had made sure it was safe in his shorts since he was going to be carrying it for the whole marathon. Losing the ring was losing his life and losing his reason for being here. It may have been the only thing he kept safe. Index finger and thumb were able to pull the baggie out. His fingertips reached inside to the tin foil that surrounded the one-and-a-quarter carat, channel set princess cut diamond he bought at Marcus James Jeweler. His fingers opened the bag further and unfolded the metallic aluminum foil. If only he could offer the man the ring. What’s a crazy tweaker going to do with a ring?

  The cheek of the smoking man was gone now, but like mushy meat he could see it wasn’t being separated. This was no jerked chicken. This was like raw chicken meat, and it took both of the wretch’s hands to hold his meal down. He made noises in the air and then breathed in, summoning strength before bowing his
head again to eat.

  Flesh is hard to work with. Macon could have told him that. Saggy flesh needs to be manipulated before being drawn on, and poorly hydrated flesh doesn’t act the same. This old man smoked. You don’t need to drill too deep before blood bubbles up and becomes part of the muck, then needs to be wiped away and ends up a prison scratcher’s scar.

  Never overwork the skin, Macon heard Tency say. Regulate the voltage on the coil machine; lower for shading, greater for lining. Macon knew his own flesh would be next and would be easier to work with since it was taut over his skull. Less meat was quicker to rip.

  Macon moved his hands back and forth, pressuring the rope, trying different angles, pulling and pulling, looking for the weakest spot. The cord was strong, but seemed to be loosening and was definitely burned in parts. He could move his fingers with greater ease.

  He caressed the hard surface of the diamond ring, and it comforted him. The rock seemed to get bigger on his fingertips, gave him peace, and he would hold on to it as he died.

  He had researched and Googled diamond color guides from D to Z and went to dozens of jewelry stores. He spoke with salespeople with silk ties or exposed cleavage and big, teethy smiles, who stuffed business cards in his pocket. In the end, he met a jeweler in the tattoo shop, a man who he inked with a Yin-Yang sun rising behind a mountaintop. The man owned a small jewelry store open just three days a week, but gave Macon the best deal he could find. They traded their eternal gifts, diamonds and tattoos, but the ring seemed to have already found its final resting place.

  Macon wondered how long he could hold it before he died. He slipped it on one finger and then picked away at strands of the rope at a place where it had frayed. A tiny string, just a single strand, was peeling off. Macon ripped at it and yanked away. He felt it give.

  Surprise.

  He slid the ring to the tip of his finger and used the hard corner of the diamond to pluck away at the rope. The edge seemed to catch tiny strands if he applied enough pressure. He chipped away, one pluck at a time: pluck, pluck, pluck, and after a few tries another tiny strand of the rope snapped.

  “Q, baby. Baby Q.” The creature spoke, as if to nobody, but then Macon looked up and saw the little boy. Baby Q was there. He wasn’t a baby, of course, but a boy the same age as Lyric. Tiny legs held him up, and his face was covered in shadow, but he seemed to be made of stone. His hands examined something in front of him.

  The lighter. The child was playing with the lost lighter, flicking at the metal, unable to really light it at first, but once he figured it out, he was amazed at the flame as if it was magic. He flicked it on and off, on and off, waiting for his father to be done.

  Pluck, pluck, pluck, with the ring, and another tiny strand broke.

  The creature stood up. The smoking man’s nose had become a mound of gnawed flesh and his eye was missing. The creature took a step over the body and was making his move toward Macon.

  No, not yet, not yet. Macon was so close to breaking free, he could feel it. He looked up at the only person who could help him, this strange little boy Q, who was swooshing the flame up and down in the air, making circles, zig-zags, and figure eights as if at a rock concert. The glow made trails in the darkness.

  “Faces off! No more plotting against the man in the dark, who can’t see the light. No more stars that need the black stuff to shine. No more jail cells and winds that can blow away my thoughts.”

  With the son of this creature standing at Macon’s feet and the dark scent of him hovering, Macon had to do something.

  “Q, Q, Q,” Macon screamed. “Don’t do it! Don’t do it, Q!”

  “Q? What’s that, my boy?”

  “Q, just don’t do it. Don’t burn your daddy. Don’t do it. Don’t burn your daddy.”

  “Burr-burr-burn your daddy? Q burn your daddy?”

  “The lighter. Your kid. He has the lighter, and he’s trying to burn you, to set you on fire. Q shouldn’t burn you. He shouldn’t burn his daddy.”

  The creature’s eyes peered down into Macon’s. Spots of flesh and blood stuck to his jowls like a one-year-old’s birthday cake. His eyes widened, his face spread, and Macon clenched his face, waiting.

  “Q! Q!” the creature shouted, “Are you with them, Q? Yer just like yer paradita, Zorra momma, and you want your fingers chopped off too, Q.”

  The man stood back upright and approached his son with shoulders stuck out and arms ready to grasp like claws. Q looked up, backed away, shook his head sideways, and backed up more into a shadow. The creature approached with his lantern swinging like a pendulum at his hip. The terrified face of Q went in and out of the light. He tried to plea for help, but could not talk. He could only back away and stammer until he was fully in the dark. The lighter flamed out, fell to the ground, and his father chased after him to take out this perceived threat.

  A short reprieve. Pluck, pluck pluck. He worked fast with the ring. Pluck and rip, pluck and rip. With each success, momentum built and became easier.

  Circulation came to his hands, things were loosening, and a warmth filled him. The rope shed from his arms, fell to the ground like the body of a dead snake, and a new, fresh soul was sucked into his body. Macon welcomed it and burned with a new desire to live.

  He turned to his side and used his hands to prop himself up. Q was being backed against the wall with his father yelling, “The burns will rain down on you now! Down on all of you… flames from the dark sky.”

  Using his hands on the ground, like the wheelbarrow game they used to play at picnics, Macon crawled and hopped with his legs tied together. Quiet and slow at first, but then desperate and fast, he moved to the exit and soon saw the faint hint of light at the opening of the drainage tunnel. Groaning with each move and leaving trails of blood, he dragged himself from the drainage onto the cement running trail. The blackness of the tunnel opened to the grey dark of the night, which still seemed to shine like a bright, burning sun. It felt like crawling out of a hellacious womb and being reborn.

  His aching fingers would soon be able to untie the rope around his legs, his escape would be done, and he would be free to go.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Mommy, she has pictures on her skin.”

  “Tattoos, that’s what those are. Just drawings and doodles; not real. Some people do that.”

  “Can I have one?”

  “Sorry, no. We can’t do that here.”

  “Then can I have one of hers?”

  Erin felt the eyes of the filthy girl, T, studying her body, examining her ink, and eyeing Lyric at her side. Erin had asked her more than one question to get her to speak, but the little girl wouldn’t respond directly to her, only through her mother. Erin needed to believe they wouldn’t hurt her. She needed them to care.

  Can they even think like that?

  What was left in their heads, in their brains, and most important, in their hearts? She was convinced of this woman’s claim—the man had no brain left to pull off a ransom. All she could hope for was that they’d make a mistake, or for some mercy.

  “What’s your name?” she asked the mother.

  “Lupita, it is Lupita.”

  “And you, what’s your name?” Erin asked the daughter, but there was no answer. Erin swallowed. The back of her mouth was parched, and her saliva was full of bits of the chunky air. She ran her tongue across the top of her mouth and thought about how hungry Lyric probably was. Did she ever eat that Pop-Tart?

  Force wasn’t going to get them out of here. They were locked in anyways. Erin remembered the scraping noise of the rock at the entrance, so she would have to use diplomacy, or manipulation. There was always a weakness.

  Look at her with kindness and make her see your eyes.

  Erin’s gaze never left Lupita, and she tried to make her look back, to get a glimpse into Erin’s soul and see who she was.

  She is a woman and mother, just like me. I maybe had it easier, but our love for our children binds us. You can’t kill someone
like that, can you?

  “And your daughter, what’s her name?” Erin directed her question to the mother.

  “T, just T. When you lose a few, you don’t give them names for a while, but Q and T—born in the dirty dark.”

  Mother Lupita’s words were short now. Her gaze looked up toward the entrance to this chamber. Her face showed defeat.

  “They move when she talks, Momma… the pictures. And her stick, the stick by her eye, how did that get stuck in there?”

  “Not just pictures, but words too,” Erin answered. “Let me show you something.”

  Erin shifted, and Lyric scrambled from her spot at her side. “Shhhh. It’s okay, sweety,” she whispered with her mouth pressed into Lyrics hair.

  Erin turned her back, exposed the soft underside of her arm, and looked over her shoulder. Inked from wrist to elbow, in two lines worth of text in italics, it read: ‘Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.’

  Erin stood still like she was a model being painted, and mother and child examined the letters without a sound. The little girl held out her hand, looked to her mom, and then proceeded to touch the letter M with her fingertip, then traced the entire passage. Her fingers felt scaly, dry, and ragged, but they looped over each letter.

  “Can I have this one, Momma?”

  The mother Lupita said nothing.

  Erin felt Lyrics hands once again wrap around her.

  Can Lyric untie me? Would she? Can she do so without being seen?

  Erin realized the two cave dwellers couldn’t read. The little one certainly couldn’t, and perhaps both of them. “It says ‘Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.’”