I caused this, she thought. I caused this when I let the man buy me a Pop-Tart, when I opened the door and went to the vending machine with mommy being so long in the shower. I opened the door so quiet and made sure the metal click didn’t make any noise. I went across the empty hallway to the vending machine and stood in front looking at the Hershey bars, the barbeque potato chips, the licorice, and the Pop-Tart. And then the hotel man came up behind me.
She was so happy to be out of the cave where the two dirty children played with turtles. She still felt a weird coating of something on her skin from the place. It was all over her, and she wanted a bath to wash it off. The crazy-talking man was like a wild thing and made Lyric turn all black on the inside. Every time she blinked her eyes, she still heard his voice. She wanted to turn it off. But her daddy had killed him.
I think he killed him. He killed the wild thing. And where is that mom who talked so strange? Her little boy is here.
But now they were going home, Momma promised. But daddy was bleeding so bad, Mommy got cut, and both of them were running. She didn’t like this stroller ride, so she curled up as much as she could and ducked her head completely under the blanket and peeked out. When she looked straight up above her head, she could see her parents scared and could hear them breathing hard. When Daddy tried to breathe little droplets of spit came out of his mouth, and it all made his words sound wrong.
She peeked down and watched the trail as it went past. She hummed quietly to herself and felt her chest go hummmmmmm. She pretended it was part of her magic spell, and that she could make them go faster, make them fly even, make them sail home like on a ship. Time to sail home. Time to be home soon.
The ride started to get jerky, with big pushes that made her neck snap backwards, so she cuddled in deeper. Noises kept coming from those men behind her, the wild things chasing them.
And then suddenly she heard the crash of her daddy falling. His whole insides vibrated with an “oomph” noise as he fell to the ground, but still, the stroller kept going forward with just Mommy pushing—just mommy. Something was wrong.
Then she heard her mom cry out too, and the stroller rolled to the side of the trail and stopped. Lyric looked up to see who was pushing and saw nobody.
Nobody. There was no one except the men behind them who weren’t nice, who had dirty faces too, like the people in the cave.
The pain in her gut swirled, and tears built behind her eyes. The little boy just sat there like a rock, but she knew she had to do something. She pulled at the belts that tied her in, and they seemed too tight. She tried to turn her head and twist her neck to see behind her, but this was impossible. What could she do? She needed to cry for help. She wanted somebody to come.
Up the trail, the man walking his dogs was slowly getting closer. She wanted him to hurry. She tried to use her magic. All she had was her eyes.
Use that magic trick of staring with your eyes. That’s what Max did when he sailed to where the wild things are, and that’s all I can do, thought Lyric.
She stared into the man’s eyes as hard as she could, focusing on him until it felt like her eyes were popping out, and finally the man turned his head. He looked back, took a few steps, and seemed to be listening.
Help us, help us, help us! I’m so scared, and we need your help.
The man looked beyond her with interest, and his dogs were on alert too, sniffing and pulling at their dog master.
Be like Max. Tame them with a magic trick of staring into their yellow eyes without blinking once.
The man listened and did as he was commanded. Extending his one arm forward, he let go of the leash. “Fodder,” the man yelled after them. “Fodder!”
The magic trick of staring into their yellow eyes without blinking once, and they were frightened.
The dogs were coming. The three scary black dogs were running right at them. Lyric tightened her whole body, balled her legs up, and squeezed her arms around them. She looked at the strange boy next to her who still wasn’t moving at all, but had his eyes opened.
Stare into their eyes without blinking once, and they will be frightened.
Lyric pulled her head out from under the blanket, looked right at the three dogs running, and stared straight ahead with no blinks, listening to their growls. What will their bite feel like on my little arm? How sharp are those teeth? She waited to find this out as she stared into their eyes.
Then the dogs ran right by barking ferociously. A big whooshing wind swept through her hair as they raced onward. The man with one arm was approaching, too. She couldn’t see his legs, but he moved closer like he was riding on a flat escalator.
Then she heard men scream from behind her. Swearing and fighting noises were loud and filled the air. The dogs snarled, and Lyric was sure that more beasts from the trail were attacking the men too, because the noises sounded like a terrible battle with many monsters. The screams and growls came and went, sometimes loud, sometimes fading, until it finally grew silent. The growls become whimpers, and the dogs returned to their master. One of the dogs was limping. It was hurt.
Lyric held her breath, glanced at the boy next to her, looked toward the sky and saw only stars, until finally, she felt it. The stroller moved forward, just an inch, and she gazed back up at her mom and dad who had returned to push her home.
“The dogs. The dogs you see,” said the one-armed man, “they have a taste for certain things. I always hoped I’d see the day they’d satisfy their teeth.”
#
Erin scanned the area for anyone else, but it seemed the whole group had scattered. Two bodies still lay on the path, but they weren’t moving. She thanked the dog owner and begged for more help, but all he did was point his one arm. “They satisfied their teeth,” he repeated, and he disappeared back down the trail. Macon tried to call after him, but was unable to mouth the words and could barely stand. He was leaning with all his weight, using the stroller as his crutch, and his left eye remained closed. New wounds seemed to have appeared.
They continued on a deadened walk home with glances behind them to make sure they were clear. Knees were barely lifted, and feet were shuffled directly forward. This run was over. The finish line was here, and the tiny bits of yellow on the horizon showed that dawn was emerging. The baseball field opened up before them and offered the promise of a return home to a place where things were normal, and they both knew they would make it now. They walked across the green baseball diamond, visible to many who were starting their day. A Honda Civic pulled out into the street, car horns barked in the distance, birds fluttered through the air, and there was a freshness to the open-field air.
Erin yearned to grab her child and hold her, but this hug wouldn’t feel safe until they moved on.
And the boy. We saved him, Erin thought. We rescued this little boy from the grave. His tiny fingers grasped at the blanket and pulled it up completely over his head as the morning sunrise gained power. She would wait until later to uncover him and see what was really under that shell.
All of them were exposed to the dawning light of day, and Erin eyed her wound. It pulsed with pain. Each time her heart beat, she felt it, like a permanent, huge bee sting. The blood was near clotting, but it was hard to tell if it had stopped since a fresh coat of red covered her side. Can Macon cover this one with a tatt? The wound had already cut into part of her triquetra symbol, and the idea of a new one sickened her at this point. She wasn’t ready to hear the buzz of the tattoo needle humming.
Macon’s collapse to the ground was sudden. It was like he had walked over a gravity surge that sucked him down, and he fell like a marionette whose strings had been cut, limb over limb. His head hung slack on his neck, and he tried to mouth words to speak, but she couldn’t understand any of them. She leaned over him, put her ear to his lips, and heard him say, “Leave me. Send someone back.”
She tried to get him to his feet, but this just wasn’t going to happen. The ground was the place for him now; he was done, finish
ed, and had no more miles to go. She needed to move on, to get him help. His blood had already seeped to the ground, staining the green grass with red puddles. The morning sun showed he’d been Tic-tac-toed with dozens of cuts about him.
“We did it, we did it,” she whispered to him. “You did it. It’s going to be okay now. We’re going to get married, okay?” She saw him nod his head in affirmation and she put a hand on his cheek and gave him a kiss, tasting his lifeblood, salty and sweaty. “I’ll be right back.”
#
“I’ll be back right fast,” Macon heard her say, and then he felt her palm on his cheek and the kiss of her lips. It was a slow kiss, a good kiss. He looked at her eyes, and it seemed as if he was looking at her through water.
He was able to watch her walk off from this nice place on the ground, his new home by the baseball dugout, like the homeless man with one arm and three dogs. She pushed Lyric down the road and soon disappeared when the road winded.
Darkness and sleep came next, or at least a quick flash of sleep; he was not sure how long it lasted. When he woke, he still felt the warmth of her touch on his cheek, still imagined the sweet taste of her lips on his, but a new hand graced his shoulder and a woman stood over him.
“Oh my God, Mr. Facinelli, you are bleeding. We need to get help.”
It was Maria from the hotel. Her fingers lightly wrapped around Macon’s arms, got him up to rest on his knees, and his bones ached as if a cruel chiropractor had just rearranged his skeleton. But when he looked into her eyes, so soft and sweet, it was like heaven, like salvation. Her brown eyes looked down on him like a kind and loving mother, and he was her newborn baby, still bloody from birth and completely dependent.
“Erin—my wife… my wife and child, where are they? You see them?”
“Yes. They are safe. They are talking to police right now and getting cared for. They are so precious. Who did this to you?”
Macon couldn’t answer, wasn’t sure this was real, didn’t know if he was really in his body or outside it, hovering beyond things in an outer layer that encompassed everything. Thoughts and words all floated.
“You need a hospital,” she said.
“Call an ambulance.”
“I will take care of you. I will be your ambulance, and we better hurry. I will drive you. It is marathon day, but you will not be running today. I will take you to the hospital. It is close. They will make you well.”
Macon looked into her brown, soft eyes and felt drunk. She was strong, and assisted him into the back seat of the van. He looked at the seat cushions getting stained with blood beneath him and was reminded of Lyric spilling fruit punch on the couch. He was drenched in liquid that oozed all over, and he wanted to say he was sorry to Maria. He was sorry and he would clean it up later when he could.
He felt the van move quickly down the empty street, past the hotel, swinging directly into a busier highway.
Macon was going. He was going to get help, safely away from the cave and the tunnels. His wife and child were safe. Soon all would be well.
“You saved them, I see. You did it,” a voice said from the front seat, but Macon’s head of mush could barely decipher if it was Maria that spoke.
“Need to go back,” Macon said. “We need to send someone. There’s people… a child is still there. And another man. Someone needs to go… there… needs to go back.”
Maria didn’t respond or didn’t hear, and Macon didn’t have the energy to speak any louder. His vision blurred, seemed to double, and then he noticed a person in the passenger seat, a larger person, who turned to respond.
“Yes, I know. I know, Mr. Facinelli. You are too kind. You are. No need to worry. We will go back. You will see. We need to go back.”
It was Marcos, Mr. Mex, who was riding along with them as well. “This is not how we treat visitors here, this is not right,” he said. “We will take care of you. You proved yourself. The greatest of the Pronghorns.”
Macon leaned over, closed both eyes, and rested his head on the window. The glass felt cooler and smooth on his skin, but the crack in his skull seemed to have split open his whole body. This pain had been with him long enough to feel permanent, but it was okay; everything was okay, because they were going for help. Bumps on the road flew by, and he opened his right eye and saw a ravine running next to the highway. He made out the faint outline of a trail running alongside it. Marcos looked back at him with a smile and scratched his head behind his ear. The weight of Macon’s skull pulled at him, and it wasn’t long before he gave in to sleep.
Epilogue
Particles of cave dust stirred in the air. Lupita felt them hit her nostrils. Her hostage had just shifted.
She turned off the flashlight and felt the blackness surround her. She wasn’t sure when someone would come and needed to save the batteries.
T and her had been taking turns wearing the ring, shining the flashlight on the diamond to see it sparkle. They took it on and off so many times it smoothed the dirt off their fingers. It fit best on T’s thumbs and was too big for all but Lupita’s middle fingers. She told T stories of princesses who were rescued, presented with magic rings that made them happy, and then given food forever. The princesses went on to be mothers to other princesses.
Dante’s raspy breath was stuck into a permanent snore. He could only breathe out of his broken nose since his mouth was gagged shut. Once in a while he’d make frantic grunts and mumbles, but this had mostly stopped. Lupita learned how to tie someone up from watching him, and his cords were knotted very tight. He was trapped and would not escape.
Someone would come soon for them. It might be Q. She could tell Q was safe; she felt it in her chest. Or the tribe might come. Or Dante’s brother. Or authorities with uniforms. Lupita knew it. She would hear the scraping noise of the concrete being moved from the wooden slab, see the glow of flashlights shoot down the entrance, and people would descend into this place. Things would change.
But for now they had fodder. It was tied tight, bleeding from many cuts, but still living. She had plenty of knives to get more out of him until the chamber was opened.
And then the darkness in the air would lift.
Then the noises would come.
And soon after… the light.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to my family for dealing with all those moments I got sucked into typing, editing, and writing at all hours of the night. Thanks to my late brother, Kevin, without whom this book would never have been written.
Thanks to the beta-readers who gave me invaluable feedback, especially Erik Smith from Goodreads and Anne in San Diego. Thanks to my expert editor, Weston, who provided some much-needed polish. And lastly, a big thanks to James Roy Daley of Books of the Dead Press for his time and investment and bringing this sparkling story to the world.
If you enjoyed this novel, reviews are welcomed and appreciated.
About The Author
For 20 years Mark Matthews has worked in behavioral health field settings, including psychiatric hospitals, runaway shelters, and substance abuse treatment centers.
This novel is based on an actual morning run he took on a trail in San Diego, where the lubricants of running made his imagination flow. His first novel, Stray, is based on experiences working in a treatment center with an animal shelter right next door within barking distance.
He is an avid marathoner, and his second novel, The Jade Rabbit, is the story of a woman, adopted from China, who grows up in Detroit and runs marathons to deal with lingering trauma. Both novels have received excellent reviews.
He is a graduate of the University of Michigan, a licensed professional counselor, and lives near Detroit with his wife and two daughters.
Mark blogs at: Running, Writing, and Chasing The Dragon.
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On the Lips of Children Page 18
