Witch Lights

by Michael M. Hughes

  —

  Ramón was not looking well.

  They’d been driving for almost an hour, and now they were in the middle of what seemed like endless jungle on either side of the rutted, muddy road. Mantu had slowed down considerably, the van coming almost to a complete stop several times to avoid gaping holes and axel-snapping ruts in the dirt road. Ray had been half-listening to and barely understanding Ramón’s stories of his crazy mother in Cuernavaca when he noticed the man slurring his speech. Had Mantu loaded the orange juice with vodka?

  And then Ramón’s eyes began to roll back in his head.

  “Oh, shit.” Ray climbed off his seat and leaned into the front. “Mantu. Something’s up with Ramón.” He looked back and the man’s head was lolling forward, a sliver of drool stretching to his Marlboro shirt. “Mantu, pull over. Pull over now.”

  Mantu eased the car to side of the road. He climbed out, without any obvious urgency, and slid open the side door. Tall, spiky grass lined the road beside them for what looked like miles. Ramón almost rolled out but both men caught him, then laid him out flat in the van.

  “What’s wrong, Mantu? Is he drunk? Or sick?”

  “None of the above.” Mantu closed the door behind him. “He’s out cold. For about eight hours.”

  Ray stared. “What?”

  “Just listen to me. I can’t explain right now. But you and me are doing what we need to do. You gotta trust me. Now give me that medical kit.”

  Mantu first removed Ramón’s watch and his cellphone and dropped them in a plastic container. He then took out a pair of tweezers. “Hold open his mouth. Wide as you can.”

  Ray hesitated.

  “Do it, Ray. We don’t have a lot of time.”

  Ray grabbed Ramón’s jaw and forehead and pushed them apart.

  “You gotta pull on his bottom teeth. I need to get in there.”

  Ray grimaced at pulling on Ramón’s wet, nicotine-yellow teeth, but he complied.

  Mantu pulled aside the left cheek. He inserted the tweezers. Ray heard steel scraping against teeth and he got chalk-on-blackboard shudders. Mantu kept poking around as if he were trying to yank something out. Finally he locked on something. He pulled hard. It slipped off. Pulled again and his arm snapped up. “Got it.” He smiled, lifting the tweezers. On the end was what looked like a bloody piece of Ramón’s gums with a tiny silver rod embedded in it.

  “Christ,” Ray whispered. “You’re a dentist and a comedian? What is that thing?”

  “It’s a locator,” Mantu said. “Lucky it wasn’t subdermal or it would have been a lot messier.” He held a piece of gauze inside Ramón’s mouth. Checked his now locator-free gums for blood, and was apparently okay with the dime-sized stain. “Okay. Let’s get him out of here.”

  “Where?”

  “As far as we can drag him in five minutes. Now get his arms.”

  —

  They dragged Ramón through the tall grass and laid him out against a tree. Mantu quickly scoured the perimeter. “He’ll be okay. He’s trained. I’m leaving him with money and ID. But he’s smart, and he’ll contact the Brotherhood as soon as he wakes up and finds someone with a phone. So we gotta move fast.”

  They hurried back through the dense brush.

  Mantu dug through the back of the van and pulled out a blowtorch.

  “Shit. What’s that for?” Ray said.

  “Watch,” Mantu said. He knelt and took Ramón’s watch and the bloody rice-sized locator and piled them in the dirt. He turned on the blowtorch and held the flame to the pile. “It’s the only way to destroy them. Burning it. Melting it all down.” He waved the flame slightly, and the metal turned a dull red and green. A wisp of black, acrid smoke rose, and it burned Ray’s nose.

  Ray knelt beside him. “Why are you doing this, Mantu?”

  Mantu kept wavering the flame. “I fucked you over once for the Brotherhood. They got Ellen and the boy because I told you they would be safe and guarded. And I was wrong. Micah was wrong. They were onto us and they got them both and then we stupidly sent you right into Crawford’s cage.”

  Ray didn’t know what to say.

  “So I’m not doing it this time—I’m not going along with them. You’re my friend. Shit, man, you’re like my brother after all we’ve been through—a real brother. And I didn’t tell you, but I spoke to Jeremy yesterday. He said they knew where Ellen and William were. They picked up Ellen’s locator. The one in her earrings.”

  “What? They found them? So they’re going to get them?”

  Mantu turned off the blowtorch. “No. That’s the problem.”

  “Why not?” Ray’s face grew hot.

  “Too much of a risk. You’re the one who is important to them right now. They sent me and Ramón to get you and bring you back. Ellen and William…they’re…I hate to even say the words Jeremy used….”

  “Say it.”

  Mantu turned, his eyes red. “They’re low-priority. At least for now.”

  “Those fuckers,” Ray spat.

  “But you are the one they need. It’s not like they don’t care about Ellen and the boy. They’ll get them out. But for the time being, he said, they’re not worth the resources it would take.”

  “I’ll show them some resources. And shove those resources right up their asses.”

  Mantu waved his hand. “Jeremy thinks Lily is somehow behind it. And he can’t afford what it would take to go up against her group right now. It’s way too risky, and too likely to result in a field full of dead Brothers. And maybe a dead Ellen and William, too.”

  He stood up. “So who took them? Who is he?”

  Mantu poured water on the melted metal and it hissed. “That’s the other problem. You remember Pablo Escobar?”

  “Yeah. The drug lord, right? Didn’t Clinton take him out?”

  Mantu nodded. “Well, the man who has Ellen and William makes Escobar look like my high school weed dealer. He’s got a fucking fortress sitting way in the middle of nowhere. Helicopters, antiaircraft guns, a posse armed to the teeth. He wipes his ass with hundred-dollar bills and then uses them to pay off the entire Guatemalan government. And the DEA. And a bunch of congressmen whose names you would definitely recognize.”

  “So what are we going to do? How are we going to get Ellen and William back? Me and you?”

  Mantu laughed. “What makes you think I have the slightest idea?”

  —

  Mantu buried the melted locators in the weeds, then both men climbed back in the van. He patted underneath the driver’s seat. “The van had a locator, too. Right here.”

  “Did you burn that?”

  Mantu laughed. “Remember when we stopped to get gas? And I grabbed us lunch at the taqueria?”

  “Sure.”

  “Remember when I was putting air in the tires and that bus full of church people pulled up? With the big picture of Jesus on the side and the sign on the front saying it was heading to Tegucigalpa?”

  Ray nodded.

  “I stuck it in the wheel well. As far as Jeremy knows, we’re already fifty miles from here.”

  Ray couldn’t help but laugh. “How many jobs do you have? A dentist, a comedian, and now James Bond.”

  “And don’t forget—your mother’s favorite lover.”

  Ray rolled his eyes. “Wait a minute—what about you? Don’t you have a transmitter stuck in you somewhere?”

  “I did,” he said. “Until yesterday when we were in the safe house.” He pulled his short sleeve over his bicep. A gauze bandage covered an inch of his skin, and blood had soaked through it and dried. “I dug that bitch out myself. Nearly passed out when I finally got it. Now you understand why I needed to get drunk.”

  —

  Ellen awoke to find William wide awake and breathing heavily next to her. He was shaking, and she could feel his sweat on the sheets and the heat rolling off his skin.

  “What’s wrong, honey? Are you sick?” She reached out and felt his forehead. It was hot and clammy.r />
  “Something bad is happening,” he whispered. “Down in the basement.”

  “Shh, William, baby, you’re just having a bad dream.”

  “No.” His forcefulness surprised her. “It’s happening. Right now.”

  She sat up. “Come here,” she said. He hugged her. It always felt bittersweet when he hugged her like that. Some boys his age were already acting like sulky teenagers and wouldn’t even look at their parents, much less hug them so unself-consciously. One day he wouldn’t hold her this tightly, and that thought made her want to squeeze him even harder. “Tell me. Tell me how you know.”

  “I just know. I feel it.” Tears dripped on her neck. “It’s horrible. I can’t see it all. I can’t see details. But I can feel it. And, Mom…someone’s dying. Like right now.” He wailed softly.

  “Shh.” She pulled his head closer, squeezing him. “What do you mean, you can feel it? How do you feel it?”

  “I haven’t told you because I didn’t want to scare you.”

  Oh no, Ellen thought.

  “Something happened when we were at that place. Back home. Locked in his house.”

  Crawford’s. Of course. For a couple of unbearable hours Crawford and Lily had taken William away from her. Ellen felt her flesh crawl. “You can tell me. It’s okay.”

  He was still shaking. “They did this thing with me. It’s like they got in my head. In my brain. With their heads. I know it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It’s okay. You’re okay now. I’m here with you.” And it did make sense. They could do things like that—open up people’s minds like other people opened cans of tuna.

  He hugged her tighter. “And I’ve been different. Since then. I didn’t want to scare you or Ray. I’m sorry.” He started sobbing.

  “No, no. I don’t blame you.” She kissed his forehead. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” She let his sobbing slow down and finally stop. He wiped his nose against his T-shirt sleeve. “Just tell me. What happened? How are you different?”

  He breathed deeply and exhaled. “It’s hard to explain. I just know things sometimes. Like when we had to leave Costa Rica? Remember that?”

  She did. William had his bags packed that morning, and had only shrugged when she’d asked him where he thought he was going. That afternoon, their Brotherhood contact in Golfito had arrived to tell them Go. Go now. No time to pack, this is code A, the van is waiting for you outside, now GO.

  “It’s just that I know things sometimes. Not like when I’m going to get heads or tails when I flip a coin, but when important things are happening or going to happen soon. Sometimes I know what it is. Sometimes I see pictures. But mostly it’s just feelings. And tonight, when we did those calls—to the Brotherhood—I think it made it stronger.”

  “I believe you. Tell me. What’s happening now?”

  She felt his jaw clench against her collarbone. “He has someone in the basement. There’s a room down there. Some kind of cave. Where he does bad things.”

  Ellen shuddered. “What kinds of things?”

  “Like the stuff Crawf—like you-know-who did. Stuff with girls. Ladies. Men, sometimes, too. There’s some kind of statue down there. You know that statue out by the animal cages?”

  “Yuck. That thing gives me the creeps.”

  “They call her the Skinny Lady or the Bony Lady. The men around here, when they do something bad…they’re doing it for her. Like she’s their god or something. Like the Virgin Mary that Grandma used to have in her front yard. When they kill someone they do it for her.”

  “She’s not real, though,” Ellen said.

  William looked away, pensive. “She’s sort of real, I think. I can’t really explain it.” He rubbed his head. “There’s something real about her. Not her—not the statue. But her. Like the idea of her. But there’s something like her in the basement. Something worse than her. And it’s real, Mom. I can’t see it but I can feel it.”

  “Well, we’re getting out of here,” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” William rasped. “He won’t let us. He likes you. He doesn’t want to let you go, Mom. I think he wants to marry you.”

  She feigned a snicker, though inside she fought back a dizzying wave of nausea. “Never in a million years,” she said. The idea of El Varón wanting to marry her was too much to think about in the middle of the night with her terrified son’s face buried against her shoulder. And with someone apparently dying in the basement.

  William raised his head. “And I knew going to the carnival was a bad idea. I knew it but Cora wanted to go and she kept begging me and I felt so bad saying no and it made me feel stupid. And I was selfish, Mom. I just wanted to do something that was fun and—”

  “William, stop it. It’s—”

  “It’s all my fault, Mom, that Ray is gone and we’re here and—”

  “Stop.” She held his face in her hands. Looked into those oh-so-childlike but oh-so-grown-up eyes. “You and I are going to get out of this. We’re going to get away from here, as far away as we can, and back to somewhere normal. No more of this running and hiding shit.”

  His eyes widened at her use of profanity.

  “It’s not your fault that we’re here. We didn’t choose any of this.”

  He stared.

  “You and me, kiddo. We’re gonna get away from Mr. Banana Hammock and his army of smelly jerks. The first chance we have to get out of here, we’re going to do it. You in?” She proffered her little finger. “Pinky promise.”

  He wrapped his pinky around hers. “You and me, Mom. But we’ll find Ray, right? Because I know he’s looking for us. I felt it tonight.”

  “We’ll do everything we can. I sure hope so. But right now, it’s you and me. First things first.”

  She squeezed him again and thought How in the name of God are we going to get out of this?

  —

  The road stretched ahead of them, surrounded by nothing but inky black vegetation that blurred into the night sky. The headlights of the van sent flickering yellow cones across the pocked and cratered dirt road. Mantu drove while Ray stared into the darkness wondering what Ellen and William were doing now. Were they safe somewhere, sleeping? Were they tied up in some horrible concrete room like they’d been at Crawford’s? Were they even alive? He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, gritting his teeth. He couldn’t let the rage overwhelm him, but it felt like he was hanging on by a thread—and the thread was ready to snap.

  “You okay, amigo?” Mantu asked.

  Ray sighed. “Yeah. I can’t stop thinking about them.”

  “They’re okay. I don’t think he wants to hurt them. I think he just wants to use them. As collateral. He’ll keep them as long as he can to get the best deal.”

  “A deal with the bitch.” It was an unwritten rule that they never used her name. “That’s supposed to comfort me?”

  “I’m just trying to be truthful with you. You want comfort, there’s a whorehouse about an hour from here. Twenty quetzales for twenty minutes.”

  “I can see why your career as a comedian never went anywhere.”

  Mantu snickered. “You’d be surprised. I was good. Real good. Maybe not my-very-own-HBO-special good, but things were looking up. Running into some bad shit is what ended my career. Well, that and the pounds of cocaine I shoveled up my nose before Micah came along. He saved me, you know. I wouldn’t be here now if it hadn’t been for him.”

  Ray turned. Mantu’s eyes were shadows and his face looked skeletal in the light from the dashboard. “You never told me. About how you joined with them.”

  “Like I said, it’s a long story. We never had time.”

  “We have time now,” Ray said. “And a full tank of gas.”

  Mantu’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Okay, Ray. You asked for it. But you’re gonna have a few more gray hairs before I finish.”

  —

  “I was doing a gig at a club in Philly. I was just a kid back then—young and dumb. I’d go from cl
ub to club, do my set early in the night, and crash at someone’s house. I was drinking pretty hard. Doing a lot of coke, too. It was the eighties—everyone just did lines right out in the open in the clubs. Well, at least until Len Bias.”

  Ray nodded. He’d managed to avoid the hard-partying scene, but he’d watched a couple of his old girlfriend Lisa’s friends go through piles of nose candy.

  “But the gigs were getting better. People were starting to take notice. After one show in Philly, the owner of the club asked me if I wanted to come to a party at his place. He had some really good Peruvian shit, and he said I reminded him of Richard Pryor before he caught himself on fire. Which I took as a compliment. So he drives me to this place in Chestnut Hill, and, man, I tell you what, it’s a serious fucking party. Weed and Cuban cigars stinking up the place, bottles of Dom, and lots of guys in expensive Italian suits. Mostly white guys, but some Asian Yakuza-looking dudes with their crazy tattoos, too. I was the only guy with skin darker than a paper bag, but nobody seemed to even notice me. Everybody was high, the music was pumping, and the girls were walking around in short skirts and high heels. Beautiful girls, too—high class, natural beauties, natural tits, not a stretch mark on any of them. Young and sweet. And this hot little blonde starts chatting me up—sits down next to me and starts running her fingers across my chest. I was pinching myself the whole time. It seemed too good to be true.”

  The van dipped into a rut and Ray’s head nearly hit the roof. Mantu was unperturbed. Driving at night in Guatemala was a daredevil sport but it hardly fazed him.

  “But she had the weirdest eyes. Like she wasn’t all there—like her face was a mask and there was nobody behind it. I figured she was just really high, or really shallow, or really high and really shallow, but at that point I didn’t care if she had the IQ of a dust mite because she started whispering nasty stuff in my ear. Telling me about all the freaky shit she was going to do with the big black python in my pants—and let me tell you, he was getting bigger and blacker by the second. I’m talking shit straight out of the Penthouse Forum. I was a little creeped out by her weird eyes, but I was horny, and she was playing me like a fiddle. You know what I’m saying?”