by Skye, Mav
She snarled at him as if she could read his thoughts.
He was instantly aroused. His girlfriend could never do for him what this pretty little lamb just had. “Oh, is that what the little lamb wants? Just hold still a sec…”
He held both her hands with one of his while he pawed at his zipper… the stupid cape Tucker Slim made him wear kept getting in the way.
The woman snarled again and jumped at him, her teeth latching onto the nose of his wolf mask. He instinctively shrank back.
When he leaned back, it lessened the pressure on both her hands.
She yanked one free and snatched the mask, lifting it enough to see the shape of his hungry face, the deformity of it, the color of —or lack of—his eyes.
“Shit!” He swatted at her hand, and the mask snapped back onto his face.
Pain radiated from the plastic snap back. And anger replaced lust. How dare she expose him like that? How dare she?
“You bitch!” He released her hands to make a grab for the Bowie.
Bad move. She clawed at his face beneath the mask, his clothes, the cape. And finally, after grasping the big knife he did what he had to. He aimed for her temple and rapped the hefty handle against her skull.
Her arms collapsed to her side, but her eyes still watched him. She whispered, “May, save the children.”
He smiled behind the mask. It was why he was there. She was just a bit of sport. “Don’t you worry, little lamb. I’ll get the children.”
Her eyes grew wide, terrified, and then he slammed the butt of the Bowie against her temple again. Her eyelids closed.
It was a shame he didn’t get a taste of her, but the cries of his other prey beckoned to him.
He left the woman on the floor, seized the rope, and raced down the hallway to the ladder. As he climbed, he could hear the little ones squealing in fear, leaping back and forth like scared little piggies. The attic loft wasn’t that big. He dropped the Bowie on the floor of the loft and grabbed at one’s thin leg.
The little boy shrieked, then shrieked again as Ross snatched the other leg, yanking him backward across the floor. “Little pig, little pig…” He laughed at his own joke.
He bound the boy’s ankles, then grabbed for his wrists, when he realized he hadn’t seen the other pig for quite some time. He glanced, left, right…and then realized the Bowie wasn’t where he’d dropped it. He finished tying the rope around the boy’s hands and ankles, then looped the rope behind him in a knot.
He felt the girl’s presence behind him before he saw her shadow. Candlelight illuminated a young, lean figure crouching over him, the big knife in hand.
He didn’t dare turn around. He dropped the rope he used to bind the boy and calmly said, “Little girl? What do you think you’re doing?”
Her voice sounded older than she looked. “Aunt Jenn warned us about big, bad wolves. You haven’t a soul.”
He stretched out his arms, showed her his empty hands. “I’m not a wolf, darling. Look at my hands, they are just like yours.”
Her voice grew cold and thin as a ghost's. “My, what sharp nails you have.”
Ross smiled beneath the mask. He liked this game. He slowly turned around, arms up, palms up, balancing awkwardly on the ladder steps. “All the better to pet you with, my dear.”
The girl had a braid of blonde hair that flowed down one of her shoulders. A red Supergirl cape embraced her neck.
“My,” she said, playing along, holding the big knife very, very steady in her hand. Her eyes were as cold as steel. “What sharp teeth you have.”
He knew his cue. “All the better to eat you with…” He leaped at her, his hands reaching for her waist.
And that is when he saw the Bowie’s sharpened blade come down, down, down…
He felt his skull split, and he fell backward in shock, landing on the little boy. The boy managed to squirm away, when Little Red slammed the Bowie into his chest twisting the blade.
Ross reached for her. She slapped his hands away, her light blue eyes cold as crystals. “You’re a bad man. Bad men die.” She kicked his face and rushed over to the little boy.
Ross slumped over into the loft. He breathed once, twice, and closed his eyes. Deep inside the dark, he saw a devil skeleton dancing from far away. It danced closer and closer, a scythe in one hand, donning a wolf mask.
Ross screamed inside his mind, but his chest wouldn’t let him draw a breath. All he could do was lay there as the skeleton drew closer and closer, and when it arrived.
It lifted the scythe before bringing it down, shearing into Ross’s skull.
3
Suffer The Little Children
Tony cried softly into the floorboards. “Please don’t be dead, Tina. Please don’t be dead.”
“I’m not dead, worm. I’m trying to find something to cut the rope with.”
He cried again when he heard her voice. There were two candles lit, one by the loft entrance and one on the wall beside Tony’s clothes trunk. Despite the soft glow, it was still dark in the loft. Rain beat at the single window between their beds, drowning out the light from the moon and the stars. “What about the knife the bad man had?”
“No. Not that one. Where’s your pocket knife, the one Father Wraith gave you for Christmas?” Her voice was calm and gentle. How could Tina be so calm when a wolf just tried to kill them?
He tried to muffle his sobbing and reply but hiccupped instead.
“Where is it, Tony?”
He said, “In my treasure box.”
He heard her walk over to his clothes trunk and search through the clothes, then the opening of the metal box and slight intake of breath.
His face blushed red when he realized what she’d found. The collection of teeth and claws. One of the men at the bad house had once told him that animals couldn’t feel pain, that’s why we could kill and eat them.
After Christmas, he’d taken his pocketknife out with him to play in the fields. He’d cut the long grass and sucked the juice out of it. He also found a dead rabbit, and after inspecting it closely, cut out its two front teeth. He’d also found squirrels and once a dead cat—though it turned out to be alive—and he had to kill it to get its teeth and claws.
He thought it might have felt pain by all the yowling it made, but Tony wasn’t sure. Besides, he had wanted those pretty white teeth for his collection.
He could hear Tina swallow, but she didn’t say anything, and soon he felt her sawing away at the knot.
The ropes broke free.
Tony scrambled to his knees and clutched his sister about her waist. He held in the sobs building up inside him. “I was so scared, Tina. I thought you were dead.”
Tina hugged him back, patting him on the shoulder, gently. “It’s okay, Tony. I protected us. We’re going to be fine.”
“But Aunt Jenn—”
Tina shushed him. “I need you to keep it together, Tony. We need to move the bad man’s body so we can get down there.”
Tony’s nose ran, and he instinctively moved his face, so he wiped it on Tina’s shoulder. As soon as he’d realized what he done, he froze. Tina hadn’t noticed, and Tony relaxed. She’d kill him herself if she’d known he’d wiped his snot all over her Supergirl cape.
Tina gave him one last squeeze and said, “Aunt May is watching over Jenn, help me move the bad man and we’ll go check on her.”
He sniffled and wiped his nose with a finger this time, nodding.
Tina stood. “Okay, are you sure you’re ready?”
“Yes.”
Tina held her hand out to him, and Tony took it. He let her pull him to his feet, his Buzz Lightyear pajama pants were too big for him, and he had to pull them up. Hand in hand, they walked over to the wolf. The candlelight cast an eerie glow over the mask; its teeth especially white and sharp.
Tony avoided the puddle of blood, but Tina trudged right into it.
She flicked back her Supergirl cape and put her hands on her hips. “We either pull him all t
he way up, or push him down.”
Tony didn’t want to push him down. What if the wolf exploded like they do in cartoons? Not that he and Tina had watched any since they moved in with Aunt Jenn. They used to watch them at the bad house.
The bad house was a place he and Tina had been kept with a bunch of other kids. Sometimes, they’d get locked in cages if someone misbehaved. Scary, mean people (Tina called them monsters) would come in and pick out kids as if they were pets from a pet store.
Except, nobody wanted to be picked. Never ever. You didn’t go to a forever home, though sometimes when a kid didn’t come back, Tony imagined him—or her—riding off into the sunset with a new mom and dad.
Tina got picked several times, and when she’d come back, she’d have bruises and welts on her arms, a distant look in her eye. He asked her once what happened when you got picked, and she’d shrug and say she didn’t remember.
He wasn’t sure if she didn’t remember or not, but he knew something bad happened when they took the kids away. When most kids came back, they’d huddle in the corner and cry for days, even when the bad guys gave them candy. Everyone got candy at night and in the morning, though, to be honest, it didn’t taste like candy, but it sure did make Tony feel funny, mostly sleepy. For food, they would get cereal like Cheerios and sometimes Lucky Charms. That’s all they ever ate at the bad house.
Once, he was picked to go away. He remembered that day clearly because it shocked him. Sometimes, the grown-ups would look at him and say he was too scrawny or ugly. He didn’t mind being too ugly. Tina was always cute and she was picked all the time. But, the day he got picked; he remembered the tall man walking into the room. He had squinty, gray eyes with round glasses. His nose pointed out over a long scraggly mustache. He had squinted over all the children, inspecting them, and when his eyes landed on Tony, they didn’t move.
Tony had been chewing stale Lucky Charms, and when he saw the tall man’s eyes lock onto him, his heart nearly stopped, and the cereal fell out of his mouth.
“That one.” He pointed at Tony, and the man who fed them cereal, Skinny Eddie, walked over to Tony, and patted him on the head and unchained his feet from the floor. All of them wore chains. Though the older ones like Tina occasionally had their chains off to play cards (a reward for good behavior) or to use the toilet. “Come on, kid. You’re up.”
Tony dropped his cereal dish and shook his head. “I don’t wanna go.”
Tina appeared from across the room. She’d been playing cards with an older boy. She stood in front of Tony, took a deep breath and tucked her dirty blonde hair behind her ears. She looked the mustache man straight in his steel eyes. “Take me.”
Skinny Eddie pointed his thumb towards Tina. “Whatta ‘bout her?”
On several occasions, normally when they forgot to feed them, Tina had caused quite the riot. Skinny Eddie didn’t like Tina, but he respected the trouble she could cause.
The man squinted, and he pulled on his handlebar of his mustache as he considered. He shook his head. “I want the boy.”
Skinny Eddie shoved Tina to the side. Hard. She fell on top of a sleeping toddler with a huge messy diaper. The little girl screamed as Tina struggled to stand up without stepping on her.
Skinny Eddie grabbed Tony by the ear and yanked him up. Tony yelped from shock and pain. He tried not to trip over the other kids as Skinny Eddie dragged him across the room.
Tina screamed behind him. “No, Tony. Don’t go.”
He stood before the tall man with gray eyes. The tall man’s mouth twitched in a cruel smile.
And Tony did something he’d never done before. He kicked the tall man right in the shin as hard as he could.
By then, Tina was in front of him, throwing small punches at the tall man’s waist while Skinny Eddie tried to fend her off.
“Enough!” cried the tall man.
And everybody froze except Tina. She kept punching and kicking, biting Skinny Eddie’s thumbs.
“Ow! God damned animals.” Skinny Eddie threw Tina to the floor, where she wrapped her arms around Tony’s ankles.
She said, “I won’t let my brother go. I won’t. You have to kill me first.”
“Tina,” Tony whined. He was scared and numb with shock.
Skinny Eddie nursed his thumbs and nodded towards the kids. “Special of the month, two kiddies for the price of one.”
The tall man with the gray and squinty eyes smiled, nodded, and bent down to the children, gripping one arm of each. “Sounds like a deal.”
Skinny Eddie glared hard at Tina, his lips lifted in a snarl, revealing his yellow buckteeth. “On one condition.”
The tall man frowned. “What would that be?”
Skinny Eddie said, “You can’t bring ‘em back.”
Tall man nodded, his scraggly mustache bouncing with his head, he cackled the deep throaty laugh of the devil.
The tall man towed Tony and Tina out to his rusty pickup, where he sat them both up in the truck bed, tied their ankles with ropes and drove off with the hot sun beating down on their pale faces. Tony couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone outside.
They had left Texas that day, and Tina said to never think back to it. But sometimes, Tony did. Especially that day, he remembered the sway of the mesquite trees, paddle cactus poking up from the hard ground of the desert, deep purple of prickly pears colorful as Christmas lights. He remembered the sound of the cicadas humming from the underbrush, grackles pecking at the hot cement, humid air filling his lungs.
Most of all, Tony remembered feeling free. And he remembered his mother though he didn’t think of her often. Tina said she had sold them for three hundred dollars so she could have candy of her own. But Tony didn’t believe that.
No, sir. Their mother loved him and Tina. Putting his arms up in the air, the wind rushing all about him, Tony felt free as a bird of the sky. And he felt that way all the way up to New Mexico, where the tall man dressed in black leather and whipped them as they got out of the truck and promised to show them where hell really was.
And that’s where Tony’s memory left off until Father Wraith pulled him and Tina out of the coffins at the church.
Tony became aware that someone was shaking him. His sister’s face came into his blurry vision, and she said, “Tony. I need you to be with it.” She shook him again.
“Back off, Tina. I don’t feel so good.”
“Yeah? Join the party, worm.”
“I’m not a worm.” He felt a fresh rush of tears flee down his cheek, and Tina’s voice softened.
“Listen up, I’m going to push him down.” Her Supergirl cape slipped to the side of her shoulder as she tried to lift the bad man up and shove the rest of him down the hole in the loft.
Suddenly, Tony saw the wolf falling and hitting the wooden floor below, his guts exploding blood and coloring every wall red.
“No!” screamed Tony. He leaped toward Tina and grabbed one of the bad man’s meaty thighs.
Tina looked at him with confusion. “Excuse me?”
Tony, embarrassed, said, “It’s easier this way.” He hefted the thigh until he could reach the knee, and drew up the calf and ankle out of the hole. “See? Like this.”
Tina dropped the man’s shoulders, his head slamming back onto the wood, and grabbed the man’s other thigh like Tony. Together, they were able to lift the legs and move them around clockwise until the body lay fully on the floor.
Tina said, “Let’s go check on Aunt Jenn, then we’ll figure out what to do with the body later.”
“Do with it?” piped Tony, but Tina was already racing down the ladder, and he followed her.
The front door stood wide open, the stormy breeze blowing in fresh air. The lightning and thunder had passed, and rain plopped down in long tears on the living room window.
Aunt Jenn sprawled near the entrance, a dark purple bruise blooming on her brow. Tony and Tina huddled about her. Tina gently brushed the hair from Jenn’s forehead and placed her han
d on her brow, something Jenn had done for her many times. “She’s still warm.”
Tony wrapped his arms about Jenn and laid his head on her chest. He listened for a heartbeat, but a puff of wind blew in overpowering the silence. Outside, he could see the clouds tiptoeing across a black canvas, and in that very moment, he saw a single star blaze in the night sky. He prayed, Please be alive. PLEASE be alive, Auntie Jenn.
That was when he heard it. The gentle rhythm of life pumped in Jenn’s chest. Tony breathed a sigh of relief and though he couldn’t see the star, he whispered, “Thank you.”
Tina hovered above them. “What? I didn’t hear what you said. Do you hear anything?”
He rose and gazed up at his sister, and he couldn’t help but grin a big cheesy smile. “Yep, she’s alive all right.”
Tina sank to her knees beside Tony. She put an arm around his shoulders, her cape covering some of him, too. She said, “You know what we have to do, right?”
He turned and raised his eyebrows. “What?”
Tina sighed as if weary of the weight life had dealt her. “We have to deal with the body. By ourselves.”
4
The Body
Tina bit her lip and placed her hands on her hips, ready to fight Tony on this. He was just a kid, but it was time for him to grow up, just like she had to.
It wasn’t fair, but Tina didn’t think there was such a thing as fair. She still remembered her mother’s words as she handed them over to the bad men. They gave her money, and she’d counted it, spittle dribbling from the crook of her mouth. She’d said, “Looks fair.”
But she was wrong. It wasn’t fair. Not even close.
Tony gazed up at Tina, tears in his eyes. “I think we should wait until Auntie Jenn wakes up. She’ll know what to do. She always knows what to do.”
