Tyler was in detention for armed robbery and carjacking. He had been here once before, for robbery. He’d grabbed a phone out of a girl’s hand on the train.
He’d ran.
The girl had ran after him.
She’d slipped.
She’d fallen.
Her head had split open on Clark Street. Her body convulsed. Foam spilled from her lips and deep red stained the concrete. She did not die, but her lawyer said she could have. Tyler was only twelve at the time. He got a short stay in detention. The armed robbery and carjacking were likely going to give him a longer sentence, but as he said, it was not going to be as long as Mo had coming.
Tyler liked to talk, a lot. He also liked to ask a lot of questions. He wanted details, but Mo just said that he could not remember what happened. It had been dark. There was a lot of shouting. Water.
“You’re the one that stabbed her first then? What’d it feel like?” He nudged Mo in the rib with his elbow.
“I don’t know,” Mo pushed him off. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know!”
Tyler’s mouth hung open. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
Mo shook his head. The lawyer had told him not to discuss his case with anyone, that it could harm his prospects. Mo wondered what prospects. He did not know what any of this meant. He did not mean to do any of this. He just wanted to help Fin. He also just wanted the person who robbed his father’s store dead and she’d told him this was the only way to make that happen. That he would not get caught. But here he was.
The cafeteria felt almost like high school, except for the numerous heavily armed officers who paced and walked about the room. The young men being held here knew they could not get too loud. Otherwise, security assumed a fight was brewing, and if a fight happened, they’d be secured in their rooms with something that barely passed as food for their meal.
Leo was already seated and waiting for them. He was only a year older than Mo, but Leo was six-feet-plus, wide, and was here for allegedly running over a police officer with a stolen car. Mo was surprised by this as Leo was so quiet, whenever he spoke it was practically a whisper.
Tyler slammed down his tray. “You’re starting to bore me. Tell us what happened.”
“You’re nuts,” Mo said as he sat across from Leo, who had not even looked up from his neon-green peas.
“I mean, if you’re going to kill someone, you make sure you kill them dead,” Tyler said. “Your problem is that girl sitting up in her hospital bed. Once she starts talking, then you and your friend are done. Life sentences. You’re lucky Illinois no longer has the death penalty.”
Leo took a long drink of water and set his cup down.
Mo looked at his tray. The food was as limp and processed as the food served at DePaul. He picked up a roll and sunk his teeth into it. It was stale. When he looked again, he saw a patch of fuzzy green. Mold. He spit it out as Tyler laughed.
“Guess they have other ways of killing murderers. You’re going to be spending a long time in places like this, with food like that,” Tyler said pointing his fork at Mo.
Tyler had been one month from turning fifteen when he committed his last crime. He had made sure to tell people that at every chance when they brought up his case.
“I’m only fifteen,” Mo said.
With a mouthful of French fries, Tyler shook a finger in Mo’s face. “Doesn’t matter.” He reached for a cup of water and washed it back. “Minors age fifteen and over are tried as adults in Illinois if they are charged with any of the five serious crimes: first-degree murder, aggravated criminal sexual assault, aggravated battery with a firearm, armed robbery with a firearm, or aggravated vehicular hijacking with a firearm.”
Mo pushed his tray away. “I didn’t kill anyone,” he said.
Both Tyler and Leo looked at Mo with wide eyes.
“Someone killed him,” Tyler said.
Mo looked down at the tray in front of him, trying to instead see back to that night.
Evie had arrived with Daniel by her side.
“Hey, you guys!” Fin had thrown her arms over Daniel and Evie’s shoulders. They walked, the three of them, like that for a few feet, Fin in between, chatting about school, Mr. Sylvan, whatever, just to lead them up toward the lagoon. Daniel thanking Fin and especially Evie for inviting him. Mo had walked closely behind listening.
They all took a seat on the ground in front of the lagoon. The weather had been cool. The sky clear and purple, and for a moment it had not felt as though they were in a city, but in a kingdom far away.
Fin had turned to Mo and smiled. She was so excited, eyes bright, talking rapidly, hands waving in the air. Her energy was electric.
Before they’d got there, Fin had told Mo how she was able to lure Evie to the park. Evie’s motivation was simply Daniel, and the promise to be rid of him. While Daniel was distracted taking a picture of the lagoon with his phone Mo heard as Evie leaned in and asked Fin, “How does the Pied Piper do this?”
Fin had raised her voice and clapped her hands. “Alright everyone. It’s time! Daniel, leave your phone right here and follow me.” Fin kicked off her shoes and slipped off her socks and set them on the bench.
“We’re going in the water?” Evie asked.
“Just our feet,” Fin reassured with a doll-like smile.
“It’s freezing,” Daniel added.
“Nothing good can be easy,” Fin gave him a smirk. She motioned them to follow her. Her feet, then ankles and then knees disappearing under the water.
“Hurry up!” She turned around and walked backwards. “It’s not going to get any warmer!”
Mo allowed Evie and Daniel to enter first, and then he followed.
Daniel laughed. “The crazy things we do for our friends, right?”
No one answered him.
“When the Pied Piper arrived, the mayor agreed to pay him generously...with gold coins”
“What?” Daniel asked, confused.
Fin continued. “As the Pied Piper played his flute, the rats came out from hiding, hundreds of them, and then followed him into the harbor.”
Mo turned to Daniel. Daniel’s face was twisted up, puzzled, over what it was Fin was talking about.
Fin reached out and placed each of her hands on Fin’s shoulders. Fin bounced on her heels once, twice and said:
“Where they fell into the water and drowned.”
Fin pushed back with both of her hands as hard as she could, forcing Evie to lose balance and fall into the cold lagoon. It was not a playful push. It was violence. An attack, and at the moment, Evie did not even scream she was so surprised.
Daniel rushed towards Evie, reaching his arms out to try to catch her, but it was too late. Evie was submerged. Her arms flailed, splashing, fighting to get up.
Fin screamed. “Mo! Get him!”
Mo dove for Daniel. He reached for Daniel’s waistband. His fingers slipped. He fell. Water filled his nostrils. Stung his eyes. He gagged. He swallowed some of the putrid liquid back, feeling as some of the grains of sand cut down his throat. When he emerged again, his eyes burning, he saw Evie hanging onto Daniel. Fin held a knife high overhead and then it came down.
Daniel raised a hand, but Fin brought the knife down, lopping off his fingers. With his other hand, he clutched the stump and cried. Fin rammed the knife into him again, and again. Shocked and panicked, he stumbled back and fell again in the water. Splashing wildly.
Fin aimed the knife into Evie’s shoulder.
Evie’s mouth fell open, and her screams carried across the sky.
Fin yanked the knife out and stabbed.
Again.
Blood flowed.
Again.
Blood sprayed.
The knife went in, again, and again, Evie holding her hands in front of her, protecting her face. The knife aimed for Evie’s face, but Evie turned. Her arms shaking, her pleas ignored. Fin brought the knife down and sliced o
ff Evie’s right ear where it plopped and sank into the water.
“Mo!” Fin shouted. “Help me.”
Mo rushed forward, trudging through the murk beneath his feet. Fin shoved the handle of the knife into his hands. “Kill her!”
With the knife in his hands, Mo closed his eyes and stabbed at the air and then hit something, someone. He heard Evie scream. A wild, animal scream. He opened his eyes and saw movement through the corner of his eye. He looked out onto the bridge overlooking the lagoon, and he saw a man. A man in a black suit.
He turned back.
Evie roared with shock and pain, her entire body trembling. Her hands grasped the hole in her head. Blood seeped in between her fingers and dripped down her arms, and then Evie sank.
Daniel emerged and reached for his friend. He pulled, put Evie’s arm around his neck, supporting her.
Daniel and Mo’s eyes met across the water.
Mo reached for Fin. “We have to go,” he shouted, as he looked back and saw the man in the black suit watching them. Water splashed in his face, and he wiped away at his eyes.
“We have to go!” Mo shouted.
Fin wiped her eyes. “We have to be sure they’re dead!”
“Someone saw us. We have to go.” Mo pulled her back before she could return to Evie and Daniel.
“They won’t make it out of here. We have to go. Now!” He ordered. “We are being watched.”
They moved out of the lagoon quickly, covered in blood and sand and dirt. Mo tripped, knife in hand and it struck his foot. He screamed in agony but continued moving, for fear of the unknown man. They slipped on their socks and shoes and ran. Freezing. Mo leading her away as she screamed that they were not done. He assured her they were done as he watched the man on the bridge fade into the distance.
“Have you heard from your girlfriend?” Tyler leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, his chin in his hands.
“She wasn’t my girlfriend.”
“This is sure a lot of trouble to be in for someone that wasn’t your girlfriend.”
“No, I don’t know where she is. I just figured they had her in another juvenile detention, to keep us separated.”
Leo frowned. Tyler nodded.
“What was that?” Mo pointed to each of them. “That look you gave each other?”
“We’ve got an idea where she might be,” Tyler said. “You said that this was all her idea, and so, maybe she’s just insane, and they locked her up in psychiatric somewhere. Just popping some pills into her to keep her all drowsy, so she can plead guilty.”
“No, Fin’s not crazy.” he said.
“And neither are you? Have you listened to yourself tell your side of the story? It sounds pretty wild to me,” Tyler said.
Mo remained quiet. Fin understood him. She was one of the few, if only, people who did. He missed her, and he wondered if she missed him. He suspected that they kept them apart like this on purpose, perhaps to sow discord, so that each would lay blame on the other. Maybe this was all part of the process of proving themselves worthy to the Pied Piper. Perhaps he would still arrive and solve their problems.
Talking about this with other people, in many ways, was pointless. He and Fin were committed to getting the kind of life that they deserved, the kind of life that they wanted, without worry, without fear, and the only person that could make that happen was the Pied Piper.
It was supposed to be simple. As simple as reciting a fairy tale, saying a nursery rhyme.
A loud buzzer rang.
It was not like the kind at school. Harsher. Mo got up as quickly as he could, dumping out the stale and moldy food on his tray. Tyler and Leo followed closely behind. They did not have the same urgency. This was their sentence, this place for however many months. Mo’s clock had not even begun to start ticking. Mo needed to get out of here, to be with Fin again, to tell Fin he was sorry and that he would set things right.
He should have finished them. He should have made sure they were dead.
Tyler separated from them, and Leo went to his room. As Mo walked, he heard someone shout his name. He turned.
“Heard your friend killed herself,” a security guard he had never seen before said with a smile, all sharp jagged teeth. “You have a nice day.”
“That’s not true!” Mo shouted. The security guard laughed, a deep, guttural laugh, and walked down the hallway away from him.
Mo hurried to his room.
“Shit, they’re coming,” his roommate said as he ran into the room and faced the door. Mo was panting, standing straight, his shoulders back.
The officer stopped in front of the door and asked them to confirm their identities. The officer held a clipboard that had their number, image, and offense. Mo knew this only because one of them had accidentally set down the clipboard on the ground when he had run to break up a fight.
“Ramsen, your lawyer’s here to see you,” another guard called from the hallway.
The officer with the clipboard pointed at Mo with his pen. “Get going, Mohammed.”
He and the guard walked down the hallway, which seemed darker now. It also seemed exceptionally quiet. Had everyone gotten to their rooms so quickly? What were they all doing that they were so silent? There were usually shouts and laughter, curses of boredom and the words that narrate a game of cards being played.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Mo said as they approached the men’s room. He really did not have to use the restroom. He just wanted to splash cold water on his face. He had no idea what the lawyer was going to say or ask, and he was beginning to panic.
The guard stopped and smiled, displaying the canines of a wolf. “You have two minutes.”
Mo rushed into the bathroom, unsure of what it was he had seen. He was tired. He was scared. He fought the urge to kick the door to a stall or to scream. Instead, he punched the concrete wall beside the mirror, hard. The skin on his knuckles split. Warm blood dripped down his fingers. He looked in the mirror. He tried to find himself in this reflection, but who he saw was haggard and defeated. He wondered where Fin was. Why would anyone joke about her killing herself? It was awful. It was sick. She would never hurt herself. But others, others she certainly would hurt, and had hurt, to have her way.
“What the hell did we do?” He asked his reflection.
His reflection smiled, and the teeth of a werewolf looked back at him, dripping blood and saliva.
“No,” the word slipped out of Mo’s mouth as he took a step back.
A door creaked behind him. He had not known anyone else was here in the bathroom with him.
“You have one more minute,” the guard said in a singsong way.
Mo looked back to the mirror. The teeth were gone, but now he heard...whistling.
The door to a stall opened. Mo stepped back, nearly falling against the sink. He was seeing things. This was not happening. This was not here.
The figure, taller than the stall door, taller than any man Mo had ever seen, stepped out from the stall and glared down at him. Its eyes fire. A gangling man in a suit of pied: one half of his suit black, and the other half of his suit bright red. Blood-red. He wore a black woodsman’s hat, a large red feather protruding from the side. The skull of a small bird pinned the feather in place.
The man did not say anything as he lumbered toward Mo. He stood on tall, thin legs, moving as if he were walking on stilts, stiff, long strides. He was so tall that the feather of his hat grazed the ceiling, and as it did, the points left trails of red against the wall.
Mo flashed back to the water, to the lagoon, and to the man he’d seen watching them. It had been him all along, the Pied Piper, watching, waiting for them.
Mo backed into the sink, striking his hipbone, a sharp pain shot down his leg. He fell to the floor. He whimpered.
The Pied Piper turned his head. The monster of magic and myth extended his long, ghoulish hand. His face never changed expression; wide-eyed, unblink
ing, jaw slack. Mo opened his mouth to shout for help. His body convulsed. He banged his head against the tiled wall. He began to choke, gag, and then, the water came.
Dark, murky water erupted from his mouth, and ran down his face, soaking his clothes and pooling around him, filling the restroom. The Pied Piper’s eyes flickered.
Mo’s eyes bulged. He grasped at his neck. Pulled down at his lips to try to force his mouth shut, to stop this. To end this. There was no breath. There was just water.
Water gushed. Water sprayed. The veins in his neck and under his eyes bulged.
Through tears, Mo looked at the Pied Piper’s extended hand. A thin layer of flesh hung on his bones. Mo looked up at his face, gaunt and translucent, the color of ash. The bird skull turned and looked back at him. Its beak open wide. It chirped. A ragged deathly chirp. A funeral bell.
The Pied Piper’s hand hung there as Mo fought to control his shaking body against the onslaught. It was in those last moments, those last moments of knowing, that Mo could see he was drowning, falling, slipping beneath the folds of the lagoon on that night. The dark water. The forest surrounding him. The man in black before him.
The guard sang, “Your time is up.”
Mo tried to raise an arm and strike the sink, to make noise, anything to call attention to himself, to alert that he needed help, but he could not feel his limbs. All he could feel was cold, tears, and blood-consuming him. He was fixed there, drowning in his failed debt.
Words outside of the bathroom calling him meant nothing. His life before meant nothing, and he knew that.
The Pied Piper grinned. “Payment is due.”
It was as if Mo’s body was no longer his. He reached out his arm and took hold of the Pied Piper’s hand. It was so cold it burned. His body erupted in shock and pain like he had never known. A paralyzing chill raced through his veins. He had lost control.
He had no choice but to follow the Pied Piper away.
He knew then that Fin really was gone, and he did not want to be without her. Maybe this was the way to reunite with her, perhaps this was the way it always needed to be. Maybe the torture of the water rushing out of his throat would stop. Maybe the feeling of ice and chill charging through his veins would fade, but it did not. The pain stung and pulsed and throbbed. It was as if he were out there again in that lagoon struggling, but this time fighting to come up, to break through the surface. He found himself sinking. Falling below, his feet touching the bottom of the lagoon. And then he opened his mouth to scream but only more water rushed out.
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