by Brian Hodge
"What d'you think we outta do about it?"
Kip withdrew his hand from beneath the warm mass of Watson's hand. Slowly, he curled his fingers into a fist and brought it down hard on the tabletop. The impact made everything on the table jump. The jelly-smeared knife fell with a clatter to the floor.
"I want to go where they are and kill 'em," Kip said heatedly.
The low, firm steadiness of his voice made it clear to Watson that he meant it, and when he heard his own thoughts spoken out loud, the old man felt a surge of satisfaction. He had been right about this boy. He did have a warrior's spirit.
"And how do you propose we go 'bout doin' that?" Watson asked.
The tension building inside Kip suddenly unwound, and he stood up quickly, almost knocking his chair over behind him. A helpless fear filled him. His memory crawled with images of the untcigahunk, squirming like worms, chittering like trapped rats as they crowded the doorway, trying to get at him. Now he knew they were real. Convinced of that, he wanted to strike back. For five years he had suffered because of what they had done. Now he wanted to pay them back, to make them suffer.
"You said you know where their exit points are," Kip said evenly as his excitement blossomed into an idea. "We can arm ourselves. I've got a knife. You've got a shotgun." He snapped his fingers. "I know. We can get cans of gasoline and burn 'em out. We can use one of those exit points you know about and follow the tunnels to where they live. Maybe there's some kind of main chamber or something where we can trap them and burn them and kill them all!"
"You've been watching too many horror movies," Watson said, sniffing with laughter as he shook his head. But even as he seemed to be denying it, Kip saw something in the old man's eyes that let him know he was just testing him.
"You told me the only reason you never told anyone about the little brothers was because you thought no one would ever believe you, right?"
Watson scowled and nodded.
"You don't like them, right? I mean, you don't like what they do to people when they're out, do you?"
"'Course I don't," Watson said, almost angrily. "But the untcigahunk are like—well, they ain't exactly animals. According to our legends, they're almost human. 'N what you're talking about is mass extermination, like what Hitler did to the Jews or the White Man did to my people."
"They killed my mother," Kip said, his voice low and controlled, "and I want to pay them back."
"We'd have to get a lot of supplies together—flash-lights and weapons. I ain't gonna be caught underground without a good, strong flashlight, 'n a backup, too. 'S far as gasoline goes, I got two cans in the garage we can use—a one-gallon and a five-gallon can. And I've got my shotgun. I ain't so sure I want you carrying a rifle unless it's absolutely necessary."
"I read that story about that Greek guy named Theseus. We can do what he did and unwind a long string as we go in so we can find our way back out in a hurry if we have to."
"I wouldn't be opposed to carryin' a compass, either," Watson said. "If these caves are as extensive as I think they are, I sure as hell don't wanna rely on just a piece of string to lead me out."
Slapping his hands together and rubbing them vigorously, Watson stood up and walked into the living room. He returned a minute later with a shotgun, a box of shells, and a compass in a worn leather carrying case with a strap to hook it onto a belt loop. He placed the shells on the table, snapped open the gun, and sighted down the barrel. Then he fished two shells from the box and slid them into the chambers. Snapping the gun shut, he put it down on the table beside the shells.
Kip found a pencil and a piece of paper on the counter and started making a checklist. Ever since last year, when he had first begun planning to run away from home, he realized the importance of planning. He could think of nothing worse than actually going down into the tunnels where the little brothers lived and then finding out they'd forgotten something crucial.
"D'you have some rope?" he called out. "You never know when we'll need it."
"I got some in the garage," Watson replied. He went outside and returned a short while later with a coil of thin, cotton rope, not too far removed from twine.
"Used to be a clothesline, so I ain't gonna trust it," Watson said as he put it on the table with the rest of their equipment.
"We've got the gun and ammo," Kip said, "my knife and a rope. How about a canteen for water?"
Watson nodded and, bending down, opened one of the bottom cupboards. After several minutes of clattering around, he eventually came up with a dented aluminum canteen that had a tattered olive-green strap. It looked like Army issue, and Kip wondered if Watson had ever been in the service.
At the sink, Watson ran the hot water until it steamed and then filled the canteen, and rinsing it out several times. After giving it a quick sniff, he nodded and ran the water until it was cold before he filled it. He didn't express the thought that he would have much preferred bringing along something a bit stronger to drink.
"The most important thing is a couple of good flashlights," Kip said. "And we should probably have extra batteries in our pockets just in case. What have you got?"
"Not much." Watson slid open one of the kitchen drawers, but the only batteries he found had leaked long ago and were now covered by bubbly, black gunk.
Kip covered his mouth with his hand as he considered. "Okay. We gotta have new batteries. Do you want to go downtown and pick some up at the hardware store?"
Watson frowned. "I would, but I—uh, I ain't really got any money for somethin' like that."
Kip grimaced and shook his head as he fished in his jeans pocket. Finally, he produced a wrinkled twenty-dollar bill he'd gotten for Christmas last year. He'd been saving it as his emergency money when he ran away. If nothing else, he figured, it'd pay for a bus ride home if he got homesick.
"Take it," he said, a trace of sadness in his voice. He'd had such plans, such dreams, but now they were a tangled mess of blue nylon fluttering in the breeze in the woods by the Indian Caves.
Watson reluctantly took the money. As he folded the bill into the crease of his limp wallet, a wicked thought came to mind. Kip had given him more than enough for flashlights, and if he got maybe not the best flashlights in the store, there might be enough left over for him to pick up a pint at the liquor store. When he considered how crazy it was to be doing what they were about to do, he thought a private reserve of whiskey might not be such a bad idea.
"Yeah, I'll—uh, I shouldn't be more'n half an hour," Watson said as he started for the door. Privately, he was warring within himself over whether or not he really would or could do something like that.
He wanted the whiskey, no mistake, but there was something else involved here, a thing called trust. Kip trusted him not to screw this up. If he ended up buying booze, it would be as bad as lying or cheating. His grand-father had taught him, long ago, never to break trust with a man you're about to go into battle with, even though the burning in the pit of his stomach was driving him crazy.
"While I'm gone," he said, his voice shaking, "see what else you can think of we might need." Watson walked out the door, jangling his truck keys in his hand. His mind felt like it was on fire as he teetered between what his body and brain cried out for and what his pride insisted he must do. The struggle expressed itself on his forehead in a tangle of wrinkles. As the door closed behind him, he wondered how much of the torment he was going through had been evident to Kip. As he started up the truck and backed out of the driveway, he felt more of a mind just to say, "Fuck it," take Kip's twenty bucks, and drink it away.
2
Once Watson was gone, a strange feeling settled over Kip as he stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter. He looked around the house a little more carefully, now that its owner was gone, surprised to realize he was not only in Old Man Watson's house, but had actually made friends with him, sort of. Everything looked much smaller and filthier now that Watson wasn't here. The refrigerator was stained the sickly yellow o
f a dead tooth, and everywhere he looked, there were years, decades of accumulated grease and dirt and dust. The shattered remains of the whiskey bottle were still on the floor by the refrigerator. The shards glittered like broken amber.
How can anyone live like this? he wondered as he scanned the kitchen in the feeble glow of sunlight that made it through the filmed-over window by the table. It was a miracle he hadn't gotten sick just from staying here one night.
Left to his own devices, Kip began to think what they were planning was absolutely foolish. There was no doubt the little brothers existed. He'd seen them, and they had been no hallucination or trick of the eye. They had been right in front of him, wedged against the few remaining boards that covered the sunken doorway.
But what in the name of Christ are we doing. We can't go underground, find where the little brothers live, and kill them all.
It's crazy! Absolutely insane!
For one thing, they had no idea how many of those creatures were down there underground. There could be hundreds or thousands of them. He and Watson might not get more than twenty feet into the tunnels before the things swarmed all over them. They'd be nothing but bloody tangles of flesh on the earthen floor before they even knew they were in danger.
But it was the memory of those things swarming over his mother, cutting her to shreds that hardened Kip's resolve like an iron bar. His eyes were stinging with the memory as he began pacing back and forth across the kitchen floor. He clenched his hands into tight, bloodless fists and smacked them together in front of his chest as he paced and thought.
So what if the little brothers killed him and Watson?
Big deal!
Who would miss either of them?
Marty would probably throw a party, and Kip thought his dad really wouldn't shed many tears, either. His dad hadn't shown him much of anything since his mother died, so what would it matter to him?
What would it matter to anyone?
And nobody in town would miss Watson, either.
That sad fact was almost too painful to bear. If anyone ever found Watson was dead, most people in town would consider it a blessing. Even in the Twentieth Century, lots of people still believed that the only good Indian was a dead Indian.
"So big, fat, hairy deal," Kip said aloud, unable to keep from laughing when he used an expression he used to think, back in the wisdom of six years old, was the funniest saying he'd ever heard.
Still, Kip couldn't figure out why they were planning to do this. What had brought them together in the first place? And what was in it for Watson? Maybe most importantly, why and how had he and Watson gotten to be such friends? The word surprised him when it sprang to mind. It almost seemed inadequate to express what they shared.
Kip scowled when a passing cloud cut off the little light that was filtering into the kitchen.
"Cut the bullshit," he whispered, smiling grimly. He knew exactly why he was doing it, but—at twelve years old—he might think he was supposed to have a more complicated reason, but there wasn't anything complicated about it at all.
He was doing it to get revenge!
Anything else was just extra.
He wanted revenge!
And if Watson was willing to help him get revenge on these creatures that had killed his mother, then fine. That was his choice. Yesterday in the woods, he had been more than willing to tell Kip about the untcigahunk. It seemed almost like he needed to spill his guts about them, as if by telling him about them, he was somehow released from guilt or something.
Kip chuckled when he suddenly had an image of Watson sitting on the prow of a sailing ship with a huge bird tied around his neck. In English class last winter, they had read Longfellow's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and thinking about it, he could see a resemblance between Watson and the mariner. Of course, from class, he had never quite grasped what that bird—What had it been called? An albatross? Whatever—he couldn't figure out what it was supposed to symbolize. It had something to do with guilt, and that was how he saw Watson. All day yesterday and all last night, it seemed as if the old man had been driven to talk about the untcigahunk as if by telling him about them, he was somehow clearing his conscience.
No matter. What it had done, though, was clear Kip's memory.
He had finally broken down most if not all of the mental blocks he had thrown up around what he had witnessed five years ago. Seeing Dr. Fielding may have helped, but he felt as though he had done it all pretty much on his own...with a little help from Watson. And maybe that's all this was. Like a chance encounter with a wizard in a fantasy adventure game, Watson had just "been there" when he needed him.
His reveries were suddenly interrupted by the sound of Watson's truck pulling into the driveway. Kip dashed to the sink, turned on the faucet, filled his cupped hands with cold water, and splashed his face. He was sputtering and dripping when Watson entered the kitchen with a brown paper bag in one hand.
"How'd you do?" Kip asked. He kept his dripping face over the sink and reached for a paper towel from the dispenser. Tearing off two sheets, he quickly wiped his face and tossed the wet wad of paper into the overflowing trashcan.
"Got everything we need," Watson said as he walked over to the counter and put down his package. "Got some good lights and four extra batteries." He pronounced the last word with just two syllables, making it sound like bat-trees. "Here's what's left of your twenty." He frowned as he handed Kip a crumpled wad of bills and some coins.
Kip slipped the money into his pocket without bothering to count it and then, opening the bag, withdrew the two new flashlights. They were simple chrome cylinders with red lens holders. Kip clicked one on and shined the beam on the kitchen wall. Even in the daylight, the circle of light was strong and sharp.
"So we've got everything we need," Kip said as he snapped off the flashlight. "Looks like too much stuff already. We don't really want to be weighed down too much."
"Not if we might have to run," Watson said with a faint laugh.
Kip didn't find his comment at all funny. It chilled him and made him reconsider what they were doing. His voice threatened to break when he said, "So—uh, I guess, besides the lights and weapons, we've got the canteen of water. We should probably bring some food. I figure we should have jackets, too, in case the cave's damp and chilly. So other than getting the gasoline and some matches to light it with, that's about it."
"You know, I been thinkin' bout that all the while I was gone," Watson said. "'N I think your idea about burnin' 'em's a good one. Figurin' they don't like sunlight, I'd reckon they ain't too fond of fire, either. Lemme see what I got in the garage, but I was thinkin' we could scare 'em off with—these."
He opened the bottom drawer of the counter and pulled out a bundle of road flares. The red sticks looked like sticks of dynamite, loosely held together by a rotting rubber band. Their outer casings were a pale, waxy red that was peeling. The directions, printed on the sides in black, were faded.
"Where'd you get those?" Kip asked.
"Years ago I used to work for the highway department."
"You think they still work?" Kip asked.
Watson shrugged. "We can give one a test before to make sure. Hang on. I'll be right back."
Watson left the kitchen. Kip, alone once again, looked at their supplies on the kitchen table. All of them—especially the shotgun—made him feel nervous and almost dizzy with excitement. After checking to make sure Watson wasn't watching, he picked up the shotgun and hefted it. He was surprised by how heavy the gun was. Then again, what would you expect from something that could really kill.
He tried not to think about what Watson had said that the little brothers weren't really animals, that they were the first form of human beings. From what he had studied in science class, he was pretty sure that wasn't true. He believed humans had evolved from apelike ancestors, but cavemen had died out thousands and thousands of years ago. Watson was just telling an Indian myth, and no matter how much the little brothers might lo
ok human, they just plain weren't. He had to convince himself it would be just like killing animals... a whole, nasty bunch of animals.
The kitchen door slammed open, and Kip wheeled around to see Watson backing into the room. Both of his arms sagged down from the weight of what he was carrying. Gasoline sloshed hollowly as he heaved the cans onto the tabletop. He also had a tattered olive canvas bag with thick shoulder straps.
"Two five-gallons and a one-gallon can," he said. "I figure we can top one 'em off with what's in the other. I'll take the five, 'n you can carry the one. I found this, too. An old backpack. We can load it up with the flares 'n bullets 'n such so our hands'll be free."
Kip suddenly realized he was still holding the shotgun. Remembering that it was loaded, he gently placed it onto the table and took a cautious step away. Seeing Watson's old-fashioned backpack made him long for his own modern, lightweight pack, now nothing but a shredded mess on the forest floor. He picked up the pack and slung it onto his back, taking a few seconds to adjust the straps.
"I can carry the flares and the five-gallon can in this," he said.
"Maybe," Watson said, considering. "We've got a lot of other crap to carry, too. You gonna be able to hack it?"
Kip nodded bravely, wiggling his shoulders so the pack rode in the small of his back. "Of course," he said, a bit defensively.
"Like I said, I don't want to be too weighed down if we have to run," Watson said.
"We can drop it and run if we have to."
"Lemme take care of this, and then what d'yah say we have a quick lunch and get started?" Watson unscrewed the top of one of the five-gallon gas cans and peered down inside. "Hey! I can't see a damned thing. You got a match?" After a second, he turned and looked at Kip with a broad smile. "Just kidding," he said with a chuckle.
Kip wasn't the least bit amused.
As Watson uncapped the other five-gallon can and slowly poured from one to the other, all Kip could think about was that they were actually going to use this stuff to kill something.
Just like hunting animals, he told himself, but the uneasiness in the pit of his stomach wouldn't go away. Hunting had never much interested Kip, especially since three years ago, when he had sneaked his father's shotgun out of the bedroom closet and gone into the backyard. Taking aim at a chickadee on a pine branch, he had squeezed the trigger slowly like he'd been told until the shotgun went off. The butt slammed into his shoulder with a deafening blast. All that was left of the chickadee were two down feathers that drifted in slow spirals to the ground. The rest of the chickadee was just... gone. When he told Marty about it a day or so later, his brother had joked about the bird taking a ride on the "lead ball express," but that hadn't eased Kip's guilt about ending an innocent life.