The police? Would he go to the police? He never trusted them. She always saw his back get tense when a cop car drove nearby, and he took odd turns or went in circles to avoid the police car.
With the wretch gone, she started to rock more and more. What if she could plop herself over onto the trail somehow?
Then he’ll knife me. He’ll slit my throat with one of his blades, and then Lyric will be lost forever.
What are they doing with Lyric? Do they even have her? She’s on the trail, she told herself, almost back by now, back to Macon. She pictured her daughter’s face, with tears on her cheek but a steadfast walk, head down, trotting on the trail in a small run to the hotel lobby where someone would help.
Then she saw an image of her own funeral. Her daughter stood there in a floral dress with her head to the ground over a cenotaph. Lyric would grow up without her mother, but honor her memory, and she knew Macon would raise her right. But the grief will leave a mark. Lyric would be forever scarred, scars that no tattoos can cover. Lyric’s last memory will be of Mom yelling at her for getting Pop-Tarts in a hotel lobby.
Tears started to well—tears of rage, of immense hurt, and pressure. She pulled at the rope with her hands, exercising all the rage inside her, but the cord just cut deeper into the flesh of her wrists.
She turned to glare at the children—the children feeding on this person. She wanted them to find her daughter, her Lyric.
“Where is she? Where is she? Where’s my daughter?” she pleaded. The words were muffled from the gag in her mouth, but clear enough to be understood. “Help me find her, please. Help me, please, my daughter. I love her. She’s a little person like you.”
“Q, there’s someone else here, I think.”
“Wa-wa-wa, what?”
“Yes, look.”
Their eager feet came shuffling over, and their anxious eyes went wide.
“Can you cut her?”
“Cu-cu-cu, cut. Cut? No.”
“Why, get Daddy’s knife.”
“Na-na-knife. I can’t.”
“What about your fingernail?”
“Na-na-na-not that. U-u-you do it.”
“It’s a boy’s job for that.”
Gone. These two were gone and evil and no longer human, and Erin felt death coming by their hands. She thought of Max and wondered if when she saw his face it would look years older or the same as it did the day he passed.
“No, kids. Don’t kids. Don’t, please. Your poppa is waiting for someone. Someone is paying money for me, you see.”
“What is she saying, Q?”
“Huh-huh, shhhee, hmmm, I don’t know. I got one, got one. I got one.”
The boy called Q had something in his hand. He started scraping it on his own arm and then lightly traced it in squiggles across this palm.
“Wa-wa-wa-wow.”
“She’s a good one, Q. We never had a woman before.”
“Beaf-beaf-beaf… no, we didn’t. No, not beaf-fore.”
Erin shook back and forth. For every inch she gained moving toward the trail, she moved right back again when she thrashed. She could smell the children as if they were rotting, could see their stained skin and moisture of new blood on their chins and lips. Maybe they weren’t human, maybe some different race, but their sympathies were not to be gained.
“No don’t, kids. Kids, you got to listen to me. I can get you out of here. I can get you food, regular food.” Her words gasped in desperate muffles with rapid breaths and even faster heartbeats.
“Your poppa shouldn’t feed you this. There’s food. I can get you it. I am a mommy. I have a daughter. I had two children.”
“What’s she saying, Q? What is it, food? Is it like fodder? We tried that stuff once.”
“Stu-stu-stuff, yeah, but lez-lez-lets hurry before Poppa comes back.”
“Hey, look it.” The girl’s hand reached down and grabbed ahold of Erin’s eyebrow piercing, pulling on it. She first tugged it upwards and then yanked it side to side. Erin made groans of pain in protest and felt her whole head being pulled up by the flesh her piercing was stuck through.
“She’s got something stuck in her head. I can’t get it out.”
Erin squirmed, bucked a bit, but couldn’t get away.
“Loo-loo-look it?”
The boy lifted her shirt up from her belly. The belly—the same place they started cutting on the man next to her.
“Aw, she has drawings. Look it.”
“Draw-draw-draweering… she has pictures.”
Erin squirmed and felt tiny fingers upon her, right on the tattoo that covered her C-section scar. She wanted to wrestle these children and toss them out of the cave, or grab them, save them, and bring them home, but the knife was out and ready to descend into her.
Her eyes squeezed tight and she was back in her bathroom, fourteen years old and full of black hate in her heart, looking for white pieces of her flesh to cut. Bringing forth the red blood brought a beautiful rush and washed everything away. The blood was so warm to her soul, like she was returning to the womb. The clean bathroom mirror reflected everything back to her, and the locked bathroom was her private universe.
Cut me. She thought, Cut me and take this pain way. She knew it would happen. They would cut, her body would rush with warm endorphins, and blood would bubble to the service. But when they tasted her blood, it would sizzle with rage and be nothing like they’d ever tasted before.
Chapter Twelve
Macon ran through the morning light. The rising sun was shining on the machine shops and storage sheds down this dead-end street winding to the baseball field. The green grass of the field with the fenced backstops appeared quickly, and he felt his legs warm from the morning run and fueled by expectation. Where was he running to? And why? And what should he do next? He wasn’t sure, but to run made sense. Something was pulling at him.
Terror and fear were erupting and gave him a fever, but he pushed it down into his legs and ran, a near sprint, while he held the cell phone in his hand and waited to feel the buzz of a phone call.
A few people walked by, slowly waking up to the day, but they seemed to not live in his world—his world where someone had called and said, “We have your wife.” The voice kept ringing in his head. He imagined them with guns at their side and saw them wearing camouflage gear.
“Yer wife, yer daughter—we have ’em. There’s ’bout ten of us. Firearms—we have ’em too. You want to see your girls again you give us ten thousand dollars. If you don’t call us back, we’ll start with your wife. You call us back, and I’ll tell you where to leave the money.”
The intensity of the hatred building in his head might knock these men dead on the spot. He’d had this hatred before for someone for just a brief moment and was eventually charged with Felonious Assault and Intent to do Bodily Harm. And here he was, having left the state without permission, breaking his terms of parole.
Is that why you aren’t going to the cops? he kept asking himself.
No, that’s not it. He would gladly go to jail. He’d cut off his own arm, and he would give up all his money to have them back. That part would be easy.
But why was he running then? He was not really sure. His thoughts ricocheted from imagining a rescue, to realizing he wasn’t armed, to trying to remember his ATM-pin number, to still hoping this was a joke and how angry he would be at the jokester.
But the voice he heard was very real. He could feel the history in that voice, and he knew the person had done this before. The message was loud, clear, and in stereo.
The police. Go there. Go there now.
His strides got longer. He felt them grow in energy with each push. His thighs as much as his heart ached to find out what happened to his family.
Soon he heard the high-pitched yaps of the dogs barking and then saw the dog owner. The bony, homeless, skeletal figure sat on the bench in the dugout of the baseball field. His belongings were scattered about behind the backstop, and his dogs were chained
to the fence. The man didn’t stir on Macon’s approach.
“Hey, mister. Hey,” Macon said between breaths, talking to the back of the man’s head. “Did you see a woman run by here a little while ago?”
Still, the man didn’t turn, but the dogs stood at attention, and Macon was ready to grab the man and force him to spin backwards. Just then the man moved his arm. His arm shot out to the side and pointed to the trail, and his finger tap-tap-tapped in the air in that direction.
“You did. You did? How long ago? Which way did she go?”
Macon got ready to grab the man’s shoulder when the dogs sensed this and sprang forward with a growl. Guttural noises came through their exposed, white fangs. Their black fur coats spotted with brown looked regal yet threatening.
Two more taps from the man’s fingertips toward the trail, and Macon sprinted off, fresh as a doberman on a scent.
What was once in the shadows during his predawn run was exposed to the light, and the trail was easy to find. He took the turn onto the cement, running alongside the highway, which was busy with cars rushing to get the first parking spot at Sea World or the zoo.
Junk was strewn along the path, much of it presumably thrown from cars. Then Macon saw the first of them, a man lying in a body bag. A green sleeping bag that covered every inch of its inhabitant was tucked under the brush. It remained motionless as he flew by.
But other bodies were emerging from the ground, moving slowly as if awakening from the dead. One homeless man was folding his blanket, the other taking off a huge, bulky, green jacket and stuffing it inside a wrinkled, black garbage bag. A lanky, shirtless man was doing some sort of tai chi ritual.
But Macon cruised onward, scanning the horizon with eagle eyes, seeing all the things in the light that had been hidden in the dark. The grassland to his right was towering with cattails, and traces of the tiny ravine that lead out toward the ocean were below. Rocks were cemented to the wall to his left that led up to the highway. And up ahead, the underpass awaited with the campsite of many men gathered.
He sprinted straight to them and waved his hands in the air. Heads of the tired men swiveled. Some braced themselves as if about to be attacked, but others remained in slow motion with their limbs barely moving. Just a few sleeping bags were lumpy with bodies still inside. The rest had been moved to the shopping carts, the lost one apparently fully retrieved now.
One man was holding an Albertson’s bag and handing out baked goods. Men with donuts in one hand and cups in the other put them underneath a ‘Box full of Jo,’ gathering their morning coffee. Steam rose up from the Styrofoam, and cigarette smoke swirled above many of the men’s faces. Macon thought it odd the homeless could afford such things.
Hank. He needed to find Hank.
It didn’t take long for Macon to spot the new Dickies coveralls that seemed just out of the box. Hank’s beard was freshly groomed, but scabs marked his skin underneath the hair.
“Hey, listen. You got to tell me. Did you see a woman run by here?” he questioned the leader. “Just a while ago she was here. A woman, pushing a child in a jogging stroller.”
“Good evening. Your wife, is that who you seek?”
“Yes, she’s my wife. And my daughter.”
“And you cannot find them?”
“No, I can’t, were they here?”
“Have you contacted the authorities?”
“No, I haven’t. Not sure if I should. Did you see them? Did you?”
“The police have been back here before. They took some folks in. We don’t like that.”
“No, I didn’t call the police, and I won’t, okay. But did you see them here?”
Macon scanned up and down the trail, looking for any sign of Erin, and the place seemed much more inhabitable in the daylight. Matchboxes were strewn on the ground, dozens of them, all with the green logo of Comfort Lodge. Then he noticed the same piss-yellow comforter of his hotel room wrapped around a man behind Hank, and some white towels with the green Comfort Lodge logo being used by a man washing his face.
“Padre, you seen her? You seen anybody?” Macon asked, directing his attention toward his earlier escort, Mr. San Diego Padres-hat guy. Padre was looking more fresh and alert in the morning light, much more so than he had in the dark, but still gave no answer.
The eyes of other men peered into the conversation, and Macon noticed the burning man with scars on his face making quick glances toward him, but then turning away upon eye contact. Macon felt his blood boiling, his arms ready to rise.
“Yes. We have seen a woman and child,” Hank announced loudly to both Macon and the rest of the group. “Tried to warn her, but she ran right through. Not always safe here.”
“What do you mean it’s not always safe? When did you see her, and where is she?”
“Listen and I will tell you. There are some folks up the way who tend to not be welcoming to travelers. Sometimes they rob our people. And we are low on numbers here.”
As he spoke, a score of men around him shook their heads in affirmative and seemed to be lip-syncing to his speech.
“Yes, sir, that’s how it goes. I’m sorry to confess that some of my men used to buy meth off the family. It is true. They did. Then the meth dried up. Tried to sell us his salts, they did. Put them in tin foil. Thinks we’re not intelligent enough to decipher the difference.
“And they’re still picking off our people. They live in and out of the tunnels, ravines, and beaches, they do. Not sure how many there are. Some say it’s hundreds of them. Say they look different each time they come out. Others say they got flooded out and had to move. Others say it’s really just ghosts, ghosts who demand some human blood during cold nights. Some bring dogs there. It’s all a bunch of bollocks to me. You can call the authorities if you’d like, but they don’t like to come down here much. We police things here.”
“What the hell? What the hell?” Macon paced in a circle, rubbed his head, and he knew he didn’t trust all that he was hearing.
“How long ago was it? Where are these people? What the fuck? And they expect me to pay a ransom? What do they do if I can’t pay?”
“You say they have asked you for payment. That’s a benefit to you. That’s what I suggest you do if you are able… whatever you can offer them. Do not attempt to do them any harm.” Hank stood tall, as if he’d just issued a decree, and then turned his back.
“Mister, if he asked you to pay, that’s good, mister,” the burning man said. “You’ll be okay. Pay and be on your way, okay? Can you do that?”
“I’m going to find them—right now. I’m going to them right now.”
“Are you sure, mister? You think you can?”
“Hell yes.”
Hank gave a nod to the Padre.
“Then I’ll come with you,” Padre answered. “I’ll follow you. I know how they work.”
“Follow me if you want. I’m going.” Macon realized he had no idea what he was doing, but felt confident he would figure it out when he got there. “How far?”
“Look, maybe three or four overpasses down. Or the beach. Or in the ravine, perhaps. Or they could be gone by now. But, Boss-man, just call them and pay. She’s lucky she has people who will pay. Our people don’t. You pay. You have a nice day. You be careful. We take care of things here if we can. The rest is up to nature.”
Macon took off with a sprint. The gravity of these men together was once again sucking at his soul, and if he stayed too long he felt like he’d become one of them.
His arms swung heavily, his fingers grasped in front of him, grabbing handfuls of air and then dropping it behind, and his feet followed suit. His legs and brains were burning down the trail. With a quick glance behind, he saw Padre following him once again, leisurely, on his bike. If this man was the police of the area, perhaps he would help, but Padre didn’t smell right. Hank didn’t smell right. And the burning man…?
His hands gripped the cell phone, waiting for the buzz, waiting to feel each finger vibrat
e and hear the plastic cell cover shake. All his focus was on his hand, waiting for a return call. With each stride he gained speed and figured if he had enough momentum, it would make the phone ring back. He needed to know if this was a joke, to hear Erin’s voice, to learn how this would play out, to hear something besides the gang of homeless trail rats.
The first underpass was ahead, illuminated in the sunlight where before it was a dark cloud. Macon passed a couple more barely inhabited, homeless campsites, all of them with freshly bought tents. Some even had barbeque pits next to them. Canvass shelters were spread out, all of it in more luxury than he could have imagined.
The person who grabbed his leg, the men who lived on the trail, the children at the pier; all of it meant something. It made his head pound, his oxygen supply get weak, and his blood turn thin. Sweat ran deep, but energy wasn’t lost. It was plenty. If he could just keep running forward, he could save her. So he did, along the cement trail that seemed to pull him toward her—he could feel it. If he just ran fast enough, he would prove he was strong enough to be her man, to be Lyric’s father.
That was what tomorrow was supposed to be about, but who the hell was he kidding? That had all changed. Now he was done and she was lost. He just needed a face to see, a person to fight, a mountain to climb, or a race to run, but he had nothing.
They asked you for payment. That’s a benefit to you. That’s what I suggest you do if you are able… whatever you can offer them. Do not attempt to do them any harm. The voice of Hank in his head seemed rational, but something was still wrong.
The problem was, he didn’t have ten thousand dollars. His bank account showed just over one thousand. The most it had ever been was three grand. The store could have up to a couple grand, but it would take calls, wire transfers, and questions to make that happen.
“Yer wife, yer daughter—we have ’em. There’s ’bout ten of us. Firearms—we have ’em too. You want to see your girls again you give us ten thousand dollars. If you don’t call us back, we’ll start with your wife. You call us back, and I’ll tell you where to leave the money.”
On the Lips of Children Page 10