by L. T. Vargus
“So you really wanna know my secret? All of you?”
A bunch of us nodded and mumbled affirmations. I glanced at Chatty Sorensen. He blinked in a way that I took as enthralled with curiosity or at least vague interest.
Meat’s smile faded some. He seemed to be thinking it over.
“Well, I guess it can’t hurt to tell ya.”
He said “can’t” so it sounded like “cain’t.”
Again he paused, and we all held our breath, watching that veiny underside of his tongue as the thing slithered over his lips like a pink snail.
“It’s…. I mean, y’all are going to laugh when I tell you.”
Meat’s giggles came out faster now. Weird little breathy chirps in fast speed. Shrill.
I caught a whiff just then, and he really did smell like piss — normal, non-cat piss just like Smitty said.
Someone sighed. I figured it was Smitty.
“Just tell us already,” Smitty said. “Enough with the suspense.”
“Alright. Fine.”
Meat cleared his throat.
“Well, it’s-”
And then a claymore detonated and liquefied Smitty’s legs into a bloody spray.
Erin
Rural Virginia
1 year, 297 days after
The barest whisper of feet on grass woke me. I’d dozed off, somehow. I couldn’t believe it. Of all the times to nod off… Jesus Christ.
And now he was here, in our camp.
Before I had time for another thought, he was crouched over my sleeping bag. I saw the glint of metal in his hand. A knife. So he could silently slit my throat without even waking Izzy. Smart.
Was that how he’d taken the boy? I didn’t buy the story about his parents selling him. No one would do that. Izzy isn’t even mine, and… there’s just no way. No fucking way.
He whisked the top flap of my sleeping bag aside, and in the confusion that followed, I chose my moment to strike.
It was only a few seconds — three at the most — that Spider stared down at the mound of supplies stuffed into the sleeping bag. Izzy had done a good job of piling things just right so as to mimic the shape of a human body.
And that three seconds was all I needed.
I slipped from my hiding place in the bushes, silent as a stalking cat.
My own blade flashed silver in the moonlight.
I closed the distance between us.
With the barest tic of his shoulders, I knew he’d sensed me there.
And before he could turn around, could move to fight, I plunged my knife into the side of his neck, burying it to the hilt in his flesh.
He jerked away, ripping the handle from my fingers. As he whirled, I saw a wild look somewhere between rage and disbelief in his eyes. The look said that this wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. Wasn’t how it had played out however many times he’d done it before.
He reached for the knife, fingers flailing clumsily at the grip. They crawled along the handle, looking almost insectile as they wrapped and tightened around it.
“I wouldn’t—” I started to say, but it was too late.
With one clean yank, he slid the knife from his neck. Blood gushed and spurted from the open wound, and the man tried fruitlessly to staunch the bleeding with his hands. The blood looked black in the night.
He stumbled a few paces and then keeled over, landing hard in the grass. His mouth opened and closed as he writhed there before me. His lips reminded me of one of Izzy’s trout, freshly caught and floundering on the riverbank. Was it an involuntary thing or was he trying to say something? Trying to impart one last message before dying in the dirt? Whatever it was, I didn’t care to watch any living creature suffer. Even one as despicable as this.
I stepped over the man, one foot on either side of him, and leaned down to pluck my knife from where he’d dropped it. The entire thing was slick with blood now, but I held tight and drew the blade across Spider’s neck, finishing the job.
A river of blood ran out, soaking into the ground beneath him. He twitched once, twice, and then went still.
I gave my knife a cursory wipe on his sleeve before sheathing it.
Then I squinted into the darkness off to the west of our campsite.
“You can come out now, Iz.”
Quiet as a ghost, Izzy materialized from the woods. Slightly wide-eyed, she stared at the corpse at my feet. Part of me wished the kid didn’t have to see things like this. Another part of me knew that it was better for Izzy to know the truth of our reality.
“Help me move him into the woods.”
We each grabbed a foot and scuttled backward, dragging the limp Spider deeper into the forest.
I untied his boots and peeled them from the man’s feet. They looked a little small for Marcus, but they’d be worth something in trade.
“Are we going to bury him?” Izzy asked as I checked his pockets.
“With what? I didn’t bring a shovel.”
Her eyes searched the ground around us.
“We could pile some leaves on top of him.”
I shook my head.
“Let the animals have him.”
There were two small keys. One for the trailer, surely. And the other… I remembered what Spider had said about locking the boy up at night.
As if she could read my thoughts, Izzy said, “We’re going to rescue him now, right?”
“Rescue?”
“The little boy.”
“We can’t go saving every waif we come across.”
“Why not?” Izzy asked, then added. “What’s a waif?”
I gazed down at the keys in my palm. Izzy was right. I couldn’t just leave a kid chained up like that. He could starve to death. Or die of hypothermia if the weather turned cold.
Fine. I’d set him free, and then we’d take what we wanted from the trailer. Better yet, if I hid it off the road, I could come back for the whole thing in a few days.
We packed our things again, got on our bikes, and rode back down the road. I squinted into the darkness on either side of us, keeping an eye out for Spider’s trailer. It shouldn’t be hard to spot.
After about a half mile, we came to a stop. The trailer was tucked behind a stand of hemlock trees maybe ten yards off the road.
“Stay here,” I told Izzy.
I dismounted my bike and crept toward the trailer.
Jeremiah
Rural Maryland
10 years, 44 days after
Smitty screamed. A feral sound that cut through the fresh deafness the explosion had bestowed. All sharp and shrill.
His legs were gone. Just gone. Everything from the waist down cut off cleanly.
And his blood squished out of the cleaved plane of meat where his belt should be. Sheets of red gushing out in time with his rapid pulse. Spilling out all uneven and frantic like water from a split garden hose.
I gulped once. Swallowing nothing. Spit, I guess. Saliva.
Knelt next to Smitty and sought after his hand. Held it.
He didn’t look at me. Just stared at the wet place where his legs should be. Heaved in a breath and screamed some more.
And I really felt it — the fucking tragic awful reality of what had just happened. Felt the full brunt of it. Felt a chasm open up in my abdomen. A sucking emptiness. And I shook all over. Not scared so much as fucking devastated. Defeated. My psyche beaten beyond recognition, beyond any hope of healing to what it was before.
It was wrong. The whole world was wrong. And it could never be right again.
Smitty was going to die an awful death here and now. He might have minutes.
In no universe could this be fair, be just. In no universe could this make sense.
And then shock numbed all of those feelings out. Numbed my whole body into a limp sack like a fat syringe of Novocaine had been jammed into my jugular, plunger slamming the full load into my bloodstream.
His hand slipped out of my sweat-slicked grip. Pulled away from me to cup itsel
f at his forehead with the other.
In a way, it was that moment that he was gone from me. Away from me. From all of us. Forever.
And then assault rifles clattered all around us.
Right.
It was a trap.
Erin
Rural Virginia
1 year, 298 days after
I found the boy on the far side of the trailer, tucked up against the side where a little overhang might shelter him in the event of rain. There was a blanket wrapped around him, but it was thin and dirty. As I got closer, I saw the line of chain connecting him to the hitch, just like Spider had said.
I think he was asleep at first, but sensing me, his eyes flicked open. Seeing my silhouette startled him, and he recoiled, chain clanking heavily.
“It’s OK,” I said, whispering for some reason. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I saw that the chain was connected to his wrist via a zip tie. I guess they probably don’t make handcuffs small enough for a seven-year-old.
I pulled out my pocket knife and took a step closer. The boy panicked, scurrying away from me as far as the chain would allow. Moonlight glittered in his wide, scared eyes.
He was afraid of the knife, I realized. Of course he was.
“I’m only going to cut you loose,” I explained, reaching for him.
He flailed and squirmed, still terrified. If I couldn’t get him to hold still, one or both of us was going to end up sliced wide open.
I stepped back, thinking. How was I going to get this kid to calm down enough to free him?
Back at the bikes, I got out the scissors I’d almost neglected to bring. They were heavy and sharp. Not quite as dangerous as the knife, but they could still do damage. My hope was that scissors would seem less threatening to the kid.
“I need you to help me,” I told Izzy. “Maybe if you distract him, he’ll let me get close enough to get the chains off. Can you do that?”
Her head tilted thoughtfully to one side, and then she started digging around in one of the panniers on my bike.
“What are you looking for?”
“These,” she said, lifting one of the bags of cookies we’d found.
The kid is a genius sometimes, I swear. I nodded and led her back to the far side of the trailer.
I stood back and let Izzy do her thing. The kid was still scared, but Izzy took it slow. She got on her knees and crawled closer, bit by bit, extending the cookie in front of her like a protective talisman.
“Do you like cookies?” she asked. “They’re a little stale, but they still taste good.”
The boy’s chest rose and fell quickly, fear accelerating his breathing rate. But his eyes were locked on the treat now.
Izzy stopped a yard away from him with the cookie held in the space between them.
“Go ahead. Take it.”
His eyelashes fluttered open and shut as he considered it. I held very still, not wanting to break the spell.
Slowly, he moved forward, closing the gap between them. Like an attacking cobra, his hand shot out and snatched the cookie away. He scarfed it, barely chewing from what I could tell. When it was gone, he looked back at Izzy almost guiltily.
I studied him now, realizing he was skinnier than I’d thought before. And there were bruises on his arms and legs. Different colors, too. Some old and some new. I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me that Spider wouldn’t balk at beating and starving a kid he was trying to sell like an old goat. But fresh rage burned in my chest, and I wished I could have killed the scumbag all over again.
Izzy passed him another cookie. He ate this one a bit more slowly, savoring it some.
“What’s your name?” Izzy asked.
He blinked at her, and I wondered for the first time if he could even speak. Had his time with Spider turned him mute and half feral?
“My name is Isabelle, but everyone calls me Izzy.”
When he still didn’t answer, Izzy looked to me and shrugged.
And then a tiny, almost inaudible voice said, “Cameron.”
Without missing a beat, she turned back to him.
“It’s nice to meet you, Cameron.” She pointed at me. “That’s my friend Erin. I know she looks kind of scary and mean, but she’s really nice.”
I almost scoffed at that. Scary and mean? Then I remembered that I was wearing my costume. Dark clothes, hair slicked back, eyes smeared with black. Giant knife. I probably looked like an evil assassin. I waved and tried to smile disarmingly.
“Is it OK if she comes closer? She has some scissors, and she can cut that chain off of you. It won’t hurt. I promise.”
Cameron’s gaze went from me to Izzy and back to me, not sold on the whole Me Being Nice thing.
“Do you want another cookie?” Izzy offered. “Because if you hold still, you can have more cookies.”
Now his focus was on the bag clutched in Izzy’s hands, and I took the opportunity to creep closer.
Izzy handed him another cookie, and I moved fast, slipping one blade of the scissors between the kid’s wrist and the plastic tie and snipping him free.
I breathed a little sigh of relief once it was over. I gave Izzy a satisfied nod. We’d done it. And without spilling any blood.
Something else had happened over the course of the ordeal. I knew I couldn’t leave him. Maybe it was hearing his tiny voice or knowing he had a name or maybe just seeing how small and terrified he was. Whatever it was, he’d have to come with us.
“Where do you sit when Spider rides the bike?” I asked.
I didn’t use the past tense for some reason, maybe because I didn’t know how the kid would react to knowing I’d slit Spider’s throat. I can’t imagine he would miss his former owner, but I guess I just wanted to protect him from any further violence as much as I could.
The boy pointed at the front of the trailer, and I could see a place where a kid his size could probably sit comfortably, tucked between the various bags and crates.
I decided then. I’d hide my bike and trailer in the woods and take Spider’s rig back to Ripplemead. In a few days, Izzy and I would ride back here and pick up my trailer. Mine would be easier to hide anyway. It was smaller and lighter, easier to drag a good distance from the road.
I spent the next half hour transferring any of my gear I considered vitally important. Water, bike repair kit, meds.
And then we dragged a bunch of dead branches over to camouflage my bike and gear. I hoped it would be enough to conceal from any passers-by.
There were a few hours left before sunrise, and I had Izzy retrieve our sleeping bags and lay them out near Spider’s trailer. My trailer now. The first free minute I have will be spent painting over that ugly ass spider.
The cookies and maybe me freeing him from the chains without drawing blood seemed to have broken the ice. Cameron didn’t seem so afraid of me anymore. At least, he let me get close without panicking, though his eyes still showed a little distrust, like a wary dog at the vet’s office.
I tucked him in my sleeping bag, and it wasn’t long before his eyes grew heavy. Soon his chest rose and fell with the slow rhythm of sleep. I wondered when he’d last slept without fear.
I glanced down at Izzy. She was still awake, but just barely. I smoothed her hair.
“You did a good job today. I’m proud of you.”
Her lips curled into a contented smile.
“What’d you do with the rest of the cookies?” I asked.
Plastic crinkled and then the bag appeared from deep within her sleeping bag.
“I thought I told you not to eat cookies in bed.”
“You’ve never said that.”
My head shook from side-to-side. “Nevermind. It was an old commercial. From when I was a kid.”
“Oh.”
“But why don’t you give those to me so you don’t end up covered in melted chocolate?”
She passed the bag to me, whispering, “Don’t eat them all.”
I chuckled softly.
>
“I won’t,” I said, then sat down on the boy’s ragged blanket to keep watch until morning.
I lit an oil lamp I found among Spider’s goods. The soft glow is just enough for me to write by.
What a fucking ordeal. I have to hope that every trip to Roanoke won’t be so eventful.
And now I have to figure out how I’m going to explain this kid to Marcus. Actually, Marcus will probably be easy. He’s such a bleeding heart.
I suspect I’ll catch the most grief from Marissa. Marcus and Izzy can be a little blase about our situation. Marissa is the one that shares my urgency when it comes to rationing supplies and storing food and whatnot. And I know she’ll be thinking the same thing I have been: one more mouth to feed, and he may not eat a lot now, but just wait until he starts growing.
But we can make it work. We’ll have to.
Sincerely,
Erin the Spiderkiller
(I thought that would seem funny, but it just seems kind of grim now.)
Jeremiah
Rural Maryland
10 years, 44 days after
I ran. Immediately.
I did not raise my weapon.
I did not check on my friends.
I ran.
Chaos swirled into those woods. Bodies moving in every direction. Weapons firing. Another claymore exploding and flinging dirt everywhere. Black smoke billowing up to obscure things all the more.
Made it hard to tell who was who and where was where. Just a mess of soldiers shooting hot nails at each other and scattering. Flailing.
I crashed through the brush which thickened into something bordering on impenetrable. I slowed but didn’t stop. Worked a meandering path anywhere I could find an opening.
And off to my left I saw a Crusader emerge from behind a tree. An ugly fucker with a soot-stained face and his eyes open wide — the whites of them too bright next to the black smudges all around them.
He gutted Alabama with what looked like a steel hook. One quick upward stroke into the belly, and then he ripped him open.
Alabama crumbled. Fell back onto his ass. Clutched at his slit abdomen. At the innards poking out.