by Amy Fecteau
“Help me dig,” he said. “Here, between the roots.”
He tossed a flat stone at Matheus’ feet, and knelt down with a stone of his own.
Reluctantly, Matheus joined him, holding the stone loosely in one hand.
“Why?” he asked. “What are you going to do?”
“Talk while you dig.”
Matheus worked on the other side of the trench Quin created. The earth was a rich, dark brown laced with tiny, hair-like roots. Matheus drove the sharp edge of the stone down, hacking the dirt into fist-sized clods.
“You’re going to stay here,” Quin said. “I’ll lead off the men chasing us.”
“Here?” Matheus paused in mid-hack.
“You’ll be safe underground.”
“You want to bury me alive?” Matheus gaped at Quin, still busily digging as though he weren’t a psychopath of epic proportions.
“You’re dead, Matheus. After sunrise, you won’t know the difference.”
“I’ll suffocate!”
“You don’t need to breathe,” said Quin. “It’s just a reflex.”
“I need air!”
Quin jammed his rock into the ground.
“You don’t.” He grabbed Matheus around the back of the head, and shoved him down into a pile of fresh dirt.
Earth clogged Matheus’ nose and mouth. He tasted dirt, thick on his tongue, positive he felt something wiggling against his teeth.
Quin pushed harder; Matheus’ spine creaked in protest. The muscles in his neck strained to the point of snapping as he struggled to raise his head. He clawed at Quin’s wrist, tearing out furrows of skin.
“Don’t inhale,” Quin said calmly. “You’ll spend a week hacking up mud.”
Matheus beat his fists through the air, landing a few glancing blows brushed aside by Quin. He kicked and squirmed, pinned into place by Quin’s grip. Each second brought more wild desperation. His lungs screamed for oxygen. Except….
They didn’t. He wanted air. His brain told him he needed air. Urgent signals flashed through his nervous system, blissfully ignored by his body. He could have been sitting peacefully on a porch, if Quin hadn’t been shoving Matheus’ face into a pile of dirt that contained God knew how many different kinds of feces. Matheus dropped his hands, forcing his whole body into stillness.
After a second, Quin pulled him up, one hand wound in Matheus’ hair.
“Do you want to die?” he demanded. “Tell me now so I can stop wasting my time.”
Matheus jerked his head away. He spat out a mouthful of dirt, then wiped his tongue on the inside of his shirt. He scraped off the fuzz left behind. With exaggerated care, he searched for his makeshift shovel and began digging. He did not look at Quin.
They dug in silence, piling the dirt into a large mound at the base of the trench. Only thirty minutes to sunrise. The warning pressure pulled through Matheus’ chest. He fumbled with the stone as the numbness set in.
“You’re a bastard,” he said softly.
“I didn’t have time to argue with you,” said Quin. His tone was empty, business-like. In a thousand scenarios, he did the same thing in every one.
“Still a bastard.” Matheus slammed the rock down with unnecessary force. He raised it for another blow, but Quin gripped his wrist, stopping him. For the barest fraction of a second, Matheus thought he would apologize.
Then the sounds of people filtered through the trees.
“Get in,” Quin said.
Matheus lay in the hole before his brain processed the command. He wondered if the ability to cram whole books of threat into two words was innate or learned. Hijacking a body through sheer, animalistic terror had its uses, but Matheus preferred to be on the other end.
“When this is over, I’m not going to leave the shower for a week,” he said. The dirt stuck to his skin and matted in his hair. Quin packed the earth around Matheus, occasionally pausing to stamp down clods with his feet. Matheus’ fingers clenched. He’d never been overly claustrophobic, but each scoopful of dirt felt heavier than the last.
“Stay here until I come back,” Quin said, tramping the dirt over Matheus’ chest. Matheus wheezed as his ribs gained several new dents. “Understand? Do not go off by yourself.”
“Okay,” said Matheus. The overturned tree offered some cover. Quin kicked some leaves into the hollow to hide the disturbed earth, and added a couple of medium-sized rocks for effect. Two thick roots hemmed Matheus in on either side. Small, hair-like roots tickled his skin. Matheus remembered a documentary he’d seen years ago. Wasn’t there some kind of spider that lived underground? He hadn’t watched the entire program; he’d switched over to the History Channel because at least the Third Reich wouldn’t lay eggs in his ears. Matheus wished he’d stuck the program out to the end now. Knowledge of Hitler’s plan for the Russian Front had no use in his current situation.
“Matheus.” Quin knelt beside Matheus’ head, peering down at him.
“I said okay.” Matheus wished Quin would stop looking at him like that. His expression raised all kinds of uncomfortable questions Matheus wanted to avoid, especially with the pressing suffocation/ground spider issues to think about.
“Close your eyes,” Quin said.
“Sunrise soon,” Matheus said as Quin began packing dirt around his head, reminding him of the neck braces EMTs used after a fall.
“I know.” The corner of Quin’s mouth curved up as his snaggletooth made an appearance. “I have the same buggy sense you do, remember?”
“It’s spidey sense,” said Matheus.
“They’re both equally stupid,” Quin said. “Close your mouth.”
“Be careful.” The words escaped before Matheus had a chance to think about them. He pressed his lips together to stop any further ridiculousness, with the practical benefit of preventing Quin from packing yet more dirt into his mouth. Matheus knew his stomach contents contained sixty percent soil by this point.
“Sure,” said Quin. “Sleep tight.”
Bastard, Matheus thought.
Something wriggled near Matheus’ ear. It touched the shell of his ear, the trickling of tiny feet moving over the lobe to the hard cartilage inside. Matheus tried to brush it away, but his hand remained stuck. He jerked his hand again, felt the muscles strain, but no resulting movement.
Oh, right, buried alive. Or buried undead.
The wriggling thing inched closer, brushing the inside of Matheus’ ear. Matheus had horrible visions of earwigs and egg-laying spiders. He struggled, refusing to spend the rest of his undead existence with his brain half-eaten by maggots. Brilliant idea, sticking a corpse in the ground with all the creepy-crawly things that just happen to eat dead things. Never mind that the owner of said body is not quite finished with it, thank you very much. He kicked, edging out hollows around his feet. Quin had stomped the soil into submission, forming a hard shell around Matheus’ body. He continued to scrabble, as the spaces around his limbs grew larger. The weight lessened, and finally Matheus thrust an arm free. He grabbed at the roots, pulling himself up, gasping for air he didn’t need.
Matheus scrambled out of the hollow, then slumped back against a tree. He pressed a palm to his chest, disconcerted by the lack of a racing heartbeat. Earth caked the walls of his lungs. Dirt coated his tongue, gritty between his teeth. Matheus spat, again and again. He shook his head, clods of dirt falling out of his hair. A dust-cloud of earth enveloped his every movement. He had dirt in places he didn’t want to think about. Soil bonded into the fibers of his shirt and pants with the tenacity of Super Glue. Matheus made a note to start billing Quin for his ruined clothing.
Twenty minutes passed before Matheus reached an acceptable level of de-earthment. A respectable pile of dirt rose up around his feet. Matheus kicked at the soil, wondering what the hell happened to Quin. The gray-blue color of twilight darkened into true night, the moon just visible through the canopy of leaves. Maybe Quin got caught on his way to meet Matheus. Maybe the hunters captured him this morni
ng. Maybe he was already dead.
“No,” said Matheus. His voice sounded out of place among the trees. He would know if Quin had died. Part of that claim thing that connected them. That left capture. Matheus groaned. He didn’t want to rescue Quin. The last time he tried to rescue Quin, insane crossbow fetishists kidnapped them both. Maybe Quin didn’t even need a rescue. He hadn’t been very happy about it before.
In the distance, something let out a wailing cry, low note rising midway, like a step on a stairway. Matheus froze. The cry repeated, this time overlapped by an answering call. Animals didn’t make noises like that. The sound came from the beginning of a horror movie, ignored by the protagonists despite being a clear indication to run the fuck away. Taking a step back, Matheus looked left and right. His whole body vibrated with waiting tension. The brush to his right rustled, and Matheus spun around, visions of hunters and mountain lions competing for attention in his mind. The leaves of the brush shook; too late to run. Kneeling, Matheus scrabbled on the ground for some kind of weapon. He grabbed a rock and rose triumphantly, ready to strike the terrible…bunny.
Matheus stared as the small, brown rabbit hopped over to the upturned tree. With a nervous laugh, he let the rock fall. The rabbit took off into the brush.
“Fuck this,” Matheus said, rubbing a hand over his face. He would rescue Quin whether he liked it or not. A rabbit nearly gave him a stroke. Clearly, the woods did not benefit his mental health. Besides, if Quin got all cranky every time Matheus tried to help him, then he shouldn’t have turned Matheus in the first place. Sure, he’d never managed to keep any retail job longer than three months, and spent the majority of his time avoiding human contact, but he still liked to be helpful.
Matheus stomped through the trees. He couldn’t move silently enough to avoid hunters, so he might as well be loud enough to frighten away anything thinking he might make a nice snack. He viewed this as a visit to a foreign planet. Gone were his comforting pavements, familiar streetlamps, and sweet, homey, little 7-Elevens. Anyone who wanted to return to nature needed psychiatric care.
Matheus didn’t know which direction he followed. He’d managed to grasp that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, not the most useful information anymore. Someone had told him that moss grew only on the north side of trees, but apparently forget to tell the moss in this forest. As far as Matheus was concerned, there were two directions: that-way and not-that-way. Quin was that-way. He hoped the hunters were not-that-way.
“Freeze!”
Freeze? Matheus thought. Seriously? He stopped, more out of stunned amazement than fear.
“Turn around. Hands up!” The voice broke sharply, the up swallowed into a high-pitched squeak.
Bemused, Matheus turned around, his hands held up cliché-style. He’d been arrested so many times, his juvenile record took up a whole file cabinet; never once had he been ordered to freeze. He had been in a car chase once, but only long enough for him to run into a fountain. Not a large fountain, but the size hadn’t factored into sentencing.
“Jesus Christ,” Matheus said, getting his first look at his captor. “How old are you?”
Hunter Junior held a crossbow with a camouflage paint job, a scope, and a price tag still dangling off the stock. He looked like the poster boy for awkward teenage years, gangly, with a prominent Adam’s apple and a sprinkling of zits across his chin. Delicate features meant he must have been an adorable child, but puberty had not been kind to him. Then again, looks didn’t have a lot of impact on the ability to aim.
“No talking,” the kid ordered. “Uh, freak.”
“Are you even old enough to shave?” Matheus asked.
“Old enough to catch you.”
Matheus didn’t consider that much of an accomplishment. Helen Keller would have noticed him stomping around the woods. The tip of the bolt made small circles in the air. Matheus wondered if Hunter Junior had ever held a crossbow before.
“Are you going to shoot me or what?” Matheus asked. Quin was close. Maybe if he ran…. “Are you alone?”
The kid jumped. With his pale face, someone might have thought him the dead one. Matheus watched the crossbow bolt do its jittery dance.
“No,” the kid said. “I have back-up. One move and you’re a corpse.”
“I’m already a corpse,” Matheus said. “And you’ve been watching too many bad action movies.”
“I’m a hunter. Just like my father, and his father, and—”
Matheus darted forward, slapping the crossbow to the left. The bow thwacked, sending the bolt flying into the brush.
Hunter Junior staggered. He groped for his quiver.
“Shit! Shit!” Hunter Junior scrambled to reload. The bolt clattered against the bow, the string snapping prematurely.
Matheus dove at him, trying to mimic Quin’s movements from the fight the night before. Except Quin had decades of practice, and Matheus tripped without moving his feet. They rolled around on the forest floor, doing more damage to the plants around them than to each other.
Finally, Matheus landed a lucky hit, knocking Hunter Junior’s temple against a rock. Matheus rolled back and forth, still striking wildly before he realized what happened. Disentangling himself, he knelt beside Hunter Junior, searching for a pulse. Matheus pressed his fingertips to the boy’s wrist, panic rising until he felt the faint fluttering. A few feet away, the crossbow hung in a bush like an oversized Christmas ornament.
Matheus relieved Hunter Junior of his quiver. Most of the bolts had fallen out, scattered among the crushed bushes and grass, but one remained. Matheus rolled the smooth shaft between his fingertips, letting the moonlight reflect off the blades. He looked over at the kid. No one had come to help him. A bolt that paralyzed Matheus could kill a human. One firm thrust into the right area, not much effort required. Hunter Junior was unconscious, the soft tissue of his throat exposed.
Matheus drove the bolt into the ground. Leaving the kid where he lay, Matheus walked away.
Matheus halted, mid-creep,startled by the lack of a cover, and more importantly, the small cabin in the center of the clearing. . After Hunter Junior, Matheus decided some circumspection might be a good idea, given the long odds on a lucky knockout twice in a row. He focused on each step, stopping at every snapped twig or crushed leaf, so dedicated to sneaking that basic observation fell by the wayside. The trees thinned out, giving way to waist-high brush that offered nothing toward concealment. Tiny nettles pricked at Matheus as he crouched, ready to run if necessary.
The cabin sat in the center of the clearing, a small outbuilding tucked about five yards behind it. Both structures looked as though made from leftover parts. Brown paint covered the left side, a darker shade on the right. Stacks of concrete blocks served as a makeshift foundation. The rumbling sound of a generator explained the floodlight next to the door and the lit cabin windows. Figures moved inside, too indistinct for Matheus to make an accurate count.
The door opened, and Matheus ran into the trees.
A lone man emerged, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one. He rested his elbows on the porch railing and stared into the woods.
Matheus watched the smoke twist lazily in the light. He gnawed on his fingernail, a habit from his childhood that he thought he’d broken. He needed to get inside. He assumed the cabin had only one or two rooms, which did not offer a lot of opportunities, stealth-wise.
Matheus tasted the spoiled food tang of his own blood on his tongue. He lowered his hand, the nail bitten down to a ragged edge. Visions of gloves soaked in chili powder flooded in. Well into adulthood, Matheus associated Mexican food with a sense of shame. Every time he ate a burrito, he had the strange desire to hide his fingernails. He scowled at his hands. Mud from his underground adventure streaked his skin, except for the damp spots where he’d been gnawing. Shoving his fists into his pockets, Matheus turned his attention back to the cabin.
The future lung cancer patient flicked the butt of his cigarette onto the patch of dir
t and weeds that served as the cabin’s lawn. Pausing to swat a moth fluttering around the porch light, the hunter went inside. The ember of the cigarette glowed red-gold, rolling slightly as the wind picked up.
Matheus cursed softly as he realized he’d raised his finger to his mouth again. He wondered what happened to his finger if he chewed it off. Quin knew, but he had gotten himself captured, much to Matheus’ inconvenience. Although, judging from what Matheus saw yesterday, the hunters didn’t take captives. Matheus let his gaze drift away from the cabin to the small outbuilding.
No, Matheus thought. No way. No fucking way.
Skirting the edge of the clearing, Matheus approached the outhouse from the back. He waited, listening for an occupant. While ambushing a hunter with his pants down might even the odds, attacking a man in the john just felt wrong, in more ways than one.
When no sounds of grunting or magazine rustling came, Matheus slipped inside, door latch clacking into place behind him. As far as outhouses went, this seemed acceptable. A bucket of lime sat by the door; the scent of cedar laced through the more…earthy smells. Not a place Matheus wanted to linger.
“Quin,” he hissed. “Are you down there?” He tilted his head, leaning from side to side in an effort to peer into the hole without sticking his whole head down there. Something moved in the muck, a shifting of shadows over the slightly oily surface. Matheus hoped to God Quin was down there. He already lived in one kind of horror movie. He didn’t want to start hopping sub-genres.
“Give me a hand.” Quin’s voice echoed up, filtered and diminished by the small space.
“Oh, God, do I have to?” Matheus asked. He inched toward the hole, raising the rough-hewn seat with the tip of his index finger. “It smells terrible.”
“I know.”
“I mean, really terrible. I’m tempted to eat something just so I can throw up.”