Hell to Pay

by Dick Wybrow

  As I had not noticed the phone between the handlebars before she'd pointed it out, the symbol felt entirely appropriate. I plugged in our destination.

  Sally's motorcycle was like no bike I'd seen. No logos, no telltale signs of branding. It was a custom build, and it seemed that build had likely been facilitated by some hell-owned West Coast choppers–type of outfit.

  I gave Bucephalus a pat on its fuel tank. Beneath my fingers, I swear it felt like it had again whinnied slightly.

  "You miss your momma, I bet," I said, smiling. "Don't worry. I won't let anything happen to you. And very likely she'll find us and shoot me dead, and you'll be together again. Good times."

  I checked the road ahead but knew that wasn't really necessary. The bike didn't need me to steer it.

  Catching a glance in the mirror, I saw the Actor's head lolling left and right. I smiled. It had taken some serious peer pressure to convince him to ride on the very back. Even after that, he'd questioned every step of my plan.

  "Airfield?" he had asked. "I thought we were looking for a boat."

  "Yeah, my guys with the boat are actually just past the airfield. Not too far from here," I said. "Just about a straight shot after we take the ferry over to the mainland."

  "And how do you know them, here in Mexico?" the Actor asked.

  "I met them last time. They helped me get across to New Orleans. Twins."

  "Twins?" Anza asked excitedly. "I love twins. I wish I had a twin. Do they dress the same and finish each other's sentences?"

  "I was only with them for a few hours."

  The Actor nodded slowly, his eyes turning to slits. "Great. Super. And how are we getting three people on that motorcycle?"

  After I'd given him that answer, it had taken six more beers to convince him to go along with it. Six half beers, that is. Math.

  "I think he is sleeping!" Anza yelled in my ear.

  "As long as he doesn't fall off!" I shouted back.

  "What?"

  I'd given Anza my helmet and was wearing a bike helmet I'd borrowed from Angel. It was teal and yellow.

  I pushed the throttle a bit more, my mind drifting as I stared at the long, empty black strip with dotted white lines.

  "Cassie, what am I doing out here?"

  "You're helping your friend. Like he helped you."

  I checked my mirror again. The Actor's arm waved as we bounced, like he was a drunken orchestra conductor.

  "I don't think he's my friend. He's not anyone's friend."

  "Sometimes it's hard to love those who don't love themselves."

  "Oh, I don't think anyone loves themselves more than he does. I bet he's one of those people with his own picture all around the house, in fancy frames."

  "Don't be snarky. I don't like it when you're snarky."

  "Yes, you do. It's part of my charm." I stared back at the winking white lines in the road. "I miss you."

  "Then you are doing the right thing."

  "How is that?"

  "Because you made me a promise you would do good, remember?"

  "I remember, babydoll."

  "This is a good thing. He needs your help."

  "I need you," I said out loud and gulped back a sob.

  "Then do good things, and I'll see you soon."

  "Soon?" I laughed. "What have you heard?"

  But then I didn't hear her voice in my head anymore. Sure, it was just probably me going mad, and I was fine with that. At least she was still with me in some way.

  The arrow on the GPS started flashing, telling me I had to turn left. I slowed and searched for a road but saw nothing. After another minute, it flashed red, telling me that I'd missed the turn.

  "Dammit."

  I slowed way down, put my left foot out and spun back the other way. Turning a motorcycle wasn't terribly easy, and it was a lot harder having not one but two people on the back.

  "Well, one-and-a-half," I muttered.

  Don't be snarky.

  "Sorry."

  I eased down the road, watching more closely, then Anza tapped me on the shoulder and pointed. Through some thick reeds, I could just barely pick out a gravel road. Then I realized she wasn't necessarily pointing at the road. In the dark, I saw eyes, several sets of them, glowing red and staring. They were close to the ground and unblinking.

  When I got to the turn, I hit gravel, and the eyes moved closer.

  "Hello, nice puppies," I mumbled, trying to keep my eye on the road. "Good puppies."

  No, I didn't think they were fluffy puppies hiding out on the side of a Mexican highway, tails wagging, waiting to play with passersby. Previously, I'd been told they were likely coyotes, and I didn't think they would likely be the sort to carry around an Acme credit card.

  I twisted the accelerator, and we shot off.

  After about five minutes of twisting and turning—the world around us pitch-black except for the light of the motorcycle—we were there. I was under no illusion I'd made all those tricky, last-minute turns.

  "We're here," I said and cut the engine.

  Anza hopped off, stumbled for a moment, and regained her footing. She pulled off her helmet and set it on the bike's seat. Then she helped the Actor, loosening the bungees under his arms.

  He fell to the ground with an oof and groaned. "Nice," he said and slowly got to his feet.

  "Your friends, they are here?" Anza asked, sidling up next to me.

  We were standing in a gravel lot, a line of trees directly ahead. In the lot was a pickup truck. To someone just stumbling upon the place, it would have almost looked abandoned, but I knew better.

  "There's a path through the reeds and a beach down below."

  We stumbled through, the way lit only by the bright moonlight in the clear, cold sky. The Actor mumbled and grumbled the entire way.

  Finally, we got to the water and stopped. It was quiet except for the soft lapping of waves on the shoreline. I saw a small boathouse that was doing an admirable job of falling apart.

  Inside was a long metal boat with a massive motor strapped to its back.

  All around the beach, though, it looked like a small tank had exploded. Bits of hull and metal sheets were scattered about. Engine blocks had been eviscerated, their innards spread haphazardly across a low stone table.

  I saw no sign of the twins.

  "Maybe they're out on a job," I said.

  "But the boat is there," Anza said, pointing to a long metal frame in the dilapidated shed. "You said they ran peoples up to Texas."

  I walked to the shoreline and looked out. If they had a second boat, we might be waiting for hours. Hanging around didn't feel terribly safe, but we had no choice.

  "If they're running a small business, surely they'd have more than one boat." The Actor sat on the stone bench and frowned. "Even in Mexico, they must teach these folks the idea of capital." He looked around on the ground, found something that looked like a small bundle of rags, put it on the cold bench, and sat down on top of them.

  "We'll wait," I said.

  "Out here?" The Actor squirmed slightly. "The temperature drops about ten degrees every five minutes! We'll freeze to death."

  "Ah, such a baby," Anza said. "You are alw—"

  She stopped so suddenly, I almost jumped. Turning to her, I saw her focusing on the damp horizon, squinting into the darkness.

  "What?" I asked.

  "It… I can't tell," she said as she came up beside me. She pointed toward the dark ocean, but I couldn't see anything. She moved forward and let me look down the length of her arm.

  "I don't…" But then I did.

  It didn't look like a boat. Too small.

  "What is that? A fish?"

  "What fish?" She laughed. "Fish is under the water, Raz, not poking out on top."

  "Could be a whale."

  The Actor said, "Or a shark. They got that fin that sticks out."

  "No whale or shark," she said. "Not out here. Is like… a boat?"

  If it were a boat, it was very f
ar off, but that didn't seem to make sense because I could just see moonlight glinting off a sharp angle. Then the creature suddenly grew.

  "Oh shit," I said. "Hide! I'm not sure what the hell that is."

  We both hightailed it to the other side of the stone bench with the engine parts. The Actor slipped off and crouched next to us. For a minute, we just stared. It looked so strange.

  "It can't be a sea creature. It's moving in a straight line. Besides, you said you guys don't have anything that big down this way."

  Anza shrugged. "Chupacabra."

  "What the fuck is that?" the Actor asked.

  "Goat killer, mystical creature," she said casually. "But I think no. We don't have any water goats that it might feed on."

  I could just see the whites of the Actor's eyes in the moonlight. "Nothing about what you are saying is helping in any way," he said. "Not even a little bit."

  We watched the water thing draw closer and closer.

  I whispered, "Wow, it's… big."

  "It does look like a whale," the Actor said.

  A few moments later, it made a horrific hissing sound, and I had to reach out and grab the Actor, as he'd started to make a beeline for the path.

  He growled at me. "We need to get out of here!"

  "Wait."

  The creature was just off the shoreline and looked twice the length of the pickup in the dirt lot.

  Another hissing sound.

  Anza worked it out first. "Is not making that sound. It is… beached."

  "What?"

  The creature made a long creaking sound and slowly tipped nearly on its side. In the bright moonlight, it was dark and hulking. Quickly, I looked over my shoulder to see if it had attracted any goats.

  Then it made another strange sound. Clank. Clank, clank, clank.

  We held our breaths, listening, our eyes peeking over the top of the stone bench. Then, just barely, I thought I could hear a voice calling out. I stood up but still couldn't see it, so I walked back toward the beach.

  Anza asked, "Where are you going?"

  "Chupacabra, fucker!" the Actor said. "Get back!"

  As I drew closer, I could start to make out its features. Smooth lines, right angles, and at the front it did have two fins on either side, but it wasn't a sea creature.

  "It's a sub."

  "What?" Anza said from behind the bench.

  Clank, clank, clank, clank.

  I waded through the water to where it had fallen on its side. That close, I could make out a voice, two of them actually, shouting from inside. It was very hard to hear them inside the hull.

  With the flat of my palm, I banged on the outside twice. Again, I held my breath. Clank, clank. Unsure, I hit it again. Clank. One more time, I smacked it with my palm.

  Clank, clank, clank, clank, clank, clank.

  I heard a yell, dimmed by the hull. "¡Encima¡"

  Maybe I misheard it, I thought.

  But then both voices repeated the word. "¡Encima!"

  I called back to Anza and said, "What does encima mean?"

  "It means 'on top.'"

  "Oh." I waded farther into the water until I found the top of the small submarine.

  It was a crazy custom job with tubing and pipes and weld marks that looked like scars gladiators might show off at after-parties. At the top, I saw a small wheel.

  I gripped it and tried to turn.

  There was muttering inside, then I heard a voice again.

  "Juntos, juntos," it said then more brief muttering. "Together."

  I reached up again and turned from my end as, I guessed, they turned from theirs. It felt like it had also been welded shut, but then it slowly, slowly began to turn with an awful scraping sound.

  "It's eating Raz!" the Actor shouted from the bench, jumped up, and disappeared down the path.

  Finally, as my arms ached, the wheel began to move more quickly, and eventually it stopped spinning. I stood back as the hatch was thrown open, and I looked in.

  The twins' faces were red and damp with sweat. A strip of red LED lighting lined the interior. It took me a moment to see the rifle in one of their hands.

  I put my hands up but laughed, trying to keep it light. "Hey, guys," I said. "It's me. Remember me?"

  One of the twins squinted against the moonlight. "Hey, yeah," he said. "You had that crazy bike that we put on the plane."

  "That's the one," I said and lowered my hands.

  "Wait!"

  The rifle came back up, and so did my arms.

  The other twin said, "There's no way you made it in that thing. I thought for sure you were dead."

  "I am dead." I sighed. "But you were kind to me, and now that you've died, I've returned so that I may ferry you to the afterlife. This is what I do now, forever."

  Their faces instantly drained of blood.

  "No, no," I said and put a hand out. "I'm kidding. You're not dead. You're in Mexico."

  After the twins got out and pulled their homemade sub farther up the beach, they led us to a tunnel hidden in the reeds.

  I hesitated, unsure if we should follow, but Anza plunged in, taking an exaggerated step as she did. I realized why she had a moment too late, when I tripped over the steel lip at the bottom.

  Someone called out from below, "Hey, watch out for the sea barrier by the door!"

  Nice.

  I turned to close the hatch but then thought better of it when I saw the light from inside casting my shadow across the sandy threshold. I left it open.

  We followed the twins.

  * * *

  The Actor looked at the motorcycle sideways.

  He'd tried the truck first—locked—and in truth, he wasn't sure bailing on Raz and Anza would be the right move. Not that he was overly concerned for their welfare. They were adults and could take care of themselves, but he did need them if he had any chance of getting his contract back.

  He'd had a fleeting thought that he would steal the stolen bike. The key was in the ignition, but despite his likely inability to reach the footpegs, his trepidation seemed to be centered on the bike itself.

  Damn thing feels alive.

  Looking back at the dark path between the reeds, he sighed. Then a thin river of panic trickled through him. What if they left me behind? Am I alone? Or what if I went to find them and missed them in the dark somehow?

  That wasn't going to happen. The Actor crouched low, slunk up to the motorcycle, snagged its key with the tiny bobbing skull, and put it in his tattered yellow robe.

  He turned back toward the path.

  * * *

  Heading down the earthen tunnel, I got a cold shiver, but it wasn't because the temp had dropped. In truth, I didn't really know the twins well. And they were criminals, criminals we were following down a dark, hidden passage dug into the side of a remote beach.

  Calling forward, I injected my voice with a coolness I didn't really feel. "Dude, you've got a secret lair!"

  In the dim light, I saw the twins laugh and knock fists. A moment later, they disappeared.

  There was a short passageway that doglegged to the right then a few steps farther down. A thick steel gate had been slid open for us to enter.

  We found the twins stripping off their clothes and changing into dry stuff.

  The room was cramped, as I might have expected. It was about the size of a standard living room with a table in the center and lockers running down one side. In the corner sat a small fridge. Where the ceiling met the walls, LED track lighting led to two larger panels at the back. Those were quite bright and lit the place like daylight. In the middle of the room was a bench similar to the stone one outside but made of steel. On the table were maps and several crushed soda cans. A ham radio crackled on the far wall, its volume turned down low.

  Trying to take some control of the queer situation, I started with introductions, naming Anza and reminding them of my own, but then stopped. "Uh," I said. "I realized that I don't actually know your names."

  Twin Tw
o had his clear eyes fixed on Anza and reached for her hand. "My lovely lady, my name is Ro—"

  Before he could finish his sentence, he got a brotherly punch to the back of his head.

  "Stupido, you cannot tell people your real name," Twin One said and muttered. He then snatched Anza's hand from his brother. "You can call me Hyde, and he is Jekyll."

  Hyde bent down to kiss Anza's hand but only came up with his own. When he looked up, she was crossing her arms.

  "I like this one," he said and grinned a gap-toothed smile. His brother apparently agreed, as he wore the exact same expression.

  Nodding to the entrance, I said, "Hope it's okay I left the door open. We've got a friend out there. He's bound to see the light."

  The boys leaned into each other and exchanged some quick words but finally nodded that it was fine.

  "Nice place, yeah?" the man who'd identified himself as Hyde said as he slipped on a thin sweater. His brother grabbed their damp clothes and disappeared for a moment in an even smaller room off to the right.

  Anza eyed our exit and leaned back against a concrete wall.

  "You guys built this?" I asked, and Hyde nodded. "Did you dig into the sand? How'd you do that?"

  "Nah, the sand is pretty hard packed, but it is sand, right? So we just dug out the trench with a digger, put down the foundation, built up the walls, then when it was finished drying, pushed all the sand back."

  "Wow," I said.

  He was clearly enjoying me geeking out on the place.

  "Yeah, took a few weeks, but we got time," Hyde said. "On the other side of that room there, we got a second tunnel that goes all the way down the beach, but it's not really finished."

  Jekyll came back into the room wearing a T-shirt and shorts. "We'll get to it," he said in an annoyed voice. "When things slow down."

  Anza finally gave them a half smile. "You have a tourist season or something?"

  Hyde shrugged. "Nah, but when it gets colder, people don't like to travel so much. And every few months, the American patrol boats sweep across this area, so we have to lay low for a while."

  Jekyll smiled. "We've got Xbox. You wanna play a game?"

  We declined.

  He said, "Suit yourself."

  Hyde grabbed four sodas from the small fridge and put them on the table, which seemed like an invitation to sit down. We did.