Paul sobbed. His broad chest hitched with each shuddering, labored breath. The temperature in the tunnel grew slightly warmer. The breeze remained steady. The stench of his captors was foul, but there were other smells in the air. Mildew. An earthy odor—maybe clay or dirt or minerals of some kind? And something else, something that smelled like animal fat cooking in a frying pan. It wasn’t until one of the lanterns sputtered and hissed that he realized what the smell was. They were using fat as fuel. Paul had a sinking feeling that he knew what kind of animal the organic matter had come from. Bile burned his already raw throat. He opened his mouth to scream again, but paused as they came to a sudden stop.
They had emerged in a vast underground chamber—a true limestone cavern, just like the ones he’d taken the kids to a few times. It was brightly lit. Fires flickered in an assortment of rusted fifty-five-gallon drums scattered throughout the space. Stalactites and stalagmites dotted the rocky landscape. Paul found himself trying to remember which one was which, and then uttered a crazy laugh. What the hell did it matter? Geology wasn’t his main concern right now. Regardless, thoughts of high school fluttered through his head. Back then, he remembered the difference by calling stalactites “stalac-titties,” because tits hung. Hence, stalactites hung from the ceiling.
His laughter turned into a choked sob.
There were more creatures in the cave. Some of them were sprawled out on boulders, relaxing, staring at him with intense interest and amusement. Others were engaged in various tasks. Two-Head and the rest of his captors carried him to the center of the great chamber. Paul noticed a series of steel barrels had been set up here. There was some sort of makeshift rack above them, manufactured from angle iron, wooden beams, and pipes. Something dangled over two of the drums—something raw and red and glistening. It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at. Corpses. Two butchered human corpses. Each one had been strung upside down over one of the barrels, then skinned and gutted. Paul was reminded of the deer processing center during hunting season. The bodies were headless, and he couldn’t tell what sex they had been. They’d been slashed open from neck to groin and spread wide, emptied of their internal organs. These had been people once. Now they were just hollowed out carcasses.
“Oh God. Oh my God …”
They hoisted Paul higher into the air and sat the pole into the rack. He dangled over an empty drum, the top of his head just inches from the rim.
“Hey,” he yelled. “Don’t do this! Please don’t do this. We can talk about it, right? You don’t need me. You’ve got two already. I can pay you. I can give you anything you fucking want, okay? Just please don’t do this!”
His pleas turned into nonsensical babble as Two-Head and the others calmly strolled away. Another mutant approached. Paul blinked, staring at the creature from his upside-down vantage point. It stared back at him, blinking with its one, lone eye, which was affixed in the center of its face, giving it the appearance of a mythological Cyclops. Its head was smooth and hairless, and its ears stuck out at odd angles from the side of its head. They reminded Paul of cauliflower. It smiled at him with a broad gash of a mouth, revealing sharp but rotten teeth. In its hand was a long, broad carving knife. The silver blade glittered in the firelight.
“Let me go. Hey, listen to me, man. Do you understand me?”
The Cyclops nodded slowly, still grinning. “I understand you. Some of the younger ones don’t. They never learned the above speech. But us older ones still know it. A few of us can even read.”
“What … what are you?”
“I’m Curd.”
“I-is t-that your n-name, or your r-race, or what?”
The Cyclops tilted its head and frowned, staring at him with deep concentration, as if trying to determine Paul’s meaning.
“My name is Curd.”
“Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere. My name is Paul. Paul Synuria.”
“I don’t care.”
Paul licked his lips. “I know, and that’s okay. But listen … Curd. Listen. You don’t have to do … whatever it is you want to do. I can make it worth your while to let me go. What do you need?”
“For you to be quiet.”
“Okay. I can do that. But before I do, tell me what you
really
need? I’ll get it for you, no matter what it is.”
“You have everything we need right here. Your brains and heart and kidneys and lots and lots of meat. We’ll even use your bones.”
“No … listen … oh God …”
“If you were a woman, Scug would want your skin, but he’s busy with them other women right now, so we’ll use it for something else.”
Paul sputtered in confusion.
“You’re not the only one here tonight,” Curd continued, slapping one of the bloody corpses with his free hand. “Noigel killed these two. Smashed their heads up, so we couldn’t use the brains, but that’s okay, because there are plenty more of you left. Scug and the others are hunting them right now. We’ll be busy tonight.”
He raised the knife and stepped forward, seizing Paul’s hair in his fist and entwining his fingers through it.
“No,” Paul screamed. “No, goddamn it! Didn’t you hear me? I can give you whatever you want.”
“You didn’t hear me. I already said, you’ve got everything we want right here with you. We’ll use all of you, after I’ve bled you out. That’s how we were taught, and that’s how we teach the little ones. Every single scrap of you will be put to use.”
Paul’s eyes widened. Laughter bubbled out of him again, and this time, he couldn’t control it. It echoed across the cavern.
“Scraps,” he wailed. “Oh, it all comes down to scrap! Scrap … scrap … scrap …”
“It’s time for you to be quiet now.”
Curd yanked hard on Paul’s hair, exposing his throat. Then he brought the knife up and made a slashing motion. Paul shut his eyes, anticipating a flash of pain, but there was none. His neck felt a little hot, but it was warm inside the cave. He heard water running and tried to turn his head to see where the sound was coming from, but Curd held him firmly in place. Paul noticed that Curd had blood on him. Fresh blood, splattered across his ugly, misshapen Cyclops face, and all over his arm. Paul tried to ask him where the blood had come from. Tried to beg him one more time, to tell him why the scrap comment had been so funny, tell him about Lisa and the kids. But when Paul tried to speak, he found that he couldn’t. He heard a faint wheezing sound and wondered where it was coming from. The running water grew louder, and the heat on his neck faded. He shivered, suddenly growing cold and sleepy and nauseated. Curd’s grip on him slackened, and Paul’s gaze drifted downward into the barrel that he was suspended over. He blinked. The barrel was filling with …
… blood?
Whose blood? Where was it coming from?
And why was it so cold in here all of the sudden?
Then Curd raised the knife again, grabbed a fistful of his hair and began sawing his head off with savage, sweeping thrusts of the knife. He whistled while he worked. Realizing what was happening, Paul willed himself to pass out, but he was dead before he could. The last thing his eyes registered was his own decapitated body, when Curd lifted his head up to show it to him. Blood pumped from his neck like water from a garden hose.
If Paul had been able to, he would have screamed.
FOURTEEN
“So what’s the plan?”
Leo stopped in his tracks, and the rest of his friends did the same. Chris, Jamal, Markus, and Dookie had accompanied them. Some of their other friends who had wandered away earlier had returned, and Perry had told them to stay behind to direct the police on the off chance that they actually responded to the 911 call.
“What?”
“What’s the plan?” Perry asked again. “You were the one who was all fired up to do this. So, what’s your plan once we get inside there?”
“I don’t know.” Shrugging, Leo frowned. His expression was doubtful. “I guess I figured we’d just go in there all hardcore and shit, and find those kids. Fuck up whoever was holding them captive—if there
is
someone else.”
Perry shook his head. “You boys have watched too many movies. This ain’t
Black Caesar
.”
They all stared at him, and he could tell by their expressions that they were clueless about his reference.
“You mean you kids have never watched
Black Caesar
?
Hell up in Harlem
?
Superfly
?”
“Hell, no,” Markus replied. “I don’t watch TV.”
“Your daddies didn’t watch them with you when you were little?”
“I ain’t got no dad,” Leo said. “Never knew him.”
Chris nodded. “My old man’s doing twenty up in Cresson.”
“Only thing my dad ever watches,” Jamal said, “is wrestling.”
“I watch anime,” Dookie told Perry. “You ever watch that, Mr. Watkins?”
“No,” Perry admitted. “I don’t even know who she is.”
“Who?”
“This Anna May woman that you just said you watch.”
Now it was Dookie who was confused. “What?”
“Never mind.” Perry sighed and caught Leo’s eye, making sure he had the young man’s attention. “Look, just forget about the movies. My point is, we can’t just go barging in there. We don’t know what’s going on inside. If there really is someone in there up to no good, then we could get those kids killed if we rush in. Hell, we could get
ourselves
killed. We’ve got to be smart about this. Careful.”
“Okay,” Leo said, “so what do
you
think we should do?”
Perry paused, cupped one hand over his cigarette, and lit it. Then he stuffed the lighter back in his pocket and grinned.
“I don’t know yet. That’s why I wondered if you had a plan. Let’s just check it out first. No sense worrying about things until we know what we’re actually up against.”
They reached the end of the block and crossed over into the debris-covered wastelands that separated the old house from the other homes on the street. Perry and Leo walked side by side, taking the lead. The others slunk along behind them, casting nervous glances in every direction. Each chunk of concrete or twisted girder took on sinister forms in the dark, transforming into lurking dangers, waiting to jump out at them, gun or knife in hand. The overgrown weeds in the vacant lot became a prime hiding place, and they approached with trepidation. The tall, rusted chain-link fence jingled and swayed in the wind, sounding like the rattling chains of a ghost. The house groaned, as if disturbed by their arrival. Or perhaps anticipating it.
They paused at the bottom of the porch steps. Perry took a deep drag on his cigarette. The tip glowed orange, providing their only source of illumination. Shivering, he turned to Leo and told him to turn on one of the flashlights. The young man did as he was told, but Perry noticed that his hands were trembling. He was scared. Perry scanned the other boys’ faces. They were
all
scared.
Well
, he thought,
at least I’m not the only one
.
“Keep that pointed at the ground,” he whispered to Leo. “If there are bad people inside, we don’t want them seeing the flashlight through the windows.”
Leo nodded, but didn’t reply.