Hellbender (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 2) (33 page)

“Spit that out, boy!” Odelia clawed at my tongue, her long fingers had black tips, like they’d been frostbitten, with points of bone protruding from the end. Just like Katy said. The bones scratched my mouth and lips. When her fingertips touched together, they clicked and clacked like wooden spoons.

One of Charlie’s guys held me to the ground. He put his knee into my ribs then settled on me with all of his weight.

I tried to force cinders down my throat by the handful. Old pieces of red dog. Anything I could swallow. Odelia grabbed me by the hair and pinched my nose, scratching it and making it bleed with her bony claws. I held my breath.

Now that Alex was tied up, Lucinda dropped to the ground next to Odelia and pushed something into my mouth. It was gray and soft like wax, with bits of all kinds of things mixed in—hair, insects like cicadas and grasshoppers, tiny bones. Jane’s thistle pendant dangled from a silver chain around Lucinda’s neck.

I held my breath for as long as I could. The smell stuck to my skin, almost like I could feel its oily tang. And when I could hold my breath no more, Lucinda pushed the hair ball into my mouth. I spit again and again, but I knew by the way she walked away, she’d done all she needed to. Odelia let me fall to the floor. I grew dizzy.

A sound came, a slurping that I felt as much as heard. Something changed inside me. My innards shook passionately and the sucking sounds increased, rumbling my body, shaking my eardrums like thunder in my head. My guts heaved and burned with a searing pain like they were being liquefied. Something began to drip from my mouth.

Alex screamed. I tried to get to my knees.

Her name got lost in the wave of vomit that rushed up my esophagus. Mud and stones poured from my guts, sediments forcing their way through my mouth, scraping my teeth, cutting my gums. It tasted of the river, of the mountains, of the earth. The taste was my birth, my death and all that came in between.

The sediments spilled onto the red-dog floor then began to spread, forming mountains and stream valleys in miniature. I pushed up on my hands and looked for Alex in the clearing smoke.

Another rumble formed in my bowels. I shook my head. I wanted to black out. Odelia and Lucinda tormented Alex, tying bits of bone, like jawbones from raccoons or coyotes, in her hair. Alex cried, but did not scream. Lucinda smeared blood across Alex’s neck. It dripped down over her sternum. Alex had managed to free her right hand.

A cool, viscous gel filled my mouth. Instinctively, I coughed, but the inhalation forced the thick mucus back into my trachea. I clutched my throat and tried to force the substance back up with my hands.

My air was gone. My breath taken from me, locked up in my lungs. I gripped my throat even more tightly to keep the eggs out of my chest.

“You’re choking yourself, Henry! Stop…” Alex yelled.

My eyes searched the space for her, but I was starting to get dizzy. I was drowning so far above the river, so far away from…

Tripping. Just keep one foot on the ground, Henry
.

I dropped back onto my hands and knees. In one violent spasm the slime left me and hit the ground with a thick slosh.

A mass of salamander eggs spread across the coke ash and coal dust. The jelly- like mass wriggled on the floor. Young hellbenders swam in the clear gel. Blackness clouded my vision. Took away my thoughts.

Grass and moss sprouted from the walls and ceiling of the mine. Mushrooms and slime molds covered the floor. Logic told me they’d drugged me, but my brain knew that what I saw was real.

Just keep one foot on the ground
.

Alex screamed. They’d bound her to one of the roof supports with bailing twine. They secured her neck and her waist to the beam. Alex’s hands clutched at the rope around her neck while Charlie’s guy tried to get her wrists. On the floor was a ring of candles, really just lumps of gray wax with animal teeth and feathers suspended in them. Outside that was a larger circle of skulls, deer and bear, and rocks that had been doused with a thick gray fluid. They had Alex’s laptop and phone, my baby pictures and clothes from her suitcase alternating with the candles and skulls, all stuff they stole from the house before burning it. Alex’s hairbrush had been turned into an altar. A small votive sat on it, burning. Melting wax dripped through the bristles.

Alex struggled and kicked, knocking away part of the circle. I was proud of her for putting up such a fight. She bit Lucinda on the forearm, drawing blood. Odelia slapped Alex so hard I could see the red mark forming beneath what remained of the coal dust.

Lucinda grabbed Alex’s right arm and struggled to remove the ring from her hand. But Alex was stronger. She made a fist. An iron embrace that said the ring belonged to her.

Odelia said, “Just hand it over. There ain’t no way we ain’t taking it. It belongs to Darren now, and his kin.”

Lucinda pulled Alex by her hair. Her brown eyes screamed nothing but hatred and rage. Alex brought up her elbow and caught Lucinda’s nose. Blood trickled over her lips, down to her chin. When Lucinda reared, Alex whacked her again.

Odelia grabbed Lucinda by the chin, tsk-tsked the blood, then pushed a hairball into Alex’s mouth. She clenched her jaw, refusing to let them do to her what they’d done to me.

Odelia slapped Alex again. Her bony fingertips drew parallel lines of blood. She picked up a stoneware jug that’d been sitting near the post. Charlie’s guys went outside the second Odelia snatched it off of the ground—like they were scared.

She had an ash branch with a rag tied to it. She dunked it into the jug, taking great care not to get any of the liquid on her. Odelia dabbed it in Alex’s hair and on her bare skin. She said, “Who’s next, girlie? Your mama, that gossipy bitch? To think she sent you up here to consort with these devils. Maybe we’ll cut her little tongue out when we’re done here.”

Alex clenched her eyes and lips. When she exhaled through her nose Odelia moved aside to avoid getting sprayed. Laughing now, Odelia soaked Alex’s shoulders.

“Little city bitch sleeping with that Collins girl, like she was your girlfriend, right? Bet you all thought it was real funny how we got our issues with each other, huh? Where’s that little fornicator now? She could a had Billy but now she’s swimming. Well, you’re going to swim now, too. You all can swim together forever, you little fornicators.”

Odelia saturated Alex’s jacket and dress, dabbed her breasts and jabbed the rag between Alex’s legs. “You like it down there, don’t you?”

Rage consumed me, but I was paralyzed. An object, rather than a person. Mushrooms sprouted on my hands and forearms, decomposing me. All I could do was watch.

“They all drowned, sweetie. One way or another they ended up at the bottom of the river. Them girls never learned. But we showed them.” Odelia retreated.

From the ground, a sea of larvae wriggled toward Alex. Shiny white grubs about the size of my thumb covered her feet and began to climb.

Much to Odelia’s dissatisfaction, Alex didn’t scream as the larvae gorged themselves on the brown liquid. They grew as they ate, nearly doubling in size until they covered her completely. The cowl of grubs pulsated in a unified, silent feast.

Rain fell outside. Lightning brought with it the smell of a faraway world, telling me I wasn’t dead. Water splashed in through breaks in the walls and ceiling. It felt cool on my skin. Even though I knew they’d drugged me, I couldn’t do anything about it. Anger seemed to push reality even further from me.

Alex had stopped moving beneath the sheen of larvae. The insects had changed color, their white had transformed into a glossy brown like hardened pine sap. The pupae quivered. A buzzing hum filled the room as the cicadas emerged from their sleep. Red eyes appeared from within the hard, brown shells. The massive insects climbed over each other and over the dry husks of their brethren, working toward the room’s ceiling. The air exploded with a buzzed vibrato that rattled my skull. The horde moved to the walls and roof, always buzzing. Some landed on me.

“Give it up, girlie,” Odelia said. She scraped away the dry husks of the cicadas, which fell to the floor like dry leaves.

Alex said, “It’s mine.”

“Says who? This boy? Or John Henry Collins?” Odelia said. Lucinda grabbed Alex by the arm.

Alex’s  fist  remained  clenched.  The two women struggled, but Lucinda couldn’t manage to budge Alex one bit. Finally, a frustrated Odelia said, “Give me that rock.”

Lucinda grabbed a hunk of sandstone off the ground and handed it over. Odelia bashed Alex’s fingers like she was cracking open a walnut. Tears streamed down Alex’s cheeks, onto her dress, onto the ground. Blood and bits of flesh fell away from her poor little hand.

Odelia smiled the more Alex struggled. “Let’s lose the hand then.” She smashed Alex’s wrist with the rock

Alex screamed in pain. I’d have rather been dead. It was the most dreadful thing

I’d ever heard. I cried for her, it was the least I could do. The only thing I could do. “Stop it, Henry,” Alex said, crying herself. “Don’t…”

Odelia hacked at Alex’s wrist like she was butchering a pig. She sawed and sliced with the rock. Alex’s blood fell like water from a spring. I’d never seen so much blood in my whole life, gallons and gallons cascading down her legs.

Then Odelia stopped just as sadistically as she’d started. She slammed the rock into Alex’s face twice, then wiped it on her long denim skirt. She smiled and held it up for Lucinda to see.

It was wood. Odelia dropped it to the floor and slapped Alex again.

“A magic trick. How sweet.” The words were thin, like fog.

“Henry,” Alex cried.

But I was fading. My hallucinations worsened.

Alex tried to say something, but no words came out. Lucinda came around behind Alex and poured water into her open mouth.

Alex coughed and choked. She shook her head to keep the water out of her mouth, but she was too weak to resist. Lucinda tried to jam a rag into her mouth.

“Henry…please.”

I wiggled my fingers to clear away a patch of dirt near my hand. With an old rusty nail I began to write the words from my uncle Jamie’s story.

S A T O R

A R E P O

“Stop him!” Odelia yelled.

T E N E T

O P E R A

Lucinda kicked my shoulder with the heel of her boot. A blast of wind tore the roof away with a thunderous crack. The old wooden walls turned into magnificent sandstone boulders. The rush of the storm became the rush of a river and I was wet now too, lying in a small pool of water.

Alex spit the rag out and began singing through her choking. Her tears and her blood mingled with the water I was laying in. I could taste the salt of her tears and the iron in her blood. Her pain. I began to drink.

Her words came to me clearly. She sang, “
Isaac’s on a tear, Ishmael’s out on bail.
”

“Luce, shut her up,” Odelia said, turning her full attention back toward Alex.

“
Ain’t none can help me now that I got them witches on my trail
.”

Lucinda doused Alex, making sure to pour water into her mouth and nose. Alex coughed and sputtered.

All I could see were trees rising up the steep walled gorge and the brown sandstone that held them all up. The river roared past, brown and angry like a thousand voices screaming at once.

Alex coughed weakly. She gasped and Lucinda poured another round of rain water down her throat. Alex snorted and choked, water dribbled from her nose and the corners of her mouth.

The hallucinations vibrated between my ears. I mouthed words, never knowing if there’d been sound to accompany them. And I drank from the river. Alex’s tears and blood. I drank, and found myself coming around. A headache, like from a brutal hangover, made it difficult to do more than keep drinking.

Alex mouthed the next lines.
“Pounded nails in the oak, them spirits keep slipping away.”
But another choking fit prevented her from finishing.

Out in the gravel, truck tires crunched.
Charlie
, I thought.
We’re done
.

Gunshots were fired while the truck’s engine continued to run. One of Charlie’s guys—the guy who’d tied Alex up—fell back into the doorway, bleeding and dead. Buckshot had ripped the skin and muscle away from his shoulder. Outside, a quick back-and-forth of shots took place. A burst of three, then one. Then another burst. Then everything got quiet.

“In here,” Alex yelled through her tears. She wrestled against her bindings. “Please!”

Lucinda edged toward the darkness of the mine the moment she realized the tide had changed. She hid next to the busted wooden barrier Alex and I were pulled through earlier. Odelia stood her ground, though, and began to mumble. Like speaking in tongues.

A pair of shots came from the hill above. Ben yelled, “Rachael! Get down!”

Return fire came from just outside the shed. Three more shots.

I pushed myself to my knees. Still unable to stand completely, I stumbled toward Alex.

“Henry,” she cried.

I held her face and stared into her eyes, eyes so pure and sweet I wondered how I could ever look away.