And in the Dark They Are Born, Part 5

CHAPTER 8

REYN’S FOREHEAD SKIDS ACROSS the pavement. Her left cheek, her shoulder. Within seconds, she is being flipped onto her back by a lean man in a red bandit mask, his mouth exposed. His bare torso houses scars of various sizes and length, some as wide as piano keys, others long and slim, from nipple to abdomen. He climbs atop her and cinches her torso with his knees. Tighter, tighter. Tighter.

Reyn fights it. Jerks, squirms. Blood darts down her cheek. As she tries to wriggle her hips free, the man raises his hand, that spiked club. He shouts. Reyn does her best to read his lips.

“Stop____you______cunt!”

Reyn looks to her right: a vehicle, loose papers, torn cardboard boxes, a gouged brick building, frozen in decay. To her left: a shorter man in a red welder’s mask walks alongside her and stands. Grips a machete. Massages a cramp in his left leg with his free hand.

The man atop her shouts. She feels it first, his voice a series of vibrations transferred from his thighs to her ribs. Sharp. Shrill. He tightens his knees’ grip even further, until Reyn’s breathing becomes labored. Then he hunches over, brings his face close to Reyn’s, grey neck and chin whiskers inches from her. Speaks slower.

“___you don’t shut up, _____cut your tongue___. ___understand me?” He turns to the shorter man. They speak. They exchange weapons.

Here, Reyn thinks. Make sure they kill you here. Don’t let them bind you. Don’t let them drag you along this road. Don’t let them torture you. Don’t let them rape you. Don’t let them convert you. No, make sure. Here.

They kill you here.

Reyn kicks her feet. Short kicks, furious kicks. She throws her fists at his arms, his shoulders and chest. She shakes her head; blood from her cheek lands on the man’s bare chest. She tries to scream, to cry, but can’t tell if the vibration she feels is from her or if it is from him—his open mouth, his taut neck says that he is shouting again. Quick commands, indecipherable commands, at her, at the short one. He punches Reyn’s mouth with his left hand. She stops. Tongues a loose molar. Gathers. Then she’s at it again, kicking, flailing, contorting her body, searching for any sort of gap to crawl through.

The shorter man drops the spiked club, limps over, and eases his way to the asphalt. Once down, he grip’s Reyn’s forearms and extends them over her head. Pries open each of her hands. Sets his left knee on her left palm. Right on right. Anchors her to the pavement.

Reyn continues to kick, to push, to pull. She tries to bite the man’s stained hands as he grips her head, as he places his thumbs just above her upper lip and presses. Sharp pain shoots across Reyn’s gums. Her efforts cease. She resumes her struggle, her outstretched shoulders feeling as if they will soon separate from her body.

The shirtless man grabs her chin. Redirects her eyes. “Open. Your. Mouth.”

No.

Despite her outstretched shoulders feeling as if they will soon separate from her body, Reyn fights. Somehow frees her mouth from the heavier man’s grip and snags a finger within her teeth. She clamps them tight and intends to keep them that way, no matter what.

Do it. Slit my throat. Kill me here.

She sees it coming, the shorter man’s wound fist. And she can do nothing. He connects with her right cheek. Once, twice. And she is dazed, spinning, her pulse embedded in her temples. That same fist uncoils itself and reaches into Reyn’s mouth, hooking its fingers to her lower lip. Left hand: upper lip. Together they pry open her mouth and, as the spinning slows, Reyn can see the man atop her move his hand to the back of the machete blade, near the tip. Even with so little room, he reaches into Reyn’s mouth and grabs her tongue. He begins to cut. And it begins to gush. Bound to gravity, obeying its every rule, to the back of her throat the blood goes, more and more as he saws, and saws, and saws. There’s too much; she can’t swallow it all. But she tries, again and again, and can only cough. Her head jerks out of the man’s hands. Blood spatters across her surgeon’s face.

The surgeon backs away. Wipes his face. And she is being punched again. Two, three, four times, both sides of her head, both cheeks. Her vision begins to fade, to distort, to swirl. An oil painting over an open flame.

More blood pools in her throat. She can feel her bones resetting.

And then the shorter man’s knees roll off of her palms. The surgeon goes limp, falls forward, his chest sliding onto and across her face, smearing blood into her eyes, into her hair. She cannot see, cannot breathe, cannot help but panic—flails, and tugs, and somehow worms out from beneath the surgeon’s dead weight, only to emerge near the shorter man, curled on the road, hugging his stomach.

Reyn tries to stand, but falls, her brain unable to will her weak legs to do so. She tries again and falls. Once more. And then someone—some hand—grabs her. A large hand, a moist hand, a man’s hand. In feeling those fingers, in assuming them to belong to yet another red mask, Reyn wriggles free, until that same hand grabs the back of her sweatshirt and lifts her to her feet. She’s turned around. Though her eyes are addled, she, as the man lifts his hands to remove the scarf around his mouth, sees that he has a pistol in his hand.

Run, go, run, run.

Scarf down, he grabs her wrist. Holds her still. But she fights him. Chops at his forearm, strikes his elbow.

He steps closer. Holds her steady. “Can you walk?” she reads on his lips. When she does not respond, he wipes her face with the back of his free hand. “Can. You. Walk?”

Once more, Reyn fights. She chops. Yanks. Strikes his hands from her. Free, she steps and steps, traveling only five or six feet before wobbling left, then right. The man hurries to Reyn’s side, places his arm around her shoulders and, together, they walk south, past the surgeon, who lies face down on the pavement. Feet away, the shorter man twists in pain. He points at the sky, at the buildings, at his stomach, at Reyn. Lifts his welding mask. One chalky eye, film over a blue iris, the other brown, and angry. Spit flies from his lips and tongue. Reyn feels her ears being covered by the man’s hands and she blacks out—

—Reyn is on her knees, vomiting blood onto the sidewalk. No food to come up, just small pools of red under the sun. Though her hair is being pulled back she can see that the tips have become paintbrushes, dipped in red, and—

—They are in the shade, under a large green and white awning. The man has leaned her against a brick building and is now gently opening her mouth, his eyes squinted for examination—

—Reyn is flexed over the man’s shoulder, head down, stomach spiraling as her eyes try to keep pace with his feet. She tries to lift her head, to see what he is walking them toward, but can only go so far until the throb takes over, relegating her instead to watching the mix of blood and saliva string from her mouth to his shoulders, to watching sweat run down his neck. There are strands of gray in the man’s otherwise black beard. His nose is long and aquiline, cheekbones pronounced—

—Reyn is in an alley. Feet from her, the man kicks a door. He kicks again. And again. Then he stops. He looks at Reyn, backs away from the door to catch his breath. Then he is kicking again. Reyn reaches her arm toward him but cannot raise it past her ribcage. Stop. They’ll find us. Just stop. She looks at her hands, then—

—Reyn is on a concrete floor. To her right is a tipped metal trashcan steadied by bricks stacked two-high on each side. There is a fire within the trashcan and, other than its immediate glow, the room is dark, nearer to purple than to black, quilts hung imprecisely over the windows and letting in slices of yellow-orange light. Loveseats are illuminated, recliners, dining tables that have been pressed against those quilts, against doors.

What the flame consumes, Reyn cannot tell, though near the trashcan is a pile of rotting wood, a pile of rug remnants, a pile of TIME. Atop is the bundle of syringes. Most of them have been damaged, guts exposed to air, hardened to the plastic. Reyn looks at the trashcan. Resting in the flame is a four-inch blade, its rubber handle as far away from the heat as possible. To her left is a mound of bloodstained Q-tips, an open bottle of water, an open bottle of rubbing alcohol. The man, however, is nowhere to be seen. He doesn’t weave between the furniture. He doesn’t tend the fire. Gone, Reyn thinks. He’s gone. It’s time to stand. You’re not hurt. Just stand up.

Reyn tries. Tumbles. And, in doing so, knocks over the bottles, their contents converging on the concrete. When she turns herself over, there the man is, a silhouette in the nearest corner, a slim white box snug in his arm as he shuts a desk drawer and climbs over its surface. Outside of the fire’s glow, his face looks so dark, his beard so full, his teeth so white. Her blood is all over his clothes, all over that scarf.

Reyn tries to stand once more. Tumbles into his arms. The man eases her back to the concrete. He watches her. Says something. Says it again. Leans in closer, says it once more, directly in front of her.

“You O.K.?”

She isn’t. She knows she isn’t. The throb is still there, on her tongue, in her cheekbones. Her skull feels like a compressed coil spring, fixed to burst through flesh at any second. She wants to go home. Crawl onto her bed, form the covers around her body. She wants to go to the Jeep. She wants to go to her mother.

“You O.K.?”

Reyn stares at him. Nods ever so slightly.

He nods. Says something, lips too quick for her to read. Grabs the topmost issue of TIME, rips its pages, tosses them into the flame. Another issue. More tearing. Another.

Reyn reaches for him. Blood spills over her bottom lip. Stop, she thinks. Stop. Those are mine.

He puts down her arm. It’s O.K. And then he starts in on the syringes. One by one he chucks them into the trashcan. The flame intensifies, leaps sideways. Turns pink-then-red-then-purple-then-blue, contents digested in a matter of seconds. When the flame settles, the man reaches for the bottle of water and, on his knees, swivels toward Reyn. He motions for her to open her mouth. She does. He pours. Motions for her to spit. She does. He then exchanges the water for the rubbing alcohol. Repeat.

“You O.K.?”

She waits for the sting to pass. Allows the tears down her cheeks. Nods.

And, in one fluid motion, the man drops the plastic bottle and stretches to grab the knife from the trashcan. Without warning, he grabs Reyn’s chin and, despite her struggle, brings her face close. He turns his left fist sideways and wedges it between her teeth. Accepts the bite. He accepts it, grimaces, and eases the hot blade in. Presses it to the side of her wounded tongue.

Listen to Part 5 Author Commentary

Peek behind the scenes of Part 5 with author Garrett Francis.