The Moon Dwellers (43 page)

“My palettable pr
etties are awake!” she exclaims
, showing off a mouth with only a handful of teeth, perhaps seven or eig
ht total.
Her red tongue looks
abnormally long, like a serpent’s
, glossing over her teeth and lips
.

Ignoring us o
nce again, the woman busies
herse
lf with something that we can’t see
.

“We s
houldn’t even be here,” Roc says
, a bit of anger entering his
voice.
It i
s unexpected.
I’
d expect him to
sound scared, or at l
east worried, but no, he sounds
angry.

“If you have something t
o say, Roc, just sa
y it,” I say
.
Now i
sn’t the ti
me to pick a
fight, but I want to know what’
s on Roc’s mind.

“We’re chasing after a girl you’ve never
even said two words to,” he spi
t
s
out.

“Wrong, Roc.
I’ve said
exactly
two
words to
her,” I snap
back, my temperature level rising.

“I don’t think
Adele!
and
Run!
count
as
having spoken to her,” Roc says
bitterly, imitating my voice, but making it sound nasally and girly.

“I
didn’t make you come!” I growl
.

He does
n’t have a respons
e to that, so we both lie in silence, which i
s worse than arguing, because the
old woman i
s talking to herself.
In between speaking to
us, she i
s saying things like, “A finger for breakfast, a hand for lunch, an ear for dinner, munch, munch, munch!”

That’s when I realize what she i
s doing: pr
eparing a fire.
And above it i
s a spit, constructed
with
a pile of
rocks
on either end and a metal bar across them.
It i
s about the length of a human
,
I think
.

Roc and I realize
it at the same time.
“She’s going to freak
in’ eat us, Tristan!” Roc hisses
, temporarily forgetting his beef with me.

We can
see the flames from the fire casting shad
ows on the cave walls, and smell the smoke as it blusters
off the growing fire.

Suddenly
,
anger courses
through my veins, pumping fresh blood to my extremities.
How dare Roc question
my feelings for Adele?
How does he know what I am feeling or what it can
motivate me to do?
And how dare this canni
balistic woman eat us when I have
n’t even had a chance to meet Adele, to see if
she feels
anything for me
,
too, or if it i
s just in my head as Roc so ruthlessly suggested?

Pure determination floods
my body for t
he first time in my life.
It i
s out of my control, my actions those of my body, not my mind.

I spi
n hard, rolling r
ight at the woman, whose back is still to us.
I collide
hard with her ankles, trippin
g her backwards over me.
I keep
rolling…right
into the fire.
Like I said: it i
s my body doing the thinking,
not my mind.
It i
sn’t
a great plan, but it’s all I have
.

I feel
the heat from the flames licking at my torso, trying to penetrate the thick nest of ropes around me, tear through my cloth
es, scorch my skin.
The fire i
s a cannibal
,
too.
Luckily, the fir
e i
s still small
enough that my head and legs a
re outside of
its range, although the smoke is choking me.
I hold my breath and wait
two seconds, three.

When the heat beco
me
s unbearable and I’m
sure
the ropes must be on fire, I spi
n backwards and out of the fire.
The old woman has staggered to her feet and I collide
with her again, once more knoc
king her over.
This time she fa
ll
s
in a heap
on top of me, her face coming to rest right in front
of my own.
Her breath sti
nk
s and I can
feel her bony knees and elbows poking into my ribs and legs.

“You filthy brat!” she screams
, nearly bursting my eardrums and sending a splattering of spit into my eyes.

I can
still feel the heat of the f
lames as they bit
e at my ropes.
I hope the tethers a
re sufficiently
weakened by the fire.
They have
to be.

I headbutt
the woman right between the eyes, causing her to emit a shriek that should only belong to dark demons from the realm from which nightmare
s are born.
She flops
to the side and away from me.

Using every last ounce of strength
I can
muster
, I strain
at the bindings, trying to break them.
Evid
ently I
lingered
in the fire longer than I thought—longer than I probably should have.
The
ropes break
away easily, black and b
rittle from the flames, which a
re finally dying.

Scrambling to my feet, I pull
away th
e remaining strands and search
for my sword.
The
old
woman i
s writhing on the cave floor, shrieking and shouting obscenities
, clutching at her face.
I fin
d the swords crossed on the ground near Roc
, next to our pack
.

It’s
as if
I’
ve
never used my hands before—I’m
unable to control them.
They a
re trembling
badly
and it ta
k
es
me more than a minute just to get a grip on my sword.
Under normal condition
s
, cutting the
ropes away from Roc would be a simple task, but I feel so shaky I’m
afraid I
might accidentally amputate an
arm or a leg.

“Deep breaths,” Roc says, making me realize that I’m
breathing in short, ragg
ed huffs.
I’m sure my face i
s wild, probably more crazy-looking than the old woman trying to cook us alive.

I ta
k
e
a deep b
reath.
Then another.
It helps.
My hands stop shaking, my breathing returns to normal.
“Thanks,” I say
.

After cutting
Roc’s hands free, I hand
him the sword, letting hi
m finish the job.
The woman has
grown surprisingly silent, lying motionless in a heap.
When Roc is free, he hands me my sword, which I sheath, retrieves
hi
s own sword, and then shoulders
the pack.

We’
re about to leave
when the woman suddenly screams, leaps
to her feet wi
th a speed and quickness that i
s
almost supernatural, and charges
us,
her
hands outstretched
and curled into clawed hooks
.

I scream, and Roc screams
even louder, but more high
pitched
and girly.
I’m
getting
pretty sick of the old woman’s antics, and
am
too tired to consider that she mi
ght still be dangerous, which i
s probably a good thing.

I push
her.
Hard.
R
ight at the fire.
She stumbles and fa
ll
s
into the flames,
wailing the whole time.
We don’t wait to see what will happen to her.
Perhaps she i
s invulnerable to fire, able to sit in it like a war
m bath.
Or worse, maybe fire gi
ve
s
her strength, recharging her powers.

We run into the darkness, which beco
me
s deeper as we get fu
rther fr
om the fire.
The space narrows and forms a tunnel, and soon we a
re runnin
g blind, yet again.
Roc manages
to get a light out of our pack and flick it on.

We should have kept running in th
e dark.
The images that flash
into view will forever haunt me, burned into my memory till the day I die.

Skeletons: some fully intact and leaning against the wall; others broken and mangled, scattered on the floor; yet others mounted on the walls like trophies—here a skull, there a foot.
I
t
does
n’
t take a genius to know they didn’t die
from nat
ural causes, that their
flesh
has
been bitten off by ragged teeth.

If I hadn’t had so little to eat in the last couple of days I
would throw
up all ove
r myself.
Instead, I dry-heave, as my stomach pulses
repeatedly, in an att
empt to upchuck anything that is left in it.
Roc i
s doing the same, bent over his knees, convulsing.

I spit out the little bile that has
forced it
s way into my mouth, steal the light from Roc, and shine
it further down the tu
nnel.
The trail of skulls ends
just a few feet
down the
path
; nothing blocks
our escape.

“C’mon, man,” I say
, flicking off the light and tugging at Roc’s elbow.
Huddled
together, we shuffle
through the dark
, until I’m sure we a
re far enough away from the…the
stuff
.

I turn
the light on just in
time to see that the tunnel is
curvin
g tight to the left.
Roc seems to be recovering, so I release
him and let him walk on his own.

It i
sn’t until we’
ve
walked f
or a couple of hours that I feel
safe again.
N
either
of us has
spoken, lost in dark thou
ghts, reliving the horrors we’
d
just experienced.

Finally, Roc says
, “All t
hose people
…
”
His voice sounds
numb, like he
still does
n’t really understand what we’
d
seen.

“Nothing we can do for them now.”

A few more minut
es of silence, and then Roc says
, “Tristan, I’m sorry about what I said.
I was just scared, that’s all.”

I gri
t my teeth.
As angry as I was
when he questi
oned our pursuit of Adele, I have to admit that there is some truth to it, which mak
e
s me even angrier.
I feel
foolish.
Stupid!
“No, Roc.
You’re right.
I dragged you into this mess.
And for what?
For some girl I’ve never met, who probably doesn’t know me from you, who might even hate me!
What the
hell
are we doing out here?”