Chapter Thirty-One

Marnie’s abduction had taken all the wind from their sails. The only shred of luck on their side was the fact that the Melon Heads hadn’t stormed from the darkness after the mortars shed their last spark.

They must know, Chuck thought. Maybe all of this was one big distraction so they could grab any one of us. Why did it have to be Marnie? He didn’t think she’d been intentionally chosen. It was probably just a matter of opportunity as she watched them send the mortars into the darkness, unaware that a Melon Head was nearby, waiting.

“What do we do now?” Vent asked. He looked like he was about to cry.

Mick tossed the rifle back to him. “We keep going.”

“But we can’t just leave her.”

“We’re not…leaving her,” Mick said. His chest was heaving and his eyes looked crazed. “If anything, they’ll take her to their camp.”

“And if not?” Chuck asked.

Mick turned his head and spit. “Then we have one more reason to kill every last one of them, now don’t we?”

Chuck would have worried about Mick’s anger making him reckless and getting them killed, but he’d gone into this assuming most or all of them were never coming back. It would be impossible to search these primeval woods for Marnie. She could be anywhere. It would be full dark before they traversed even one-twentieth of the overgrown acreage. All he could do was hope she was still alive and hadn’t been brutally murdered and eaten. Just the thought of it made his legs go weak.

They picked up the pace now, anxious to find where the Melon Heads stayed and face their own mortalities. Every now and then they called out for Marnie, never really expecting to hear her call back to them. Chuck was sure there were Melon Heads near them, watching them, reporting back in whatever strange language they must have had that they were coming. Any tribe, for lack of a better word, that could plan and prepare like the Melon Heads surely had some form of speech. Chuck wondered what it sounded like. He was sure it would haunt his nightmares.

For sure, he and Mick and Vent were running headlong into a trap. Fuck it. There was no turning back now.

“What I wouldn’t give for an Uzi,” Vent said, his eyes wide as golf balls.

“I’d rather have a tank,” Chuck said.

Mick, who was running with the map held in front of him, didn’t say a word. Chuck flashed to the grisly sight of Mick biting off the Melon Head’s cheek back at the school. He could only imagine what Mick would do to one now if he could get his hands on them. His savagery might make the Melon Heads look like purring kittens. As much as they needed his fury, Chuck worried about how they’d put a stopper on it should they accomplish their mission. If Mick had been destined for a life in prison like everyone said, he was doomed to an asylum now.

Maybe they all were.

The trees had thinned out on the path and Chuck was alarmed to see that the sun was starting to wane. What time was it? None of them were wearing a watch, so they would just have to guess, which was less than ideal. Judging by that sky, time was ticking by faster than a jackrabbit fucking.

“Any more…obstacles like the one…back there?” Chuck said, huffing. There was no way he’d be able to run back the way they’d come.

“I don’t think so. At least Dredd didn’t point any out, other than saying we’d never get this far.”

Chuck didn’t know whether he should take that as encouraging or not. As long as Marnie was missing, nothing was encouraging.

Mick suddenly stopped. Vent and Chuck pulled up, immediately bending over with their hands on their knees, trying to catch their breath.

“Why’d you…stop?” Vent said.

“Because I can hear you guys wheezing.”

Mick looked like he was forcing himself not to pant. His cheeks were red as pepperonis.

“We really need to stop smoking,” he said.

“Just cigarettes,” Vent said, coughing and spitting into the leaves.

“Let me see the map,” Chuck said. Mick handed it over. It was little better than chicken scratch, with notes scrawled at the bottom in a doctor’s handwriting. He couldn’t make out a word and had to hope Dredd had told Mick what he’d written. If he was reading the map correctly, they were three-quarters of the way to the Melon Heads’ camp. Or village. He didn’t know what you would call a place where deformed monsters dwelled.

A lair seemed more like it.

Mick was looking off into the distance, the hinges of his jaw bulging. Chuck stuck the map in his sling and dropped his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “We’re going to find her.”

Mick sniffed hard and wiped his nose with his sleeve. “Yeah, but will she be alive?”

“She will be.”

Chuck wished he felt as confident as he sounded. Mick rubbed his thumb along the side of the gun Marnie had been carrying. He had tied the lace of her boot to his belt loop. “She’ll need it to walk back home,” he’d said.

“The caves won’t be far,” Chuck said.

“Dredd said some of them are just holes in the ground and we have to be careful. He thinks the Melon Heads cover them loosely, using them as traps for game and anyone who’s dumb enough to go out this far.”

“So, basically, we won’t know if it’s a trap until we fall in one,” Vent said.

“Kinda looks like that, yeah.”

“Just great.”

It was the kind of thing Mick should have shared with them earlier so they could have brought some rope just in case one of them fell in. Normally, Chuck would have said something at Mick’s failing to mention such a vital fact. Not today. There was no time for fighting with one another. They would cross that bridge – or trap – when they came to it.

“I’m good to go,” Chuck said, though he was most definitely not.

“Me, too,” Vent said.

Mick took a deep breath. “Home stretch, guys.”

“Home stretch,” Chuck said.

There was a little more pep in their step now, but they were extra cautious about falling into a hole in the ground.

Ten minutes in, they came to a pile of sun-bleached bones stacked upon one another. The skull of what looked to be a deer sat atop the pile, the dark, empty eye sockets staring at them.

“Well, that didn’t just happen on its own,” Mick said.

“That’s a lot of deer,” Vent said, walking around the free-standing collection.

Chuck tilted his head, scanning the bones. As he looked closer, a tingle of dread wiggled its way up his spine. “That’s a human femur,” he said, pointing. “And those look like finger joints.”

“Let me see,” Mick said, squatting down to get a closer look. “How do you know?”

“Unlike you, I went to biology class. I can’t be totally certain, but those are a mix of animal and human bones.”

“Why the fuck would they stick them out here like that?” Vent asked nervously.

“To scare people away, dummy,” Mick said. He stood up and kicked the center of the pile. Bones rattled together, scattering all over the forest floor. Mick wasn’t done. He stomped the deer skull with the heel of his boot, shattering it to bits. “Now they know we’re not scared. Maybe when they see this, it’ll scare them instead. Fucking inbreds.”

“Uh, guys,” Vent said, staring ahead of them.

Similar bone mounds lined the trail as far as they could see. Resting on top of each one was a skull from a different type of animal. Chuck tried to figure out which animal was which as they walked, Mick demolishing each with a measure of satisfaction. There was a possum. A rabbit. That small one had to be a squirrel, looking lost amidst the larger bones. There was a dog. Was it a stray, or had the Melon Heads snatched it from someone’s yard? When he saw the human skull, he pulled Mick back. “Wait. Not that one.”

“Why not?” Mick was sweating, wet strands of hair clinging to his face.

“I don’t know. Out of respect for the dead, I guess. It just doesn’t seem right.”

“I’ll bet there are human bones in all these piles. What makes this one so special?”

Because this one was looking straight at them. Because this skull might belong to one of their parents. Chuck saw the nicks and gouges along the bone, signs of the Melon Heads scraping the flesh off with crude instruments.

“Just leave it be,” he said, moving Mick forward.

Mick considered the mound for a moment and Chuck was sure he was going to kick it down. Instead, he turned away, tromped to the next one, and delivered a back kick that dropped bones on the trail.

“This is starting to freak me out,” Vent said. “I mean, look at how many bones there are.”

“It either means there are a lot of Melon Heads out here, or they’ve been collecting them for a long, long time.”

“Or both.” Vent gingerly toed the bones aside so they could pass through. “Man, what I wouldn’t give to be in statistics class right now. I’d be thrilled to be taking a test I didn’t even study for, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I do.” A moment like this made you wish for all the mundane and irritating things that you normally dreaded or complained about. All of them were preferable to this. Chuck promised himself that he would never bitch about having to do anything again when they made it out of here. He was also self-aware enough to realize that it would never hold. It was like that day or two after attending a funeral, when you appreciated life more than usual. Not long after, everything went back to normal, appreciation for each moment lost in the jungle and jumble of life.

The trail took a hard right, the trees getting denser with less space for bone mounds. Mick dipped behind a tree and out of sight. Chuck and Vent hurried after him. A bird took off from a tree limb, giving them both a start.

“It’s just a pigeon,” Vent said.

Chuck looked up and saw the pigeon flying in a ragged circle over their heads. It was the first live animal they’d spotted since they left Dredd’s cabin. “I wonder why it’s here. You think Dredd screwed up the map and we’re getting farther from them?”

Vent raised the rifle and followed the pigeon’s erratic path. “You can train pigeons.” He pulled the trigger. The pigeon spun in the air and dropped like a stone. The gunshot echoed through the woods. “Probably one of theirs.”

“That was some shot.”

“My dad used to take me skeet shooting, at least until he couldn’t afford it anymore.”

“Well, the Melon Heads know where the fuck to find us now,” Chuck said.

Vent gazed at the area where the pigeon had fallen. “I’m pretty sure they’ve known all along. I hope I was right. Nice to take something from them instead of the other way around.”

Mick had come running back to them, puffing hard. “Where are they?”

Vent said. “Chill out. It was only a pigeon.”

Mick almost looked disappointed. “Oh. Come on, you have to see this. You’re not gonna believe it.”

Chuck’s chest tightened. He wasn’t anxious to see what fresh hell awaited them.

When he turned the corner of the trail, he almost fell to his knees.