Chapter Thirty-Two

The first thing Mick thought when he saw the towering pyramid of bones was, there’s no way I can knock that sucker down. It stood at least twenty feet high, with what looked to be hardened mud packed between the bones to keep the whole thing from collapsing in on itself.

“Are you kidding me?” Vent said in a hushed tone reserved for churches.

It was impossible to miss the vast number of human skulls embedded within the walls. Mick figured they had to have raided an entire cemetery to make such a thing. If it wasn’t for their situation, he would have been in awe of it.

Chuck hadn’t moved since it came into view. He stared up at the pinnacle with his mouth slightly open. Vent kept his rifle pointed at it as if it could spring to life at any moment.

“Pretty fucking sick, right?” Mick said. “How many people you think they had to kill to make it?”

Finally breaking from his paralysis, Chuck slowly approached the pyramid. “No animal bones. This is something sacred. If you ask me, I’d say these are their bones. Look.”

Mick got close enough to touch it. Instead of seeing the whole structure, he concentrated on parts of it. Yes, those were human skulls, but they were misshapen human skulls. Melon Head skulls. “You think this is what they do with their dead?”

“I think it’s a strong possibility.”

“I wonder if they eat them, too,” Vent said.

“If there wasn’t enough food for everyone, why not?” Mick said. This entire time, he had been able to think of the Melon Heads as something outside of his own species. A withering branch of some family tree that nature had long determined to be a failed experiment. But seeing this made it difficult to think they were anything other than human. Some of the skulls were bleached white, especially those on the side exposed to the sun. Others were yellowed with age, some covered in verdant moss. The pyramid of bones had a palpable aura about it. This wasn’t just a monument of death. It was ancient. How long had they been living out here?

Vent had cautiously crept around the pyramid. He called out, “Over here!”

Mick and Chuck ran to him. He was pointing the barrel of the rifle at the triangular opening at the base. “It’s hollow inside.”

“A pyramid and a teepee,” Chuck said. “Bizarre.”

Inside was dark as night. Anything, or anyone, could be inside.

“You got something inside this box that doesn’t explode?” Chuck asked Mick.

Mick opened the box of fireworks. There were some scattered sparklers at the bottom. He wondered how they even got in there. You could buy sparklers at the corner store. Dwight only specialized in the illegal stuff. Lighting one was harder than it should have been, the old powder reluctant to take the flame. “When I throw this inside, be ready.”

“Ready for what?” Vent said.

“For something to come out.” Mick wasn’t just thinking of Melon Heads. Who knew what animals could be lurking inside? He flipped the sparkler inside and quickly lit another.

Within the flickering light, they saw a vast collection of random things. Mick spotted a rusted bicycle, one that must have been popular back when his parents were kids. There were clothes and broken pieces of furniture, chairs and a pile of blankets.

“What’s that over there?” Vent asked. They crowded the entrance now that they hadn’t been rushed by a Melon Head or angry critter.

Something glowed yellow at the other end of the bone pyramid. “Looks like a trumpet,” Chuck said.

Mick saw a snare drum, the head perforated, next to the rusting instrument. There was a hat rack beside it with old-time bowler hats resting on each peg. The sparklers started to die out. Mick lit the four left in the box and replenished the light. He dared to step inside. It stank like diseased soil. He buried his nose in the crook of his arm and threw a sparkler to the other end of the teepee. “Oh man.”

The further the eye went from the entrance, the older the jumble of items became. Some of the rotting bric-a-brac had to be turn of the twentieth century or older. There was even a collection of bayonets and muskets. He stepped closer to an old steamer trunk that was left open. Inside were crumbling black and white pictures of stoic men and women and creepy kids all dressed like little girls.

The sparklers died and he was encased in utter darkness. He spun around, desperate to see the light at the entrance. His heart went into an instant gallop. Chuck and Vent were waving at him to come to them.

“You okay in there?” Chuck said.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He didn’t feel fine at all.

“I’m coming in with more light.”

“We should get going,” Vent said.

“Just hold on,” Chuck said.

Mick listened to his friends moving around outside, each footstep crunching leaves.

Chuck had to duck to walk inside. He held a thick, dry branch, a small flame sputtering at its end. “Best I could do for a torch. They make it look a lot easier on TV.” Mick saw his eyes go wide. “Whoa. Look at all this stuff.”

“You coming in?” Mick asked Vent.

“I’ll keep watch out here.” He crinkled his nose. “Smells like dog shit in there.”

Chuck hustled over to a bookshelf. “Here, hold this.” Mick took the makeshift torch while Chuck ran his fingers over the spines of the moldy books. He took one out and opened it, grabbed the branch so it was close enough for him to see the pages. “Copyright 1907. It’s a book about wilderness survival.” The pages crackled as he turned them. “Look at this, all you ever needed to know about knots.” He closed the cover and put it back, searching through the others. “This explains a lot.”

“What does?”

Mick sensed time slipping away. They needed to get to those caves. But something about this place told him they shouldn’t discount it too quickly.

“All these books on this shelf are about Ancient Egypt.” Chuck went through book after book, all of them illustrated with pictures of pyramids, tombs, the great Sphynx, buried treasure and hieroglyphics. “Man, are these old.” The spine of one book gave way, splitting down the middle. “All the other books are on a bunch of random topics. Looks like the Melon Heads from way back were fascinated by Egypt. That explains the pyramid shapes they construct.”

Mick didn’t like the sound of that. “You mean they can read?”

Chuck shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe some can. There’s even a possibility that they used to, but the ability died out bit by bit, though I wouldn’t put some basic reading skills past the current ones. All I know is, this place and all this stuff has been here for a long fucking time.”

“You guys coming out or what?” Vent asked nervously. “We’re losing the sun.”

“Just a minute,” Chuck said. He walked in a crouch even though there was plenty of headroom for three Chucks to stand atop one another. Shifting burlap sacks aside, he bent down and reached inside a thick stack of mismatched items. He pulled out a full native Indian headdress. The feathers were lacking, and what remained was filthy. Chuck brought it close to his face to study it. “I don’t think this is a replica.”

Mick huffed. “No way they’ve been around that long.”

“Why not? Hell, for all we know, they are Indians, or maybe part Indian and part white man.”

“What?”

“You think either side was happy if the two got together and made babies? No way. Medical care was nonexistent back then. Just being born was a long shot, much less being born without something wrong. Suppose the Melon Heads are the offspring of Indians and the settlers? They weren’t accepted by the tribe or the white settlements. So, they chucked them out here and hoped nature would take care of the rest. Isn’t that one of the legends?” He was clearly getting excited. Mick wasn’t sure why, since knowing their origin wouldn’t help him get Marnie back or wreak his revenge.

“Kinda close. So what? It’s obvious those freaks think this place is special. Let’s show them how special we think it is.” He took a quarter stick from his pocket, one with a normal fuse, lit it and tossed it amidst the junk pile. “Come on,” he said, grabbing Chuck by the arm.

“Are you crazy?”

There was no time to argue and Chuck was no dummy. He followed Mick out of the bone pyramid as fast as they could both run. The quarter stick went off the moment they stepped outside, the boom so loud it nearly deafened Mick. They were peppered with shrapnel that bounced off their backs.

Mick brushed himself off and looked at the still-solid pyramid. “Huh.”

He took two more quarter sticks from the box and jammed them between pairs of skulls while Chuck told him to stop. Vent was too busy looking like he was about to piss himself to care.

Mick lit them and ran.

The three of them hopped over a fallen log and ducked. Mick could feel the explosion reverberate from his feet right through the top of his head. He poked his head up and was greeted with success. The side of the pyramid quaked, bones slipping into the twin holes that had been punched through the wall. The top of the pyramid swayed for a moment and it started to crumble. The whole thing came down in seconds, the clattering of bones sounding like monster teeth gnashing under the bed on a stormy night. Mick shivered, a primal wave of fear taking control for longer than he would have liked. Bone dust and smoke hovered over the fallen pyramid.

“Holy crap,” Chuck said. “If the Melon Heads didn’t want to kill us before, they do now.”

Mick cleared his throat and arced a wad of spit that hit the edge of the bone pile. “Fuck them.” He turned to see if Vent appreciated the display of sacrilege. He wasn’t there. “Vent, did you run away?”

Chuck shot to his feet. “Where is he?”

When Mick looked down and saw Vent’s rifle, he knew exactly where he was. “They got him, man. They fucking got him.”

And then there were two.

If Mick thought the odds of four against a village of maniacal Melon Heads were daunting, this took it to absolute zero. The realization was actually liberating. What did you have to lose when you already lost?

Chuck spun around on his heels. “How? He was right next to us..”

“They move like ghosts,” Mick said, pointing at the rubble of antiquity and death. “But I can tell you one thing. They didn’t get far.” He picked up Vent’s rifle and made sure it was loaded.

Chuck pointed between a pair of crooked saplings. A ghost of a shape dropped to the ground and out of sight.

“Want to bet there’s a cave entrance right there?” Chuck said.

“Either that or that Melon Head is a frigging magician.”

“That has to be where they took Vent.”

No shit, Sherlock, was on Mick’s tongue. For a brainiac, Chuck could be dense when it came to things outside of books. “That’s exactly where they want us to go. I’m not falling for it.”

Chuck grabbed his arm. “Are you crazy? We’re not going to just sit here while Vent is so close. We have to get him.”

“And get picked off by minions? No way. We need their leader. We just crushed his temple or whatever that was. Let them come to us.”

“I’m going for him.” Chuck stormed off, taking the pistol from his sling and leaving the box of fireworks behind.

“Hey, wait!”

Mick jammed some fireworks in his pockets and chased after Chuck as he plodded toward the saplings.

“Just hold the hell up!” Mick shouted. To his shock, his friend listened to him.

“What?”

“I’ll show you.”

Mick got ahead of him. Five feet before the saplings, he stopped and held up his hand. He tucked the rifle under his armpit, took out his lighter and touched the flame to the long wick of a quarter stick. They had plenty of time to edge around the trees and find the leaf-littered jagged hole in the ground. Cooler air wafted up from the crack in the earth.

“You wanted to just drop in there and fight them off so we could get Vent back, right?” Mick said softly.

“Yeah,” Chuck replied breathlessly.

“This will make is easier.”

When the wick was almost gone, he dropped it in the hole. It detonated an instant after if dipped into the darkness. Dirt spewed from the hole like lava from a volcano. A grain of grit wedged itself in the corner of Mick’s eye. He twisted away, rubbing at it with the heel of his palm.

Even his pain couldn’t distract him from the intense wails of pain emanating from the fissure. It was like finding the entrance to hell and quaking at the lament of multitudes of lost souls. The horrific cries didn’t sound as if they came from human throats.

“That’s what was waiting for you,” Mick said. The vision in his left eye was blurry. Every time he blinked, it felt like he was pushing a shard of glass deeper into his eyeball.

Chuck spit dirt from his mouth and wiped it from his beard. “How did you know they were waiting for us?”

“Maybe I’m starting to think like them.” The thought chilled him. Had he been living in the woods, just like the Melon Heads, for too long? Was this why they had ‘chosen’ him? He was pretty sure he’d been un-chosen by now.

“But what if Vent was right down there with them?”

“Then we did him a favor.”

Chuck glared at him. “You can be pretty goddamn cold.”

Mick’s nostrils flared and he felt his cheeks burning. “Fuck you. Vent is my best friend. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be killed quickly than get torn apart by those things. Vent would feel the same.” So would Marnie, he thought. Just thinking about her stoked the flames of vengeance in his heart.

They stared at one another until Chuck turned away first. He didn’t see the Melon Head struggling to get out of the hole. It was missing an eye, the socket blasted red and raw, the tip of its nose somewhere down in the hole. Its lone eye rolled toward Mick and it bared its yellow, jagged teeth. Mick lifted the rifle and shot it in the other eye. The Melon Head slipped out of sight, but not before painting the leaves scarlet.

Chuck had jumped five feet sideways at the sound of the rifle going off. He stared at the now empty hole. “Christ.”

Mick cocked an ear toward the fissure. “There’s more down there. Can you hear them?”

“All I hear is ringing in my ears.”

“We could stay here and take a few out. It’ll be like playing whack-a-mole.”

“And while we’re playing, it’ll get darker and darker and we’ll be no closer to finding Marnie and Vent and taking the rest of them out.”

Hearing Chuck say that made Mick realize how monumental the odds were against them.

Before he could say something morbid and flippant, a pair of Melon Heads sprang from the hole as if there was a trampoline underground. One wrapped its arms around Chuck and sent him skittering into a tree. The other saw the rifle in Mick’s hands and went into a crouch. It was one ugly bastard. Its eyes were half-lidded and askew, one drifting up near its forehead, the other down by its cheek. It had a wide, flat nose and the worst case of chapped lips in human, or Melon Head, history. White flakes of skin covered its mouth. Mick looked down and saw the Cabbage Patch Dolls T-shirt and stained gray sweatpants. The Melon Head swiped at the air between them, growling like an angry cat.

“Yeah, I’d be pissed too if I had to wear that shirt.” It sprang from its haunches. Mick’s shot burrowed a hole in its throat. The Melon Head flipped backward and dropped stone-cold dead on the ground.

Mick turned to a struggling Chuck, who was repeatedly bashing the Melon Head in the head with his forearm, but it still wouldn’t let go. The creature snapped at Chuck’s neck, just missing taking a bite from his Adam’s apple. Mick sprinted the distance between them, jammed the barrel of the rifle under its arm and pulled the trigger. It jumped off of Chuck, howling in high-keening agony. It ran headlong into the brush and disappeared from view before Mick could finish it off.

Chuck was bent over from breathing so hard. “The moles never whacked back at the fair,” he said, huffing.

Mick kept his eye on the underground cave entrance. He didn’t hear any more shuffling around. “You okay?”

“No.”

“Me neither. I don’t think they’re going to try that again. Game over.”

“They’re too intelligent to keep coming out like lemmings. I say we get the map and keep on going.”

“Yeah.” Mick considered dropping an M80 into the hole just for laughs. If another one of those things was down there, its ears would be ringing louder than Chuck’s. Then he considered how many other hiding places were potentially out here and realized he didn’t have any fireworks to waste.

They went back to get the box and map. The collapsed bone mound was still smoking.

“Coulda made a lot of money selling that shit to an antique store,” Mick said.

“Museums would have wanted half of it.”

Mick grinned at the destruction. “Not anymore.”

Chuck clapped him on the back. “Nope. Let’s go.”

The sound of a gun being cocked behind their backs had Mick spinning on his heel, ready to shoot. If the Melon Heads had guns, they were done for.

He wasn’t expecting this.

“Hello, boys.”