“Do not speak until I tell you to.”
John could only whimper a response. Dewey froze in silence, eyes following that cleaver wherever ABCs waved it.
“Look at me,” he growled. “Now.”
Dewey and John looked up into the eyes of The Alphabet King. The rims of his irises seemed to have a faint red ring glowing around them. Fixated by the menacing vision before them, they sat motionless, panting heavily.
ABCs lifted the cleaver and pointed it at John, whose gaze locked onto it. ABCs spoke in an inhuman tone, which resonated in the small room, “A: You will never lie to me again. B: You are going to tell me everything you said while you were in jail. C: If I get the slightest inclination you are not doing what I tell you to do, I will put this to use on you.” ABCs waved the cleaver in front of John’s face, who pinned his head back as far as he could. He nodded jerkily in acknowledgement, his eyes following the swaying cleaver. Dewey sagged and looked down in total defeat, resigned to his fate.
𓂓
The man-in-the-middle pushed harder against the back of Armando’s head as he used his feet to shuffle the boy’s legs apart. With his other hand, he smacked the boy’s bare ass. Another wild cackle filled the air. The fire popped softly nearby, animating the man’s wild eyes with reflected flames. The other men retreated into the darkness, unwilling to watch. The women sat bound and sobbing softly. Armando’s panicked struggling grew even more wild but slowed when he felt it again... A branch had begun to give.
“Giving up so soon?” the man-in-the-middle said. His mouth downturned in mock disappointment. Armando felt the man’s hands on his hips and he flailed widely now, unwilling to give up, then the branch snapped and freed his right arm. The branch fell and tottered on the main branch. Armando grabbed it and swung around in one crazed motion. The sharp end of the wood connected with the side of the man’s head, knocking him back a step before he fell to the ground. Armando let go of the stick and quickly loosened the binding around his left hand—a simple slip knot. Then he fell to the ground and kicked at the fallen branch his right foot had been tied to. It broke easily.
He scampered to his feet and took off into the darkness, the broken branches swaying and dragging behind him, catching the creosote bushes, hindering his escape.
The man-in-the-middle came to, realized the boy had broken loose, and called out to his men, “The boy! Find him!”
Little Armando ran off into the encroaching night, his embroidered underwear now a woeful ornament hanging from the rape tree of the valley.
𓂓
The Alphabet King put his shirt on as he strode from the room. The guards followed him out. They stood in the hall as he barked a string of orders while walking away. “Give them their clothes back. Let them use the bathroom, then put them in separate holding rooms. Give them water. No food. Hose the room down.” After the beating, John only had a few cuts and... smelled of his own filth. Otherwise, he remained intact. Dewey hadn’t been touched or spoken to.
ABCs pounded on the door at the end of the hall. The guard unlocked and opened it for him. He went to the bathroom and washed up. The adrenaline surge made him anxious, and he needed to focus. Although the cool water usually calmed him, the energy coursing through his body would not allow him to settle down. His mind went back to obsessing. Staring at the reflection in the mirror, recurring thoughts dragged him back to an ugly childhood, and how he rose from despair to become The Alphabet King.
𓂓
Hiding in the hill shadows, Armando had watched the drunken guard’s brief search. He’d overheard them saying how sure they were the boy would die alone in the desert. Seemingly overtaken with the minimum of exertions, the men moved through the dense brush with great effort. After some debate, they made their way to a hidden spot far enough away from the campfire where they could wait until enough time had passed and they could return empty-handed without fear of doubt.
Squatting in the darkness, watching them, he could hear the cries of a woman. The chill in the air caused him to shiver randomly. Grateful he still had his shirt on, he dug his toes into the sandy dirt, searching for any measure of warmth. His adrenaline now faded, small noises of the desert crept in. The little creatures rustled about their business despite the horrors unfolding in the valley. A pack of coyotes howled in the distance, their sharp cries warning the intruders in their territory. Armando instinctually looked in that direction before returning his attention back to the two guards.
Although he was just a boy, inherently, he understood a couple of things. I need to move. He also knew they were right. He would die alone in the desert unless he found a way to sneak back into camp and steal supplies for the journey back to his village.
Hunched down on the far side of a small hill behind a mass of yucca and creosote bush situated between them and the fire, the men sat drinking, smoking, and cursing the man-in-the-middle. Armando could see them clearly from higher ground, and the campfire past them in the distance, but not far.
Watching them pass the bottle and the mota back and forth, Armando saw that one of the guards wore a long-sheathed knife like the man-in-the-middle. He looked down at the sticks he had dragged from the rape tree—one bound to his wrist the other to his leg—and considered which one might work best.
Sitting in the dirt, bare butt, watching, waiting for some opportunity, Armando came to understand a very human truth. There isn’t a much more demeaning situation than for a human being to be out in the wilderness, helpless, nearly nude. Before this, he had never stayed out in the night without a roof over his head. During the journey, he found comfort, such as it was, in the company of these men and women and the campfire and the meager rations.
The women who had cheered him, speaking of hope as they neared the border, were now consumed with complete desperation. Armando could hear it in their cries and he now grasped the meaning of torture.
One woman had been bound to the tree, mostly nude. The man grasped her breasts from behind, pants down around his ankles, and moved in a sick rhythm, face contorted. The other woman, collapsed on the ground, hands tied, appeared to try not to watch, but looked sure she would be next when the men came back from their search.
Being outside, alone in the night, no sense of home or family or companionship, no warmth of fire nor comfort of food, witnessing this sick circus—that changes a person. Makes a boy about to become a man learn first of his vulnerability. Armando accepted this and swore to himself he would never feel helpless again. In that moment, the horrific nature of this experience irrevocably blackened his soul. He, an innocent boy, had been walked into a man-made hell in the desert. For what? Armando had no answers, but a powerful anger swirled in his gut, hungry for revenge. This would be his answer-vengeance. Anger consumed him so completely, he felt he would never quench its thirst for the violent rage he knew he must rain down on these depraved men.
A faint rustling drew his attention to the brush in front of him. He looked into the shadows and watched as a scorpion emerged from the darkness. The arachnid paused only a couple feet away. It raised its body, opened and spread its pincers, and curved its oversized tail toward Armando. As a child, he had been taught to watch out this for this particular scorpion. The most venomous ones possessed a large tail and small claws, but this one had a dark body with red tinted pincers, legs, and tail. Everyone knew the Nayarit Scorpion to be the deadliest lurking in the shadows of the night.
He knew not to react suddenly to the nocturnal predator lest he might provoke it. He simply kept still and stared back, unmoving. The shape of the thing blended with the shadows behind it, but he could make out the red accents along the ridges of its pincers, legs, tail, and stinger. In the darkness of the night, it seemed to emanate a soft crimson glow that soothed Armando. As he studied it, he felt as though something unspoken passed between them. Some intuition made him believe it would not attack. After a few moments, the standoff ended and the Nayarit Scorpion made its way back into the shadows.
Empowered by the experience, Armando now possessed a renewed determination to survive. He returned his focus to the men below. The guard with the knife leaned back into the hill and let out a deep sigh, smoke blowing into the night air above him. The other guard sat against a small boulder, arms resting on drawn knees, head and hat hanging between them. Armando abandoned the sticks and made his way down the slope in an arc so he could come up on the side of the men. Moving cautiously past masses of yucca with their sharp thorny tips threatening every bare footstep, he made his way to within a few feet of the guard lying back with his hat now pulled down over his eyes. Near him, Armando spotted what he had been looking for from his perch on the hill. A good-sized rock, small enough to lift with both hands, but big enough to do the job.
He drew in a deep breath, took two silent steps to the rock, picked it up with both hands, ran with it overhead until he got to the napping guard, then slammed it down on his head. The satisfying smack and crack, like a melon being crushed, did not slow him. After releasing the rock, he grabbed the hilt of the guard’s knife and pulled it from the sheath. Although unfamiliar, the length and weight of the blade felt reassuring in his small hand.
Little Armando leaped over him and managed an awkward stab into the neck of the other guard before he could react. Blood splattered all over as his hat fell back. He looked up with desperate eyes, arms moving to grasp the knife. The sharp blade needed to be forced all the way through, tendon and bone resisting Armando’s efforts. Teeth bared now, he grabbed the man’s hair and worked the handle of the blade around to get it to go out the other side. The drunken man could only grab at his throat, wide eyes looking up to Armando as he choked on the blade. Once the blade came out the other side of his neck, the man’s arms fell to the ground. Armando yanked the knife out and the man collapsed to the side. From behind, he heard a soft groan and turned to see the other guard roll over, face and head bloodied. Armando turned and, without hesitation, stepped over to him and swung the blade down his neck, blood splattering again as the edge found veins. Armando stumbled back and watched him choke on his last breath.
Standing in the dark light of night watching the blood drip from the blade, Armando came to understand that he had an affinity for killing.
𓂓
A cough from the guard outside brought him back to the now. The Alphabet King’s thoughts returned to his current predicament. He tore his gaze away from his reflection and finished washing.
Combined with the relatively mild beating he had given John the driver, the theatrical display worked once again. Rarely had his unfortunate guests put up any resistance once they found themselves in that room with him. He’d only needed to mutilate a few dozen people over the years. Some didn’t survive the ordeal.
ABCs ended the interrogation confident John had told him everything and that he hadn’t talked while incarcerated. But they were not off the hook. Through his various sources, he would need to confirm what John admitted. Time would tell. Until then, or when he could think of some use for them, he would keep them here.
Something had occurred to him during the interrogation—an advantage perhaps. The woman John described as a ‘hot blonde’ and her child posed an interesting opportunity. They would be worth something, enough to compensate for the lost merch. It would also be savory sweet revenge to make the people who caused him to lose the bag of drugs pay for their meddling. He could also make an example of this landscaper—a very public and messy example that would deter any more meddling. The thought made ABCs smile.
After checking himself in the mirror one last time, he walked over to the kitchen and removed some leftover chicken from the fridge. He poured himself a cup of coffee, sat, and considered the interrogation as he ripped flesh from bone with his teeth. If John’s story lined up with Hines’ and the lawyer’s, he knew what he had to do. He finished his meal and left everything on the small table. Before leaving the break room, he pulled out his phone and called the lawyer first. “Tell me everything, starting with the moment you arrived at the jail.”
𓂓
Armando stood over the dead bodies, enjoying the warmth of their blood on his face in the cool night. A noise behind him broke the spell and he turned his attention to the muffled cries coming from the campfire. Carrying the bloody blade, he made his way around the small hill blocking his view of the man-in-the-middle. From there, he saw the man had abandoned the woman bound to the tree. She hung from her arms, head lolled to the side at an ugly angle, eyes wide and staring blankly up into the night. The man was now on top of the woman on the ground, pants still around his ankles. She struggled to fight him off.
The flames of the fire still coaxed the shadows to dance in the hills like demons, and now Armando existed among them—had become one of them. The fellowship with his newfound kindred phantoms melted away his fear, his anxiety, and his youth, leaving only pure hatred—rage for the man who tried to rape a boy. Contempt for a man who rapes children and women and devil knows what else. Armando looked upon him and decided he must bring the fury of hell to this man—destroy him in every way.
Aside from the images in Botticelli’s paintings he’d seen in the books at the town library, Armando had no idea what hell really was or what it actually meant. But tonight, he would define it for this man. He intended to resolve the flames of damnation before the Cackling Coyote as if he were watching a disturbed artist create those scenes right before his eyes, burning the images on that man’s soul for eternity.
