Blackteeth Read online

  Moss looked at her. “There’s more to all of this, isn’t there?”

  Well, that’s perceptive of you, Moss, she thought. First really perceptive thing you’ve said. What gave me away?

  “You have something to eat in your bag?” she asked instead of answering his question.

  “Yeah, but it probably got wet.”

  “It’s not like we have a convenience store on the corner,” she countered.

  Moss pulled out a package of Hostess Ding Dongs. They’d gotten smashed, but the plastic was intact, so the dessert hadn’t gotten wet. He passed one to her while shoving the other one whole into his mouth.

  “Don’t choke on that,” she advised.

  Moss swallowed it with a satisfied sigh. “We didn’t get the complimentary brekky at the lodge, and even though I don’t know what time it is, I’m hungry. They had a fancy menu. Smoked salmon quiche. Blueberry scones. Mushroom and asparagus crepes.”

  “None of that sounds good to me.” It was quite the opposite, in fact.

  Moss produced a bag of Lays Cheddar & Sour Cream chips. “Too crunchy?”

  “Looks like it sprung a leak.”

  Moss glowered as he looked at the bag. He opened it carefully and looked inside, tilting the bag so that he could see. “Yeah. Soggy. It’s still food, though.”

  Hesper agreed and ate half of the squelchy chips which was about a handful of slop in her hand. It didn’t taste right, but it was better than nothing.

  When they were done, she drank some more water, and Moss made use of the toilet.

  “Whoever built this place must have had similar bodily functions as us,” Moss said after he was finished. “Breathed air, drank water, pooped, and peed. But why live underground?”

  “Protection from something? Maybe it was the Blackteeth that were the problem.”

  “I think you said something about how the Blackteeth took over this place,” Moss said, pausing to drink some water. He stopped and added, “Why do you say that?”

  “There are places here with petroglyphs and statues. A whole hall that is like a memorial. They don’t look like the Blackteeth. They look like the things at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The ones with the long arms who welcomed the guy into the great big ship. They have necklaces with pendants like the one I wear. The carvings are very detailed.”

  “Extra-tall, bug-eyed monsters?”

  “The doors are tall here. The ceilings, too. Much taller than the Blackteeth. You can see where they carved out parts of the natural cave in order to be able to pass.”

  “Do you have any idea where we are?”

  “How would I know? No maps, no signs. They didn’t leave instructions. Maybe if archeologists came here and studied the holy crap out of it, but I don’t think the Blackteeth are into the educational aspects of sharing ancient cultural sites with others.”

  “How does the water work? How do the lights work?”

  “Beats me,” she said. “I thank God every time the water comes on. I wouldn’t have been able to survive otherwise. There’s a place closer to where the Blackteeth make their homes that has what looks like a power plant. It wasn’t on my to-do list, so I avoided it when I could. Nothing to eat over there, and I would have been cutting my throat messing with the power supply in this place.”

  Moss nodded glumly. “I know I’m working my way through everything you’ve probably already thought of a hundred times.”

  “A thousand times,” Hesper corrected him.

  “You say they use humans.”

  “Like Thomas Madrid,” she said. “So how do I know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve seen them. They bring them here.”

  “You said they don’t bring adults here.”

  “I said for illicit purposes. I guess I meant they don’t really want adults. But they need some humans, especially in our society now. Too many humans watching. Too many weapons handy. I gather that some of the Blackteeth don’t always come back. I don’t know how that escapes the authorities except that it’s possible they’ve mistaken them for humans. Maybe putrefaction masks that they’re not like regular humans.”

  “They bleed, don’t they?”

  “Their blood is black just like their teeth. Any medical doctor worth his degree wouldn’t take more than a few minutes figuring out he’s got a head scratcher on his hands.”

  “Are they human, too? Are they some kind of mutated human?”

  “They have many of the same sensitive spots as humans, but in the end does it matter?” Hesper examined her hand to see if there were any potato chip lumps left. Moss handed her the bag, and she tipped it on its side to get the dregs. “Great. Chip juice.”

  “If they bring human adults here, how do they communicate with them?”

  “It wasn’t like I could put on a ghillie suit and get close enough to see them in action,” Hesper said. “I can only assume that they make their intent clear. Get kids for them. Clear the way. Make certain no one is paying attention. Or die horribly.”

  “If they were looking for you the whole time since you reappeared, it doesn’t seem like it would be that hard. I mean, you did go off the main grid, but that didn’t stop us from finding you. You changed your name. You moved. You didn’t do social media. At the time, we assumed that meant you were trying to hide something.” Moss rubbed his chin, and Hesper could hear the rasp of his fingers over a day’s growth of whiskers. “If they had humans, why didn’t they find you? I mean, if they have a cop, why didn’t they find you?”

  “It’s because they don’t think like us. They know about our world, but they don’t know about Facebook and Instagram. They don’t say, ‘Hey, I should just Google her and see what she’s doing.’”

  “So, what, they have humans who help, but they don’t know what to tell them?”

  “They don’t have a photograph of me. They don’t have my fingerprints. I doubt the cop knew exactly who to look for until I popped onto their radar in Portland. It wouldn’t have been hard for a cop to figure out who was hanging out with you on the dock. Your bros, for example. They would have known where to find you.”

  Moss gave a little nod.

  “Also, they heard June saying my first name. Maybe it was easy for the cop to figure out what your name was, and make the leap that we were together. I don’t know if credit card companies give out information, but there’s probably a way around that.”

  “But to shoot the owner of the lodge, that’s not just risky, it’s almost suicidal. He couldn’t possibly get out of that. He’s a Multnomah guy in Hood River County. He won’t have excuses as to why his gun was used on her.”

  Hesper didn’t want to think about it. The deputy sounded desperate. What makes a man so desperate that he takes those kinds of risks? It would be easy to ask Moss the same question. After all, he and his crew hadn’t really thought twice about committing a felony in exchange for the slight possibility that they might get an answer or two.

  That meant if Hesper and Moss actually returned to their world, then the authorities would likely still be after them. She would have groaned. Although, they would have to get back there first, and that was a longshot at best.

  “You’re overthinking this, Moss,” she said. “Right now, the thing is to survive. Everything else is purely academic and doesn’t help us.”

  Moss studied Hesper. “You’ve got some kind of plan, don’t you? Something you thought of before. I don’t know you very well, but I’m getting that.”

  Perceptive. Not like Kisho. Not like June. They took her at face value and that was that.

  “Survive now. Questions later,” Hesper said and closed her eyes.

  Hesper woke up snuggled up to Moss’s side. That was disconcerting. She wasn’t even certain she liked him. It was difficult not to lay some blame on his head for her current situation. On the upside, he was warm, and once he figured out they were in a fight for their lives, he would be handy with the battle. Specifically, she could
trip him while she was trying to get away and the Blackteeth could have a go at him.

  I wouldn’t really do that, she reminded herself. Then she thought, Maybe I wouldn’t do that.

  On the downside were all the questions. Those were questions she had asked endlessly before. Some answers she had. Some she didn’t. Some were literally unanswerable. Even when Moss was being quiet, she could feel the words on the tip of his tongue waiting to spill out in a never-ending rush of pressing interrogation.

  “Hesper,” he said very softly as if he was afraid he would wake her.

  Hesper tensed, but she wasn’t quite ready to pull away from the body warmth. “Yes?” she said just as softly.

  “Something is moving above us,” he whispered.

  Well, damn, she thought touching the bush axe’s handle. That’s what I get for being sleepy after having a Ding Dong and soggy chips.

  Then she thought about decisions. Wait it out and hope they pass by. The lights outside have probably been out for some time. Maybe they saw the light trail I laid and came to investigate. Maybe they don’t know exactly where we are. Thank God for paranoia.

  The roof thing was new since Hesper had gone back to the real world. She’d never had two Blackteeth jump her from the roofs. They followed Hesper and Moss’s trail and knew approximately where they were. They’d waited for them to exit, and that’s when they attacked. Coming out of the building was the point where Hesper was most vulnerable, and they’d used that tactic.

  What else is new? Maybe they would systematically check all the buildings until they found what they were looking for. Maybe they would narrow it down until Hesper and Moss were forced to run. What did they call it when a hunter caused something it was hunting to flee? Oh yes, flushing the prey.

  “How long have you heard the noises?” she asked as quietly as she could.

  “Five minutes?” Moss murmured. “I was about to wake you up. I think you heard them in your sleep.”

  Hesper sat up and looked around. She kept her hand on the axe. She saw that Moss was holding the machete. He’d cleaned up and put the backpack on so that he wouldn’t have to do it on the run.

  Hesper thought furiously. If the things came in, they would have to fight. It was close quarters in the building, but it could be done. She didn’t like it because the Blackteeth could corner them here until they starved to death, if the creatures even could consider that end. She frowned. It wasn’t like them. They didn’t make that much noise. They didn’t search out humans unless they wanted them dead quickly. After they had dealt with some of her traps, they came into this area a lot less, and they almost never opened doors. They almost never climbed over the roofs, but clearly that had changed since she’d been gone. They were blind in the dark in much the same way as humans, and they preferred the old lights of the ancient city.

  She carefully stood up and stretched out sore muscles. She didn’t know exactly why she was sore, but it was probably because she was so tense from being frightened half to death. And oh yeah being tased, elbowed, running for my life. That, too.

  Moss did what she did.

  Hesper swung the axe slowly. Should we stay or go? Run or fight?

  The choice was taken out of Hesper’s hands when the very obvious sound of the door being opened happened.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Suspense is worse than the ordeal itself.

  – Yiddish proverb

  Hesper put her finger to her lips as Moss glanced at her. He lifted the machete and settled his shoulders in a straight line. She pressed them both back against the walls because they would have a better chance at ambush if they had a little more room. She tilted her head to listen and could hear nothing but her heart thudding violently.

  Rather unexpectedly she missed the sunlight of a warm Portland day. The smell of the espresso as it heated thoroughly was also a contender for her top ten. The comfortable but challenging strain of her muscles as she pushed herself in working her Tang Soo Do forms was another one. The taste of freshly baked goods from the corner store not four blocks away from where she lived was a front-runner.

  All of those things had all been underappreciated and on borrowed time. She’d had a plan, but it had all come unraveled due to Abel and Moss’s untimely intervention.

  And she should have never gone down to the dock to give back Moss his stinking ten-dollar bill.

  But thinking about what had happened or hadn’t happened (was that only the previous day?) wouldn’t help Hesper at the moment.

  As for their present predicament, there were other questions that needed answering. What had gone wrong? Why had the Blackteeth come to this exact location? Had she not put enough muck on her body or on Moss’s? Had she left something that inadvertently pointed in their direction? Was it just a case of bad luck?

  Click, click, click came a noise through the second door. Hesper could hear the cackle of their voices and knew they were looking at the outermost parts of the apartment/home/whatever this building was meant to be. Moss tugged her shoulder against the wall and tried to get in front of her. She gently dissuaded his action, holding the bush axe at the ready position.

  There was a bitter taste in her mouth that was like ashes and dirt. She’d been in tough spots before and there had been ways out, but here they were cornered like rats in a maze. Perhaps they should have drank the water and escaped back to the roofs, taking turns to sleep while in relative safety. However, they couldn’t talk on the roofs. They couldn’t work out what to do or where to go.

  Hesper had a good idea that she was going to nix Moss’s plan to go to see where the Blackteeth’s prisoners were held. She didn’t want to hear the screams of those who’d been snatched under their parents’ noses. She didn’t want to smell the distinct aroma of entrails and rotting flesh. She didn’t want a repetition of the nightmares she’d had almost every night for the last twelve years.

  Instead, she was going to head for the nearest pool, and she didn’t give a good goddamn if Moss didn’t follow her or if she came up in the Yangtze or in the Amazon in Brazil or in the Nile within eyesight of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

  If she lived past the next sixty seconds…

  Hesper pushed Moss backward with her foot. She didn’t want to hit him with the axe on the backswing. It was even possible he understood because he moved.

  “Hesper?”

  Hesper tensed. Shut up, Moss. Now isn’t the time to talk. Now is the time to prepare. Time to fight because there’s no place to flee. She brought the axe up in preparation for the killing strike. She could feel her muscles tautening, drawing themselves tight as a guitar string. She wanted the first one through the door to die almost instantaneously. The next strike would be the upswing for the second one. If she could get the Blackteeth on the ground, she and Moss might be able to get out. It depended on how many had come for her.

  “Hesper? Is that you?”

  Hesper abruptly realized it wasn’t Moss saying her name and asking the soft question.

  She took a rasping breath because she thought she recognized that voice, and it didn’t seem possible. “Mun-Hee?” she finally asked as if asking the unbearable.

  Silence was the answer. A thousand things went through Hesper’s head. She thought she was the only one left. There had been blood and body parts and nothing left to identify any of them. There had been desperation and horrid resolve. Then there had been rancorous loneliness until she started to spy on the Blackteeth, and she had figured out one of their most important secrets.

  “Mun-Hee?” she asked hesitantly. “Is it really you?”

  A shape appeared at the door and stayed there for only the briefest second before it launched itself at Hesper. Moss started to swing the machete but she was faster. She blocked his machete with her axe and caught the other person in her arms.

  “Hesper!” the being who was a very human boy said. “Oh, Hesper! I thought you were dead.” The boy’s accent was heavy, but she understood all the same.

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nbsp; Hesper planted her chin on the top of the boy’s head pressing down in a way that she knew must have been uncomfortable, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She smelled all the same things on him that were smeared on her. It was shit and dirt and things that should have appalled her, but instead it made her heart sing. After a long time, she looked over her shoulder meaningfully at Moss, and he abruptly lowered his machete because he comprehended that the person holding her wasn’t a threat to them.

  Then several other children peeked around the edge of the door and looked in at them. Hesper’s heart skipped a beat as she recognized what it meant. It might have even skipped two or three beats.

  The boy’s name really was Mun-Hee. He was about twelve years old, and he hadn’t grown even an inch since Hesper had last seen him. She understood that he’d disappeared about three years previous to that. His parents were rice farmers, but he’d slipped away to go fishing by himself, playing hooky from the hard work of the harvest. He’d been wading in the waters of the Geum River in South Korea heading toward his favorite fishing hole. Something he’d called a night hag had beckoned to him from the river, and he himself had said he’d been stupid enough to approach it thinking it was an old woman who was lost and needed help. It hadn’t been an old woman, and he’d been taken like many others. He’d been one of the first children that Hesper had freed. She’d taught him some English, although he knew some already. He’d taught her some Korean. They’d killed a few Blackteeth. Good times.

  Of course, Mun-Hee hadn’t been the only child she’d freed.

  Mun-Hee tugged on Hesper’s hand. “Come now. Not safe in this area. The Blackteeth are on the hunt.”

  Moss collected belongings and the others, two boys and a girl, smeared with muck and hair in gnarled messes, stared at him curiously. They also looked at Hesper, but she supposed she appeared more like a child with her short stature and her low weight. Moss looked like what he was, a full-grown adult who ate well and exercised often. He was over six feet tall and broad as a barn.