Ike Hamill - Extinct

“Where’d your friends take the little boy?” the figure asked. The voice was deep and scratchy, like the man gargled with steel wool. Brad thought he heard a slight accent, too. Something about the way “little” contracted into “li’l.”

Brad began to answer, but it felt like his mouth was glued shut. He ran his tongue around his dry teeth until he could speak—“What friends? What boy?”

The giant man approached and knelt down, and Brad was finally able to see his face. The man was older, or perhaps just well-worn, and he smiled a kind, gentle smile. Clean, silver locks of hair framed his face and cascaded down to his shoulders. He still wore the black Chuck Taylors with bright green laces. The light stubble on his cheeks made him look a little neglected, but not pathetic, exactly. His eyes were complemented by deep wrinkles which seemed to smile.

“Don’t fuck with me, asshole,” the man said. With only the light coming in through the open door, Brad could barely see, but the man’s green eyes seemed to twinkle as he cursed at Brad.

“I don’t know what you’re…” Brad started. The old man’s hand shot out and he backhanded his knuckles against Brad’s temple. The hit wasn’t hard, but when Brad jerked away he banged his head against the hard floor.

“I don’t need a reason to tune you up,” the old man said. “This world is beyond reason. It’s beyond reason, and retribution, and punishment, and justice. When I say friends, I mean the half-dozen other necrophiliacs you’ve been partying with. Duzzat ring a little bell for you?”

He punctuated his question with another rap of his knuckles against Brad’s skull.

“Who are you?” Brad asked. Brad’s eyes locked on the gun holster on the man’s right hip.

“My best friends call me Buster,” the man said. This time his smile was cold. The lines radiating from his eyes looked flat, and the twinkle disappeared. “We just grabbed you to trade for the little boy. Seemed simple enough, but then your friends lit out at dawn like they didn’t even miss you. So now I’m stuck with you and a bunch of tracks in the snow heading north. So where did they take him? He’s family, and I don’t give up on family.”

“Okay,” Brad said, “I get what you’re asking, but I’m still confused. We didn’t have a little boy with us.”

“You’re beginning to rub me the wrong way, Brad,” Buster said.

Brad’s eyes darted sideways as he tried to remember if he’d told the man his name.

“That’s right,” Buster said. “I know who you are, and I know that Peter, Rob, Ted, Sheila, and those other women left you here and took Brynn north. I couldn’t give a shit what you and the others do, but when you steal my little boy, I think I deserve an explanation.”

“Brynn?” Brad asked. “Who’s Brynn?”

Buster rose to his feet and turned to to the door. “Hey, Glen? This guy’s either really dumb or really stubborn. We’re gonna have to work him over to find out. Buster strode to the door and leaned through the frame. He had a quick conversation with someone just around the corner and then returned to Brad.

“We’re gonna do you together,” Buster said. “Glen’s idea, but I think it’s a good one.”

Brad kicked as Buster grabbed his feet, but as soon as he did, he regretted it. When he kicked his legs, the rope pulled back brutally on his arms, stretching his shoulders until his joints felt like warm plastic about to break.

Buster leaned back and dragged Brad by the feet across the tile floor. He swung Brad through the doorway fast and took a hard right, slamming the side of Brad’s head into the jam. When he came to rest again, Brad found himself in a slightly bigger room, stacked with cardboard boxes. From behind, hands grabbed his shoulders and the rope connecting his hands to his feet was cut. The relief didn’t last long. The back of a chair slid through the loop his arms made behind his back and Brad was set upright, tied to a wooden chair.

Directly in front of him a woman he’d seen before was tied to a similar chair. Brad had met her only once, at the last Denny’s dinner.

“Tib?” Brad asked.

“Christine,” the woman said.

“Sorry, I thought I remembered someone calling you Tib,” Brad said.

“Luke calls all women Tib,” Christine said.

“Shut up, girly.” Buster’s voice came from just behind Brad’s shoulder. “Glen, get out of here for a bit.”

Panic broke across Christine’s face as footsteps crossed behind Brad towards the door.

“Glen,” she said, “don’t go. Don’t leave me with him. You can’t leave me.”

Brad heard the door click shut somewhere behind him. He watched Christine’s eyes as they tracked the progress of Buster. Finally, Buster came around the chair and into view.

“She’s right to be scared,” Buster said to Brad with a smile. “She’s about to lose a finger.”

Christine’s chair legs squealed against the tiles as Buster spun Christine around so her back was to Brad. Buster pulled open the flaps of a weathered cardboard box and pulled out a long set of bolt cutters.

“Jesus,” Christine screamed, “what the fuck’s wrong with you? I didn’t do anything!”

“Look,” Brad said. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. What else did you want to know? Where they’re going? We’re not sure exactly where to go, Robby just said it would be north of Augusta. But you must already know that. Robby told everyone at Denny’s.”

Christine erupted with a wordless scream as Glen touched the back of her arm with the edge of the bolt cutters. The room was cold, and Christine only wore a white tank top. Brad saw the lines of sinews on Christine’s shoulders as she pulled against her restraints. Like Brad, her arms were bound behind the back of the chair. Brad worried that Christine was tugging so hard she would tear cartilage, or dislocate her shoulder.

“I heard about Rob’s big plan,” Buster said. “Must be a deep, deep amount of crazy to convince someone to drag twenty-hundred corpses through the snow. I’m not sure I buy into his explanation one-hundred percent.”

“Just get on a snowmobile and you’ll catch them. They’re not going fast, not pulling those giant sleds. Hell, they wouldn’t even hear you coming. If you want to…”

Brad was cut off by another scream from Christine. Buster slipped the bolt cutters around one of her fingers.

“This has to be a mistake of some sort,” Brad shouted to be heard over Christine’s screams. “We didn’t know Brynn was your son. Maybe Nate didn’t know either. Brynn doesn’t talk much. He’s gone through a lot, maybe he couldn’t remember who his family was.”

Buster turned to Brad. “I said I was his family , not his father.”

“Right, sorry,” Brad said. He was relieved that Buster’s attention was away from the finger and the bolt cutters. “Look, I’ll come with you. We’ll get on a snowmobile and we’ll catch them in a few hours, I’m sure. Then we’ll figure this all out. You’re Brynn’s family—everyone will understand that he should be with you.”

Buster listened, nodded along, and maintained eye contact with Brad. As soon as Brad finished speaking, Buster compressed the handles of the bolt cutters. Brad heard a squishy pop just before all sound was obliterated by Christine’s scream. The sound was heart-wrenching. It contained horror, indignation, loss, and fury. The sound alone hit Brad in the gut and made his teeth ache. It was unbearable and Brad felt his own scream welling up in the back of his throat to join Christine’s.

The door burst open and Brad saw Glen for the first time since Denny’s. Brad couldn’t be sure from his distance, but it looked like Glen had tears welling up in his eyes. Glen waved his arm at Buster with jerking motions and Buster walked over to confer with the man. Christine’s scream diminished to a low moan, but Glen led Buster out into the hall so they could talk. The door clicked shut.