Lantern Ghosts Read online

  Flaco’s face flashed like a silver disk. He didn’t move.

  “Where? A simple question.” More coughing.

  “Run,” Graciela shouted, but the man’s arm had already imprisoned her little brother. Flaco flailed his arms. His tiny fists flopped backwards, trying to connect with Nunez.

  “You won’t be going anywhere too far, you little shit,” Nunez said. He staggered a pace with the boy in his grip. They stood under the moonlight, and Nunez’s face became a twisted mass of black and red, shiny flesh. “I don’t need you, anyhow. It’s sister they’ll want. They always want the gor;s, especially a pretty thing like her.” His eyes grew too large for his face, slick and yellowish like the entrails of a slaughtered goat.

  Graciela moved backward. She stumbled against a pillar. “No…”

  “Yes. You think Nunez is a fool? Some simple coyote who would take such risks for a few pesos?”

  Graciela glanced at the big gate.

  “How far would you get? How fa—yeeeouch!”

  Flaco’s teeth had closed on Nunez’s forearm, and now the boy ran, blood streaming from his mouth, toward the chapel doors.

  “You shit. You little dirty shit.” Nunez staggered after him.

  Graciela imagined how far she could run, how far she could go if she vanished through the big gate. But her brother, Flaco. She was all he had, at least until they found Papa. If they found Papa—if they survived to El Norte. Tears streaming down her face, she followed the big Nunez shadow into the chapel. Her heart clogged her ears with its steady drumming.

  The room was dark. A dim glow from the trapdoor lit the base of the bell tower ladder to her right. Pale shafts of light illuminated the drama in the center of the room. Nunez backed Flaco toward the far wall. The boy looked tiny next to the giant. How much strength could he have in his big body? How much strength after the fight, and the knife wound? She knelt and found a stone they’d used to circle their fire pit.

  “Stop,” she barked. The stone was heavy in her hand. She’d never be able to throw it hard enough. “Stop and leave the boy alone.”

  Nunez turned. Flaco scurried closer to the wall.

  Graciela launched the stone toward the big man. The moment froze. The stone tumbled for what felt to her like a handful of minutes. It glanced off his shoulder and fell with a thud to the ground. She knelt again, readying another rock if need be.

  Nunez shook his head. “You…bitch.”

  Graciela backed away, aiming for the door but afraid to take her eyes away from the monster. “Run,” she called to her brother. Her back struck rough stucco. A bad calculation, the door was five, maybe ten feet to her left. Nunez moved to cut off her escape. The tower. To the right. She ran, dropping the rock. Her foot pressed against the first rung with little thought. The wood creaked. The man was behind her, his feverish breath lashing at her back.

  No time for fear.

  Her small palms pained against the wood as hand over hand, Graciela climbed. The wobbly ladder groaned when the man put his weight to it.

  “Coming for you,” he growled.

  Graciela climbed faster. Her head swam.

  “Coming to knock that spirit out of your bitchy little head.”

  The trapdoor was close. A square of moonlit sky.

  “You little whore.”

  She wriggled through the hole—too small for him, surely. Her right foot bumped against something, something which fell against the wooden platform with a metallic thunk. The lantern. The noise startled her, and her eyes lifted. Outside the window, the earth looked like a jagged black mass against the blue glow of the sky. The heights were dizzying. Her left hand flailed back and caught one of the walls.

  His hand shot through the opening. “Come here, bitch.”

  Graciela backed up against the wall.

  His head appeared, red and slick with sweat.

  The lantern. When she bent, her fingers could just find the handle.

  He squeezed one shoulder through, grunting. “I’ll…knock you…off this…fucking tower…”

  She swung the lantern. The impact jarred her narrow bones. A sick, wet sound followed the metallic crunk and tinkle of glass. Nunez made a noise, a soft “uh”. He shuddered. Blood trickled from his forehead. Graciela glanced at the lantern and found cracked glass. She swung it again, and the man’s head snapped sideways. His fingers no longer clutched toward her. One final blow, and the head dropped below the trap door. An eon passed before the body struck the ground. The thump was tiny. After another eon, Flaco’s voice was not tiny.

  “He’s dead.”

  They left Nunez’s body where it lay, and slept the night—a voiceless night—in the kitchen. In the morning, they stood before three small, makeshift crosses outside the mission walls, the best they could do for graves. Were there more than three in the well? Perhaps, but neither brother nor sister could—or would—make the descent to search the horrors. One pulled away board and a shaft of sunlight on the bones below was enough to tell the truth. Graciela’s chest hollowed at the thought. She squeezed her brother’s shoulder as she said a silent prayer.

  “What now?” he asked. His voice sounded so young.

  She stooped and lifted the lantern with broken glass. “We head north. We’ll find our way to Papa.”

 

 

  Aaron Polson, Lantern Ghosts

 

 

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