Therion Chapter 10 - Children's Bread

 Louie pushed his way out of the thick underbrush and out into the clearing. The lumpy ground became a mix of dandelions, lamb’s ear, and prickly pear cacti.

He looked around, trying to get his bearings. A soft roll of thunder brought his eyes to a distant storm front, but that wasn’t what concerned him. It was the road. A pitted, broken excuse of a road was now beneath his feet. Shrugging his shoulders, he began to walk northward to whatever circumstance would befall him. He thought of how it would happen, but did not surmise that as an absolute. He surely wouldn’t be here long enough for the rain to chill him, but the fate that awaited him was ever the colder. He danced around cracks and grass-filled potholes, then shoved his hands in the deep pockets of his jacket and looked toward his feet through a shrouded hood, accepting his struggle.

He listened for the whir of new tires on old pavement or the whine of electric engines, but instead, in the distance, he heard a low rumble. Every instinct within him said to run, to hide in the forest, but this is why he came.

A rusty, paintless old Chevy truck slowed to an idle next to the boy. Louie was too young to know it was a Chevy. The cross-like emblem on the grill only reminded him of his mission. The truck once had at least three different colors of paint on it, but they were now mostly worn off by whatever forces nature had inflicted upon it over its many long years.

The passenger door flung open, revealing the driver. A shirtless man wearing a top hat smiled a sinister, rotten-toothed grin.

“Whad’ya doin’ out here, boy?”

Louie glared at the old man, remembering Tom’s description. He remembered how much power he held over Tom, how he could operate in the supernatural world. He walked away from the truck.

With a startling roar, the pickup jumped ahead. “It’s gonna storm, boy, you ought to get in the truck.”

Louie clenched his jaw, silently praying for strength, then stepped into the vehicle.

“Yeehaw,” bellowed the old man as he squawked the tires of the pickup, peeling down the road.

Exhaust plumed through the floor, but didn’t fully cover the ripe body odor of Louie’s chauffeur.

“Don’t you worry about a thing. She’s loud, but she’ll get us there. What’s your name?”

The man waited for an answer. 

This isn’t the plan, Louie thought.

 He isn’t a nomad, he’s a teacher, a trainer, the overlord of shapeshifters. How much do I tell him?

“Well, boy, who are ya? Where ya from?”

“I uh, I was part of a group. We were passing through here. We got a little tangled up with some other folks, and I, I decided I didn’t want to be with them anymore.”

“Oh boy, I hear ya.” Sharku eyeballed him again. “What r ya, 15, 16?”

“I’ll be 15 this June,” Louie replied.

“Yeah, you old enough.”

“Old enough for what?” Louie held the man's gaze with sharpened eyes.

“Heh, be on your own. This here woods is a scary place, but you look like you can hold your own.”

Louie sighed and looked out the window.

The old man went on, “I had a dog, jes got him all trained up, ya know, to wrangle all the things that need wranglin’. Then he jes run off. Peed me right the heck off. I s’pose I take you home with me, give you a place to stay, if you can do some wrangling for me.”

The old truck struggled up the hill as the forest grew thicker around them. As Louie listened to the ominous invitation, he sensed the threat. But heavier than the threat was the pull. He heard the call of the dark side; he could have the power if he wanted it. He would be stronger than this old warlock.

Heat crept into his hands. Restlessness surged through Louie, fiery anger rising as he grasped the meaning of the invitation.

He turned to the old man, “Do I look like a dog to you? In fact, my teacher told me to look out for the dogs, to look out for the evildoers. He told me to look out for those who would maim the flesh.” *

Sharku’s eyes grew wide as he recognized the words the boy was repeating.

“At least your dog didn’t return to its own vomit,” Louie stabbed yet again. *

“What did you just say? I was givin you something, boy, but now you ain't got no choice.” The old man trembled with anger, reeling against the sword this young boy just wielded against him.

“You’re mine now. And I’m gonna rip you up. You think you got Jeeesus in you? Why you here right now in this truck with me then? He left you alone.”

He nearly ripped the steering wheel from the column as he spoke.

“Yeeaahh, me and the boys gonna have fun with you.”

Louie’s eyes closed as he struggled back tears thinking of the children, those precious innocents. What this man and ‘the boys’ had done and would do to them.

“Sharku, it’s not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” *

The old man had almost lost the memories that this statement stirred. The smell of cheap beer on his father’s breath, being carried away into the darkness. The cries of his mother growing fainter as her protection failed – ‘it's not right what you do to the children’ – pain and emptiness.

He was abused and powerless, so he became powerful, but now he was the abuser. In the stirrings of the night, in his restless slumber, he could often hear his mother’s voice, Sharku, it’s not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.

Could the old man be saved, Louie wondered, or was he given over fully to his own depravity?

They tore into a hidden trail, barely missing several trees. Bouncing down a rutted path, they finally emerged into a wide valley. Among the uncut grasses of a meadow was an old one-story barn pieced together with rusted metal and weathered slats. Chickens and goats were meandering in the pasture.

There were doors in odd places and small air conditioners that would seemingly have no natural place on this building. Silence interrupted Louie’s ears as the engine cut. The old man pulled him out of the truck with a painfully strong grip. He dragged the boy to the barn and shoved him through one of those oddly placed doors.

Louie’s eyes did not soon adjust to the darkness of the room, but dusty rays of light illuminated a small card table where two dingy men sat. They dropped their cards and gave attention as Sharku entered the space with this child in his grasp.

“Take him, put him with the others.” Sharku slammed the door as he harumphed back out to his truck.

Louie shivered before the men who seemed to have features not fully human. They had fierce half-turned countenances.

The younger one stood, “Come on.” He forced Louie into a dark hallway. The jangle of keys from his jailer echoed off the stained walls, and the light all but vanished. Louie longed for the comforting glow of his necklace and for the direction it would provide. He knew, though, Tom would need it more than he did, and the mere remembrance of it gave him hope. He knew he wasn’t alone; he was in the right place for the right reason.

They continued down the dark passage, passing a red door. Pressure began to build in his temples. His heart began to pound, and the throbbing pain soon morphed into the echo of a ticking clock.

He stumbled to the side, nearly falling against a yellow door. The man caught him and tossed him back to the center of the hall. The men’s mocking laughs echoed down the corridor. Louie closed his eyes and kept moving.

The jailer fiddled with the huge set of keys until he finally found the one that fit. With a clang, he pulled open a thick steel door at the end of the hall.

“Aw, man,” complained the older man from behind. “Let’s just sort them now.”

Louie peered through the door to see what the issue was. Inside the cold, dark room were shadowy outlines, bedraggled figures lining the walls, sitting and lying tightly together on the floor. The room was filled.

The two men began to pull the bigger kids out first, standing them against a wall. The children weren’t sorted by gender, age, or ethnicity but by size.  Louie was among the first group. He could hear the clanging of chains and the grinding of handcuffs as the men moved from the front of the line toward him. Finally, he could feel cold and grimy shackles cinch his waist and bind his hands together as he was fastened to the prisoner in front of him. Their shoes and socks were taken, but thankfully, nothing else. The line began to move. Louie shuffled through the steel door. The opposing gates had been opened, and now he could see the room was large and dungeonous as if they were in a castle instead of a barn. A tallyman sat behind a desk in the corner, marking off each one on a ledger as they passed.

The chain of children disappeared through a stone archway ahead. Louie fell in, as if he were falling off a cliff, but beneath his feet, wet stone steps spiraled ever downward. The cold chilled his body as they seemingly marched toward the gates of Hell. Finally, they reached the bottom. There was yet another door, and behind that, another cell. Louie thought he saw a faint yellow glow in the man’s eyes as he slammed the door closed and walked away.

The ticking of the clock pressed on Louie’s head as once more the darkness enshrouded them.

 

* Phillippians 3:2, Proverbs 26:11

* Matthew 15:26

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