We’ve never fished so close to home before. Twitch says it’s real bad to go fishing in our neighborhood. That we might get caught. And if we get caught, he’ll have to hurt Mom. I tell him I don’t want Mom to get hurt, so he makes us fish in towns way far away, or on the other side of the big buildings downtown where the police won’t know. My teacher taught us the police were nice, but Twitch says they’re not.

I don’t think I believe him.

Today is different. Today we’re fishing down at the park a few blocks from his house, and Twitch is staring at my friend. Well, she’s not really my friend, but I like to pretend she is. Sometimes she waves at me when we come home from fishing. I wave back and imagine all the things we could do together like ride our bikes (even though I don’t have one) or play hide-and-seek. You know—normal kid stuff. I think she’s my age (I’m eight by the way!) or maybe a little bit younger, but I’m not for sure.

Most of the time she’s playing with other kids, but today she’s all by herself on a swing. I like how her hair is the same brown color as my dog Bear who lives at my old home. He used to meet me at the door when I came home from school to lick my face until I gave him a treat. I like to think of him before I fall asleep at night, but it’s hard now. I can’t remember him too good anymore.

I sure do miss him a lot. I hope he’s okay.

“You ready?” Twitch asks. Twitch is my secret name for him because his hands get all shaky when we go fishing. All twitchy. But I never say it out loud. No way. Never to his face.

“Do we have to?” I ask.

Twitch ignores me and continues to stare at the girl. I don’t like the way he looks when he spots a fish. His eyes do this weird faraway thing, like he’s in a place only he can go. I know better than to bug him when he looks like that, so I stay quiet and wait for him to speak.

“You know we do. Don’t ask stupid questions like that.”

“Okay,” I say and lean to open the door. Twitch stops me by grabbing my wrist. He squeezes so hard with his dirty yellow fingernails, I flinch.

“Don’t screw this up like you did at the mall. You know what happens if we get caught, right? What happens to your mom?”

I nod and jump out of the van.

As I near the playground, I spot two little kids playing on a teeter-totter. I want to jump on it with them, but Twitch says I’m not allowed to talk to the other kids, only to the fish. Still, I think about saying hello to them, but a lady in crazy-yellow exercise pants shouts that it’s lunchtime, and they run off before I can. They don’t even see me.

Either does the girl.

I walk up to her and put on my sad face; the one Twitch makes me practice in the mirror until I do it just right.

“Hi,” I say with a wave.

She looks down at me and smiles. She’s so pretty up close. I like her eyes.

“Have you seen my dog?” I ask, trying to sound upset.

She slows down and jumps off the swing. Little bits of sand spray my legs.

“What’s he look like?” she asks, crumpling up her forehead.

“Well, he’s mostly white, but with some big black dots.”

Her eyes widen, and she bites her bottom lip. “No, I haven’t seen him.”

“I-I hope I can find him,” I say. “He’s just a puppy.” I look at the ground and cry a few tears just like Twitch taught me. Most of the time, they’re fake. Not this time, though. I don’t even have to pinch my leg. I know the bad things he’ll do to her.

She reaches out and pats my arm, and I smell strawberries. “Oh no, please don’t cry. I can help you look for him.”

I jerk my head up. “Really? You will?”

Her face brightens. “Sure. I love puppies!”

I’ve got her hooked.

First, we circle through the park and yell the puppy’s name. It always changes, but today it’s Bungee. After a few minutes, I pretend to spot him in the alley across the street.

She stops me before I run over. “My mom says I can’t leave the park.”

I nod and let her think about it.

“But that’s because of strangers, and you’re a kid like me, so it’s okay.” She says it proudly, pressing her hands to her hips. “We can’t go too far though, promise?”

“Okay,” I say with my fake smile. I don’t even know her name.

We cross the street and stroll through the alley, looking behind empty trash cans and blue recycle bins for my pretend puppy. The girl walks with this cute bounce, and I feel a little sick about the trap I’ve set, like I might throw up or something, but I concentrate really hard and make the feeling go away. It comes right back when I spot Twitch near the end of the alley. I want to scream at the girl to run back to the park as fast as she can, but I can’t let Mom lose another finger.

“Hey look, there’s my uncle! Cool! Maybe he’s seen my dog.”

She does a funny twisty thing with her mouth. “That’s your uncle?”

“Yup.”

Twitch grins and waves us over. His salt-and-pepper hair is parted neatly to the side. He wears a red and black checked shirt tucked into a pair of faded blue jeans. Everything about him looks normal; regular. Everything but his eyes.

“Hey, Mac!” He yells like he hasn’t seen me in forever. “Guess who I just found?”

Mac’s my fake name.

“It’s Bungee!”

I grab the girl’s hand and pull. “C’mon. Let’s go see him.”

She doesn’t move. My heart does a flip-flop in my chest. Twitch will kill me if I let her off the line.

“I-I don’t know. Like I said, my mom told me not to talk to strangers.”

“But I’m not a stranger, remember? So that makes him okay, too.”

Her face goes soft. “Oh yeah. I guess. But then we have to go right back to the park.”

The way she says it like it will actually happen makes my insides hurt.

We run over together, and Twitch tells me he’s got Bungee in the back of the van. I poke my head inside and spot Twitch’s fat orange tabby, Brutus, licking his paws. He stops and looks up at me with a quick meow. I pretend he’s Bungee.

“Aww, here he is,” I say, trying to sound excited. “Wanna pet him?”

But the girl isn’t watching me anymore. She’s looking at Twitch.

“Um…no, it’s okay.”

Twitch’s jaw bunches, and I know she’s in trouble. He takes a step forward. “What’s your name, sweetheart? Mine’s Greg.”

She looks at her feet. “Ma-Madison.”

He grins, and it reminds me of the werewolf with the sharp yellow teeth from the Halloween story Mrs. Bolinger read to us when I was six. I think that was two years ago. Or at least that’s what Mom says. I’m not so sure she knows anymore.

“Well, hello there, Madison. Very nice to meet you. Wanna see Mac’s puppy?”

She shakes her head, almost like she sees the real Twitch for the first time, and takes a step back. And then he’s on her with his special rag, smearing his sleeping potion all over her face.

Even now, the smell still scares me. It’s how he caught me.

Madison’s eyes pop open, and it makes me think of the goldfish my brother spilled from our tank once when we were little. Its mouth whooshed in and out, in and out, until it died right there on the floor. It’s the same way she’s looking at me right now, like the goldfish, asking me questions with her eyes, the same questions all the girls ask when I help reel them in: Why’d you trick me, Ben? Why? I thought you were my friend? I thought I could trust you?

I bury my face in my hands and, after what feels like forever, her shoulders sag, and she goes to sleep. Twitch lets out a satisfied grunt, and then carries her to the van, her head bouncing up and down on his shoulder like she’s a living doll.

His hands are doing the shaky thing.

“Hurry up and get in,” he hisses.

I do just that.

#

It only takes a few minutes to get back home. We live in Twitch’s big brick house at the end of this cul-de-sac. There’s lots of tall trees that stretch out on both sides like these skeleton giants. Two of them are dead. Right next to his place, on the right side, is a white, paint-chipped house that’s falling apart. Twitch says it’s been empty for years. On the other side is this brown trailer that looks like it was painted with mud. An old woman lives there. A real bitch. Or at least that’s what Twitch says. I’ve never seen her. Behind his house, for as far as you can see, is a dirt field full of sticker weeds and trash and broken glass.

Even if I could, I wouldn’t play out there.

We go inside, and I make us lunch while Twitch takes Madison downstairs to the basement. Three turkey sandwiches, two with mayo and one with mustard. Twitch hates mayo. I forgot once, and he called me a stupid head and slapped me so hard that my cheek stung for the rest of the day. I haven’t made that mistake again.

I get three apples and add some chips to the plates and carry them to the table. Twitch reappears and fishes a beer from the fridge before joining me. He smells like chemicals.

“You did good today, kid. Real good. That one,” he says, letting out a slow hiss of air. “Mmm, she’s something special.”

I shudder and keep my eyes low and hope he leaves soon. It’s the only time I can be alone with Mom. He works afternoons in one of the big buildings downtown cleaning rooms or something.

He smacks the table. “Hey! You hear me?”

I flinch and lift my gaze, stare at his dark eyebrows and his forehead. Anywhere but his eyes. They don’t sparkle like most people’s do. They’re like the eyes on my little brother’s teddy bear. All flat and dull and lifeless.

Twitch cracks his beer and takes a long drink. “Have some manners, goddammit. I said you did good. What do you say to that?”

“Thank you, Sir.”

Always Sir.

Never Twitch.

This makes him happy, so I ask if I can bring Mom her lunch.

He groans and lets out a belch, stares at me. “When you gonna grow up, huh? You’re not a baby anymore. Quit acting like such a pussy Momma’s boy.”

Twitch doesn’t like my mom much. Or any mom, for that matter. I think it’s ‘cause his did bad things to him when he was little. I’ve seen the scars, a bunch of wrinkled, pink burn marks that cover his arm. He showed me once and said when he was bad, his mom would burn him with her cigarettes. He said she did lots of other bad stuff to him too, but he didn’t tell me what it was.

I’m glad he didn’t. I don’t want to know.

“Go on. Get downstairs, then.” He waves me off. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

I leave the rest of my lunch and grab Mom’s plate and hurry down the stairs past the Burn Box. It’s big and black and scary with this gross sweet smell. I try not to look at it, but it’s hard not to, especially when it’s open like it is now.

It reminds me of a coffin. I know if I get close enough to it, I’ll see some ashes and maybe a few bones. Twitch feeds the girls to it when he’s done with them. He just fed Emily to the Burn Box two nights ago. It made me so sad. She had strawberry-colored hair and was super nice.

They all are.

I push through the heavy, shiny door and find Mom leaning against the wall. She looks like a Halloween skeleton with these black smushy eyes and her pointy face. A lot of her hair has fallen out, enough that I can see her scalp. I think she looks the way she does because Twitch only lets her eat lunch, and some days nothing at all.

“Hey, Benji. How’s my boy?” Mom asks, lighting up when she sees me.

I hand her the plate. “Not too good.”

She brushes my face. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“We caught another fish.”

Her face goes flat. “You know you’re not supposed to call them that.” She hates the fishing as much as me, but she always tries to make me feel better afterward. She pats my shoulder, and I count my escape attempts in her missing fingers. She only has three left: her thumb, her pinkie, and her pointer finger.

I don’t try to run away anymore.

“She’s really little, Mom. Littler than me.”

Mom draws in a sudden hiss of air. “No…”

I nod, and my eyes grow hot, but I swallow my tears away. I can’t cry in front of her no matter what. She needs me to be brave.

“How little? You think she’s your age?”

“I think younger.”

“Oh my God, Ben,” she says, her hand going to her mouth. “Oh, my God. We have to do it today.”

“But Mom, it’s not—”

Footsteps clank down the stairs, and I scramble to my chain and put it on. It’s a rule: when I’m down here, I have to be locked up. I barely get the lock to shut before Twitch walks into the room. He’s carrying Brutus. He sets him down, and the cat purrs against his leg for a minute before trotting off. I like Brutus. Sometimes he even lets me pet him, but only when Twitch isn’t around.

Twitch watches the cat leave, and then goes over to Mom and jerks on her chain. I can tell it hurts by the squinty face she makes, but she tries not to let it show. He’s always yanking her around like that, jerking her this way and that, turning her ankle black.

It makes me want to bite his arm off.

“Well,” he says, giving her his wolf smile. “Any big plans for the day?”

She stares at the floor and shakes her head.

He laughs his mean laugh, and then comes over and checks the lock around my ankle before returning to the doorway. “Tonight’s a big night, guys. A big night.” He claps his hands together and rubs them, gives me a wink. “Maybe I’ll even have little Ben help this time.”

Mom jerks forward with her teeth bared. “Don’t…you…dare.”

Twitch shakes his head and makes a clicking sound with his tongue. “Ah, ah, ah. Careful now, Liz. You know what happens if you get lippy with me.”

Mom leans back against the wall. She looks tired.

“Whelp, I gotta go make some hay. No one else is gonna keep the lights on. Be back around six.”

He turns to go, but I stop him.

“Sir, can you leave the door cracked today? It’s really hot in here.”

And it is. I’m already sweating.

Twitch rubs his chin for a minute. “Sure kid. It’s the least I can do after this morning.” And then he’s gone, tromping back up the stairs.

When the door whumps shut above, Mom turns to me and tells me to get back to my job on the pipe like she always does, but this time her voice is different. It’s as high and thin as a bird’s squawk. I know it’s because she’s scared for Madison.

I am too.

I scurry over to my bed, which is just this gross mattress on the floor, and dig out the piece of rusty metal Mom made me hide beneath it. She found it two months ago, stuck inside a crumbly cinderblock next to her bed. It took her forever to get it out. She calls it a file, but I like to pretend it’s a sword. Sometimes I wave it around like one, but she always stops me. She says I can’t play with it because Twitch will hurt me if I get caught.

At first, Mom tried to use it on her chain, but it wouldn’t work, so she told me to try it on my pipe. It’s big and black. I think it’s made out of plastic or something. Mom told me to rub the file on the back where Twitch won’t think to look. And guess what?

I’m almost halfway through!

The only problem is it hurts my hands. I get a lot of blisters and sometimes I bang my knuckles on the cinderblocks, which makes them bleed. I have to be careful so Twitch doesn’t spot the scabs.

Today, I start carefully, sawing back and forth in little motions, but Mom’s face turns into a knot, and she stops me. “Benjamin, listen. You have to work harder than you ever have in your entire life. You have to finish it. Today. Before Sir gets home. We can’t let him do his bad things to that little girl, understand?”

I nod my head. I will do good for her.

I work super hard, but I have to take lots of breaks. Mom yells at me to keep going. She’s never yelled so much before. I don’t want to let her down. I want to save the girl. But after forever, I have to stop because of how bad my palm hurts. Mom tells me not to stop, and I show her my hand and her mouth falls open. All the scabs are off my knuckles and they’re bleeding.

“Take your shirt off, Ben,” she says. “Use it like a glove.”

I nod and pull it over my head…and then stop when I hear a sound through the air duct. It’s the girl. She’s awake. Her voice is all light and feathery.

“Mo-momma?” she says. “Momma…”

The cage clanks, and I know she’ll scream soon. It’s what they all do. Twitch said I was lucky not to go in the cage when he caught me and Mom. He said he had a different plan for us.

“Momma, where are you? Momma? MOMMY!”

Mom tries to calm her down like she always does when they wake up, but it’s no use. They just scream until they can’t scream anymore. I hate it. I shove my fingers in my ears. After a long time, Madison stops and starts to cry. I hate that even worse because I know I’m the one who did this to her. Me and no one else.

Mom waits for her to stop

“W-who, who are you?” Madison asks.

“My name’s Elizabeth, but you can call me Liz. And I think you met my son, Ben.”

I wipe my eyes with my hurt hand and say hi. My tears sting my scrapes.

“We’re stuck here just like you,” Mom says.

“How come I can’t see you?” Madison asks.

“Because we’re in the room next to you.”

“Is Ben…is he the boy with the puppy?”

“Yes honey, he is.”

Madison’s voice goes up a notch. “Why’d he do that? Why’d he trick me?”

Mom’s face collapses, and she looks down and shakes her head. Her hair is so thin. As thin as grass. When she looks up again, her eyes are pink.

“Listen, sweetheart, Ben didn’t do that to you. That man, the one who put you in the van. Do you remember him?”

“Yes…”

“He’s a very bad man. He’s the one that tricked you. He tricked us, too.”

“He-he did?”

“Yes. We’ve been stuck here for a long time.”

“Mrs. Liz?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Is he…is that bad man…” Madison whimpers. “Is he going to hurt me?”

Mom shrinks in on herself. “He might, but we’re not going to let—”

“He’s gonna hurt me? But I don’t want him to hurt me! I want to go home!”

Madison shrieks again and rattles the cage some more.

“Madison!” Mom yells. “Madison, listen to me!”

She doesn’t, but Mom keeps trying and trying, and she finally quiets down.

“We’re not going to let him hurt you, sweetheart, but I need you to be brave, understand? Really, really brave. Do you think you can do that for me?”

She sniffles. “I-I think so.”

“Good, because as soon as Ben is loose, he’s going to go upstairs and find the keys to get you out. Then we can help you.”

“Okay,” Madison replies. “Mrs. Liz?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Please tell him to hurry.”

Mom’s face snaps my way. “C’mon, baby. You can do this. Don’t stop until you get all the way through.”

I nod and go back to work.

It takes the rest of the day, but I finally saw through the pipe with the sword. My hands ache so bad they won’t open anymore, and there’s blood all over my shirt. The way the light is coming through the window near the ceiling tells me Twitch will be home at any minute.

I show Mom, and she claps her hands. “Good, Ben! Good! Now pull on the chain super hard.”

I do, but the pipe only bends a little.

“Harder!”

I try again and it bends a some more, but not enough for me to get free.

Mom tells me to come over to her, where she can just barely reach my hand, and together we both yank crazy hard, me pulling on the chain, her pulling on my wrist. It hurts so bad, I think my hand is going to come off, but then, with a loud thwap, the pipe bends, and I’m free.

Well, sort of. I still have the chain tied around my ankle, but I can go anywhere now.

Mom takes my face in her hands, and her eyes flash like the sun. “You know where Sir keeps the keys, right?”

I do. Way up high in the cupboard by the corkboard. I’ve seen him put them there after we catch a fish.

“Go as fast as you can and bring them back.” I start to, but Mom doesn’t let go of my hand. “If you see Sir, you run outside and you scream as loud as you can for help. And you don’t stop. You can’t let him…” Her voice goes soft, and she wipes her eyes. “He can’t catch you, Ben. No matter what. Even if you have to leave me down here, you do it. You run. Now nod and tell me you understand.”

My lip trembles. I don’t want to leave her behind, but I nod for her, and she crushes me to her chest. I wrap my arms around her neck and cry into her shirt. I don’t ever want to let go.

“I love you so much, Benji. I love you more than you’ll ever know. Don’t forget that. Now go!”

I run out of the room, past the Burn Box, and my chain gets caught. It takes me a minute to jerk it free. After I do, I pile as much of the chain in my arms as I can carry. I can’t carry all of it, but it’s enough to help me walk a little bit better.

Once I’m upstairs, I head straight for the cupboard. It’s way high up, so I have to push a chair over and climb onto the counter first. I scooch myself toward the knob, and then open the door and peek inside.

No keys!

Outside, I hear an engine coughing followed by the crunch of tires on gravel. I look out the window and see Twitch’s van pulling into the driveway. My stomach twists into one giant slippery knot. I can’t move. I know I should go like Mom said to, that I should run outside before it’s too late, but I can’t leave her. I can’t! Or Madison. Not after I got her stuck here. If I run away, Twitch will kill them both. I just know it.

I check for the keys again, hoping my eyes were playing tricks on me.

Nope. Not there. But something shiny on the floor below the cupboard catches my eye. The keys!

They must have fallen somehow.

I hop down and scoop them into my hand and race toward the basement as the van door slams shut. I’m almost to the stairs when I slam to the floor.

The stupid chain is stuck again!

I glance back and see it jammed beneath the fridge.

Footsteps clomp up the porch, and my heart skips a beat. I scramble back and yank it free, and then dash for the stairs once more. The chain clangs behind me on the tile.

It’s the loudest sound in the world.

The backdoor bangs open, and Twitch roars.

I make it halfway down the stairs before the chain gets tangled in my feet and sends me rolling to the bottom. Fireworks shoot everywhere, just like on the Fourth of July, except these fireworks are in my head and they hurt.

I make myself stand up and feel something warm and sticky dripping into my eyes. I know what it is. No crying, though. I bite my lip and tell myself to be big. I’m not little anymore.

I’m big.

And I’m brave.

My heart does its whoomp, whoomp thing in my chest as Twitch crashes down the stairs, but I dash into the room before he can catch me. Mom sees me and shakes her head real fast, her face looking all white and panicked.

“No…no…no. God no, Ben. No. Why did you come back? Why?”

I don’t have time to answer. All I can do is throw her the keys and dive back behind the Burn Box where Twitch can’t reach me. Except there’s a problem. A big one. Part of my chain is hanging out right where he can grab it. I try to pull it back before he does, but he’s too fast.

He takes it and yanks so hard it feels like my ankle will break. He yanks again, and I almost lose my grip on the leg of the Burn Box.

“Naughty, naughty,” Twitch says with a laugh. But it’s not his funny laugh. It’s the one that means he’s about to do something really bad.

He jerks the chain harder, and this time it hurts so bad, I scream my lungs out.

“Get out here, you little fucker. Just you wait until I get my hands on you.”

“Leave. Him. Alone.”

It’s Mom, but her voice is so low and tight I barely recognize it.

The chain goes slack. “Or you’ll do what?”

RREEOOWWW!

It’s Brutus, screeching like someone stepped on his tail.

“You take your filthy slut hands off my cat, bitch. Right. Now.”

“Not a chance.”

“If you don’t, I’ll cut off every finger you have left. And then I’ll cut out your tongue and eat it.”

I quietly pull the chain away from him, and then slip around the Burn Box to the other side where he can’t see me.

He takes a step toward Mom. Her eyes are wild. Crazy. They look like two huge blue marbles in the dim light. She’s holding Brutus by the scruff of his neck. The cat is hissing and swiping at her arm with his claws. She’s cut, but she doesn’t seem to care. All she’s focused on is Twitch as she gives the cat another hard shake.

Brutus shrieks.

“No closer or I promise you, I’ll snap his neck.”

He stops. “You filthy whore! I’m going to kill—”

I sneak up on him and bite his arm as hard as I can.

He roars and more fireworks explode in my head as he backhands me. Blood fills my mouth, and I fall and skid backward. I see him stalk forward through a shower of stars, but not before Mom rush from the room with an awful wail. She runs straight at him, looking like a demon with her hair sticking out at crazy angles and her face all twisted. I’ve never seen her move so fast.

She slams into him and sends him tumbling backward into the Burn Box. His eyes go wide, and he tries to grab onto something, but she slams the lid down before he can and locks it.

Twitch screams and pounds on the metal (BAM! BAM! BAM!).

Mom tells me to close my eyes and plug my ears.

“Don’t watch, baby.”

She presses the red button—the one Twitch uses to feed the girls to the box—and there’s a few clicks, like a barbeque grill starting, and then a hot whoosh.

He screams and screams.

The sound bubbles up through the metal and drills right into my skull, going higher and higher and higher until I can’t block it out anymore, no matter how hard I try.

It’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.

After what feels like forever, Mom brushes my cheek with her hand, and I open my eyes to see the outline of her in the dusty light. She pulls me forward and hugs me so hard, I feel like my ribs will crack.

I don’t care. I hug her back just as hard.

A moment later, I push away and stare at her dirty face. It’s all wet and shiny with tears, and I worry she got burned too.

“Are you okay, Momma?”

“Yes, baby. Yes.” She makes a strange choking sound and hugs me again. Madison watches us through the bars in the next room and somehow, in this moment, I know I’ll never have to go fishing again.

[END](https://www.reddit.com/user/LordoftheElk/)