Page 53 of Surface Scratch
Caleb waited until he heard the sound of a door opening deeper in the home and jumped up, his clammy hand still clutching the switchblade in his pocket, his thumb running nervously over the blade’s release button. “We need to hurry up and get out of here,” he told Ophelia.
She pulled up the front of her shirt, the smile she’d worn previously melting from her face. “No shit,” she said. “Pretty sure that guy is a minute out from asking me to call him daddy.”
Caleb paced over to the table near the kitchen doorway that was adorned with pictures and candles. Most of the pictures on it were of elderly people, strong and dignified in their appearance, somehow looking more intense because of the yellowed stain of the photos and being in black and white. A few were more recent and in color, the hairstyles reminiscent of the ’80s and ’90s. The more recent the photos appeared, the newer the images looked. A scattering of gold and purple flowers, onions, and garlic bulbs littered the table among the burning candles. It looked oddly beautiful, but felt morbid and oppressive at the same time.
In the center of the table was one image that stood out among the rest. A drawing with a dozen long needles stabbed into it, lying flat and unframed. It depicted a woman dressed in something that reminded him of Native American clothes, snakelike fangs in her mouth and an infant clutched in hands that resembled bird talons. He squeezed the handle of the switchblade tighter in his hand, the ridges of the grip digging into his palm.
Something was definitely off.
“Don’t touch anything on there,” Ophelia warned him.
“What is it?” He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the mutilated image. It seemed so morbid for what otherwise was a colorful and pleasant display.
“It’s anofrenda, it’s meant to honor the dead. Though it still being up this long after Dia de Los Muertos is really weird,” she said incredulously. “Did you learn nothing during your time in school?”
“I dropped out, remember?” He frowned at the image. “And I meant this thing in the middle.”
Ophelia joined him next to the ofrenda, pushing him lightly to make space for her in the center of the altar. She leaned in dangerously close to it, her hair daring the open flame of the candles to catch a strand. Her eyes narrowed and she placed her hand inside her coat. “Shit. We need to get out of here,” she mumbled.
Caleb heard something click inside her coat and tensed up. “What? What is that thing?”
“It’s atlahuelpuchi,” she whispered. “To some of the indigenous people in Mexico, the Nahaul, this is their version of a vampire. But this”—she gestured to the needles sticking out of the image—“this is weird. Tlahuelpuchi are usually shameful family secrets that stay hidden, but they are never outright hostile to them. Killing one means passing the curse on to whoever kills it. All this stuff, the onions and garlic and nightshade, it’s meant to repel one.”
Caleb looked from her to the image on the altar, trying to imagine exactly what the creature would look like in real life. “Does that work?”
“No, of course it doesn’t work. We’d have to hire new help in the kitchen if the garlic thing were real. It’s most likely just a handful of vampires who got caught over the centuries and the story morphed into that over time.” She grabbed his arm. “This has Sunshine Brigade written all over it. We need to go right now.”
He froze as he felt something hard press against his spine that made his hands shoot up and splay wide in the air.
Please don’t be a gun. Please don’t be a gun.His heart hammered against his ribcage as his blood ran cold and his knees went slack.
“Okay, kids, turn around nice and slow so we can keep the violence to a minimum,” V said from behind them.
Caleb glanced at Ophelia to make sure she had her hands raised as well before he turned around, making sure each movement of his body was as slow as possible so as not to startle the man holding him at gunpoint. He stared down, his eyes going wide at the sight of what was probably the biggest handgun he’d ever seen. It didn’t even look real—more like a prop from a movie.
“A Desert fucking Eagle? Are you kidding me?” Ophelia laughed, making no attempt to return to the flirtatious cadence she’d sported before. “Are all of you try-hards or what? First that little cunt with the crossbow, now this? If you’re really that small dicked, you know you can just buy fancy convertibles to make yourselves feel better, right?”
“Ophelia!” Caleb scolded through clenched teeth, his eyes trained on V and his ridiculous gun. “Look, I-I don’t know what you think is going on here, b-but if we’ve offended you—”
“Cut the shit, kid. I figured out who you two were five minutes ago,” V snapped. He took a step back, eyes darting back and forth between them as though he couldn’t decide which of them was more dangerous. “The boss should be here soon, so why don’t we skip past the part where I have to shoot this nit over here and you two go sit back on the couch?”
Ophelia let out a caustic laugh that reflected her lack of fear. “You wanna go a little harder on the Colonel Chivington racism, or should we just forgo the euphemisms?”
Caleb only saw V’s lip curl for a moment before he struck out at her, the butt of his heavy gun connecting with her face with a sickeningcrack. She didn’t make a sound. She just stumbled to the side, gripping the ofrenda to keep herself somewhat upright with one hand, her other hand glued to the spot she had been struck.
“Stop!” Caleb shouted. He lunged forward, his instincts taking full control of his limbs.
V thrust the gun back in his face, poking his cheek with the barrel, his eyes filled with fury. “Don’t. Fucking. Move,” he growled.
“Okay, okay,” Caleb said as softly as he could, his hands still up and in front of his face. “Just don’t hurt her, okay? She’s just a girl.”
“You have no idea the shit you’ve got yourself mixed up with, do you, kid?” V pointed the gun at Ophelia, crouched on the ground and holding her face. “That girl has as much blood on her hands as her so-called father and she doesn’t even have a good excuse for it.”
“What the fuck is your issue? Did I kill someone in your family?” Ophelia asked from her spot on the ground. She spat onto the cream-colored carpet, her saliva flecked with blood. “Or did I get one of them killed? Give me their name. I have an excellent memory. I can tell you what their last words were.”
V’s face went from a clammy tan to a shade of maroon that looked like he’d lost the ability to breathe properly. He shifted his attention from Caleb and thrust the gun against the side of her head. “You think this is a fucking game?” he roared.
She laughed. “Honestly? I—” She was cut off as V slammed the butt of his gun down on her hand where it held on to the ofrenda, her words instead replaced by a sharp gasp she sucked in through her teeth. V kicked her in the back, sending her sprawling across the ground with a grunt.
