The Big Reap

6.

The tunnels were nothing short of astonishing.

I’d seen other smuggling tunnels before, of course. Flipping channels past news specials during downtime in fleabag motel rooms. Killing time in waiting rooms reading magazines before killing time. Once or twice in person on a job. But most of those were rudimentary, unfinished — straight shots of a hundred yards or less that, had the cops not busted them before completion, would have been as likely to bury alive those using them as they were to successfully convey black market goods across the border.

These were something else entirely.

Seven miles of interconnected tunnels cut into the sandy soil, all bare-bulb lit and beam-reinforced, shored up here and there with rebar and chicken wire to hold the pressing desert earth at bay. They fanned outward from the bar in four spokes — east, northeast, northwest, and west — each bisected here and there by smaller tunnels at various points. Some of those tunnels led from one spoke to another, yet others to food or weapons caches. A few were designed to confuse would-be pursuers, with camouflaged trapdoors leading to hidden chambers deeper in the earth, or booby traps that could be triggered once past that would collapse the passage behind.

They’d been carved out of the desert over a period of years — men working in secret, under the cover of darkness, carting out tons of rock and dirt hidden in containers made from jury-rigged beer kegs, lest anyone should see. First one main branch, and then another, and then another — the interstitial passageways added over time to allow cartel spotters Stateside to call audibles should there be too much heat surrounding any one outlet point. Eventually, when all the spokes were connected, the system served not only as a conduit for narcotics to cross the border, but also as a safe-house of sorts for cartel agents operating within the US. They could duck into one of the access points and lay low, leaving either from the same place they entered or somewhere two miles away. The freedom to move both across the border or laterally along the US side was key to the cartel’s business plan.

How long the creature had inhabited them, these men had no idea.

It began, as all things do, with stories. Hardened men, chests puffed with false bluster, recounting tall tales over shots of tequila: low growls half-swallowed by earthen walls, the dragging rasp of claws along dirt floors, a plume of hot breath against their cheeks as they navigated the wells of darkness that lapped at the edges of the dim, swinging lamplight of the dangling bulbs. By the light of day, such tales were no more than seasoning, intended to add zest to their self-perpetuated reps. But beneath the ground, in the choking dark of the tunnel system the cartel’s foot-soldiers referred to as Mictlan — after the underworld of Aztec myth — those stories metastasized into something far more sinister in the minds of the men who carried them. Those stories made them quake, though to a one they blamed that on the chill damp earth, so far removed from the sunbaked desert surface. Those stories made them cautious.

Those stories likely kept them all alive.

The first person to disappear was an illegal immigrant-to-be, who’d paid for the privilege of using the cartel’s tunnels with his life-savings before ultimately paying with his life. He was part of a small group — the first such group to be granted access to the tunnels. Sneaking migrant workers across the border wasn’t part of the cartel’s business plan; in fact, it was expressly forbidden. The tunnels were for human trafficking and narcotics, and funneling countless civilians through them — any one of whom might be rounded up by US authorities, only to use the knowledge of the tunnels’ existence as leverage — was a sure way of shutting the lucrative pipeline down. But the men manning the tunnels thought that they could keep their sideline business quiet enough their superiors would never catch wind of it, and make a goodly chunk of change while they were at it.

They were wrong.

The man who disappeared was traveling alone. He gave no name, and scarcely spoke to anyone during his brief, ill-fated journey. In truth, that was not uncommon — most of these would-be illegals were migrant workers, family men looking to send back cash enough to their loved ones to make up for the upfront investment of buying their way across the border. They had no interest in placing said family on the cartel’s radar, for although they were glad to take advantage of these men’s assistance, they were not fools enough to think they could be trusted with the information as to when and where to find women and children left unprotected. Pretty wives and daughters — and, on occasion, sons as well — had a habit of disappearing when the cartel came to town. So when this man vanished from the small group of huddled, terrified border-crossers on his way through the tunnel system, there was no one to complain, to worry, to insist he be tracked down. The tunnel’s minders assumed he must have simply wandered off, and either died down there or found himself another exit. Either way, it didn’t trouble them at all.

At least until they found his headless, eviscerated remains hanging from a cross-beam in one of the lesser-used side-tunnels, nails driven through his splayed hands as though he’d been crucified and left to drain. But the dirt beneath was not bloodied, instead it was marred with the signs of something that had rested there and been dragged off. A tarpaulin, it turned out, which when found was still blood-sticky and looked for all the world like something had done its best to lick it clean. That something left tracks — two by two like a human’s, but dotted here and there with claw marks on either side as if the beast occasionally used all fours — that led deeper into the tunnels, toward a section where it seemed the power to the lights had been disrupted.

Not disrupted, the men discovered, but bulbs broken one by one.

They sent a party of four men armed with lanterns, blades, and rifles in to find out who or what was responsible for stringing up the nameless man. That party never returned. So the remaining men decided to wait out whatever lurked in the darkness. They set guards at the tunnel mouth to ensure whatever it was could not escape, and to kill it if it tried. The guards were found slaughtered as the nameless man had been. Their heads, like his, were never found.

And that’s when Guerrera, rising star within the cartel and the lieutenant entrusted with the day-to-day operation of the Mictlan tunnel system, caught wind of his men’s ill-fated side-business, and decided to step in. Step in he did, killing anyone who’d participated in the unsanctioned border-crossing scheme, and placing charges at the mouth of the creature’s chosen lair — the fetid air that emanated from it now heavy with the sickly stench of rotting flesh, of corruption, of violent, messy death — sealing it off forever. Every corner, every chamber, every blind alley and secret hidey-hole of the sprawling tunnel system was then inspected, and no further sign of the creature or its horrid appetites was seen.

For seven months, there was quiet, and — as the war between the cartels and the Mexican government reached a fever pitch — Guerrera came to realize that ensuring safe passage across the US border could be more than simply a profitable, if risky, sideline, it could be a public relations coup. A service the cartel was in a position to provide that the government could not. A way to influence public opinion that slowly turned the populace so thoroughly against them that even fear could not be expected to keep them all in line.

His higher-ups reluctantly agreed, so long as he oversaw the operation himself.

The bodies found on I-83 represented his first shipment.

What the authorities did not realize is that one of the four main spokes to the system let out a mere hundred yards from where the bodies had been dumped, into a storm drain which ran perpendicular to the highway just below. It was as Guerrera and his charges were exiting that the creature struck. And once it took the heads and hearts it came for, it was into that storm drain, and back into the depths of Mictlan, a shattered Guerrera watched the beast return.

Which meant if I was going to kill it, I’d have to go in after it.

When I told these men — Castillo, Alvarez, and Mendoza, as it turns out, the latter being the only English speaker in the group, and therefore my de facto translator — what I needed from them, they balked. I mean, they were happy enough to sketch out a rough map of the tunnels, for no paper map existed, thus ensuring only those familiar with them could successfully navigate their winding, booby-trapped passageways, marking the location of the collapsed side-tunnel and the storm-drain outlet for me as best they could. And they seemed content to part with grenades and additional ammunition as well. In part because I’d presented myself as an American cartel operative embedded as an immigration officer, and in part because they were so scared shitless of what was down there — and of their post directly above it — that they would have clung to any method for eliminating said threat as if it were a life preserver. And you couldn’t blame them. The tunnel system had only five entrances: one here, and four on the Texas side of the border. Which meant these poor bastards stood a one-in-five chance of being this thing’s next meal once it’s stomach started rumblin’ and it caught on they wouldn’t be sending down any more deliveries.

But when I told them they were coming with me, they weren’t too keen.

Guess the way they figured it, that bumped their odds from one-in-five to sure-fucking-thing.

What they didn’t get was I wasn’t asking.

“I do not understand why we cannot simply blow the tunnels,” said Mendoza, “and bury this beast for good.”

“Yes you do. You know damn well it didn’t work before. What makes you think you’d kill it this time?”

“But you cannot expect us to come with you. It is too dangerous.”

“Funny, you seemed just fine with me going down there all by my lonesome.”

Mendoza shrugged. “Whether you live or die is of less consequence to me.”

“And what of the people who will die if this thing gets loose?”

“So long as I am not among them, it is not any of my concern. I would prefer to take my chances on the surface.”

We were sitting around the wooden cable spool that served as the bar’s sole table, drinking tequila from filthy shot glasses as we spoke. Castillo and Alvarez watched the conversation as if it were a tennis match, occasionally interjecting with rapid-fire Spanish that Mendoza would then translate, or requesting that he do the same of my comments for them. Outside, shadows grew long as the fire of day was extinguished, the sun snuffed out like a spent cigarette by the desert sands. Between the tequila and the thought of the job to come, I was hankering for a smoke something fierce, a jones not helped any by the fact these three puffed away like goddamn steam engines. Which, upon reflection, may have had as much to do with inspiring my little demonstration as did their obvious reluctance.

“Look, I don’t think you get it. Guerrera’s orders–”

“–were heard by you and you alone, and that is not enough to convince us to risk our lives.”

“Is that right? Then maybe I can find other means of convincing you.” I pushed back from the table, toppling the rusty folding chair on which I was perched. Mendoza did the same, drawing a 9mm from the small of his back as he did. Castillo and Alvarez were a half-second behind. Three guns trained on me, and my own weapon a good ten feet away atop the bar.

I raised my hands, all casual-like, and smiled. Mendoza smiled back, predatory and triumphant. We were separated by a good six feet of plank floor, and a table far too bulky to be easily tossed aside. They were armed. I was not. The situation didn’t look too good for me.

Which meant I had them exactly where I wanted them.

“Perhaps next time you choose to make a move, you will first consider where your weapon is,” Mendoza said, cigarette bobbing in his mouth as he spoke.

“Perhaps,” I echoed. “But I figured instead I’d just use yours.”

Mendoza eyed me quizzically. His cohorts looked first to me, and then to him, trying to suss out their next play. Their trigger-fingers were getting itchier by the second, their faces ever more worry-lined.

I drew the moment out as long as I could stand, letting the situation simmer. And then I hurled my meat-suit to the floor. And then I struck.

My consciousness hit Mendoza so fast, I scarcely felt the last meat-suit drop away before I was inside. So fast, the Solares body was still falling when I took control. Solares wailed in fright as consciousness returned to him, and covered his head with his hands, waiting for the shots he was certain were to come.

But they didn’t come. I made sure of it.

Mendoza’s stomach clenched. Bile and tequila splashed his boots. His buddies turned toward him instinctually, and I took full advantage. Castillo was to my right. I twisted toward him, and pressed the barrel of Mendoza’s piece to his temple. His gun clattered to the floor. Alvarez stepped in to stop me, and I buried my hand inside his chest. I grasped tight his soul, gave it a little tug. He squealed like a stuck pig, and then collapsed, eyes showing white, fell so fast I almost failed to release his soul in time.

Woulda sucked if I’d held onto it. The boy wasn’t mine to collect. Though the life he led, my guess is he’ll be somebody’s to someday.

Alverez was out. Castillo stood frozen, eyes clenched in anticipation of my bullet. I was puke-streaked and gasping from the sudden exertion, Mendoza’s smoker-lungs struggling to keep up with the demands I made on them. Which reminded me. I looked around, saw his butt lying in a puddle of sick, more tequila than stomach acid. I ground it out with the toe of his boot. Wouldn’t do to have the place go up in flames. That’d attract all manner of attention I’d just as soon avoid. But it did bum me out to have to waste the smoke.

“Siddown,” I said to Alvarez. “I’m not gonna kill you.”

His eyes widened when I spoke to him in unaccented English, but he didn’t listen. He didn’t listen because he didn’t speak a lick of English, but it took me a minute — and a prompt from my former meat-suit — to catch on.

“You know he can’t understand you,” said Solares, eyeing me cautiously from the floor. His English was less stilted and less accented than was Mendoza’s. His face was no less hard. As I watched, his gaze flitted from me to Alvarez’s piece, which skittered to a spot on the floor maybe four feet from where he lay once I kicked it aside.

“I wouldn’t,” I told him. “You’ll make me do something we’ll both regret.” His attention returned instantly to me. “Now, tell this one to take a seat. Tell him I’m not going to hurt him.”

Solares did as I asked. Alvarez relaxed a tad. Righted a chair, dropped heavily into it, and downed two huge gulps of tequila before burying his face in his hands and crying like a child. I gestured with Mendoza’s gun and Solares took a seat as well. Castillo, still unconscious, moaned and twitched as if his dreams were far from pleasant. Can’t say I was surprised. Can’t say I cared much, either.

“What are you?” asked Solares.

“That’s complicated,” I replied. “And I’ve neither the time nor inclination to explain it to you. What’s important is you, and they, have gotten a taste of what I can do.”

Solares smiled humorlessly. “I suppose we have, at that. What now?”

“I assume you heard what I came here to do.”

He nodded. “You came here to kill the beast below.”

“That hasn’t changed.”

“I would not expect it had,” he said. “And how, precisely, do I fit into this plan?”

I heaved a sigh. “Look, you’re a soldier. You know how this shit works. You must realize I can’t let you leave this place until the job is done. It wouldn’t do to have the Mexican Army showing up and making a hash of things.”

“I’ve no intention of leaving,” said Solares. “Those were my people this creature slaughtered. The very people I am sworn to protect. I would like to help you kill it if I can.”

“I can’t ask you to do that. It’s too risky.”

“Unless I’m mistaken, you were going to bring me along without my consent, were you not? And anyways, you’ve asked these men.”

“These men are drug runners. Human traffickers. Murderers. I’ve no problem risking their lives.”

“I’m a soldier. It’s no different.”

“It’s very fucking different. You’re an innocent. And if I’m not in your driver’s seat, I can’t protect you.”

Solares frowned then, and nodded, as if he’d just come to an unpleasant decision. Which, as it turns out, he had. “Then, as you say, drive,” he said.

Jesus. A willing vessel. As fucking awful as possession was for the possessed, I had to admire this dude’s stones.

“You sure?”

“If it helps you kill this beast, I’m sure.”

“All right then. It’s settled. But not just yet,” I said, patting at Mendoza’s pockets. “Because I could really use a fucking cigarette.”