Abaddon

Ryley is lost in The Hollow, a labyrinth of alleyways. He’s been deviating in random directions now for an hour, like a mouse in an intricate maze. He’s disoriented by the midnight darkness, unable to tell where the towering walls of the alley end and the nighttime sky begin. Gales push through the brick passage like a wind tunnel; tufts of Ryley’s uncut (and very unclean) hair blow into his eyes. His feeble frame quivers from the cold. The temperature must be around forty degrees Fahrenheit at most—and that’s without the wind-chill. Ryley’s threadbare t-shirt and thin trousers offer little warmth. His fingertips feel frozen, as if crusted black with frostbite, and his nose is numb, running with unfelt mucus.

It’s hard to believe, but right now, Ryley is living his dream.

For years, he had been lurching on the ledge—trying to build the courage—and this morning, he was finally pushed over the edge. Dillon was the little boy’s name, a child Ryley labeled his “best friend”. Every evening, the inseparable pair slept next to one another on the floor of Penn Brook. Ryley became accustomed to hearing Dillon breathe softly in his sleep; it was soothing amongst the wonted sounds of wailing infants and shrieking toddlers. But like so many before him at the orphanage, Dillon became dangerously ill—a high fever flared. It went untreated (Penn Brook’s medicine cabinet was stocked with nothing but dust mites). The empty expression on Dillon’s face was the first thing Ryley saw when he awoke. He shook his “best friend”, but Dillon never snapped from that blank stare. What followed was Ryley watching, through watery eyes, as Dillon’s body was carried out of the orphanage beneath a black bag.

In that sorrowful moment, Ryley knew it was only a matter of time until he would face that same fate. On this dank spring night, Ryley knotted his worn sneakers for the last time as an imprisoned orphan and escaped under the cover of gloom. However, he didn’t leave alone. Onyx accompanied him. The stray black cat had found a home living under the orphanage’s front stoop. Ryley would go outside everyday to play with the cat, pet him mostly. On the very rare days—when Clair’s Dairy Farm would stop by with a generous donation—Ryley would share his small carton of cow’s milk with Onyx. The cat would perch on his lap, and purr with contentment, his whole body vibrated like a well-struck tuning fork. Besides Dillon, Onyx was Ryley’s other great friend. And it seemed as if the cat loved him, too. Onyx would hiss and bare fangs at any other orphans who dared came close to him. Ryley was the only exception. When he approached, Onyx would willingly recede farther into the stoop, as if to say: “welcome to my humble abode”. This made it only natural, in Ryley’s artless mind, to take the cat with him during his escape.

Who else would take care of him, feed and play with him, he thought.

But as Ryley quickly found out, Onyx isn’t a trained animal or loyal house pet. He’s still an untamed feline. Ryley had been carrying the cat during the early stage of their flight from the orphanage. But when his eight-pound frame began to feel more like eighty to Ryley’s underfed arms, he set Onyx down. The cat immediately bolted ahead, then veered down a dark alleyway (perhaps he caught sight of some scuttling rodent).

Ryley has been searching for him ever since.

The distressing thought: Who will take care of him, feed and play with him, kept cycling in that artless mind of his, completely unaware that Onyx has a much better chance of surviving in Abaddon (alone) than Ryley ever would.

He releases a sudden deep sigh of relief; white vapor plumes from his warm breath. He has finally found Onyx. The cat is roosting on a fire escape, lying prone on the metal apparatus.

A noise, a clattering of sorts, travels between the parallel walls. Ryley shambles a bit farther, brushes aside the crop from his face, then spots, through the rising brume of a missing manhole, a shadow. It seems to be a person combing through some old trash. This individual, whomever they are, looks to be severely disfigured. A massive hump protrudes from their upper back. This forces their head to loll, with chin pressed flush against their chest (the posture reminiscent to that of a certain “hideous” bell-ringer). Amongst the clanging of empty cans and scrunching of plastic bags, Ryley hears a high-pitched wheeze coming from this person—from their every exhale, as if a tin whistle is lodged in their trachea.

Unbeknownst to Ryley, he has just encountered—what the populace of Abaddon call—a Scavor. These vile dregs occupy The Hollow, and live off the rotting refuse like rats in the sewer. They also share one trait with pests like the cockroach—when you see one, there’s many, many more lingering somewhere close by.

With a sense of foreboding about the mysterious hunched figure, Ryley was sure to remain in the unobtrusive backdrop. He silently beckoned to Onyx. The feline nimbly leapt from the fire escape, onto the lid of a closed dumpster, then the begrimed ground. As the cat came closer, Ryley released another sudden gasp—one triggered by repulsion. One of the cat’s eyes was missing—leaving nothing but a dark cavity in its head—and the other was opaque, glassed-over, like that of a clouded marble. Patches of black fur were also absent from its face, exposing fleshy, furrowed skin beneath.

It takes Ryley all of a second to realize this cat isn’t Onyx, but that doesn’t stop the feline from being cordial. It meows. The greeting caroms through the alley. Ryley raises his index finger to his pursed lips, imploring the cat to hush. The earnest begging comes too late. The Scavor fires a quick glance in his direction, then comes forth. Stringy hair sways from the Scavor’s liver-spotted scalp as it shuffles on bare, callused feet.

“Hi—I was, um, wondering if you’ve seen my cat,” rambles Ryley, trying to fill the dead air. “His name is Onyx—”

The Scavor says nothing, only stares. Its eyes are soulless, glossy black, like two polished eight-balls. It then reaches into its tattered garments and proffers a half-eaten chocolate bar, one it dragged from the garbage. The foil wrapper is pulled back like a half-peeled banana. Mold covers the exposed end, as if it was dipped in a whitish bristly liquid, then solidified. The Scavor’s noisome breath billows down. It’s rancid, smelling like a skunk’s stink sac exploded in its mouth. The stench is thick, and travels down Ryley’s throat like a scratching finger against his gag reflex. He has the urge to retch, but fights it off.

“No . . . thank you,” he demurs, his voice soft and innocuous.

The Scavor’s black eyes squinch, wrinkles embed within its pockmarked skin. It snorts with irritation from its hooded nose, then grabs a tuffet of Ryley’s hair and force-feeds him the putrid candy.

Ryley writhes, trying to pull away; his cheeks suffuse, flushing red.

“No! Stop! Stop!” he bellowed, his words muddled from obstruction.

Ryley yanks away from the hold at last, wisps of his shaggy hair feather to the begrimed ground.

“Get away from me!” he screams, moldy chocolate residue moves on his lips like a layer of brown balm.

The Scavor shuffles closer; its arms reach out. Ryley feints to one side, then slinks around the Scavor and sprints down the alley. As his spindly legs fleet beneath him, more Scavors begin crawling out of large fissures in the brick walls. A pack is soon in pursuit. Their combined wheeze is piercing enough to shatter glass. Ryley rounds a bend and sees the willowy white coat of a canine, one that almost glows amongst the dank background. As he hastens toward it, the dog pulls its head from a downed trash bin, then bares its long teeth. Ryley halts; his worn sneakers skid on the ingrained pavement. The dog begins to growl; its dark gums shudder; the fur bristles on its back. Runnels of clear saliva drip from its narrow snout. Ryley wheels around. The vile horde is closing fast. Their maws open, visibly longing for Ryley’s flesh. When he retracts his head back, Ryley sees the dog—its snarling wolf-like face—barreling toward him. As Ryley shields his own face with his bony forearms, he feels wind waft past him. He uncovers his peaked countenance to see the dog spring from its powerful hind legs and sink those long teeth into one of the pursing Scavor’s shoulders. The vile creature squeals as the dog jostles its massive head, sinking its enamel-coated razors deeper into the muscle tissue. The other Scavors stop dead and quickly retreat down the alley. Their wheezing diminishes as they disappear into the darkness. The dog unclamps its jaw. The clear spittle on its snout now has rills of red. The hapless Scavor squirms helplessly for a moment, then stands and shuffles away, its injured arm dangling like a loose wire by its side.

The dog’s growling quieted, its shuddering gums ceased, and its bristled fur softened. Ryley was completely nonplussed, his complexion as white as the dog’s coat. The fierce canine trudged toward him, then passed by, returned to the toppled rubbish bin, and continued scavenging. It tried getting its muzzle toward the base, but its hulking frame couldn’t cram through the breadth of the brim. It proceeded to scrabble vigorously, nails heard scraping and scratching against the aluminum. When the dog’s head finally reemerged, it had nothing but dark smuts on its front paws. It abandoned its rummage of the waste-receptacle, then plodded to its home (what Ryley presumed to be its home, anyway), a concavity—hollowed out like an igloo—within a mountainous assemblage of trash. On its way, a torn five-foot rope, one frayed at the end as if it were sawed through (or perhaps chewed through), tows from its tatty cowhide collar. There’s also a circular steely pendant fastened to the thin leather band, just beneath the dog’s tapered snout.

“Kaia,” says Ryley with silent undertone, reading the four-letter word roughly inscribed on the pendant.

Kaia entered her detritus cave, then circled and laid down, her wet black nose buried in the fleece of her long tail. Two eyes—which look like small shiny reflectors—peer out from the dark ingress.

Ryley decides then it’s best to move on, before this truculent canine makes him her next meal. As he passes the downed rubbish bin, he stops, then peeps in, seeing nothing but a single tin at the bottom. The can has an illustration of a tomato—one with a broad smile and bug-eyed—on the paper label. Cooked to Perfection: is scribed in big italicized letters above the beaming caricature.

This must have been what she wanted, mused Ryley. He gives another hesitant regard toward the ingress. Those two glossy lenses are looking back, watching him intently. He crawls inside the cylindrical container, fitting rather easily, fumbles around, then retrieves the opened tin. Two pieces of red fruit lay lumpish at the bottom, covered in the same prickly whitish mildew as that unpalatable chocolate bar (remnants of which are still smeared on Ryley’s wan cheeks). He wriggles back out of the rubbish bin, places the tin—bore facing up—onto the begrime ground, then continues on down the alley—in the opposite direction in which the Scavor’s retreated.

Ryley doesn’t notice Kaia come out from her filthy nook. She watches skeptically, with head slightly aslant and floppy ears folded, as the boy traipses farther away. She then trotted, plucked the tin in her teeth, and receded back to her recess.