Luís
Papá’s breath smelled of something strong when he slurred across the dinner table, “Mijo. I thought I told you to take out the trash. It smells.”
It was the first time Papá had mentioned the trash that night, but Luís didn’t question him. He placed the chicken nugget he had been nibbling on back in the box, hopped off his chair, and scurried off to the bedroom to put on his shoes.
Luís was flustered as he tied his laces. The bunny ears weren’t forming and he didn’t want Papá to repeat himself.
“Vaca,” Luís called, poking his head up. He peered across his bed to where his stuffed cow was resting on his pillow. “Help me with my shoes.”
Vaca rose with a drawn-out moo. “Cabezón,” she yawned, circling the pillow and readying herself to resume her nap. “And then you’ll want me to go out there and help you take out the trash, too.”
“Please. I’m by myself. And you know what’s out there.”
“Alright.” Vaca yawned once more, taking her time to stretch it out as long as possible. “Alright,” she repeated, “Let’s go.”
They tip-toed around Papá snoring at the dinner table. The trash bag was in the corner of the kitchen and it was a mountain of a bag. It had grown with each passing day since Papá stopped taking it out.
“You push from that end and I’ll pull from here,” Luís whispered. He pressed his finger to his shushed lips. “Remember: quiet,” he stressed.
Their first attempt at moving the bag caused the bottles inside to shift and fall, and rattle, and clink, and ding. They both froze, wide-eyed and alert. But Papá continued snoring, so they exhaled a sigh of relief. Silently, like sneaky thieves, they dragged the trash bag outside and closed the door behind them.
It was a warm evening that quickly gave rise to a sweat. The summer breeze should have carried a cool floral scent from clothes hanging to dry, but it didn’t. Tonight, the wind swirled the stench of trash.
“If I put you on my shoulders, do you think you can reach it?” asked Luís, nodding towards the pull chain on the light bulb that dangled above the cement laundry station.
“We don’t need it. We’re going to the front.”
“But,” he began. He dropped his voice to a whisper and continued, “They’re out here.” He hunched his shoulders and darted his eyes along the edge of the roof and into every patch of darkness. Yellow still glowed in the sky to the west, but the towering plants and bushes bordering the side yard and driveway cast shadows the creepy things called home.
Vaca sauntered ahead and into the driveway. “Look,” she called back, “I’m fine. Niños de la tierra only come out in the day.”
She had a point. He had always seen them burrowing at the edges of the dirt driveway when the sun was out, but that didn’t mean they weren’t lurking in the darkness out of sight. He shuddered at the thought of the bugs crawling on him and hurried ahead with the trash to rejoin her.
The driveway was long, empty, and pitch-black like a cave. With every few steps, he heard something scuttle across the carport above.
“It’s nothing,” Vaca assured him.
“Or it could be the niños de la tierra.”
“No, it’s the wind shaking the tarp.”
But it was better to be on the safe side, Luís figured, so he quickened his pace, just in case.
At the end of the driveway stood two trash containers. A stale orange light from a streetlamp leaked on to them and illuminated the drowsy buzzing of flies still in flight. The trash belonged in one of them, but Luís was unsure which one.
“I think it goes in the black one, Vaca, but the brown one has trash, too.” He walked around both, considering them. He held his breath for five Misssissippis, then took a huge lungful of air from under his shirt. Luís paused. “It’s got to be the black one, right, Vaca?”
She didn’t reply.
“Vaca?”
He wasn’t carrying her and she wasn’t near the trash bag. But not too far from the trash containers and just a little bit back up the driveway and at its edge was an object the size of Vaca shrouded by the dark. At an impulse, Luís skipped over, relieved. “I need your help,” he said, reaching down and feeling the familiar fur. He returned to under the light to pose his dilemma to Vaca, but before he could explain the situation, he felt a little something tickling one of his fingers. Luís didn’t have to look down. He knew what was crawling on him. He yelped, shook off every creepy bug that could be crawling on his body, and ran back towards the house.
He didn’t go too far before he heard Vaca shrieking at the end of the driveway. “They’re on me,” she screamed. “They’re all over me!”
Luís stopped. He couldn’t leave her behind.
“Luís,” she yelled. “Save me!”
He ran back and saw a niño de la tierra crawling on Vaca. She was hysterical and hyperventilating.
Instinctively, and in one fluid motion, Luís wiggled his shoe off and kicked it up into the air for him to catch. Without a moment of hesitation, he jumped and slammed the shoe onto the bug.
Vaca squealed under the impact.
Luís panted, his nerves tingling.
“The shoe,” said Vaca. “It’s suffocating me.”
Luís removed the shoe and found the remains of the plastered bug underneath it. He grabbed her and shook it off.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“You saved me,” said Vaca, rubbing her belly. “You scared off the rest of them. For now. But they’ll be back.”
Luís, with his shoe in hand, fiercely stared into the surrounding darkness and challenged all that was creepy inside. “We can take them,” he shouted, “Come at us.”
But nothing emerged from the darkness.
The wind swept down, the trees and bushes trembling. The wind swooshed down again with more force; it rushed at them, rustling the trash bag, and swiped some toilet paper from the bag.
“It’s La Reina of the niños de la tierra,” said Vaca, cowering behind Luís’ leg. “She controls the earth, the wind — and the bugs.”
Another current crashed down and blew up the bag like a balloon. As the wind rushed out, it sucked from the bag one of the white sheets from the papel picado banner that had hung, for as long as Luís could remember, above the mantle crowded with photos and keepsakes. The sheet writhed in the air as it ascended and then fell, floating down and down until another gust dragged it into the street and away into the darkness.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Vaca.
But Luis wrestled the trash bag closed and said, “No.” He pulled the bag and shoved it in between the two containers.
“Okay, now let’s go,” said Vaca, jumping into position for a piggyback ride.
The wind grew furious and howled.
Vaca dug her hooves into Luís, trying to spur him to move. “Let’s go. Mush, giddy-up, vamos,” said Vaca, “She’s coming. La Reina, she’s coming.”
Luís didn’t move. He looked up the empty driveway and past it where the porch light barely reached. He could see the dark pockets on the clotheslines where clothes had fallen. The clothes still hanging seemed to struggle to hold on against the wind.
“No, she’s not, Vaca,” said Luís, “She’s not coming.”
© David Urbina 2019
