Hapi by Cari Waites

Jayden hadno idea how long it had been since Hapi had pulled him from the muddy river. The relentless rain made it difficult to tell when it was day or night, and he dozed a lot. He lost track of the number of times he’d woken up and it was pitch black instead of just gloomy, and besides, he might have imagined some of them anyway. Everything seemed darker when he dreamed.

Sometimes Hapi came and walked him over to the house, where he was allowed to use the toilet and wash his hands and face. Afterward, Hapi would take him into the kitchen and feed him.

Do dead people need food?

Jayden dragged his fork through the reheated tinned spaghetti, but he didn’t ask the question aloud. It was a glaring fucking hole in Hapi’s bullshit story about Jayden being dead, but Hapi wouldn’t see it that way; if he and his brothers had done this four times before, there was probably no argument or plea they hadn’t already heard. Jayden didn’t want to make Hapi mad.

The presence of the cat still bothered him. He might have thought he’d imagined it that first time, written it off as some weird dream or hallucination, but he’d seen the cat a few times since. It was definitely the same one from the caravan park.

He swallowed a mouthful of spaghetti and studied the cracks in the surface of the laminate table. They reminded him of crazy paving. Everything in the kitchen was rundown, just like the rest of the house, and so very mundane. It didn’t feel like the setting of a horror movie. Well, aside from that front room with the black floor and the hieroglyphics on the wall.

Hapi was at the sink, starting on the dishes. Cutlery clinked against china. Hapi’s jeans rode low on his hips, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Jayden studied the play of muscles in his back and wondered why it was a spark of attraction he felt, not revulsion.

The fear was still there, always, but Jayden was used to it now. He’d told himself that he was pushing through his fear, but a part of him was scared he’d accepted it. He might have even liked the thrill that went through him when he thought of how easily Hapi could kill him, and yet every hour was another hour that he didn’t. Jayden hoped the fact he wasn’t screaming and fighting Hapi every second of the day meant that he still held some power, and not just the illusion of it.

There might come a time when Jayden would test his power over Hapi, when his life depended on it, and he didn’t know what would happen. He didn’t know if Hapi would choose him, or if he’d choose his brothers and his crazy god complex. Part of Jayden wished he had more time, but he wasn’t sure he’d feel any more confident in a week or a month or even a year. Hapi was too unreadable, too unknowable for him to be certain of what choice he’d make. That mystery was something he had in common with a god, at least. He moved in unfathomable ways.

As Jayden watched, Hapi set a plate in the drainer.

Over the sound of the rain, Jayden could hear the low thump of bass. One of the brothers was home, playing music somewhere else in the house.

The wooden door to the backyard was open, but the screen door was latched. One of the massive dogs was splayed over the top step under the overhang of the roof, and it stared out into the gloomy day; however, its massive ears twitched whenever anyone in the kitchen moved.

The floorboards groaned faintly as Hapi closed the distance between the sink and the table.

Jayden shovelled in his last mouthful of spaghetti and handed the plate and fork to Hapi. Then, he folded his hands in his lap and studied the faded calendar hanging on the side of the fridge. It was still open on July. The picture was a kookaburra. As far as Jayden could see, there was nothing written in any of the squares. He wondered why they even had it, but not too deeply. There wasn’t any point in thinking about the things here that didn’t make sense because nothing fucking did.

Hapi shook droplets off Jayden’s plate and slid it into the draining rack. “Come.”

Jayden followed him to his bedroom.

Thismade sense.

Jayden tugged off his shirt and pushed his boardshorts down.

When everything else was crazy and Jayden was drowning, this somehow made sense.

* * *

The cat grew bolder,coming to sit and stare at Jayden in the gloom of the shed. It stayed just out of reach, and Jayden knew better than to approach it.

“Are you a god, too?” he asked it, unscrewing the cap of the bottle of water Hapi had left for him. “Everyone here’s a god, except me.”

The cat blinked.

“They had a cat god, I think,” Jayden said. “The Egyptians. Maybe that’s who you’re supposed to be. Or maybe you’re like one of its subjects or something. Are you here to be judged, too, or are you one of the judges?”

He almost wanted to laugh sometimes because it was so ridiculous. He couldn’t remember anything much from those primary school social studies lessons about the Egyptians. Why would he? It wasn’t like he’d ever imagined a time where it would matter, and Jayden had never been one of those smart kids who liked to learn just for the sake of it. This one kid he’d sat next to in Grade Three, Duncan, knew every-fucking-thing there was to know about space. Or maybe he didn’t. He’d known more than Jayden, that was for sure, and he never shut the hell up about it. Jayden hadn’t minded because he’d let Duncan talk at him about it in exchange for Duncan sharing his lunch with him. Duncan’s mum had made good lunches.

“Probably the first time I whored myself out,” he told the cat. His ruined voice rasped. “I wonder if that means my heart weighs more than a feather.”

It probably did. It had always felt heavy.

Duncan, earnest-faced, his big eyes blinking behind his glasses, had also been the first boy Jayden had kissed. That had been in Grade Seven, and Duncan had gaped at him in surprise. The next day he hadn’t talked to Jayden. The day after that Jayden had pushed him over in the playground and kicked him, and he’d got suspended for it.

Jayden had been a messed-up kid.

He squeezed the water bottle and the plastic made a cracking sound. “How heavy is your heart, cat?”

The cat blinked again.

Jayden took a sip of water. It hurt when he swallowed and not just his bruised throat, but his strained jaw, too. Hapi had put him on his knees after he’d fucked him and fed his cock down his throat. It had been a new way to choke him, and Jayden’s vision had gone spotty. He’d almost blacked out before Hapi had withdrawn long enough to let him suck in a breath. When he’d finally come, blasting Jayden on the face, Jayden had been swaying on his knees, dizzy and sick, but with his dick throbbing between his legs.

Hapi had hauled him to his feet and pushed him down onto the bed. Then, he’d fingered Jayden roughly until he came, his other hand applying throbbing waves of pressure around Jayden’s throat. Jayden hadn’t even had enough breath to cry out as he came, and the intensity of his orgasm had caused him to blackout for a few moments.

When he’d blinked awake again, Hapi had been pressing kisses to his chest above his aching lungs.

It was hard to remember that Hapi might be his only way of surviving this when he came so close to killing him every time he wrapped his hand around Jayden’s throat.

He screwed the cap back on his water, and set the bottle down beside the mattress. He tugged his shirt up to wipe the sweat off his top lip. He must stink by now, of sweat and cum and mud, but it didn’t seem to bother Hapi. He ran his fingers through his hair, wincing at how gross it felt, dirty and oily at the same time.

“I’d suck his dick for a shower,” Jayden told the cat dryly, “except I already do that for free.”

The cat narrowed its eyes at him.

“So what if this is a kind of freaky purgatory?” Jayden asked the cat. “I catch myself thinking that, and I try to laugh it off because it’s bullshit, right? It’s all bullshit.” He turned the bottle of water over in his hands. “Except then I remember you shouldn’t have been able to cross the river. I don’t know how to explain you, cat.”

He shivered, despite the heat.

“What are the odds there are two cats with the same kink in their tail and the same torn ear?” Jayden asked and then laughed softly. “Probably better than the odds you’re a fucking cat god, right? This being in my own head like this…. I dunno, maybe if I make it out of here, someone will point out how it’s actually super common for cats to get broken tails and torn ears in the same spot, and it’ll make sense because they won’t be fucked up in the head like I am.”

If he made it out of here…. Jayden wasn’t stupid enough to think that survival was a sure bet. The four people who’d come before him, at least one of them must have been smarter or stronger than Jayden. He wondered who they were, and if they’d left holes in the lives of the people they’d known. He wondered if that had made them fight harder.

Jayden shifted suddenly, and the cat darted back into the shadows. Jayden rose to his feet, muscles aching, and then shuffled over to where the tent peg was still lying after Hapi had tossed it aside.

He winced as he bent down to pick it up.

Then he moved to the far side of the shed. The deep shadows there no longer scared him. He heard the cat rustling around in the old car body and figured it kept the place free of snakes. It wasn’t as though a fatal snake bite at this point would be the worst thing that could happen to him, was it?

He rattled around in the shelves for a while, working by touch because it was so dark. He wanted something sharp. Or maybe something he could use to cut his way through the shed wall. Hapi had said the dogs would hunt him down, but wasn’t that a better option than hoping he could manipulate Hapi into saving him?

Jayden had lived in a foster house once where a possum had peeled back a piece of tin on the roof to get into the ceiling. If a fucking possum could do that, what was Jayden’s excuse for not even trying?

He grabbed a star picket and moved to the back of the old conveyor belt, where anything he did would be hidden from sight of the door. He sat down on the concrete floor and wiped his dusty palms against his boardshorts. Then, he braced his feet against the side of the shed and pushed.

The wall of the shed made a cracking sound like his water bottle had, but nothing else seemed to happen. Jayden changed positions and pressed his fingers along the floor, trying to figure out how the walls were connected. He felt a track, like for a sliding door, which was attached to the concrete. The raised edges of the track had rivets where the wall connected which were a good distance apart, and Jayden thought that he’d only need one of them to give to be able to jam his star picket in and use it as a lever. Maybe then he’d be able to peel a section of the wall back, like opening a tin of sardines.

He didn’t know yet if this was Plan B or if it would replace his idea of getting Hapi to save him. Each plan had drawbacks and risks that could end his life. Jayden pushed his rising anxiety away. Options. He was just giving himself options. He didn’t have to think about it now, either what could go wrong or what could go right. He just had to remember to exist in this moment and not let the weight of moments still to come drown him.

He jammed the tent peg against the track and the bottom seam of the wall, and he pushed.

Metal groaned.

Jayden kept working.

His muscles already ached and sweat slid down his scalp. He hitched his shoulder up and wiped his face. The tent peg shifted, and for a moment, Jayden thought he’d done it, he’d made a gap, but then the tent peg struck the concrete heavily. Jayden’s arms trembled with the reverberated shock, and he realised it had slipped out of the track.

He tried again, ignoring the ache in his shoulders.

This time the tent peg caught in the track, and Jayden wriggled the metal back and forth, scraping his knuckles against the wall of the shed. Jayden pushed again and heard a rivet pop. The wall gave way slightly and the tent peg pushed through to the outside. Jayden sat back, gasping for breath, and then he reached out to feel how the wall bowed out. He stuck his fingers through the gap carefully and felt the rain-soaked concrete outside.

A rush of exhilaration went through him. He carefully pulled the tent peg back and replaced it with the star picket. He knelt and took the end of the star picket. He put his whole weight on it.

Metal groaned again and then popped.

He’d busted a seam in the tin! Jayden slid his hand through the gap, careful of the sharp edges, his heart beating faster. He had a corner free now—he’d be able to push it back enough to squeeze through.

He peered out the cracked seam and saw nothing but rain and trees. Trees were good. That meant there was no open ground he had to cross. It was grey and gloomy outside, so he’d work on it more at night, when he was supposed to be asleep and there was hopefully less chance of the brothers wandering around outside.

The chain on the door rattled, and Jayden moved quickly.

He pulled the star picket free and laid it flat on the ground, flush with the wall where the darkness swallowed it. There was an empty fuel can a few metres away—Jayden grabbed it and set it in front of the spot he’d worked on.

He hurried back to his mattress and sat, wiping his sweaty face on his T-shirt, and then grabbing his bottle of water. Would Hapi take one look at him and know what he’d done? Hapi seemed to have that knack. Jayden didn’t want to think of it as preternatural because he didn’t want to buy into any of that, but he couldn’t pretend it wasn’t creepy as fuck.

The shed door opened and a figure stood silhouetted by the rain.

Jayden’s blood ran cold.

It wasn’t Hapi.

It was the brother with the shaved head. The one who wanted Jayden for more than his stomach—Duamutef.

He’s a jackel, Jayden thought wildly as Duamutef stepped inside, and he had no idea where the thought came from.

A grin split Duamutef’s face as he drew closer. He was wearing jeans and a tank top. He was just as muscular as Hapi. He leered at Jayden and said something in a foreign language. His smile grew as he reached down and cupped the bulge in his jeans.

“Hello, ba,” he said. “It’s time for you to play with Duamutef.”

Jayden’s blood turned to ice, and he moved quickly, scrabbling on his hands and knees toward the open door.

Duamutef grabbed him by the back of the T-shirt, hauling him up and then flinging him violently back onto the concrete floor. Jayden’s breath was knocked out of him, and he felt a crazy urge to laugh at the wrongness of that. His breath didn’t belong to Duamutef! He rolled onto his side and tried to get his legs underneath him.

Duamutef kicked him in the stomach, and Jayden saw a flash of white pain. He grunted and pulled his knees up to protect himself.

Duamutef squatted down beside him, his eyes bright and grin wide. “You are too soft, ba. My brother has spoiled you.” He tilted his head. “That ends now.”

Jayden stared up at him through eyes blurred with tears and hugged his throbbing stomach.