by Jerry L
Joe was aghast, “Me stalking you… you are the one stalking me!”
5: The Daily Post
The old man hadn’t slept well so he got out of bed a few minutes earlier than usual. He soundlessly dressed in his usual apparel, flannel shirt, well-worn trousers and moccasins, the tall kind of moccasins that come up almost to the knee. He pulled the trouser legs down over the tops of the footwear, rose and immediately left his shack.
It’s a small place of stone and wood, its windows open to catch the cool night air. The curtains blow in and out with the soft Easterly winds. He is a big man and with a big man’s ground-devouring stride he walks up a little rise, and stops at the top. Its twilight, just before sunrise and the moon is full. .
He sits and watches as the sun appears at the far end of the valley and slowly fills the bowl before him with light. His small dwelling sits high above the valley, and at the end of a path that winds up from the small hamlet of ramshackle houses below.
Off to his left his attention is captured as the sun creates sparkles off of the tall places that mark what’s left of the dead city. Reflection off of what’s left of the windows in the tall places he supposes? The fact that he catches the reflection this far away never ceases to amaze him. Must be the clearness of the early morning desert air, because by mid-morning the heat waves distort and make mirages of anything more than a very few miles away. He has followed this ritual every day of his adult life and he thinks of it as the Sun and its brother the Wind, bringing him the news of his day ahead.
He chuckles to himself as he inhales deeply and he mutters to the old juniper tree behind him and to the left, “As if today weren’t going to be like four or five hundred yesterdays..?” When he was small, his father had the Daily Sun delivered to the house each morning; the irony wasn’t lost on the old man. But his father and that life ended long ago.
Then the old man jerked alert. He tilted his head back and inhaled deeply as he swept his head from side to side. He froze again and matter-of-factly told the tree, “I was wrong old friend, today’s going to be different.”
The old man trotted back to the shack with grace and vitality that was scarcely in keeping with his age and, upon arrival, quickly tossed some things into an old burlap sack. Some of the items are homemade crafts, other items are found-goods scavenged from the dessert floor over the past couple weeks.
Within minutes he was again outside the shack and hurriedly plucking vegetables from the truck garden planted on the sunny side of the shack. He deposited the second sack alongside the first and retrieved an old wine bottle from a depression alongside a pool about the size of a small bathtub. A growth of small trees shaded the small pool. The spring flowed all year round and he had amazed everyone in the valley when he ferreted it out. Fresh water was a rare commodity and as the bottle filled, he muttered to himself as he did every time he visited the spring, “When I’m gone, there is going to be a bloodbath over you my beauty.” He screwed the cap on the wine bottle and carefully slid it into one of the sacks. He removed a length of cord from a pocket, tied the mouth of each bag and carefully tied the sacks together. Scarcely looking around, he slung the sacks over his neck, and gripping one in each hand, started down the trail and toward the hamlet coming to life below.
Day passed to night and still the old one’s passing was distinct to the watcher. He first crossed the trail at the small house down below and even in the dark the story was clear to one who could read it, he came down the trail perhaps at daylight and he was carrying something. Not necessarily heavy, but by the gait clearly visible in the moonlight, somewhat cumbersome. Then too, with the old ones, they weren’t so surefooted. At sunset, the old one returned the way he came, but his scent was stronger. He smelled rank; of cooked, cured pork, and worse, he reeked of the disgusting old female.
Well that one wouldn’t share herself with anyone else and as for the man who had been with her, he’d waited until the hamlet slept and he slashed their throats? But, that pair was in the past, the old man he was tracking would be settled with shortly.
The spring could be smelled from far below and the small shack was no surprise to the watcher, but its exact location became evident only when one topped a small rise perhaps a half-mile to its front. There wasn’t much wind, but the old one’s scent became stronger and it was everywhere. The location was very well chosen. The prevailing wind was from the valley and it carried all the news of the valley with it. Conversely, no sign left the old one’s lair to advertise his presence; it all simply rose to the empty heights beyond. The old one’s scent led to the shack where it was strongest, but a silent circuit showed that he had simply entered by the door and exited the small window in the rear. The scent was also stronger. Could that be the smell of fear?
The scent led farther up the rock face and the tracks were farther apart. The old one scented something and bolted! No matter really! There was nowhere to go and for the old one, it wasn’t really wasn’t a fair match. The end would be quick.
The spoor led slightly higher and the opening in the rock face was almost invisible. It would not have been very easy to follow the old one’s trail except for the give-away, alien smells of the old female and the scent of the pork.
An opening sat above the trail and it had apparently served as an auxiliary shaft or ventilation for some long-exhausted digging. The shaft led to a chamber and amid the ancient smell of man’s work underground, the scent of the old one was very strong in a distant corner. Water dripped somewhere, its noise echoing and re-echoing in the dark. Perhaps this was the source of the spring below.
The watcher had undergone a change as he climbed the trail up to the cabin and by the time he arrived at the small dwelling, the transformation was over. The arms were longer and his body was covered with coarse hair. Each hand and foot was tipped with savage claws and his man-teeth had become highly efficient, deadly wolf-teeth. The Watcher was gone and in his place was a creature from ancient mythology, half-man, and half-wolf.
The wolf-man approached the huddled mass in the corner and growled, “Show you old one! Show yourself and know the name of death I am called He Who Stalks the Night!”
There was a very soft metallic click behind the wolf-man and as he spun, a net fell from the roof. The wolf-man shrieked and tore savagely at the net but to no avail, within moments he was entangled. A second click was immediately followed by soft light. Again the wolf-man roared.
Then, at the sound of guttural words he froze, crouching in the entanglement against which his massive strength seemed puny.
“Know death, He Who Stalks the Night, for his name is Red Mane.”
The sound didn’t come from the mass in the corner but a different part of the room. The old one was huge; his coat was deep red, but streaked and iced in gray.
“I really think it’s the smell of the bacon that throws you off, isn’t it He Who Stalks the Night. There’s no smell of oil or metal.”
He Who Stalks the Night never saw the flash, heard the roar, or felt the silver bullet smash into his brain.
Immediately the body began to change back to that of a man and as soon as it was completely transformed, the huge beast picked up the corpse and heaved it to one shoulder, and then he turned and left the chamber.
The morning was young when the old man looked up from his garden to see a head bobbing up the ridge that separated his shack from the panorama of the valley spread below. Slowly the shoulders and the torso rose into view, followed by the waist, then the lower body, and the rest of Jesus Maria y Joseph Aguillar, as the Mexican huffed and puffed his way into the dooryard of the old man’s shack.
“Buenos Dias Senor Aguillar.” said the old man. Pointing to the small stone bench by the spring he asked “poco agua, mi amigo?”
“Gracias, Jefe.” replied the Mexican, as he plopped his slender frame on the bench.
The Mexican was even older than the old man, and his wrinkled skin was burned brown. He removed his broad-brimmed hat, wipe
d his brow, and dropped the hat on the ground. The old man took a plastic cup from a forked stick placed alongside the spring for that obvious reason, rinsed it in the spring, filled it from the trickle at the head of the small pool, and handed it to the venerable Latino. Jesus Mary y Joseph drank deeply, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and refused a second cup with a wordless wave of his hand.
The Mexican looked the old man in the eyes and said. “Jefe, I come with bad news.” He paused, “Official Business, Senor.”
“Oh?” the old man asked. “Que?”
“A runner came to the village yesterday, late!” “I think you already left the village.” The Mexican answered.
The old man nodded.
The Mexican continued, “He was a young man and on foot. He asked if he could stay in the old jail.” The Mexican looked off into the distance and slowly spoke, “He looked OK, but he must have been sick. He shot himself during the night.” He paused, then continued, “Strange eh? They find out they have the sickness and the first thing they do is run. It’s like they have to find a place to die where nobody knows ‘em.”
Neither man looked at the other, they had seen the situation often enough. The old man nodded his head sagely then softly spoke, “let me get some cheese, and some fresh tomatoes, maybe some onion, we can eat a bit while you rest. Then we’ll go to town.
It was the Mexican’s turn to nod.
The old man rose and almost as an afterthought asked, “Gomez is next in line to get hired to dig the grave isn’t he? He can sure use the work.”
The Mexican jerked his head toward the old man and words tumbled from his mouth, “Oh Jefe, that’s something else. Yesterday him and Fat Trudy made some home brew and sometime last night they passed out in bed. They was smoking something too and didn’t wake up when the mattress caught fire. We found the jugs and the pipes in the ruins, that was about all too.”
The old man again just nodded. Death wasn’t all that uncommon, and it didn’t seem to care if you sought escape in bad drugs, alcohol or simply flight.
“OK, let’s eat, then we’ll go down and I’ll help dig the holes. Sounds like you already did the inquest for me.” Both men rose and the old man placed his arm around the Mexican’s shoulders as they turned toward the shack, “I also have some fresh bread, we’re going to need our strength, three holes, to dig, eh?”
6: The Recluse
Doug was pissed… again… and some more to boot! Telly and the girls were late. For over an hour he had been sitting in his pickup, in the parking lot of a joint that called itself The Texas Star BAR-B-Q and High Spirits. His freekin a/c had shit the bed and it was 110 degrees outside! And, it was HIS freekin birthday! All three of the women had cell phones and none of them would answer his calls!
Telly’s Subaru pulled into the parking lot and Doug could see that all three women were talking on their cell phones! Doug dropped the cigarette butt on the ground alongside the half dozen that preceded it and got out of his truck. Doug shook his head. Telly parked at the entrance to ‘The Texas Star’ and left her car running. There were two parking spots near Doug’s truck . Clearly she ignored them.
Doug walked across the sweltering parking lot and approached the silver Subaru. The girls were still talking on their phones. The driver’s side window was half down. Telly made kissing sounds to her phone and said, “Goodbye, I can’t talk to you until tomorrow, its Doug’s freekin birthday. His LAST one, I hope! Love you… Bye!” She glanced up and saw Doug, “Oh… Hi Doug, you ready for some ‘finger lickin’ ribs? Sorry we’re late.” She had that same guilty-slut look in her eyes that Doug had seen way too often during most of their married life.
The knife twisted in his guts for what he hoped was the last time, “I just got here myself… But something has come up. I got to go. Bye.”
A hard look replaced Telly’s guilty look, “Well… What the Hell? We drove clear over here for this SHIT!” Doug shrugged and she reached over to the passenger seat and picked up a blue envelope. She proffered the envelope through the now completely open window, “The girls got you a card…” Doug ignored the Dollar Store card. She hadn’t even written his name on the front! “Uh we had some balloons but Tawdry let them get away.” Telly added.
From the back seat Tawdry spat, “It was ONE freekin BALLOON Mom! Jeeezers!”
Telly said to Doug, “You going to take the card? I’m not going to hold it all day.”
Doug said, “You should have tied it to the balloons… Balloon. Bye Telly. I won’t say it’s been fun. I’ll come get the rest of my stuff tomorrow.” He turned and walked away.
From the back seat Shadry spoke into her phone, “Ah, just my Mom and Dad! They are so fucked! Shovel dirt on them! Did you hear about Johnny G. and Willa? Oh fuck! Let me tell you first…”
Telly dropped the card on the ground and snarled, “FUCK YOU DOUG! IT WAS A $25.00 GIFT CARD FROM ‘BASS PRO’! FUCK YOU!”
Doug was almost to his pickup when Telly’s car burned rubber out of the parking lot. A car with Iowa plates parked on top of the card and two old people got out. Doug started up his truck. Telly’s new boyfriend was the assistant manager for ‘Bass Pro’.
Doug left the parking lot. Back at the shop, he spun the top off of a bottle of ice encrusted Skyy vodka and lit a Viceroy cigarette, the first from his second pack of the day.
“Happy Birthday Dougy!” He took a drink from the bottle, “YaaaEkk! The Skyy is the limit! That’s good!” Behind the 1950’s red Coke machine he saw a female spider began building a nest. ‘Even the damn bugs are taking over,’ he thought. Doug took another drink and leaned back in the scruffy old ‘Lazy Boy’ recliner, “Happy Fucking Birthday! He took a drink from the bottle, “YaaaEkk! Have another? I believe I will! Thank You Doug… You are more than welcome!”
Doug wasn’t a drunk. Well, he was a drunk now, but hadn’t always been. No Sir! Years ago, when he started the lawn care business he hadn’t drank, but he sure as hell drank now! Back then he and Ledger had started the business with two Sears’s lawn mowers and Doug’s pickup. Within a year Ledger was doing the office work and screwing Telly while Doug and the Mexicans were doing the yard work. A year later they had four trucks and Telly and Doug had Shadry. When, Ledger found out that Telly was pregnant and he had moved on to the first of a number of wives.
As a teenager, Shadry was the spitting image of Ledger, blonde, blue eyed, and horny! They had put her on birth control pills at 12. The girl had gotten the ‘Slut Gene’ first hand from her biological parents. Doug didn’t sleep around… Doug worked! He should have known that Shadry wasn’t his, but business had him hopping and the baby was a blue eyed angel.
The second girl, Tawdry , was his. Doug knew that… Was pretty sure anyway. With a slut for a wife who could ever tell for sure! It occurred to Doug to send away for a couple of those $150.00 saliva tests and find out for sure if either of the girls were his, but that was years later. Besides how would he ever get the girl’s saliva samples? He supposed that it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to have both of the girls spit on him… Not much of a stretch at all!
Telly went to ‘Beauty School’ and graduated without honors. Doug paid for the beauty shop and Telly installed three chairs and rented them out for $400.00 a month which, as manager, she duly spent. Doug supported the shop and Telly added two more chairs. He knew that their marriage was over when the ‘Model Salon Agency’ bought Telly’s shop out and none of the $20,000.00 went into their checking account. The hints started just after Telly met the guy from ‘Bass Pro’.
The odd part was that Doug hadn’t… Didn’t… really give a shit anymore. Two years ago Ledger had been on his way to pay a visit to his black stripper girlfriend when he was killed in the car wreck. After the funeral, the next day Telly had been maudlin drunk when she confessed about she and Ledger’s affair. They had slept in separate bedrooms since.
Telly blamed the split on him since she couldn’t remember confessing. Doug was now, “The insensitive, limp dic
k, bastard!” Whom, “She had never loved anyway! ‘Ledge’ was twice the man he was… Boo, hoo, hoo!” Doug had moved to the shop three months ago. He was going by the house to get his shit tomorrow. Right now, he was getting quietly drunk.
The next morning, he and ‘Biggster’ backed the pickup and the long trailer into the driveway of his old house. Telly had changed the automatic garage door opener’s signal but hadn’t changed the lock on the door. Telly was dumb like that. Doug un-locked the door and raised the three car garage doors and within an hour had the garage stuff loaded.
The five number PIN to the house security system was T-E-L-L-Y now. It had to be something that she could remember. It had been D-O-U-G-S for years. Another hour later, he and Biggster had the rest of his crap loaded. He retrieved the stash of $100.00 bills Telly had rolled and tied with rubber bands inside of the Kotex box. Doug shook his head, “She had the same blue Kotex box for ten years! Give me a freekin break!”
He glanced at the bills wrapped around the rolls of money and removed the rubber bands. Shadry had copied a hundred dollar bill three times, cut them out, and wrapped them around strips of newspaper. Doug laughed and put the rolls back into the Kotex box. The girl was a chip off the old ‘Ledger’/Telly blocks, no doubt about that! She was swimming on the top of that gene pool!
He retrieved his stash from the ‘Modern Geology’ book safe in the den. He knew that his money was safe because Telly hadn’t read a book since ‘Fun With Dick’s Dick’in grade school! He wasn’t so sure that either of his daughters had ever read one! They were the reason that ‘Mc D’s’ had pictures of their food on their menus.
His ‘stash’ was only $150.00 because he didn’t believe in skimming from the business like Telly and Ledger did. But Ledger was dead and Telly would soon be broke, if she wasn’t already. He left the empty ‘Modern Geology’ lying open on the shelf and took the rest of his books.
He was at the shop backing the trailer through the door when Telly called, “Don’t bother to come by the house… Asshole! My lawyer said that the only way you can get your shit was with a Deputy and a court order! You can’t even get your shit from the yard sale that I am having next week end! I got a re-staining order on your ass! Don’t come within 300 feet of MY house, My car, or MY place of business!”