“Foolery. Foolery, Mista Hall.” Tom continued to breathe.
“What are you talking about? I brought the food, like always.”
“The heart. Where is the heart?”
A pit fell into Jordan’s stomach from the very organ Tom drew attention to. “The heart is in there,” he said, “along with everything else.” He knew really that it wasn’t, an underestimation of Tom’s pickiness.
“Liar.”
“Okay, Tom, it’s not.” Jordan dropped the lie, raised his hands, and took a step forward. “I ran out of cow hearts, okay, and I didn’t realize until it was too late to go running into town. Do you know how hard it is to get those on short notice?”
“Needs heart, Mista Hall. Musssst.”
“Tom, be reasonable. There are some good organs in there.”
“Musssst.” The cloak elevated, as Tom leapt straight up and over Jordan’s position into the trees.
Jordan scurried for the flashlight he’d dropped. “Don’t do anything crazy!” he shouted. He flicked on the flashlight and sent the beam to the upright trees. They were shaking violently, but Tom wasn’t visible. “I’m sorry about the heart, okay!”
Tom’s vicious hisses pierced the night air, followed by more rustling, and then a high-pitched squeal. Whatever was with him up in that tree was frantic and in grave pain.
Then the commotion ended.
The flashlight squarely on him, Tom soared through the air clutching a ball of tan fur drenched in blood, his fresh kill. Upon landing, the rodent’s limbs flopped to one side, as it was dropped in front of the bucket. Tom’s wrinkled, white, hairless arm protruded from the cloak, an arm that looked like it had been baked in the sun for a hundred years and then bleached. The fourth finger in a set of five, like an index finger, straightened and began stroking the fur below with a curved nail nearly the length of the finger itself.
“ Lucky heart nearby, Mista Hall. ” The nail now tapped, disappearing on the end when diving into the fur. “ Lucky heart, lucky heart. Next time yours. Or theirsssss. ” All five of the grotesque nails then pressed their tips against the chest. It only took a single thrust to burrow them in deep.
“Don’t you dare say that to me, Tom.” Jordan was more concerned by the words than the butcher’s show occurring on the poor creature at the end of his light. “After all I’ve done for you. They could do the same thing if you’d just give them a chance. If you’d just let them come back with me.”
Tom had found his prize, holding a red ball close to the size of an apricot in his open palm. He tilted his wrist to allow the heart to roll off into the bucket. “ No light now, Mista Hall. Not while I feast. ”
“Are you going to address what I said?”
“ Off. Or two hearts for feasting I need. ”
The light was extinguished without another argument. Tom’s cloak again covered all of him and now the chum. He coughed, and then slurped like one would slurp a bowl of favorite soup.
“ Gooood. ” He added words to the rotation of slurps and coughs. “ Why so afraid, Mista Hall? ”
Jordan had fallen victim to a timid slouch and not realized. “What do you mean? I’m fine.” He stood up straight.
“ More frightened than usual. I can smelllll it on you. ”
“Nonsense,” Jordan said, calm-voiced but wide-eyed and mouthed. He scraped his foot against the dirt, trying to drown out his breath in case it began shaking.
“And your heart beats faster. I can hear it in my head. So deliciously fast it beats.”
“You’re lying. I’m not afraid of you.” Jordan’s foot scraped a bit louder.
“ Worry not, tasty treat. Hearts are safe for now. I am filling. ”
“Thank you God,” Jordan whispered out of instinct, looking up, sighing so briefly that it could’ve been misheard as blades of meadow grass rubbing together.
“ You are welcome, Mista Hall. ”
A bout of claustrophobia came over Jordan. Tom didn’t always speak that way. The forest was uprooting and inching closer, at least so it felt, until it was mere feet from his nose. He’d never felt more like a trapped toy, some plaything that Tom tossed about and let fetch food. Laziness—not a trait reserved for people, nor was entitlement. Jordan had no more power than the rodent whose intestines hung out of the second of three pieces it had been torn into. Doubts crept in as to whether or not he made the right choice in staying. He wanted to leave Beekering Woods and go home, to his real home at school, with classes and girls and football games. But, it had been his idea to leave campus for the weekend, and he couldn’t in his life abandon Pete and Stryker.
He dropped the flashlight and reached both hands into the back pocket of his shorts. The mild roughness of the denim felt good, made his hands warm, so he let them rest there while he awkwardly swayed on his tiptoes and heels. Then he scratched his face and the cheeks that hadn’t seen a razor in nearly a month. Tom’s slurps were decelerating still.
“So Tom…” Some nights asking the question was simple, and others it was beyond difficult. He was dealing with the latter.
The hood lifted slightly from the bucket. “ Yes? ”
“I was… see, I was going to ask…” Jordan couldn’t help but let loose the chain on his breathing. The anxiety was proving too much.
“ Just ask what you need to, Mista Hall. Asssssk what you always ask. ”
“I…” His chest tightened. He bent over and clutched his knees, and all appearances were promptly lost. Hyperventilation took him.
“ Assssk. Scared little bird. ” The laugh, deep and monstrous, came alive with choppy bursts of vocals that soaked through Jordan’s skin. There was only so much young men could take.
A tear hit the flashlight, and then another the ground next to it. “I can’t.”
“ Ask! ”
“No.”
“ Ask or I’ll kill them now! And you! And spray all the insides through this forest! ”
Jordan fell to a knee. “Please not tonight,” he whispered under Tom’s uproar. “Please don’t make me.”
“ Do it now! ”
The pounding of hands and feet on solid earth moved closer. Tom was crawling toward him. Jordan dared not look up, instead dropping down even lower. The smell strengthened with each passing thump that drew closer. Jordan closed his eyes once the scuttling halted, so tightly that he could feel his eyebrows rubbing the tops of his cheeks. Tom’s breath swept across his neck. It was ice cold.
“ C’mon pal. Just assssk your old friend Tom. ”
“Can I see them?” The question finally came forth.
“ See who? ”
“My friends. I want to see Jordan and Stryker.”
“ You know the price. ”
“I do. Let me see them.”
A curved claw wrapped itself around the collar of Jordan’s shirt, exposing more of his flesh. “ Agreed. But after I collect my feeeee, Mista Hall. ”
The pain was abrupt and searing, directly above his right collarbone in the meat of his shoulder. There was immense pressure as well from the fangs pushing deeper and deeper into his flesh. Jordan wriggled and winced and felt for the flashlight so he’d have something to squeeze. No luck, so he scooped up a wad of dust and squeezed until his knuckles cracked. The pain surrendered mildly to a swishing sensation once Tom began to feast.
“That’s enough.” Jordan choked out the command. The discomfort wiped him clean of some fear.
“ Little more, ” Tom replied, muffled with his voice.
“I said no!” Jordan leapt backward. Another intense pain surged, as the fangs were removed from his shoulder, and he hit the firm ground six feet away. He rapidly patted down his shoulder, blood soaking into his shirt, to release the agony while the dust clouded from his retreat. His bun unraveled, and hair was tangling in his hand and taking its turn soaking up some blood. The cloak and hood slowly started to rise. Jordan disregarded the bite. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said.
Tom kept rising.
Tom was standing tall, his dark hood no less than eight feet above Jordan. His arms were so unnaturally long, as they hung down near the ground even from such height, out of the loose cloak sleeves that only made it halfway. He raised his bony hands, and those claws pinched the edges of the hood and began to pull back the cloth. Jordan was mesmerized and unable to divert his gaze, a bug flying toward a bright, blue bug zapper, hoping he’d survive. But, the surviving part was now out of his hands.
The hood was completely off, and the moonlight bathed what had been hidden for several nights. Tom was hairless and earless and had the same white, wrinkled skin up there as was on his arms. He had giant, green and black eyes, the size of oranges. He blinked at Jordan, then blinked more due to the dust, with eyelids that closed from the side the way one would close a book. There wasn’t much of a nose to speak of, just three horizontal slits in the middle of Tom’s face that spewed droplets of blood as they expelled air. The lower portion of his face was covered in blood, especially his mouth, which was shut and concealing all but four teeth. They jutted down from his upper lip over his chin, shaped like stalactites in a cave. Jordan’s own blood ran off them.
“Don’t kill me,” he said. “Please.” Around the hands half-covering his face, Jordan stared below the terrible sight at Tom’s neck and the least human structure on him. It was a rectangular hole about three inches wide.
“ Yoooouuuu… ” Tom’s mouth didn’t open, however the edges of the hole in his neck vibrated while the voice oozed out. Some blood ran into it. “You.” The second word was scratchier. Tom extended a finger downward.
“Please, I beg you.”
“ Mista Hall, do you know how long I’ve lived here? ”
Jordan hesitated, surprised he was still conversing instead of dying—not to mention the disorientation from hearing words accompany a sealed mouth. “No,” he said. “How long, Tom?”
“ Guueeessss. ” Tom’s eyelids fluttered before narrowing. They covered the black, leaving only the vibrant green, potentially beautiful on another.
“Longer than Mr. Beekering?”
“ Miss. Miss Beekering. And yessss, longer than her. Longer than that den you and your kind like to visit. I rested in the trees and watched them build it alllllll those years ago, watched the sweat and blood pour off the delicious skin, waiting to be tasted. So many people… so many feasts… yet so few like you. ” Tom lowered himself again, bringing the stench with him.
“Like me?”
“ So willing to serve me for hope of a miracle. Others in your delicious skin have fled. Others have tried to bring help. Nineteen moons later, here you are. Bringing me feasts, hoping against noooooo hope. Inevitable: the word I love most in your language. The word you humans hate. So elegant. So certain. ”
A spark lit inside of Jordan. A surge of bravery, or perhaps delirium from blood loss and noxious smells. “Nothing has to be inevitable, Tom.” He got off his rear to a knee to look Tom straight in the face, tasting his breath. “Not even you.” The blood was so close that Jordan could feel the warmth radiating off of it. Talking with Tom was often an exercise in battling millions of years of programmed instinct. A human would’ve ran, was supposed to run from such danger to survive, yet Jordan kept on staring at the twinkles dancing in his giant eyes.
The vocal hole, a foot from his face, jarred and pulsated while Tom softly chuckled. “ Go see your friends, braaaaavest of brave boys, before I rip off your puny little arms and feast on the rest of you through their sockets. You have thirty breaths. ” Tom stood and turned, showing only his cloak and the triangular vertebrae that protruded from the flesh on that side of his neck. “Goooo now. ”
There was that old, dormant instinct again, back to set things right, as not a moment was wasted in grabbing the flashlight and darting into the mouth of the cave. The moonlight left, and all Jordan had was his single beam in the darkness. Flashes of moss whizzed by, illuminated by yellow light, and then worn, chipping bark, and shards of a creamy white color. Bone, no doubt.
“Guys, are you there?”
After seconds in a crouched sprint, the skinny, naked figures appeared with the end of the tunnel as a backdrop. There was never getting any more used to seeing the ties, broad blindfolds, and moss and twigs as gags on Pete and Stryker, so intricate in their ability to cut off movement and senses. Pancake-sized, dark stains of dried blood covered their pale shoulders in the same spot where Jordan throbbed.
“I’m here! I’m back, guys.” There were grunts, cries for help. Jordan got to Stryker and the red ball of hair on his chest first. He struggled to pull down the blindfold, as it was tighter than skin tight, pressing mercilessly against Stryker’s eyes and the large bump on his nose. Once uncovered, his eyes were beat red and stared widely at him with every hope Tom spoke against.
The same help was then given to Pete, but no more for either of them. Removing the dirty gags or ties wasn’t realistic in the time given.
“Hey guys,” Jordan whispered.
Pete and Stryker both gave him those “save me” looks of longing. They wriggled as well, so desperate to escape like captured animals. And, they looked the part, too, with a lack of grooming and nourishment beyond even Jordan—the kind reserved for slaves and half-eaten meals, and those doomed to be both. It nauseated Jordan. He wanted to bawl and wail and curse the heavens, but he stayed strong. “I’m going to get you both out of here,” he said, only a minor choke in his voice.
They continued to squirm. Pete was so frenetic in his pleas that gobs of bloody snot, gold and red, with sheen of mucus, were flying out of his nose.
“I’m working things out with it. I’m making progress. I’ll get you out, no problem.”
“ Time is up, Mista Hall! ” The call rushed in from outside.
The hysteria intensified, as Jordan watched his friends’ faces disappear when he reapplied the blindfolds. The striations in their flexing muscles were prominent. They were trying so hard to get free, but Jordan knew better than to make Tom ask twice. “We’re going home soon, guys,” he said. “I promise.” Then he was off back to the entrance, leaving Pete and Stryker to rot in the darkness. He hoped that he’d again see them alive.
The moonlight offered no comfort. Jordan stepped out of the cave just as hesitantly as he had on his way in, more so even, and he moved for the chum bucket. It was now under a full coat of red, not a speck of its cream color to be seen.
“ Don’t forget the heart tomorrow. ”
Jordan spun to see the same, devilish black and green eyes, and the jagged teeth perched up high on top of the mount of fallen trees.
“ And remember. Any help from your kind, orrrr if you do not come back. Your friends get feasted dry. No fun business from you. ”
“It’s funny business, Tom. FUNNY business. Nothing fun about this. Or funny.” Jordan shrugged, bucket in hand, before starting his walk toward the tree line. How he wanted to set fire to that pile of useless wood and then the entirety of Beekering Woods. However, as Tom mentioned with his grammatical inaccuracy, he held the ultimate trump card of flesh. As long as Pete and Stryker were held captive, all Jordan could say was what he said at the conclusion of every night. “See you tomorrow, Tom.” He walked face first into a gateway of thick shrubbery, choosing a few more scratches over another look back. Given the condition of his shoulder, a date with a well-stocked med kit was imminent either way.
The word waiting was all Jordan could make out from Tom through the branchy crackling, and then it was back to hiking, gagging, daydreaming, and eavesdropping on those talkative trees and their laments over fallen friends and yearning to sit in a young, lively forest just once more.
INVINCIBLE?
by Edward Turner III
My eyes open and I look around. A hospital bed surrounds me. I sigh, how long had I been out this time? What had I done to end up here?
Oh that’s right, the damn truck.<
br />
I had a truck run into my head. I was sure that the truck, going at those speeds and slamming me into the concrete wall behind me would surely kill me, but alas, I am the Invincible Man.
I sat up, the pain spinning in my head for a moment. Maybe that was a good sign, I wasn’t fully healed yet, I might finally be reaching the limits of this so-called invincibility. How could I up it? A plane? A tank? Three years of trying to end my life and I was finally making progress.
Something was beeping next to me and a woman walked into the room. She smiled at me and said, “Good evening, I am Jade, I will be your nurse this evening.”
“How long have I been here?”
“The accident happened yesterday morning.”
I smile, “It was no accident.”
She sits down on the bed next to me, “I know, look, I know who you are.”
“That obvious?”
She laughs, it is an all knowing laugh, “I am Teddy’s wife.”
I nod, this is big news, Teddy is one of the greatest men I have ever had the chance to meet. A super hero if anyone is ever meant to be called one. His strange suit enabling him to compete with even the strongest of villains.
“We met when he was out injuring himself all of the time, only his accidents were not on purpose.”
I nod, “Good ol’ Teddy.”
She looks at me, “Can I ask you something.”
“Of course.”
“Why are you trying to do this? You have made such a difference in this world, why are you trying to end it?”
“I lost my family. They died in the fire that should have killed us all. I should have died with them. I don’t deserve to be here without them. I see no reason to carry on without them.”
“I am so sorry that happened, I really am. Tell me about them.”
I know she is tricking me, she is trying to go the old psychologist route, but I let it go. “My wife Shannon, she was a beautiful intelligent woman who always talked me out of showing the moron I am inside. My son Orville was a feisty little man always riding his bike a bit too fast and avoiding his school work a bit too much. My daughter, my daughter.” I stop. I grab my head, feeling the still indent where the truck had slammed into it.
Kzine Issue 20 Page 10