Only the Devil Is Here

by Stephen Michell

  Kicking up snow, churning his path into an unmistakeable sign of his flight, he felt in his heart that this was his life now. It felt like a dream, familiar and unbelievable, but it was no dream. Not anymore.

  Here he was. He could see himself. Running.

  It’s real, he thought. It’s happening.

  He ran blindly, and the trees and the lights and the baying of the dogs were nothing but past ideas of things he’d once known. He ran without breathing, unable to stop, unable to hide, for nothing, not ever, would conceal him again nor offer him refuge from this world that had risen like the monsters from his secret nightmare to hunt him for all time.

  He crossed a clearing and entered another thicket and ducked below the first branches. He darted between the trees in a sweeping serpentine motion and coming around a broad-reaching spruce, he turned and collided straight with a man’s rear end and fell backwards on his butt in the snow.

  Right away, he looked up and hoped and prayed for it to be Rook. But it was not. The man turned around, and he was tall and broad-shouldered. He wore a dark toque and a beige, waist-length coat with a thick fur collar. Evan could see little of his face. His hands were in his jacket pockets but at that moment he pulled them out and scratched the back of his neck.

  “Shit,” he said. “You all right, kid?”

  Evan said nothing. The man’s face was little more than a round shadow leering over him.

  At that moment a second man stepped out from between the trees and joined the first. His shadowed form was slighter and shorter and the side flaps of his toque bounced as he walked like some long-eared dog.

  “What’s that, Al?” the second man asked.

  “It’s some kid.”

  “A kid? A boy or a girl?”

  “Don’t know. Just ran smack-dab into my ass.” The man called Al turned to Evan. “You okay, kid? What you doing out here? You lost?”

  Still Evan said nothing.

  “You lost, kid?”

  “Hey, Al,” said the second man.

  “What were you running for? Someone chasing you?”

  “Hey, Al—”

  “What?”

  The second man stepped up close to the first. He cupped his hands together over his mouth and leaned against the first man’s ear and said, “Christmas come early, eh?”

  “Get off me,” Al said and pushed the little man back. Then he turned again to Evan and stepped once forward and squatted. “Hey kid, listen, what are you doing out here?”

  There was faint moonlight coming through the canopy and Evan could see the man’s face a little better. He had a wide brow and it was creased in the middle like he had been thinking hard about something for a long time. The centre of his face was bowl-shaped and shadowed, as if his eyes and nose and top lip were all sunken back into his head. Evan had never seen any face like it and in a past life it might have frightened him. Through the gloom he saw the light blue colour of the man’s eyes and they had a clear and thoughtful quality.

  Evan said, “They were chasing me.”

  “Who was chasing you?”

  “The police.”

  “The police were chasing you? You running from the cops, kid?”

  Evan said nothing.

  “Well, listen. I’m Al. I got a place not far from here. Why don’t you come on with us? Get out of the cold. Get something to eat. I got a car, too. I can take you wherever you want to go. How’s that sound?”

  Evan looked down at his hands, bright red in the cold. His face was streaked with tears and his cheeks were stinging. His butt was wet from the snow.

  The man waited. He looked once over his shoulder to his companion and then he turned back and regarded Evan singularly. His broad torso remained very still and his legs were sturdy and it seemed he could have squatted there for hours. His breath was soundless, like he lived without breathing at all.

  After a while, Evan nodded. “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay,” Al said and clapped his hands together. “Let’s get you out of this darn cold. We got a big stew on. Then we’ll drive you anywhere you got to go.”

  He stood and offered his hand to help Evan up, but Evan ignored it. The other man stepped forward and leaned close to Al.

  “What about the traps?” he whispered.

  “We’ll come look tomorrow. Let’s get the kid in.”

  The smaller man nodded and grinned and his gums showed above his teeth in the moonlight. They both turned towards Evan and looked down at him as he stood and patted the snow from his butt and rubbed his hands together. They watched Evan with eager smiles hidden behind the shifting shadows of their faces.

  The two men led Evan a few kilometres northwest along the escarpment. The pinewoods cleared to open fields, flat and snow-swept and dark under the clouded night sky. From the distance, the noise of the highway hummed but their path itself was silent. They did not talk. Al led the way and Evan followed and the other, Kinny, walked in the rear.

  When at last the cabin was in sight, Al let out a breath and said, “Home sweet home.”

  At first, Evan failed to see it. The cabin was small and covered in snow with makeshift shutters over the windows, and a small trace of the inner light shone out. A crude chimney pipe stuck up from the roof and Evan could see a trail of smoke escaping.

  They approached from the east and came around to the cabin’s sole entrance. A plain wood-framed door on brass hinges. The men stopped and shook off their toques. There was a blue tarp attached at the right of the door, tied taut between four posts, with a pile of felled pine logs underneath that were dusted with snow and damp. Looking past the entrance, Evan saw a big white van with black windows parked under a tree. Another smaller car sat just beyond the van, but it was buried in a snowdrift to the point of near invisibility within that wintered landscape.

  Al unlocked the cabin door and swung it open and waited to its side like an usher. Evan hesitated on the threshold. He turned and looked back across the clearing, expecting and hoping to see Rook appear from the far woods and call him away. But the darkness held nothing save the drift of the snow in the wind and the erasure of their tracks. He turned back to the open door and the inner light, warm and welcoming as the smell of the cooking stove, and he stepped inside. Al and Kinny stepped in after him, and Al closed the door.

  It was a shabby, two-room cabin built for the necessities of small-game hunting and little else. Right away, Evan could smell the stew in the air, taste it on his tongue. His mouth watered. There was a pot on the top of the wood stove, a full fire blazing within, and Evan watched the steam rising from the pot in streams of flavour swirling up through the air. The kitchen table was set with bowls as if to catch the steam as it thickened and tendered and dripped like gravy. Evan’s hunger led him farther in.

  The table was handmade out of wood planks, as were the counters and shelves that lined the walls, mismatched repurposed lumber full of many nails. Everything was covered in a fine layer of dirt or dust or grease, the sight of which somehow increased Evan’s appetite. It was like being inside some butcher’s rustic cookhouse. The dense air, trapped within the shuttered windows, drifted from the kitchen into the second room to coat the sheets and blankets of the bunk beds therein.

  “Are your feet wet?” Al said.

  Evan started as out of a daze and looked up at the large man. Then he looked at his feet. He nodded.

  “Well, get those boots off and we’ll hang your socks over the stove.”

  Al crossed the room and took off his tan jacket and hung it on the wall from a hook of antlers. He picked up what looked like a big green and brown blanket and swung it over himself and his head came through a hole in the middle and he wore it loose over his shoulders and it covered his body to his knees.

  Evan took off his boots. Beside him, the smaller man, Kinny, was bent over at the waist, unlacing his own boots. Evan could hear the man sniffling. When Kinny had his boots off, he stood and wiped his hand across his nose and then across his pant le
g. He grinned at Evan through his red patchy beard and his gums stuck out dark and pink. His right eye seemed like it was looking off to the corner of the room.

  Al came over. “Give me those wet socks,” he said.

  Evan peeled off his socks. The floor was freezing on his bare feet, but he handed his socks over to Al anyway. Al held them at an arm’s length and pinched his nose dramatically, smiling like a clown. A smile broke on Evan’s face.

  “There,” Al said. “That’s what I wanted to see. Come on and sit down.”

  Evan went around the side of the table and sat on a wooden bench that was little more than a tree trunk hewn in half. He pulled his feet up and gripped his icy toes. At that moment, a young girl came out of the second room. Evan looked up at her.

  She was much younger than the two men, fourteen or fifteen, and yet Evan thought she somehow seemed very old. Her red hair was pinned up at the back and she was wearing a grey-green dress with a white shirt underneath rolled up to the elbows and a pair of dirty jeans and an apron. She went straight to the wood stove and picked up a wooden spoon and stirred the pot. Evan wanted her to turn around so he could see her face again. He was sure there was something unusual about her face and he wanted to know what it was.

  Kinny went away into the second room. Al sat across the table from Evan and watched him. Hardly moving at all, he leaned down to the shelf at his side and lifted out a large clear jug with a rubber stopper and set it on the table.

  “A glass, Mother Maeve,” Al said.

  The girl at the stove took a tin cup down from the shelf and crossed the room and set it on the table before Al. As she came, Evan looked up and saw her face clearly. He stared for a moment, and then he looked away.

  Maeve’s eyes were small and dark and her nose was upturned like the snout of a pig. Evan felt funny looking at her for long. She must have been in some kind of an accident. A scar ran from her top lip to below her right eye, slicing through her nose so the cartilage had healed strangely and curved upward. She glanced at Evan once, catching his eye. Then without a word she returned to the stove.

  Al popped the stopper from the bottle and tilted it on its side and filled his cup. When the sharp odour came across the table, Evan put his head down as to avoid it. It reminded him right away of his foster parents. First that smell, then they got loud, and then they got mean. All at once, Evan wished he had never come with these people. He wished he had stayed outside in the cold and dark where he could run away. He looked to his socks hanging over the stove. They seemed very far away.

  Kinny came back from the other room. When he saw the bottle on the table he stopped and made a knowing face and went out again. Then he came back carrying a clay cup and he sat down at the table beside Al. Evan saw letters etched on the side of the clay cup: KINNY’S. Kinny reached for the bottle but caught himself and looked at Al.

  “Can I have some?” he asked.

  Al said, “Well, I don’t know, Kinny. Can you?”

  Kinny’s small brow furrowed. He said nothing.

  “You got to say ‘may I,’” Maeve said.

  Kinny nodded and then giggled. “Oh, yeah. May I have some?”

  “Of course.”

  Kinny slid his cup close to the bottle and tipped it over and poured. It trickled down the side of the bottle and pooled on the table. Al watched the pool, watched it start to sink into the wood. When Kinny finished, Al slid the bottle away and then dabbed his forefinger in the spill. He stuck his finger in his mouth.

  Kinny sipped from his cup and looked sideways at Evan. Maeve stopped stirring for a moment and straightened her back and turned her ear as if expecting some higher presence to speak. Kinny saw her. He jumped up and crossed to the stove and looked over Maeve’s shoulder.

  “Did you keep the fat like I asked you, Mother Maeve?” he asked.

  “I got it warming,” Maeve said, tapping the rim of a small cast iron frying pan with the wooden spoon.

  Kinny sniffed at the steam from the stove and licked his lips. “Oh good, Mother Maeve. Oh goodie.”

  Kinny turned around with a grin on his face, then returned to the table and sat. Next to him, Al was staring straight at Evan, his blue eyes unblinking. He dabbed his finger once more in the spilled liquor. It had all but seeped into the wood. He raised his finger and put it into his mouth. Then all at once he retracted his finger and shifted in his seat.

  “So kid,” he said. “Why were you running from the cops?”

  Evan said nothing.

  “Yeah, that’s okay,” Al said. “You don’t have to tell us. Anyway, I hope you like rabbit.”

  “I was kidnapped,” Evan said.

  The small room fell quiet. Kinny glanced at Al over the rim of his cup.

  “You were kidnapped?” Al said. “By whom?”

  “His name was Rook,” Evan said. He seemed all of a sudden to be on the verge of tears. “He came and took me away from the apartment in the city. He said I had to do what he told me. He said if I didn’t do what he said he would kill me, but he was lying, because . . .” Evan wiped his nose with his sleeve. “Because when the mean people came after me Rook stopped them. He didn’t let any of them hurt me. He protected me. But then . . . but then I thought we were safe but the cops found us, and Rook told me to keep running and I heard the gunshot. They shot him.” Evan hung his head and wept.

  Maeve had turned from the stove to study Evan. In a revelatory tone, she said, “You’re the one on the news.”

  Evan sniffled and looked up. Maeve was staring at him like he was the only thing in the room. She held the wooden spoon in her hand. Her small dark eyes were wide and her mouth was open, sincere and shocked and somewhat marvelling.

  “I heard about you,” she said. “Everyone’s out all over looking for you. The Toronto police, the Hamilton—” She stopped.

  Al had turned in his seat and was regarding her thoughtfully. When she saw him, she closed her mouth and looked at the floor. Her whole body stiffened as if something had cooled her blood.

  Al crossed his arms over his chest. He asked, “You heard about this kid? Where did you happen to hear about him, Mother Maeve?”

  Maeve’s mouth was tight and she breathed through her nose, her expression grave and hiding. Finally she said, “I just popped out to the van for a minute. I was looking to see if we had anymore chicken wire and I started it up just for the heat. That’s all. The radio just came on. I swear.”

  “And you listened to it?”

  “I just heard it while I was looking in the back.”

  “Go to bed, Mother Maeve,” Al said.

  “I swear. I didn’t—”

  “Go to bed. Now.”

  Maeve turned and dropped the wooden spoon into the pot and rushed into the second room and pulled the hanging curtain closed.

  Al finished his drink. Then he took one of the bowls from the table and went to the stove and stirred the pot once and ladled stew into the bowl. He grabbed a metal spoon from the drawer and returned and set the bowl in front of Evan on the table.

  “It’s hot,” he said. “Might want to wait a minute.”

  Evan had stopped crying. He sat very still, dried tears on his cheeks. He could smell the stew in the bowl in front of him and as before his mouth watered. He looked down. It was a greyish brown colour, like sludge, mostly potatoes and thin slices of meat. Rabbit meat. He lifted the spoon and blew on it and then ate hungrily.

  Across the table, Al poured another drink. Kinny sat in silence, still sipping from his cup. They both watched Evan eat.

  “Have you ever hunted?” Al asked.

  His mouth full, Evan shook his head.

  “I hunt regularly,” Al said. “Well, I suppose you’d say I trap. I don’t stalk the animals or chase after them. I set traps. And I don’t use a gun, either. When I get an animal in one of my traps I kill it with a knife. I don’t shy away from it. That moment. I don’t shy away at all. I look the creature right in the eye and I say, ‘I have caught you. I am a hu
nter and it is in my blood to hunt you and catch you, and now I have. Finally we have met each other as by our bloodlines we were destined to.’ And I don’t break the eye contact, not even when I slide my knife across the throat. That’s real important. To watch that part. To see the life go out and to let that life see you taking it. It’s something human beings have forgotten. That relationship between life and death. When you watch it, well, it’s like life and death are screwing. But you don’t know much about that.”

  He winked and emptied his cup in one gulp and refilled it.

  Then he went on. “It’s something crucial to us as a species. That relationship. I mean we are killers. The ‘human being’ is a hunter and hunters kill. That’s what we are naturally. What we are supposed to be. It’s in our bloodlines. And you know why? You know why we’re hunters?”

  Again, Evan shook his head.

  “Because it’s a game of intelligence. It requires a mind. Humans naturally excel at hunting. At least we did a long time ago. Now . . . I just don’t know.” He studied his tin cup for a moment. Then he said, “I use traps because a trap is like a human—”

  “A trap is intelligent,” Kinny said, echoing words he had clearly heard before.

  “I’m speaking,” Al said.

  Kinny looked at the tabletop.

  Al waited. Then he said, “A trap is intelligent. It’s like a mind, waiting to spring. It’s an extension of the hunter. Sure, some say trapping isn’t hunting, that real hunting needs a rifle and a hunting dog, but that’s just sport. Aiming and shooting a gun isn’t intelligent, it’s mechanical. It’s lacking in nature. But a trap . . . now a trap is natural. For thousands of years our ancestors chased animals with rocks and sticks, but only when they learned to set traps did the human beings start to take over the world. A trap is the essence of intelligence. Human beings need to remember that.” He filled his cup once more and gulped it and then swept his hand out as if over a vast expanse. He said, “Right now everywhere humans are stupid. They need to remember their intelligence, their struggle. Life is a struggle and humans need it to thrive. Right? The hunter struggles always, and his increase in intelligence is his reward. But right now we just coast around from life to life just thinking we are smart. In reality we have become weak and useless. And there are just so many of us now and nothing to do with a single one of us. And that right there is the dilemma.”