Bottled Abyss

by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

  He took a couple timid steps away and Lester started whining deep from the gut. Herman closed his eyes and took another step away. This life…oh this life…all of this in a year. In a fucking year. This wasn’t really happening, was it? People don’t suffer this much? Do they?

  A rustling came from behind him.

  “Is there trouble here?”

  Herman turned. Parting the weeds with a dark walking stick, a gaunt middle aged man with long strawberry blond hair came into the clearing. He was dressed in a black sweat shirt and jeans that almost appeared to blend into one another like a robe. His dirty boots crunched the gravel softly and the sound stopped when he saw the dog.

  “My,” he said, pyrite eyes studying the scene.

  “It was coyotes—do you have cell service out here?” asked Herman.

  The man hesitated, then pulled his eyes away from Lester. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Can you go for help? I don’t want to leave him.”

  “Of course. I was a medic once, a long time ago. Would you care for me to have a look first?”

  “Oh God yes, please, thank you.”

  The man dropped his walking stick back against the weeds, which kept it standing. The stick came down into a thin paddle at its end, almost making resemble an oar. Herman had never seen one like it before. Must have been handmade.

  He shook the man’s ice cold hand as he walked by. “Thank you for helping. I’m Herman Erikson.”

  The man mumbled something that sounded like Charleston and then got down next to Lester. “You mind gripping the fur behind his neck, keep him from biting me?”

  Herman knelt and grabbed a wad of Lester’s dusty black fur at the back of his neck.

  The man leaned over, blond ponytail hanging off his shoulder, and slowly stripped away the hasty windbreaker tourniquet. When he saw the blood he blew out of the side of his mouth and his eyes worked back and forth for a minute.

  “What?” Herman asked.

  “There’s a bulging here and here—I think maybe that’s internal issues. I don’t know with dogs. He’s pretty well chewed up. This needs to be shaved, cleaned up and evaluated. Have you tried to move him?”

  “He’s wounded on his side too. I felt…something there.”

  Charleston’s eyes fixed on him a moment and it was a little unsettling. “Can I see?”

  “Yes, go ahead,” said Herman.

  The man gently lifted the dog’s hind quarters. Lester made a miserable squeal. After a moment’s study, he let him gently down.

  “That’s even worse than the throat. He’s keeping himself together by laying on it. Too bad, such a beautiful, beautiful hound. How much did you pay for him?”

  Herman shook his head, taken back. “We got him at a shelter.”

  Charleston looked at him a moment as though he hadn’t understood, but said, “I see.”

  “So what can I do? Anything?”

  The man took a long breath of air in through his sharp nose and pursed his lips in thought. “This one’s suffering…well enough, and dragging him a mile or two will probably be worse. You could chance it, possibly.”

  “My wife can’t see him like this.”

  “I understand.” Charleston got to his feet and dusted off his knees. “I’ll go ahead and head out to the main road over there. I’m not a fast traveler but I can probably make it in less than an hour or so.”

  “That won’t do. Maybe I should just go. Thank you for helping.”

  “It’s no problem, friend.”

  Herman faded back a little bit, shaking his head. Lester’s eyes were glazing over. Herman couldn’t watch this anymore. He took one more step back and bumped into Charleston.

  “Pardon—”

  The man’s gold-flaked eyes stared into him, hard. “There’s one more thing. Not proud to say it, but I have some… liquid poppy with me.”

  “Morphine?”

  “Of course, of course. I will give some to the dog, if you like.”

  Herman’s first instinct was to say no, but his merry-go-round head could not find a good reason for it. “He’s not going to make it. I guess that would be okay. He’s in pain. It’ll help right?”

  “It will help,” Charleston said.

  From inside the front pouch of the man’s sweat shirt, he pulled free an obsidian bottle. Its patina would suggest a metal composite material, although the long flutelike neck ended in a flat, circular opening which revealed the interior as glass. The bottle, without a doubt, was an archaic looking item for a hiker to carry. Herman didn’t want to ask what the deal was at this point, for fear of embarrassing the man, but he was beginning to form an impression of Charleston. He’d met a man who was likely an oddball coot that wandered the wastelands out here, as high as Benjamin Franklin’s electrified kite.

  “That’s a beautiful bottle,” remarked Herman. He meant it, too. What he didn’t say was the bottle was also equally troubling for some reason.

  “Thank you.” Charleston took a knee once more near Lester. “It’s all I have of my old home. The poppy helps my back pain and the bottle helps me remember everything that used to be good. Do you have anything like that, friend?”

  Herman did indeed, but such items were landmines hidden around the house that he’d rather not encounter. “Sure,” he answered.

  The man pulled out the longest, blackest cork Herman had ever seen and set it down on the pebble-shot desert floor. Lester took deeper breaths. His eyes bulged as the man tipped the bottle. Dark gray water poured from the bottle’s indifferent mouth and splashed all over Lester’s face. The dog lapped at the stream and choked raggedly.

  “Hey!” Herman stepped forward.

  Charleston ignored him and recorked the bottle. “Easy. We all have the fullness of life pouring out of us,” he whispered, “until there is little to nothing of us left.”

  “What in the hell was that shit?”

  Lester heaved and gagged and smacked his jaws together at what might have been a bad taste. The dark liquid from the bottle had not stained his black and white face. In fact, Herman couldn’t see any evidence that anything had spilled on the dog. The fluid had appeared to be the consistency of water, so it couldn’t have sloughed off; it had to have been absorbed.

  Hornk.

  A sudden blast of black vomit came from the dog’s mouth. When it reached the ground, however, it looked as though Lester had puked out an old coin.

  Charleston brushed it off and took a moment to study it. The coin’s edges were worn and there were long cracks from its perimeter almost down to its center. The imprint in the center resembled a skull of a dog.

  “I’ve been looking for this.”

  Herman noticed his jaw was hanging open then. “Is… that yours? Didn’t he…? I mean…”

  Charleston got to his feet and slipped the bottle in his front pouch and the coin in his black pants. The man’s face, skeletal and parched, turned away. “He feels no pain now. Take him from here now and never come back.”

  “Did my dog cough that coin up? Or am I nuts?”

  “You are upset.”

  “Really? But that’s crazy… Can I see the coin?”

  “It doesn’t concern you, friend. Like I said, take your hound.”

  “I can’t take him—”

  But when Herman looked down, Lester was looking up expectantly. Blood still ran from his neck, but he had that alert expression dogs get when they’re ready to go running.

  “Hey Les,” he said, “did that stuff already make you feel better, boy?”

  Lester gave a jubilant bark.

  Herman bent down to pick the dog up. When he did, he saw the weeds swaying as Charleston escaped back through them, his walking stick held above him like a ceremonial staff in a religious procession.

  You’re a weird one, but thank you. Lester might have been dying, but he couldn’t feel the terrible journey, and that was more than Herman could have asked for just half an hour ago.

  Lester was incredibly l
ight. Holding the dog in front of his chest, Herman could feel blood seeping out of his body and absorbing into his t-shirt, running down into his pants and underwear. Lester rested his snout on Herman’s shoulder and made no struggle to be put down. They walked on, together, friends to the last.

  It was halfway back when the bleeding stopped and Lester’s breathing calmed.

  And it was when they got back to the yard when Herman realized the dog’s wounds had closed, and healed.

  2

  Janet hugged Lester and kissed him all over his face. The dog responded in kind and licked her neck and wagged his tail like it was a brand new thing to do. Herman watched them both pensively. He couldn’t decide what to tell Janet. The bottle hadn’t contained liquid morphine, for that he was goddamn well assured, but had it been some kind of…magic? Was that Charleston guy some sort of wandering desert sorcerer? And what of the coin that Lester coughed up? Never mind Charleston’s forceful subterfuge; Herman knew he’d seen it come out of Lester’s mouth.

  Bringing all of that stuff up right now would ruin the moment. Janet was authentically happy. It had been so long since he’d seen her this way that he’d started to believe she’d never been a happy person. But he was wrong. Herman remembered now. She’d been happy before Melody’s death. In fact, Janet had been more optimistic and bubbly than he could have ever hoped to be.

  Perhaps he should just leave it alone for a while, not try to sort anything out just yet. He’d seen enough complications this past year.

  “Ah!” she cried out ecstatically. “You got me in the mouth, Les!”

  The dog spun around to play. Janet wiped her lips with a pleasant sigh and offered her hands for Herman to pull her up. From this angle he could see down her black terry cloth robe to that pleasant cleft between her luminescent breasts. Herman hadn’t looked at her this way for months and she picked up on it right away. To reveal more, Janet moved a train of long raven hair off her chest.

  “Very nice,” he told her.

  She latched onto him, working her hands around his ass, coming to the front to rub his crotch roughly through his jeans. “I told you I wanted you.”

  He believed it this time. Even through the whiskey vapors rising with her words, he believed her. They both wanted each other, more than anything. To erase this day and all that came before it.

  She kissed him with those spicy alcoholic lips and he consumed all she gave, thinking how strange tragedy’s symptoms were. Once she could only stomach an occasional wine cooler and never anything harder. Now there was no discrimination, no satiation for any poison, and he’d done nothing about it.

  Janet pulled away from him, breathing fast, excited. “My hero.”

  He really wanted to be.

  She dropped down, unzipped him, pulled out his penis and sucked it. Hard. As though her life depended on keeping it hard.

  Herman wasn’t a hero.

  He couldn’t save Melody.

  And he really hadn’t saved Lester either.

  That stuff in the bottle.

  That liquid.

  His thoughts commingled into wonderful chaos as his wife pulled his pants all the way down and ripped her panties to the floor.

  They moved to the sofa, him going inside her before they had the chance to lie down. She let her robe drop around her shoulders and her breasts bounced with his thrusts. Tears were in her eyes. The bouncing went faster. She snarled and laughed and more tears fell. Her breathing hitched. He got harder and wanted to release.

  Lester trotted merrily past them. A few seconds later he was lapping at his water bowl in the kitchen.

  Janet continued to move her hips, but put less power into them. She reached over and plucked the Jim Beam from between the sofa cushions. Her eyes rolled back. “Oh yes,” she cooed, all the while twisting off the cap.

  Herman watched her drink from the bottle. That golden fluid, draining, draining, draining. He was still hard, still deep within her, but his interest suddenly faded. Whiskey still in hand, Janet glanced down at him quizzically.

  “Do you want some?” she asked. Light was scarce in their living room, but her sunken cheeks still bloomed red.

  Herman took the bottle and had a big sip. The charred taste wasn’t pleasant to him, never had been, but he soldiered through it. Janet watched him carefully and then accepted the whiskey back. She took another drink before starting to work her hips again. It only took a few minutes more for her body to throw itself into a frightening orgasm. He might have stopped then, but without finishing the aftermath would be awkward, her questions would be annoying and he didn’t want to go there right now.

  They switched to a position Lester may have preferred, and Herman was soon ready to explode again. He withdrew to ejaculate on her back. Just as he did, Janet looked back at him. Her face startled him with its shallow eyes and alabaster skin. She’s dying, he thought. Killing herself, one day at a time.

  Janet purred as the warm seed fell on her back. He couldn’t tell if she was pretending, but either way, it was disturbing to see a death’s head enjoying itself.

  Well beyond disturbing.

  Just off the 10 freeway in a convenience store, a pair of college-aged guys waited in line, one guy with a crew cut and desert camouflage fatigues, and the other well pierced and in full gothic-metal attire.

  Either would do.

  The Ferryman extended his hand, feeling strange to be on the other side of this transaction, but exhilarated by the notion of passing coin once more. “I think one of you dropped this?”

  The gothic guy glanced over his shoulder at the coin and his penciled eyebrows curled at the ends like black flames. “That’s not ours.”

  “I see.”

  “What’s it made of?” The guy in fatigues scratched at a scab on his pit-bull thick neck. “Well damn. I must have a hole in my jeans. That’s my lucky coin all right.”

  His painted friend folded his arms, countless bracelets clicking together in a disorder of steel. “Devon—”

  “You sure it’s yours?” asked the Ferryman.

  “Of course it’s mine. Shut up, Phil.”

  The Ferryman handed the coin to Devon and turned down an aisle toward the exit.

  “Is that a cow skull?”

  “Naw that’s a demon,” said Devon. “Pretty freakin’ wicked.”

  “Sorta looks like a dog too. A poodle skull.”

  “Hey, don’t shit on my parade.”

  The Ferryman took his oar from where he’d propped it against the freezer with the bags of ice. Electric chimes bidding him farewell, he walked outside, a serious horserace of giddiness in his stomach.

  But his excitement immediately turned to dread.

  The Fury waited for him outside.

  The Ferryman couldn’t see the ancient creature, but the scent of the River was hanging in the air, a pleasant scent he thought he’d never smell again.

  “How did you ascend?” it asked, its sickly tone an awful nostalgia to his ears.

  “A h-h-hound,” stuttered the Ferryman. “It bled on the last place the River swelled. The cave opened and I was free.”

  “And the bottle?”

  He nodded.

  “Filled once more?”

  The Ferryman nodded again.

  “And you used the waters on the animal. Why?”

  “Quite by accident.”

  “There is no Underworld anymore. There is no cost for spiritual passage. No cost, no destination. Have you forgotten this?”

  “The waters will recede. The bottle will be empty again, sure enough.”

  “Without a River what happens now if a soul passes with the coin of Nyx? That could create a spiritual evolution that might restore Her, as we have been.”

  “You don’t miss Nyx?”

  “You are insane to even ask that, Charon. We were nothing more than organs in the loathsome digestive system She devised to stand separate from the other Gods.”

  “Forgive me. But are you so angry to have a us
e again?”

  “We were promised peace.”

  “But not silence,” the Ferryman mumbled. “Not eternal numbness.”

  The two college guys walked out chuckling, large soft drinks in their hands. The one named Devon gave the Ferryman a nod of thanks. His nose flared and his face pinched a little as though a bee had stung him in the eye.

  He could smell the Fury too. It was working.

  When the two were out of sight, the Ferryman lowered his voice, “Enjoy your vengeance, my old friend.”

  “This vengeance isn’t justified; the circumstance has turned me into a fiend that exacts justice for Stealing Death. That poor fool who accepted the coin has no knowledge of his crime.”

  “Look at the company he keeps. The morally corrupt are more valuable.”

  “There is NO RIVER!” The creature’s breath was hot on the Ferryman’s neck. “And even if there was, you were never chosen to judge.”

  “It seems things have changed.”

  “Don’t you ever think of doing this again!”

  The Ferryman swallowed hard. “You have no power over me.”

  The Ferryman stood there in the parking lot, just the whooshing sounds of the freeway filling the space of a moment. He expected something terrible to happen now, speaking out of turn as he had, but the truth was the truth. They were both different creatures now after that implosion of the old life, and every moment would be a new self discovery.

  “Why did you really do this?” asked the Fury.

  “I—don’t expect you to understand.”

  “Tell me.”

  The Ferryman idly ran his thumb over the rough wood grain of his oar. “I had to weigh the value of another soul passing. That was my life for so long…all I ever knew. I thought you would understand that this opportunity might take thousands of years to happen again.”

  “My estimate says you have three days to enjoy this world, Charon. If you use the waters of the bottle again, I will find you before you give away another coin.”

  The Ferryman smiled. “You better, because if I do, you will be as you are now, my servant.”

  The atmosphere lightened. The smell retreated. The Fury was gone.