Southern Ouroboros

by Matt Kilby

  “Donald,” the word caught in her throat. “Quit playing games.”

  John didn’t worry about making noise anymore, his steps echoing up the short stairs. When he was almost to her, she raised her hands, but he reached past to the meat of her arm, grabbing it to turn her toward the house.

  “Who are you?” She struggled to pull away, but he didn’t answer as he dragged her through the door.

  “Please,” she begged, the fear finding her face. “My brothers will be back soon and won’t show you mercy for anything you do to me.”

  “They didn’t show my wife none either,” he grunted as he yanked her through a dining room into a hallway, where he let her fall hard to the floor. On her stomach, she lay stunned and stiff with her arms under her. When he didn’t do anything but stare, she turned over and slid to the wall, rising with her back to it and legs hugged tight.

  “What does that mean?”

  “They probably did all those things you’re afraid I’m going to do to you. They had plenty of time before they killed her.”

  “They wouldn’t do that,” she said with a defiant shake of her head.

  “They did.”

  Understanding found her again as she put a hand over her mouth and breathed through her fingers. “You killed them, didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  “Oh, Michael,” she moaned. “Donald.”

  “It’s not over yet,” he told her.

  “Please,” she shook her head. “Don’t hurt me.”

  “I don’t have to,” he said but remembered the promise he carved on Mary’s grave marker. “I can leave and never come back.”

  “But you want something first,” she said and put her hands into her lap.

  “You have one brother left.”

  She wailed, snorting back tears as she bunched her dress into her hand.

  “I need to know where he is.”

  “Don’t make me tell you. If he’s all I have left, I can’t give him to you. Take something else. Take me. I can be your wife and give you children. We’ll name them Michael and Donald and everything will be even.”

  A creaking floorboard jerked John’s attention to a closed door. His hand went to his hip and drew, thumbing back the revolver’s hammer. The sound made her stop talking.

  “Who else is here?”

  “No one,” she lied and squinted to hold back the next round of tears, but her face wrinkled to betray her.

  “Is that him?”

  “No, no, no,” she shook her head with her hands in front of her as if she could block his way. “It’s our daddy, and he’s too old to do anything to you.”

  “Too old to pull a trigger?”

  He stopped next to her, hating to hear her at his feet, upset and afraid, but there was no other way. He couldn’t walk away, so he put the gun to the top of her head and called down the hall.

  “I’ll kill her if you don’t come out by the count of three.”

  “Please,” she cried out, but he couldn’t afford to pay attention. If the father was like his sons, he might open that door looking to put a bullet in him. Before he could, he had to make sure he took the three lives he came for.

  “One,” he said and another floorboard creaked, but the steps behind the door crossed the room instead of coming forward.

  “Two,” he called louder and heard the scrape of a drawer. Then steps came quick to the door and its handle rattled. Before he said three, the door opened, but the old man didn’t hold any weapon. His hands trembled around an envelope, thick with the letter inside. One came away and reached bony fingers to prove he didn’t mean any harm. With a nod more for himself than the man, John holstered the gun.

  “Does that tell me where to find him?”

  The man nodded.

  “You can have it if you promise to leave,” his voice struggled, taking too much breath.

  John went to him and took the envelope, looking over the man’s shoulder into a small bedroom with a bed in the corner. The dent in its mattress was so deep it might have been the first time he was out of it in a month. His eyes dropped to read the neat writing on the envelope—Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He stuffed the letter into his pocket and met the frail man’s defiant stare.

  “I’m sorry it came to this,” he offered, but the old man scowled.

  “Just leave,” the withered voice managed, and so John did. He walked past the crumpled blind girl and into their kitchen. He didn’t look back as he shut the door behind him. On the front porch, he stared up the hill to the two dead brothers but only for a moment. With a satisfied nod, he left the ranch to meet Lester where they’d arranged, preparing his mind for the long journey west.

  8

  Pine Haven burned again in Joe’s dreams, the courthouse flames singeing the hair on his arms as he led Elaine from the Cherokee to the sheriff’s department. His instinct was to panic, fearing the prospect of reliving the futile attempts to avoid an inevitable choice, but the way he held her hand proved it couldn’t be real, squeezing as if he could keep her there. He never savored the moment before, too busy pushing toward the next reset. The town’s survivors had been lost again, blown apart by a duffel bag of explosives in the courthouse lobby. He failed but always had another chance. The last time he saw her, he didn’t know he would give up. He didn’t know he would let her go to save the others so never told her goodbye. This might have been his chance, but recognizing the dream tainted the moment. He would only find closure, the last thing he wanted.

  He didn’t think he was there for it anyway, the real reason walking down the highway from the direction of the prison. In the dense smoke, Grady drifted like some monster through graveyard fog, but after touching the stone and being changed by its power, Joe understood he wasn’t even that. Wolgiss used to be a man, but too much time convinced him he was more important now. He tried to bend the past to suit him, and no matter how many times he failed, he would get another chance. Because of that, Grady’s shoulders didn’t slump anymore. He walked as if every drop of blood was justified.

  Halfway across the street, Joe let go of Elaine’s hand so she could go on without him. He didn’t watch her to the sidewalk, his steps pivoting to meet Wolgiss at the spot they always had their conversation.

  “How many times have you made that walk?” Wolgiss asked.

  “Do we have to do this again?” Joe huffed and took Dan’s revolver out of his pocket. His dark eyes darted to it, but Wolgiss didn’t move. Staring at him, Joe tossed the gun away.

  “I guess not,” the pseudo-god crossed his arms, a faint smile twitching his mouth. “Do you have something else in mind?”

  “A nicer dream would be a start,” Joe nodded. “Something sunny and tropical. Cocktails out of coconuts. That kind of thing.”

  He glanced at the sidewalk as Vick Hafferty let Elaine inside. When she was safe, he dropped his eyes, wishing he took one more moment to be beside her, but it was only a distraction. There were more important things to do.

  “Why am I here?” he looked back at the man he once knew as Grady Perlson.

  “Good question,” Wolgiss answered. “A better one is why you think I know.”

  “Because your hands are still on the strings,” Joe said with narrowed eyes.

  “Not mine,” he said and shook his head. “Puppets are the stone’s department, and cryptic dreams have its fingerprints all over it. You want to head back to your car and ask it, be my guest, but I’ll tell you from experience, it won’t answer.”

  “The stone didn’t have a private army kidnap me. It’s not holding me hostage. You’re responsible for that.”

  Wolgiss shrugged. “Maybe I came all the way back in time to torture you. Kill your wife. Separate you from your son. Maybe you’re some cockroach, and I’m a bored kid pulling off your legs.”

  “Feels more like that all the time,” Joe muttered.

  “This might be what happens when you sell your soul for power you don’t understand. Sagin warned Grady, didn�
�t he? Power has a price paid by desperate men.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Or is this just a dream—your subconscious mind asking questions it can never answer? Let this go, let her go, and let Grady go. Forward is the only way out of where you are now.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Joe shook his head.

  “Suit yourself,” Wolgiss turned as if to walk back to the prison.

  “Where are you going?” Joe called after him.

  “To find a seat,” he said without looking back. “If I did put you there, what’s coming next should be a riot.”

  Joe stared after him for a few steps and then turned, wondering what to do next. The sidewalk was deserted, as if Vick went inside for a coffee break since the dream didn’t need him. At the courthouse, the fire raged on, but he couldn’t do anything for the dead inside this time. That left the Cherokee, parked in the right lane with a messenger bag under the driver’s seat. As he walked to the black brick, he wondered if Wolgiss told the truth. If the stone still had a purpose for him, it meant harder days ahead. He understood the implications without needing to consider them. He lost Brad as sure as Elaine, though he was still alive out there somewhere, thinking his dad dead and grieving. Mourning. Asking questions Joe never cared to when he buried his father. Why did this have to happen to him? Why did good people get taken while the world falls apart? Or did Brad follow his footsteps closer, relieved at the idea of never being disappointed by him again?

  However he processed it, Joe’s own torture would be worse knowing his son grew older without him. Brad would find a wife he would never meet and give him grandkids he would never know. If he didn’t find a way out, one day soon, he would have nothing to occupy him but that thought of a whole lifetime passing. Brad would grow old and die. The more the thought bore into him, the more Elaine’s abrupt death seemed a mercy. By the time he got to the car and took out the stone, he was desperate to give it anything to avoid the lonely agony. Unneeded now, it sat silent and cold, though anything but dead. He cleared his throat and asked the same question he had Wolgiss.

  “Why am I here?”

  He didn’t expect an answer, as if the damned thing would sprout a mouth to hold a conversation about the point of everything that happened. He didn’t anticipate the dull red glow on the flat face, blinking steady a moment later, or the voice that came last, sharp with the static of the apartment’s speaker system.

  “Wake up, Dr. Richards,” the man said, and he did, eyes opening to find the light in his ceiling flashing the same shade of red. It was the color of warning—one that meant stop—but instead he rolled over to drop his feet to the floor. After all, he wouldn’t get answers lying in bed, even with a chance the people outside let him.

  Almost to the living room and its own blinking light, a soft, hydraulic whoosh sounded. He expected to see the observation window when he rounded the corner but this time found a door carved out of the wall.

  He didn’t think it any way out. No one left it open accidentally, setting off the beacon and then waking him up. They wanted him out, and that couldn’t mean anything good, but he couldn’t convince his legs to stop. Curiosity held strong, and he didn’t fight it. The best he managed was to pause at the opening and peek into the bright corridor as if it would prepare him for whatever was ahead. When it didn’t, he stepped through and the door slid shut behind him. With his back against solid wall, he gave it his full weight but nothing budged. With no other options, he walked down the hall.

  At the end was a large and empty circular room, the same brilliant white as everything else. He stood in the middle and waited for something to happen, counting a full minute of nothing. Arms out, he looked at the ceiling.

  “Now what?” he asked and dropped his hands to his sides as a ripple of whooshes rolled down the corridors, opening about twenty doors. Other people came from those—men and women—yawning and stretching. Nobody noticed him at first, distracted by each other. One man brushed past a woman, and she shoved her palm into his chest to put him on the floor. He smiled at her, and she smiled back as she helped him up, slapping his ass as he walked ahead. When the first of them reached the room, Joe still in its middle, they glanced up and stopped in unison, each giving the same curious stare. Only one man continued past the others.

  He wore his hair in thick braids that fell across his shoulders and hung in his face like a beaded curtain. His mouth held a light constant smile that made him look either stoned or about to laugh.

  “What’s this?” he said to no one specific, but the speaker answered.

  “A new soldier. Give him your warmest welcome.”

  “We always do,” the man’s steady smile grew as he walked toward Joe. Almost there, he held out his hand. “What’s your name, friend?”

  “Joe—” he started, cut short when the man’s fingers rolled into a fist and drove into his stomach, doubling him over.

  “Nevermind,” the man said and squinted down at him. “I don’t care.”

  Joe held his gut with one hand and braced the other on the floor. The best he remembered, his first and last fight had been in eighth grade with a loud-mouthed kid who picked on anyone smaller than him. Before he discovered baseball, Joe qualified for that easy, but one day he had enough. The teacher left the class, and the boy decided to harass Joe, standing beside his desk with a finger an inch from the bridge of Joe’s nose. He swore he could break it with a thump and kept asking Joe what he’d do if he did. Cry? Scream? Would he tell? Joe didn’t answer until the boy did thump him and something clicked in his head. He slapped the hand out of his face before thinking about what would happen next. Before he knew it, he hit the floor with his desk on top of him, the boy kicking him in the chest. He cried, thinking he would die before the teacher showed up but of course didn’t. The teacher dragged the bully off to the principal, who suspended him a week. A vacation. Even as he refused to look at any of the other kids, his ears and cheeks hot with embarrassment, Joe repeated the fight in his head. In that version, he didn’t slap the hand but grabbed the finger and broke it or caught the boy’s foot and slung him to the floor. The boy came back and acted like nothing ever happened—like it was just another Wednesday—but it changed Joe. He wouldn’t let the same thing happen next time, but next time never came. Not until now, but this Joe had more to him than some scrawny kid trying to survive junior high. The stone’s power flowed through the pain in his gut, building with the adrenaline pumping into his blood. If this guy wanted a fight, he would give him one, but Joe felt sorry for him. Like that younger version of himself, he didn’t know what he got himself into.

  This new bully let Joe stand, his dazed grin sharpening.

  “This one’s got spirit,” he said to the others, who crowded the hallway. Joe gave them a glance before he rushed their leader, swinging at his face as hard as he could, but the man turned his head. As Joe’s knuckles grazed his cheek, his body followed, spinning to grab Joe by the scruff of his neck with one hand and the back of his arm with the other. As Joe reached for his fingers, his mind set on breaking as many as he could, the hands wrenched him backwards, stealing his balance.

  “You should all work on breaking that for him.”

  He tossed him forward, and Joe couldn’t keep his feet. He was too busy trying to figure out what the hell happened. All that power, the potential ramped up in his muscles, and he was on his way back to the floor. Despite everything, this was eighth grade again, but the bully didn’t start kicking him this time. As Joe caught himself, the man’s feet walked past, the crowd parting to let him through. As soon as he passed the first of them, they came forward. Any thought Joe had of taking a few down slipped away when a boot caught him in his face. He sat hard and then the rest came. Some stood and kicked wherever his hands didn’t block; others got lower to use their fists. He tried one last time to use the strength inside him, but there were too many. They broke his arms and legs, stomping his knees until they bent at awkward angles. The
ir fists pounded his face until his skull cracked, the blood seeping out like a sponge. They took turns until everyone grew tired or bored and stepped back to look at this horrible thing they did together.

  The pain was the worst Joe had ever known, making him wish he could die, but it was a mercy he would never get. Even on the cold floor, each ragged breath screaming through his punctured lungs, the bones shifted back into place. He wondered what they’d do when they noticed—if they would beat him again to see if they could make it stick—but out of the corner of his one working eye, he saw one of the women suck a surprised breath. She walked past the others to the hall and called down it.

  “Pharaoh,” she shouted. “You’re gonna want to see this.”

  The others glanced from her to Joe, some with knowing smiles as his legs straightened and arms reset. He couldn’t imagine what that meant and didn’t bother as he watched the hallway. As the man called Pharaoh emerged from an open door and sauntered back with his eyes on the floor ahead, the chipped bones in Joe’s cheeks grinded back into one.

  When Pharaoh returned to the round room, he stood over Joe with hands on his hips, watching his face regain its shape. He didn’t speak until every bruise and cut faded and then looked around at the others.

  “Well, well,” he said. “Looks like our new friend is one of us.”

  9

  Desperation didn’t take long to find Vick, creeping in around the time he called Maribeth. Her What did you do? dissolved any confidence he had in his abilities as a former sheriff’s deputy. Sure, he went through the motions over the next few days: stopping at every restaurant within twenty miles of Creek Hollow to go table by table handing people flyers and asking if anyone had seen either Suzanne or Eric. When that didn’t get results, he went to fill out two missing persons reports under Sheriff Morrell’s stony gaze. For that, he got an official tail by a deputy. The first time Vick noticed, he thought he forgot something in Creek Hollow. The cruiser pulled into the hotel’s parking lot behind him but parked on the other end as if distance mattered at that point. When Vick got out and waved, he got a blank stare in return. That pretty much settled the question.