by John Everson
“Don’t mind if I do,” I said, kneeling down to it.
That’s how I met Rick. If he thought he was going to shock me with his offer, he had another thing coming. I was a realist and an opportunist. I didn’t kill if I didn’t need to, but I didn’t shy from the act either. And I never looked away from a good thing. Life was short and brutal. You took what you could and then you were gone. And someone else got the goods. So I fucked Rick’s sacrifice moments after I met him, and then she was gone, eyes rolled back in her head as her breasts wilted with the stilled pound of her heart. As her body cooled beside us, Rick told me about his plan.
“You’ve heard of The Char-Lee?” he asked after we’d tendered our introductions. I nodded. There was no one who hadn’t heard of The Oracle. In the west, beneath the bleeding heart of the blood-red sunset she lived. Since the start of the long fall she’d been there, waiting for the pilgrims, answering their questions with both riddles and direction, a Sphinx of obscuration. There were those rumored to have left her bloated in her gifts of magical power, but just as many whose fat bubbled yellow and frothy from their bellies as their shrieks of terror melted with their greed into the stone ground at her feet. The Oracle suffered fools none at all. Hence her second name, The Char-Lee. She was yin and yang, life and death. Her benevolence was matched only by her brutality.
It was a dangerous journey to find her, and still a more dangerous gamble to gain her audience. Still, Rick never wavered in his studies of those sacrifices, rituals and devotions that supposedly set one on the path that assured that they would be granted the powers of The Oracle.
“As many as find her, are lost,” I said, when he finished telling me his goal.
“And as many are lost, gain their answer,” he replied, thrusting a finger into the hard bone of my chest.
With that, he reached behind him, into a pile of discarded clothes and belongings, and pulled out a mouthharp. With a wink, he began to play a blues scale, and somehow, under the light of a rising moon, it felt right. Naked, I swayed along to the call of his instrument.
He didn’t best me with muscle, he beat me with devil music. And mind.
Sometime before morning, we set the body loose in the current, and walked unsteadily back to town. Rick had brought a bottle of whiskey with him to the sacrifice, and I had no qualms with helping him quaff it.
When we lifted the body from the earth to take her to the river, a stream of blood and kidney rained on the ground beneath her and at last I blanched, turning my face away.
“The Char-Lee will require a sacrifice for her knowledge, you know,” he said. “Are you man enough to make it?”
I shivered at the mounds of flesh still quivering on the earth and said yes.
“Blood doesn’t bother me,” I said. “People do.”
3. A SACRIFICIAL LAMB
When the moaning ceased, I kicked dirt into the fire and crawled into my tent. This time, I wasn’t interested in Rick’s seconds. Sometimes a man just wants to forget the screaming regret of death’s valet for a night. And having sex with the mute baggage stowed in Rick’s tent would only remind me of how close crept the worms. I crawled back to my tent and tried not to think of her blood flowing down my wrists, as I knew it must when we brought her to The Char-Lee for sacrifice.
Or so I thought.
Until the next day when I looked up from my enjoyment of the clover to see Rick’s blade dripping with her life.
“Se la vie,” he pronounced, and I looked away, disgusted.
“They’re not just standing around on every corner, waiting to have their necks cut,” I said.
A part of me could still hear her chattering on about her ex, aghast at the perfidy of his infidelity. She never had even imagined the brutality of life as we knew it. Despite having been a child of the fall. She should have known better. Still, I had an unnatural sympathy for her ignorance.
Let it bleed, a voice in my head whispered. Let it all bleed away.
She was buried without ceremony. Rick threw her out of an open door as I maneuvered around pothole after cratered pothole. I didn’t realize she was gone until I heard the back car door slam, so intense was my concentration on what was left of the road.
“We’ll find another town,” he said, when I caught his eye in the rear view mirror.
The road turned to ash three days later.
The heady honey of clover dried to the brown leaves of thistle. And then, there was only the scraped orange of dead clay. The hills rose away from the road, and the weeds blocking our path frayed to naught but fissures in burnt asphalt.
“We must be getting close,” I said, when the sky slipped from blue to brown at high noon.
“Not yet,” Rick promised, pointing at the leached earth.
“The Char-Lee lives where no life dare press,” I quoted. Rick had shared any number of books and articles about the elusive Oracle with me over the past weeks.
He pointed at sparse bunches of green amid the clay and sand.
“Still, life strives here.”
“And our sacrifice?” I ventured.
“Will turn up,” he promised.
I didn’t feel so sure, but I kept quiet. I didn’t think there were going to be any other towns.
As night crept down over the barren earth, a single spot on the horizon kept its dull orange glow. I navigated the increasingly deep holes in the pavement with as much speed as I dared, praying to cover the ground in time. We could have walked as fast.
The glow meant fire.
Fire meant humans.
Humans meant fodder for sacrifice.
It didn’t cross my mind that they might not want to become sacrifices.
“Leave it here,” Rick said a short while later, and I turned the key in the ignition. It was a long walk to the dot of fire in the distance, but we couldn’t afford to alert them to our presence. We didn’t know if there were five or fifty ahead.
The walk was long, and mostly silent. Night gathered around us surreptitiously, an inky fog, and by the time we were near enough to see the creators of the campfire, it was almost too dark to see each other.
I reached out to touch Rick’s arm, to slow him, and he shoved my hand away.
“Don’t get fresh,” he whispered. “I hardly know you.”
I punched him, and pulled him down into the weeds. We were on a knoll just north of the campfire, and below us, I could see two figures leaning in to catch the heat of its blaze. One of them had long hair, the other, short. More than that, I couldn’t make out.
“Looks like a couple,” I hissed in Rick’s ear, and I could see his teeth gleam like moonshine in the shadows.
“You can have him, if you want, but she’s mine,” he announced.
“You’re the one with the oral fixation,” I retorted, patting the bulge in his shirt. He always carried a carton of cigarettes tucked into his shirt.
“Make you a deal,” he whispered. “I take him out while you hold her down. You can feel her up all you like, but I get to break her in, deal?”
Who was I to argue? We split up, him circling the camp to the east, as I went west. Rick had perfected a pretty convincing owl call, and we agreed that this would be the signal to strike.
I got as close to the camp as I could and waited, watching the two as they talked in muted tones across the crackle of the fire. Where they’d found the wood, I didn’t know, but they had a blaze that would last well into the night, and seemed to have already cooked a dinner on it. The scent of burnt flesh still lingered on the night air and my stomach rumbled so loud I worried they would hear.
They looked young; the man was still freckle-faced and smooth-skinned, a shock of blonde hair jumbled like a weed patch across the plane of his scalp. Maybe it was love, or just the fire, but I could see the gleam in his eyes when he looked at her, nodding all the while, and never looking away.
She, too, looked barely a woman. Bone-thin but willowy, her long fingers fluttered over his biceps and thigh, as she
animatedly told him a story of some kind. My stomach dropped when I heard the cry of an owl in the distance. I hated to break their moment. To break them.
But my hesitation lasted only an instant, and then I was launched, barreling down out of the brush, the shock of surprise still fresh in her eyes as I crossed the fire, stepped over his crossed legs and grabbed her by the shoulders dragging her backwards out of harm’s way.
Harm came from the other direction, and drove a long knife through the boy’s back before he was even partway to his feet. I caught the bloody glimmer of its tip parting the kid’s chest and shirt just before he toppled forward into the flames, the haft projecting from his back as if he were a newly pinned moth.
The girl screamed.
I couldn’t blame her. The man she loved was shuddering spasmodically in the middle of the romantic fire they’d shared moments before. And a madman was now lifting her from my grasp to hold her upright in front of him, eyes aflame with a look I knew only too well, but one that must have scared the fight right out of her. She released her bladder, in any case, and I stepped back from the puddle at her feet.
“Do exactly as I say, and you’ll survive the night,” Rick announced. He had a growl to his voice like a chainsaw trying to be coy.
“Who…why…” she stammered.
“I’m Rick, and because I wanted to,” he said. “Now sit down and be quiet.”
We tied her hands behind her back, and then I dragged the boy’s body out of the fire and into the darkness. It was beginning to smell deliciously cooked, and I didn’t want the temptation.
“Get my knife,” Rick called as I pulled the dead boy out of sight.
Her name was Annabel, and she and her boyfriend had been on their own expedition.
“Where the hell were you going out here in the middle of God-fucking-nowhere?” Rick asked and her lips drew taut and thin.
When she remained silent, I raised an eyebrow at her and she shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“Got any food left?” Rick asked, already up and moving towards their tent.
She didn’t answer. This one didn’t say much, something that made me feel better. She’d live longer. After splitting the remains of a stew Rick found still warm in an old covered pot inside, he disappeared with Annabel into the tent.
“Gimme 20,” he said, and winked.
I gave him an hour, but I’m not sure that he needed it. I didn’t hear a sound besides the occasional pop of the wood beneath the flames.
She was a quiet one.
4. THE UPWARD SPIRAL
The next morning we broke camp at dawn, taking anything that looked useful and throwing it into a couple of canvas bags. Annabel asked me to carry a backpack with her things, and little more was said as we filed back through the grasslands to the wreck of the road, and then on a mile or two farther to the car. For a moment or two, I panicked that it would be gone, and we’d walk for hours down this road without finding it, but then when I saw it in the distance, I began to worry about getting it started again.
It started and three hours later we were far from the latest in Rick’s long string of murders.
We were also at the end of the line.
I shoved the gear into park, killed the engine, and the three of us stared out the pitted and bug-stained glass at the spectacle ahead.
The asphalt of the road itself had disappeared some time ago, but a faint path of grey continued to lead through the almost equally grey parched and empty landscape. It was as if we’d entered a valley of the moon; the earth all around was chalky and dead, its surface featured only with boulders and stones. It was arid and alien, this wasteland, but for miles and miles, a faint path had continued on, leading ever upward, as the ground around us dropped off, and the path in front drew ever closer to the dark shadow of a single rocky spire.
Mountains do not simply burst into ascension; they sort of grow, slowly, the earth gently rising until at one point you say to yourself; hey, I’m halfway up a mountain.
This mountain was not like that.
Our road ended at the foot of a 40-foot incline of vertical rock. When I shielded my eyes from the pale sun above, I still could not see the peak.
“Looks like we walk from here,” I announced.
“Do I look like a goat?” Rick asked. I ignored him and got out of the car.
“There’s got to be a way,” I murmured to myself, and began to scout, walking along the base of the jagged limestone pillars that seemed to wall the mountain off from the powdered death at its feet.
The way didn’t become apparent. We split up, Rick heading one way, and Annabel and I going the other. We agreed to meet back at the car, one way or the other, in a half hour.
The walk was treacherous. Our path had apparently been a slowly ascending ribbon of land that had grown increasingly distinct from the surrounding plains. As we walked along the unscalable wall of the mountain’s foot, the ground to our left dropped off with increasing rapidity, until within a few minutes we were walking on a thin path between wall and deadly drop.
Annabel walked single file in front of me, so I could keep her in sight.
“Did you love him?” I asked at one point, instantly kicking myself. If I’d wanted to break the ice, there were less crass ways.
“No.” She didn’t elaborate.
I didn’t know what to say to that exactly. It wasn’t what I expected.
“I’m sorry Rick had to kill him,” I finally spit out. Equally dumb.
“Me too,” she said.
We walked in silence a bit more, single file, and then she stumbled, cursing as she began to slip off the edge of the path, rock crumbling beneath her foot to fall into open space below.
I dove forward, aiming to grab her about the waist, and instead, hooked my arm into hers, which was tied in a tight loop about her wrist to her other arm, and thus made a convenient hook point.
“Fuck,” she screamed as her arms twisted above her head and she hung suspended from my grasp.
The gravel clicked and rained around her feet, which dangled above the grey featureless earth below.
“Try to wedge your foot in the rock,” I begged, my own strength quickly giving way. I could feel my body, flat on the ledge, slipping toward the edge.
She swung from my grip, screaming as much in anger as pain, and I pulled with all my strength. I felt her skin sliding through my grasp.
“Come on,” I begged, and she shouted back.
“Pull, you bastard!”
I did, and she hooked an elbow onto the rock at the path’s edge. I reached out and grabbed a piece of her shirt with my other hand and pulled again, and this time her hip cleared the ledge. With a scream and the twist of a gymnast, she flipped a foot up onto the rock. I pulled hard, and both of us rolled back and away from the drop.
“Fuck, fuck fuck,” she breathed, tears streaming down her face.
“Are you alright?” I gasped, and she shook her head.
“Untie my wrists, please,” she whispered, and then let out a long scream of anguish.
When she was done, she took a breath, and looked at me with wide, blue eyes that couldn’t be ignored.
“I think you broke my arm when you grabbed me,” she moaned. “Oh, God.”
“Stand up,” I said, and helped her to her feet.
Her right arm was hanging limply and I pulled out a knife.
“Promise you won’t run,” I said, holding it for her to see.
“Where would I go?”
I cut the ropes and then traced her left arm from shoulder to wrist with my fingers. When I got midway between her elbow and wrist, she gasped.
“Okay,” I said, and continued on. “Move your fingers?”
She could.
“I don’t know if it’s broken,” I said. “I don’t feel anything jagged. When we get to the car we can wrap it.”
She nodded.
We started back, her in the lead this time, and then she stopped.
“What?” I asked.
“The path,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“We’re going down.”
I looked back, and then ahead of us again. She was right. The incline was slight, and I hadn’t really noticed it on the way, so intent was I not to slip or lose track of her behind me.
“This is the way up,” I pronounced.
She nodded, long hair swishing ahead of me, but didn’t say a thing.
We started back to the car to meet Rick.
He met us on the way down.
“I heard a scream,” he huffed, clearly out of breath.
“Was it your conscience?” Annabel said.
Rick looked her over and then gave a pointed glance at me.
“I can understand wanting her arms around you during the act, but shouldn’t you tie her back up now?”
I explained what had happened, and he performed the same test I had. She didn’t scream this time when his fingers touched the spot on her forearm, but I could see the swelling there now, and her face pinched as he felt it. Her breath shuddered.
“Let’s get it wrapped then,” he said.
We used strips of towels to wrap her arm. Whether it was broken, fractured or just badly bruised, it seemed best to immobilize it and tie it up in a sling. Then we lunched on some leftover crackers and cheese from the stash we’d found in Annabel’s tent. Finally, as the sun moved towards 2 o’clock, we packed up our things and began our ascent.
The path had looked like a level walk around the base of an unclimbable mountain, but actually, it was a slow corkscrew, leading gently but unquestionably upwards. The sun was hot, and the sweat bled all of our backs into Vs of dark exhaustion. After an hour of silent plodding, I called for a rest, and we sat on the edge of the path, looking out.
We’d circled the mountain. Straight down and to the right, I could see the rusting wreck of our car, and off in the distance, the pale ribbon of the path we’d driven faded lighter and lighter into a horizon bleached of all life.