“How you think I stop him, woman? Now, he’s done his part. Let’s us do ours. Josh, go back to de wagon and unhitch one of de horses. We gots to load de trash.”
“And what we do with him now we got him?” It was the first time Joshua had spoken since leaving Tamara’s house.
“I shows you, boy. I shows you.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
While the clean-up crew collected the trash and began the final weary trudge to Tamara’s little cottage by the edge of Stone Creek Swamp, Paul roamed the woods surrounding the Ocmulgee River, ranging from side to side. His nose and ears, tuned to animal perception, followed the smell and night noises of the wood creatures. Raccoons and possums, rabbits and deer. No quarry too small or too large.
He stalked and captured, bit and tore. And drank. And drank. And drank. At the conclusion of each stalking hunt, he swore—no more. God, no more. But then his nose caught the rich smell of hot, pumping blood in the distance and he cast out again and again.
Finally, some new instinct alterted him to check the horizon. Darkness was lifting. Day was leaving night. If he didn’t seek the shelter of Tamara’s root cellar, would he simply cease to exist? Or lie in agony as the sun seared into him until night fell again?
He didn’t know. He knew he never wanted to live through another night, but he didn’t know what, if anything, would destroy him. Better to seek shelter, rise again as dusk descended, consult Tamara. She’d help him. She had to. For the last time that endless night, he cast himself into the wind.
* * *
Tamara led her weary troupe to their final destination. The small cave loomed out of the face of the low-rising hillock where Stone Creek Woods slid into Stone Creek Swamp. Tamara had first found it by accident several months before on one of her forages for herbs and plants, almost entirely closed by rocks. The rocks had loosened and tumbled down when she pulled at some vines and darkness had loomed beyond. The cave walls were dark and dank, partly stone, mostly dirt. For no reason, other than she’d frequently found that the most seemingly useless things sometimes had great uses, she’d returned later and fully uncovered the entrance, piling the rocks to one side for possible future use.
The cave’s time had come. Forever and all time, Cain’s unhallowed crypt.
The three of them pulled and grappled and finally, Cain’s huge bulk lay inside the damp and dripping walls of the cave. They backed out and collapsed in front of the entrance while they watched the approach of dawn.
“Paul,” said Sadie. “Tamara, whut if he don’t come back?”
“He’ll come,” she replied. “Got no choice. Won’t know whut else to do. He’ll be lying in his bed, waitin’ on us, when we gets back.”
“Tamara, we gots to set him free.”
“Right now, we gots to finish what we’s started, sister.”
“How?” asked Joshua. “You did all this—”
“Boy, I didn’t do nuttin’.”
“No,” he agreed. “I guess you didn’t. But you saw Paul. If he’s like that, when Cain rises there’ll be no stopping him. These rocks ain’t goin’ hold him back. Paul just raises his arms and leaves.”
“Dere’s ways, Josh. Didn’t I promise? You and Paul. Paul’s done his part. Yo’ turn.”
“My turn?”
“No!” exclaimed Sadie. “I do it. Or you do it. Why Josh got to be involved anymo’?”
“’Cause he needs to, Sadie. ‘Cause it be his right, and I ain’t goan let you takes it away from him.”
“How?” the boy asked again.
“Only one sho’ way to stop one of de Blood Drinker’s chilluns. De heart. An’ de head. You take a nice, sturdy stake. An’ you pounds it through de heart. An’ den you cuts off de head and throws it in runnin’ water.”
“Then what are we waitin’ for? Why’d we bring him all the way back here?”
“Not now, son. Wouldn’t do no good right now. He’s like Paul was. Ain’t really dead, but he ain’t really alive, neither. Gots to be after de change. Nuttin’ hurt ‘em while dey changes, ‘cause dey jest keep healin’ dereselves.”
“Not even sunlight? You said Paul had to be in the dark.”
“Sunlight slow it down. It doan stop it. An’ I doan wants nobody else stumblin’ ‘cross his body. I wants dis to be sho’. Doan you?”
“Then what do we do?”
“We wait. An’ at dusk, Josh, jest before he wakes all de way up, when you sees his eyelids start to flutter, you takes dat stake, and you pounds it through his heart. You leave it dere. Long as it stays in place, he never rise no ‘mo. An’ den you cut off de head an’ you throws it in Stone Creek. An’ you cover de cave so nobody and nuttin’ ever let light on dis man’s bones again. Can you do dis, son? I gives you dis, it yo’ right, but iff’n you doan think you can—”
“I can,” said Joshua. “I can.”
Sadie shuddered. The hard steel in his voice rocked her to the core. Her boys, her gentle boys. Healers, both of them. It was in their blood. Now Paul hunted the woods, a night predator like no other. And Joshua. Ready to pound a stake through Cain’s heart. Anxious for it.
“My boys,” she moaned. “My beautiful, beautiful boys!”
Tamara touched her sister’s arm. “We gots to get back to de cottage. Check on Paul. Rest ourselves. I give you somethin’ hep you sleep.”
“Ain’t no help. De spirits turned on us. God done turned on us. Ain’t no help.”
“’Dere’s reasons we doan always understan’.”
“They be awful reasons and God ain’t got no right to do dis to my boys!”
“Joshua!” Tamara commanded. “Hep me wid yo’ mama!”
Tamara took one arm, Joshua took other. Sadie mumbled ceaselessly all the way to the cottage. “No right, no right. No right a’tall.”
* * *
Paul lay on his bed of blankets in the dark of the root cellar, his white shirt covered in dried and drying blood. Tamara reclosed the doors, fastened them securely and led her sister and nephew inside. She coaxed a tincture down Sadie’s throat and led her to her bed. Sadie’s protesting mumbles slowed and she slipped down into healing sleep.
Tamara turned to face her nephew. “Well, boy? You needs anything to eat?”
“God, no. I never want to eat again.”
“Den rest. You want some of de stuff I give—”
“No. I never want to take anything like that, not ever again.”
“Well,” she said. “Den you lay down ‘side yo’ mama and sleep.”
“Your bed. You need to rest, too.”
“I will.” She took his arm and led him to the other side of the bed. “I will, but you lay down. You gots to head back to de cave. Want you to start no later ‘den four o’clock.”
“Ain’t you coming, too?”
“No. I ain’t. I gots to be here for Paul. Cain be yours now. Jest lik’ I promised. I ask you ‘gin, boy. Can you do this thing?”
“I can do it.”
“I knows you can. Now rest.”
She moved to her stove and put a kettle on to boil. Before her soothing cup of chamomile tea was properly brewed, she saw the boy join his mother in slumber. Good.
She sat down in her rocking chair and rocked, sipping her tea, feeling its warmth pour new strength into her weary bones. Through the day, moving in and out of light dosing sleep, she guarded the slumbers of the three people she loved most in the world.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Joshua woke naturally, sometime around two o’clock in the afternoon. Tamara made him eat and packed a croaker sack with tools he’d need to complete his evening’s work. She watched him start out into the woods, knowing whatever was still left of boy would not return from this supreme rite of passage into manhood.
Sadie still slept and Tamara was glad. She’d feared for her sister’s sanity more than once in the past hours. She moved out into her yard, harvesting the remainder of her chickens. She didn’t want Paul to cast out immediately and hunt. She wan
ted him to stay, talk, listen. Come to terms with destiny.
* * *
Joshua followed the path into the woods, turning at the marker of the ancient sweet gum tree coated with resiny gum. He moved swiftly and reached the cave well before twilight. He sat down to wait.
The sun sank low, nearing the tops of the trees. When it neared the edge of the west, he moved inside the cave and dropped to his knees beside Cain’s body. He pulled his tools from the croaker sack. Long, thick wooden stake, sharpened to the point of an ancient, deadly spear. Sturdy mallet to hammer the stake home. The burn marks on Cain’s arm were now raised whelps of white scar tissue, startling against the black of his ebony skin.
So Cain had healed. The transformation was almost complete. Time to get ready. There was no way to tell the exact position of the sun in the dimness of the cave and Joshua had no intention of being surprised. He positioned the stake directly over Cain’s heart. Paul’s anatomy lessons made that easy. His lip actually lifted in a half-smile at the thought. Poetic judgment.
He was ready. The first flutter of his eyelids, Tamara’d said. There. Was that it? It was. Joshua swung the mallet, restraining the force of the blow. He wanted the stake to penetrate, not fully impale. A geyser of red gushed upward, covering the stake and the mallet and Joshua’s hand. As the eyes opened fully and settled on his face, Joshua saw what he’d been waiting for. The light of recognition. Cain’s hand moved upward, fluttering around the stake, attempting to pull it out. Joshua raised the mallet high again.
“Told you I’d kill you, Cain! No matter where you ran!”
The mallet slammed down, through the body and into the floor of the cave itself. A great scream, inhuman, roared across the woods and moved on further, filling the deepest reaches of the swamp. Night fishermen, tending their trot lines along the creek, stopped dead in their tracks and shivered. The night noises of the frogs and crickets ceased. No hoot-owl or whippoorwill sent forth its distinctive call. Even the swamp snakes, just beginning to creep forth on their nightly forages, ceased to slither. The heartbeat of the woods and swamp stopped. It took a remarkably long time for it to resume.
Joshua leaned over Cain and stared into the dead eyes. He dropped the mallet and held up his dripping hands. It was done. It was over.
He turned his head and vomited, retching again and again until the dry heaves sent up a flood of foul-tasting bile. He shuddered and wiped his face, not pausing to collect the croaker sack. He sat a moment in the clear night air and wiped sweat from his forehead. When his stomach settled from a continuous roll to an occasional spasm, he started shifting the rocks, piling them over the cave’s entrance until it was covered.
Then he sat down and cried, his tears a scalding apology to his brother.
He was done. Tamara’s last instruction wasn’t even a faint memory in the nauseating mix of rage and blood and vomit of the last hour. Cain’s head remained attached to his shoulders.
* * *
Paul woke the second night of his new life cycle and ripped off his shirt, stiff and scratchy with dried blood. He rushed to the basin and water pitcher Tamara’d left for him and washed. And washed. He dressed in the fresh clothes lying by the basin. Neither the soap and water nor the clothes erased the feel and smell of blood. He never wanted to see blood again.
Except he did. The new driving instinct rose in gushing waves and threatened to drown him. Enough. This had to end. He started for the door and remembered he had no need of them. He raised his arms and re-materialized in the main living area of the cottage. The smell of pumping blood assaulted his nostrils. He stayed back, away from the women.
“Son.” Tamara glanced over his immaculate clothes and nodded in approval. “Thought you’d want some privacy when you woke dis night.”
She offered the glass jar waiting ready. His tongue could taste the contents, even as his mind screamed his revolt at the need for it.
“No,” he said. “We have to talk. You can’t do this to me. End it. Please. There has to be a way.”
She shook her head sorrowfully.
“Can’t do dat, son.”
“You can’t? Or you won’t?”
“Both.”
In Paul’s newly transformed state, the temper inherited from his father erupted like a volcano. He grabbed her arms and shook her like a terrier worrying a rat.
“You will!”
“Paul!” Sadie rushed forward and grabbed his arms. Realizing what he’d done, what he could have done, he dropped Tamara’s arms and backed away.
“You see? Don’t you see? Look at me! Do you know what I could do to you?”
Tamara rubbed her arms, feeling bruises already forming.
“Son, dis happ’n for a reason. Weren’t my choice. An’ ain’t my choice to end it for you, neither. Would if I could.”
“What’d you do to Cain? Something, I know. You’d never let him rise.”
“Yo’ brother be tendin’ to dat.”
“How?”
Tamara shook her head and Sadie answered.
“You takes a stake, a stake made out of sturdy wood, and you drives it through de heart.”
“You sent Joshua to do that?”
“Be his right,” pronounced Tamara.
“Well, what about my rights? It’s done, it’s over! Now you let me go!”
Tamara shook her head.
“Cain be over, son. But yo’ new life, dat jest be startin’.”
“What the hell do you mean?” Paul advanced on her again, menace in every step. “This ain’t enough? What the hell else do your almighty spirits of the Light want?”
“You, boy. An’ dey got you.”
“No, dey doan.” Sadie stood and advanced on her sister. “Dey doan. He right. He done ‘nuff. His choice. An’ do he say he wants to be free, I do it. My boys done ‘nuff.”
“Woman, look at you! You jest about at de end of yo’ last thread already. Think you can do dat to yo’ boy and stay sane?”
“Dat doan matter. I do whut my boys need.”
“Paul, she can’t do dat and survive. She think she doin’ you a service, but she ain’t. ‘Cause dat ain’t yo’ destiny.”
Paul paced the room, carefully staying away from Tamara lest his anger explode over her again.
“Then what is, goddamn it? What is? Give me a reason I can’t sharpen my own stake! You think after the last two nights I’d hesitate to fall on it myself?”
“Oh, God, son!” Tamara moved forward and grabbed his arms, her face a mask of horror. “Doan you even think such! Doan you think it, you hear me?”
“Better than this. Anything is.”
“No, it ain’t. Son, de’ world, it be ringed with worlds—”
“Worlds on worlds. So you keep saying. No more, Tamara. I can’t take anymore!”
“You think you jest tuck yo’ tail and run? Prob’ly you even thinks Chloe be waitin’ on you. Well, she won’t be, boy. Dey a special world for folks whut takes it on dereselves to try and run away from fate in dis one. It be dark and lonesome, full of cold winds and dreary lands where dem folks wander, never bein’ in dis world nor no ‘nother one. An’ dey wander all alone, never meetin’ even no other wandering spirit. You think dis bad, boy? You try dat! Try it for all eternity!”
Paul crossed to her fireplace and sat heavily on the hearth. He dropped his head. No way out.
“Well, they just got it all covered, don’t they? Your precious spirits of the Light.”
“Son, I tol’ you. Dey not mine. Dey be parts of God, de one God. Sometimes it seems lik’, an’ I doan know why, de Light, it got to use de powers of darkness to fight de dark. “Dat’s what you did, you a child of de Light dat walks now wid de powers of darkness. An’ you not through yet. It be on yo’ hand, de first time you come see me. You ‘member, I look at yo’ hand?”
Paul nodded.
Tamara sat next to him and picked up his palm, tracing lines with the tip of her finger.
“See here? Dat be yo’ life li
ne. An’ look here.” She pointed to a spot on that line. “It doan stop, ‘xactly, but it start to run under de skin, not on top, and it run on down.” Her finger traced the path. “It run all down here, and circle back ‘round yo’ thumb. Yo’ path ain’t walked yet, boy. You gots a long, long ways to go. You is God’s own dark angel, son, and you ain’t goan be free ‘til he say you is.”
She offered him the glass jar again. “Dere’s blood and den dere’s blood. You can do dis, son. You walk yo’ own path. A path of light an’ dark.”
Paul raised his head and stared at the jar. Then he reached out and took it from her. He shuddered. “To long life,” he said. “Convey my appreciation to the spirits, Tamara.” He drained it.
Joshua burst through the door.
“It’s done. Over. God, Paul, my fault, all my fault.”
Paul’s body screamed to be out, to be on the hunt, but he was still human enough to feel the agony pouring out of his brother’s soul.
For the first time since his own transformation, he touched Joshua. Controlling the new instinct to feed on hot and flowing blood, he pulled him into his arms and hugged him as hard as he’d hugged that long-ago night when Joshua’s world had crashed and he’d sobbed on the backporch steps.
Paul looked over at Tamara and stared into her eyes. She stared back.
“You want him to carry dat, too, Paul? To wake every day knowing whut he done to Cain wus done to you? To dream ever’ night of you havin’ a stake poundin’ through yo’ heart?”
Paul held Joshua for a few more moments. Then he pushed him gently away. He spread his arms and like a child with a new and dreadful toy, he cast himself into the dark.
To Be Continued….
The Color of Dusk
Chapter One
Outskirts of Macon, Georgia by Stone Creek Swamp
A splayed skeleton lies on the floor of a cave uncovered by two teenage drug dealers retrieving their stash. A rotting wooden stake lies between the rib bones. A hand reaches out and pulls the stake. And from the dancing motes of dust, a giant of a man, coal-black, with shaved skull, resurrects himself.
Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) Page 20