Occultation and Other Stories

by Laird Barron

  The voyage started well—Victor even pronounced a soothsaying to that effect: “Sun and moon augur a favorable and erotically charged escapade!” I said goodbye to the cat—a neighbor would pop in and feed him every day—and locked the doors. The hiking trip to Mount Vernon was a relaxed affair as none of us were hardcore outdoorsmen. We had a picnic in the foothills and returned to the lodge well before dark, where we played pinochle with some other tourists, and drank beer until it was time to turn in for the night. Glenn and I got into bed. He typed on his computer while I labored over The Essential Victor Hugo—the Blackmore translation. My problem was less with Hugo than the nagging urge to dig the Black Guide from my suitcase and have another go at the procession of peculiar diagrams in the appendices and to attempt to tease more meaning from the enigmatic entries and footnotes.

  I’d told Glenn about my encounter with Tom, careful to frame it as a weird dream. Glenn frowned and asked for more details. He was intrigued by the occult, fascinated to learn of the secret lives of the famous artists I studied. His interest in such matters waxed stronger than mine—alas, his patience for wading through baroque texts wasn’t equal to the task. Upon listening to the tale of Tom’s apparition, he’d muttered, “What does it mean?” He was too calm, obviously throttling a much more visceral reaction. Whether this deeper emotion was one of sympathy for my strange encounter, or worry that my screws were loose, I couldn’t tell. And I’d said, “I was drunk. It didn’t mean anything,” while thinking otherwise. Tom indeed referred to cigarettes as “smogs,” a fact I’d been unaware, and thus a detail that lent creepy and disturbing authenticity to the encounter. Dream or not, I hadn’t cracked the book for three days. I imagined it burning a hole in the case, a chunk of meteorite throbbing with sinister energy.

  The next day we spent a few hours at the Tacoma Museum of Glass, then soldiered on to Olympia for a desultory afternoon of wandering the streets and poking around the cafes and boutiques. While my companions were sipping ice coffees, I stepped into a used bookstore and investigated the regional history and travel sections. I got into a conversation with the clerk on duty, a bored ex-librarian who stirred to life when I showed her the guide. She adjusted her glasses and made ticking noises with her tongue as she flipped pages. “I’ve heard of these. Farmers’ Almanacs for pagans.”

  The ex-librarian was tall and thin and wore cat’s-eye glasses with pearly frames. Her hair was black and straight and her hands were bigger than Dane’s. She asked where I’d gotten the book and seemed disappointed that I couldn’t remember the name of the store in Seattle. I asked her what she made of the appendices, directing her to the drawings and arcane symbols. “Well, I’m sure I can’t say.” She shut the book with one hand in the resounding manner they must teach in Librarian School. She smiled obliquely. “Perhaps you should visit one of the individuals listed in Moderor de Caliginis. Such a person could doubtless tell you a few things.”

  Long shadows lay across the buildings when I rejoined everyone at the sidewalk table. My ice coffee had melted to a cup of slush. I envisioned the ex-librarian’s hair swept in a raven’s wing over her bony shoulder, her simple blouse and Capri pants transformed into an elegant evening dress some vamp in a Hammer film might toss on for a wild night at the castle. Her smile smoldered in my imagination. Clammy and unnerved, I suggested we repair to the hotel and change for dinner.

  The Flintlock Hotel (est. 1895) was a brick and plaster building set back from Capitol Boulevard between a floral shop and an antique furniture store. The boulevard was lined with trees, and a mini U.S. flag rustled on every light pole between downtown and the Tumwater Bridge. Glenn had rented the McKinley Quarters. This was on the third floor, overlooking the street; a cozy number with a sitting room, bedroom and two baths. There were all kinds of frontier photographs in frames and the place smelled like roses and Douglas fir. Dane and Victor got the Monroe Suite down the hall. Same décor, same layout, but a view of the alley.

  I told Glenn I had a migraine. Concerned, he volunteered to cancel our dinner plans and stay in to watch over me. I was having none of that—what I needed was a couple of hours rest, then, I’d join him and the boys for drinks and dancing at one of the clubs. He ordered warm milk and aspirin from room service and waited with me like a perfect dear until it arrived. He watched me take the aspirin and drink the milk. He felt my forehead then left with his jacket slung over his shoulder.

  I waited five minutes, then dialed the anthropologist at his office. We’d arranged to talk a couple of days beforehand. Dr. Berman answered on the second ring. “Look, this guide. It’s special.” His voice was rough. I pictured him: alone in the wing of a large, decrepit campus museum, a disheveled academic wearing a tweed jacket and thick glasses, slouched in a chair at a desk cluttered with papers and a skull paperweight. His office was lighted by a single lamp. He was smoking a cigarette, a cheap bottle of whiskey in arm’s reach. “Say, any notes in the margins? Pages eighty through one-ten. That’d be the chapters on the Juniper Dunes, Olympia, the Mima mounds...”

  “Yeah,” I said. “So that was you. I can’t read your handwriting.”

  “Neither can I.” His chair creaked in the background. I got the impression he was pouring from his bottle and congratulated myself on being so damned clever. I said, “Why’d you get rid of the book?”

  “I didn’t. My assistant accidentally put it in a box of materials the department donated to the University of Washington. It was some months before I discovered the mistake. The university had no record of its arrival. If I may ask, where did you find it?” I told him. He said, “Odd. Well, perhaps I could inveigle you to return it to me. To be honest, it might fetch a considerable sum on the collector market. Likely more than I can afford.”

  “I’m not interested in money. Sure, I’ll send it back—after our vacation. Where did you come across the book?”

  “In the foothills of the Cascades. I was backpacking with friends. They knew of this cabin near an abandoned mine. Supposedly a trapper dwelt there in the 1940s. The place was remarkably intact, albeit vermin-infested. The book lay at the bottom of a rusty footlocker, buried beneath newspaper clippings and magazines. Passing strange. A hiker must’ve hidden it. I often ponder the scenario that led to such an act.” While he talked, I reflected that anthropologists and their ilk came by their reputations as tomb robbers honestly. He got cagey when I inquired after his experiences with the pagans mentioned in the book. “Ah, all I can say is some farmers here and there cleave to ancient customs. More country folk look to the sun, the moon, and the stars for succor than you might think. The nature spirits and the old gods. They don’t advertise, what with Western culture and Christianity’s persecution of such traditions.” This latter comment struck an unpleasant chord. I said, “The good folk don’t advertise, except in the little black book. You mean cults. Satanists?”

  “Those too, I suppose. I don’t know firsthand, but to my knowledge I never met any.”

  “My boyfriend tells me Washington State is a hotbed of satanic worship,” I said. “By the way. Have you visited the Kalamov Dolmen?”

  “The what?”

  “Page, um, seventy-two. The Kalamov Dolmen on Mystery Mountain.”

  There was a long pause. “I don’t recall reading that entry. A dolmen? Hard to believe I’d miss something so important. Well, the guide has a peculiar…effect. The font is so tiny.” He hesitated and the bottle and glass clinked again. “This may sound, nutty, but be careful. As I said, I met decent folk on the main. User-generated content has its perils. There exists a certain potential for mischief on behalf of whoever anonymously recommends an attraction or service. Look sharp.”

  “Sure, Doc.” We said goodbye, then I blurted, “Oh, wait. I meant to ask—you happen to meet any of the folks who’ve owned the book? There’s a girl in your area…Rose. That’s her online persona.” I gave him the rundown of Rose’s journal entries. “Hmm. Doesn’t ring any bells,” Dr. Berman said. “She found the book in
Ellensburg? I taught there for a decade. I wonder if she was one of my students. A striking coincidence if so. Please, keep in touch.” We said goodbye again, for real.

  Tree branches scraped the window. A streetlamp illuminated the edges of the leaves. I checked my watch. The good doctor had seemed in a hurry to end the conversation. Maybe he knew more about the anonymous journalist than he admitted. I unzipped my suitcase and lifted Moderor de Caliginis in its swaddling cloth from amid my socks and underwear. I unwrapped the guide and set it on the table. “Boy, you do get around,” I said. A shiny black beetle, easily the size of my thumbnail, crawled from the lumpy pages. It scuttled across the tabletop and fell to the carpet, shriveled in death.

  6.

  I went downstairs to the lounge and started a tab with a double vodka on the rocks. The place was small and half full of patrons, yet full of mirrors, thus it appeared busy. Behind the bar there was a big photograph of three loggers standing in the sawn wedge of a redwood. The trio had short hair and handlebar mustaches. Two of them leaned on double-headed axes. The third logger stood a Swede saw on end so it rested against his shoulder. The men wore dirty long johns and suspenders. I finished my drink and the bartender set me up with another without my asking.

  A guy in a cream-colored suit sweated on the crescent dais under blue and gold lights, and crooned a Marty Robbins ballad about the life of a twentieth-century drifter. I loved Marty Robbins, but I always hated that song. “Hey there, stud.” Victor squeezed my arm as he slid in next to me. He wore a cardigan that smelled of smoke and aftershave. The bartender brought him something pink with an umbrella floating in the middle.

  “Where are the other Musketeers?” I said. Victor toyed with the umbrella. “Athos and Porthos are flirting with a bevy of cute tourista chicks at the Brotherhood Tavern down the street. Totally yanking the poor girls’ chains. Too hilarious for me. I bailed.” I laughed. “How cute are they?” He shrugged, sipped his drink and smiled back. “Not at all, really. Dane’s hammered. I told him if he gets drunk and obnoxious I’m Audi 5000. Let Glenn drag his worthless carcass back to the hotel.” I said, “Hear, hear,” and drained my vodka. I crunched the ice and watched the door. The lobby was dim and the doorway hung in space, a black rectangle.

  The singer finished his set with “Cool Water” and “Big Iron.” He made his way from the dais and slumped farther down the bar. His toupee was bad and he’d pancaked his makeup far too heavily. His face seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Victor asked the bartender to put his drinks on our bill. The singer raised his glass and grinned at us and I saw that his dentures were as cheap and awful as everything else. “Poor bastard,” I said, and went to work on my third double. I still smelled the acrid odor of the Kools I’d given the phantom visitor of a few nights prior. The memory of the scent made me ill. It also made me crave a cigarette. “I’ve got an odd question.”

  “Ya, okay. Shoot.”

  “That friend of yours who passed away. Tom. He into anything, I dunno, for want of a better term—weird? Such as fortune telling, magic…anything of that nature?”

  Victor gave me a long, wondering look. He shook his head and laughed. “Oh, hells yeah. Didn’t Glenn ever tell you? Man, we all got into that shit. Tarot cards, mainly. But, I really dug cultural anthropology. Those dudes get into spooky situations. And the poets of yore. Keats and company. Can’t read the classical poets without coming across funky ideas. Anyhow, the whole point of college is to experiment. Did I ever!”

  “Anything heavy?”

  “Like black magic? Voodoo? We joked around, but no, nothing heavy. Tommy boy was extra flakey. Dane and I tried astral projection with him and this Deadhead girl. Lawanda. Tommy kept cutting up until we quit and Dane went and scored some weed to keep him quiet. What about you? Are you a true believer?”

  “I’m a theorist. Thing is, I’ve been studying that guide book we got in Seattle.”

  “I seen that, girlfriend. A hoax, I’m sure. I bet you anything it’s a novelty gag. Somebody printed a couple dozen of them, like pamphlets, and scattered them to the winds.” I considered enumerating the reasons his theory didn’t hold water. The book materials were too expensive to suggest a joke, its articles and essays were too complex. I refrained because my tongue was getting thick from the booze and also because I wanted him to be correct. He said, “What’s Tommy got to do with the book?”

  “Not a damned thing. Popped into my head for some reason. You didn’t care for Tom much, huh?”

  “He was cruel to me. Dane and Glenn were his boys. None of us called him Tom, by the way. In fact, saying it aloud gives me chills. His father called him Tom. Used to beat his ass, or something. Dude was touchy about that. He’s in my dreams a lot since the accident.”

  “That’s understandable. You should get some grief counseling if you haven’t.” Victor rubbed his bald head and gave me another look. “But I didn’t like him.” I said, “Doesn’t matter. He’s part of your life. In those dreams—what’s he want?”

  “He doesn’t want anything. He moves in the background like a ghost. That makes total sense, though. The irony! I’m at a party with Dane. The party’s in a posh Malibu house, one of those places that hangs over a cliff, and the host is my second grade teacher, except he’s actually a cinematographer, or a screenwriter named Rick or Dick. He’s got a star on the boulevard. I mingle with all sorts of people I’ve known. Weird combinations of grade school classmates and high school sweethearts, janitors, the chick who used to pour coffee at an all-night diner on the corner, a guy who dealt weed from the back of his El Camino when I lived in North Portland, some hookers who hung out near my friend’s apartment, and famous dead people—Ginsberg and Kerouac; Johnny Cash and Natalie Wood. Lee Van fucking Cleef. Then I’ll spot Tommy in a corner or on the deck, maybe lurking behind some bushes. Sometimes he’s watching me and I’ll try to go talk with him. He disappears before I get there.” Victor’s diamond ring sparked like fire.

  I knew he was lying because of how he leaned away from me. Not wholesale lying; some of it was true. The ice had disappeared. I signaled for another drink. My lips were numb; always a bad sign. My forehead was cold and that meant I was afraid. I thought about Tom and the beetle and the pentagram in Appendix B of Moderor de Caliginis. I thought about the rough pentagram I’d carved into my desk with a penknife. I’d done it without thinking and covered it with the keyboard afterward, ashamed. This double shot didn’t last long either.

  “How’d he die? Really.”

  “Waterskiing.”

  “Come on, man.”

  Victor glanced toward the door before signaling the bartender. “I need another one.” He waited until a fresh drink was in hand to continue. “Look, I wanted to let you in on this the other night. We invented the waterskiing story. Dane invented the story. I think he and Glenn have convinced themselves that’s what actually happened. Ah, Dane’s gonna wring my neck. We agreed to let it be. Tommy fell into a sinkhole. We’d camped in the hills—a couple of miles from here, in fact—and were hiking some trail. A lot of it blurs, you know? Traumatic stress syndrome, or whatever. One minute Tommy was behind me, the next he was gone. The hole wasn’t much. I doubt he ever even saw it. Rescue teams came the next day, but the thing was too deep and too unstable. The proverbial bottomless pit. They didn’t recover the body. I admit, me and Dane and Glenn freaked. After we finally got our shit together, we didn’t talk about it at all. First time somebody asked, Dane smiled and told them the skiing whopper. Couldn’t believe my ears. I didn’t argue, though. I went along with it. Except, when Glenn was telling you…frankly, that shocked the hell out of me. You two are serious. You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “That’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard,” I said. Victor nodded. “Pretty awful. Thomas didn’t suffer, at least. Poor bastard.”

  “You didn’t see him fall?” I don’t know why it occurred to me to ask. “He fell. No other explanation. I doubt the guy slipped into the bushes and fak
ed his own death. Living in Maui under an assumed name…nah.”

  “I’m kinda puzzled why you guys still want to go camping after an experience like that. Me, I’d burn my hiking boots and backpack in a nice bonfire.”

  “Don’t be silly. We’ve gone camping a half-dozen times at least. Honestly, I see it your way. Dane and Glenn—those two are macho, macho, macho. What happened to Tommy just made them more bullheaded and foolhardy. Dane wants to go tramping the Indonesian backwoods next year, or the year after. Please, God, no. Snakes, spiders, diseases. I might take a pass.”

  “Uh-huh, and he’ll wind up hitting on some eighteen-year-old stud-muffin islander and blame it on the booze and loneliness.”

  “Ha, yeah. He’d actually blame it on me, if he cheated. Which he wouldn’t. He’s well aware I carry a switchblade.”

  “You carry a switchblade?”

  “In my sock. Not that I’d use it. I’m too pretty to fight. Although, if D. decided to fuck around, I might make an exception for his balls.”

  I’d had enough. My body was Jell-O. Victor and I leaned on one another as we walked out of the bar and into the elevator. He gave me a sloppy goodnight kiss that landed on my ear as we parted ways. I crawled under the covers and slept, but not before I spent a few unhappy moments envisioning Tommy lying in subterranean darkness, his legs shattered. He screamed and screamed for help that wouldn’t arrive. I said, “Yes, for the love of God.”

  7.

  Sequim (pronounced Skwim by the locals) was lovely that summer. The town rested near the Dungeness River at the heart of a shallow basin of the Dungeness-Sequim Valley and not far from the bay. Fields of lavender and poppies and tulips dominated the countryside. There were farms and mills and old, dusty roads that wound between wooden fences and stands of oak and birch and poplar trees. Raymond Carver wrote a poem about Sequim. I’d never read that one.