the mortis

by Miller, Jonathan R.

  the mortis

  Jonathan R. Miller

  Copyright © 2014

  www.jonathanrmiller.com

  contents

  chapter one

  chapter two

  chapter three

  chapter four

  chapter five

  chapter six

  chapter seven

  chapter eight

  chapter nine

  chapter ten

  chapter eleven

  chapter twelve

  chapter thirteen

  chapter fourteen

  chapter fifteen

  chapter sixteen

  chapter seventeen

  chapter eighteen

  chapter nineteen

  chapter twenty

  about the author

  chapter one

  They take long walks together in the woods. Married people do this kind of thing sometimes—go for long walks—just so they can tell other married people about it afterward. We are that type of couple, you know, the type that goes on long walks together during our tropical vacation. We get out there; we don’t just sit around in a hotel room.

  On the third morning, they get ready early and take a trail that starts on a public beach and ends at a waterfall, according to the sign posted at the trailhead. One point four miles round trip. Moderate difficulty rating. All animals must remain on a leash.

  The walk is not moderately difficult for his wife; the walk is easy, and so she pushes the pace. She wants this walk to be exercise, not just sightseeing. But she also doesn’t want it to look like exercise, like it requires any effort on her part. She wants it to look easy, in case someone other than him is paying attention. So, even as she exerts herself, she keeps her breathing measured and quiet, as though she’s at rest. It’s complicated. When you want many different things, all at once, some of which conflict with each other, it’s rarely simple.

  They move through the woods in silence. At this pace, they don’t have enough breath to spare on words. Walking beside her, he gets the familiar feeling that she’d rather do things her own way—she’d rather walk at the speed she wants to walk—than be connected to him. But he can’t ask her to slow down. How would that look? Honey, can you please slow down? We don’t have much time here. I’d like to enjoy the scenery while I’m still able.

  The truth is that he could say those things, all of them; he could ask her to slow down. He could. And if he did, she would slow down for him. He knows that. But he can’t ask, and it’s not because of his pride—he’s in reasonable shape, especially for a man in his forties, but she’s in even better shape, and he’s okay with that. The reason he can’t ask is because of the cost. There is a cost associated with asking for what you want. If he does ask, he will have to give up something later, and he’s not ready to surrender anything so early in the day.

  As they walk on the trail, as he thinks about all of this, she surprises him: she catches his hand on the downswing and takes hold. She grips it firmly. After a short time, their arms begin to move together. The two of them manage to find a common rhythm and still maintain the pace she sets. Her hand is soft on the top side, rough on the palm side, the side that makes contact.

  They make it to the waterfall, but they don’t spend much time there. Maybe ten minutes. They take pictures—some showing him, some showing her, some close-ups with both of them. The point of stopping at the waterfall is to be able to show that they did. To document it for later. When they finish taking pictures, they return to the trail and head back toward the beachfront.

  At about the halfway point, she stops walking. She stares out into the tamarind trees surrounding the path. He stops and stands beside her.

  “What,” he asks.

  Lee shushes him. She is wearing her listening face. She points into the woods.

  “Someone’s crying,” she says.

  He listens, and there it is, sure enough: a faint whimpering sound. It could be a child, maybe, but the sound is more animal than human. He hears a rustling in the trees, maybe fifty yards in.

  “That’s some thing. Not some one,” he says. “It’s an animal.”

  She’s still staring. She hasn’t changed her expression.

  “Lee,” he says.

  She doesn’t pay attention to him. She steps off-path into the woods.

  He follows her. Walking in her wake. Branches that she pushes aside are snapping back at him.

  “Lee. What the hell. Can we not do this?”

  She stops and lets him catch up.

  “I just want to make sure,” she says.

  “Sure of what?”

  “That no one needs help,” she says.

  “Why the hell are you whispering?”

  She shushes him again. She listens for a few seconds, chooses a direction, then pushes on.

  After another minute of trudging through the woods, she stops. Even from behind, he can tell that she’s looking down at something. He catches up to her. The whimpering sound has turned into a high-pitched squall.

  On the forest floor at her feet are the remains of several animals. Lemurs, judging by the markings on their fur. They’ve been torn apart. Only one of them shows signs of life—the one that’s making the sound—but it doesn’t have much time left, by the looks of it.

  “Okay,” he says. “You saw. Now let’s go.”

  Lee doesn’t move.

  He puts a hand on her arm. “Lee.” He keeps his voice gentle.

  “We should help,” she says. She is staring at the wounded animal.

  “Help how? Damn, Lee. Look at it.”

  She is quiet. “Help it along,” she says.

  We should help it along. This is his wife’s way of telling him to take care of the situation. Not by asking the question outright—will you please kill for me?—but by stating what needs to happen, and expecting him to follow through. That’s how their relationship works: she is the idea person, he is the executor. This is true whether the topic is rearranging furniture or taking a life.

  He looks down at the animal. He can see its flank rising and falling quickly. Its wet black eyes. The squalling rises to a fever pitch.

  “What am I supposed to do?” he asks.

  Her hands go to her ears. She shakes her head. “I don’t know, Park,” she says. “Help it.”

  Park looks at her. “Help it, or help you?”

  She lets her hands fall. “What?”

  “Nothing. I’ll handle it. Just go.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’ll meet you back at the trail, Lee,” he says.

  She walks away. Park stands and stares at the dismembered bodies. Whatever happened here, it was a massacre—far beyond anything that could be called a normal level of predation.

  The wounded animal continues to cry out. If anything, the sound is getting louder, more desperate. As hard as it is to admit, his wife was right—a quick death is the only kindness that can be offered here—but he can’t think of an easy way to end the animal’s suffering. All of his ideas are horrific, too horrific to consider putting in motion. Crushing its small skull with a river stone. Using the heel of his tennis shoe on its spinal column. Clamping its snout closed with his hand until the creature asphyxiates. He doesn’t feel capable of doing any of these things. The only option he can imagine choosing is to pick up the animal, carry it far into the woods, out of his wife’s earshot, and pitch it into the brush. But before he can follow through, the animal goes silent on its own. Its eyes stare fixedly up at him, and the flank goes still.

  When Park returns to the footpath, he finds his wife seated, knees to chest, in the red soil.

  “Are you all right?” she asks.

  He is standing in the middle of the trail. He nods.
/>
  “Did you do it?” she asks.

  He hesitates, but his hesitation could easily come across as grief. “Yes.”

  She looks at him. “Did you?”

  “I said yes.”

  “Okay,” she says.

  “Okay?”

  “I mean thank you,” she says.

  Without another word, they walk the remainder of the trail and cut across the hotel grounds to the Makoa building. This is where the luxury suites are housed. His wife made reservations a year in advance so that they could stay in the Makoa. It has its own dedicated staff, its own private grounds, its own concierge service. Free Wi-Fi, the works.

  As they enter through the front doors to the lobby, Park breaks the silence.

  “You can go up if you want,” he says. “I’m going to tell them what happened.”

  She looks at him. “With the animals?”

  “I just think they should know,” he says.

  She nods, but her expression is flat. Affectless. If she disagrees with his decision, she’s not going to let on. She turns to leave, but as she starts walking toward the elevators, she pauses and turns back.

  “I should have done it,” she says quietly.

  Park looks at her. “Done what?”

  “What I asked you to do.”

  “It’s fine,” he says.

  “I’m sorry I made you do it.”

  He forces a smile. “It’s fine. I’ll meet you upstairs,” he says.

  Park goes to the front desk. A woman is standing, smiling, behind the counter.

  “Mana Salamao,” says the woman. This is the greeting that the Mirasai use on tourists sometimes. The Mirasai are the indigenous population of the islet.

  “Hi,” he says. “My wife and I were on a walk just now, and there was a problem.”

  At the sound of the word problem, the woman changes her expression from Welcoming to Concerned. She is nodding sympathetically before he can even begin.

  “I’m very sorry to hear that,” she says.

  “It’s okay,” Park says. When the words come out, he immediately feels silly. I am the one with a problem, but here I am, reassuring you.

  “What is the problem?”

  “Some dead animals,” he says. “Lemurs, I think.”

  The woman is still nodding. “That’s very sad.”

  “Yeah. It really is.”

  “Our hotel was built in a living ecosystem, so there is unpleasantness sometimes. It’s unfortunate. But this is part of the price we pay for enjoying the natural beauty of the islet.”

  “I understand,” he says. “I am enjoying it, by the way.”

  The woman switches back to smiling. “I’m glad.”

  “But I’m concerned about what I saw.”

  She nods slightly faster. “Of course,” says the woman. “I will have Grounds see to it straightaway.”

  He looks at her. “So you’re just going to clean it up.”

  “Yes,” says the woman.

  “That’s all?”

  “I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” she says.

  “You haven’t even asked me where I was,” Park says. “How will anyone find it?”

  “Our staff is very familiar with the grounds,” she says.

  He pauses, staring. He decides it would be best to start over completely.

  “Look. This isn’t about me complaining,” he says. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Yes,” she says. It comes out like a question. She isn’t nodding any more.

  “I’m trying to tell you about the animals because of the number of them.”

  “The number?”

  “There were a lot,” Park says. “Maybe ten.”

  “Ten. I understand.” She glances upward as though making a mental note.

  “Ten may not sound like a lot. But when you see them in a pile, it seems like a lot.”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “Is it?” he asks.

  She shrugs. “This is a jungle. Things die here.”

  “I understand that.”

  “But the islet is very safe for our visitors,” she says.

  Park shakes his head.

  “It seems like you hear this kind of thing a lot,” he says. “Maybe it’s normal. But for me, a pile of lemurs is unusual.”

  Her sympathetic expression returns, and she starts nodding again. Back on script. “I will have Grounds see to it immediately. I’m sorry this happened.”

  “So that’s it?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she says.

  He shakes his head. “Okay.” He checks her name tag. “Yolanda. Let me talk to someone else.”

  The woman leaves through a door behind the counter, and two minutes later, another woman comes out. Also Mirasai. This woman is a manager, according to her name tag. Rina, it says.

  “I was told what happened,” says Rina. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “Which part?” he asks.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Which part are you sorry for. Yolanda or the dead animals?”

  The woman smiles, and it seems genuine. “Both, if I have to be,” she says. “I hope they were not equally bad.”

  Park lets himself smile a little bit at that.

  “Look. This isn’t a big deal,” he says. “I just want you to understand what I saw.”

  The woman nods, and it doesn’t feel scripted. “I’m glad you came to tell us,” she says. “We have had more fossa in the area recently. You know about fossa?”

  “Yes,” he says. To him, they look like a cross between panthers and wolverines. “I know what they are.”

  “They are the cause of your dead animals,” Rina says. “When they hunt together in packs, they circle the prey and then tighten the circle. Everything in the center dies.”

  He nods. “Very efficient.”

  “Don’t worry,” Rina says. “They’re shy with people. In all my time here, I’ve never heard of a human encounter.”

  That evening, he and his wife eat dinner on the outdoor patio terrace of the Makoa restaurant. Everything is gorgeous; the atmosphere is exactly what the hotel website shows. More stars visible overhead than he thought possible, coming from the city. Glass-top bistro tables and cushioned armchairs and sectionals. Kettle cauldrons with small wood fires. A light wind in the palms. One of the staff is playing some kind of Mirasai stringed instrument in the bar area.

  This is their third time at the restaurant, and they’ve had the same server, a young Mirasai man, each time. He calls himself Melo.

  Melo recognizes them; he even calls them by name. When they act surprised, he tells them that their faces are very memorable. This is a gentle type of codespeak—Park has heard it many times before. It’s Melo’s way of saying: we don’t get a lot of black folks here at the Lavelha.

  Park orders wild boar and Lee orders encrusted tilapia. They share a bottle of red wine made from a vineyard on the southwest slopes of the islet, and it’s terrible, but that doesn’t matter, not at all. They drink so many toasts to each other that he loses track. She’s laughing at everything he says.

  At the end of the meal, while they wait for Melo to bring the check, Park sees a man climb onto a table and stand, swaying drunkenly. A grown damn man on a tabletop. This isn’t some fraternity pledge who’s had one too many; this is someone who should know better.

  Park nods to Lee. “Look at this,” he says.

  She turns around in her seat, watching the man. She looks back at Park. “Can I borrow a dollar bill?” she asks.

  Park smiles. “Only one?”

  They try ignoring the situation, going back to their conversation, but soon the other diners start to cheer for the man, to egg him on. Shouting out suggestions. Take it off. Dance.

  Park can see the restaurant staff assembling around the table where the man is standing. Melo is part of the group. Smiling, nodding, waving his hands, trying to calm the cheering crowd without implying that the party’s over. The staff is used to the
se kinds of drunken displays by foreigners, you can tell. All of them, without exception, are smiling broadly. No judgment on their faces. One of the servers, a Mirasai woman, is trying gently to talk the man down, smiling up at him like he’s famous.

  The man on the table seems to be the only one who isn’t smiling. His mouth is open wide, his eyes fixed forward. Even from a distance, the red welts on his arms are visible, running from bicep to wrist.

  “We should help them,” Lee says.

  Park looks at her. All of the lightness is gone; she’s serious. “Help who?” he asks.

  “The wait staff.”

  He shakes his head. “Come on. Help how,” he says. “What am I supposed to do? It’s not my place to jump in.”

  “I didn’t say you.”

  “All right,” he says. “You then. What the hell are you going to do to fix this?”

  She doesn’t answer. She wipes her mouth with a napkin, slaps it down on the table, and starts to stand from the chair.

  “Lee,” he says quietly. “Lee.”

  She pauses, half in and half out of the chair, staring at him. He is about to apologize, to ask her to sit back down, but before he can speak, he notices movement over her shoulder. He looks, and it’s the man on the table. The man has raised an arm up to the level of his face, and now he’s staring at it carefully. All at once, the man places his wrist into his mouth and bites down hard enough to spill blood, and without warning, he plunges forward off of the table, teeth still clamped down. He strikes the concrete of the patio face-first. There is a sickening, wet smack sound, and the crowd collectively gasps.

  Before Lee can turn around, Park reaches over the table and takes her face tightly in both hands. He keeps her focus forward, on him.

  “Look at me,” he says. “Don’t turn.”

  She takes hold of his wrists and pulls, but he doesn’t let go. Her head is straining against his hands. “What happened?” she asks.