The Green Memory of Fear

by B. A. Chepaitis

  He kept his gaze on her, making surface empathic contact. He found thoughts and emotions older than her years, and something on her mind that had nothing to do with killing him. Something she was keeping well hidden from the others.

  He turned his contact from her to Peter, who was hollowed, scooped out. Nothing of self left. Just a hole, waiting for Dr. Senci to fill him.

  And the younger boy, who had a rage bigger than all of them put together. And the other two girls, who were soft in the middle, gooey, already worn out of their souls.

  It didn’t look good.

  Peter stepped forward and pushed the girl out of the way. “Who cares how his head is? Let’s have some fun with him.”

  He put a hand on Alex’s face, turned it to profile, then back to full face. He let his hand drop into Alex’s lap and rubbed at his crotch. Alex gulped air hard and pulled his legs up to block him. The little girl laughed, and Peter glowered at her.

  “What’s your problem? Aren’t we supposed to sex him? Isn’t that what he said to do?”

  Alex, keeping his knees drawn tight to his belly, decided it was time to become a real presence. “Hey,” he barked at them, and they all jumped. “Where am I, and what’re you up to?”

  Peter started to speak but the girl interrupted him. She seemed to hold some authority with the group, even greater than this oldest boy. “No, Peter. We only sex him right before we kill him. You know the rules. Now go away. I’m supposed to talk to him alone.”

  The children looked angry, but they left, and Alex slowly lowered his knees. The girl stood staring at him, her wide dark eyes giving nothing away. Alex waited.

  “You know her,” she said without preamble.

  Alex shook himself. Know her. “Jaguar?” he asked.

  The girl nodded. “I want you to tell me all about her. Everything you know.”

  Alex took in breath and let it out slowly. “Are you Maya?” he asked.

  She startled. “Who told you my name?”

  “Jaguar. She talked to me about you.”

  “What did she say?”

  “That you were smart. Tough. That you needed help. That you led her to Daro.”

  The girl nodded solemnly. “Dr. Senci wanted me to, but that’s not why I did it. I thought if anyone could help him, she could. But now she’s gone, and Dr. Senci said we should kill you to bring her back. Peter’ll bring a gun in, and I’m supposed to shoot you in the legs. Then the others get to sex you. If you don’t cooperate, I kill you. If you do, he’ll feed off you when he gets back. He’ll do that to all her friends, if she doesn’t come.”

  She recited the litany as if she was telling him to do the laundry then wash the dishes then if he didn’t mind could he walk the dog. He supposed it was a familiar routine to her. Dr. Senci’s preferred method of sex. Immobilize, rape, feed and kill. Not his idea of a good time.

  “Maya,” he said, “Is that what you want to do?”

  “I don’t know yet.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I don’t like the sexing part, but Peter does. I just want to know about her.”

  Alex breathed out slowly and thought about what he should say next. The truth, he decided, would be a good place to start.

  “Dr. Senci’s using you to trick her, to make her be with him,” he said. “When he finds her, he’ll kill her, and I can’t let that happen.”

  This was apparently too complex a thought for her. She twisted her lips around, pulled at them, let them go. “I thought she was his queen,” she said. “She’s supposed to come and be—my mother.”

  “Is that what Senci told you?” Alex asked.

  She nodded.

  “He lied,” Alex said.

  Maya went close to Alex, sniffed the air around him. Testing him for the truth? He supposed so. She must have some pretty good empathic capacities to be able to project an image of herself so clearly. He had no doubt she could, Jaguar-like, smell what was real.

  She did. Her face went bright red. She turned and kicked hard at a chair behind her. “That Cocksucker,” she screeched. “He always lies to me. He’s such a liar. I hate him.”

  “Then,” Alex said, “why not leave him?”

  Her leg stopped midkick. She brought it down to the floor, swiveled around to him. “Leave him?”

  “That’s right,” Alex said. He raised his hands. “Undo my cuffs. I’ll take you and your friends out of here. We’ll go find Jaguar without Dr. Senci.”

  She considered. “The others might go, but I don’t think Peter will. He wants to transform, and Dr. Senci promised him.”

  “The others that were here? What’re their names?”

  “I don’t know,” Maya said. “I didn’t ask. I don’t like names. I only use Peter’s because he makes me.”

  “But he doesn’t know your name, does he?” Alex said.

  “Of course not. And don’t you tell him either, or I’ll kill you.”

  “I won’t,” he said, and he meant it. He wondered where she learned that bit of ancient wisdom. That your name carried power and to keep it secret was to preserve its power. A strange child, but a wise one. Now she seemed lost in thought. She hummed tunelessly and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Where’s Dr. Senci?” he asked at last.

  She continued humming, and shrugged. “You know,” she said. “Hunting.”

  Hunting. For more children. For a meal. An ex-cop told him once that he knew more than one pedophile who referred to children as meals. He wondered how many of the pedophiles they had on the Planetoids were ex-meals of Dr. Senci’s he didn’t finish off.

  “When will he be back?” Alex asked.

  “How should I know?” She was irritated with his questions, as if they interrupted her line of thinking. He fell silent and she went back to her humming.

  When she brought her attention back to him he raised his wrists. “Uncuff me, and we’ll leave,” he said.

  She frowned. “I’ll think about it,” she said, and, ala Jaguar her queen, she turned and left the room.

  Chapter 16

  Home Planet—New Mexico, USA

  Jaguar stumbled into consciousness to the sound of something like spoons clattering against plates. She was hungry. She smelled food. Heard food. She opened her eyes to darkness in her room.

  It took her some moments to locate herself in space, remember where she was. Then she pulled herself up, noticed she was still dressed in the clothes she’d arrived in. She stood and made her way clumsily out of the room, down the hall and into the main part of the house. Nobody was here, or awake, but outside she saw a leaping light and heard a crackling. Someone had a fire going.

  She also heard voices, Jake’s among them. She walked to the door and opened it, saw Jake and two other men she didn’t recognize sitting on stones placed around a small fire. An empty pot of stew stood next to the fire, with a pile of used bowls and spoons next to it.

  The other two men looked at her, at Jake. Then they got up and left.

  Jaguar walked over to the fire. “Was it something I said?” she asked.

  Jake narrowed his eyes at her. “Stop bullshitting.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Then who does? The Mailman? Should I go ask him?”

  She sighed. She should know better. Jake never did small talk when big talk was around. “How long was I out?” she asked. It looked like deep night, a sky cast about with stars. “What time is it?”

  Jake checked the stars. “About four.”

  Almost a whole night’s sleep, which was more than she’d had for awhile. “Not too bad,” she muttered.

  “Yeah,” Jake said, “A few days sleep probably did you good.”

  She blinked at him. “Days?”

  “Yeah. It’s four am, Friday.”

  “Friday?” She was appalled. She’d arrived on a Tuesday.

  “You went under,” Jake said.

  Under was right. Under the bottom of the universe. Under the bottom of herself and th
en some. She remembered some of it, like dreams that continue to hang around, holding more feeling tone than sense. But Friday? She’d slept that long?

  “Jesus, Jake. You let me go three days? Senci could be killing people. I can’t—“

  “He’s not,” Jake cut in. “Sit down.”

  She contained her fury, took a seat on a rock, subjected herself to his gaze.

  “That’s better,” Jake said. “Now tell me what you think you’re in such a hurry to do.”

  She struggled for words. What was she going to do? The problem was, she didn’t know. “I need to find Senci, and—and stop him,” she said, trying for a certainty she couldn’t quite achieve.

  “Not yet,” Jake said firmly.

  “Not yet? Then what? I let him kill everyone I love? Alex and Rachel and you and One Bird? I let him keep destroying children, creating more destroyers just like him?”

  “Shut up,” Jake said. “For once, just shut up and listen.”

  She retreated, sullen and silent. Jake swore softly and picked up a stick from the side of the rock he sat on. He used it to draw spirals in the dirt at his feet. She watched them take form and grow, living pictures he’d wipe out as soon as he finished them, going on to the next, making his magic as he spoke.

  “The monster you hunt is a creature you don’t understand, and can’t redeem or destroy,” he said. “He’s been here longer than you can imagine. He’s like you only in the smallest way. He has blood. He has a heart. He breathes.”

  She listened in the way he’d taught her, not just hearing, but also feeling what he felt as he spoke. She sensed an energy that was totally unfamiliar, even though it was housed in the most familiar of physical forms. Senci, the Greenkeeper, was a new color of evil, and she’d have to grasp what that meant if she wanted to get this job done. But Jake already understood him, and suddenly she knew why.

  “You met him,” she whispered to Jake. “You—journeyed to him.” Jake grunted in acknowledgment. He’d done the shamanic journey that allowed his spirit to find Senci’s and know it in its most essential form. A new possibility occurred to Jaguar: Jake could do the journey again and take her with him. Then she might learn what she needed to complete her task.

  “Show me how to find him,” she said. “Or take me to him. Let me journey with you.”

  “No,” Jake said. “You’re too close. It would destroy you.”

  “Anything I do will destroy me—”

  “—Not that way. It won’t work. Just listen.”

  She sighed, and stopped arguing. He wouldn’t lie to her about that. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. So what can I do?”

  Jake wiped out all he’d drawn and began again, this time carving jagged edges in the earth. He didn’t speak, but instead offered her his experience with Senci in wordless communication. She felt his energy, the anomaly of the purely negative. And energy couldn’t be destroyed. It could only be shifted, transformed into something new. A combination of elements, the synchronicity of planned events and random occurrences was necessary.

  Yes, Jaguar thought. It made sense in her mind, but she couldn’t grasp what he meant in particular terms, couldn’t feel it in her heart. Access to that intuitive center was currently not available. Jake, feeling the block between them, made a sound of frustration and snapped the stick in two.

  Jaguar jumped at the sound. “Jesus, Jake,” she said. “Can’t you just tell me how to stop him?”

  “I just did. You can’t hear it.”

  “Then tell me another way.”

  “You’re stubborn, you know that?”

  “I learned it from my elders,” she said pointedly. “So what do I do?”

  He sniffed, scratched at the back of his neck. “While you were asleep, what did you dream?”

  Scattered images, blips of feeling, returned to her. Dreams of Senci pushing into her little girl’s body. Dreams of ropes tangled, holding her to him. Dreams of Alex, dead at the end of her knife. Dreams of hundreds of snakes circling her.

  “I dreamt about Alex,” she said, speaking carefully. She had to tell the truth, but she didn’t have to feel it. “About killing Alex, and Senci killing me. And I dreamt about snakes. Lots of snakes.”

  “What does that tell you?”

  She shrugged. “Alex is in danger. I’m in danger. We’re caught in something tangled and big and poisonous.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you can’t even hear yourself. You got any idea what you actually want?”

  “I want,” she said crisply, “what I can’t have.”

  “That’s what you think. And maybe that’s why you can’t hear what you need.”

  She stifled her frustration, her growing panic. Jake wanted something true from her and either couldn’t or wouldn’t help her until he got it. They’d done this kind of thing in the past, the two of them butting heads over questions she asked that he would only respond to by making her find her own answers. She made herself stay calm and considered her next words carefully. When she felt ready to speak, she stood and walked to him, taking one of his hands in hers.

  “Jake, I know I’m not being as—as clear as I should be,” she said quietly, “but we’ll have to work around it, because I don’t really matter here. What matters is that there’s a great evil walking in the world. It happens to be the evil that killed my family and would like to annihilate any good I’ve ever known, but it’ll do a lot worse if it’s allowed to continue. You journeyed to him, so you know what’s at risk. All the children, all the good men and women who’ll die, all the souls he’ll mangle and lives he’ll shred. And my own life is worth nothing if I sit back and let that happen. I have to stop him, or die trying.”

  Jake spat onto the earth. “But you don’t know how,” he said.

  Jaguar shifted restlessly. “No. I don’t.”

  “And you expect me to tell you?”

  “Something this important, I want your help,” she said, “but I’ll go on whether I get it or not.”

  Jake stood and turned his face up to the night sky, listening to the star talk. He and One Bird had never been overly protective of her. She was a warrior woman. That was her way and they accepted it. She didn’t know why he was reluctant to help her now. Maybe he already knew she couldn’t possibly succeed. That if she went after the Greenkeeper, she’d end up dead, or worse, and Senci would continue in his destructive path. Maybe he didn’t want any part of that.

  He scuffed his foot against the earth, then swiveled his head around to her. The intricate pattern of wrinkles on his face became deeper as he narrowed his eyes. “You dreamt about snakes,” he said. “So ask them.”

  Then he turned and went into the house, leaving her alone to consider the talk of stars, of her heart, of snakes.

  Home Planet—New York City, USA

  Alex sat on the bed, then lay down. Then he sat up again. There was nothing much else to do. Outside his room, he heard the children’s voices rising and falling, sometimes petulantly, and other times in laughter. He wondered what they were doing. It sounded as if they were playing a game. Monopoly, maybe. Cards.

  Dr. Senci’s children. He collected them, in all five flavors. How many had he fed on? How many had he bound, who later became pedophiles and serial killers? Davidson said if you killed a Greenkeeper, the ones he bound or transformed died with him. How many would that be? And how many more would he destroy before he was stopped. Not Jaguar, Alex thought. Not her.

  He looked around the room, saw there were two windows. Then he looked down at his wrists and ankles. Bound with plastic cuffs. Bound to Senci and his children, who might do anything. Their innocence made them capable of such evil.

  The voices in the other room quieted and Alex tensed, waiting to see if something would happen. Nothing did for quite some time. Maybe they’d just gone off to bed.

  He lay down, and closed his eyes, tried to imagine ways of releasing himself from his cuffs. He wasn’t chained to the wall
, so maybe he could leave them on and climb or jump out the window. He was about to raise himself to hop over and check when the door opened. He lay still, kept his eyes closed.

  Footsteps crossed the room. Pressure next to him told him someone was sitting on the bed. Then, a hand moved down his side, found the button on his pants and fumbled with it. He lay very still, considering what moves he could make. He’d settled on a very intrusive and unempathic upper cut to the chin, followed by a little neural anomaly known in slang as St. Vitus’ interruptus, when the hand stopped its motion.

  “Peter,” a voice said crossly, “I told you not to.”

  Alex opened his eyes. Peter’s hand jerked away and he stood, pointed a finger in Maya’s face.

  “You can’t tell me what to do,” he barked at her. “You’re not in charge here. You’ll never be in charge. I get what I want, and I want to sex him.”

  “Dr. Senci’ll be ma-ad at you,” Maya said, sing-song.

  “Then when do we get to kill him?” Peter demanded.

  The noise brought the other three children into the room, yawning and stretching. “Are we gonna do it now?” one of them asked.

  “Be quiet,” Maya hissed to the little boy. “Go get the gun.”

  Alex sat up. “I thought you wanted to leave with me. I thought all of you wanted to leave.”

  “If she leaves, we’ll tell on her. We already told her that,” one of the girls said. She looked to be about twelve, scrawny and lifeless in a white nightgown.

  “No,” Maya said. “Nobody’s leaving.” She turned to Alex. “I thought about it, but it’s not a good idea. They’d tell, and Dr. Senci’d be mad when he found me. Besides, he promised me a horse if I got you.”

  “A pony,” the other girl corrected.

  “No. A real horse. A white one,” Maya said.

  Alex sucked in breath and held it. The young boy walked back into the room holding a laser fire weapon by its muzzle. He lifted it to Maya.

  “No,” Peter said. “Give it to me.”

  “It’s my job,” Maya said. “Dr. Senci said so.” She wheeled away from him and grabbed the gun from the little boy’s hand.

  “All right,” Peter said, “But I get him first.”