"You were there?"
"Shit, sure. Never saw a black man look so pale. Caught his last breaths, but we were too late." The paramedic rubbed his chin with his large hand. "Must be some other whippersnapper lifted the name. Not like Thompson's using it anymore."
"Yeah, yeah I guess. But you haven't seen him?"
"No, no. I ain't."
"I'm worried he got thrown clear or something," Barksdale said.
"I haven't heard anything, but it's a little crazy right now. He'll get tended to."
The paramedic turned his attention back to splinting a woman's injured arm.
A movement at the edge of trees caught Barksdale's attention. The myriad flashing lights and oncoming darkness of night played tricks. Barksdale saw a man running down the embankment toward the woods, stumbling in a drunken, breakneck gait. Barksdale recognized the cut of the back of a suit coat, and a fedora on the head.
"Lonnie!"
Barksdale looked for help, but at the moment other needs held every rescue personnel's attention. He spotted the regal man again. The regal man's gaze held Barksdale's eyes and Barksdale could not deny the shudder convulsing along his body from head to toe. Barksdale looked to the woods, and so did the regal man. And then the regal man disappeared again. Barksdale thought he saw an another outline in the woods who looked like the regal man, too. No man could have traveled so fast.
Someone screamed in the woods.
Barksdale ran into the woods, his vision barely able to pierce the gloom. A rotted log gave way under his foot and he sprawled onto the ground, a stench of mushrooms and rot assailing his nostrils. He dug his lighter out of his pocket. Again, he swore an oath to throw it away but it would need to happen later. He needed the light now.
The log he tripped over rotted as he watched. Sickly white fungus with black and dark purple swirls expanded rapidly over the surface even as Barksdale watched. Barksdale whipped the lighter about, thought he saw movement in the shadows, but saw nothing definitive. Once or twice, the wind soughed in the trees.
And then Barksdale knew he wasn't looking at a log, at all. Somewhere under the mass of consuming fungus, he caught glimpses of white bones, patches of brown flesh both desiccated and wet with slimy moisture. Fungus enveloped the fedora brim as he watched.
Barksdale stared at the consuming fungus, watching its baleful progress, until nothing remained but the left hand suit coat pocket.
After the chaos of the crash, the police statements, reclamation of luggage, transfers, and the overdue departures, the substitute bus pulled into the Memphis bus terminal after midnight. The bus line provided for the overnight stay, and everyone received a hotel room and meal voucher for the evening.
Before heading to the hotel, Barksdale went to the lost and found desk.
The regal man waited behind the counter. He no longer appeared quite so official as a manager. The regal man was just a desk clerk now.
"Can I help you?" The voice held beauty and madness.
"I'm here for a guitar," Barksdale said. He handed over a yellowed luggage ticket.
The clerk nodded, and then spent long minutes in the back room. He returned with a guitar case in hand.
"How long ago did you lose this guitar?"
"I thought you'd know how long," Barksdale said.
The clerk, the regal man, feigned innocence. "Judging from the stub - fifteen years?"
"Got a little sidetracked in Winona."
The clerk double-checked the tags. "The dates and claim numbers match," he said. He shook his head. "Something this old should have been moved along to the auction block years ago! You're lucky."
Barksdale took possession of the guitar.
"I don't know about luck," Barksdale said. "But I'm just a strummer so I don't think I'll be playing anything too fancy. Maybe just enough to get back to where I was."
The regal man gave a sardonic grin.
Barksdale headed out to find his hotel room.
The next morning, Barksdale traded his Branson ticket for a ticket to Nashville.
In the Forest, with the Night
Aaron J. French
We stood in the field, Alex on my left, Kristine and Diane on my right; Jess was in the middle in his black cloak, complete with cowl, a rope tied about the waist. The costume had looked totally absurd when he showed it to me online; doubly absurd when it arrived in the post and he’d put it on. But for some reason, now—out here in the night, with the trees and stars behind him—seeing him dressed this way gave me chills.
Lightning flashed, triggering thunder, and the dark purple clouds mounted toward the big bright moon currently casting its glow upon the forest. The air smelled of pine needles, sap, and musk.
I looked at Alex, whose hand I held, and saw he had his eyes closed. His broad, bearded face and round chest gave him the appearance of a football player. But he was bookish at heart and had never set foot on a football field. He preferred the chair at his computer desk to anything else.
His lips rambled slightly and I knew he was chanting the mantra Jess had instructed us to chant. Jess had plucked the mantra out of that fucked-up book, the one he held in his hands. The book, too, had been acquired on the Internet.
Jess thought himself an occultist, but in reality he was just a single child and high school dropout, the guy who hated his mom and preferred alcohol to attending college classes. It didn’t seem likely he’d amount to anything.
Except for tonight.
Tonight he had... changed in the most subtle way.
As soon as he’d put that black cloak on, his eyes had gone bulging and mean, and he looked serious as a heart attack. Once he began reading from that book, I saw him grinning, almost fiendishly beneath the cowl, his voice inflections different, lower in tone, articulated.
The guy was taking all this very, very seriously. I wasn’t sure if that was an improvement or a type of teenage regression. Jess spent most his time in the bars around campus, getting drunk and trying to pick up chicks: succeeding in the former, failing at the latter. In a way, it was nice to see him applying himself.
I turned to Kristine, who held my other hand, and she too had closed her eyes, muttering the mantra; beyond her Diane, a bit taller, appeared in the same state of concentration. Both girls were attractive—Kristine a little full-figured, Diane tall and thin. Blondes. This was the second time I’d ever met them outside of class. Both were in Professor Vadalini’s course on Quantum Physics. A specialty seminar, being held this semester only. Jess, Alex, and myself—all fans of the outre, and science nuts too—were taking Dr. Vadalini’s course, even though we didn’t need the credit.
But I still couldn’t figure out how the hell Jess had convinced these girls to come and do this. It really made me chuckle. I mean, this was the first time Jess had succeeded in picking up chicks!
I seemed to be the only one with my eyes open. Even Jess, where he stood in front of the circle, his head bowed reading in the book, had his shut. How the hell that was possible, reading with closed eyes, I had no idea—which led me to believe he was simply making shit up, and not actually reading.
I also wasn’t repeating the mantra. Why the hell should I? This was all a silly fantasy for Jess and Alex. I didn’t subscribe to their occult bullshit. Modern Darwinist and proud of it. But they had managed to get the girls to come. That was cool. I hoped we’d all get drunk afterward.
My attention returned to Jess, listening to the steady stream of weird syllables and unusual phrases pouring from his mouth. None of it English, nor a foreign language I could recognize. It sounded like gibberish.
***
After a while, I started getting angry. There was something about all this that just wore on my nerves, like sitting through a fucking church service. I’d done enough of that as a kid. Mom and Dad basically hogtied me every Sunday and dragged me to the car. There had never been anything more offensive to me in my youth.
Then I noticed what Jess was doing. Every couple of beats his
eyelids would flutter, just enough for him to glance at the page. So that’s how he was “reading” with his eyes closed. No magic, as usual; just sneaky illusions. I smiled, relishing my own sardonic humor. Funny to see them taking this all so seriously. It showed how much smarter I was.
A sharp movement—a shadow, but different—caught my attention in the nearby pines. I turned, peering across the grass to where, yes, a shape was slipping in and out of the trunks.
I squinted as more moonlight freed itself of the clouds. I spotted a creature, an animal, a deer perhaps, hiding, ducking, dodging. I’d have called it a deer and satisfied my apprehension but for one thing: it had octopus tentacles—like the stems of an undersea plant—trailing along behind it.
Jess’s stream of alien speech oozed into the night, filling the air. I glanced at each of them—Jess, Alex, Kristine, then Diane—and saw that none had noticed the creature, their eyes still closed, lips muttering.
Maybe I had imagined it.
Nothing to be afraid of.
But when I looked again toward the screen of trunks and shrubs lining the patch of grass where we stood, sure enough the creature was there, now stationary, half concealed behind a pine trunk, its face glaring out. It wasn’t a human face but something like a crazed demon: an angular jaw, nostril holes, high, bony brow. Its eyes: wide, yet slitted, bright red.
Staring at me—
But wait... was it?
Why not staring at the others?
Then I realized—
The creature had noticed my eyes were open.
I hadn’t closed them like everyone else.
I had looked.
Now whatever weirdo shit Jess had summoned—from whatever crazy-ass freako source on the Internet—was here, staring at me. The Laws of Science be damned because I was fucking seeing it, right now, in reality, and no amount of blinking could remove it.
Suddenly it took flight, wings, more like gauzy sea fins, hoisting it up through the canopy where it thrashed among the branches. A moment later it broke free, soaring like a star into the night sky.
“Holy fuck!” I screamed.
I couldn’t help it. The sight was so shocking, so terrifying, that it knocked out my normal capacity for self-control. My body thrummed like a drumhead, and my heart was tapping out the marching beat of Notre Dame. I was sweating, and for Christ’s sake, I think I might have pissed myself—
Jess’s eyes snapped open. He looked demonic. “Will you shut up? You are fucking up the ritual.”
“But look!” I pointed to the sky.
***
Alex, Kristine, and Diane opened their eyes; because they were facing the same direction, with Jess facing toward us, they all saw it. Strangely enough, neither of the girls screamed—but Alex did, a hoarse, male cry—and for some reason that was worse. I glanced over at Kristine and Diane and saw them gazing skyward, eyes bulging, mouths agape, teeth apart.
We no longer held hands.
The link had been broken.
The creature became more visible, although its jerking movements made getting a clearly recognizable image impossible. Round, larva-like body; viscous wings; clawed hooves; and that face—horrible, with buggy eyes and sharp teeth. It compared to nothing I’d ever seen in my life.
Jess wheeled, lifting the cowl back off his head. I couldn’t see his face when he screamed but the emotion in his voice was petrifying.
“Night Gaunt!”
I had no idea what those two words meant.
But as I watched, paralyzed, the creature came swooping down out of the sky, descending like a nuclear missile to the place where the five of us had gathered. I saw it close up for a second, and I marveled at its waxen, fleshy body and its fecal, primal reek, before its snapping claws closed firmly around Kristine, lifted her off the ground, and carried her off to the stars.
Diane screamed: shrilly. I screamed, Alex screamed (had Jess screamed?)—fuck it, we all screamed.
The creature—is Night Gaunt what Jess had called it?—flew clutching Kristine over the clearing.
With one sharp clench of its sharp teeth and bear claws, and with an excruciating crunch that made me want to vomit, the poor girl exploded in a spray of blood and bone. Chunks of gore rained down, thumping against the grass.
The Night Gaunt then circled overhead, screeching a triumphant cry of mayhem and rage, and within seconds was diving toward us again hungry for more—more death, more blood, more carnage.
We scattered, fleeing like roaches from the light. Alex and Jess went left, and Diane and I went right. By chance, the creature followed them. The consolation was mitigated when a scream traveled up over my head. The Night Gaunt had caught another; again the crunch, splash, and the scream was silenced. Distant behind me, recognizable thumpings...
I could no longer emote or feel upset; I was numb. Whatever sadness I experienced over the fact that one of my longtime friends was most likely dead was relegated to my subconscious. We escaped into the trees, running up against a small, narrow ditch. I managed to hurdle it, but Diane lost her footing and went down. The scrambling of her limbs was followed by a shriek of pain.
“Please, wait!” she cried.
I was roughly ten feet ahead of her. My nerves were shot and my adrenalin was pumping. I could no longer experience fear, per se, but rather a madly driving push to run, run, run. I could see the outskirts of the forest ahead, which led to the cars, to the street, to civilization, and safety.
***
“Please...”
She was back behind me. Should I leave her? Should I go? Or should I...
I turned and there she was lying in the rocky, weed-choked ravine. Her face was black with dirt, her legs bent unnaturally behind. She reached to me with a clenched and tortured fist.
Christ, she’s hurt.
I had the flash of a memory, of accidentally hitting a cat with my car in the neighborhood I lived in with my parents as a teenager. It had been my first car, and the poor cat had come out of nowhere. As I looked back in my rearview mirror to see it twitching on the asphalt, a voice in my head said, You did that, it’s your fault. Now it’s your responsibly to make it better. Go on—help!
But I hadn’t helped. I was afraid, for one thing, of its bloody fur and twisted body; and for another, I didn’t want anyone knowing I’d hit it. I’d been speeding and my parents might’ve taken the car away. So I drove off, leaving the cat in the road. But I never forgot.
I squatted on my hunches, taking Diane’s hand. Her skin felt icy cold. I pulled slightly; she groaned.
“How badly are you hurt?”
She looked at me with glazed eyes and nodded. “Shin, ankle...” she said. “I sprained it. What the hell was that thing?”
“No time to talk.” I wedged my arm beneath her, attempting to move her upright. When I had her standing up, both her arms around my neck, and mine at the small of her back, I couldn’t help but grin. I was her knight in shining armor.
We turned back into the forest and I heard Jess’s voice raise up through the night...
“No... no... nooooooooooo!!!”
...followed by terrible screams, and the savage wails of the Night Gaunt, and then finally the end, silence.
Were they both dead now? Did it even matter? I imagined myself floating in a tiny cloud, into which nothing could penetrate, and outside of which nothing was real, like being in a dream.
Diane nudged me. She wore the pleading, frightened countenance of a child. Save me, her expression said.
“Get us out of here, Tom.”
Her use of my first name brought me back to reality. I didn’t want to die here, not like this. Stupid Jess! I was really going to miss him. I tightened my grip on Diane and started off into the trees.
It came up behind us almost instantly. Diane started screaming and digging her claws into my neck. The pain made me move faster, but her added weight impeded the escape. I had to struggle to battle through the dense shrubs and foliage.
T
he Night Gaunt kept at our backs. I sensed it more than saw it; heard it, too, screeching like an eagle, diving in the treetops and snapping branches. I wanted to rescue the poor girl. Hell, I’d wanted to rescue that cat years back. But sometimes situations are cruel. Things go badly and things get worse, and then survival is what matters.
The Night Gaunt dropped through the branches directly over our heads. It screeched, and Diane echoed its piercing cry. My heart pounded as I attempted to hurry us forward. No use; her weight was too much.
I saw the Night Gaunt lunge at us and without thinking I shoved the girl into its gnashing claws, falling back onto my butt.
It gathered her greedily to its bosom, claws enfolding around her. I smelled the thick putrid stench of its hide. Wings beat the air and the last thing I saw was her face—her horrified, pleading face, stretched like an O—as the Night Gaunt launched itself up into the canopy and disappeared.
You did that, it’s your fault. Now it’s your responsibly to make it better.
My stomach sank, but this wasn’t the time for shame or regret. I could hear the Night Gaunt making quick work of Diane, could hear her blood pelting against the trees—which meant it would soon come back again. I had to move it—now.
I got to my feet and started running back through the forest. I felt blind, running along a dark tunnel with no distinguishing light at the end. The only hope was my car, my escape back to the “real” world.
I ran with everything I had.
Eventually I reached the edge of the woods and came in sight of the dirt lot where we’d parked. I’d been running so long my whole body burned and itched. My legs felt like jelly.
I gasped and panted my way through the screen of trunks (was I sobbing too?) and made a break for my Honda. The girls’ car stood darkly beside it. And there it would stay, too.
At some point the Night Gaunt had backed off its pursuit, gliding instead high above the treetops, keeping watch. Tracking me. I could still hear its beating wings but couldn’t tell where it was.
A Lonely and Curious Country Page 27