by Peter Spokes
Ironically, the unsalvageable state of her Vincent was testimony of a very serious accident indeed. The bars and forks were twisted beyond any likelihood of repair while the front wheel had practically folded over. More worrying though was the large amount of dried blood that covered the tank in copious quantities. The man that found her said that there had been a dead old wolf nearby and so it was reasonable to assume that she had hit it with her motorcycle – though Sam could see from his strangely haunted expression he didn’t believe his own words.
“What is it?” Sam had asked.
He had paused and Sam had wondered if he was going to say anything more.
But then, “… There was a lot of dried blood,” he had said, “… but it wasn’t from the wolf or … it would appear, from the lady.”
Sam looked up, “So where did the blood come from?”
He smiled. “This country is very old and some things don’t have… explanations…”
With that he had simply turned and left.
Once back inside Sam looked at the dark rims around Rebecca’s eyes; it was clear that she was not up for long accounts.
Sam didn’t question her and left her to a hot bath and a night’s sleep.
The following morning – and curiously with only a slight limp – Rebecca walked over to a soft chair and sat herself down, her hands wrapped round a coffee cup that Sam had hastily procured.
She then told Sam her story.
Scene 5: Rebecca’s Story
After leaving the hostel (she said), she spent several enjoyable hours motoring around the upper hills and enjoying the breathtaking views of the lower forests that led up to the Carpathian mountain range.
The sun was bright and low in the sky but still exuded an orange hue that transformed the hills to a fiery aspect.
Losing track of time, she was on her return journey – though still some miles from the hostel – when, in the rapidly dimming light, and distracted by the previously mentioned low solar glow, she entered a tight bend too fast.
Rebecca lost control and was flung from the Vincent.
She regained consciousness sometime later; the sun was just appearing over the mountains and so she felt she had been out cold for several hours.
She found herself down an embankment and unable to move her legs; the left one projected at an unnatural angle to the side and there was an intense pain in her chest as she breathed, indicative of possible broken ribs.
She was lying with her back supported by a tree in a vaguely sitting position, staring at her Vincent several yards up the bank.
She felt no pain but tasted blood and after a sudden fit of retching, could see more on her hands and down the front of her leather jacket.
Despite the clear break to her left leg – just above the knee – there was no pain, just a lot of blood. The fact that she was unable to move or feel anything from the waist down was also a fair indication of a serious spinal injury.
Rebecca spent the rest of the time in and out of consciousness…
Sam thought back at what the man had said and wondered.
This may be expected in someone badly injured but it was odd that despite large amounts of blood on her, under her and around her, when found she appeared not to have suffered any obvious loss of blood or symptoms to that effect, making so much of what she said not only irrational but quite impossible.
Sam had, of course, challenged the old gentleman – who found her – on his assessment, only to be told that he was a retired doctor.
As she lay there (she continued), in her not only critical but quite likely life-threatening state, she experienced several dreams or maybe hallucinations.
One such was the appearance of something grotesquely misshapen lurking between the trees. She never actually saw it – just its shadow.
But soon after, she saw two bright yellow eyes that stared at her from the dark undergrowth. As they moved closer she could see the moonlight glinting on teeth and a sleek fur – light-grey in colour.
An old wolf stepped soundlessly across the loam and headed – with some urgency – towards her.
As it reached her, she noticed – as if she were a distant spectator – the grey muzzle and tired gait.
She could barely move and the pains were becoming unbearable.
Rebecca closed her eyes and turned her head away and hoped it would go away.
It didn’t.
She felt hot breath on her neck and she waited, terrified, for the jaws to bite into her flesh. She felt its hot tongue licking the back of her neck.
Then it bit – or rather nipped – her. She looked around in further surprise as it lay down on its side and within minutes its breathing had stopped.
Rebecca again lost consciousness.
The next awareness Rebecca experienced was sometime later – she screamed in sudden agony as the pain in her chest and leg erupted into fire.
She could smell something; an odour, not duly unpleasant, just odd. Later, Rebecca said it was like the smell of a forest after a heavy rainfall or wet grass. The pain was excruciating and the fact that she felt it at all was not lost on her. She looked over at the dead wolf and passed gratefully into unconsciousness as the newly acquired pain flared again.
She wondered if perhaps the old wolf had infected her with something.
Sam wondered. Under extreme trauma, the most able-bodied and level-headed individual might succumb to dreams and hallucinations and Sam would testify before God that Rebecca was never one subject to these falsities when in times of nervous tension.
However…
She closed her eyes briefly and tried to get some control to her breathing realising suddenly how much easier and less painful it was. But despite this she turned over and vomited several times realising after the event what she had just done.
Initially partially paralysed, she was now quite able to move her limbs, although it still felt like molten fire was surging through them. She even managed to sit upright and with the help of some low branches, gain her feet, though it was clearly too much for her left leg and she collapsed.
She continued to lie there when she became aware of a motor running. Then there was a man talking to her – though she didn’t understand what he said. Relieved but with a slight feeling of alarm, she let him lift her into his truck and after a while – to load up the Vincent as it turned out – drive her to the hostel.
Scene 6: The Rest of the Holiday
The following morning Rebecca was on the road to recovery remarkably fast and Sam was happily surprised that she had no problem with riding pillion; and the motorcycle ride continued.
He resisted asking her further on her accident.
As they approached the Austrian border Sam slowed down and stopped.
“Everything okay?” she asked concerned and removing her helmet.
Sam dismounted and faced her while moving down onto one knee. He felt surprisingly assertive and reflected on how leukaemia could put things into perspective.
He looked up into Rebecca’s emerald eyes and asked her if she would be his wife.
So many years later Sam still remembered – with profound pleasure – Rebecca’s reaction, or stages of reaction, and still, often savoured it.
First, she laughed, and then her smile slowly disappeared but strangely moved to her eyes which began to shine wet in the sun. Then the smile moved back to her mouth and she looked at Sam in a way as if he was the only one in the world.
Scene 7: Sam’s Dream
It was the night after the proposal that it all started.
Sam’s dreams were not pleasant that night. He dreamt he was running through a forest of wet leaves and rotting wood while dark and unseen shadows hounded his steps. He caught his foot on something and – face down – went sprawling.
He woke suddenly – or was he still dreamin
g – to see something grotesque moving towards him. It was silhouetted before the window and appeared to be hunched over with a large head and overly long arms trailing to the floor. Though awake, Sam could still smell the strong odour of wet grass.
In some panic, Sam leaned over and fumbled for several moments before he found the switch to the bedside lamp and saw… Rebecca.
Sam quickly looked around the room but she was alone.
“Are you okay? … Rebecca?” he whispered while trying to decrease his sudden rapid breathing.
She didn’t reply.
Rebecca moved slowly to stand beside his bed, her eyes were open and she appeared to be breathing oddly – or more accurately inhaling intermittently through her nose as if tracking a scent.
She leaned forward and moved her head down slowly until their lips were almost touching. Although Sam could feel his body heat rising, there was something odd in the way she leaned her head to the right and left as if inspecting him or perhaps smelling him as a dog might do.
Rebecca moved her head around his neck to the back of his head, her long red hair falling across his cheek and her hot breath causing his own breath to quicken.
And then she started to lick his neck.
Sam was just reaching up to caress her thick tresses when he felt a sudden nip at the base of his skull.
He jumped. “Hey, what the hell!” He thrashed his arm out knocking the bedside lamp off its table and all became dark.
All of a sudden, Sam felt very light-headed and put his head back onto the pillow, but before closing his eyes he watched as Rebecca’s slim silhouette passed the window.
The following morning Sam woke with heavy breathing and sweating profusely.
Maybe just a dream but it had seemed so vivid.
Sam’s neck hurt and putting his hand to the nape of his neck he felt a small area of dried blood.
Alarmed, he grabbed some clothes and went into Rebecca’s room where she was still wrapped in the merciful embrace of Morpheus.
He frowned and turned away to make some coffee; there was no way he would be able to return to his bed to sleep – and certainly not after seeing the blood on Rebecca’s lips.
Wearily, he sat at the table and after just a few sips of coffee, his head lowered and he slept.
An hour later he awoke to Rebecca carrying two cups of coffee.
She was smiling.
Scene 8: Feeling Better
Once back from his sojourn Sam had returned to the hospital as requested.
It was a week later that he folded the letter he had received. After the third time reading it he returned it to his breast pocket, his confusion increasing to a point where he was beginning to doubt his own sanity. He had certainly been feeling quite well recently; that is to say, he hadn’t suffered the tiredness or the bleeding of the gums since his return; can leukaemia go into remission like other cancers?
The doctors had given up on him – but the leukaemia was apparently no more.
Sam had been down the road of disbelief, defiance and sadness finally ending up at the door of profound acceptance, and was now being told he was healthy.
The doctors had been quite seriously surprised, and there was no plausible medical reason or explanation for Sam’s recovery. The letter had finished with the doctor’s rather flippant suggestion that an angel must be looking over him.
Sam thought there may be something in that, but if it were so, it was no angel.
Scene 9: The Present – Recovery
Sam slowly lifted his aged head and once again returned to the present and smiled with the reacquainted and fond memories of Rebecca and their loving life together.
Michael and the grandchildren were now gone but Sam had ensured as uplifting a farewell as he was able. He had held onto Michael’s shoulder overlong and nodded before returning to his daughter’s room.
The machine beside Chynna produced a mechanical version of the sound of breathing. As it operated her lungs, her breast rose and fell slowly.
Sam felt so tired and wanted so badly to close his eyes for the last time, but there was something he had to do – or was it that the creature needed him to do?
The creature didn’t want to die and in this strange symbiosis he, Rebecca, a wolf and God only knew what other creatures, had benefitted from its strange need and sustenance.
And now, Chynna would benefit too.
He wondered if he had any input to the decision anyway as the strength of impulse was becoming just too strong to resist. The creature must in some way sense an injury or malady – or maybe it understood that – like the old wolf – Sam had little time left and it needed to move on to save its own existence. How long had it been moving from one creature to another? Sam wondered as he grasped the wolf’s head of his cane.
Picking up a tissue he moved slowly to his daughter’s bedside and leaned over her. He stroked her forehead and uttered comforting words that were meant for her but probably helped him more so.
Still bent over, he slowly turned his head to look towards the door. All was quiet. This time he would not be disturbed. He could feel his mouth filling with saliva – and presumably more.
He gently kissed the pallid forehead before leaning further and close to the back of her neck.
Then he bit hard.
He paused – in part to ensure he passed on what he was meant to – but also to linger on the last time he would touch his daughter.
Dabbing his mouth with the tissue he returned to his chair. Once there he looked down at the new shadow he cast… and smiled.
Scene 10: Rebecca
There was an oddly unaccustomed pain in his joints and extreme tiredness in his body.
He closed his eyes for only a moment before opening them again to see his daughter sitting on the edge of the bed – and weeping.
But his sudden concern was distracted, for standing at the end of her bed was Rebecca.
And she was smiling at him.
Though he was not clearly understanding the complete irrationality of it, he was not going to argue. She stood there, her face lit as if from some inner light and her eyes shining the brightest emerald.
He felt tears well up; God, he had missed her so much. She gazed at him as if there was no one else in the world but him.
He stood up – oddly no longer tired and his joints no longer aching – and walked towards her and took her hands into his.
“How are you here?” he whispered.
Rebecca smiled, “I think you know, my love…” She then looked over at her daughter. “Chynna will be fine now,” she continued. “It saved me and you… and now it will save our little girl too.”
Several minutes later, Chynna carefully stood up from the bed and slowly shuffled towards the dead old man in the chair and knelt down. She took his cold hands into hers.
She was too sad to notice the misshapen shadow she now cast.
Chinese Whispers
I continued the ascent.
With each clawing of rock and dirt, I made my way ever closer to the surface.
My legs were like pistons as they propelled my body up to the next ledge or outcropping of rock or recess for my next handhold to haul me further.
Despite my age – best described as antediluvian – my body felt young and strong and was unaffected by my many years of climbing.
Soon I would see the sun again and the stars in their heavenly void. I had so missed them since the fall and relished once again riding my black stallions across my father’s land. Also, I looked forward to seeing my brothers again. We had not always agreed and seen eye to eye, and had even fought on occasions; indeed, it was from the most recent falling out that it was generally agreed that I should remove myself from them until I had had time to reflect and my maturity had empowered me with greater understanding of – and humility for – the world
as I saw it.
Despite my absence, I had not lost all contact with the ways of the world. Through a multitude of messengers, I had kept in contact with my brothers and to a lesser extent, my father.
My sudden disappearance from the world had had a great effect on the creatures I knew, and, curiously, those I did not; and it both bemused and alarmed me as to how like Chinese whispers it was, where a few sentences could escalate into something very different from the original truth; my self-imposed exile soon became considered a banishment which, in turn, created the ‘for and against’ mentality and many deaths.
Despite humanity’s apparent progression of learning, they still warred and killed over me and my father’s falling out.
It was going to be interesting to see the reaction to my return to the world; something apparently prophesied by some, eagerly awaited by a few and feared by many. Sometimes I wished they would enjoy their own brief lives rather than waste it away on Chinese whispers.
After the briefest pause, I continued again, my mind straying to my brothers. My oldest brother was always in charge and forever there to carry out my father’s wishes. In fact, he headed my father’s armies when he and I had… altercations. He was proud and strong. I only wished he had more of a mind of his own.
Then there was my other brother; I smiled. I felt I was closer to him than anyone and had missed him so much. Though an excellent soldier, he was the messenger informing those on our father’s lands how things would be.
I paused again and looked down behind me at the thousands of scurrying bodies, all like me, climbing to get to the eventual light; their contorted and blackened bodies cracking in their agonies. It had never sat right with me that their devotion should have been punished through my own questionably considered evil acts. I admired their loyalty. One would have thought it healthy for a father to nurture some independent thinking; to think ‘outside of the box’; be open to diverse beliefs. But in my father’s eyes, anything he didn’t like, he considered evil and to hell with those who thought otherwise – literally.