Skillful Death

by Ike Hamill

  I scramble back as several more rats appear from between the stalks. It’s safer to hold the spear closer to my body and jab downward as the rats enter the circle of our small clearing.

  Behind me, Bud is getting the brunt of the attack. He scrapes the side of his spear against a stalk to clear the impaled rats. He has a pile of them stacked up.

  Four rats make a run at me. I kill three of them with the spear, but the fourth gets to my leg. It’s got about half of its rat body up my pant leg before I stab it with my knife. The rat’s hot guts soak into my sock as I yank on its tail and toss it out into the bamboo. My leg aches where the rat has either clawed or bitten. I watch several rats approach as I kneel down to tuck my pants into my bloody sock. I can’t bear the thought of another rat making it up my pants.

  They’re nearly on top of me before I’m again ready to fight. I have to stomp, beat, and jab at them to kill the onslaught. Behind me, Bud is a rat ninja. He’s taking them out left and right.

  A little scrawny rat gets stuck on the end of my spear and I have to flip it around and use the dull end to crush them. I put the knife in my teeth and just pound the stick down into the rats. If I can’t club them, I stomp on them before they latch onto my shoes. One leaps at me and clutches my knee. I grab it to fling it away and it bites into my finger. I can feel its teeth crunching into my bone.

  I swing my arm, but it holds on and I can’t shake it loose. I beat the thing against my leg and it finally lets go when I lower my hand to the ground so I can stomp on its back half.

  I yell around the knife handle and stomp and beat the rats.

  I don’t know how it got there, but one’s on my head. It’s biting at my scalp. I bring my fist down on top of my own skull and rat goo explodes into my hair.

  Bud is pulling them from my back as I swing and knock a leaping rat right out of the air. It bounces off some bamboo, disappears into the leaves, and then comes bounding back at me. When it leaps a second time, I kick it and crush its rat head.

  Bud is standing right next to me now and we’re beating back the next wave. There’s such a pile of rats in front of us that it’s hard to spot the attackers. It’s like one pulsing mass of black fur and teeth. My back is against bamboo now. We’ve backed across Bud’s small clearing and we’re fighting to hold onto our small patch.

  If they flank again, they could easily win. They may win anyway, there doesn’t seem to any end to the attack.

  Two make it past Bud’s spear and they’re scurrying up his legs. I don’t know how to help him without bashing him with my bamboo stick. I swipe at them with my hand, but they hold onto his clothes and climb up to his shirt. Meanwhile, more rats are coming. I leave Bud on his own so I can kill the next six rats bounding over the pile.

  I’m killing off all the newcomers, but Bud’s rats have found their way under his shirt. Bud pulls it up over his head and throws it down.

  “Your eyes!” he yells. “Don’t let them eat your eyes.”

  It seems like a weird warning, but Bud looks like he’s starting to lose his logic. He’s beating on his shirt, which he flung on top of the rat pile. His bamboo spear is beginning to splinter as he beats it against the onslaught of rats.

  A new wave comes at us from the bamboo. I can’t even guess at the number. They’re a countless mass of bounding fur and claws and teeth. They’re screeching at us. The sound is terrible.

  Bud takes a half step forward and he’s swinging his bamboo like a machine. I stab my spear at the few stragglers who evade his swings. Bud’s bamboo spear is breaking apart with each blow. He tosses it aside and grips his machete with both hands. Now he’s swinging the blade so fast that I can barely see the shining metal, but I see its work. On either side of him, the blood flows, splashing the leaves with crimson. I can’t get any closer to help. I stay back from the swinging blade.

  A new sound rumbles out of the bamboo like an earthquake.

  On either side of us, I see columns of rats streaming through the bamboo. I turn to meet the assault. They’re going to circle us and come up from behind. Their ranks close on the other side of the clearing, but they’re still running away. They haven’t turned back towards me, but I wait, right at the edge of the bamboo.

  “Give me room,” I say.

  Bud yells his battle cry.

  “They’re coming around,” I say. “I need room.” I can’t find the rats who have circled us unless I have some room to swing my spear, but I’m afraid that if I back up now, I’ll catch a machete to the back of my head.

  The screeching of the rats fades and it dawns on me that they’re not turning. The rats are still running away. Behind me, Bud’s machete is no longer slicing the air. The bamboo is growing quiet.

  I turn.

  The earthquake rumble comes again and the bamboo leaves shiver with the sound.

  “What is…” I begin.

  I don’t have to finish the question. I turn to stand shoulder to shoulder with Bud and we both see what emerges from the stalks.

  The bamboo bends to the sides as the massive head emerges.

  We’re looking into the burning amber eyes of a lion.

  However big they look on TV or in the zoo, nothing prepares you for the size of a lion standing before you. Granted, it was standing on top of a huge pile of dead rats, but this lion is looking us directly in the eyes. It looks at Bud, turns its eyes to me, and then back to Bud. For the brief second it locks eyes with me, my knees want to buckle. My intestines feel like they’ve turned to liquid. It takes all my effort to stay upright and unsoiled.

  Bud doesn’t raise his machete. He doesn’t threaten the lion overtly, but I see his wrist turn a few degrees, as if he’s aligning the blade to push up through the lion’s neck or something.

  The lion drops its head an inch and I sense its muscles bunching as it gets ready to pounce.

  “Get behind me,” Bud says. His voice is just above a whisper, but the bamboo has grown so still that the sound of his voice is jarring.

  “No,” I say.

  I start a slow sidestep away from Bud. I raise my spear and my knife. The lion flicks its eyes at me and then returns its attention to Bud. His shirt is still on top of the pile of rats and it’s soaked with rat blood. Bud’s naked torso is slick with sweat. He’s well-muscled for an old man.

  I’m still moving as the lion studies Bud. If we were on a clock face, Bud and the lion would be six and twelve. I’m working my way from four to three. The lion’s hide is shiny and dry. Every muscle is tensed and ready to spring. The lion has a pronounced, c-shaped scar in its shoulder. An image pops into my head; an image of a little boy with a flint knife, tearing a ragged gash in the lion’s flesh.

  I yell some meaningless syllable and reach forward with my spear to threaten the lion’s side.

  The cat snarls and swats a huge paw at my spear. The bamboo snaps, but the blow still shudders up the spear and numbs my arm.

  Bud utilizes the brief distraction and comes forward with the machete. He swings at the cat’s face. The lion retracts its paw—the same paw that just broke my spear—and swipes it out again, meaning to knock away the blade. Bud turns the blade and the cat’s paw hits the sharp edge.

  The ferocity of its own strike is what inflicts the damage. The cat splits the pad of its paw on the machete and somehow Bud hangs onto the handle. The lion roars with pain and leaps at Bud.

  Bud spins as the cat flies through the air. He avoids the full weight of the lion, but it knocks him over with a passing strike. Bud lands at my feet. The cat lands on its split paw and it comes back up with its paw raised protectively. I pull Bud backward by his armpits as he pushes himself back up into a crouch.

  The cat limps around to face us again. Blood pulses from its foot, bathing the dead rats in fresh blood.

  Bud raises his machete again and lunges for the lion. It doesn’t strike at the blade—it has learned at least that much—but it snarls and roars as it backs up. With his next lunge, Bud commits his body and dr
ives his machete towards the cat’s face. The cat turns its head and the blade cuts a shallow line across the lion’s nose.

  The cat backs up, still snarling.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  Bud jabs again. The lion backs up with an exaggerated limp. Its split paw won’t bear any weight.

  “Throw your knife,” Bud says.

  I could object—I don’t know how to throw a knife—but the knife is doing no good clamped between my teeth. I take the handle in my right hand and hurl the knife. I give the end a little flick as it leaves my hand and the knife tumbles through the air. I picture it lodging perfectly into the lion’s eye socket. I picture the blade piercing the lion’s brain and dropping it instantly.

  The lion bolts and my knife clangs off a bamboo stalk. I didn’t even come close to hitting the lion.

  For a few seconds we can hear the lion retreating through the bamboo. It emits a low grunt with each step, probably from the pain of its paw.

  “Come on,” Bud says.

  “Where?”

  “The direction it came from,” he says. “That must be the way out.”

  “I don’t follow,” I say.

  Bud’s picking up his disgusting, blood-soaked shirt and his pack. Under some leaves, I find my knife and I grab my pack to catch Bud as he blazes a hasty path through the leaves.

  We’re moving quickly, and Bud’s torso is ravaged by the sharp bamboo leaves. I try to suggest he take a second to put on his shirt, but he won’t hear of it. He hands me his pack and shirt so he can direct his exertion to cutting. He’s on a mission to get free of the bamboo before the lion decides to come back and attack again.

  The scars on Bud’s back glow red. They look like four mountain peaks pointing towards the back of his head. They act like gutters for his sweat, directing the flow off to the sides. Bud’s muscles ripple under his skin as he swings his machete and cuts a path through the bamboo.

  As the adrenaline of the battle wears off and my exhaustion comes swelling back, I struggle to keep my eyes open as I stumble after Bud. Each time I blink, my eyes want to stay shut.

  I open my eyes and Bud is gone. I stop. I’m looking at the sun filtering through green bamboo leaves.

  “Bud?” I call. Could this be a dream? Could this whole thing have been a dream? It certainly makes more sense as a dream—the rats and the lion. That stuff wouldn’t happen in real life. I look behind me and see the trail. The leaves ahead are spotted with Bud’s blood. It’s all too vivid to be a dream.

  “Bud?”

  His face appears between the leaves.

  “Come on,” he says, and he disappears again.

  I push forward through the sharp leaves, leading with Bud’s backpack, and emerge into a lush forest. I stagger a few steps and then fall to my knees in the ferns. After wandering through the close bamboo for so long, the forest is dizzying.

  “This is it,” Bud says. He raises his bare arms towards the canopy. His torso is covered with tiny cuts, each weeping little lines of blood. “This is where I grew up.”

  I drop Bud’s pack in front of me and shed my own pack behind me. I just want to curl up and sleep.

  “Come on,” he says. “I know a better place to camp. It’s not much farther.”

  I shake my head. The rich loam under the carpet of ferns is so soft and warm. I just want to rest my head.

  57 CONSTANTINE'S HOME

  WHEN I WAKE UP, the light dances on the side of the tent. It must be either dawn or dusk. I’m not sure which. I’m alone in the tent, on top of my sleeping bag. My backpack is next to me. Without sitting up, I rummage in the pouch and pull out my water. I drink the whole dirty bottle.

  I sit up slowly, trying to avoid the headache I can feel throbbing in the back of my skull. My stomach rumbles and then turns as I touch my head. I’ve got rat guts sticking the hair to my skull. This side of my face is swollen and the brow over my left eye is tender.

  I unzip the flap and stagger from the tent.

  I don’t see Bud, but there’s a fire smoldering a few feet from the tent. I limp over—my ankle is swollen too—and sit down next to the fire.

  “How are you feeling?” Bud asks, from behind me.

  I turn to see him approach. He’s carrying fallen branches he has collected. He breaks one in two and adds it to the fire.

  “I’m a little sore,” I say. My speech is slurred from my swollen face.

  “Me too,” he says. He sits down opposite me. He has managed to clean most of the blood from his shirt, but it has a number of holes in it now.

  “Did you really fight a lion?”

  “We both did,” he says. “I’m lucky you thought to circle him. He would have torn me apart.”

  “Huh,” I say. “I thought maybe it was a dream.”

  “You’ve been asleep for a while,” he says. “You might have had some weird dreams from the rat venom.”

  “Rat venom? Rat’s aren’t venomous, are they?”

  “I think these were,” he says. “Or maybe they just have strange bacteria in their mouths. Either way, you have some bad swelling around the bites. I’d like to get you to town and see if we can find some medicine.”

  “What about you?”

  “I don’t think I was bitten,” he says. “I just have a lot of cuts from the leaves.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m a little nervous about town,” he says. “Back when I lived here, people didn’t react well to outsiders—not that we had many. I wanted to talk to you about what to do next.”

  “We came here to talk to people, right? I don’t know why we made the trip if we’re not going to talk to anyone. Besides, how do you know for sure that we are back in same forest where you grew up? Just because we went through some bamboo? We could have just done a big loop and come out a hundred yards from where we went in.”

  “No, this is it,” he says. “I can still recognize it after all these years. Nowhere else in the world quite smells the same, you know?”

  I don’t know, but I’ve got nothing but stubbornness to refute him.

  “So, if you agree, I propose we pack up our stuff and leave it here. Then we’ll trek into town and find some medicine.”

  “Why do you want to leave our stuff?”

  “An alternate plan would be for me to go alone and then come back with the medicine. I think I’d rather have you with me though, if you feel up to traveling. Do you?”

  “I think I can walk okay once I limber up a bit. Why do you want to leave our stuff here?”

  “Oh, why? We’ll move faster with less to carry, and if their technology isn’t exactly modern, we’ll have less on us that makes us seem foreign,” he says.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  How would you describe a forest? Even if you knew it like the back of your hand, you’d be hard-pressed to convince someone just by describing it. The boss tells me he knows where we are and then he talks about particular trees, and a creek, and a bunch of rocks. Sure enough, we find a tree, and some flowing water next to some rocks. But of course, that’s what one would find in any forest. I can’t tell if he’s been here before or if he’s just delusional. Does it matter?

  My ankle feels like it’s been packed in hot coals and then wrapped in a tight bandage. The swelling isolates the joint, so it won’t move, and the skin is stretched so tight it feels like it might tear open with my next step. My hand keeps drifting to the side of my face to touch the tender skin there. Bud tells me there’s a creek coming up where I can wash up. When we get there, the water isn’t quite as deep as he predicted, and I have to crouch down next to the chilly flow so I can scoop water up to my head. The rat guts are really crusted into my head. I feel ready to pass out by the time I’m cleaned up. Bud helps me to my feet and we get moving.

  “After this patch of oak, there’s a short spread of cedar trees and then we’ll be fairly near the bog where I found that big snake.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If we go around to the east, we’ll end up near
where the Harvest Festival is held. If we go around to the west, it’s longer, but we’ll hit the Hyff Lane. I suggest we head towards Hyff Lane. The walking will be easier on a road and maybe we’ll even meet someone who can give us a ride.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  It feels like hours before we get to what he calls the bog. I must have missed the short spread of cedar trees. I have an image in my head of what a cedar tree looks like, but I could be wrong. As far as I know, they’re all cedar trees.

  When the trees are low and scrubby—maple leaves, like the Canadian flag—Bud turns left and takes us along the edge of them. I have to sit down and rest for a while. We sit on the side of a small hill and look at the maple trees. My eyes are on the prowl for snakes. I don’t want to be surprised. I don’t see any.

  “If we can just go a little farther—maybe no more than another mile or two—I think we’ll get to the road. Then even if we have to rest, at least we might be able to flag down a cart.”

  “Why don’t you go ahead,” I say. “You can leave a trail and I’ll follow when I feel up to it.”

  “No,” he says. “We stick together.”

  “Then you have to give me another minute.”

  I want to massage my ankle, but it’s too tender. I pull up my pant leg and pull down my sock. My skin is so sensitive that even the movement of the sock makes it burn. It’s like that feeling when the blood returns to your arm after you’ve slept on it all night. It’s a helpless agony.

  My ankle is bruised all to hell, a million shades of purple, blue, and black. Bud is hunched over, looking at it with me.

  “I can carry you,” he says.

  “Unnecessary,” I say. “I’ll be okay again once we’re moving.”

  He ignores my obvious lie and helps me to my feet. We’re moving.

  When we get to the road—it could be any road, really—Bud is overjoyed. He declares it Hyff Lane and talks about all the things we’ll find if we follow this road. This is the road where Baron used to live with Sasha and his family. If you follow it farther, this is the road that crosses Masty Stream. It’s really just two wheel ruts with grass growing up in the center. If two carts met going opposite directions, they would need to find a place to pull into the woods to pass.