The Wash

by Cary Christopher

  Robert screamed.

  XI

  J.B. found himself very, very awake after hearing John Ouray’s message. Any thoughts of sleep after the previous night’s tossing and turning were erased when he’d heard the two names, Izpuzteque and Zotzilaha Chimalman. They weren’t familiar enough that he remembered who they were but he damn sure remembered reading about them somewhere. Standing in front of his bookshelf, he began running through the titles, touching the spine of each with his index finger as if the sensation brought back what each was about. He pulled out three within a few moments and then noticed the steam starting to seep out of the bathroom. He marched back, turned off the water and plopped down onto the bed, books in hand. The first two had indexes and were quickly discarded. The last didn’t so he began scanning pages one at a time. Thirty minutes later, he found what he was looking for. In the short passage relating to Izpuzteque, he remembered the names of two other books that should have something on it. He bolted back to the bookcase and pulled them out, then grabbed a pad and pen.

  It was almost dawn when J.B. finished jotting down all of his notes. Excitement had given way to confusion and now the lack of sleep hit him like a truck. He lay back, still dirty and smelling of smoke from the bar. Sleep came instantly.

  It was the smell he noticed first. The ammonia odor of guano burned his nostrils and made him choke on each breath. He could feel it beneath his feet, squishing up between his toes and causing him to slip forward on careful steps. All in front of him was dark, but he could hear the floor sucking at his feet as it squelched and slapped and bounced from wall to wall. He was in a cavern. His feet occasionally bumped against something hard, but whatever he was hitting moved easily when he kicked it. He was not afraid. There was no doubt he was dreaming in this place but where he was, he didn’t know yet. He hesitated to call out. That could ruin things. Instead, he thought it best to just move forward until something stopped his progress.

  The air around him felt cool on his body. Though it was too dark to see, he had no doubt he was naked. The smell was subsiding now and it seemed to him the floor was less slippery and easier to walk on. He could still feel globs of muck between his toes but he didn’t seem to be stepping in anything new. Ahead, a faint glow began to shed some light on his surroundings. This was indeed a cave. He couldn’t make out the color of the stone walls but he could see the rough texture. The glow revealed what looked like stones or bones piled up on either side of his path. Each had been stacked, so the bones criss-crossed, like a short fence, while the skulls decorated piles irregularly along the way.

  The closer he got to the glow, the more he heard what sounded like voices. He carefully stepped over the bone fence and crept along the wall until he was at the opening. Peering around the side, he saw a small chamber. It was lit with a bluish glow that came from two clouded glass balls nestled into pits in the stone wall. The smell coming from inside was even more nauseating than the guano smell he’d left behind. Staying where he was, he stealthily scanned the room. Something dark and misshapen sat across from him, sunken into a depression along the top of a large boulder. It was as if the thing were seated on a throne of rock. Its feet were folded behind it, like a rooster but the body and legs were covered with dark coarse hair. In front of the seated thing stood two figures. J.B. could make one out as a dwarf, no more than four feet tall and from head to foot it was atrociously scarred. It shimmered occasionally and when it did, it looked vaguely familiar. The other figure sat on its haunches and idly licked at its paws. It was the coyote he had seen in his yard.

  “You know the rules,” the seated figure said in a low, gravelly voice.

  “Of course, I know the rules,” replied the coyote. “But why must we follow them? First of all, I told you we should have killed the father when he found out about us. Now, it’s too late and we have to find another avatar.”

  The seated thing bristled and leaned forward gesturing to the coyote, “I’ll not be lectured by something that feeds on mice and lizards.”

  Seemingly unimpressed with the display, the animal rose up on all fours.

  “I’ll talk to you however I want,” it said and tossed its head toward the dwarf. “You can order this idiot around but not me. The point is we had a sweet deal going. We got to the whole family and we had a shot at the father but you didn’t have the balls to pull the trigger.”

  The thing on the rock rose up on its cock-like legs. J.B. noticed that from the waist up it was shaped like a gorilla only flabby and lumpy, as if it were old and weakened. Its oversized sex hung down between it’s bird legs and seemed to barely clear the floor.

  “Say one more word…”

  The coyote remained unfazed but stayed quiet. The thing sat back down.

  “Besides, we don’t need another avatar. Not if you’ve found the key,” it said.

  The coyote remained unfazed, “What about the key? You thought he’d be in hiding, but he’s in plain sight. It seems to me someone else is playing very loosely with the rules. I don’t see why we can’t also. Let’s approach him, beat him within an inch of his life and make him beg us to open the door instead of playing this game. Even this fool can see the logic in that.”

  He nodded again toward the dwarf who shuffled his feet and stared at the floor. It flickered again and this time J.B. was certain he should recognize it, but the image was too quick.

  The gorilla thing sat back down on its boulder throne.

  “We can’t be greedy about this, cur” it said, it’s voice croaking and bubbling with phlegm. “We are doing remarkably well at this point in the game. We found the stone buried with that fool Ogden. We set in motion my rebirth and tonight, despite Phillip Anderson’s interference, we found the key. These are all promising signs.”

  “Things should be moving faster,” the coyote replied. “Why wait for your rebirth? Look at you. You could use a new body now. All I’m saying is we should accelerate the game.”

  The gorilla thing leaned forward, balancing its weight on its powerful arms.

  “There are rules and there are rules,” it began. “Some can be considered more like guidelines in this game but some are much, much more. That idiot Reller tried to break one tonight and has a burnt hand to show for it. If you touch the key, we’ll pay a very dear price and if that happens, I will spend an eternity making you suffer. As for my body, once the game plays out I’ll have need for it but until I can walk in both worlds, it’s of no use.”

  The coyote huffed and looked toward the opening where J.B. stood pressed against the wall. The animal seemed to look right through him.

  “I just don’t get what the waiting is about and I don’t understand why you hold on to Reller. You need someone stronger.”

  “Look,” the figure said as if lecturing a child, “has it ever occurred to you that perhaps his being in plain sight is meant to lure us into the open? Did it occur to you that maybe someone wants us to break the rules and end this prematurely and at great cost to our own position? And as for Reller, he serves his purpose for now.”

  The coyote huffed again, “All I know is the text says, ‘uno al olor, uno a matar’. It doesn’t say anything about waiting.”

  He turned and walked out through the opening on the other side of the chamber leaving the gorilla thing and the dwarf behind.

  “Go with him,” it croaked at the dwarf, “Make sure he stays out of trouble.”

  J.B. watched as the dwarf nodded, flickered again and wandered off in the direction the coyote had taken. The seated figure remained still for a moment and then, as if sensing something wasn’t quite right looked behind him, almost exactly where J.B. stood staring. Just like the coyote before, it seemed not to see him and turned back around.

  J.B. woke with a start. The dwarf was the girl. It was the coyote and the girl.

  “Uno al olor, uno a matar,” he said to himself and grabbed the pen and pad to scribble it down.

  XII

  It took a moment for Robert to realize
the man lying on the road was saying something to him. He had instinctively backed away so far he might as well have been turned around running.

  “CALM DOWN!” the man yelled and remarkably, Robert did or at least, his legs stopped moving. He was a good thirty feet away now and he’d covered the entire distance walking backwards. In the space of a few seconds his mind flooded with all the stories and superstitions his abuela told him when he was a child; stories of spirits who could possess the dead, stories of animals who took human form, stories of dead Spanish warriors who still fought for their causes under the bright light of a full moon.

  “Don’t walk away. I need your help,” said the man. He was sitting upright now and was trying to pull his legs beneath him to stand.

  “I’m not armed. It’s okay. Just don’t walk away. I need some help.”

  Slowly the man’s features became familiar to Robert.

  “Do you speak English?” asked the man.

  Robert continued to stare, his mouth open in disbelief. It was Phillip Anderson, the Mormon car dealer.

  “Habla Engles?” asked the man.

  Robert shook his head as if clearing cobwebs, “Yeah. Yeah, I speak English. I… I was...”

  “Wait a minute,” Anderson paused and looked closer. “You’re Robert Jiminez aren’t you?”

  Robert nodded.

  Anderson’s eyes narrowed, “What are you doing out here?”

  “I should ask you the same question.”

  Anderson looked like a man who had just been through a four-day meth binge. His shoulder length salt and pepper hair was matted and dirty. The blue blazer he was wearing was torn and the khaki slacks were worn through and black at the knees. He stood slightly hunched over so that he appeared smaller than his full six-foot height.

  Now he had begun backing away, still staring at Robert, sizing him up, looking at him as if searching for some sort of sign.

  “You okay man?” Robert asked.

  “Why are you out here?”

  “I’m walking home from work.”

  “You walk home from work in this kind of cold?”

  “I don’t own a car,” Robert’s adrenaline was pumping hard. “But you do, so what the fuck are you doing lying in the middle of the road?”

  Anderson’s shoulders relaxed a bit, “You’re okay then?”

  “What do you mean, ‘I’m okay’? Of course I’m okay. I’m not the one who was lying in the road.”

  “I… wait,” Anderson spun around and looked back toward town. “Do you hear that?”

  Robert heard the faint sound of an approaching engine. There were no lights but the high whine was unmistakable.

  “Get off the road. Quick!” said Anderson. He jumped down into the depression by the side of the road, desperately scooping snow from the bank to cover his legs and chest. He put his head down and lay still on his stomach. Robert picked up his bike and moved off the road so he was standing by the snow bank, not quite as far over as Anderson.

  The car came by at about ninety, running with no headlights and heading in the same direction Robert was headed. It was one of the Lincoln’s from Anderson’s lot. As it went past him he saw the car brake hard, red lights throwing an angry glare in the black. The reverse lights came on and suddenly, Robert wished like hell he’d brought a gun.

  ‘It’s got to be one of the dealers,’ he thought. ‘Stupid son of a bitch probably got high on his own shit and now he’s stealing cars. Javier is not going to like this.’

  He stood his ground, trying to get a look at a face in the rearview mirror or even a profile. It backed up until it was only twenty feet from Robert and then stopped. Just as quickly, the reverse lights went off, and the car spun out again, kicking up gravel and salt as it sped away from town.

  Robert turned to look back to Anderson but the man was up and running back the way Robert had come.

  Ten minutes later, Robert reached the turnoff, moving slower thanks to the pain in his calf. The adrenaline rush of his encounter with Anderson was helping to take his mind off just how cold he was. The string of one-story houses on his left mercifully cut the wind, but the temperature was still brutal. He was almost sure one of the dealers was responsible for the way Anderson acted. That was sure to be bad news for both himself and Javier. The last thing they needed was an investigation in The Wash. He pulled out his cell phone and was greeted with the battery icon flashing red. The phone was dead. He would have to get home before he could get hold of Javier. He shoved it back in his pocket and jogged as swiftly as his calf would let him. The houses along this part of The Wash were all owned by mining employees except for a handful, which were vacant. They were the only thing on this road except for Old Ogden Cemetery and Ruth’s house which sat at the end.

  The moon broke through the clouds and lit up the road ahead enough that Robert could make out the four-foot rock wall surrounding the cemetery. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his calf, he picked up his pace. The rush of adrenaline was all but gone. Now, he was feeling worse than ever and all he wanted were a few minutes out of the wind. He covered the last hundred yards pretty quickly and crouched down in front of the cemetery wall. He could hear the wind above his head. It was still cold here but with the wind out of his face, he felt warmer already. Pulling his face down into his jacket, he let his breath warm his cheeks. As he did so, he clapped his gloved hands hard and rubbed them back and forth. The feeling started creeping back into them and before long, he felt ready to tackle the last mile. The moon snuck back behind the clouds, leaving the road dark again. He knew the way like the back of his hand though. It wouldn’t be a problem. He was about to stand when he heard something move on the other side of the wall.

  It was unmistakably the sound of iron scraping on stone, as if a gate were opening. Then he heard footsteps. He pulled his bike down next to him so it was lying in the snow. Then he lay down flat in the gravel and slush, quietly cursing as it crept through his jeans and long underwear. The gate to his left creaked and a figure moved through it, across the road and into the snowy field in a straight line toward The Wash. It had a long ponytail and wore an overcoat leaving no doubt it was Jason Reller and he was carrying a rifle. Robert continued watching him. There was something strange about his stride. Reller wasn’t sinking into the snow.

  Robert waited a few minutes more, then quietly picked up his bike and started running for home. As he got past the far side of the cemetery he glanced back at where the wall disappeared into a large oak stand. There, parked well off the road sat the Lincoln that had passed him earlier.

  XIII

  Across town from Robert, Sara Cohn lay dreaming of the pine forest again. The rich smell from the needles was strong in her nose and she felt dizzy from the vivid colors around her. She stopped running and the bluebird lit on a branch beside her.

  “Is something wrong?” it chirped.

  Putting her hands on her gigantic stomach, she felt the child inside roll and stretch, pushing against the warmth of her hand.

  “It’s just so big. I feel like it should be time by now.”

  “Nonsense,” the bird chirped. “It’s the perfect size and still growing. Soon enough it will come.”

  “And then I can leave?”

  The bird chirped merrily, as if laughing at her.

  “But you said you would take care of the baby,” she pleaded. “Why can’t I leave?”

  It fluttered up again and spun around her head.

  “Ciuapipiltin never truly leave, silly. They are around us always.”

  The vivid green of the trees shifted and changed. Along the branches around her, hundreds of faces peered down, their skins deep brown with eyes that dripped of sadness and longing. As Sara stared, she noticed none of them had mouths. Everything below the nose was fused together in an ugly scar.

  “What happened to them?”

  The bird flew toward one and hovered impossibly next to it.

  “What was destined to happen. Nothing more. Nothing l
ess.”

  It shot back down toward her.

  “There’s no going back,” it chirped merrily.

  Sara heard the crunch of steps on pine needles behind her, followed by a low, menacing growl.

  “Better run,” the bird prodded and Sara took off.

  About the same time Sara tossed fitfully in her bed and Robert was climbing into the shower, Derek and Randall Thompson were sleeping in their beds in the small wooden house on James Ogden Trail. They both shared the same room, much as they had as kids. The place was littered with old clothes, wrappers and trash of all sorts. The smell of rotting food permeated the house and dishes, long dirtied, were sitting in various places in every room.

  Randall was the first one to wake up. He looked over at Derek sleeping in his bed not five feet away and shook him awake.

  “What?” Derek asked.

  “I hear something.”.

  Derek sat up, swung his legs off the bed and walked to the door as Randall followed. Next to the door jamb sat two rifles. Derek picked them up and handed one to Randall. Then he walked out into the hall and to the front door. Through the windows, the two men could easily make out the glow coming from east of them.

  “What do you think it is?” Randall asked.

  Derek kept looking at the glow but didn’t say anything. Finally, he opened the door.

  The flash blinded Randall even as Derek fell back into him. He felt his own rifle discharging into the ceiling and struggled to get out from behind Derek and get his bearings. As he wriggled out from under his brother, he felt something press against the stomach of his night shirt. Another flash and pain ripped through his abdomen.