The Wash

by Cary Christopher

“What are you doing?” Robert yelled. “We have to get to Ruth’s!”

  J.B. stood, staring out past the QuikStop. Nothing but an open field lay ahead of him. The sky in that direction was darker than behind them. To Robert, it looked like black storm clouds.

  “J.B.!” he called again. “Get back in, man. We’ve got to get to Ruth’s!”

  The big man looked back at Robert, “Take the truck.”

  Then he walked out of the parking lot and into the field.

  Robert jumped out and ran to Cindy. Tears ran down her face and her fists clenched as she stared at the burning body of her dead friend.

  “Cindy,” he said. “I have to get to Ruth or she may end up like this.”

  She turned around. Her bloodshot eyes blazing furiously.

  “Let’s go.”

  Robert made for the driver’s door but Cindy pushed him aside.

  “I’m driving,” she said.

  “What about J.B.?” he asked watching as his friend moved at a jog further into the field and out toward the mountains.

  “Fuck him,” she put the truck in gear and stood on the gas.

  Cindy pulled the truck into the gravel drive of Ruth’s house and immediately Robert knew something was wrong. As far as he could see the snow was littered with tracks, as if a herd of small animals had run through it. He grabbed the gun from the seat beside him and bolted out of the truck before it had even come to a complete stop.

  “Ruth!” he yelled as he fumbled with the handle of the front door. He reached into his pocket for the key. “Ruth! Are you okay?”

  Cindy climbed out and followed as Robert stepped into the house. It was as cold inside as out and the power was off. Robert moved into the living room. Nothing seemed out of place. He hoisted the 9mm up and stepped into the kitchen.

  Ruth’s body lay on the floor, her head barely attached to her torso. Her left arm was broken and the right lay bent away from her body where the blood had pooled in a dip in the warped wooden floor. He dropped to her side, fighting back tears that came hot, wet and angry.

  Behind him, Cindy’s small, unbelieving voice chanted, “No. No. No. No. No.”

  XIV

  The world was unraveling now for J.B. He saw it when they reached the highway but he hadn’t said anything to his friends. The closer they’d gotten to Ruth’s, the further everything had begun to spin out of control. By the time he had pulled the truck over, he wasn’t even sure exactly where they were headed. Part of him saw the cemetery, the snow and the tract housing, but they were incomplete pictures. The missing pieces were what the other part of him saw; a world that some deep part of J.B. remembered and it sang to him. The song lit him up inside with a joy he’d never known. That was his world. The place he belonged. As he trudged through the snow, he could see more and more of it breaking through, but the largest portion seemed to be directly ahead of him.

  As he got closer to where Old Ogden once stood, he noticed the unraveling threads splintered out through the tips of the grass he was walking through. They looked like tufts of feathery down at first, but upon closer viewing, he saw the grass was actually melting away. Each thread unwound itself from those around it and dissolved, leaving behind it an image of a different world. The areas were spotty though. There didn’t seem to be any place big enough for him to step through. Instead, the effect was more like that of a net, where just enough of one world remained in place to hold its inhabitants inside.

  He reached the old path and stepped out of the snow and onto the gravel. There was a light glowing in the gloom. It lay directly along the path ahead of him. As he walked, he still heard the song vibrating throughout his body. It was light, feathery and bright and it played along his nerve endings and wrapped him in joy. J.B. closed his eyes and savored the feeling. The song kept coming from in front of him, so he turned toward it and began running.

  Robert ran to the truck, slammed it into gear and spun it around almost before Cindy could get back in the cab. She was holding onto the dash and staring out the windshield as Robert pointed the truck back toward the road.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  Robert looked straight ahead. Through the snow and trees he could make out dark clouds looming ahead of them. He looked back over at Cindy.

  “You know how to get to Old Ogden Wash?” he asked.

  “There’s nothing there anymore.”

  “Do you FUCKING KNOW how to get to it?”

  Cindy cowered, “It’s pretty much straight ahead of us, but we won’t be able to get to it through this snow.”

  Robert nodded toward the hundreds of tracks in the snow.

  “Whatever killed Ruth came from that same direction and I’m pretty sure it’s where J.B.’s headed.”

  Cindy snapped her seatbelt into place.

  “There’s an old path off James Ogden Trail.”

  Robert spun the truck onto the road and floored it back toward the highway.

  As they passed the businesses downtown, Cindy noted The Wash was a dead zone. Off to the right was a turn off into a gravel road covered with snow and ice. Robert slowed just enough to make the turn, then jammed his foot on the pedal again. The tires slipped and spun but the vehicle moved slowly down the path.

  “Let me ask you something,” Cindy said. “If you catch whoever did this, what are you going to do?”

  He didn’t answer. Ahead of him, something weird was happening. The gravel of the road was clearing. The truck was moving along faster and steadier but the air was charged. Things were going fuzzy. The outlines of trees seemed more like suggestions than solid shapes. He put the truck in park and swung the door open.

  “Robert, wait!” Cindy called as she clambered out to catch him. There was no one to watch Cindy and Robert as they ran toward Old Ogden Wash. If there had been, they would have seen the world swim, like a mirage on hot asphalt. The colors around the trees and sky bled into each other, like an expressionist painting and then just as before, the world snapped back into focus but Cindy and Robert were gone.

  Moments before, they’d been walking along a gravel path toward a ghost town. Now they were on a stone street, lined on each side by small piles of skulls, some human and some animal. Each was neatly arranged in two rows marking the edge of the street. Cindy paused and looked back.

  “Robert,” she said. “I think you need to look at this.”

  He turned around. Behind them there was nothing. The truck was gone. The world was gone. Not darkness, but gray, void, nothing. It moved like a mist and flirted with the threshold but did not cross. He turned back around.

  “We need to go there,” he pointed.

  Ahead, the skull lined path stretched straight as an arrow until it reached the base of a giant structure rising hundreds of feet up into the air. The building was constructed like a semicircle with a sloping front extending from the middle. Its summit was flat and ringed with torches that blazed against a deep purple sky. Robert could just make out a figure headed up the sloped front of the temple.

  “That’s J.B.” he said, pointing.

  Cindy squinted to see the figure climbing alone up the steps.

  “Let’s go,” she said and the two began running.

  The song coursed through J.B. louder and louder. He felt it lighting him up through every nerve. He could feel the air passing over his skin as he walked. Every dust particle that landed on him registered in his brain. The song told him about the world beyond. It told him about who he really was. It told him others like him were waiting on the other side. They wanted to hear his story. They wanted to embrace him. The song pulled him up the endless steps toward the top of the great Teocalli of the Sun. Though he could not yet see it, he was sure that at the end of the climb he would find an entrance back to where he belonged. He climbed steadily, unhurriedly and let the song fill his lungs with air, steady his aching muscles and nourish his body with its warmth.

  He knew his brothers were calling to him and he wanted desperately to answer.r />
  As Robert and Cindy got closer to the base of the pyramid, the small piles of bones and skulls became intermingled with pillars of rock. Huge slabs of stone stood ten to fifteen feet apart on either side of the path. Each one was covered in symbols neither Robert nor Cindy recognized and between them, the skulls were stacked reverently at intervals. Less than a hundred yards ahead lay the beginning of the long flight of stone steps.

  Robert picked up his pace. He saw J.B. steadily climbing about 150 feet above him.

  “Wait!” he called.

  The punch with the force of a wrecking ball came out of nowhere. Robert caught it full on the bridge of the nose and felt his feet go out from under him. He fell sprawling on his back and instinctively scrambled away from the attacker. Through watery eyes he could make out a man in the path with skin colored black (or was he red?) and covered in strips of flesh and hair. Its skin seemed to move with a mind of its own, swirling one way and then another. Robert pushed himself to his feet. The thing stood directly in his path, blocking him from reaching the pyramid or J.B. He brushed himself off and started forward.

  The figure hauled back a fist, but this time Robert was ready, he feinted left and then went right in an effort to move around it. The punch glanced off his shoulder instead of hitting him in the head. Robert used the momentum and drove a knee hard up into the figure’s gut. He’d hoped it would be enough to knock the wind out of his assailant but instead, the figure grabbed him by the back of his neck and tossed him back toward Cindy.

  “You will not pass until the choice has been made.”

  It took a moment before Robert recognized the voice as Javier’s.

  J.B. stood just sixty feet from the top. He’d heard Robert yell and turned to see someone step out in Robert’s path. He turned around and continued his climb to the top.

  “Javier, what the fuck is going on?” Robert asked, pulling himself to his feet. Traces of his friend could still be seen beneath the burnt crawling color swirls. He stood with his legs parted shoulder width, arms out slightly from his sides, fists clenched.

  “You will not pass until the choice has been made.”

  Robert took a step forward again. As he did so, Javier reached over his shoulder and pulled the ceremonial sword from its sheath. Robert could see the small blades fashioned around the flat wood.

  “Is that what you used on Ruth?” he asked, bitterly.

  Javier looked at him with laser intensity. He neither frowned nor smiled, but his eyes were locked on Robert as if trying to see through his skin and bones.

  “Why did you do it?” Robert prodded.

  “She refused to give up the stone.”

  As Robert lunged, Javier brought the flat side of the blade around and caught him across the base of his neck with a slap that dropped Robert to the ground. His eyes bugged out like a fish as he tried to get a breath. Javier walked around him, nudging him with a sandal-clad foot. When he heard Robert take in a deep breath he hauled back and kicked him hard in the ribs.

  “Stop it!” yelled Cindy. She threw herself at Javier and was met with a vise-like grip around her throat. He pulled her up off the ground, legs dangling.

  “Shut up and sit still,” he hissed and tossed her back.

  Robert was beginning to get his head back together again. He pulled himself up to his knees, regained his feet and stared back at Javier. There was an illusory quality to him that Robert hadn’t noticed before. It was as if there were shadow images of him, much larger than the actual physical being. It made Javier look broader and taller than he actually was. He looked past Javier just in time to see J.B. disappear over the top step.

  XV

  When J.B. crossed the final step onto the roof of the teocalli, he realized he was back in the circle of his dream. This time there was no roof above him and no walls around him. To his right, sat the old man wrapped in blankets. Beside him sat the buffalo man and to J.B.’s left sat the weird scorpion man with the black eyes. In the middle burned a fire, its coals glowing red and white on their edges. Across from him, the circle stood open and on that side, the three stones lay in a line, end to end, with some sort of light shooting up from them like a sheet stretched up to the sky. As J.B. stared, he realized it was a seam in the fabric of the world. Through it, he could see the place he’d glimpsed before, only this time there were no bits of the old world mixed in. It was open, clear and from where he stood, he could see a desert vista blooming with spring flowers on the other side. The music flowed from this place. It was home.

  The time has come for you to choose, John Youngblood.

  Once again, he felt the voice rather than heard it. As he watched, another figure moved through the desert vista toward him. Its legs were dark and bent backwards, like a birds legs. Its torso was barrel shaped and large, like an ape’s. Instantly, J.B. recognized it from his dream about the cave only now its body was younger, stronger and exuding power. It stopped just beyond the window and sat back, resting its hands on the ground beside it.

  J.B. couldn’t read its expression, but he figured if he could see it, then it must be able to see him as well. He walked toward the opening and as he did so, the thing rose and faced him. The song still hummed through him yet somewhere in his head, a voice protested his listening to it. Something clawed its way back toward his consciousness and screamed for him to pause. He turned back to look at the circle.

  “What is this?”

  “It is your world,” said the buffalo man, slowly chewing. “It is the world your ancestors fled to. They await you.”

  J.B. turned back to eye the ape thing.

  “And what is that?”

  “He is the Izpuzteque, the Xolotl. There must be balance,” the scorpion man hissed.

  J.B. tried to get a better look at it. Its chest was pulsing with something that looked like small pouches. The face looked part bulldog, part gorilla and its eyes betrayed its eagerness.

  “I don’t understand,” J.B. said turning back to the circle.

  The old man reached over and handed him the tobacco pouch. He reached inside and pulled out a pinch, placing it in his cheek. As the warm, spicy taste crept across his tongue, he suddenly knew. This was the world he’d been promised in countless dreams. A place where he would be accepted, embraced even. As he turned back to the vista, he could see low lying mountains behind the ape thing. They were ten, maybe twenty miles away. Beyond those, he would find his people. They were calling to him. Begging him to come.

  “Do you understand now?” asked the scorpion man.

  “I think so.”

  And what is your decision?

  J.B. turned his attention to the ape thing. It bristled at his gaze and suddenly J.B. knew something else. This thing hated him. It hated everything about him. It wanted to kill him and everything he had ever loved.

  He turned to the scorpion man whose mandible mouth was clicking in anticipation, “What is the term of the trade?”

  “You for him,” it hissed and J.B. saw the shadow-like stinger hovering inches above his head.

  “But he doesn’t belong here.”

  “Hold your tongue, whelp,” the stinger solidified. “Before your people came here, Xolotl ruled supreme. He brought darkness and death. He belongs here as much as you belong there. He waits to reclaim what is rightfully his.”

  The thing on the other side began shifting impatiently on its feet.

  “I’ve seen him here before though. I saw him with the coyote,” J.B. said.

  You’ve seen him when he dreams of this world, just as others in that world see you in bits and pieces.

  “No,” J.B. protested. “I have heard him speak of moving in this world.”

  “He played by the rules,” said the scorpion-man. “He was allowed concessions for his return. To be born from a human mother. To have a priest in waiting for his return.”

  J.B. watched as the thing nervously stood up on its cock’s legs and shifted back and forth.

  “He sent assassins. He
moved against me,” J.B. said and this time, he turned away from the thing and addressed the old man wrapped in blankets. “Was he granted those concessions?”

  The old man turned toward the scorpion, eye-brows raised in surprise, “Is this true?”

  “The whelp lies,” it hissed.

  XVI

  Near the base of the pyramid, Robert and Javier stood facing each other like gunslingers. Both men had been similar in build and height but now, Javier’s features were distorted. He looked bigger and as he reached forward, Robert noticed that he felt Javier’s touch before he actually saw his hand grab his shoulder.

  “I owe you nothing,” Javier said, looking into Robert’s eyes. “This is the new way and if you step forward, I will kill you.”

  The man’s pupils were small, surrounded by whites that shone with their own inner light. They were the eyes of a fanatic.

  “You’ll kill me anyway.”

  The butt of the sword caught Robert just above the ear and dropped him to his knees again. The world spun. He fought hard to hold back the nausea while dark blossoms of unconsciousness crept in at the edges of his vision.

  Javier bent down and put his face next to Robert’s.

  “You’ll beg me to.”

  Robert didn’t have the strength to swing. Instead he lunged forward and bit down. He felt the flesh of Javier’s nose tearing as he pulled back and the taste of warm blood and something else flooded into his mouth. It was bitter, like a slap to his palate and even as Javier pushed him away, he could feel his head clear instantly.

  The left side of Javier’s nose was ragged. The blackish slime on his skin was turning a bright red and dripping down from what was left of his nostril. Behind his eyes, the spark of madness Robert had sensed before now flared up into roaring flames.