The Wash

by Cary Christopher

  From where Cindy sat, she felt something shift. She too had noticed the shadow version of Javier that seemed to make him look bigger, but as she watched Robert lunge forward and come away with something clenched between his teeth, the shadow self flickered. Robert’s face and lips were smeared with Javier’s blood and he licked his lips. The faintest hint of shadow like the one surrounding Javier began to grow around him. Cindy began backpedaling as quickly as she could.

  XVII

  Around the fire circle, J.B. felt the attention had shifted to the scorpion-man. He could hear muttering from behind him, as if a crowd of onlookers were excited by his accusation. Responding to the commotion, the old man stood on long, crooked stork legs.

  “Do you deny assassins were sent, Scorpion?”

  “I do not know of any assassins,” it hissed. “The rules were followed to the letter. Xolotl has agents in this world just as always but they crossed no lines.”

  J.B. turned to the old man, “The dwarf and coyote tracked and found me. They confronted me.”

  He turned and pointed to the ape thing still looming on the other side of the opening.

  “He sent them after me. He spoke the words, ‘Uno al olor, uno a matar.’”

  The stork turned back to the scorpion-man, “Is this true?”

  “How should I know? I was not there. The rules have been followed. The whelp is not dead. Let him make the decision.”

  The old man nodded and turned back to J.B.

  “There is wisdom in what he says. You are here and unharmed. Make your choice.”

  “Answer me and I’ll make my choice,” J.B. said. “If I had been killed prior to this moment, what would happen ?”

  “The Xolotl could move freely between both worlds,” the old man replied, “but this council would have extracted a terrible price.”

  “If he comes fully into this world, what happens?”

  “What do you care?” hissed the scorpion man, rising to his feet. “You will be back where you belong, with your people in your world. You will never feel pain. You will never feel hunger or want. You will return to the Surem and you will never know death.”

  J.B. ignored him and turned to the buffalo man who had remained seated by the fire this whole time. “Tell me, Buffalo. Tell me what happens if the Xolotl comes to this world.”

  The buffalo man remained quiet for a time and chewed slowly. Then he looked J.B. in the eye.

  “This world will suffer under him as it did before. The choice your ancestors made to walk in this world brought darkness to those they left behind. Your return means the end of all of those things in their world. You are their savior. In his absence, this world has flourished. When he returns, he will ascend to his rightful place. He would be able to walk in the light. He would demand and receive sacrifice. He would return this world to what it once was.”

  J.B. turned to the old man for confirmation, “Is this true?”

  “Buffalo is no trickster,” came the reply.

  What is your choice?

  J.B. closed his eyes. The song was still there but so was the voice of his conscience. It pulled at him hard even as the song gripped him again. Images flashed before him: his cousins beating him as a child, the rejection of his tribe. The sting of belts slung against his back and neck. All because he was a half-breed. Not pure.

  He opened his eyes and turned away from the opening, “I’ve made my decision.”

  “What is it?” asked the old man.

  “I don’t belong in either place,” he said looking over at the Scorpion man.

  “I am a half-breed. I choose to stay here.”

  It looked at him and blinked its black eyes in surprise, then it brought the stinger down swiftly into his chest.

  XVIII

  At the base of the pyramid, Javier stood wiping the gore from his ruined nostril and a smile crept across his face. With a speed Cindy had never seen before, Javier jumped at Robert. The sword in his hand swung forward in an arc that missed the smaller man’s neck by less than an inch. Robert rolled to the right and when Javier hit the ground, he was on him. He wrapped an arm around Javier’s throat and pulled, squeezing his old friend’s windpipe as hard as he could. Leaning forward, he bit hard into Javier’s ear. The warm and bitter taste of flesh and blood flowed into his mouth and Robert felt like every muscle in his body was suddenly attached to a live wire. He yanked Javier’s neck back hard.

  The two rolled. Javier threw his head from side to side, trying to dislodge Robert’s bite. Black blooms were beginning to appear in front of him. He shifted to the side but felt Robert’s legs tighten around him, getting a better grip. He dropped the sword and with both hands, began prying Robert’s arm from his neck as the smaller man continued to tear and chew at his ear.

  Ten feet away, Cindy saw the sword drop and scrambled for it. She grabbed the hilt before Javier saw her coming. Then she held it high above her head and swung it like an axe down at his chest. The blades cut into his abdomen right below the ribcage and as Cindy pulled back, they bit and tore chunks of muscle. Javier’s eyes went wide with pain. He threw his head back again but Robert continued to hold on. With every snap and pop of cartilage between his teeth, Robert was filled with visions of what Javier had done. He saw the horror of Ruth’s death, the brutality of Steve’s disemboweling and the pain and terror in Sara’s eyes as she felt the blades push through her palms. His rage multiplied ten-fold and he clamped down harder, tearing through Javier’s ear.

  Cindy raised the sword again, and brought it down into Javier’s chest just as he threw his head back into Robert’s nose. He felt the smaller man’s grip relax and his throat burned with a huge breath. He pushed Cindy away and she fell backwards, still managing to hold onto the weapon. Before she could get to her feet, Javier freed himself. He pulled himself to his feet and turned his attention fully to Cindy and the sword. Blood ran in a river from his torso and mixed red with the dark black swirls of slime that moved across his flesh. His steps were not as sure and steady as they had been, but his eyes burned with hate.

  ‘He’s weak,’ she thought, unconsciously backing away from him as he regained his balance. He balled a fist and began what looked like a loping run forward when his feet went out from under him. Robert was suddenly on him again. He raised a large rock from the roadside and brought it down hard against the back of Javier’s head. It crunched sickeningly. Robert struck again and Javier went limp. The third time, the skull caved in and Robert stopped. He pushed himself off and fell backwards to the ground, breathing heavily. Slowly he rolled to his hands and knees.

  Movement caught his eye as Cindy brought the sword down on Javier’s neck. His head rolled toward Robert. Standing over the body, Cindy clasped the sword in both hands. She sank to her knees with relief as Robert got to his feet.

  He could feel things moving inside him, feelings of rejection, hatred, jealousy and regret. He saw visions of his foster family screaming at him, his grandmother lying dead in her casket, Ruth’s body, mangled and bloody. He could feel the anger building within him.

  “Robert,” Cindy said, noticing the way he was looking at her.

  His fists clenching, the taste of salt, blood and rage on his lips, Robert moved toward her.

  “Robert, we need to go after J.B.”

  He didn’t hear her. He was bringing a fist back to strike.

  “Robert!” she yelled and instead of backing away, she leaped toward him, embracing him even as he swung at her.

  “Push it away,” she said in his ear. “You are not like him. Push. It. Away.”

  The visions in Robert’s head changed. He saw Cindy holding Steve Cohn to her chest and rocking gently back and forth. The rage gave way to grief and the blood lust peeled away. He fell back to his knees as she held him.

  XIX

  J.B.’s body shuddered as the stinger retracted. The venom in his chest felt like molten lead, heavy and hot. It weighed him down and his legs buckled as he convulsed to the ground. The ol
d man ran to him, kneeling on his stork legs and putting an arm beneath his shoulders. Around them, the circle erupted in outrage.

  The scorpion-man hissed and clicked as it backed toward the ape-thing in the opening. It flicked the tail back and forth as a warning.

  “This game of yours is tedious,” it hissed at the old man. “Too long have we waited and watched. The time has come to put things right.”

  It turned and looked to the ape-thing still standing in the other world.

  “Your time is now, Xolotl. Walk in this world. Walk in all worlds!”

  Without hesitation, the ape-thing leapt through the opening and immediately it roared in pain. Its legs buckled and stumbled. It pitched to one side as its form began to fold on itself.

  “What,” started the scorpion-man but before it could finish the thought it was hurled to the ground. One enormous hoof crushed its back as the other came down solidly on the base of its tail. There was an audible crack as his body went limp, the stinger pulsing venom onto the ground. Buffalo reared up and brought his front hooves down again, this time crushing the scorpion’s head. Then it turned to the ape thing, writhing in pain and twisting on itself. With each turn it became denser and more compact.

  Buffalo turned to the old man and cocked his head, “The whelp is alive?”

  The old man nodded, “He is weak but he will live.”

  “And the Xolotl?”

  “Dying. The worlds are unbalanced. He was the aggressor. He bears the suffering.”

  Buffalo moved toward the ape thing and nodded to the world beyond the three stones, “I can push him back through. It will restore the balance once more.”

  The old man shook his head, “No. He made his choice. Let us see what consequence it brings.”

  Xolotl writhed and shrunk before crumbling apart like a brittle ball of feathers.

  XX

  Cindy and Robert ran toward the pyramid as fast as their battered legs could carry them. As they reached the first steps, the air shimmered, swayed and the pyramid vanished. In its place were the snow covered fields of Old Ogden Wash half melted in the sunlight. Straight ahead, in the dirt and mud lay J.B.

  Robert bolted to him as the injured man rolled to one side and tried to push himself up.

  “You okay, man?” he said as he knelt beside him.

  “No,” replied J.B. “but I will be.”

  “What just happened?” Cindy asked as she ran up next to them.

  J.B. was leaning on one arm.

  “I’m not sure.”

  He fell back again and breathed slowly.

  “We’ve got to get him to a doctor.”

  J.B. shook his head back and forth.

  “No doctor. Just give me time. I’ll be okay.”

  “What is that?” Robert asked pointing to a leather pouch in J.B.’s hand.

  “The stones.”

  “All three?”

  J.B. nodded. Robert grabbed J.B. under his arms. He lifted the big man up while Cindy went around the other side to help.

  “Where are we going to hide them?” Robert asked.

  “We’re not,” he squeezed their shoulders in a feeble hug. “Let’s see where they take us.”

  They stumbled toward the truck in the bright light of a brilliant afternoon.

  The Wash started as a short story centered around a graveyard I drove by in Utah back in 2007. Needless to say, it took on a life of its own. Along the way to it becoming what it is, a number of people helped me rein it in, whittle it down and generally make it better.

  Thanks to Will Mason, Megan Denny, Susan Tate, Jay Lazzaro, Mike Carvalho and Patrick Kilgo for wading through the first draft and urging me to keep going and/or seek help with editing. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your patience and I promise never to ask that you suffer through something like that again.

  Thanks to my Mom, Sandi Kilgo, who read an early draft even though she doesn’t like horror. Her eye for misspellings and grammatical errors helped clean things up considerably.

  Thanks also to Eric San Juan who did two passes through this in order to help me tighten things up for the final version. It’s truly a better book for your insight.

  Finally, thanks to my wife, Karen, and my daughter, Lilith for their patience and understanding when I lock myself in the office for hours at a time. I love you both.

  For deleted scenes, short stories and other fun stuff, visit:

  www.carychristopher.com.

  Follow me on twitter: @misfitcaryc