by Ren Hamilton
“Is that blanket ready?” Shep’s voice again.
“Ready,” said one of the brothers.
“Bring it here.”
The whimpering started again, and Patrick could no longer resist the urge to look. He lifted his head just enough to view the scene below. He almost wet himself when he saw exactly how close they were. He could have spit on their heads. Brin-Marie walked over to the supplies and returned with a large needle and syringe. A wet, naked man lay on a blanket, on his side, curled up into a ball and shaking. He was glistening with a slick shiny substance and he was covered with blood. The tiny wet ringlets of his hair were platinum. The rest of the group knelt around him. Margol blotted the naked man with a towel, cleaning the blood gently off his shoulders and neck.
Shep looked up at Brin-Marie, whose gloved hands held a syringe. “No. Take that away. No drugs. Not yet.”
Brin-Marie looked upset. “But he’s in such pain.”
“I need to make sure he has his mind before you go drugging him up. Wait.”
The naked man wept. His hands covered his face as he lay on his side crying. Although his face was covered, Patrick could clearly see one thing. He was one of them. He was a brother. Even wet, his hair hung in the chin-length ringlets they all shared. But who the hell was he? How had he gotten into the cave? Robin lifted her head, and was looking down at the naked man as well. Patrick leaned into her. “Is that Juris?” he whispered.
Shep lifted the naked man’s chin. Blood streaked his pale face like war paint. His eyes were closed, lids swollen as an infant just come through the womb. “Open your eyes,” Shep said in a soft, loving tone. The swollen eyelids fluttered, then opened as tears streamed. The eyes were beautiful, large and aquamarine. Though his face was covered with blood, Patrick could see before Robin told him that this was a completely new individual.
“Not Juris,” she whispered in his ear.
This man, even wet and bloody, was clearly the fairest of them all. His beauty was striking even with the messy gore that covered him, hair white like Juris’s, but his face was much softer. His look was slightly less masculine than the others, with rounded, doll-like cheeks. He could have been carved of porcelain for how perfect his skin was. His nude body was thin and wiry, yet sculpted with muscle tone, just as Shep’s was. He blinked, looking at Shep with confusion and fear.
Shep knelt on the floor with the new arrival. “Can you hear me?” he asked softly.
The naked man pushed himself up on wobbly arms. He blinked several times, focusing on Shep. Then he lifted a shaking hand, holding it before his eyes. He grimaced at it, as though it was not a hand, but a tumor that had just sprouted from his wrist. He opened and closed his fist, then let out a sob.
Shep took his hand and gently lowered it. “Klee, can you hear me? Do you recognize me? It’s me. It’s Zirub.”
Robin and Patrick exchanged a glance.
Allisto stroked the man’s wet hair. He spoke to him in soothing tones, but it was not English. The young man turned to Allisto, seeming to respond to the words. He held his hand up to Allisto, showing it to him. “Plefarr!” he whispered to Allisto. “Plefarr!”
Allisto nodded, looking sad. “I know.”
The man screamed then, holding his hand over his head for all to see. “Plefarr!”
Shep grasped the man’s face and turned it to meet his eyes. “Look at me, Klee. Focus. Look in my eyes. It has been a long time, but you must try to remember. You chose this. You chose this.”
The blond stared back at Shep, still grimacing. “Plefarr.” He sobbed.
“I know, Klee,” Shep said soothingly. “Do you remember the languages? This is English. Plefarr. Say it in English, Klee.”
The bloody man looked at Shep, and his eyes showed a flicker of understanding. “Say it?”
Shep looked delighted. “Yes! Say it, Klee! Say it!”
The bloody stranger straightened up and tried to stand, but he fell to the ground like his legs were made of rubber. Shep caught him and helped him into a kneel. “Don’t try to use your legs yet. Speak, Klee. Speak again. Let me hear your voice.”
The blond held both hands out in front of him, like a surgeon ready for gloves. He looked down at the rest of his body. “Plefarr,” he said softly. His eyes lifted to Shep and he began to whimper again.
“Say it in English, Klee,” Shep urged.
“Give him a break. He doesn’t remember yet,” Margol said.
Shep reached out and smacked Margol sharply across the face. “You went through this too, Margol! Try to have a little patience!” Shep turned his attention back to the one called Klee. “He remembers. Don’t you Klee?” Shep smiled at him.
The bloody stranger looked around the cave, seeming to become aware of his surroundings for the first time. Letting out another sob, he studied his own hands, then looked at Shep. “Flesh.”
Shep nodded slowly. “Yes, Klee. Flesh. Plefarr.”
Klee’s chin trembled. “No.” He shook his head. “No plefarr. No flesh! No flesh!” Klee turned his head and caught sight of Margol standing next to him. He held his hands up to Margol. “Margol, flesh!”
Margol and Allisto both beamed. “He said my name.” Margol’s voice choked with emotion. “He remembers. He said my name.”
Shep smiled. “That he did, Margol. Brin, you can give him that shot now.”
“Huh?” Brin-Marie looked stunned and shaken.
“The shot, Brin-Marie. Give Klee the shot. Now I know he’s all right, I don’t want him in pain.”
“Oh. Right. The shot.” Brin-Marie gave Klee a shot in the buttocks while Margol wiped his back with a cloth. She rubbed ointment across the section of his back that Margol had cleaned.
Shep ordered Allisto to begin packing up the vans. There was a flood of commotion while they all struggled to do their jobs, and to keep from pissing off Shep.
“Come on,” Shep said, slinging one of Klee’s arms over his shoulder. “Come on up. You’re okay.”
As Shep turned Klee around, Patrick and Robin got a clear view of the naked man’s back. Between his shoulder blades was a shockingly deep wound, clearly visible now that the blood had been cleaned away. It was red, and shaped like an upside-down horseshoe.
Robin sucked her breath in. Patrick reached out to cover her mouth, but it was too late. Shep froze. “Everybody shut up!” he ordered. “I just heard something.” Margol and Brin-Marie stopped moving.
Allisto came strolling back into the cave from being outside loading up the van. He stopped short when he saw Shep and the others. “What is wrong?” he whispered.
Shep looked around the room. “I’m not sure. I thought I heard something.” Patrick felt Robin begin to shake violently next to him. The movement caused tiny flecks of rock to scatter, making small sounds. Patrick rolled on top of her, suppressing her tremors with his weight. It had the desired effect, and the cave fell silent once more. Shep was still on alert. “Nobody move a muscle. I smell something in here.”
He lowered Klee onto the blanket, then walked around the cave, stopping to sniff the air every few feet like a dog. He came back around and stopped directly beneath the ledge where Patrick lay on top of Robin. Patrick tried desperately not to breathe. He could still feel Robin shaking against his body. Shep sniffed loudly. “I definitely smell something. It’s familiar.”
Patrick held tighter to Robin, wrapping both his arms around her to help control the shaking.
“It’s definitely a sugar substance.” Shep sniffed the air again.
Fee Fi Fo Fum, Patrick thought as he struggled to remain motionless. His own arms were beginning to ache. It was so damned quiet in the cave with all of them standing still! If someone didn’t move soon, he was sure he’d give them away. To make matters worse, he had a terrible itch building above his left eyebrow, and he thought he might sneeze from all of the residual smoke in the air.
“It’s candy,” Shep announced suddenly. “I smell candy.”
Patrick look
ed down at Robin and the candy necklace she still wore. Oh shit. He looked down at Shep and wondered if he’d be able to harm him if forced into an altercation. Whether or not it had been deception, he’d thought of Shep as his friend for ten years. Those feelings didn’t just disappear. As with a jilted lover, pain and anger replace the affection, but only time can truly dissolve the love.
Shep turned to the brothers. “Which one of you cheese-heads brought candy into this sacred place?” he asked angrily. “Both of you come here. Empty your pockets!”
Please God, Patrick thought, let one of those curly-headed scrubs have a piece of candy in his pocket.
“I don’t have any candy,” Margol said choppily, with assurance.
“Me neither,” Allisto said, coming forward. “You can check my pockets.”
Patrick watched Shep rummaging through the pockets of his two look-alike cronies. Neither of them had any candy.
“Is this what you’re smelling?” Brin-Marie asked.
Shep walked over and took something from her hand. “What is this? Bubble gum?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. It was in my pocket. I didn’t know it was forbidden. I meant no disrespect.”
Shep examined the gum and took a long whiff. “All right. That must be it. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Patrick let out a quiet sigh of relief as the activity ensued below and the noise level in the cave elevated once more. They watched as the rest of the boxes were hauled out. Shep and Brin-Marie brought the bloody naked man to his feet again. They wrapped a blanket around him and began walking him out of the cave, each with an arm slung over their shoulder. His weak legs bent in all directions.
“Candles?” Brin-Marie inquired.
“Leave them,” Shep said. “They’ll burn themselves out.”
After several trips in and out, Patrick and Robin were finally left alone in the cave. They lay silently, staring at the candles down below, not daring to move. The walls and the floor of the cave were covered in blood and the air stunk with that rank metallic odor. Dr. Lichtenstein’s mutilated body had been rolled in a sheet and taken out with the boxes like an inanimate piece of cargo. Now the only sounds were of their own breathing, and the distant bubbling of the tiny waterfall in the exterior corridor.
After a patient ten-minute wait, they agreed to climb down from their hiding spot. When they got to the ground, Patrick hugged Robin. “Are you all right?”
“Let’s not talk about it until we get out of here, okay? I just want to get the fuck out of here.”
Patrick agreed. He wanted to run screaming from the cave as well, but not before he looked at what the doctor had written in the dirt. He led Robin over, and the two of them hunched over the faint scribbling. “It’s a name,” Robin said.
“Yes, I can see that. The question is, who the hell is Wesley J. Shepherd?”
“Well that last name is certainly familiar. Do you think it’s a relative of Shep’s?”
Patrick shook his head. “Who knows. We’ll talk to Litner about it. Maybe he can trace the name.”
“Can we go now? This place is making me sick. All I can smell is blood and I need fresh air.” Patrick happily agreed.
They headed toward the cavern opening, dodging the blood stains where they could. Two of the candles had already burned out and it was getting harder to see. Robin grabbed Patrick’s hand as they headed toward the exit tunnel. She tripped suddenly and tumbled to the ground, taking Patrick down. “Oh shit!” he said rubbing his elbow. “Are you okay?”
Robin sat up. “I’m fine. I tripped over something.” She lifted her legs and sprung backward. “Oh gross!”
Patrick leaned over and examined the object, an animal carcass of some sort. There were long white feathers stained with fresh blood. “It looks like a bird.”
Robin wrinkled her nose. “Why would they kill a bird?” She got up on her knees and leaned in more closely, poking the large white object with her finger. “It’s big.”
“Pick it up,” Patrick said.
“No way! It’s dead. You pick it up.”
Patrick lifted the bloody thing off the ground and spread it out. Its wingspan was longer than his body. “Holy shit.”
“Patrick,” Robin said in a shaky whisper. “Turn it around. Look at the other side.”
Patrick turned it over and lifted it up again, spanning the wings outward. There was no bird in the center of those wings, only a thick piece of bloody cartilage and a few broken bone fragments connecting them. It hit him then, and he gasped, dropping the thing. “What the chicken fried fuck?”
“I know,” Robin said, rubbing her arms.
The cartilage connecting the wings had a distinct shape, like an upside-down horseshoe. Patrick looked at Robin, wide eyed. “What the fuck, Robin? What the fuck!”
“Look.” Robin pointed to the ground a few feet away. The power saw lay abandoned or forgotten in the dirt. The blade was red with blood, and a few gruesome chunks of flesh clung to its circular blade. Patrick opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. He shook his head.
He didn’t have time to formulate the thought because they both heard Shep’s voice suddenly. He was coming up the tunnel, screaming at somebody. Robin grabbed Patrick’s arm. “They’re back! Come on we have to hide!”
They scrambled quickly back up to the ledge and ducked themselves down just before Shep and Margol entered the cave. Shep was angrily ranting at Margol, who carried a canister of gasoline. “I give you one simple task, Margol. One simple job to do and you fuck it up. Do I have to do everything myself?”
“You distracted me!” Margol said. “You were checking me for candy and you were rushing me.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just do it and let’s get out of here. Oh, and look! You left the saw here too. Very nice, Margol. Real swift work.”
Shep picked the saw up and shook it off. Margol opened the gas can and doused the bloody white wings. He emptied the canister, completely saturating them, then lit a match and dropped it. The wings made a ‘woof’ sound as they burst into flames. Shep and Margol stood by, watching the wings burn for several minutes. Their eyes were blank, looking strangely sad as they concentrated on the flames.
“I hate this part,” Margol said.
Shep wrapped an arm around his brother. “I know.”
They watched the wings burn for a while longer. Shep wiped tears from his eyes, then said finally, “That’s good. Let’s go.”
Margol put the cap back on the canister, and the two of them walked quickly out of the cave.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Nobody spoke. Nobody even moved. The three of them stared over the coffee table at Robin and Patrick where they sat on the love seat. “Well? Isn’t anyone going to say anything?” Patrick asked. They continued to stare, looking dumbfounded. Except for Agent Litner of course. His face was always a blank slate. Patrick squirmed as the silence continued.
It had taken twenty minutes to fully report everything that happened down at Pearl Chasm the night before. And they had reported all of it, holding nothing back. Now Patrick wondered if they should have edited the recalling of the story. Clearly, the little group was not swallowing it.
“Wings, did you say?” Father Carbone asked, wincing.
“Yes, that’s right. Wings,” Patrick answered.
The clock ticked on the wall. Patrick had never heard Father Carbone’s house so quiet. Finally, Copie stood up and did a quick pace of the room. He returned and sat back down, looking quizzically at Patrick, one finger tapping his chin.
Patrick sighed. “Okay Copie. You obviously have something to say, so let’s have it.”
“All right. Did you take any hallucinogenic drugs before you went into that cave?”
“Hey fuck you, you weren’t there!”
“Angels, Patrick? Are we talking about angels here?”
“I never said anything about angels,” he snapped. “I’m merely reporting what we saw.”
“But that’s what you�
�re implying, right? That we have blood-crazed angels running around?”
Patrick clenched his teeth. “I don’t know what they are, Copie. I’m just telling you what happened.”
“Take is easy, Patrick,” Father Carbone said. “Let’s all calm down here. Now I have to say, Copie has a good point. If not angels, then what are you two suggesting here?”
Patrick shifted uncomfortably. “Well, Robin and I were discussing it, and we were wondering if maybe it could be some sort of…genetic mutation.”
Father Carbone raised his eyebrows. “A genetic mutation? This isn’t like a sixth toe, Patrick. You’re talking about wings here.”
“I’m aware!”
“I’m not trying to patronize you, but you said yourself that neither one of you actually saw these wings…attached to a person. I mean, this naked person, this Klee…he wasn’t actually wearing them?”
“No, Father Carbone. Nobody was wearing them when we found them. I’ve given you the facts of what happened. So, tell me, what would be your explanation for this, oh holy one?”
Father Carbone drummed his fingers on the table. “Well, the two of you witnessed something horrible. Under the stress of seeing someone killed, and the strangeness of the ritual, perhaps you let your imaginations run away with you.”
“I agree,” Copie said. “I mean, you find part of a bird carcass on the ground and you just assume the wings were on this bloody guy’s back?”
“How do you explain the power saw and the wound?” Patrick asked him.
“They’re crazy, man! They obviously marked this guy with that saw as part of some sick ritual they have. And as far as people spitting out of rock walls like a fetus, well, I think the priest is right. You were under stress. The cave was full of smoke. Your mind started playing tricks on you.”
Agent Litner got up and walked out of the room. Robin had been sitting silently next to Patrick, but now she spoke up. “The wings were real, I touched them myself. And I do believe they were on the guy’s back. Does that make him an angel? Fucked if I know, but that shit happened. You weren’t there, Copie! You didn’t risk your life. All you’ve done is sit on your ass and whine.”