Ariel

by Steven R. Boyett

  “So do I, Pete.” She sighed. “Sometimes … so do I.”

  I stopped crying soon. Ariel felt like the soft stuffed animal every child should have guarding his sleep, and eventually, lulled by that warm security, I did sleep.

  *

  The dreams again. They grew worse each night. I only remembered fragments, but they became more and more detailed.

  Hot breath mingling with mine. Sweat tickling my back, cooled by a light night breeze. A faint groan—mine? Sensations assailing me: infant-soft skin, warmth and wetness, and a persistent sliding … . My name, said in a voice all breath—

  My eyes snapped open. The lopsided waning moon shone down on Ariel, from whom I’d rolled a few feet during the night. The lumpy shape of George in his sleeping bag snored lightly six feet away, on the other side of Ariel. I realized I was cold. It hits you like that when you wake up. Oh, yeah—I’m cold. I got up quietly. My penis pressed against the fabric of my cords. I looked down at it. Those dreams … . I crossed the dark silver ribbon of black-bordered highway, went behind a tree, and unzipped my pants. I tried to urinate but the muscles wouldn’t relax. Frustrated, I went back across the road. Fred was lying beside the cocked crossbow atop our piled packs and next to the Aero-mag. I picked it up and unzipped my sleeping bag. George snored on. Ariel’s right foreleg jerked. Her head twitched. I crawled into the sleeping bag and zipped it up, left arm out and holding on to Fred. I closed my eyes. Shit—I have to go to the bathroom. Exasperated, I tried to unzip the bag, but the tab caught in the cloth and I had to crawl out. I took Fred along and went behind a tree.

  As I zipped my pants backup a cry startled me. I turned around, drawing Fred as I spun. The sword arced out and a shock went through my hand as the blade cut through something. I danced grotesquely when something landed at my feet, and stopped when I realized my trained reflexes had caused me to murder a branch. The cry came again. It sounded like a hungry baby’s wail. Some kind of bird. Or a squonk, maybe. I sheathed Fred and returned to my sleeping bag, hearing the eerie cry once more.

  Tucked away again and beginning to feel drowsy, I realized that I hadn’t had to look to sheathe Fred. Maybe I’d get the hang of this stuff after all.

  *

  NORTH CAROLINA STATE LINE, the sign read. We’d slept a hundred yards south of it.

  The day was gloomy and overcast. Ariel, George, and I trudged along in silence. We’re embarrassed, I thought, because of what happened last night.

  It began raining about eight-thirty, starting off as a light drizzle and ending as a toad-strangler for most of the day. I couldn’t read Don Quixote to Ariel and George. I also worried that Fred would rust.

  Weary, soaked, hungry, and roadsore, we entered Charlotte by nightfall.

  *

  Sometimes I wish we’d never gone into Charlotte. I play what if? and wonder what would have happened had we avoided the city altogether.

  We slept in a Holiday Inn at the outskirts of the city. It was out of the rain and we didn’t have to go about setting up even the meager camp that none of us felt like making. We had neighbors in a room down the hall from ours, on the second floor. Three men and two women. They thought Ariel was “really neat.” I didn’t comment when they told me they’d shoved three beds together in their room. I made polite, noncommittal noises when they left me with an invitation to come over any old time.

  I stripped in the room, toweled myself dry, and stumbled into the bed in an exhausted stupor. George was already out on the other bed. Within two minutes I’d joined him in dreamland. I didn’t have bad dreams this time. I think I was too tired.

  Next thing I knew Ariel was nudging me. Daylight pushed at the curtains. I whipped the covers back and sat up.

  “Oh, Pete!” Ariel sounded hurt. My nakedness wasn’t what upset her. It didn’t bother me, either, but when I looked down I felt sick. My feet were a brownish mess of dirt and dried blood. Blisters on the knuckles of my big and second toes had burst and scabbed over. It looked as if I’d been shot in both heels. All that walking in worn-out boots.

  “Wash them off in the bathtub,” she ordered. “There might still be some water pressure. Make sure you put a stopper in the tub.”

  I wondered why my feet didn’t hurt as I walked into the bathroom, rubbing sleep from my eyes. Just enough water coughed from the faucet to make a small puddle. I lathered my feet with a miniature bar of hotel soap. The lather turned pink. The water became murky. I swished my feet around to get as much of the soap off as I could, then stepped out and began to towel them dry—and that’s when they hurt. I hissed as I drew the towel across the tops of my feet. It felt like an emery board sawing at an open wound.

  “You all right, Pete?” asked Ariel from the doorway.

  “My feet would probably still feel okay if you hadn’t pointed them out to me.” I looked up. Her black eyes were concerned. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’ll heal, at least. It just hurts like hell.”

  “Do you think you should walk today?”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  “How about we take it easy and get some things you’ve been complaining about not having? New hiking boots, for instance.”

  I wanted to argue and decided not to. It really wasn’t a bad idea. Besides, my feet did hurt a lot. “All right. Get George up. We’ll see if we can loot some stores.”

  “George is already up. I’ll go knock down the hall and see if they know where we can get clothes and stuff.”

  I followed her to the front door and opened it for her. “And cigarettes,” I called after her.

  “And peppermint,” she added.

  I left the door open partway and got dressed, trying to imagine our neighbors’ reaction to having a unicorn bang on their door wanting to know where there was a good shopping center. (“Harry, there’s a unicorn at the door—wants to borrow a cup of sugar.”)

  George lay awake in bed. “Morning,” he said.

  “Good morning. Feel like going shopping?”

  “Well, yeah, I’d like to get some stuff. How’re your feet?”

  “Lovely, if you like Sam Peckinpah movies.” The comment drew a blank look. I’d forgotten he wasn’t old enough to remember things like that very well. “They don’t look so good,” I amended.

  “When are we gonna find a dragon?”

  “We’ll be coming up on the Smokies soon. Ariel thinks there are dragons there. Why the sudden hurry?”

  He sat up and I saw that he was already dressed. “‘Cause I want to get this stuff over with and go home.”

  “You miss your family?”

  He nodded. Poor kid—he didn’t realize his father was nuts. Ariel and I were fairly committed to helping him slay a dragon; he’d never make it on his own. Sure, he wasn’t my best friend in the universe, but he was a good kid—I didn’t want to see him get mangled. Of course, come to think of it, we might get mangled, too. Oh, yeah.

  I looked down at my feet. “Fuck you,” I told them. How dare they betray me like this; I wanted to catch up to Malachi. If my feet set us back we’d end up days behind him—if we weren’t already.

  Ariel nudged the door open with her horn. “They said there’s a big shopping mall about three miles down the road. They went by there a few days ago. They don’t know if it’s occupied but according to them it’s in pretty good shape.”

  “Three miles.”

  She looked at my feet and nodded.

  “I don’t care if it’s occupied. I want cigarettes. Let’s go.” I strapped her pack on, put in the Barnett, and looked at George. His broadsword hung ridiculously at his side and he’d shouldered his Boy Scout pack.

  I turned the socks bloody-side-out and laced the boots so they were tight about the ankles and loose over my instep. It still hurt. I shouldered my pack and we left.

  *

  Charlotte was about a fourth the size of Atlanta, a little more sparse, less “cosmopolitan,” I guess you’d call it. It was hilly but not mountainous. We headed north, walking between
the frozen traffic lines on the street. Something I saw tickled me: someone had taken an old, white VW Bug, sawed off the roof even with the doors, dumped in a lot of dirt and rich topsoil, and turned it into a planter. The old Sixties slogan “Flower Power” had been painted on the side.

  George had begun to look more and more worried; I knew it would get worse as we neared the Smokies.

  The shopping mall was on the right side of the road. We turned beneath a dead stoplight and walked into the entrance. Scores of cars were in a lot. The glass doors were unlocked. I held one open for Ariel. “Ladies first.” She walked in with a superior air, nose high. My kick at her ass missed.

  “It sure looks empty enough,” whispered George.

  “Then why are you whispering?” I asked in a normal tone.

  He shrugged. We walked from the side wing of shops to the main arcade, our footsteps echoing—mine and George’s, anyway; Ariel’s never made noise unless she wanted them to.

  “Are we gonna split up or stick together?” George asked.

  I looked at Ariel. “It looks safe,” she said.

  I rubbed my chin. I needed a shave. “Split up and get what you need. It’ll take less time. I want to get out of here as soon as we can. And be careful.” I glanced at the fountain in the center of the mall. Scum had accumulated in the still water along the blue-tiled edges. On the bottom were pennies, dull brown in the murky water, tossed in years ago at wishful random. “We’ll meet back at this fountain in an hour.”

  They agreed, and I headed toward one end of the mall, George the other, and Ariel down a side wing. Looking for a candy shop, I bet myself.

  It was very cool in the mall. The sound of my footsteps mingled arrhythmically with the echo of George’s retreating ones. I tried to ignore it. I’d rather have silence than just a few sounds in all the quiet.

  I drew Fred at the startling shape of several figures standing in a storefront window, then realized they were just mannequins in a dress shop. This place was making me jittery.

  The door to Montgomery Ward’s was open. I headed toward MEN’S WEAR and picked out two pairs of blue jeans from a rack. I leaned backpack and weapons against a register and took off my black cords, feeling both silly and naked—naked as in vulnerable. I took off hiking boots and socks and left them in the middle of the floor. I wouldn’t be needing those again. One look at my underwear made me think twice about trying on the jeans immediately; I went to a display, opened a plastic packet of Joe Boxer, and put on a pair. The other two I rolled up and tossed into my pack. No doubt I’d be needing them later.

  The first pair of jeans didn’t fit. The second did. I left them on, picked out a new belt, put it on, and returned Fred to a belt-loop. I felt much better. Discarded clothes on floor behind me, I walked barefoot and shirtless through the store, dragging the backpack behind me with top flap opened. I tossed in a razor for later.

  Out in the mall I kept jumping at shadows, seeing motion where there was none. Once I saw Ariel up ahead and I waved. She nodded back. Unicorn in a shopping mall. Which way to the gift shop, please?

  A stop at Thom McAn yielded new hiking boots and three pairs of white tube socks. At a drugstore I grabbed a carton of Winstons and a half-dozen small packs of peppermint to balance it.

  There was a table of iron-on transfer shirts in the center of the store. They’d been on sale about six years now. I picked out a blue shirt in my size and held it in front of me. I’M WITH STUPID, it announced in red letters. Below that was an arrow pointing to the right. I put it on. The arrow now pointed to my left; I’d have to be sure to stay on Ariel’s right side.

  I imagined Muzak playing over the store’s P.A., and a nasal voice over it. “Attention, shoppers … .”

  There was a commotion in the mall: shouts, breaking glass. I ran to the store entrance and peeked out the door. George was barreling toward me, arms loaded with booty. Every few steps something fell from his double-armed grip. He must have been messing around in one of the clothing stores; he was wearing tight blue dress slacks and a red silk shirt. It was unbuttoned, and as he ran it unfurled behind him like some disco flag. His broadsword screwed up his stride by slapping against his left leg.

  Three men were running after him.

  Something smacked against the glass door I held propped open with my body. I ducked—it would have been too late, but there was no controlling the reflex—and glanced up. The glass had spiderwebbed. One of the three men was trying to fit another arrow into his bow while running, which couldn’t have been very easy. George saw me and veered my way.

  “That way!” I yelled, waving toward the wing that led to the mall entrance. “That way!” He cut a corner, leaped over a bench (more things fell from his arms), nearly ran into a fountain but dodged just in time, and picked up speed.

  Ariel appeared from the open doorway of a card shop a hundred feet to the left of the wing George had run down. Two men went after George. The third headed toward me. He loosed another arrow, which went ten feet wide of me. I decided you can’t be accurate with bow and arrow while running full-out. He wouldn’t be able to fit another arrow before he reached me, even though he was still a good seventy-five feet away. I drew the Aero-mag calmly from its backpack sling, fitted a dart, and brought it to my mouth. Deep breath, wait … one, two, three, puff! The coathanger-wire dart hit him in the left forearm. He dropped his bow and screamed. It echoed down the length of the mall. The point of the dart protruded from his arm. I ran forward and punched him in the jaw. He went straight backward, unconscious. I stopped just long enough to pull another dart from the pouch at my belt and tap it into the Aero-mag with a thumb. “Help George!” I yelled to Ariel. “He took off down there. Two men are after him.”

  She nodded and sprang forward as if she’d hit warp drive. I went around the bench George had jumped over and trotted toward the main entrance, one hand on Fred and the other on the aluminum shaft of the Aero-mag. The backpack bounced up and down in time. I crouched behind a smooth concrete fixture in the middle of the mall. Dusty odor inside. It held long-dead plants. A cautious peek over the top revealed the two men at either side of the B. Dalton’s entrance. They held their bows ready but weren’t firing. They must have seen George enter but weren’t willing to go in after him; Dalton’s was too crowded with full bookshelves to give any working room. They glanced at each other and I ducked to prevent the farther man from seeing me. They were probably waiting for George to freak and make a move. There was no sign of Ariel.

  I brought the Aero-mag up and blew. The dart hit the nearer man and bounced off. They were too far away. The nearer whirled around and the farther swung his bow. I ducked and heard an arrow hit the concrete planter. Now, while he’s fitting another one: thumb the belt pouch, slap in a dart, swing the blowgun out and pop up quickly—I almost ate an arrow. The other one had fired when he saw me move; the arrow brushed my cheek and buried itself in the backpack. My entire body twitched and I dropped as fast as I’d come up. Fletchings tickled my left cheek. “Why, you son of a bitch,” I said aloud. I exposed my head over the top of the planter and ducked again. An arrow hissed above me. Now. I ran from the planter to a water fountain twenty feet to my right, paused, then ran a zigzag pattern to the dusty display automobile by the fountain in the mall’s center. I looked through the windows to see the nearer man heading toward me while his partner remained behind at B. Dalton’s. I blew him another dart—it missed but made him cautious—and thumbed in another. Only two darts left now. He skittered, hugging close to walls and anything between him and me. I lay down behind a tire and looked beneath the car. Blue tennis shoes trotted toward me in irregular rhythm. It would be hard to get off a shot. His feet kept moving, my backpack kept me at an awkward angle, and that damned arrow was bothering my cheek. I tried pulling it out but the hunting-blade tip kept it firmly embedded. So I broke it off. I brought the blowgun to my lips and tightened them like a trumpet player. He stopped to change direction and l blew as Louis Armstrong never h
ad. The dart hit his left shin and he did a near-complete flip. I ran to him and kicked his bow away.

  Ariel jumped from inside B. Dalton’s. George was on her back, crossbow aimed. His red silk shirt billowed as Ariel leapt. Her back hooves hit a book display and sent paperbacks flying. The final man had been looking at me when Ariel streaked out. He spun and let fly a fast shot at Ariel. She twitched her neck and snapped the arrow with her horn. George pulled the trigger on the Barnett. The bolt hit the floor twenty feet behind the man, who sprawled backward with a hole through his neck. Ariel hesitated, looking toward me. I yelled for her to go on. She said something to George and he hurriedly returned the crossbow to her pack, leaned forward, and wrapped his arms around her neck. She plunged forward and struck the glass of the mall entrance horn-first. It shattered and she broke into the sunshine amid a diamond shower of glass.

  I looked back at the man I’d shot in the leg. There was no need to do anything else to him; he hugged the leg close to his chest and writhed on the floor. His eyes and teeth were clenched and his mouth was drawn back so that the cords on the sides of his neck stood out. Small grunts worked from his throat. I left him and walked out through the jagged hole Ariel had left behind, blinking in the sunshine.

  *

  Ariel made George get off her back. She would only carry him as long as necessary.

  George was crying. He walked a little ahead of us in the middle of the highway. Ariel and I spoke in low voices. Her tone was accusing. “Was it worth it, for the things we came away with?”

  I felt guilty and looked from her to the road flowing beneath my new boots. My feet still hurt.

  “Peppermint candy,” she said, “and cigarettes. You only wanted to loot that mall because you figured you’d have a better chance of finding cigarettes there. The clothes and things—you could have found those anywhere.”

  I didn’t think she was right, but I said nothing.

  “George found some good things. But about your cigarettes—” She closed her eyes and tossed her head, horn inscribing a brief circle in the late morning air. “There.”