Desperate By Dusk

by Alexander Salkin

  He didn't understand a word of it. There was an accent to it, almost French, but the words weren't anything he recognized even pertaining to that language. Even then, he’d studied German in high school and only remembered pieces of it, at best. "I… I don't understand," he stated, after a moment of hesitation. He wasn't sure saying anything was the right thing to do.

  She stared through him, her head remaining tilted. She reminded him less of Aveirasen at this point, and more of something out of those horror movies about haunted Japanese ghost girls. But her appearance suggested no obvious nationality. She just didn't look entirely real.

  Straightening up, she turned and walked into the tree line, before pausing at the edge and turning to gaze at him blankly. Then, she retreated calmly into the woods. He got the impression she wanted him to follow her. And he wasn't sure if he should. She headed away from the town where he planned to infiltrate. He also did not know what, if any, motives she had regarding him beyond leading him somewhere. By his recollection of Dresden Port proper, she was heading to a fairly unremarkable sandy brush land area, just past the trees. Not the kind of place one would casually follow a stranger, really.

  Working up the nerve, he listened to hear slow footsteps and followed her through the woods, completely uncertain as to whether this was the right idea or not. At the very least, he wanted to see if there were any other houses in that direction. Maybe there would be a less dense situated home with a clothes line holding robes he could borrow? The layout couldn't have been completely identical here, surely.

  Dresden Port was no stranger to having outliers living in random trailers and shacks in the middle of nowhere. At the very worst, he could learn if she planned to rat him out. He might be able to make it back to the woods to hide in time if he had to. So, taking a chance, he followed. For all her creepy qualities, she was less outright threatening than evil looking monks and their dogs.

  After a short walk of simply following the trail of her noisy passage through the woody growth, he emerged to the open ground of sandy barrens. Or at least it should have been. The environment was about the same, but nothing else was. He slowed to a stop, growing slack jawed, as his veins filled with a sensation of ice. The little girl was only a short distance ahead of him when she also came to a complete stop, but her mood could not be so easily read.

  For as far as the eye could see, there were upright pole structures in the shape of a Y, dug into the rough, sandy terrain. Lined in row after row, scarcely clothed skeletons hung limp from the supports of these poles, each affixed with rusted chains or nautical rope. They were dressed unlike the people in the black robes, but in business suits, dresses, jeans, or sometimes nothing at all. Some appeared to have been there for a shamefully long time, their articles reduced to sun-bleached rags or entirely stripped from the ivory bones of the condemned dead.

  Far, far above, sitting immobile in an otherwise warm and bright blue sky with scattered clouds, hung a massive jet colored perfect orb that looked quite capable of blotting out the sun, should the two have lined up. A great swarm of unknown flying specks surrounded it, not unlike birds or giant flies surrounding a bloated round carcass. Perhaps it was due to those creatures that buzzed like gnats, but the sphere reflected no gleam of light, seeming to devour it like a black hole instead.

  The little girl pointed to the massive orb, her finger poking through the material of her long sleeve. "Siethen aluu. Canesh, lo icsa grm ave. Lo Tola Anetha."

  "What the fuck is this…" Jessie slurred, staring wide eyed. He couldn't describe it, but the dark sphere filled him with a deep tremor of dread and terror. He had not known anything like it, nor was he able to explain his sudden gut feeling, but it struck him all the same. It was evil. Unquantifiable, physical evil. He could feel it radiating the very abyss itself.

  He had not forgotten the restrained skeletons in their day to day clothing upon the great sand field beneath the sphere, but they seemed like so many gaudy pink plastic flamingoes in hell's trailer park, with the orb as a giant Christmas tree lit up in mid July's heat. One simply garnered more attention.

  The girl, still pointing, lowered her arm to those skeletons and turned to him now. She smiled widely as Ramone would, although her jaw was filled with sharp spaced out fish teeth. "Hainan yg reh pwan ontigua shu ave, ontigua niev. Niev dais tuygsk daise icsa, dreeftah?"

  He had no idea what she was saying and at the time, he cared even less. "Nope," was all he could speak aloud. It summed up everything he thought about this entire situation. Turning, his morale having failed him at last, he ran clumsily for his life back into the woods, more out of panic than any semblance of his native reason. He was not prepared for what was here. This was too far beyond him. And although only a brief glimpse was given back to her, if mostly to see if she’d given chase, he noticed she had lowered her gestured arm now and seemed to hold an expression of confusion.

  His mad dash, while surprisingly fast for a man with a notable bum leg, was also short lived as he was easily winded. No more than half a block's distance into the woods heading back to the 4 H campgrounds, he paused with a clumsy stop. Leaning against the bark of a gum tree, he wheezed asthmatically, coughing, and glancing behind him. In his mind, he would have reached Ramone's site in mere minutes at the level of heart racing panic within him, but his body would not realistically allow for it.

  Taking a knee, he strained to make sense of what was happening in this place. All of it seemed dark, lurid, and now, terrifying. From what he’d been told, red eyed world was merely an implied threat at most. The locals here decorated empty fields with the crucified dead under the watchful eye of a giant floating orb of pure blackness. And his tour guide was a girl of indeterminate age, yammering at him in her native tongue. He did not need this. Of that, he was certain.

  CHAPTER 18

  Jessie eventually made it back to the spot where his friends waited, after a good twenty five minutes of exploration. Both Ramone and Simon were where he’d left them, although Simon was using Ramone's jacket as a pillow and was now laying on his back. Ramone sat upright against a tree, his arms folded over his knees. He seemed to be covering his eyes a bit, but the way he rocked his feet indicated he was quite awake. The scent of a recently smoked clove cigarette hung in the air. "Hey man, welcome back. Oh… You're pretty out of breath, man. What happened out there? Did you get some water for Simon?"

  Jessie leaned hard against a tree, struggling to catch what remaining of his breath. His bad knee particularly bothered him. "This place… holy shit, we have got to get out of here. This place is completely bat shit."

  "Huh?" Ramone uttered, confused. His expression turn to a grin, and he visibly had a chuckle coming on. "What happened; did you meet your red eyed self out there? Is the universe going to collapse because you met your clone?" Ramone was always good for poorly timed humor and making light of a bad situation.

  Jessie promptly flipped him the bird. "Blow me, you fucking idiot. This is not red eye world, okay? Your description about that place is crap compared to what's going on here."

  Wising up, Ramone grew serious. Jessie looked like he would've actually throat punched him if he continued doing their usual antagonism routine. "Geez, you're really friggin' worked up. Alright, start from the top. Tell me exactly what happened out there. Don't spare any details."

  And so, Ramone listened intently, quickly adapting a baffled expression. He had no reason to think Jessie was lying to him or kidding around this time. Not when Simon had taken ill as he did. He shook his head, rather lost. "I don't get it. Why are we here? We didn't really even get a feel for that other place."

  His squash faced friend shook his head. "How should I know? Who says there's even a reason? Maybe we go somewhere else each and every time. Honestly, I don't know and I don't care right now. We need to get the hell out of here. There are easily several hundred bodies tied to structures out there and I have no idea what that black spot in the sky is supposed to be. Ramone, these people are so
me kind of deranged cultists. If they find us, it's going to get a lot worse."

  Ramone searched the ground, bracing himself along the dirt with his hands. Jessie's unease with the situation was contagious. "Well, where are we supposed to go? What's even safe out here, y'know? Anything? If we're sitting right in the middle of crackpot central and they don't know we're here, then maybe it stands to reason, we just need to sit still until we drift back."

  "Besides, you remember that whole explanation from Aveir. You and I are Hands, or whatever that is. Simon has to be the navigator to… wherever he's supposed to lead us."

  "Ramone, man, she never explained what exactly that means. So, for sake of example, if we go down to the diner in Heiowah or wherever, we'll disappear through some magical border?"

  "Yeah, maybe it does. You want to take a chance on that? Does it really surprise you? You just stood there, not even two minutes ago, and told me there's some big floating death ball in the air, KKK Satanists, and a creepy little girl cliché out there not even half a mile away. And you think running blindly through a world of rules we barely even understand… is a smart idea?" snapped Ramone, under his breath. He glared back at his friend, clearly not joking with him for once either. "We are going to sit here until we can figure out a sensible halfway smart thing to do or we're going to have to wait this out entirely. Because running off like a headless chicken is possibly the stupidest thing we could do right now… and maybe even the dumbest thing you've ever said in all the years I've known you."

  Jessie stood frozen, more than a little caught off guard. If not from being scolded, then the fact that the words stung his pride and reminded him who he was. He hadn’t simply retreated from a bad situation, he panicked. And then he insisted on making it worse, only to have it served up in his face as idiot pie. Hearing it back, he realized his plan (or lack thereof) to escape from this place was foolish. Ramone, that muscle head, was right. Jessie looked to say something, perhaps admit to defeat or maybe cuss from frustration, but he did neither. Instead, he lowered his head and rested his left temple against a nearby birch. He was not having a proud day. "Yeah. Alright."

  From there on, Ramone took the next couple hours more seriously. He and Jessie said little and only made passing eye contact. If Ramone was still hindered by his migraine, he didn't show it. Rather, he stayed behind a wide tree facing the roadside, still remaining in cover, just in case. In his hand, there was a concealed ivory handled jack knife. It an heirloom from his father given to him just before the old man had moved to Florida. And Ramone's dad had received it from his own father, and so on. Ramone kept it around as a source of family pride; it wasn't something he truly considered a weapon. The rusted tire iron in Black Beauty's trunk was more his go to, just in case he thought he might sometime need it. The knife was usually stashed inside his jacket or the rear pocket of his jeans. It was a source of good luck (or so he believed) and it helped him remember what was important in life during the most troubling of times.

  As for Jessie, he wasn't angry with him, but it had not been the first time he'd known Jessie to sulk. Those rare moments of being more than a little wrong seemed to ring something loud within him and he tended to withdraw in cases such as that, perhaps doubting his own judgment and feeling a lapsed sense of confidence. Regardless of the truth, Ramone remained on sentry, since one of his friends was still unconscious and the other was perhaps mentally replaying his defeat at Waterloo against someone he didn't consider his intellectual equal.

  As evening fell with the light above starting to fade slightly, there came a crunching of leaves to the west. Both of the boys stirred at the sound. Jessie bullishly crouched in front Simon, physically blocking immediate access to their unconscious friend. He had time to collect himself now and if he was bothered by things before, his visage no longer showed it. He had returned to a state of quiet determination. Ramone, meanwhile, thumbed his knife open with well calloused hands. He might not have intended his lucky charm to serve as a weapon when he’d begun carrying it, but protecting a friend superseded family folklore by several miles.

  Standing ready in the growing shadows of the woods far from their actual homes, they waited, as the sound of walking came closer. What approached moved heavier than the local squirrels, but the pace was not casual of stride either. Jessie recognized the slow methodical gait. But it didn't make him feel any more at ease.

  The girl with the recently deceased complexion carefully walked into the scene, brushing past some ferns. Ramone finally had a good look at her and his hand shivered, if just for a moment. This was someone that was not completely human, he suspected. And just as Jessie described her, she entered with that black book under her arm and feet covered with dried muck.

  "Don't even think about getting any closer," warned Jessie, keeping the attention on him and not the six foot Italian hidden behind a nearby tree. He didn't care that she probably didn't understand him, only that the two of them keep an advantage. He didn't need to communicate with Ramone about it, they simply knew. "I don't want trouble, but I will deal with you if you take another step."

  Jessie truly did not want to strike or harm her. Not only was it for fear of creating alarm, but he felt uncomfortable striking someone who clearly was not an adult yet. How much could she have even weighed? Eighty five? Ninety pounds? Maybe she was in her early teens? He couldn't tell. Her build was still rather slight in some ways, with those tooth pick ankles peeking out from under her covering frock. And for her own sake, he didn't know what she was capable of, if anything.

  "By the way, something's been on my mind…" he began. Ramone wondered what question he could possibly ask someone who didn't speak their language. If Jessie was telegraphing a plan or trying to distract her further, he knew he was already in the best spot to lunge at her, if it came down to it.

  "When I ran before… I heard you say something like, 'dreeftah'. That sounds suspiciously like a word I've been hearing a lot of lately. Did you mean me? Am I a 'dreeftah'?" he said, pointing at himself.

  She regarded Jessie curiously for a moment and then pointed at him. "Dreeftah. Dais umt dreeftah."

  "Huh… I think I'm right. You are saying 'drifter', aren't you?" Jessie said aloud, sharing his thoughts for Ramone. "You know what I am, huh? Are drifters the only people that come here? What about those crucified bodies in the field?"

  She looked at him blankly and then pointed at him again, speaking only in a quiet voice. "Dreeftah."

  "Of course. I know you don't speak what I speak. But you've seen types like me around. If those bodies out there are dead drifters, I guess it makes sense as to why I've never heard of them. You guys are killing them all for some reason."

  She tilted her head as she had earlier, but had nothing to say.

  "Or are you? What's your deal, I wonder? Are you different from the ones in town? Why are you here?" He thought back to how he didn't see any children outside, but he knew he hadn't observed the town for very long at all. Still, he doubted they were all sitting indoors playing video games or at the playground. Maybe a form of late day school had been in session? So, what was her story, just wandering around the woods by a mass grave? The thought gave him a shiver, in hindsight.

  It was clear she didn't understand anything he was saying, except for perhaps the word 'drifter'. He knew inquiring from her was largely fruitless and was merely thinking aloud for Ramone's sake. She didn't have much range of emotion to discern in the dimming light of the woods, which was further not helping things.

  She happened to glance down by Jessie's shoes and noticed Simon's legs poking out from behind the cover of brush and Jessie blocking for him. "Hette dreeftah?" she asked Jessie, pointing at Simon.

  He thought not to respond, but if she was really saying 'drifter', her question seemed rhetorical. He wondered if she was testing to see if he was either lying or ignorant. He nodded, affirming as much. Answering in false or pretending to be unaware could have been risky in the long run. Or maybe she was just a t
welve year old something girl and he was overthinking the matter because of those dead staring eyes. Despite all of this, he felt increasingly certain she did know what a drifter was, since she repeated the term clumsily but with an intelligent gesture. What he didn't understand was how she knew, let alone how much.

  She withdrew her pointed gesture and looked curiously at the two of them. After a moment, she put down her weird black book, resting it upright against her shin. She then pulled back a sleeve and exposed her left hand, which was covered with a significant amount of old looking scars. She held the hand out for a moment, as if demonstrating it. Then, she pointed to her lips with her other hand and opened it, making silent mouth movements. After that, she relaxed her pose and then gestured back and forth between Simon and Jessie with a questioning look.

  Jessie took a moment to take this in and then glanced to Ramone, still hidden behind the tree. His tall friend seemed a bit alarmed and shrugged, not sure what to make of the things. Jessie looked back to the strange girl and pondered this. She knows. She knows how this works. I think I get what she's asking. Huh. How many Drifters has she seen? Are we really that common here? She knows we're obviously not from here. Don't know if we can trust her, but she hasn't tried anything yet. Let's keep things peaceable.