Desperate By Dusk

by Alexander Salkin

  Furrowing his brow, Jessie pointed to himself. "Hand." Then, without stepping away from Simon, he spoke, "Voice." Shooting a look to Ramone, he made a turn of his head, indicating he should probably come out now. Jessie felt there was more worth learning, than fearing from this girl. Having someone standing in the wings being sneaky would not have made for a good impression later.

  Ramone slid the knife back in his rear pocket and stepped forth from behind the tree. The girl was immediately startled backwards for a moment, with her book tumbling down on its side upon the ground. She made a quick chirping noise in alarm and looked at Ramone warily. Not only because she had not detected him, but because he was significantly taller than Jessie. "Hey… sorry about that," he said, holding his hands in front of him. He made sure not to approach any further. "Um… Hand," he said, feeling odd saying the lingo, as he motioned to himself.

  "Hhund," she repeated curiously, after a moment of hesitation.

  The two friends smiled. "That's right! I'm Jessie. Jessie," he said, motioning to himself. He then pointed hard at his friend. "Ramone. And that guy? Simon."

  The names seemed to take her a bit longer to process, perhaps because she thought he was going on about something else. After a moment, however, she grasped what he was doing and decided to play along. "Rio."

  Jessie continued to smile, as best that he could. It was not something he did much, outside of the occasional smirking comment to Ramone. "Are you a Hand or a Voice?" he asked, making the gestures she had for describing a Drifter. It was a leap of faith.

  She tilted her head and shook her entire body slightly in indication that she was neither or the question didn't make complete sense. Jessie looked to Ramone. "Weird. She knows what we are, somehow. But she's not a Hand or a Voice, maybe?"

  "Yeah. Well, don't forget… there's apparently other kinds of Drifters out there beyond Hands and Voices. That Ullah guy from red eyed world was some type called a Guide."

  "Oh, right. Maybe she's the same? I don't think I can pantomime 'Guide' very well," speculated Jessie.

  "She might not be any kind of Drifter," shrugged Ramone. "I don't think we can come up with too many assumptions about anything here. We're really out of our element and we don't know jack about this place. Tell you what, though. Maybe she can help us? See if she can't get some water for Simon, I'm thinking?"

  "Right. I was getting to that. Let's see…" Getting her attention, he made a pouring motion into a cup and then pretended to drink. She looked at him with puzzlement, so he repeated that action a few times, and then pointed to Simon.

  She looked back and forth. "Kesa? Dais juntu kesa?"

  Jessie blinked and shrugged a bit. "Um. Yes. Kesa. That thing." He largely just guessed which word was the noun. He wasn't sure if 'kesa' meant what he hoped, though.

  She glanced around, as if uncertain about something. After seeming to think it over for a moment, she picked up her book and walked back into the brush, turning only briefly to look at them, before continuing on.

  "Okay, there we go. I saw this before- she wants us to follow," Jessie told his friend. "Grab Simon and move quietly. Hopefully, she'll take us where we can get a drink."

  "Suits me," said Ramone, setting Simon against a tree as he put his leather jacket back on. The air was beginning to grow a chill. "I'm honestly pretty thirsty here. Come to think of it, I haven't eaten or slept in what seems like two days now."

  Jessie followed the girl's methodic slow footsteps and spoke quietly. "Hmm. I didn't think about it, but you're right. I'm more than a little hungry. Can't say I'm tired though. But we've spent something like an afternoon to evening here, and I haven't slept since the day of the fire."

  "Maybe the drifting over process takes care of the sleep part?" Jessie wondered.

  "Eh. We all passed out at some point. Although, maybe we were asleep here for a while. The car did run out of gas. And I might feel less rested because of all the bleeding I did."

  "Good point. There's been so much going on, I didn't even think of that."

  "It's been a strange couple of days. I gotta wonder, though; is this better than what's going on where we're from?"

  Jessie only shook his head and continued to walk after Rio. He didn't know what to say anymore.

  They were soon at the field of the restrained dead. Jessie tensed up and looked around uncomfortably. Ramone, who was carrying Simon over his shoulder, looked upon the scene with growing tension, before he froze seeing the black orb in the dim of the evening sky. "What the hell is all this…?" he whispered. Jessie wore a dour cast to his face and could still say nothing.

  Numbly, they followed behind Rio, moving through the field of picked clean human carcasses, some now with gang-like turkey vultures sitting astride their shoulders like some macabre parrot. A flock of the foul birds had come back to roost in the cooling sky, sitting upon their past meals as scavenger lords in a kingdom of wooden crucifixion castles. The girl was unsettlingly indifferent to her surroundings. Jessie could only wonder what it would take for someone so young to become casual about an environment such as this. He thought back to the scars that covered even the knuckles of her small hand, but could only guess if it were related.

  Walking past dozens upon dozens of the dead, with their whistling hollow dry bodies and jangling chains, they soon arrived at a solitary water pump, settled upon a crude concrete foundation. Ramone looked around, seeing only more of the same bones telling no stories around him. What need had they for such water? What crops did they grow?

  "Kesa," said Rio, looking at the old iron water pump. In the backfields of a rural plot of land like Dresden Port, it wasn't unheard of for a manual style water retrieval system to exist, although it was usually within the domain of the old farms working from a subterranean aquifer.

  Ramone sat Simon down in a clumped pile of his own limbs and had Jessie take over to keep him steady. "I'll work the pump. Just bring him close. It's not like we have a cup to bother with."

  "Yeah…"

  The old iron pump was not unlike starting a cold lawn motor engine. It took several times to build enough pressure for even a trickle to come out. Idly, Jessie assumed the pipe needed to be treated for lime scale and internal corrosion of the metal composing it, given how old it looked and the overall mood of the area; he had a strong impression that it wasn't likely to happen any year soon. Eventually, Ramone managed to coax the device into working. "Best hope this stuff is cleaner than the lake water."

  Although the water was poured for Simon's sake, all of them partook of Ramone's labor. Even Rio extended a single cupped hand and splashed a bit into her mouth, although she was much less thirsty than the guys. And though Jessie had reservations about the water's quality, he didn't have much ability to test it, let alone take a pot and boil the stuff for several minutes. Ramone was content enough just to see the water carried no detritus within it, be it iron flakes, sludge, or otherwise, not that that was an assured sign of purity. But at least it wasn't a foul smelling stream of red rust.

  Simon's face was splashed repeatedly and Jessie ripped off half of one of Simon's flannel sleeves to make a washcloth he could soak for his forehead. He figured his friend wouldn't mind so much under the circumstances. A bit of water was carefully fed to him and while Simon did grumble and stir slightly, he did not awaken. Rio had nothing to add; she simply watched.

  Eventually, they quenched their dehydration and Ramone slumped down against the iron pump. "Well, that was fun," he sighed, sweating from the uncommon form of labor. "Now what do we do?" He considered having another clove, but decided against it with Rio nearby.

  "I honestly don't know," lamented Jessie. "I haven't really been able to think that far ahead. I could maybe communicate to Rio about shelter… it's getting pretty dark out here. But she might lead us to someone's house. And I don't think that's in our best interest."

  Ramone glanced up at one of the skeletons, still wearing some shred of brown slacks and a single fungal ridden loafer. "Ye
ah, I don't think that's a sharp idea. I happen to like living, go figure."

  "Well… it feels like it's getting chillier. We do need some kind of cover. I thought about maybe going to one of your places. Seems this place has a similar lay out to our Dresden Port, aesthetics aside. Simon's place in particular is on one of the back roads. Gonna be a lot less people out there."

  "Right. But we might run into creepy cultist Simon. Or someone else, for all we know," cautioned Ramone.

  "Exactly. Really, we shouldn't be anywhere we can be seen. We got off lucky that Rio here hasn't ratted us out or anything. I'm not sure, but I don't know if she even has parents. We might not get so lucky with the next person we meet."

  Ramone nodded. "She seems alright. A lil weird, sure, but I think she's okay. I don't think she's going to harm us or anything. You know, this pump worked pretty well, all considering. It's possible she makes regular use of it on her own. With that in mind, plus the muddy feet, her condition, and scars… well, I think you might be right. Still, I can't make sense of this place- maybe being a latchkey kid is pretty normal for here. Heck, that wouldn't be strange for me and Simon. I know we both used to run around, doing whatever." He glanced at Rio, but she didn't seem to be paying much attention as she hung around in a loose perimeter of them, standing silently. She was very calm, he noticed, almost eerily so, like the eye of a storm. Sometimes Simon could seem that way, too.

  "I couldn't say one way or another. But, getting back to what I was talking about before, I think we should try heading to some place in the back roads that we know is abandoned. I'm thinking less like Simon's house and more akin to some place that's been empty for a good while now."

  Ramone grinned slightly. "Since when did you go cruising on the back roads?"

  "You want a cookie, smart ass? Of course you know more about those dirt lanes." Jessie rolled his eyes. "I have better things to do with my time than floor whatever car Old Man Peterson gives me to go joy riding in. But I've been out there enough to have a general feel for what's around, I just don't know what's occupied. Like, what about Anton's? Is that guy still around?"

  Ramone laughed. "Oh god, Anton? No way, man, he's still on that farm with his daughter. I've seen them still running a fresh corn stand out there on the weekends, trying to get that big sale he had that one time. Dude, that guy HATES us. He actually set out some tacks and broken glass for my old Jaguar once. Hey, didn't you bail on us that day we were supposed to check out the whole 'lucky crickets' rumor?"

  "I think so. That might not have, uh, been one of my better ideas, admittedly. I was still a little green with making our weekend plans." Jessie coughed and looked to the side. In reality, he had an upset stomach after finding out he was allergic to cilantro. He needed to be close to a bathroom that day and he didn't need the guys ribbing him about eating too many falafels the previous night. The other two seemed to have forgotten that detail. But, he won ten dollars in a bet with Ramone over who could eat more and he was content to have some kind of victory over him, no matter how painful the following day was.

  "Well, what about the Green Militia base here?" asked Ramone.

  "D-do you… not learn your lessons or something? It hasn't been that long," scowled Jessie. "Yes, let's go over there and maybe we'll meet the Clayforged on this side. Brilliant."

  Ramone shook his head. "Hey now, those jack offs probably aren't there all the time. I bet it's as empty as ever. Shoot, the Clayforged might not even be here. You can kind of see how kill happy these people are. I didn't see a field of dead folk from the guys pretending to be secret agents, did you?"

  "I'd rather not chance it," shrugged Jessie. "That's asking too little for too much risk. And for all we know, these people are using it. That site IS a base. Who knows how far their control out here goes? I don't think we really want to go traipsing about all over creation here to investigate. We have a guy down and no running car. Think."

  Ramone clicked his tongue and searched around with his eyes, pondering a bit harder. "Well… we could go real far up northern Dresden Port and follow the canal westbound. We could go to Chester's place."

  Jessie wrinkled his nose. "Chester? Oh come on. He's not even real. Paul Bunyan is probably more real than Chester. The guy would probably have been almost two centuries old now."

  "I'm tellin' ya, there's an old shack out there! That's Chester Winchley's place! It should be a historical landmark, protected acres, you know, the works!"

  "Damnit Ramone, Chester isn't real! Not everything has some basis in fact. If anything, Chester is just some random made up name the locals came up with and told their kids. He's a myth, a tall tale!"

  "And how do you know, huh?" sneered Ramone derisively.

  "Coz none of my sources have even hinted that some two century old prospecting geezer, who punched out the Jersey Devil to stop a cyclone from destroying the town, while he was drunk off his ass on moonshine, that… um, what am I forgetting-?"

  "Lessee…" Ramone began. "He found gold in his own tooth; he visited the moon after riding a geyser there, shook hands with Captain Dresden himself on his deathbed…"

  "Right, right. All of that. Oh, and he flew his neighbor's windmill across state lines to chase his cousin's pet canary… come on, Ramone. I might like to work with some 'out there' material, but the legend of Chester Winchley is cornball nonsense, not a legend. He's not the Tom Bombadil of Dresden Port."

  "Hrmph. Well, be that as it may, there's a shack out by a big scraggly old tree. I saw it with my dad when we were riding an ATV north of the canal when I was six. And he said, that's Chester's house over there."

  "It's probably some old hunter's lodge, man. I get that you believe whatever fairy tales your old man told you, but come on. Even I figured out the Santa Claus wasn't real by age seven."

  Ramone shrugged indignantly. "Well, my point stands. It's probably empty, Chester's or not."

  "That's fine. There's nothing else really built up north of the canal," consented Jessie. Ramone looked on and sputtered. "Not from anything I've heard of, anyway."

  "Then why did you make such a big stink about it being Chester's or not??"

  Jessie folded his arms and looked on solemnly. "Why, it's the principle of the matter, my good man. Say what you mean to say. There's an abandoned shack out there. You can call it Chester's if you want, but it's probably just some random lodge filled with graffiti and red Solo cups. I think one is a lot more likely than some guy who stopped a tornado while on a drunken bender."

  Ramone made a cranking motion with one hand, while making the other seem like a jack-in-the-box that turned into his middle finger. Leaning back, he gazed at the grim darkening sky and the sphere hiding within the lack of remaining sunlight. "I cannot wait until Simon gets back on his feet…" he said with an exasperated sigh.

  CHAPTER 19

  After a short rest and the quick onset of night with a growing chill, they began to walk. By Ramone's estimates, the old canal could not have been more than fifteen minutes away if they kept a good pace. As for 'Chester's shack', he had not seen it in a great deal of time and wasn't entirely certain it would even be there. But it was an idea, and both one of the most isolated and remote spots in all of Dresden Port. It was located in a section that no one bothered to go to and there was nothing there to bother with. It was an area of land that consisted of the canal, a few knobby weathered trees, and a seemingly endless expanse of scrub brush, weeds, and wide open plots of unremarkable nature. It was as good a place to drive ATVs as it was to bury a body.

  Rio, after some lingering by the water pump, seemed to follow the boys. She made no further attempt to initiate communication with them perhaps because pantomiming made it difficult for Jessie to convey ideas to her, it was getting too dim outside to see it well, or she just didn't want to bother for whatever reason. They couldn't figure out what her story was, yet she followed them like some lost dog or wayward spirit. At the very least, she did walk a bit faster since Ramone was setting the pace.
Or perhaps it was because she wasn't leading them anywhere this time.

  Jessie didn't mind her presence terribly. He still found her to be spooky, but she didn't seem evil or excessively monstrous. Just… inexplicable? He rolled ideas around in his mind, considering what her status in these parts might be, especially since her mute following of them seemed to imply that she didn't seem to have any place to go back to. He wanted to know more about her, but trying to communicate through gestures was a bit tiresome. Part of him hoped Ramone would use his natural charisma and people skills to reach her.

  Ironically, Ramone was the one who felt more removed from her presence. To him, she was a strange thing, perhaps not even human. She didn't resemble anything he was aware of. It wasn't so much that he disliked her, but he wasn't certain what to think and he found making eye contact with her to be very uncomfortable with those dark abyss-like eyes. He managed to get a glimpse of that deep color that seemed almost black within her eyes. It was wine red. Behind it, were exceedingly large pupils, hiding in the gloom, wide and circular like that of a fish, or perhaps a rodent. Part of him also wondered what her clutched book was about, while another aspect was a bit concerned that she might actually be some kind of specter of the dead, haunting them. He wasn't proud of such a suspicion, but he didn't know what else to think. A large part of him wished Simon would wake up. He was better at connecting invisible dots and reading between the lines. Still, she hadn't been hostile or difficult with them, so he reserved full judgment for the time being.