Flesh Wounds, page 23
“And sometimes,” he whispered, “we find a few moments in between.”
Her hands brushed his bandage and it fell away. His forehead was unmarked.
She’s every woman I’ve ever loved—the ONLY woman I’ve ever loved. Sought through all eternity. Lost to me as often as not.
The whisper of our bodies making contact is like an ocean breeze over warm sand, a sigh of satisfaction that ripples in tactile shivers across her flesh. The air about us whirls in winter wraiths, spectral voyeurs animated with our heat. Her nails leave chillbumps down my back, across my buttocks.
My tongue explores the supple curves of her body, counting her finely sculpted ribs, the slender bumps along her spine, tracing the scalloped blades of her shoulders. In every juncture of her body there waits a different flavor, a different smell. The hollows of her taste of salt and sweat and fine hair that tickles my tongue. I bury my face between her thighs, breath deep the musk of small animals, taste the dew that lies warm in the last rays of moonlight.
Her belly tastes of summer’s promise, warm sunshine, cocoa butter, and younger days. The snow outside has left an aftertaste on her neck and behind her ears, a chill that I take on my tongue and trail down her cleavage. In the lambent orange of the fire, her breasts are alive with copper freckles, an erotic connect-the-dot game that leaves me breathless, dry mouthed, and fascinated by the firmness of her nipples.
Her legs are long and lazy, smooth as velvet as she draws them up around my waist. Her body quivers beneath me, rising to press against me with warm need. When I enter her, the world comes into a focus I’ve craved my entire existence...
The blare of a horn awoke her. She sat up, wincing as muscles and joints protested the long night on the hard floor. The fire was a pile of glowing embers and a chill was fast reclaiming the room. She’d have to bring in more wood—
Wait! Where was he?
Again there came the blare of a car horn. Carey scrambled to her feet and ran to the door. From the porch she leaped out into the snow rather than trust the steps. She was brushing snow from her legs, blinking in the bright light of a clear day, when she heard a voice call out.
“You okay, lady?”
There was a wrecker on the shoulder of the road, lined up with the abandoned pickup. Tow chains in his hands, a fat man in a checkered parka stood between the two vehicles. A younger man climbed from the cab of the wrecker and started toward her. For a moment, in the blinding glare of the sun off the snow, she thought it was him. But then he spoke: “Told you there was prob’ly somebody holed up in the house, Pa.”
“Well, see if she’s okay whilst I get us hooked up. Ask her if she wants a tow. We can come back after we haul in the pickup truck.”
The young man struggling through the snow toward her couldn’t have been more than eighteen. “You alright, Ma’am?”
“Fine,” she answered. “The driver of that truck. Where is he?”
The boy shrugged. “I reckon he’s still at the Days Inn, Ma’am. He walked into Russell Springs just after lunch yesterday, drunker’n a skunk. Asked us to come out after his truck, but Pa wouldn’t come out till the blizzard blew itself out.”
“Yesterday? Just after lunch?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Describe him.”
“Well, he weren’t quite as big as Pa, but real close. Bald, with a grey beard.”
She sat down in the snow.
“You okay?” he asked again.
“Just give me a minute.”
“She ain’t faintin’, is she boy?” bellowed the man at the wrecker.
“Don’t think so, Pa.”
Had last night been a dream?
Her Duster waited in the yard, rear tires entrenched in the snow. She got up and went to lean against its trunk. The scarecrow was where it had fallen. She knelt and brushed snow from its face. She studied the pale blue eyes, the cornsilk hair, the lips carefully painted in a half-smile that she recognized.
His name was Barry Holstead. He’d committed suicide eighteen years ago.
But she’d made love to him last night. Hadn’t she?
“Pa’s almost finished, Ma’am. You want that ride into town? You could get some breakfast whilst Pa and I come back out after your car.”
She couldn’t have dreamed it. Her body was sore—and not just from sleeping on the floor. This was a pleasant soreness, from the lovemaking. She suddenly remembered falling asleep in his arms. Later, waking up to find him staring at her in the warm glow of the fire.
He’d whispered that he loved her. And something else.
“Next time,” he’d said, eyes near pleading. “Remember...”
The winds have died. Warm sun glistens off the fresh blanket of unbroken snow, promising an early thaw.
One of the crows, an errant scout, returns and perches boldly on my shoulder. From this vantage, he has a commanding view of the entire field, but he chooses to study my face. He cocks his head and seems to ask a question.
What am I doing here?
“Waiting,” I answer, but he cannot hear me.
I wait. And, perchance, I dream.
Feast of the Crows
They came in from the north, their dark wings wrestling the errant winds that swept east to west and swirled dust-devilish midfield. They came in low over the corn, just a few at first so that he wasn’t immediately concerned. A minute later, the sky was black with them.
He strained against his cross, but despite its years it was strong and firmly planted in the cornfield. He might have screamed, but his mouth was stuffed with straw. As their wings beat the hat from his head and their talons clawed his cheeks, he could only turn his face away, but no matter which way he turned there were more of them. Their piercing cries obliterated all other sound. They smelled of carrion. Their eyes reflected an empty, indigo vengeance that scared the hell out of him.
Pieces of him began to join the straw scattered beneath his dangling feet. Small pieces at first—the handkerchief from his shirt pocket, a strip from one cheek, a button, strands of his hair—but it quickly became obvious that his marauders’ ultimate objective was his total destruction.
One of them perched atop his head and seemed to be shouting orders. Another locked its claws on his collar and began to worry at his right eye. Another outsmarted the knot of rope holding up his trousers. As the trousers fell about his knees, there began a frenzy of activity below his waist. His flannel shirt came away in tatters, blown away in the maelstrom of frantic wings and eager cries. Beaks tore at his stomach, claws raked his shoulders, feathers brushed his thighs, and there was a horrifying tugging at his groin.
His eye came out, bouncing off his chin to join the detritus at the base of the cross. The eye lay there a moment, a glittering bauble against the dull mustard of the beaten corn husks, then one of the quick, black warriors snatched it up in its beak and flew off. The assailant on his face buried its head in his gaping socket, probing for deeper prizes.
They opened him up and he spilled out over the ground. They rolled in it, screaming insatiable victory. They strutted cock-like through the debris. They shit on what remained strapped to the cross. From within the shattered sarcophagi of his skull, the most aggressive of them set up a raucous cawing. From the hollow of his chest, there now beat only their tiny black hearts.
The orders from atop his head became a taunting mockery. You are nothing, they told him. We have taken you apart and shown you who owns this field.
Their celebration continued until the heat of midafternoon drove them into the cool shade of the oaks bordering the cornfield. The sun beat down on his remains and all was quiet—
—until his big sister came out to check and see if he had learned his lesson about tattling on her.
Sheepskins
The boy reminded Carol of Andy.
She was accustomed to it. In four years of aimless wandering, she’d run across dozens of runaway children, all of whom reminded her in some way of her dead son.
Carol found the boy about an hour before sunrise on Route 183 just north of I-70 and Hays, Kansas. He was shivering before a roadside diner, wrapped in a tattered black trench coat that fussed and flapped about him like a bevy of crows. He told her his name was Gil. Claimed he was waiting for someone, but his hightops were worn through and his faded jeans were slashed with the camo-striping stains of high grass. He looked to be fourteen or fifteen and in need of a meal.
The diner was serving its early breakfast crowd, but he wanted a burger and fries. When he finished the first hamburger, she bought him another. In no time, he’d put that away and was mopping catsup off the plate with the last of his fries.
“You want that?” he asked, pointing to her half eaten danish.
“Please.” Carol slid him the plate. She wanted more coffee, but the diner’s only waitress was swamped with tired truckers and belligerent vacationers. When Carol tired of trying to catch the waitress’ eye, she focused on finding things about Gil that did not remind her of Andy.
The boy pushed the empty plate aside. “What do you want, lady?”
“It’s Carol. Do I have to want something?”
“Everybody wants something.”
“Oh? What do you want?”
He frowned and didn’t answer.
“How about a ride to the nearest bus station and a free ticket home?”
“You rich or something?”
“Maybe.”
“How do you know I won’t bash you over the head on the way and take all your money.”
“I guess I don’t.”
After that exchange, a silence fell between them while each reevaluated the other. Carol tried to guess where the boy had come from (Oklahoma perhaps; the accent fit) and how she might locate his parents to let them know he was still alive. How many times had she prayed that someone would call about Andy? Then, three months after her husband’s fatal heart attack, she finally did get a call...
The boy broke the silence. “Thanks.” He made to leave the booth.
Carol caught the dusty sleeve of his coat. “Wait.”
“I don’t need your help.”
They’d all said that. She pictured Andy confidently turning down a stranger’s help. Andy’s eyes might have flashed in anger just like this boy’s when a stranger laid a hand on him.
The chime on the front door rang, just as it had done half a dozen other times since they’d arrived. This time it was followed by a warhoop and a deafening gunshot.
Carol turned to find a thin black man framed in the closing door. A white cloud of plaster drifted down from a hole in the ceiling, salting his short-cropped hair and broad shoulders. He wore ragged jeans tucked into scuffed workboots. Dried blood clotted the hair just above one ear and what looked like a bullet hole had darkened his left thigh.
“Camillus of Veii!” he howled. “Show yourself!” The muzzle of the handgun swept over the diner’s patrons. “I know you’re here!”
“Brennus,” the boy hissed, low enough that no one but Carol heard him.
One of several truckers seated near the door rose from his seat. “Look buddy—”
The stranger shot him in the face.
The diner erupted in startled protests, horrified screams, and the sound of chairs overturning. The waitress dropped a tray and dashed for the kitchen doors. Calmly, the stranger aimed the automatic and shot her in the back. The impact hurled the waitress through the swinging doors where she collided with the cook. He caught her in his arms, but when he felt the warm rush of blood down the front of his shirt he screamed and dropped her at his feet. The stranger shot the cook through the throat. The cook went down, gurgling like a severed septic line. The kitchen doors swung closed, hiding the corpses from sight.
“Quiet!” screamed the madman. The turmoil in the room died to terrified sobs. Most of the customers had crawled beneath the tables, Carol included.
Gil hadn’t moved.
“Get down!” Carol whispered.
The boy didn’t answer. His gaze was locked on the gunman.
“I know you’re here,” the madman repeated.
“What do you want?” asked another of the truckers. He was crouched beside the corpse of the first victim.
The madman stuck the gun in the trucker’s face. “Do you want to die, asshole?”
The trucker tried to answer, but his voice failed him. He shook his head slowly. He was a big man, but the gaping muzzle of the pistol dwarfed him.
“Get up.”
“Wha—?”
“Get up!”
The trucker got slowly to his feet. The madman put the muzzle of the automatic beneath the trucker’s chin. The trucker’s legs trembled, threatening to spill him to his knees.
“Have you ever seen a .45 rip the top off a man’s head?”
The trucker opened his mouth, but all that came out was a whimper.
“Do you fear death?”
“Yes.”
“Then well might you tremble, for I am death called Brennus. Three hundred and ninety years before the birth of your Christ, my Gauls sacked Rome. We raped; we pillaged; we burned. Men, women, children—we left nothing but corpses rotting in the sun. Then, for a change of pace, I sailed with Caesar against the Veneti in 57 B.C. The first known battle at sea and I was there.”
“He’s crazy,” whispered someone behind the counter.
“I was there when they hung your savior from the cross. Sixty years later I massacred Romans at Camalodunum for Queen Boadicea. In the second century, I stood watch atop the first completed section of Hadrian’s wall. I was at Aquileia in 340 when the sons of Constantine made war. In the fifth century they called me Alaric, the All-King, and I ransomed Rome for five thousand pounds of gold, thirty thousand pounds of silver, four thousand silken robes, three thousand pieces of scarlet cloth, and three thousand pounds of pepper!”
Brennus threw back his head and howled at the ceiling. “I’ve fought a hundred wars, died a thousand deaths, and slaughtered millions. In the ninth century I fought in all five campaigns between Rome and the Saracens, changing sides more than a dozen times as the mood took me. I owe allegiance to no man, not even this shell I wear now.
“Do you doubt me?” asked the madman.
“No,” the trucker moaned.
“Then walk with me, mortal.” Brennus grasped the trucker’s hand and wrapped it about the handle of the .45. He shifted the barrel so that it lay beneath his own chin. “Step across the razor’s edge and take a peek at the other side.
“Pull the trigger.”
The trucker’s trembling ceased. One corner of his mouth twisted sadistically. Without hesitation he squeezed the trigger. The gun roared and the top of the madman’s head exploded in a shower of red, splattering bone and brain-matter across the suspended ceiling.
Rather than fall away from the trucker, Brennus’ body clung tenaciously, hands twisted like talons in the trucker’s leather jacket. The top of his head gaped like a ravaged egg as it lolled forward on his limp neck.
The trucker’s hair seemed suddenly charged with static electricity, for it rose as if lifted by a gentle breeze. He screamed and his eyes rolled back to shine an empty white. A second later, the corpse dropped away and the trucker stood alone, the gore-drenched weapon still clutched in his hand.
The trucker laughed softly, cruelly. “A rush like no other, eh Camillus?” Though the voice matched that of the trucker, the tone belonged to he who had called himself Brennus.
Gil slid to the very edge of the padded booth, leaning forward, tense. Carol clutched his knee, terrified the boy was about to do something that would get them both killed. She tasted copper where she’d bitten through her lip to keep from screaming. Her heart was pounding so loud she feared everyone would hear it. Be quiet, she begged, fearing any sound might draw attention to herself and the boy.
A woman huddled beneath a table with her two children began to say the Lord’s Prayer.
The trucker kicked her. “You could at least get it right, bitch:
The lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me down to lie.
Through pastures green he leadeth me the silent waters by.
With bright knives he releaseth my soul.
He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places.
He converteth me to lamb cutlets.
For lo, he hath great power, and great hunger.
When cometh the day we lowly ones,
Through quiet reflection, and great dedication,
Master the art of karate,
Lo, we shall rise up,
And then we’ll make the bugger’s eyes water!
Ah man, Waters should have been one of us! Not one of these sheep.” He grabbed the woman by the hair and dragged her out from under the table. Her children began to scream.
“Cam, I haven’t enough bullets or time to kill everyone here. Show yourself.” His eyes, rabid, scanned his cowering audience. They came to rest on the only person not visibly terrified: Gil. “Remember when we fed on the blood of mortals such as these? We were the wolves, swift and silent in the night, and they the sheep upon which we preyed.
“Remember when I first invaded Rome? They agreed to pay me to leave, then whined and sniveled all through the weighing of the gold. I tossed my sword onto the scale and cried ‘Woe to the vanquished!’ Gods, but they raged about that. Then you showed up and routed my army from the city. Show me you haven’t forgotten. Show me you’re still the warrior who drove me from Rome.”
He forced the muzzle between the woman’s quivering lips. “Show yourself or I’ll blow this woman’s brains out. After her, I’ll do her children.”
Gil rose smoothly to his feet.
Brennus laughed. “You chose a child’s body?”
“No choosing,” Gil answered. “There was an accident and I was dying. The boy tried to help me.”
“And your damn sensibilities kept you from killing him and changing hosts. You probably haven’t even subjugated him. You were always such a wretched peasant, Cam.”
