Midian Unmade

by Joseph Nassise

  Through the barren fields she ran, faster than any human, faster than most of the small mammals that scurried in the darkness. She smelled caution in the air, fear of tooth and claw, but it wasn’t the same as the nuanced terror that humans exuded.

  She stopped dead and listened. Something grazed nearby, tentatively chewing at whatever remnants of corn or soy might have been left over from the autumn’s harvest.

  Asteria stalked her prey with the deliberate grace of a great cat. Body pressed low to the ground, she spotted her quarry—a young buck, head down, rooting in a field, oblivious to so much of the world.

  She moved in. When she was close enough, she struck, and her strike was sure and lethal.

  She crouched in the moonlight and tore the beast apart, swallowing it in massive bites, as she would any other sacrifice to the pit. But the meat tasted sour, bitter, and spoiled all at once. The flesh of a lower animal would not do. The void would not abide such a base offering.

  The deer came rocketing back from the pit and flew from Asteria’s mouth, a geyser of meat and blood spouting to the stars above.

  “No,” Asteria moaned. “No. It has to work.”

  Remembering all the smiles and the hugs and the kind words Amy had lavished upon her through the years, Asteria scooped up handfuls of the gore that had spewed from her stomach and downed them again.

  She punched her abdomen and hissed, “Take it. Take it.”

  But again the organic miasma returned.

  For what seemed hours, Asteria hunched in the field and force-fed herself the same sustenance that her body could not use. Again and again she regurgitated and again and again she swallowed, until, finally, she became too weak to swallow and the pit grew too enraged to ignore.

  And when it was over, she lay down in the field and she wept, because she knew that she was destined to lose yet another family.

  * * *

  Just before dawn, Asteria, blood-slicked and exhausted, slid through the window that overlooked her bed and dropped onto her mattress. Immediately upon hitting that bouncy surface, several hundred pounds of muscle crushed down upon her and held fast her arms and legs. She felt metal encircle her wrists, binding them together. A mélange of voices shouted commands and the lights flicked on throughout the trailer.

  Someone yelled, “Oh my God,” and another blizzard of commands and legal rights engulfed Asteria. She picked out enough individual orders to realize her captors wanted her on her feet, so she stood.

  She glanced around the room and her heart shriveled. Police surrounded her, and police could mean only one thing: Amy had surrendered.

  An officer covered Asteria’s nude form with an oversized blanket and two others marched her into the living room, where Amy sat, also handcuffed, beside a man in a navy suit—some sort of detective, Asteria guessed.

  Amy looked up, but refused to meet Asteria’s eyes.

  “Where’s the pitchfork, Amy?” Asteria asked as she was led through the room. “Where’s the pitchfork?”

  Tears streamed down Amy’s cheeks.

  “Asteria, I grew up. This isn’t a monster movie. It’s real life. You need help. You’re too dangerous.”

  The officers shoved Asteria out the trailer’s door. As she stumbled over the threshold, she called back to her friend, her sister, her mentor, and her betrayer.

  “You grew old, Amy. And we all live in a monster movie every single day of our lives. The only question is how we deal with the monsters we encounter.”

  As Asteria was marched toward a squad car, she heard Amy shouting about Asteria needing extra security and medical care, about her not being human.

  One of the officers that held Asteria firm laughed.

  “Crazy bitch,” he murmured.

  The pit suddenly yawned wide open and Asteria felt her fangs sliding to the ready, her barbs shooting to the surface of her skin. She was a failed protégé, a broken child, but this was something she could do for Amy.

  “Are you ready to meet the pit?” Asteria asked the officer as he pushed her into the backseat of the police cruiser. “Because it’s ready to meet you.”

  The policeman laughed again, turned to his partner, and said, “Sorry. Crazy bitches.”

  In this moment, for the first time in years, Asteria felt good about what she was, what she did. For the first time in her life, she was glad she would never grow full.

  “Thank you Amy,” she whispered, understanding that she would never know human kindness again.

  And then she lunged and the blood flowed free and wild, as it was always meant to.

  THE ANGEL OF ISISFORD

  Brian Craddock

  The restless heat blazed across the desert, pursued their vehicle and beat upon the top.

  Despite the heat of the day, Upendra thought the desert looked lonely and cold. He wondered what trick of the desert—or the mind—could produce such an effect. The arid landscape was bare but for cornrows of saltbush, and the road was raised up off the desert floor as though to keep travelers from the lonely desperation of the barren landscape.

  And Upendra was glad of it, too: nothing about the terrain invited his appreciation. It reminded him too much of his India, lost long ago to him now, where he was treated as something even lower than the untouchable caste, driven into the deserts and abandoned. He stretched his two sets of arms out over the steering wheel, as though to excise the memories.

  The boy beside him—his traveling companion and, for want of a better description, his friend—smiled wistfully out the windshield up at the impossible vastness of the bright blue sky. Nhuwi, he called himself. His brown skin was dusted with the red earth of some Australian desert or another, Upendra couldn’t remember which: every day, the boy would dust his face with a fresh palmful from a glass bottle he carried in his knapsack. The earth of his people, he called it.

  In many ways, Upendra could appreciate the significance of the dirt in the bottle, given that he himself had now been driven brutally from two of his own homelands. He pined for the smell of both, for the hot and dry terrain of Rajasthan, and for the dank moistness of Midian.

  The road hummed along beneath them. It had a rhythm to it that only long-distance travel can give, that lulls and soothes the soul. The landscape beyond the window looked mean and lifeless, and Upendra felt its concentration on them both as though it were waiting for the moment to open its maw and swallow them alive.

  The wind from the open window ruffled a scrapbook of newspaper clippings on the backseat, the newest of which spoke of a remote angel cult. Nhuwi reached around and moved a box of leather shadow puppets across the seat and onto the scrapbook. The fluttering of clippings stopped. He turned back and raised his chin to Upendra, pensively.

  “I would make a good meal, wouldn’t I?”

  Upendra was puzzled. He gave Nhuwi a sidelong glance, searching the boy’s plain and smiling face for answers. None. The boy was a puzzle even to Upendra.

  “We’re going to see the angel,” the boy added.

  Upendra’s grip on the wheel tightened.

  “So it does exist, then?”

  The boy nodded.

  Their car raced over the Barcoo River and the desert gave way to deformed trees, and then to a township, where there was no road sign to tell them where they were or to welcome them to it.

  * * *

  John left off ministering to the hinges on his hotel’s windows to watch the Volkswagen Variant cross the bridge and drive into Isisford. It passed by, and he saw in it an Indian man and an Aboriginal boy. His gut told him trouble had arrived; and if it hadn’t, then it was coming.

  The car continued to cruise slowly along Saint Ann Street, and John saw the dark windows of the storefronts and the homes blemish with the blurred faces of the townsfolk.

  “Yep,” he said to himself. “Trouble, trouble, trouble…”

  * * *

  They appeared first as just a few faces, silent strange things at their windows, watching him as he parked across fr
om what declared itself the tourist center of the township. Upendra made a mental calculation as to how far from anywhere else they were, and was not assured when his mind placed them on a map in the middle of nowhere, in this place where streets were all named after the saints of Christendom, very far from anything else like civilization, and three days’ drive from a metropolitan city.

  “This angel better be worth it,” he muttered to himself.

  “Better wait out here, Nhuwi.” He winked at the boy, who gave him a thumbs-up in return.

  He donned his oversized jacket, with custom sleeves sewn inside for him to rest his extra set of arms, and stepped from the car.

  Crossing the heat-stricken street in his scuffed boots, an Akubra on his head, his eyes kept low, Upendra saw each and every face follow his progress until he’d reached that confusion of timber and sheet metal that was the tourist center, and he slipped through the door and out of view.

  * * *

  Inside, Upendra was met with one more pale face, eyes smudged darkly into pits that watched him impassively.

  He tipped his hat to the woman, gave a small smile, and gently made his way around the store, halfheartedly looking at the displays and the cheap merchandise. Rivers and crocodiles on mugs and fridge magnets. The dark pits watched him mercilessly.

  “It’s a mighty hot day, that’s for sure,” he established.

  The woman didn’t say anything.

  “I like your wares,” he lied. He picked up a rubber crocodile toy, turning it over without interest. “I was hoping to get something with an angel on it.…” He looked at her, looked for a reaction. Nothing. “You know, to send to the folks back home, something fun.”

  Now she did speak, this woman with the wet features.

  “What’s so fun about it?”

  Upendra pushed his hat back, and gave her a cheeky smile.

  “I’m sorry,” he offered. “I didn’t mean any harm. I’m just passing through, and heard about the angel—”

  She cut him off, her voice like a bullwhip in the small shop.

  “Horseshit!” She jabbed a finger at him. “You’re just another big-city journalist come to dig the dirt. Come to spoil our good name!”

  “Actually,” said Upendra, apparently unaffected by the brutal force of her menace, “I’m here to do a puppet show.”

  The woman spat on the floor.

  Upendra looked at the spit glistening on the linoleum and laughed, his eyes wide. “Are you serious? In your own shop?”

  “Get out,” she hissed at him.

  He tipped his hat to her, and made his way very slowly from the store, idly scrutinizing the bric-a-brac on his way. But before he left, he noticed, up on one wall of the store, a large display informing visitors about the history of crocodiles in the area. Mounted on the wall, like some trophy kill, were two crocodile skulls. But one of them, the larger of the two, was radically malformed, its snout misshapen and snub-nosed, its brow higher and slightly domed. Upendra stopped and pointed at the skull, throwing the woman an incredulous look.

  He scoffed.

  “And what’s that supposed to be?”

  She threw a stapler at him.

  He grinned and finally crossed the threshold and into the glare and ferocious heat outside.

  * * *

  Out in the street, Upendra saw that the townsfolk were still at their windows, but some had traded windows for doorways, their thick arms crossed over their chests and their mouths turned down. It amused Upendra, a little. But he had lived long enough to know that the promise of violence was in the air. Perhaps it was only the insufferable heat that quelled it?

  Nhuwi wasn’t in the car. The door was wide open.

  Immediately Upendra looked to the people in the doorways, looked about for the telltale sign of some bully with revenge carved into a smile on his dull face. But instead he found the boy: he was levitating in the middle of the street, an illusion the heat gave, melting the asphalt at the boy’s feet to make it appear he floated. He was staring at the sky, the full force of the sun on his face.

  “Nhuwi! Let’s roll!”

  The boy dropped his head, and began running back toward the car, flipping his middle finger at one of the silent witnesses as he did so.

  * * *

  John brought them cool water, with ice, and a scotch each for himself and Upendra. True to his word, the interior of the hotel was cool and dark. They’d had too much sun for one day.

  “I’ve put fresh linen in your rooms, and made the beds,” said John, taking a place at their table.

  “Thank you,” said Upendra, “you’re too kind.”

  “Pish posh,” snorted John with a wave of his hand. “Don’t get too many visitors. It’s good to have customers. To have company.”

  He raised his glass and Upendra clicked his own against it.

  “I thought this was a tourist destination, what with the tourist center and all.”

  “Sure, it is,” said John, “history and all. Goes way back.” He pointed to a wall where old photographs were pinned amid tracts of text. “You can read about it over there, even. But a lot of folks that visit out here have their caravans, their Winnebagos and whatnot. Not a lot of call for an old-fashioned room anymore.”

  “Shame,” mused Upendra, “you’ve done this place up nicely.” He sipped his scotch and considered the room, the high ceilings and red-painted beams.

  “It’s all I have now,” John said sadly, looking up at the ceiling. “Since my wife passed, this place is what consumes me”

  Nhuwi sat upright. “You should come with us, mister, when we go. Come traveling with us.”

  John laughed, a delightful laugh. “Ah, from the mouths of babes, eh?” And he tousled Nhuwi’s hair and sat back grinning to himself. “It’s okay, boy; I have my place here now. I couldn’t leave her if I tried.”

  Upendra wondered who “she” was: the memory of his wife, or his finely polished hotel.

  Nhuwi shuffled off his chair and padded over to where Isisford’s history trailed across one of the walls. He peered closely at each photo, and rubbed his fingertips across their dog-eared corners.

  “I assume,” said Upendra, “that the angel cult isn’t on the wall over there? Isn’t included in the history?”

  “No,” said John quietly. “It’s not.”

  Upendra sipped at his drink, not making eye contact with John. The subject seemed a sensitive one.

  “Well, as curious as that all is, I can assure you, John, I’m here to do a puppet show.”

  John didn’t look convinced.

  “Scout’s honor,” said Upendra. “I travel around doing puppet shows for communities. I have whole boxes of them in my car. I’m thinking about doing one here, in Isisford.”

  A laugh burst from John, and as quickly as it came he recovered and kept himself in check. “Are you for real? You want to perform a puppet show? Here, in this godforsaken hole?”

  Upendra was taken by surprise. Indeed, he hadn’t thought much at all of the township: the homes had no lawns, just dirt with pits full of half-chewed bones and broken dog collars, driveways choked by shells of cars half pulled apart. There was nothing of beauty in the place, apart from the proud hotel owned by this broken man. Upendra felt a kind of concern for the man, could only imagine the anguish and loneliness that kept him pinned to the place of his wife’s passing.

  “I’m sorry,” said John, and picked up his empty glass. “Look, it’s not good here. You two, you and the boy, you shouldn’t stay long. It’s not good for children here.”

  And with that, John left the room and all was quiet.

  Nhuwi gave a small chuckle, and Upendra glanced around at the boy, frowning.

  He was pointing at a very old black-and-white photo of four small boys saddled to goats, with the desert as their backdrop. Their eyes were dark and angry-looking.

  “Goats,” snickered Nhuwi, and shook his head.

  * * *

  Upendra gave his performance. He set
up a makeshift stage in a local park, where the dust blew across the ground and no grass grew.

  His four arms worked tirelessly to bring life to his leather shadow puppets, to ring bells and shake rice in tins and create every illusion he could to tell his story. He looked out through his peephole, from behind the screen that hid him from view.

  His audience had come not so much from curiosity, but as a show of force against him. Their children left at home, obviously, denied the joy of a live puppet performance. It was just a posse of angry adults. He paid no mind to it. Let them glare, shout their insults, kick dirt into the wind so it floated across his face. His story would be told, damn it.

  And it unfolded. Act by act, he performed to these dull and blunt people, spilling out strange journeys of even stranger creatures, stories that held visions and mysteries and mayhem. Stories that, wherever he performed them, unsettled his audiences, because of course they weren’t meant for them. His performances were a secret tale, something to reach out to the beast in the crowd, to that creature hiding among the humans Upendra was calling out, asking to be embraced, not by the witless crowds, but by that one who chanced upon his tales, who recognized their heartbeat, knew innately their core.

  This day, it was none of these people. They shifted, restless and unsettled. And their conspiratorial chatter soon gave way to action, and a bull-necked man stormed the performance and the illusion was wrecked. The screen torn asunder, Upendra sat there in all his glory: an Indian man with four arms, two sets of hands manipulating several puppets and musical instruments at once.

  The audience was horrified, stepping away. A mangy dog snatched away one of the puppets from the ground. Some people stepped closer, holding their hands over their hearts and squinting their hollow eyes in an attempt to uncover the trick.

  But they all knew. This was no trick. This was something freakish.

  And Upendra knew from experience that what would follow would not be fear, but anger. The crowd would slowly become enraged at the deception, at themselves for not having been more aware of such a monstrosity in their midst, for having allowed it to linger for so long: to learn their names and faces, to know their homes, their families.