The Demon Stone

by Christopher Datta

  “It’s horrid and tomorrow I expect Eggs Benedict,” she grumbled.

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  Chapter 13

  Africa

  That night on the porch Bill asked Kevin exactly what had happened with Muctar, and Kevin found he was now reluctant to discuss it. The boy scared him.

  But Bill continued to press him. Kevin reflected that all too often his friendship with Bill was like a series of rapes, a forcing of intimacies he didn’t always want to share. He supposed that was one reason why they no longer lived near each other. Kevin wasn’t sure he could survive it.

  “Look,” said Kevin, “I have never seen eyes like his before. It makes my spine shiver to remember it. He’s alive, but you can tell that nothing he sees is alive to him. It’s a horrible thing to say, but I have to wonder if it would have been better had he just died. Perhaps you can be broken past repair, past recovery and past hope. I’ve never seen that before and I’m shocked at the awful truth of it.”

  Bill was silent a while in the dark. “Euthanasia,” he finally said, “is an interesting word, especially for a doctor. It comes from the Greek, eu and thanatos, meaning ‘happy death.’ I often face patients for whom the best possible outcome is just such a ‘happy death.’ Doctors seldom talk about it but most, I think, have at some time in their careers given a patient a happy death, when prolonging life is simply nothing but a cruelty. Giving death can sometimes be an act of compassion.” He stopped, and then said softly, “I’ve done it. I could do it here to Muctar if I wanted. I’ve got the drugs. It would be easy. No one would ever know but the two of us. I could do it tomorrow. My only condition is that you have to order it. It’s your decision.”

  Kevin looked at him, horrified. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t murder a child. That would make me no better than the people who hurt him.”

  “According to what you just said it wouldn’t be murder. It would be an act of compassion and the exact opposite of what the people who hurt him did.”

  “No.” Kevin shook his head emphatically. “I can’t do it.”

  “Why not? Aren’t you compassionate?”

  “I’m not a killer,” Kevin hissed back at him. He could feel Bill staring at him in the dark.

  “Aren’t you?” he answered. He sounded quiet but there was conviction behind the words. It made Kevin angry and he repeated that he wasn’t.

  “Human beings,” said Bill, “are natural born killers. It’s what we do best. It isn’t our brains that brought us to the top of the evolutionary ladder but our predatory instincts. T. rex was nothing but an overgrown salamander next to us. There isn’t anything we won’t kill given half a chance. We enjoy it and even do it for ‘sport.’ And when we don’t do it ourselves we hire others to kill for us. Our lives are based on it.

  “Remember all those camping trips we used to take to the North Woods of Minnesota and our fishing together? Catching and slaughtering the fish was part of the experience, you always said. It put us in touch with our most basic nature, you so often told me. Well, what you call my most basic nature is a characteristic that belongs to a predator, a killer.”

  “That’s different. They were animals.”

  “And God gave us dominion over the animals?” he asked.

  “I draw the line at people,” Kevin answered.

  “I wonder,” said Bill. “I seem to recall you had no problem with America’s war in Afghanistan. We killed plenty of Afghans and Arabs and all done in the name of your country by your troops on your behalf and with your support. Proxy killing.”

  “That was self defense.”

  “But,” he reminded Kevin, “you said you’re not a killer. It sounded unequivocal. Now we find it has provisos, exceptions. You’re not a killer except for animals and you draw the line at people unless they piss you off. What you really mean is that you draw the line at doing any killing yourself. It’s fine if others do it for you.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you don’t have the strength of your convictions. You don’t look deep, Kevin, not since I’ve known you. And you could, God knows you could. That damn wife of yours, Morgan, is another example. She’s the most bitter, unhappy and difficult person in the whole damn world and yet you stay married to her no matter how badly she acts. It’s because you ain’t got the guts to walk away from her. You sneak around so that you can see your friends from time to time knowing that if she finds out you’ll catch hell. That’s really quite a life you’ve carved out there for yourself, old buddy. You live like nothing matters except getting through the day, without the strength to change, and yet when you look in the eyes of that boy you don’t see yourself?”

  Anger boiled up inside Kevin, anger and hurt. Bill, he thought, always did this to him. He was such a goddamned moral armadillo sitting in judgment on everyone and passing down moral prison sentences. Like a cop, prosecutor and judge all in one. Thank God he wasn’t an executioner as well.

  “Go to hell,” Kevin said. “In the grand scheme of the great evils of the world what happened to that boy ranks up at the top, and despite what you think I am trying to make the world better even if it’s in a small way. And I am not telling you to kill that boy. Maybe I don’t have the strength of my convictions but I’m not putting him to sleep like a dog that’s bitten somebody, because it’s only my opinion that his spirit was strangled. I don’t know it with one hundred percent certainty. And I don’t know the future or what’s best for him. Maybe someone will reach him. I don’t know. But what I do know is that I looked into his eyes today and was overcome by the enormity of the crime committed against him. The people responsible, if they are people at all, can never be trusted, never be forgiven and never be allowed the chance to do it again if they can be stopped. That, my friend, is my conviction.”

  Bill was silent a moment but Kevin could sense that in the dark he was smiling. He squeezed Kevin’s shoulder. “I’m kind of a bastard, aren’t I?” he said.

  “No, you’re not kind of a bastard. You’re a full-fledged mondo furioso bastard. I come all the way here to see you, you son of a bitch, and all you can think to do is tell me yet again how I don’t measure up on the Bill Marsh scale of humanity.”

  “You measure up fine, guy,” he said.

  “Drop dead,” Kevin said.

  Kevin stewed silently, angry with himself for thinking it would be a good idea to come to be with Bill in Africa. He could have had the summer off and read, relaxed and gone hiking instead of sitting here taking abuse from Bill yet again.

  “You know, of course, I was just pressing you,” said Bill. “I would not have euthanized that boy. And you know why? It’s that damn bird that gives me hope.”

  “What is it with that bird and why did he cut me?” asked Kevin, curiosity overcoming his irritation.

  “Peter says he found it on the side of the road one day. A car or truck had hit it and broken a wing. It never healed right and it won’t ever fly again. Amazingly, Muctar adopted it. He hand-feeds it rice from his own bowl and he takes it everywhere. It even sleeps under his bed. I should have told you that no one else is allowed to even touch it.”

  He half laughed. “It has no business being in an examining room at a clinic, for God’s sake. It’s dirty and craps where it wants, but that animal is the door back into Muctar’s soul. The one thing in this world that’s managed to reach him is that damn bird.”

  Bill was silent a moment, and then Kevin realized that he was weeping. The anger drained out of him and he pushed Bill’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry he cut you,” Bill said. “He’s just not taking any chances again with the one thing that’s close to him, that’s still alive to his heart. He and that bird are both broken and all they have is each other. No matter what the cost, he won’t let anything happen to that bird. He won’t allow it. It’s a first step back to his humanity.”

  Kevin was at a loss for words. One small broken boy, one dirty broken pigeon, and a story so horrible, shocking an
d unbearably sad that it stood as a stark indictment of any god who could create a world where such evil and injustice could be allowed to torment innocent children. Maybe this, thought Kevin, is God’s pillar of fire Bill had said he had hoped to find here, but it was not the revelation either of them had hoped for.

  They sat silently again until Bill began to sing the old Beatles tune, “All You Need Is Love.”

  At the end, Kevin joined in by alternating the final lyric with Bill, “Love is all you need,” their voices growing stronger and louder.

  There are no demon dogs haunting us this night, thought Kevin, or if there are, our singing has chased them off.

  He had no way of knowing they would be back.

  Chapter 14

  Minnesota

  Two hours later they’d struck camp and Liz was back in the front of the canoe, paddling.

  “What’s the plan, Captain Ahab?” Liz called back to Kevin. He sat with his paddle in his lap studying a map.

  “Yeah, Dad, where we headed?” said Beth.

  He pointed up the channel they were traveling. “At the end of this is a marsh. We’ll pass down that until we reach the portage.”

  “What’s a portage?” said Liz.

  Kevin folded his map. “It’s a trail between two lakes. We’ll have to hike it to get to the next one. This is a longer portage, about one hundred and twenty rods.”

  “What’s a rod?”

  “About seventeen feet, I think.”

  Liz did the math in her head. “That’s half a mile!” she said. “How do we get all this damn stuff across it?”

  “We carry it,” said Beth. “It’s just another of Dad’s sick ideas of fun.”

  “I’ll take all the heavy things,” said Kevin. “It’ll be a walk in the woods for you. You’ll like it.”

  Liz sighed and looked around. She couldn’t help but admire the pristine beauty of the surrounding woods. She hardly paddled, yet with the breeze to their backs the canoe flew ahead, almost keeping pace with the waves. They sat so low in the water she could easily reach down and touch the cold dark surface with her fingertips.

  Liz nearly jumped as a large spider sailed past her face on the wind, only missing her nose by inches. What the hell was it with spiders up here? Now they were falling out of the sky on her.

  “Look at that!” she called, pointing at it. “A flying spider.”

  “Gross,” said Beth.

  Hampton glanced at it and turned away, uninterested.

  The spider was traveling just faster than they were. He was also descending, and as Liz watched, he nicked the top of a wave. She realized he was floating on a long thread of spider silk blown aloft by the wind, and at the first touch of the water he climbed up it. The higher he climbed, however, the less silk there was to be lifted by the breeze, speeding his descent. In another few seconds he clipped the top of another wave and then plunged into the water as they shot past him.

  “Did you see that?” said Liz. She turned back to Beth and Kevin.

  Kevin nodded.

  “Why did he do that? Can he swim?”

  “I don’t think he intended to land in the lake,” said Beth.

  “I didn’t know that spiders could fly,” said Liz. “Can they swim, too?”

  Kevin shook his head. “Some can. Not that kind.”

  “But he flew on a string of spider silk. I’ve never heard of that. Why would he do that? Especially over a lake. I mean, he drowned.”

  “I suppose you could say he was an adventurer,” said Kevin. “Adventurers not infrequently come to bad ends.”

  “Come on guys,” said Beth. “He was a spider. It was just a way to get from one place to another, like the old chicken who’s always crossing the road to get to the other side. Only this time the chicken got run over by a truck. That’s the breaks.”

  “Do they do this often?” said Liz. She didn’t like the idea of it raining spiders, especially since this one had only just missed landing in her hair.

  “I’ve heard of it, but never seen one actually do it before,” said Kevin. “But I still say some kind of urge to strike out into the unknown made him try.”

  “If you can’t think,” said Beth, “you can’t have intentions, Dad.”

  “Who says a spider doesn’t think?” said Kevin.

  “Oh, come on, Dad. Thinking spiders?”

  “When he first hit the water, he knew he had to climb up his thread. That shows some kind of intelligence.”

  “Yeah, and look where it got him. If he’d really thought about it, he’d have stayed home. And where are the great spider philosophers, Dad? The great spider civilizations? Spider literature?”

  “I didn’t say they think much. Maybe they have just a few thoughts, simple ones. ‘Gee, it’s crowded here. I’m hungry. Maybe the hunting will be better somewhere else. There’s a strong wind. I can hitch a ride on that.’ Something like that.”

  “Really dumb, if you ask me,” said Beth. “Look where it got him.”

  “Too bad we’re not all geniuses like you,” he said.

  “Screw you,” said Beth.

  “Look, you little snot…”

  “Hey!” said Liz. “Knock it off, you two. I have my doubts about some of the people in this boat being able to think.”

  There was a tense silence.

  “Does Hampton think?” said Kevin.

  “Houdek!” said Liz. “Sometimes you are a colossal pain in the ass.”

  “I just think…”

  “Shhh,” said Liz. “No one has any doubts about what you think. You never could let an argument pass you by without having the last word, sweetie.”

  “Thank you, Liz,” said Beth.

  Liz glared at her, then burst out laughing. “You know, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you aren’t that different from him.”

  Beth gave her a crushed look, an expression pretty much matched on her father’s face. Liz shook her head and returned to paddling.

  A short distance later the steep banks on either side of the lake spread apart and flattened until they found themselves in an open marshy area. Wide stretches of water sprouted tall grasses and cattails. White cottony tufts of seeds from the burst tops of the cattails drifted in the air and floated on the water. In the deeper pools Liz was thrilled to find lily pads whose white and yellow flowers were almost closed under the early afternoon sun. Scattered throughout the marsh stood the skeletal ruins of dead trees, bleached pale gray by the sun.

  “It’s too bad we didn’t get here earlier,” said Beth. “The lilies are really pretty when they’re open in the morning.”

  “Do you see that gap in the grasses up ahead, Liz?” said Kevin.

  She looked and spotted a clear channel of water that snaked through the marsh. “I see it,” she answered.

  “We’ll have to follow it. It twists and turns a bit and you’ll need to guide the front of the canoe around the curves from time to time.”

  Liz nodded, and as they progressed she used her paddle to push the boat away from large clumps of vegetation in their way. It was shallow, and when her paddle touched the spongy marsh bottom, bubbles of gas erupted to the surface.

  Large dragonflies whizzed past her, and Liz found herself mesmerized by their agility. At times they hovered, completely motionless despite the breeze, and then abruptly darted away at high speed on whatever dragonfly mission suddenly seized them.

  One landed near her on the bow of the canoe. Three or four inches in length, its large head attached to a long narrow body that tapered back in a straight line to its tail. Bulging and alien lidless red eyes stared at her from a soft metallic green body. Twin sets of thin translucent wings extended at right angles from its back, inlaid with a beautiful latticework of light brown veins. The wings extended almost as wide as its body was long. She wondered how it flapped them and marveled that it could do so with such precision. Its beauty did not seem biological, but appeared metallic. The bug faced her for several seconds, gazing a
t her with those mysterious, unsettling eyes, and then it shot away with just a reedy whisper of its wings. She felt examined, but without a clue as to why, or what conclusion had been reached. Probably it had come to the determination, “not food.” Simple thoughts, as Kevin said, yet just as with the fish he had caught, potentially deadly had she been the right size and on the menu.

  Part II

  Buried Alive

  Chapter 1

  Africa

  Two days after the night Bill chased off the demon dog, the nightmare began. It was midmorning, while they were seeing patients, when Kevin heard vehicles pull up in front of the house. He didn’t think anything of it until nine heavily armed men burst into the examining room.

  They were young, between fifteen and twenty-five years of age. They were not dressed in uniforms but Kevin knew they were soldiers from the coordinated way they moved. They wore faded and torn blue jeans and tee shirts, except for one who bizarrely wore a blond wig and a lady’s housecoat adorned with white and pink roses. Kevin couldn’t believe it.

  They all turned to look and stand in silent shock, the young men glaring back at them, the blackness inside the barrels of their AK-47s aimed at their heads.

  One stepped forward and said to Bill, “Who de doctor? You?”

  “You got the wrong place, boys,” said Bill. He grinned. “No doctors here, just us teachers. This is a school.”

  He looked around the room slowly, his eyes finally settling on Peter. Peter licked his lips, his face glistening with sweat.

  “Doen see no student,” said the rebel. “Just de damn runaway boys.”

  His gun flared. It sounded like thunder and Kevin instinctively ducked. When he looked up, Peter was crumpled on the floor, blood already pooling around his body. Kevin didn’t know if people screamed, all he remembered was a loud ringing in his ears and his eyes fixed on the first person he’d ever seen murdered. Peter would not be the last.

  When Kevin looked back to Bill his face was red, his hands clenched in fists. The soldier, shorter than Bill by a head, sneered back at him, his gun level with Bill’s chest.