The Real

by James Cole

  “What have you heard?” asked Jeremy.

  “About what?” asked Tavalin.

  “The cops are after me,” replied Jeremy. “They raided my apartment a little while ago.”

  “No way!” exclaimed Tavalin. “Why?”

  “My guess is that Dr. Cain has something to do with it.”

  “Are you sure it’s him?” asked Tavalin.

  “No, but somebody must have told the police something. If I’m right and Dr. Cain killed June, it would make sense that he would try something like this. Just find out what you can and I’ll try to call you back in a day or two.”

  “Where are you right now?” asked Tavalin.

  “I’m hiding out in Reefers Woods.”

  Tavalin asked, “Where, exactly?”

  “It’s probably best if you don’t know.”

  “What if the police come to me with questions?” asked Tavalin. “What should I say?”

  “If they ask about the earring, tell them the truth.”

  “What is the truth now, Jeremy?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I sometimes wonder about you,” replied Tavalin. “It’s obvious to me that you have been keeping secrets from me, starting with June. I know you two were up to something. I just don’t know what exactly. And how about last night? I tried to call you but you didn’t answer your land line or your cell phone. Where have you been all night?”

  “I really don’t have time to get into all this right now, Tavalin. I promise I’ll fill you in when I get a chance.”

  “I thought we were friends.” Tavalin’s tone was subdued and self-indulgent.

  “We are friends, Tavalin.” Jeremy struggled to conceal his impatience. “Right now, I need for you to be a friend and give this message to the police: Tell Lieutenant Sykes how I found the earring in the cold room drain, which proves that someone other than Grady killed June. Tell him I said to check out Dr. Cain’s alibi. Tell him I’m innocent.”

  “I will,” replied Tavalin. “But when this is all over, I expect answers.”

  “I’ve got to go now,” announced Jeremy. “I’ll call you when I can.”

  “Alright…”

  “Thanks, Tavalin, for helping me out.”

  “Yeah. I guess you owe me one.”

  When Jeremy arrived at the kudzu-entwined gate and sign, he stopped, but not for long. On his prior excursion to the cemetery, he had parked his motorcycle here but tonight Jeremy forged on. The street bike almost got hung up as he squeezed it between the end of the gate and an unforgiving bush. With great difficulty, Jeremy manhandled the motorcycle up the narrow, steep trail. When he finally arrived at the graveyard, he hugged the perimeter of the wrought iron fence until the dense growth of the forest made further progress unattainable.

  After moving a few items from his saddle bags to his backpack and turning the fuel cock beneath the gas tank to the closed position, Jeremy laid his hyper-sport honey on its side and covered it with limbs and dead leaves. It felt as if he were burying alive a good and trusted friend. Working frantically in the dim light of an overcast dawn, he backtracked, scratching at and covering over as best he could the intermittent tire tracks. As he worked, a soft but steady rain began to fall. With any luck, the shower would wash away his tire tracks, not only on the immediate trail but also those left behind on the log road. When Jeremy finally took leave of the area, he remembered the small packet in his backpack that unfolded into what its label described as an emergency poncho. Though flimsy and likely susceptible to tears, he was delighted to have it as well as the other supplies inside the backpack.

  Unfortunately, Jeremy did not have his GPS unit but he did find a compass tucked into one of the outer pockets of the backpack. Using that and the knowledge of the area derived from his prior forays into Reefers Woods, he set off on a westward heading in the general direction of the river.

  *****

  Reefers Woods – December 21, 1969

  (Thirty-nine years ago)

  Whoop Juice

  It was December and Claire’s summer of love was but a distant memory. The swamps had been devoid of the lotus blooms for almost two months and her fellow hippies’ discontent decayed into suicidal depression and disagreements that she feared would soon erupt into physical violence.

  At first Claire thought it best to let them tough it out until spring when the lotus would grow again and the heavenly bliss of the summer could be reborn. She began to worry, however, what might happen when the new lotus crop began to emerge. She imagined her friends, these hippies-turned-maniacs, descending on every young plant, destroying the very object of their desire. She had discovered the purple lotus and it was her responsibility to preserve it.

  Although she could not have predicted this outcome, she now realized that it had been a mistake to involve the others. These people, once her friends, had become a liability. They could not stay and yet neither could they be allowed to leave because they knew the secret of the lotus. Therein lay her dilemma.

  It had been easy enough to get everybody drunk on the whoop juice. Claire showed up with a new five-gallon bucket and six bottles of liquor on the evening of winter solstice, December 21, 1969. Her fellow hippies watched with mild interest as she stirred up two gallons of grape Kool-Aid and a potent mix of vodka, tequila, and Bacardi 151. Their lackadaisical attitudes evaporated when Claire revealed the last ingredient she meant to add to her witch’s brew.

  “I’ve been saving these for a special occasion,” Claire announced. “It’s not much, I know, but maybe it’ll give the party a little extra kick.”

  Before anyone could react, she crumbled a scant few lotus flowers into the whoop juice – enough to tease but not nearly enough to satisfy. They desired the lotus far more than the alcohol but the only way to get at the lotus dissolved in her concoction was to drink. Her friends drank themselves into stupors.

  After they passed out, Claire moved on to the next step of her grand plan. Strong liquor, as it turns out, is quite flammable, especially when exposed to the open flame of a burning candle. Ideally, her friends would simply never wake up and would die a painless death by smoke inhalation. The same went for the boy who was asleep in his room. Claire did the best she could to make it appear as if the fire were accidental, though, if the rest of her plan panned out, it really wouldn’t matter how it looked.

  It was regrettable that the boy got caught up in all of this but he knew all about the lotus – what it was and, more than anyone else, where to find it. She would have liked more time to persuade the boy to tell her where he found the curious purple lotus fruit that he left under her pillow, but maybe it didn’t matter anyway. Though she would be extremely interested in examining the lotus plant that bore that novel fruit, all Claire really wanted was to reproduce the feeling derived from the lotus blooms, and the fruit did nothing of the sort. She knew because, not knowing what else to do with the lotus fruit, she had eaten it and afterwards felt nothing like the euphoria that was the trademark effect of the lotus blooms.

  Claire stood guard outside the only exterior door and watched the fire quickly spread throughout the commune. For the eighteenth time she ran her hand over the Saturday-night-special inside her coat pocket and imagined how she would draw the weapon and shoot if anyone came out. Everything went as planned, save one tense moment when she heard the sound of glass breaking. Claire charged around to the back side of the house to find the window in the boy’s room broken out, presumably exploded by the fire’s heat. She stood for several minutes peering inside but could make nothing out other than the flames and smoke that filled his room. No one inside that room could still be alive. By the time she circled back around to the front of the commune, the flames had broken through the roof.

  Satisfied that no one had survived the inferno, Claire slipped away into the night. With any luck, it would be days, or even weeks before anyone became aware of the burning. When it was discovered, she knew she could count on th
e medical examiner – good ole Zach – to execute his part of the plan.

  Chapter 47

  Sunday, December 21

  As Jeremy slogged through Reefers Woods, he tried to process what went down last night. He questioned his choices, starting with his decision to run from the police. Had he not been so hyped up from the ceremony and so hopped up on the Unreal, he might have chosen a different course. However, much of the blame for his ever-increasing troubles he laid at Monika’s feet. He envisioned again the look that flashed across her face when he hesitated at the altar. She let something slip out, something that had been there all along but hidden from sight. Jeremy had often wondered what hid behind that faraway, unfathomable expression common to her eyes. He imagined it to be something beautiful and strange but he was wrong. What Monika had been hiding was not beautiful; strange, yes, but wicked-strange.

  And then there was Jinni. In losing her over Monika, he traded his soul mate for a shyster, his bride for a whore. Jeremy now realized that Jinni had been right to postpone sex until they were married. All along Jeremy believed it was he who was waiting on Jinni, but he was wrong. It was Jinni who stood patiently by, waiting on him to commit to her, to love and, ultimately, to marry her.

  Something Grady once said came to mind: The harlot always sets herself up in opposition to the bride. Cling to the bride like life itself.

  At the time, Grady made it clear that the bride to whom he referred was Jinni. Grady whispered those words in Jeremy’s ear on the afternoon of October 31. He and Jinni were sitting on the front steps of the Facility, waiting on Tavalin. It had been later that night, at the Singe show, when Jeremy first met Monika. That made the timing of that particular installment of Grady-speak especially noteworthy.

  If Jinni were the bride, it seemed obvious that Monika played the role of the harlot. Was it possible that Grady’s words were meant as a warning? Did Grady know beforehand that this was the night Jeremy would encounter Monika and that she was the antithesis to Jinni’s goodness? His words certainly seemed to apply.

  Jeremy dredged up other instances where Grady foresaw or forewarned. He could still see the cryptic smile on Grady’s face when he asked, “Do you ever dream dreams?” Grady had followed up the question with the comment, “Pay attention, your dreams might be trying to tell you something.”

  If ever Jeremy had a dream that told him something, it was his so-called wedding dream. The similarities between the wedding dream and Monika’s ceremony in the church were irrefutable, starting with the shared setting of a dilapidated church. In both, Jeremy was asked to recite a vow to Monika. In both, Monika uttered the words, “Listen to the music; it helps you to become.” In the dream Jeremy came to understand that this becoming was not something to be desired but something to dread. The wedding dream began bright and happy, only to become forlorn and foreboding. Jeremy interpreted the dream as a metaphor for what he would have become had he not bailed from Monika’s ceremony when he did.

  While Grady may have saved Jeremy from Monika, he could not save himself. Ironically, Grady lost his life in Reefers Woods after warning Jeremy to steer clear of the area. Now Grady’s name could be added to the list of the others – the hippies at the commune, Maurice the biologist, and the medical examiner – who met their demise within its borders. As Jeremy trudged deeper into the heart of Reefers Woods, he wondered if he too might be marked down as dead.

  By midmorning Jeremy should have been reassured by the buffer zone provided by two hours of relentless walking, but the repetitive motion, redundant scenery and persistent atmosphere of fog and rain replicated the sensation of walking on a treadmill. He felt as if he were going nowhere, running to stand still. When he paused to cock his ear for any intruding sound, Jeremy heard nothing of the sort – no bloodhounds baying and no helicopter blades thumping the air. Perhaps, he thought, the rainy weather precluded the use of either tracking method, or, better yet, the police were so thrown off his trail that they had no idea where to begin to search.

  Exhausted, Jeremy wanted to stop but he pressed on. Sixty tortuous minutes later he came upon a towering magnolia tree that he could not pass up. Its low-hanging limbs and evergreen foliage should offer cover from an aerial search, if the police were so inclined.

  Here, he thought, I can sleep.

  As Jeremy swept back the heavy layer of seed pods that had accumulated under the tree, he noticed that each of the cone-like pods were of the same size and shape as hand grenades. One by one, he pulled the stems from the make-believe grenades and heaved them like some desperate GI from the cover of a muddy war trench. He wasn’t so delusional that he thought them real pull-pins and real grenades, but the exploding sound effects and cackling laughter he provided after each toss revealed his fragile state of mind.

  Finally, ammo discharged and enemies repelled, Jeremy pulled the pin on his pop-up tent, threw his backpack inside, took off his boots at the door, crawled inside, spread out his pad and sleeping bag and lay down. Never before had camping quarters felt so luxurious and comfortable as it did that dreary midmorning day in Reefers Woods.

  *****

  When Jeremy awoke, night had fallen. His rattling stomach and dry mouth reminded him of the time expired since he last ate or drank. Checking his backpack, he found nothing to eat, and the canteen attached to his backpack was bone dry. A small quantity of rainwater had collected in the fold of the poncho lying on the ground by the tent door. Jeremy bent down and managed to slurp one swallow of the life-giving liquid, but that only enflamed his desire for more. He quickly packed up and resumed his westward jaunt toward the river.

  The rain had ceased and the skies were clear but moonless. Wanting to conserve battery juice, Jeremy switched off the flashlight, but, after a vicious poke-in-the-eye from an unseen limb, thought better of it. To his dismay, the flashlight offered little help; its fading beam could scarcely pierce the disorienting darkness. His watering left eye further hampered his ability to navigate. His runner’s remorse revived.

  What are you doing out here, Jeremy? he asked himself.

  Although the area offered a perfect place in which to hide from the police, he could not stay here indefinitely. He had no food, and, lacking a gun, he would be hard-pressed to harvest any game. A sardonic smile invaded his lips when he pictured how he might attempt to stalk and kill anything – a squirrel, a deer or a fish in the river – using only his buck knife and his wits.

  Too often, he fought back the sensation that he was not alone, that someone or something was watching from a nearby knoll or lurking behind a tree trunk. Whenever that happened, Jeremy hustled on past and tried, as best he could, to shove the unsettling thought from his mind.

  After over six hours of his self-imposed hell-hike, Jeremy broke into the clear. The water before him loomed larger than the river and the slender ribbon of sand rang familiar. In an instant, he knew why it took longer than expected to get here. Because of the darkness and the difficult walking conditions, his route deviated significantly to the south of west. Jeremy knew this because he recognized the water before him as that of Sticks River Lake and the sand beneath his boots as that of Monika’s secret beach.

  As he took in his new surroundings, Jeremy realized he was not alone. Approximately 300 yards offshore were the subdued lights of a boat sitting still in the water. Jeremy first thought the vessel might belong to some branch of law enforcement, stationed here for his express benefit. However, by way of the small field glasses retrieved from his backpack, he decided it better fit the profile of a civilian craft. It looked like a houseboat.

  Keeping a wary eye on the boat, Jeremy made for the water’s edge, filled his canteen and drank gustily. He wondered to whom the boat belonged and if he had reason to fear its presence, especially in light of what he had already decided to do next.

  Jeremy followed the shoreline of the lake toward the landing, retracing the path he and Tavalin had taken from the car to the beach on the night of Monika’s bonfire. He made sure ther
e were no police cruisers stationed in the parking area of Sticks River Landing before emerging from the cover of the woods.

  This would be the third time he had made use of the racked canoe. The first was the river trip with Jinni. The other time had been the day of the lotus swamp quest. After the last outing, he had jammed the paddle into the space between the canoe and the rack. When he checked, fortunately, it was still there. Jeremy hoped the canoe would be his ticket out of here. With any luck, he could paddle across the lake to escape the area, but the plan hinged on being able to do so undetected. As it was already almost five a.m., he only had a couple of hours of darkness left. He could not risk being exposed in the openness of the lake after sunrise; he would have to hunker down until night fell again.

  As Jeremy paddled north along the shoreline, toward the secret beach, he wondered about that houseboat. He thought it plenty curious that it was anchored in this desolate place. His curiosity and the lack of activity on the boat emboldened Jeremy to swing in for a closer look. The canoe would provide a noiseless approach and he could count on the darkness for cover should anyone unexpectedly appear on deck. As for what he hoped to accomplish, he was not sure. At the very least, he might spot something of use on deck. An ice chest full of leftover grilled meat of any kind and some cold beverages would certainly be a godsend.

  Closer he approached, until he was near enough to see inside. The curtains on the large window of the single-room cabin were partially open. A nightlight of some sort illuminated the interior enough for him to see that the room was unoccupied. The bed was neatly made but empty. In a bold move, fueled more by his ravenous hunger than anything else, he tied up and climbed onto the back deck. The sliding glass door that led inside was unlocked. Jeremy slipped inside.