Slaughter Beach

by Jones, Benedict

  27.

  The pain is exquisite and I can taste death within it. The blonde gaijin was the wielder of death even though he is dead himself – there is a certain poetry in that and one which I can appreciate. If I had the strength I would write him a haiku. I have packed moss into the wound and bound it tightly. There is one yet on my island that seeks death and in the dark I will take it to her.

  *

  The paths through the trees were dark and shadowed so Tammy stepped carefully picking each footfall before it touched the ground. If the ship was coming it would come to the beach. She had decided that she would head to the beach and use the last flare. The machete was tight in her fist and as she walked she tightened her heart against thinking of the man she had left dead back on the mountain. He was a good man and he shouldn’t have had to die the way he did.

  She looked up and moonlight lit the path ahead. It was clear. She thought of the dead, named them in her head; Don, Will, Nubia, Carmine, Heidi, Joelle, Francesca, Benjamin, Tony, Samson, Christopher, Gilbert. Tears tried to well in her eyes but she forced them back and looked up again. A shadow stood in the moonlight, sword long in its hand. Tammy stopped and raised her chin towards the figure. So this is what death looks like, she thought. The man moved slowly. You hurt him, Don, you hurt him bad; maybe bad enough that I can get past him. Thank you. She waited with the machete at her side. When the man was a few steps away he raised his sword. Tammy mirrored him with the machete. She watched him, saw the dark stains on his jacket.

  With a sudden burst of speed he brought the sword up and slashed down at her head. Tammy parried the blow with the machete and danced to the side. He circled her and then her back was to the beach. So close. Not close enough. With a grunt Tammy launched herself forward throwing a hack at the man’s head. He brought the sword up and the blades clashed. The man’s feet moved quickly as he pushed the machete up and lanced his blade into Tammy’s flank. She screamed as the razor sharp metal sliced through flesh and she jumped back. He smiled. Suddenly she turned and made a break for the beach. Pushing himself, he followed despite the protestations of his wounded body. When Tammy stopped and sliced out with the machete he had no time to stop or bring up his own blade. The machete bit into the flesh of his thigh. Tammy yanked the blade across and skipped away.

  They stood bleeding, watching each other.

  When he moved it was fast, despite his wounds, the blade of his sword dipped low and when Tammy dropped the machete to block it the blade danced up and made to kiss her throat. She threw herself back and ended up in the dirt. He stepped forward and slashed down at her. Just in time she got the machete in the way and sparks flew as the blades kissed. She kicked out and connected with his knee. The man dropped back looking at her the way a hunter watches a piece of dangerous, wounded, prey.

  Tammy climbed up into a crouch and pointed the machete at the man. He watched, sword by his side. He came forward again.

  Clang clang as she blocked and then the blade of his sword caressed the flesh of her shoulder and opened it up in a dark fresh blossom.

  He’d kill her, she knew it. Tammy took a step back and then another. The man followed up and held his sword high waiting for the killing blow to show itself. Tammy looked at him, breathed out through her nose, and hurled the machete. It span through the dark and the man dived away from the heavy spinning blade. It smashed away into the bushes off the trail and the man stood, a smile playing on his lips. Tammy smiled back and snapped the last flare alight. It glowed red in the night and she shoved it straight into the man’s face. He screamed and Tammy smiled.

  “Die you fucker!”

  Flesh sizzled and the jelly of his eye tissue turned to liquid. Tammy twisted the flare, pulled it out and shoved it back into the man. His jacket caught fire and he screamed again. Dropped his sword and ran for the dark, a human torch illuminating his own path. Tammy kept hold of the bubbling flare and walked down to the beach. She waved the flare as soon as her feet touched the sand and kept waving it as she fell to her knees.

  *

  Tammy couldn’t tell if the ship had turned or if any help was coming – it was just too dark. She stayed on her knees on the sand until flare was little more than a fist sized tube leaking red. She threw it up the beach and remained where she was.

  She knew he was there without turning around. She could smell his burnt skin. He stood there, flesh smoking in the night and raised the katana. A sob wracked through Tammy’s body but she wouldn’t turn around. She stared straight ahead at the jet black see and thought of Captain Don Curtis – I’ll see you soon, Don.

  The blade moved like quicksilver in the night. Her head left her body and thudded into the sand. He watched her body for a moment until it toppled sideways and then nodded to himself. His island was his own once more.

  Epilogue

  The long boat hit the beach with the dawn. A dozen bored sailors climbed out of the boat onto the sands. They were mainly Filipinos but there was a smattering of Europeans and Americans amongst them. The first mate, a burly German, wore a .45 Colt in a hip holster and a couple of the crewmen held rifles that had been old when their fathers were born. The rest wore knives on their waists or carried iron bars.

  They walked the beach and it wasn’t long before one of the sailors found a wooden crate. He broke the top off and saw the bottles inside. The first mate was called over and smiled at the contents.

  “Better signal the Captain. Best we camp here and look for whoever lost this,” he gave an exaggerated wink as he spoke and the crew laughed.

  *

  Wounded as I am, I watch them. If they think they can come and take my island they are sorely mistaken. None of them seem to have the character of the blonde gaijin or the woman who took my eye.

  I fight on, for honour – something that my countrymen discarded when they surrendered; something that you forgot when you went along with it. Unless you followed the correct path away from the shame and already await me on the other side of the veil. It matters little. I will see you again one day. One day soon, my love. Until then I wait with death, I wait with my island and I will not tolerate interlopers.

  I cannot see them as well as I once did but it is the island that will do most of my killing for me, as always.

  If you enjoyed Slaughter Beach then why not read Ben’s new collection of weird westerns Ride the Dark Country? The book will be out soon in print and electronic versions from Dark Minds Press and to whet your appetite, here’s an extract from one of the stories featured in the collection, The Arroyo of the Worm…

  The rider was tall and sat high in the saddle on the Palomino; he was tanned by the southern sun but his eyes were light, he wore a planter’s hat with a white shirt and tan riding breeches, a pistol was belted at his waist and a pair sat in scabbards ahead of the saddle. A pack horse trailed behind him at the end of a long bridle. The few residents of the pueblo, old men along with some young children and a few women, stared as he rode in. The rider drew the Palomino to a halt. An old man with a shock of white hair and a thick beard stood and walked over to the stranger.

  “Hola, senor.”

  The rider nodded.

  “You have ridden from the south?”

  “Down near Veracruz.”

  “Guns and death I suppose.”

  “A whole heap of that.”

  “Senor, if you want money Maximilliano’s men took it, if you want animals the Juaristas took them and if you want women the bandits took them. But we can offer you tortillas, beans and perhaps a little pulque.”

  The tall rider held down his fist and the old man reached to shake it only to find himself with a handful of silver coins.

  “I’m William Gatlin, late of the army of the Confederate states and before that Front Royal, Virginia.”

  “They call me, Paco.”

  “Paco, from the wagons tracks running along that road yonder I’m reckoning that a party came down that road a few days back. Would I be right?”

&nb
sp; “Si, four wagons and a few horses came from the south like you. Americans who said they were from Carlota.”

  Gatlin nodded and slid down from the saddle.

  “How many days?”

  “Three.”

  “My horse needs water and I could go for a jug of that pulque myself.”

  Paco clapped Gatlin on the shoulder and led him to a table beneath a canopy which hung from an adobe building that had seen better days. Flies buzzed around the table.

  “No tables inside?”

  A look of worry slid over Paco’s features.

  “Senor Gatlin there are two men inside, they are not good men. It is best you stay out here I think.”

  Two scabby horses, a flea bitten grey and a worn down dun were tied to post outside, and Gatlin looked at them while Paco patted the chair.

  “Paco, I never did like flies in my tortillas.”

  He pushed open the door and stepped into the dark.

  The cantina was dirt floored and the only light came a few candles scattered around on the tables. Two men sat at a table with clay cups of milky pulque in front of them. They looked over their shoulders as Gatlin stepped inside. The two men wore straw sombreros with wide brims; one was pock marked with a wall eye, the other rat featured with a thin moustache – both wore large horse pistols on their hips.

  “Hola,” offered Gatlin.

  The men turned in their seats and sneered.

  Gatlin took a seat at an empty table across the room from the two men. A girl appeared, she was young but Gatlin could see the swellings of womanhood beneath her cheap dress. The shoulder of her dress was torn and the two men laughed as she stayed as far away from them as the tables would allow. She placed a clay cup before Gatlin. Her eyes showed fear. Gatlin took a mouthful from the cup and then put it back on the table. The man with the pockmarked face rose and walked across the rooms, spurs jangling with each step.

  “You didn’t finish it, senor.”

  “I know the custom.”

  “So why didn’t you finish it, gringo?”

  “Perhaps I didn’t consider the company worthy of the custom.”

  The man’s hand jerked towards the Colt Dragoon at his waist. Gatlin raised his hand.

  “Could be I spoke a little hastily allow me a chance to finish it.”

  Gatlin upended the clay cup into his mouth, watching all the time as the man closed his hand around the grip of his pistol. The first bullet took the man through his wall eye the second through his chest. Gatlin stood up with the cup still pressed to his lips his Beaumont-Adams revolver aimed straight and shot the second man through his mouth. Placing the cup on the table he crossed the dirt floor and fired a shot through the man’s heart.

  “I’ll take those tortillas and beans now.”