by Joey Ruff
“Relax,” I said, studying it. “Bullet barely grazed me. Hurts like a bitch, though.” I tore a strip of cloth from my black t-shirt and tied it tightly around my leg.
“You are seriously badass,” he said, more than just a hint of awe in his voice.
“It’ll hold until we can get a proper bandage.” The wound throbbed a little. “You’re a terrible shot, you know that?”
“I’m a good shot. It was the gun.”
I felt anger bubbling up inside of me. “Bullshit it’s the gun. That was my fucking gun. I shot it a thousand times without hitting my partner.”
“Well, I’m not used to it.” He was quiet for a minute. “I’m sorry, okay.”
I counted to ten, exhaled deeply. Nadia made me promise I wouldn’t be too hard on the kid. “Your problem isn’t the gun. It’s your breathing. You froze up when it came at you.”
He became defensive. “I…”
“You’re not my first trainee, kid. You forgot to breathe. It happens. If it happens too much, you’ll make me really glad we’re not friends a lot sooner than anticipated.”
He didn’t look at me, just stared down at the Glock still in his hand.
“Huxley’s first rule of hunting is, ‘Breathe.’”
“But I thought….”
“Huxley had a lot of first rules, kid. Don’t dwell on it.”
He nodded. “What were those things?”
“Sigbin.”
“Sounds like a noodle dish.”
I ignored him.
“Sorry,” he said. “I joke when I’m nervous.” He coughed. “Plus, I’m a little hungry.”
I started to say something, but stopped. Behind us, somewhere in the trees, I heard rustling. Motioning my head in that direction, I said, “What do you see?”
He took so long to answer, I wondered if he’d heard me at all. Then he said, “A really large tree. I’m…not sure where it came from.”
“What kind of tree?”
“I don’t…I don’t know.”
“Is it a fig tree? Chestnut?”
“I… a fig tree, maybe.” Then he quickly added, “What does a fig tree look like?”
“Give me the rope.”
“I’m not touching that thing.”
“DeNobb, don’t be mental. Give me the rope.”
He slid the pack from his shoulders and tossed it to me. I pulled out the long coils and stood slowly. I looked at him. “Wait here. I’ll give the signal.”
He nodded.
I turned to find the mouth of a trail that lead on into the woods. About sixty yards away was a broad-trunked tree that I’m pretty sure hadn’t been there a few moments ago. It was so wide that two grown men couldn’t stand on opposite ends and touch fingertips. The roots wove in and out of the ground in every direction around it, giving it an arachnoid quality. Above, large thick boughs held up billowing clouds of green leaves, creating an otherworldly canopy and blocking nearly all the light.
I pulled my backpack around and unzipped it, replacing the five-seven and retrieving Grace, my TP-82 combination rifle. Years ago, she and her sisters were issued standard to Soviet cosmonauts for landing in the wilderness, as they never knew what kind of nasties they would run into. In my line of work, I operated under that same principle, and she was the beauty that saved my arse more times than I could count over the years. I loaded her top two barrels with silver buckshot shells and the single rifle barrel below with a hollow-point 5.6 mm round, kissed her for luck, and strapped her to my thigh.
I took the coiled manila rope in one hand and walked into the forest slowly. As near as I could tell, the tree ahead of me was a very large and old fig tree, which wasn’t known to be native to the area. For some reason I didn’t understand, Tikbalangs made their homes in and around fig trees. We were close. I didn’t know if Beth would be alive or why it would even want her, but I was trying to play it safe. If she was alive, it would be best to keep her that way. The job paid the same either way, but sometimes, you just needed a win.
The light retreated as I neared the tree, but even in the dim light, I could make out a form slumbering against the bark. Slouched over, possibly sleeping, the long horse face was aimed toward the ground, the chestnut mane brushed to the side. What I took to be a thoughtful look played on the creature’s face.
Whether it knew I was there or not, I couldn’t tell. My pace quickened as I took the end of the rope in my free hand, looping it around. With another step, I rustled some dry leaves, and the creature’s ear pricked up. It didn’t look at me, but it stood. Nearly seven feet tall with shoulders like a linebacker, it turned away from me and stepped behind the tree. There was no urgency in its movements.
I took a step to follow and stopped. Intense heat and pain throbbed just behind my eyes. My hands found my temples, and I took a deep breath. I took another step, staggering to the side, my shoulder catching the rough bark of the tree. The pain only lasted a few seconds, and after it was gone, I was left a little light-headed.
I shrugged it off and stepped over the outcropped roots. As I rounded the large trunk, the area was clear. Just a myriad of needle-sized beams of light breaking through the canopy overhead, giving the whole place a very fairy-like quality.
“Hello, Lonely.”
The sound came from behind me, and the voice was both feminine and familiar. My pulse quickened as I turned.
Standing against the trunk of the tree, arms folded across her pert frame, was a brunette with large, beautiful eyes. In her early twenties, she hadn’t aged a day. Instantly, my mouth ran dry and my throat threatened to close as I struggled for air. Yet, somehow, I managed to say, “ ‘Ello, Lara.”
2
Alara Witt was my wife.
We were eighteen when we met.
At Highbury College in Portsmouth, England (my home town), we shared a literature class. I sat in the back row. She sat three rows ahead of me and a seat to the left. The first day of class, she wore a pink t-shirt with a butterfly and her almond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She talked with the girl sitting on her right the entire class. I didn’t hear anything the professor said – it could have been the alchemical formula for turning lead to gold, for all I knew. It didn’t matter. What did matter were the butterflies that circled my head whenever Lara laughed, and the floral scent of shampoo every time she flipped her hair.
Once class had ended, I noticed she’d left behind her pencil. I claimed it, but she disappeared before I ever had a chance to return it.
Over the months, I began watching for things that she would drop or leave behind. Using my ability to see an object’s history, each little scrap or trinket gave me the slightest insight into who Alara was.
One time, I found a note left in her chair. It said only, “Hello, Lonely.” I didn’t understand what it meant.
I know it sounds creepy, but I guess there’s a fine line between psychotic and endearing. I was smitten with her, yet by the time the semester ended, while I knew most everything there was to know about her, I still hadn’t said two words to her. I doubted she had any idea who I was. I kept to myself in that class. I didn’t keep many friends, not even then, and that was okay with me.
The following semester, Lara was nowhere to be found – we didn’t share any classes, and I didn’t see her around campus. So I resigned myself to the notion I’d never see her again, put her out of my thoughts, studied, made the grades I needed.
It was a day in the fall: I was sitting outside, reading under a tree. That was the first time I ever talked to her. She said, “Hello, Lonely.” I didn’t even know she was there, didn’t even hear her approach. Yet there she was, like a vision out of the fog, materializing from my dreams: her soft almond hair, large eyes like pools that swallowed me at once. She had such perfect teeth that she looked like a movie star.
I looked up from the book to find her watching me, looking almost sheepish as I met her gaze. I was startled to see her. My tongue suddenly felt too wide for my mouth an
d my mind emptied of anything intelligent to say. All that came out was, “Lonely?”
“Well, aren’t you?” Her tone wasn’t unkind. Maybe curious. A pleasant smile shaped her lips. “I don’t mean to offend you, I just see you around. It’s always just you. With a book, I suppose, but never talking with anyone. I didn’t know your name, so when I mentioned you to my friends, we just…kind of called you Lonely. Like a name.”
I smiled a little. She was adorable. I listened intently, and once she finished, I sat there, continuing to watch her, waiting for the other person in the conversation to speak for nearly a minute before realizing that person was me.
“So…?” she asked. “Do you have a name, or should I just keep calling you Lonely?”
“I… It’s John. Swyftt. John Swyftt.” I stumbled over my words. “But you can call me that…if you want. Lonely. I don’t mind.”
Her smile was the sunrise. “Maybe I will.” Without missing a beat, she added, “What are you reading? A Modest Proposal?”
I laughed. I didn’t mean to, but it came with such fluid ease that I couldn’t help it. “People usually say Gulliver’s Travels.”
“I’m sure they do.”
“It’s, uh…Lewis Carroll, actually.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Alice?”
“The…Hunting of the Snark.”
She smiled. “You’re a fringe-dweller, Mr. Lonely. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by that.”
My laughter was a little less nervous than it had been. Something about her put me at ease. “It’s just for a class.”
“Sure.” She took a step closer and pointed at the dusty patch of root and brick walk beside me. “Can I join you?”
I shrugged, possibly because I didn’t understand why she would want to and replying with, “Your funeral” just seemed rude.
She sat, and as she did, said, “Have you read it before? The Snark?”
“Not all of it.”
“I wouldn’t spoil the ending.”
I laughed again. “You can if you want. It’s a bit hard to follow.”
“Of course, it’s hard to follow. It’s allegory, isn’t it. Symbols. I’m sure you’re used to satire.”
I smiled, but didn’t comment directly. “Allegory for what?”
“For the pursuit of happiness, I think. Carroll admitted as much in a letter.” She kept talking. Some of it I caught, some of it I didn’t. I’d learned things about her over the months I’d watched her, but nothing I’d learned could have told me what I learned in the fifteen or so minutes under that tree: she was so much smarter than I and had a passion for life that I’d never know.
I never asked her out. She was the one who courted me, right from the beginning. Our first date was at this little crab shack on the water, our third date out dancing, which I was rubbish at. Out of everyone, she picked me. And I never fully understood why. But I loved her more fiercely than any man ever loved another woman. It didn’t matter that I was the son of a fisherman and she was the daughter of a bureaucrat.
She was from London, and after only a few months, I moved with her there, transferring schools. Her family was there. She wanted to be closer to them, I think. I remember the first day I met them. We’d been invited to a dinner party. I didn’t have anything nice to wear, so Alara bought me a suit. I felt so out of place, must’ve looked it, too.
We were the first to arrive, and her father took an instant disliking to me. When the other guests arrived, he handed me their keys and asked me to park their cars. The implication of his words resonated: “You’re just the help, it’s all you’ll ever be good for.”
I didn’t stay for dinner. I just disappeared, wandering the streets. But Lara found me.
We made love that night, and she proved to me that she wasn’t going anywhere. Two weeks later, we learned she was pregnant. Lara’s passion for life fueled me. Being around her made me a better person. It didn’t matter that her father terrified the fuck out of me.
After a modest proposal of my own, we married, despite the bitter warnings from her parents. Once we exchanged our vows, they wrote her off, vowing never to talk to us again. I cradled her in my arms as she sobbed and said it didn’t matter anyway. That I was her family. I was all she needed.
Anna was born a few months later. I quit school and took work where I could, eventually joining the police force. We had a few young years of bliss before the sickness came and darkened our lives. We never found a name for Anna’s affliction, but we fought it tooth and nail. She was three when the sickness came on. She was nearly six when it overtook her. Helplessly, hollowed and empty, we buried our daughter. We tried to live in London for a while, but when the bills mounted and we lost the house, we moved back to Portsmouth, where it all began, and lived with my parents in the modest home I grew up in. We buried Anna in a plot beside my grandmother.
While Anna’s sickness was far from easy for any of us, Lara took it the hardest. The therapist she’d been seeing had prescribed medication. Not a week after the funeral, I came home from work. There was a note by the door that just said, “John, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to continue.” She had taken the whole bottle and sank quietly to sleep.
I found her lying on the floor. I buried her beside our daughter.
At the time DeNobb and I trekked through the wilderness, Lara had been dead for twenty years. To say that I was shocked to see her standing there in the Mt. Rainier National Park beneath a Tikbalang’s fig tree would be the understatement of the fucking year.
For a brief second, our eyes locked, and I lost all ability to speak or think or ration or reason. I may as well have been turned to stone. I don’t know if seconds passed or decades. I felt myself flashing warm and cold, sweating, itching. It didn’t matter, though. I had no will to move. Or speak. She looked exactly like I remembered. Except…somehow happy.
“Lara, I…. How is…?”
There was a crash behind me, breaking tree limbs, then a gunshot rang out, shattering whatever spell I was under. I dropped to my knees on instinct and craned my head to see DeNobb breaking around the corner of the tree with his Glock in-hand. I looked back up at Lara, but she was gone.
“What happened?!” DeNobb asked.
He was at my side as I stood and brushed myself off.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.
“You screamed. I thought you were in trouble. I came running.” He looked around the clearing, a confused look on his face. “Did I hit it?”
I didn’t say anything, moving instead for where Alara had stood. There wasn’t even an imprint in the leaves.
“Are you okay? Look like you’ve seen a ghost…”
“I… I’m fine.”
“You can thank me for saving you later.”
I laughed. “You didn’t save anything. Maybe you scared it off.”
There was a roar, violent and unexpected, as the Tikbalang dropped from the upper boughs of the tree and landed in the space between us with such force that it sent tremors through the ground. It stood to its full height, as tall and strong as the Mountain with muscles that rolled like the hills. Each of its fists were the size of footballs, and its hooves were the size of dinner plates.
Cold, white eyes looked from DeNobb to me before its mane shook. With a stamp of its foot and a loud snort, the Tikbalang charged directly at me, lowering its head and shoulders like a charging linebacker. I worked the rope in my hand into a loose hoop and tossed it up as I dodged to the side, hoping to lasso the beastie.
The Tikbalang struck the tree with a force that left it dazed and disoriented for only a moment. As I turned, I saw the rope had missed the neck, but lay gathered loosely around its legs. I motioned for DeNobb, and as I took up the slack on one end of the rope, he grabbed the other end, and we pulled the rope taught. As the Tikbalang regained its feet, we pulled as hard as we could, knocking it flat on its face.
We scrambled to untangle the lengths of rope, and I climbed onto its shoulders, worki
ng the coils into a more acceptable lasso this time, to secure around its neck. As it stood once more, I held on.
It sensed me at once, and the mechanical bull action began as it thrashed about wildly. I wove the rope around each of my gloved hands and braced myself between its shoulder blades. It hopped and twirled, spinning fast and violent, leaping and bucking. In only a few seconds, I was dizzy, but I ducked my head into its thick mane and pulled tighter against the rope. I had started counting the moment the ride began, now at thirty seconds. I wasn’t sure how long it would take before the Tikbalang submitted to the taming, but I knew it wasn’t an easy process.
Forty-five seconds and still holding, I found myself holding my breath, eyes closed.
After a minute, it began to slow, and I looked up, finding the world coming back into focus. We had strayed nearly ten yards from the fig tree, and DeNobb was struggling to keep up. I counted a minute ten and began breathing easier as the spinning began to subside and the Tikbalang’s spin cycle became a swaying side-to-side motion. My breathing returned, and…
Lara ran from behind a bush directly in front of us, hopped onto a rock and stared directly at me. My breathing froze once more, my heart stopped beating, just for a second. She smiled at me.
It took maybe half a second, but it was enough to disarm me, and I wasn’t prepared as the Tikbalang swept suddenly to the side, spinning. I didn’t just fall. I was launched a good five yards into the underbrush, smacking the side of my hip against a young juniper and landing on my face.
I pulled myself to my feet almost at once, but the Tikbalang was closing the distance fast, bearing down on me with the manila rope wrapped around its neck and dangling off its shoulders like a stylish scarf.
The Tikbalang’s fist led the charge, and I ducked just in time, but the tree behind my head was split in half. Grace came up and spun around, putting two rounds of silver buckshot directly into its chest. The Tikbalang howled as it staggered back, steady wisps of smoke wafting from the entry wounds.
