Roll Them Bones

by Wilson, David

  The flames flickered, grew taller, then spread. Suddenly, it wasn’t just the camp fire any longer. It was the clearing, and the forest, ablaze with light. Tara danced in circles, oblivious, as her clearing, her home, burst into flame. Flames licked at the walls of her cottage, working their way slowly up and onto the roof. The windows glared with reflected light and the heat rose suddenly, as if the fire had been there all along and Jason hadn’t noticed.

  ~ * ~

  “Wait,” Lizzy said softly. “Let me tell this part. You were too caught up in things.”

  Jason fell silent. He hugged Lizzy tighter.

  “Okay,” he said softly. “I have to say, it’s getting a little creepy. I’ve never seen the whole thing so clearly, not even that night.”

  Ronnie nodded. “Damn straight,” he said softly. “Hell, for me this is the first time hearing most of it.”

  Frank was staring at Ronnie. “I always thought it was you.” he said at last. “I always figured you set that fire, Ronnie.”

  Silence so sudden the snap of a branch in the fire rang like a gunshot, echoing endlessly in the gloom.

  “You might want to rethink that,” Ronnie said softly. “I been a lot of bad things in my time, Frankie boy. Been about as bad as it gets, I guess, ‘cept for that. I never killed anyone. I never burned anyone’s house.”

  Frank was still staring, but at last he turned away with a quick nod.

  “It’s easier to believe that now,” Frank said at last. “Most of the bruises you left have healed.”

  The silence was just as complete, but somehow less ominous. Jason took a last sip of the whiskey and leaned over to hand the bottle back to Frank. As it passed around, back to Ronnie, Lizzy began to speak.

  “I don’t know how it got out of control so fast,” she said. “One moment we were sitting there, listening to that crazy old woman talk, and the next the world was on fire. That’s how it seemed.”

  Jason nodded. Exactly like that. He leaned on Lizzie’s shoulder and listened, letting her sweep him back across the years once more.

  The fire had been hot, too hot. Jason remembered shielding his eyes with his arms and feeling that heat licking at him, washing over him in waves as the flames danced in the wind. The roaring blaze had cut off all but the faintest of sound from Tara, who continued to dance madly about, capering in wider and wider circles. She didn’t seem to see the fire, or hear it. Her lips continued to move to some inner rhythm, though no sound reached Jason’s ears.

  Lizzie was clutching his arm in a death grip.

  “We have to go Jason,” she wailed in his ear. “Come on!”

  Jason whipped around, looking for Frank. There was no sign of the other boy. Either he’d run already, or fallen behind the log.

  “Frank!” Jason screamed, but there was no way anyone could have heard him over the sound of the fire. “Frank!”

  Lizzy gripped his wrist and yanked him painfully away from the fire.

  “He isn’t there Jason. Come on. We have to go, have to get help.”

  Jason turned back, but before he could do as Lizzy suggested, his gaze was trapped by the old woman’s dancing form. He held fast as Lizzy tugged frantically on his arm, he stared. Old Tara didn’t seem to feel the heat at all. She was dancing, her arms thrown over her head and her long, thin gray hair whipping through the air.

  She was near the doorway, now a blazing arch of dripping flame and billowing smoke. The smoke swirled around her, obscuring her from site, then wisping away to reveal her another couple of feet closer to the burning home.

  “Stop!” Jason screamed. He pulled against the anchor of Lizzy’s grip. “Stop! It’s burning. Don’t you see the fire? You have to stop.”

  “She can’t hear you Jason. Please.” Lizzy was crying, and Jason knew that she was right. If old Tara heard him, she ignored him. The last site he had of her was her squat, whirling form ducking through the cabin’s doorway.

  Jason could remember it so clearly. She’d turned, at just that moment, and her eyes had blazed brighter than the sun, brighter and hotter than the fire. Her lips had moved, and, impossibly, he’d heard her words. Repeated, reverberating through the clearing, and through his mind—echoing as Lizzy finally won the battle against his dazed brain and yanked him toward the trees and into a dead run.

  Old Tara’s voice had floated after them on the breeze, as the fire crackled and the nearest of the trees began to catch.

  “For an evil past, no deed atones; to know the future? Roll them BONES.”

  ~ * ~

  “You heard it too?” Jason asked, cutting Lizzy off. “I thought it was all in my head. All these years, I’ve thought of that old woman, burning herself alive, and turning back to call out after me.”

  “I heard her,” Lizzy nodded. “At the time, I didn’t care. I was terrified.” She hesitated and then leaned back closer to Jason. “I still am.”

  The fire had died down, and Ronnie rose slowly, tossing on the few remaining branches and stirring the coals with one of the longer sticks.

  “Guess we all are, in a way. I got back to the clearing just in time to see you all tearing out of there like you were the ones on fire. I wanted to go and see, but I didn’t want to be left in the woods, either. Just pulled in behind you and lit out through those trees without looking back.”

  Jason nodded. “I never really noticed when you and Frank got back to us, just that we were all together when we reached camp,” he said. “We broke some kind of record getting the tents down and the bags packed.”

  “If I didn’t know my dad would kill me,” Ronnie chuckled softly, “I’d have said to hell with the tent.”

  Lizzy shivered. “It’s getting late,” she said softly.

  Jason hugged her. “I’m a bit tired myself,” he said. “Why don’t we call it a night and take this up tomorrow? We have quite a hike ahead of us still, and we’ll want an early start.”

  Ronnie didn’t say anything, but Lizzy rose instantly, turning to flash a grateful smile at

  Jason. Frank stayed put. “If you’re up for it, Ronnie,” Frank said, “I’m thinking there’s still plenty in that bottle.” Ronnie looked up suddenly, studying Franks face in the dim firelight. “I’d like that,” the big man answered. “I think I’d like that a lot, Frankie.” Jason and Lizzy slipped off into their tent, leaving the other two to sit by the fire and sip the

  whiskey, an odd ending to an odd night. In the shadows, small skittering sounds echoed, and in Jason’s mind, tiny white bones flickered in the dying light, rolling into patterns no one could see.

  FOUR

  Branches slapped painfully into Jason’s cheeks as he ran, roots snarling and snaking across the ground, catching at his toes and nearly sending him sprawling. The flames licked at his heels, roaring in hunger and devouring the trail behind him as quickly as he could cross it. Never closer, never further behind, just there.

  He could hear voices, faintly, calling to him from the flames. Glancing behind him, he saw bony hands stretching from the depths of a wall of flames that slipped ever closer. The fingers of those hands, curled into talons, groped ahead, grasping at tree limbs and digging into the earth, only to be dragged free by Jason’s flight. As he ran, the flames roared in pursuit.

  Voices floated from all directions, voices he knew, but he couldn’t put the words together. Urgent cries broke into meaningless syllables, punctuated again and again by the branches, whipping across his cheeks and stinging his forehead.

  He knew they were back there, the others. Lizzy and Frank, Ronnie, even old Tara, but he couldn’t help them. He couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t get away, couldn’t stop running and each slap of the branches drove the futility of his flight deeper into his soul. Each groping, tripping undulation of the roots and ground beneath his feet set his heart trip-hammering faster.

  “No,” he breathed, voice ragged with the effort, frantic with the need to escape.

  “Roll them BONES, boy.”

  The w
ords were clear, cutting through flame and shadow and the years, slicing into Jason’s heart cleanly. He cried out, dove forward, out, away, arms flying up and back to protect his head, praying not to slap face first into the trunk of a tree, and Tara’s laughter echoing, growing louder, blending to the roar of the flames.

  “No,” he whispered.

  The slap was harder this time, the voice clear, close. No heat. The crackle of the campfire, burned very low as the night slipped away toward dawn, had replaced the roaring of the flames.

  “Jason!” Lizzy’s voice. Another crack on Jason’s cheek and he clutched her wrist tightly.

  “Enough,” he breathed. “Please...”

  She stopped, very tense for a moment, then dropped, draping herself over him like a warm, protective blanket.

  “I couldn’t help it,” Jason said, sliding his arms around her, cheeks still stinging. As an afterthought, “how many times did you slap me anyhow?”

  Lizzy didn’t answer. She melted against him and rocked slowly from side to side.

  Then, when he thought maybe she’d fallen asleep, she finally whispered. “What are we doing here, Jason? What are we going to see?”

  Before he could answer, she cut in again.

  “What if it’s true?”

  “I don’t know,” Jason answered. “I just don’t know. Those stories…it all came back so clearly. I could see that old woman’s eyes, the bones imbedded in the dirt. I could hear her voice, and the fire. I can’t ever seem to escape the fire.”

  “Do you think Ronnie did it?”

  Lizzy’s question caught him off guard, and he didn’t answer at first. She lifted herself slightly, meeting his gaze. He could see the flash of her eyes, despite the darkness.

  “Do you think Ronnie set that fire?” she asked again. “Frank seemed to think so.”

  “I don’t know, Lizzy,” Jason said softly, sliding his hands up to cup her cheeks, his fingers slipping easily back into her soft hair. “I just don’t know. I used to think a lot of things about Ronnie that I might have to rethink after this weekend. I guess even the bullies grow up.”

  She stared into his eyes for a moment longer, then nodded, slipping closer for a kiss. Jason had other things he might have said. The words swam through his mind, but Lizzy was robbing his concentration, the heat of her body and the soft, moist press of her lips to his, and he left the words unsaid. Words weren’t going to change their situation, only time could do that.

  Maybe Ronnie wasn’t the ‘bad guy’ after all. Maybe he was the one to bring it to a close.

  The heat that rose to replace the flames of his dreams erased it all, memory and fear, past and present, and the two drifted together, gently, insistently, and completely. The night ended, and morning brought new life. The sun heated the forest floor gently, slipping through the mosquito netting and nylon tent in a glow that found the two of them tangled and sleeping deeply.

  Ronnie was the first to rise, and then Frank. Coffee was brewing over the fire, and the sizzle of bacon cut through the quiet of the morning, sifting through Jason’s pounding pulse to his brain and drawing him to reality. He stirred, shaking Lizzy gently.

  Her soft, protesting murmur brought a smile to his face, despite the whiskey-induced headache that throbbed behind his temples. Jason slid free of their embrace and found his jeans, pulling them on quickly. He tucked both sleeping bags over and around Lizzy’s still slumbering form and tugged on his socks and boots.

  Grabbing his shirt, he slipped out the slitted front of the tent and into morning sunlight far too bright. The air was chilly despite the sun’s rays, and Jason wrapped his flannel shirt around his shoulders, slipping his arms in place and buttoning quickly, fingers lost in a breath of fog from his breath.

  “Christ,” he mumbled, hurrying to fasten the last of the buttons and tuck the shirt in tightly. “Where’s my continental breakfast?”

  The sight of him, half-dressed, half-conscious, hair tousled and eyes red was too much for Frank and Ronnie. In stereo they burst into laughter, doing nothing good for Jason’s headache.

  “That coffee ready?” he asked, ignoring their mirth.

  “Yeah, ready and strong,” Frank answered, reaching down, grabbing one of the tin cups and tossing it Jason’s way. “Help yourself, Romeo.”

  Jason took a stab at the cup, missed, then leaned to retrieve it from where it had miraculously landed bottom down in the dirt.

  He stepped in close to the fire and grabbed for the pot. Momentarily, the sound of the blaze, small as it was, caught at his senses, and he wavered.

  “Whoa,” Ronnie said, stepping closer quickly and gripping Jason by the shoulder. “Easy there, Jason. You really need to drink more often.”

  They all laughed at that, Frank slightly forced, Jason through a haze of pain and Ronnie with a full-throated rumble that told the other two he felt the night’s activities a lot less than they did.

  “Lot of walking ahead,” Ronnie said softly. “You might want to poke Lizzy and get her a cup too, while you’re at it. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather it wasn’t too dark when we got there.”

  The others nodded. Jason snagged a second empty cup and filled it from the pot before moving back to the tent flap. He laughed when Lizzy poked her head through, as if on cue. He handed her the second cup and staggered to one of the logs, flopping back with a sigh.

  “I can remember a time when this wouldn’t have been a problem,” he said ruefully. “What was in that bottle anyway, Everclear?”

  Another round of laughter, a little more genuine than the last, and Jason managed to grimace his way through the first couple of sips of coffee. There was a commotion in the tent, and Lizzy emerged, fully dressed, Jason’s extra flannel shirt tied around her tightly, and her arms held over her chest as if she was freezing. In one hand, the already empty coffee cup dangled.

  She scowled at them, and they burst into laughter.

  “Glad you all think it’s funny,” she said, heading for the coffee.

  Jason watched her move appreciatively, laughing so hard he nearly fell backward off his log-seat. Lizzy poured her coffee, stood, very stiff, back to them all, then started to laugh herself, nearly spilling the hot coffee down her front.

  “Well, this is certainly better than I expected,” Frank said after they regained control. “I have to tell you, Ronnie, I expected to have eaten one of those fists by now, and to be thoroughly upset with myself for coming in the first place. You’ve surprised me.”

  “Don’t think it never occurred to me, Frankie boy.” Ronnie winked. “I just got over it. Hell, maybe it was therapeutic, reading all those ways I might have died if I didn’t grow up.”

  Again the laughter: clean and cleansing. The stories of the night past began to fade slowly, and the morning sun began to promise actual warmth.

  It didn’t take them long to ready themselves for the day’s hike.

  “I figure it will be just about sunset by the time we get there, Ronnie said, slinging his pack onto his broad shoulders. That’s with the stop by the lake. The trip back won’t take so long. We might even get back in time for a few more stories, and the rest of that bottle.”

  Jason wasn’t certain why exactly they had to go to the lake. They’d all spent a lot of time there as children, but it really wasn’t related to the night in question. Ronnie had insisted. He said he wanted them to see how the place had changed, but it made little sense to Jason. It would put them at the clearing where the cabin had stood in the evening. Jason would have preferred to arrive when it was still light.

  Lizzy had protested as well, but, surprisingly, Frank was eager to visit their old stomping grounds.

  “Hey,” he said, “I’ve written that lake into so many pages now I feel like it should be in my back yard. I want to see it again, see what has changed. Maybe it will make a new chapter sometime soon.”

  Jason had grumbled, still, but since the others were set on it, he acquiesced. When you got right down to i
t, Jason didn’t want to go to the clearing in the daylight either. He could still hear the old woman’s laughter, echoing in his mind.

  Not for the first time, he wondered why he’d agreed to the trip in the first place. The nightmares were a problem, but how returning to that place was supposed to quiet them was much less than clear. The closer they drew, the tighter the cold ball of ice in his chest constricted.

  They left the campground in silence, each lost in memories, and thoughts of their own. Jason felt the years sloughing off slowly. Ronnie moved ahead, as he always had, and things slipped into that old-time groove. Like driving from state to state and suddenly all the channels play nothing but oldies. Jason walked in a daze, thinking thoughts he’d not thought in years and staying as close to Lizzy as humanly possible.

  Frank was the first to break the silence.

  “You remember my book, Night of Silence Screaming?” he asked, dropping back to walk at Jason’s side.

  Jason nodded. He glanced up at Ronnie, then grinned and shook his head ruefully. “How could I forget that one? We were all there, walking to the lake, just like this.”

  Frank nodded. “I can remember the night I wrote that scene, and the night that first inspired it, as if we were walking through the pages right now.”

  They walked in silence for a moment, then Frank continued. “It shouldn’t feel that way, should it? I mean, years have passed. Things have changed—everything has changed. Why is it I suddenly feel like a twelve year old kid again?”

  Jason nodded again. It was true. All the years, the money, everything he’d gone through in his life suddenly paled before the impact of a short walk through the woods of his childhood. He shivered, reaching out to take Lizzy’s hand. She glanced up from where she’d been studying the trail before them in silence and gave him a fleeting, nervous smile. All the old walls were in place, and Jason sighed. The happy feel of the morning was fast fading.

  Ronnie had forged a little further ahead, either impatient with their pace, or just eager to get to the lake. Jason suddenly felt distanced. Old fears and emotions kicked in.