Roll Them Bones

by Wilson, David

  Jason hauled back and lifted, and somehow Ronnie made it to his feet. Jason didn’t stop. He started moving the second the big man was upright, half-leading, half-dragging his blinded friend from the clearing. He never looked back, though he could hear Lizzy screaming again. No way he was looking back. No way.

  He reached Lizzy’s side quickly.

  “Go,” he cried. “Let’s go. We have to get out of here.”

  Lizzy wasn’t hearing him. Her hands hung limp at her sides and her eyes were wide and glazed.

  “Lizzy!”

  Jason turned, drawing Ronnie to a stumbling halt. They were just past the first line of trees. He had a clear view of the clearing. The roof of the old shack was collapsing inward, sparks shooting up in a fountain of glittering orange jewels of light.

  From below, coming around the corner on the far side of the shed, a stooped, withered form scampered into view.

  “Run, boy,” that voice rasped, impossibly loud, carrying like a bullhorn. “Run! You been running all your life, ain’t NEVER gonna get away.”

  The laughter seeped through Jason’s soul, and he spun, grabbing Lizzy in one hand and gripping Ronnie’s arm with the other. He pressed Lizzy ahead.

  “Go!” he screamed. “For God’s sake, go Lizzy! I have to help Ronnie. He can’t see.”

  Lizzy stumbled, caught her balance, and lit out through the trees. Once she started moving, Jason was hard pressed to keep up. He wanted to yell for her to slow down, to stay in sight, but he couldn’t spare the breath. Ronnie was staggering and banging off tree after tree.

  Behind them, cackling laughter rang through the trees, followed by a single, final word. “Run.”

  SIX

  The three stumbled through the trees, which grew closer together and more difficult to avoid as they went. Jason’s face and arms were bruised and cut, welts and scratches striped his face. His breath was a painful, rasping burn.

  Beside him, just behind, Lizzy stumbled in his wake. He could hear her sobbing, wasting breath she needed to move, but he couldn’t do a thing to help her. Ronnie was a lead weight on Jason’s shoulder, blubbering like an overgrown child, and it took every ounce of Jason’s strength and concentration to keep the man from running headlong into every tree in their path, or just stopping, laying down, and passing out.

  “A little more,” he gasped. “We have to get a little further away.”

  In reality, Jason hadn’t a clue how far they’d gone, or in which direction. He had tried for a Westerly slant, hoping to come—eventually—either to their camp, or to the road itself and follow that. Barring either of these, he wanted as much distance between them and the clearing as possible.

  His mind was a wash of questions and grief. Where was Frank? Why hadn’t he even called out? He could still see the old woman, dancing in the clearing, cackling at him and calling after him to run, and still something didn’t quite mesh.

  Jason couldn’t bring it into focus. He wanted to believe Frank was alright, but how could he be? Who had that been, dancing and cackling like a demon? Thoughts that Jason did not want to think were surfacing, as well as some doubts of his own ability to judge character, and his choice of friends.

  Was it possible Frank was behind it? How was it possible? One thing was certain, that had not been Frank back in the clearing. Not nearly tall enough, and the voice—cracked with age, eerie. All of Jason’s instincts pressed him against the wall of what he’d seen. She had been there, and she had been very real, but who?

  The trees thinned suddenly, and Jason gasped in relief. It was the trail from the lake. They’d bisected it, and he could see a rail-road-track line of dark shadows lining the way back toward their camp, lined in silver from the bright moonlight.

  They’d come a lot further than he would have believed possible. The moon hung low in the sky, angling through the trees, and Jason glanced down at the softly glowing hands of his watch.

  “Jesus,” he muttered, stopping in the middle of the trail and standing, staring back through the woods.

  Midnight had come and gone. It was nearly 2:30, and they had come far enough that even the glow of the fire above the tree-line had faded. The evening might have never happened.

  “Where are we?” Lizzy asked, shivering and moving closer. Ronnie had slumped to the ground at their feet.

  “Not far from camp,” Jason answered. “I think about halfway to the lake. We have to get Ronnie back to camp, get the fire going, and see what we can do for his burns.”

  Lizzy shivered when he mentioned the fire, but she nodded. Jason studied her face for a moment in the dim moonlight. She was scared, but not like the first time—not like in the nightmares. She was scared, but she was strong. Jason felt a sudden lump forming in his throat, but he pushed the emotion away for the moment.

  “Help me with him,” he said, gripping Ronnie under one shoulder again. Lizzy took the opposite arm and with Jason doing most of the work, and a surprising burst of strength from Ronnie himself, they got the big man up and moving again.

  It was much easier going on the trail. Jason led them as quickly as he could, and with Lizzy helping to support and guide Ronnie, they made better time. The moon dropped from site, eventually, and the red glow of the morning sun kissed the tops of the trees as they staggered, at last, into the camp. It was cold.

  Jason hadn’t noticed the temperature as much before they hit the trail, but once the initial adrenaline and fear released his heart and mind, the weather had begun to exact a toll on each of them. Lizzy was the worst. Her small frame was wracked with shivers, and after a while Jason had taken Ronnie fully onto one shoulder as she pulled away to wrap her arms tightly about herself.

  The camp was just as they’d left it, and Jason paused only long enough to deposit Ronnie against one of the logs before attacking the fire. He dug down deep, but there were no coals left, and with a sigh he began piling what remained of the kindling in the center of the ashes, creating a small lean-to of larger branches over the top and setting the two or three bigger pieces that remained close to hand.

  When he was satisfied that it would burn, he reached into his pocket and rummaged around, cursing himself for not smoking.

  “I don’t have a match,” he said, feeling the frustration well up suddenly as he turned to face Lizzy. “I don’t have a damn match...”

  “Pack.”

  The word was spoken weakly, and it was hard to make out. Jason turned to Ronnie, who had somehow managed to push himself to an almost upright, sitting position. “My pack...” he said with an effort, forcing the words through parched, chapped lips. “Matches...in my pack.”

  Jason nodded, uncertain if Ronnie could see him, and moved to the pack. Moments later he was fumbling a box of wooden kitchen matches in his hands, fingers so numb the feeling had long since left them, wondering when it had gotten so damned cold. He broke the first match in half, and it sputtered, dropping to the ground and going out with a soft hiss. Cursing, he managed to extract a second match and this time he ground it along the flint, sparking it to life.

  Jason waited one agonizing moment, letting the flame grow steady, then slowly lowered it, hand shaking as he held the flame beneath the kindling. It caught, the small flicker of heat and light spreading through the short web of twigs and licking up at the branches above. Moments later, as Jason pulled his hand away, too late to avoid a burn that his fingers were too numb to feel, the fire came to life with a whoosh, and he tossed on one, then another of the bigger branches.

  “Don’t use it all at once,” Lizzy said, her teeth chattering.

  “I’m going for more,” Jason replied, rising and moving to her side to wrap his arm around her shoulder and give her a hug. “You are freezing, and we need light. We still have to get a look at Ronnie’s face.”

  “Don’t leave me here,” she pleaded, gripping his arm with icy fingers.

  “I won’t go far,” he promised, tugging free gently. “We have to have wood.”

  Lizzy
didn’t answer. She stared into the fire, and Jason wondered what it was she saw. He glanced at the dancing flames and looked away quickly.

  It was cold in the shadows beyond the clearing. Jason moved as quickly as he could, picking up each piece of wood he tripped over, gathering an armful slowly. He was careful to keep the faint flicker of the fire in his line of sight. It was getting closer to morning, but the woods could be tricky, and he knew he was nearing the end of his strength.

  Spotting a small pile of branches that would finish the armload nicely, he reached down and scooped them up quickly. He didn’t want to leave Lizzy alone, not with Ronnie in such bad shape, and no way of knowing if they’d been followed. As he lifted the branches, something snapped, tumbling from the center of the pile. Something white. Something that fell apart and tumbled, glinting in the dim light.

  Jason stopped, standing very still, gaze locked to the tiny white bits. A bird, long dead and now a complex jumble of fragile bones, fallen to the forest floor in an intricate design that made Jason’s knees weak.

  “Christ,” he said, gripping the wood more tightly. Turning to the clearing, he hurried back through the trees.

  ~ * ~

  When Jason returned, he found that Lizzy had warmed up a small pan of water, and after a quick search, they found that Frank had brought an extra shirt. They needed to get Ronnie cleaned up and see how bad it was.

  Jason tore the shirt into strips they could use, and with these crude tools, they set to work. Ronnie was more coherent after the rest. The burns weren’t as bad as they’d looked at first, but they were bad. His eyes were intact, but the skin of his cheeks, his forehead, and most of his exposed skin was red and blistered.

  “We have to get you to a hospital,” Jason said, swabbing one of the cloths very gently across the big man’s cheek. “These are nasty burns. Don’t think you’ll be posing for Playgirl any time soon.”

  “Whiskey,” Ronnie mumbled, and Lizzy hurried off to fetch what was left of the Jack Daniels.

  “Man,” Jason said softly, “That has got to hurt.”

  Ronnie began to shake, and Jason moved closer, steadying him for a moment, until he realized the big man was laughing.

  “Hurts, yeah,” Ronnie said at last. “Damned if it doesn’t hurt.” He was quiet a moment, sipping at the bottle Lizzy had handed him. “Where’s Frankie, Jason? And who the hell was that back there?”

  “Don’t know,” Jason answered. He stared at the ground, thinking. “It wasn’t her. I don’t know how I know, but something just didn’t feel....right.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Ronnie nodded, taking another sip and grimacing as a drop of the liquor splashed onto his burned face.

  “We have to get you out of here,” Jason repeated. “You have to see a doctor, get treated. It’s bad, Ronnie.”

  “Reckon it is at that,” Ronnie replied. His voice was weak, but steady. “Sure didn’t figure on this. Dreamed of that damned fire a million times…never figured to be the main course at that old witch’s barbecue.”

  “It wasn’t her,” Jason repeated.

  “Whatever,” Ronnie said, gasping slightly as he sat back too quickly and stretched the burns. “Either way, we can’t just leave Frankie back there.”

  Jason was staring into the fire again. Something was itching at him, something that wouldn’t let go no matter how hard he tried to concentrate on Ronnie’s words, and the moment. He was hungry, and tired. His vision swam and the day re-played slowly. The morning, at that same fire, all the laughter, the joking. When had it turned?

  Quick morning sunlight flashes of the trail, and Ronnie’s back, Lizzy’s hand in his tight and her hip close to his, the lake, Frank and Ronnie back-dropped by shimmering waves.

  Jason shook his head. The woods, dark, firelight dancing and Ronnie and Frank, moving ahead. Then—gone. The figure, swaying, and that voice.

  “Jason!”

  Lizzy’s voice, frantic. The words echoed through Jason’s thoughts, not really dragging him from the visions, reverberating through them—shifting things again, like ripples—waves. He saw the dock, waves slapping against the wood, jutting out into the middle of nowhere.

  “Jason stop it!”

  Lizzy slapped him so hard he tumbled over backward from his where he was squatting, falling painfully against the log and cracking his elbow.

  “Jesus!” he growled, grabbing his arm and gripping it to his chest. “What was that for?”

  “You keep doing that!” Lizzy said, not backing down. Her eyes flashed and her arms were tight to her chest. “You keep leaving me, going…I don’t know where the hell you’re going. Away. You are here, and you aren’t here, and I need you here. Damn it, Jason, I’ve needed you here for so long I can’t remember and you are not going off into la-la land on me. Not now. Not ever.”

  Jason blinked, sitting up. He forgot the pain in his arm quickly. Something deep inside melted, something he’d been suppressing too long.

  And something else. The visions had cleared, but not completely. He knew what it was he’d forgotten, and he knew what he had to do.

  “Christ!” he said, rising quickly, the banged elbow completely forgotten. “We are getting old.”

  “What?” Lizzy was taken aback. She’d clearly expected some reaction, anger, apology— something—but not this.

  “I have to get back to the lake,” Jason said, moving toward the tent and his bags. “You’ll have to try and get Ronnie to the truck, go for help.”

  “You goin’ south on us, Jason?” Ronnie asked weakly. “What the hell would you want at that lake? Haven’t you had enough?”

  “Not by a long shot,” Jason replied, standing up and wrapping a blanket around his shoulders. “We’ll have to leave most of this stuff here, come back for it later.”

  Lizzy was shaking now.

  “What are you talking about? What do you mean you have to go to the lake. Jason, what...”

  Jason moved quickly to Lizzy’s side and hugged her tightly.

  “Trust me this time, okay? I’m not going crazy, and I’m not going off into space somewhere, either. I’m going to get our past, and our future, back for us.”

  “You’re gonna get lost,” Ronnie growled. He was starting to feel the pain—and the whiskey. “What we need to do is to get the hell out of these woods and get someone back here to find Frank.”

  “I’ll find him,” Jason said with certainty. Under his breath he added, “If he’s still out here, I’ll find him and I’ll bring him back.”

  “You know the way to the truck, right?” Jason said quickly, releasing the hug and stepping back from Lizzy, who was staring at him now, a mixture of curiosity, anger, painted across her pretty face.

  Lizzy nodded, and Jason turned before the others could say anything further. “I’ll try to make it back to the road. Send help there.”

  Without another word, Jason turned and headed off into the woods again, turning down the trail toward the lake. About six yards into the trees, he bent down to scoop something from the frost-covered ground, then he turned away and disappeared.

  ~ * ~

  The trail felt different without the others. It was like taking a side-step into his dreams, into the nightmares. He heard things moving that he wouldn’t have heard, saw shifts of shadow and light that would have slipped past and over his senses with Lizzy gripping his hand.

  He was tired, too tired to be hiking, and his thoughts drifted -ahead, behind, all over. The trail curved away and up the mound of the hill leading to the lake, and Jason found he had a hard time concentrating on the shifts in the sloping ground beneath his feet.

  He could feel the sun warming his back, but he was cold through to his bones. He was shivering, partly from the cold, but more from fatigue, and a deep, burning nausea that wouldn’t release his guts. He thought and rethought the events of the past two days. Conversations replayed in his mind, echoing, reverberating, the words blending and mixing and swirling back in combinations that ma
de no sense.

  It had all been too elaborate, too perfect. The clearing, the cabin, the old woman—even her voice—eerily staged. Recreated for whose benefit?

  Jason’s legs ached, and his head pounded. The daydreams gave him no peace. He blinked, and the sun turned the sparkling frost on the trail into bones, tiny white bones, a carpet of them that crackled and crunched beneath his feet. They twisted and whirled before his tired eyes, forming patterns. Forming words and faces and shimmering back to frost as he shook his head to clear it, glancing up the trail.

  The rise was just ahead where he and Lizzy had paused. He knew that the lake and the dock would be in site within moments. Jason took a deep breath, slowed his pace, and slipped off the trail and into the trees.

  Moving more slowly, Jason reached the top of the rise, lowering to one knee and shielding his eyes against the glare of the morning sun. At first he couldn’t see a thing, then, the glare faded slowly and he could make out the waves lapping at the shore.

  He saw where their fire had burned itself to ash, and he had a sudden flash. The catfish, skinned, blackened and eaten, nothing but the skeletal remains protruding from the edge of the fire, burning low. Glowing coals and too-white bones.

  Jason shook his head. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open, but he knew he had to go a little longer.

  “My kingdom for a double espresso,” he whispered.

  Turning he glanced down the shoreline to the dock. Jason stiffened, holding himself very still. There was a boat, long and sleek, bobbing alongside the tiny pier. No one was in sight.

  Jason watched for a long time, then slipped from the trees and quickly down the beach. He scanned the shoreline constantly, keeping a close watch on the forest at his back, but no one appeared. Moments later he was stepping onto the wooden planks, the sound of the water washing against the boats sides echoing through his mind.

  Jason stepped to the side of the polished wooden craft and stared down. A wave of vertigo nearly toppled him into the lake, but he took a deep breath, steadied himself, and turned away quickly. Without hesitation, he ran from the beach and back down the trail.