The Digger's Rest

by K. Patrick Malone

  Heaven Can Wait

  ……..As performed by Meatloaf

  Deck sat by Malcolm’s bed, holding his hand; Ivy pacing at the foot of the bed. He took Malcolm’s lifeless hand and put it to his face, holding it close, and started to cry. Quiet tears of regret and loneliness for his brother, thinking about how he must have hurt him that day in the kitchen when he told him he wanted to go to America. “I didn’t mean it, Mal,” he whispered as he wept over the still body. “I won’t go away, I promise, I won’t leave you. I’ll take care of you, always,” he said, remembering all the times in his life that Malcolm had looked after him, all the things Mal had done for him out of love that he took for granted for so many years and might never know again.

  Moved to action by her brother’s grief, Ivy stopped pacing and went to him, putting her arms around him, “We will always be together, we’ll take care of him together,” and put her head on his shoulder to hold him and cry with him.

  They had no way of knowing that while they were at the hospital on the one side of the county that Dr. Mitchell Bramson was pulling up to the hospital on the other side of the county, driving like a mad man with only the barest presence of mind not to deliver a patient to the same hospital two days running. On the verge of hysteria himself when he ran into the Emergency entrance for help to get Sean Donnelly out of the car, he couldn’t even remember how he got him into the car to get there.

  The minute the reception nurse saw him she knew from his dilated eyes, lack of color and nonsensical babbling that he was in shock and called for a doctor, only gathering from his babbling that there was someone else in the car outside. The attendants took each of the men into separate areas; the first doctor immediately gave Mitch a shot to calm him down and trying to get a sensible story out of him about what’d happened to the other man.

  At first Mitch could only give their names and that they were from Exton, he by way of America. From there all he could say was that they were out walking and that Sean seemed to go into some sort of a convulsion, then fell over and woke up dumb. There was no way he could ever have told them what he really thought, that something out at the site had hexed him; cursed him. It would mean the psyche ward for him and they’d never let him out. As it was, they seemed hesitant to come too close to him and called a psychiatrist in to interview him before they would agree to let him go.

  But he didn’t go. He sat out in the waiting room to find out about Sean. He could never just leave him there. He was already overwhelmed with guilt for letting the man convince him to take him out to the site in the first place. He should have known better. After what he’d seen and heard from him in the bar that first night, and then later in his room, he should have known. It was irresponsible, unforgivable…and all his fault, so that when Julie Donnelly came through the door, he was already primed for what would follow.

  He stood up when he saw her. “Devil! Bastard devil! Look what you’ve done,” she spat as she rushed passed him to the reception desk. He followed her.

  “Please, Mrs. Donnelly, I’m so sorry,” he pleaded, almost slurring from the medication they’d given him.

  “Don’t you come near me, you bastard. You’re a devil!” she hissed at him, her hate filled eyes brimming with tears. “I told ’im you were no good, that nothing good would come of you, but ’e wouldn’t listen.” She burst into tears. “Just leave us alone!” she screamed at him. The nurse came around the desk and took her by the arm into the room where they had Sean.

  I deserved that, and more, Mitch thought as he walked back to the car, his head hanging low, his hair hiding his face; shame and guilt.

  ***

  When Deck and Ivy got back to the inn after seeing Malcolm, there was some sense of calm about the place. Jed and Fi had made sure breakfast and lunch went off alright and Ivy was relieved to see that Mal looked well. His color was good. The doctor said all his vital signs were stable and that his brain scans were normal so if all went well, he might regain consciousness soon.

  The doctor also told her that he was impressed with Malcolm’s remarkable recuperative powers saying that when he came in the early scans had shown signs of brain damage but that the morning’s follow-up scans proved the earlier tests wrong, although he couldn’t be sure there wouldn’t be any permanent brain damage until he was tested while conscious.

  On the other hand, Deck was not feeling well at all. He was tired and feverish. All he wanted to do was go upstairs to his room and get some sleep. It had all been too much for him. He just wanted to forget about it for a little while, so, seeing that Ivy was calmed, the inn was quiet and Jed seemed more grown up than he’d ever seen him before, he decided it was time to give old Deck a rest and he went upstairs. He’d forgotten all about his leg until he sat down in his chair to take off his boots and saw the end of the bandage sticking out from under his sock. He took off his pants figuring it was just as good a time as any to change the bandage and clean the wound again.

  When he took off the bandage, the smell made his head swim. When he saw it, he had to sit back down. The wound was closed, but not only was the flesh around it still black, it was covered with thick layers of what looked like scales, sickly greenish scales over black skin; and it had spread, starting down by his ankle and creeping up towards his knee. Fuck, it must be infected, he thought, his mind scrambling for what to do.

  He got up slowly and went into his bathroom, tuning on the hot water in his tub and continued the process he’d started the day before, antiseptic, alcohol, iodine, adding now bleach that was used to clean the tub. He scrubbed it and doused it and scrubbed it again, finally dousing it with the bleach before pouring the iodine over it and wrapping it again.

  As he turned to leave the room, he looked in the mirror, his eyes were different, the color had seemed to change and his lips and tongue seemed to be taking on a bluish tint. His stomach revolted and he threw up the toilet seat just in time to vomit into it, little black flecks swimming around in the thick yellow bile that came out of his throat.

  Feeling his consciousness slipping away, he fell to his knees, then over on his back using the last of his energy to roll over on his stomach and crawl into his bed before passing out.

  ***

  “Deck, it’s dinner time. You’ve been sleeping most of the day and you’ve still got to eat before your shift,” Jed called through the door in between knocks. At first there was no response, but after the second knock he heard Deck’s voice, raspy, call out. “I’m sick, Jed. I can’t come down tonight.”

  Just then Simon was coming down the hall. He wanted to see Deck, too, to find out if he knew where Dr. Bramson had gone. No one had seen Mitch since morning.

  “He’s sick,” Jed told Simon and went downstairs to tell Ivy and prepare to work a double shift.

  Simon waited until Jed had gone before he knocked on Deck’s door himself. “Deck, it’s Simon. Are you alright? I’m looking for Dr. Bramson. Have you seen him?” When he got no response his newly found sensitivity told him something was wrong in there. He knocked again. “Deck, it’s Simon. Please let me in.” When he didn’t get an answer the second time, he stepped back, pointed his finger at the lock and, in his soundless voice said, Open, breathing a sigh of relief when he heard the click of the lock and saw the knob turn.

  Deck was lying in bed, his back to the door, shivering and shaking feverishly, soaked with sweat, and there was this sickly, rotting smell. Simon had to use all his concentration to keep from vomiting.

  He went over to the bed and spoke softly, lightly putting his hand on his big friend’s shoulder, “Deck, it’s Simon.” Deck rolled over and opened his eyes. Simon backed away, putting his hand over his mouth to stop himself from screaming out loud because when Deck opened his eyes, he had the slit-pupiled yellow eyes of a serpent. But they weren’t threatening or violent. They were sad, helpless and…pleading, a single tear running down the side of his face. Deck opened his mouth to speak. “Please, help me,” he said, a long, thin, blac
k split tongue coming out of his mouth as he formed the words.

  Simon almost fainted and stepped back further, grabbing hold of the chair to keep his knees from buckling and giving out from underneath him. Instinctively, he grasped for the amulet around his neck as he looked stunned into his big, gentle friend’s eyes again, sad, lost, pleading eyes, once such a beautiful blue gray. He went back close to him and knelt down beside him, waving his hand in front of his face. “Sleep, Deck,” Simon said sadly, and Deck closed his eyes.

  Simon turned back to the door and pointed to the knob from across the room. “Lock,” he said, and waited for the click a second later. He took out the amulet and held it in his palm, “Help!” he said in his soundless voice. A few seconds later he heard the old man’s soundless voice say to him, “Show me.”

  Simon went over to the bed and pulled back the covers, the smell that rose from the bed made him turn away and rush to the toilet to vomit. When he came back to look, he saw Deck was naked, but only half human. His legs had begun fusing themselves together from the crotch down. His skin was patched all over with slimy layers of greenish brown scales over large black patches of flesh. His hands and feet had lost their bones and the same fusing that had happened between his legs was happening under his arms.

  Simon held the amulet tightly, “Do you see?” he said with his soundless voice.

  “Yes, I see,” the old man replied, but not with his soundless voice this time, because when Simon turned his head, the old man was standing behind him. “He is cursed as was his brother.”

  The old man walked over to the sick boy, dropping a burlap sack by the side of the bed. Simon followed him. “Stand back,” the old man said. Simon obeyed.

  The old man reached into the bag and pulled out a handful of dried holly leaves and sprinkled them over the sick boy’s body, then more. He reached back into the bag and pulled out something that looked to Simon like wood bark and put it in Deck’s mouth.

  In the bag again, he pulled out long strands of dried greenery with purple flowers at the ends, quickly and expertly braiding them with his gnarled fingers into a crown and put it on Deck’s head. Then the old man reached into his pocket and took out two jagged pieces of pinkish crystal and put them on Deck’s eyes. “Stand thee there,” the old man ordered and pointed Simon to the other side of the bed.

  Once Simon was in place, the old man reached into the bag again, drawing out a smaller cloth sack. He pointed his two fingers at the head of the bed. It slid out from the wall. He walked around it, bent over, pouring a thin line of white crystals around the bed, completely encircled with himself and Simon within its boundary. The old man took out a small, sharp-looking knife from his pocket and made a small incision in his wrist. He looked at Simon. “After I speak, thou speaketh at my command.” Simon nodded. The old man began dripping the blood from his wrist onto the sick boy, starting at his head. “Thou were born a son of Adam with the soul of a man,” the old man said and looked to Simon.

  “And thou wilt be a man again,” Simon followed, prompted by the old man’s thoughts.

  “Thou were born a son of Adam with the heart of a man,” the old man said, looking to Simon again.

  “And thou wilt be a man again,” Simon said, tears flowing freely now from his eyes as he moved closer to the bed, letting them drop on his friend, hearing Deck’s words in his mind, ‘That’s what friends are for.’

  “The evil that hast touched thee cannot own thee for thou were born of Adam at God’s command,” the old man said, then looked at Simon and said with his soundless voice, “Speak ye the words with the conviction of thy spirit.”

  In his mind, Simon could see again the look in Deck’s eyes that day in the forest, comforting and…protective…of him and a new emotion gained momentum within him, anger, fury, hatred for the thing that had hurt his friend. That was when he felt it for the first time, the old man’s gift, like a small pin prick between his shoulder blades. It began to spread, across his shoulders, down his spine and upwards through the back of his head, running down his arms; a current flowing through him as his anger grew. “Hurt me if you can, monster. I’m used to pain. But you will not hurt my friend!” bolted through his brain, and he shouted towards the bed; a new found depth and force in his voice that made his body tremble. The room shook with it. “I cast thee out, unclean thing, born of filth to be less than we. Thou shalt not soil this man born of Adam further. I command thee out!”

  The bed started to shake; a pink foam forming on Decks body. Simon jumped back. “Fear thee not, Holly,” the old man said in his soundless voice, nodding his head approvingly. “Tis thee who rules here this night. Again.”

  “I cast thee out, unclean thing, born of filth to be less then we. Thou shalt not soil this man born of Adam further. I command thee out!” Simon shouted, using his finger to point away from Deck’s body toward the windows.

  The pink foam over Deck’s body grew until he was completely covered, cocooning him. “Now show it your power,” the old man commanded soundlessly. Simon didn’t understand, looking to the old man questioningly. The old man motioned with his hands, raising them to the ceiling, then brought them down with a silent clap.

  Taking his cue, Simon raised his hands to the ceiling, the current running through him seeming to want to burst from his fingertips. The shaking bed rose off of the floor; suspended in the air. He brought his hands down in a loud cracking clap. The lights flickered wildly, and the shaking bed dropped to the floor. The windows flew open and the bed stopped shaking. Stunned by his own power, his head swirling with the remainder of the current as it receded back into itself, within him, Simon felt like he was going to faint, a tidal wave of new emotions raising his body into full rattle tremors. But the old man’s voice brought him back.

  “Come, now, boy. We have cleansed his soul of the curse. Now we must cleanse his body, free it of the foul thing that has touched it and leave him pure again.” And they washed Deck with a rough soap the old man had in the bag, taking all that remained of the washing wrapped in a towel to burn the next day.

  Moving to leave, the old man went to Simon and put his hand on the boy’s still trembling shoulder. “Thou hast done well. I am very proud of thee, Holly,” and took him by the arm.

  Simon hesitated then walked back over to Deck, kneeling beside him again. He waved his hand in front of Deck’s face. “Awake.” Deck’s eyes opened and were their natural blue gray again. “You’ll be alright now. I took care of it,” Simon whispered lovingly to him, a new confidence in his voice, and wiped the wetness from his face. Before Deck could speak, Simon waved his hand in front of his face again. “Sleep, Deck,” he whispered and Deck closed his eyes again, a peaceful look coming over his face. Simon looked to the old man, then turned back to Deck and waved his hand. “And forget.”

  “I have known of thy life’s suffering, child, and thy love for others that has come of it. Do not think it makes thee weak, for it makes thee stronger than iron. Feel full of what thou hast done here and…why thou hast done it,” the old man said and put his arm around Simon’s shoulders as they walked toward the open window. “Come now, we must finish what we have started while there is still time.” The old man waved his hand in front of the window and they were gone.

  Chapter XVIII

  BODY POLITIC

  Her weapons were her crystal eyes Making every man mad Black as the dark night she was Got what no-one else had

  Wow!

  Venus

  ……..As performed by Shocking Blue

  The day had passed into evening and the shadows that fell from it cloaked the old man and the young one as they stole into the churchyard and walked up to the door. The old man pointed his finger at the lock and Simon heard it click. “Won’t anyone see us?” Simon asked, limping alongside the old man.

  “Not lest I allow it,” the old man said with a small smile as they walked up the center aisle toward the altar.

  “But I don’t understand,” Simon said, loo
king around nervously to see if anyone was nearby.

  “And that is why we are here,” the old man said, stopping before the large stone alter below an enormous medieval wood crucifix, the face of Jesus carved into an expression of abject torment.

  The old man took Simon’s hand. “Come,” he said, and they walked around behind the figured altar. The old man kneeled behind, lifting the heavy red velvet alter skirt. Beneath it Simon could see an intricate wooden disc, inlaid with a primitive painted or enameled design. The old man stuck one finger into the hole in the center, lifting it effortlessly and setting it to one side. He reached into the dark hole, lifting out what looked like a long wooden box the size of a rifle case, bound with black wrought iron, and handed it to Simon, then replaced the colorful disc and stood up. Simon stood with him. “We must go now,” the old man said taking Simon by the hand again as they walked back around to the front of the altar and out the front door.

  When they got to his cottage, the old man lit a bright fire that seemed to give off a greenish glow and made tea for the two of them, then cleared the table. Simon knew what he was to do and removed his clothes, lying chest down on the table. He no longer needed the wood piece in his mouth. He just waited to hear the sound of metal striking metal. “’Twill be the finish of it,” the old man said just before Simon heard the sound.

  ***

  It was full dark outside before Simon rose from the table and put his clothes back on. The old man took the box and placed it the center of the table as they sat down. “’Tis time,” the old man said in his soundless voice, nodding his head, his tiny black eyes never veering from Simon’s big blue ones. “Soon, I will join my ancestors and return to the dust whence I came.”