“In the more immediate future, let’s just stay here tonight,” Fen said, “I think a night in the den might just help us all find ourselves again…”
We kept our coats on and snuggled together against the cold February night and eventually fell into an uneasy sleep.
It chased me, the dark being just behind me without any face or body; yet real nonetheless, and inescapable. I recognized my dream, and yet even realizing it was the same dream, I had no control over it… I ran with all my might down the forest path, but this time I recognized the faces of people from school.
I ran past Fen, and tried to shake him but he merely gazed into space with vacant eyes. With a sinking powerless feeling in my gut, my body continued running against my will, and left him behind. I glanced over my shoulder and watched in horror as the onrushing wall of darkness enveloped him and tore him away from me.
I ran and ran, my chest burned and my eyes blurred with tears. This time I knew where I was heading, and eventually the path ended; and there, as before, stood the black iron gate, wreathed in fog, with the cold blue moon overhead.
I tore open the gate and dashed inside, and then stopped cold. Instead of a classroom, I entered the gymnasium.
I felt it at the threshold, peering in ravenously with such utter loathing that it chilled my blood. I turned to look at the door.
Loki stood there and held her hand out to me, oblivious to the hungry darkness behind her. My heart froze; I tried to scream out a warning and run to her but my legs felt like they were made of cement. With victorious hunger, the darkness reached out to consume her…
I woke with a cry and struggled, startling Loki and Fen out of their sleep. They asked me about the dream, but I told them it was some weird nightmare, while I reassured myself with their presence.
They’re all right, they’re okay, they’re right here.
To change the topic, I asked Fen if Lupa had visited him and he grew distant. I assumed she had not until he answered, “Yeah…”
His reaction puzzled me, “What happened?”
“She told me to uh, make a choice… And that then, things she’d foretold would begin to come true.” I frowned. I could tell he was editing a lot, but I let it slide for now.
Loki stretched and yawned. “Ya know, I’ve always been jealous of you two. It seems like you guys get to talk to her all the time, but I only ever catch so much as a glimpse once in a blue moon.”
I winced has her words reminded me of the dream.
“Well, maybe that’ll all change soon. Lupa made it clear that things are about to change in very big ways…” Fen looked at me in the dim light with sad eyes.
I had the strangest feeling. I didn’t want to leave the den… I wanted to stay here a very long time… It was probably nothing but some subconscious panic left from my dream, but I couldn’t get my heart to slow down. Fen gave me a sad smile and then started up the tunnel.
“Come on, it’s time…” he said.
Fen led us out of the den and stood up outside. The sun was just teasing the sky with its earliest grey light; it hadn’t even broken over the mountains yet. I snagged on a branch and reached back to unhook it when I heard a dull thud as he grunted and staggered. Something hot and wet misted my face, as Fen’s knees folded and he hit the ground next to me.
The crack of a gunshot echoed from far away…
No…
Fen convulsed as he lay there in front of me, and my mind raced desperately, grasping for every conclusion besides the obvious. Fen gasped for breath with a sickening gurgle, and I crawled beside him. He turned his head and looked at me, his amber eyes faded to gray as he pressed a shaking hand to my face. The blood ran from his body and saturated his shirt while Loki struggled out of the den behind me.
No, you’re still dreaming; wake up…
“Jimmy, you have to lead them…you have to protect them now, it’s what Lupa meant all along…” Fen’s voice was faint and blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth as he spoke. He coughed with a sick gurgle, and sprayed bloody froth as he rubbed his thumb against my cheek and smiled, “I’m so sorry Jimmy…”
This isn’t happening, you’re just asleep; wake up and it’ll go away…
“Fen, just hold on, we’ll get help for you! Just hold on—” His hand slipped from my face as the fire that lived in him drained from his dark grey eyes. His limp arm landed in the dirt, dotted with his own blood—blood that covered my face in a fine mist— and his pupils dilated as the smile went slack on his face. Though his eyes still pointed toward me, Fen no longer looked through them…
No, no this isn’t real. It can’t be! Wake up Jimmy… WAKE THE FUCK UP!
Cold shock froze my veins; my blood no longer stirred… my heart stopped…
Beside me, Loki wept. She inched closer and touched his face, and then leaned down and touched her forehead to his tenderly, tears rolled down her cheeks and landed on his, “Fen, no…no, Fen, no…” Her whimpers grew as she gathered his head into her lap and stroked his hair while she rocked back and forth.
I wanted to reach out to her, but I couldn’t move… couldn’t breathe… This was too real; I wasn’t dreaming this time… I gripped Fen’s hand, still warm; but cooling fast. Limp and unresponsive…dead…Fen was dead…
I flashed back to my dream and my stomach dropped. …The darkness tore him away from me…
Our cries tore through the cold grey sky, and echoed over the fields and streets; answered by the dogs from miles around. Together, Loki and I howled out our agony to the hungry winter cold. Tears burned down my face, cutting lines through the red mist that covered me…
Fen, no… Wake up…
…Wake up…
Chapter 15 – The Funeral
Flashing lights and sirens cut through the cold morning. Loki’s parents heard us screaming and found us out back. Her mother cried and held Loki while her dad gently tried to pull me away from Fen’s body, but I wouldn’t leave him. I couldn’t.
The police dragged Loki and me through a whirlwind of interrogations and incessant questions. Somewhere along the way, somebody cleaned the blood from my face and Fen’s empty corpse was discreetly bagged and removed. They wrapped us in blankets and ushered us into the back of an ambulance with Loki’s parents. We bounced in unison, wearing the same blank masks of shock and despair as we stared off into space.
I tried to remember, how long ago had Fen been alive? An hour? Thirty minutes? A lifetime? Part of me shut down, I just couldn’t comprehend that he was gone, absolutely gone. We stopped and they opened the doors to let us out. We stepped down from the ambulance, and a familiar voice snapped me out of the mess of my thoughts.
“Oh, thank heaven, there you are!” I looked up and found myself in the arms of Fen’s mother, wearing her hospital uniform. My God… She was working, and they were wheeling her only son’s corpse into the morgue. The thought horrified me as she guided us through the E.R. doors.
She led us into a room and gave us some water, and then she checked us for signs of shock. I wondered how the hell she still functioned. I was about to ask when she spoke, her voice soothing but distant.
“I’ve already called your parents Jimmy, they’re on their way,” she said, and sat down beside me. Loki’s mom wept quietly as her dad held them both, Loki’s face a hollow mask of shock. Something was missing…
“Have you called Geri?” I asked.
“I tried, but there was no answer.” Strange…
“What about his cell?”
Fen’s mother shook her head, and I stared at the floor in front of us.
“Thank you for staying here with me,” I muttered.
“Thank you for letting me,” she whispered, “I can’t—think about it yet, as soon as I do, it’s all over…”
A few minutes later, John burst through the door, Mom right behind him. His eyes found me and he crossed the room in two strides and grabbed me by the shirt. I flopped like a rag doll as he shook me, yelling, “Jimmy Marsh
all Walker, what the hell is going on? You told us you were going to Geri’s—”
“John, wait outside!” Mom forced her way between us while she and Fen’s mother pried John’s hands from my shirt. I fell back into the chair, dazed, wondering how it was possible to hurt even more inside. Mom looked tiny in front of his bulk, but she set her feet and glared up at him in defiance.
John pointed over her shoulder at me, his face livid, “That boy lied to us, and just look—”
“John, get the fuck out of this room!” His face registered surprise as Mom shoved him out the door and slammed it in his face. She took a deep breath and walked over to me, and then knelt down and held my face so she could look in my eyes. “Jimmy, baby, are you alright, are you hurt?” I couldn’t talk, so I shook my head. My body was fine, but my soul…
She put a shaking hand on the back of my head and pressed my face to her shoulder as she held me. I felt my control slip and heat rushed up into my face as I felt safe for the first time since I’d left the house last night. “Mom…” I whined into her shoulder and lost it. Her coat muffled my wails as she stroked the back of my head and rocked me back and forth.
Police questioned us again, but after a while they released us. As we left the room, I glanced back and saw Fen’s mother sitting alone as the first tears slid down her cheeks. Mom walked up to her and took her hand, “If there’s anything you need, any way we can help, please let us know.” Fen’s mother squeezed her hand and nodded.
We drove home and I retreated to the dungeon. I threw my bloody clothes on the floor and curled up naked in the sheets while I tried not to hear Mom and John rage at each other upstairs. I stared at the tapestry Loki gave me for Christmas—Fen and I as wolves—until I tore it off the wall.
I always thought it was odd when people in movies expressed disconnection from time. I thought they just lost track, I never imagined that time itself distorted. The mind and soul pull into a shell, in which time and the pain of the world cannot touch them.
Slip—Fen and I laughed and ate together on his couch after school—Slip—Fen and I at each other’s throats, snapping and snarling on the school’s lawn—Slip—Fen’s dead gray eyes staring at me—Slip—I stood in front of the mirror, adjusting my tie.
A fine film of condensation misted the windows of home and car alike, not quite cold enough to freeze, but I felt it in my soul as we drove to Fen’s memorial service. After the autopsy, they’d sewn his body back together and dressed it in a suit for display. The mortuary cosmetician had done an unmercifully good job. So good that when I arrived, I forgot for a heart stopping moment that his soul was gone, and almost yelled at him to open his eyes.
His loss crushed me all over again. Fen’s mother sat alone in the first row of rusting foldout chairs, a damp tissue crumpled in her hand. I sat down in the chair next to her and put my hand over hers. She smiled briefly at me, which only pushed more tears from her eyes while her shaking hand took mine and squeezed hard.
For a cold and barren moment I felt my own tears burning and Mom sat down in the chair beside me and rested her hand at the nape of my neck while John and Jacob sat beside her. It surprised me how much that small touch salved my wounded tattered soul. I felt another presence and glanced behind us as Loki knelt and wrapped her arms around Fen’s mom and me.
Loki broke her embrace and took a seat behind us with her parents. For the first time I could recall, her father was without his wide-brimmed cowboy hat, his salt and pepper hair parted and combed.
Not many people attended, but most of the people who came had genuinely known and cared about him. I shared hushed greetings with Mrs. Ashcroft and Mr. Decker. Mrs. Cartwright took a seat near the library and administration crews. She dabbed her eyes with a tissue, her gaze far away as if she were reliving Corwin’s funeral in her mind as well. In the back near the principal, I caught a glimpse of Mr. Spritari’s spidery frame, dressed in the same beige suit he wore to Jack’s trial, but his etched grimace held no malice this time. He sat painfully straight in his seat, and his reddish eyes stared straight ahead while the woman next to him rubbed his arm and sobbed softly.
Geri arrived later with his parents and sat beside Loki and her family. His mother was tall and slender with a severe expression on her sculpted face; where his father was on the shorter side and stocky like his son. A bushy moustache burst out from under his nose, accompanied by a round belly and a shiny pate of hairless skin atop his head. They were all dressed impeccably, their clothes tailored perfectly for them under black wool overcoats. I tried to catch Geri’s eye, but he wouldn’t look at me.
I zoned in and out through the service as a man who never knew him spoke sterile statistics of his life as though reading from a fill-in-the-blanks script. Sometimes I thought he was talking about someone else, he kept calling him James.
Only four of us knew his true nature, his true worth. Like a scab I couldn’t stop picking at, my eyes returned to the spot on his chest, just under the fold of his left lapel where I had watched his heart’s blood drain out of him just… what was it, minutes? Days? Years ago? Delirium knocked at my door until time slipped again and the speech was over.
One by one, we walked past the coffin and gazed at his face one last time. I didn’t know if it was disrespectful to touch the dead or not, but I couldn’t resist. I reached out and ran my fingers over the thin scar my teeth had left on his cheek, and then rested my hand on his chest where the bullet had entered.
I leaned over with blurry eyes and kissed the forehead of the empty shell that had once housed my best friend. I smiled and pressed my hand to his chest again, and then walked away; leaving behind his silver pentagram necklace.
Mrs. Ashcroft hugged me, and other members of the faculty offered words of consolation. Geri and his family disappeared without a word, and almost everyone else left soon after as well. Loki and I and our parents escorted Fen’s mother outside where they placed a carved slab of black marble in the ground beside another one just like it.
Fen could finally be with his dad now. James Elliot Kendle was laid beside his father, Morgan James Kendle. “Fen” was carved into the stone under his real name.
Fen’s mother placed flowers on both stones, and then cried desolately. The distant cries of a raven floated through the air from an old friend and I looked up across the field. The hair tingled on the back of my neck as I glimpsed the dark outline of someone watching us through the chain-link fence before cold rain swept over us and I lost sight of them.
In solitude one finds intermittent peace or torment, and sometimes simultaneous hell. In sorrow, one either seeks solitude to lick their wounds, or they crave the strength and compassion of others. In company, one vents their emotions through any means available; be it weeping on a compassionate shoulder, or screaming and attacking. The guilt that follows then drives the mourner into solitude…
I learned this cyclical ballet well as we danced to its morbid rhythm.
Loki, Geri, and I were granted a one-week reprieve from school. Geri never really told us where he’d been, just that he was out of the house, and I couldn’t bring myself to care very much. If he’d been there, he would have been just as traumatized as Loki and me.
One question haunted me; who could have possibly wanted to murder Fen? Every time I tried to think of a culprit, the idea became ludicrous. He was an outcast like me, but he didn’t have any enemies that I knew of; certainly nobody hated him enough to want to kill him. The police seemed to be stuck in the same rut, so when they finally issued their official report, they labeled Fen’s death as a freak accident that probably occurred from a misfire or a ricochet at the gun range in the foothills. Unless someone turned themselves in, they had no reason to suspect otherwise. As much as I craved closure, the ugly truth was that I might never find it…
I couldn’t even imagine what it was like for Loki; first Corwin’s suicide, and now this. Her smirk and mischievous grin had vanished; wiped from her face as she stared off into space,
lost in her own torment. After Geri’s initial shock wore off, he drowned us in painfully upbeat inspirational messages, trying to get us to blindly believe everything was going to be okay. I didn’t want ‘God’s mysterious ways’, I wanted my best friend back; and Geri’s propaganda couldn’t give me that.
It grated on my nerves instead until I finally snapped. It wasn’t until I found myself standing over him, growling with clenched fists, while he cowered on the floor with the same angry betrayed look in his eyes that I’d seen before, that I realized I’d just pulled a Fen in the worst possible way. I apologized and reached to help him up, but he pushed my hand away and left. He didn’t call again after that.
I coped as best I could, and tried to keep as busy as the clutching apathy would let me. Sometimes a single hour crawled by while entire days disappeared into the void. Most days I almost couldn’t even muster enough initiative to get out of bed before noon for a cup of coffee.
In my better moments I tried calling Loki and Geri, but Geri usually wouldn’t answer, and Loki’s calls always descended into a long uncomfortable silence until one of us came up with some excuse to hang up. My inability to help my friends rotted inside me, feeding my dragon.
How could Fen expect me to lead when I couldn’t even console myself? How could I? How could I find the strength to keep myself going, much less guide the others? Worthless and inadequate; Fen had wasted his dying words on an invalid. It was all so trivial now…
I needed to get out of the house, so I stepped outside and took a deep breath. Without thinking about it, I glanced down the street toward Fen’s mother’s house—I couldn’t think of it as Fen’s house anymore—and saw a moving truck parked at the curb. With a sinking feeling in my gut, I jogged down the street and knocked on the door. Fen’s mom answered, wiping her forehead with her sleeve.
“Oh, Jimmy!” she said, surprised.
Walking Wolf Road (Wolf Road Chronicles Book 1) Page 22
