Old Bones: A Collection of Short Stories

by Steven L. Campbell

  At the bottom of the map, they read these words: For my crimes, I don’t deserve to live.

  A police officer drove Karrie home while a crime scene unit came to investigate the SUV. No one saw Vree hiding and watching from the woods. Moments later, she vanished, carried through space by the green light.

  At the banks of Myers Creek, the green light around Vree faded. She stumbled away from where the crystal lay and stared at it for several minutes. She almost reasoned that she had imagined saving her mother from the hands of a rapist and killer. But that would be denying the truth … albeit, the weird truth. Weird things had happened to her before, and she was certain they would continue.

  #

  Oddities

  Dead Rabbits Don’t Run

  I SMELL IT again. Past hemlock and below hill the aroma is coming from man’s wooden lodge, drifting to me on smoke from most powerful and burning my nose with the fragrance of the blood of my sins. Although my eyes are closed, I know that if they were open I would still see the tormenting image of man eating his bloodless rabbit meal: chewing, always chewing; licking fingers clean; sucking bare every tawny bone; he will leave no bloodless meat behind. Before he sleeps tonight, he will bury bones into ground behind his lodge near where I committed my first crime. If I could move, I would run to there now and commit one last sin by digging up bones and feasting on marrow for the remainder of my short, pathetic life.

  It was there that I lost my dignity by giving in to temptation. After seeing man bury rabbit bones in ground behind his lodge, I waited until just before the new day to dig them up. I wisely returned all ground before feasting under hemlock. I have returned often since then, alone, always alone, and becoming less and less of a hunter.

  When man left his lodge for two summers, his woman replaced him. She did not bury rabbit bones. Instead, she threw bones with bloodless meat into high grass where it was quickly consumed by my large and stealthy body. Although the bloodless meat was dry and chewy, it had a rich flavor that was addictive. I became a scavenger and stopped hunting my meals.

  If my sons should find me here, dead and broken, will they uncover the follies of a foolish old laggard who spent his final days chasing dead rabbits? Or will the hemlock hide my body as I rot away, and will my death erase all evidence of my foolish ways?

  Did I cry just now or was it the hungry wail of my empty stomach?

  There is a tear in my eye. No. It is snow melting and running like tears. Snow assaults my eyes like large white gnats trying to blind me of the images from the past that haunt my tortured mind and torment my conceited soul. Is this my salvation? Regret is my pardon! Is there no limit to my delusion?

  Rabbits are near. The elder towers above me and looks with his laughing eyes upon my broken body. He mocks my anguish. He knows I am dying and he sneers at my torment with his taunting round face. White and smiling, always smiling, the great white rabbit runs across the sky, mocking my ruin. He has traveled quickly to pull the blanket of night over me. He is right to laugh at me, to taunt me of my predicament. I would chase him away if I could move. His children made me strong and my strength made me a leader. Now I am helpless, waiting to return to ground. I wonder if my bones will make a good meal. Or maybe man will use them instead. I’m sure my teeth would make a beautiful necklace.

  Cold bites deep into my wounds. I have not lived the length of time it has taken me to survive this day. Did I cry just now, or was it the sound of my empty stomach?

  I smell deer … and rabbit nearby. Man cooks the meat of their families tonight. I smell it in the smoke coming from the cabins. They will bury some of the bones in their yards, just as they do every day. That is why I stopped being a hunter. When the rabbits became too fast for me, man made it easy for me to become lazy. I robbed from their graveyards and dined on the old, cold bones of the dead.

  Did I cry again? Or is the rabbit elder laughing with the stars. How many of them are dead, yet living to shine on me still? When I rise without a shadow, I think I will dig up their bones and chew on their marrow for days to satisfy my hunger. And when my strength renews itself, I shall once again be a strong and mighty hunter. I shall…

  I have never been aware of death until this very hour when I have looked upon my birthplace and my gravesite with the same eyes. When I was young, I never thought about death. It either came swiftly and nobly to a warrior fighting bravely for his prince, or slowly and with pride, honoring grand old champions. But my death mocks me and threatens to leave me remembered as a fool, one that chose to live near man. It would be best for my family to forget me, allow me to become nothing, not even a memory.

  Time … season … night … is late. It marches onward, never slowing, never stopping. Or does it? Has it not slowed for me tonight and made me live an eternity? Will it finally stop when I take my last breath? Or will time and I continue somewhere else, with me in some conscious form still subject to the rules of nature?

  Is this daylight, or am I dreaming? I thought I saw dead rabbits running through the summer grass. It must surely be a dream. Dead rabbits don’t run. They can’t.

  Or can they?

  #

  In the Wake of Annihilating Kings

  THE BANQUET HALL was large and windowless, which, as banquet buildings go in the land of Nortepius, north of Ridgewood, was simple in design and customarily uncared-for. The dark and damp interior was carpeted throughout in fungus. A single candle, nearly spent and lumped upon a mountain of wax vaguely encasing an ancient gold candelabrum, lighted its dreary center. Suspended by dry, twisted hemp sooty and black, the waxy mountain sprouted long spidery arms of wax that descended and attached themselves to the top of a long rectangular oak table. Faint yellow light flickered as the candle flame threatened to extinguish itself. A groan came from a dark figure scaling the northern side of the waxy wattle. He had a new candlestick clenched between his teeth and he was exerting his unpracticed body to reach the dimming flame in time.

  “Sulliac!” King Mimalaus called out from his dirty brown throwdown. “Don’t bite that one in half. The blue ones taste ugly.”

  Sulliac the Loyal grunted in agreement and continued climbing.

  “You incipient vacillator,” a shadowy figure chided from the northwest corner of the room; “The entire world knows that the blue ones are an acquired taste of the sophisticated and dexterous. Why, with just a pinch of yellow yeast glob a blue becomes the finest meal man will ever consume.”

  His nasally voice echoed throughout the hall. Then a long, low belch sounded from the king’s area. This was King Mimalaus’s sound of disapproval and it made the winded Sulliac the Loyal smile as he finally reached the small and flickering candle.

  “Put that in one of your pictures, Couchiniti,” the king grumbled. “If you can find the right color.”

  Then a quick booming belch from the king marked an end to the conversation. After all, Couchiniti was renowned for his lengthy rhetorical rambling and the king was in no mood to be subjected to such torture. This was to be a day of respect in Nortepius and he was looking forward to the arrival of new fleece throwdowns.

  The dining hall grew larger as Sulliac the Loyal lit the new candle and placed it at the top of the wax-heap. From his perch, he could see the tall and frail Couchiniti biting his right forearm. Couchiniti did this whenever halted from giving the hall a verbal round of his antiquated conjecture.

  Seeing the sulking crafter suckling on his arm made Sulliac the Loyal hungry, so he stuck his fingers in his mouth and licked at the rhizopus that had accumulated from his ascent of the waxy wattle.

  Hearing the sucking and slurping made the king hungry too, so he began cleaning between his toes. The three snacking statesmen did not hear the low rumbling outside, nor were they able to see the blinding white light that blanketed the countryside. Hot winds blew at the walls of the dining hall as trees and small buildings were swept away. Another rumble followed as the ground began to shake.

  “Another quake!” the ever-
observant king shouted as the hall began shaking. “Let’s celebrate!”

  The vibrating building knocked Sulliac the Loyal from his perch and he fell hard onto the table below. Luckily, he fell feet first and was able to cushion the impact with his legs.

  Couchiniti’s easels fell over and palettes of paint and brushes were knocked to the dirty marble floor. A large clay bust of Couchiniti fell from its podium and shattered. Couchiniti grabbed up his paintings while the king danced at the base of his throne. Then it was over.

  In unison, the three men sat down on their tattered throwdowns and laughed. They laughed for many minutes as tears welled and flowed from their eyes. The king’s sides began to hurt, but he kept laughing. He was happy for the extra light and warmth that had crept into the hall. Moreover, he was ever so grateful that the ugly bust of Couchiniti was ruined.

  “Our new throwdowns should be here by nightfall,” he cried. “I can’t wait.”

  “Hear, hear, O Great King,” Sulliac the Loyal sang. “Hear, hear, O Great King.”

  #

  A Child’s Tale of Learning

  A YOUNG BOY in Ridgewood discovered a question. It was awkward and new and he didn’t know what to do with it, so he gave it to his mother. She gently took it and with her son, looked at it in the yellow rays of the summer sunlight. Then she handed him an answer. It fit perfectly in his little hands and made him warm and happy. He found more questions in many sizes, all too many for him to carry at once, so he took what he could to his mother; she replaced each one with a perfect-fitting answer.

  At the elementary school, he found many more questions and, like at home, he carried what he could to his teachers. Some gave him answers that fit well in his hands, but other teachers gave him questions—BIG questions—in return for his questions. As he grew older, the questions his teachers gave him increased in size and quantity until eventually he became overly burdened and tired from receiving their questions in return for his.

  He took some of their questions home and his mother was able to give him well-fitting answers for them. But as their questions grew bigger, so did her answers until they became too big for his hands. On his way to school, he often dropped and broke the big answers and had nothing to give his teachers, except tiny answers that didn’t fit their big questions. They scolded him for mishandling his answers until he finally stopped giving them any answers at all. He even kept his questions to himself.

  His mother became concerned that he wasn’t bringing home any more questions, and at school his teachers were concerned because he had stopped giving them answers.

  “I don’t want to give you answers,” the boy said. “I want you to give them to me.”

  His teachers said he was being selfish. “Students must give proper answers in return of our questions, not vice versa.”

  “But you only want answers that fit right to your questions,” he said. “I can only give you answers that fit right in my hands. Anything more is too much to carry.”

  His teachers merely looked at each other in dismay and gave him more questions. Big questions. Heavy questions. They told him to look in libraries for answers; they said to search in universities, too. But the libraries were crowded and the universities too far away, so he lugged around their questions and tried to find answers elsewhere. However, everywhere he looked was void of the right-sized answers. Along the way, he dropped and broke them. Eventually, he gave his teachers his leftover answers, which they returned unaccepted. Too small, they said; try again.

  Eventually, his load of big questions became too heavy to carry, so he dragged them behind him until one day he strayed off course and ended up at a riverbank. He rested with his burden, sorted through the mess of jumbled questions, and found his own unanswered questions lying at the bottom.

  He felt that he had failed his teachers and mother, and even himself terribly. Convinced that he would never find the right answers to any of his questions, he pushed them into the river until he was free of every one. Suddenly and without warning, a spinning wind swept across the water, picked up his questions, and flew them into the sky straight toward the sun. Then a hundred answers fell upon him, all perfectly sized to fit in his hands. He sprang about, gathered them into his arms, felt their perfection, and gave thanks to the wind for its bounty. In reply, a voice spoke from the sun and told him to return every day and throw one question into the river. If so, he would be blessed with many answers from above.

  To this day, he has made good on that promise. And every day the river, wind, sky and sun blesses him a thousand times over with their answers.

  #

  Tales for Adults

  Dragon Slayer

  TALL AND LANKY Leo Nash followed short and shapely Emily Umberto from the library to the faculty lounge. It was ninth and final period at Ridgewood High School. It was also a free period for both teachers, and each of them carried a colorful wrapped gift. Leo sat at the center table and smiled when the gorgeous dark-haired woman sat opposite him; he tried not to appear anxious as he slid the long box of chocolate covered cherries to her.

  “Happy birthday,” he said.

  Emily smiled and said, “To you, too,” as she slid a longer and larger gift-wrapped box to him. “Open it. Hurry.” She was dressed in a simple white tunic blouse and a gray flared skirt. Her long, shiny hair and bright emerald eyes lit up her otherwise drab attire.

  Leo paused, spellbound by how bright in color her eyes were. Their gorgeous green had taken his breath the first day they met a month ago August when she arrived to teach seventh grade algebra.

  He pulled away his gaze, studied the gift for a moment, and then tore away the green wrapping paper that had HAPPY BIRTHDAY written on it in colorful bursts of printing. He kept his surprise and exuberance low-key when he took the gift out of its box. “You shouldn’t have,” he said as he opened the silver lid of the laptop computer.

  “Turn her on. The battery is charged and she’s ready to go. She has everything, too—including some games for when you need a break.” She lowered her voice. “I added one of my favorites. I know you’ll do well at it.”

  Leo powered on the computer and said, “You really shouldn’t have. These things are expensive and all I got you was—”

  “Never mind what it cost. I know you need a new one, so…”

  Leo grinned when the screen came on and Emily’s youthful face filled the space. “I love the desktop background,” he said. He looked around, ready to show off his gift to the two other teachers in the room. But as usual, neither seemed to notice him. Kathy Richards leafed through a Readers Digest at the beat-up brown sofa in front of the far wall. Behind her, the room’s only window wore a slatted blind that seemed to have been installed during the Nixon era. Her expensive Princess Diana hairstyle, cosmetic face and ruby red fingernails had attracted recently divorced Frank Hallstead, who had just poured himself a cup of coffee and now advanced on her like a walrus to tuna. He wasted no time trying to talk her into his leased Porsche after school.

  “He’s such a pig,” Emily whispered. “Do you know he hit on me my first day?” She shook her head. “But I knew right away that you were the one for me.”

  Leo blushed.

  “Take her for a spin,” Emily said, nodding at the computer and smiling flirtatiously. “Just don’t show the others the photos I put in your pictures folder.”

  “Oh?” Leo looked puzzled. Then, “Oh!” His cheeks reddened deeper.

  Emily rose from the table and fetched her unopened chocolates. “I left my gradebook behind at the library. I’ll be back in a few.” Before she strode away, she said, “Definitely try out the game I put on there. It’s called Dragon Slayer, my favorite game of all.”

  Leo looked down at his gift and knew he had found someone who truly loved him. His long fingers slid over the sleek computer and he was gladdened to know that Emily planned to stay awhile. Maybe into old age.

  Grinning wide, Leo went through the menu of games: Solitaire, Hearts, Fr
eecell, Minesweeper, as well as some he had never heard of. Then he found Dragon Slayer and opened it.

  CHOOSE YOUR SKILL LEVEL, the computer screen said.

  He chose BEGINNER from the options offered.

  The screen came to life as a red, fire-breathing dragon swooped down from a velvet star-filled sky and laid to waste in a fiery breath the Tolkien-esque village below. Elflike people ran screaming from wooden houses and stone buildings into the cobbled streets.

  Leo marveled the lifelike graphics while, within seconds, the dragon destroyed the living. Red words filled the screen as the dragon and village disappeared into blackness. GAME OVER—0 POINTS.

  Leo clicked a key and brought the dragon’s fury to life again. He pressed the Ctrl keypad. A centaur stepped out of the shadows and shot gold arrows from a gold bow at the dragon. Every shot missed and the dragon destroyed the village again.

  GAME OVER—0 POINTS.

  He tried again with Ctrl and Alt. The centaur sent an arrow into the dragon’s tail. It screeched and banked away into the yellow glow of a full moon. Then it veered back. Little people ran. The centaur shouted orders to unseen comrades. A maiden stepped from an armament shop and gave the centaur a blue arrow.

  “Shoot at its heart,” the dark-haired maiden said.

  Leo was stunned to hear Emily’s voice come from the computer’s speakers. He looked up. Frank had pulled his attention from Kathy and was looking over at him.

  “What’cha doin’, Nash?” the almost-bald man called out. “Playing one of those new computer games? I’m surprised. I took you for a book nerd only. Never thought you were a game nerd too.”