Blood Fugue

by D'Lacey, Joseph

  She pushed:

  ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What is your name?’

  The sallow man didn’t answer for a while. When he did his voice was so low she almost did not hear him.

  ‘I lost my name a long time ago.’

  Chapter 30

  The single room of the shack was mausoleum silent and no sounds came in from outside. It was gloomy inside, but the windows allowed enough light for Nicholas to see straight away what he’d hoped someone else would find.

  Isobel’s hand found Nicholas’s. Both sets of fingers squeezed until they hurt the other’s but the contact was all they had.

  ‘Do you think it’s them?’ asked Isobel, her voice dry and cracked.

  Nick nodded. It had to be the two missing boys. No attempt had been made to hide anything. Their clothes were strewn across the floor and the bed, as if removed in haste. Their backpack lay open on the other side of the bed near the fireplace. An empty liquor bottle lay on its side, the back of its label showing white through the glass. A few cigarette butts and roaches lay in a rusted skillet that had doubled as an ashtray. There was a lingering smell of burnt wood. The sleeping bags were still on the bed, rumple and twisted. Nick couldn’t picture Gina on that bed but it had to be a possibility. Nauseous, he broke a prickly sweat

  Two naked, shrivelled forms sat opposite each other with an antique tin washtub sitting empty between them. The skin of each boy was husky like parchment, drawn tight across their bones. Nicholas could see the dryness of their bodies — as though the skin might crumble at a single touch. Even the boys’ hair seemed frizzy and desiccated, their bodies small and childlike; the drying process had shrunk them. The empty tub suggested water and wetness in some perverse way. The scene was like the installation of some demented artist. In each boy’s stomach there was a hole no larger than kernel of dried blue corn. An expression of helplessness remained on both faces. Neither boy was bound or gagged and their bodies showed no other signs of harm or struggle.

  Gina’s parent’s stared in silence for moments out of time before deciding in almost the same instant to retreat into the free air and the comfort of the light.

  Nicholas stood staring at the dead wood of the shack wall.

  ‘It can’t have been Gina,’ he said.

  ‘Nick, please.’

  ‘No one could have . . . she could never do something like . . . I don’t understand what happened to them. It couldn’t have been her. Not our little Geen.’

  His knees gave way and he sank to the ground. When his ass touched his boot heels, his knee joints crackled and he bounced a little, falling sideways. Only then did he put out a hand to stop himself from lying down. Isobel knelt beside him and held his head against her shoulder.

  Finally she pulled away from him.

  ‘We need to radio in to the sheriff. I’m going to tell him what we’ve found.’

  ‘No need for that,’ said a voice nearby. ‘You can show me.’

  Sheriff Powell smiled at them each in turn and stepped past them into the shack. The Priestlys, both standing now, waited while he made his inspection.

  ‘Where the hell did he spring from?’ whispered Nick.

  Isobel never answered; the sheriff’s laughter came first. It sounded like someone watching slapstick; a loud, raucous HAHAHA. It went on for a long time. When Sheriff Powell appeared in the broken doorway, he wiped the tears from his face with a checked handkerchief.

  ‘That’s the best one yet,’ he said when he’d recovered enough to speak. His shoulders still bounced as he thought about it. ‘That girl of yours sure is creative.’

  Nicholas looked briefly at Isobel.

  ‘You’re laughing because it’s a set up, right? This whole damn thing, the bodies, the personal stuff in there, it’s a hoax, isn’t it? Someone’s been stringing us all along.’

  Sheriff Powell smiled with one half of his mouth and blew a brief, unamused jet of air from his nose. Then he looked at them both and shook his head.

  ‘It’s no joke, Mr. Priestly. Gina was hungry and she sucked the juice right out of them. They’re so dry they’ll never even rot. Shake those boys’ heads and you’ll hear the rattle of a nut-sized pebble that was once a brain. She shouldn’t have killed them, though. It was a waste of perfectly good muscle.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘You will soon enough.’

  Nicholas noticed a flash beneath the sheriff’s skin and the hairs rose on his neck. He squeezed Isobel’s hand and mouthed a single word: ‘run’.

  Sheriff Powell unzipped his fly and released his tongues.

  When Kerrigan saw the old man moving along the narrow run through the thickets of the forest with the grace of a wild animal, he knew who he was. Something about the way he moved

  smelled

  filled him with recognition: even a filial closeness. A moment later he saw Carla walking behind him and that remembered bond became a knot of venom. Kerrigan knew that here was the cause of all the harm in the valley. He sensed the power the sallow man hid behind his emaciated frame and cloud grey eyes. Kerrigan knew the man was driven. He knew he was insane.

  Kerrigan slipped as quietly as he could into the depths of the brush to watch as they approached. From his seclusion he reached out with his mind and tried to ascertain whether the sallow man had fed on Carla or infected her. The answer was immediate and definite — he had not yet touched her. There was no stain upon her. As Kerrigan probed the sallow man’s aura, he saw the attack on Gina Priestly. He tensed. His fear for Carla made him want to spring from cover and confront the sallow man. Instinct kept him motionless.

  As they neared his hiding place in the undergrowth, Kerrigan saw the old man stiffen and stop dead. He held a hand out behind him motioning Carla to be still. The sallow man squinted into the trees and sniffed the air. His eyes rolled up into his head for a moment revealing whites shot through with diseased lavender cracks. Silently, Kerrigan removed two binders, one from each wrist sheath and readied himself to leap. His heartbeat accelerated and the iron taste of fear filled his mouth. He felt the Lethean within clawing to take over. The hunter in Kerrigan wanted nothing more than to take the tomahawk and end the old Fugue’s filthy existence right there. Here was the writer of the letter, the one who had condemned him to this half-life. Kerrigan could be done with it in a swift, furious moment and then turn all his energy toward destroying the tree.

  The sallow man’s pupils rolled back into view and he looked right at Kerrigan. He didn’t believe the sallow man could see him but it wasn’t seeing that mattered; the old Fugue knew he was there. He could sense it the way Kerrigan could sense the old man’s evil.

  When the sallow man looked Kerrigan’s way it was with love and the ache of separation. Behind that look Kerrigan smelled rather than saw his true intention; the sallow man wanted him dead. He wanted no Fugue Hunter ever to walk the earth again. Kerrigan also realised the sallow man had the power to follow through, and for the first time, he knew fear even in his Lethean state. The sallow man smiled to himself and walked on as if Kerrigan did not exist.

  Kerrigan watched as they made their way back to the arbour and waited until they were out of sight. Carla had become even more alluring than when the family had come to his cabin. Her vulnerability had a disturbingly erotic effect on him.

  If he could separate Carla from the sallow man, it would be a start. He broke from cover and stood breathing heavily in the cramped run. He didn’t want a battle now but he had no way of stopping them from reaching the tree without confronting them or at least causing them some kind of distraction.

  Swift and light-footed, he closed the distance until he could make out Carla a few yards ahead. The sallow man had said something to amuse her and she was laughing. The connection growing between them, one the sallow man was forging and manipulating, had to be halted before he gained her trust completely.

  They were a only
few hundred yards from the arbour by the time he’d resolved to act. Reaching what he hoped was a safe distance, Kerrigan called out:

  ‘Carla!’

  She turned immediately she heard his voice, recognising it without even seeing him. That would go in his favour. The sallow man, on hearing him shout halted and turned very slowly, his lips pressed into a tight line, his expression sombre and dangerous.

  ‘Mr. Kerrigan?’ said Carla.

  ‘You can call me Jimmy.’ He smiled as he said it, making eye contact with her. He had some catching up to do.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ she asked.

  ‘I was worried about you all. I came to check how you were doing and met your mom and Luis heading back to the Eastern Path. They told me what happened. Your dad’s waiting for you in the arbour.’ He settled his gaze on the sallow man ‘This gentleman a friend of yours?’

  She glanced at the sallow man seeing him the way Kerrigan wanted her to: a broken down old man with long hair and torn clothes leading a young girl through the woods.

  ‘Uh, I don’t know. I guess so.’

  The sallow man stayed quiet. He must have known there was no way his identity would survive the meeting.

  ‘I’m escorting the child back to her parents,’ he said. His voice had the dry reedy quality of the aged but behind it there was a hiss that sounded powerful and inhuman. Carla didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Oh, that’s good,’ Kerrigan said, addressing her. ‘They’re worried about you.’

  ‘We should hurry to the arbour,’ said the sallow man.

  ‘Wait,’ said Carla. ‘You saw Luis, how was he? Do you think he’ll be okay?’

  ‘They’re all fine but your friend is right, we should get back as quick as we can.’

  The sallow man held his hand out to Carla but she hesitated to take it and Kerrigan was glad.

  ‘Come child, your family awaits.’ His voice was commanding and she almost gave in to him.

  ‘I should take you from here,’ Kerrigan said, ignoring the sallow man. ‘I kind of see it as my duty to look after hikers.’

  ‘We’re wasting time, Carla. Let us go.’ Using her name was a mistake on the sallow man’s part. It jarred with her and she didn’t budge.

  ‘Can you just tell me how Luis is, Jimmy? How bad is his hand?’

  A spasm of undisguised rage passed over the sallow man’s face and Kerrigan saw his body jerk and twitch as something within him came loose.

  ‘We’re leaving,’ said Kerrigan. ‘Now.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No way. I want to know what happened to Luis.’

  ‘He’s fine, Carla, absolutely fine. There’s nothing wrong with his hand. By now he and your mom are probably well along the trail back to Hobson’s Valley. We should try and catch them up.’

  Carla turned to the sallow man.

  ‘But you said —’ she began and didn’t finish.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I said, child.’ His voice was a wet growl. He managed to stay standing despite the convulsions rippling through his body. ‘You belong to the tree now.’

  ‘Run to me, Carla, as fast as you can.’ Kerrigan saw her hesitate a moment longer, turning her eyes toward the sallow man. ‘Don’t look! RUN!’

  She’d had a glimpse of him by then, seen the lavender fluid pulsing through his now visible blood vessels. Caught, perhaps, a hint of the changes to the shape of his limbs and head. Seen one of his tongues unravelling from his body.

  Carla ran to Kerrigan.

  Having her between him and his target in such a narrow space made throwing binders almost impossible. He risked bruising or cutting her in order to inflict more severe damage on the sallow man. The ancient forest vagrant slipped from Fugue to Rage in seconds, his growls becoming screams of frustration and insanity. It was the swiftest transformation Kerrigan had witnessed.

  He loosed two binders in rapid succession, one from his right hand and one from his left, angling them to curve inward only after passing Carla. He didn’t think she even saw them as they spun past her. She did the right thing and kept on running.

  Hearing the song of the binders brought a temporary halt to the sallow man’s metamorphosis. His crazed eyes fixed on Kerrigan and he leapt into the thorns and brush as if they posed not the slightest obstacle to him. Both binders missed, disappearing uselessly into the soil several yards further on. The contact snuffed their harmony in two barely spaced thuds.

  Carla reached Kerrigan and fell into his arms.

  ‘Don’t let him take me, Jimmy. Please.’ She sobbed hysterical tears into his neck as she clung to him. The touch of her was so fresh and trusting it hurt. He wanted to end that innocence.

  ‘Stay behind me at all times,’ he said, stepping between her and the place where the sallow man had disappeared. He pulled two more binders from their slots and placed a third around her neck on a leather thong. ‘Don’t lose it this time.’

  He crept forward. Getting back to the arbour was the only option they had. Waiting would bring nightfall, a Fugue’s ally and Kerrigan’s foe.

  ‘What are you doing?’ hissed Carla. ‘That’s the way he went.’

  ‘We have to bind him or destroy him. Otherwise he’ll stalk us all night. Chances are he’ll win if we fight him after the sun goes down. I’m sorry. We have to go forward.’

  They moved down the track until they were level with the place where the sallow man had leapt into the brush.

  Despite his increased size, he’d hardly disturbed the foliage at all. Kerrigan couldn’t see where he’d gone and he sensed a gloom settling over the trail that he recognised all to well. He pressed on for the arbour. As they passed the place where the binders had impacted he dug his fingers deep into the soft earth and retrieved them. He knew he was going to need every one of them.

  Wanting only to catch up to his wife and son as quickly as he could, José removed the tent and other non-essential items from his pack and left them in the arbour. What he still carried was heavy enough, but he did his best to set a fast pace, interspersing a forced march with jogging to make up the ground. He didn’t want to exhaust himself and was conscious of his limits, but every time he thought about the tree and the woman who had become the tree’s ‘pet’, he broke into a run.

  He reached the Eastern path in better time than he’d anticipated and the going became a little easier. Still, he did not relax the pace. Thoughts of the dangers his family might face without him goaded him on and he used his fear for them as a whip to his conscience when his legs felt like giving way.

  Eventually, he had to rest. He cursed his body for its weakness and his mind for lacking the toughness to continue, but there was no use in being totally spent when he caught them up; the journey would be far from over even then. He dropped his backpack and sat on the ground with his back against it. He planned to take half an hour rest; ten minutes spent drinking water and massaging his calf muscles and twenty minutes sleeping. He’d always been able to program himself to wake up from his afternoon siestas at exactly the right time.

  When he snapped into wakefulness there was a chill in the air that had penetrated to his bones. When he tried to move, his muscles were stiff and slow to respond. He looked at his watch and saw that almost an hour had gone by.

  ‘Mierda,’ he said and struggled to his feet.

  A veil of lilac shadow had turned the Eastern Path into a twilight corridor. Looking up he saw that the sky was overcast. There were still a couple of hours before sunset. Perhaps he could catch up to them that same night if he pushed the pace.

  Now the light was failing, seeing them again was all he could think about. He considered the weight of the pack and decided to leave it behind; it was sapping too much of his strength. From it he took a flashlight and some energy bars and water, stuffing everything into the pockets of his jacket. Lighter now, he ran on, westward on the Eastern path.

  Even without the pack his legs hurt but he no longer allowed himself to march. He would run until he fo
und them.

  Chapter 31

  Luis stayed close to his mother. It was becoming too dark to see the way ahead easily. Twice Luis’s mother stumbled, putting out her hand to him to steady herself.

  ‘This is where we make camp for tonight, Luis.’

  ‘But I can still see. Can’t we go just a little farther?’

  ‘You may be able to see, but my eyes aren’t as young as yours. If one of us sprains an ankle . . .’ He heard the tension in her voice. ‘This is far enough.’

  Luis walked to the edge of the path and slung his pack to the ground.

  ‘You think we should make camp off the trail like before?’ he asked.

  ‘No. What if your father comes looking for us? He could walk right by.’

  ‘We’d hear him wouldn’t we?’

  Maria sighed.

  ‘I don’t want to take the chance that we might sleep right through his arrival,’ she said.

  Luis pulled out his sleeping bag, wishing it was waterproof, and laid it alongside the trees so his feet wouldn’t stick out into the trail. He knew he’d be damp all over with dew come the dawn.

  ‘Is there anything to eat?’

  ‘There are some cereal bars but control yourself otherwise we’ll be starving by the time we reach the car.’

  ‘I can’t wait to go for a burger at that place we passed on the way in.’

  ‘When we get there you can eat all you want.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  The darkness was complete as Luis crunched through two cereal bars, savouring them as best he could. He could hear his mother making her own arrangements with her sleeping bag and he took the opportunity to wander a little further along the track and relieve himself before he turned in for the night.

  ‘Don’t go far,’he heard her call softly after him.

  As he stood aiming his pee into the trees and trying to make as quiet a splash as possible, he heard a branch snap some distance away. The stream he was making dried up. Even though he still had a good way to go before he was finished, he zipped up and listened into the darkness.