Jackals

by Charles L. Grant

  He brought her into a small bedroom, eased her onto the mattress of a double bed, and she sobbed at the cool soft sheets, at the pillow, at the overwhelming feeling that she hadn’t made it after all, that somehow, between there and here, she had failed, and she had died.

  “Look, I’m not a doctor,” he said, deep voice apologetic but determined to do something.

  She shook her head carefully; it didn’t matter. All she wanted was for the pain to go away, just long enough to let her sleep.

  “If this hurts …”

  She almost laughed.

  Her eyes fluttered closed as he looked her over in the dim glow of a small bedside lamp. It was safer in there, in the dark spotted with flashes of pale color. But she could hear him apologizing for the phone not working, and for his clumsiness. He would do the best he could to make her comfortable.

  “Anything broken? Your head, I think you may … Were you … uh … did someone …”

  She shook her head again, lashes fluttering at the pain that nearly made her blind. What a beautiful voice. Not pretty, not quite hoarse.

  He was gone, then, but before she panicked, she heard the sweet sounds of repair: running water in a sink, the soft warmth of a cloth that moved across her face, her hands and arms, her feet; hissing as he saw the roads debris clinging to her skin; muttering as he plucked the shards and pebbles out with tweezers, sparking single flames that died as soon as they were born. The cloth again, and it felt so damn good. Whistling tunelessly to himself, and apologizing every ten seconds for a real or imagined hurt.

  She didn’t move.

  She let him have her.

  She didn’t stiffen when he unfastened her jeans and pulled them too slowly off her legs; she didn’t fight when he unbuttoned her shirt and draped it open, when he gently, ever so gently, pushed her hair away from her brow.

  Yes, she thought when he inhaled sharply at the sight; tell me about it.

  Warm cloth, warm water.

  The dirt was going away.

  A gentle air pocket easing her down as he sat on the edge of the mattress, working on her stomach, breathing softly through his mouth.

  “I think it looks worse than it is.”

  Don’t you believe it, she thought, but she didn’t open her eyes.

  “You fell a long way, it looks like.” He chuckled when she didn’t answer. “Or somebody whipped you a good one with a birch rod.”

  She managed a smile. It wasn’t much, she felt it waver, but it made him happy, and she didn’t want him to stop. The sharpest pain had finally been banished, replaced by an aching lodged deep in her bones and muscles, and for the first time since moonrise she was able to let herself think of something else besides the screaming.

  That’s when she opened her eyes.

  He was there, wringing a soiled cloth into a plastic bucket. He had thrown a shirt on, but hadn’t buttoned it, and the thickness she had noticed earlier was clearly untoned muscle, a middle-aged man who had nothing to prove by looking like a god. His face wasn’t smooth; he spent a lot of time outdoors. His hair was white, not grey, and she bet herself it had been that way for more years than he wanted. When he turned his head, she tried a smile; when he smiled back, her own smile worked.

  “Jim,” he said. “Jim Scott.”

  “Rachel.”

  He nodded, and she saw him caught by her eyes, pale and dark—your best feature, dear, don’t tart them up, you know how you get—until he blinked, frowned, reached to the footboard and unfolded a sheet over her. It was impossibly soft, and her hands clutched it, felt it, wondered if it was flannel. Not that she cared now. She could feel the exhaustion working its swift way from sole to aching shoulder, blurring her vision as he stood and watched her.

  “It’s close to dawn,” he said at last. “Sleep as long as you want. You’re going to need it. I’ll go into town later, get some more disinfectant. You want to see a doctor?”

  “No,” she answered, but not too quickly. “I think … I think I’ll be okay:”

  “That bump. Could be a concussion.”

  “No. I just want to … no.”

  His smile was one-sided—your funeral—and he closed the door behind him .

  Leaving her alone, in the dark.

  With the moon.

  With the roar of an engine, a beast, and bobbing, swinging white lights that may have been eyes but they were so damn big and so damn bright, and an abrupt silence that wasn’t quiet at all but filled with tiny noises as the white eyes, the white lights, snapped off and there was nothing left but the dark.

  With the silence.

  With the moon.

  With the certainty even in sleep that someone was out there, just waiting for her to die.

  In the silence.

  With the moon.

  And with the sun when she awoke, pushing a glaring halo around the shade pulled over the pane to the sill. It was late morning, early afternoon, but it felt just like twilight, and she eased the sheet away to examine herself, paying no attention to the fragments of the dream lurking still in the comers.

  Dreams end.

  She was still here.

  She looked at herself and didn’t know whether it was finally time to cry.

  God, she thought; good God.

  Except for her panties, she was naked, and she could see it all.

  She inhaled slowly, hissing quietly as she traced the bruises and scratches laced across her body. Then she prodded a little with her left hand, testing her rib cage, her hips, bracing herself awkwardly on one elbow as she poked at her thighs. Her right knee throbbed; her ankles were slightly swollen; and she felt as if she had lost a hundred pounds during the night.

  a lady carries her weight properly, no matter how much she weighs.

  She sighed. Her mother was, not to be unkind, fat; she herself had always been willow slender. Not much for the men to look at these days, and certainly not now.

  But at least she wasn’t dead.

  Another ache brought a finger over her brow, trembling as it traced the swelling there, not daring to probe the lump itself But the size of it made her whimper; an inch or two lower, and she wouldn’t have that left eye.

  Blinded like that, there was no question, she would die.

  Slowly, very slowly, swallowing hard and fast, she sat all the way up, and carefully, very carefully, rubbed her eyes until she could see without sparks and rockets, then held her breath until her stomach surged and settled. The room was as small as she had supposed it was: just large enough for the single bed, a pine dresser, a trunk against the wall beside the dresser, a ladder-back chair and nightstand beside the bed. Nothing on the floor. Nothing on the walls.

  A tickle in her throat made her cough once, and she was about to try to stand and find the bathroom, when she saw a tray on the nightstand, a glass; and a clear pitcher of water with condensation on the sides. When she touched it, it was cool; when she drank, it was heaven.

  And as she drank, she listened for the voice of the house, and heard nothing.

  She cocked her head.

  He was gone.

  Suddenly she yawned. Stretched carefully. Pointed her toes. Ignored the jabs of protest in joints and along her bones. Then she lay back down and pulled the sheet to her chin. Though the door was closed, she could feel a draft of cool air, scanned the walls again and discovered a small vent up near the ceiling. Central air, she thought; must be nice.

  Well, he was nice too, so she supposed it all worked out. What she had to do now was rest, banish the aches and stinging, clear her head so she could think, and in thinking, figure out what to do next. Meanwhile, she allowed the weight of sleep to return to her side, sinking her back into the mattress, back into the down pillow, back to the country where the moon didn’t reside.

  Silence only.

  No dreams.

  No moon.

  No great white beast with white staring eyes.

  And out again, into a room that had furnished itself with shadows
while she slept.

  She sat up abruptly, alarmed, and was about to swing her legs over the edge of the mattress when dizziness spun her vision and slammed her back to the pillow. She gasped and pressed the heels of her hands to her temples, squeezing out the pain that replaced the spinning.

  I’m going to throw up.

  Deep slow breaths through her open mouth. Staring blindly at the ceiling. A palm that cupped her belly until at last the nausea passed.

  Girl, she thought, you’re not going anywhere.

  When the door opened a few minutes later, she grabbed the sheet and yanked it to her chin, knowing it had been Jim who had undressed her, but this wasn’t quite the same.

  “How you doing?”

  “Awful.”

  “Happens when you get beat up like that.” He swung the chair away from the wall, turned it, and sat with his arms folded over the low back. “You sure you don’t want a doctor?”

  She nodded, and wished she hadn’t. Her eyes closed. She swallowed convulsively, almost in a panic.

  “There’s a bowl on the floor there,” he said. “Just in case you don’t make it.”

  “Thanks,” she managed.

  “No problem.” She heard him breathing, felt him watching her. “They fixed the line this morning. I can bring a phone in if you want. Someone you need to call?”

  She thought of Momma, and shook her head.

  “Then you want to tell me what happened?”

  She wanted to sit up, but her head and stomach wouldn’t let her; she wanted to stare out the window but the fading light was still too bright around the edges of the shade; she thought of telling him to mind his own business. Despite what he had done for her, she didn’t feel an obligation. He had saved her, nothing more.

  Her eyes opened, but she didn’t say a thing.

  He rested his chin on his arm. “See, the reason I ask, and I know it’s not really any of my business, but I was over there this afternoon.” He gestured vaguely over his shoulder. “Potar Ridge. It’s a place where the kids go when they want to mess around without being hassled. You know the kind of place? So I was up there, checking around, and I ran into Maurice Lion.” He grinned, and raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know Maurice, hut he’s a hell of a guy. Black fella, always wears a white suit even in the middle of winter. I told him, Maurice, you get lost in a blizzard, we ain’t gonna find you till spring. Tallest man I ever saw, too. And not a stitch of hair on his head. He shaves it every morning.” He laughed quietly, shook his head. “He also happens to be a preacher.”

  She watched his features shift as the light dimmed and the room freed the rest of its shadows. The lines were still there, and the set of his jaw, but he didn’t look the same anymore. She wasn’t sure yet if she ought to be afraid.

  “Anyway, old Maurice, he’s been trying to set himself a big brass cross up there. To keep the sinners away, he says. I say he just wants to advertise his chapel, which is down the road a bit more, a couple of miles. You can see the Ridge from the interstate on a good day. But when I saw him, he was stomping around, hollering, shaking his fists at heaven, you never saw him so you don’t know how scary that can be.”

  She didn’t know, but she could imagine it. It was in his tone, and the way his eyes narrowed slightly.

  “So naturally, I asked him what the hell he was doing, scaring all the crows and critters halfway to Kentucky, and he starts yelling about the place being desecrated, how the sinners have ruined the divine perfection of his natural temple—that’s what he called it, his natural temple—and how he’d probably have to perform an exorcism to cleanse it before he could put up the cross.

  “So I asked him again. Maurice, what in God’s name are you foaming about?

  “Jim, he said, they were using that rock and roll here last night. You know the kind I mean, the kind that calls up the Devil and makes children crazy.

  “Maurice has a thing about rock ’n’ roll.

  “Anyway, he goes over to the edge and points, nearly falling over he was so angry. It’s not a far drop, and it’s not very steep, but I could see that a car had smashed through the brush, knocked over a couple of saplings. When I looked down, I saw it, and damn if the radio still wasn’t playing. Hell of a battery. Took me most part of two hours just to calm him down and send him home.”

  He looked at her squarely.

  “I climbed down there, Rachel, after he left. The car had been stripped pretty clean except for that dumb radio. No suitcases, no nothing. You know how far it is from there to here?”

  She felt nothing; she shook her head.

  “A couple three miles, give or take, going the long way around. Damn, but that’s one hell of a walk out there. In the middle of the night.”

  A nervous hand fussed through the tangles of her hair.

  “Tell you what,” he said, swinging easily to his feet. “You think about it, I’ll get you something to eat.”

  “Oh God, no,” she said quickly, stomach already churning. “I don’t think I could—”

  “Soup, that’s all,” he answered. “You gotta have something.”

  He left before she could protest again, leaving the hall door ajar, letting in the light as the light outside drifted back over the mountains. Her hands fisted, she drew her lower lip between her teeth. She hated this, the helplessness, and worse because she was in the house of a … stranger wasn’t quite the right word, but it was close enough, for now. Considering all that had happened, she was a little surprised she felt as safe as she did; considering all that had happened, all that still could, she was surprised she wasn’t screaming.

  He was back so quickly it took her a moment to realize she’d been dozing. She blinked rapidly to wake herself up, and smiled when she saw the tray in his hands, and the long T-shirt draped over his shoulder. He put the tray on the nightstand and dropped the T-shirt on the mattress.

  “Make yourself decent,” he said with a lopsided smile. “I’ll be back in a second.”

  She did, smelling him on the cloth and shivering a little before sitting up and easing the tray across her legs. There was buttered bread, crackers, and a bowl of soup that smelled wonderful, and as she took the first taste—nearly laughing aloud; it was chicken noodle from a can—he returned with a sandwich in one hand, a bottle of beer in the other. He took his seat the same way, set the bottle on the floor, and watched her fumble with the first spoonful.

  “You want me to help?”

  She looked at him without raising her head. “I haven’t been fed since I was a baby.”

  He shrugged.

  She ate, not realizing how hungry she had been until her stomach ceased its rebellion and let itself be filled.

  They didn’t speak.

  In the middle of a swallow, she thought: If I tell him, I’ll scream.

  It nearly choked her.

  Aware of his watching, she took her time, trying to decide what she ought to do. She had no idea why he hadn’t called the police, especially after he had discovered the car and its condition; and there was no way she was going to trust this man blindly. But she still didn’t know. He hadn’t touched her, not that way, and he hadn’t demanded answers. A quick smile, there and gone. Well, it wasn’t exactly a demand, but he did want to know, and if she didn’t tell him something that was at least vaguely plausible, he’d probably … what?

  She didn’t know that either.

  So maybe she ought to just tell him the truth.

  young ladies don’t lie, dear, they embroider; and they never tell the whole truth if they can avoid it, and that’s why you’ll make one very fine leader one of these days.

  Oh, Momma, she thought wearily, why the hell don’t you stay away?

  So what to do, damnit?

  Play it by ear; there was really no other choice.

  Besides, you got away from them once, you can do it again if you have to.

  He finished the sandwich, leaned over to pick up the bottle, and froze when she said calmly, “They tri
ed to kill me.”

  The silence was so great, he almost tipped the tray over when he set the bottle back down and looked at her, not quite frowning.

  “Who?” he asked.

  She stared so fiercely at the soup bowl that her eyes began to water, and she slapped them dry with a finger, not wanting him to think the memory made her cry. It could have; she just didn’t want it to.

  What it did was make her mad.

  “It’s okay, you know,” he told her calmly. “If it’s private business, something like that, you don’t have to say anything. You don’t owe me.”

  Jesus, she wondered, what the hell is this guy?

  But she knew that one already.

  She rubbed a finger briskly beneath her nose, then over her upper lip, before gesturing that she wanted her legs free to move. He moved quickly, taking up the tray, putting it on the nightstand, pulling another pillow from the dresser’s bottom drawer so she could sit up without slumping.

  He sat.

  He watched.

  She couldn’t help thinking of a big old dog, lying on a porch, just waiting for her to notice him.

  But she knew in that same moment this big old dog had very large teeth.

  It unnerved her and, without understanding why, made her feel safe.

  It shouldn’t have; it definitely shouldn’t have.

  She focused on the open doorway.

  “I’ve been living in Los Angeles the past year or so,” she began when she didn’t think her voice would crack, “and decided to come home for a while. Virginia, that’s where I used to live. Just outside Richmond.”

  Nothing had worked out. Aspirations of stardom, then minor stardom, then any part she could find didn’t die hard, they just took a long time dying. Playing the game didn’t work because she couldn’t keep track of the rules, and she had a disturbing penchant for saying what was on her mind instead of what she was supposed to tell those who pretended to listen. So she fell back on her degree to do some paralegal work until she’d made up her mind what the hell she really wanted; and when she decided she would rather starve in a familiar place than under the sun in California, she sold what she could, gave away the rest, and bought a used car to take her home.