Applewood (Book 3): The Space of Life Between

by Myers, Brendan P.

  The Space of

  Life

  Between

  Brendan P. Myers

  Exigua Publishing

  Boston ● St. Petersburg

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The Space of Life Between

  Copyright © 2016 by Brendan P. Myers

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction

  in whole or in part in any form.

  bpmyers.blogspot.com

  First Kindle Edition: May 2016

  Cover image “Tropical Landscape” by Frederic Edwin Church

  The Space of

  Life

  Between

  Prologue

  Chalatenango Province, El Salvador

  August, 1985

  Darkness had fallen ages ago. The injured man lay just above the banks of a rain swollen river that had earlier come close to drowning him, yet in a twist worthy of O. Henry, had almost certainly saved his life. The current dragged him at least a mile, he estimated, in one of his more lucid moments. He had been drifting in and out of consciousness for the past several hours. Most recently, he’d been hallucinating half remembered movie moments.

  His whirling tumble down the cliffside brought to mind the classic line: “Hell, the fall will probably kill ya!” More soberly, he recalled the end of that Australian movie, the one where the two men are about to be executed for following orders: “This is what comes of empire building.” He had no doubt it was empire building alone that had left him cold, damp, shivering, and bleeding out on the soft muddy banks of this Godforsaken river in this pitiable country.

  A stabbing pain coursed through him that might have doubled him over, if doing so didn’t hurt even more. That was another hard lesson he’d learned only recently. Clenching his teeth, he drove his fingernails into the wet dirt until it receded into just a dull throb. He could live with the dull throb. It’s funny the things you can get used to, he thought, and the idea of that struck him funny.

  He came close to laughing, but restrained himself, knowing the physical act of laughter would only bring more pain. Still, it was funny. He was a city boy, for Christ’s sake. He’d never even been camping. These past few hours had been just about all his worst nightmares rolled into one, and the gunshot wounds were only part of it. While lying in the mud and listening to the nighttime sounds of the jungle, he assumed that every nearby slithering was a venomous snake come to sink its fangs into his soft, pink flesh; every breezy rustle from the trees above was an exotic beast from some as yet unnamed genus preparing to make its leap and claim the injured gazelle. Eventually, he couldn’t help himself and did let out a groaning chuckle.

  “I went to Cornell!” he shouted.

  The jungle was not impressed. Neither was his damaged belly, and the knifelike pain that shot through his blood-soaked abdomen almost made him lose consciousness again. Tearing up, he gritted his teeth and waited for it to dissipate. Eventually, though slowly, it did.

  With nothing left to do but die, he ran through the events of his day, this time working backwards. The first bullet had only zinged him. Hardly worth mentioning, really. After he crawled onto the riverbank, he gingerly ran his fingers down the left side of his head and felt a wet groove carved into the scalp. It hurt like the dickens and had given him a thrumming headache, but it wasn’t very deep, and he knew that barring infection, it probably wouldn’t kill him.

  However, the second bullet caught him in the belly. It had doubtless sent him into immediate shock, which was likely for the best, because his next act was a twirling, rolling tumble into a steep ravine. That unscheduled maneuver left him with many more scrapes and cuts, but in terms of priorities, he knew those could wait. As fate would have it, his funhouse ride wasn’t over yet, because at the end of his fall, he ended up in the river, and was soon swept away on its strong currents. He gagged and coughed and paddled as best he knew how, all the while feeling scorching fire in both his head and belly.

  Christ, he should have seen it coming. The whole thing had been a setup. The knock on his door. The trip to the village. The massacre of those innocent people. But by then, there was nothing he could have done about any of it. The die had already been cast.

  Jesus, his belly hurt. He needed to investigate that at some point. Just another minute and I’ll do it, he promised himself. Just one more minute. And I’ll do it quickly. Maybe that will hurt less.

  When he summoned the courage, he sat up on his elbow and waited for the nausea to subside. Once it did, he lifted his shirt and looked down at his abdomen, seeing there a bloody hole on the right side, he guessed somewhere in the vicinity of his kidney. Lying down again, he sweated and strained and then rolled over partway, reaching behind him to feel that yes, the bullet had passed through. A wave of agony overtook him when he again set himself flat. Before passing out, he took what comfort he could in knowing that at least in the movies, the bullet going through was usually a good thing.

  How much time went by until he next came to, he had no idea. Looking up, he thought the moon might be a little higher in the night sky. The damn birds may have quieted a little. But the rustling was still there; in fact, there seemed to be more of it. Listening more closely, he heard shuffling noises coming from somewhere over his head, followed by something that sounded like a cough. He started shivering, and not just from cold dampness. There was someone out there, he knew.

  Swiveling his head, he glanced up the bank to the thicket of woods behind him and saw nothing. However, when he turned again to face the river, he saw two hulking shadows with yellowish eyes now lurked nearby. More distressingly, both seemed to be sniffing the air around them as if they smelled his blood.

  Emitting a gurgling croak, he instinctively drew himself backward, but doing that only brought an ocean of pain and more nausea that made him momentarily clamp his eyes shut. Upon opening them, he sensed one of the beasts had moved closer, near enough he could feel its chilly breath on his cheek. He didn’t dare move, but from the corner of his eye watched what appeared to be a fleshy palate of a variety he had never seen before jut from the creature’s mouth. The wet and glistening thing bore upper and lower sets of long and pointy and peculiarly white teeth. The sharpest of them all looked to be the canines, and his bladder let go when it occurred to him they could only be fangs.

  Oddly, he recalled thinking that this night had reawakened just about all his worst nightmares. Well, that checklist was complete, he thought, as his eyes rolled back in his head. Seconds before slipping away again, he heard a gruff voice in Spanish say, “No. We take him with us,” and he somehow found the prospect of that the worst nightmare of them all before mercifully, his mind shut down once more.

  Part I

  “Our diplomatic objectives will not be attained by good will and noble aspirations alone.”

  – Ronald Reagan, on U.S. Policy in Central America

  Chapter One

  1

  The man’s bones creaked noisily as he kicked off the light sheet that had covered him while he slept. Throwing his legs to the floor, he sat on the edge of the bed a moment, first rubbing his eyes and then staring out the sliding glass doors that led to a stone patio overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Beneath the waning moonlight that cast everything in an eerie, silver glow, he saw gently rolling whitecaps gleaming on the surface like frosting on a cake.

  Perhaps sensing his absence, the girl stretched out her thin arm and rolled over into the still
warm space where his body had lain.

  “Como?” she murmured.

  Turning, he smiled contentedly to see her long black hair mussed up against brownish-olive skin. Reaching out, he stroked her back.

  “No es nada,” he whispered, adding, “Vuelve de dormir,” though unnecessarily. She had already drifted off.

  Standing, he took a long stretch before bending to the floor and pulling up his boxers. Going into the bathroom, he snagged a towel from the closet before sliding open the door and stepping onto the patio, where the morning air was balmy and moist with dew. The crash of pounding surf breaking on the shore below echoed through the night like muffled gunshots. As was his custom, he stood there a while to let the always bracing aroma of eucalyptus fill his nostrils.

  Sliding on a pair of rubber flip-flops, he crossed the patio and padded down three wooden stairs, then walked along a winding path through low-lying sedge and knee high grasses that led the few hundred yards to the beach. Once on the sand, he dropped his towel, shucked his boxers, and ran headlong into the surf.

  When waist deep, he stretched out his arms and dove beneath the surface, the novelty of always deliciously warm water never having worn off. It was certainly more welcoming than the New England beaches of his misspent youth, even in the height of summer. He smiled to think it didn’t have that same patented, scrotum shriveling effect, which was just fine with him.

  Diving deeper, using muscles he had been slowly rebuilding over the past few years, he kicked and swam with powerful strokes for as long as he could before the need for air overcame him and forced him to the surface. He executed the same routine repeatedly until his lungs burned and he bobbed up to rest a while on the moderate swells.

  Gazing up, he noted the sky had grown brighter. Though it still lingered, what moonlight remained was a pale imitation of its former self. To the east, he detected the faint orange glow that portended the coming of daylight. Out of long habit, he had a short-lived moment of alarm, before smiling and plunging beneath the surface. He no longer lived in fear of the rising sun. Those days were over. Thankfully, his nephew no longer needed to rely on his uncle’s sometimes amateurish, more often unsuccessful, protections. So independent was he now that the boy had gone off to live on his own months ago.

  “It’s time, Uncle Dan,” Scott had argued, and though he wanted to, Dan didn’t protest. The boy could more than take care of himself. That much was undeniable. He had proven it time and again. He proved it after his mother died and his father lost himself in drink. He proved it in the crucible of those harrowing nights in his hometown, where bloodthirsty demons had all but conquered his neighborhood. He proved it yet again by virtue of making his own way in the world during the long months Dan had been kept prisoner by his own government. And he proved it at last when he set in motion the events that led to Dan becoming a free man.

  The two had been in Mexico more than three years. It hadn’t been easy, at first, with neither of them speaking a word of Spanish. Of more immediate concern, as a consequence of his nephew’s . . . condition (which the man, perhaps fooling only himself, still thought of as a disease), the boy had special needs. Still, the two had money enough to last a while and all the time in the world. Dan soon discovered that more than offsetting the boy’s unusual necessities were some remarkable new skills. Within a month or so, his nephew spoke Spanish like a native. The man had picked it up too, though more clumsily. He wondered now and again if the quizzical stares he often received were caused not by his broken Spanish, but perhaps more likely, his speaking it with a Boston accent. Then again, being laughed at for a Boston accent was nothing new to him either.

  After crossing the border, the two worked their way south, staying underneath the radar as best they could and avoiding well traveled paths. They slept in burned out storefronts or abandoned houses, any place that would afford them a haven from the accursed sun. Later, when they felt secure enough, they stayed in out of the way motels or pensions, a handful of pesos usually all it took to assure their anonymity and their privacy.

  As for him, to modify his appearance, he shaved the beard he had worn since college and trimmed short what was left of his hair. Scott smiled upon seeing his uncle well coiffed for the first time in his life, telling him he looked like a college professor. Dan decided to take it as a compliment.

  Meanwhile, most everywhere they went, he was continually astounded by the utter kindness of the people they met. Be they poor or poorer, it seemed there was always food for two more, always a place to spend the daylight, if only in the hay of a ramshackle old barn out back. As the months wore on, Dan started putting back on the pounds he had lost during his long confinement. The boy too grew stronger. Whatever he had learned in his own dark months of being lost, not remembering who he was or where he came from, had served him well. In fact, Dan often thought wistfully, he was as healthy now as he may ever be, though he hadn’t yet given up hope.

  After nine months of traveling south, mainly hugging the Pacific coastline, they found themselves in a seacoast village called San Marcos, where the boy declared that they had gone far enough. Trusting his nephew’s instincts, Dan rented a villa, presenting himself as a retiree from the states with a young nephew who had a severe allergy to the sun. Local gossip everywhere being what it is, they were soon visited by the town’s police chief, a smarmy functionary who told bawdy jokes and perpetually overstayed his welcome. Otherwise, he seemed mostly harmless. Oddly enough, he had become a regular visitor ever since.

  Though Dan continued to be leery of the obsequious civil servant, he wrote off his recurring presence to the cop simply keeping a close eye on the property for whoever might own it. He often spied police vehicles going out of their way to patrol the lightly trafficked road that led to their refuge. He figured that whoever was paying them to do it, it must be more than enough. That was okay with him. He had by now almost fully recovered from his visceral fear of men in uniform.

  2

  A few hundred yards offshore, tiring now, he began swimming his way back toward the beach. Halfway along, he looked up the cliffside and glimpsed lights on in his kitchen, the housekeeper making coffee and preparing breakfast, no doubt. On the beach, he picked up his towel and dried off while stealing another glance toward the villa where the bedroom light was off. Ana was still asleep. Not that Ana was necessarily her name. He didn’t know her name. She had never told him, and he had never asked. But he had discerned one day that she looked like an Ana, and without objection, he had been calling her that ever since.

  His nephew found the girl while on of his nocturnal foragings during their journey south, and she had been with them ever since. When Dan first met her, she had been a mute, almost feral thing. Somewhere late teens, she was in need of both a bath and some fresh clothes to replace the torn rags that were draped on her skeletal frame. He hadn’t asked the boy where or how he had found her. For his part, all his nephew said on the subject was, “She’s coming with us.” Though Dan judged their burdens already heavy enough, he didn’t say so. Within a week, the girl had climbed into his bed.

  Those early days, she simply clung to him while shivering violently from some repressed memory or waking nightmare. Occasionally, she would shout or scream words and names that meant nothing to him. Over time, her night terrors subsided, until one night, after climbing into his bed, this time free of her tremulous shakes and quivers, content just to be held, the inevitable happened. That was okay too, Dan thought with an inward smile. It had been a while. At any rate, he supposed that given enough time, the answers would come, and if they didn’t, that was just fine. He was content with things the way they were. There was time enough for everything.

  Draping the towel across his shoulder, he stepped into his flip-flops and headed toward the path leading up to the house. Along the way, he noted that dawn was now in full swing. The sun was peeking slowly above the mountains to the east. The morning birds had begun to sing. It was going to be another beautiful day in
Paradise.

  3

  After a quick shower, he shaved, dressed, and followed his nose into the kitchen, where Margarite was cooking a healthy Mexican breakfast, and by ‘healthy,’ he meant, voluminous. He smiled to know she was responsible for at least ten pounds of his much needed weight gain.

  “Good morning, Senor Proctor,” she said in friendly greeting.

  He returned the greeting and sat down. “Donde esta Ana?” he asked as Margarite brought over the coffeepot.

  “She tell me . . . how you say . . . is supposed to be surprise?”

  Dan raised his eyebrows. “Do you know what it is?”

  She filled his cup and went back to the counter. “Si, si. But I no say nothing. I promise her. Anyway, you find out soon.”

  Just then they heard the front door open. Margarite’s caretaker husband Carlos strolled in before long with a newspaper tucked under his arm, followed by a beaming Ana, who carried a big pink box.

  Margarite couldn’t help herself. “She plan it weeks ago,” she blurted out. “I tell her is silly. We make here! But she no take no for answer.”

  “Quien es?” Dan asked, curious now.

  Ana set the pretty box on the table. Margarite walked over with scissors and snipped the strings tying it together. Ana reached down to pull open the top, then looked over at Dan and smiled.

  “Para el nino,” she said proudly. “Para Senor Scott.”

  Dan peeked inside and saw a large round cake with white frosting and blood red, sugary roses blooming throughout. Written in elegant and edible penmanship were the words, “Happy Birthday Scott!”

  “Esta chocolate,” Ana said with an exultant smile. “Claro.”