Father of the Deceased

by Egon Grimes

  “How hard did you hit your head?” Lou asked, pulling the device from his dirty, crusty pocket.

  “Goddammit.” Maurice remembered her phone in the motel room. His brain went in so many directions at once he wondered what else he’d forget. “I think I need some sleep.” He dry-swallowed one of the pills the doctor gave him.

  —

  Maurice snoring in the passenger’s seat, Lou dialed Denise and after two rings she answered. “Hello, Lou.”

  “Hey, Baby.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk about what you said about, the divorce,” his tone lowered on the word.

  “The divorce? What’s there to talk about?”

  “Denise, please. You can’t just call it off, the whole thing, the kids, the house, come on.”

  There was a pause. “Why should I care what you have to say. You pushed us apart, you screwed that little slut, hell, when was the last time we even talked about anything besides your car, or your work, or your partner? You never had time for us and now, all of a sudden, you want to talk things through?”

  Bitch.

  You cheated too!

  Uh, you started this, smart guy.

  “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. I can change.”

  “Lou, don’t beg, it’s ugly.”

  “Denise, I don’t know what to say beyond I’m sorry. And. And I was a drunken mess, I swear I’ll stop drinking, nothing like that, that, that thing again.”

  “Nothing like screwing that girl?”

  “Yes, nothing. I’ll sell the car. All we’ll do is talk about me and you, nothing else.”

  “It’s not just the car, you stupid man.”

  “No, but it’s a start. I won’t even bring it home. Poof, gone.”

  “This is pointless. You’re a slut and fuck up and you don’t love us, you don’t deserve us.”

  “Bitch!” he yelled, holding the phone an inch from his mouth.

  “I’ll make sure Chuck’s here when you do come. I have something between my thighs for him, something you used to know about,” Denise said and hung up.

  Lou punching the rubbery steering wheel of the rental Nissan awoke Maurice. “Something wrong?”

  “I just got off the phone with Denise, she won’t listen.”

  “No good. How long was I out?”

  “Not too long, we should be close. Do you want to explain that scratch now?”

  “Okay,” he said and then explained.

  They continued to drive. North. North. North. Always north.

  54

  Right around the time Maurice dipped into the cool waters of dreamland, Rhoda wheeled Neil’s car into the airport. She parked in the shadow created by the huge lot lights that carved into the countryside light.

  Ivan marched out of the airport and into the parking lot, easy with the knowing pull inside. Not a word spoken, he opened the door of a rental car and sat in the driver’s seat. Vadrossa and Rhoda Genner crossed the lot, coming from the shadows, to his rental. They drove for two hours, never speaking, turning off the highway and up and down a few gravel side roads.

  Ivan veered off the road, through a small, dry drainage ditch and into some heavy brush. The tree limbs flapped against the doors and windows, thunk-thunk-thunk. Below the car, something connected and hoisted three wheels from a firm plant. The car stopped, teetering before settling on the rear driver’s side wheel and the frame midway up to the driver’s door.

  The travelers emerged. They walked through long grass, blindly, but avoiding disturbances in theirs paths with uncanny foreknowledge.

  Ivan set his mind on a task and attempted to increase the speed of his feet. He no longer allowed bold, murderous thoughts to storm the forefront of his mind. The goal was control, pecking and cracking at the thing stolen from him.

  He pulled ahead, slightly.

  Vadrossa whispered, “Why do we need the girl? Is she to be a meal?”

  Within, Dhaksa replied, Worry about nothing.

  “Will she still be good when you’re done?” he whispered again, but got no answer.

  Rhoda, who walked second inline, listened with fervent ears.

  “Talk to me,” Vadrossa hissed.

  Dhaksa said, She bore oddity, powerful oddity. Her womb will be of service. She can propagate until a flawless La’aklar mother crawls from between her legs.

  “She is to mother La’aklar children? But…” Vadrossa trailed. “She is only human and can’t be of real use.”

  Rhoda fought hard against her legs, slowing them, allowing her ears to find more of the conversation.

  She will propagate. Humanity will cower, gods will cower, cities will burn, and babies will bleed in our wake. It is our destiny.

  Vadrossa thought about mating the woman himself.

  Dhaksa saw this and said, You can fuck all the trees in the forest, but you may not fuck this woman.

  Vadrossa groaned.

  With every creaking branch and crunchy leaf, Rhoda’s heart jumped, pumping fast before lulling back to normal. She bounced internally, unused to the slavery of motion.

  They walked three hours into the night.

  As the sun brightened, Ivan fought hard to keep his mind blank, the twinkling of revenge only ever coming to the forefront by accident. In small spurts, he tested his resolve: a finger here a sideways step there. It could be possible? Black, black, black, he thought after a successful step one foot from the path. A step won’t…white, white, white, kill anything, especially…blue, blue, blue, not a magician or a monster or a god…red, red, red. Ivan continued his little color game, changing the call to ensure his mind could be elsewhere; Have I thought orange yet? Orange, orange, orange.

  Both Rhoda’s and Ivan’s minds wandered beyond the walk, passing the time quickly, only the rising sun gave them a clue about what the actual time could be, not that it mattered. Each had their problems, hardly remembering they weren’t alone in the mess. To focus, might save a life or gain revenge, but a dark rock face drowned everything out. It stood tall, eighty-feet or more, daunting in pitch. Ivan felt his fingers slide into a crevice and his legs kicked his body vertically, My god, don’t fight or you’ll die. Don’t look, oh Jesus, colors, think colors, Greengreengreenblueblueblue. His skin rubbed against the stone face. He dug and moved, shifted, dug and moved some more.

  Rhoda followed and Vadrossa followed.

  They climbed, Ivan and Rhoda, relieved by the shortness of the actual face—no more than twenty-five feet. A second bout of walking commenced, the ground harder and steeper than the dark trail. Another wall. They climbed higher and higher over mounds on mountainside, hills jutting from the surface, ten-feet here, fifteen there. A smooth surface recommenced, forever moving to the skies above.

  Rhoda watched Ivan take a peculiar step to the side, wondering it was possibly to shake the chain from her back. She tried it herself, but found no power. Ivan sidestepped again, Rhoda continued straight, her face collecting thick webbing she couldn’t bring her hands to brush. And then, she saw it. A black and yellow, eight-legged beast crawled across her face. The little feet seeming to hold tight just below her eye. Tension boiling in her belly as it pawed gently at her cheek with its forelegs—like finishing sandpaper against her skin. The footing of the path dipped, the spider crouched, and clung to her cheek, ready to bite, of that, she felt certain. Another bump. The spider’s body flattened and she saw the mouth just under her eye.

  She shrieked and the fear overcame the hold and she swatted the beast from her face, sending it to the ground, balled up playing dead.

  I did it! Unlike Ivan, she hadn’t considered masking her thoughts: Again, again, again. She moved her fingers slightly, but without the fear and tension, she could muster no more.

  Come on, do it. Do it!

  Don’t bother, a new voice sounded in her mind.

  55

  Doreen O’Connell and her husband Rory had scrimped and saved for their entire marriage. She ran a sewing mach
ine at a Dickies factory and Rory slung policies for Neddlebaum Insurance. They didn’t save much. In fact, beyond their mortgage payments, living expenses—food, cable, and the likes—they managed to set aside a measly one-hundred and eleven dollars a month; typically spent by the final week on recurrent unsuspected costs.

  Doreen looked out at her dream retirement, ready to open the gates to anyone willing to come. Bitter sweet, that’s what her sister said. Rory, living in the world of insurance as he did; night and day, cold calling and door knocking, died young and over insured. Bittersweet it was to look out at her little petting zoo, missing the love of her life, knowing that only with his death could she manage her dream.

  “No sense gettin’ all teary-eyed first thing in the mornin’,” she said as she placed her emptied, yet steaming mug on the counter of her little farmhouse kitchen.

  The air was thick and hot already, a Honda Odyssey parked just outside her gate, waiting to enter. Gravity swung the steel tubing and the van rolled in. She collected three bucks a head and led the way to her cluster of aging animals. She wished she could afford not to charge, but she had to and as a matter of principle it worked out, animals eat a lot of feed and her liability provider ate even more.

  Set in stone, she thought, a rule for all that found themselves at the petting zoo. Children loved anything they could pet, anything that felt nice to touch, they never seemed to notice the feces clumping around the hind ends or the snot running down the faces, matting the fur.

  Only adults sneered at her animals.

  So what if her animals were old, skinny, and dirty?

  —

  Maurice looked around. Can it all end, just like that? He didn’t want to believe so, but he didn’t have that feeling. That feeling heroes got in movies. He felt nothing but fear and affliction.

  “This map isn’t great. I mean where’s the trail already?” Maurice said as he turned the map a little. “Do you think he knew what he was talking about?”

  “Huh?” Lou asked, the sound of his partner’s voice pulling his mind away from Denise and, with a little more venom, Chuck.

  “That man at the hospital, did he seem all there?”

  After brief consideration, “No idea, but I’m thinking that the past is more of his forte than the present. You know.”

  Maurice said, “Pull in here, maybe someone knows.” He pointed to the gates of a petting zee, feeling subtle familiarity.

  “I hope they sell food.”

  “Probably llama burgers and horse dogs.”

  Lou pulled up the dusty lane. A woman walked from a pen about fifty feet from the lot, toward the rental car. The men lurched out, stretched, and walked toward the woman.

  “Three bucks a head,” she said once within earshot without having to yell.

  “Uh, we were just hoping for some directions,” Maurice said.

  “Three bucks each,” she repeated.

  “He said—”Lou said.

  “I heard him, but to come onto my property costs three dollars per body. We can discuss whatever you want after you pay me.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Lou said pulling out a damp ten-dollar bill.

  “I trade below par, ten American is only worth nine Canadian,” Doreen said, as she fished three Loonies from the crusty fluorescent yellow fanny-pack around her waist.

  Lou puffed out breath, raising his eyebrows and tilting his head. “Do you sell food?”

  “Yeah-huh, four for a dog, two for a bag of chips. I even have Ketchup and Dill Pickle, I hear you don’t have those in America. Americans always like what they can’t get at home. And I have pop and iced tea, they’re a buck-fifty per can.”

  “A dog, a bag of Dill Pickle and a cola for me,” Lou said.

  “I’ll have the same,” Maurice said. “Now, you ever heard of Dead Man’s Trail or,” he looked at his arm to read correctly, “Maakina Nabo.”

  “Never heard of it, fifteen please and I’ll even wave the currency surcharge.” She smiled, but it was fake. “Food’ll be ready in ten, there’s a picnic table over there, or you can go visit the animals. They doin’ better than they look, so keep it to yourselfs.”

  “She must be rolling in the dough with that kind of customer service,” Lou said.

  Maurice smiled. Without communicating the idea, they decided to avoid the animals and continued toward the fence, past the table, they needed to stretch and think.

  A raucous, yet pleasure soaked, din sounded from the parking lot, children seemed to pour out the sliding side door of a rusty Windstar. Two teenagers followed behind them. The woman ran out from the side of the house to greet and collect her payment. At the sight, it all came back, the entire dream-like memory, the children, the animals and the mountain a ways off behind the property. “Lou, I saw this, I saw it! When I was at the bottom of the lake, just like this. The trail is somewhere around the mountain.”

  “That little mountain? You think they’re up there? Because, I don’t see it and that woman doesn’t know, so maybe it’s not, you know, credible.”

  Maurice marched off toward the van. The children had already gone toward the fences, finding the furry backs of the animals in the little pen. At the van, a blonde boy, his hands running all over the body of the girl leaned beneath him. They ignored Maurice’s approach. The girl had brown hair, pimples speckled her cheeks, a lining of fat folded over her beltline. She wore jean short cut-offs. Dimples ran the back of her thighs like a lake’s surface, hungry fish breaking the calm here and there.

  The boy was lanky and had a patchy neck beard, wore a flannel shirt with cut-off sleeves and cut-off jean shorts with black socks halfway up his shins, falling into dirty work boots that looked older than him.

  “Hey, you,” Maurice said a few feet away and approaching fast.

  The boy turned his mouth from the girl’s lips. “Busy dude,” he said and went back to the task at hand.

  “Police, you shits!” Lou shouted a few feet back from Maurice, jogging to catch up.

  The girl turned and spoke, the boy’s hands frantically searched, one up the shirt, one grasping a solid handful of flabby ass. “Can’t you see we’re busy, we’re not breaking any laws, pigs.”

  “Listen, just a question.”

  “Shove it, asshole,” the boy said.

  Lou caught up and threw the boy hard against the van. “The man said listen and if you ever want to use that little pecker of yours, you answer a question.” The girl shrieked. Lou turned her way. “Shut up unless you’re gonna answer questions.”

  “Dead Man’s Trail?” Maurice said.

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” the boy said from behind Lou’s elbow.

  Maurice looked toward the ugly girl, her teeth jutting from the upper row over her bottom lip, causing an unreasonable excuse to dislike the couple more, she shook her head, no.

  Maurice sighed. “Let him go, Lou.”

  Lou loosened his grip. “Police brutality, I’m gonna call a lawyer.”

  “You’re gonna call a lawyer and pay with what? Huh? You little shit.” Lou turned to the girl. “Does your father know you’re out getting felt up by this sack of shit?”

  “Our dad doesn’t care,” the girl said.

  Maurice raised his hands to his head and began to turn.

  “Do you mean Miikana Trail?” the girl said upon seeing the scratch.

  My god, she can read. Blood flushed and reignited the dormant adrenaline, finding it, wherever the hell it hid for a few seconds, “Where? Where?”

  “Just out the lane and down the road, you can’t see it much anymore, but there’s a wooden sign.”

  —

  The food came. Two small wieners swimming in jumbo buns, two bags of chips and two Cokes. Doreen barely managed it all. Maurice and Lou had almost forgotten the food altogether. They each took their share and hurried to the rental.

  And, as if it just appeared, there it was, just off the road, much of it covered by an overhanging branch. Miikana Nabo, the letters pain
ted roughly, by hand, on an old piece of what looked to be barn board, the A at the end of Miikana scratched to look like a claw mark.

  The grass next to the tree bearing the sign packed hard to the ground in two rows. Lou followed the tracks.

  “You still have your gun?” Maurice asked.

  “Yeah, no metal detector in the ER, this place is crazy.”

  “Got another? I lost mine in the lake,” Maurice asked. Lou shook his head. They passed a car driven deep into the tree line on the edge of the path.

  “I think we’re on the right trail?” Maurice started to say, but a heavy wheeze came into his ears.

  “Fuck,” Lou said, holding the U: Fuuuuck.

  “Guess we hoof it?” Maurice said as Lou rolled the car on a flat until it stopped.

  “I guess,” Lou said. “Strange being on the other side, huh?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Of the law, if the Mounties catch us, or whoever, we’re in shit. I mean it seems like they side with whatever’s going on. Like that movie, Wicker Man, but with a whole country instead of just an island.”

  “The power seems more isolated, but like it knows things.”

  “Then, won’t he know we’re coming and he will know when we’ll arrive? You think?”

  Maurice considered the possibility and its likelihood. “Yeah, I do. Does that change anything?”

  Lou’s smile grew a little. “Nah. Lead the way boss.”

  56

  Since she heard the voice in her head, Rhoda went back and forth as to whether or not she had actually heard it, or if her mind hadn’t succumb to the pressure.

  A jingling sounded from her pants, a zipper handle clanged on a rivet, but it sounded to her stress-addled mind like a cell phone vibrating. She tried to reach down. Her head tilted against the pull and her hand drew forward, just enough for her to see it and then it jerked back as if yanked by a rope.

  She’d broken off a nail. The blood clotted, but left her middle finger red and crusty. All other thoughts faded as Ivan led and Rhoda and Vadrossa into the slim, void-like cave on the side of the small mountain.