Blood Fugue (2 page)

The two warm shafts burrowed into him and all the while he moaned on the precipice of his orgasm. The snakes of wet pink flesh tunnelled into the vulnerable softness where his legs joined his pelvis. They separated the tissues and muscles beneath and David ached there, believing it was his intense arousal causing him such pleasurable pain. He cried out, a yielding sound devoured by the night. As he submitted, she pushed further until the two outer tendrils of her threefold tongue found both his femoral pulses and breached the arteries.

Gina moaned as she drew on him. David moaned too. When she had taken enough, she stopped and withdrew the two wormlike spikes of lingual flesh from inside him. They fused once more to become one with her tongue and the wounds she’d made in his flesh sealed up. Finally she closed her mouth over David’s penis and gave him what he wanted, that which he had begun to beg for, his pleas gaining volume in the otherwise silent forest. She gave him that pleasure and he gave more fluid in return. She wasted nothing.

And while he lay, panting, recovering, her trifurcated tongue tunnelled into the earth and reabsorbed the urine she’d spent there minutes before

The creature watched it all, sensed it all. It was aroused.

The shop bell jangled and the door slammed behind a slim, weathered man. The shopkeeper’s greeting was dismissive, as usual.

‘Hey, city boy.’

‘Hey, Randall,’

The rugged man mooched along between the partially stacked shelves looking for anything he could use.

‘Got any brown rice this week?’ he asked.

‘Sold out.’

‘Sold out? You said you’d call me when the rice came in.’

‘I didn’t get the chance. Jeff Katz came in and bought it all.’

He knew what that meant. Randall had shifted the whole batch to the chef at Segar’s Cabin so that he didn’t have to worry about the product going over its sell-by date. If he wanted rice now, he’d have to eat out or drive thirty miles through the pass into Saracen, the town in the next valley.

He picked up some canned fruit and frozen meat, the kind of things he couldn’t grow in his own yard and placed them on the counter. Randall avoided eye contact as he tallied up the goods.

‘Eleven fifty.’

The man placed a well-worn hundred and Randall tutted to himself.

‘Ain’t you got anything smaller?’

‘Sorry.’

Randall made him wait while he counted out the change nice and slow. The ‘city boy’ watched the shopkeeper’s hands as he molested the coins and bills. He had spatulate fingers; the kind that splayed out at the ends making them look like a frog’s pads. The nails were broad, thick and grey. The ‘city boy’s’ name was James Kerrigan. He had read a book on palmistry years before; fingers shaped like Randall’s were called Murderer’s Fingers.

‘You seen your folks this week?’ Randall asked.

‘I see them every week.’

‘I heard Burt hadn’t been too good,’ said Randall with some satisfaction.

‘Burt’s just fine.’

Randall appeared to lose count of the change and started over.

‘You still writing for them magazines?’ he asked.

‘Sure.’

Kerrigan wanted to keep the conversation to a minimum. He knew what was coming next.

‘You should get a real job, Kerrigan. Get out of that cabin more often. Spend some time with your folks. A guy could go crazy up there on his own.’

‘It is a real job, Randall.’

‘What is it about those woods anyway? If you had more sense, you’d live right here in town like the rest of us.’

The inevitable flush of anger that accompanied any trip to Randall’s flooded his face with heat. He kept quiet, not wanting an open quarrel. Randall looked up and smiled. He leaned towards Kerrigan like a man about to share a dirty joke and, even though they were the only people in the shop, dropped his voice to just above a whisper.

‘I don’t know what it is you do up there all day but people don’t like it. They talk about you, Kerrigan.’

‘Randall, I really don’t think —’

‘No, Kerrigan, you don’t. That’s your problem. I’ve lived in this valley all my life and I know how it is. Things happen in those woods sometimes. Bad things. When they do, you’ll be the one who gets the blame.’

Kerrigan was careful not to touch Randall’s hands as he passed him his change. He didn’t even check it, just stuffed it into his pocket. He wasn’t going to allow the meddling geezer to see him lose control, but right then he wanted to smash Randall’s face down into the antiquated cash till and keep pounding until there were no more sounds from him. Kerrigan took a couple of deep breaths and paused before speaking. His voice sounded alien in his ears.

‘Thanks for the advice.’

‘It ain’t advice, Kerrigan. It’s a fact.’

He didn’t know why Randall had it in for him so bad. He wasn’t the only one, though. Kerrigan had left Hobson’s Valley for just a couple of years but it was a bigger insult to most locals than being an ordinary stranger from out of town. Three years after returning, they still expected him to crawl and eat shit.

Chapter 2

Reminders. August 15th

Left arm sore and heavy this morning. Took four Tylenols. Couple of hours before the pain eased off. Thought there was some kind of scar on my wrist. Stood outside to get a better look but couldn’t find anything. Could have strained it hoeing yesterday. Maybe time to get a new computer keyboard. Remember: get doctor to check it out if it hurts again.

Got to stop getting groceries at Randall Moore’s place. Guy’s a fucking reincarnated Nazi or something. Way he looks at me, I can see him breaking in one night, putting a bullet between my eyes. So don’t forget: go to Olsen’s from now on.

Important: Visit Burt and Kath. Take goodies and a treat for Dingbat.

Call Amy. Maybe.

Kerrigan tore the top page from his reporter’s notebook and stuck it to the door of his Westinghouse with a banana-shaped magnet. He frowned at the previous note for a few seconds, screwed it into a ball and threw it into the trash, shaking his head.

It was a shock when the Jimenez family trooped single file into his back yard as he was picking beans for his dinner one afternoon in late August. In that moment, the temperature had sharpened a degree or two and a little of the late summer light had retreated from the sky. The vapour in the air took on the faintest shade of lavender. Kerrigan noticed, as always, that the silence deepened in that first moment of change and any sounds that followed it seemed louder.

Hikers often stopped to ask directions through the woods to favourable camping spots or to find out the best way to the higher trails beyond the tree line. But on that day, even though he heard their footsteps and their rhythmic Latin chatter, he still jumped a little when he turned to see them standing there. They all wore bright, new outdoor gear; their boots still shiny from the box. It was poor quality stuff; none of it worth a damn if the weather got nasty.

Holding a plastic bag full of freshly picked beans and with dirt all over his hands, Kerrigan spent a moment in each of them and discovered something about them that they did not yet know. It was a wild feeling, both savage and wise; like slipping on a glove still warm from someone else’s hand. There was an urge to caress, the urge to make a fist. The moment he acknowledged it, the sensation was gone and he was left staring at them, not quite sure what to say.

Holidaymakers usually knocked at the front door. This was the first time anyone had made their way so boldly into his vegetable patch.

‘Hi there,’ he said, dispersing the silence. ‘Can I help you with something?’

The head of the family held out his hand and the others spread out beside him.

‘I am sorry to scare you like that, sir. My name is José Jimenez. This is my wife Maria and my children Luis and Carla.’

His English was accented but easy to understand and he held Kerrigan’s gaze as though he felt no shame over their intrusion. Kerrigan took them to be wealthy Mexicans. After dusting the crumbs of soil from his fingers he grasped Mr. Jimenez’s hand, measuring him in the contact.

‘Jimmy Kerrigan,’ he replied.

The family looked on, approving of the unspoken machismo in the exchange. Jimenez let go first.

‘We are looking for a trail in this forest,’ he said. ‘I have asked others in the town but none of them knew the way. All of them said you would.’

Most of the folk in Hobson’s Valley disguised their dislike of outsiders and treated them with a grudging respect. They usually told visitors the way if they knew it. Perhaps these Mexicans were a little too far from home to be made welcome. It would be just like Randall Moore or one of the other old timers to feign ignorance.

Sensing the racial implications of what Mr. Jimenez was telling him, Kerrigan softened. Despite a few knock-backs in town they were still determined enough to ask yet another stranger for help.

He grinned.

‘I can help you find just about any trail around Hobson’s Valley and I know every path on Bear Mountain. Do you have your own map?’

The parents exchanged a flicker of a glance before Jimenez answered.

‘Yes.’

‘Come on inside and I’ll mark the trail on it for you.’

Kerrigan led the way to the back door. It felt like a long walk with them all following him. He imagined them taking in everything around them; the rows of beans and corn and onions, the wooden fence separating the forest from the garden, the rusty porch swing. Even the sound of the crickets that had intensified in the moments since the sun had fallen beyond the peak of the mountain and the water that plopped from the high gutters into the collecting barrel below, still dripping intermittently since the afternoon’s rain. The qua-la-la, qua-la-la of turtle doves pecking and sifting through the fallen pine needles, the fragrance of the moist air, the leaning tools visible through the open shed door, the smell of creosote, the creak of the hinges on his back door.

Instinct swelled within him; he didn’t like them being out of his line-of-sight. He was relieved when he faced them once more across the kitchen table and snapped on the overhead lamp. It seemed bright in the afternoon gloom.

‘Are there really bears on this mountain?’

The girl’s question scattered thoughts of darkness and delighted him.

Carla’s speech was different from her father’s. It was schoolgirl English; precise but with other accents creeping in. She sounded sophisticated, somehow European. Kerrigan found it hard not to stare at her. Her breasts were petite, the curves of her body coltish and athletic. Her look was in one moment adolescent defiance, in another Hispanic feminine mystery. He guessed she was sixteen or seventeen. Before he could censor them, images of a taboo courtship filled his vision.

‘Some of the older folks say their parents shared this land with bears, but I’m not sure I believe them,’ he said, breaking the moment. ‘As far as I know, the bears have been gone for a hundred years.’

‘Maybe some of them could have hibernated like they were frozen in time,’ said Luis. ‘Maybe someone could wake them up again.’

Kerrigan chuckled until he saw that Luis’s parents weren’t fazed in the slightest by their son’s flight of fancy. To them it seemed a reasonable question. He cut his laughter short.

‘I think all the bears died out a long time ago, Luis. You might find their bones, but I doubt it. I’ve lived here almost all my life and I’ve never seen a single trace of a bear, living or dead.’

‘They should change the name of the place then,’ said Carla.

Kerrigan had to smile.

‘They should at that,’ he said.

Silence filled the kitchen. Kerrigan let the space between words stretch out.

Mr. Jimenez reached into the pocket of his colourful all-weather jacket and drew out a large brown leather wallet. He laid it down on the table with practised care and Kerrigan noticed the four dark ribbons that held it closed. Mr. Jimenez slipped the knot on each ribbon and opened the wallet like a book. Protected inside was a single sheet of well-preserved paper or parchment that had no creases to suggest it had ever been folded.

‘Wow. That’s not the sort of map I see too often.’

‘It’s an heirloom,’ said Mr. Jimenez. ‘Unique in every way.’

Kerrigan sensed the man’s pride and something else too; a hint of melancholy.

Everyone moved closer for a better view. The map was hand drawn in black ink and showed a large area of Bear Mountain, including the land upon which they all stood. Kerrigan wondered if the cartographer had drawn the images free hand or if he’d traced them first in some way. Whatever the case, he had a skilful, if amateur, hand. Much of the scale was inconsistent and there were artistic flourishes that made features of particular trees and rocks along the marked trails. In some places wild animals were depicted in rampant poses. The embellishments reminded him of mariners’ charts with spouting whales and Kraken hauling ships into the deep.

‘It’s a work of art,’ said Kerrigan. ‘Not exactly accurate, but it’s close enough to follow. Some of the trails it shows are abandoned. And some of these aren’t on any of my maps.’ The chart went some way to explaining why the family had no luck when they’d asked for directions. ‘I suppose it’s one of these disused trails you’re looking for, right?’