From Darkness Comes: The Horror Box Set (170 page)

“I ran
further up the ridge as I found the same path the gooks must have come down. I
didn’t realize how risky that was at the time, giving them snipers a clean bead
on me, but I didn’t much care. If I took one in the chest I’d wink out like
falling asleep after a night of drinkin’. I reached the first cave, rolled a
grenade inside, and ducked behind a tree. The explosion and the smoke that
followed brought out one more gook. I stabbed him in the face, not so concerned
about saving my bayonet anymore. I turned and saw the jungle scampering out to
the beach, where it was consumed by the ocean. Our battleships sat there,
officers smoking cigars and eating real meals while we gave our flesh. It made
me sick enough to stumble and collapse at the foot of the cave. Whether it was from
exhaustion, heatstroke, or divine intervention, my body passed out and my life wasn’t
ever gonna be the same.”

***

The jazz oozed
from the speakers mounted high above the tiled floor. Minor scales danced from
the strings of the guitar and bounced across tables littered with scones,
half-full mugs of chai, and the erotic aroma of fresh Sumatra. Ravna tilted the
ceramic mug to his lip, allowing the mere touch of the beverage to excite his
palate. He sniffed the vapor trail floating over the espresso and closed his
eyes. The other patrons of the coffee shop pounded their laptops or bobbed their
heads to an MP3 player.

Ravna
flipped his notebook open, knocking napkins and straw wrappers to the floor. Pages
marred with various food stains and scribbled notes flew past his eyes until
they rested on a section bursting with newspaper clippings. He used the eraser
tip of his pencil like a scalpel, turning pages until he reached the clippings
toward the back, the ones not yet yellowed by time. The last one in the group bore
the date of the day before. The newsprint retained its crisp feel and focused font.

“Woman’s body
discovered in Crooked Tail River,” Ravna read out loud. Several of the patrons
tethered to electronic devices twitched, a coincidental reaction to their own
senses or an involuntary reaction to the spirit of death summoned by the headline.

Ravna reached
into his cotton messenger bag and pulled out a musky, leather-clad book. The
golden symbols on the cover belonged to no nation, to no culture. His finger
sped down the pages, his fingernail pausing at several places before stopping. He
pushed the book aside and flipped back to his notebook, now completely consumed
by the task and oblivious to everything else around him.

“They didn’t
put much in here. Just give me a sign. Give me one reason to suspect it,” he
muttered.

“Sir, would you
like another espresso?”

Ravna jumped,
knocking his empty cup off of the saucer and sending a spoon tumbling to the
hard ceramic below. He pushed a lock of golden hair behind his ear and into the
mane that rested at the top of his shoulders. The platinum earrings adorning
both lobes jingled at the motion.

“I think I
would. Thank you very much,” he replied.

The teenage, goth
beauty, smothered underneath black mascara and white foundation, smiled at
Ravna with a slight wink of one eye. Ravna watched as her braided, black hair
swung to the right, revealing a tribal-pattern tattoo adorning her lower back. She
smelled like incense and heartbreak.

“Make it a
double shot,” he called to her.

The barista
turned and nodded, ruby lips full and shut tight. Ravna turned back to the news
clipping and continued scanning it for signs.

“Discovered
naked,” he spoke aloud. “Possible homicide, middle aged.” He sat back and
placed the end of the pencil to his temple, tapping it rhythmically, following
the beat of the jazz tune playing on the coffee shop’s satellite-radio system. He
thought about the last hunt, considered the correlation, and dove back into the
article. “Authorities investigating, no known suspects or persons of interest.”

Why would
there be?

The goth princess
interrupted the thought with Ravna’s double-shot espresso and placed it on a
saucer amidst a sea of notebooks and paper scraps. She set a clean spoon across
the top of the mug.

“You doing
research or something?” she asked with the tip of an index finger placed
between her lips.

Ravna looked up
and fumbled for the spoon. He pushed another strand of hair past a receding
widow’s peak and over an amber face. “Yes, research.”

“On vampires?”

“Yep,
vampires.”

She smiled and
bent over to give Ravna the illusion that what she had to say was for his ears
only. His eyes caught a glimpse of her smooth, white breasts held firm and
upright by a black-lace bra. “I’ve seen
Twilight
, like, seven times. I’ve
read all the books.”

Ravna smiled.
Body
of a woman, mind of a child. That’s how it always goes.

“Well, if I get
stuck in my research, I’ll know where to turn. Thank you, eh—”

“Sage. I go by
Sage.”

“Thank you,
Sage. You a recent hire?”

“Finishing my
first semester at community college right now, and I picked this up to make
enough money to pay for my books.”

At least
she’s out of high school
, thought Ravna. “The best investment, I always
say.”

“What is?”

“An education,”
replied Ravna, stretching the conversation as far as he could before it might
break.

“Oh, yeah. I
thought you meant a house or something, like my dad is always talking about. I’ve
got too much partying to do before I settle down.” The goth princess smiled. Her
bright eyes and perfect teeth made Ravna almost forget his name.

“Well, I need
to get back to my work,” he said.

“Oh yeah! Didn’t
mean to disturb you. I’ll swing by later to see if you need another fix of caffeine.”

“Thanks. I’d
appreciate that.”

The barista
cracked her gum and sauntered back to the counter. He noticed the intentional
runs in her black, fishnet pantyhose and shook the cobwebs from his head.

Ravna brought
the renewed espresso to his mouth, allowing the black gold to kiss his lips. The
ritual meant as much as the heart-pounding infusion the drink would bring. He
closed his eyes and imagined holding the mug on a mountain in South America as
the local farmers harvested the coffee beans from their fields. He could taste
the labor of love in their crop.

Dusk
relinquished its hold on the evening, and the clientele in the coffee shop
morphed from young professionals on laptops to teenage kids with nowhere else
to hang out. Malls were not cool anymore, and bars would not let them in. One
corner held a table of rowdy long-hairs with jean jackets and cigarette-stained
hands. Another couch protected sweater vests from the gaze of the rowdy
long-hairs. The goth princess joined a group of girls with purple hair and
pentagram necklaces. She giggled and cracked her gum, no longer obligated to
pay attention to the middle-aged men that stole a quick glance at her legs
before going home to grope their disinterested, flabby wives.

Ravna began to
gather his notes. He slid the messenger bag closer by looping a foot through
the strap. The ancient book slid behind a blue spiral notebook that oozed
sticky notes. The notebook with the press clippings fit between them. He
glanced at the Riot Grrrl table and caught the eye of the goth princess for a
moment. She winked and then joined the giggling of the other girls.

Ravna stood and
felt his bones creak. The espressos made his heart race while the rest of his
body craved an early evening nap. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a
ball of lint, a crumpled candy wrapper, and a black, elastic hair tie. He
pulled his blond tresses back and secured them with the hair tie while shoving
the other items back into his pocket. He brought his hand halfway up to signal
the beginning of a wave until the goth princess bubbled over with more
laughter. He retracted the gesture with diminishing dignity.

The bell on the
door to the coffee shop rang as he exited and stepped into February’s realm. The
sliver of the moon hung above the strip mall across the street, and the sky
looked as black as velvet. One dot burst through the sky, fooling those that called
it the first star, not recognizing it as Venus. Ravna continued down a sidewalk
sprinkled with fast-food litter and ice patches that had not melted during the
day. He pushed through the chill and left his goth princess fantasies at the
coffee shop with the remains of biscotti and whipped milk.

“I’m getting
too old for this,” he said to a mannequin in the window of a tuxedo shop.

***

Drew flopped
around like a fish at the end of a hook. The dream and story converged on his
subconscious with the energy of a derailed train. Violent streaks of color
flooded his vision, and explosions thundered from the dreaming world. He kept
telling himself it was all a dream, and yet he could not wake. The sweat
gushing from his pores glued him to the cushions of the couch. Only three
minutes had passed in the world of the living, and yet three hours expired in
dream time. The voice continued.

“Ya ever
stand in front of one of those carnival mirrors? You know the kind, the ones
that stretch you six ways from Sunday or give you a potbelly decades before
you’ve earned one?”

Drew felt his
head nod, strands of greasy, damp hair stuck to his face.

“That’s what
he looked like, only more pathetic. I guess I’ll call him a man as much as he
resembled one, but it’s kind of like calling flattened roadkill yer pet. It may
have represented your love at one time, but not no more.

“His body
was long, but not tall. The gray, bluish skin stretched over thin bones, looking
like it was about to tear in places like the elbows and knees. Not only was it
blue, but the skin was greasy and it attracted whatever filth the creature
crawled through. Its arms and legs were twice what a normal man’s might be, but
they had half the muscle of a child. A distended belly jutted out from below
thin ribs, like those dying nigger babies in Africa. The neck stretched upward
like an ostrich. It was thin and made you want to snap it. The thing’s head was
by far the most hideous thing I had ever seen, and I seen a lot of shit in my
day. Need I remind you that I had just crawled through the jungle and squashed
the life out of several Jap bastards?”

Drew shook his
head even though a response was not expected.

“There was no
hair left on the head, and the eyes sat deep in the skull like chunks of coal. There
were two holes where a nose may have been, and then that slit for a mouth. The thing
was shoving human shit into the maw on its face. I don’t know how I knew it was
real shit, but it was. It stank like, well, like shit and death. Those are
smells even the hardiest soldiers can’t forget. Breathing through my mouth
didn’t make a damn bit of difference. The crazy thing was that the more shit
this thing tried cramming in there, the less got in. Its sallow cheeks were
smeared with feces, and it had a low moan like a rat caught in a spring trap
but not quite dead yet. It would look at me and then wail. Two, maybe three,
dead gook soldiers sat against the wall. All of them had their pants at their
ankles with a pile of shit inside. It was like they died after taking one, and
this thing was busy trying to lap it up.”

Drew shuddered
and the image painted for his dream shimmered and hissed like an unlit stream
of natural gas. He felt a force draw his attention back to the cave, back in
time, back in space.

“I can’t
have ya waking up until I’m done here. You just keep it together now.”

Drew’s
breathing regulated. A line of drool dribbled from the corner of his mouth.

“I brought my
rifle up and placed the crosshairs right on that sonovabitch. Fucker never even
hesitated. It had no use for me, no fear neither.

“‘What the
hell are you?’ I asked, the end of my rifle shaking in my hands.

“The thing
moaned and threw the contents of one hand against the wall of the cave. The
shit splattered and oozed toward the ground. I felt my stomach crawling up into
my throat.

“‘Gaki,’ it
replied.

“That
fucking slit on its face may have opened a bit, but if it did, I couldn’t tell.
The voice came into my head like mine is in yours right now. The name felt
guttural, ancient, cursed.

“‘What the
fuck is a Gaki?’ I asked.

“The
creature turned to face me. It sat perched on a rock and drew a long, slender
finger from its mouth. It looked at the feces of the dead men and back to me. He
crouched low like a junkyard dog.

“‘From Preta,
the departed,’ it said inside my head.

“The words
felt like the heaves you get from too much whiskey. It was like I could taste
them, cold and greasy on my tongue.

“I dropped
the rifle when I realized that it wouldn’t protect me from this thing. I was
aware of bombs exploding outside the cave, complete with screams and shouts of
war. I turned my back on it.

“‘Cold,’ it
said while the heat of the jungle tried to melt the flesh from my bones.

“I sat down
and pulled a cigarette from the pack. Gaki, as I decided it must be named,
watched me as my silver Zippo flashed to life with flame. The creature shrieked
and hid its face behind the corpses on the floor of the cave. I put the flame
to the end of the cigarette and inhaled the sweet taste of Virginia tobacco. I
held my arm out, feeling as though I had to offer one to Gaki because I could
not watch him eat shit anymore. He continued moaning while perched on the rock.

“‘Greed
consumes you,’ it said. ‘Selfish. Hoarding.’

“I shook my
head and blew smoke rings across the cave, savoring that smell over shit.