Tales of Sin and Madness (27 page)

Craig could do without the moldering carrion being passed off as edible food…

Surely people can’t
really
buy and eat the animals…

…But the idea that souls could be captured and contained, and then sold on the side of the road was wondrous and ghastly at the same time. What kind of mind thinks up something like this? Craig wondered. Either a really clever one, or a delusional crackpot who really believes he has the essence of life for sale. Craig hadn’t decided which one Almus was yet.

“You got a wife?”

Craig looked up into the archaic face of Almus. “No. I mean I had one, but she’s…dead.”

Pain ripped through Craig’s chest.

Sorry, Rachel.

“Just thought you could buy one for her, or yer kids. Make a nice present.”

“No kids either.”

Just as well
, he thought.
Wouldn’t have wanted them to go through what I went through with Rachel.

Annoyed at Almus for dredging up memories he had tried so hard to forget, had driven so many miles to put behind him, Craig decided it was time to hit the road again, so he plucked his wallet from his back jeans pocket. “How much for one of the tins?”

“Depends on the soul. The bigger the tin, the bigger the animal, the bigger and more powerful the soul.”

Craig scanned the assortment of tins. His eyes locked on to the large one. “That big tin, what animal was it and how much?”

If he was going to buy one, why not make the most of it? He could afford it and this guy looked like he could use the money.

Almus breathed a long sigh. When he smiled, his lips trembled. “Glad you asked.”

A howl, long and sorrowful cut the still afternoon air like a blade through flesh. It sent chills up and down Craig’s back.

He noticed Almus grin, and once the cry had stopped, Almus said, “That tin contains the most powerful soul of all. A human’s.”

Craig blanched. “A human’s? As in a person, a human being?”

“That’s right.”

This was taking the gimmick a little too far, but he had to ask. “Where’s the body?”

“Long gone,” Almus said. “Besides, that would be in plain bad taste, hanging a human like it was ordinary road kill.”

Craig almost laughed.

Bad taste? Take a look around you, bud
.

He guessed it didn’t really matter what was supposed to be in the tin; it was all bull anyway. He was in it for the funhouse aspect of it, not for any magical power it may contain.

Hell, if there really is a human soul in there, maybe I could take it home with me and give it to Rachel. It might help her.
Craig felt the sting of regret.
Not funny
, he thought.

“Okay, how much?”

“Twe…thirty bucks.”

Craig was used to haggling prices – he worked at a used car lot back home – and had used his bargaining skills countless times during his trip around the States, but decided not to bother this time. After all, thirty dollars was a good price for a human soul.

Craig handed Almus the money.

Almus thanked him, then handed Craig the tin.

It was heavier than Craig expected.

“Well, I guess that’s it then,” Craig said, cradling the tin under his arm.

“Just remember, a soul is a powerful thing.” Almus winked.

“Right,” Craig said. “I’ll be careful.”

“You made the right choice. I think you’ll be happy.”

I’ll be using it to piss in, but thanks all the same
.

“Are you sure you don’t want to buy some road kill? I’ll do you a special price. I’ve got a nice fresh one killed this morning. There’s not much to eat around here and it’ll be dark in a few hours. If you’re planning on camping, you might want some fresh meat.”

Craig
was
planning on camping out tonight. He had provisions in the Jeep that he had bought at a store after eating at Patty’s – some beef jerky, canned cheese and crackers, a chocolate bar and a six pack of beer – but a nice bit of meat would be damn delicious. Craig took one last glance at the fly-ridden corpses, pictured himself cooking the fox over an open fire, and knew it was something he just couldn’t stomach.

“Sorry. Maybe some other time.”

Almus nodded and smiled.

It was a sly smile, one of secrets untold.

And for the second time since stopping at this roadside stand, Craig sensed that its vendor knew more than he let on.

It’s just the heat
, Craig told himself, turning and heading back to the Jeep.
It’s frying your brain
.

Yet he couldn’t shake the presence of Almus and his smile, even after he was far away from the dead animals and cheap souls.

* * *

The sun cast a pinkish glow over the horizon. The world was settling in for the night, and Almus was still sitting behind the stand. Waiting.

It had been hours since the man left, coasting down the defunct highway in his swank Jeep, unaware of what he had in his possession. How much longer was he going to wait until he opened the tin? Even if the man from Australia didn’t believe what was inside the tin to be real, surely human curiosity would be getting the better of him by now.

The waiting was killing Almus. Not literally, of course, but the caustic pain he had been enduring for thousands of sunsets was nothing now compared with the waiting.

Hopefully, the pain would end tonight.

As the sun was swapped for the moon, Almus lit the gas lamps and the purple landscape turned to blackness. He didn’t need the light, didn’t need the sign to be seen by a passing car now (not that many vehicles came by this stretch of highway anymore – that man had been a stroke of luck), but it did keep the creatures at bay, only if by sight.

As the mosquitoes started swarming the light, Almus looked down at the crumpled money that lay on the table – a twenty and a ten – and smiled.

He had thought thirty sounded like a fair enough price. The man had seemed willing enough to pay.

More than willing
, Almus thought, and wondered what the man had been hiding, what thing from his past was he running away from?

Something to do with his wife, Almus figured. Dead? No. She was alive, Almus sensed. He had met a lot of people sitting by the side of the road, and none of them had bought what the man had. It takes a special kind of person to hand over their soul; someone hurting, lost.

Almus knew about pain all too well.

Not much longer
, Almus hoped.

He wasn’t particularly worried. He knew the man would open the tin eventually.

 Beside the man’s payment was another ten. Except this note was a lot older; Alexander Hamilton was fading and lines streaked the green paper like a cracked mirror. A reminder. As if he needed another one.

Everything was cheaper in those days
, Almus thought ruefully.

He had really played up the country hick for the man from Australia. Almus wasn’t what you would call sophisticated, but he wasn’t quite the rube the man thought he was. It was all about the sale, and Almus had known what he needed to do and say to make it, without forcing the man to buy the tin.

Night was in full bloom, and, right on schedule, the creatures started in chorus – wolves howled, foxes barked, owls hooted, crickets chirped.

“I hear you,” Almus bellowed. “Hound me all you want to, I ain’t gonna budge.”

He could tell – they all knew he was leaving tonight.

He also knew that beyond the glow of the lamps, a thousand eyes stared at him, hating him, haunting him.

Wishing they had what he had; or rather, that the man had bought one of their tins instead.

Almus looked up at the hanging carcasses swamped with insects.

The howls and hoots and hisses sounded like a symphony of scorn, but Almus didn’t care anymore; just like the constant pain that ebbed and flowed through his emaciated body, he would be rid of them soon.

The back of his head where he had been shot caused him the most grief, but his body, where the car had run over him, also made it most uncomfortable for him to move without pain shooting through his body. There was nothing he could do or take for the pain; all he could do was what he had been doing for well over thirty years now – he waited.

* * *

Craig popped open a can of Coors Light and took a much-needed drink.

The beer was too warm for his tastes, but it helped take the sting out of what Almus had unwittingly dredged up. Besides, after half a dozen more he wouldn’t care if it was tepid.

Road kill for sale. Good ‘n’ fresh.

Souls for sale.

Christ
, Craig thought.

Rachel.

Double Christ
.

He belched a combination of jerky, cheese and Snickers (which had been almost completely melted), then drank another can of beer. His tent was up, he had eaten, and as the night had grown cooler, had made a fire in the middle of the small clearing he had happened upon for the night’s camp. There was nothing left to do now but drown his memories and try and sleep.

The night creatures called out to one another, their purpose known only to them. To Craig, their howls and hoots were mocking laughter. Somehow, they knew about Rachel, what she had become, how he had abandoned her. Knew about his stop at Almus’s. The tin he had bought. The sly smile that even now as he gazed into the licking orange flames he could see on that hick’s dog-ugly face.

Thirty bucks!
The animals were laughing to each other.
The Aussie fool paid thirty smackers for an empty tin. Ha! What was he trying to prove? Who was he really buying it for? Himself? Hardly. What was he thinking? Fool. Ha!

It was the hillbilly’s fault. Asking if he had a wife. Whose business was it of anyone’s but Craig’s? He had just started to get his life back. He was enjoying the open road, no responsibilities, no work, no wife…

Now, that was all gone. All because of Almus.

How was he to know
? Craig thought.
He didn’t know about Rachel, how she had changed. Didn’t know the kind of person she once was.

Craig choked up, remembering her laughter – a sweet giggle that rolled into a belly of laughter.

He finished the beer and wiped his eyes.

The laughter grew less frequent, while the manic episodes slowly clouded her life. Oh sure, the doctors said she wasn’t manic, nor was she suffering from dementia.

Yet they couldn’t explain her violent, abusive outbursts. Her hateful words, full of bad language she never, ever used to speak.

Her entire outlook on life changed. The people around her, those she loved most, became her enemies – at least in her mind.

Craig received most of her hate.

“I wish I’d never met you”
she would shout
. “You damn fucking cunt! Our son would never have died if I had never met you!”

Irrational.

Their son had died during labor. It was hard for the both of them in the years that followed, but their love had held them strong like crazy glue.

Until the change.

A change that Craig tried to bear, tried to understand and accept.

But he couldn’t. He just wasn’t that strong.

If the change in her personality had been the early symptoms of brain cancer, he would’ve stayed with her.

She had the tests. No cancer.

Other than her personality transformation, she was in great health.

It was like she was a different person. The Rachel that once was, was dead.

That’s why Craig had left and travelled to America, to get away from it all…away from her. He had needed to get as far away as possible and travelling to another country seemed the best solution, if not the right one.

“I needed to find myself, just like in the movie,” Craig said to the woods.

But he was beginning to think maybe he was searching for something other than freedom.

Like an old tin?

Craig gazed at the Jeep parked ten feet away.

“What the hell,” he said and got to his feet.

He opened the back door and found the beaten old tin snuggled amongst the assorted junk he had accumulated thus far. He was again shocked at its weight, even for a tin of its size, and closing the Jeep’s back door, headed back to the fire.

He sat down on the log and held the tin in his hands, curiously hesitant about opening it.

There’s nothing in there
, he told himself.
Then why won’t you open it
?

He didn’t believe Almus and all his talk about collecting souls from the dead animals, trapping them before they escaped. But there was something unusual about the man – that smile, that knowing look in his eyes – that Craig couldn’t quite figure out.