The Witch of the Wood (29 page)

He burst down the hill taking crazy chances, hurdling trunks, dancing between obstructions. At the bottom, he tripped over the broken base of a splintered fencepost and almost went into a headlong belly-flop, windmilling his arms, barely retaining his balance. The final incline was choppy, littered with rock and trunk and branch, each step a new jigsaw puzzle to navigate through like a cross-hatch of gargantuan pick-up sticks after a toss. He reached the top of the rise, face drenched with cold sweat, clothes sticking to him, his breath a sharp scissor in his side. There down the bluff was the river, the log bridge leading to the camouflaged tarp opening, and Caroline following Killian across it. Rudy took a deep breath to attempt a warning cry, but the dog put on a burst of new speed, disappearing through the cutout with Caroline following two steps behind.

Rudy shouted her name, but a second too late, the sound of the river drowning it to further insignificance.

He sidestepped down to the log bridge. It seemed to take forever, and Rudy was moaning now, muttering to himself, blood pounding in his temples. He almost slipped at the bottom edge on a dark swath of ice-covered pine needles, and even with cautious step-work the log seemed more slippery and treacherous than earlier in the day. Arms out now, he became that idiot highwire guy working the slow drama of the pass.

Once he finally pushed through the cutout it was a sprint to the finish, and he tore down the tunnel with all that he had, breath rasping, arms pumping. Somewhere in the back of his mind he formulated the symbolic connection that this enclosure was vaginal, but going back in sure as hell didn’t represent life or birth. Light poured out of the basement opening up ahead, and something ran suddenly over the lip. Rudy came to an abrupt halt, feet scratching in the dirt, and he raised both firearms.

It was Killian, scampering down the ramp.

Rudy almost shot the dog right there, but as it bolted past him yelping and yipping down the tunnel, he heard some kind of struggle ensuing up there in the room, grunts, short shouts, footwear scraping along the concrete.

Rudy ran up the ramp.

And there in the light cast by the bare bulb were two Carolines, both with identical three-quarter sleeve Tribal Love shirts and pinstriped train engineer hats, both of them bleeding, one from the left nostril, the other along the cheek in a dripping slash. They had fought their way over to the gun lockers and each had a pair of pistols they’d just aimed at each other. Rudy raised both his weapons and each of the girls aimed a weapon back at him, one with the left hand, the other the right, and there they all stood, breathing heavily, a six-gun triangle.

“Rudy!” the woman on the left said. “She can read biographies just as she can clone a set of jeans and a top. She knows everything I know.”

“She was the English sheepdog with the sad face, Rudy,” the other one said. “It was perfect cover, mothering the spaniel who got all the attention. She waited until you emptied the basement and waited here for you.”

“No!” the first one cried. “She gives away information that seems important, but stands irrelevant now.”

“Don’t fall for it, Rudy. She’s too perfect. I did just give useless information to you, and it’s because I’m nervous as hell. She’s playing the both of us to the tee, three moves ahead, and no one can think that well under pressure.”

“Ignore that! She messed up and now she’s covering.”

Rudy fought to think of something personal that only Caroline would know.

“Why are you angry with me?” he said softly.

“Because you screwed me over!” both said, unfortunately. A pause. Then Rudy said, “Considering the paradigm I’ve been following throughout my career with my research and my writing, what do you think the title of my
next
article would be . . . the one I haven’t even started brainstorming yet, quick, before Patricia can read the other’s biography.”

Both spat out a title, the one on the left—
“Word, An Aesthetic Function,”
and the one on the right—
“The Sacrifice of Syntax in Lyrical Modules.”

Rudy blinked and said, “Back your claim, quick now.”

“Your work has always been a celebration of phonetics and the beauty of sound and inference in oral tradition. You never gave up on the poetry of it,” said the woman on the left, followed directly by the one on the right who blurted, “It’s a plea for grammatical precision even if the linguistic rhythm is compromised. Teacher first, artist later.”

That got him. Patricia had always claimed with an absolute finality her intensive lack of interest in his writing, that it was too lofty for anyone to really enjoy. She’d never read a word. So he had thought. But here, there was no doubt his wife had secretly immersed herself in his work all these years. He’d never discussed it, but his writing had always reflected his personal battle between virtuoso freedom and mechanical discipline. He still didn’t know which side of the fence he finally fell on, and the choice one way or the other was not in any biography, not Caroline’s, not even his.

Both women were staring at each other in bald hatred, and the one on the left with the bleeding nostril suddenly surrendered to a look glazed over with realization.

“Rudy,” she said. “The riddle can’t be solved here like this, don’t you see? Even the fear of guns is a shared aspect between us. We’re so terrified to miss we can’t take the initial shot. And we’re dead equal in our passions for you, at the same time lost together in the darkness of your betrayals. We could go on like this forever. In effect, we’re the same woman now.”

She took the gun covering Rudy and brought it beneath her chin.

“I think I can conquer this fear of pulling the trigger, Rudy. And this way, I won’t miss.”

“No!” he shouted, and the report of the pistol cut his plea to the quick. The bullet burst through the back of Caroline’s head in a red plume that spattered the gun lockers, and Rudy promptly fired at the woman on the right. It shattered her breastplate in a bloody implosion and she fell hard on her bottom, skidding from the weighty import, her face coming back to true form—blooming rounder and wider. By the time she banged against the steel doors she’d fully transformed back to Patricia, double chin, head lolling, eyes fluttering. Rudy stepped in and stood over her, guns aimed and ready. She focused on him then and managed,

“I always just wanted you to love me, Rudy.”

Her lashes did their final flamenco, then fell wide open on eyes rolled back showing all their whites.

Rudy moved off. He wanted to cry, but couldn’t. He wanted to shake with emotion, scream with it, but didn’t. He was cold and dry and something looked odd, familiar, a blurred context from before brought to sudden perspective. It was a crack in the basement floor, a long one in a squiggle shape, the two women lying dead across the top side of it. He went over to Caroline’s body and lifted her shirt, exposing the hip. There on her skin, the tattoo with the squiggled line was raised on her skin, highlighting the two dots above it. Slowly, they canceled each other out, fading, disappearing, this time for good.

Citizens:

There is a man named Rudy Barnes who wanders by night in the company of wolves. He is wanted by the unified authorities, but has so far evaded capture. Some believe he has been given temporary shelter (and asylum) by renegade groups of Ancient Sisters, those who assimilated before the identification and tagging laws went into effect, and others insist that he lives in the wild. Regardless, there is no
other
malignant entity at work in the tri-state area, residing in the underground piping system, exercising some kind of hazardous control over rodents. It is believed by Washington experts and Harvard sociologists that this demon-myth was created by Professor Barnes as a way to rationalize his own actions through tainted comparison, therefore altering (and lowering) the standard of ethics formed in this great and powerful land. It is important for us to recognize such dangerous propaganda and to rest assured that there is no, repeat, no monster living in the sewers.

Professor Rudolph Benjamin Barnes, however, is a dangerous fugitive who wears a mask and cloak, and during this time of rebuilding he has been reported to have come upon groups of militia, ritualistic cults bent on the continued purification of the human bloodline. Similar to the Massacre at Runnemede Meadow, this criminal has met these extremists with deadly force. This coincides with a lethal wave of copycats, lone gunmen who have recently surfaced nationwide, claiming when incarcerated to be prophets following the path and word of the Fluttering Cross.

Please know that this brand of reciprocal violence is considered terroristic on both sides and will not be tolerated.

Please know that all temporary camps and mobile developments have been deemed humane by the U.S. Department of Housing, and all Ancient Sisters are hereby required by federal law to register at one such county facility by the end of the work week at midnight.

Please know that any natural-born citizen who escorts an Ancient Sister to one such facility will receive a three percent tax credit retroactive to this fiscal year. Any natural-born citizen who reports criminal activity in the form of communal gatherings of Ancient Sisters outside the boundaries of state-legislated space will receive a month’s worth of food credits, and wood chipper vouchers.

Please know that any Ancient Sister masquerading as a natural-born citizen will be immediately arrested for treason.

Please know that even though there is anatomical evidence suggesting that the Ancient Sisters once possessed abnormally rapid birth cycles, we have determined that their abrupt divorce from the grain has triggered a sort of counter-evolutionary trait indicating a more standard nine-month gestation period. Nevertheless, physical contact between Ancient Sisters and natural-born citizens will be considered a felony (until our scientists have completed the above-mentioned studies), and all Ancient Sisters must undergo pregnancy tests on the third of each month. In conjunction with the former, all citizens must register according to Social Security number for a routine physical on the tenth of each month at appointed sites listed on our web page by state and township. For more details about various post-test treatments and patient rights, see section 49I43 of the Federal Fertility Code, Hall of Records, Washington D.C., by appointment only.

Please know that in the time of this great crisis, cooperation, order, and subservience are of the utmost importance. After the winter, when the roads and properties have been cleared and the damages assessed, financial recovery plans will be instituted and restitutions made. It is projected that by mid-May, funds allocated for national infrastructure will be freed up for the purpose of constructing a settlement province for the Ancient Sisters consisting of vast landscape areas in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and the Dakotas. Mandatory relocation will begin in the latter part of the summer.

In all, we wish to extend our appreciation in advance for your patience, your kindness, your willingness to sacrifice what had been your well-deserved and expected comforts, and especially your ability to remain calm and rational within a paradigm of national, patriotic obedience.

And finally, if you happen to see the man with his mask of gauze and cloak of canvas, please do not approach him. Immediately inform your nearest agency of law enforcement and rest assured that the authorities will prevail.

For Rudy Barnes is dangerous, but he is not any sort of a god.

And for all his guns and dogs and video clips, he’s just a man in the end, bound to the night, and destined to walk at the fringe on his own.