The Forest Bull (20 page)

             
“Why did she move at all? Prey?” Risa asked.

             
“Prey, sure. But there are undercurrents to her behavior. They bait the traps, she kills, and then they would . . . well, I wondered how they were both staying so young. I found out, and I wish I hadn’t” he finished, his cheeks coloring with memory and shame.

             
“They were fucking her, right?” Wally blurted. Such language out of that mouth.

             
To his credit, Lyle didn’t flinch. “Exactly. At the side of deserted roads. That’s how they did it.” Before I could interrupt, he explained. “For the last decade, at least, their bait has been a small roadside cross, a memorial. Like where people die in car crashes? You’ve seen them?”

             
I had. They were often garishly sad, fading plastic flowers and a crude memorial marking the end of what was usually a young life. I said as much, and he went on.

             
“They put out a cross with a name that can be anyone. It doesn’t matter who, , it’s just a detail. Small, wooden, hand-painted. Just another melancholy reminder of some forgotten sorrow. The cross is always at the edge of a larger field, preferably away from lights, not too close to town. Then the Helpers go to work. They used to infiltrate circles of young people, teenagers. They’d take a job at the drive-in, or McDonald’s, wherever. And then, when they had access to these kids, they would tell a ghost story.”

             
“About the cross? Or the ghoul?” I asked Lyle, sickened by the elegance of the plan. I could infer where he was going with this narrative.

             
“Both. I’ve heard variations going back as far as the earliest days of the frontier, but it’s essentially unchanged. The gravesite is haunted, say the Helpers, but only on the night of the new moon. It’s an atmospheric detail, but it serves a purpose. The curious come to a darkened, secluded place, unarmed, maybe drunk, giggling, the machismo of the boys in overdrive as they try to impress the girls who shriek at shadows, maybe the boys cop a quick squeeze of titty . . . sorry, I’m just tired of hearing the same story.” He gathered his wits and went on, angering with the recollection of this movie that was playing out with every new moon.

             
“But, for every group of unbelievers who come and go, disappointed. there are the loners. The late arrivals. The genuinely curious. That’s whom she hunts, kills. Rending, eating. That’s whose blood hits the thirsty soil and draws crows the next day, a cacophony to commemorate someone who will be largely forgotten by the next hard rain. Well, goddamnit,
I won’t
, not for secon, now I have this filthy bitch dead to rights in a hole and I’m going to gut her like a carp.” He was incensed by his own speech, breathing in quick, shallow gulps. I would have been leery of sitting in the same room with him. his rage was that palpable.

             
We were taken aback momentarily, during which time Lyle regained his composure and said “I actually have a favor to ask of you. It’s about money. Or, rather, spending some money.”

             
“Okay. Umm, well, what about it?” I offered, cautiously.

             
“I’m not going to lie; I don’t leave these immortals their worldly goods when I send them to the skies. I know that their wealth is ill-gotten, but I believe that it can be well spent. Do you understand?” Lyle inquired of all three of us.

             
We did, and we agreed. It was our policy, and we stated it, clearly. I went one step further and revealed the nature of our relationships with Boon and Pan and how they were extended family to us.

             
“In fact, I think we agree that, if anything happened to us, Liz Brenneman would be appointed executor of our collective estate. We trust her implicitly and know that our money would go to the right places-- Boon, Pan, their kids, and anyone else who needed it.” I elaborated. Lyle seemed impressed, and his body language changed, relaxing visibly when I gave him the framework of how we spent the money we collected from immortals. He nodded to himself as if reaching a decision.

             
“I think it’s time for me to get ready for my visit. Thank you for taking the time to chat; it’s a rarity to have real interactions anymore, after all these years alone.” Lyle placed his hands flat on the table from which he spoke. They looked like weather-beaten wood.

             
Risa asked him in a rush, “Are you alone because of the ghoul, whatever she is called?” She was curious but respectful. Lyle had the aura of a gentleman, he deserved it.

             
He looked away and then at us, in turn, memory alive on his face and uncomfortably real.

“My daughter.
Allison. She was the loner riding up last on a squeaky bicycle. The Helpers had placed a cross by the road three miles from my house. I was so busy, so involved in my own pursuit of money, I didn’t retain that my own daughter told me she was riding her bike on a dark, moonless road to see a monster who was supposed to lurk in a shadowed ditch. And, because I was a selfish, thoughtless bastard, my own flesh and blood, the baby I held . . . she worshipped me from the minute her mother left, and I never paid her the respect and attention she deserved. What a brave and funny little child, so resilient, so loving. And I ignored her to the point that she rode a second-hand bike to the place where she was butchered and eaten like a prize hog, all alone. Even when she was with me, she was alone, and she died alone. And then those Helpers fucked that ghoul insensate, drawing life from her, just as she did from my daughter. That’s how they’re staying so young, you know? They rut like beasts after her kills, splattered with the blood of an innocent and howling their pleasure at the sky. And tonight, she dies. She dies baying at my hand, and then I can die, my life’s work complete.”  And with that, he cut the connection, and we sat in horrified silence, edging closer to each other and thanking God that we did not know his pain.

             
Dinner was a muted affair where we tried to avoid talking about Lyle and whether he could survive his encounter with his daughter’s killer. We ate listlessly and said as few words as possible, the pall of a child’s passing lingering with us into the night.

             
The three of us fell asleep huddled together on the couch, all sharing the fear that, tonight, Lyle’s life would end, but not his work.

From Risa’s Files

             
Lyle Gaines Caldwell, 62, passed on to be with the Lord. A well-known and respected businessman, he built the area’s most successful heavy farm implement dealership over three decades of work. He was preceded in death by his parents, his ex-wife, Marilyn, and his daughter, Allison. He leaves behind no family, and his will asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Great Plains Missing Children’s Fund. He will be interred at Sulfur Bluff Cemetery. There will be no services per his request.

Florida

If I’ve ever been a sleepwalker, I certainly don’t remember it, but the next three days seemed to approximate my suspicions about what it might be like. The news of Suma was schismatic, a fundamental betrayal that left us in a position so unwelcome we weren’t sure how to proceed. Risa and Wally would start a conversation on the topic, only to trail off in frustration. There was no solution that did not involve harming Boon and Pan. There was no direction that did not raise the specter that we were already in mortal danger due to Suma’s lies. In short, we were fucked. And I hated every second of the powerlessness that accompanied knowing we had to find a resolution, regardless of the destruction it caused.

             
Over the next days, it was Risa who began asking questions first. We were watching Gyro bark at the ducks patrolling the seawall when she began to pepper Wally and me with a litany of queries.

             
“We know that the immortals don’t necessarily like each other, right? It could be a bizarre form of sibling rivalry, or maybe elitism between the different age groups . . . I’m not sure. I think it’s reasonable to start with some basics, like who benefits from knowing about our activities. Or is there even a benefit?” Risa asked us, beginning a dialogue encompassing all of the murder and weirdness that seemed to be accelerating around us.

             
“Follow the money” Wally replied. “Immortals can make or take wealth at will from the living, yes? What is their most important currency? Their equivalent to money?” It was a brilliant point. Until that second, I had been trapped in my thinking. Why would the everlasting care about money like we did? There was one thing that they all craved, every single one we met and killed.

             
“Power.” I announced, and the girls quickly agreed. “They all love power. They lord it over us, exploit us, and toy with us. It’s their drug of choice. So, if they love it so much, it must mean that it isn’t an unlimited resource, right? They compete with each other for their positions?” I asked, uncertainly. I was thinking on the fly and unsure of my direction.

             
Risa asked, “If an immortal had the most power, it would reign. What is their kingdom? Is it here? Over all of us? Or is it actually something we cannot see?”

             
A thought pushed forth from my memory. “Sandrine. She told me about their power structure without meaning to, I think, but I didn’t realize it until just now. She said that their master had built a labyrinth beneath the earth, under the forest. An empire we did not know about. I thought she was speaking in metaphors, but now I’m not sure. What if it’s real, or at least something that is real to the immortals?”

             
“You men like Hell?” Wally asked thoughtfully.

             
“Exactly, but not like the Hell of our literature. More like a goal, a tangible thing that they control as a reward for their dominance. We know they crave power, right? Well, what if their rule isn’t permanent? What if they can rise and fall in the hierarchy of the immortals based on . . . something? I don’t know what, but they must be mobile within their structure. They would have to in order to chase power. Otherwise, wouldn’t they just feed on us without end and let that be their reward?” I wondered. It was a Gordian knot of suppositions and assumptions. I wasn’t sure that I would ever understand the motivations of immortals, but I thought that, since they had once been human, maybe we could grasp
that
remaining kernel of their drive.

             
Risa pulled at her lip and spoke. “How much would an immortal gain by bringing the three of us to heel?”

             
“Well, since we kill them, I would think quite a bit. Maybe enough to overthrow someone ahead of them in the pecking order, so to speak.” I said, placing a modest value on our collectively lethal presence. I knew we were worth a king’s ransom to the right creatures, but I have flashes of immodesty.

             
Wally spoke up. “We cannot be killed easily, right? It would require planning, much planning. These immortals have much more time than we do. So, they would plan for something like killing us, or whatever it is that would be done. They would plan for a long time, maybe longer than we think possible. We think like humans because we are humans, they think with a different clock ticking in the background. What if it was no accident that we met? That the three of us were pushed together, fall into this life, and we fit very well.  And, then, we are pointed, like a gun, at someone specific--by someone else, who wants to move up this ladder in Hell. Past another immortal, to take more power, and eliminate some rivals along the way?”

             
It was brilliant. Find three kids who fear nothing. Give one a horse to prove it, the other a brush with death, and the third a knife to plunge in a leering face. Then, when the time is right, put them together, and let nature take its course, all of which meant that evil incarnate can plan on a scope I could not envision. Until now.

             
Our lives were changing. Gravity had found us, a heavy stone that was pulling us down, or forward, if I was being optimistic. Toward what, we were uncertain. Each encounter, each day carried inertia that sharpened my senses and kept my head on a swivel. My combat personality was at the surface every second. I did not have moments of lassitude, where the first decades of my life had been largely free of purpose or tension. I was getting tired, edgy. I felt an urgent need for a break, any break, something that we could hang our collective hopes on to bring the roiling waters of our current life to a glassy calm. I wanted the jewelry, or at least I thought I did. I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to know the truth about the Baron, or Elizabeth and her daughters? Sisters? Whatever their relation might be, they were certainly in competition. My younger self would have relished the upcoming afternoon of carnal pleasure with Delphine, simply for the sake of the flesh. Now, I knew that there was genuine risk, perhaps even the cost of what I increasingly believed to be a very real soul that rested in my body, somewhere beyond the reach of reason but close enough for me to feel.

             
And lurking, at the edge of my vision and perception, was what was underneath the forest. Did we really want to know if Hell was real?

             
Did we really want to meet who reigned?