“Daphne Salinger” the cop said, “You’re lucky you’re getting that.”
The name didn’t mean anything to me. I nodded as if it did. I carefully tucked the picture back into my jacket pocket. My hand stung from a cut on it. I looked down shocked at the pain. Thinking a car rushing past on the highway might cause a gust to pick up these pictures and carry them away. I had to protect them.
“Where do I find her?”
The cop shook his head. My eyes pleaded with the same desperation that made me walk up to his cruiser. His brown uniform looked a size too big. At first, I wondered if he were a cop at all. He looked away. His eyes stretching out onto the highway.
“You know, I could arrest you for walking up to my window.”
We both turned as a foam to-go container bounced along the highway. The looming clouds above threatened rain. I fingered the pictures in my pocket. What would I do if they were destroyed – my last refuge to a forgotten past?
“There’s a bar at the end of county line, down Alligator Alley. It’s just before the road goes from paved to dirt.” Then looking up at the sky, “It may be mud by the time you get there. I don’t know if your car will handle it. She’ll be at the bar.” Then looking at me seriously, “You and I never had this conversation. You’re out of luck if you think she’ll help. Don’t walk up to a cop’s window again. I don’t care what sob story you have.” Then he roared off kicking up gravel as he pulled aggressively into the highway of rushing cars.
This was the right area. I had tracked the ATM withdrawal and a gas payment. Both were less than a mile from here. This was it. But now, I had a name. Maybe we can call it grit, but I would get something from Daphne Salinger. I pulled out a small notebook and scribbled the name down. I wouldn’t forget it. But seeing some of these pictures, there are worlds that we can forget all together. Things that are lost that we don’t even know.
The road wasn’t paved so much as large chunks of pavement drifting in a sea of gravel. Itching at a memory that wouldn’t surface, everything began to look familiar. I had to find the answers. I needed to find what happened to the woman I loved.
The road had small houses along it. Some discarded while others lit. Auto mechanics and other businesses that could’ve been abandoned or still functioning advertised by broken signs. There was not a person in sight. I thought this might be the perpetual look of Mason County. I wondered if google maps knew this road.
When I found the bar, no one acknowledged me. It was loud and smokey. I sat next to a couple at the bar and tried to get the bartender’s attention. The girl seemed upset not touching her hamburger merely nibbling on the piece of lettuce. All across the bar large men bit into large hamburgers. Greases oozed out of the other side moistening the bun to ruin.
I hadn’t eaten any grain or potato in almost a year. 80 pounds overweight, diets had become the temporary substitute for long lasting change, until now. A friend gave me a book called, “Grain Drain”. The book was bold, claiming most diseases and even some cancers were attributed to people eating grains and breads and potatoes. Processed foods that our primitive ancestors wouldn’t have even been exposed to poisoned us. The food turned into sugar, which is rotting more than just our teeth. Even claiming the sugar hurts your memory, the claims were too outrageous not to try.
Cultures around the world extolled the virtues of animals with high fat content. Indian cultures believed whatever flesh you ate allowed you to consume the strength of that animal. I reasoned it was time for a change. It would be at least 9 months and 50 pounds before the Hurricane came and I learned more than I bargained.
The music never abated enough for me to speak, so I waited. The large, old female bartender with dark skin approached me. Her face had lined and cracked skin. I kept fingering the pictures in my pocket. I tried to speak over the noise. She nodded and gave a smile of understanding. She appeared a few minutes later with a hamburger, fries, and a beer.
I didn’t eat the bun or touch the beer either. Places like this don’t have silverware, so I used my hands appealing to my inner savage or inner 10-year-old. I swiveled in my chair thinking maybe I should go outside. The smoke was thick. I could see the cop in his brown uniform crowded by a few locals in the corner. I approached him in spite of his blank, unrecognizing expression.
He shook his head toward the door. Excitedly, I thought I would be getting more information. The bar was loud. Talk futile, yet everyone was still trying to get their voice heard. He nodded again toward the door where the bartender was holding it open for the couple who had been sitting next to me. The bartender, the woman I now believed to be Daphne Salinger, smiled and pointed up the road, away from the highway. The man nodded enthusiastically as the woman scowled.
The bartender locked eyes with the cop as I approached, picture in hand. She merely nodded and indicated for me to follow. Outside, I watched a pickup truck shake and climb up a dirt road into a wooded area. I couldn’t help the deep breath of smokeless air as the noise filtered out into the wooded evening. So quiet, you wouldn’t even know people were inside. Dark clouds moved above threatening rain.
“What do you want?” she asked using carefully spoken words that made me think English was not her first language. I thought she was Native American with her dark skin lining her face like tree bark reminiscent of any old Native American women portrayed on television. She could’ve come from anywhere in world. She looked as if she were withering away but moved youthful.
“How do I know you?” Unable to let go of the familiarity that had carried me along since coming down Alligator Alley.
“I have that face.” She didn’t have that kind of face. She took the picture from my hand. I held my breath. “Pretty girl.”
“Do you recognize her?” My heart trembled. I worried she would tear the picture into pieces and let them fall to the ground.
“No. But I get a lot of people coming through here.”
I could hear my heart beating in my ears. I trembled and scratched a bandage on my hand. Blood began pushing through the loose fabric. I pulled out another picture. Without looking at it, I held it up to her. She reached for it, but I kept it back. My hand shook. She looked down at the bandage on my other hand and grabbed for it. I pulled back. She smiled, not an old lady smile but a carnivorous one.
I felt lightheaded. The hurricane had destroyed most of my home. I peered on the memory as if I were an observer. I wasn’t reliving it but watching it. The box floating in water. Going to it, opening it. Finding the pictures. Pictures of me locked in the arms of a woman who I did not know but instinctively loved. Remnants of a life I did not recognize.
Somehow, the old woman held the second picture in her hand. She smiled at my confusion. “Well dear,” her voice soft, “if you think you and your wife had visited my cabin, I can check the records. I get so many people around here, you know.”
“Wife?” My words rushed and unhindered. “How do…?”
She pointed. “See the hand. Looks to me like a ring. I’ve seen lots of couples, newlyweds would be my guess, looking at this picture.” Then flipping the picture over, she read the one word written not in my handwriting, “Always.”
“You must remember something.”
“I hardly recognize you. I have people in my cabin all the time. Even tonight.” she pointed toward the red pickup truck that had already disappeared into the woods.
“Where?” I said breathily, needing an answer.
She shook her head back and forth. “Not tonight. I’ll tell you what, I keep a copy of my rentals in a book at my home. I work ‘til close. Get a room at the hotel and meet me here tomorrow. If it’s there, we’ll find it. If it’s there,” she said looking deep into my eyes, “You’ll get all your answers. Okay?”
“I need to know.”
“I know.” She said with a little smile still staring into my eyes. “Stay the night. Get a room. You need sleep.”
“I need to know.” All I could say. I pleaded. “I need…”
Desperate, I trembled as she held my hands. “You’re so tired. But you’ve almost found what you’re looking for. Go get some sleep.”
My eyes glazed over. I pulled out my wallet, but she waved it off. She spoke but I don’t know what she said. I felt out of body as I walked toward the car. Her voice still echoing inside my head. I drove without thinking or feeling anything. I drove with a vacancy that could’ve been mistaken for peace.
“The hotel is back up the road, close to the highway. Get there before the rain.
I handed the credit card to the man at the front desk of hotel. I felt myself trying to come back to reality. I lost my job because of the hurricane. Waiting on checks that didn’t even have an address to go to, I had nothing.
I drifted back to a lecture I attended by the author of “Grain Drain”. Hearing the clap of people as he spoke but seeing outside it had started to rain. The man handed me the key. The food had become a place for me to feel better. I craved a hot dog. I craved anything to get me out of this state.
Jagged lightening raced across the sky. The corridor was dark and empty as a large boom shook the hotel causing the rain to stop. There was a man outside the hotel room leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette. The man nodded at me, flicked his cigarette to the ground and left. I hoped for him to say something if it would shake me out of this state.
I reached down and grabbed the cigarette when he was out of sight. My hand trembled as I stabbed myself with it thinking only pain could draw me out now. I felt myself let out a breath as my mind crawled from the backseat to the front. Instinct overriding desire and control. I flicked the cigarette to the parking lot before slight movement drew my focus. Something moved on the other side of the lot in the woods. I stared at the trees but saw nothing. Something was there. I knew it. I felt it’s eyes on me. I turned to look at the room numbers to make sure I was at the right room and hurried to get in.
I slammed the door locking it behind me. Confirming I was alone, I checked the closet, bathroom, and under the bed. I drew the curtains tighter because if someone were out there, I didn’t want to see them. Small pictures lined the walls with little sayings written under some of them. As I leaned against the door, I looked at one that had a picture of a grain and under it written, “In every grain of wheat there lies hidden the soul of a star”. It had no name to attribute the quote to, just the initials A.M.
I had asked the author of “Grain Drain” about what was happening to me. I wondered how much of my brain was changing. Dreams loomed. I remembered things that I wasn’t sure if it were real or imaginary. Images of a woman that I would only find tangible when a hurricane flooded my home were already rattling within, trying to emerge.
“First of all, get some Omega 3 and even some vitamin D. There’s a list of supplements in my book. I’d like you to start taking them. They’ll promote brain health. But you’re not crazy; at least, I don’t think you are. It is possible that your brain is rebuilding itself from this diet. How long have you been on it?” He spoke quickly, rushing to get to the next person.
“4 months. No sugar either.”
“4 months is akin to minor brain surgery. It’s rare, but not entirely. 99 out of a 100 wouldn’t get it and remembering people you haven’t been around seems to be an extreme version, but it’s possible. That’s the thing about this lifestyle and its connection to primitive man. Your brain will develop but so will your body. Some have theorized that you might even begin to develop the instincts that kept the primitive man alive. Not to mention, they call junk food, comfort food for a reason. There could be something buried there,” he pointed at my head, “That carbohydrates used to hide deeper.”
“Will this pass or the memories increase?”
“Oh, well, it’s hard to say.” He rummaged in his pocket for a card. “Email me more detail. I’d like to keep in contact with you. I want to know exactly what is happening to your memories.”
I never emailed. The hurricane came the next month and my fear turned tangible.
I took the picture of grain and threw it on the ground. I’d kill someone for a cookie. They said cravings would end.
The shower water was hot. I felt a little moan of pleasure from the hot water bouncing off my skin. The bandage fell off my hand and blood dribbled down the drain. A noise jarred me, and I left the shower, sticking my head out of the bathroom to peer into the room. The blinds had a small opening allowing a little burst of light that hadn’t been there before filling the room. But also, the door was open.
I don’t remember hanging the chain on the door. But I must have. The chain was the only thing that kept the door from being open wide. I turned to grab a towel and when I turned back to the door a small face peered from the open crack. It must be a kid, I told myself, when I saw another head appear. The heads were small. If they wanted to, they could have forced through the small crack. More heads appeared sitting on top of each other all gazing in at me. The whole crack was filling with peering heads looking in.
I grit my teeth and felt something rise within. I screamed. It came out more like an ancient war cry. The pounding drum beat inside my head. My senses quickened. I charged the door and slammed it. I turned the lock again making sure it was locked. I looked in the peephole but nothing. I looked through the curtains but nothing. I waited but saw nothing.
The power went out. Darkness shrouded me as I stood naked waiting for an attack that didn’t come. Lightning struck and thunder rumbled. My hand stung from the cut and I thought about the look Daphne gave it. I thought the blood dripping in the shower. Had it summoned something? No, that was a silly thought. But I couldn’t even remember how I had cut it.
Most of the furniture was bolted down. I moved the dresser in front of the door and leaned against it wondering what else I could move when I could hear the pattering of rain outside. Thunder rumbled shaking the room.
I felt the hurricane roaring above me. I was in my bathroom laying on a few blankets surrounded by the few possessions I considered precious. I wept hearing damage unleashed on my home. I wept not knowing somewhere in the house as the water poured in, my whole life would float into a different direction.
My eyes opened. I pushed the mattress toward the far wall when it came apart. Lifting the box spring, I blocked the window cementing myself in shadows. I pushed the mattress to the corner and lay on it. I had a small pocketknife in my jeans and rummaged around naked looking for it. Anything to use as a weapon, although I considered this to be more of a tool than anything.
Adrenaline subsided as the storm raged on. My eyes grew heavy. Dreams called me from far away. Somewhere my subconscious kept calling back to the hurricane. I clenched the knife and dozed.
Boxes of useless trinkets floated around mostly destroyed floating out of my closet. Accolades that no longer mattered from sports teams that would only be remembered by the participants floated alongside yearbooks and photo albums. The destruction carried throughout the house.
The power had gone out. Tired and scared. A garbage bag of technology sat in the bathtub. Realizing we value technology more and more, but without power it is useless. Boxes started floating past me. Water rose and I knew this was a dream, but I found myself wading through waste deep.
The box in front of me bobbed a little like a fish latching itself to a rod. I walked toward it. My hands pushing water around me as if that really did anything to propel me forward. I looked down on the box and saw fingers reaching from within clutching the inner flap. I reached out to touch them. I reached out to feel them. My hands trembling. The flap opened and with a roar, I was pulled into the box. I coughed thinking I would be drowning in water, when I was brought to the cabin. I knew it was the cabin.
The moonlight shone in through the open windows. She stood before me illuminated like an angel trapped on this terrestrial plane. She wore a long white wedding dress. When she spoke, I was known intimately.
Beaconing me toward the moonlight filled window. “Husband. Have you found me yet?”
“No.”
“Find me.”
We were outside the cabin now. Looking out the window had moved us to the other side of it. Under a large tree whose giant trunk stretched deep into the earth while its branches spread wide and far above us. A tree who had outlived generations of the world so far.
“Find me. You’re so close.”
“I will.”
“Find me.” Behind her rose a black figure. As she was pulled away toward the other trees in the wood, she kept calling out to me, her hand reaching out for me, “Find me.” As the figure reached around her looking as if it were about to devour her. “Find me.”
When the power turned on, I felt foolish looking at my makeshift barricade. I pushed the furniture back and turned on the television. Her words still echoing deep inside as they had with every dream like that that came. Channel surfing from infomercial to infomercial and from preacher to preacher. We were in God’s country.
“Jesus said, ‘I am the bread of life, he who comes to me will never be hungry. Eat my flesh’.” The TV burbled as the screen went in and out of focus. “Eat my flesh. Drink my blood.” Then the TV burbled again. “Eat my flesh. Drink my blood. Never be hungry again.”
I turned off the TV. I didn’t want to sleep. I didn’t need sleep like I used to when I was overweight. I listened to the rain. I rested and waited for morning. I heard her deep inside forever calling, “Find me.”
The tires of my car were buried in mud by inches. I thought I had parked on pavement but wondered if any place around here was really paved. Most of the cars were in the same boat I was in. The lady at the desk said later today or tomorrow there would be a tow truck.
“It’s part of our complimentary service.” Unphased by my shock, she smiled without missing a beat, “Hank waits to see if the rain has really stopped. Sometimes more rain is coming. Mud is the biggest thing you need to worry ‘bout ‘round here.”
The sun still hid behind a wall of gray. Dark clouds threatened every step as I walked from the hotel and down toward the bar. Alligator Alley was just a step up from being a swamp. The far side of the street, occasionally houses, was wooded and swampy. Like the earth had been cut back and wanted to take the land again. The feeble road being the only thing keeping the earth at bay.
A truck appeared ahead of me. The driver either disinterested or oblivious, I had to step into the mud. The man drove past without a glance. He looked dazed. I thought I recognized him from yesterday. I thought it was the man with the woman at the bar. It looked like the same truck with its vibrant red paint. He sat bouncing back and forth in the cab alone. I didn’t want to consider what might’ve happened. Maybe she just left. There are times when the lies you tell yourself are the only real comfort you can find.
The bar was closed. No sign of life anywhere. I sat outside the door. Tired, I leaned against it and thought I could sleep. I would wait as long as it took. When the cop car pulled up, I didn’t know why I wasn’t surprised.
“How ya doin’ today?”
“Surviving.”
“It’s best if you get going, you know?” He looked up at the sky not getting out of his cruiser, “Yeah, this place is no good for you, son. Come on now, I’ll drive you back to the hotel and we can get your car out. Hank’s a good friend. He would do it for me, specially to help someone get on their way. You know what I’m sayin? It’s time you got on your way. She ain’t coming. She doesn’t know anything. You feel me, son?”
I shrugged and smiled. The adrenaline surging again inside. Ready for battle as I imagined the heads in the door. By the light of day, its seemed more like hallucination. I rose to my feet.
“She said she’d meet me here.”
“Well, she ain’t.” he said giving a small glance up the dirt road farther along Alligator Alley.
I nodded looking up the road seeing the mud and tire tracks from the pickup truck carving themselves into the earth. If I had a home to go to, I might have gone there. If I had more than a few dollars to my name, I might have moved along. If I had someone to call on, I might have. But in truth, I had nothing now except the emptiness inside that called out because of a picture and a woman that I could not remember except for in my dreams.
“It’s time to move along.” The cop tried again still looking at the road.
She was up there, Daphne. I shook my head back and forth. I tried to think of something to say but I had nothing. The cop’s eyes kept glancing up the road. Was he trying to tell me something?
“I think you know enough already if you hadn’t figured it. You can still have a normal life. This isn’t your time. The right mind at the right place – you have Kitty Hawk and the magic of flight. But just the same, the weird hit of the hockey stick or baseball bat and that puck, that ball flies into the crowd. Most of the time its caught, you know. Most of the time, it’s exciting. But sometimes, it’s lights out for someone. The wrong place at the wrong time – lights out. You get what I’m saying? It’s time to go!”
When I didn’t speak, he opened the cruiser door and got out. My adrenaline had already been surging. Inside the cruiser, I stared at the wrappers of food near his feet. I saw the three prongs of a chord dangling from what looked like a hair dryer. He walked toward me closing the door.
He had been sitting on the side of the road. Had he been checking for speeders? Or did I see what I wanted to? Had he been waiting for me all along? Had he known I would be here outside the bar? What was his game? Friend or foe?
In for a penny, I thought as my adrenaline surged again. I felt like an animal as a roar came out of me. He had no time to respond as I kicked him in the gut. Watching him keel over, I rushed and grabbed the gun from his holster. Using it as a club, I hit his head and watched him crumble to the ground. I checked his ankle seeing enough movies to educate me to look for a backup. Nothing.
Tucking the gun in the back waistband of my pants, my fists rained down on him. I smiled feeling proud of myself for the first time in a long time. It was more than just my diet. It was more than just being thin, something I had never truly enjoyed until now. It was like an ancient part of me had awoken keeping me safe and alive.
When he no longer moved, I stopped hitting him. I stood upright and saw the notebook and pictures had scattered from my pocket. I held the picture of her in a wedding dress. I smiled at a family I had recognized as my own and a family who were strangers lining the background. She looked at the camera and smiled. “Find me”.
Knocking him unconscious wasn’t part of the plan. Although I had no plan. Unconscious people can’t speak. The keys were in the ignition and I opened the trunk of the cruiser. I lifted him easily dropping him into it. Unable to help myself, I punched him one more time out of spite before closing the trunk.
On compulsion, I scooped out the garbage on the floor of his car onto the ground. I tossed the gun onto the passenger seat and got in. I threw the hairdryer at the bar as I started up the engine. In for a pound, I thought, as the cruiser started to bounce along the uneven road.
Fallen trees lined along the road. The cop never woke. He wasn’t a cop. I knew that now. He was a sentry. I had driven ten minutes when the cruiser got stuck in the mud. Large trees surrounded me with the cawing of unseen birds. I closed the door behind me. Checking my pocket for the pictures, I forgot about the gun as I wandered into the woods following up the road.
The ground had begun to dry. Mad had been everywhere as I ascended the hill. Habitually, I checked my pocket for the pictures. Worried if I lost the pictures, I would lose everything. The silence of the forest filled me. Wind rushed downhill, shaking the trees back and forth. Maybe it would rain again.
I had been following the pickup truck’s tracks unconsciously carving their own path for me. It was a while before I found the cabin. It was the same as my dreams. Just beyond the cabin, a large tree rose beyond it. I could not help but marvel. The tree initially seemed to grow in at a 90-degree angle then rising up and heading in the opposite direction almost forming a letter “c” in the base. Moss crept along its base making it look more like a bed than a tree.
I felt my eyes fade in and out of focus as I walked past the cabin to gaze at this tree calling out to me. Forgotten memories echoed inside begging to be remembered. A gentle moan and a flash of blood dripping down the bark sent my head spinning.
“What do you think?” She implored not relenting with the gentle laugh that loved so much.
“Breathtaking.” Seeing her twirl, the black dress unable to keep a straight face.
“Mister, I don’t get in relationships.” She teased. “Mister.” Her voice going deeper trying to mimic mine, “Love isn’t for people like me.”
The memory losing its power as my head swirled with new memories trying to break the surface of my consciousness. Hearing her moan in pleasure and then in pain, I tried to piece everything together.
“I don’t think I actually said that.” I stepped closer, “I love you.”
She kissed me. “I love you too.” Pressing her body close to mine, she pulled back and whispered, “Find me. Find me.”
I collapsed. I rose on all fours, trying to stand. The tree in absolute beauty, betrayed a crooked bent that threatened guile. The black dress still in my mind’s eye turned into a wedding dress and then the white turned to red with blood.
“Find me.” She pleaded inside me.
Dizzy, my senses felt overloaded. She pleaded her two words again inside me. I headed toward the cabin. If I had examined the tree more carefully, I would’ve seen splotches of blood.
Enough of the day had passed that I thought it would be pitch black before I got back. Woodland noises surrounded me but inside my stomach growled for nourishment. The ground was dry. As I made the staggering steps toward the cabin, I hoped there would be something to eat.
“Perfect place for a honeymoon”, the words echoed from somewhere deep inside. A memory began to play out. I grabbed her hand spinning her in her white dress. We spun under the tree, hand in hand. She laughed. She kissed me. The dress turned to red with blood.
Thunder clapped above. I looked up thinking, the rain would keep me here for days if it could. I thought to run. But again, I had nowhere to go. Raindrops started echoing through the forest as they hit the leaves. I remembered the gun, my unwanted passenger that I had left behind.
The boards cracked as I walked onto the porch. “Hello?”
I pushed the door open and the cabin empty. There was a bag on the floor, a woman’s bag. I approached it cautiously. How many things had the man left behind when he drove out of here in a haze? He stared forward, he didn’t see me on the road as he drove out rocking back and forth toward a new reality.
“Hello?”
I went to kick the bag out of helpless desire when it began to fade. Fading from red to gray to white to nothing, it disappeared before my eyes. I wondered if that was how my wife disappeared. I shook my head back and forth as if to wonder if the bag had ever existed. Maybe it existed only in some cloying part of my brain needing reason.
One day, I knew now, I came home, and her stuff had faded into nothingness. I tossed my keys onto the small bookshelf by the door and whatever trinkets that she had, that she bought or loved were faded away. Reality had shifted. I would have walked around the house not realizing that I had lost the most important thing in my world.
Why did these pictures not disappear? Why did I still have something when others had nothing? I pulled out the pictures out of in my pocket. I held the one whose inscription said, “Always”. I felt my hands shake.
“Darling,” Daphne said standing before me. Her vivid red lips parted into a smile as I saw her. No longer an older woman, but younger and beautiful. Not so much like a thick oak, but like a tiny, young spruce. Her dark skin soft as she reached out to touch me. “I left them.” Tapping the pictures knowing the question I had been wondering but hadn’t uttered, “I wanted to bring you back to me. You are mine. Always.”
As I held the pictures, she waved her hand above them. The pictures began to fade. I pleaded for her to stop. I pleaded as the pictures turned white and transparent. Seeing the word, “Always” visible on the other side of the now useless glossy photo paper before disappearing completely.
I stood helpless looking down at my hands. Alone again, I could feel the memories beginning to disappear. Different areas of the house began to glow above me. The electricity must be working now. I didn’t know where Daphne had gone. I didn’t even think about it feeling my mind turn hazing.
Outside grew darker. I walked around the small cabin. Why was I here? The lights should be brighter. As I flicked the switched, nothing happened. I looked up to see not electricity but small floating orbs of light dancing above me. Fluttering like tiny fireflies, I marveled as their light slowly filled the room.
The orbs disappeared around the same time the rain began. I waited and sat until it stopped. I could not see in the complete black. The darkness helped focus my memories. I clung to them, my only refuge for what awaited me when the rain stopped.
When the moon appeared through the dark clouds of rain, I could see again. The forest made small noises of leaves rustling. Water dripped from the trees. I listened as I heard someone’s slow and heavy steps approach. I rose and made for the door to see her walking toward me.
“Come on.” Daphne said waving me outside the cabin. Her skin looked smooth in its nakedness. Her hair looked darker and more alive shimmering a deep green as she moved. I held my breath seeing her beauty still imploring me to come and meet her.
Bursts of light began illuminating around her as she approached. I quavered as I felt a rush of excitement.
“I found him in the trunk.” She said with a little smile. I had no idea who she meant at first. “Disappointing.”
She walked toward me. Her hands as rough as bark as she pulled my shirt off. The little orbs of light returned and danced around us as she stripped me.
“Look at you!’ She said almost laughing, “You’re the triumph of human flesh. I made you this way, and you returned to me. Don’t you know what this means?”
“What are you?”
“You still don’t know?” As she approached, I saw parts of her body transform into what looked like a tree. Bark emerging with each step. Her hair long stretching down and lifted randomly flashing leaves in their excellence.
“What are you?”
“What did you expect? A satyr with goat legs and horns to seduce you? Something else perhaps? I am in the retinue of a god no longer.” She shouted growing taller reaching out her hands into the skies. Her arms becoming branches; her fingers becoming leaves.
I fell backwards shrinking from her. Unsure how I got here. Knowing, I would not be able to escape. She brushed her hands through her hair making it go from leaves to hair again. Her skin turned from bark to flesh. She laughed watching my astonishment.
“When Apollo tried to rape me, the rescue my father gave was a curse, a burden. But they are dead now. All of them, reaching their apocalypse without me. We few remain.
“I watched as the gods gave meat to feed men’s bodies and become strong. Watching them love their new pets. Watching them play unable to free myself from the earth. When blood was shed across my roots, I felt it seep into me. I felt it loosen the curse. I felt alive. No longer the nymph, but a god! Still tethered by my curse, but youth came before age and then the roots call out to dig deep until blood is shed again. The cycle must break.”
My hands trembled toward my pocket where the knife was still tucked away. I opened my mouth to say something but her smile of seduction, closed it.
“See as I see.” She laughed. Her naked form drawing closer to me. The orbs dancing around us creating an orgy of light. “I did not kill her; you did that in service to me.”
“No!” I said remembering it all at once.
“Men do whatever I want when they are in my presence!”
“No!” I shouted seeing things as I had not before. The cop grabbing my hand and cutting it before giving me the name that brought my journey to its destination. My whole world somersaulted as I collapsed to my knees gripping my head. Knowing the cut had been a mark for them to spot me. But somehow even then forgetting it instantly.
“Look at your teeth mostly ground down like cattle to eat grass. But you were enthralled with me. You’ll remember truly soon enough.” She laughed again. “So easy to confuse, my little pet cow.”
She touched my arm. A numb sensation spread from my skin to my soul. I tried to speak but couldn’t. My chest heaved. She convinced me so easily to stay the night in the hotel. Convincing me to do that which I had no desire. I could feel the thousands of men who had been bewitched as well. Their souls lost.
My legs weaken as the orbs began to glow brighter. They grew from small fluttering light to the size of children then full-grown beautiful women. Their faces as they grew were the ones in my hotel room door. They were sent to watch over me. Their skin was white like porcelain and their blonde hair stretched down their backs. Even in a larger form, their bodies glowed. I felt a peace with them feeling everything becoming right as it should be.
“My sisters,” Daphne pointed, “They found me when the world ended. The gods had been killed. We had served Pan. We had served Hermes. We served Dionysius. We learned from them. Now, we take their place, their thrones.
“I’m not going to kill you. You made a good sacrifice for your naiad goddess. Like most of the men do. I waited for your return. I waited, knowing your love would bring you back to me.” She touched my cheek. “Your love would….”
“You think love will make you human?”
“Human?” she practically spit out the word. “Hardly would I demean myself. Love will lift the curse of what I am. I am sure.” She smiled and I saw blood on her teeth. Still touching my cheek, I saw her open the trunk. The not-cop’s sigh of relief before her teeth grew into angry bark and she feasted.
I grit my teeth. I felt the roar of the lion inside my chest as I could see gods feeding men meat. I heard the roar of a millennia of injustice as she lifted me to my feet. My heart pounded. Ancestors holding spears as they hunted meat. Mankind growing and finding the gods, killing them.
“Look at how you resist,” She puckered her lips as she spoke, “So bold to reject my love.” My feet dangle as her face grew lines and stretched. Her teeth seemed to explode in number.
Love burned warm in my veins as she took the first bite into my shoulder. “Find me.” I heard my wife’s plea inside. I watched as each bite made her look more human by the second. The other women approached; dinner was served. No longer nymphs or naiads but ruined beauty.
“No!” Needing just a second advantage, my thoughts solely on my wife.
“He is mine.” She drew back. Pain and numbness surged my entire being. The women turned back into orbs fluttering around us.
A diet is about hate. You hate what you’ve become. You hate the food that tastes good but makes you fat. You hate because it is the key to survival. My fingers numb surged into my pocket for the knife. Quickened by her pause just enough for the strength to flick the blade out.
She didn’t see it as she bit into me again. I thrusted the knife into her stomach and twisted. She growled, gnashing her teeth into me. My arm gone; chest cavity exposed. The adrenaline pumped to a heart that no longer needed it. Pain surged as she drew back howling into the air, dropping me to the ground.
My ancestors carried spears. Holding the knife, I charged my prey. Pain unbearable, I leapt onto her as she growled at me. Bark already starting to climb up her legs as she began her transformation to heal. I thrusted the knife into her again, twisting deep into her. I leaned in close to her feeling the bark already starting to latch onto my hand and then my go up my sole arm.
I watched her realize what I had done. I felt a smile as she tried to fight but the bark already making her stiff and immobile as our legs formed one trunk. Any bloodshed now would awaken her to my curse.
I could see my wife now. I felt her inside. The love I had carried coming to climax as I heard her say the one word that had always meant the world to me. So, I repeated it to this beast as bark crept up my neck and hers. I leaned in and whispered, “Always.”
Kris Green lives in Florida with his wife and one-year-old son, Tennyson James. He had my first short story published in 2018 through Morpheus Tales. Last year, He was a finalist for the Chester B. Himes Memorial Fiction Contest. This year, he has published a short story, “Power” in the summer edition of “Flume” with The Haberdasher: Peddlers of Literary Art.