It’s early November and the night holds the windy, rustled silence of late fall. The sky: crisp and cold, so clear I can see the individual shimmer of each lonely star within the clear, infinitely sparkled sky. I see for miles from the swing bench, over woodlands, mountains, streets and highways where cars move like fireflies and houses slowly smoke and flash with slow blinking lights that meld into the stars. I retire from the veranda to the comfort of my lounge room, bolt the door, secure the chain and stoke the fire before checking the shotgun’s happy, loaded in my lap. Reckon I’ll watch some television.

It’s Friday, so normal I’d visit town, into Jerry’s to sink some beers, shoot some pool. But since the curfew, no one’s out after dark. No one with a brain, that is. ‘Cos the streets are empty ‘cept for Lukin and the Deputies. They drive about in pick-ups, spotlights blazing, looking for a sign…

First body was found in a Dumpster, torn up bad like a rag doll, thrown inside and covered with garbage bags ‘til Billy complained about a smell. And I tell you, Doc Goldsmith’s been doing autopsies round here for nigh on twenty years. Word is he barfed three times before he’d finished. Goddamn it! that’s Silence of the Lambs kind a shit.

First they thought it was a bear. I said no way it’s a bear. It’d take a damn big grizzly to rip someone up that bad. Ha. You know that I ain’t the type to say I told you so but it turned out I was right: a machete, and a darn big one too. A fella must have one hell of a temper to do that type of damage. Second body turned up two weeks later, mangled bad. Some college kids found it by the roadside, ‘bout a mile out of town. From what I hears it was a mess: skin, shredded to the bone, star shapes cut into the forehead. Makes a grown man shiver.

Someone called in the Fed's after that, which riled Lukin bad.

It went quiet for a month we all began thinking that he’d moved on. A hobo I reckoned. We see them hitching through town from time to time. Probably heard a chopper and started thinking he was back in Lom Bok or Ho Chi Minh. You know that Rambo shit? There are guys like that around and you don’t want to be round when one of them flips.

Lukin took one such fella was taken into custody. A drifter: refused to speak all way through. Ha! That fella would a wished he could’ve whistled Dixie by the time that Lukin finished with him! Course, two fresh bodies turned up whilst Rambo was inside. They moved him from the cells to the hospital after that. I hear he’s still recovering. Damn Yankee still won’t tell no one his name.

And that was about the time that Lukin figured on a curfew from dusk to keep track of people’s whereabouts. Put all signs about the town and announced it over the radio.

First no one took it serious and the kids, they thought it was a game. Old Al Rusky’s boys, they snuck into the streets, broke into the diner for cigarettes and beers - figured that no one’s round to stop them. Lukin found them soon enough after he heard they’re screams. Too late to save them though, cut up so bad they needed a closed coffin.

Now everyone’s scared. We look in on each other during the day and let Lukin know if there’s someone missing. It’s funny how a town can join together when it needs to. A strange kind of bond has formed - you can feel it all about. People are more respectful when they see you in the street. Hell! I even talk with Lukin like he’s a neighbour. But to pay the man his dues, he’s doing right by us, doing his level best to find him. Whoever "him" is…

And it’s been quiet since Al’s kids died. Funeral’s tomorrow and we’ll all be there, the whole township together in that little church praying to dear God to stop this thing that’s destroying our town. And a funeral’s a sad occasion at the best of times, but when it’s for a kid, well, it just makes a fella think about the fairness of the world. It makes a man question his faith. And it makes a man jumpy: sleeping with one eye wide open with a finger set within a trigger. Become a way of life, I guess…

* * *

I turn the television off, sit back in the chair, puffing on my cigarette. It’s awful quiet on a night like this. So quiet I can hear the sizzle of tobacco as I draw each breath, watching the smoke rings slowly distort to nothingness as a breeze blows through the window. The dogs bark from time to time. There are possums and wildcats and sometimes a small bear will send them mad and they’ve started now: they’re yapping sons of bitches so I reckon that I should go and a look - for peace of mind, you understand?

It’s black out there in the woods and I can’t see much from the back verandah with this Goddamn spotlight. The dogs are going wild so I’ll just let them off the chain and see where they head. I follow them ‘cos I’m feeling pretty safe here with my pals Smith & Wesson. I move toward a copse of trees where they’ve stopped, yapping at something up there.

I can’t see much, even with this spotlight, but I can make me out a shape up there and it’s not moving too much. "I’ve got a gun trained on you!" I shout.

"Help me! He’s somewhere close! For the love of God please help me," answers a woman’s voice all panicked and breathless.

"Well you just get yourself down here and slow. I gotta gun so I don’t want you doing anything stupid."

"Oh God don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me!" she screams as she slowly begins her descent.

She’s standing before me now and she’s a young one. And a damn fine young one I can tell you! Even with the cuts and scratches I can tell she’s fine, young and ripe for picking.

I’m thinking that she’s hardly seventeen as she stands there with her hands raised above her head. Her eyes struggle with the light that shines directly in her pretty little face so I wave the spot light lower, creating a silhouette of her tight, white body against that thin cold night shirt what barely reaches past her arse.

"What you doing out here. What you doing on my property?"

She starts crying again. All folded over like a rag doll.

"I said, what you doing on my property?"

"Help me! Oh God please help me," she cries aloud. He chased me! Oh God, please don’t let him get me!"

She reaches her hands out toward me and it’s only then I see the cuts. They’re deep, with deep red blood dripping out from bandages made out of the torn nightshirt, I’m thinking. They’re kind of scary to look at and suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck have raised and the dogs have gone all quiet.

"Oh God! Are ya telling me he’s about?"

She nods her head, still sobbing…

"Up to the house." I say. "And quick."

I follow her, looking all around as we walk back up the hill. The grass has grown a little long and it’s soft underfoot, so my boots seem to slip with each step. As we approach the verandah I’m noticing that the door’s unlatched and swinging slightly. I swear I locked that door…She follows close behind me once I’m in.

"Stay here," I say softly. "I’m gonna have a look about," I tell her as I point her into the lounge room.

The house is awful quiet and there’s shadow’s growing in the corners that I’d never noticed before. The curtain’s billow gently as a breeze blows through and I hold my breath as I thrust the muzzle, breathing a sigh of relief to discover there’s no one there.

"I’ll call the Sheriff," I tell her as I walk into the lounge room.

She sits within the chair, cross-legged and hunched forward to cover up her legs. I pour whisky in a tumbler as I reach the telephone. She drinks it in slow, audible gulps as I call for Lukin.

"He’ll be up within five minutes"

She’s quiet now, hunched over in the chair cradling the tumbler in her hands, swaying slowly back and forward, like a child’s rocking horse: she stares directly ahead, ignoring me as I offer her a cigarette.

Oh well, she’ll be outta here shortly. Been through a lot, I guess and it’s gotta play with her mind. I can almost read it in her face as she sits there staring into nothing. Just rocking back and forward…

Lukin’s here now and he’s walking up the driveway on his lonesome so I go outside and meet him on the doorstep.

"She in there? " Lukin asks.

I nod. "She’s lookin pretty shaken," I tell her.

As I lead him through the door I don’t know what it is but she just starts screaming! She’s screaming, screaming- in hell’s most temperate tones and there’s a mad, desperate look in her eye. I turn about there’s Lukin at my shoulder. It takes a moment to realise that thing he’s holding up is a machete.

It’s just a moment to late I’m guessing…

11/02/2003

Author's Note: I seem to be discovering a variety of narrative voices at present - i'd welcome some feedback as to how effective these are in the conveyance of the stories :)

Posted on 11/02/2003
Copyright © 2024 Graeme Fielden