It Came from Anomaly Flats Page 8

  The first man started up in a panic and began crushing the smoking bones beneath the heel of his boot. The skeletons cracked and shattered, and fragments flew in all directions, dripping with melted grease and offering such a stench as can be depended upon from overcooked meat. The bandit threw himself about the camp, collecting shards and shoveling them into the embers in a desperate attempt to conceal them amid the flaking white remnants of wood, but a kneecap here, and a jaw bone there, and finger joints and femur fragments scattered about made this a hopeless errand. He stacked more kindling onto the cooling fire and blew onto the red-orange glow beneath the flakes of ash, hoping to rekindle the former glory of the thing, and he swore he could feel the heat of the fire surging back to life. But it was nothing other than the heat of his own skin, gone red with panic and ruin.

  “Hold, brother,” said the third bandit after the comedy had played itself on to an excruciating end. He dangled his watch from its chain, a beautiful keeper of time that, with but a look, was of uncontested accuracy and authority. “It’s now midnight, and your attempt has come to an end.”

  The second bandit guffawed, and the first sank to his shame, for not only bits of bone, but of flesh, too, still littered the scorch pit, and though the murder weapon had been consumed to its natural end, the remnants of victims made a difficult case for a kill’s highest form.

  The next night belonged to the second bandit, and he approached the new dusk with relish. After a day of raucous consideration interspersed with no small belittlement on behalf of the party of the first part, he made clear his plan as the sun set beyond the wood. “I’ll not take my pleasure here, lads, where our brother’s failed attempt has made a mockery of our game.” He said this with a leering grin directed at the first bandit, who glowered in response and cursed most foully behind his teeth. “No, I’ll take my pleasure in another part of the Flats, but wait here with anticipation akin to defeat, for I’ll return before midnight’s stroke with evidence of a murder most delectable.” With that, he tipped his hat to his fellow marauders and disappeared through the woods beyond the eastern rise.

  The remaining men made little speech that night, for each was consumed by his own thoughts. The first bandit raged in an internal sort of way, cursing the game and cursing himself. As for the third bandit, who can say what thoughts made claim to his attention, for is not such a man as he a singularly lonesome and brooding creature?

  If words passed between the two men, they were surely as formless and empty as the thin trails of cloud snaking through the darkening sky above.

  At some length, the second bandit returned, a whistle on his lips and a cheerful carelessness in his step. He carried with him an old flour sack, which he dangled between his fingers as a piece of meat over a dog’s head. “What do you bring?” the first bandit asked sourly, feeling already that some great injustice had been done him, and that his failure at claiming the game was all but complete now that this second man had returned with something other than a body gone cold.

  “This, brethren,” said the second bandit, jiggling the sack and flashing his leering smile, “is the proof of my achievement.”

  He tossed the sack into the well-used ring of earth around the fire, and a swarm of hornets exploded forth from its neck, sore for the confinement, confused for the smoke. The first bandit scrambled back away from the monstrous, angry insects, plunging back over his log of a seat and tumbling into the ferns and brambles beyond. The third bandit, for his part, simply sat and let the hornets wash past him, which they did, without paying him courtesy. The swarm buzzed angrily up into the trees and disappeared in the leaves high above.

  “What’s this?!” the first bandit cried, righting himself in the bushes and stomping back into the firelight. “Speak, brother, for we’ll have no chicanery in this contest!”

  “Why, it’s naught but the uncontested proof of my victory,” he said with a self-satisfied sort of grin.

  “Tell us how your time was passed,” said the third bandit with a simple and direct authority that could not be denied. The second bandit cleared his throat and began:

  “When I left these homely woods, I ventured straight as a loosed arrow to the banks of the Emerald Snake” (for this was the name of Plasma Creek in those days, though its properties were ever the same as they are today) “and set myself to waiting behind a tree that dares to dangle its roots above the floating green mists of that place. By and by, a gentleman comes along, a right gentleman, too, buckskin jacket cut in that style of the highbrows that inhabit Scudder’s Point, and handsome gloves to match. In his cups, he was, and giggling to the night like a fool. I wait until he approaches, tumbling and stumbling over his own shining boots. So close he comes to my tree that the air stinks with the scent of his shaving oil, and at last, I strike! I grab our fellow by the elbow, and I fling him into the watery green depths of the Snake, and I say, ‘Here’s one gets off easy!’ It’s my nature to take my pleasure in such things, I’ll not be ashamed of it. Without so much as a scream nor grunt, the lad slips from the bank and plunges into the Snake, and…well, you fellows surely know as well as most what strange and terrible properties that thick, green haze boasts. He goes in a man, all right, and when he pops back to the surface, he’s no more a gentleman, but a swarm of wasps in a hive. Stunned, they were, and drowsy with the change from man to insect collective, and I took my advantage and shuffled the nest to the bank with a stick (that turned itself into a squirrel at the submerged end, and that nearly riled the wasps, I tell you). I covered the nest with this same burlap sack, and here you see the true fruits of my labor. A man gone missing, replaced by a nest of wasps, and as they age and drop, one by one, the man dies a bit more each time, until he’s all killed off, and no one the wiser. See!” he said excitedly, pointing at a spot near the fire, between his own feet and those of the third bandit. “The strange, slow death begins yet!” Sure enough, the small husk of a dead wasp lay among the leaves, its wings singed by fire.

  “But you haven’t killed him off!” the first bandit cried, leaping from his log. “You’ve gone afoul of the rules, and your actions can’t be eligible for the prize!”

  “A murder’s a murder, whether the body turns cold now or in ten years’ time,” the second bandit insisted.

  “Waiting on a person to shrivel and die with age doesn’t make a man a great expert at murder!”

  “It isn’t age that’s the culprit, it’s the quick plunge into the green creek, and done by my own hand!”

  “Liar!”

  “Scoundrel!”

  “Cheat!”

  “Bungler!”

  The bickering might have gone on, but third bandit raised his hand for silence, and the two other men shrank back into themselves. “A clever trick,” the third bandit decided, his eyes still focused strong as steel at his comrade’s feet. “Events were set in motion toward an untimely and unnatural death, and there was no rule spoken to deny its claim.”

  “Exactly right!” cried the second bandit, his face bright with triumph. “The right perfect crime, and no mistake.”

  “However,” continued the third bandit, his eyes still low, “I would be remiss were I not to inquire after the whereabouts of your missing boot.”

  The second bandit flushed scarlet, and he tucked his left foot beneath his log so far as he was able, but now the first bandit leapt up with excitement and pointed down at the stocking-clad foot. “Yes! Yes! A sock in need of darning, and no shoe to keep it dry!”

  “You had two boots when last we saw you, did you not?” the third bandit inquired.

  “He did! He did! I remember the sight of them with my own eyes! Cracked and foul, like his black heart!”

  “Hush!” the second bandit snapped at the first. “I did have a boot to match, that’s right enough. But the mud at the Emerald Snake is thick and wet, famously so, and as I stepped close to dip th
e wasp nest from the misty waters, the mud sucked down my shoe, it did, and my foot came clean out. I nearly pitched into the creek myself, and I might have, were I not so nimble, especially for a gentleman of my size and carriage,” he added proudly. “I worked to pry it loose from the muck, and finally it came, with a great squelch, the likes of which would frighten a brown bear, I’d wager. And the boot, worn leather that it is, and slick with age and filth, it went flying from my hand and into the Snake, lost forever to one such as I, for I won’t be wading in after it in a time soon to come, no I will not.”

  “You lost your shoe in the creek!” the first bandit cried, laughing heartily.

  “Aye,” the second bandit shot back, “and lucky for you, too, lest I kick your sorry head with it, clear across the Lurchwood!”

  The first bandit’s laughter doubled. “Why, you’ve left behind an evidence more damning than my bones! At least the skeletons couldn’t be tied to me and my own. Your boot, though! A singular fit, and no mistaking it!”

  “Laugh on, oh, aye—laugh on!” the second bandit sniped. “But you’re forgetting one crucial detail, brother: what goes into the Snake doesn’t come out the same. My boot’s no longer a boot, but might be a sapling, or a blackened liver, or a mewling wolf cub, or any manner of strange oddity. That bit of evidence is anything but.” He crossed his arms, satisfied.

  “Perhaps it’s you who are forgetting an important detail,” the third bandit said evenly, and the second killer’s face fell. “For it is so that only organic matter may be turned in the churning depths of the Emerald Snake.”

  “So?” the second bandit said, wiping his nose with his sleeve.

  “So your boot leather may or may not count as a living thing, the fine steer it once was being alive enough. But what did you use for laces? And by what means did you strengthen the sole of the shoe? For I look at its partner there, and if I mistake it, let’s have it out…but isn’t that stripped wire you’ve got for laces, and a strip of hammered iron tacked on to the sole?”

  The second bandit blenched white as a grub worm. “So what if it is?” he said, his voice a-quiver. “You’ll not suggest that a strip of wire and a bit of iron are enough to cry murderer.” But there was doubt in his voice, and no mistake.

  “I know not what it might make one cry,” the third bandit said, raising his eyes mercifully and tending to the flames. “But I know they won’t change in the creek, and what’s been left behind is a sign of your involvement there.”

  The second bandit jumped to his feet, upsetting the log and nearly kicking over the fire. “You think it’s some grand, simple thing to leave nothing behind? We should see how you fare tomorrow!” he cried.

  The first bandit slapped his knees. “What a sight!” he declared. “One night ago, content and smug as the summer sun, and now...why, what a difference a small bit of time can make!” He laughed and laughed, and he would not be silenced. For if misery loves company, then shame must lust after it sorely.

  The third day belonged to the darkened stranger. In the late morning, he stripped a sturdy plank of wood from a tree and set about digging a great pit just several yards off the trail that led past their camp, and as the sun began to lower itself over the trees, the bandit climbed out of the hole and tossed his makeshift shovel into the fire. He seemed to have not broken a sweat. “Will you lure a man into your well?” the first bandit asked, truly intrigued. “Or has it some other nefarious purpose?”

  “Wait,” was all the third bandit said.

  He did not move again until the night had grown full dark.

  The other two bandits ticked and jangled with impatience, their knees jumping and falling, their fingers tapping and cracking. But the third bandit only sat, staring into the flames and warming his hands against the heat. Finally, when the moon was high and proud between the leaves of the trees, the second bandit could wait no more. “Will you do nothing but sit here and wait? Your night grows short, and the promised bag of jewels seems already to weigh itself in my hands!”

  The third bandit tilted his head to the side and seemed to see his companions for the very first time. His brow furrowed, as if confused at the presence of other men at the fire. Then the bandit sighed and said, “Yes. The time has come.”

  “At long last,” the first bandit grumbled, for he was sore, inside and out, and wanted to be free of the Lurchwood and its bitter hospitality.

  The third bandit rose from his seat and began to slowly circle the fire. “The perfect murder is a delicate thing,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper, the edges of his teeth just visible beneath his snarling lips. “A simple plan and a careful hand; these are the bedrock for a truly divine kill.”

  “Doesn’t get much simpler than waiting for a soul to fall into a hole in the ground,” the second bandit smirked.

  But the third bandit continued, undaunted by the japery. “The selection of the victim is sorely important.” He crossed behind the logs, laying a hand gently on the first bandit’s shoulder. The bandit shivered under the touch, but his companion continued to move, letting his hand slide across the man’s neck and down the other shoulder. “The slightest connection between killer and corpse may raise the suspicions of a keen constable.” He approached the second bandit, and with a mirthless wink, he patted the man’s head, pushing the crown of his hat low so the brim covered his eyes. “When at all possible, it’s best practice to slit the throat of a stranger.” The third bandit plucked the knife from his belt, grabbed the second man’s head tightly and tipped it back, exposing the soft, white flesh above his collar. Then he drew the blade across the man’s neck, and a fountain of blood sprayed into the air. The second bandit’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out, and he pitched forward onto the earth, twitching in the dirt and leaves as his blood left him in a surging tide.

  The first bandit screamed and scrambled backward over the log, but he couldn’t get his feet beneath him, so great was his shock. The third man turned to him, his mouth set in a firm line. “A stranger is best, aye...and two strangers is a gift.” He leapt at the first bandit and came down with his feet on either side of the man’s ribs. The first bandit held up his hands in a weak defense, but the third man plunged his knife straight down into the victim’s neck, stabbing it through. He wrenched the knife back out, and the blood welled up at his throat, thick as honey and dark as dusk. The dying man pressed a useless hand to the wound, and the blood streamed through his fingers as the light left his eyes.

  The murderer wiped his blade in the grass and burned off the bits of hair and flesh over the fire. With the knife thus cleaned, he slipped it back into its sheath and turned to his slain brethren. He might have gone on...expounding on the importance of proper disposal, of covering all trace, of being mindful of evidence, of not carrying on as a braggart, of keeping the kill secret, keeping the murder safe. But there would have been no point in saying these things aloud. There was none left to bear witness.

  The third bandit grabbed the first thief by the wrists and dragged him back into the woods, pitching his body roughly into the pit. Then he returned for the second body, taking it by the ankles, one clad in a boot, the other only in a sock, and he threw this body down on top of the other. He picked up his makeshift shovel and covered the poor, foolish bandits with dirt, and when the hole would take no more, he scattered what was left to give the whole space an even grade. He covered the earth with broken and scattered limbs and uprooted thorns until the camouflage was complete, and the tomb of the two killers was no more to the passing eye than a thicket of Lurchwood brush.

  He hefted the shoveling plank and made a wide circle of the campsite, stubbing his toes in the dirt every now and again, testing for softness. Before long, he found the clear hiding spot of the jewels, with its freshly turned earth still loose and exposed, bare to the world. He dug down until plank struck gem. He hauled up the small burlap
sack full of jewels and fastened it to his belt. Then he tamped down the dirt, scattered leaves across the divot, returned to the fire, tossed his shoveling plank into the flames, and watched sharply as it crackled and burned down to cinders. He gathered his scant belongings, stamped out the fire, and left it smoldering in the dirt, just another cook fire in a forest pocked with ashen craters. And no one could say that he hadn’t earned those gems hanging from his hip, for if there ever was a more perfect murder, it’s not been sung of in song nor story. The bandit left the Lurchwood forever, abandoning the forest to its secret sorrows.

  Surely this is a story you’ve heard before. Ah, I can see by the pale look in your eyes that I’m right. And if you think on it but a moment, that might strike you as passing strange, for how can a tale of murder spread when all witnesses have become victims of the killer’s knife? Perhaps the killer himself has spread the story while in his cups, but no, I see you don’t believe that, and truth be told, nor do I. The third bandit, he never did seem the type to make such a slip. No, there can only be one explanation, then, excepting the notion that the story is a false one, but I can assure you it’s a tale as true as true is. It can only be, then, that someone bore witness to the killings in the Lurchwood. It can only be that the murderous traitor left a pair of watchful eyes behind.

  And now I see fear rise in your eyes like a rainstorm well, for the first time, and it is sweeter than a honey-plum. Well you should be afraid. For I know your face, even if you don’t recall mine. Time has changed us both, but your conscience is clear enough to wipe away memory as wet words from slate. My features are much aged now, weathered and creased, and so are yours, in truth.