Steve Tem - Excavation

Then the shadow was at his back; he turned, and fired. A tree limb split, and crashed.

“Reed!” he screamed to the shadow, and found he could not think of firing again. It hadn’t done any good… no gun would, he thought. But he wasn’t thinking right; he wasn’t seeing right.

“Reed!” he said again to the shadow with the black, black hair. He couldn’t make out the face, or most of the form… crowded with shadows as it was, moving so swiftly, leaving soot, or burnt leaves, or black mud… something… on the forest floor as it reached toward him.

Then the grin, that gleaming grin with the one sharp tooth showing, the rest hidden almost seductively by the too-red lips.

“Bear…” The bear was going to get him! He started to turn… to run… when it spun him around with a vicious slap. And Jake saw bright, gleaming blood falling, leaving ever-growing beaded patterns on the black backdrop of hair. Bright drops of crimson. His blood. Flying up and spreading there. Jake’s own blood.

Bear the bear the bear bear bear…

But even then, he wasn’t sure. It was so dark, and the figure full of shadows, and every shadow had a tooth or a claw.

“Reed!” he cried, knowing it would be the last word he would say, and wondering why he would call on him for help, the man he might have killed. “Reed!”

Jake saw the gun flying away, painted in crimson. Jake saw the pieces of shredded cloth between the teeth. Pieces of bloodied skin and pale broken skin suddenly gone blue and silver under the dark and silver clouds dropping lower over him.

Jake on the ground. How long had he been there? Being savaged. Savaged. And as his mouth stretched wide and wider still, soundlessly, matching the impossible extension of jaws that hovered over him, he looked into the shadowy mask growing dimmer, but still bright with its paint: the stretched lines and dripping starbursts of his own blood.

Far back in the woods, away from the screams and fury of movement, the bear watched, trying to keep still despite the agitation inside, the desire to run. He watched as the man was savaged. And wondered.

And was sick with his own fear.

When Joe Manors came in from work that evening, he was sure he saw old Mr. Pierce out in the side yard talking to a woman with red hair. But when he hurried over, he couldn’t find anyone there. He took the back stairs two at a time and rushed past the rooms on the second floor shouting. “Old man Pierce is out! He’s out!” he cried, and all the doors opened with a few of the occupants joining him as he ran up the steps to the third floor.

But Hector Pierce was lying in bed, babbling as usual. “She told me… she told me what’s happening. That poor boy don’t know what he’s in for… part of him stayed behind.”

Joe looked at the other tenants sheepishly. “Don’t understand it. I swear I saw him clear as day. With some woman.” Several of the men laughed and winked.

“Fire and flood and that boy’s ravening teeth!” the old man shouted, and they all shook their heads, bemused.

Joe thought he saw an orange glow at the window, but said nothing.

When everyone else had gone to bed, Joe stayed with the old man. Sitting in this old rocker by the bed, he listened to the delirium, making a point to remember later scattered phrases here and there from the monologue, as if he were listening to a preacher who talked too fast but had some sort of important message for him.

Several times he heard “little girl” and “the little girl.” That chilled him. It was as if Hector were trying to address Joe’s past mistakes directly, tell him where he’d gone wrong, let him know how he could make it up to his little daughter.

As the evening wore on, Joe started drinking and was completely drunk by the time the storm was in full force. He didn’t have to work tomorrow; the flooding of the sinkhole had taken care of that. He was wondering if he’d ever be going back to work the way things were going. He wasn’t even sure he would if he had the chance. Now he was afraid of stepping anywhere around the mine, afraid his foot would break through to some underground place or the rock would spring a leak right under his footstep. Lord, it was getting so he just hated the water, water of any kind.

He watched the lightning running itself to ground all over the head of the Big Andy, like flaming strands of hair.

Reed had waited much too long. Now the storm was in full force, and he had to dash through the dark woods to his uncle’s pickup, dodging fallen branches and hoping he wouldn’t be struck by lightning before he got there. He shouldn’t have stayed so long; he hadn’t found much of anything anyway.

He tripped on a half-buried log and sprawled into damp underbrush. The texture of the ground was repulsive here, and he raised his head quickly. Rain and mud spread down his face and he thought he would scream. He rubbed at his eyes frantically.

At first he thought he was looking into a clown’s mask… the bright red lips and large white spots painted on cheeks and forehead. But then he knew there was no paint here, and the white spots were from something eaten away rather than from something painted on.

Felix Emmanuel didn’t hear the shiny gray-steel van pull into the lot outside the mine office that morning; he’d spent the entire evening there, sleeping little because of the storm. But he did hear the van doors slam, and the men talking.

He peered over the bottom sill of the front window, just enough to see the Nole Company insignia on the van door and the block lettering below it: GEOLOGY. Suddenly Doris Parkey moaned under him.

He crouched and grabbed the woman by the neck. “Hush! You want me fired ?”

Doris giggled and pulled his hand down over her belly. “Dammit, woman!” Mr. Emmanuel slapped her hard, clamping his hand over her mouth as she whimpered. “I’ve had it! Another word and I’ll…” He was at a loss. What would he do?

Then he realized she was looking at him in a very strange way. Her eyes wide, almost pop-eyed. Her lips trembling, losing spittle into his hand.

And then she was struggling, clawing to get away from him. Her filthy thighs and feet squirmed around him, he was punched in the face, and suddenly she was free, breaking through the back door of the office and climbing the embankment into the trees. Naked, her flabby buttocks quivering grotesquely.

To Mr. Emmanuel’s dismay, he found himself aroused. He gritted his teeth and began jerking his clothes on. He could hear the men walking toward the front door.

Ben Taylor held out the coffee cup with both hands; his fingers were still trembling. “Here, Reed. Best drink up.”

Reed received the cup into waiting palms. He avoided looking at Ben, staring past the edge of the cup as he raised it carefully to his lips and drank. He sniffed, then gasped a mouthful of air. He could hardly breathe.

“Yeah,” Ben mumbled. “Hell of a thing.”

Reed had driven back to his uncle’s place in the middle of the night with the pieces of Jake Parkey’s body. He didn’t even know if he’d gotten it all. It had been dark and he’d had to feel around the area, picking up dead wood and mud clumps and anything else that seemed to feel right to the touch, his stomach wrenching anytime he felt something that seemed particularly soft or moist. He’d paused now and then to catch his breath; try to calm himself down. It took him hours. Like some bizarre fraternity rite, bananas and syrup.

The ground had been torn apart for yards around. It must have been quite a struggle.