Bentley Little - The Burning

The thing was, the train seemed to have simply disappeared once it reached a certain point. Either that or it had retreated so perfectly, backtracking along the same path so precisely, that no evidence of its withdrawal was visible.

There was something eerie about that, eerie and unfathomable, and rather than think about it, Josh was spurred to action, going into the office and calling Tank, his supervisor. Let that overmuscled asshole earn his paycheck and deal with the problem. It was about time he did some work around here.

Meanwhile, Josh was the one alone in the graveyard.

Even though the train was gone and it was daytime.

He didn't think that made much difference, and he'd locked himself in the office, phone in hand, ready at a second's notice to dial 911, until the cavalry arrived.

The entire cemetery was soon overrun with Pentagon types, soldiers, FBI agents and even a few ordinary cops who wanted in on the action but were quickly turned away. Everyone had a job to do and everyone did it, and both Josh and Washington Carter, his job-share partner, were quizzed by an endless stream of investigators, asked the same questions over and over again until their brains were numb. Certainly no one suspected either of them of anything, but water flowed downhill, and Josh knew that the two of them would get the blame for what happened. He might as well start sending out resumes right now.

What he couldn't understand-what no one could understand-was how such destruction could have occurred without anyone hearing it. The fences and gates were also wired to the hilt with the most elaborate and up-to-date security systems known to man, yet none of the alarms had been triggered when that behemoth had crashed through the barrier into the cemetery.

It wasn't until later, much later, after all of the information on the affected graves had been recorded, that they learned that every one of the disinterred bodies had been a Civil War veteran.

There was probably a reason for that, Josh thought. It probably meant something.

But neither he nor anyone else could figure out what.

Sixteen

Canyonlands National Park, Utah

Henry stood on the sand, looking out over the water.. He was naked but unashamed. Proud, in fact, though he realized why only when his penis started to grow and he felt one tongue licking his balls, another sliding up and down the crack of his ass. He looked down to see the twins slavishly working on his nether regions, and as a family floated by in a sailboat, he hoped they could see these two gorgeous babes who so desperately desired him.

The old Henry wanted to tell the woman behind him that she was licking the spot where he shit, that she might even get some kind of disease from it, but . the new Henry reveled in this forbidden debauchery, and he experienced a strange triumphant sense of pleasure from the submissiveness of the Asian twin in back of him.

The one licking his scrotum began moving her head slightly as her tongue flicked faster against his testicles. The underside of his erect penis rubbed against the silky smooth hair on top of her head, the sensation building to a fever pitch, and then he was coming, then he was spurting, what felt like a cup, a quart, a gallon of sperm pumping into her straight black hair.

It didn't drip onto her ears or bare back but was absorbed into the hair, and as he watched, the blackness began to grow. It was no longer hair but a shadow of hair, of a head, of a body, of a person, a shadow that expanded to cover the sand, the water and finally the sky before engulfing him as well.

Henry awoke with his underwear off and his penis stuck to his hairy stomach with dried crusted semen.

He tried to sit up, but it was painful and felt like the skin was being ripped from his cock. He examined the organ, trying to determine the best way to liberate it, before finally wetting his palm with spit, rubbing his penis and gradually working it free.

Grimacing, he sat up. The events of the dream (nightmare'?) had been fantastic, but the location was real. Of that he was sure. Although he couldn't place it, Henry knew he'd seen that spot before. He glanced up at the photo of Sarah by the beach but knew that wasn't the place. The truth was, he was not even sure it was the ocean, at least not in a traditional sense. Yes, the water extended as far as the eye could see, but the waves were microscopic, barely up to his ankle. That could have meant that the whole thing was some type of symbol or metaphor for something else, but he didn't think so. He was sure he'd actually been to that site, though the harder he tried to recall it, the more knowledge of it seemed to slip away.

He found his underwear balled up at the foot of the bed. He had no idea how his briefs had gotten there or how they'd gotten off his body. He hoped he'd done it himself in his sleep, but he couldn't be sure and that worried him. Henry went into the small bathroom, tossed his underwear in the hamper and took a long shower, crubbing his skin until everything was gone, then letting the hot water hit his back until it began to run out. He got dressed, made and ate breakfast, then» paced around the inside of his cabin, glancing out ocasionally at the overcast sky. It was his day off again, and the superintendent had made it clear that until further notice, all rangers and park employees not on duty were to remain in their cabins. Henry understood that this was a precautionary measure, that a lot of strange, unexplained, dangerous things were going on||» out there ... but the thought of staying indoors all day still made him stir-crazy.

He glanced over at his bookshelf. Next to there Canon, the collected works of Edward Abbey and E Wallace Stegner-were a handful of books from his past, along with a few newer volumes lent to him by friends that he hadn't gotten around to reading. He chose one of these and settled down on the couch. Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas. He'd been a big Tom Robbins fan back in the days when books had meant something to him, when fiction and literature had provided him with a road map for life, and he was looking forward to visit once again with an old trusted friend. But he was put off by the author photo on the dust flap. This was Tom Robbins? His heart sank as he looked at the black-and-white shot. Gone was the happy hairy hippie with the wide, open smile pictured on the back of Still Life with Woodpecker or even the grinning New Age loon from Skinny Legs and All. In his place was a sober pretentious yuppie wearing the expression of someone too preoccupied with himself to give anyone else the time of day.

Henry put the book down without reading a single word of it. He was getting to be an old fuck. Music made him sad now, too, songs he hadn't heard for a long time filling him with an almost unbearable melancholy. Just last night, he'd heard an old John Prine song carried on the wind from someone else's cabin, and all of a sudden he'd started crying. Of course, he'd been half drunk, so that might have had something to do with it, but still ...

He'd been drunk a lot lately. It was the only way he seemed to be able to deal with what was happening.

They'd found Laurie Chambers yesterday in a ravine in the Maze. Or, rather, a hiker had found her. He'd called it in on his cell phone, and a helicopter had had to retrieve her body. She'd been mauled and half-eaten, most likely by predatory animals after the fact, and authorities were still waiting for an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

Henry already knew the cause of death.

The twins.

Laurie had been found in a remote environmentally sensitive area, but all about her the cliff walls had been defaced, the sandstone carved and etched with nonsensical drawings: top hats and train tracks, horses, guns and suns. What did it mean? Henry wondered. What was the point of it all? For there was a point, and it did mean something. Of that he was sure.