Fantasy & Science Fiction Mar-Apr 2013 (26 page)

But the gaunt man only smiled and slipped away into the increasing crowd, so quickly that Jack couldn't follow his path.

Nevertheless, he felt that he almost understood the rationale behind it all. He realized then that they were all looking at him, all the sick ghosts, as if they expected something of him.

At a loss, Jack looked again at Claire. This time she looked up and met his gaze. "There you are," she said, as if he'd been keeping her waiting. "Come on, let's get to work."

She stood and headed past him for the sliding doors with EMERGENCY on them in big red letters. He caught her arm, stopping her. He wasn't surprised by how it felt—cool, but definitely alive.

"Please, Claire," he said. "Where are all these people coming from? What do they want from—"

He realized suddenly that her arm was rapidly becoming warmer in his grasp. Painfully so, in fact. He released his grip just in time to keep from being burned.

He noticed something else, too: her hair was beginning to burn.

At first he thought it was a trick of the fluorescents, but after a moment's thought that made no sense either; they tended to bleach color out, not intensify it. He stared at her in utter disbelief. Each strand of hair was a slightly different shade now, and all were writhing upward as if trying to escape her skull.

He looked at her eyes. Normally they were green, a pure, steady, level green. But now, looking closer, Jack could see tiny flames, almost too small to see, dancing behind the irises and in the darkness of the pupils.

He'd smelled the acrid scent of burning hair many times. He caught no whiff of it now, but her hair was still on fire.

Claire grinned at him. Jack was afraid of looking too closely at her teeth, at how unnaturally white and pointed they were. Her skin was also a subtle but noticeable shade of red—although, in this case, he had to admit that any color would be an improvement on the lifeless fishbelly white she had been before.

Claire saw the look on his face and frowned; it was only a slight frown, but for some reason he felt his marrow chill.

"Too much?" she asked. He noticed that her skin was not as vibrant as before; her hair, also, wasn't burning quite so "hot."

"Why, Claire?" he asked. "Why us?"

"Why
not
you?" a familiar voice asked from behind them. Jack turned to see Jesus Alvarez, the maintenance guy. The Latino shrugged. "They didn't take me for the job because I was too
terco
; I wouldn't stay dead."

Jack noticed, without much surprise, that of all the revenants trying to attract his attention, Alvarez was by far the most insubstantial; it was like looking through an unwashed window.

The sick ghosts clamored around him like Third-World tourists importuning a bus driver. "Too many," he found himself saying. "You won't all fit!" Desperately he turned to Claire and asked, "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Does it matter?" Claire asked. "They have to get there. And you're the one who'll do it. As many trips as it takes."

Jack understood, then, finally. And it made sense. After all, all he was—had ever been, actually—was the driver.

As he took the first wave out to the rig, Jack saw Claire get into the seat beside him. She grinned slightly, shrugged. Jack noticed she had put another piece of gum in her mouth, and was rolling the tinfoil wrapper into a tiny ball between thumb and forefinger.

"Like you said once," she told him. "Job security."

Jack watched, fascinated, as the ball became a drop of molten silver that fell from between her fingers to splash on the floor mat.

"We drove north from Russellville to Fayetteville," says Elizabeth Bourne of the trip that sparked this story, "and then came down again following the Pig Trail. We passed through Mountain Home, Heber, Valley of Shadow. On a whim, we turned off the main road—maybe it was the time of year (fall) or maybe it was the lonesome nature of that leafy trail. We hit a cross roads with a sign proclaiming, 'Red Star, Arkansas' with no population and we stopped for a 'look-see' as Mark called it. There was a beat-up airstream glinting back in the woods, and a dead raccoon by the side of the road. The road uphill disappeared in fog. The way south was paved in golden leaves. We fell in love with Red Star and right off, began building a mythology. 'What the Red Oaks Knew' is part of a vaster tale of strange doings in Arkansas."

THE WAY THEY TELL IT IS, Jimi Bone was just a punk kid in Texas when he stumbled, literally fell shoved down on his ass, into that which no man was ever meant to see, much less get caught up in. Just a screw-up, is what his pa, who should know, said to the TV interviewers the night Jimi Bone lit out from Port Arthur followed by a tail of blue and red flashing lights.

Course, he wasn't Jimi Bone then. That happened after his beat-up '98 Ford Focus, smelling like old Taco Bell, rattled into Dallas, after he traded it for a superior model still equipped with its new car perfume (its owner discovered the trade the following morning), and on his way east decided he liked the name "Jimi Bone." It sounded dangerous, like a knife edge. Just twenty-one and knowing his limitations (drilled into him from birth), Jimi needed all the spine he could talk himself into. Especially with what was in the trunk.

The new silver Impala high-geared it onto Highway 30, blowing across the dust bowl of Texas east into Arkansas. Past the dried-up rice fields of Texarkana, Hope, and Arkadelphia. After the Ouachita Mountains (still blanketed by smoke from that last fire) he ended up in Conway.

Now, Conway's a college town, maybe 50,000 souls, settled in by the Arkansas River. They have a local festival there: Toad Suck Daze. Good a place as any to look for a beer, then hide out among the thrill-rides and fresh-painted booths offering homemade jams, jugs of water, quilts, dousing rods, and a Verizon stand that seemed confused finding itself in such a native assembly.

At a counter laced with blinking Christmas lights, a girl set out handmade decorations. Feathers glued together, some with bones attached—delicate mouse skulls, or the skinny femurs of some small animal. Satin ribbons bound them. The constructs sparkled with craft-shop glitter. The girl didn't notice Jimi's approach, or maybe she didn't care.

"What are these?" Jimi picked up one fragile bunch with a tiny jawbone nestled among blue sequins and owl feathers. He thought it might suit his new name to have a totem piece stuck on his dash. He wondered if the jaw had once belonged to a squirrel.

The girl looked up. Her lashless eyes were rabbit-red. Her hair was ivory white, her skin bone white. "They're my play-pretties. Five dollars will get you a small one. Ten for the big ones. Don't matter to me if you buy one."

The less interested she seemed in his purchase, the more dear the feathered bit became. Jimi said, "Why you make 'em if you don't care if you sell 'em? Is this one five?"

"I make 'em because that's what I do. It's five. What's your name? I'm Pink."

"Pleased to meet you. My name's Jimi Bone." It was the first time he'd said it out loud.

She studied him. "You Cherokee?"

Jimi's mouth twisted down in disappointment as he stared at his feet. Though why he'd hoped she'd know better wasn't yet clear to him. People made that mistake all the time. "Nope. Chinese. Part, anyway."

Her gaze didn't waver. "Name don't sound it." With a deft movement she switched out the item he held for a blue and gray piece in whose center curled a snake's tightly wound spine. Pink said, "This one's yours. It's ten, though."

It felt right in his hand. When he looked up, Pink stood serious as stone, waiting. The tattoo on the back of Jimi's neck tingled. He winced in surprise. The tiredness drained out of his body. If his lucky mark spoke to him, he should listen. His mouth dried up as he realized he was going to tell her, this girl, about what had happened back at Port Arthur. "I got something to show you. Can you come?"

Pink grabbed a jar of green liquid, Jimi thought it might be Gatorade. As she slipped from behind her booth, he asked about it. She said, "It's where I keep my colors. They're safe in the jar." The viscous stuff sloshed within the glass. It changed hue from grass-green to turquoise as Jimi watched. He couldn't think of anything useful to say so he just nodded, then headed for the parking lot. She abandoned her booth and caught up. Her white lace dress, no paler than her skin, occasionally brushed his black jeans.

At the car, Jimi popped the trunk. The thing seemed bigger than in Port Arthur. Pink took a breath before whispering, "That's a damn sight." She reached in to touch it. Too late, Jimi grabbed her wrist, saying, "Don't. Maybe it's poisonous. I seen 'em kill people." Her fingers left a violet smudge on its jelly skin. She scrubbed the goo from her hand while he gave over his secret. Jimi said, "I was working out on the Gulf. This one barge, it had a load of dragons got loose. Most of 'em were pretty big. The big ones attacked folk. They were rounding up the little ones, babies they were, maybe. This one got killed after it bit up a man. I grabbed it and run."

When he was done she said, "Let's get out of here. There's a Waffle House on Highway 40 where we can think." Having Pink beside him felt strangely companionable though she didn't say a word. Some folks have the gift of comfort and Pink was one of them.

Inside the air-conditioned restaurant, the waitress slapped down laminated menus on a rickety table as Jimi and Pink slewed into the red plastic booth. Jimi's shoulders bunched up as the Waffle House congregation's gaze slid over him like warm grease. He was uncertain if he'd be recognized as the fugitive he was. Pink tapped his hand with a chalky finger. "It's not you they're minding."

Over bitter coffee and waffles and buttered grits made from a packet, Pink outlined a plan. "You can't go back. I got no reason to stay. There's a place we can go, up in the hills. A feller there owes my daddy a favor. He'll take us in."

Doubtful,
Jimi thought, but didn't like to argue. Besides, wouldn't Pink's father, or mother, or someone, come looking for her? That was misery he couldn't afford. He stirred the question into his coffee to see if it'd be answered.

Pink said, "This feller, Midas, Daddy said he could claim his debt from Midas any time. One morning, he come in roaring drunk and mad at I don't know what. He planned to fetch what was his. Daddy never did come back.

"I been once when I was a girl, while Momma was still with us. Momma came from Red Star. Midas was nice, that's what I remember. My job at the Piggly Wiggly, they won't care. Let's just go. No one's left to bother about me. No one will find us there."

Coffee sloshed uneasy in Jimi's stomach. His skin crawled from bad food and no sleep. He wondered what she was really after. Hard to believe it was him with a trunk full of slimy trouble. He rubbed his neck. "Why're you so sure this is a good idea?"

"You got a baby dragon in your trunk that needs hiding. Folks'll come after you for it. Me, I want to know what happened to my pa. Red Star's the place for us. It's just a speck up in the Ozarks, not even on a map. I promise, if you don't want to stay, we can leave."

Jimi paused while eating his waffle. How could she be so certain this was a good idea? Was she really saying the truth? The knot in his chest transferred to a scowl on his face.

Pink's lips thinned in a smile. "Don't be scared. It's not like I'm the Queen of Fairyland."

That sounded odd, but stranger things had happened to Jimi lately, and besides, this was Arkansas.

Pink and Jimi Bone showed up on Midas Welbe's doorstep, one hopeful, the other ill at ease. Midas fed them chickory coffee and eggs in a kitchen smelling of rancid bacon grease. Pink whispered to Jimi that Midas hadn't aged a bit, and wasn't that strange? The same ashy-colored hair hung over his watery blue eyes. There ought to be something to show for ten years gone by, but nary a line blemished his smooth face.

Jimi found their host reminiscent of an augur-man he knew back in West Texas when he was a boy no bigger than a gopher and just as dumb. Like Midas, the augur-man looked free of age. The man from Texas also possessed a collection of witchy sticks and colored bottles filled with shapes a body didn't want to examine too close.

Midas gazed at Pink over runny eggs, then said, "You were such a curious li'l girl, damn sight smarter'n your pa."

It made Jimi uneasy, the way he stared and stared while Pink rambled on about needing a place to rest up for a while and how her daddy always talked about missing Red Star. As if anyone would ever miss this crossroads half a mile from nowhere and next door to nothing. Sure as shit Midas had to suspect something.

The pair nodded politely for another cup of coffee. As Midas stood, he scorched Jimi with a look hotter'n a cutting torch. He said, "I heard on the TV about a big mess in the Gulf. Some smuggling racket bootlegging Chinese water lizards from the Wei River Valley. I see that dragon mark on your neck. A Chinese boy like you wouldn't know anything about that, now would you?"

Jimi sent Pink a questioning look,
Should we tell?
Her glare said,
No.
He figured that for reasonable.

"No sir," Jimi mumbled. "I'm as Texan as the next man. My granddad came from Taiwan, but that was a long time ago. The dragon tattoo's just for luck. I wouldn't know one to see one."

"Few would," said Midas. "People think magic is all big eyes and pretty wings. Immortals are never what you expect."

While their coffee cooled, Midas provided directions to a bolt-hole. He said to Pink, "Your ma, Evie, bided among those red oaks, hearkening to their daily choir." Pink's face remained serene while her color jar blushed. Satisfaction licked Midas's lips. Jimi didn't like that. But they needed help, so he paved their escape with thank yous.

A quarter mile up the road slept an abandoned Airstream. Its elegant bullet shape (rusting from years of lonesomeness) nosed out among thick oak trunks like some godalmighty rocket ship. Jimi Bone backed the Impala beside it and that was that.