This River Awakens (16 page)

‘And maybe we won’t,’ Lynk finished, grinning.

Carl looked at Roland. ‘Is there a bear around here?’ he asked.

‘Didn’t you hear?’ Lynk said, his eyes wide.

‘Roland?’ Carl’s gaze did not waver from the boy’s face.

Roland shrugged. ‘Can’t say. Don’t know. Might be.’

Lynk and I grinned at each other. We knew we’d won. Turning about, we continued on our way to the beaver lodge. And Carl followed. Moving past us, Roland took the lead. After a few minutes he stopped. As I came up to him he glanced at me, frowning.

‘You smell that?’ he said.

I sniffed. ‘Yeah. Something rotten.’

‘Something dead.’

I stared at him. ‘At the beaver lodge?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Fuckin’ dead beaver,’ Lynk said.

‘Let’s go back.’

Ignoring Carl, the three of us crept forward, our clubs raised. The lodge was just ahead, beyond some thickets. As we approached the stench grew worse. From overhead came once again the laughter of crows.

‘Mink guts,’ I muttered.

‘Only worse,’ Roland said.

Off to our right I caught glimpses of the river through the branches. We came to the edge of the thickets. There were no trees here, only gnawed stumps and deadfall. There were trails running through the brambles, but they were only knee-high.

‘We’ll have to crawl,’ Roland said, dropping to his knees.

‘We can go around like last time,’ I said.

Roland looked up at me, his face pale and expression stern. ‘What for?’ And then he crawled into the trail.

I had to push Lynk to one side to follow the farmboy.

‘Asshole,’ Lynk muttered behind me as I crawled after Roland. The branches wove a net of brown and grey on all sides, making the trail feel like a tunnel. The bare mud under my hands was slick, cool and strangely yielding to my weight. It felt like flesh. Up ahead all I could see was the bottom of Roland’s sneakers and his jean-clad behind.

A moment later he cleared the trail and, with a grunt, climbed to his feet. I quickly did the same. Roland glanced at me and nodded. ‘It’s coming from the beaver lodge.’

The uneven mound squatted against the riverbank about twenty yards upstream from us. The stench was overpowering in the still air. Side by side, Roland and I walked towards it. Behind us, at the mouth of the trail, Lynk had snagged his jacket on some thorns and, swearing, he stopped to extricate himself. Still inside the tunnel, Carl whimpered.

The water was making an odd sucking sound at the lodge, and there was also a faint clicking sound. We stepped up on to a muddy ridge that marked the side nearest to us, and looked down.

A dead man was lying in the mud, one arm snagged in the beaver lodge’s branches. His lower half was submerged in shallow water which seemed to be gently boiling. But no, the man’s lower half was crawling with brown crayfish, and there was hardly any flesh left; every now and then a flash of pallid bone appeared.

He was naked, his skin a dull white. His head was tilted back, hiding his features. Long blond hair – almost white – lay fanned out on the mud all around his head. And he was a giant.

I managed a dry swallow, but I could not pull my eyes away. Somewhere, far away inside my head, someone was screaming. While I just stood there, numb and silent.

‘Holy fuck,’ Lynk said beside me.

‘Where’s Carl?’ Roland asked.

‘He’s barfing in the bush,’ Lynk replied in a dull voice. ‘Bawling his eyes out. Holy fuck, holy fuckin’ Christ.’

I opened my mouth, closed it, then opened it again, determined to speak. ‘He’s, uh, he’s too big.’

‘Yeah,’ Lynk rasped. ‘A fuckin’ giant.’

‘Big as a bear,’ Roland said.

I glanced at him, a torrent of undefined thoughts filling my head. He met my gaze, and it was as if I was staring at a blank wall. ‘Think we should go and tell someone?’

He didn’t reply.

‘What the fuck for?’ Lynk demanded.

With an effort I pulled my eyes away from Roland’s and glared at Lynk. ‘What do you mean, what for?’

Lynk’s sudden grin shocked me. ‘It’ll just bring all these fuckin’ people out here – pigs and stuff. And what’ll we get out of it? Eh? Just a bunch of fuckin’ kids. I say fuck ’em all.’

‘So what the hell are we going to do with him, then?’ I barked a laugh. ‘Take him home?’

Lynk placed his hands on his hips, looked down on the body. ‘All I’m saying is, we just leave him here. Don’t tell anyone. Pretty soon he’ll be nothing but bones, right? Besides, he was probably murdered—’ He stopped, a wild light coming into his eyes. ‘And maybe, if we go to the pigs, the murderer will come after us!’

‘Holy shit,’ I breathed, suddenly terrified.

‘We keep it a secret.’ He looked at each one of us. ‘Anybody finks, and we’re all dead.’

My gaze returned to the body. ‘Ever seen anybody so big? Christ, must’ve been eight feet tall.’

Roland grunted, then turned around. ‘Carl? You all right?’

I followed his gaze, saw Carl on his hands and knees, facing the river. There was a muffled reply that Roland seemed to take for ‘yes’, for he nodded and turned to me.

‘Let’s look at the guy’s face.’

‘Yeah,’ Lynk added breathlessly. ‘Who knows, maybe we know him.’

In spite of our voiced eagerness, we walked slowly, giving the body wide berth. When we were on the other side we approached cautiously.

The three of us screamed and leapt back. On the bank on the other side Carl jumped to his feet and shrieked. And then we were running, clawing our way through the thicket, then whirling past trees, weaving between the boles as if their branches were making grabs for us. There was no time for more screams; the world had closed in to the ground at our feet.

And in my mind, four words pounded with my heart over and over again, each utterance bringing on yet another wave of horror –
He had no face. He had no face.

VI

Jennifer emerged from the old lot’s narrow track and stepped on to the asphalt road. She had just spent the last two hours sitting on the crumbling foundation wall of the ruined house, smoking one cigarette after another, and thinking. And all that had come from it was a greater feeling of hopelessness and a sore throat.

Both Dave and Mark were sixteen years old. And so was Debbie Brand. ‘And I’m only thirteen,’ Jennifer muttered as she walked down the street. It was as simple as that. It was a fact, a bitter fact, and there was nothing she could do about it. Obviously the make-up didn’t help her look older. She glanced down at the front of her t-shirt, casting an appraising eye at her breasts. They were bigger than Debbie’s, weren’t they? And Mark liked her breasts, didn’t he? Hell, he’d played with them often enough.

It felt good when she let the boys hold her breasts, knead her ass, and French-kiss. But though she sometimes liked her reputation – she knew most people considered her loose – she knew it was for the most part exaggerated. She never went all the way. But maybe Debbie Brand did. Maybe that was the difference.

And that just made everything worse, since she had led Mark and Dave to believe that she wasn’t a virgin: thus far, her excuses that she didn’t want to get pregnant had kept them from pressing their attentions, though she knew that they were beginning to distrust her continual ‘bad timing’. So, if she was to lose her virginity, it couldn’t be with either of them.

Goddammit, what a mess. And even if I start screwing, I’m still thirteen years old, and Debbie’s still sixteen. That problem doesn’t change. Shit, how do I get rid of her?

Jennifer was halfway down the street’s hill when she saw, coming from the treed entrance to the Yacht Club, first Lynk, then Roland, and then the Brand kid and Carl – all running like madmen. She stopped, watching them, her gaze narrowing on the third runner. They’d probably broken a window or something, she mused. And there was the Brand kid, Debbie’s younger brother – what was his name? Owen. Owen Brand.

He was running on Roland’s heels, his stride long and sure. From the looks of it, he could’ve overtaken both the farmboy and Lynk easily. Owen, who was twelve years old, who didn’t look half bad, who was Debbie’s little brother …

Jennifer smiled. ‘Well, well. Two birds with one stone, maybe.’

She watched them running down the street, not stopping once to look behind, to find out if they were even being pursued. ‘Chicken shits,’ Jennifer chuckled. All running full tilt, except for Owen.

After they passed beyond her range of vision, she continued on her way, pausing once to light a cigarette. Suddenly she was feeling much better. ‘Two birds,’ she whispered. ‘All fucking right!’

PART TWO

Ship of Nails

CHAPTER SEVEN

I

A child with a sprained wrist sat with his mother across from Elouise. There was no one else in the waiting room this Saturday morning.

The bus trip to Riverview had not been as traumatic as she had feared. Like the clinic’s waiting room, the bus had been almost empty; she had found a seat up front and thus did not come under any sort of scrutiny from the few passengers – at least, not that she was aware of. When she came to the reception desk the nurse had given her some forms to fill out and had asked if it was an emergency. Elouise had shaken her head ‘no’. There had been no more questions, which was a relief, since she couldn’t open her mouth to talk.

Under the bandages her face felt hot, and the world had acquired a painful clarity to her eyes. She was certain that she had a fever.

Since she had taken her seat the child – a young boy – had not taken his eyes off her. And they were such strange eyes, Elouise thought. That kind of glittering blue that seemed to carve sharp edges on all that they touched on. And though his sprained arm must have been painful, his expression was one of cool control. The child had a man’s face, Elouise realised. Why?

The door to the examination room opened and a nurse stepped out and read a name from her list: ‘Arnold Fraser?’

‘Let’s go, Arnie,’ the mother said to her child. They both stood, the mother offering an apologetic smile to Elouise. ‘A farming accident,’ she whispered. Elouise nodded.

After the door closed behind them, Elouise leaned back and shut her eyes. Even her hands, folded together in her lap, felt hot. It was as if her blood was boiling in her veins. She wanted to cry out, to give voice to this pain, which went so much deeper than just bone and flesh, but she couldn’t. If she screamed now, it would be a scream that would last for ever. And so she turned her thoughts to that other stranger living in their house, the one who walked with endless anger. Poor Jennifer. What a terrible world the young girl with the music in her eyes had found waiting for her. It came as no surprise that she had raised walls of rage around herself – it was a protective measure. Still, there were times when Elouise could not bear to see what those walls were doing to her daughter.

It all made her feel so helpless. Somehow, she had to find a way through to Jennifer. Somehow.

‘Mrs Louper?’

Her eyes snapped open, and she saw the nurse standing in front of her. Elouise nodded and rose unsteadily to her feet. She followed the nurse into the examination room.

The nurse indicated a paper-covered bench. ‘Please sit up here.’ She was an older woman with silver hair and smile-lines around her grey eyes. But she didn’t smile when she unwrapped the swath of bandages covering Elouise’s face, and her voice had assumed a stiff tone when she asked, ‘When did this happen?’

Elouise tried to say ‘a week’ but the words came out unintelligibly. She held up seven fingers. Their eyes met briefly, then Elouise looked down.

‘A week?’

She nodded.

‘Why didn’t you come in earlier?’

She shrugged without raising her head.

The nurse looked at Elouise’s forms on her clipboard, then said, ‘The doctor will be with you in a minute,’ and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Elouise was still staring at her hands when the doctor entered, the nurse following.

‘Good morning, Mrs Louper, I’m Dr Roulston.’

She glanced up at the young man, tried to smile but failed. She nodded.

‘Don’t try to talk, Mrs Louper.’ Wheeling out a chair from the desk, Dr Roulston sat down facing Elouise.

‘She writes here,’ the nurse said, ‘that she tripped and fell and hit her jaw against the corner of the stove.’ She paused, then added, ‘Seven days ago.’

Nodding, Elouise glanced at Roulston. He was just sitting there, watching her. After a moment he sighed and rose to his feet. He leaned close, examining her face, then reached up and touched her swollen jaw. Wincing, Elouise pulled back. He straightened and said to the nurse, ‘Set her up for X-rays at General.’ He turned back to Elouise and gazed at her for a moment before saying, ‘Now, we both know you’ve been beaten. You’ve got an infection and probably a broken jaw. I’m having you admitted into Riverview General—’

Elouise stood up quickly, shaking her head, but the doctor held up a hand and continued.

‘Look, either you go into the hospital to get this properly treated, Mrs Louper, or I phone the police on this matter. And if I do that, well, this will get very messy. Your choice, Mrs Louper.’

It was hopeless, she realised. There wasn’t any choice. She nodded.

‘The hospital? Good. Now, Nurse Stevens will take care of the details. Do you wish to stop off at your house to get some personal effects?’

She shook her head, then thought:
Jennifer.
She indicated her desire for pen and paper, and received them. She wrote:
Let my daughter, Jennifer, know where I am. Just my daughter, please.
Then she handed the notepad to Roulston.

He read it, then nodded. ‘Can she be contacted through her school?’

Elouise nodded.

‘West St John’s?’

Again she nodded.

‘I take it your husband hit you, then.’

She looked down at the floor.

‘Has he ever hit you before?’

She shook her head.

‘Was he drunk?’

Yes.

‘Does he have a drinking problem?’

Yes.