June’s bright sunbeams failed to penetrate the blinds of the closed-smelling dorm-room. Brother Reynolds knocked hesitantly at the open door. “May I come in?”

“Lemmee the hell alone ... oh ... father Reynolds, I’m so sorry, I...” mumbled Eula, wiping the dried material from the corners of her mouth and rising groggily from bed in her slept-in clothes.

“Neither this,” Brother Reynolds said admonishingly, removing the empty fifth of bourbon from the floor to the leather bag he carried, “nor hiding in the dark is going bring him back... he’s in a better place now.”

Eula looked at him grimly, barely holding her tongue.

“You need to get out and do something with yourself, and I‘ve found just the thing.”

Eula winced as he drew up the blind.

“The Chicago diocese has a wilderness camp for inner city girls, north of Green Bay ... they need a wildlife interpreter for the summer. I said you’d take the job.”

“You, wha--,” Eula stopped short, his stern yet amiable look disarming her.

*   *   *

A month with giddy young teens, camping and rambling through the outskirts of the Nicolet National Forest, had muted Eula’s melancholy. Now, after a quick breakfast, they were moving campsites, a 7 mile hike to Drag Lake, over towards the Potawatomi Reservation.

“Eula, you’ll stay behind with Constance and Aretha...clean up the campsite...trailhead’s 2 miles down the road, at the sandy patch, turn left, follow the blazes...anyways, you’ve got the forestry map.”

*   *   *

“Great job finding the blazes girls, we’d have been here --”

“Eula, that you?” came a voice from back towards the sandy patch.

“This way.”

Three exhausted girls emerged from the underbrush, their breathless counsellor, Bea, in tow. “Eula ... praise the Lord ... couldn’t find the blazes ... kept on the trail ... swamp ... coming back ... Margie ran ahead ... said she knew where to go ... dunno where... gotta ... go ... back ... take the girls?”

“I’ll go, take Constance and Aretha, they found the blazes.”

“Thanks!” puffed Bea.

*   *   *

After a narrow stream the trail extending beyond the sandy spot split to right and left. After two hundred yards of the former revealed no signs of passage, Eula turned back and headed, as Bea had, up the left branch. The dark soggy soil was home to sharp sedges, tall Joe-pye weeds, and bushy tufts of willows and alders. Eula proceeded slowly, calling out and tracking up and down any branch trails.

Sitting on a dry tussock, she opened her pack, and scarfed down a messy peanut-butter sandwich. Taking a deep breath she pulled out a locket, opened it and kissed a clip of hair within it -- hesitatingly, she drew out and opened a waterproof packet. She rubbed her cheek against the man’s sweatshirt inside, drawing in the smell. She sat pondering ... it was nearly 4 o’clock, 10 minutes more searching and she would turn back.

Rising over a ridge the trail ended abruptly on a small reed and sedge-skirted pond. Tall bare trees adorned a hazy green background. The map showed a lumber road running from beyond the marsh, over a ridge and down to Drag Lake -- this would save hours of backtracking. Looking up, she noticed a trail of crushed sedges winding it’s way into the marsh -- had Margie wandered this far?

It took a full 3 hours of crossing beaver dams, hopping from tussock to tussock and ultimately slogging knee-deep through bubbling, foul-smelling mud to reach the shore beyond, but she had far overshot the road. The trail of trampled sedges continued, ending where the forest began.

Crossing a dried creek bed, her attention was drawn by movement beside a large beech. The grainy grey vision gathering twilight imposed left her more the impression than a certainty that a thin, dark man, beating winged arms, had processed reverently up the hillside and behind an outcropping. Confused upon reaching the tree and finding no sign of anyone’s passage, she still pursued that direction, as it would lead her to the Lake.

Reaching a ledge just below the ridge, she was briefly assailed by a smell of rotting flesh, along with that of a wood fire; still, oddly, she felt composed. Rounding a spur of rock, she came upon a wooded hollow which the setting sun bathed in a deepening orange glow. The trees housed a number of platforms, some tenanted and equipped with jars, dishes of food, fresh clothes; others, in a state of disrepair were empty. Silently she drew closer.

The man, who had removed his wings and placed them between a tenanted tree and a blazing fire, turned. Eula sensed rather than saw him beckon her. He silently climbed to the platform, unwrapped a tattered blanket, and exposed a skeleton to which a few tatters of flesh still clung. These he daintily yet respectfully picked off with his preternaturally long fingernails, finally descending to offer them to the fire. Climbing again, he drew apart the bones, placing them on a clean piece of coarse cloth, wrapping them, along with the few other objects the platform bore, in a bundle he tied together with a rawhide strip.

Descending with the bundle and extinguishing the fire, he paused, looking her over intently. She pictured than heard when he whispered: “You too have work to do here.” She understood. Climbing to the platform she laid Jim’s shirt across a remaining piece of blanket, placing the locket inside it, and folded the blanket over it, sealing it with her tears.

As she climbed down, the Indian had moved off the way she had come, but was pointing up the hill.

*   *   *

At the lake, a concerned Bea and Margie, were waiting. “I kin smell where you been, an’ it ain’t pretty,” said Margie indecorously. Reaching the middle of the lake, Bea and Margie suddenly tipped the canoe, sending a distracted Eula into the water. Surfacing she said: “I feel much better now.”

"Pick 'Em Clean"

Copyright: © 2011 Georges Dodds

-------------------------------------

Published in strong competitors to The New Flesh like International Agrophysics and Estudos de Literatura Oral, Georges Dodds has until recently kept his weird writing under mouldy cerements. His recent genre activities include textual resurrection for a publisher of Gothic novels, unearthing and presenting in an e-library some thematic precursors of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes, translating early French science-fiction to English, and preparing a collection of American dime-novelist William Murray Graydon's earliest adventure stories. Georges and his 3-species family (4 with the goldfish), lives in a former bus garage, on the now relocated site of an 18th century cemetery -- so far tilling the garden hasn't revealed its past.

“Hey, sweet-pea, comin’ on that bike trip after exams? Four-five days from Duluth to Lake Geneva, then par-tee all weekend at Gertie’s parents’ mansion by the lake. She invite you?”

“Yeah.”

"Her parents are outfitting everybody with new bikes, 10-speeds! sweet-pea, that’s 9 speeds mor’n that wreck o’ yours”

“My grandfather’s bike runs just fine — I told Gertie I had my own bike, an’ I’d get it to Duluth myself.”

“Jes—” he broke off, seeing her glare.

*   *   *

Having left the campground near Columbus before dawn on the fourth day, Jim, Eula, and three others who had opted not to be driven to their destination, were headed down Tri-County Rd., brashly boasting how they’d make it by suppertime. After Eula came to a slow halt on a flat tire, only a few scattered cows bemusedly watched them walk to the nearest farmhouse. Sitting down to a late breakfast, the family invited them in to ham and eggs, all washed down with cold milk.

Promising to follow the route they had mapped out, and catch up with them, Eula went off to the barn where the compressor was housed, while the others, thanking their hosts, took their leave — Jim rather reluctantly. Eula’s tire proving to be torn, a trip to a nearby General Store left her a good hour behind and some of miles off course.

*   *   *

Barring a few pit-stops, Eula had ridden hard all morning. By two that afternoon, she still hadn’t caught up. Emerging from the State Forest south of Palmyra, she stopped, dejected. From the hilltop she could see County Rd. H extending far across a rolling landscape. No one in sight — but on a second look — someone ... someone on a bicycle? maybe, or walking? just one — perhaps the others were hidden behind a ridge. She sped down the hill.

Her exhausted legs propelled her from crest to crest; sometimes the cyclist —yes it was a cyclist — appeared closer, then seemingly farther, and sometimes not at all. Fatigue drove away the sights and sounds around her, leaving the road’s white edge and the cyclist her sole, narrow focus. Only two short ridges ahead now — it was Jim, it had to be — it just had to be. Closer still, he topped the crest as she reached its base, she pressed on harder.

A car whizzed dangerously past, inches from her, frightened her and clearing her head. Reaching the crest, she saw the speeding car topping the next crest, but no sign of a cyclist — none whatsoever. She coasted down the slope doubting her sanity — nobody — but wait — amongst the reeds of a gravelly-banked ditch! Dropping her bicycle, she ran.

“Hey, sweet-pea, took the shoulder a bit hard,” Jim grinned through a wince. “Holy Mother of God!” she cried, ignoring the blood and holding him tightly. Under the now glaring sun it took a moment for her to take in the gash that ran from his eyebrow down to his cheek, and the bloody rawness, filthy with debris, down his left side to the knee. “Hey! nuthin’s broke.” “Hush,” she whispered, tearing a pair of T-shirts and beer cans from her backpack. Turning she found him standing unsteadily. “Sit the hell down!” she almost screamed, and more softly, “this is going to hurt.” Washing the muck and duckweed from his wounds with the frothing beer, she wrapped his wounds with torn up cloth. “It’ll have to do for now.”

No bikes or traffic — she managed to sit him on the crossbar, and ride awkwardly into Elkhorn. Quiet and drowsy, he only managed to whisper, “I’ll love you forever, sweet-pea,” when she left him outside the pharmacy. Witchhazel, tape and gauze served to clean and bandage him, and Coke to quench his thirst. Returning the bottle, she emerged to find him jauntily climbing the steps to a burger joint across the road. Running across, into the low, late afternoon sun, she couldn’t see him, but heard him at a distance: “I’m feelin’ much better, let’s have a bite.”

Three hamburgers, fries and a malted later, Eula, warm and sleepy, briefly dozed off. The waitress woke her, asking, “finished all that by yourself, did you?” Distractedly handing her a $10, Eula ran to door — Jim was outside with her bike and another. “Lookey-here Sweet-pea, borrowed this — gotta move, its late and a storm’s coming in.”

Rumbling, darkening skies first chased them, heavy rain and swirling winds then drenched them, and finally the lightning-streaked skies drove them to shelter in a barn which stood intact beside a farmhouse long ago wind-battered and lain open like a doll-house. Flashlight between her teeth, Eula helped Jim climb up to the hayloft. Some old feed bags atop a layer of disintegrating hay bales made for a place to lay out her sleeping-bag and Jim’s bed-roll. Turning, it took a moment to find him standing stock still in the gloom. Stripping him down as best she could, she wrapped him up in his blankets.

Peeling off her wet clothes, she sat listening to the rain, going over the day’s events in her mind — what he’d said outside the pharmacy. “Com’ere, sweet-pea,” she heard in the darkness. Bringing her sleeping bag, she curled up close to him. He touched her shoulder softly, and his hand slipped down to cup her breast. Eula whispered, “I love you too.” They drew closer...

A bar of sunlight woke her, and a moment’s glance confirmed Jim wasn’t there. She quickly climbed down; his bike was gone. Had her avowal and its consummation scared him off? — probably — who knew with guys?

The trooper pulled up in front of her by the “Welcome to Lake Geneva” sign, — he would take her into town, reunite her with her concerned friends. Climbing in the back seat, she heard him say, “Damn,” and stopped midway through tossing the morning edition of the Madison Capital-Times across the seat — “Cyclist victim of fatal hit-and-run.”

"Last Ride"

Copyright: © 2011 Georges Dodds

-------------------------------------

Published in strong competitors to The New Flesh like International Agrophysics and Estudos de Literatura Oral, Georges Dodds has until recently kept his weird writing under mouldy cerements. His recent genre activities include textual resurrection for a publisher of Gothic novels, unearthing and presenting in an e-library some thematic precursors of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes, translating early French science-fiction to English, and preparing a collection of American dime-novelist William Murray Graydon's earliest adventure stories. Georges and his 3-species family (4 with the goldfish), lives in a former bus garage, on the now relocated site of an 18th century cemetery -- so far tilling the garden hasn't revealed its past.

Greeting Eula as she entered the kitchen the morning after Thanksgiving, Jim’s mom said, “Links and scrambled eggs are on the stove, honey -- kettle’s on the counter.”

Measuring dried leaves into a teacup, Eula, anticipating grandma Laidlaw’s question, explained -- “willow bark and feverfew to clear the head.”

“You young 'uns oughta take them kids for a walk, fall air’ll cure your head sure as shootin’,” added grandma.

Turning to Jim, Eula continued, “Looking at old state maps on your dad’s desk last night --” She glanced apprehensively across to Mr. Laidlaw who just smiled. She continued, “Back in 1903 the S&E railroad ran across the ridge up here an’ then past a big cluster of buildings just before coming out, where the shopping-center is now -- but ain’t hide nor hair of track or town in 1920. Took a gander this morning, grade’s still there, nice an’ wide to walk once you get a hundred yards in.”

“The buildings -- Army depot -- closed down ’bout the time Roosevelt went galivantin’ off to Africa -- mighty queer goings-on from what I heard tell,” grandma interjected.

Eula and Jim navigated his in-laws and three nieces through the roadside brush to the open grade. Fascinated when Eula pointed out a cardinal feeding on highbush cranberries, by lunch time the girls had been introduced to woodpecker-bored trees and a pair of white-tailed deer browsing on corn stubble in a nearby field. When a crossroad offered the in-laws am opportunity to return home -- though Jim and Eula were encouraged to continue alone -- Sadie, Jim’s eight-year-old niece, begged her way into continuing with the pair.

“Auntie Eula, did you know I was blonde? an’ it turned brown after I had the measles! stupid measles!” said Sadie, tucking her hair under her hat.

“Well Sadie, when you get older, you can make your hair any color you like -- now let’s go.”

Entering a forested area, their progress was soon interrupted by a massive iron gate -- an illegible rust-consumed warning hanging crookedly from it -- supported by two crumbling concrete pillars, sitting with a Daliesque incongruousness halfway across a crumbling concrete bridge spanning the narrow creek gorge.

“Don’t worry, we can cross on that old tree, down there,” Eula reassured Sadie.

The grade continued through a quiet mossy forest, the leaves carpeting the floor quickly melding their autumn colours into an even brown. As they progressed the banked grade rose above increasingly grassy, then marshy land. They went on, and soon drew up short: the grade fell away abruptly, the convulsed remains of a concrete culvert and a plume of clinkers testament to a long-ago structural failure. Sadie insisted they continue, but she was obviously tiring by the time they had climbed back up.

A growing earthy, spring smell and coltsfoot brightly flowering on the grade slopes were the first things that hit Eula as being odd. Farther, greening maples, whose canopies rose to the level of the grade and bathed them all in an unsettling pale green pallor unsettled Jim. Eula silenced him, whispering: “Don’t upset the child.” As they pressed on, picking up their pace, the grade descended into a grassy field, then a stand of tall mature forest. It was warmer, all was in full leaf. “Why’s it summer here, auntie Eula?” enquired Sadie. Eula bent over, picked up one of hundreds of chestnut husks which littered the forest floor. “Sadie, listen, remember how Dorothy got all mixed up and went to that funny place in Oz? I think we’ve gone somewhere like that, so you be brave, and we’ll all get home.”

Jim having glimpsed the highway and some buildings to the north, they decided to leave the grade and bushwhack to the road. The sun was rapidly setting behind them, and in the gathering gloom they soon questioned their choice -- they seemed to have been walking far too long. Scattered like a crazy icefield, fragmented concrete slabs made progress arduous. Still the hum of traffic and the appearance of bright lights encouraged them. They emerged on a large paved area, littered with rusted vehicles, and buckled by a number of saplings. The hum and light came from a number of large open rectangles in the brick facade of a turn-of-the-century industrial building.

Jim said “probably private property -- let me talk, people around here know me.” Reaching the large doorways, the whine of engines rose, but they remained unchallenged. Multiple train tracks entering and exiting the building along with the patina of its steel structure and brick facade testified to its age, yet all inside was immaculately clean.

Drawn to the hum, they advanced to find a battery of twelve locomotive-sized electrical turbines mounted on a ceramic base. Heavy gauge copper cable issued from each and entered, at points symmetrically scattered over its exposed hemisphere, a large riveted ball of iridescent metal, ensconced in an oversized ceramic eggcup. As the turbine’s whine rose, the ball appeared to peel off translucent sheets of visually perceptible but physically intangible blue netting. Sadie had climbed upon the ball, basking in the freshly emanating material, and was beaming as if in sudden comprehension. Jim hastened over, grabbed Sadie, and along with Eula -- as the whine of the turbines rose to a near inaudible pitch -- they ran, and ran, and ran, until they tumbled out of the woods into the bright sunlight, behind the Montgomery Ward.

“Why, how you’ve grown Sadie, they boys will be after you in no time,” said Mrs. Finch, a family friend who had met the haggard trio at the shopping centre, and was dropping them off at the Laidlaw’s house. Just then Sadie’s parents and the other inlaws came up the road. “How the he-- did you get here before us?” Sadie’s mother asked, but she stopped short when a tired Sadie pulled off her hat and, shaking out her blonde ringlets, said, “Mummy, look, I must have had the measles again.”

"Stupid Measles!"

Copyright: © 2011 Georges Dodds

-------------------------------------

Published in strong competitors to The New Flesh like International Agrophysics and Estudos de Literatura Oral, Georges Dodds has until recently kept his weird writing under mouldy cerements. His recent genre activities include textual resurrection for a publisher of Gothic novels, unearthing and presenting in an e-library some thematic precursors of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes, translating early French science-fiction to English, and preparing a collection of American dime-novelist William Murray Graydon's earliest adventure stories. Georges and his 3-species family (4 with the goldfish), lives in a former bus garage, on the now relocated site of an18th century cemetery -- so far tilling the garden hasn't revealed its past.

“Brother Reynolds, by your own account, you deem worthy of your passenger’s seat a drug-crazed teenage girl who emerges on a back road in the dead of night, and then of the occupancy of your bed in the Jesuit Residence?”

“Why Monsignor, it’s not at all like that.”

“Bring her in, we shall question her together.”

A young woman, darkly tanned and solidly built, but with a downcast expression entered clothed in an alb.

“Reverend Father, would it please you, I would make confession. It has been close to a year since I...”

Glancing at Brother Reynolds, the monsignor added: “Proceed, but first, your name, my child.”

“Eula, Eula Grayson, reverend father.”

Her humble beginnings, and recent ordeals quickly told, Eula paused to tearfully beg forgiveness.

“You shall learn that there is always hope for the repentant sinner, continue...”

“But, father, have I not committed a mortal sin, how can hope...?”

“All in good time, child, all in good time, now tell me how you met Brother Reynolds.”

“Well, father, when I left Roseau, I thought to hitchhike down to some cousins in Texas, for they’d not have heard anything of...” she paused, and wiped her eyes.

“Go on.”

“Leaving the bus in Rippey, IA, I headed for the closest diner. Holding the door for a gaunt, elderly man who paused breathless at the threshold, I followed him in. A paper bag he was carrying fell to the ground, scattering some leaves. Picking them up, I said: ‘Got bronchitis bad, eh? Jimsonweed'll take care of it, but you gotta be powerful careful, that stuff can kill ya.’

“His eyes perked up. ‘Where’d’ya learn o’ the Devil’s Trumpet?’

“‘Grammy, she taught me of the medicines grew natural-like ‘round the fields an’ woods — not much for doctor’s pills, she was.’

“Moving over to a booth we began talking over our meals.

“‘Sadie, that were my wife, never put no faith in momma’s medicines, called ‘er an ol’ witch, but Lillie, like me, she’d follow momma inter the hollers where the bloodroot an’ maidenhair grew. Sadie’d get awful angry at Lillie — she were a fey one, just like you — my Lillie’d stay home and make up my soothin’ syrup, ‘stead o’ have boys a-courtin’ her at the barn dances. Sadie said it weren’t natural.’

“When the miner’s lung had got real bad, Sadie’d left, taking their daughter — no goodbyes, no explanation. He’d traced them up north and found them in a mining town, Angus, Iowa — dead of the fever. ‘Left me dyin’ ’mongst the coal pits of Kentucky, just to die ’mongst those of Iowa, ha, ha ha!’ he said, with a cackling laugh interrupted by his coughing.

“When I told him I wasn’t sure about Texas, he offered me free room and board if I’d take care of him ’til the spring — I hesitated. Sure, I’d had a bad streak with men, but somehow I felt comfortable around him, and nobody else wanted me.

“‘No offence Mister...you don’t look like you eat much, I don’t wanna impose on your hospitality, I got money if you need some.’

“‘Don’t you fret none, miss...,’ he said, placing a gold Half Eagle on the bill. “We left and we followed the Des Moines and Ft. Dodge Railroad right-of-way into Angus. The place was mostly a ghost town, but he’d made a home for himself in the old Climax Coal Co. offices.

“‘Found a gambler’s hidden stash fixin’ up the place next door,’ he explained, handing me another half eagle. ‘Out back, take care — thar’s a coal pit, where they put those what died of the fever an' some quicklime — cover’s done rotted away.’

“He showed me a room with a cot and a couple of old linen chests. A simple kitchen — water pump, wood stove, a well-stocked pantry, and a roughly-made table — separated our rooms. That’s how it was the few weeks I was there.

“He was quickly wasting away, larger doses of jimsonweed making his speech erratic, but not doing much for his breathing — at these times he’d insist that Lillie would come to him before his time came.

“It’d been raining for a couple of days. A peek outside, showed everything to be soaked — even the old mine shaft had begun spilling over. The humidity made breathing unbearable for him. A large dose of the jimsonweed had put him into an uneasy sleep. Breathing in powdered leaves all day had made me dizzy — I laid down.

“Waking, I saw the chests in my room were open — a girl — was it me? — at the kitchen table — no maybe it wasn’t — would I be wearing such antiquated garb? But I felt wet — I was in my room wasn’t I? Wet, soaking — but her dress left no spots on the dusty floor. Bracing myself in the doorway — no wait, against the table — I crushed a handful of green nightshade fruit and a head of poppy in half a glass of bourbon — ‘not a healthy drink at all, at all,’ I thought. Straining it into his cup she headed for his room, and I followed — well he was calling for me wasn’t he? ‘Lillie, Lillie!’ Kneeling by his bed she said ‘Papa, drink this papa, momma’s waitin’ for you outside, an’ we can all be together.’ I left her with him, his smile told me it would soon be over.

“I stumbled to the table and drank some bourbon, but it only worsened my dizziness, and that sobbing, was that in my head? that sobbing from his room — was I back there? — what door had I gone through? — wait, it was raining. I just kept going — Lillie would be alone now, she would take care of everything. I walked and walked looking for some light. A light from a house...then there it was, and it was getting closer, ha! the whole damn house was coming to me, with two shiny windows — and there he was — Brother Reynolds.”

"Heavy Breathing"

Copyright: © 2010 Georges Dodds

-------------------------------------

Published in strong competitors to The New Flesh like International Agrophysics and Estudos de Literatura Oral, Georges Dodds has until recently kept his weird writing under mouldy cerements. His recent genre activities include textual resurrection for a publisher of Gothic novels, unearthing and presenting in an e-library some thematic precursors of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes, translating early French science-fiction to English, and preparing a collection of American dime-novelist William Murray Graydon's earliest adventure stories. Georges and his 3-species family (4 with the goldfish), lives in a former bus garage, on the now relocated site of an18th century cemetery -- so far tilling the garden hasn't revealed its past.

I don’t remember how Eula and I ended up lab partners in freshman Zoology. She was a ‘special status’ student -- no, I don’t mean like the cripples back from ‘Nam -- something conferred on her by the Jesuit higher-ups at Creighton. Her farm-bred build, long hair, attractively filled out white blouse and knee-length skirt, was marred by an unsettling crooked eye. A pretty girl otherwise, she clearly wasn’t one of those vacuous blondes in college to find a husband -- besides she was a brunette. Sitting down at the lab bench, a thick stapled document slipped from her binder.

Picking it up, I read, “Changing Interpretations of the Werewolf. A comparison of S. Baring-Gould’s ‘The Book of Werewolves,’ M. Summers’ ‘The Werewolf,’ and L. Illis’ ‘On Porphyria and the Ætiology of Werewolves’ -- by Eula Grayson,”

“Here -- Sweet Pea,” I said, handing her back the paper. “Werewolves, ooooh...scary...Grrr! I’m Lon Chaney!” I said mockingly

“Jim, when you don’t know squat, just make like a clam, an’ we’ll get along just peachy.”

“Just in to the KMTV news desk...Missing A-dorm girls victims of Omaha werewolf!”

Her thumb and fingers closing together she replied: “The clam? I don’t see the clam...Like that creepy Marsh guy, spoutin’ off ’bout the ‘transcendent but unspeakable wisdom of the Elder Ones’ -- reckon he coulda done it -- ’nother boy what don’t know when to make like a bivalve. That’s a joke there, Jim.” Taking on the expression of a doting mother and pinching my cheek she added, “you can laugh -- yesss you can.”

I glared at her, but grudgingly respected her for meeting my sarcasm with disdain rather than tears.

*   *   *

Meeting a couple of days later to complete a lab report, she mentioned that Marsh had been expelled.

“Met him outside his residence... said he was headed home -- some coastal town in Massachusetts -- wantin’ me to come along. Told him weren’t no earthly chance of that. Flipped me his dorm-room key, he did, and said, ‘take anything you want, see you soon.’”

“Choice guy, kinda like Jim Morrison’s evil twin -- smelled like a lizard-king, too...leastways the lizard part.”

“Sure did. He’d corner me in the dining hall and ramble on about some far-out cosmic traveller trapped on the sea-bottom -- flattering me how I was healthier and smarter than other girls; them only fit as ‘psychic fodder,’ me to be the ‘vessel of its offspring.’ Like, no way man! Besides, I reckon that creature wasn’t no farther than his pants.”

“Yeah, sounds that way. So, did you check it out?”

“You know I can’t just wander into the men’s residence.”

“Well, Sweet Pea, I can get you in...”

*   *   *

I was climbing the stairs behind Eula, frankly entranced by the view, when some ditzy blonde chick I’d seen in English Lit came spastically careening down, blood oozing from her glassy bugged-out eyes, mumbling, ‘I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea...’”

“Wow man, some seriously bad trip! We’ll call the campus police,” I reassured Eula, who’d turned white as a ghost.

The call made, we reached Marsh’s door, to find it ajar. Scattered on the floor, what at first glance looked like a bunch of starfish, turned out to be star-shaped stones. Others remained stacked in a semi-circular interlocking enclosure from which the ground-glass specimen jar now laying on the floor had obviously been hastily withdrawn. What liquid remained bathed what appeared to be five or six eyeballs, each including a length of optic nerve. Cringing, I read a crumbling “United States Naval War College Collection, Newport, R.I.” label: “Spores with emerging germ tubes, identification tentative, recovery following detonation of depth charges, Innsmouth (MA) harbour. May 12, 1923.”

Somewhat recovered, Eula had been reading over my shoulder. Suddenly, forcing back a gag reflex, she pointed first to the jar and then to the stripped down bed and floor beside it, each bearing a greyish-white sphere on a shredded stalk. “These aren’t, but those...those are her eyes.” She staggered over and wrapped them up in a handkerchief.

“Sweet Pea, you shouldn’t stay here,” I said.

“Mercy mild, but it’s hot,” she said, utterly ignoring me and unbuttoning her blouse. “Unngh,” she grunted in a lascivious manner, “listen up Jim...I start doin’ anything stupid -- anything, get this,” she said, plucking one of the items from the jar, “get this the hell away from me, back in the jar, and surround it with the... with the stones. Mercy, but it’s hot.”

The stalked sphere having rested in her hand a moment, she began to slide her free hand over herself in a way I knew was wrong, but just the thought of -- I hesitated. Writhing she spoke in a husky tone, “The sea, the sea of stars, the sea of foam, it envelops me...oh, mercy, mercy, it’s froth washes over me, into me, his froth...his seed, promised I am, promised, oh! could I but see him...” It was enough, with one hand I wrestled it from her and threw it in the jar; with the other I slapped her hard, back and forth, snapping her out of her glazed expression. She fell to her knees and began to hiccough-cry. I followed her instructions. Between sobs she whispered, “Merciful Jesus, preserve me in my hour of temptation and have mercy on those who were weak,” and then began to chant “Pater noster, qui es in caelis...”

Some time later we cleared out, packing the jar in its stone jacket in an old ammunition box Marsh had left in the closet, the books and a couple of extra stones being relegated to a shopping bag. That night we -- wrung out as she was, the little trooper insisted on seeing it done -- went over on Dodge Street, and buried the box under where they were preparing to pour the foundation for the new First National Bank Center.

"Offerings to the Sea"

Copyright: © 2010 Georges Dodds

-------------------------------------

Published in strong competitors to The New Flesh like International Agrophysics and Estudos de Literatura Oral, Georges Dodds has until recently kept his weird writing under mouldy cerements. His recent genre activities include textual resurrection for a publisher of Gothic novels, unearthing and presenting in an e-library some thematic precursors of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes, translating early French science-fiction to English, and preparing a collection of American dime-novelist William Murray Graydon's earliest adventure stories. Georges and his 3-species family (4 with the goldfish), lives in a former bus garage, on the now relocated site of an18th century cemetery -- so far tilling the garden hasn't revealed its past.

I hadn’t heard from Eula in a year. My uncle had gotten a postcard apologizing for wasting the opportunity he had offered her at Sheshequin College. Mulling over what had gone down out there in the forest, the material she’d sent from Buffalo, and her ergot poisoning, I figured she’d been through some heavy shit and could probably use a friend. Then a letter arrived, postmarked Roseau, MN, September 7, 1971.

Dear ——,

I thought I’d write — for good or evil — I think there’s more good in you than bad, even if you say things that really hurt sometimes. You were there when this curse (maybe it’s a gift, like Brother Reynolds, a Jesuit I met here in —— has been trying to convince me) of finding trouble and not letting it be. If I keep writing like this, as I think of things, I’m going to twist everything up like a cat on a skein of wool. Well, the father’s been telling me that I was too big for my britches thinking I could take care of business myself — like he said, St. Patrick didn’t learn to banish snakes in a day — ha ha! Still, some of the things I’ve done, can I ever be forgiven? God, can he ever forgive me? All the evil that’s sought me out, isn’t that a sign I’m tainted beyond redemption? I know, you’re not a believer — makes it easy for you.

I reckon you’ve figured it out, so I avoided you the next day — I was scared — yeah, me scared! — scared you’d want to care of me, take care of the soiled goods I’d become — I couldn’t lay that burden on you. Well, I’ll tell you what happened, judge for yourself — it’s sad — maybe even funny.

After you’d left, I looked at myself — ugly, soiled I was, a vessel of sin — worried silly our work had been in vain. Part of me played being Eula, part dwelt on my guilt at letting it happen. In a girls’ college it doesn’t take long to know who hasn’t had their monthly visitor. Didn’t fit in before, then even less.

I spent my spare time exploring the campus’ outskirts, steering clear of the forest — and people. An abandoned stretch of highway running parallel to the river, close along the bank, drew my interest, and I followed it up to a wide plateau. A meadow, spread out between what remained of the road and the sharp bluff overlooking the river, housed the sunken walls of an old homestead. A small family graveyard, old slate stones askew, their weeping willow designs peeping above the tall grass stood nearby. I would often go there, sit amongst them and cry; they, at least, wouldn’t judge.

The college had a sort of sorority-like clique, mind you, only for the ‘right sort of girls.’ When I was invited to be a postulant and undergo initiation, I figured it was more to make a fool of me than anything else, but needing to belong, to be accepted...anyways, naively I accepted.

We gathered in the residence lounge . Outside, it was raining cats and dogs. Rumbling thunder followed vivid but fog-subdued flashes of lightning; pitch darkness followed the thunder. Each postulant was given a challenge — one to drink from a jar of foetid swamp water —a smaller jar of clean water being hidden within. Handed a tarp and some fancy ribbon, my mission was to fetch a box ‘in the old cemetery,’ wrap it up, tie it up like a parcel, and bring it back.

Outside, I considered what the ‘old cemetery’ might be — surely it wasn’t the one behind the church — where I’d taken the soil we used in the forest — that was cordoned off during the construction — besides it was too close and too easy. Presumably the old cemetery on the hill wasn’t just known to me. Donning my poncho I headed off in the steady rain. On the old road, I could only make progress when the lightning allowed me to see beyond a few paces ahead. The lightning getting closer, I was concerned about crossing the meadow; if I didn’t fall in the foundation, I’d get struck by the lightning. Expecting a prank, when the earth shook and a bolt hit the closest tree, I threw myself to the ground and waited. Eventually rising, I approached the cemetery, the next flash revealing that much of the bluff had collapsed. Peering gingerly over the edge I saw what appeared to be a mud-covered box. Seeing the ledge hold after rolling down a couple of large stones, I resolved they’d not get the better of me. The lightning having moved off, I recklessly slid down in the dark. Manually identifying something muddy and box-like, I quickly wrapped and tied it up.

Climbing out was nerve-wracking, the sound of rushing waters — they certainly had little thought for my safety. Managing to drag myself up and across the field, I reached the pavement to hear a great muffled crash announcing the disappearance of most of the meadow. Running, I didn’t look back until I was on the main road. Drenched and mud-splattered, I dragged myself into the lounge , and placed my burden on a table.

“Damn, you’ve been gone a long time, where you been? The cemetery isn’t that far. I bet you were chicken, probably got a box out behind the cafeteria,” said the club president.

She quickly unwrapped the parcel, and dropped to the floor. On the table were the remains of a small tin-lined chest, inside which an old butter box bore tiny bones.

I didn’t make it into the club, quite the opposite — when it came close to Christmas and I still hadn’t had that monthly visit, I got my hands on the ergot. Was I planning to send one or two to keep company with that mud-splattered box's little occupant, I can’t tell you, but God knows, and well... can He forgive?.

Yours truly, Eula.

"Parel Delivery"

Copyright: © 2010 Georges Dodds

-------------------------------------

Published in strong competitors to The New Flesh like International Agrophysics and Estudos de Literatura Oral, Georges Dodds has until recently kept his weird writing under mouldy cerements. His recent genre activities include textual resurrection for a publisher of Gothic novels, unearthing and presenting in an e-library some thematic precursors of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes, translating early French science-fiction to English, and preparing a collection of American dime-novelist William Murray Graydon's earliest adventure stories. Georges and his 3-species family (4 with the goldfish), lives in a former bus garage, on the now relocated site of an18th century cemetery -- so far tilling the garden hasn't revealed its past.

Headed north to Roseau, Minnesota, he pulled over upon seeing the hitchhiker. Her solid, muscular frame and long brown hair convinced him she was likely a Wisconsin farm girl.

“Where’ye headed?”

“Roseau — Forestry Service job.”

“Well get in then, I’m Jim. Got a name?”

“Eula.”

Testing that the door opened freely, she sat down. Driving off Jim mused, “sure ain’t a big talker, bit glum lookin’, mind you —” Shifting towards her with a ‘yunno you really want it’ look, he pulled up short before the Bowie knife she had drawn from an ankle sheath.

“Make like a clam and drive, Jim.”

After lunch alone at the Pine Bluff Diner she crossed Centre St. to the Forestry Office and addressed the woman at the desk:

“Trail clearing job still available?”

“Yes, think you can handle it? half the people this year have quit, most without notice.”

“Need the money. My family were loggers.”

“Well, officer Guldbranson will be the one to decide.” Turning, she shouted into the room behind her, “Hey, Jim!”

Eula cringed, glaring at Jim as he came out, sporting a crisp uniform and a grin.

“You’re hired.”

Informed of her responsibilities, she replied, “Fine.”

“Try anything again...” she added, glancing at her ankle sheath, “and I’ll gut you and leave you for the crows.”

“Yes, Miss Dangerous,” he replied smirking. “Monday, 6 o’clock. You’ll be working with Doug and Daphne, they’re pros. Pick up a uniform on the way out.”

*   *   *

Jim had driven them out to the Lost River State Forest and was to return at supper time. Weighted down with pick and shovel, chain-saws, a jerry-can of gas, nails to assemble a log bridge, and their lunches, they had had to bush-whack deep into the forest to reach their work site — Forestry Service policy allowed no motorized vehicles in the forest.

A couple of weeks of sweat, mosquitoes, clearing brush, along with hauling and assembling logs for the bridge in knee-deep mud had brought the trio closer. Noise in the bush near their work site — possibly bears — convinced Jim to supply them with an old bolt action .303 he’d gotten up in Canada. Picking it up, Eula smoothly worked the bolt, inserted a cartridge, closed the breech and, bracing herself, took a branch off a nearby tree — Doug and Daphne elected her gun-bearer.

The weather had changed. Dark clouds, a fog-dense atmosphere and a pervasive grey twilight reigned. Whatever was out there had failed to be driven away by warning shots. A putrid smell would occasionally waft through the forest suggesting a nearby bear-kill. On one such occasion Daphne thought she’d seen a tall, emaciated and very elderly man dodging quickly through the undergrowth. When a couple of members of the crew across the ridge went AWOL, and the noises and furtive shadows grew more frequent, the three agreed to work in closer proximity, one always carrying the rifle.

An uneventful week of clear weather left the trio feeling somewhat relieved — they would see the summer through and collect full pay.

Early August brought more hot, rainy, overcast weather. Upon shifting their work to a section of trail buried in an inextricably tangle of splintered regrowth brought on by a spring ice-storm, the noise in the bush and the stench had recurred. Daphne and Doug decided to find out once and for all what was going on. They would take the rifle, Eula would stay put, chain saws and a double-bitted axe would deter any potential intruder.

Drawing her watch along with a handful of .303 shells from her pocket, Eula realized she’d been waiting over three hours. The wind had shifted and the rain had stopped, but the stench had worsened. The axe and smallest chainsaw in hand, she first headed for the pickup point, but a flitting shadow of a man up the trail sent her instinctively back — worse case she’d cross the ridge and join the other team. She felt the need to move stealthily, keeping trees and brush between her and the vague, shadowy threat. The stench worsened as she climbed a ridge from the crest of which several immense firs trees had fallen and their leafy crowns come to rest together on a rocky outcrop. The emaciated man appeared, rapidly climbing the hill, but she knew better than to draw his attention. On a ledge above the fallen trees, the stench suddenly hit her: on a ledge below, among the fir boughs, were bodies, piled like cord-wood, some well advanced in putrefaction, others — Daphne, Doug — fresh, all clearly missing substantial portions of flesh.

Dropping axe and chainsaw, Eula picked up the discarded rifle, and loaded a fresh shell. Something stirred in the foliage surrounding the bodies. A loathsome, emaciated semblance of a man crept up towards her, pausing for a large morsel from its larder. The momentary mesmerism of its glowing eyes, and her gut-wrenching disgust were overcome by an overpowering anger. She fired at it, round after round, the bolt singeing her hand when she finally expended the last round — it only tumbled down among the fir branches to rise again, climbing even faster. The shells spent, she reached for the axe, and swinging it over her head let it fly. The vile creature howled, temporarily pinned to a tree trunk. Picking up the chainsaw she grasped the pull-handle, released it, and instead uncapped the gas tank and poured out all but a couple of ounces over the stone and fir boughs. Then she yanked hard, the chainsaw sputtered, then caught. The creature had yet to free itself. She leaned down and ground the blade into the rock, and was blown back as the fuel ignited and flames spread rapidly to the resinous branches. Then she ran.

Putting Eula on the bus a week later, Jim informed her: “That hillside ain’t nothing but cinders, just as well, between you and me — the cops wouldn’t buy your story, the wendigo ain’t been seen here since the 20s. Now, take care of yourself.”

"Larder"

Copyright: © 2010 Georges Dodds

-------------------------------------

Published in strong competitors to The New Flesh like International Agrophysics and Estudos de Literatura Oral, Georges Dodds has until recently kept his weird writing under mouldy cerements. His recent genre activities include textual resurrection for a publisher of Gothic novels, unearthing and presenting in an e-library some thematic precursors of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes, translating early French science-fiction to English, and preparing a collection of American dime-novelist William Murray Graydon's earliest adventure stories. Georges and his 3-species family (4 with the goldfish), lives in a former bus garage, on the now relocated site of an18th century cemetery -- so far tilling the garden hasn't revealed its past.

Eula was last person I’d expected to meet in the small Pennsylvania college town of Sheshequin where I was spending a week helping a friend paint his house. I did a double-take upon seeing her in the plaid skirt and crisp white blouse of the town’s small private college, but her lazy eye convinced me it was her.

“What the hell are you doing here, and what’s with the get-up?” I blurted out.

Eyeing me with wry amusement, she then took on a more serious expression. Her mom’s rapid decline and their land’s expropriation by the Power Authority had left her motherless and homeless, if comfortable. My uncle, thankful for the service she had rendered his son, had seen to it that nothing impeded her admittance to the college’s self-directed studies programme.

“How you findin’ school?” I asked -- “bit of a change for Miss Grizzly Adams?” I added, rather untactfully.

“Dunno when to make like a clam, do ya? I get by. School’s got a tract o’ bush just for me,” she said sarcastically, “out that way, on the Susquehanna shore,” she pointed. Our conversation was interrupted as a police car went screaming off in that very direction.

We agreed to meet the next day, but upon reading the morning paper’s headline, “State Worker Assaulted in Forest Reserve,” I was serious concerned. I gave Eula a big hug when she arrived outside my friend’s place.

“I was worried,” I said sheepishly and showed her the newspaper. “It doesn’t seem the police have much to go on. ‘...woman working overnight at new USFS Research Facility...dozed off...woke up to find herself in the hands of an intruder.’”

“If they’d have given a damn about the forest, they wouldn’t have dug that ugly trench across it to run water and power out there. I’ll pick you up at five, we’ll go have a look.”

I would have argued but she’d already left.

A little after five a battered F-150 pulled up, and there was Eula as I remembered her: work boots, heavy canvas shorts, a worn T-shirt, and sweat-stained ball-cap. We drove out to the forest. The contrast between the forest’s leaf cover and the newly grass-covered soil along the trench was obvious. Ignoring the “Do Not Enter. Crime Scene” signs we approached the building. A single broad-leaved plant had grown up among the grass near a pile of stony fill. Eula looked at it carefully.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t be here,” replied Eula, looking puzzled, “shouldn’t be here at all, worn river stones in this spot, sand and silt everywhere else.”

“What’s not right?”

“Mandragora...shouldn’t be here, and those stones should be in a river bed”

“You mean like Mandrake root, like Mandrake the Magician?”

Eula sighed and added, “Let me deal with it.”

Two mornings later Eula rapped at my friends door. She looked haggard, strangely dejected. Her legs and face were scratched.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Spent the night in the forest, should’ve known better and asked you to come.”

“You didn’t get hurt by...you didn’t go out there alone! did you?”

“Things didn’t get that far, least ways I don’t reckon so, I just dunno.”

Opening a book and pointing, she said, “read!”




“Mandrake, Range limited to Europe...”

“So what’s it doin’ out there? Now look at this.”

“‘Map of the Susquehanna River 1835’ and one from 1911, so what’s that tell me?”

“Here’s the forest, here’s the building — 1835— the land was a swampy low-lying ox-bow, see? now, 1911, the channel’s shifted, the ox-bow’s been buried in silt by the 1904 flood.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Look at the first book, where do mandrake’s grow?” she pointed to a passage.

“Hmmm, ‘Crossroads, under gallows’...oh c’mon you don’t believe this crap, do you? Besides there’s no crossroads, no gallows.”

“Haven’t figured that out, but I’ll damn sure let you know when I do...c’mon, let’s go,” she indicated her truck.

The rear of the truck was heaped with fresh earth. We got out to the woods. Turning the truck around, Eula backed it roughly all the way to the building. Getting out I noticed the mandrake had been torn up. Getting closer I saw Eula’s boot tracks, the imprint of her knees where she’d torn up the plant and a dark stain beside the wilted plant. I looked at her questioningly, but “made like a clam” — Eula was crying. She pushed me away, adding, “cover the ground, especially there,” wincing perceptibly as she pointed to the wilted mandrake.

I spent a couple of hours making sure everything was covered.

“I’m all for landscaping the place, but what was wrong with the ground here? Where’s this dirt from?”

“They’re excavating behind the church new rectory. It’s a hunch, just a hunch, just pray it works -- just pray,” and she collapsed to the forest floor. I took her in my arms, put her in the cab and took the wheel. I left her with her roommate, telling her I’d come by the next morning to see Eula.

The next day, unable to track Eula down, I reluctantly left. Anytime I got in touch with my friend I’d ask if he’d seen her or if any other incidents had occurred -- none had. A couple of months later I heard Eula had been hospitalized for acute ergot poisoning, but had pulled through. Odd though, she’d never struck me as a druggie. I tried to contact her at the college but she had apparently dropped out.

A couple of weeks later I received an envelope with no return address and a Buffalo, NY postmark containing pages photocopied from a book, but no message. It was an account of the reprisals led by Col. Hartley following the Battle of the Wyoming. A diary entry dated Sept. 14, 1778, related that a soldier who had ‘dishonoured’ three settlers’ daughters was summarily hung where the Sheshequin Path reached the swampy shore of the Susquehanna.

"Soiled"

Copyright: © 2010 Georges Dodds

-------------------------------------

Published in strong competitors to The New Flesh like International Agrophysics and Estudos de Literatura Oral, Georges Dodds has until recently kept his weird writing under mouldy cerements. His recent genre activities include textual resurrection for a publisher of Gothic novels, unearthing and presenting in an e-library some thematic precursors of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes, translating early French science-fiction to English, and preparing a collection of American dime-novelist William Murray Graydon's earliest adventure stories. Georges and his 3-species family (4 with the goldfish), lives in a former bus garage, on the now relocated site of an18th century cemetery -- so far tilling the garden hasn't revealed its past.

My cousin Syd, who smoked pot, attended happenings and had a different girl every week was, my parents’ opinion notwithstanding, the coolest of the cool. We’d taken his wreck of a car to his dad’s cottage some ways out from a small town in the foothills. He’d brought along Blaze, a thirty-something tourist from Brittany he’d met at a café downtown.

When Blaze came into the kitchen the next morning with nothing on but an open blouse, her appearance suggesting chastity was not her top concern. Syd good-naturedly suggested I “give her a smack on the bum...an’ tell her she’s ba—d!” She was rather flat-chested, wiry and seemingly nervously on the alert. Notwithstanding that she was European, she seemed remarkably hairy — a fine tawny duvet covering all but her hands.

The stifling heat led Syd to suggest we bring along some food, walk over to the falls — a mere ten foot drop on the nearby creek — and maybe camp out overnight. We’d have to ask permission from the Graysons, a family that’d lived out here with no modern amenities since God knows when. Emerging onto a small gravelly plateau, we wove between the rusting car hulks behind a house seemingly held together by tin beverage signs. Upon explaining our presence, we were invited in by an older woman.

“Lands’ sake Eula, come in here an’ give these folk sumthin’ to drink. Altogether too much larnin’ that one, puttin’ on airs — hummph! but she do keep us goin,’ collectin’ and dryin’ medicine plants like her granny was wont to.”

We sat down around a table in the middle of a worn-out linoleum floor. Wearing a worn flour bag shirt and some thready denim shorts, Eula entered, hesitated, and then deliberately crossed herself before putting down a coil of barb-wire and a tobacco can of nails. “Mornin’folks,” she said with hardly an accent. Squeaking and gurgling from the hand-pump by the sink preceded the arrival of a full pitcher of water and some glasses.

Syd, chatted with Eula’s mother, while Blaze looked around uncomfortably. Drawing my attention, Eula whispered, “Come with me.” I followed her to a shed behind the house, admiring her thickly braided auburn hair, darkly tanned skin and heavy-set muscular body. Picking up a finely perforated pill box strung on a lace, she filled it with leaves selected from a bundle of dried plants. As she hung it ’round my neck, I noticed she bore a lovely aroma of fresh sweat and the outdoors.

“It’ll keep away the ‘skeeters, an’ — other varmints.”

It was only close up that I noticed her lazy eye. I winced involuntarily — one eye watching me while the other looked elsewhere was rather unnerving. Embarrassed, I added awkwardly, “Sorry about your...eh — and thanks for the bug repellent,” She turned away, running her forearm across her eyes, then turned back and handed me a short-handled axe, “Tough ground to hammer in tent pegs.”

Blaze was so anxious to reach the falls that she repeatedly ran ahead, then back to Syd, only to report that we still weren’t there yet. Having arrived, Syd and I set up camp below the falls, while Blaze, suffering from the heat, immediately entered the water. After some time under the falls we all felt refreshed. We cooked up some steaks over an open fire and potatoes in the coals. By the time we’d eaten and cleaned up it had cooled considerably. When, with a couple hours daylight to spare, Syd and Blaze wandered off upstream, I thought nothing of it, well, nothing beyond what I pictured them doing.

Eula’s mosquito repellent didn’t work, so when twilight darkened into night, I retired to bed, rather unconcerned about Syd and Blaze —they were adults after all. The next morning having brought neither Syd nor Blaze, I wandered down to the Graysons. Eula was outside the shed.

“Seen Syd or Blaze?” I asked, “they walked off from camp last night and aren’t back yet —wouldn’t put it past Syd to be pulling a prank.”

“God’s mercy, no!” she exclaimed. Stuffing her pockets with some change she handed me a small bottle of water and a shard from an old mirror. “Take — let’s go — the axe? — never mind — camp.”

When I asked her what the hell she was up to, she just ran faster. I caught up with her at camp, where she’d just picked up the axe.

“Jesus, girl, what the f—”

She replied angrily, “Never take his name in vain, not now, not ever! Come.”

Hours of breakneck bushwhacking through everything from alder bogs to close-set spruces brought us to a narrow ledge. Eula made a sign to be quiet. How she’d trailed them I haven’t a clue. Syd lay below, among the bracken, naked, lacerated and barely breathing. A tawny wolf lay languidly in a cleft in the hillside. A strong scent of blood and chestnut blossoms pervaded the place. Below its tail, the wolf’s haunches were glistening.

“Bottle,” Eula whispered. She poured out a stream across the great tawny wolf’s lair. Shifting, it growled. Eula, oddly, seemed to be intent on sharpening the axe against a large coin. Turning to the wolf she cried, “neither mercy for you, nor your whelps. In nomine patris, filii...” She sprang forward swinging the axe, but stumbling only struck the beast a glancing blow and fell prone. It howled eerily, now standing erect just above her throat. How the idea arose I don’t know, but rushing up I drove the old mirror shard in beneath its shoulder, and it shuddered in its death throes.

While Eula was slipping old dimes under its eyelids, and cutting open its womb to place a dollar piece within, she recited a series of Ave Marias. I managed, with my lacerated hands, to bring Syd out of his stupor and get him on his feet.

Our return was uneventful, our actions neither heralded nor condemned, for no one ever did come looking for Blaze.

"Syd's Vicious Lover"

Copyright: © 2010 Georges Dodds

-------------------------------------

Published in strong competitors to The New Flesh like International Agrophysics and Estudos de Literatura Oral, Georges Dodds has until recently kept his weird writing under mouldy cerements. His recent genre activities include textual resurrection for a publisher of Gothic novels, unearthing and presenting in an e-library some thematic precursors of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes, translating early French science-fiction to English, and preparing a collection of American dime-novelist William Murray Graydon's earliest adventure stories. Georges and his 3-species family (4 with the goldfish), lives in a former bus garage, on the now relocated site of an18th century cemetery -- so far tilling the garden hasn't revealed its past.

At sixteen, when forest ramblings at the cottage had been derailed by a family move, my explorer’s ambitions being crushed, I had to make do with spending a week at my uncle’s in Dawnor’s Rapids. Notwithstanding warnings about the kid who had drowned there “just last year,” I spent the week discovering the creek’s every meander and pool. The Saturday before I left promised a big bonfire.

On a sandbank a huge teepee of driftwood and old planks stood to one side and an equally impressive mound of beer cases and eats on the other. Down the creek the sun sank red and golden, but I was rather more engrossed in identifying the alder species across the creek, than greeting Josie, the date my cousin had arranged for me. Informing my date of the alders’ unique ability to fix nitrogen proved a poor opening, but she nodded politely; however, when I asked her what subjects she liked in school, she laughed loudly, adding “School? who wants to talk about school?” Turning to a friend, she continued, “d’ya see The Partridge Family last night? Isn’t Keith just dreamy?” Enticing as what her laced blouse promised, I knew there was no hope.

The smells of weed and beer soon overcame those of the open water and encroaching woods; the raucous conversation drowned out the crickets. I wandered over to the rocky pool where the beer was kept cold, but when I returned, Josie had left, and I wasn’t that keen to find her. Restless and bored I waded across the creek and tramped through the pungent muck: they were green alders. Hardly thinking, I wandered upstream, quickly leaving the bonfire behind. Treading the soft carpet beneath the pines that overhung the rapids, I resolved to continue to the bridge, then follow the road back to the bonfire. The pines sighing, the swift waters gurgling and splashing, glittering in the moonlight, the aromas of forest and stream enfolded me, isolating me in cocoon of my own senses.

I came upon her suddenly. She was sitting silently at the base of a great beech tree, the twilight obscuring the distinction between her outline and the expanse of pale gray bark. When my sight resolved that she was indeed there, I was drawn out of my reverie.

“Wandered this far from the party?”

Seemingly not much older than me, she rose but remained silent. In the semi-obscurity, the colored weave of her blue gingham dress melded with the grey of the moonlit beech. Her hair, oddly wet, given her dry dress, was partly up in a bun. As she turned bashfully towards the tree, a tortoise shell hair comb was revealed in the dappled moonlight. An odd sort of woven necklace reposed on her high white collar. She didn’t strike me as the flower-child kind — while feminine, she somehow looked altogether too industrious and practical a girl. She was really pretty, maybe a bit old-fashioned, or at least ‘modest’ — but I liked that.

“Studying to be a tree nymph?” I asked.

Her voice, in such harmony with the woodland and riparian sounds as one might expect from such a creature, nonetheless gave me the odd impression of coming from afar.

“Nay, I wandered far afield and mistook me the crossing — to my own ruin — ‘Aileen, dinna cross...’ mum warned me, an — an now I canna go back to her,” she continued, sobbing, “I canna go back to my kin, aye, they’ll have gone afore me.”

“Hey, c’mon Aileen, cheer up,” I replied, hesitating whether to hug her, “I’ll take you home, we can cross up at the bridge and catch up with your folks — they have a cottage up here?”

“Lad, there be no bridge for the likes o’ me, nor surely a cottage for to find — ach, only were ye to bear me across could I rejoin my kin.”

“Well, Aileen — Scottish are you? — it’s a wee bit tricky crossing here, in the daytime alone, but at night like this, it’s just courting disaster.”

“Aye, ye need na tell me, but I’ll have naught of a boy that canna be brave when called upon.”

“Fine, suit yourself, I’ve done it in the daytime...relax, I’ll figure something out,” Looking up and down the creek for the safest crossing, I added, laughing awkwardly: “So, Aileen, how you figure I should carry you...like a bride across the threshold, or like a sack of potatoes.”

“I ken ‘twon’t be the first, for I’ll be bride to none, ‘twould be better suited to jumpin’, I reckon, were I 'cross your shoulder.”

We walked up the creek together, to where I’d managed to get across easily enough a couple of days before. I approached her, boldly giving her a peck on the cheek — she was oddly cold and wet, and the aroma of her hair hinted of the alder bog — but out in the woods all night, having wandered along the creek before resting by the beech tree, that didn’t seem altogether strange. She smiled wistfully, yet with an underlying sense of sadness.

“Ay, go on lad, I won’t hold the peck against ye, and now across.”

She seemed light for her frame, as I slung her over my shoulder. Concentrated on crossing, I managed it without a hitch. On the opposite bank, I slipped her off my shoulder, onto her feet .

She looked happy, yet anxious, and even paler in the full moonlight. She rearranged her dress, seemingly looking for something. Softly but firmly she added “I must go on and find my kin alone, but, lad — I offer you what blessings I may.”

She ran up the bank. The odd necklace she had worn, which had fallen on my shoe, delayed me in following her. There was no sign of her when I crested the bank.

Weeks later, when I visited a museum back home, I was assured the intricately woven hair necklace was of no later than the 19th century.

"Hair Piece"

Copyright: © 2010 Georges Dodds

-------------------------------------

Published in strong competitors to The New Flesh like International Agrophysics and Estudos de Literatura Oral, Georges Dodds has until recently kept his weird writing under mouldy cerements. His recent genre activities include textual resurrection for a publisher of Gothic novels, unearthing and presenting in an e-library some thematic precursors of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes, translating early French science-fiction to English, and preparing a collection of American dime-novelist William Murray Graydon's earliest adventure stories. Georges and his 3-species family (4 with the goldfish), lives in a former bus garage, on the now relocated site of an18th century cemetery -- so far tilling the garden hasn't revealed its past.