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FOUR
A crone of an old woman sat with them in the cart, face hidden under another ridiculous mask, and if Tanner wasn’t bound—or twitchy, or aching, or all of it—he’d choke her out. Yeah. Throw her right through the canvas flaps there, tumbling old woman with her mask flying off and she’d soar right into a ditch. She smelled peppery and every smell made him sick. Her hands were old boot leather and painted with white stripes down her tendons, her saggy old tits were bare and painted in the same chalk, stripe and dot patterns up to her neck. Her skirts were a hundred colours and pooled around her legs so thick she might not have had legs at all.
Shallow basin near his seat to receive his spew, a leather canteen of water. Blankets, untouched bowl of soup—the old woman had attempted to feed him but he refused like a petulant toddler. Not only because the rocking of the cart made him more green.
Lauren ate and sat silent in her corner, eyes bright with confusion, black eyeliner panda’d and streaking down her cheeks, posture on high-alert like she’d burst if anyone touched her. He wanted to burst out of his skin, too, but that was because a hundred spiders pulled at it from underneath.
“What ails him?” the old woman had asked.
“He’s… He doesn’t have any medicine.”
“What sort of medicine does he need?”
Lauren had paused, frowning. “It was the medicine that made him sick. We had to take it away.”
He hated the old bitch already. Just sitting there, watching, she could see inside him, shaded eyes but they raked him, could she read his thoughts, did it matter. He could only sit and sweat and kick his legs to squirm and he hated himself most of all. Do you read that?
“How did you find yourself there, in the wood?”
Shut up. He couldn’t lie down how he was tied and so his head fell limp over his chest, sweat dripping off his nose. His lips were cracked and tongue felt awful in his mouth. So Lauren answered, again. “We don’t know. Honestly, we don’t know. Please, whatever we did wrong, we’re sorry.”
At some point he drifted off, shadows swimming in his head shrieking and cackling. Faces of everyone he had ever wronged hovered all vibrating, cursing him in lyrics that hadn’t been written yet and he woke up howling. Lauren tried hushing him from across the cart, singing softly. They had been left in the dark—broad daylight through the flap that flit open with the wind but otherwise the canvas allowed no light, too thick. Lauren told him he was only out for a minute. The cart had stopped.
A blonde girl with no mask and a modest oat-brown dress parted the canvas, he winced at the light. “Do you need to—”
“Piss?” Lauren interrupted. “Absolutely.” Done with crying, back to spitting snark.
The blonde looked at Tanner. “And you?”
He nodded. The flap closed for a moment before two masked men opened it. Out to the edge of the road, next to a dozen other folks using their chance to empty themselves on cue, the blonde struggled with his fly, had she seen one before, and the way her eyebrows pursed together made Tanner smirk. If he wasn’t close to withering he’d crack a lewd joke. Instead: “if you untied me I’d do it myself.”
She raised her face to get approval. The leather cord loosened from his wrist, a phantom at his back must’ve had three hands since one poked a blade in his kidney. The feeling tingled back into his fingers as he fumbled with his jeans to squat and shit, feeling zero shame nor modesty since no one else did either, and anyway, he had to go so fucking bad it didn’t matter. Nothing left solid in him, visions of crushing pills on a plate. His nose ran. As they lifted him up and he pulled up his jeans he glanced over to his sister who, he knew, was highly aware of the eyes behind masks on her ass. If any of them touched her he’d kill them. Somehow. Compared to them she was pale silk, he knew exactly what was going through their heads just like every other disgusting fuck who looked at his sister.
I was getting strong, Lauren, why’d you go. Ready to save you from yourself, like you tried with me and I let you down. You come back and I’m a burden on you again. You tell me what to do. You want me to kill them? Say so. Just say so Lauren and I’ll do it.
Placed back in the cart, the darkness disorienting, back to his corner tied to a pole.
The old woman poked her head in. “The ceremony will be at our night camp.”
Was that good? He didn’t know. The muscle spasms biting into his bones were too distracting for her words to really register.
***
Lauren could see a sliver of a clearing, a rush of commotion, folks going back and forth with bundles. Jingling bodies with all their little decorations hopping to action and leading those strange beasts wherever, others with canvases, felt, poles and cooking equipment and the odd shouting voice to give commands. Camp was being set up quick.
It seemed, from her narrow vantage, there was a clear class structure. The ones in the drab clothes and no masks were the serving class. The armed men walking around with puffed chests and long black braids were on the top, beneath them were their half-naked women and children. When those men stopped to piss everyone else could, when they told someone to jump they asked how high. And she still sweat to think she was going to be at the mercy of these people, of those men. She didn’t run from Duke to be gang raped.
“Lauren,” Tanner interrupted her worries.
“What?”
“I think we’ve finally been kidnapped by gypsies.”
She chortled. They fucking were, too. “Grandma promised.”
“Rest in peace.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Could be better.”
Small talk. Talk about anything. “When did you quit hockey?”
“When the charity stopped paying for me.”
“That sucks.”
“My fault for missing practise all the time and shoving shit up my nose.” He sniffed.
The cart lit up, canvas pulled open. “Out,” the disembodied voice said. Lauren pulled herself forward by her heels, slid her butt over straw and wood planks. A bald old man in a dull blue caftan was sent in to help Tanner. Food was cooking somewhere and a big woodpile was being carefully stacked into what might become a bonfire, and her throat closed to think she and Tanner might get burned in it.
The tall pines were far behind them. Open prairie, wind-plowed grass with tiny flowers and soft rolling hills, hints of weathered stones. The sky was blue and cloudless, birds of prey flew freely and divebombed little creatures in the dirt. It would be peaceful, idyllic even, if it didn’t fill her with dread. They were nowhere near home.
The siblings were led past their potential funeral pyre, to a low flat stone with long grooves carved from the middle out to the four corners, dimples at the end of each groove pooled with water from a recent rain. A servant dried them. The same old woman sat on a cushion, silent and ponderous across the stone.
“You both dress strangely,” the old woman said. A crowd formed, their attention squishing Lauren into herself and she had no cohesive thoughts left to respond. The masked men all stood with stern posture, masks tilted up to show their faces, dark and judging, while the women and children sat behind them in the dirt. These people, it seemed, kept all their tables and chairs with their shirts.
Lauren tried her best to keep her chin up, returning the gaze the old woman gave her from behind the mask, brown eyes through the holes, a hint of white paint over cheeks. Those wisened eyes pierced like standing in front of a therapist. If Lauren said anything misleading, that woman would catch her bullshit. That sort of knowing gleam. “How did you find yourself in the sacred wood?”
“I’ve told you, I don’t know.”
“You just appeared there?”
Well, yeah… “We were… camping, just outside the old rail tunnel, out in… It doesn’t matter. We walked through the tunnel and we were here and the tunnel was gone.” She choked to recount it.
“‘Rail tunnel?’ I’ve never heard of such a place.” She mulled words around in her mouth, rail tunnel rail tunnel. “And you swear ignorance of the sacred spring?”
“Of course we were ignorant! Couple of ignoramuses. Please, we’re very sorry.” Don’t burn us.
A man brought over a cow-like animal, veal-sized. No strange metal bugs, a real animal. “I will examine the liver. If you speak true, you will be absolved,” Grandmother said.
Lauren gasped. “You’re not going to kill the poor thing, are you?” She was far from a vegetarian, but really?
“How else should I access the liver?” The old woman was already brandishing a long curved blade with a thick black handle, the coins dangling from her wrist rang together at her shrug, and a tone in her voice hinted at annoyance that Lauren would so stupidly question her methods. “Untie their wrists.”
Lauren rubbed at the marks, deep and purple, flexed her fingers to get blood flowing. The guy she sprayed, face hilariously shimmering like he had been huffing it from a bag, flexed his own fist at his chest. It was less amusing to notice his deep frown.
Grunts of protest from the little cow ignored, neck held over the stone table, the knife was quick and the sound of the blood splattering over the rock made Lauren’s knees buckle. No one else moved until the poor thing bled out and stopped twitching violent death-throes. The dimples at each corner of the slab overflowed hypnotic red.
You can think fondly on stabbing Duke in the fucking neck but this was what gets you squeamish?
If Lauren could see herself, pathetic, biting her own tongue to keep upright as the knife carved around the exit hole and up to the chest cavity, the steaming guts in a morbid rainbow of pinks, purples, greens, reds, all spinning in Lauren’s vision. The old woman dipped bundles of dried herbs in the pools of blood and flicked it at the two of them, Lauren flinched at the sudden splash of fluid on her skin.
“This is metal as fuck,” Tanner said, his mouth a slight tilt. He was having a blast in spite of his ailment, which absolutely stunned Lauren, staring at him in open-mouth disbelief. “What?”
Nothing, you psycho.
Animal juices up to old elbows, a strange language chanted as the liver was held up high. The charnel smells. Lauren’s brain gave up, crumpled unconscious to the ground for only a moment before being lifted up onto her feet.
It was one thing to see it on a screen, knowing it was all pretend, or to buy meat in nice plastic packaging on a shelf, but this… Her knees felt weak again as the liver was slapped down and prodded, and their innocence was announced. They were painted with more blood while folks sang and shook rainsticks and stomped feet. It was overwhelming, but the fact that she and Tanner weren’t going to be thrown in the pyre did lift her spirit, just a little, a smile and awkward laugh cracking her lips.
***
Tanner finally ate, a simple bone broth made from the animal that had been killed to absolve them, or whatever the ritual was. Wholesome flavour, lots of salt, a touch sour. The evening was rich with smoke and orange sky, there were folks dancing around the fire—apparently that night was sacred and the sacrifice only added to the celebration—and the animal blood on him kept flaking into his cup of broth, but he didn’t care. His jacket having blood stain all over it was fucking dope, like a GWAR concert, but real.
A servant delivered two horn cups, alcohol smelling like spruce beer, one to Lauren, which she took wordlessly and gulped, so Tanner gave his up and Lauren gulped that down too, and he laughed at her for being a spaz.
“Of course I’m being a spaz, Tanner, are you nuts? You’ve got to be nuts to be calm right now. Shouldn’t you be balled up in a corner, moaning?”
Oh, he was in pain, but her turmoil was amusing. “Dude, I’m not thrilled about anything going on. But our hands aren’t tied and they gave us beer.”
She clutched her knees under her chin. “The guy I sprayed won’t stop looking at me.”
“Spray him again.”
“Tanner!” Her eyes glinted, despite her objection.
The broth wet his lips and churned in his guts. The smells were all loud and comforting, and as the sky darkened to violet the people began removing their masks and tying them at their hips. Everyone cast glances at the pair but no one approached but to offer food and drink. Lauren ate a roast hunk of meat, chewed slowly and juices dripped down her fingers. He focused on the fire. The bright dry heat was too much, but he suffered in silence just to have her company.
Memories ran through his head any time there was quiet. Mostly unpleasant. “Remember when he had that big bonfire out at Mike’s place and just about burned down the barn?” he asked.
“Not as many couches in this fire.”
“I bet they’ve never seen spray paint explode. Chuck one in.”
“I don’t have my stuff.”
Footfalls crunched the dirt behind them, Lauren turned first. As if they had summoned it with their jokes, the man with the red armband stood there holding her bag, a can of paint in his hand and the rich chemical smell coming off him, droplets of orange spray on his thigh. He was big—primitive Schwarzenegger—and could probably knock Tanner’s head off with one swing. With the mask at his belt it was easier to read him—determined narrow eyes with a blond beard, and wore his long hair in two braids from behind his ears, full of coins and beads. Blond was a rare trait, here. “What is this?”
“Spray paint,” Lauren answered terse.
“Is it a weapon?”
“No. It’s for painting.”
“Show us how it works.”
Tanner shrugged as she looked to him for confidence, gave whatever she took from the gesture.
“I’ll need a c-canvas, or… side of a tent… It’s permanent, won’t wash off.”
Beefy arm, he pointed to a spot nearby, a thick tarp covering boxes and barrels. Lauren was hesitant to take the can. But she did, and got up, shaking and rattling it as she walked.
It was always fun to watch her paint. Something about the sound the cans made, or maybe the smell. The smell—he’d happily huff that paint she so frivolously sprayed, looking hungrily at the cans by her feet. His face would look as ridiculous as that dumb bastard with the silver on his lips. A cigarette would be better… an oxy would be better than better. Fuck!
Tanner stayed at the fire to watch, lying down and curling into himself. A group of men and women stood back to see her work the mysterious objects.
Silver-mouth had a less than amused look on him to watch. Made Tanner’s abdomen tighten.
“It’s very insulting to him that she sullied his mask,” the old woman in her billowing skirts sat next to Tanner. “I see his look too, and I told him already that you both are our guests. I’ll have to speak with him again.”
“What’s the deal with the masks, anyway?”
“Deal?”
Wrinkles shadowed deep, exaggerated in the firelight, she had a tender face, nose like a pushed up pug but her eyes were warm, she might have been a hundred years old. “Yeah, why do you all wear them?”
“Well, why don’t you? Are you slaves?”
“Uh, no…”
“Only slaves cannot wear their spirits. But, as you claim, and as I sense, you cannot be slaves.”
“We don’t, uh, share that tradition in our culture either.” He began shivering, a cold flash.
She nodded. “You must truly come from far away. I’ve been watching you, measuring you. You are not plainsmen, not Dvarri, that is obvious. The liver never lies. But as our guests, slave or not it makes no difference.”
“H-how long are we guests for?” And what happens when we get dumped on the side of the road?
“For as long as it amuses me, I am Grandmother after all!” She gave a witchy cackle and stood, talking as she walked away. “Sleep in that tent there, I’ve had it made for you and your sister. You don’t need to stay in that cart anymore…” the roar of the fire and gossipping crowd around Lauren overpowered her voice. He’d have to crawl to get to the tent if Lauren didn’t come back to help him.
A full throttle ride so far.
This is indeed metal as fuck.