Blood Fugue Read online

  As he watched, her wounds began to close. Very slowly at first, but rapidly gaining momentum. The thinness caused by the feed also began to repair. Her shrivelled skin filled out again, her breasts inflated from lifeless bags to heavy mounds once more. Her face, narrow and gaunt, began to swell. The Fugue was deep inside her now. Swarming through the cells he had not absorbed. Soon she would feel the power and the call.

  Full as he was, he felt he would not need to feed for a score of years, but in the back of his mind he knew the folly of that. The more he fed, the hungrier he became and the wider spread became the Fugue. He sank to his knees in exhaustion and the change from Rage to Fugue to human began.

  He was asleep before it ended.

  She awoke in the near blackness and found the clearing scattered with gently pulsating blossoms from the branches of the tree. They faded and died as she watched to be followed by more that spun down like tiny lilac lanterns. She was naked and did not know why but her body felt strong and vibrant. The tree was beautiful and she looked at it for a long time, her eyes now able to see in the low-lit gloom. Near the tree were tattered clothes she did not recognise. Strangest of all was the naked body of an ancient-looking man. His bones shone though his skin; the ribs and the shape of his skull making a cadaverous starveling of him. She wondered if he was dead. She did not know him. She did not know the place where she was but she knew that somewhere there was a home for her to go to and this home, the arbour, the dark sanctuary, would wait for her to return.

  Wearing only her running shoes and enjoying the feel of the night air against her skin, she walked away from the tree and into the forest in the direction of the town.

  — apart from the cold, all I remember after that is waking up here the next morning.’

  ‘Did you feel sick or hurt in any way?’

  ‘No. I felt better than I had in weeks.’

  ‘Gina, I need to know if you even suspect that someone assaulted you that day.’

  ‘Something happened out there. But I felt so good afterwards. I don’t think it could be that. If someone had hurt me, I’d know, wouldn’t I? I’d have scratches or bruises, right? It wasn’t like that, I just felt great.’

  ‘Maybe you were drugged and your euphoria was the result,’ said Nicholas.

  Gina looked at her mother and then at him. He saw the uncertainty in her eyes and the fear. They were pushing her too hard.

  ‘Geen, honey whatever happened out there we just want to help,’ he said. ‘I know this must seem kind of intense but we’re doing our best. We’ll do anything we can to make sure you’re okay.’

  ‘It isn’t really me I wanted to talk to you about.’ Gina said. She disengaged from them and slouched back against the comfort of the sofa cushions. Nicholas adjusted his place on the sofa so he could see her.

  ‘What do you mean?’ He asked.

  ‘Well, it is me but I don’t think I’m the victim in all this.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Geen,’ said Isobel. ‘If you’ve been hurt in some way, we have to do something about it.’

  ‘I think other people have been hurt worse than me.’

  ‘What people?’

  ‘Alfred Lindh and Daniel Stringer.’

  ‘You know those boys?’

  ‘Sure. Not well, but I know them. They’re always fighting and making up. Everyone knows them.’

  ‘Gina, what are you saying here?’ asked Isobel. ‘Did you help them run away?’

  ‘Run away?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what they did isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

  Nicholas leaned towards her.

  ‘What do you think happened?’ He asked.

  ‘I think they may be hurt or worse. I think I may have had something to do with it.’

  Nicholas’s voice was quiet, shocked:

  ‘You make it sound like you think they’re dead.’

  ‘That is what I think.’ said Gina.

  ‘Do you know where they are?’ he asked.

  ‘All I remember is agreeing to meet them late at night. We were going to go into the woods.’

  Her father was incredulous.

  ‘In the middle of the night, Gina? What the hell for?’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  Gina’s face was pale; her eyes clenched shut and her fists bunched. She looked like she was about to tear the place apart. Nicholas stood up, gestured for Isobel to follow him and walked down the hall.

  ‘We’ll be right back, baby,’ Isobel said. She smoothed her skirt down when she stood and walked after Nicholas. He waited for her by the telephone table under the stairs.

  ‘We have to make a call to the sheriff right now,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what Gina’s trying to tell us but, I’m afraid for those boys.’

  ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing you correctly, Nick. Our daughter is suffering severe memory problems, possibly due to an assault, and you’re concerned over someone else’s kids? You know what I think? I think those boys drugged and raped our daughter in the woods three weeks ago. I think they then tried to do it again. Maybe they didn’t get away with it the second time and that’s why they’ve run off. You’d rather believe that Gina is a killer than accept she may have been sexually assaulted. That would be easier for you to deal with.’

  Nicholas couldn’t speak for a few seconds. He spent those moments resisting the urge to break his wife’s jaw.

  ‘We’re going to call the law and let them do their job. You go sit with her while I phone them.’

  ‘Call a doctor too. I want her checked out for signs of assault.’

  ‘Isobel —’

  ‘Just fucking do it, Nick, okay?’

  ‘Fine.’

  While he made the calls, Nicholas was aware of Isobel running from room to room. When he hung up he walked back to the living room and came face to face with her in the hallway.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s gone,’ said Isobel.

  Chapter 22

  They knelt next to Carla beneath the spreading limbs of the tree; beside its thick, leviathan trunk. The clearing was almost in darkness but for a faint glow that had no apparent source. José was too concerned with Carla to give the phenomenon any thought.

  ‘What happened, Luis?’ José had laid his machete down and was listening to Carla’s chest.

  ‘I don’t know exactly. She reached out to touch the tree and the next moment she was lying there. Her charm necklace glowed purple. It was as if the tree gave her an electric shock.’

  ‘José, is she breathing? asked Maria. Can you hear her heart?’

  ‘Yes. It sounds strong and fine.’

  He checked her pulse next.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It is a little weak. I think she has fainted.’

  ‘Mother of God, I cannot wait to leave this forest and this country.’ Maria stroked Carla’s forehead and then bent over to kiss her cool cheek. ‘What can we do?’

  José gathered the limp body of his daughter into his arms and struggled to his feet.

  ‘Luis, take the machete.’ Slack with unconsciousness, her weight was difficult to manoeuvre. José walked back towards the glow of the fire. ‘If it is a faint, she will come round very quickly.’

  As if she’d heard his words, Carla began to stir in his arms.

  ‘Oh, thank you, Lord,’ said Maria.

  ‘How are you feeling, Carlita?’ asked José.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You fainted,’ he said

  ‘She was thrown, papa, I swear it.’

  ‘Quiet, Luis. No more teasing tonight.’

  ‘But papa, honestly —’

  ‘Enough.’ José’s voice echoed around through the darkness. ‘Don’t make me raise my voice to you again, Luis. Clear?’

  ‘Clear.’ said the boy.

  ‘Do you feel all right Carla?’ asked her mother.

  ‘Yes, fine. I’m just very hungry all of a sudden. Please put me down
, papa. I can walk.’

  José lowered her feet to the ground and she stood holding his shoulder for a moment more before walking ahead to the tent and the food. José turned to Maria and spoke quietly.

  ‘I expect she has walked too far and not eaten enough. It is my fault for being so insistent today. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You should be apologising to her not to me,’ said Maria. ‘The sooner we leave here, the better it will be for all of us.’

  ‘Yes. We will eat and go to sleep early. Tomorrow at dawn we will make a swift check of the clearing for signs of my grandfather and then we will go.’

  ‘You may be searching on your own, José. As soon as we are packed up, I’m going back along that trail. I no longer care whether we find your grandfather’s last resting place or not.’

  The dinner was served in silence. When Maria saw Carla fingering the wooden amulet that was still around her neck, she stopped eating and let her plate and cutlery settle down into her lap.

  ‘I thought I told everyone to take those things off.’

  ‘I wanted to keep wearing it,’ said Carla. ‘What harm can it do?’

  ‘It is unchristian to wear a misshapen crucifix. It is an occult symbol that has no place next to the skin of a catholic.’

  ‘It makes me feel safe.’

  ‘Take it off immediately.’

  Carla looked to her father for support.

  ‘You’d better take it off, Carlita,’ he said. ‘Just for now.’

  ‘No, José. Not just for now.’ Maria reached out her hand to her daughter. ‘Give it to me.’

  Carla pulled the leather thong clear of her shirt collar and brought it over her head. She handed it her mother. Maria tossed it into the darkness. José said nothing. He looked down at his plate and continued to eat. Around them there was a brief surge of brightness as if lightning had flashed silently in the distance. The light left an afterglow in the clearing.

  ‘Did you see that?’ asked Carla.

  ‘Yes, like a phosphorous flare,’ said José.

  Maria busied herself with tidying items of cookware and cutlery, ignoring the conversation.

  ‘Do you see how the whole clearing seems to be lit from the inside?’ continued José.

  The children nodded. The glow was very faint, especially with the camping lantern still on to provide light to eat by, but they could see it faintly all around them like barely lit purple neon.

  ‘Some trick of nature no doubt,’ said José. ‘but very beautiful, nevertheless.’

  Maria ignored him.

  ‘Children, I want you both up early, ready to pack and leave at first light. The earlier the better. Your father may stay a little longer and then follow us. It is up to him.’

  When she’d tidied the plates away and rinsed them with a little of the water they had, she was first into the tent to change and take up her position for sleep. Carla followed, then Luis.

  José spent a little longer sitting alone in the strange light of the clearing with the lantern off so that he could appreciate it better. A mist came up, creeping along in a thin layer next to the ground and he felt suddenly exhausted. He took off his boots, slipped into the tent and fell asleep with his clothes on. As he slipped into unconsciousness, he thought he heard faraway laughter.

  Luis was the first to wake and see that Carla was gone.

  He looked over at the shapes of his parents in their sleeping bags and their slack, inanimate faces and smiled. He preferred them that way. Taking care not to wake them he unzipped the tent flap, crawled out into the early morning light and zipped the flap shut again. He assumed Carla had gone to look for her binder before mama could catch her at it and he strolled in that direction in his unlaced boots to check.

  He found the charm straight away, lying in the dirt near the border of undergrowth that marked the edge of the arbour. He picked it up, his theory about his sister temporarily quashed, and put it in his pocket next to his own. Perhaps she had become tired of waiting for their parents to wake up and had gone to explore the tree again or look a little further afield for great grandfather Jimenez’s resting place.

  He leaned over to tighten the laces of his boots ready to go and look for her. One thing that gave him great pleasure was knowing that his parents had overslept in spite of everything they’d said the night before. Mama had especially annoyed him with her stupidity about the charm. As far as he was concerned she deserved to be the last out of bed and have to live with that fact after all her panicked crowing. He set off in the direction of the tree, still fascinated by its size.

  Standing right beside the trunk was where he could see its greatness most strikingly. Even from the edge of the space it occupied, it looked unusually large, but within touching distance its size was frightening. The four of them with arms linked wouldn’t have reached halfway around it and though the trunk began to separate into branches no more than thirty feet overhead, each branch angled upward and outward further before forming the slightly domed canopy of limbs and leaves that shielded the entire clearing, apparently preventing any other plants from growing.

  Its roots bulged like buttresses from its sides and tapered down towards the ground where they flattened out a little before disappearing into the earth. Luis wondered if there was a wind strong enough or lightning powerful enough to knock it over or kill it. He doubted it.

  The bark of the tree was grey and there was no hint of moss or lichen on its surface. Beneath the bark, the contours of the wood were impressive and muscular. They hinted at an anatomy of unimaginably powerful strength. The bark reminded him of elephant hide and the massive and bunched shapes below were like the bulging sinews of some giant body builder. The way the roots spread into the ground and the branches into the air made him think of a huge disembodied forearm with a hand at each end. One hand gripped the earth with thick, unrelenting fingers while the other spread its digits skyward. Both ends seemed capable of clenching into a mighty fist.

  After what had happened to Carla, Luis dared not touch the bark but he wanted to hurt the tree for hurting his sister. He thought of hacking into it with the machete and imagined that he would see real blood flow forth, that he would expose the vessels and living fibres that the bark hid. Somewhere inside, he mused, would be bones too, bones as thick as the trunks of ordinary trees.

  Of the dimly glowing emanations they’d seen the previous night there was no sign. He ran back to the tent to collect the machete and heard hissed whispers from inside.

  ‘How could you oversleep like this, José?’

  ‘Don’t blame me for this, woman. If you didn’t wake up it’s your own fault. After all you said last night, it’s hardly the example to set for the children. They’re both up before you.’

  ‘Why can’t you support me in this? Why must you torment me? I was exhausted. I needed to sleep.’

  ‘You can tell that to Luis and Carla yourself when you see them. I’m going for a piss.’

  While his father fumbled out of his sleeping bag and tried to open the zip door of the tent, Luis ran silently to the back of the tent and as far away as he could before his father emerged. Then he turned and pretended to be sauntering towards the camp, looking all the while into the undergrowth. It wasn’t until after José had relieved himself, just a few yards from the tent, that he noticed Luis dawdling along.

  ‘Morning, Luis.’

  ‘Morning, papa. Sleep well?’

  ‘Too well, apparently.’

  ‘What time do you think mama will want to leave?

  ‘Very soon I expect. Why don’t you help me pack some of these things up?’ José glanced around. ‘Where is your sister?’

  ‘She was up before me. I haven’t seen her yet.’

  ‘Well how long have you been awake?’

  ‘Not long. A few minutes perhaps. She’s probably gone into the woods to go to the toilet. Scared we’ll hear her farts or something.’

  Luis laughed but only for a moment. Maria emerged from the tent and he co
uld see she wasn’t happy.

  ‘Why didn’t you wake us up, Luis?’

  ‘You looked tired, mama. I didn’t want to disturb you.’

  ‘Well now I’m up. We’re late and I’m in a hurry so start packing.’

  ‘What about breakfast, Mama?’

  ‘There won’t be any breakfast for you if you don’t show some enthusiasm. I want to leave here as soon as possible.’

  Between the three of them they had most of the equipment stowed in less than half an hour. The tent was the last thing to be packed away.

  ‘If Carla wants to change her clothes she’ll have to do it in the bushes,’ said José as he un-pegged the flysheet.

  ‘Go look for your sister, Luis.’ Said Maria. ‘I want to leave now, tell her.’

  Luis ran, knowing that his mother’s mood was not going to improve. This would be a day of damage limitation. He jogged along the edge of the circular arbour calling into the brush. He glanced into the centre of the clearing from time to time to see if she was near the tree trunk but she wasn’t. Soon he was completing the circuit, coming back to where his parents stood with all the rucksacks packed up. They were waiting at the opening in the trees that led into the tunnel-path they’d made the previous day.

  ‘Is she coming, Luis?’ asked José.

  ‘She hasn’t answered me yet. I don’t know where she is.’

  Maria’s look of determined unhappiness became one of concern.

  ‘Did you actually see her this morning, Luis?’

  ‘No, she was up before me.’

  ‘What time did you wake up?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did you hear her get up?’

  Luis shook his head, feeling the blame being put on him.

  ‘She could have been gone for hours,’ said Maria.

  ‘Let’s call for her again,’ said José. ‘All of us.’

  They left the collection of brightly coloured canvas and Gor-Tex backpacks and walked together around the broad clearing shouting for Carla. They called loudly and their voices echoed in the wide space.