Lincoln

 

I watched the body for a moment as it jerked spasmodically on the floor like a dying fish. It repulsed me and so I turned my back on it. Behind me, the guards were panicking.

"Do something," the younger one told me. "You must save him. You can do that, right? We know who you are."

Looking over my shoulder, I watched as Pinstripe's face turned indigo. The fear in the guard's eyes was real. What did he feel for this man? And why did he feel it?

I made the empty gesture of crouching down beside the body, humming and hawing as I took his pulse. After opening his eyes and looking down at his pupils, I stood up and shook my head solemnly.

"He's gone."

The guards just blinked at me.

"What does that mean?" asked the youngest.

"It means you're free," I said and made my way toward the stairs.

"Free?" I heard him repeat but I didn't want to hang around to hear what else he had to say.

The smell of the place was sticking to my skin, my hair, the back of my throat. I knew I needed to stay to rescue these wretched, lost girls but right now this wasn't my battle. Right now, I had to find Etta.

As I walked outside, I gulped down clean air and wiped the sleep across my stinging eyes. The smell of piss and fear had burned right through me and it was still clinging to my clothes.

Descending the hill, I looked out for the old, rickety car that had brought me here but it never returned. I'd never see it again.

So I kept walking, one foot in front of the other, traipsing through the sand as I listened to the call of the desert. Its voice whispered to me on the breeze, it pulled me in the direction of the pure blackness of the night. It drew me out from the fading lights of San Lucrezia until I was shivering in the wilderness with only the stars above.

I couldn't explain it, couldn't even begin to straighten out my mind enough to articulate it even to myself but I just knew where I was going, even if that place didn't have a name or an image. Even if that place would destroy me.

I didn't know how many miles I had walked, all I knew was that my legs were burning. Soon, the sound of the wind gave way to something more primal, more pained. Through the darkness, I could just about make out the sound of a voice. It was crying, wailing, howling like a wolf.

Through the pure blackness, the pale light of the moon cast the silhouette of a tree across the landscape. Like a theater cut-out, it stood there and I waited until the stage hands slid it off behind the curtain. I walked closer and it didn't move. The voice grew louder and louder. It became shriller, more desperate. As I approached, the wailing began to form into words and I could at last hear "Lolita, my Lolita."

There was the scraping sound of hands digging in the dirt and the metallic smell of blood in the air.

"Lolita... No... No..."

The sobbing grew angry. There was the sound of someone pummeling their fists against the ground, kicking up dust as blood stuck to the dirt.

The voice fell quiet as I arrived at the tree. There was only the sound of my breathing in the air, punctuated by the noise of someone panting like a dog.

"Bosworth..."

The moonlight fell upon a face encrusted with sand and streaked with tears. An old man stared up at me with pure pain in his eyes. He was clenching his hands into fists over and over as though he couldn't control them.

Then I looked down at the body he was crying over and saw the girl that had ruined everything. She was covered in black and it wasn't until I knelt down beside her that I realized it was dried blood. It covered every surface of her so that it looked like her skin was scaly. She wasn't a beautiful girl anymore. She wasn't even a human. She was just a dead, mythical creature in the desert with hard blood for skin and eyes that were sunk into her skull.

"You did this," the old man rasped.

I looked at him, confused.

"I did nothing."

"Your woman..." he said and shook his head. "Cunt!"

Looking back at Lolita's face, I saw how she was still strangely beautiful in her death as though her true age was revealed now that she was free of that coquettish, acted attitude that only served to get her in trouble.

"You know where Etta is?"

His eyes shone with malice.

"Back there," he said. "You will find her."

"She's over there?"

I jumped to my feet and the old man stood shoulder to shoulder with me looking out over the horizon.

"You see the buildings?" he asked.

I followed the direction of his pointing finger and squinted. Beneath the stars was the faint outline of a rooftop.

"I see it."

"She's there," he said.

There was that shine back in his eyes again. A glint I couldn't quite identify. I took one last look at the body before I kept walking. My steps soon broke into a jog, then a run, then a sprint. Hurling myself headlong into the darkness, I was propelled forward by the desperate need to hold her again.

The smell of the farm loomed up on me and stung my nostrils. I could almost smell her too, feel her arms around me, hear her voice.

"Lincoln!"

I could hear her now.

"Etta!"

"Linx!"

Her voice sounded scared but it was okay because I was here to hold her now and take the terror away.

"I'm coming, Etta."

"Linx, I can't see you."

I ran faster and faster until I was tripping over branches. My body didn't stop until I reached a fence and fell into it ribs first. It creaked as it glided open and now I was stepping in mud, walking toward the front door with the smell of manure thick in the air.

"Etta?"

"I'm here."

But I couldn't see her anywhere.

"Honey?"

Her voice seemed to be coming from the other side of the front door. I pushed it open and waited to see her smiling. I imagined her sitting at the table with a candle flickering soft, auburn light onto her cheekbones.

"Honey, are you here?"

Her voice stopped coming to me. There was no candlelight. There was no light at all.

As I stumbled into the kitchen, there was the smell of something foul. I knew what it was.

"Etta?"