The Incident On Snake Road (1557 words)
The Incident On Snake Road
by W. David MacKenzie
I awoke suddenly, sat bolt upright, and listened to the total silence outside of our tent. I'd never been creeped-out like this before. I reached over to touch my wife as she slept next to me and found only an empty sleeping bag cooling beneath my fingers. I looked franticly around the small space searching for her then crawled to the tent flap and climbed out into the moonlit night.
The forest was utterly still and deathly quiet, so the one sound present immediately drew my attention. A dark shape, spread out near the glowing embers of our nearly spent campfire, made soft sucking sounds, like boots slogging through swampy muck. As my eyes focused on the shape I saw a large beast, clad in dark shaggy fur, hunched over, chewing and sucking at the neck of my motionless wife.
I launched myself headlong at the beast, catching it unaware, and sent it tumbling off Karen’s limp body into the glowing ashes of the campfire. Its flailing limbs brought the embers to life and its fur smoldered and burned, sending an odorous smoke into the air. In silent agony, the beast stood up on its hind legs and beat at the flames with its hands.
In shock I saw that it wasn't a beast that burned before my eyes, but a man, and what I had mistaken for fur was a shaggy and battered ankle-length coat. Just as I thought to try and rescue him from the fire the man gave up on his attempts to beat out the flames and bolted into the forest. He moved with surprising speed and in a moment his fiery shape was lost behind the close-growing trees.
Karen’s head rocked slightly in my hands and guilt flooded over me that my attention had been anywhere but on my wounded wife. My hand on Karen’s neck was wet with hot arterial blood and I attempted to staunch the flow. Karen’s eyes fluttered open. She screamed.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I whispered repeatedly in calming tones. I caressed her cheek with my free hand while she thrashed about wildly. “I’m here. You’re safe now.”
Slowly she calmed but I was afraid it was due more to shock and loss of blood than from any comfort I was giving her. I struggled out of my t-shirt and tied it around her neck as tightly as I dared then worked to get Karen to the Land Rover while she mumbled about “his eyes”. I spared a moment to look at my wife as I buckled her into the passenger seat, fearing it could be my last sight of her alive.
The only hope of saving Karen’s life was to get her to a doctor in the town at the foot of the mountain, but the treacherously steep switchback road made a mad dash impossible. Karen slumped in the passenger seat like a wilted rose and crimson rivulets trickled down her bandaged neck. New determination coursed through me and I ran to the driver’s door and climbed in. Thrusting the key into the ignition I brought the powerful engine to life, then flipped on the headlights and recklessly shoved the transmission into drive, I floored the accelerator and raced over the short stretch of flat trail and onto the aptly named Snake Road to begin the dangerous decent.
Almost at once the left shoulder of the road dropped away to black nothingness and the right side soared up becoming a granite wall, leaving me on a narrow ribbon of packed earth that wound down into the last darkness before the approaching dawn. The Land Rover hugged the wall, seemingly as afraid of the drop off as I was. A wave of anger and regret washed over me. I stole a glance at Karen then pulled my eyes back to the road to see her attacker standing in the road ahead. Without thinking, I jerked the SUV to the left, to the edge, to disaster.
It was a miracle that I kept the truck on the road. I felt the tires slip but I pulled hard to the right, found solid purchase again, and drove on. I did not look back, though I desperately wanted to. How could he have been there on the road? He should have been a maimed and charred lump in the forest, not standing there like a road block. Whatever the explanation, he was well behind us now. Karen, unconscious, jumped and bumped involuntarily as I recklessly navigated the pitted road.
The faintest pink glow was defining the horizon when the man again appeared in my headlights. "Damn him!" I hissed to myself. The road here was too narrow to go around him and I was not going to stop. This whole thing was his fault and revenge surged in my heart. I grasped the steering wheel tightly and set my eyes on the road beyond him. At the last possible second the man soared upward into the sky and an emotional whirlwind of sorrow and loneliness and pleading blew through me.
Into the sky? What the hell was going on? I had barely asked myself that question when I spotted a rockslide in the dim pre-dawn light and slammed on the brakes. The Land Rover skidded to a stop. I threw open the door, rushed to the obstruction, and began flinging small boulders over the precipice to clear the road.
A sense of tranquility and remorse flooded over me and I spun around to see the man standing a few feet away. Just standing. Sorrow and desire and guilt filled my mind and I realized these emotions came from him, but how?
“I have to clear the rocks,” I wheezed, breathless from my exertions. “I have to get her to a doctor.”
NO
The word formed slowly as if the speaker had forgotten the art of speech. Then I realized that there was no speech and the word was in my mind, not in my ears.
“She’ll die if I don’t.”
SHE IS NEARLY DEAD NOW
I panicked and ran to the passenger door, wrenched it open. Karen slumped forward, restrained from falling out only by the seat belt. I pushed her back into the seat, unfastened the belt, and called her name, trying to wake her, but she was unresponsive.
I CAN SAVE HER
I stared at the man incredulously. “Save her?” I shouted, “You did this to her!”
Sorrow and regret pulsed through me again. He was sorry for what he did, but....
IT WAS AN ACCIDENT—I DID NOT SEEK HER DEATH—I SOUGHT HER COMPANIONSHIP BUT THE HUNGER OVERCAME MY LONLINESS—I CAN STOP HER DEATH BUT—
“But what?” I screamed. Then my eyes grew wide and the color drained from my face. On a gut level, I think I knew from the beginning, but my mind was only now catching up.
I MUST HURRY—DAWN COMES—SHE WILL BE SAFE BUT SHE WILL NOT BE YOURS
Not mine…his…but alive and not dead…but dead to me and dead to everyone in my world. I loved my wife with all of my heart and I wanted her to live, but would she want to live as...as...like that?
Urgency and desire and longing and loneliness poured from him to me and I saw that beyond his monstrosity he was a pitiable creature. I saw that he was not evil for evil’s sake, that he could love, could be a tender being. I backed away from Karen and he rushed in.
The vampire, for that is surely what he was, or as close to that as myth realized could be, moved swiftly to Karen’s side, bit at his wrist until his own blood flowed freely, and held the gushing wound to Karen’s lips. His blood covered her mouth and cheeks and oozed over her jaw line to mingle with her own blood at the poorly bandaged neck wound, but nothing happened. Trepidation and despair emanated from him—was dawn rushing in too soon, had his actions come too late? I was caught up in his emotions and I too worried that Karen was lost to both of us after all, either from lack of time or from my delayed decision.
A soft sucking sound rose to my ears. It hesitated then resumed, stronger than before. Soon Karen was nursing at the vampire’s wrist like a newborn at her mother’s nipple. Her eyes opened slowly and in the growing light I saw fear in her eyes, then excitement. Hunger, and urgency, and a will to live caused her to suckle harder until she was sated and reluctantly detached from the fount.
SHE IS STILL WEAK BUT SHE WILL LIVE—WE MUST HURRY BEFORE SUNRISE OVERTAKES US
Karen looked deeply into my eyes and I tried to look beyond her blood-smeared face to see the woman I married. Her love, and gratitude, and sadness coursed from her mind to mine and I believed that she could sense my own jumbled emotions as well. I hoped she could sort them out better than I was able to do. The moment passed and, picking Karen up like a doll, he scaled the sheer rock wall like it was a gentle slope and they disappeared into the dark forest at the top of the cliff.
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Story Copyright 2006 by W. David MacKenzie
Photo Copyright 2005 by Spencer Platt
posted by WDavid | 1/19/2006 03:22:00 PM
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