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The Riddler
She asked him about his eye. That’s what started it all. That fathomless white eye, swirling in yellow-green puss-like mucus. It seemed to focus on nothing, yet everything. She had stopped in an off the road bar a mile south of Kingman Arizona. The smell on him was thick, like garbage. His movements were slow. Like a Neanderthal, large, hairy, smelly- and he scratched himself beneath his tattered camouflage shirt at most every opportunity. They’d talked over drinks, like an odd couple on a date. Mainly, he talked and she listened. For once. “Who hurt you?” she asked in a casual tone; trying not to sound as though she was prying. His face twisted, and he emitted an audible grunt. His expression was a distortion of sorrow and hate. He spoke, “God!”
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She jerked on her stool, startled, "What did you say?" His face seemed to release the anguish and smooth over like a calm curtain as he said, “Nobody.” She repeated, “Nobody...” and a long silence ensued. Slowly, he spoke in a whisper, “Have you ever watched quietly while your father killed your mother?” So began, his story. He and his brother. Both born with, a “different sort” of ailment. They conducted tribal cleansing upon his mother. They wanted to kill them, he and his brother, but they ran. They ran and hid in the forest while the ones who were supposed to have loved them, hunted them. They slept in the cold; bleeding and freezing. He said, that was when the Beast visited he and his brother. He warmed them with green colored flames. He fed them blood and bile. In the morning, they vomited. “I knew then, I had found my true mother.” She raised a dark and delicate eyebrow, "Uhh, ho-kay... I should be going." "Yes, you should," the man reached for his drink, but the glass exploded. Tiny shards sprayed in every direction. More bullets came, loud and thunderous; striking the bottles behind the bar. He stood up amidst the gunfire, this beast. He was ugly, tattered, scarred and smelled of burnt flesh. Gunfire relentlessly pelted him, until the beastly man opened his jaws; setting free from his jowls, a stream of frothing, flaming, green foam. Flame erupted in the back area of the bar and the phantom figure now became visible as it caught fire. Zandora could barely identify the form of a four limbed being holding a crusifix in one hand, and a colt 38 in the other, the being screeched in pain and dropped to the floor with a dull thud. Her acquaintance's face contorted in pain and anger. He gave an almost apologetic nod, before turning on his bare heels, running towards the exit. The bells on the door jingled and dust from the Mohave desert rolled in as he stalked out. Zandora reached behind the bar grasping one of the half shattered bottles by the neck and took a long hard drink. Blood streamed freely from her lower lip, unnoticed. She stared in disbelief toward the direction of the exit, and the steaming corpse which lay in a heap near the door.
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(Riddler, Copyright, 2000 by Tara Peterson) © |
