Eddie had spent all day down by the river. Ever since he discovered that three of his passengers had wandered off before dawn he had been distraught, and now he couldn't bear to face the remaining three.
The crash must have been his fault, but he couldn't figure out why. He had tightened every nut, tested every gauge. Every goddamn warning light had been replaced. Of course, he had re-fueled—that's the first thing you do.
His state of depression grew worse as the day went on, especially after it started to snow. He sat squinting through the swirl of flakes at the swift-moving white water, pondering how long he would survive if he fell into the rapids. Then he heard the whir of the Skymaster's propeller, and he knew it was Hafner.
The plane buzzed over Eddie low in the sky and landed a couple of football fields to the west.
Jesus, he even brought Jake!
Eddie backed away from the roaring waters with creaky knees. He looked down into the foam and thought: You're not getting me yet. He saw the plane come to a stop and felt a burst of adrenaline, but his frozen limbs weren't working quite right, and it took forever to run over to the plane. Jimmy didn't help his friend much, as he sat in the cabin talking on the phone. Eddie could see him inside as he drew near. Finally, the door opened and Jim dropped out. He turned around and commanded the dog to stay inside.
"It was the damnedest thing," Eddie said, re-telling the accident, "Everything was normal, and then I was falling out of the sky. Someone must have tampered with the plane."
Hafner had an odd look in his eye.
"Jimmy, I owe you the works, old buddy. Blackjack, booze, any whore in Anchorage, it's all on me." Hafner still hadn't said anything.
Eddie craned his neck up into the cockpit. "Where's that horny pooch of yours?" Eddie grabbed Jake roughly around the shoulders and grappled playfully with him. "Bagged any bitches lately, old boy?"
Jimmy stepped up behind his old friend and pulled back the lapel of his overcoat. All Eddie saw when he turned around was the barrel.
"Eddie, I can't explain it to you," Jimmy said calmly. "I'm a little embarrassed about this, but I've got to send you flying."
The shock never left Eddie's face, even after Jake was lapping up his blood.
A body at rest stays at rest. A body in motion stays in motion.
This old rhyme from freshman physics was stuck in Charlotte's head as she awoke. Slowly.
She was engulfed in The Heat. She felt like a pot of tea warming on the stove. No, she wasn't stoned; she'd smoked the last of her grass yesterday. She slept all night long without a blanket while the Causewells huddled together shivering. She dozed right on through the departure of Felix's company, and she drifted in and out of sleep all morning long, even after the plane flew over. And this was how it always was—when she felt The Heat.
That it had started to snow made no difference. The Heat came at any time, hot or cold, indoors or out.
It was Felix who'd started it, reminded her of it. Gush. Just that word was all it took. The two phenomena were intertwined in her life; they'd always been.
Maybe the heat was from the fire. As Charlotte gathered her senses, she saw Reverend Causewell push at the burning embers, sending sparks fluttering off into the cloud-covered sky. But, no, The Heat was from within, just as it had always been.
Though The Heat had a hold on her, Charlotte's mind struggled to assess reality. There was a fire.
Reverend Causewell stood over it, tending to it. His wife sat bundled nearby, for the first time silent. But they'd used their last match this morning, and it had blown out. How had the preacher created fire without a light?
Charlotte's mind was still custard, and she could barely utter any words.
The preacher ignored her. But Mrs. Causewell screwed up a smile into the corners of her mouth and replied as cheerfully as she could: "My dear, the Lord doesn't need a match."
Charlotte shook her head gently. No. That can't be.
To tell Charlotte that the Lord had given them fire was like telling her that Santa Claus had started it. Whether she was feeling The Heat or not, religion went against her. Nature had always been her god.
"A fire without a match is spontaneous combustion." she said slowly, "And that certainly does not exist."
The preacher stood tall above her, wrapped in his black cloak.
"Fire is eternal, girl. It burns wherever it chooses."
"Charlotte, don't stray very far, honey. It's snowing, and you're all alone. Maybe the plane will come back."
Mrs. Causewell's voice already sounded distant, as Charlotte walked out of camp to relieve herself. The preacher's wife was wrong, she thought. Frieda was with her. And the snow was beautiful, covering the green grass of late autumn in an early blanket of white.
Frieda, she realized, had never been imaginary. Her friend had always been real, had always kept her warm from within. Why had it just dawned on her now that The Heat was actually Frieda? The physiological change that occurred in her from time to time was her most intimate secret, and Frieda was her most intimate friend. She smiled at the discovery.
She was out of sight of the camp now, but she strode on. She pulled off her cap, discarding it into the snow, and ran her fingers through her hair. Long dark strands clung to her touch, and she shook them off into the breeze. She ran her hand over her head again, and large clumps of hair shimmied their way out of her scalp. Charlotte thought this was strange, so she grabbed more handfuls of hair and watched them fly away with the white snow. She chuckled after she had pulled out nearly all of her hair: It hadn't hurt a bit.
Charlotte walked on and on and started to doubt that she'd ever stop. The snow piled up deeper; the sun obscured by the clouds fell closer to the horizon. And still Charlotte walked on.
A body at rest stays at rest. A body in motion stays in motion.
What would be easier, to stop or to continue? In order to stop, her brain would have to broadcast a general order to halt, each muscle in her body would have to receive the message and obey it, and then all the various recipients would have to work in conjunction to execute the order safely. She didn't want to stumble.
To continue, she needed to do nothing.
Charlotte was in a state of inertia for at least an hour, and Frieda accompanied her. Frieda also reminded her of Genevieve. Genevieve was the short-haired activist she'd shared a tent with at a Serenity Now revival.
Only one woman in every ten thousand gushes, boy. Those were Felix's words to Leroy only yesterday.
When Frieda met Genevieve, warmth met wetness. With a boy, Charlotte's river had always run dry, but her first time with a girl, the waterfall was set loose. And it coincided with The Heat. Forever afterward, one did not occur without the other.
Charlotte stopped in her tracks. She tugged off her boots, and stepped out of one leg of her pants, then the other. She fell back into the snow, kicked her legs up into the air and wiggled out of her panties. When she started to touch herself, she remembered she had to pee.
Her bare bottom felt so good against the cold snow that she decided not to get up and crouch. She just parted her knees and let her golden waters rush. She lay back and let the snowflakes land on her eyelashes. Though the blizzard was raging, the sun was visible in silhouette, just on the other side of the white clouds. When Charlotte looked down again, the glint of old Sol refracted through her urine, and a spectrum shone between her thighs. The rainbow piss steamed down through the white snow, melting it into yellow mud.
Charlotte removed her jacket and shirt, and lay naked in the snow. Her head rested directly on the ground, uncushioned as it had always been before. When she reached up, she remembered that she was bald; she'd pulled out all her hair. And her earlobe felt like a gummy bear.
She started to tug at it, and it began to thin out at the center. The farther she pulled, the longer it stretched. She kept pulling until the thinned-out center totally gave way. She set the half earlobe down gently beside her on the ground.
The Heat left Charlotte as unconcerned about losing her ear as it had about pulling out her hair. Her mind was a pool of wax in the burned-out hollow of a candle. Though her nursing instincts told her that her body systems had gone haywire, she found this only curious.
She cupped her right breast and discovered a small puddle of milk. Just the pressure of her fingers had caused a trickle to flow from the nipple. She squeezed a little firmer and a tight burst of lactation shot down onto her tummy, dripping into her pubic hair.
She massaged the milk around her clitoris, running two fingers up along each side of the little bud. She closed her eyes and remembered her first time with Genevieve. She was moving her fingers quickly now—too quickly. The pea snapped off in her hand, still housed in its pod.
She lifted it up between her fingers and inspected it. It was pink and beautiful. After examining it for a moment, she set it down carefully next to the earlobe.
But the fire still burned below, so she inserted her fingers. This time she kept her eyes open, concentrating on a spot far off into the distant valley. There, she thought she saw the dark shape of a man plodding toward her from the north. As she kept fingering, the man kept walking, shrouded by the snow. As Charlotte became more aroused, she had a heightened awareness of each part of her body. She knew that the spaces between her toes were sweating. That the sutured scar on her knee had split open. That her bottom lip was tingling.
But she didn't know who the man was.
He was only a few feet away when he stopped. He tossed his long white whiskers to one side, and then Charlotte knew who he was. And she was ready to come.
Her climax built in intensity. At first, her dewdrops drizzled lazily to the ground, but then she felt a spasm of hot friction that propelled her gush in pulsating spurts up between her fingers and out into the air. The wet projectiles shot up into the stranger's beard and dripped down onto his large, round belly.
The man wiped the ejaculate from his chin and stared down at Charlotte. Slowly, his head began to turn to the right; then it proceeded to swivel completely around, making a 360-degree circuit. When the man faced forward again, he no longer had the face of a jolly old man; he had the face of the Queen Mum. Lightning flashed, illuminating the falling snow, and the Queen Mum's mask took on the features of a lizard. Her mouth opened with a hiss, and her reptile tongue flicked out, darting down toward the prone figure lying on the ground.
Charlotte lay back in her puddle of mud as the thunder rumbled. She never thought dying would feel this wonderful.
Charlotte's footprints were still visible, but the falling snow was working quickly to cover them. Mrs. Causewell was worried. She'd been walking for an hour. Why had the girl gone so far?
Dusk was descending when she found Charlotte's frozen cap, blown up against an evergreen. When she pulled it out of the tree, something else caught her eye. Long strands of human hair were mingled in among the pine needles. Something was terribly wrong.
Charlotte couldn't have been abducted because there was only one set of footprints in the snow. And the tracks were fading rapidly in the fresh snowfall. Mrs. Causewell knew she had to find her soon or abandon the search.
A dark spot appeared at the bottom of the hill, and the preacher's wife couldn't quite see it in the diminishing light. As she got closer it looked like the site of a campfire. The snow was melted in a wide circle, and something charred and smoking lay in the center. Mrs. Causewell stepped right into the mud before she realized what that something was.
Charlotte.
Blue flames were still nibbling at her toes, but very little flesh remained. Half of the left foot. The right elbow and part of the forearm. Two fingers. And the skeleton. The pelvis had nearly disintegrated in the fire, but the vertebrae were still intact, as was the skull.
Poor, dear Charlotte—that beautiful girl. Mrs. Causewell fell to her knees in grief. Who or what could have done this?
She was horrified, but she reached out with the back of her hand and felt the jawbone. It was warm to the touch. Then she noticed two small pieces of flesh lying on the ground. One was quite obviously an ear. But it was lying several feet distant from the skull, and nothing else above the elbow had survived the flames. The other piece was smaller, and Mrs. Causewell found the courage to pick it up. She dropped it into the palm of her hand and frowned at it. Then recognition flooded over her. Oh, Lord!
She had never dreamed of touching another woman's clit, ever! Since she married the Reverend, she had even avoided touching her own. To hold it in her hand was wicked, she knew. She must drop it this very instant. To have that darling girl's sex spot right in her palm—oh, my Lord. That beautiful, charming…busty…girl. It was imperative that she put it back immediately.
Mrs. Causewell looked back up the hill furtively. Richard wouldn't have followed her. Charlotte had gone off to pee, and modesty dictated that a woman go looking for her.
Mrs. Causwell picked it up off her palm, and looked at it closely. It was still pink, and it had retained Charlotte's warmth. When she pulled back the hood, the nub inside was gleaming. She tried with all her will to put it back down on the ground, but she felt an irresistible urge. She looked behind her again and listened. Silence.
She held it close to her face now, with two fingers. Her heart was pounding and she could see her own breath. Carefully, she brought it close enough that she could touch it with her tongue. She licked all around it, and up and down, running her tongue up through the hood. Surely, this was wicked.
A chill blew in from the north. Mrs. Causewell rolled her eyes back and shuddered, but not from the cold.
The woman crouching next to the body looked like she was eating something.
"Hello!"
The woman shot up so quickly that her pants made a splitting sound.
"You must be Mrs. Causewell," the man said, emerging from the darkness. "I'm Jim Hafner. I'm here to save you."
Hafner pulled Jake by the collar away from Charlotte's bones. He thought to himself: Spontaneous human combustion—how convenient.