Jigsaw World (14 page)

The scene necessitated another unanticipated
stop while they quizzed the man about the situation. He turned out
to be an Inuit named Igaluk, and he was surprised to see a bunch of
white people cruising around Northern Alaska in such a
un-ice-worthy vehicle. He suspected that the group was insane,
since they insisted that the location was in the lower 48, when he
knew that the Chukchi sea was a scant two hundred miles north and
west of his current location.

Igaluk had traveled inland to hunt for red
meat to supplement his family’s diet. His preference was a good
sized caribou, but he would take what he could find. Strangely, he
had not yet laid eyes on a single caribou in a country that should
have been swarming with them.

Instead, he had been seeing the occasional
animal that looked suspiciously like the deer that lived in other,
less harsh areas. Igaluk was afraid to take down any of those,
thinking that they might have something wrong with them. Also, he
was a little afraid that he could not find his way home with one of
them. The countryside seemed a little different, a little
odd
.

Igaluk told the group that another reason he
was surprised to see them, was that the whites had basically left
the whole area after the Holocene ended, when it was obvious that
the ice would eventually crowd them out anyway. In the last five
years, he hadn’t seen any white faces, even that time he had gone
to Barrow.

After a few minutes of conversation with
Igaluk, it was obvious that he had nothing useful to contribute,
other than to serve as an example that this was one of those spasms
that the world had been going through, in this case mixing together
geography, and apparently also timelines, or perhaps
worldliness.

After getting assurances from Igaluk that he
neither needed or wanted a ride or any other assistance from a
group of crazy white demons, they parted company with him, heading
south on the badly paved narrow road toward what they hoped would
be the real world. In a matter of minutes, they were jostled down
the road at the brisk pace of 25 miles per hour. This was the
fastest that Tom was prepared to run the RV in these precarious
conditions. It had even started to snow soft flakes, and coupled
with the melt-water streams to either side of the road, and the
almost impenetrable fog that had rolled in, Tom was tempted to send
someone out to walk ahead of the RV to scout for
dangers.

The descent seemed even steeper than the
ascent had been. They reached a point after a short period when the
grade of the downward slope was verging on thirty degrees, and the
big RV felt like it was going to lose traction at any time and skip
out of control down the hill, hydroplaning all the way until it
ended up in one of the increasingly common pools of
water.

Finally, they rounded a curve around one of
the many hills that none of them could remember as being there
before, and Tom had to slam on the brakes to avoid driving the big
rig off the bank into the raging floodwaters. When he came to a
stop, he inspected their situation. About five feet from the front
of the RV, a flood-swollen river rushed around a curve; at first
glance, it seemed that their options of travel were now limited to
returning in the direction they had just come from. They certainly
couldn’t for that river in front of them. It looked to be about as
wide as the Mississippi is at normal times, and the rushing water
would be deadly.

“
Hell, it looks like we are stuck
here, unless we want to go back North.” Tom said. “I suggest we
stop here for a little while, maybe just tonight, and think about
it as we take a well-deserved break. Someone break out the snacks
and start a campfire.”

Everyone thought that was a good idea, another
chance to get out and stretch their legs, to straighten out and
cook something over an open flame. In short order, they had done as
Tom requested, the site was set up as a camping site, including a
roaring fire with embers floating toward heaven, a chest with cokes
and beer in it sitting beside the lawn chairs around the fire, the
close by the sound of rushing water to ensure the frequent pee
break on the part of the drinkers, and scads of wieners and other
such pseudo foods to keep everyone full of toxic
calories.

An hour slipped by, and then another. Tom
noted that several persons have abandoned the fire, and he got up
and strolled to the RV to check on everyone’s condition. Going into
the vehicle, he still didn’t see the missing folks, so he opened
the door to George’s small bedroom. The first thing he saw was the
shining faces of Sally and George, and hiding behind them, the
slightly embarrassed face of Charla, all nude and obviously
somewhere in the middle of some sort of strange Ménages 'a Trois.
All three of them were nude, and they seemed to have been in the
midst of some sweaty work.

“
Get out of here!” Sally yelled.
Tom’s evaluation of her intelligence, which was already low,
dropped a fair distance at that point. He turned on his heel, and
returned to the fire. It was best not to tell Sidney that his
little Sweetie was playing the field, and switch-hitting at the
same time.

A few moments later, the three of them
rejoined the others around the fire. Tom glanced at George. “I
guess size doesn’t matter, after all.” George turned a cherry
red.

Another hour and a half went by, and Tom
decided that it was time for him to turn in. Gathering up the items
that he was responsible for, he returned to his bunk in the RV, and
sat down for a last smoke. Bailey had taken this break to work on
chewing the last bits of his old favorite finger. Somehow, it had
retained the fingernail through the whole chewing process, and it
had been slowly chewed away to the last joint, so what was left was
essentially a fingertip with fingernail. As Tom watched, Bailey
finished off the last of the finger, with a final bite or two aimed
at the fingernail itself before it finally disappeared down the
dog’s gullet.

It seemed almost anticlimactic for Tom to just
go to sleep at this point, but he was Okay with that. Ten minutes
took him into a deep sleep.

I am walking down a hallway of
white, searching through a building that is a pure flood of white,
almost flaring white. I am looking for someone who is fleeing me. I
feel the Berzerker rage that burns within me. I hunt he who hunts
the innocent and the unwary. It is he who is called ‘Slasher’, for
he is known for his wanton killings, using his long knife to bring
out his victim’s blood and their terror.

I seek him, and my only weapons
will be my hands, which itch to rip and tear into his flesh. I will
tear into his guts, and I will drink his blood as I watch the light
fade from his dying eyes. It enrages me that he knows not the ways
to honor those who die, he kills without reason, and he does not
pay the price of knowing the Death, and he allows those he kills to
die alone. I shall guide him to his death, but I shall desecrate
his dying.

This place that I hunt him, I do
not know if it is a school or an asylum, since it shares the
character of both. I feel the fear of the Gray Soul as he flees me,
but soon I shall have him. I run through the swinging double doors
that stands before me, and I see the back of my quarry before me. I
leap forward, surfing upon the crest of my rage, and my hands grasp
upon him, and my left hand takes the knife from him, as my right
hand cups his neck, and I raise the arm until the Gray Soul hangs
suspended before me.

Now at last I unleash that thing
of fire and outrage, that beast that dwells within me which is more
savage than any monster I have known. My left hand takes his gut
and tears, and as he sings the song of screams, I remove his guts
and I stress his spinal cord before I dislocate his hip. I stretch
out my hand, and I remove from him forever his manhood. I bring him
in close into an embrace, bringing my hands behind him to press my
bloody fingerprints into his back until at last I hear the
satisfying snap of his back. Now he cannot walk away, but it is not
the end of his agony.

Now at last I bring my bloodied
left hand up to cup the back of his head, to guide it in close
where I can take his throat with my teeth. I sink them deep into
his neck, and I shake violently back and forth, and press forward
to bite down even harder.

Now is my mouth filled full with
flowing blood, as I watch the labored last breaths, and watch as
his eyes cloud and death at last takes him. Death may take him, but
there is no heaven that I will permit him. All is as I have vowed,
and his victims are at last avenged. With blood on my hands, and
its salty and metallic taste in my mouth, and something much like
satisfaction in my chest, the world of white about me fades into
blackness.

Tom woke up with a sigh, and a bit of a
hard-on. He got up, and poured himself a cup of the coffee from the
coffee maker that someone had forgotten to turn off last night. The
coffee was a bit burnt, but it was also strong. He pulled a
cigarette out and lit it, then went to sit on the lawn chair
outside beside the still smoldering campfire.

He had just about finished the cigarette off
when he caught a whiff of Lavender; it seemed to be thin but
pervasive. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement. He
quickly turned toward it, and saw an absolutely statuesque black
girl, with
everything
in the right place. There was a
bicycle lying on its side in the sand nearby, obviously her means
of transportation.

He motioned her over with a smile. She seemed
a little shy in her approach, but approach she did. As she glided
toward him, he admired the way she moved.
Damn
, that girl was
healthy! She was the sort of girl that a man might regret not
sleeping with decades after she was gone.

“
Hello there, my name is Tom.” He
said. “What is your name, and what are you doing here?”

“
I am Veritasia, and I was
bicycling the canyon in Tucson.” She replied. “I don’t remember
anything like this place around there. It is way too cold, and I
know that that river, or whatever it is, doesn’t belong
here.”

It turned out that Veritasia was a student at
the University of Arizona, and she was majoring in Computer
Science. She had gone out biking that morning, and somehow ended up
here. Tom told her about the Innuit that they had met the day
before, who thought that they were somewhere in Northern Alaska. He
advanced the theory that geography didn’t mean much here. She had
to reluctantly agree.

It was modestly hard for Tom to think about
anything but this vibrant, gorgeous Lavender scented girl. He had
not gotten back with Sally since her little threesome, and this
looked like a more than acceptable replacement. They discussed the
situation at length while the others languished in the last
vestiges of sleep, oblivious to their visitor. After covering her
options, she agreed to accompany the group, at least until she
could find an alternate method of returning home.

Shortly thereafter, Tom and Veritasia went
into the RV, where Markus had finally risen and started a fresh pot
of coffee. Everyone clustered around the table, nursing cups and
getting filled in on the situation.

“
Okay, I have one way to go, and
that is north.” Tom said. “I know that it was Innuit country
yesterday, but this is a one-way version of Tucson today, so I
think there is at least a decent chance that we can find our way
out of here by returning north.”

The group had finally decided in favor of the
northern trip, and when they had finished off the coffee, they
loaded up and started up the road. After a few moments, they
realized that the way was no longer mountainous, and the visual
signs of a cold climate began to disappear, along with the
temperature inching upwards towards eighty degrees. Soon, the road
widened into Interstate dimensions, and then the signage appeared
to confirm it. They finally came to a sign that said that it was
the off-ramp to Walkin, and Tom took the ramp.

A few moments later, they were sitting
comfortably around a table in a place called Rosie’s Café. The
waitress had been by to take their orders, and for a few seconds,
they were excited to be served by the cafés owner. Only for a
moment, and then George noticed that
every
waitress in the
joint had a tag that called her Rosie.

A half hour later, they had finished the food,
and they were sipping some excellent coffee while they discussed
the next step in the journey. The waitress had told them that it
was about forty miles to the Arkansas border, and cautioned them to
be careful about the dragons. She also advised them to avoid the
sand pits as they left the town. Several people had disappeared
while they were around them.

When they pressed the waitress about the
nature of the ‘dragons’, she admitted that they looked more like
dragonflies than they did the reptile variety. Other than that, and
not spitting fire, they resembled their namesakes in that people
had witnessed the thirty foot long forms taking cattle and people
off the ground, never to be seen again.

They finally finished off their stay at the
café, and soon enough, they were loaded up in the RV, and headed
back out toward the interstate. They stopped at the gas station
that ‘Rosie’ had told them about, got the same dire warnings about
the dragons that the waitress had made, and without incident, they
completed their refueling, and continued on the trip.