Bloodstone
By
Nate Kenyon

Prologue

On a cloudless night in April an ancient gray Volkswagen drifted through the outskirts of a town called Holy Hill, South Carolina, before pulling into the Sleepy Inn parking lot. The two people inside the car had seen many such towns over the past few days, and many such motels. They parked near the manager's office.

"I'll just get us a room," the man said to the woman driving. She was pretty and thin but too pale. "Remember," he said, "I'll be able to see you from the window. Don't try anything stupid. I don't want to cuff you again."

The woman nodded. She knew enough about that. Last time the handcuffs were too tight and had cut cruelly into her flesh. She rubbed her wrist absently, touching the dark-blue bruises that marked their passage.

The man opened the passenger door and got out, flakes of rust fluttering to the ground, then reached back in and pulled the keys from the ignition. Then he closed the door with a thunk and walked quickly to the office.

He was such a tall man, almost as thin as me, the woman thought. She could see his head and shoulders through the grime-smeared window, and she could see the top half of another man's head. He had thick, white hair and looked like someone's grandfather.

She started to shiver uncontrollably. Help me, she pleaded silently to the old man. Oh please, help . . .

* * * * *

". . . a room for me and my wife," the man was saying. He stood at the counter facing the manager of the motel. The manager had a deeply lined country face and his hands were large and chapped, and he cupped them together on the counter like two lifeless birds.

"Just the one night?"

"We'll be leaving early."

"We got single rooms with twin beds. You can push 'em together if you want."

"That's fine," the man said. He stole a quick glance out the window. "Twin beds are just fine."

The manager reached for a key from the rack behind his head and then opened the dog-eared register on the counter. A brand-new computer monitor and keyboard sat nearby gathering dust. "Sign in here. Out by ten tomorrow or you'll be paying for another night whether you stay or not. There's a breakfast place down the road where you can get a cup of joe. Opens up early."

The man took up a pen, hesitated just a moment and signed, Mr. and Mrs. Claude Barnes.

"Okay, Mr. Barnes," the manager said. "Room twenty-three, just two doors down-"

"Do you have anything toward the end of the motel?" the man interrupted. Then, seeing the look on the manager's face, he continued, "my wife is a light sleeper. If there's anything farther away from the road . . ."

The manager nodded. "Sure. I'll put you in room four." He took another key down from the rack.

The man took the key and left the office, his palms sweaty and his blood thumping. He could see as he stepped back into the parking lot that the woman hadn't moved from the driver's seat. He slid a hand in his coat pocket and fingered the handcuffs, feeling their weight, their substance. The metal was cool and slippery. He couldn't possibly watch the woman all the time. He would have to begin to trust her eventually. He was tired, so very tired. They had been on the road for two days straight, driving through the night.

He walked around the car and opened the driver's side door. The woman looked up at him like a dog that had been kicked. It made him sick to see her looking at him like that. "Get out," he said roughly, and stepped back. She stood up and he couldn't help noticing her flinch as he reached out to close the door. He knew he would have to cuff her later, and it made him angry. He didn't like getting angry but couldn't seem to help it. He'd never been good with women, had never been able to understand them. She was scared and there was nothing he could do to change that now.

A cold wind had come up, the kind that brings tears. It ruffled their hair and tore at their clothes as they walked quickly across the mostly empty parking lot, and brought a smell of leaves and cold mud, dead things lying in watery ground.

The man fumbled the key into the door lock and turned it. The motel room was dark and hot. He felt around on the wall until he found the light switch, and then he closed the door quickly behind them. The room looked like it had last been remodeled sometime in the 1960s; water-stained wallpaper, lamps with pale green shades, landscape prints in chipped frames and faded pastel colors. He smelled pine-scented cleaner and stale sweat, a room that cried out to be opened up to the wind and stripped to the bare boards.

He sat down heavily on the nearest bed, feeling it sag under him. The springs poked at him like little bony fingers. He wanted a hot shower but didn't dare take one yet.

She was staring at the twin beds. "Will you handcuff me again tonight?"

"Damn it," he said softly, the fight slipping away from him at once. "Don't talk to me about that. Not now."

The woman had turned her eyes on him. "I won't run. I promise."

"Yes you will," he said. "I would."

"I didn't run away just now. I saw you in there through the window. I could have gotten away any time. I could have screamed for help. That man would have helped me. He looked like a nice guy."

"I would have had to kill him," he said quietly. "Do you want that?"

"You couldn't kill him!" she said, her voice rising in pitch. "You don't have the guts. Fucking coward."

The man looked at her for a moment and shook his head. "I'm sorry. Really I am. But you've got to understand-"

"I don't understand anything!" the woman shouted suddenly, forcefully, the words torn from her throat. Her hands had curled into fists; tears welled up behind bruise-colored lids. She struggled out of the light jacket he had given her and threw it onto the floor, then pulled her white haltertop over her slender neck and head. She ripped at her skirt until it gave and fell around her ankles, and she stood trembling in front of him in lace bra and panties, her chest flushing red.

"Go ahead." She stared at him, her eyes wild. "Rape me if that's what you want. Come on, you son of a bitch. Get it over with, why don't you?"

"I'm not going to touch you."

"Can't get it up? Always trying to push women around when there's nothing between your legs? I know you. I know who you are."

"Shut up."

"Fuck you! Coward!"

The last shriek of words hung in the air and drifted away to silence. He remained still on the bed, watching her face, wondering if anyone had heard. A vein in her throat jumped. She was so thin, he thought, but beautiful. A strange thing to be thinking now but he couldn't help it. This was the first time since he had taken her that she had put up a fight, and it was about time.

"Come here," he said, and added, "please." He patted the mattress beside him and waited.

She shook her head. But then she sat. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the handcuffs, and she sighed as he touched her arm, letting out a single, choked sob. He closed one of the cuffs on the cross bar at the head of the bed and the other on her wrist. Then he stood up from the mattress and gathered her things from the floor. "Cover yourself," he said.

Then he went into the bathroom and closed the door, leaning his head against the slippery wood. The woman was quiet in the other room. Was he crazy, taking her like this? The thought had crept into his head lately; he had begun to think of it as a real possibility. Slowly, he undressed and climbed under the scalding spray, letting his head hang down, letting the needles of water wash away the dirt from his skin. Wash away the guilt.

* * * * *

Twenty minutes later he left the bathroom and found the woman asleep on the mattress. She had not dressed. He stood looking down at her a moment, watching her sleep. Needle marks and bruises dotted her arm. Tears streaked her face.

Maybe he was crazy, after all. The thought did not afford him any comfort, nor did it change things much. It did not stop the images that kept churning through his head, did not stop the voices. Real or not, they were there, clamoring to be heard. They wouldn't stop until he had done what they asked him to do.

He turned out the light and quietly climbed in between the sheets on the other bed. Lying in the blackness, listening to the sound of the cars on the road, he realized he only knew her first name. Angel. Surely that wasn't her real name. Nothing but a stage name, like the dancers in Las Vegas used to keep the crazies out of their backyards. She knew where they were going and something of what they had to do, even if she wouldn't admit it. But that didn't make it any easier.

"I'm sorry, Angel," he whispered softly, but her breathing did not change, and he was sure she hadn't heard. He closed his eyes in the darkness, and prayed the dreams would not come again tonight.

PART ONE: PAST HAUNTS

If a man die, shall he live again?

All the days of my service I would wait,

Till my release should come.

-Job 14:14

August 20th, 1726.

My dearest Henrietta:

We have arrived at last, and I, exhausted from such a long and arduous journey over land and sea, nevertheless have set my pen upon the page with good speed. It is as fine a time as any to write, though Edward insists that I keep it short and attend my health; I have acquired a hacking cough, doubtless from the hold of that damned vessel and the sickness that festered like sores upon our lips. I would tell you in detail of the yellow drinking water and rotten meat, of the heat, bodies pressed all together, and the lice and rats that ran thick as cattle through the bowels of the ship; of the scurvy, typhus, and dysentery that ran rampant throughout our long journey; of the deaths of more than forty men, women, and children. But I do not have the strength for more than that now, and so let me say that it is a wonder I am still alive, and leave it at that, other than to insist you are not to worry about me. That silly charm Mr. Gatling was good enough to supply has been watching over me, I suppose-you must thank him for me again, Hennie. It has been nestled against my flesh for all these many days, and the weight of it around my neck gives me comfort. I have yet to let it leave my sight.

As for the journey over land, that was considerably more pleasant. Upon leaving the colony (a lively and open place, and one that will doubtless succeed), we passed along a rutted country road, moving steadily inland and to the North across wild country, guided by a friendly Indian. Many of them are friendly now; there is considerably less warfare than we had heard tell in the Motherland, although there are still groups that attack and burn villages to the ground, and murder and rape the women and children, the savages. The Indians have their own odd beliefs, as I am already learning, though quite a large number of them are being converted by the Church of Christ even as I write this. The Bible has long since been translated into their native tongue by that good Christian, Mr. Eliot, and there are native churches, though they are as yet few and far between, and are of course run by Christian white men.

I have the most curious story to tell you about the Indians, for something happened yesterday, just before our arrival at the site of what will be my future home (and yours, if things progress, God willing!), and I am interested to know your interpretation of it. The road we had been following had dwindled to a mere path cut through the wood, and we had lately progressed over a stretch of very rough land, hilly, with dense growth on all sides. For several miles we had been within earshot of the most wonderful deep-throated roar-surely the falls of which we have been told! I had been looking forward to my first glimpse of them, and the river itself, when our Indian guide abruptly stopped short and refused to go one step further along the narrow track. When asked why, he would not give a satisfactory answer-only that this was a "bad place" full of "evil spirits." He insisted that we need only follow the track upriver until we found a shallow area in which to cross over, after which the temporary dwellings built by the advance party would be found on the opposite bank.

We argued with him, but to no avail, and finally the three of us-Edward, Jonathan, and myself-set out along the last leg of our journey alone. The sun was still high in the sky, and the many insects and birds moving among the trees, along with the pleasant sound of the river, kept us from taking what the Indian said to heart-but I must say, Hennie, I kept one hand on the charm around my neck and the other on the knife at my side, wondering what to expect.

When we finally rounded the corner and set eyes on the place for the first time, I was reminded of why I made such a long and difficult journey. It is as pleasant as we have been told, the river winding through the trees before dropping abruptly over the raging falls, the land beyond flat and full of sturdy oak and pine, before the ground rises again into more mountainous territory. I have since done a bit of exploring; the only unpleasant aspect is an area of marshland several kilometers below the falls, which is filled with dead trees and weeds and the most abominable stench of rotting vegetation. It is this spot which I presume the Indian had been referring to as a "bad place," and on that point I am inclined to agree with him. But the bog is a good distance away from the settlement, and is of no real concern.

Finally, last night I did not sleep well, having the most unsettling series of dreams, for which I blame both the long journey and the incident with our Indian guide. During that period between consciousness and sleep I was filled with the strangest sense of anguish, as if I had left something behind, or had forgotten something that I must remember, and the night seemed filled with the most peculiar sounds, as if the very earth were trying to vomit up a sickness it had held for too long. When I awoke I was clutching the charm in my fist, and the engravings on its face left an impression on my palm that is still there this very moment.

But I worry you needlessly with these silly stories. The important thing remains that I have arrived in fairly good health, that the land is beautiful regardless of any local superstition, and that we will have a town here. Of that I have no doubt. In any case, I have run on for too long, and must attend to other things. I hope this letter finds you well (I do not know when or even if you will receive it, the mail service being what it is here), and be assured that I will write you again in the near future.

Regards,

Frederick