Kiss Me, Curse Me

The forest was dark. No light shone through the canopy, not because it was too thick, but because there was no sun. The sun hid from the dark, from the recesses of a world known only to a very few—a world that held the souls of those picked for the sacrifice.

Coreen heard their echoes, saw their sad, forsaken faces wavering to and fro as if to say something, with mouths open wide and eyes the same. These eyes were as absent as the sun, yet told of a permanent pain, one she could feel in the pit of her stomach. Bony hands reached for her but did not touch her. In the background, the howl carried softly through the thick of the trees, just loud enough to be audible. The sound, though low, was terrifying. When the howl faded, so did the faces, and she stood alone in the dark looking for someone to find her, to rescue her.

“I don’t want to die,” she called out, but there was no sound to her voice; her words only echoed through her own mind. “Forgive me! I was wrong to forsake myself.”

The howl came back even stronger and though it spoke no words, she knew exactly what it said.

Too late.



***



“Noooooooooo!”

Coreen squirmed in the bed, grasping for a sheet that wasn’t on top of her. It was too hot for sheets.

Ahanu who was almost asleep next to her in the chair startled back to reality, lifted her forward, and wrapped his arms around his one and only. “There, there, it’s okay, you’re okay. I’m here, right beside you.” He rocked her back and forth and she calmed back down into her deep slumber.

“Doc . . . is there nothing to be done here?” Ahanu asked, forgetting that no one was in the room with him. He sighed, realizing the time and leaned down close to her, cheek to cheek, and whispered softly, “I don’t want to leave you, but I have to do something.”

Ahanu opened the window to let some early night air in, attempted to straighten himself out a bit, and opened the bedroom door.

The upper floor of the cathouse held many rooms, and all the doors looked the same. An odd fellow opened one door, tucking his pants into his trousers, and didn’t bother to notice Ahanu watching him. He hurried down the stairs.

He became aware of things he hadn’t noticed the previous night, like how worn the place actually looked, and the feeling that there were many people around though he couldn’t see them, just an odd voice or giggle here and there.

“Aren’t you coming down?” a seductive voice came from below.

Ahanu saw Betty dressed in a plain, white dress leaning against the spiraled knob at the bottom of the stairs, and though the dress was as dull as day, she still had the goods in plain sight. It was enough to bring most men to their knees, Ahanu knew, but not him. “I made you breakfast. I was going to bring it up, but . . .”

Ahanu rubbed his mouth. He was hungry, but didn’t want to admit just how much. “Is that any way to greet a lady slaving over a hot stove on a warm morning like this one? It’s going to be even hotter than yesterday, can’t you tell?”

Ahanu said nothing, and off she walked dramatically, ignoring his silence.

He slunk down to the lower level and inched his way into the front bar. The stage was small and welcoming, the chairs were empty, and the bar was packed with colorful, exotic bottles of liquor. In this room, everything was done in dark wood and worn, gold embellishments. There was a hint of faded red in the velvet stage curtains and the leather of the stools around the bar. The energy of the night was pervasive still with no windows for escape. The place demanded privacy.

Ahanu pulled at his undershirt, feeling the temperature. Betty was nowhere in sight, and he was too proud to call for her. He sat and waited instead, enticed by the smell of fried goods and garlic floating into the room. She never came. He tried to deny the delicious aroma, but after some time, he just had to get up. There was no obvious direction to follow, so he went toward the back again and, instead of taking the stairs up, took the stairs down, following the cooking smoke to the basement.

The next room he encountered was designed with only one goal in mind—money and gambling. The round, green poker tables were perfectly aligned around the room, as well as some other tables, which looked like they were used for dice games. There was a lone roulette wheel, dead center—the highlight. The clicking of the wheel always drove the money, a subconscious trick. Ahanu could almost hear the noise of it all, the losses, the gains, and more losses.

Now the smell of bacon was much stronger. He was close. The sizzle and crackles of the oil led him to half doors which swung both ways. Ahanu stood with the top of the door hitting just at his chest and watched Betty as she snuck a piece of bacon out of the cast iron pan and chewed, enjoying the crispy bit of fat on the end.

“I knew you’d find me,” she said, interrupting her moment of salty pleasure. She didn’t look at him. “Take a seat.”

Ahanu sat at the very long table on the chair closest to the door. It had enough seats for about twenty.

“My girls will be down soon,” Betty said as she popped a few perfect pan-fried eggs on his plate, some bacon, and a piece of fried squash.

He ate eagerly, and she watched intently.

“I mean, you are welcome to stay, but you know, one look at you and . . . my girls . . .”

He flashed her a cold glance.

“Now, now.” She raised her brows and smiled. “I wasn’t meaning that. I know . . . ”

“Thank you for the food.”

“You are very welcome. More bacon?”

“No, this is plenty. I—” He shook his head, changing his mind on asking.

She turned her back to him and flipped another egg. “I can keep an eye on her, or one of the girls will, if that’s what you were about to suggest. We are busy here around the clock. I mean the morning hours are quiet, but you know. Anyway, they work in shifts. We can help.”

He sat up straighter, looking relieved.

She turned back to face him with a plate of food of her own and sat directly in front of him, staring into his brown eyes. “It’s fine, but if you wouldn’t mind?”

“What?” He leaned back.

“I need your help with something later.” She sliced her squash and took a small bite.

He tilted his head in curiosity.

“I’ll tell you later, not right this minute.” She gave him the big doe eyes. “Nothing serious.” She waved a dismissive hand.

“Why do I not believe you?”

“I help you, you help me.” She grinned mischievously but offered nothing else.

“I have to go,” said Ahanu.



***



“Get back in the boat!” yelled Patty.

“No. I see something.” The river swirled around Hank as he tried to fight what seemed to be—before he jumped in—a rather mild current, but was turning out to be almost overpowering. He’d swum it before, recalling it not being quite so rough and tumble.

“Look at him. He’ll drown,” said Doug.

“Doug, shut up.” Patty was mad as hell.

“I can’t help it. He’s going to drown.” Doug pushed his long blond hair from his eyes as he paddled the oar as hard as he could. Trying to maintain their spot in the river was more than he’d bargained for.

“Don’t you jump in. You’re too scrawny; the river will eat you for lunch. Your jeans are practically falling off you . . . and that awful brown shirt.”

“It’s my dad’s shirt. He gave it to me. I wasn’t going to jump in. Hank is fine. Look!”

Hank was holding on to a few branches on the opposite side of the shore, hoisting himself to the wet embankment. He was too focused on the object in sight to acknowledge the rest of them.

“What did he see?” Doug asked.

“Just paddle, okay? Focus here, lad. Did you not learn anything in the Scouts?”

“I hate the Scouts.”

“That explains it then. And I don’t know what he saw; he just dove in. Come on, we’ll go on the shore.”

They fought hard in the little metal boat to get back to shore, but once there, Hank was no longer visible.

“Hank!” Patty called.

Unable to hear a thing over the roar of the river, a sopping wet Hank knelt on the ground, holding the damp, white dress in his hands. The blood stains were brown and streaked over the bottom half of the cotton fabric. It can’t be. It just can’t be hers. He hugged the material like she was still in it. It was too much for him to bear—Coreen. He knelt there, unaware that someone was watching him from the woods, and tried to hold back the tears. A branch snapped.

“Who’s there?” Hank stood quickly and looked in the direction of the sound, waiting silently. The forest moved in the wind, and a gush brushed past him as if to send him back in the direction he had just come. Nothing further developed from this, just a little chickadee landed on the branch next to him, spurting its funny little sound. Hank pushed back through the twiggy density back to the river line and held up the dress to Patty and Doug, who had paddled hard to pick him up from the bank.

“Wait in the boat,” said Patty as he saw Doug about to jump back into the river. “Wait.” Patty knew it was bad. He could feel it in his bones. Don’t let it be hers. Don’t let it be my girl’s.

Reaching the shore, Hank tried to get into the boat. The thing was flimsy and the three of them almost fell out under Hank’s frantic scrambling. As he climbed, he tossed the dress to Patty, who collapsed squeezing the bloodied garment.

“No . . . no . . . it can’t be hers,” Patty cried out in pain. It was Coreen’s dress; she’d had it custom made. There was only one like it. “This can’t be happening.”

Doug was silent.

Meanwhile, in his shock, Hank never caught his balance in the boat and fell back into the river, the cold heightening his pain and fears. The thought came to him to just give up right there and then, let the water carry him away and send him to the bottom of the dam. It was too bad that dam wasn’t yet fully functional.

He thought about Coreen, this girl who had beguiled him in ways he’d never experienced before. She was so innocent, yet so secretive at the same time, bringing contentment to him in his simple life. He’d intended to propose, had even scrounged the money for a little band of silver. And now she was gone, gone to some horrible demise.

As he sat drenched and beaten on the bank, Patty and Doug helped him back into the boat.

The three of them silently eyed the dress, a darkness setting in upon their hearts and their souls. Patty gripped it as if he held the spirit of his dear daughter in his very arms.

“She’s gone!” Patty cried out to the sky and looked blankly at the sun, feeling it burn into him. Wincing in anguish one last time, Patty’s face went blank as he bottled up his emotions and prepared for the return trip home.



***



The scene unraveled before Ahanu, bringing on a slight twinge of guilt for what he had done. He waited quietly in the brush, watching Hank cry and Patty go completely emotionless. He could sympathize, for he’d been suffering with Coreen through the night. But he could not have folks poking about—certainly not Hank, in any case.

Hank and Ahanu had an encounter once years ago, a fight, over nothing more than the fact that Hank was in the mood for a fight and Ahanu happened to be standing there. Hank had taken a swing at Ahanu, who ducked, and the rest went just the same. Hank had ended up looking like quite the fool and had been trying to make up for it ever since. Maybe Ahanu didn’t feel so bad for Hank after all as he watched him on the shore. Or maybe he did. He couldn’t make up his mind, and decided that it wasn’t worth the thought anyway. He waited till they were gone and got back on the trail.

The knife was long and very sharp, the smooth, curved handle carved from an elk’s bone. It had been passed from father to son over the generations, mostly used for gutting fish and carving meat. Ahanu pulled it out from under his pant leg and admired it in his hand as the trail narrowed and the density of the trees and forest undergrowth increased. It was the sign that he was near the caves.

According to local folklore, the caves were supposedly uninhabited, but Ahanu somehow didn’t think so. He had taken Coreen there, before her dad’s grounding her. He kept the memory close in his thoughts, for they had shared kisses under the light of the flames from his torch. The embrace hadn’t gone as planned; they’d been interrupted. Just as they were becoming lost in each other, in the intimacy and soft caresses, they’d heard a low groan echo from deep within the cave system. It was enough to spook them into leaving.

The caves were forbidden by his people, who believed that ancestors were held within. It was an old custom to place the dead far from the central village. The caves were perfect for this, but with the advent of Christian ways, they’d stopped using the caves for that purpose. However, most people believed that the ghosts of the dead still lurked within. His father had warned him often, “Don’t go there. You’ll bring a curse upon this family.”

Of course Ahanu hadn’t believed it at the time, but now he wasn’t so sure. The cave sat back a ways as he came to the edge of the trail. It was deathly quiet for the middle of the day; no sounds of birds or insects, not even the wind. The feeling was creepy. Why hadn’t he noticed? They had come at night before. He thought back . . .



***



She giggled quietly as they entered the gaping hole that burrowed into the mountain.

“Shhhhh,” he whispered.

She giggled again.

“I’m serious . . . be quiet.” Ahanu put his finger to his generous lips.

The flame was almost about to burn out, so Ahanu ripped the second arm off his shirt and wrapped it around. In the brightness, he caught the flames dancing in her sapphire blues. He held the torch up and out and took her hand in his.

“You’ve never been here before?” she whispered.

“No. I’ve come close, but ran back.”

“Oh. You scared?”

“No . . . mmm . . . maybe. . .”

The opening was small compared to how large it actually was inside. The cave ceiling loomed high above, then tapered farther back to a crouching level. The light didn’t carry that far back, and they didn’t want to venture so far anyway.

“Stop,” he whispered.

There was a large, lone rock, shaped as if to invite seating. He leaned the torch staff against the wall. They sat down together, Ahanu’s heart pounding away in nervousness. He wondered if hers was doing the same. At first they said nothing, did nothing, other than listen to one another’s steady breath. He let out a sigh and she did as well. They caught each other’s gaze. She smiled, and he leaned in for that first kiss.

The waiting had been killing him inside. Ahanu felt his stomach burn and recoil as their lips touched. Her lips were softer than he had imagined, and any other active thoughts in his mind vanished as he allowed himself to experience his Coreen. He took his hand and slipped it at the base of her head under her silky hair and tugged slightly. She let out a soft moan, so he tugged a little harder, pulling her head away just enough so that their lips separated. The look in her eyes was only one of want, so he got back to it.



Jolting out of his reverie, Ahanu now understood why he’d not noticed the creepiness of the place at the time. Coreen had captured every one of his senses.



***



“We need to report a murder.” Patty tossed the bloodied dress on the desk

The timeworn sheriff spat out his coffee on the floor at the sight of it.

Patty leaned over, placing his hands on Sheriff Doby’s desk, “I’m serious. My daughter is missing, or dead, or murdered. We don’t know which, and you need to find out.”

Doby furrowed his sun-wrinkled brow and studied the sopping Hank and the short dimwit standing next to him. He knew the kids’ name at one point, but couldn’t remember at that moment. The short one looked just like his garish, crazy father.

“You listening here?” Patty was getting madder by the moment.

The sheriff returned eye contact to Patty, “Take a seat.”

“I will not take a seat. You get up off your flat ass and come help us find her.”

The sheriff stood, his chair flipping back against the wall behind him. “Look here, I’m not the enemy. You want me to help, tone it down a bit, Patty. I know you, you know me. We go back. Come on now. Sit.”

Patty turned his sweat drenched back to him and went to the window not noticing the people or cars—the life outside—all dead to him. “I can’t do this.”

“We’ll assemble a team, get my best guys together, but you need to tell me what happened. Start from the beginning.”

Patty slammed his fist down on the sill—all composure was now lost. He couldn’t hold back his emotions. It was all too much. “Hank, you tell him.”

Doby lit a cigarette, put on his bent silver specs, listened, and took notes, “Do you know why she left or why she went up river?” He never moved his eyes from the paper, ignoring Patty’s incessant pacing and grunts.

Hank stood in front of the desk, wording his thoughts slowly, “I don’t know exactly. Uh, I know I said that already. Well, uh, I noticed that she had been acting somewhat distant during the carnival. I don’t know, sort of distant. I thought it was the heat or something. But she looked happy. Then she’d snap back to present sorta like. We’re about to be engaged . . . maybe, er, I hoped.”

Patty returned to the table and nudged Hank. “I saw that same look too. I noticed it one night at the dinner table—the look on her face. She’d hide it. I thought it was about you.”

Slicking back his long, white hair and taking an extended draw from his cigarette, Doby scrutinized the two of them with a serious brow. “Was there someone else?”

Hank shot straight up, “God, no. I love her. She loved me. She told me so every day. I’d know something like that. Impossible.”

“No. There’s just Hank,” Patty added in agreement.

The sheriff took the dress, which had been sitting on his perfectly clean table all along. “Now look here. I didn’t want to bring this up, but the blood stains on this dress make me think that she could have been sexually assaulted.”

Patty covered his eyes. Hank slammed his head on the sheriff’s table, and only one person dared speak.

“I thought the same thing,” said Doug.

“Oh Christ . . .” erupted Patty. He sighed deeply. “We all did.”



***



The entry of the cave loomed the same as he recalled. Ahanu ducked to go in, and then it opened up. Just enough daylight to see around him. He looked at the lonely bench where they’d sat before, just a memory now. He scanned the rocky walls covered in the odd watermark with streaks of lighter mineral veining along. It looked like quartz. He had a few pieces of the same mineral material at home fashioned into the odd figurine, had found them out in the forest floor. They were odd little things with big eyes and gaping mouths. His father didn’t even know what they were. His grandmother had muttered something in the old language when she saw them, like she was shooing them away. Ahanu had asked, and she put her hand up, indicating for him to leave the living area so she could get back to her bead work.

He kept them anyway and looked at them now and again. The creepy little things reminded him of something old and evil, maybe they were part of the curse, but he just didn’t want to acknowledge that fully. There was just too much superstition around from his elders, and he didn’t like living in fear. This was the second time he’d experienced real fear, seeing Coreen in that bed.

The odd drip piddled away, and he sat thinking about the wolf story. He wasn’t sure what to think. She is sick because she is hurt—that’s all there was to it, he told himself. He stood and picked up a rock and felt the sharp edges and the smooth edges and made a hard fist around it in anger, anger for all the trite stories and all the absurd people he was tired of listening to. He turned to face the back of the cave where the light no longer touched. He threw the rock as far as he could, with a good bit of force. .

Strangely enough, he never heard the rock hit the ground. He waited; I didn’t throw it that hard. A moment later he flinched as something came at him and smacked his cheek. Rubbing the painful spot and backing up, he looking down at the ground only to see the same triangular rock he had just thrown. Ahanu ran back out of the cave, into the clearing.

His heart raced in denial of the peculiarity. Debating with Lady Uncertainty, he ran back in.

“Who’s there?” he called. “Show yourself.” He pointed his knife out in front of him. “I’m not afraid. You don’t scare me.”

He heard only the steady drip, which had now picked up pace.

He ventured further in to the point where the ceiling dipped and he had to duck. The air was stagnant, and the faint smell of an old rot lingered. Ahanu paused. He could feel the presence of something dark and spoke aloud only really to calm himself. “I know you’re here. You wanted to hurt me, but you just missed. I don’t believe in you. You hear me? They’re wrong. There is no curse.”

Just as he said the words, a low, guttural moan echoed all around him in the cave. It was so loud, he stumbled backward, covering his ears.

“Is that all you’ve got? Just a moan?” Ahanu challenged, his voice echoing around even louder through the dark. “You see. I’m here. I’m alive. You’re just dead. You see me? You have no power over us. You can’t have her anyway. She’s mine.”

“Miiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnne,” the voice debated.

Something pushed Ahanu to the ground. He fought at nothing, the air, but he felt something gripping his neck, trying to choke the warm breath out of him.



***



Patty, Hank, and Doug joined Sheriff Doby as he went from house to house recruiting help for a search party. Before the evening hit, they had a dozen men packed in a couple white-walled, black Buicks and a Cadillac with shiny saucer wheel wells, old boats secured to the roofs—all speeding toward the dam.

“She’ll wash up there, if she’s going to,” said Doby. “You sure you didn’t see anything more than this dress on the bank?”

“I’m sure,” said Hank from the backseat, wondering about the police bars that separated him from the front.

“We’ll look again there to be sure,” said Doby.

“We were upset when we found the dress,” said Doug messing with the radio in the front seat.

“I know,” said Doby. “It happens.”

The dirt roads were narrow and wound through forest and through grasslands, till they climbed in elevation to the top of Sacred Ridge. It was a place where the Indians held many a ceremony, where the winds fought, the sun watched, and the eagles circled looking for fish.

They all pulled in close enough to the edge, to make a few men a little nervous. Grand Carnee Dam buzzed below them. Thousands of workers moving like ants to and fro. The river diverted on the far side of the dam site.

“I want one crew on one side of the river and one crew up the other, I already sent a team farther upstream, and they’ll be coming down this way.” said the sheriff.

“They may not let us cross the river,” said Patty.

“They will.” The sheriff pointed to the gold badge on his chest, which adorned his brown uniform. “I’ll arrest every man who obstructs justice.”

“No . . . that’s not what I mean.” Patty waved a hand. “It’s dangerous to cross. There’s a lot going on. They’re pouring the concrete, and I don’t see how they’re going to let the men through all that chaos. It’s dangerous. Men die every day down there—trained men.”

The sheriff sighed and took a few steps closer to the edge of the cliff and scratched his head. He watched in the distance, the cranes moving, men shouting, flashes of light from welders; metal beams gliding through the air higher up as the skeleton of the dam was formed. He turned back to face them. “We at least need to get down there somehow.” He pointed to the bank below, watching a few scraps of dirt give way and float off into the wind.

“There’s a new trail that goes down.” Hank pointed. “We go down there sometimes.”

“Why? You know better than that. You could get killed,” said Patty.

“Exactly. A rush. We go. We sit. We watch. Look at it . . . the dam. It’s remarkable.”

The men all turned to face the monstrous creation, many years in and the thing was beginning to echo a massive curvature.

Patty shook his head, “I don’t care what it is. My girl is down there somewhere. I know it.”





“Of dust and bones.”

The old familiar words rang out to him as Ahanu tried to come to, wrapped up in all kinds of pain, but couldn’t come out of the brain fog that entombed. He sunk back into the awful place where minds stray, souls wander, and the living avoid.

The mist was the only thing he could actually see—even his own hand was invisible to him—and he looked down into the nothingness. Fighting to overcome his sleepiness, he thought he heard her cry. She cried for him. He heard his name.

“Coreen . . .”

Something brushed passed him. Is it her? My love.

“Coreen . . .” Her name wouldn’t travel in that place, though just for a second, he thought he saw her, out past the density.

Ahanu came to just for a second then fell back again.