The Trickster and The Virgin
By
Reginald Thanos
The Merman breached the lake's surface, flying high into the air like a great white shark after a seal, sending droplets of water, glittering like diamonds in the full moon light, flying in delicate arc. With the sickening sound of wet flesh slapping wood, the monstrosity landed in the fantail of the small cabin cruiser, the impact sending waves rushing away from hull as Susan's screams ripped the night's silence. Dean shoved her towards the cabin door, but before he could follow the merman leapt, landing on the young man. The monster's bulk forced him to the deck and out of Richard's sight, but the anguished screamed carried easily across the water, rolling up the shore and through the thick forest.
Richard lowered his binoculars, the screaming from the boat bouncing off the hills and mountains, providing a macabre chorus to Dean's death. Even without visual aid, Richard watched blood, black in the moonlight, spray high into the air as the merman fed, expelling the blood through its blowhole. He didn't feel sick to his stomach, Vietnam had proficiently removed the horror created by violent death and blood, but guilt flooded his eyes with tears. The screams stopped and the night was again silent, the soft wind, cool despite the summer, soundlessly drifted down from the peaks.
He lifted the mic, keyed it gently and reported, "Scholar has passed."
"Roger."
He envisioned the scene as white-coated men, their hair cut military short, pouring blood into the icon as they uttered the familiar and profane prayer to sleeping gods. Regardless of Susan's fate the world would spin on, and men would be left alive to cheat, and steal, and rob, and kill.
"Report on the virgin."
He sighed, lifted the binoculars to his eyes and peered at the boat.
"Below decks, she's not visible, but the merman has gone below and well it doesn't really matter does it?"
"Trickster, maintain protocol."
"Screw you." He threw down the mic and stalked down to the shore.
From across the water he heard music, she must have bumped the 8-track t, and 'The Backstabbers' drifted across the water. He knew the world had no choice, that he had no choice, but his guilt did not bend to rationality.
From the boat a flash a movement grabbed his attention. Susan, her long black hair flowing out behind her, dashed for the stern, the garland of flowers finally flying off her head as she reached the gunwale. With a single powerful kick, she leapt far and fast from the little vessel. Her summer dress flapped in the air and then she hit the water, disappearing under the surface as the boat exploded.
A shattering fireball, red, and black, and orange, blossomed on water, throwing debris dozens of yards away and pummeling Richard with its deep bass roar. Stunned, shocked beyond his training and protocol Richard leaped in the air pumping his fists, his long hair flying, shouting in triumph.
Flame and smoke played along the water's surface and, as reality reasserted itself, his cheers died out. She killed the merman, but in the end that didn't change anything, except to make tonight's even harder. The pistol resting in the concealed hostler in the small of his back poked painfully into his side; heavy with foreboding he moved to water's edge.
Susan surfaced close to the shore, looking back at the burning wreckage she whispered in a husky voice, "I got you. I got you." Turning over, and with long powerful strokes, she swam for shore. Her wet summer dress clung tight to her tall frame as she splashed out of the water, and her long hair hung plastered to her back as she climbed up on the beach where just a few hours earlier they had drank, toked, and screwed. Well she hadn't screwed and she regretted that. Dean was gone and nothing would bring him back. Looking up from the wet sand her eyes met Rick's as he stood there looking scared and befuddled.
"Rick!" She screamed, rushed him, throwing her arms around his neck and hugged him close.
"Rick, Rick ,Rick," she mumbled over and over, tears and sobs overpowering her and few several long minutes she simply cried. He held her, caressing her back with a gentle, asexual embrace. The wet sand squelched under her feet, and she soaked his tee-shirt and cutoffs with her own wet clothes.
"We thought that thing had killed you!" She pulled her head back, the tears still streaming down her checks, black hair clinging messily to her face.
"Well, I was lucky."
"I killed it." She turned and looked back at the burning wreckage as it began to slip under the surface. "It got everyone else, but I killed it."
It won't stay dead, he thought. By next year it'll be back, they always come back..
With her distracted, watching the boat disappear, he reached behind his back and started to slip the pistol free. She turned suddenly, and nearly shouting asked, "Why the hell didn't let us know? John searched for you and that's when that thing got him!"
Boiling over with anger, she shoved Richard hard, caught by surprised he lost his balance and with his arms wind-milling, tumbled backwards to the ground. She sobbed, grief welling up, threatening to overpower her, but the stopped spotting the pistol on the sand.
Richard tried to scramble to his knees and reach the 45, but she kicked it away from him, then chased after it and grabbed the gun.
"You have a gun?" She held the thing in her hand like a lethal viper, and then took a cautious step away from Richard. "You had a gun and you didn't fucking tell us?"
Carefully, keeping his hands in sight, he climbed to his feet.
"Susan, just give me the gun and…"
"And you'll what? What are you? Some kind of pig?" She turned the pistol in her hand, making no bones about pointing at him. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Don't fuck with me!" She leveled the gun, pointing at his chest. "You had a fucking gun and you didn't tell us while that thing was hunting us down and then you vanish while everyone else gets killed. So you tell me why, all of the why!"
"Do you think it would have made any difference?"
'Hell yes!" She waved the gun toward where the boat had vanished, then quickly returned its back to Richard. "That thing could be killed, we would have stood chance with your gun!"
"No, you didn't, and you didn't kill it. It'll be back, and someone blows that conch, they'll die too."
She screamed, a primal sound of inarticulate rage. He hoped she'd either come closer or get it over and shoot him, but she disappointed him, doing neither
"You fucking knew? You knew what that conch was?"
There was nothing to say, so he remained silent.
"You bastard." She gripped the pistol with both hands. "You tell me why? Why did you set us up?"
"You'd never believe me unless you see it for yourself." He nodded towards the hills.
"This had better be good."
"No, Susan, it's Evil, pure Evil." He started walking up the slope, into the thick forest. He heard her hesitate, and then her soft wet steps as she followed.
Quickly the tress closed I around them, the air was still and under the aroma of pine and flowers a scent of decay permeated the wood, a sweet and sickening smell. Susan followed, but more than three yards behind him, not daring to get close enough for Richard to get the pistol back and so he led her deepr into the hills.
"It was your idea that we spend the weekend up here getting stoned, and lose the man for a few days."
"Do you want me to deny it?"
"No, I don't want any more of your lies."
He didn't answer and they continued accompanied only by sound was the crunching of pine needles under his boots, and by her soft, nearly silent, bare footsteps.
"You found the basement too," she said.
"It was your idea to go down."
"How could I fucking know? We blew on that conch, just for laughs. Something to make some noise."
She started to cry again, Richard turned, but before he could take a step towards her she raised the gun and with tears rolling down her cheeks she said, "No."
He raised his hands and started back into the hills, the hairs on his neck beginning to stand erect.
"Did you hate us, Rick. Is that why you wanted us dead?"
"I played my part, just like everyone else."
"That's doesn't tell me anything."
He scanned the deep and dark wood, hoping to spot an armed team coming his rescue, but the shafts fo moonlight reveals nothing but the deadly woods. He silently cursed himself for leaving the radio, for walking to the beach in a melancholy fog.
"I knew you were all going to die," He said. "That had to happen, how? Well, that was up to you."
"Me?"
"You plural. Whatever horror you awoke, that I couldn't make happen, you had to do it on your own."
"Why shouldn't I kill your ass right now?"
He turned around and faced her, rage, terror, and grief contorting her lovely face.
"Because if you do, you'll never know the why, and the why is just over that ridge." He pointed to a hilltop, a faint light glowing beyond . "But the truth won't make you happy Susan. This truth never does."
He watched her knees quake and the pistol wavered as she struggled with her need to know and the building sense of doom overtaking them both. She set her face, and waved him towards the hilltop.
With his hands shaking, and adrenaline flooding his blood like he was back in 'Nam, Richard climbed the hill until they were overlooking the pit. Dim lighting flooded the ancient stones, and incongruously people in white lab coats moved about the scene.
"What the hell?" Susan muttered.
"That is hell." He pointed to the bottom of the pit, "and today it will remain closed."
Surrounding the bottom of the pit, five flat stones stood erect like some ancient pagan circle, and on each stone an iconic human figure was etched, and bled
He led her down the wooden stairs, the stone-walls rose around them, blocking out the world until they could only see the stone, the icons, and spreading out crude flooring, the blood. As they reached the bottom the technicians, looking like the should be in Florida get ready for Apollo 14, instead of pouring blood onto runic ston, noticed Richard, Susan, and the pistol, but with gentle hand motions, Richard kept them calm.
"Let me tell you how the world really works."
He told her. Her told her about the elder gods, sleeping but not dead, resting eternally as long as mankind maintained the sacrifices. He told her how every year they brought out the required archetypes, the whore, the athlete, the scholar, the fool, and pointing at her he emphasized, the virgin. He told how their deaths purchased life for the rest of the world, and should the rituals ever fail, then on that day humanity would join the dinosaurs.
"And who are you up here?" she pointed the gun again, but already her voice had softened, and he knew she believed.
"I'm the trickster," he admitted. "I lead the archetypes into their folly, but I am not one of them and I never have been."
She looked up, past the stone-walls to the black unseen sky beyond the lights. Here, at the bottom of an ancient pit with elder gods sleeping beneath her feet, Susan knew the true weight of the world. All her hopes, all her dreams, all her loves fell away like a morning mist before the blazing sun, leaving her with nothing but her certitude.
She dropped the gun and kicked it over to Richard.
"So what do we do now?" she asked.
He bent over picked up the 45, and like the Marines had taught him, checked the slide, making the weapon safe before answering.
"Procedure is to neutralize anyone outside of the team with knowledge of the ritual." He slid the pistol back into its holster. "But I'm tired of death tonight." He stood silent for several long moments, from far away the echo of an owl's hoot carried to the bottom of the pit.
"Where do I sign up?" she asked.
The technicians sighed, breathing again as they returned to their duties.
"Follow me."
He led her from the pit, resolving that this would be his final year as the Trickster, from now own he wanted a nice safe job here with the technicians.
#
"You're not even listening to a word I say are you?" Hadley whined, jolting Richard back into the here and now as they rod their little electric cart to the command center.
"Sorry, I was thinking about the director."
Forty years and no one had proved more dedicated, more capable in seeing this terrible mission to success than had The Director, but he had known her when she was simply The Virgin.