Feb. 26-28, 2012

Serena awoke late the next morning, fighting a fever and cough. It was a foreign feeling to the weathered angel. She didn’t even bother to try and remember when she last felt ‘ill.’

That was nothing compared to how she was feeling about Andy.

He Andy spent most of the night pacing about the apartment, periodically stepping outside to conduct a perimeter check.

I admit, I marveled at his efficiency when it came to keeping the monsters from under our beds, which would have been face-slapping irony to Serena.

Madeline sat at the kitchen table, quietly sipping at a cup of coffee and she gasped when she heard Serena’s voice come from the bedroom, “Madeline?”

We moved toward the bedroom at the same time and when we appeared at the door, we both gasped. It was a cloudy and rainy morning and the bedroom should have been murky, but a pale blue light emanated from Serena, who was sitting up in the bed, prodding a finger into her stomach.

“Oh don’t,” I yarped. “Bad idea!”

Serena blew a raspberry and asked me my name. It startled me, because nobody cared about names anymore.

I told her and asked her how she felt.

“That’s a solid name. Are you a swimmer?”

I replied affirmatively before the oddness of the question sunk in.

I sat on the bed beside Serena and asked her to lie back so I could check her wound and bandage. I noticed the bandage balled up on the floor beside the bed and shuddered at the thought of the blood that would on the sheets and bed. Old habits. Why’d I give a snorting fuck about a messed up bed? We’ll go next door and get another one.

There wasn’t enough blood on the sheets for my sanity.

I looked at Serena, who still glowed pale blue, and she was holding Madeline’s hand. The girl’s cheeks were red and streaked with tears. Serena’s smile made me feel warm. Don’t know how it resonated with Madeline, but I sure felt comforted at that moment.

Andy then entered the room and it darkened. Like a half-hearted fade to black. Serena stopped glowing. She pulled Madeline to her side and sat up straight in the bed, clearly defensive.

“You’re better then, are you? Fantastic,” Andy said cheerfully.

He leaned on the door jam, filling the doorway with a shadow of wings long lost; his left hand rested on his knife sheath.

A heavy patting down of the ‘oh ohs’ washed over me and a click sniggered in the back of my ears as understanding took root. Another one! How many are there?

Serena told Madeline everything would be okay.

“Yeah, we’re not going to hurt you,” I added with uncertainty, glancing at Andy.

“He’s not going to hurt us,” Serena said to the girl and squeezed her shoulder. Madeline quivered every tenth second and stared at Andy, who smiled warmly at her.

“That right, we’re not like the rest. We’re nice. Especially this guy… well, not completely, he’s definitely got some sordid issues. Any rate, this special old woman is everything to me,” Andy said and smiled warmly again.

“Huh?” I grunted, squinting at his dark shape in the doorway.

“I thought your type would be taken,” Serena said, sounding genuinely curious.

Andy said he wished she were right.

I groused again about wanting to be filled in on what the hell they were talking about.

“You should be dead,” I said. “Being that you aren’t, I have to assume you’re like him. Yeah?”

Serena shook her head, her frizzy nest of white hair briefly holding a hue of pale blue, and spat, “He’s nothing like me and I am nothing like him. We are opposite ends of the great balance.”

Andy laughed. “There was a time, old girl, there was a time.”

Serena said she didn’t understand why he should be left behind.

“It just doesn’t make sense. Why should a dark lord — a foul cancer bringer — be left behind to reap profits and writhe in the ecstasies of this fire? Unless you turned. You did, didn’t you?” Serena’s voice raised a few octaves, indicating glee at the prospect of her query. “Ah, what am I saying?” She laughed nervously. “You foul jackel. You will play your games as you see fit. I see you have kept your youth.”

“There was a time,” Andy said, smiling widely. “You’re quick. I am glad I found you.”

The need to get to Yellowstone became clear to me now, sort of. Maybe. Mostly.

“I bet you were unbelievably beautiful,” Andy snorted. “I bet you were a true goddess in your prime. Where’d you hang out? Greece? Troy? No. I can see you padding about the gardens at the Alhambra. Wait… no… Egypt. Definitely some time in Egypt. I can see slaves sucking your toes and plumping your white behind with stuffed olives.”

Serena billowed with laughter and her aura lit up like a lightbulb before a blackout.

Andy stepped into the room and Madeline flinched.

“He won’t hurt you,” I pressed. “Honest.” I wasn’t sure, really, but I felt a massive need to protect this girl. If I couldn’t look out for Carrie, I suppose.

“You are very powerful,” Serena said, impressed. “I felt you back a-ways. In Bend… where you killed Marvin.”

Andy said he didn’t kill him.

“No, you’re the demon master, aren’t you? You use the lesser and lighter to perform your tasks. You are a possessor of souls, after all. You!” Serena said, looking sharply at me. “You’re smitten with him, aren’t you?”

I was taken aback. “Smitten might not be the best word,” I chuckled. “But Andy has been a good. He’s saved my life and I owe him. I don’t know what he did before I met him and I know he is not exactly your average bear — but he’s a partner on the road and he’s been right by me.”

Serena snorted.

“Bullshit. He needs you for some reason. You’ll figure it out and, be prepared young man, it’ll cost you your life,” Serena said. “Can’t put my finger on you, exactly. I know that you are caring. It’s obvious to me that you wouldn’t let anything happen to Madeline and I know you wouldn’t intrude on her. But you’re here, aren’t you love?”

I didn’t know whether to feel good about what she said or tell her to shove it, so I simply replied, “he’s told me why we’re together now.”

Serena lifted an eyebrow with comical effect tinged by a soft blue. “Did he?”

“So this healing thing you too got going on… pretty awesome,” I said. “Hey, I wonder, do you know a guy named Kenneth? Kinda like you.”

Serena stiffened at the question.

“Pretty common name,” she said.

“He’s a cock of the walk old bastard — sure as shit about everything that comes out of his yap and, apparently, has the power to detect pure evil by sneering at someone,” I said.

“Lives over in Northern California. Steals life partners. Pretty heavily wrinkled and crusty as old bread.”

Serena’s voice lowered. “I am starting to see why you are with him, young man. Funny how nothing happens just because, isn’t it?”

Andy interjected by proclaiming everyone “must be famished. I know I am.”

Serena shifted to the edge of her bed and Madeline fumbled for her. “Let me help you!” She demanded.

I offered to help Serena to her feet and she waved me away, too.

She grunted as she stood and noted that it was getting harder to “rebound.”

Madeline held her arm as she shoved her toes into a pair of slippers.

“I don’t think I ever want to see that again,” the girl said.

It suddenly dawned on me like a sucker punch from the dark. She was the girl I thought I had killed.

The grey area that flows before and behind the Bell curve showed me generously lit vignettes that illuminated why I was left standing Nov. 11, 2011.

We gathered in the apartment kitchen and I busied myself by cooking breakfast.

Andy announced he was going to check on things in town and walked out.

“Handy having a general of demon legions, when it comes to keeping the wolves at the door, eh?” Serena said, pouring water into a cup.

“He’s talented,” I said, whistling. “Guess that’s what living for thousands of years does for you. What are your talents, then? And why are you so old… and Kenneth, he’s freaking borderline geriatric. Yet Andy doesn’t look a day over 40.”

Andy shouted from the hallway, “33!”

“Our advanced ages are the sign that the time has come,” Serena said. “Andy — or Andras — had a falling out with the council. Basically, he was fired. But I don’t know why. Love to know. And I bet Kenneth knows. It is my guess that he has gained greater power since all this began. It is possible he has grown younger.”

While we ate breakfast, I asked Serena if she believed she was being held captive.

“Of course I am, love,” she said.

I told her she could hit the road any time she wanted. “Probably not wise, though. We could help one another.”

Serena said it didn’t matter.

“He won’t let me get away,” she said. “And there is nothing I can do about it. He is very powerful and I am old and weak.” She winked at Madeline, who smiled back at her. It was the first time I saw the girl smile.

Andy returned an hour later and reported that all was clear in the town. “Won’t be for long, though. They’ll be back, I hope.”

I asked him why he hoped they’d return.

“I’m bored having to sit around and do all this waiting. Wait, wait, wait. Man. Centuries of waiting.”

I asked, when we were out of earshot of Serena and Madeline, “What are we going to do with the women?”

Andy asked me what I meant by that.

“Well… uhm… what we gonna do with ‘em?”

“What do you want to do with them?” he chuckled.

“Nothing… do we just show ‘em the door, or what?”

“They can do whatever they please, but they’d be smart to hang around with us, right?” Andy said.

“That’s what I said,” I woofed.

Madeline suddenly appeared before us.

“I want to thank you both for helping us,” she said, catching us by surprise.

Looking at the sweet girl, my heart swelled and my head made me blurt, “I think you guys should stick with us for the time being. It’s safer.”

Serena emerged from the bedroom, clad in fresh clothes ferreted from drawers in the apartment.

“We thank you for your kind offer, but we cannot stay here. There is the simple fact of the both of us creating too much energy,” she said, looking hard at Andy.

In another lifetime, there would have been two mighty armed angels facing off on the sunny shoulders of Mount Olympus or some such hobbedy gobbedy. Instead, Serena, slightly bowed from age but still strong and spry, stood before Andy, defiant but cautious.

“I brought a truck up for you,” he said, flipping a fob at Madeline. “It’s a nice light blue colour. Fitting, I thought,” he said, laughing. Madeline turned the key over in her fingers.

Serena’s head tipped forward. “A splendid gesture, Andras. Thank you.”

Andy told her the tank was full and he’d stocked it with an extra gas tank, two rifles, two handguns and there is a box of dry and canned goods, too.

I was stunned.

Serena thanked us again and turned before stepping out the door.

“Now that I know you, I will not fear you,” she said to Andy, then smiled at me. “We shall meet again, I am sure.”

Madeline followed her out the door and I watched as they clambered into the truck and drove down the hill away from the condos.

Stepping back from the balcony after they turned out of sight, I winced as Andy lobbed a boot at me.

“Get ‘em on, we’re outta here,” he said. “Truck’s ready to roll,” he added.

And with that, we departed our restful, safe hideout in Teton Village and rolled down to Highway 89/287.

Andy was driving and I looked around at what he’d packed in the truck, noticing first the CDs I’d procured during my travels. It dawned hard on me that Andy, for all his apparent legendary guile and savage evil, was a pretty decent cat.

“Where are we going?” I finally asked, as Andy turned north away from Jackson.

“We’re heading to Yellowstone now,” he said.

“Following the ladies?” I chanced.

“Yup,” he grinned.

“You know for sure they’re heading that way?”

He said Serena told him where they were going.

I hadn’t heard her do any such thing. “Oh?”

“In so many words, anyway,” he grinned.

Judging from the number of guns and bags of food and other supplies in the truck and the gas cans jiggling in the box, we were heading out on the road for a while.

As we rolled toward Moran, I found myself marveling again at the freakish nature of the weather.

There would normally be vast amounts of snow in the Tetons, which shimmered for us when a white sun tore through the clouds. There was snow in the mountains, but almost none where we were.

“I’m thinking we are going to be able to drive right into Yellowstone,” I said, pumped by the possibility. I loved Yellowstone. It fascinated the Dickens out of me.

I was like a kid heading out on a fun adventure with his dad.

Madeline was giddy as she steered the new model Chevy truck through the junction at Moran, a few miles ahead of us. The farther they got from Andy, the lighter her nausea grew.

“We should maybe have stayed with them, Serena,” she angled.

Serena told her to pay attention to the road. Madeline felt a sting of chagrin.

“We’ll be seeing those two again,” Serena said flatly. “They’ll be right behind us, sure as houses. Just keep going.”

A short while later they pulled into Jason’s driveway and made themselves home in his small ranger’s cabin.

She felt Andy before he sensed her but it didn’t matter. He suddenly veered our truck off the road and into Colter Bay.

Andy parked our truck beside a chalet and we set up a defensive perimeter for the night.

We spent the entire next day hunkered down in this chalet. Andy paced and disappeared frequently, to return and report that “it’s all good.”

Serena and Madeline also paused at Jason’s cabin. They spent the day reading and going for a hike. Madeline couldn’t understand why they were waiting but she didn’t mind the solace of Jason’s idyllic cabin.

The next morning, across the Tetons to the northeast, Carrie was being instructed about what to bring with her.

Kenneth announced the night before that it was time for them all to head back into Yellowstone – to Grants Village.

“You won’t need that,” Kenneth said, grabbing Carrie’s iPod. “Pack light woman.”

Carrie snatched it from his boney hand.

“Fuck that noise. This comes,” she said, jamming her addiction into her backpack.

Kenneth shrugged.

Stacy entered the B&B and told Kenneth the jeep was packed and ready to roll. Jason appeared behind her.

“Sleds are on the trailer,” he said.

It was 11:11 a.m. when tires crunched over gravel that should have been fused as solid ice for the time of year and a heraldic foursome rolled toward Yellowstone National Park.

A lilac band made the eastern sky a foreboding thing. The band was debris powered into the upper atmosphere by the steady typhoons that continued to tear the Indian Ocean and South Pacific apart.

We spent that day scouting and touring around Teton National Park, while Serena and Madeline prepared to head into Yellowstone the next morning.

The main force of the Mormon Army arrived in Jackson that afternoon and discovered the bodies of their comrades staked out, crucifixion-style, on light standards leading into the city from the south.

Wyomings and Utahans alike provided a gruesome and symbolic welcome to the returning army of the insane and terrible.

Ambrose Beasley led the expeditionary force himself and when he discovered Chad Orton’s tattered corpse splayed out on a light standard, lashed to it by his own intestines, he vowed total annihilation of the filthy Wyomings. His alacrity toward vengeance was slid forward by the fact he had 133 men under his command, including two Apache helicopters.

One hundred miles to the southeast, Gerald Kingston sat beside Dusty Durstwell in an armored Humvee that led a column of 15 trucks, vans and buses. Clearing the highway ahead was a vectoring Huey, flown by Wendel Horsman, a heartsick white supremacist who piled up hundreds of hours in Afghanistan. He returned home to Rawlins after his third tour of duty in the US military to discover that his fiancée had run off to Denver after meeting someone on-line.

The police found her body parts frozen together with her Denver lover’s in the freezer at his small bungalow. Wendel spent a weekend torturing them before he killed his fiancée by sawing her breasts off, while her lover watched. He killed him by pouring drain cleaner down his throat after making him eat a mouse. Then using a chainsaw he sliced them to pieces and tossed them in a large clear garbage bag and stuffed them in a freezer.

Wendel was eating a sausage from the batch of frozen food he removed in order to fit them into the freezer when the FBI kicked his door in and arrested him.

Three days later he was sitting alone in a holding cell in the Rawlins police station when Dusty Durstwell walked in and released him on the condition he joined his force.

When it was learned Wendel was a helicopter pilot, his stature was wildly heightened in the fledgling Wyoming Army.

The plan that Durstwell and the Wyomings were unfolding was to lead a 110 man force to Bondurant for the night and start the next day by sending Horsman and his crew to Jackson to fire mission away the enemy before they rolled in and engaged them.

What they didn’t know was that the Mormons had at their disposal a variety of rocket launchers and other helicopter frying munitions, not to mention the Apaches.

It took Kenneth and company an hour to drive to Grant Village. The snow that had covered the world when he and Jason first met was a week earlier melted neatly into Yellowstone Lake and nearby kettles and potholes.

Jason kept remarking how “surreal” it was to drive through Yellowstone in February with hardly any snow to be seen. The only snow remaining was tucked against north slopes or within forests and along forest edges that received no sunlight.

They took over the lodge, bringing life to it at a time of year when the ghosts had the place to themselves. Jason took great delights in lighting a fire in the large stone fireplace in the foyer. Carrie felt a twinge of sadness as she walked around the lodge, remembering having coffee with Rob in the café and she remembered reading the interpretative panel with him afterward. It was a beautiful day. Though it was only a few years ago, it seemed like an eternity.

 Ian Cobb/e-KNOW

---

Article Share

---