Bones and Bagger (Waldlust Series Book 1) (14 page)

“I am,” I said.  And then added, “Kind of.”

She stopped scrubbing and looked me square in the eyes.

“You claim you were here when I was born,” she said.  “Generations before I was born, even.”

“Well,” I said, “Not
here
.”

Silence.  Mysterious and frightening under the best of circumstances.

“You know what I meant,” she said. 

She picked up the pot and resumed her scrubbing even though it looked clean.  I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut.  My legs ached in all the places where a couple pounds of new flesh needed attention, my lifelong friend just committed another and as yet unknown act of deadly buffoonery, I was outed in front of my bagger friends, phantom pains rippled through that lung Sparky deflated in an apparent act of misdirection, and now I had a woman—no, not just a woman, but a friend—speaking that doubletalk language only women understand.

Sister Christian went silent again as she worked violence against my innocent pot.  I saw tears mix with the soapy dishwater.  When I thought she might be near polishing through the metal I put a hand over hers.  She stopped rubbing and looked at me.

“What are you saying?” I said.

The silent waterfall resumed.  Perfect.

“I’m saying, Mr. Stupid, that you could have been there.”

I’m considering Mr. Stupid for my next online alias.

“I see,” I said, and felt a touch of pride for what sounded like a somewhat understanding answer.

For a second I thought Sister Christian knew what I meant and it pleased her.  On the other hand, I had no clue what she thought I meant because I didn’t even know what I meant.  Guys understand the logic.

“You see what?” She said.

Uh-oh.

“You know,” I said, and I hoped she
did
know.

“I really don’t,” she said as she grabbed the dishtowel from my hand and began dry a stainless pot missing at least two levels of plating that it had before Sparky started cooking.

“Then why don’t you explain what you meant,” I said.

Sister Christian went from the silent weeping thing to giggles and hiccups.  My night just kept getting better.

“You are such a guy,” she said.

The compliment took me by surprise.

Sister Christian shook her head and I began wondering if a dishtowel could make it through the last few levels of plating, because she rubbed the pot like she expected a genie to pop out of the thing. For the second time, I stopped her hand with mine.  She grabbed the other one and held both of my hands in both of hers.  And I’d gladly go through all crap I’d gone through that night for the chance to hold her hands like that again.  Well, maybe not. I said that to check the romance block for my autobiography.

“You could have been there,” she said.

“Where?”

“
There
,” she said.  “My life could have been different.”

She saw the confusion on my face and said, “I’m not blaming you for anything, and I’m happy, Gare, I really am.”  She let my hands go and thought for a second.  “And I’m not in love you.”

How do I always rate the happy conversations?  I kept my mouth shut.  What was I supposed to say?  I’m glad you’re not in love with me?  That would be suicide.  Another hiccup and giggle thing from Sister Christian.

“But I think I could have fallen in love back then.”  She smiled and it was like the sun to me.

“That’s all,” she said.  “I wanted to let you know you lied to me.”

Conversation over, huh?  Let’s see.  What are my takeaways?  Not an atom of an idea.

“If it makes you feel better,” I said.  “Occasionally I’m in lust with you.”

Sister Christian laughed out loud.

“I know,” she said, and this time the giggles came without hiccups or tears.

Chapter 20

My flat has two bedrooms.  I gave Sister Christian the guest room, the one with that single bed I’d made once when I first moved in and never touched since.  The room also contained some boxes, athletic gear, and probably a missing sock or two.  Sister Christian didn’t seem to mind.  She spent far more than her allocated time in the bathroom and pretty much looked the same coming out as she did going in.  I wondered for a moment if she would sleep in her underwear.  OK, I fantasized over what she was wearing all night.

I sat with the guys until the game ended.  They petered out one-by-one and found places on my furniture comfortable enough for a sleepover.  I expected the questioning to start again but something about beer and football tends to put men’s minds on a different plane.  Like maybe a Russian prop job to Nowhere, Siberia.

Helmet stood watch from behind my desk…guarding my smartphone with its treasure-trove of Soyla photos.  I don’t blame him and kind of felt grateful.  I didn’t relish the challenge of explaining Soyla to normal people.

He cocked his head at me in a “Come over here” signal.  Had new photos arrived? I walked over and looked at the phone and yes indeed.  At least 30 unopened texts.  Time to curl up on the floor with visions of Soyla to challenge the dreams I’d be having about demons and pygmy cannibals.

I glanced around to see if any promising real estate remained unoccupied.  The place looked like a bomb went off.  Bodies everywhere, beer bottles scattered on all the flat surfaces.  I didn’t think bomb victims snored so I knew everyone was OK.  For me though, a night in my desk chair.

Vampires don’t need much sleep.  While I enjoy snoozing as much as anyone, I can function on an hour or two every three days.  In combat situations I’ve gone several weeks with no sleep, though I admit the notion of an army not far away made up of individuals both desiring and capable of providing my immediate and violent death provides sufficient adrenaline assist to make the sleepless duration ineligible for the record books.

So I sat down and picked up the smartphone.  That seemed to miff Helmet.

I whispered to Helmet. “Easy, big boy.  You’ll get your turn with the snaps.” 

A quick look back at him and Helmet rolled his eyes.  I don’t pick up on visual cues any better than I pick up on hints.  “Evening of My No Clue” would be the title of that night’s diary entry.  If I kept a diary.

“Do you want the phone?” I said, still whispering.  “Fine.” 

I turned it off and returned it to the desk.

“Take it and go have fun.”

Helmet didn’t move.  I did catch him in a quick look at the phone but who could blame him.  You’d have to be dead not to want to step through those photos a few times.  Maybe I should reword that last sentence.  For Helmet’s sake.  Anyway, I got the felling Mr. Rolling Eyes was trying to tell me something else. 

Not the phone, how about the computer?  Helmet is gifted at passing me information through the computer…even though he can’t move things, being a ghost and all. 
Right
.  Despite our years together I still don’t know his real name.  No biggie, we get along fine with Helmet.  I do think I’ve seen him in life though.  At least a film of him when he lived.

I got up one morning to find an online video repeating every thirty seconds.  It was black and white World War II film someone converted to digital and put on the web.  The site specialized in videos of military executions—firing squads and hangings. You know, fun stuff to ensure a happy day. 

The loop showed several German soldiers being executed, one after another, by an American firing squad.  Each young German was led to a wooden pole and American MPs tied him, blindfolded him, and the firing squad did its business.  Next German.

Only one of the condemned was wearing a German uniform.  The rest looked dressed in generic American gear.  I found no additional information regarding the executions on the site but I postulated that the young men were likely the Battle of the Bulge German spies.  They spread enough confusion and mistrust among the American ranks that the German Army kicked of the offensive with early success.

The condemned man wearing a German uniform.  I watched for him each time the video reset and he took his turn with the firing squad.  Of all the prisoners, the uniform guy marched with his executioners like he belonged in the squad.  He continued the proud steps all the way to the post where he stood with rigid military bearing as the MPs applied the ropes to his wrists.  The German stood in that Prussian version of attention until bullets made his body go limp.  That was Helmet.  No doubt.

I wasn’t the one who found the website or set the video to repeat during the night.  It was my first indication that Helmet could do more than he wanted me to know.  And a spy?  It fit in with his sneaky, secretive ways and the manner in which he sticks to his “I can’t lift my finger to help around the place just because I’m dead” line.  Pathetic.  Most days I’d shoot him again if I thought it would make any difference.

Timely things show up on the computer, like the site selling doggy toys around Christmas.  I didn’t buy one for Karl the first year, and I was rewarded with a box of tampons.  Through the mail and from overseas. 

German customs makes you pick up international packages at their location.  They open each box, inspect it, and charge their outlandish tax for polluting their country with your American crap.  The customs ladies—pretty hot and in their mid-twenties to early thirties—had a good time with that box of tampons Helmet ordered.  And how he got my credit card number out of my wallet?  Can’t lift a finger, right?  He’s got me trained, though.  Karl gets a new squeaky toy every Christmas.  And I pay attention to what’s on the screen when I sit down.

But no luck this time.  Some kind of German history site.  In German, I might add.  I could read some of it.  Maybe I’ve understated my German language skills a tad.  The article concerned Karl der Grosse.  People in the English speaking world know him as Charlemagne.  I met the guy once.  Sparky worked for him.

Charlemagne reached mythical status in modern Germany and the locals take great pride that his bones are in Aachen. Chucky was a decent sort…unless you made him mad.  Hack off most guys and you need to watch your back.  Piss of Charlemagne?  Watch your country.  The man owned just about everything in the European world.  That was in the last quarter of the first millennium.

Nice guy, as I said, but ruthless when it came to expansion and humorless about religion.  His way or death.  Case in point: Chuck had the better part of 5,000 people executed over in Verden, a nearby town on the Aller River.  I happened to know about all this first-hand. And this is the kind of guy modern Germans love to associate themselves with.  I almost clicked the web browser shut.

But since it wasn’t my time of the month and with my bathroom stock of tampons still at 100%, I decided it best to give the page a closer look.  Perhaps I’d missed an advertisement for a new kind of doggie device.  Thing is, Karl can’t touch the cute pieces of junk anyway.  He circles them with exuberant—but silent—barks, thinks he picks them up in his mouth—his smiling teeth go right through the toy—and shakes his empty mouth like he’s giving the toy a good workout.  Then he craps the floor. 

With all that in mind I scrubbed the history page for the slightest indication of anything out of the ordinary.  No go.  If so much as a doggie vibrator showed up I’d have ordered it.  I ended up taking in some more about Charlemagne and compared the text to my experience with the guy back in the days when I was still a young 800 years old—give or take a few decades.

As things tend to go with unplanned surfing, one link leads to another.  Charlemagne took me to several websites through links embedded in the text.  I read about him, his wars, his wife, his kids, his father and mother.  How could they have so much information on a guy that died more than a thousand years ago?  Probably more than a few vampires made livings as history teachers.

I left the page up on the screen.  As I said, Sparky worked for the man.  Might be interesting to get his take on accuracy.  I tried to remember the times I came across Sparky during the Charlemagne era.

Only once. In Verden
. 

The town I already mentioned…the one along the Aller River.  Where the nearly 5,000 Saxons were executed for the sin of disagreeing with Chuck.  Sparky rode in with Charlemagne’s boys.  Do I have to say who it was that executed me?  At least he made it quick.  And boy did he think it was funny. 

Sparky laughed both before and after he pulled the bench from under me and I ended up hanging by my broken neck until someone cut me down a few hours later.  Big joke, Sparky.  I almost shut down the Charlemagne website in disgust.  But I didn’t…not quite yet.  Maybe it was the voice of my credit card whispering how Helmet would soon be abusing it to order more products that came in unmarked boxes.

My impromptu history lesson and stroll down memory lane took me into the morning hour just before sunrise.  Tired of the computer and anxious for another photo-update of Soyla’s victory over body paint, I picked up my smartphone.  A person with the technical skills of a gnat can tell when an electronic device lacks power.  I usually can too.  The screen was black.  Off.

I remembered turning the thing off because of Soyla’s sexting. Well, not because of it but because of who would die—just a figure of speech—to see them.  Helmet.  I thought the unseen snaps would eat away at my silent friend until he couldn’t stand it anymore and he turned the thing on.  If that happened, whether I caught him in the act or not, we’d both know he did it.

Lame
.  With so many people in the flat Helmet could have switched the thing on and changed my Facebook profile picture to a Photoshopped snap of Super Rumble and me at our wedding reception.  And he could still act innocent…all these mysterious visitors and everything.  So the phone was off and I wanted to review Soyla’s texts to see if any new ones arrived while I wasted all those hours on not looking at Soyla’s photos. I did the right thing.  I switched it on.

Eighteen more.  Great! It was the last message, the latest and therefore the one on top, that came close to making me do the Karl act in my pants.  Here’s what the text message said:

Marriott. Sunday. 2100. 7.

I’m embarrassed to say I stared at those two words and two numbers longer than any one of Soyla’s photos.  Now if you add up all the time I spent staring and
all
the photos, Soyla would win, hands down.  I didn’t recognize the phone number that sent the text.  Why would I.  I’d never exchanged digits with a member of The Seven.