Coffin Island (31 page)

If you were stupid enough to darken
that bearded lunatic’s door he would nail you to the floor before
your first puff of that proffered corn cigarette. You’re leaning
over the battered, ancient stove trying to get that black tobacco
cigarette lit and not cough like the charlatan that you are and you
were already finished.

You were shorthand to him. All your
incorrectly held beliefs meant nothing to that bearded Russian
lunatic. He could shatter your whole existence over a cup of saw
dust coffee. That’s why he invited you over. He needed a little
stimulation. That small mind of yours was his hunting concession.
He could see through you like a glass of sawdust coffee. Connect
back all the dots. He knew where you came from better than you. He
was a rabbit too. He had been studying you.

Where does talent like that come from?
Can it be learned or is it just bred out in the hills? It’s
definitely something that comes out of the wild. And it doesn’t
show up that often. It rears its ugly head once a generation tops.
Typically it tops itself too which makes violent symmetry. Who
could live with this madness?

An intellect that is so vicious and
cunning that it stabs you in the face and then itself without
mercy. It doesn’t even have any pity for itself. Not even the
madness itself can survive for long in the host, because if it
doesn’t run its deadly course, the government will kill it, which
they should.

The real question, the unknowable one,
is where does it make its deadly home when it’s hunkering down in
the bush between executions? Where does it hunker down while
awaiting its next host? That garish bed of thorns that it slumbers
in while it’s waiting for its next resurrection that’s was what was
troubling me. I had apparently snuck up on its lair unannounced.
Perhaps I had been bidden. That dead hand that tried to signal me.
You know the one that connects back through all the corpses to the
original suicide. A bloody hand signed me.

The horrendous venom and spite wasn’t
just greeting me. It was taking up residence in me. Percolating
like so much saw dust coffee. Where can a man get a corn cigarette
up in here? Haul that ancient stove over here too. I aim to fire
up. Give me that firewater too. What’s an Indian on the warpath
without any scalps?

Thankfully the horrific power had moved
into Madison too. She got the short portion though. That’s what was
so horrifying. The black snake had cut me a break. That old mamba
had soul. And yet still.

I was poisoned. The damage was
irreparable. It was a turning point from which there was no turning
back. That boat. You know the one that beats against the past?
Well, it had been sunk. The old man in the sea had been
horrifically butchered too. His hands had been chopped off and
thrown to the sharks. Try to write that.

Not that I wanted to venture back. My
mind had been too damaged by the journey. It rejected the concept
of retreat utterly. Tapping out wasn’t even in the lexicon of the
fighter who wasn’t at rest. You were going to have to break the
arm. Then the unbreakable spirit that was within. Go ahead and dump
gasoline on top of that corpse. Set it on fire like a monk. Savage
it anyway you like.

That spirit was going to haunt you from
the afterlife. Haunt you in your victory. Haunt you in defeat. Why
not? It was haunted in this one. You expect it to not be haunted in
the next one? Haunt on, ghost. Haunt on.

Chapter

Madison looked like she was merely
turning the most delicate of light bulbs with her fingers. It was
like there was an invisible life force in her hands that required
white gloves for installation. It was all becoming clear to me. It
just took one witch to screw the life out of two test humans. That
was my takeaway.

The power was that delicate and fine.
You couldn’t even touch that finicky light bulb that she was
operating with your bare hand. Your hand is too filthy because it
is attached to you. A buffer is required. Why not murder in white
gloves and make your murder more pronounced?

Madison was deftly demonstrating the
ferocity of the power that was within her. Two corpses that were
dancing in mawkish fashion in the air were the recipients. Madison
had already killed them. I was mourning this. Had she no sense of
artistry? How dare she make me mourn my tormenters?

I wanted to watch Professor Coffin and
The Red Lady suffer more. I wanted to drink up their howls like the
finest red wine. I wanted to roll that blood over my tongue. Taste
the iron. Identify all the subtle flavors like deceit and trickery.
I wanted to sniff at that hot glass. I wanted her nimbleness to
make them scream in anguish forever. They deserved it. Wasn’t this
all their fault? How else to explain this hideous mental
space?

I looked back over my journey. That’s
one way to work your way out of the hunter’s clutches. You retrace
your steps back from the fatal shot. You reverse the film and the
arrow comes out of your heart. Sayonara heart shot.

What I realized about my foray into the
wickedness of witchcraft wasn’t nice. Nobody had given us a break
with the exception of the volcano. It had done it very begrudgingly
because we needed to land in Flemish hell to finish our sufferings.
That was a break that I could do without. All we really needed was
just a little kindness along the way. But nobody would give it. If
you don’t pamper those boughs then they’re going to reach too far.
Start tapping on your window during a storm. Then a little glass
breaks. The next thing you know you’ve got a monster on your
hands.

“Got my power back,” Madison winked.
“It’s horrendously powerful here.”

“Same boat here,” I said. “I’m thinking
of moving this whole continent counterclockwise just because I know
that I can do it. I also need to blow off a little steam before I
top. I can hardly master what’s going on inside me right now. Could
you please stop playing with them?”

“Why?” Madison asked and flicked the
corpses under the chin. Their heads bobbled. Madison was jigging
them about a bit. Their bodies seemed to be getting a little
lighter on their feet with every mawkish step. My suspicion that
they were leprechauns was seemingly being confirmed. The mind has a
curious way of front running you at times. It’s a couple of time
zones ahead of you. It works for a couple of seconds when the
lights finally get snapped out.

I’d watched with deep fascination as
Professor Coffin had his last thought. It was petty, of course. I
could hear it in my mind that he wanted one last glass of rum for
the road. He went out with poetry in his heart that buffoon. It
pleased me that he went out thinking something stupid. He didn’t
care that he was dying. He could shrug that off. He just wanted rum
before he died horrifically. That last thought really suited him. I
was pleased that it was denied too.

That old bag of bones in a pirate suit,
I might have to revive him at some future point. Give him a
reprieve and kill him again for old-time’s sake. Killing you
reminds me of my youth. Those were some heady days back when I
murdered you for the first time. I can’t believe that I had that
level of conviction. Success has really made me soft. I’m just not
the fierce young man that I used to be. I actually feel badly about
what I’m about to do to you. Run a saber right through your heart
for old-times sake. Madison had torn their hearts out and thrown
them into the sun for their final pass. Even puppets have hearts in
witchcraft, I suppose.

“
Professor Coffin and The
Red Lady don’t amuse me now that they’re heartless,” I
said.

“
I disagree,” Madison said.
“They’re just getting good. I might retrieve their hearts from the
sun.”

“
Don’t do that,” I
said.

Professor Coffin and The Red Lady were
dead. Kaiser and Honey Badger were dead too because I could have
killed them just by thinking it. I had actually already done
it.

Kaiser was crying out in the wasteland
again until I put him out of his misery again. Then I reanimated
the two of them for the final time and did the whole little penny
opera again. They were keeping quiet for now because I had thrown
them into the sun. The third death was the final one because so
many things happen in threes including ultimate death in this
world.

Kaiser and Honey Badger had incinerated
into nothing. It was no big deal. I could probably retrieve them if
I wanted to from the red sun of this world but why bother with the
headache? I’d already killed them three times. I reanimated them
twice. Hadn’t I suffered them enough? I actually pulled Kaiser out
of the sun. Reanimated him and very gently put him back into the
sun. His final death was an incineration of great care. Then I did
it to Honey Badger. I thought they should be reanimated three times
in honor of the three worlds. The four deaths hinted that we might
have yet another world to visit. At least that was my symbolic
hope.

Madison hurled the other two bags of
garbage into the sun with furious force. A puff of ash fell out the
other side. Perhaps that red hot hell was a lovely bedroom
community that lay above the city limits of this hell. It was the
Hollywood Hills of Hell. A crime free living room in the hamlet of
Hades had just been invaded by two flying corpses. Perhaps this is
how nursery rhymes involving prowlers and chimneys come about. The
facts just get twisted to suit the minds of the weak. The two
prowlers become one prowler. Then the solitary prowler leaves gifts
instead of thieving with his accomplice. He also isn’t two corpses
being thrown into the sun like bags of garbage, Merry
Christmas.

“How are you doing?” Madison
asked.

“I went up a couple clicks in
intellect,” I said. “But I’m okay now.”

“It’s just you and me, pal,” Madison
said.

“And The Tower of Babel,” I
said.

“That old thing,” Madison
said.

“We’ll make short work of it?” I
asked.

“Depends on what’s in it,” Madison
shrugged. “Take my hand.”

“I wouldn’t want to go out into this
world without it,” I said.

“You’re the most powerful witch in
creation,” Madison said. “I’m holding your hand. You’re not holding
mine.”

“I prefer it my way,” I said. “I’m
holding your hand.”

“I’m not going to argue with you,”
Madison said. “You are astonishingly powerful. Are you sure you’re
alright in there?”

“I’m a little tight,” I stammered. “I’m
topping off right now.”

“I think if my powers get any stronger
we might have a problem,” Madison said. “I’m not sure how you’re
doing it.”

“
My mind is on fire right
now,” I said.

“Taking on that magical honey badger is
what’s got you all squirrelly,” Madison said.

“Honey Badger is crawling around on my
hypothalamus,” I groaned. “She just made her bed in my pituitary
gland.”

“Where do you think The Red Lady went?”
Madison asked.

“Are you getting any action from
Professor Coffin?” I asked.

“What do you think?” Madison
laughed.

“He’s trying to be a gentleman about
it?” I asked.

“What do you think?” Madison
laughed.

“We should have never killed them,” I
said.

“Of course not,” Madison imitated
Professor Coffin.

“How do we get rid of them?” I
asked.

“I don’t think that we can now,”
Madison said.

“It makes perfect sense that’s where
our lousy teachers would take up residence,” I said.

“If you don’t know what you are doing,”
Madison said. “You can always teach.”

“You can see why they kill all the
intellectuals in some countries,” I said.

“Good luck to them in this one,”
Madison snorted. “I’m a broad from the old school.”

“You gnaw on some steak that’s been in
the freezer since the last ice age,” I said.

“Eating wooly mammoth makes you
squeamish?” Madison laughed. “Wait until I tuck into some corpses.
I figure eating them ought to draw some fire.”

“I wonder how you prepare leg of
human,” I said.

“I’m thinking sushi,” Madison
said.

Chapter

Madison and I were looking at the glass
Cadillac. It was sitting on the precipice of The Tower of Babel. It
had driven up the scaffolding. The wooden scaffolding on The Tower
of Babel was sturdier than it appeared. I had teleported us here. I
had merely thought where is the cuckoo clock in this
world?

I knew the creature in-charge would be
residing within. Perhaps he was incarcerated. A little chain
wrapped around his bird leg. His wings deftly clipped. I didn’t
care about his circumstances. It was mine that I aimed to fix.
Frankly I wanted to maim that bird. However Madison’s laughing
threw me off-kilter. I was deadly serious about murder. What was so
funny about that?

“What are you laughing at?” I
demanded.

“Get in the Caddy and I’ll tell you,”
Madison snorted.

We climbed into the backseat of the
glass Cadillac. It was teetering over the edge of The Tower of
Babel. The center of the tower was an abyss. So The Tower of Babel
is some sort of well? Some fool had built a tower around an abyss.
Why bother giving a black hole a chimney?