The Bones of Old Carlisle (23 page)

Karl Arrowroot and his daughter rushed back into the store, where
they found Art seated at his computer, a look of alarm on his face.
Tamani was pacing back and forth, holding two sheets of paper, shaking
them and blurting out a strange combination of words and sounds, most
neither English nor French. From moment to moment, she sounded like
she was about to cry or laugh or scream again.

“It’s coming back, it’s coming back!” she told Danielle. “No, it
can’t— No!”
Tamani fanned her face with the papers in her hand, then she
froze and stared at the wall as if she were looking through it.
“Ahahaha!” she laughed. “No, no!”
“Tamani?” Danielle said. “Tamani, do you need to sit down? Can we
get some water? Art, can we get some water?”
Danielle guided Tamani to an office chair and Art emerged from
the building’s restroom with a coffee mug full of water and covered
with coffee stains. He handed it to Danielle, who inspected it and
handed it back. “Do you have anything to drink that’s uh, prepackaged?” Danielle asked.
“I’ve got some beer in the fridge,” Art said.
“Perfect,” Danielle said. “Bring two.”
Tamani, still holding the sheets of paper, put her hands up to
her head as if she were suffering a severe migraine. “No,” she said,
squinting at the ceiling. “No.”
Danielle touched Tamani’s shoulder, and Tamani put her hand over
it and started rocking, humming manically to herself.
Art handed two open bottles of beer to Danielle and took a sip
from a third.
“Want one?” he asked Arrowroot.
Arrowroot shook his head.
“Hey, I’m really sorry,” he said. “I printed a couple of pages
out and she said she wanted to see them, so I handed them over. She
took one look and started screaming.”
“Tamani?” Danielle asked. “Tamani, do you want to talk about it?”
Tamani was still rocking and humming, but more calmly, and with
Danielle’s words she stopped moving, took a deep breath and sat up.
“Okay,” she said, and she looked up at Danielle, and then at Art
and Arrowroot. “Okay, I’m sorry. I can do this. I can do this.”
“Can I see what you read?” Danielle asked. “Can I see it?”
Tamani handed the paper to Danielle, who took a quick glance. “I
can’t read this,” she said. “Is this another language?”
“Yes,” said Tamani, and she leaned over and hugged her legs.
“What language?” Danielle asked.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Tamani replied. “The language of
the survey.”
“Have you remembered what the survey is?” Danielle asked.
“Yes, yes!” Tamani cried, and she sat up and squinted at the
ceiling again. “It’s from— it’s from another world. We’re from another
world. Not from earth. We were sent here to find you. To meet you.”
Danielle looked sheepishly at Art and Arrowroot, her indulgent
expression saying she’d heard this from Tamani before and none of it
was true. “Okay, Tamani, okay, I hear what you’re saying,” she said.
“Do you want some beer?”
Tamani accepted the bottle, tilted it, looked in, stuck her
finger in, pulled it out and put it in her mouth.
She looked at the papers in Danielle’s hand and grimaced. “Oh,”
she said, as if suffering an excruciating bellyache. “I ate from the
machines. The machines ate us and then we ate from the machines. We
ate second to die and third to die. We ate Havi and Sose. The machines
gave us the food made from them.”
“Tamani,” Danielle said, correcting herself with a wary glance at
Art. “Adele, Adele what machines?”
“Let me see, let me see,” Tamani replied, grabbing the papers
from Danielle’s hand. She smoothed them on her leg and began reading
haltingly as she translated:
“Drune entered first, wielding the light high over his head, the
rest of us close behind,” she read. The effort of reading and
translating seemed to distract her, and her voice was decreasingly
agitated. “A lone meal tractor, clinging to the wall above our heads,
slowly picked its way toward the other end of the barn. We could not
see Sose, but we could hear him.”
“Who was Drune?” Danielle asked gently.
“He was one of the surveyors,” Tamani replied.
“What is a surveyor?” Danielle asked.
“Those of us who were sent to earth,” Tamani replied.
“You mean, sent to Fort Shergawa?” Danielle queried.
“Yes, we landed at Fort Shergawa,” Tamani said.
“What were you flying in?” Danielle asked.
“We didn’t fly,” Tamani replied, and the shadow of a smile
flashed briefly across her face. “We dropped.”
“Your plane crashed?” Danielle persisted, and she looked at
Arrowroot. If an aircraft had gone down at the fort, he might know
about it. He shook his head.
“Did your plane crash?” Danielle asked.
“It wasn’t a plane,” said Tamani.
“What was it?” Danielle continued.
“It was shaped like a can, but big enough to hold all of us,”
Tamani recalled.
“How many surveyors were there?” Danielle asked.
“Oh,” Tamani said, and she started rocking. She picked up her
beer and tasted it with her finger again, and then she set it down and
used both her hands to count. As she stuck each finger up, she said
something under her breath.
She put up all 10 fingers, closed her hands, then counted out
three more. “Thirteen,” she said. “I and 12 others.”
“Where are they all?” Danielle persisted.
“Two died before we fell to earth,” Tamani said, and her brow
furrowed with anxiety. “They couldn’t stand the pain of being human.
They terminated and we disposed of them. Above your planet.”
“In outer space, you mean?” Arrowroot asked.
“Yes,” Tamani said.
“Okay, okay,” Danielle said, glaring briefly at her father. “What
about the others?”
“Two died when we hit the earth,” she said.
“So that leaves nine people,” Danielle said. “You and eight
others.” She turned to Arrowroot. “How many were found at the
Carlisle’s?”
“Four,” Arrowroot said. “Four plus Robert. Only four.”
“So that leaves you and three others,” Danielle said. “Do you
know where the other three are? Maybe they can help you.”
“All dead,” Tamani said, and her voice and expression were
suddenly flat. “I know they’re dead. I don’t know how they died. I
don’t want to talk about that. I can’t remember.”
“What about Mr. Smiley?” Arrowroot asked. “Was he with you?”
“You mean the man they arrested at the house?” Tamani asked.
“Yes,” said Arrowroot. “I don’t think his name is really Mr.
Smiley, but that’s what I called him and everyone else started doin’
it too. But maybe he was out there with you, under a different name?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Tamani replied. “I don’t know about him.”
“You said something about meal tractors,” Arrowroot said. “What
are those?”
“They’re the machines that eat,” Tamani said. “They gathered food
for us. But something went wrong. They thought we were food.”
“Is that what you were reading about on these pages?” Danielle
asked.
“Yes, it describes what happened to Sose,” Tamani replied, her
voice rising with anxiety.
“Can you tell us where the crystal came from?” Danielle asked.
“Who wrote all this?”
“I’m not sure,” said Tamani. “I don’t remember.” She put her hand
up to her head, made a pinching motion and pulled her hand away. “The
words in the crystal came from my head. I’m not sure how.”
“Can you read any more?” Danielle asked.
Tamani took a deep breath and looked down at the papers on her
thigh.
“Sose’s voice was coming from the loft,” Tamani read. “Another
scream echoed against the walls of the barn. ‘Naah!’ he cried. ‘Na,
na, aieeeya!’ Then Sose grunted, as if lifting something heavy, and a
meal tractor slid from the edge of the loft, arcing down to the floor
below, where it landed with a clatter at our feet.
“Drune held the light close and Jundy screamed. One of the
machine’s claws held two fingers, joined with a small piece of flesh.
The tractor drew the flesh to its intake and began to tear it apart.
Within seconds, as the tractor quietly scissored through the skin of
Sose’s fingers, I gained a new understating of everything, of you, and
us and why Sose was screaming.
“We had been eating ourselves, because we had become you, and
because you do this.”
Tamani stopped reading and looked up at Danielle, her eyes wet,
makeup running down her cheeks, her face twisted in anguish.
“Do you need to stop?” Danielle asked.
“No, I need to know,” Tamani replied, and she turned to Art.
“That’s the end of these pages. Can I have more?”
Art looked nervously at Danielle and Arrowroot. Danielle nodded
to him and he turned to his computer. “Should have them in a few
minutes,” he said.
Danielle’s phone rang. “It’s Guillaume, probably for you,” she
said to Tamani. “Can you talk to him?” Tamani nodded and Danielle
answered. “Hello? Hi, Gee, yeah, she’s right here.”
Danielle handed the phone to Tamani, who spoke in terse, quiet
French for a minute or two. She seemed to be arguing or complaining,
but about what Arrowroot couldn’t tell.
Then Arrowroot’s phone rang. Another local number he didn’t
recognize. “Let me take this outside,” he said, and he stepped into
the dark parking lot and looked for a moment as the lights of Highway
6 played out in the night. Headlights gliding back and forth, traffic
signals flashing red, yellow and green, and the beacons of a dozen
businesses in a rainbow of hues. Two blocks away, a train moved
slowly, majestically along the tracks that ran parallel to the
highway. This road was not as ugly after dark, he decided.
“Hello?” he answered.
“Mr. Arrowroot,” said a woman’s voice.
“Karl Arrowroot,” he said.
“This is Cecilia Mixson. I hope you can do me a favor.”
“Oh, Ms. Mixson?” Arrowroot asked. “You mean the attorney who
almost sued me at the county jail this afternoon?”
“No,” she answered coldly.
“You mean, Nebuchadnezzar Smiley’s attorney?” Arrowroot
continued.
“Yes,” Mixson replied.
“The lawyer for that poor little fellow at the jail who can’t
speak a word of English?” Arrowroot asked. “The one I’m never supposed
to talk to?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Mixson said, and there was a hint of
embarrassment in her voice, and Arrowroot suddenly felt sorry for her.
“Okay,” Arrowroot said, “just wanted to make sure I was talking
to the right Cecilia Mixson. So what can I do for you?”
“I need you to send an email to yourself, as soon as possible,”
Mixson said. “Can you do that for me?”
Arrowroot laughed. “Sure I can,” he said. “More ones and zeroes?”
“No,” she answered. “Can you take this down?”
“Shoot,” Arrowroot said, drawing out a pen and flattening a scrap
of paper on the hood of his truck.
“Dollar sign, the letter n, lowercase, the number eight,” Mixson
began, reading off a dozen characters as Arrowroot scribbled.
“No spaces,” she added. “Can you send that tonight?”
“Well, I’m tied up at the moment,” Arrowroot said. “But I’ll try
to get to it before I go to bed.”
“Thank you,” Mixson said.
“Glad to help out,” Arrowroot said. “Now, mind if I make an
observation?”
“No, go ahead,” Mixson said.
“There’s more here,” Arrowroot said. “There’s more to that fellow
than you know, or me or anyone else. He’s—”
“He’s a victim,” she interrupted. “He needs our help, and I’m
providing—“
“No, I’m not sure that’s entirely true,” Arrowroot countered.
“I’m not gonna mess with your legal case or whatever, have no interest
in that, never did, I’m just offering a suggestion. There’s more here.
There’s more here.”
“Very good,” Mixson replied.
Arrowroot hung up and went back inside.
Tamani was smelling her beer as Danielle hovered over her and Art
fiddled with his computer.
“Here it comes,” he said, pulling two more sheets off his
printer.
Tamani grabbed them.
“Hey, before you start,” Art said, retrieving his phone, “you
mind if I record this? Just a sound recording?”
“What for?” Danielle demanded.
“Or you record it,” Art replied, and he leaned back in his chair,
grabbed his hair with both hands and pushed it off his shoulders. “But
someone needs to. I mean, is this stuff real? Is this what happened?
Is it a book? Okay, none of my business or whatever, but c’mon, if we
record it, maybe we can get a translation done.”
“Can you keep where it came from secret?” Danielle asked. “Go
ahead, but can you keep that part secret?”
“Yeah, no problem,” Art said, and he smiled at Arrowroot. “I know
all kinds of things about fleas I’ve kept to myself. Mostly.”
Tamani started reading:

“Sose!” Hengi cried, his voice shaking with fear and impatience.
We heard Sose stirring and we looked as one to the loft.
“Aughh,” he groaned from beyond the reach of Drune’s light.
“Sose!” Hengi demanded again.
After a moment of stillness, we heard more movement, and I gasped

as a bloody hand appeared, all but one finger gone. A second hand, two
fingers missing, appeared beside the first and joined it to grip the
edge of the loft. Sose dragged his body forward until the top of his
head appeared. Then he looked at us, showing us his face, or what was
left of it.

One eye was gone and the other was hidden behind a red and
swollen lid. Blood had been pouring from both places, some dried
black, the fresher blood glistening in his beard, matting his hair in
long strings around his ears.

He lowered his head and groaned, and a tractor appeared beside
him. Forgetting all I had just learned, I thought it was there to
answer his summons, to feed or comfort him, but its claws were raised
toward him, wide open.

Jundy screamed and Sose lifted his head, exposing his ruined face
to the tractor. I looked away, but during the next of Sose’s deafening
screams, this strange new mind forced me to see as well as if I had
kept looking.

When Sose went quiet, I looked up again, seeing the top of his
head. He was on his back, his face pointed up, one arm flailing
mindlessly.

The first tractor had been joined by a second, and together they
pounced on Sose as one, ripping through his clothing, picking him
apart, cutting deep. From somewhere in his chest, pulsing blood shot
in an arc over one of the machines, and he breathed out one last time,
almost as if he were laughing, “Ahahhahh.”