Shadows of the Desert Read online

  I

  A right-handed man who has lost his dominant arm can learn to live. He will perhaps acquire a prosthetic limb and learn to be dominant with his left. Even those struck blind or deaf learn to adapt after a lifetime of having had sight or hearing. However, what of a man who loses the people he needs? Heartbreaks heal given a proper interval; everyone knows this as anyone who has lived has suffered at least one. There are things which happen though that are beyond simple heartbreak, trauma that causes the permanent destruction of the heart’s chambers. Traumatic events such as these are more crippling than the loss of a limb. Things like this never heal properly and a person is left, not simply changed but destroyed.

  It would seem some people are put on this planet simply to absorb pain and suffering. The Bible’s Job was one such man; a human pushed to his limits without any initial clear reason he could see. Job, though, had the luxury of knowing there was a God, his faith was therefore unchallenged; humans today are not allowed this comfort. So, what then can become of the man strong enough not to kill himself or to simply allow himself to die but is utterly crippled? What of the man who is but a shadow of his former self? How does he maintain his sanity, if it is possible?

  What found Jason Augustine in the desert was beyond his capacity to estimate. He would have been ill equipped to deal with it under the best of circumstances. Seeing as things were a damn site from their best, he was left with little faculty to cope. On most days, Jason would have welcomed the presence of something so capable of killing him, but he was feeling obstinate, what with the snakebite and heat exhaustion and all.

  One gallon of drinking water per person per day, he remembered. This was how much water his wife and he would take when they used to go camping in the unforgiving and nearly alien landscape around Picacho. Lots of water and ice in large coolers they would put in the shade next to campsites on the river. Jason was finding even as he approached his death, his mind circled back to his wife. She had been the center for him as long as he had known her, for as long as they had shared a life together. Now though, he was tortured by her memory, even eight years after her passing. He laid in the dirt where he had come with his family years before, so they could enjoy themselves, now though all that remained, was death.

  Obstinate or not Jason realized his chances were bleak. He rolled over from his side, onto his back and made a weak attempt to wipe away the dirt and little pieces of rock stuck to his face. If the thing hunting him did not kill him, the desert stood next in line to take his life. A part of him welcomed death, at least he would have his Deanna back, if there was an afterlife, if not then he would be granted the peace of death, the mute cradle of a black, oily abyss.

  Jason grinned at his wife and felt his heart racing as a rush came over him, he was unfamiliar with.

  “I said I’m pregnant, stupid oaf.” Deanna had reaffirmed.

  Jason remembered that day with crystal clarity and considered it the crowning moment of their joy together. She had wanted to be a mother more than anything else. As far as Jason had come to understand it, she had wanted to be a mother long before she was physically capable of doing so.

  “Yeah, I heard you, you little pissant. I’m just having a hard time imagining my 5’7” ballerina with a potbelly, that’s all.” Jason responded.

  The memory of her face then was imbedded on Jason’s mind and personality in a way intrinsic, systemic to his being. It was more than a memory; it was like a living photo that if taken from him, would have made him less of a man. Her long, sable hair seemed to shine so brightly, and her perfect olive toned lips were stretched wide in a smile, along even rows of perfect, ivory teeth. If he tried hard enough, he could almost smell the sweet scent of her shampoo and perfume as it blended with her natural scent, the way it would make him close his eyes and feel somehow lighter, as though he was about to drift off to somewhere grand, exciting and easy.

  Deanna reached out and gave Jason a playful smack on the arm as she laughed through tears of joy. Jason held her tight for a moment and privately wondered if he was ready to be a father. What he was certain of, was he would do anything for her, and this was what she wanted. So, he shared in her joy, and ready or not, she was pregnant, their baby on the way. He found that he too was leaking a few tears as he held her and began kissing her neck. He ran his fingers through her hair and heard her breathe heavily in response to his advances.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “What do you think I’m doing? I believe a little celebration is in order and what more fitting way to celebrate a pregnancy than with the very act that caused conception?” Jason answered.

  She had grinned broadly as he continued to kiss and gently bite her neck and run his fingers through her hair more forcefully. They had been in the living room and she whispered in his ear, suggestively, that they should retire to the bedroom. Jason followed her to the bedroom as she disrobed along the way and was struck with another ornery impulse.

  “What position do you suppose I knocked you up in?”, he teased.

  The pregnancy itself did not always quite hold the joy of that day, however. It was rough on Deanna in a lot of ways and she was rough on Jason at times. Despite her otherwise admirable character and stoic chin for adversity, she would at times snap at Jason or be unreasonably demanding of him. What kept things from blowing up frequently was the secret fact that Jason was, in a way, terrified of his wife. He was more terrified of how he felt when she was upset; particularly if it was with him, and this kept his temper well at bay when coupled with the knowledge that she was in a state which loaned itself to hormonal unpredictability, and he was wise enough never to utter that final sentiment aloud.

  Through Deanna’s tirades, terrible morning sickness and her dark skin always being clammy, there was the knowledge of the eventual pay off. She found peace when Jason would place his hand over her belly or rest his head there. At the end, the trouble was well worth it for the two of them when she gave birth to Ashley Sarah Augustine. She was a child conceived of a love true, innocent and dedicated.

  As much as Jason hated it, and hated himself for it, he looked back and supposed in some sick sort of a way the events in his life with Deanna had led him straight to the dessert where he lay dying.

  Looking back on things, Jason supposed that it had been too good for reality. Who really lives the American dream anymore anyway? A house in a town like the one they lived in, small and rural yet nearby to the thriving city and jobs. A beautiful and loving wife and a healthy and intelligent child. A career he did not hate with stability and good pay.

  To whom much is given much is expected. Jason knew he had been given a lot and he had worked his ass off for a lot. There were times over the years Jason wondered if he had not done enough with himself and maybe that’s why things turned black the way they did. There had to be some explanation, someone to blame for the cosmic impossibility and cruelty of it all.

  Perhaps God had seen fit in His infinite wisdom to punish Jason for his shortcomings. That would have made things easier if it were the case. It would make his current nightmare easier to accept and he would not be so damn stubborn and angry about it all. He would just accept what was happening and what had happened if somehow, he could know he was entirely to blame, and that God was punishing him.

  The mid-day heat in California’s, Imperial County is harsh and unforgiving, not a place to be searching for reasons and logic when in the situation Jason was in, nonetheless it was the direction his mind was taking. In the logic of the numbers he worked with, he found a certain degree of solace, things fit and made sense in a quite simple way. In the desert though, nothing added up. He had gone to desert areas in the Imperial Valley such as Ocotillo Well
s, the Salton Sea, and even to Picacho, where he was now, with his wife and family for years before, and the times there had always been times of joy. Now some thing was hunting him and tormenting him out here where he was hopelessly lost and doomed to a certain and horrible death.

  The ground temperature in Picacho during the day is vicious, somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred-fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Jason had been having trouble walking and the heat of the day only made things worse. He was constantly nauseous, his vision blurred, he ran a high fever and was weak as a limp rag. He tried to find and fashion some shade near an outcropping of rock; it was little help though with the ground burning him like a stovetop.

  Jason had been a man of tremendously good physical shape before his recent nightmares. He had weighed around two hundred twenty pounds, and on his 5’11” frame he had been sure that it stayed pure muscle as he worked out with weights six days a week. Jason had also run religiously and had a strong heart and lungs. Regardless of his strength, Jason was forty years old and his body had suffered a great deal of abuse, daytime travel was simply not possible.

  He would wait for nightfall, but he suspected that was when it would be coming back, looking for him. Jason had first encountered the abomination a few hours after the goddamn rattlesnake had struck him. Somehow this evil thing knew Jason was weakened, and it knew other things too. Thus far, though, all it had said was ‘lemon drop’.

  Jason licked his cracked lips with a dry tongue as he lay on his back in the smoldering sand. He cringed as a strong wave of nausea washed through him. He wanted to cry but it would not happen now; he was not even sweating much anymore. He was trying to suck on one of the bloody cracks in his lip, but it was just teasing him, the sweet taste of anything wet, even blood, was tantalizing beyond any desire he could remember before.

  His tongue was swollen as he moved it around in his mouth, trying to get some spit in there. He realized if he did not get water very soon, he would not survive another twenty-four hours. The trouble was, he was lost, and nobody knew it. Not to mention the fact he had little energy to spare on walking aimlessly around in a desert which stretched on as far as he could see all around him, and oh yes, it was out there as well.

  Jason and Deanna had been a perfect match from the start. It had literally been love at first sight and never wavered throughout the duration of their marriage. In some ways it was beginning to make sense to Jason, in his exhausted mind, that things had turned so black. Deanna had been his angel and now the thing out there would be his devil. His life had been perfect, it became the perfect nightmare. Jason supposed that all things required balance, and this was apparently another miserable apparatus and situation acting to equalize in his life.

  This was of course a ridiculous train of thought falling plenty short of explaining his situation, his life and certainly what had happened to his wife. It was a self-absorbed and self-pitying line of thinking that, if continued, would do nothing but kill him slowly in the sands of Picacho. Jason understood he was getting angry and coming down on himself for reminiscing, he knew this was shaming himself. Shame also kills when lost in the desert without water. The only thing he could do to keep himself alive was to think, and to act, within the capacity he was still capable of toward the sole end of survival.

  Nonetheless, he was lying there thinking of her, thinking of times past and never to return. He thought of the first time they met, when he first looked into her eyes. They had been so young, and life had held so much possibility for the two of them. What they could not know was the very warped reality life was storing for them both.

  Jason had met her at a high school NJROTC military ball during their freshman year. The chemistry which linked them and drew them to one another was awkward. It was so awkward that while the two of them had made it a point to be dancing with one another the entire night, they failed to get each other’s names. Through the years that had been a source of mild amusement when the two would look back on the night they had met.

  At the tender age of fifteen the rules for such engagements were not blatantly clear. Jason had been forced to track Deanna down through friends of hers who had taken her to the dance which had been exclusively for the members of the Orange Glen High School Naval Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps and their guests. Deanna had no interest in joining the military, so she was not enrolled in NJROTC, though some of her friends had been. Jason had always believed it was serendipitous, being as there would have been no other circumstances under which they would have been able to meet.

  Jason swelled with anger as his mind raced ahead in time and he thought of what befell his wife. Most everything else in their lives had been so right when she was so brutally snatched from him. That part would never be right for Jason, he supposed he would die still harboring that rage.

  Jason was on his back; he kept his eyes shut as he breathed heavily in the heat of the late afternoon. The roof of his mouth felt as though it had been scratched raw as he sucked in air. His nasal passages were also dry, cracked and swollen and it hurt too much to try and breath through his nose at all. His chest labored heavily as air passed through the leathery pocket that was now his mouth. He was now also suffering from a tremendous headache and his whole world was spinning with his eyes shut. He had never had a migraine before but imagined he was heading into one now. Deanna had used to get them with frequency, and she likened them to a vicious thunderstorm. Lightning would flash in her head; every noise was a thunderclap and the overwhelming pain that would sometimes make her throw up came in gusts.

  He had wanted to sleep all day, but sleep would not come. Between the pain in his right leg and his dried-out mouth and throat, he could not even think straight. In fact, the one thing which had dominated his mind besides his past and his shame was thirst. There was only one hope for his need for water at that point and he desperately needed it to have worked. Jason had learned some advice years ago he hoped would save his life now. Much of what he learned had been ignored on this trip and thus his predicament at present. He did have on him the means for creating fire, that habit simply would never die. He would soon be finding out if he had succeeded in using what he had to acquire water.

  The desert is a trickster and Jason had never been so acutely aware of it as he was now. The desert has a great deal more water than she lets on about, the trick is getting her to share any of it with you, and Jason had been told of a method to coax it from her. It involved plastic, five stones and a tin can. One of the only strokes of luck Jason had since he had left his campsite was finding a goddamn aluminum can. Shortly after having been struck by the rattler Jason realized he was lost, quickly thereafter he ran out of water in his one-liter bottle. He had decided not to do a great deal of traveling, as he now had venom running through his body. He knew he was in some deep trouble and steeled himself to calm and think, above all else he would need to think to survive.

  Thinking was something that he could not seem to stop doing at this point. The trouble was that it was all the wrong kind of thinking. He was lying there thinking about his past and was feeling sorry for himself. All the while he was doing this, he hurtled toward a painful death. He needed to start to focus on how the hell he was going to get out of this nightmare without dying. The odds were stacked heavily against him and time was never on his side. To add to it all, he had the nuisance of some sort of stalker. This aspect of things might require a brand of thinking Jason had never needed to use, a type of combat mentality.

  He began to sort through how this had all begun, perhaps therein was a key to whatever this thing was and what it wanted. The only points of reference Jason had for any of this were prior experiences in the desert, none of which had been remotely this extreme. He was not a highly experienced outdoorsman, was not a soldier and sure as hell had never encountered a psychopathic ghost, apparition, hallucination or whatever this thing was. He would have to find a conclusion within what had taken place in the last thirty or so hours.

 
Jason sat up and opened his eyes, he resolved he would need to get on the move. He would go to where he had buried both the plastic bottle, he had cut the top off, and the can he had found. The theory was simple; you take a can or receptacle of any sort and you dig a hole deep enough to place the can in with a few inches over top. You then take plastic and cover the hole placing a stone on each corner of the plastic and one in the middle to cause it to droop over the can or receptacle. Water will condense on the plastic and drip down into the container; it was said that you could get a liter in a night from a single hole, though he wasn’t certain that specific metric would apply to the miserly Sonoran Desert landscape.

  Jason had started the holes for the water the prior night and used more than just one stone on each of the corners of the plastic, due to the possibility of high winds which were almost nightly in the desert in mid-August. Any stones which may have been heavy enough to have weighed down the plastic from four corners probably would have allowed the wind to tear the plastic and render it useless. He lined the plastic on both holes, which he spaced apart by about ten feet, with smaller rocks which did not let the wind lift the plastic at all. The plastic had come from a sandwich he had brought with him for his hike and a small baggy to dispose of toilet paper with. He knew that he was going to be out for a while and would probably get hungry. He had ended up hiking much farther than he had meant to out of anger and frustration, he recklessly did not care how far he went, nor did he navigate in any manner. He had stopped to eat most of the sandwich and drink some water for a while before continuing.

  What remained of the sandwich and the water were placed back into a small backpack he wore, and he pressed on. He found the can he used for water laying on the ground about ten minutes before he encountered the rattler. Where he had seen the can was far from any camping area, but the desert has a way of carrying things a great distance. It had been a can for beef stew as Jason learned later when he returned to collect the can, no doubt the wind had one night caught some campers trash and deposited it in multiple locations over a few months. At least the appearance of the can had suggested it had been exposed to heat, sunlight, sand and wind for months. Jason had considered picking up the can as he passed it, simply because he hated to see the desert littered. He had decided against picking it up at the time contending that if it remained when he passed by it again, he would pick it up. The wind during the day had been mercifully low and so it had not gone anywhere. Finding it again though had proved to be a challenge of uniquely frustrating quality as all bushes and rocks can look alike when you are attempting to find an item, and your way. He had been stomping along in the desert trying not to think about much of anything at all. He was trying in some way to get figuratively lost, which is why he had come to the desert and gone on his ill-fated and poorly thought out hike in the first place. The attempt at trying not to think about anything was failing so he simply kept walking. The desert though, found him wondering too far from where he belonged and put a brutal halt to his meandering, it also gave him something entirely new to occupy his mind.