All Red

Fictional short story Written circa 1971

"Ben-come here a minute-bring your coat."

He'd gone to the kitchen, gripping his long coat of leather he used for the rain. 

His mother's arms had been crossed, her eyes at the walls seeming to see through them. 

"Mrs. Wurr called."

"Yeah?"

"She can't get back to home this noon, and wants us to let her husband know. He'll be fretting otherwise. The car broke down, and she'll be at her sister's while she waits for the car to get fixed. That fog's been so thick." 

"Okay." He'd pulled his coat on, and had gone to the back door. 

"It's too bad the Wurrs don't have a phone. Ben, you get home by dinner." 

"G'bye." He went out of the door and bent to the uprushing fur. "No, not this time, Rex." He led the fur dog to the small house, snapped the chain link into the collar. He ruffled the thick hair with his hand, then put his face in it. 

"Lay, boy, lay, Rex." 

No, not this time. 

The fog had hidden the world of sight, had pronounced the world of sound for Ben. It would cover his hand when he stretched it out, and, but for the blacktop at his feet, made the world nonexistent. He could hear the grasshoppers chirping, the frogs croaking. 

Fog, several hours old, fog...

Ben talked, his mouth not moving. 

Come on, Ben, buck up, it's just a trip to the Wurrs. You haven't been to the house for a couple of years, but have been seeing the Wurrs off and on. Mr. Wurr should be glad to see you. He's a keen old man, really. You even like him, you know. You even go fishing once in a while to meet and talk to him down at the river. Come on, Ben, then why do the rocks beneath seem so brittle, and why does it feel as if you're in a ghost's heart? 

Ben passed the ghost that had taken off its gossamer garments as he had come closer. It, a shell on a post - it, an open mailbox, the name B. Wurr on it. The rocks were crinkling under him, his hands were jammed in his pockets, his cheeks felt damp. 

Fog, several hours old, fog.....

He had been at the door of the house, which a few minutes ago, had suddenly turned from a dim outline to a sharp focused picture. His back had been to the aged pine tree, that looked like an oddly contorted gray mushroom. The pine was said to be the oldest in the county. 

The door had opened. 

"Mr. Wurr-your wife called."

"London's dead." 

"Your car broke down. She'll be spending the day at her sister's while it gets fixed." 

"London's dead." 

"She'll be back as soon as she can."

"London is dead, boy." 

The boy had looked up to the face, and had seen the collar of Mr. Wurr's plaid coat pulled up around the long neck. There was also a cap, and its brim came down, leaving a few tufts of white strands to the sides. 

"Come in." 

The screen door had swung open, the boy had entered the kitchen, seeing the peeling white table, the pot belly stove, the basket near the stove. 

"Here---

Looking into the basket, the boy had seen the dog that lay there, the pale nose without any hair, the gray hairs scattered all through the chestnut coat. 

"There, boy, there." At the chest, the bright specks of crimson had stiffened the hairs that weren't rising. 

"It fell on him, boy, from the tree, it fell on him, and its weight, and the scare, gave his heart out, as he was biting it. That's its blood. Are you coming?"

Ben walked close to the old man beside him, gripping tight the handle of the hand sickle. Mr. Wurr had a hoe, Mr. Wurr's breath was like a wheezing cat's. 

"Do you know where we're at?"

"No, boy, I don't."

"Mr. Wurr, you'd like to get it now?"

"Yes, now." 

"It slid away then, before you could do anything?"

"Yes, boy."

Now there was a rustle in front of them. It reminded Ben of a large crow he'd seen once coming out of a bush. 

"It's him, it's Dragon, the snake." The old man was saying. 

"Are you sure?"

"Of-

Then there was something grasping their ankles, grasping their calves. 

"It's Dragon!"

The hoe was thrashing, the sickle swishing, as they hit at the movements below them. And then Ben felt some of the constrictions getting away. Then one of the old man's flailing arms swung out to take a side jab, and the handle hit ben in the chest. He fell, falling to the ground. He saw the leaves that the fog had not allowed him to see before. And he saw Dragon, the long snake, slithering on the ground, brushing past him. The last of its tail hit his hand. 

He propped up on his palms. He could see the legs clearly and the hoe kept vanishing as it rose and descended from the hazy Mr. Wurr above him. 

"Mr. Wurr--he's gone." 

"What?" The hoe descended again sending some dirt up. The blade stayed in the earth. 

"He's gone. The snake's gone."

The old man jerked Ben to his feet, his hand feeling like a vise. They examined their blades. Both had a wet substance upon them. 

"We're getting him. We're getting him." The old man started away and Ben started away too, his feet after the old man, his mind at the river somewhere in the fog. 

The boy had almost had it that time. The snake Dragon had brushed him, and the old man had almost chopped off his foot. It had even been a closer call than that time at the river, when the two boys were swimming. 

They had just gotten out, and were approaching the pile of trousers and shirts. Then they had seen the long snake sliding out of the brush, sliding over their clothes. And the one boy had thought the snake was dying, because it should have noticed something different about the clothes and the ground. The other boy had thought the snake was old and that its age had allowed it to know they wouldn't attack it, it a twenty foot dragon without wings, flames, or claws. 

Then the dog London was there. The snake had risen its head, the dog a paw. The one boy ran, jumped over the snake. He had grabbed onto London's jowls, hitting the dog to the ground, wrestling with the thrashing legs. The boy's eyes had been on the snake and he had been scared, when the head lowered, moving towards them. But then, then, it slid off into the woods. 

The wind, in the trees that could not be seen, sounded like a giant reptile's breath. The hoe in Mr. Wurr's hand was close to his face, and seemed to glisten like the wet scales of a snake. Mr. Wurr's tufts of hair were sticking even further out. His glasses were not on his nose, his eyes seemed enlarged, holding the glow of a moon in them. 

Ben came to a jerking halt, and he grabbed a hold of the hoe. "There he is--look." Dragon, a giant roll, black, always circling in towards the center. It lay on the incline they were pushing up, level with their noses. 

"He's curled-- the old man began. "Now--

The old man stepped forward, then the hoe hit the creature. The body spread out like the rings from a pool hit by a stone. And then a piece of snake was twisting about on the ground. Another piece of snake was severed, and now the head was flying into the fog. The old man kept chopping, kept hewing piece from piece. Ben, sickle still hanging from his side, grabbed at the man, his arm being thrown back and forward for a while. "He's dead! He's dead!"

The jerking stopped. "Dead--are you--

"Look."

The man's head went down and his voice came from the ground. "Boy, we just killed a moccasin. A ten footer. It isn't Dragon."'

"A moccasin?"

"Yes, come on, we're going to get him." Now Ben's arm was being jerked at again by the vise. "We're going to get it, get it."

The boy was an idiot. He had thought a moccasin was a blue racer, and had mistaken a ten footer for a twenty footer. The boy was an idiot. He had let Mr. Wurr chop and chop and chop. He had let Mr. Wurr chop and chop, and had, that other time, let Mr. Wurr get the fish too. 

The boy's line had just gone in the river and the old man had come out from the trees. 

"How do you do, boy?"

"H'lo." To the pair of blue eyes behind the glasses, to the white mustache. 

"Live near here?"

Uh huh, down the river, and across the road, just moved in." 

"I don't live so far from you then. Mind if I join you?"

"Please do." The boy and the man leaned against a tree. 

"Woods used to be so large. My day, you could spend a whole day, wandering, and not emerge to another side." 

The picture of the vanished woods had clouted the boy like a falling branch. He hadn't looked out to the water. 

"There was all kinds of wildlife too-deer, beaver. The pumas were gone by then, but I was lucky to see a few bear." 

Puma and bear, cat of the mountain, beast of the woods.

"You've got a catch, may I?"

"Sure."

And when the old man had gotten the fish in close enough, the boy could see it was a large one. The underside kept jumping in and out, in spasms, in the shallow water. 

"He's most dead." The boy had said. "Why don't you pull him in?"

The old man had not answered the boy. The old man had taken up a heavy branch, and had stepped into the river's edge. And he had clubbed the fish. Not once, but many times. 

Something was nudging Ben's shoulder, and he found the hoe was prodding him. The old man without the glasses beside him was saying, "We've got him now, I hear him rustling. You move over that way, I'll go this way."

Ben moved, his mind on the swimming afternoon, on the old man whose veins must be singing London, London. And then the rustles were there, and Ben flashed out with the sickle. Then he was closing in, seeing the fluttering leaf he had speared. 

"Mr. Wurr- he said, turning. All he could see was fog. "Mr. Wurr, Mr. Wurr." The wind was still breathing like a giant reptile. 

"Mr. Wurr." Ben took a step. He could only hear the croaking frogs. 

The pumas were gone by then, but there were a few bear. 

"Mr. Wurr!" He slashed his sickle out as his neck was tickled. 'It fell,' he said, 'it fell on him.' The fingers of the wet leaves clawed at his neck as his blade slid through a branch. 

"Mr. Wurr! Mr. Wurr!"

The snake was somewhere in the woods, in the fog, and it was sliding. The snake, if it came to a rock, would continue to slide, and to slither, moving upwards. At one point, it might rise its head and upper portion of its body. Then it would continue to slide up the rock. 

Mr. Wurr, wheezing like a coughing cat at the left someplace, would be putting indentations in the earth with the hoe. The old man was murmuring London. And wielding his hoe, the old man was moving up a hill. 

The pine tree had several clusters of branches and needles and the uppermost one was shaped like a pair of lips. The wind, blowing in it, probably had it smiling, the smile a gargoyle's. The fog was in on the needles, and still the old pine would be smiling like a man who has found himself, with a dagger, closest to the thing his enemy most loves. 

The boy was walking away from the hill. The boy was walking away from the old man. The boy was-- Ben screamed, when his foot hit the air. Then he felt the water closing in over his head. Still clenching the hand sickle, he splashed back to the surface. He groped, found a hard substance, and pulled himself out. He felt, found leaf shapes. 

The boy didn't even know which side he was on now. He could see the weeds and the bushes and the trees that were closest, but he couldn't see anything else. He knew he shouldn't have gone with Mr. Wurr. But he had loved London too. Then he had seen that hair with the red on it. He thought, we must all be red, seeing red like that, and only seeing red in our minds. 

The boy's mother would be fussing, but the boy only saw London, at the top of the hill, standing, not barking, not wagging tail, as the boy made the ascent with the empty can and the empty basket. London, at the river, laying at the side, not wagging, not barking at jumping fish, downing black eyes looking out at the water with better wisdom, then the boy's or the old man's. And the snake had slid over the boys' clothes, and they were scared. And the boy and the boy, had felt odd, when they were getting dressed, putting on snake skin. 

The old man was heaving, and continuing up a hill. The long snake Dragon was sliding someplace, circling, going on. Every once in a while, it would lift its head and body again, as if trying to fly, like a dragon. And the old man was invisible, and the snake, with its flickering tongue, was invisible too. And the old fog continued to be old, and get old, and lay still where it was. And the pine tree in the fog continued to smile like a gargoyle. 

Ben started up the hill, up through the fog. 

Ben, having, and panting, swung out the sickle before him, and found that he was no longer hitting branches, twigs, but space. He moved forward several more feet, and he looked and saw the pine tree's outline. He moved even further. And now he could only see the lower portion of the tree, it fading into a ghost as it went further up. The smiling lips were gaping open, gaping like the ghost at the end of the driveway had, the shell on the post, the one end yawning down. 

Ben took a step back. "No--wait--

The tree was a tower, the tree was a lighthouse. The boy remembered walking up the driveway, an empty basket and container in his hands, seeing nothing but the pine. It, a pine tree, looming in the wind. The boy had even looked back at it at the door, asking for eggs and milk. 

The noise was there, and Ben wasn't a boy. The noise was the crack of a branch.

He took another step back. "No" more hoarsely. He swung back the sickle and the blade made an oddly shaped, discolored halo above his head. 

More branches cracked, and then there was a man in the fog, with an elongated, third arm. 

"Mr. Wurr." Another crack was coming from another direction, and the old man was halting. 

"Mr. Wurr, move back." Ben was whispering. "Don't you remember? This is where the snake Dragon got London. This is also where London killed that other moccasin I brought up to your house. Killed that moccasin, that shot out at me, and fangs tore a rip in my trousers. Can't you hear it--the tree is rustling like a moving snake. Mr. Wurr, move. You killed that blue racer here, a couple of years ago. It was probably Dragon's mate. Mr. Wurr." 

The pine towered above them, a lighthouse, overcome by fog. 

The new cracklings were coming closer. And now a ghost was there. Four legged, panting, wheezing. 

"London." The old man was hissing. "London, boy." 

"Mr. Wurr, it isn't London." Now Ben was hissing, sending the sickle even higher over his head. 'The puma were gone by then, but there were a few bear---'

"London, come here."

"London is dead, Mr. Wurr. It's a stray dog." Some stray dogs, several years ago, had killed a farmer's cow. 

The ghost dog was moving into the trunk of the tree. Ben started moving in too, raising his legs higher than normal, with each step, going slowly, shaking his head. "Mr. Wurr, it's a stray."

The old man kept wheezing. The creature was making rippling sounds in its throat. 

And then there was the sound. Not crack, not roar, not clang, but a crushing sound, a caving in dome above them. 

Ben looked up, his arm with the sickle starting to quiver, shuddering, the sickle trembling too. No wonder the stray dog growled. A dead bough of the tree was stretching out above them, its smaller limbs forking out spiderishly. And a moving branch of coils and loops was moving out on it. The lower side of the bough was moving in slightly towards the trunk of the tree, and the moving branch, the snake, was dipping its one end  down towards them. 

"Mr. Wurr, get out!"

"London, come here, boy." 

The ghost moaned. 

And then the sound was not crushing, but ripping, and the bough was whipping down at them. They all started moving in towards the trunk, the snake riding the whipping bough, the old man with the upraised hoe, the ghost of London, and he, Ben, with the sickle. 

The fog was starting to clear up. Ben, looking up the trunk he had collapsed against, could see the top of it. Soon, the fog would be gone. 

Blood, drawn by the ghost, was creeping down his arm. Yet the creature, a few feet away, was lying still, a piece of the shattered bough on it. And a curving snake-like figure was projecting from the creature's throat. Then Ben's hand moved into itself and Ben found he couldn't feel the handle of the sickle in his hand. 

He scooted up further against the tree. The fur was a brown, not a chestnut. The fur was thick, not long. The snake-like figure was a sickle, not a hoe. 

A movement came on his leg. He froze, and he saw the snake, the long snake, sliding over the dead dog, the last of its tail moving over him. 

He looked around for the old man. Then he was feeling another movement on his foot. He looked to his ankle, and saw the piece of moving branch. It was ragged, uneven, and a substance was mottled all over it. Some of the blood was spilling out on his leg. Then he was looking up at the old man by it, and he saw the old man grinning. 

Ben twitched his leg. The writhing piece of snake slid off to the side, and lay still in the dirt. His eyes moved back to the dog, the sickle curving out of the chest. He rolled forward from the tree. 

"I got him. I got the snake. The old man's back was to him, the old man had lost his cap someplace. 

"I got him."

A snake had slid over his clothes. A snake had dropped from a branch and killed London.

"I got the snake." 

A car had broke down and he had gone to a house, and had gone into the fog with a man. They had borne a hoe and a sickle. 

"I tore a piece of flesh out of him." 

They had killed a water moccasin in the woods. They had become separated, and he, Ben, could have followed the river home. 

"I chopped him." 

And the snake had crawled out on a bough he was too heavy for. And a worried mother had sent a dog over to fetch a boy home. And the dog had come up under a pine. 

Ben placed his hand on the dog. "Rex," he said, "Rex." 

"He's wounded, and he's not twenty feet long any more." 

"Rex."

"Twenty feet long. Not any more," the old man crooned. 

Then Ben was up, yanking at the sickle. He smashed it at the trunk, breaking it jaggedly. "We are all less than twenty feet." He lifted up the dog in his arms. "We are all red." He went to the driveway, going away.

copyright reserved by publisher

Cathleen D Collins Wesemann