Beyond The Resurrection by Grdon Eklund

Author:Grdon Eklund [Eklund, Grdon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci Fi & Fantasy
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Published: 1973-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17:

MICHAEL ROGIRSEN:

The Whole of the Earth

The rain had made it bad at first. Oh goddamn the rain, he had hated the rain then and the way it made him forget why he was out here, but then like the gleam of a cutting knife he had seen the creek and had gone for the creek, wading in deep to his knees, then falling, then crawling, and it had not been so bad right then, because he was wet all over now like a fish, and a fish, if a fish could survive on the land, it would never have hated the rain but gloried in it, and man had originally come from the depths of the ocean, crawling out one bright day to see the sun and demand the whole of the earth, its rocks and flowers and trees and bright light sky and big moon and tiny twinkling stars and the darkness of the night. Yet still he could not remember. Why was he here? Why in the rain? Why in the creek?

He was far from the school now. The forest drew tightly around him, seeming as if at any moment the violent green might fall, crashing against the creek, covering him, crushing him, smothering his life. A reason—a reason. Why was he here? And that was all.

Oh.

The woman.

So now he remembered the woman, and with the rain rushing down his face wetter and quicker and colder than tears, he stopped, with his knees embedded in the floor of the creek and his hands raised high to the gray heavens above. It was she again, come calling to have him come running out to meet her in her resting place, where she lay waiting like a slick polished bear, like a wolf in her barren lair, and her odor reeking of the pit, waiting, this woman, but he had fooled her—oh listen—because the rain which he hated and despised and now it was the creek and the creek flowed far from the gates of her lair. He had escaped her calling, free Rogirsen man, and now his senses had fully returned and his mind was clear and sharp as a bell.

He was paused on his knees when the sound of the shot reached his ears.

Pausing further, waiting, he tried to know the shot for what it was.

It did not come again. He listened. He thought to investigate. He knew exactly where he was now. Rogirsen knew these woods better than anyone since old Jess. And that was it, he remembered. Old Jess. The shot had come from Jess’s cabin. But Jess did not live there any more. Jess had gone; they had come and carried him away one winter night while Rogirsen watched. He remembered that too.

The woman. Scampering to his feet, water fleeing from him like a rabbit from a trap, he raced into the woods, for the woman had called and he had not come, so she had come for him, wanting to kill. Run, Rogirsen,

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