Memories

Jarod meets the mysterious Ezra late one night...

Approximately 1800 words

Memories

by

Max Griffin

         
         The rocky path under Jerod's feet glowed ivory in the light of the gibbous moon.  Tufts of grass, gray and bedraggled in the gloom, scattered in the sandy loam and mixed with the thick underbrush of the crowding forest.  He picked his way as the path twisted downhill around a massive granite boulder that loomed over his head.  Brambles narrowed the trail and brushed against his side.  He paused and fingered the cool, smooth surface of the soaring stone.  Chills tingled from his fingertips and up his arm, as though spirits long imprisoned reached out to ensnare his soul. 

         He shuddered and pushed forward, into the clearing beyond.  The midsummer night's breeze wafted through his hair; strands flicked against his brow and tickled the tips of his ears.  His linen shirt fluttered against his lean torso, and he clasped his arms about himself for warmth.  In the rushes by the nearby lakeshore, the fitful trill of a whip-poor-will accompanied a choir of crickets. 

         He squinted and sought the refuge he knew awaited.  A long-dead stone mason had crafted a bench on this spot, nestled under the boulder and overlooking the shimmering waters of the lake.  Jerod followed the mossy remnants of the path to this place.  He rested his palm on the rough-hewn timbers that formed the back of the bench, underneath where someone had carved, "Lake Avalon."  That was then, when he wore a younger man's clothes.  This was now, when the scars of war dogged his soul.  A sigh failed to cleanse his guilt.

         His shoulder twinged as he settled onto the cold stone seat.  The solitude and peace of this place failed to soothe the memories that roiled deep in his mind.  He inhaled the night and tried to forget.

         Distant footfalls crunched on the gravel, and a thrill threaded up his spine. 

         Trees rustled overhead.  Shadow and light danced across the path and conspired to reveal another wanderer, emerging from behind the outcrop.  Jerod brushed stray locks from his face and squinted into the darkness.  The newcomer's shirt billowed about his wraithlike body, and his features hovered ashen in the gloom.

         Jerod's throat constricted and his heart pounded in his chest.  He kept his face pointed toward the lake, but his attention stayed riveted on the approaching stranger.  The man shambled onward, slow, relentless. His left leg dragged and his body lurched with each step.  He paused and gazed over the lake.

         Jerod glanced in the direction of the man's scrutiny.  Reeds at the shoreline wavered in the gentle winds, and insects danced on the liquid surface.  Here and there, smaller boulders, rounded by ancient glaciers, arose from the surface.  With a sudden splash, a fish broke the still waters and silvery ripples sped out in concentric circles.

         The stranger stooped, picked up a rock, and sent it skipping across the lake.  Wherever it struck, it destroyed the perfect symmetry of the wavelets left by the fish. 

         The man turned, took a hesitant step toward the shore, and then froze, facing the cold stone bench where Jerod perched.

         A shiver tingled at Jerod's neck.

         The stranger raised a hand.  Was it a tentative greeting? 

         Jerod held his breath, immobile.

         The stranger no longer meandered.  Instead, he struck out in Jerod's direction, direct and without hesitation.  He quickened his pace, limping, his left foot scraping against the path. 

         Jerod swallowed and heaved a deep sigh.  Contact was inevitable now.

         The man paused in shadows, close enough that Jerod could touch his face, close enough that Jerod could inhale his breath.  Close enough for a blade to spill his guts.

         When the wanderer spoke, his soft voice sang like a tenor sax in a smoky club in New Orleans.  "I love the night, don't you?"  He seemed to swallow his vowels, as though his tongue fought against English.

         Jerod tried to respond, but his throat strangled the words.  He coughed twice, with a discrete hand to his mouth, before he started again.  "Yes. This place is special to me."

         The stranger heaved a sigh and gazed over the waters, where moonlight danced across the rippling surface.  "Many memories linger here," he agreed.  Wistful eyes turned and drilled into Jerod's face.  "Some call me Ezra."  He extended his hand.

         "I'm Jerod." 

         His icy fingers clasped Jerod's hand like fragile sticks. Ezra's somber voice, though, was different.  It promised warmth and, perhaps, something more, perhaps redemption. "So nice to make your acquaintance."  He blinked.  "Jerod." It was as though he were trying the name out, testing it against his palate.  "May I sit with you?  Usually it's so lonely here." 

         Jerod wanted to say no, but couldn't be impolite, even now. He shrugged.  "Whatever."

         Ezra hobbled to the bench and winced as he collapsed onto the seat.  He leaned forward and rubbed his thigh.  "It's good to rest my leg. Thank you for sharing."

         Brief guilt swelled in Jerod, and his back twinged in sympathy.  "I understand.  I've got an old war wound myself."  He hitched his shoulder and familiar pain shot down his arm. 

         Ezra's dark eyebrows crawled up his brow.  "You're a warrior, too?"  He sat up and stuck out his left leg. "We were just outside Babylon when an ambush ruined my knee."

         Camaraderie resonated inside Jerod, a warmth he hadn't felt since...since that day when the children died.  "You were on Operation Iraqi Freedom?  I was with the Seventh Cav."  The lie fell so easily from his lips.

         An enigmatic smile played across Ezra's features.  "Iraqi Freedom?  No."  A dry chuckle husked from his throat.  "I was with a different, earlier campaign.  I shadowed Koresh,  the mash'aka." 

         Jerod frowned at the stranger's words. He can't really mean Cyrus, the Anointed One.  He didn't bother to ask what battle had scarred Ezra: they were all the same, after all, and every one echoed the distant horrors that plagued his own memory. 

         A sudden gust of wind shivered through the trees, and the moon hid behind low, scudding clouds.  Jerod let silence grow between them.  Memories whipped unbidden through the darkness: men shouting, women screaming, and children wailing.  The cries of the children were the worst. They were always with him; nothing would ever still those little voices. He leaned back and closed his eyes.  His shoulder throbbed, the pain a welcome reliquary of his past.

         Ezra's soft tones jerked him back to the future, to the present.  "What brings you to this lonely place tonight?"

         The winds shifted again, and strengthened.  Jerod peered through the sudden gloom at the figure sitting next to him.  Ezra's red hair flared over his head like a dark flame, and his eyes disappeared into the empty hollows of his skull.  What brings me here?  "I'm not sure."  He paused and let emptiness settle over him.  "I guess memories bring me here.  It reminds of friends I once knew."

         Ezra turned his gaze back to the lake.  "I had friends once.  They sleep with heroes now." 

         Heroes. The word stabbed at Jerod.

         Thunder grumbled in the distance, and flickers of lightning danced on the horizon.  Ezra asked, "Do you have anyone, now that you're home from war?"

         Jerod's throat clogged again, and hollowness filled the hole in his chest where his heart should be.  "A wife and a son."

         Ezra's accent loaded his words with gravity.  "Do they love you?"

         "Yes."  He choked out the words, refusing to sob in front of this stranger.

         "And do you love them?"

         "Of course I love them!"  Jerod's face heated and he scowled at this intruder.  "What kind of question is that?"

         Ezra's hand, cold as a witch's kiss, clenched his wrist.  "I'm sorry for them, but their sorrow is part of your destiny and my punishment."  He stood and tugged on Jerod's arm, pulling him to his feet.

         "What are you doing?  Let go of my wrist."  Jerod tried to pull free, but the man's grip ensnared him. 

         "It's time.  You can no longer hide here, in the now.  You must come with me."  Ezra nodded toward the path, toward the boulder.  Darkness boiled there, malign and threatening.  The faint odor of ozone and sulfur fouled the air.  "Come."  Ezra pulled once more at his arm.

         "I'm not going anywhere," Jerod protested, even as he stumbled forward.

         "You can't help yourself.  Listen, and you will know."

         Jerod's pulse thudded in his ears, and his breath rasped in his throat.  The darkness at the base of the towering granite slab beckoned him.  From deep within, they were calling, relentless, insistent.

         "Listen," Ezra whispered.  "The voice of a child is something even a warrior cannot still.  They call for you, cry for you, pray for you."

         Jerod shuffled forward, drawn by those forlorn voices.  Still, he resisted.  "But why...what are you doing?  Who are you?"

         Could it be that the flesh had vanished from Ezra's face, leaving only a skull?  His voice was a whisper, a promise, a dream. "Your memories betray you.  Better than anyone, you know what you have done. I'm here to escort you to the field of lost souls."

         "Lost souls?  You're not making any sense."  Panic fluttered in his chest now, even as his feet drew him inexorably forward, into the darkness, into the lament that keened from the depths. 

         "I cannot tell you more."  Ezra's voice fought with the vowels again, thickening them like congealed blood.  "You will begin this journey with me, but you must finish it alone.  Redemption and the promise of peace are on the other side."

         "But my family...I can't go anywhere...they'll miss me..."

         Implacable coldness filled Ezra's voice now.  "That is the destiny you brought them, on the night the innocents died."

         The innocents.  A sob finally broke in Jerod's throat.  His patrol was innocent: they had not wanted to be there.  The men and women they killed were innocent: they only sought survival.  Most of all, the children were innocent.  Their voices called to Jerod, even yet, amidst nightmares of chaos and blood and death.  They cried out in the darkness--a relentless, soulful dirge. 

         Ezra released his wrist and pushed him forward.  He staggered toward the chasm under the tower of granite.  The voices drew him downward, into the forgiving earth.  He managed to gasp out through the miasma that surrounded him, "Who are you?"

         "Me?"  Sadness dragged at Ezra's voice and his shoulders sagged.  "You know my name. I am doomed to scour the ages. It's my curse and my blessing to love warriors, to care for them, and to bring them peace, no matter the cost."    Lightning crackled and the storm broke.  Cleansing rain drenched the clearing even as the pit swallowed Jerod.  The last words he heard in this life came to him as if from another time and place.  "I am legend. I am Azreal, and Anubis, and Woden.  I am memory and I am death.  Weep for me."

         

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Short Stories by Max Griffin  (18+) Tales of horror, suspense, mystery, and science fiction. #1727241 by Max Griffin 🏳️‍🌈