Episode 15

Previously…
 

With a last look in the mirror, Beulah hid her high heel shoes in her handbag and stood for a moment at her bedroom door, listening for any signs of movement outside the trench. She snuck out and was just going past Joshua's door when she heard voices within. Perhaps she thought it was Joshua. Perhaps she thought it was Alice with a boy in her room, but to tell the truth she didn't really think at all. She simply turned the handle and went in.

Then came the shock of seeing two people who shouldn't have been there. The dog shit story just fell out of her mouth before her father had time to get a good look at her, thank god. He was out of the room with Alice and Beulah in tight tow, winding their way down the stairs. He peeled off into the kitchen and Beulah peeled off out the front door and disappeared into the night. Samuel didn’t even hear the door close.

   And now...

They can see the fires from miles away…a long line of them across the horizon, lighting up the night sky with an orange glow.

“What is it?” asks the boy.

“It is the wall,” says the messenger. “This is the first of the great walls that was built to protect the inner sanctum. This is where the city ends. Beyond these walls lies the great desert. Beyond these walls, things are not the same as here. They are…..different.”

“How, different.”

“The normal laws of nature don’t work here. Things are different. Time is different. You will see.”

The boy stares at the distant fires.

“We should reach it sometime tomorrow morning. But we must stop now and sleep for a while.” Senjur stops walking and the camel sinks to the sands, groaning her last by the sounds of it.

They had been keeping up a blistering pace for days now, snatching only a few hours sleep at the coldest part of the night and at the hottest part of the day. Otherwise they had kept moving - only too aware that the demon huntress was on their tail – but with no idea of how far behind them she was. Even the boy, fit and young as he was, had felt the strain of the journey. The old woman had stopped talking days ago, trying to conserve her energy, and only just managed to stay in the saddle. The poor camel in her turn also complained at every step of the way, although at one point they had come upon a small brackish pool of water where there’d been enough for her to have a drink and to fill the leather flasks.

Senjur begins unpacking and settles the old lady on the camel’s saddle in the sand while he goes about building a campfire and getting the food started. Immediately the boy sits down at her feet. She is shivering with cold…her thin cotton skirt hardly any defence against the desert night air. She pulls her threadbare shift around her shoulders and hunches forward over the boy’s head. Senjur completely understands the strange bond between them and accepts it for what it is. The boy takes her hand and rests it on her lap. He is getting bold now. Familiar. He can feel how thin her thigh bones are. She is as skinny as a rake. He lays his cheek against her bony knee and closes his eyes. Closer to paradise he has never been. She is his true love. To him she is a goddess, wise and wonderful, gentle and kind, patient and loving….never judging him, never correcting or criticising him. Who she really Is…or had been, has no relevance to him, nor her youth, nor the life she lost the day the desert dancers came.

The boy puts his other hand under her dress and rests it on her calf – but she does not stop him or pull away. She is quite comfortable with his advances and explorations. They sit like this quite contentedly until the food is ready.

After the meal the boy stares into the night at the fires in the distance. They fascinate him.

“Those are the welcome fires. Those fires are for you,” says the messenger matter-of-factly.

“Why? How do they know I’m here?”

“They know you are coming. They have been specially prepared for you. They are there to guide us. They have been waiting for us.”

“Why?” the boy asks again.

“There is a great gate we have to pass through, but for the gate to open requires a very special thing to be done.”

“What?” asks the boy.

The messenger looks at the boy, trying to evaluate how much information he can give him.

“There is to be a sacrifice. The gates cannot open unless there is a sacrifice…the blood of a virgin, to oil the hinges.”

It takes the boy a while to process this information…like a slow reader.

“A real one?” He doesn’t know how he knows about them…he just does. He remembers an altar…and a knife.

“A real one. With a real virgin,” replies the messenger.

“But why?”

“Virgins have immense power in this world.” Senjur shrugs as if it’s just a matter of fact.

“But I don't want anyone to be sacrificed for me?”

“It is not up to you. This has been prepared long ago.”

“But that's horrible.”

“No, it is beautiful. You do not understand. Things are different here.”

“But why me?”

The messenger looks at him with a puzzled expression as if he doesn’t quite know how to explain it in terms that the boy will understand.

“Because you are here,” is the best he can manage. But it is not enough.

The boy turns to look at the fires with worried eyes. Suddenly he is not so keen on going forward.

“We must sleep now,” says Senjur, getting up to help the old lady. She has fallen asleep sitting up, her food untouched in her lap.

But the boy can't sleep. Epic scenes of gory sacrifices run rampant through his mind…wild and terrible ceremonies burst out of the darkness at him…primitive dances and demented divas flinging themselves about in a frenzy of blood-lust…and as always, a vision of the demon woman hunting hot on his tail.

*

Samuel’s knuckles gleamed white by the light of the dashboard as he gripped the steering wheel. The old car smelt stuffy. He smelt stuffy with his old starched prison-blue pants and polyester shirt.

“You look just the same,” said Alice conversationally.

No reply from the driver’s seat.

“Did you think of me?”

Nothing.

Alice turned on the radio and found some Country and Western music. ‘Your cheating heart, will tell on you,’ sang the warbling cowboy. Samuel lent forward and turned it off.

“I think of you often,” she said.

She put her hand on his thigh and he nearly jumped out of the window.

“Don't do that,” he shouted.

“For god’s sake, I'm just being affectionate. Can't I even be friendly with you anymore?”

“Sorry. I'm not very comfortable with this. I got other things on my mind.”

“I know. I'm just trying to relax you. You’re wound up like a cheap alarm clock,” she said and rested her hand ever so lightly on his thigh again. Then she sat back in her seat and smiled to herself.

Alice watched the headlights searching the road ahead of them. So far they had lit up a cat that had bolted across in front of them at the last minute, causing Samuel to slam on the brakes, and a child's bicycle that someone had left lying in the road.

“I miss you, you know.”

Nothing.

“You're supposed to say you missed me too.”

“I'm looking for my daughter….”

“And she doesn't want you to find her and I agree with her. Just leave her alone. She's a big girl now. It's time she found out what's what.”

“She's not of legal age. She's still a minor…..”

“What is it with you and legal age? You and your obsession with the law and sticking to the rules. Is it because you were so naughty with me when we were young?”

She watched his knuckles tighten even more on the steering wheel. They had been more than a little fond of each other as children. When she was eleven and he, thirteen, he had shown her his penis. Of course she had shown him everything in return. She loved her brother. They had flirted on and off with each other until she had gone to university and he had got married. As children they had kissed and snuggled and basically been completely inappropriate with each other. They often slept together in the same bed, with much fumbling and bumbling and accidental touching…something they had been doing on that unfortunate night when Clara had come back unexpectedly. Alice had talked her way into his bed ‘just once for old time’s sake’. Sure, it hadn't been as completely innocent as they had professed, but Clara must've known that they really hadn't done anything, or else she wouldn't have continued living with him. And Samuel wasn't the man to lie about it.

But Alice hadn't been allowed to visit anymore. So when this opportunity had presented itself, she was determined to make the most of it.

Alice had become fixated on Samuel from a very early age and had never hooked up with anyone else. Her heart was booked, and her Goth façade was very good at keeping away unwanted flies.

As for Samuel, in his mind it was just innocent affection, but in his body he was hungry for her…and as the song goes, he had to ‘keep a close watch on this heart of mine’ – wrap it in chains and throw away the key - good jailor that he was. And speaking of prison talk, another phrase came to mind. ‘Dead man walking.’ He'd never really come alive with anyone but her. The rest of his life seemed to be a tedious treadmill.

Samuel slowed down to peer at a bunch of teenagers wandering along the pavement.

“I don't even know what this guy looks like.”

Alice kept very quiet by his side. They drove slowly down the main street until…..

“There it is. That's his car.” Samuel screeched to a halt next to a Camaro and peered inside. Nothing. The birds had flown.

“Let's have a look. They have to be here somewhere.”

“Sam wait. This is not the way to do it…..just for me….wait…”

But Samuel was out of the car and marching down the road before she'd finished talking. At that moment she saw Beulah and her boyfriend coming out of the churchyard gate a little way down the road. Samuel had seen them too and was walking towards them with murder in his eyes.

Beulah took one look at her dad and knew that her life, as she knew it, was over. It was over anyway. It had ended back there in the churchyard…a suitable place for a death.

Jack had thought it a suitable place for love making, having rejected the back seat of his car because he didn’t want to stain his leather upholstery.

‘Rather leave a stain on my soul’, she thought, God forbid. She wasn’t religious, went to Mass only at Christmas mostly, but this was serious cash – sex outside the bonds of matrimony – on holy ground. But the townsfolk had probably been doing it here for generations, and she suddenly wondered whether she had been conceived here…up against the church wall - and then baptised in the hall.

‘What a place to lose my virginity,’ she had thought as he had escorted her through the gate, on top of which was a statue of the Virgin Mary welcoming them with open arms. All this irony was lost on Jack of course as he practically dragged her into the yard, her high heels sinking into the soft turf. In the shadow of the buttresses she could make out other couples already on the job. Sex outside on Saturday night, confession inside on Sunday morning.

She trod on something slippery and nearly fell. When she leant over to take a closer look, she jumped back with a yell. It was a used condom. Looking around she saw many more littering the lawn.

“Oh dear Jesus, this is gross.”

The priest of the parish thought so too, for he had to go around early every morning and pick them up.

“There we go,” said Jack, flicking them out of the way with the side of his shoe.

“You want me to lie in that.” She was outraged beyond belief.

“Why not. No one’s complained before.”

“Who's no one?”

“Everyone. And why did you wear those stupid pants. It’ll take forever to get them off and you can't walk around here stark naked.”

Beulah turned and began walking away.

“Come on babe. Don't be such a prude.”

“A prude? Are you crazy. This is disgusting. How could you even think of bringing me here?”  And it wasn’t only condoms that littered the lawn. The smell of dog shit came back to haunt her for the lie she had told her dad.

Her dream had popped like a cheap balloon. This is what it had all been about? All her fights with her dad? All for a furtive little f*** up against the church wall….and she was obviously not the first. What had she been thinking? He'd seemed….he'd seemed exactly who he was. She had just dressed him up differently in her mind. She had so wanted him to be the one…perfect lover.

“Hey wait. We can go somewhere else if you want,” he said, catching up with her. She ignored him and walked on, hardly able to see where she was going through the tears. She'd never had a blow to her pride quite like this one. She felt cheap and dirty. How could he think…..”

“Listen. I'm sorry. I don't know where to take a girl like you.”

“What do you mean ‘like me’?”

“Well, proper. Nice. I can see now that this isn't your thing. It's a bit crappy in fact. So I'm sorry.”

Beulah kept on walking, his words hardly filtering through.

“I like you, I really do. You're not like the other girls.”

“You mean the other girls you bring here,”

“Alright. Yes. But you gotta understand. I'm the top jock. It’s expected of me.”

“What? To fuck all the cheerleaders?”

“Not all.”

“This is unbelievable.”

“But they didn't want to go out with me, you know, on a regular basis. They only wanted to brag about it at school, afterwards. If I asked them out later they would just make excuses. You're different. You like me. Liked me,” he corrected himself.

“Then why did you treat me the same as them?”

“I don't know what else to do. You wanted to go somewhere…you know…special…and this is the only place I know”

Pause.

“I feel like such a dork. I'm sorry.”

Then she saw her father and knew this was actually what it had been all about: the final confrontation. And he didn’t disappoint. He was full steam ahead, bearing down on them like a battleship.

Beulah stopped and waited for the inevitable, resigned to her fate. Samuel walked straight over to her and slapped her in the face…in public…in front of her boyfriend. She hardly flinched. In fact there was a faint smile of victory on her face, which turned Samuels’s blood to lava. Not wanting to kill his daughter, he turned and punched Jack in the nose and knocked the big jock on his behind.

And this was the moment she lost her innocence. This was the moment the old, childish Beulah died, and Beulah the hard-bitten bitch was born.