Reznik
When Karl Reznik emerged from the cave, he appeared bewildered to Claire, or maybe it was a look of amazement. She had known him for many years and this was not the first excavation they’d done together so she recognized his expressions and moods. He was an even-keeled man, not given to excitement, certainly not given to displaying his emotions. He was highly confident and self-assured and did not wear his heart on his sleeve, as they say. So it was a bit of surprise to Claire to see him walk out of the cave and appear dumbfounded.
“Karl,” she said, “Is everything alright?”
But he did not answer. He stared at her for a few seconds as if he didn’t recognize her any more than he recognized their surroundings. He looked around at the trees and brush and the small camp the three had been working out of as if he simply did not know where he was like he was puzzling through something. And then the expression on his face changed suddenly as if the familiarity had returned to him. And that frightened Claire. Even though she’d watched him, a trusted colleague, walk into the cave forty-five minutes earlier. At the same time, she stayed out to catalog the pieces of pottery and flint tools they collected inside, he had not come out the same man somehow. And it frightened her when he began walking toward her.
He was not a small man but not large and he was fit, sturdy from the work they did and she knew that he exercised and jogged when he wasn’t involved in a dig. And sometimes he would even run a few miles in the mornings before commencing work.
She’d heard the sound of pottery break a few moments prior to Reznik emerging with the lost and confused expression plastered across his face. Had he been exposed to something that had been pent up in one of the jars? There was one in particular that they had both been very interested in, large enough to contain the body of a child or even a man, depending on how the individual had been folded into the clay urn. It was not a common thing but it was possible. They both had felt that there was something solemn about this cave, the pot, sacred perhaps even dangerous.
And then, he began to walk more quickly toward her, causing her to step back to get away from him without thinking. He then hastened his step and walked even faster, and she then turned and ran.
Faith was vexed. She did not know the forest or the forest highways and didn’t want to be here in the first place.
She glared through her windscreen at the road signs as she passed them, which benefited her little. And then she raised the sheet of handwritten directions to eye level, which benefited her even less. The roads were winding mostly like a giant asphalt serpent through the mountains: so it was difficult to read the directions since it was crucial to keep her eyes on the road ahead to avoid blasting off the narrow highway and plunging a thousand feet into a ravine or gully or canyon or whatever. And the car’s air-conditioner was out so she had the windows down and the air kept blowing the map around even more. Strawberry Peak, Big Tujunga, Little Tujunga, Dark Canyon, Switzer Falls: it was all Greek to her. And to make it worse, she was sweating from the heat and a drop had fallen from her face onto the directions and she was unable to read the exact location that she was supposed to be looking for. And the exact location was off the grid.
“Fuck!”
She was a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl, athletic, kinda like you’d see in a bikini playing volleyball on the beach.
She had a mouth on her sometimes.
Reznik raped Claire from behind, and killed her, and bisected her body at the waist- not in that order.
Faith held the receiver of the payphone next to her face. It was one of those old-school phones. She didn’t even know that they existed anymore; it had been so long since she’d seen one. What was weird was: it was just there, on the shoulder of the road, inside of a metal, rectangular box mounted on a metal pole; the word “PHONE” across the top.
“You’re supposed to be there!” she said into the phone which was surprisingly clean. The second she saw it she assumed it would be grimy, greasy, encrusted with dust... but it wasn’t.
“You knew I was coming!” she continued. “It was your idea. The whole thing seemed pointless to me. I don’t see what it is that we have to talk about...”
At that exact moment, unbeknownst to Faith, approximately forty miles away from where she was standing on the side of the road at a payphone, in the San Gabriel wilderness, her friend Riley’s cellphone lay on top of the nightstand and blinked next to the bed where she and her boyfriend, Rod, have sex.
Rod was muscular and tan with a square jaw and dark hair. He looked as if he plays rugby or something. His arms were long and his hands are large and he squeezed Riley’s breast as she rode him reverse cowgirl style... her favorite position.
She was an exceptionally attractive female, built like a brick house as the song goes... she’s mighty, mighty, and wild on top, almost like a rodeo queen busting a bronco. Her strawberry blond, more reddish than blond, flew wildly... “I’m a cowgirl on a steel horse I ride...”
“Are you breaking up with me?!” Faith said into the dusty telephone receiver. “I mean, it’s not like we were ever really together... just that one thing when we were drunk that didn’t mean anything and neither of us really remembered much...”
Faith turned away from the payphone and looked back in the direction she’d come from. The road gently descended and curved until it disappeared. Faith turned and looked up the road in the opposite direction- the direction in which she was traveling. It was straighter and steeper but it did wind away until Faith could no longer see it.
“Where are youuuuuu?!” she said emphatically into the phone. And then her voice trailed off like the stretches of road in either direction. “You’re supposed to be here.”
Meanwhile, back in Los Angeles, the little red light continued to blink on Riley’s cellphone on the nightstand. But she and the Rod had moved from the bedroom to the shower.
“I’m gonna keep looking,” Faith said somewhat crestfallen. “I don’t know what else to do. And I really don’t have much choice either do I... Try to call me if you get this.”
Faith looked around. It was a pretty site, all the forest stuff, like trees and stuff. And the sky was clear forever except for a few clouds that were pure white.
“The reception is bad but you know that! Maybe you’ll get through,” she said. “Call me.”
Covered in Claire’s blood from head to foot, Reznik looked like a wild animal; a wolf or big cat that had just feasted on its kill. Even though it was a clear day, all he could see, in his mind’s eye anyway, was darkness, an eternity of darkness and solitude.
There was a camp table with benches where he and Claire and Fiona sat sometimes and personal items were left about at random more or less. Mixed in with a couple of tins of provender and some personal articles, Reznik spotted a handheld mirror that had obviously belonged to one of the women. It was an inexpensive thing, oblong, a few inches wide, made of black plastic. He held it up to see his reflection. For some reason it seemed that it had been years; decades or a century maybe... an eon of absolute silence. And to his shock, he did not recognize the face that looked back at him.
Something had happened to him, it was not a recent thing. It had been so long ago that his solitude, “No,” his confinement had eroded the details of his recall. It was an interminable quarantine. “Yes,” his separateness was deliberate castigation- a sentence... he remembered.
The woman had called him Reznik. Who was this Reznik and why had he without deliberation raped and butchered her? Were these thoughts, like his face, the brainwork of this person that was not him, Reznik? Because this, Reznik was not him.
“Oh my God!” he heard, and almost simultaneously saw the reflection in the mirror of a woman behind him. “Oh my God!” the woman shrieked. “Oh my God!” she said and turned to run for her life.
He did not hesitate but turned and gave chase, to capture and rape, and butcher. Though he did not as yet know why he must; he knew he must. The yearning besieged his mind, like a war cry.
She was small, Fiona was, and could not outrun him.
Riley and the Rod finished their shower and toweled themselves and dressed.
It was then that Riley saw her phone flashing.
“Shit!” she said. “I really have to get going.”
“Okay,” the Rod said.“You should come with me,” Riley said, looking up at him. He really was a hulk of a man.
“Are you suggesting that we do this together?” he said somewhat scoffing.
“No,” Riley said after considering the expression on the big man’s face. She could see the panic in his eyes, or disdain or something, even though he attempted to hide it.
Several yards away, Reznik rummaged through the backpacks of the small group of anthropologists and archeologists tossing aside clothing and writing pads, a laptop, etc.: but then stopped suddenly, almost as if he’d come out of some kind of spell or stupor. He turned then to face the second woman he had just butchered and screamed.
“Ahhhh... ahhhh...” It was a tormented, gut-wrenching, violent scream as if he’d just become aware of his victim only then. And then a pistol fell from the backpack he was holding, possibly shaken loose by the ferocity of his scream and a single car key. It was one of those odd-looking Luger pistols. And his screaming stopped again immediately. And he reached down then quickly and snatched up the firearm from the dirt and the car key that had “Jeep” etched in it, and he charged off running- the gun in one hand and several pieces of clothing and the Jeep key in the other.
“I just want to tell her myself,” Riley told the Rod, “that’s all.”
“But you suggested we both go,” he said, “not me.”
“Whatever!” she said. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Fine,” the Rod said.“I shouldn’t even still be here.” Riley said.
“She’s probably at the cabin right now, wondering where the hell I am, or on her way.”
Thizaway Trail Road sucked. It was not much more than a trail itself. There were potholes and rocks and logs that Faith had to slowly steer her car around, and her car wasn’t in tiptop condition anyway. There were low-hanging branches and tree limbs reaching into the road from the woods that bordered the road and old rusty cans. That was one of the things that sort of shocked Faith the most- the rusted tin cans. Some of them were rectangular and had probably once held kerosene or some other kind of fuel for lanterns. Some of the cans were round and about the same size as cans that folks buy pork and beans or fruit cocktail in. But the paper labels had been weathered off almost all of them long ago. Faith guessed that there had likely been a flood or floods at some point in the past that washed all the debris onto the road from campgrounds higher up. Or maybe folks just drove out here to dump stuff.
“Oh, Riley, Riley, Riley,” Faith murmured to herself. “What have you gotten me into?!”
“She’s my friend too you know,” Rod said
”You barely know her,”
”You barely knew her before you started sleeping together.
“You’re making more out of our sexual relationship than there was,” Riley said.“Am I?” the Rod said, feigning ersatz. “Look, I’m not gonna spring this on her with you there.”
“You think she’ll freak out?
“That has nothing to do with it,” Riley said. “It’s just not appropriate. End of conversation. Now I’ve gotta get outta here. She might be lost and trying to call me. That would really make me feel like a shit.”
Riley grabbed her car keys and cell phone then and started out. However, the Rod took a couple of steps in Riley’s direction like he was coming too and she stopped and gave him a flinty glare. “And where are you going?!”
