Story Club pt. XIII

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Untitled or Ashley and the Caribouski

"Excuse me," she said, turned her chin to the ground and walked out of the room.

"Where is she going?" asked the chancellor. The school was founded in 1777, the year they adopted the constitution, or so we've been told. But the constitution wouldn't apply to her and her family for another 159 years. In 1776, the caribou in her town outnumbered the people six to one. And until 1976, caribou were still outnumbering people. That is, until she was born. She was the first human to tip the scales.

"Fuck the caribou," her brother always said. "What do they do but shit, fuck and shit some more. If they weren't such damn good eatin' I'd say nuke 'em all." But Ashley wouldn't dream of harming the caribou and harbored a silent guilt for being the one to supposedly outnumber them. She had a special affection for the animal. When her grandfather died, he left her his walking stick, that according to him, was carved from the antler of the largest caribou to ever live. To her it looked like ivory, and she treasured it. After he died, during the summer of her eighteenth year she took to carrying that walking stick everywhere she went, even in to the chambers of the Administration.

The chancellor coughed, hoping it would trigger her to re-enter the proceedings. Ashley stopped in her tracks. The chancellor, with a smirk of thinly veiled indignation plastered on his raggedy old face, cocked his head as she turned to face him.

"As you were explaining to the Council," the chancellor said, his voice booming through the large, empty hall of the Administration.

Ashley coughed and cleared her throat, choking back all of the disgust she had for the man perched on the high stand in front of her.

"The caribou are synonymous with this region," she said. A scoff from one of the Council members. "The tuktu herds have been grazing on the lichens and wild mushrooms since before our people settled these lands. They provide balance to our fragile territory, a balance we disrupted."

"They eat from my willows," said one of the Council members, a cross, snooty old woman in a ceremonial wig three sizes too big for her head. "They leave my poor willow trees patchy and half-bare. And all of the waste. Pests." She turned her head up in distaste at the thought of the horned beasts.

"Are you finished, my dear?" the chancellor said, his eyes locked on the gnarled walking stick in the fragile girl's arms. Ashley stood in silence. The taste in her mouth was a sour one. The Council was an immovable object, not like the caribou, who migrated and traveled the lands, never staying in one spot for long. They understood that movement was survival, and the Council, a solitary crumbling wall of bullheadedness seemed to be decaying before her eyes.

"Motion denied," the chancellor said without even waiting for a vote. He slammed a twisted wooden gavel down on the flat surface of the stand. "The annual Reaping will proceed as usual, at the start of the coming week, the Winter Solstice before the migration period."

Ashley looked around at the faces of the council, scrambling to find any trace of sorrow among them. But the decision was final, and it was final in their faces. It was them against her. And the caribou did not exactly have a say in the matter. She spun on her feet once more, pacing out of the room, head down, deep in thought. She wasn't surprised - she had expected the Council to remain seated in their ways, but she had held an ounce of hope that she would be able to change something. She walked mindlessly, down the cold and lifeless halls, stopping only when she took her first step outside, into the glaring sun. She looked up and blinked twice, letting her eyes adjust, before continuing on her way.

This time she walked with direction, with drive. She knew where she was going, and she was going to get there, Council rules be damned. Puffs of red dust followed her footsteps as she strode down the wide, open streets. Passing through the central market, she paid no attention to the bustling people and general hubbub, caught in her thoughts as she was. Why did the Council make all the decisions anyhow? What gave them the right to decide something so big, so important, without any regard for anyone else's opinions? She knew it was pointless.

In the end - the people would agree mindlessly with the ever-wise Council members if she made a fuss, and she would be ignored, or worse. They held no regard for the caribou. They didn't see them as she did. They saw them only as pests, creatures that eat from willow trees and make a mess, things to be controlled and eliminated, nothing more. Eventually, she reached the gates of her small town, eager to leave -- then she had a plan. She turned around and headed to the library.

Ashley sat in the dusty law section of the town library. Surely her best recourse against the Council could be found in the tomes of city ordinances and environmental protection acts. The library had long served as the hub for lawyers in San Caribino county and featured a large volume of legal works. If the solution was in the law, it would be here. The rule of law was just. It was made to protect all people, even if they were caribou. The bastards in the council wanted to trample their rights like a herd of caribou passing though a vegetable garden. But no, the laws must protect them and Ashley would find the key. As the hours passed her research only made her more disheartened. The relevant sections of the Wildlife Protection Act had been repealed. The Reaping appeared to be fully protected by the federal Violence Against Nature Protection Act, which had been signed into law during Nixon's fifth term as president. She was exhausted and it was long since sundown, but still she persisted.

"There must be something here that can help the caribou," Ashley whimpered as she dozed off at the reading desk.

She sat there in a dreamless sleep until a tapping on her shoulder awoke her. A man in a dark overcoat stood behind her. A broad hat obscured his eyes. He shoved a 12" X 18" rigid brown envelope towards her.

"You might need this," he said. As soon as Ashley's fingers closed on the envelope, the man released it, receding into the darkness between the desk lamps. Ashley called out for him to wait, but he was already gone.

She considered the envelope for the first time. There were no postmarks, though it had clearly traveled a long way. There was no address, but the man was certain that the envelope was for her. Inside the envelope was a hand-drawn map, finely done on some kind of hide. She'd never seen script like that before and yet, as she looked at it, she began to feel the slow creep of dread, as if some animal part of her recognized it and knew what the words meant. Below the script were the phases of the moon. Under the full moon, was a small human figure, standing on the crossed antlers of enormous caribou, arms raised and bearing a vessel.

Along with the map was an index card and a typewritten document, bearing the stamp of the Council. The index card read: "E: Map on Caribou Hide, c. ?" She quickly scanned the document. It was an old report, generated by the U.S. Geological Survey, of the iron mine that had been found close to the town. The town was then, just an outpost built around a hermitage. What a Spanish monk had been doing out here all on his lonesome, no one could say. All that remained of him was a tattered robe worn by a pile of bones under a cairn, bearing a sign that read, "San Caribino".

Before the iron boom went bust, most of the natives had moved on as the caribou do, preferring the wide open spaces and the quiet that lives far from the ears of those that live in town. Even so, they still came to trade and all-too-often, nine months later, there's another mouth to feed and no one around to feed them. In the town, as on the tundra, those left behind usually go to the wolves. "Aw shit, the kid!" Ashley stuffed everything back into the envelope, grabbed her walking stick and headed for the door.

"Hey Mrs. Bobrova, did you see a tall guy in a hat and a black coat come in here?" Mrs. Bobrova looked at Ashley over her bifocals.

"There is no man today. Only you, sleeping girl. Man is no good for you. Start with boy." And with that, Mrs. Bobrova returned to her magazine.

Slightly perturbed by Mrs. Bobrova's response, Ashley quickly left the library. Night was beginning to descend and she felt it was probably time to go home. But then something quite strange down the street caught the corner of her eye. It appeared to be a small human figure. Not a baby. The figure had the build of a man. It was hard to make out any further detail because he was about one block away and it was getting dark. All Ashley could make out was a silhouetted figure in the pale moonlight. Stranger still, the figure didn't move and appeared to be staring at her. Then slowly, the small figure raised his arms. He seemed to be holding a vessel. Ashley reached into her bag to grab the hand-drawn map she received from the man in the dark overcoat. She glanced over the map to find the small human figure she had seen earlier and the outline looked identical. When she looked up, the small man at the end of the street had disappeared. Fear crept over her.

"Something wrong?" A man with a quiet but deep voice was behind her. Ashley was startled and turned around to see a small man, perhaps no more than three feet tall. His face was dark but she could tell he was old and had harsh features. He stared at her for a few seconds before reaching out his hand and stating firmly "Follow me." She hesitated a beat, two, of her heart; a tremble crept into his open palm. The man snatched her grandfather's antler from her and set off quick away down the street. Panic threw Ashley into pursuit. He was fast, quicker in the shadows. He appeared in the moonlight farther out. Her legs hit past stiffness. The man's eyes had kept on her as he had turned with her antler. Caribou eyes. He disappeared around a corner, but Ashley was close enough behind. He was heading towards the town limits. The forest.

Ashley collided into a bag of knobs, heavy fabric and a head of hair flew out like a discus. Scrambling on the cobblestone, Ashley looked back to see the snooty council member clutching her knee, horrifyingly bald. The chancellor was standing aghast over her. "I'm sorry, ok?!" was all Ashley could offe. The chancellor started in with flat angry noises. His ability to aggression was tempered by years of bureaucratic service. Ashley looked back to the forest, catching her breath. The man of a shadow stood waiting with her antler.

"How long would he wait?" she wondered, only partially hearing the chastising of the chancellor and the snivels of the snooty council member. She couldn't run from the chancellor. She must tend to this first. She felt horridly uncertain without her antler. A sickening wave of fear and dread washed over her. For the first time in a long time she noticed the cold air bite against the flesh of her palm where the familiar walking stick always had its place. Her mind was suddenly slow, exhausted like tadpoles swimming through thick muck.

"Owwww! Oh oh oh! Oh it hurts!" As she looked back at the chancellor, anxiety grasped her. She didn't have time to wait. She didn't have time to deal with this. Blood rushed loudly behind her ears. The world blurred. She could not think. Don't move now. Stay as you are. It'll only worsen if you move. She needed to go. The map. Where was it? She still had it. Safety. But no.

"Well, I'm not going to be seen sitting here like a fool. My hair! Ohhh! Owwwww!" The antler. That was missing. Where? She needed to go. She needed to reclaim her beloved antler.

"Don't worry, we will fix you up. Everything is going to be fine." The man. The man who took her antler. The man and the map in the vessel and the antler. Where? Go. Go to him.

"Well hurry up then, this is quite the calamity. How dare she! Oh my it hurts!" Focus. Her cold fingers. Detached. Her grandfather. His death. His wishes.

"Ashley, could you please help? Get on the other side of her and we can..."

The antler. The Antler. Blink. Once. Twice. Focus. Go. An icy wave of clarity surged over her. The muck was clear. The world came into focus and her eyes fixed on the chancellor. He looked listless, unamused with the council member's charade. His mouth opened slightly, ready to repeat the request. Ashley turned and ran. She could barely make out the shadow of the man ahead of her now. He seemed so far away. Her feet drummed against the ground, her arms pumped in rhythm, her breath flowed in then out, and her blood thumped in behind her ears. The shadow got larger, but still seemed impossibly far off in the distance.

The world around her melted down the sides of her vision. Her eyes were fixed on the shadow, nothing else mattered. The ground, her arms, her breath, her heart, all seemed to disappear. She was a singular, quaking pulse. Meter by meter, the shadow sharpened. And suddenly the shadow was no longer a shadow. She stopped. She had arrived. The ground and her body returned. The cold air whistled. Her heart beat loudly.

The flow of her breath had been joined by another. In front of her towered a caribou, the largest to have ever lived. Ashley stared at it and it was like waking up from a spell. Suddenly she blinked, and she was aware of the world around her again: night had fallen, and the stars were cut-outs in a black paper sky. Somewhere, probably, there was the moon. From this angle, Ashley couldn't see it. But her eyes were adjusting; the caribou still stood there, giant, patient. It was eating, actually. Chewing placidly on some grass.

Ashley looked around. Her antler was nowhere in sight. But that tugging feeling – that desperation – that inescapable, sickening pull – was gone. She took a deep breath. Her pulse was slowing. She loved the caribou, the tundra, a place made even more beautiful by the dim starlight, a place she could never feel afraid. She looked back at the giant caribou. It was still chewing. Ashley waited. She didn't know what to do. After a while she began to fidget. It was cold. And she'd love to run across the tundra for a bit. Where was her antler?

“Would you please stop meddling, child?” someone said. It was the caribou. It had to have been the caribou. Ashley's eyes snapped back to it. It was chewing. It – well, it had sounded possibly female, actually. Matronly. Like a mom.

“What?” she asked.

“You don't understand what's going on here. This isn't your place.” Yep. Definitely the caribou speaking.

“Where's my antler?” Ashley demanded. Something wasn't right here. The caribou bent her head down, eyes fixed on Ashley, and snagged another hunk of dry, pale tundra. She chewed, and she said nothing. “Where is my antler?” The caribou blinked. “My grandfather gave it to me. It is mine by birthright!” This time the caribou snorted. After it – she chewed on the grass a little longer, staring at Ashley all the while, the mighty creature snorted again and swallowed. Then, without another sound, it walked away. All for the world like a regular caribou, like it hadn't talked at all. And Ashley felt no compulsion to follow it. Now, though, she was on the tundra, at night, alone. Ashley turned around. She couldn't see the town anywhere in the distance. No familiar lights, no far-off outlines...just a monochromatic sea of tundra, waving in the chilly wind. There was the moon, after all – it was way far off, a lonely crescent. It had been at Ashley's back. Now she stood with it to her left and stared. Where was her antler? Who was that strange caribou? And how cold was it going to get on the tundra that night?

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All of the nurses at San Caribino Hospital swore they saw Ashley smile shortly after she was born. None of them made any such claims for her twin brother. From the get-go, Pak was an ornery child, prone to tantrums and long-held resentments. Like most children, he was born with blue eyes but, as time passed, one eye turned a dark brown, almost black -- and the other was an intense emerald green. He was tall and thin with sharp features and by all accounts was a weak sapling of a young man.

Pak had long lived in the shadow of Ashley's compassion, and it twisted his motives to no end. He was constantly constructing ways to undermine her kindness and show everyone the evil that he knew lurked somewhere within her. They were twins after all, and if the darkness was in him, then surely it was in Ashley too. There was only one person that could make the darkness go away for Pak: his grandfather Panapak. Pana, as they called him, was the kind of man that people turned to for advice in nearly all things, including when to plant a crop and how best to flank a mad grizzly.

Pana's father had been an Inuit medicine man and as such, Pana knew the powers of the Black Cohosh, the Devil’s Claw and the Slippery Elm and, with a simple tincture, he could make a moaning calf fall in to a silent slumber. He had a way with people and animals alike. Pak was proud to share his name. Every Sunday Pana would take Pak for a long walk within the Black Rock Forest and on the best days they would spend hours watching the caribou herds graze. Pana and Pak were as close as any grandfather and grandson have ever been, which is why Pak was confused and enraged that Pana had left Ashley his prized walking stick. What did he leave Pak? A small leather pouch with two black marbles.

"Worthless, useless fucking marbles!" Pak said, clutching them in his pocket. Right about the time Ashley was colliding with the snooty council member, Pak was crouched down behind a small embankment watching a group of seagulls, waiting. Just as a seagull was approaching the balled up bread Pak had placed on the ground, a loud clamorous figure ran past, spooking the bird out of sight. Pak saw immediately that the figure running was his idiot twin sister.

"Fucking great, just great Ashley," he yelled. Pak had recently been told by Daryl Houseman that if a seagull eats an Alka-Seltzer tablet the bubbles will expand their stomach so much that it eventually explodes. Pak had his doubts but was intrigued enough to wrap a tablet with some bread. He had been waiting patiently for almost an hour to find out whether or not Houseman was full of shit.

"Now I'll never know," he said, leaving the embankment. He looked in the direction that Ashley had come from and had to blink hard. "No fucking way. This isn't real." He blinked again. In the fraction of a second it took for him to blink, the figure he had seen was gone. If he wasn't so certain of himself he'd question whether he'd even seen it.

It was huge, hulking, but in a strangely graceful way. It rested on what could only have been four legs - it was a somewhat familiar shape, one of a caribou (the image of those beasts was instantly recognizable to everyone in their town) but not one he had ever seen the likes of before. It was far too big, somewhat misshapen, and, though Pak thought it was probably his eyes, seemed somehow blurred around the edges. Pak shook his head in disbelief, confirmed once again that the figure was no longer there, and took a step towards where it had stood. Nothing happened. He took another, and noise started flooding his ears - the regular, common noises of the town, nothing more. Pak hadn't even noticed the silence.

He stepped forward once more before changing his mind, spinning on his feet and turning to follow his sister. He couldn't say why. It was instinct, not reason - he simply felt he must follow her, like something was going to happen. So Pak began to run, not out of a sense of urgency or danger (he was certain Ashley was fine; she had been out on the tundra at night many times before, not that Panapak ever knew), but because he felt he must. Just as he couldn't explain why he had to follow Ashley, he couldn't think of a reason to run, other than a pure need. He ran out through the city gates and onto the vast tundra, just as the moon, nearly full, rose above the horizon.

Pak glanced up to gaze at the moon. He was momentarily mesmerized by its brightness. He hadn't taken the time to notice it within the confines of the town, but now he was in a state of mind that was somehow... different. It was if nature spoke to him. It was as if the roots of the trees around him tugged at his ankles, he thought, as he felt a sensation like floating. His trance was interrupted by his realization that he had in fact tripped on an exposed root mid-sprint. The ground was now speeding towards his face.

He remembered a "thunk" and a flash of blue followed by darkness that gradually let up to reveal his blurry surroundings. He slowly regained awareness of his location along with a throbbing pain in his head. He felt his forehead with his palm and quickly withdrew it after a stinging sensation. He saw blood on his hand and concluded there was bad scrape there.

He sat up and looked around. Time was a total blur during his recovery, and he did not know how long he had been sitting there. The thought started to make him uneasy, but his attention was suddenly turned to a sound in the distance. He listened closely; there was a rustling towards his right. The rustling got louder-it was footsteps. Pak saw a figure coming through the trees in the darkness. It wasn't large like the caribou he had seen earlier.

"Ashley?" He called out.

"Pak? Is that you?" Ashley called back. Ashley wandered over to her brother.

"What are you doing here?" The compulsion that led him to follow her had disappeared. He now sat there wondering the same thing.

"Well, I was, uh, going for a walk. And I tripped." Ashley squinted to see him better in the moonlight and noticed the gash on his head.

"You got yourself really bad! We need to get back to town!" She helped him up to his feet. She looked around.

"Actually, do you know which direction the town is in?" She asked.

"Not sure" said Pak, still dazed from the fall. Ashley shrugged and picked a direction. They walked together Silently. He did not ask what she had been doing and she asked no more questions of him. Ashley was deep in thought reflecting what she had just seen. An alarming thought snapped her back into reality.

"Oh no," she said, breaking the silence. They had started walking up the slope of a hillside, and Ashley was quite certain she hadn't gone over a hill leaving the town. "I think we're los-"

"Shhh!" Pak interrupted, crouching suddenly. Ashley crouched down too reflexively. She didn't know what had spooked Pak. He motioned through the trees to their left. "Over there," he whispered. Ashley squinted in the darkness. Beyond them, a few hundred yards down the hillside was a large open field. A large open field full of... rocks? No, there were figures in the field she discerned. Many of them. Neatly ordered in single file lines. Caribou.

"My god," said Pak. "It's an army." These caribou were like none they'd ever seen. What had at first, appeared to be fog, was in fact the ghostly exhalation of thousands of the beasts. Their eyes, which could be seen as they tossed their heads, glowed dull red. The army from above, looked like a forest of restless trees, snorting and stamping. The impatience swelled through the ranks, until brief skirmishes broke out between columns-- the sound of antlers locking echoed in the otherwise silent night.

Opposite the hill where Ashley and Pak lay hidden in their stand of trees, the giant caribou emerged, followed by another. They came to rest, side by side. Great plumes of fog drifted from their nostrils, mingling with the exhalations of the assembled horde, which had ceased their fighting and now stood, rapt.

The two giant caribou spoke as one-- male and female at the same time. They spoke softly, though to each listener it seemed as if the paired leaders spoke directly into the listener's ears.

"Soon, it will be time for the Reaping. For many years, we have lived in balance with the humans, but now the balance has tipped. Already, the agents of Balance have made their presence known and already the pendulum swings. The humans have thrived because they have learned some of our ways. We too, have learned from the humans and made them part of us as we always have. Panapak's visions have come true. The Balance must end." As one, the army of caribou knelt on their forelegs, touching their antlers to the ground. The fog lifted and the iron-red earth beneath the caribou was revealed, glowing the same dull-red as their eyes. Again as one, they stood. A cloud darkened the weak light of the moon. When it passed, the caribou were gone.

Unseen by Ashley or Pak, the marbles in Pak's pouch also glowed for a moment, a sickly green. The glow faded and there was one more marble in the pouch.

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Elsewhere, the man in the dark coat and broad-brimmed hat sat slumped in a chair, smoke curling from a gnarled cigarillo. He woke with a start and cast about until his fingers found the neck of a bottle-- one of many that littered the diseased room. He spun the cap off with his thumb and stopped. He looked at his companion, the small man bearing the carved vessel and gestured with the bottle. The small man glowered, but said nothing as the man in the dark coat began to laugh as he drained the bottle down his greedily gulping throat.

"Don't you worry friend," said the man in the dark coat, "soon you'll have plenty to fill your cup. Just you wait . . ."

theadvancedapes is next

maynard, Becoming_Betty, cW, mk, steve, SeventhProphet, lil

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thenewgreen · 4251 days ago · link ·

What had at first, appeared to be fog, was in fact the ghostly exhalation of thousands of the beasts. -I love this line. Great work pushing the story along, using existing characters and items in the previous parts. Awesome job!