The Alvord Watcher (Short Story)
From Darkness into Light
The light had run out before the ammo or the beer did, so the boys sat around a campfire finishing off the cooler and watching each other to gauge what sort of night it would become.
Caden sat by the cooler and managed distribution of the remaining handle of Jack. It was his right, he knew all the best spots for shooting and had introduced everyone to this one a few years ago. The Alvord Desert was a long drive from the university and last year the boys had packed too much alcohol and too little food. They’d had to head home a day early, but the night sky out in the desert was unmatched, so everyone was up for another year of logistical struggles. And Caden had personally seen to it that those logistics were military-campaign-tight this year. No one would head home without a few nights spent enjoying some of the best night skies America could offer.
The Jack was three-quarters gone when the man in tattered clothes emerged from the dark expanse beyond the firelight’s reach.
“And so I was halfway up the ridge, right, and — holy shit, where’d you come from?” Nick interrupted his hiking story.
“East.”
The man stood unmoving slightly past the reach of the fire’s warmth and the boys each stared at him, vacillating between reacting or staying still, knowing either option still displayed the fear they wanted to hide. They each picked a different strategy. Caden leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. Nick leaned back and crossed his legs. Jackson took a sudden and deep interest in the neck of his beer bottle. The others largely froze.
Silence hung until Caden broke it.
“Shit, man, you want a beer? Looks like you’ve been hiking for ages. You doing the PCT or something?”
“The PCT?”
The man moved forward and took the can of Busch from Caden’s hand. He stood with an uncanny stillness, face weathered and tanned and age indeterminate.
“Yeah, the Pacific Crest Trail? The big hike? I mean, if you were on it, you’re way fuckin’ off course,” Nick laughed. “It’s like, hundreds of miles west of here. Can you imagine? Just getting a little off course on the Oregon border and wandering all the way out to here. Like, ‘dude, where am I?’”
No one laughed, but Jackson forced a smile. The man stared at Nick, eyes confused but not angry. His gaze flicked to the truck bed behind Jackson, full of guns and empties.
Jackson shifted uncomfortably, meeting the stranger’s look.
“BLM land,” he explained. “No one bothers us out here this time of year, we can set up the targets and get some practice in.”
"Understandable.” The stranger nodded.
“Here, have a seat,” Caden offered, glancing around and realizing that all chairs were taken. “Umm, on the cooler. You’ll just have to move when someone wants a drink. I’m Caden.”
“Mehadas.” The man sat, examining his can and finally cracking it open.
“May-ha-dahs?” Nick asked. “Is that Asian or something?”
“Not that East.”
The man sat, eying each of them in turn. He sipped his beer slowly, contemplatively. The boys shifted in their camp chairs and Nick got up to add more wood to the fire.
After what felt like eternity but was only three sips, Caden spoke again.
“You come out here for shooting too?”
“Shooting? No.”
“Okay, then what are you out here for?”
“Just wandering. I like to see the stars.” Mehadas waited a moment. “What do you shoot?” His accent was hard to place, especially for young men from the Northwest where accents were so blended they almost cancelled out. He certainly wasn’t Mexican, that’s about all they knew enough to tell.
“I have this Colt Commander hand-me-down from my dad,” Nick said, finishing up with the wood and moving to the truck. “Have you seen a beauty like this before? It’s from 1972 but he kept such good care of it you can hardly tell. Look at that bluing.”
He picked the pistol up from among the armory in the tailbed and walked over to Mehadas, quickly checking the safety was still engaged.
“That’s a beautiful weapon,” Mehadas said. “My father gave me his once also.”
“Oh, sick!” Nick replied, “Like a pistol or a rifle or what?”
“Not exactly. A sword.”
The boys broke into laughter. “A sword! Your dad was what, a horse general? How old are you?” Nick asked.
“Older than I can remember. May I?” Mehadas held out his hand for the pistol. Nick hesitated, glanced at Caden, and then handed it over. “Truly magnificent. Art dies on the battlefield last.”
Mehadas held the gun loosely in his right hand, studying it. He paused, and seemed to chew a thought.
“I’ve held a lot of weapons,” he said, “but your father’s is among the best. Consider it an honor to carry, son.”
“Thanks, I guess,” Nick replied, “I keep it clean and everything. Seriously, though, where did you come from?”
Mehadas studied him, dark eyes holding tempered warmth and wearied wisdom. He shifted, standing up.
“Grab yourself a drink before I start.”
Then Mehadas began to speak in his strangely twisted English and simple, wooden tone.
I was born Lehi in what you now call Anatolia, but we had little use for descriptions beyond our family and our tribe in those days.
My father was a shepherd, and I followed in his footsteps. As happened, one day an ewe went missing. I gathered the rest and left them with my brother before setting out to find it.
There were a good deal of caves in the area I shepherded, and I checked a few, finding little more than dust and bones picked clean. But eventually, I found my ewe. And I found more besides.
The cave I entered was deep and winding, so that as I entered and saw the sheep, I could not see the rear of the cave. But I felt HIS presence. There in the back of the cave, something beyond my comprehension sat.
STOP, MORTAL, DO NOT COME ANY NEARER
I heard a voice reverberate through my skull, bypassing my ears but somehow leaving them ringing. I froze, the prehistoric prey reaction of an animal with no better options.
The hairs on my hands stood up, and I felt an aching, burning sensation across my body. The birthmark on my right hip felt like it was pulling out of my body. Every old wound screamed.
“Who are you?” I asked the empty air. "Why are you here?”
MY NAME WOULD LEAVE YOU A SMOKING HUSK, YOU CANNOT BEAR IT. I AM EVERYWHERE, BUT HERE I HAVE BECOME PARTICULAR. HERE I ALLOW FOR SYNCHRONICITY.
“Why do I hurt?” My voice sounded plaintive in its echoes. “My hands are burning.”
WE ARE INCOMPATIBLE, MORTAL. YOU ARE IMPERFECT. I AM NOT. KNOW THIS, YOUR IMPERFECTION HURTS ME FAR MORE THAN IT DOES YOU.
“My imperfection hurts you? How is that possible?”
YOU ARE ADAPTED TO IT, I AM NOT. EVEN A TOUCH OF SOIL MAKES WATER IMPURE, AND I CANNOT BEAR IMPURITY.
I contemplated this, taking a few steps back to lessen the pain. Eventually, I decided that I would dare to ask this entity for a boon.
“I want to live forever,” I requested, “can you give that to me?”
I CAN. BUT YOU KNOW NOT WHAT YOU ASK.
“I ask anyways,” I said. “I want to experience all that is and more. What can I trade for this?”
NOTHING YOU COULD OFFER ME FROM YOUSELF HOLDS ANY VALUE. BUT YOU CAN ENSURE WHAT IS MINE IS RETURNED TO ME. YOU CAN WATCH AND SHEPHERD A GREATER FLOCK.
“I accept. I will guide the flock you speak of and I will guard your sheep.”
YOU STILL DO NOT UNDERSTAND. NEVERTHELESS, OUR BOND IS SEALED. OUR AGREEMENT IS DEFINED. I WILL ETCH THIS PROMISE IN THE WALLS OF THIS CAVE, BUT YOU CANNOT YET APPROACH WIHTOUT DEATH.
“My bones know that simply a few steps closer would be fatal,” I agreed
DO THIS, LEHI. TAKE ONE OF YOUR LAMBS, A YEARLING. CUT ITS THROAT AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE CAVE AND SPREAD ITS BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS AND ARMS. TAKE ITS HEART AND PAINT YOUR FACE WITH THE HEART-BLOOD. BRING ITS BODY WITH YOU AND RETURN. THEN YOU MAY APPROACH AND SURVIVE.
I followed these instructions, a marionette moving to a tune beyond my comprehension. Upon exiting from the cave, I saw my favorite yearling close to the entrance. I took the lamb and cut its throat, blood poured down into the cave depths. The heart was slightly difficult to cut free, but once I had severed the arteries, I spread the darkened blood contained within on my face.
As I returned to the depths of the cave, the prickling of my skin was muted and I was able to walk further before debilitating pain.
I approached the deep corner, and the blood on my skin seethed and foamed. Hissing and spitting, it boiled and smoked but remained liquid, dripping from my fingers and chin.
The lamb’s body hung limp from my arms, but the blood that dripped from it did not act in the same strange manner. It simply fell, hot but quickly cooling, onto the stones under my feet.
By the time I neared a hard bend in the cave, the body in my arms had almost completely finished draining of blood. My skin had started to burn in pain again, almost equaling the prior intensity, though I was much further with this new protection. I reached the corner and began to turn it when the voice returned.
STOP THERE. DO NOT PROGRESS FURTHER. LAY THE LAMB ON THE GROUND. SPLAY ITS LEGS OUT AND REST THE BODY ON ITS BELLY. CIRCUMSCRIBE A CIRCLE AROUND IT AND ENSURE THAT ALL FOUR HOOVES INTERSECT WITH THE LINE.
I followed the command, sketching out a rough circle in the dirt and stones before placing the lamb’s body in the center, hooves splayed to their fullest extent.
As I stepped back from positioning the lamb, a flame began to lick from the circle I had drawn. I started, jerking away from the fire and twisting my ankle on a stone. Gasping with new pain that complemented that from my skin, I hobbled back to my feet and stood favoring that side.
STEP INTO THE CIRCLE. STAND AT THE REAR OF THE LAMB. CLOSE YOUR EYES AND DO NOT OPEN THEM. IF YOU DISOBEY, YOU WILL SURELY DIE.
I limped into the circle and located myself between the lamb’s hind legs. As soon as my eyes were closed, I felt the fire roar up around me and the acrid scent of burning meat filled my nose.
The heat was barely tolerable, but the sounds were what made staying in place the most difficult. A low grade rumble combined with a high pitched, roiling screech that itched at the base of my skull like a hot poker. Something wrong, something otherworldly was contained in that sound and I knew in my bones that to even observe what was making it would mean death.
The fear masked the changes at first, but I slowly realized that my body was shifting under the blood, warping and twisting, though subtly and slowly, into something new.
My spine, slightly crooked in a way that I had never noticed, shifted and popped into a perfect line. The birthmark on my hip, burning hotter than the rest of my skin under the protective blood, began to ache less badly. My freshly-sprained ankle groaned and I felt the outside tendon contract, causing me to briefly struggle for balance as my joint moved without my command. I tested the foot, heart pounding but now more from curiosity and wonder than strict fear.
The screaming whirlwind died down and I felt the fire’s heat through the blood lessen.
OPEN YOUR EYES. OUR PACT IS COMPLETE.
I looked around me. The dim of the cave was now easier to see in, my eyes now saw as clearly as when I was a young boy. The lamb’s carcass, now a few remaining bones in ash, covered my feet in black as I shuffled them back out of the circle.
The blood on my skin had ceased its spitting and now sat dry and flaking off. I picked at some on my left forearm before freezing, expecting the pain to return.
It did not.
YOU ARE NOW PURIFIED. GO FORTH, RENAMED MEHADAS. YOU WILL NO LONGER BE A SHEPHERD, BUT A WITNESS OF MEN. WATCH THEM, YOU WILL BE MY EYES AND MY INFORMANT AS THEY GROW. DO NOT INTERFERE, DO NOT GUIDE. YOUR ROLE IS TO OBSERVE.
“Mehadas? I was not aware that the deal came with a new name”.
I marveled at my skin as I rubbed the dry blood free from it. Pink from either the heat or the rebirth, it prickled in a muted echo of the pain I felt before.
Scratching at my hip, I uncovered the area where my birthmark was. Or rather, used to be. All that remained of it was a slight difference in the pinkish hue, one that was quickly fading as my skin returned to its previously familiar shade.
A NEW MAN REQUIRES A NEW NAME. TO HOLD TO THE OLD WOULD RETURN YOU TO IT.
I didn’t understand why I couldn’t stay Lehi and be immortal, but there did not seem to be room for argument. And already, the old name felt less personal, like a memorable but discarded childhood plaything.
I felt the presence retreat and knew my audience was over. Stumbling on legs that felt somehow both fresh and exhausted, I exited the cave and washed myself in a stream.
I returned home but my family and friends did not recognize me. They treated me like a stranger and could not be convinced that I was the Lehi they once knew.
Forced to leave them, I wandered the land and observed from then on, sometimes staying in one place briefly, twice even starting a family. But those around me seemed unable to see me as anything more than passing through, and so when my obligations and commitments ceased, I continued on.
It’s been very long now. I remember what it was like before, but without the feeling or understanding.
I know I used to be human, but I am no longer sure what I am now.
Mehadas finished his story and the final words sat leaden in the air. Each boy brewed his own way to break the silence, but Nick acted first.
“That’s a hell of a yarn, dude,” he said, leaning back and finishing off his beer. “My grandpa used to tell me stories like that, about giants and big ol’ walking trees. Good time, he never told me how fun it was to listen to drunk.”
Mehadas smiled and glanced down. “Yes, I apologize for interrupting your night.”
Caden waved the apology off.
“No, don’t worry about it. Nick’s just mad that he didn’t get to tell us for the fifteenth time about the time he streaked across the quad for a hit of molly.”
The boys smirked and the mood lightened. Motion rose once again, some shuffling off for a late night leak while others grabbed refills.
The rustling continued until each came to notice Mehadas sitting uncannily still, staring at the pistol in his hand. He glanced up to their wary attention.
“I apologize once again. I have seen how different lives can become after large perturbations. But when you choose to love something, you are choosing to leave or be left. And I have loved humanity dearly, but I cannot stay.”
He raised the pistol to his mouth and pulled the trigger.
A final shot rang into the darkness, a body jerked and fell backwards as if yanked by an angel or a devil, and the stars above observed it all silently.