OK, so here I am, just on the threshold of actually writing out 50,000 semi-cohesive words. I’m at 48,349.
“Hey, there’s the foot. Reset your trip odometer”, Ralph said, looking at the running shoe on the side of the road whiz by.
By the time they got back to the paved road the trip odometer read 1.4 miles, so the foot was a about half way up the road to the trail. Ralph wrote the number down to tell the police when they got to a payphone. Peter began to pull out on the road when they saw a big, black car coming up the street.
When it passed them they saw that it was Mr. Svenberg’s hearse and it looked like the old man driving. Peter slowed down the car so they could see where he went. There wasn’t anything up this road since it ended at another gated logging road about a mile past where they had been turning.
“Hey, he’s going up the road to the trail!”, Ralph shouted.
“I’m going to call the cops from here”, Peter said.
Peter grabbed his cell phone, but there wasn’t a signal down in the valley next to the river. “Shit, the phone’s not working. We have to drive up the road towards town a bit.”
“Go! Let’s get somebody up here. If somebody has a steady supply of body parts it’s the mortician!”, Ralph shouted.
Peter shoved the van into gear and sped down the road, watching the bars on his phone. As soon as he saw two bars of signal he called 911.
“Hi, this isn’t technically an emergency.”
“OK, what’s the problem?”
“I’m up on Central, north of Aberdeen. Send someone from the Sheriff’s Department up to the trailhead where they’ve been investigating the human remains in the woods. Deputy Denton and the Sheriff know where that is.”
“Who is this?”
“This is Peter Forster. My friend and I found the remains with my dogs last week and now somebody or something just threw a foot and a head at us on the same road.”
“Get serious.”
“I’m totally serious. Now the mortician from Hoquiam just drove his hearse up the logging road. I don’t know if he’s picking up or delivering.”
“We’ll call you back if we need to. Don’t confront the other driver”, the operator said as she hung up.
“Well, now we’re involved again I guess”, Peter said as he closed his phone.
“Who’s we, white man? I’m not here”, Ralph said, as he started to get out of the van.
*****
Salal Blossom had been dreaming again and now that he was awake he was really pissed off. The old human hadn’t brought him anything for months. For the last few years he would dream about his women and the old man would bring ghosts up into the woods, always ones that looked like the women in the old man’s dreams. Women with blonde hair, blue eyes and yellow rubber gloves.
He’d been waiting here on the hill that he dreamed about, waiting for the old man, but others kept coming. Too many came lately and he was started to think the old man would stop. The first time it happened, Salal Blossom didn’t know what to think. He recognized the ghost from the old man’s dream, but what would he do with a ghost? Ghosts weren’t warm and they generally didn’t taste very good, but when he figured out that the old man didn’t want them back, they help him vent.
There had been one or two that were fresh, edible even, and the meals satiated Salal Blossom’s hunger and his rage. Then the ghosts were less palatable, some even made him sick, so they became objects of his hatred, his grief and his loneliness. The feet always fell off first and then he’d rip the hands off. The rubber smelled so bad. Then when he got extremely tired of seeing the ghost’s face he’d figure out some new game to separate the head from the body.
After a couple of weeks, he’d bury the rest somewhere in the woods, to feed the trees.
