Sunflowers

He found her in a field of sunflowers.

Nary a single head turned to look at the accursed visage of mangy fur and hanging entrails of the blood-covered beast. None but Arthur’s, the sun burning his nape. Two full moons lost in a starless night stared at him, nestled inside a wolf’s skull. Blood dripped down golden petals, a gentle breeze whistling by, innocently shaking the unkind picture of a man ripped to pieces that had been painted in front of him, reminding him it was no dream. No painting. Memory played him, the smell of death enough to evoke the taste of blood atop his tongue. He swallowed, his saliva thick and viscous and tasting of red.

The creature took a step back, white blobs jumping to her blood-covered hands, the dismembered body, and then back at him. Her head turned like a dog trying to make sense of something.

Arthur blinked once and only once, a bead of sweat bouncing off an eyelash. The beast vanished and the unmistakable tingle of someone staring at him intently came from behind, trained muscles forcing him to turn with his revolver drawn, the glare of the sun blinding him. He found no target, yet wherever he turned, the feeling remained. Observed, scrutinized and preyed upon, always from behind. An unreachable itch.

The tattoo atop his left wrist ached like the day it was inked. “Shit!” he exclaimed, the cross on his chest burning his skin and singeing chest-hairs. He yanked the chain off his neck, the holy symbol falling unceremoniously to the dirt below. There, it melted into a blob of silver, dug its own grave and disappeared, leaving only the iron chain. The pain reminded him to breathe, choking on his own spit after gasping wildly for air, his last reserve spent on an expletive that escaped when his knees hit the floor. By the time he’d gotten his breath back, his black shirt had turned yet another shade darker around his armpits and neck, strands of his long, black hair clinging to his face.

Arthur stumbled back up, fishing for the canteen hanging from one of his two belts. The lukewarm water granted him no reprieve against the raging summer sun, but at least it chased away the taste of putrid blood that his mind had hanged onto. The smell, of course, remained. The stomach had been torn into with depraved gusto, most of the man’s guts missing. A singular lung remained, though only half of it, the ribcage spread open like wings, held onto the body by meat and marrow like a fly to flypaper. Arthur could barely recognize the priest’s face, more bone than flesh.

He pulled out his sketching book and pen, drawing the scene with what detail his skills allowed. The sheriff would complain—the old fart always did and he hadn’t even known him for longer than a week—but Arthur needed to remember all he could.

On this second, more meticulous passing of his eyes, Arthur realized the lung had not been eaten. Nor the entrails or the heart. There hadn’t been blood on the beast’s head neither—not as much as there would’ve been had it been feasting. The more he searched, the more he found of the priest. Even his bible and rosary had found themselves strewn among the sunflowers.

With the last of his notes scribbled, he left, hoping the feeling of being watched would remain with the body.

It did not.

Jackson, St. Martinville’s delivery man, waited for him near the gates of the abandoned plantation, the horse on his wagon bucking wildly. “Quit it!” He yanked the reins, noticing Arthur for a split second before doing a double-back. “O-oh! Mr. Callahan!” He looked him up and down. “You alright, sir?”

Arthur ran a hand through his forehead, wiping off sweat. His hand trembled. “Yeah, just the heat.”

“Ah, you’ll get used to it.” Arthur climbed next to him. “Month or so,” the man grunted, giving the reins a smack, “you’ll be walking like your balls’ got a favorite leg in no time. Won’t even notice!” He chuckled heartily.

“Believe me Mr. Jackson, I haven’t forgotten how it was to grow up here.”

The old man turned to look at him, giving the estate a quick glance before facing him again. “You’s local?” A bump on the dirt road made the whole wagon shake, mason jars clinking in the back. Maybe the man’s brain shook too, because his eyes widened like cattails on the brim of bursting. “The Callahans?” he whispered. His surprise mellowed, wrinkles falling back atop thick eyebrows. “My condolences, son. Didn’t know.”

“Thank you.” Arthur sighed, rubbing his hand to try and massage the tremors away. Maybe it was the sun. Dehydration used to be a hell of a thing to fall to when he’d spend days running about the cotton fields, playing with some dark kid whose name he’d long forgotten. “Though I can’t say I knew them much, I’m just here to deal with the estate.”

Jack took a breath through gritted teeth, whistling. “Seen it. That’s a fixer-upper fer sure. Haven’t done anything to it?”

He let an arm hang off the side of the wagon. “Whenever I think I got a smidge of time to wipe my own ass, the sheriff’s on me like a viper, asking to go find this and that. T’was the priest this time. Found him alright. Torn to damned pieces.”

“Young Michael? He’s…” He turned to Arthur, who nodded. “Jesus.” Jack stared ahead and gave a small prayer that made Arthur’s head throb. “Ain’t no rest for the wicked, hm?”

“Much less for the righteous.”

“True that.” Jackson rubbed his scraggly beard. “Still, you’d think ol’ Colt would give you some respite, bein’ an estate owner an’ all.”

“Well, you got a Pinkerton in town and you got missing people,” Arthur spat off the wagon, not daring to drink his own saliva. “Shit, I’d put myself to work, too.”

“Guess so,” Jack said. “Can’t believe they lost ‘nother one though. One thing’s them robberies gone wrong, or sum fellers too deep inna bottle, but we all saw when you found poor Sally. T’ween us? Wish we hadn’t.”

“You and me both…” Arthur’s voice died down to a murmur. He hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep for a while now.

He saw her again. Off the utmost limits of his vision, the same beady eyes that had seared themselves into his mind mere minutes ago were stuck on him, half her body hidden behind a tree. His neck had turned to stone, but he forced his head to turn, meeting the creature’s eyes. She didn’t disappear this time. The entrails that hung from her gut were no longer there, much like the blood that had caked her black fur. The wagon took a turn, the tree obscuring her, and she was gone.

Almost desperately, he grabbed his sketchbook and began flipping until the words ‘Sally’ jumped out of the page. He’d found her hanging from a tree, the noose made of her own entrails which were still connected to her split stomach. His field autopsy told him most organs were missing, yet the body hadn’t gone rigid nor had any carrion found it. The previous two corpses had been the same. This one—priest Michael’s body—proved to be a complete body, if severely dismembered. Either he’d caught the beast before it fed or there were two monsters haunting the town.

Arthur’s voice became sharp and commanding. “Turn back.”

“Huh?”

“I need to get to my estate, turn back and take the other road.”

Jackson shrugged, pulled on the reins, and turned the wagon around.

Arthur could feel sweat escape his pores, his idea nothing more than a Hail Mary. He knew that the damned beast followed, and he couldn’t drive it towards the town—not in a million years would he risk them all to save his own hide.

One thing remained clear in his head, even through the mush that the sun had turned it into—either Arthur had gone mad, or the supernatural hunted him. A losing hand that he couldn’t fold, the only hope left was to go all in. Go down under alone and face what he’d wanted to avoid for so long.

The burning symbols, his aching tattoo, the feeling of being watched. He couldn’t count how many damned times he’d replaced his cross. How many prayers, how many nights with a blade to his wrist, ready to cut the tattoo out if his skin. Where the skies orphaned? Had he been abandoned by the grace of god? He’d done no evil, he’d stuck to the law, yet wherever he went, brutality ensued with such wickedness that his dreams had turned to nothing but nightmares long ago.

It had been enough.

The wagon came to a slow stop. “Here she is, Callahan estate.”

Arthur climbed off, the gates to his estate greeting him with twisted iron arms, wide open and devoured by vines. Had something burst through them? He put the thought aside. “Pay you back at the bar, yeah?”

Jack tipped his straw hat. “My pleasure.” He grabbed the reins and stopped at the cusp of smacking them. “Anything for the Sheriff?”

Arthur sighed, rubbing his temple. “Priest’s dead and the body lies in a field of sunflowers in the Mason estate, he can go find it if he wants, I have business to attend to. In my estate. As an estate owner.” He gave an strong nod with every pause. “I’m not some wandering gypsy.”

A smile crossed the old man’s lips, the wrinkles setting nicely around them, like they’d done it a million times before. “I’ll be nice about it.”

Arthur gave a lazy wave and Jack departed. He waited near the gates for the wagon to disappear off into the dirt road, the trees at each side of the long entryway giving him some time to cool off under the shade. The mansion loomed with a shadow of its own, its windows broken and plants climbing in to reclaim the place. A fixer-upper was a nice way of putting it. Place was a shithole, plain and simple.

The wooden stairs cried, almost giving out under him on his first step up the entrance. Through sheer luck they held, and he pushed past the half-open doors. It took a second for him to realize the feeling on his back disappeared and that the creature now stood in front of him, just a flight of stairs above, looking over a handrail. For some god-mocking reason she wore a dress now, hair tied in a bun with loose, dark hairs marring the white bone of her face. Smothered against his sweat-drenched shirt, hairs fought a losing battle to stand up to attention in front of the creature. His voice did not betray him though, and it bellowed through the emptiness that only he and she occupied.

“What malady have I bestowed upon you, beast?!” He held the revolver’s grip with a vice, but kept it holstered. It eased his nerves. “For what crime do I pay with your presence?!”

“For what crime did I pay with the priest’s?” She spoke in a voice that carried itself with authority. High-born, upper-class, from money, whatever one could’ve called it; if he closed his eyes, he could see a woman worthy of wearing the dress she’d stolen. She sounded indignant. “I had harmed no man or woman until he came along. Threatened me with the light of god, called me a thousand names and then called those that are holy to smite me down, waving his bible to and fro! It is a mighty painful thing, mind you.”

Arthur felt one of his eyelids pulsate. He’d expected a beast, not whatever charade he had the misfortune of seeing. “You admit to killing him, then?”

“In self defense and nothing more!” She stomped a foot down and it went right through the wooden floor, kicking up motes of dust. With one leg still up and the other half-way down through the floor, the skirt of her dress- “Ah! D-don’t look!”

Arthur turned his head away instinctively, covering his face with one hand. He did it until he remembered that a woman of class hadn’t asked him that, but a skull-faced thing. When he turned back to look, she stood straight up and to the side of the hole, the ‘cheek’ bones under her eyes somehow a rosier shade than he remembered them being.

“Are you done?”

“Yes. N-no. I don’t know, I’ve never killed a human before, we’re not supposed to!” She let her arms fall limp to her sides. “What if a Grimm comes for me?”

“A what?” Arthur groaned. “Look, you’re telling me the priest hunted you down, correct?”

“Yes!” She took a step forth and grabbed onto the railings, which almost broke, too. “He said I killed some people, that their entrails had been eaten and what-not, called me a werewolf that woke up half-way into its taxidermy!” Arthur’s choked laugh did not go unnoticed. “It’s not funny, not one bit!”

He put both hands on his hips and hung his head low. The world had gone mad and he’d gone under. The beast had proved, for now, to be friendly. Matching her approach seemed the most reasonable thing to do. It sure beat ending up like the priest. “Alright, Miss…?” he lifted an eyebrow at her.

“Malorie.”

“Arthur.” He coughed into his arm. “Alright Miss Malorie, have you any way to prove any of this?”

“W-well…” She crossed her arms and then clapped her hands, which made no noise. “Oh! The priest was a hunter! Surely there must be something inside the church that might give proof that he led a second life.”

“This a normal occurrence, Miss?”

“No, not at all. We have monsters, sure, but everyone else keeps to themselves.” She grabbed the sides of her dress and strutted down the stairs until she stood mere steps away from him, about as tall as he. Her eyes, empty as they were, traced him from head to toe. “Now, when I had skin and not just bone I would’ve blushed at having two handsome men so interested in me, but this has proven to be not at all like the books I used to read.” She turned to the side and gave him one last look before turning her head away and fanning herself with a pawed hand. “But you seem a lot more reasonable and I did always prefer the rough, raven-haired ones over the blond angels… are you a bad man, Mr Arthur?” The large ears atop her head flicked towards him, grey fluff peeking from the inside.

“I’m... a Pinkerton?”

She let out an exaggerated, breathy sigh, the fanning of her hand picking up and her bushy tail kicking up dust behind her. “Oh you’re good at this…”