Karma's A Bitch

Karma’s A Bitch
By Timothy Bird
August 2008


The man in the tattered, muddy suit sprinted over the crest of the hill and down the opposite slope, arms wind-milling wildly, his face a mask of terror. His heart pounded in his chest like a crazy tribal drum, and his breath whistled painfully through his throat, but still he ran. He ran as if the hounds of hell themselves were at his heals, and in a sense they almost were.
The view from the hilltop was spectacular. The wild grassland through which his panicky flight was taking him rolled gently down into a forest of old pine and fir trees, which then gave way to a smaller, pristine lake. The blue-green water shone like an emerald in the August sunlight, and from this vantage point the darker blues and greens of the bottom topography were clearly visible throughout most of the lake.
This was his land, but the natural beauty of this place was utterly lost on him; particularly now, as the awareness of his surroundings was reduced to the basic fight or flight response of an animal. Not that he would have taken any notice of it anyways, aside from the dollar potential of its development for wealthy condo owners.
Rabbits scurried to their burrows as he pounded across the grassland and into the tree line. He careened through the silent stillness of the forest, his speed unchecked despite the imminent danger of a potentially fatal impact with a tree. A buck raised its head at his approach and, sensing a predator, silently bounded away, disappearing into the undergrowth. A squirrel chattered at him from the safety of a tree branch, reprimanding him for his lack of respect.
That he was going to pay for that lack of respect was obvious: the squirrel knew it, the forest itself seemed to know it, and deep down inside he knew it. It was an inevitability that was so palpable it nearly had a physical presence.
On he ran through the forest, stumbling and rising again, crashing into trees, heedless of the obstacles in his path. His eyes were wild; empty of reason and full of sheer, mortal terror. His breathes came in harsh, painful gasps, and his head was turning that shade of purple usually reserved for turnips and eggplants.
Finally he burst through the trees and out onto a grassy shoreline. As if the water were a key to a psychosomatic command, his legs simply stopped, and he crashed to the ground in a heap. He lay there for a long time, curled into a fetal position, hands and arms covering his head. He sobbed and twitched and kicked; mostly in mute anguish, although the silence was ruptured periodically with his inarticulate cries and pleading.
After an eternity, he began to calm down, and a semblance of rational thought returned. He fought to his hands and knees and looked around. Spotting the lake only a few feet away, he crawled to the edge and put his face into the water. Greedily he drank, and the pain in his throat and chest eased a little. He drank until his stomach hurt and he felt bloated and full.
Moving back from the waters edge, he sat up and took a good look at his surroundings. He recognized the lake, and knew that he had a long walk back to the access road.
But where had he left the car?
He thought hard, and reality came back to him in a rush. The edges of his vision blurred, and he was almost lost once again in that thoughtless, instinctual panic. With a fierce desperation he fought to keep control of his senses, and was rewarding with a slight reduction in his pounding heart rate. After a time his breathing slowed, and his vision returned to normal.
“Think” he willed himself.
As he calmed himself, the memories of the last few days began to return. The announcement of his plans to develop the land into a retreat and playground for wealthy clients, the public meeting in the little town hall, and the impassioned pleas of the townsfolk to stop the plans. One after another they had stood up and spoken, until they finally had to put a stop to the meeting. They had met the terms of state regulations by holding a public meeting to share their plans with the community; but there were no laws that forced them to actually listen to the local’s complaints. They lived in the country; they would just have to find a different spot to go and commune with nature.
“But how did I get here?” he thought to himself, “and what is wrong with me?”
His foreman had called a close to the meeting amidst angry cries and a lot of yelling. The crowd followed them to their cars, and they had to push their way into the vehicles and out of the parking lot.
“God-Damn rednecks!” he had said to his foreman as they drove out of the little town. “You’d think that we were knocking down a national monument – it’s just a piece of land.” He had shook his head and laughed softly.
“Should we stop and have another look at the entrance on our way out?”
As the memories came flooding back, he breathed a sigh of relief. The car was parked on the forestry access road on the west side of the property. He looked at his watch.
2 pm.
He had a good two hour walk back to the car.
He looked at his hands, and they were caked with dirt and grime from his flight through the bush (but why? How did I get here and what happened to Steve?). Slowly getting to his feet, his mind churning sluggishly, he went to the lake and had another drink. He took off the remains of his jacket, and rolled up what was left of his sleeves. As he washed the dirt from his hands and arms, he noticed an underlying redness, and more caked under his nails.
“Is that blood?” he thought incredulously. Fleeting images went through his mind; horrible, violent images, and then just as quickly they were gone.
Unsettled, he began the long trek back to the vehicle. As he walked, his mind strained to remember what had happened after they had parked.
As the car pulled off the road into the small clearing that served as access to the property, they had noticed a solitary figure seated on a log at the edge.
“Now what the hell is this?”
The headlights revealed an old woman in the twilight, swathed in a baggy dress, her grey hair covered with a scarf. She was holding a walking stick in her left hand, and had a small bag on her lap.
“I’ll get rid of her,” Steve offered.
He though for a moment; mentally appraising the situation.
“No, I will talk with her,” he replied. “It’s just one old lady. Stay nearby in case she hits me with that stick,” he laughed. “The last thing we need is an assault charge at this point.”
He approached the woman, and put on his best public relations smile.
“Evening Ma’am, beautiful night isn’t it?”
“That it is,” she replied, and slowly rose to her feet. She shuffled towards him, and came to a stop a few arms-lengths away. She fixed him with a piercing gaze, as if weighing his soul with a glance, and he actually squirmed a little, in discomfort.
“This land is sacred to us,” she said in a low voice. “Do you mean to do this still?” Her voice was almost a monotone, as if she were simply repeating by rote some necessary words.
He quickly regained his composure, and fell back into his public relations persona.
“I’m sorry if you had some special attachment to this land Ma’am, but we do mean to go ahead with this project. I can assure you that –. “
His voice cut off abruptly as she reached into the bag with her hand, and in a flash had flicked a handful of dust into his face. It stung his eyes and coated his throat, making him gag. As he cried out and tried to clear his eyes, she spoke again, and this time she spoke in anything but a monotone.
With a voice full of venomous contempt, she said “You take what you want from those weaker than you, and destroy that which others cherish, without regard. Since you choose to behave like an animal, I curse you with an animal’s spirit.”
She made a symbol in the air with her right hand, and then raised the staff with her left and intoned some unintelligible syllables. He felt the weight of those words even if he did not know the meaning, as if they carried a power and a life of their own.
He cried out and staggered backwards, trying vainly to wipe his eyes clean. His vision swam deeply, turned dark at the edges, and then the world disappeared down a long, dark tunnel.
When he opened his eyes it was dark, and Steve was kneeling beside him. He looked around quickly, and Steve put a restraining hand on his chest.
“Take it easy, she’s gone. When you fell down she just looked at you for a moment, nodded, and walked away. Didn’t even look at me. What happened?”
“I don’t know. She threw some powder or something in my eyes. She said something, but I don’t remember what it was.”
“We better get you to a hospital. Who knows what that crazy old lady threw at you…”
Steve started to help him up, and his head swam again.
“Just give me a minute Steve. I don’t think I’m ready to get up just yet.”
He was jerked from his recollections back to the present by the sight of blood on the trail ahead of him. His breath caught in his throat, and his chest felt tight as he cautiously approached. There was a lot of blood on the trail and on the low brush beside it, and it was obvious that something (or someone) had been killed there. He followed the drag marks through the brush and into the trees with trepidation, terrified that he would find Steve at the end of the trail.
He stepped between two large trees, and sucked in a breath in surprise and horror. There was a large deer on the ground, or what once had been a large deer. Its throat had been ripped out, and the body had been beaten and torn to pieces. Looking at it, he thought that it did not look like something that had been killed for food, but rather the victim of a murderous rage.
Again he experienced fleeting violent images through his mind, and a feeling like a distant memory of a horrible, insatiable hunger and an endless rage. He turned and quickly walked back to the trail, looking at the dark matter under his nails with a renewed dread.
He walked with his eyes on the trail, looking for any sign of what had happened to Steve. His nerves were wound up to the edge of panic, wondering if whatever had torn apart that deer was still out there, and if it had found Steve.
“What did that old witch do?” he mumbled fearfully as he walked.
He was nearing the car now, and the light was beginning to dim to that pleasant late summer evening twilight. He still had seen no sign of Steve, and hope was forming that he had gotten away from whatever it was that old witch had let loose. He looked at his watch, and began to make a plan in case the car was not there.
Absently, he walked around a corner and looked up from his time piece. His eyes bulged, his throat clenched, and his legs lost all of their strength. He dropped to his knees in the middle of the trail, and stared in silent, grief-stricken horror.
“Oh God,” he moaned, and the memories came flooding back.
Steve had tried to move him to the car, but he had refused. He had insisted that he just needed a few more minutes to rest, and then they could go.
“Ten minutes, and then we go to a hospital,” Steve had told him, and then had gone to the car to get a bottle of water.
As he lay on the ground, he felt a presence, as if someone watching him. He gazed up, and found himself staring into the full moon. It seemed perfectly natural that he felt it staring back. Intrigued, he looked closer, deeper, and felt himself being drawn in. Slowly, inexorably, the outside world receded, until there was nothing but the warm loving glow of the moon, comforting him, welcoming him, bringing him home.
As he basked in the warm lunar embrace, he realized that he was not alone. He turned his mind’s eye, and saw the presence that had intruded into his utopia. It was a horrible thing, an unnatural, deformed parody of a wolf, with eyes that did not belong on any living creature. He could feel the rage and hate and hunger radiating from this being, and was repulsed. He pushed at it with all of his strength, but it just laughed at him; a terrible, mocking laughter that sent a shiver through his mortal body.
“You are mine” it said to him in his mind, mocking. “When the moon is full, you will do my bidding. Now take me home!” it commanded with what may have been a sneer if it’s twisted, misshapen face had been capable of such an expression.
He retreated from the embrace of the moon, and as his awareness returned he felt its presence riding along, like a spiritual parasite. He began to shriek in horror as he realized what was happening, and then in pain as the entity took control of his body.
Steve came running at the sounds of his screams, but stopped short as the transformation began.
“What the hell!?” he yelled, and began to back away.
The transformation was over in less than a dozen seconds, but for him, it was a slow, drawn out, agonizing experience.
“That’s how I want it to be,” it told him. “I want you to fully appreciate the experience.”
Steve was half way across the lot, and when it looked in his direction he began to sprint in earnest. Even with the head start, it took only a few seconds to catch up. As it pounced from behind, his awareness was combined with that of the entities, so that he could feel only the rage and hunger and pleasure of the kill.
He rolled Steve over, and began the slow, playful business of tearing him to pieces. His anguished dying shrieks went on and on, and when it was finally over, the hunger was still not satiated. He lifted his head and sniffed the air. He could smell a deer nearby. It was not as satisfying as a man, but it would do.
He did not know how long he lay in the middle of the trail, lost in the memories and the horror of what he had done, but the sun had set, and the stars lit the sky. He contemplated Steve’s dismembered corpse with a mix of anguish and grief, and wondered what he was going to do. He looked at his finger nails, and the torn remnants of his suit, and decided that he had to get cleaned up. But first he needed to dispose of the body. He knew that any competent officer could connect him to Steve’s death, and was not likely to buy into tales of evil spirits and werewolves.
As he began to formulate a plan, he felt the presence regarding him again. He tried not to look, but knew that it was inevitable. Slowly, pensively, he turned and regarded the moon.
“I need to clean this up, or I will go to jail,” he tried to tell the entity.
It just laughed. “I don’t care,” it said as it forced its way back in.
In moments the transformation was complete, and he wandered toward the highway, hungry for something to kill.

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