La Diablesse

The overhead light of the passenger door illuminates as the woman pulls it open. Errant strands of long, dark hair fall here and there across her shoulders, loose but secured by a simple black ball-cap. As she ducks into the seat, the brim of the cap shadows her face. She smells like a sunny beach day, with hints of lilac and sea breeze. She is out of place in the middle of the night on this clifftop road, skirting mere inches from a harrowing drop into the foggy sea below.

Even though he cannot see her face, Horace knows she is beautiful. That is not why he stopped for the hitchhiker, though, it only increases his concern for her. Why is she out alone, walking the cliff’s edge at night? He is familiar with the sensitive fragility of women, especially girls, who have had bad things happen to them. He hopes she is ok.

He gently pulls his car off the grassy shoulder and back onto the road, barely glancing in the rearview mirror as he does so, for the darkness of the night would be pierced by other vehicles headlights long before the car was close enough to be a danger. He looks at the girl, slightly more relaxed in the darkness, once the overhead light blinked out.

“Are you ok?” he asks. “I have some water. Some crackers too, if you’re hungry.”

“No. Thank you,” she says, her voice soft and light. There is a measure of comfort in it for him. A similar voice sang him to sleep as a baby.

A streetlight momentarily catches her face under the bill of her cap. Resplendent is all that Horace thinks, certain he has never witnessed such beauty before. Then it strikes him.

“Shoot. Horace, you big, dumb fuck,” he admonishes himself aloud and slaps the wheel with his palm. The extra weight he retains on the back of his arms jiggles as he repeats the motion on the steering wheel a couple more times.

Startled, she looks up towards him and her violet eyes cut through the darkness. Horace takes his attention off the road and allows his own eyes to lock with hers. Singular and phenomenal in their beauty, yes, but embedded there is also the feeling of love and protection.

“Wow. That proves it,” he says and scoffs. “So, let me guess. I fell asleep behind the wheel. Just what my mom always feared. Or was it a heart attack?” He pats his large belly. “Can’t say I ever watched what I ate but, boy, I enjoyed every bite.”

The woman is still looking at him, taking him in, sizing him up. Finally, her perfectly formed lips curve up into a smile. “That is the fastest anyone has ever figured it out,” she tells him. “You were too tired to be driving this road tonight. The cliff. The sea,” she nods.

“I fucking knew it,” Horace says, then turns to face the beautiful stranger again. “Sorry, Angel, didn’t mean to swear. Don’t tell the big guy, ok?” He winks and she giggles. The sound reminds him of windchimes from his childhood and that lullaby, just beyond the periphery. He smiles too.

“I’m not an angel – but thank you. I’m a transport specialist – I make sure you get where you’re supposed to go. For you, the next place is a wonder. Beautiful like your big, albeit slightly unhealthy, heart.”

“Was that a fat joke?”

“Narrowed artery joke,” she quickly replies, and they share another giggle.

“Why am I not upset about this – dying? I know there are people, my mom, my lady, who will be devastated. I know this because I remember them but not because I feel it. Where has all the empathy gone?” he strokes his goatee as he ponders.

“Left to the mortal coil… Emotions are different in the next place. You don’t need to be able to empathize. We’re all more connected than that. Here too...just most humans have a hard time tapping in and the connections have become...distorted.”

“Interesting. How do you know where to take me?”

“I only know once my ward sees my face...The reaction they have to me. You are inquisitive...tell me, what do you see?” She holds up her head for him. Her hair is long and dark and looks smooth as polished ebony as it flows in soft waves down her back. Her skin is a perfect bronze. She wears a simple plaid shirt in purple and grey, like her eyes, and jeans.

“I see the most exceptional beauty I’ve ever seen,” Horace utters, compelled by her.

“Thank you. I am a mirage of beauty to those whose lives have balanced out for the greater good. You are an exceptionally good soul. For those other poor, lost souls – well, you don’t deserve to even think of me that way. There is a name for me, here, when I look like that. You might get to hear it...unfortunately, we have a stop to make before our drive is over”

“I’m not your only ward tonight?”

“Someone else happened to be sitting on the guardrail where your car goes over the cliff.”

“I killed somebody!?”

“It was an accident. But what happens after this one person is removed is very beneficial in the long run. It’s another move for the greater good if we are being honest. Especially for the little girls he fathered. They flourish after he’s gone. I shouldn’t have told you that,” she starts, catching herself.

“Well, then I’m glad. If I couldn’t be a father, I’m glad I could protect someone else's kids.”

“You are defiantly one of the good ones, Horace,” she smiles, turning to look out the window. “When we round the next bend, stop, keep the headlights on, ok?”

***

Brian takes another swing from the bottle of Johnny Walker red and stumbles towards the guardrail. There was a place he ended up, most nights, to sit and drink in peace. Where was it? A little dip in the rail he could sit and look out at the sea. Tonight, there was an eerie fog hugging the water's edge. It made him think of the folklore and tales he grew up with.

“Phishh...make-believe non-sense,” he slurs out to himself. He finds the spot where the guardrail dips and sits, swigging from the bottle until he almost falls forward trying to right himself. The thought of plummeting over the edge momentarily sobers him up. The thoughts that follow are darker. What difference would falling to his death ultimately make? Who’d care? Nobody. They’d laugh. Maybe even celebrate. That good-for-nothing woman and her ungrateful spawn.

“Always making me have to remind them who's boss,” he says aloud gesturing out toward the sea with the bottle, following up with the other fist in a haphazard swing at the air. He remembers the connection he made with his wife's face earlier. How he felt her cheekbone cave beneath his clenched fist. That was probably a bit too far, so he had stopped – the children screaming at him to leave. He shouldn’t have to remind her again how to behave for a while after tonight. He sneers and gulps down more whiskey.

Headlights round the bend behind him and stop when they illuminate his back. He doesn't turn around but waves feverishly for whoever it is to keep going. He doesn't need help, and he don’t want company. He hears a car door open and close.

“Go away,” he says without turning around. Then he smells it. Pungent and rotting – the smell of death. He has only smelled rodent-sized death before. This is overwhelming. This is human death. The smell of multiple human deaths, even. He turns at last.

The silhouette of a woman in a long, white, sheer dress appears. The outline of a perfect body is visible beneath the fabric, thanks to the bright headlights. She wears an old-fashioned broad-brimmed hat, the likes of which he remembers from old photographs. It’s out of place here, in both date and time, on this old cliffside road in the dark. He can’t see her face but from that body alone, he wants her. It distracts him from the all-encompassing smell of rot.

“Well, well. What are you doing out here so late at night? Are you alone?” Brian tries to see past the woman towards the car, but she moves closer, obstructing his view.

“I’ve come to take you,” she says.

“Oh yeah? Well you can have me. Come see what I got,” he sneers, grabbing a handful of himself to show her. God, her body looks so good, he thinks. He wishes her dress were shorter.

She moves closer and it begins to rain gently. Oh yeah, this will be right out of the movies. I’m going to take this bitch on the hood of her car whether she wants it or not, he thinks.

She moves towards him again, her dress clinging tighter in the rain. He’s trying to see her breasts through the sheer material when he catches a glimpse of her right leg, revealed through an open slit as she walks. He stops. He sees a cow’s leg. A cloven hoof.

“Yo...you’re messed up,” he says, struck for the second time by the memory of childhood folklore. “La Diablesse,” he says as fear releases his bladder, and he wets himself.

The woman is now close enough to Brain that the car's headlights no longer shield the details of her rotting flesh from him. She lifts her head, so the wide brim of the hat reveals the truth. She is the origin of the smell, the pungent smell of death. Teeth exposed through dried and rotting lips, festering holes for eyes and where a nose should be. She laughs and it is the sound of nightmares. He is struck immobile with terror.

"You know my name? Good." She says, and the semblance of a smile distorts her decomposing face. Her voice sounds like all the pain he's ever caused anyone in life reflected back on him. A black tongue slithers over what's left of her teeth.

She moves at an inhuman pace and with a strength not possible for a rotting corpse. She grabs him, lifts him over the guardrail and they fall together. He is taken to the place he belongs.

***

Horace sits and patiently waits for the angel’s other business to be tended to. He sees her in her jeans, plaid shirt, and ball cap speaking to the man on the guard rail. She stands between him and the man for which Horace is grateful. Even if this guy is not the best person, he doesn’t want to know the face of the man he has accidentally killed on route to his own untimely death.

It begins to rain, gently, and Horace turns on the wipers. He’s adjusting the speed of their rhythmic thumps when he hears the man say something that sounds like, ‘Lajabless.’ Then the two grasp hands and jump off the cliff.

“All done,” she remarks cheerfully as she gets back in the car.

“That wasn’t so bad – didn’t seem too bad anyway,” he says.

“There will be no more bad for you, Horace. Are you scared?” she asks.

Horace thinks for a moment. He tries to feel. He answers honestly. “I’m excited.”

“Good. Let's go,” she gestures out towards the sea and Horace puts the car into drive. She offers her hand to him and he catches a waft of her sunshine scent as she moves.

In the moments before the car breaks the guardrail and vaults from the cliff-top, Horace sees tracks in the mud. A single footprint on the left and something cloven on the right. That’s strange, he thinks as he holds his angel's hand and moves along to what comes next, his grandmother's lullaby getting louder as he falls.