Read Online Man with No Name: A Nanashi Novella by Laird Barron - Free Book Online Page B

in stately menace where the water cut a delta around its gnarled bole. Empty suits and shoes dangled from the branches. Pieces of jewelry glimmered in knotholes. Thunder rumbled. His mind became so full it blankly mirrored the blue moon and struck him dumb, pinned him to the spot. The moon’s eyelid peeled back and crimson radiance stabbed forth. Where the red light touched, grand black trees silently erupted from the grass like a child’s popup book and from each tree depended the sinister fruit of empty clothing. Chimes tinkled and sang.
    A dog howled, or a god. Nanashi ran, slipping and splashing along the ravine, making for the car. He rose and fell and rose again to flee onward. Blue haze before him shivered as it was eaten by the red ray of the moon. One sidelong glance revealed a figure keeping pace, a stumbling, screaming lunatic who much resembled himself, and there were others at intervals between the skinny poplars and pines. Each of them rising, falling, rising.  At his back the dog’s howl deepened to a roar and the roar became a vast ripping sound as of a pavilion torn asunder in a hurricane.
    He began to fly.
     
    *   *   *
     
    Dawn refused to break.
    Nanashi drove the stolen car like it was stolen, drove with the abandon of a dead man. He ignored the scenery and stared directly ahead, afraid to blink lest he find himself catapulted through time and space via the pattern imprinted within his eyelids. He didn’t entertain conscious thought. He focused on the pavement lines, focused on the rhythm of shifting, of pressing the pedal to the floorboard.
    It should’ve been light when he finally returned to the mountain lodge, but was not. The staff stared at him. Their terror was the terror of peasants at the mercy of vengeful samurai in times of war. His immaculate hair was disheveled and wild as a bushman’s, his fine clothes spattered in mud and torn at the seams. Dirt and blood ingrained his fingernails. He pointed his revolver at the innkeeper and asked if he’d seen Koma or the others. The Innkeeper shook his head frantically and when Nanashi cocked the hammer the man fell to his knees and blubbered while his wife chanted a prayer and the gaggle of serving boys wrung their hands and moaned.
    Nanashi put the gun away. What had he expected to find? He searched the lodge proper, knowing the act was useless, and next he investigated the cottages and the sweltering cave with its hot springs. All was locked tight and dripping silence. None of the gang had sneaked back for an emergency rendezvous. He should square his shoulders and head for the city, present himself before his Sworn Father and accept judgment. Either that, or flee the country forever. Yuki would quit her job and run away with him to a new life in America, somewhere the long arm of the clan couldn’t reach. Problem was, the yakuza could reach anywhere. Such was the awful beauty of that particular monster. As for sweet Yuki… Yuki had family and friends, roots. She’d never consent to a fugitive life with her much older lover, a man of no status and bleak prospects.
    Head down, he started the car and drove away, hands and feet making the necessary adjustments while his mind dissolved into itself. He was afraid and exhausted. There wasn’t much else. Upon reaching the highway junction he steered south. His hands made the decision. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He gritted his teeth and clenched the leather of the steering wheel in a death grip.
    Along the route to the pit where the Heron gang had done its murderous deed he stopped once to fill the tank. The station was deserted but for his car. Twilight smoldered at the periphery, held at bay by the plastic glow of the station lamps. He looked for signs in the contours of clouds, the constellations of dirt and debris that swirled across the pavement. Compelled by terrible inspiration, he finally dared to shut his eyes. When he opened them the tank had filled and a tiny woman smiled at