Free Multiplex Fandango by Weston Ochse

don't you?"
    "Uh... I'm not sure."
    "Signs. Like when you want to place a bet and you look up and see a number you've never noticed before. Or like when a deer zips across the road making you slow down, only to discover that had you taken the next curve at your original speed, you would have plowed into the car that had already overturned. Signs."
    "Yeah. I get it. Signs."
    "So we were coming back when I just happened to look over and watch as a man leaned back and fired his RPG directly at us. I was close enough to see the fervor in his eyes. I was close enough to see the grin of satisfaction as our gazes met across the trail of the rocket heading right for me. I was close enough to see a birthmark near his temple.” She closed her eyes as if reliving the moment. “I was close enough to know that I'd been murdered," she whispered.
    He stared at her for a time, then shook his head. "Jesus. What happened?"
    "Nothing," she shrugged and opened her eyes. "The rocket-propelled grenade bounced off the Hummer. It never exploded. I don't know who was more surprised, me or the guy who tried to kill me."
    "And you took this as a sign?"
    "Most definitely. This was a warning shot across my bow. It told me to get the hell out. A week later I came home on mid-tour leave, and well, I'm here, instead of there."
    Now that her tale was done, she fixed him with a steady gaze, her blue eyes daring recrimination. But he had none. His tale was worse than hers. At least she'd left for a reason. Thomas was a deserter too, and he realized that he had no reason other than his own fear.
    ***
    Something tugged on his leg. Something soft, yet firm, tentative yet insistent. Then it was gone. He counted to twenty and had begun to believe that he’d imagined it, but there it was again. He felt a series of gentle tugs against his naked ankles. Momentary panic flooded his system until he realized it was the current. Floating like a bobber on a fishing line, he knew that if something down there wanted him, he'd be jerked below the surface so fast he'd be lucky to catch a breath.
    He treaded water with his hands, pushing across the waves in a gentle doggy paddle. Occasionally a wave would crest and explode across his face, leaving him gasping. Each time he’d wonder why he’d put himself in such a position. He was too afraid to return to Iraq , but not afraid to tempt a god to eat him. Perhaps it was because he’d seen the death Iraq represented. He’d seen the body parts of his friends. He’d watched as the light had fled from their eyes. But the god beneath the waves, the old thing that ruled this solitary sea, he’d never seen, unless the statue had something to do with it. Did he have to see death to be afraid of it? Was that the lesson here?
    Early this morning as he was preparing for his sacrifice, June had admitted to having talked to no less than twenty men over the last six months. Six she’d convinced to bob and each one was eventually taken by what was beneath the waves. She’d given him one last chance to leave, but he’d foolishly remained firm in his desire to prove his love and banish his fear.
    “They have a tradition here that goes back a thousand years,” she’d whispered while they lay in bed the previous night awash in the sweat of their sex. “Their god must be fed. There once was a time when they’d feed those captured from other tribes, so they had wars, and captured victims to be sacrifices. But the 20 th Century came and peace overwhelmed them, as it eventually does when cultures become more civil. So to appease the god, they began a tradition. Three times a man could tie himself to the statue. And three times he must survive. And if this man survives, he gains a power over his own fear greater than any other man, because fear, more than anything else, controls and makes us a slave. This process, this thing they do here on the Sea of Cortez , is a crucible of heroes.”
    She’d been one of the only women to tempt the