Kirk .A. Inniss

 

The Black Butterflies.

BY

KIRK .A. INNISS

 

PROLOUGE:

Someone that I knew once said that the only way that three men can keep a secret is if two were dead. I cannot remember now what circumstances had arisen and forced us into a discussion about death. But whatever it was it must have been important enough for me to hold on to that point after all these years. Why I believe that it must also be years is another issue altogether. The point though is that to me the statement is not too bad, not really. At least somewhere in there is some kind of weird hope. I think. However for the past few months I have encountered people that share a slightly different philosophy. They firmly believe that the only way that three men can keep a secret is if they are all dead. So much for false hope right? And I have evidence to prove just how much they believe that.

 

Why I even decided to write this is also another matter in itself. Maybe the reason might help me, or maybe you to understand this whole thing better. But I have no real explanation that can either bring me comfort, or offer you light as to the frame of mind that I am in. But I will admit for what it’s worth, that I read a story once by Edgar Allen Poe, called the Shadow. The opening paragraph seems to be stuck in my mind as well, and it has been an honest matter of both torment and pleasure for me. This is how it goes, assuming of course that my memory of these things are still as fair as can be expected, under the circumstances: “Ye who read are still among the living; but I who write shall have long since gone my way into the region of shadows. For indeed strange things shall happen, and secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass away, ere these memorials be seen of men. And, when seen, there will be some to disbelieve, and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much to ponder upon in the characters here graven with a stylus of iron.”

 

For some time now the truth as to when and where this will all end has been haunting me. I am certain that it will be with me in an un-marked grave, my funeral attended by two diggers and half dozen black crows. The rain I think will be falling silently out of a stone grey sky. On that day I will slip into the darkness that I have evaded for some time now. That dream has been with me for so long now that I am starting to believe in it. They say that I am free and that my end will come like all others with a funeral, a wake, friends and family. But there is a line that I speak out loud every time they try to feed me that: I am very far from being free, but at least I am not that far from being dead. That I tell them is the truth and I say it not because I like the way it sounds. I say it because I have been made a firm believer in this fact after certain scary events. And I smile or at least I try too. As I always do.

 

The mere fact that you are reading these lines proves at least one more thing: I was right, and the very darkness that I have tried so long to avoid, is now indeed my only comfort.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER ONE:

November 29^th, 1992

1.

 

The beginning of this will always be easy for me to remember because it was simple enough. It started with the butterflies. And bad luck too of course. But bad luck was something that the world continued to spin on. There was no running or hiding from bad luck. When it was time she simply came and all that you could do was shake your head and follow her to wherever she wanted you too. In a way I guess she is also like death that comes just as uninvited and is equally as hard to run or hide from, if not harder for that matter. All you could do when either of these twins of bad fate showed up was follow. That I have always accepted. So while there was some measure of pure bad luck that got me out on the coast, it was those butterflies that caused it.

 

I was out on the north coast road looking for the chance to get a few pictures of (and maybe even capture) a colony of black and gold butterflies that were spotted by some hikers a few days before. I had my doubt in the beginning. By the description given, of butterflies with what appeared to be writing on their wings, I not only shook my head in disbelief I laughed. But a few of my colleagues at the newspaper where I worked seemed more than convinced, and one editor wanted to at least run the story in the Sunday Kids feature section.

 

I am not an insect fanatic, but there is something about collecting butterflies pictures that amuses me. This of course is a long way down the alley from stamp and coins collectors. Butterflies are graceful and beautiful and what I think I crave in their movements as they dance on invisible floors of wind is their freedom and their supposed lightness of purpose. I don’t wish to be like them the way people wish to be free like birds, flying high and mighty over all creation. No my interest is simply in their colors, their grace, their flight. I can watch them and be as mesmerized as some people would be watching fishes swimming around in a tank. I read somewhere that in those serene movements of the fishes back and forth, doctors has been able to start some work on relaxation experiments. I believe that the same could be said of my butterflies’ addiction and me.

 

Besides I would be in a win-win situation with the actual issue. If I got the pictures, I would be the first and only person with them. And if I didn’t, I could still laugh at them all and say that I told you so. But I thought as I packed some sandwiches, that stranger things had happened and if the possibility that such a species did indeed exist, I really wanted to know. Besides I had no other plans and the area on that side of the country was not really that difficult to search. It was not that dense and I made up my mind to only spend a few hours instead of the whole day.

 

I however spent my entire Sunday peering up trees. Slipping and sliding into ravines and drains. I fell a couple times, taking the fall and protecting my new Nikon camera. Thickets of thorn, for which I was inadequately dressed, compensated for the lack of thick foliage. By four o ‘clock, seven hours wasted, tired, bruised and scratched I decided that enough was enough. This was just a past time anyway and I was not getting paid for it. I had parked a half-mile down on the country road and was hiking, equipment less through semi-dense jungle territory. I was ready to call it a day when I heard a ship sounding its horn.

 

 

For a few seconds I stood still, half believing that I had imagined the sound. But the horn’s sound cut through the trees that towered over me with ease, disturbing both the silence and a nest of young crows. I instinctively headed right, along a track in the direction of the sound. I had caught glimpses of the sea during the course of the day, but I had not thought to wander down to it. I could hear her roaring just ahead of me though, as I followed her scent. A few minutes later I stepped out of the shade and into the blazing sunlight. It took some time for my sight to adjust, and using my free hand as a shade for my eyes, I looked out to the sea. Some way below me to the right was not just one ship, but three. They seemed to be just anchoring and I noticed at least twenty men on the beach.

 

At that stage I should have left, just take my camera and my old Sunny and drive back west to my flat. But I did not do that. What I did was crawl my way closer to the men on the beach and the three ships. My heart raced as I watched what I sensed to be a strange affair. I had never heard of ships docking on this part of the country, and on a Sunday. No something was certainly wrong. And I was about to find out. I understood then, for the first time the lure of curiosity that over rides common sense. Or maybe it was not curiosity that killed the cat, but out right stupidity. I thought too that it was the same in horror movies that I enjoyed; didn’t the characters always proceed to their death? Always determined to look behind one more door, or to walk down one lonelier hallway after another, or some other senseless matter? Didn’t we always just watch, willing them to turn around and run? Didn’t we ourselves always assume too that if we were in their shoes we would be a lot smarter, or at the very least run faster? But still here I was walking closer, creeping up with my camera poised, almost whispering hello. I did this as the reasonable and cowardly part of me insisted that I turn around now and run. But I kept delaying the voice and it’s advice, choosing instead to put that and my beating heart behind me, as best as I could.

 

I spent another hour and ten minutes hiding in the bushes. Taking pictures and shaking my head in disbelief. I was sure that on the beach below me a huge drug deal was going down. I could not hear what was being said. But my camera caught their faces, locals numbered at least fifteen and then about twenty more of whom I was certain came from South America either Venezuelans or Colombians. They were off loading blue barrels that were sealed in plastic, at least a hundred of them. I did not notice when the three men in the suit arrived but I saw them checking the items that the barrels contained. And then they nodded and spoke to each other. They always stayed together like the three stooges. I was taking their pictures even before my brain registered the faces. Two of them came into view easy enough, but the third one seemed always able to keep his face away.

 

And then my heart froze. The hair on my neck rose. My mouth itself went dry. I knew these men. The very next thought before I slipped halfway down the incline as they saw me was this: you are not supposed to be here. The one that followed was: I’m dead.