The Year's Best Horror Stories 16 Part 4

The she-wolf paused for a moment to watch the silent pa.s.sage of the b.u.t.terflies, then she turned to the east and was gone quickly into the underbrush.

When she returned to the den, over an hour later, she had another plump guinea hen in her mouth, one feather comically stuck to her nose. Tonight there would be good eating.

The colonel and his subaltern rode in the bullock cart, moving slowly through the forest. Hours before, they had left the neat, green rice swamps to cross the countryside toward the sal.

"A barren waste," the colonel said, dismissing the grayish land.

Geoffrey refrained from pointing to the herons that stalked along the single strand rivers or to remind the colonel of the low croaking of the hundreds of frogs. Not barren, he thought to himself, but with the different kind of richness. He said nothing.

The native guiding them told Geoffrey his name was Raman, though he had told the colonel he was called Ramanritham. He walked ahead of the bullock cart to help lead the cranky beasts while the two hired carters went on ahead of them with axes. In this particular part of the sal forest vines grew up quickly across old pathways. Every day fresh routes had to be cut.

The swaying of the cart had a soporific effect on the colonel who nodded off, but Geoffrey refused to sleep. Being new to the sal, though he had read several books about it, he wanted to take it all in.

The canopy was so thick, it was hard to tell whether or not the sun was overhead, and the only light was a kind of filtered green. A magical sense of unpa.s.sed time possessed the young subaltern, and he drew in a deep breath. The sound of it joined the racheta-racheta of the stick that protruded from the empty kerosene can the carters had affixed under the wagon. As the stick struck the cart wheels it produced a steady noise which, the carters a.s.sured them, would frighten away any of the larger predators.

"Tigers do not like it, Sahib," the carter had said. Geoffrey hadn't liked it either. It seemed to violate the jungle's sanct.i.ty. But after a while, he stopped hearing it as a separate noise. At one point the path was so overgrown, the carters and Raman could barely cut their way through, and Geoffrey joined them, first stripping down to his vest. As his arm swung up and back with its axe, he noticed for the first time how white his own skin seemed next to theirs, though he had acquired a deep tan by Cambridge standards. But his arms looked somehow unnatural to him in the jungle setting.

At last they completed their task and stopped, all at once, to congratulate one another. At that very moment, Geoffrey heard the low cough of a tiger. He started back toward the cart where his gun rested against the wheel.

One of the carters called out to him. "It is very far away, Sahib, and you must not worry."

Geoffrey smiled his thanks and walked away from the three men in order to go down the path a little ways by himself. When he looked up, there was a peac.o.c.k above him, on a swing of vine. He could remember nothing in England that had so moved him. He stood for a moment watching it, then abruptly turned back. When he got to the cart the colonel was awake.

"For G.o.d's sake, man, put on your shirt. It won't do."

Geoffrey put on his shirt and climbed back up in the cart. The noise of the stick against the wheels began again, drowning out everything else.

The colonel was refreshed by his nap and showed it by his running commentary. "These natives," he said with a nod that took in both the carters who were city-bred and Raman, "are all so superst.i.tious, Geoffrey. And timid. They have to be led by us or they'd get nothing done. But, by G.o.d, if there is some kind of ghost I want to see it. That's not superst.i.tion. There are many odd things out here in the jungle. I could write it up. Major General Sleeman did that, you know. Field notes. About the oddities seen. It just takes an observant eye, my boy. I took a first at Oxford. What do you think, Geoffrey?"

But before Geoffrey could answer, the colonel continued, "Ma.n.u.shes. Man-eaters. Silly b.u.g.g.e.rs. Probably only some kind of ape. But if it were some new sort of ape, that would be one for the books, now wouldn't it? A carnivorous ape. Probably that, rather than a ghost, though ..." and his voice turned wistful, "I never did see my Aunt Evelyn's ghost. A maid, she was, got caught out by one of the sub-gardeners. Hanged herself in the pantry. Aunt Evelyn swears by her."

Geoffrey had fallen asleep.

The she-wolf stood by the entrance to the white ant mound and called softly. The cubs came out one by one. Overhead a slight breeze stirred the canopy of leaves, and green fruit pigeons called across the dusky clearing, a soft, low sound.

The first cubs out were the three weanlings, sliding bellydown out through the entrance hole, and then stretching. The two hairless cubs crept out after, their light brown muzzle-faces peering around alertly. The she-wolf stalked over to her cubs and as if at a signal, they knelt before her, wagging their tails.

She gave a sharp high yip and they stood, following her out of the clearing. They went past the great mohua tree and into the tangled underbrush which closed behind them so quickly there was no sign that any creature had pa.s.sed that way.

Raman held a sal leaf in his palm as they walked along. He said he could tell how much time had pa.s.sed by the withering of the leaf. Geoffrey timed it with his pocket watch and was amazed at how accurate the little man's calculations were.

"And how long now until we get to your village?" Geoffrey asked.

Raman looked up at a stray ray of sun that had found itself through a tear in the canopy, then looked down at the leaf in his hand. "Before dark," he said.

Geoffrey repeated this to the colonel and told him about the withering leaf.

"Silly b.u.g.g.e.rs," said the colonel. "What will they think of next to twit you, Geoffrey? Of course the man knows how long it takes to get to his village. The leaf is sheer flummery."

The she-wolf led the cubs to the edge of a clearing where a herd of reddish-brown chital grazed. One of the cubs, excited by the deer, yipped. At the sound, the herd ran off leaving a thick smoky cloud of dust behind.

The pack circled the clearing, five small shadows behind the she-wolf. At the southern end of the open area, she dropped suddenly to her stomach and the cubs did likewise.

As they watched, a strange noisy man-cart crossed the clearing, accompanied by a dreadful sound. Racheta-racheta-racheta. The pack did not move until long after the cart had pa.s.sed. The she-wolf growled and her cubs crept beneath a pipal tree and waited, lying heads down on their front paws. Only when she was sure they would not leave the shelter of the tree did she check out the trail the bullock cart had left behind. There were deep ruts in the gra.s.s and the underbrush was broken. The smell of the bullocks was a deep meaty smell. The smell of the cart was sharp, but there was something slightly familiar about it, too.

The she-wolf sniffed one more time, then loped back to her cubs. At her bark they rose and followed. She was careful to avoid the broken gra.s.ses and the cart smell, which offended her nose. The deep meat smell bespoke of an animal too large for a single wolf to handle. She knew they would have to range further.

But after coursing the jungle with the cubs for most of the night, the she-wolf had still made no kill. There would be no good eating this night. She shepherded them back to the white ant mound where, after nuzzling them all, she allowed them to suck until they were full.

The men of Raman's village ran out to greet the cart through green clumps of bamboo that hid the adobe-and-thatch houses. Much to Geoffrey's embarra.s.sment, the men insisted on washing the visitors' feet, but the colonel took it with a certain graciousness.

"Let them do it, Geoffrey," he said placidly. "It does no harm, and it certainly keeps them in their place. But stop blushing, boy. Your face is too wide open. It's like a d.a.m.ned girl's."

After the washing, they replaced their socks and boots, and threaded their way down the packed dirt street, the colonel greeting everyone with a kind of official bonhomie that Geoffrey found himself envying. Raman strode ahead to announce them. With the noise of the cart and the bellowing of the bewildered bullock and the nasal whine of narh pipes, it was a wild processional.

Near the end of the village was a rather larger hut, and this, Raman a.s.sured them, was where the most welcome visitors would stay. The carters would be put up elsewhere. Two women in white saris with bra.s.s pitchers on their hips nodded as Geoffrey got down from the cart. The colonel was last to dismount and as his feet touched the ground, there was a low admiring murmur. He smiled.

"Ask them, Geoffrey, what time dinner is served."

Dinner was served immediately, and though the English retired early, the villagers stayed up well into the night entertaining the carters with rice beer and Ramen's boasts about how the colonel would kill the ma.n.u.sh-baghas the next day.

When they woke in the morning, quite early according to Geoffrey's watch, the village day had already begun.

The mohua tree loomed over the clearing like an ancient giant, its trunk crisscrossed with claw marks. All day the noise of hammers and the shouts of men dominated the clearing but the she-wolf and her cubs did not hear them. They were deep in the den, sealed off by sleep and the twisting tunnels of the white ant mound. By dusk when they were ready to go out into the woods to hunt, the men were long departed. Only the machan, some twenty feet up the mochua tree, gave mute evidence that they had been there. That and the scattered pieces of wood and broken branches.

The she-wolf, in the darkness of her den, stretched and stood. Two of the cubs were awake before her and they danced around her legs until she cuffed one of them still. Roughly she licked awake the other three. The smallest of the hairless cubs whimpered for a moment, but at last she too stood.

They scampered around the winding tunnel until they came to the entrance. Then they waited until the she-wolf went out first into the darkening world.

Three miles from the village was the clearing where the ma.n.u.sh-baghas had been sighted.

"Always at dusk, sahib," explained Raman. "Only at dusk."

That was why the villagers had gone on ahead early in the day to build a machan, a shooting platform, in the only large tree in the clearing, an ancient mohua. They had finished the makeshift machan by noon, and had hurried home, feeling terribly brave and proud.

Picking up his smoothbore, the colonel turned to Geoffrey. "Well, it's up to us now."

Geoffrey nodded. "Raman will take us to the clearing," he said, "but he will not stay the night. He is too afraid."

"Well, tell him we are not afraid. We are English." Geoffrey told him.

"And tell him he should come in the morning with several others and we shall have his ma.n.u.shie for him." The colonel smiled. "Do you have that cage out of the cart? We shall have to carry it there. Don't want the noise of that blasted cart to scare away the ape. Raman shall have to carry it."

Geoffrey nodded and turned to give the instructions to Raman and the others who had gathered to see them off. Then, in a modest processional, quite unlike the one of the evening before, they went down the packed dirt road and off to the west.

There was much more of a path at first, and even when the path gave way to hacked jungle, so many men had been there just hours before, the walking was easy. Raman, who shouldered the cage without complaint, slipped easily along the walkway, and they followed, reaching the clearing well before dusk.

Some thirty yards from the mohua tree, near a stand of blackthorn, was a termite mound that looked very much like an Indian temple. Next to it were the remains of another mound that had been destroyed by the last rainy season.

"There, sahib, that is where the man-ghost lives," whispered Raman, letting the cage off his back and wrestling it to the foot of the mohua tree. "At night it will come. The ma.n.u.sh-bagha."

"Very good, Raman. You may go now," said the colonel. He chucked as Raman took him literally and fled the clearing. "Well, well," the colonel added. He walked over to the termite mound and walked around it slowly and thoughtfully.

"Would an ape live in there?" asked Geoffrey uncomfortably.

"Would a ghost?"

They circled the mound again, this time in silence. Then the colonel nodded his head back toward the mohua tree. When they were beneath it, the colonel looked up. "Time to settle ourselves," he said.

Leaving the lantern at the foot of the tree, the colonel climbed up the rope ladder first and Geoffrey followed.

"I think," the colonel said, when they were settled on the wooden platform, "that the drill now is no more talking. Load your gun, my boy, and then we will sit watch."

They finished their few preparations and then sat silently, eyes trained on the white ant mound. Geoffrey had to fight off the impulse to swing his legs over the side of the machan, which reminded him of a tree fort he and his brothers had built in an ancient oak beside his Malvern home.

The darkness moved in quietly, casting long shadows. The hum of the cicadas was mesmerizing, and they both had to shake their heads frequently to stay awake.

And then, suddenly, something moved by the mound, near a plum bush. Head up, sniffing the air, a full-grown wolf emerged.

Geoffrey felt a hand on his arm, but he did not look around. Slowly he raised his gun as the colonel raised his, and they waited.

Three cubs scampered around the bush. One dashed toward the blackthorn and a sharp yip from the she-wolf recalled him. The cubs scuffled at their mother's feet.

And then, as if on a signal, they all stopped playing and looked at the plum bush.

Geoffrey drew in a deep breath that was noisy only to his own ears. The colonel did not move at all.

From behind the bush a small childlike form came forth. It had an enormous bushy head and its honey arms and legs were k.n.o.bbed and scarred.

"The ape!" whispered the colonel as he fired.

His first shot hit the she-wolf on the shoulder, spinning her around. At the noise, woods pigeons rose up from the trees, their wings making a clacketing sound. The colonel's second shot blew away half the wolf's head, from the ear to the muzzle. He leaped up, shaking the machan, crowing, "Got her!"

The three cubs disappeared back behind the bush, but the ma.n.u.sh-bagha went over to the wolf's body and pawed at it mournfully. Then it dipped its face into the blood and, raising the b.l.o.o.d.y mask toward the mohua tree, found Geoffrey's eyes. Unaccountably he wanted to weep. Then the creature put its head back and howled.

"Shoot it!" the colonel said. "Geoffrey, shoot it!"

Geoffrey lowered his gun and shook his head. "It's a child, colonel." he whispered as the creature scuttled off behind the plum bush. "A child."

"Ah, you b.l.o.o.d.y fool," the colonel said in disgust. "Now we shall have to track it." Gun in hand, he clambered awkwardly down the rope ladder and strode over to the bush. Geoffrey followed uneasily.

Poking his gun into the bush, the colonel let out a short, barking laugh. "There's a hole here, Geoffrey. Come see. An entrance of some kind. Ha-ha! They've gone to ground."

Geoffrey shuddered, though he did not know why. The clearing suddenly seemed filled with an alien presence, a darkness he could not quite name. He knew night came quickly in the jungle once the sun began its descent, but it was more than that. The clearing was very still.

The Colonel had begun ripping away the branches that obscured the hole, his gun laid by. "Come on, Geoffrey, give us a hand."

Geoffrey put his own gun down, and found himself whispering a prayer he had learned so many years ago in the little stone church near his home, a prayer against "the waiters in the dark." Then he bent to help the colonel clear away the bush.

The hole did not go plumb down but was a tunnel on the slant, heading back toward the termite mound. After a moment of digging with his hands, the colonel straightened up.

"There!" he said pointing to the mound. "It's a bolt hole from that thing. I'll guard this hole, Geoffrey, and you go and start digging out that mound."

Reluctantly, Geoffrey did as he was told. The termite mound stood higher than his head and when he tried to sc.r.a.pe away the dirt, he found it was hardened from the days and months in the rain. He cast around and found a large branch that had fallen from one of the blackthorn trees. With a mighty swing, he sent the branch crashing into the mound, decapitating the mound and shattering the stick.

Scrambling up the side, he peered down into the mound but it was still too dark to see much, so he pulled away great handfuls of dirt from the inside out. After frantic minutes of digging, he had managed to carve the mound down until it was a waist-high pit.

The colonel came over to help. "I've blocked off that bolt hole," he said. "They won't be getting out that way. What do you have?" His face was slick with sweat and there were two dark spots on his cheeks, as if he burned with fever.

Geoffrey was too winded to talk, and pointed to the pit. But just then complete darkness closed in, so the colonel made his way back to the foot of the mohua where he found the lantern. It flared into light and sent trembling shadows leaping about the mound. When he held it directly over the open pit, they could make out five forms-the three cubs and not one but two of the apelike creatures wrapped together into a great monkey ball. At the light, they all buried their heads except for the largest. That one looked up, glaring into the light, its eyes sparkling a kind of red fire. Lifting its lips back from large yellow teeth, it growled.

The colonel laughed. "I'll stay here and guard this bunch. They won't be going anywhere. You run back to the village and get our carters. And that Ramanrithan fellow."

"They won't come here after dark," Geoffrey protested. "And which of us shall have the lantern?"

"Don't talk nonsense," the colonel said. "You take the lantern and tell them I've captured not one but two of their ma.n.u.shies and I'm not afraid to stay here in the dark with them. Tell those silly villagers they have nothing to fear. The British Sahib is on the job." He laughed out loud again.

"Are you sure ..." Geoffrey began.

"One of England's finest scared silly of three wolf cubs and a pair of feral children?" the colonel asked.

"Then you knew ..." Geoffrey began, wondering just when it was the colonel had realized they were not apes, and not wanting to ask.

"All along, Geoffrey," the colonel said. "All along." He patted the subaltern on the shoulder, a fatherly gesture that would have been out of place had they not been alone and in the dark clearing. "Now don't you get the w.i.l.l.i.e.s, my boy, like those silly brown men. Color is the difference, Geoffrey. They've no stamina, no guts, and lots of b.l.o.o.d.y superst.i.tions. Run along, and fetch them back."

Geoffrey picked up the lantern, shouldered his smoothbore, and started back down the path.

The cubs shivered together, trying to remember the feel of their mother's warmth, knowing something was missing. The little hairless cub cried out in hunger. But the larger one closed her eyes, playing back the moment when the she-wolf's head had burst apart like a piece of fruit thrown down by the langurs. She recalled the taste of the blood, both sweet and salt in her mouth. Turning her head slightly, she sniffed the air. Mother was gone but mother was here. There would be good eating tonight.

By the time Geoffrey could convince the villagers that the colonel had everything under control, it was already dawn and they were willing to come anyway. But they brought rakes and sticks for protection and made Geoffrey march on ahead.

The path had grown almost completely shut in the few hours since he had pa.s.sed that way. He marveled at the jungle's constancy. Around him, the green walls hid an incredible prolix life, only now and again pulling aside a viney curtain to showcase one creature or another.

The tight lacings of the sal above showed little light, only occasional streaks of sun. From far away he could hear the scolding of langurs moving through the tree-tops. Behind him the villagers muttered and giggled and it seemed much hotter than the day before.

When they got near the clearing, Geoffrey called out into the quiet, but the colonel did not answer. The men behind him began to talk among themselves uneasily. Geoffrey signaled them to be still, and moved on ahead.

By the termite mound lay a body.

Geoffrey ran over to it. The colonel lay as if he had been thrown down from a great height, yet there was nothing he might have been thrown down from. Horribly, his face and hands had been savaged, mutilated. "Eaten away," Geoffrey whispered to himself. Even the nose bone had been cracked. Yet remarkably, his clothing was little disturbed.

Turning aside, Geoffrey was quietly and efficiently sick, not caring if the villagers saw him. Then, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he peered over into the mound. The cubs and the children were as he had left them, in that tight monkey ball, asleep. Thank G.o.d they had not been molested by whatever beast or beasts had savaged the colonel.

Bending over the mound, and crooning so as not to frighten them, Geoffrey pried away the littlest child and picked her up. The stink of her was ghastly, an unwashed carrion smell. She trembled in his arms. Patting her matted hair gingerly, he cuddled her in his arms and at last she stopped shivering and began to nuzzle at his neck, making a low almost purring sound. She weighed no more than one of his nieces, who were two and three years old.

"Here," Geoffrey called out to the villagers, his back to the colonel's mutilated corpse, "come see. It is only a child gone wild in the jungle. And there is another one here as well. We must take them home. Cleaned up they'll be just like other children." But when he looked over, he realized he spoke to an empty clearing as, from behind him, there came a strange and terrible growl.

She comforted the cubs who still trembled in the light, patting them and licking their fur. Deep in her throat she made the mother sound. "Very good eating today."