Dracula of the Apes 3

by G. Wells Taylor

  If she survived that undertaking, she could track the larger group in the north.

  With her grin growing into a fierce smile, Harkon ran after the Bakwaniri hunters knowing she could push her luck a little farther still.

  CHAPTER 13 – Theories and Shadow

  Van Resen sat in the dark while at the foot of his armchair Phillip Holmes snored as though he were in a room at a luxury hotel. He did not like the young man’s presumption of entitlement, but he tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  It was difficult to predict how anyone might behave in unusual circumstances, and being young, Holmes was more likely to react to trouble in an immature and impulsive, certainly a selfish fashion.

  Perhaps that was how he could sleep so comfortably, knowing that his capacity for self-preservation would see all of his valiant companions confront impending dangers long before he ever would.

  Seen in purely Darwinist terms it was a sound survival strategy regardless of how distasteful the scientist found it.

  On Holmes’ left lay Jacob Raines, and past him slept Mr. Quarrie. Those two men drew comfort from one another; it was plain to see, prompting Van Resen to contemplate the power of human interaction and comradery. Studies had shown that on his own, a man was liable to suffer depression or disease where he was likely to be less afflicted if in the company of others.

  Those same studies went on to say that groups of men showed the capacity to thrive in well-nigh hopeless situations. He had read several papers about the effects of isolation on the human psyche with a focus on criminal incarceration and prisoners of war where “strength in numbers” was more than just a saying.

  Of course, there were exceptions to the rule. Van Resen himself found physical isolation liberating when he was doing research, while he felt confined in social settings.

  Looking at the dark shapes that slept at his feet, he was shocked to feel a positive emotion. It was surprising how quickly his own requirements for comfort had adapted to a changing and unfamiliar environment.

  For his entire life the scientist had preferred to be alone in the teeming city, where here with jungle on all sides, even Phillip Holmes provided some reassurance to him.

  Mental and emotional stress effected change in character.

  Van Resen spent a few minutes listening to the rhythmic sounds coming from his sleeping friends, and he wondered if the other castaways could have found their lodgings so comfortable if they had not also been utterly exhausted.

  So physical biology became another factor influencing behavior.

  The scientist’s fingers pressed the journal he’d been reading prior to extinguishing the lamp and conserving precious oil. The book’s leather cover was old, but its smooth finish comforted him in the dark, as he wished again that languages had been among his studies.

  Throughout the evening, the scientist had been drawn back to the diary, and he yearned to have the time, resources—and illumination—to study it more thoroughly. Mrs. Quarrie had been helpful, and devoted a good deal of time pouring over the pages. Unfortunately, her love of puzzles did not suffice, and those languages she knew were insufficient.

  Neither of them could make head or tail of the “runic” lettering that made up the bulk of the record, though the author occasionally slipped into what Van Resen guessed might be “Hungarian” when jotting notes in the margin. The scientist recognized and thought the notes similar to what he had seen on Black Sea maps when fact-checking a colleague’s report years before.

  However, “recognizing” them did not equate to “comprehending.”

  Luckily the journal’s author had used numerals when adding dates to each entry which gave Van Resen something to decode—as little as that was.

  The yurt’s former occupant had begun his journal in 1893, and while that did not determine how he had ended up in the African jungle, it gave Van Resen a clue as to when he arrived. The numerous dates found upon the published materials in the firewood box certainly suggested the date of arrival as plausible.

  While it was the same hand that wrote throughout, something changed at what must have been the end of 1893—the end of the year because the date “1894” appeared on entries close after these “changes” began to occur.

  This happened just prior to the addition of loose pages that bore other entries and had been folded into the greater journal. After 1894 began, the handwriting grew consistently worse. The letters became distorted, drifting up and down as the scrawl moved across the page.

  Some stress had affected the writer more than it had in prior entries, as though worry or hardship had grown as one year ended and 1894 began. This indicated a change in surroundings, tools and comforts, as though he no longer had a desk to write upon, ample light, leisure or security with which to perform the task of keeping the journal.

  Looking blindly around in the dark, Van Resen knew very well the impact those elements could have upon one’s comfort.

  So the scientist suspected November or December 1893 or early 1894 as the date for the man’s arrival in Africa. It was unlikely that he would have taken up his journal before having built himself some form of shelter.

  Given the proper resources and time, the scientist was certain that he could decipher the language that filled the pages, though he hoped to continue that investigation far from the African jungle.

  If he and the castaways could survive long enough to escape. He knew it was just a matter of time before some violent interaction with local beasts or people would challenge them with potentially fatal results.

  What shape those challenges might take was hinted at by Lilly’s sudden illness.

  The girl had fainted just before bed, and had only been restored after being made to drink a large quantity of the fresh water that remained in the barrel.

  It was obvious that Lilly was terribly dehydrated, and thinking back on the day, Van Resen connected that to the girl’s constant distraction.

  When she finally came around, Lilly said she had consumed tea with meals but could not recollect drinking any water at all.

  When he conferred about this with her governess, Miss James confirmed that she had only seen her ward drink tea that day. That suggested to Van Resen that the girl was suffering from dehydration and not from any parasitic infestation.

  The other castaways had drunk the fresh water and been unaffected so the supply was clean. This he reasoned because the boiled water in Lilly’s tea should have killed any parasites the fluid might have contained.

  Regardless, he realized they needed to take greater caution and would boil all water from that point forward. Especially since much would be needed.

  “We must be careful, Miss James. Tropical heat is a serious threat,” Van Resen had said, laying a cool cloth over Lilly’s pale brow. “We must be certain to drink much to combat dehydration. We are all threatened by it.”

  Van Resen had briefly blamed himself for warning the others to be cautious with their supply of drinking water until they’d found a local source. In truth, this was why their later discovery of the spring had been so important.

  But by that time, the others had been using the water sparingly and under that tropical sun, they must have been dehydrating rapidly. The scientist had vowed to correct this oversight the following morning, and would demand that each member of their group be mindful of their water consumption to ward off an illness similar to Lilly’s.

  With plentiful fresh water now at hand, they no longer needed to worry about conservation.

  Van Resen felt a pang thinking of the poor girl. Like any teenager, Lilly had great reserves of youthful energy that had masked her growing thirst—the same “youth” that had been blamed for her confusion and distraction.

  Regardless, it had seemed that the crisis had been averted, and the “illness” easily treatable with fresh water.

  But it was not until later that the scientist discovered it was something else entirely.

  Not long after the girl had finally
succumbed to exhaustion and slept, Miss James called the scientist in a panic...

  ...to see Lilly upon her pallet on the floor, her breathing steady with some color returning to her face. She had taken up one of the cured skins they’d found in the yurt and held it in her arms like a doll, stroking its black fur as she slept.

  “I removed the scarf to make her comfortable,” Miss James reported, shaking her head slowly. She held her lamp low over the girl’s exposed shoulders, and Van Resen moved in close to look at an inflamed patch of skin on the right side of her neck. He set his fingers against the soft flesh opposite the wound and was startled by the rate of her pulse.

  It was racing. In the poor light, he saw a pair of tiny holes center to the purplish irritation—holes that singly resembled the wound a large hornet made with its stinger. Though he had never seen two in such close proximity.

  “Could she have been stung twice?” her governess wondered, raising her voice slightly to be heard over Mrs. Quarries’ loud snore.

  “Unlikely, but possible. She may have lost some small amount of blood from the bite also, but that cannot explain her greater anemia and dehydration. A large enough quantity of blood to cause her illness would have been evident on her bedding,” Van Resen concluded. “I’m also wondering if we are in fact looking at a ‘bite.’ It might be possible for an insect with large mandibles to...” And he made a pincer action with two of his fingers.

  “I have seen hardly any insects at all,” the governess said, “never mind one of a size large enough to make wounds like that...”

  Van Resen could only nod silently. He had been concerned about insect life and other vermin, especially those of the parasitic variety, and had been surprised by their apparent scarcity in the yurt and the clearing around it. He had theorized that their low numbers might be attributed to the season in which the group had been stranded; however, the hypothesis was weak and he had expected the worst variety of creature to descend in massive swarms at any moment.

  “And we’ve cleaned this cabin from top to bottom,” Miss James blurted.

  “Such a place could never be completely clean,” Van Resen rasped. “And this jungle teems with every kind of life. She may have been bitten when she was outside.”

  Miss James nodded somberly.

  “Well, we have another clue to the cause of her sickness but no answer,” Van Resen had said, pulling up Lilly’s bed clothes before taking his seat by the fire.

  Van Resen remembered this, wishing again that he had brought equipment from his lab back in London. True, he was not a medical doctor, but he understood the principals involved in blood chemistry, and had on one teaching engagement in London been invited to watch physicians applying various surgical techniques, with blood transfusion into anemic patients but one of them.

  Though the technology was in its infancy, and still recorded failures and allergic reactions, Van Resen felt that if Lilly’s condition worsened, if she lost consciousness and could no longer drink water or take food to hydrate; well, in such an instance, a blood transfusion might have been a logical option.

  In these primitive conditions, donors with compatible blood groups could be determined with cross-matching. If only he had the tools...

  Cross-matching. Cross...

  Van Resen jerked awake, realizing he had fallen asleep as he contemplated treatments to Lilly’s condition. The long day of labor had seriously depleted his resources, and left him vulnerable to the quiet rustle, and soft bellows of the deep-breathing sleepers around him.

  He blinked into the darkness, and then cursed. His vision had been deteriorating since his 40th birthday, and he relied almost entirely on his eyeglasses now. After extinguishing the lamps he had slipped the spectacles into his pocket for safekeeping.

  In the resulting darkness, there was no use wearing them, but now, his eyes or his tired mind had begun to play tricks because there seemed to be a deepening of the shadows at his feet and that a similar effect lay over his sleeping companions.

  Van Resen shrugged and let his glasses lie as he instead began to recite the names of carnivores they might run into along this part of the African coast while considering what the castaways could do to guard against them.

  When Gazda arrived in the trees encircling his lair, he was surprised to see that the black fog had completely covered the grass in the open space, and even lapped at the stout trunks that held the tree-nest aloft.

  Again, it had leaked from among the sick, black trees and drifted outward to fill the clearing like some malign tide.

  It seemed to carry with it a dampness that gave a chill to the otherwise warm night, and the King of the Apes could not suppress a shiver as the fog rose up through the branches to brush against him.

  He climbed higher and watched the tree-nest for a time, considering whether it would be wiser to await another night when there was no black fog.

  Lilly. Her face came to mind.

  Thought of her had him quickly clambering down to lower limbs, hooting worriedly as he gazed across at his goal. He stood swaying on a branch while gathering his courage, concerned that the fog was somehow connected to the young female and what had occurred between them.

  It had been present when they...

  He felt another chill rise from where the fog lurked beneath him.

  Gazda had started out his trek to the tree-nest certain that what he had done with Lilly the night before would not have harmed her, but he had grown more doubtful by the mile. Indeed he had even started thinking of his mother again—how he would never have wished her harm, yet his thirst had overwhelmed him in a vulnerable state.

  And had not the touch and taste of Lilly’s soft skin made him vulnerable?

  And the music! The music had effected and confused him. Was it still at play?

  With this concern had grown a greater shame—and a terrible fear.

  The night ape snarled helplessly and bolted across the open ground so quickly that the black fog barely seemed to part around him as he passed.

  Gazda leapt up onto the platform below the window where he crouched, realizing there was no light within.

  He rose to peer past the tight mesh and his breath caught.

  His special vision saw through the darkness as it would at twilight, and there was Lilly. She was sitting straight up on her bed with her hands clasped over her heart.

  The girl’s white face was turned up to the window and her bright eyes were fixed upon him. The cool black fog that pressed against Gazda’s calves already covered the floor inside the tree-nest, completely shrouding the dark-haired woman who slept at Lilly’s side.

  Gazda barked quietly, gently pressing the wall around the window with the first and second knuckles of his right hand, and he nodded.

  Inside, Lilly got slowly to her feet.

  She smiled at him through the mesh before walking softly to the door.

  Gazda sank into a crouch, and the black mist swirled up around his shoulders like wings. On all sides, the jungle had gone as silent as death.

  CHAPTER 14 – Survivor in the Sand

  So it seemed to Captain Theodore Seward, too. The jungle that edged the beach on his right had suddenly gone dead quiet. One second it was thick with animal calls and the next a hush fell so deeply that his hungry gut had given him a start when it growled.

  The retired Texas Ranger was walking the flat expanse of African shore some miles south of the same silence that now haunted the castaways’ sanctuary. Being an outdoorsman, this development came with some concern, for in Seward’s experience sudden changes in animal behavior often preceded a predator’s attack.

  In his case, the old ranger had previously applied the rule to creatures like mountain lions, brown bears and Comanche warriors, but here on the African coast at night, he had no idea what the sudden stillness might portend.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed such a thing, except that the previous harbinger had run the opposite going from quiet to loud. While walking the
beach around sunset he passed a tree full of colorful birds that squawked full awake and went flying skyward in a panic.

  Seward didn’t get 30 cautious paces past the tree before a big, yellow “wildcat” with black spots swaggered out of the brush and started stalking him.

  He knew from his years rangering that most meat eaters were opportunists that preferred an ambush over a fair fight, and that their courage faded fast when their intended prey paused to confront them moustache to whiskers. He’d learned the trick from watching an old Indian tracker stare down a bear when he accidentally got between the hungry beast and the troop’s horses.

  So, when Seward swung around hollering to meet the wildcat’s eye, the creature was so startled that it dashed back into the woods like its tail was on fire.

  While that didn’t put the old ranger’s cares aside, it did brace his steel as he walked on past the fall of night. He hadn’t come so far to end up in a big cat’s belly.

  Now, Seward glared into the silent jungle, and shrugged down his fears before taking up his northern course again. If there were any peckish creatures on his trail, they’d pay dearly for the meal. The old ranger was in a foul mood, and itching to let off some steam by way of the six-foot length of hardwood he gripped in his left hand, and the big pistol he carried in the other.

  He’d had the foresight to stuff his revolver down the back of his britches when he, the Quarries and other passengers had been ordered out to the Lancet’s rail by the mutineers. When that evil-faced Mr. Manteau saw his empty gun belt, he had ordered the ranger patted down.

  Lucky for Seward, none of Manteau’s men knew how to frisk a man, and so the simpleton given the task missed the gun where it was hidden.

  Same as he had overlooked the big Bowie knife where the ranger had thrust it into his tall riding boot and covered it with a pant leg.

  Seward smiled through his big moustache, remembering the scrap that followed. The damned cowards puffed right up when pointing guns at civilized people who knew more about their “rights” than they did about criminals.