by Scott Baker
The sound that silenced Malbool was an unnaturally deep growl, felt more than heard, as if from below the range of normal human hearing. It resonated in our stomachs, and we froze. It was right in front of us.
At once the three of us strained our eyes in the darkness, searching out beyond the torchlight. There. A glint. The reflective yellow of eyes.
‘Do you—’ Malbool began in a whisper.
‘I see it,’ I whispered back, taking the torch from the terrified boy and pulling him by the arm behind us.
Cats. Cats’ eyes glowed yellow. But more disturbing than the thought of a cat standing before us in the darkness, was the distance between the eyes. Too wide. If these were the eyes of a cat, it was the largest cat on earth.
The growl came again, moving towards us. The sound betrayed the creature’s proportions. Massive. Heavy. Was this where they kept some monster of an animal long since forgotten in my time? Some great, giant feline saved for those who tried to escape through the bowels of the Coliseum?
We began to back up, very, very slowly.
Another sound. Behind us. Padding paws. Trapped.
‘A drink for you, sir?’ the stewardess asked.
‘Huh?’ Shaun looked up.
‘A drink? Would you like one?’ She beamed a rehearsed smile. For a moment he didn’t understand. A drink? Didn’t she know he was about to be eaten by a … something? But no. It wasn’t him. The diary had a strange effect. He felt such an empathy with what was happening that he began to truly feel the fear leap out from the page. It weaved around him and only reluctantly released him back into the real world.
‘Ah, I want a … uh … just a coffee.’
‘Sure,’ the stewardess said with another smile. She began to pour some steaming liquid from a silver pot.
‘Good book?’ a voice asked from next to him. He looked over. Didn’t these people know? Didn’t they know what was happening?
Lauren was dead, people were trying to kill him and he was – no, Saul was about to be eaten by something huge.
‘Yeah, it’s not bad,’ Shaun replied, trying not to engage in conversation.
‘I don’t read much, myself,’ the large American man said. ‘I prefer movies. Love to sit back and watch movies. Used to have to go out to the video store, but it’s downloads now.’
‘That’s nice.’ Shaun commented in as indifferent a way as he could muster.
‘Ladies and gentlemen.’ The captain’s voice came over the in-flight speakers, ‘we’re now cruising at just over thirty-five thousand feet and travelling at just under six hundred miles an hour.’ He paused in the way that only plane captains can do. ‘Ahhhh, the weather outside is a sunny minus twenty-nine degrees Fahrenheit, ahhhhh, that’s Celsius thirty-four below.’
Good, I’ll remember that in case I decide to go for a walk out there later. Shaun’s brain was as irritated as he was.
He wriggled back into his reading position, lodged between the obese man and the woman, he could not go anywhere even if he wanted to. Trapped.
CHAPTER 33
Trapped. Mishca was terrified of whatever the creatures were before us and behind us in the darkness. Hunting us. Stalking us. My eyes absorbed our surroundings. The walls were made of rough stone, hewn out of the existing rock. I held the torch high and saw that the tunnels were tall, at least as tall as they were wide. I grabbed Mishca roughly with my spare arm and lifted him onto the wall.
‘Climb!’ I commanded harshly, to break the paralysis his fear had caused.
‘Malbool, can you—’
But the African was already halfway up the other wall, finding hand- and footholds easily.
Then, from behind us, the cats crept forward into the sphere of torchlight. Four of them. Their black fur seemed to suck the light of the torch in, making their forms hard to define against the darkness beyond.
I jammed the torch into a crack in the wall and began to climb. Absently, I flicked the switch to record with my tongue. The panthers saw their prey, but not before something else, something huge, charged.
A massive bulk filled the tunnel, its mouth open wider than seemed possible. Two of the panthers had already launched into the air towards Mishca, and their collision with the massive silver form that slammed them from the air was sickening and welcome all at once. The cats had not seen the hippo as it approached steadily from beyond the torchlight, but they felt it now.
‘What the?’ I spluttered in amazement. No sooner had the two panthers crunched to the ground than the next two leaped onto the enraged, giant hippopotamus. In other circumstances, I might have been interested to find out the outcome of such a contest, but as it was, I cared only enough to realise that this was our chance.
Heaving its massive bulk, the hippo passed straight under us as it caught and crushed one of the cats in its jaws. The cracking and crunching of cartilage made a sickening sound that echoed through the tunnel.
Malbool was the first to move. He dropped from where he was hanging and landed with a thud on the dirt floor. The torch I had jammed into the side of the arch was knocked clear with the hippo’s charge and now lay burning on the ground, right in the middle of the animal fight.
Claws and flesh flew, and the hippo slammed against the tunnel walls, crushing another cat and giving me a chance to grab Mishca and hurl him to the ground behind the grey beast. I looked down and saw the torch being kicked and scuffled near the thrashing hippo’s feet. The dust and dirt sprayed up, teasing the flame, but the fire didn’t die. Watching the small fire spin and dance in the fray, I realised the horrible truth: we needed that torch – if that light went out, so did our chance of finding our way through these tunnels.
One of the panthers flew into the stone wall, its back breaking with another sickening crunch as the hippo flung its head with surprising force. The torch broke in half as a massive grey foot slammed down, splintering the handle. The flame dipped and died.
For an instant.
The fire struggled to breathe as it bent beneath impacts from every direction. With the final panther clinging to the neck of the furiously thrashing hippo, the violence of the attack was immense. The massive beast fought hard to get the parasite off its neck, but the cat had a death hold and would not let go. Sharp claws disappeared into the hippo’s hide. The silken black feline hung to the underside of the hippo’s chest, its teeth moving only to readjust their grip on the wound that was rapidly opening and filling with blood. I looked at the animals struggling, and looked at the torch beneath them. There was no way I could reach it.
My fingers began to tremble and I knew that even the simple task of clinging to the wall would soon be beyond me. My shoulder ached and I became aware of my injuries once again, unable to keep the pain at bay much longer. I was slipping.
From beneath the hippo, a hand emerged holding the torch. Mishca’s hand. Then I saw both the bravest and stupidest thing I had yet witnessed.
The boy had scrambled between the dancing feet of the hippo and now had the broken but still burning torch in his hand. Then, instead of scrambling out, he paused and thrust the flame up under the panther’s back as it hung from the flailing beast it was attacking.
As if the great cat were doused in a flammable liquid, its fur ignited with a WHOOP! and Mishca rolled clear. At once the light from the new source of flame illuminated the passageway. The thick smoke and smell of burning animal flesh drifted up to where I was losing my hold on the wall. I fell.
I hit the back of the hippo and bounced off its rear end, but the animal didn’t notice. It now sank to its knees, losing consciousness from lack of blood. The flaming panther roared and hissed in agony. It was an ungodly sound. Gagging from the smoke, I fell into the dust behind the two animals and felt a hand grip underneath my arm and drag me clear.
‘No time to rest,’ came the heavily accented African voice. ‘A couple of these other panthers are not quite dead. We have to get clear of the tunnels.’
Mishca appeared with what little r
emained of the torch. I felt as if I was going to pass out from the exertion, but I pressed on into the darkness. My body refused, but my mind insisted.
‘Mishca,’ I said, still reeling from the boy’s amazing bravery, ‘take us to the aqueducts.’
Shaun exhaled.
CHAPTER 34
Shaun Strickland’s first experience outside the United States was like being thrust into the twilight zone. As he wandered through the airport baggage claim in Madrid international airport, he was horrified to see people smoking everywhere. In America, you just simply didn’t smoke inside – the foul smell added to his sense of disorientation.
Everyone around him rattled off sounds, but he had no idea what they were saying. He felt lost, confused and very alone.
Shaun went straight to the information counter and waited in the queue. At last an exotic-looking, dark-haired girl looked up at him and said, ‘Hola! Como está usted?’
Shaun stared at the girl. ‘Ah, do you speak English?’
‘Of course,’ the information girl responded with a British slant to her accent.
‘Ah, I need to get to … Sol?’ Shaun stammered, expecting this request to throw the young woman into a panic. Without missing a beat, however, she drew a pamphlet from the counter-stand next to her and began to write on it.
‘Choo are here,’ she said, circling the white block representing the airport. Shaun was relieved to see that the map was in English. ‘If choo go outside to the left choo will see the subway trains, mmm … yes, and then choo go to the man in the box and ask for a ticket to Sol, and take the train from Platform Three.’
‘Oh, okay then. That’s very helpful. Thank you,’ he said, looking at the map.
‘Do choo have Euro?’ she asked, as if predicting all the problems this American, one off the production line, would have in the next few moments.
‘Ah, no. How do I?’
‘There is a machine outside on the right. And here,’ the woman said as she produced another, slightly thicker pamphlet that read ‘Useful Phrases’ in big bold writing on the cover just under a red title ‘Welcome to Madrid’.
‘Ah, thanks,’ Shaun said, amazed he hadn’t given this stuff a thought until now. Like so many things in life, getting around was something he had taken for granted.
He bustled through the airport until he came to the ATM the girl had spoken about, and realised that he would have to chance using his card to get some cash. If they were indeed tracking him, they would take a while to get to Spain, by which point he hoped to have met with the man on the phone.
If they’re not already here, his brain cut in.
He withdrew one hundred Euro and waited for the printout of his receipt. The money spat out followed by the receipt: Available balance: €60,245.
Shaun looked again. There had to be some mistake. Sixty thousand Euro? That equated to about eighty thousand American dollars. He had asked his brother for some cash, but Tim wasn’t exactly the generous type – not eighty-grand generous. By his last recollection Shaun was overdrawn on his account, so this sudden injection of funds made him very nervous.
Someone had accessed his account and put money in. That meant that someone might just as easily be able to take it out. He thought for a moment, then decided to shove his card in again. He punched in €1000, and was greeted with a message saying that the maximum daily limit was €500. He took the additional €400 and headed for the train.
Paranoia kept Shaun company in the standing-room-only rail carriage. The train was packed with commuters and he stood not too far from the double sliding doors, holding a hand strap dangling from the roof to stop him from careening into other passengers as they swayed and lurched in time. The coloured key showed that he was only two stops from the station marked ‘Sol’. According to his pamphlet, Sol was the very centre of downtown Madrid, with great nightlife and a reputation as a tourist mecca. Excellent. Great. Perhaps he could go for a dance after he escaped the villainous killers.
Right after you discover whether there is a video recording of an interview with Jesus in a remote cave somewhere, his brain reminded him.
That’s what this was really all about. It wasn’t about the diary – but then again, no one had read the diary. When it came to Shaun it had been sealed airtight, so no one could know what he knew. No one knew about Graeme Fontéyne, so maybe no one knew about the interview.
‘Próxima estación – Sol,’ a voice came over the train’s internal speaker system. Sure enough, before two minutes were up, the doors opened and people spilled out onto the underground platform at Madrid’s Plaza del Sol train station, and Shaun tumbled out with them. He watched the train pull away into the tunnel before he followed the crowd up the stairs and could hear the sounds of the street spilling down from above.
The bright sunlight and the oppressive heat struck him at once. He looked around blinking, and started to absorb how life looked outside the United States.
To Shaun, it was like a fairytale. All the buildings were old in their style, but not in their decor. And, if this was downtown Madrid, where were the skyscrapers? Where were the huge steel-and-glass structures that dominated every major city in America? The tallest building here was what looked like a department store called Corte de Ingles. At four storeys, it was hardly worthy of its own observation deck.
The streets were narrow and the people hurried about in their individual, busy lives. Shaun found himself standing in the middle of a small plaza, a triangular pinnacle where four roads converged at strange angles. Over on the right were a couple of open-topped tourist buses.
‘Limosnas para sin brazos! Limosnas para sin brazos!’ The sound came from his left. ‘Limosnas para sin brazos! Limosnas para sin brazos!’ The voice came from the other side of the stairs and was punctuated by the sound of coins jingling in a metal cup. He could not quite see who was talking through the crowd coming up out of the subway. ‘Limosnas para sin brazos! Limosnas para sin brazos!’ CHINK! CHINK! CHINK! The voice came again, and Shaun thought it sounded like someone talking with a mouth full of food. Over and over: ‘Limosnas para sin brazos!’
And then, as a break in the crowd came, he saw why. In the heat, a man stood alone at the top of the subway stairs in a sweaty white singlet and old black tracksuit pants. His black curls were the universal greasy unwashed hair of a beggar, and he held a metal cup in his mouth. He spoke again, with the cup still between his teeth. ‘Limosnas para sin brazos! Limosnas para sin brazos!’ Then he shook the cup making a small chinking sound as the few coins it possessed rattled. Shaun looked at the man, but the man paid no attention. The busy Madridians passed by him without so much as a second glance, and then Shaun saw why the man held the cup in his mouth. He had no arms. His contact.
Small bulbs swelled where his arms should have been, and he waved the little stumps as he spoke. Shaun pushed his way through the throng coming up from the station as yet another subway carriage emptied its load onto the Spanish street.
Standing right next to the man, he saw the milkiness of the beggar’s eyes. How the hell did someone survive in this life with no arms, let alone blind? He felt suddenly very guilty and ashamed of himself, simply for being able to look around and see what this man could not. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty-euro note, and placed it in the cup in between shakes. Then he looked into the man’s face and asked, ‘Where is the chicken?’
‘Limosnas para sin brazos! Limosnas para sin brazos!’ the man blared back at Shaun, not realising that he had just put money into the tin without the rattle of coins.
Shaun tried again. ‘Where is the chicken?’ he asked more insistently. The man shook his can and continued his calls, rocking from side to side like Ray Charles. Shaun began to feel frustrated. He did not come to Spain for this.
‘Answer the fucking question!’ he growled. ‘Where is that stupid fucking chicken?’
The man appeared to slow in his rocking motion for a moment, staring with his milky white irises, obv
iously detecting that someone was getting angry at him, but then he shook his can and called again.
‘Okay … there had to be some reason to this,’ Shaun mused. Then he looked down at his pamphlet.
‘In the restaurant’ it read. He followed the heading down to the list of phrases below it. ‘Where are the toilets?’ then next to it was a phonetic version of the Spanish for the same phrase. ‘Don-de estan los servisios.’
Shaun stared at it. For a smart man, he was truly an idiot sometimes, Lauren used to chide him. He wasn’t in Masonville now, he was in Sol, Madrid. Shaun scanned the section further.
‘Ordering: I would like the chicken, please,’ and then across from it ‘Yo qui-ero tener el pollo (poy-yo).’
He studied the translation, then looked back at the man. He was beginning to draw stares from the passers-by, it wasn’t often someone hassled a blind armless guy on the street. But Shaun didn’t care. He had come this far. He wanted to make those people who killed Lauren pay, and the mysterious voice that had summoned him here was his only lead.
He took a breath to calm himself, then said slowly and clearly, ‘Donde ésta el pollo?’
‘Limosnas para sin …’ the man stopped.
His rhythmic swaying came to a slow halt and then, through the milky whiteness of his eyes, Shaun swore he saw something move. ‘You can hear me!’ he exclaimed. ‘Donde ésta el pollo?’ he then repeated. ‘Donde ésta el pollo?’
All of a sudden, the man began to sway back and forth again and shook his can, but in between shakes his chant changed – but just once.
‘El pollo ésta en Roma! Limosnas para sin brazos!’
‘What? What did you say?’ Shaun asked. The beggar, though, was back to rocking to and fro, calling his mantra once again to the world. Shaun watched him for a minute then turned away. He looked up and saw, of all things, a McDonald’s on the corner. At least that creepy, smiling clown was a constant.
‘El pollo ésta en Roma,’ Shaun repeated to himself, not quite grasping the meaning of the words straight away. He walked into the restaurant and grabbed a pile of napkins, then slumped into a seat. He scribbled the phonetic sounds he had heard the man say, and then sat back to try to make sense of it all.