by Victor Mahn
The red fireball looked like a burning coal, with the heated fumes themselves like waves dancing on the surface of a stormy ocean. It seemed to be suspended in mid-air, but he knew that it was coming right at him; the angle made it seem to be just hovering in the distance.
Then the demented cackle came, which caused him to cover his ears and turn away, prepared to run through the door ahead. He knew it would do no good, anyhow, and that she had taken this form, blazing with heat, with what must be all the adverse emotions of rage and wretchedness. And so, she laughs, finally, to have smoked me out, and comes now to butcher me!
The fireball came unhesitatingly, now just yards away from him. He felt the ensuing heat from it, and felt his corneas were beginning to melt. For the first time in years, he could detect hues that were lurid. He could spot the redness of the approaching fireball. He stretched out his arms, for he did not want to resist any longer.
Hurry, beloved. I know you’d want this embrace.
CHAPTER TEN
The company modelled their sitting positions on pollinating insects: a bee or hornet seemed to fit the illustration. Two of them, Dennis and Magnus, sprawled on the grassy mound, while Limbuang, Ambiau, Rickety and Annand sat down with legs folded, though all of them were tired and mystified with the unfolding of events thus far.
For Rickety, the whole affair, with its elements of surrealism, was hitting on a note that challenged his present mental capacity and his belief system. The day had been too long, and the intermittent rain which was evident the previous morning, when the dead infant was discovered, was now making a short reappearance. So far, he estimated that the temperature was hovering between twenty-six and thirty-six degrees centigrade.
The pattern they had formed on the squishy, wet ground, reminded him of the chemical formation of benzene, which is basically a ring of six carbon atoms, each joined with a hydrogen atom. The recollection reminded him of the anecdote that told of the German chemist who discovered the ring shape of benzene: he had a vision of it, in the form of a snake biting its own tail. The depiction is called an ouroboros, and it is believed to be the symbolic representation of endlessness—like the investigative activity they have been partaking for the past four hours now… endless…
Perhaps they are waiting for me to say something. Even Limbuang and Ambiau are silent.
“Before we decide what we would like to do… need to do… let us have something to eat. Catch our breath. Daybreak will be in another four hours. And I believe we are about two miles from our camp. We need to be back before three hours have passed, to be sure.”
“Then what?” Magnus enquired. It seemed that all manner of wit and hilarity had been cast out of him. The effect was detectable in the others as well, including the shaman, who had himself claimed to have witnessed several hundred supernatural happenings in his lifetime. Sometime during their walk tonight, he hinted that they even had festivals concerning the dead and the afterlife. But the shaman was now overwrought; as to why, Rickety knew not.
“Then… we hear each other out, what we ought to do.”
“We go back to base, that’s what we ought to do!” Annand-Sri was resolute. He had been rubbing the stub where his arm had been amputated for a while now. “Do you not think that we have no idea what we are doing out here, Sir? What did we think? What did you think?” He stood up now, patting his backside clean of the grass.
“Now is the time to speak, Sir! What were we hoping to find here? The baby killer?!” Annand spread his arm and whirled about. “And look! We are out in the open, at a Godforsaken hour, hearts racing, and we are screaming about what to do! We ought to have been sleeping in our barracks, with only the Japanese to worry about!”
“Annand, I know… we all know that you are tired. We all are. And we are committed to this. We need to see it through,” Rickety tried to respond with as much reason as he could gather, stitching his voice with overtones of feeling the same way as Annand was right then: emotionally wearied.
Annand seemed to have cursed something in Hindi, then, “Well we need to go home, Sir. Home is our camp, we belong there, not here. There are strange things here. If I wanted to see strange things, I would have stayed back at my village.” It was not certain whether he meant it as a joke, but several of the others chuckled, and Magnus clapped as though delighted, and got on his feet too.
Magnus patted Annand’s shoulder heartily, producing a sound that could only be made using a cupped palm. “Plenty of time to be playing shivers with ye spine, laddie. First, let’s eat!” Magnus said.
Rickety sat and said, while pulling out the foodstuff from his backpack, “I have some papaya cubes, the last four. Also, some coconut candies and a handful of rice mixed with a batch of sardines with tomatoes. And a canteen of water, which we each have been drinking from for a while now.” Finally, he removed a flare-gun, and flung it casually away, closer to Magnus. “Just in case,” he said.
Limbuang and Ambiau went for the rice and fish, the others ate sparingly, their minds weighed down with thought. It was indeed a relief to be engaged with this investigation, for being war-driven for the past few years, and away from home for that time, with a fading recollection of the faces of loved ones, this brought forth a reprieve of what they knew would be inevitable: death in a tropical jungle for a cause now long forgotten.
The two tribesmen had been crouching while chomping away on their rationed midnight snack, having neatly tucked their sarongs around their thighs, keeping them in place by their knees. Dennis was sure that this is how the entire tribal community ate, by crouching close to the ground, though not exactly seated on it. He had observed this posture in most of the villages they had been in or through. They must have strong knees, then.
“See here, Rick,” Magnus spoke in between his chews, “I don’t know a great many things as you do; not that I hope that I ever will,” he smiled; continued, “but I do know that you don’t know what we are doing out here. Or what we ought to do now. Else you would have told us already. You are stalling, I think?”
Rickety managed to observe Limbuang tapping on Ambiau’s shoulder, requesting for the interpretation services to commence once again. Now how do I say this to them? Would they understand? “Yes, I am not sure what I was thinking, to get out here, defying company command. In fact, we have all gone AWOL. I just needed to be out of the place, I reckon. I never left for any recon missions like you guys—it has been sixty-two days since I stepped out of the camp. Sixty-two.” Rickety reinforced that fact, hoping for it to sink into their mental stream.
“And what, Sir? You thought we could be your chaperone?” Annand’s eyes were cast wide and dark again. He was beyond all forms of reason now, with the hour being just after midnight. He then asked, “What was that ball of fire?”
“Likely a shell from a field artillery, lad. Those Japs are increasing their training routines, possibly a new batch of cons had been shipped in,” Magnus said, continued his munching, motioned for Rickety to hand him the water canteen.
“Yes, I was thinking that that could be it, too,” Dennis said. “We always saw the bombardment of shells and such in the daytime. Who knew that it looked that way in the dark? It looked eerie, I’d grant you that. But it was a first for all of us, and none could say otherwise, I imagine.”
“But how far away would the crew handling it be? We saw it like, what? A thousand feet above the ground? It looked like a soccer ball,” Annand mused, unsure of the theory being put forth and studied. “And why are we not concerned that they might ambush us out here?” He thought for a moment, then asked, “In fact, Sir, they could be going back to the aircraft right now. We all know that it only just crashed, either yesterday or this morning. No-one heard or saw it from our camp, though…” Annand stopped short, acknowledging that there was a gap in his narrative. “Why didn’t we hear the plane crash, though?”
“The rain, man! There was thunder and all. Maybe it coincided? We heard the thunder, not what we should have bee
n listening for,” Magnus said. Dennis and Rickety locked eyes then, each knew that the other was considering Annand’s queries, and could not find anything that resembled a reasonable reply.
“Why didn’t we hear it…?” Rickety asked himself, made a fist with his right and placed the thumb on the centre of the two front teeth of the lower jaw. “We need to have this reported back to base ASAP,” he said while looking squarely at Annand. “You’d head back, Annand. Take Dennis along. Report to the CO that there might be a crash retrieval unit en route to the site, and the relays we have been receiving of the flight path of the Japs’ planes are false and not reliable. Suggest to him that we need to recoup our forces to the upper sectors of Borneo, using AM channels only.”
“Uh-uh! No way, Chief! I wanna see this to the end,” Dennis retaliated.
“I’d go, gladly, Sir. The markers we have set out will help, of course. But what of you lot? What will you do?”
They all looked at Rickety. Doubt and uncertainty still lingered on his countenance, and their spirits fell as he said, “Perhaps we should all go back.” Magnus was shaking his head, reproaching the opinion. This one day off the base, should never end this way. He would rather be killed himself in a smashing, exalting style. Like how the Japanese do it, with a sword and a bowl and some Japanese gubbins…
“It is almost done, the task you must do, Richard,” Ambiau said. Limbuang was murmuring some dictations to him still. “You will uncover the person responsible for the baby. But you would need to be strong. You will shun what you have sought.”
“Is that right, shorts?” Magnus began his teasing again; the meal seemed to have nourished him well enough for it. Rickety said, “Let them speak, Maggie. It is a plain that they are well-versed in. Let them indulge in their superstitions.”
“No superstition, Richard. This is truth,” Ambiau said. Limbuang made a stern sign toward the soldiers. “Naun epat, mi-hewuk murun apuy, kala’awe belum am’aw?” He asked, maintaining the dour look. Ambiau translated for them: You four have breathed in the fire of evil, how can you live beyond this?
Magnus opened his mouth to speak, but was held off by Ambiau, who continued, “What you saw is no weapon, but a being. A creature that moves in the dark. Limbuang had seen it just once before this, and that too was but for a moment. My friends, it was a woman, in the form of a spirit. Limbuang says that it was she who was at your camp yesterday.
“I recall stories told by my grandmother, of restless spirits, taking the form of a woman, and living amongst trees, hiding in them. During daytime, they take refuge in the hollow tree chambers that were initially made by animals and birds, such as the hornbill and the giant civet. They are anxious beings, keen on living; they do not completely acknowledge the fact that they are dead. Not entirely, because they are torn in their thoughts, and that causes them most despair, for they like the fact that they can draw into them a great power from the netherworld. Evil energies, that is.
“And she has seen you. All of you,” Ambiau whirled about, facing each of them. “We have figured that they have a pull toward death, and the more odious and unsavoury the shape of death, the more drawn they are. For instance, soldiers dying in battle, gunshot and all.” He stopped talking then, as he became aware that this was a topic that makes soldiers uneasy. Better to not think about it.
Ambiau’s thought picked up on another element of the subject, and he excitedly added, “And that was the Kuyang, in a spectral form. She moves that way, for it is faster and she has her energies guarded within the flames. At other times, when not asleep in her tree, she recasts into a half-bodied woman, and looks disfigured, to instil maximum fear.”
“Hah! What overactive minds you tribes have! Asleep in trees, indeed!” Magnus was bursting with laughter. “This makes for good story around a camp-fire, men!” Dennis appreciated the refreshing change from the night’s gloominess, with his mind fixed now on the talk of death that soldiers would have to finally face. I am afraid of it! And I hate this place, and this war! When will all this end?
“Look, guys. I just want to know who killed the baby, and why. Why they did it that way, which is blasphemous in the eyes of God. I do not care for ghosts or spirits or trees. There has been a very real murder, which we all know to be true. It is tangible!” Rickety scoffed, his eyes hard. “We may very well die in war, gentlemen. But no infant, toddler or child should die in such a conflict amongst men, much less by being stabbed many times over by an adult! Or adults!”
“Stabbed…?” Dennis was aghast, obviously not privy to the details.
“Yes, Dennis! Yes! Stabbed with a knife; a kitchen knife by the looks of it. Four times, no less.” The rage within him was reaching a tipping point. He knew that he should not be raising his voice to such a volume here in the jungle. But this was an outlet, and especially in the past year of the war, outlets were hard to come by, and one makes full use of it regardless of whence it came.
Magnus and Annand looked down at the glistening grass dotted with pebbles. The moon was still visible, with its cool white light grazing the greens of the field where they sat. Well, Annand may have his reasons, all of them valid too, specifically that of his handicap. What can I say for myself? Nothing that I’d fancy either.
“Guess what we really wanna know, Rick, is why do you care so much about this one child? Several hundreds of thousands would have been killed in the war by now, don’t you think? Who mourns for them? I do not think you will, either, to be frank,” Magnus reasoned.
“I can understand the alarm and disgust people may feel upon seeing a variety of deformities on a baby. Especially the orange-red eyes and scaly skin; almost fish-like. I would have jumped at that sight too,” Rickety proceeded with this reasoning, “But I would never kill a baby. A child of God? Innocence? Where have all these thoughts and emotions gone to?
“Forget about the fucking flame of a ball, whatever that thing is! Do you not see what I am driving at? I want to put the baby’s soul to rest. End of story! I need to find out who ended its life!”
An uneasy silence followed, with a light wind blowing through them. So, what shall we do?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They looked about themselves at the meadow-like grass surrounding the front yard of the dilapidated house. The quirky scent was overpowering, but Dennis knew what it was and immediately reported it to the company: horse manure. They then discovered some traces of hay and some ropes irregularly placed around the circumference of the house.
Rickety was aware that it was about two hours before dawn—he had spent a great deal attending to the wounded in his miserable infirmary at Camp 12, and most of his work was carried out in these godforsaken hours before sunrise. It takes a while for another to carry the wounded on their shoulders, ya know? A young private had once tried to offer consolation as to his growing insomnia due to this situation.
They decided to have Ambiau and Limbuang await at the spot where they dropped the final marker, just several yards away from the outer gate of the house. Whether or not this was the destination where all mysteries surrounding the dead infant would be unravelled, they knew not. In fact, they did not have an inkling of what was in the house, whether it was or had been occupied, or if the place was riddled with mines or explosives. They also wondered if their quest had passed onto the threshold of lunacy (for the moon was out shining merrily tonight, sharing their adventure). But they decided that they should inspect the outer regions of the house before stepping into it, and they also agreed that they should all go in through the front and not the back, all of them together.
As a preliminary task for their exigent operation, Annand was sent to scout the gardens for mines. He began behaving like an alert mink, or a fox, carefully scanning the scene within his view, crosschecking it with signs of recent meddling. He was proficient in the art of detection; he had been carrying out such tasks for the forces for the good part of almost two years now and was one of the last few minesweepers alive and in active duty. He st
arted at the outermost part of the garden, and then moved inward towards the lone building in the centre. It seemed that he would reduce the radius of his scrutiny to a few feet within a minute, and this scheme proved to be time-effective. Annand gave a nod to Rickety now, satisfied that the plot of land they were stepping on was clear of mines.
Now, we would need to examine the house itself.
Rickety gave instructions, as mutely as he could manage to the team who had been eyeing him keenly, that they would storm into the house through the front entrance, but stop two metres in from the door, as they would need to ascertain several aspects of the situation simultaneously, such as the robustness of the floor of the house and the possible presence of occupants. Dennis would be the one to kick open the door, being the most able amongst them.
They walked carefully onto the wooden porch which was partly covered in darkness; the other was cast with the bright white moonlight. This sketched a sort of paradox, one which they all received warmly, for the day had been, for the most part, laced with events and outcomes that were diabolical. The feature of a hallowed natural lighting in the locale of strangeness gave forth a tinge of hope that all would be well in the end. If there is an end to all of this...
Rickety placed his hand on Dennis’s shoulder, guided him into position in front of him, barely a foot away. It astonished him, the level of silence that they maintained, or had been able to maintain, due to the many months of carrying out patrols and reconnaissance exercises (both daytime and nocturnal) with the invisible Japanese forces zigzagging through the island. It felt as though Dennis glided several inches from the ground, and this made Rickety’s stomach twirl. Once everyone’s bearings were recovered, Rickety tapped on Dennis’s shoulder twice: Do it.