Gwen poked the box. Nothing moved.
“No.” Mr. Sunjaya said. There was a brittle edge to his voice. “Just watch it. Don’t touch it for now.”
Gwen peered at the box. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but Mr. Sunjaya cut her off.
He stepped back from the table. “I will go now.”
“Okay,” Gwen said.
“You will stay here with the package?”
“Yes.” Gwen was surprised by a spike of annoyance. She made sure it didn’t show on her face. She was going to be the best nanny ever. She would never get angry or forget to read a bedtime story.
“Do not leave the package here,” he said.
“Okay.” This time, even though she tried to prevent it, a little irritation crept into her tone. Did he think she was stupid? She knew how to keep an eye on a package.
He turned to the archway and walked as though he were in a hurry.
“Mr. Sunjaya?” Gwen called after him.
The people at the next table looked up. The man looked away and made a warning noise into his dinner plate. He said something that sounded a lot like stay out of it, but maybe he said something else entirely. The woman’s eyes lingered on her a moment before she too turned back to her meal. She wore a pink cashmere cardigan just like the one Gwen had admired at Nordstrom’s but hadn’t had the money to buy. Maybe she’d get that sweater with her first paycheck.
“Mr. Sunjaya,” Gwen said again.
He turned.
“What is her name?”
Something terrifying happened behind Mr. Sunjaya’s eyes. As though a shadow had fallen over him, his expression darkened. There was another emotion surging through him that Gwen couldn’t quite identify, confusion maybe or dread.
“My daughter,” he said. His words marched out of his mouth meticulously as though he had to search for each one.
“I know. What is her name?” Gwen’s voice was too loud. She wasn’t the kind of person who yelled across rooms let alone across restaurants. Most people learned that kind of thing from their mothers. Gwen had figured it out on her own.
The woman at the next table shifted her eyes to the side, gazing at her through a curtain of hair. The rope of pearls she wore nestled against the soft nap of her cardigan. She was casually elegant as if she didn’t know the value of the things she wore. Gwen wished she was more like her. She would be before long. First she’d be a nanny, then a personal assistant, then who knew?
Mr. Sunjaya held Gwen’s gaze for a moment, then a moment longer. He forced the corners of his mouth into a smile that no one could pretend was genuine. He tilted his head at her as though he’d answered her question.
“I have given you the job.”
Too quickly, at almost a run, he passed through the archway and disappeared from sight.
Gwen folded her hands in front of her at the table. The moments spooled out before her. She felt weird sitting alone in the restaurant. She felt as though her head had swollen to the size of a good carving pumpkin and was wobbling precariously on her shoulders. She couldn’t catch anyone, but she could feel their eyes on her.
One after another, the diners finished their meals, pushed their plates away, paid their checks and drifted through the archway into the night. Gwen felt a little less uncomfortable as the people left.
Mr. Sunjaya’s box sat on the table, taking up space like her dinner companion. Gwen entertained the idea of drawing a face on it with lipstick and engaging in conversation just to pass the time, but decided against acting so childish in public. A kid would appreciate something like that. She was going to be the best nanny ever.
The silver duct tape wasn’t fully stuck down on one side. Gwen worried it with her fingernail. Someone before her had opened the box and resealed it. Mr. Sunjaya would never know if she looked inside. She hesitated. It would be just her luck Mr. Sunjaya would return the moment she opened the box.
The waiter stopped at the edge of her table. He refilled her water glass. “Are you ready to order?” His hands trembled slightly as he held a pencil to a pad. He wouldn’t look directly at her. Maybe it was cultural taboo. Gwen resolved to learn all about Indonesia and Indonesian ways.
“I’m going to wait for . . . ” What should she call him? Her dinner companion—creepy. Her boss—too much information. “I’m going to wait.”
The waiter bobbed his head and hurried away from the table, never looking at Gwen once.
Gwen glanced at the glittering lights of the archway.
Where was he? Mr. Sunjaya should be back by now.
Minutes ticked by.
Gwen found the Big Dipper in the twinkling lights on the railings. She couldn’t imagine what story this might trigger. The whole business of stars as tools to aid memory seemed preposterous. More minutes passed. Gwen stared into her cold coffee then traced drips of condensation on her water glass. After many more minutes ticked by, she returned her attention to the box.
She tried to read the label. Not one of the words meant anything to her. With false confidence she poked at it, tipping it up on its side and letting it fall.
The man at the next table, the only one still occupied, made the sound of the letter “S” clipped short. “Finish now,” he said to his wife, “we’re going to be late. Even you don’t eat this slowly.”
“Don’t rush me,” the woman said. She lowered her voice and in a whisper, “she’s only a girl.”
Something inside the box moved around. Whatever it was wasn’t packed too well. There didn’t seem to be any paper or air packs for shipping. It wasn’t heavy though. It didn’t seem to be a rabbit or a kitten or a frog. Whatever it was didn’t scurry like it was alive. Gwen pondered the air holes. Maybe it was cheese or something that needed to breathe.
Where was Mr. Sunjaya? It felt like it had been an hour already. Gwen glanced at her phone. Only forty-five minutes. Still that was a long time.
The waiter cleared the plates from the couple next to her. It was the only table on the patio still occupied. The beautiful woman in the pink cashmere sweater murmured to her husband. Gwen couldn’t understand, but when she was a nanny she would learn. Gwen listened, picking out a familiar sounding word from time to time but not enough to understand what they were talking about.
The couple rose and walked toward the archway as Mr. Sunjaya had done.
A shiver worked its way through Gwen. The evening was much colder all of a sudden. All the people were gone and the heaters had been turned off. What else could it be?
The woman hung back a little as if she didn’t want to leave yet.
Gwen realized she’d been staring when the woman glanced over her shoulder. She held Gwen’s gaze like she was trying to tell her something. It made Gwen so uncomfortable that she had to look away.
When she looked up again, the woman and her husband were passing through the archway. The crunch of their shoes on the gravel grew softer and softer.
Gwen counted the lights as first one then another of the constellations flickered out. Maybe their batteries were dying. She glanced up at the actual sky with the actual stars but could only see dim faraway flickers. Where was Mr. Sunjaya?
Even though her footsteps were far away, Gwen heard the woman exclaim. A moment later the soft pink of her cardigan and the sheen of her pearls appeared in the archway. The woman rushed across the patio back to her table and grabbed her Prada bag. There was no relief on her face. It was like she’d known exactly where it was all along. As if she’d left it there on purpose. Who would leave a bag like that unattended?
The woman dropped down beside the chair she’d vacated only moments ago and said in a hushed tone, “You must keep it safe and feed it.”
Gwen jumped at the sound of her voice. The woman looked out of place squatting between the tables. Someone dressed in such lovely clothes wouldn’t hunch down and whisper to a stranger. It made her words carry more weight.
Gwen studied the woman’s intense brown eyes. “Me?”
�
��Yes, you must keep it safe and feed it.” She jabbed at the box with a perfect almond shaped nail. “Or it will turn against you.”
An angry crunch, crunch, crunch of leather shoes in the parking lot let Gwen know that the woman’s husband wasn’t far away.
Gwen reached out for the box and slid it closer to her.
“You feed it, okay.” The woman placed her hand on Gwen’s leg. “Keep it safe.” Her pinky finger was gnarled and mottled and missing from the second joint. She rose slowly. The expression on her face was somewhere between pity and revulsion, an expression that seemed more appropriate from someone who had just seen a horrible accident.
“It belongs to Mr. Sunjaya. He’ll be back in a minute.”
The woman’s eyes reflected the last of the stars still flickering out along the railing. Her eyes glittered as if she might cry.
“He is never returning.”
Gwen knew this. She did. She knew it several times over, but she’d pushed the evidence out of her mind. Filled up her head with dreams of her wonderful new job instead.
“How am I supposed to . . . what is it?” Gwen grabbed the edge of the silver tape and yanked it off.
“No. Feed the jenglot before you look.” The woman grabbed Gwen’s hand. She held it in both of her own. A faint scent of perfume Gwen had only sampled at cosmetics counters wafted from the woman. She wrapped Gwen’s fingers around her water glass and squeezed. The hideous decapitated finger pressed against her.
Gwen tried to pull away but the woman was stronger than her fuzzy pink sweater would indicate.
“You can be okay. You may survive if you do what I say.”
“Wani, come away from her.” The man materialized in the archway. “Stop.”
The woman didn’t flinch at the sound of his voice. She gripped Gwen’s hand tighter, squeezed harder.
“Let go,” Gwen cried as she scooted her chair back, swung her head around searching for the waiter. The windows were dark and the door closed. Everyone else was gone. “Let go of me.”
The woman squeezed tighter.
The man reached out and grabbed her arm.
The glass snapped in Gwen’s hand. Water splashed over her arm. Shards of glass tinkled as they hit the floor. A stream of red welled from the gash in her finger and blossomed over her skin.
The woman pulled Gwen until her hand was over the box. Blood dripped on to the cardboard. The woman jerked Gwen so the drips fell through an air hole. “Feed it every day, every day, every day. Never miss a day.” She squeezed Gwen’s finger tight. Blood drops fell faster and faster. The jenglot will help you get whatever you want, but you must never forget.”
Tears streamed down Gwen’s face. “That hurts.”
Nothing moved in the box. Nothing scurried or scattered or erupted in a puff of smoke. Nothing happened at all.
“I know,” the woman said. “It will always hurt.”
“Let’s go now, Wani. There’s nothing more you can do.” The man put his arm around the woman’s shoulders and guided her away. He never once looked at Gwen.
“I could call the police, you know.” Gwen applied pressure to her finger to stop the bleeding “You assaulted me,” she called after the woman. She knew she would never do this. Even though the accident was not an accident, in her heart she knew the woman was trying to help her. How and why, Gwen couldn’t be sure.
The woman glanced back. “Never forget to feed it.”
As their feet crunched across the gravel, Gwen heard a sob and maybe she heard, a careless girl like her is doomed. Or maybe she didn’t because how would she know.
All of the constellations twisted around the rail had gone out. A grim darkness that only dwelled in the unlit corners of cities flooded the patio and spilled out into the night.
Gwen checked her watch. The hour had passed when the sheriff had locked up her apartment. She lived in the darkness now. She gripped the tape and ripped it off the box.
Big glassy eyes, almost human, stared up at her from a face made from something like desiccated leather, or like a mummy Gwen had seen in a museum once, with ropey muscles and bone-thin arms and legs, as stringy as forgotten turkey wings from the back of the fridge a month past Thanksgiving. Its black hair, human hair, fell over its eyes in a tangled mop.
Gwen reached into the box and picked up the figurine. It was warm to the touch like a living thing.
“If you want to reach for the stars,” the jenglot said in a dusty old voice, “I will help you reach them.”
Gwen nearly dropped the doll. She hadn’t seen its mouth move but maybe it had. Maybe it had moved just the tiniest bit. Nothing seemed impossible.
“What do you want from me?”
“To be safe and well-fed.
“Me too. That’s exactly what I want.” Gwen’s heart fluttered in excitement. She’d found a kindred spirit. “We’re going to be wonderful friends.”
“You’ll forget about me before long.”
“I won’t forget. Not ever,” Gwen said.
“Oh yes you will.” The jenglot cackled its dry, dusty old woman laugh. “Yes indeed you will.”
BIOGRAPHY: Kate Jonez is the author of the Shirley Jackson Award nominated novella Ceremony of Flies and the Stoker Award® nominated novel Candy House. Her stories can be found in many anthologies and magazines.
She is also chief editor at Omnium Gatherum, a small press dedicated to publishing unique dark fantasy, weird fiction and horror. Several Omnium Gatherum titles have been nominated for awards.
SCENTS OF FEAR
Steve Jenner
The first time I ever met Veronica Brooks she saved my life and I really kind of liked her for that.
At least that was what I thought at the time. No tender administering of the kiss of life to my cold blue lips or frantic pounding of my unmoving chest to galvanise a stuttering heart. No, nothing quite so ordinary.
It was simply a piece of immaculate timing that left her supine on the floor with a bullet hole in her temple and me crouching safely behind a marble statue with the woman’s handbag in my lap.
Not theft, I hasten to add. Just a coincidence of chance trajectory.
I wondered, as I patiently sifted through her belongings, what quirk of fate had brought her so close to me when the shot was fired. Unfortunately, her possessions provided very few clues other than her name. Veronica Brooks.
I peered around the stone plinth but could find no danger to face. No foot soldiers rushed in to clean up the shooter’s mess; no plan B, it would seem. This suited me. Arrogance and an edgy trigger finger would certainly get somebody killed but it wouldn’t be me, not today anyway. Then I thought of the dead girl lying on the cold floor only a few feet away and realised that being right was not always a comfort. Alright. Enough of that. Time to leave.
Distant sirens convinced me the sniper would soon be in retreat and that the encroaching museum crowd, ashen-faced and wide-eyed at the tragedy, would provide me with adequate cover to make my escape too. As I edged towards the forming circle, shaking my head in false outrage as I went, I scoured the four corners of the exhibition hall for my doubtless frustrated assassin. Meanwhile, Veronica Brooks lay silent amongst the stone figures, her body heat ebbing to match their cool detachment. Anger began to pinch at me as I searched.
I spied no protruding rifle barrel through the balcony struts and no fleeing figure draped in weapon-concealing attire. What I did see was the pale face and green eyes of a young woman, motionless and serene, unconcerned about the hole in her head. Something about her lost expression reached me. Touched me even. I am no stranger to violent death. In fact we’re old friends.
Time to get reacquainted, I thought, and headed out after her killer.
Men in uniform hurtled past as I walked away from the scene of the crime. Museum curators dived in every direction, desperately holding on to unsteady exhibits as armed police burst into their midst to point their weapons in accusatory thrusts.
Professionals were always
in such a hurry.
I slipped through glass doors and out into the cool morning air. Was that what had happened, I wondered, with the one earlier? The one who had taken his shot too early and murdered Veronica Brooks? I would have to find him and ask, before I reached down his throat to tear out his heart.
Out on the street, the city odours were stale and noxious but not enough to hide his reek. I almost shouted when I filtered out the first trace of him, such was my eagerness. The ensuing laughter was silent. My attacker might be in the wind but that wasn’t going to save him from me. I puffed out my cheeks and sighed.
So, not a peaceful day out to the museum then. Instead a manhunt.
I could live with that.
For more than a minute I stood by the busy road with my head back and my eyes to the sky. I watched the white jet trails cut across the pale blue as the urban roar swelled towards a mid-morning crescendo. The taste in my mouth was metallic and bitter. It was a sensory cyclone into which I was about to plunge.
Ah well, no peace for the wicked.
Inhaling in shallow sniffs, I fine tuned my olfactory compass and dived in.
Through the organic stink I searched until I located a singular human scent. The same one I had caught so briefly inside the museum before the thick stench of death had smothered it. I breathed in again. My sense of smell was so very acute I could easily detect one individual strain in a thousand. This one was so ripe it stood out like a freshly-buried corpse in a graveyard.
I stared into the distance.
Not so far behind after all, I realised.
Ignoring the rage that boiled within, I allowed a little calm to creep in, to soak through my muscles, enough to stop them thrusting me forward too recklessly.
Overeager, I knew, meant over too soon. Couldn’t have that.
He was running scared now, that much was certain. But not fast enough. No, not nearly fast enough.
I bit my tongue and spat blood on to the ground. This was too easy. Too fleeting. Though I could not see him, his spore filled the air like the jet trails above. It carried the death scent of Veronica Brooks in its flow, yet was so tangible I felt I could simply grab it and haul him in. My jaw hardened. It was time to stop daydreaming and get serious. Time to get moving. Time to hunt.
Tales from The Lake 3 Page 18