“Lek, what happened? The police chief called me five minutes ago and he needs answers.”
The forensics team and detectives from provincial headquarters had arrived in the rice field one hour ago. They had begun the dubious task of pulling the girl’s body out of the field and searching for evidence. Even though many officers were on the scene, Gong feared they would find nothing.
Gong lifted his sunglasses onto the top of his head. He looked into Lek’s vacant eyes and said, “Please—you have to help us find who did this.”
Finally, one of her sisters answered, “I’m sorry Gong, but she can’t talk to you now. We’re just as clueless as you anyway. Et picked us up from the bus station in Khorat yesterday, and we came here and ate some dinner. We were going to finish up planting rice this morning, because Lek could only get three days off from work at the bar. Little Om had been upcountry only twice in her life, and she was really excited about seeing Uncle Et and his big tractor.”
Her sister shook her head at how terrible this idea was in hindsight.
The other sister said, “Once we arrived, Om said she missed her friends in Bangkok. She wanted to go home since her cell phone has a DTAC SIM and it doesn’t work out here in the country.”
“So why did Om want to play in the rice field in the middle of the night?”
“Grandma told her about the legend of Kwaai Dam.” She gestured dismissively at the hunchbacked woman sitting across the room, like the family matriarch was an embarrassing secret. The grandmother exposed her black teeth in a smile and spit out a wad of chewed-up betel nut into a plastic cup.
Gong sighed, his investigation leading nowhere. From his impoverished childhood, he remembered the legend of Kwaai Dam, a water buffalo possessed by the ghosts of the village’s ancestors. Unlike most water buffalo, which are slow, stupid, and non-aggressive, the Kwaai Dam viciously attacks outsiders who tread on the ancestral lands of the village. The village elders would tell this legend to children to encourage respect for their cultural heritage of northeastern Thailand, especially when they were asking for money to buy their modern, expensive toys.
Gong walked over to the old woman and asked, “Grandma Daeng, why did you tell Om about Kwaai Dam?”
The old woman spit out more betel nut and licked the red residue from her lips.
“The kids today are so naughty. They never go to the temple, they never wai their elders, and they always play with their silly toys. No wonder our ancestors are so displeased. Kwaai Dam only comes for the outsiders who trespass in this village. You and your kind may have been born around here, but you are not part of this village.”
Gong was troubled by the old woman’s words, but he remained silent out of respect. He could not understand why old people were so fond of a past that was such a miserable existence. Both of Gong’s grandmothers spent their lives completely illiterate. There were no public schools when they were young, and only the monks at the local temple could teach them to read. Two of his father’s younger brothers had died from malaria before reaching the age of six. Most of the elderly people had crooked spines from years of hunching over harvesting rice coupled with malnourishment. Not much of a golden age.
Et walked down the wooden stairs and said, “Grandma, you have to take your medicine now.” She swallowed the two pills he handed her with a gulp of water.
“Gong, any luck talking to my sister?”
“She’s still shaken up. I think we’d better leave her alone.”
“She was only nine years old!” Lek screamed as Et rushed to sit by his sister’s side and provide comfort.
Gong’s cell began ringing, and he walked out to take the call. He recognized the number as the provincial headquarters in Khorat. The children ran away as Gong stepped outside, afraid of what the man in uniform might do to them.
“Hello.”
“Sergeant Gong, the men found a blood trail near the girl’s body, but we searched the forest behind the rice field and turned up nothing. These villagers are completely clueless about what the hell happened, and the people in town aren’t much help either. We’re going to commence a manhunt in Khorat to see if the murderer is lying low or if he caught a bus out of town.”
“I understand, sir. I’ll spend the night here in the village and keep an eye on things.”
“That’s great, sergeant, keep us posted.”
Having once been involved in a child murder case, Gong didn’t agree with the assessment from headquarters. He had a feeling the murderer would come back at night to see if the body would still be there. It was all some big, twisted game to these sick bastards, he thought. They always come back for a look.
Et laid out a 12-gauge shotgun, an M16, a box of shotgun shells, and a magazine of 5.56mm rounds on the plastic table inside his house. The sun had just gone down and Et’s sisters and grandmother were upstairs watching Thai soaps on TV. There were no children running along the dusty paths of the village this evening, nor men sitting outside drinking whiskey. The only two people reckless enough to venture outside in the dark were Et and Gong.
“Damn, Et. Where did you get all this firepower?”
“You remember Somchai, right?”
Somchai was another villager who had been arrested three months ago in Bangkok on terrorism charges following an ugly protest that garnered international media attention.
“Are these his?”
“Yeah. His sister asked me to hold onto his guns and ammunition until his trial, which probably won’t be for a while.”
“I’m sure the soldier he stole them from in Bangkok is looking for them.” Et chuckled, “Yeah, Somchai’s a crazy guy.”
“I’ll take the M16 if that’s alright.” Gong lifted the rifle and pulled back on the strap with his elbow to place the butt firmly against his shoulder. He aimed at a rainwater jar outside. “I haven’t shot one of these since the academy. Hope I don’t have to use it. I really appreciate you helping me out tonight. You know I can only afford my little revolver on a policeman’s salary.”
“You’re too honest, Gong. You should be more creative in your dealings around Non Fai.”
“Why? No one has any money to bribe me with.” Et and Gong both laughed as groaning broke forth in the distance. Et quickly loaded five shotgun shells as Gong grabbed the two magazines and placed them in his right pocket. Threading between the dark homes, they ran a hundred meters to the dirt road. They stood at the edge of the rice fields trying to locate the strange sounds. The forest beyond could barely be seen, since there was no moon this evening.
Gong could sense the groaning emanating from the forest. It was a cry of anger, not of pain. Then a disturbing presence swept in from the tree line, like a wave washing over the rice fields coming to destroy the village.
“Get behind that truck,” Gong said as he nudged Et with his elbow.
Gong kneeled behind the front tires, gripping the M16 with both hands. Et peeked through the window of the driver-side door with Somchai’s shotgun slung over his back. Gong heard the slow clanking of a bell approaching through the fields. He stuck his head up over the hood and saw the silhouette of a horned animal approaching. He scanned the fields for any sign of the owner, but there was only darkness.
“The owner of that water buffalo might be the one who killed Om. He has to be somewhere nearby. Keep an eye out.”
Et leaned to the left to get a better view over the truck bed. “The animal still has its reins on. Why would someone take out a water buffalo to graze at night?”
“No idea.”
Shadows danced across the field behind the approaching animal. Gong could feel their anger, an ancient anger, escalating in his body. He looked over at Et who was grasping his chest in pain. The water buffalo approached the mud wall where Om’s body had been found and stopped with a final clank of its bell.
Gong, through the thick of his agony, scanned the field one end to the other, but there was no sign of anyone. Frustrated, he walked over to the slobbering beast a
nd noticed it had an X cut between its horns. Blood was caked in its black fur around the mark. A pair of reins ran through its nose and trailed in the still water of the rice field.
“Show yourself! We know you’re in the forest,” Gong yelled as he scanned the tree line for any sign of movement. The water buffalo grunted and took two steps forward in the water. It turned its head toward Et who was walking out from behind the truck.
Et stood next to Gong and whispered, “There’s something going on in our fields. The spirits must be upset with Om’s death. I have to go to the temple tomorrow and make an offering. This is a bad omen.”
Gong ignored his friend’s fear and said, “We need to wade through the field toward the forest to find the murderer.”
“I can’t go, Gong. Their anger is getting worse and worse. I can feel them in my mind. I’m sorry.”
The water buffalo looked up at Et with its cold, dark eyes. Strange whispers echoed inside Gong’s head from his right ear to his left. He suddenly sensed shame, recalling the time when he was a little boy and knocking over a vat of noodles into the dirt. His mother had grabbed a reed of bamboo and smacked his buttocks for ruining the family dinner.
Suddenly, the one-ton beast sprung over the mud wall and head-butted Et squarely in the chest. Et was sent flailing into the hard-packed dirt road, the shotgun flying off his shoulder. Instead of running over Et to trample him, the water buffalo turned sideways. Blood was streaming from the X in its forehead and dripping onto the ground.
Gong’s training from the academy immediately came back to him as he grabbed the magazine from his pocket and jammed it into the receiver. He pulled back on the charging handle and released it to chamber a round. He popped off a shot that hit the beast’s shoulder. The water buffalo bolted toward the village center, as the whispering in Gong’s skull was becoming deafening.
Fluorescent lights flickered on in the homes in the village. “Are you gored?” Gong asked while helping Et up.
Et, gasping for breath, put his head between his knees to try and get his wind back, “The horns just missed me. I got lucky. I’ve never seen a water buffalo that pissed off.”
“Grab your gun. We need to stop that thing before it attacks someone in the village.”
Gong and Et made their way along the dirt road and saw Pairote’s steel gate, lying in a mangled mess on the ground, hanging off a single warped hinge. Khun Pairote was the wealthiest man in the village, owning a Toyota dealership in the city. His two daughters were the only women from the village who had received higher education.
Gong heard glass shatter on the side of the house, and then the front door opened. Pairote stepped out onto the tiled porch. He looked disheveled in his robe and sandals, and he had no comb-over to cover the bald spot on top of his head. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Khun Pairote, please get back inside,” Gong instructed. However, Pairote paid the officer no mind and ran around to the concrete patio at the side of his house. The picture of his daughter receiving her diploma at the Khon Kaen University commencement, which had been hanging outside the house, now lay beneath a pile of broken glass and a bent picture frame. The water buffalo’s left hoof was grinding the picture of his beautiful daughter in her graduation gown into the dirt as it stood there panting through its nose. Furious, Pairote grabbed the picture frame and whacked the beast’s head.
The water buffalo charged Pairote, catching his robe with one of its massive horns, and flung him against the house. It continued running out past the gate.
Gong leaned down to examine Pairote, whose spectacles lay crooked across his face.
“Khun Pairote, are you okay?”
Pairote opened his eyes and said, “I think so. Please. Just stop that wretched thing.”
Gong and Et resumed the chase and saw the water buffalo butting its way into the fertilizer production cooperative building. Aiming for the head, Gong fired a shot but hit the animal in its side. The beast toppled over onto the ground but righted itself and continued jamming its horns back into the plywood gate. After three tries, each fiercer than the last, the wood split into pieces as the water buffalo dashed inside the building with Gong and Et in pursuit.
Et flipped on a row of lights hanging from the rafters. The two men stood there gazing at the beast as it marched toward the machinery. It snapped its head and knocked over a barrel containing a mixture of dung, chemicals, and compost that was to be processed into fertilizer. Chunks of brownish-black sludge spilled onto the concrete floor. The smell was horrific.
By this time villagers were cowering in mass behind the two men with guns. The monster eyed the group slowly as the blood continued to spill out of the X cut into its head. A dark presence was pervading the building, and the villagers could feel it. A young girl shrieked and hid inside her mother’s dress.
The water buffalo’s trailing reins levitated a meter off the ground, and Gong could hear the voices in his head speak to him.
“You have disgraced your ancestors. You have completely forgotten our heritage as people of the land. All you care about is making money from your crops to buy your modern distractions. No wonder your children are so misbehaved. Just look at this building. It is a monument to indecency. The chemicals poison our fields, just like everything modern poisons our people.”
Gong turned around and could tell the villagers were hearing the same displeased spirits.
“Why did you kill my daughter?” Lek spoke aloud as she stepped toward the monster.
“Your daughter was a waste of a child, just like you are a waste of a mother. You spend all your time in the city, only coming back to the village to ask your brother for money. You have no idea how to use water buffalo in the fields, an animal we consider sacred. It is fitting that we summoned the Kwaai Dam to make amends for your despicable affront to our way of life.” Exasperated, Et throw up his hands and said, “But Lek was back here to plant rice and teach Om about our upcountry traditions. Why did you kill her?”
“What do you know of our traditions, Et? You use a tractor and diesel fuel brought in from foreign lands to till our fields. You are not one of our people.”
Gong grabbed a machete that was hanging on two rusty hooks. He walked over to the Kwaai Dam, and the villagers let out a gasp.
“These villagers need to survive, and we need technology to do so. If we still used your ancient techniques, there would be famine in Thailand. We are no longer a backwards people, and these are our fields, not yours.”
Gong flipped a large circuit breaker mounted on the wall and pressed the green button labeled “Hopper and Grinder-Go.” The electric motor roared to life, and the steel blades for the fertilizer processor whirled up to maximum speed as Gong slowly raised the machete above the beast’s neck.
“We knew this would happen. A man of the law sees fit to slaughter this sacred animal.” The reins of the water buffalo fell back on the ground, and Gong could sense the presence leaving the building. The animal, its X no longer bleeding, looked at him stupidly, not realizing it was about to be butchered.
Gong brought the blade down in a swift motion and almost completely severed the animal’s head in one blow. The water buffalo made no attempt to escape. It just stood there accepting its fate. Gong took three more swipes that were less powerful but more carefully aimed. The head lay there with its eyes closed in a puddle of blood on the floor. The body keeled over against a large pile of 50-kilogram bags of dirt.
Gong reached down and heaved the beast’s head into the hopper. The blades violently chattered, sending a blood and tissue slurry pouring down the exit chute to slowly fill the blue barrel.
An elderly woman in the crowd vomited. Gong looked toward Et to see his reaction. Et had once worked in a sausage-processing factory, so he watched the animal’s head being torn into a grisly pulp unfazed. Soon Et looked back at Gong and smiled.
Gong turned off the machine and walked over to the villagers standing at the entrance. His polished black shoes wer
e covered in blood and small splinters of bone. The elderly woman who had been vomiting pointed a finger at him as she used her other hand to balance herself on a cane.
“You have greatly disturbed the spirits of our village. Our fields will be haunted for generations. Even the monks will be too afraid to help us.”
“Perhaps, but at least our children will no longer be murdered. I’d say that’s a fair trade.”
Gong pushed pass the crowd and pulled his cell off his belt. He found the number for headquarters and pressed Send.
“Hello. Is this Sergeant Gong?”
“Sir, I received some assistance from the villagers and we found the murderer. He was killed during the confrontation. We are disposing of the body.”
“That’s great news, Gong. Was anyone injured?”
“No sir.”
“Excellent. It’s best to keep things like this quiet. We don’t want media types and other onlookers snooping around the crime scene. There are a lot of people in town from Bangkok right now for the start of the planting season, and I don’t want to scare anybody. Great job, Gong.”
Groundhog Day
Philip Norris
Sandor Marduke watched the man struggling against his bonds; the skin around his wrists was raw, the blood dripping to the ground. Shifting his position he winced at the pins and needles; but put the sensation out of his mind as the bushes opposite began to tremble. He rested his cheek against the stock and sighted down the barrel; the struggling man came into focus in the crosshairs. Taking a deep breath, he waited.
He guessed he should feel something for the poor sap, but he didn’t. He was nobody, nothing, hired muscle meant to deal with Sandor, but not really up to the task. He found he came across a lot like this man in his line of work, hard men who thought they had a rep. The bushes parted and a horror stepped into the clearing; the man stopped struggling and Sandor saw the one eye that wasn’t swollen begin to bulge. Sandor had given him a vicious beating the night before. The man had jumped him, expecting Sandor to be taken by surprise.
Both Barrels of Monster Hunter Legends (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 1) Page 37