Evil Returns

by Cave, Hugh

  "Is there some way you can give me a bath, woman? I loathe the bathroom in this place."

  "Well, I could bring a washtub from the kitchen."

  "And hot water?"

  "I can heat some."

  "Good."

  In the kitchen she filled the washtub at the sink and added hot water when the kettle spat out steam. Again the dogs watched her every move.

  Returning to the bedroom, she placed the tub on a table beside the bocor's bed. Then, as she began to remove his red pajamas, which smelled of sweat on this too-hot August Sunday, she directed a look of annoyance at him and said testily, "How much longer are we to stay in this miserable place? If I may ask."

  "Why?"

  "Because I want to go home! And not to the heat and stink of Port-au-Prince, either. I want to go all the way home, to my mountains!"

  "Be quiet," he commanded. "I have more important things to think about."

  With his legless body naked, she began the daily ritual of bathing him. Actually, she enjoyed doing so. It was amusing to fondle his privates with soapy hands and watch his reactions. How did that old Haitian proverb go? M'sieu fe sa li vle; Madame fe sa li kapab. Or, as they would say it here: M'sieu does what he wants; Madame does what she can.

  A man didn't have to be a bocor for that to be true, either. It was true in most Haitian households. And maybe in many American ones, too.

  Margal accepted her soapy caressing in silence, but the softness of his eyes and the ghost of a smile at the corners of his mouth told her that he was in a good mood. She could dare ask a few questions, then.

  "Have you done anything about the man from Haiti who is trying to find us?"

  "The pilot? Oh, yes."

  "He is a pilot?"

  "He flies for one of our sisal plantations, Marcel Odiol said."

  "And what have you done about him, if I may ask?"

  "Yesterday he lost his way and went miles in the wrong direction. They had to spend the night in an old motel."

  "Is that all?" He could do better than that, she now knew. It might be difficult, though, having only a piece of paper money the fellow once held in his pocket.

  Margal's retort was crisp. "I gave him a night to remember, if you must know. He fled from an imagined storm that terrified him. He wandered for hours in an unreal swamp full of snakes, in the presence of tree roots he thought were alive and waiting to devour him like a gathering of Erzulies."

  "Erzulies? Devour him? What are you talking about?" The voodoo loa Erzulie was a goddess of love!

  "Not the one you're thinking of, stupid," he said. "Not Fréda. I mean the one with the red eyes, Jerouge, who eats people."

  Oh-oh, she thought. Your personal loa. The one who puts that awful redness in your eyes. It was a thought she wouldn't for a moment dream of expressing aloud. Certain facets of his sorcery were never to be discussed, he had warned her.

  "What do you mean, they spent the night in a motel?" she asked. "Is someone with him?"

  "A woman. And don't ask me who she is. In telling me of the white man who asked so many questions about us, Odiol did not mention a woman. I discovered her myself in the man's thoughts. And I used her this morning when he was thinking about having her naked in bed with him."

  "You used her? How?"

  "I persuaded him to rape her."

  "How could that help us?" Clarisse demanded. "Or do you just enjoy manipulating people?"

  "I expected her to become enraged and leave."

  "Did she?"

  "Yes. In fact, she got away before he was able to rape her. But"—he shrugged—"she returned to him later."

  Clarisse continued to bathe him, but something puzzled her now. If this pilot from Haiti was trying to find them, and if Margal had been able to delay him in the ways mentioned, why couldn't the sorcerer do something more drastic?

  She put the question while gently washing his stumps. "Why can't he have an accident? Run into another car, for instance, or a tree, and be killed or badly hurt? You may be proud of yourself for what you've done, but is it enough?"

  "Some men are more difficult than others," he growled. "This one isn't made of putty like the child's father."

  "What about the woman, then?"

  "I told you I don't know who she—"

  "Don't shout at me, please. I'm only trying to help." His bath finished, Clarisse took up a towel and began to pat him dry. "Could she be the child's mother, do you suppose?"

  "The child's mother is in Port-au-Prince, trying to find her daughter."

  "Are you sure? What if she somehow learned her daughter is here?"

  "How could she do that?"

  "The man did, didn't he? You take too much for granted, Margal. Why not exert yourself a little and find out who she is?"

  "By reaching into the man's mind? I've tried that. No doubt he thinks of her name at times, but I haven't had the luck to be there when he does so. All I've heard is a pet name, hon, which I suppose is a contraction of 'honey.'"

  "Well, is she the woman who used to walk with the child in Rue Printemps?"

  He scowled into space. "Now that you mention it, she could be. But I never saw that woman up close, Clarisse. I can't be certain."

  "Try the child," Clarisse suggested.

  "What?"

  "The child, Margal. You reached the father through her. If the woman is Madame Dawson, you should be able to reach her, too." She was patting his belly dry as she said this.

  Its owner frowned at her until she finished, then slowly began to move his head up and down. "Fat one"—he reached up to touch her face in what was almost a caress—"I underestimate you sometimes, don't I? Of course I must try using the child! Bring me clean pajamas and get me ready!"

  She brought the pajamas and put them on him. Lifting him in her arms, she placed him on the floor, far enough from the bed so that he could draw the usual circles when she handed him his chalk. While he drew them, she went to the chest of drawers for a candle.

  While he lit the candle and carefully set it upright in the usual puddle of its own black wax, she watched him in silence, admiring the way he was able to move about using only his hands. She would never tire of serving this man, she thought.

  Just think, not so long ago she had been only a fat country woman living in Margal's mountain village, aware of his presence but fearfully keeping her distance from him. A nobody. A nothing, with no future. Then he had lost his legs, and because he had needed someone big and strong, he had hired her to look after him. Now, praise the loa, she was the trusted companion and confidante of her country's most feared bocor! It was a miracle.

  His face a grotesque mask of eagerness in the flickering light of the candle, Margal lifted his head to look at her.

  "Ready?" she asked.

  "You know I am! Bring the child!"

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  With Sandy at the wheel, Ken talked about flying. He had learned to fly, he reminded her, during his first two years at Miami U., when most of his classmates were spending their spare time at the beach.

  He tried to explain what flying had meant to him as a student. How being able to rent a plane and soar above the grind had probably kept him from flunking out of school.

  He tried to tell her how he had felt when flying over a city like Miami, looking down on wall-to-wall cubes of concrete that resembled so many tombstones in a cemetery. How he had shuddered at the lines of bumper-to-bumper vehicles crawling along the city's streets. How sometimes he had let out yells of pure ecstasy at being alone in a bright, clean world above all the ugliness.

  "I was a country kid. Miami gave me the horrors at times. And I wasn't one of your brilliant students who could breeze through school without hitting the books. I had to hit them hard. So, when I could get away, I headed for an airport."

  "I've never flown in a small plane," Sandy said. "Is it so different?"

  He tried to tell her how it was different. While he talked, she handled the car with easy competence and the
y turned from the reservation road onto Route 70, leaving the town of Okeechobee behind them. He was still talking about flying when they neared Fort Pierce and swung north on 1-95.

  The afternoon was gone. Dusk lay like smoke now in the citrus groves.

  "It must be a thrill to fly a small plane in Haiti, as you do," Sandy said. "I mean, there's so much of that country you can't see by road, even with four-wheel drive."

  "When we get back, I'll fly you over the Citadelle. Have you ever been there?" He meant the famed mountain-top fortress of King Christophe, not far from the north-coast sisal plantation where he worked.

  "Only the usual way, on horseback from Milot."

  "From the air it's different. Incredible. You understand why it took years to build and cost so many lives. The whole Massif du Nord is incredible, for that matter. No roads. Only footpaths. Some of the villages in that wilderness are so remote, their people regard a trip to the coast as an expedition."

  And the man we are now seeking once lived in such a village, Ken thought. Or in his own private compound on the outskirts of one. With, if the tales are true, an enormous black woman looking after him, and zombies of his own creation doing the work around the place.

  He talked about the times he had ridden into the Massif on muleback, to see for himself what the interior of that much-maligned country was really like. "Because, you know, Port-au-Prince isn't Haiti, hon. Not the real Haiti. Have you been to any of those voodoo ceremonies the tourists are taken to?"

  "A couple."

  "What did you think?"

  "Well, they seemed real enough. Both were out of the city a few miles, in yards lit by lanterns. There were lots of people milling about. It was spooky."

  "And good theater. You got what you paid for; no one cheated you. But it wasn't voodoo."

  "What was it, then?"

  "The trappings without the substance. The dancing, singing, drumming, all the things you'd been led to expect, but only for show."

  "But—"

  A sign on the right warned them that they were approaching the Vero Beach exit. Sandy made the turn and now, with their destination close, Ken felt some of the tension drain away. A few miles ahead lay Vero Beach itself, where they would swing north on Route 1 for the last short lap of this unreal journey. Dusk had become darkness. There was a hint of misty rain in the glow of the car's lights.

  "Had you gone to those same tonnelles when they were not expecting sightseers, you might have seen some actual voodoo," Ken said. "A planting service to Zaca, say, or a blessing of drums. Maybe even a brulé zin, with the initiates putting their hands into boiling oil. The people are genuine enough. It's only for tourists they put on a theatrical performance. Anything too close to the real thing might offend the loa."

  Sandy reached out to touch his hand. "I'd like to attend a real service. With you."

  "Good." He saw her take her other hand off the wheel as she turned to direct a strangely intent look at him—the kind of look he must have hoped for when he tried to undress her. "Hey!" he warned. "Watch your driving!"

  It was too late. In trying to grab the wheel again she lost her balance and only made matters worse. Swerving to the right, the car lurched off the pavement into soft sand. With Sandy's foot still on the gas pedal, its right front wheel struck something solid and it careened over on its side.

  Ken found himself on his back with Sandy on top of him, his arms loosely encircling her waist. His neck and one knee hurt. He had trouble breathing. But after a moment he was able to say, "Are you okay, hon?"

  "I—think so."

  "See if you can open your door." The driver's door was above her. The one on his side was under him, on the ground.

  She reached up and tried the handle. To his relief, it worked. He let go of her waist and in slow motion, she climbed out of the machine. Then she reached in to help him do the same.

  Together they stood there, some twenty feet from the road, gazing helplessly at the car. When he had recovered enough to realize there was no way they could get it back on four wheels without a wrecker, Ken turned to frown at his companion. In her eyes lurked a reddish tinge that made him feel as though something with many small, cold feet was crawling up his back

  He turned to look at the road. No one had witnessed the accident, apparently. Some distance away, bound east in the direction they had to go, a high pair of headlamps approached at no great speed.

  He looked again into Sandy's eyes and grasped her hand. "Come on. Maybe we can hitch a ride to Vero."

  There he could rent another car, he supposed—if there was a rental place open at this hour.

  The headlights belonged to a van of some sort. Hoping for the best, Ken stepped into the road and raised both arms in a plea for assistance. The vehicle came to a stop beside him: a gray van with the words ZODT'S TV SERVICE and VERO BEACH in large blue letters on its side. And a phone number.

  The driver leaned across the seat to open the door in Ken's face—a slender, swarthy fellow about thirty, with a touch of something unwholesome about him. That could have been the effect of his complexion—pockmarked, with a boil-like lump under one eye—or the badly neglected teeth he displayed when opening his mouth to speak. "What's the trouble, folks?"

  "We've had an accident." Was it wise to ask help from such a man? Ken wasn't sure, but what if no one else stopped? Unless they took a chance here, they might have to walk to a service station he had seen at least a mile back, near the exit from 95.

  "We'd be grateful for a lift into Vero." He had to say something.

  The fellow eyed Sandy, who had taken a step forward and was closer to him now than Ken was. He stared at her face, which Ken could no longer see because her back was toward him. A crooked grin worked its way over his slack mouth. "Sure! Climb in!"

  It happened without warning. Sandy took another step forward, a swift one, as though she could not reach the van fast enough. Using both hands, she pulled herself up beside the driver before Ken had even begun to move.

  He was close enough, though, to hear what she said to the man at the wheel. Close enough to be shock-frozen into immobility even if he had been moving.

  "Get rid of him!" was what she said. "Leave him here!"

  The driver's grin spread to engulf his whole ugly face as he slammed the vehicle into gear and stepped the gas pedal to the floor. As the machine shot forward, Sandy pulled the door shut.

  Wide-eyed and helpless, Ken stood there as though turned to stone while the van sped down the road without him.

  Margal, he thought as panic seized him. He knows who she is now and has found a way to get into her mind. My God, what do I do now?

  Chapter Thirty

  Heading south on Interstate 95, just past the city of Fredericksburg, Brian Dawson surprisingly found himself able to relax a little at the wheel of his Jaguar. It was as though a rope hauling him back to Florida had been allowed to go slack.

  This puzzled him. (There was no way he could know that the man who owned his mind was presently more concerned with the mind of his wife.)

  Was this his chance—at last—to get to the police?

  Frightened by his daring to entertain such a thought, yet eager to carry it out, he watched for an exit sign.

  Were there any good-size cities below Fredericksburg? He had forgotten. But never mind. Any exit would lead to a town with a police station.

  A sign warned that he was approaching one, and his eagerness increased. So did his fear. If Margal read his mind again, as the monster had done before in the restaurant parking lot . . .

  Yet he must seize the chance. There might not be another!

  What would he say to the police? He must be prepared, or they might not believe him. "Gentlemen, I am with the Department of State. My father is Rutherford Franklin Dawson. What I have to tell you may sound bizarre, but I entreat you to take me seriously."

  Thank God he had shaved and was well groomed. Because he must win their confidence quickly, before the sorcerer became aw
are of his defection and took steps to make him appear drunk or drugged. If he suddenly became irrational, they must be informed enough to help him in spite of it.

  The exit. Tense now, hands gripping the wheel so fiercely his knuckles were white, he forgot the wording on the sign the moment he was past it. No matter. Sooner or later there'd be a town, and he could ask for the station.

  But hurry! For the love of God, hurry! It wasn't like Margal to be this careless. At any moment he might become aware of what was happening, and the punishment could be hideous.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Ken was alone now—on an unfamiliar road, without a car, not knowing where Sandy had been taken or what might be happening to her.

  If he had read the face of the van driver right, something terrible could be happening. Something ghastly, unless he could get to her in time to prevent it.

  What could he do? He had so few options. A mile or so to the west was the service station he remembered. But how could they help him, other than by letting him use a phone? Vero Beach was east, but how far?

  He didn't know this part of Florida. The Space Coast, they called it, because of the space flights from Cape Canaveral. In Vero he could go to the police, of course. But what then?

  Would the police believe him? Or would they take one look at him and be suspicious? If his eyes still had that color, they'd have every right to be suspicious and might hold him for questioning. They might question him for hours.

  Terrible things could happen to Sandy before he convinced them he was telling the truth. Terrible things could happen to her little girl, too, in the house in Gifford that seemed so hellishly hard to reach.

  But what could he do alone? Even if a phone book supplied the address of the TV service, he would need a car to get there and someone with authority at his side when he confronted the man.

  And what, dear God, if Sandy refused to be rescued? What if she thought she wanted to be where she was? Even the police would find their hands tied then, wouldn't they?