Chinh Pho, sitting at the old man’s right hand, pondered for a moment, then said in choppy English, “He say, ‘Monster rise from deep and eat his grandson whole.’” Chinh had sought Roland out in the midst of a drunken stupor outside a Saigon bar, what Roland liked to refer to as “a typical Wednesday night.” They had bobbed down the Mekong River to the village the next day in an old, converted American patrol boat, ridiculously loaded down like every other sampan on the water.
“Show me where.” Roland laid out a map of the area. The old man looked it over and pointed to a spot near the mouth of the Mekong, tapping a crooked, grizzled finger against the laminated paper. “Ngay ở đây.”
“He say it happen right here. This near to old fishing ground. It not fished anymore though. Bad things happen down there, no can’t get near now.”
“Bad things? Like what? More attacks?”
“Yes, but not by monster. Bad people down there now. This bad area. Once Americans leave and Communists ignore, local men take over. Some good, some not. These men not.”
“Why was he down there?”
“Fish all gone here near village. No more come down river. He go down there to find them. He no afraid of man. He was hero of resistance, lose fear of man long time ago. Kill many French and you Americans.” Chinh looked at the old man’s face, which had gone blank as he stared past them, off into the distance. “This only time I ever see him scared of anything.”
*
There were stories about, of horrifying atrocities up the great river in Cambodia. It was Kampuchea now, but most still called it Cambodia. Rumors of death traveled down the Mekong from that country with the river’s current, replacing the slow trickle of refugees fleeing the Khmer Rouge. Stories of mass killings and torture, of experiments on humans and animals, much like those the Nazis’ performed on Jews during World War II. It was difficult to discern fact from fiction. Stories of another sort came down the river as well. Sightings of massive fish in the Mekong had been common for many years, tales of huge river carp and catfish twice the size of a man, but none ever claimed to have caught one. Bones of these giant fish were now washing up on the shores of the river, bitten through by something even larger.
Roland had seen pictures of Siamese crocs before. The Marines snagged one back in the early ‘60s that had grown over 15 feet long, but even that was nowhere near the size of the animal that could have consumed such massive fish. He stood on the shore holding a bone from such a fish in his hand, amazed by its heft and density. How many years had it scoured the murky depths of the river, lurking among unknown channels and beneath dense brush to grow to such a size? He imagined the fish must have appeared as a sea monster in the water, longer than he and nearly three times the weight. Something had bitten clean through it.
“It’s a croc, I’m sure of it,” he told Chinh.
“Crocodile no come around here now. No crocodile seen here since before war. None ever very big. How you think this one now?”
“I heard of Siamese and saltwater crocs mating. If there’s saltwater croc somewhere around here, maybe wandered inland from the sea, then it’s possible. But there’s nothing else in this river that could ever come close to the size of the animal that could do this.” He held the large bone out to Chinh, who flinched at the offering and shook his head.
“Can you kill it?”
Roland removed a metal flask from his back pocket and threw back a slug of homemade rice alcohol. He was thankful for such a cheap, abundant commodity as Vietnamese rice. “That all depends on the price.”
That was all that mattered to Roland Munro anymore, and this deal was simple: dispose of the croc and he had free reign for his hunting excursions. As an expatriated, drunken American in Communist Vietnam, Munro made a surprisingly comfortable living guiding thrill seekers through the jungle, foreigners with wads of cash and a desire to kill something. Most wanted to bag an exotic, usually a tiger, which was extremely difficult to procure in Vietnam. The tiger was essentially royalty, so if the price was high enough, Roland would arrange a clandestine trip into Cambodia. It was easier to kill a gook in Vietnam than it was a tiger. Many paying customers indeed came to Roland for just that reason. Fellow former American soldiers languishing in Thailand for whom the war refused to end. He recognized the look in their eyes. There was a familiar longing, engrained in them from months or years of battle, of constantly anticipating death to come springing from the jungle. There was anger and fear in there. He understood that need for just one more, to watch one more gook fall in front of their barrel, or under the blade of their knife. It was personal. It was vengeance. It was never satisfied.
Roland eyed the pin on Chinh’s tan shirt, a red rectangle containing a single, yellow star. He knew the deal. Let the drunken American do the dirty work. If he fails, no one would notice. The same would also be true if he succeeded. “No more bullshit payoffs, no more border seizures, no more hassling of my clients,” he said. “For that, you get one big-ass, dead croc.” They shook hands. Chinh wiped his on the front of his shirt as Roland staggered away.
*
The bastardized PBR dropped him off about two clicks from the last confirmed sighting, the boat’s pilot refusing to get closer. The old, one-eyed fisherman stood silently on the bank and watched as Roland unloaded drab, olive colored bags stuffed with gear onto the muddy ground. He unzipped a long duffel and produced a 13.2 mm Mauser rifle. He held it up for the old man to see.
“German anti-tank rifle. Still works like a charm and could blow a hole through a goddamn tree.”
The old man showed no emotion.
“Not impressed, huh?” He next pulled out an M-79 grenade launcher. He flipped the chamber open and slid a shell in, then flipped it closed with one hand. “I betcha seen one of these before.”
The old man said nothing, but Roland detected a flicker in his one remaining eye. “Yeah, you’ve met this guy before, you old VC bastard.”
The old man turned and gestured to the waist-high shrubs crowding near the bank.
“What’s that you got there?” Roland peered down into the weeds at what appeared to be the festering remains of a human’s upper torso. Splintered rib bones jutted from the rotting flesh, and a blanket of flies buzzed about the carcass. “Goddamn,” he muttered.
“Quái vật!”
“Yeah, big, bad monster, I get the picture. Anybody you knew?”
The old man glowered at Roland, who suddenly got the sense that every word he had uttered had been perfectly understood. Contempt enlivened the old man’s otherwise stoic, weathered face. Even the dry, empty socket viewed Roland reproachfully. Then the old man stalked off down the riverbank.
Roland moved into the jungle to set up camp. After stowing his gear and replenishing his flask, he sat outside his tent and listened to the sounds of the jungle. He heard it speak to him, telling him what was out there. Other imagined sounds swam up from his memory, but he beat them back down with a tug on his flask. He was struck by the quiet calm, as though every other creature had given the area a wide berth. He painted his face with black and checked his equipment. He loaded the Mauser and prepared extra cartridges, all of which he stowed in a waterproof bag; not ideal for humping though the bush, but he was not about to go after this thing, whatever it was, without it. He loaded the grenade launcher into a holster attached to the side of his pack and strapped a belt of shells across his chest. His pack contained only the essentials: ammunition and plenty of it. He carried an M-14 in his hands, the same weapon that had gotten him through three tours in the jungles of this country. On his first return trip home, the stolen weapon returned with him, but he only lasted two months back in the States before he realized that he no longer belonged there. The M-14 was slung over his shoulder when he strode into the recruiter’s office and demanded to be sent back. Over the years, worn parts were repaired or replaced, some even improved upon. He doted over it like the child he never had, and thanked it many times for saving his life.
Roland eased his way along until he caught sight of a bunker set into a hillside, its familiar log rooftop barely visible among the trees. In his first year in this country, his company had walked right up to a bunker just like this, not more than 20 feet away before the gooks opened up on them. He was grazed on the thigh, while the men to his left and right were cut to shreds by automatic weapon fire. He never missed spotting one of these fuckers after that. This one appeared to be empty. After watching the bunker for a long time, he snatched up a rock and flung it toward the opening. It hit the ground just in front and rolled into the hole. After more time passed without movement, Roland slouched over to the bunker and looked inside. There were more cigarette butts inside and the damp ground had been trampled flat by several impatient, bored footsteps.
In the distance, he heard the rush of the river over rapids, or perhaps a small waterfall, a common feature of the Mekong that made it nearly impossible to traverse from the mouth that opened to the South China Sea, to the source, up near Tibet. He crept along to a ridge that dropped down to the river and a waterfall below. From this vantage point, he looked southeast, away from the river, and made out the top of a hut, its thatched roof poking up just above the tree line. He had clearly come across the dwelling of someone who did not want to be disturbed. Even with the Communists running the country, drug runners and other miscreants dotted the landscape along the Mekong, especially this close to the mouth, where they had easy access to the South China’s shipping lanes. But he should not have been able to get this close without fighting his way in, particularly considering the advancing levels of protection around the perimeter.
“Where’d y’all go?” he whispered to the jungle. His answer came in the form of icy needles creeping up and down his spine that caused him to shiver. He was suddenly certain that he was not alone there. Eyes were on him, watching. He scanned the jungle, crouched down and turning in a slow, 360-degree circle. He saw and heard nothing, but he still sensed a presence. He squatted breathless and still, waiting for any sound or movement. Then he heard the girl cry out, clear and very close, seizing his heart with fear and breaking the unnatural silence that had fallen over the jungle.
Roland slipped quietly through the dense growth, advancing gradually on a row of huts that formed a perimeter around the compound. He moved from one hut to the next, clearing the outer, temporary structures before moving on to the main building erected on high stilts in the center of the compound. He found no sign of human habitation. There were no smoldering fires in the huts, no bubbling pots hastily abandoned. He stood at the foot of a bamboo stair leading up to a walkway that surrounded the main structure. He listened and waited for any sound, but none came. He questioned what he had heard, but was convinced it had been a young girl. He slowly ascended the stairs, his weapon at his shoulder and his normally steady trigger finger twitching nervously. With each step, a gnawing sense of déjà vu grew stronger. He poked his head above the top step and checked the walkway before committing further. At that moment, a flashback skewed his vision and he saw red blood splashed across the floor and up on the wall, and children screaming and running from him down the walkway.
He hurried to the top and stood alongside an open doorway trying to shake the image from his head, his back pressed against the bamboo poles that formed the building’s walls and his M-14 held tightly to his heaving chest. He fought the panicky flashbacks, but intense memories of this place flooded his mind, and it suddenly struck him. He had been here before.
“Munro, take Martinez and clear those huts.” Their Commanding Officer, Sgt. Malone, squatted before Roland, his hands and forearms coated in Reidenbach’s blood. Malone had discovered Teddy Reidenbach’s body, staked to a tree and slashed across the neck and belly by the Viet Cong, his guts dangling down between his legs. It was meant to be a warning, but it did not have that effect on the company. After nearly a week of constant ambushes and dozens of casualties, Sgt. Malone snapped, and the rest of his haggard, numb charges, barely removed from adolescence, followed without question. They returned to the village they had just cleared two days earlier, bent on revenge. Every old man, young woman and small child in that village was Viet Cong as far as they were concerned, and they were treated as such.
Roland’s mind swam with the wavering, ghostly images. As the soldiers moved through the village, they were told to conserve their dwindling ammunition by utilizing their machetes. With each thrust of his long blade, their screams filled his head, pounding at his temples, pressing behind his closed eyes.
He dropped the M-14 onto the walkway and staggered into the empty room, holding his hands to his face and groaning from the building pressure in his mind. He saw broken old men and women with children at their hips, running from him, screaming and holding their hands out, begging for mercy. He saw the flash of his machete, now dripping with blood, slashing through the air, cleaving olive skin and stringy, black hair. He saw a room, just as he stood in now. In a far corner, an old man lay on his side, moaning and clutching a bloody hand over his face. In the opposite corner, a mother cowered with her baby girl held to her chest.
Roland swelled with the fearful rage again, the drive that had consumed them all. Once they had begun, they could not stop. He screamed at the terrified woman. He screamed at the rage and the fear. He ripped his hands from his face and opened his eyes.
The woman stood before him in the otherwise empty room. Silence enveloped them. The baby, clutched loosely at her side, stared at him with wide, watering eyes. The woman shifted slightly as a flowering bloom of red appeared across her chest, soaking through her thin, white top. The baby’s head wobbled on its shoulders. The mother’s arms began to droop and the head pulled away and bounced on the floor. It rolled across the bamboo slats and came to rest at Roland’s feet. Its eyes lolled around until they looked straight up into his.
*
Roland ran, on and on through the jungle. He crashed through vines and branches and huge, green fronds until he could run no further. He knelt on the shore of the Mekong, his knees slowly sinking into the muddy bank. His chin drooped onto his chest, which heaved as his lungs sucked in air, the only sound to be heard in the deep of the jungle. The howler monkeys had gone, taking their shrill arguments elsewhere. Even the constant drone of a million species of insects had disappeared and the air beneath the low-hanging canopy was close and hot. Perspiration rolled off his face and splashed on his trembling arms.
His blank reverie was broken by a crashing sound coming through the thick fronds behind him. His heart thundered in his chest. He looked out across the calm, brown river. On the opposite shore, the old fisherman stood watching silently, his scarred arms prone at his sides, his face without expression, save for the condemning black hole of his empty socket.
Roland felt a massive presence bearing down behind him and smelled the rotted stench of death in the air. He need not turn around to know what had found him, what had been hunting him all along. There was no time for defense, no chance to run. It was here. His hands drooped at his sides, palms turned upward, and he leaned his head back.
“I’m ready,” he told the jungle. “Come and get me, you fucker.”
Under the Boardwalk
By Julius James DeAngelus
(Under the boardwalk) out of the sun,
(Under the boardwalk) we'll be havin' some fun,
(Under the boardwalk) people walking above,
(Under the boardwalk) we'll be making love,
Under the board-walk (board-walk!)
The Drifters 1964
Alex Shirra reached over with a shaky hand and turne
d off the radio. The old Drifters tune used to bring back memories of sun-washed days at the beach and his first kiss on a warm summer night but not anymore. He tried not to think about the last twelve hours - he might start screaming again. He wanted to slow down but his foot pressed the gas pedal as if it wasn’t part of his body anymore, functioning on its very own survival instinct. He wanted to put as much distance between him and Atlantic City as possible, maybe the whole goddamned country. Then, like some sadistic projectionist, his brain began replaying the last twelve hours and made him watch.
“Well, figure it out yet?”
Alex sat, trying to find a comfortable place to put his elbow on the Formica bar. He never liked puzzles - he simply was not very good at them, but for some reason it always seemed bad form to not attempt to solve a puzzle when someone takes the time to present you with one. Randy was turned to him, his nose bright from whisky and blonde strands of hair stuck to his forehead. Alex didn’t look at him. He was already tired of the conversation and then when the words between them came infrequently Randy, being someone who gets uncomfortable in silence, offered his puzzle.
This one had something to do with two women and both were dead in a bath tub. He thought there was a bouquet of flowers involved somewhere in there as well.
He could feel Randy’s glassy eyes widening and his wet-lipped grin growing while he waited for an answer. Alex, feeling that he had fulfilled his duty, finally shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
Dead Bait Page 9