by Ward Parker
“It lives not far from here,” he said. “Come on, I’ll drive.”
Carriacou Jack’s car was a beat-up Honda that was in even worse condition than Matt’s pickup truck. The interior reeked of incense and burning motor oil.
“I thought realtors are legally mandated to drive luxury cars,” Matt joked.
“But obeah men aren’t. The Jaguar is at home in my garage.”
They drove, muffler roaring, over the Intracoastal bridge, through the mainland part of Jellyfish Beach, headed west into the not-so-nice part of town before the suburbs began. Carriacou Jack turned into a street parallel to the railroad tracks with run-down apartment complexes and empty lots filled with giant banyan trees, trash, and discarded shopping carts.
He entered the parking lot of a dark, one-story building that resembled a motel. Few outdoor lights were on to pierce the dark shadows created by a sprawling banyan tree. Only a few units had their interior lights glowing behind tattered mini-blinds.
“The spirits tell me it lives here,” the obeah man said, parking the car on asphalt buckled by banyan roots. “But I don’t know which apartment. Bring the rice and salt. I need to get closer.”
They got out of the car as a large dog barked inside one of the units. Matt took the bags from the trunk. Carriacou Jack paced around the building’s exterior. He stopped suddenly, and went directly to one of the doors, placing his palms and the top of his head against it. He chanted something indecipherable to Matt.
“This is not it,” Carriacou Jack said with frustration, continuing his pacing.
The dog’s parking became louder and more desperate. Matt hoped the dog’s apartment wasn’t the one they were looking for.
Carriacou Jack’s phone rang, adding to the anxiety in the air.
“Yes? Okay. No, we’re not ready. Thanks for letting me know.” The obeah man put his phone back in his pocket. “Missy just had an encounter with the soucouyant. She tried to delay it, but she last saw it flying west. It could be on its way back here. We have to hurry. How do I send Missy our location?”
“Let me do it,” Matt said, opening a map app on his phone.,
“After you’re done, spread the rice on the ground.”
“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you about the rice. What’s it for?”
“If we can’t find the skin, this is Plan B. The legend says soucouyants are obsessive-compulsive. When they see the rice, they have to count how many grains there are. They can’t resist the urge to do it. Of course, counting these thousands of grains would take so long the soucouyant would be trapped in the sunrise and die.”
“And it would ignore us while we’re out here standing around watching?” Matt asked. “I don’t think so. I’ll spread the damn rice after we get inside her apartment.”
He strode to the nearest apartment with lights glowing inside and knocked at the door. A tall black man answered.
“Is there a soucouyant living here?” Matt asked.
“Apartment Three,” the man said with a Caribbean accent. He closed the door.
Matt smiled at Carriacou Jack. “Reporter magic,” he said.
They went to Apartment Three, two doors away. Matt tried the door and, of course, it was locked. Carriacou Jack pulled a small leather case from his pocket, extracted a tool with a long, knife-like blade, and stuck it in the lock, probing, sliding it in and out, twisting.
The door popped open.
“Realtor magic,” Carriacou Jack said.
“Realtors know how to pick locks? Why? You have those lock boxes with keys inside on the doors of houses for sale.”
“Not on unoccupied houses you want to fraudulently rent out. Big business down in Miami.”
It was a small one-bedroom that reeked of strange incense. It was furnished sparsely with nondescript pieces and every flat surface held a fat burning candle.
“A monster really does live here. Who else would leave candles burning when they’re not at home?” Matt muttered.
Though the occupant’s interior design aesthetic left a lot to be desired, there were touches that indicated a woman lived here, at least to Matt whose own coffee table was a wooden door perched on concrete blocks. All the candles here, for one example, pointed to a woman. The fact that the pillows on the sofa matched the throw rug. Vases—how many men had vases?
Maybe it was true about soucouyants being obsessive-compulsive, Matt thought, because the apartment was obsessively clean, as well. The cheap furniture had been carefully dusted and the old, industrial-grade carpeting didn’t have a single speck of dirt. It was excessively clean to Matt, but he was the kind of guy whose vacuum rarely left his closet.
There were also creepy touches, too. Jars on the kitchen counter were filled with leaves, grasses, small bones, and dried pieces of flesh from God-knows-what. On the wall above the sofa was a painting of a large tree with a buttressed trunk and a dark figure with glowing red eyes peering from a gap in the tree.
“That be the demon Bazil. He gives the soucouyants their power.”
The two men explored the apartment separately and quietly. They both knew the soucouyant could arrive at any moment. In fact, Matt felt as if the creature were watching them explore its lair. The pressure in his stomach increased with every minute he spent in the apartment.
The kitchen was ordinary, small but clean, with a narrow pass-through bar to the living room. The bedroom held only a bed and dresser. Matt slid open the closet door revealing bright blouses and several uniforms hanging in dry-cleaning bags. He slid the hangers apart to study one of the uniforms. It was light blue and vaguely police-like with patches that said: Eternal Security Service. The name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t remember where he’d seen it.
He looked in the bathroom and turned on the light. It was small and clean with candles everywhere, but at least they weren’t burning. As he opened the door to get a better look, an object tapped against the inside of the door, something hanging from the inside doorknob. It was a heavy plastic ID card attached to a lanyard. He lifted it for a better look.
It had the Eternal Security logo and a name: Philomena Toulard. On the left was her photo. He recognized her.
The day gate guard at Squid Tower. The one he had spoken to.
“Hey,” Carriacou Jack called from the living room.
Matt jumped at the sudden noise.
“I found the skin!”
Matt rushed out of the bedroom.
35
Damn Your Hide
The Obeah Man slid a large grey plastic storage container from the coat closet near the front door. It was the kind sold in big-box chains for storing clothing.
“In the Caribbean, the soucouyants store their skin in large clay jars,” he said. “In America they use Tupperware.”
He opened the clips at each end and took off the lid. The smell of blood and sulfur struck Matt’s nose. A folded, wrinkled, dark-brown material filled the container. It looked like the top of a tray of baked brownies with black hair beneath it. Only when he peered closer did he truly realize it was skin—the entire hide, not just the epidermis.
“Get the salt,” Carriacou Jack said.
Matt glanced around. He must have left it outside with the rice.
“Be right back,” he said, opening the door.
He never made it outside.
With a howl louder than a category-five hurricane leaking through a damaged shutter, something big blew inside and bowled him over onto the floor. As he struggled to his feet, a kick bashed his chest and he flew backwards into the wall, almost knocking him out.
The soucouyant stood in the living room facing Carriacou Jack who, to his credit, wasn’t cowering in fear. Matt, on the other hand, was cowering like a baby, his heart pounding like a jackhammer.
The creature was a bloody mess of tissue with muscles, tendons, and blood vessels exposed to the air. It reeked like the box of skin but stronger, with the smell of other body fluids mixed in. She wasn’t tall or bulky, but she
looked strong. Her muscles were taut as she prepared to spring.
“Did you kill all those people on the beach?” Carriacou Jack asked, thrusting his shoulders back, acting confident in the face of the monster.
“Yeah, I did. Made it so the vampires where I work would get blamed. Now, you next. You gonna die, obeah man,” she said, baring a bloody mouth filled with rows of rat-like fangs.
Carriacou Jack looked at Matt and nodded toward the container of skin. Then he sprinted into the bedroom and slammed the door behind him.
The shrieks of the soucouyant filled Matt’s ears as she slammed her body against the bedroom door and wrestled with the locked doorknob. Matt slipped out the front door. The bag of salt was two doors down where he had left it. As he grabbed it and raced back, he tripped on the bag of rice. His foot went right through the plastic and the grains slipped out atop the walkway. He didn’t care. The situation had progressed long past the point when the rice would have helped them.
Back inside the apartment, the door to the bedroom had been broken open and sounds of banging against the locked bathroom door spilled out.
Carriacou Jack probably couldn’t hold her off much longer, Matt thought as he quickly ripped open the paper sack of salt and poured a big pile on the skin. Since the skin was folded, he would have to expose more of it to the salt. Trying to keep from getting sick, he grabbed the hide and pulled some of it from the box. It felt cool and clammy. He poured copious amounts of salt on it.
A loud bang came from inside the bedroom as the bathroom door broke open and slammed against the wall.
Carriacou Jack screamed with pure panic.
Matt grabbed the half-empty bag of salt and ran into the bedroom as the sound of bodies crashing into the wall came from the bathroom.
The soucouyant bent over the obeah man as he lay sprawled across the toilet. She was gnawing at his thigh. Blood soaked through his trousers as she chewed with needle-like teeth.
She sensed Matt’s presence and looked up. Her teeth dripped with blood.
“You next,” she said with a growl.
Matt didn’t hesitate. He swung the bag underhanded and sent a spray of salt upon the soucouyant, sinking into her exposed flesh.
She howled in pain and dropped to the floor, writhing.
But she didn’t dissolve like a slug on a patio. Nor did she go up in smoke like a monster in a horror film.
Instead, she fixed her eyes upon Matt and snarled. She was really, really mad. Matt couldn’t exactly blame her.
He ran.
Her footsteps were right behind him, the clutch of claws in the cheap carpeting. He darted from the bedroom and entered the kitchen. A knife was what he needed. He yanked open the closest drawer. Nothing but candles. Another drawer held incense sticks. He ran past the sink and opened another drawer. It was filled with locks of hair tied with ribbons.
“Doesn’t this woman cook?” he mumbled aloud. But then he realized the answer to his question.
No, idiot, she doesn’t cook. She drinks blood.
“I do bake cookies for the humans,” she said in a wet, phlegmy voice.
She stood in the doorway to the kitchen about ten feet away, blocking his escape.
“Maybe I’ll cook your eyeballs after I kill you,” she said.
Matt glanced behind him. There was no other exit, no window. He was trapped. Hopeless, he opened one last drawer. He pulled out a wooden rolling pin.
Then she pounced.
She crossed the distance between them so fast he could only raise his arms in defense. Her fangs sank into his left forearm while her bloody arms wrapped around his neck and shoulders, pulling him close to her.
With his right arm, he swung the rolling pin and hit her on the back of the head. He hit her again and again and kicked her to free himself.
She pulled her teeth from his arm and lunged at his face.
He jabbed the rolling pin, thrusting it into her open mouth.
In her short moment of hesitation, he pushed away from her and flung himself at the opening of the pass-through bar, squirming across the counter and falling into the living room.
He scrambled to his feet and headed toward the front door.
Piercing pain shot through his left ankle as it was seized. He fell face-first in the living room, the rug burning his face as she slid him toward her.
Immediately, she was on his back. Claws sliced through his clothing and skin. She was even stronger than before. Being pissed off will do that to you. He twisted and tried to worm his way out of her grasp, but the claws had dug too deeply and even as he tried to get away from the flaring pain, he couldn’t free himself.
He shot his right arm backwards and his elbow landed on her face with a wet thud. She growled just behind his ears.
Snapping his upper body backwards he slammed the back of his head into her face, resulting in searing pain from her teeth slicing his scalp. But he felt her hold upon him loosen slightly, briefly, and he wiggled out from under her. He crawled across the floor and struggled to get back on his feet.
Again, she caught him by the foot, his right this time. But as he fell he managed to twist so he landed on his butt. And, as she lunged toward him, he nailed her with a solid kick with his left leg to her windpipe. She hesitated, clutching her throat, her breath coming in loud rasps.
Matt made it through the apartment door, the monster close behind him. She never even stopped to examine her pile of salt-covered skin by the closet.
Just as he broke into a sprint, he slipped on the spilled rice, falling again, this time on the asphalt parking lot between two cars. He braced for her onslaught.
But she stopped suddenly, distracted by the rice. She stared at it for a moment in fascination. She looked at Matt, her yellow-rimmed eyes fixating on him within the bloody maw of her face. Then her concentration flickered and she was staring at the rice again. She struggled with herself, shaking her head, looking up at Matt again, and down at the rice.
Her body relaxed as if a conflict had been settled.
She squatted down and began counting the rice, whispering each number. Matt crawled backward away from her, avoiding any sudden movements that would divert her attention. He made it past the cars into a shadowy part of the lot behind a tree.
The soucouyant continued her census of the rice, stooped over, pointing at one grain after another, counting aloud in Creole French.
He crouched behind the tree, getting his wind back. The pain from all his wounds throbbed with more intensity. Could he stay here and wait until dawn, or would she finish counting and come after him? He risked a look at her. She was still deeply engrossed in counting the rice grains. Would she notice if he ran away?
But just then, headlights swept over him and the creature as a car pulled into the parking lot.
Crap, Matt thought, that’s going to distract her from counting.
A car door opened and closed. The soucouyant continued with her task. Someone came up behind him and he jumped.
It was Missy. “My God,” she said staring at the monster. “Do you know who it is?”
“One of the gate guards from Squid Tower,” Matt said. “Her name is Philomena Toulard.”
“What is she doing?”
“This is one of the ways to stop a soucouyant, Carriacou Jack told me. According to the lore, if you spread rice on the ground, they can’t help but obsessively count each grain.”
“Wow,” Missy said. “And I thought I was bad about obsessive stuff like that.” She took a closer look at Matt. “You look horrible.”
“Thank you. I had a little tussle with the soucouyant. Carriacou Jack is pretty messed up, too. I guess we’re lucky she can’t mesmerize her prey like vampires do.”
“Is she definitely the murderer?”
“She admitted it,” Matt replied.
“Remind me to look at your wounds later,” Missy said.
Then she abruptly walked over to the monster, gone before Matt could stop her. She walked right
up to it, pulled a bag from her pocket, and sprinkled some sort of powder on the ground. It didn’t interfere with the rice-counting. Missy murmured something in a low voice and pulled out her phone, shooting video of the soucouyant.
“Don’t get so close to her,” Matt whispered.
“I need it to look like a selfie.”
She said to the creature in a calm voice full of authority, “Tell me who you are and how many people you have killed in Jellyfish Beach.”
It looked up at her slowly and began speaking in an entranced manner.
“I am Philomena Toulard. I have been a soucouyant since 1843. At night I leave my skin behind and hunt along the beach near where I work during the day. I have killed forty-two people since I took this job. Lately, I have been careful to make my feeding look like it was done by the residents where I work. The last one I attacked, I did not kill, though. I made him a soucouyant so he could be my lover for eternity.” She cackled.
“The first one I killed here was a young girl, a runaway, who was sleeping on the beach. Then I killed a man who was urinating on the sea oats. It was very rude of him to do that. Then I killed a man in the car in front of me who made me miss a green light because he was too busy texting . . .”
Matt actually sympathized with her on that one.
“Then I killed a young couple on the beach who were high on some drug. There have been many like them. They are easy prey, but the drug makes their blood taste strange. Then I killed a pizza deliveryman who . . .”
Carriacou Jack staggered out of the apartment like a zombie, covered in blood. He muttered to himself in Creole as he walked right past where the soucouyant squatted. She paid him no mind, deeply engrossed in confessing to Missy, methodically listing every murder.
Matt slipped around the rear of a parked car where he hoped to hide until Carriacou Jack started his car. Then he’d run over and jump inside. But how long was Missy going to record the confession? He glanced at the sky. It looked the slightest bit lighter, but there was no sign of dawn just yet. The sunlight was their only hope of destroying the monster, if her obsession with counting the grains of rice would keep her occupied until then, after her endless litany of people she’d killed ended.