by Jeffrey Hall
Wish shifted uneasily. He looked past the Red One, across the hundreds of its kind that crowded around them, past the meat huts, and into the forest. There was sanctuary there. If he just ran to it and kept on going he’d never have to make this decision. He’d never have to face this pain. He’d never have to worry about lunars, about his father, about Marli, about his daughter...
Yet he would never again feel what they had given him. And in return, he would give them only pain.
He met the eyes of the Red One, breathed in deeply, and nodded.
The Red One raised its staff over its head and roared. The rest of the streaked ones joined, roaring one after the other, beginning a chant that did not end even after the Red One’s mouth closed.
“They praise you for your courage,” yelled Agra.
Are you an idiot? said Moso. The Chassa put both hands on his head as he shook it with disbelief. There are other ways to get the box. We can find other ways to get the lunars.
“How, Moso?” There were not enough jobs to take, no scenarios he could conjure that would equate to the money they both needed. Moso knew that too. Wish could tell by the way he responded.
Moso dropped his hands. At least ask to see the damn box first.
“We want to see the box first,” yelled Wish, and Agra repeated it.
The Red One pointed to its gathered brethren. Moments later a child emerged from the others. In its small, clawed hands it held a box of with a dark-wood finish.Even from a distance Wish could see the etchings on its face, pictures meant to represent some facet of the jungle. It was the third box.
Moso’s shoulders slumped. They have it.
Wish’s attention turned back to the Red One. The creature’s tail swished, perhaps with excitement, perhaps with hunger.He could not say.
“What happens now?”He yelled above the roars so Agra could hear.
The Red One snarled.
Agra’s eyebrows rose. “Now?”
For a moment Wish thought the creature would gnaw into his hand then and there, but the Red One turned his back to Wish and approached the old Chassa instead. He put a claw once more to Agra’s chin.
Agra wrinkled his nose as if he were attempting not to cry. “I was not ready for such an honor so soon.”
It looked as though the Red One nodded.
Agra smiled, an expression so wide that it squeezed the tears caught in his eyes. When the Red One finally stepped away from the monkey he could finally speak, though his stare did not deviate from the meat shaman’s.
“Revel in the pain, fellow jungle-diver. You’ll find nothing like it anywhere else in the forest.” He dropped his cane, gathered the bottom of his robe, and pulled it up over his head. He was nude beneath it, his orange-dyed fur faded in some areas to expose its true color, the same white that decorated his face. It made him look like a disgraced version of one of the creatures that surrounded them. He turned to Wish.“Do not be afraid. Your honor will be much more deliberate.”
What is he doing? signed Moso, taking a step towards the Chassa.
Wish went to ask him what he meant, but before he could Agra threw his hands in the air and growled.
The chant stopped.The streaked ones pounced.
The closest to Agra were the first to reach him. Their teeth and claws sunk into his limbs,and they pulled, peeling them away from his body like they were nothing more than petals on the stalk of a flower. And just as they pulled them away, others jumped in for his torso. Wish blinked and it was torn to bits. What came next was a festival of gore. The man’s body was passed from creature to creature, each of them biting into his flesh before relinquishing it to their awaiting, salivating and growling brethren, each creature devouring some portion of their former friend. The only part of him that survived that initial onslaught was his head, a thing that bobbed about the furious movements of the beasts like a totem lost from the rest of its wood. Still smiling. Not a single admittance of pain in its face.
It bounced off the backs of the creatures and landed on the ground near the pile, and the children of the streaked ones, the ones not yet strong enough to compete for such a feast, started their own gore.
Once those seconds were over, there was nothing left of Agra save for the small traces of blood that marred the finished creatures’ lips, stains they were licking clean even as Wish and Moso looked on in horror.
Fuck, Moso signed stiffly with his shaking tail. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Wish’s own stomach turned. He had witnessed many gruesome sights in the forest—nature was a menagerie of violence—but even the natural order of prey and predator did not compare to what they had just witnessed.
And though his people still chomped and growled over Agra’s bones, the Red One turned his back to them so he could face Wish.
He knew by the way the creature stared at him that it was time for his own honor.
Stay the fuck away from him, said Moso as he drew his dagger. If the Red One seemed threatened by it he did not show it.
Wish felt the weight of his own machete, his sling, and the spear against his body, aware of how distracted the other creatures were. Could they defeat a creature of such power? Even if they could, could they grab the box and outpace a horde of such terrible things?
He knew they could not. He knew there was no other way out now.
“Moso”—he swallowed the lump he felt rising in his throat—“put it away.”
And let him do that to you?
“He’s just going to take my hand. Lucky for me, I have two of them.”
You trust what Agra said? You trust he’s just going to take that?
“A man crazy enough to let himself be ripped apart... I think so.”
The Red One extended its hand and brought its claw to Wish’s palm. He fought the urge to pull away. His hand felt damp, gloved in a coat of sweat. The creature raised his hand to its mouth. It sniffed it. He felt its dry nose and coarse whiskers brush against his knuckles.
Wish.
He saw Moso sign his name out of the corner of his eyes, but refused to look anywhere except at the Red One. At its mouth. He braced for the creature to bite. The anticipation was unbearable.
What are you waiting for? he thought.
The creature gently opened its mouth and put the tip of his pinky to the edge of its black teeth.
Wish bit his lip and reminded himself of all the pain he had felt throughout his entire career as a jungle-diver and the reason why he was about to let the creature do what it was about to do.
It bit down.
The crunch came first, followed by the pain. It shot up his arm, into his neck, and then into his jaw, where his teeth clamped shut to prevent him from screaming. His reaction was to pull away, but the Red One’s grip was too strong. He could not escape the creature unless he fought him, and that wouldn’t get them the box. So he clenched his other fist and bore it, attempting to put his mind outside the pain as the Red One continued to nibble and chew.
Agra had been right. His own tasting would be much more deliberate.
Moso approached with his dagger, ready to plant it into the back of the creature’s leg, but Wish shook his head, stopping the monkey before he could do anything foolish. Though he begged the gods for it to stop, he wouldn’t let anyone else answer his prayers.
At last the creature’s head lifted from his hand. Wish glimpsed his fingers. Only four remained. His pinky was gone all the way to the knuckle, but he could still see it in the creases of the Red One’s teeth, a separated puzzle of meat that could never again be put back together.
There was no blood on his hand, only a crimson bump.If it wasn’t for the pain still ringing in his head he might think that his finger was never a part of his body at all. Four fingers still shivered beside the wound, four boney paths that would bring him to more pain.
Next was his ring finger. The Red One finished chewing and swallowed.
“Hurry,” he whispered. He could no longer keep his words. The pain forced th
em from his tongue. And to his surprise there was a response.
Your patience is part of the test. Wish blinked. The Red One grumbled, but he heard its voice in his head like a whisper, like a dream. It sounded deep. Strong. As if something inside the creature’s small frame magnified its power and sewed it into its words.
Wish stared, amazed, his confusion distracting him from his missing finger.
There is power in the fabric of another. It provides an avenue to a thing’s spirit.
Wish’s lower lip quivered.
Speak and I shall hear you as you hear me.
He didn’t know what to say, so he blurted out a question. “Why did you do that to Agra?”
Are you talking to me? signed Moso beside him.He shifted from side to side, watching the Tasting unfold like a spectator at some game.
The Red One snarled and his words once more flooded into Wish’s head. All members of our people must be predators. If they no longer are, then they must be prey. Agra was given the choice to leave, but he was also given the choice to come back and be brought back to the soil like so many of our kind before him. In the end, he chose the way of our people.
“The way of your people? That was murder where I come from,” said Wish.
The Red One smiled. You come from the jungle, and you of all people know there is no such thing as murder underneath its ceiling.The only crime we hold to is dishonoring one another. Harming a fellow predator without just cause.
“I harmed your brethren before he harmed me,” said Wish.
Wait, you are talking to this thing? said Moso.
The Red One barked, That remains to be seen. But fear not, I will see your intentions by the time I reach your wrist. The more I taste of you, the more I understand.
“Can’t you see that I don’t lie?” said Wish, squirming in the creature’s grip.
To his surprise, the Red One laughed. I can see that is a lie that you tell yourself. That you think there is only honesty within you. But that is not true. I can taste it like a fleck of dung still latched to an intestine. What remains to be seen is who you are dishonest with. Yourself or others?
The creature put Wish’s ring finger to its maw. He closed his eyes as the Red One started to nibble, and a new pain erupted over his body. Sweat slithered out of his skin as if it were trying to escape his body. He clenched his teeth so tightly that he thought they might snap and he’d lose those too. Hurry, he yelled again in his head. Finish this!
A roar sounded. Not from the Red One, but from one of the nearby creatures. The chewing stopped. Wish opened his eyes. The Red One’s head no longer faced him. He followed the creature’s gaze, and there, a member of its tribe floated a few feet above the rest, a vine strung around its neck, strangling it.
Wish squinted,his mind still numb from pain and the shock of hearing the Red One’s voice. He didn’t understand what was happening till the Red One boomed.
We’re under attack!
Suddenly the village erupted. Vines shot down from the canopy, striking out like the stingers of scorpions, some snatching streaked ones by the neck, others strong enough to impale them straight through. In seconds there were dozens of the creatures dangling above the village, roaring, thunders from a violent, absurd storm.
Defend yourselves! cried the Red One.
And the streaked ones listened. With teeth, claw, and curved blade they cut back the vines that came for them, turning back the plants, dismembering them and letting them flop to the ground like severed limbs still twitching with life. Some even latched onto the feet of their dangling brothers to pull them away from the vegetation’s grasp. But that was only the first wave of the attack.
There was movement across the shadowy underbrush of the Black Orchard. The bushes trembled everywhere. It looked as if a thousand creatures waited inside them, excited, ready to pounce. The forest seemed to be tightening around them, coming closer. By the gods, what was happening?
Then the first bush entered the village, crawling upon its roots like it had the legs of an insect. There weren’t creatures in the underbrush, the creatures were the underbrush.
An army of thorny, bramble-laden bushes entered into the streaked ones’ village, sluggishly marching towards the crowded creatures. A quarter of the size of any of the streaked ones, they looked like a feeble force to face such ferocious creatures, but then the plants struck out with their limbs of thorns like whips, tearing at the creatures as they combated attacks from the sky and now the land.
No, whispered the Red One.
And that was when Wish noticed Moso pulling on his side.Let’s get the fuck out of here.
With the Red One distracted, he pulled his arm away from the creature’s claws.
The Red One reared in surprise. You. You brought this upon us. I should—
A vine shot down from the canopy, coming for the Red One’s face. The creature fell to his back, batting it away with his staff. Wish almost went to help the creature, but Moso’s screeches turned his attention.
Behind them, a dozen of the walking bushes were coming closer, their limbs twitching like the tentacles of some probing creature of the sea.
What the hell are they? Moso signed.
But Wish had no answer. He unveiled his machete, aware of the pain from his missing finger and the one partially gone next to it as he held his weapon with two hands.Beside him, Moso had his two scarwood daggers out.
I always thought I’d be a good gardener, signed Moso, his brow furrowed, his teeth bared.
The first of the bushes lashed out. Its limb cracked the air between them as they dodged. Wish brought down his machete, the baboon totem flaring and setting a blaze of fire down to the bush’s core.It writhed and cooked, but it did not die like a normal creature of flesh and blood. Instead it lashed out again with a different limb, this one roaring with fire.
“Look out!” yelled Wish.
The limb struck the ground before them, spraying embers into the air.Wish jumped back, but a pair of thorny limbs caught his arms. Their barbs dug into his skin as he tried to pull away from them. He tugged and wrestled with the things, trying to work his machete into them, but couldn’t escape.
Moso appeared beside him, and with two slices from his daggers, severed the bush’s limbs, leaving small nubs of them still dangling from Wish’s arms. There were too many others to worry about removing the barbs. More bushes were already marching into the village behind the others. An undying army coughed up from the infinite underbelly of the jungle.
Another bush reared to strike. Wish lifted his machete ready to meet it, but the sudden thunder of hooves stopped him.
A mass of pink flashed before them, taking one of the bushes with it.Then another, trampling three of them behind it as it galloped forward, stopping only once it cleared the line of bushes.
Wish blinked.
And there, rearing on its hind legs, was the reanimated corpse of an okapi, headless, furless, its muscles, veins, and bones bared for all to see like it had just escaped the house of a butcher. Wish thought for a brief moment that the pain he felt was causing him to hallucinate, but Moso signing beside him drew his attention.
The village.
Wish followed his gaze to the nearby huts.One by one the corpses they were made of rosefrom their piles and sprang to life, taking off towards the bushes that attacked the village. The bodies of okapis, jungle deer, cassowaries, ankas, king monkeys, and only the gods could tell what else entered the chaos. Everywhere they looked there was commotion, a bush being trampled by a reanimated body, a streaked one cutting down a vine, one of its brethren dying, impaled by the spear-like stick of their attackers. And at the center of it all was the Red One.
There it stood, its staff raised above its head. Its eyes closed. Its teeth bared. Roaring. No doubt ordering the chaos to its own will, awakening an army of meat to add to its already terrible warriors.
The world throbbed with violence. It would only be a matter of time before they were pulled into
it and killed, Wish was sure of it.
“We need to get out of—”
A black stone fell from the canopy, striking his cheek, almost sending him to the floor.He put his fingers to the wound, sure that he was now missing his face, but when he brought them to his eyes he saw little blood and mostly an inky smudge.
Another fell on his fingers, slapping them painfully away.The residue of the projectile stained his hand.
“Ash berries.”
Then a black rain fell. All around the village. An unforgiving downpour adding pain and disarray to the already manic scene, painting it black, making it barely possible to see or stand.
Moso screeched beside him, and he could just make out the Chassa holding his daggers over his head like a shield against the falling fruit.
Wish grabbed his wrist, the fruit falling all over his body, ensuring he would be a constant bruise should he make it out of that place.
“Come on,” he shouted, attempting to pull Moso out of there. But the Chassa held his ground.
The box.
“Leave the damn box—” he started to say, but Moso scrambled away from him. His partner darted towards the crowd of streaked ones, the creatures corralled together like livestock as the rain fell and their strange vegetative enemies surrounded them.
“Gaz mada,” swore Wish as he followed him like a fool.
Fruit fell everywhere. A bush was flung over the top of the streaked ones and landed before them, flailing like a beetle turned on its back. They didn’t stop. A pair of reanimated meat creatures sprinted past them and they had to jump aside to avoid being trampled. A streaked one rolled between them, roaring as it wrestled with one of the bushes, its fur covered in the black juice of the berries as if its stripes had bled over the rest of its body. But Wish and Moso pushed forward, enduring the downpour and danger that unfolded around them, until at last they reached the crowd of streaked ones.
Can you see it? Moso signed furiously. Cuts blossomed atop of his head, leaking blood into the stains of the fruits and what little of his green-dyed fur remained visible. Wish felt as his partner looked. It wouldn’t be much longer before they both succumbed to the constant barrage of berries and fell beneath the trample of the chaos that swirled about the village. They needed to find the damn box and get out.