Sealey and the soul-taker

Sep 27, 2015 News

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Kaieteur News celebrates Indigenous Heritage Month with works of fiction that focus on the myths of our First People. This excerpt is from a supernatural novel, Kamarang, by Michael Jordan, to be published next year

 

BRENDA WAS SWEEPING the yard when Sealey returned from his morning walk with the old pork-knocker. She opened the gate for them, and retrieved the Sunday Chronicle that the newspaper boy had pushed between the slats of the paling fence. She smiled at the old man, pointedly ignoring Sealey.

“You going upstairs now? I got the bath-water ready.”

The old man’s twisted mouth moved silently. Then he said: “No chile. I gun…sit under the house…lil bit.”

She turned away, swept a heap of leaves under a breadfruit tree near the fence, then headed upstairs. Sealey stared at her for a moment, then guided the old man to a bench under the house. Jocelyn Walker sighed, closed his eyes, and leaned back in the bench. The walk they’d taken couldn’t have been over 400 yards, yet a pulse fluttered rapidly at the base of his throat. Looking at the old man, Sealey tried to tell himself that his friend had come a long way since his stroke. But then he would remember that this was the same man who could once walk for hours through mountain-country with a 50 pound warashi on his back. Now having to be helped upstairs. Now having to bathe with warm water, after a lifetime of swimming in icy creeks.

Sealey shifted his eyes away from his friend and stared towards D’urban Street. He watched a family, dressed for church, frantically flagging down a car. The pious voice of Jim Reeves came from a nearby radio. That would be from the home of the elderly Chester sisters, who were always sharing out tracts and inviting him to church. He smiled without humour, as he remembered that Sunday had almost caught him leaving the old brothel. He had entered the bedroom quietly so as not to disturb Brenda. But he had found her sitting up in bed, because, as she explained later, she had awoken with a strong feeling that something had happened to him. They had quarreled about his nights out, and he had almost told her about the girl; almost told her what had happened when he left the brothel that night.

His thoughts were interrupted by a young man with short dreadlocks who had ridden up to the gate.

“Morning, Mister Sealey.”

“Hi man. You could come around for the hammock and the other stuff tomorrow.”

The young man grinned. “Alright, Mister Sealey.” He clenched his fist in a Black power salute, then rode off.

Jocelyn Walker, who had awoken, peered after the departing man. “That is not…the young chap…who say he going on…De’ Abreau dredge?”

Sealey smiled. The old porknocker kept surprising him. Since his illness, there were times when he seemed to wander in his own hazy world. At other times, like now, his memory and eyesight were as sharp as before.

“Same one,” Sealey said. “He want to borrow some things.”

Walker smiled. “He ain’t frighten…De Abreau…sell he soul?”

Arthur De Abreau was a dried-up, very wealthy Portuguese miner who’d had a series of deaths at his mining camps over the years. Not surprisingly, the rumour had grown that he sacrificed his men to spirits in exchange for gold.

Sealey joined in Walker’s laughter; two seasoned bush-men who knew that there was nothing supernatural about dying from malaria, or snake-bite or drowning in an underwater cave.

Laughing, but tense inside, as he remembered what had happened when he left the Ritz…

*

SEALEY STARED at the ceiling as he lay in the hammock in his spare room. The smell of fresh bread came to him…Brenda’s baking. Someone was listening to the two o’clock radio programme Sunday Showcase. He could hear a woman singing, in this stifling August heat, that it was such a rainy rainy night in Georg-uhhh. He heard Jocelyn Walker cough in his sleep. He thought about his laughter when they had spoken about old Arthur De Abreau. He had especially wanted to talk about what had happened to him in Lombard Street on Saturday night. It had been at the edge of his tongue, even as they walked this morning.
The boy had not turned up at the Ritz on Saturday. Sealey guessed he was following the doctor’s instructions. He wondered how long that would last. He’d seen the girl, though.

She had sat in the corner at the side of the bar, out of sight of him and away from the Saturday night patrons. He’d sensed a restlessness in her, though. She had thrice come to the bar for her Woodpecker Cider. Once, when he’d gone to the punch-box, he’d stolen a quick glance at the corner. She was sitting with eyes shut tight and her hands were out of sight under the table. Something about her posture triggered a sharp, bitter-sweet memory of the whore Josephine, who had broken his heart long ago.

Who are you? He had found himself thinking. What the hell are you up to? But no answer was reflected in that pale face, and he did not go over to question her.

*

He called it a night when most of the prostitutes had booked their rooms or gone elsewhere. He glanced up at the brothel as he turned from Harel into Lombard Street. He could see the girl’s shadowed face at the window near the bar. Her head was in profile, but yet he felt she was watching him. He continued down Lombard Street, trying to put some distance between himself and the brothel, and the vague unease that always seemed to hang over him whenever he saw the girl.

But yet the feeling of being watched persisted. He didn’t consider himself to be a very imaginative man. But yet he sensed a difference in Lombard Street tonight. He was now near the Broadway Brothel. On the road, opposite the brothel, he saw a hairless, bony mongrel, with two pups clinging to its teats. And now, ahead, he could see the lights of the Guyana National Co-operative Bank and the cars at the Demico park.

He was thinking of home, and of Brenda, when he heard the scream. It seemed to come from way behind him, and right behind him at the same time; a stretched-out, sobbing cry like that of a terrified woman or a pig being slaughtered.

He swiveled around, clutching at his prospecting knife. He stared up the darkened street. Nothing. But now he heard a growling nearby. The hairless dog that had been feeding its pups was now crouched low, its teeth bared, eyes glowing as it stared at something behind Sealey.

He turned again. He felt the hairs on his neck rise as the sobbing scream came to once more, closer this time. The mongrel, with pups in tow, skittered into an alleyway near the brothel. Sealey stared up Lombard Street; seeing nothing, but yet held to the spot by the feeling that something malevolent was watching him.

With a conscious effort, he turned away. He forced himself to keep walking when the sobbing scream came again. At last he was at the end of Lombard Street. He was about to cross Hadfield Street when he felt the overwhelming tingling at the back of his neck again. He glanced around.

A squatty figure, that he knew he’d seen before, stood in the centre of the street, about two hundred yards away. It stared at him for a moment. He heard a loud, contemptuous, sniffing sound, then the figure faded suddenly into the gloom.

*

Sealey shifted uneasily in his hammock. He really should have told Walker what had happened. The opportunity had presented itself like a gift when they had spoken about De Abreau. He could have gotten Walker going with those stories bush-men tell each other to pass the time. Tales about miners who went to bed normal and woke up crazy. About hunters lost into the forest after shooting at deer that the never seemed to hit. About forest spirits that Amerindians said ate human flesh and walked on feet that were turned backwards…

Sealey sighed. He should have asked Walker about those things. He really should have…

*

….they ran through the blue forest; Sealey, Walker and the woman who was sometime Brenda, who carried a child on her back. They ran, pursued by the creatures that bounded over mountains on feet that were turned the wrong way. They fled into a hut that was a cave and the old brothel in Harrel Street. They shut the door, but not before the creatures, with unified, triumphant screams, descended on the woman who was sometimes Brenda and tore the baby loose from the pouch on her back.

Through the thin walls he heard them feeding; heard them, ravenous still, sniffing outside…

*

Sealey awoke in the hammock. He felt listless, as if he really had been running through a strange forest. Gradually, he absorbed his surroundings….the windows in his room… the rocking hammock…the fading notes of a Dionne Warwick song…Sunday Showcase?…smelled fresh-baked bread that told him that the woman that he loved was close-by.

He heard Brenda’s footsteps heading for his room. He heard her push open the door. He was facing the window, and now he turned to her.

The dread that he’d awoken to returned as he realised that he had not turned. He could not turn. He was fused in his position facing the window.

Wake up, chap, he thought. Wake up! 

But he was awake. He could not move, and someone was in the room.

He knew that it wasn’t Brenda. He could hear the clatter of baking pans in the kitchen. He felt the prickle of gooseflesh as he sensed someone standing by the door and staring at him. He heard Walker cough in his sleep. He tried to cry out, but his throat seemed to be clogged with something that tasted like a ball of vile yellow snot. He felt the weight of someone by his hammock. He heard the whirring of insect wings. A sudden roachy smell came to him, and something landed on his right shoulder. Somehow he shifted his head. He saw a blurred image of a winged, scorpion-like thing with pin-prick eyes on his shoulder…

“Vibert…”

And he was brushing madly at the thing, which was skittering towards his face…

“Vibert…”

…brushing at the creature…

Vibert!”

…but now he was aware that someone was shaking him and calling his name. And now the vile ball of mucus that had choked him had burst, and Brenda was there and the thing was gone.

He sat up in the hammock. Brenda, wide-eyed, stared at him.

“Vibert, what happen, chap?”

He shifted his eyes away from her, seeking the thing that had squatted on him, expecting to see it scurrying into some cluttered corner.

Nothing…

“Vibert, what happen man?”

“Some…thing…my…face.” His tongue felt heavy. His words were slurred, as if he had drank too much.

“Something?”

His hands brushing a scaly, undulating body…

“Something.”

“Like what?”

He chased the image with a shake of his head. “Something,” he muttered again. “Dunno.”

“You want me to get some brandy?”

He nodded, sobered somewhat by Brenda’s practical suggestion.

Her arm tightened on his shoulder. “Vibert, what going on? What happen last night?”

He looked at Brenda, really seeing her now; aware now, too, of the buttered bread and cheese that she had placed on an upturned crate near the hammock.

He hesitated, then said: “I find the girl.”

*

But he didn’t tell her much. He told her where he’d found the prostitute who was now calling herself Lucille. He told her about the other boy, and what the doctor had said. He didn’t tell Brenda about this new fear that he himself might be in danger, or about the crippled woman, or of being followed. He admitted that he had been sleeping badly; blamed the incident in the room on a bad dream. He sensed that she didn’t believe him.

“Christ,” she said afterwards. “You really frighten me. I thought you did getting a heart attack or something.”

*

Sitting on his back step, Sealey remembered her words now. They had sent a cold knot of fear to his stomach, because he sensed that she was more right than she knew. Sitting outside, feeling the August sun on his skin, hearing the sound of children singing from a nearby bottom-house Sunday school  (“IF YUH HAPPY AN YOU KNOW IT STAMP YUH FEET…”)

He could almost fool himself that it had just been a bad dream. But then he’d remember the creature clinging to his shoulder; its roachy smell; the feel of it…scaly. He still felt a taint on him—about him—even though he had bathed. And the memory brought with it the certainty that he had been close to death; that something had entered his room this bright Sunday afternoon and tried to steal his soul. That if Brenda hadn’t come into the bedroom he would have been dead. Later, many might have said that Vibert Sealey went peacefully.

He lit a cigarette. It had finally happened to him. One of the unexplained things that bush-men talked about, but which had seemingly avoided contact with him during his thirty-odd years knocking around the jungle.

So why had it happened now? Why in his home?

He breathed deeply. He needed to remain calm. Maybe something had crawled on him….tarantula…centipede…maybe a scorpion, accidentally brought home from Kamarang. He wouldn’t be the first bush-man to have brought some crawling thing home from the interior. There was a story about two brothers who had died that way….

No…he had searched the room twice. Not that he had expected to find anything. Besides, the thing that had crawled on him was unlike anything that he knew, though he believed that he had seen it briefly before…

No…he hadn’t been dreaming. He had heard Brenda in the kitchen. He had heard Walker cough in his sleep. Music from a radio. That was what had been so scary. Just lying there helpless with something staring at him…

If Brenda hadn’t come into the room…

He felt the earlier panic welling in him. He shook his head, trying to chase unwanted shadows away. But he couldn’t rid himself of the thought that he had been at the edge of the valley, almost stolen away from his family on a   bright Sunday afternoon…

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