KAMARANG…The soul-taker’s return

Apr 01, 2019 News

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By Michael Jordan

Vibert Sealey turned in his hammock as the door opened. Brenda entered with a tray of bread, eggs and a bottle of beer. She glanced at the full ashtray on the crate that served as a table, but said nothing. She gave him the tray, touched him on the cheek, and left.
He glanced gratefully after her. She had waited up until he returned from the Ritz. She sat and listened as he fretted about the foolish boy. Finally, she had coaxed him to lie down, cradling his head on her body. But sleep had not come, and he’d finally given up, and gone to the storeroom to smoke and think.
He finished off the beer, then smoked another cigarette. Here he was, ruining his health over this Michael Jones chap, who didn’t seem to care about himself. He’d really thought that the young man had more sense. He’d not really been surprised that the boy had returned to the brothel. It was natural that he would want to confront the girl about the things he had heard about her. But to sleep with her, after hearing that she had killed someone? That, Sealey hadn’t anticipated.
And so he had waited by the bar, half-listening to the barman and the stevedore, while keeping an ear tuned to the corridor; half-expecting, at any moment, to hear the prostitute’s voice raised in denial, and to see the boy come storming out of the brothel. But the hours had passed, and Sealey had stood by the bar, imagining that the boy lay sprawled in death in the prostitute’s bed.
And just when he was thinking that he must check on the boy, they had stepped out of the corridor; the girl looking somehow younger, the boy rumpled and haggard-looking and reeking of his own sweat and the girl’s smell. They had kissed, then the boy had slouched past Sealey. The girl had looked directly at Sealey, and her lips had seemed to lift into a self-satisfied, triumphant, half-smile before she turned away.
Sealey jabbed the cigarette out in the tray. He wondered what sad tale she had concocted about Leon. Whatever it was, this lovesick fool had swallowed it. Maybe he should have gone after the boy, found out exactly what the girl had told him. But what difference would that have made?
He sighed. He felt old, tired…confused. Not for the first time, he wondered whether he wasn’t being over-suspicious about the girl. Maybe there was nothing to the relationship, but the meeting of two young, hot-blooded people. Maybe there was no mystery to Leon’s death, either. Now it had got to the point where he was even blaming the girl for the strange experience in this room last Sunday.
He reached for a slice of bread. Maybe it was time that he dropped this nonsense and went back in the bush. He’d hinted as much to Brenda last night, and though she’d said nothing, he had sensed her relief.
Yes, maybe he should get his crew back together, push in a few months’ work before the heavy December rains came—
“Vibert, you buying any papers? The papers boy passing.” Brenda’s voice indicated that she was somewhere in the living room.
“Yeah!” he shouted back. “Bring an extra one for Uncle Jocelyn.”
He was eating another slice of bread when Brenda entered the room. She stood by the doorway, a copy of the Evening Citizen clutched in one hand. There was a strange hesitancy in her manner; a look of dread in her eyes.
Sealey sat up in his hammock, affected by her unease. “Something happen, Brenda?”
Her hand tightened on the paper. “Bad news,” she said. “Vibert, I don’t think you should read this.”
He stretched a hand towards her. Reluctantly, she came to him and gave him the paper.
The headline on the front page was like a blow to his gut.

SKELETONS OF MISSING PROSTITUTES FOUND AT KAMARANG

By Albert Alstrom
The skeletons of two women who disappeared last June have been found in the Kamarang jungle.
Police said that the remains were positively identified as those of Patricia De Souza, 22, and Ruth-Ann Gibson, 19. Gibson’s skeleton was identified by an upper gold tooth, while a friend of De Souza’s recognized a pair of platform shoes that were found a few feet away from the remains.
A group of hunters made the gruesome find at around noon today. Pathologist Dr. Leslie Mootoo said that a jaguar or other powerful animal may have killed the women. Ribs from both victims appeared to have been chewed off.
“Whatever attacked them apparently ripped their stomachs out,” he told the Citizen. “It caught them by surprise.”
But some residents of the mainly Amerindian community suggested that the animal that killed the women is a mysterious beast, which also killed a four-year-old boy last June. The child’s partly eaten body was also found in the jungle.
Detectives are baffled as to what the two young women were doing in the jungle, approximately ten miles from Kamarang Village. According to reports, De Souza and Gibson had travelled to the area in early June. They had rented a house on the ‘landing’, but left suddenly. Friends had assumed that they had returned to Georgetown.
Two other bizarre events also occurred at Kamarang last June. About three days after the child’s body was found, a woman, Shirleen Ross, ran onto the airstrip and was decapitated by a plane.
The next day, Leon Andries, a young pork-knocker, was found dead in a house in the village. Residents claimed that it was the same house that the two women had rented. …
Sealey lowered the paper and stared at Brenda. He saw the apprehension in her eyes, and he knew, that she knew, that he wasn’t going into the interior after all.
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8.00 p.m.
He put the towel on the rack, then turned the tap on. Sucked his teeth as a few dribbles of water came from the shower. Sealey turned on the low tap he’d installed in the bathroom for such emergencies. The water was lukewarm. He could do with a mountain-creek bath right now to wash away this dazed, half-dream feeling that had come over him since learning about the prostitutes.
The thought that the girl at the Ritz was at the centre of those events sent a prickly sensation down his spine. He pushed the thought away, and reached for the soap-dish. It fell onto the bathroom floor with a clatter. He bent to pick it up, and was shocked to see that his hands were shaking. He clenched his fists. Get a grip of yourself, Vibert Sealey, he thought, as he lathered his skin. You letting a bush-whore frighten you?
But deep in his gut he knew that he was right to be wary of the girl. She was dangerous, in a way he didn’t quite understand…no, the truth was, he thought he understood; but what he suspected was too crazy to contemplate. And the strange thing was, he still felt that maddening thrill whenever he saw her. It had been no different last night. Something in her smile made him sense that she knew.
Guiltily, he thought of Brenda. He could hear the radio in the living room, and guessed that she and Jocelyn Walker were listening to the local radio serial that came on at around eight. He splashed water on his chest, and his hand brushed the bina that Perez had given him.
He wished his old friend was here. Perez, who knew something, but wasn’t saying, would know how to deal with the girl. But he couldn’t wait for Perez. He had messed up before with Leon; gotten blasted drunk and failed to look out for his crewman. He wouldn’t fail now with this boy—
Stay in your home, old man, a menacing voice seemed to whisper in his ear. You pushing your nose into business that doesn’t concern you…
He glanced around the bathroom, almost convinced that someone was in there with him. He suddenly felt uneasy, claustrophobic. He began to wash off the soap that remained on his body. He was bending again to the bucket, when he heard the rustling of small wings, and a familiar, roachy odour filled his nostrils.
He knew he was no longer alone. Someone … something stood to his left, just out of his vision. He tried to shout, but only a strangled croak came from somewhere deep in his throat. His mouth felt filled with a stinking mucous that made him want to retch. The bathroom bulb suddenly dimmed to a sickly orange-red. Outside, he heard Brenda’s cry of surprise as the radio emitted a long burst of static, then fell silent.
It’s happening again! he thought.
Something landed on his back. He felt tiny insect-legs digging into his skin; felt the thing’s scaly body rub against him. He felt it move again, scrabbling around to his chest. And now he saw it; the winged, scorpion-like thing that had attacked him in his hammock; that he had once seen on the girl’s thigh. He caught a glimpse of pin-prick eyes, of a tiny mouth rearing back to stab at his throat…
(Taken from the supernatural novel Kamarang by Michael Jordan. Book design by Harold Bascom.) .
The author can be contacted on +592 645 2447 or by email: [email protected])

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