KAMARANG…Sealey and the soul-taker

Aug 05, 2019 News

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By Michael Jordan

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 rolled up and 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 four hundred yards, yet a pulse fluttered rapidly at the base of his throat. His face was grey and sweaty. 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 fifty-pound warishi 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 quarrelled 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.
“Morning, Mister Sealey!”
He turned. A young man with short dreadlocks had ridden up to the gate.
“Hi man!” Sealey hailed to him. “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 pork-knocker 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 Brenda’s fresh-baked bread came to him. Someone was listening to the two o’clock radio programme, Sunday Showcase. He could hear a woman singing, on this hot afternoon, that it was such a rainy, rainy night in Geor-goh… 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 last night.
Sealey had seen the girl, though. She sat in the corner at the side of the bar, out of sight, and away from the Saturday night patrons. He 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 had 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 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.
Yet the feeling of being watched persisted. He didn’t consider himself to be a very imaginative man. But 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 lights of 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 swivelled 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 swivelled around again. He felt the hairs on his neck rise as the sobbing scream came to him again, closer this time. The mongrel, with pups in tow, skittered into an alleyway near the brothel. Sealey stared; seeing nothing, but 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 reached 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 in the jungle after shooting at deer that they never seemed to hit. About forest spirits that Amerindians said ate human flesh and walked on feet that were turned backwards.
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 sometimes 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 Harel 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? He smelled fresh-baked bread. It told him that the woman that he loved was close-by.
He heard Brenda’s footsteps heading for his room. He heard her push 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. He shifted his head, somehow, and was sure 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 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 drunk too much.
“Something?”
Tiny eyes with an evil white light. His hands brushing a scaly, undulating body…
“Something.”
“Like what?”
A small mouth with tiny teeth…
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 right 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.”
He told her where he’d found the prostitute who was now calling herself Lucille. He told her about the other boy and what Doc Mootoo had said. But 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…”
Sealey sat on his back-step and remembered her words. They had sent a cold knot of fear to his stomach, because he sensed that she was more right than she knew. As he sat outside, feeling the sun on his skin, hearing children singing boisterously from a nearby bottom-house Sunday school…
“IF YUH HAPPY AN YOU KNOW IT STAMP YUH FEET…
“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 scaly feel of it. … He still felt a taint on him—about him—even though he had taken a bath.
And the memory of this horror brought with it the certainty that he had been close to death —that something evil had entered his room this bright Sunday afternoon, bent on stealing his soul. He imagined that if Brenda hadn’t come into the bedroom, he would have been dead. He imagined too, that after the news of his death, many might have said that Vibert Sealey went peacefully in his sleep.
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 … maybe a centipede —maybe a scorpion brought home, accidentally, 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—children in the neighbourhood. That was what had been so scary. Just lying there helpless with someone…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, and that something had tried to steal his soul on this bright Sunday afternoon.
Taken from the Guyanese supernatural novel, KAMARANG by Michael Jordan. Cover design by Harold Bascom.)
KAMARANG IS NOW ON AMAZON.
You can also purchase a copy from Austin’s Book Store, or Gordon’s Copy Centre in New Amsterdam, Berbice.
You can also contact Michael Jordan for an autographed copy on +592 645 2447, or on email address [email protected]

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