GUYANESE HORROR FICTION KAMARANG…SEALEY, THE HUNTER AND THE GIRL

Mar 16, 2020 News

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By Michael Jordan

Sealey first saw the hunter with the crippled leg while they were going to the river next day. The boy was last up, still yawning and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and shivering in the light mist that hung around them. There was still a hint of the girl’s scent on him; but what they noticed most was the mass of scratches on his back.
Jerry Mentore gave a low whistle. “Christ…what you did making love to…a tiger?”
For a moment, Sealey thought he saw a shadow of some indecipherable emotion on Leon’s face. Then the boy smiled, rubbed his eyes, and walked on.
They were heading down a slope leading to the river when, a few yards from them, a shadow broke the mist.
It was a slouching shadow; a squat, hulking, lurching shadow that broke the mist at the bottom of the slope. There was an unnatural width to the stranger’s shoulders, until Sealey realised that the man was fetching something. The stranger paused for a moment, as if scanning his surroundings, then continued towards them.
As the stranger neared, Sealey saw that he was shirtless, wide-shouldered, deep-chested. In the clear air, the rank smell of musk and blood came to them. The man had a wild boar hoisted across his shoulders. A few boys gawked at the hunter from a respectable distance. Sealey estimated the animal’s weight at well over a hundred pounds.
As the man came closer, Sealey saw two other things: There was a deep scar that looked, to Sealey, like an old bullet wound, just off the centre of his chest. The other thing was that the instep of his left leg was turned completely backwards. Looking at his strange limb, Sealey felt a stirring of unease. He wondered if the others felt it too. They had fallen silent since the man had come into view.
Now, only a few yards separated them from the hunter and his burden. As he came closer, the stranger seemed to check his stride before continuing his stumbling walk. Sealey forced himself to transfer his gaze from the hunter’s leg to his burden. The boar’s tusks were at least five inches long. He knew they would be razor-sharp. The hunter had gutted the boar, but he carried no knife that Sealey could see. His hands were encrusted with blood. Splotches of blood were on his chest. His hair was long, dusty-brown, matted. His full, blank face showed no strain from his burden.
As they passed, almost within touching distance, the hunter glanced at Sealey. His eyes, black and tiny, held a mixture of aloofness and hostility that quelled any thought Sealey had of speaking. Sealey half-raised his hand in greeting, but the man just stared through him, heading in the direction from which the men had come.
They walked on in silence for a while, then Leon said: “I know him.”
There was something in the boy’s tone that made them turn to him.
“I see him by the girl last night. He was standing outside when I was leaving. Standing by a tree.”
“Ha, boy, like you got a rival,” Mentore said.
That broke the tension. Jerry Mentore and Bap Reggie erupted into braying laughter.
The image of the girl and the hunter in bed made Sealey smile, but yet he felt a trace of unease that the laughter didn’t quite dispel.
*
He learned a little more about the hunter at the Jaguar’s Den that night. They were sitting at a table close to the bar. Shirleen, high already, sat between Leon and Mentore. One of the force-ripe whores from the previous night had passed out at their table. A few soldiers were huddled in a far corner.
Leon kept glancing to the entrance, and Mentore was about to ask him, for the hundredth time, if his girl was coming, when there was that sudden husshh, and there she was, heading to the bar.
They were close enough to the bar for Sealey to hear the strange lilt in her voice, as she ordered a cider. She took the bottle, turned from the bar, and looked directly at him. It was a quick glance in which their eyes locked. Hers seemed to look deep into his, before he could pull the shutter down on his thoughts. He thought he saw the hint of a smile as she turned away. But then her eyes shifted to Leon. Some silent communication seemed to pass between them. Then, as on the previous night, she headed to one of the tables outside.
Jerry Mentore chucked at Leon, who was staring stupidly at the girl. “You still sitting hay, chap?”
Leon smiled shyly, glanced towards Sealey. Ah—”
Sealey nodded. “Is Okay. You got your blade?”
Leon showed him the old, bone dagger, that he said had belonged to his great-grandfather.
“Just watch yuh back, soldier.”
A feeling of déjà vu came over him as he watched Leon saunter over to the girl. As he drank, he caught the tail-end of Shirleen’s conversation.
“…covetous bitch. She had to rob some man to get all that money!”
“What you taking ‘bout, Shirleen?” Sealey interrupted.
Shirleen turned to him. “She take over the whole of Miss Coreen bottom house.”
“But that is not where Ruth-Ann and Patricia staying?”
“Where Ruth Ann and Patricia was staying,” Shirleen said. “Coreen say that she wake up couple mornings ago and find the place empty. Them two whores clear out without paying the full rent.”
Mentore laughed. The two prostitutes were known for their disappearing acts, especially after fleecing some unfortunate miner.
“So now the girl got both rooms?”
“Both rooms. She staying there with a freaky man with a funny foot. See he chopping up a whole set of firewood this morning.”
“The hunter,” Mentore said.
Again, Sealey felt a stirring of apprehension. He glanced across at the girl’s table in time to see Leon and the prostitute walking away into the darkness. Again, as on the previous night, he felt a need to call the boy back; and again, he didn’t.
*
Sealey awoke around midnight, his skin pebbled by goose bumps. He sensed something different about the night. He lay in his hammock, hand on the long hunting knife in his belt, listening. Faint music…the chirp of insects…the dry pods from the old tree outside rattling in the breeze… the snores of a miner filtering through the thin logie wall … and then he heard it: An alien rustle of sound outside.
Sealey drew the hunting knife from his belt and edged towards the door. Keeping in the dark, he peered outside. Leon sat on an old tree-stump; hugging himself and shivering. His head was bent, his eyes were closed. Sealey was about to call out to the boy when something on the mist-shrouded airstrip behind Leon caught his eye.
The crippled hunter stood on the airstrip; a figure almost swathed in mist. He stood motionless, as if frozen still. He was staring at the boy. Then he began to move towards the logie. He moved with a strange, crablike motion —without a trace of a limp, his head thrust forward, hair streaming behind him, his eyes fixed on Leon. As the man moved closer, Sealey saw that he was naked, except for some dark, loincloth-thing. Sealey stood in the darkness, at first too surprised to move. Then he stepped out of the logie.
“What the hell happening out there?” Sealey challenged.
The hunter stopped. His head swivelled towards the logie. He stared at Sealey. Despite the distance and the gloom, Sealey thought that he could see those blank, yet hostile eyes, that had stared into his the day before. The hunter’s huge shoulders were hunched, and Sealey had the disquieting feeling that the man was about to leap across the distance and attack him. He knew he was tough and fit for his fifty-odd years, but something about this strange man made him feel old and feeble. The hunting knife suddenly felt puny in his hand. He thought of his shotgun, lodged at the police outpost. He thought he caught a hint of a sneer on the man’s face. Sealey felt anger rising in his chest.
To hell with this nonsense. He took a step forward, holding the knife away from his body.
The man stared back at him. The sneer was gone.
They stood glaring at each other, for what seemed like an eternity.
Just as Sealey was thinking that the man would advance, the hunter made a loud, sniffing sound and turned away, contemptuously. He walked across the airstrip, limping now, heading towards the houses where the prostitutes slept.
Sealey breathed out—a long sigh. He fumbled the knife back into its leather sheath. Damn! …he was trembling. He turned again to Leon. The boy still sat on the stump; head bent; oblivious of the drama that had just played out. And now he saw that Leon’s clothes were damp…soaked, in fact. Droplets of water trickled from his head. He went over to the boy… touched him. “What the hell happen to you, chap?”
Leon raised his head. His face had the greyish hue of a man who had been in cold water for a long time. His half-open eyes found Sealey’s. “R-r-river.” The word was a mumble through chattering teeth.
“What?”
“R-r-iver.”
“You went and swim in the river at midnight? With that girl? You crazy?”
The boy didn’t answer. His eyelids drooped and he swayed on the stump.
Midnight swim. With a freaky prostitute. With a jaguar or something out there. Of all the—
Sealey sighed. He’d talk to the boy in the morning. “You better get inside and change.”
Leon tried to rise from the stump, but his legs gave way.
Sealey grabbed him just in time. He caught the scent of cassiri and the girl’s odour. He could feel the boy’s heart thumping madly as Leon leaned on him. “You okay?”
“Tired.” The words were slurred.
“What that hunter-chap was doing here?”
“Following me…home.”
He helped the boy into the logie.
Leon staggered towards a carton and sat, hugging himself.
Sealey bent to the liquor carton near his hammock and removed a bottle of brandy. He passed the bottle to Leon, who was now stripped to his shorts. The boy was half-asleep again, one leg still hooked in his trousers. The flambeau light flickered on an ugly array of love-bites on his chest. Sealey nudged him awake. The boy took the brandy bottle. He sipped, coughed, and put the bottle on the floor. The shot of brandy seemed to revive him somewhat, and he rose, hobbled out of his pants, put on a long-sleeved jersey, staggered into his hammock and was instantly asleep.

(Taken from the supernatural novel Kamarang by Michael Jordan. Book design and illustrations by Harold Bascom.)
The illustrated edition of Kamarang is on sale at Austin’s Book Store, and on Amazon (Kindle and paperback)
The author can also be contacted for autographed copies on +592 645 2447 or by email: [email protected]

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