GUYANESE HORROR FICTION KAMARANG…Her eyes are red, her face as pale as the full moon

May 25, 2020 News

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BY Michael Jordan

HE WAS in bed, staring at the moonlit window, when he saw the face. It came floating up like a full moon rising above the horizon; the face of a red-eyed, ancient woman who was smiling and hungry for him.
She floated further up and he now saw that she was naked; so pale, so translucent that he could see her thin green veins, her ribs, her pulsating heart. One thin hand squeezed an almost non-existent breast before straying down to someplace between her thighs.
She was smiling at him, expecting him to open the window like some fairy-tale prince letting in a secret lover. He saw the desperate hunger in her eyes and, despite himself, he felt a stirring. But yet he wanted to run from that room, because he knew that she would entwine him with those white, veined arms and never, never, never, never let him go. And he knew, somehow, that there was no-one to help him, because his parents were either out, or dead; killed by something while he was asleep.
The woman continued to stare at him, pleading to be let in so she could embrace him forever. Now she pressed herself against the window, her white body sinking in like the belly of a lizard’s against glass.
Mommy…! He screamed in the empty house. Daddieee!
The woman, still smiling, began to caress herself. She paused momentarily to touch the window, staining it with a streak of her slime.
Go away! He whispered to the woman at the window. I can’t let you in!
The woman shifted back from the window, then suddenly lunged forward. She began to pluck and scrape at the window, her fingers moving with the frenzy of a trapped spider.
He awoke just as she was scraping away the putty from one of the window panes. He let out a stifled squeak as he saw, at the window, something that looked like a face…
But it was only the full moon staring back at him.
*
It was on a Friday night in mid-July that Vibert Sealey finally saw the girl. He had returned to the old Ritz Guest House, egged on by the thought that a woman who resembled the girl who’d called herself Carmelita lived there.
On that Friday night, he had stood by the step-rail, talking—rather, listening to a young chap who had bummed an ale out of him, when suddenly, there was an almost imperceptible hushhhh. And there she was, stepping out from the corridor, like a ghost, like someone returning from the dead, and for a moment her eyes had seemed to look into his, and something had seemed to flicker within them; but then she was looking through him as if he didn’t exist, and was, seemingly, floating past him to the bar, where she bought a cider. She then moved towards the punch-box.
She glanced to the corner to her right, which the bar obscured, but where Sealey knew there was a table and benches. Instead of going there, she sat near the punch-box, staring at nothing, just sipping her cider. He watched her like a tongue-tied schoolboy in a party. All the things he’d planned to say and do slipped away like smoke.
Something about her had changed. She was paler, seemed thinner, and yes, she did seem somewhat older, though he wasn’t quite sure what made her appear that way. And these changes made him half-wonder whether the girl who had called herself Carmelita, and the one he looked at, were two different people. Maybe he had made a mistake. That could easily have happened. There were so many young Amerindian women who came from the interior and seemed to fall so easily into prostitution. They turned up at places like the Penthouse and Pakaraima, or you saw them liming outside Demico or near the Dredge Shop; women with a petite, doll-like beauty and an easy sensuality that brought out a stupid hunger in many a man. Christ…he should know….
But could two women look so much alike, that he was drawn back to that logie at Kamarang, with the wasted corpse inside? Could two women arouse such lust and that crawling sense of unease at the same time?
Three things had remained the same. She only seemed to drink Woodpecker cider, and she wore that strange, musky perfume that had hung around him after she had gone to the corner, leaving him with a maddening erection he couldn’t control. The third thing was that she hadn’t tried to pick up anyone. One man had tried to strike up a conversation, but then had moved on. She had just sat by the punch-box, sipping occasionally at her cider.
He had sensed a tenseness in her; a distractedness, as if part of her was somewhere else. She shifted occasionally in her seat. She pressed her thighs together. And when, sometime before midnight, she walked past him, her gait had seemed forced, her forehead beaded with sweat.
He returned the next day, and the next, and she was there also, sitting alone, sometimes out of sight by the side of the bar, always passing him without a trace of recognition. He learned from the talkative young chap that she had only one customer —a fair-complexioned chap in his teens. He wondered, with a mixture of curiosity and unease, who the boy was, and if, or when, he would appear.
*
Michael’s mother was sitting in the chair near the radio. She was engrossed in the drama on Shefton Ridge, and barely glanced at him when he mumbled, “Going out a bit, mommy.” He had skipped downstairs to bathe and now wore a pair of Buffalo jeans, an armless blue jersey and sneakers. He slipped the spare house keys into a pocket; shut the gate behind the dogs. He called out to his teenage neighbours, Gregory and Sean, who were standing on their bridge with a friend. He then caught a car to Stabroek Market. He walked towards High Street, automatically looking for anyone who might know him and wonder at him heading for the notorious area at this time of night.
His pulse quickened as the now familiar street-sights greeted him: a tailor shop with two men bent over sewing machines … the smell of fresh sawdust…the strident Indian music from a brothel, inviting whoremongers all, to come … come. …
He headed further into High Street, struck, as before, by a light-headed sense of unreality, as if the Georgetown that he knew by day was revealing a mysterious, secret face, and half-wondering, as he approached Harel Street, if he’d find that Lucille, and the old brothel, had vanished like a dream.
*
The stevedore was standing by the step-rail when Michael entered the Ritz at around eight-twenty. He grinned, his eyes widened in exaggerated surprise.
“Hay, wha happen, dread?”
Michael nodded coolly, searching the stevedore’s face for any sign of mockery. “The man just humble.”
The stevedore leaned forward to touch one of Michael’s biceps. “You looking fit, man. You lift weights?”
“A little.” His eyes had already scanned the crowd. No sign of Abby, thank God. No sign of Lucille, either. Maybe she was in the corner near the bar, or maybe upstairs…or maybe she was gone…
Trying to stifle his disappointment, he moved to the bar. Desmond was serving a tall, heavy-set man in a Kangol, who Michael felt he’d seen before. The barman looked up, and Michael thought he caught a look of surprise and a hint of consternation on the man’s face, before he broke into a grin.
“Hayy, the youth-man come again!”
Michael ordered a beer, then scanned the crowd as the barman groped in the freezer. There was an extra liveliness about the place tonight. Someone had pressed Cheryl Lyn’s, Got To Be Real. He sensed that some of the customers were already past the stage of being just pleasantly high. He sighed. If only—
A flurry of black hair, a white face, a red dress, and he felt his heart leap from its moorings, felt his legs suddenly weaken as if he’d seen a ghost, a pale, black-haired ghost that was floating past two prostitutes who were peering into the punch-box; slanted black eyes looking past him at something…someone…then locking with his…
The icy touch of something brushing his hand broke the spell. He turned away from the girl and reached for the bottle that the barman had thrust at him. But still he stood at the bar, not fully free from her spell, and now the air was thick with her scent as she floated nearer, and his senses reeled as she brushed his shoulder and headed to the bar.
“Cider…” voice sweet and clear as a steel-pan played on a still night. He watched as the barman returned with the cider. Swirl of black…white…red, and she was floating past the staring customers, past a muscular, red-faced man sitting at a table near the punch-box with two other friends, shifting out of view in the corner—their corner, at the side of the bar. But yet, part of her seemed to remain swirling around him, leaving him numb and light-headed.
He turned to see the barman staring at him. Again, that speculative, almost worried look, followed by a forced smile.
“Well, enjoy yuhself, youth-man,” Desmond said, eyes shifting meaningfully toward the corner where the girl now sat.
Michael shifted away and headed for the punch-box, which seemed a lifetime away; thinking, why do I feel like this has happened before? Then remembering that it had happened before, that first time… He trembled a coin into the punch-box, then peered into the grimy case at the music list.
The typewritten words seemed blurred, meaningless. The nape of his neck tingled as he sensed eyes on him. He selected Marley’s Kaya, and Get Down by Gene Chandler, then tried to look at the girl out of the corner of his eye. She was out of line of his angle of vision. All he was seeing was the empty bench at the opposite side of the table. He realised that his hands were trembling.
He turned, and felt, for the second time that night, as if someone had punched him to the gut. She was turned towards the punch-box, a hand in her thick black hair as she stared at him. The shadow of a smile touched her eyes and her wide mouth.
He felt a tightness in his throat. He felt the prickling of something at his eyes that he knew couldn’t be tears. He stepped towards the table like a swimmer pulled by a tide that he knew would drown him, but not caring; not seeing the grinning, red-faced man sitting a few feet from the punch-box; unaware of the staring, middle-aged man with the Kangol. He stood at the table, again uncertain, but the girl’s smile was one of welcome.
“Stranger,” she said. Her voice a song.
He took a deep breath, then sat next to her. He sensed that something about her had changed. Somehow, she seemed slimmer and paler then he had remembered. Despite her smile, he sensed a tension in her. He hesitated for a moment, then placed a hand on hers.
“Mi-kal…”
Again, he felt a tightness in his throat, a prickling behind his eyes that he knew couldn’t be tears. “Lucille, I want to explain—”
She squeezed his hand. “Mi-kal, it’s alright.”
“Lucille, I didn’t—”
“I know,” she said. Then she leaned forward, and the soft, wide mouth was on his; her arms encircling his neck, one smooth thigh on his.
Suddenly she broke away and cried out softly in his ear. He clung to her, gorging himself on her softness, wondering how he’d been so foolish to stay away from her.
“Mi-kaal.” Again, that pain-wracked cry. “I can’t—I can’t…” He felt her arms tighten around him. A kind of tremor ran through her, and he stifled a cry of surprise as she bit down hard on his shoulder. Holding her, he was suddenly seized with an intense feeling that they were no longer in the brothel, but somewhere else; alone in a place of trees and rivers—a cave?
“Still playing yuh games, Spanish girl?”
The voice nearby, loud, contemptuous, startled him back to reality. Michael turned.
A large-headed, red-faced man was standing near their table. He was staring at them—at Lucille, really—grinning and sneering at the same time.
“Ankoko!” he said. “Near the Venez border! —Yuh still doan remember me?”
Up close, the man looked more intimidating. Someone had cut him badly long ago on the right cheek. He smelt of cigarettes and whiskey.
The girl clutched Michael. He stole a quick glance at her. She was staring at the man, a slight frown suggesting puzzlement, the slanting eyes suggesting disinterest.
The man grinned and rubbed his balding scalp. “I had all me nice, curly hair back then. I was looking at you whole night and saying, “No, Jason Marcus, it can’t be.” Now he shifted the empty bench away from the table and leaned to Lucille. “But I know is you, Spanish girl!”
Despite the music, Michael sensed a perceptible lull in the sounds around him. Even the occasional clinking of glasses seemed to have subsided.
Michael’s hand tightened around his empty ale bottle. This man was hunting trouble. Where was the barman? He wanted to turn around to see if the barman had noticed what was going on, but he didn’t want to take his eyes off the man. Then Lucille spoke:
“Mister, I am not the one you want to make trouble with.” Her voice was soft, seemingly devoid of anger.
The man’s grin wavered. He now seemed uncertain, puzzled, as if something in the girl’s voice had penetrated his drunkenness. But then he grabbed the girl’s hand. The cider bottle on the table crashed to the floor as he pulled her forward.
Michael smashed his bottle into the man’s face. The interloper stumbled backwards, clutching at his nose, and Michael scrambled away from the table, and followed him.
There was a roaring and a heat in his brain that blotted out everything else but the need to inflict pain. Now he smashed the bottle down on the man’s head. Glass flew as the bottle shattered. The man’s legs buckled, but he remained on his feet.
Kill him! —KILL HIM!
Michael dropped the remnants of the bottle, and punched viciously at a spot below the man’s belly. He heard the man emit a grunt of pain, and he knew that there wasn’t any fight left in him, but, like a wound-up, punching machine, Michael was hitting…hitting…hitting…
Someone grabbed him from behind; he tried to scramble free, and then he heard the barman’s voice in his ear saying: “Easy friend, easy…”
But still he tried to break free. The man was now leaning on the table near the punch-box, head lowered as blood streamed from his nose.
The barman shook Michael. “Easy, dread,” and he heard the stevedore say: “Cool yuh head, partner.” Abruptly, the rage faded, and he was trembling and breathing in harsh, ragged spasms. His jersey clung to him, sweat-soaked. His hands hurt. He stared at the faces surrounding him.
The barman relaxed his grip. “Yuh alright, now, youth-man?”
“I…alright.” But he was still trembling.
The barman seemed to hesitate, then released Michael. He watched as Desmond stepped towards the injured man, who was still sitting on the table, with blood dripping onto the floor. A tall, thin man with a receding chin stood near him.
Desmond shook his head as he stared at the bleeding man. “Jason Marcus, I expect better from an old soldier like you, man. Me and you go a long way, and I just turn me back for one minute to take a piss, and you start trouble in my fucking place!”
The injured man remained silent, head lowered.
The tall man with the receding chin pulled a kerchief from his pocket. He pushed it towards his injured friend. “Jason…hay buddy.”
As if in a trance, Jason Marcus swabbed half-heartedly at his bloodied nose, then dropped the kerchief. As if the act had revived him, he raised his head and stared at Michael. He tried to smile; winced instead.
Still staring at Michael he said, through a bloody grin, “Sleep…with one fuckin’ eye …open… youth man. In fact, sleep with—”
The barman stepped closer. “Marcus, you threatening my customer? —Wait! You want to brawl with me now?”
The man with the receding chin laid a pacifying hand on the barman. “Ah right, Desmond, he ain’t mean nothing.” He turned to Marcus. “Leh we get outta here now, squaddie.”
The tall man mumbled an apology to Desmond, then put an arm around his injured friend. Wincing, Jason Marcus forced himself upright and Michael watched the two men hobble towards the stairs. Just before they headed down, Marcus turned to stare at him.
“Ask…Spanish girl…about the…boy… by…the border…”
Then he turned and disappeared down the steps.
*
Vibert Sealey watched as they walked down the corridor. He wanted to shout after the boy, to drag him back, but then the feeling subsided. He headed down the brothel stairs, feeling foolish. All the way home he thought of the girl, who looked, smelled, and acted like the girl from Kamarang: the girl that a drunk ex-soldier thought he’d known in his youth. It made him think of the boy, who he was sure was the same boy he’d passed in Lombard Street about two weeks ago.
He thought of how, on seeing them sitting so intimately, something had seemed to fit together in his mind. He found himself worrying, once again, about the boy. He wanted to return; he regretted he hadn’t called out to him and told him something.
He sucked his teeth angrily. What was he worrying about? Despite his cute looks, the boy could obviously handle himself.
But hadn’t he said the same thing about the other boy, too?
*
The place he was in was blue-lit, and he was dancing; but he knew he wasn’t in a night-club, and there was no music—just a far-off mournful chanting. The chanting filled him with a terrible sadness, but it was mixed with terror, too, and the fear was not from the music. It was because something was dancing with him.
He wanted to push it away so he could see its face, but whatever it was, was fused to him; its arms tight around his neck, its head leaning on his shoulder. Now and then, its tongue slithered into his ear.
Cold…cold…cold…
His own hands were around slim, girlish hips, and he wanted to pull them away, because they were pressing into flesh that felt nauseatingly soft and boneless. He felt something like a woman’s pelvis pressed against him as the thing rocked him to the mournful chanting.
And now, shadowed by the strange, blue light, he saw the others, and wanted to cry with relief. He wasn’t alone. But then he saw that they were like the thing holding him, and that each was dancing alone; hugging themselves.
The thing poked its tongue again in his ear.
“Lemme go,” he begged. “Lemme go.”
The boneless thing laughed in his ear and wriggled against him.
“No,” it said. “No. I want to dance with you.”
Around him, he sensed the others shifting closer. Now he felt cold, boneless bodies pressing him from all sides, while their tongues touched his cheeks, slithered up his neck, pressing even closer, smothering him, smothering his soundless screams…
*
LAURA JONES stared at her son as he headed for the front door. During breakfast, he seemed tired…distracted…thoughtful. She wondered what had made him cry out in his sleep.

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