Editorial: Reboots, Remakes, A.I., and Dolly the Sheep

Earlier this week, the talk around the Screaming Eye Press office was about the reboot, or maybe remake, or possible soft-reboot/sequel to Time Bandits. I assume we have all seen Time Bandits? If you haven’t, you need to watch it. It’s a great movie from director Terry Gilliam. Also, if you haven’t, I would like a detailed story as to how you ended up with this magazine in front of you?

Moving on.

They are remaking Time Bandits. Your first question was probably either, “Fuck! Why?” like two of the fellas down at the office, or “Who is this ‘we’ that is remaking Time Bandits?” I belong in the second camp.

I want to know who is doing it for one reason and one reason alone: civic responsibility. Reboots and remakes are much like human cloning, nuclear weapons, and artificial intelligence. They are all inevitable. The choice is out of our hands.

Now you can make the argument that we can all get together and decide that “there will be no reboots, no remakes, no human cloning, and no artificial intelligence.” While it is highly unlikely we are all going to get together, it could happen. But what about rogue states and bad actors? What about Iran getting a nuclear weapon? What about China using A.I. in economic warfare? What about North Korea making 1 million carbon copy clones of their fearless leader? What about this fucking remake of Time Bandits?

For all of these things, the technology is there. For all of these things, there is some madman that has made a choice. All we can do is exercise civic responsibility. We can’t stop these things. We can only involve ourselves in the hope that the rewards can be reaped and the repercussions can be contained. There are some good names attached. Only time will tell…

Beloved Father

By Susan Elizabeth Gray

On a fateful Halloween night, fuelled by horror movies and teenage bravado, two boys set out to hunt for the grave of Bela Lugosi, the legendary actor who played Dracula.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. But didn’t it always start out that way?

The boys were in Mike’s basement when the germ of the idea first sprouted in their fertile minds.

Mike’s mom wasn’t home, another one of her “girls’ nights out”. She left Mike and Danny with money for a pizza before floating out the door on a sea of perfume, and an ignored admonition to “be good”.

Mike and Danny wasted no time, heading to the corner Minimart where they scooped up enough junk food to keep them going for the night. Back in the basement, a room smelling of Cheese Balls and dirty sneakers, they plopped on the worn plaid couch, put their feet up on the coffee table, and started channel surfing.

Mike’s mom didn’t have cable, only a crappy antenna that got some of the local stations, so the boys’ choices were limited. They settled on “Fright Night”, a broadcast of old horror movies, hosted by one of the weekend news jockeys dressed in various monster costumes, depending on the title of the feature. At each commercial break, the host, sitting in an ornate chair on a set designed to look like a haunted castle, gave details about the movies, and the actors that appeared in them.

Late that October night, the station was showing vampire movies, three in a row, starting with the original “Nosferatu” and Max Shrek creeping across the screen in silent, yet comical, horror. Both boys snorted with derision each time he appeared and threw cheese balls at the television set. Finally, the movie was over and the host appeared.

“Good ev-en-ing,” he said, in a voice that could only be described as broadcast Romanian. “Tonight’s second film is ‘Dracula’, the classic motion picture produced in 1931 and starring the one and only Bela Lugosi as the Count himself. Mwa-hah-hah-hah.”

“This is lame,” Danny said, digging deep into a bag of a bag of barbecue potato chips. “Black and white. Again.”

Mike shook his head. “No way, man. This one’s cool. I saw it before. That dude, Lugosi, is the coolest. I mean, they didn’t even have special effects but they made him look awesome creepy. Like there’s this one scene where he’s just standing there, staring, and all they did was shine two little flashlights on his eyes to make them glow. You’ll see.”

Five minutes later, both boys were silent, the only sound the munching of snacks and an occasional belch. They watched the entire film, unconsciously holding their breath as Dracula fed on Mina and was stalked by Harker and Dr. van Helsing. Finally, when the movie finished, the host came back on the screen, dressed in a black cape with streaks of red dripping from each corner of his mouth.

“Bela Lugosi went on to make many more horror films, but none were as successful as the first. Lugosi died in 1956 of a morphine overdose, right here in the Hollywood Hills. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, in his full Dracula costume, complete with cape and medallion.” The host paused, widening his eyes. “Visit his grave, if you dare. Mwa-hah-hah-hah.”

The screen faded to black, but not before the host’s said, “Next up, ‘The Satanic Rites of Dracula’, starring Christopher Lee.”

Danny leaned back against the couch. “You were right. That was cool.”

He turned the volume down on the remote, then drummed his fingers against the side of the Coke can.

“Hey, isn’t Holy Cross the bone yard near Fox Hills Mall? You know, it looks like a park, but it isn’t?”

Mike nodded. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

Danny’s eyes narrowed, glowing in the flickering light of the television screen, an eerie mimic of what they had just seen.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he said.

“What do you mean?” Mike’s voice was low and cautious.

“We go down there and check it out. See if we can find it.”

“Find what?” Mike said.

“Bela Lugosi’s grave, you moron. I’ll bet it’s really cool. Probably like a mausoleum or some shit like that.”

“I don’t know, man.”

“What are you, a pussy? It’ll be cool,” Danny said, with a hungry grin, in spite of the crumbs of potato chips stuck to his thin lips.

“Let’s go tonight,” Danny said.

“No way,” Mike said. “If my mom comes home and finds us gone, she’ll kill us both.”

Both boys knew that there was a good chance Mike’s Mom wouldn’t come home until dawn, or even later. By then, she’d be lucky to make it to her own bed, let alone check the basement to see if they were there.

Danny brought out the big guns. “Everyone at school will think we are hot shit. We’ll take pictures. Come on, Mikey. Don’t be a wuss.”

Mike pushed down the fear churning in his stomach. Danny did always have the best ideas. What could happen anyway? It would be cool to show everyone at school on Monday.

“Ok,” he said. “Let’s go.”

They crammed a few Snickers bars in their pockets, and Mike grabbed a flashlight from under the kitchen sink. “In case our phone batteries get low,” he said.

The air was cool but not biting as they rode their bikes across town, skirting what little traffic there was on Hollywood Boulevard, swerving to avoid the broken bottles that littered the street. At Sepulveda and Slauson, they cut through the parking lot of Fox Hills Mall, and finally reached the front gate of Holy Cross.

Holy Cross isn’t a cemetery, in the traditional sense of the word, but a “Memorial Park”. There are no above ground tombstones, no marble angels or granite obelisks; just the rolling hillside, landscaped with groups of trees and scattered benches. Each grave was marked by a flat, rectangular marker, the surface just large enough to contain the name of the deceased and the dates of birth and death.

Peering through the scrolled gate, the boys sighed.

“Shit,” Danny said. “It’s fucking huge. How are we going to find him?”

“Find who, boys?”

They jumped and turned around. An old man wearing a flannel shirt and torn jeans, with a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead had suddenly appeared, leaning against the cemetery fence.

“Uh, no one,” Mike answered, trying to keep his voice from trembling.

“Oh, I don’t believe that,” the old man said, his raspy voice sounding like he’d smoked a thousand cigarettes. “Two youngsters like you out on a night like this, so close to Halloween? Seems like you might be up to something.”

“What’s it to you?” Danny said. “None of your business, you old fart.”

The old man chuckled, pointing a gnarled finger at Danny. “You got spunk, boy. He’ll like that.”

Danny ignored him and nudged Mike. “Come on. We can do this. Even if it takes all night.”

“Maybe I can help,” the old man said. “I know this place like the back of my hand. But it’ll cost you.”

Danny eyed him, then looked at Mike. “You still got the change from the store?”

Mike nodded and dug into his pocket, removing two crumpled dollar bills and a handful of coin.

“How much you got?”

“Two bucks,” Mike said. “And some change.”

The old man snorted. “Hah.”

“But this is all we got,” Mike said.

“Yeah, take it or leave it,” Danny said.

The old man pushed back the brim of his cap. His skin looked as thin and yellowed as parchment, and his dark eyes bored into the boys.

“Who are you looking for?” the man said, stretching out a hand, palm up.

“Uh, Bela Lugosi,” Mike answered.

“Dra-cu-la!” The old man cackled, reaching forward to grab the money from Mike’s hand. “The Count himself.”

“Ok,” Danny said. “Now tell us where to find him.”

“I’ll do better than that.” The old man dug into his front pocket and drew out a folded sheet of paper. “Here’s a map.”

Danny reached forward and grabbed it. He knelt down on the sidewalk and spread it open, motioning to Mike to come closer.

They used his cell phone flashlight. The map was crudely drawn, with dark squiggly lines outlining a path through the cemetery, and crooked lettering labelling various sections as “waterfall”, “meadow” and “grotto.”

Finally, Danny pointed to the left-hand corner of the map. “There.”

Mike leaned forward. Just under the word “grotto”, the old man had drawn a crude mound topped by a stick figure wearing a cape and the name “Bela Lugosi”.

“Look,” Danny said, “There’s an entrance around the corner where the path starts. Is that the one we should use?”

He lifted his head, but the old man was gone. “Did you hear him leave?” he asked Mike.

Mike shook his head.

“Well, the old bastard had better be right or I’ll come back and get our money,” Danny said.

The boys wheeled their bikes around the corner, and half-way up the next block. The iron fence was lower on this side of the cemetery, and there was a small gate with a rusted latch.

“This is it,” Danny said. The gate stuck, but they pulled it open just enough to squeeze through.

“Leave the bikes here,” he said. “C’mon, Mike. Let’s go, man.”

“I don’t know.” Mike shook his head, his eyes flickering from the fence to his body.

Danny stuck his hand through the opening. “C’mon, I’ll pull you through.”

“Get your paws off me, you homo,” Mike said, slapping the other boy’s fingers. He looked again at the fence, then took a deep breath. In spite of the warmth of the air, the iron felt cold against his cheeks as he wedged himself in the gap.

“Man, this is tight,” he said, belt buckle scraping against the bars. With a grunt, he popped through the opening, struggling to right himself.

Danny grinned, his thin face fox-like, a shock of hair dipping over his forehead. “We’re here, man. We’re in.”

Mike brushed off the front of his jeans, flakes of brown rust floating to the ground. He smiled too, his round face breaking into a pumpkin grin.

“Let’s go.”

Danny kept his cell phone flashlight on as they followed the path marked on the map. Mike was careful not to step on any of the flat gravestones, but not Danny. He jumped from stone to stone, calling out the names as he landed with both feet on each granite slab.

“Rita Hayworth,” he said. “Harold Arlen.”

Mike kept quiet, remembering his grandfather’s funeral last year, and how he couldn’t sleep at night, wondering about his grandfather’s body, mouldering in the ground. Was he just bones by now? Did his eyes sink back into the skull, or would they be open, the eyelids rotted away? Would he stink of decay, his flesh blackening, still in the ground, waiting …

Mike stopped short, to avoid running into Danny, who had stopped still.

“Here it is,” he said. “That old man wasn’t full of shit after all.”

Danny shined the phone down. A plain gray stone, the name Bela Lugosi carved in block letters under a scrolled inscription, “Beloved Father”, and two dates – December 13, 1886, and August 16, 1956. A cross with flowers was etched on the left side.

“That’s it?” Danny said. “That’s fucking it?

Mike shrugged and ruffled the grass with the tip of his sneaker. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said.

“Man,” Danny said, punctuating the word with a wad of spit that landed on the grave marker. “You’d think there’d be something more, wouldn’t ya? I mean, the guy was fucking Count Dracula! And to be buried under this pussy stone with a cross on it! Fuck me.”

Mike cleared his throat. He hated it when Danny got mad, always afraid he’d somehow be blamed for the bad feelings and that Danny would ditch him. “But he got buried in his costume. That’s cool, isn’t it?”

Danny turned slowly back to face him. “Yeah,” he said, drawing the word out into several syllables. “In his costume. Cape and all.”

Mike could almost see the thoughts forming in Danny’s head, like hamsters turning wheels and running through the plastic tubes of a Habitrail. When Danny got on a roll, everybody had better run for cover. Like that time in the lunchroom, when the senior jocks were mocking out the freshman geeks. Danny saw how they loaded up on the carbs at the steam table, piling mounds of mashed potatoes on the chipped China plates. Somehow, he’d finagled his way into the cafeteria, and slipped a pound of powdered laxative into one of the boxes of instant mashed potatoes still on the shelf. It was weeks later when Danny’s special recipe hit the cafeteria. Other kids were struck down with the trots too, but it was worth it to see the look on the jocks’ faces as they clutched their gut and ran for the bathroom, elbowing each other to make into the nearest stall before they shit their pants.

“I have an idea. An awesome idea.” Danny’s eyes gleamed. “An un-fucking believable idea.”

“What?” Mike said, a mixture of excitement and dread lacing his voice.

“We dig it up.”

“Dig what up?” Mike struggled to keep a squeak out of his voice.

“Him, you moron. And get the cape. And the rest of it. Remember that cool medallion?” Danny said. “With the jewel in the center?”

“E-bay,” Danny said. “E-fucking-bay.”

Mike looked blank.

“We can sell it, Mikey boy. On the internet. There’s all sorts of celebrity shit out there. You know, like Cobain’s diaries, and that dude Elvis’ boogers. We dig him up, take the cape and medallion, take some pictures, and bam – the big bucks.”

“But it’s a dead body!” Mike said.

“Come on, Mikey. It’s been so long he’s got to be just bones by now.”

Mike’s pulse started to race. Dig up a dead body? Like his grandfather’s?

“But we don’t sell it before we show it off,” Danny said. “At school.”

Mike ignored the queasiness beginning to rise in his throat, imagining the coolness that would be bestowed on him, digging up Count Dracula and taking his cape. It would be the stuff of middle school legend, never to be forgotten. It occurred to him that the decision had already been made, that his own hamsters, admittedly slower and less active than Danny’s, had been turning in their invisible wheels inside his own head. They’d do it; it was settled.

“There’s got to be a shed or something around here, somewhere with shovels. Wait,” Danny said. “Right there.” He pointed to a storage shed behind the Grotto, where the statue of the Blessed Mother stretched out her arms. A simple padlock secured the doors, made of thin metal that was easy to pick with the blade of Danny’s pocketknife. Inside, they found shovels, as well as an old pick that they dragged to the grave.

“Here we go!” Danny held the phone under his chin and grinned. “Good even-ning, Mr. Lugosi,” he said.

Mike tried to smile, and felt the contents of his stomach shift, churning the cheese balls and Mountain Dew he’d had into an oily, gelatinous mass. Swallowing hard, he thought, that’s all I need, to blow chunks all over Danny.

“Ready,” he said, wiping sweaty palms against his pants.

It was much more difficult than they thought. The first few inches were easy – the soil was moist from recent watering. But after they’d dug about four inches, it became harder, like thick clay. They had to thrust down with the point of each shovel, after chopping at the soil with the pick until it loosened enough to scoop out. Before long, both boys were drenched in sweat, and Mike had forgotten about the churning mass in his stomach, focusing instead on his aching muscles.

“How much longer?” he panted, wiping the hair back from his forehead, leaving a smear of dirt. He leaned on the shovel, examining the palm of his right hand. Red, pus-filled bumps blistered from the base of each finger.

“Shit,” he muttered.

Danny was still digging, tossing hard clumps of dirt over his shoulder. “I don’t know, not much,” he said without breaking stride.

He’s a machine, Mike thought. Wants to find the prize. Earlier, they’d tried to figure out how long they’d have to dig. Danny looked it up on the Internet, and found a couple of sites that said three to four hours, max. Some sites even mentioned that older graves were less than six feet deep, closer to four, and Mike sincerely hoped this was one of them.

But they’d been digging for two hours already, and it seemed like they’d hardly started. He knew better than to try to talk Danny into stopping. Besides, the thought of being called chicken brought a new surge of bile to his throat. Mike picked up the shovel, ignoring the burning blisters on his palms.

It was close to 4:00 a.m. when Danny’s shovel hit something solid, and he grinned.

“You hit a rock,” Mike said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice.

“No, I didn’t!” Danny’s face was bathed in sweat, and streaks of dirt lined his face. He shined the phone down into the grave. “Pay dirt, Mikey boy.”

A patch smooth gray metal reflected in the flashlight’s beam. Danny tossed his shovel down and jumped, his feet thudding against the metal coffin.

Mike cleared his throat, conscious once more of the taste of bile in his mouth. “Maybe we should …”

His words were cut short by a hollow groan that rose beneath Danny’s feet. The boys scrambled out of the grave, clawing at the sides to pull himself up onto the grass.

The groan stopped, replaced by a creaking noise that slowly faded.

“What the hell was that?” Mike squeaked.

“Maybe been the coffin,” Danny answered in a slight quaver. “Probably rotted out on the bottom.”

Mike nodded, afraid to trust his voice not to break.

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” he thought. That was another old saying of his grandfather’s, though what it actually meant Mike was never sure. His grandfather again. Lying under the ground, in a coffin. Just like this one. He shook his head. That’s not what I want to be thinking about right now, he almost muttered out loud.

“We gotta dig around the sides,” Danny said. “To get the lid open.”

“The medallion,” Danny said. “And the cape.”

In for a penny, in for a pound.

Adrenalin burned deep within Mike’s belly. There’d be only bones, right? Just bones. He thought about the stories they would tell, a crowd of eager faces surrounding them in the school cafeteria, the pats on the back, the fake punches in the arm as the jocks jostled by him in the hallway, a sign they thought he was cool. He saw his reputation become rock-solid. The kid who dug up a grave. The kid who stole the cape. The kid who saw Dracula and lived to tell about it.

Both boys slid wordlessly into the open grave. They each had a shovel, easing the edge between the sides of the coffin and the dirt.

“Just a few inches,” Danny said. “Just enough to pry it open.”

Danny’s phone was propped on top of the grave, against a small rock, illuminating downward. His hair, plastered with sweat, stuck up in clumps. Even in the dim light, Mike noticed Danny’s red lips, and how he kept licking them in between each shovel of dirt.

“Okay,” he said, and knelt on the coffin lid, his fingers scrabbling in the thin wedge between the sides. “There’s a latch,” Danny grunted. “I can’t get it. Too slippery.”

He sat back and held his hands up to Mike. The palms were streaked with blood and the fingers were ragged. Some of Danny’s nails were torn off, and pus oozed from each fingertip.

“You try it,” he said.

Danny pulled himself out of the grave, and Mike slid forward. He slid his hands down into the slim opening. The latch felt like one of those on an old trunk – a metal loop over a tongue. He pulled, grunting at the resistance of what he was sure must be rusted metal and winced as he felt one of his fingernails rip off.

“Got it,” he said, pushing himself back.

Danny was peering at the surface of the coffin. He reached up and grabbed the phone.

“Look.”

Mike saw a dark line, a groove in the surface.

“It’s in two pieces. The lid. We only have to unlatch one half.”

Oh my God. What if it’s not the front? Mike thought. What if they put him in backwards and all we see is the feet? He stifled a laugh that ended up sounding more like a hiccup and said, “Okay. What next?”

“Move back,” Danny said. “And open it.”

Mike knelt on the lower end of the coffin, Danny perched behind him. He slid both hands into the narrow opening, his fingers finding the edge of the coffin. He pulled, and with surprisingly little noise, the lid opened.

Mike felt the blood rush to his head as a dusty smell, dried flowers and sweet chemicals, filled his nose. It was oddly pleasant, like his grandmother’s parlor on Sunday afternoons when the sunlight came in through the front window and made the dust sparkle like glitter. Yes, glitter, all shiny and slow and moving in those patterns that made you just want to lie down on the rug and take a nap, just lay back and …

“What’s he look like? All bones?” Danny’s voice broke through the veil of Mike’s thoughts. He shook his head and it seemed like little cobwebs of light broke apart before his eyes and he remembered, finally, where he was.

“Come on, tell me!”

Mike shined the phone’s flashlight into the coffin. The yellow beam at first seemed to be swallowed up by darkness, but then focused on a shock of dark hair combed back from a pale forehead, a widow’s peak still visible. He saw the high collar of a dark cloak, the black lapels of a tuxedo.

Mike focused the light on the corpse’s face. The eyes were closed and sunken, the facial skin was still intact, stretched taut against the high cheekbones, over the aquiline nose, dimpled in the cleft of the chin.

“He’s green, man!” Danny’s voice held equal parts of glee and disgust.

Mike bent forward. Danny was right, the skin was a pale green, with black tracings of mold forming spider webs over the surface. The lips were green too, dark lines around the edges. All at once, the scent of spoiled garbage, of lettuce left too long in the vegetable drawer or bologna left overnight on the kitchen counter wafted up in the darkness, but it was just a whiff and then it was gone.

“Is it there?” Danny said. “The cape? The medallion?”

Mike shined the light lower. Beneath a still crisply tied white bowtie lay a red sash that came to a “vee” in the center of the chest, where it was tied to a gold medallion shaped in a six-pointed star, with a dark jewel in the center. The gemstone appeared black, absorbing the beam of the flashlight, not reflecting it. It was like an eye, the eye of a corpse, the eyes of this corpse underneath the thin, green lids. Looking at him. Absorbing him. And reflecting nothing back.

“Well?” Danny’s voice broke through Mike’s trance. “Is it there? The cape too?”

Mike moved the light to the side. The cape was draped around his torso, its red silk lining just visible. A few inches below the medallion, the corpse’s hands were folded, one on top of the other, the green fingers tipped in black. Mike imagined those fingers reaching out, stroking his cheeks. Leaving traces of decay everywhere he touched.

“Yes,” he said, voice cracking. “Both. Here.”

“Fucking awesome!” Small clods of dirt fell into the grave as Danny jumped up and down.

“Stop that!” Mike said. “It’ll cave in!”

“Sorry.” Danny kneeled on the edge, peering over the side. “So take them both and let’s get out of here.”

Mike hesitated. “I don’t want to touch him.”

“I always knew you were a pussy,” Danny jeered.

Mike knelt back, away from the open part of the coffin. If he wimped out now, Danny would never let him forget it. Fuck, he’d never let anyone forget it. Mike would be known as Pussy Man for the rest of his life. He’d might as well crawl in the coffin right now and let Danny fill it with dirt.

“Okay, okay,” he said, tightening his lips. “I’ll do it.”

Mike leaned forward and slid his fingers underneath the bowtie. He tugged on the red sash, the silk ribbon warm to his touch, almost liquid in its softness.

“It won’t come loose,” he said, hearing the rising panic in his voice.

“Just yank it free, you asshole!”

Mike tugged again, harder this time, until he felt the silk tear into shreds beneath his fingers.

“Here,” he said, tossing the medallion up to Danny.

“Now the cape. Lift up his head and untie it.”

Mike swallowed, a dry, gritty swallow filled with the dust of centuries. He didn’t think he could do it. Touch the body. Put his fingers around that cold, dead neck. What if the head snapped clean off? What if his mouth opened, showing those fangs?

“What are you waiting for?” Danny’s voice taunted over the side of the grave.

Mike shook his head. Get a hold of yourself, he thought. This guy’s been dead for years. Nothing left but bones. Bones and dry flesh. No life left here.

He leaned forward, straddling the edges of the coffin.

All at once, in the time it took for Mike’s pounding heart to skip a beat, the corpse opened both eyes.

With a strangled cry, Mike scrambled to the closed end of the coffin. He closed his eyes and pressed back against the damp earth of the grave’s far wall.

“What?” Danny said, “What happened?”

Mike heard the creak of bones moving, and an ancient sound, a horrible sound, the sound of dry flesh unfolding, and the coffin shifted underneath his weight. “I won’t look.” The thought was a refrain inside his skull. “If I look, then it will be real. I won’t look.”

A rush of wind passed over him, as someone, something, took flight, then abruptly left.

“A boy.”

The voice drifting over the side of the grave was a growl, rough with the edges of accent and lack of use. The hair on the back of Mike’s neck stood up, and he felt his balls tighten.

“A lovely, live boy.”

Then, a muffled cry, and Mike winced as he heard the cracking of what sounded like small bones.

“A good boy,” the voice now purred, a dark, liquid sound.

Mike took a sharp breath as a bolt of reason shot through his brain. One boy would not be enough. The message in his head changed, pumping the same thought over and over. “Get out. Now. Go. Before he says, ‘two boys’.”

Mike’s fingers dug into the side of the grave as he pulled, then hefted himself up over the side and crawled onto the grass. The barest coating of dew made the grass wet and slick beneath his knees. Behind him, the crunching had stopped, replaced by the sound of breathing, liquid breathing, no, not breathing — the sound of drinking. Mike felt his stomach lurch and he vomited a thin orange stream onto the grass. If only he could get up. Get up and run and never look back not now, not ever.

“Wait,” a voice behind commanded. “Turn around. Look at me.”

Trembling, Mike rose to his feet, the voice echoing impossibly in his bones.

“Do not be afraid.” The voice became softer, a velvet tone. “You have done me a great service, and you shall be rewarded.”

The cold touch of a finger underneath his chin shot through his body, and he was unable to stop the trickle of urine that bled down his pant leg.

“Look at me. Look!”

Mike lifted his eye and his head snapped back. The creature before him was resplendent in a black cape, white tie and tails. The face was no longer green but white, the white of a full moon against a dark summer sky, a face that glowed with an eerie light all its own. The eyes were black, a pinprick of red at the center. The medallion was back around his neck, the silk ribbon no longer tattered but full and lush.

“You see,” the creature said, smiling, the lips pulling back showing, fangs, real fangs, Mike thought. Tipped in red. Tipped in blood. Danny’s blood. “I am back.”

For the barest second, Mike tried to pull his gaze away from those eyes, now glowing red. But before he could, the fear and resistance in him began to flow away, ebbing in an impossible tide that would never again come in to shore. The red glow deepened, pulling Mike along, pulling him under, and the voice inside urging him to look away was first muffled, then silenced.

“You are the strong one,” he said, stroking the side of Mike’s cheek with a long, curved fingernail. “Not weak, like the other.”

Mike looked over at Danny’s crumpled body lying by the side of the grave. His limbs were twisted, snapped like twigs, and his eyes were open in a bloodless stare.

“Strong, with rich blood.” The fingernail traced down from Mike’s cheek to his throat, the pulse throbbing in his neck.

“But that will come later,” he said, withdrawing the pale hand. “First, you will become my friend. My eyes in the daylight, my protector while I sleep.

“And I will be yours,” he continued. “No one will call you names anymore. Call you weak, or scared. Your enemies will be my enemies, your foes, my foes. We will wage war, and I will feed on the blood of those who taunt you.”

Mike blinked, his eyes suddenly filled with visions of everyone who had ever wronged him, from Mr. Fyfe the gym teacher, to the snickering gaggle of teenage girls who laughed every time he walked by. He even thought of his mother, and how she left him to fend for himself while she went out in search of Mr. Right. Maybe Mr. Right was here in front of him. Mr. Right could end his mother’s suffering. End his own suffering.

A downward pull, a dizzying descent into a well, spun into a vortex.

Somewhere, in the deep recesses of what was left of his rational mind, a thin voice spoke. “Run,” it said, the word lost in the sound of his own blood rushing through his veins.

“Come.”

That word sounded clear, though it was not uttered aloud by the being that stood before him.

“Come.” Mike leaned into the silken folds of the cape that now surrounded him.

“We shall enjoy this feast together, my young one.”

And as they left, passing through the cemetery gates, Mike heard the creature speak once again, the sentence drifting out onto the pre-dawn air, out and down to be heard by an old man, hunched by the cemetery gates. “Thank you, Renfield.”

Gregg Allman: My Memorable First Interview By Eric Senich

One of the benefits of being a rock and roll DJ is talking to people you’d never get a chance to otherwise, like the great Gregg Allman, who was my first big time “rock star” interview.

In the summer of 2002, I was doing the night shift at a rock station in Connecticut – 95.1 FM WRKI. I had been there for a few years but missed out on interviewing musicians coming through the area since, most of the time, they appeared on either the morning or afternoon drive show when most listeners were tuning in. When the summertime came around, however, I got to fill in for the afternoon jock. This particular summer, I landed one of those interviews and, man, I couldn’t have asked for more. 

To be honest, when I found out I was going to interview Gregg Allman, I was both excited and frightened. As a huge Allman Bros. Band fan, I was charged up but I was also a bit concerned. I remember hearing from fellow jocks that Gregg could be ornery, difficult, quiet, and moody when doing interviews.

When the day came for the interview, I was prepared. I had my questions. I was ready but I also couldn’t shake off the fear that this interview would go down like the Hindenburg based on everything I’d heard. The big, red phone studio light started blinking. This is it. It’s showtime. My hand clammy and slightly shaky as I reach over to press the button to answer the phone. There goes the click of the phone connecting, it’s Gregg’s manager on the other line. He introduces himself; I introduce myself. I asked his manager if Gregg was cool with questions about his brother Duane. He told me that was OK as long as I didn’t get too personal. I assured him I wouldn’t. “OK. I’m gonna hand the phone over to Gregg,” he said. There’s a pause. I hear the phone get handed over to Gregg. Here we go…

Over the studio speakers I hear a voice with a slow and cool Southern growl: “Hello!” 

“Hey Gregg! This is Eric. It’s great to meet you,” I nervously responded.

“Eric! Great to meet you too,” he said.

Then came my unprofessional fanboy comment: “I can’t believe I’m talkin’ to you right now.”

Now I screwed it up, I thought. Why did you just say that?! What an idiot! Think Chris Farley talking to Paul McCartney on SNL.

There was a pause… then Gregg responded with a Southern drawl: “Well, why’s that?”

I respond: “…’cuz you’re Gregg Allman man!”

Gregg let out a big belly laugh. And with that, the tension had lifted. From that point on, I felt like I was chatting with a regular dude. A regular dude who happened to have one of the greatest voices in rock history, who wrote some of the most iconic songs in rock history, who…well, you get the picture. Let’s get to the interview.

**Eric Senich**: On the phone with us right now, a very special guest, Gregg Allman. Gregg, can you hear us?

**Gregg Allman**: Just fine, Eric.

**Eric**: Gregg, what’s going on, man?

**Gregg**: Oh, we’re in New Hampshire right now. We played last night, and then we play in Boston tomorrow.

**Eric**: And then you’re ready to rock in Hartford?

**Gregg**: Yeah.

**Eric**: I’ve been to see you guys for the last five, maybe six years in a row now at the Meadows. Every show is different visually and song-wise. What can we look forward to hearing and seeing on Sunday?

**Gregg**: I don’t know the last time we were there. I think we had a real good one. We’ll be playing some new songs off the record that haven’t been released yet, and we’ll be doing some of the old, some new, and probably with a hell of a lot more energy than last year. But yeah, definitely more than the year before.

**Eric**: Nice. Warren Haynes with you guys again on guitar?

**Gregg**: Yeah, and he’s smokin’.

**Eric**: Great reviews just coming in on his play as usual. Your thoughts on him and his contribution to the band?

**Gregg**: Oh yeah, he’s really a lifesaver, I tell you.

**Eric**: I hear he’s got a lot to do with the new CD.

**Gregg**: Yeah, he co-produced it, and it’s really good. The whole vibe was there, you know? It was a real good vibe. We did it in record time. Of course, we’d been learning the songs on the road and we all pretty well knew them. We got, I think, two first takes, but we only used one of them. But it’s a real good record.

**Eric**: I can’t wait to hear it. It’s not finished yet, but almost. You said it’ll be out in early 2003?

**Gregg**: Oh yeah.

**Eric**: Beautiful. Allman Brothers fans are loyal, man. We want to hear some stuff. Alright, and we look forward to it. Will we hear a lot of the songs from the CD Sunday night or just a few?

**Gregg**: You’ll probably hear four of them, that’s for sure.

**Eric**: Nice.

**Eric**: We’re talking with Gregg Allman here on the Home of Rock and Roll, I 95. CTnow.com Meadows Music Center, Hartford, Sunday night. Tickets are still available, so go out and get those tickets. You won’t regret it when you go see an Allman Brothers Band show.

**Gregg**: That’s right.

**Eric**: If you had to pick one Allman Brothers Band song you love to play live, what would it be?

**Gregg**: “Whipping Post,” sometimes.

**Eric**: Yeah? So, we will hear that Sunday?

**Gregg**: Probably so.

**Eric**: Beautiful. We make up the sets daily and we never play the same set twice, so we’ll just see what rolls around on Sunday. But I’ll keep that in mind.

**Eric**: Yeah, yeah. That’s a request from I 95.

**Eric**: I also hear you guys have formed your own label, is that true?

**Gregg**: Well, not really. I don’t know. That’s hard to answer.

**Eric**: Yeah, it sounds like a complex one.

**Gregg**: Yeah, we’ve formed our own record company. I don’t know about the label part of it.

**Eric**: Right, right. Because I know my brother’s a huge fan as well, and I was just talking to him off the air about how he got something in the mail from the official website. You’ve got some news, some releases of old concerts coming out?

**Gregg**: Oh yeah, very soon.

**Eric**: That got me thinking, I wonder what’s going on with the label. But it doesn’t matter to us, man, as long as you get it to us.

**Gregg**: Right, we don’t care.

**Eric**: To this day, your brother Duane’s work is just talked about endlessly. He’s considered one of the greatest musicians in rock-and-roll. That’s got to be nice to know he’s still remembered as much as he is after all these years.

**Gregg**: Well, it is. It really is. There’s not a day goes by I don’t think of him. He had a very original way of playing and a real neat touch. For the short time that he had in the limelight, he left quite a legacy.

**Eric**: What’s the one thing that you took from him that you still take out there on stage every night? The biggest thing, I should say, because I’m sure there’s a lot.

**Gregg**: I go out there like it’s my last one. You never know.

**Eric**: Yeah.

**Gregg**: I think about that just about every night.

**Eric**: We’re talking with Gregg Allman here. Allman Brothers Band at the CTnow.com Meadows Music Center Sunday night. Tickets are still available. Here’s something I’ve always wondered about the “Brothers and Sisters” album. Who is that kid on the cover?

**Gregg**: Butch’s son.

**Eric**: Okay, that’s what somebody had said once. That’s Butch’s son. But that’s interesting because I don’t think it says it anywhere on the album.

**Gregg**: I don’t know if it does on the big ones.

**Eric**: Some of the hardcore fans, we think about that stuff. The fans need to know everything.

**Gregg**: Yeah, man.

**Eric**: Gregg, we thank you for taking a few minutes out of your time. We can’t wait for Sunday night. What would you like to say to anybody who is on the fence right now thinking about getting tickets to that show?

**Gregg**: Come on over, man. We’re there. We’re loaded for bear. You’ll get your money’s worth.

**Eric**: Well, I’m looking forward to it, Gregg. Thanks for your time.

**Gregg**: Okay.

**Eric**: Alright, you have a good one. **Eric**: Gregg Allman from the Allman Brothers Band. CTnow.com Meadows Music Center, Hartford, Sunday night. Go out and get those tickets. Here’s “Whipping Post” on the Home of Rock and Roll, I 95.

Dear Mr. McGreely

By Mark Slade

A high school principal's life spirals into chaos as he receives increasingly menacing letters exposing his illicit affair and other dark secrets. As the threats escalate, McGreely's paranoia deepens, culminating in a nightmarish confrontation.

Monday, April 3rd.

Dear Mr. McGreely,

You have been watched. Fail to comply and suffer the consequences!

I know what you and Emma Kostner are up to in your office late at night. I’m sure Mrs. McGreely would not be pleased to know such details. If you do not stop this awful act against God and his children, I will be forced to do something about it. Beware of the black cloak wielding a scythe!

McGreely blinked. He tossed the neatly typed piece of paper on his desk and leaned back.

“No one knows any of this,” he frowned

“What act against God am I committing?”

He swirled his big black leather chair toward the window. The blinds were up and he could see the football field from his office. He watched Ms. Carter lead  her gym class in exercises. Jumping jacks. He smiled. He always enjoyed watching Ms. Carter in her tight gym shirt and very short shorts. Long legged and beautiful straw hair in a long ponytail.

“It’s hard being Principal of a high school.”

The blinds came down and Emma stood in front of him, arms folded, scowling.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to prevent the head of the school board from seeing what you were up to,” Emma said scornfully. “We’ll discuss this later,” she whispered before adding, “Mrs. Collins is here to see you Mr. McGreely.”

“About what?”

“The Janitor situation.”

“As in….?”

“You have no Janitors to clean the school.”

“Ah. That situation.”

Wednesday, April 11th

Dear Mr. McGreely,

You have been watched. Fail to comply and suffer the consequences.

I have warned you about your affair with that salacious slut! You disgusting man! Filling her with your demonic seed! Such an awful crime against God and his children! If you do not end your sexual encounters with Emma Kostner, I will be forced to stop it myself! Beware of  the black cloak wielding a scythe!

Florence was in her study when McGreely came home. She was looking over photos of property her company had offered up for sale to the rich and powerful Rochester family. Rochester’s daughter was remarrying and as a present he wished to gift her another home,  her third over five years.

Her eyes rose from the photos when she heard the soft patter of his loafers in the hallway.

“Lester?”

She called out.

He took a moment before answering.

“Yes, Florence?”

“Come in here, please.”

Slowly, McGreely went inside his wife’s study, shoulders slumped, gazing at his feet, guilty of whatever she thought he was guilty of.

“Where have you been?”

“Just working late. That’s all,” he said sluggishly.

“At the school?”

“Yes,” he avoided her glare.

“Hmm.”

“I have, dear,” his voice begging for forgiveness. “I swear.”

“I’m not concerned where you’ve been, exactly,” she paused for dramatic effect. “Or…who you have been with.”

McGreely showed his confusion. “Really?”

“The other matter I wish to discuss with you.”

He stood, and said defiantly. “No, Florence! We will not discuss it!”

McGreely walked out of the room.

Tuesday, April 24th

Dear Mr. McGreely,

You have been watched. Fail to comply and suffer the consequences.

You choose to ignore my warnings of your outlandish behavior with Emma Kostner. So, I am going to have to take drastic measures. Blood will rain down upon you. Heads will roll. The stench of death will fill your senses. I see you. I see everything you do. I hear your thoughts, I hear your voices entangled in long sighs.

you and that dirty slut will meet with a horrible end! I guarantee a blood bath!

Beware of the black cloak wielding a scythe!

Emma stormed into McGreely’s office. He quickly put away the pornographic  photos of Emma displayed on a bed of red sheets, her bound and gagged, McGreely standing over her, holding a whip. He shoved the glossy photos into a drawer of his desk next to .38.

Emma leaned against the door. Her face was drained of her natural happiness.

“There are two police officers here to see you,” she said in a careful, controlled voice nuanced with anxiety.

“What do they want?” McGreely asked. He knew what they wanted. Questions to be answered. Questions about school funds. Money he’d already wired to a bank in the Cayman Islands. Money missing from a fundraiser to keep certain books out his school library. Money to purchase books he deemed morally proficient to shape  his students minds and souls.

“I don’t know what they want,” Emma said. “They just said they want to speak to you.”

McGreely cleared his throat, opened the desk drawer, and placed a hand on the butt of his .38.

He smiled faintly.

“Well, you better show them in, Miss Kostner.”

She ushered in two men in suits. They smiled, shook McGreely’s hand, and introduced themselves as Detectives with the county police. They sensed McGreely’s nervousness. They exchanged uneasy glances. The smiles vanished. McGreely asked them to sit and they did so, straightening their clothes.

McGreely took hold of his .38, still concealing the gun and his hand by keeping them inside the drawer. He fingered the trigger.

After a while, one of the Detectives finally got the point.

“Someone reported an attempted break in last night at the school.”

Friday, May 3rd

Dear Mr. McGreely,

You have been watched. Fail to comply and suffer the consequences.

You and Emma Kostner still carry on with the abominations and  disgusting proclivities that salt the eyes of God!

The time has come. No more warnings. The streets will be stained with the blood of you and your slut! The die has been cast and the snake eyes of death are upon you! Heads will roll!

Beware of the black cloak wielding a scythe!

“Oh! These letters are terrible, Lester!” Emma said. She threw the papers to the floorboard of  McGreely’s Volkswagen. She placed her breasts back into her brassiere and started to button her blouse. McGreely pushed her hand away and rolled the palm over each nipple several times. Emma sighed

The windows were steamed up and only a glint of moonlight peered through a small crack in the windshield. They were parked at the playground behind North Fairlane high, just to the right of the football field. A cluster of elm trees concealed the car, therefore no eyes to witness their lovemaking.

“There are more,” McGreely said slowly. “I chose these  because they are they frighten me”

“Oh my God,” Emma said. “ Are these letters real, Lester?”

“Of course they are, Emma. I wouldn’t show them to you if I thought they were fake.”

“I know, darling,” Emma said, straightening her skirt and buttoning up her blouse. She was not a bad looking woman by any means. Though her age had caught up with her, she still had a shape that got noticed, especially construction workers who had no choice but to whistle and holler inappropriate come-ons.

She sighed heavily before continuing. “But maybe someone at the school has a sick sense of humor?”

“This is not a prank,” McGreely could feel himself warming up. Sweat formed under his collar and a river ran down thick, fat neck. Anger was causing his voice to rise and become shrill.

“Oh Lester,” she touched his knee. “I didn’t mean to suggest that it was,” she cooed

“I’m sorry,” he chuckled cheerily. “I haven’t had a wink of sleep since this whole debacle started “

“When did you start receiving the letters?”

“Last month. It’s been horrible.”

“You poor dear. Do you have an idea who’s threatening us?”

“Plenty,” McGreely said incredulously.

“You don’t think its Florence, do you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” McGreely said. “Florence is not that kind of person.”

“Of course not,” Emma apologized. “I’m sure she isn’t. But…one wonders…”

“No,” McGreely shook his head. “One does not wonder, Emma. They gather cold hard facts.”

“Yes,” Emma dressed awkwardly. “One does. Oh.” She had a thought.

“Yes?”

“My neighbor,” she said worriedly.

“Mr. Guernsey?”

“Mmm. One morning he was in his yard checking the length of his lawn when you left.”

“When was this?”

“Oh, I believe it was several months ago.”

“When were you going to tell me this, Emma?”

“I’m sorry, Lester,” she slipped into her shoes with much difficulty because of the size of McGreely’s Volkswagen. “I didn’t think of it until now—”

There was a loud bang and the windshield suddenly cracked. Emma screamed when she saw a figure in a black cloak standing in front of the Volkswagen, the scythe raised high in the air, poised to strike again. McGreely squealed, opened his door and ran like a mad man waving his arms, screaming;

“They’re after me! They’re after me!”

The cloaked figure drove the Scythe into the windshield again. Glass shattered. The shards sprinkled the inside of the car and littered Emma’s body. Thankfully she had the sense to turn her head so the shards wouldn’t be embedded in her face and eyes.

The cloaked figure noticed McGreely running away, and decided it would chase him, leaving Emma by herself to confront a magnitude of feelings she was not equipped to handle. In shock, she opened the car door and rolled out onto the cold, damp grass. Weeping, she crawled on her hands and knees, through the empty streets until an officer pulled up beside her to ask if she was alright.

Emma babbled something to the officer in one runoff sentence. In his infinite wisdom, he decided to call an ambulance to take her to the hospital, check her over, but also to keep her for several days in the psych ward.

McGreely made it home on foot. Luckily, it wasn’t far. He discovered Florence was in bed waiting for him.

“Well?” she asked curtly.

“It went very well,” McGreely said.

“Was she frightened?”

McGreely chuckled. “Most assuredly,” he said with malicious glee.

Florence squealed like a teenage girl, rose from the bed, stood and let the black cloak fall to the floor. She stepped away toward McGreely, her naked body crushing his dirty, sweaty clothed body. They embraced, kissing sloppily.

Florence, fumbling for McGreely’s zipper, said, “Tell me every nasty detail,” she said as they fell on the bed.

Too busy in the throes of wild animalistic sex, they didn’t notice the black cloaked figure at their bedside, wielding a Scythe.

Peoria Nights: From the files of Nick Stihl, Private Investigator

Book review by Mark Slade

This pulp/Noir/ Detective collection of stories feels familiar, but since when is familiar a bad thing? If you are looking for a book featuring a tough, quick-tempered, take-charge hero, then Nick Stihl is your man. Every story is fast-paced pulp fun.

In the 1930s, Peoria, Illinois, was ruled by ruthless gangs with an iron hand. Fighting violence, thievery, graft, corruption, and a whole slew of other crimes, Nick Stihl always punishes the criminals.

The ex-boxer turned Private Investigator  has help from a crew of friends and fellow crime fighters, including his sexy secretary Pepper, Detective Dave Colby  of the Peoria police department and Sam Wilson, Stihl’s best friend, and one the few honest lawyers in the city.

But a former boxer turned private investigator with fists of steel, Private Eye Stihl cleans up the city in a trio of two-fisted adventures.

How to Stihl Rubies:

Jewel thieves from the UK purloin rubies from a jewelry store and Stihl is hot on their trail.

 Their sites have a large cache of rubies. The British couple are in cahoots with the mob, which poses another problem for Stihl.

Wood versus Stihl:

The P.I. searches for a formula that turns wood into steel, and a violent secret organization sets its sights on invading Peoria, Nick Stihl has to stop them.

Let’s Stihl Halloween:

Dr. Lars Svenson, a Millionaire, has an annual costume party that attracts all kinds of odd people, spooks and beauties alike, a woman in a Blue Butterfly sapphire necklace. Stihl attends the party and investigates the theft of the butterfly necklace.

After receiving an invitation to the Halloween party, Stihl enters the bank to make a deposit and men with stocking masks burst in with guns demanding all the money. Of course, Stilh manages with no problems to take them out, with fisticuffs, or via gunplay, just as Detective Colby makes his way inside the bank.

Fun, crazy, hilarious scene.

The stories move swiftly, and Nick Stihl is definitely cut from the same cloth as Mike Hammer and Radio Detectives of the 30s and 40s, such as Richard Diamond.  Shoot first, ask questions later. Chances are what solves the cases for Stihl, not always clues. But he is a proactive Detective. He doesn’t sit around and wait for the suspects that show up.

Wood vs Stihl is the weakest story in the collection. Let’s Stihl Halloween being the strongest story, does struggle with a few one note characters that bogged down the previous entry.

The saving grace of this book is Olson’s enthusiastic storytelling. All the other gripes are forgiven because you’re here for a good time. Which is the reason to read pulp adventures.  It doesn’t matter if the viewpoint of the tales change often. Or that the plots seem ridiculous.

The point of an adventure story is to take you out of dull, mundane, or dreary existence.  And to make you feel better about your life.  It’s what keeps you reading them.

Some writers are plastic, generic, and become predictable. The writing can be sanitized, and auto tuned with many writing apps.

Olson is not one of those writers. He writes with a lot of heart, and instills a lot of grit in his characters.

The ones who have their own sandboxes, and love playing in it, build better worlds. Those worlds, characters, plots, or even dialogues, are not perfect. But perfect is boring. To me, imperfections are beautiful. Dr. Richard A. Olson marches to his own drumbeat.

The Forest God Parts 9-12

By Rex Mundy

9: AN UNCOMFORTABLE DISCOVERY

The girls were nude but for twists of leopard skin and strings of cowrie shells covering their loins. Leopard tails hung behind them. More village maidens joined them, similarly dressed, their dark faces wreathed with sunny smiles, and began to dance vigorously, leopard tails swaying and jiggling as the sunlight gleamed on glossy thighs, flanks, and breasts. The villagers sang and clapped, the drums throbbed, the girls danced. The witch doctor capered up to Professor Venables, shaking his staff. He removed his lion mask, handing it to a villager, and I saw that despite his white skin he had the thick lips and kinky hair of a pure blooded negro.

‘An albino,’ the professor muttered. ‘Africans fear them. Often they are persecuted. Here, it seems, things are different.’

The witch doctor danced round the professor, tapping him on the shoulders with his feathered staff. The professor smiled genially, looking back unafraid as the albino gazed commandingly into his eyes.

‘Much African magic is derived from mesmerism,’ the professor declared, his lecturer’s tones audible over the singing of the villagers and the pounding of the drums. ‘All one requires is a strong will and a refusal to be cowed.’

The witch doctor swung away from the professor, and capered up to each of us in turn, each time tapping us with the staff and gazing deep into our eyes. Storey and Weismann stared back levelly. Gallagher glanced about anxiously, unable to meet the witch doctor’s eye, and although I was firmly resolved to return that reptilian gaze unafraid, I looked away after a few seconds. The witch doctor danced on to face Sister Veronika, who gazed back like a mouse hypnotised by a cobra. He tapped her with his staff, then whirled away.

Some of the girls took us by the hands and led us into the big hut that I had inspected earlier. Inside, the grossly fat woman still sat upon her stool, flanked by warriors armed with assegais. With their help, she rose to her feet and waddled down to join us, taking us by the hands and kissing each one of us full on the lips. While she was entirely too Rubenesque for twentieth century Paris fashion, this woman possessed considerable animal magnetism.

The villagers entered the hut carrying woven reed mats and banana leaves piled with mealies, rice and yams; we were encouraged to sit upon the one and eat from the other. Two women staggered in under the weight of a big pottery vessel, which they set down, then poured from it pots of sour but potent native beer. A dusky maiden sat with each one of us and proffered food and beer until I, for one, was feeling more than a little tipsy. Still the villagers sang, still the drums beat. I realised that they could be the very drums we had heard out in the swamp, that had struck such fear into us. But what had we to fear from these simple, friendly, generous people?

Sister Veronika sat near me. She had drunk deep, and her eyes were bloodshot as she leaned over. ‘They make us very welcome,’ she shouted.

‘Most hospitable,’ I agreed. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been treated so kindly by strangers before.’

Gallagher sat nearby, a girl on each knee, one pouring beer into his mouth, the other proffering mealies. ‘Oi’d loike some good red meat if ye have any, ladies,’ he pleaded. ‘Any meat? Beef, maybe, or mutton.’

‘They are certainly very kind,’ cried Sister Veronika, as the girl beside her offered her more beer. ‘And so are you, Herr Mundy.’

‘Me?’ I asked, astounded.

‘Yes,’ she said solemnly. ‘You’ve been very kind ever since I met you. I think I’m in love with you.’

This was what I thought I heard, but the singing and the drumming was so loud that I could have been mistaken. Leaning forward, I tried to ask her to repeat herself, but she was drinking and failed to hear me.

My own attendant became quite importunate, plying me with food and drink, and kissing me tenderly between each mouthful. When next I had a chance to speak with Sister Veronika, I saw no sign of her in the gloom and confusion of the hut. Professor Venables had begun dancing with one of the girls. There was much laughter as he tried to teach her the polka. This went on some time, both partners hampered by the beer they had drunk.

Presently, cooking smells drifted in, as if more food was being prepared for us in another part of the village. Despite the amount I had already eaten, I found myself looking forward to it. The fat woman, who I took to be the queen, and the albino witch doctor, watched from the dais, laughing immoderately as the professor staggered through the dance. To my surprize the queen was drinking from a bottle of cognac.

With a great drum roll, men strode into the hut bearing with them a series of banana leaves upon which smoked pieces of meat. The tribes-folk contented themselves with offal for the most part, eating hunks of liver or kidney, but we guests received the rarest of cuts. A platter of grilled steaks was placed before me, and my girl fed me pieces that she tore up with her fingers, squeaking a little at how hot they were.

‘What meat is it?’ I asked, remembering what the colonel had said about monkey. But the girl could not understand me, instead urging me with signs to eat it. I tried it and to my pleasant surprize it tasted like roast pork. I ate hungrily, despite the rice and mealies I had already devoured, allowing the girl to wash it all down with pot after pot of beer.

From time to time, through swaying figures silhouetted by the firelight that was the hut’s only illumination, I glimpsed Gallagher, or Professor Venables, and once Leutnant Weismann, surrounded by adoring natives, eating, drinking and laughing.

It had been a busy morning, and what with the food and drink I had consumed, I began to feel sleepy. Cradling my head drunkenly against the girl’s chest, tired and replete, I fell asleep.

Darkness had fallen by the time I awoke, curled up on the mat in the hut, with someone shaking me.

‘Mundy, you fool.’ It was Storey. ‘Wake up, Mundy!’

I sat up, yawned and stretched, and failed to repress a belch. The hut lay in darkness, illuminated by glowing embers from the fire and starlight filtering in through the reed thatch. Snoring bodies lay all around, like the fallen of some army defeated by its own gluttony.

‘What the devil is it, Storey, old man?’ I asked in an undertone. Two other figures loomed behind him.

‘Take this,’ he said, pressing a rifle into my unresisting hands. ‘At least we could wake you. Gallagher is out for the count. You didn’t drink as much as him, but you certainly didn’t stint yourself.’

‘Would be against all the rules of hospitality, my dear chap,’ I protested. ‘I suppose you didn’t drink at all.’

‘Enough to be civil,’ he said, ‘but not so much as to make an ass of myself.’

Professor Venables spoke. ‘I fear that Mr Mundy is not as guilty of that crime as am I. I really don’t know what came over me. Still, I managed to speak with these people when the feast was winding down.’

‘They’re the Kaluana,’ said Weismann. I wrinkled my brow.

‘Aren’t they supposed to be an unfriendly tribe?’ I asked.

‘Indeed,’ said the leutnant.

I laughed. ‘There’s something wrong with the German imperial spy network,’ I said, ‘if that’s what you’ve heard. I’ve never met such friendly people. Charming, quite charming,’ I added, looking down at the sleeping girl beside me. ‘Simple, unspoiled children of nature, generous to a fault…’

‘Wrap up, Mundy,’ said Storey, ‘and don’t talk such rot. We’re in the worst pickle we’ve been in for a long time.’

I frowned. A thought struck me. ‘What’s happened to Sister Veronika?’

‘I was coming to that,’ said Storey. ‘She’s gone missing.’

I rose to my feet. ‘The Great White Ape?’ I asked fearfully. ‘Here? In this village?’

Storey shook his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.

‘While you were sleeping,’ said Weismann, ‘we explored the village. The villagers were only too happy to shew us round, but there was one place that remained taboo: the juju house. The witch doctor and Queen Marandi were quite firm on that point. Now they’re all asleep, we intend to investigate.’

‘Looking for what?’ I asked.

‘We came here on a mission, if you recall,’ said Weismann. ‘Looking for my superior officer. I have good reason to believe they have him imprisoned in that house.’

‘Hauptmann von Schaumberg?’ I said. ‘You think he’s here? But why would they imprison him?’

‘For the same reason they have taken Sister Veronika,’ said Professor Venables. ‘And no doubt they are plotting to seize us all, as soon as we have eaten and drunk ourselves into a state where we are easy pickings. But we won’t let them.’

‘Well, what are we going to do?’ I asked.

‘Follow me,’ said Weismann, ‘and bring your rifle. This could get nasty.’

And we crept from the hut into the starlit village square.

Confronting us was the juju house. Leaning against the carved pillars that stood by its curtained entrance were two snoring blacks, their assegais propped against the wattled walls. Weismann led us past them. They had evidently drunk and eaten as well as anyone in the village, and were sleeping on duty. Storey paused and soundlessly took the two assegais and flung them into the shadows of a nearby hut.

Monkey skulls ornamented the lintel. Ruthlessly, Weismann ripped back the woven curtain and we crowded into the warm, dark space beyond.

I heard a gentle dripping, splashing sound, as if the roof was leaking. At once I realised our mistake. From the coppery stink of fresh blood, we had not found the juju house at all, but the village abattoir.

This was confirmed in my mind when Weismann struck a match from a dwindling supply he had nursed all the way from the coast. The first thing its light revealed was a butchered carcase hanging over an earthenware pot in which glistened a dark red liquid. This I glimpsed momentarily, before Weismann held up the flaring match to shine its light on the far wall.

Sitting on a chair, surrounded by offerings of food and wine and cloth, still clad in fragments of khaki, was a skeleton. Black scraps of skin adhered to its grinning skull face. A spiked helmet sat upon its fleshless brows. Empty eye sockets seemed to come to life in the wavering shadows created by the sputtering match.

‘Hauptmann von Schaumberg, I presume,’ muttered Storey.

Weismann did not speak but on his face was a look of utter horror.

‘So your superior did come here, leutnant,’ murmured Professor Venables. ‘And this was journey’s end. What became of his command we may never know… It seems the blacks worship him as some kind of fetich. He must have made quite an impression before they murdered him. But what of the nun?’

Weismann turned, holding the sputtering match high. His face white, his eyes widened and he pointed.

‘Look!’ he hissed.

In the last flickering light I saw clearly the carcase I had noticed when we entered. Hands and feet had been removed; it had been cut open along the breastbone and its guts removed, like a pig carcase in any butcher’s stall in Smithfield. White ribs glimmered in the match light, a contrast with the darker hide. With a sense of deep foreboding I noticed that, contrary to English butchers’ custom, the head had not been removed. It hung over the pot that had been placed below to catch the blood that still dripped from a slit throat.

It was no pig. Hanging upside down, stripped of her habit and wimple, her hands and feet missing, her torso cut open and her guts removed, was Sister Veronika.

10: THE VENEER OF CIVILISATION

‘That sweet, sweet girl,’ I said bitterly, my voice echoing in the cloying darkness of the juju house. ‘All she wanted was freedom. And they’ve been… eating her!’

‘It’s worse than that, I’m afraid, old man,’ said Storey. Something in his tone alarmed me.

‘You don’t mean…’ I choked.

‘We were eating her,’ Weismann said brutally. ‘They took her away, butchered her, cooked her and served her up to us, and we were so entranced that we didn’t even notice.’ I heard the click of his rifle as he pulled back the bolt. ‘It’s about time they were taught a lesson.’

‘Let us not be too hasty,’ said Professor Venables. ‘It is possible that they did this to honour us.’

‘How so?’ asked Storey.

‘It is a widely held belief amongst the jungle tribes,’ the professor went on, ‘dating back to slave trading days, that white people are cannibals. That they take black people away to eat them. It could be that the Kaluana, seeing we had a young lady of colour with us, believed that we had brought her along to eat. And so they served her up to us themselves.’

A fusillade of shots rang out from outside the juju house. ‘Who the devil is that?’ I cried.

‘Gallagher!’ said Storey, ‘it must be. They’re attacking him. Fools that we were to leave him behind.’

We ran outside. The moon had risen over the jungle and everything was bathed in its silvery light. On the far side stood the big hut, from which burst the sound of gunfire.

A figure appeared abruptly in the doorway, a burly fellow wearing a pilot’s cap. From within came angry shouts and wails of despair.

Gallagher blundered out into the moonlight, shooting frightened glances about him. He held a smoking rifle in his hands. As he staggered drunkenly across the bare earth, dark figures appeared behind him. One held a bow. As Gallagher ran across the square he loosed, and the Irishman flung up his hands with a cry. He scrabbled at the long arrow that jutted from his left arm, and dropped his rifle with a clatter. Another native threw a spear, which caught Gallagher in the leg.

Firing wildly, I ran forwards. I don’t think any of my shots went home, but the noise itself was enough to frighten the natives, who went to ground, hiding behind huts. More appeared from the big hut. The Irishman had half fallen and was propping himself up, hampered as he was by the arrow and the spear, both of which still pierced him. But he still lived.

I assisted him, holding my rifle in one hand, helping him up with the other.

‘T’ank ye, t’ank ye,’ he mumbled, his breath stinking with native beer. ‘I woke and ye wasn’t there, just the blacks, all fat and sleeping-like. I t’ought dey’d eaten yiz! So I shot wan, and den…’

The air whistled and an arrow thudded into the ground. ‘Get Gallagher over here, Mundy,’ bellowed Storey. ‘We’ll cover you.’

With a manful effort I hauled Gallagher across the square as my companions provided covering fire; Weismann with his Luger, Storey with Colonel Playfair’s Express.

‘Where’s his gun?’ Storey asked, lowering his hunting rifle as we reached the edge of the square.

I panicked, looked back. ‘He dropped it,’ I said. ‘It’s over there!’

I saw it lying on the ground in the middle of the square. Creeping towards it was a native; from his ghastly white hue, I knew him to be the witch doctor. Without thinking I levelled my own rifle and fired. He dropped to the earth.

‘Zur Hölle damit!’ said Weismann. ‘We need all the guns we can get.’

Howling, waving spears, the natives rushed us, heedlessly trampling Gallagher’s gun beneath their bare feet. I fired again and again. No longer was I a civilised man, classically educated in one of the most powerful and cultured nations on Earth. I was a frenzied savage fighting frenzied savages, reduced to the bloodthirsty barbarism of these tribal warriors, wanting only to kill, kill, kill.

Weismann bellowed, ‘Retreat! To the lakeside!’

With Storey and I as a rear-guard, Weismann led the professor and Gallagher at a run down to the bank where the canoes sat. They hauled three of the vessels down into the water; Weismann climbed into one, followed by the professor; Gallagher got into another. Storey and I joined them, leaping into the third canoe, and we began to paddle away across the moonlit swamp.

The howling of the natives receded as we glided away, and I looked over my shoulder to see the bank alive with spear bearing figures, singing war chants. Amongst them, propped up by two strapping black warriors, was Queen Marandi. I was tempted to fire at her, but by gad, I supressed the ungentlemanly impulse.

The warriors climbed into canoes and began paddling after us. ‘Faster!’ Storey urged me. ‘We’ve got to get away from them!’

We rowed past Gallagher. Weismann had snapped the arrow near its head and ripped the spear from his leg, but the Irishman seemed to be flagging. I shouted encouragement and he responded with some Gaelic jargon I could not understand.

The air filled with arrows as archers in the canoe loosed. I heard a cry. Professor Venables had been transfixed by an arrow that entered at his left shoulder and came out somewhere in his midriff. I put down my paddle, lifted up my rifle, and blazed away at our pursuers as Storey continued to paddle.

Dawn found us drifting somewhere deeper in the swamp, tired and dispirited, but for the moment at liberty. Mist hung wetly in the air. The natives had given up pursuit after I almost emptied my last magazine. With our superior weaponry we must have killed more than half the men in the village, and the few survivors had fled. But now we were lost, low on ammunition, and weakening fast.

‘Those arrows must have been poisoned,’ said Storey. Weismann paddled over, the professor unconscious in the back of his canoe.

‘Professor Venables may survive,’ he said in an undertone, ‘with suitable medical care. But where is he going to get it?’

‘The convent,’ Storey jerked. ‘We must return to the Mother Superior.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Weismann, drawing his forearm across his brow. ‘But to get there we will have to go back through Kaluana country. And they will not be happy to see us again. They have their witch doctor to avenge, and many others.’

‘Can’t go back,’ the professor muttered feverishly. ‘Impossible. Must… must go on. Must find… sauropod.’

I looked pityingly at him. His obsession had driven him this far, and even now, with a native arrow through his body, he still wanted to find this elusive chimera.

‘Where is Gallagher?’ Storey asked suddenly.

I looked around. Wreathed with mist, trees stood on every side, rising from the waters like the pillars of some flooded hall. We had drifted into a small clearing while talking, but it seemed that Gallagher’s canoe had not followed.

‘There he is!’ said Weismann, pointing. A canoe bobbed into sight round a swamp tree.

‘But where the devil is Gallagher?’ Storey asked. There was no sign of him. Assuming he was lying down, I paddled us across, and tugged the canoe closer.

I looked up, shaking my head. ‘He’s gone.’

‘Gone?’ Weismann was uncomprehending. ‘Gone where? For a little swim?’

‘Perhaps he saw a public house,’ I said, in a feeble attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

‘We would have heard the splash if he had fallen overboard,’ said Storey darkly.

‘The Kaluana?’ Weismann said. ‘Have they been following us?’

On every side the flooded avenues of the swamp were empty and silent. Not a crocodile was to be seen, let alone a spear carrying tribesman.

I heard a rustle from the branches above and looked up. The leaves were thrashing, as if something had just swung away into the canopy. Gradually they fell still.

‘We must find him,’ I said. ‘He must be somewhere…’ I trailed off, still staring into the leaves above.

‘Did you see something?’ Storey asked.

‘See something?’ I shook my head. ‘No, I didn’t see anything. But…’

‘What?’ he said. ‘What was it?’

‘The leaves, moving,’ I said at last. ‘As if something had passed overhead. Probably a monkey,’ I added, again trying to make light of it.

‘…or an ape,’ Weismann muttered darkly. ‘A Great White Ape.’

Storey took up his paddle. ‘We must accept that Gallagher is lost,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we will see him again. For the moment, however, we must concentrate on getting away. The professor still needs medical attention.’

‘I would not be so certain of that,’ said the leutnant, who had been inspecting the professor’s unmoving form. He checked for a pulse, then looked up. ‘He must have… passed away as we spoke.’

We were all silent. The news brought home to us our own helplessness. We were lost in the swamps, dying one by one. We had escaped the cannibals, but now it seemed that something else was stalking us.

‘But in what direction do we go?’ Weismann said, after we had flung the professor’s corpse over the side. It seems heartless, but the carcase was already beginning to attract scavengers. Vultures circled overhead.

The leutnant gestured about him. ‘In every direction it is the same story. Swamp, endless swamp. I have no recollection of how we got here.’

‘It was still night time when the pursuit died down,’ Storey said. ‘Almost impossible to get any sense of direction here. We need to find somewhere where the tree cover is thinner.’

We paddled onwards, leaving Gallagher’s canoe to drift. Slowly the trees began to thin out. A wind ruffled my hair, a sweet, cool breeze that came as a blessed relief from the foetid warmth of the swamp. Were we nearing the river?

Still the trees thinned out. I saw blue sky, green reeds, ethereal expanses of mist-hung water stretching away into the distance. It seemed we had come to a lake of considerable size.

Only one tree remained, standing alone in the waters. Something hung from it, but whatever it was, it was too far away to be clear. Birds circled high overhead, too high up to be recognisable by the naked eye.

We passed a flock of flamingos standing on the edge of the lake, but they paid us no attention. The great ruddy sun of Africa shimmered on the eastern horizon.

‘Is this open enough for you?’ Weismann shouted from the lead canoe. ‘I don’t recognise this lake from any maps.’

Storey gestured towards the rising sun, which stained the lake waters with its rays. ‘That is east,’ he said. ‘We must go west.’

‘That will take us back into Queen Marandi’s territory,’ said Weismann anxiously. ‘We don’t want to go there in a hurry.’

‘Would you rather go east?’ Storey asked. ‘East, until we reach the border with French Equatorial Africa?’

I tore my gaze from the lone tree and its enigmatic burden. ‘We don’t want to enter French territory!’

Weismann laughed. ‘I thought as much,’ he said. ‘You’re on the run from the Foreign Legion, aren’t you? You had come a long way before I met you.’

‘Are—are you going to turn us in?’ I asked fearfully.

Weismann laughed and looked away.

‘No, Mundy,’ said Storey, ‘the leutnant isn’t going to hand us over to the French. He’s working against them.’

‘There is peace between Germany and France,’ said Weismann loftily.

‘But an undeclared war exists between the Deuxieme Bureau and Sektion IIIb,’ Storey said. ‘And one of its fronts is colonial Africa.’

‘Sektion IIIb?’ I echoed. ‘What on earth’s that?’

‘German military intelligence, old man,’ said Storey. ‘And Leutnant Weismann is one of their agents. Isn’t that right, leutnant?’

But the solitary tree had seized Weismann’s attention. ‘Gott in himmel!’ the German cried suddenly.

Strapped to the tree with lianas, head hanging at an unnatural angle, was Gallagher’s corpse. Protruding from his mouth, thrust halfway in by paws or hands unknown as some grim, final jest, was his hip flask.

‘Daddy won’t be coming back for Christmas,’ murmured Storey.

11: LAKE OF HORROR

‘So that’s what happened to Gallagher.’ I was sickened. ‘But how did he get here?’

‘I should think the Forest God brought him, or at least his body,’ said Weismann. ‘Just as he did with Mosoni.’

‘Apes can’t swim,’ Storey said. ‘At least, no species I’ve heard of can. So how did this so-called ape get him here?’

Weismann shuddered. ‘These are not natural matters,’ he muttered. ‘These are creatures out of savage folklore. They cannot be judged by our narrow scientific standards.’

I laughed a little wildly. ‘So much for your German materialism,’ I taunted him. ‘You are falling prey to the superstitions of the rabble.’

Despite my bravado, fear had seized my own heart. I looked back at the dark wall of swamp trees. Was the Forest God in there? Watching us? Waiting for its chance to pick us off, one by one? Whence came this malignancy? We had trespassed upon its forest, molested and murdered its people and its animals. Was it wreaking an awful revenge?

Would any of us get back to the coast alive?

A vulture swooped down and began pecking at Gallagher’s face. I put my rifle to my shoulder and fired. With a squawk the foul bird fell into the lake. The flamingos were put to fight and wheeled above us while the other vultures circled higher up as if nothing had happened.

Storey scowled at me. ‘We’ve little enough ammunition as it is,’ he said. ‘Don’t waste any!’

‘Storey, old man,’ I murmured.

‘What is it?’

‘What are we going to do?’

Weismann paddled closer. ‘This stretch is uncharted,’ he said, ‘and we must be the first white men to look upon this lake. But going by what I know of the geography of the colony, the river we were following upcountry must have its source here. We will paddle north along the shore until we find the place where the river leaves the lake. Then follow it westwards.’

As we began paddling through the reeds, more vultures flew down to squabble over the carcase of Gallagher. It was sickening to have to abandon his mortal remains to the carrion eaters, but we had little choice. He had been too far up the sheer side of the trunk for us to have any chance of getting him down, and should we have succeeded, what then? We would not be able to bury him under these conditions, any more than we could have interred Professor Venables.

The reeds gave way to open water, stretching almost as far as the eye could see. A thin dark green line, running between blue skies and slate grey waters, marked the far side of the lake. Flamingos browsed along the hither bank, crocodiles basked in the morning sun, and out in the water hippos were swimming. To our north the waters rushed as if towards a river leaving the lake.

I noticed a bow-wave travelling across the lake surface in the same direction. When I pointed it out to my companions, we hove to, drifting side by side as Weismann took out his field glasses, but he could not identify what creature was responsible.

‘And it is travelling at some speed,’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘Faster than any river hippo, that’s for certain. Perhaps a species of lacustrine hippopotamus unknown to science.’

‘You still hope to glean some credit from this failed mission?’ Storey asked.

Weismann grinned wryly. ‘Discoverer of a new lake…’ he mused, ‘of a new species, perhaps… Perhaps I could become a naturalist, after I am summarily dismissed from the colonial service.’

‘But you found the rebels you were looking for,’ Storey said. ‘You accomplished your mission, even if you lost your command.’

‘How did you know I was looking for rebels?’ Weismann lowered the field glasses and fixed Storey with a steely glint. ‘My stated mission was to find Hauptmann von Schaumberg.’

‘And in that you were entirely successful,’ said Storey wryly, ‘but you were also searching for evidence that the rebels von Schaumberg was sent to investigate were being stirred up by the French.’

I looked from one to the other, barely able to follow the exchange. ‘What the devil’s all this about, Storey?’

Weismann’s face twisted with anger. ‘You’re not Legion deserters after all!’ he said. ‘That was just a cover. You were sent to infiltrate my mission. To infiltrate and destroy! No wonder it went so badly. It was you who was responsible for those deaths, not some mythical ape! You! You’re the killers!’

Storey shook his head. ‘You’re getting over-excited, old chap,’ he said. ‘The killings… I can’t fully explain them. But they have nothing to do with the French, or any French agents I know of. However, the recent raids on the railway near the coast were carried out by Ugabu in tandem with the Kaluana, with the backing of the French.’

Weismann’s eyes narrowed. ‘You want to make an exchange of intelligence?’ He seemed astounded; certainly I was. Two drifting canoes in a hitherto undiscovered African lake made for a strange venue for a clandestine meeting. ‘We guessed as much. But what more can you tell me?’

‘They were reprisals for German encroachment into the French sphere,’ said Storey. ‘But what are your plans?’

Weismann sneered. ‘I’ll tell you nothing, you dirty spy,’ he said, and began paddling north.

Storey and I paddled grimly after him. All that could be heard was the plash of our paddles in the grey waters. The shore was quiet, and the lake was tranquil, a stark contrast with the turmoil of emotions surging within my breast.

‘What is going on, old man?’ I asked. ‘I know you hoped to obtain information so we could make a bargain with the French. But you’ve given away more than you have gained. Now Weismann has it from the lips of a French agent what the Bureau is up to in a German colony.’

‘It was a gamble,’ Storey admitted. ‘But all is not yet lost. Weismann is only one man, and unless he reaches the nearest telegraph station a hundred miles downriver, this news will not get any further. You keep after him. I’ll use the Express. She’s still loaded.’

I did indeed keep paddling, but I was unable to believe my eyes when Storey put his own paddle down then lifted up the powerful hunting rifle from the bottom of the boat. In the time it took to do this, Weismann almost reached the edge of the lake where a broad stream rushed away through the trees.

‘Paddle closer,’ Storey said after a while. ‘It’s impossible to draw a bead on him from here.’

Unspeaking, I did so. I was reluctant to be complicit in the murder of a man from a country at peace with my own, in pursuit of the political agenda of another power. I didn’t want Storey to shoot a man who I had begun to look upon as a friend. But somehow I felt powerless to intervene.

I saw the bow-wave again, much closer. Whatever was making it was now following a line between us and Leutnant Weismann, as if it too was heading for the river. I glimpsed something huge and dark beneath the surface, moving rapidly forwards.

‘Storey,’ I said anxiously. ‘There’s something there. In the water. Between us and him.’

Storey lowered his Express and looked at me irascibly. ‘What the devil are you talking about, Mundy?’ he demanded.

‘Look!’ I said.

Leutnant Weismann had seen it too. He hove to, studying the dark shape in the lake with his field glasses, oblivious to our own proximity.

‘What has got into him?’ Storey murmured, then noticed it. ‘A hippo walking along the bottom,’ he said, relaxing. ‘Let us hope it capsizes the blighter.’

‘That’s not a hippo,’ I said ominously. ‘It’s far too big!’

‘Whatever it is, it’s getting closer to the leutnant,’ Storey observed. ‘His attention is entirely focused on the brute.’

Seizing his chance, he pumped the bolt, and aimed at the German officer. Hearing the noise, Weismann dropped his field glasses, seized his Luger, and fired.

The shot whistled straight past me. The retort echoed back from the surrounding forest, causing flamingos to fly up again in wheeling flocks and crocodiles to plunge off into the water.

‘What are you waiting for?’ I yelled at Storey. ‘Shoot him! Shoot him now!’

The creature burst from the lake.

Its size was enough to cause my mouth to dry up. Water cascaded from its smooth brown mottled sides, splashing back into the lake. Its torso was broad, humped, narrowing into a long, rearing, serpentine neck that ended at a head jam-packed with huge teeth.

Weismann, who was closest, dropped his gun and grabbed onto the sides of his bucking canoe. But to no avail. Uttering a deep, resounding roar, the monstrosity brought its head and neck crashing down, smashing the vessel clean in two.

When it raised its head again, there was no sign of Weismann, but the broken halves of the dugout canoe bobbed on the water. Two beady, intolerant eyes blazed in the sauropod’s skull. The lake water sloshed around our canoe’s hull as the massive brute began wading towards us.

Storey fired both barrels.

12: THE FOREST GOD

A great spray of water soaked us, a huge, sinuous tail erupted from the water before crashing down again with a deafening slap. The ensuing wave bucked our canoe and I lost my grip on the paddle, dropping it overboard. The water closed over the fallen sauropod and the lake grew quiet again, leaving barely a ripple to hint at the gargantuan horror we had seen.

Storey lowered the Express, placing it down beside him. He began paddling towards the river mouth.

‘That—that was what Professor Venables was looking for,’ I shouted. ‘That was the dinosaur! By Jove! We’ve just seen a living dinosaur!’

‘It’s as dead as all its prehistoric ancestors now,’ said Storey. ‘And it’s time we were going, before more come after us. Or even…’

‘Even what?’ I asked. He did not answer, but instead kept paddling. We passed the bobbing fragments of Weismann’s canoe, but of the leutnant there was no sign. This lake kept its secrets well hidden.

With nothing else to do as Storey rowed towards the river mouth, I checked the magazine of my rifle. Only one round left. And we still had to fight our way back through Kaluana country, all the way back down to the river to the convent. We had no supplies, only two rifles; one a hunting rifle admittedly, and almost fully loaded, but my own rifle was almost useless. Wildly I considered pitching it over the side; it was little more than dead weight. But without it, I would be equally worthless. I could not help Storey paddle, I could not defend us against monsters or natives… One shot was all I had.

Soon we were drifting down the river, between tree-lined banks. It was dark and shady, with only a few glimmers of sunlight sparkling on the water. Jewelled insects danced in shafts of light. From time to time I saw gazelles drinking from the bank, or heard monkeys yelling high up among the treetops. But otherwise the river was dark and silent.

‘Let me paddle, my dear chap,’ I pleaded with Storey. ‘I’m not doing my bit at all.’

Storey halted, eased his muscles, and handed the paddle over. ‘By all means,’ he said. ‘I would appreciate the rest.’

As I began paddling, I nodded at his Express. ‘Good thing you’ve still got that. You can bag us some luncheon.’

The monkeys had ceased their distant howling, and I had not seen any beast come down to drink for some minutes. ‘Not much to shoot,’ Storey said. ‘This is a quiet stretch. Almost too quiet.’

‘A shame that dinosaur vanished into the lake,’ I said. ‘We should have hauled its carcase out and cut a few steaks off its scaly flanks.’

‘I have no doubt it would be indigestible,’ Storey muttered.

There was a crashing sound from the trees above, and I looked up. Something vanished into the canopy, as if it had just leapt across. Signs of life? Or was it…?

‘Keep going,’ Storey said. I had raised the paddle and let us drift on the fast flowing stream. ‘We should get out of this dark forest as soon as we can.’

The further we went the more the trees seemed to lean over the water, vines and creepers dangling so low they almost brushed the water. My paddle splashing monotonously in the dark, glutinous water was the only sound except for strange, stealthy noises from above us. Storey gripped his rifle. Was it the Great White Ape, following us again?

After a while, he took the paddle from me. This time there were only two of us. Who would the Forest God claim this time? In a moment of utter selfishness, I hoped it would be Storey, but what would happen to me? I had no hope of surviving the long leagues of jungle that lay between here and civilisation. And I had little hope of surviving civilisation itself. It was a jungle to me now. Storey and I were both cut off from our own way of life, renegade Englishmen condemned, like Cain, to wander the earth…

‘What’s that?’ Storey hissed, as something slithered stealthily through the darkness above. I raised my rifle, only to see that it was a long, dark skinned snake winding itself round one of the thicker branches. It raised its head and hissed at me as the canoe shot under. I followed it with my eyes, keeping my rifle at the ready.

Something else swung down from the canopy, swished past, and vanished again. There was a quiet splash. The canoe drifted onwards. Only then I saw that Storey had been taken.

I dropped my rifle into the boat, and grabbed the paddle. Where the hell was he? The branches and leaves were crashing as if something was bounding through them. I paddled faster, and as I rounded a bend in the stream, I saw it. A great shaggy shape, apelike, yet manlike too, luminescent in the gloom as it swung by one hand from a branch, carrying Storey’s struggling form.

I snatched up my rifle again as the Great White Ape vanished into the leaves. The boat shot onwards. Now I looked desperately behind me. Suddenly I saw them; Storey fighting in the grasp of a white figure, atop a bough that hung over the river. But it was no ape. His captor was a man, a white man, preternaturally strong and as agile as any arboreal anthropoid, yet a man. Naked but for a twist of leopard skin around his loins, with a shaggy mop of hair on his head. In his right hand glittered the blade of a steel knife.

I fired.

My shot struck the ape-man dead in the chest, knocking him head over heels from the bough. Storey fell with him and both plunged into the water.

Dropping my gun I paddled over to the spot where Storey had fallen.

‘Storey?’ I cried wildly. ‘Ned, old man, where are you?’

Something erupted from the surface, arms flailing; something white skinned. With relief, I recognised it as my friend.

I extended my paddle. Storey seized it with one hand, then the other, and used it to haul himself aboard.

‘Will you have nuts or a cigar, sir?’ I asked, grinning.

Towards evening we moored the canoe in a sheltered inlet. We had yet to re-enter the swamps of Kaluana country, and were a long way from the Mother Superior and her convent. Storey had found his Express, which he had left in the canoe when he took up the paddle, and he was checking the magazine.

‘What was that thing?’ I said. ‘The Great White Ape? It looked more like a man.’

‘It was a man,’ Storey said, looking up. ‘The stories are told around tribal campfires throughout the jungle; they’ve even reached the Quai d’Orsay. An ape-man, deep in the jungles of the Congo. This is somewhat to the north of his usual bailiwick.’

‘A white ape-man?’ I asked incredulously. ‘In darkest Africa? But what of this Forest God the Mother Superior spoke of?’

‘Another form of the same folk tale,’ said Storey. ‘As you said yourself, legends always have some origin in reality. And our antagonist has spawned several. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggests that the truth behind the legend is a feral child, the son of white traders or settlers killed by natives, perhaps. It seems that he grew up in the bush, grew to power and majesty. He has little sympathy for his own kind, favouring the inhabitants of the jungle, fanatically protecting them from the depredations of white men.’

‘A real-life Mowgli,’ I said in wonder. ‘And I shot him. Just as you shot another legend, the sauropod. Is that all we do, we white men? Like Colonel Playfair, we came to Africa to do nothing but kill.’

I remembered the berserk fit that had come over me in the Kaluana village when we discovered Sister Veronika’s butchered corpse. The veneer of civilisation is thinner than you might think, you who read this by electric light in modern suburbia, with a policeman patrolling his beat outside the window. Amidst the horrors of the jungle it takes little for it to wear through—to reveal the primeval man, the savage. And yet our ultimate enemy, the Great White Ape… he had transcended that. No thrill-seeking dilettante hunter like Colonel Playfair, a beast at one with other beasts; yet somehow superhuman, not subhuman.

‘What would our urbane and cultured Leutnant Weismann have thought had he learnt the late Great White Ape’s identity?’

Storey gave me a look. ‘We found no sign of the ape-man’s corpse,’ he reminded me. ‘We have escaped the dark forest, but we’re not out of the woods yet. For all we know he survived. For all we know, he could be following us still.’

‘Let us hope that, if he lives, he has slunk away to his lair to lick his wounds,’ I said with a shudder. ‘How many cartridges do you have left? We’ll need to hunt for food.’

‘Only four,’ said Storey. ‘We must nurse them. Make them count. And pray to God we don’t meet the Kaluana.’ He snapped shut the magazine, thrust the rifle into my hands, and took up the paddle again.

But before he commenced, I said, ‘Is that our only option? To cross a swamp infested with cannibal tribes? There will be other Kaluana villages, and by now they must all know about the massacre. What’s more, even if we do reach the coast, we shall have to explain our presence to some officious Prussian bureaucrat. One way or the other, I don’t rate our chances highly.’

Storey held the paddle poised. ‘There is another possibility. Instead of going west, we could go east.’

‘I don’t follow you.’

‘We’re not far from the border. If we were to double back and cross the lake, less than a hundred miles of jungle would lie between us and French Equatorial Africa. And what we know of German plans in these parts could be sufficient currency to barter for our lives.’

‘The lake?’ I said uneasily.

But his metaphor gave me an idea. Thrusting my hand into a pocket I produced a coin. Not a shiny new Edward VII penny, but a centime of the Third Republic, with a laureate head on the obverse. ‘So the alternatives are cannibals one way, prehistoric monsters the other, colonial officials wherever we go, and quite possibly a vengeful ape-man at our heels. It’s in the lap of the gods. So why don’t we toss for it?’

Our eyes followed the coin as it spun, deciding our destiny.

A few minutes later, as Storey paddled us out into the stream again, I looked back. It could have been a trick of the light, but I thought I saw a figure standing on a tree branch that jutted out above the rushing waters, a thousand yards upstream. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, but it was gone.

Perhaps it had never been.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rex Mundy Scholars have tentatively linked this work with that Rex Mundy who, as a young man in 1890s London, was a frequent patron of the Café Royal, a protégé of Madame Blavatsky, and a probationary member of the Golden Dawn, until amid clouds of scandal he departed England for foreign shores. After many adventures, it is to be understood that he converted from Anglicanism to the Greek Orthodox faith and became a monk on Mount Athos, where, many years after his death, a cache of hitherto unpublished pulp fiction was uncovered.