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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Family & Friends
- Subject: Horror / Scary
- Published: 09/08/2022
FROM THE WOODS
Adult, M, from Kampala, UgandaFROM THE WOODS
Both Kenge, Boki, Sidy, Sunko, —and also Mugye were ardent thugs, —Mania blood friends —were extremely reticent. But old people suspected their foul play, "If a man coils himself so much like a sick dog, there's perversity about him." Old people whispered with foggy faces. And slept in angst.
Only old men shuffled the insanely empty, —madly silent, —isolated village—and, only during the day. Something seemed to watch them…with arcane craziness for the past three weeks.
Kenge was short with an innocent face. He was old, fifty-five, quiet, and peaceful on the outside. He had a heavy tongue…stuttering…and was shy. Children mimicked him. They laughed and trailed him to the market square and the bar, and at times up to the gravel trial leading to his house. His eyes were peculiarly calm with onerous insanity… sitting at the bottom.
Kenge sometimes felt an impetus of a crazed man, though he resisted it. He wore two pairs of trousers, black trousers on Saturday and Sunday, and a pair of brown ones he got from the church on weekly days. He'd had three or seven cows and three or nine goats before his wife was diagnosed with cancer. Some people simply referred to him as, "that jank."
Kenge and his old limping wife, Muhlo —a dawdler, lived on a slope—stony land in a small open space that looked like an ancient tomb at the edge of the village in a four-bedroom square house. A kitchen sat to the left. Although he had a kitchen, his wife cooked inside the main house. So the kitchen now passed as a store. Three low stools, a mat, and a table occupied his sitting room.
Close to the kitchen, in the house, in another small room; two of their children slept. Komba, eleven, and Macha, nine. A small gravel footpath trails up to their isolated abode. Down the slope, rusty, barbed wire cobwebbed into a fence separating their land from the palm oil plantation that stretched far, wandering into fields, and out of sight.
The rest of the land was enclosed in thick stygian woods, pines, and ebonies and eucalyptus. If you went through the palm oil plantation, and into the fields, in a dry season, you would easily reach Kulya, the closest sleepy township seven miles away.
Sad rustic buildings huddled together in irregular lines. There were two streets and a large bar. Two dirt roads made a brief cross running through the town, —both thinned into corn fields and neglected cotton farms, and then disappeared into blood thirty woods.
A dusty road joined Kulya to Tonge the now deserted village. In the past, if you stood in Kulya, on a quiet day you could hear the slow faint noise from Tonge floating high, and low like ocean tides.
But for the past three weeks, the village was utterly empty—with no young men. No children. No human noise. No livestock. Just old people…and frightened dogs—quiet forests. A spectrally silent, empty village. Something seemed to watch them from the woods.
There was a mask of fear that hung over this village. People—old people, —the remnants entered with the brood of chickens, just when twilight was popping behind the woods. Even frogs decamped to the sea. The only noise heard was from the crickets and crying birds, and wailing wind. And, at times even the wind refused to scream—rendering the village void. Dead like a graveyard.
Now, Kenge was scared. He huddled there in the darkness in the sitting room with a withered face. Outside, the sound of crickets pierced the young night. His mind was far, far away. When his wife limped into the room with a lantern, his eyes were filled with water. He wiped them with the back of his hand. And he pretended all was well. He gave her a rictus smile as she sat down.
"You cry again?" She asked.
"No,"
"I don't believe any of thee," she said and turned her head and looked at him with a good eye. She'd had a benign tumor, cancerous—claimed the left eye. All that was left was a scary hole in the skull. Kids ran away from her.
"I'm scared, Muhlo," Kenge said and watched his shadow on the wall.
"Saw him? His family all died thee?" She hefted the lantern close to her eye for a clear view. She was oftentimes, sickly. But quite pigheaded.
"This isn't a fable, Muhlo," Kenge said, refraining himself from shouting. He wasn't sure, maybe they could hear him! Or maybe they already heard him? His eyes winked rapidly.
Muhlo set the lantern on the hard ground. When Its fire snapped, Kenge twitched. He bent over and considered the lantern. His eyes jutted out like a tennis ball.
"They say the plague comes in any form."
"No, again?" Muhlo said.
"It can pop up from the fire, water, wind, fissures, anywhere." He breathed hard, feeling impatient. He went on considering the fire, for a while.
"Send the children away, Muhlo."
"You're running mad," she shook her head.
"You don't seem to understand," he stood up sadly. "First it was Boki, then Sidy. This thing is real."
"Only young men." She protested.
Then coughed in her first and eyed him. She went on considering his face for visible signs of madness. What went into his old head? She thought for the past three weeks now, Kenge was acting weird. Was he crazy?
"You see a doctor," Muhlo said after a moment. "People died often, don't thee?"
"Yes," Kenge said with utter frustration. "This is different. This's a ghostly plague."
"Boki and Sidy…died of… disease, didn't thee?"
Kenge was now on the verge of crying again.
"Listen, the plague is real and deadly, Muhlo," he said, staring down at her like you would with a bird's eye view. "It's a swarm…dark rats. A sea…dark ghostly souls. The tormentors of soul… flesh. Eaters of man. They stand up…stygian dust and eat you… like locusts.
"It's a spell. He moved to the door and stirred it a little. Then turned back to his seat. "It doesn't spare anyone… within the house or around the… the haunted place. With livestock, they….only devour…legs, legs, and mouths." He paused and listened with a giant crazy look in his eyes. "Now, on humans, …it devours everything…everything, except for the bones and eyes. They suck blood…out of the victims first, slowly and gently as if they'd no business…business, anywhere else."
When he finished rumbling, there were beads of sweat chrome on his face. A gentle tapping, jingling sound lingered outside, in the darkness breaking the still, block-headed silence.
"That wind outside, you think it's normal?"
Muhlo barely heard him. She'd hefted the lantern again, shaking it feeling the weight of kerosene in it.
"Do you feel the biting eyes of the woods?" Kenge asked with a little tilt of his head. "It's creeping. That's what it did before the plague wrought—Boki and Sidy."
"You go crazy," Muhlo grumbled indignantly.
There was no moon in the sky. Smooth darkness stretched widely over the village like a tent.
And then, gusts of wind slapped on the house and the rusty iron sheets blurred. The children stirred in their sleep and snorted. He stood up and moved to the window. He stirred it a little. A cloud of dust rose and hung in the air. Kenge coughed. Cruel panic danced in his eyes.
Boki and Sidy were gorged…leaving jutting borns staring at the terror-stricken villagers. Old men said it's a plague. When Kenge turned his eyes to the window, a small rat, the size of a matchbox crept up solidly. He flinched and threw his hands in the air, "shoo," eyeing the insignificant rat. The small beast turned and eyed him.
The brute was crystal dark and mute. Its eyes were alive, torrid—glob, brazing with an eerie braze. Inside its pupils, there was a boiling yellow ring that kept Wheeling.
#
The morning was chilly. The dusty road cutting through the village to Kulya was empty. Not even a speck of dust drifted in the morning air—stillness sprawled out. Dark fluffy clouds rode across the sullen giant sky. The sun was emerging behind the dark fluffy clouds, filtering out. There was an eerie…piercing…conscious… gaze overlooking the village…like someone was watching the village from above.
Old men stood in small groups—around Suko's shack. The shack was up, at the far East end on the edge of his father's land. He was only forty-three…serene. They murmured in low voices. None of them had the nerve to go to the shack. Instead, their eyes darted from Suko's father who lay on the ground…and to the shack. The shack stood a few metres from the crowd. It stood like a massive ancient grave.
Faint fumes of smoke curled up through the rooftop, and when it reached the air above the shack, it spread out as a shroud. On the left of the shack was a pond. And a few feet away from the pond, stretched a thick coffee farm that ran down into the woods. A cluster of acacia trees provided shade for the old men.
Suko's father was a stout old man in his seventies. He'd long lost his wits, people suspected. But no one could confirm it. It was in their lineage, so people considered It normal. At first, he'd howled and screamed and yowled in horror.
By the time Kenge and Mugye reached the shack, he was clawing his fingers into the ground like a madman. He'd rolled and lunged and lay flat on his back. His voice was gone. He just opened his mouth at great liberty and swallowed. And then crawled like a rat. No man dared to hold him.
A mist of tortured fear clung in the air.
Beyond the pile of dry reeds that passed as a door, Kenge could see a shimmering red and white substance…slime…shining against the dark background. Meanwhile, after finding his voice, the old man on the ground was raving about the plague—about its demonic odour, —about its eerie glow, —-about its savage glare.
The woods murmured silently, glaring.
Then, again, the shack clattered. It rippled a little as if it were waking up from a long night—with a quiet contempt. The whispering seemed to fade away with the rippling shack. And the crowd grew perfectly silent. Behind the shack, came a faint disturbing whizzing sound. Mugye was standing at the very rear of the crowd. He looked at Kenge and nodded noncommittally. He was shocked. His knuckles were between his teeth.
Kenge moved a bit closer to the old man. Now, he was standing a few feet from the shack. A swarm of flies made a low buzzing sound from within. A slow hum like that made by sacred fraternities in prayers. Occasionally, the flies would swarm out like bees and then run inside like forgotten visitors. Kenge was shivering. Inside the shack, the little illumination was watching ominously…secretly.
Kenge wiped the tears from his eyes. He was quivering. Suko was his sworn companion. He cried quietly. Then he rounded a few paces to the shack. In the doorway, he jerked and threw up. His eyes had fallen on the slime and the wild…terror in Suko's bloodshot eyes. And a considerable amount of chewed blue, black, and pink clothes on the floor in the dim light.
He was hit by an indescribable smell. He clapped his nose and mouth with the collar of his dirty shirt. Two other skeletal racks gazed up blankly at the arch of the shack. Their skeletal hands were clad on the chests of the deceased…kowtow.
The shack whispered and gave him a rankled stare…a don't touch me look.
Behind the door, in the comfort of the muddled darkness, yellow light flickered. Whatever emitted the yellow light, was humming… chattering like a baby. The chattering grew…swelling—and swelling. And the shack grew too. A mist of the yellow smoke curled up intensely like from a broken radiator… steaming up and settling in the shack… rising with a monstrous odour.
A shadow rose in the shack and stood up like the great Nephilims of the Bible—the giants of the old—a mist of souls flapped. Its yellow eyes seethed. The shack came alive with a grinding outcry like that of a compressor machine…throttle. A billion or so rats broke loose from the shack.
Kenge tripped and fell and rolled up and ran.
Outside, the colony scuttled after them. Jet-black rats. They fluttered on Suko's father. Ripped his clothes easily, much like a man who was thrown into a rotating machine with sharp blades. Ululates went up as the demonic rats forced their way into his mouth and nose and from his anus—globbing him alive. His voice was creaking. He whined in terror.
Then, he shrunk like a man thrown into a brazing volcano—blood oozed from his boiling flesh as the pack feasted. As they did, Suko's father kicked one or two times and became a gunk of shimmering bones—and a heap of chewed clothes sat beside the gunk. The shadow blazed on the parched earth.
Immediately, the ghostly critter hoisted and scuttled across the land scooting and flapping as though it were a bat—after the feeble old men… a man fell on a sharply pointed-edged pole. Blood gushed out in thousands of fine red threads. That blood spattered everywhere in pools. Before he kicked flat, the silhouette hung over him, snuffled, and rode on consciously.
The village flared up into crazed screams. Just then, a strong wind wailed from the East joining the shadow. The sea of rats squeaked and rode to the woods. Kenge ran. He jumped here and there. He was panting all the time. He ran low, and up the slope going as far as Kulya, the sleepy township. He stopped suddenly. The smell of blood was now behind him. The old men were yowling from the fields. The woods quivered and watched viciously.
For a long time, Kenge lay awake. His thoughts were clogged like a blocked vent on a rainy day. He mulled deeply about the arcane rats—plague—the ill health of his wife. He turned around and looked at her in her sleep…he watched her breath rise and fall like a music tempo. Again he looked at her scary scar. He knew deep down, in his heart she deserved to know.
To know that he was stealing to sustain her medical bills…She needed to know that he was sorry—he was poor. She needed to know he was the cause of the plague. He started to cry quietly. Alas! He was poor…the rude feeling stirred his heart bitterly. He went on crying.
The night grew up into a dark still shroud. And Kenge was still there thinking about how all the mad mischief rampage started.
It started three weeks ago in Ddegi village. Nine villages away from Tonge….when Kenge and his hoodlum robbed twenty-five cattle from an old widow. They murdered the herdsman together with an old woman. They hadn't hoped to kill the old woman. It was a brutal mistake.
They'd planned to take the cattle and the herdsman. Throw the herdsman into river Ruvu. However, as they tied up the herdsman, the old woman broke into a wailing chant…a bloody chant… wild laughter. The time was a little past 01:37 am.
Mugye and Suko had broken the door.
Sidy kept watch, while Kenge dragged his feet across the lonely sitting room, leading himself to the old woman's room. He stopped and listened. It seemed to him that the old woman was asphyxiating… asphyxiating…throttling. In the darkness, alone. How was that possible? Kenge hesitated, shivering.
Then, as if in the ghostly movies, a feeble yellow light shone aloft… and, then, suddenly hazed with an eerie cry. Kenge was half dead with fright. He froze, in his position for a while, before he moved on. The door was ajar. Kenge popped his head in. When he did, he felt a strong horror creep his body—and scraped his soul. He saw that the old woman had raised her quivering hands, holding a red ribbon. Blood dripped from the ribbon.
The ribbon had two knots clumped loosely. The old woman shuddered and chanted. She stood in the middle of a small ring on the ground. Asphyxiating—and yelling. A steaming…hissing plague made the ring. The plague hissed like an AC machine. A squeaking voice whispered—aloft.
DIS…PERSION…OF…PER…DITION.
The whisper expanded and clanked in the rude yellow light. Kenge was dazed; he staggered and fell to the ground. Outside, a cloying smell rose in the drowsy night. Mugye and Sidy fell to the ground too.
After a while, when Suko didn't see his companions come, he charged towards the house. The time was a little past 02: 23 am, close to the wee hours—they were late—Tonge was far away considering they were to shuffle with the cattle.
The moon was walking up the flat sky, from the other side of the world.
Suko lunged with his Panga Machete. He bent and stirred Sidy and Mugye in the doorway—from their slumber. He was panting. He then pushed on with quick, wary steps across the room—breathing in gasps… as before. Fear wore his face. His knees cracked a little. When he reached the old woman's room, she was still enchanting… shrieking and laughing.
Kenge was on the floor cowered… hypnotized… possessed. Suko raised his Panga machete and drove it into the old woman, at once. The old woman dropped howling and kicked flat. A sheet of blood sprawled on the floor and the mischief.
A squeaking cry worsened in the blood-spattered room. A cloud of horror rose as the shadow grabbed Suko's hand. Suko yanked his hand. The critter chewed his shirt into pieces. Blood spattered. Suko screamed and ran. The plague huddled together, sulked, and watched.
#
Outside, absolute silence was broken by footfalls brushing against the gravel…followed by a gentle, faint tapping—rapping sound. Kenge murmured and listened intently. He leaned forward, craned his head, and propped on his elbow. For a moment there was silence—stillness. Then, again, there came a low rapping—scrapping—knocking on the door. Kenge was shivering. He reached for his shirt that hung on the jutting nail.
"All is well," a raspy voice said. "It's Mugye."
"Mugye!"
"Mugye," a voice said. "And the elders."
"And…and who?"
"The chief," Mugye said. "And the shaman."
"The woods?"
No one answered. Kenge fumbled with the bolts on the door. He was still shaking stupidly.
"All is well?" Kenge asked.
"Let's say for now," Mugye said, looking at the ground.
Mugye was forty, tall and thin. There was something unclear about the ebony blackness of his eyes. He'd a goading iciness about his peculiar character—chewing on his tongue absentmindedly as dumb kids do.
"My son, you will forgive us, we came at a very late hour," the shaman said with a hideous look that clumped his deeply wrinkled face. "The chief will explain the urgency of this visit."
The group moved to the kitchen. Kenge gave each of them a low stool and sat close to the heap of dry beans and coffee. At the back of the heaps were unhatched eggs. He set the paraffin lamp down on the uneven floor and then threw his chin in his left palm. When he said nothing, the chief said, at last, his voice toneless and faraway as the conjured spirit of the dead.
"Well, my son, it's not easy to say these words to your face," he watched his rudely distorted shadow on the wall and added in a sorrowful voice. "You're a thug." He said and looked away.
Kenge shifted a little, maintaining his calm.
"And we all know why you're doing it," the chief went on. "For the undisputed fact that your wife is sick, but we also know that you're to blame for this plague. Kenge, you brought the plague…you're responsible for all the deaths in Tonge…the emptiness and terror and horror…
"It's not Sidy or Mugye or Boki or Suko. It's you…you're older than all those boys. For the sake of our gods…you're dragging yourself into sixty years…poverty couldn't have made you recruit our young men into this filthy… hoodlum bag of your tricks. You thought we couldn't…know?"
Kenge was shifting in his position all the time. Tears formed, and waited for him to cry, and stood there in his eyes, and waited for a long while until they dropped in his palm still clad on his old chin. He wasn't crying with his eyes, no, it was his soul. His soul was on fire. Mugye went on chewing on his tongue.
"Hmm, as I said, it's not easy," the shaman said. "What is happening in Tonge also happened in Kwa-tu otu in 1867. The plague devoured…all those who were involved in the rape of a ten-year-old…girl. It's believed they were five lads who were coming of age…All their family members were extinguished by the plague.
"And when all that was done, the plague went on a rampage extinguishing extended family members until a sacrifice was offered." He hesitated for a moment and then said after surveying Kenge's face, "the sacrifice was a virgin girl from one of the families. I fear we might not have one.
"The girl was hanged first before harvesting her heart. Then her heart was fed to a barren woman in the village while the corpse was laid in the dark woods. After thirteen days, the remains of the corpse…bones were collected…from the woods and thrown into the village well."
"It's true," the chief said. "Even in 1907, in Tarkinashan a similar incident happened. The plague swept almost the entire township." He said with measured confidence. "I believe this is what they call lost deities…numen."
Kenge tilled his head and looked at the chief and the shaman with little interest that looked like exaggerated contempt. Mugye was chewing on his tongue, also showing little interest in the discussion.
The chief leaned forward and considered Kenge before he said, "the shaman advised us correctly, the only solution you have is to offer your wife as a sacrifice to the eerie rats…willingly…remorsefully. As Tarkinashan and Kwa-tu otu did."
Kenge felt his stomach churning. He was shaking slightly like an idling engine…like a remote earthquake. His sly madness started to build up—expanding…in his crazed nature. He surveyed the old men's faces as madness shawled across his face. The chief seemed to read his face, he twitched and turned to Mugye.
"We need to go before the woods wake up." The chief said. "You've until tomorrow, Kenge."
But then, Kenge said, "how do I offer Muhlo?" He still had a weird look on his face. "And suppose I don't?"
The old men looked at each other and laughed.
"Do you know what people think you're?" The chief asked in high spirits. "I doubted it, but you're forcing me to believe otherwise." He gave him a silent grin. And stood up.
The chief surveyed the place with great distaste.
"Here you go…" the shaman said, handing Kenge, a bowl. "Fill it with Muhlo's blood." He looked at his hands and added. "Mix the blood with her nails and hair. I'll also need seven dead stones, her heart, and a two-week-old bat. Lay the corpse in the woods for thirteen divine days."
All the time Mugye was quiet, chewing his tongue but when he heard a two-week-old bat; he laughed like a loon. The old man warned him.
"Shut up boy or you become the sacrifice."
Not long after the trio had left Kenge's abode, there was a long scream that shredded the night. A long cry that welled skywards until darkness contained it no more…then, the shattering night was filled with strangled cries coming from down the slope, halfway between the gravel path and the main road to Kulya.
The horrific cries went on for a long while over the giant squeaking noise. And funny high-pitched demonic voices came in…floating way up the slope. Up, close to Kenge's house. Suddenly, the cries faded and fell out eerily. An awkward silence clinched.
Kenge stood motionless in the sitting room. He was obscenely shivering. For a moment he was silent. His eyes became wild—inimical. Finally, he let out a shuddering sigh. He'd in one hand a panga machete and in the other a paraffin lamp, and a bowl. He was neither frightened nor worried. He told himself he was to fear nothing, but at the same time, he questioned his intentions—in the throes of murdering his longtime companion, Muhlo.
After a long time, Kenge pushed into Muhlo's bedroom. She was sitting on the edge of the bamboo bed. She tilted her head and eyed him with a good eye. She sensed something odd across his face. She was frightened. His face was blank without the usual rictus smile. That face was now a rictus death. A kind of panic built into her.
Kenge's legs cracked making the sound of fractured bones. He set the paraffin lamp on the ground impromptu…moved out of the room and entered another dark room. He paused for a moment until his eyes became accustomed to the darkness. He groped for something in one corner of the room, still shivering.
He extracted a blue jellycan full of paraffin. He grabbed a hammer, a cup, a bowl, and a long knife. He threw the items into a tattered bag except for the blue jellycan. Then, rather absentmindedly, he poured the paraffin into one room after the other.
Sprinkling the paraffin on the walls and beds with a strange madness, making sure he missed nothing of importance. When he reached Muhlo, she was screaming for help. He dragged her from the bed and poured the content over her fragile body. He was mad…malevolent. Terror crept into her. She wailed.
The smell of oozing kerosene soaked the house. Muhlo went on wailing. The kids woke up startled…howling…paroxysms of weeping. Kenge left with his bag on his shoulder.
Outside, he shuffled down through the jagged landscape—screaming. He cried out as he went down into the woods, treading on an inch deep underground creeping, leading himself deep into the Stygian Woods—alone. His thrill cries filled the insane night.
When he reached a huge mahogany trunk as old as himself, he embraced it…crying. The woods were silent except for his cries. Then he listened. Nothing. Only his sobs reverberated in the dull night. He waited for the plague at length as if it were an appointment.
There was a growing sense of indifference from the woods—secretly—not from within, but somewhat above the canopy. A million or so imperceptible eyes glared at him. When nothing seemed to show interest in his tantrums, he left disappointed. What was he thinking?
When Kenge was halfway between the rocks and his itty bitty house, a silent murmur went up from the woods like a string of waves. The woods went into convulsions. Kenge, unaware, scuttled inside the house. He sat down on a low stool, in the darkness.
The house was alive with shrieks of fear. You could still feel the smell of kerosene in the air. An indifferent faint draught rose over the paraffin air, mingled with a fetid of a disturbing odour, and stood in the house. Something glared at him.
Outside, a beastly shadow, darker than the still night rose clumsily. Its appalling—hideous seething, —steaming. Its ghostly abode wrapped the house in a high squeaking sound. Almost immediately, the eerie avatar flickered its magic yellow light. Its eyes were animated, flickering. The giant thing let loose billions of rats.
Kenge, Muhlo, and the children screamed in terror—unsurpassable tortured cries. The plague crept and ripped and yanked the occupant's skins—chewing, gnawing, and slurping. Muhlo's chest cracked. From inside, slowly, —like maggots, a swarm of rats the size bigger than a corn grain popped out in millions. The house shivered with tremendous cries.
The rats scooted—babel—on their hind legs and growled. Half a number of those brutes chewed Kenge. A stinging sensation like no man has ever felt before, wore his body. He fell and yowled and let out a large agonizing, sonorous scream that shattered the night into a thousand pieces. He forced himself up by yanking the corn grain like rats.
He fell again—again—on the shaggy rats. Now, the dark eerily stately critter ( for lack of a better term) grappled him and threw him out of the house, smashing the door into peaceful pieces. With all the effort he could summon, he broke into a staggering run—down the palm oil plantation. But he couldn't see. His vision was blocked by a sea of small filthy rats that covered his body from top to toe, and all around. The writhing thing chattered and flickered with the yellow glow.
It went after him swaying. Its formless shape, blasting. Its waving mouth was like a halo torch light flickering in a dark tunnel. A fetid odour puffed out of that swaying tunnel-like—cephalopod. He ran. He ran into the rusty cobwebbed barbed wire and clung to it like steak. The nocturnal lord gobbled him into a gunk. He yowled no more.
THE END
FROM THE WOODS(Ndugwa Ndugwa)
FROM THE WOODS
Both Kenge, Boki, Sidy, Sunko, —and also Mugye were ardent thugs, —Mania blood friends —were extremely reticent. But old people suspected their foul play, "If a man coils himself so much like a sick dog, there's perversity about him." Old people whispered with foggy faces. And slept in angst.
Only old men shuffled the insanely empty, —madly silent, —isolated village—and, only during the day. Something seemed to watch them…with arcane craziness for the past three weeks.
Kenge was short with an innocent face. He was old, fifty-five, quiet, and peaceful on the outside. He had a heavy tongue…stuttering…and was shy. Children mimicked him. They laughed and trailed him to the market square and the bar, and at times up to the gravel trial leading to his house. His eyes were peculiarly calm with onerous insanity… sitting at the bottom.
Kenge sometimes felt an impetus of a crazed man, though he resisted it. He wore two pairs of trousers, black trousers on Saturday and Sunday, and a pair of brown ones he got from the church on weekly days. He'd had three or seven cows and three or nine goats before his wife was diagnosed with cancer. Some people simply referred to him as, "that jank."
Kenge and his old limping wife, Muhlo —a dawdler, lived on a slope—stony land in a small open space that looked like an ancient tomb at the edge of the village in a four-bedroom square house. A kitchen sat to the left. Although he had a kitchen, his wife cooked inside the main house. So the kitchen now passed as a store. Three low stools, a mat, and a table occupied his sitting room.
Close to the kitchen, in the house, in another small room; two of their children slept. Komba, eleven, and Macha, nine. A small gravel footpath trails up to their isolated abode. Down the slope, rusty, barbed wire cobwebbed into a fence separating their land from the palm oil plantation that stretched far, wandering into fields, and out of sight.
The rest of the land was enclosed in thick stygian woods, pines, and ebonies and eucalyptus. If you went through the palm oil plantation, and into the fields, in a dry season, you would easily reach Kulya, the closest sleepy township seven miles away.
Sad rustic buildings huddled together in irregular lines. There were two streets and a large bar. Two dirt roads made a brief cross running through the town, —both thinned into corn fields and neglected cotton farms, and then disappeared into blood thirty woods.
A dusty road joined Kulya to Tonge the now deserted village. In the past, if you stood in Kulya, on a quiet day you could hear the slow faint noise from Tonge floating high, and low like ocean tides.
But for the past three weeks, the village was utterly empty—with no young men. No children. No human noise. No livestock. Just old people…and frightened dogs—quiet forests. A spectrally silent, empty village. Something seemed to watch them from the woods.
There was a mask of fear that hung over this village. People—old people, —the remnants entered with the brood of chickens, just when twilight was popping behind the woods. Even frogs decamped to the sea. The only noise heard was from the crickets and crying birds, and wailing wind. And, at times even the wind refused to scream—rendering the village void. Dead like a graveyard.
Now, Kenge was scared. He huddled there in the darkness in the sitting room with a withered face. Outside, the sound of crickets pierced the young night. His mind was far, far away. When his wife limped into the room with a lantern, his eyes were filled with water. He wiped them with the back of his hand. And he pretended all was well. He gave her a rictus smile as she sat down.
"You cry again?" She asked.
"No,"
"I don't believe any of thee," she said and turned her head and looked at him with a good eye. She'd had a benign tumor, cancerous—claimed the left eye. All that was left was a scary hole in the skull. Kids ran away from her.
"I'm scared, Muhlo," Kenge said and watched his shadow on the wall.
"Saw him? His family all died thee?" She hefted the lantern close to her eye for a clear view. She was oftentimes, sickly. But quite pigheaded.
"This isn't a fable, Muhlo," Kenge said, refraining himself from shouting. He wasn't sure, maybe they could hear him! Or maybe they already heard him? His eyes winked rapidly.
Muhlo set the lantern on the hard ground. When Its fire snapped, Kenge twitched. He bent over and considered the lantern. His eyes jutted out like a tennis ball.
"They say the plague comes in any form."
"No, again?" Muhlo said.
"It can pop up from the fire, water, wind, fissures, anywhere." He breathed hard, feeling impatient. He went on considering the fire, for a while.
"Send the children away, Muhlo."
"You're running mad," she shook her head.
"You don't seem to understand," he stood up sadly. "First it was Boki, then Sidy. This thing is real."
"Only young men." She protested.
Then coughed in her first and eyed him. She went on considering his face for visible signs of madness. What went into his old head? She thought for the past three weeks now, Kenge was acting weird. Was he crazy?
"You see a doctor," Muhlo said after a moment. "People died often, don't thee?"
"Yes," Kenge said with utter frustration. "This is different. This's a ghostly plague."
"Boki and Sidy…died of… disease, didn't thee?"
Kenge was now on the verge of crying again.
"Listen, the plague is real and deadly, Muhlo," he said, staring down at her like you would with a bird's eye view. "It's a swarm…dark rats. A sea…dark ghostly souls. The tormentors of soul… flesh. Eaters of man. They stand up…stygian dust and eat you… like locusts.
"It's a spell. He moved to the door and stirred it a little. Then turned back to his seat. "It doesn't spare anyone… within the house or around the… the haunted place. With livestock, they….only devour…legs, legs, and mouths." He paused and listened with a giant crazy look in his eyes. "Now, on humans, …it devours everything…everything, except for the bones and eyes. They suck blood…out of the victims first, slowly and gently as if they'd no business…business, anywhere else."
When he finished rumbling, there were beads of sweat chrome on his face. A gentle tapping, jingling sound lingered outside, in the darkness breaking the still, block-headed silence.
"That wind outside, you think it's normal?"
Muhlo barely heard him. She'd hefted the lantern again, shaking it feeling the weight of kerosene in it.
"Do you feel the biting eyes of the woods?" Kenge asked with a little tilt of his head. "It's creeping. That's what it did before the plague wrought—Boki and Sidy."
"You go crazy," Muhlo grumbled indignantly.
There was no moon in the sky. Smooth darkness stretched widely over the village like a tent.
And then, gusts of wind slapped on the house and the rusty iron sheets blurred. The children stirred in their sleep and snorted. He stood up and moved to the window. He stirred it a little. A cloud of dust rose and hung in the air. Kenge coughed. Cruel panic danced in his eyes.
Boki and Sidy were gorged…leaving jutting borns staring at the terror-stricken villagers. Old men said it's a plague. When Kenge turned his eyes to the window, a small rat, the size of a matchbox crept up solidly. He flinched and threw his hands in the air, "shoo," eyeing the insignificant rat. The small beast turned and eyed him.
The brute was crystal dark and mute. Its eyes were alive, torrid—glob, brazing with an eerie braze. Inside its pupils, there was a boiling yellow ring that kept Wheeling.
#
The morning was chilly. The dusty road cutting through the village to Kulya was empty. Not even a speck of dust drifted in the morning air—stillness sprawled out. Dark fluffy clouds rode across the sullen giant sky. The sun was emerging behind the dark fluffy clouds, filtering out. There was an eerie…piercing…conscious… gaze overlooking the village…like someone was watching the village from above.
Old men stood in small groups—around Suko's shack. The shack was up, at the far East end on the edge of his father's land. He was only forty-three…serene. They murmured in low voices. None of them had the nerve to go to the shack. Instead, their eyes darted from Suko's father who lay on the ground…and to the shack. The shack stood a few metres from the crowd. It stood like a massive ancient grave.
Faint fumes of smoke curled up through the rooftop, and when it reached the air above the shack, it spread out as a shroud. On the left of the shack was a pond. And a few feet away from the pond, stretched a thick coffee farm that ran down into the woods. A cluster of acacia trees provided shade for the old men.
Suko's father was a stout old man in his seventies. He'd long lost his wits, people suspected. But no one could confirm it. It was in their lineage, so people considered It normal. At first, he'd howled and screamed and yowled in horror.
By the time Kenge and Mugye reached the shack, he was clawing his fingers into the ground like a madman. He'd rolled and lunged and lay flat on his back. His voice was gone. He just opened his mouth at great liberty and swallowed. And then crawled like a rat. No man dared to hold him.
A mist of tortured fear clung in the air.
Beyond the pile of dry reeds that passed as a door, Kenge could see a shimmering red and white substance…slime…shining against the dark background. Meanwhile, after finding his voice, the old man on the ground was raving about the plague—about its demonic odour, —about its eerie glow, —-about its savage glare.
The woods murmured silently, glaring.
Then, again, the shack clattered. It rippled a little as if it were waking up from a long night—with a quiet contempt. The whispering seemed to fade away with the rippling shack. And the crowd grew perfectly silent. Behind the shack, came a faint disturbing whizzing sound. Mugye was standing at the very rear of the crowd. He looked at Kenge and nodded noncommittally. He was shocked. His knuckles were between his teeth.
Kenge moved a bit closer to the old man. Now, he was standing a few feet from the shack. A swarm of flies made a low buzzing sound from within. A slow hum like that made by sacred fraternities in prayers. Occasionally, the flies would swarm out like bees and then run inside like forgotten visitors. Kenge was shivering. Inside the shack, the little illumination was watching ominously…secretly.
Kenge wiped the tears from his eyes. He was quivering. Suko was his sworn companion. He cried quietly. Then he rounded a few paces to the shack. In the doorway, he jerked and threw up. His eyes had fallen on the slime and the wild…terror in Suko's bloodshot eyes. And a considerable amount of chewed blue, black, and pink clothes on the floor in the dim light.
He was hit by an indescribable smell. He clapped his nose and mouth with the collar of his dirty shirt. Two other skeletal racks gazed up blankly at the arch of the shack. Their skeletal hands were clad on the chests of the deceased…kowtow.
The shack whispered and gave him a rankled stare…a don't touch me look.
Behind the door, in the comfort of the muddled darkness, yellow light flickered. Whatever emitted the yellow light, was humming… chattering like a baby. The chattering grew…swelling—and swelling. And the shack grew too. A mist of the yellow smoke curled up intensely like from a broken radiator… steaming up and settling in the shack… rising with a monstrous odour.
A shadow rose in the shack and stood up like the great Nephilims of the Bible—the giants of the old—a mist of souls flapped. Its yellow eyes seethed. The shack came alive with a grinding outcry like that of a compressor machine…throttle. A billion or so rats broke loose from the shack.
Kenge tripped and fell and rolled up and ran.
Outside, the colony scuttled after them. Jet-black rats. They fluttered on Suko's father. Ripped his clothes easily, much like a man who was thrown into a rotating machine with sharp blades. Ululates went up as the demonic rats forced their way into his mouth and nose and from his anus—globbing him alive. His voice was creaking. He whined in terror.
Then, he shrunk like a man thrown into a brazing volcano—blood oozed from his boiling flesh as the pack feasted. As they did, Suko's father kicked one or two times and became a gunk of shimmering bones—and a heap of chewed clothes sat beside the gunk. The shadow blazed on the parched earth.
Immediately, the ghostly critter hoisted and scuttled across the land scooting and flapping as though it were a bat—after the feeble old men… a man fell on a sharply pointed-edged pole. Blood gushed out in thousands of fine red threads. That blood spattered everywhere in pools. Before he kicked flat, the silhouette hung over him, snuffled, and rode on consciously.
The village flared up into crazed screams. Just then, a strong wind wailed from the East joining the shadow. The sea of rats squeaked and rode to the woods. Kenge ran. He jumped here and there. He was panting all the time. He ran low, and up the slope going as far as Kulya, the sleepy township. He stopped suddenly. The smell of blood was now behind him. The old men were yowling from the fields. The woods quivered and watched viciously.
For a long time, Kenge lay awake. His thoughts were clogged like a blocked vent on a rainy day. He mulled deeply about the arcane rats—plague—the ill health of his wife. He turned around and looked at her in her sleep…he watched her breath rise and fall like a music tempo. Again he looked at her scary scar. He knew deep down, in his heart she deserved to know.
To know that he was stealing to sustain her medical bills…She needed to know that he was sorry—he was poor. She needed to know he was the cause of the plague. He started to cry quietly. Alas! He was poor…the rude feeling stirred his heart bitterly. He went on crying.
The night grew up into a dark still shroud. And Kenge was still there thinking about how all the mad mischief rampage started.
It started three weeks ago in Ddegi village. Nine villages away from Tonge….when Kenge and his hoodlum robbed twenty-five cattle from an old widow. They murdered the herdsman together with an old woman. They hadn't hoped to kill the old woman. It was a brutal mistake.
They'd planned to take the cattle and the herdsman. Throw the herdsman into river Ruvu. However, as they tied up the herdsman, the old woman broke into a wailing chant…a bloody chant… wild laughter. The time was a little past 01:37 am.
Mugye and Suko had broken the door.
Sidy kept watch, while Kenge dragged his feet across the lonely sitting room, leading himself to the old woman's room. He stopped and listened. It seemed to him that the old woman was asphyxiating… asphyxiating…throttling. In the darkness, alone. How was that possible? Kenge hesitated, shivering.
Then, as if in the ghostly movies, a feeble yellow light shone aloft… and, then, suddenly hazed with an eerie cry. Kenge was half dead with fright. He froze, in his position for a while, before he moved on. The door was ajar. Kenge popped his head in. When he did, he felt a strong horror creep his body—and scraped his soul. He saw that the old woman had raised her quivering hands, holding a red ribbon. Blood dripped from the ribbon.
The ribbon had two knots clumped loosely. The old woman shuddered and chanted. She stood in the middle of a small ring on the ground. Asphyxiating—and yelling. A steaming…hissing plague made the ring. The plague hissed like an AC machine. A squeaking voice whispered—aloft.
DIS…PERSION…OF…PER…DITION.
The whisper expanded and clanked in the rude yellow light. Kenge was dazed; he staggered and fell to the ground. Outside, a cloying smell rose in the drowsy night. Mugye and Sidy fell to the ground too.
After a while, when Suko didn't see his companions come, he charged towards the house. The time was a little past 02: 23 am, close to the wee hours—they were late—Tonge was far away considering they were to shuffle with the cattle.
The moon was walking up the flat sky, from the other side of the world.
Suko lunged with his Panga Machete. He bent and stirred Sidy and Mugye in the doorway—from their slumber. He was panting. He then pushed on with quick, wary steps across the room—breathing in gasps… as before. Fear wore his face. His knees cracked a little. When he reached the old woman's room, she was still enchanting… shrieking and laughing.
Kenge was on the floor cowered… hypnotized… possessed. Suko raised his Panga machete and drove it into the old woman, at once. The old woman dropped howling and kicked flat. A sheet of blood sprawled on the floor and the mischief.
A squeaking cry worsened in the blood-spattered room. A cloud of horror rose as the shadow grabbed Suko's hand. Suko yanked his hand. The critter chewed his shirt into pieces. Blood spattered. Suko screamed and ran. The plague huddled together, sulked, and watched.
#
Outside, absolute silence was broken by footfalls brushing against the gravel…followed by a gentle, faint tapping—rapping sound. Kenge murmured and listened intently. He leaned forward, craned his head, and propped on his elbow. For a moment there was silence—stillness. Then, again, there came a low rapping—scrapping—knocking on the door. Kenge was shivering. He reached for his shirt that hung on the jutting nail.
"All is well," a raspy voice said. "It's Mugye."
"Mugye!"
"Mugye," a voice said. "And the elders."
"And…and who?"
"The chief," Mugye said. "And the shaman."
"The woods?"
No one answered. Kenge fumbled with the bolts on the door. He was still shaking stupidly.
"All is well?" Kenge asked.
"Let's say for now," Mugye said, looking at the ground.
Mugye was forty, tall and thin. There was something unclear about the ebony blackness of his eyes. He'd a goading iciness about his peculiar character—chewing on his tongue absentmindedly as dumb kids do.
"My son, you will forgive us, we came at a very late hour," the shaman said with a hideous look that clumped his deeply wrinkled face. "The chief will explain the urgency of this visit."
The group moved to the kitchen. Kenge gave each of them a low stool and sat close to the heap of dry beans and coffee. At the back of the heaps were unhatched eggs. He set the paraffin lamp down on the uneven floor and then threw his chin in his left palm. When he said nothing, the chief said, at last, his voice toneless and faraway as the conjured spirit of the dead.
"Well, my son, it's not easy to say these words to your face," he watched his rudely distorted shadow on the wall and added in a sorrowful voice. "You're a thug." He said and looked away.
Kenge shifted a little, maintaining his calm.
"And we all know why you're doing it," the chief went on. "For the undisputed fact that your wife is sick, but we also know that you're to blame for this plague. Kenge, you brought the plague…you're responsible for all the deaths in Tonge…the emptiness and terror and horror…
"It's not Sidy or Mugye or Boki or Suko. It's you…you're older than all those boys. For the sake of our gods…you're dragging yourself into sixty years…poverty couldn't have made you recruit our young men into this filthy… hoodlum bag of your tricks. You thought we couldn't…know?"
Kenge was shifting in his position all the time. Tears formed, and waited for him to cry, and stood there in his eyes, and waited for a long while until they dropped in his palm still clad on his old chin. He wasn't crying with his eyes, no, it was his soul. His soul was on fire. Mugye went on chewing on his tongue.
"Hmm, as I said, it's not easy," the shaman said. "What is happening in Tonge also happened in Kwa-tu otu in 1867. The plague devoured…all those who were involved in the rape of a ten-year-old…girl. It's believed they were five lads who were coming of age…All their family members were extinguished by the plague.
"And when all that was done, the plague went on a rampage extinguishing extended family members until a sacrifice was offered." He hesitated for a moment and then said after surveying Kenge's face, "the sacrifice was a virgin girl from one of the families. I fear we might not have one.
"The girl was hanged first before harvesting her heart. Then her heart was fed to a barren woman in the village while the corpse was laid in the dark woods. After thirteen days, the remains of the corpse…bones were collected…from the woods and thrown into the village well."
"It's true," the chief said. "Even in 1907, in Tarkinashan a similar incident happened. The plague swept almost the entire township." He said with measured confidence. "I believe this is what they call lost deities…numen."
Kenge tilled his head and looked at the chief and the shaman with little interest that looked like exaggerated contempt. Mugye was chewing on his tongue, also showing little interest in the discussion.
The chief leaned forward and considered Kenge before he said, "the shaman advised us correctly, the only solution you have is to offer your wife as a sacrifice to the eerie rats…willingly…remorsefully. As Tarkinashan and Kwa-tu otu did."
Kenge felt his stomach churning. He was shaking slightly like an idling engine…like a remote earthquake. His sly madness started to build up—expanding…in his crazed nature. He surveyed the old men's faces as madness shawled across his face. The chief seemed to read his face, he twitched and turned to Mugye.
"We need to go before the woods wake up." The chief said. "You've until tomorrow, Kenge."
But then, Kenge said, "how do I offer Muhlo?" He still had a weird look on his face. "And suppose I don't?"
The old men looked at each other and laughed.
"Do you know what people think you're?" The chief asked in high spirits. "I doubted it, but you're forcing me to believe otherwise." He gave him a silent grin. And stood up.
The chief surveyed the place with great distaste.
"Here you go…" the shaman said, handing Kenge, a bowl. "Fill it with Muhlo's blood." He looked at his hands and added. "Mix the blood with her nails and hair. I'll also need seven dead stones, her heart, and a two-week-old bat. Lay the corpse in the woods for thirteen divine days."
All the time Mugye was quiet, chewing his tongue but when he heard a two-week-old bat; he laughed like a loon. The old man warned him.
"Shut up boy or you become the sacrifice."
Not long after the trio had left Kenge's abode, there was a long scream that shredded the night. A long cry that welled skywards until darkness contained it no more…then, the shattering night was filled with strangled cries coming from down the slope, halfway between the gravel path and the main road to Kulya.
The horrific cries went on for a long while over the giant squeaking noise. And funny high-pitched demonic voices came in…floating way up the slope. Up, close to Kenge's house. Suddenly, the cries faded and fell out eerily. An awkward silence clinched.
Kenge stood motionless in the sitting room. He was obscenely shivering. For a moment he was silent. His eyes became wild—inimical. Finally, he let out a shuddering sigh. He'd in one hand a panga machete and in the other a paraffin lamp, and a bowl. He was neither frightened nor worried. He told himself he was to fear nothing, but at the same time, he questioned his intentions—in the throes of murdering his longtime companion, Muhlo.
After a long time, Kenge pushed into Muhlo's bedroom. She was sitting on the edge of the bamboo bed. She tilted her head and eyed him with a good eye. She sensed something odd across his face. She was frightened. His face was blank without the usual rictus smile. That face was now a rictus death. A kind of panic built into her.
Kenge's legs cracked making the sound of fractured bones. He set the paraffin lamp on the ground impromptu…moved out of the room and entered another dark room. He paused for a moment until his eyes became accustomed to the darkness. He groped for something in one corner of the room, still shivering.
He extracted a blue jellycan full of paraffin. He grabbed a hammer, a cup, a bowl, and a long knife. He threw the items into a tattered bag except for the blue jellycan. Then, rather absentmindedly, he poured the paraffin into one room after the other.
Sprinkling the paraffin on the walls and beds with a strange madness, making sure he missed nothing of importance. When he reached Muhlo, she was screaming for help. He dragged her from the bed and poured the content over her fragile body. He was mad…malevolent. Terror crept into her. She wailed.
The smell of oozing kerosene soaked the house. Muhlo went on wailing. The kids woke up startled…howling…paroxysms of weeping. Kenge left with his bag on his shoulder.
Outside, he shuffled down through the jagged landscape—screaming. He cried out as he went down into the woods, treading on an inch deep underground creeping, leading himself deep into the Stygian Woods—alone. His thrill cries filled the insane night.
When he reached a huge mahogany trunk as old as himself, he embraced it…crying. The woods were silent except for his cries. Then he listened. Nothing. Only his sobs reverberated in the dull night. He waited for the plague at length as if it were an appointment.
There was a growing sense of indifference from the woods—secretly—not from within, but somewhat above the canopy. A million or so imperceptible eyes glared at him. When nothing seemed to show interest in his tantrums, he left disappointed. What was he thinking?
When Kenge was halfway between the rocks and his itty bitty house, a silent murmur went up from the woods like a string of waves. The woods went into convulsions. Kenge, unaware, scuttled inside the house. He sat down on a low stool, in the darkness.
The house was alive with shrieks of fear. You could still feel the smell of kerosene in the air. An indifferent faint draught rose over the paraffin air, mingled with a fetid of a disturbing odour, and stood in the house. Something glared at him.
Outside, a beastly shadow, darker than the still night rose clumsily. Its appalling—hideous seething, —steaming. Its ghostly abode wrapped the house in a high squeaking sound. Almost immediately, the eerie avatar flickered its magic yellow light. Its eyes were animated, flickering. The giant thing let loose billions of rats.
Kenge, Muhlo, and the children screamed in terror—unsurpassable tortured cries. The plague crept and ripped and yanked the occupant's skins—chewing, gnawing, and slurping. Muhlo's chest cracked. From inside, slowly, —like maggots, a swarm of rats the size bigger than a corn grain popped out in millions. The house shivered with tremendous cries.
The rats scooted—babel—on their hind legs and growled. Half a number of those brutes chewed Kenge. A stinging sensation like no man has ever felt before, wore his body. He fell and yowled and let out a large agonizing, sonorous scream that shattered the night into a thousand pieces. He forced himself up by yanking the corn grain like rats.
He fell again—again—on the shaggy rats. Now, the dark eerily stately critter ( for lack of a better term) grappled him and threw him out of the house, smashing the door into peaceful pieces. With all the effort he could summon, he broke into a staggering run—down the palm oil plantation. But he couldn't see. His vision was blocked by a sea of small filthy rats that covered his body from top to toe, and all around. The writhing thing chattered and flickered with the yellow glow.
It went after him swaying. Its formless shape, blasting. Its waving mouth was like a halo torch light flickering in a dark tunnel. A fetid odour puffed out of that swaying tunnel-like—cephalopod. He ran. He ran into the rusty cobwebbed barbed wire and clung to it like steak. The nocturnal lord gobbled him into a gunk. He yowled no more.
THE END
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Sarah Lisa
09/09/2022From now and then, I'll look at rats with a second pair of eyes. Thanks for sharing.
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