Or was he dreaming?
Gazda sprinted across the clearing, spurred on by the thrilling snap and tug as long blades of grass whipped his pale thighs. The night noises of the jungle covered the steady thump of his footfalls, and he threw caution aside to cross the distance to the tree-nest fully upright.
He had pondered the females sleeping so near to him until the rain stopped altogether and the night had darkened, even until the black fog had subsided. When the creatures of the forest returned to their nocturnal calls and song, he was thus emboldened to cross the twilight open space and explore the strange invaders again.
The night ape came to a halt beneath the platform. The tree-nest door was shut and the windows were as black as the shadowed eaves.
He trained his sensitive ears upon the structure, drawn by the sonorous rhythm of sleepers. His thoughts drifted to the night apes inside. The small space was alive with the deep snoring of the males, and the echoes within shaped the placement of things before his mind’s eye.
But they were dispelled like spectral dreams as orange sparks shot from the hollow tree atop the roof—startling Gazda.
And a sharp snort told him that a sleeper had come half-awake.
The night ape crouched patiently in the long grass watching random sparks fly at the dark sky until he was sure all of the strangers were asleep again.
Then, Gazda leapt silently to the platform, and raised himself by the window to peer in. His night vision easily pierced the shadows as if a full moon beamed inside, and he saw the old female snoring wetly against the wall while butted up beside her bed was the head of the mattress that the other females shared.
The yellow-haired one shifted beneath the blanket, and Gazda’s breath caught raggedly, constricted by desire.
His vision sharpened even as the darkness deepened around him.
Adrenaline rushed through the night ape and his heart raced like he was on the hunt. His sharp nostrils flared to draw more moist air and steady a growing dizziness; but that only intensified his swoon, for upon the draft were more echoes of the female perfume.
He had to know more about this yellow-haired night ape. Her tribe could be a threat...
But that aggressive reasoning could not hide the truth. Every part of Gazda was aflame with desire, for he had to pierce the mystery of her.
The dark-haired female drew his interest also, and he quivered at the thought of positioning himself close by them or lying between their curled forms as they slept unaware.
Gazda hesitated. He was not himself.
But this was no dream, so what had happened to draw him into peril? And he remembered the music. Was it still at work?
It had been a powerful weapon indeed for him to risk time and again such dangerous proximity to the night ape females and their mates.
But they were... They were like the music, though their scent conjured visions other than leaping, twirling apes.
The yellow-haired female rolled onto her back, and the blanket fell away from her smooth neck.
Gazda pressed his face against the wooden window mesh, snuffling at the air that filtered out, and her scent hammered against him, caused his blood to surge and limbs to shake.
Then, some primeval instinct sprang up to alert the night ape and he ducked low, knowing that the jungle had grown silent and still.
Glancing past the lair, Gazda saw that the air around him had grown thick and dark, and to the left and right the clearing had filled with a groping fog.
Darkness surrounded the structure, lifted black creepers upward to caress the air, and mount the platform behind him.
Beyond he saw the murk followed a twisting course from the southern slope where the grove of black trees brooded, and despite the night, his sharp eyes saw a darker haze amidst those tumorous hulks.
The fog had flooded the clearing, and was rising to come level with the platform, threatening to submerge and drown what lay within.
Gazda choked back fears as the murk flowed over the planks to envelope him by the tree-nest door. A roar assailed his ears within the smoky shroud that he knew to be his own heart.
Yet in the darkness past the door it seemed he “felt” the shapes of the strange apes within. The females slept opposite the portal, and the others crowded the space beyond the new wall in his domain.
But he was deaf to all but his racing pulse.
Gazda reached up to unlatch the door before carefully guiding it open with his hand. He sniffed the air and his skin tingled beneath shuddering muscles.
Passion swelled in him and tightened the flesh upon his bones.
He licked his lips at what he smelled. The scent was sweet and heavy in the air.
Panting desperately, silently, the night ape entered the structure on all fours, and crossed the span of floor as quietly as he moved upon the hunt—when it felt as though he did not touch the ground.
To his right, he saw the wall of fabric, and past it humps of shadow lay before an orange dim. The silhouetted males slept on the floor. Their rounded shapes rose and fell to time their slow breaths, and the night ape froze in place, startled to hear a voice mutter mindlessly.
The words held less meaning than the sound, for the latter told him his deafness was passing.
The night ape’s heart still raced, but his ears were now alive to the sounds of these invaders breathing, the quiet click of tongues and lips, and the gentle brushing whoosh of flesh on flesh.
He was aware of these shapes and sounds. His senses encompassed all, even though the clotted fog remained to stain the fabric wall and follow Gazda to where the women lay in a rising pool of mist.
He crept forward, pulse pounding, body shuddering, and he paused by the foot of their simple bed of blankets. The females’ smooth white feet deformed the bedding or protruded and for a moment the night ape hovered close to drink in their strange scent until his heart throbbed anew with fire and colored his face with red.
Moving deftly, cautiously, like a panther close upon its prey, the night ape crawled over the yellow-haired female, pausing as he moved to brush his nose against the blanket, or hold his face close to where her rounded form thrust upward with a smooth cleft swept beneath.
Each time he did this, his excitement multiplied and his mind grew dizzy with desire. He struggled for control, and yet he could not resist the scents rising from her. Like a fuel it set him aflame...
...until he burned over her, gulping in her aura—smell, sound and contour.
The dark-haired female muttered something in her sleep, and Gazda’s eyes slid over her face and covered breasts and legs a moment—as his lips and tongue were numbed by heat, and contorted by his shining fangs.
The crimson light of his gaze fell like blush upon her pale cheeks, and he knew she was dreaming without looking through her skin.
Gasping, pulse pounding, Gazda lowered his face to the delicious curve of white flesh where the yellow-haired female’s neck adjoined her smooth shoulders—and he pressed his burning lips so softly there, and felt her heartbeat push against them.
No! The thought restrained him, and as he strove with all his strength to turn away, his body brushed against hers.
Gazda’s breath rasped as he contorted in the throes of passion, wrestling his desirous mouth away from her.
At last to see when he glanced back that she was watching him in turn. Her eyes were open, staring up at his shadow as her bosom quickly rose and fell—as her heartbeat raced.
As her scent rose about him like a caress.
The black fog had poured into the tree-nest to enclose her body and frame her pale face.
The night ape lowered his head and she pressed a rosy kiss to his open mouth, her teeth clashing with his own as her tongue drove against him.
Startled, Gazda shuddered at the passions burning through his body, and even still, he used his great might to pull away a final time.
He could not. He would not!
But beneath him she lay there watching, still s
miling but nodding now—comforting, coaxing, as she reached up and set her hands to his swelling shoulder and corded neck to draw him close.
Gazda smelled the blood coursing beneath the lily-white skin as he lowered his open mouth.
CHAPTER 10 – Out of the Black Fog
“We had mustangs at the ranch that were easier to ride than that dang ‘mattress,’” Mr. Quarrie grumbled as Jacob Raines folded the blankets that had served as his bed.
“Thunder, rain and fog all night...” Quarrie rubbed the back of his neck. “And a plague of birds this morning.”
Jacob lifted the bedding, nodding sympathetically but without making a comment.
“I was out the minute my head touched the pillow,” Mrs. Quarrie said, slipping from behind the cloth partition that divided their shelter. After a quick glance back into the women’s section, she shuffled over to her husband who greeted her with a peck on the cheek. “I didn’t hear a thing. Though, I’m sure the hollow-eyed creature peeping out of your granddaughter’s blankets might agree with you.”
Van Resen listened from the open door where he stood on the raised platform with the young Englishman Phillip Holmes. They were enjoying the fresh morning air while waiting for their bunkmates to rise so breakfast could be prepared.
Lilly Quarrie’s appearance had already been remarked upon by her governess, Virginia James, who had just returned to check on the girl and tidy up their small space.
“It isn’t like her to linger abed, and now she’ll be underfoot,” Miss James said.
“Surely, she was disturbed by the rain and jungle sounds,” Van Resen called after her.
With no change in her sleepy ward’s condition, the governess decided to let her lie by shifting the end of the partition so it closed off Lilly’s bed and expanded the interior living space.
The governess left her to join Jacob and Phillip Holmes where they had climbed down to clear an open space in the tall grass for a fire. They weren’t at it two minutes before they uncovered charred wood in a ring of stones.
Van Resen had already established that the yurt’s previous occupant had used the curious dwelling’s fireplace as an oven, but the scientist thought it wise to cook outdoors unless inclement weather forced them to do otherwise.
Fire for heat or comfort, like the one they’d had the previous night was essential, but the yurt was their only sanctuary in the vast jungle, and he did not want to risk a grease fire destroying it.
Rain would eventually drive them to use the fireplace for cooking, but he hoped to inspect the chimney thoroughly before that happened.
Jacob poured water from the five gallon barrel left them into a large kettle marooned along with the Quarrie’s cooking utensils. He set this to heat on the rocks beside the growing flames.
They would have to be careful with their water supply.
The rain had made Van Resen consider setting out pots to collect it until a nearby spring or stream could be found; but before any such expedition, he wished to determine what they had as armaments besides his butcher knife and Jacob’s axe.
Virginia and Jacob left the water to boil and Holmes to tend the fire, before climbing back into the yurt where Mrs. Quarrie was setting breakfast out on the butcher block. This consisted of cheese, biscuits, tinned sardines and jars of apricots and peaches that had been stranded with them. It was clear that while the mutineers had not wished them well, they did not want them to die outright; however Van Resen had noted the absence of coffee, which seemed a cruel and unusual punishment to him.
The scientist was pleased that the women were not insisting that they dress for breakfast, though he understood the previous evening’s formal dining to be a tonic for their anxiety.
Mrs. Quarrie had turned up several unopened tins and jars of food during the previous day’s housecleaning, but those would be saved and only used in extremis. It was clear from their covering of cobwebs and dust that they were many years old and their edibility was in question.
The castaways had enough food of their own to settle in and keep them fed until they could find other sources growing in the jungle. Van Resen had plans to identify fruit and vegetables before recommending which were safe for consumption. He had also talked to Jacob about beachcombing for shellfish, and constructing nets and fishing poles to exploit the sea that was almost at their doorstep.
The fact that the mutineers had left them with some means for survival confirmed to Van Resen that the castaways were intended as ransom or as a bargaining chip for later use.
It had not come from Christian charity, of that the scientist was certain.
Of course, this worried him because it suggested that the criminals would return, and he doubted the castaways could repel an armed invasion.
As it was, survival of any sort was at stake with only the manservant and the elder Quarrie with whom he could discuss threats and strategy. Both men like their female companions had lived amid comforts too long to easily consider such things.
In all fairness, Van Resen could only rise to the challenge because of his ready knowledge of the biological sciences, his experience as a field researcher in Germany and because of his fondness for hiking and nature.
The scientist had not considered bringing Phillip Holmes into any discussion of their future. Already, the young man’s minor complaints about the conditions of their “camp” had turned to justifications for avoiding work as had been shown only moments before by his willingness to let Jacob split wood for the fire.
“We must focus on rescue,” Holmes had said as he fulfilled his job setting a match to Jacob’s wood. “Only a beast could survive here for long.”
Van Resen knew that focusing on rescue rather than survival would have only one tragic outcome. The young man was out of his element and frightened, and had been unsettled since the night before when he saw an animal in the trees as they smoked cigars.
He had become inconsolable about the “bloodthirsty creature,” finally requiring strong words from the other men to stop his disturbing chatter around the women.
After that Holmes understood that his male companions would avoid confrontation if he spoke freely in such fair company. It was a situation that would not last, but until the women adapted to the rigors of the jungle, Van Resen decided to leave it alone.
Holmes would get his comeuppance later.
When the tea was ready, Miss James called for Lilly to join them by the fireplace where they gathered to consume their portions from Mrs. Quarrie’s fine china. The tea was excellent despite the rustic setting, and many remarked at the cheerful taste of their Bohemian fare.
After some delay, the girl came out. She wore her dressing gown with a dark red kerchief wrapped up under her chin to make her face a chalky cameo set in a tangle of golden ringlets that cascaded from beneath Captain Seward’s Stetson.
“Goodness, Lilly!” her grandmother remarked. “You look like a frightful ghost!”
“Oh Granby,” the girl answered, coming up to kiss the old woman’s ruddy cheek. “I’ve only just awakened. Is there tea?”
“Of course there is,” Miss James said, moving to her with a cup. “But little sugar and neither cream nor milk. However the doctor assures us that we’ll discover a natural source of sweetness given time.”
“Honey, most definitely, and there will be berries and fruit,” Van Resen said, munching on a biscuit. He was breakfasting cross-legged on the floor beneath the hunting trophies. “I will not rule out milk in the future, but such an undertaking would be challenging.” The scientist began formulating a list of African dairy animals, and pictured a great water buffalo. “Yes, indeed—challenging!”
“Doesn’t ‘honey’ mean bees?” Lilly drawled, taking her cup of tea. “And ‘bee’ mean stingers!”
“Excellent point,” Van Resen said, nodding. “I am glad to see you using your wits, my dear girl. We’ll have to be careful of the slightest injury while we are here. Even a bee sting could prove fatal.”
�
��Please, Dr. Van Resen,” Mrs. Quarrie clucked. “We’ve barely started the day...”
“You’ll get Granby worrying,” Lilly said with a sly smile that began wilting as she pulled the old ranger’s hat off and hung it over a pair of horns jutting from one of the mounted skulls on the wall.
Humming sadly, Mr. Quarrie slid a comforting arm around the girl’s shoulders and the pair slumped as they thought of their missing friend.
Miss James took that moment to move. She stepped in close and grabbed at Lilly’s silk scarf.
“Oh Ginny, don’t fuss! I’ve a sore throat!” Lilly slipped out of her grandfather’s embrace as she fended off the governess’ attentions. The girl pressed the end of the kerchief over her mouth and spoke through it: “It’s all this dust and dirt—and the stink here. It’s worse than one of Grampy’s barns!”
“That’s enough, Lilly! A lady brings grace where she does not find it,” Miss James chided. “And she does not sleep late only to spoil breakfast for those who made it. Eat some fruit and biscuits, girl. You’ll need your strength if you’re to clean this place again as you’ve so generously offered.”
“Young Miss Lilly has reminded me also, Jacob,” Van Resen said, rising. “We have much to attend to today, but first we must deal with the former occupant of this place. I would not want him attracting any animals considering his state.”
“If he hasn’t already,” Jacob answered with a knowing nod.
An hour later, Van Resen called the castaways away from their chores. He and Jacob had dug a single grave in the rich, black soil some 30 feet behind the yurt just where the land began to rise, but far from the malodorous moringa grove.
It seemed to the scientist that at all times the gloomy murk clinging to the sickly trees worked as a forgotten memory, startling him with its long shadow.
He joined the others at the foot of the grave.
“I do not know of any rite to perform over these poor creatures.” The scientist gestured to the rolled up blanket that contained the skeletal remains of the man and infant. It lay on the ground at his feet. “I have guessed from the man’s dress and possessions that he came from eastern Europe, but that does not tell us much more than that he was likely Christian. As none of us is a priest perhaps a few kind words could be said to invoke the Holy Spirit.”
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