9 Tales Told in the Dark 8

by 9 Tales Told in the Dark

  "But I have something wrong?" Dev blubbered through the glove's limp fingers, causing them to waggle in time with his words.

  "Oh, yes." She smiled, revealing tiny yellow teeth, all traces of hysteria gone. She removed the glove from his mouth long enough to slap it onto her slender hand, and then jammed her fingers deep into Dev's throat. "How did you say you were feeling, Mister Chopra?"

  Dev gagged. The sticky sweet odor of peppermint antiseptic smothered him, and his heart raced as he squirmed to keep from throwing up. The noises in his head got louder. He felt paranoid, as if someone were chuckling behind his back.

  "Good. Good." She nodded as if he'd spoken, the whole time attempting to climb into his mouth. Her painted nails flashed like scimitars as she leaned over him, tightening the already torturously snug cables.

  "Is that a list of demands?" Dev had caught sight of the screen. It looked like a shopping list scrolling through the readouts; different fonts, different sizes, like a ransom note from an old movie.

  "It is..." She stepped back, pulling the gloves from her hands with finality, her tone suddenly cold. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you're tooth has become self-aware."

  He sat up. "What does that mean?"

  "It means, Mister Chopra, that I can't help you." Gina tapped the tablet as she spoke.

  "You have to." Dev pleaded, grabbing her white smock. "It's driving me nuts. Loud music in my skull at all hours, burning pains shooting through my lips, dizziness; I can't take it anymore."

  She peeled Dev's fingers away one at a time, as if picking spiders from her lapel. "Not only has your mandibular first premolar become self-aware, it's annexed the canine and lateral incisor beside it."

  "They're my mandy-bulars. I won't give them up." He choked on the unfamiliar word. "There's got to be something you can do."

  "No much, I'm afraid." She shuffled closer to the door. "I could set up a dialog, negotiate a truce or draft articles of emancipation, but the tooth's demands are lengthy and specific. I must warn you, it's already retained a lawyer, and there's a pending injunction against the exclusive use of your lower jaw. Beyond that... I just don't want to get involved in a domestic matter."

  "But..." Dev tried to control the overpowering urge to stick his fingers into his mouth. He imagined he could feel his teeth laughing. His tongue tingled, as if plotting against him.

  "I can give you the number of a good attorney." She flipped a business card at him. It struck the plastic faceguard holding his mouth open, lodging between his teeth. A squeal rippled through his jaw.

  "Pull it!" Dev twitched in the oversized mechanical couch as if his seat was on fire. "Yank it out! Get rid of the tooth!"

  "Legally, my hands are tied."

  "I can't take it!" Dev snatched an extractor from the shallow metal pan at his side. The spoon-like device glowed an eerie emerald. "I'll do it myself."

  "Stop!" Gina lunged.

  Dev jammed the extractor between his lips. Teeth toppled from his mouth like loose popcorn kernels. Screeching explosions shook his jaw. Needles of pain seared his gums, filling his mouth with the taste of burnt flesh.

  The laughing subsided. The noise in his jaw vanished.

  He sighed through the pain as he eased the extractor from between the gaping chasm of his ruined smile, dizzy from the agony. The electrodes came away easily now that there were no teeth to anchor them. Blood and saliva drooled across his lips and down his fingers. He felt giddy. He felt free for the first time in weeks, ecstatic knowing he was again master of his own body.

  "Do you know what you've done?" Gina's dark face hovered beside him.

  "I won..."

  Grinding cracks, like breaking ice, shook his skull. The cacophony seemed to come from everywhere at once. His whole body trembled.

  He screamed as a new list of demands began scrolling across the display.

  THE END

  BIG EYES by Jim Lee

  “Fear has Big Eyes”

  —Traditional Russian Proverb

  1. THE HOLY MAN:

  The Malang rose, left the fat strutting arrogance of the bird-thing behind.

  He stumbled forward along the rugged and lonely trail. He had no idea where he was going, or even why. It was merely the latest in a long chain of vague, unexplained, wordless Orders. The Malang knew better than to question the Master’s often incomprehensible desires.

  Besides, one place was as good as the next. They all fed him; gave him drink; provided a suitable dry corner for him to sleep in. As long as he did exactly what the Master wanted, the Malang was sure he’d be all right.

  The part of him was still somewhat aware of his surroundings noted, without questioning it, that the trail was rising, the air thinning out. He was now well above the tree line, the vast silver birch forests far behind—and still the path curled higher!

  Once more he heard the throbbing roar of a helicopter overhead. He did not immediately look up, as another might. The aircraft was a foreign thing and very noisy, but no great wonder. It slowly circled him, as if puzzled by his lack of interest.

  Then it paused immediately before him, hovering and kicking up a cloud of loose dirt. The Malang halted, blinking grit from his eyes. And at last, he raised his head.

  He saw the gunner in the copter’s nose and the pilot, seated directly above and behind him, and—mounted on the underside of the thing’s stubby wings—the rows of pod-shaped rocket launchers.

  The Malang had seen such weapons used to flatten a native village some months before, in the Linar Valley. Even then, he was not especially impressed.

  Many years before, on the day he went mad, the Malang had seen the True Face of the Master. He still retained evidence of that encounter upon his lined and pockmarked visage.

  After that, what terrors could a mere Russian helicopter gunship provoke?

  Now the aircraft turned its side to him and the Malang observed it had a passenger. This man clung to the open side door with one hand; the other clutched a loudspeaker. His uniform was different from the Russians’ and he wore a bristling full beard.

  An Afghan, then.

  Working with the Foreign Dogs!

  Over the noise of the bulky, twin-mounted engines, the soldier’s amplified voice was strange but understandable. He had a Nuristani accent, but first he spoke in Pashto. Then in Dari. Then in several lesser Afghan tongues—including his own.

  Each time, the message was the same: “Attention! You are approaching a Forbidden Area! By order of the Afghan Government and its Allies, the Kantiwar Pass is closed! No civilian travel beyond this point is permitted—turn back now!”

  The Malang, of course, paid no heed. He simply lowered his head and kept going.

  2. THE SERGEANT

  Piotr Grigorovich Timoshenko stood almost contentedly at his post. He raised his binoculars again and peered intently to the southwest, down the winding mountain trail. The chill winds did not bother him. The very bleakness of the Pass, the grey-blending-to-ivory sameness of the bare ground that the others hated, was a comfort.

  It promised the isolation Timoshenko craved. The outpost at Kantiwar Pass was simply too remote, too strongly held and too easily defended for the guerrillas to even consider attacking it. So, with luck, Timoshenko would never have to kill again.

  Not that the Pass was completely lifeless. No.

  Even here, 15,000 feet above sea level, a few hardy plants grew in their stubborn isolation—and with them, a handful of animals. A family of Asian magpies nested nearby, along the edge of a jagged cliff side, as was their habit. He saw a small, furry creature in the distance—a marmot, looking for his breakfast.

  Then, at the very edge of Timoshenko’s peripheral vision, something small and white moved. Something that surely had no earthly business being there! A chill ran down his back. Timoshenko swung his binoculars around, but it was gone.

  Imagination, he thought.

  Now from behind came the crunch of boot against gravelly dirt, but he did not turn. Aga
in, Timoshenko scanned the rocky trail.

  Nothing.

  “Sergeant!”

  Timoshenko glanced over his shoulder at a corporal whose name he had not yet learned. He had seen the man before—a sickly-thin Moldavian fellow.

  “Yes?”

  “Colonel wants you to report, immediately. We’re getting an unscheduled visit, it seems, and Danilov wants you involved.”

  “Me?” A surprise inspection? Some General with nothing better to do? If so, why me? “Where’s the copter coming from? Bagram?”

  “Not a copter. On foot, and not one of ours, Sergeant. One half-crazy native, I hear.”

  And I’m the resident expert on crazy natives, Timoshenko thought bitterly.

  Damn! He handed the corporal his binoculars and felt sudden apprehension.

  Two weeks his precious peace had lasted.

  And now?

  With sick certainty, he knew: My rest is over.

  3. THE LIEUTENANT

  Marcinko paced the Command Post in disgust.

  Nothing was as he had hoped! First, while others were posted in active combat regions, winning promotions he deserved, Marcinko was stranded up on this mountain, vegetating.

  And then, to be burdened with this hesitant worm of a colonel. Yes, a worm—small and thin and slippery! A Byelorussian, too—far too fair-skinned and light-haired for Marcinko’s tastes. Not a Great Russian, but a pale imitation—a shadow of a True Slav!

  One who should be serving Russians, not giving them orders!

  Now this…

  The pilot and gunner should have shot the dirty beggar on sight. They still ought to shoot him. And I should be there, to watch over things.

  Instead of Danilov, and that Buryat. And our esteemed ally, “Captain” Karmal. Whatever Karmal says, the old beggar is probably a spy.

  Can’t trust any of them. Especially not Karmal!

  But at least Timoshenko will be there.

  Yes, I must get to know him better. A Great Russian, in the best tradition.

  Only nineteen and already a Sergeant! A hero, with two battlefield promotions to his credit!

  Yes, Marcinko thought and licked his lips. Just give me six months in the

  Panisher Valley and then you’d see results! Victories, promotions—and medals!

  Perhaps even the Medal!

  Yes, he could see that. He could easily imagine standing in Red Square, accepting the Golden Star from some famous General or Marshal—becoming, officially, a Hero of the Soviet Union!

  Marcinko grinned to himself.

  All of that, in time.

  4. THE DOCTOR

  D. I. Aleksandr, doctor of medicine, army officer and, despite the name, a full-blooded Asian, from Siberia—a Buryat, to be precise. Not many of them, but a proud bunch. In love with knowledge, with education. And always, always in search of fresh sources of enlightenment.

  It was the one thing the Monks had brought that was still strong with the Buryat heart.

  Dr. Aleksandr tired of staring at the backs of Danilov and Abdullah Karmal. He turned to the young sergeant walking at his side. “You know more about these people than I, Timoshenko?”

  It was not really a question and Timoshenko shrugged in response.

  “Much more, or so I understand,” the doctor continued. “Tell me, how did such a bright young man find himself a humble foot-soldier?”

  “It . . . the Red Army sends a man where he is needed.”

  Embarrassed, Aleksandr thought. Uneasy. That was understandable. He felt his face curl into the smile all his friends called ironic, but was powerless to prevent it.

  That grin will get you in trouble, Aleksandr’s Mother had prophesized more than once.

  But it was as much a part of him as his liver or kidneys. What help was there for it?

  “You were conscripted, Sergeant? Right out of school? No family influence within our great Red Army, I suppose?”

  Unlike some people, Aleksandr thought. Lieutenant Marcinko . . . the hateful bastard!

  “I was conscripted,” Timoshenko murmured, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

  “What do you want of me, Doctor?”

  “Information, of course!” The ironic smile, again. “My people come from a Buddhist tradition, as you may know. I know little about Islam, to be honest. And the more I learn, the less I seem to know! Had no idea, for example, that they went in for . . . well, Evil Spirits?”

  “They don’t.” Timoshenko frowned. Then his brow cleared abruptly. He seemed to resist the impulse to laugh. “Oh, I see! You’ve been talking with Captain Karmal about our visitor?”

  “Yes. Of course. Did I misunderstand? He seemed to mean that these Malangs are not mere wandering holy men, but possessed somehow?”

  “Certainly.”

  Anthropology, the doctor recalled, had been Timoshenko’s proposed area of study in his brief stay at University. Now that he was on familiar (and relatively safe) ground, the sergeant spoke easily and well, and with confidence, his slightly large dark eyes coming alive.

  “Common enough thing, Doctor. Among primitive, tribal religions, I mean. The mildly insane—like these Malang—are thought blessed. Touched by God’s hand, or the like. And often protected by supernatural forces—I’m sure you’ve heard this? But, no—it’s not an Islamic belief, as such.”

  “But . . . but,” Aleksandra sputtered. “Afghanistan . . . is an Islamic nation.”

  “Yes.” Timoshenko’s head bobbed. “But an isolated, backward one. And Islam is adaptable, in the extreme. Here you have a hybrid—a cross of Fundamentalist Islam with the older, tribal superstitions. Malangs are a holdover, one might say, from the old ways. That’s why the Moslem holy men—the Mullahs—mostly tolerate the competition. They’ve co-opted the pagan symbol, incorporating it into their own Faith! Blend in and Conquer, that’s the true Islamic Way, historically! Only don’t let any Good Moslem hear you say so.”

  Timoshenko finished this little speech with an almost playful wink.

  “Fascinating,” Dr. Aleksandr said. Then he realized the colonel and the captain had stopped in front of them. He craned his short neck, not that it helped much. Beyond them stood the Malang.

  Outwardly: an old, bedraggled man in rags.

  But . . . damn! Look at those Eyes!

  5. THE HOLY MAN

  They had done the thinkable: They had turned him away! Refused him food or even any of their fancy, foreign medicines! Well, at least the Nuristani had allowed him water from his canteen. Allowed him water! Such an insult—to the Master, and to himself!

  The Malang snorted, began using his meager supply of charcoal to construct his solitary campfire. Were these foreigners so ignorant? Or didn’t they even care? Of course Karmal did but then the Malang had long been known in Nuristan.

  Two of the Russians—the young one with the striped uniform shoulders and the sharp-eyed Asian—had seemed sympathetic, if not properly awed.

  But the other one—the stout, light-haired-but-greying man with the funny eyeglasses. Yes, he was the trouble; He had been in charge; it had been his decision. Fine, so let the insult be on his head!

  The Malang pulled his rags tighter. This far up it was always cold—even now, in mid-summer. Now he understood why the Master had insisted that he bring the charcoal.

  The bird landed at his feet; the special one.

  Its small eyes met his great ones and the Master was inside his head yet again. Beside his tiny fire, the Malang trembled. Then he nodded, slowly.

  Wheezing, he gathered himself up to slump into place behind one of the huge boulders. He was growing old and more easily tired, though he still endeavored to serve the Master well. In the darkness beyond, he could hear two of the foreigners call back and forth in their ugly Devil Language.

  It was very cold, and the Malang regretted the necessity of leaving his feeble campfire. But it was the Master’s will, and therefore undoubtedly right.

  It would be daylight in perhaps three hours. The Mal
ang settled back to wait for it.

  6. THE SERGEANT

  Timoshenko scanned the narrow, twisting pathway, which was peppered with boulders. He shook his head. Once, the co-called Butter Trail had been an important alternate supply route for the rebels. Then this base and its heliport had been constructed, and the Mujahedin’s Stinger-laden mule convoys had found other ways back from ‘neutral’ Pakistan.

  “You can’t see him, either?” Rykov asked anxiously. “But he must be there, Sergeant! Vlad told me when I relieved him at dawn. They saw his campfire down there.” The private thrust a long finger forward.

  “Yes, Boris,” Timoshenko remarked, absentmindedly. He was still trying to locate the unwelcome visitor and Rykov—a self-professed ‘dumb farm boy’ from Ukraine—was, like the sergeant, only nineteen. Yet unlike Timoshenko, he was also fresh and untried; full of innocent enthusiasms and very easy to like. Perhaps too easy, Timoshenko reflected as he returned the binoculars. “I see no sign of him, Comrade. Perhaps he’s gone back the way he came, from the side-valleys of Upper Nuristan.”

  “I hope so!” Rykov gasped with typically overstated joy. “I really hope so, Piotr Grigorovich!”

  Timoshenko set his jaw, glared at him. Yes, entirely too easy to like! It had been the sergeant’s own fault, of course. Still, Rykov had no business using the diminutive—not when addressing his sergeant! Rykov blinked, startled by the sudden shift in the local climate. He pulled his greatcoat tighter, though for once the savage breeze was inactive.

  “Sergeant… my sincere apologies. I forgot myself; had no call to be so…familiar.”

  “Agreed,” Timoshenko responded sternly, but then he offered a cautious grin. Both of them were new here; both needed a confidant. “I’m glad too, Comrade Private. A wandering holy man is the last thing we need here. Especially today, with Marcinko as Officer of the Day!”