Carnival of Cryptids (Anthology to Raise Funds for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) (Kindle All-Stars Book 2)

by Bernard Schaffer

  Paulo watched him, glancing back at the jungle where the cries of the mapinguari continued. They came closer and closer with each one. It had caught their scent, and now the hunter had become the prey. Paulo backed himself slowly against a tree.

  Rook marched forward in his impressive warrior’s gear. Behind him, the bearers huddled together and took several steps backward.

  The smell of the mapinguari suddenly struck Paulo. His whole face seemed to cringe, and he buried his nose in the pit of his elbow. The stinking, sweat-mixed muck of his shirt was almost refreshing after the horrid rot that clung to mapinguari’s fur.

  Without much sound at all, mapinguari appeared through the jungle brush. A branch fell before him, pushed out of the way by a huge paw filled with claws.

  It slumped back onto four legs, ambling slowly forward. Its fur was matted and heavy with decaying plant fibers and swarms of parasites feasting on scattered bits of flesh. Rather than one eye, it had two, but they were placed so closely together in a black patch of hair that the mapinguari seemed a cyclops. Its hind feet were round and had short spurs; they almost looked like they were on backward, like a demon’s.

  Despite having pictured the monster for such a long time, Paulo could not help but close his eyes. Its horrid image hung there, floating in the darkness behind his eyelids, and he decided it best to see the beast in reality rather than nightmares. He forced his eyes open and looked over the beast from its sniffing nose to the end of its thick tail.

  Rook raised himself up and bellowed at the creature. “Hey!”

  The mapinguari looked lazily at him.

  Paulo could see the white man shiver underneath his gear. Still, Rook called out, “Over here!”

  Rook set his bag of grenades down, traded his handgun into his offhand, and slipped his good hand into the duffel. Mapinguari let out a horrifying scream. Paulo cupped a hand over one ear and dug the other into his shoulder.

  Rook pulled a cylindrical grenade out, flicked the pin with his thumb, and threw it. The fat metal rod immediately spewed white mist, leaving a trail of smoke through the thick jungle air. It fell into the foliage at the front clawed feet of the mapinguari.

  The beast sniffed the smoke, made a sick huffing noise, and turned back to Rook, who was already priming his second grenade.

  Mapinguari suddenly rose into the air, standing up on his back freakish legs. It showed its belly, which had a long, vertical fold in it that looked almost like a mouth. Paulo wasn’t quite sure what it was from where he stood and did not want to go any closer to see.

  It let out a cry: a long, loud, piercing shriek that made Paulo’s lungs hurt just to be near it. The bearers screamed in return. Two of them turned and began to run. The third fainted dead away.

  Rook stood his ground and threw the second grenade. This one quaked in the air as it went and actually hit the mapinguari.

  The creature roared more deeply this time, fell onto its front legs, and charged at Rook.

  Paulo heard a muffled string of swearing escape Rook’s gas mask. The white man dropped his oxygen tank and scooped up his gun into his right hand.

  The automatic pistol shot off every round it had as the mapinguari rushed at Rook. The monster moved slowly, but the bullets didn’t seem to make any impact. Its thick hide beneath its heavy fur carried bony plates, not seen on other creatures for thousands of years. The carapace could deflect arrows, stop musketballs, and even block modern ammunition.

  A steady man might’ve hit it in the eye, but Rook was shaking. No man could stand before the mapinguari. It was a horrid beast that used its foul stench and overwhelming shriek to stupefy enemies. Though it was slow, it was unstoppable. Now it bore down on Rook.

  The mapinguari hit the white man with its shoulder, throwing him to the jungle floor. Then it lunged on top of him, using its huge claws to tear through Rook’s chest. Paulo could hear screaming from under the gasmask. It was not long before the screams ended.

  Mapinguari fed a little on the white man but soon moved on. The rest of the jungle could have him, as was mapinguari’s way. He simply took the best, thickest parts: the tongue, the heart, and the leather of Rook’s belt and boots.

  After the creature had moved on, disappearing into the underbrush with an unnatural silence for a beast so large, Paulo finally left the tree. He looked over Rook’s remains and winced. It was a terrible end, but the white man had chosen it.

  When he looked up, Paulo was surrounded by Amazonian natives. They wore leather waistbands, paint, feathers, and little else. Many of them carried bows. Others had dart guns. All of them had stone necklaces with the sign of mapinguari: a long central bar for its head, body, and tail with two cross bars showing its four legs.

  For a long moment, no one said anything.

  When the appropriate amount of silence had passed, the leader of the hunting party said, “Greetings and health.”

  “Greetings and health,” Paulo replied. He extended a hand, as did the leader, but neither touched. Backslaps and hand-gripping were the ways of wild civilized man. The jungle was peaceful and proper.

  Behind the leader, two other warriors dragged the unconscious bodies of the two bearers who had run. Darts stuck out of their necks and shoulders. They flopped them alongside the bearer who had fainted.

  “What of them?” Paulo asked.

  “We will sacrifice them to mapinguari as well. They shall not be as acceptable as the white man, but every sacrifice can help us bring back the rains.”

  Paulo took in a breath. The stench of mapinguari still hung in the air, along with the chemical stink of the gas grenades. He waved a hand toward what was left of Rook. “The sacrifice is acceptable?”

  The leader made an agreeable clicking sound. “Our shaman believes so. We shall see if the season rains further.”

  “Let us hope,” Paulo said. The natives agreed.

  “We thank you, brother,” the leader told him.

  Paulo gave a bowing nod, then remembered his manners and clicked his tongue. He touched his Caravaca cross. “I am pleased to help my people.”

  The tribesmen left him then, dragging the three bearers. They followed mapinguari’s trail, nearly invisible amid the brush.

  Paulo rummaged through what was left in the crates, taking food, drinking water, and some cash Rook had tucked away. Venturing back to Rook’s body, he removed the blood-stained newspaper clipping and letter he had written months ago under an assumed name. Scooping a hole in the dirt, he buried them and ensured the jungle would take them as it would soon take what was left of Rook.

  Paulo turned back to the jungle and began his long journey back to collect his own reward. Before marching too far, he stroked his Caravaca cross for safe travels.

  ***

  “Well?”

  Paulo looked up from his thoughts.

  “Well?” Mr. Jameson repeated. He tapped his fingers in civilized impatience on the forms in front of him.

  “Malaria,” Paulo said. “We suffered vicious attacks by the mosquitoes brought on by the puddles of the poor rains. Only I survived to return to Manaus. Then I came here to follow up on Capitão Rook’s final wishes.”

  Mr. Jameson stared at him a moment before finally looking away. “Very well. Sign this affidavit.”

  Paulo signed the paperwork.

  “As you know,” Mr. Jameson said, scrawling on a large check, “Rook had no family, believing a life of adventure more fulfilling. His life insurance policy was to be granted as an endowment for exploration upon the event of his untimely demise.”

  “Sim, senhor,” Paulo replied. “I have here my documentation as a licensed guide. The money will be put to good use ensuring transport to future explorers at limited charge.”

  Mr. Jameson took the official-looking booklet filled with Portuguese, squinted at it, and handed it back. “Fine, fine. Here is the check for Captain Rook’s policy. I’ll bid you good day as I’m very busy.”

  Paulo kept the check safe as he navigated
the treacherous concrete and wires of the city. He would use the money to buy a bigger and better boat, as was his word. The rains had come again, and the rivers were fuller. Perhaps mapinguari would even return the wealth of the rubber trade if a few more sacrifices were made. There were rumors of war in Europe, and wars needed rubber. Paulo wondered how far mapinguari’s reach could go.

  The Lost

  The river rocks you side to side as your boat travels downstream, following the current, helpless without an oar. The night sky above glitters with strange stars, stretched across the stratosphere in incorrect configurations. The moon hangs heavy over the Eastern shore, much too close and much too full. The kind of moon that causes the tide to change and men to murder and animals to throw back their heads and howl. Each crater glares down at you like the wide-eyes of a furious giant, ready to devour the world.

  Your boat glides beside the embankment, bouncing lightly on the current, when you feel the first tug of mud along your boat's underside. You've been dragged too close to the shore, too close to the dark woods where the branches form into creatures that crouch in the shadows, waiting for foolish little children to approach.

  The boat slows and stops and there you sit, marooned and vulnerable. Now you can hear something moving along the shore line. Now all of your senses are attuned to whatever lurks within striking distance and prowls across the jungle floor, ready to pounce on you, ready to knock you backwards into the cold water as its teeth tear through your throat.

  It's coming at you quickly, something large and fast, and you rear back against the boat's starboard wall. You drop down against the side and flatten yourself against the floor, just as a tall, shaggy figure emerges from the trees, its long arms sweeping the ground as it clears the brush from its face. It is an enormous ape with humanoid features, its long caramel colored fur flutters in the evening breeze.

  The creature sees you and stops moving. It crouches low and cocks its head back toward the trees, its mouth contorting into a snarl that reveals its sharp fangs perched at each corner of its mouth like talons.

  There is something coming up behind the creature, most likely more of them, you decide, a hunting party about to feast on your small and tender form. The ape-thing lumbers forward on the beach, coming close enough to snatch you into its powerful arms. Just as you raise your hands to cover your face and scream, the monster presses its hands against the side of the boat and pushes it free of the mud.

  You drift backwards into the embrace of the dark sea and the creature raises one long finger to its lips.

  You nod in understanding and the creature scurries away once more, vanishing into the trees, just as a group of men burst through the brush and one of them cries out, "Where is it? I know we are close."

  He looks up at you and waves high in the air and shouts, "You there! Did you see a ferocious beast pass this way?" Behind him, the eager horde dressed in safari hats and camouflage. Some of them carry scientific equipment that beeps and spins and searches for the creature, driving it deeper into the woods. The others all bear weapons. Rifles and spears and machetes. Nets and ropes and traps. "Well? Answer me, child! Did you see the beast?"

  "I saw only you," you call out across the water.

  With that, you turn back in your seat to face the silent black water as it carries you onwards, knowing that you have told the truth, for in the jungle you have met many things and some of them were creatures while others were the beasts.

  5. The Cage - Simon John Cox

  “I wanna see the yeti!” shouted Horse Morrison.

  He was drunk and boisterous and sweaty with lust and excitement. He had arrived that night on the Dunstan, and had been first off the boat in the phalanx of hungry sailors that had erupted into port looking for drink and whores. It had been he who had seen the poster, the poster that bellowed “Abominable Snowman!” in enormous red letters, the poster that in exchange for just a few measly pounds promised viewers a glimpse of “The only live Yeti in captivity Anywhere in the World!” It was he who had convinced his friends to postpone the brothels, to postpone the women, just for a while, and go instead to see a spectacle that was surely too astonishing to pass up.

  Now he whirled drunkenly around on a chair in the big top singing a song with lyrics and tune known only to himself, one hand holding a cigar and the other clutching a bottle that gobbed dark spumes of beer out onto the sawdust floor. He was the epicentre of a tremor of noisy sailors, mostly Americans but also a few Germans and Turks and a handful of Chinese, and the audience of seamen applauded as he capered for them.

  The other members of the audience, lumpy men and women, locals mostly, watched the scene with suspicion and then alarm as Able Seaman Morrison teetered to one side then lurched backwards and swung a foot out in a futile attempt at counterbalance, but before he could complete his ignominious tumble two, or perhaps three, pairs of hands reached up and hauled him down into his seat.

  “I wanna see the yeti!” he shouted again, but his demand was smothered by the group of laughing sailors, who bundled in on top of him, pinned him down and emptied a bottle of beer down his throat, over his face, into his hair.

  On hearing the second of Horse Morrison’s cries a face poked between the blue curtains that hung at the back of the tent, a face pink and wide-eyed and glistening with sweat, and it scanned the audience for a moment before retreating.

  “Time to get things started,” said George Penny, putting on his top hat and brushing himself down with his hands. He rapped his cane on the floor, and a few moments later the curtains bulged and parted as an enormous wooden cart was heaved onstage by Cormac and Finn, two of the largest Irishmen the locals had ever seen. On the cart sat a large square object, and although the object was mostly covered by red sequinned cloth a few inches of it remained on show beneath the spangled hem; enough to show the thick iron bars of what was clearly some kind of cage. The two men shunted the cart into the centre of the ring, then thudded back the way they’d come, wiping sweat from brows with caber forearms.

  George Penny gave a signal to Joshua Cotton, who flicked a switch on a thick metal panel, and out in the ring the lights dimmed. There was a sense that a silence was lurking there under the canvas, waiting to break out if the hissing and giggling would only subside, and around the ring, in the darkness, all that could be seen were the tiny bobbing constellations of crimson light traced by the ends of countless cigarettes. Then there was a sharp, narrow sound, metal against metal, and a spotlight seared down from somewhere above and illuminated a patch of sawdust in the centre of the ring. Eyes widened, breaths were held, and the air in the tent throbbed with anticipation. This was a kind of sorcery.

  There was a crackle, and a tinny fanfare chimed out through hidden speakers, and then, through the curtain tumbled – tumbled, barrelled, burst – George Penny. He trotted into the centre of the ring, into the spotlight, and he held his arms out wide.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, and as he spoke the cone of light that poured down on him from above caused oily black shadows to lap beneath his eyes, his nose, his lips, “You have come here tonight to witness one of nature’s secrets – one of its abominations – and I promise you that you will not be disappointed. Shocked, perhaps. Alarmed, maybe. Delighted, certainly. But disappointed? Never.”

  He wore an old-fashioned ringmaster’s jacket – bright red, with long tails and shiny gold buttons, perhaps a size too large for him – and white trousers tucked as neatly as he could manage into black leather riding boots. He wore white gloves, and on his head sat a shiny top hat that hid all but the southernmost reaches of his thinning black hair.

  “When I first laid eyes upon the creature roaming upon the distant slopes of Annapurna,” he paused, swinging around and holding aloft an arm to indicate the sequinned cage, “I was astounded. There is no other word for it. To have brought truth to a myth, to have succeeded where the accumulated centuries of naturalism had failed ... it humbled me. When I saw this beast, this marvel,
in the frigid heights of the Himalayas, in the farthest corners of Tibet, where the sky rests on the earth and the snow falls like cherry blossom, I wept.”

  This was untrue, of course. George Penny had bought the Yeti from a filthy Burmese merchant whom he’d met in Calcutta, who had put him on a railway and taken him north until the jungle thinned to rock and snow and the Himalayas stretched up before them. There the merchant had led him to a tiny village where the air itself felt frozen and where he’d left him for three days before returning with a cage covered by a sheet of sackcloth on the back of a wooden cart that George Penny then eagerly transported by land and by sea back to England.

  “The myths, the legends,” he went on, little by little impelling the crowd into a simmering impatience, “The tales, the rumours: all true. Tonight I give you ... the missing link. Tonight I give you ... man’s closest relative. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I give you ... homo abominensis!”

  He flung his arms up into the air, and at this signal two sets of hidden pyrotechnics sent scarlet throats of flame roaring up at the back of the ring. At the same time an almost invisible nylon cord and pulley system whipped the sequinned cloth from the cage, exposing both the cage and the creature within. The crowd gasped almost as a single being. But was it shock? Dismay? Horror?

  The creature was perhaps seven feet tall, or it would have been had it stood fully erect; the cage was barely more than five feet high, so the beast, this Yeti, sat in the corner of the cage with its knees drawn up to its chest. Its body was covered all over in lumpy swatches of brown hair, and where the hair stopped – at the palms, the feet, the face – its skin was pale and sickly, like the skin of some kind of blinded subterranean fish. Its hands were huge and blunt, its feet were broad and flat, as though they had been hammered out on an anvil, and its enormous head was domed like a coconut. Its most unusual feature, though, was its face, which was crumpled and sad and, depending on where you were sat in the audience and how the light played upon its wrinkles, resembled that of a gorilla, a chimpanzee or a man.