Path of the Tiger

by J M Hemmings

  ‘Nor will you be. I promise you, the enlightenment of which I speak is a purely mental, emotional and spiritual experience. I regret that at the moment we have to involve ourselves with this violence, but it is a means to an end, and end that someone like you, someone with your ideals could appreciate … Margaret Emily Green of the University of California Davis Medical School, long-term partner of Ting Chung, Professor of Women’s Studies at California State University.’ Suddenly, it appeared as if the man’s eyes had taken on some sort of uncanny glow, like those of a prowling wolf in a dusk forest, or some other nocturnal predator skulking through the dark. He continued speaking, and his voice took on a tone that was low and almost threatening. ‘I’m sure that you miss the four-bedroom home that you two co-own on Redwood Drive. The view over the lake from the deck out back is quite spectacular on these late October afternoons, is it not? I think that around now, Ting is probably taking your five dogs, all rescues from the local pound, out on her usual route through the woods, isn’t she?’

  Margaret’s jaw dropped and her blood ran cold at this revelation. A protective and righteous anger, however, flared through her system and erupted magma-like from between her thin lips.

  ‘How the hell do you know all this?! You … you spying creep! What the, what the heck is going on here?! You sir, you are no gentleman, none whatsoever! I swear to you, if anything happens to Ting or our puppies, anything whatsoever, why I’ll, I’ll—’

  The General laughed, and the darkness left him with the suddenness of a flock of startled birds exploding skywards from the treetops.

  ‘My dear, I do not intend to bring any harm to your or your lover. Others might though, you see. Especially when you choose to stay with us and to fight for our cause. That is why I wanted you to know that I know more details than the Enemy does. Ting and your dogs will be under my protection, as will anyone close to you. Yes, even as far away as California, my agents are active. Some of my best men and women have been sent all across the world to the farthest corners of the Earth. Your lover, your friends and your canine companions will be far safer under the protection of my loyal troops than they would be under the useless “protection” that your government, military and police forces would offer.’ The General paused to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. ‘Please, do not be alarmed. I know that these things are far easier for me to say than they are for you to accept, given the current set of circumstances, but I promise you that in thirty days you will be flown out of this jungle should you so desire. Also, I know how badly you miss home, how deeply you wish to go back to your warm king-sized bed to snuggle with Ting and the dogs, to drink your South African cabernet, and feel your favourite fair-trade eighty-percent-cocoa dark chocolate dissolve with delectable bitterness upon your tongue, as black-and-white films from the forties flicker their cinematic magic on the projector screen that you have installed inside your bedroom.’

  Margaret’s blood drained from her head and she felt an impending faint beginning to roar its waterfall thunder in her ears.

  I’ve never spoken to anyone about these feelings. How could he know this?! He is … He’s reading my mind. He is fucking reading my fucking mind!

  The General’s lips curled upward, and it seemed that those eyes of his had grown obscenely wide, bulging like those of some sort of deep-sea cephalopod, and it felt as if they were drilling right into the depths of her skull, plunging their tentacles deep into the centre of her brain. He nodded as these words ran through her mind, and a fresh terror, brought on by this horrifying revelation, gripped her in fever-hot talons, making her knees gummy and causing her to sway unsteadily. Noticing this, one of the teenage soldiers gripped her by her shoulders to prevent her from collapsing.

  He knows that I know that he’s reading my mind … I … I…

  She felt utterly helpless and completely naked before this man, and a feeling of sheer fright and debilitating panic slashed machete-hacking bites across her back. However, as quickly as he had plunged his sucking proboscis into her brain he withdrew it, and his glowing eyes grew abruptly dull within their deep twin sockets.

  ‘I am not what you think I am,’ he said softly. ‘I guarantee you this. I apologise for that, for what I just did, but it was meant to be a mere display, not a threat.’

  ‘Please … please don’t do that again,’ she managed to utter through the haze of the looming faint that threatened to plunge her into unconsciousness.

  ‘A shot of brandy, Dr Green. Here, please take it, it will put some fire back into your veins and give you a temporary boost of strength and calm. Drink, from my own hipflask.’

  The General took a silver hipflask from his belt and offered it to her. Margaret did not usually drink hard liquor, but she realised she needed a good dose of it now, so she gladly accepted it from him and took a deep swig of the fiery liquid within. She swallowed it quickly, and as it burned its way down her throat into her stomach, a measure of strength began to return to her weak limbs.

  ‘Thank you sir,’ she said as she handed the hipflask back to the General with trembling hands.

  ‘My pleasure,’ he replied. ‘Are you fit to travel now?’

  ‘Travel? Where?’

  ‘Why, to the headquarters of the Antidote. You don’t think that this clearing in the bush is where we are permanently located, do you?’

  ‘I, I don’t know what’s going on, sir. But yes, I can move.’

  ‘Excellent. Now, what you’re about to see next might alarm you somewhat, so I want you to be prepared for that. Please, no matter what, remember that you have my word that you will be completely safe and under my protection at all times. Do you understand?’

  ‘I do, sir.’

  ‘Very well. Try not to panic, because this is something that you could not have imagined would be possible. Remember what I have just told you, though: you are safe.’

  ‘Panic?’

  ‘You will, no matter what I say. But again, remember my words when you see what happens.’

  ‘All right, I’ll try,’ Margaret replied, her voice clouded with uncertainty.

  ‘You will ride with me. It might be a bit bumpy, but grip my neck just above my shoulders with your legs, and you should be fairly comfortable.’

  ‘Hold on to your what?! Your neck?!’

  The General smiled mysteriously at her, and then turned to his troops and barked a command in their language. The twenty or thirty teenagers all laid down their AK-47s and submachine guns … and then began to strip off their uniforms until they were completely nude. The General too began to remove all of his clothes in front of her.

  ‘My apologies Doctor,’ he said, ‘but I’m sure as a medical professional you are comfortable with the human form in its natural state.’

  ‘What on earth is going on here?!’ Margaret gasped as she stared in bewilderment at the sea of naked bodies surrounding her.

  Nobody answered her question. Instead, they started to change. Just as the General had said she would, she panicked. She screamed; a piercing howl of abject terror, for every single one of them began to transform from humans into wild animals before her very eyes. Skin rippled, muscles bulged, and limbs, torsos and heads distended, swelled and stretched with horrifying speed and intensity. Fur burst from skin, faces distorted, and fangs sprung from yawning, dislocated jaws and mouths. The General himself exploded, in a dark brown to grey, madly accelerated stop-motion animation, from a man into a towering elephant that blotted out the light of the moon and stars above her.

  Still screaming, Margaret backed up against the tree, collapsing against its rough trunk as her jelly-weak legs gave out beneath her. She put her violently shaking hands over her head and continued to howl gutturally and wordlessly, but through the all-encompassing terror the General’s voice resounded in her mind.

  ‘Please calm down, Margaret. I know that this must seem like something out of a nightmare to you, but trust me, you are completely safe.’

  She inexplicably felt his h
ands entering her mind as well, and it was almost as if his fingers were radiating a calming, gentle heat that quickly spread through her whole being. As this soothing balm travelled through her, her screams faded to whimpers, and she dropped her trembling hands from her face. Looking up, she saw that the mighty elephant was staring down at her, and inside his eyes she saw the General – his presence, his soul. She couldn’t understand how she knew he was there, but she did, without question. Behind him stood a menagerie of animals: leopards, lions, cheetahs, baboons, gorillas, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, mandrills, giraffes, chimpanzees, antelopes, African buffaloes, and other creatures, all standing in quiet order where the teenage troops had just been.

  ‘Now you see why I said you’ll need to hold onto my neck,’ the voice of the General said inside her head.

  She looked up at the elephant and nodded; it was all she could do in this surreal, psychedelic nightmare from which there seemed to be no means of awakening. The beast’s great trunk reached down and curled around her body with gentle force, and he lifted her effortlessly up into the air. She found herself being placed on the elephant’s shoulders, and, sure enough, she found that she needed to grip his neck with her legs to remain stable.

  ‘Are you secure and comfortable up there?’ the General asked, his words echoing inside her head.

  ‘Yes, er, yes I am,’ she replied, feeling very strange about saying these words to an animal.

  ‘Hold on and try to get comfortable,’ he said, ‘for we have a long way to go.’

  The elephant raised his trunk, trumpeted, and then started to move off into the jungle. All of the other animals trailed behind him in single file in calm, disciplined order. Margaret gazed up at the night sky, hosed from horizon to horizon with a rich, infinite gemstone glittering of stars, and a cool night breeze tickled her face as the huge creature ambled along beneath her. A tempest of swirling emotions raged inside her as the strange caravan disappeared into the humid blackness of the shadows, and after the last of them had left the clearing all that remained of their presence was a multitude of unlikely footprints in the muddy soil.

  16

  MARGARET

  4th October 2020. Somewhere outside of T’Kalanjathu, in the far east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

  Margaret awoke with a start, emerging from a tar-pit-trap nightmare in which she had been trying, with futile desperation, to run, fleeing from some evil apparition. She peered around, bleary-eyed, dehydrated and drenched in sweat, and the terror from the nightmare remained when she realised that she was perched atop the back of a towering elephant, who was lumbering calmly through the forest beneath her, and was followed by a motley army of wild animals. The events of the previous evening came rushing back to her, and it was all she could do to stop herself from hyperventilating and tumbling off the back of the great beast in a fit of panic. Before the sensations of fright and disbelief could dislodge the tenuously bound blocks that somehow held her mind together and tumble them in an avalanche-collapse into insanity, however, the General’s voice echoed inside her skull.

  ‘Good morning Dr Green,’ he said in his calm, measured register. ‘I’m glad to see that you got some rest up there. I want to just reassure you that you are completely safe, and let you know that we will soon reach a stream where you will be able to refresh yourself and quench your thirst. I know how the heat of this jungle can sap one’s strength if one is not used to it.’

  ‘Th-, thank you,’ she managed to utter in reply, through cracked lips.

  After another half hour of journeying, they reached a clear stream that gurgled over smooth black rocks in its passage through the unrelenting green. When they reached the water’s edge, the elephant lowered himself to his knees. However, even in this position the height was too great for Margaret to make a safe descent.

  ‘One of my troops will help you down,’ he said to her, his voice a soothing balm to the suppurating lacerations that crisscrossed her mind.

  A gorilla rushed out of the line of animal troops and beckoned to Margaret.

  ‘You will be quite safe with him,’ the General told her.

  She nodded and crept cautiously down the elephant’s flanks towards the open arms of the gorilla. The ape gripped her gently, but with undeniable power in his thick hands, and lowered her down. A rush of relief washed over her when her feet finally touched the ground, but she also felt a mild sensation of seasickness after all the swaying and lurching atop the elephant.

  ‘Drink. The water is quite clean, I assure you.’

  Margaret knelt down at the edge of the stream, cupped her hands and began to imbibe the cool water, feeling instantly refreshed as the liquid slicked a soothing passage down her parched throat. Despite her desire to chug as much of the water as she could, she knew that it would not be a wise course of action, so she exercised some restraint and drank slowly. When she was done, she struggled to her feet and stood on shaky legs.

  ‘How much further do we have to go?’ she asked.

  ‘We will be there just before nightfall.’

  ‘Do you have any food that I can eat? Please, I’m starving.’

  The General nodded.

  ‘The baggage carriers have provisions in their saddlebags, and I’ve instructed them to provide you with anything you need. While we’re stopped here, you may go and look through the saddlebags and satiate your hunger. I apologise again for the conditions you must endure at the present, but I assure you that everything will make sense in time.’

  Margaret realised that in spite of the General’s politeness and generosity, the fact remained that she was still his prisoner, and there was nothing she could do about that. If she was to flee, even if she could somehow outrun the leopards and lions who were padding along with the rest of the animals, where would she go? How would she survive out here in the middle of the jungle, dozens or possibly even hundreds of miles away from the nearest settlement, without supplies, without a compass, without anything?

  She trudged back along the line of patiently waiting animals, feeling a chilling sense of unease and surreality at her proximity to this imposing mass of wild creatures, all of whom were standing stock-still, like the most disciplined of soldiers. Sure enough, as the General had said, the baggage carriers were at the back of the train; two rhinoceroses and a hippopotamus with huge saddlebags strapped to their flanks. The middle rhinoceros, a female black rhino, snorted and tossed her head back as Margaret approached her. Margaret jumped back in fright, her heart suddenly pounding, but the General’s voice resounded in her mind.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed, Doctor. She is only trying to tell you that hers is the pack carrying the human food. She cannot communicate with you in the manner that I am able to; indeed, most of my troops cannot. Please, approach her and dig through the pack. There is plenty of wholesome and nutritious fare for you.’

  With a gulp and a gush of anxiety, Margaret approached the massive beast on trembling legs. She remembered seeing a black rhinoceros at the San Francisco zoo, and recalled the guide’s words about the black rhino being the most aggressive and unpredictable of the rhinoceros family. Fear trickled along the course of her skin and crawled across her limbs on prickly beetle feet.

  ‘It’s not an animal, it’s a person, it’s a soldier, it’s … it’s…’ she muttered to herself, trying to bolster her courage with these insignificant utterances.

  Despite her fears, however, the beast remained calm and still, and she was able to open the zipper on one of the saddlebags. Inside she found a wealth of nuts, along with both fresh and dried fruit, and fermented as well as fresh vegetables.

  ‘Please, partake of whatever tickles your fancy,’ the General said.

  ‘Okay … okay, I’m okay,’ she whispered under her breath, her mind still adrift in the complete bizarreness of this experience.

  After she had eaten her fill, she hobbled over to the General and looked up at him.

  ‘I’m ready to move now,’ she announced.

&nb
sp; ‘Excellent. I feel like you are warming to us already! This is a good sign, and I think you will be pleasantly surprised by what you are going to discover in these coming days and weeks. Here, let me help you back up with my trunk.’

  ***

  With the sun levitating low over the tops of the distant mountains, plunging the last of its golden lances through the dense foliage of the jungle, Margaret awoke from another uneasy slumber on the great elephant’s back. She was still in a state of semi-shock, but as more time had passed she had started to find herself feeling more at ease atop the animal, and sleep had come quickly enough to her after she had partaken of a particularly filling afternoon meal, after many hours of trekking through the jungle. Below her the General raised his trunk and trumpeted; four distinctive blasts that crashed through the jungle, sending flocks of brightly coloured birds fluttering skywards in a kaleidoscope of rainbow hues.

  The General’s trumpeting was answered by shouts from the bush, and from all directions heavily armed soldiers in ghillie suits began to emerge from the dense undergrowth. Margaret gasped in surprise; her eyes had been scanning the very section of bush from whence some of the troops had just materialised, and she had not spotted a single one before they had revealed themselves. The youths – for all the troops looked to be teenagers, she noticed – cheered and raised their weapons to the sky as the General and his train passed them. A strange cocktail of emotions bubbled inside Margaret as she rode by; the dominant feeling remained one of simmering fear, yet intruding into this state were flurries of excitement, and even some sort of pride; despite the underlying knowledge that she remained a prisoner, an undeniable sense of importance pulsated subtly in the back of her mind, as if she was, perhaps, some sort of celebrity.

  Before she could lose herself in contemplation, however, something else entirely abruptly took her breath away: beneath her the General rounded a corner of the trail that passed a gigantic, house-sized boulder, and in doing revealed a vista that could only be described as something dreamed up by the imagination of a master artist. The jungle before her fell away into a gargantuan, lush valley, and at its centre was an ancient city, constructed in a style she had never seen. A number of crystalline streams ran down the steep sides of the valley, and waterfalls plummeted here and there from jutting cliff-rocks. All of the waters converged on the valley floor, flowing into a jewel-sparkling river that ran through the centre of the city. Enormous trees, which must have been hundreds or even thousands of years old, towered over the buildings, which were made of stones and rocks of various vivid hues.