© Maurits Zwankhuizen 2018
Other works by this author available on Amazon:
Cain: A Novel
Marais
Marmot & Asparagus
Marmot & Auk
The Desert Rose Inn
The Hound of the Baskervilles: A Unique Case in the Holmesian Canon
We’ve all been victims of fear and folly. We’ve all been in places or circumstances where the hairs on our neck rose and we felt that something just wasn’t right; where for a moment we felt as if we’d crossed over into another world where the rules we live by do not apply. The shiver passes like a shadow across our soul, and the memory remains like a physical scar.
But I’m sure you’ve never experienced anything quite like the weird and wild happenings in these fifteen mysterious tales of ordinary people in extraordinary situations. Truth or fiction? Reality or insanity? You be the judge.
FEAR AND FOLLY
Shade
Fallen
Darkness
Altan
The Yarthing
My Provider & I
Folly
Repossessed
The Bridge
Egon
The White Veil
Yawn
The Quaking of the Keys
Harmony
Grim
SHADE
Like all travellers, I arrived on foreign shores bearing not just supplies and guidebooks in my pack but also myths in my mind, prejudices based on hearsay, stereotypes. The people here are different, a breed apart. They have peculiar habits. Be careful how you act. Watch your back. I had heard many warnings and I’m pleased to say that all of them had proven to be untrue.
So on this journey, once again, I planned to take all the advice given me with a pinch of salt. This place, however, was so remote and little-known that I received no advice, I heard no colourful myths to whet my appetite. It was an unknown. A small town at the heart of a large desert with nothing of note to attract tourists. That’s exactly why I wanted to visit.
After the frontier guards had ushered me through without incident, after an uneventful walk down between fang-like mountains into a stone-dry valley, I found myself facing the ramparts of the town. A wide avenue ran between high unadorned walls of baked clay, feeding into a large plaza. A few market stalls lined the perimeter. Figures ghosted between them, immersed in the shadows of an impressive colonnade. The midday heat was intense but I lingered in the light, twirling around, the hub of a giant wheel.
It was as much the inhabitants’ puzzled glances as the scorching sun which pricked me into seeking the shade myself. I found my way to another plaza, this one completely covered by awnings. Here there was more foot traffic. Commerce took place in alcoves. Old women gossiped. Old men rolled dice and smoked. A normal town in many regards, although what struck me was the lack of animals. Where other places were rife with baying goats, mangy dogs and bent-backed beasts of burden, here there was nothing. I can’t say my nostrils weren’t thankful but it did detract from the town’s atmosphere.
As was to be expected, a vague sense of uneasiness hung over me. There was an unusual orderliness to the place. It was too calm, too clean, too quiet.
That’s when I heard the screaming. I thought at first that a child was being attacked. Then I heard a second child laughing, and my mind relaxed. I followed the sounds of their voices and was led back to the large open plaza. A mother was buying fruit at one of the stalls while trying to control two boisterous young boys. Here was a scene to relax me. Children are the same everywhere. Innocent. Yet to be moulded into the image of their elders.
One boy chased the other out into the plaza. The mother became agitated. She yelled at them from the shadows. The child being chased was now in tears, while his brother pretended to be a wild animal, bounding around him, pouncing at him. Other people had stopped to look as well, with worried faces, but nobody seemed concerned enough to bring them into line.
For some reason the mother was now in hysterics. She was tearing at her hair. Her eyes were large, pupils dilated. I couldn’t understand why. The sun was hot but her boys were as bronzed as everyone else.
Despite my better judgement, I decided I had to intervene and help by catching the boy who was doing all the chasing. I only had to approach him with a stern look to make him run to his mother. Job done, I walked up to the other boy who now stood transfixed in the middle of the plaza with red, tear-stained cheeks. As I picked him up to hand him back to his mother, a collective gasp of horror rippled around me. I put the boy down and took his hand instead, leading him quickly back to where his mother stood waiting, her hands clenching and unclenching erratically.
When I reached the shade, a rain of hands fell upon me. Feet and fists pummelled me to the ground. I lashed out around me and soon most of the hands withdrew, a few still grasping, twisting, frenzied. I managed to scramble back to my feet and run out into the plaza. Nobody followed. They wavered in the shade, an occasional hand punching out into sunlight, gesturing angrily.
My pack with all my meagre belongings, my travel pass and guidebook, money and food, lay somewhere beneath their feet. I felt like a gladiator thrown to lions. What had I done? I’d tried to help. Obviously my actions had been misinterpreted or I had broken some strict cultural code.
The hubbub died down. As I considered whether it was safe enough to retrieve my pack, two figures emerged from the colonnade. Their dress was martial in style and they held long thin poles with small nooses at the end. One spoke to me but I could understand nothing but the command in his voice.
The main gate sat open behind me. I could run for it but then where would I be? Alone in a waterless land without supplies. And how long before they hunted me down?
I had no choice – I raised both hands to the sky. As they neared, a sharp whistle shredded the air. The guards scattered back into the shade. I looked up and saw a sentry on the town wall, longbow aimed at the sky. A large bird drifted by. A vulture circling as it soared. The sentry let an arrow loose but it fell well short. The vulture drifted on and the sentry returned to his post, giving another whistle.
The two guards reappeared from the shadows. I felt like laughing in their faces but their grim expressions deterred me. They threw their snare-poles forward and lightning fast I found both my arms held tight by rope. Swiftly, with the majesty of a dance, each guard performed a manoeuvre which brought my arms down tightly behind me, bound without any room for movement. My lips were free but what good were they when no one could understand me?
They led me back through the colonnade. The crowd had mostly dispersed. I scanned the ground for my pack but it was nowhere to be seen. I dropped my head. Following a warren of alleys, we came to a large building, where I was escorted down a narrow spiral staircase and into a cell.
I fell onto a dusty mattress and tried to look at the positives. It wasn’t comfortable but at least it wasn’t a dungeon, and it was wonderfully cool compared to the surface heat. One of the guards freed my hands, gave me a bowl of water and plate of rice, then lounged back on a seat at the foot of the staircase. I’d been treated well so far. Still, I was a prisoner ignorant of my crime. The old trope that ignorance of the law was no excuse rattled through my brain, a fear exacerbated by my difficulties with the local language.
The guard slept and the only thing that moved was a shaft of sunlight which slowly climbed the curved wall of the staircase. When the light had fled completely, a chorus of mumbling voices cascaded down to me. Sandalled feet thudded closer. I found myself being lifted and marched out. The night was pitch black for me but these men obviously had eyes like cats. They led me along many laneways until I was hauled into an impressive building and set before a raised bench. I stood
in silence, in semi-darkness, as feet scuffed the floor around me. Finally I heard someone walk in somewhere above me and be seated.
Suddenly light swept down from above. Beside me I saw a gallery of expressionless faces. Before me I could see a gaunt old man who I supposed was a judge. He spoke at length. I looked around and everyone was gazing at me with either anger or indifference. It certainly seemed that defence lawyers were not known in this legal system, nor interpreters for travellers from across the sea.
Then something happened which erased any doubt over the seriousness of my situation. A stretcher was carried in. Even at a distance I recognised the person lying on it as the boy whom I had marched back to his mother. Only hours ago he had been healthy. Harried by his brother, yes, but otherwise perfectly healthy and mobile. Now his face was pale, his eyes sunken.
As I watched, a doctor removed the boy’s shirt. I recoiled. His body was covered in a network of fresh bruises. I must have blacked out because the next moment I found myself slumped on a bench at the back of the room. The judge had left, as had the doctor and his young patient.
There was little I could do or say as I was marched back down to my cell. All I could think of was the boy and his suffering. Surely I could never have caused such damage!
The cell door shut behind me and I collapsed onto my mattress. My mind was a mess, claws of thought tearing at the carcass of hope. Then it occurred to me. It was so obvious – the child was a haemophiliac! That was the answer, it had to be. Although I’d been as gentle as possible, he had resisted. It does not take much to bring a haemophiliac to bruising. These people obviously had no inkling of this condition. But how could I enlighten them without speaking their language? I could barely ask for directions, let alone explain such a rare and complicated disorder.
The air became chill. I huddled on the mattress, trying to keep warm. As the temperature dropped and my hunger grew, my concern slipped easily from the boy to my own situation. I had come to this land willing to discard myths and superstitions but I was now a victim of them myself. I could see why they saw me as a criminal, a violent man. The question now was what my fate would be.
I had almost crept into sleep when the cell door opened. I could hear another man being pushed inside, grunting, groaning. A foot kicked me, a hand patted my leg, followed by a mumbled apology. I heard the man fall into a heap on the other side of the cell. Soon his sighs faded into my sleep. Frantic dreams rushed me, full of fists and fire, and a purple-skinned child piercing me with questioning eyes.
Morning came and went. Breakfast was another bowl of rice. I ate with one eye on my new companion. He didn’t eat. We sat in states of introspection until two pairs of guards entered, bound our arms and marched us both out.
The other prisoner was first to be led up the stairs and into the glare of noon, while I followed close behind. I had been in this town for less than twenty-four hours but I already knew where they were taking me. To the scene of my ‘crime’. The plaza.
In the middle, open to the sun, there now stood a bizarre apparatus. A large scaffold had been raised, which supported a type of restraining device. A series of mirrors were placed at various stages around the scaffold but suspended high above it by ropes and pulleys.
The day was hot, the sun sat unhindered in the sky. For this reason, I eyed the mirrors with more dread than the noose and chains.
As I watched, my comrade in woe was forced howling up onto the scaffold while I waited just within the shade of the colonnade, a guard at either side. With arms still bound, he was restrained further with a strap around his neck and chains about his ankles. Then ever so slowly, as if to pander to the crowd’s suspense as much as torment the prisoner, one mirror began to lower from its raised position until it faced him. Then the opposing mirror was let down just as gently. He began to twist in his bonds, to wrench his limbs about as if he was being branded with hot pokers.
Mirror after mirror was lowered. The poor man, already seemingly at the limits of his sanity, now flailed wildly within the arc of his shackles.
Horrified, thoughts of my own fate took precedence. I began to work away at the ropes around my wrists. Ever so slowly, they began to loosen. Soon I could remove one hand, then the other. I looked beyond the scene of torture to the town gate. It stood open. Beyond it the dusty road ran off into even drier hills. It was my only option. My only hope.
My eyes were wrenched back by a scream. Another mirror had been lowered. The prisoner was writhing more furiously than ever. Sweat streamed from him. His eye were directed down, staring at the scaffold floor. I couldn’t understand why he was in so much pain. Nothing was physically touching him. Only the amplified heat of the sun. But surely even with the mirrors it couldn’t be enough to trigger such torment in such a short space of time.
The sixth and final mirror was lowered. I noticed the guards’ care and precision, always allowing a certain distance between them and the prisoner. They’d been just as cautious when they had apprehended me. Now they were inspecting the scaffold’s floorboards at the man’s feet. Something about this behaviour began to stir curious notions. Links appeared between all the weird behaviour I’d witnessed. The locals’ aversion to sunlight. Their over-reaction when leading the boy back to his mother. Now this mysterious torture and its equally-mysterious effect on the prisoner.
Images leapt through my mind. The older boy chasing the younger, half-skipping, half-jumping. He hadn’t been chasing his brother. He’d been chasing his brother’s shadow. Trying to jump on it. Then the hands reaching out for me, free with their rage in shade but frightened of the sunlight. They hadn’t been frightened of the sunlight at all. They were frightened of forming shadows. Of having their shadows stepped on in the fury of scuffling. Now the lack of animals made sense. They can’t be trusted not to run rampant over people’s shadows. Even the incident with the vulture fit my theory. Why fear a vulture which could not carry off even the smallest child? Because the shadow of its beak could pierce the shadow of a human skull.
I almost laughed. Surely I was clutching at straws, creating my own myth to fit what must be an easily-explained mystery. Yet it all made shocking sense. These people held their shadows sacred. They seemed to believe that anything done to their shadow would cause it damage. They probably believed that their shadows were their souls. Through their faith, through the power of mass hysteria, they all believed and therefore they all suffered accordingly. As for these mirrors, their subtle angles had created a myriad shadows from one at the prisoner’s feet. It was obviously psychological torture more than physical, designed to send transgressors mad.
As a seasoned traveller, a cultural voyeur, I found this belief fascinating. In one sense it was remarkably simple, perhaps ignited originally by a priest or noble who had mistaken a triviality for truth. It had grown from there and now fed a complex series of cultural practices and taboos.
I gained strength from this discovery. Yet I was still in a dire predicament. What if they left me bound in the middle of the open plaza for days? I would still die, no matter what they did to my shadow. My revelation changed nothing. Escape remained the only option. I swallowed hard.
The prisoner appeared to be in his death throes. If he was acting, if he was playing a role written by his culture, then he did so terrifyingly well. It was hideous to watch but I had to remain focused. When I was certain that all eyes were on the prisoner, I pulled both my hands free and burst out into the plaza. I ran past the scaffold, neither the guards on the platform nor those on the ramparts able to get down with any speed. I sprinted towards the town gate. There were a number of people near the entrance but they scattered at my approach. I was through the gate before I was brave enough to look over my shoulder. Four guards were in pursuit but their long snare-poles seemed to hamper them as they ran.
The afternoon sun blazed into my face as I ran towards the barren hills which marked the frontier. Suddenly an object struck my right shoulder. Whatever it was, it was only a glancin
g blow but I did falter for a moment.
A quick look behind. The guards were still on my heels.
Although feeling slightly stunned, I still enjoyed a good length on my pursuers. But my confidence was dented. My legs were burning. My breathing was hoarse. Between gasps, I heard an urgent shout from behind me. Then I felt something sharp strike me in the middle of the back. I fell to the ground, hot sand searing my skin while a hotter pain pulsed along my spine. I reached my hand around but could feel nothing there. No weapon, no wound. I looked back. The guards were nearing, they were almost upon me, but what struck greater fear into my heart, what sent my mind spinning to the edge of madness, was the arrow which was projecting from the path about ten feet behind me.
I found myself transfixed by this arrow, sunlight playing along its fletching while the head and shaft were skewered through the middle of my elongated shadow.
Another throb of pain pulsed along my spine.
I tried to get up and run but couldn’t move.
FALLEN
I’d reached the prairie. For as far as I could see, the land was flat and dry. People were suffering here, too. In Vietnam the suffering might be more immediate, more visceral, death lurking behind every tree and even in the sky, but here the slow hand of drought was squeezing every last drop of life out of the farmers and their families.
The truck came to an intersection, where a tiny red mailbox stood comically defiant in the empty vastness of the plains.
“Here will do,” I said, nodding at the mailbox.
The truck driver looked out over the prairie and back at me.
“You sure?”
I pointed into the distance, where a dark square shape sat at the end of a yellow track.
“It’s as good as any.” I opened the door and stepped out, gravel biting through the worn soles of my shoes. “Thanks for the lift, mister.”
Fear and Folly Page 1
