Alter

by Jeremy Robinson

  The wall curves to the right, as I follow the path downhill. I slow when the smooth wall looks ragged ahead. Chips of stone litter the pathway. Is this a trap, meant to distract me? Is the stone concealing something? When I creep up to the aberration, I see it for what it is—morbid decoration.

  Horizontal troughs have been gouged into the wall, ten inches deep and tall. There are three shelves spaced out between my waist and shoulders. All of them are filled with skulls. Some of them are turned sideways, bookends to even more skulls, all of them human.

  The nearest bunch looks old. They’re decayed to a degree, worn smooth by the elements and jaundiced by age. The lines of skulls resemble the ebb and flow of a song’s soundwave, rising and falling. The dead on display are men, women, and children.

  Some show no signs of how they died, but most have been crushed, cracked, splintered, and punctured. Violent deaths. But how long have they been here? They’re not holdovers from the Incan empire. Skulls that old would be dust by now. And the stone fragments on the ground hint at a more recent creation.

  Mapinguari has a hobby.

  Ashan’s trail leads through the loose stones covering the path. I continue forward, passing hundreds of skulls. Are all these dead at her hands, or do some of them belong to her predecessors?

  The path ends at a line of trees so close together that they must have been planted. The thick growth creates an effective barrier to what lies beyond. I suspect the path had once been open, but now, the only way to see what lies beyond is to push through the trees and expose yourself.

  Seeing no alternative, I slip between the trees and find myself at the edge of a clearing that had been concealed from view the previous night. Knee-high grass flows with the wind pushed through the valley by the still rising sun’s warmth. A faint trail leads from the jungle toward what lies on the field’s far side, several hundred feet away.

  The Incan step pyramid stands out even more clearly from the ground. Still in shadow, but silhouetted by the sun’s light on the mountains behind it, the moss-covered structure rises a hundred and fifty feet, and it’s narrower than it is tall. Like the wall, and the structures at Machu Picchu, the stones have been carved with precision, interlocking in a way that seems impossible for primitive man. There are no skulls here, though the temple is ominous enough without them. In a land of wildlife and endless nature, the pyramid stands like an abomination.

  The perfect place from which to create the legend of a god-like monster. Do they even know who built it? Who their ancestors were? How many people lived here? A thousand years ago, this would have been one of the great cities of the world. And now it is home to a monster.

  A soon-to-be-dead monster.

  Gun in hand, I start across the field, following the path of bent reeds straight toward the temple.

  Eyes locked onto the temple, I almost miss the depression ahead of me.

  Something is lying in the field, compressing a patch of grass.

  Leading with the gun, ready to fire, I inch forward.

  It’s not Mapinguari. Of that, I’m sure. There’s no sign of a struggle to indicate Ashan had gotten the upper hand. My heart pounds as I inch closer, expecting to see Ashan.

  A stiff breeze tips the grass to the side, providing a glimpse of what lies ahead. It’s a brief view, but it’s enough to drag a sob from the depths of my soul.

  He stumbles forward with no regard toward the possibility of a trap.

  “Oro,” he moans, falling to his knees by the cat’s side. Tears seep from his eyes, his chest heaving with growling sobs. Oro, his most trusted friend and companion, is dead, her body cold and beyond the salvage of modern medical techniques.

  He’s never felt despair like this, and it coughs from him so hard that his ribs ache and his throat grows raw. A bellow rises like a volcano, erupting into the sky with all the fury of the Earth’s interior.

  Lost in a haze, his thoughts turn from Oro, to blood, and then, to Ashan.

  Clutching Oro’s scruff, I wipe my tears into her fur. “I will not leave you here, daughter, but I must go now. Your mother needs me.”

  I scan the area for signs of what happened.

  My imagination takes what little information I have and fills in the rest.

  Oro followed Mapinguari and Ashan. Sensing her friend was in danger, Oro darted through the field and attacked. Rather than engage the jaguar, Mapinguari cut the cat down with a single dart. I pluck the poison-tipped projectile from Oro’s neck and inspect it.

  It’s one of Ashan’s, adding insult to injury.

  With shaking hands, I lift Oro’s face and place my forehead against hers. While we touch, I feel the calm confidence she brought to my life. “Love you, girl.” Then I place her down and feel nothing but rage.

  And fear.

  Ashan…

  I turn my head toward the temple and find her standing on the top step, naked and stripped of her belongings. Tendrils of dried blood coat her body, their paths leading to her head and a long gash on her forehead. She looks dazed, bewildered by where she is and what’s happening.

  This isn’t how we envisioned this day. Even when our mission was to confront and kill Mapinguari, this scenario never entered our minds or our conversations.

  Mapinguari is only human after all.

  Right?

  The demon rises up behind Ashan, appearing from the shadows of an open passageway at the temple’s top. Even hunched, she stands taller than Ashan. The beast’s face is concealed by a billowing mane. What little I can see of her body is covered in black scales, but they’re not shiny, like on most scaled creatures. They’re man-made matter, absorbing light rather than reflecting it.

  Mapinguari sways back and forth, eager and excited.

  I start toward the temple, gun in hand, trying to not show how much I want to kill her. With Ashan between us, that won’t be possible.

  With a nudge, Ashan starts down the steps. Using one hand for balance, she works her way down, her face disheveled and lacking the defiant anger that’s been present since we met. Mapinguari follows, moving along the steps with the same fluid ease of a spider on a wall, brimming with energy.

  Six young women emerge from the rooftop entrance. Adorned with bright feathers in their shoulder-length, black hair, and painted in bright red patterns from head to toe, they hardly look human. They follow in two lines, faces placid and indifferent to the drama playing out before them.

  Mapinguari, the monster, has servants.

  I stop when Ashan reaches the grass at the temple’s base. She’s held in place by a dark gray hand on her shoulder. Three of Mapinguari’s long, black, pointed fingernails poke into her skin, drawing fresh rivulets of blood. Her index finger remains up and pointed at me.

  It takes all of my strength to control the howling animal inside me, frothing at the mouth, but I manage it, waiting for the demon to speak first.

  When she does, her simple message, “Drop the weapon,” horrifies me, not because it will leave me unarmed, but because the words were spoken in English.

  39

  What is she? I wonder, inching closer, trying to make out the beast’s face. There’s a woman under there, but does she have the same dark tan skin and facial features as the other natives, or is she, like me, an outsider?

  It’s impossible to see her true skin color past the scales, which I can now see have been painted on, probably by the six women still descending the temple stairway, each delicate step taken in unison.

  “Drop the weapon.” Mapinguari follows the demand by placing the claws of her right hand over Ashan’s throat. Her English isn’t great. I suspect she hasn’t spoken it in a long time, perhaps since childhood. And it’s tinged with a subtle Spanish accent.

  The memory of when I first learned about Mapinguari surfaces. I hadn’t given it much thought at the time, but now it makes sense. She wasn’t just Tikuna’s sister, she was his adopted sister. Like me, she found herself lost in the jungle and taken in by the Arawanti.


  Maybe all Mapinguari have been outsiders. Raised in the jungle, the natives might be too accustomed to harsh living conditions. But coming from the outside world and being forced to fight for survival is enough to strip away our modernity and humanity, leaving us as beasts.

  But not entirely. Mapinguari’s commands reveal her human mind is intact, sharing space with the animal that can, at times, overtake us both. “Toss it. Over there.” She motions to the side with her head.

  I don’t want to part with the gun, but I’m also certain I don’t need it. With a casual flick of my wrist, the gun spirals away, disappearing into the grass ten feet to my right.

  Mapinguari howls toward the sky. For a moment, I think it’s a victory roar, but then the jungle all around comes to life. Men and women slip out of the shade and into the clearing. Judging by the variety of skin paints and ornamental piercings, and the sheer number of people, most of the adults from the Guaruamo, Jebubo, and Arawanti tribes have gathered to watch my demise.

  Not one of them is armed.

  They’re not here to fight.

  They’re spectators.

  When I see Juma, the animal stirs, twisting and clawing to come out.

  The man tempts me further by grinning. The confidence in his eyes draws a growl from deep inside. When I bare my teeth, his confidence wavers, but it returns when he points past me, to Mapinguari.

  “Who are you?” she asks, reverting to tribal language, her voice like tearing paper.

  I flinch at the question. Who am I?

  “I don’t know.”

  Mapinguari nods as though I answered the question correctly.

  “What do you want?”

  The animal nearly responds with a threat. This is Oro’s killer. I want to tear her head free from her shoulders. “To leave,” I tell her. “With Ashan. We’ll head west and never return.”

  Mapinguari squints at me. “You’re not ready.”

  “Ready for what? Release her and we will leave. You have my word.”

  “The word of a man?” she asks. “Or a beast?”

  She knows, I realize, that I intended to take her place as Mapinguari.

  “A man,” I manage to say, as my muscles tense to attack.

  “I see it in you.” She leans to Ashan’s other shoulder, peering out from under her mane of dried reeds, her yellowed eyes and teeth glowing from the shadows. “I know you feel it. The craving. Death provides release. Life is yours to take…” She leans her face into Ashan’s hair, sniffing. “Or spare.”

  Mapinguari’s right hand slides from Ashan’s neck, down her back and around her torso. The vile woman violates Ashan, clutching her breast before sliding her hand to Ashan’s belly.

  Why isn’t she fighting? I wonder, watching Ashan’s eyebrows turn up in fear. I know what Ashan is capable of. I can think of a dozen ways she could break free. But she stands motionless, allowing Mapinguari to defile her. Did Oro’s death break her? Despite their rough start, Ashan had come to think of Oro as her daughter, born from the jungle’s womb and adopted by us. Or is she simply concerned about the life growing in her belly?

  When Mapinguari caresses Ashan’s stomach, I’m sure she knows. But how? Ashan would never have told her.

  She’s been following us. Listening to us. She was there last night, invisible to even Oro.

  Mapinguari gives Ashan’s belly a pat. “A boy, I think.” She grins. “Delicious.”

  She’s messing with me. Trying to get inside my head. Of all the horrible things I’ve been told about Mapinguari, cannibalism has never been one of them.

  “I’ll beg if you need me to,” I tell her, clutching my fists to keep the animal inside.

  Mapinguari frowns. She’s disappointed. What was she expecting? What did she want? A fight? To reassert her dominance over all the people watching us. Me begging at her feet should do the same. But I was not merciful with Tikuna. Why should I expect any different from a person so in touch with her animal?

  “You will beg,” she says.

  “Please,” I say.

  “Not yet.” She motions to the side with her head once more. “The machete, too.”

  I draw the blade and toss it to the side.

  Ashan looks pained by my willingness to disarm. When our eyes meet, I see a new kind of desperation. She knows something, but can’t tell me. Her eyes dart to the side and down, looking at Mapinguari’s index finger. While the other black nails are still buried in Ashan’s skin, the fourth digit and its pointed nail, remains extended.

  When I look into Ashan’s eyes again, she’s apologetic. “I’m sorry,” she mouths, and then she says, “Go! Escape! Live as the man you have become…not the monster she would make you…”

  Mapinguari leans around Ashan’s shoulder, the slow, sinister movement stealing her voice.

  She licks Ashan’s cheek, and then like a hungry dog, her own lips.

  “Are you ready?” the beast asks me.

  “No.”

  A smile spreads. “Perfect.”

  Her index finger taps down, the tip of it poking into Ashan’s shoulder like a wasp’s stinger. The movement is almost imperceptible. If Ashan hadn’t pointed the poisoned digit out, I might have missed its significance.

  “Love…” Ashan manages to whisper, but that’s her final word. Her face twists in fear, and then locks in place. A wheezy breath is followed by silence.

  She’s paralyzed and helpless, at the mercy of the same poison that killed Oro.

  I can save her. To the people of the Amazon, Ashan is already dead. But I can bring her back. I have before.

  Mapinguari releases Ashan and lets her topple into the grass. “Not this time,” she says before stepping over Ashan, lowering herself onto all fours and growling.

  The message is clear. To save Ashan, I’ll have to get past Mapinguari, and I’ll have to do it fast. After five minutes without oxygen, she’ll have severe brain damage even if I can resuscitate her, which is always a gamble, especially without a defibrillator. But if I can perform CPR…

  I rush Mapinguari, fists clenched.

  She ducks down lower and for the first time I understand the strategic value of her grassy mane. Here, in her home, she disappears into the yellowed grass.

  I kick hard, aiming for her head. One solid blow should be enough to stun the women long enough to help Ashan. But I strike only her mane, which she’s shed. When the mane topples through the sky, the gathered crowd gasps, but the maidservants don’t flinch. They look numb. How much have they seen? How many people have been torn apart in this field?

  A savage roar tears through the air to my left. I turn to throw a punch, but I’m struck from the side by a blur.

  Two solid blows to my kidney fill my torso with agony even before I hit the ground. I swing a hard backhand, but again I strike nothing.

  Mapinguari has the reflexes and cunning of a predator.

  And I am fighting like a man.

  Stop fighting like a man, the animal shouts.

  I resist it. Becoming the animal might defeat Mapinguari, but it can’t save Ashan. I need to do both, but I can’t be both. I am either man or beast. For Ashan, and our unborn child, I choose to remain a man.

  Reeds flatten around me as I flail my way back to my feet. I punch at the air around me, expecting another attack. Instead of Mapinguari, I find myself looking into Juma’s confident eyes. His journey of hate comes to an end today. He’s sure of it.

  “Eargh!” Mapinguari launches onto my back. Her long, scale-covered arms reach around my torso, those long, hooked, poison-tipped fingers aimed for my chest.

  I catch her wrists, lean forward and throw. Mapinguari crashes to the ground, landing on her back. She springs up as though I’ve tossed her onto a trampoline, twisting around to glare at me from her hands and feet. Low to the ground, her flexible body becomes more monster than human. Her scaled skin stretches over her slender muscles, twitching with anticipation.

  I flinch when I see her face for the first t
ime. Like her body, it’s covered in scales, except for her forehead, where a large eye glares at me. When she blinks, her true eyes match the scales, giving her the appearance of a cyclops.

  Some of the villagers see it, too, stepping back and gasping.

  But it’s just an illusion.

  Mapinguari is horrible to look at. Her jaundiced eyes and sharpened teeth are revolting. Her frizzy hair grows in patches, as though she tears it out on occasion.

  She’s not a monster, I realize, just a broken person.

  Like me.

  Instead of hate, I feel pity.

  “We can leave,” I tell her. “Together. Find your family. Your real family. You don’t need to kill her. No one else needs to die.”

  “Beg,” she hisses, drool flowing from the sides of her cheeks. “Beg!”

  Tears flow. My legs tremble. And then I remember. I can turn this around with a word. “Urpi.”

  Mapinguari squints at me.

  “Your family is looking for you, Urpi.”

  She looks disgusted.

  “You killed my brother.”

  “Your real family. The parents who named you Urpi.”

  Her face scrunches in confusion. She doesn’t recognize her own name. It’s lost its power. She’s too far gone.

  A sob coughs from my chest as I look at Ashan’s motionless form. She can’t even fight for her life. “Please. God, please.”

  Mapinguari laughs. It’s a horrible sound. Inhuman. “Urpi was my mother’s name. The woman whose throat I tore away with my own teeth.”

  God-damn you, Tikuna…

  She lets out a high-pitched giggle and then lunges for my throat.

  TRANSFORMATION

  40

  I dive to the side, avoiding Mapinguari’s attack, but the roll takes me further away from Ashan. I need to find the gun or the machete and put an end to this. Without a weapon, Mapinguari will eventually poke me with her poison-tipped finger and subject me to the same slow death already claiming Ashan.