Alter

by Jeremy Robinson

  Rolling to my right, rage surges.

  She’s going to die.

  Only I can stop it.

  When Mapinguari lunges again, I don’t try to evade. I do the opposite, and unexpected, I charge like a bull, lowering my forehead into hers.

  I hear a crack, but I feel nothing for a few moments. Darkness resolves into a blue sky full of spinning sprites. Then, pain. It pounds through my head and spreads down my neck and into my back. A concussion for sure, maybe worse.

  Getting to my hands and knees is a challenge, but I manage it. The field spins around me, but I find Mapinguari lying a few feet away. She moans, but doesn’t rise. I could kill her. I should kill her. But at what cost? Every second I spend fighting her, Ashan’s death becomes irreversible.

  I crawl toward the flattened patch of grass where Ashan lies. I close my eyes to prevent my spinning vision from filling me with nausea. When my hand bumps into Ashan, I open my eyes to find her wide-eyed face, frozen in sadness, staring into the sky. Her skin has already begun to pale and cool.

  Sickening realization digs sharp coils into my gut. My counter attack on Mapinguari didn’t just stun us both, it knocked us unconscious. But for how long?

  Fighting back tears and sobs, I blow a shaky breath into Ashan’s lungs. Then I link my trembling fingers and start chest compressions, gingerly at first, but then really pushing, the way you’re supposed to. A wail rises from my chest when her ribs crack, a necessary evil.

  Her body wiggles with each shove. There’s no shifting expression. No signs of a struggle or discomfort.

  Though the spinning stops, I can no longer see Ashan through the wetness in my eyes.

  “C’mon. I can’t do this without you.”

  Push, push, push.

  “I can’t live without you.”

  Push, push, push.

  Inhuman sounds rise from my throat as the knowledge that the small life within Ashan is dying along with her. “No!” I roar. “No!”

  Push, push, push.

  I try to breathe into her lungs, but only manage to cough and sob.

  My hands slip over her tear-slick skin when I try to resume compressions.

  Her body goes limp, the expression of fear melting away. For a moment, hope. And then, her bowels void.

  That’s when I know it’s over.

  She can’t be saved.

  I can’t save her.

  And I am undone.

  He falls over Ashan’s body, sobbing and screaming, unaware of the world around him. Lost in mindless emotion, the man who once was slips away into numb non-existence.

  Love dies in his heart, taking mercy, sympathy, empathy, and compassion with it.

  He sees Oro, feels her head against his. Then she’s torn away, taking his skin with her.

  Ashan is there for a moment, the smell of her hair, the taste of her skin. She fades away, sucking his insides out.

  An image remains. An unborn child with his face and Ashan’s eyes. It reaches for him, but is plucked away by a hooked hand. He’s eviscerated. Nothing of the man is left.

  Only the animal remains.

  41

  Tears dry.

  Breathing slows.

  When he looks up again, his vision is clear and his focus unwavering. A growl rumbles from his stomach and emerges from his mouth. Those watching inch away from him.

  Mapinguari, his prey, shakes her head and levels her yellow eyes at him. Baring sharp teeth, she hisses.

  Then she charges, running low to the ground.

  Claws rake through grass, poisoned tips finding no flesh. The animal leaps over his enemy clutching her hair. Upon landing he yanks, intending to wrench her to the ground, but the hair pulls free, taking bits of flesh with it.

  He stumbles forward, confused by the black strands in his hand. Then she attacks again, blood dripping over her face, into her eyes.

  Vision obscured, she misses her first strike. The second strikes his satchel, snapping back the nail as it snags on the impermeable surface.

  He stumbles back, catches himself on his hands and kicks out hard. Heel strikes chin, snapping sharpened teeth onto soft tongue. The severed meat falls to the grass, followed by a stream of blood.

  Mapinguari doesn’t seem to notice the injury. The large, blood-soaked eye on her forehead stares unblinking and unafraid—like the animal.

  He charges with a roar, raking his claws over the monster’s chest, drawing blood, but little else. The beast swings her right hand, wielding that horrible weapon, the poison that took the world away.

  All of the animal’s rage focuses on the limb. He catches it in his hands. Waves of rage and strength flow into his arms as he shoves. The wrist folds back with a snap and a wail of pain. It’s limp and useless, but the animal’s fury is far from satiated.

  Blood fills his mouth as he tears into the tight skin of the folded-back wrist. His teeth gnaw through sinew and vein.

  A high-pitched scream tears through the clearing as he twists and pulls, bites and tears.

  He falls away, a prize clutched in his mouth. His prey stumbles away, clutching its barren wrist, blood spritzing the grass between them.

  No poison, he thinks and spits the hand into the grass. It lands beside a modern weapon, one he knows how to use, but lacks the desire to wield. He steps on it as he stalks toward Mapinguari.

  He feels her power flowing to him as he closes in.

  The animal in her is fading. The spirit of Mapinguari is no longer hers. It has abandoned her in favor of another.

  He has become.

  Blood and drool dangle from his chin as he growls. The woman attempts to threaten him with a display of her own, but it is pitiful.

  She turns to the people watching, pleading with her eyes. They remain motionless. Even her own people, whose skin lacks the red and black paint of the other tribes, remain stoic in her demise. Only one of the onlookers moves. A man. He stumbles back, fear in his eyes, and then he breaks for the jungle.

  Juma, Mapinguari thinks. Memories elude him, but he feels nothing but hatred, loathing, and hunger for the man.

  But first, the woman.

  “Run,” the man growls.

  She stands on shaky legs, once powerful, now quivering with fear. Urine runs down her inner thigh. She has been unmade.

  Blood flows from the wrist with each swing of her arms. Her legs pump hard. Her heart pounds, fueling her flight, putting pressure behind the blood in her veins, and the blood leaving them. The flow gives her strength, and then, when there is nothing left, takes it away.

  A two-hundred-foot-long path of blood leads to the woman’s body. He follows it at a walk, letting the bloody grass tickle his lowered hand. She lies in a bed of flattened reeds, gulping for air, eyes wide and unblinking. Without blood to fuel her, mind and body are slipping away.

  And there is no one to save her.

  He watches her life fade.

  When she’s gone, rage builds anew. He wants to kill her again. And again. And again. There is nothing he detests more than the weak mound of flesh lying limp at his feet. Darkness overtakes him, leaving only a vague awareness of movement. Of impacts. Of warmth moving through his fingertips. Of burning muscles and exertion.

  He returns with a gasp, following it with heaving breaths. Confused, he searches the area. Men and women from the Amazon tribes stare at him. Some with reverent awe, some with horror, and others with approval. One by one, they bow and inch backward. The six feathered women standing at the base of the temple bow on one knee, heads lowered to the grass, where they remain, their devotion to Mapinguari unflinching.

  This simple act of subjugation appeases him. He bears them no ill will.

  Most of them.

  His eyes track motion at the jungle’s edge where a man sprints into the foliage and disappears.

  “Juma…”

  First, the nameless woman.

  He looks down to where the woman had lain, but in her place is a mass of flesh and bone, the stench of it pu
ngent, but not unwelcome. A quick search of the field reveals nothing.

  She’s gone, he thinks, looking back at the gore. Gone forever.

  For a moment, Mapinguari is appeased.

  Then he remembers Juma, drops to his hands and feet, and tears through the field.

  42

  Reeds slap his skin. The sturdiest of them open small fissures. Blood drips from a dozen wounds. He doesn’t notice the sting. Doesn’t realize he’s running on all fours. Doesn’t notice the body of his dead daughter as he leaps over her still form.

  His prey is all that exists.

  The man is quick, skilled, and comfortable in the jungle. Mapinguari can’t recall much about him other than his name—Juma—and that his death will be pleasing.

  At the jungle’s edge, Mapinguari scales the twisting branches of a tree covered in working ants. He pauses to watch them, always working, always the same. He’s seen them before, somewhere else. At another time. There is no memory, just a feeling of having seen them before, during another emotionally charged transformative moment. He pushes past the ants to the higher branches, listening, looking, smelling.

  A swaying sapling provides a starting point.

  The distant slap of feet on earth gives him a direction.

  Fear lingers in the air like a pheromone, fueling his hunger for death.

  He’s never sensed the world like this before. It’s pure and invigorating, not held back by the constraints of civilization—modern or primitive. He’s beyond such things. More. And less.

  Branches sway as he moves through them, swinging from one to another as he’d always imagined trying, but never felt brave enough to attempt. After building momentum, he lunges between trees. He falls short of his goal, but clutches onto a smaller branch, which bends under his weight and lowers him toward the ground. Ten feet from the forest floor, he drops and lands with a roll.

  A laugh sprays spittle from between his teeth.

  His newfound freedom pleases him.

  Juma…

  Mapinguari races into the jungle, scurrying back and forth through the brush, searching for signs of his quarry’s flight. A toeprint redirects him.

  Juma has a good lead, but fear is making him sloppy. And sooner or later, his age will slow him down.

  Moving with the newfound grace that comes with fearlessness, Mapinguari delights in the jungle. At the same time, he is not foolish. He doesn’t remember where his knowledge comes from, but he knows what is dangerous to touch, or eat. The skills of his previous life have been retained, despite the alteration of what made him human.

  And this knowledge guides him when Juma’s path evades him.

  The Guaruaramo tribe’s territory lies to the east. That’s where he will head, to the safety of home, where familiar territory will give him an advantage.

  But we are many weeks travel from Guaruamo, Mapinguari realizes. Juma isn’t going home, he’s—

  The whistle of an arrow would make most creatures in the jungle flinch or duck. Mapinguari charges onward, unconcerned with something like death.

  When he reaches a clearing full of the various tribes’ discarded weapons, he’s tempted to take some for himself, but he wants to feel Juma’s life slip away. Only then will he be satisfied. He can’t remember why, but he craves little else.

  Juma’s retreat from Mapinguari’s territory sets a troop of monkeys to screaming, warning each other of danger and revealing the old man’s path. Far ahead, the twang of a fired arrow is followed by a shriek. The monkeys fall silent as one of their own has been slain by Juma.

  Overhead, the fleeing monkeys make eye contact with Mapinguari and stop their retreat. The largest of them watches him, assessing. There’s a subtle intelligence in the creature’s eyes. The two primates come to an understanding. When Mapinguari strikes out again, the monkeys follow in silence.

  Juma’s trail disappears when the terrain becomes rocky, allowing the old man to leap through the forest. While Mapinguari growls in frustration, pacing low to the ground, smelling, searching, the monkeys shriek and leap overhead, leading the way.

  As the terrain angles upward, Mapinguari alternates between running on all fours and on two legs. He falls into a comfortable rhythm, using both techniques to move through the forest with newfound efficiency.

  A hundred feet ahead, the monkeys hold their position, bouncing in the highest branches. Their high-pitched shrieking is familiar. He understands it. Here, they tell him. Your prey is here!

  Little bastards, he thinks with a grin. Monkeys are always happy to point out a prey animal that isn’t them, especially when it’s someone, or something, that’s killed one of their own.

  Sensing Juma’s exhaustion, Mapinguari launches uphill, oblivious to the burning in his legs and the pain in his chest. His pounding heart thumps behind his ears, drums inspiring the hunt.

  A wall of brush at the hill’s top explodes, giving birth to Mapinguari. Always in motion, the beast twists and turns, searching for Juma. The man is missing. The monkeys have betrayed him.

  He nearly turns his ire on the small primates when he spots a large face looming down at him. Thrashing back in confusion, Mapinguari is torn between retreat and attack until what’s left of his mind makes sense of the giant.

  A statue, he thinks. A man made of stone. The scowl isn’t real, nor are the fangs. Nor is the single eye glaring from its forehead. The fifteen foot, rectangular megalith has been worn smooth by time and the elements, but many of the details remain intact. It’s old, but it has been tended to for generations.

  This is where I was born, Mapinguari realizes, thousands of years ago.

  I am immortal.

  A god.

  “Juuuma,” he calls.

  The old man doesn’t reply, but the quiver in each labored breath he takes reveals his presence.

  “Juma!”

  A gasp. Mapinguari stalks around the statue’s backside.

  The old man has scaled a nearby tree and leapt onto the statue’s back. A nocked arrow is aimed downward and released. It pierces the earth beside Mapinguari’s side, tickling his skin when it vibrates from the impact. A near miss. But the monster doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t worry about its life.

  “Wait!” Juma shouts, preparing another arrow.

  “Your life belongs to me,” Mapinguari hisses. “And I would like to have it. Now.”

  An arrow cracks against the tree trunk, splintering inches from the beast’s hand.

  Mapinguari pauses. Juma is missing on purpose.

  The old man pulls himself higher, onto the statue’s head.

  “Did you think this would frighten me?” Mapinguari asks.

  “It is…a reminder,” Juma says, breathless. “Of who you are. Who you have always been and will be.”

  “Mapinguari.”

  “And you understand what that means? Who you are? What you are to do?”

  “Aside from whatever I please?” Mapinguari grins.

  “Yes.”

  Thoughts of tributes, of sacrifices and holy missions fill his mind. He understands the role. The horror of it, and the honor in it. Monster and legend.

  “You will not live to see it.” The beast paces below. He could scale the tree and tear the man down, but he knows he will not have to.

  Juma relaxes, accepting his fate. “You understand why I had to—”

  “I understand nothing!” The screamed words release a weight buried deep in Mapinguari’s gut. The pain of it makes him uncomfortable, reminds him of dead feelings that bring discomfort. He doesn’t know why, but killing Juma is the last step in silencing wisps of painful memories. Words. Faces. Names.

  A sullen Juma lowers his bow and removes the arrow. “May Mapinguari’s greatness increase until the ancient lights extinguish. If you require my life to begin your reign, I give it to you…willingly.”

  Juma stabs his arrow into his leg.

  His eyes widen and then lock in place. His breathing becomes a wheeze.

  “NO!” M
apinguari roars, furious at Juma’s ultimate escape. Three leaps carry him up the tree’s trunk and a fourth onto the great statue’s head. A solid blow sprawls the paralyzed man to the ground. The beast drops down beside the old man as the monkeys reach a frenzy.

  Juma is still breathing when Mapinguari rolls him over, seething. “I want you to beg!”

  The old man says nothing.

  “BEG!”

  When the old man’s chest falls still, the monster knows there are only seconds remaining in the man’s life.

  A gurgling of words from his old self surfaces. “Family is everything. You stole mine. Now, I will steal yours.”

  There is a flicker of terror in Juma’s eyes, and then nothing.

  Darkness claims Mapinguari as the last of his old self melts away and the animal takes hold once more. When he returns, the statue is decorated in the meaty remains of something that had once lived.

  Covered in stiffening blood, he looks up at the monkeys. They sit in silence, watching. He feels neither their approval nor disgust. This is life in the jungle, and they are accustomed to it.

  As is he.

  But the jungle is no longer his home.

  It is his kingdom.

  43

  By the time Mapinguari returns to the temple, the tribal representatives who had come to witness his undoing, but instead bore witness to his becoming, have wisely fled. Evidence of what occurred in the grassy field has been erased. No bodies remain. The grass has been groomed, standing tall where the dead, and the battles had flattened it.

  He tries to remember the details of what happened here. He knows that he was involved. That he became Mapinguari only recently. But he cannot recall who lost their life or how he felt about it. He remembers only rage, but not at whom it was directed.

  Flashes of his most recent conquest flicker through his thoughts, tickling him with feelings of satisfaction. But he cannot remember what was said. What was promised.

  Mapinguari is a creature of vast skill, determination, emotion, and ferocity, but his memory and intellect have retreated, along with his sense of self. Lack of self leads to bliss. When he encounters the six young women waiting for him, clothed in bright feathers, he feels little.