“Let me ask you something,” Namdi said. “You are a very beautiful girl. I’m certain any man would take you to wife. Why have you not married yet?” “I do not know. I have not met anyone of worth.” “Except Eric?” Jalani looked to him, surprised at his perception.
“It is all right,” Namdi said with a smile. “I will not tell Thomas if that is what worries you.” He took a sip of tea. “He seems like a decent man.”
“He is. But he has much darkness in his soul.”
“Hm, we all do. It is part of who we are. Be careful in trying to heal him, Jalani. You may end up destroying the best part of him.” She took her tea and finished it in one gulp before standing up. “I must go to bed now doctor, but I enjoyed our talk.” “As did I. Tell me something Jalani, have you ever seen an animal do this? Kill so many people?” “No doctor.” Jalani looked out into the darkness. “But I do not think this is an animal.”
CHAPTER
53
William and Eric did not stop to rest in the night. The sky was clear and the air was cool-a rarity during this time of year. To stop and wait for the heat of the morning would be foolish.
They made their way past the large valley and started to climb farther up into the lush highlands. The highlands were more a dense forest than what one would think of as Indian plains. The trees were thickly branched and the leaves ranged in colors from bright green to brown. Layers of cricket chirps and hoots from monkeys high up in the branches reverberated in the night.
“If I wasn’t so damn scared,” William said, “I might really be in awe of how beautiful this is.” He looked to Eric. He hadn’t spoken since the incident at the river. “You okay?” “Fine.” “You know, you haven’t told me exactly what you saw.” “I wouldn’t know how to describe it.” “Well, for starters, how big was it?” “Maybe five or six feet high, ten feet long.” “That’d be bigger than a bull.” “Trust me, it wasn’t a bull.”
The forest grew dense and they had to push their way past thick foliage and bushes with long narrow thorns on every stem. Eric’s legs began to itch from the dozens of small cuts and scrapes he’d accumulated.
“You know,” Eric said, “when I was kid, I wasn’t that great with girls. I was awkward and shy and they never paid attention to me or were usually just mean to me. My dad used to take me to baseball games. We didn’t have a professional team, so we used to go to the college games. There was this girl there that worked at the food stand. She was blond and kinda skinny but had these gorgeous green eyes. I mean I was only like twelve at the time but I had a full out crush on her. I could never bring myself to talk to her, but she’d smile when she saw me and I’d smile back. I think she was the only girl at that time of my life that was nice to me.
“One of the games we went to she wasn’t there. She wasn’t at the next one either. She went to junior high school with one of my friends and I asked if he knew her and what happened. He said she was dead. Her father had come home drunk one night and thrown her down the stairs.” Eric glanced at William who was staring at the ground. “I never got to tell her how much those smiles meant to me. I still think about her sometimes but I don’t know why.”
“Regret’s a hard thing to deal with. They say it’s better to regret something you have done rather than something you haven’t, but I don’t know. I have so many regrets myself Eric, so many missed opportunities. I thank God I found Sandra but she wasn’t the first. There were others that I treated poorly and it went nowhere. But we’re learning creatures. We can’t expect to get things right the first time.”
A few minutes of silence passed, the crunching of vegetation underfoot filling the empty space.
“I killed someone,” Eric said, not looking at him.
William stopped in his tracks and Eric walked a few paces ahead but didn’t turn around. He stood motionless, watching the trees sway in the cool wind. William stood silently watching. Eric swallowed, his throat dry. “I killed my stepfather. I shot him in the chest.” “Do you regret doing it?” “I don’t know. I didn’t want to kill anybody, but at that time… I don’t know.” “Why did you kill him?” “He hurt my mother. I just wanted to scare him but it didn’t turn out that way.” “And you thought you could protect her by taking his life?” “No… I don’t know. I went over there to scare him but I think part of me knew it would end like it did.”
“You’ve committed a crime against God Eric, but your heart was in the thought of protecting your mother. God can forgive you; do you want to be forgiven?”
“Yes.”
“Then you must make up for the life you took, do you understand? You have to take a life with no hope and give it hope.” William got on his knees and forced Eric down with him.
“Repeat: O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all of my sins because of Your just punishments. Mostly because they offend You my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I will, with the help of Thy grace, sin no more. And I say these things, father, in the name of thy beloved son Jesus who is the Christ. Amen.”
Eric closed his eyes and repeated after him. William placed his hand on Eric’s shoulder. He embraced him before they began walking again.
The sun seeped through the branches of the canopy above them at dawn. They’d walked the entire night without stopping. Now they were tired and hungry, thirst making their stomachs twist in pain.
They stopped near a large boulder in a clearing and sat down, their backs against the stone. A blanket of bird calls filled the forest and a colony of ants were busy at work on a tree stump in front of them.
Eric leaned back and closed his eyes. The heat felt wet in the forest and it soaked him in humidity and perspiration. He hardly noticed when a glob of drool spattered on his chest. Another strand leaked down over his face and he opened his eyes.
Above him on the boulder was a face from his nightmares. The creature’s eyes were drawn tight and its teeth were exposed. Eric couldn’t move. He stared into the creature’s eyes, watching its pupils dilate as its muscles tensed.
The creature lunged and Eric spun away on the ground, the horrible mouth snapping into air and missing his shoulder by a few inches. William jumped and grabbed the rifle but the creature spun around too quickly and knocked him off his feet. It turned back to Eric and let out an earsplitting roar. Eric took off into the forest and the creature went after him.
The forest was thick. Eric couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him at a time. The branches were scratching his face as he dashed past them and the ground was uneven.
The creature pursued, adeptly moving through the density of the forest as if it were a bird. It ducked underneath low hanging branches and kept pace with its prey. Eric tried to zigzag but ended up losing ground. He glanced back once at the creature; it was certainly a hyena. It had the long forelegs and thick muscular build with the human-like eyes, but the size was unlike anything Eric had ever seen.
There was a tall tree with low branches in front of him and Eric leapt for the nearest branch, wrapping his arms around it and swinging his legs up. The beast flew into the air, its jaws wide, and snapped at Eric’s legs but missed and bit into the branch, tearing half of it down with a loud crunch. Eric climbed to his knees and then up another branch, and then another. He looked down to see the creature eyeing him. It had intelligent eyes that sent a chill up Eric’s back. You could tell it was thinking as it watched you.
The beast crouched and then vaulted onto the tree, its claws catching the bark as it climbed to the first branch. Eric watched in horror as it began climbing to the next branch.
Eric climbed higher, the bark cutting his hands. When he neared the top he looked down to see the beast’s face staring back at him. The tree was leaning to the side under its weight but still the creature climbed.
Eric got to the top and the hyena was right behind him. He pulled the handgun Jalani had given him and took aim. He fired once and missed but the second shot hit the animal right above its right shoulder blade. The beast was caught off balance and fell on the branch underneath him.
A thunderous crackling echoed in the air as the tree nearly splintered in half. The creature crashed through
