Bewere the Night

“The vampire dogs leave a taste behind,” the woman told me. “A kamikamica taste the other animals like. One of the men in my village cooked and ate one of those cows. He said it made him feel very good but now he smells of cowhide. He can’t get the smell off himself.”

“Are any of your animals left alive?”

The woman shook her head. “Not the bitten ones. They didn’t touch them all, though.”

“Can I see the others?” I would look for signs of disease, something to explain the sudden death. I wanted to be sure I was in the right place.

One cow was up against the back wall of the house, leaning close to catch the shade. There was a sheen of sweat on my body. I could feel it drip down my back.

“Kata kata,” the woman said, pointing to the cow. “She is very hot.”

It looked all right, apart from that.

I could get no more out of her.

Gina was sweating in the taxi. It was a hot day, but she felt the heat of the cow as well. “Any luck?” she said.

“Some. There’s a few local taboos I’ll need to get through to get the info we need, though.”

“Ask him,” she said, pointing at the driver. “He’s Hindu.”

Our taxi driver said, “I could have saved you the journey. No Fijian will talk about that. We Hindus know about those dogs.”

He told us the vampire dogs lived at the bottom of Ciwa Waidekeulu. “Thiwa Why Ndeke Ulu,” he said. Nine Waterfall. In the rainforest twenty minutes from where we were staying.

“She said something about a yellow master?”

“A great yellow dog who is worse than the worst man you’ve ever met.”

I didn’t tell him I’d met some bad men.

“You should keep away from him. He can give great boons to the successful, but there is no one successful. No one can defeat the yellow dog. Those who fail will vanish, as if they have never been.” He stopped at a jetty, where some children sold us roti filled with a soft, sweet potato curry. Very, very good.

The girl who cleaned my room was not chatty at first, but I wanted to ask her questions. She answered most of them happily once I gave her a can of Coke. “Where do I park near Ciwa Waidekeulu? How do I ask the chief for permission to enter? Is there fresh water?”

When I asked her if she knew if the vampire dogs were down there, she went back to her housework, cleaning a bench already spotless. “These are not creatures to be captured,” she said. “They should be poisoned.” To distract me, she told me that her neighbors had five dogs, every last one of them a mongrel, barking all night and scaring her children. I know what I’d do if I were her. The council puts out notices of dog poisonings, Keep Your Dogs In While We Kill the Strays, so all she’d have to do is let their dogs out while the cull was happening. Those dogs’d be happy to run; they used to leap the fence, tearing their guts, until her neighbor built his fence higher. They’re desperate to get out.

They do a good job with the poisoning, she told me, but not so good with the clean up. Bloated bodies line the streets, float down the river, clog the drains.

They don’t understand about repercussions, and that things don’t just go away.

The client was pleased with my progress when I called him. “So, when will you go in?”

With the land taboo, I needed permission from the local chief or risk trouble. This took time. Most didn’t want to discuss the vampire dogs, or the yellow dog king; he was forbidden, also. “It may be a couple of weeks. Depends on how I manage to deal with the locals.”

“Surely a man would manage better,” he said. “I know your husband doesn’t like to talk, but most men will listen to a man better. Maybe I should send someone else.”

“Listen,” I told him, hoping to win him back, “I’ve heard they run with a fat cock of a dog. Have you heard that? People have seen the vampire dogs drop sheep hearts at this dog’s feet. He tossed the heart up like it was a ball, snapped it up.”

The man smacked his lips. I could hear it over the phone. “I’ve got a place for him, if you catch him as well.”

“If you pay us, we’ll get him. There are no bonus dogs.”

“Check with your husband on that.”

I thought of the slimy black hole he’d dug.

“They say that if you take a piece of him, good things will come your way. People don’t like to talk about him. He’s taboo.”

“They just don’t want anyone else taking a piece of him.”

We moved to a new hotel set amongst the rainforest. The walls were dark green in patches, the smell of mold strong, but it was pretty with birdsong and close to the waterfalls which meant we could make an early start.

We ate in their open air restaurant, fried fish, more coconut milk, Greek meatballs. Gina didn’t like mosquito repellent, thinking it clogged her pores with chemicals, so she was eaten alive by them.

“Have you called Joe?” she asked me over banana custard.

“Have you?” We smiled at each other; wife and sister ignoring him, back home and alone.

“We should call him. Does he know what we’re doing?”

“I told him, but you know how he is.” She was a good sister, visiting him weekly, reading to him, taking him treats he chewed but didn’t seem to enjoy.

We drank too much Fijian beer and we danced around the snooker table, using the cues as microphones. No one seemed bothered, least of all the waiters.

The next morning, we called a cab to drop us at the top of the waterfall. You couldn’t drive down any further. In the car park, souvenir sellers sat listlessly, their day’s takings a few coins that jangled in their pockets. Their faces marked with lines, boils on their shins, they leaned back and stared as we gathered our things together.

“I have shells,” one boy said.

“No turtles,” Gina said, flipping her head at him to show how disgusting that trade was to her.

“Not turtles. Beetles. The size of a turtle.”

He held up the shell to her. There was a smell about it, almost like an office smell; cleaning fluids, correcting fluids, coffee brewed too long. The shell was metallic gray and marbled with black lines. Claws out the side, small, odd, clutching snipers. I had seen, had eaten, prawns with claws like this. Bluish and fleshy, I felt like I was eating a sea monster.

“From the third waterfall,” the seller said. “All the other creatures moved up when the dogs moved into Nine Waterfall.”

I’m in the right place, I thought. “So there are dogs in the waterfall?”

“Vampire dogs. They only come out for food. They live way down.”

An older vendor hissed at him. “Don’t scare the nice ladies. They don’t believe in vampire dogs.”

“You’d be surprised what I believe in,” Gina said. She touched one finger to the man’s throat. “I believe that you have a secret not even your wife knows. If she learns of it, she will take your children away.”

“No.”

“Yes.” She gave the boy money for one of the shells and opened her large bag to place it inside.

He said, “You watch out for yellow dog. If you sacrifice a part of him you”ll never be hungry again. But if you fail you will die on the spot and no one will know you ever lived. If you take the right bit you will never be lonely again.”

I didn’t know that I wanted a companion for life.

As we walked, I said, “How did you know he had a secret?”

“All men have secrets.”

The first waterfall was overhung by flowering trees. It was a very popular picnic site. Although it took 20 minutes to reach, Indian women were there with huge pots and pans, cooking roti and warming dhal while the men and children swam. I trailed my hand in the water; very cool, not the pleasant body-temperature water of the islands, but a refreshing briskness.

Birdsong here was high and pretty. More birds than I’d seen elsewhere. Broadbills, honey-eaters, crimson and masked parrots, and velvet doves. Safe here, perhaps. The ground was soft and writhing with worms. The children