His companion brought the vehicle to a stop in front of a peasant cottage, and Peter snapped out of his reverie. “We leave the Jeep here,” Metellus announced. “These people know me.” He glanced at the watch on his wrist. Peter had earlier observed that he wore a Rolex or some such, which one would think out of the range of any legitimate income. But he had wisely traded it for a more modest Timex for the occasion. “Are you hungry, my friend?”
His eyes concluding a sweep of the cottage and what lay beyond it, Peter barely caught the words but replied, “I hadn’t given it a thought. The heat takes away my appetite. But perhaps we ought to eat something, eh?”
Metellus slid from his seat and leaned into the back of the Jeep to lift out a bag of food. It turned out to be a strange mixture of fruit, vegetables, and the worst sort of greasy junk food. More of all of it than they could expect to eat. And there was alcohol. Metellus opened the bag and gave him his choice. Peter grabbed a couple of apples and a roll. Metellus took even less. Just then the cottage door opened, and it was an attractive, middle-aged black woman who greeted them both with a smile and a happy “Bon jour!” Metellus handed her the rest of the provisions. Trust him to think of everything, Peter thought.
From there they walked. And Peter soon discovered and appreciated why Metellus had judged it wise to arrive at their destination before dark. The trail was a footpath. It was a snake twisting through the forest. At times it would be blocked by fallen tree-limbs, mostly pine, and by boulders that must have come crashing down the mountain. Peter hoped there were no more like them at home. It seemed endless.
Peter was tired, his companion scarcely less so, when the pair finally arrived at a cluster of huts in a clearing that, mercifully, turned out to be their destination. But there was to be no rest for them. People came striding from the huts—men, mostly—and Peter had to be introduced to them by Metellus. Had to smile and remain standing while his companion explained that Peter was a Floridian, a friend of Metellus’s brother, and that he was deeply interested in the Old Ones. Also that he was eager to participate in the night’s proceedings, at least as an observer. Peter momentarily started at hearing the exact truth from the other’s lips. He had expected more pretense than this, though he could think of no real reason it should be necessary.
By the time the newcomer had been introduced all around, it had grown dark enough for lanterns to be lit and hung in the surrounding trees, and vodun drums began to throb. No one seemed suspicious of him, and the only looks in his direction that he noticed appeared to be polite and friendly. He returned the smiles he saw and hoped for the best. He asked if he might do anything to help prepare, was told that he was a guest and should not busy himself with such tasks. This he took for permission to nod off for a brief nap.
Once he felt Metellus nudging him awake, he realized he had slept for at least three hours. The moon was high, and the clearing was now crowded with eager figures darting to and fro, creating almost a strobe effect as they passed rapidly before the blazing lamps and lanterns. He got rapidly to his aching feet and looked nervously to make sure his sleeping posture had not revealed any pink flesh. Metellus’s grin anticipated him and let him know all was well. The two of them hurried into the circle and looked for good seats, close to the action, whatever action there should be, yet not too obtrusive, lest any surprise or reluctance on their part be noticed. Here at the scene itself, Peter wondered for the first time how much of the celebrations of this sect Metellus had actually seen? He spoke enigmatically about it, as if he knew little, and yet he appeared to be well enough known to those gathered. Perhaps he had received only a preliminary degree of initiation and could only guess, as Peter had heard him do, at the real secrets of the cult. But didn’t that imply he himself, an outsider, could not hope to see anything much out of the ordinary? Well, there was nothing to do but wait now.
He scanned the close-packed crowd. The scene was familiar, as were the expressions of adventurous expectancy on the black faces gleaming with sweat and firelight. Then with a start he hoped no one noticed, he saw faces of a more ominous cast, weathered and haughty visages whose peculiar lines betrayed habitual emotions and exaltations of a kind he could not guess. Some bore ritual scars, others faded tattoos and paint. There were ear-hoops of strange workmanship, too, some suggesting the forms of strange sea creatures. Here was something new. Might he perhaps interview these old men, who were certainly those curiously allied bocors and houngans rumor had described as improbably coming together for some frightful purpose? He sensed somehow his chances of that were slim.
His eagerness dulled to disappointment once the congregation hushed as if by some tacit signal and the service began. The celebrant, an aged fellow with a wrinkled face and a voice little more than a fatigued whisper, droned out the singsong of the usual introductory prayers. He drew the usual veves around the base of the central pole or poteau mitan. Still droning, as if wearily reciting a child’s nursery rhyme, he called upon the usual string of vodun deities: Legba, Ogoun, Erzulie, Damballah, and the rest. Peter had seen and heard all this too many times before. And yet the gathered cultists appeared to be all the more eager, as if their favorite part were on its way.
At once the rote character of the display vanished. The preliminaries, perfunctory, were over. Gestures in the crowd became rapid, even violent, aimless jabs, striking heads and torsos oblivious of the impact. Eyes rolled up, people blindly rising, shrilly chanting, joining a frenzied follow-the-leader snake-dance. At Metellus’s urgent signal, Peter joined in as best he could. He strained to make out the words being sung, and because of the number of voices, twenty-five or so, it was difficult. Especially difficult for one to whom Creole was not a primary language. Yet he understood some of it. And to his surprise, these black bacchantes were calling not on the traditional gods of vodun, whose names he had heard mere moments before, but on someone, something, far more ancient. The names were altogether new to him, and he realized this was why it was so difficult to understand. Some of the… names? were so bizarre, and were barked and screamed past comprehension. Tulu… Nigguratl-Yig… Nug and Yeb… And the cacophony was rapidly giving way to some alien language, perhaps speaking in tongues. Less and less Creole.
An intuitive flash told him what must be going on here. Old Ones. He knew, anyone knew, that the nominal Christianity of Haitians and other Caribbean peoples thinly masked the African religions of their pre-slavery ancestors. They might call the object of their ecstatic devotion Saint This or That, but they were really invoking Damballah, Baron Samedhi and the others, gods of ancient Africa. But what he was beholding here was something else—these Old Ones had to be the unthinkably archaic gods and devils to whom screaming sacrifices had been offered in the dawn ages before Zimbabwe and Benin and Opar, deities whose worship had at length been banned and driven underground to take refuge under the names of the more wholesome gods of Zulu, Ashanti, Shona, and other tribes. Behind their myths the Things of Elder Blasphemy still lurked and ravened, as the benign spirits of African faiths would later hide behind the haloes of Catholic saints. In a moment he knew.
The chanting and the drumming continued. So did the dancing, as the cultists formed a rough circle and continued to move their feet—some in flat-soled sandals, others quite bare—in a shuffling processional. The celebrant, whose torpor had long since vanished, hopped into the center of the circle and began to rotate, his glazed eyes following the crowd as it spun round him. He shouted something once, twice, stabbing a finger in the direction of two of the entranced mob. One of these, who could hardly have even been aware of the summons, a teenaged girl, broke from the group and fell to the ground. She was instantly followed by a second, this one an old hag. Further uncouth vocables erupted from the voodoo priest’s raw throat, and the two females obediently threw off all restraint, their faces still strangely vacant, and began a savage death-struggle. Gouts of blood and torn-off flesh flew everywhere, and Peter’s stomach roiled. Fistfuls of human meat, an eye, another, scattered into the air. Blood somehow splashed over him from the direction of the two women as if thrown from a paint can. The young anthropologist found his consciousness tottering. Rousing a moment later, he realized he had fallen into the arms of Metellus. He prayed no one else had noticed this failure of nerve, but a quick glance told him no one was paying any attention to him, nor would they.