Michelle rolled her eyes, grabbed one of the T-shirts, and retied the package. “You got a knife?” He nodded and fished one out of his pants pocket and handed it to her. “Thanks.” She crawled back to Joey. “This is going to hurt.”
“Just do something, you fucker,” Joey said. Her voice trembled and Michelle knew she was crying.
Michelle got to work tearing up the T-shirt. The jungle slid by below them, every mile bringing her closer and closer to Adesina.
In the Jungle, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
Through the gap between the hills ahead of them, there was a line of darker blue. Lake Tanganyika.
The sight filled Jerusha with hope. Maybe, maybe she could do this
…
They had moved into less fractured ground. The hills were lower now, the jungle beginning to give way to more open ground. They were moving across a wide field of tall grass, making good time, following a half-hidden trail. People obviously came this way occasionally. The sun beat down on them, but after the half gloom of the jungle, it felt good to see unbroken sky overhead. She was hoping to find another village, perhaps a phone…
Waikili was walking alongside her, his hand grasping hers. She felt his fingers tighten. “Bibbi…” he said. “He comes again
…”
“Cesar! Everyone!” Jerusha shouted as she dropped Waikili’s hand. “Watch-”
There was no time to say more. She saw the grass rippling to the right of the path they followed. She heard the roar of the monster. She heard the children shrill in alarm and someone’s gun firing widly. She saw the ruff of tan hide as the hyena-lion leapt and heard the terrible clashing of its jaws.
She saw it toss a child’s torn body aside even as she ran toward it. Cesar and Gamila were firing into the grass, the chatter of the gunfire causing birds to erupt from the trees bordering the field and tearing the frond of grass. “Stop!” she told them, panting. “Wait until you can see him…”
The silence was deafening, the roar of the weapons still echoing. Three of the children were badly injured, claw-raked as the were-creature had passed through the line, and there were two still bodies with other children around them: Pili and Chaga. “Are they
…?” The children didn’t need to answer. She knew. “Waikili,” she said. “Is he still there?”
“Yes, Bibbi Jerusha. He has decided it’s time to end the game.”
Jerusha nodded. “Cesar, Gamila,” she said. She was staring into the field, at the faint path of trampled grass where the boy had gone. “Take the children and keep moving.”
“Bibbi…”
“Do it,” she snapped, not looking at him.
She heard him call out to the children both in French and Baluba. She heard them pick up Eason’s stretcher, heard them half run down the path away from the bodies. She rummaged in her seed pouch, cast seeds in a close circle around her.
“I know you’re there,” she called out in French. “I’m here. I’m alone. You want to end this? Then take me first.”
Laughter answered her from the grass.
“Come on,” she told him. “I’m waiting for you.”
There was more laughter, moving now, sliding to her left. She turned toward the sound.
He came almost too fast for her, a blur of motion. Jerusha tore at the seeds she’d scattered with her mind, and a mass of thornbushes lifted toward the sky, the black knives of the bushes snagging and tearing at the hyena body of the child ace, lifting him in midleap. Even so, the claws of his right paw ripped along her arm and Jerusha cried out in pain and shock. She could smell his foul breath, and her face was spattered with his saliva as he roared. As the thornbushes lifted him, the beast struggled in their grasp and she stabbed him a thousand times with the long black thorns. Branches broke and tore, scattering black snow as he tore at them furiously. The claws raked at the thorns, at her, at air; she retreated, still trying to wrap him in her dark, deadly cage. She could feel him slipping loose.
Too strong. She could not hold him. He was too strong.
He roared. The branches holding him creaked and splintered even as she tried to strengthen them.
Then she heard Cesar shout, heard his weapon fire. The were-thing screamed as the bullets tore into its tan hide, as Jerusha wrapped yet more thorn limbs around the beast to hold it, to slow it. And suddenly, it was no longer a beast but a naked child snagged in thorns and dying, his own face shattered and broken. Cesar was still firing, and the child’s body shuddered and writhed from the impact of the bullets. “Stop!” Jerusha screamed at Cesar. “Stop. It’s over.”
The gunfire ended. Blood dripped to the ground from the still, broken form. Jerusha turned away from the sight, unable to look. Cesar was grinning, and she hated the look of triumph and satisfaction on his face.
The grass swayed near the path, and another boy emerged: the emaciated child, just a hand’s reach from her. He had a waif’s face, with eyes too large and too sad in his sunken face, his belly drawn tightly in, his arms and legs no more than sticks. His mouth was open, as if he were trying to speak.
“Bibbi!” She heard Cesar calling to her in alarm. “No!”
The child glanced from the body in the tree to Jerusha, his eyes shimmering with tears. “You can come with us,” she told him. “You don’t have to be with them anymore. You can be free of all this. I can help you. I’ll get you to people who can help you.”
He cocked his head toward her as she spoke. Jerusha didn’t know if he understood her French, but she hoped he could understand the tone. She held out her hand toward him, and he took it in his. She could feel the trembling in his fingers, could feel bones under the thin wrapping of skin and tendons.
His hand tightened on hers. He pulled her arm forward, and as she stumbled to catch her balance, his mouth yawned open and he bit down hard on her forearm.
“No!” She didn’t know if the shout came from her or Cesar. The boy grinned at her, licking lips dark with her blood. The wound burned, as if his saliva were acid. Cesar’s gun stuttered and the child ran, plunging back into the high grass. “Stop!” Jerusha shouted: at the child, at Cesar. She cradled her injured arm to her belly. “Stop! Come back!”
Cesar came running to her. He looked at her arm, and she saw his eyes fill with tears. “It’s okay,” she told him. “I’m fine. It’s just a bite. He’s gone. We’ve won here. It’s over. Come on, let’s go get the others.”
“Bibbi Jerusha…”
“I’m fine,” she told him sternly. “Let’s go. I’m fine.”
She hoped that she was right.
Ubundu, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
“This can’t be kisangani,” Michelle said. The landing strip was cracked mud and ruts, surrounded by thick jungle. Not a building was in sight. “Kisangani is a city.”
“Kisangani was a city,” Japhet said. “Now?” He shrugged. “There’s an airport in Kisangani, yes, but they aren’t fond of independent contractors like me. The cut they want of my merchandise is outrageous. There are police at the Kisangani airport, too. And soldiers, and Leopard Men, and men in suits who ask inconvenient questions about flight plans and passengers. It is better here in the jungle. The people living here keep a runway clear and I bring them what they need.”
“Capitalism at its best,” Michelle murmured.
“And the two of you have already been more trouble than I bargained for.”
Michelle smiled at him. “It looks like you know your way around trouble.”
He gave her a toothy grin. “That I do.”
“Where are we, then?”
“Outside Ubundu. Kisangani is that way.” He pointed. “From here you must walk. If you lose your way, find the Congo and follow it downstream. It was a pleasure to meet you, Bubbles.” He took her hand and shook it. “Get your friend to a doctor. Wounds go bad fast in the jungle.”
“I’ll do my best,” she replied. By the time they heard his engine roar past overhead, she and Joey were already deep in the green, making their way through thick underbrush.