S&S13

Pales of thunder rumbled incessantly, growing louder with each passing second, and large raindrops gathered quickly on the windshield. As he waited for the engine to warm up, David reached for the glove compartment and pulled out a map - which he swiftly unfolded and spread it out across the car’s dashboard.

He lit another cigarette - he had hardly felt the first one, having smoked it so anxiously. Only now did he begin to feel the real taste of the strong tobacco fumes, clouding his mind and pressing heavily inside his chest. He squinted at the poorly marked roads on the yellowed paper of the map, wondering all the while, just how old that map even was, anyway. Could he even still rely on it? He then pondered that maybe the roads of a country don’t change frequently enough to necessitate a new map published every year. And, in a country such as his, at least… where construction was a perpetual endeavour, yet nothing ever got finished - that certainly wasn’t the case, he reassured himself. He then continued plotting his return route.

The police car had set off before him, so he had to be cautious. He could’ve waited, let them get a generous head start, before he continued, but it was already getting late… Tiny was probably waiting for him by now, wondering why the hell he’s not back yet, and the looming clouds outside glibly threatened of a storm that would make his journey home even more challenging than it had already become.

Moreover, he had no guarantee that the police weren’t waiting for him further up the road….That that sadistic prick wasn’t just taunting him again, stalking him, just beyond the next turn, only to have another go at him with one of his strange mind games….

There was another route though, he realized, upon examining the map more closely. He traced a red dotted road, across the main highway he was on - it veered left, running alongside the port, before entering the town of Bechet. It added about 10 kilometers to his journey, but at least he’d avoid the main road that was, without a doubt, still being patrolled by the police. And after the bizarre incident he’d just endured, he certainly didn’t want to run into the Inspector again.

Amidst the echoes of a heavy pale of thunder, David lifted his gaze off the map and peered into the rear-view mirror. Through the window, blurred by the rain and the noisy windshield wipers, screeching loudly in their oscillations, that narrow, unknown, road before him seemed to lead him straight into the coming storm, towards the furious clouds that amassed there, above - seemingly waiting for him to approach.

Sparse rain gently drizzled over the entire village. The once - peaceful residents of the Dusty Village were now in a constant state of unrest. The entire village population hurriedly scuttled about, making their preparations for the final night of the year, men procured the wooden planks to barricade their home doors and windows, then secured their animals in pens and left them ample food supplies to last for the next few days.

Meanwhile, the women and children gathered in large numbers at the village center, to assemble the garlic and onions mounds. The Council always kept a special reserve of garlic for this time of year. It was of a unique sort, the Elders would say - grown and preserved under special conditions, using the most secret of recipes and most attentive of methods, passed down from generation to generation, from one Elder to Another.

On the 28th of November, by the Christian calendar they had long ago abandoned, this entire reserve was piled up high in the center of the village square - where it was to be processed by the village women, first, the oldest women and younger girls joined them as well. They all formed an outer ring, around the older women - then began to continuously mutter olden chants, whilst they mechanically, and in perfect unison, braided the garlic stems into long ropes, the onion circles were pickled and placed in jars. The garlic ropes, these were then cut evenly and distributed amongst the villagers, ensuring that each household received neither more nor less than the others.

Once the braiding and distribution were complete, the younger girls and children would journey through the forest to the River to fill their pots with water. After the water was blessed through a ritual only the Elders knew and attended, the children went carolling through the village, distributing to each home the filled canisters of holy water - which the villagers were to sprinkle all around their homes and yards, to ensure an added layer of protection against the incoming maliciousness of the universe.

It was a ritual that everyone followed diligently, and everyone was mandated to participate and contribute in some way - any investment of effort was appreciated, as long as it was offered with a pure heart and good intentions, according to each ones means and abilities.

From the steeple window of the church, Eli watched the entire unfolding event, anxiously trying to spot his youngest, Brave, among the crowds of people below. The boy had left early with the other children to fetch water from the River, yet whilst some of them had already returned, Brave was nowhere to be seen yet.

‘What foolishness,’ Eli mused, growing ever more anxious.

‘I should never have let him stay! I’ve never understood this nonsensical tradition,’ he exclaimed bitterly, sensing the Prospector approaching him from behind, moving slowly, much like a feline.

‘It’s symbolic, Eli,’ the old man replied, with a hint of disappointment in his voice. ‘You know very well…’

‘Still, it’s too dangerous. Brave shouldn’t have gone. He’s much too young still - no matter what you may think of him, he’s still just a boy. I agreed to let him stay here and witness the ritual, but this is too much! How could you send him there without my knowledge? To run amok in the forest, exposing himself like that to whatever is out there!’

‘Oh come on, Eli, don’t exaggerate,’ the Prospector interrupted. ‘No one has ever forced you to do anything. I sent the boy with the others because it’s a genuine honour to partake in such a magnificent event! I would never have let you deny the boy an experience that not everyone gets the chance to have in the village - or even in their lifetime … Tradition, Eli, dictates that every year, a day before the Gathering, only a select handful of girls and boys are chosen to venture beyond the village boundary - to fetch water from the spring from beyond. It’s a symbolic way of maintaining a connection with the outside world, a way to show - no, to prove! - To everyone that we aren’t entirely detached from reality here. That there is a world beyond ours out there, which we perfectly acknowledge - even though we chose to keep our distance from it.’

Still unconvinced, Eli remained silent, lost in thought.

‘Come on down,’ the Prospector said, distancing himself from Eli, and turning to the trapdoor in the floor. ‘I have a task for you, outside.’

High speed, desolate scenery, grey rain, and emptiness. He’d driven for hours on end without stopping - or, at least, that was the feeling confronting him at that moment. Fatigue was beginning to take its toll on his nerves. The road he’d seen on the map should have finished by now, it was a 10km drive, yet it seemed to just go on forever.

The speed at which he was driving, which seemed to increase with every stretch of road that he covered, blurred everything around him, the horizon ahead, the end of the road, which he felt he might never reach in a lifetime, and which seemed to move farther away the closer he got to it - it was all tightening up into a single dark point before him, surrounded by a mess of straight confusing lines of light and colour.

Suddenly, he jolted oddly, as if waking from a terrible nightmare. Ad sharp, involuntary turn of the wheel quickly destabilized the car and, awakened by the shock of the commotion, David grabbed the wheel firmly - and through several forced manoeuvres, eventually managed to stabilize the vehicle and keep true.

Taking deep, repeated breaths, he slowly lifted his foot off the accelerator, allowing the car’s speed to decrease naturally. Once he reached a more manageable speed, he pressed the accelerator again, this time more carefully. He was still driving fast, but 100 km/h now seemed reasonable compared to the unknown speed he’d been at moments earlier.

Streams of sweat, laden with salt and anxiety, continually flowed down his forehead and cheeks. He repeatedly wiped his face with his sleeve, blinking irritably through the droplets of sweat that kept falling into his eyes.

Outside, a light rain continued to fall, and the wipers screeched noisily in an agonizing echo of monotony and dread. From time to time, he’d rise slightly in his seat to wipe the steaming windshield with his sleeve, as it frequently fogged up and obscured his view. The thunder, which had been merely a distant companion up until then, seemed to grow louder now and more piercing and present as David advanced on the strange road - ahead.

The reduced speed, at least, now allowed the young man a fleeting opportunity to study the surrounding landscape, the fog, which seemed to be returning and settling upon the empty fields around him, the cold morning atmosphere, which should have faded with the passage of time, yet seemed to linger on still. Or even intensify - as if he was travelling backward in time on that unfamiliar road.

Apart from the speed trap, and then the encounter with the Inspector, who had patiently laid in wait for his prey, he hadn’t seen a single other car that day, or any other sign of human life, for that matter. It seemed very odd that in the year 1991 there could still be roads this deserted … If people weren’t driving now, when there were so many cars in the world, then when would they start?

Struck by a natural yet irritating physiological need, he decided to at least take advantage of the absence of other passers-by and pulled the car over to relieve his straining bladder.

He walked down by the side of the road, and unzipped. A hot stream of urine flowed, and steamed in the cold morning air, its trickling sounds, as it hit the tall blades of wild grass below, resonated uncomfortably with the silence of the road behind him - and beckoned such unpleasant feelings of loneliness and peculiar thoughts of things one ought not think of when they’re all alone….

As the cold morning wind chilled his exposed private parts, he suddenly felt more vulnerable than ever before. He shook himself off quickly, wiped his hand on his trousers, and climbed back into the car. He then started the engine and turned the heater on to full blast - and just waited for a moment to warm up...

He was shivering from the cold as he looked around, seemingly more lost than before. It felt as if he was venturing into an uncharted region of the country, one that no one had ever explored before. With a sarcastic smile on his face and an inner denied fear, he half - jokingly thought of it as the kind of road where one might expect to encounter some jilted bride, raised from the dead - lurking just around the corner. Some unearthly apparition, eternally haunting the place where she had been abandoned. Or murdered? Or, how did it go?

He couldn’t recall precisely. There were so many versions of that story. Every driver in town had such a strange tale. They had all experienced it at some point. It was actually a significant landmark in his childhood’s memory - a story that was handed down to him by Billy himself. Or rather, Billy’s father, who had actually lived through the tale. These stories always seemed to be told by someone who only knew of someone who had experienced something extraordinary. Never was the storyteller, in David’s experience so far, the primary character of the narrative - otherwise, it was clearly a lie, or a worn - out recreation of the myth, usually lacking in imagination or originality.

However, Billy’s father was a serious man, David remembered. Not at all religious or superstitious. He had no reason to lie or to tell such tales just to scare a couple of naïve children. That had been Billy’s theory when he confided the story to David, at least. It just so happened that Billy’s father was returning one night from Pietermaritzburg, on a road not unlike the one David was on now, a deserted, remote road whose terrifying aspects were only heightened by the all - enveloping nightfall, by the lack of visibility and the mystery of the unknown, always lurking in obscure, useable corners. That profound darkness that everyone, regardless of age or belief, fears when left entirely alone to endure.

Of course, Billy’s father was also tired, coming from some odd job in the big city, but he was still, however, perfectly lucid, despite his physical exhaustion - which is why he was so undeniably convinced that what he was given to see that night was not a mere dream, or some hallucination induced by his senses, weakened by darkness and fatigue. On the side of the road, further Ahead in the glare of the headlights, overwhelmed by the pitch darkness enveloping the entire road, he saw a girl - he was sure of it. Young, she seemed, as he neared her. Dressed in a white dress, torn about in places and dirty. Her long, tousled black hair seemed both dry and wet at the same time….

Initially, the man’s mind raced to the worst of scenarios… A rape, a kidnapping, a lone girl in such places, at the edge of the woods, at that hour… what else could one assume? However, the girl, although she appeared to notice the approaching car, made no evident movement. She didn’t seem to be seeking help, didn’t scream, and didn’t even budge. She just stood there on the roadside, a corner of her dress delicately held between two fingers, wiping away tears with the back of her other hand. She wept quietly in the stillness of the night without even slightly disturbing the surrounding desolation. Billy’s father stopped beside her, opened the passenger door, and tried to ask her, what she was doing there, what she wanted? If she needed any help, or if he could give her a ride somewhere? But she remained silent.

From then on, the story took a strange turn - and the man’s frustration, every time he recounted the tale, always added an extra touch of authenticity to his narrative, he was so convinced he had experienced it and almost choked on his regret that he couldn’t remember all the details that followed. ‘I would’ve written an entire book,’ he would often boast in his self - important manner, ‘About that night’s stories. I would’ve been famous, like Elmien!’

The girl leaned towards him through the open door, the story continued, and began to speak to him. She shared so much, both beautiful and grotesque things that the man sat there in the middle of the road, car door ajar, and listened to the seemingly endless tales from other provinces and times which the strange girl whispered of.

TO BE CONTINUED...