Jungle Story - 2

By the light of a cigarette lighter, Henri consulted his watch, it was well past midnight if indeed his G-shock was working correctly,its built-in light was not working but he could nevertheless make out numerals, he and Jenny had been standing together in the pitch dark for almost an hour and in fact it seemed longer, they were desperate to sit down but an examination of the ground beneath them had quickly persuaded them that this was not a good plan given the numbers of anys swarming over the path and Henri had found that his trousers already bore the sticky red evidence of leech bites, plus they seemed to be standing in the centre of a cloud of mosquitoes. Clearly they were going to have to make a decision, waiting until the morning light was out of the question, their cell phones were malfunctioning, the display flickering and dying as soon as they tried them. As they waited their eyes had become accustomed to the scant starlight filtering through the trees above, however this was only sufficient for them to be able to make out vague shapes and the more they strained to make out the path the more they became aware of the static and floaters that drifted in and out of their vision. The jungle around them pulsed with the noises of crickets and tree frogs, nightjars and the sudden noises of falling twigs and jungle fruits. Every now and again there came the crack of a breaking piece of wood or the crunch of a dried teak leaf indicating the passage of some animal, usually this was tens of meters away but every so often the sound came from something disconcertingly close. ‘OK’ said Henri after a particularly unnerving invisible close encouter, ‘lets move, I’m certain the path lead in this direction, as long as we climb, we must be going in the right direction and the village can only be a couple of kilometers away ?’
And so, with Jenny holding onto his arm, Henri took a tentative step in what they fervently hoped was the right direction. Progress was painfully slow as each step had to be taken very deliberately.
They had barely taken three steps when the disk reappeared, or rather, disks because there seemed to be a number of them. This time they were really close by or at least appeared to be as there was something about them that made them difficult to focus on, the size of them was therefore hard to estimate and there was something in the way that they moved which seemed to produce a motion sickness-like nausea that both of them felt. The disks were bright and yet did not illuminate the jungle around them and they appeared to be connected in some way, as though they were multiple kaleidoscopic images of one object.

Neither Jenny or Henri moved or spoke, it was as though they were paralyzed, although not with fear as they both felt strongly calm, simply suspended in time, awaiting the next development. As one they abruptly turned, they had both felt a sensation of there being something behind them, something watching them, the turn was in fact absolutely involuntary as though they had been commanded. Barely two meters from them stood a woman, brilliantly illuminated by the disks, she appeared to be clad in a dark cloak but it was the face and the eyes in particular that grabbed and held their attention. The face was not Indian but rather, faintly oriental and with pale skin, it possessed a harsh angular beauty accented by bright glistering green eyes. Again they stood mute and still, again they experienced an amazing degree of calmness given the situation they found themselves in. The disk light, illuminating the apparition only and not the surrounding foliage gave it the impression of floating in space.

Back in the village, Chu, Ashwin and Rajesh were now extremely worried, they had just returned from a walkback along the forest path and had encountered no sign of Jenny and Henri , they had shouted themselves horse and had now assumed that they had wandered off the path and become lost. They had experienced a fright when thier torches all winked of simultaneously, however they had all come back on after a few seconds. There really was nothing to do until dawn but the worry that thier frinds had fallen down one of the steep rocky gullies that wound through the jungle was very real. Poachers were a concern as well but the possibility of real harm coming from one of the locals and their ancient inaccurate rifles had to be a distant one. Such was the level of anxiety that they could not sleep and so they sat in silence chain smoking and trying to think of something that they could do. The villagers showed a degree of concern but when asked for assistance simply shrugged and retired to bed. Around them the jungle hummed and chattered with life, seemingly oblivious to the small drama unfolding within it.

The figure took a step towards them and from within the dark cloak-like garment came two thin arms ending in skeletal, talon-like hands, the wrists were laden with bands and thin metallic chains from which were suspended a myriad of glittering objects. The hands suddenly shot forward and grabbed Henri by the right forearm and Jenny by the left. She wanted to scream , to cry out as the strong bony fingers tightened around her arm but the scream would not come, she was mute as in a dream or nightmare. There was a fierce tugging and before they knew it they were borne aloft, up through the upper tier of the jungle vegetation and out over the mountains. The tugging eased of and apart from the vice-like grip of those hands they felt as though they were floating, thousands of feet below, the jungle-clad mountains went on and on and… on until the very horizon, no lights nor any other sign of human habitation could be seen under the starlight-illuminated landscape. Between them was the apparition, a black shape, head facing forward, fixed, the garment flowing smoothly in the stream of air without disturbance. Henri had decided that this was either a dream or he was dead, Jenny concluded that she must have some illness, a fever perhaps, that was causing these wild distortions in reality. Both felt altogether unreasonably calm.
At last there were lights down below and they abruptly started a steep spiraling descent towards the source of illumination. They alighted gently on a large moss covered slab of rock, it too was brightly illuminated by a number of gently vibrating ethereal disks of light. The figure moved away from them and off the slab of rock, however their arms remained locked in the apparent grip of those bony talons which forced them to stand as though one arm was fixed to some immovable object. Looking at her arm, Jenny could quite clearly see the depressions in her forearm where the grip was maintained.
A disk came towards them, or at least it grew in size, they both stared at it, it was utterly hypnotic, its surface danced and vibrated, the colour yellowish-white at times, bluish-white at others, indistinct patterns swarmed and writhed on its surface, and while they watched spellbound they saw faces start to appear in the patterns, some ancient archetypes, some clearly modern Indian, they saw far eastern, Japanese faces, Indonesian, Amerindian, then friends and family, they saw their parents faces, old and young, friends, lovers all come and go in a long flowing series, and then they saw themselves as in a fierce mirror, the outlines and features were crystal clear although constantly changing with a strange vibration. They saw themselves in agony, in ecstasy, in fear and in calm as children and in ancient old age, they were fascinated beyond their experience, rapt and did not even notice that they were now sitting, their arms released as the show in front of their faces continued to unfold.

At dawn, they had at first phoned and then driven to the little town at the bottom of the mountain. The local forest officer was not best pleased to have been roused so early, especially after a late night drinking Todi with friends. He blinked at them as they told their story and appeared utterly uninterested, however he made a few calls in the local dialect, finally announcing that they should go back and begin a search while he waited for some local police to arrive, it would be a matter of ‘a few minutes’ which they all knew could mean hours. Nevertheless, it was all they could do and actually getting out and searching did seem to be the most practical thing that could be done.
Back at the village they all assembled and followed the path down into the valley they had visited the previous evening. Down in the valley the jungle was quiet, eerily so in fact, not only was there no bird song but no insects were to be heard. Once at the bottom, the place they all agreed they had been the night before, they slowly started to make their way back up along the path, scanning the ground to try to find anything that may give them a clue as to the fate of their friends. Every fifty meters or so they stopped and yelled and then stood silently hoping for some response, nothing answered back however, nothing whatsoever. The group finally reached a place that they all agreed was approximately where they had stopped and listened to the Sri Lankan Frogmouth only a few hours earlier. ‘There must be something here’ whispered Rajesh, ‘Amit, you’re a guide, can you see any sign that they were here or that something happened?’ Amit merely shook his head slowly. ‘The jungle spirit took them’, was his explanation. After a few minutes of standing helplessly they decided to go back to the village, as they went to move off, a shadow passed briefly over the sun, a large bird of some sort, a vulture perhaps but they shivered collectively for some unknown reason and glanced at each other exchanging unreadable looks while Amit smiled to himself.