HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (3 page)

After patiently
explaining the most rudimentary elements of gathering firewood or
climbing a tree to gather honey, her reply was always the same. “No
entiendo.”

He suspected she was
being deliberately obtuse, the claims of not understanding his orders
more examples of a lack of respect. He thought she knew exactly what
he wanted, but she wasn’t going to do it. She had from the
first refused his rule over her. This was her way of letting him
know he did not own her.

He once thought of
beating her. He lost his temper early on and after a week of feeding
the girl, bringing clean drinking water, and doing all the chores, he
asked for her to bring over his spear that stood against the giant
umbrella tree near his camp.

“
No entiendo.”

He asked her again.

“
No entiendo.”

He asked her six
times, raising his voice higher in anger each time, and six times she
pretended not to understand.

He stood and raised
his hand to slap her into submission, but when she lifted her face to
him and looked him in the eyes, his hand was stayed as if paralyzed.

I will kill you if
you lay a hand on me, her look said. You will die if you ever touch
me, her look said, mocking his impotency.

From that time
forward when she wouldn’t do as he said, he let it go. Finally
he stopped asking anything of her and realized instead of gaining a
queen, he had inherited a master. He was the child’s slave.

She was useless to
him. She was truly a burden. He knew when she was old enough to
mate she would never let him come near her. At wit’s end, he
went to the girl’s mother and questioned her.

“
Before she
died, was your daughter obedient? Did she help you out with the
chores?”

“
Certainly.
Very obedient. She is a good girl.”

“
And respect?
She showed you respect?”

“
Yes!”

“
Before she
died, did she ever…did she ever scare you in any way? In how
she acted or how she looked at you?”

“
Never! My
baby was full of love, a gentle, loving child. What do all these
questions mean?’

“
She is not
right,” he said simply, and left it at that. He thought of
sending the girl back to her mother, but had a feeling Angelique
would not go. She cared no more for her mother than she did for him.
That was evident in the way she’d left her and how, when the
mother visited, she backed away without letting her mother touch her.
When called by her name she said, “Call me Angelique!”
Then screaming like a wild thing, “I am Angelique!”

As his absolute last
resort, and after much inner turmoil and argument with himself about
the morality of it, Mujai decided he would have to kill her. He
would never be free if he didn’t. He’d tell the
villagers she had died of the fever. So many did and no one
questioned it. When she asked, as he knew she would, he would tell
the girl’s mother he would not raise her again. And then all
this would be over. What he had done was so against the law of
nature that it had created a creature he did not want around him. He
had to fix his mistake. He certainly would never make it again. He
was forever through with the raising of the dead.

The day he meant to
murder the child, he broke a large shale rock from a sea cliff wall
and slipped it beneath his woven sleeping mat in the hut. The rock
had a sharp cutting edge and fit his hand perfectly. It would slice
into her face like parting water. He would cleave her ruined brain
in two.

Though she did not
sleep and kept watch over him, she would never expect him to rise up
with the rock in his hand to bludgeon her. He had never, after the
first time when he raised his hand to her, indicated that he was
dangerous or violent. The opposite, in fact, seemed to be his beaten
demeanor around the girl—even subservient.

All day he was
excited about his plan. He sneaked looks at her as he worked around
the camp site, thinking of her dead and buried and out of his life.
Then it came to him. He would not bury her! She might in some way
be a magical creature after her tryst with Death. She might know how
to rise up on her own and had been asking after his secret potion as
a ruse. In order to be safe he would throw her into the sea and let
the fish nibble her pale little body down to the bones.

If he had to watch
her tear into a slab of meat one more time he thought he would go
mad. Living with her was like living with the undead monster
panther. As far as he could tell there was little difference between
them.

That night he went
to bed not long after darkfall, as was his custom. He had said few
words to the girl all day and had looked into her eyes not once. He
feared she might know of his murderous plan if she could see what lay
behind his eyes.

After a few minutes
she slipped inside the hut with him and sat cross-legged at his back.
He could feel her there, her dark eyes staring. But this night he
was not unnerved and sleepless.

He bided his time.
He wanted to make his move when he had his wrath worked up to killing
pitch. He wanted nothing to go wrong. If he missed on the first
strike, she might skitter away into the jungle. He would never get a
second chance, he understood that implicitly. This was an
intelligent, conniving child. A manipulative child. An evil child.

After an hour he had
his mind ready. What he was about to do was not a sin. Besides, she
was supposed to be dead. He was going to do her a favor and send her
back into the dark where she belonged.

He grasped the rock,
feeling the rough hardness of it, the cold heaviness of its weight.
He must move fast and not falter. He must strike like a snake,
without remorse, without a moment’s hesitation. He could not
dare look into her eyes.

He flexed the muscle
of his right arm that held the rock. He drew in one breath and then
he made his move. He sat up and swiveled around in the same motion,
raising the rock high above his head. Though he didn’t know
it, he was screaming one long, sustained furious scream.

He felt a sudden
horrible pain strike him in his midsection, but nothing was going to
stop the downward motion of the killing blow.

He swung. But where
she sat, she no longer existed. The rock struck the ground so hard
he broke two of his fingers and cut his palm. He dropped the rock,
looking around in the near darkness for where she had moved. Panic
caused him to lose his breath. He had missed! He had failed! But
she had been right there a second ago, right there below his raised
arm.

A shadow fell over
him from the doorway, blocking the moon. He turned and saw her, so
beautiful, so small, so perfect. The island child beauty with the
long dark hair, the perfect features. The little dead ten-year-old.

“
You will die
a slow death, my master. Look to your belly for your future.”
As were all her words, these were said without emotion or inflection.

He glanced to his
lap and saw the long spear sticking from his stomach. Blood poured
from the wound, soaking his naked legs.

“
What have you
done?” he asked plaintively. The unfairness of this situation
was so great, greater even than the pain that was now like fire
burning him inside out, that tears sprang into his eyes.

“
Only what you
would have done to me.”

“
Death invaded
you. You have a soul from a god of the deep down under.” He
took hold of the spear, but he could not dislodge it without fainting
outright. He knew he was doomed, but his mind railed against the
injustice. Hadn’t he given her life? Hadn’t he raised
her up?

“
Demon,”
he hissed. “Monster.”

“
I am what you
made. You snatched me from the dark and now you ask why the dark has
come to fetch you. Goodbye, Master.”

She turned then and
walked out of the clearing, leaving him alone. He had no talismans
to save himself. He had no potion to bring him to life. He was
going to die in her stead. He had cheated death of her presence and
replaced it with his own.

He lay his head back
and stared at the palmed ceiling that rustled in a breeze from the
sea. At the very least he would be rid of her. Let the living be
party to her baneful corruption.

He, the greatest
witchdoctor who had ever lived, was now through with it all.

His body sagged to
the side. His last fleeting thought was that he hoped no one ever
chanced on his secret potion ever again. A world populated by the
living dead would be no world for the living.

What had he done?
What had he done?

CHAPTER 4

RULING THE TRIBE

First she had to
find the panther. She hadn’t gotten Mujai to tell her how his
magic brought her back from the dark but he had spoken—bragged
really--of the three animal experiments before her.

It was the panther
she felt closest to, more than to any human. She knew she was not
the person she had been when alive. She was all new. And all
different. If she managed to escape accident (and enemies who meant
to murder her) by using her new-found powers, she thought she might
live forever.

It was a pity she
had to take Mujai’s life, but he had tried to destroy her. She
had known he would come to that. He feared her as he would fear the
green venomous viper that trailed in the island’s tree limbs.

She knew she could
outwit and out live him. He was just a man. A normal unchanged man.
He could not move from one place to another in an instant. He could
not tell what a person was thinking by looking into his eyes. He
could not hear the whisper of padded feet in the forest a mile
distant. And, of course, he could not see and hear and interact with
the People from the Dark, who gave her all sorts of secret knowledge
useful against living men. He had none of the gifts she’d been
graced with after her awakening.

She moved stealthily
through the jungle, unafraid, but alert, her mind on a quest. If she
could get to the panther and make it her friend, she could demand
great power over the people on the island. They might not, at first,
fear her, but they would immediately fear a panther, especially one
that walked at her side as if her guardian. And most of them knew the
rumor of a panther brought back to life by the witch doctor, a
panther that was now supernatural and so fierce it was like a new
beast walking the earth.

It took some time,
and much concentrated thought, but finally Angelique came down a
narrow ravine, following the thin ribbon of water washed silver in
the moonlight and there she saw the panther.

He stood majestic, a
large cat with rippling muscles and a great smooth head with widely
spaced yellow eyes. He was sipping at the water when she approached.
He raised his imperious head and his lips rolled back from long,
sharp teeth. Water and saliva dripped down his massive chest. He
growled deep in his throat.

“
Don’t
fear me,” she said calmly, moving ever closer to him. “I
am like you. Come. Smell me and you will know. Let us be friends.”

She walked toward
him, down the narrow bank path, her bare feet making no noise in the
soft undergrowth. The cat did not move, but watched carefully. She
could hear his breathing mingle with the gentle trickling of the
waters sliding over rocks.

She got within two
feet of him, holding him still and calm with her magnetic gaze. “Do
you understand? I am like you. I am your brethren.”

The cat’s lips
lowered over his teeth. He moved forward until he was breathing
hotly on her bare skin. He lay his head against her arm where she
lifted a hand and stroked him softly.

“
There will be
no love for us from anyone or anything else. We will be a team and
help one another.” She wasn’t sure that he understood
the individual words of her language, but he appeared to understand
she was no threat to him, nor was she food.

The thought of food
made her stomach churn. “Let’s go hunting,” she
said, jolly now that she had made the panther her friend and cohort.
“Come! You catch the prey and we will feast on it together.”

The panther, now
completely under her power, turned with her, wheeling toward the
upward bank and together they climbed back into the chaos of the
jungle to look for their midnight supper.