A DARKER TALE
Gerald T. Nforche
The area had been sealed off with yellow security tapes. No onlookers, no crowds though. But just for security anyway. The inspector disbelievingly and warily moved from one disintegrated corpse to another, a sight that will forever remain engraved in his mind. The other officers had thrown up the contents of their churning stomachs. But he had braved it even though the nausea was trying to overcome him.
He just watched, lost as the Army Rescue Team whisked away corpse after corpse that looked like heaps of molten green plastic. He tried to describe it to himself but still could not come to a satisfactory end. But what he knew was that the eight decomposed bodies looked more like the end result of some cold-blooded and extraterrestrial massacre. Humans transformed to green reeking fluids. The worst was that while he watched, these indescribable corpses were steadily melting in a greenish slime.
Then he heard the intermittent hooting of an owl. Shivers scuttled down his spine. This was no holy ground…
&&&&
They negotiated the curve of the winding path, their backpacks which was filled with snacks and other campers’ tools, was slowing them down. Anita sighed as she caught up with Greg who had skidded to a landing at the right of the path before staring at her as she climbed after him with every ounce of strength she had.
Today’s camping would be just grand-no rain and no scorching sun; the meteorologists had predicted right. A camp out with one’s fiancé was something that could not be forgotten. Greg was a nice man. He was a charming bachelor whose smile and charming face had moved many a heart among the ladies class. He stood one meter eighty tall with coiling black hair, an enchanting beard, seductive eyes (which had not gone without queries from Anita) and brown pupils. Qualities she found every lady wanted. Thank God Greg was no flirt.
He was a dedicated medical student and his proposing a camp when he ought to be at his books meant it was a serious and worthwhile commitment. She had reported feigning sick at the station and had been given a leave. Here they were at the foot of the Hills of Stratus panting and sweating but still having much ground to cover.
“What?” Anita asked knocking away prickles from her trousers. The path was overgrown with weeds and wild flowers whose prickles were not selective in the least, and they tend to bend like in prayers towards the winding path either blessing campers with chilling dew, dust or unpleasant prickles. She had been blessed with a good dose of the latter, something her fiancé found amusing. She glared at him intermittently as she tried to brush them off. He was a very funny man, but everything about him was charming. When he grinned, she felt like placing her soft lips on his and just pray that both lips be glued for eternity. She remembered the mole that had crossed their path on a few yards below hotly pursued by a squirrel. Greg said that the mole had surely stolen the squirrel’s nut or coveted his wife, so the disgruntled squirrel was bent for some blood to settle scores. He had cheered at the sanguinary animal which squinted at them, its face set in despair and hate.
“Nothing.Just tired. The curves and the inclination of the path tire the soul.”
“Heh come on! You are no pastor. I don’t think you will abandon medicine and head for the seminary.” Anita remarked with a lustful grin before taking his hand and pulling him along like he was some displeasing kid. “At times I am confused if you have a soul yourself!” She gave him a light kiss before hurrying up the hill, tugging him along.
They continued the climb, resting intermittently and drinking from their bottles. Greg looked around, trying to take in as much of the landscape as possible. He soon found himself falling in love not only with a beautiful woman, but with an unsatisfying nature. His peripheral vision caught a movement on a branch in a tree yards away and he found himself staring at a grey, drowsy owl. It fluttered its wings, one of its feathers dropping in the action. Greg thought that the bird sensed an unwanted presence for it opened its large eyes so suddenly that it nearly tumbled off the branch.
“I never loved owls,” he broke the silence. “My mother said they bring bad omen.” Anita must not have heard him for she turned from an inflorescence of flowers which had drawn her attention before widening her eyes at her fiancé to repeat what he had just said. “Look there,” he said pointing. “A beautiful bird that announces bad omen.An owl. Hope you won’t tell me it’s one of your pets.”
Anita never stopped fascinating him. She followed his finger just in time because the bird flapped its wings, rose in the air while hooting eerily before disappearing into the murky clump of trees.
“Just a bird,” she remarked, going back to her flowers. “Don’t be superstitious. Scientists should never be.” Greg grinned to himself before defending himself. “It is just the myth our parents held before passing to us. I am not superstitious darling. Not in the least.” Something is not right, he thought.
Suddenly the wind began blowing and dark clouds suddenly filled the sky. “Hope it doesn’t rain,” He groaned to himself before checking his watch.
“Nice flowers.” Anita announced plucking a flower from the growing and ripe inflorescence near where she was standing. “Never seen such colors before.” Her fiancé turned to her and frowned at what was taking all her interest.
He could swear that he had neither seen nor heard of such flowers before. He was neither florist nor botanist. What he felt sure was that he could pick out a Martian even if he had never met one before. Their color, their smell and just the creepy feeling that crawled in him was not in any way related to any damn admiration. He began to feel something in his heart. Fear.Dread. He tried to describe the thing to himself. Golden pink with red stripes with precarious thorns. The thorns had a reddish-green filling. And he saw something that looked like a leafy version of horns at the top of every radial leave. He was just about to burst out that the flowers looked like an evil head but held his tongue. He feared her tongue. He felt a shudder and knew something was not right but remained silent. He did not want to displease his fiancée. He just smiled toothlessly to hide the queer feeling. Nonetheless, his foreboding could just be from tiredness from yesterday. He truly needed some sleep.
“Hope that is mine.” He whispered squinting at the flower under Anita’s nose. He would have given anything not to be given such a thing as a gift at that moment by the women he loved.
“Yes honey. Nice smell, don’t even know the name of the flower.” Yeah, you don’t know what creature this flower is before you are curdling it, he thought. She beamed up at him. “It looks mysteriously enchanting. I have just fallen for it.”
Mysteriously enchanting? He thought to himself. So she is subconsciously seeing and feeling what is weighing down on me.
“Then it may be poisonous. Flower may be poisonous. Perhaps Taxonomically unknown.” He could give his word for that. This was something new to the world…
“Never did Biology. Fled all the lessons, so you watch out.”
“Forgot that you were a jumper. Sorry.” He smiled at his sarcasm. Anita eyed him but remained silent.
“I am famished, hope we arrive sooner or I shall drop dead from the climb.” she sighed. The dark clouds began to lose their shade while a struggling sun broke through the clouds. Greg smiled in spite of himself. There would be no rain at all.
They resumed the climb in silence Greg leading, their feet crushing dead leaves, scaring birds which shrieked in alarm before taking off. Mockingbirds merely stared at them indifferent to the noise made by the lovers but sang in the trees as if they were laughing at the two hikers who looked as if they were about to faint.
A piercing and blood clotting scream escaped Anita when they were just about to cross a plank bridge on the path under which a spring was flowing. Greg turned so quickly that he was afraid he would dislocate his neck. What he saw at first was Anita staring at her hand as if stung by some prehistoric serpent. “Anita!”
“Jesus! Greg...” Her voice sounded metallic. He was at her side in an instant.
“What is it sweet heart?” he could feel himself sweating. Anita held up her hand in surprise like a kid showing her father her broken toy, her eyes filled with dark shock. There on the thumb was a cut that stretched from the tip of the thumb to about two inches down. It looked like a cut done by the edge of a glass. There was something too that nearly made him to turn and keep fleeing until he died from fear and fatigue. The fear in her eyes was nothing as compared to the color of the blood that began to ooze from the cut. A petrifying sight. Green blood. As he watched in horror while he farted, he realized that the cut was widening down to the first slit of her thumb.
“Jesus! God…” he knew that if God could intervene, then the religious interjections of his fiancé would summon all the heavens to her aid.
He breathed laboriously before grabbing the injured hand and scrutinizing it with an unfathomable trepidation. “This is impossible.” She heard him mumbling. “Unbelievable. This is…green blood?” He stopped and stared at length at the white and emaciating face of his fiancée. She realized that her fiancée had grown old in under five minutes. Long lines had appeared on his forehead and circles besieged his eyes like he had been having sleepless weeks. Perspiration crawled down his face and dropped leisurely from his bead which made him look like a starving prophet.
“What did this to you? What did you touch?” he dreaded the answer.
“I touched…no… thing…” her voice had become so metallic that he thought she had been transformed to a robot.
“I touched…no… thing…” her voice had become so metallic that he thought she had been transformed to a robot.
“No. You must have touched something. Think!” He threw down his backpack and relieved his frightful fiancée of hers without disturbing the cut.
“Are you yourself…I mean do you feel well?” concern filled his watering eyes. It would not be soon before he was weeping.
“Yesssss.” The sssss sounded like she was hissing. “I think so. No painssss, no achesss nothing. But the creepy sensation.” The hissing ssssss troubled him. He was subconsciously preparing himself to flee if he found a serpentine form taking shape. He was preparing to bolt if a serpent’s head sprouted from…
“Which flower did you pluck on the road?” Greg knew she did not know the name of the flower. He was merely telling her the flower below was culpable. Anita was puzzled and tears crawled down her cheeks. She stared at the cut in terror as it suddenly popped open, breaking through cartilage and spitting jets of greenish fluid. Greg just stared, helplessly rooted to the spot.
Then he heard the hooting. He remembered the owl. He shuddered. The ominous sound grew louder and louder. Then he heard a screech followed by a piercing squeal above him and looked up in time to see the owl circling in the air.
There was neither herb nor medicine that could do the miracle in reviving his Anita. Nothing. Even if there was, using it at this moment was like trying to catch the shadow and losing the substance. Was this a miracle, magic or could science provide an answer?
“Am I going to die?” the voice sank down into him and he jolted in revulsion. The fear in him had become so palpable he thought it would soon overtake him.
“No honey...please...no. No. You shall not die.” He knew that he was lying. There was that sensation that she would die. He feared to think of it. He foreboded the thought. She would not last long if he did not do something. Even if that something was just to give her hope. The prospects of her life were getting slim. She was changing fast. Green spots were appearing on her face and her lips were suddenly peeling. Her hands were trembling. Here pupils were greenish yellow and had a frightful glow in them. He took a step back from her. She wanted to say something but the voice did not come. He glared at her effort to raise her hands to him but the hands suddenly refused to rise.
He looked at her as if for the very first time. Thinking of a life all alone. From the smiles of Anita and her warmth. In an ugly world, all alone…he hated the thought.
He remembered the Vampire movies he loved watching. Vampires who had green and dark blood, their blood color was hardly red. It was as if he had been for two years dating a vampire. He stared at his fiancée with doubt. No she was no vampire; she had never behaved like one. She could not have feigned so well out of it. He read Psychology in college. She was no vampire. He wanted to shout it to himself to reassure himself. She was no Vampire. She had loved him.
“Never in my life, never in medicine have I heard of something like this. A disease that affects the blood and turns it green. That infects the human system and controls metabolism at such a rate that the system can no longer behave as programmed by the creator. The system is seized and the color of blood shifts from red to green. A sanguine……” He stopped himself. He was getting delirious. He wiped his eyes to stop the tears that had begun to fall. This was a new disease unknown to man. But first he had to do something. If there was just an iota of life left in her, he would let her enjoy every beat of it.
But what if she did not die and the disease was curable- but no panacea would work. He knew that before a treatment was found, Anita would be dead. This was new in science and a new research had to be carried out; micro biologists would have a lot to do; thank God he was not in that specialization. But... He hated to think….
“The plant did this to you. You never felt the pang of the cut...you never….” He trailed off-melancholy burning in his heart. What a lost this would be. He thought of the flower; what type could it be? A flower with the propensity to change the color of the blood and change metabolic reactions so quickly in the human system.
“Where is that flower, where did you keep it?” he searched her with his eyes but did not find it on her anymore.
“It fell on the way…I never noticed until now.”
Her thumb continued to bleed; it was like the bleeding mouth of a vampire. The blood fell on dead leaves and began to coagulate like normal blood; it was thicker than normal blood and the color too. Damn.
Anita was white and was getting whiter. Greg remarked to himself that she looked now like a first class vampire. Like those in the movie BLADE. He cursed himself of thinking something like that. Why did the word come often to mind? If she knew what he was thinking. God, he had never witnessed such a thing. “Come with me. We are going back to the flower.” He announced in a rush. “We will have a sample and get back to town as soon as possible.” He removed his cell phone and dialed a number. A husky voice greeted.
“This is Muma Gregory. Please connect me to Professor Eta,” he listened. His expression changing from fear to impatience, “It is an emergency . . .…okay.” He waited and sighed in frustration. A happy afternoon had turned into a horror movie. He turned to Anita who stood paces away and looked like an exhumed corpse before saying soothingly, “We should be moving while there is still some energy left in you……I am getting so confused…..how do you feel now?”
A voice interrupted him over the phone before she could reply.
“Dr Eta on the line,” the doctor sounded as if he had been reluctantly hurried from a meeting. Greg quickly explained the problem beginning with his location.
“Are you serious, boy?” Came the voice, this time woven with surprise and distrust.
“I mean every word sir.” he listened.
“Yes,” he was sweating.
“Green sir, green sir...professor,”
“We are on our way sir. Thank you.” The line went dead and he pocketed the phone.
“Let’s go!’’
They trudged along abandoning their back packs in the valley. Greg stole a frightened glance at Anita. She was staring at her finger and the bleeding had stopped. He did not remark. She looked at him and smiled. He farted. She now looked like a cannibal. All those green spots on her face, her grand-motherlike emaciation made him curse himself. What a brave woman. If he had been in her position, he would be weeping now and running right to the University Teaching Hospital where he was a student.
The gloomy flower soon came into view. They were soon transfixed before it like a gang of souls at the gates of hell. Greg knelt and stared at the plant few inches from his nose like a doctor examining a patient with an unknown disease.
“This smell. I hate the smell. My instincts were warning me. We medical students have been taught to sharpen our instincts. I felt something was out of place. I knew that this plant was something else but failed to warn you. You would have thought I was too cautious, superstitious, querimonious or too...” He was so angry with himself. He covered his eyes with his left hand and wept. Anita saw that there were bruises on the back of his palms but did not know where he had got them. Greg pulled off his socks and used them as gloves to safely pluck a sample of the flowers.
As he finished pulling the flower whole from the ground, he froze. His instincts at work. His instincts again. Then he heard it before he turned. Anita’s teeth were rattling in her mouth like ice balls dropping on a hard surface. He turned, about to assure her that everything would be alright but the words stuck in his mouth. His stomach tightened as if a knot in there was being fastened. The color of Anita’s face had suddenly changed to green which made him remember the movie he loved watching when he was a kid, The Mask. Her face looked like a green patch of leprosy.
She was paler and looked like a hungry zombie. A cannibal. He wanted to scream but his throat was drier than he had imagined. He thought of Flora the goddess of flowers. Perhaps she was really punishing Anita for a wrong done, for plucking her flowers. She gazed at him, her face expressionless, gaunt, wrinkled green and this time the feeling he had was akin to that of someone in front of an evil spirit, a monster. He remembered the first time he had had such a feeling.
He had specialized in Human Surgery and alongside other students had to begin their practical lessons by opening up a corpse. The owner of the body had died from a growth in the stomach which they had to operate and remove without destroying veins or arteries. He remembered the face of the corpse as if he was still staring at its horrid and fear woven face at that moment in the forest. That face. It was as if it was asleep, a grin mingled with scorn carved it in a frightful way. During the operation he had thought that it would sit up and query them for opening it up so roughly and destroying its parts for their lessons. Truly he had destroyed some parts of the stomach out of fear. The entrails of the corpse were half rotten and smelled so wildly that the students had shrieked for deodorant; most of the veins were black as if the man before his death had drunk a cask of tar. His pancreas was to Greg’s horror purplish-yellow. He had counted the ribs and found one missing. One damned rib missing, incidents that had later caused him getting up with a start from dreams wherein ghosts with severed stomachs with horrifying and decaying faces were chasing him. None of these things were ever mentioned to their supervisor. They knew why the object of their practical lessons had to be so horrifying. He wanted them to be strong and start facing the challenges that would stand in their way. All through the operation Greg along with his class mates were filled with fear. He had never been superstitious before but beholding that corpse and working on it invited all the superstitions dark minds could think of.
“Anita…..” he found his voice. Her pupils went dark green before his eyes.
“Good bye my love.” He heard her whisper. He wanted to reach for her. Hug her. Kiss her. For the last time. Tell her that everything would be alright. He merely stood and stared at her green eyes and green patched face.
He watched her drop, his teeth rattling as he tried to speak; to shout; he wanted to reach out and catch her but his legs disobeyed and seemed to wobble...
She rested on her knees staring dead ahead at her fiancé who was sweating and in a faint. To his horror her infected arm fell off like jelly-green liquids oozing from the stump. The severed arm writhed convulsively before laying still. Her flesh was green, liquid green. She clutched at the stump with her left hand and sighed without even blinking for once, no trace of pain. Greg wanted to flee for his poor life. He refused to believe what he was seeing. She was nonchalant to her body’s disintegration and he believed that he felt more of the pain than she did right now. Her eyes were on him. Silence.
The forest was so still that he knew she could hear his heart throbbing in his chest. All those sounds from restless nature which had been so characteristic of the valley were now dead. Not even a bird or a fly was to be seen or heard. He cursed his ill luck.
He was still trying to believe what he was seeing; when Anita’s head popped away from her shoulders with an eerie popping sound…poppp. He watched in repulsion and dreadfulness as the head rose high in the air accompanied by a jet of greenish fluid. Greg, cursing in disbelief and mock fear ducked in time to escape a heavy dose of green spray. He feared the consequence. Green liquids like ink crawled down Anita’s shivering body to the shrubs on which her half liquefied body stood.
Greg heard himself screaming for his life as he watched flabbergasted while a plant…a flower, if he saw correctly, a brother plant to the one he had off rooted minutes ago sprout from the trunk where Anita’s head had for all her life until seconds ago rested. The shoulders now carried a flowering plant whose leaves were golden pink with red stripes and precarious thorns. The thorns had a reddish-green filling. And he saw something that looked like a leafy version of a zombie’s face. It was like a Hollywood fiction movie coming to live. Perspiration rushed down his face in streams. He felt for the first time that he was already drenched. Drenched in his own sweat. For the third time in that same day, he farted.
He watched around him in palatable fear. Horror. The type that haunt you in your dreams until you wake up with a start screaming for your life. The same fear that haunted pastors. That scared hopes from people. Then he realized that he was standing on his toes. His body wanted to sneak him away, like a fugitive sneaking off from danger.
The forest was still quiet. Unbroken. As if everything that lived therein was watching him and listening. He heard nothing. Not even a sound from afar. No singing birds. No flaps. His kidneys were about to burst. The fear had sent all the liquids in his body hurrying towards his kidneys. He could swear he had lost five kilograms of weight in under an hour. He swore to himself while he urinated and listened. Nothing.
He removed his watch from his pocket and looked at the time. The hands were not ticking away as they had been programmed to do; he had changed the batteries just the previous day. Dead batteries. He cursed his bad luck. He remembered his phone with its software chronometer. It was also mocking at him as it read 00:00:00. A level too Superstitious. He swore under his breath before realizing that he was hallucinating.
He removed his phone from his pocket He tried dialing the number of his friend Michaels. No dial tone. Nothing. No network in the forest when he had spoken over the phone just half an hour ago. He was too frustrated to curse the phone and too confused and terrified to shout out. The forest seemed on the verge of laughing out at his fears. He could sense it.
While he contemplated on his bad luck and the evil of the forest in whose centre he now found himself, he failed to notice the deformed body of Anita rising and walking in a stagger towards him from the rear in a green trail, greenish liquids bubbling off her body, one of her breasts falling off in a green mess. Cartilages completely destroyed. A horrid transformation. A nightmarish sight.
While he contemplated on his bad luck and the evil of the forest in whose centre he now found himself, he failed to notice the deformed body of Anita rising and walking in a stagger towards him from the rear in a green trail, greenish liquids bubbling off her body, one of her breasts falling off in a green mess. Cartilages completely destroyed. A horrid transformation. A nightmarish sight.
He heard a twig snap behind him and turned with a start, ready to be confronted by hundreds of dangerous flowers that must have been lurking there, laughing silently at him. He came face to face with a deformed and acephalous Anita.
“Kisssss me honey.” He heard her whisper. A soft hiss and his blood turned cold. Hot perspiration running down his spine. He tried to search in a millionth of a second for the mouth. What had spoken? Where had the damned voice come from? Was it from the flower that had replaced Anita’s head? No mouth at all. Damn. It is said that love can be expressed in hundreds of ways, even the buttocks can speak when the love is overflowing. An acephalous body demanding a kiss with a voice. He nearly laughed in terror. He stared at the pendulous flower in a daze then apprehension.
Greg did not know what happened after but all he remembered was that he was running. Taking flight; his legs taking him away from death as fast as possible. Running for his life. He realized while bolting that instead of running down the path he was ascending like a crazed deer fleeing from a pack of wolves. All he wanted was safety, no matter where it stood. And his legs were deciding for him. Then he saw it again. Sitting on a branch and watching him was an owl. The owl.
Soft Steps behind and he was afraid to look. Afraid to trip and fall. Afraid to collide with the trees that graced the path, bent as if scrutinizing him on a stencil through a microscope. Their microscope. The owl. The hill he had been too tired to climb an hour ago now seemed as if he was climbing downwards, it was now much like running downhill.
Time to look and see his pursuer. Anita, no, the devil himself was coming up the path, the flower rocking like the head of a happy lizard, in rhythm with her leaps; both her arms were gone and from their trunks dropped liquids like ink, green and precarious littering the path. The least that Greg expected was Anita leaping from tree to tree like a monkey. The trees seemed to ease her swings by pushing her along and leaning towards each other. Easing her jumps and catches. He saw in the millionth of a second in which he stole the glance that the green fluids that kept flowing from the stump that had held her arms were gripping branches and easing her swings. Oh cruelty! He farted again in fear, terror seizing hold of him. Deformed Anita swinging like a monkey after him. God safe my soul. He stammered to himself as he fled.
He was stroke by a pungent smell which drove him from his present thoughts. That smell…from… he tried to think… yes... the plant. The flower. That smell emitted by rotting plants. But this time it was mingled with different smells. Cruel smells. Like the smell of rotten plants and the smell of corpses in advanced stages of decomposition. He was getting pusillanimous. He screamed, pinching his nose. Covering them with his palms. He sniffed and staggered, clawing at the air as he ran, calling on God to come to his aide. Soon he was at the top of the hill, where he and Anita had planned to camp for an amorous time together, a time to plan for their wedding. He could still feel the case which bore the wedding ring in his pocket. He had planned to propose to her.
He halted at mid centre of the plain, spittle showering through his open lips. Perspiration bursting from every pore of his body. Sweat crawled into his eyes, its salinity stinking them obliging him to curse him with cecity.
Before he knew it he was again hallucinating, inebriate from fear. He stared down at the path he had just fled, expecting Swinging and acrobatic Anita to come up at any moment querying him for not having set the tent for an amorous afternoon.
The plain was expansive and dotted with trees and shrubs and rocks, it had a salubrious air that beckoned to lovers to come up and spend some time together.
No sound from behind; no heavy breathing if Anita did breathe. No swaying trees with a swinging form in them. He stopped, decrepit. Panting, wiping his face with his left sleeve. He was feeling braver. She would be up soon. But she had been at his heels never slowing down and he had thought at one moment that she would overtake him. Where was she now? He raised his head to look down the path. Nothing; perhaps she was still negotiating the bend. It was as if nothing had been at his heels only seconds ago. Never in his life had he heard of something like this. Never! The sentiment was like been pursued by wraiths. When he arrived at UNITH (University Teaching Hospital), he would be at work alongside his colleagues to uncover the truth of his fiancée’s transformation. He looked at the flower in his grip. Good. Bu if she did not come up, how would he go down? The prospects of an ambush filled him with fear. Why hadn’t he taken the path down instead of running up, into a trap? A damn trap.
Creepy silence. It bore a colossal atmosphere of fear. He hated it this way. Where was she?
He was forming a plan. But would it work if he did not see her? God! Dr Eta had said over the phone that they would be coming up soon but that he and Anita should try reaching the main road where an ambulance would pick them up as soon as possible to save time. Every second counted. But here he was helpless with the feeling of being pursued by wraiths. With the sentiment of the devil at his elbow laughing at him.
He began strolling trying to relax away from the path he had just escaped, recoiling from every tree and flower he saw during which he waited for the transformed Anita to reach the plain singing again, “kiss me honey.”
At that moment a breeze blew from the north scattering dry leaves in its wake, tossing Greg’s shirt in the wind. He opened his arm embracing it and his mouth to suck it in which helped revived him a bit. He looked at clumps of trees and underbrush, afraid that there might be a devil lurking in them. He had been here twice and never experienced this same flagrant delirium he found himself in. Loneliness. Claustrophobia. He thought of Anita, her smiles and her love. A special person he would not see again. Completely. A tear crawled down his left eye.
He had met her at a conference on Medicine, THE MEDICALS. That was two years ago. She had come to cover the conference for her television network ZBH. He had been chosen Spokesperson of the Students’ Union of UNITH. The paper he presented at the conference attracted heavy applause from the assembly of medical doctors and students. Anita, a blonde and charming lady alongside other boisterous journalists had met him at the end of the conference requesting an interview. He had been live on ZBH Television that day. That was the very first time he had been on television and live. After the interview he had asked her out for dinner and she had consented as if she had been waiting, from that day things had started working until now…
He realized he had been obliviously crying and quickly dried his cheeks. Then he heard a noise… perhaps while he had been thinking of his lost Anita, wraiths had been teaming up for a feast…snap of branches. Soft. Just audible for sharp ears like his. He stopped dead without turning; must be the wind. He was about to steal a look when he felt a tap on his left shoulder-he jumped, a scream dying in his dry esophagus. He never had time to think, no time to scream, no time to invoke Minerva. He was no Christian and even the goddess Minerva would have refused to intervene at that moment; he thought of God…come to my aid Lord. You are the last resort…
&&&&
“Even Hippocrates would not have been less startled. Since swearing the Hippocratic Oath, I never thought of something of this weirdness. Are you in any doubt Eta?” Dr Raymond remarked wearily before rising from the side of what was left of Greg’s corpse. It looked more like an inflated green paste. The corpse was a shade too green. He was lying on a green fluid dripping from the body. The eyes stared wide awake, glazen. The head of the corpse was slowly melting before their eyes like butter in extreme heat. The corpse emitted a raw smell that kept forcing them to step back intermittently.
“He said Anita was… sort of going green, bleeding green, transforming.” Dr Eta breathed rolling down the sleeves of his blue and white striped shirt. He had been examining the weird behavior of the corpse while braving the smell to the admiration of the other men who had fled and stood yards away.
“We arrived too late. All that is left is the green carrion. Had we arrive half an hour later, we wouldn’t have recognized young Greg.”
“Never heard of such destruction in medicine, a viridescent tragedy. Where is the corpse of Anita?” Dr Raymond helped in searching around with his confused eyes. “I believe she made the slime down the path. He was so fond of the lady.”
Two policemen were sent to search for Anita’s corpse in a chosen perimeter.
Dr Eta shivered as he watched the officers go off. “He was so fun of the girl. What a tragedy! Shakespeare wouldn’t have written something sadder.”
There were two medical doctors and one pathologist who had driven to the foot of the hill in an ambulance accompanied by three policemen. Greg had not been found at the main road as planned. He had been unreachable by phone and the ambulance had waited some quarter of an hour at the main road while the officers called, but had no response. All three doctors had come because they had wanted to see things for themselves before it went public at the hospital. They had been confided in by a puzzled Dr Eta who had asked his colleagues to join him.
“This is no homicide. Homicides never turn so ugly. Poisons don’t kill this way.” Marc a police officer groaned.
“Doctors, is there a chemical that can be injected into a corpse or a living man and transform him like this?” he asked pointing at the inert and melting body.
Dr Eta licked his lips and stared at his colleagues as if seeing them for the very first time. They shook their head in refusal.
“Nothing of that such ever discovered in medicine or pharmacology. No Nobel Prize winner for that category. This is so new and mysterious. It gives me the creeps.”
Marc made a call to headquarters. “Headquarters, this is Marc. I repeat this is Marc and my location is Stratus, where people camp...” He paused and listened. “We have a situation here. Our target is dead and inflated and is smelting.” He stopped and listened. “True to my word. The lady who is allegedly dead is still missing but we are still searching,” he listened, “yes, we need backup as soon as possible. Come prepared to transport a melting corpse. the team should seal off the area.” He listened, “roger that. Over and out.” He mopped his face and winked at the medical team. “They are on their way.” He was searching around with his eyes when he saw he lone owl sitting on a branch, its large eyes transfixed on him. He did not give it a second thought as he strolled below trees, to cheer up.
“We will have a sample of that witch plant.” the pathologist moaned, stressing on witch. “I feel the creeps. We should be out of here quickly so that I set to work on time before the corpse is entirely liquefied. This is no Holy Ground.” He crossed himself before producing a winding-sheet from a case and unfolded a collapsible stretcher. He put on gloves and was about to set to work when Dr Raymond halted him.
“Wait! What do you think you are doing?”
“Doing my job. I hate this place and want to be out of here as soon as possible.”
“This thing can be contagious. It can surely eat through those helpless gloves you have on. Again this is very new, brand new if I’m not mistaken to science. I am not touching it without post-mortem.” He halted, his eyes pleading at his colleague, “I feel an odd something…I don’t know how to put it. Also where is Anita’s corpse? We don’t know yet until those men get back.”
The pathologist took no heed. He whistled something about Dr Raymond being superstitious before squatting and touching the corpse with his index finger.
“Soft like an over ripe bana…….” Revulsion seized him. He fell to the ground, writhing and foaming, his spittle greenish phlegm. And while his bewildered friends just looked on, helpless. They could have sworn they heard a hissing sound somewhere, from nowhere. A disembodied voice, “kissssss me.” Before they realized, they were being hauled from the ground into the air.
The two police men never found the body of Anita no matter how hard the searched. They were about to return to the others when they heard a sound. At first it seemed like scuffling but later sounded like the snapping of twigs. They stopped dead to listen, their right hands caressing the butts of their revolvers.
“What is that?” Joe demanded under his breathe.
“Squirrels at lunch.” Ambrose piped, “Feel hungry too. Hope the squirrels throw us a nut, we better hurry and be out of here before I fall dead green from hunger.”
“This place sounds haunted.” Joe remarked not finding Ambrose’s remark funny. He squinted into the thick underbrush and trees.
“We better head back. Let us go.”
Before they turned to leave, they fell themselves been lifted so suddenly into the air. Joe reacted quickly, blindly fired three shots in succession toward the direction he taught their abductor must be.
They stared in fear at the thing in whose grip they now dangled like ripe plums in the wind, helpless and slowly being strangled by the vice-like grip with which they were held. What held them could neither be explained by the darkest of their dreams nor the darkest of movies. This was unthinkable. This was what every human being would’ve refused to believe, that there were trees that that were alive, out to harm, destroy.
They were about twenty five meters off the ground in the grip of a faceless tree, an iroko at whose base stood flowers they had not seen when they had arrived at the clearing: flowers that seemed to stare at them with scorn, rejoicing at their victory.
“Man.” a voice rumbled from thin air. It was like the bellow of bulls. They men soon traced it to the tree.
“Man cometh again to disturb the solitude of the forest folk. He plucketh our flowers and felleth our wood for his fires and warmth. Our homes and folkline soon perisheth and the prospects of a perennial survival are violated. What then should be done children?”
They two frightened men nearly jumped out of their skins when they heard a cacophony. It sounded like the croaks of aggrieved ravens. But this noise was more chilling; it was the boisterous answer from the flowers and the trees of the forest.
“Death father.Death to man.Vengeance!”
The abducted men felt like urinating and excreting at the same time. The gripped tightened around their waist where they were held. Their bowels seemed to push out their contents on their own accord.
The oldest of the trees of the Hill, presumably their leader told the men why plants were at war with man all over the world:
Many flowers are now extinct because of man’s activities, his greed, his love to be with flowers. They are plucked when ripe and the parent flower soon weathers and dies either from grief or transpiration, having bled through the cut left from the harvest of its fruits. Man had to pay! Man has to pay!
&&&&
Far away, someone put on the television and zapped to CNN before seating down at a bowl of vegetables on a table heavily decorated with rich bouquets of flowers. He ate his third helping while he listened to NEWSHOUR.
“….terror seizes campers and loggers around the world when they were attacked by plants….” Static images. Green images which looked like mounds of green. The new feed showed people affected with the green fluid, being led away on stretchers from which the green fluid was dripping. “This transformation has baffled the world which many have termed the Green Pandemic. Latest news from Central Africa says that six medical doctors are dead while others are missing after attacks. In Australia, a botanist was strangled when he off-rooted a plant for transplant…the Amazon Rainforest now has the highest number of casualties recorded so far.37. Scientists have tried to explain what is happening to the world. At the moment the scientists can only arrive at a theory. The world is awaiting word from an emergency international medical conference presently in session in Quebec, Canada. And to remind you, we will be having Doctor Antonio Bellini from CERN to explain things to us...”
The viewer froze in his meal, a nauseous sensation overcoming him, and soon he threw up, a good quantity of vegetables. When he was himself, he stared at the television; the World Report on CNN seemed to sound far away, like a hoax. The Amazon?37 dead? And father had gone there as a state lumberman still to return home for holiday…
&&&&
The Amazon Rainforest was alive. The buzz of hundreds of saws cut through the air. Lumbermen of diverse nationalities worked as a team. There were giant cutters, armored vehicles with robotic arms that carried steel cutters which could fell, trim and pack hundreds of timber in an hour. This new machine really fascinated the Spanish, Brazilian and Argentine lumbermen who had only their chain saws for the job.
“Sēnor,” one of them had remarked to one of the Americans as he watched one of the machines at work, “You ‘mericans will build all type of big machines. Gracias.”
“Quelos estadounidenses no quierendejar defascinantecon nosotros con susinvenciones[1].” Another spanish remarked. “¿Cuántopuedeuno de esoscostos[2]?” he aimed the question to an American who was leaning to a cutter, resting and smoking. “nohablaespañol[3].” A young Mexican said, mopping his sweat with his sleeves. He turned to the American and said, grinning, “He wants to know the cost of one of the machines.” The American laughed before saying, patting the back of the inquisitive Spanish, “expensive, very expensive. I think it is not less than fifty thousand dollars.” The Spanish beamed and cocked his eyes. “Me encantalos americanos[4],” he said.
“Me encanta América[5].” “siyotuvierauno, yo he estado en casa porahora.[6]” One of the Brazillians complained in fatigue.
Work continued, no conversation because of the noise, trees falling to the call of the cutters. A scream tore through the air. One of the lumbermen calling on his mates. The cutters were switched off so that the men could get the reason for the consternation. The lumbermen stared in horror, they believing to be watching a science fiction movie by Isaac Asimov. One of their mates, an Australian was in the grip of at tree that had torn him right off the ground. And before their eyes, the screaming Australian was divided in equal halves from the head to the waist, blood spraying from destroyed veins.
Hundreds of lumbermen were fleeing the Amazon Rainforest. People tripping on bodies; people screaming in fear while abandoning their equipment whose screeching sounded like a dirge to the fleeing and the dying victims.
And as they fled more men were seized and hauled through the air snapping bones and breaking tissues. While the men fled, the woods shrieked gloomily behind them: “Death father. Death to man. Vengeance!”
Then a lone owl flew leisurely around before hooting off into the blood bathed forest.