An Inauspicious Visit Read online

  “So,” said Gerard, his mouth half-full with mussels, “tell me about this Labateau.”

  “It was once a man: a pirate from France. Captain Labateau captured our town, then ravished it for a month, killing many and abusing the rest. He came back a year later, greedy to raid us a second time, but the governor had a fleet ready and blocked the port behind him.

  “He killed many Christian souls—God bless them—as he tried to escape, but in the end the governor’s troops captured the wretch. They handed him over to us for burning, but when we lit the bonfire, the very flames refused to touch the foul man. In the end, we shot him a dozen times. But as he screamed his final curse at us, the full moon appeared through the clouds, and his body sprouted hair.

  “Changed from man to savage beast, the creature split the cords which held it like threads. It fled into the woods and for many years we did not see it, although the name ‘Labateau’ was whispered every time a cow or goat went missing.

  “Then, a month ago, the infernal creature returned for revenge. Every night it kills one man, woman or child.”

  Gerard swallowed the last of the mussels and looked longingly at the empty plate. Outside the sacristy door, he could hear a rumble of conversations as people packed into the church.

  “Why is everyone coming in here?” he asked.

  “Labateau won’t touch this sacred ground,” replied Nicolau. “St. George protects us here. Also, this is the strongest building in Ilhéus.”

  Nicolau stood and Gerard followed him into the church proper. People crowded from wall to wall.

  “It is time,” shouted Nicolau. “Close the door.”

  Two men closed and bolted the heavy wooden doors.

  “Is this everyone, Father?” asked Gerard.

  “Most have already fled; there aren’t so many left. Here we protect ourselves, and Labateau will take a slave for his dinner, instead of one of us.”

  “There are slaves here?” asked Gerard.

  “The slaves are locked in some warehouses down at the docks, although many have escaped. There are still some two-hundred Indians and the same of Africans.”

  “What?” bellowed Gerard. “You leave them in a warehouse where the monster can find them?”

  “We must save the Christian souls first.”

  Gerard opened his mouth to argue when a shrill scream pierced the air. He scanned the church for a vantage point, but found only stained glass.

  “Are there no open windows here?” he asked.

  “Only in the mezzanine,” replied Nicolau, “or the belfry.”

  “I’ll take the mezzanine.”

  “Very well.”

  Nicolau led him to a ladder at the front of the church, the crowd parting for them along the way. Gerard climbed the ladder with Nicolau behind him. At the top, he found two-foot square windows at the corners and opened the shutters.

  “I suppose this is enough,” said Gerard. “If Labateau wants in, it will have to come this way.”

  A half-scream, half-howl sounded. Everyone in the church remained silent.

  Gerard looked out the window and saw the creature’s silhouette framed in the moonlight. For some reason, bright points shimmered at the edges, but Gerard could tell little else at that distance. Beside him, Nicolau made the sign of the cross.

  Gerard looked down and called out, “Someone hand up my harquebus!”

  #

  The Dry Bodies, when upright, looked like gangly men carved from rotting wood. Their branch arms ended in twig-like claws, and everyone they touched dried to a husk. They shuffled along, too slow to catch a man, but what they lacked in speed they made up for in numbers. Hundreds of Dry Bodies sprouted in all directions.

  Oludara observed the chaos with his uncovered eye, trying to form a plan. He watched as one man hacked a Dry Body with an axe, only to have the blade stick in the creature. As the man tried to pull the axe free, the Dry Body grasped his wrist, sucking the life from him.

  Another man climbed a tree—an idea Oludara considered foolish from the start—and met his end when he grabbed a Dry Body instead of a branch. Two others ambled up from below and the three of them grappled grotesquely for the rotting corpse.

  Antonio’s rapier caught in the side of one. The Dry Body swiped at him but he ducked and the beast grabbed only his hat in its claws, which it tossed away.

  “You won’t keep either of those,” said Antonio.

  The Dry Body lunged forward and Antonio rolled under its arm, snatching back his hat as he passed. He then grabbed his rapier and twisted around, yanking it free and sending the creature flying to one side all in the same movement.

  Oludara saw Tinga backing slowly toward a tree, a look of terror on his face. Then he saw bark on the tree begin to move.

  “Look out!” he said.

  Tinga spun and pulled his club from his belt, but he was too late. A Dry Body grabbed his wrist. Tinga screamed and dropped the club.

  Without thinking, Oludara grasped his ivory knife. As always, the enchanted weapon tingled as he wielded it. He slashed at the Dry Body’s arm and cut it straight through. The severed hand let go and fell to the ground.

  Tinga glanced at the knife, then raised his eyebrows at Oludara as if to say, I knew all along you were no slave.

  A rustling sound caught their attention, and they looked down in unison to see the hand grasping its way toward their feet. Tinga reached down for his club, Oludara hid his knife back under his shirt, and the two of them ran.

  A group of men tried to burn the Dry Bodies with torches, but to no effect. A Dry Body grasped one of the men, who promptly dropped his torch and set some leaves on fire.

  “Stop it!” yelled Diogo. “You’ll burn down the forest and us with it!”

  Around them, an inexorable circle of Dry Bodies closed in.

  #

  Gerard sighted Labateau down the barrel of his harquebus.

  “Should we be shooting from a church?” asked Nicolau.

  “As long as a man of the cloth is here,” replied Gerard, “he won’t dare enter.”

  Nicolau tapped him on the shoulder and whispered, “There’s something I should tell you, Gerard. I was never ordained.”

  “You’re not a priest?” said Gerard, spinning around.

  “Shh!” Nicolau looked down to see the reactions of those below, but no one seemed to have heard. “I never finished the seminary. Too much scripture and Latin for a mind to hold, don’t you agree?”

  Nicolau’s confession both surprised and irritated Gerard, but he decided to leave the reprimands for another time. “I suppose it must indeed be difficult,” he said.

  “When I arrived here,” said Nicolau, “the Jesuits had left to start new churches farther down the coast. The people needed a priest, and didn’t ask any questions.”

  “Hmmm,” said Gerard. “Well, as long as we’re making confessions, I should tell you that I’m a member of the Reformed Church: a follower of Calvin.”

  “Oh, no,” wailed Nicolau, “we are doomed!” He made the sign of the cross.

  At the words, a commotion sounded below them. People yelled up to know what was happening.

  “Don’t worry, Nicolau,” said Gerard. “Just hold steady, keep your cross high, and have faith.”

  Gerard took his shot. He watched as Labateau reeled backwards and howled. Gerard nodded and refilled the harquebus’s flash pan with powder.

  “At least this one bleeds,” he said.

  “What does that mean?” asked Nicolau.

  “Just that I’ve met my share of creatures which don’t.”

  Outside, Labateau performed a series of jumps and flips, all the time howling at the church. A visible sweat formed on Nicolau’s brow. Gerard, now loading the barrel, noticed his discomfort.

  “Hold steady, Nicolau,” he said. “We’ll be fine.”

  Gerard steadied the rifle and took another shot. A piercing howl, louder and more terrifying than the first, came from below.

  “
See?” said Gerard, readying for a third shot. “It’s just a matter of wearing the beast down—one shot at a time.”

  “But look,” said Nicolau. “He comes!”

  Labateau’s silhouette approached the church with deliberate, forced steps.

  “He’s never come this close before,” said Nicolau. “He’s going to come in. He’s going to attack!”

  “Courage, Nicolau,” shouted Gerard, losing his patience. “Just keep faith, and the beast will hold.”

  The false priest screamed and raced down the ladder. He pushed his way through the crowd to the sacristy and slammed the door shut.

  Gerard looked out to see the beast pause. It took on a different demeanor, standing straight and no longer wavering. It let out a triumphant howl and charged.

  “Get back!” Gerard yelled to the people below. “Away from the doors!”

  A pounding boom sounded on the wooden doors, and people packed away from them as well as they could. On the second slam, the huge doors came crashing apart, and Labateau’s momentum brought it rolling in.

  #

  Oludara stood among the ever-dwindling group of men. For once, he had no plan. Standing and fighting would get him nowhere, but running through the forest meant facing a gauntlet of Dry Bodies in the darkness. The bannerman panicked around them, searching for a way through their relentless foes.

  “Damn this cursed forest,” said Antonio. “There must be hundreds of these rotten creatures.”

  “We’ve lost half our men,” said Diogo.

  Antonio raised his rapier. “They’re slow, we can break through their ranks.”

  “A charge through the thick of them is risky.”

  “The best of us will escape,” said Antonio. “The rest...” He shrugged.

  “Might will not save us this time,” said Oludara. “We must use our minds.”

  “I didn’t ask you to speak, slave.”

  Antonio slashed at an approaching Dry Body, severing an arm. The Dry Body reached down and recovered the fallen limb, which it unsuccessfully attempted to jam back into place.

  “Captain,” shouted someone. “We can’t kill them.”

  “Of course you can’t kill them, fool,” replied Antonio. “They’re already dead.”

  “My people have a saying,” said Oludara, “ ‘If you place a mortar on the fire the mortar will burn, if you pound a yam in a pot the pot will break.’ Each thing has its own weakness.”

  “Will you be quiet, slave,” said Antonio. “This is no time to be talking about yams!”

  “I am saying that we are trying to kill the dead as we would the living. Are they not different? How do these creatures move if they are dead?”

  “They suck the life from others,” said Diogo.

  “Then we must cut them off from this vigor, or feed them something from which they cannot drain life.”

  “I don’t need your advice, slave,” said Antonio.

  “It’s an idea,” said Diogo.

  “There must be something,” said Oludara.

  “You know, slave,” said Antonio, “the way you speak, you seem almost familiar. Have we not met before?”

  “I am sure I would remember such an honor,” said Oludara, deflecting the question. “The name Antonio Dias Caldas is praised by many.”

  “I’m certain it is,” said Antonio, hacking at another Dry Body.

  “Enough talking,” said Diogo. “How do we stop them?”

  “Through here,” yelled someone to the south. “The way to the river is open!”

  “To the river!” yelled someone else.

  Oludara followed the fleeing group. From what he could see with his uncovered eye, the path did appear to be free of Dry Bodies. The few of them that did appear were knocked aside by Diogo and Antonio, each of them having traded their rapiers for logs. Nevertheless, Oludara had the suspicion they were only stalling the inevitable.

  Distracted in his thoughts, he failed to see a Dry Body drop from a tree above him. He looked in terror as it gripped his arm. Pain shot from the contact and his body froze in shock. His vision fuzzed and he felt his consciousness slipping away.

  Without warning, a club caught the Dry Body solidly in the middle and sent it flying.

  “Are you all right?” asked Tinga.

  Oludara coughed when he tried to speak, then settled for a nod.

  “Good then, we’re even,” said Tinga, smiling.

  Staying close behind Tinga, who knocked several Dry Bodies from their path, Oludara completed the nightmare run to the river. As he had feared, though, the flight was pointless. They had gained some minutes of respite, but the torrent of water remained impassable.

  “This gains us nothing,” spat Tinga. “They will be upon us in a matter of minutes and we have no other escape.”

  Several men ran to the water and jumped in.

  “No!” yelled Oludara and Tinga in unison.

  No man swam more than ten feet before being pulled under.

  “If it’s between drowning or fighting to death, I’m for fighting,” said Antonio. “Who’s with me?”

  Most of the men cheered. Others, particularly the natives, hunched over in defeat.

  Oludara noted how much Antonio could resemble Gerard. Not in face or bearing, for in those they were quite different. But in bravery, skill, and desire for adventure, they were kindred spirits. Oludara had no idea which of them would win in a fight. But what set them apart lay within their souls: Gerard’s heart was as good as Antonio’s was rotten.

  Following Antonio, the men charged back toward the forest. Oludara could only shake his head at the foolish gesture. As he lowered his gaze, he caught sight of his feet sinking into the wet clay of the riverbank.

  “Wait!” he yelled. His voice commanded such force that the men turned and stopped, just paces from the trees.

  Oludara knelt down and desperately scraped together a pile of clay.

  “In Africa, we tell the tale of a spider,” he said, “which was fooled by a pile of tar.”

  #

  Looking down from the mezzanine, Gerard examined Labateau. A single, lemon-sized, furious eye dominated the middle of its wide face. A snout with tusks pointing up from both sides extended from what once had been a human mouth. The creature’s muscled body stood well over six feet tall. Quills poked from its back and arms like a porcupine. Its massive, human feet ended in long claws. Gerard could see two streams of blood on its chest where his shots had landed.

  The creature howled at the people cowering around it, its bristles popping out to add emphasis. Gerard noticed white tips on the quills, which explained the shimmering he had seen earlier. The beast pounced into the crowd.

  Gerard finished loading his gun and raised it, but failed to get a shot on Labateau as it sped out the door, a child clasped under one arm.

  “Pedro!” a lady below him yelled after the retreating beast and its victim.

  Gerard jumped from the mezzanine and landed heavily. It took him a few moments to shake the sting from his legs. When he finally stumbled to the door, he spotted the beast rushing toward the woods. Even with the child in its arms, Labateau ran too fast for him to catch; he needed to slow it down.

  He raised his harquebus and aimed for the chest, but with the boy’s head peeking out just below the armpit, he couldn’t risk that shot. Instead, he fired at the creature’s buttocks.

  Labateau jerked at the impact and snarled in pain. It hobbled a few steps, then continued its flight, although at a slower pace.

  Knowing he wouldn’t have time to load again before Labateau reached the woods, Gerard threw down the harquebus and set out after the beast. In his haste, he realized he hadn’t dropped his pack. He made a quick struggle to throw it off, but as he closed in on Labateau he was forced to leave it on. He caught up to the creature some fifty paces into the woods.

  He tried to grapple Labateau from behind, but his hand burned when it touched the spines on the creature’s back. Gerard howled at the sensation.


  Still holding the child, the beast turned to attack. It grappled with one arm and tried to pull Gerard into its toothy snout. Gerard ducked and lunged as the beast’s putrid jaws snapped above him. His elbow caught Labateau in the chest and sent it sprawling.

  Gerard lunged down to choke Labateau, but the beast backhanded him, pricking his arm and face with its quills. Gerard could feel himself numbing and realized the spines contained poison.

  The beast righted itself and Gerard pulled out his rapier. With a lightning lunge he sliced Labateau’s side, but the creature swiped down on his sword arm and pricked him again, making him drop the blade.

  Gerard conceded that the battle would be his last. However, Labateau bled profusely from his wounds and moved in a daze, so Gerard knew his death would not be in vain. All that remained was to see which combatant would perish first.

  Labateau finally released the child, who fell at its feet. Then it stumbled forward and struck at Gerard with a lazy backhand. Gerard, having learned to avoid the quill pricks at all costs, stepped well out of the way. In his own lethargic haze, Gerard swung off his pack and threw it at the beast’s face. Labateau brought up both hands to deflect. Gerard used the distraction to charge forward and caught the beast with a punch to the chin. Labateau swayed before going down.

  While Labateau tried to shake off the blow, Gerard wagged his muddled head from side to side, searching for his rapier. He found it near his feet, and on his second attempt, overcame his double vision and managed to pick it up. As Labateau finally sat up, Gerard thrust the blade toward its face. Labateau caught the point with its forearm and fell back, yanking down Gerard as well. With the last of his strength, Gerard yanked free the rapier and thrust it under the beast’s chin.

  This time the rapier’s point struck before Labateau could react. The sword punctured through to the creature’s brain. Labateau’s head rolled back and moved no more.

  “Got you first,” mumbled Gerard, just before rolling to the ground beside it.

  Gerard raised his arm to see purple and red lines running all along it. He shook his head and it lolled to one side. Six inches before his face lay the gourd containing Yandir’s potion, dislodged from his pack when it struck Labateau.