HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (2 page)

He had never really
wanted for anything or worked to feed himself. Yet there was one gift
he had never been granted. Mujai had never had a woman. He was too
feared. He was not good marriage material, never even considered as
a mate for a father’s daughters. A man who could raise the
dead was a fearful being indeed. He expected to live a solitary
existence and die old and alone. Until tonight, with the little
sleeping-dead girl who he knew, some way, some how, he would be able
to raise up. She held a promise of the one thing he wanted and missed
the most.

It was true the
chicken did not cluck after it was raised. And the dog did not bark.
But the panther, yes, it had been almost as before, roaring,
leaping, hunting prey. But it had seemed to Mujai, following the
dead-before-now-alive panther’s trail for several weeks out of
curiosity, it had seemed the big cat had turned into quite a
voracious beast. Keeping well-hidden and down wind, Mujai watched it
many times take it’s prey apart nearly on the very moment of
impact, at the instant of its death from the panther’s vicious
long teeth. Flesh went flying skyward, to the right and to the left,
and still the beast attacked, ripping and tearing in such a frenzy
that its entire face and chest was slathered with blood from its
victim. It did not feed so much as battle and destroy.

Mujai loped harder
and tapped on his chest for protection, thinking of the beast he had
raised and how dark the night still was, dawn some hours yet in the
distance. Where was that hungry beast now? And was it on the prowl
anywhere nearby for the fearful master who had raised it from the
dead?

And what of the
child, he wondered, suddenly, his lope faltering. Mujai was not a
stupid man, and could follow a line of logic as neatly as anyone.
What if when raised the little girl was changed? Was vicious? Was
rapacious? What if she became a beast who could not be satisfied?

Again Majai tapped
his chest for protection, for good luck, for help from the gods, for
the heavens to favor him, as they had done all his life. He possessed
but this one chance and he would take it, no matter what the outcome.

He took up his
running lope again, for he had to hurry. Many of the plants he
needed for the potion were scattered far and wide. He had much work
to do, much territory to cover. And already the child was cold, so
cold.

The breeze from the
ocean wafted across his face, filling his nostrils until he could
taste the brine on his tongue. He could smell the fecund earth and
his nostrils flooded with the scent of various night-blooming flowers
whose perfume was so strong it could dull a weaker man. He
concentrated so the spirit gods would lead him to the plants he
needed. Once calm, it came again on the wind, the scent of the deep,
mysterious sea. He breathed in deeply and smiled. This is my
island, he boasted to himself. I am king here. I am a god here. No
one can do what I have done and what I am about to do. I am afraid
of nothing, nothing. If I fail, no one will know. If I succeed…

He went into a trot
and then into a true all-out run. He had to hurry, hurry, hurry.

He had a child bride
to save. He had a beautiful, innocent, perfectly proportioned queen
to raise up from the dead and to make his very own. She could not
remain dead too long or even the potion would not work.

Yet if it worked!
He would be alone no more. He swore it. Like his grandfather and
father before him, he had found a woman he could take and make his
own. That she was so young did not matter. He could teach her
everything and be patient until she was a few years older. He would
spend those years tutoring her how to work for him, bathe him, fetch
and cook and climb the trees for his honey. He would teach her how
to behave. How to love him as her king, as her Giver of Life. She
would, after all, owe him everything, forever. She would be his
Child-Lover-Mother-Companion-Inspiration, his alone, forever.

CHAPTER 3

COMING ALIVE

The instant the
potion was massaged down her throat so that it slid into her belly,
the magic began to work.

The potion mixed
with the contents of her stomach, permeated the cells of the stomach
wall, drifted into the silent blood stream. Like a horde of
marauding ants, the potion properties invaded the cells. Those cells
twinkled to life and began to move, invading the cells next to them.
Within an hour all the cells of the child’s body had been
changed, replaced, even down into the marrow of her bones. Human
cells still, yes, but the DNA had been tweaked into something beyond
human and life now was not like any life existing on the planet
earth.

After waiting the
proper amount of time, Mujai said a wild prayer beneath his breath
and began to pound on the child’s chest. He must get the heart
moving again. This is what he had done with the animals. With each
mild thump he whispered wilder and more desperate prayers to the
gods, asking for this miracle, this one if no other ever again.

He had pushed the
mother from the hut and forbade her from speaking of this death and
this ritual to anyone. He promised to take her life if she did.
This was one raising he did not want to broadcast. In fact, if this
raising worked, he had promised himself he would never do it again.
Somewhere in the center of him where his man spirit resided, he felt
what he was doing was against all nature. Already he had broken the
very rules of the world by raising animals, but to raise a human
being was…well, it was a bad business. He knew that, sensed
it, even though he could not stop from trying to do it.

With each thump on
the girl’s dead chest, he prayed harder. Do this for me, he
prayed. I want her. I need her. She is mine. Sweat dripped from
his face. Outside the moon had slid around the edge of the world and
soon the sun would peak from over the lip of the blue sea. He could
not be found here in the day, performing this ritual on the child.
If others discovered he could raise a human being, they would bring
every death on the island to him. Corpses outside his hut would rise
higher than the thatched roof and drown the sky.

If they knew of it
and he failed, they would dismiss him as a charlatan. He’d be
thought of as someone who had cruelly made a grieving mother believe
in the impossible. Rather than a king, he would become a pariah. His
people knew no forgiveness. When you did a horribly wrong thing, you
were cast out.

He pounded. He
prayed. He feared defeat. And then life happened like a spark
taking hold on massed palm tree shavings.

Her eyes opened.

Mujai sank back onto
his heels in true astonishment, his hands frozen over her still body.
He had not really, in the heart of him, believed that this could
happen. He wanted success and now that he had it, he was mortified.

“
Speak to me,”
he whispered in sudden fear. “If you can hear me, speak.”
Would she be mute like the chicken, the dog?

“
My master,”
she said. “I have come back for you.”

Mujai nearly passed
out. He could not move even an eyelid. His mouth gaped.

She slowly sat up,
woodenly, like a doll made of sticks. The black irises of her eyes
were so enlarged they nearly covered the original mud brown color of
her eyes.

“
I saw Death,”
she said. “I was lost in the dark.”

“
Yes.”
He gasped the word, the air in his lungs so short he was on the verge
of fainting. “You were dead. I brought you back. You…you
will live with me now.”

The girl pulled her
legs beneath her woven palm skirt and she leaned forward on her hands
so that her perfect little face was mere inches from his.

“
Of course I
will,” she said in a breathy voice that sounded nothing like a
child’s voice. “I will come live with you.”

It felt like a
threat to Mujai. At the very moment he knew he should feel exultant
and powerful, he was overwhelmed with the greatest fear he had ever
experienced.

What could he do?
He had brought the dead to life and now he owned her. He had
bargained for her life and she belonged to him, whether he feared her
or not.

He rose shakily to
his feet and held out his hand. “Come with me, then,” he
said. “We will go.”

Her hand was
shockingly cold. He forced himself not to cringe from her touch. He
wondered if she would ever feel warm, feel human again.

Outside the hut the
girl’s mother fell to her knees, mewling like a newborn. Tears
ran down her face. “My baby, my baby, my baby lives,”
she cried.

“
Goodbye,
Mother,” the girl said formally and without emotion. Then she
moved forward, pulling the witch doctor behind her.

It seemed she knew
the way home.

In the first days of
her second life, the girl gave herself a new name. “Call me
Angelique,” she instructed the witch doctor. “I do not
like my old name. Tell me now how you raised me up.”

The question caused
him to pause in the whittling he was doing on a bow. He looked up at
her. “I cannot tell you,” he said.

“
You mean you
won’t.”

He shrugged and went
back to his whittling, shaving long slivers of green bark from the
limber wood.

“
Tell me how
you raised me up,” she insisted.

Something told him
the girl wanted to know his secrets for reasons other than just to
know how she came to be alive again. She wanted to steal his power.
With his special knowledge, she could replace him as the village
witch doctor. She could perform miracles and demand the respect that
was reserved for him.

He looked up again.
He frowned at her, hoping to instill fear. “I will never tell
you. I will never do it again so you will never see how I do it,
even if you were to shadow me the rest of my life. The magic that
made you come back is now forgotten.” He tapped the side of
his head and shook it a little as if throwing out the recipe for the
potion.

She smiled. He
hadn’t expected that response and he frowned harder. “I
swear you will never know how I did it! Get the idea out of your
head, you hear me? I will never tell and you will never know.”

She stood. She
moved now with more grace, almost the way any child might. She said,
“Mujai, my master, you are a silly, suspicious man.”

Smiling, she left
him sitting with his unfinished bow, wondering at how she could
insult him when he was the adult, he was her master, her king, her
life-giver. How dare a little child speak to him with such
disrespect. "Ungrateful little witch,” he muttered, and
went back to his work.

She never spoke of
it again, but then she had almost stopped speaking to him at all.

Out of fear or
revulsion, Mujai did not know which, he kept his distance and went
about his normal routines without dealing with the girl very often.
She was sullen and withdrawn. She might get over it, she might
change and be nice to him if he left her alone enough.

He set food before
her, but after the first time watching her eat, he made sure to go
into the jungle after serving her. No human being ate the way she
did. It was like the panther, only worse because it was a child
devouring food like a beast who has lost its mind. She shredded the
meat he made in the fire without even dusting off the soot first.
She broke the bones and sucked the marrow, licking her fingers of the
grease. She put her whole face into a mango, until her nose
disappeared as she feasted. If he did not bring her food at least
three times a day, she would rummage in his gift pile the people
brought for him, and ate whatever she found there in its raw state.
A bird, feathers and all. A muskrat, tail and head and all. An
entire melon, skin, seeds, and all. Nothing she ate seemed to bother
her stomach or make her sick.

If it had just been
the insane way she ate, her sulky silence, her utter lack of respect
for him, Mujai thought he could come to accept it. But there were
other things and these he could not countenance.

She rarely slept.
It was as if death had given her all the sleep she would ever
require. She sat up during the dark hours, watching over him in the
hut. He turned his back to her, trying to cleanse his mind of those
black eyes staring at him, but often he failed and lay awake himself,
praying for the gods to make her right. Make her right, he prayed.
Make her as she was before.

She took no
direction whatsoever. If he asked her to do something for him, she
pretended not to understand. “No entiendo,” she’d
reply. I do not know what you mean, she said. What do you mean?