Swing Low: Chapter 14

Chapter 14:

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Installment #15 of:Sing Low: The Hangman of the WoodsBy B.C. Crow (Download audio podcast here) (Chapter 14The woods hold strange people. People who can’t live in normal society. Maybe they are unwanted children. Or perhaps they are the deformed and simply seek a life free of persecution. In nearly every case, these people were rejected by our society. They are the strange and unwanted; then there are the dark ones. Some venture in looking for this brand of evil talent. Some find it. But despite them, not all who reside in the woods are bad.Our last week together was fun. I still didn’t understand Thing Two very well and Duy seemed to be struggling more and more with his resolve to live up to the Believers’ covenants. For some reason those two were always together. But I was comfortable with all of them, even Jhon and Charles. We may not have played much together, but we all got along just fine. Our mutual satisfaction was good enough that we all decided to room together again the next semester. For the next three months, before school was out, we were all anxious to go home and visit our families.Jhon and Charles were the first to leave. Not by any choice of theirs; it’s just that their parents arrived early on a Saturday morning in their shiny cars. Their good-byes were stiff and awkward. Duy was next to have his belongings packed. He’d gotten up earlier than me to start. As a Believer, he wasn’t allowed to drink alcohol. I don’t think he wanted me to see him cleaning out the dozens of empty beer and rum bottles from under his bed. Even if I had been able to sleep in, the thin glass of his new forbidden vice made a gentle clink that was just sharp enough to shatter any hopes of early morning dreams. Really, it’s not like I didn’t know about his drinking. It was often on his breath. Even worse was the smell his body made after sleeping the night while sweating it out. But if he felt shamed by it, I’d play ignorant. I wasn’t a Believer, but even I saw the evil in alcohol. Mostly I felt sorry for him.When I finally did get up, I took a quick shower. Showers are always quick when they're cold. I suppose the apartment managers didn’t feel like paying for warm water for one more day than they absolutely had to. Not a big deal. It’s not like I grew up with warm water. The air was generally hot enough that cold water often felt good.“Well, I guess I’ll see you when school starts back up,” Duy said to me.I was just toweling off. The stiff fibers were quick to scratch, but slow to dry. I made sure to tuck the towel firmly around my waist. With one hand firmly on the towel, in case it decided to slip, I reached with my other to shake his outstretched palm. He was my roommate and I was forced to dress in front of him occasionally. But that didn’t mean I was comfortable being naked around him. I gripped his hand in mine. “Three months, Duy. I look forward to it.” There wasn’t much more to say. We’d already stayed up late last night talking about our plans for the summer.“But hey, when school starts up again, Iddo, you and I will need to play some more. You’re almost to the point where you don’t need me to tutor you every free minute you get. You’re way too busy besides that.”It was true. I was making good progress in my schooling. Toward the end I was almost able to keep up, only requiring about an hour each week of help from Duy. I said, “You can count on it” but I didn’t really mean it. I knew deep down that, even though I was catching up to the other students, I would be too busy to play much with Duy. Maybe because experience told me that I wouldn’t be given any breaks. More likely though, I didn’t want to spend that kind of time with Duy.His idea of play was drifting toward a lifestyle I didn’t admire. I don’t think the Duy of nine months ago would have approved, either. Hopefully being back with his family for a few months would strengthen his integrity. I don’t know why I worried so much for him. If he wanted to rebel from his faith, that was his choice. Still, it’s sad.All of this passed through my head in half a second while he gripped my hand. But with my sympathies running high, and my other hand holding my towel, I was rendered defenseless when his free hand swung around. I prepared for a totally awkward hug, but instead received a hard jovial slap on my bare wet back.I wrenched my hand away from his as his face contorted into a maniacal grin. “That’ll leave a mark,” he laughed.“Go home,” I jested back. “Nobody likes you here, anyway. Go torment your family for a change.” The hand-shaped welt on my back felt like a gigantic bee sting. I suspected that in a few hours I could look in a mirror and still see every fingerprint of Duy’s hand, etched into the full handprint that was now there. But there'd be no mirrors where I’d be sleeping tonight.Thing Two looked curiously sad as Duy left the apartment. I got dressed and was next to go. Thing Two went in for a slap just like Duy’s, but I dodged it. I’d come to understand that those two were remarkably similar in personality, though Thing Two was a little more extreme in his mood swings.Thing One just gave me a wink and waved good-bye with a finger. “Take care of yourself. I know you will,” was all he said before retreating into his room.Of all my roommates, I’d miss him the most. He was the most mysterious of them all, and yet I felt a connection with him. I almost hoped that next year the sleeping arrangements would stay the same. I’d hate to room with him only to learn that he had darker secrets that made me lose some degree of respect for him. But somehow I knew that was silly. He was a good man.After two hours of walking in the woods, I wondered if, for my return trip, a compass might be a good investment. I had no intention of visiting the hangman, nor his lost children. I remembered the general direction of where they’d been holed up. Since it was out of my way, there was no reason to extend my hike there. It would just delay my trip back home. The woods held less mystery to me now that I’d crossed them once and learned one their biggest and best-kept secrets. This illusion of comfort was stupid on my part.I’d been walking for about eight hours when I stopped to rest and eat my evening meal. I planned to hike for another couple hours before bedding down, but my stomach ached with hunger. I hadn’t even sat down yet when I felt a small prickle running up my back. Stupid Duy, he didn’t have to hit me that hard. But the prickle was followed by a chill, as if his handprint was warning me of something I should have noticed by now. The first telltale sign was a small flicking point just under a shrub of undergrowth. No, there were several small flicking points all around me. The sun hadn’t set yet, but everything seemed darker.I froze as I focused on the shiny yellow-and-black-striped bodies attached to the flickering tongues. The cylindrical bodies of the kraits were now distinctly visible. These nocturnal snakes, though extremely venomous, were often shy and rarely bit humans. But at least twenty, each between one and two meters long, were surrounding me in an ever-tightening circle.That shouldn’t have been happening. Snakes don’t coordinate, especially this cannibal variety. They were more likely to fight and eat each other than to attack a person. But coherent thought had been replaced by panic. I spun around once, twice, my frantic eyes desperately seeking out any avenue of escape. But I couldn’t run between any of them without getting bitten. Somewhere deep down in my instincts—it had to be instinct—I knew that I was going to die. Thanks a lot, instincts. Not very helpful.Unlike the last time I panicked in a life-threatening situation, this time instead of freezing up, my legs moved without my realizing it. I knew it was useless, but I raced toward one of the smaller snakes, anyway. As I reached it, I leaped has high and far as I could. I don’t think I’d ever jumped so powerfully in my life. I felt suspended in the air as I floated over the earth and across the snakes. I suddenly thought that I’d been very foolish to panic. All I had to do was jump over them. I knew that as soon as I hit the ground and put a few meters between us, I’d feel silly for having nearly lost my head.I was feeling good when something twisted around my ankle. I felt the sharp fangs of the deadly snake puncturing the back of my calf. I tumbled to the ground, rolling and kicking. The snake held on for the longest three seconds of my life. Finally, it let go and slapped to the ground beside me. For a moment, we both stared motionless into each other’s eyes. Those glassy black beads were cold and pitiless. A black forked tongue flitted out of its mouth, tasting the victory. Then it turned around and slithered away. There were no other snakes in sight. It was as if they had all gathered to see which one could bite me first. Satisfied that one of them had poisoned me, the rest to lost interest.I lifted my pant leg and stared at the two aching holes in my skin. Thin red trickles oozed from the bite. It hurt a little but didn’t fester. Maybe the snake hadn’t released its venom. I stood up, trembling. A quick survey told me that I was definitely alone again. I walked with a slight limp, not so much from the pain in my leg, but from fear that if I used my leg too much, the poison might circulate more quickly throughout my body. A foolish notion, I know. I didn’t need to study medicine to know better. But I was too far away from any medical help. My chances of dying tonight were high. Treated, I’d likely have a fifty percent chance of survival. Untreated, that chance was more like ten or twenty percent.I was a wounded animal. My only desire was to put as much distance between myself and the place of attack, in case the demon snakes came back for more fun. The farther I moved, the more my stomach muscles constricted and cramped. Walking upright was increasingly difficult. I staggered first to one side, then the other. Still, I lumbered on, bumping into trees as I went. My eyes struggled to focus when I smelled something burning. No, my eyes weren’t fuzzy; my eyelids were drooping uncontrollably. I was entering the early stages of ptosis.My nostrils caught the burning smell that had to mean somebody else was out here. That or I was experiencing another symptom I hadn’t learned about yet. The scent had a disgustingly sweet bite to it, like somebody was cooking a slab of meat, but with the hair still on it. I tripped on an exposed root and fell into a small clearing. A disorderly camp, well used from longer-term dwelling, lay before me. A pile of stones stood about a meter high with smoke billowing up. It made me think of an old-fashioned altar for burnt offerings. The cooking smell had been from some unfortunate animal that was lying on top of it. It looked to be either a goat or dog. All that was left was the skin blackened with fire and that sharp smell of burned hair. The heat-stretched face of the animal gave no clues as to its identity, because all its teeth were missing.My muscles spasmed and I curled into the fetal position. Then I became aware of somebody over me, speaking in a language I hadn’t heard in a long time. It was one of the old languages from before the wars, before English had come to dominate our tongue. I only understood part of it. Even the words I should have recognized were of a different dialect and were difficult to put together. Then the voice addressed me, as only a longtime smoker could. With raspy accusation, and still somehow amused, she said, “You’s spek Engish? You’s bited by dark kin eater. I is waited for you long time. Come, I fixin you up.”I tried to lift my head; I could scarcely make out the woman. She had feathers growing on her. No that wasn’t right—she was wearing a shawl made of feathers.“Come on!” she demanded. “You want die like dis?”Somehow I forced myself into a crouching stand and half ran after her. I felt myself falling forward as I entered her hut, but could do nothing to stop my fall. When she leaned over me and looked into my face, I could see that she wasn’t nearly as old as she sounded, not much older than forty. And then there was her shawl. I had to crane my head up to see from under my drooping eyelids. It didn’t just have feathers sewn into it. It was a shawl made from the hide of a large bird, unnaturally dyed black. A small cord pierced its lifeless eye sockets and tied where the beak should have been, holding the feathered cloak around her neck.Everything I saw from there seemed to spin in a dizzy blur. She was a witch. The world around me darkened with each motionless twist of my vision. As I slipped into blackness, I hoped that she’d save me. I hoped it, almost as much as I feared what would happen to me if she did save me.Click here to read Chapter 15Copyright 2017: While I encourage you to share this link with your friends and family, please keep in mind that this is copyrighted material. Under no circumstances do you have the right to re-publish any or part of this content without specific written permission from BC Crow and Blue House Publishing.