Three Explorers

The two men who called themselves tropical explorers met in a shadowy tavern in the dusty port of Trifun.

Pero was the younger one, with clear, fair skin and blond hair. The jungle veteran with years of experience in upper-river territories was a short, wrinkled oldster who went by the name of Ranto. He was answering an ad that Pero had placed in the weekly gazette, looking for a guide to accompany him up the Reka river to enter and map uncharted and unexplored regions that were white blanks on almost all maps of the planet’s tropics.

The pair sat down at a small table on the outdoor pavilion of the establishment, where they could converse in strict privacy. It was Pero who took immediate command of the business that brought them together that evening.

“I have asked questions about you and learned that you are the perfect person to accompany me into the portion of the tropical forest known as the land of the dreqs, that no one has your familiarity with it.”

“Yes, I have had much experience in such areas,” nodded the older man. “There are districts that very few of us have entered beyond myself.

“But would you agree to pay all my expenses, which may accumulate into a considerable sum by the time your exploration finishes.” He looked directly into the light hazel eyes of Pero.

“Certainly,” declared the young man. “I have sufficient funds to do whatever I please.”

“I think, then, that I will be your guide up the Reka river, into the land of the dreqs, my friend.” Ranto smiled broadly, radiantly.

–

It was a little past midnight when Ranto walked into an all-night pool room in the slum area just behind the docks of Trifun.

He looked around the smoke-filled front parlor of the place, locating a familiar figure sitting by himself in one isolated corner.

Ranto waved a hand at him and moved over to where the tall, thin figure sat.

The two greeted each other as the newcomer took a chair across from the one who up to then had been alone.

“I have received an offer to guide a young fellow who wants to become an explorer into the dreq region up the Reka. It is amazing that I accepted this job, even though I have my doubts about what the man wants to see.

“Did I do the right thing, Zheko?”

The latter seemed far away, his eyes dreamy and abstracted.

“You must be careful, Ranto. The very existence of the teveqels must never become known to an outsider like the one who made you this offer.”

“Thank you, Zheko,” said the explorer, rising to his feet. “I will take care that my employer does not go into areas where he should not be.”

“Wait a moment, please,” said the one at the table. “I have decided something just now. It will be best, much safer in every respect, if I accompany your party into the jungle.

“Would this man called Pero agree to take me along? You can say that I am well-acquainted with the Dreq region, that I have spent a lot of time crossing that empty sector over many years.”

“I will talk to him about the idea,” promised Ranto. “Perhaps he will accept it.”

“Tell him I can do a great deal for the success of his expedition,” added Zheko.

–

“I am impressed by what Ranto has told me about your background,” smiled Pero when the pair of explorers met him that morning in his hotel room. “You must be fully aware of the continued reports of dangers posed by the native tribes of the upper Reka reaches. Can a couple of hand weapons be sufficient to protect us from any kind of attack from that quarter?”

“It is always difficult to foresee what the tevequels might do. That is what they call themselves and what everyone else has learned to use as the name for these strange people. They prefer to stay out of sight and refuse to communicate with outsiders who enter what they consider their home territory.

“There have been travelers who have gone through their land and never seen any sign of a single tevequel. For all I know, that could be the fate of your expedition, sir.”

“We shall see, then,” replied Pero. “We shall see.”

–

The party of three explorers had three hired jungle traders who were to take care of transporting and protecting the central trio.

Pero was astounded at the rich variety of trees that his group made its initial trek through.

His companions helped identify the species native to the Reka lands.

Muttonwoods, celerywoods, pink mahogany, greenhearts, silver silkwoods, acacia, blackwattles, sailwoods, buttonwoods, flame trees, and stinging trees presented objects of interest as the party made its way deeper and deeper into the tropical forest.

Each night the team of six made itself a camp of two tents to shelter them in the noisy night of the tropical jungle.

Sleep came at once when the trek during daylight was so long and unending. Bodies were ready to fall into slumbering coma in seconds.

It was a little past midnight at the third of the encampments that the group was awakened by terrible, alarmed shouting.

“Stay where you are! Don’t move a muscle! I have you covered with this pistol that I’m holding in my hand, you thief.”

Pero and Ranto leaped forth out of their small tent and rushed to where the sound was coming, the boxes of necessary stores that the hired hands had hauled for the explorers.

One of the trekkers had his weapon aimed at a short, boyish figure in a loincloth who stood in front of a candle tree. The native lad appeared to be trembling, his arms stretched upward over his head.

“What happened?” asked Pero as he stopped and stood facing the culprit who had been caught. “Was this native attempting to rob us of provisions?”

“That’s what it looks like sir,” answered the hauler. “He was after anything valuable that he could steal from us.”

As Pero and Ranto examined the young man lying against the trunk of a tree he had fallen back upon, his head and the body above the waist leaning against the wood.

The face was an ashen white, spare and lacking any trace of fat. An extreme paleness was visible, despite the night’s shadows. Absolute stupor seemed in control of the native. The eyes had a strange redness to the white sector.

From quivering, the body became inert, motionless. The rigidity of a shell appeared to take over, the skin turning waxy, hornlike and oddly unhuman.

A deeper, fuller whiteness became visible. All animation was now gone. The eyes remained open, but had lost all focus. The permanent stare of a statue now reigned. An emptiness in which everything of any value was lost was there.

Pero and Ranto noticed that Zheko had joined them and was also looking down at the native. After a short while, the last explorer began to speak. “This is a serious catastrophe that is taking place. We must take care of this person by taking him to our tent and keeping him in our protection.” He looked away to where the three helpers stood watching. “Take this body to my tent and place him on my bed roll. Do it immediately, quickly.”

Two carriers moved forward and started to fulfill the order just given to them by Zheko.

The latter turned to his two fellow explorers. “We must talk to ourselves, because there are things that I have to tell you of. Let us follow and see how the native boy will be in our tent.”

–

The three figures stood around the inertly prone body. A signal battery lantern provided a minimal illumination, giving their faces a ghostly aspect with shadows from below darkening them.

Zheko spoke in a low tone nearly a whisper.

“First of all, let me give a name to what the two of you saw.

“This lad from this territory is one of the teveqels. You have probably heard that this region has such inhabitants, but were not certain about them, or what made them so different from other tribes and populations. Let me reveal the truth for you.

“A teveqel is a living human who can, in less than an instant, become dead. Actually and thoroughly dead. Without breath, without heartbeat. No signs of thought, no movements or signs of life.

“But then at another moment, the body can return to living. It is just like a miracle. The dead body has not had the time to rot away, to decompose in the slightest degree.

“The teveqel returns to the previous state, as it was before the sudden death.

“”Does what I say make sense? If we wait and watch, we shall see the youth come back to what he was when he was caught trying to steal from our supplies.

“Let us stay up this night and watch as he returns to the life he has temporarily left.”

A deep, solemn silence fell over the three awake in the tent.

–

It was as dawn broke over the tropical forest that the dead teveqel came back to life. Both Pero and Ranto were overwhelmed with surprise and wonder as the youth started to breath and engage in tiny movements.

Eyes could see once more, as the head raised up and looked about at the three explorers ranged around on both sides. Zheko, standing across from his comrades, suddenly began to murmur words to the revivified one, in a tongue that neither Pero or Ranto could understand in the slightest.

Zheko raised his head and spoke to the other explorers.

“I told him to rise up and take off for his home. We do not intend to keep him here or hold him responsible for anything at all.

“He has been reborn and is now free to resume his previous life and activities as they were.”

The veteran guide wave at the youth with his right hand. That was sufficient signal for the native teveqel to spring to his feet and rush forth out of the tent. He was soon hurling himself along a path into the dark shadows of the jungle as morning light penetrated and illuminated the tops of the towering trees.

Not one of the three explorers said a word for a considerable period.

–

The expedition continued onward after a small, quick breakfast of hardtack. Zheko, as before, led the way along the narrow, winding path. After the other two explorers, the hired hands brought up the rear, carrying provisions and supplies.

Only during the stop at midday did the guide continue his previous explanation concerning the young teveqel who had come back to life.

“For a long time, this condition of being reborn after dying was confusing to those who happened to come from the outside and encountered it. Some took it to be the same as or similar to what in the offshore islands is referred to as a zombie. But that is not at all accurate.

“The death of the teveqel is a genuine one. The body and the brain no longer operate in any way. Then, in a single moment, life returns in its full completeness. The individual moves and thinks again, like before. It has been totally dead, but now it is living once more.”

Zheko paused, looking first at Ranto, then at Pero.

“What we saw last night and then this morning must never be communicated or described to anyone beyond this jungle territory. Each of us has to keep it secret. That is necessary in order to protect this forest from the curious, from those who could harm the teveqels.

“Is that understood?”

Both Pero and Ranto nodded their heads to that.

–

The file of trekkers was crossing the open area surrounding a small pond when one of the haulers suddenly cried out “I see natives on the right of us!”

The line halted and all eyes turned in that direction, spying a group of males wearing only loincloths and staring at the intruders into their tribal territory.

Zheko was the one who decided to move on the strangers who were stalking the exploration party that he guided.

He took several steps out of the linear formation that had been walking past the pond when the group of men in the distance began disappearing into the tropical forest behind them. All but one of them preferred escaping the potential danger of the outsiders.

This individual stood his ground, not intimidated by the approaching form of one of the unknowns. The native raised his hands, holding a sling made of strangler wood and vine. He aimed his long-range weapon at the man he saw coming in his direction and fired off a sharp, solid carved stone, a deadly missile from centuries of the past.

His aim was perfect and accurate, striking Zheko squarely, directly on his temple and felling him down onto the ground.

Then the teveqel warrior vanished from sight.

–

Zheko lay on the dark grass, blood flowing over his face and even his hair. Ranto leaned over his head, then straightened up and spoke to Pero.

“I think he is seriously hurt and his life is endangered. We need to carry him into the shade, under the trees.”

Two of the hired haulers were summoned to pick up and take the wounded explorer back into the shades of the tropical jungle.

Once the task was completed, Ranto and Pero knelled down and studied the still bleeding head wound of their guide.

Ranto took hold of the left arm of Zheko and raised it, feeling for the heart pulse. He waited, then lay the arm back onto the grass.

“He is gone,” whispered the older explorer, looking directing into the eyes of Pero. “Our friend here is no longer alive, but has passed away from the terrible injury he suffered.”

Pero, absorbing what he had heard, began to shake as if under electrical shock. “You are certain?” he asked with trepidation.

“I see no breathing and cannot feel any heartbeat at all. The stone that hit him was a fatal blow. It was a deadly weapon for Zheko.”

The two stared at each other, both of them stunned and puzzled.

“Let’s have a tent set up here to protect the body from the sun,” said Ranto. “Then, we can decide what to do with him.”

“We will have to return to Trifun at once,” muttered Pero. “The hands can carry him back on a litter.”

–

No one wished to bury the body of Zheko out in this tropical forest environment. No, it was preferable to take the trouble of having his remains carried back to the port city for proper burial disposal there.

“Our exploratory expedition is over,” said the saddened, mourning Pero to Ranto. “The entire idea may have been wild, almost insane to begin with.

“I’m sorry that I ever conceived of such a mad, dangerous scheme.”

His fellow explorer said nothing, but gazed at him with equal regret.

–

It took two days of marching for the party to reach the edge of the territory known as the Land of Dreqs.

The tired explorers and their hired hands made camp for the night and prepared to get their sleep as soon as the sun set over the jungle.

Ranto ordered the carriers of the body of Zheko to deposit it beside the tent that he and Pero would be using that night.

The air grew still, with only the sounds of forest insects still audible.

Ranto decided to have a last look at their fallen guide. He bent down over the head of the corpse on the litter, when the unexpected occurred.

“Pero, come here,” he called out with alarm. “Come here right now,” he repeated.

The other explorer rose from where he was lying in the tent and moved quickly to where his companion stood beside the litter.

Ranto began to speak as if he had fallen into a trance.

“He is not now dead, but is drawing breath. If you look closely, you will see that is so. His chest moves higher and higher each time he breathes.

“I believe that life is returning to his body. This is exactly like what happened to the native boy. It is the same kind of miraculous wonder as that was.”

The two men stood petrified, witnesses to something they did not truly comprehend or accept.

–

His head propped up on a small pillow, the fully conscious Zheko spoke to his two partners in the failed expedition into the tropical jungle.

“I confess that I was born a teveqel like all the others. When I was a young child, my parents died and I was left a helpless orphan. A social agency found me and took me to Trifun to be raised in an institution. I learned necessary ways and means of concealing my nature as a teveqel.

“My life has been one of continual transformations and the need for keeping them secret. I have had success in my dual life, going through an endless series of death and rebirth, over and over.

“But an inner voice now tells me that the end is near. The wound I received is too great to overcome. If so, then I prefer to be buried in the land of the dreqs, from which the teveqels originate.

“Please satisfy that final request that I make of you, my comrades.

“Thank you. I will now say farewell to you both.”

The Face Pretenders

Jon This was only five years old when he realized that he had an ability that no one around him, his family or playmates, shared in any way. At once he learned that his protean power of changing his face at will had best be concealed in order not to shock those around him.

As he grew up, he developed the habit of suppressing his imitation of faces different from his own. It was a quality that held enormous potential dangers should others learn of such an unnatural gift.

Jon taught himself to grasp and memorize the facial features of any target he chose. Later, out of sight and alone, he made his own face into the exact mirror image of the one he had focused attention upon.

The born pretender was, by the time he reached adulthood, a person who often stared with attention at faces he was interested in. He realized that he had to chose male faces, never a female one. There was no need to experiment in gender confusion, Jon came to understand.

Individuals such as himself were rare, so that the young face pretender did not come across anyone with the same characteristic until he became a freshman at the metropolitan university.

It occurred because he signed up for a course in Universal Comparative Literature, a subject he had grown deeply interested in while a student in preparatory school.

The lecturer was Shal Freno, an assistant professor in the Department of Prose. Like all the pupils in his class, Jon was assigned an appointment with the teacher in the latter’s tiny office. The purpose was to discuss the student’s progress in the course and answer any specific questions he might have about the reading material or the lecture topics.

Jon sat down in a plain chair next to Freno’s desk and waited for the professor to begin.

“On the first day that our class assembled and met, I noticed something important about you, Mr. This. It became evident to me from the look of your face, and the expression I saw on it.”

All at once, the face of Shal Freno started to change as if it were a piece of plastic. The nose grew shorter, the mouth wider and the lips fatter. Blue eyes transformed into greenish hazel. The hair darkened and became thinner.

Jon gaped in wonder.

The face of his instructor changed into a copy of his own.

I am now gazing at myself, the astounded young man said to himself.

How can this happen? Can other persons reshape their faces like I do?

Shal began to speak reassuringly to the startled, disoriented Jon.

“I can imagine that you may never before have had contact with another face-changer. That is pretty evident from your immediate reaction to the unexpected transformation of my own visage. I had a similar experience when I was around your age, my good man.

“The reason that I performed this change in front of you is a simple one. Since our species are quite rare, it is an important event when one of us happens to discover another. It is thrilling to me to find a face-transformer in my comparative literature class, indeed.

“But my purpose at this time is to present you with an invitation, Jon. What would you say to the proposal to join a small group of changers that I am the head of? We meet together and have conversations about our capabilities. You would learn a great deal from the other members of out circle, I assure you. It is a warm, close comradeship that all of us share together.

“There will be an evening of socializing among the members in two nights time. It is to occur at my apartment near the university. I beg and urge you to be present. Will you agree to attend?”

“Yes, of course I will,” mumbled the overwhelmed, shaken student. “It promises to be a great opportunity for me to find out more about the possibilities in my future.”

–

Jon was first of the guests to arrive at Shal’s small but convenient flat.

“I’m glad you came early,” said the professor once the two were seated. “You will find that the other two changers who belong to my group are quite different from each other, as well as from me.

“One of them is in the used auto business, and the other is an actor on the legitimate stage. We will provide you an entire rainbow of professional and character variation. The only thing that we perhaps share among ourselves is the mutability of facial form.”

At that moment, the front bell of the apartment made a shrill sound.

Shal excused himself, rose, and moved to see who was at the door.

He came back with a tall, skinny freckled man with short blond hair and gray eyes.

“This is Gub Mono,” announced the host. He then named his university student for the new entrant. “Gub is well known in used cars,” he added as Jon rose to shake hands with the man of trade.

“Why don’t you both sit down and get to know each other,” proposed Shal.

Before Jon had a chance at a conversation with the other, the bell rang once more. “It has to be Lamt,” said the professor as he turned and went back to the front door.

Jon instantly surmised that it must be the third member of the coterie, the one identified as a thespian who appeared in plays.

An athletic figure with handsome features followed Shal into the living room and was introduced to the newcomer. Curly black hair and sky blue eyes revealed that he was one who enjoyed enormous stage presence and self-confidence.

“So glad to finally meet you,” beamed the actor. “Shal told me about our new recruit and how much of an addition with great potential he discovered in one of his literature classes.”

The four males sat down in a circle of comfortable stuffed chairs and Shal started to explain what he had in mind for the evening.

“I think it makes sense if Jon is given the opportunity to change into each of our faces, one-by-one. That, I believe, is the best way that he can get acquainted with each of us as differing individuals.”

“That seems wonderful to me!” managed to say the exhilarated new member of the ring of changers.

–

Jon found himself socializing with other members of the small group he was now part of.

Since Professor Freno preferred not to be seen with a student, he rarely got together with the new recruit.

Both Gub and Lamt invited their new comrade to eat with them at various restaurants in the city. Both older males acted as patrons of the younger face-changer.

Gub showed him about his giant lot of veteran vehicles of the streets and roads, both the newly old and the much older.

“You should get yourself some wheels,” joked the exuberant merchant as they went into his tiny office. “That’s the only way to impress most young females, let me tell you. I should know. That’s the great secret of my success with the ladies.”

The pair exchanged broad, knowing smiles.

“I tell you this though: there is one type of dame impossible to make time with. That’s the artistic and intellectual kind. Like the painter that our friend Shal is trying so hard to win with.

“I warn him he is wasting his moves on Jana.”

“Jana?”

“She’s the one who painted his portrait for his apartment. That’s how the two of them met. He went crazy over this girl, and he’s turning more desperate all the time.

“Jana has a spell over him. He’s become her slave. But I gave him a lot of warnings about women like this Jana. Stay away from them, I told him. But he just wouldn’t listen to me.”

“That’s too bad,” said Jon with a little moan. “It shouldn’t have happened to Shal.”

–

“There is a person I want you to meet tonight,” the professor told the pupil who was now part of his inner group of face-changers. “We are going to have a visit from the closest individual to me. She is a beautiful artist with a sparkling personality. I think you will understand why I find her enchanting, because she will be here in the apartment in just a short time.

“You will like Jana Ksan, I guarantee you,” predicted Shal with a grin.

The door buzzer sounded. “I’ll get it,” said Jon, heading for the entrance.

As he opened the door, he saw the young woman for the first time, and the sight of her set off a mental nova in his brain.

Instantly he recognized she was spectacularly attractive. Her beauty was the most original characteristic she possessed. Her chestnut eyes matched with perfection her smooth brown hair. Everything he saw was in harmonious unity with everything else about her.

“You must be Jana,” said Jon, nearly stuttering with excitement.

“And I take it that you are Jon,” she chirped. Her voice was smooth and high in tone.

“Come right in, Shal and I have been waiting your arrival.”

Jon stepped back, allowing the lovely Jana to enter as Shal came forward to greet and welcome the woman in his life.

–

The condition of being in love was a new situation that furnished serious difficulties to the youngest of the face-changers in Shal Freno’s little circle.

How was he to win the affections or even the body of his beloved?

Jon pondered the puzzle presented him by beautiful Jana. He feared making some terrible, stupid mistake in dealing with the woman who had captured his heart.

His mind kept returning to his rare gift of recreating his face.

Was it possible to change his features in order to be victorious in pursuit of his goal? Could he assure himself that he would be attractive to the object of his emotions?

Whose face should he appropriate? Jon asked himself with anxiety.

Who was to be the one he imitated?

The answer dawned upon him and strengthened. It had to be the handsome actor, Lamt Wava.

His was the face that could win the heart of fair Jana, concluded Jon.

–

It will be possible to convince her of a different identity, the changer convinced himself.

The same height, the same body build in both of us, Jon told himself.

Yes, he came to believe it could be done.

Jon took the day off from his classes in order to prepare himself for the impersonation he planned to carry out.

–

The pretender purchased a wig with curly black hair that was close to what Lamt Wava had. He found eye lens of a blue similar to that of the actor.

Studying himself in his mirror, Jon felt satisfied that the young woman would surely take him for the handsome thespian once his face was remade and reshaped.

He looked up the address of Jana’s apartment and went there once he had put on the face of Lamt Wava. It was early evening, and the twilight still had a western sky illuminated from below the city’s horizon.

–

Jon was about to press on the door bell when he heard sharp footsteps from the walkway behind his back.

Who could it be walking out there? he wondered as he turned around to find out the source of the sound.

In the disappearing, fading light of oncoming night, the face-changer saw what he never expected or thought conceivable.

It was the face of Lamt Wava, the handsome, athletic actor that was out there.

The footsteps had stopped, because the walking figure had halted and was peering in horror directly forward at the second face, the duplicate of the one that he wore at that exact moment.

Neither Jon nor Lamt understood what the situation was for several long seconds.

The shadows of night deepened and thickened around them.

Perhaps at the same instant of time, both of the face-changers comprehended the reason for what was happening to them.

One of them was the original, and second was an eerie copy.

All at once, Jon began to grow dizzy. His head and then his entire body started to sway. He lost his balance and fell forward toward the cement surface of the walkway.

As his consciousness faded out, the face of the pretender reverted back, second by second, to its original, natural form and pattern.

Jon This became Jon This again. The first face replaced the secondary one.

The comatose changer lay on the hard surface with surface skin wounds caused by the fall and collision with material reality in the form of cement on the ground.

Lamt stared at the prone figure, then had the presence of mind to step to the door and ring the door bell.

Jana appeared within a score of seconds, finding the actor standing there in the gathering gloom.

“We have to call for emergency first-aid,” he muttered to her in a hoarse, perplexed voice. “Something terrible just happened out here.”

The two entered the flat in order to summon medical aid for the fallen face-changer.

The Yellow Smok

“Why are you so interested in the varieties of snakes that we have here around Shar Mountain?” asked Vojdan, the literature teacher. “Why is that so important for you to know? How would such knowledge be of any possible use to you, Marushke?”

Mara Kondova considered herself a professional journalist for Nova Makedonija, the most important and prestigious daily newspaper in the capital, Skopje.

“It is a subject that promises to have a lot of interest for our reading public,” answered the short, thin young woman who had finished her university education only three years before. “I myself have always had a fascination with the snakes native to our country. Is it so odd or unusual to possess such a lively curiosity about our reptiles?”

Vojdan stared at her circular, shiny face. “I hope you realize what strange creatures have become the focus of your attention, Mara,” he said with a sigh.

–

Shar, the highest mountain in the Macedonian Republic, occupied the northwestern corner of the country, where it bordered Kosovo and Albania. In summer, when Vojdan Drinski motored into the region with Mara the correspondent, the area had turned into an ocean of grass, the largest pasture center in all of Europe. The number of skiers vacationing there was at a low point.

Vojdan and Mara had reservations at a hotel in Mavrovo, the town beside the mountain lake around which extended Mavrovo National Park. The pair planned to spend a week of vacation hiking about and absorbing the natural panorama of the highland with its pine and beech. This will provide both of us an opportunity to decide how much further we wish to take our close personal relationship, the two of them agreed.

“This trip will be a kind of test run for how we feel about our future,” Mara told Vojdan as the two climbed into his car for the journey into the western mountains around Mavrovo. She gazed at him with an emotional, liquid look in her raven eyes.

Neither talked much as they motored toward their destination, as if wishing to let the other absorb the solemn beauty of what surrounded them on all sides.

“Let’s stop and take a walk,” proposed Vojdan at the wheel. “We can see a lot of what these forests and mountains have always contained.”

The two soon took a stroll along the side of the narrow road, after the car was parked in a small, barren inlet area.

All of a sudden, they came to a halt, both spying a short old man dressed in outworn, local clothing. On his head was a pyramid-like woolen shepherd’s cap that might have been the kind worn in this region a hundred years ago.

The stranger stopped. Looking with curiosity at the vacationers, he began to question both of them.

“You must be from one of the towns, not from around here. Is that what you are, outsiders who came to see our lake and the great park around it?”

“Yes, we drove here from Skopje,” replied Mara, studying the little local man. “Are you a person who resides around Mavrovo and the lake?”

“My name is Gogo and I live in old Galichnik,” he mumbled. “Not too many of us are left in the community today. Most people have died or moved away.”

“Your hamlet is one with a rich, glorious history,” said Vojdan. “It would interest us a lot to visit and see what it is today.”

“Perhaps Gogo would be willing to act as our guide to Galichnik,” announced Mara with evident enthusiasm. “I am certain he knows everything important about that mountain community.”

“Almost every family is now gone,” moaned the old man. “But I am willing to lead you there and show the two of you about.

“Do you have good shoes for climbing? The mountain is very steep and exhausting, especially for city dwellers like you two.” He stared at Mara, causing her to grow self-conscious about how he was focusing so intently.

“Can you be at our hotel early tomorrow, in the morning?” asked Vojdan.

Arrangements were arrived at quickly and Gogo soon departed, continuing his strenuous walk on the mountain path.
–

The threesome set off from the Mavrovo hotel, making the four-kilometer walk upward toward Galachnik.

“The air is so clear and pure,” remarked Mara as they took a rest on the path.

“It is no wonder that the mountain is named Bistra,” the old man told here. “We know how healthy it is to breath the air of this mountain. There are a lot of very aged people who live among us here.”

“If we are rested, we can continue onward,” suggested Vojdan.

The two visitors followed their guide along the narrow, steep path, but in a short time the unforeseen happened. It was Mara, walking in the middle of their file, who lost her footing, began to stumble, then fell to the ground.

Vojdan rushed from the rear, Gogo turned around upon hearing a noise and came down from the front.

“I think I twisted my left ankle,” said the young woman.

“We will get you up and help you make it to my house above us,” promised Gogo.

Vojdan lifted from the right and the old man from the left. She succeeded in rising to her feet, the two males providing her support.

At a slow pace, the three renewed their climb to Galichnik, the injured Mara in the middle.
–

Gogo, a widower who lived alone, had room for his two guests to stay till Mara was well enough to make her way back to Mavrovo and their hotel.

“You may take the mattress in my inner room,” the mountaineer told Mara. He then turned to Vojdan and informed him that they could share the main chamber of the house. “I have thick woolen blankets and they will provide adequate bedding for both of us,” said the old man.

After sharing a small late meal of bread and kashkaval sheep cheese, the three turned in after watching the sun set in the Albanian west.

All of them fell asleep quickly, Mara continuing to feel minor pain in her left leg and along that side.
–

Was she awake or asleep when the vision occurred to her?

There was to be a measure of uncertainty in the memory of Mara about her true state at that time.

What she saw was a dull yellow, and she at once took it to be some form of serpent. Her study and training provided her mind a rich vocabulary pertaining to the snakes in Macedonia, yet it was difficult for her to make any immediate identification.

She had seen many museum samples in Skopje and many living creatures out in the field, but never anything as smooth or slimy as this one.

What is it I am seeing? her unconscious mind was able to ask itself. Even in a coma, she tried to find the proper name for this variety of snake.

Names familiar to her occurred, as if she was making a scientific determination while not at all awake.

The idea of a poisonous otrovnica entered her sleeping thought activity. No, the thing might be considered some type of viper, but it that not resemble anything that bit to kill and injure.

But there was a hint of danger and enmity about its shape and how it moved ever closer to her.

She reviewed her ideas and images of the sharka, the lutica, and the osojnica of Macedonia.

A parade of adders and vipers pulsed through her unconscious memory of past study and field expeditions.

The names of the dzhitka, the zhdrepka, and the poskok passed through her deep neurons and dendrites.

On went her indeterminate confusion over what was sliding ever nearer to her.

What did it aim to do? Was it intending to cause harm and injury?

The tension grew with each mini-second of the experience.

Is this only a dream, or is something malicious and fatal about to happen?

The answer struck her from out of the blue. That had to be what it was.

A smok, a yellow one.

But then the sleeping, dreaming mind of Mara literally blanked out, as if it completely failed to function, as if it no longer in any sense existed. As if it had never really had anything substantive to it.

The dream was over and gone.

In less than an hour, dawn arrived and Mara again awoke. What she had seen had captured and occupied most of her newly conscious thoughts.

–

“I had a terrible, frightening nightmare during the night,” she informed both Vojdan and their host, Gogo, as the three ate a shepherd’s breakfast of dark bread and homemade cheese on a small porch overlooking the valley below Galichnik.

“What did you experience or see?” asked her traveling companion and lover.

“It was some sort of snake,” Mara answered with a visible shudder. “It was hard for me to identify it, but I thought I was dreaming of what is called a yellow mountain smok in the books about Macedonian snakes.

“The reptile was crawling toward me and created an emotion of overpowering fear. I didn’t know at all what to do to escape from the threat it appeared to pose. But then it seemed to vanish in an instant. Or else the dream came to an abrupt, sudden end. I don’t know what it means, and I eventually woke up when the sunlight came into the room.

“Does such a vision have any kind of significance?” she asked both of the men listening to what she said.

Gogo, whose face seemed to have blanched, was first to make a reply.

“You must not alarm yourself over what you may have seen,” he told her in a calm, level tone. “There are many different snakes here in the mountains, and you say that you have studied many kinds of reptiles that live in our country. Perhaps some of what you learned has popped up without your intending it to. Who can say?

“It is perhaps best if you try to forget about this as quickly as possible. I believe that would be best, because you appear to have been frightened and alarmed by what you dreamed.”

“Yes, I agree,” said Vojdan. “Do not preserve any memory of what may have come into your mind during the night.”

The males stared at Mara, who kept her lips unmoving and her voice silent.

“Shall we climb down to Mavrovo some time today, or should we wait a day in order to have you in stronger condition for that strenuous effort?” inquired Vojdan of his vacation companion.

Mara considered several seconds, then answered.

“It will be better if we leave here tomorrow,” she said. “I can use several hours of full rest, and that will make it easier for me.”

“Yes, we can let your body recover,” declared her lover.

–

While Mara took a nap inside the house during the afternoon, the other two sat outside and talked. Vojden grew fascinated by the strange, unusual tone of what the old man was saying.

“I have witnessed a flood of changes in Galichnik and this mountain named Bistra from my earliest days here. A few trips to Tetovo and Gostivar, but for the most part I have stayed put here at home.

“I am a hard-shelled Mijak, as people call us mountaineers of this region. We are unique characters, hardy and independent, but taught by our ancestors to help anyone in severe need.

“We, the Mijaci, can be good in our actions, but there is always the chance of selfishness and evil feelings. That is the other, the opposite side of our character up here in the highland.”

Gogo leaned his head forward and spoke in slow sentences.

“There has always existed a certain kind of monstrous being in our forests. It sneaks about on the ground, hiding itself under the grass and behind the leaves.

“It is a special snake and its skin is a deadly yellow color.

“We know this demonic creature as a variety of smok. Not all of this type are the evil beings, only a very small numbers are so.

“But the yellow smok that I speak of fastens itself upon a single human being, a man or a woman. that person will never escape from its smok. The snake will follow that person wherever he or she may go.

“There is nowhere to hide. The yellow smok follows the path of its mastering individual. And that man or woman becomes obsessed and enchanted by its smok.

“The pair come to love each other. A mysterious devotion grows up between them. They are unable to separate. Their thoughts and their wills become connected and intertwined.

“They will never separate, not until the human person dies. Then, the magical smok must find for itself a new person to devote itself to.”

Gogo fell silent, leaving Vojdan confused and lost.

What is the old man trying to tell me with his story about the yellow smok? wondered the visitor from Skopje.
–

That night, Mara fell asleep with enormous difficulty. Even when slumber came, it was disturbed and uneasy. The vision of the previous night seemed to be haunting her memory. Would the ominous yellow smok make a return?

While she was in the phase of deep, thorough sleep, Mara all at once awakened.

Was it genuine, or did she only dream she was waking up?

Her eyes, piercing through the dark, caught sight of something shining with a ghastly light near where she lay on a raised bed mattress. Was it what she suspected that it was? Had the yellow smok returned to where she had first seen it?

Mara watched the slinking reptile as it moved ever closer to herself.

Did the snake intend to harm her? Would it bite and injure if allowed?

It became evident after a short time where the creature was headed: her head.

What was about to happen? she asked herself.

No answer formed before she lost track of her thoughts and fell, inert and nearly mindless.
–

Mara awoke later than the two men, well after the sun had risen and lit up the sky over the mountain.

The three ate breakfast quickly, because the climb down to Mavrovo stood before them.

Gogo surprised his two visitors by what he now told them.

“Forgive me, but I do not feel well at all. It would be very tiring and onerous to make the walk down to the bottom of Bistra Mountain in the situation that I now feel in my legs, in fact over my entire body.

“The two of you shall have to descend down to your hotel on your own, without me. I beg your forgiveness, but I must not strain myself this morning.”

Vojdan made an immediate reply to this.

“We understand, and we realize that we must return by ourselves. That would be best, considering your painful condition, Gogo.” He turned his head and faced Mara. “You see that we have to go down by ourselves. Let us start out at once. We will say goodbye to our friend who was such a friendly host to us, and make our way back to where we started from.

“Let us get our things together and prepare to start our trek down, Mara.”

The pair shook hands with the old mountaineer and soon made their departure before the summer day reached its peak of warmth and light.

–

When they reached Skopje a little past noon, Vojdan dropped off his companion at her apartment near the University, then drove a short distance to his own flat.

Mara felt uneasy and at loose ends. She sensed that something momentous had happened to her, but could not describe or define it with any accuracy.

Fidgeting and becoming impatient, she decided to try to rest in her own, familiar bed. But that failed, because no sleep or real rest seemed possible.

Mara decided to read a little, looking up snakes native to Shar and Bistra Mountains in her manuals of Macedonian reptiles.

She could find little beyond dry, unhelpful biological facts, but nothing about the life style or behavior of this particular species of snake.

The time slipped by unawares, so that it was almost evening when she put aside her books and went out for a quick dinner at a neighborhood café.

Upon her return home, Vojdan called to ask how she was feeling and what she had been doing.

“Nothing at all except reading a little bit,” she reported. “I have to attempt to return to my everyday routine tomorrow. My vacation ends in three days and then its back to work at the Natural Museum for me. I’ll have to go back to the way that I used to live my life.”

“I can’t forget what Gogo told us about the yellow smok that appeared in your dream,” he noted. “My fear is that what he said may have frightened you, Mara.”

“There is no fear of any sort inside me,” she boasted. “No kind of snake holds any terror for me, because I have come to know them very closely.

“We have to learn how to live with the snakes around us in Macedonia. There can be no alternative to that.”

All of a sudden, Mara realized that she was going to see the yellow smok that night and on every subsequent night as well.

It had become intimately connected to her and her dreams and would be present for the rest of her life.

The Great Intergalactic Emptiness

Captain Chen Gan felt confident in crossing the taixu void at the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy. His zairen was a spaceship with the brave, experienced Xu Qi as its navigator mapping out its course through the great intergalactic emptiness.

The skipper was a short, fat man who enjoyed frequent, long conversations with the linghang setting the path of the exploratory vessel reaching out beyond the Xinghan of the Milky Way central home of humanity.

“Our ancestor back on the diqia called Earth, in our land of China, would be astonished but proud of our step forward into this distant sector of shenkong deep space,” declared Gan on the navigational bridge of the ship. “We are going to make some spectacular contribution to knowledge of the universe. The entire yuzhou of the cosmos lies before us and those who will come after.”

Tall, lanky Xu Qi, who never liked to speculate, gave the skipper a cool, serious look. “None of us can say what lies ahead for us to find out there,” he ominously warned.
–

As Chief Engineer, Zhao Ling was in charge of the propulsion system of the zairen traversing the extragalactic shenkong.

The athletic-looking technician had no time for exercise, spending all his waking hours tending the optical yinqing, the photic engine driving forth the vessel at super-speed as fast as light itself.

Ling knew enough weiguan subatomics to be able to calculate and estimate the creation of guangzi photons and their conversion into jiguang light rays.

He had studied the science and technology by which guang particles of light could be made to transcend and break free of gravitational zhongli.

Both space and time became manageable and controllable dimensions through mastery of the primal forces of nature such as light.

To the rest of the crew, Zhao Ling seemed a distant, remote, reclusive person only interested in his connection with the photic propulsion system of their spaceship.
–

Qi spoke to Captain Chen with a degree of apprehension in his deep voice.

“I thought that our path would be farther away from any xingyun nebula out here between the galaxies,” said the navigator, his face an orangey mask.

“I am not at all concerned by those gigantic clouds of gas and dust particles,” reacted the commander. “They don’t contain very much. do they?”

“Hydrogen and helium are their main ingredients, but there can also be strange plasmas within them. Those that we see along our projected route are called hewaixingyun, because they are extragalactic ones.

“I fear that any single nebula among them could be an anxingyun, a dark nebula that absorbs all the radiation it can draw from out of the surrounding void. They remain a great mystery in astrophysics, even today.”

The Captain grimaced. “I have read somewhere that most stars have been born inside a nebula, that the gas cloud is the mother of an individual xing that we observe in space. In the far future, there will be stars where the nebular xingyun today stands.”

“Those nebulae out there in the taixu are like nurseries of things to come,” declared Qi, his thoughts far away.
–

Out of the zairen crew of three hundred and fifty, the first to have an experience with a yaoguai was the archivist, Sun Jian.

Keeper of the records of what the expedition saw and discovered, Jian used his background as an historian and media producer to document on recording ribbons and tapes whatever the vessel came across in crossing the intergalactic void.

Private and studious, the archivist spent a minimum of his time with anyone else aboard.

He knew more about Chinese legends and mythology than anyone else of the crew, able to identify vampires, zombies, demons, and monsters with origins on the mother planet named Earth.

Jian sat at his work station, his eyes glued to his monitor’s yingmu screen, when he experienced a sudden, blinding flash of blinding illumination.

It took seconds to adjust to the unexpected interruption of what he was busy doing, but they the archivist began to make out a shining image between himself and his xianshiqi screen.

There was a brilliant, radiant figure wearing a long red robe. Long, ropelike hair straggled down over a circular face that was ghostly pale. Dark almond eyes, swollen and dilated, stared forth directly at the disconcerted Jian.

The latter recognized it instantly for what it was.

He had seen illustrations and drawings depicting the evil monster beings in ancient Zhangguo, the Chinese kingdom back on ancient Earth.

The face vanished in an instant, but Jian would never be the same, for he had with his own eyes witnessed a yaoguai emerge out of his computer yingmu.

Did he dare tell anyone aboard the zairen with him?

–

The person chosen to be the first to be told about what had been witnessed was the zairen engineer, Zhao Ling. This was an independent character who thinks for himself, Jian said to himself. I am certain that he will not laugh at me as having imagined what I saw.

Ling was in his personal cabin, reading and resting, when the archivist knocked at his door.

“I thought that we should see each other and talk,” explained Jian. “Something unusual and interesting has happened to me.”

The surprised man in charge of the photic engine invited the visitor to come in and sit down. The two looked at each other a few moments, till the record-keeper started to speak in a low tone.

“I was viewing through my monitor the void area alongside our spaceship’s pathway, when an unexpected, jarring image appeared on my yingmu. It was a hideous, terrifying face that I immediately identified. Through my wide reading of Chinese ancient folklore, I was able to label it as the frontal aspect of the monstrous evil spirit know to our ancestors as a yaoqai.

“Do you know what that is, Ling?”

“Of course I do,” affirmed the engineer. “I viewed images of it in my history classes years ago. Does anyone still believe that those beings exist? What would a yaoguai be doing out here in the intergalactic taixu?”

“That is what I also wish to find out,” mused Jian with a sigh. “Would you be willing, Ling, to come with me and look for a short time at my monitor screen?”

“I have a couple of free hours,” replied the other, “and I am willing to take a look at what you tell me that you saw.”

–

Jian ran a recording ribbon that held the yaoguai face through his electronic monitor so that Engineer Zhao Ling could see it for himself.

“Do you think it possible to see it again at this time afresh?” the new viewer asked the archivist.

“Let me try to catch the sight in the same direction and position and find out if that is possible,” replied Ling, making adjustments on the instrument settings.

In a few seconds, the same horrible face appeared on the monitor yingmu.

“It’s still out there on that side, in the same general location,” announced Jian. “What do you think we should do next?”

“I am convinced we have found something important,” grinned Ling. “We must go at once to the Captain and report this directly to him.”

“That has become necessary,” agreed the archivist. “I have decided to go to the chuanchang on my own and prepare him for the startling news of what you and I have seen. Once he is convinced, we will be able to show him the ribbon of the two sightings.”
–

The skipper of the zairen was at all times a busy person. Jian had to set up a formal appointment to see Captain Chen Gan in his office behind the navigational bridge at the front end of the spaceship.

The skipper had a large pile of orders and notices waiting on his desk to be signed. He looked up at the archivist and asked him to take a seat.

“How is your work coming along?” asked Gan, focusing his eyes on his visitor.

“Something highly unusual has happened in my keeping of visual records. My monitor contains a ribbon with an astonishing extragalactic sighting. It is not a nebula or some sort of gas cloud that will some day evolve into a star.

“What I have taped on my monitor is an ancient Chinese supernatural entity, the type that has been called a yaoguai for centuries by our ancestors back on Earth in the Xinghan Galaxy.

“As you probably know, sir, a yaoguai was defined as an evil spirit that showed itself to human beings as a horrible monster. It was considered to have demonic properties and characteristics, and had the capacity of tempting men to commit acts of insanity and madness.”

The Captain grew aroused and excited. “You claim you saw this yaoguai out there in intergalactic space, in the taixu?”

Jian gave an affirmative nod. “Indeed, it was visible to me.”

“You may have been hallucinating. Perhaps you were dreaming, but believed that you were awake.

“What you claim to have seen sounds to me like a qihuan tale, some ancient Chinese fantasy legend. Or perhaps it is modern science fiction of the kehuan variety. I understand it is very popular reading among our crew on this zairen.

“We must never allow our xiangxiangli, our imagination to take control of our conscious thoughts. That is not permissible.”

“But I saw this yaoguai out there in the extragalactic emptiness. I have never been so certain of anything. You must look at the ribbon that I recorded, sir.”

His fat face suffused with anger, Captain Chen bolted up on his feet.

“A mad illusion has seized hold of your mind, my poor boy. What you claim to have seen is a figment of your unconscious imagination. It is some sort of wish-fulfillment that only a psychiatrist might be able to explain or understand.

“It is beyond me to deal with what may be bothering you. So, I am compelled to having you treated in our medical infirmary, Jian. You shall be well-treated there. Let us say that you have been overworking and have become exhausted.

“You need some rest time so that you can restore the strength of your capacities. I am certain that our competent medical staff can deal with your self-delusion and bring you back to yourself.”

Captain Chen Gan pressed a button on his desk controls to summon several of his personal aides to take the archivist to the illness dispensary.

–

Ling had growing frustration after Jian failed to show up at his work office. He asked several individuals who lived close to the man who had first seen the yaoguai. No one was able to explain the whereabouts of the archivist.

Perhaps some accident or illness has befallen the fellow. Ling decided to check at the zairen dispensary.

“He is here, but in a private room under medical supervision,” explained a medic who was on duty. “No visits are, for the time, permitted.”

Ling turned and departed, uncertain what the situation was.

–

After checking on operations in the Engine Operations Chamber, Ling decided to eat at the Main Cafeteria, hoping to find someone who could help him with the difficulty that he and Jian had inadvertently become involved in.

He noticed the Chief Navigator, Xu Qi, sitting alone at an outer table of the almost empty eating space. He approached, greeted him, and sat down across from the navigator.

“How are you and how are things going for you in the Engine Chamber?” asked Qi.

Ling looked down at the table as he answered.

“I face a certain problem that is causing me a great deal of concern at the present time. Let me explain. First of all, I cannot get to Sun Jian, who is being held against his will in the ship’s medical dispensary.”

The eyes of Qi seemed to explode. “What are you talking about?”

“Let me explain. He constantly reviews what comes in on our observation cameras fixed on our path through the extragalactic taixu. What he caught sight of out there was so startling and unexpected that he invited me to watch it on his monitor.”

“What was it that he saw?” interrupted the navigator of the zairen.

Ling ignored the direct question. “He told me that he had to inform Captain Chen of the nature of his discovery as soon as possible. But when he went to make a report to the jizhang he disappeared and I could not see or talk to him again.

“The man is in the dispensary at present because it is feared that he has cracked up. The Captain did not accept what he claimed to have seen and suspects that Jian has turned delusional.”

The pair stared at each other until the engineer finally spoke.

“I can get to his monitor ribbons and you will see for yourself that Jian did not invent or imagine what he saw in the vast taixu out there.”

–

Qi studied what appeared on the computer screen as if hypnotized by the yaoguai that looked back at him.

When Ling defined the creature as an ancient evil spirit the navigator told him that he was familiar with the legend and its meaning.

Qi turned his head and spoke with emotion to the engineer.

“I have always had deep fascination with the vast dimensions and possibilities of what exists out in the shenkong of deep space. It is plain to me that galaxies are arranged in great clusters, but that these form even larger superclusters that range even further. It takes my breath away.

“Estimates tell us that our supercluster system contains over 800 clusters with over 100,000 separate, individual galaxies in each of them.

“The supercluster that we are in is over a billion light years from end to end. We shall never see or know it all. The line of galaxies to visit could be nearly infinite in its length.

“But what I have just viewed here has shaken me to my core. I marvel at what there is in this universe of ours, in the great void of the taixu.”

–

Qi, as Chief Navigator, enjoyed the right to immediate access in case of emergency to the skipper of the zairen.

He sent an e-message to the Captain’s private cabin, asking to see him as soon as possible on a subject of importance.

Chen Gan told him to come at once to the leader’s personal compartment.

“What is it that needs my attention so urgently?” inquired the tired-looking commander of the exploratory vessel.

Still standing, Qi proceeded to do so.

As he listened to the Chief Navigator, Chen Gan began to frown and glower at the tall, lanky jizhang of the spaceship.

“That is what you have to tell me, to bother me with?” said the short, fat top officer. “What is going on here? I have already heard the same story from a person now being examined in our medical dispensary. Is there some kind of mass hysteria taking hold aboard? I thought that you were an individual of reason and intellect, Qi. Am I going to have to send you to be diagnosed by our ship’s psychiatric staff? Have we fallen so far off-course as that?”

“I only tell you the truth about what I have experienced, sir,” muttered the navigator. “My hope is that you take what I say most seriously and make your own study of the monitor ribbons that exist.”

But the Captain made a completely different decision.

“I order you to the dispensary, to be examined at once by our medical staff.”

–

It took some time before Ling thought of checking with the Medical Dispensary about the presence of the Chief Navigator of the zairen.

“He is now a patient under our care,” explained one of the medical nurses. “No, it is impossible to visit or talk with him. He is under intense diagnostic observation and mood treatment.”

What was the engineer to do now? He decided to retreat to his office in the rear section beside the photic engine, to consider what course remained for him to take.

He looked over charts on his computer that kept track of the parameters of the laser producing engine propelling the zairen.

What am I looking for? Ling asked himself. How can I convince our Captain that the yaoguai viewed by myself, Jian, and Qi is not a delusional image created by imagination?

Ling searched his charts and his mind, not certain what it was he was after.

He lost his sense of time as he hunted for what he knew not.

–

Could the yaoguai have been projected from an exotic extragalactic site like a quasar, a blazar, or a radio galaxy? Was the image coming from a dark matter filament, or a cloud of ionized plasma of some kind?

Ling allowed his mind to run freely, writing the results onto his monitor of the spacecraft engine.

As time passed, he was compelled to choose to take action.

A message to the Captain now became necessary. Over the zairen wire system, Ling addressed a request to him.

“I must see you to describe a serious problem that is connected to our photic engine.”

The engineer was surprised when a reply came in a few moments.

“Come to my compartment at once,” said the invitation from Chen Gan.

–

The chuanzhang did not offer the engineer a chair, but waited for him to speak at the entrance to his suite.

“What is this engine problem that you claim to have discovered,” he immediately asked Ling.

The latter had prepared and formulated what he planned to say.

“As you know, sir, there have occurred a number of odd, unprecedented sightings through our space-monitoring system.

“The archivist, Sun Jian, and the Chief Navigator, Xu Qi, are at present under observation and undergoing diagnosis in our zairen dispensary, due to unusual claims made by them. These had to do with the ancient Chinese yaoguai.

“Study and consideration has led me to conclude that what they said they saw was a result of the photic exhaust emitted by our ship’s engine. Let me explain.

“Small light particles, called photons, leave the engine system and travel out into empty space, the void that we call the taixu.

“I have made a startling discovery: that this photic exhaust of ours is becoming plasma in its atomic and molecular form. This is totally unexpected.

“But what is happening within our propulsion system has to be viewed in a broader context, that of the extragalactic zone that we are now crossing.

“It us known to astrophysics that various entities can inhabit this void between the galactic clusters. It is possible to find objects such as quasars, blazars, nebulae, and radio formations in such taixu areas. But the one that is of special significance for our vessel and its photic engine is what is termed an extragalactic cloud of ionized plasma. This may contain hydrogen gas to a small degree, but the cloud can be as long and wide as an average galaxy.

“A great quantity of photic energy can be stored and contained within such a plasma cloud.”

“What does any of what you say have to do with those who claim to have caught sight of a yaoguai?” asked the Captain, growing impatient.

“I was coming to that in a moment.

“The key to the whole matter lies in the plasma composition of the yaoguai known to our ancient ancestors back in Zhangguo on Earth. Those evil spirits were beings from the extragalactic void who descended to plague and punish the Chinese people. They came from out of the distant taixu and became part of our inherited unconscious and conscious memory.

“Our zairen, as it passes through this extragalactic emptiness between the galactic clusters, has been ejecting bits of plasma into the void. A unique characteristic of the ionized plasma is its ability to reflect images that originate in the great, galaxy-sized plasma clouds in the taixu.

“That is what I believe is happening. The ionized plasma produced by our own engine is reflecting a distant face that continues to exist in the external plasma cloud. That is how the image of a yaoguai spirit becomes visible on our monitors of deep space.

“Do my ideas make any sense to you, sir?” asked the engineer, hoping that they did.

The Captain stayed mum for a short time, thinking with furious effort.

“I have made an awful mistake, but I shall now correct it.

“I myself shall visit Sun Jian and Xu Qi in the medical dispensary. They will be free to return to their jobs and normal life at once. I intend to apologize to them for the serious error I made.

“I want you to figure out what we must do to put an end to these reflections of the extragalactic spirits, the yaoguai, that come to us from some gigantic cloud of plasma.”

“I shall get on the problem immediately,” promised Ling, smiling to himself.

The jizhang in command of the ship had accepted the story created in his mind’s xiangxiangli.

Was it mainly a qihuan fantasy? wondered Ling.

He hoped that it was more than that.

Dhampirs Do Not Retire

Yakim Sotirov was unusual, a Bulgarian from the countryside who moved to Sofia in his retirement years.

He found an inexpensive tiny apartment in a Krasno Selo neighborhood close to the center of the capital, telling anyone who was curious enough to ask him that he was interested in pursuing his personal hobby of regional folklore. He never mentioned that he focused upon vampire traditions and the vampire-hunters called dhampirs.

Yakim spent a lot of time at the National Ethnographic Museum, a building which had once been a portion of the royal palace of Bulgaria. This was where he happened to meet Dr. Boyan Dukov, the folklorist in charge of the many Nestiya festivals held every winter in the various districts of Sofia.

“You would be interested in the work done by our kukeri groups of young and old amateurs,” said the bearded giant. “They are very enthusiastic about dressing up and dancing about like the traditional village mummers of old.”

“Yes,” replied Yakim with a smile. “It sounds highly intriguing to me. When can I get together with one of the local groups?”

“I’ll take you with me to our general conference for the Sofia region and you can enroll as a kuker. Then I can help you obtain an authentic-looking folk costume and mask for you to wear for a practice session.”

–

Yakim studied with fascination the masks on display on the museum walls.

He saw childlike, dreamlike representations of goats, bulls, rams, and even chickens. Threads, ribbons, and laces of different colors decorated the primal images represented. There was a double-faced masks, humorous and snub-nosed on the left side, frightening with a hooked nose on the right.

A voice from behind him caused Yakim to turn around.

“You seemed to be hypnotized and entranced with the kuker masks,” smiled a short middle-aged man in a black suit. “Let me introduce myself. I am Stoyan Chanev, and I teach Bulgarian literature in Razlog. It is quite evident that you have a great and deep interest in our kuker folklore.”

Yakim proceeded to introduce himself. “I was also in the teaching profession,” he revealed. “I am now retired, but I had posts in various towns and villages in several regions of Bulgaria. That exposed me to a variety of local folklores and I became interested in learning as much as I could about the general patterns and our regional individualities as well.”

“We find the kuker customs and patterns everywhere,” noted Stoyan. “In fact, they extend into both Serbia and Macedonia as well. They go back many centuries in time, to pre-Slavic civilization.

“The kuker celebrations have been traced back to the Thracians and their worship of Dionysus. There is an amazing resemblance to what is known of ancient pagan rituals tied to that god and his power to turn winter into spring. Have you read of that theory?”

“Yes, I know of it,” said Yakim. “I hope to learn more by participating in a kuker group from Sofia at the New Year’s festival at Pernik, southwest of here.”

Stoyan grinned. “We will be seeing each other there, for I plan to be taking part also.”

The pair agreed to look for each other at the national celebration, then shook hands and parted.

Yakim did not feel satisfaction upon thinking later about having met Stoyan Chanev. He had an uncanny sense that there was something terrible hidden behind the peasant façade. There seemed to be a warning about his inherited dhamphir character.

For the first time since he had become an adult, Yakim may have come across a man who had the genetic nature of a vampire concealed within him.

–

“Your father died a dhamphir who hunted vampires,” his paternal grandmother had whispered to him when he was six years old. Yakim had never forgotten that notable event of his childhood.

Was he also fated to be a vampire-hunter with a mind able to identify and combat those demonic entities?

Such a question was reborn in the fearful thoughts of the retired secondary-school teacher.

But first there came preparatory exercises with the kuker group in Sofia under the leadership and guidance of Boyan Dukov. In the days after New Year, Yakim put on his mask and costume several times for public performances at scattered sites about the capital. He grew adept at the inherited dance steps and ritualistic gestures expected of a kuker. His guise was that of a primeval beast that resembled a great ram.

Then came the national festival in late January held in Pernik, 19 miles southwest of Sofia.

Yakim, traveling with Boyan by train, was worried by knowledge that he would be seeing the questionable character named Stoyan Chanev during the annual celebration.

Pernik, on the Struma River, looked up on its four sides at Golo Bardo, Vitosha, Lyukin, and Viskyar Mountains.

The team of kukeri led by Boyan settled into their reserved rooms at a tourist hostelry, then went out to enjoy themselves in the pre-festival evening.

As they entered a modest restaurant Yakim caught sight of the short individual who had alarmed and frightened him so seriously when they had met by chance at the Ethnographic Museum in Sofia.

He attempted to act as if he had not sighted or recognized the man with the personal aura of a semi-dead vampire.

But, as he feared, Stoyan Chanev noticed him in the entering group and came over to their table within a minute of their seating themselves in the rear of the eatery.

The little kuker, dressed in a formal business suit, greeted Boyan first, before speaking to anyone else.

“Are you ready for the competition for best mummers, my friend?” he said, looking down the table and fastening his chestnut eyes upon Yakim. “I see an acquaintance of mine, one I met at the museum when I was in Sofia,” smiled the one with the demonic aura.

“Yakim is our newest member,” explained Boyan, “yet I am amazed at how much he knows about the history of our cult-like activity. Yakim is dedicated with all his heart and soul to preservation of the ancient masks and rituals that are so important and valuable for us.”

What Stoyan did next was an unwelcome surprise to the man who had the characteristic nature of a dhampir. He stepped down the table and took possession of the empty chair immediately next to Yakim.

“How are you this evening?” asked the middle-aged enthusiast. “You must be greatly excited at being part of a kuker team at this highest of our folklore activities. If Boyan is lucky this year, you may be returning to Sofia with the top mummers’ prize this time.”

Stoyan smiled in a manner that Yakim judged to be sardonic and satanic.

“Where are you staying, Stoyan?” all at once inquired Boyan from the head of the table. “We have rooms at the Vitosha hostel.”

“That is very near where I am located, at the hotel directly across from your place,” answered the small man, his eyes watching the face of Yakim as if searching to catch any reaction. “You should come and visit me and my colleagues from Razlog when you have the time.”

“Or you should walk across the road and come see us, Stoyan,” said Boyan with a pleasant laugh.

A waiter appeared to take orders from the kukeri team, while Stoyan excused himself and walked off.
–

How can a dhampir exist in safety when there is a vampire nearby who appears to be conscious of the proximity of someone whose nature is to pursue and destroy him?

Yakim knew it would be impossible for him to fall asleep that night. His room was lightless and the hostel seemed without a sound. But he was unable to feel any sense of safety. His mind was consumed with the problem of how he was to deal with the potential dangers for him in the present situation.

The temptation was for him, as a vampire-hunter, to take direct, offensive action against the evil being there with him in Pernik. That appeared to be his moral duty under the circumstances.

But aware of the wily cleverness of the undead condemned to endless existence in this world, he hesitated to take the risk of precipitate, careless attack upon a vampiric human being.

Yakim remained in profound uncertainty as the hours of night slipped slowly by.

What if the one called Stoyan should decide to get ride of the dhampir who had discovered his true identity and essence?

The new kuker felt a sudden coldness penetrating his nerves and bones.

Would he be safer from this menace when he put on his kuker mask and costume for the pagan festival set to begin the following day?

–

Yakim was the first team member to finish putting on his ram outfit early the next morning.

He studied himself in a small mirror in his hostel room. The horns on the mask had a strange bent to them, the nose and the ears were those of an unworldly monster no longer in natural existence.

Yakim recognized that a kuker such as he now represented combined aspects of the real and the imaginary, the rational and the animalistic. He began to hope that the atavistic outer surface over him might give him protection from the evil demon he now was certain to have to confront.

–

In the light of the winter dawn, kuker groups from many places lined up for their morning parade.

Their local names varied: survakali, chaushi, babugeri, stanichari. Masks could be gigantic and monstrous or the size of a normal head. Some held small mirrors to protect the wearer from evil spirits.

Gaping jaws, horns and tails, and snapping beaks were visible on certain men.

Yakim emerged from the hostel in full costume, his ram mask one of the largest and fiercest in his group led by Boyan. His outer costume, made of goat hair, had figures of eagles on it. The ram mask was attached to his head by straps. Tassels hung from both sides. A scarlet kerchief covered his shoulders. Small mirrors were meant to give him intangible protection.

Across the street, the team that included Stoyan Chanev came out onto the street with its masks on.

Yakim knew at once who the shortest of their kukers was. He looked away as soon as he identified the disguised vampire whom he dreaded, in the mask of a primeval beast.

The team of Boyan, as they had practiced many times, lined up in an irregular line and began to gyrate about, ringing their belts of small bells. Out of their mouths came ancient chants they had memorized back in Sofia.

The group to which Stoyan belonged lined up immediately behind Boyan’s. They were soon dancing about and singing their own incantations, joining a general cacophony on the street.

The point in time arrived when the team led by Boyan entered one of the neighborhood squares of Pernik and started to spread out and scatter among the crowd of ordinary on-lookers who were observing the coming and going of different groups of kukeri.

Without looking back, Yakim had a sense that the man who called himself Stoyan was close behind him.

In desperation, he made a decision to take the risky step of breaking away for the purpose of confronting the one he had identified as undead.

Yakim rushed away from his comrades, entering a narrow lane on one side of the square.

Would Stoyan follow him? Certainly, a vampire was sure to do so.

I will have to grab hold of him with my bare hands, the hunter said to himself.

The solution will be to take him by the neck and choke him into submission.

Can a vampire be defeated by physical force? I shall have to find out whether my strength is sufficient to accomplish such a victory.

A dhamphir must marshal the force and courage for direct combat with an evil menace like this.

Yakim stopped and turned around, catching sight of the short kuker he knew would be following him.

Stoyan stopped in his tracks. He peered through the eye holes of his mask at the one in the ram mask. For several seconds, the pair stared at each other.

“You vampire, I curse at you!” came a yell, out of the mouth of Stoyan, through the lower face hole of the shorter kuker.

The latter reached under his costume and drew out a small dagger that had been in his inner belt.

Stoyan rushed forward, surprising the mesmerized Yakim with his speed and courage.

As the knife’s blade went through the other’s mask and struck the neck artery, the man who had believed himself a dhamphir realized what the truth was.

He was a vampire who mistook himself for a vampire-hunter.

The little man he had taken for a vampire was in reality a dhamphir on the hunt for those like him.

Knowledge did not and could not save Yakim from defeat at the hands of a genuine vampire-hunter like Stoyan.

Only later, after the end of the kuker parade and rituals, did someone notice the dead body lying in a Pernik lane.

The Iazma of Bucharest

The night was one of solid darkness in the Romanian capital.

By 1930, Bucharest had come to be called “the Paris of the East”. The growing city was known for its avant-garde architecture with modernistic structures and art-deco stylistics. All through the 1920s, the central district had been a hotbed of building. Offices, stores, and hotels had gown up on all sides, in all directions. The Athenee Palace Hotel and the Central Market House were gems of post-war architecture in the Balkans.

Unini Square was empty and quiet that late night when the first attack occurred there. A hotel employee, a poor, humble old woman was the victim, probably by mere chance. She happened to appear at a time unfortunate for her future.

An unseen shadow she was unable to sense emerged out of the dark, remaining in the form of an umbra. It grabbed hold of her by the neck and instantly made its fatal squeeze. With all-powerful fingers on both hands the uncanny force killed off any chance of defense. Resistance never arose. The victim fell into instantaneous nullity and lay undiscovered until minutes before dawn.

The Bucharest police had a random murder on their hands, with nothing to indicate who had done it or why.

–

Inspector Toma Stoica of the Homicide Division had thirty years of experience dealing with killings in the expanding, burgeoning Romanian capital.

His enormous body had never before visited such a crime scene, an important downtown square that had been deserted of pedestrians after midnight.

Dark brown eyes examined the red bricks from which the lifeless old woman had been moved away for final disposal. No blood stains or clues to the culprit were visible to Toma’s trained gaze. The case appeared to be a hopeless puzzle at first sight. A crime without cause or reason, done in the anonymity of empty umbra. The detective realized that such a case would probably always remain without answers of any kind.

The tall, heavy veteran headed for headquarters to write up the required futile report.

–

The oldest part of Bucharest was the crowded Lipscani District with cobblestone streets lined with many architectural styles, from neoclassical to art noveau. Many streets were named for the handcrafts that once flourished there, from blacksmiths and shoemakers to furriers and knife-makers. There were many small coffeehouses that stayed open into the late hours of the evening.

One of the latter had an owner who had been born in the city and inherited the shop and business from his father. This older man, named Vasile, operated the last establishment on Strada Blanari, the street of the furriers, to see its patrons leave for home.

Vasile cleaned and locked up his coffee shop and walked off into the dark, shadowy night. The rough pavement heard only his shoes as he ambled along with little light to see by.

There was no way for him to know that he was being stalked by a soundless, unseen menace. The latter reached out and forward, taking hold of Vasile by the throat and putting a stop to his breathing. The attack was too swift and deadly for its target to have any conscious thought or realization.

The old man was alive, then dead in the next moment. There was no one around anywhere to witness the evil.

A passerby discovered the corpse of Vasile several hours later and telephoned a report to the police from his nearby home.

–

Deep intuition told Toma that the two street strangulations were the work of the same perpetrator. There was no other explanation. These were crimes of one stranger upon two other strangers. The victims offered themselves at random, the chokings had no sane, rational motive. A third instance and perhaps more would probably occur before very long.

This is an almost impossible situation for a police investigator, the inspector told himself. Did he have any means by which to prevent further repetitions? The public had to receive warning about the grave, serious danger prowling the streets at night.

I have a close friend who works on a Bucharest daily newspaper, Toma realized. Perhaps he can be convinced to bring the matter to public attention.

–

Florian Goian was a city reporter for the daily Adevarul, a reformist, pro-democratic newspaper very critical of the new King of Romania, Carol I.

Toma found him at his desk in the editorial office and invited him to have a drink with him at a tavern around the corner.

The policeman went directly to the subject that happened to be concerning him.

“I am worried about two recent street murders with no logic to them,” he began in a lowered tone. “An old cleaning woman and the owner of a coffeehouse were the victims.”

“I am aware of the small items that we carried about them,” interjected Florian. “Do you suspect that some madman is loose in Bucharest and could continue on with more murder victims?”

“Yes, that is precisely what my instincts are telling me, and I am desperate to take some action to prevent more of this, but I can’t decide what to do.”

“I sympathize with your difficult situation,” sighed the reporter. “Would it be possible to hire an automobile and roam about the center of the city between dusk and dawn? That sounds more futile and impossible the more I think about it, though.

“Could you try to locate potential culprits by asking questions about past patients at the several mental institutions? I doubt they could make valid predictions or would even agree to cooperate. No, it would be a waste of your time, Toma.”

The detective thought for several seconds before making a decision. “There is still a way for me to do something, though the chance of any success with it may be little or nothing.”

“What is that?” asked Florian with interest.

“There is no reason why I myself couldn’t patrol the streets of the Lipscani on my own, on the lookout for anything that looks suspicious. That district of Bucharest appears to be the one where the danger is greatest for a repetition of the crime of suffocation. I could begin that sort of vigil tonight, in fact.

“What do you think of my idea?”

The reporter frowned. “You would be on a risky course. Toma. It is not one for anyone to be taking by himself. Will you let me join you? We could take different streets and double our area of watching.”

“Yes,” agreed the inspector. “You would be enlarging the amount of watching and coverage, my good friend.”

The two of them smiled at each other.

–

“I will head northward while you stay to the south,” said Toma to his new partner in their independent, unofficial enterprise in the streets of the Lipscani. The night seemed especially lightless because of the thick covering of cloud over Bucharest.

The inspector headed along a sidewalk of a narrow, deserted street. From houses and apartments glowed the lamps illuminating interior private life. Outside, in the lonely shadows, Toma found himself traversing an opposite move.

His mind focused on the riddle of who the murderer might be. What kind of person was involved? How could the culprit be considered a human?

Perhaps there is something with an unhuman character involved, speculated the roaming detective. His mind considered the impossibilities that might lie in a contradictory unreality unlike the Bucharest of 1930.

Could the killer be a fantoma unknown to our kind? Toma wondered.

–

It is time to find Florian and learn what his experience has been, the walker told himself. In all probability, both of us have seen nothing of interest connected to what we are seeking.

Emerging onto the Calea Victoriei, Toma caught sight of a deadly pile lying on the narrow sidewalk. He recognized at once what he was looking at. There had been two identical instances only days before.

But this murder proved to be of a completely different nature.

The face that was visible looked like that of his partner, Florian Goian.

And there was a large metal knife sticking up out of his stomach where he had been stabbed to death.

–

Toma knocked at the front door of a small, modernistic house that had recently been constructed, identified himself and asked to use their telephone on official police business. He then reported the death of the Adevarul reporter to the night shift at central headquarters. Returning to the scene of the killing, the inspector attempted to organize his spiraling thoughts.

Had he himself led his friend into mortal danger and this horrid end?

It seemed natural to feel personal guilt for what had happened in the night.

But such a particular result was certainly unforeseeable, he assured himself.

How could responsibility now be placed upon him? What might he have done in time? Yet Toma decided he had an enormous duty on his own shoulders. The identification and capture of the perpetrator was to be the supreme mission of the rest of his own mortal life.

–

It was early afternoon when Toma reported at Central Headquarters for further assignment. He was certain that his investigating would now be extended into the strange manner in which the newspaper man had been knifed to death.

It was a surprise when a sergeant told him that the Chief of Bucharest Police, Octav Balan wished to see him as soon as possible.

Why would that high official summon him thus? wondered the veteran investigator. His surmise was that it had to concern the stabbing the previous night.

The Chief’s assistant told him to enter the private office at once, his boss was eager to see him as soon as possible.

Toma found Octav Balan, in a bright blue uniform, standing up behind a gigantic mahogany desk, sparkling medals and citations on his wide, expanded chest. The white-haired man was taller than most of the officers under him.

“I have something to tell you, Stoica. This is not going to take long.

“You were acquainted with last night’s murder victim, this Florian Goian who wrote for the Adevarul?”

“We were very close friends for a long time, sir.”

“I shall not ask you to take part in the investigation of the crime. That would be too painful a burden to impose on anyone.

“In fact, the matter is already out of our hands. The Minister of Justice has ordered that the case be transferred to the highest level of state. It will now be taken up by the Prosecutor General and the Department of Internal Security. In other words, this murder is considered a subject for examination by the supreme organs of government. It will be beyond our jurisdiction as civilian police.”

Toma felt sudden confusion. “I do not understand, sir,” he muttered.

Chief Balan was silent for a short time as he considered how much to tell his subordinate. He decided that he could trust in the discretion of Toma Stoica.

“What I am about to say must not be repeated to anyone at any time. It is a matter that involves the highest rank of our state, the monarch himself.

“In March this year, a secret force was organized that involves potential threats to Romanian security. A grouping that calls itself the Iron Guard has formed. They are referred to as the Green Shirts because of the semi-military uniform that they wear even in public. There have been street incidents with them and their so-called Death Squads.

“These right-wing nationalists are a radical threat to our monarchical form of government. They have made the Adevarul newspaper their special enemy in their fanatic hatred. Having recognized Mr. Florian Goian as a reporter, it is feared that one or more members of this wild band of street adventurers decided to make him their victim on the spur of the moment.

“That is how the security wing of the Ministry of Justice sees this case, and why it is no longer to remain in our hands.

“You must stay totally mum about what I have just said, Inspector Stoica.”

The Chief gave Toma a stern, penetrating look.

The detective realized it was a signal to leave.

–

Inspector Toma Stoica, in the weeks that followed, fell into the habit of spending half the night on the streets of central Bucharest, primarily in the district called the Lipscani.

With only a few hours of sleep, he found it difficult to function effectively at his profession of criminal investigation.

The murder of Florian, a case now officially out of his hands, did not appear to be headed to any solution that he could foresee. Neither did the two random strangulations that preceded it.

Was it possible that an unnatural umbra, some shadow of a iazma out of the Bucharest past haunted the streets in 1930?

Although he thought of seeking early retirement and surrendering any claim to a pension, an unforeseen, unexpected catastrophe intervened.

The suffocated, strangled body of the large detective was discovered one morning on one of the side streets of the old artisan area.

There was never any answer to the question of who or what brought about his tragic end.

The Avet

By the end of the nineteenth century, the capital of Serbia had the beginnings of a bohemian district on Skadar Street in what came to be called Old Beograd.

Coffee houses were becoming the hangout dens of writers and artists, but marks of what had been the earlier Gypsy community based there remained in the shadows of Skadarlija, visible only if one consciously looked for them.

Milan Todic, an old man whose entire life had been lived in this particular area, was considered a harmless eccentric, a friendless hermit, by the few who were able to recognize out on the streets. It was possible to catch sight of him late at night. His days were spent on a secret project that would have shocked the entire city of Beograd.

Old Milan was an experimenter with a variety of forms of animal life in the basement of his dilapidated little urban cottage off of Skadar Street. He was engaged in an illegal project that was leading him into dangerous activities.

–

In 1900, Beograd had 69,100 inhabitants, but very little street lighting in the hours of night. All sorts of visions occurred to those out late in the Old City, especially for individuals who had been spending their time drinking.

“I saw what I thought was a ghost, a phantom of the night!”

“There was a large, dark beast of some kind in the back alley that I happened to take by chance. I’ll never go that way after midnight ever again.”

“I was frightened by a strange shape coming toward me on my way home in Stari Grad. It scared me half to death, I swear. What was it? I didn’t stay around to find out. The thing was coming straight toward me and I had no idea what it was thinking or what it might do.”

In time, even the police of the capital became aware of these tales and rumors that floated about through the coffee houses and taverns of the Skadarlija.

Plain-clothes Detective Stojan Basic often dealt with cases of crime in the Old City and had his hand on the pulse of the changing district. Tall and physically strong, he enjoyed good health and a very active curiosity about those around him.

Was there a single factor behind these numerous stories of an unknown being stalking about the district late at night? the investigator wondered.

His vague suspicions became definite when the violent death of a pedestrian occurred in the early spring of 1900.

–

Stojan managed to reach the location of the savage killing at the moment of dawn, as the mangled body of a young man in peasant’s clothing was being placed in a horse-drawn police wagon. A uniformed patrolman gave the detective a fast description of what was known.

“This unlucky fellow just arrived in the city days ago, and he was looking for his first job. That’s the reason he was up and about so early. His neighbors believe he wanted to be down at the Danube docks early in order to get himself a good position for hiring. He won’t be hunting for work from now on.” The officer made a bitter grimace.

Stojan made a brief visual examination of the young corpse, noting how the flesh had been ripped and clawed. Blood had spattered all over the rough clothing and the desecrated torso. He had never up to then seen such bestial attack on a human being.

This had to have been the act of an insane animal of some sort, the inspector concluded as he walked away from the scene of gruesome death.

–

Stojan lived in a lower middle-class neighborhood in the Palilula district just to the east if the downtown square called the Terazije. He had bought a house there for himself and his wife, but had never found a mate for himself.

The middle-aged bachelor had built a reputation as a cool, competent police inspector who possessed an intensively focused mind. He never tired or despaired in his hunt for explanation or a guilty culprit.

The Chief of homicide and serious crimes knew what he was doing in assigning this case of post-midnight mauling and murder to a veteran like Stojan Basic.

A neighbor of the latter stopped the detective to talk about what the Beograd newspapers were printing about the crime.

“They suspect that it was done by some kind of wild animal that came from far away somewhere. But a lot of people disagree.”

“What do they say about this murder?” asked Stojan with sudden curiosity.

The man laughed. “They say that it had to be a phantom avet of some kind.”

“That is a word that our ancestors borrowed from the Turks when they ruled over Serbia,” mused the police investigator. “Perhaps there was something that they left behind them here in Beograd.”

–

It was an aged cleaning woman employed at night by an important bank in the downtown Terazije who was found dead on a side street. She had been on her way to work when viciously attacked and cut up. This case was the exact duplicate of the earlier one, decided Stojan when summoned to the site to examine the body and the circumstances.

There were no clews or evidence that would indicate the character of the attacker. The solution was as much an unsolved riddle as before.

I can only speculate wildly at this beginning stage, Stojan warned himself.

It is best to keep my thinking completely open, he advised his own mind.

I must accept any and all plausible possibilities, decided the detective, even the existence of an avet on the night streets of Beograd.

–

That afternoon, Stojan took a tramcar to police headquarters. He quickly wrote a report on the two incidents of street murder with an ink pen. Before leaving, the idea occurred to him to find out whether there had been anything reported by a patrolman the last several nights from the area around Skadar Street.

One could never predict what of possible value these might contain.

He leafed through the file holding these pages of notes, surprised to find something that drew his attention. It was not so much what the report said as what it might possibly imply.

A coffee-house proprietor, closing up his shop before leaving for home, told a patrolman whom he knew well that he had seen an ugly face of a “rugoba” looking into his establishment from the street for a moment or two, then disappearing into the darkness of Skadarlija at the midnight hour.

The short, brief lines that he read made an imprint on the mind of the experienced detective. An internal sense said to him that this was worth looking into. He could not have given any rational explanation of what motivated him into picking up the opening offered by the incident.

–

Late that afternoon, Stojan entered the “Three Hats” kafana on Skadar Street and found the owner-operator, a fat little man know to his customers as Bora.

After exchanging greetings with the aproned proprietor and asking how he was doing, the investigator got to what was fascinating him.

“I understand, Bora, that you told a patrolman that you saw something as ugly and distorted as a freak-like rugoba looking in at you from the street one night. Is that correct? What did the face look like?”

The large head of the owner seemed to tremble for a moment.

“It was the most horrible thing my eyes ever witnessed,” he muttered. “A monstrous mask of evil, that was what I thought as soon as it looked at me. All out of shape, twisted and distorted. I doubted that it was even human.

“Perhaps it was some unnatural demon trying to make itself look like a human being. It terrified and scandalized me. I still can’t forget how ugly the thing was. That was why I told the policeman, I feared it could be a danger to people who were outdoors in the night.”

Stojan thanked Bora for his helpful information and left the coffee-shop, puzzled even more than before.
–

It is useful for a police detective to have friends in other municipal departments. Stojan knew persons in several Beograd services who had information that could be of use to him in cases he became involved with.

An old sanitation inspector who worked in the Stari Grad district and was familiar with the Skadarlija neighborhood was a person whom Stojan decided to look up and consult with at the central office of the Beograd Health Department.

“Has there been anything unusual anywhere near Skadar Street,” the detective inquired as soon as he located the man he had come to quiz.

The sanitation inspector grinned. “I have to look at some strange, even weird complaints that people make about their neighbors. There was one from some housewives over on Dushan Street, right there in Stari Grad. They told me that fowl, sickening smells came from a small cottage on a side lane. It was making everybody feel ill, it was said.”

“Did you find where the odor was coming from?”

“It was an old fellow who lives like nearly a hermit on the short lane. He said he was sorry, but he was making wine and other things and did not wish to bother his neighbors with the smells.

“The hermit promised to be careful and put a halt to any offensive smells coming out of his house’s basement.

“I had never seen anyone so strange in Stari Grad. He was odd and somewhat scary. But I came back next day and the odor was gone.”

“You recall the fellow’s name?”

“He is called Milan… Milan Todic.”

Stojan thanked him and rapidly departed.

–

Old, broken-down hovels like this one are going to be torn down and replaced with new construction, realized the investigator as he approached the front door of the Old Beograd cottage from which a nauseating stink had been reported.

Only a small strip of weeds separated the one-story building from the lane it faced. The pair of front windows were cracked and dirty.

Stojan knocked at the door several times before it was opened.

The figure who appeared was a short, slightly bent-over little man with snow-white hair and a wrinkled, pale face.

He peered at the visitor with suspicious green eyes that were terribly cockeyed and google-eyed, producing a sense of horror in the detective.

This man is motivated to live a hermit’s life by his ugly, hideous face, understood Stojan instantly. Most people would dread associating with him.

“I have come today to inspect your cottage to see if there are dangers to public health and sanitation here,” lied the police officer. “It is important that I inspect your residence from one end to the other.

“Will you allow me to enter and begin my examination at once, sir?”

He looked into the rugoba face of the short man, waiting for a reply from Milan Todic.

Without saying a single word, the latter retreated out of the way, letting the man who said he was a sanitary inspector into the front room of the cottage.

“I shall start my short, quick inspection here in this room,” announced Stojan in a loud, authoritative tone. He moved to the left, then the right, taking in the few pieces of old, broken furniture visible to his eyes.

Then the detective posing as a sanitation officer moved through a doorway into the kitchen of the cottage. A single small table and two rickety broken chairs were all that stood in that room.

Stojan then moved into the bed room where Milan the hermit slept at night.

He made a visual inspection, seeing a nondescript object used to sleep on and scattered pieces of ragged clothing tossed about on the bed and the floor.

“I want to see your basement, as well,” said the intruder as he re-entered the kitchen again.

The owner pointed to an open doorway and the flight of steps leading downward from there.

As the detective moved in that direction, Milan stepped behind him with caution, as if meaning to follow him into the lower level of the structure.

Since his back was turned toward the hermit, Stojan was unable to see what the other was up to as he quickly picked up a large, heavy club-like piece of wood that leaned against one wall of the derelict kitchen.

That object became the weapon that Milan used in striking the visitor from behind on his round felt hat.

The blow was a hard, powerful one that hit Stojan on the top of his scull, smashing through his Western European head covering and instantly knocking him unconscious.

The body of the police officer fell down the steps, striking the solid brick wall of the underground part of the cottage and causing minor wounds and skin injuries to the stricken victim of violence.

Milan stood for a while at the head of the stairs, looking down at what he had done to the person who had invaded his personal little kingdom.

–

Stojan awoke the following morning, lying in what looked like a cage-like cell of some sort that the hermit had himself constructed down in his basement.

He raised himself to his feet, feeling aches and injuries to his body.

His hat was no longer present on his head or visible anywhere in the wooden cell that held him.

He looked out into the dim light entering from a single broken window. His eyes took in a large, beastly-looking object that seemed to be some kind of sleeping, unconscious animal. It was immediately clear to him that he was looking at the horrid rugoba reported to have been seen at night on the streets of Old Beograd.

Here it was, asleep in the basement of Milan Todic, the eccentric little man who lived all to himself.

But then the detective heard footsteps on the stairs that led down from the kitchen. It had to be the resident owner, keeping him prisoner.

He must provide me some sort of explanation, said Stojan to himself. I shall find the answer to what has been happening on the streets.

–

Milan stood next to the large chair in which sat the hairy, monstrous beast that appeared unconscious. He addressed Stojan in a slow, muffled tone.

“This is what I have come to call my very own avet. I am the one who made it what it is: a phantom ghost or apparition that haunts the streets of Beograd late at night.

“It possesses angry instincts that I have put to use. This creature of mine gains me what I crave with all my mind and soul: final vengeance for all that other people have done to me. They forced me to take a feeble-minded villager from the south and make him my personal weapon.

“I worked out the method of making that country fool into the avet he has become. And now I intend to do the very same to you, Mr. nosy inspector.”

Milan stepped close to the cage that held Stojan. The prisoner now noticed for the first time what the hermit held in one hand.

It was a farm whip, the kind used in taming stubborn, strong-willed animals.

All at once, Milan raised the arm that held the dangerous tool of torture.

Is this madman about to attack me with that whip? worried Stojan in terror.

Events occurred with astounding rapidity.

Before Milan was able to crack his whip in the direction of the detective two arms grabbed him from his rear.

It was the avet, the villager transformed into a wild hairy beast, who was attacking its master from behind.

The hermit, no longer in control of his own arm or the whip held in his hand, turned his face about to find out what it was hindering his actions.

He let out a growling sound, attempting to shout an order to what he had created from the villager he had kidnapped and remade into something else.

Stojan watched in horror and astonishment as the being called an avet took Milan by the throat and choked the breath out of it.

The detective watched as Milan fell to the basement’s brick floor.

Within seconds, he saw the avet fall unconscious beside the body of the one who had mastered and changed him into a murderous beast.

It took five minutes for Stojan to release himself from the caging that held him.

He rushed upstairs, then out of the decrepit cottage.

How am I going to report what happened to me in there? the investigator kept asking himself as he fled.

The Gold-Mine Phantasm

The haunting apparition appeared when the Argo Tunnel’s construction began in 1893.

Idaho Springs lay 35 miles west of Denver and was near some of the richest veins of gold ever found anywhere.

With a multiple number of mines close to each other, the plan was to dig a deep, long tunnel for the purposes of water drainage, ventilation, and the transportation of gold ore to the Argo Gold Mill. The latter was the largest such facility in the world at the time.

Three underground diggers near the entrance to the tunnel saw the terrifying sight near the end of their work shift.

It seemed to glow a pale, ghostly yellow, unlike any variety or shade of gold.

The phantasm seemed to be moving forward toward them, as if it were some sort of living being. But it was too weird and unworldly to be anything that the workers had ever seen before or were familiar with.

They had no word for it and were hazy in their description of it to others. Co-workers found their tales about what they saw laughable, nearly absurd. It was nothing more than an illusory hallucination shared by three perhaps drunken comrades.

Those who claimed to have experienced it never forgot the phantasm in the haunted Argo Tunnel.

–

It took seventeen years for the tunnel to be extended four and a half miles, to Central City. By 1902, there were over 300 separate mine shafts dug for the sake of hard rock lodes of precious gold.

The Argo Tunnel transported ore and served to drain mines if they became flooded. It was situated under Virginia Canyon, Gilpin Gulch, Russell Gulch, Quartz Hill, Nevadaville, and Central City itself.

By 1910, when the tunneling was completed, this area had the richest concentration of gold extraction in the entire world.

That was the year another sighting of the yellow phantasm occurred. It was near the point called Glory Hill in the middle of the long, deep tunnel. Only a pair of mine workers were witnesses to this appearance of the strange, heart-chilling wraith. They did not stay in place to keep looking at the cloudy form, but turned around and retreated as quickly as they could do so in safety. Neither of them looked back for a second view of what they were to recall the rest of their lives.

Again, it was difficult for the eye-witnesses to find anyone willing to accept what they claimed to have happened to them.

A humorous legend began around miners who encountered an unexplainable presence, a pale yellow specter that defied their sense of reality.

–

Axel Crane came to Colorado from Montana in 1921, seeking work in what he considered his profession, mining. Hearing of openings in Idaho Springs, he went there and was immediately hired at the mine with the name Quartz Hill. The work was hard and demanding, but he was soon receiving comparatively good pay.

Axel, a muscular giant with blond hair and blue eyes, became the foreman of a shift team within a few months. He was a popular boss, recognized by his men as a superior leader.

His second-in-command assistant was a skinny, shorter young man named Jim Roscoe. The two of them shared a flat in Idaho Springs, spending most of their free time together. There was close friendship and trust between the two miners.

It was in the early fall of 1921 that the pair were advancing together through a portion of the tunnel half way between Center City Scaton Mountain that Jim happened to catch sight of something unexpected.

“Look down the side shaft to the left,” he suddenly told his companion. “That area has not been worked for a lot of years, but I can see a glowing light down there at the end.”

Both miners stopped, but neither could make out what it was causing the unusual illumination in what was supposed to be an empty, abandoned shaft.

“We have time,” said Axel to Jim. “Let’s walk in there a little and find out what is going on.”

The two stepped forward into the narrower channel, carefully advancing at a slow, very careful pace. Both of them were watchful of the contours of the shaft floor.

The light ahead of them did not move or change in intensity.

They both seemed to lose track of how far they were entering, how deeply they were penetrating a potentially dangerous area.

The light before them, increasingly taking on a yellowish coloration, seemed to have a hypnotic fascination for their two minds.

The further they progressed into the shaft, the clearer grew the yellow in what now appeared to resemble a cloud or mist of some kind.

But both of them knew that there is no fog or cloud underground in the gold mines of Colorado.

All of a sudden, the two simultaneously stopped.

The shining yellow mass was now coming in their direction. Both men became conscious of this approach toward them.

They stood as if turned into rock.

What was it that threatened to engulf both of them in seconds?

–

As if in some form of zombie trance, Axel and Jim found their way back to the main tunnel channel and then returned home to their flat.

Neither of them spoke a single word to the other.

What was there to say? Not an iota of comprehension of what had happened to them existed in either of the two minds.

How can a person verbalize such an illogical, unreal experience?

Neither miner tried. Both of them went silently to bed, saying nothing about the event to the other.

Each of the pair hoped that on the morrow, after a sound night of sleep, there would be some degree of clarity for them.

But what if that hope was a forlorn one?

–

When Axel awoke the next morning, one idea was solidly engraved into his memory. It was a commanding thought that he at once realized he could not forget or escape. The words were going to obsess him.

“You must obey me, for I shall visit you whenever you are asleep.”

Over and over, those few words rang and echoed through his consciousness.

Axel rose out of his bed and stepped into the room occupied by Jim. The latter was awake, sitting up in bed, leaning on his pillow.

“I had a terrible dream at the end of my sleep,” said the assistant foreman in a hoarse, dry voice. “It was something from the mine shaft, that yellow ghost, that was speaking. I think it was that what woke me up just a little while ago.”

“What did it tell you, Jim?” trembled Axel.

“I have to obey whatever it says to me. This was like an order that I can’t refuse to do. It was threatening, really scary.” His body seemed to be shaking as if covered with ice.

“The very same dream came to me,” slowly announced the foreman.

The two men stared at each other for a number of seconds. Then, they got dressed and walked to a nearby lunch-room for their breakfast.

–

Nothing more was said by either of them to the other about the yellow phantasma that had invaded their lives. They went to work in the Quartz Hill Mine and were fully engaged in the hard labor of excavating ore that contained an unknown amount of pure gold.

Axel had a sense that Jim was indirectly avoiding conversation with him all during their long, ten-hour workday.

Jim himself experienced the exact same intuition of being ignored.

Only after returning home to their apartment did the pair acknowledge their own strange mutual isolation.

“We must not close ourselves off from each other,” stated Axel all of a sudden, as they sat down to eat what he had just prepared for the two of them on their small kitchen stove.

Jim, sitting at the small dinner table, looked up in utter surprise.

“We ought to face the yellow thing together, I think. It mustn’t separate me and you, Axel. That would be bad for both of us. What do you think?” He gazed up at his friend with a look of desperation.

“You are right, completely right,” firmly said the other. “We have to face this yellow phantom together, perfectly united.” He gave Jim a sad but confident smile.

–

Home from work, the two miners were both bone-tired and on the border of falling asleep. Without either stating the truth, they shared a silent desire to escape from thoughts of the phantasm that had entered their lives and thoughts.

For both of them, the night was one of deep, uninterrupted slumber, until the end when both began to return to consciousness.

A message from the yellow cloud seemed to enter them simultaneously.

“You must act together to stop any further digging anywhere along the tunnel. No more rock must be taken from the ground. You must destroy the many shafts that cause me damage and harm.”

Jim appeared at the opening to the room where Axel lay in bed, his eyes open.

“I got a troubling message from the ghost in the shaft that you and I saw,” he notified his comrade.

“So did I,” announced Axel. “The phantom down below wants you and me to destroy the tunnel and the shafts. That is madness. How could we accomplish such an evil crime? Why would we ever wish to do so?”

The face of Jim Roscoe reddened with emotion. “But it was an order that we carry that out. The ghost spoke to me as if I had no choice in the matter, that it had to be done, whether I agreed or not.

“Can we ourselves decide what course we are going to take on this?”

Furrowing his brow, Axel looked away toward the single window in the room. “We have to think about what is possible for us,” he thoughtfully said. “Then, we have to make a serious decision.”

–

Another day of work followed. The pair made their way home without speaking a word about the problem that faced them.

“I’m awfully tired and want to go to bed at once,” Axel told Jim as soon as they had returned to their flat. “We can talk about things tomorrow in the morning.”

Jim appeared happy that his friend had decided their schedule, himself going to his room and quickly falling asleep.

Early the next morning, after an unusually long period of sleep, both of them were recipients of the same dream communication.

“Do not delay doing what is now your duty. You must put a halt to the harm done to my kind by the digging of shafts and tunnels.”

Axel and Jim came together in their kitchen, awakening at the same time.

“Did you get what the ghost sent this morning?” inquired Jim of his companion.

“The command was exactly the same: we are to put and end to all the mining that is going on around this region. That is to become our obligatory assignment. Nothing else will do, says the yellow thing.”

Jim made a grimace of fear and desperation. “What are we to do now?”

“What can we do? What possible choices are left to us? Never before in my life have I ever faced such a dilemma. I don’t know what alternative we might have to obediently carrying out what the phantom wants us to.

“We either do as ordered, or completely refuse to act at all. We go the whole way, or else remain unmoving. The one or the other. There is nothing but those two choices for us. Nothing else.”

The two victims of the yellow presence underground began to get ready for the coming day in extraction of ore.

–

Axel and Jim worked another day and slept another night, awaiting a fresh commanding communication in the form of the same dream for both of them. This time the alarm that they woke up with was magnified many times over because of the new message received from the phantasm.

“Do not disobey what I tell you to do, because the penalty will be severe for both of you.”

The two miners shared their emotions and apprehensions the next morning as they drank coffee in the kitchen of their apartment.

“What can we do with such a dire threat hanging over our heads?” Jim asked his fellow miner. His face reflected his inner dread of what might be in store for them.

“We may have to take a risky course full of danger,” said Axel in a slow, heavy voice. “If we tried to oppose or fight against this cloudy phantom, the outcome would be impossible to predict. Perhaps it is just a vapor or gas, with no solid substance to it at all. Who can tell?

“It might have unnatural powers that we human beings have no knowledge at all of.

“I don’t think it would be wise for us to try to fight or overcome this strange phantasm. Wouldn’t it be smarter for us to go back down into the empty shaft and try to reason with it? Try to talk and persuade the thing to leave us alone?

“It wants us to do something beyond our human powers. Besides that, the ghost down there is ordering to commit evil, criminal acts. It wants us to destroy what more than a generation of miners have accomplished in digging all these mines.”

“You think we should go down and tell the yellow phantom what we feel and think about all of this?”

Axel nodded yes. “We should do it as soon as we possibly can. When you are I are finished with our next work shift, we will go back to where we first saw and heard this supernatural monster that inhabits a mine.”

–

The pair carried out their miners’ duties with customary diligence and industry, both supervising others of their work team and digging ore that held the potential of grains of gold.

But both their minds were fixed on what lay ahead for them: confronting the unnatural yellow gas or vapor being.

The outcome of such a meeting was undefined and unpredictable for both Jim and Axel. Each of them realized how greatly he would be dependent on the thoughts and decisions of the other one.

When their hours of labor had finished, neither took the elevator platform up to ground level with the crew members. Instead, they stayed underground, stepping along the Argo Tunnel to reach the abandoned mine shaft where the yellow phantom had appeared in front of their eyes only a few days before.

What is going to happen when we face that unnatural thing? both men asked themselves over and over.

A fog-like fear enveloped their emotions and thoughts.

They reached the familiar shaft and entered it, the lights on their safety helmets illuminating their way forward. As they advanced, their steps grew slower and their eyes searched for what they had once before seen there.

Both miners stopped simultaneously the second they spotted yellow light ahead of them. There was a common understanding that they shared not to move too dangerously near the shining phantasm.

By prior agreement, they realized that it would be Axel who spoke for the duo.

“My friend and I shall not do you bidding,” announced the foreman in a voice he meant to be strong, yet contained an audible note of terror in it.

“You dare disobey my command?” was what both humans sensed in their brains as the reply from the yellow luminescence.

Axel and Jim both felt a quaking sensation. It took them a couple of seconds to realize that the shaking was not an imaginary sensation limited to their minds. It was the mine shaft they were in that was in strange, unusual motion.

Axel and Jim looked at each other and instantly reached tacit harmony.

The whole shaft was about to collapse with them as victims.

They began to run back the way they had entered.

Neither looked back to see whether the supernatural existence was still present.

The immediate aim was a safe escape from the disaster that was in progress on all sides of them.

Neither of them had ever been in a mine collapse, but they recognized what the odds of survival were.

Certain death hung over them, with only little chance of getting out in one piece before final destruction of everything and everyone inside the shaft.

Axel was panting heavily when he got to the Argo Tunnel and came to a halt.

Where is my comrade Jim? he asked as he looked back at the scene of fallen rock and ore. What has happened to him? Is he dead or did he survive the anger of the yellow presence?

Covered in sweat with a throbbing heart, he headed for a platform able to raise him to ground level.

He was conscious of the fact that he would never again see Jim Roscoe, whom the ghost had taken in vengeance for the disobedience of the two who refused to fulfill its commands.

Axel had already decided to quit his job as a foreman and leave these mines forever.

I will never work in Colorado ever again, he said to himself as he rode up to the land’s surface.

The Big Flying Head

The first reported sighting occurred near Syracuse, in Onondaga County.

It was a strange report made by three teenagers. They claimed that they saw a gigantic dark-skinned face staring at them as they crossed a field in the early spring evening. An evident frightful terror was the result of their unexpected experience, but the police could make no sense of what they claimed to have encountered out in nature when the sun had set beneath the horizon.

The second report came from Otsega County and was made by a farmer and his wife. They said that the head was that of an Indian, and that it popped up in front of their car as they road to a country church early on Sunday. It was terrifying to both of them, and could not be escaped until they stopped at their intended destination. The pair spoke of and described the awful sight to a number of fellow parishoners that morning.

A third sighting of the head that appeared to fly through the air occurred a few weeks after the first two. In Liverpool, a suburb of Syracuse, an aged widow telephoned the “Syracuse Herald-Journal” and reported that the great head she had heard about in rumors had flown over her as she told an afternoon stroll about her village.

That was the point at which Wayne Fawn, a reporter for the “Herald-Journal” entered the picture with a human interest assignment. “Find out what these folks are talking about, and uncover what it is that makes them see monster faces around them in the air. There has to be some explanation. Find it.”

Wayne decided to interview as many as he could of those who happened to have caught sight of what seemed to be some kind of Indian head that moved about above the ground.

–

The reporter first went to Liverpool to interview the latest witness, Mrs. Graystone. She lived in a bungalow made of brick at the edge of the village. Wayne was surprised by her gentle, polite hospitality and frank openness.

“This was an experience that I wish that I had never had,” she told him as the two sat in her neat, old-fashioned living room. “But it reminded me of an old story that my grandfather knew from some of our Iroquois ancestors. Our family is at least one-eighth American Indian, descended from the local Onondaga nation. We don’t show any of it, but we are.

“Well, anyway, my father’s father told us kids all about the great flying heads that could sail down out of the sky. They were odd spirits, a lot like monsters whose heads were enormously magnified for some reason. They had the power to increase or decrease their size, too.

“These heads flew around looking for people to punish for their evil deeds. They were avengers who made bad persons pay for their sins. But there were always another type of head who attacked and harmed the innocent. These were like flying demons with terrible, ugly faces.

“I think that was the kind that I saw. It had to be.”

Wayne and Mrs. Graystone stared at each other in silence a short time.

Then the newspaperman excused himself and left.

His thoughts were intrigued and fascinated by the Iroquois connection that the old woman had made. He had long wondered whether he himself had any such ancestors in his genetic background.

–

Wayne did not find enough information about giant flying heads in library sources to satisfy him. Where could he locate more detailed data than that available to the general public?

Inquiring with reference librarians, he received advise directing him towards the Seneca Iroquois Natural Museum over in Salamanca. He decided to take several days off and make a special trip there for the purpose of independent research on the topic at the center of his investigative assignment.

Wayne phoned the Museum to request interviews with the Director and his senior staff. Obtaining a promise of complete cooperation, he set off for Salamanca in his small Chinese import. Interstate 86 was the fastest way for him to reach the town located at the center of the Seneca Reservation.

His mind began to wander into speculations about what he might discover at the immediate destination. Would this turn out to be a useless trip with no results? Or would age-old legend prove to hide some meaningful secret that he might publicize under his by-line?

All of a sudden, a visual form surfaced through the windshield in front of him. It was what his mind had concentrated on during the last several days. There was the gigantic, magnified face with its reddish cast, just like what the witness had described to him. The eyes were black, bottomless wells of emptiness. Over the brow lay a series of wrinkling creases. The expression of the enormous face was that of flinty severity, merciless in its internal judgment.

Wayne, seized completely by the realness of what his eyes perceived, temporarily lost control over his steering wheel. In the several seconds of mindless panic, the automobile swerved onto the right shoulder of the interstate highway.

As the terrified Wayne braked the car to a stop, the great Indian head disappeared. It vanished as if it had never threatened the reporter on his way to the Museum within a tribal reservation.

Breathing heavily and heart pounding, Wayne rested for several minutes before slowly returning to the right lane of the road that led westward to the lands of the Seneca Iroquois.

–

The Curator of the Seneca Museum was a tall, lean figure with few physical traces of tribal heritage. He appeared to be overwhelmingly gregarious and out-going, giving Wayne a hearty handshake before the two of them sat down in the office of the man called Joseph Otstoch.

“I understand that you have a deep interest in our legends about the Great Flying Faces, Mr. Fawn,” smiled the curator. “Where would you like to start?”

“That is not too easy to decide, but I have wondered about the question of the creation of these giant heads. What gave birth to them? That is a question that bothers me a great deal.”

Joseph Otstoch stopped smiling. “Yes, that explains a lot about them. That is very perceptive, Mr. Fawn. The legends are definite on that matter of origin. Although details vary from place to place and from one band to another, they were the result of a ghastly, abominable murder that occurred too far back in the past to remember.

“The flying heads were born from a crime that will never be repeated or duplicated in horror.

“Does that make any sense to you, my friend?”

Wayne felt an unusual spinning sensation in his mind. “Yes, it may very well have been a monstrous murder that brought about such a frightening phenomenon as these exploded heads.”

“Legend has it that they had tiny, always fluttering wings to propel them through the air. Their eyes were dreadfully dark, shaped like saucers. Teeth were as sharp and long as tusks when exposed. Their arms were bearlike, and appeared to have claws.

“It was said that the Flying Heads were ravenous meat-eaters, always on the look-out for game. They were drawn to fires that people started in the forests, eager to seize any meat being cooked.

“There were particular groves and hills where Great Heads were said to dwell. They were said to be a danger to any child who wandered away from home at night. Though they did not have physical, material bodies to feed, their hunger and hunt for flesh to eat was eternal and never-ending.

“Can anyone doubt that to see such a monstrous spirit was an experience that could never be erased from memory?”

Wayne thought for a time before asking the curator a question.

“Is it possible today, in this day and age, to catch sight of one of these Great Flying Heads?”

Joseph Otstoch grinned enigmatically. “I can’t tell you for sure, but there are many Senecans within this reservation who believe that they survived and continue to fly about among the living.”

Wayne excused himself and told the curator he would be back the following day.

–

In his motel room that night, the reporter managed to sleep only a few hours. The unresolved puzzle about Flying Heads grew ever starker for him. Were they evil spirits seeking after human flesh to consume, or was their function that of avengers pursuing some Seneca version of justice? Wayne passionately desired to know the answer.

It was at an early hour the following morning that a telephone call came. Who could it be? Who knew where he was staying in Salamanca?

“Good morning. Is this Mr. Fawn, reporter for the Syracuse Herald Journal?”

“Yes. Who might it be calling me, may I ask?”

“This is Bob Yoskeha, and I happen to be an attorney located in Salamanca. I would dearly like to have a conversation with you, Mr. Faun. Could you come to my office sometime today? I might be able to help you with the subject you are working on, and you may be willing to help me on certain matters that I can explain to you at our meeting.

“Would you be willing to see me today, sir?”

“Certainly,” replied Wayne, suddenly feeling out of breath with nervous excitement.

“My place is very easy to find.” The lawyer went on to give his address, then said good-bye quickly.

It took the reporter a minute to get his bearings. This might turn out to be both useful and interesting, he had to believe.

–

The office was in an old red brick structure that had previously gone through many different uses, but had now been converted into a law center shared by several law partners.

Bob Yoskeha proved to be a large, heavy, athletic-looking man with brownish skin and black hair and eyes. He gave his visitor a strong, vigorous handshake, then invited him to sit down beside his plain oak desk.

“I understand you have come to Salamanca to investigate recent sightings across the state, and that these reports describe mysterious heads and faces of colossal size, as if magnified by some supernatural force or power. Am I right, sir? Is that what brings you to the territory of the Seneca nation?”

“Indeed, it is. I yesterday visited at the Iroquois Museum that is located here.”

“Yes, I know. In fact, it was Curator Joseph Otstoch who mentioned to me that he is trying to help you out. He is the one who suggested that I contact you and have a talk.

“You see, I have a sort of theory that can possibly explain what non-Seneca individuals are claiming that they are catching sight of across much of western New York State.

“It is a simple explanation based on what has been proven and established by modern psychology. What these people believe they are experiencing is a kind of mass delusion, but it has a firm basis in our tribal history and folk knowledge.

“I myself am a member of the Seneca nation with a lifetime of study of our spirit beliefs and traditions. It is easy in today’s world to dismiss them as primitive nonsense, but only a fool would dare do so.

“There is a deeper knowledge than today’s science possesses. It is not easy to dismiss it as worthless, for ages of living experience lie behind such ideas and understandings. I cannot explain all of what I have learned from our inherited ways, my friend, but I can swear to you that they are worth your attention in the area that you are examining. Are you willing to hear me out?” He threw a piercing look at Wayne.

“Yes,” answered the latter. “Please tell me what you think about the Great Flying Heads.”

Yoskeha seemed to look away into an invisible distance.

“Our nation has suffered injustice after injustice, until they have reached the dimensions of a flood.

“The Federal Government used the legal system to construct the Kinzua Dam on the Allegheny River, forcing the relocation of hundreds of our people to Salamanca. We lost all the court cases in which the nation attempted to stop the flooding of ancestral land.

“The State of New York deprived us of territory right here within Salamanca itself. Then, when U.S. Interstate 90 was constructed, it led to loss of a large amount of our land through a phony throughway easement that was foisted on our people by fraud and deception.

“Many times, over the years and decades, our Seneca nation suffered grave loss because of the crafty falsehoods and fictions of American law, both federal and state.

“Individuals among us with arcane knowledge and skills are dreaming of revenge through Great Head projections out beyond our boundaries. The objective is to bring conscious vengeance on the outside population.

“I foresee more and more sightings and attacks by these spirits in the days to come, Mr. Fawn.”

“How can anyone put an end to them?” excitedly inquired Wayne.

The attorney made a wicked grin. “Find the person who is the origin of these projections and convince him to stop doing it. There is no other way out of the thing.”

The meeting was over, both of them understood. Wayne found his way out of the office building, his mind burdened with thought.

–

Wayne decided to walk about the central streets of Salamanca, perhaps to clear out the puzzles festering in his thoughts.

His eyes fastened on a sign painted over a small shop indicating “Seneca Folkware”.

This interesting title concentrated his mind to something beyond what was burdening him, so he decided to enter and have a look of the merchandise being offered.

The place appeared to be empty, permitting Wayne to take a tour among displays of baskets, beadware, silverwork, headdresses, flint knives, stone adzes, hand axes, and cradle boards that served as baby carriers.

Wayne was amazed at the variety of objects offered: la cross sticks, water drums, flutes, moccasins, porcupine quillwork, wampum belts, and face masks.

“Can I help you, sir?” sounded a high, soprano voice.

The reporter turned to see a small woman dressed in leather costume. Her black hair streamed down in a lengthy knot behind her neck.

“There is so much present here that a person finds it impossible to make any choice whatever,” said Wayne, smiling radiantly. “I am new to Salamanca. I have read and heard about this reservation, but never visited it before.

“My own interest is most connected to the tribal beliefs of this nation. For instance, my studies are at present centered on Senecan supernatural spirits and monstrous beings. The one that personally intrigues me is the Great Flying Face that travels through the sky and atmosphere. I am gathering all sorts of data about those ghostlike creations and the sightings of them.”

He stared intently at the orange-brown face of the young woman. She did not appear at all embarrassed by his concentrated gaze at her.

“That is an important subject of interest for many people of our nation. Indeed, my late father collected a lot of material about the spiritual ideas of our ancestors. He would often speak about the Flying Heads. He called them the final judges who dealt with ultimate questions of justice. If the Heads decided a person was guilty, there was no appeal beyond that. They had the right and authority to punish anyone they considered deserving of it.

“They could be termed the Supreme Court of our morality, my father used to tell me.”

“It is a wonder that I came into your ship today, Miss…”

She gave her name. “Mayflower Oskenon. Everybody has always called me May. That is how I am known here in Salamanca and over the Reservation.”

The two of them studied each other’s facial contours.

“I am never too busy this early in the day. Why don’t we go back in the office and have a little forest tea there? It is really amazing that you are knowledgeable about one of our nation’s traditional objects of belief.”

–

Wayne sat in an old cushioned easy chair while May Oskenon went about preparing herbal tea for the two of them. As she placed a variety of ingredients into a pot laying on the burner of a gas stove, she continued speaking.

“Could you describe the way that you view Flying Heads, Mr. Faun? It is interesting to learn what outsiders believe is in our cultural traditions. They are sometimes accurate, but there are instances of distortion and ugly rumors about our ways. How would you describe the nature of such a spirit?”

Wayne groped for some satisfactory answer. “I have thought a lot about what I have read and heard from others. It is fascinating to me how different people can be in their descriptions and explanations. There is no common, uniform view of what the Great Flying Faces are.

“To some persons, they are demonic, nearly insane, flesh-eating monsters. But this could be a false image originating with enemies of the Seneca nation. It does not square with what is happening at the present moment.”

May interrupted him with a question. “What do you mean about happenings at this time, may I ask you?” She gave a beseeching look.

He smiled at her. “I have to reveal to you that I work for a newspaper over in Syracuse. My present assignment deals with three different sightings of what appeared to be Giant Heads. I have come to Salamanca with the specific purpose of discovering what I can about this strange, fantastic phenomenon.”

The young woman did not say anything as she poured hot, steaming tea into a large porcelain cup and carried it over to where her visitor sat. Without a word, she handed it to him.

Wayne raised the container and took two sips of the hot brew.

He looked up at her. “This is good, very good. I have never tasted any herb combination as delicious as this is.”

“I am glad that you like it so much,” she murmured as she made her way back to the stove.

After a few moments, May turned her head back toward the reporter.

She was able to tell that what he was drinking was putting him to sleep with extraordinary speed.

–

Standing beside each other, Joseph Otstoch and the shopkeeper stared at the man fast asleep in the old easy chair.

“He knows quite a lot and perhaps has his suspicions,” whispered May with caution. “I have given enough sedative to keep him unconscious for a time. But I need your advice to decide what I do next. Should this newspaperman be killed by us because of possible exposure by him someday?

“I don’t know what the right thing might be. That’s why I had to call you to come here, Joseph.”

The curator of the Seneca Museum wrinkled his brow as he considered the question that had to be faced and answered.

“We have to take our chances with this fellow, May. If we talk with him, perhaps we can convince the man to keep silent about the campaign to frighten the outsiders into respecting our nation’s rights.

“Maybe we can do it, maybe we can’t. It will be a gamble for all of us in on the Flying Heads projections.

“What will it be, May? Do we kill the guy or just talk to him and tell the truth?”

There followed a couple of seconds of silence, then a forceful answer by the small young woman.

“I think that I will try to win his silence and cooperation.”

Both of them turned and gazed at the slumbering reporter.

–

It was nearly midnight when Wayne started his trip on Interstate 86 back to Syracuse. He had learned the truth of what was the Great Flying Faces conspiracy and had become an ally of it.

There were going to be no news revelations under his byline, he was pledged to that. He had nothing to report to his newspaper or the general public.

The Musurana

Dario Soares was a native Carioca who never enjoyed having to leave his city of birth, Rio de Janeiro. He could claim to know the metropolis of twelve million better than most of its resident. His profession was a rare one, that of a herpetologist, a scholar of reptile biology. For him, the focus was upon Brazilian snakes.

After doctoral research at the serpentarium on the Institut Butantan in San Paulo, Dario won employment as a curator in the Herpetology Section in the Vertebrate Department of the Museu Nacional, located back in Rio de Janeiro. His own post-doctoral research continued in the Atlantic Rainforest of the nearby Serra do Mendanha highlands that bordered the Guauabura Bay basin.

He was happy continuing his research into the unusual tropical snake named the Musurana.

–

An odd-looking elderly man with silvery gray hair visited Dario one day in early summer. He introduced himself as Senor Alberto Goes.

The two men sat in the biologist’s small office surveying each other.

“I need your assistance because of your special knowledge of a certain variety of snake found here in Brazil, sir,” said the stranger, staring into the chestnut eyes of tall, spare, dark-haired Dario.

“If I can help you with what I may know, I certainly will,” said the snake expert with a cordial grin.

Goes lowered his voice to a near-whisper. “My interest is in the species called the Musurana. I have been told that your studies have been centered on that rare, long constrictor that resembles the boa, but is not considered a danger to human beings who confront it.

“I have a need to find how to catch and tame one of that variety of snake. That is why I have come to see you, sir.”

Dario gave him a look of surprise. “You wish to have a musurana in your possession? May I ask you the reason for such a desire by you?” He looked at the visitor quizzically.

Goes forced himself to smile. “People can often want to have unusual pets. I have heard of individuals who own so-called exotic forms of life. Often they do not have a rational reason for pursuing such an aim. It just exists, and that is it. Who can explain everything that occurs in the human mind? I certainly am unable to do so,” he jokingly said in a gentle voice.

The biologist looked down, considering what he should now say or do.
What were this man’s motives underneath the pleasantries being mouthed about a personal whim or hobby of some sort?

Dario was puzzled, at a loss as to how to answer this extraordinary request from a stranger. He decided it best to delay judgment, saying neither yes nor no in a final sense.

“I shall have to think over what you propose, Mr. Goes. There are a number of different factors to consider. One should not go ahead too fast on anything so unusual. Can we meet again in about a week? I can tell you what I intend to do when you return.”

Having no alternative available, the one who wanted to own a musurana snake accepted the offer, excused himself, and quickly departed.

–

Dario lived in an apartment located in the Flamengo neighborhood that looked out on Guanabura Bay.

One early evening, as he was reading a biological journal, a knock came at his door.

Rising and going to see who it was, he found a giant, middle-aged figure in a light blue tropical suit. The man introduced himself in a deep, authoritative voice.

Excuse me, Mr. Soares. I would like to speak with you in private. I am an investigative agent of the Policia Federal. My name is Detective Jose Cabral.”

Dario felt suddenly faint. “Yes, sir,” he managed to mumble, “Please come in.”

As soon as the two men were seated, the large law officer began to explain why he was there.

“Let me explain to you the reason why I came here to see you. I have learned from others that Senor Alberto Goes came to your place of work at the Museu Nacional and had a meeting with you in your office. That fact has raised my own interest, because Goes has been a subject of an active investigation of which I happen to be the chief.

“Alberto Goes has, for a time, been the focus of a probe I am involved with. The man is under suspicion for participation in suspicious actions that pose danger to the lives and safety of certain prominent citizens who reside here in Rio de Janeiro. I cannot tell you too many details about why this man is a threat to so many ordinary people, but I assure you that there are adequate grounds for believing that Goes has hostile ideas which he is fanatical about. His abnormal system of ideas have made the man involved with the care and nurturing of wild Amazonian snakes and exotic reptiles.” Cabral paused to draw a full, long breath of air. “Alberto Goes aspires to using a great tropical snake to destroy persons whom he sees as his enemies.”

Dario felt an invisible knife slicing into his inner mind. He could not think of anything to say.

“Has he told you why he seeks to own a dangerous snake?” asked the investigator.

“It is the Musurana variety of snake that this man wishes to have under his control. He approached me because he learned that I have studied that species of serpent for a number of years. His claim was that the snake he wants would be a pet that he takes care of. He did not tell me more than that, sir.”

The detective made a slight grimace, then smiled. “I cannot asked you to do anything specific for me, sir, but I can inform you that if you learn anything shows any criminal threat originating with Alberto Goes, you are most welcome to call and tell me of the matter. I shall give you my official number at this moment.”

The police officer arose and moved close to Dario, taking a printed card out of his jacket coat pocket and handing it over to the biologist.

“Good evening, Mr. Soares,” he said. “I can find my own way out.”

Dario sat staring at the card he had been giving, his mind focused on the impression that Alberto Goes had made upon him.

–

Until the return of Alberto Goes to his office at the Museu, the biologist wondered about the true motives of the man.

Did he have in mind some kind of criminal use of a Musurana? What precisely might that be?

Or had the police detective imagined a fictional evil where no such thing existed in reality?

Dario was uncertain what course he would be taking until Alberto appeared and had to be confronted.

The two men greeted each other. “Please, sit down,” said the snake expert, forcing himself to smile.

“What have you decided?” abruptly asked the visitor.

Dario did not answer him directly. “There are many aspects of the matter to consider, no doubt about that.

“Are you planning to use a Musurana to make yourself a large amount of money, Senor Goes?”

The latter gave a shocked look. “Of course, I am not. My quest for this kind of snake is not selfish or mercenary, not at all. I am sorry and ashamed that such an idea might occur to you or anyone else.”

Dario frowned. “But have you revealed all that there is in what you intend to accomplish with a Musurana once you are in possession of one of them? Is there more to the story?”

The visitor looked down at the desk top for a short while, then raised his eyes and stared into the chestnut eyes of the snake expert.

“Long ago, in my childhood, I had a brother who was younger then me. We happened to be on a hike with other children up in the Serra do Mendanha when he was accidentally bitten by a dangerous, viperous forest snake. My dear brother did not survive the attack more than a couple of hours. He died very quickly from the noxious venom of that serpent. Our family tragedy was enormous and never really ended.

“Ever since that evil day, I have been the foe of poisonous snakes, large or small. Their destruction has remained my sworn aim. That is the reason that I became enchanted with the gigantic Musurana. In a way, I am a devoted partisan of that non-venomous, non-poisonous species. Like me, it is an enemy of the dangerous, evil killers who carry the deadly toxins and poisonous substances.

“The Musurana can be the ally, the virtual savior of human beings. That is the reason that I have a form of love for that particular kind of wild snake. I want to protect and preserve one specific member of that species.

“What could be wrong with such a dream and desire? I ask you.”

Dario sensed himself in a corner, with no way out of it.

“Very well, my friend,” he murmured. “I will help you capture a living Musurana up in the forested highland.”

–

In his own sturdy overland vehicle, Dario drove into the Serra do Mendanha with Alfredo Goes at his side.

The moist tropical forests of Tijuca remained within the boundaries of the city of Rio de Janeiro. Along the road stood stands of Parana pine, rosewood, pau, cassia, and tibouchina trees. The sandy soil named the Restinga was home to an infinite variety of flora and fauna. Spider monkeys, red-tailed parrots, and a multitude of snake species existed hereabouts.

Dario brought with him the largest drift-fence trap he could obtain in order to capture the intended target of this hunt. He carried a dart-gun capable of paralyzing any size snake with a soporific narcotic.

“I am heading for the precise vicinity of where I believe that a Musurana is most apt to be found,” he informed his companion. “Have no doubts: we will return with the snake that we are after.”

The biologist stopped at an isolated height he believed optimal for the project they were on. It took him several hours to set up the snake trap he had placed his hopes on.

When the job was completed, he spoke to Alberto once more.

“We shall return back home now, but early tomorrow morning we return to see if we have trapped a Musurana. It may not happen at first, but I am certain that success will ultimately be ours. We will gain what we are after, my friend.”

The two piled back into the truck-car and started back to the populated city of Rio de Janeiro.

–

Dario asked for and received a two week vacation so that he could devote a longer period to traveling into the Atlantic Rainforest with Alberto to monitor the trap fence he had installed in hopes of capturing a Musurana.

He was surprised on the evening of the third day of this adventurous hunt when Detective Jose Cabral turned up on a visit, as the police officer had promised he would.

Dario showed him in and began to speak as soon as the two of them were seated.

“I have to inform you of what Mr. Goes and I are up to…”

Cabral interrupted. “I know the you and he are leaving every morning in the direction of the Serra do Mendanha. It is pretty clear to me what the objective of these trips of yours are concerned with. The purpose of all this travel must be to obtain a Musurana snake for your new friend.”

“That is correct. He is eager to win possession of one of them, but has not told me the true purpose of the enterprise that we are engaged in. The aim he has in mind remains a mystery to me, but I hope to learn more than I know at this particular moment.”

The two stared inquiringly at each other for several moments.

“I am anxious about where this passion of Alberto Goes may lead him,” finally declared the investigator, rising from his chair. “I would be most grateful if you called me at my home number should anything unexpected or unforeseen occur. My telephone is written down on this card I prepared to give you.”

Inspector Cabral stepped over and handed Dario a card he removed out of his coat pocket. Then he turned about, said good-bye, and left the apartment.

–

The two snake-hunters returned to the Atlantic Rainforest inside the boundaries of Rio de Janeiro for a fourth time. Dario did not feel any optimism about results, although it was evident to him that Alberto remained eagerly enthusiastic as at the beginning of their hunt.

After parking on a clearing next to the unpaved road, the pair climbed out and walked to where the fence-trap lay.

Alberto was first to see the long, black and pink reptile caught within the wire meshes of the device that had been brought and set up.

He turned triumphantly to the snake specialist. “We have something quite long down there in the trap!” he gushed. “It sees us up here, but does not move or make any visible sign in any way. Are you going to put this Musurana to sleep, Dario?”

The latter nodded that he was. “You stay here and watch the snake without moving too much. I will go back and get the pellet-gun that is in the back of the truck.”

Within less than half a minute, Dario returned with the projector of soporific compounds. He aimed it straight at the head of the unmoving serpent and pulled the control trigger.

Within seconds, the Musurana had collapsed into a seemingly lifeless dark object lying within the fence trap. It appeared to be a hose-like thing completely different from what Dario and Albert both knew it to be.

“It will be heavy to carry,” said the biologist. “But I believe both of us can haul the whole trap back to the truck and put it in the back.”

The two moved to opposite ends of the holding structure and lifted it up with considerable effort, then slowly moved it to the back of the vehicle.

–

“We have not yet decided where to keep the snake,” said Dario as he drove out of the forested highland into the populated city. “What do you think would be wisest to do for the sake of safety and security?”

“I do not want to use my own residence, for it is known to my personal enemies. Would you be willing to keep it in the car garage you use close to your apartment? That would be a totally unknown location to anyone who wishes to harm me and ruin my plan.”

Dario felt confused about what exactly his companion was referring to, but thought it best to keep his doubtful thoughts to himself.

“Yes, if that is what you wish, I can do it that way, Alberto. It will be possible to maintain a constant watch on the Musurana, and feed the reptile some simple food from time-to-time. That is the way we will do it, then.”

The driver took the car-truck into the Flamengo section of Rio de Janeiro and back it into the garage provided to tenants of his apartment complex.

“Let’s come back as soon as possible after we eat a lunch,” said Alberto with a hint of fear. “I don’t want to leave the Musurana alone too long. It could awaken from its stupor at any moment.”

“I gave it a strong dose of sleeping narcotic,” noted Dario.

“One cannot predict the way such a snake will react to anything,” said the other with a shade of warning in his voice.

–

After a quick meal at a nearby lunch counter, the two men came back to the garage and the sleeping Musurana.

But the snake was not alone. Standing beside the back of the car-truck, a metallic bar in his hand, was Detective Jose Cabral of the Policia Federal. He looked at the pair with a look of surprise and panic.

It was Alberto who was first to say something. “Pedro!” he cried out. “What are you doing here?”

Dario turned to his companion. “Do you know this man? I don’t understand. He has visited me as Inspector Cabral, an officer of the police. He asked me many questions about you, Alberto. Why are you calling him by a different name? I don’t know what you mean.”

“Tell him who you are, Pedro,” shouted Alberto, gazing in fury at the intruder. “This happens to be my older brother, Dario. He is the reason that I sought you out and convinced you to help me locate and capture a Musurana. It is very difficult to explain in a few words, but he has been infected with a certain strange kind of snake that has its origins in Ancient Egypt. It is hard for me to describe his abnormal condition, but there is a dangerous snake of limitless evil that is alive within his body, deep in his entrails. It comes forth when he is asleep and attacks the innocent, wounding and at times killing them.

“I had need of a Musurana in order to have it keep watch over Pedro. The snake that we took from the rainforest is bigger and stronger than any Egyptian snake. It is a magnificent constrictor capable of capturing and squeezing to death the internal snake that my brother carries inside himself. My only purpose in all this is to liberate Pedro from the demonic snake that dwells inside him and appears when he is unconscious in deep sleep.

“We must not allow him to do any harm to our Musurana, Dario. It is necessary to take that heavy bar away from him because he is forced by his internal serpent, through unconscious coercion, to protect the monster that he holds inside his body.”

Dario and Alberto faced each other, allowing the pretender who posed as a detective to approach nearer to the fence trap within which the caught snake was located.

The Musurana was no longer asleep, awakened by some mysterious inner instinct that placed it into a state of defensive initiative.

Dario and Alberto watched in astonishment as their Musurana burst through the wires of the trap that had held it till now. The long, sinuous, crawling reptile made directly toward the back side of the man who could not see it, the one who Alberto claimed was a brother with an ancient snake from the East hiding within him.

The two witnesses observed in terror as the Musurana swiftly rose up behind the false policeman and brought him down to the ground.

They watched with horror as the great snake took a merciless hold of the large man and constricted him to death within seconds.

Once the victim of this attack lay on the ground, his lungs collapsed and no longer breathing air, the Musurana used its wide mouth to take hold of something protruding out of the man’s mouth.

It soon became evident what the victorious Musurana was extracting out of the dead brother. The object was a smaller snake escaping out of the throat of the one who claimed to be a detective.

Indeed, there was a yellowish-green serpent inside the one called Pedro by Alberto.

He told me the truth, realized Dario, all of a sudden.

Alberto is not a babbling idiot, he is not insane.

He knows the truth and just minutes ago told it to me.

The brother is dead and so is the Egyptian snake that he held internally.

We have to get rid of the bodies, both the human one and the dead snake, both of them killed by our all-powerful Musurana.

I can never tell what has happened to anyone else, concluded Dario.

Alberto and I will alone share knowledge of this fantastic event here today.

Dario noticed that the Musurana had on its own returned to the fence cage and was resting here.

“Let’s go up to my apartment and rest,” he said to his partner. “We can dispose of the two bodies tonight, when it is dark.”