Читать книгу The Killing Grounds: an explosive and gripping thriller for fans of James Patterson - Jack Ford, Jack Ford - Страница 14

3

It was only the sound of the heavy rain which hid the screams. The blood flowed from the palm leaf roofed hut into the red dirt track like a tributary feeding into a river. Inside only an oil light flickered, barely disturbing the darkness. The carcass of a rotted goat writhed and wriggled as maggots fed and moved inside it. The sickly sweet smell of putrefying mounds of blood-covered feathers filled the air.

The villagers sat on the floor, dressed in vibrantly colored cloths with batik print and bold patterns – a stark contrast to the bleak. Taut. Tense atmosphere.

Papa Bemba nodded. Stood on the home made dais next to his folding wooden altar. His face disfigured, mutilated by his own hands. Scarred raised flesh filling the sockets where his eyes should be. It had been the souls of the undead, the spirits of those greater, who’d directed him to gouge out his own eyes. A gift bestowed on him to drive out the evil, allowing him to be the conveyer of all that is pure, and to rid those amongst them of the sorcery within. The darkness of blindness had given him the power along with the vision of the possessed. For now he saw better. Clearer.

His fingers expertly guided him along the body of the naked man lying on the altar. He stopped. Thoughtful for a moment as he felt a lump on the man’s neck, before his furrowed swollen hands moved on, down to the area where his liver lay.

It was there. The evil. The Kindoki spirit. The force of wrong which had taken over this man’s being. Making him defiant. Making him question.

And then Papa Bemba cried out. Flamboyancy lacing his tone as he pressed down on the man’s ribs, rubbing his skin with berries.

‘I have found it. It rises. Pushes out towards the living to harm those gathered. To harm those with child. To harm those who seek a better life. Let us deliver your brother, Emmanuel Mutombo.’

Mutterings of Amen sounded through the hut as Bemba leant over Emmanuel again, pushing his ear down on the man’s face. He could hear the shallow rasps coming from him which told him the spirits were there.

He spoke to those assembled. His voice, trance like. ‘Pray for him. Pray for your brother, Mutombo… Vous êtes le médecin de mon âme. Vous êtes le salut de ceux qui se tournent vers vous. Je vous exhorte à bannir et chasser tous les maux et les esprits des ténèbres.’

He swayed rhythmically and the humming and moaning and chanting became louder.

Yes… yes, he could feel it now. It was time…

And with a sudden movement, Papa Bemba drove his thumbs deep into Emmanuel’s eyes, saving him from the sight of evil in the next life.

Helped by one of the assembled, Bemba, leaving behind Emmanuel, descended from the dais. Moved outside into the pouring Congolese rain and spoke once more to those gathered.

‘Il est temps,’ he said. ‘It is time.’

Kneeling down in the mud, where the wet red clay earth mixed with blood and stained his white and gold dashiki, he took out a piece of charcoal from his pocket. Placed it on the ground near where the other villagers had placed theirs. And shouted out once more.

‘Deliver him…! Deliver him!’

The hut having already being doused with petrol, and the twisted branches of the banana tree piled around, even in the humid, wet rain it took only a single match. A single moment for it to be greedily swallowed up by dancing orange flames.

And as Papa Bemba stood outside, he could feel the heat of the fire. Hear the smothered rasps. The terrified cries of Emmanuel Mutombo amid the crackling and sizzling and splintering noise of the blaze. He smiled. The screams were the sound of the possessed burning. Defeated. Overcome by the righteous. By the chosen one and he, like the other villagers, was satisfied.

*

As the night drew in and darkness set, cementing its rule over the day, a solitary figure, shadowed and blotted out by the night, moved quickly across the mud-logged ground. The noise of breaking branches over the sound of the heavy rain made the man crouch down, hiding behind the tangled foliage of the sprawling forest.

After a while, and deciding it was probably only the sound of the nocturnal animals who roamed and hunted for prey and, like him, didn’t want to be seen, he moved on, hurrying towards the partially burnt down hut – now doused by the heavy rain.

Drawing himself up against it, he looked round, making sure he hadn’t been followed. And it took a moment for him to be assured that darkness had been his advocate; letting him come here without being seen.

Inside the hut he called out. Moving towards the dais. ‘Emmanuel…? Emmanuel? C’est moi.’

The putrid smell from the burnt flesh of Emmanuel Mutombo was overpowering, but a groan – a sign of life – made him speak once more.

‘Emmanuel, I’m here to help you.’

Then picking up Emmanuel, he carried him out into the night, before both of them disappeared into the darkness and sanctuary of the forest.