In the entire history of Planet Earth, only three human beings had ever discovered this particular part of the Brazilian jungle, and one of those humans was about to appear. His arrival would take place on a patch of ground that used to be filled with the most extraordinary and colorful flowers but now looked as if it had been scorched black by fire. Even the trees surrounding this little clearing appeared to have been barbecued and leaned backward as if trying to get as far away from the patch as possible. The reason the trees were in such bad shape was because this had been the site of many explosions, and it was an explosion now that heralded the arrival of the human being.
The bang was tremendous.
Once the noise had echoed away into the distance, all that remained in the center of the scorched patch was a cloud of blue smoke swirling ghostlike through the trees and a very large man dressed most inappropriately for the jungle. A sun hat pulled low over his eyes made his ears bend like tiny pink wings, and the belly bulging from beneath his shirt was large, pink, and smeared in sunscreen. Yes, you’ve probably already recognized him, but for those of you who haven’t, this was the slippery giant we met at the very beginning of the story.
As the smoke cleared the man opened his bulbous white eyes and fell to his knees, grabbing his throat as if about to be sick. And then he was sick. He leaned forward and opened his mouth, but instead of a disgusting mess, a bluish stone plopped out of his mouth and onto the oily black ground. As the man coughed and spluttered, the blue stone trembled and fizzed like ice cream in a glass of Coke. Tiny bubbles rose from the stone’s milky blue surface and the unmistakable rotten egg stench of sulfur filled the air. The man continued to cough while reaching into a satchel slung across his shoulders and producing a very old-looking clay pot into which he put the blue and seriously smelly stone.
This is a Bang Stone. Yes, it’s exactly like the one Uncle Pogo said his father had discovered. What Uncle Pogo didn’t know though was where Bang Stones come from, but I can tell you that. They came about when the universe first began. As you may already know, the universe began with a very big bang, and if you imagine this big bang as a cake exploding, then the Bang Stones are like cake crumbs.
“Brian,” whispered a voice, and the man looked up with swollen and soulless white eyes. It was unmistakably a woman’s voice that had called his name. In fact, it didn’t just say his name, it sort of sang it, like a mermaid calling a sailor from the deep. “Briiiiiii-aaaaaaan,” came the voice again, and Brian got to his feet.
“I’m coming to you, my love,” called Brian, whose monotone voice conveyed about as much affection as a zombie with a toothache. He stomped through the jungle, his stupid shoes slipping on the black vines that crisscrossed the ground and his enormous goalkeeper-glove–sized hands grasping at branches to keep him from falling over. Though not at all dressed for the jungle, Brian seemed to know exactly where he was going.
“Briiiiiii-aaaaaaan,” came the call once more. Whoever this voice belonged to sounded sweet and hopeful and very pleased to see him, yet Brian’s face remained blank as he came to a stop beside a pool that was about the size of a large trampoline. The water, if you could call it water, was as black as ink and surrounded by even more burned-out tree trunks, which jutted from the silky black mud like huge rotten teeth. Brian dropped to his knees and his lifeless eyes gazed into the black water.
“I have returned to you, my love. But so thirsty. Must drink,” he said, drawing water from the pool to his lips with cupped hands.
“Yesss,” sang the ghostly voice, “you must drink.”
As Brian gulped at the water, inky rivulets ran down his chin as if he had been chewing a fountain pen. It may sound disgusting to you, but to Brian this water was delicious. It not only quenched his thirst, it stirred a memory in the back of his mind …
* * *
… Brian remembered when the water used to be pure and clear. It was the reason so many wonderful, spectacular plants used to grow here. This had been the River of Life. The water from which the very first organism on earth emerged and began to evolve into the creatures that now inhabit the entire planet. But all that ended ten years ago, the very second he lowered his wife’s burned body into the water so that she could heal …
* * *
His breathing became deeper. He wanted more of the inky water. Lots more. But when he lowered his hands to drink again the pond started bubbling and overflowing, for something was moving below. Brian instinctively shuffled back on his knees and watched as a truly hideous face, as wide as the entire pond, broke the surface of the water.
At first glance it looked like a whale, but its skin was as translucent and gelatinous as a jellyfish. As the black water drained away you could vaguely see inside the creature’s head. Its veins and internal organs throbbed away, its brain suspended like a piece of moldy fruit in jelly, behind two very large and very disturbing eyes. They were disturbing because they were not whale eyes or even fish eyes. They were human eyes. They might have been as large as tennis balls, but they were undoubtedly human. Ugly strands of hair sprouting from the top of the creature’s head clung to the side of its slippery wet face, and when it spoke, the words came from its revolting rubbery, toothless mouth, which contained a large black tongue as long as a surfboard and as floppy as raw steak.
This is what it looked like.
Horrible!
I know what you’re thinking—how can a person, even a creepy guy like Brian, love a big ugly whale? You might also be thinking, since when do whales talk? These are all very good questions. You see, this foul and blobby creature didn’t always look like this. She used to be beautiful and human and her name was Carla. Celeste’s auntie Carla, to be precise. You may recall Uncle Pogo telling Nelson how Carla had been very jealous of her twin sister for having been given the pendant filled with all their father’s love. Well, that jealousy was the reason she tried to take the pendant from her sister by force. But as soon as she had torn it from Isabelle’s neck, the stone had caught fire in her hand. Whatever magic had saved Isabelle’s life when she was a baby had the reverse effect on Carla, who went up in flames, setting the family home ablaze too. But Carla possessed a means to escape the flames—her father’s Bang Stone. You see, when she was a little girl, Carla had listened to Pogo’s stories of their father’s trips to the jungle with the Bang Stone, and she had paid very close attention. One day she had found the stone in her father’s abandoned greenhouse, and by the time she called Isabelle to make peace, she had learned how to use it.
So had Brian. When Carla had caught fire, Brian had quickly swallowed the Bang Stone, brought her to the River of Life, and laid her in the water to heal. On the one hand it worked—she was still alive. But it took years before she even had the energy to speak, and in that time her body had transformed into that of a strange sort of whale. Her bitterness and jealousy had infected the water, turning it black and eventually killing every plant that had formerly thrived upon that pure and magical source of life. Poor old Brian would have been fine had Carla not forced him to kiss her big ugly face to prove he still loved her. When the water on her lips touched his mouth it turned him into the sort of zombie who would kidnap a teenager, wear shoes on the beach, and forget to rub in his suntan lotion.
* * *
“Did you find it, my darling?” asked Carla.
“Yes.” Brian opened his satchel and produced a tiny music box.
“Very good. Open it, Brian,” said Carla. Her voice was colder now. More businesslike.
Brian opened the box and a sweet little melody accompanied a porcelain ballerina turning around on a wheel. He pulled open a drawer at the front of the box to reveal the contents: a plastic fake-tortoiseshell hair clip, several beaded necklaces, a couple of neon-green scrunchies, and a tiny scrap of paper with the password to Nelson’s family’s Wi-Fi written on it, but what Brian lifted out of the drawer was a thin gold chain at the end of which hung a lozenge-sized locket. Holding the necklace, he shuffled toward Carla on his knees.
“Is this what you wanted, my love?” cooed Brian, as he held the locket out toward his wife’s huge face, but she answered him with a horrified gasp.
“No! No! This is not the pendant!”
“But it was in the box you asked for.”
Carla screamed like a banshee and Brian toppled backward.
“I must have that pendant,” wheezed Carla, struggling to regain control of her emotions.
“I have failed you,” spluttered Brian, still flopping about like a seal in a terrible oil disaster.
“No. There is still a chance. I will wake her. You will ask her where it is. And tell her. Tell her we will kill her family unless she speaks the truth,” said Carla with breathless desperation, before starting to convulse.
(This bit is really disgusting, I’m afraid, but there’s nothing much I can do other than try to get through it as quickly as possible.)
Carla’s eyes closed, her mouth opened, and she threw up something large from inside her stomach.
And suddenly she was there.
Celeste’s body lay in the black silt. The life jacket and clothes she had been wearing when she disappeared still covered her body, but her face glowed as white as marble under moonlight and her beautiful blond hair was now a tangled mass of black.
“Where is the pendant?” asked Brian in his zombielike tone. Celeste merely yawned and blinked so slowly it was as if she would much rather be back asleep inside the creature, who had now sunk below the surface of the water to watch.
“The pendant. Tell me where it is or your family will pay with their lives,” insisted Brian, rising to his feet.
Celeste rolled her eyes and spoke as if talking in her sleep. “Oh no, please don’t do that,” she said dreamily, and sighed.
“Then tell us where it is,” said Brian in a louder voice than usual.
“My brother’s got it,” she said, and yawned.
“I have been to your house. There was no boy. Where is he now? Where is your brother?”
“Just ask Nelson nicely and he’ll give it to you. But please don’t hurt him.”
“Then tell me where he is.”
“I don’t know. Nelson, where are you? Where are you, Nelson?”
Carla raised her horrible head and swallowed Celeste back down into her stomach like a dog stealing a meatball from the dinner table. I know this is all very odd, but what’s even stranger is how comfortable Celeste seemed to be inside this revolting creature. It looked as if she was curling up inside a great big sleeping bag, except the sleeping bag was made of jelly and was actually a really disgusting monster’s belly.
A silence fell. It felt as if the entire jungle was watching and appalled by what it saw.
“Bri-aan,” whispered Carla after a large burp, but Brian did not reply, as he had been distracted by the silver locket sticking out of the swamp mud by his feet.
You can see that one girl, Carla, was quite beautiful here with her dark hair and large wide eyes. The other girl, wearing thick glasses and braces on her teeth, but with a smile that radiated pure happiness, is Isabelle—Celeste’s mum.
“She is telling the truth, Brian. The boy must have the pendant. Find him and bring it to me.”
“Yes. Of course. But, my love … if you take the pendant, are you certain it will not burn you again?”
Carla seemed to smile, although it could just have been trapped wind. It’s hard to tell on a face as big and strange as Carla’s.
“The water from the river has made me strong and it will protect me. Now go!”
Brian obediently got to his feet and took the ancient clay pot from his satchel. “Yes, my love,” he said as he began to trudge back toward the blackened clearing, the stench of rotten eggs already wafting from the pot.
“Find the boy and bring me the pendant. Hurry, Brian! Hurry!” called Carla as Brian swallowed the fizzing blue stone, closed his eyes, and exploded.