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Ignorance is Bliss
(1st Story from A Bunch of Fives)
As the small ferry chugged away from mainland Sài Gòn, Eric buzzed with an immature excitement. He’d done a fair bit of planning and preparation in order to make this trip happen, many months of it, in fact, and now, at last, it was taking place. He was travelling to Cần Giờ Island with a friend, and after a hectic morning navigating through the bustling streets of Sài Gòn they were now on the final leg of the journey, crossing the Soài Rạp River.
They were both sat on a long wooden bench that lined the edge of the noisy vessel, facing inwards towards the cars and mopeds that were parked along the centre strip. Eric’s friend, Mack, was roughly the same age as him, shared the same taste in music and beer as he did, and on occasion laughed at the same jokes. But from here, however, the similarities ended. Eric was from the States, whereas Mack was from Australia. And whereas Eric had a jovial, enthusiastic aura about him, Mack had that Australian bluntness that people either loved or hated, coupled with a bag full of personal issues that could’ve been described as paranoid at best, or psychotic at worst.
It wasn’t that Mack was completely void of charm, though; an accusation like that would’ve been unfair. During the few years that Eric had known him, he’d managed to make people smile and he’d even charmed a few ladies in the park, and it was entirely possible to engage in deep, meaningful conversation with the man. Catch him on the wrong day, though, in the midst of one of his moods, and people would sometimes wonder what institution he was on day release from.
Was Eric foolish for inviting his temperamental friend on this trip? Probably, yes. But that was Eric all over: amiable to the point of being foolish. And besides, he was actually trying to help him. Mack’s mood swings had been intensifying as of late, and Eric thought that a little trip like this away from the city might clear his head a bit, albeit if the circumstances were a little unorthodox.
Or...very unorthodox.
‘Do you really think were gonna find Bigfoot on this island?’ scoffed Mack, shifting his weight on the wooden bench to face Eric.
Eric was gazing across the choppy water, over towards the harbour of the island. ‘Something is over there. Something.’
Mack sighed, shaking his shaven head. ‘You spend too much time on that laptop of yours. Too much time on that interweb.’
‘You’ve seen the video. You’ve seen it for yourself.’
‘Aah, another bloody online video!’ cussed Mack. ‘They’re all the fuckin same. Don’t mean a thing.’
‘Well, what have we got to lose? If there’s nothing over there, at least we’ll get a little holiday out of it.’
‘Yeah, I suppose,’ grunted Mack, shrugging his shoulders.
As one of the most scenic, preserved areas in Vietnam, Cần Giờ was always worth visiting. On any given day, one could be treated to the sight of rare birds fluttering among the tropical trees, crocodiles basking in the shallow lakes, macaque monkeys darting and scrambling along the dirt roads and narrow pathways, and huge fish swimming along the coastline of the sandy beach. This was no conventional wildlife trip, though, not by any means. They weren’t travelling to the island to see birds, crocodiles or monkeys, they were travelling there to find a certain hominid species whose very existence was the source of furious online debate. For several years, you see, a video of a bipedal creature had been circulating on the web, and if the rumours were to be believed, the video had been filmed on Cần Giờ Island.
“The Cần Giờ Creature”, as it came to be known, traipses through a patch of dense woodland during the short video, and strongly resembles the legendary animal that most people refer to as Bigfoot. Like most video clips of this nature, the filming is extremely shaky throughout and the owner of the material is unknown, giving rise to a large amount of scepticism and doubt, but despite this, the lucid sections of the tape are powerful enough to have convinced many people—Eric included.
The trip was naive, some would say. Others would even call it crazy. But so what? They were a couple of thirty-something males with no strings attached to them, little responsibility hanging over them and plenty of free time. They were embarking on a Bigfoot adventure, like it or lump it.
After the ferry had docked at Cần Giờ, the two of them got on a green bus that took them into the heart of the island. The bus journey was a fast, white-knuckle ride with traditional Vietnamese music ringing out from the driver’s dashboard radio. Their spines rattled with every pothole and dip in the road, their rucksacks slid across the leather seats with every turn, and at times they feared for their lives, but they made progress quickly. Before they knew it, they were jumping off the bus at a remote stop, and then trekking across a field of long grass with wooden huts dotted across it.
‘Is this where we’re pitching up?’ asked Mack, his tanned, troubled face dropping slightly as he surveyed the wild grass.
‘It certainly is.’ Eric now held a map of the island in his hands, a low quality sheet that he’d printed out on someone’s computer back in Saigon. ‘We’re going to have to grease a couple of palms when the locals come along, but we’ll be OK.’
‘I trust you’ve done your research and made your phone calls,’ smirked Mack, well aware of his friend’s diligence. ‘Couldn’t we have rented out one of those wooden huts, though?’
‘Nah. They don’t run that kind of service here. It was hard enough trying to convince them to let us pitch up a couple of tents.’
Mack considered this for a moment in his paranoid, over-analytical way. ‘What kind of service do they run, then?’
‘No service at all, really. What do you think this is, Disneyland? Centre Parks?’
‘I was just wondering.’
‘They said there’s a patch of flat grass over on the west side of the field,’ said Eric, pointing over towards the semi-distance. ‘Let’s get ourselves over there.’
By sunset, they’d successfully erected both of their tents with minimal arguing and bickering, paid off an arrogant, brutish local who clearly hadn’t graduated from the school of good manners, and had unpacked the portable gas cooker and a couple of tins of beans.
So far, so good. But the real work would begin tomorrow morning, however, when their search for the Cần Giờ Creature would commence.
* * *
‘Will you stop complaining? The mosquitoes weren’t that bad,’ sighed Eric. He was sweeping away some low-hanging branches, trekking through the mangrove forest, listening to Mack moaning behind him about his night’s sleep. ‘I heard you snoring after about ten minutes, so they couldn’t have bothered you that much.’
‘That may be so,’ gruffed Mack, ‘but ten minutes after that I woke up to find myself being eaten alive.’
‘I told you to bring a mosquito net. Anyway, let’s stay focused and cover some ground, shall we?’
They were making their way through the island’s thick, leafy terrain, climbing over lumpy bruguiera tree roots protruding from the ground and cutting their way through thorny bushes. Their intended destination was the site of the infamous Bigfoot video, and Eric had circled the map with felt pen where he believed it to be.
‘How do ya even know that the video was filmed down here?’ asked Mack, treading carefully over the dry, root-ridden ground.
‘Because I’ve done my homework,’ sniffed Eric.
‘And what are we going to do if we actually see this thing?’
‘Take as many photos of it as we can.’
‘For who?’
The midday heat was putting Mack into one of his cynical moods, and so Eric tried his best to steer things in another direction.
‘For me, for you, and for the advancement of science. But more importantly, if you get a good shot of it I’ll buy you a beer when we get back to Sài Gòn. How’s that?’
‘What kind of beer?’ Mack whined, swatting a fly away from his face.
‘Any beer you want, my friend. And I’ll even throw in a bottle of champagne for good measure.’
‘I’ll remember you said that,’ grunted Mack, huffing and puffing in order to keep up with Eric’s unrelenting pace.
‘And don’t forget, you can visit the beach while we’re here too,’ added Eric. ‘You like beaches, don’t you?’
‘Well, a beach would be better than hacking through these poxy vines.’
Eric ignored the whinging, and kept up the pace. I knew it was a mistake to bring him.
On and on they went, marching through the green curtains of the humid forest, following Eric’s flimsy map. Their surroundings were dreamlike in their natural, untouched way, and the wildlife that chirped and scurried around them was worthy of a zoologist’s wet dream. Dragonflies the size of small birds whizzed about frantically, rats darted in and out of holes in the dry soil, huge termite mounds protruded from the bruguiera tree trunks like black cancerous tumours, and every now and then, if they squinted hard enough in the right direction, a small cluster of macaque monkeys could be seen swinging and climbing across the spindly overhead branches.
When they reached a certain point, Eric stopped and trembled with excitement. ‘This is it,’ he whispered. ‘Just over there. That’s where Bigfoot was captured on film.’
Following Eric’s line of vision, over towards the other side of a small stream, Mack nodded his agreement. ‘Yeah, that kind of looks like it.’
‘It totally is, Mack! That’s the tree right there! The tree that he walks past.’
‘And how do you know it was a man wearing that Bigfoot outfit? It could’ve been a woman.’
Eric turned and gave Mack an incredulous, stony look. ‘Bigfoot outfit? Mack, you’ve seen the video. Whatever it is, it’s not some prankster wearing an outfit. It doesn’t even look that hairy, for a start.’
‘Alright, whatever. So what now? What do we do now that we’re here?’
‘We scan the area with our eyes peeled and our cameras ready. And if you see anything, anything at all, snap away.’
‘Got it,’ muttered Mack, with something resembling a sarcastic grin.
The sarcasm soon turned into irritation, however, as time wore on.
‘Let’s stop for a drink. I’m fuckin gasping!’ scowled Mack, swatting flies away from his face. ‘So far we’ve taken five pictures of macaques, a picture of a parrot, and about half a dozen pictures of meaningless foliage. I’m getting sick of this! I need a break!’
‘Sshh! Shut up, will you!’ Eric crouched down to a kneeling position. ‘There’s something over there.’
‘Oh, yeah, of course there is! Of course there’s something over there. It’s another fucking monkey! Let’s just sit down for a while. I need to drink some water.’
‘No, seriously!’ hissed Eric, through his teeth. ‘I can really see something over there. Over there between those trees!’
As much as Mack hated to admit it, there did seem to be movement from the leafy shadows up ahead. Strange movement. ‘Oh shit, yeah. What is that?’
‘Well, it’s definitely not a monkey.’ Snapping a couple of photos, Eric added, ‘Look at it. It’s standing upright.’
‘True. But it’s...’
‘It’s what?’
‘Well,’ said Mack, squinting at the figure, ‘it’s definitely not Bigfoot, either.’
Edging closer towards the thing, Eric had no choice but to agree with Mack’s observation. The creature standing in front of them was no hairy beast, it was no seven-foot-tall gorilla-like King Kong, it was instead rather...human-like.
It was eating something.
‘What’s it chewing on?’ said Mack, who was now as apprehensive as Eric.
The figure before them was around five feet tall, completely naked with hairless skin, covered in scratches and bruises, and had something furry hanging out of its dripping mouth.
‘It’s a rat,’ said Eric. ‘It’s eating a rat.’
‘It’s eating a fucking rat’s head, that’s what it’s doing!’
For a few moments the two of them watched on in stunned silence, trying to absorb and process the uncanny scene before them. The more they studied the naked figure, the more it looked like a human being. Its feet and legs were filthy from roaming across the bare soil, its arms were scarred from dragging itself through overgrown brush, and its facial hair had grown into a bushy tangle that obscured the lower half of its face.
But it didn’t stop it from eating.
Whether it was enjoying its meal or not, was unclear. Its drooped shoulders and unanimated expression gave nothing away. There was only the crunch, crunch, crunch of its jaws against the rat’s tiny cranium, the blobs of blood and spittle flecking its beard, and the tailed rodent carcass hanging from its filthy fingers.
‘That’s a man!’ stammered Mack. ‘That’s a man eating a fucking rat, I’m tellin ya.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve found Bigfoot.’ Eric spoke firmly, almost proudly, but there was a trace of doubt in his voice somewhere.
‘That’s not Bigfoot. That’s a naked human being standing in the woods, chewing on the head of a rat.’ Backing off a little, Mack added, ‘And you know what? I don’t really fancy saying hello. I’m off.’
‘Mack! Wait!’
Mack was off on his toes, leaping back through the big green leaves of the jungle, disappearing from sight.
‘Wait! Wait a minute! Mack!’
It was no use. Mack was stopping for no one. And so, after taking one last look at the Cần Giờ Creature, Eric rose to his feet and tried to catch up with his friend.
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End of Sample
A Bunch of Fives smacks you straight in the face with a mighty handful of powerful fiction. It packs a punch with five hard-hitting stories, all of which will leave you stunned and dizzy in a delirious stupor.
Within these knuckled pages you will find a professional hitman taking on more than he bargained for, a strange creature roaming a Vietnamese island, a nymphomaniac in the midst of a breakdown, a futuristic society obsessed with social media, and much more.
From round one to round five, you will be taken on a disturbing journey that will unnerve you, thrill you, and force you to question your very existence.
A Bunch of Fives should be approached with caution—it’s a knockout!
"Creepy and mystifying, Flynn's weird tales make for a disturbing late-night read"—Regina's Haunted Library
"You will walk away terrified, gobsmacked, and much more!”—Erica Robyn Reads
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A Bunch of Fives is available at all main retailers. Grab your copy today.