Brian Craddock
The restless heat blazed across the desert, pursued their vehicle and beat upon the top.
Despite the heat of the day, Upendra thought the desert looked lonely and cold. He wondered what trick of the desert—or the mind—could produce such an effect. The arid landscape was bare but for cornrows of saltbush, and the road was raised up off the desert floor as though to keep travelers from the lonely desperation of the barren landscape.
And Upendra was glad of it, too: nothing about the terrain invited his appreciation. It reminded him too much of his India, lost long ago to him now, where he was treated as something even lower than the untouchable caste, driven into the deserts and abandoned. He stretched his two sets of arms out over the steering wheel, as though to excise the memories.
The boy beside him—his traveling companion and, for want of a better description, his friend—smiled wistfully out the windshield up at the impossible vastness of the bright blue sky. Nhuwi, he called himself. His brown skin was dusted with the red earth of some Australian desert or another, Upendra couldn’t remember which: every day, the boy would dust his face with a fresh palmful from a glass bottle he carried in his knapsack. The earth of his people, he called it.
In many ways, Upendra could appreciate the significance of the dirt in the bottle, given that he himself had now been driven brutally from two of his own homelands. He pined for the smell of both, for the hot and dry terrain of Rajasthan, and for the dank moistness of Midian.
The road hummed along beneath them. It had a rhythm to it that only long-distance travel can give, that lulls and soothes the soul. The landscape beyond the window looked mean and lifeless, and Upendra felt its concentration on them both as though it were waiting for the moment to open its maw and swallow them alive.
The wind from the open window ruffled a scrapbook of newspaper clippings on the backseat, the newest of which spoke of a remote angel cult. Nhuwi reached around and moved a box of leather shadow puppets across the seat and onto the scrapbook. The fluttering of clippings stopped. He turned back and raised his chin to Upendra, pensively.
“I would make a good meal, wouldn’t I?”
Upendra was puzzled. He gave Nhuwi a sidelong glance, searching the boy’s plain and smiling face for answers. None. The boy was a puzzle even to Upendra.
“We’re going to see the angel,” the boy added.
Upendra’s grip on the wheel tightened.
“So it does exist, then?”
The boy nodded.
Their car raced over the Barcoo River and the desert gave way to deformed trees, and then to a township, where there was no road sign to tell them where they were or to welcome them to it.
* * *
John left off ministering to the hinges on his hotel’s windows to watch the Volkswagen Variant cross the bridge and drive into Isisford. It passed by, and he saw in it an Indian man and an Aboriginal boy. His gut told him trouble had arrived; and if it hadn’t, then it was coming.
The car continued to cruise slowly along Saint Ann Street, and John saw the dark windows of the storefronts and the homes blemish with the blurred faces of the townsfolk.
“Yep,” he said to himself. “Trouble, trouble, trouble…”
* * *
They appeared first as just a few faces, silent strange things at their windows, watching him as he parked across from what declared itself the tourist center of the township. Upendra made a mental calculation as to how far from anywhere else they were, and was not assured when his mind placed them on a map in the middle of nowhere, in this place where streets were all named after the saints of Christendom, very far from anything else like civilization, and three days’ drive from a metropolitan city.
“This angel better be worth it,” he muttered to himself.
“Better wait out here, Nhuwi.” He winked at the boy, who gave him a thumbs-up in return.
He donned his oversized jacket, with custom sleeves sewn inside for him to rest his extra set of arms, and stepped from the car.
Crossing the heat-stricken street in his scuffed boots, an Akubra on his head, his eyes kept low, Upendra saw each and every face follow his progress until he’d reached that confusion of timber and sheet metal that was the tourist center, and he slipped through the door and out of view.
* * *
Inside, Upendra was met with one more pale face, eyes smudged darkly into pits that watched him impassively.
He tipped his hat to the woman, gave a small smile, and gently made his way around the store, halfheartedly looking at the displays and the cheap merchandise. Rivers and crocodiles on mugs and fridge magnets. The dark pits watched him mercilessly.
“It’s a mighty hot day, that’s for sure,” he established.
The woman didn’t say anything.
“I like your wares,” he lied. He picked up a rubber crocodile toy, turning it over without interest. “I was hoping to get something with an angel on it.…” He looked at her, looked for a reaction. Nothing. “You know, to send to the folks back home, something fun.”
Now she did speak, this woman with the wet features.
“What’s so fun about it?”
Upendra pushed his hat back, and gave her a cheeky smile.
“I’m sorry,” he offered. “I didn’t mean any harm. I’m just passing through, and heard about the angel—”
She cut him off, her voice like a bullwhip in the small shop.
“Horseshit!” She jabbed a finger at him. “You’re just another big-city journalist come to dig the dirt. Come to spoil our good name!”
“Actually,” said Upendra, apparently unaffected by the brutal force of her menace, “I’m here to do a puppet show.”
The woman spat on the floor.
Upendra looked at the spit glistening on the linoleum and laughed, his eyes wide. “Are you serious? In your own shop?”
“Get out,” she hissed at him.
He tipped his hat to her, and made his way very slowly from the store, idly scrutinizing the bric-a-brac on his way. But before he left, he noticed, up on one wall of the store, a large display informing visitors about the history of crocodiles in the area. Mounted on the wall, like some trophy kill, were two crocodile skulls. But one of them, the larger of the two, was radically malformed, its snout misshapen and snub-nosed, its brow higher and slightly domed. Upendra stopped and pointed at the skull, throwing the woman an incredulous look.
He scoffed.
“And what’s that supposed to be?”
She threw a stapler at him.
He grinned and finally crossed the threshold and into the glare and ferocious heat outside.
* * *
Out in the street, Upendra saw that the townsfolk were still at their windows, but some had traded windows for doorways, their thick arms crossed over their chests and their mouths turned down. It amused Upendra, a little. But he had lived long enough to know that the promise of violence was in the air. Perhaps it was only the insufferable heat that quelled it?
Nhuwi wasn’t in the car. The door was wide open.
Immediately Upendra looked to the people in the doorways, looked about for the telltale sign of some bully with revenge carved into a smile on his dull face. But instead he found the boy: he was levitating in the middle of the street, an illusion the heat gave, melting the asphalt at the boy’s feet to make it appear he floated. He was staring at the sky, the full force of the sun on his face.
“Nhuwi! Let’s roll!”
The boy dropped his head, and began running back toward the car, flipping his middle finger at one of the silent witnesses as he did so.
* * *
John brought them cool water, with ice, and a scotch each for himself and Upendra. True to his word, the interior of the hotel was cool and dark. They’d had too much sun for one day.
“I’ve put fresh linen in your rooms, and made the beds,” said John, taking a place at their table.
“Thank you,” said Upendra, “you’re too kind.”
“Pish posh,” snorted John with a wave of his hand. “Don’t get too many visitors. It’s good to have customers. To have company.”
He raised his glass and Upendra clicked his own against it.
“I thought this was a tourist destination, what with the tourist center and all.”
“Sure, it is,” said John, “history and all. Goes way back.” He pointed to a wall where old photographs were pinned amid tracts of text. “You can read about it over there, even. But a lot of folks that visit out here have their caravans, their Winnebagos and whatnot. Not a lot of call for an old-fashioned room anymore.”
“Shame,” mused Upendra, “you’ve done this place up nicely.” He sipped his scotch and considered the room, the high ceilings and red-painted beams.
“It’s all I have now,” John said sadly, looking up at the ceiling. “Since my wife passed, this place is what consumes me”
Nhuwi sat upright. “You should come with us, mister, when we go. Come traveling with us.”
John laughed, a delightful laugh. “Ah, from the mouths of babes, eh?” And he tousled Nhuwi’s hair and sat back grinning to himself. “It’s okay, boy; I have my place here now. I couldn’t leave her if I tried.”
Upendra wondered who “she” was: the memory of his wife, or his finely polished hotel.
Nhuwi shuffled off his chair and padded over to where Isisford’s history trailed across one of the walls. He peered closely at each photo, and rubbed his fingertips across their dog-eared corners.
“I assume,” said Upendra, “that the angel cult isn’t on the wall over there? Isn’t included in the history?”
“No,” said John quietly. “It’s not.”
Upendra sipped at his drink, not making eye contact with John. The subject seemed a sensitive one.
“Well, as curious as that all is, I can assure you, John, I’m here to do a puppet show.”
John didn’t look convinced.
“Scout’s honor,” said Upendra. “I travel around doing puppet shows for communities. I have whole boxes of them in my car. I’m thinking about doing one here, in Isisford.”
A laugh burst from John, and as quickly as it came he recovered and kept himself in check. “Are you for real? You want to perform a puppet show? Here, in this godforsaken hole?”
Upendra was taken by surprise. Indeed, he hadn’t thought much at all of the township: the homes had no lawns, just dirt with pits full of half-chewed bones and broken dog collars, driveways choked by shells of cars half pulled apart. There was nothing of beauty in the place, apart from the proud hotel owned by this broken man. Upendra felt a kind of concern for the man, could only imagine the anguish and loneliness that kept him pinned to the place of his wife’s passing.
“I’m sorry,” said John, and picked up his empty glass. “Look, it’s not good here. You two, you and the boy, you shouldn’t stay long. It’s not good for children here.”
And with that, John left the room and all was quiet.
Nhuwi gave a small chuckle, and Upendra glanced around at the boy, frowning.
He was pointing at a very old black-and-white photo of four small boys saddled to goats, with the desert as their backdrop. Their eyes were dark and angry-looking.
“Goats,” snickered Nhuwi, and shook his head.
* * *
Upendra gave his performance. He set up a makeshift stage in a local park, where the dust blew across the ground and no grass grew.
His four arms worked tirelessly to bring life to his leather shadow puppets, to ring bells and shake rice in tins and create every illusion he could to tell his story. He looked out through his peephole, from behind the screen that hid him from view.
His audience had come not so much from curiosity, but as a show of force against him. Their children left at home, obviously, denied the joy of a live puppet performance. It was just a posse of angry adults. He paid no mind to it. Let them glare, shout their insults, kick dirt into the wind so it floated across his face. His story would be told, damn it.
And it unfolded. Act by act, he performed to these dull and blunt people, spilling out strange journeys of even stranger creatures, stories that held visions and mysteries and mayhem. Stories that, wherever he performed them, unsettled his audiences, because of course they weren’t meant for them. His performances were a secret tale, something to reach out to the beast in the crowd, to that creature hiding among the humans Upendra was calling out, asking to be embraced, not by the witless crowds, but by that one who chanced upon his tales, who recognized their heartbeat, knew innately their core.
This day, it was none of these people. They shifted, restless and unsettled. And their conspiratorial chatter soon gave way to action, and a bull-necked man stormed the performance and the illusion was wrecked. The screen torn asunder, Upendra sat there in all his glory: an Indian man with four arms, two sets of hands manipulating several puppets and musical instruments at once.
The audience was horrified, stepping away. A mangy dog snatched away one of the puppets from the ground. Some people stepped closer, holding their hands over their hearts and squinting their hollow eyes in an attempt to uncover the trick.
But they all knew. This was no trick. This was something freakish.
And Upendra knew from experience that what would follow would not be fear, but anger. The crowd would slowly become enraged at the deception, at themselves for not having been more aware of such a monstrosity in their midst, for having allowed it to linger for so long: to learn their names and faces, to know their homes, their families.
It came quickly.
“Run, Nhuwi!”
But the boy was already off, and Upendra didn’t have time to even face his audience before the first blow was struck. The bull-necked man was in quick, and once he was there, five more furious people followed. And then there was no stopping the tide.
* * *
The fires were low, many of them simply embers in braziers. They lit the room in a soft warm red. It was like being inside a womb.
But his body ached. Upendra was certain he had broken bones; maybe even parts of his face were fractured. He tried to sit up, but couldn’t. There was talking, a deep voice, something not natural. Something he’d been looking for.
He could smell a barbecue cooking. He was salivating. His body longed for sustenance, to heal itself.
He let his head roll to one side.
He’d been brought to what looked like a church. Or a hall. There was a creature standing against the light, silhouetted, huge wings folded against its nakedness. And beyond it, the townspeople.
“It’s real,” he whispered, more to himself than anything. But he was heard. The intonations ceased.
The creature turned, and came toward him. It leaned over him, its golden face now in the glow cast by the embers behind him. The creature looked cruel, looked damaged. But Upendra knew its face. He actually recognized it.
“Vauiel.”
The creature, Vauiel, cocked his head.
“You know me, my name?”
“Yes,” Upendra whispered. “I knew you when we had sanctuary. You were Peloquin’s friend.”
The creature’s big black eyes went wide and its mouth opened in a silent gasp.
The townspeople were restless. They began to murmur, and someone shouted that Upendra’s throat should be cut now.
Vauiel turned on the crowd, and a roar came from him that was deafening.
The people went quiet, and fell back, gathering at the far end of the hall. In fear, noted Upendra. Not in anger, as he had always encountered.
When Vauiel faced Upendra again, his cruelty had softened. Upendra was in too much pain to care if this was a good thing or not.
“Come with me,” Upendra whispered. “Leave these people to their useless lives, and come with me.”
Vauiel frowned. “I don’t remember you.”
“You won’t,” confessed Upendra. “We were not friends, you and I. But I travel where I can, and my plays bring the Breed to me. We are lost, but I am reuniting some of us. We have a gathering here, in Australia. We are waiting for Cabal’s call.”
Vauiel scoffed.
“What call? He is no Cabal. And our god is as lost as we.”
“But we can build a new home, to replace Midian.”
“Upendra, you fool.” Vauiel brushed the hair from Upendra’s forehead. “You would hide away from the Natural world again? And they would find you and hurt you again? No, you must reclaim your place in the world.”
“Like you? Like this pathetic angel cult in the middle of nowhere?”
“I have my reasons,” said Vauiel quietly.
“There are no reasons for this.”
Vauiel motioned to someone, and one of the townspeople stepped forward, carrying a bowl. The aroma of cooked fat and meat came from it.
“Here,” said Vauiel in a soothing voice. He scooped some of the food from the bowl and pressed it to Upendra’s lips, and Upendra ate of it greedily. Vauiel scooped him out some more.
“You went to the visitors’ center?” asked Vauiel. When Upendra didn’t answer, Vauiel asked again.
“What of it?” Upendra’s voice was sour.
“The skull, the malformed crocodile skull hanging in there. They say it’s a new species of crocodile found in this area alone.”
“And?”
“It’s my son, Upendra.”
Upendra was stupefied. He looked at Vauiel, saw that the angel’s eyes were deeply pained. There was such suffering in those eyes.
“What is the meaning of it?”
Vauiel rolled his head from side to side, some kind of soothing gesture. He placed the bowl of meat onto the table that Upendra lay upon.
“I lived in these lands before settlement. I lived here with my wife and then with my child. They were shape-shifters, crocodilians. But my son hadn’t mastered the skill fully. His name…”
Vauiel faltered. He was crying, Upendra saw, but he made no sign of having noticed.
“His name was Kambara, and he was the pride and absolute joy of Kena and me. We lived in harmony with the local aboriginal people, the Malintji, and they even would call my son Ginga, after one of their own legends.”
“What happened to your family? Why were they not with you in Midian?”
Vauiel stretched himself, his wings slowly spreading wide and then closing again. He sighed.
“The people of Isisford, the new settlers, they became aware of us living nearby. My family was killed. My boy, Kambara, he was chased down by boys riding on goats. They chased him down and finished him. But I escaped … only I. I flew into the air, where they could not follow. They thought me an Angel of their Lord, and that I was a sign that some evil had been vanquished. It’s why they named their streets after saints: I am their own legacy. And I went to Midian, and when the Men of Hate came again, I felt something in me find itself. My resolve. I heard Cabal’s words, and I rejected them. I knew Baphomet’s laws, and I rejected them. And I came here, and I took my revenge on these people. And they praise me for it. I am their god now.”
There was something in Vauiel’s words that didn’t sound right to Upendra. He was struggling to hold on to it, through the pain of his injuries and the revelations of the angel.
The doors of the enclave burst open, and John staggered in. He had been beaten. His face was swollen and bloodied, and barely recognizable. He fell to his knees inside the doorway, and struggled to get to his feet again.
Upendra was horrified.
“What have you done?”
“It was my followers,” admitted Vauiel. There was little remorse.
One of the congregation spoke up, shouting gently across the room: “He was consorting with the outsiders, my lord.”
“You let these people go,” demanded John. His voice slurred, and blood dribbled down his chin.
“What does he mean?” Upendra searched Vauiel’s face for answers.
Nhuwi steeped into Upendra’s vision.
“I don’t want to go anywhere, Upendra,” Nhuwi said softly. He looked up at Vauiel. “I want to be like him. To fly. To see the land with my own eyes.” The boy approached a brazier, his back to Upendra, and held something over the flames there. “No more Dreaming.”
John continued his demands. “Let them go. The man and the boy. They haven’t done anything to you.”
Someone kicked one of John’s legs from under him and he fell heavily onto his side, crying out from pain.
“Fuck you!” he yelled through clenched teeth. “Fuck you all for what you did to my wife!”
A large woman stepped forward and stomped on John’s face.
“No!” screamed Upendra.
Nhuwi screwed his face up at the violence. He looked distressed. Gone was the happy child staring at the sky.
Upendra banged his head hard against the table, again and again. A knot in his stomach formed. His body craved more food, more of the meat that cooked and blistered nearby. He groaned.
“Upendra,” said Vauiel. “Upendra, listen to me. Stay here, with me. Give up this foolish quest of yours. Stay, and eat. You must eat. You’re weak.”
Upendra eyed Vauiel suspiciously. The angel smiled, the cruelty from before edging back into his features.
“You’re weak, Upendra. Eat.”
Nhuwi stepped closer to the table.
Upendra looked at the child. There was something else here, too. Something he hadn’t noticed before. He looked past Nhuwi to the congregation in the room. At all those bullish faces and fumbling limbs. Those feverish, frightened people, cowering before their angel. But something was not right.
“There’s no children.”
Upendra thought back to the puppet show in the park. Where were the children of this town. He hadn’t seen any since arriving.
Nhuwi was mewling. He looked ill. Sweat beads were forming on his forehead and starting to run.
“Nhuwi, what’s wrong?” asked Upendra.
Vauiel’s voice was insistent. “Eat.”
“Yes, eat,” agreed Nhuwi weakly. He offered his arm up to Upendra, and it was burnt and blistered and more than that: there were bits of the flesh missing. “I saw this. It’s okay.”
“Eat some more,” said Vauiel dispassionately. “Join me, brother.”
A roaring noise was filling Upendra’s head. The horror was overwhelming, and his body was aching. He was trembling, and everybody in the hall was watching fearfully, as little Nhuwi proffered his own arm for Upendra to eat some more from.
“They ate my child, Upendra,” said Vauiel, his dark eyes sparkling in the glow from the embers. “They caught him, those boys on goats, and the people ate him.”
Upendra groaned, and the smell of cooked meat was strong in his nostrils. Vauiel shoved Nhuwi closer, and the temptation overcame Upendra, and he began to eat of his little friend, his companion of the road.
“It is why I returned to this place,” continued Vauiel. “As they ate of my child, so I eat of their children. Never again will they see their children grow, and have children of their own. And soon, their lineages will die out, and my revenge will be complete.”
Upendra had stopped listening. His head was all noise, and his mouth was clamped to Nhuwi’s arm.