Apocalypse Now Now Page 11

  An old sangoma approaches the elemental with her arms spread wide like she’s going to give it a hug. She’s dressed in faux-Chinese animal skins and has a flimsy-looking whip which she’s trying unsuccessfully to crack above her head. She chants in a quavering voice.

  ‘That’s a love spell, you daft old bat,’ Ronin shouts. He breaks into a sprint toward her. The sangoma shrieks as the elemental shrugs its fiery body toward her. Ronin reaches and grabs her around the waist but she struggles furiously against him. She scratches at his face, breaks his grasp and runs at the elemental. Ronin tries to grab at her but it’s too late. She stops, frozen in her tracks.

  Ronin jogs back to me. ‘She’s in its field,’ he says. ‘Don’t look if you don’t want nightmares.’ The sangoma tries to back away from the creature but she looks like she’s swimming underwater. Ronin quickly connects the trident to the battery.

  I watch as the elemental approaches the sangoma, slowly, almost tenderly. Sparks ripple across the ground and for a moment it illuminates her nervous system like a biological Christmas tree, the patterns of her nerves clearly visible through the skin.

  It lifts its claws and grabs her by the shoulders, burning her like blowtorches. She screams, a horrible primal sound like an animal caught in a trap. With delicate precision its tongue darts from its mouth and into one of her eyes, slicing through her eyeball as if it were soft white cheese.

  She whimpers and sags, but the thing’s claws hold her up. With a horrible fizzing sound it drags the life from her body, digging its tongue deep into her to make sure it gets every last drop, and then discards her corpse like an empty bottle.

  It wipes its mouth with its arm and then turns to us. Second course is bounty-hunter tartare with a side order of love-struck teenager. It lopes toward us, clearly invigorated by the sangoma hors d’oeuvre.

  Ronin stretches his neck and loosens his shoulders like a runner preparing for a race. ‘Ronin,’ I say. ‘It’s coming for us.’ He ignores me and hangs forward and touches his toes. The elemental picks up speed, letting out a hissing cackle of glee at the thought of devouring us.

  Ronin casually lifts the trident and spins it like a Shaolin monk with a staff, the cord to the battery whirling around him. He drops into a low stance with a palm out in front of him and the trident tucked under his arm. I begin to retreat, scuttling backwards to where the priest is cowering in the alleyway.

  ‘Get ready to run,’ I whisper to him.

  He gives me a terse nod and begins to mumble a prayer.

  The creature reaches Ronin and stops, contemplating him like an epicure in front of a bucket of fast food. The elemental is clearly not impressed with Ronin’s gastronomic potential, but is not above a quick greasy snack.

  It lurches forward and Ronin spins, fighting the effects of being in the thing’s field but still blindingly fast, jabbing the end of the antenna into its large body. There’s a fizzle, hiss, crackle and pop as the antenna makes contact and leeches energy from the elemental.

  The thing howls as energy whips down the cord and into the battery.

  ‘Olé,’ Ronin says.

  With a snarl the elemental turns and jumps at Ronin. The bounty hunter coils like a snake and sends the antenna spinning through the air like a javelin. It hits the creature in the centre of its body.

  Energy erupts from the creature, sending a blastwave rolling out in all directions. I can feel it coming, my hair whipping around me manically before a concussive blast throws me from my feet like a rag doll, slamming me into the side of the shack.

  Black spots drip down my vision like blobs of ink. My forehead feels as if it’s imploding and I collapse forward. Spectral images flicker in my vision. I see a panorama view of Cape Town burning as a nuclear blast engulfs it. I see huge creatures, things that make the elemental look like a baby, engaged in a death struggle. I see a flag with a red eye painted on it flapping in the wind. The eye locks onto me and burns into my forehead like a cattle brand. High-pitched manic laughter rings in my ears, an original soundtrack to insanity.

  When my vision clears I have my hands around the throat of the priest. He is struggling against me, but I have an insane amount of strength. I could crush his windpipe effortlessly, like crushing a takeaway coffee cup. ‘Please,’ he hisses.

  I drag my hands from his throat. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what got into me.’

  I look around and see Ronin desperately holding onto the cord like a deep-sea fisherman that won’t let go of a prize catch. Slowly, the creature shrinks, mercilessly sucked down the cord and into the battery. Then, with a sharp crack, it disappears completely.

  Ronin gets up and brushes dirt from his trench coat. He looks over to where I’ve collapsed, gives me a smug grin and bows with a flourish. ‘And the crowd goes wild,’ he says, holding his arms above him like a gymnast who has nailed a landing.

  ‘Brilliant,’ I say, pushing myself to my feet. ‘One of the best near-death experiences I’ve ever had.’

  ‘Oh please,’ Ronin says. ‘That’s a far-death experience, trust me – I’m something of a connoisseur.’

  ‘Right,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t stress,’ he says. ‘You get over it after the first few times.’

  ‘I don’t intend to do that again,’ I say.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ he says. ‘You get addicted to it.’

  The priest emerges slowly from the alleyway, looking at me with almost as much fear as he had the elemental.

  ‘What was your little disagreement about?’ Ronin says, with a curious look. ‘He trying to preach to you?’

  ‘No,’ I say, giving the priest a guilty look. ‘I don’t know what happened.’

  ‘Adrenalin, turns all of us into fucking maniacs. Now, padre,’ Ronin says, putting his arm around the priest’s shoulders, ‘where’s my money?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ the priest says and tries diplomatically to extricate himself from under Ronin’s arm. He pulls a tattered envelope from his pocket and hands it to the bounty hunter.

  ‘Pleasure doing business with you,’ Ronin says, flicking through the blue bills. ‘Fancy a drink, sparky? I’m buying. Daddy just got paid.’

  He turns to walk back to the car but something in his peripheral vision catches his eye.

  ‘What the hell?’ he grunts and strolls over to a shack which was torn open by the blast from the elemental. I follow him, not eager to be left alone with the priest I almost strangled.

  We peer inside through the shattered wall. Several dozen sets of strange shining eyes blink up at us.

  ‘Hell in a handbasket, why can’t things just be simple for once?’ Ronin says with a sigh. ‘Looks like we’re going to have to call Dr Pat.’

  Seven sprites sit on my lap and peer up at me with saucer eyes, their warm, furry little bodies rising and falling as they breathe together in unison.

  When you’re faced with too many reality-bending things, your mind goes into a kind of stupor, a weird blank funk that can do nothing but stare dumbly while deeper levels of your consciousness try to process the information and spit out something resembling sense. So far the output is less than satisfactory. Magic bounty hunters, electricity monsters and now sprites.

  Sprites, the latest introduction to the alternate reality that I’ve stepped into. They’re grey and squat, like square-headed, chubby little rabbits that stand upright. They have huge black eyes that make them look like they’ve taken copious amounts of LSD. They stare at me with unwavering eyes. One puts out a little paw that looks more like a tiny, pink human hand and pokes me in the stomach as if trying to figure out what I’m made from.

  I’m in the passenger seat of a yellow VW van. The driver, Dr Pat (I’m not sure if she has the same approach to qualifications as Ronin does), turns her curly white-haired head toward me, causing her long crystal earrings to jingle.

  ‘It’s a good thing Jackson called,’ she says with a smile that crinkles the corners of her almond-shaped eyes. ‘These
little dears are in need of some good food and rest.’ Ronin has taken the rest of the sprites in the Cortina and is meeting us at Pat’s house.

  I look down at the creatures on my lap. One is chewing on an old car-freshener.

  ‘And how have you come to be in the dubious company of Jackson, dear?’ she asks as we turn onto the highway.

  ‘I’m looking for my girlfriend,’ I say.

  ‘Ah, well, if she can be found, Jackson will find her.’

  ‘How do you know him?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, we were in the agency together, my dear,’ she says. ‘Until the incident,’ she says, pursing her lips. ‘But you should ask Jackson about that, dear,’ she says. ‘He wouldn’t want me talking about it. He’s still a little sore about that.’

  I try to press her further about Ronin and this agency but she remains tight-lipped. We pull into the driveway of a smallholding in Philippi. The land is wildly overgrown and it takes me a second to pick out a canary-yellow farmhouse peeking out through a blanket of vines and creepers.

  ‘Welcome to the Haven,’ Dr Pat says with a smile.

  I open the door and the sprites on my lap move as a single unit to hop out of the car. They stand together in formation and continue looking up at me and blinking. ‘Stop it,’ I say to them. ‘You’re creeping me out.’ They break into a perfectly synchronised smile which shows the sharp little teeth in their mouths. I take a step backwards.

  Ronin pulls up next to us. He gets out and takes his pack of cigarettes from his trench coat, taps one out and lights it. ‘Get some of your guys to fetch these little bastards and we’ll be on our way,’ he says.

  Little furry bodies and huge saucer eyes press up against his rear window, their synchronised breath misting up the glass.

  ‘Jackson!’ Pat says with a stern look. ‘Since when have you been blind to the plight of the Hidden Ones?’

  Ronin rolls his eyes, but opens the door and grabs an armful of sprites. ‘Come here, you little fuckers,’ he says. ‘Bite me and I’ll kill all of you.’

  Two guys come out of the farmhouse with wheelbarrows and help us to unload the sprites from the vehicles. ‘What are the Hidden Ones?’ I ask Pat as we wheel the sprites toward the farmhouse.

  ‘Jackson Ronin takes you hunting elementals but doesn’t explain the supernatural ecosystem?’ she asks. I shake my head. ‘Disgraceful,’ she says and gives him a dirty look as he passes us on his way to grab more sprites from his car.

  We hit a bump on the driveway and one of the sprites catapults into the air and lands with a thud on the gravel. The sprites wince in unison. ‘I’ll get him,’ I say and jog over to him before gingerly picking up the furry little creature.

  ‘Let’s get these little darlings inside and then I’ll explain some of the things that Jackson has obviously neglected to tell you,’ Pat says.

  ‘This is a veterinary clinic?’ I say as we wheel the sprites around to a barn at the back of the farmhouse. ‘In a sense,’ Pat says. ‘We cater for the needs of a rather different kind of animal.’ She keys a password into a keypad and then flings open the barn doors.

  We step into a zoo. Animal enclosures line the walls and there are sounds of shrieking, snuffling and gobbling as well as more unpleasant sounds of ripping, tearing and biting.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ Pat says, seeing my face. ‘They’re all really lovely in their own unique ways.’

  ‘Lovely’ isn’t what I’d use to describe the creature sitting on a perch next to the doorway chewing on a piece of raw meat. It’s a lynx with a jagged scar across its face. Long white tufts sprout from his ears and large white wings sprout from his back. Just your average flying lynx, then.

  ‘What the fuck?’ I whisper.

  ‘Language, dear,’ Pat says. ‘This is Tony Montana.’ She pats the hybrid creature on the head. ‘Say hello, Tony.’

  The thing bares sharp teeth and hisses at me. I’ve never really liked cats and one with the ability to swoop down and rip out your eyeballs seems like it’d make a really terrible house pet.

  ‘He’s a bit shy,’ Pat says. ‘Our city has been cruel to its unusual inhabitants, and they’re wary of humans.’ The flying lynx looks like it wants to bury its teeth in my jugular.

  Pat takes my hand in hers and leads me over to a cage where a little goat-like creature paces behind bars. It is small, stands upright on two legs, is covered in coarse brown hair and is very, very ugly. It has slitted pig eyes, horns that rise like two jagged spirals from its head and a huge grey penis which it drags around on the floor like some kind of deformed python. I recognise it from creature porn, back in the good old days when I thought they were midgets in fancy dress. The reality makes me feel ill.

  ‘That’s a tokoloshe,’ I say. It glares at us through its slit eyes.

  ‘Quite right, dear!’ Pat says. ‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’ I make a noncommittal sound. ‘There used to be ninety-four different species of tokoloshe,’ Pat continues. ‘Now there are fewer than seven. Can you believe they have been captured to make pornographic films?’

  I make another sound. The creature in the cage snarls and makes lewd gestures and grotesque pelvic thrusts in her direction. ‘Fukfukfukfukfuk,’ it chants.

  I’m glad when she takes my hand again and leads me gently away from the cage. We walk around to the pens and Pat names the creatures they hold. There’s Nevri, a black-and-red, double-headed viper that can repeat words like a parrot, and the Jepsen, a small orange-haired monkey with three eyes and twelve arms.

  We stop in front of a cage that holds a naked woman standing in a clay pot. Her breasts jiggle as she moves and she stares at me with bedroom eyes. ‘Nymphang,’ Pat says matter-of-factly, ignoring the fact that the woman has begun to writhe in ecstasy in front of us. ‘Indigenous Hidden Flora distantly related to fynbos, I believe.’

  I stare at the woman running her tongue over her lips. ‘You mean that’s a plant?’

  ‘Oh yes, dear. What you see is an adaptation designed to lure humans.’ Pat picks up a thin wooden rod and pokes it through the bars of the cage. The woman’s body splits in half like a giant mouth, revealing a row of serrated fangs. The mouth lunges forward and snaps the stick in half. ‘You see why we have to keep it in a cage, dear; I’ve lost more farm workers than I’d care to admit.’

  ‘You keep talking about the Hidden,’ I say as we continue through the barn.

  ‘The Hidden Ones,’ she says. She walks over to the Nevri cage and gently lifts the double-headed snake from it. The dark viper wraps itself around her neck and contemplates me with lazy eyes. ‘Broadly speaking the term refers to all of the magical races that exist on the fringes of human society. It includes the so-called intelligent Hidden races, as well as our animal friends here. Both have been subjected to torture and genocide at the hands of humans, although the Feared Ones have also helped to destroy them, of course, but one can’t really blame them. That’s just their nature.’

  ‘The Feared Ones?’ I say.

  ‘Also known as the Murder, they’re religious assassins, black of feather and of heart,’ Pat says. ‘Zealots dedicated to their god, with the sole purpose of releasing him from his prison. Or so the story goes. They have inflicted such atrocities upon the Hidden that it beggars belief. But that’s who they are.’

  ‘What about an Obambo? Do you have one of those?’ I say.

  Pat looks at me and for a moment I see more than just a kind old lady. There’s a taut readiness to her stance and I feel like she’s ready to punch me. ‘What do you know about the Obambo, young man?’

  I give an awkward shrug, trying to deflect some of her intensity away from me. ‘Not much.’

  Pat brushes her curly hair delicately from her eyes. ‘Obambo are one of the casualties of the Feared Ones,’ she says, stroking both heads of the Nevri simultaneously. ‘Wiped out completely. Extinct.’

  ‘Feared Ones,’ one of the snake’s heads whispers in an eerie, guttural voice.

  Pat lifts the head up to her fac
e and kisses it on the lips. ‘Yes, my precious little darling, but I won’t let anything happen to you.’ I avert my eyes. I didn’t think there was anything worse than cat people. Until I met my first monster person.

  ‘Nevri want a cracker,’ one of the snake’s heads says. ‘No, dear,’ Pat says. ‘You eat small rodents. I really wish Elias hadn’t taught you that.’ She unwinds the Nevri from her arm and gently puts it back in its cage. ‘Sleepytime,’ it hisses as it snuggles down into the sawdust.

  We make our way to the back of the barn and watch as the last of the sprites are unloaded into a spacious pen. They stand around blinking at one another.

  ‘They don’t really do much, do they?’ I observe.

  ‘Well, they don’t really need to, dear, they’re telepathic,’ Pat says.

  ‘They’re –’ I start, then stop and peer at the furry little beasties.

  ‘Telepathic, dear – they’re apparently more intelligent than dolphins. Although you’d hardly know, bless them.’ I stare at the blinking saucer eyes. They stare back.

  We exit the barn and Pat resets the alarm code. ‘Come and have some lemonade,’ she says. ‘You must be exhausted after the day you’ve had.’

  Exhausted is not exactly the word for it. ‘Stunned’ is closer, but it also doesn’t quite convey the sense of confusion, wonder and abject terror I’m feeling about the world behind the looking glass I’ve just stepped through. I know I should be freaking out more, but in a way I feel it’s a homecoming.

  I’ve been bathed in the warm glow of supernatural fantasies ever since I can remember. The fairy tales my parents read me as a kid, TV, video games, it all kinda feels like they’ve been preparing me for this moment. It feels somehow natural and the other world, the one with taxes, life insurance, twenty leave days a year, cancer, and the realisation that you’re never, ever, going to be a celebrity, is the shadow, the fantasy and the delusion. The world is as I always intuited it to be: weird, fractured and full of monsters.

  The farmhouse is actually two buildings: the old yellow house that I saw from the driveway and a newer set of apartments that have been built next to it. We’re walking down the path between the two buildings when a boy pops his head through an apartment door.