fiction #7- "soucouyant" part 7.

the final online installment of this piece:

"On ground level people in a uproar about their family getting kidnapped and set up to get kill, and the government was in big fights with other governments about whose fault it was and who should handle the fallout. We know the “bait” was already ready to dead because they know the score. They didn’t want to go up there in the first damn place. Everybody waiting to hear the damage, but nobody coming down, and nobody brave enough to go up.Another week pass and all we could do is assume the bait gone through. Anybody who had friend or family stuck there give up on them as soon as they see the kidnap footage. We didn’t know what the science boys really thought would happen, but coming back alive was not an option. The more you feed anything, the stronger it grow, and some things will not be contained. And some parts of nature above man on the food chain – (writer edit)
Then finally one lone scientist come stumbling down from El Tucuche.
He didn’t know where he was, who he was, or what the ass he was doing. He come down crying for home; don’t know where home is, but it was the only word in his mouth. The government pick him up fast fast and take him to St. Clair nursing home for recuperation and evaluation, but for days all that man could say was “home”.
Now you know the whole country and everybody who had send out researchers glued to TV and radio hoping for news. All them in foreign who had tried to send search parties for their people up El Tucuche and fail, now trying to send interrogators to ask this man what happen out there. The doctors manage to keep them away for awhile, saying he in bad shape and need time to rest, because they overstand what the man must be going through. But nobody outside of the Caribbean knew for real what went on.
It wasn’t like the government could exactly explain to the world what it was. What they could say? That somewhere in the vicinity of El Tucuche, some old woman shedding her skin at night, flying to the camp as a ball of fire, and sucking the blood of the frog researchers…
That just wouldn’t work. Even if they could make somebody believe in it – why they didn’t say something before the researchers come instead of exposing them to something like that? Why they didn’t do something about it as soon as the first one went missing? Or the second – or third? Why it is that one whole government with a police force, army, and host of services at its disposal could not bring four unarmed scientists down off their mountain? Then the government would have to explain that the boss-man thought soucouyant was just another story, because he move too far from the canefield and silk-cotton tree, and politics have no time for folk stories. You see how this leading to unanswerable questions. With jumbies, it easier to not believe unless you have to.
So when this man recover enough to remember who and what he is and where he was, he start talking to any and everybody in St. Clair like he had something to get off his chest in a hurry. Then somebody from the company he was working for come to see him and he stop talk. By the time the news crews get to him, he wasn’t saying nothing. He don’t know what happened. He just find himself alone up there so he come down. Rumour was the company man tell him they wanted to publish whatever information he had and he had to hush until he reach back home. But the staff already hear the story by then…
Apparently them science boys really bait their trap with the police and government reps, and come night the bait would disappear, but nobody see anything. They would find the body in the bush later, but still nothing in the trap. When they run out of bait, they start drawing straws to pick from among themselves, and so the six start dwindling. You see how white people crazy?
So our boy in St. Clair was the last man standing, watching his last colleague in the box, and he finally see it. It was the first time any of them actually see what they was trying to catch. He say he couldn’t believe it, but his eye tell him a big fiery ball fly down into the box and back out before he could lock it down. When he look back, his partner was gone. He vaguely remember coming down from the camp but don’t know how he reach St. Clair.The only thing in his mind between leaving the camp and his hospital bed, is he think he see a tree on his way down El Tucuche with not a leaf on it, and something hanging out a hole in the trunk that look like a empty human skin..."

of course, there's another little surprise @ the end, but this is where the story ends in this particular forum.
me+grims+stevie will talk about which story we think should come next, and if i get my shit together, you should have the beginning of a new one by the 20th.
i'll try to post while in trinbago but if i don't, know that stevie has turned me into a puddle of ecstasy, the beach is the best it's ever been because i need it so desperately, and we eating our way through the islands.

smallislandgirl- yes, i'll be @ the trinbago gourmet jazz festival this weekend to hear david rudder, mighty sparrow, stevie wonder, india.arie, ken "professor" philmore, machel montano, mavis john (the good link for her is down- lame!), and doug e. fresh+slick rick- after we hit maracas with cheewah (world's best tattoo artist) tomorrow afternoon. i'll be one of the many short, dreadlocked, tattooed black girls there, but i'll be one of the few accompanied by a 6'2", 218lbs. white man from vermont, and a skinny, long-haired, multitattooed chinee boy (in trini at least). if you see me, feel free to hail me out, i'm less of a hater when home.
walk good.

ps: i didn't think it necessary to find links for the more internationally recognised performers on that list...