Chakrov (A NEW KIND OF MONSTER STORY, FROM "The Streets of Malthusia")

Copyright 2007 - Jason Savage

So the younger boy asked the older boy for the second time if he wanted to go see the chakrov dance in the big field at midnight.

"But mother won't Let me." said the older boy.

"Tell her only that you'll stay with my family tonight."

"But why? Why would I stay with your family?"

"Tell her we' ll have onion soup tonight."

"But then she'll want to visit."

"Tell her we don't have enough." said the younger, shorter boy.

"Could you tell your mother there is not enough for her?"

"No." said the young boy. His eyes were dark. Night was bleeding into everything. The moon was up and time was short. He looked at the older boys face, grainy in the moon glow.

"Then tell your old hen that we will leave early on a hunt and you must be with my father to get a seat in the truck. Promise her fresh meat."

"And what if I don't bring home any meat." He imagined the pale face of his mother, disappointed upon his return the following day.

"I think you're afraid of the chakrov."

"No."

"And you are making excuses."

"No." said the elder boy.

They were walking home, the city unfolding before them like deeply shadowed origami. The younger boy produced a crudely rolled cigarette, lit it in a barrel fire that was tended by two dirty faced men.

"You want some?" he asked.

"No."

"You afraid of the chakrov?"

"No."

"Don't seem like you should be, you're twice my size."

"I'm not afraid."

"And you fight better than me."

"But I've never fought a chakrov."

"Do you know anybody who has?"

"Only dead men."

"Is that why you are afraid?"

"I'm not afraid."

They came to the corner of the block where the older boy lived. They stopped, facing one another in a flickering street light.

"Will you go?"

"Yes."

"What will you tell your mother?"

"I don't know."

The younger boy waited below as his friend went inside. A moment later the tall boy returned, an olive canvas knapsack in his right hand, a chunk of dry bread in his left.

"I know a shortcut." said the younger boy.

"I hate your shortcuts Tony." said the tall boy, but followed him into the darkened alley.

"Are you afraid of my shortcuts now too?"

"No."

"Come on yousally."

"Don't call me sally."

"Or what?"

The tall boy stopped in the gloom, stared down at the shorter boy he knew only as Tony.

"Nuthin." Then he added, "Call me by my name. I call you by yours."

"Okay El."

"It's Eli."

"Okay El." said Tony.

"How far is your place?" asked Eli.

"Not far."

They were at the top of a hill. Below a fight had broken out between two drifters, one man was beating the other with a board ripped from a pallet. Both were swearing.

"Time for another shortcut." Tony said. They ducked into another alley.

The smell of rotted food and urine and death overwhelmed them. They walked slow, feet sliding so as not to trip. They could hear the broken glass crunching beneath their feet.

At the end of the alley stood a crooked gray lamppost, it's light flickering on and off like a sick and confused firefly. At the mouth of the alley a stout green dumpster, cancered with gouts of copper and brass colored rust. In the distance, the scratching of rats in the dumpster and on the lid.

Rising from the top of the dumpster, bloated and pale and much like a surrender flag above an embattled bunker, was a womans arm, wrist broken, fingers fanned apart as if waving hello. On the fourth finger a gold ring clutching a clear stone shot with prisms in the sparse light.

"Think you can get it?" asked Tony. Eli had paused for a moment, transfixed by the diamond.

"Nah."

"A week's worth of good food probly in that stone." tried Tony.

"I ain't no thief." answered Eli.

"She's dead."

"It's still her ring."

"What if it ain't still her arm?"

"Her arm?"

"Yeah. What if it's just some dead broad's arm, not her whole body? Could you take it if it was just an arm?"

"I suppose."

"Then don't look in the dumpster, just imagine it's just an arm in there, not a whole body."

"But I'm not a thief." repeated Eli.

"Course you ain't. But you ain't a fool either."

"Damn. How's some broad end up in a dumpster down here?"

"Remember, it's how's some broad's arm end up in a dumpster down here?"

Eli was inching toward the dumpster, his fingers fanning then flexing with each step. Tony watched but tried to look disinterested. Eli pulled once, twice. On the third pull the ring came off, along with a clot of soft, white tissue. Eli dropped the ring onto the busted pavement, let the treasure seperate itself from the rest.

"Don't lose it." said Tony, his voice conspiratorial.

"Got it." Eli said, snatched the ring off the street. "Let's go."

"Not far from my place now."

"Good." said Eli, then asked. "You still think I'm afraid?"

Tony stopped, turned to Eli. Eli unsheathed his hunting knife, unscrewed the compass on the butt of the knife, dropped the ring inside.

"Never thought you were afraid. I'se just sayin' that." Then lit another cigarette.

The building Tony lived in was a five story concrete structure with unbroken windows only on the top floor. The face of the building looked raked and worn, but it was true, with square corners and level turns.

Eli followed Tony into the ground level entrance and up five flights of stairs.

They entered a small apartment full of noise from children, and smoke from dirty men. Two of the men sat at a small table near the far wall. They wore blank expressions on faces that might have been drawn in charcoal. They watched two small boys swordfight with crinkled cardboard blades. In front of the kitchen sink stood another man, this one with a long, slender woman in black leather coiled within his arms.

"Hey dad." said Tony. Eli had followed him through the kitchen, past the swordfight, and straight toward the sink.

"Hey boy. What kept you so frickin late?"

"This is my friend, Eli."

It was the first time Eli had ever heard Tony speak his whole name.

"He what kept you?" asked the father.

"Yeah." answered Tony.

"Where you live young man?" asked the woman, still captured in the man's arms.

"Across the old reservoir, not far from the power plant."

"In twelve?"

"Yeah." answered Eli.

The woman rolled her eyes, looked up at her man.

"That's out near Protest Park." she said. The men nodded silently.

"You see the last protest?" she asked.

"Nah. My mom wouldn't let me go, but I heard the shots."

"You goin hunting tonight?" asked Tony of his father.

"We're going later. Waiting for the rest of 'em now."

"Can we go?"

"No room. Truck seats six, bed'll be full on the way back."

"Okay." answered Tony. Did not sound disappointed.

"Getting up early for a stickball game." said Tony.

They made for the far bedroom. Across rimracked floors and dirty lime green tiles. The hall window, jaggedly striped with gray duct tape nearly glowed with the coolness of the night air. Eli stopped in the window, face to face with the moon.

"Come on." said Tony from a swath of light in the doorway.

"Okay, okay."

The room smelled of a hundred nights sleep, the bed a hundred more. Tony opened the window. It slid and caught like sandpaper on old wood. They were five floors up, Eli observed, as Tony lit a cigarette.

"Is that your mother?" asked Eli.

"Nah." answered Tony.

"Where is she?"

"Out working."

"What does she do?"

"What do most women do?"

"Oh." said Eli. "Who is that woman?"

"Her friend."

The sound of steps outside the door. Tony tossed his cigarette far across the street below. It touched down in a small blossom of orange sparks. The two small boys came in, went immediately to bed.

Then the sound of Tony's father and the whore. The muffled voices of men in the kitchen. Doors slamming and the sound of a large truck leaving toward the hills.

"They're gone." said Eli.

"Yep."

"How long will we wait?"

"Not long."

They listened until the woman left the apartment. Heard her whistling down the block. When the noise had disappeared they crept slowly through the kitchen, down the staircase and down the street in the same direction the truck had departed nearly an hour before.

"My mother'll be home soon, but she's coming from the city side." said Tony, gesturing behind them.

"Is your father hunting chakrov."

"No. Deer, rabbit, coyote. Not chakrov."

"Why not?"

"That would be backwards."

"Oh." said Eli, and dropped his head.

"Beyond those hills." said Tony.

They walked out beyond the light of the city into the foothills. The ground was hard in the hills and the grass was dry. It broke beneath their feet with each step. A sound like a campfire crackling as it walked across the land.

"We're almost there." said Tony.

Eli wiped sweat from his brow, smiled. His eyes were wide with anticipation, swallowing up the darkness whole and filtering out what he could not use. They had passed ruined buildings, one tall structure that was little more than the burned out husk of a tall, cylindrical thing. It's edges hung ragged, like a scarecrow torn in the wind.

Beyond the hills was low ground that had once been a lake. It's edges were dotted with the remains of small buildings, fossils of the age when man congregated beside water for comfort and joy.

Tendrils of tall grass ran out to a plateau near the center of the lake bed. The grass was taller than Tony and nearly as tall as Eli. They crawled through it slowly, no faster than the wind would blow.

In the distance Eli heard the shrill cry of a chakrov. It let a chill up his spine but he continued on, his confidence in Tony as strong as ever.

"You afraid?" asked Tony once while they waited for another gust of wind. The moon was high and bright and through the grass Eli could see his face, slashed in the grass shadows like a tiger.

"Nah. Got my knife." Eli answered, holding up his survival knife, compass bobbing in it's butt.

Eli wondered how sure he sounded. Another howl from a chakrov, this one behind them.

"Will it come this way?" Eli whispered.

"No. Chakrov don't like the tall grass."

Whole pillars of sound rose from the plateau. Octaves of which Eli had never heard or even imagined. Desperation, anxiety and hunger were suddenly singing in a strangely inhuman voice. And they were very near the edge of the plateau.

Tony reached forward, parted the yellow grass before him into a tall,lopsided V. Eli did the same. The chakrov danced before their very eyes.

There were at least a dozen of the beasts, long muscular torsos gleaming pale blue in the moonlight. Heads canine, but twice the size of any Eli had ever seen, bright, slender fangs that exceeded the jaws in both directions. From the way the beasts walked and danced he could tell that they bore some sort of retractable claw in each foot, for each step brought forth a shiver from the soil as if freshly breached by a dagger.

They were circling one particular chakrov who had curled into fetal position in the center of the group. The affected beast was mewing with a sort of curdled tenderness that the others lacked. From the darkness opposite the boys a huge beast materialized, and the ring of chakrov that had been circling and pulsing to it's own beat suddenly paused. All was silent on the plateau, but for the rhythm of Eli's heart hammering in his chest.

The newcomer was given passage to the center without challenge. His fellow chakrov not mustering so much as a glance in his direction. Suddenly the mewing stopped. Eli felt his eyes bulging wider, so much so that he worried they would give him away. He could not pull his gaze from the beasts. Sweat coursing over muscles that rippled just below shimmering sheaths of skin. Fangs vicious yet unmoving, like drawn stilettos, waiting to visit murder on some faceless victim.

The beasts moved swiftly in concert with one another. The weaker creature mewed the desperate, forlorn plea once again and rolled over onto her back. In the air above her steam rose. She had been trapping heat beneath herself with purpose, for her underbelly rippled with the instinctive movements of the unborn escaping the womb.

The larger beast paused over her for a moment, examined her torso, her hind quarter turned up and inside out, her neck straining and twisted with all the exertion of natural birth. Lifted it's snout as if smelling rain in the air.

With a swift motion of it's head the dominant chakrov bent and ripped free a tract of skin from the underbelly of the female. Blood gushed like water from a freshly burst spring. She would not live.

Five pups spilled out onto the plateau. Covered in gore and even as they were still being born beginning to consume the mother. The pitched whining a narrow rendition of their mothers fading voice.

A stronger wind surged over the plateau. The boys shrunk away, fearful that the wind might expose them. Began to creep through the deep pale expanse toward safety.

The cry of the chakrov, so tenderly rupturing the silence between themselves and their prey. The wet lapping of newborn pups gorging on innards somewhere beneath the wind. Beneath that the sound of stilleto claws digging for traction in loose soil, much like the sound of blade thrust to the hilt into bone.

Eyes a golden riot of bloodthirst and fury fixed the boys in their grassy blind.

Tony stood, stumbled, ripped free fists full of pale chaff, fell. Eli watched, eyes dry and bulging, heart like a huge fist, pounding against his chest walls. A chakrov set upon Tony. The smell of hot blood filled the night as the chakrov excised the boys throat with a single swipe of his left paw. Followed by the sound of the pups, clamoring through the grass toward the fresh kill.

Then, as the pups closed hungrily in on his disemboweled friend, Eli turned to gaze into the blast-furnace eyes of the lead chakrov. For a fleeting moment on the plateau, all was deathly still. And the chakrov leapt.