We killed the bloody thing. I know we did because I was the one to shoot it. Godforsaken beast. We’d killed so many that day, perched in our hides or riding about on those lumbering elephants, luring them out of the long grasses. So many pelts, we got bored in the end with how easy it was. It was a small one so we hardly thought it worth the effort of hauling it back. We just left it’s damn stinking corpse out there in the grasses.
That’s how I recognised it. The small statue. That and the blood that had run down its side and matted in its fur. The sun was setting and we were just about ready to get some tea on the boil as the guides skinned the pelts. Then I saw it, stood on the edge of the camp, watching. Strange thing to see a tiger out in the open. That’s what set a deep unease in my bones. But Harry had no such qualms.
‘I’ll get the bitch,’ he said, picking up his rifle. Well, I tell you, he damn well hit it. I saw the fur ripple with the impact, the chunks of flesh go flying out the other side amidst a fine red mist. But it just stood there. Watching. As if Harry’s shot had happened to fly well above its head. Harry stared. We all stared. He started to load, then it charged.
I don’t know how many it got. Certainly Harry. I saw it tear his throat out, pinning his head and chest apart with those giant paws. Then it went on a rampage. The air was filled with the cracks of rifles and their meaningless squirts of smoke. Cries of pain, fear and anger. Tents collapsed. Fabric shredded. The elephants stampeded out of their pens in the chaos.
I ran, and I’m not ashamed of it. You’ve never seen the likes of it. No living thing could take so many blows and stay standing, let alone tear through dozens of men like a lead ball pelted through the grass.
Out into the night jungle. I found other survivors. None made much sense, their wits gone with their courage. I was much the same. We made our way through a clawing brush and the flowing maze of the grasses. Going where I couldn’t say. Away. But we looped around eventually, knowing we’d have to get back to camp for our provisions. After many hours we’d hoped it had left.
As we approached we saw the night alive with a glow, not unlike a bonfire. I assumed some of the tents had caught alight from a scattered fire or broken lantern. But no such look.
It sat in the middle of the camp. Eyes white. Striped pelt, ragged and bloody. Claws and teeth dripping with gore. And all around it, a vicious, ethereal light swarmed as a tempest unhooked from the earth. A ghostly fire that swept over the dead, giving twitching motion to their limbs and, in time, opening their eyes to join its infernal ranks.
Paddy Dobson
9th October 2020