Ken Douglas - Gecko

He stood erect and pointed the gun.

Hugh Washington lay atop the sand dune and watched the pair approach. Glenna walked happy. She bounced along, smiling at Monday, her hands weaving and punctuating her words. Laughing, she bent down and picked up a shell and handed it to him. He inspected it, smiled, and dropped it into his pocket. She picked up another, held it up against the sun, bent down again and held the shell under the approaching surf, to clean it. Her jeans were wet to the knees, but she didn’t seem to care. She handed the wet shell to Monday, who laughed and put it in his pocket with the others.

Hugh heard her squeal with delight and saw her jump into Monday’s arms. She planted a long kiss firmly on his lips. So they were lovers after all. They broke the kiss and continued their walk, again arm in arm, like when they left the diner. She looked so happy. Could anything that made her look like that be wrong?

He felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle, a chill rippled down his spine. Somebody was behind him. He turned and saw Frank Markham, burnt, blistering, bleeding and holding a gun. Washington acted without thinking, screaming as he came sliding down the dune, clawing at his shoulder holster for the thirty-eight.

The thing that used to be a man, held its fire and spun its head around. With only one working ear it couldn’t tell what direction the sound came from, but it didn’t have to depend on its ear because the huge black cop was moving like a freight train, trying to get between him and his targets, and he was raising a pistol as he ran.

Hugh Washington screamed again, trying to distract the thing with the gun. He raised his thirty-eight and started shooting. The first shot missed.

Frank Markham fixed his eyes on the big cop, moved his gun to follow his line of sight and pulled the trigger only a fraction of a second after Hugh Washington’s second shot blew half his head away, ending his pain forever.

Markham’s shot ripped past Washington’s left ear, whizzing like an angry bee.

“ Dad!” Glenna screamed, running toward him.

Washington grunted a smile and sank to his knees in the sand, out of ammunition and exhausted.

He leaned back in his seat and his old fear of flying crawled up out of the dark. He’d been worried they’d spot the difference between the picture on Eddie’s passport and his face, especially in the light of all the security they supposedly had in these days of Homeland Security and their seemingly never ending terrorist alerts, but a guy with half a brain took a quick look at the passport, then asked him to remove his shoes. He’d been sweating a bit through that ordeal, but nothing like this.

He wasn’t afraid, he told himself, but when he turned his palms over, his hands were damp. He brushed the hair from his eyes. It was slick with sweat.

“ Are you all right, sir?” A pretty blonde flight attendant asked.

“ I’ll be okay.” He met her eyes, tried to concentrate on her freckles.

“ There’s nothing to be afraid of, we’re quite safe.”

“ Do I look afraid to you?”

“ A little.” Then, “You have flown before, haven’t you? And survived?” She smiled.

“ Yes, barely, but I lost my eye.” He laughed as he pointed at the eye patch.

“ Seriously?”

“ No, just kidding, but I am a little bit afraid of flying.”

“ Like I said, it’s perfectly safe. I’ve been doing it for years.”

“ I’ll be okay.”

“ If you need anything, just ask.” She started to move down the aisle, stopped, turned back. “Really, any problems at all, just give me a call. That’s what I’m here for.”

“ I can’t believe it. You’re afraid of flying?” Donna thought after the flight attendant had moved away.

“ Where have you been?” he asked, surprised at himself for not missing her earlier.

“ I’ve been here all along, I just thought you needed time to get over everything that happened.”

“ Maybe I did. But I think I’m going to need your help getting through the next ten hours.”

“ I suggest sleep.”

“ Not a chance.”

“ When I was a little girl and couldn’t sleep, my mother would tell me stories, and the way she told them made them so real that they took away all my problems and worries, better than the movies, better than TV. When she finished I would lay in my bed, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes scared, depending on the story. But happy or afraid, I always forgot about not being able to sleep as soon as she finished with the telling.”

“ That’s nice.”

“ Why don’t I tell you one of my mother’s stories and we’ll see if it works.”

“ Really, Donna, I don’t think there’s any way I’m going to sleep.”

“ Let’s try. Put your seat back, close your eyes and listen to me. We have a word in Maori, Ngaarara, that can mean many things, like insect, reptile or even monster. And we have a sort of legend, or maybe tale is a better word, about a kind of monster that my mother, and her mother before her called Ngaarara, for want of a better name.”

“ This doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a bedtime story,” Jim thought.

“ But it’s the story I’m going to tell you,” Donna thought, “so please listen, because it’s important.”

Then Donna told her story.

Long ago two girls climbed a tarata tree to pick the leaves to scent their oils, because they wanted to smell as pretty as they looked. The tree grew on a hill and when they saw the village in the valley below, the girls felt like birds, at one with the sky. The oldest was seventeen, the youngest, a girl named Mahina, was barely fifteen and she wanted to climb as high as she could, because she wanted to touch the clouds.

Mahina was very happy that day, but her happiness was quickly chased away by the sound of a man below, calling up to them.

“ Which one of you will come and be my bride?”

The girls looked down and were frightened at the sight of him. He was old and withered, with stringy hair and slits that hid his eyes.

“ Not me, sir,” the older girl said. “because I am going to marry my sweetheart in three days time.”

“ Then it will be you.” The man pointed a bony finger at Mahina.

“ Not I,” Mahina answered, “for I have no wish to marry for many years.”

“ I am sorry, but you cannot refuse.”

“ But I do refuse,” Mahina said.

Then, all of a sudden, they were covered in a cloud of blue smoke and when it had cleared away the man was gone, but in his place was a giant green tree gecko. And it was laughing.

The girls shuddered at the laughter, because if you hear the laughter of a green gecko, it means someone close to you will die. The only way to avoid the curse is to catch and burn the reptile before death comes to the village.

Again there was smoke and, quick as a wink, the man was back and the girls knew at once that it was no ordinary old man on the ground below them, it was Ngaarara, the evil Gecko Man.

“ I have come searching for a bride.” He pointed that bony finger again. “And I choose you, Mahina.”

“ But I don’t choose you.” Mahina looked straight into his slitted eyes, trying not to be afraid. “So go away.”

“ You have heard my pet’s laughter. If you refuse, death will meet your family before your feet touch the ground. All will die, your mother, father, brothers and sisters. Even your little niece, who I know you love very much.”

Mahina knew this was true, so with sadness in her eyes and a heavy heart, she nodded her head, climbed down from the tree and Ngaarara, the Gecko Man, took her away.

The older girl ran back to the village and told Mahina’s family and they were overcome with grief, but there was nothing they could do, because the evil Ngaarara was already gone.