Paula Guran - The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu

Chicya blinks to keep colors from swirling before her eyes. What’s a truck doing here? They never come this far into the Peruvian mountains.

Should she warn the elders?

No one will believe her. They always say she’s loco, born under a dark moon.

The truck vanishes around a bend, and perhaps she hallucinated the whole thing . Chicya hangs her head, and the black mood settles over her. If only I had enough nerve , she thinks, I’d throw myself off the mountain and hit bottom, crushed to dust, and let the river heave me downstream .

If only . . .

The birds cry. The flowers, once drenched in honey, smell stale. The clouds part, only for a moment, and exhale a strand of sunlight before closing again.

Time creeps into the distance.

Suddenly an animal screams, and Chicya’s alpaca freezes, head high, drip of vegetation hanging from its mouth. Screams rise and echo and expand in bands of air that puff up to where Chicya slumps on her terrace.

She leaps up, and a wave of dizziness hits. She almost falls but staggers back, careful not to slip off the ledge, for now is not her time . She doesn’t have enough nerve. Not yet.

The screams are odd. They’re not from any mountain creature she knows. Nor are they the shrieks of people, a sound she knows well from childhood. The Shining Path killers are long gone, sequestered in the Amazon now — and let them have their cocaine trade, for who needs it, not the pure Inca, no, not those of us who still chew the leaf.

Chicya scrambles up the grass to the plateau and stumbles through the woods. A chinchilla peeks from beneath yellow flowers that spread like stars across the boulders. The blood-colored bark of the paper tree exfoliates, and the twisted limbs grab at her and branches rake her hair. Roots crack through the earth and trip her, and she lurches but regains her footing and scuttles down the trail to the bottom of the mountain. She has to catch her breath, let her heart slow. She leans, hands on knees, and stares at the ground. It’s red from clay, red from blood.

The scent of grilled meat floats past, and she lifts her head. She hasn’t eaten in two days.

She scoots past the lapacho trees to the clearing by the village, then stops. What good will it do to go there? This is where she was found as a baby. Shining Path killed her parents, the villagers said. Sixteen years ago they died. They rescued her, but the villagers have always hated Chicya. “A drain on our resources,” they say, and “you eat our food and live nowhere, and all you do for us is nothing.”

Yes, that’s what she is, nothing , and she knows it. A freak of nature, alone, as adrift as the clouds.

In the clearing, a lopsided van crouches. Its rear lights are bashed, the tires deflated. Dents bruise the back and the side panel, where red letters spell TRUE SACRED VALLEY. The words look all drippy as if an idiot smeared them on with a brush.

Next to the van is the pickup truck. Up close, it doesn’t look so good. Rust scabs the body like a pox. The paint is a color that reminds Chicya of rat skin. Steam rises from three bowls on the open cargo bed. Stew . Grilled alpaca with tomato, cilantro, and lime.

Near the vehicles, dozens of villagers huddle in a tight knot. They’re all indigenous Inca, just like Chicya, but they’ve lost their way. They no longer follow the three main Inca laws. They lie and gossip about each other. They’re too lazy to rise up and fight the oppressive government. And every one of them would steal from his own mother if given half a chance.

Something squeals, and the villagers scream and pump the air with their fists. Chicya moves closer. Within the knot of villagers, animals scuffle and grunt.

A loud crack rings out, as if metal has cleaved skull, and the crowd goes wild. Another crack, a heavy blow no doubt, and an animal screeches, then whimpers and falls silent.

Chicya elbows her way to the center of the crowd. Those who recognize her scoff and try to shove her away. She retains her footing and glares back.

And then she sees them, the animals that are fighting: two men in loin cloths, squatting close to the ground, their round bodies smashed together. White fur forms patterns on their black skin, making them look faintly like the black-and-white pottery of the ancient Chimus of the Moche Valley. From their shoulders to their waists, blood mats the white fur into pink cotton. Stumps at the bottoms of their legs wobble in the dirt. Nearby is an Incan death club, gold and etched with serpents.

Slowly the men rise, their faces twisted in pain, and Chicya sees that neither man has a neck. They look like men, but there’s something off about them. Their bodies start sizzling where joined — and how can this be? — and the burned flesh crackles.

The villagers shriek and clap their hands.

Chicya turns to run, but her forehead slams against something hard. She reels back, vaguely sees a shovel and a laughing face.

Furry hands grab her. They lift her, and before she knows it, they throw her into the back of the pickup truck. She struggles but can’t break free.

Bizarre animals pin down her arms and sit on her legs. She can’t kick her legs loose, can’t ball her fists and punch the animals.

They might be women, but then again, they might not even be human. Like the fused men, they have no feet. Their bald heads are tattooed with Inca patterns: three stairs, a feline, a deer, a serpent. They wear rags and have no breasts, and in fact, their bodies are as round as urns. Chicya opens her mouth to scream, but several furry fingers jam into her mouth, and she wretches, the fur wet and dirty, the fingers gagging her. She sinks back, willing herself to go limp. Her torso convulses as she gags, and finally, the fingers slide from her mouth.

In the ancient Quechua language, they talk. “An amazing freak and easy to snatch” and “an orphan, nobody will care” and “people will pay a lot for her.” They coo at her, they stroke her black hair, and one of them tells her, “Relax. We won’t hurt you. You’re one of us now.”

Fingers peel back her lips and force open her teeth. She tries to bite, but the fingers are too strong. Sweet corn juice, the chicha , pours down her throat, and she sputters. But she can’t choke, can’t let them kill her, for now is not her time . She’s not ready to die, not yet, not this way.

They help her sit, and they poke alpaca meat into her mouth, and she chews and swallows. They feed her strange corn, each kernel the size of a thumbnail.

She dozes off and on, and is barely aware she’s in a truck bouncing down the mountain passages. Wheels grind over rock and dirt. The truck wheezes. Female voices say, “Ollantayambo” and “in the heart of the Sacred Valley.” A woodpecker raps a tree, and Chicya pictures its beak and the bobbing of its head. The rapping fades into the crunch of the wheels.

Finally, the truck stops, and the female creatures carry her to a straw pallet, where she sleeps through the night. When she awakens, she’s woozy as if drugged.

She slips outside.

The air is heavy again with the scent of alpaca stew. The truck and van are parked by a small roofless building made from stone, where smoke drifts to the sky.

On a rock bench to her left, a large clay pot begins to rattle. Molded in the clay, two girls embrace on the side of the pot, which now clanks across the bench.

Chicya squeezes her eyes shut, then opens them again, but her vision doesn’t clear.

The pot spins. The clay girls clench each other more tightly.

Chicya whirls, seeking an escape route. Forest-clad cliffs on three sides. Path snaking down the mountain. And behind the bench, rock stairs thrust into the clouds. How’s she going to get out of here?