before I realized that the man was looking at me

nice6boyt7

By Michael Jordan(Part Two)When we returned from the Blacka, keeping the fish I’d caught was the last thing on my mind. Max didn’t want them either, so we gave them to Old Skeets, who was watering his plants when we passed his home.Old Skeets grinned and said: “These gun eat good with bread when the Mistress fry dem dry.”I washed off with soap and Dettol at the pipe in Max’s yard before going home.Mommy was listening to the radio. Dad was out. I didn’t feel very hungry, so I went to bed early.I lay there, tossing in bed, unable to sleep; and then it grew dark, a full moon was out—and I was at the Blacka, at the spot where Maxie and I had stared into the eyes of the huge fish. I was terrified, because I sensed that something was about to happen.I became aware of an overpowering, fishy rank that was yet somehow pleasant. But I was not alone. A naked girl with waist-long, water-drenched black hair sat on a tree that had fallen into the water. She was weeping.A man sat next to her stroking her hair; comforting her in a strange language that I somehow understood. He was shirtless and wiry, with long greying hair tied in a knot at the back. On his wrists were two silver bracelets that were shaped into snakes.And then I saw something else that raised the hairs on my arms and neck: Below their waists, where their legs should have been, were fish tails. Hers was pink and white; his was black as a tilapia’s.I was still gaping when she saw me. She looked at me through her tangled hair. I thought she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen. I was lost looking into the fish-girl’s strange, greenish eyes, before I realized that the man was looking at me, too.Unlike the girl’s, his eyes were a muddy yellow and they glinted. He then gently shifted the hair away from the girl’s face, and I no longer thought her pretty. A long, deep, ugly, ragged cut ran from her left ear to the bottom of her chin. It was beginning to heal, but the tightening skin had pulled the left side of her mouth upwards into a demented grin that reminded me of ‘The Joker’ in the Batman comic books. She probably saw my revulsion, because her green eyes narrowed and her hands went up to hide the scar.She snarled something at the man. I recoiled as they suddenly plunged off the fallen tree and began to slither like eels up the side of the dam towards me. I stood there, unable to run, unable to scream…I awoke trembling, and kept the light on for the rest of the night; but when morning came, the dream was still on my mind.After I got up, I started on some of my chores. I was sweeping the front yard when Max came over. At first I thought that maybe he wanted us to go fishing again, but the moment I looked at him I knew that something was wrong. Tears streamed down his face. I immediately thought of his mother, who I knew was ill.“What happen, Maxie?”He wiped at the tears then said. “Come and see what somebody do to my chickens.”The first thing that I noticed when we got to Maxie’s home was that Lassie, the old dog with a bit of German Shepherd blood; that dog that always growled at me, was cowering in a corner.Maxie, still sobbing, pointed to the pen, in which he was rearing about twenty chicks.“You see what they do?”I saw.Something or someone had entered the yard last night—walked past big, bad-tempered Lassie—and wrenched off the door of the chicken pen.Maxie’s tiny yellow chickens lay scattered on the ground.Someone had wrung their heads off.A chill ran through me. “Who do this, Max?”“I doan know…”I helped Max get rid of the dead chicks. He had stopped crying, but he wasn’t speaking much. I asked him again who he thought had killed the chicks. A look of fear flashed across his face. But he said nothing.That was the day Maxie began to change.We had tons of plans for the holidays—we’d fish, play road cricket against the guys from Festival City, and let Ralphie sneak us into the cinema to see a Bruce Lee double, when he came back from training at Tacama. But it seemed that Max’s heart wasn’t in any of those things. I knew that he was troubled about something.Things weren’t too bright with me, either. I had dreamed a few more times about the fish-girl and the man; and in those dreams it was always moonlight and they were chasing me down the dam by the Blacka.About a week after Max’s chickens had died, he came by my house calling for me. He had always been skinny, but it seemed to me that he had gotten even thinner. I saw something else. He looked terrified. “You could come by me now?”We went back to his house and sat silently on his front steps for a few minutes. I could hear his mother coughing inside.“You remember that fish that I ketch?” he blurted out.I felt goose-bumps break out on my arms. I nodded, dreading what was coming next.He sighed. “I think I going crazy.”“What you mean, Max?”He sighed again: “Since that day at the Blacka…I dreaming about a fish-girl with a cut on her face. And—and a man with yellow eyes…”I took a deep breath then said: “Max … you ain’t crazy. … I getting the same dream.”He stared at me. “At the Blacka?—by where we catch the fish?”“Yes. I does dream that they chasing me.”Me too,” he said. “But my dreams is real.”Without waiting for me to answer, Maxie stripped off his jersey. I stared at the fresh scratches on his back and arms.“I don’t have anybody to tell this to,” he said. “Daddy out of town, Ralphie still at Tacama…mommy sick—” he brushed at a tear then muttered: “This happen last night.”“How?” I found myself blurting out, though part of me really didn’t want to know. .“I dream I was walking to the Blacka. I didn’t want to go, but like something was pulling me. …The two of them was in the water. They was telling me to come in, but I know that if I went near them they would kill me. … While I standing on the dam, they start to come out of the water—but just before they reach me, I wake up…” He looked at me with terrified eyes. “I wake up near the Blacka.”“What?”He nodded. “The place was dark, but I know I was standing at the same spot where we catch that fish—that thing. I was barefoot and in my shorts alone…I could hear something splashing around in the water, but I couldn’t see anything. … But I was sure I hear somebody laughing…”Maxie’s voice was trembling now: “I run, boy. I run all the way home. I was so frighten that I run in the wrong direction. Fall down twice. Scratch up my skin.” He was crying.I stared at his scratched-up chest. “Who you think these people is, Max?”He stared at me with reddened eyes. “You mean you don’t know?—I caught a fairmaid, and now she want to kill us!”(To be continued)