Percy tried to laugh, but only a dry croak emerged.
“I used to call it my manifesto, my destiny.” He shook his head, his mouth turning down. “My curse more like it.”
“Because you traveled to the Amazonian jungle?”
“Because I was a young fool.”
“Mr. Hobbs, my name is Max Wolfenstein. I’m a teacher here in Roscommon. Four children have disappeared from my town. Two have been found dead. I need you to tell me your story.”
40
“I traveled to Brazil and into the Amazon Rainforest. I was naive, a scientist and a scholar, foolish in my quest for discovery,” Percy started, leaning his head back on the couch and closing his eyes.
“Our journey began as three: myself, a French botanist, named Antoine, and David, one of my colleagues from Dartmouth.
The Sanapu lived as a sort of ghost tribe. They were spoken of but rarely seen. When Antoine learned of their miracles regarding plant healing, he insisted we travel deeper into the forest and find them.
Three days into our journey, Antoine fell ill with malaria. He succumbed to the disease before we ever saw a glimpse of the tribe. David, on the other hand, was taken by El Lobizon.”
“Spanish for-?”
Percy nodded and picked at his thumbnail.
“El Lobizon is a South American myth of sorts. It’s much like our legend of the werewolf. Perhaps our legend arose from theirs. There are a few key differences of course. In the South American legend, El Lobizon is a curse on the seventh son. If a family produces seven sons, the seventh will be afflicted with this curse. He will turn into a half man, half wolf, and in a state of frenzy he will attack and kill.”
“A werewolf?” Max said, remembering Jody Hobbs’s words that her brother was a ‘very sick man.’
A half smile played on Percy’s lips.
“You don’t have to believe me, but it’s best if you do. If you want to stop it, that is.”
Max sucked in a fowl breath as if the air in the room had soured. Had he just committed a crime, abducting this man from a mental institution, only to run into yet another dead end? It was worse than a dead end, a madman’s boyhood fantasies.
As if in response to his thoughts, a crash sounded in the kitchen.
Percy stood up on wobbly legs, immediately falling back onto the couch.
Max strode into the kitchen, expecting to find police in swat gear with their guns drawn as they readied to apprehend the kidnapper.
Instead, his back door stood wide open, wind and rain blowing in. On the floor, Fruit Loops lay scattered from the welcome mat to his kitchen table.
Max closed and locked the door, not bothering to clean up the mess. He returned to the living room and perched on his chair.
“Okay, tell me,” he said.
Percy glanced questioningly at the kitchen, but he continued. “The tribe who took me, they had a special shrine. It was built from wood, and it looked like a ferocious wolf lunging through the air. As I learned more about them, I came to understand that the shrine had been erected for their fallen shaman.
“According to their stories, he’d lived a thousand lives. And unlike most beings, he’d retained the knowledge of every life. Not only was he the healer of their tribe, he was the protector, the warrior. But he did not fight battles. When night fell, he slipped into the forest and turned into El Lobizon. He crept into other tribes and attacked their leaders. He consumed their blood and flesh, adding their knowledge and strength to his own tribe.
“He left instructions for his tribe after his death. The warriors of his tribe ate the shaman’s flesh and drank his blood. They boiled his bones for thirteen days to remove the meat. Then they built a statue of El Lobizon, constructed partially from the bones and teeth of their fallen leader.
“Each month, on the full moon, they dismantled the wolf and they built it anew five days later. I asked why they did that, and what I discovered quite chilled me.
“Every full moon, five warriors in the tribe took apart the wolf. The women sewed crude little dolls for each of the warriors. The dolls were a mixture of the shaman’s bones and the men’s own hair, fingernails, and blood. The men would slice their arms and drip blood onto a seed from the embauba tree - the heart of the doll. That night, they would go into the jungle and defeat their enemies. They turned into El Lobizon, not the same as the shaman himself had, who seemed to have appeared more wolf than man during his shifts. But they ran on all fours and they tore at their enemies with their teeth.”
Percy blinked at the floor as if recalling a terrible memory.
“I followed them one night, a fool after his great discovery. I followed them, and I watched them fall upon a tribe of men. They pulled the men from the trees and ripped out their throats. I’d never seen anything like it, Max. They were not merely pretending to be animals. They jumped as if they had the muscular haunches of a jaguar. Their teeth seemed to glow sharp and yellow in the moonlight. They returned home, blood soaked and panting like dogs. They collapsed in a heap and slept. In the morning, I saw the women washing them.
“I lived with them for six months. And then one night, in a moment of madness, I stole teeth and bones from their altar and ran into the forest. I don’t remember how I got away. It’s a dream, a nightmare perhaps. I stumbled into a group of white men, traders who’d gone into the forest to barter for cocoa. They took me with them.”
Max rubbed his temple, considering the man’s story.
It was absurd. No sane person would believe it. But his dubiousness was met with a memory. Simon Frank’s rotting body, a gash in his throat no knife could make.
“How did you end up in the asylum?” Max asked. He needed the whole story. Maybe then it would make sense.
“Pride,” Percy told him, bracing his hands on the couch. “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. One of my father’s favorite quotes. He was a farmer, a man of the land. American land, naturally, not some heathen’s land. He never understood my desire for travel. Neither did I for that matter. How do you explain such a call? A need so powerful it reaches into your chest and takes ahold of your heart until the rhythmic beat sounds only like go-go-go.”
Max thought of the man Percy had been the day before, a man imprisoned, not only in an asylum, but also in his own body, held captive by a flurry of drugs meant to sedate and confuse him.
“It was pride that landed me in the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane. I had a colleague there who for a long time I had considered a friend. No more, of course,” he smirked.
“We roomed together at Dartmouth. Guy Lance was in the top of his class in every subject. I’ve never met a more brilliant mind. I took him home once during Christmas leave. His father traveled for work. His mother had died young. He would have gone home to Boston to an empty house and a supper prepared by a maid.
“The moment we stepped from the car onto my snowy desolate driveway, I saw his disgust at my meager home. I regretted bringing him with me, but it was too late. He drank and ate with abandon, without prayers or thanks.”
Percy sagged back on the couch as if humiliated in the retelling.
“My father pulled me aside later and said, ‘that is not a man. He is a snake dressed in silks and golds. He will be your downfall.’”
Percy paused and blinked, chewing his thumbnail. “I get the shivers realizing how right he was. A strange feeling came over me after that trip. Instead of seeing Guy’s true nature, an arrogant and selfish man, I grew obsessed with pleasing him, and later, outdoing him. I had to get higher marks, date prettier girls, and go on more grand adventures than he could ever imagine.”