Joan­na Jadoo

Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies

He overindulged in the over­flow­ing ale, gam­bled away half his pay cheque and danced un­til he al­most fell over. He lay out­side, slumped against the wall on the pave­ment while the par­ty raged on in­side the club. There were rev­ellers more de­ter­mined than even Mar­lo af­ter all. Mar­lo was not quite ready to go home yet, but then again, Mar­lo had nev­er had the best judg­ment. It was this in­her­ent flaw, a great weak­ness that al­ways got him in­to sticky sit­u­a­tions. But Mar­lo had not re­al­ly met trou­ble yet. Trou­ble was on her way in a floor-length gown, strut­ting down the pave­ment to­wards a se­mi-con­scious Mar­lo. Mar­lo had been drift­ing off to a drunk­en sleep but his half-closed eyes snapped wide open when he saw her stand­ing right be­fore him. Her stat­uesque frame was com­pli­ment­ed by her form-fit­ting shim­mer­ing silk dress. Her skin seemed gold­en in the yel­low glow of the street lamps. Her long dark curls were topped off with a wide-brimmed hat that sloped slight­ly on her head, cast­ing part of her face in shad­ow. De­spite that and his blurred vi­sion caused by the rum, Mar­lo could tell that this woman was beau­ti­ful be­yond words.

He had nev­er seen any­one like her. He scram­bled to his feet, cling­ing to the wall to catch his bal­ance. The sud­den ap­pear­ance of this woman seemed to have shocked Mar­lo out of his drunk­en stu­por. "Hi. I didn't see you in there," said Mar­lo, ges­tur­ing to­wards the club, "Did you just ar­rive?" The woman's al­mond-shaped eyes trailed over Mar­lo and then turned to the dou­ble doors of the night club for a mo­ment. The puls­ing mu­sic caused a slight vi­bra­tion of the build­ing. Howls and squeals could be heard com­ing from the par­ty. A few par­ty-go­ers came hurtling out of the es­tab­lish­ment. A laugh­ing girl and a dis­grun­tled-look­ing one propped up a third be­tween them as they car­ried her out. The woman in the hat and gown gazed at them dis­dain­ful­ly. Mar­lo tried to guess what she was think­ing. "These young peo­ple these days. I nev­er drink too much my­self. I just have a lit­tle sip. I stay with­in my lim­its. That's what a ma­ture per­son does," said Mar­lo, in what he hoped was a se­ri­ous tone.The woman smiled slight­ly. "What's your name?" asked Mar­lo, grin­ning, pleased that he had made her smile. "Many things," said the woman. Her voice was like the chim­ing of church bells. Mar­lo laughed. It was a joke, right? The woman frowned at him. Tilt­ing her head to one side, she asked: "What do you want to call me?" Mar­lo peered at the woman for a mo­ment, notic­ing how her sil­very dress shone in the moon­light.

"Sylvia," he said. "Then that is my name. Sylvia," she said, sim­ply. Okay, Mar­lo thought. The woman, Sylvia, was a bit strange but she was so beau­ti­ful. "Do you want to go for a walk?" asked Sylvia. "I'd love to," replied Mar­lo with­out an ounce of hes­i­ta­tion. Sylvia be­gan walk­ing away with­out an­oth­er word and crossed the street. Mar­lo fol­lowed with­out ques­tion. The night­club was pop­u­lar but had been built in a rur­al area so as to have more space for less mon­ey. It was a good enough club that peo­ple drove out of town to get to it. Sylvia was head­ing to­wards a large grassy park. Even though it seemed in­ap­pro­pri­ate to have a park for chil­dren next to a club for adults, it worked out well. The chil­dren played dur­ing the day when the club was closed and the adults par­tied dur­ing the night when the park was de­sert­ed. It was on­ly when Sylvia be­gan to move away from the club that Mar­lo no­ticed it. Sylvia had a stag­gered gait. She limped away as if some­thing was wrong with one of her legs. Mar­lo stood dumb­found­ed, watch­ing Sylvia hob­ble away for a mo­ment.

Then, he re­alised he would lose sight of her if he did not catch up soon. He dart­ed across the street and tried to keep in stride with her on the path that curved through the park. The swings were mo­tion­less, just as the see-saw and the mer­ry-go-round. The park was frozen at night. The laugh­ter of chil­dren had died with the day. Mar­lo pic­tured many chil­dren run­ning home as the sun set, not want­i­ng to be left alone in the dark. "Don't you just love chil­dren?" asked Sylvia. She seemed to guess his thoughts. "They're okay, I guess," Mar­lo replied."I just love chil­dren. I wish I had one of my own," chimed Sylvia. Mar­lo chuck­led. They were near­ing the end of the path. The park stood near to a lone­ly wood­ed area. Mar­lo stopped just short of this, but Sylvia con­tin­ued walk­ing, stag­ger­ing away.

Mar­lo had to know.

"So, um, what's wrong with your leg?" asked Mar­lo.

"What?" asked Sylvia.

"Your leg, what's wrong with it?" he asked, point­ing at the low­er half of her gown which com­plete­ly cov­ered both legs and feet. Sylvia seemed an­gry at first. Mar­lo be­came wor­ried that she would leave and he would not get her num­ber or any­thing. How­ev­er, her anger was short-lived.

She sud­den­ly broke in­to a beam­ing smile.

"Do you want to see?" she asked.

"Sure," he said, al­though he was be­gin­ning to feel a lit­tle un­com­fort­able.

"Not here.... In there," whis­pered Sylvia, in­di­cat­ing to­wards the cov­er of the trees. They moved to­wards the trees and just be­fore they dis­ap­peared in­to the thick­ness of the trees, Mar­lo hap­pened to glance be­hind them. Be­hind him, Mar­lo saw his shad­ow and be­hind Sylvia, Mar­lo saw...noth­ing.

She had no shad­ow. Alarmed for a mo­ment, he soon put it out of his mind. He was still drunk. That was all. They were now sur­round­ed by the trees at the end of the park. Just enough light from the street lamps shone through the breaks in the canopies ahead so that Mar­lo could still see Sylvia's breath­tak­ing face. She smiled at him and then turned her at­ten­tion to her dress. Grasp­ing the fine silk in­to bunch­es with both hands she slow­ly lift­ed her gown up to knees. Mar­lo edged clos­er.

He could not quite see what she was try­ing to show him... and then he did see it and wished he nev­er had.

He wished he had nev­er fol­lowed Sylvia away from the club that night.

He wished he had not had even one drink or danced to a sin­gle song.

He wished he had just stayed home.

Un­der Sylvia's dress was some­thing so hor­ri­ble, Mar­lo could scarce­ly ac­cept what he was see­ing.

One of Sylvia's legs was just as it ought to be, gold­en and smooth like the rest of her skin.

The oth­er was cov­ered in hair.

White hair. Like that of a cow. The leg end­ed in a hoof in­stead of a hu­man foot. Mar­lo scram­bled back­wards, try­ing to get away from Sylvia. He bumped in­to a tree as he backed away and stayed there, his back to the tree, still star­ing at Sylvia.

On­ly now did Mar­lo re­alise Sylvia's sweet smiles held and hid some­thing more.

It was mal­ice.

Sylvia smiled malev­o­lent­ly at the fright­ened Mar­lo, be­fore let­ting out a deep cack­le, which sound­ed noth­ing like the bell-like tones she had main­tained ear­li­er.

She took a step back from Mar­lo, who stood glued to the spot, un­able to move and to his hor­ror, Sylvia be­gan to trans­form. Her long dark curls turned grey and wispy, like coils of smoke, un­furl­ing around her.

Her skin wrin­kled and sagged. Her teeth yel­lowed and be­came point­ed at the crowns.

In a mat­ter of mo­ments, the beau­ti­ful maid­en be­fore him trans­formed in­to a hideous hag. Even her dress changed, los­ing its sil­very glow and be­com­ing ragged.

He was hyp­no­tized, trans­fixed to the spot, held by the gaze of her gleam­ing, pale eyes. She grinned at him, bar­ing all her jagged teeth.

Mar­lo's scream caught in his throat; beads of sweat formed at his tem­ple.

The crea­ture let out an ear-split­ting howl and lunged for Mar­lo... his last thoughts were of the peace­ful im­age of chil­dren that played in the park.

The world went dark. The fol­low­ing night was qui­et.

No par­ty­go­ers swayed to the beat of the mu­sic in the club.

Sylvia scut­tled along the pave­ment, pass­ing the build­ing slow­ly. The club had been shut down due to an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which be­gan when a man­gled body was found near­by, out­side the build­ing, slumped at the side of the club.

A trail of blood led the po­lice away from the body and to the park, at a spot amidst the trees at the park's edge. Even though the wounds hint­ed that they had been made by an an­i­mal, the po­lice had ques­tioned the shak­en par­ty­go­ers.

EPI­LOGUE

Sylvia walked the street alone. She came up­on a man head­ing to­wards his car. He stopped in his tracks to stare at her, mes­mer­ized by her beau­ti­ful form. She smiled at him and he smiled back. In his hand, he clutched that day's news­pa­per. The head­line read: 'Strange death: Man­gled Body of Lo­cal Man, Mar­lo Jef­fers, found Out­side Night Club, No Sus­pects.' The man let the news­pa­per fall to the ground. The pic­ture of Mar­lo Jef­fers smiled at Sylvia from the cov­er of the news­pa­per. She smiled at it briefly and then turned her at­ten­tion to the man on the street that was mak­ing his way ea­ger­ly to­wards her.