Instinct: A Chess Team Adventure - By Jeremy Robinson Page 0,94
it with the weight of my discoveries. Discoveries that I hope will heal the pain of the past and make those missing the future proud of me. It is for this reason that I . . .
Knight stopped reading. It was clear that this Weston guy was going to continue his rant for several pages. He flipped through the notebook until he saw a drawing. He recognized the figure immediately as one of the primal woman, hunched in a mass of flattened reeds, as seen from a safe distance.
Knight read the text beneath the drawing.
In this, my fifth day of recording the activities of the Nguoi Rung, one of them sat still long enough for me to draw a picture. I have considered taking photos, but would most likely be detected. I have risked enough getting this close. If they find my perch high above them I fear they will flee.
Knight chuckled. The guy had no idea. Flee? They’d make a meal of him. Probably did.
He turned the pages, looking over more drawings and their accompanying notes. This Weston guy fancied himself as the next Jane Goodall, recording everything about the creatures he called the Nguoi Rung. When and how they hunted, which Knight had experienced firsthand. How they interacted with each other, what he believed to be a language. It was all there. He had chronicled everything about them that he could see without getting too close.
Knight turned the page and frowned. The wrinkled page lacked any text, but was covered in a mix of old mud and blood. He turned to the next page. Weston’s writing returned, but there was no date and the man’s written voice had changed.
Two months. God. I have been captive for two months and have only now retrieved my belongings. I have been humiliated, tortured, demoralized in unspeakable ways. The Nguoi are evil. God, please, kill me or save me.
He turned to the next page, expecting more of the same, but discovered something even more revolting.
A litter was born today. To the alpha female I have named Red. A true litter. Six tiny babies. I witnessed the birth, having gained some freedom of movement throughout the group. The gentleness of the mothers was impressive as they birthed the children one at a time, pausing between each so that each new child might have opportunity to suckle before the next arrived. I was allowed to see them after much complaining by the others, but Red allowed me closer. They were my children after all, and by God, they have my eyes!
Knight dropped the notebook. They had not only captured and raped Weston, but they had given birth to his children. It was unthinkable. Unbelievable. Tense and disturbed, Knight held his breath and listened. Shaken by what he’d read, he now feared that the Ngoui Rung would recapture him. And then what? Would a similar fate await him?
No, he thought, they were going to eat me.
And that was a preferable fate to what Weston described. It wasn’t just the things Weston had endured that disturbed him, it was the new change in his voice. He no longer mentioned being saved or killed. The half-human spawn were his children and had his eyes! Without needing to read any further Knight knew that Weston had stayed with the Ngoui Rung. Any good father would. With the notebook discarded in the maze long ago, he might now be dead, but Knight was positive that Weston had discovered the necropolis and this maze. He had become part of the Nguoi Rung and father to something inhuman.
Returning to the notebook, Knight skimmed through the pages, glimpsing keywords like “children,” “love,” and “happy.” He’d really gone native. And had learned to enjoy it. As he flipped through, Knight paused at another keyword, “fucking,” and read the entry.
The fucking old mothers beat me again today. They are teaching the children to behave like savages. Killing indiscriminately. Eating human flesh from the nearby villages. It is vile. I cannot stand it much longer. I must make a stand or flee this place . . . but I cannot bear to leave the children behind, not now, not with grandchildren being born.
Grandchildren? Knight thought. If this had been written this year the oldest child would only be fifteen years old. But the notebook had been discarded long ago, years ago. How could there already be grandchildren?
Knight pushed the thought from his mind. Dwelling on the twisted tale of Dr. Weston would have to wait.