Blind Panic by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online

reply, and he didn’t move. Sometimes they could see him quite clearly, but then the smoke would billow in front of him and he would disappear.
    “You going to tell us what you want?” Remo shouted. “Otherwise, vamoose, okay?”
    Still the man said nothing, but now he began to walk toward them, appearing through the smoke like a stage magician. The crown of his hat was cone shaped, with a braided leather band around it, and he wore a long black coat and ahigh-buttoned black vest. He had a flat, leathery face, with a mouth that was almost lipless. As he came nearer, they saw that his eyes appeared to be totally silver with no pupils, as if he had steel ball bearings in his eye sockets.
    “What do you want, man?” Remo repeated. “Is there something wrong? You blind or something?”
    “Gituwutabudeu?” the man shouted back at him, so harshly that all four of them jumped. “Gi besa! Poohaguma! Soongapumaka!”
    “What the hell is he talking about?” said Remo. “What kind of language is that?”
    “Vulcan, most like,” said Charlie. “Whatever it is, he seems to be pretty pissed about something.”
    The man came closer, until he was standing less than twenty feet away from them. Remo kept his rifle pointed at him, but he wasn’t sure whether the man could see him. The firelight danced and sparkled in his silver eyes.
    “Teyabe?” he asked, turning to Mickey and Charlie. Then he spoke in English, although his tone was still aggressive. “Why is your friend so frightened? In my language we say tsegwabbetuma for such a man—he who aims his gun but never pulls the trigger.”
    “Listen, is there something we can help you with?” said Remo. “We’re just having a cookout here, that’s all.”
    “I told you,” the man replied. "I am poohaguma , medicine man. But I am more than that. I am soongapumaka —medicine man making breath. My name is Wodziwob, but you—if you prefer—you can call me Infernal John.”
    “Phew! Good to know he’s not called anything remotely scary,” said Charlie, out of the side of his mouth.
    Mickey said, “Sir, we’re not, like, trespassing, are we? The signs all say that this a camping zone. And we haven’t done any damage. I caught a trout but I think it was well over the regulation size and anyhow I put it back in the river.”
    “What?” demanded Wodziwob. “You think you have done no damage? You have done more damage than you can possibly know.”
    “Oh, come on, bro,” said Charlie. “We’re only here to drink beer and cook a few wieners and catch a couple of trout, and when we’ve gone, you won’t even know we’ve been here.”
    “We will always know that you have been here, even when you are gone forever.”
    “We’ll pick everything up—I promise you. Every last bottle.”
    “You think I care about your paper and your bottles and your rubbish? All those will vanish in time. But you have polluted the land in a different way. You have stained its spirit, and a stain like that has gi tokedu , no end.”
    “I’m sorry, man,” said Remo. “I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”
    “It does not matter if you know or if you do not know. You will suffer the same consequences.”
    Mickey said, “Look, if we’ve upset you or anything, we apologize. But we’ve been real careful not to make a mess, and our RV has its own chemical toilet facility so we won’t be leaving any kind of stain whatsoever.”
    But at that moment, two figures materialized. They seemed to rise right out of the ground, one on Wodziwob’s left and one on his right. They were both impossibly tall, nearly twice Wodziwob’s height, and wide shouldered, and they were both dressed in boxy black coats. Their faces were covered by expressionless wooden masks, painted chalky white. On top of their heads they wore antlers decorated with beads and small bones and bird skulls.
    They stood beside Wodziwob, swaying slightly, while the smoke from the campfire whirled around their