{"product_id":"2940013756267","title":"Fear and Other Stories","description":"THE fact that the man whom he feared had died ten years earlier did\u003cbr\u003enot in the least lessen Stuart McGregor's obsession of horror, of a\u003cbr\u003ecertain grim expectancy, every time he recalled that final scene, just\u003cbr\u003ebefore Farragut Hutchison disappeared in the African jungle that\u003cbr\u003estood, spectrally motionless as if forged out of some blackish-green\u003cbr\u003emetal, in the haggard moonlight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs he reconstructed it, the whole scene seemed unreal, almost\u003cbr\u003eoppressively, ludicrously theatrical. The pall of sodden, stygian\u003cbr\u003edarkness all around; the night sounds of soft-winged, obscene things\u003cbr\u003eflapping lazily overhead or brushing against the furry trees that held\u003cbr\u003ethe woolly heat of the tropical day like boiler pipes in a factory;\u003cbr\u003ethe slimy, swishy things that glided and crawled and wiggled\u003cbr\u003eunderfoot; the vibrant growl of a hunting lioness that began in a deep\u003cbr\u003ebasso and peaked to a shrill, high-pitched, ridiculously inadequate\u003cbr\u003etreble; a spotted hyena's vicious, bluffing bark; the chirp and\u003cbr\u003ewhistle of innumerable monkeys; a warthog breaking through the\u003cbr\u003eundergrowth with a clumsy, clownish crash--and somewhere, very far\u003cbr\u003eaway, the staccato thumping of a signal drum, and more faintly yet the\u003cbr\u003eanswer from the next in line.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe had seen many such drums, made from fire-hollowed palm trees and\u003cbr\u003ecovered with tightly stretched skin--often the skin of a human enemy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYes. He remembered it all. He remembered the night jungle creeping in\u003cbr\u003eon their camp like a sentient, malign being--and then that ghastly,\u003cbr\u003eironic moon squinting down, just as Farragut Hutchison walked away\u003cbr\u003ebetween the six giant, plumed, ochre-smeared Bakoto negroes, and\u003cbr\u003ebringing into crass relief the tattoo mark on the man's back where the\u003cbr\u003eshirt had been torn to tatters by camel thorns and wait-a-bit spikes\u003cbr\u003eand sabre-shaped palm leaves.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe recalled the occasion when Farragut Hutchison had had himself\u003cbr\u003etattooed; after a crimson, drunken spree at Madam Céleste's place in\u003cbr\u003ePort Said, the other side of the Red Sea traders' bazaar, to please a\u003cbr\u003ehalf-caste Swahili dancing girl who looked like a golden madonna of\u003cbr\u003eevil, familiar with all the seven sins. Doubtless the girl had gone\u003cbr\u003eshares with the Levantine craftsman who had done the work--an eagle,\u003cbr\u003ein bold red and blue, surmounted by a lopsided crown, and surrounded\u003cbr\u003eby a wavy design. The eagle was in profile, and its single eye had a\u003cbr\u003edisconcerting trick of winking sardonically whenever Farragut\u003cbr\u003eHutchison moved his back muscles or twitched his shoulder blades.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlways, in his memory, Stuart McGregor saw that tattoo mark.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlways did he see the wicked, leering squint in the eagle's eye--and\u003cbr\u003ethen he would scream, wherever he happened to be, in a theatre, a\u003cbr\u003eBroadway restaurant, or across some good friend's mahogany and beef.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThinking back, he remembered that, for all their bravado, for all\u003cbr\u003etheir showing off to each other, both he and Farragut Hutchison had\u003cbr\u003ebeen afraid since that day, up the hinterland, when, drunk with\u003cbr\u003efermented palm wine, they had insulted the fetish of the Bakotos,\u003cbr\u003ewhile the men were away hunting and none left to guard the village\u003cbr\u003eexcept the women and children and a few feeble old men whose curses\u003cbr\u003eand high-pitched maledictions were picturesque, but hardly effectual\u003cbr\u003eenough to stop him and his partner from doing a vulgar, intoxicated\u003cbr\u003edance in front of the idol, from grinding burning cigar ends into its\u003cbr\u003esquat, repulsive features, and from generally polluting the juju hut--\u003cbr\u003enot to mention the thorough and profitable looting of the place.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47079718420720,"sku":"2940013756267","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013756267_p0.jpg?v=1763589830","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013756267","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}