Excerpt: How I'm Smarter than the 1950s and Overcame Evil with a Swizzle Stick

“When I was a boy, my parents took me on a boat trip around the world. My father was a priest in the Serbian Orthodox Church and made the excuse of visiting many Catholic missionary posts around the world. He said he wanted to do his part and to learn about frontier Christianity. But I fear it was no more than an excuse. I was a sickly child and was stricken with a fever more often than I can count. What my father really wanted was to bring me out into the fresh air and healthful sun, and let me see the world. He hoped the experience would improve my health and my spirits. I am very much afraid I made a poor travelling companion. On and off for months I was sick and confined to my cabin. One of my parents was always with me at my care. Only when I could convince them of their need to enjoy the cruise or the positive movement of my health did they leave me on my own. Perhaps they walked along the promenade or took in the ocean view. It’s hard to say, but even then I think their peace was disturbed by the worry of me. When I looked into their eyes, I knew it was a sorrow I would never be able to make up to them. It was the first of very many of the deepest lonelinesses I have known. Now that I look back on it, I find myself with an unexpected sense of nostalgia. Like when an older man remembers his childhood, he never remembers the horrors, only the freedom of his existence. It is that selectivity which keeps us sane. And I remember my childhood illnesses like... like a first kiss.
“When the ship crashed I lost them forever. I never knew our position at the time, but afterwards they told me I had been wrecked on an island of Indonesia. I do not know which one, but I assure you it was wholly uninhabited by human life. Just the animals and the trees and the Graack. I fended for myself for several weeks, overcoming my illness when I could to gather berries and, when my strength was high, kill a bird or crab. I kept to the clearings and beaches when I could because I was afraid of what might be in the jungle. I knew the sounds I heard at night, an animal howling or snarling, suddenly cut short with no explanation. It was one of the few times my curiosity has not prompted me to find out. I had a shelter on the beach, the most I could put together out of palm leaves and rocks. Until the night when I saw the Graack
“I heard it first, way up in the hills late at night. There was a cave, huge and craggy like a meteorite had struck the earth and blackened it all around. You never hear the Graack when you’re awake. It’s always just when your eyelids drop and your brain is half-way to sleep. Then I heard it, a sound I had not heard before. A deep, staccato croak coming from the hills, like a crow or maybe a frog. That’s what I thought it was at first, but when my mind began to drift off and I shut my eyes I heard it again. This time I knew it was something else.
“I stepped onto the sand, still warm from the day and heated by the water. A cool breeze whipped around my shirt as I strained to see up to the great cave. Then I saw it. Long, ropey limbs lifted the creature up out of the cave and into the air. It was thin, almost skeletal, and stalked through the night like a stick insect. It was high up on the hill so that it cast a clear silhouette against the stars. I heard the noise again, clearer this time, a long, low graaaaaaack.
“I ran and hid in the bushes at the edge of the jungle, petrified that the thing had seen me. My little hut looked so vulnerable, so ridiculous. I climbed a tree to get out of the way, anywhere just to get myself as far away from the thing as possible. Up in the branches, I fell asleep. When I woke up I climbed down from the tree keeping an eye on the jungle all the time. When I reached the beach I looked up at the cave and saw the remains of a rhinosceros, its bones picked white and shining brilliantly in the sun. I crept over to my hut and after I made sure there was nothing inside I kicked it down. I slept in the tree from then on. I didn’t hear the Graack every night, but it seemed like every time I shut my eyes to rest the monster’s cry echoed across the hills and through the jungle.
“After a little time my daring grew. The Graack had never come this way or disturbed me by the beach. It only ever seemed to hunt in the hills and dense jungle. And one night the moon was especially full and bright. I decided the light was good enough to see the Graack properly because, although I was terrified, I had begun to be curious about the creature that walked so staggering and stilt-legged through the night. So I stayed awake that night, waiting for the creature to emerge from its lair. I was up so late, counting off the minutes and hours while the moon rose higher and splashed off the waves. I lay on my back on the sand and looked up at the sky because, although I would have left that place in a heartbeat, I had never seen a sky like that at home. My eyes grew heavy and my breathing slowed. I drifted on the hush of the waves against the shore.
“I leapt up without knowing if I was asleep or awake. Because a sound had disturbed the night, and up on the hill I spied a movement at the cave. There was a low gurgle, something gathering its strength, and then the Graack lifted itself up into the air on its stiff legs. It made a squawking croak as it climbed up out of its hole, and up and up and up. Something about the moonlight revealed what had not been there only a night or two before. The Graack was huge now, covering a slab of the sky and blocking all light. Now I knew why a creature so thin lived in a hole so big – there was more of the Graack than a merely human eye could reveal. It required the moon’s eye to detect. And with that eye I could see all the monster’s awful form, the mouths groaning, the greasy feathers rustling and the disgusting limbs carrying the creature forward. Now, in the clearest of nights, its hundredfold eyes swirled around and rested on the lone figure of a boy silhouetted against the white sand. With a flap and a hideous cry, the Graack launched out of its cave towards me.”