Doctor James Corbett huddled on the cold tiles of the veterinary facility’s restroom, holding his knees to his chest as he rocked against the wall of the handicapped stall. The hum of old fluorescent lights filled his ears while tiger eyes stared into his mind’s eye.
The bathroom’s rusty hinges heralded a visitor. “Doctor Corbett? Are you in here?”
James recognized his friend’s voice. He groaned internally and it leaked out through his vocal chords as a weak whimper.
The door closed and Bill shuffled into the room. “Hey buddy.” His voice echoed off the cracked tiles and chipped paint. He knelt on the ancient bathroom tiles and peered at James from under the stall door. “What’s up? The tech said you dropped everything and ran out of the exam room.”
James stared blankly at his friend.
“Are you sure you’re ready to return to work? If you need more bereavement time, I’m sure the director would…”
“It’s not that,” James interrupted.
Bill shifted his weight on his knees and stared back at James. “Hey, don’t try to downplay it. I’m glad I flew out there with you, his house was a mess.”
That was an understatement. Bill was there when James had found one of his father’s severed hands under the bed, still clutching a bloody journal belonging to a famous hunter from the early 1900s. The journal was opened to an entry about a visit to London and a mysterious woman he knew as Luella.
Bill sighed. “What is going on?” he asked. “Why’d you run out of the exam room?”
“She made eye contact with me.” James locked eyes with Bill’s.
“Who? The tech?”
“Not her. Molly, the tiger.”
“The tiger?” Bill scowled. “Molly is sedated. If her eyes are open she’s staring off into space, not making eye contact.”
James shook his head. “No, her pupils narrowed and she zeroed in on me.” He shivered and pressed his palms into his eye sockets. “But it wasn’t just any stare, she seemed intelligent, like she had something to tell me…” he trailed off and leaned his head back, taking a long, deep breath.
Bill was silent. After a moment, he blinked. “It’s like those nightmares you told me about,” he said softly.
James squinted at his friend.
“Didn’t you say there was a tiger that wanted to tell you something but it had a toothache that made it roar in pain?”
James stared at him in disbelief. “You remember that?”
Bill grinned. “Well, it nagged at me so I did a little research. A lot of man-eating tigers in India were driven to hunt and kill humans because they were too injured to catch their usual prey. I thought it was a weird coincidence that one of the most notorious man-eating tigers was killed by your namesake, Jim Corbett.”
A violent pang of shock and realization sizzled through his limbs and James whispered, “Champawat.”
“Hey, yeah, that’s the one. The Champawat tiger!” Bill smiled.
Where had he heard that before? James searched the dustiest shelves of his mind, peering into dark corners and finding nothing. “I need to read that journal,” he said, clenching his fists and getting to his feet.
“Journal?” Bill asked. Then a flash of understanding brightened his eyes. “Oh Jim Corbett’s journal! That’s the one your dad had when he…” Bill grimaced. “Sorry,” he said. “Any word on who could have done that to your old man?”
James opened the stall door and reached down to help his friend up off the floor. “No,” he said. “The coroner swears it had to be a large predator, like a bear, but cameras in the neighborhood didn’t catch anything out of the ordinary and all the doors and windows were locked.” He shrugged. He hardly knew his father. Estranged fathers on the run were the norm in his family though, and James was convinced he’d abandon his kids if he ever had any as well.
Bill shook his head.” Sorry man,” he said.
There was a long pause while James stared through his friend, lost in thought.
“So,” Bill began, “you going to get back to the tiger or…” He raised his eyebrows.
“Can you take care of her for me?” James asked. “I need to go through that journal.”
James and Bill pulled up to the old cemetery on the wrong side of the road. They’d only been in London for a few hours, and driving on the left side of the road required so much focus that he’d almost forgotten why he had a lump in the back of his throat.
Bill looked up from the map and squinted at the sign on the cemetery gate. “This looks like the one,” he said.
James pulled a slip of paper from his pocket. It was a note his mother had scrawled out for him. His interest in the old hunter’s journal had inspired him to interrogate his mother, who insisted they couldn’t be related to the hunter Jim Corbett, but admitted that her genealogical knowledge fizzled out after just a couple generations on the Corbett side of the family. The men had a habit of just… disappearing. She knew his great grandfather Jimmy was buried at this cemetery, and her hope was that another relative would be buried nearby.
They got out of their rental car and closed the doors, stirring the quiet, misty air around the cemetery. Ancient trees with peeling bark loomed overhead, their skeletal branches unable to fully block out the soft light of London’s gray skies.
Bill looked around nervously and cleared his throat. “So you’re telling me,” he began, reaching back fifteen minutes to continue a conversation they’d been having on their way to the cemetery, “that your mother swears you’re not related to the Jim Corbett who killed the Champawat tiger?”
“Like I said,” James said, bending over to check a headstone, “Jim Corbett never married and never had any children. We…”
“That you know of,” Bill inserted. When James didn’t continue, he added, “Jim Corbett the man-eating tiger-hunter never had any documented children. But didn’t you say he visited London at least once?”
“Sure,” James conceded, checking another inscription.
“And didn’t you say he…”
James jumped and whirled around at the sound of a stick snapping behind them. Bill turned in time to see a dead leaf skidding across the worn stone path. They both scanned the scene in silence, listening carefully. Nothing else moved.
Bill continued, almost whispering. “Didn’t you say Jim Corbett met a lady in London?”
James rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but they just spent the day together. Plus her name was Luella. As far as we know, my great, great grandmother’s name was Edwina Taylor.”
“But what if she accompanied Jim on his journey for a few days. Didn’t he go see the pyramids in Giza after London?”
James sighed. “My great grandfather’s gravestone is somewhere around here. Let’s find it and see if…”
James froze solid. Out the corner of his eye he caught a flash of pale orange. A chill gripped his spine, but before he could stop himself he felt his feet carrying him toward the place where he thought he’d seen the movement.
Another flash of ghostly orange caught his eye off to the right. He turned and followed, vaguely aware of his friend tripping and crashing along behind him. James didn’t feel as though he was moving quickly, but Bill’s voice sounded distant when he called out, “hey, wait up!”
James didn’t wait up. He kept moving, drifting through the burial grounds, weaving his way among the stones and trees. He approached a large stone sepulcher, and just around its corner he abruptly halted. His skin crawled and his chest tightened. He heard a low, grumbling sound. Slowly, he turned his head. A magnificent tiger stared up at him from a low stance, its massive round face fixed on him. Its ears were back, and it held perfectly still, its powerful front paws perched on top of a white marble gravestone.
James couldn’t breathe. The beast’s eyes narrowed like daggers and its snout pulled back, baring huge, sharp teeth. James noted that one of the teeth was broken and another missing.
Bill stumbled up behind him, panting, and the tiger let out a haunting roar. James jumped and Bill screamed, grabbing at his friend’s jacket as he retreated for cover behind the nearby stone structure.
“Wait,” James hissed, pulling himself free. “I need to see the gravestone.”
“What?” Bill cried, ready to run. “We need to…”
James scrambled back around the corner and stopped. The tiger growled loudly. Slowly, James took a step toward the grave it seemed to be protecting.
“What are you doing?” Bill gasped.
James took another step and squinted at the grave marker. Next to it there was a matching stone, its last name carved large and deep. “Corbett,” he whispered. He took another step forward. “Jimmy Corbett, 1918 to 1949.” His pounding heart quickened. Over his shoulder he called out, “this is my great grandfather’s grave, just like my mother hoped we’d find.”
The tiger’s growl swelled.
“Great, let’s go,” Bill urged, his voice cracking.
“There’s a matching stone next to it,” James said, taking another step. As he got closer he realized the tiger wasn’t all there. It was semitransparent, the ghost of a tiger. A violent chill ran through his limbs. “The Champawat tiger,” he breathed. It snarled, then the growling softened.
James took another step and stooped down. Jimmy’s gravestone said, “beloved son, taken too soon.” The other stone nearly stopped his heart. He glanced up at the tiger as he read it aloud. “Edwina Luella Taylor, 1897 to 1952. Loving mother and grandmother, died of a broken heart.”
Bill cried out. “So they were the same person! Your great, great grandfather was the famous hunter!”
Then the eerie, distant voice of a young woman reverberated through the leaves of the trees, carried on an icy breeze. “I begged and pleaded with Jim to come and stay with me and our child in London. I petitioned tirelessly for him to let us stay with him in India. But every letter went unanswered.”
The tiger perked up and sniffed the air like a curious kitten. James looked around for the source of the voice but saw nothing. Waves of goosebumps rippled all over his body.
“At last,” the girl continued, “when I passed through the veil, the Champawat tiger agreed to help me get my revenge…”
Little Jim looked up at his wrinkly grandfather and cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “So that’s why we have to go put flowers on grandma Luella’s grave every year?” he groaned.
James smiled deviously. “Yes, and if we ever forget she’ll send the ghost of the Champawat tiger after you!” He pounced at the boy and growled. Jim squealed.
“Is grandpa telling you ghost stories again?” Dad’s voice echoed in from the kitchen where he and his wife were doing the dishes. “I thought I asked you to get ready for bed.”
“I did get ready!” Jim declared. “And I’m going now!”
Grandpa winked at him. “Don’t let the tiger get you while you sleep!”
Jim rolled his eyes and ran to his bedroom to wait for his parents. He sat in bed and chuckled to himself. Ghost tigers. Silly grandpa.
At last mom and dad came in and kissed him on the forehead, tucking him in and closing the door behind them. Jim gazed out the window at the moon and sighed, his heavy eyelids drifting closed while he fought sleep.
One last time he threw his eyelids open and tried to look out the window but something startled him and he shook violently, shooting upright and blinking rapidly. “No,” he whispered, peering intently out the window. He was sure he had seen… No, it couldn’t have been. “No such thing,” he said, trembling.
This story was written for a contest on WritingBattle.com and my profile can be seen here.
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