Read Marabou Stork Nightmares for Free Online Page B

comics. The drawings of Sue being kidnapped and restrained were the biggest turn-ons. Sometimes you got well-defined tits, arse and lips in the drawings.
    I wonder now if the pursuit of the Marabou is about anything as fundamental as the pursuit of truth. I'll have to go deeper to find out.
    DEEPER
    DEEPER
    DEEPER – – – – – Now I'm back in the hunt, heading deeper, because I feel the heat and see the light. On my face, in my eyes. I feel the warm, dusty sweet air in my lungs and cough and wonder if it registers in my slumbering near-corpse up in the other world.
    We had got back into town and Sandy, forever the sport, had traded our photography equipment for an old jeep. — All this has to do is to get us out to Dawson's. He'll sec us alright, Sandy smiled.
    — But your equipment, Sandy . . . I felt awful, knowing how keen Sandy was on photography. He always said ruefully: the camera never lies.
    — Photos won't be much good against the Stork. We need hardware, and Dawson's the chap to get it for us. The time for photographs is later on!
    — I can't wait, I said excitedly. — I can think of lots of things I want to photograph!
    We found cheap lodgings in a poor area of the town and spent the evening drinking bottled beer in a spartan hut of a bar.
    — Do you have any food? Sandy asked the bartender.
    — We have the best homemade steak pie and mashed potatoes in Africa, said the barman, — followed by the most scrumptious apple crumble absolutely drenched in whipped cream!
    — Gosh, that's just what we could do with after all that travelling, Sandy said eagerly, and we sat down to a feast.
    Despite the bartender's enthusiasm, the food simply wasn't up to scratch. That night I experienced a fevered, alcoholic sleep. The Storks were pursuing me in my dreams. Then it was the group of youths from the large, municipal building. I woke up more than a few times covered in sweat. On one occasion I came to absolutely terrified, after having been followed by something which did not reveal itself, but which I could sense lurking in the shadows. This thing suggested such horror and evil that I dared not trust myself to the mercies of sleep. I left Jamieson slumbering heartily and sat up at an old, marked wooden table, writing up my notebook.
    The next morning we set off. The burning, sweltering sun had turned the dark continent into a vast furnace. I was weary and out of sorts. Nothing felt right. My bare legs in my khaki shorts stung with pain every time they came into involuntary contact with the hot body of our jeep. Avoiding such unwanted bonding was impossible when we were shaking in gravelly ascent towards the Alpine Moorlands, our four-wheel-drive vehicle still struggling to negotiate the rough surface and steep inclines.
    My discomfort lifted as almost imperceptibly we found ourselves travelling through an environment I can only describe as paradise. My awareness of it started as we passed through a magnificent belt of juniper and podocarpus, and I began rushing on the magical fragrances that filled the air, before we reached the high altitude bamboo forest with its mighty gorges, sylvan glades and fast trout streams.
    — Isn't this heavenly! I exclaimed to Sandy.
    — I'll say, Roy, Sandy agreed, tearing open a packet of chocolate biscuits. – Munchie wunchies, he smiled.
    We drove past a couple of elephant and buffalo herds grazing in a grassland clearing and Sandy even claimed to have spotted a rare black rhino. Ahead was our destination, one of Dawson's lodges, No. 1690, which lay approximately 7,000 feet above sea level in the heart of the forest.
    On our way up a particularly challenging incline, Sandy passed over the large joint he had been smoking. After a couple of enthusiastic tokes I was feeling somewhat out of sorts. Generally, when I take drugs of this type I can reserve a small central part of my brain for sobriety. This becomes a lens, through which I can, with concentration, view the world with