Mr Marko's secret

This story appears to have a very 'dark' beginning, but do read on...

(Marko is a gypsy/Romany name meaning 'defense'.)

The little girl walking home through the park on the edge of town cuddled a teddy which was rather big for her small arms to carry. As she moved along she hummed a tune she'd made up in her head. Sometimes she'd skip, dance or walk in time to the tune. She was unaware that a man walking some distance behind had followed her since she'd left primary school that day. Just as well she hadn't known what was in his mind.
With her mouth close to teddy's ear she held small conversations with him, comforted by the closeness of her familiar friend, Mr Marko. That was the name she'd given him when she'd received him from her grandparents on her sixth birthday. It was a combined effort on their part, and incidentally, they'd put more than just tender loving care into the making of him, though only a very few people would ever discover that. The man smiled and quickened his pace as he watched the little girl make her way along the path the led through a grove of trees.

In a cottage a short distance away her grandma peered out of a window in the direction of the park. Her dark features were in keeping with the bric-a-brac, furniture and pictures around the room. More than a hint of the Romany there guessed those who knew the family and were educated or travelled enough to make the connection. Both grandparents were steeped in esoteric aspects of their gypsy past, but grandpa was the darker one of the couple, and not just in features. At that moment, he was in his shed, their old caravan now minus wheels, immersed in one of the books he'd saved from their holocaust days of the Third Reich.

It was in memory of that past that the grandparents had utilised something of the more sinister side of their lineage in the making of Mr Marko. Grandma had made his outer covering, which was soft to the touch as teddy bears should be. However, one or two people not connected to the family, who'd picked up or held the teddy quite by accident, felt something akin to immense raw strength within its animal-like fibres. As far as I'm aware, no one knew what the material was or where it came from. One forensic scientist was certainly intrigued by a tiny sample which came his way, though who had sent it and what it was from he never discovered. He found a blending of animal and synthetic components along with something else, but that something else defied any known analysis. In any case, no link was ever made with it coming from Mr Marko, a child's teddy.

Grandpa had created the teeth, claws, eyes and whatever it was that enabled Mr Marko to make the noises he did. It had taken many hours of work in his shed reading from the old books and blending an assortment of things he'd collected from the countryside. Only grandma knew how much mental and physical energy he'd used to accomplish what he had. He'd been on edge most of the time and when evening came and it was time to sleep, he was greatly troubled by nightmares of the past. Despite all these things the day dawned when it was finished and the teddy was given to the little girl with their blessing.

Before dusk had begun to fall a youth had run wildly into the police station. The officer in charge had some difficulty in calming the young chap down sufficiently to get the message clear. He'd come across it as he'd cycled home from school, he said. It was amongst some trees in the small park. A body. At least he thought it was. He'd seen a shoe. A man's shoe. The police checked it out of course and it was all true. It was a terrible mess and very difficult to tell that it had once been a man's body. Just a grotesque bundle of bloodied rags with a few broken bones protruding from the scraps of darkened flesh.

No witness to the incident came forward. One man working in his garden close by thought he'd heard a muffled scream and then what sounded like some wild animal snarling. But nothing apart from that. The inspector in charge of the case did call in to see a priest at a seminary nearby. They'd met on a case some years back when a family requested he perform the ancient rite of exorcising evil spirits. And while the inspector found it difficult to believe that some folk still practised the black arts, the priest did not.
A month later they did discover that a man was missing from a group of vagrants who'd passed through the town at that time. The remains pointed to the victim found in the park as being that man. And things returned to normal as they usually do, even after such violent deaths.

The little girl was given hugs from grandma and grandpa as usual before she set off for school with Mr Marko in her arms each day. She was unaware that all the fuss that had concerned the town recently had been about the man following her. A few people had noticed and reported that matter to the police.
She'd told her grandma and grandpa of course about what she'd done that day. When she'd walked into the coolness of the grove of trees, she'd seated herself down with her back to a tree and rested, while Mr Marko went for a stroll. 'He did have an unusual gleam in his eyes when he came back, Grandma,’ she said softly. 'But he never said a word about where he'd been or what he'd been up to. But then, teddy bears are known for keeping secrets, aren't they?'

Dennis Crompton © 1997
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)