by Botha, Johan
Thirty minutes later, Jenny watched her father and six farmhands head out to the Guardian mountain area where Johan was “lost” with rifles, shotguns and machetes. She could hear her father talking to the men before they hopped into their jeeps and farm-trucks, pumping them up to take down a man, or two, who murdered her brother and friend. Jenny felt sick and hopeless – she stumbled back to the sofa and lay back down in a depressed heap. She couldn’t help but feel that all was lost.
Pierre laid out his plan to his men. Two men would head out towards the river and search for tracks, beating the bush looking for Tracey and looking for signs of the perpetrators. “Look for any trash that they left – cigarette butts, beer cans, foot prints, follow all signs and if you see ANYONE out there, you bring them back to ME, you hear ME?”
Two other men would search the area behind the house and go outward back toward the woods all the way back toward the kraal. Pierre and Ross would start at Johan’s final resting place and look for tracks from there. It was all taped off with police tape, but Pierre didn’t care. Commander Peens and his guys could do what they want, but Johan was HIS boy, and he would take care of his business himself. No one would blame him.
The crew took off, in three different directions, Pierre and Ross, stone faced as they headed out to the final resting place of poor Johan.
They drove over the rustic and un-groomed farmland, outgrown tree roots and overgrown brush to get to the tangled vines and bushes that were now adorned with yellow tape just off an animal path coming down off of the foothills of the Guardian. The ground foliage was covered in black inky goo that used to belong to Johan and Pierre averted his eyes, looking to the tree line a few yards off instead.
“Let’s start there Ross,” he said, clearing his throat to cover the grief that started to bubble to the surface, “you see anything unusual, you call out, okay?”
“Yeh boss,” Ross replied nervously, taking his machete in one hand, and feeling his handgun at his hip.
They headed off into the thick foliage at slightly different angles, eyes to the ground, looking for footprints, bent tree limbs, signs of any kind. Pierre listened to Ross’ machete hacking its way through the thick jungle growth before them, nearly hypnotizing him with its rhythmic “whoosh” and hacking noise.
Pierre became lost in thoughts as he scoured the ground with his eyes. What was he looking for? What kind of monster would do this to his little boy? Is this the price he paid for helping those Johannesburg Construction guys clean up that little mess they made last year? They said that he’d be protected, but, shit always rolls downhill… Fuckers Pierre exclaimed in his mind.
“You say something boss?” Ross called out through the ever-darkening growth.
“No… Its…Okay…”Pierre replied, stopping to look up at the canopy of trees above him.
He took a deep breath as he gazed up at the intricate pattern of the branches above. This was a beautiful place, Pierre thought, still listening to Ross cutting his way forward through the thick. He took a deep breath and a moment to appreciate the way the sun cut holes through the green canopy of leaves. The bark on the trees was a rich array of browns and sepias, layers of wood and moss, food for the creatures here. Pierre wished life could be this peaceful all the time.
He squinted up at the tree, the leaves, they seemed to be... forming, something…
A light breeze picked up and rearranged them as Pierre continued to gaze upon them, turning his head to try to make sense of the ever-changing view. The leaves seemed to morph into Johan’s face, his handsome face… his boy… Pierre felt tears well up and his throat got sore from repressing his sorrow.
He removed his sunglasses as turned his body to try to make out the strange kaleidoscope that was revealing itself above him. “Ross?” Pierre called quietly, as he tried to put the puzzle together. Was this real or was it the after affects from the shot the doctor had given him.
Unable to look away Pierre watched as a new, stronger wind moved the leaves above and transformed the image of Johan’s face into a moving show… Johan kissing Tracy, then running… the leaves forming his body and legs, moving as if running through the woods, a weird organic play unfolding above him, showing him his son’s fate. He couldn’t look away.
A storm whipped up, the wind became stronger and lightening came out of nowhere. From somewhere distant Pierre could hear Ross calling out to him, but he could not answer. He was mesmerized by the scene – and he had to find out what happened to Johan.
The wind parted the canopy above and rearranged the leaves into a new scene. The branches above began to move and twist together, forming arms that reached out to the frozen –in-place Pierre, lifting him up into the air, bringing him nearer the moving and reshaping leaves that played out Johan’s last moments.
“Yes…Yes… I have to know…” Pierre mumbled, as if agreeing to some unseen capture of a payment he didn’t understand.
The branched wrapped around his arms, twisting slender branches around his shoulders, and down around his biceps, elbows and wrists. Pierre’s eyes remained fixed on the leaf-play before him.
The leaves formed a close up of Johan’s body, the leaves exploding outward as more leaves formed Johan’s intestines, pouring out of his leaf-body. The leafy-face of Johan seemed to turn and look at the horrified and mesmerized Pierre, as bark grew in to form Johan’s teeth and eyes, creating a realistic and gruesome collage. It seemed to be pleading to Pierre… “Help…”
Pierre gasped and seemed to come out of his trance momentarily, he noticed he was bound by the tree, his eyes widened and he began to panic. He tried to call out to Ross but a vine wrapped around his throat and tightened while another turned his head back toward the ongoing play above him.
The leaves above him transformed from Johan’s pleading face to something else…
The leaves turned black and began curling and drying while Pierre watched on. They rearranged themselves again, piling up to form two hoof-like feet and up into powerful haunches. The leaves filled in a mid-section that was broad and powerful looking, with monstrous arms branching off and building outward toward Pierre’s incapacitated and elevated body.
Pierre struggled against the vines and branches that held him again, as the beast began morphing to reality from nature’s canopy above him. As he kicked and wiggled the growth from below seemed to shoot upwards and wrapped his legs separately, pulling them apart and hoisting Pierre higher in the trees.
“Ross!” Pierre cried out, though muffled by the thickening vine that now covered his mouth. Pierre was nearly invisible now as the thick jungle growth had now covered his tracks and grown over the path he was on. He was now ten feet up in the trees, stretched in four different directions by the competing tree branches and vines, while the visage of his son’s killer continued to reveal itself before him. He had wanted this… to confront his son’s killer… he had wanted this…
The dried leaves crunched as they continued to construct the monsters face before Pierre. The jawbone revealed an unsightly number of pointed and jagged teeth, a flat face, but mottled and oozing. As the top of it developed with scattered wiry hair, enormous tarantulas came pouring out over the leafy entity, running down it’s outreached arms towards Pierre’s entrapped body.
Pierre struggled and writhed as they jumped off the now laughing creature, its face split in two, showing over five hundred teeth made of bark and twigs. The mutated baboon spiders began tearing at Pierre’s exposed flesh; his forehead, ears, his fingers and stomach, while Pierre twisted and tried to cry out for mercy.
The leaf-monster leaned in close to Pierre, as the spiders continued to do its bidding.
“Now you know… trespasser….” The Tokoloshe whispered to him, and with a final horrifying lick to Pierre’s face, the tree branches that held Pierre’s limbs hostage snapped loose, ripping Pierre into five awful parts, his torso falling into the thick muck below. His legs and arms were flung in four different directions, hitting the fa
ce of Guardian mountain, landing in the river, on a ledge and his final leg landing in the family pool.
Ross, finally noticing the unnatural darkening of the woods around him started backtracking through the woods, calling out to his Boss. He thought he heard an animal in the woods, thrashing through the underbrush, and tried to spot it with his rifle site. Had to be an animal, Ross thought, the brush way too thick there for a man.
“Boss? BOSS?” Ross yelled through the blowing and dancing growth. He headed back to the Jeeps; sure his boss would have headed back due to the storm coming in. He thought he heard a scream from the main house and started running faster.
Chapter 10
Rob finished up his article on the murder case on the Guardian and lit up a blunt. He put his feet up on his metal desk at The Sun and looked through the blinds out at the street.
Main Street. Quiet, dirty, real. Rob thought. Why is this happening here? Is it my fault? He took another hit and tilted back in his chair, closing his eyes – just for a moment.
All the voices at the crime scene, the words, the smells, all took him back to the Archangel case…it’s not him again? Is It?
Rob remembered the next note he got, back in 2010. The police were all over him after the first crime scene. “The Heap” Rob called it, in the book he was writing on it- but never finished, of course…the ending, too terrible – or maybe it hasn’t been written yet?
The police, Detective Crup specifically, was dogging him day and night, waiting for the next letter, trying to figure out why the killer had picked Rob and his paper out in the big Sacramento market. They only had to wait a few days for the next note from Archangel.
Detective Crup investigated the paper and ink printed onto it first, before Rob could open the envelope to read the contents. Crup was thorough, and with a killer as prolific as this one, he didn’t want to make any mistakes.
Rob pushed open the letter with a couple of pencil erasers and picked up his camera to take a photo. Crup frowned as he looked down at the affected ransom note-font the killer used to communicate.
You see the truth now, don’t you Pretty boy. Have you been changed yet? Do you live in the truth now? You must testify and spread the word or suffer the consequences as demanded.
Do you need more proof? See them here:
Another address was included and Crup called it in, while Rob grabbed his coat and ran alongside him to the car.
By the time Detective Crup and Rob arrived at the old farmhouse, five other squad cars and an ambulance were already there. Crup’s partner, Detective Mallory came out of the house, beckoning Crup in. Rob followed, taking the lens cap off his camera.
“Whatcha got Mal?” Crups asked, as he followed his partner through the house and down the basement stairs.
Rob followed, but noted the police officers standing pale-faced and silent throughout the house and entranceways. A crime scene investigator was opening her cases up in the kitchen, a grimace on her face, another cop held a barking yorkie, trying to calm it.
“Well, there’s a note…”Detective Mallory said, eyeing Rob.
“What does it say?” Rob and Crup asked at the same time.
“Demons,” Was all Detective Mallory replied as he continued thumping down the stairs.
At the bottom of the stairs was a box about 6 feet long and 3 feet wide. Like a coffin, but hand made with plywood and nails.
Behind that box was another and one more. Lined up, head to toe. Rob saw three boxes in the dim basement light and then Detective Mallory reached over to turn on the basement light.
Fifteen. There were fifteen boxes.
Two crime scene techs came rushing down the stairs with crowbars, and quickly lifted the lids from the first box, then the next.
Screeeeeeech. As each nail pulled out from the embrace of the young wood, giving up the secrets inside each lidded treasure chest.
Each box revealed a young beauty. A girl, each one about 22 years old, each one a blonde, in seemingly perfect health, except for the fact that her head had been severed from her body. Fifteen of them. Demons.
The detectives began talking excitedly, but Rob saw the truth. Beauty. The archangel wanted to kill life and beauty… was that it? He stumbled backwards and sat down hard on the steps. What is going on here? And what does the Archangel Killer want from me?
Rob wished he had never asked that question…
It took a few hours for the news to spread throughout the kraal, but by sunrise, the Suburb Sun hit the curbs and the police had their hands full containing the investigation and the helpful village people.
The local farmers volunteered to use their fishing boats to aid the search of the river for Tracey. Fitted with searchlights, they peered into the water below, looking for the sea monster that devoured the poor sports hero, and stole away his love.
Makeshift hooks were clamped onto ropes to begin dredging the river bottom while waiting for divers to arrive to search more thoroughly. Now and then a macabre excitement would grow when something heavy got snagged on the dead-meat-hook, but as they pulled up a tree root or cluster of plants, a relieved sigh could be heard all around. The wish that Tracy could still be found alive drove the volunteers to continue their search.
Peter and Beth arrived at the river around seven in the morning. There were a lot of neighbors already gathered there who knew him and had heard about his accident. They stopped by to ask how he was doing and to fill them both in on the gruesome goings-on. They leaned against SUV as they talked.
Something pulled Peter’s attention away from the somber and dramatic chatter around him to the mountain across the river. He frowned and turned to Beth at his side. “Do you hear that?”
“What?” she said as she looked in the same direction as Peter. Trying to hear a sound.
“It’s gone now.” He said. “I could have sworn that I heard drums playing.”
Beth frowned at him, “Drums? No. Maybe you are just a bit stressed out from what has been happening these past few days.”
“No, it is the same drums that I heard the other day when I shot that creature!”
Beth suddenly took him more seriously. She turned her head and looked him in the eyes. “Oh. Are you sure?” She turned her head in circles, trying to hear harder if she could.
“Yes! Beth,” Peter said in a low voice, “Something really weird is happening and I think that what happened at the farm and what happened here are linked somehow!” His heart started to beat faster.
Something touched his shoulder and Peter jumped and turned with a shout.
“FUCK, John!”
Big John and Rob were standing behind him, their faces tired and pale. Neither had slept all night. Rob ran back to the paper to send in his copy, but had come back to help organize the search effort, Big John was hands on, beating the bushes for Tracey.
“Peter….Peter this is not good.” Big John said, taking Peter’s shoulder to turn him away from the others. Beth and Rob followed. “It is bad magic and the forefathers are taking revenge on the past.”
“What do you mean?” Peter asked, eyeing Beth.
“It is this mountain. It has spoken and evil will come from it.”
Before Peter could say another word the drums sounded again….faintly. He could see that John has heard it as well.
“You hear it too! Don’t you! I can see it on your face! What does it mean?” Peter asked him excitedly, taking Beth and Rob by surprise.
“It is the forefathers….they say that they are coming….they are coming to kill.”
Peter wanted to shake John, “WHAT? WHY? WHAT THE FUCK JOHN? WHY?” Peter raised his voice at John, frustrated with his answer.
“What? WHAT?” Rob chimed in, confused and excited by this strange turn of events. He was used to the locals blaming all the evils of this world on supernatural stuff, but this was the first he heard of it coming from Big John. And he was so serious about it too! Rob thought.
“After we find the girl you must co
me with me to the kraal. We can talk there and I will tell you all that you must know,” John directed at Peter.
“Well, I’m coming too!” said Rob, looking from Big John to Peter.
“Goddammit,” Peter said, looking at Rob and shaking his head as John walked away. Only then did he look back over at Beth. She looked fresh and beautiful, sweet and squeaky clean, her hair smoothed back, her skin smooth as a peach. He felt stronger just being near her.
“What the hell, boys!” she said both curious and frightened. Beth was a writer and a person for mysteries. This type of thing intrigued her very much.
“I dunno,” was all Peter could say.
Someone yelled from the river, startling the birds along the shore and gathering the attention of the volunteers nearby.
