by Botha, Johan
“Peter?” he turned around to look at Peter, sitting in the back with Beth, Lucky and Danny.
Peter turned to look at him. “Take us home Rob.” Was all that he said before looking down at Beth, lying in his lap, eyes-closed. She was drained, physically and emotionally, he could see that. All he wanted was to get her home safely and take care of the wounds the creature on the mountain had caused.
Rob started the engine and drove away from the mountain where the firefighters were still trying to put out the last fires. No one said a word. Rob didn’t ask any further questions, but he knew that something had happened, and it was not caused by the fire…
Rob stalled the Jeep at Peter’s house, stepping out to help Peter get Beth out of the car.
“You sure you don’t want those cuts checked out?” Rob asked.
Peter didn’t respond and helped Beth to her feet. With one last look at the occupants in the car, he turned around and walked with Beth towards his house, THEIR house.
“You’re safe now.” Peter said and Beth smiled at him.
****
Beth opens the door to Peter’s house and they both fall in exhausted. Instinctively, Peter tended to their wounds and made coffee. The adrenaline rush and the mind-blowing events of the last few hours left them both anxious and amped up.
Beth awkwardly stood in the room, not sure if she should leave, or stay. Peter sensed her unease and moved towards her.
“It’s over Beth… we can relax. Come on... Let me show you…” he smirked and turned her to face him.
Peter took her by the shoulders and turned her, slowly pulling the band from her hair, and running his fingers through it. He kissed her ears, neck and nose as her eyes closed sleepily, falling under his spell. “Come with me.”
Peter pulled her into the bedroom and stripped her of her dusty clothes, his own falling on the floor next to hers. Before shyness could set in, Peter had covered her lips with his own, and had wrapped her in that strong embrace she had already come to recognize.
They swayed with passion and before Beth could think, she was lying on the big bed, somewhere registering the fact that Peter had changed the room… the bedding, everything in here was different than it was before. When had he arranged this? She wondered until his hands on her thighs distracted her.
Peter had kissed his way down her body and was kneeling on the floor at the edge of the bed, pulling her body to his warm, hungry mouth. He parted her legs and the back of her knees fell over his shoulders while his lips bent to kiss her secret pleasure button.
Beth nearly jumped off the bed, she was hyper-sensitive from all the stress and excitement over the last days, and the moment his tongue touched her pulsating clit, she nearly came.
Beth gazed down at Peter’s sun-bleached hair as he lapped up her juices, moaning in delight as she showed her pleasure by arching her body in spasmodic satisfaction. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of his tongue darting in and out of her flower pleasuring the way he sucked on her petal and the feeling of his fingers sliding inside of her.
Beth couldn’t help but moan loudly as Peter slide a second finger into her wetness. He watched her body accept his advances and grew harder at the sight of it. He moved up to kiss her erect nipples, bringing her legs up higher in the air as he rose to his feet.
He slid his throbbing member into her in one smooth stroke, pressing down on top of her from his position on the edge of the bed. He smiled as he watched her eyes roll back in her head as she took his full length and girth. He looked down between them to see his engorged member pumping into her creamy opening, her excitement making him throb larger still inside her.
“Oh, GOD, Peter!” Beth panted as he fucked her with pent up desire and awakening. His member felt so good inside her, and she loved the throbbing heat of it pounding into her over and over again. He arched his back and pushed her legs open to mount her more closely. She felt so good he couldn’t get enough.
Peter lifted Beth from the edge and moved them to the center of the large bed, rolling her over on top of him. He wanted to see her, watch her move on top of him, feel her sliding over him. She straddled his waist and slide down on his dick, moaning as it filled every inch inside her. He reached up and touches her nipples, cup her breasts. She was so beautiful, natural, golden. Like a goddess, he thought.
Beth tightened the muscles inside her flower to milk Peter as she rode him. She squeezed him as she rose, watching his eyes open in surprise and desire, then close as she released and slide back down over his hard penis. She closed her eyes and stroked him, enjoying the smooth rhythm of it, the sound of his breathing, the feel of his hands against her skin.
She leaned down to kiss him, and he sat up to meet her, pulling her tighter against her. He kept finding new places inside of her to touch and rub against. Beth thought she’d pass out from the overwhelming lust she felt and she fell backward onto the bed again, letting Peter mount her once more.
Peter rolled her over and lay upon her back, sliding his dick lazily between her ass-cheeks. He brushed her hair from her neck, and buried his face in it, nuzzling her while she caught her breath and his passion began to build again.
He sat up on his elbows; looking down at her while he continued to move his hips against her. He reached forward again and grabbed her hair, pulling it into a ponytail and tugging on it playfully as his member hardened against her ass. Beth pushed her butt against his rigid dick in response and the smile on his face was replaced by passion once again.
Peter pushed his hard member back into Beth’s hot and wet stem again, his pelvis bouncing off her firm, round buttocks. He almost growled with animalistic lust as his hand tightened in her hair and he rose to thrust deeper into her yielding flesh.
Beth arched her back again to allow Peter full access and he relinquished her hair in favor of her curvy hips, pulling her harder against his demanding need. Beth moaned with satisfaction as she felt Peters member grow even larger inside her and begin to throb. Peter grabbed Beth’s shoulders and pulled her up to his chest as he thrust up into her, ejeculating with a fierce instinct to claim her for his own. He ran his hands over her throat and breasts and down to her rose one last time to bring her to a final climax as he continued to jerk strongly inside her.
They both collapsed on the bed and fell apart, in a breathless, happy heap. Peter reached for Beth and found her hand lying limply on the bed. He looked over at her to find her smiling at him. He smiled back. This is what it should be like, Peter thought… this is what it WILL be like, he promised himself.
Beth got up, walked past the window, and looked out casually. She stopped and opened the window. “It’s so beautiful, isn’t it Peter…but it will never look the same.” She said, turning to look at his rumpled, handsome form in the bed. He looked older, wiser…he looked like he belonged to her. He did not answer.
“I’m going to hop in the shower…” she bent to kiss him. He kissed her back and lay back on the bed enjoying the breeze from the window.
For the first time ever Peter felt content.
He listened for drums in the distance.
It did not fail him!
Dumdum dum dumdudmdudmmmm….
****
As Rob’s Jeep pulled up to the kraal, Lettie stood at the main gate, waiting for them.
“Lucky!” she gushed as her son got out of the car.
She embraced him and thanked the ancestors for keeping her boy safe. She looked at her husband. Through his eyes she had lived through each moment he had endured on the mountain and she knew what had happened.
Danny got out of the car and awkwardly stood next to Lucky. Lettie took his hand and led the two boys to her hut, where the old Sangoma of the village waited for them; waiting to tend to their wounds and their spirits.
Lettie had made sure that the Sangoma would heal their hearts and their minds, making sure that her husband and boy would not suffer the same fate as she had while she was raised by a Sangoma.
> “John? What happened up there?” Rob tried again.
“I have always believed that man will conquer all one day. I was wrong.”
“What do you mean?” Rob asked, confused.
Big John told Rob what had happened on the mountain and that Peens was attacked and killed by the Tokoloshe. He also told Rob about Umthakati Nqobizitha, about what she did and what happened to her.
Rob listened to Big John and could not help but stand and gape at what he was hearing. Could this be possible?
“Rob, you gotta keep this between us. You must never write or speak about what happened up there. Never, you hear me?” Big John said in an urgent voice.
“I… I have to report about what happened, you know that.” Rob said.
Big John looked at Rob and shook his head. The ancestors protected him from the Tokoloshe. Protected him and his family. All he wanted to do now was forget about what he had seen, what his son had seen.
“All I am saying is - cover it up Rob.” Big John said.
“Right.” Rob said, looking down at the ground. He wondered if telling the truth on this story would win him a Pulitzer or seal his reputation as a charlatan and a half-wit. The Tokoloshe is real. He had witnesses. It was a tenacious killer, a serial killer that had stolen family members from this community for decades – probably centuries. Could he tell this story without getting laughed out of the Associated Press? Maybe John is right… no one would believe me anyway…
“You sure you will be fine?” Rob asked John
“I’ll be fine.”
“Rob,” Big John said as Rob got back into his Jeep. “Thanks. For everything.”
“Anytime.” Rob said.
John watched Rob drive up the dirt road towards the newspaper office. He then turned around to walk to his hut, where his wife and son were waiting for him.
The smoke around the shantytown got thicker the closer you get to it. It made your eyes water – not just the thickness of it, but the smell, old urine and feces, bringing tears to your eyes, daring you to turn back.
The smoke and smell is worse inside the small one-roomed tin houses but the people who stay here do anything to drive out the cold that seeps in through the thin walls.
With little or no money these people have to steal and beg for wood and the amazinke -corrugated iron- to build their little homes. Most of them don’t have windows and the doors are made of either cardboard or old second-hand pallets that they get from the factories around them.
Electricity is stolen from the nearby electric poles which feed battery-powered televisions inside the house. Every second morning or so some of the occupants take the batteries to their workplaces where they charge them while trying not to get caught. Some of the women make a living out of charging batteries. They work in some of the houses and while the owners are at work they charge these batteries for a small fee unbeknownst to the owners, of course.
They raid the mine grounds, on which this corrugated iron town is built, for wood. Few trees remain around the shantytown. This winter was especially cold and they used more wood than usual.
Cooking time is when the smoke is the thickest and it seems the sun cannot even penetrate this unhappy smog, residents must have a light with them round the clock, or they’d become lost in the metal maze. This was a bleak place. A place where prayers seem to be forgotten; Not a place for miracles.
On this night the weather was very cold and the wind picked up making a howling sound through the loose amazinke and lifting a few panels, so they slammed against the wood frames, as if applauding the storms efforts to make the dwellers misery more complete.
The dark of night falls quickly this night. A mongrel dog barks, then howls hesitantly, instinctually warning the area of something wicked in the mist.
A filthy child screams as lightning strikes near him and he runs to his house.
In the center of this little shantytown is a small round clearing where a mud hut sits. Clearly this is a place of honor, the center of the make-shift urban kraal, it is kept clean, and swept, while the spaces around it are in disarray.
The interior is just as tidy with shelves against the walls stacked with hundreds of medicine bottles full of roots, intestines, herbs and other tricks of her trade. Some of them even had dried embryos of babies taken from the mother’s wombs and also testicles of young boys, killed just as they reached puberty.
The resident of this hut is an old woman, a century old and the head sangoma of the area.
Tonight she has a visitor, a young maiden- a stranger, which she had only dreamed of until this day. The Sangoma’s forefathers had told her of her visit, and here she was. There was a quickened beat to the old Sangoma’s heart.
She knew that her time had come to fulfill part of a prophecy. A prophecy that had come down through the centuries, and now to her. She knew that this night was her last but she was happy about the prospect. Her life on this earth would finally have meaning.
She knew why the maiden had come and what she had to do.
In the middle of the hut a small fire burning brightly and they sat around it murmuring ancient words, the meaning of which even they do not know.
The words came automatically as the trance they were in became deeper. The shadows around them grew darker and everything but the sounds of their voices seemed unimportant.
The old woman drank a potion made of leaves from sacred plants and immediately her murmuring became louder. She opened her soul to the spirits of the forefathers and felt them enter her human vessel with an otherworldly breath. She threw something in the flames and the fire sparked into a thousand stars lighting the hut into the brightness of day.
Outside a full, yellow moon rose over the fragile town but it seemed as if it only threw light onto the hut and all else was shrouded in darkness. Cold evil darkness that chilled the shanty resident’s to the bone. They dared not open their doors or peek outside.
Mist started creeping into all the open corners rising like fog into the sky. Somewhere a child screamed as thunder crashed out of nowhere from the sky then a pregnant soundlessness came over the town as if it was waiting…waiting…
The old woman groaned. Her sweaty body began writhing in agony as pain struck through her.
Slowly a rumble started from somewhere far away. It sounded like a massive rock slide was coming towards the town, to crush it, but the awful rolling sound came in a wave, then passed.
In the hut the Sangoma was thrown onto her back by an unseen force. The young maiden’s eyes turned red like the fires of hell while her chants became louder, in a voice that echoed strangely, frighteningly.
The Sangoma now on her back could feel hands grabbing her ankles with the strength of ten men spreading her open. Her clothing was ripped from her body bearing her tenderness and an old body full of wrinkles and dry black skin.
She screamed in agony as she was entered by something huge that ripped her womanhood wide open. The heat inside her almost caused her to faint as it started coupling with her. The old body was drained of all its strength as it was punished as never before.
Her back arched like a strung bow as hot liquid was sprayed into her, entering her old womb with such speed that she could feel it hitting against the side of the womb where it stuck.
She filled up like a balloon and the wrinkles around her stomach started to disappear as the entities let go of her. It had taken. It had quickened.
Blood between her thighs dripped to the ground as she tried to sit up. The younger woman moved towards the Sangoma as if she wanted to comfort her but instead she put her hand onto the old woman’s stomach.
Slowly she rubbed it round and round warming the tightening skin while the old woman shrieked in agony.
The sound of rhythmic African drums started softly, then came closer, breaking through the sounds of pain and torment, surrounding the Sangoma and her maiden.
Dum- um, um, dum, dum-dum … faster it went as if the players became entrance with the music
and the rhythm of it.
The old woman’s body still mushroomed and as the firelight danced upon her ebony skin, it seemed as though something squirmed beneath it, rolling and rolling.
The young maiden still rubbed the stomach but with her one hand she searched for something strapped underneath the skirt that she was wearing. She couldn’t find it and stripped the whole piece of clothing off her body leaving her naked in the light of the fire. The knife she had searched for now clattered to the ground and she bent to pick it up. Its steel gleamed in the flames.
The old Sangoma felt nothing as the maiden cut into her belly, reaching inside to pull out the wriggling beast. Blurt spurted up from the Sangoma’s stomach as she spread her open, putting down the knife now, she reached in with both hands.
