Nothing Left But Fear

by Russell, Adrian

  ‘Did you find what you were looking for? Over,’ Druker replied, not wanting to give too much away over the radio, in case others were listening in to their channel.

  ‘Yes, we did, Druk. I’ll tell you about what we found when we get back, which should be in about half an hour or so. Over.’

  ‘Did you manage to find mark two? Over.’ Druker questioned.

  ‘Yes, we did, no problem, and we’ll update you on this, too, when we get back. Over.’

  ‘Okay Scott. I’m on the veranda having lunch right now, but I’ll probably be in my office when you return. Over and out.’

  He continued eating, thinking about his coded conversation with Scott and wondering just what they’d found out about Lane. He was sure it wouldn’t be good news about their first mark and hoped that the tracking unit had not failed, otherwise it would cause a problem for his project. He was also pleased that they had found Smith, but he was interested to see what state the mark would be in when they arrived.

  He finished up his lunch and sat for a few moments on the veranda, contemplating Scott’s return. Whilst he did, he was thinking about his next trip, where he would be getting two new marks for his experiment.

  Whilst letting his lunch settle for a few moments, he watched a couple of Vervet Monkeys playing in the trees next to the veranda. There was also a mother sitting in the tree, gently picking out fleas from the fur of her baby and eating them.

  After watching them for a while, he returned to his office and immediately went to the tracking screen. There was still just the one dot showing, which represented Smith, which was moving fast and in the direction of base. This clearly showed Druker that they had Smith and that the tracker unit was working well.

  He then heard the distinctive sound of the arrival of a Land Rover, which he assumed was Scott and Ken with Smith and possibly the remains of Lane.

  He decided to wait in his office for Scott to come to him and explain what had happened, and within a few moments he was there standing in the doorway.

  ‘Come in, Scott,’ Druker said. ‘So, tell me, what did you find of Lane?’

  ‘Well, we looked in the area you sent us to, but we couldn’t find anything other than what was definitely a fresh kill by a tree, as there were some blood stains on the ground. Whether this was Lane’s blood, I’m not 100 percent sure, but it’s likely,’ Scott said.

  ‘There were some hyenas in the area, and knowing them, they leave nothing of a carcase, so they’d have eaten every part of him, if it was them that had attacked,’ he continued.

  ‘What’s also good, we saw some fresh rhino spoor near to where we found the blood, so we have a rhino on our land right now,’ Scott added, which was his park ranger side coming out, ‘but the other great news is that the rhino was a mother, and she had a calf in tow, so the rhino we have are breeding.

  ‘It looked like, before he’d been attacked by the hyenas, he’d been chased by the rhino, and judging by the disturbance on the ground, he had also been attacked by her and probably mortally injured. Knowing rhino and how protective they are of their young, I would guess that Lane stumbled into her and the mother charged instinctively, to protect her young calf,’ Scott said.

  ‘In addition to seeing some hyenas disappearing off, there were plenty of their spoor around the blood-stained ground, so I’d say that they found his body and simply ate him,’ he added.

  ‘Hmmm. From what you say, I would almost guarantee that the blood stain was Lane’s. So he didn’t even last a day,’ Druker said, then asked, ‘How old would you say this calf was?’

  ‘I would say around two to three weeks, judging by the size of its spoor, but I’d love to go out on a separate trip and take a look, if that would be okay with you, Druk.’ Scott said. ‘We also need to keep an eye on her, because if poachers get her, this new calf will not survive.’

  ‘No problem, Scott, I agree, as we are all trying to help the rhino gain a foothold in the area, after the poachers killed them off before,’ Druker confirmed, which also established his allegiance to the animal’s welfare, which pleased Scott.

  After they’d discussed both the rhino and Lane’s demise, he then updated Druker on what had happened to Smith. He told him about how they’d just saved him from certain death from a pride of lions. He explained that he was in the cage on the Land Rover and in a bit of a bad way, but still alive.

  ‘Put him into one of the holding cages for now, and I guess the best thing is that we leave him there until we return from the UK, as we are leaving the day after tomorrow. I don’t want him out in the wild whilst you and I are away,’ Druker instructed.

  ‘Okay, no problem. Do you want us to feed him, though?’

  ‘Yes, but feed him on that dog food I bought. Continue to treat him like an animal.’

  ‘Will do Druk. We’ll put him inside a cage and go from there.’

  With that, Druker nodded and Scott left his office.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  As the cover was removed from the top of the cage, the sun bore down on Graham once more, but because he’d been under there for a while, he had to squint to allow his eyes to adjust to the sunlight. Whilst they were adjusting, he could hear the clang of keys and the bolt of the cage door open. Then, just as he was able to focus, he could see the huge man again, only this time he was joined by a very large black African, who was similar in stature to the younger of the two.

  ‘Be careful, Joshua, his legs are covered in shit,’ the white guy advised his colleague.

  The large man put his hand inside the cage, grabbed Graham’s bruised arm and pulled him out, almost like a rag doll.

  As he did so, Graham yelped, ‘Why am I being treated like a wild animal?’

  He looked up then and came face to face with the black guy, whose eyes were dark with whites that were bloodshot, and who stared back at him without saying a word. He grabbed Graham’s other arm and they jerked him upright.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing with me and why am I here?’ Graham demanded, but the two men simply ignored this question, just as they had his first question, and pushed him in the direction of some buildings off to his left.

  These were concrete-built with metal corrugated roofs, so they looked more like shacks than somewhere that might be comfortable places to stay.

  Graham’s feet were very sore, but the men didn’t give him a chance to walk carefully on his blistered soles, as they seemed intent on getting him inside and out of sight for some reason. Graham winced at each forced step he made, and as they approached the door to the building, the white guy let go, whilst the black guy grabbed harder on his other arm, to make sure he wasn’t going to escape.

  ‘You’re hurting me,’ Graham protested, but still there were no comments from either man.

  The door was made of wood and was bolted across the top and the bottom. The white guy leaned down to pull the second bolt from across the bottom of the door, which made a loud metallic clang, and then undid the top bolt, which made a similar sound.

  ‘This is more like entering a prison,’ Graham thought. ‘Where are you taking me?’ he asked, as the door opened with a whining sound, its huge, rusted hinges seeming to protest at being opened. They clearly needed oiling. There was still no response from either of the two large men, which angered Graham even more.

  The doorway opening was dark and, as the light was bright outside, he couldn’t see what lay beyond. He knew that he’d soon find out, though, as the white man joined his colleague by grabbing his right arm again as they dragged him inside.

  Once inside, his eyes quickly adjusted to the change in light and he could see that the room had cages down both sides. The cages appeared to be empty, with one that had the door already wide open, so he knew immediately what was about to happen and where he was heading, which was soon confirmed. He was shoved into the small cage with the open door.

  Graham shouted, ‘I’m not an animal! I don’t deserve this treatment!’

  His protest wa
s ignored by his two kidnappers, as the cage door was slammed shut behind him then bolted and padlocked. Afterwards, the two captors left the building and closed the outside door with a loud bang. Graham heard the two bolts slam into place once more.

  There was very little light in the room, as he tried to adjust his eyes to his new environment. The floor of the cage was hard to the touch and was made from wood, and in one of the corners, it had a layer of straw. The ceiling of the cage was too low for him to stand up, so he had to either sit or lie down. The cage was about two metres square, so he was very cramped.

  What light there was in the building was provided through the holes between the top of the walls and the corrugated roof line. His eyes became fully adjusted and he could see that there was a water trough attached to the side of the cage. Being extremely thirsty, he decided to drink the water straight away; despite its tepidness, he found it was better than the waterhole water he’d drunk earlier that day.

  After he’d had his fill, he tried to survey his prison a bit further and began to think about how he could escape. He reached through the gap between the bars to test the door bolt and padlock, which from the way it had been closed earlier he knew was probably futile to try. The padlock was locked firm and would not open, despite him trying to shift it, and there was no way the door bolt would move either, as the padlock was preventing this.

  Almost in despair and defiance, he shook the door of the cage back and forth, by holding two of the bars, like a caged monkey. Unfortunately, this only confirmed his plight, as the door was not going to budge, no matter how much he rattled it.

  He sat back on the floor of the cage, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to escape. The cage was secure and, even if he were let out for any reason, these men had guns and were far stronger than he was, so he was not likely to stand a chance.

  As he sat there all alone in the dim light of his new-found prison, with his back against the cage bars, he thought back to his life in the UK, and he wondered what his family would be doing now. He was resigned to the thought that they wouldn’t realise he had gone missing, as he was very much a loner, living on his own and not really interacting with people at all.

  ‘It might be a long time before anyone notices I’m even gone, if ever,’ he thought, which made him feel even more alone, if that were possible. Tears welled up in his eyes. He knew he’d wasted his life and not made anything of himself. But now someone had taken it upon themselves to punish him, or so it felt, for reasons unknown to him.

  As he shifted his back against the bars of the cage to try and get more comfortable, he felt something in his neck. It was as if when resting against it, there was something between him and the cage bars. When he felt the back of his neck, he found that there was definitely something sitting just under his skin. The object, which he could move, was the size of a small stone or perhaps a bit bigger than a marble, and around where the object sat, was what felt like a small cut, which he was surprised he hadn’t noticed before.

  He had been wondering how the two men had found him so easily in their Land Rover, despite the fact that he’d walked quite a distance from where he’d been placed.

  ‘Perhaps this is the answer; perhaps this is some form of tracking device they’ve placed in me,’ he thought, and shuddered, feeling he’d been even more violated than before.

  ‘Forget the fact that they placed me in danger and out in the wild with no clothes on, but these people have carried out a surgical procedure on me, without my consent, and now they’re tracking me like some kind of wild animal.’

  But then his thoughts were interrupted by voices just outside the building. Although he couldn’t actually make out what they were saying, to him it sounded like there were at least three people, although he could be mistaken. He felt tense and waited to hear the outer door bolts open, worried what might happen next and what they had planned for him now.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Carly awoke to cockerel crowing, which was the sound of her mobile phone alarm. She snoozed the alarm, as she needed to take time to awaken, since this was always a bit of a shock to her system. This was unusual for her. She never normally set her alarm, but today she had an interview.

  Her immediate thought was to have her morning cigarette before anything else, but she also began to think about her interview and how she would behave. She always acted in a way to put the person off taking her on, and she planned to do the same thing today.

  She always made sure she hadn’t washed for a few days, so that her personal aroma was unpleasant for the interviewer. Sometimes she’d throw in certain comments about how she’d lost her previous job, as if surprised that this had happened. But she invariably made sure the interviewer was left with the thought that she didn’t make a good employee, especially if she thought there was any way the interview was going well. Usually, she would get strange looks. She secretly loved the way people reacted to her behaviour.

  Not able to wait any longer, she sat up in bed and leant over to grab her packet of cigarettes. On opening it, she could see there were just two left. She also knew that there were no other packets in the house. Poised on the edge of the bed, she placed one of the cigarettes in her mouth. To light it, she opened the lid on her petrol lighter, but before striking the flint, she drew in the potent smell of petrol fumes.

  This allowed her to drift off for a moment to think again about her father, a man who had always been under weight and who had never looked well. Her last memory before he’d died was him coming over to see her on her thirty-fifth birthday, when he’d brought her some flowers and a large box of chocolates.

  Her dad had died of a sudden heart attack, which happened around two months after her birthday. It had been a real shock to her, as she had always loved her dad, but he had been a heavy smoker and did like his whiskey, too, so it wasn’t a real surprise in some respects. He had always been kind to her, and ever since her mother had died when Carly had only just turned 21, they spoke to each other on most days. She had always been surprised that her dad had stayed with her mum, as she’d suffered badly with Borderline Personality Disorder, with her mood swings making her always difficult to live with.

  She’d always found it hard to deal with her mum’s unpredictable moods; it could be the slightest thing that changed her from a loving mother to a devil woman. Carly grew up hating herself, with the constant belittling and put-me-downs from her mother too much to take sometimes, and since her mother’s death, her father had tried to make up for it, as he had known the effect it had had on her.

  On many occasions she would wake up to her parents having a shouting match, which would usually be accompanied by objects flying around. If the argument began in the kitchen, many of the pots and crockery would get smashed on the floor. She always remembered how her mother would take great pleasure in saying to her father he had to clear the mess up, always blaming him for whatever it was the argument was about.

  Mostly, the fights stemmed from her mother not trusting him, and she’d make wild accusations about him seeing other women. She had hated her mother, although deep down she felt guilty about her death and blamed herself for it, as she’d often wished it on her.

  It had been a warm, sunny day when it happened and it had been an awful morning. It was a Sunday and she’d awoken with a start, hearing a crashing sound coming from below her bedroom. Then she had heard the shouting — mainly, she had heard her mother’s voice rather than her father’s, which had been normal. Her father, as usual, had been trying to appease her mother, which usually consisted of him simply saying that he loved her, whilst she had continued to shout at him.

  Her mum had always threatened suicide and mostly the threats had always been idle ones, which were really just for effect, but that day had been different. As Carly had got up to go to the toilet that day, she had delayed, as much as possible, to avoid having to go downstairs. But then she had heard the front door slam, which was quickly followed by the slamming of the car door. T
his had been followed by the over exuberant revving of the car’s engine, and then her mum had disappeared down the road.

  It had been several hours later that day, when the police had turned up on the doorstep, and both Carly and her father had instantly known what they were there for. But they hadn’t prepared themselves for the news they’d been brought. It turned out that she had driven off the A138 and into the river Chelmer, smashing through the barrier on the Chelmer Bridge. It had been known locally that the bridge was in need of work or replacement due to decay, having originally been built in 1932.

  Her mother had drowned when the car was submerged in the river. She had been knocked unconscious from the impact on the bridge structure.

  Not long after the police had arrived, her father had been taken to the mortuary to identify her remains.

  Carly remembered sitting there on her own, as her father had just left without really thinking about her at all, but had been thinking about her mother instead. She recalled the mixed emotions she’d had, between the relief in some ways that she’d never have to suffer the wrath of her mother ever again, but realising also that this was her mum and that she should feel at least a bit of sorrow.

  With the thoughts of her mother still floating around in her head, and with remnants of guilt over not having shed one tear since she died, Carly struck the flint on her lighter several times until it lit and guided the flame to the end of her cigarette. Then she drew in a long drag and tried to push the thoughts of her mother from her mind.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  ‘How will this all end?’ Graham questioned in his mind. ‘I was nearly killed and eaten by lions, but saved by the same men who put me in danger in the first place.’

  The voices grew louder as footsteps approached the building, then he heard the two outside bolts on the main door scrape back. When the door opened, the bright light pouring into the dark space made him squint. He tried to make out the silhouetted figure who had just walked in, who was quickly followed by another man.