by Roger Smith
He unholstered his 9mm and fired into the air and the carrion birds lifted and flapped their dusty wings. He fired again and they rose higher, still circling, watching him in the hope he’d become available as a snack.
Moving forward Assegaai saw something black lying half-submerged in the dust and lifted a KSG bullpup 12-gauge shotgun, its barrel leaking sand like an hourglass. The ghost of Leon Louw rose mirage-like from the heat haze. Assegaai had never seen Leon with this shotgun, but the KSG, dripping comic book machismo, would be the weapon of choice for a runt like him.
Carrying the shotgun Assegaai walked on and as he neared the shape on the sand he knew he had found Sue Kruger, enough of her blond hair still intact for him to guess her identity.
She had been staked out on her back, tied at the hands, left to die of exposure and thirst. The ropes had bitten into the flesh of her wrists. The woman had died fighting her bonds.
Rigor mortis had set in and her fingers had started to curl. Her legs were stained with shit. She was in the early stages of decomposition, her naked flesh discolored. The vultures had taken her eyes and her tongue and had begun to strip flesh from her torso. He could smell the stench of decomposition and heard the buzzing of flies laying eggs inside in her and the hiss as gas escaped her distended abdomen.
Assegaai saw the shoe box placed a few feet from her and crouched and inspected it, wary of scorpions or snakes seeking shade. Seeing it was empty of life, he lifted the box and revealed an iPhone propped up in the sand and tracked the charger cable to the green solar panel.
Confused, he stared at the phone and then it made a little scissoring sound as it snapped a picture and he understood what he was looking at. He disconnected the charger, lifted the phone and swiped its face and entered the gallery. There was one video to play and he used the shoe box as a sunshade and hit the arrow button and watched Sue Kruger struggle and die and bloat and become carrion fodder all in forty seconds.
Proof of a murder, yes, but also proof that Leon Louw had not killed himself. This was a project the sick bastard would not have abandoned.
As he lowered the phone Assegaai channeled the last few moments of Leon's life: the terror and agony that had lasted forever before the freight train had obliterated him.
Assegaai crouched a while staring out at the emptiness and decided he wasn’t going to call this in. Things were starting to quieten down in Nêrens. The media hordes had already moved on and Assegaai didn’t relish their return, descending on this story like the vultures that eyed him from on high.
He returned to his pickup and lifted a shovel from the flatbed and went back down to the body. The vultures were circling again and he scared them off with another shot.
He dug a grave that was deep enough to protect Sue Kruger from the predators and broke the bonds binding her with the blade of the shovel. He rolled her into the grave, her body leaking fluid onto the sand. Assegaai carried the iPhone and the solar panel to the grave and dropped them in beside her. He smashed the phone with the shovel, leaving its innards glinting in the sun. He tossed the shotgun in last and filled the grave, tamped it down and returned to his truck.
Assegaai threw the shovel into the flatbed and climbed up into the cabin. He found another little bottle of brandy in the glove box and drank it down, the liquor sour and mean and cauterizing.
As he drank he thought about what Leon Louw had done to that woman.
He didn’t understand it. Didn’t understand it at all.
What he did understand was that the more he drank the less it mattered.
Assegaai threw the bottle to the floor and opened another. It was the last of his stash.
When he was done drinking he started the truck and drove across the endless salt pan toward Nêrens.
THE END
