Her heart jumped, and his mind whirred with panic. Her mother’s voice, too, had fallen silent and the atmosphere suddenly, eerily returned to the peace and tranquillity that had prevailed moments prior.
Crickets chirped, and the fire inside the hut crackled. The night’s attempt at reclaiming tranquillity. Then she heard the shuffling footsteps. Aimless at first, they drew closer and closer, stopping short just of the makeshift entrance. The dying fire's flames flickered, giving way to darkness that crept towards her, gobbling up the only sense of safety left.
She longed to become one with the dirt floor beneath her, melt into the walls or miraculously disappear from sight. Whatever it would take to get away from what she knew was right outside the door. And yet, as the deadly silence persisted, she felt more and more compelled to look. Compelled to see if perhaps her father had moved on for lack of stimulus, or somehow had become himself again. That somehow, this had all been a figment of her imagination. Again, she wrestled with herself for what seemed like an eternity there behind the tall woven baskets in the cover of the shadows at the opposite end of the hut.
Still, nothing stirred and were it not for what she had witnessed minutes earlier, the evening air with its usual array of sounds and smells belied the tragedy she had seen with her very own eyes.
Moving in slow-motion, she shifted her body weight until she was able to raise her head above the edge of the basket. She pressed her forehead against the rough material and peeked through a gap in the pile of corn cobs above its rim. There seemed nothing untoward beyond the low flames of the fire and the remnants of the dinner preparations her mother and herself had been busy with. Again, she waited a few more minutes before getting up onto her knees, allowing her head to poke out inches above the top of the corn.
There, in the dancing shadows, just far enough into the night beyond the hut’s entrance, the thing that had been her father now stood like a monolith of evil. It swayed back and forth in some kind of unholy trance, the flames flickering in its glazed-over eyes. The still-fresh smears of the blood of her mother and brother shimmered grotesquely as its mouth opened and closed in moronic monotony.
She moved back until she could feel the cool of the hut’s wall against her sweat-soaked back. Careful not to lose sight of the aberration she had still called ‘dad’ only moments earlier, she tried to brace herself against the dried clay. She shifted, desperate to become one with the wall, but the corn husks littering the floor beneath her unclad feet gave way.
Her foot. Slipped. Forward.
She could see the creature’s head turn instantly as the basket emptied its contents onto the floor, knocking over pots and pans sitting by the fire, in a deafening clatter. The thing's frame suddenly seemed larger than before as it approached until it finally filled the entrance, and its dead eyes in search of prey honed in on the noise.
She knew there was no escape now. She squeezed her eyes shut, thought of the warmth of her mother’s embrace, and waited for what was to come. There was an angry hiss as a froth of saliva and blood oozed from the creature’s mouth into the fire’s red hot ambers. A plume of smoke erupted with the smell of burnt tissue. Tears welled up in her eyes. She began to pray the way they had always done as a family in times of hardship and wished herself to a place far away.
“Our Father…” She folded her hands, and her gentle eyes probed the heavens for mercy. But it was only the thing’s dark silhouette that responded to her plea as it drowned out the light.
It would not be long now before she would feel its breath upon her, and her happy place would be no more.
CHAPTER 1
The smell of fish and frying oil permeated the air, forming a nauseating, almost addictive part of the wet market’s ambiance. The hustle and bustle of vegetable and fruit stalls interspersed with enormous vats of bubbling oil, where Tilapia and fried bread were sizzling and spitting in the hot liquid side by side and live chicken and goats were running around below giant sides of beef hung from the bamboo rafters of ramshackle stalls covered with UNHCR-branded tarps originally destined to shelter refugees, protecting it all from the harsh dry season sun.
The dust of a hundred motorcycles and less-than-roadworthy cars from the nearby dirt road hung thick, threatening to expel the last bit of breathable air from the area. People of all shapes and sizes, walks of life and in all manner of garb were busy haggling, eating, buying, selling, tasting, joking, laughing, fighting, exchanging gossip, yelling or generally moving about, the eclectic mix of colors forming the intoxicating tapestry of life so often encountered in this part of the world.
He felt alive for the first time in a while now, and months since the honeymoon period of their arrival in Nairobi and along with it the infatuation with a continent that held so much mystery. Its incredible beauty, raw, wild and untamed much like its nature, all had quickly worn off amidst the daily grind of office work and ‘making do’ in an environment where even simple things at times posed insurmountable challenges and a crumbling infrastructure sometimes made even the otherwise most straight forward task nigh on impossible. To the casual observer, there was almost a spring in his step as he took in the sights, sounds, and smells around him.
Walking among the stalls, a big grin on his face was clear evidence of the renewed energy Julie had lamented the lack of for months.
'And rightfully so,' he thought, reminding himself of the dark episodes he had suffered following his discharge from service. A discharge which everyone around him was well aware, had been highly political.
He felt compelled to stop and sit down, observe and absorb the dizzying, purposeful chaos. But instead, he pushed himself forward past the jostling people, through the labyrinth of stalls and scurrying animals, to the small, hole-in-the-wall outlet he had been told would be the rendezvous point with his so-called guide.
He had been advised against direct contact with the man, a local fixer with questionable reputation and connections to make things happen whenever the diplomacy of the UN and its partners ran aground. After all, in the race for humanitarian funding where crisis-fatigued donors watched and waited hawkishly for the smallest of reasons to withdraw their millions, plausible deniability was a staple defense.
The market seemed to go on and on forever, the occasional narrow side street providing the only reprieve from the incessant energy, smells, and sounds. Glimpses of a life much simpler than the one he, Julie, and even their parents had been privileged enough to live. Children kicking a rag around in the dust, a dog or two burying their noses in a pile of discarded market refuse. Here and there, a scantily clad woman of sizeable proportions hanging up laundry a story or two above on lines zigzagging between the buildings, the wet clothes providing shade and cooling the daily life that was going on below.
He was a but a few minutes into his journey now, perhaps half a mile from where his worried colleague had dropped him off accompanied by a long list of well-meant warnings about the risks involved. Tom was, after all, a Mzungu. A white guy. And as such a welcome target for thieves, robbers, and scamsters, who could, as his colleague had emphasized, easily make him disappear in the process.
"As if you had never existed." The words still stuck in Tom's head.
He smiled as he stopped in front of the small restaurant that had been indicated to him as the place for the meeting. In front of it stood a large, cheap aluminium and glass display cabinet with freshly fried Mandazi and rolled up Chapatis; bread to go with the goat stew that was bubbling away in a large cauldron-like contraption behind it. Compared to the searing sunlight outside, the inside of the place appeared dark and dingy.
The dirty interior with its plastic-covered, grease-stained tables and splattered walls did little to brighten first impressions. Customers were dotted about, occupying broken plastic chairs. Chatting, slurping away bowls of stew or sweetened tea, they sat enjoying a brief pause from the noise and bustle outside.
Tom squinted as he tried to make out anyone fitting the description of his
nominated contact. Towards the back, near the entrance to what passed for a toilet in these parts, the reflection of a gold chain caught his eye. It belonged to a man in his 30s. Dressed in a tank top, showing off faded tattoos on his shoulders and arms, reflective aviator sunglasses disguised the better part of his scrawny face. In front of him sat a half-full tumbler and an almost empty bottle of Johnny Walker.
At the sight of Tom’s silhouette, the man peered over his sunglasses and calmly raised his index finger. Tom nodded to the large inn-keeper, whose belly hung across a stew-stained apron. Beads of sweat ran down his face, flavoring the stew in front of him, and he stirred them into the liquid with a large wooden spoon.
Despite first impressions, Tom’s contact was rather pleasant to deal with. The conversation flowed with ease, his counterpart all the while checking over Tom’s shoulder as if expecting something to happen at any moment. What that would be, Tom had no idea at this point, but also felt it was better that way. Tom had arrived as a member of an assessment team a few days earlier, his organization mounting support for the WHO-led Ebola response in the north.
Had it not been for the fact that the outbreak had featured in just about every piece of news coverage for the past couple of weeks, he would have never been able to tell there was an emergency at all. At least not by the way people went about their lives here in Kinshasa and everywhere else. He wasn’t sure yet whether this was due to a general devil-may-care attitude towards life and death in a context where the former was cheap and the latter a tangible part of daily existence, or in fact because no one and much less so people even further afield, was actually aware of how serious the situation less than 200 miles northeast of the city had become.
Kisangani had always had its fair share of problems and challenges. Refugee crises were as frequent as the changes in season and critical illness in a context where Aspirin was considered high-level treatment was as common as a sneeze. It had been no surprise then that yet another outbreak of Ebola in-country had gone largely unnoticed; if anything, the influx of UN and humanitarian personnel was viewed as a welcome injection into the local economy.
Many traders from the western parts, instead of recognizing the danger, followed the scent of profit and set up all manner of shops intended to cater to every whim of the newly arrived foreigners. Internationals, who in as much as they were here to work, appreciated the availability of familiar goods and services.
Further north, things were much, much different, the man with the aviator sunglasses explained in a heavy Congolese French accent. He shied away from giving too much detail, but Tom figured that unless the guy was putting on an Oscar-winning performance, his demeanour told enough of the story. The first cases of this new strain had already been reported a few months earlier, but threat fatigue and lack of reliable communication had meant that the full scale and impact of what was increasingly labeled a pandemic had hampered both spread of the news and believability in a society where fake news proliferated by social media virtually constituted the only source of information.
Tom bought another bottle of whiskey and poured a couple of dirty glasses for the two of them. The man finally introduced himself as Zane, and a few drinks into the conversation proved rather informative and chatty. He even drew a rudimentary map on a piece of tissue paper taken from one of the many plastic dispensers, which apart from a scattering of a few unused forks and knives represented the only thing that could remotely count as a gesture of customer service in the place. He warned Tom that what he would find would exceed both his and his organization’s capacity to achieve anything meaningful.
Nevertheless, he provided much of what Tom needed to know, patiently going down his long list of questions. He even offered to arrange transport, an offer Tom appreciated but declined, not least since the charity had just received three new Toyota Landcruisers from a generous donor keen to obtain some documentary footage for its corporate social responsibility page. The irony was not lost on him.
The map, as detailed as it was for having been drawn on a napkin, for some reason featured a prominent gap just north of where patient zero had first been reported. When Tom asked about it, Zane had clammed up and stopped talking. Tom was unsure whether the man had been offended by an implied lack of map drawing skills or whether he simply refused to part with this bit of intel for fear of some unknown repercussion.
Regardless, looking at the map, it was evident the missing bit started less than 30 miles north of the last identified village, so Tom figured they would eventually get to see what it was all about anyway.
Zane quickly changed the subject, and it wasn’t long before another bottle was ordered, and the initially formal chat turned to banter and all manner of anecdotes, none of which either of them was likely to remember the next day as they ordered another round.
Eventually, dusk and incessant phone calls from his local assistant tore Tom away from what he thought had turned out to be a rather charismatic local. A little unsteady on his feet, holding the last drink in his hand, Tom had waved over from what in the course of the afternoon had rapidly turned from a dingy daytime restaurant into a local nightspot, and the driver had visibly breathed a sigh of relief to see him unharmed.
The next morning, Tom awoke with a massive headache and the confidence that indeed he had made the right turn in his career. He was steering his life in a direction that would offer meaning instead of blind obedience, humanity instead of violence, and ultimately a sense of accomplishment that could be accounted for other than by the number of people he and his team had dispatched in the course of a single night’s mission.
Becoming a humanitarian had been just as hard as it had been easy, really. Most of his friends, all former soldiers, still thought he was crazy and his wife Julie, he suspected, had only gone along as part of her unwavering sense of loyalty and despite what she had always described as her preferred lifestyle, which by no means involved traveling around the world and spending any more time than necessary away from the comforts of their home town.
He had made the decision virtually overnight, having spent yet another evening with what was left of his former unit reminiscing and exchanging anecdotes of their tours in Afghanistan; the life which they had left behind for some not only as difficult as adjusting to life back home, but downright impossible.
Tom had found himself sitting by the side of the river traversing their little town and the huge steel factory next to it, watching its smokestacks and waiting for the morning whistle signalling the end of another night shift in its infernal bowels of molten metal and puffs of soot.
It was at that moment that Tom could see the rest of life ahead as clear as day; its scope limited by a small town, little job opportunities for a man with his background and minds that could never comprehend what he had done and seen, let alone understand what drove him. The only way up was out, lest he chose to spend the rest of his life working from paycheck to paycheck in this bubble that had nothing else to offer. It was the kind of 4 am bravery, only ever present after a night of boozing or on New Year’s Day, that had Tom make his mind up there and then. He had seen and probably caused enough suffering over there, and between the prospect of the steel mill and more government-sanctioned killing for an administration and ideology he no longer believed in, doing something good and meaningful seemed like the only logical choice.
He had kept his decision from Julie at first, writing job applications in secret in the knowledge that despite a worldview that certainly set her apart from her town peers, she would not approve of the up-and-go attitude such a career move would no doubt require. Instead, he had warmed her to the idea slowly, strategically placing magazines onto their living room table, turning the channel to documentaries about developing countries in the evenings and generally showing interest in the subject matter whenever the opportunity arose in conversation.
His plan had almost worked, too, were it not for the fact that Julie could read him like a book. Finally, one night as they w
ere finishing an unusually quiet dinner, Julie had looked up at him and said: “You know, if that really is what you want to be doing…I guess we had better do it.”
The wide-eyed look as he dropped his fork in surprise had been enough to send Julie rolling on the floor in stitches, giving her the satisfaction of the kind of victory she relished in their relationship and for which he nothing short of adored her.
Anna had taken to the idea like a bird to flight. At barely eight years old, her excitement knew no bounds. Within weeks they were packed up, following a sudden job offer from a small agency in desperate need of a security advisor. Much of the international talent had been diverted to other crises around the world, and Tom being a newbie, and eager to get his foot in the door meant that they didn’t have to negotiate long before they settled on a by industry standards modest, but liveable salary package.
It all seemed like a lifetime ago as Tom splashed tepid brown water on his face in the dingy guesthouse the agency had rented for a sob story and a dime, the liquid dispersing the fog in his head. He went over his kit, now a curious mix of ex-military and humanitarian response items, and checked his watch. Almost time to set off. He quickly checked emails on the small and, compared to what he had been used to, rather low-end laptop issued to him and confirmed that their mission was still on. They called it an “assignment” as to eliminate any reference to the military, which in many humanitarians’ eyes was at the core of all evils that beset the world. He still struggled with the lingo.
“You can take the soldier out of the military, but you can’t take the military out of the soldier.” The voice of his former drill sergeant was as fresh in his memory as ever.
He went downstairs for a coffee and caught up on the news via a local paper; usually, a singular copy thrown across the dirty dining room, tattered, having already been read by the domestic staff who were normally up at the crack of dawn creating unpalatable interpretations of Western breakfast items.
The Virophage Chronicles (Book 1): Dead Hemisphere Page 2
