Night

by Casey Christie

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  Approximately 24 Hours Earlier

  Maleven brought in the tied up domestic worker and threw her down at the feet of his master.

  “For you Colonel. She is still fresh. And I found what we were looking for, I have it!”

  The two criminals were sitting in the home of their victims, a large five bedroomed house situated in the leafy suburb of Linksfield Ridge. The property was perched on a hillside and commanded a magnificent view. Somewhere in the distance was Alexandra Township. The criminal gang, six of the Colonel’s underlings, including his loyal Jabulani, and the infamous “Maleven” who had just been initiated into the gang because of his reputation for torture and murder and targeted assassination, and the Colonel himself had broken into the property a couple of hours earlier. They had found the domestic worker asleep in her living quarters at the back of the property and had forced her to open the main door to the house with her keys and disable the alarm system linked to an armed response security company.

  They came silently upon the two sleeping adults of the household, put guns to their heads and tied them up with electrical cord. They gathered and secured each of the family members one by one and brought them to the upstairs living area where the robbers and rapists now sat.

  In front of uSathane were the parents of the family and owners of the property, both in their late forties, their teenage daughter next to the father on the one side and their young son, aged nine, lay hog tied next to his mother on the other. All of the family had been gagged and stripped naked.

  “You see. You people have everything. You white people have everything. And my people have nothing. The black people have nothing. We live in the gutter, in the townships, like rats. That is why we must punish you. We must take from you what should be ours.”

  He beckoned his new thug over to him.

  “Show me what you can do Maleven! Show me why you are worthy of serving me.”

  Maleven was a short and stocky man. He had a deep and grating voice brought on by alcohol and drug abuse. He wore aviator sunglasses night and day and sported a black leather jacket and dark corduroy trousers. All-star shoes. He had a wickedly evil smile and flashed it regularly displaying a mouth with hardly any teeth and a serpent like tongue that he had purposefully pared while in prison to look reptilian.

  Without saying a word Maleven moved over to where the young boy was knotted and lying face down and stood over him from behind and put his Norinco .45 pistol to the back of his head. Only momentarily he looked up at his leader and uSathane almost imperceptibly nodded his head in approval.

  Maleven pulled the trigger and executed the young boy. uSathane’s gang were unusual in South Africa in one aspect – all their firearms were silenced.

  The mother roared with emotion and flung her restricted arms and legs wildly in the air. Jabulani moved over to her and hit her over the head with the garden spade he had used to kill the family’s pet poodle only minutes earlier. She was knocked unconscious.

  The father and teenage daughter didn’t make a sound. The daughter was gripped with fear, afraid of being raped, scared to draw attention to herself. The father was in shock and not of sound mind, his thoughts were incoherent and he felt as though he wasn’t in his body.

  “Good. Now kill the rest of them. We don’t need them but leave the girl for me. I leave tomorrow to begin the journey home after I take my treasure and I will need the blood of two women to sustain me for the drive” instructed uSathane.

  This time Maleven took the spade from Jabulani and turned it so that the garden tool became a blade and brought it down onto the unconscious woman. He had to strike her over two dozen times to fully sever her head from her body.

  The father mumbled. And again and again more loudly. His entire body started to shake and he eventually broke free from the constraints – his strength was immense and came from deep within the man. One of the Colonel’s men saw the danger and quickly shot him in the back twice. He fell to the ground and lay still then moved once more, taking the flannel out of his mouth, that was used to silence him, and was about to say something. The gang member now moved his gun to the wounded man’s head and was ready to pull the trigger.

  “Wait. Let him speak. I want to hear what this white man, this settler, could possibly want to say to me now after I have killed his little boy and his bitch wife” said uSathane.

  “Why?... why…why” pleaded the distraught doctor, the words barely audible through tears and inexpressible pain.

  uSathane laughed an unnerving and unnatural laugh.

  “I should have told you from the start. I am in such a rush that I forgot to tell you what brought me to your door, what doomed you and your family.”

  The Colonel they called the Devil looked around the room, seemingly savouring the moment. “Michael Night brought me to your door doctor- Michael Night caused the death of you and your family.”

  “…But…how, why…what?”

  “Because you are his doctor. The man has no family and friends here or anywhere that I could find and he has removed all of his personal records from his police station, he is a careful man, but he forgot about you. He forgot to remove the letter of recommendation about his good health that you wrote for the station commissioner six months ago, my policemen-servants got the letter for me. And that’s why I am here. Because I knew you would have the details I needed.”

  The doctor gasped desperately as he clung onto life, his mind unravelling.

  “But he lives at the police station….”

  “Yes doctor but it’s not his address I am after is it.”

  The words were barely audible: “I don’t understand.”

  “His bitch, doctor, his white Afrikaans bitch!”

  uSathane instructed Maleven to finish off the good doctor and uSathane prepared himself for his usual ritual of rape and cannibalism. Maleven savaged the doctor’s body with the bloody spade.

  “Now go Maleven, leave us and complete your final test. You must kill this white Lisa bitch and her family. You have the address, kill her and her family and wait for the bastard cop. And when he comes to investigate where his pretty little bitch is you must kill him, don’t leave the house until he comes, eat their food and drink their water and sleep in their house for as long as it takes and don’t attack until tomorrow morning! Not this morning Maleven, you understand, I must leave first before you do this final thing. Now go, leave us to enjoy!”

  uSathane and his men laughed that malevolent peculiar laugh once more and the temperature in the room plummeted. The domestic worker and the young teenage girl prayed for a swift death. uSathane produced his rusty Panga and eyed the girl. His breath left his body as he exhaled in excitement and lust and the air turned white like a fine mist…