by Kurt Ellis
He stopped and took a mighty breath. The waitress brought his new, refilled tumbler. Hungrily, he grabbed it with a shaking hand and swallowed half the contents in one go. ‘I went into the bedroom and he leapt out at me. He slashed at my arm and I dropped the gun, but I quickly overpowered him. I disarmed him, and I … I fucked him up.’
Creed tightened his fists and spoke through clenched jaws. ‘I fucking pummelled him. And throughout it all, that son of a bitch wouldn’t stop laughing. His teeth were on the floor, he must have swallowed a few as well … his eyes were almost swollen shut. Yet he fucking wouldn’t stop laughing. He didn’t stop laughing when I fetched my gun. And he didn’t stop when I put it to his head. And then I pulled the trigger. And then he wasn’t laughing any more.’
The entire bar seemed to have gone silent. Meyer could hear his own accelerated pulse in his ears. The only thing he could think of saying was a mumbled, ‘In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.’
‘I don’t remember much of what happened afterwards, to be honest,’ Creed continued. ‘The only thing I remember was being in the madhouse and some loony bastard grabbing my dick. And I heard Rodriguez laughing again, so I beat him senseless too.’
‘But how …’ Meyer sipped his wine. ‘How did you … get away with it?’
‘I don’t know, to be honest. I didn’t care what would happen to me. I was happy to confess, except nobody asked me to. All I know is that Red wouldn’t let me talk to anyone, and that one minute I was in the US, then suddenly I was here.’
‘But Rodriguez? Are you saying it wasn’t as it was reported? That it wasn’t self-defence?’
Creed shook his head. ‘I had him on his knees. I killed the fuck.’ He finished his drink. ‘And I would kill him a thousand times over if I was given the chance.’
95
Sunday, 30 June
It felt as if the recorder was burning a hole in Meyer’s pocket. The two men stumbled into the car park, one supporting the other and wobbling under the weight.
‘I’m fine to drive, damn it, Meyer,’ Creed said. ‘Give me my keys … to me.’ He broke down in a fit of laughter at messing up the command.
‘Nonsense,’ Meyer replied. ‘I’ll take you home. You can pick up your bakkie tomorrow.’
‘Okay, Father.’ Creed started laughing again. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’
Meyer slid his key into the passenger door. ‘You’re in no state to be confessing, Creed.’
‘Too late for that.’ Creed slumped into the seat.
Meyer was far steadier on his feet when he wasn’t supporting another man. He strode over to the driver’s side and started the Polo.
It was almost three in the morning and the streets of Melville were empty.
‘I miss her,’ Creed whispered.
‘Miss who?’ Meyer was driving fast, but not exceeding the maximum speed the law would allow.
‘Megan,’ Creed sighed. ‘I should’ve been there for her instead of chasing those women. She was too good for me. I was lucky to have her, and because of me … she’s dead. Because I was beaten. He shouldn’t have beaten me. How did I not see it? How did he beat me?’ He sighed again. ‘I should be dead, not her. I was beaten. I should be dead.’
The traffic light turned from green, to amber, to red. Meyer halted at the intersection.
‘You can’t keep blaming yourself, Nick. Rodriguez killed her. Not you.’
‘Bullshit. It was me. It was me. It was as if I had cut her myself.’
The traffic light turned green and Meyer pulled away.
‘Look, Nick. I think you need to continue seeing a professional. I mean, if—’
The collision snapped Meyer’s head to the right; his cranium smashed against the window. Tiny glass cubes rained down on him as the car cartwheeled off the road. The sound of metal colliding with unforgiving tar and earth was a symphony of destruction. He didn’t know how long they somersaulted in their metal cage, but when the car stopped rolling, Meyer found himself hanging upside down, still strapped to his seat by his safety belt.
His ears rang as if he had just been knocked out. His head throbbed; confusion swallowed him. He struggled to focus his eyes.
What the hell was that? Meyer thought. Another car? I had the right of way. I didn’t see headlights. Why didn’t it have the headlights on?
Two bare feet appeared through the smoke and dust beside his window, the biggest feet he had ever seen. Then two of the biggest hands he had ever seen reached into the car and yanked him out. Why were there no headlights?
96
Creed came to when he heard someone shouting. ‘Sir? Are you okay? Hey, bru?’
He wasn’t okay. His head hurt as if he had been hit with a two-by-four, and so did his ribs. He felt dizzy and on the verge of throwing up. The seatbelt was cutting into his hips as he dangled upside down. His knees almost touched his chest, making it difficult to breathe.
Close to passing out again, he fumbled for the seat-belt latch. With trembling hands, he found it and pressed hard. Click. Gravity did the rest: Creed crashed to the roof of the overturned car, resting on a patch of grass at the side of the road.
Relief. He could finally inhale.
‘Sir, don’t move,’ the voice said. ‘I’ve called an ambulance. They’re on the way.’
Using all the strength he had, Creed dragged himself over glass and through the broken window. The shards crunched like gravel under his body. Two hands grabbed him under his arms; the man who had spoken to him helped pull him out.
‘You shouldn’t be moving.’ The man was no more than twenty, with dreadlocks and a pair of thick-lensed spectacles.
Creed managed to get to his feet. His legs were shaking; his chest hurt badly. He didn’t doubt that he had broken a few ribs at least. His stomach suddenly convulsed, and he projected a cocktail of alcohol and poultry vomit onto the floor. The tensing of his torso was unbelievably painful. Once more, Creed sensed oblivion sneak up on him. He took a deep breath to try to keep from passing out.
‘Where’s Meyer?’
‘Who?’
‘The driver,’ he gasped. ‘Where the hell is he?’
The good Samaritan scratched his chin. ‘I don’t know. But when I stopped, I saw another car pulling off. Looked like it had been the one that T-boned you. It was damaged in the front. You shouldn’t be moving, bru. You could have internal injuries.’
‘Which way did they go?’
The young man pointed up the road – west.
‘I need your car.’
‘What?’
‘I’m a cop. This is a hostage situation. I need your car.’
‘No fuckin’ way, man. You’re out of your mind.’
Creed reached under his jacket and pulled out his gun. He aimed it at the face of the stranger. ‘Give me your keys.’
The man’s hands immediately went skywards. ‘They’re in the ignition.’
Creed headed to the car. ‘When the police arrive, tell them to contact Major Grey of IPU. He’ll explain everything.’
With that, he climbed into the Volkswagen Golf GTI and sped away in a westerly direction.
97
He had no idea where he was speeding to, but he knew he had to get there in a hurry. He pulled hard on the steering wheel with his right hand; with the other he dialled Grey’s number.
The Major answered without a hello. ‘Every time you call me at this hour, you’re in some sort of trouble. What have you done now?’
Creed’s ribs hurt as he spoke. ‘Listen. They took Meyer.’
A second. ‘Who took him?’
‘I don’t know.’ Creed overtook a slow yellow Datsun. ‘We were T-boned in Melville and someone pulled him out of the car. I’m giving chase now but I don’t have a visual.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘I’m heading west on Beyers Naudé Drive, going towards Northcliff. Can we put a trace on his phone? What’s that app called that you installed on all our phones?’
; ‘SAPStar.’ A few seconds of silence before Grey spoke further. ‘Give me a minute.’
The line went dead and Creed dropped the device onto his lap.
The car he had commandeered manoeuvred easily through the tight streets of Melville, where trendy night clubs had once competed for patrons. The pubs and clubs were now replaced with stores and coffee shops. He sped past the graveyard and was startled by the flash of a stationary speed camera.
The phone between his legs buzzed.
‘Yes.’
‘I have him on my dashboard. His phone is still on and he’s on Beyers Naudé, just before the N1 on-ramp.’
‘I’m ten minutes away. Which way’s he going?’
‘Hold on.’
Creed heard Grey speaking to someone else, perhaps on another line.
‘They went over the freeway, into Randpark Ridge.’
‘Okay, let me know if they turn off anywhere.’
Creed ground his foot into the floor of the car. He had to close a ten-minute gap as quickly as possible. Speeding past Cresta Shopping Centre, he grimaced as he narrowly avoided a Ford Fiesta hatchback pulling out into the street without indicating or checking for oncoming vehicles. Every breath was accompanied by excruciating pain; each heartbeat made his head throb.
A river of what he thought was sweat touched the corner of his mouth. Only upon licking his lips and tasting the coppery tang did he realise that it was blood. He touched his scalp and winced when he found the wound.
The phone in his lap vibrated.
‘Yes.’
‘They turned left off Beyers Naudé, into Muldersdrift.’
‘What’s the name of the road?’
‘There’s no name. It looks as if they’ve gone off road, approximately thirty-five kilometres from Witkoppen Road.
‘Okay, I will be there in ten minutes.’
‘Nick, wait for us. I’m on the way and I have reinforcements.’
‘How long will you be?’
Grey paused. ‘Thirty-five minutes. Forty at most.’
Creed shook his head as he flew across the bridge over the N1 freeway. ‘Not quick enough, Eli. It could be too late by then.’
98
This monster wasn’t Charon, the boatman to carry him over the River Styx. Meyer had been slipping in and out of consciousness since being dragged from the overturned car and he had lost all sense of time. But when the veil of confusion had lifted, a mountain of a beast stood before him.
Completely naked, he was almost seven-foot tall. His arms and shoulders were wider than any door, his boulder-like chest covered in matted hair. He grunted like a wild animal when he saw that Meyer was awake, and made to charge at him, baring his teeth. The Imfene.
Meyer tried to back away but found that he couldn’t move. The beast snarled inches from his face, its brown teeth snapping so close to his nose that Meyer choked on its foul breath. From this distance, Meyer could see that the monster looked more human than beast and that somehow terrified him even more.
Forcing his eyes away from the creature, he glanced at his surroundings. He was sitting in what appeared to be an old, disused rondavel. There was a gaping hole in the thatched roof that allowed moonlight and cold air in.
Meyer tried to move his arms but they were tied behind his back to a sturdy pole, it seemed.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ a familiar voice said. ‘He won’t hurt you,’ Professor Mgwazeni Buthelezi stepped out of the shadows, ‘unless I tell him to. How are you feeling?’
Meyer tried to respond but his dry tongue hurt.
‘Don’t speak if it’s painful,’ the Professor said.
‘What’s … going … on?’ Meyer managed to ask.
The Professor smiled at his confused face. ‘It’s not that complicated. I’ve already explained it all to you, Detective Meyer.’
‘I don’t—,’ Meyer coughed, blood-flavoured phlegm filled his mouth. He spat it on the floor. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Of course you don’t.’ He walked to the far wall of the hut, crouched down, and returned cradling dry firewood in his arms.
‘Then help me understand.’
The Professor smiled. ‘It’s all about belief, Detective. I’ve said that already, remember? Try to focus for me, will you? It doesn’t matter the religion, the denomination: if people believe, they are free with their money. And people believed in my sister.’
‘Your sister?’
Buthelezi smiled. ‘Oh, yes. My sister believed as well. She always believed; ever since she was young, she believed. She never stopped.’
‘But … you’re an educated man. You can’t believe in curses. You—’
‘You insult me!’ The beast at the Professor’s side grunted loudly in response. ‘What makes you any different from me, Detective Priest? You’re an educated man. As a policeman you believe in science – DNA, fingerprints and the like – yet you’re also a priest: a man of faith, someone who believes that a man once walked on water and rose from the dead. Tell me, Detective Priest, in your experience, do people rise from the dead after three days?’ He laughed. ‘Of course not. Yet you believe it. Just because this belief comes from Europe and not Africa, you find it credible. Well, Detective Priest, this is Africa.’
‘Professor, you—’
‘Listen,’ the Professor interrupted, dropping the wood to form a pyramid on the floor. He lit a match and flicked it onto the fuel; flames whooshed as the sticks caught alight. ‘I do believe. I’m a firm believer in the ignorance of man. Do I believe in curses? Of course not. But others do. I believe in money. I told you, there are millions to be made in muti and the trade of body parts. That’s what I believe in.’
Meyer’s head swam in questions. ‘And Nomtakhati?’
The Professor gave him a sad smile.
‘Her name was really Gugu, but that name doesn’t have the same … gravitas as Nomtakhati, does it? I told her to use that name. It made her sound more powerful and it was far more marketable. But Gugu believed she had power. She really did, and had done so ever since she was a child and the cattle in the village were being slaughtered by a mysterious beast. The people came to our mother and begged Gugu to help, begged with all the money they could spare. And with my sister’s spells, the beast actually went away,’ he shrugged. ‘Of course, that beast was just me and my knife getting bored from time to time. But my mother believed, and all the people in our village believed. But I knew the truth. I wasn’t a fool like them, but when I saw the money they were willing to spend for my sister’s muti and spells, yes, then I believed.’ He nodded. ‘Oh God, did I believe.’
Something leapt down from the wooden beams that held up the roof. It landed behind the Professor with a forward roll before springing to its feet. Like the Imfene, the Tokoloshe was naked and covered in coarse hair. His eyes were jaundiced and his sharp brown teeth were exposed in a grotesque snarl. It made a high-pitched cackling sound that Meyer thought might be laughter.
Meyer’s eyes widened in horror. The professor smirked. ‘You superstitious fool! You really believe in monsters and ghouls, don’t you? In bread and wine becoming flesh and blood on Sundays?’ He shook his head. ‘Monsters don’t exist, Detective Priest. No. You have to make them.’ The fire behind him grew. ‘I told you, God didn’t make man; man made God, and man-made monsters too. It’s not easy, you know. You have to wait for just the right kind of child. As I’ve said before, dwarfism is still not understood in many communities. It scares people. They think the babies are ghouls or goblins and are all too eager to get rid of them.’
He looked at the Tokoloshe, who glared at Meyer with blank eyes. ‘He came from a thirteen-year-old girl in Limpopo, impregnated by either her brother or her father. It took a lot of work and patience to create it. I had to keep it in a cage. I had to file the teeth to get them just right and sharp. I had to whip any sense of humanity out of it until I made it into the monster I needed.’
The Tokoloshe crouched in the corner, where it poked at a
bug with a long nail. ‘I needed to get it right to the edge of insanity – and then keep it there. Oh, there were many failures. Many lost their minds and I had to kill them because they didn’t obey. Many killed themselves the moment they had a chance. Some escaped, but that was good. Having these little monsters running through the communities only added to the legend of my sister, and the desires for her potions and protection spells. Like the good big brother I am, I looked after the finances.’
Meyer felt an urge to retch. ‘But they’re just children,’ he protested.
‘They were unwanted, worthless pieces of garbage dumped on my doorstep. I gave them a purpose.’ Buthelezi gestured at the Imfene. ‘As for him, I had to go all the way to Senegal for him. I gave a lecture in Dakar, and one of the villagers brought me this monster of a toddler. I mean, I could see back then that he would be huge, but mentally he was feeble. It cost me a thousand rand to take him, but God, look at him! What a glorious specimen. For the first few months he would just scream when I whipped him. I even thought I would have to get rid of him. But then … he obeyed. He listened, and he became my Imfene. You see, Detective Priest, they become what they have to, in order to survive. Like the feral children. These lost children,’ he spread his long, thin arms, like an insect about to take flight, ‘have become my monsters.’
Meyer tested his binds once more. They were still unrelenting. ‘What do … you want from me? Why am I here?’
The professor clicked his tongue. ‘You killed my sister.’ He walked closer to Meyer. ‘And although she herself wasn’t completely sane, I did love her. And the money she made. You are here, Detective Priest, so that I can have my vengeance. And so these idiot people will continue to fear the power of Nomtakhati, who can reach out from beyond the grave to get her revenge. Who knows? Maybe I can eventually find a girl to be the reincarnation of Nomtakhati? Nomtakhati reborn. Now, wouldn’t that be something?’
99
Once Creed crossed over Witkoppen Road, the streets were no longer illuminated by lights. Plunged into an ocean of blackness, his eyes whipped up and down, from the street in front of him to the odometer behind the steering wheel. He was targeting thirty-five kilometres. An informal settlement burst out of the darkness on his right – multi-coloured, tiny houses built from board, wood and corrugated iron. He had only driven eleven kilometres when his phone rang again.