He began to imagine a deep, dark pool of cool water that had been collecting over time after seeping through the rocks above the cave and leaking down from the walls. He also imagined that the rocks above the pool, where the water dripped through, would be stained with whatever minerals percolated from the ground above.
It was as if all of David’s senses were finally coming together, almost as if before they’d been closed off, but it was the smell of the cave that acutely hit him now. He thought perhaps it was the dripping and the imagined pool that helped his sense of smell come alive, with the mustiness reminding him of a mouldy, damp cellar.
With his brain awakening because of fresh smells, sights, and sounds, he found himself half-turned toward the distant dripping and half-turned toward the welcoming light.
He found that he was torn between going to investigate this sound and continuing his way out of the cave. Ultimately, the bright sunlight outside attracted him more. He figured that going toward the light was more likely to give him better clues as to where he was, although he was also extremely wary about leaving the apparent safety of the cave. However, he was now more aware of his nakedness, too, and, like most people, he had never been out in the open without any clothes on.
Back at home and when he was at school, he even found going to a swimming pool extremely difficult, as he had a huge fear of people seeing his rotund body shape. Of course, when he went swimming he would have been wearing swimming shorts, but even so this was still embarrassing for him. So, now that he was totally naked and in an unknown place where someone might see his naked body, he was near panic.
This thought alone made him hesitate for a while longer; he stood motionless, listening to the rhythmic drip, drip, drip behind him. But he was now also aware of some unfamiliar sounds that were emanating from beyond the cave entrance, sounds which placed him outside of his home in the UK. Bizarrely enough, the only piece of this confusing jigsaw puzzle that was strangely comforting to him was the musty, cellar-like smell.
This smell took him back to his childhood, when he would visit his grandparents. They lived in the sleepy English market town of Saffron Walden in a quaint cottage that backed onto the town’s common and a small brook. He would spend many a weekend at this cottage when his parents worked or went away. It had a basement, where he had always loved to play, that always smelt of damp; this is the smell that was familiar to him now.
Despite the familiarity of this smell, he decided that the darkness of the cave was forbidding and would not provide the evidence he sought, whereas the outside and its warmth offered an escape and possible clues to his whereabouts.
Within a few more steps, the floor of the cave became stonier and harder on his bare feet. With each step he took, although he placed his feet down very carefully, small stones still bore into the soles of his feet.
Finally, he reached the opening to his unusual waking place, furrowed his brow, and squinted against the bright sunlight. As he stood there naked and all alone, he became even more frustrated and annoyed with his faulty memory.
‘How could I remain totally mystified as to what has happened to me?’ he questioned. ‘How is it possible to be transported from home to where I’ve awoken?’
He now stood just outside of the cave, studying the landscape that stretched far out before him, looking for clues as to how he might have gotten there. As he moved further out and into the sun, he became much more aware of his naked skin and covered his manhood with both hands, for fear of being seen.
He looked down at his rotund belly and white flesh, which had never really seen the sun before, as he’d spent most of his time indoors. David’s overweight condition came from eating an unhealthy diet of burgers, fried chicken, and kebab takeaways, and lack of exercise.
Feeling very self-aware, he kept both his hands firmly around his privates, to conceal his pride. However, as he looked around, there were no signs of people, no signs of what he knew as ‘normal’ civilisation, and absolutely no recognisable clues as to his whereabouts.
He could feel the sun beating down on him from what appeared to be a height that he’d never remembered before. The sun’s rays felt extremely hot on his bare skin and he knew right away that if he spent any time at all out here, he’d burn very quickly.
As he surveyed the area outside the cave, all he could see was an unusual collection of unfamiliar looking trees and shrubs and an area of scrubland ahead that seemed to stretch out for many kilometres. The scrubland, in the main, was covered in grass which had grown quite high in certain parts, and was predominantly of a light brown colour, which was interspersed with green. He assumed this hay-like grass was that way due to the lack of rainfall. Greenery was provided by umbrella-like trees, which cast wide, circular shadows on the ground below. More green was added to the scene by small bushes, which protruded above the grass
As he turned and looked back at the entrance to the cave, he could see above it an area like a small hill. This rocky slope was covered in green plants of a type which he’d also never seen before in England. The rock areas that had not yet been covered by these unfamiliar looking plants had a mottled-like surface, as they were covered in grey and white liken, which looked a bit like mould.
The similarity between both these unfamiliar scenes — the one that stretched up above and behind him and the other that stretched out and away to the horizon in front of him — was the dryness of both the ground and plants; even the plants which had green leaves looked like they’d not seen rain in a very long time. All he could conclude was one thing: ‘This place looks very much like Africa.’
‘But how could that be?’ he doubted to himself. ‘Impossible!’
He paused to think. The last waking thing he recalled, aside from the vague dream-like memory of the two men that floated on the edge of his mind, was of being in England.
‘How could I have been transported to Africa, some several thousand kilometres away, in what seems like such a short time frame?
‘How did I get moved to a cave without me being aware?
‘How is it that I’m now looking out over an African savannah?’
Had he gone through some kind of strange time warp, or could this be some weird, intense dream he was having? To his knowledge, the technology to move through time still didn’t exist, and he was sure he’d never had a dream so vivid. Now that he was fully awake, he was convinced that indeed he was in Africa.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Konner Hurley landed at Lusaka International airport, having transited in Johannesburg for a few hours, arriving via South African Airways. As he walked off the plane, he was hit by the warmth of the Zambian sun and smiled, because it was autumn and cold back home in New York City where he lived. His trip was planned for just 10 days and he was looking forward to his African adventure.
Konner descended the stairs from the plane and crossed the tarmac, which led to a ‘Welcome to Zambia’ sign in big, blue letters above the terminal entrance. The people ahead of him were already queueing up at immigration, so he joined them and waited his turn.
When he was called to the immigration official, Konner stepped forward and presented an American passport along with his 90-day visa that he’d managed to get at the Mission in 52nd Street. The immigration officer was a large man with a bulging stomach, which under his official-looking white shirt made his clothes seem almost too small for him. Surprisingly for Konner, as he was used to unfriendly immigration officers in the United States, the Zambian officer smiled at him and welcomed Konner to his country.
This officer went on to ask him the usual questions. Within a few moments, he had stamped his passport and visa and Konner found his way to the baggage-claim area. It wasn’t large and had just two baggage belts. It wasn’t long before his large, black bag came along the second belt. He collected it and made his way to the customs area.
After he passed through customs and came out into the main terminal, he was met by a group of people, each awaiting the arrival
of someone from the most recent flight and many holding up name plates. Konner walked over to the guy who had his name scribbled onto a large, white plate. He was a tall gentleman who Konner guessed was in his mid- to late-forties. He was dressed in khaki trousers and had a camouflaged t-shirt on. When he realised that Konner was his guest, he gave a big smile, revealing a set of very white teeth, and greeted him with, ‘Welcome to Zambia, Mr Hurley. Did you have a good flight, sir?’
‘Yes, I did, but it was a long trip and I’m now very tired.’
‘My name is Jowidah, and please let me take your bag for you, Mr Hurley,’ he offered. ‘We need to make our way over to the Proflight check-in area, as we are taking a short flight to Mfuwe Airport with them.’
‘Call me Konner. How long is the flight?’
‘It’s just over an hour, sir,’ Jowidah answered, as he grabbed Konner’s bag and wheeled it towards where they needed to go. Konner followed behind.
Both men checked in on the flight at the check-in desk, and before long they were both heading for the aeroplane that was sitting out on the tarmac. The plane was a turbo-prop plane and had a single engine with a propeller on each wing.
At this point Konner began to feel nervous, as he had never been on such a small aircraft before, especially in a foreign country. He looked at the aeroplane with suspicion. Next to it was an old, red tractor, which had a white trailer attached to it. As he viewed the plane with distrust, he observed three men, all with fluorescent jackets on, milling around the fuselage who appeared to be readying things for departure.
‘You’ll be fine, Mr Hurley. Proflight have a good safety record and it’s just a short trip to Mfuwe,’ Jowidah tried to reassure Konner, as he could see the look on his face and his seeming reluctance to board the plane.
Konner looked at Jowidah, forced a smile, and then climbed the stairway ahead of him. As he reached the door, he had to duck his head due to its limited height, then was met by a lady all dressed in blue. She smiled at him and welcomed him aboard, whilst asking him for his boarding pass.
Konner was directed to his seat and Jowidah joined him and sat next to him towards the front of the plane. The two of them were followed by a few other passengers, which included an older lady who needed help getting up the stairs. She was accompanied by a younger man, who looked like he could be her son. By the way she was speaking to him, Konner assumed that this was the case, and although it was clear that she needed help, she kept telling the younger man to ‘stop fussing, I’m okay, leave me alone.’
These two passengers were followed by a taller gentleman dressed in a suit and tie, who to Konner looked a bit out of place on this flight. He wondered what business he might be attending to in Mfuwe. As the man was shown to his seat by the same young lady dressed in blue, he smiled at Konner, as he took one of the seats directly in front of him. He was an older man and probably in his mid-fifties and what hair he had left on his head had all gone grey.
This man was the last to get on the plane before the door was closed, and whilst the steward did her safety checks to make sure that each passenger had their seat belt fastened, the pilot started the engines. Konner couldn’t believe how noisy they were when they started up. As soon the plane was at the head of the take-off strip, things got even noisier, as the pilot pushed the throttle forward and the aircraft lurched down the runway.
The runway felt very bumpy, but after only a short distance the nose of the plane rose up and they soon were airborne, at which point Konner had butterflies in his stomach. Not long after they’d taken off, the plane began to bounce around in air turbulence. Just then, the pilot introduced himself with a South African accent and said, ‘We will be experiencing quite a bit of turbulence on this flight, but we should have you in Mfuwe in the next 70 minutes, so please enjoy your flight with us today and thank you for choosing Proflight Zambia.’
The pilot’s words didn’t make Konner feel any better, and he thought, ‘Seventy minutes of turbulence over the African plains. That’s not too good.’ All he could do was look out the small window and down at the dry-looking grassland below.
CHAPTER EIGHT
David pinched his arm to see if he could wake himself up even further and to bring back his lost memories.
‘This experience is definitely real,’ he thought.
With that, he reached around again to the back of his neck to find the hidden object under his skin and rubbed his unhealed wound. He believed that this must surely have something to do with the two men he recalled, but he also linked them to where he found himself now. His instinct told him that whatever the object was under his skin, it had been placed there by someone, most likely by one of these men. With this thought a shiver went up the whole length of his spine.
He then suddenly remembered going to an interview at a property company based in Chelmsford. This was the last thing he had done before going to the bank for his money.
At the interview, he remembered handing a copy of his CV to a businessman he judged to be in his mid-forties and recalled the guy’s eyes, which were a piercing blue colour. He recollected his feeling very intimidated by the man, as he had a real presence about him and a self-assurance that he had never experienced before.
As he thought about the interviewer, it suddenly hit him that one of the two men he recalled in his dream-like memory was this same person. He began to remember some of the questions the man had asked, which were a little unusual for a job interview. One question he recalled being asked was: ‘Would you prefer to be at home not working, rather than working for someone like me?’ He remembered being completely thrown by this question.
The other thought that came to him about this encounter was how the guy insisted he have a drink. David had refused, as he never liked to drink from random glasses at places he didn’t know. The drink on the interviewer’s table was only water, but the guy must have asked him at least five times, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to have a drink?’
But the comment about the water that spooked him the most was when he’d said, ‘Water is precious and you could die if you don’t have it.’
David recalled not having an answer to this statement, and whilst he was being stared at by the man, he forced himself to have a sip from the glass that sat in front of him. This peculiarity of the interview stayed with him, too, and now he wasn’t quite sure whether this was relevant to his present predicament or not. Yes, this guy was a bit odd and certainly very sure of himself and he had made David very nervous, but surely this had nothing to do with him being transported to Africa. He also recalled that this man, who had introduced himself as Mr Blake Caldwell, had tanned skin, which indicated he had obviously been somewhere with a lot of sunshine.
Then another memory of the man’s office, where the interview had taken place, suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks — it was the picture on the wall behind his desk of an African plain. The pieces of this bizarre jigsaw puzzle were beginning to slot into place.
‘Was Caldwell something to do with this? If he was, how did he do this?’ he thought.
He continued to rehash his interview with Caldwell, and he remembered how he had left his office feeling a bit agitated. The comment about the water made more sense to David now that he was in Africa: ‘The guy was toying with me about what he had planned for me out here, the bastard!’
As he thought about his meeting with Caldwell, he realised now that he had obviously picked up on some kind of body language at the time. As he reviewed his memories of the experience, he could remember walking to the nearest bus stop after his interview, and he could also remember catching the bus home. David could also recall arriving home and going up to his flat, but it was at this point that his memory was still a bit fuzzy.
As he tried to bring forward more of his memories, David looked up and could see that the sun was high in the sky, so he knew it must be late morning or early afternoon. It was extremely hot and he could already feel his skin burning under the sun’s intense rays. Now
that he’d abandoned the cool interior and shadows of the cave, a heat that he’d never experienced before bore down on him with unrelenting power.
‘It never gets as hot as this, even in the summer in the UK,’ he thought worriedly. Not that he ever went out on hot days, due to his sensitive skin, but also due to his reclusive tendencies. Both of his parents had fair skin and his mum had red hair, which was passed on through the genetic link to him.
He looked around to see if there was anything he could use as a cover-up, like a large leaf or perhaps some discarded rubbish or clothes. Certainly, within the vicinity of the cave there were no large-leafed plants.
Feeling completely helpless, David let out a huge sigh.
His sense of absolute exposure and vulnerability was intense in him now. He’d never felt such strong emotion before. A feeling of anger came over him, too, which he directed towards the people he had never met — or had he?
‘Who was it who placed me here?’ he raged inside, whilst at the same time hoping that he was wrong about where he was —wrong despite the fact that what he was staring at looked like something out of a David Attenborough documentary.
Despite the fact that he was seeing strange-looking plants and feeling the extraordinary heat from the sun’s rays on his back and shoulders, he kept trying to convince himself that he must still be somewhere in the UK.
Whatever the case, he felt very alone and a long, long way away from home.
But then, as if to dispel any lasting doubts about where he was, there suddenly appeared an even more obvious clue to his location, and he was staring right at it.
David’s heart jumped to his mouth and it almost missed a beat, as the truth hit him right between the eyes. Although he’d seen all the marks of Africa thus far, and they had to be wrong somehow, it was only now when he saw what was in front of him that his sense of isolation truly hit home and he suddenly felt dizzy again. It was almost as if he were having an out-of-body experience.
Nothing Left But Fear Page 3