The area was a hive of activity, and the ground nearby had been trodden by thousands of hooves and paws. He moved around to the far side of the waterhole, trying to get away from where the elephants were playing, in order to find a part of the water that was less muddy. His heart pounded away; he felt so vulnerable in amongst this mass of activity.
The zebra neighed in their strange donkey-like fashion as they trotted away from the waterhole completely when he’d got too close for their liking. It was a strange feeling for him, as he was even more scared than ever, and yet these animals were frightened of him.
‘If only they knew,’ he thought.
Not having drunk from a natural water source before, he wasn’t sure if this stuff would be safe to drink, but seeing its colour, he knew full well that these huge creatures probably also used it as a huge toilet facility. He wasn’t completely sure what might happen to him if he drank it, but, as it was sure to contain urine and faeces, it was likely to give him an upset stomach at the very least.
The alternative to drinking from what looked like an oxbow lake was to drink from the main river, which he was sure was nearby, but as his guide had explained to him, there were a large number of crocodiles living in the Luangwa River. He didn’t want to risk this. His guide had also explained about the large population of hippos there, too, and Konner knew they were known for defecating in the water, so the filthy water issue would be the same, but with the added risk of attack.
He really didn’t have a choice — either drink the water that he had in front of him, die of thirst, or get eaten alive drinking from the river.
Konner approached the edge of the water slowly, and soon he could feel the mud squeezing between his toes. The squelchy goo was cooling on his feet, and for a while relieved their pain. He knelt down and leant forward to put his mouth to the dirty water and pursed his lips to drink. As he took his first mouthful, the taste was foul. The combination of mud and faeces was overpowering and he felt like vomiting, but at the same time the cool water was taking away the huge thirst he had, which was an even stronger urge, as he knew he had to drink or die.
This was a whole new world to him, one that was bewilderingly frightening and full of impossible choices. A world where courage is as important as strength and where actions have life-or-death consequences. What he was experiencing now was what wild animals experience every day of their lives, staring danger in the face and taking every chance that life offers.
As he drank, he kept an eye on what was going on around him, and he also glanced behind to make sure there was no danger lurking there either. Whilst doing so, he remembered watching a wildlife program and seeing wildebeest and antelope looking very twitchy, whilst drinking. He felt exactly the same, and he could now understand why these animals would take so long before taking a drink.
The foul-tasting water quenched his thirst for now, but with each mouthful he took, it made him wretch. He worried that later he might bring it all up again, as the bacteria contained in it would likely be rejected by his stomach.
After he felt he’d drunk enough, Konner got to his feet and took a look around. The elephants were still wallowing in the mud and stirring the water up into a muddy froth. Looking across to the other side of the pool to where he had arrived, he noticed to his horror a group of lions on the mound leading down to the water’s edge.
His heart jumped and began to pump at an increased rate yet again, remembering his being chased up a tree. He wondered whether they were the same lions and if they might remember him or his smell. They did seem to be relaxed and not too interested in any of the animals around the waterhole, but nonetheless he still began walking back across the open grass area until he reached the bushes and trees, out of sight of the lions.
The next life-or-death problem he faced was finding food. Not having been in a survival situation before, he had no way of knowing how to catch food, nor did he know how to cook it or make a fire. If only he had his rifle, things would be different!
‘What can I eat?’ he wondered.
As he walked within the cover of the trees, he knew that the buffalo he’d encountered earlier might not be too far away. Also, there were likely to be other animals, all equally eager to kill or attack him.
Since his drink, he was beginning to feel sick and his stomach was beginning to churn. He walked slowly through the bushes in search of a place to sit and rest — if rest was something he could do in a place like this. At least he could get off his feet, which were extremely sore.
Seeing a tree ahead of him, Konner approached carefully, knowing there could be an animal lurking behind every bush or tree trunk. He could see no immediate danger, but he still felt very uneasy and extremely tired now, not having slept all night and from his walk to the waterhole in the heat.
‘If only I could find a cave or some other refuge,’ he thought. ‘Maybe I could build a protective barrier.’
He reached the base of the tree and looked around once more to see if there were any predators. There were none to be seen. So he sat down with his back to the trunk, hoping that if any creature were to come along, he would be able to see it in time to climb into its branches. The bark of the tree was rough on his back and the ground wasn’t exactly comfortable on his naked backside, either, but at least he could rest for the time being.
As he sat there, he began to think about home and how he missed his New York apartment and his life in the city. He would give anything to be there and not here, living in constant fear.
As he sat for a while, he started to feel very weak and extremely nauseous. Then, without warning, his stomach brought up all the water he’d drunk just a few moments before. He couldn’t suppress it and continued to vomit violently. He then became really concerned at the noise he was making, but he was unable to stop until his body had rid itself of the foul water and the bacteria that it contained.
When the vomiting stopped, Konner leaned his back against the tree, completely drained. He was now concerned, as all the fluid he’d drunk had all been brought back up, plus more. He started to feel dizzy, as all the energy in his body drained away, and the world around him began to spin. He fell over on the ground, fainting from exhaustion.
Konner was abruptly awakened from his fainting spell by a sharp pain in his leg. As he opened his eyes, he realised what the pain was — an animal was tearing at his calf muscle. Horrified, he found himself face-to-face with a pack of wild hyenas, each one as eager as the next to be the first to rip into his tender, white flesh.
When he’d first woken and had seen the creature that had begun the attack, the hyena stepped back and stared at him with brown, unfeeling eyes. Another hyena then darted in to take its place, sinking its dog-like jaws and teeth into Konner’s kneecap on his other leg, which caused him to let out a scream of agony. The first hyena that had attacked turned, snarled, and then bit the neck of the second hyena, which let out a loud squeal and turned to fight its rival. Then all of a sudden all the hyenas began to squabble and fight each other, whilst Konner tried to get up and move away from the clan.
With his movement, the first hyena turned and grabbed at Konner, not allowing him to get up. Then another of the pack joined in, as a third animal sunk its teeth into the soft flesh at the side of his stomach. Konner tried to push the creatures away, but there were too many of them, and they were coming at him from all angles. He was now starting to loose blood, and the pain was excruciating. He tried to get up again and began to shout at his attackers in an attempt to scare them away, but he was almost completely devoid of energy. These gory creatures had already tasted blood and were not about to give up now.
Konner turned onto his front and tried to crawl away, pulling himself with his arms and hands, but the hyenas were pulling him back, sinking their teeth into his flesh and tearing away the skin to reveal muscle and bone beneath. He could feel them tearing away at both of his calves, then one moved to his thigh muscle, whilst another sunk its teeth into his lower abdomen, ripp
ing the lining and exposing his intestine.
Still another one of the pack tugged at his arm, and he quickly realised his fate was sealed. He was to be eaten alive by hyenas.
More of the animals turned to the soft flesh of his stomach. Before too long their sharp teeth had pulled out his intestines and other internal organs, including his liver. As the creatures tore at this vital organ, Konner’s blood spurted and he blacked out, his last thought of his abductors and why they’d brought him here.
The animals had smelt the vomit and zeroed in on Konner. Now they gorged themselves on his flesh and bone, like they did with any other helpless plains animal.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Druker returned to his office after he’d had his lunch on the veranda again. Today Mulubwa had cooked him goat curry, which was one of his favourite dishes.
He looked at the tracking screen and the dot for Prow was moving slowly, but the Hurley dot had just disappeared right in front of him.
He went to his computer and checked the information of the tracking system and it showed that Konner had been still for a while. There didn’t appear to be any problems with the system, especially as Prow’s tracking unit was still showing on the screen.
He picked up his radio and called for Scott to come to his office right away. Within a few moments, in his usual compliant manner, Scott appeared in the office doorway.
‘Hi, Scott. It looks like we’ve lost Hurley, as his tracking unit has just disappeared,’ he said. ‘It disappeared right in front of me only a few moments ago.’
‘Well, he lasted the night, then, and it looks like Prow has lasted, too, as I see her tracking unit is still moving,’ Scott replied.
‘Yes, and maybe this feisty one will last longer than the rest,’ Druker countered.
‘So what do you want me to do?’ Scott asked his boss.
‘This time I’m sure the tracker unit is not at fault, like we thought last time, so I think it’s time we put Smith back out there, don’t you?’
‘I agree, and is it okay that I use the tranquiliser gun on him this time?’
‘I think that’s a great idea! Treat him just like we would an animal that we were about to take out into the wild,’ Druker said with enthusiasm.
‘Okay, consider it done, Druk. Then I’ll go and check on the site where Hurley was last recorded, if you could let me have the coordinates.’
Druker looked up Konner’s last position on the system and gave these to Scott, so that it would make it easier for him to track him down, although Scott knew that he would likely be looking for a blood stain once more.
‘I’ll go get the tranquiliser gun. Then Joshua and I will put Smith back out right away,’ Scott said and left the room.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
As Graham sat there not making a sound for what felt like an eternity, he heard footsteps and voices approaching from outside. The bolts on the outside door were released and then the door itself swung open. As he looked towards the entrance, bright sunlight streamed in, causing him to squint.
A dark figure approached, silhouetted by the light behind. As he approached his cage, he was sure it was Scott again.
As his eyes adjusted, he could see that yes, it was Scott who had come in, and that he was carrying something in his hands.
‘Is it a gun or is it the stun gun again?’ he though worriedly.
When Scott pointed it at him, he realised that it was in fact a gun. He was poking it through the bars of the cage and aiming straight at him. Graham looked into the whites of Scott’s eyes and saw that there was no feeling there.
He recoiled in the cage and tried to get as far away as possible.
‘Why have they decided to kill me?’ he wondered.
‘Stop, Scott! Don’t shoot me!’ he shouted.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ Scott growled as he lined the gun up on Graham.
As Graham pushed himself back as far as he could, he heard the crack of the gun and almost simultaneously felt pain shoot up from his thigh, which is where the bullet had hit.
‘Why are you doing this? I’ve done nothing wrong,’ he whimpered. ‘Why have you shot me in the leg?’
But as he looked down to where the pain was coming from, he realised that he’d not been shot with a bullet, but instead there was a large dart poking out from his thigh. As he looked at the red-coloured dart, he instinctively leaned down to remove it, but suddenly felt woozy. He then blacked out and collapsed to the floor of the cage, with images still in his head about what had just happened and why.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Graham came around from being shot with the tranquiliser and, instead of seeing the bars of his cage, in which he’d lost consciousness, he found that he was in a more open space, although it was still quite dark. Feeling sluggish, he sat up to see where he was and found to his surprise that he seemed to be in a cave. He had been lying on something a bit softer than his hard, wooden cage floor. It was straw.
Looking towards the entrance of the cave, he sensed that he was no longer close to the relatively safe haven of the building with the cages. At least he had known whilst he was there that no wild animals would be able to attack him, and he had water and food — albeit dog food — to eat.
He felt his thigh where the dart had hit him. The dart was no longer there, but a red mark and a bruise from the impact remained. He realised it must have been a tranquilliser they shot into him; he didn’t remember a thing about being moved out of his cage and back out into the wild again. The chemical had left him feeling a bit lightheaded and nauseous.
He wondered where he’d been taken this time as he slowly got to his feet and, still feeling woozy, walked slowly to the cave entrance, wondering to himself what time of day it was.
As he approached the aperture, not sure what animals he might see, he was very cautious. The sun was bright and he could smell the dry grass and open plain of Africa once more, which reminded him of when he had first awoken a couple of days ago, only in a different area.
There was a large open space with grasslands and a few trees scattered about and, in the near distance, he could see some grazing animals, which looked like wildebeest and zebra. He then heard the unmistakable sound of a zebra, with its unusual neigh that didn’t really sound like a neigh at all.
He knew quite well that where there were plains animals, like wildebeest and zebra, close by there would also be lions like he’d encountered before and other predators. Although it was really quite warm, a shiver ran up his spine. He remembered how close he had come to being eaten alive by a pride of lions, and all those primal feelings came rushing back to him once more.
‘Maybe I’m being watched, and as soon as I get into danger they’ll rescue me,’ Graham thought, then dismissed the idea as he remembered the lump under the skin in his neck. ‘This could to be a tracker, but that’s not going to let them see me, though.’
Graham then thought about Carly, who was also out here somewhere, and that maybe he might be lucky enough to find her.
‘Perhaps as two we might stand more of a chance of surviving and of escaping,’ he thought.
He soon decided, though, that their kidnappers were unlikely to place them anywhere near each other out here.
‘We are likely to be too far apart to find each other — that’s even if she’s still alive by now,’ he worried.
He knew that he’d been extremely lucky before, having tourists in the area. ‘But I wonder how Scott and the others knew they were there?’ he wondered.
‘It might be that I’ll be found, perhaps this time not by the people who kidnapped me,’ he thought, trying to be a little positive. ‘Surely they can’t be everywhere, but then perhaps they do have cameras.’
Graham started to have a look around, to see if he could see anything that resembled a camera, but there was no evidence of this, but he decided he would continue to look. ‘There’s obviously something they have in place to enable them to know when tourists are around,’ he thought.<
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He was now really hungry and his stomach was churning. He was also starting to feel thirsty, too. Last time he was lucky enough to find the elephants and follow them to the waterhole, but he doubted that he’d have similar luck this time. As for food, he questioned whether he’d find anything to eat out here.
His feet were still really sore from his previous time in the bush, not having had time to heal. So with the ground being really hard, he hobbled around, but kept as close to the mouth of the cave as he could, not daring right now to wander too far. His skin was also sun burnt, so he was reluctant to go out for too long in the sun. In a bizarre way, he was thankful that they’d placed him in this shelter, rather than right out in the open like last time.
He realised, though, that his only chance of survival was to venture out onto the open plain once more. His search for food and water carried the risk of meeting up with lions or other predators again, but this would also give him the added chance of being found.
Graham surveyed the ground around the cave. Above the cave the land rose up to some rocky outcrops covered in small bushes and trees, and as he looked up, he saw movement and froze to the spot. Not knowing what he’d seen, he squinted and leant forward to see what had moved.
‘What would live up there in the bushes? Am I being stalked already? Is it a predator or is it a smaller creature that was frightened of me instead?’ he questioned, as his heart rate jumped to the levels he remembered from before, when he’d encountered a wild animal.
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