Chapter 107 The Evil Region
2170words
Boeta originally visited the many abandoned wildlife farms and gathered precious supplies and carried them back to his cave. This was a great risk with the cannibal's patrols in the woods and he couldn't go further than the nearest farms before he hastily had to return. Originally the monsters weren't well organized and he could dare it but eventually, they began to work together as a swarm. From then on Boeta had a few narrow escapes and the last time he had to jump off a cliff into a deep pool to save himself. He has never again visited that area because of the distance from his cave and the threat to his life.
Donovan pulls himself out of the water and picks up his bag. Everything, even his rifle, is in the bag. He opens the bag to get his boots out. He only wears his boots, throws a shirt over his shoulders, and puts on his hat to protect him from the scorching Africa sun. The rest he keeps in his bag, carrying it over his shoulder until he reaches the next pool. It helps because a cool breeze often caresses his wet body. But the sun burns down until the next pool.
Suddenly he becomes aware of something strange and he looks around. His heart jumps in his throat. Two black men in ragged underpants focus on him with assegais in their hands ready to throw.
The elder man speaks to him in broken English with a strange accent: "Put down that thing and stand back …"
Donovan immediately complies. The young man approaches him and puts his hand out to pick up the bag but the elder man reprimands him in a strange dialect somewhat reminiscent of the dialect with strange clicking noises that Koko and Boeta use to communicate. The young man pulls back his hand quickly and uses his assegai to lift it carefully. Suspiciously he now holds it at a safe distance away from him.
The elder man indicates with a prompt of his assegai: "Walk!"
Donovan frowns because he is completely naked. Everything is still in the bag. He doesn't even dare to talk back and bare-footed he starts to struggle forward over the rough rocks. It feels like an eternity while he struggles ahead over the hot stones. His soles are burning and the sun fiercely scorches his white skin. Eventually, they reach another pool and he looks forward to the possible refreshment of the cool mountain water. When they come nearer he sees the pool is surrounded by steep cliffs on either side with two branches coming into his vision. Amazed he looks at the shelters at the entrance to the left branch built against the sharp incline under the cliff. At the exit of the pool, naked children are playing while women are washing their clothing. Their wet clothes are draped over the hot boulders in the sun. Donovan looks up against the incline. Beneath the vertical cliff, a few elderly men sit in front of their shelters made of branches and hides. Amazed the women now watch the naked white man standing with his hands in front of his crotch and even the children stop their playing and curiously approach him and laugh at him. An old man with grey hair and a lush grey beard rises from in front of his shelter and yells at the men with the assegais behind him.
The older man behind him orders: "Walk up and follow that man."
They ascend with a steep footpath and follow the greybeard in front. He leads them past shelters with the footpath higher up and now Donovan sees a hidden structure high up in the trees. It is a treehouse and greybeard leads them along with steep wooden steps up to a platform. The shelter has walls and a roof with a large veranda. Greybeard gestures he must wait and calls through a canvass at the entrance. He hears a man's voice answering and greybeard pulls away the canvass and step inside.
The man behind Donovan orders: "Follow him!"
Donovan enters and struggles in the sudden dark. Little light is coming through the sparse openings. Eventually, he sees a white man and a black woman on a primitive bed on the floor. Shamelessly they lie there naked on the bedding. It is a middle-aged man with the naked black woman lying half across him sleeping. Her supple, lean body is over his genitals and his hand rests on her buttock. When he sees Donovan, his eyes widen in amazement.
The young man lowers the bag onto the floor with his assegai.
The man asks in English and Donovan recognizes the same accent as Boeta's, only not so prominent: "Hello, I am Jan, one of the leaders of this community."
He gestures to the greyhead. "That is Buhle, one of the other leaders of our democracy. What's your name?"
"Donovan."
"I have so many questions, Donovan. But first: who are you and how did you arrive here?"
Donovan explains: "These two gentlemen took me in custody with their assegais and brought me here after I crossed a pool."
With a question mark on his face, he points to the right. "Which pool? Can only be that side, not so?"
Donovan nods and points to the right indicating the direction from where he came.
Jan nods: "Lucky for you. But how did you come here and from where are you originally and what is that strange accent? Are you American?"
"Our helicopter crashed in the woods. I was the only survivor and scurried into the gorges and am looking now for an exit out of this maze."
Jan laughs out his words: "You are looking for a way out!!" He splits his sides.
The young girl has now awakened and with sleepy eyes and a frown, she looks at Donovan.
Sarcastically Jan speaks: "Sorry to disappoint you, mate. There is no way out of this hell. We are surrounded by mad monsters overall in the woods that encircle us and we were up to now only lucky. We simply have to survive here. The monsters don't reach us here. You will have to join us. That's the best you can do. Sorry that they had to lead you naked up to here, but we don't trust people and their belongings because those who dare to go into the woods and encounter monsters, either are killed or are spit upon, scratched or bitten and so become very ill and change to monsters overnight. Your belongings could be infected. We know nothing about you. When did you take flight into the gorges? Have you had any contact with the monsters?"
"I landed here a few days ago and had no contact with any monsters."
"Why did you flee into the gorges? Something chased you, not so?"
Donovan tries to keep his story simple keeping so near the truth as possible without betraying his friends. He doesn't know what to expect from these people. "Mercenaries were on my heels and I swam across a deep pool surrounded by steep cliffs to evade them."
Amazed Jan frowns. "Mercenaries? What was the reason for your flight over the woods and which mercenaries were following you?"
Donovan frowns. "We were looking for the mercenaries because they abducted very important people who had been in our care. We saw their vehicles from the air where they stayed overnight and when we went lower to investigate they shot at the helicopter and damaged it. We had to do an emergency landing, crashed and I am the only survivor. The mercenaries had a very important appointment and had little time to try and trace me. I don't think I am so important to them. I am sure they have gone back by now to their important appointment."
Jan shakes his head and frowns. "Your story doesn't make sense. How do the mercenaries survive in the bushes amongst the monsters?"
"They have bulletproof vehicles, but to tell you the truth, I don't know. The monsters could have overwhelmed and killed them, for all I know. All I know is that I was chased into the gorge by them from the wreck of our helicopter. I followed a stream because I didn't want to leave tracks and the stream ended in a deep pool with vertical cliffs on either side. I swam across and that is how I seem to have escaped them."
"And you didn't encounter monsters in the woods? You must have tried to escape the gorges through the woods somewhere?"
Donovan thinks quickly. "When I was sure the mercenaries wouldn't spend more time to locate me, I tried to climb up a few places but each time I saw the woods swarming with strange people awaiting me. Now I am looking for a branch that somewhere ends where there are no bushes."
"Now tell me. What is going on? Why do people change into monsters or is it only in our vicinity?"
"A plague engulfed the whole world. Most of the people across the globe changed into monsters and society as we knew it came to an end."
"If this is so, how come you flew in a helicopter and how did the mercenaries get their vehicles? How did you survive the plague?"
The story now becomes quite intricate. "A few people knew beforehand of the coming plague. They established a farm community guarded by our army. I was part of the crew who had to bring those people from their hide-out in Port Elizabeth to that army base, but then the mercenaries abducted them before we could bring them back."
"Can you assure me that you haven't had any contact with any cannibal?"
"In no way! I've only seen them from a distance. Can I now please have my things back so that I can get dressed."
"Not so quick ..."
Jan instructs the young man who now picks up the bag with his hand and hands it over to Jan. He takes out the gun and studies it before he takes out the rest of Donovan's things and put it on the floor in front of him.
"So you are an operational soldier, Donovan?"
"I am ..."
"We need your talents seriously. As I have said, you were very lucky. You went into the gorges on our right-hand side and not into the branches of the gorge that lie on the other side of the pools to our left. Luckily for you, we are the separation between the good and the evil part of the gorges and we could halt you. We keep the evil at bay."
Donovan shrugs his shoulders. "I don't understand."
"You think it is dangerous in the woods above? Believe me, you don't want to meet the bloodthirsty barbarians in the gorges to the left. Those above are afraid of deep water and the scorching sun down in the gorges and they stay away from here. They are predictable like animals. We must only be careful because during the night they visit us from the accessible gorges while looking for stray prey. We are safe as long as we are cut off by cliffs and pools during the night. The barbarians are much more dangerous. They are intelligent and normal like us but evil as hell. They have a cruel, sadistic, mad leader, Murdock, and they do horrible things. Murdock is a fanatic despot who rules mercilessly with an iron fist. He simply destroyed our formerly peaceful society and we had to flee out of that area and this community was formed by refugees and runaways from the evil area. We gathered here and established ourselves here because it is the best place to cut off Murdock.
"Our 24-hour sentries relieve one another and our drums warn if they see anything strange approaching us across the deep pools from that area. When the drums give us warning, our strongest men hastily man special platforms we erected against the cliffs. These platforms prevent any infiltrators from the evil area from reaching us. Our men pepper them with catapults that shoot giant rocks like canons. Also with bows and arrows and if they come too near, we throw them with assegais and spears. You will be our last safeguard with the sniper rifle when they breach our last defense."
