mud, and the Chevy skidded and swayed drunkenly in the loose footing.
The closer he drew to Jabulani the more reckless he became in his haste.
Before his conviction and imprisonment, ARkers had been a twisted and
blighted creature, a man of deep moods and passionate temper. Feeling
himself rejected and spurned by his fellow men he had lived in a world
of swift defensive violence, but always he had kept within the bounds of
reason.
However, during the two years that he had laboured and languished within
prison walls, his anger and his lust for vengeance had driven him over
that narrow boundary.
Vengeance had become the sole reason for his existence, and he had
rehearsed it a hundred times each day.
He had planned his prison break to give himself three days of freedom,
after that it did not matter. Three days would be enough.
He had infected his own jaw, running a needle poisoned with his excreta
deeply into the gum. They had taken him to the dental clinic as he had
planned. The guard had been easily handled, and the dentist had
cooperated with a scalpel held to his throat.
Once clear of the prison, Akkers had used the scalpel, vaguely surprised
by the volume of blood that could issue from a human throat. He had
left the dentist slumped over his steering-wheel on a plot of waste
ground and, with his white laboratory gown over his prison suit, he had
waited at a set of traffic lights.
The shiny new Chevy had pulled up for a red light and Akkers had opened
the passenger door and slid in beside the driver.
He had been a smaller man than Akkers, plump and Prosperous-looking,
with a smooth pale face and soft little hairless hands on the
steering-wheel. He had obeyed meekly Akkers instruction to drive on.
Akkers had rolled his soft white body, clad only in vest and shorts,
into a clump of thick grass beside a disused secondary road and pulled
the grass closed over him, then he had beaten the first road block out
of the city area by forty minutes.
He stayed on the side roads, picking his way slowly eastwards. The
infection in his jaw had ached intolerably despite the shot of
antibiotics the dentist had given him, and his crippled claw of a hand
had been awkward and clumsy on the gear lever, for the severed nerves
and sinews had never knitted again. The hand was a dead and insensate
thing.
Using the caution of a natural predator and helped by the newsflashes on
the radio, he had groped his way carefully through the net that was
spread for him, and now he was on Jabulani and he could restrain himself
no longer.
He hit the mud hole at forty and the Chevy whipped and spun, slewing her
back end deep into the mud and high-centring her belly on the soft ooze.
He left her there and went on swiftly through the rain, loping on long
legs. Once he giggled and sucked at his teeth, but then he was silent
again.
It was dark by the time he climbed the kopie behind Jabulani homestead.
He lay there for two hours peering down into the driving rain, waiting
for the darkness.
Once night fell, he could see no lights, and he began to worry, there
should have been lights burning.
He left the kopje and moved cautiously through the darkness down the
hill. He avoided the servants quarters, and went through the trees to
the landing-strip.
He ran into the side of the hanger in the dark and followed the wall to
the side doorway.
Frantically he spread his arms and felt for the aircraft that should be
here, and when he realized that it was not he let out a groan of
frustration.
They were gone. He had planned and schemed in vain, all his desperate
striving was in vain.
Growling like an animal, he smashed the fist of his good hand against
the wall, enjoying the pain of it in his frustration, and his anger and
his hatred was so strong that it shook his body like a fever, and he
cried out aloud, a formless animal cry without coherence or sense.
Suddenly the rain stopped. The heavy drum of it upon the iron roof of
the hangar ceased so abruptly that Akkers was distracted. He went to
the opening and looked out.
The stars were swimming mistily above him, and the only sound was the
gurgle and chuckle of running water and the dripping of the trees.
There was the glimmering of light now, and he saw the white walls of the
homestead shine amongst the trees. He could do damage there, Akkers
realized. He could find there some outlet for his terrible frustration.
There was furniture to smash, and the thatch would burn, if lit from
inside, the thatch would burn even in this weather.
He stared towards the homestead through the dark sodden trees.
Debra woke in the silence. She had fallen asleep in the midst of the
storm, perhaps as a form of escape.
Now she groped for the warm comforting body of the dog but he was gone.
There was a patch of warmth on the bed beside her where he had lain.
She listened intently and there was nothing but the soft sounds of water
in the guttering and far-off the growl of thunder. She remembered her
earlier panic and she was ashamed.
She stood up from the bed and she was shivering with the cold in her
loose, free-flowing dark blue maternity blouse, and the elastic-fronted
slacks that were adjustable to her expanding waistline. She felt with
her toes and found the light ballet pumps on the stone floor and pushed
her feet into them.
She started towards her dressing-room for a sweater, then she would make
herself a cup of hot soup, she decided.
Zulu started barking. He was outside in the front garden. Clearly he
had left the house through the small hinged doorway that David had built
especially for him in the veranda wall.
The dog had many barks, each with a different meaning which Debra
understood.
A self-effacing woof, that was the equivalent of the watch-man's Ten
o'clock on a June night, and all's well. Or a longer-drawn-out yowl,
that meant, There is a full moon out tonight, and the wolf's blood in my
veins will not allow me to sleep.
A sharper, meaningful bark, Something is moving down near the pump
house. It may be a lion. And then there was an urgent clamouring
chorus, There is dire danger threatening. Beware!
Beware! It was the danger bark now, and then growling through closed
jaws as though he were worrying something.
Debra went out on to the veranda and she felt the puddled rainwater
soaking through her light shoes. Zulu was harrying something in the
front garden, she could hear the growling and scuffling, the movement of
bodies locked in a struggle. She stood silently, uncertain of what to
do, knowing only that she could not go out to Zulu. She was blind and
helpless against the unknown adversary. As she hesitated she heard
clearly the sound of a heavy blow. it cracked on bone, and she heard
the thump of a body falling. Zulu's growls were cut off abruptly, and
there was silence. Something had happened to the dog.
Now she was completely alone in the silence.
No, not silence. There was the sound of breathing a heavy panting
breath.
Debra shrank back against the veranda wall, listening and waiting.
She heard footsteps, human footsteps coming through the garden towards
the front door. The footsteps squelched and splashed in the rain
puddles.
She wanted to call out a challenge, but her voice was locked in her
constricted throat. She wanted to run, but her legs were paralysed by
the sound of the intruder climbing the front steps.