Escape Africa (1)

 

1: In Conversation with Nathaniel Bartholomew

It hadn’t rained in months judging by the deep dry
surface cracks in the valley floor; scars showing through the parched earth and
there was no sight of rain in the foreseeable future. The sun baked the dry
cold ground while the wind spread its iced breath eating away any loose soil
particulates. The land was dying without the seasonal rain; rain eventually
came with the winter weather but it didn’t matter much now. There was something
else in the soil, something evil. Even with the rain nothing would grow. I
buried myself inside false goodness; rising above whatever misery couldn’t
suppress my indeterminate will for living, starving from grief as the earth
starved. The birds chirping overhead brought little relief to a momentary pause
in the falling of rain, even momentary flashes of sunlight piercing through a
gloomy quiet day could not break through my dread; I cannot escape the
grotesque imagery flickering across the blank pane of my mind. Roaring engines
far away, a wayward traveler calling me, bloodlust in my heart wanting more.  Perhaps I should introduce myself. Nathaniel
Bartholomew the last of my kind and I have something to tell you. It wasn’t a
dream of fire and blood and death; it was the land I occupied burning around
me. I escaped the house in time and was spared from the flames engulfing my
homestead; this fire was deliberate enough to drive me from my home and into
the darkness because something else wanted it. A force of greed coveted the
ground beneath me and took it, every trace of life that only scorched earth
remained. A shadow covered it. I could not return home for fear of the dark
shadow, it took everything and left me with nothing. Soon my neighbours befell
the Nathaniel misfortune as the shadow expanded, taking more every time. We
fought and failed and were left with little choice; fight the darkness and die
or we could leave. Cowards chose to flee; I being one of them to commit this
shameful act but one cannot fight anything with less than nothing. In hindsight
death favoured the fortunate because the dark shadow is a curse nobody can run
from. We fled but it followed, always there watching over us ready to take from
us. Nobody could out run it, some stayed far enough ahead, others stood waiting
for it to take them, as far as I know there aren’t many of us left hence I
introduce myself as the last of my kind, at least I haven’t seen anyone I knew.
You might be thinking I’m the luckiest unlucky man alive, having stayed far
ahead of the dark shadow but don’t trust your thoughts on that. It hasn’t
caught up to me yet though it has come close a few times. Each day if I’m lucky
to crawl into the nearest establishment permitted to serve me an alcoholic
beverage I place my sorry skin at the bar and there I find someone not too
tainted maybe to tell my stories to, and I have many to share but then you show
up tailing me for a story, not sure what to do with that compliment or
complaint, I don’t know. I also don’t know what your interest is in all the
things I have to tell but I don’t really care to know, so Goddamnit you’re
going to get what you came looking for.  You
want a story; well then once upon a goddamn time…

I do know how this will end, I’ve been running to the end
of the earth hoping I fall off before the dark shadow gets me and I’ve been
running a long time. My motivations may seem strange but you best get one thought
settled up front in your mind; the monsters are real. After my third attempt to
put the dark shadow behind failed I turned it all over in my mind; was the dark
shadow hunting me down and using monsters to get the job done. Monsters, as I
live and breathe there are monsters everywhere and they want to get you. It
started as I recall when I reached the outskirts of Johannesburg, somewhere
east of the city. I called on someone to help me survive, he helped and I
survived. Survive, he certainly did not. The dark shadow uses monsters like you
and I use anything needed. When I met up with Dirk he was stalking something in
a wetland, said he figured out “how” to get at the dark shadow, said he’d found
one of them and we were going monster hunting. I thought Dirk was two kegs shy
of crazy; he was and should have known better.