Chapter1

#Chapter1

Prologue

The year is 2005

The moon sits high in the dark night sky as the paddles dip silently into the dark waters of the Kafue River; a mist rises from the edges of the river bank, cloaking the three men as they push the dugout forward cutting through the water towards their destination, and the completion of their quest.

Silently they bring the dugout alongside the bank, secure it, and slip into the dark bush like phantoms, heading towards their ultimate goal.

The safari camp is surrounded by a boma, and the central fire flickers in the playful breeze as it throws up sparks into the night sky. All is silent and still as the occupants of the camp sleep, dreaming about what adventures the rising sun will bring.

The shadows of the three phantoms slip into the camp and head towards a tent in the center, for in there lays their quarry. As one they move in and emerge with a white bundle draped across the shoulders of one of them.

They leave the camp as silently as they had arrived, and if it were not for the abducted young girl, no one would ever have known they had even been there.

The flickering flames from the torches attached to the rocky walls of the large cavern throw grotesque shadows across the open area. The air is thick with smoke from the two burning cauldrons on either side of a raised altar, a low humming and the sound of shuffling feet fill the area as a figure leading a Black Backed Jackal on a rope enters the chamber, followed by a procession of white robed figures. Their heads bowed as they enter the holy temple, they move towards the altar, eyes fixed upon the sacrifice secured with rope atop the smooth surface stained with the blood of others that have come before her.

Silence descends as they await the arrival of their high priestess and her handmaidens. Hopes are high for today a new High Priestess will be born when she lifts will lift the sacrificial knife up high and plunges the sharp blade deep into the bosom of her predecessor.

The hunters have arrived, and the chosen one is being made ready by her handmaidens to come forth and take her rightful place at the head of the Cult of the Jackal.

The year, 2015.

/"Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Debi, Happy Birthday to you./"

/"Wow, ten years old already, young lady, and as pretty as a picture./"

/"Thanks, Uncle Piet,/" Debi smiles shyly at Piet.

/"Ag nee man, drop the uncle bit, I’m not that old you know./"

/"Hey Piet, you want another beer?/"

/"Ja thanks, David, a cold one will go down well./"

The party is in full swing, the braai fire blazing away, and a very happy and contented feeling fills the house on the smallholding. It has been three years since David and Adele adopted Debi after the tragic loss of her parents in an aircraft crash. All three of them had fused as a complete family, with both adults taking turns to home school Debi, and all three of them immerse themselves into the chicken farm which has now developed into a thriving business and keeps them all out of trouble.

/"Peggy, when are you and Piet leaving for your much anticipated holiday in South Africa with Veronica?/"

/"We leave tomorrow night from Lusaka International, Adele, and I must say, I’m so glad that Le Vee bought into Piet’s business, as he can now go off and leave everything in the hands of the Frenchman./"

/"I must say, just between the two of us, Le Vee is rather good looking./"

/"Hmmm, I tend to agree, but never let Piet know that as he still sees himself as the stud around the safari ladies, and I would hate to burst his bubble./"

The laughter from the two woman is infectious and very soon all five are laughing, and the sounds of happiness carry across the bush to the waiting Land Rover where a sullen looking African policeman reaches for the handset of his radio, keys in a different frequency, and passes on the following message.

/"Tell Jackal that we have found the right specimen, she has just turned ten, blonde with blue eyes, and easy to get to. She lives with the Swart's on the smallholding near the banks of the Kafue; it’ll be easy to take her./"

The sound of the Land Rover starting up carries to the smallholding, and Piet looks up in time to catch a glimpse of the blue light on the roof disappearing in a cloud of dust, as the vehicle takes off back up the dirt road in the direction of the small town of Kafue.

/"Ag it looks like our local police are keeping an eye out for you Adele, I just saw one of their patrol vehicles leaving in a cloud of dust./"

/"Well Piet, I’m not surprised after all the action that took place here a few years ago. Anyway, it makes me feel much safer knowing that they are around./"

/"Right, Peggy kry klaar skat, we have a long trip ahead of us, and I still need to set things up with Le Vee before our flight. David, if you need anything while we are away, get hold of the Frenchman and if he can’t help then tough takkie my maat, can you see the worry in my eye?/"

/"Not to worry Piet, we’ll be fine. I’ve got your cell number, but will only interrupt your holiday if I really, really have to./"

/"Debi, come say goodbye to Piet and Peggy, they’re leaving now./"

The birthday girl comes bounding into the room, all smiles, kisses are given out to everyone, and the young family gathers on the front stoop. They watch the departing vehicle as it makes its way up the dirt road, with the setting sun turning the color of the dust red and the cry of the hunting Jackal echoing across the veldt.

The Year, 2008.

The soft sound of drums echoes across the cavern, rolling over the gathering as they await the arrival of the soon to be new High Priestess. She will be anointed by the blood of her predecessor as she lies dying on the slab of rock, the sacrificial knife buried in her body, her lifeblood staining the rock beneath her.

The woman tied to the altar was abducted from her family home in 1995 and has served as High Priestess of the Jackal for eight of the ten years that she has been missing. Now her time is up, her place must be taken by another, and that other is the one who will hold the sacrificial knife that will end her life, yet she does not struggle against her bonds, for she has accepted the way of the Jackal. She understands that the release from this life is just temporary, for she will return in the body of another, to once again rule The Cult of the Jackal.

The tempo of the drums increases and the gathering softly starts to hum, swaying from side to side. The humming is getting louder, the drumbeat pounding and echoing off the rock walls as the gathered people work themselves into a frenzy, standing and doing a shuffle dance. The dust from the rock floor is rising up in a cloud when suddenly a single command is shouted out and the drums fall silent. The gathering collapses into a position of worship, heads touching the ground, no one dares to look upon the new High Priestess until she raises the dagger up high, and is anointed by the death of the other.

The sacrifice lies on the altar, her long blonde hair cascading down behind her, nearly reaching the floor. Her blue eyes stare at the rock ceiling high above her; she is resigned to her fate. This is the moment that she has been prepared for since she raised the sacrificial knife high above her thirteen-year-old head, and brought it down with deadly accuracy, burying it deep into the chest of the woman who lay before her, much the same way as she now lies.

A sound off to the right, a shuffle of feet on the bare rock, slowly a procession made up of four elderly white women moves into the cavern, with a thirteen-year-old blonde child in the center being supported by two of them. They are all dressed in ceremonial robes, all in white with the head of a Jackal on the front.

They advance towards the altar as the gathered crowd starts to again hum softly, swaying from side to side, their eyes downcast as they remain in the kneeling position. The young girl’s eyes are glazed over, the result of a drug administered to her earlier. Her movements are jerky, but her grip on the Sacrificial Dagger is firm and strong.

/"Behold oh faithful, Allah brings us another to carry the flame of the Jackal, Behold oh faithful, the sacrifice goes willingly, Behold oh faithful, your new High Priestess will strike like the Cobra and claim her rightful place within the Cult of the Jackal./"

The humming stops, and slowly as one, the gathering raises their bowed heads from the stone floor of the cavern to look upon the young girl as she brings the knife up high, the flames from the burning torches glinting off the ancient blade. It arcs down, with all her thirteen-year-old strength behind it, and the lifeblood of her predecessor flows.

The woman on the altar arches her back as the knife cuts deeply into her body, a gasp escapes her lips, and suddenly sanity returns to her eyes, but too late as she remembers who she was, and she dies on the altar with the name of her father on her lips.

/"Behold oh faithful, your new High Priestess has claimed her rightful place/".

The young girl slowly collapses from the effects of the drug, the dagger falling to the floor from nerveless fingers. The four women surround her, shielding her from sight, carefully gather her up between them, and leave the cavern. The body of the young woman who once was High Priestess is left for all to see, her blood slowly congealing beneath her body, her white robe stained in red.

The sounds of howling jackals filled the cavern as the people gathered there to worship the passing of their fierce but beloved leader and the anointment in the blood of their new one, for ten years has passed and a new Chapter in their lives was starting. The Jackal God smiles down at his people as they grovel before his image, the flickering flames from the burning torches bringing his leering face alive with leaping shadows.

***

The abduction of the then ten-year-old Sandra from the safari camp in 2005 was never solved by the police. Her disappearance remains a mystery to this day, along with various other abductions of ten-year-old European girls that go back into the early 1920’s, who just disappeared into the African night, never to be seen again.

The police investigations into the disappearances never turned up anything, and it was assumed that the children were taken from their bed by a wild animal, yet no remains were ever found and there was never a sign of a struggle, almost as if they had gone willingly. Worse still, they might have been targeted by the gangs that dealt with woman and children trafficking and had been sold into slavery or prostitution.

Indeed, their bodies will never be found, for the tradition of the Cult of the Jackal is to feed the remains of the one that was once High Priestess to the very animals that they worshipped, the biggest bones left over crushed into powder and sold for witchcraft.