Blood Spoor In The Dark

By Paul Zunckel

With Fear, Comes Power. Set in Modern Africa. Travel deep into the Congo Basin and come face to face with The Secret Sect. Experience the superstition and witchcraft of The Leopard Man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Zunckel
• Release date: Oct 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310108914

Book preview

Prologue

There is no moon in the sky, darkness rules as the night creatures’ move about the jungle of the Congo Basin. Another creature moves among them.

The edge of the jungle opens onto a small clearing, a foot path leads towards the hut, the flicker of a candle can be seen in the window, and a shadow is thrown from the light.

The visitor watches and waits, he is patient as is the way of his kind. His patience is rewarded when the door to the hut opens and a woman emerges. She moves up along the path directly towards the watcher, unaware of being observed.

With a shriek of an attacking leopard, the watcher rises from the darkness and launches itself at her, the woman screams in terror, but help will not come as her family is huddled together, safe in the hut. None will venture out for fear of what is hidden by the darkness.

Day reveals the scene of her death; the ground and bushes around her body are covered in her blood, her badly mutilated corpse and the spoor around her pay testimony to her killer. The leopard has once again claimed a victim.

Chapter 1

Piet van Zyl lies sound asleep alongside his wife. Peggy lies on her side of the bed dreaming of whatever woman in love dream about with a smile on her face when the peacefulness of the night is broken by the shrill sound of the cell phone going off.

"Nee fok dit, it can’t be time to get up yet, we only bloody went to sleep."

Piet fumbles for the clock to switch off the alarm, when he realizes that it’s an incoming call. He glances across at the clock and sees that it’s just after 5 am Tuesday morning.

This had better be good, he mutters as he accepts the call.

Ja Piet here.

Is that Piet van Zyl?

"Piet wat praat, can I help you? Do you know what the bloody time is?"

Morning Piet, sorry about calling so early, this is Roger McCollins from the Congo police.

Roger, my moer, and just what the hell makes you call me so early in the morning? I bet it’s not to congratulate me on getting married.

Once again, sorry Piet, but I have a situation here; I need your help urgently.

Piet now wide awake sits up on the edge of the bed. Peggy wonders off down the passage towards the kitchen to sort out coffee for them.

Roger, what can be worse than that bloody lion we sorted out over a year ago?

It’s worse Piet, really bad this time. For the past three months, we’ve had 13 deaths in and around Loango and it looks like we have a killer on our hands that needs your specialty as this is not a human killer but looks like the work of a very large male leopard. So far we have been unable to track him, as his spoor just disappears into thin air, the spoor is found around the victim and then nothing.

Roger fills Piet in on everything that he has been able to uncover, which is not much and Piet agrees that he will fly to the Congo, and assist in hunting the leopard, and putting an end to its killing spree, once he has made arrangements to cover his absence from his safari company. Roger assures him that he will not have any problems with customs regarding his firearms, and a visa will be waiting for him on his arrival.

Piet cuts the connection and sits looking out at the rising sun.

Ja just another day in the life of yours truly, Piet van Zyl. Life will never be simple.

Peggy enters the bedroom, coffee in hand, and Piet tells her of the details of the call and that he expects to be away from home for about two weeks.

I don’t think it will take longer than that to track down this leopard, but only time will tell.

***

The sun is still on the other side of the world as the man makes his way along the jungle path from his village towards Loango. Hope fills his heart that maybe today just might be the day he finds work and will be able to put food on his family’s table.

Eyes follow his progress from the thick foliage alongside the path and as he draws alongside the watcher in the dark, a shriek fills the night, a body launches itself at him, and the claws do their bloody work, 13 just became 14.

Chapter 2

The Congo, a country with a bloody history, a country of magnificent beauty, and a people filled with superstition and a fear of the unknown. It is a fusion of grassland, inland highlands and equatorial rainforest which accounts for its fascinating selection of wild animals and colorful birdlife.

These thoughts fill Piet’s mind as he sits in the co pilot’s seat of the Cessna 172 he had charted at Kisangani Airport, as the light aircraft makes its way over the Congo rainforest on its way to its destination. Kiri Airport which will put him about 43 km away from his ultimate destination, Loango and his quest to help rid the region of the killer leopard.

He looks down below and the enormity of what lies ahead hits home, it’s going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack as the Congo rainforest is the world’s second largest rainforest, behind the Amazon. Covering a vast area across Central Africa and somewhere down there a killer is at work.

The pilot joins the circuit above Kiri Airport and transmits his intention to land. The light aircraft lines up on runway 17 and crosses the threshold. The wheels of the plane meeting the tarmac of the runway, the landing is smooth and the plane taxies towards a row of hangers where Piet can see a police Land Rover waiting to collect him.

The first thing that strikes Piet is that the humidity has not improved since his last visit to the Congo, and he estimates the temperature to be around 27 Degrees, the second is the grim face of Roger McCollins as he strides forward to greet Piet, hand outstretched.

Piet, I’m really glad you could make the time to come out here to help out, I tell you it’s great to see you again, just sorry it's under these circumstances. We had another killing last night.

Piet grips Roger’s hand, the handshake is firm, but he can see the other man is worried and is unable to conceal it.

"Moenie worrie nie my vriend, let’s get my gear into that Land Rover of yours and hit the road. We have a hunt to organize, I don’t think to catch this bastard is going to be easy, as we have a lot of ground to cover."

I hate to agree with you Piet, this cat has been moving around and there’s no pattern to the kills, other than this is a big animal, judging from the size of the wounds, as well as the spoor found at the killing sites. There are a couple of things that really bother me about this whole story, In some instances it doesn’t appear to be a man eater, as none of the victims have been fed on, but the bodies have been badly mutilated and this is putting the fear of God into the local population, it's as if this bloody thing is killing for pleasure. In other instances, it would appear as if it’s feeding on the bodies. It just doesn’t make any bloody sense.

The two men, climb into the Land Rover and set off on the 43 km trip on dirt roads to keep their appointment with a killer that hunts in the darkness of the African night.

Chapter 3

They arrive at the police compound in Loango, where Roger has arranged for officers quarter’s to be made available for Piet for the duration of his stay, as well as access to all the facilities that are on offer. The most important being the officers’ pub, in order to wash the dust from the back of one’s throat after a long day.

Roger, our biggest problem with hunting this cat is that these bloody things cover a territory of about 40 square k’s, and this one is not keeping to one area. As you say these killings have been taking place all over this damn rain forest of yours, and that means the possibility of building a blind and baiting the area to attract this cat to our party might not work. But the scent of guts and stomach contents, along with blood and some rotten flesh just might attract the cat to the bait. So the first order of business; we need to build the blind in the area of his last kill.

I remember you telling me Piet when you hunt lion, you hunt with your heart, but then you hunt leopard you hunt with your brain. Ja I know, the leopard is one of the most difficult animals to hunt.

The approach to the blind will be very important Roger. We will need at least 50 to 70 yards for a clear shot, remember we’ll only have one shot, and a wounded leopard will charge, and these bloody things are very fast and can cause a bloke a lot of stitches in a very short space of time. And this guy likes killing so we are going to have to be wide awake.

Piet and Roger spend the rest of the day planning the hunt and what would be needed, and that includes a trip out to the latest kill site in order to look around and pick the ideal spot for the blind as well as where the bait would be laid. The scene of the night before had not been disturbed, and Piet is still able to see the signs of a violent and bloody struggle for survival, as well as some large leopard spoor in the area. He follows them to a dense area on the edge of the path, and then they just stop, as if the big cat had never been there. The areas alongside the path had been trampled but no further tell tale sign of the leopard was anywhere to be found.

Shaking his head in disbelief, he wonders over to Roger. It baffles me about the lack of spoor but come to think of it, there is an explanation. Leopard uses a combination of stealth and patience when hunting, moving in as close as possible to the prey before attempting a charge or lying in wait for the prey to come within range, which would account for the area that has been flattened. This bastard just lays there and waited until some poor soul comes along the path, something like, welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly. The poor bugger never stood a chance.

All the killings so far had taken place at night, so the chances of the leopard dropping in during the day were very slim. The two men leave the area, with the intention of returning that night and hold a vigil over the bait that was being prepared for them. In the hopes that the killer would be attracted to the scent that night and they could put an end to this reign of terror before it got any worse.

One thing that was at the back of both their minds was that they had to kill this cat with the first shot, as once committed to a full attack, only a fatal bullet would stop the charging leopard. And both men hoped that it would not come to that.

"Roger, my man one thing to keep in mind tonight is that if this leopard does charge us in the blind, he will charge very fast and keep low to the ground, so keep that spotlight steady so I can shoot the bastard before he gets to us. If he gets in he’ll embrace one of us with those claws of his extended, and he will maul with his teeth and all four clawed feet, remember that the killing bite is directed at the back of the head or neck, or the throat, and it will try to throttle or sever the jugular, so roll into a ball if you are the chosen one, and let me