GRIEF
Neil Douglas Newtonon
“I’ll help you.”
Deirdre leaned over her husband Cecil as he tried lift himself off a couch where he’d spent most of his time for the past three months. As he waved his wife away and raised himself with an intense effort, he considered how odd it was that cancer had meant only some inconvenient moments only a few months ago. Now it meant pain, always and far worse when he had to move. Dying had turned out to be an undignified process.
He waved his wife away once more as he struggled down the hall to the bathroom, wondering how long it would be before she had to help him despite his resolve. Or perhaps a wheelchair would eventually be in order. Depressing prospect.
He sat on the loo and endured the pain of defecation with stage four metastasized cancer in the lower organs. He wondered how long even this basic act would be possible. To distract himself, he reflected on what he’d accomplished recently. His position as a senior research scientist in a Swiss R and D firm had allowed him endless experimental muscle. What he’d achieved would probably be both controversial and groundbreaking once he died and his colleagues got to evaluate what he’d done. But that was for later. For now he’d see an avalanche of his own making. If he was still hale and hearty he might partake of one of his favorite single malts to celebrate the revolution he’d set into motion. Perhaps he’d risk a little gastrointestinal chaos with a bottle of Oban just to thumb his nose at his enemies. Sic Semper Tyrannis.
Tom sat in a bar in Johannesburg waiting for what he liked to call an associate. The fact that their common endeavor was illegal didn’t change his penchant for sanitized terminology. Tom had come to South Africa to evade some nasty trouble with his wife and their divorce. Rather than submit himself to a financial rape he’d cashed in his secret savings and moved them to offshore accounts. Then he’d come to Johannesburg. As a professional hunter and guide, falling into the rhino trade had been natural. At first he’d thought that it might be a dicey prospect. But after being approached by several local officials fronting for Chinese concerns, dealing in Rhino horn, he’d found that it was like falling off a log. Of course there was the chance of being arrested and the specter of avengers like Black Mamba and Park security made it somewhat of a strategic nightmare. But the market was there, in spades. He wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
The door opened, letting in a shaft of sunlight, exposing a collection of questionable people. This bar wasn’t a place to come and have a friendly drink and no man who considered himself “legitimate” would bring a woman here to impress her. Men and women around him shielded their eyes, almost as if the sun was an unwelcome sign, exposing their nature.
The door shut, revealing the man Tom was waiting for. The man took his place on the stool next to Tom, throwing what Tom would have called a “go” bag, up on the bar. Tom stared at the bag. Terrance smiled. “Time was I would put it on the floor. But one time someone managed to abscond with it while I was on my fourth beer. I don’t take that chance anymore.”
“You never found the contents?”
“Some nice ordinance in there. Since the police didn’t come to visit me, I have to assume it was sold and no questions were asked. Love to know what they did with my silk underwear?”
Tom smirked. “I’d burn it. Of course. So how’s it hanging?”
“Love those American phrases.”
“I save them for you.”
A female bartender moved forward ad put a beer in front of Terrance. He smiled. “They know me here. Life is okay. Enough money, drink and females and I’ll be okay.
“Your son?”
“That’s where the money comes in. He’s in a private school just outside the city. We’ll have him in a top flight Uni in four years. That’s what I do this for.” He paused. “Sorry, mate. I know your situation back in the States.”
“It could have been better if my wife wasn’t such a bitch.”
“Can’t kill em…” Terrance chuckled.
“So are you up for a job?”
“Always. Where. What?”
“Kruger. Rhinos.”
“Hmm…Any Black Mambo’s?”
“My intel tells me that they aren’t in this particular area. Of course you never know.”
Terrance shrugged. “No risk, no reward, eh?”
“Unfortunately”.
“I’ve got two more ready to go. Two weeks from Saturday. We move and get there around 3:00 A.M. Rifles, radar, motion sensors.”
“Who are the other two?”
“Katzenberg and Martinez.”
“Good men.”
“Only the best for us, Terrance.”
“If we encounter hostiles, do we pull back?”
“It depends where we are. If we’ve got a truckload full of Rhinos and they come after us, we’re not dumping them. We just have to fire towards them and drive fast. If they try to take us out…you know. I’m not ready to die for this.”
“Understood.”
“I’ll call you two days before we move out. Just to check with you.”
Terrance finished his beer. “Always a good mother, mate. I appreciate it. You always plan and minimize risk. Better than the last contractor I worked with.”
“You want another beer? It’s all on me.”
“Sure. And it better be all on you.” Another chuckle.
As Tom waved to the bartender he thought back to his experiences with Terrance. They had been guides and hunters for years in the States and in Africa. They’d shared a lot of hard times, including Tom’s acrimonious divorce. He couldn’t think of a better friend.
They only wanted to stay in the bar for so long, to avoid any prying eyes. But conversation with a friend wasn’t something he got to experience very often. He stared into his drink. A few more missions and he was going to go back home and fight his wife for joint custody and more favorable divorce conditions. He wondered how his son was doing.
Anashe walked in the hot sun, her backpack bouncing on her back. She reached down and took a plastic bottle from the hook on her belt. The water had turned from cold to near hot by that point; still the two swallows she took helped her thirst. Returning the bottle to her belt she scanned the area for the proper area for her task.
To the right she saw a shady spot beneath a tree, the dirt thick, filled with small flowers suggesting an especially fertile patch of ground. Kneeling beneath the tree, she pulled off her backpack and removed a small plant shoot. Being careful to place the shoot near to the flowers, she planted it, pouring some powder around the roots. This was followed by her pouring a bit of water over the shoot. Finally she tamped down the soil around the plant.
She smiled. She had learned quite a bit from Dr. Cecil and hoped to get her doctorate in Botany. And now Dr. Cecil was gone, back in Geneva with little time to live. She had cried herself out, thinking about him. Now she was buoyed up by doing his work and creating his revolution. She would name her son Cecil, one day when she got married and had a boy. And she would know that the future was something she’d contributed to, the future that Dr. Cecil worked for.
Cecil Boehm sat in his back yard, enjoying the world-class view of the mountains he could see form his suburban home. Time was short and he found himself obsessed with the past. On his lap he held a small tablet. He scrolled through pictures of his parents with him as child. Each summer they would leave Johannesburg for a vacation to Kruger National park. Like many children he’d fixed his attention on one animal. Not lions, like most children, but the Rhinos. When he was four he had imagined, as he fell asleep, that he was Rhino. He began to bother his parents to buy him stuffed Rhinos and they complied, knowing it was a child’s caprice. He lived for his trips to the park where he could see his favorite animal. His mother would hold him and call him her “little Rhino”. He was never happier.
He put the tablet down. He remembered when his mother had contracted cancer, similar to the type he had now. He had put some of his stuffed Rhinos around her bed, hoping they would work their magic. The last place they had gone as a family was the Park. One night is mother had sat on a bench near their tent, bald and impossibly thin. “Remember the Rhino’s Cecil. They will need your help when you are older. They need your help now but you’re too young. But someday…” She had fallen asleep suddenly. Six month later she was dead.
He knew it was a child’s fantasy. But what she had said that night had burned its way into his brain. And now that he was taking the same journey he remembered what his duty was. But he’d done his duty. His beloved Anashe was putting the finishing touches on his work. He had no children except for her. She would inherit his fortune. And she would be his instrument of justice.
Off in the darkness of Kruger Park, the small shoots sprouted heads. To anyone’s eyes they would be seen as weeds but strange weeds. They reproduced, consuming the nutrients in the soil around it, in essence consuming the essence of the flowers around them. When the sun came out, after they had matured enough, they sent a special brew into the atmosphere. Half spore, half viscous liquid, the brew floated on the breeze. After a time, they broke, pumping more of the liquid into the air. A silent birth and a silent offering with no one there to see it, simply waiting for those who would receive its bounty.
Tom stood with his team. Behind him, in a thick stand of trees, stood two flat beds, the type you’d use to tow autos, covered by camouflage material. “Fan out,” Tom told the three other men. “Just click the transmit button if you find any Rhinos. We don’t need full broadcasts. People are listening.” He took out a map and put it on the ground. “This is where we are and this is the area where my friends have told me we’ll find rhinos. It’s only perhaps ten klicks square. Martinez you take this quadrant. Katzenberg, you’re to the southwest. Terrance you’re here. I’ll take the northeast quadrant. If you see anyone, security, Mambo, whatever, don’t engage. We can’t win that fight and it isn’t worth it if we don’t have any rhinos. Just lay low and click the transmitter button once if you see security. No words. Just a click. You can repeat the click but wait ten seconds before you do. If you hear one click, we meet back here and we drive away. If you see rhinos, three or more, you will click the transmitter button as follows: Martinez, two clicks. Katenberg, three. Terrance four. I’ve got five. Repeat ten seconds later. We’ll act accordingly and follow the encrypted GPS to find the first one who see’s rhinos. It’s possible that we might get nothing tonight. So we regroup. No casualties are acceptable. There’ll be another night. And whatever information we get from tonight, we can use later.”
Martinez nodded. “It’s good, Tom. We’ve done this before. We know how it works. We know the technology. You don’t have to treat us like children.”
Tom snorted. “A death is not a small thing. I know we all know what we signed up for but…”
Martinez slapped him on the back. “We all know you’re a good man, Thomas. That’s why we work for you.”
“Thanks. Okay, fan out guys.”
Two hours later, Tom was checking his radar. The motion sensors fanned out ahead of him automatically. Nothing. He had a bad feeling. Some nights he’d feel a sense of calm that told him everything was going his way; but not this night. He wasn’t sure if it was just his own anxiety or if he was getting a sense of what might happen. His wife had always called him superstitious, like a baseball player with rituals he followed.
Without warning he felt dizzy and disoriented. Falling to his knees, he shook his head, hoping it would clear. He began to hear what he thought were words that, try as he might, he couldn’t quite understand. It was like two people were conversing behind a wall and all he could hear was the vibrations of their voices.
He began to panic; there was no explanation for this besides his being drugged or something worse, something physical or psychological. There was a sudden sense of urgency as though he was witnessing, mentally, a burning desire to drink water. Not his desire. Someone else’s.
“Oh God,” he moaned, holding his head.
After several minutes the sensations began to recede. Tom reached into the long pocket in his jacket and pulled out a large flask. Standing slowly, he unscrewed the top and took several swigs of whiskey. The sense of pressure he had been feeling faded enough for him to take stock of his surroundings. His walkie sat on the ground along with his radar and motion sensors.
He checked the radar and motion sensor; nothing. Sitting on the ground, he took two more pulls from the flask. After a few minutes he was found that he was relatively calm. As he sent his mind out into the night, following his ritual, he lost himself in the sound of the park. Someone had once told him that he was meditating, something that made him laugh. But he knew that he was in a state where his senses were stretched wide. He stayed that way for ten minutes. And suddenly there was a sound. Three clicks. Katzenberg. He looked at his compass and began moving toward the southwest quadrant.
They all moved toward the GPS position that Katzenberg was broadcasting from. Short, soft whistles closed the final distance between them. The all hit the ground by Katzenberg, starting out into the night. He passed his infrared glasses to Tom. “Maybe seventy meters. Six of them.”
Terrance shook his head as though he was trying to clear it. And Tom knew.
“You’re hearing things.”
Terrance jerked his head toward Tom, his mouth slack in surprise. “What?”
“Something from outside is coming in. To your head.”
“You too?”
“I felt…thirst. Not mine. Someone else’s. What did you hear?”
“Nothing I heard. It was feelings. And eighteen.”
“Eighteen?”
“The number keeps coming into my head. It’s…important. It drives…whoever this is.” He grabbed his head and squeezed it. “Shit!”
“Can you keep up?”
“I’ll be fine.”
Tom pulled his gun from the rack on his back. A rifle, long range, but equipped with a silencer. “Guys. We’d like three tonight. That’s the contract. Of course we could go for more but I’ve never believed in being greedy. And taking all six will probably get us more attention from the Angels of Mercy. One at a time gentlemen. Less noise from the guns. You first, Katz, We’ll wait. I’ll take the next.”
Katzenberg shouldered his weapon and put his eye to the scope. He lined up the shot, taking his time.
"Stand still child,” he said. He waited another thirty seconds. “Right to the head. No pain.” He fired.
In the infrared glasses Tom could see the rhino go down. “Excellent, Katz. Excellent.” They sat on the ground for a while, preparing themselves for the next two shots. Suddenly, Tom sat upright. “Let’s go get it.”
“That’s not efficient, Thomas.” Martinez said. “We always shoot them all then go get them. Otherwise we have several minutes of travel for each kill. Not feasible.”
Tom looked toward Terrance; his head was hanging. “Terry. Terry!” As he called to his friend, he felt a sense of panic. There was a hint of pain and a hint of horror. He had to work to keep control of himself. And it wasn’t coming from him. If he was feeling this, what was Terry feeling?
“Let’s go get it. No argument.”
“Your party.”
They moved out, gathering their equipment. They pulled Terrance up and walked back to the copse of trees where their vehicles were hidden. Once in the flatbed they drove only a few minutes until they were next to the fallen Rhino. Terrance stayed on the back of the truck breathing heavily. Martinez and Katzenberg jumped down, looping two chains around the fallen giant.
“Wait until I get Terry into the cab,” Tom said.
The stood still until Terrance was leaning back in the passenger seat. Tom gestured to the other to men.
Then they started the winch. The rhino moved slowly up the angle of the bed, dripping blood from its head. They watched for a moment before Katzenberg said, “Why just get his one?”
“Something is happening,” Tom answered, his voice demonstrating his pain. “Not sure. We need to get Terry to a hospital.”
“What about the contract?”
“Fuck the contract. We can come back. I can put off the Chinese for a few days.”
“Will Terry come with us?”
Tom looked at his friend. “I don’t know.”
The rhino finally lay flat on the bed. Tom got behind the wheel as Martinez and Katzenberg jumped up on the bed beside the Rhino. After three minutes of driving they heard the sound of a motor off in the distance.
“Fuck,” Tom whispered as he pushed down on the pedal. “We’ll need the other truck.”
They all looked behind them. It was a pointless gesture; the truck could be a mile away, invisible. “How did you know we’d be out there?” Martinez asked Tom.
“Maybe they’re hearing the same thing that Terry and I are. In their heads.”
“And what is that?”
“Pain. Pain of a death. Grieving. I feel it now.”
“What?”
“You don’t feel anything?”
“I have a headache. But that’s about it.”
“You’re lucky.”
They drove in silence. Terrance groaned. “Eighteen,” he whispered.
They heard the sound of the motor behind them accelerating. “Kruger Park Rangers! Stop your vehicle and exit it! On the ground!”
“I’m not going to jail,” Katzenberg growled.
“No one is going to jail,” Tom answered.
“I’m not sure you can guarantee that.
“Shut up!” Tom hissed. He accelerated the truck.
“Stop! Exit the vehicle,” the amplified voice shouted behind them
They drove for another ten minutes before they could see the lights of their pursuer’s vehicle. “Stay calm.” Tom told the others.
“Sure,” Katzenberg snorted.
They drove into the copse of trees where the other truck was hidden. Tom jumped out. “Take him to the hospital. Go!” He ran to the other truck, doing his best to suppress the panic and grief he was experiencing by proxy. He put his hand to his eyes and found that they were wet. How could this pain have come from anywhere but the rhino that had been shot. He found, beneath the odd feelings he was feeling, he was angry. Someone had made this happen. He was sure of it. This was not the kind of thing that happened naturally.
He jumped into the truck and gunned the engine. He looked back and saw that the Ranger’s truck was still far enough away that it was doubtful they could see the truck he’d arrived in pulling away. Perfect. His first move was to gun the engine several times, getting the attention of the Park Rangers. Then he pulled out, with the pedal practically on the floor of the truck, creating noise from the tires spinning on the ground and rocks and dirt flying into the air. He could only hope that the Rangers didn’t realize that there were two trucks.
Driving off, he took a path that was at an angle slightly to the right of the other truck as it pulled away. He heard some more words from the loud speaker atop the ranger’s truck but he couldn’t make them out above the sound of his truck’s movement. After five minutes it was clear that the truck was following him and not the other vehicle that Martinez was driving.
He bounced along over the uneven ground, moving perhaps seventy miles an hour. Occasionally he heard the pro forma warning from the rangers behind him. He drove another five miles, accelerating so he could put as much space between himself and the rangers as possible. When the lights from their truck were barely visible he looked for a large copse of trees. After finding a thick stand, he drove the truck into the small opening between the trees, finally coming to an abrupt halt. Diving out the passenger door, he went to a chest on the flat bed that ran the length of the cab. Pulling open the latches, he pulled out ten sizable spike strips. Running behind the truck he scattered the strips across the path he was sure the ranger’s truck would take.
Returning to the truck he gunned the engine and waited. As the truck came closer Tom began to drive slowly, grinding the gears by manipulating the clutch, trying to do as little real damage as possible. The grinding was loud enough that he could be reasonably sure that his false car trouble would be audible across the distance between him and the rangers. When he could finally see the outline of faces in the windshield he began to move forward, slowly. By the time the truck had come near to the spike strips he was perhaps a hundred feet in front of them. He smiled; they would chase him and they would have to hit the strips. He heard the warning to stop, the voice louder and more strident than before; he was so close they thought they had him. In the middle of the third round of warnings he heard a satisfying explosion. At least two tires, he thought.
Behind him he heard shouts. He didn’t wait for the first shot but gunned the engine and drove away as quickly as possible.
Tom walked through the hospital corridor to Terrance’s room. He was somewhat disoriented from the medication they’d given him. Numb was good after the last twenty four hours. He’d gone back and forth between periods of reasonable stability and intense depression. And it wasn’t only the rhinos. Whatever had attacked his body had made him sensitive to the feelings of other animals and even, to a lesser extent, humans. There were still odd background sensations that assailed him, but, with the help of the medicine he was able to control his emotions.
Terrance was a different story. He lay in a hospital bed in a stupor. While he was able to speak, he was in pain both physically and mentally. As he entered his friend’s room Tom wondered if there would be conversation or just a period of him sitting by the man’s bedside as he slept. To his relief, Terrance looked up as he came in. His friend tried to smile but it looked more like a grimace.
“Tommy,” Terrance said softly. His voice was breathy and his speech slurred. “Excuse my speech. I’ve got an IV that is supplying me with some sort of happy juice.”
“Feeling any better?”
“Yes. Though I suspect it’s the medication that’s responsible.”
“We’ll beat this, Terry. Give us a few weeks and we’ll be back at Kruger.”
Terrance closed his eyes. “Do you really think that’s realistic?”
“Why not!”
“Did you feel that grief last night? Do you know where that came from?”
“Well…I can’t think of anything but the rhino we killed. And…well this is just a theory but I think it also came from other rhinos. I think they felt that rhino die the same way we did.”
“I agree. That’s my point. Do you think we can just go back out there? A repeat of the same symptoms aside, are you going to forget those feelings?”
“Well…no. Probably not. But once we get used to it…” He smiled. “And with the help of Johnny Walker, I think we can make it.”
Terrance remained silent for a good minute. Just as Tom was about to fill the verbal void, Terrance spoke.
“Why did you cut off the mission with only one rhino?”
“Do you have to ask? It was you. I had to get you to a doctor.”
“Right. So what’s the difference between the grief you felt for the rhino and the fear you felt for me.”
“They’re rhinos.”
“I can’t see the difference any more. It was easy to kill them when they were dumb animals. But I know what they are.” He was silent for a few more seconds. “Eighteen,” he said finally.
“You said that before. What does it have to do with anything?”
“I can’t really translate all the feelings I got from them. I felt some things that might be memories. I think I felt a memory of fear as a family of Rhinos ran from a predator. I felt something that had to do with mating. But I also have these odd ideas. Eighteen? It’s important to them. I think it’s some form of numerology, something basic to their existence, like a greeting. In some ways I think they may be more intelligent than we are. It’s hard to compare because the standards are different. I’m not sure I know what rhino intelligence is. But I think I’ve experienced it.” He shook his head. “Eighteen.”
Tom snorted. “Come on, Terry. You felt some weird shit. And it’s knocked you off your perch. Do you think this will last forever?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter to me. I can’t kill another rhino. I know what it means now.”
“You’re kidding me. This is how we make our living. What other way can we make money like this?”
“I’m sure we’ll think of something. Perhaps security. We’re both ex-military. There’s a lot of money in consulting.”
“And we get ourselves killed.”
“It’s just an idea.”
“So you just going to give up?”
“That sounds like I’m just being pissy. I’m not giving up. I’m deciding I can’t kill rhinos. I doubt it would be any different with elephants. Has it occurred to you that this is not a disease? More likely a drug of some kind.”
“It occurred me to me.”
“How are Martinez and Katz?”
“Martinez started to have nasty headaches about an hour after he started the drive back to Johannesburg He’s being kept overnight by the doctors. His symptoms are close enough to ours. Katz is having bouts of dizziness.”
Tom sat down in a chair by Terrance’s bed and ran is hand through his hair. “I guess I still have Katz. But it won’t be the same. I can’t really count on him to have my back. He’s a good soldier and a decent shot. But I need a team that’s…adaptive. That’s the best word. Katz doesn’t think on his feet.”
“You may have Martinez. You don’t know.”
“But I don’t have you.”
“No, friend. You don’t.”
“Shit.”
“Don’t be so pessimistic. Life will go on. If you want to continue poaching, you can find a team. But you’re already compromised. And there’s no telling whether the people you add to your team will experience when they get out there. If this drug is in the air… Honestly, I think that poaching in Kruger park is a thing of the past.:
“This sucks. I wonder who did this”
“If you found out would it change anything? I guess our brains have been changed. Too late to go back.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Have it your way.”
“What do we do now?”
“We have some money that will carry us for a while.”
“I was saving that for my bid to get my son back.”
“I’m still your friend. We’ll find a way to make money. As I said, this poaching thing is over. If whatever it is gets spread to other parts of Africa, the poaching industry is done.”
“Maybe we should go live with the rhinos.”
“Not a bad idea.”
Tom adjusted his tie for perhaps the tenth time in an hour. It had been years since he had to wear one and he found it unbearable. He and Terrance sat on a bench outside a conference room. They were minutes away from their first presentation. The pitch was for a program of corporate security for a German mega-corporation, in Germany and abroad. The still had Martinez and Katzenberg and, through contacts, they had hired ten other people. Tom leaned back against the bench, his body tense. “I really hate this, Terry.”
“I know. You need to embrace change. What happened happened for a reason.”
Tom grimaced. “How zen.”
“You can be such an asshole.”
“I had a source of income. It’s been taken away from me. This,” he pointed at the conference room, “is an unknown. I hate unknowns.”
“We have skills, Tommy. It will work out.”
“Maybe.”
“Eighteen”.
“Oh god. Not that again.”
“I find it soothing. Like prayer.”
Tom glowered at his friend. Then he laughed. “Okay. Eighteen. Let’s go in.”