Be My Victim and other Strange Tales from the Cape (5 page)

"Haunted?"
Mason says as he feels the unnatural cold creeping in under his
clothes. "Did you ever see any ghosts?"

"No, never. But
I can sometimes feel them and late at night I hear them moving
about outside the house." the boy tells him in his usual pragmatic
manner. The way that the boy talks, it seems as if the most bizarre
things are just ordinary and even a bit boring, to him. Mason notes
the little girl looking intensely at him from behind her brother,
as if studying his reaction.

The last
natural light has now been driven from the area and it is just the
pool of light generated by his lantern that lights up the place.
The mist is also getting thicker and there is an unnatural iciness
settling in everywhere as if this is the norm of the area and not
the bright warmth of the sunlight.

Mason feels
something that feels like spider webs lightly brushing over his
face. He brushes it away with the back of his hand, but it keeps on
coming back.

He sees the boy
looking up at him with his horrible face and the little girl
smiles.

"That is one of
the ghosts." the boy says.

Mason jumps up
from where he is busy with the spokes of the wheel.

"What!" he says
as he desperately brushes the invisible spidery things away from
his face. For the first time the little girl actually laughs. Her
laughter sounds like a little bell in a dark cave.

Now that is on
his feet, the spidery things are gone.

"Yes, that is
one of the ghost swirling her veil over your face. She does that to
one if she likes you." the boy says as he looks far into the
swirling mist, that now comes to the bottom of the stoep. "I think
it’s my mother."

Mason goes back
to working on his wheel, now feeling cold rings running down his
back.

"I think she is
here to protect me, but despite that, I sometimes still have
nightmares at night."

"What kind of
nightmare?" Mason asks as he listens with more interest to the boy
now. The little girl's features are now completely hidden by the
dark mist where she sits on the lower step.

"I dream that I
am sleeping in my bed and then this mongrel dog jumps onto the bed.
There is a huge dark figure standing behind the dog, close to my
bed. I can't see who or what it is in the darkness of my room...I
only see the mongrel with its bared teeth. The dog then start
eating my face. The more I try to get away from it, the more I
can't move. The dark figure says something, but I can't understand
it. He laughs with a sort of guttural voice. That is when I usually
wake up and find myself entangled in my bedding."

"Do you have
this dream often and is it always the same dream?"

"I'm not having
it so often anymore. I seem to be having it less and less as time
goes by. It doesn't bother me anymore, though, I am used to it by
now..."

"Do you know
why you dream of this dog eating your face? Did you have any real
life experiences like that?" Mason asks as he thinks of the ugly
wound on the boy's face.

"Only once,
when some Kaffirs came here looking for work. They had a mongrel
with them. I was very scared of it, because it looked like an
animal that would just attack without warning and once it attacked
no one would be able to stop it. But the Kaffirs kept it on a
lease."

The wheel is
basically fixed now and he will be able to reach the village the
next morning with it. Luckily it will all be downhill.

The darkness is
getting so intense now, that it makes the boy almost
indistinguishable where he sits on the step. The little girl is
completely lost in the darkness. It seems as if the light of his
lantern can't reach to where the children are sitting on the steps
of the stoep. Mason just assumes that it is the thick mist that
swirls around the place that enhances the darkness. With nothing
else to do, he decides to go to sleep, so that he can be on his way
early the next morning.

"Ok, then,
goodnight..." he greets the children. Then he thinks of something
and tells the boy: "Come to my room before you go to bed, so that I
can give you the money. I am leaving early tomorrow morning and you
may still be asleep when I leave."

"Just leave it
on the table in the morning." the boy says with a voice that now
seems to come from far away in the mist. Mason can just make out
his shape through the haziness of the fog.

This is the
type of trust that the rural area of South Africa is still known
for, he thinks to himself as he walks down the damp, musty smelling
passage way to his room. His footsteps sounds loud and hollow as he
walks on the wooden floor. He sees there are other rooms further
down the passage way, but they are all dark. He wonders if the
children sleep there and when will they ever make some light for
themselves in the house.

On inspecting
the bed, he discovers that although the bed is neatly made up, the
sheets and blankets are moist and mouldy and not suitable at all to
sleep in. Mason thinks that the fact that the window is never
opened that causes everything to be moist in the room. There is
also a possibility that the sun never shines into this room,
because of the rows of huge and thick trees that stands on the
outside.

For a
self-contained traveller like Mason, the moist bed is not a
problem. He unhooks his sleeping bag from his back pack and quickly
jumps into it, pulling the zip close up to his neck, because the
chilliness seems to have penetrated everywhere by now.

Just before he
falls asleep he hears the children giggling as they walk past his
room on their way to their beds. Their bare feet is barely audible
on the wooden floor.

Suddenly...

...there's a
loud crash and tumble and then a scream. Afterwards there is only
silence. Deadly silence.

Mason jumps up
and...

The passage is
deserted. But there is now an almost unnatural quietness in the
house.

"Is everything
all right," he shouts towards the children's rooms.

"Yes", the boy
answers. "The case fell from the cupboard and my sister got
startled. Go back to sleep."

He thinks of
going to inspect, but decides against it. These children have been
looking after themselves all this time and he is not going to make
any difference to their lives tonight. Let the social workers sort
it out when he brings them tomorrow.

He goes back to
the cosiness of his sleeping bag. He sinks away into sleep almost
immediately. A full day's cycling will do that to any man.

When he starts
dreaming, he has the exact same dream that the boy described to
him.

He sees himself
sleeping on the floor, in his sleeping bag, next to the moist,
musty smelly bed. Then dark figures, which he can't make out enters
the room. A big, ugly looking mongrel dog rushes to where he lies
asleep in his sleeping bag and immediately tries to get to his
face. The more he struggles to get the dog away from his face, the
more he can't move. He hears the dark figure speak. It sound as if
the figure is talking to the dog, encouraging it, but he can't make
out what the figure is saying.

He hears the
boy, somewhere in the house. It sounds like he is saying: "You see,
I told you so...Let me get to them..." It sounds like the boy is
running towards him, but he can't see the boy.

Next thing he
sees the dog's huge open mouth coming down on his face. Still
unable to move, he screams himself awake.

He finds that
the sleeping bag is completely over his head. He quickly unzips and
looks around. Everything is still the same. The house is quiet and
a slight wind is actually blowing outside the house. He is also
surprised to see that the moon is actually shining through the
dirty window.

He falls asleep
almost immediately again. It is not long before he starts dreaming
again.

This time he is
on his bike and is being chased by these same dark, faceless
figures of his previous dream. He pedals furiously, because the dog
is also there and he just knows it will eat his face, if they catch
him this time.

He has to cycle
uphill, while the figures and dog runs at full speed, he has to
struggle to gain speed. Then he reaches the top and can suddenly
freewheel downhill. The wind rushes past him as he goes at an
enormous pace down the steep hill. But no matter how fast he goes
downhill, his pursuers seems to be gaining ground on him. This
makes him pedal even faster. With him concentrating on getting away
from the faceless figures and the angry dog, he doesn't see the
dark, gaping chasm in front of him. He is already in the air when
he becomes conscious of it. He feels himself losing all control as
he free falls through the air.

All he can do -
as the abyss starts sucking him in - is to scream his lungs
out...

He screams
himself awake. This time he is shaking with fear. The shock of
going over the abyss seemed so real.

Luckily it is
morning already. The sun is not up yet, but the whole house is
filled with the silver morning light. He quickly washes his face
outside under the tap, before brushing his teeth. He takes a snack
from his bag and eat it as breakfast.

He leaves two
twenty rand notes on the table for the boy who must still be
asleep, because there is no other movement in the house. The moist,
mouldy smell is also not there anymore.

With the heavy
backpack on his back, he is on his bike and off to the little
village.

It is only a
little uphill and the bend wheel can make it. From then on it is
downhill and he has no problem controlling the bike, despite the
buckled wheel.

The closes he
can come to a bicycle shop in the little village is the local motor
mechanic, who is just opening up his doors as the first rays of the
sun hits the high roofs.

He greets and
tells the man about his accident with the bike.

"Yes, we can
fix it. We work on cars and bikes here, this being such a small
village." the man laughs in a friendly manner. "Where did it
happen?"

"Just there by
that old farmhouse right next to the road."

"Wow, you can be glad you didn't pass there in
the evening."

"It did
actually happen in the evening... last night." he tells the man. He
sees how the man's face changes as he stops in his tracks.

"What?"

Mason sees all
colour draining from the man's face as he looks for something to
sit on. "Where did you spent the night then."

"I slept in
that farmhouse. The boy gave me permission to sleep there for the
night."

"What boy?"

Now that the
man asks, Mason suddenly realize that he never ask the boy or his
sister for their names. The boy also never asked him who he
was.

"The boy and
his sister who lives there. He told me their mother died about a
year ago and that his father was away."

"My god, man."
the man says as he quickly sits down on a crate that stands against
the wall. "There have been many stories floating around that the
place is haunted, but I never really believed it. Sit down and let
me tell you."

Mason sits
down.

"The boy is
right about his mother. She and his little sister, was killed by
those dirty Kaffirs about a year ago. It was one of the most
horrible farm murders ever. The father was away on business and
only the woman and the two children were at home. They raped the
mother and even the little girl, those monsters. Then they sliced
them open and allowed their mongrel dog to eat their entrails,
right in front of the boy, whom they forced to watch
everything."

"What happened
to the boy?"

"They also
killed him. The police who found the body said he must have fought
like hell at the beginning to protect his mother and sister. What
distressed even the toughest policeman on that scene was the fact
that the dirty bastards allowed their dog to eat on the boy's face.
Since then nobody goes to the house anymore and it has been
abandoned..."

ROOM FOR ONE MORE

It was one of
those intense dreams where she actually knew she was dreaming, but
the dream still seemed to be real. It even seemed more real than
real life.

She was in this
big house. Very big. It was one of those type of houses that you
read about in the old tales. It was more a castle than a house.
Long candles were burning everywhere, throwing eerily, dancing
shadows on the damp looking walls. She was alone in this room. In
the dream she was visiting the people of the house. This was now
after the big dinner and she was in her room ready to go to bed.
Before she could get into bed, she heard the clacking of horse
hooves on the paving of the court yard just outside her room. She
look out of her window and down onto the shadowy courtyard.

A big black
coach had just arrived. One minute she was up in her room, the next
she was standing next to the coach – like it usually is in dreams.
The coach was big, but not big enough for all the people in it.
There were so many people squeezed into the coach that their body
parts were sticking out the windows of coach. From the other side
she could see even more people scrambling to get in. They were
squeezed in tighter than sardines in a small tin, but everyone was
still trying to get in. Although she knew she was dreaming, a cold
fear washed over her whole body filling her with an icy dread and
making her hair stand on end.

And then the
coachman looked down at her. She had never seen anybody with such
big, intense eyes as this coachman. He had the thickest lips she
had ever seen on a man. His skin was black, but pale at the same
time. A type of juxtaposition that she just couldn’t describe or
comprehend.

As he looked at
her his voice came from all sides of the dream without his mouth
moving once. His intense eyes were looking straight at her as she
heard his voice say: “THERE IS ROOM FOR ONE MORE…”