Prologue
A full moon looks down on the dry African bush. The wind plays with the leaves of the trees. Shadows grow longer as the moon climbs in the sky. A Howl reverberates across the vast African landscape, splitting the night in two freezing the leopard in his tracks. He moves from the safety of the shrubs. Silence descends like a blanket. The chirping of the crickets and the mating call of the frogs disappear as the haunting cry rings off the kopje behind the big cat.
Shadows hide the other as it watches as the spotted feline moves slowly around the corner of the deserted house. The attack is fast and deadly. The watcher launches itself onto the back of the cat, its strong jaws latching onto the thick neck of the leopard, just behind the head.
Rolling onto its back the spitting cat tries to dislodge its attacker, blood flies. Bone is crushed and the spinal cord severed, the big cat now paralyzed is at the mercy of the creature of the night. The head of the leopard is torn from its body; sounds of ripping and tearing now fill the night as the other eats.
An abomination stands in the clearing; all is still, Africa waits; it lifts its head to the heavens and howls out its ownership of the night.
Nothing is safe when the moon is full.
Sunrises on a new morning, the area behind the house is deserted, the scene of the battle and the spoor in the dirt tells a story of its own, leopard spoor cover’s the area and covering the leopard spoor are tracks of another.
Dried blood splatter marks the walls of the house, and the torn decapitated body of the leopard half-eaten lies in the dirt.
Mother Nature uses the wind to slowly sweep the area clean, and soon there is nothing to tell the story the slate has been wiped clean. Nature will take care of the rest.
Glassy dead eyes of the leopard look out from its detached head, on the rubbish dump.
Thick bush surrounds the house that stands alone at the end of a long rutted overgrown dirt track. Inside the house the dust on the floor is thick, cobwebs fill the corners, and the bath is full of bits and pieces that have built up over the years. The stable door leading from the kitchen into the back area hangs on it rusted hinges, broken.
There are no birds nesting in the house, it’s free of mice and rats and the only thing that shows that any living thing was there are the prints in the dust.
