Having substituted a life of luxury and pomp in the heart of London for a small, befouled, dusty rural town in the middle of the wilderness three hours away from Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, Tate Chamberlain found himself working as a vet at the town’s local community hospital. He was the only vet. The hospital staff was made up of mostly South Africans except himself and Dr Leanne Mansell, the town’s GP from an African country up north. The town had three generations of ancestors tied to it. The KwaZulu-Natal Premier Goliath Roth was from this befouled town and cousins with Mr Kruger, the third-generation owner of the Kruger farm and the town’s richest commercial farmer.

A single tarred main road meandered through the town. On either side of the road were two rows of buildings. After the two rows of buildings, the sprawling farmlands started, followed by the villages, then a vast expanse of wilderness. Several gravel back roads led into the town. One zigzagged through a burial site that had been abandoned after the burial of Thandeka Ntuli, who had died a tragic death.

Six months after arriving in the town, Tate was called out to the Kruger farm to attend to Daisy, Mr Kruger’s prized sheep who was having a breech pregnancy.

'Will both Daisy and the lamb survive, doc-ta?' A farm hand asked.

Tate rolled his eyes, disgusted.

He was in the barn, squatting beside Daisy. Mr Kruger was standing in the entrance with a small crowd of farm hands watching him deliver the lamb nervously. Amongst them were Dhlamini and Stan. Dhlamini, who worked at the farm, was a heavy-set man with a noticeable pot-belly, which in this area of the world indicated being well-looked after by his wife. Whereas Stan was a lean man who ran an agro-business in town. ‘God-forsaken heathens…’ Tate thought to himself.

'Doc-ta?'

'Of course! Both will live!' He said through gritted teeth, with no smile.

It was a Sunday. And to Tate, it was heathen behaviour for him to work on a Sunday. But this town, he had come to quickly realise, after having witnessed a group of farm-hands carry out a banishing ritual which involved spitting and chanting words of protection, was heathen in nature. With one foot dipped in witchcraft, superstitious beliefs and spiritism during the week and the other in Christianity on Sundays, the town was shrouded in a reserved, mysterious ambience that was suspicious of any newcomer. Even Tate had not been exempted from it when he had first visited one of the villages to treat a sickly goat. He had seen the way some of them acted, heard some things in passing, watched them, without intending to, practice what he could only assume was the worst kind of Juju.

***

After delivering Daisy’s lamb safely, he and Stan headed to his car to drive back home to the apartment building where they lived. They usually shared the commute to save on fuel. Dhlamini was trailing behind Stan. The two men were gossiping about a man who had been bewitched. Talk of spirits and witchcraft soon became the chatter for the rest of the walk to the car.

'Did you hear about Bongani?' Dhlamini asked Stan in a whisper.

'What about him?' Stan whispered back.

'He got rich,' Dhlamini whispered.

'How?! He was a poor man some time back,' Stan whispered in disbelief.

Tate walked ahead pretending not to eavesdrop on the two men behind him.

'The rumours going around are that he did what Goliath Roth did to become the premier.'

At this point, Dhlamini hesitated. Stan hesitated as well. Tate continued walking ahead slowly, but still listening to what the men were saying.

'Eh?!' Stan exclaimed.

Dhlamini nodded emphatically. ‘Just like Goliath Roth used Thandeka in a success ritual, Bongani sacrificed his sickly sister.’

'Eh?! Ancestors forbid!' Stan cried.

And that was the first time Tate had heard the rumours of Goliath Roth and how he had become the premier of KwaZulu-Natal.

***

One evening, several weeks after delivering Daisy’s lamb, whilst taking a shortcut through the fields from the village Dhlamini lived in back to Kruger farm, the three men encountered a pitch-black snake slithering across the path. At the sight of the snake, Stan and Dhlamini stopped dead in their tracks, Tate almost pumping into him. Then he started the chants in Zulu, did three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turns, and spat on the ground; he repeated and repeated. Tate stood watching. Stan joined Dhlamini. And they chanted and turned and spat, until they decided the path was cleansed enough to resume walking on.

Tate had rolled his eyes when Stan intimated that a snake seen crossing a dusty path meant an evil omen was lurking about. Stan had urged Tate to do what they had done.

'Umngane…' Stan whispered fearfully. 'Spit!' He whispered.'Or bad…bad…bad…juju follows you!'

Tate gave Stan a sarcastic smile, wondering how this superstitious imbecile managed to run a successful agro-business in this town without spending his entire working day spitting and turning in each cardinal direction.

'Superstition, mate… not my thing.'Tate said, brisk and vaguely sarcastic.

He was usually dismissive of anything that did not have a scientific or religious explanation. According to him, evil spirits and omens were only for the wicked of this world and those who had refused to acknowledge the existence of the Most High God. Tate was a deeply religious Protestant man, unlike these heathens with their superstitions, sangomas and charms.

'Please, Mr Tate!' Dhlamini implored Tate earnestly. 'Even your fellow white friends do rituals too.' He looked at Stan. 'Right, Stan?'

Stand nodded vigorously. 'Yes. Yes. Even Mr Kruger does rituals for protection as well. You should as well.'

Instead of addressing their pleas, he waved them off and walked past them.

'Come on! The bloody thing is out of sight already!'

He pitied these unenlightened fools who were trapped by superstitions and charms. Tate walked briskly away from the two. Time, as his father had drilled into him, was a luxury one should not and could not waste because, unlike money, time lost could never be recovered. And his father’s words have been echoing, uninvited, in his mind, especially since arriving in this place…

‘Tate, my boy, there are only two truths in this world. Science and God; only one is absolute. God and He made science. What cannot be explained by the Bible or science is utter hogwash…’

'Juju is real, Mr Tate.'

Mrs Stan, as Tate called her because he could not pronounce her first name or her husband’s last name, had warned Tate when her husband narrated their encounter over supper that evening. The kind chap and his wife usually invited Tate for meals. Even their three children added stories of witchcraft that they had experienced throughout the dinner of maize pap with fried fish and local vegetables. As the family around him spoke about witchcraft, Tate looked at Stan, thinking about what his fellow people thought of him being lean.

***

It was a Thursday night, the start of the third month after the snake incident. Tate was driving home from the Kruger farm at the end of a long day that had started pretty early. Stan was in Durban to restock and was only due back later in the evening. The radio was on. A DJ he liked played tunes he liked. A rare pleasure Tate allowed himself.

‘Tate my boy… pleasures are for the weak of heart and mind. Only fools suffer wine, women and war… are you a fool?’

The radio went off – dead silent after the ten-mile mark on the road. As he focused on resetting the radio, he momentarily took his eyes off the road. Unexpectedly, the radio burst back to life so loudly, it startled him. The car swerved one side then another, almost careering off the road. In between deep calming breaths, he regained control of the car just in time to see a woman in the middle of the road. He swerved but hit the woman anyway. The car careered off course again, and he slammed the brakes. The car screeched to a halt. He cursed again and got out of his car and left the engine running as he ran to the woman, reeking of rage.

'Stupid woman! Do you have a death wish or something, hey?!' He yelled. 'Bloody idiot!'

She was awkwardly splayed on the road, dressed in a vivid floral dress. One slipper was several steps from her, and the other was still on her foot. But there was no blood anywhere in sight.

As he got closer, a chill cloaked itself around him. Fear abruptly coursed throughout him. Never in his entire twenty-eight years on earth had Tate ever feared anything.

He gave his head a quick shake to dispel the fear. It lingered stubbornly. He felt a bead of sweat form and roll down his temple despite the chilly wind that had gathered in the night quickly.

'Are you alright?'

Gone was the rage; only gentleness remained. He peered at the woman, trying to catch a glimpse of her face. The woman lay still. He took a step towards her, extended his hand towards her. Then something stopped him. Instinct? Fear? Manners? He didn’t know. He stepped towards her. The fear coursing through his veins intensified, strong and suffocating…

Click. Click. Click.

He heard it. Soft at first. The sound of the soft clicking of the tongue fenced him in, followed by soft chants he did not understand. She turned her head to him slowly. The rest of her body remained contorted in an unnatural position, splayed on the road. From the way her body was contorted, there was no way she could turn her head from that angle unless her neck was broken. She started getting up slowly, twisting and contorting into unnatural movements. She lifted a hand slowly and pointed at him. He looked behind him in the direction she was pointing. There was nothing there but darkness and the black road.

'What is back there?' He whispered.

He could tell that the woman did not hear him. Her face was still, her discoloured eyes unblinking. He could hear the chanting and the clicking sounds, but they were not coming from the woman. Her lips were sewn closed together. Her skin was ashen grey and flaky as if she was dead. She had strange symbols cut into her exposed skin, but there was no blood. The clicking sounds and chanting suddenly stopped, and silence hung between him and this woman. Then it came, the laughter and shrieks of hyenas. He took a step back from the woman. The wind picked up and furiously blew her floral dress about. Emerging from the flapping fabric of the dress was a small black hairy creature that resembled a pygmy. The creature was barely the length of the woman’s leg. Its eyes were sewn shut and a bone pierced through its nose. More bones pierced through its ears. It moved its head as if trying to sense Tate’s presence and sniffed around as if trying to smell him. He moved a couple of abrupt steps away from it to build distance between them. It opened its mouth and produced the clicking sound again. He took several more steps back, then stood staring, unable to look away. The woman turned her head to face him and looked directly at him, then shifted her hand to point at him before she disappeared out of sight.

Fear left him gobsmacked. And his mind tried to rationalise what he had just seen. Science could not explain this. His mind drifted to religion. Spirits and demons were things he heavily contested. He thought of his religious debates with the university’s chaplain, Father Elijah Wayne…

‘Wena…’

The word was accompanied by a chill lingering in the wind. It bit at his bones and settled in them. He rubbed his hands together but failed to produce the warmth his body sought. The laughing sound of hyenas met his ears again and remained ringing in them.

‘Wild animals…’ His mind reasoned despite the fear clamouring for his attention.

He walked briskly back to his car. Then he heard the sound of footsteps. Human or animal. He didn’t bother to turn to find out. He ran towards his car. But he did not reach it. He ran faster. Still, he did not reach the car…

Stan had taken the dusty gravel back road through the abandoned burial site into town when he noticed the car on the side road. The headlights were full beam and from the exhaust he could tell that the engine was still running. He dared not stop. If it wasn’t the fear of being attacked by armed robbers, it was the fear of ritual dealers, who killed to use organs in rituals just like they had done to Thandeka Ntuli. What if they cut out his heart and used it in rituals or sold his organs? Such were the times of today. Witchcraft was rampant with people trying to make easy money or gain quick power. But he was well protected. He looked at the charm hanging from the rear-view mirror and touched it slightly, drawing comfort from its presence.

As he got nearer, he saw Tate running towards his vehicle. He opened the window and called, but Tate did not acknowledge him. Stan slowed down and parked several meters behind Tate’s car. He got out of the car and headed towards Tate. He saw the man running towards his car, but never reaching it, oblivious to his presence…

'Tate?!Umngane?!'

Stan broke into a run towards Tate, only to be abruptly halted to a skid in the gravel by the startling and unexpected appearance of a hunched, old, frail-looking woman in front of him.

'Eeeh!' He exclaimed. 'Ngifile! I’m dead! Ancestors help me!'

‘Wena…’

He turned and ran off to his car, leaving Tate to his fate. As he ran, he started chanting protective words. He jumped into his car and sped off into the foreboding darkness…

Tate did not even see Stan running, nor his car speeding off past him on the road. All he saw was the apparition gliding beside him, matching his pace. And no amount of running could help him outrun it. It opened its mouth and stretched a hand towards him with the intention of clutching at him. He jumped back in fear and screamed. It clutched at nothing as a loud hiss rang in his ears. The apparition glided past him and blended with the blackness of the night ahead of him. And before Tate could realise it, he violently rammed straight into his parked car. He crashed to the gravel and coughed briefly, trying to catch his breath and let the fear ebb out of him. He looked around slowly. Nothing ominous met his eyes. Stillness had returned to the evening. He got himself to his feet, got into the car and closed the door slowly. The radio was still on, playing a tune he knew. The voice of the DJ filled the car; calm returned to him.

He drove back onto the road and started heading home. Behind him, a fog formed on its surface and the wind picked up and blew the fog into a funnel behind his car. Oblivious to what was happening outside his car, his phone rang. The loud shrill of the standard ringtone startled him back into the fear he thought he had overcome. He glanced at the phone on the passenger seat. It was Stan calling.

'Umngane…'

Stan’s fond reference to friend in Zulu sounded through the phone and into the car, broken and full of interference.

'A...r…e y...o…u al…ri…gh…t…?'

The call dropped…

Outside, unobserved by Tate, the wind had picked up in front of his car. A fog was forming slowly, and the wind blew it into a funnel…

A creature similar to the one Tate had seen with the woman in the floral dress emerged from the funnel and onto the road. It crouched and crawled on the road slowly and followed Tate’s car. It stopped to rest on its hind legs. It tossed its head backwards and opened its mouth. Out came the clicking sound. And from the funnel the laughter of a bunch of hyenas resounded.

The creature resumed following Tate’s car. Behind it, more creatures similar to it pounced out of the funnel and onto the road one after the other. They followed the first creature, mimicking its movements, producing the same clicking sound. Behind them, the wind dispersed the funnel and it collapsed onto the road and seeped into the tar. The funnel ahead remained intact and Tate’s car drove right through it…

Tate did not notice that he was no longer on the main road. Now he was driving along the gravel road through the abandoned burial site. It had trees on either side with thick trunks, thick dark green leaves that formed a threatening darkness. The ground was covered with tall grass that would hide an average-sized person. The grass rustled as something started moving from deep within the wilderness towards the road…

‘Wena…’

The creatures from the trees gathered around the old hunched woman’s legs. The woman in the floral dress appeared beside her. The old woman turned her bony head towards the young woman and pointed at Tate’s car slowly…

Tate looked into the rear-view mirror and saw nothing but empty black road. He had given up on calling Stan back. The radio was still blasting off soothing tunes in the background. The DJ said something about the next song before interference started breaking the radio transmission. White noise followed before a sharp, high-pitched sound came through. Then the radio went off. The car filled with a thick, heavy silence…

‘Ufunawena…’

He heard the voice. Fear gripped him when he realised the voice sounded like it was coming from inside the car. He turned his head to the passenger seat. Sitting in the passenger seat was the woman in the floral dress. On her lap was one of the creatures. She was stroking it with one hand, her other hand pointing ahead. The creature looked at Tate and produced the clicking sound. In fear, Tate slammed his foot on the brake and the car went into an uncontrollable swerve right off the road and into the wilderness on the side. Before he could get the car under control, it hit something violently and screeched to a stop. The impact sent Tate forwards and he banged his head on the steering wheel and passed out onto the car horn. It shrilled into the night. Blood trickled from a gush across his temple, as shattered windscreen shards showered around him.

Outside, the old woman walked to the car slowly. She stopped by the car. It had crashed into a pile of stones that formed a monument of an old grave. Beside this grave was a piece of cloth that was once part of a floral dress…

The woman in the floral dress appeared beside her and looked at Tate. Out of the smashed windscreen jumped the creature the woman was petting. In its hands it held a lock of blood-soaked hair from Tate. It scurried across the car bonnet and jumped up into the air, hands and legs spread apart. The woman in the floral dress caught it and it settled itself in her arms. She took the lock of hair from the creature and gave it to the old woman. Lifting the lock of blood-soaked hair to her mouth, the old woman chanted some words. She bent down and put the lock of blood-soaked hair onto the monument of stones. The earth beneath the pile of stones shifted before it collapsed, leaving a crack in the ground…

The old woman stood up and looked at the car. She extended a hand towards it. She started beckoning with her hand slowly as if calling someone. She started shuffling backwards slowly deep into the dark wilderness, still beckoning with her hand as she slowly disappeared into the darkness with the creatures…

‘Wena… landela…’

Tate coughed out blood and spat out a tooth before he raised a hand to his cut head to feel the cut. He shook his head slowly and struggled to get out of the car. He fell out, hitting his head onto one of the stones in the pile. He bled all over the stone before he dragged himself to his feet slowly. He stumbled ahead into the darkness, not knowing where he was going…or that he was actually shimmering into oblivion.

‘Landela…’

Judith Lombe and Margaret Lombe specialise in writing, filmmaking and music. They have five novels on Amazon. In 2023, they made a documentary titled ‘A Thousand Words By...' funded by the Rockefeller Philanthropic Agency, with support from Heirs General Insurance and Africa No Filter. They also produced Moonfall, the theme song for the Documentary.