Inside a nondescript shack in Soweto, Onke and his two accomplices refilled their tin cups with sorghum beer from a 2 gallon plastic carboy. Swazi and Wonga had their feet up on the desk, cigarettes in their mouths.
– “Man, we should have taken some stuff from the house.” Swazi said.
– “Yeah. We could have easily pawned those things for a fortune.” Wonga added.
Onke looked up. “No, then it would have looked like a robbery and not an execution.”
Swazi shook his head. “Onke, you’re too loyal or too dumb. Do you think Tsotsi know what’s in the house?”
– “Do you want him to find out that you have disobeyed his orders, Swazi?”
The two men shrugged.
– All I say is that we could have looked for cash. Damn, a farm that size must have a fortune stashed somewhere.” said Swazi.
Onke refilled his cup. “Anyway. It’s done. No need crying.”
– “We could return—” said Wonga.
– “No!”
At the same instant the shack’s door opened and two huge black men walked in. One had an semi-automatic weapon slung over his shoulder, muzzle down.
– “Onke! Did anybody see you guys at the farm?”
– “No, and we were wearing ski masks, anyway.”
– “Were you followed on your way back?”
Onke was on his feet. “What is this, Dubula? Why the fuck are you asking me those stupid questions?”
– “Because there’s a white man at the other end of the alley and he’s coming this way.”
– “What?”
Swazi and Wonga were immediately on their feet, guns drawn.
Onke looked at the guard. “Are you sure?”
– “He should be here in a minute.”
– “He alone?”
– “Yeah.”
– “Armed?”
– “Nah. Don’t think so.”
A vicious smile spread on Onke’s face. “A lone unarmed white man in Soweto at night?”
The guard nodded.
Onke turned to his two accomplices, then at the guards and the five men burst into laughters.
The stranger was standing by the door when the men had finally stopped laughing.
– “Hoa, baas. Are you lost or are you suicidal?” said Onke.
– “No, I’m looking for you.” the stranger said.
– “For me? For me? You’re looking for me?” said Onke, putting on a play for his men. “And why are you looking for me, baas? Should I be scared?”
– “I’m here because of what you have done to Jakobus tonight.”
Swazi, Wonga and the two guards felt uneasy. The stranger was too calm. He’s alone, unarmed, talking to five huge armed black men members of the Tsotsi’s gang in Soweto in a tone of voice so neutral that it was unsettling. Then, there was the fact of how did he know it was them or how did he know where to find them.
Onke shook his head, “Baas, I don’t know what you’re talking, I don’t know any Jakob—Aaawww, fuck!”
Onke had his two palms pressed hard against his head. “Aaaww, fuck!”
Onke was now lying face down on the desk, his palms still pressing against his forehead. A massive migraine had just hit him. A piercing, blinding, headache. Onke was rolling back and forth on top of the desk.
The four men were looking at Onke, wide-eyes. “Onke! What’s wrong?”
Onke could not hear the question for at the same instant, an unbearably painful and ear-splitting noise hit him. Despite his headache, Onke shot up from the desk backwards howling with all his might, his back crashing against the fragile wall of the shack. His inhuman screams froze the other men, now watching their friend with horror.
Onke was still screaming and writhing on the ground, kicking the desk over from intolerable pain from his head and ears when he felt that someone was now pulling his teeth out one by one with a plier. That was all the man could take. Onke stopped fighting. He lay on the floor in a fetal position screaming and moaning at the same time not being able to stop the pains that were coming from all sides. Blood was now pouring out from his eyes, ears and mouth.
The four men turned to the stranger. They did not know how he did it but they knew he did it. The guard with the semi-automatic, more as an act of self-defense than an act of aggression, pulled up his weapon instinctively and under his friends’ horrified eyes, flopped down on the ground like a puppet without strings. The man lay on the ground in such an absurd position that the others had to step back to take a good look at what happened to him. His arms and legs were positioned under him in an impossible ways while his head was perched on them, eyes wide open with a fixed and ridiculous smile on his face while Onke, on the other end of the shack, kept screaming with a now hoarse voice.
Without a word, Sawzi, Wonga and the other guard raised their hands in a surrendering position.
– “Please baas, have pity baas. We’re just doing what we’ve been told. We’re sorry, baas. Please baas, have pity.” Swazi was weeping.
The stranger kept looking at Onke now barely twitching, lying in his fluids and blood. He turned to Dubula, the guard.
– “You weren’t at the farm. I won’t hurt you. I’ll let you go so you can tell the story to whoever intends to go back to that farm.”
Dubula had yet to register completely what the stranger had said to him when he was startled by two inhumans howls coming from Swazi and Wonga. They were screaming as if they were being tortured by one of those contraptions from the Dark Ages. Their cries were so piercing and terrifying that Dubula’s heart was beating at an incredible pace.
Swazi and Wonga were now in the same state as Onke. They had lost all their fluids and blood was streaming out from every orifices but they were not dead. And Dubula understood. The stranger won’t kill them. He wanted them to suffer. Dubula would prefer death to that kind of pain any day.
Then, the stranger did something Dubula wished he had never witnessed. He walked to where Onke was lying and, taking all his time, one by one, as easily as one would snap a toothpick, he snapped Onke’s hands and feet with a horrifying sound a cracking bones that resonated through the shack, backwards! Dubula threw up. Onke was now lying face up, his hands lying backwards on top of his arms fingers pointing up towards his shoulders. His feet were under his legs, also backwards, pointing up towards his back.
When the stranger did the same to Swazi and Wonga, Dubula threw up again until he was on his hands and knees retching empty. The last thing Dubula remembered before he passed out was the surprised look on the stranger’s face when he pulled out a coin from his pocket. A one cent coin.
– “So dear, what did I tell you about that French restaurant in Elizabethtown. The food was wonderful, wasn’t it?” said Riaan du Toit to his wife.
– “Och my, there’s that thing again.”
Riaan kept looking straight ahead, “What thing again, dear?”
– “Something just ran really fast through the valley.”
– “Hmm?”
– “Riaan, look! Och, my, it’s—it’s gone.”
– “Dear, I’m afraid you had again too much wine tonight.”
– “Riaan! I’m telling you that I’ve just saw something run really fast towards Elizabethtown. By the time I’ve spotted it through the windshield, it was already way behind us!”
