The red rays of the setting sun were on the verge of abandoning the world to the night. He stood at the edge of the water, steel knife in hand, blade glinting in the last light of day. Silence smothered the air. His lungs pumped vigorously in fear and nervous anticipation. Waves of white began to fill the dimming foliage around him, moving like an ominous mist ready to engulf its prey. The thought echoed in his mind: This red dirt’s gonna have a little more pigment tonight.

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A flash jolted down the red dirt Tanzanian back road as Phillip manned the off-white Toyota Land Cruiser. He took one hand off the steering wheel to scratch at the side of his chafed neck where a strap of his thirty-pound backpack had rested earlier in the day. The vehicle thrashed violently as it passed over potholes, nearly throwing the black-framed sunglasses off of Phil’s face.

Outstretched in all directions was the barren but magnificent landscape of Tanzania’s wilderness. It was all covered in the same red dirt that trailed behind the vehicle and was dotted with specimens of the unique water-storing baobab tree. Low, wispy brush filled the space in between. Phil loved his home state of Virginia, but Africa was really starting to grow on him.

“Rob, where’s she showing up on the tracker?” yelled Elaine, breaking Phil’s train of thought.

Phil and his colleagues, Elaine and Robert, had been conducting studies in the bush for the last four days. The team was observing the behavioral habits of the lesser kudu, a mid-sized antelope with a brown pelt and two spiraling horns jutting out from its head. The animal is indigenous only to the drought-filled lands of Tanzania and is somewhat rare. With a patch of white fur on its face, the kudu had come to be known as the Ghost of the Bushveld. It was 6:27 PM and the team was back at their research once more.

“If I can hold the darn thing still for a second.  The road’s playin’ hell on me right now,” Rob responded. He stared intently at the computer screen and held on to it with a death grip as the image bounced manically. He finally responded, “Aha, looks like she’s bedded down near watering hole 4. Ya got that Phil?”

“Yep. With a left turn up ahead, we’ll be there in a minute,” Phil stated.

The white trunks of parched trees whizzed past the vehicle and rusty red sand spattered the windshield. Phil’s appreciation for the place had grown since his reluctant arrival in Africa last Tuesday. To him, Africa was always referred to as a breeding ground for disease and man eating animals, but now he saw the land much differently. His thoughts were filled with the novelty of it all. From the baobab, the only tree of its kind, which had adapted to store water in its sparse canopy, to the rare antelope that they had tagged and were tracking now, Tanzania was filled with bizarre wonders. That’s why Phil loved it.

However, Phil had been told by the natives of other bizarre wonders that were rumored to fill the land, some very foreboding in nature. The lesser kudu was not the only animal known to have ghost-like qualities in Tanzania. Legend shrouded an elusive creature of the bush, akin to America’s Sasquatch in its mystical properties. It could very well be dismissed as a hoax like most any other monster tale but the few locals who had allegedly seen it shivered with a fear that was undeniably real.

“Phil! Ya with me?” yelled Elaine.

“Yeah yeah. Just daydreaming,” he countered.

“We’re about 1 click out. Let’s park the Cruiser and walk the rest so we don’t disturb it,” Elaine said with urgency.

Phil proceeded to park along the berm and the team swung out of the doors and onto the red soil. They began the short trek to the watering hole where the antelope was holed up.

As his calf-high boots narrowly dragged over dirt mounds and withering twigs, Phil’s mind began to wander once more. He thought back to the lore and mystery surrounding the wilds of Africa, particularly of the ominous legend they were told of before.

Who thinks of stories like this? Only monster story I’ve heard from Africa was ole Scar out of the Lion King.

—————

Upon the team’s arrival in the area, they were greeted by a local man who was distinguished as a tribal elder. He was frail and old and wore tattered robes accompanied by a walking staff. He met the trio with a warm welcome and spoke in an accented variation of English. The elder led them around the nearby village, introduced them to several tribesmen and then sat them down inside a hut with the other village elders for a chat.

“Now, when you go out there, be respectful to the land and be careful of it as well,” an elder warned.

Sure. The Big 5: lion, leopard, hippo, elephant, rhino. Got it. Everyone’s heard of ‘em before.

“Along with the usual dangers, there has been talk of another creature out there,” the elder cautioned. This caught Phil’s attention immediately.

“It’s most likely just a joke to scare the children, but there is a man in the village who is said to have encountered it. He said it was like a white shadow. It moved without weight like mist,” the elder continued.

“Sounds interesting,” Rob blurted out.

“Could we go see the man who spotted it?” Phil asked.

“He is still very shaken up, but we will take you to him,” one of the locals responded.

The small group strolled through the village until they came upon a modest wooden hut. A purple patterned rug draped over the doorway and a torch was lit outside. The elder called into the hut. A shaky voice responded in the native tongue and the elder waved the group in.

As Phil entered the hut his eyes were drawn to a crouching figure in the shadowed corner. The man convulsed as if in a seizure and snapped his head in their direction. He stood up in an instant and burrowed into the corner as if he were about to be attacked. Clearly someone or something had left its mark and the man was terrified.

“Ya know what, let’s the poor guy alone. I apologize for intruding,” Phil said.

“Very well then,” the elder sighed. He muttered an apology to the man in the corner and followed Phil out the door.

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A small berm blocked the view of the watering hole. The group trudged up, loose sand sweeping over their boot laces. As Phil crested the mound, he crouched to view the area below.

The green water of the watering hole lay below, no more than 50-meters across. The same bland foliage dotted the bank, with a few feet of shore on all sides. Phil glanced around for the kudu until his eyes came to rest on a white stomach, overturned on the shore. The sand around it was deeply soaked.

“Ah man. Something got to it before we did,” Phil said with disgust.

“Well, that’s back to camp for us,” Elaine stated.

“Friggin’ lions are relentless man,” Rob chimed in.

“Alright, you guys head back to the truck. I’ll get the tag,” Phil sighed.

The others began the walk back while Phil sidestepped down the mound and walked over to the kudu. He unsheathed his serrated knife, its steel blade glinting white in the sun, and, with it, cut the band of the tracking device on the kudu’s ear. The head had barely been touched but the rest of the body was shredded with hardly any remnant of meat still attached to its skeleton.

Phil then turned about and made the short trek back to the Toyota. There were still other kudu that they had tagged earlier to observe, but Phil scowled at the waste of time and resources that they had experienced tonight. The sun was beginning to fall over the Bushveld. He followed the boot prints that the group had left minutes earlier and finally neared the spot where he had parked the Toyota.

“Alright guys! You better have that AC runni—,” Phil froze in his tracks.

As he rose his head to see the vehicle, he was greeted by a sight of horror: the ground beneath the vehicle was soaked heavily, the same as the kudu, and a single limp arm peeked out from behind one of the tires, which were slashed apart on the axles.

Phil took one small step back, mouth drooped in exasperation with his eyes fixed on the scene ahead of him. From somewhere in near the vehicle arose an ear-shattering scream which Phil felt resonate deep within his stomach.

Over the roof of the Land Cruiser rose a sinister creature. One hand with white fur latched onto the car followed by another. Then the creature leaped up: a humanoid monster coated in white fur with the features of a baboon. Its mouth opened wide as its piercing eyed came to rest upon Phil. Three inch teeth became visible and a low hiss erupted. Blotches or red stained its fur, undoubtedly blood.

Before Phil could run, the monster reared back as if ready to pounce. Phil quickly reached for his knife as the creature took flight from atop the Toyota. Its heft and speed slammed into Phil and flattened him on the red dirt. Phil was trapped and instantly submitted to the freak of nature’s inevitable killing prowess. He lay there on the ground and realized that he wasn’t being attacked. He stayed frozen, eyes shut in fear, for a second more until he glanced up to see his knife buried to the hilt in the beast’s cranium, blood pouring onto Phil’s khaki shirt.

Phil pushed the corpse aside and stood up, dumbfounded. He yanked the knife from the limp body’s skull and thought of escape. The vehicle was not going to get him out for sure with the tire damage. Somewhere ahead of him in the distance, he heard the ominous screams of a creature once more, echoed by several others.

Oh God help me.

He thought back to the water hole and its green depths. He instantaneously turned about and his feet pounded in a mad sprint against the soil. No thought but survival reached Phil’s mind now.

He reached the mound before the pond and dove over it, rolling down the embankment. He jumped back to his feet, back to the water, prepared to make a final stand against this monstrosity of nature.

The red rays of the setting sun were on the verge of abandoning the world to the night. He stood at the edge of the water, steel knife in hand, blade glinting in the last light of day. Silence smothered the air. His lungs pumped vigorously in fear and nervous anticipation. Waves of white began to fill the dimming foliage around him, moving like an ominous mist ready to engulf its prey. The thought echoed in his mind:

This red dirt’s gonna have a little more pigment tonight.

His fate drew closer as did the beginning of night, light fading from the African landscape. He stood ready to kill.

Lightning flew through the air followed by the white flash of a knife. A primordial yell, neither human nor animal, then followed as the waters turned red.