PROLOGUE

The man was deeply asleep, far down in that dark place where life reaches it's lowest ebb, the place sometimes called "the little death", the place most of us visit almost every night- -or wish we could- -without truly knowing the nature of the place we seek. His return to awareness was slow; he resisted, first incorporating the sounds that were disturbing him into dream scenarios that seemed to last for minutes...or perhaps it was only seconds in that place where time sets its own rules and flows in its own directions. He tried to ignore them, explain them away as something other than what they were, but by then he was awake, his mind fully engaged in identifying the sounds.

When the long, quavering wail came again, he grunted in disgust. It's her, he thought, his irritation at being roused slowly escalating into anger. He sat up on the edge of the bed, clumsily fighting the dangling folds of the mosquito net. Grunting, he finally managed to find the opening slit and shoved it to one side. He felt it rip as he did so, and angrily pawed at his gummy eyelids before reaching to snap on the bedside light. His body felt heavy, old, slow to respond as he shoved his feet into slippers, picked up the heavy-duty rectangular flashlight sitting on the nightstand, and left the bedroom.

He cursed loudly when he stumbled over the kitchen stool as he reached for the pull chain on the dangling kitchen light. He didn't need this shit, he thought. It was probably nothing more than a bad dream, but he didn't dare take a chance that it wasn't. Opening the door at the back of the kitchen, he turned on the dim overhead light in the long, narrow hall that ran the rear width of the building, and ended in a small bathroom.

"Just shut up," he yelled, as the anguished wail came again, louder now that he was closer. "God damn it! I'm coming!"

His slippers made hollow slapping sounds on the bare wood floor as he walked, shuffling and scuffling noisily as he approached and opened the door to the second of four rooms that lined the right side of the hall on the outside wall of the building. The bottom of the door was solid wood; the upper half consisted of one-inch square chain link mesh nailed to the frame. The same kind of mesh covered the single glassless window in each of the four side-by-side rooms. The door swung inward. There was no knob on the inside, and he left it standing open as he snapped on the flashlight. Mentally he damned the German architect who sat at a drawing board in Berlin years before and decided that three thousand miles away in these four rooms in Africa that he would never see, no light fixtures were needed.

She was curled up in a whimpering ball on the cot in the corner. There were no covers on the cot, and no mosquito netting to deter insects. There was just a bare, much used, mattress covered with dirty blue and white striped ticking, and she was naked except for the thin, cotton shift-like nightgown she wore. For just a moment, no more, he felt a flash of pity. She looked so small and defenseless in the harsh, white glare of the flashlight. Then she wailed again and the anger returned.

He balanced the flashlight on its square end on the floor so it reflected light back from the white ceiling, and seated himself on the cot beside her. "What's wrong?" he asked, as he roughly grasped her ankles, turned her on her back, and pulled her legs out straight. Then he spread them so he could examine her pelvic area.

"Oh," she moaned. "It hurts." Her arms were up, her hands concealing her face.

"What hurts? Where do you hurt?" He quickly ran his hands over her distended belly, checking for contractions, then slid an exploratory hand between her legs, checking for wetness, assuring himself that nothing was overtly amiss with her pregnancy. He needed to be sure. It was much too early for labor and delivery, and almost anything could complicate matters. He still felt clumsy, not fully awake, anxious to get this over with and get back to sleep.

"My ear hurts," she whimpered. "Here." She cupped her ear with her hand. Her voice was high and delicate, childlike.

He slid up on the cot beside her and leaned over close to her face, his neck almost touching her cheek as he tried to get a good look at the ear in the dim light. I hope it isn't an infection that will require heavy doses of antibiotics, he thought disgustedly. That's all I need this late in her pregnancy.

Those were his last coherent thoughts. Her arms were around his neck in an instant, holding his head in place with a strength that surprised him. So strong...! Why is she hugging...? Oh, she's biting...! My ne... . Chew...ing... .

The disjointed fragments were swept away in a sensory whirlpool of sounds and pain. She was growling deep in her chest, a vibration more felt than heard as, with mouth open wide and lips peeled back from her white teeth, she chewed through his jugular vein, ripping and gnawing with mechanical ferocity. Gripping his head tightly, she ignored the wild flailing of his arms, the kicking legs that sent the flashlight flying across the room, the agonized grunting, gargling sounds he made. She didn't stop chewing until a gush of hot, coppery-smelling blood sprayed across her face, and splashed up the wall at the head of the cot. She held him then, until the rhythmical gushing ceased, the blood flow became a trickle, finally stopped, and he became still.

She pushed him from her then, and sat up on the edge of the cot as his body flopped grotesquely to the floor, the blood looking black in the diffused light. After a moment, she rubbed her side. He had hurt her in his flailing attempts to escape, but she felt a sense of urgency now and ignored the pain.

Her movements were methodical, deliberate as she unhurriedly walked from the room and went down the hall to the bathroom at the end. Stretching upward on her tiptoes, she tugged the dangling cord that turned on the light; removing her blood-soaked nightgown, she stood looking at it for a moment before dropping it to lie like a wet, crimson and white flower garishly blooming on the gray cement floor. She moved to the shower, and turned on the water, then stepped in, carefully scrubbing with her hands to remove the blood from her body and hair. Then she turned her face up to the spray, and stood for long moments letting the water run in and out of her mouth to wash away the blood taste.

She was small, perhaps five feet one inch tall, but perfectly formed, the swell of her pregnant belly graceful, a natural part of her inherent femininity. Her dark brown hair was raggedly cut short, and wet wisps lay darkly plastered on her forehead. She was neither dark skinned nor fair, her complexion lying somewhere in between; dark eyebrows arched gracefully over eyes of an unusual shade of blue, and her features were small and regular. Looking at her as she stood there, it would be difficult--if not impossible--for anyone to envision her having any part in the bloody, violent scene that had just taken place down the hall.

She had only one blemish...high on the left side of her chest, halfway between the point of bone by the hollow in her throat and the point of her shoulder, was a neat row of inch high, reddish-white scars. For a moment, touching them one at a time, her fingers traced the four distinct X's there. They were neatly drawn thin lines, deeply etched. No cutting tool had made them, and no burning brand had left them there. They had been very slowly, carefully, and painstakingly traced with the tip of a surgical probe dipped in acid…without benefit of anesthetic.

There were no towels in the bathroom, and naked, still dripping, she stepped around the bloody nightgown and walked back down the hall to the kitchen without glancing right or left. She didn't notice the bloody footprints she had left on her way to the bathroom; even if she had, it would have meant nothing to her.

Almost as though dazed, she stopped in the center of the kitchen and slowly looked around. After a moment, she went to a small board nailed to the wall by the back door. Selecting a large key from the half-dozen hanging there, she turned and walked out the screen door. The black coiled spring attached to the doorjamb pulled it shut behind her with a thud, momentarily dislodging the moths and flying beetles attracted by the light. Stepping off of the back porch, she rounded the building, walked to the high iron gate in front that was the only opening in the high walls, and used the key to open the heavy padlock that held it shut. After tugging at it a moment, she managed to remove it from the heavy hasps, and, without removing the key, dropped it in the dirt beside her bare feet.

The moonlight was silvery bright, painting deeply etched shadows, illuminating and tracing the well-worn ruts of the single track dirt road leading to the right of the gate. She looked down at her feet. The heavy red dust of the yard had coated them to the ankle, sticking to their wetness, giving them the appearance of being shod in some strange kind of soft, form-fitting shoes. To the left beyond the compound, the road continued, but it was scarcely more than a faint track nearly overgrown by the jungle. A dark threatening tunnel, the thick hanging vines and pressing trees swallowed the moonlight before it could penetrate more than a few feet.

She had been born inside the walls of the compound, and never in her short life been outside of them. She hesitated just inside the gate now, whimpering, filled with fear of the unknown. Then quickly, without looking back, she pulled it open just enough to slip through. Barefoot and naked, silent tears running down her face leaving silvery tracks in the moonlight, she stepped through the gate, turned down the track to the left, and entered that unknown dark. She felt her way slowly, carefully, pausing often to listen. A few hundred feet into the dark, leafy tunnel, she turned off the track and pushed her way into the undergrowth. Ignoring the unavoidable pricks, jabs and scrapes from rough and mostly unseen vegetation, she steadily made her way deeper into the jungle.

Once she paused as the baby stretched and changed position inside her. Her arms protectively cradled her bulging stomach for a moment. Then she raised one arm and touched the scars on her shoulder. "You are my babe," she whispered to the child inside her. "No one will hurt you or take you away."

After a moment, she moved on and disappeared into the darkness.