Blood Forest (Suspense thriller) Read Free Page A

whatever evil magic might be at work inside the hut.
    “ Uya kivali .”
    Alfred Tabibu repeated the simple phrase that had haunted his dreams for the past three years. He hoped that hearing those words would jog the old man’s memory.
    The wrinkled, white-haired Bantu man lay back on the small cot. The old man suffered from severe dementia and already his own family and fellow villagers had begun to grow weary and suspicious of his condition. If he had not been Michanga’s uncle, their superstition might have turned them against him.
    Alfred’s attempts to get into the man’s troubled brain had so far spanned three different languages.
    Delani Ngedwa paced back and forth near the entrance to the hut, glaring menacingly at the Bantu villagers that dared to peer into the baraza . Delani was a monstrous-looking man, a muscled South African with a vicious scar across his left cheek. He would have been intimidating even without the Glock machine pistol resting on his hip.
    Two of his men, Kipwe and Gilles, stood near him, each heavily armed and looking nervous. The Mai-Mais that controlled the village had allowed Alfred to talk to the old man after extracting a “tax,” but the air was rife with tension.
    Nessa Singer stood to Alfred’s right. Her face looked, as always, pensive. She had wavy, brown hair that fell in a ponytail to her shoulders and caramel skin, seeming not at all affected by the tropical weather. Her brown eyes looked forward and, only because Alfred knew Nessa so well, could he see the frustration in them.
    Alfred lifted his left hand and rested it on the edge of the cot. The weight of the hand caused the bed to sag and drew the old man’s attention back. For a moment, the fog cleared from his eyes. He seemed aware of his surroundings.
    “ Uya kivali. L’reconnaissez-vous ?” Alfred asked.
    To Alfred’s relief the old man nodded, his eyes going wide. The old man began to describe a flower with ten overlapping, long bright-white petals, each marked with a soft blue star. Alfred listened with hope as the man told of a place where the rainforest dipped and turned into swamp. The shade from the canopy overhead and the cool moisture provided the environment that the plant needed to grow. Alfred had heard such a description before, but now the thirty-five year old chemist was on the verge of discovering the flower’s exact location.
    Alfred turned immediately to Michanga. The village chief had been watching silently with small eyes, set into a weathered face. The addition of a fur hat made the man appear more like a stuffed bear than a patriarch, but he seemed to think it made him look authoritative.
    “Do you know where this is?” Alfred asked.
    Michanga nodded, but he hesitated. “It is a place not far from here,” he explained. “But right now, that river is flooded. The area is underwater. In three months you can go there.”
    “Three months?” Alfred asked. He rapped his right arm lightly against his knee, feeling the hard prosthetic click against his bone. His actual arm ended at the elbow. The plastic extended up, replacing his forearm, and then ended in a curved, metal hook.
    “That’s a long time to wait to see if this old man is right,” Nessa whispered quietly near his ear. Although she seemed to be advising him, he knew better. She was telling him that they needed to find another place.
    “Three months and you can have your magic flower,” Michanga insisted with a nod.
    Alfred nodded, removing his glasses from his face. In the humidity they had fogged up, as they often did. He dangled the glasses off of the hook on his right arm and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket with his left. He proceeded to wipe off each of the lenses as he reasoned through the situation.
    “Do you know of another area that is like that?” he asked Michanga, who merely shrugged and shook his head.
    Nessa leaned over again and whispered to Alfred. “This man is an idiot. The only thing he knows about