Chapter Four

As the creature launched itself at me, an idea flashed through my mind. Time did seem to slow down, just as the novels often described. But I knew it was partly because of my training. The abomination that was wanting my flesh took only two strides before it was upon me. I immediately grabbed it’s outstretched hands and pulled it towards me with every ounce of strength pent up inside of me. It’s guttural scream stopped for a few milliseconds as it must have realised it’s teeth and jaws were missing my head. I had let go of it’s hands and side-stepped while dropping to the floor. It smashed through the security door like it was balsa wood and carried on going through the glass window and out of the fifth storey howling all the way down. I was up and at the shattered window quicker than I thought possible, and heard a sickening crunch as the creature’s momentum plus Newton’s gravity and God’s earth met all at once.

I took deep gulping breaths and tried to collect my thoughts. I heard more and more screams and howling as the murder and slaughter spread through the building. I knew I had to do two things. First, I had to alert the authorities. Second, I had to get out of here quickly.

The smashed door behind me lay in tatters on the floor, so I found my way back into the receiving area of the lab easily. I still didn’t feel the glass in my shoulder until I felt some blood dripping down the side of my neck. But I didn’t have enough time to stop and sort it out now.

I climbed through the receiving window, careful this time not to cut myself on the shards of glass. I walked slowly to the door where I had vomited and slowly peered into the lab. Sprays of bright red blood splattered the walls and what remained of the containment tents. Those were torn to shreds in a few places. I heard a horrible gurgling and munching sound, and as I looked more carefully I could see another creature had it’s face buried in Sipho’s abdomen, loops of bowel lying on the floor around it, being ingested rapidly.

Suddenly, it stopped and sniffed the air. I held my breath and didn’t move an inch. I knew I had to get to my part of the lab to get my car keys and cell phone, but that creature would easily see me if I walked there. After a few seconds, which felt like hours, it lowered it’s head again and continued it’s feast. Slowly I stepped back into the admin office and quietly removed my shoes. I would come back for them after I had accomplished my first mission. 

The creature was still feasting when I got back to the doorway, and took advantage of it’s preoccupation and the noise it was making by quietly darting across into the lab and crouched down behind a work bench. I ducked my head down and could see the thing feasting. 

Suddenly it stopped and it’s head disappeared and I lost visual on it, but I heard that sniffing once again. It was then that I noticed a lab technician hiding behind and underneath the bench in the next row down. He was shaking visibly and his eyes widened when he saw me. I slowly raised my finger to my lips to indicate to him to stay dead still. But he kept shaking and whispered “Help.” I kept my finger on my lip indicating to him to shut up and with my other hand made a sign to calm down. But he didn’t seem to understand and slowly crept out from under the bench. I shook my head as vigorously as I dared to, and he froze. There was a heavy crunch immediately above him. My vision was obscured but I knew with terror that the creature had jumped onto the bench and was directly above the technician. His face froze in an expression of abject terror, and before I could move, there was a hellish howl and the creature jumped on top of the tech, grabbed his head and literally ripped it right off. You may not believe me, but that was how strong those monsters are. The tech didn’t even have enough time to scream and I made a quiet note that at least he hadn’t suffered in his death. The creature grabbed the body of the tech, jumped off the bench and walked away from me, dragging the corpse behind him. I then realised the creature had been that second paramedic, but I was fascinated in a horrified kind of way that he was now twice his original size, and his skin now looked almost reptilian. 

He disappeared around the far corner of the lab and I sat there for a few minutes, slowly breathing in and out, trying to slow my racing heart. But the adrenaline still flowed and I knew I needed to use it to good effect.

Slowly I got out from behind the bench and glanced towards my work area, then quickly scanned the room, and made my way across the lab. There was blood and grey matter and limbs lying all over the place, so I had to tread very carefully. Having got to my work bench, I put on my coat and felt for my cell phone in it’s inner pocket. I pulled it out and was relieved to note that there was still signal. 

I had spent three years in the military after my medical studies, and the time was spent in Military Intelligence. And I still had high-up clearance because of my regular one month per year that I still spent on active duty in the army. It was only for that reason that I knew exactly who to phone and what to say. I dialled the secret coded number that automatically scrambled my already-secure smartphone, and lifted it to my ear, still keeping an ear and eyes out for any trouble that might be heading my way.

It rang once only. There was silence on the other end, and I spoke my code word into the phone.

“Delta-Bravo-Foxtrot-Lima Mirage.”

There was a small click on the other end and then a woman’s voice said, “Authenticate - Bravo-1-9-3-3.”

I quickly did the decipher in my head.

“Camelot.”

“Good morning General Smit. Please hold for Cheetah.”

There was a pause of about 5 seconds.

“Frank, I suppose this isn’t a curtesy call?” The voice was that of the Chief of Military Intelligence, General Strongman Mkhize.

“No sir. We have a code Red Vector.” There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end.

“Where are you now?”

“At Albert Luthuli. There must have been a virus in the blood of the specimens we acquired.”

“Yes, I had a horrible feeling about this when you informed me about the discoveries. Sometimes things that are buried should remain buried. How is Rachel taking it?”

I paused, my voice suddenly quivering “She was the first to turn.” I paused again. “Strongman, remember when we found those bio-weapons in Angola in 2009? The characteristics are similar. But, my friend, these…..creatures, are beyond anything….. Their musculature doubles in size within five minutes, and they deliberately leave some victims uninjured except for a bite. They know they want to spread the infection, or at the very least there is some form of lower intelligence. The last one I saw had skin that started to change to look almost reptilian, but I can’t be sure.”

“I’m so sorry Frank. Rachel was a real gem. I know you have this level of clearance, but I must tell you something that is a few levels above Top Secret. There have been the same reports coming in from my colleagues in the United States and Britain. All the parts of the specimens are infected with some sort of virus. One of the lab techs in Houston managed to escape the laboratory with a sealed sample, and rapid testing in the field showed them that this virus is related to the Rabies virus strain 1334, the Russian Wolf Strain. But there is a whole extra sequence of RNA that we have never seen before. I’ve lost contact with my counterpart in Houston, but we are trying to re-establish communication.”

“Strongman, this thing needs to be contained, and you are going to need to weaponise our soldiers with everything you’ve got. These things are fast and beyond dangerous. They are terrifying.”

My Commander paused again. Then he said, “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but when communications went silent with the US, General George Meade told me that if their containment procedures don’t work….” He stopped again. Then continued with a strained and hoarse voice, “…then they were going to use Ultra Containment Means.”

I gasped when I heard this. “They can’t use Nukes to contain this!” I tried not to raise my voice. “That’s suicide.”

“Frank, if they don’t, it will be suicide anyway. Another thing I didn’t tell you was that they received some samples of the specimen before any of you did, and that the compound where they were running tests in Pensacola was overrun within about 5 minutes of first exposure. General Meade told me that when he lost contact with Admiral Kendridge, the southern districts of Pensacola were already overrun and the city was in flames.”

“Why weren’t we informed of this?! They could have prevented this from happening! Rachel might still be alive, at least be herself!” My voice was beginning to get louder, and I knew I was putting myself at risk. But I was spitting mad.

“Frank, calm down. You need to keep yourself safe. Where exactly are you at the moment?”

I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm myself down and answered him, telling him exactly where I was.

“I can get a chopper to the roof of the hospital in about fifteen minutes, Frank. They are at SAAF base on the South Coast near Umlazi. They are on 24-hour call and can be there quickly.” Before I could answer him, I heard him partly cover his receiver and speaking into another device. It only took about thirty seconds. “Frank, be on the roof at 08h20. They are coming in hot and are going to expect hostiles. They will include a unit of Para-Bats.” The Para-Bats had earned a notorious reputation during the South African bush war on the Angolan border some thirty years prior to this, but their extremely high standards and training had kept them at the top of their game and having worked with them during my time in military Intel I knew they were the meanest SOBs in the business. The US Navy SEALs had nothing on these guys. So I knew I was in good hands.

“Frank, we need to get you to safety because you are the only one in South Africa that has any know-how, and you still have access to some samples I presume?” It didn’t really sound like a question but I gave the affirmative anyway. “Secure the samples and make sure you are secure from them as well! Be there. You’ve now got twelve minutes.”

I had already been carefully placing pieces of the femur into high-tensile strength test-tubes, and securing them using our vacuum machine while he was talking, and had also made my way warily across the lab to where Rachel had been working, and had retrieved a tube which obviously contained blood drawn from her specimens and placed them all inside a special double-walled, auto-cooled, high-tech vacuum pack that was usually used for organ transport for organ donation.

“I’ve got them under lock and key, Strongman. I’m on my way to the roof already.”

“Be safe, Frank. Let me know when you get back to base.”

He cut off the connection before I could ask what the containment procedures were going to be.

Chapter Three

We walked into the technical part of the lab in the Department of Anatomical Pathology at Albert Luthuli hospital near Durban. It had become my home since the beginning of my specialising 8 years proir to this. The technicians had cleared away the one room and set up a partial containment zone. I didn’t think it was necessary because of the age of the specimens.

I could feel the excitement like electricity coursing through us as we walked hand-in-hand into the department. We were eagerly anticipating our own aspect of the investigations we were about to perform. Not only had blood samples been sent from the wolf-skin veins, but there had also been sent with it some non-fossilised femur bone segments of the Nordic warrior himself for me to do my ‘magic’ on. I had at my disposal the latest Electron Microscope, light microscope stains and Immuno-Histochemical stains available. And, my word was I excited! The last time I had felt this excited was when I walked onto the platform to receive my own PhD.

We were met by our department secretary, Meloshni.

“Dr’s Smit. We are all so excited! The specimens arrived an hour ago and are already inside that quarantine tent. We have cleared out half of the technicians working space for it.”

“They probably aren’t too happy with that.” I muttered half to myself.

“No, Prof, they are actually extremely excited. They know that this is history in the making!”

Quite soon we made our way to the lab section where we donned our protective gear.

“Careful honey.” I said to Rachel. She smiled back and nodded.

Our two compartments were situated on the opposite side of the lab, but I could make out where she was working because the tent walls were partly see-through. I pulled the femur out of its packaging and began to process it like I would a normal specimen. I could hear the whirring noise of a centrifuge as Rachel had obviously begun her own series of tests. We were both wearing a hooded protection suite. 

An hour later it happened. The first I noticed that the noises from Rachel’s cubicle had ceased altogether. I glanced up but couldn’t see her anywhere. I called out to here but there  was no reply. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I felt a sensation like ice water running down my spine. I got up and rapidly made my way to her cubicle, breaking protocol.

When I arrived there, I gasped in horror and immediately shouted for help. Rachel was lying on the floor motionless. On the floor next to her was a test-tube that lay shattered. I noticed that her right glove was torn and there was blood pouring out of the hole. I rushed to her side and turned her face towards me. I screamed a curse at the sight of her face. It had changed from it’s usual tan colour to a green and grey patchy colour, and spit was foaming at the corners of her mouth. I grabbed a nearby towel and wrapped it around her hand - the blood had now changed from a dark red to a green colour. I tore open her suite and listened to her chest with my ear resting up against it, while feeling for a pulse. I felt no breath, and felt no pulse. Immediately I began chest compressions, but abstained from doing mouth-to-mouth. The on-site paramedics arrived and gave her the once over. In the meantime, lots of people had gathered nearby, ignoring the quarantine.

“Sorry Prof Smit. She’s dead.”

Suddenly, Rachel sat bolt-upright, screaming a guttural scream that rattled her chest. I will never forget that scream until my dying day - which could be any time. Everyone else screamed, and she was on her feet rapidly, and then leapt onto the nearest paramedic, digging her fingers into his throat, and biting down hard onto his face, and then pulled away, ripping half of his face with it. He was flailing, trying to get her off of him, but she grabbed both of his arms with hers and bent them backwards quickly, snapping the bones and dislocating the shoulders. His screams turned to gurgles as he collapsed.

At this point, the group of people gathering began to scatter, screaming. The second paramedic also stood no chance, although Rachel just bit into his neck once, and he fell. I had raced out the cubicle and was heading towards the front part of the lab when Sipho our resident security guard rushed past, his Glock 9mm in his right hand. His eyes locked onto mine briefly.

“Kill her, Sipho. She isn’t Rachel any more.” I couldn’t believe what I was saying. His nod was very brief, and then he raced on. When I reached the admin receiving area, I stopped and looked behind me. I was shocked to see the second paramedic jump up and start running after the fleeing people. Sipho stopped and took careful aim and fired. The paramedic fell, then Rachel took two bullets to the chest. She didn’t fall. The paramedic, though, was up again in a few seconds, clearly enraged. It was then that I noticed that their skin color had become a dark grey-green, and I could have sworn that Rachel was bigger than before. 

She caught up with someone, and as she ripped the person’s head clean off, I noticed that her muscles were much larger and more well developed. The next person she just bit in the neck. The paramedic was doing the same type of thing, and before long, they had disappeared around the corner of the far end of the lab.

I heard more gunshots as Sipho turned the corner. I watched in horror as someone, or one of those things, flew into him, punching it’s hand into his chest, pulling out his heart and begin eating it. I vomited immediately. At the sound of me vomiting, the creature stopped feeding, turned it’s head towards me and cocked it’s head to one side, sniffing the air. Howling, it suddenly leapt up again, and began racing through the tent towards me. My adrenaline kicked in and immediately I turned and fled. I had already torn off my Hazmed suit when I had arrived in the receiving area.

Even though my age was against me, my military training and continued Marshall Arts had kept me lean and fast. But I knew I had to find a way of escaping quickly. I ran through the reception area of the lab and jumped through the receiving window, shattering the glass as I did so, feeling shards of it lodging deep in my left shoulder and slashing my left ear.

As I scrambled up, I could hear the grunting of the creature behind me. I ran towards the door that led into the lab, turning the handle and pushing. But it didn’t budge. A cold realisation hit the pit of my stomach as I realised it was a security-activated door and my security card was still in the area of the lab that I had been working in. I turned, and ten metres away down the corridor stood the creature, it’s eyes were glowing amber, and it’s grunting suddenly turned to howling as it launched itself at me.

Chapter Two

The day before our scheduled departure for Zimbabwe, we received another Skype call from Akeesha to tell us that it wouldn’t be necessary for us to go after all. The body had been successfully exhumed and processed, and samples of the bones and various tissues as well as the wolf-skin and blood that was still in the veins had been taken and dispatched to various academic centres. So it was with much disappointment that we had to wait for the samples to be delivered to us in Durban.

***

We could hardly contain our excitement as I pushed our SUV well past the maximum speed-limit down the N3 freeway towards Durban. The blood and wolf skin and Nordic Warrior specimens had arrived in South Africa, and technicians at our varsity were getting all of the specimens ready under containment procedures. The delivery of the specimens world-wide had been timed so that simultaneous investigations could begin.

“I haven’t felt this excited in ages” said Rachel, eagerly. Her face was alight with wonder and anticipation. I reached over and grabbed her hand in mine and it felt as natural as it had when we had first started dating some twenty years previously.

I grinned broadly as well, and focused on the road in front of me. In those moments my mind wandered back to when I first met Rachel. 

***

I was in my first year of studying History at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg. I was loving it, and I was a party animal of note. Every Thursday night was party night in Maritzburg, and my word did I love to party!

On one particular Friday morning, I was suffering more than I normally did. My mouth felt like the inside of a dog’s rectum, and my eyes felt like I had fallen asleep with my head buried in sand. My head felt like I had a hundred midgets with jack-hammers pounding away at the inside of my cranium.

But, second period on a Friday morning was our European History 103 - my course, the one I wanted to continue. So I somehow managed to pull myself together after my alarm had rang five times and I had put it on snooze each time. 

I rolled off my bed onto the hard wooden floor of our shared digs where five of us guys lived together. My head hit the floor as well and I groaned with the extra bolts of lightning shooting through it. I slowly got onto all fours and grabbing my bed I pulled myself to standing.

Once in the kitchen, as quickly as possible I grabbed a cup of instant coffee. My stomach protested loudly at the scorching caffeine so I took a milk bottle and drank a big few gulps directly from the bottle. The stomach settled and then I added some yoghurt to it. I continued the coffee whilst popping two Asprin’s and two Panado’s. I looked at the clock on the wall and swore loudly. I was going to be late if I didn’t haul ass quickly. I ran to my room again and hastily put on some deodorant and pulled on some fresh clothes. I couldn’t find my car keys, and anger started growing inside of me. In the hallway there was no bunch of keys awaiting me either, but I found a note from Geoff, one of my digs-mates. He had borrowed my car to get to his early morning swimming training and would be back in time for me to get to my classes. But he wasn’t back in time. I punched the wall a bit too hard, and pain immediately told me I had done some damage to it. Swearing loudly I went out the front door onto the porch where I found my mountain-bike. Grabbing it, and hoisting my varsity backpack onto my back, which I had retrieved from the floor in the hallway, I carried the bike down the stairs and jumped onto it and began cycling to varsity.

I knew I was going to be late, so decided to try some biking tricks to get there on time. Again, I won’t bore you with too many details, but as I rounded the bend in a road, I slammed into the back of a semi-truck that was stationary, and I was knocked off my bike landing hard on the tarmac, and I then went blank, surrounded by a cloud of intense pain everywhere.

When I woke up, I was very disoriented, images of the partying the previous night intermingled with brief flashes of the morning’s event. I looked around me and found myself in a hospital emergency room. As I lifted my head, bright lights exploded inside and I lowered my head quickly. 

“Hello bike-man” the voice was soft and gentle, and a face swam into view above mine. As my eyes corrected, it focused on the face of the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my entire life. The smile was warm and open, and the eyes were bright green and sparkled with life and vitality.

“Wow” my voice croaked out. I tried again and cleared my throat.

“Wow, you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” The face blushed and she said “I’m sure that’s a good line that you must use often.”

“No, seriously.” I kept my voice down because if I raised it a bit my head protested. “What’s your name? Why are you here? Are you a doctor or a nurse?”

“All these questions” she tut-tutted. “I was driving behind that semi-truck which you connected with. I brought you here to St Anne’s Hospital.

“Thank you.”

“I think you’ve broken your hand, as well as a leg-bone. The orthopaedic specialist has just been in.” She chuckled for a few moments. “He thought we were boyfriend and girlfriend.”

I chuckled along with her, loving the sound of her voice. “What did you say?”

“I said we met by accident, and that it’s too early to tell if we are going steady or not.”

I laughed, and immediately regretted it because of a stabbing pain in my right chest.

“Oh, sorry. I forgot to mention that you also have two cracked ribs.” Her voice had changed to genuine concern.

“Don’t leave, please?” I asked her. I knew I was going to have to go to the operating theatre to have my leg fixed and couldn’t bear the thought of waking up without anyone being around.

“But isn’t there a girlfriend or family you want me to call?” the tone in her voice sounded a bit distant and off-ish.

I sighed a long but ginger sigh. The were a few moments silence and I was glad she didn’t say anything. So much ran around in my head that I wanted to hide from, but there was something so special about this girl that I needed to talk to.

“No, there is no-one.” I paused again, turning my head properly for the first time to look at this angel that had stepped into my life, who was standing next to my bed. I hadn’t realised it until now, but she was holding my hand, and the physical contact was warm, and reassuring. Something special. She smiled again and nodded almost imperceptibly. So I continued, and told her about how both my folks had been killed in a car crash when I was ten years old and that I had grown up with my older sister. She had developed leukaemia at the age of 22 and died a month later, and I was left with no-one. I stayed with a friend’s family until I left school and fortunately my very good grades at school ensured a full scholarship at the university, including living expenses.

When I had finished, I looked up at her again, and was surprised to see tears in her eyes, which she slowly wiped off with her thumb. She still hadn’t let go my hand.

“The orthopaedic surgeon said it’s going to be a long process of healing after that accident. You are going into theatre in about an hour’s time.”

I continued looking at her. “Will you be here when I come around?”

She hesitated, and then said the strangest thing. “Where is your spirit, Frank?”

My first question was “How did you know my name?”

She laughed again and said “Your ID and medical aid card were in your wallet. And my name is Rachel.” Then she got serious again and repeated the previous question.

“To be honest with you, Rachel, I don’t know. I’ve been angry at God for a long time and felt abandoned by him.” I stopped and looked out the window, thinking deeply about things that I had been trying to drown in alcohol and parties for far too long. Eventually, I sighed again and looked at her and said “I need help to get back to Him.” It was a simple statement full of intent, and fear.

She nodded, and said “I will be here, and I will visit you every day and we will talk lots.”

“But you don’t even know me” I said.

“I know lots about you already. It’s only the time factor that makes you think that.”

She then proceeded to tell me about her, how she was in first year science, that she was a Christian, that, like me, had lost both parents when she was young and grew up with her uncle and aunt in the Natal midlands. The nurses arrived while she was talking to me and gave me a tablet to take under my tongue. Things became blurry after that, and the last thing I remember before the operation was me asking her never to leave me, and she smiled back at me and said “Hang in there biker-boy.”

When I awoke, I felt like I was swimming in a warm fuzzy gooey pool. I knew it was the Morphine. I slowly opened my eyes and looked at myself. My left leg was in a cast with a metallic frame which a came to know later as the External Fixator. My right hand was also in a cast. I looked around the room and was surprised to see Rachel sitting in the chair next to my bed.

“Hey rescuer.” My voice croaked.

She looked up and smiled in a way that made my tummy flip over a few times. I had been so overwhelmed by pain initially that I hadn’t really had a good look at her, but looking at her now I was blown away with how beautiful she was.

“Hey Biker-boy. You’ve been asleep for quite a while.”

I glanced out the window. It was dark outside. I was immediately concerned.

“It’s dark outside, Rachel. You should be getting home.” In those days, crime was still very high in South Africa, especially violent hi-jacking. 

Again that gorgeous smile.

“Don’t you worry about me. How are you feeling?”

“Great - the morphine is too nice.”

I fell silent and stared at the wall, suddenly feeling empty inside despite the artificial glow of the morphine.

“A penny for your thoughts. Talk to me Biker-boy.” She put down her book and came and sat on the bed next to me. Again, I noticed she took my left hand in hers. 

So began our relationship. I had wandered far from God, angry at him for so many things, and over the course of the next week, she let me vent, and after I had let it out, she had let me cry. I hadn’t cried for years, but when the tears started, they didn’t stop, and her embrace was the greatest source of comfort I had ever had. Then she gave me a Bible and told me to read. So I did. And, you guessed right, I found my way back to God. Or, should I rather say, He reached out and plucked me from the edge of the abyss that I had been staring at for so many years.

When I came out of hospital, I started going to church with her and formed amazing friendships with the young adults there. My varsity grades suddenly started climbing, despite the fact that Rachel and I spent almost every waking moment together. Her ideas about intimacy were very strong and she set the boundaries in place right from the start. I wanted nothing more than to take her back to my digs and make sweet love to her, but I respected her and God’s Word.

Our wedding was about a year later - fortunately both of us had those full scholarships to fall back on so finances were fine, allowing us to find a small house in Scottsville near the varsity. It wasn’t much, but we didn’t need much. Our honeymoon was the most special time of my life….

***

Sorry, I just needed a break from writing there - I became overwhelmed by what I have just written.

Anyway, undergrad years turned to post-grad years turned to PhD years and lecturing and you know the other stuff from earlier on. Rachel was my world, my life, my everything. And she was taken from me.

Chapter One

The thing that my wife and I unwittingly helped to unleash has destroyed mankind, except for a tiny, ravished remnant. Without someone with knowledge like hers in one of the most unique fields of human study, it wouldn’t have happened. Without her genius mind connecting seemingly un-connectable dots, it wouldn’t have happened. Without the expedition that found what, to me now, should never have been found, it wouldn’t have happened. Without the expedition having been so successful, it wouldn’t have happened. Without some seemingly random mutations, it wouldn’t have happened. Without the release of the virus, it wouldn’t have happened. The virus. The Berserker Virus. Once the “release line” was crossed, there was no going back, no matter how good the containment attempts were. And, my goodness, were those containment attempts good! But they didn’t work. And that is how I come to be sitting on a rocky prominence in the Drakensberg mountain-range looking out at the vast expanse of hills, and fields below, in what once was South Africa.

Maybe I should formally introduce myself. Frank Smit. Professor-of-Napoleonic-Studies-at-the-University-of-Kwa-Zulu-Natal-turned medical doctor. The year is 2020. I am currently 40 years old. The month is September, date is the 21^st. It would have been my wife’s 38^th birthday today. And since I have survived, I thought it best to honour her memory by putting to paper the events that began in July of 2019. It truly is remarkable to think it has been over a year now.

My wife’s name is, or was, should I say, Rachel. She was a world expert in an extremely narrow field - that of medical mytho-archeology. It sounds really impressive, and to tell you the truth, I still don’t fully grasp it. But I know enough to give you plenty of back-story to my account of the events from that July morning onwards. We had two children. Carmen would have been seven this December if she had survived. Matthew, our honeymoon baby, is now fourteen years old, and has matured unnaturally fast since the gates of Tartarus were opened and has seen more horror than a boy of his age should.

Rachel’s expertise took her all over the world, and most of the time I got to go with her. In the beginning, when she was just starting her PhD, I would lead all of her expeditions. Those days were exciting, and often frustrating. Her first PhD finally and conclusively dated fossilised bones at being no more than seven to ten thousand years old. It took her five years to have her PhD granted because her research and conclusions were so earth shattering that the staid old scientific community resisted it to the last. Kind of like General George Custer. But, just like him, their days were numbered. As a result of her work, there followed a slew of high-profile research projects that confirmed her findings on multiple continents and under the authority of a number of world-class universities. Within five years of that PhD having been granted, the scientific community finally put to bed the reign of Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism, which had held sway over the scientific community ever since the very first publication of Darwin’s ‘Origins’. Intelligent Design became the new gold-standard for scientific research. To us, it was a huge leap in the right direction, and was far more than we could ever have hoped or expected. Those who had wanted to publish research that had relied on the premise of Intelligent Design before Rachel’s paper had stood no chance. But after Darwin was laid to rest, there was once again a major upsurge in scientific discovery. For decades, research had kept scientific knowledge growing at a slow rate, despite what the popular media said. However, soon that knowledge exploded, and major advances were made in every major field of study. 

Rachel went on to do a further five PhD’s, during which time I studied medicine, did my internship and Community service and then immediately specialised in Pathology. Rachel’s last two PhD’s focused more on the medical side, and especially ancient medicine. She became a leading expert in Norse medicine and mythology for her last paper, and the second last was the about the medical advances of the ancient Zimbabweans and the impact they had on the other ancient, post-Babel peoples in Southern Africa. She was the youngest person to ever achieve six PhDs in the space of four years (that is the granting of them, not necessarily the hair-raising hell-ride through Darwin-infested waters!).

It was because of these two fields of expertise that she received an unusual Skype call on July 3^rd 2019. It was because of these two fields of expertise that she received an unusual Skype call on February 3^rd 2019. Akeesha, one of her graduate students from University of KZN in Durban had taken up a position in Norway teaching Norse mythology to under-graduates. During a local dig in the mountains north of Oslo, Akeesha and her students had excavated a very strange and never-before-seen artefact that made no sense to her. The reason for this was that the runes on the piece of pottery were much older than the oldest known Nordic runes, and along with them was accompanied drawings and another artefact. This second one was a perfectly round stone that had obviously been placed inside the original pot, which was recovered fully and re-constructed. The strange thing was that the rock had been engraved with a type of hieroglyphic that seemed to have elements of Norse and some completely new element that had never been seen before. It took Akeesha and her fellow Professors some eight months to unlock the first two words of the Nordic runes only, and that slow progress made Akeesha call Rachel.

I know I’m probably boring you, but I have to write this down so that maybe some day my stuff will be dug up and deciphered and those future archeologists will be warned against the Apocalypse. And, I don’t care if I’m boring you - it’s cathartic for me!

Anyway, now that I’ve had my explosion, I will carry on. But I will cut a long story a bit shorter. The pottery runes described a meeting that took place between one of the first Nordic warlords, and a group of powerful warriors described in the runes as the “Dark gods”. But the runes for “dark” were not apparently describing their fierceness or magical power. They were describing the warriors’ appearance. But it was known that the meeting that took place happened about 1100 years before any Nordic race came into contact with any African or Middle-Eastern people. And, the runes placed this particular Nordic clan a good 2000 years before it had been thought the Norse had formed into a particular group and in an area that was thought to have been covered by the post-Flood ice-sheet. Anyway, they subsequently deduced that the group had been isolated from the outside world because of the geographic location. Even though they were well north of the ice-sheet limit, it seems they lived in a valley that somehow kept ambient temperatures at survivable levels, and after more extensive digging, it was found that a whole village had once be there. As the Ice Age neared it’s end, it seems that these “dark gods” had ventured from a very distant land on some sort of sea-going craft built in a long-boat configuration, but was much more durable. This is where Akeesha and her colleagues began to draw blanks. More and more questions piled up, so she called Rachel, and after a three-hour Skype conference-call, Rachel and I began sifting through the information that had been sent to us. (You notice how liberally I am including myself in this venture! (Cheesy grin in the background)). By day three of our investigations, our joint study-room in our home in Winston Park was filled with pictures, diagrams, multiple MacBooks and desktop computers. It was looking like your typical manic Professor’s office. I was staring at a diagram of the valley in Norway where the discoveries had been made, admiring the military knowledge that those people must have possessed, and on my iPad on the desk next to me was an image taken of the some of the stone engravings laid alongside some runes that looked similar. By this point I had learned to read Nordic runes like I knew Afrikaans. I knew the answers to many of the questions lay right in front of us, but it eluded my brain.

Suddenly, there was a sharp intake of breath from my wife from across the room, and a sudden silence.

“Frankie, I think I have figured it out, but it is beyond the craziest thing that even I could dream up.” There was obvious excitement on her face and in her voice.

“Look at those images right in front of you, but instead of the valley on your Macbook screen bring up an image of the last few rune ‘words’ on the pottery shards.” Having done that, she continued, “See the runes that make up the word . That is the oldest recorded version of the god Odin - Gwadan. But here, these runes tell us that he was a real person, and that he was the Warrior-Chieftain of this clan. Now look at the hieroglyphics on the stone engravings directly half way through. The hieroglyphs are similar in shape. But open the image of those in Photoshop and fiddle with the contrast, remove the greens and bring out the reds.” I duly followed orders, and suddenly gasped. Underneath the engraving was the impression of another engraving, but not done with any sharp instrument. They must have used some sort of dye - even luminous dye that only reveals itself under certain lights. Kind of like certain bank notes that we use, aaaah, used! Beneath the engravings was the unmistakable shape of the Zimbabwe ruins, but with a number of other structures attached, obviously showing it in it’s original shape.

“But honey, that’s not all. Read the last few lines of the runes on the pottery shard. No, let me just tell you. The secret of the Bezerker state is revealed. There seems to have been a certain genus of early wolf which was sacrificed before battle and the warriors drank the blood of the sacrificed animals, and then wore their skins and covered themselves in the wolf’s blood. It describes how it would drive the warriors into a frenzy, and we know the rest. So the original inhabitants of the Zimbabwe settlement were much older than I thought, and the climate must have been much cooler because there were great populations of wolf-type animals. We always thought those engravings in the Zimbabwe ruins were simply early kinds of the current Wild Dog, but now it seems like they were these wolf-kind ancestors. And, from what these are saying, I’m beginning to be able to decipher the stone hieroglyphics and so far it seems that the “Dark gods” were driven from their land by warming temperatures and by the subsequent dying out of the wolf-kind population. They wanted to find a cooler place to live, and somehow, where the current Great Rift Valley is now, there was a huge river existed back then, obviously a left-over of the Great Flood, which they said took seven days to cross and I’ve got to the point where they say it took them two full moons to enter the ‘Great Circular Sea’ - my guess that being the Mediterranean. But the parts I can’t yet decipher probably describe how they ended up so far north. So, these “Dark gods” were given deity status in that early Nordic Valley because there was some kind of property in the wolf blood that really did cause a Bezerker state. Wolves were bred specifically for the purpose of preparing the Bezerkers for battle. The ancient Zimbabweans brought a pack of these wolf-kind with them on their journey north, and the Nordic runes end with a chant of praise to the ‘Dark gods’ for bringing with them the power to defeat their enemies.”

She sat back in her chair with a look of triumph on her face, grinning from ear to ear.

“So, Miss-Multiple-PhD,” I said in a fun way, “what ist thou bidding?”

“Well, I won’t take much longer to finish deciphering the pottery hieroglyphs - by the ay, they have some interesting correlations to very early Egyptian hieroglyphs - and once that’s done, we need to arrange an …”

“…Expedition to the Zimbabwe ruins.” We finished the sentence together and then burst out laughing.