One night. As Lulu slept, she was woken up by howling hyenas. Lulu lived alone in an unsafe neighbourhood, so she kept a registered Browning BPR on top of her sideboard that was owned by her father and used for hunting. In her experiences, it has been used once or twice on intruders as well.

She got up from her bedroom wearing a silk nightwear and she walked to peep through the window. The outside was foggy, Lulu could not see beyond a metre away. She was becoming gravely anxious, especially as a thirty-year-old who lives alone. Her parents both died in a botched robbery eight years ago leaving her with the house. She had never had to deal with intruders but seeing that she lived in Hillbrow it had always been at the back of her mind. Now the opportunity had arrived for her to defend herself.

The howling hyenas continued. Lulu went to her cell phone to dial a police number, but it seemed that there was no signal. She thought about Buntu for a moment, that he might know what to do. Her room lights started to flick on and off, then stopped. The room temperature dropped. She could see her breath vapour. Heavy footsteps were approaching her bedroom. They grew bigger as they came close to the door. They stopped. It was all quiet like this was all her imagination.

She positioned herself to shoot at a sudden opportunity that arose. She held the gun tight. She was shaking. Her teeth were chattering. She gently opened the door and had a clear view of the passageway. There was no one. She tiptoed checking every room but there was no one. Was she imagining this? Is this a dream?

The room was oddly cold and there was no sound of howling hyenas anymore. She walked back to her room carefully marking her steps. The TV behind her switched on and flicked on different channels. She was nervous. Her heart was thumping so hard she felt a lump in her throat. The lights flicked and they seemed to travel towards her starting from the kitchen to the TV room and now the passageway where she stood. Her hair rose gently like she had been statically charged.

Suddenly she was yanked to the far end of the passageway. A big fat hand permeated through the wall behind Lulu, and it pinned her against it. She was now shaking. Her eyes popped out in disbelief. She dropped the gun.

‘I thought you were a mere nincompoop.’ Qhebetshwana fully emerged and Lulu had a clear view of her feral appearance. Her hyenas were hissing impatiently behind her. She continued, ‘You surprised me by removing the curse that I planted.’
Lulu made a muffled scream, but Qhebetshwana would not let her go. Using her sharp nails, she dislocated and dismembered Lulu’s index finger. Lulu made a scream while blood oozed out splashing on the face of the hyena in front of her. It licked the blood off its face and became more excited now that it had tasted Lulu’s blood.

‘Prometheus and Napoleon, dinner is ready.’ The hyenas jumped at the opportunity to feast on their meal. Qhebetshwana wrapped the finger with animal skin and tucked it inside a muslin bag.

The following day. Buntu went to Lulu’s place to order lunch as usual. The garage where she runs her business was closed. ‘This is odd’ he thought as he pushed in the front door. The room was cold. He went on to investigate. He was greeted by dried-out blood stains on the floor. He followed its tracks and found Lulu’s body on the passageway. Her eyes were gobbled out. Her left index finger was missing, and her intestines were missing. He studied the area and found a piece of string resembling the human intestine. It seems like vultures were fighting over it until they were interrupted by something. Buntu’s psychic powers were up. He could tell that a curse user was responsible for this.

He knew that whoever came for Lulu was coming for him too. This made him anxious. He feared that his new journey would not be the same anymore, but he knew he had to get to the bottom of this.