Evil in Arcadia

Poinceana or Acacia?

The spreading boughs of a Poinceana tree materialised above Israel Wren as he drifted back to consciousness. Swinging gently in a hammock under the branches he felt warm air brush his skin and he sniffed the faint aroma of frangipani. A scarlet robin scuffled through the leaves above him. He noted the clever use of the red flowers as camouflage. This was all very pleasant but he was still out of sorts. A dark shadow hung in the back of his conscious mind. But that was why he was here wasn't it? The shadows—the nightmares.

As he had grown older, he had started to notice an increase in the frequency of a particular nightmare. The details of the dream would change of course, but there was always one constant: The Tokoloshe. A Tokoloshe is an African devil, a demon personified. Israel's demon had blank, gaping sockets where its eyes should have been. It also always carried a weapon—an axe.

He thought he knew why this demon visited him. At least, he used to think he knew why. The demon would visit him whenever he came across a circumstance where an innocent creature had been treated unkindly by fate. As he moved from youth to adulthood he realised that when he saw this type of injustice he had to act. He had to avenge the fate of innocent creatures where there was no one else willing to do so. When he saw this injustice and at least attempted to resolve it, then this action would help expel the Tokoloshe from his conscience. 

Recently, on a trip to Dangar Island in the Hawkebury River, he had come across just such a circumstance. A young woman named Roxanne had been found dead and the cause of death had been pronounced as snakebite. Israel and his friend Gary had been the first to discover Roxanne's body and Israel was doubtful about the snakebite. Immediately the dreams had started to come to him again. The Tokoloshe and the axe, innocent children being slaughtered; these images haunted him as he slept. With Gary's help he had succeeded in resolving that situation. Roxanne's death had been recognised as the terrible act it had been, rather than passed off as an accident. A murder had been revealed and eventually an evil killer unmasked. 

The Tokoloshe was kept at bay, but only very briefly. The nightmares had, in fact, returned more strongly than before. One thing had changed in the dreams. An ingredient had been added. Now, on top of the bleeding eye-sockets and the axe were the children. They were always the same children—wide eyed, dark skinned urchins in a far-flung land. Now he felt that to expel the demon he had to help the children. Not just any children though, they were children from his original homeland. They were African children.

After his recent adventures on Dangar Island the 4U corporation had presented him with a legal document to sign. The document ensured that Israel would not reveal any of the 'in-house processes and procedures' that he had uncovered while investigating the excellent performance of one of their stores. Signing this document had resulted in a significant contribution to his finances. He had sighed with relief when he had logged into his bank account and seen the sum of one million three hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars in the deposit line. This was enough for him to embark on his grand plan—an orphanage for children in his old country of South Africa. Surely an orphanage would be enough to assuage the murderous demon buried deep in his subconscious. 

He stretched his arms above his head, yawned lazily and slowly extracted himself from the hammock.  Maybe he would go up to the house and have a cold drink before taking a dip down at the private beach. A few paces out into the glaring sunshine and he stopped to take in the lush green lawns and the distant rumble of the ocean. Behind him, the umbrella shape of the Poinceana reminded him an acacia tree on the savannah and he felt a familiar pang and slither in his gut like a snake uncoiling.