Chapter 3

It was late when the Edison family arrived at their new four-bedroom house in Saldanha Bay. Craig had bought the house for a bargain through the internet. An entrepreneur went bankrupt and sold the house far below market value. Craig had been fortunate to negotiate a deal with the previous owner before it got repossessed by the bank. It had been a long and exhausting day filled with unexpected things. Once the ambulance had arrived on the scene, they had to give a full report. To make matters worse, they struggle to get hold of the estate agent to get the keys to the house. It was a larger than normal 4 bedroom house that Sarah had fallen in love with the moment Craig showed it to her on the internet. Craig had asked Sarah to pick the house of her dreams. He had told her to pick wisely because that would become their house for the rest of their lives. It was an old building, but Sarah had fallen in love with the character that old places had. Like someone once told Craig many years ago, a house finds its owner. He might have heard it in some horror movie. One of those where a haunted house waited, watching and beaconing for its new owners to enter.

A company specialising in household transportation had moved most of the Edison's belongings to the coast a week before. The downfall was that their whole life was packed away in boxes scattered around the wooden floor. By then they had been moving around far too many times, they were masters in the field. They had slept over at Craig's brother and wife like squatters since the truck collected their stuff. All boxes were marked with Sarah's neat handwriting showing their contents.

'Let's get the bedding stuff out first so we can at least sleep tonight,' Craig said with little enthusiasm. He looked at the boxes and felt a stab of hopelessness. It drained his last bit of energy just by looking at them, let alone unpacking them to make a bed for a decent night's sleep. He also knew sleep would not come easy no matter how exhausted he was. It happened whenever they moved into a new place, but this was not quite the reason. His mind kept returning to the stranger they found on the R27 highway earlier. Craig knew his analytical mind will analyse the scene like a scratched record until he found the reason behind it.

He did not have time to explore their new home, but there was enough time for that in the future. In any case, there would not be much to see in the dark outside.

'This is a cool place,' Andrew said coming from around the corner and entering the living room where most of the boxes were dumped. 'I think I'll take the room to the left down the hall.'

'That's good then. Take your things to your room,' Sarah sighed. 'For the rest of you, choose a room and let's clear up this place.'

Soon most of the important boxes had disappeared from the living room. All the beds had been made except for Andrew who thought it more important to unpack his clothes and place them neatly into the closet after he cleansed each shelf thoroughly.

Soon the lights were off except for the light outside the front door. The house was quiet. There had been no time or energy to hang the curtains. Who would watch them in such a quiet town and neighbourhood, anyway? Sarah was all too happy not to spend another minute from sleep. The few naps in the Kombi can never compare to a comfortable bed where one can stretch out in a way the human body was meant to do.

That night Craig could not get himself to sleep as he expected. At least it was the start of the weekend. One satisfying thought was that he did not have to start at his new company in just over a week. Craig's mind revisited the stranger they found on the R27. A face he will never forget for as long as he lived. What happened to him and who would have done such a thing? Craig thought. The stranger could not have been in an accident. Craig was almost certain about that. He remembered the stranger's beaten-up face, almost blue in some places. Dry blood had settled in some minor, but also some heavy cuts on his cheeks and forehead. His lips had been rumpled and cracked from the lack of liquids and the blazing heat of the sun. His legs have been broken. Maybe the reason he dragged them around like useless attachments. Blood had soaked through his creamy pants and two fingers were missing from his right hand. The worst part was his tongue. It had been swollen and split down the centre which could not have been self-inflicted or accidental unless he was a complete lunatic. It must have been the reason he had to write on a piece of paper since he had no identification on him. By that time the poor fellow had been so weak that it almost seemed an impossible task to hold a pen, let alone use it to write, but he seemed determined to convey an important message. It was one of the most terrifying things Craig could not dare to tell his wife about. Before it happened, he asked the boys to go back to the kombi and stay there. What the man had written on that piece of white paper smeared with blood, reminded Craig of a movie he had once seen where someone had to sign a contract with the devil.

The man had written evil here in almost unreadable taste. Leave town underneath followed by the numbers 666 and the letters Ro. At least Craig could relate the number 666 to satanic beliefs, but the last part still bothered him. He did not know what Ro meant. The only Ro he was familiar with was the term reverse osmosis which was the process of purifying ocean water for humans to consume.

No wonder his boys said nothing about the incident. They simply had to see the tortured soul from a distance to have seen the face of death for the first time.

Craig sensed that Sarah also had sleeping trouble of her own, tossing and turning.

Please God, protect my family from harm Craig thought. He only wanted a happy life for them. He promised Sarah happiness and that promise he intended to keep.