Chapter 1: MONSTERS AT WORK
The man who stopped the Monsters: George, originally born in England in the early 1900s. George moved to the village at a young age he had somewhat questionable beginnings as an elephant poacher. At a point in his life, he had to fill in as ranger in the village; a job that and he didn't really like due to the endless amounts of paperwork. He was hoping for a transfer and then imagine he was pleased when summoned by the main boss of the area. The man in charge of the southern Highlands had fallen ill and was admitted to the hospital and someone had to replace him. The boss asked more of some advice as to who he should to the Highlands, but George volunteered. The boss thought it could be good idea since George was good with the rifle and said that there's a matter down there that needs some definite cleaning up: `Those Monsters`. At this point in time the civil war had just ended and there have been instances of man-eating for years. Tails of Monster sightings and killings kept spreading.
George heard of them and asked why the previous ranger had not put an end to them. His boss didn't really have an answer, but it did mention that man eaters were mixed up in some sort of witchcraft which took George little off Guard. There was this idea of Monster men. Apparently certain witch doctors claimed that they control the monsters or sometimes turn into monsters to kill their enemies or people who are wronged them. An article from around that time written by renown scholars spoke about a Monster that was hunted down for attacking people and that wasn't a real Monster, but a man dressed like a monster instead. It was hired out by which to a client for five shillings at a time. The technique the Monster would use is that it pounced on the victim from behind drive a knife through their hearts and then claw the body to make it look like the work of a maneater. The village Monsters were deadly, but man eating could be seen from superstitious perspective, creating a deep fear in the local people affected. Some believe the Monsters only attacked when directed to do so by malign influence.
George was intrigued by the supernatural element that was fairly certain in his rifle to deal with the Monsters. By the time George arrives, the boss had already left. Searching through the small office at the Highlands, George couldn't find more than a few mentions of the Monsters. The local forest conservation workers also didn't have much information on them. They gave George impression that if he never asked, they never would have mentioned the Monsters at all. If armed forest conservationists were too afraid to speak about the man eaters it suggested a real problem. The thing is there were beliefs that by mentioning a maneater, the speaker will in future be the next victim. There were other jobs George had to deal with, most especially with things that probably preoccupied his boss. The southern Highlands occupied 45 1000 square miles of territory and there was lot of crop production to do which included apparently killing 250 elephants a year and the biggest government job, the game free area along the border fence. There was a fear that an infectious viral disease of cattle and many species would spread to the southern highlands. So, there was a big fence on the border of northern land separating the animals. The local forest conservation as well as four Europeans conservation workers were ordered to shoot any animal they saw wild or domestic within 5 miles of either side of the fence.
George spent the first 3 days trying to organise a new office when he got a telegraph from the district commissioner of the village district. It emphasized that George should apply the earliest attentions to maneaters because conditions in this district were pathetic. George sat and thought about these maneaters of which he had little information when a dusty man barged into his office and angrily asked 'what the hell are you going to do about these Monsters'? He was a road foreman who had done maintenance on the Great North Road and had seen how his crew had been eaten by Monsters and the other half are too scared to continue working. George made one quick inspection of the border fence and moved his attention to the Monsters.
According to reports the man-eaters had been operating around the area of the Great North Road towards the southern edge. George knew this area from years before when he hunted in the village. While driving to the flat, He picked up two elderly African hitchhikers, thinking this could be good opportunity to gather some information about the Monsters. Again though, it was seen as somewhat taboo and dangerous to speak of such things but after the small talk, George chanced it and asked 'is there no danger of walking here? I'm told that there are creatures in this bush' upon hearing the question one of the men's faces flashed with fear and all he would say in response was 'such things are further on, beyond the river. We do not walk there'. George didn't ask any further. After dropping the men off, he visited the local hotel ran by an American former athlete. The American offered to have a drink with George but was more interested in politics. He joked that politicians are more dangerous than any maneater. He told George the Monsters had not made their way over to this side of the river remarking that they possibly know that we've had enough trouble from the leopards. As an occasion the leopard from the highlands would eat some in the area and thankfully it was a rare occurrence. With regards to Monsters the former athlete told and he's going to have a hard time getting information saying that parents wouldn't even discuss losing their child to a maneater and especially not to a stranger.
After the athlete made a few more remarks about how he wished the Monster would eat some politicians. George went on his way, at least now he knew the river along with the swamps surrounding it may have been acting as a natural barrier to the maneaters. He crossed the bridge and drove to the village's administrative station. The station is 6000 feet up lying within green hills with a small waterfall going through the centre of the settlement. Though the station was picturesque things became grim when George went inside and met Smith, the man who sent him the Telegraph. He told him that the district was falling apart. The two men got straight to it, Smith rolled out a map on his desk and George finally comes in substantial info on the maneaters. It was very bad news. Though Smith wasn't sure why the killing started he thought that they had started in ten years ago. There were of course some black magic claims, but the police haven't found any evidence that the killings were the work of anything other than Lions.
He told George how the Lions would pounce on someone and then dragged him into the bush to eat them. Various African police and other security personnel were sent to the area and multiple African conservationists have been instructed to hunt down the maneaters, but no lions have been shot in all the years of the killings. George was puzzled by this and asked, "what about my boss"? He was curious about what his boss had done in all these years of the killings. Smith told him that he had come multiple times and always been called away on some duty before anything of note could be done.
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