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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/MadCowCrazy666 on 2025-08-11 20:01:04+00:00.
Echoes in the Dark - Chapter 10 - Part 2
South Africa - A couple of months after the summit.
As far as the eye could see in the shimmering heat haze there was nothing but savannah. Sweat was slowly drawing a bead down the side of his head as Rex was slowly scanning the edge of the ominous tall grass. He was standing in the back of the safari’s Land Cruiser, dented with rust spots from it’s extended service. He squinted as the sun was slowly painting the sky red, it’s amber colored shape slowly setting beyond the horizon.
They’d been out here for hours. And in that time, his client, a bloated caricature of wealth in sweat stained safari gear, had not stopped complaining.
Too hot. Too thirsty. The ice was melting too fast. The alcohol wasn’t cold enough. Too many mosquitoes. Too many smells. His boots pinched. His feet hurt. Too many this, too little that. And now, the grand announcement: He needed to take a shit.
Sigh…
And this man, Rex thought bitterly, could buy and sell entire towns. The only reason they were out here was because someone the client despised had shot some sort of predator, posted the pictures online, and soaked in the attention. The client’s response? Find and kill a bigger animal… in this case, a very specific lion.
It was the sad truth of conservation in this part of the world… egos like his were part of what kept the sanctuary alive. Without wealthy hunters paying obscene fees, the rangers wouldn’t have the means to fight the constant tide of poachers.
When Rex first came to work here, incursions were constant, dozens, sometimes hundreds, each month. Poachers with rifles, steel traps, or poisons. Poachers that killed anything they came across, took what they could carry and left the rest to rot in the dirt.
He’d spent the last year intercepting them, turning the skills he’d honed in battlefields around the world into tools for animal preservation. He knew every entry point, every smuggling route, even the so called secret ones. He would track a man for days without being seen, after a while had made something of a sport out of it. He would sneak up so close he could touch them and then he simply waited to see how long it would take for them to notice. His personal record was about fifteen minutes breathing down a man’s neck. He suspected the man had known earlier but simply been too terrified to turn around.
Now he was stuck with this idiot.
The Land Cruiser rumbled along the edge of the tall grass, a zone every local knew to respect. It was where predators hid, where ambushes happened and where highly territorial prey animals could be startled into charging, goring and trampling you to death. You didn’t step into it without good reason.
The client, however, had been badgering Rex for nearly an hour to find a “private” place to relieve himself. Rex had explained, patiently at first and less so later, that they could set the portable toilet in the open. The client refused. “I can’t go if people are watching.” he said, like a petulant child, with added threats to call off the entire hunt. Payment was only required after a successful expedition.
So here they were, trudging on foot into the tall grass, the lookout standing on the roof of the vehicle to keep watch for movements in the grass. Rex led the man twenty meters in, to a small, sunlit clearing.
“Here. You’ve got cover on all sides.” Rex said.
“Not with you watching I can’t!” the client snapped. Loud enough to startle some nearby birds into flight.
“I’ll be within shouting distance.” Rex sighed with a clenched jaw.
He turned around and slowly entered the tall grass, slowly vanishing with practiced silence.
The client swore as as he struggled with his belt, there was a metallic *clink* as he finally managed to open it. Pants dropped but as the squatted he paused, realizing that he would relieve himself into his own very wide pants if he continued like this.
He swore loudly as the struggled to remove the brand new boots recently bought, expensive boots that would probably only ever be worn for this one expedition. More muttering as his sweat had glued his feet to the sole, but finally they came off, one at a time.
That was when the wind shifted.
Rex caught it instantly… the scent, the subtle change in air pressure, the prickling along his skin. He didn’t need to see it. He knew.
It was a sensation that had stuck to him like a predator sinking it’s hungry claws into prey, ever since an event had happened shortly after joining the special forces he had truly hated this sensation. They were being hunted…
His body began preparing itself for what was about to happen. His heartbeat slowed down, as if it’s beat alone would reveal his position. He began moving toward the clearing, creeping forwards slowly, deliberately. Any sudden movement could trigger a predator’s prey drive, so the goal was to reach the client, and slowly get him out of the area without provoking an attack.
He parted the grass at the edge of the clearing, scanning the area for the small telltale signs he knew were there. Almost opposite was the client, and slightly beyond them, hidden in shadows, was a pair of golden eyes focusing intently. They were locked on the squatting man. Three meters separated predator from prey.
Rex was about five meters from the client, this was a race he could never win.
He raised his rifle but quickly realized that a secure shot was almost impossible, the clients position would result in just a glancing shot which could turn dangerous very quickly. Trying to shoot the large predator by going trough the client was a tempting option… but…
He grabbed the small radio attached to the upper right side of his chest, turned the output to zero so a response wouldn’t reveal his position. Then quietly and calmly he began speaking into it. “I need you to listen very carefully. Do exactly as I say.”
The client, still squatting, grabbed his own radio and snapped. “I’m busy right now! Give me a couple of minutes!”
Rex’s calmly responded “You’re in danger. No sudden movements. Stand up slowly, turn to your right and slowly walk towards me, I’m five meters away from you within the tall grass.”
The client… turned left. Then pivoted in place, scanning wildly.
The predator twitched at the sudden movement.
“Slowly, look to your right, and slowly, walk towards my hand” Rex repeated, holding out his left hand partially trough the grass.
The client spotted him, pivoted and started screaming as he ran towards him.
The triggered response was immediate.
The client clumsily wobbled toward Rex in what counted as a sprint from a morbidly obese man.
“Oh, for-” Rex didn’t have time to finish the thought. He bolted forwards.
The predator was already airborne, honed in of it’s next fat slathered meal.
Rex’s shoulder slammed into the client, knocking him sideways out of the pounce’s path. Rex didn’t feel the pain but could feel the paw dragging it’s claws across his arm. The rifle he’d been carrying, knocked knocked far away by the collision with the bloated airbag. He rolled as he hit the dirt, coming up with his long blade in hand, his trusty companion from his years as a mercenary.
The predator landed and spun with a grace that should have been impossible for such a large creature. A massive male lion, close to three hundred kilos, with a dark mane and eyes that knew his face. Rex had seen him several times before. Fed him too, months ago, until the poachers stopped coming. Locals called him Blackmane.
Predator and soldier stared each other down. Rex widened his stance, knees bent, blade low. He shifted sideways, forcing himself between Blackmane and the client. He didn’t blink. Didn’t look away. In lion terms, that was an invitation to die.
The muscles under the great cat’s hide rippled, in quiet tension as they gauged each other. The lion was slowly easing up, drive slowly bleeding away. The hunt was ending.
Then hands clamped onto Rex’s leg from behind. “DO SOMETHING!”
That instant of distraction was all it took. Blackmane lunged.
Claws ripped into Rex’s torso. Teeth clamping down toward his tuckered neck. He twisted the dagger sideways into the lion’s mouth, catching between molars. Pain made the predator hesitate as it aborted the bite.
Rex flipped the blade and using both hands on the blade pushed, forcing the edge deeper into the soft tissue behind the jaw. Blackmane shook him violently, claws ripping new furrows into flesh and across his face. Blood poured, some his, some the lion’s. The cat leapt back, landing light despite its bulk. It’s pupils tiny dots as it focused intensely on him, now bleeding profusely from it’s newly widened mouth. Slowly they started to circle, Rex trying to position himself between the lion and the client.
“Why… so… serious?” Rex said in a staggered manner, shifting his grip on the blade, best option available was to thrust it down the lions throat if it decided to pounce.
The lion’s gaze flicked to the client.
“No!” Rex growled, moving to block the view.
For a long moment, they held the stare. Then Blackmane began to slowly back away. He paused once, looking at Rex as if weighing some unspoken agreement, before turning and vanishing into the grass.
The first wo…
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