The Shongololo

The Shongololo

(An excerpt from Ghosts of Tsavo, Book 1of Society for Paranormals)

I assure you that the last thing I would ever wish to see upon waking is a Shongololo. In fact, it's very much near the top of my personal "Creatures I Never Want to Encounter" list. Which of course is why the universe conspired to ensure I met up with one. Worse still, the metre long, creepy arthropod appeared right above my head while I was luxuriating in my tent with visions of the upcoming Christmas meal floating through my head. I had just reached the point when I was wondering what that meal would look like in the colony of Kenya when I peeled open my eyes. And there it was, floating above my head - not the meal, of course - all of its thousand spikey legs squirming along its tube-like form, its arm-long antennas poking at the net, searching for a weak spot.

I should point out that, from a tender age, I exhibited a rather robust and socially unacceptable imagination that startled my parents and their numerous visitors. Harmless delusions, many would say to cover up the awkward moments when I insisted a gnome was the real reason the outhouse was particularly odorous that day, or when I announced at my mother's tea with Lord and Lady what's-their-name that the wood sprites were stealing the vegetables to feed their pets - again.

They said I was unhinged. But I can assure you that my hinges are firmly fixed to the doorpost. It's the rest of the world that's flapping in the wind, even in this enlightened age under the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

My parents tolerated my creative outbursts while I was a child. After all, it was not so unusual for young children to have imaginary friends (albeit mine were considerably more active in causing mayhem). Father in particular prided himself on his enlightened views. But even he had his limits and when there was no indication that these flights of fantasy would evaporate as I got older, action was taken.

Shortly after my sixth birthday, they took me to see a doctor. Mother was quite prepared to have me sent off to a convent, after a good dosing of holy water and an exorcism or two. Father suggested a less drastic measure: that I be permanently institutionalised and that they pretend I'd died of influenza. Fortunately, the doctor convinced them to abandon both alternatives and wisely instructed me to keep quiet about the extraordinary world I had access to. So from that day forth, I exerted much effort in pretending I didn't see anything at all.

Which didn't mean, of course, that I couldn't see things, including the above mentioned and rather nefarious Shongololo.

I contemplated screaming. That, after all, is what any civilised lady of noble English birth would do when faced with such a circumstance, that of a paranormally enhanced insect hovering overhead.

Then again, I'm not so civilised, given my unenviable status as a widow and a burden on my parents. Or so my mother tells me. I also suspect we're not from quite a noble lineage as she claims we are.

By the time I finished all this convoluted contemplation, the moment to scream had long since dissipated, somewhat like my appetite, as fast as a puddle of rainwater in the savannah at midday.

Sighing, I twitched the mosquito net draped over my mattress, but the Shongololo simply tightened its grip, its heavy, metre long body twisting the netting, stretching it. I hoped it held. The net, that is. The last thing I needed was for the beastie to fall on me. Its cylindrical body was as thick as my thigh. Granted, my thighs, while chubby, aren't that big, but for an insect to be that thick around is still rather impressive, in a highly disturbing sort of way.

I glared up at the shiny black arthropod. Its plated surface glittered darkly in the shaft of sunlight squeezing through the flap that operated as the tent door.