Alice loved windchimes. She had them hanging all around the outside her house and on the veranda which here in Africa they call a stoep. Some even hung in the trees in the yard. There were glass, brass, ceramic and bamboo wind chimes.
Only one wind chime hung inside her house. It was a special one because her husband David gave it to her just three weeks before he was murdered. He’d gone outside in the yard after hearing screaming thinking that one of their staff was being attacked. Alice watched as his head was hacked from his body with a machete; watched in horror as it bounced like a football when it hit the lawn.
Alice just had time to slam and bolt the door before they turned on her. David had long before shown her how to load and fire the twelve-gauge pump action shotgun. She fetched it from the bedroom then unbolted and opened the front door. She’d seen grown men freeze just at the sound a pump action shotgun made when tromboning a new shell into the chamber. It's a sound you will never forget particularly if it is behind you.
Shick-shick!
“Bastards!” she screamed and shot the man nearest her in the head. The force of the blast tore away most of his face so that only a bloody skull with bits of tissue and flesh sticking to it remained.
Shick-shick!
Another cartridge in the breech and another face exploded.
Shick-shick … shick-shick.
The sound the shotgun made when it was reloaded was as good as the thrump and the recoil when she pulled the trigger. She killed three that night and would have upped her tally if they hadn’t run away.
Now she called it “David’s windchime.” It was large, made of crystal and it hung from the passage ceiling. It hung so low that she had to walk around it every time she went from the lounge to the kitchen. Maverick and Purdy, the Rottweilers she bought after David’s death, pricked up their ears whenever they heard the crystal wind chime tinkle. The dogs brushed against it too. It made her think of David.
Those that hung on the stoep and in the trees were lower than head height as well. She jokingly referred to them as her “musical burglar alarms that worked fine as long as the wind wasn't blowing.”
It was one o’clock in the morning when she woke up. It was hot and humid in the bedroom because all the windows in the house were closed. There wasn’t even a hint of the air moving. It was dark and silent in the room so the sudden tinkling of the crystal windchime startled her.
“You dogs.” She scolded aloud, turning over to face the wall. “Always bumping into David’s windchime.”
Maverick and Purdy lying cold and dead just outside the open front door couldn’t prick up their ears this time.
