Berenice's Daughters of Africa

It was a beautiful day in the French Congo. A perfect summer afternoon, where the heat and the humidity made everything seem like it was moving through honey. The sun beat down on everything with a relentless intensity, and the only sounds were the chirping of birds, the buzzing of insects, and the rumbling purr of my car. I could not complain though. When you live in an outpost as remote as mine, you take what you can get.

The outpost itself was a simple structure built of stone and wood that had been erected nearly thirty years ago. It had once been home to a small community of missionaries who had attempted to convert the local tribes to Christianity. However, after two decades of providing medical aid to them, they instead became known as witch doctors by their patients. The natives stopped showing up for their appointments or for Sunday services, and eventually all but one missionary left for new pastures. Father Pierre stayed on for another decade until he finally died of malaria in his sleep.

When I arrived here ten years ago with my girls and my pet tiger, no one else was living here other than Father Pierre's skeleton and some of his former patients. We were greeted by the skeletons themselves when we arrived at night, their arms outstretched as if they had wanted to greet us but never got that far before they died. Some parts had been eaten away by wildlife or scavenged by ants and beetles, but I could still make out the remains of Father Pierre's face: an expression of surprise that his patients did not turn out to be grateful Christians after all but rather ate him alive after he died. It was all I could do not to laugh when I saw him staring back at me with his skull-face; I figured it was best to just go ahead and laugh it off later on in private, so I buried him under the fireplace together with his bones and went about setting up my own home inside his little hut.

My girls settled in quickly enough once we started trading with the nearby villages for supplies and food. My tiger also proved invaluable; its presence kept most curious villagers from bothering us unless they had something worth bartering with. For others who did bother us anyway despite my tiger's presence, my girls were more than capable of dealing with them: several men from a village three days' travel from here still bore scars from the time when some young men tried sneaking into our compound at night to rape us during those early weeks we first arrived here. The men never came back to their village again after that incident; I guess they spent too much time trying to figure out what happened to them instead of getting help for their injuries.

I sighed contentedly as I looked at our little compound while sipping on my cup of coffee outside my hut; it even seemed like things were starting to settle down these days now that we've established our place here in this part of Africa over the past few years. Things really did look good right now... right before everything went to hell in an instant!

A loud explosion suddenly shook me out of my reverie when a firebomb sailed over my head towards one of my girls walking along her usual route to deliver supplies to our storage shed just behind my hut. By reflex alone I threw myself onto her body just before she was engulfed in flames herself; thankfully she seemed unharmed when I removed myself from atop her body moments later after hearing another explosion somewhere nearby accompanied by screams from one or more of my girls who had been caught off-guard by whoever attacked us this way! "Goddammit!" I cursed; this attack wasn't aimed at me specifically! Someone was trying to kill me and all my girls!

As I quickly rose into a crouching position again ready for battle against whoever was attacking us today, several more bombs landed around me as well while more screams sounded off from outside my hut where most of my girls were gathered together now due to the explosions going off near them! "Dammit!" I cursed again; just how many people were attacking us this time? I turned around towards where all the bombs had landed around me so far while simultaneously drawing out two pistols from inside my blouse and pulling back both their hammers before pointing each pistol in separate directions around me while looking around frantically through narrowed eyes at who might be responsible for attacking us today! "Who is it?" I shouted angrily towards whoever it was standing somewhere outside my hut watching us burn now!

A sudden silence fell over us after that shout as all sounds inside and outside our compound suddenly ceased, including any further screams from any one of my girls still trapped outside who hadn't escaped yet thanks to whatever barriers kept all but two of them from reaching safety inside already! As soon as silence enveloped us like a blanket around a bed late at night, however, something else happened that set something ablaze inside me: a voice came towards us from somewhere beyond our sheltering walls asking calmly: "Madam Berenice?"

I stared incredulously at whoever stood outside our hut calling out that name while slowly lowering both guns back into their holsters resting on either side of my hips now that whoever called out to me didn't seem interested in killing any more people than necessary right now! "How do you know that name?" I asked carefully while slowly rising back up into a standing position again looking at whatever person might be standing behind one of those barriers preventing anyone from leaving or entering our compound right now until something triggered inside me again: someone's voice replied calmly once more: "I want you to meet your new employer."