Death Row Fiction
by Confessed Serial Killer Danny Rolling

The Beginning

by Danny Rolling

I am the piercing eyes that saw beyond belief that unforgettable night; the ears that heard lamenting screams wailing through swaying stands of Tambalacoque and Traveler Palm.

My name? Sir Winser Elias Ashmole the Third. I am, by design, a scientist; a zoologist to be exact, and this is the story I have to tell.

The Island of Mauritius rises from the Indian Ocean south-southeast of Madagascar: a tiny jewel nestled in a microcosm of wonder.

My job was to assist Dr. Borgum Konoff in his endeavor to save the pink pigeon from extinction. Unlike the plight of lemurs on Madagascar where natives cut and burn vast areas of jungle, reducing lush forest to farmland, forcing the land to succumb to expanding human needs, the trouble in Mauritius is black rats!

The birds' natural rookery, teak trees, have been reduced to hollow hulks, chopped to death by tangles of invading Chinese guava and privet: two species of plant brought to the island by colonists at the birth of the twentieth century. Consequently, the pigeons must nest on exposed ground, easy prey for rats.

My guide helped me unload my baggage from the boat. He pointed out a narrow path snaking off into thick jungle. Before I could grasp the gravity of it all, he shoved off without further ado, leaving me a mite bewildered, standing slump-shouldered on the pier.

"Hey! How will I find my way?"

"Follow the path," was all he offered.

What could I do? I stood there frozen in time watching the most brilliant sunset I'd ever seen paint crimson daggers across a canvas of encroaching gloom.

Night fell, and a wave of despair washed any sense of well-being out to sea. Then they came, thousands upon thousands, zigzagging overhead like a dark cloud of foreboding.

"Fruit bats. Nothing to fear," came the words as a tall figure emerged from the shadows.

"Of course. I've not seen them in the wild. Dr. Konoff, I presume?"

"In the flesh. Here, let me help you with that. We've a six kilo hike ahead of us."

"You've got to be joking. It's blooming bloody pitch out here. I can scarcely see the hand in front of my face."

"Just keep up. I know the way."

And with that, it all began.