THE HUNT
The stress and frustration were beginning to get to George, he was always just a little too late to get to an attack area, and examined more and more human remains so the lions didn't seem to leave very much. They particularly seemed to like human brain cracking open the skull of their victims. The weird thing was, they never seemed to go for livestock, which was usually much easier to access than the human in their huts, in fact the only other animal they seemed regularly was wild pig, but they didn't seem to eat it, almost as if killing for sports. It's not common for animals just to kill for fun in the animals Kingdom, though there have been reports that lions often play with chase and kill doves without ever eating them.
The other problem was the more time past with George failing to kill any lion added to the superstition that they could not be stopped which made people less inclined to help which made it harder to find and kill a lion in a vicious circle. One night George was staying in the village that had been attacked the night before despite the fact that attacks two nights in a row was unlikely.
A young girl who had been separated from her parents was one of the few willing to talk to George and give him information, when one man returned to the village and told him his wife has being killed recently as they tried to flee the village. George seized the opportunity and went with the husband and three other locals in hopes of finding a fresh trail.
Three hours later they found fresh lion tracks, they followed the trail through thick bush until they came to a clearing with four lions standing under a tree. The four lions must have heard the approach and got up from a laying position. They weren't fleeing though as they were more curious about what was approaching. They wanted to…. George fired a shot into a lioness, the other three ran and the lioness roared in anger trying to bite at her fresh bullet wound. George didn't bother trying to shoot the other lions as he wanted to make sure he definitely killed at least one, so he shot the female twice more. Then the next step was exposure. He told the men to bring the local villagers to see and he skinned the lion and took the skull to offer it as a trophy. It was important to him to show the locals these were animals, not lion-men or evils spirits.
Shortly after George received a message that the man-eaters were operating in another village few miles away, with people being killed every night for the last few days. He made it to the area and met up with few security personnel who were very annoyed at the lack of help from the locals, it seemed some people thought hunting the man-eaters was a bad idea that would only provoke them more. For the next three days George and some security personnel tried to hunt the lions, but to no avail. At this point George wanted the lions to try and attack him so that he could find them and kill them.
On the morning of the fourth day, they found a large number of fresh tracks that indicated many lions were nearby. They still couldn't quite tell how many lions were in the pride, but they pursued regardless. They caught up with the king of the group: A very huge healthy young male. He noticed the men turned and growled but the three men all fired at the same time. It was impossible to tell who killed lion, but George wanted the security personnels to take the credit. It was important to him that the locals realized that these lions could be stopped. After this George had to return to the highlands, where his office was located, to do administrative desk work.
It was a month and half later before George could return to the area, though in that time the security personnel had killed another man-eater, another one guarding the pride. George spent about five days hunting without finding anything and decided to go to his office on the highlands for an administrative update. He also wanted to talk a bit about the witchcraft, since he returned to the area, he had heard rumours that people were trying to get the previously deposed chief and witchdoctor reinstated. The rumour was the witchdoctor said he would call off "his lions" if he had his post returned to him. Before George got the highland administrative building he made a stop in a small village; He wanted some local news on any recent killings, but something was off about this village. No children could be seen, some women stood in doorways and a few men armed with guns and spears stood staring off into the bush. There had been a lion sighting. George took a few of the men to go after the lion while a few stayed behind to protect the village. After a few hours they found another male on his own, as he approached someone made a noise and the lion heard them. Unlike the other lions that roared or stared curiously this male immediately charged. George fired right away but the bullet hit the dirt in front of the lion, and he kept coming, the lion was less than ten yards away when George fired the second stot hitting the head.
He decided to spend another three days in the area hoping to come across more lions, hunting by day and sleeping in his truck by night, but after three days he continued on to the administrative office. As he drove you wondered, how many of these man-eating lions were there? When he arrived, he asked Smith if the killings had reduced since four lions had been taken out and it seemed they had, but with only slightly. The two men also spoke about the deposed chief and the witchdoctor and black magic. Smith had heard that some people wanted to reinstate the deposed chief but didn't think this was a good idea because the guy that replaced him was apparently doing a pretty good job and secondly the administration thought that reinstating the chief would be an admission that the lions were product to black magic, and they had no intention of doing that.