THEM 2

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18^th August 2010

It is a still night. Not hot, just still. Even the nocturnal orchestra is reluctant to serenade the night.  It is a dark, dark night; even the moon is in a mood. Ufuoma pulls hard on her cigarette. She is shaking; her eyes and her throat are dry. She pulls at the last drag of the cigarette as though to a life line. She stubs out the filter on a packet of matches, and then sweeps the residual ash into the match box, followed by the crushed cigarette butt.  Her movement is deliberate but her hands are shaking. She looks at the tray of food and her stomach responds with a reminder that lunch was ten hours ago. She wills herself to ignore the food. She would put it outside the door but the night is unfriendly. She wraps her arms around her bent knees and tucks her chin between her knees. Ufuoma knows instinctively, that she should not touch the food or the water. The aura is all wrong here. The room contains only a single bed with a wafer thin mattress. Even the curtain is a thin piece of cotton. Something is definitely not right. Ufuoma makes up her mind to keep vigil till the early hours of the morning when she would go straight to the park and board a bus back to Aba, where she had taken off from this morning. It had seemed like a brilliant idea when she woke up this morning; but right now with all her heart, Ufuoma regrets. Her intention was to surprise her boyfriend Kunle by arriving into Lagos a day before his birthday.  The idea was to call as soon as the bus got to the redeemed camp on Lagos Ibadan express way, as that is her land mark. She had called and called and called but the message from Kunle’s phone was consistent; the phone was switched off. She had been to Lagos to visit Kunle only once before but she knew she could find his place, so she got into a taxi and off to Ogba she went. She got to Kunle’s place at six thirty pm but he wasn’t home and his neighbour insisted that he had travelled that morning to Ghana. She left Ufuoma to go to church. Ufuoma was tired scared and confused but she chose to wait. She and Kunle speak every day and they had spoken just last night. If he was travelling, he would have told her. Kunle’s neighbour returned home a little after nine o’clock to meet Ufuoma sitting outside Kunle’s apartment. She asked Ufuoma to leave the premises and did so quite aggressively too. The only other person Ufuoma knows in Lagos is her late sisters, former neighbour. She’d hoped that they would let her spend the night in their home and first thing tomorrow morning, she would be off, back to Aba. Ufuoma was standing at the junction waiting for a cab to go by when she heard her name.  The time was a quarter to ten and Ufuoma was hungry and tired. She almost passed out from relief when she saw who it was. Edet was her campus roommates’ boyfriends, best friend.  They had actually tried to match make them to no avail. Even though they had had a passionate night of smooching, it hadn’t gone beyond that. Ufuoma always felt that there was something not quite right with Edet. Edet lives with his parents and they are having a family vigil but he offered her a room at their boys quarters, which Ufuoma quickly jumped at; a bird in hand. Edet’s family obviously have a lot of money. Their home is humongous with two separate guest chalets, a chapel, swimming pool and a boy’s quarters. The boy’s quarter is dark and deserted but beggars can’t be choosers. Ufuoma thought it odd that their bq would be without electricity but she was grateful for a place to lay her head. Edet had assured her that it was okay to smoke since the main house was far away and for that she was extra grateful. As soon he left though, a sudden overwhelming sense of foreboding washed over her and seeped right in through her flesh to her bones. The young girl who brought the meal was obviously sleepy. She dropped the tray and hurried away.

I9th August 2010

Ufuoma wakes up suddenly, so much for a vigil, she had dozed off.  Her heart stops and she can feel a rush a urine welling up in her bladder. While she dozed, it seemed she had been carried out, along with the bed. The night is silent, like someone pressed the mute button. She tries to rise but she is tied to the bed. She looks around as the most abject fear grips her soul. She is in the middle of a large expanse of land surrounded by a dense fence of trees. It would be a grave yard but for the absence of graves. Ufuoma’s bladder empties itself against her will as she notices a strange glowing circle, just inside the fence of trees, coming closer and closer. Ufuoma can feel her life hanging on a string. As the circle inches closer, she realises that they are candles held by people; about fifty of them. They are dressed in black hooded gowns, which cover every inch of their bodies. The candles are black too. Ufuoma is frozen in fear. One of the figures is holding a large shiny bladed scythe; for some reason, Ufuoma thinks it is Edet. “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want” She cannot remember the rest. A small cool breeze sails past her right ear “he leads me beside the still waters, he restores my soul.......” Ufuoma repeats after the voice until the end.  Suddenly Ufuoma wakes up. It is a dream. She looks at her phone the time is three am. The moon is suddenly out, letting in a stream of light from the slight parting on the curtain. Ufuoma realizes that she has wet the bed. She gets up to change, thankful that her hours here were few now. She wraps her urine sodden clothes in polythene bag and stuffs it in her travelling bag. As she returns to the bed her foot hits the tray with her forgotten meal. The cover shifts off slightly and huge maggots crawl out of the plate.  That does it. Ufuoma picks up her bags and bolts out of the room.  Thankfully, her flight is uneventful. She raps urgently at the door of the security post. The security mans eyes almost pop out of their sockets as he sees her. He looks around quickly before pulling her roughly into his living quarters/security post. He rattles off in Hausa as he shoves her under the bed. Ufuoma does not understand a word he says but she senses that he is on her side as well as being scared for his hide or life; that she couldn’t tell. She can tell though that she is not alone under the bed; but creepy crawlies are a better fate than that which almost befell her. She hears Edet’s voice enquiring if the security man has seen his friend. The security man responds in the negative. A few minutes later she hears the gates open and cars begin to drive out. For what seems like the next five minutes, car after car drive out of the compound. Eventually, she hears the sound of the gate close. Almost two hours later, the security man lets her out through the pedestrian gate.

Ufuoma says a prayer of thanks giving as she walks to the Magodo Estate gate. It is a little after five A.M and the place is still sleepy. At the gate, she sees a buka setting up for the day. She walks in and buys a bottle of water which she sits to sip very slowly, oblivious of the strange looks from the buka staff. Thirty minutes later, she opens her purse to pay and realises that she has been robbed by the security man.  Luckily she has loose change lying around in her purse. Ufuoma remains thankful.  Isheri is not far away from Magodo. She is sure that if she gets to her late sisters former compound, she could get help. It is not something she is eager to do but she has no other choice as she left her ATM card at home. She flags down a commercial motorcycle. He charges her five hundred naira. With her heart in her mouth, she rides to the block of flats where her late sister used to live. Getting there, there are no familiar faces. Ufuoma is well and truly stumped, sure it’s been ten years but the house next door had been owned by the people in it but it is now a hospital. Her phone’s battery is flat out. She finds herself as if by a magnetic pull at the back door of her late sisters flat. There is a young man standing at the door. She taps him gently. “Excuse me please”.

Tim repeats over and over in his head, “The Lord is my shepherd ...” He hears the voice and feels the touch but he cannot take his eyes away from the sight before him. Christie is sitting at the table, animated in a way he’s never seen her. One of her breast is out of her top and bra. The nipple is moving rapidly back and forth as though going through suction and her arms are crooked as though cradling a baby. She is speaking to the chair beside her, or so it seems. On the wall there are clear shadows of a man and two children sitting around the table and a baby in Christie’s arms. At the corner of the room there is the crouched shadow of another little child. Tim turns to the voice behind him. He listens only half hearing as she rattles off some story. He agrees to help her and hands her five hundred naira to pay her bike. As she leaves he turns back fearfully but there is no one at the table. Christie is peeping out the window at the young lady. Tim convinces himself that he must have imagined the whole scenario. Christie turns to him with a look of malevolent anger on her face. “You are really going to let her in here?”

TO BE CONTINUED....