chapter 4

Immediately Wole woke up, he could neither find Kate nor the car. He looked around and found out he was totally lost. His North, East, West and South were all covered with thick vegetation. So many questions ran through his young mind. Before he could figure out what had happened, he felt the bite and various perches of mosquitoes on his legs. Time was already deep into the night he had no idea of what to do. The frequent perches of the night crawlers and the mosquitoes made it hell for him. He was lost in confusion his mind was far from sleep.                                                                                                                                                    

Bad thoughts began to run through his mind. ”What if she actually abandoned me here, what if……”, said Wole soliloquizing. He remembered that he still had a photo of him and his dad from last Christmas. He reached for it, immediately he looked at it, the thought of his dear father, who was presently living in the same house with that heartless woman he knew as his step-mother swept through his mind. Hurriedly he knelt down and prayed. He prayed for himself, he prayed for his present situation, he prayed for his loving father, whom he missed.                                                                                                                                              

After walking for a while, he began to see a trail of light. He was certain that someone was close by. The focus of the light was on him. At first, thoughts of running towards the source ran to him, and then again he had a second thought. Dr. Ajayimore had often told his son of cases where headless bodies with missing parts or organs. He had heard stories of evil and dubious men known as ritualists, men who wandered at the ungodly hour of the night for a prey to use for their inhumane activities.”Emeka, person they there o”, said Ambrose far off from Wole. ”Who go they this kind thick bush for this kind midnight”, replied Emeka as he collected the lantern from Ambrose, using it to search for anyone around. Surprisingly, he found a figure not so far from where they stood. “Oya! Oya! Call Oga now, Tell am say we have catch another fish for the sacrifice {Tell him that we have caught another person for the job at hand}”, said Emeka. He turned off the lantern and dropped it on the grass.

He took off like an officer in pursuit to capture whatever or whoever was there for reasons best known to him and his co-partner. “Have they left….. Someone was pointing a torch focus on me some moments ago?”, Wole thought. He turned around and began to hear footsteps and the ruffling grasses behind him. Something inside of him told him to run, he was sure that he wasn’t alone in the bush anymore. The sound of a nearby whisper turned him on. He didn’t to know who or what was that. In a twinkle of an eye he was off, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him. He had his school bag strapped to his back and the picture of him and his father on hand.                            

The sounds and thoughts of being chased by something he didn’t know not to talk of see gave him enough reason to take to his hills. He knew not where he was going but he ran all the same. He couldn’t even gather courage to look back. “I have catch it, Ambrose, Ambrose”, shouted Emeka holding Wole in his arms. Wole screamed and howled in terror. His tears flowed endlessly. He was in the tight and firm grip of the figure holding onto him. Nothing he attempted seemed to free him from the grip of the huge figure. With a swift thought, he resulted to bite the arm of the figure that held him and make a run for it. Unlike what he intended, he got a heavy slap imprinted on his left eye. He screamed louder than ever with shouts of, “My eye!, My eye!”. He felt so much pain in his eye, it felt more like a blow than a slap to his tender eye. The two dingbats silenced him with a handkerchief tied on his mouth and tied him up with ropes. They lifted him up and carried him by the arms and legs, steadily racing back to their car. They dumped him at the back seat laughing, hysterically as they shut the door and entered the front seats.“The Babalawo go give us plenty, plenty money for this o”, “For sure na, Oga even fit surprise us self{The chief priest would give us so much money once we finish the job, Boss can even surprise us with something}”, Wole could hear them say. He was in so much pain. He didn’t know who “Oga” or “Babalawo” were and he didn’t want to know. Whoever they were, he was sure that they were not good people. He just wanted to get back to his father and not be part of whatever they were saying. The sore on his left eye had developed into a heavy bruise. The pain he felt there made it impossible to blink even if he wanted to. The slightest gallop or stop over a trench would make his head hit against the back seat and intensify the pain making him to cry some more. “Way you, better shut up for there”, roared Ambrose due to his loud cries. It got so intense that he couldn’t open the eye anymore.