Virus (11 page)

“I think we better go.” They said
almost in unison. Wan smiles broke out on both of their
faces.

“Can I hang in your place for a
couple of hours?” Tunrayo asked suddenly. Wole paused for about two
seconds before he responded.

“What about your mother? You sure
she won’t be worried about you?”

“No, I told her I would come to your
place after school and she agreed. As long as if was ok with your
mother.”

Wole shrugged smiling wearily. “Ok
then__ lets go home.”

They took a couple of steps forward
walking side by side when Wole on impulse reached forward and took
her hand in his. She stiffened for two seconds before relaxing and
linking their fingers. They continued walking towards home with
both of their arms swinging slightly as they moved.

Conversation was little. There was
nothing to say really. A sigh burst from Wole’s lips first and then
Tunrayo followed five seconds later. They both felt an overwhelming
sadness fill their insides. Something was missing, or rather
someone__

Memories flitted through their mind
as they walked. The smiles, the laughs, the incessant bickering et
all. They were on the verge of crying when the cobbler’s tree and
sunflower bakery came into view. That sight normally wouldn’t have
changed a thing about the way they were feeling. Today however was
different.

Baba Adora was not sitting down
calmly as he usually did. He was walking around in circles in front
of the tree murmuring to himself. His clothes looked rough and
disheveled, and his bushy hair was scattered and dusty.

They paused in their tracks gaping
at him. He did not seem to notice their presence even though they
were standing ten feet away from him. Swallowing, Wole took two
steps closer. This close he could make out some of the words of
Baba Adora’s manic ramblings.

“It’s too soon__ it can’t be
happening yet. Not for another ten years at least, they lied__ they
all lied.”

Frowning, Wole stepped closer still.
Baba Adora continued to mutter and ramble. Wole’s face grew even
grimmer. As close as he was now, the old man ought to have
acknowledged his presence.

“Be careful Wole__ remember what
happened to Chike.” Tunrayo called from behind him.

Tunrayo’s words immediately brought
him to a halt and a sense of dread filled his insides. Could Baba
Adora have the same twisted spirit that Eze did? He did not answer
that question in his mind before Baba Adora spun on him so suddenly
that he jumped two feet in the air with fright. Baba Adora’s eyes
focused this time, not the manic wildness that had been in them a
few minutes ago.

“I don’t have the darkness Wole. Of
that you can be very certain.” He started towards Wole as he said
this; his movements slow and cat like. Too petrified to move Wole
froze until Baba Adora’s cold hands closed over his elbow. He bent
low bringing their faces level. Loud gasps from behind told him
that Tunrayo was almost overcome with fear.

“But you are right about one
thing___ there is darkness and that darkness my little ones is
coming. You must be prepared__ you must be READY.”

Both of their eyes were wide with
fright now. Tunrayo’s heart was beating so fast that for a second
she was afraid it was going to burst out of her chest. Baba Adora
held Wole’s fearful gaze for ten seconds before he leaped to his
feet and continued his manic pacing, the two children behind him
completely forgotten. They exchanged troubled glances and slowly
walked away.

A week later

Taiwo Betiku’s face was troubled as
he studied the report in front of him. There was something very
wrong in Oraromi. Over the last three days, reports had been coming
in that people were going missing. This was in addition to the dead
bodies that could not be found.

His eyes grew sad as he remembered
Dr. Makinde. He died about a week ago. Like Chike Chidozie before
him, his body had disappeared the next day. This was even after
posting armed guards outside the mortuary.

His wife too was missing. The last
time anyone saw her was a day and a half after her husband’s death
when sympathizers gathered at her house to console her. Their house
was boarded up a day after that. Thinking she was still in
mourning, the town’s people decided to give her space. When three
days past without anyone seeing a hide or hair of her, Taiwo had
dispatched a couple of his men there.

When they eventually got the locked
door open, an awful stench wafted out of the house. For several
tense seconds, the men were convinced they were going to find a
dead body. All they found however was a house in complete
disarray.

Bedclothes were shredded, lamps
overturned, pots and pans smashed on the floor and the cutlery
strewn all over the place. Asides from that, there was nothing.
They found no trace of the good doctor’s wife.

Another sigh burst from his lips.
His forces were spread thin. They were scouring the town looking
for those who were missing. However, until this present moment,
they had had no luck, and still the reports kept coming in. More
and more people were going missing.

His hard frown turned into a scowl.
Unable to sit still any longer he reached forward pushing the
intercom button. A barely audible zinging sound rang out in the
outer office. The door leading into his office opened a few moments
later and Diran his fist-swinging sergeant walked in.

“Yes sir!” He barked snapping to
attention.

“Get the car ready__ we are joining
the rest of the men on patrol to look for the missing
people.”

“On patrol sir?”

“Did I stutter?” Taiwo barked
glaring at him.

“No sir__ I will get on it right
away.”

The drive to the outskirts of town
seemed to take no time at all. Taiwo could not help feeling
surprised when he saw the signboard with the words goodbye to
Oraromi written on it out of the corner of his left eye.

It suddenly occurred to him that he
must have been more deeply entrenched in his thoughts than he
realized. Oraromi was nestled by several large blue black hills.
They rose up on either side of the long road meandering through the
center of them.

These hills were so close to each
other that the edges of the road were barely able to go through
them. The frown on Taiwo’s face deepened. He had never been able to
understand why the hills and this part of Oraromi were shrouded, by
a thick cloud of mist that you could barely see through. Many
motorists plying this route usually drove with their headlights
on.

Another hill loomed up on the right;
surrounded on all sides by thick bushes. A barely discernable path
snaked through the center of these bushes disappearing behind three
others standing in a semi circle behind the first one.

The battered Toyota hilux truck they
were in, slowed to a halt with a sickening screech of brakes. Taiwo
made a mental note to remind his sergeant to see to it that he
fixed the brakes.

His men leaped out of the back of
truck with their weapons held at the ready. Taiwo was the last to
alight. Three of his men crouched a few feet in front of the start
of the narrow path.

A sigh burst from Taiwo’s lips as he
adjusted his somewhat rumpled trousers. He checked his sidearm to
make sure it was still in place, nodding when he realized that it
was.

The faint murmur of voices reached
their ears. In the distance, they caught the flickering of more
than half a dozen lights. The men crouched in front of the path
turned and looked back at him. With a quick nod, Taiwo gave them
the go ahead to proceed. These men rose slowly, pausing for a
couple of seconds to check their weapons before edging
forward.

The two in front held out
flashlights, which illuminated the misty path ahead of them. Taiwo
and the others followed a few seconds later.

Chapter
Nineteen

The screech of the walkie talkie
strapped to Taiwo’s belt startled him and his men so much that the
man beside him almost squeezed out a burst from his slightly rusty
AK 47. Hissing in anger, Taiwo unclasped the walkie talkie, raising
it to his lips slowly.

“This is Vector one! Where are you
people?”

There was a pause followed by a
screech.

“This is Vector twelve sir. We are
about twelve miles away from the start of the path
over.”

“Have you found anything
over?”

Another pause followed.

“Not really sir__ over.”

“What do you mean not really?
Over__”

“I think you might have to come see
for yourself__ over.”

Taiwo and the men in front of him
exchanged puzzled looks before pressing forward bravely.

“We will be with you soon__
over.”

The faces of all the men present
grew grimmer.

Twenty minutes of walking brought
them to a wide clearing. The mist here was much thicker than it had
been in other places. The faint glimmer of more than two dozen
lights some distance away made them realize that the clearing was
much wider than they thought.

The sounds of several familiar
voices reached their ears and they lowered their weapons slowly.
They had found their colleagues.

Diran who was ahead started forward
with a hard frown on his face. He took about three steps before a
hand landed on his shoulder gripping it so tight that it forced him
to a halt. A sense of panic rippled on his insides as he turned
until he heard Taiwo’s gruff voice ring out behind him.

“Relax Diran, if anyone is going to
be in front, am afraid that person has to be me.”

Diran stepped aside still frowning,
lowering his gaze as the full force of Taiwo’s hard gaze came on
him. Satisfied by his sergeant’s submission, Taiwo took the lead
gripping the Glock he held in his hand so hard that his knuckles
became slightly grey.

As he moved further into the mist,
visibility became better for some strange reason. The further in he
went, the better he could see. It began to lift after two dozen
steps, revealing a strange looking orange rock covering the ground
they walked on.

Taiwo slipped, wincing as a sharp
pain raced down his left leg. He kept his balance, but just
barely.

“Easy sir__” Diran barked from
behind.

“Yeah__ you best watch your step.
The ground is a bit treacherous.”

Loud murmurs greeted his statement.
He grunted, proceeding more carefully. The light mist that remained
cleared completely. He stopped, looking around warily with his gun
held at the ready.

There was a strange structure
fifteen feet ahead. It appeared to be part of or built into a small
hill almost hidden by a thick cluster of mahogany trees. The
structure looked like a fifteen-foot tall hut cut out of the side
of the hill.

In a semi circle around its opening
were what looked like five open graves. The openings of these
graves radiated an eerie neon red glow. The same glow also came
from the stone hut in front of them.

Half a dozen rifles cocked behind
him as his men spotted the strange sight.

“Welcome sir__” A deep voice called
from inside the hut. Seconds later, the rest of his men came out of
the hut in their ones and twos.

Taiwo and his men relaxed surging
forward slowly. Their eyes widened as they walked past the open
graves. To their immense relief, they found that the graves were
empty. The insides of the graves were made of a grayish rock.
Apparently, someone dug the graves out of the hard rock they were
standing on. Carved into this rocky interior were more than two
dozen strange inscriptions.

The red light shinning out of each
grave came from the letters and inscriptions written inside them.
Taiwo’s eyes narrowed as he looked at it.

“Yeah it’s the same thing inside the
hut as well.”

Taiwo’s hard gaze instantly rose to
meet the man’s face. The man was tall, his large frame stuffed into
the black uniform he wore. Two dozen men milled around him, all
holding their weapons at the ready.

“Did you find any
bodies?”

“No sir__ just the strange glowing
letters and something__” his voice drifted off.

“Something?”

The big guy shrugged not saying
anything. Taiwo sighed and entered the hut. The inside was wider
than he imagined. The floor covered by orange rock. High rock walls
rose around him. The sound of footsteps behind told him that some
of his men were following.

Carved into the rock walls were more
inscriptions. Unlike the ones outside however, they weren’t written
vertically but horizontally, almost with mathematical
precision.

The space between each line of
inscription was the same. The frown on Taiwo’s face deepened as he
took a step closer. Some of the inscriptions did not seem like
words at all. They looked more like numbers with symbols, which
resembled some form of calculus.