Virus (14 page)

“WHUMP!!!”

The building shuddered so violently
that a few police officers fell down.

“What in the world was THAT??” Taiwo
yelled, his voice sounding squeaky and his eyes wide with
alarm.

“I think something hit the
building__” A junior officer murmured as fear danced around in his
eyes.

“Six of you __ outside immediately__
find out what hit the building.”

Six men broke away from the main
mass, heading towards the exit with long brisk strides.

“You have permission to use deadly
force.” Taiwo called after them.

The leader of the six men nodded his
face and mouth grim with determination as they exited the
building.

“D.P.O sir__” A squeaky voice piped
up from Taiwo’s left.

“What is__” Taiwo began pausing when
he saw the thick cloud of dirt floating out of the narrow passage
leading to the holding cells. A lump rose in Taiwo’s throat and for
several seconds he had difficulty swallowing.

“Is anyone in the holding cell?” He
asked swallowing again.

“Only Eze__”

“Eze__ Taiwo murmured rolling the
name over his tongue. “I had almost forgotten about
him.”

“Four of you come with me.” He
barked heading towards the passage with slow measured strides. The
thud of several booted feet behind told him his men were
following.

The frown on Taiwo’s face deepened
as he cocked the rusty AK 47 in his hand. Looking at it with a deep
sigh, he could only pray the damn thing would fire. Saying a prayer
under his breath, he stepped into the dusty gloom of the
corridor.

A click rang out behind him and
bright light illuminated the gloom. Thank God one of the men had
the foresight to bring a torch. Five steps brought them to the
front of Eze’s cell. They were shocked to see that a sizable chunk
had been taken out of the wall beside Eze’s cell.

The door of the cell hung drunkenly
on a pair of twisted hinges. The cell was empty. Eze had
disappeared. Their minds had barely processed that fact when faint
sounds reached their ears. It took them about thirty seconds to
realize that the sounds they were hearing were gunshots. Taiwo and
his men leaped out of the hole, heading towards the
gunshots.

Chapter
Twenty-Three

Fifteen of his men stood in a square
formation in front of the police station, firing their weapons into
the thick bushes in front. They all had scared and panicked looks
on their faces.

Taiwo and the men following him
surged forward taking position on the left. He gave the signal for
those behind him to hold their fire. Peering into the bushes, he
scoured the green in front of him trying to see what they were
firing at.

“HOLD YOUR FIRE!!” He
roared.

Some stopped, but most continued
firing. “HOLD YOUR FIRE!!!” He screamed at the top of his voice.
Only then did the gunfire stop.

“What are you goats SHOOTING
AT?”

In a lighter mood, some of the men
would have chuckled at the way their senior officer used a calm
tone of voice for the first part of his question and yelled out the
last bit almost hysterically. A heavy silence engulfed their
ranks.

“Is someone going to answer me or do
I have to start shooting kneecaps?”

The silence continued for five more
seconds before one of his patrol officers spoke.

“We don’t know what they were.”
There was another pause.

“
They?”

“Yes they__ they looked __” He
swallowed pausing. “strange__ even__”

“Even what sergeant?”

“They looked dead.”

Each second after the man finished
speaking seemed to stretch for hours. Time seemed to slow down,
maybe even stand still. He took a step towards the man who had
spoken, searching his face for any trace of mirth or jest. The most
frightening thing was that there was none. He looked more serious
than Taiwo had ever seen him look before.

“But that is not the only thing
sir__”

“Jesus the holy Christ, there is
more?”

“They were led by something.
Something big and huge__ I have not seen anything that big before.
That was what broke the wall and took Eze.”

“Where did it take him?”

“Into the bushes and the others
followed.”

Taiwo chewed on his lower lip. Now
he was in a quandary. Should he order his men to follow the
creatures that had kidnapped Eze or head back into town to help
fight the fire?

He did not have to think about it
too long. Putting the fire out was more important than chasing Eze.
After all, he was the one who had started this madness in the first
place.

“Let’s fall back into town. Those
fires are not going to put themselves out are they?”

Several relieved sighs greeted his
words. It was obvious most of his men were relieved that he was not
going to force them to chase down those scary creatures.

“Let’s move!!” Taiwo
barked.

Half a dozen men raced to the back
of the police station where they parked the police vehicles. The
healthy growls of more than twenty trucks rang out a few moments
later. Within minutes, the police station was empty.

Alaba slid his house key into the
lock of the front door with a sigh. A puzzled frown hardened his
usually pleasant features. Something was amiss, but even as he
pondered on it, he could not quite place what was wrong. It came to
him about a minute later. The apartment building was quiet. In
fact, it was TOO quiet. He was just about to investigate when a
loud thud from inside his own apartment caused his heart to race.
Had Joke fallen over?

He unlocked the door quickly and
dashed into the room surprised to see Joke crouched on the linoleum
cover floor, beside a large traveling bag, the contents strewn in a
dozen different directions. A relieved sigh burst from his lips as
she turned around slowly.

“Oh___ you are back! Would you
believe I did not hear the key turning in the lock? She had a
sheepish look on her face as she said this, her eyes twinkling with
amusement.

“I can see why__” He growled looking
very displeased. “You dropped the bag didn’t you?”

“Yeah__ if you enjoy stating the
obvious.” She replied winking as she did so.

He sighed closing the door behind
him.

“What did you want to remove from
the bag that could not wait till I got back?” She could see he was
controlling his temper with some difficulty. That worried her for a
couple of seconds and then she realized she did not really
care.

“You worry too much Alaba. I am
pregnant and not disabled. You cannot expect me to wait for you
before I get even the littlest things done do you?” Her eyes
hardened as she said this and this caused another sigh to burst
from his lips.

Unwilling to be drawn into an
argument, he strode to the left side of the room where a large bag
was placed, filled with dozens of clothes. He slipped out of his
work clothes leaving only his boxers.

She watched his every move waiting
to see if he would try to argue. A tinge of disappointment filled
her insides when he did not. She sighed. Maybe her pregnancy was
making her cranky. Spoiling for a fight was not something she
regularly did, but the closer she drew to her term, the more she
felt like quarreling.

Turning her attention back to the
scattered contents of the travelling bag, a feeling of frustration
surged on her insides. She realized she did not remember what she
was looking for in the first place.

She started stuffing the clothes
back into the bag as she struggled to remember what she had been
looking for. Alaba stretched out on the bed. He had a pensive look
on his face as he stared at the cement ceiling above him which was
covered with more than half a dozen black stains.

His thoughts drifted. They were
random, not fixed on a particular train of thing. He kept expecting
to hear the loud thud of footsteps that usually emanated from the
apartments upstairs. That noise was strangely absent
today.

The expression on his face grew
hard. Silence in the building at this time of the day was unheard
of. Something is wrong!

Joke seeming to sense a change in
his mood turned to face him. A surprised look came on her face when
she saw the hard look in his eyes.

“Is something wrong?” She asked. She
could only hope she had not done anything to displease
him.

He did not answer for a couple of
seconds, without warning however; he sat up suddenly, turning
around to face her.

“Have you noticed how quiet the
building is?”

“Yeah ___ what about it?”

“Don’t you think there is something
strange about that?”

“I can’t say I have really given the
matter much thought.” She began slowly. “Though now that you
mention it, it is unusual for the house to be quiet at this
time.”

She barely finished speaking when a
scream reverberated down the hall. They jumped startled.

“What in the world was that?” Joke
asked in a shaky voice.

Alaba was on his feet in a thrice
and quickly began to put his clothes on.

“What are you doing?” She asked
aghast.

“What does it look like I am doing?
I want to find out what’s going on.”

“Are you crazy?? What if its an
armed robber or something?”

“I hardly think so__ not at this
time of the day anyway. What it could be is an accident. Someone
might really need help.” Before she could spit out an appropriate
response, he was out the door locking it after him.

Chapter Twenty –
Four

A cold feeling filled Alaba’s
insides as soon as he stepped into the corridor. He realized that
coming out might not have been the best idea. His eyes swept the
whole length of the corridor, stiffening when he saw a shadow
vanishing up a flight of stairs to his left. Swallowing he hurried
after it.

The staircase was shrouded in gloom.
Two sixty watts bulb usually illuminated it, but today the bulbs
gave no light. He reached towards the wall on his right where the
light switch was. He clicked it on and off. Nothing happened! The
darkness remained.

He took a deep breath to calm
himself and pulled his cell phone from his pocket to search for the
torch function. Clicking it when he found it, a sickly looking
white light streamed from the tiny light bulb on top of the phone.
The light barely illuminated three feet in front of him.

He started up the stairs, pausing as
he considered the wisdom of his actions. Would it not be better to
go back down and try to call for help? Maybe even call the police.
He dismissed that thought as soon as it came. Even if they did
come, which was unlikely, they were likely to make the situation
much worse.

Like most Nigerians, he had a great
distrust of the police and other law enforcement agencies. They had
not been exactly stellar in their operations and duties over the
years. A faint scream and a loud thud coming from the second floor
made up his mind for him. He hurried up the stairs faster with a
grim look on his face.

The walk up the stairs seemed to
take forever. As he got closer to the top, his footsteps slowed and
for some reason he could not define, his heart began to
race.

Summoning courage, he took a deep
breath stepping onto the second floor. Like the staircase, the
entire floor was dark and gloomy. A frown hardened his face at the
sight. It was late afternoon; things should not be this gloomy in
the house. A feeling suddenly surged into him. The rational part of
his brain wanted to dismiss the feeling as being a flight of fancy
but it became impossible to quell.

It seemed as if a dark entity
occupied the entire floor. Even though it was invisible, it felt as
if it had eyes, fixed on him, watching his every move. Several loud
thuds and a ringing filled his ears. He grew so alarmed that a cry
hovered behind his lips, until he realized the thud he was hearing
was simply his heartbeat.

Swallowing he tiptoed down the
narrow length of the corridor. There were several doors on either
side. These doors led into a one room self contained apartment like
the one he had downstairs. Five steps later, a low murmur reached
his ears.

He paused startled with every sense
alert. The sound, he discovered a few seconds later came from the
last apartment on his right whose door was wide open. Taking a deep
breath, he started towards it.

The low murmur quickly turned to a
loud wheezing. As if someone was having difficulty breathing. He
lengthened his strides, the expression on his face growing even
grimmer.

He peered around the edge of the
open door fearful of what he might find. His eyes grew wide with
horror. The room he looked into was in complete disarray. The large
sofa sitting in the center of the room was ripped and slashed, with
the foam and stuffing pulled out. Clothes strewn all over the floor
and pictures pulled from their perches on the wall and smashed on
the floor.