The CEMETERY

Driven by bitterness, vengeance, bloodlust and a desire to kill, a young man chooses to pay his friend a final visit...

Chapter 1: The Yellow Dress

Leke stood inside the cemetery on a cold night, slowly rubbing the surface of his dry palms together; his eyes appeared glued to his object of focus; his late friend’s grave.

All of a sudden, he stopped the palm-rubbing act, dropped his arms to his side, raised his head to the sky and began to laugh; not in the manner of one amused. Rather, like a man who has lost his mind.

Leke was curently thinking about Hakeem. The day's date was August 13, 2010; precisely 10 years since Hakeem was murdered in cold blood. The circumstance and nature of his death had instilled devastating fear in many. His corpse, seen by an unfortunate few, had sparked a controversy that raged on for weeks. Those who had glimpsed the remains of the dead man simply could come to terms with what they had seen. Their minds just couldn’t bear the sheer horror that has assaulted their minds and hearts.

One of such people was Lawunmi – Hakeem’s fiancée. She had decided to pay Hakeem a surprise visit that fateful day; a visit she had planned so well just to give he sweetheart a thrill.

She had taken time to cook what she considered a top of the shelf delicacy; spiced yam porridge garnished with vegetable, shrimps and roasted snails. In addition, she had prepared ‘Zobo;’ a drink, which Hakeem always proudly boasted of being an addict of Zobo and would often say to her:

"I will drink Zobo on my deathbed."

Hakeem loved yellow dresses and beads and had presented these to her on her 26th birthday; barely a week ago. This, she had chosen as the most appropriate outfit for a candle-light dinner for two.

Looking elegant and carrying the food flask in a branded polythene pack, Lawunmi looked smashing enough to disrupt a religious service. Spending less than 20 minutes in the light traffic that night, she arrived at Hakeem’s two-bedroom apartment.

After three light knocks without a response from within, she turned the door-knob; only to discover that the door had been open all along. She stepped in and asked in her melodic voice.

“Hello! Is anybody home?” Yet, there was no trace of life in the house. Sensing her sweetheart could be engrossed in one of a million things and might never hear her, she began moving stealthily through the house hoping to seek him out and probably give him a scare in the process.

Lawunmi gently placed their supposed dinner on the dining table and kept searching. After 90 seconds of quietly opening and closing doors, she stopped in her tracks and looked in the direction of the only place she hadn’t searched; the bedroom.

It took her only 10 steps to get to the door as she quietly and cautiously opened the well-greased door. Before she stepped in, she sensed foulness about the air that hit her. She waved this aside; hoping she might even catch him sleeping.

When she opened the door full length, one might have thought Hakeem was indeed sleeping; only that when a man sleeps the way she found Hakeem, it was certain that such a man would never wake up.

Chapter 2: Lawunmi Finds Her Sweetheart

What Lawunmi saw made her heart seize. She felt her head grow larger and tried to scream but even with her lips fully parted; with her mouth wide open, not a single sound escaped her throat because, in her 26 years of existence, she had never seen anything as barbarically messy as this.

Hakeem was dead! There was no doubt about that but that was a very false description of what Lawunmi’s eyes beheld. If the definition of a man was to have most parts of the body intact as one, then Hakeem was far from being a man. The only identifiable part of Akeem’s body was his head, which lay in the middle of the blood-soaked bed.

Other parts of his body were scattered all over the place. His intestines were wrapped around the bedpost. His torso nailed to the wall; like animal-skin hung in the sun to dry. His innards including lungs, heart, liver and other things Lawunmi couldn't recognise were scattered all over; like toys in a busy kindergarten class.

The bedroom reflected the venue of a ‘Splash-It Fight’ between a painter with a tin of black paint, a sewage disposal boy with a bucket full of raw human faeces and a drunk butcher with a sack of bad meat.

Chapter 3: The Girlfriend Joins Her Sweetheart

Lawunmi was a decent young lady; one with a fragile heart. So fragile, Hakeem had dubbed her 'The Epitome of Gentleness’ and could never resist the urge to tease her about this.

When she saw Hakeem in the manner whoever or whatever had done this to him had left him, she was terrified, transfixed and rendered completely immobile. Her mouth ran dry; her eyes blinked rapidly in sheer horror. Her stomach twisted and churned at the sight before her. Her eyes burned with tears of pain, despair and incomprehensibility began to sting her suddenly red eyes.

Within seconds of all these, all began to darken around her. Her last thoughts were of trying to scream as she fell backwards – losing consciousness.

In what seemed like the slowest of motions, her head struck the marble floor so hard that her skull gave way to an opening and she breathed her last; allowing death take its toll.

Chapter 4: The Tragedy of August 13

Once again, Leke looked down at Hakeem’s grave; towering above the dead man’s place of rest. He recalled vividly, the tragedy of August 13, 2000. The bloody scene flashed across his mind like a man trying to recall details of a 7-day-old dream. He and Hakeem had been friends.

Again, images of Hakeem’s death rented his mind. He had gone to Akeem’s house that day to pay him an eternally retaliatory visit.

Men have secrets; some dirty, others bad and a few, absolutely unthinkable.

Hakeem’s past was shrouded in darkness for he had committed atrocities while an adolescent.

Chapter 5: The Atrocity

Driven by poverty and other unseen factors, Hakeem had robbed, hurt and abused many but specifically, he, in the company of 3 others, had robbed a certain family.

The household had suffered a great loss because, besides robbing, Hakeem and his cohorts had raped a mother and two teenage daughters.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, the gang had forced the father to rape his own daughters and made his son have sexual intercourse with his own mother.

Still not content with the terror they had unleashed, they slaughtered the girls and shot the mother point blank; sparing the father and his teenage son and left the family scarred for life.

The gang leader - young Hakeem, had bluntly told father and son through his hooded face that he was a product of the society; branding himself 'The Left hand of God.'

Hakeem’s gang had left as they had come; quietly but when the wheel of nemesis is tampered with, there’s no going back for he who has erred. Whether by fate, stupidity or the grinding wheels of Karma, Akeem had dropped a single item, which would set in motion, the beginning of his end - his wallet, which contained the most devastating loss to anyone in the act of robbery, gang rape and murder; his ID.

As if the hands of retributive justice were starved, something occurred. The item was found by the unforgiving son and brother of the raped; a seemingly innocent boy who was enrolled in the same academic institution Akeem’s ID reflected - A seeming innocent boy; fondly called Leke.

Chapter 6: Nemesis Has a Face

Leke survived but through years of nursing a devastated heart, which never really healed, Leke had schemed, pretended and devised a perniciously vile plan; following a carefully plotted script of revenge.

His short trip to Akeem’s residence was the final page of Leke’s book of vengeance. Putting an end to Akeem’s existence hadn’t been too difficult for a sleeping man hardly ever puts up much of a resistance.

Leke had arrived Akeem’s residence to find him sleeping. With the stealth of a puma, Leke drew the hunting knife from his belt, deftly covered Akeem’s face with a pillow and swiftly slit his throat with the precision of an assassin. What followed was a bloody affair - Like a work-starved butcher in a slaughterhouse, Leke had performed the deed like a zombie; no feelings whatsoever.

In truth – He was hollow but he was not born that way.  Years of pain and hatred had conditioned his heart into something ugly and remorseless.

Chapter 7: Whispers From the Past

As Leke stepped out of his prolonged flashback, he realized the heavens had opened up a little and drops of water hit the ground in splashes yet, he glanced at the inscription on Hakeem’s grave and in defiance to the laws of life and death, Leke whispered:

“Dear bastard friend, now that you tread that lonely path, may Lucifer grant you what you deserve... May your wretched soul burn eternally in Hell...”

The rain fell in showers; making him mildly wet. He wiped his face to clear the water already hindering his vision. As he did this, he heard something. The sound appeared to have come from behind him. He spun around but all he saw was the greyness that lay within the rain and he smiled, grinned and laughed; feeling as triumphant as a frustrated writer who finally eliminates a hungry rodent that’s been chewing his manuscripts.

Suddenly, he heard the pronouncement of his name from behind. His laugh was truncated... He slowly turned around hoping for the worse but he saw nothing. Then he asked himself:

“Could I be scared of ghosts? Goodbye Hakeem. It’s time to leave. I don’t belong here.”

He had barely taken three steps away from Akeem’s grave when he heard: “Leke!” from behind. He ground to a halt; not because he felt he was going insane but because he knew that this time, he had actually heard someone or something voice his name.

Now, he was scared to death; visibly wearing a mask of panic on his face for the first time for it dawned on him that he was as a matter of fact, within a cemetery. He froze when he felt something like a finger rest on his shoulder from behind.

Chapter 8: A Cold Embrace

This time, he was too terrified to turn around but he knew he had to; for how long can a man have his back against reality. In what seemed to take forever, he made a slow and fear-inspired u-turn but surprisingly, he saw nothing.

Barring the odds, a challenging grin crept into his face and he whispered:

“It was my destiny to take your life you bloody decaying son of a whore. What’s yours, my late friend?”

He had barely finished uttering the words when the ground trembled beneath his feet. It was unbelievable.

In a metaphysical spell, the earth slowly parted. Shocked into a trance-like stare, Leke watched in paralysed consternation; his face white with horror as a termite-infested coffin rose to meet him; like a troubled child running into the embrace of a loving father.

In what would remain his final moment of sanity, he looked on helplessly as the lid of the coffin opened and the rotten remains of Akeem stretched its bony arms towards him in a deranged embrace of death. In the slowest of movements, Hakeem’s 10-year-old corpse grabbed Leke with its cold bony fingers; drew him into a terrifying hug and effortlessly hauled him into the coffin.

Without the slightest of resistance; not even a scream, Leke accepted his fate and the coffin’s lid slammed shut and returned back into the soil.

In a space of four seconds, Leke had ceased to be in the midst of the living... Moments after the rain, a cemetery attendant walked by Akeem’s grave without faltering in his steps because the grave looked exactly as it did 10 years ago.

Author: Samod Biobaku | Simply SAMAD

Dedication

This story is dedicated to Omolara Nathalie Savage. We met in 2017 and the innocence of her spirit, the purity of her heart, her expressive soul and her willingness to play endeared her to me. No one gave me as many gifts in 2017 as ‘Savage’ (as she's fondly called at work) did. I am grateful for your friendship and forever grateful to God for making our paths cross. May the rest of your life be long, fulfilling and beautiful.

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