THEME: KNOCK YOURSELF OUT
TITLE: “GRAVES ARE IMPERMANENT…”
Written by Kaluwe Haangala
The young man entered the dark hut crawling on all fours. He sat down as the old man looked at him squarely in the face. He didn’t dare explain why he hadn’t come earlier because rumour had it that the man knew everything. Another rumour he hadn’t quite garnered the strength to verify was whether the old man truly was blind because as innocuous as the movements he made, the man’s eyes seemed to track him.
In the blink of an eye, a blue flame sparked up the room. He flinched as though this ritual was new to him, yet he had witnessed this several times before. The old man even knew that this visit always signaled some call to action regarding a son of the village. When the flame subsided, he knew it was time to speak. He cleared his throat quietly.
“Wasamunu ulu siyile (Wasamunu is dead).”
“Naziba, hape yamubulayile nimuboni (I know, and I have seen who killed him).”
An LED-like screen materialised in the middle of the flame, which eerily and creepily wasn’t heating up the room like a normal fire should have been. It showed a beautiful woman sitting in a car, watching a funeral.
“Cwale lukaeza cwani? (What are we going to do?)” asked the young man, fearful of watching things happen.
“Namutisa kwahae onafa (I’m bringing him home in a moment).”
The screen vanished and just then, the blue flame plumed into dark smoke, that despite filling the room, was odourless and didn’t choke them. The young man took this as a cue to leave, before getting on his knees to crawl out of the dark room backwards (you didn’t dare stand up in front of the old man). He clapped hands in the way it was customary for only men of the land to do. He then said he had brought the white goats and white chickens as required.
“Kihande. Kufelile? (It is well. Is that all?)”
“Niya kwakuyo lukisa ze siyezi (I’m heading to finish off the rest of it).”
He clapped his hands again and crawled out. When outside, the men accompanying him stood still, bowed and clapped their hands before all retreated out of the old man’s compound. Once outside the wall surrounding it, they entered into the luxurious Range Rover that would take them back to the palace. He took out his phone and initiated a mobile money transfer to the old man’s grandson who was at a university in the city…
Far off to the east at a private cemetery in the same city, Namariah sat in a car some distance away from the throngs of mourners. She felt a twinge of guilt being at Wasamunu’s funeral. She actually liked him, and unlike most of her ‘assignments’, this was the most deadly: killing a man for what he knew. The dossier she had received, read like some espionage type masterpiece. The more she read, the more she begun to question her own sanity.
Wasamunu was a lawyer on his way to the very top. Stellar grades, blooming win rate and of course, a burgeoning career in politics. The call from her ‘handler’ would begin his impending ecclesiastical end. She had looked at a picture of him, rather innocent looking, but with a wry twisted smirk that was quite telling. Initially, she believed him to be guilty, but in this age of misinformation, just a pinch of suspicion sufficed. She read that he stood accused of taking an under the table payment and leaked some information. The redacted document enclosed just mentioned an operation called “THE ZERO OPTION PLAN”. He had opened his mouth about something he ought not to. She had the task of closing it – permanently. What he had seemingly leaked would remain a mystery to her. She always cross checked both sides of the story. This time, however, she had been told exactly what to do and what not to look into. She knew better than to start asking questions she wasn’t getting paid enough to die for, hence, she did her job. Getting close to him had been easy, killing him by spiking his drink with undetectable poison, more so.
As she watched, a niggling feeling kept sweeping over her. She recognised most of the people she saw in her scope from what she thought was a hidden vantage point. Unbeknownst to her, there was a couple of binoculars trained on her as she sat in the car. They too were checking proceedings with a keen eye. She looked at Wasamunu’s young wife and children in the gazebo by the side of the grave listening to the preacher, rehashing the time-tested speech about God taking the best flowers for himself into the heavens. She damn near shed a tear because it was the first time her assignment had taken as much a toll on her emotionally. Of course, physical intimacy never bothered her but like they say, taking a man’s life can change you.
Just then, she thought she heard an eerie, hissing sound. On looking up, she saw the people near the grave start to move back and scamper! From inside the grave arose the mother of all whirlwinds! It swirled and blew the immediate surrounds of the grave asunder, roused up into the sky, all the while punctuated by screams as though the biblical apocalypse had come to Earth. Violently, the wind started moving slowly, then swiftly westwards, wrecking havoc and destruction in its wake. As suddenly as it had started, a strange calm returned as though nothing had happened. She spotted the men watching her and drove off. What she didn’t know was that the unnatural wind had taken Wasamunu’s lifeless body out the grave, back ‘home’. She also didn’t know that her retribution was nigh…
It was just another Tuesday, another assignment, client meeting to be precise. She punched the throttle of her Misano Blue Peugeot convertible onto the main road after making sure the coast was clear. Sunday just before midday meant traffic was light and she shifted through the cogs in a way a rally fan would have been proud of. She crested up a hill and a fly over bridge loomed large onto her screen. In seconds, she had crested and ascended the slope, caressing her foot on the brakes as her cruise control hit the 140 km/h she had set it at.
“Waterfalls Mall in 10 minutes max,” she said to herself.
She had always been a goal getter from childhood and when it seemed as though all would be naught, an opportunity too great to miss laid itself afore, and into her now fat bank account. Someone had told her the combination of beauty and brains she possessed would open any doors, including gold plated ones. Her PR degree then became not only her backup but the raisin d’être for the jobs she accepted: infiltrate groupings and clubs of influential people, gain the trust of a specific target, leech them of information. It paid really well, and certain times, her commitment and work ethic meant she needed to scale some jobs back to do the perfect job. Today’s assignment was one of those that would pay her rent for the next year if she did it right. Wasamunu’s death bothered a little less as she was prepping for this meet and greet gig.
Had she been glancing in her rearview mirror the recommended once in 18 seconds, she would have noticed by the time she was getting to next roundabout that the black late model Lexus LX570 had been tailing her and what seemed like a trailing in her wake, was actually a great attempt at not arousing her suspicions.
As she cruised past the Natural Resources Development College and was readying to floor it as soon as the nondecrepit smoke bellowing Toyota in front took the next exit, her phone cut through her music jam session.
“Hello darling,” she cooed not unlike a crooner.
“Hey Baby, don’t come straight to the mall; pass through Palm Drive to pick me up, okay?”
“No problem Hun. Can’t wait to see you.”
As the music started back up, she signaled to get into the outer lane. The left she would take at the massive water tank loomed; the Lexus zipped past at a speed that made her curse loudly at it…
Behind the darkened windows of the Big SUV, an operative of the secret government wing, The Government Complex, relayed that the target was turning left into Palm Drive. He was asked to reconfirm whether the target had so much as had the inkling that she was not talking to the lover that she was due to meet in a few minutes. The operative rudely responded that he knew his job better than anyone else.
On being reminded of the hierachy, he simply said: “We spoofed his line and so she thought he was calling. We also used a voice synthesiser that exactly replicated his voice.”
“Good work, Dragon 1. Make sure you confirm the accident with me.”
Banda had had a truly wild night. The pounding in his head would herald the mother of all hangovers and he would have none of it. The music that had called out to him the previous day was already blaring. Its call was one he headed because according to him, his demons slept better that way. Having done what he considered enough of a balancing drunk act of having enough not to get drunker and just enough so he would not suffer a hangover, he walked the short distance home. At the main road, Palm Drive, he turned right and he hummed along to his heart’s content. It was a quiet day and what seemed to cut through that was just bird song.
He saw it immediately after he heard it, the unmistakable sound of a car that had inadvertently cruised over a hump at high speed.
“Women,” he muttered to no one in particular. The screeching and bungling he heard next, was of the most horrific accident he’d ever witnessed. It sobered him up instantly.
Namariah cursed as she struggled to bring the car under control, but it was too late! She veered left, and right, and noticing that she couldn’t possibly control it, she just let go of the steering wheel, held her head with both hands and screamed! She felt herself get flung through the air and she opened her eyes in horror!
Before everything went black, she thought she saw the Black SUV that had zipped past her…
Banda could not decide which state of inebriation or mental wildness was affecting him at that moment – delirium, hallucination or just downright madness.
The blue Peugeot zigzagged the entire breadth of the road, the drains and the greenery outlying the palatial homes. He could hear the lady occupant of the car screaming, chorused by the revving sounds of the engine on full song. As the car swayed for the third time, it heaved up into the air.
What he saw next sobered him up, verily. Had there been only he on the street, he would for a second have told himself he was seeing visions, of the biblical kind. As the car nosed high up, the car’s occupant seemed to have been flung from her seat, the car came crashing into the drain, flipped over about twice, all the while creating crashing, rending noises of breaking glass and bending metal, loud sounds reminiscent of a horror crash in a movie scene.
Amidst all the crashing noises that’d wake the street, what looked like a creature out of Jurassic Park looped swiftly into view just about the moment the lady was being flung out of the car. It deftly plucked her up with the grace of a fish eagle and promptly vanished, westwards.
PUBLISH’D AFRIKA Magazine Facebook Short Story Competition is funded by the National Arts Council, Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme 3
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