A Dread in the Spine - Episode 18

The Good old Path

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 Shayla was still fuming about Nosa's call and the ladies' foolishness when she stomped out of the other section of the house to meet the discontent prostitutes. The ones in the other room were also making ludicrous demands. They said they needed a bit of freedom. What freedom? They were even lucky to be alive. If Rachael hadn't ordered her to put them in a safe house, she would have ensured they tasted the same fate as those kidnapped.
She glanced at her phone repeatedly . There was fire on the mountain. Her Intel who worked as a computer analyst at Glo Fortunecity had just told her that the man, Raphael, she was following was nowhere to be found. Also, Segun also had told her that he was so sure he knew where their fat ex-prostitute would be. She had asked him to go to the place and make sure he did anything to get the information about the name she heard from Victoria, even if he had to torture out it of her. At this point of the case, he dared not make any mistake. After he had done that, they must use the woman as a trap for the kidnapper. Segun would take the glory while she would be exonerated for torturing a criminal and return to her work, where she was working as a spy for Fortunecity Association of Life Takers (F.A.L.T).
However, she must find a way to douse the wisp of smoke that was showing its face in the safe house. With what she was facing at the moment, she couldn't help but agree with Racheal, who insisted on not making the ladies have contact.
'You girls would either...'
'Who is a girl', Lila shouted and hissed

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. 'Let's know what we are doing? I'm not your mate in any way. How old are you? Can you be up to twenty years?'
'I'm only fourteen years', Shayla retorted and held her shaking hand in place. She was already getting anxious and would soon do something stupid. She gritted, knowing that her shaking hand would only stop if she left the place or removed two of Lila's teeth. 
 'Lila, ice your temper. Let's give a conclusion on this'Victoria said as if she was assured of Shayla's change of mind. 
'We're not making any conclusion', Shayla growled. 'You girls are lucky to be alive. By the time that kidnapper gets hold of you, you'll know what I'm saying. If not for me, you'
Lila edged forward in her seat and looked disgusted. 'What are you? If not for you, would I be here in the first place?'
'Then, pop out', Shayla shouted at her. By this time, both of her hands were now shaking, and it was beginning to reflect in her voice. In place of talking, she always preferred using her hand. The result was always awesome, quick and conclusively.
'Don't look down on me. I have connections', Lila said as she adjusted herself on the edge of the seat. 'I have real and big connections'.
Shayla cracked up with laughter. 'You? Those that were kidnapped, even the rich ones among them, were kidnapped despite their numerous boyfriends. Who are you?'
'I have mouth', Lila shouted, pointed angrily at her mouth and said with much vigor. 'This...My mouth...It will work for me, I swear. It will work'.
Shayla sat up. 'Even the mouth of the best speech maker cannot...Wait! Are you saying...? That's impossible'.
'Nothing is impossible. With me, nothing is impossible'.
'God that wants to punish you is planning to use my gun', Shayla snarled as she withdrew her gun from her bag and brandished it in front of Lila. That should scare her enough to keep shut. She was supposed to be somewhere else, but there she was, battling with these goats. 'Do you think babbling about our contract would have no consequences?'
'You can't kill me. Watch and see. I'm leaving this rotten place, this rotten life. I wasn't a Christian and I'm not ready to be one. I'm tired of all these and I know you won't want to be in this place too if you were me'.
'Ice your temper', Victoria shouted without facing anyone, while her hands stiffened as if she was about to crush her own head. 'Use protection on your words'.
'What protection? May protection burst. See, you, this small Shayla, I will show you that you can't kill me. It's not even possible'.
'That's very possible. And who is this flat brain Victoria telling to shut up? See, don't let me waste my bullets on you two.  I've done things I wouldn't normally have done. And what are you crying over? Are you not being paid?'
Victoria stood to interfere. 'We can find a better...'
'I was being paid for what I loved; riding men', Lila said and waved disgustedly. 'Not thisThis ermDirty lifestyle of pretending I saw visions of hell. God is just kind; he would have struck me dead. I'm tired'.
Shayla inhaled sharply and scoffed. 'See a Pig complaining about death. Your life is in mess already. We are just trying to put you in a glass cabinet so that people will assume you're good. My hand is becoming numb. In order words, I'm no more in control. My shaky hand can press the trigger. Beware and back off'.
'Lila, we can wait. Shayla, what if we have a definite day we'll stop all these?'
'Babe, you have no day. The contract remains the same. Don't expect any date. This is the 21st century. You go when I say you go'.
Lila rose angrily. 'Stop me then. Unless you kill me'.
She really would have loved to do that, to gun them down but her contractor and Rachael would want otherwise. Lila throttled out of the parlor and banged the door behind her. 
'You better talk to her', Shayla shouted to Victoria. 'Calm her down, if not you'll lay her corpse into the ground'.
'You too calm down and stop being a b...'
'If you dare finish that word', Shayla said as she rose from her chair. 'I will tear your mouth without fear.'
 Victoria gave her a curt look and paused to say something, but she kept quiet.
Shayla was marching out of the house when her phone rang. Rachael was on the line. Racheal was younger than she and would be maybe three or four years younger, but no one dared have an encounter with her. The ones that tried it all died including Rachael's instructors. She had been trained to withstand any type of pain and to know how to solve issues. She thrived on things that others would easily fail at. 
'Kill one of the girls. The commissioner wants them all dead. Let's kill one of them now, I'm still strategizing, but killing one of them is the best move for now'.
'Hope it wouldn't backfire?'
Rachael chuckled. 'Backfire? You know me. It's a good move and worthy of our trial. It never and would never backfire'.
'What about the other girls? What would happen to them?'
'Leave them in the safe house'.
'Okay', she said and her voice faltered.
'Hey! I know what you will want to do. Don't try it. Make sure one of them dies'.
Shayla returned to the house. She was always good and loved killing corrupt men, but always felt bad anytime she was ordered to kill anyone that reminded of what she used to be before she was kidnapped at the age of nineteen by Chief Suberu's men to be trained as an assassin. These girls were only trying to meet both ends meet, and shouldn't be plunged into men's feeling of pride. If the commissioner wasn't proud, he wouldn't have collected money from men who wanted to shut up people who were talking against their place of worship. Despite not being a regular churchgoer, she still always found a reason to believe God is alive and would punish people for killing the innocent ones.
She licked her lower lips and knew what to do. She would make Lila disappear, and cover-up for her death with something else. Suddenly, the door to the rooms Lila and Victoria were staying flew open and Lila rolled out a bag. She now wore a black jacket over her spaghetti top.  'I'm going. Vicky, you can decide to stay here'.
'You're not going anywhere. Sit right there, we need to talk', Shayla said dejectedly. She knew how it would be if she discovered that she was being made to disappear. She would be living everything she adored behind and would be flushed to a place no one would ever suspect.
'Can you see, Lila?' Victoria said as slumped into one of the seats. 'She's ready to talk. We will have a good thing to get from here'.
'No. I'm tired', Lila said, shook her head vigorously, pulled her bag and tramped towards the door. Shayla was so furious that she shot at the handle of the door. Lila screamed and jumped back, making her bag slam onto the ground. Victoria also shrieked. She spun to face Shayla with an alarmed glare.  
'Witch. You're a witch. Wicked Witch. I'm going. I'm leaving this devilish place', she said, panting hurriedly. Her breathing was loud and jagged. She remained in the same position as her glances went from Shayla to her fallen bag then to Victoria and back to Shayla.
Shayla loved the fear that oozed out of her. It was good and could easily be influenced. That gunshot would make her look like a puppet. She would dance to any direction Shayla wanted. It would give her control over her. With shaky hands, Shayla gestured towards the door to their room. Lila stared at her as if she was calculating on how to avoid Shayla. Shayla was very sure she would calm down.
'Seat your prostitute-self down on that chair before I put a lot of holes through you'.  
However, Lila wasn't one to be easily controlled; she sprung back into action and ran for her bag. Shayla held the gun firmly.
'She is holding an iron', Victoria screamed with a quivering voice. 'Lila. No. She is holding an iron. She is holding a cold gun'.
Trembling and shaking her head as if she was drugged, Lila spun towards the door. 'I'm going. I'm leaving. I'm tired'.
Shayla hardened her grip on the gun. If her hand continued shaking like it was doing at the moment, she would shoot Lila without controlling the trigger. She wanted to avoid shooting any vital organ on this stupid girl. Can't she just stay put till they solved everything?  
She growled with clenched teeth. 'Don't do anything stupid? Lila, don't do anything stupid'.
Her muscles were already tensed, and she could feel it even in her voice, and her own breath was becoming louder than anything in the room as her eyes kept widening in its socket.
'No. My daughter is at home. Do you know who she is with?'
'I don't bloody care'.
'You should care. You're pregnant. I can see it. Don't do this to me'.
'We can talk all this out', Victoria shouted as she tried to lower Shayla's stiff hand. With a push of the hand from Shayla, she tumbled to the nearest chair.
'No. I'm not talking', Lila shouted and grabbed her bag nearer.
'Lila, it's just for few days. We will leave this place'.
'Don't tell me poo. My daughter is with my condescending Aunty. That's the only person close enough to me that will accept her. And that woman will ruin her life like she ruined mine'.
'How's that my concern? My concern now is your safety. And that, your mouth stay put'.
'The woman will make her what she made me. If I'm not there, she would turn my daughter into a prostitute'.
Shayla looked at her and inhaled angrily. 'Your daughter can never be a prostitute for two days, idiot'.
'Two days, can you hear the uselessness spilling out of her mouth?' Lila shouted, grabbed her bag and stormed towards the door. Victoria ran to meet her, and stopped her, but she shoved her aside and pulled the bag away. 'Don't you dare'.
'I'm going', she said without turning back.
'You're not going'.
'You're a mother'
'About to be'.
Lila ran for the door but didn't get there before Shayla shot her thigh. Lila wailed and crumbled to the ground, holding her jiggling legs while Victoria screamed, 'you've killed her!'
'My leg', Lila screamed with all her strength as she rolled from side to side with the leg still raised high.
'She's not dead'.
'My leg'.
'Oh, God! You shot her'.
'Get a grip on that and help her'.
Victoria, still perplexed and shaking, hobbled to her side and held the bloody leg for the screaming Lila.
Victoria began to cry in tune with Lila's cry.
'The witch. My leg. The witch shot me'.
'Come and help her'.
'Get her up and move toward that room', Shayla ordered and pointed towards the door separating from others. There was nothing she could at the moment than to take them into the place. She couldn't leave them there. To save Lila, she needed the First aid box but to get it meant she had to go to the other side of the house.
'Carry her'.
Lila groaned as she was in much pain, but with the way Victoria was going, one would assume she was also in pain.
'Move Move'.
 She faced them as she hurried to the door and pressed the security code for the door. Then, she opened it and opened the next. Immediately they entered the flat of the other ladies, they rose to meet them.
'Victoria', one of them exclaimed.
'Vicky', the other shouted. 
The ladies shouted and rushed to her side. It was expected that they knew each other.
'Who sh... said the one called Keisha, whose backside could make any man turn to look at her the fourth time. 'You shot her'.
Shayla withdrew from them. 'Lay her on that bed'.
After they did, she barked instructions to them and told them to steer clear of her side of the room.
'You were supposed to take care of us', Victoria muttered.
'I'm sorry To take care of us? She had been torturing us', Keisha shouted as she paced the room. 'God knows where she put the others'.
'The others were not fake', Shayla barked as she brought out a knife, and began to work on the wound.
'I am not...'
'Shush it. You all know you were fake'.
 The ladies kept quiet, and she focused on the wounded, screaming prostitute in front of her.
'At least, let us go back to our fake life', groaned Lila and winced.
'You still have the mouth to talk' Shayla sneered and rammed a soaked cotton into Lila's mouth. She shrilled and spat out repeatedly. Then, Shayla continued working amidst the various snide from the insolent ungrateful prostitutes.
After Shayla was sure she had removed the bullet and had cleaned the wound, she turned to them and stared at their different bodies in draped in their petty clothes. 'I want to save you. Every one of you. But you're ingrates and fools.

Read " The Thorny Path to Europe " by the same author ( Akíntayo Akinjide )

. Your kidnapper is still outside'.
The thin one, who had refused to talk all the while, turned to Keisha and Victoria with outstretched arms and said, 'Kidnapper?' She kidnapped us'.
'I'm not...'
'She's not the kidnapper' Victoria said. 
'Why is she now holding us?'
'I'm saving your sorry brains...'
'NoNo'
'Are you girls mad? If you don't know, the dead ladies were also fake. They were planted. Who do you want to pretend to? All these people are also pretending'.
At that moment, a message entered her phone: There are consequences of inaction and delayed ones. 
Shayla stared at the ladies' eyes to be sure none of them was the spy. She looked about to detect any hidden camera. The ladies stared at her as if she was going insane. But with Rachael, one couldn't be safer. She moved out of the room and turned suddenly, pulling out her gun. She pointed it at Lila's head. The other ladies screamed and scrambled for cover, which wasn't available. So, they clamped their hands over their heads. She shot Lila and left the room in the wake of the gun's noise and the scream of the other ladies.

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