Lost But Satisfied - Episode 6

 

Jasper watched Leech enter his house and hid near the house. The street was free of witnesses and that was golden. All he needed there was to pick the right time to kill him because everything good was playing into his hands.                                                                                           

                ***

As he sat in front of his laptop to watch the movie, an unknown number called his phone.

‘Hello’, he said cautiously, hoping that it wouldn’t be Shade.

 ‘Hello, Mr. Olusola’, Miss Jacobs' voice said, ‘It’s me … Rita’.

‘Ah! Miss Jacobs’, he said with relief.

‘I don’t know . Did you by chance see my lesson note?’

‘No’, he replied but caught himself in the midsentence because the book he had been holding was hers

All episodes of this story can be found here >> https://www.ebonystory.com/story/lost-but-satisfied

. ‘Wait… It’s with me’.

‘Oh! Great. Let’s meet at Rivers street’.

 Jerry slouched in frustration as he rose from the bed, locked the door, and had to stop himself from running. Was it not a movie? He could see it any time. He remembered he didn't plug the laptop to electricity.

                                          ***

 Jasper backed away immediately Leech came out. Leech almost saw him and that shouldn't happen. Jasper hid behind the walls and took pictures of Leech to make the others see the time before he killed him. Immediately he was done with the job, he would take the other picture as a proof.

Jasper braced himself the moment Leech came out the second time, getting ready to follow him, to kill him; in fact, he had an idea. He smiled and smiled again.

 Jasper looked about, and saw that no one was there except an old haggard beggar that lay at the end of the street and was asleep. He brought out his pistol, placed a silencer into it, and steadied himself.

Leech rushed past without noticing anyone around. Jasper followed him and knew it might take the whole year if he kept following without doing anything. He needed to up his game. So, he went near Leech, near enough for him to stick his gun to his back. Jasper looked to the left and the right and saw no one. The street was empty for reason he couldn’t place his hands on. But he loved it. He loved it like that.

‘Don’t panic. It is your death at hand’, Jasper announced, ‘I have a loaded revolver pointed at your spinal cord, arched enough to hit your heart. So, cooperate’.

 Leech froze but Jasper nudged him. ‘Keep moving, Leech’.

‘Leech?’

 ‘Take us to a secluded place’

‘I did not get that’.

‘I said take us to a secluded place’.

‘A secluded place?’

‘Yes… for introduction, you can call me Sheila, I like long walks and fresh flowers. Since fresh flowers can easily be found by rivers, I don’t mind you taking us to the river around this area, where I can see and enjoy my fresh, lively flowers’.

‘No… I mean I don’t know any river here’.

‘What? You are lying to me. Is this not Agric Area?’

‘I don’t know any river’, Leech said. Jasper stopped him and faced him. Now, there was nobody in the street that could testify against the death of Leech but he didn’t want to play to chance. If anybody saw him after he killed Leech, the information might be used against him later. Jasper wasn't ready to start cleaning messes and evidences. No one catches an assassin and he didn’t want to be the assassin to be caught in 20years.

‘I hope your neurons are working well. I hope you can feel the gun I’m sticking to your back?’

‘Who are you?’Leech said with a quivering voice and that made Jasper’s voice warmer and deeper. He loved when people begged for their life. The taste of killing such people was always sweet. Their plea always gave him the desire to deepen his voice because it gave him power and made others believe he had the power.

Yet, he must agree with them. After all, he had the power to either give them life or take it away from them, like God, like a god.

‘Okay, buckle up. Can’t you think of any at all? I’ve got all day’.

‘I don’t know any…’

‘Then, I will have to kill you here. Surely’, Jasper hissed like a wounded snake as his eyes darted from one corner of the deserted street to the other. He placed the gun on Jasper’s head

‘Wait…Wait…’ Leech cried, ‘I know a pond’.

‘Goodly…Take us there, and smile. I hate people who frown’.

  Jasper let down his guard a little and Leech seized the opportunity. He turned sharply and kicked Jasper in his groin. Jasper moaned. Leech gave him another punch on the nose. Jasper bent forward as pain surged through his body, making him clasp his teeth.

Jasper was angry. He shot the floor around Leech, who was bracing himself to hit him again. Leech jumped repeatedly in fear that he had been shot.

 ‘If you move, I will shoot’, he said with a suppressed anger as he wheezed like a monster, ‘now, your hands up’.

He felt like shooting the sky, like shooting God for giving him such a voice that doesn’t send fear into people. Leech raised his hands.

‘Leech, you are a bastard and I will show you what we do to bastards’, Jasper groaned, baring his teeth. He slapped Leech. ‘Take me to the pond quickly’.

They moved from the street to the pond. Although they passed many people, nobody noticed anything awkward about the way he was holding Leech. Even if they knew, they dared not talk.

 The road that led to the pond was like one coming down a mountaintop to an area. The whole road was rough. Trees of different forms shook briefly. Most of their leaves were dry and were lying on the floor. Birds rested on the branches of these trees, chirping and humming with so much glee that one would wonder if they didn’t know about the dry season or that they could see the rain coming.

When they got to the pond, they had to go deeper as if they were entering another hole. The sky was unusually white and devoid of any cloud. Even the few that tried to show themselves dissolved immediately as if abhorred the evil Jasper would carry out. Thinking of that alone made him beam.

Flowers from different parts of the place gladdened his heart.

‘You were trying to hit me the other time. What are you? A kind of superman or something? I have dealt with people of greater caliber and greater power than yours and I had vanquished, grinded and dissolved them off the earth. Therefore, you won’t be an exception. In fact, your case is pro bono’, Jasper announced spreading his hands. ‘I’ll kill you happily’.

The body of water kept stirring slowly. Dirt and leaves floated gently on it. He smiled as he sighted lilies dancing on the water. His heart warmed. That was a good sign.

‘Face the river’.

 He gagged Leech to reduce the noise he would make. Leech moaned something.

‘Oh! I’m sorry…What? I can’t hear you clearly’, Jasper mocked with a face smeared with a wicked happiness, 'with the… you’ve got something across your mouth and I can’t hear you’.

 ‘Okay… Okay. I don’t do this always. This opportunity comes once in every twenty kill and you are the one getting the seventh opportunity. Say your last prayer sharperly’.

 Leech brought his hands together and prayed inaudibly.

‘Alright. It’s party time’, Jasper said as he pointed the gun to Leech’s head. He suddenly had a feeling someone was watching him, that someone’s eyes were creeping slowly on his back. He looked back but saw no one. Yet, he knew that even if someone wasn't there, someone was coming to that place very soon and he didn’t want anyone to know he was there.

 Jasper inhaled a deep breath of relief, fulfilment, and happiness as he exerted force on the trigger of the gun.

 Suddenly, something like an insect hit him at the back of the head. He touched the back of his head.

            ***

Jerry himself didn’t know he could cry but tears poured down his eyes as he felt the coldness of the gun on the back of his head. His whole body vibrated. To worsen the situation, hot liquid ran between his legs. Was that how he would die?

 He swallowed hard when the guy said the prayer time was over. He should have been careful when he saw the guy in their area that afternoon. But he couldn’t suspect everyone he met on the street.

 He held his breathe, expecting the pain to surge through his head to his body and him drifting off into the abyss.

  Instead of the bullet, he felt a body crashing into him from behind. He opened his eyes that he didn’t know he had closed. The guy’s body was now resting on him lifelessly. He moaned fearfully as he pushed the dead body to a side.

 Jumping from his kneeling position, his eyes darted from one corner of the area to the other but he didn’t see anyone. Vibrating like a wet leaf, he raised his hands. A bullet had drilled a hole into the back of his assailant’s head and opened a way for blood to ooze out. The guy’s eyes were blank as if he was a statute and his hand was now loosely holding the gun. Everywhere was silent.

 Jerry looked around desperately as he expected either a gunshot or someone to come out to confront him. But, after waiting for some seconds, he ran out of the riverside and out of the place. Nothing happened to him.

 Then, he stopped and looked around to be sure no one saw him there. Happy that he was safe, he walked on briskly to his house, jogging whenever he got to a secluded area. His heart was beating fast and he couldn’t help gasping.

 Someone had tried to kill him. He saw a dead person. Someone killed his assailant. Someone committed a cold-blooded murder and had left him alone to deal with the problem of the body.

Read " Grabbing The Hot Gate " by the same author ( Akíntayo Akinjide )

. Who was Leech?

 Jerry locked the door and crammed himself to a corner of the room, staring out of focus into the space.

Though the person saved his life, he felt the person needed to show him his face, to allow him thank him. But there was none to thank and that scared him because he didn't know who the killer was following- him or his assailant.

Then his phone rang, Miss Jacobs.

 ‘Oh! Miss Jacobs, I’m sorry, I’m on my way’.

 He risked going out again, this time looking back from time to time.

                           ***
 Officer Yemi James looked at his phone again and wondered why he had to be the one that his boss sent to the crime scene. There were many people, who were his junior in the work of investigating. They should receive more training as this case would be a minor case. As he got there, he met some policemen trying to make sense out of the unexplainable situation. They kept warding people away from the area around the pond.

 ‘Make a hole’, Yemi shouted as he passed through them.

‘Hey, move back, are you insane?’ A lanky police shouted. He was reeking of alcohol. Yemi held his breathe when he got near the policeman.

‘What do you have on him?’ He asked another policeman, who was checking the corpse.

 They showed him the gun, the dead man's phone, and all his weapons.

‘No identity?’

‘None’.

Yemi became interested in the phone. He surfed through it but found nothing of interest, and was about to pass it to another policeman, when he saw something that interested him. A picture taken some moments before the time of his death. He stared blankly at the body of river because he knew the person in the picture.