As she sat on the cemented floor, her heart filled with sadness, she knew that the hull of her marriage had hit an iceberg. In her muffled cries, she could still feel the draft, slipping through the windows. She paid little or no attention to the cold since it couldn't be helped. With her hands and legs tied, she couldn't possibly have done anything. She thought of ways to escape, but in the end, her mind sank into despair; stark empty as the room itself, with a musky scent of abandonment.
A shuffle in the hallway broke the long silence. Her pupils dilated, as she struggled furiously her screams muffled by the thick gag around her mouth. She felt a pang of fear rising in her heart and her ribs rose and fell in quick successions. She knew it was about to happen. Death was just some centimetres away from the door.
She knew how it would all end. Her husband would march in with men dressed in red robes. On his order, they would carry her to an unknown location. They would slit her throat on their secret altar. After that, they would heave a sigh of relief because the eyes that have seen and the tongue that would have exposed their secret would be no more. She would cease to be a threat to them.
Kate cringed at this thought. She regretted the fateful night –when she had unknowingly let out a terrified scream upon discovering the dark secret. It was indeed a night she would never forget. It was the night she was scrubbing the room he forbade her to enter. That night, she saw a lifeless woman in the wardrobe. The woman stood erect like an effigy. She was dressed in a white robe and red, blood streaks coursed the insides of the wardrobe. The dead woman's hollow eyes stared blankly at Kate and the skin on her cheek sunk deep into the bones. Kate had screamed some more and her had husband appeared.
A chubby man whose upper lips bore a dense moustache. His head nearly went bald, save for the thin line of hair that spanned the edges.
She shook her head with the intention to stifle the thought, but it was only replaced with another. Her mother's voice came alive to her ears. It broke through the deathly silence that reigned in the room.
“A man like that is every woman's dream,” her mother’s voice rang, “God forbid. You will not bring shame to this family,” she continued, a designer lace fabric Kate’s suitor had bought for her swung across her left shoulder.
Kate sneered as she sprang from the small wooden bench to stand akimbo.
Her mother’s hand rose to face her, brandishing a fat black key. “Just to ask your hand in marriage and we own a Prado SUV already,” she paused a bit as if she was choosing her words “you have rejected a good number of suitors and that's enough. I will not allow it this time,” an edge of anger in her voice.
What started as a shuffle birthed tons of thumping steps. They knocked Kate off her thoughts. The louder the thumping steps, the clearer Kate could picture her death. She was married off to a ritualist. It would have been better if she was married to a wife batterer. Her parent's house would have beckoned and she would have answered. More tears rolled down her cheeks.
She gazed at the greasy walls with a frown. How she wished the walls had a mouth to swallow her and at least hide her from the impending doom. Her fear grew once again. She sought invisibility. She wished for nothing, but to stay alive. She could feel the cold hands of death. Her transition to the other side of life was just a stone throw.
With the jangling of keys and the fitting of one into its hole, the door creaked open. She felt her heart jump into her stomach. With what her eyes met, a crease of confusion formed on her face. The men that trooped in were not on red robes but a khaki uniform. She recognized the man that appeared to be apprehended as her husband. Lines of blood trickled from his head into his black pants. His bare chest displayed dense hair which had been forced to lay down by the caked blood.
Her eyes swelled with hope as her hands and legs got loosened.
A huge man offered a hand and she rose to her feet. She was going to say thank you, but heard her tongue asked, “Please, how did you find me?”
Her question was met with silence, but a gentle smile appeared on her face on seeing Ikay; the gateman. He was smiling sheepishly in the green T-shirt Kate had bought for him some days back. The small device in his hand had triggered Kate’s smile. It was a voice recorder Kate had once gifted him.
By Chukwuebuka Harrison
By Chukwuebuka Harrison
