DEVIL’S PAWN: Two To Go… It’s Time To Crack The Devil's Skull

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Emeka panicked. Seeing there was no way to either turn the car or stop it, he opened the door and dove out. He was lucky. Even as he landed on the rough turf, his eyes followed the car as it raced to its certain end.

The car stopped briefly at the edge as if it would not tip over, teasing. Emeka’s heart skipped a beat as the car hung at the edge. He loved his car. The car rolled forward, its front tyres rolled over the last bit of soil, and the car heaved forward. Emeka shut his eyes, waiting to hear the car’s crash.

Some seconds later, there was still no crash. Emeka opened his eyes. The car was still there at the edge, its front tyres already hanging in the air. Emeka willed it to stay there as he scrambled to his feet and dashed towards it.

But his psychic powers were not strong enough. The car tipped over and dropped down into the darkness below. He screamed.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Shit.” He kicked the sand and punched the air angrily.

A sudden urge to smoke came upon him. He needed something to calm his nerves. He reached into his breast pocke for the pack of cigarettes he had bought a while ago at the gas station. He drew blank. The pack was not there. He rummaged through his other pocket and found only his lighter.

“Shit,” he said again.

Everything was in the car, wallet, phone and his stash of hemp. Seeing there was nothing he could do, he decided to walk away. Then he remembered his gun. It was there in the car too. He put his hands on his head in resignation.

“I’m fucked.”

He could afford to leave everything else but the gun. It was too important. Too many people had died by it. It would be foolish to risk its discovery by the campus authority that would definitely turn it over to the police. That was a very certain possibility.

Except of course if nobody discovered the car before morning. The chances of that was nearer to zero than one. The crash of the car could have attracted them already. There was no way the car would not be discovered in the morning. And everybody knew the car was his. With his wallet and personal items there, it wouldn’t take long for him to land in jail. He knew he just had to retrieve everything incriminating.

Damn! What a day!

He knew another part of the valley where he could climb down. After the Professor’s plunge, it had been his job to confirm that he was dead. That was when he had discovered the place. It was steep but passable. Emeka surveyed it carefully before starting down.

It was a dark night with a gloomy moon. A little misstep could earn him broken bones. There was a better way that he could take. But it was far away. A long detour would take him there, but that meant more time. Time was the one thing he lacked at the moment.

He began his journey down.

Skulls could wait.

…

What seek you in the devil’s lair?

For they return not, that come here?

They breathe not again, my dear,

Those that sniffed its foul smelling air

The X-zone was a thickly wooded expanse far from the university campus. From a helicopter, the area would look like a patch of green land around an oasis in a large desert. All around it there were only tiny shrubs interspersed with wild trees. It was a forest in a wasteland.

The soil in the area was red, different from the common dark soil peculiar to this part of the country. It looked as if a miracle had dumped some part of the northern savannah there. From the stories around, it had been the site of a government-funded research started in the 1950s.

The Black Cats have used the place for decades. Other people visited the place during the day, but only members of the fraternity called it by the name X-zone. They had christened it so a few years back.

There were no buildings for miles after the X-zone. The campus was on its north-eastern side, and its buildings were barely visible in the distance. So not many people would venture near the area at night. Beside its seclusion, there was a dirt road, now covered with small shrubs. The road wound through several small hills and ended close to a small town called Gwashika.

It was a ready escape route.

The Black Cats couldn’t have found a better spot, and they guarded it jealously. No member of a rival cult would dare to stray there, not even during the day. It was an abomination that had been punished with death severally.

This night, the moon was ungenerous and the X-zone was pitch-dark. It was even more quiet than it was dark, having an almost eerie look. A small Honda car entered the clearing in the centre of the X-zone. The driver drove with the headlamps off. He parked the car in front of a fallen dead tree.

The inner light went on, and Skulls opened the door of the driver’s side. He placed his left leg to the ground to ease the mild pain from the boils. He had driven without headlights, because there was a lower chance of being tracked with them off than on. On dark nights like this one, it was easy to see lights from a distance. With the heat still on in the school, it would not be wise to attract too much attention.

Skulls was bored. Emeka’s car was nowhere in sight, so he assumed that they were the only ones around. He hissed. Emeka should have been here first. He looked at Simon through the rear view mirror. The look he met on Simon’s face was far from normal. The face looked almost colourless.

Not a single word had passed between them throughout the twenty minutes’ drive from Simon’s house. Simon looked back at him in the mirror, and their eyes locked for a moment. There it was. The glint he had noticed back at Simon’s house was back in Simon’s eyes.

He faced Simon. The glint was gone.

"What's wrong with you, Simon?" he asked. "You look tense."

“Did you enjoy ramming her arse,” he heard Simon say. The fiery eyes looked right past him. No, through him.

“What?” He was shocked.

“You heard me.”

“What the hell is it with you and that girl?” Skulls retorted.

“She asked me to ask you.”

“Well,” he started in a mocking tone, “when you do see her again, tell her I did.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes!” Skulls stared at him.

Like a bolt of lightning, Simon’s hand shot out. The pipe was in his hand. He swung it and struck Skulls across the face, drawing blood immediately. Skulls hadn’t seen it coming, and the suddenness of the blow, more than the pain itself, shocked him. He gasped in pain as blood streamed from his broken nose. He staggered out of the half-open door.

He missed his step and fell.

Simon was out before Skulls could get back to his feet. He whacked the pipe across the base of Skulls’ skull, sending him sprawling at his feel.

“What is this?” Skulls said, holding his bleeding head. There was fear and surprise in his voice.

Emeka was right, he thought. If only he had known. He had to do something quick before he ended up like the others. He got back on his feet. One palm covered his face, the other clamped on his throbbing skull.

“She says you should take off your clothes, Skulls,” Simon growled. The glint in his eyes was a fiery red now. “I mean now!”

Skulls felt groggy. He unbuckled his belt and started to pull his pants.

Suddenly, he jumped at Simon, ramming his head like a piston into Simon’s midsection. They rolled over together, punching and kicking in the dark.

Skulls had a larger body, and the element of surprise worked in his favour. The sudden attack had caught Simon unprepared, and he was soon pinned under.

Simon tried to break free, but Skulls’ heavy frame was too much for him to tackle. Skulls’ grip on his neck was like a vice and soon had him gasping for breath. In the space of a few seconds, several punches had rammed into his face.

Skulls’ huge fists were ruthless, and Simon’s face soon became a bloody mess. The ring on Skulls’ fingers added to the damage of the blows.

“Die, you motherfucker,” Skulls screamed, tightening his grip on Simon’s throat.

Simon struggled viciously. He was losing air. In a desperate move, he let his body go limp for a second or two, then jerked with all the strength left in him. The sudden move loosened Skulls’ grip, creating enough space for him to lift his knee and ram it between Skulls’ legs.

Skulls let go of Simon’s neck and yelped in pain as Simon’s knee grazed his boils. He had never imagined that the pain of contact could be worse than that of the puss being expelled. He fell sideward as the pain racked him, clawing desperately at the dry shrubs on the ground.

The pain ebbed after a while and he sat up, a handful of grass in his hands.

When he opened his eyes, Simon was standing before him grinning, legs apart. Simon held the pipe with both hands, ready to strike.

“Now can you get those clothes off?”

“You better hit me now. If you want my clothes off, you’ll have to do it on your...”

The words were still in his mouth when Simon struck him squarely in the head. He dropped to one knee and held his bloodied head. That moment, Simon drove the pipe into Skulls’ belly like a battering ram, sending him to the ground winded out.

“I ain’t going to… beg… you, boy, never,” Skulls gasped, wiping blood from his face.

He stayed on the ground. “You better get it over with.”

Simon blinked. Some blood had trickled into his eye. He grinned and wiped his face with the back of his hand. The ring had made some deep cuts on his face, but they were not painful. He only felt a funny tingle on his face.

“Awesome.”

Simon said the word with his eyes fixed on the man at his feet. He did not know why he said the word. It had just come.

A pleasant shiver ran down his spine.

“Awesome,” he said again.

Simon put his right foot on Skulls chest and tore off a piece of the groaning man's shirt. Then he stamped hard on Skulls’ bare chest before stuffing the bloodstained piece of cloth into Skulls’ mouth.

“We’re just getting started.”

Skulls managed to mumble a stifled ‘fuck you’.

…

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEDNESDAY...

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