C.S.I: 9JA (The Jack and Jill Story: Episode 1)
The hills of Kuru, a rural community in Jos-south L.G.A in Plateau state, have been known to be treacherous as many-a-hikers have ended up with broken limbs as a result of falling down the steep slopes of these magnificent landmarks. That being said, it shouldn’t be unusual to see a young man tumbling down the highest of the hills. The only thing visibly unusual in this scenario is the time. It was a quarter past midnight and the cloudy night sky made it seem even darker than usual. The young man’s fall seemed endless as he rolled down the rough terrain, and with each spin, his head collided with a few lose rocks and got knocked hard on the ground. The cacti (which are the most thriving plants around the hills) didn’t spare him either. Their thorns ripped through his shirt and tore his flesh as he bounded downwards on his death roll. The G-forces associated with the free fall were so great that the man hurled what seemed to be his last meal before his unfortunate turn of events. He finally came to a halt at the base of the hill. The air was still. It was almost the end of the rainy season and the only sound that could be heard for miles was the short breaths coming from the battered body of the man. He was still alive, but barely. He tried to move but the shooting pain that rocked his entire body was enough to perish that action before it had begun. He gritted his teeth and blinked endlessly, trying to get the sand out from his eyes. He was thankful that he could still move them and see with them. He was able to roll them to the left, just in time to see a familiar shadow. He wasn’t alone. The expression of shock in his eyes was enough to tell that he knew who this newcomer was. With the little strength he had left he tried to speak, but all that came through his broken, bloody lips was a broken word “Ple-ease…”
The shadow moved towards him, and the young man knew what was coming to him next.
***
It would be several hours later before his body was discovered and the Federal Police Force of Nigeria was alerted. In less than an hour, the Crime Scene Investigation department (C.S.I.) of the force had about half a dozen of their personnel running a sweep of the crime scene.
Stepping out of his government-issued Toyota Corolla sedan, Officer Chrome Chunke, took a good look at the scenery. He liked the hills of Plateau state. He always wanted to visit with his girlfriend, but it turns out this trip wasn’t going to be for leisure. The man was a dark-skinned, heavily-built man with rugged features and the flinty stare of an officer of the law. Head of the C.S.I. department, and nudging 40 years of age, he was known as an efficient and driven police officer. He spotted one of his colleagues examining what seemed to be the reason why they were called out to this very site. It was almost sunrise and sun’s rays were already creeping over the horizon. Chrome walked, with long strides, over to where his colleague was. After taking a good look at the mutilated form lying on the ground, he asked, “Ok Walter, talk to me.” He hunkered down beside his colleague. “What am I looking at here?”
Officer Walter Udeme was his direct junior in rank, which made him Chrome’s deputy. He was slightly-built with a dusky light-complected skin. He had a scanty patch of hair on his chin, which passed for beards. After a short glance at his notes, he looked up. “Well, chief,” he said, “we’ve got one dead male, no I.D., looks to be in his late twenties or early thirties, about 6ft tall.” He paused for a moment and then continued, “Was found on this hiking trail an hour ago by an expatriate on his morning walk around the hillside.” He motioned in the direction of the Caucasian hiker who was being questioned by one of the uniformed officers.
Chrome looked up towards the summit of the hill as another one of his C.S.I. colleagues completed his run down from the top of the hill. Officer Jerome Oji joined them and reported his findings at the top of the hill. “It seems our John Doe came tumbling down from the top of this hill.” All the men looked up towards the summit, and Jerome, a fair-skinned, tall and lankily-built man, continued, “Scars on his body were inflicted by the thorns on the cacti along his path of descent, and from the depressions on the soil, we can deduce that he fell at such a fast rate that he couldn’t stop himself.”
Walter whistled, then he said, “That’s a mighty long way down. It might have been a hiking accident.”
Jerome glanced at his notes and said, “The coroner put his time of death to be approximately 7 hours ago, which would be sometime past midnight.” He looked up at Walter and continued, “Not such a good time to go hiking is it?” Both men looked at each other, and then at Chrome, who had walked a few steps away from them.
By now, the sun was already over the horizon and its bright rays were burning up the sky. Chrome reached into his shirt breast pocket and brought out his Ray-Bans Aviator sunglasses. “Gentlemen,” he said to the other two men, “I believe we have stumbled upon the proverbial rolling stone.” He put on his shades and before he walked off to his car, he said “Now let’s see if he gathered any moss!”
GIRLS NITE OUT!
UNKNOWN FOREST: Five Minutes Earlier
The sky over the forest could only be described in two words – Pitch Black. The occasional flashes of lighting were the only source of light and the rumbling thunder which followed afterward was deafening. A warm, soaking rain poured down into the dense, humid vegetation, turning the clammy forest floor into a lake of sticky, inky mud.
Cindy, more scared than she had ever thought it possible to be, tore through the dense vegetation, beating her way through the bush, slamming her way to safety. The forest did not cooperate. Lianas, tree limbs, branches seemed to snatch at her tattered clothes like claws, trying to hold her back and ripping off more fabric in the process; the mud was as thick as freshly mixed concrete and strove to suck her down into its clammy depths.
The branches lashed across her face, scourging her like a thousand whips, and every few yards the mud would entangle her legs and pitch her headlong into the soupy earth. But she would be up and running again in a second, unmindful of the bruises and cuts, bolting though the forest, running as if her life depended on escape – because it did.
ADEGOKE UNIVERSITY: Nine Hours Earlier
The atmosphere around the campus of Adegoke University was the usual for a Friday evening. It was filled with youthful energy as the weekend was about to begin. The last of the day’s lectures had just ended and students were piling out of the lecture halls into the roads leading to their respective hostels and lodges.
Cindy Ekere was one of such students. Her marathon lecture on heterocyclic chemistry had just ended and she let out a huge sigh of relief. She put her notes into her bag when her cell phone began to ring: It was Deborah, her best friend.
“Cindy baby,” the voice on the phone said, “are you done with your somersaulting chemicals?”
Cindy chuckled a little and replied, “Yes babe, I’m through for the day. Just packing my bag and ready to leave up-school”
“That’s ok sweeree, I’ll see you in your hostel in about 3 hours.”
“Aight dearie, see you soon.”
Cindy ended the call and put her cell phone back into her bag.
The lecture room was almost empty when Cindy made her way towards the door. She knew she would be making the 10 minute walk back to her hostel alone. Most of her friends where in the social science faculty and biological sciences department, so the difference in their lecture schedules made it almost impossible for them to ‘hook-up’ in-between and after lectures. The only time they had to meet was when they got back to their hostels. Cindy secretly wished she had a close friend in her department but due to the high workload in her course of study they had very few females. Even the few that braved the Pure and Applied Chemistry department were not appealing to Cindy. One of such ladies was Rebecca Ajayi. Though they were roommates, Cindy never found the need to make conversation with her ‘up-school’. The reason was simple. They had very little in common. In fact, the only things they shared in common were their course of study, their lectures and the fact that they were both academically brilliant. Cindy maintained a 3.5 cumulative grade point average while Rebecca held a 4.0. Cindy was an extrovert while Rebecca was an unrepentant introvert. Rebecca’s dress-sense often pissed Cindy off because she felt Rebecca was hiding her beauty behind a set of thick glasses and ugly clothes, which gave her a nerdy outlook. On the other hand, Rebecca felt Cindy’s fashion style screamed “Slut” and was undignified for a scientist to wear such. Their choice of friends was another issue entirely. Cindy felt Rebecca’s friends, who were mostly the nerdy guys from their department, were very boring and too dull for her liking. Rebecca thought Cindy’s friends were a bunch of loose ‘bitches’ who were always loud and uncultured in their behavior, especially Deborah.
Although they were not friends, they still respected each other and kept out of the other’s business. That was what Cindy liked about Rebecca. It didn’t take long before she got to the front gate of her hostel, which was the 4th out of the 5 female hostels within the campus. She could feel the excitement in the air as she got closer. She noticed the different varieties of cars parked at the car park near the hostel and the different caliber of men waiting around the entrance into the hostel. It was just a few minutes past 5pm and almost time for the ban on male visitors to be lifted.
She made her way through the crowd of testosterone-oozing men, dodging hands that tried to grab her while ignoring whistles and catcalls. Climbing up the staircase, she made her way to the 2nd floor of the building where her room was situated. She and Rebecca shared Room 321 with another 4th year student named Aniekan, whom happened to have travelled home for the weekend.
Cindy unlocked the door and let herself in. Rebecca wasn’t in. she put her bag on her bed and began to undress. She was midway through taking off her jeans when the door opened and Rebecca walked in.
“Cindy, what’s up?” Rebecca greeted.
“I’m alright Becky, how are you?” Cindy replied.
“Why didn’t you lock the door while you undressed?” Rebecca quizzed.
“Sorry, I didn’t think it was much of a big deal.”
“It is a big deal! Don’t you know the ban has been lifted and all these horny he-goats are already prowling the building?”
“Oops! My bad. I must have lost track of time.”
“Okay oh. Please next time don’t forget to lock the door. You don’t know. Most of these guys are wolves in sheep’s clothing!”
Cindy laughed. “Becca trust me, I know more about these ‘wolves’ better than you do. You just need to know how to draw out the beast within and –” At that moment Cindy’s phone rang. She frantically searched through her clothes which were scattered all over her bed for the phone. She eventually found it and picked the call just in the nick of time. It was Deborah.
“Babe, how far now? You ready for tonight’s outing?” Deborah asked through the phone.
“Babe I’m everly ready. You no trust me again?” Cindy replied.
“Ok now babe, I go see you in about an hour. Our ride for don show by then.” Deborah broke off in Pidgin English.
“Ok sweeree. Ciao.” Cindy said, and ended the call. She put her cell phone back into her handbag and headed for her wardrobe. After 50 minutes of sorting out clothes to wear, freshening up and dressing up, she was finally ready for the big night out with the girls. She was about putting on her last bit of make-up when she noticed Rebecca standing behind her.
“Whoa! Becky, I didn’t see you there.” She said in a startled voice.
“Cindy, I heard you talking to Deborah on the phone earlier. You’re going out with her tonight, right?” Rebecca asked.
“Yeah, we are going to a party. Some big shot politician-friend of hers is celebrating his birthday. You want to tag along?”
“No thank you! You of all people should know that I detest gatherings like that!”
Cindy giggled and said, “Girl relax, I was only teasing you. I know you don’t like anything that has to do with my social lifestyle.”
The other girl flushed, her expression betraying how mortified she felt for letting herself get riled up like that. In a low tone, she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that and I don’t hate your lifestyle. It’s just that…these parties…things happen. I hear stories about all these old men sleep with girls like us who are young enough to be their daughters. It just doesn’t sit well with me.” She looked at Cindy for a few seconds, and continued. “You know many of these men are evil. All they want is to sleep with you and get you pregnant and make you abort it. They just want to ruin your life for the fun of it. They just want to –” She was cut short by the knock on the door.
The door swung open and in walked Deborah all dressed to kill. She was wearing a tube-top on a micro mini skirt. She was carrying her handbag in one hand and a leather jacket in the other. The pleasantries she exchanged with Rebecca were distant and more than a little cold, before she flopped down on the bed beside Cindy. Cindy had just finished putting on her make-up when Deborah asked, “Babe, you don finish?”
Cindy gave her reflection on the dressing table mirror an air kiss and said, “Yes babe, I’m through. Is our ride waiting?”
“Yes oh! Check it out, chief sent a Range Rover jeep to pick us up!”
Both ladies screamed and jumped up and down in excitement as they made their way towards the door. As Deborah opened it, Rebecca called the attention of Cindy.
“Cindy, please may I have a word with you in private, for just a minute. Please.”
Cindy motioned to Deborah to wait for her outside. “Okay Becky, what’s the matter?” she asked, her tone dripping light sarcasm.
“Please, make sure you are careful tonight. I have a strange feeling about this party,” Rebecca replied.
“Oh Becky, will you stop worrying?! There is nothing to worry about. Debby and the chief go way back, so it’s gonna be fine.”
“Okay Cindy. It’s just that…we may not be that close, but you are my friend.”
Cindy was a bit surprised to hear Rebecca call her that, and they both stood there speechless for a few seconds. Their eyes slid away from each other as awkwardness tensed between them. Cindy was the first to break the silence. “Thanks Becky, I appreciate your concern.”
Rebecca then grabbed Cindy by the hand and put something in her palm. “Here.” She said. “My brother gave this to me when I just entered school. He said I should use it to protect myself from rapists.”
It was a small switch-blade. Small enough to be hidden in the skimpiest of clothing, but sharp enough to cut through a text book. Cindy looked at the blade, lying slim and warm in the palm of her hand, the incredulity she felt at first turning into a warm look which she flashed in Rebecca’s direction. She husked her thanks, before reaching forward to engulf her in a hug. Thereafter, Cindy left the room to join Deborah in the car for their outing.
The venue for the party was a sprawling mansion situated in the outskirts of town. The host of the party, Chief (as he was popularly called) was a well-known politician and a major player in the country’s economy. The girls were having a great time, dancing, drinking and mingling with very important people in the society. Cindy was no stranger to alcohol. She had a very strong head for drinking and was able to hold her own against any guy. She was sober enough to notice the way most of the elderly men present were isolating themselves with at least two ladies in their company. She knew there would be a lot of orgies taking place immediately after the party. She also noticed the way most of the girls were behaving. They were so giddy and talkative. Cindy wondered silently why the girls would drink when they obviously couldn’t handle their liquor. A lot of them had already downed nothing less than two glasses of drinks being served. She chuckled internally, even as she felt the lax feeling reminiscent of drunkenness spread through her insides. She too, it seemed, was getting tipsy. Tipsy? she thought. How can I be tipsy already? But I’ve only had one glass of the champagne.
Loud noises started banging in her head. She could hear loud ribald laughter resonating from the men and drunken girls in the room all around her. Everything was getting louder. She saw a few girls stumble and collapse indignantly to the carpeted ground; a sight she felt was a trick of her drunken imagination. It wasn’t until she espied Deborah heap into the arms of Chief that she knew it was serious. There was something going on here beyond her comprehension, but she was too weak to do anything. Her mental gears were shifting, trying to make a connection, before her thought processes were beclouded. Everything went dim, and she felt herself sink into oblivion.
IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE: Twenty-five minutes earlier
When Cindy blinked herself back into consciousness, she knew she was no longer in Kansas. She wasn’t in the well-lit auditorium inside the mansion belonging to Chief, but now in a small, dank room that smelled like it was made from clay. She was weak and it took a while for her eyes to take in the available light that came from a few oil lamps set in strategic positions within the room. When it became apparent to her where she was, she wished she hadn’t opened her eyes.
It was a shrine.
There were severed human heads on top of the stony reliquary, which was decorated with calabashes and ornaments. Two men were kneeling in front of it. One was a scraggly old man who wore a red sleeveless top that had cowries embedded on the fabric. His wrists and ankles were adorned with bracelets made with cowries and feathers. His face was decorated with menacing designs drawn with wet clay. He looked undoubtedly like the shrine’s keeper. Recollections of the horrid scenes displayed in the Nollywood films she’d watched flashed through Cindy’s mind, forcing upon her benumbed mind that startling parallels those scenes had with her current situation. She had to squint hard to be able to recognize the second man.
It was Chief!
At that moment Cindy noticed that she had been bound hand and foot. She was also gagged. She had been tossed in a corner of the room pending when they would be ready for her. She looked around fearing the worst for Deborah. Then she saw, what she feared all along. Tied to a stake was her friend. She had been stripped of her clothes, the firelights illuminating the shrine bouncing off her nude form; like Cindy, she was just gaining consciousness. The Chief stood up and walked over to where she was propped up. He wasn’t dressed in the agbada he wore during the party. He was dressed in white attire which had been stained with mud. His hands were also muddy. He was looking at Deborah, who had begun sniffling, beads of tears working their way down her cheeks. Even from her place on the ground, Cindy could see her friend’s eyes were filled with questions of alarm and bewilderment. “Ch…chief…why…?” she began in a tremulous voice.
Chief threw his head backwards and let out a bark of mirthless laughter, before saying, “You think all the money I have been showering on you was for nothing?” He walked closer, the menacing look on his face unmistakable, and reached down with his hand to grab at her groin roughly, a handling that elicited a whimper from Deborah. “Hmmmm, I have enjoyed this. Your p***y was very sweet. But believe me when I say, the money your head will bring will be even sweeter.”
Even though she knew the fate that was obviously lying in wait for them, hearing Chief say those words filled Cindy with an insurmountable feeling of dread, one that forced a teary-eyed gasp up her throat. But she quickly stifled it. She did not want to draw the fatal attention of the two men to her.
As Chief stepped back, Deborah started crying, racking sobs that were gaining momentum and volume every millisecond. The ‘shrine-keeper’ stepped up towards Deborah; in his hand was a long-handled knife with a blade that gleamed in the firelight. Deborah’s eyes widened, the horror etched nakedly on her face, and she began to writhe and scream as the elderly man reached for her.
“NO! NO! NO – CHIEF, DON’T DO THIS! PLEASE! NO – PLEASE! NO –” And the screams squelched to a stop when the man thrust the knife deep into her chest. Cindy shut her eyes to keep out the images she was being exposed to. Her best friend was being murdered for ritual purposes right in front of her, and she knew shortly it would be her turn. Within moments, the old man had cut off Deborah’s head, breasts and vagina, slashing sounds that were wet and squishy, horrible sounds that held Cindy down in the throes of her anguish and terror. The man also pulled out her heart and placed it on a red cloth before the reliquary. Deborah’s remains were further dismembered and stuffed inside a large polythene bag. Then the man turned to the chief, handed him the bag and said, “My son, you know what to do with this. Take it to the site and bury it in the grave you have dug. By the time you come back, I would have prepared the second one.”
Chief took the bag, bowed his head and said reverently, “Yes baba.”
Cindy watched him from the dark corner as he grabbed a shovel at the other end of the room. There was also a pickaxe there. The tools he used to dig the graves meant for Deborah and her. He left the room with the shovel and the bag, stealing into the darkness without.
Cindy knew this was her chance. She had to look for a way to escape while Chief was out and the shrine-keeper was busy with the rituals. Her eyes darted about the room for something to use and free herself from the ropes her captors had bound her in, but she couldn’t find anything useful. And then she remembered the switchblade that was given to her by Rebecca. She had slipped it into the side of her tights before they left for the party. She struggled, shimmying about on the floor, trying to reach inside the tights with her bound hands. Eventually, as tense precious seconds passed, she got it out. She maneuvered the blade and hurriedly cut the ropes that bound her feet. She had just started cutting the ones binding her hands when she heard the old man walking towards her. She balled her fist to hide the blade and resumed her former supine position.
The old man was reciting some incantation when he got to where she lay. He looked at her and said. “Oya, this witch, it is your turn to –” His words were choked off in a scream as Cindy suddenly sprang up from her position on the floor and stabbed at his hand with the blade. The pain that shot through his body caused him to drop his sacrificial knife. Cindy lunged forward and tried to reach for it but the man quickly kicked it aside while trying to remove the blade stuck to his left arm. The stab was deep and the wound bleeding profusely. Cindy’s hands were still bound, so the old man took it as a chance to subdue her. But she was already ahead of him. She gripped his beaded shirt with both hands and threw her right knee straight into the center of the old man’s legs. She felt a sickening crunch when her knee impacted with his testicles. He screamed in acute agony and slumped to the ground, clutching his groin and rolling in pain. Cindy shot up to her feet. She needed to take him out with any weapon she could lay her hands on. Her eyes darted about frantically, in search of the sacrificial knife he had kicked away earlier, but her sights fell upon the pickaxe first. She ran towards the digging tool and grabbed it just in time to see the old man struggle to his knees. He was spitting curses and incantations; fiery anger was in his eyes. He looked towards the direction Cindy ran and snarled hoarsely, “Bastard witch! I will make sure I kill you slowly and p–”
He never finished the threat in his sentence. Cindy had struck him with all her might, her arms swinging the pickaxe with all the rage and terror in her lithe body. His fragile skull offered little resistance as the metal tip of the axe plunged into his crown, pulverizing his brain, ripping through his mouth, skewering his tongue, crushing teeth and jaw bone before exiting through neck. The force behind the swing Cindy took was so much that the old man’s eyes nearly shot out of their sockets. They popped out in such a grotesque sight that it left the man with an expression of extreme surprise on his face. He wept tears of blood and his body began to spasm as his organs began to shut down. Cindy let go of the handle of the pickaxe and the weight of the metal head was too much for the dying man’s body to carry. He fell sideways to the ground and the impact caused blood mixed with grey matter to ooze out of the entry and exit wounds. Cindy nearly threw up, but she willed herself not to. She needed to run as far as she could, away from there. There was a rumbling in the air outside and she realized that it was raining. She found the man’s knife and used it to cut off the ropes that bound her hands. She ran for the door, but before she left the shrine she took one last look at the lifeless head of her best friend.
UNKNOWN FOREST: Now.
Cindy kept on running. She never looked back. It had been fifteen minutes since she left the shrine and she had been running in a straight line. She didn’t know where she was, but she knew that she would eventually get to a main road. That is if the forest or the chief didn’t get her first.
She still couldn’t believe the events of the past hour. Deborah was dead and she was running for her life. Another reedy stalk snatched at her feet, causing her to stumble and trip with a loud crash onto the wet forest floor. Her tears were streaming now, coursing down her cheeks and mixing with the rivulets of rainwater falling down on her and down her body. She was shivering from the cold and fright that battered her insides. Disbelief and denial at what had happened still tugged at her mind. Despite what she’d witnessed, she didn’t want to believe that the night that had started out light and fun and delightful would end up so filled with blood and horror and darkness. Images of Deborah’s head flashed through her mind, juxtaposing themselves next to the blackness that eddied inside her, threatening to swallow her into its inky depths.
Deborah can’t be dead! She just can’t! I’m merely dreaming! I will soon wake and all this will be over! The words crashed through her, drawing her slowly toward the blackness. Her eyesight swam and she felt her body become heavy.
NO! That single word startled her into alertness. Deborah is dead, and you need to get out of here!
Whimpering, sniffling and still sobbing, she lifted herself heavily to her feet and began running again. She had to get to the main road, away from these unknown forest surroundings and back to civilization. Her legs pumped harder, even though exhaustion had spread throughout her body; her determination and sense of self preservation were all that kept her going now.
Suddenly, she bolted out from the greens, unto the wide expanse of the tarred road. Relief coursed through her body, causing a fresh bout of tears to stream down her face, this time, the horror was getting washed out in minuscule amounts. She felt a sob of alleviation escape her mouth when she spotted the twin headlights of a car wheeling down the road.
Help is on the way!
She quickly crashed through the remainder of the shrubbery to the wet asphalt of the side of the road, crying and waving her hands to catch the attention of the driver of the approaching car. She was aware that she looked like a mess – wet, muddy, bloodstained, hair sticking out at odd angles, clothes torn. But she hoped that the driver would be a Good Samaritan enough to recognize a damsel in distress when he or she saw one. Her relief leaped up new rungs when the roar of the moving car began to decline, and the headlights dimmed a bit. As though the driver was slowing down. Still sobbing, she dashed forward. “Please – help me…please…they are trying to kill me…please – help…!”
The driver didn’t climb down, but the passenger door was thrown open. Encouraged by this act of kindness, she ran to the passenger side. I will soon be home, she thought as she moved forward. Thank you, God for saving me! For this, when I get home, I promise to be good. I promise not to go to parties again! I promise to study and study and study. I promise to be a better friend to Rebecca! I promise –
And her train of thought choked off into a loud scream when she got to the passenger side and saw the snarling face of Chief behind the wheel.
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