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Segundevond2@yahoo.com... Let's talk...

Nice writing... Didn't know we had good sci-fi writers here... Wanna team up sometime??

Ghost stories usually start with a young blond beautiful woman moving into a suburban Victorian house in Louisiana, discovering some sort of skeleton key and the works. Well, that is the tradition in popular culture and Angela Gardner shared this belief too. So when she moved into her new apartment in the high profile neighbourhood of Lekki, and a neighbour informed her that the last two tenants before suffered cases of madness, she'd put it all to coincidence. Angela was a writer who'd made passable success as a blogger and contributor to the local newspaper back in the UK. Then she wrote her first novel and made a bit of money. Now she was in Nigeria, and wished to soak in the culture for a while, because the next novel would tell a story about a western lady who found love in the unseemly hands of a Nigerian man with polygamous tendencies. The house she now occupied was solid modern cement building, nothing gothic about it and she definitely wasn't a young blond at fifty-five.

"People say the house is cursed," the young neighbour had whispered to her. "Don't pay the agent."

"Uh oh! Too late, I paid already," Angela had replied with a laugh. She obviously didn't take the warning serious and she had thought a strange look had appeared in the other lady's face for a moment probably. But then the lady had smiled too and she'd believed her imagination played wild.

Now that she'd moved and settled in, she took time to study her neighbours. They were young middle-class Nigerians. New couple she guessed--no child yet. Husband a banker or something and wife owned a store in town. Angela occupied the top floor and she could see into the Agbajes compound-- Agbaje was their name. Kola and Bukky Agbaje. Her first day in the house, she'd stood and discreetly studied the couple as the husband went to work. Wife hugged and kissed him bye. The tall handsome husband got in his Mercedes and drove off, a perfect couple. But then, shocker-- Bukky looked right up at the window with the most disarming smile and waved.

"Hello there," she called.

Angela shuffled like a schoolgirl caught masturbating and thanked her stars Bukky couldn't see how red her skin had turned.

"Hey you," she answered, moving away from behind the curtain she'd earlier thought provided enough cover.

"Are you a spy from Britain?" Bukky said and laughed.

Angela blushed even more and before she could offer any explanation, Bukky added. "I see you are starting a garden. Be careful with the ants."

And with that said, she went back into the house leaving a most embarrassed Angela to gawk at her very perfect behind.

"Well she must have a hawk's bleeping eyes to sight me like that," said Angela as she moved away. She forgot all about the ants until...

******************************************

...A week later. It was late noon and after working for sometime on the manuscript, Angela decided to start her gardening. She'd put it off for far too long-- a week now. Armed with tools and stuff, she got down to business, pulling out weeds and clearing debris. The last tenants had clearly never bothered about gardening. Well how could they really, if they'd been mentally unstable. However, a part of her mind still doubted Bukky's story about the doomed predecessors.

"Ouch!" She flew up as something stung her in the knee. A quick check showed a black ant under her garments. She killed it but the knee still hurt. "Quite a stinger you are."

Then another sting, this time even more hurting than the first. Angela reacted by jumping off the patch she'd been working on and slapping the stung area. That was when she saw them. Countless black ants in their millions were trooping out of a hole. She swatted two off and received two more stings.

"Oh shit!" She cursed as ants stung her in several places. She realised some had somehow got into her clothes. The stings were ferocious. Angela began to yank her clothes off as she dashed into the house, heading straight for the shower. By the time she reached it, she was naked and just let the cool water soothe all the painful parts. She wondered what kind of ant attacked people like that and knowing little about African ants hoped she wouldn't get sick...

"I must get something to relieve this pain," she muttered and took a step out. Suddenly her head reeled, she felt a faintness in her head and crashed into the cold floor. She faded into oblivion.

******************************************

Angela's eyes opened to see two faces peering down at her. Her brow furrowed as she tried to marshal her thoughts.

"Thank God you are back with us," said a familiar voice. The faces belonged to the Agbajes.

"I warned you about the ants but you are one stubborn lady aren't you," Bukky added and touched a finger to Angela's cheek the way you would a child's.

Angela didn't like that so she forced a smile and tried to sit up. The couple made way for her. She took in things and much to her chagrin discovered only a towel covered her body. Bukky must have read her thoughts because she quickly talked without being prompted.

"Oh I found you in the bath. I was scared and called my husband."

Angela blushed and Kola must have noticed the embarrassment because he quietly moved away. Bukky moved closer. "I found you and wrapped the towel around you. Kola just helped get you here."

Angela blushed even more. The thought of her alone, unconscious and naked in front of her neighbour was quite unsettling.

After a few mumbled words of appreciation, Angela was glad to see them leave. After that, she slept off in her bed and dreamt of Bukky chasing her with an axe. She sprang up wide awake and her heart stopped. Right in the room with her stood Bukky Agbaje staring at her.

"You must leave," Bukky said in a voice utterly emotionless.

Angela gasped. "How did you get in here?"

Without answering, Bukky spun and left, jamming the doors she went through. Angela's heart raced crazily as arms and eyes seemed to emerge from the darkness around her... She swooned and slumped back as reality vanished and life became an obscurity.

******************************************

The following day, with the sun high in the sky and darkness dispersed, a bravery came upon Angela and she approached Bukky, but the petite beauty smiled disarmingly and claimed it was a dream. After all, she didn't have the keys to Angela's house. Angela agreed that was true.

The following weeks were nothing short of crazy. Every night, Angela awoke at midnights to see grim looking Kola and Bukky on either sides of her bed. They would just tell her to leave then walk away like robots. She'd had the lock changed twice, yet there they stood every night. And the ants, they came in large numbers into the house and sacked her kitchen. She called pest control. Things changed for a day then they were back. Her writing suffered. When she challenged the Agbajes again, that night she woke up to find them, each just there staring. They were harmed with axes. Angela screamed, but a swift blow from Kola to the head knocked her out.

******************************************

The next day, she awoke and except for the headache caused by the night's strike, she was still alive. Without bothering with makeup nor changing out of her nightie, she headed to the police station and got a cop. The kindly officer drove her back after trying and failing to convince Angela that the Agbajes were the tenants who once lived in the house. They were a young couple and died in a fire that razed the house at night. But Angela kept screaming they were her neighbours. She ran out of the car to the Agbaje's house then stopped short. The house beside hers was a dilapidated unoccupied building. Where there'd been a posh occupied house was now full of overgrown weed.

"Maam," the officer called. But Angela simply went quietly into the house. The officer was concerned and followed. She went into the shower and sank to the floor, tears rolling down her face.

As the officer tried to leave, something on the center table caught his eye. He moved nearer. It was an headline on a laptop. It read, "BRITISH WRITER ANGELA GARDNER CHECKS OUT OF MENTAL HOUSE, WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN!"

The officer read the content. "AFTER CLAIMING TO
SEE DEAD PEOPLE AND A PUBLIC MELTDOWN, THE WRITER HAD CHECKED INTO A MENTAL INSTITUTION WHERE SHE RECEIVED TREATMENTS..."

The story went on but the officer stopped reading. He looked hard at the doorway through which Angela had disappeared. He could hear the running shower. He slowly shook his head. He seemed to pity the crazy woman. Then he turned and walked away. He didn't use the door. He went right through the wall.

(C)2016

Flash fiction written by Segun Ogundeko!


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Oh, please, please, high crowned magician,

that’s come to town with the circus,

with upturned moustache like a royal Persian,

oh how I counted days wondrous Marcus,

that surely is your name mister mystery man,

holding night’s dreams in broad light,

do cull and curl a blue mist from your silver pan,

rendering science wrong than right,

oh yes please, most strange and powerful gifted one,

with a hand’s dip in your hat’s deep,

and a left finger’s hush in dramatic warn,

come fill my eyes with a drunken sip,

once again, turn dream’s key with abracadabra,

to fly fairy winged butterflies and bunnies,

blue, green, white and even silver, yes abracadabra,

taking me into wonderland on flying ponies,

magic man snap and dip in your great inspiration,

let them come like dust in my attic,

for my fascination will never be called hallucination,

I’ll never call it trickery but plain magic.

A poem by Segun Sam Ogundeko
Courtesy;

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