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We had roamed the late hours of the night for a football viewing centre,and after one was found, we spent two hours showing support for our separate teams. Nine of us had come by the same way, consumed by a fervent zeal for our football clubs. This zeal may be one of unequal proportion,as was with many, but to have decided to leave the comfort of our homes,and made through the rough sketches of downtown Lagos at the dead of night,to share in a brief moment of team-manship, may be considered borne out of the ordinary. It was our primary intention to cheer,laud and pique fans of the opposite team,as was the custom among lovers of football, but the night- with the frightening cluster of darkness,and the expressive warnings of a frigid night, stood against our frolic flare,for we had to return to our homes through the dark patvhes of Ladipo ,now with a fewer men,most of whom lived a few buildings from one another. It was about 1am on an unsually silent Thursday.

The night sent cold pats down our spines, heaving strange comforts that bore likeness with falsely calm sensations experienced when the lights go out suddenly in a cinema,in the middle of a ghost movie. All that was in sight borrowed from the shades of darkness the intimidating figures of southern mountains and bed-like rocks, especially the tough structured houses sitted gracefully on both sides of the street,and the 'danfos' carelessly packed at different corners of dark streets. Making through the caliginous streets with heightened fear,we stumbled upon grave darkness,and were once more reminded of the dreads of night,when suddenly,by a far observation,a frightful sight brought us to a halt,with a bit of queer setting off the scare behind our timorous state;but,as was the nature of man,inherent curiosity made us approach the mischievous.

I had sterly asserted that we maintained our position, but it seemed as though the god of the night had promised a conference somewhere in his dreadful chambers, for the others with whom I walked suddenly developed a false confidence; and,hiding their fears unprofessionally behind the numbers we had, matched toward the unknown. I followed. The figure,from a hundred steps away and hiding its rear in the darkness so that only a tiny projection of its head was witnessed and its eyes which conveyed the light in reave of darkness, advanced towards us with the stealth of a thief- swerving confidently to the rhythm of the growling wind. At this time, we had all come to a stop- again,with all the confidence with which we had marched deliquesced into heavy sweat. Just when we were only a few steps away from the unknown, it suddenly dawned on us that we were locked within its reach; and as if it realized that fact, it slowly gave away another part of its head: from its bright eyes to its firm nose,letting of a territorial growl. We were pulled by its dreadful gaze,its eyes radiating its ferociousness,blazing with utter vexation,its body firm as it growled with confidence, like a predator assured of its own snare,ready to pounce with defensive brutality. One of the men charged at it with a stone,aiming to scare it off,but running off when he was almost within its reach(a defensive act only to buy his own freedom). Menaced,it came at the rest of us with a frightening leap,and while others had fled many ways, only i remained- stilled to my feet- with all but chagrin at heart.

Nothing could be done,except to hug the momentary sentence,and be lost in its felicity,which I helplessly met with much trepidation rather than awkward grace,the moment I realized the last,slowed breath could as well be my last.
At last the much dreaded figure stood in place of light,body in sight,with its stale face and the rest of its entirety,making a show of its appearance. Now,it was I who was met with a streak of disappointment, with a gauche release of tension,sliding down my back like melted ice on a sloppy hill;for it was only a dog,a frightened dog lost in the adventures of the night,just as we were.

"Dele! Dele! Dele!!!" Uche's silent whispers were loud roars in my head. I could feel the entire weight of my head rested upon my neck,seeming bipartite. I could feel blood dripping down my head,with my entire body suffering from the pains afflicted by the serious beating I received. I opened my eyes rather slowly,to see Uche standing beside me with his left eye swollen like a reformed specimen. It must have taken forever for me to reminisce the entire situation, beginning from how we got there to the moment I woke,again.
"You got beaten too?" I asked,not really demanding an answer. I managed to sit up with Uche's help, he seemed twice as cooked as i was,but he didn't appear to show weakness.
"Where is Frayo?" I asked,demanding an answer this time.
"He is lying there,unmoving. I tried to wake him but he wouldn't reply." Uche replied,with tears building up at one corner of his leveled eye.
"What?" I crawled over to where Frayo laid,tapped him with heightening sensitivity,before calling out his name.
"Frayo? Frayo?" He laid still,unmoving,with his body covered with so much blood,which sprung from open cuts littered about his body, like a shredded mouse caught in a dreadful trap.
"Frayo! Frayo! It is me,am here," i called to him again with tears dropping off my eyes like fallen embers from a razing scrapper.
"Boy,he is dead," a voice spoke from outside of our cell,rather unnoticed,until he spoke again,and this time more loudly.
"Boy! He is dead I said!" The guard spoke,trying not to show sensitivity,but I could detect remorse in his voice.
"What? He can't be,he is here because of me…"
"He struggled with us while we tried to beat the rest of you. There was nothing we could do,he didn't survive our blows." He interrupted and left as quickly as he could do.
What? Frayo can't be dead,this is all a dream,am going to wake soon. My roommate would be right on his bed by the time i wake,eating his third round of breakfast. I thought to myself as I leaned on Frayo's body,reminiscing about the last few months we had spent as neighbors back in the house. With Frayo gone,everything felt more real,and I felt more alone than a nagging granny. Frayo was unselfish in his ways,though very skilled in weed making and obviously smoking,which proved a negation of his real self,especially when he was sober. I would miss his protective aptitude, now all i was left with was Uche's optimism,which reduced as minutes passed by.

I loathed the stench…
I was met,as i awoken,by the stench that came in from outside of the room where I was kept. The room was slightly lit,with the reflection of light which stole in from outside of the cell. There were no windows,so the smell was often stayed anytime the little brush of air which scarcely blew brought it around. I tried to break free of the chain that bind my hands and feet,which connected me with a few others,who were already weak and were lying helplessly on the floor,and joined us so that we could barely stand to our feet,except we could only sit with our backs leaned on the wall.
"I already tried that, save your strength." Frayo's voice came from the darkness,he had a thing for speaking in the darkness apparently,or it was merely coincidental.
"We still can't find BJ,he must have escaped those bastards while we ran." He pursued,and I could observe his relish as he spoke.
"Does that mean we are trapped here?" Uche came in,seeming to have lost his usual optimism,"I mean,we can't just sit here and await our deaths."
"The first thing they'll do is deprive us of food,we will grow weaker by the day,and then they feed us to their bloodthirsty gods,knowing we have little strength to fight back." I was surprised to hear myself speak with so much confidence,considering the predicament we were in.
I could now notice more frail looking bodies which laid helplessly on the floor next to me. Some had been reduced to dry bones,with no sign of life present in them. Whatever that room was,I was sure nothing interesting was being done in there, for it appeared to be built for some purpose which was to be kept from sight. The darkness,and echoes that came in whenever people let out a cry,with the somber efforts from the light which shone effortlessly, suggested we must have been kept beneath the ground,away from sight,and all efforts to escape from it would prove abortive. How to free ourselves from the chain was the first question that came to mind,and from the look of things we would be lucky to last a few days with our senses in check,considering their plight to starve us until they decided when to feed us to their sanguineous gods.
Voices came in from the passage,with footsteps approaching with a grave sense of duty. They stopped at the room where we were held, and I could recognize from among them the woman who came out with the incantations a few minutes before we were captured. Perhaps she was their leader or something, maybe the oracle who spoke for the gods,for she came into our cell and searched around,with her eyes burning with a strange desperation and brutality, seeming to search for something important to her. She went around the room,staring into faces,with Frayo and uche still further away,until she reached where I sat,and grabbing my face as tightly as she could, she turned it aimlessly to all sides and frowned with somewhat vexation.
"These one still has strength in him!" She raged at the rest of her crew who stood behind,with a grave accent,and then continued rather soberly this time," Tire him out,and the rest we brought in this morning." I didn't know what she meant by "tire him out" but I was sure to find out as seven hefty men approached with weighty sticks. The first blow struck my head with a strange pop. I went out of life in an instant.

The early morning feats exalted the fear our hearts bore with deepened rage. We could hear the chirping birds,the croaking frogs,the wavering leaves,the spiders,spinning new webs after a night crash,and the brush of morning wind,slapping harshly on our skin as we made through what was left of the cold morning,with a full dose of fear making into our minds with somewhat alacrity. We looked through corners of the dark streets,with the hope of finding my roommate overridden by thoughts of finding what was left of him instead. We searched still,through streets devoid of any sign of life,except for our breaths which would soon be reduced to no more than cautious pants. After hours of search,with the bright light of day now fully descended, we decided to return home, forgetting how further from home we had gone. With that fit of consciousness, we realized we had to return home soon,lest we be taken along with the next batch of sacrificial lambs. But our fear soon became a nightmare the moment we heard a sound that bore semblance with the one we had heard just the day before when my roommate was captured. We made for shelter as fast as we could but the dreaded sect were rather too close. They tailed after us with so much rigor,cutting through unknown corners from Ede Road with shouts of "do not let them go" filling the streets,and chanting incantations by their lips quickly, until we were cornered just outside of Paràkin. BJ was nowhere to be found,the last I saw of him was when he got separated from the rest of us by a charging few who had raced ahead of others from the chasing sect. Nothing remained,there were no more visible corners we could cut through,and even if there were any,we were too weak to have noticed an escape route,having exhausted a vital portion of our lung volumes,so we stood still,begging that we be spared like mice ensnared in the felicity of a preying cat. A elderly woman dressed in white apparel came out from among them and murmured something from her lips, which sounded like incantations. The last thing I could remember was falling into a deep sleep as I watched Frayo and Uche fall to their sides,heaving two heavy thuds. Everything went blank.

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We scurried about,fleeing into different corners with much trepidation. I saw Frayo and BJ,my housemates,running in my direction,both bearing knowledge of the dangers in seeing the very much dreaded Oro,whom according to rumours was a human turned pixie,with a body of irritable sores and and a malicious gaze; nobody,without being properly entrenched in traditional rites and habitude, could survive even a momentarily gaze. Frayo reached where I sought solace first,then BJ,who was considered the youngest in our compound. We settled in a small kiosk whose door was left partly opened for unknown reasons,and we watched people run in all direction,in which some were apprehended and carted away with a sub group which came with the rest of the occult group. We waited until we were certain all had passed before we made our way home, where the rest of our housemates were waiting with trepid anticipation.

They looked so happy to know we made it back alive, but I could sense that feeling of withdrawal with unexplainable flare. Everyone was present in the house except my roommate. I looked in the room but he was nowhere to be found,and after an ocular enquiry from my housemates, someone summoned the courage to break the news. My roommate never made it back home,he must have been taken with the rest of the people who were captured in the heart of day. We all gathered to look around for him,even some of the neighbors joined in the search,but there was no trace of him. We all returned to our hostels.
Though I never tolerated his nonchalance,for he was largely irritated by spiritual matters,I still loved him as a brother. He always told me the things that we chose to believe are always borne out of fear,and I believed him,though he never knew the things that he didn't believe could still hurt him. I was subjected to much chagrin where I laid,with the thoughts of him and his philosophies settling in my head and spreading like a dark penumbra. I thought about venturing took for him, but the thoughts of how,when and where he might be descended like quiet wishes,fettling my heart with somewhat dismay. After much thoughts and sickened plans,I made out early in the morning with a quest to find him.
"We knew you would decide on something stupid the moment we left you alone." A voice spoke from the early morning light,and I needed no conviction it was Frayo's. "Frayo I can't just sleep knowing he is out there with somewhere." I replied,with ready tears building in both corners of my eyes. Frayo's eyes searched through the darkness for a conviction,holding out a burning wrap of cheap weed which he always smoked anytime he was in a fit. He was not alone,two other figures came out from the shade of night,with the gentle stroke of first light revealing both familiar faces;Uche and BJ,my next door neighbours. "If you must go,then we will come with you," Frayo declared,his face absent of its usual wag. "I cannot ask this of you guys. We are all students here. If we go we might never make it back."
"Not if we go together,our chances of survival are higher,and we have BJ to help with the road. He knows the streets better than any of us," Uche came in with his usual optimism. I knew it was too much to let them come with me,but nothing could be done for i was met with such alacrity. And so the four of us made our way into the streets,in search for a friend we just might never find.

Morning came among cold hazes,fettling the paths and windows with frosty fogs and frigid moist, with the dire feeling of familiar horror scattered amidst the gelid streets,almost as visible as blasted rocks in winter snow,scattered amongst pathways and corners that connected the streets. I observed as I walked through the cold streets with my neighbors,and some other groups of people who had gathered since the fade of night. It was not just fear that cornered our hearts during those times, curiosity drove up to the highest peak of our existence,abetting strange anticipation we knew we shouldn't had had . We had been up early to find out what had happened the previous night,we walked in groups for reasons we considered were best,and followed the paths where we thought the noises had come from.

On arriving the scene,more people were already gathered around something i could barely make a sight of; i squeezed through the whimpering and whining lots who were exclaiming in native tongues,some of which I could recognize by the mournful stances each posture gave; and i could feel for what seemed eternity long an awful feeling of irritation which came from the sight of the decapitated body that laid in its own pool of dried blood,with most vital parts separated from its heft. My irritation was divided between hurling over the wailing crowds and puking on the remains of the deceased, but I incited a third,and it seemed one to go with.

"We don't know who this is." A woman declared from amongst the wailing crowd,seeming more irritated than most whom were gathered on her side.
"Same as the woman who was murdered last week." Another continued from amongst them.
I listened as they all wailed,heaving greenish whimpers.
'We need to protect ourselves,organize a vigilante group to go round during the night." An elderly man with obviously little cognizance of the situation muttered,rather disgracefully.
"We were fore warned to remain in our houses all through these times," a much younger, but, with much keenness,man spoke from the grieving lots,"Moreover, I doubt anyone will volunteer to be on this group." He continued.

After much debate had been done,nothing was decided and we all had to return to our houses in the same manner that we came. Just about a few blocks away from the house I lived, the wind brought strange sounds, they sounded more lyrical,but I ignored my keen perception when I observed most of the people whom I walked with were oblivious to the sounds. The sounds came again,these time more musical,and I observed a few others could hear them more clearly now. Before our senses could ruminate on the consequences of our negligence,trouble had reached the shores of our consciousness; a sight was made of a protruding religious sect clothed in plain, white garments,with chafing blotches littered all about their almost-naked bodies,except for the parts where the garment extended,covering their most vital parts and core. They weren't supposed to route in this direction until tomorrow,we thought to ourselves,as fear found its way to the peak of our chests. Whatever the reasons were, I thought,it was someway tied to the woman who was butchered. Perhaps they had come to fetch her remains,but we were never meant to see them in their occult regalia anyway.

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The gloomy weather promised the night a heavy, lengthy shower;one very much belated then. Flashes of lightening sped across the sky like quick shadows on transparent walls,stealing quick glances into rooms with rolled up blinds,like a skilled thief seeking valuables in the dead of night. Nature kept howling belated exegesis of dry months without a downpour, one we had so long expected for what seemed a long walk down the corridor of time,never to come.

Much of heavy rainfall had been witnessed around those parts of west Africa, but the past few months had received not as much as a single drop of rain;and now rain approached with heavy chatters , and all were glad for another month of downpour, at least till its season lasted.

I listened to the sound of rain drops as it poured heavily on that Thursday night. The streets were dark and silent,everything could be heard;even my breaths imitated the fettish sounds from the devil's trumpet,humming with an unusual rage,at a pace which bore semblance with a rising gong. The schools' authorities had given the order that students remained indoor till the ancient rites were completed, in reference to the late king. My room mate was deep in sleep where he laid,I watched from the reading table I had earlier had a bowl of sweet beans with strange relish;he didn't seem to be troubled a fleck by all that was happening around. Two days before then we had heard of unidentified victims whose heads were said to be neatly detached from their bodies, which were found looming in the black lake just miles away from the palace. No one dared to go outside ever since the terrible news was announced to our ears. Ugly thoughts played in my mind like an antique recorder,bearing voices I could have sworn were barely mine;and though it was barely midnight, the timorous sounds from the cold night suggested darkness had descended with deepened rage. Some thirty minutes later the clouds began to bleed.

The compound which l lived in was largely occupied by students from different institutions,most of whom could not secure spaces in any of the schools' hostels and had had to rent apartments outside the school walls. Since the death of the King was announced, students had been fleeing the city for fear of being kidnapped,or worse ,at every chance. All that remained in the town,it seemed,were natives and students whose homes were a long journey away from school;some of us,for unexplainable reasons, only chose to remain in town on such terms.

The rainy night sent cold shivers down my spine,but fear must have gripped me by the neck,for I responded to every sound that came from the clapping thunder,most of which,it seemed,were only voices from my timid imagination. The heavy downpour seemed to arouse more fear as heavy drops of rain tapped furiously on thatched roofs. My eyes found one of the books I had been reading from my collections,so I settled by my desk,flipping through its pages,uneager to finish its contents. It was Charles Dickens' Great Expectations.

I must have read for no more than what seemed some twenty minutes when a strange,loud noise came in from outside my window. It sounded more like a grievous cry but the rainy night gave it much trepidation. It must have been so loud for it woke everyone deep in sleep; even my room mate was awake at this time,we all crawled with trepid anticipation out of our rooms. Though the noise was not unusual, for we often heard such noise on certain nights when traditional clerics went about their spiritual business,something more bizarre seemed about this very one; it was stentorian,piercing our ears like the cries of an infant hagridden by fear. Most of the occupants in the same house as I were out of their rooms at this time,and I could tell the entire neighborhood was up too-all gathered at the corridors of our rooms,for no one dared to go outside of his compound. We listened more carefully at this time,and we could tell it was not the occult cries of the spiritualists: it was that of a woman,from whom loud cries came like a mouse ensnared in the felicity of a preying cat. Then,almost in an instant,like the finishing rhymes from a performing drum band,the cries came to a stop,and nothing was heard. We all returned to bed wondering what had happened that night,and I, for one,wondered what could have been done to save the victim,should it be what we heard was truly the voice of an agonizing woman.

STREETS OF TERROR

When it is night and darkness needs the streets for its home…

© Oladuke Michael Oluwatumininu



The quietus of the aged king marked the nascence of an ancient, traditional ritual across the entire town; and, without much ado, the coronation of a new king was to follow in the course of events,succeeding traditional,religious procedures that had been set by ancestors,for to delay such religious rites could ire the gods.


Everyone knew the streets would no longer be a safe place,even in our various homes we kept watch through teeny,uncovered hulls of our windows,bearing in our minds a sickening fear for our lives and that of our loved ones. Nothing mattered, except those days be exhausted like a pack of cheap cigarette,as quick as a counter soon reads ten; and we awaited in our homes, hiding beneath chunky blankets,behind bolted doors, like layers in an onion bulb,with the worst still to come. Such infringement of individual right,as i considered,was to remain the custom all through the marked days, and those who may not concur were to do at their own peril. Natives and everyone who were well acquainted with the rituals only went about their diurnal activities with their eyes behind their backs,duly fixed on the routes in which they would flee if trouble should loom; and, not less than often, their expectations were met with indescribable horror. Some never made it back home.


Ife, a suburb of Osun state, had come to be regarded as the cradle of the Yoruba people who were believed to be deeply rooted in ancestral worship and occult aberration in the shoal parts of west Africa. It was home to over four hundred thousand people, including mostly natives, students, immigrants, merchants, and those who were settled for privy reasons. The announcement of the king's passing should not have been heard by public ears until seven nights after the hoary habitude of native rituals and rites were completed, but the press were whispers of the unknown,or so they proved; and now fear ruled in the streets and in the hearts of everyone present in the ancient town.


It was customary for the rituals to be marked with ancient activities and rubrics as such had been the tradition since the town was found centuries ago. Then, denizens of the town, especially those alien to the tradition, were reported missing during the rituals, and were either decapitated or shredded to pieces if ever found. It was rumored that those captured were fed to some ancient, sanguineous pixies, whom wherefore were believed to be responsible for the safety of the people;and social purity of some sort. Cases were reported to the police and other concerned authorities who appeared to be nescient of the town's malodorous behaviors, but nothing was ever done to curb these acts.


Traditional clerics, with an already proven divine authority over spiritual activities and now a legal accreditation shall I say, no longer saw the need to hide their pernicious deeds. They were,putatively,displayed for all eyes to see;the clerics went about the streets in their traditional regalia, parading the whole town in reference to cultic decalogue. The people,realizing they stand alone, came to accept these rituals as divine, while they lived in constant fear of what might happen during these times. I was,in retrospect, a student in one of the institutions in Ife town around that time,and this is my story of a very much dreaded horror.