Chinedu quickly jogged home, making sure that he hid his booty before approaching the main house.
“Sir, I think I have diarrhea.” he announced loudly in the living room.
“Honey, I have told you that this boy is an irritant!” the Mrs hissed.
“Get out!” the Professor barked, throwing his slippers at the boy.
Chinedu sighed as he opened his second bottle of Coke.
It was just a little after 8pm and he had left every door unlocked and overfed the guard dogs.
At about 9pm, he heard them. Shuffling feet and whispers, shadows and clanging weapons, they crept upon the house.
Chinedu heard the muffled screams, followed by silence.
Something wasn’t right. The plan was to scare them, not murder them.
He left his Coke and crept into the house from an entrance he had kept to himself.
In the living room, he saw the Majekodunmi family bound and gagged and the cult boys with all manners of weapons sitting on the couches; teasing them.
Busayo stood in front of Prof Majekodunmi. Chinedu could not make out what he was saying to the man, but saw him push the man’s head often.
When it seemed that they were tired, Busayo grabbed a cutlass from one if the boys and dragged the Professor to his feet.
The Professor was barely recognizable with all the blood that gushed from his face.
As Busay raised his arm to deliver the deathly blow, Chinedu screamed.
“Stop!” He ran from his hiding place and in full view of the group and the family.
“No death!”He boldly grabbed the cutlass from Busayo’s arm.
The two boys glared at each other.
“No one dies here tonight.”
Chinedu pulled the gag from the Prof and glared at him, “Sir, you and your family have passports, right?”
The man nodded, averting his eyes from the group.
“You’re going to pack your things and leave the country tonight. You and your family will never return to Ogun state.”
The entire family was nodding now.
“Good.” Chinedu tossed the weapon on the floor.
“I’m not challenging your authority, but I am not going to allow any bloodshed here tonight. If you want to kill this man, you’ll have to kill me first!”
Busayo laughed out loud and flicked his cigarette to the floor.
“This guy had some balls to stand up to me like this!”
“I like him!”
The other members of the sect relaxed a little, trusting their leader.
“Darlington, finish up here, make sure they leave tonight!” Busayo instructed, taking Chinedu by the arm and signalling to another member to follow them.
They left the living area and reclined in the Majekodunmi’s dining room.
“Chinedu, this is my second in command, Deji.”
Chinedu nodded in acknowledgement.
“Chinedu, you have shown such potential this weekend that the group has decided to give you a position, rather than start at the very bottom like the fingerlings, you’ll start out as a soldier.” Deji explained.
“How about school, that’s my priority. I want an education!”
“Listen, I can get you a degree now, if that’s what you want.”Deji snapped his fingers as though by magic the degree would show up in his palm.
“What we are offering you is a chance of a lifetime, what people kill for, what people die for!”
Chinedu listened as the boys carefully enumerated the rewards of being in the groups as well as his duties, starting out with his ‘soldier´ role.
He didn’t care as long as he got educated; he was willing to do anything.
As the years went by, he rapidly increased in rank, until he was ‘Supri-Capon’, meaning, second in command in the sect.
Whenever the capon was away on business or ill, or perhaps not just in the mood, he officiated. He had the University and the surrounding city in the palm of his hands.
He was top of his class- solely on effort, making money and all the ladies wanted to be with him, he couldn’t ask for more.
In his last year at the University, a nasty war broke out between their group and another group that had slowly grown on campus over the years.
It was a war in the full sense of the word. They had machine guns, machetes and even voodoo to go the extra mile.
The fight lasted for a week, and lives were wasted.
It was then, Chinedu knew that he had gone too far and had lost the essence of his self.
For the first three days, he opened fire and watched without remorse as Professors, cleaners and students alike dropped like flies.
By the fourth day, he wanted no part of it, but was compelled by the brotherhood of the group to stay.
On the last day, he had been fighting side by side with Busayo; who hadn’t graduated and all his soft tendencies had been lost to drug use; when a member of the opposing group axed him down.
Chinedu had seen many deaths to count, but watching the blood spew out of Busayo’s neck, unto the killer’s shirt and arms made something melt within him.
He dropped him weapons and raced to his friend’s lifeless body.
How had he partaken in such violence for so many years and not see the reality of it until he lost his best friend.
His life became hollow, dark and meaningless. He sought solace in women, drugs and alcohol but when his high was done, he was back to being hollow and dead.
His group had won the war, making him the overall capon of the University in Busayo’s place, but he wanted none of it, not anymore. It was rather ironic, he’d strategized for years, how he’d become Capon and now that he finally got it, it was a thorn in his flesh.
Chinedu poured out his frustrations by studying, pushing himself to read more than the textbook requirements, staying late nights in the library, all which were temporary solutions.
Chinedu’s demons haunted him to the point of suicide.
The ghosts of his victims followed him day and night, until they bought him painkillers and forced him to choke them down, all one hundred of them.
Chinedu surrendered to the bliss of death, waiting for the famed ‘white light’ but none came, and in its place was a cold eerie darkness that stuck to his skin like glue.
He tried to shake it off, but it pressed on his skin on every side, suffocating him.
He faintly heard voiced from a distance.
Someone kept calling his name and asking him to wake up.
