Chapter Thirty Four
A week later
Wole crouched low half running and half sliding beneath the low branch in front of him. Baba Adora’s black cloaked shape disappeared a few meters ahead in the gloom of the trees. A hard frown roughened his brow. The old seer seemed to be moving faster than usual which was surprising.
Their excursions into the town had been getting more frequent of late. Wole wasn’t sure why __ but Baba Adora never did anything without a reason.
His black shape disappeared completely. A thrill of unease rippled through Wole. He best not have lost him. He didn’t much relish having to scour the depths of this mini forest to find his way back.
He increased speed, running so fast he was like a streak of black racing through the woods. A low hanging branch suddenly came out of nowhere and he ducked. He was barely able to avoid it. That terrified him so much he slowed, taking a calm more leisurely pace.
A bright spot of light appeared ahead. His frown deepened and he approached it, increasing his pace again. The light led into a large clearing. He half expected to see Baba Adora standing in the centre of it. But it was empty.
He stepped out into the clearing looking up at the clear cloudless sky. If it had been a couple of months ago he would have been tempted to admire the beauty of it, but not this time. Not with all he’d seen.
“Are you going to stand there daydreaming or do we continue?”
He swung round, startled to see Baba Adora floating in mid-air with his black robes releasing an ethereal white glow. Wole took a deep breath, swallowed and pointed.
“You do realize your clothes are glowing don’t you?”
Baba Adora nodded without looking down. “Evil is everywhere __ I can se__” his words drifted off and he looked northwards.
Wole faced the direction he was looking and frowned. He couldn’t see a thing. Could this be another seer thing? He sincerely hoped not. Seer things hardly ever meant anything good.
“We have to move. There is a change __ a seismic change. We have to move.” He streaked forward, floating at twice the speed he was going before.
Wole sighed and raced after him. Eight minutes of running brought him before a cliff which overlooked a large town or city. He wasn’t sure which.
Baba Adora’s eyes were fixed on something below. He glanced down and almost squeaked. It was more than fifty feet down. He’d never been that good with heights.
He gritted his teeth and forced himself to keep looking. There was a large mass of infected milling around the bottom of the hill they were on. But there was something strange about this particular group of infected. If he wasn’t mistaken they appeared to be sweating. He had never seen an infected person sweat. And more puzzling was their usually blackish green skin was now growing pale, returning to a healthy chocolate sort of shade. His eyes widened. Could they be getting better?
“I think that’s what happening. They are getting better. She succeeded!!”
“Who succeeded??” Wole asked looking puzzled.
“Catherine ___ Catherine Kachifo. She just might have given us a fighting chance.”
Wole shrugged. The name meant nothing to him. If Baba Adora seemed to think a strange woman’s actions were going to make a difference who was he to say otherwise. If he knew what those actions were it would help clear part of his confusion. His eyes drifted to Baba Adora’s face. He was tempted to ask but something told him he wouldn’t get a satisfactory answer anyway so why bother.
“We best be getting __” Baba Adora began stopping when he saw some of the infected beneath them start to collapse. They fell in their ones and twos until all of them were down.
“What just happened?”
“I am not sure__” Baba Adora said shaking his head. He floated closer to the edge his eyes fixed on the crumpled cluster of bodies. As they watched their skin tones turned normal and their rapid raucous breathing quietened and evened out.
Baba Adora’s feet touched the ground and he sank into a sitting position. “We best wait and see how this plays out.” He said in a grim voice.
Wole sighed and sat down beside him, chewing on his lower lip as they waited.
It took about an hour before any of them stirred. By which time Wole was almost ready to explode with impatience. They released long groans and rose slowly. There was a sickly pallor to their skin but it was obvious they were on the mend.
“It’s impossible!” Wole gasped shocked.
“I believe the impossible has just become possible.” Baba Adora said his voice filled with awe and no less shocked and surprised by this new development.
I wasn’t sure when exactly it happened, but a strange calm came over the countryside. Twas like Lagos and the outskirts became a different place; somewhat like it used to be __ only with much less human and vehicular traffic.
I saw less infected. And the few I did see seemed to be undergoing some sort of change. Their blackish green skin had become natural. The ebony black beauty of the average Nigerian; one could also walk about more freely now. You still had to be careful though, cos darkling and dríegon attacks were getting more frequent. You’re probably wondering about the term ‘dríegon’ __ yeah I get that could be puzzling. It was a term the US military had taken to calling the flying incandescent beings causing chaos across the globe.
As at the time I had these thoughts Africa hadn’t had an encounter with the Higuan giant. I didn’t know then that that encounter was going to come much sooner than anticipated.
Jire looked at the still body of his mother and tried without succeeding to still the sobs racking his body. He raised his head looking at the destruction around. The cave was riddled with blood soaked bodies. His father stood some distance away leaning against the cave’s entrance nursing a cut that was bleeding freely.
His eyes narrowed as he looked at it. During the attack he’d seen an infected tackling him. That wound was most likely from an infected attack. But why hadn’t he changed yet? It was common knowledge that the infection took only minutes, at most hours. So why hadn’t his father succumbed to the infection?
He rose, giving his mother one last tearful glance before picking his way through the blood soaked bodies and making his way to his father’s side.
“How is the wound?”
“Painful ___” His father groaned through gritted teeth.
“Let me see it__” He said reaching for his leg. The cut was just beneath the knee. Looking at the blood flowing freely made him feel all queasy inside.
A dead body lay a few feet to his left. He reached over tearing off a large chunk of the man’s grey shirt. Using it as a bandage he wrapped the cut around his father’s leg ignoring his moans and grunts of pain. He wasn’t a medical expert but something told him the wound might need stitches. Good luck finding anyone to stitch it on this hill. By the time he was done his father looked greyer than the strip of shirt he’d used to bind his wounds.
“You might need to have that wound stitched.” Jire said quietly.
“Wouldn’t surprise me __ it hurts enough __” He gasped gritting his teeth.
Jire sighed feeling tearful again as his thoughts drifted to his mother and then Modupe. He didn’t know how he was still alive. The pain was just too much. It made him wonder what his father must be feeling. Their marriage had been a blissful and happy one. It wasn’t that they didn’t have problems, but they somehow always managed to work around them.
He gave his father another concerned stare. There was a sadness to his eyes that hadn’t been there before. But asides from that you wouldn’t know he’d just lost the woman he’d lived together with for the better part of forty years. A sad smile lifted his lips slightly. His father was a remarkable man. And looking at him now Jire realized how much he’d underestimated how remarkable he truly was.
“__ Not that I want to dampen your mood son but __ you do know an infected gave me this wound?”
Jire sighed becoming very
sad again. It took a herculean effort on his part to stay the tears.
His father smiled sadly. “I remember promising myself when you were younger that I would make sure I was never the reason you’d have a look like that on your face. It seems circumstances have forced me to break that vow.”
“You’ve always made me so proud. Even when you couldn’t get a job for years you always retained your courage and kept pushing. That’s one of the most admirable traits about you. I need you to continue to do so __ just in case __”
“Don’t you dare say it __” Jire spat out in a roar as he leaped to his feet.
The smile on his father’s face became broader. “Another promise I made to myself is never to tell you lies or offer palliatives when you needed to hear the truth. We both know what a wound from an infected person does to you. Would you rather kill me now or be forced to kill me later?”
His father’s words drove a chill down Jire’s spine. He couldn’t allow his father to go __ not right now __ not after all he had lost.
“But something isn’t quite right __ you should have turned by now. Why haven’t you? It’s been hours.”
His father’s face grew puzzled as he considered it. “That part I am not entirely sure of. From what I was able to get from the news before everything went dark, people turned after a few days of being exposed to the virus. But that time shortened to about three hours in the last few weeks or months.
“It’s been five hours since I was wounded. I can’t fathom why I am still __ normal __”
“Maybe the virus is going into remission __” He pressed on bravely at the sardonic look on his father’s face. “__ or it could be you are one of the few that is immune to it.”
“Somehow I doubt it.”
“We can hope can’t we??”
His father’s face clearly showed he thought little of the plan to hope, but fortunately he didn’t say anything. The hill shook under their feet as they both started to drift into their thoughts. They exchanged troubled gazes and rose to their feet.
The edge of the hill lay about fifteen metres away; Jire reached it in seconds, while his father got there much later.
About fifteen miles eastwards they saw a large being striding through what used to be Idanre Township; Jire had never seen anything that big before. His heart started to race like an express train as he looked upon it.
“What is that?”
“I honestly do not know sir __” He murmured quietly. A cold silence engulfed them and they turned heading further up the network of interconnected hills to find another safe place to lay their heads.