CHRONICLES OF CHUKS 3

Mbagwu knocked and I opened. She was in one of her fluttering long skirts and modest collared plaid shirts. She sat, made herself comfortable as she clamped her legs together and rested her elbows on her laps and stared into my face. One of those her stares that insinuated she was staring but wasn’t really looking.

“Chuks, what is the matter?” she uttered at last.
I was reluctant at first. I didn’t want to indulge her as the ball was always in her court. She was always the last woman talking. But the ensuing silence grew wings that quivered at my ears and I just had to spill the beans. Besides, she was still looking at me with that nonchalant gaze.

“People are dying around me.”
Why I shortened it like that I don’t know. She had this effect on me; when she was around – at least for the few times she had been – it felt like she took me places. The verbose stories she kept ranting about, and her characters that just wouldn’t die. I tried hard to behave unconcerned, but there was something about the way she told her stories.

She made them seem real. I did try some scribbling back then at school. In fact, Uziel always made jest of me, saying I was in the wrong department that I should have been in English department. Of course, Law students are largely handy with the English language, but it was all a blip.

“Chuks, hmm… do you know what that means? This isn’t like Final Destination or that Nicolas Cage movie… uhm… Knowing! Or any of Stephen King’s books, this is real, Chuks.”

She got up from the couch and started illustrating. I thought, ‘Which kain girl be this? I just told her one sentence and she’s all out.’ I was taken aback, ‘Shuo!’

“Chuks, Chuks… do you know what this means?” she almost flailed my face with her gesture, “Okay, let’s say it’s a bit like Knowing, but Naija Knowing sha,” she took fast-paced strides up and down and started again, “Chuks… this is like The Happening… okay, hmm… that’s a bit over the edge. Chucky! Chuks, you could be Chucky! Yes, that makes sense, but you aren’t enjoying the deaths… or… are… you? Shoo! Of course you couldn’t, but it’s not like I know you that well though. I’m thinking Clive Barker right now, maybe H.P. Lovecraft, Joe Hill, Dean Koontz… argh! Okay, okay,” she sighed, “Let’s hear from the horse’s mouth. Tell me everything you know.”

I had paid the piper. I called the tune.
I told her everthing; about Malam Habdul and about Adeyemi. I even told her about how I got bullied back in my secondary school days. She kept saying “more, more” at every interval. I began to feel I was laying out my whole life in front of her. I never took her for a listener, each time she came around she always yapped intermittently, but I was touched by her ardent listening. In fact, I was a bit aroused. I never looked at her that way before. Anyways, it seemed the only thing Mbagwu could ever be attracted to were the books she read and the movies she watched.

“Okay, okay,” she uttered, “What would Eric Matthews do?” she hastened, as if for a reply, “Chuks! Eric Matthews… detective… Saw… argh!”

“I’ve watched the Saw series! But how and why should I keep the name of the detective in my head?”
“Hmm,” she tinkered, “Okay, okay… what would Sherlock Holmes do?”

“I don’t know. He’d probably go in search of the serial killer. Wait… but I’m not a serial killer, am I? People are dying around me doesn’t mean I’m a serial killer. Please, don’t add to my confusion, I won’t be responsible for things I didn’t do. That’s not how the law works,” I said.

“Okay… so you said there are four of them from your secondary school, right, and one is dead, Adeyemi?”
“Yea, it was on the news.”

“News… news… whatever. So we can assume that you’d soon make contact with Soogun, Joe and Malcolm. You know what you must do, we must do? We need strings, lots of strings, and thumbtacks, and newspapers, yes, newspaper cuts. Just as in the detective stories, the movies. Your wall…hmm… they’d have to do. Chuks, this is real, this is happening. We need to map a timeline, starting from Malam Habdul, then we’d move to Adeyemi… we need to figure out who’s next.”

“So another person is going to die?”
“Argh! Chucks! Don’t play with me right now. Yes, another person is going to die! Haven’t you been listening to me? Wake up from your slumber. People are dying, and yes, real people, re-ea-ea-eal. This thing is happening around you, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

It’s like a force, lurking around you, as you eat, sleep, bathe, it’s always there. Just like in Bag of Bones; Mike Noonan was consumed by the death of his wife and this grew into real horror for him. Carrie, I needn’t say more. Odd Thomas fought mysterious forces as well. Look, Chuks, point is that you’re not alone. But I need to know something, are there others, other people that insulted you based on your size, like after sec school?”
“Yes, UniLag, a few others.”

(to be continued…)