Roommates 5: Episode 5

Spirit of the Dead – 2

‘Oh my God, something just passed!’ Loveth screamed.

April and Georgina took off at once.

Georgina jumped over the couch and April opened the chest freezer standing by the wall and squeezed herself in.

Loveth, crying and shaking, quietly lowered herself to the floor.

‘Please don’t hurt me,’ she was muttering. ‘Don’t hurt me please. I am your friend. I attended your burial. I helped serve the guests, please don’t hurt me.’

The door was banged again, harder.

Great silence fell over the room.

Not even the sound of breathing was heard now.

Another bang on the door.

One slow inch after another, Georgina poked her head out into view. ‘Mgbeke?’ she called, very quietly. ‘Mgbeke are you there?’

Nothing was heard.

Instead the door was banged again.

Quietly, Georgina crept out from behind the couch.

One noiseless step after another, she edged to the door.

Reaching and holding the door handle, she begged: ‘Mgbeke, it’s me your sister. I’m here with April and Loveth, your friends. Please don’t do anything stupid, your hear?’

The door was banged again.

Georgina screamed and disappeared from the door.

She found herself behind the beige-coloured window drapes, panting and kneading her chest.

The door was pounded again, and this time a voice followed.

A familiar male voice.

Georgina’s eyes ran to the door. She crept out and started toward the door yet again.

She finally drew the door open and Abuchi, with his leather travel bag slung across him, blocked the doorway.

‘Oh, it is you!’ Georgina swallowed hard and began recalling back all her scattered parts.

‘Yes, I am the one,’ Abuchi said, eyes drenched in confusion. ‘Are you alright? I have been knocking.’

‘You have been knocking?’ Georgina returned. ‘You have been knocking, is that how to knock, eh, gbo?’

‘What?’ Abuchi’s face was still with his confusion. ‘How?’

‘Kpo-kpoto-kpo-kpo, like the drum of night spirits, is that how normal people knock?’

‘How does normal people knock?’

‘Kpo-kpo! Normal people knock kpo-kpo, okpo!’

Abuchi pushed Georgina out of the way and entered the room. ‘Where are your roommates?’

Georgina turned her eyes round. ‘Girls come out o, it is not a ghost!’ she announced.

On the third announcement, Loveth finally began to rise from the floor.

‘Abuchi are you the one?’ Loveth asked, her voice a stuttering mess.

‘Yes, it is me. Why are you lying on the floor? Are you sleeping?’

‘No.’ Loveth shook her head.

Georgina looked round again. ‘Where is April?’

Loveth looked round the room too. ‘I don’t know. I think she hid in the freezer.’

Georgina’s eyes popped.

She flew and drew the freezer open.

With the help of Abuchi, the girls carried a limp and unconscious April out, onto the floor.

Her entire skin was damp.

***

Sound of a doorbell.

‘Hold on, I’m coming!’ Gloria called, heading to the door.

The bell was pressed again before she could get to the door.

‘Who is there?’ she said, and almost at the same she was drawing the door open—‘Georgina, is that you?’

The door now open—‘Oh! Segun, it’s you.’

Segun, tall, huge and every inch macho, swaggered into the room.

He wore a dark terminator-style jacket above blue jean trousers. He had his feet in heavy Timberland boots.

Gloria gave him one more look, then closed back the door.

She turned to him. ‘Why come now? My husband should be on his way back already.’

‘Which husband?’ Segun said, voice intimidatingly husky.

‘What?’

‘Answer me, which husband do you speak of?’ Segun repeated himself, his bold, fearless eyes scanning the room.

Gloria turned back to the door and drew it back open. ‘You can leave now.’

Segun turned. ‘Leave?’

‘Yes, leave.’

‘To where?’

‘What?’

He gave a menacing smile and then turned and walked closer to Gloria. ‘You said leave and I asked you where I should leave to.’

‘Well, wherever you crawled out from,’ Gloria said, stilling her tension. ‘The bush, gutter, or just some filthy hole you reside in.’

Without warning, Segun grabbed Gloria, by the wrist. ‘Still your tongue, whore! I have not come here to barter words with you!’

Gloria drew her hand away from his grip. ‘Leave my home.’ Her voice sank deeper in resolve. ‘This minute!’

‘And if I choose not to?’

Gloria scowled at the unwanted guest. ‘L-e-a-v-e!!!’ she growled.

Segun gave his kind of smile again. ‘There are a lot of things I have come here for, lady, but you must know that leaving is not one of them.’

Gloria was about saying something to him when something else suddenly diverted her attention.

The blare of her husband’s car horn!

***

At April’s apartment, many blocks away, an equally tense situation proceeded.

‘What are we going to do now?’ Loveth cried.

She was fanning April while Georgina dabbed all over her skin with a towel.

Abuchi, nearby, pointed a torchlight for them.

‘Let’s take her to the hospital,’ Abuchi said.

‘No need for that,’ Georgina said. ‘She is breathing.’

‘And what if the breathing stopped?’ Loveth said. ‘What are you going to do then?’

Georgina ignored her and went on with what she was doing.

‘Let’s take her to the hospital now before her breathing finally stops o!’ Loveth cried.

‘Nwa, kam nu ife!’ Georgina barked. ‘Cho-cho-cho-cho, you can’t ever keep your lips shut! Would she have been in this condition had you not suddenly turned a psychic and started seeing things that are not there in the first place?’

‘Are you now blaming me?’ Loveth said. ‘Are you not the one that first came with the ghost story?’

‘Which ghost and which story are you people talking about even?’ Abuchi said.

Georgina said nothing. Instead she rubbed her fingers together and threw a hot slap to April’s cheek.

The slim roommate came back alive immediately. ‘Who turned off the lights?’ she asked, looking all around.

‘Na NEPA,’ Georgina answered.

‘And the ghost, where is the ghost?’ April added, still wearing a confused look.

‘You are looking for ghost? I thought you are an atheist who don’t believe in the supernatural.’

April made to rise and Georgina lent her a hand.

‘I am not an atheist,’ she said. ‘I am merely agnostic, there is a big difference.’

Georgina pulled a face. ‘Agnostiff, I hear! Who do you want to confuse with big grammar? After claiming everything in life is physical, yet you didn’t even wait to confirm if the ghost is real or not before disappearing inside the freezer.’

‘It was a fight-or-flight reaction!’ April said. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

‘Fight-or-flight reaction, so why didn’t you stay and fight?’

April hissed.

‘Which ghost are you people talking about?’ Abuchi asked again.

‘Your ghost, if you don’t keep quiet now!’ Georgina gave to him.

‘Do I have a ghost?’ Abuchi said.

‘Keep talking, you will soon find out.’

April blinked hard and then bent towards Abuchi. ‘Abuchi, is that really you?’ she asked.

‘Yes, it’s me, my dear,’ Abuchi said, pointing the torch away.

‘When did you come?’ April asked.

‘Just came in now. I was knocking and no one opened the door.’

‘Sorry about that,’ April said. ‘We thought it was someone else.’

‘Someone else like who?’

April looked at Georgina. She dragged to the couch and sat. ‘Never mind, how was your journey?’

‘Fine.’

‘You arrived so late?’

‘I took the afternoon bus.’

‘Oh. Hope all is well?

Abuchi turned to Georgina. ‘I should be asking your friend here that question. She called me and said I should come immediately, that it is very urgent.’

April turned to Georgina. ‘Georgina?’

‘It’s nothing too serious,’ Georgina said. ‘There is a small job I need him to do for my Madam, so I called him.’

‘What kind of job?’ Loveth was first to ask.

Georgina stared at her, saying nothing.

‘What kind of job?’ April joined.

‘Something is wrong in her bedroom, so I want him to help her fix it.’

‘Just that and you had to make him travel all the way?’ April said.

‘Madam rest! Did he tell you he is complaining?’

‘Actually I am,’ Abuchi said immediately.

‘Well, darling, you can keep on complaining, but the truth of the matter is that you are here already and you are going to do the job!’