Alfreda had the car at full speed, she did not care if she got the speed limit ticket. She will pay but right now, she needs it to be sane, to think clearly, and to scream. And she did scream, over and over again.
Life with David was supposed to be smooth forever, as smooth and problem-free as it has been for the past 3 years. David never gave her a cause to be sad, worried, and question her trust in him until now.
Even when her friends try to convince her to not trust a man. ‘Men are scum, ‘they will always cheat’ they’d say whenever the topic comes up. Several times, they’ve tried to convince her to hire a private detective to tail him which always results in her blatant refusals, wearing a defensive armor for David and not speaking to the two of them, or picking their calls for the whole week. Tina and Shalewa find a way to apologize, though they still try to slot it in at the slightest crack-in-the-wall of gists, and roaming conversations.
Putting a call through and telling both of them is no solution, she will likely get an ‘I told you so’ response.
She is desperate to do something, anything to get out of this mess with David. The options they both have are in no one’s favor. It’s either she dies or he dies. She will not let any of that happen.
“Never!” She said out loud.
She can not survive without David. They need each other to survive.
Should she call Tina? Tina is the most approachable of their trio and she always has a solution to all problems. That’s it! Tina! After searching frantically for her phone, she realized it might be at home or lost in the garage when she was trying to enter the car in a rush.
Alfreda brought the car to a stop in the middle of the road with the tires screeching loudly, she did a U-turn and headed straight home at full speed.
The front door was still ajar as she had left it, she went straight to their bedroom to search for her phone, but it was nowhere to be found. She searched downstairs in the living room, the garage, and everywhere else she could think of but to no avail.
Even David was not in sight.
Where did he go to? That man is supposed to be indoors, hiding his head from the impending death! Why the hell is he out there? She is scared to death here but he is like hell not, she has to find him.
She forgot the main reason she was home, she rushed out toward her car and sped to the nearest telephone stand.
“Omg” She exclaimed as she got to the stand and saw four people waiting for their turns.
She switched off the car engine silently fuming, she came out of the car and joined the queue.
The wait seemed to take forever, she started counting as each person took turns to call….one…two. The second woman seems to be calling the whole of the town, why? She started tapping her foot on the ground…Three. The third man is done…three. Before she could stop herself, Alfreda rushed towards the telephone stand, picked it up, and dialed David’s number. The fourth man’s wail of protest fell on deaf ears, it seemed like a church bell ringing from afar. When she’s done, she’ll apologize.
She heard a click at the end of the phone and then, David’s voice
“Hello”
“David! Where in the name of Jesus are you? Why are you risking your life moving about? I expected you to be at home” Alfreda screamed into the telephone.
“Oh, Al! Are you safe? Thank God. I was so worried about you. You just left without telling me where you’re off to” David responded, his voice low almost inaudible.
Alfreda knew something was off.
“Where the hell are you? David. Where are you!”
“Well, you have to calm down Al, and listen. I’m there again. At the game house. I had no choice but to come”
A long deafening silence.
“Al, I have to go. And Al, are you searching for your phone? Do not stress yourself, I took it. I sold it. I needed the money to bet on another game, that’s what’s holding our life now. Why we are still alive. I have to keep on playing, placing bets on human life to keep us alive”
The call dropped and right there, where everyone was waiting for their turns to call, she cried. She was oblivious to the screams and remarks of those in the queue, she cried and cried until she had cried her whole heart out.
David is in shackles, and it appears he can’t be out of it until… until what?
With a heavy heart, she stood up from the floor of the telephone stand, and walked slowly to her car, silently apologizing to those hurling abuses at her for keeping them waiting in the queue and silently acknowledging those with the pitiful, sympathizing look on their faces.
She drove home and took a shower after which she changed into a comfortable home dress and laid down to ponder on what to do to get them out of this mess. The first step is to call Tina.
She started mentally looking for her phone again when she remembered that it was gone.
Now, she has to go back to the telephone stand. She stood to dress up to go back to the telephone stand when it occurred to her to just go to a nearby store and get another mobile phone. Then suddenly, she remembered that the last time the topic of hiring a private detective came up Tina had squeezed a business card of one private detective downtown in her hands. She had just further squeezed it and thrown it away.
“Away? Away where?” She murmured to herself, scrolling through her memory to gasp where the business card ended up.
Yes! It should be inside her journal.
Now, where is the journal?
She set out to find it, ransacking and rummaging through the already scattered bedroom.
It was nowhere to be found. The car is the next place to search.
She went downstairs, searched and searched, and was about to give up when she saw the peeping form of a piece of paper under the driver’s seat, she bent her back and stretched her hands to reach for it. Her relief of having found the business card was cut short when what she held turned out to be a squeezed envelope.
“Where the hell is this card?” Gritting her teeth, she murmured to her and began searching all over again, thoroughly with a vengeance.
After long hours of searching, she finally saw it lying peacefully in between the pages of her journal. The journal was in the booth of the car.
Getting a new phone wasn’t as much work as she thought, it was as if the phone store was waiting for her visit. She saw one as soon as she reached the end of their street, got the phone in no time, went back home and placed a call to the private detective who picked up on the 3rd ring, in just 5 minutes he fixed an appointment with her the next day. The man sounded like he had not had clients for years and was happy to get one.
Now what is she to do next? Look for David?
No, take a shower and sleep. Alfreda went upstairs and took a cold shower regardless of the cold weather.
Minutes after lying down to sleep, She realized it was a big joke thinking she could sleep. Reading was not an option, thinking was. She could get killed in her sleep. She has to be at alert.
The clock by her bedside read 10.01 pm when Alfreda woke up later that day and David was not yet back.
She needed not to call him to ask, he was not coming home tonight.
That night was the beginning of the end.
David did not come home that night, neither did he the next day nor did he the day after and several days later.
She searched for him and made a missing person report everywhere she could.
He was nowhere to be found until…
Until 60 days later when he showed up at the foot of the bed. Alfreda woke up and saw him staring up at her, she took him all in with her eyelids half opened, His beards were overgrown, his eyes sullen and sucked into their sockets, his shirt hanging on him like a scarecrow…He looked like he had just survived the rain of fire and brimstones or a deadly war ….He looked like…like…
Suddenly, the exact form of what he looked like occurred to her, fear gripped her and made her jump off the bed right on her foot.
David looked like a zombie seeking for whom to devour…like a madman ready to go on a killing rampage.
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