THE ESCAPE (7)

Nothing Good Comes Easy

Drip, drip, drip. The soft and gentle feeling that touched the bridge of his nose every two seconds came again, and John slowly opened his eyes. The day was breaking and life in the woods had started for the day. He almost wished he could pull his blanket over his head and sleep in a little longer. Who was he kidding, he was in the bush.

He sat up and began to gather and coordinate his thoughts. He said his prayers and specifically asked God to show him the way out of the lost state he was in and lead him home. He knew that the kidnappers couldn’t just let him go just like that, they had to come looking for him and the earlier he made his way away from the place he was last seen, the better it would be for him. If only he knew just where to go, he would not be stuck right now, but he was. He could not risk going towards the kidnappers, but which road led to them, he didn’t know.

John had never liked confusion in his life, he berated people for being confused, and here he was. He checked his watch, and he noticed the screen had cracked a bit and the ink had come out a very tiny bit, it was 4:27 a.m., and there was little time before the sun would rise. He looked up at the vegetation above him, said a prayer, and headed in the direction that felt like the opposite of where he was coming from and began his day’s adventure.

He was gradually adjusting to the terrain, and he was feeling spritely, it was probably the temporary feeling of freedom he was getting. Freedom; he would never abuse that word again, now that he knew what it meant, more than he had ever thought. He let himself notice his environment and he gradually began to see the beauty that had never appealed to him before. The voices of the birds flitting from tree to tree and flying above him were heavenly and he wondered if he was going to have a bird for a pet when he got home. He knew he didn’t have these kinds of birds in his area at home; their plumes were so pleasantly coloured, John was sure he had never seen anything prettier. They were light and cheerful and sang without a care in the world, how he wished he was a bird. His eyes couldn’t miss the insects that flew and crawled around, and he especially enjoyed seeing the birds swoop down and pick up the insects for breakfast. It seemed cruel that they were just made to be another animal’s food; prey, just like him by this time yesterday. He was free though, and he would never return to the condition he was in.

The vegetation around him was another beauty his eyes couldn’t get enough of. John told himself he surely had to come back and find this place sometime, he had to come back. Whether it was to write a story, start a blog, or something, people had to know about this place. His lofty plans were nothing if he didn’t get home though, so he had to be focused on that. His mind was still in thought when he sensed his left shoe step on an unusual kind of stone. He traced his steps and found himself staring at a treasure he couldn’t have dreamed of: it was a phone!

Awed beyond words, John picked the phone up. It was a small phone; popularly called a torchlight phone, but what did it matter? If he could call his mother, this ordeal was going to end almost as rapidly as it had begun. He pressed a button and the phone screen came on. He was about to unlock it when the phone started to ring. He quickly muted it, and then he waited for the call to end. When the call ended, John unlocked the phone and found 25 missed calls and 6 messages.

He believed the messages were private but he went to the call history, and the few saved numbers that showed there confirmed what he had been assuming; the phone belonged to one of his captors. It had probably fallen off in the chase last night and had not been discovered. Well, the phone was now in his custody and that was just about all that mattered. He put the phone on silent mode and was about to call his mum when a thought struck him: if he found the phone here, then he was headed in the direction of the den.

He couldn’t be so sure of this, so he had to take his time to make up his mind. As he thought, he started hearing voices, first in whispers, and then they grew louder. They were here, the kidnappers had come, but it seemed they were not in a hurry. He looked for a spot to hide that could keep him out of their view, and he found one. They seemed to be looking not just for him, but for something else, something much smaller; the phone.

John squatted as he observed them, prodding and poking the bushes. He was not in sight, so he felt he would not be discovered. There were four people, four of the men who had shown him so much suffering he was sure he would never forget. At least, Khalid wasn’t with them this time. He was probably with a new catch, repeating his antics.

“You see am?” came a voice, asking about what they were looking for. “I no see am, e no dey here” replied another, a response that was closer to John than the call. “Make we try am again, I sure say e go ring, and I no been put am for silent. If e dey this side, e go ring and we go hear am.” said a third voice, obviously the owner of the phone. The first person brought out a phone and dialed the number. The phone began to ring and John was about to cut the call when he realised that that would give him away, they would know that someone had found the phone. He just let it slide, putting the phone in his pocket.

“You see your life? Boy we no see, phone we no see. I no know why all of una go do rubbish yesterday, because of ordinary rain and that mumu guy wey go sick. Now oga Khalid don enter wahala because of us, all him work just waste for this two weeks.” said the second voice. “How we for know say this kind thing go happen? Na we make am sick? Na me say make una laugh when oga Khalid talk am say this guy been won escape? You wey dey talk, where you been dey when all of us leave am waka comot? You follow woman even before night do, woman wey no even follow you come base. No just do like say you be innocent. You no be 2baba”, was the immediate retort that followed.

The clouds began to rumble and immediately, the men abandoned their squabbles and converged, before heading in the direction they came from. The sound of departing motorcycles was followed by claps of thunder, and John rose up to look for the closest source of shade. He ran in the opposite direction the bikers went and looked around for shade. He wasn’t fast enough, the rain had started to drop, and as the intensity increased, John saw that it was going to be futile to try to escape the rain, or was it? He noticed that the rain fell in some places while others appeared to be dry. He quickly found a dry spot and placed himself there. Still mystified by the occurrence, he looked up and got his answer: the dry areas were covered by tall canopy trees, preventing the rain from falling to the ground there.

Was he going to get enough of nature by the time he was done with this adventure? He only wished the forest also had a cave or a chair he could at least sit on, if not hide in and wait for the rain to stop. He found the driest place to sit and sat there as he waited. The breeze was cool and the feel of the wind against his face was soothing. He brought out his newly acquired phone and dialed his mother’s number, she answered on the second attempt.

“Hello!” spoke a weak voice. He could not believe it was his mother, he refused to believe it. That voice couldn’t be his mum, she couldn’t sound like an Israelite in Egypt, what had he put her through? “Who is this?’ she asked, still weak. “Mum…” his voice broke off as he fought back the tears that now choked him. There was silence on the other end, dead silence.

“Mum, it’s me, it’s John”, he finally said. “It can’t be you,” she countered. “Do they have you with a gun to your head? Are they finally going to kill my son? Are they going to…” her voice trailed off. “Mum, I’m fine, I escaped.”

“You did what? John, how did you? They called me at night yesterday asking me to send the money I had raised before they kill you. They said if they didn’t get it by 12 p.m. today, you would be a dead man.”

“Mum, I escaped yesterday. I had been planning and praying over it for some days, and the opportunity came yesterday before my intended date. Don’t send any money to anyone!”

“Did you just say pray? Did John, my son, just say he had been praying?”

“Mum, we’ll talk about that later. I am trying to get home but I don’t even know where I am right now. I’m in the bush. Hello, mum…”

There was a network glitch and he had to end the call. He tried the number again but it didn’t go through. He tried two more times, same response. The home screen showed Emergency Calls only, there was no signal.

The rain had reduced significantly and John set out to continue his journey. He noticed the rainwater on the ground was flowing in a particular direction. It was going in the direction he was headed and he decided to follow it. The dribbles of the stream made some sport for him and he found himself smiling as he danced following the little stream. The fresh sound of rain falling ahead made John stop where he was. It sounded heavy and he didn’t want to get soaked. Strangely, the rain didn’t fall, though the sound continued. What sort of joke was this? He looked up and saw clear skies. He listened again and heard that the sound was different from what he thought it was. It was water alright, but it was no rain.

John headed towards the sound, which seemed to grow louder as he approached. Louder and louder, the sound grew until John was unmistakably sure what it was for he could already see it; it was a stream, a wide stream. If that wasn’t enough to gladden his heart, he looked ahead and on the other side of the stream, he could see a settlement. He couldn’t be sure of the people on the other side yet, so he brought out the phone to check if there was any signal. He was in luck.

The call was picked before the second dial. “Hello, mum. Can you hear me? I think I’ve found somewhere, I am at…” the call was interrupted by the shot of a gun that appeared to be aimed at him.