THE GECKO

An action packed thriller that revolves around murder, suspense and a quest for supremacy

 

THE GECKO

(An Edge Of The Box Story)

 

 

 

 

 

Written By Emmy Blinks

Aka DA OTB MASTER

 

 

 

 

 

 

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to God almighty and all the creative members of planet phenom pictures galaxy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PROLOGUE

Geckos are lizards belonging to the infra order Gekkota, found in warm climates throughout the world.
Geckos are unique among lizards. They are the most species-rich group of lizards, with about 1,500 different species worldwide.
Nocturnal species have an excellent night vision; their color vision is 350 times more sensitive than human color vision.
Many species are well known for their specialized toe pads that enable them to climb smooth and vertical surfaces, and even cross indoor ceilings with ease.
Geckos are well-known to people who live in warm regions of the world, where several species of geckos make their home inside human habitations.
All geckos shed their skin at fairly regular intervals, with species differing in timing and method.

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Abdul Kadir drove slowly into the compound, he looked at his wrist-watch, it was already a little past 11pm, He was really scared to encounter his wife Morenike again, the last time he had returned home that late, She had practically raised hell, 'women would never understand' he muttered softly to himself, the compound had no fence or gates so he easily drove in and parked his Audi at his usual parking spot inside the compound. He sluggishly got out of the car, after making sure he had done all his routine security checks, he walked slowly to the house, his heart beating fast, he really was in no mood to argue with Morenike.
How would he explain to her that the last passenger he had picked up by 9pm, delayed him unnecessarily till 10.45pm, Morenike wasn't the kind of woman that nagged, but she was a very suspicious person, he really found it difficult to control her whenever she became suspicious.
The security lights in the house were on but the inner lights were off, it was rather strange but he assumed Morenike had turned it off to express her anger.
His house was a small two bedroom flat, he had being able to save enough from his commercial cab services to build the house, they had practically rushed the building of the house so they could quickly move into it immediately after their marriage two years ago.
The front verandah had no protector bars, He got to the door and tapped on the door twice, there was no response, that was strange again but He concluded that Morenike was so mad that she didn't even want to open the door for him, he used his own keys and opened the door, he entered into the sitting room and switched on the light, the sitting room was empty, like no one lived there, now this was very strange, Morenike was meant to be lying on the couch, that's where he always met her whenever he returned home.
He walked slowly, now he was really scared, if Morenike wasn't in the sitting room, it meant he didn't know what to expect from her this time around, he walked into the passage way and switched on the light, 'Honey I am home' He was surprised at the way his voice sounded, he could sense the fearful vibration in his voice,
He listened carefully, yet there was no response, he walked towards the room, they usually referred to as 'Our room' that was the room, they always spent the night in together, he softly tapped on the door, still no response, he opened the door and switched on the light, the emptiness of the room greeted him again.
Now he wasn't just scared of Morenike anymore, he was scared for her, He practically ran to the other room as it was a two bedroom flat, he opened the door rather roughly, switched on the light, yet there was no sign of Morenike anywhere. He stood there confused and wondering what else to do, he could feel sweat droplets running down his forehead and back.
'Honey, Am home' this time, it sounded a little louder and was totally filled with fear.
There was only one place left to check, he moved swiftly to the bathroom, before he opened it, he caught himself praying that she should be in there.
He opened the door in haste and heaved a sigh of relief when he saw her there. She was wearing her nightgown, sitting on the toilet seat, her face was covered by both palms as she rested her head and palms on her thighs.
He hadn't really seen Morenike in this mood before, had she been so hurt that she had gone ahead to be sobbing inside the toilet.
He stood by the door of the bathroom and watched her, she didn't even raise her head to acknowledge his presence, 'Morenike Darling, I am so sorry, please forgive...' he was cut short when he suddenly observed that she was rather too still, no sounds, no movement. He walked closer to her and raised her head, her head hung limply in his hands, her eyes were wide open staring into his own eyes without blinking, her tongue hung out of our mouth, he raised her head a little higher, only then did he see the red rope that was hugging her neck very tight, he couldn't believe his eyes but it was the reality of the situation, Morenike had been strangled to death.
He fell to his knees, as her head dropped from his hands back to her thighs, he didn't know what to do, it seemed like he just got shot by a thousand arrows, the hurt he felt was overwhelming, in that instance he lost consciousness of his immediate environment, so he wasn't even aware when the intruder with the gloved hands and masked face stepped into the bathroom from behind him, neither did he see the glittering knife as it appeared suddenly from behind him, the only conscious feeling he could process was when the glittering knife slit his throat from behind him and the last thing he could do was lift his two hands quickly to his neck as he felt warm liquid running down his neck and his life slowly fading away from him.
The last thing he saw was the green colored wall gecko as it crawled slowly from Morenike’s lifeless body down to the ground.
He was dead before his body fell limply to the ground, never to rise again, at least not until it was the resurrection day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

BLAST FROM THE PAST

The feel of cold water on my face that early morning took the sleep out of my eyes, I opened my eyes to behold David and Ighodaro laughing at me, as usual, I had overslept again.
I had a good mind to punch David on the face and see if he still would be able to put on that laughing face, I knew he had poured the freezing water on my face because he still had the silver cup in his hands.
'come on get up from there, your mate don ready for work, you still lie down dey sleep like who go meeting for night'
It was Ighodaro that spoke, he was always fond of speaking pidgin English, most times I wondered if he even knew how to speak simple and correct English.
I eyed both of them with anger in my eyes as I lazily stood up from the bed, I looked up at the clock, it was already a few minutes past 7am, gosh, I was already late, I could observe that David and Ighodaro were already dressed and it seemed they were set to go to work.
'Guy, we are going to work o, we had to wake you up, as you refused to wake up, we don't want you to get into problem with your madam principal again'
That was Dave speaking, he always sounded like the posh one, probably one of those kids that were born with a silver spoon but later lost the spoon, I watched both of them as they walked out of the one room self-contain apartment that we shared and closed the door behind them.
As I made to stand up from the bed, I felt this banging headache, I knew it was as a result of hangover from the previous night's party. I sat down again on the bed as I tried to regain myself and possibly gather the energy required to prepare for class that Monday morning.

My name is Osasumwen Igbinoba, I was born in the ancient city of Benin in Edo state, I am the only child of my parents. When I was younger, my late Father (God bless his soul) usually told me stories of how we were royalty, but truth is I never enjoyed any benefits of royalty, it was the hard life I grew up with and that's how it was from my school days till I eventually lost my Father in a motor accident and had to man up and start hustling for myself back in the days at Ambrose Ali University, then unto NYSC at Kano and finally hustle had taken me back to Benin to this secondary school, where I taught over five subjects at the senior secondary school level for a paltry sum of twelve thousand naira monthly all to make ends meet.
It was by sheer miracle that I had met Ighodaro, I met him during my service year at Kano, and he was lucky to have secured a job with the Edo state government after NYSC and he didn't mind me coming to squat with him in his one room self-contain apartment, till I could find a better job.
David on the other hand was a cousin to Ighodaro and he worked with a micro finance bank, he was recently posted to Benin too and had to squat with Ighodaro till he could get a place of his own too, that explains how the three of us found ourselves living together in a small but cozy self-contain apartment at Uwasota in Ugbowo in Benin City.

'Good morning Ma'
I said that rather in a rush as I made to quickly walk past the Principal's office into the staff room, but her voice brought me back quicker than I expected.
'Young man, come back here, what is good about the morning?'
I found myself on round about turn mode as I walked slowly back to the Principal's office ready for another round of scolding.
'Look at the time, what is it by the time, young man?' I looked up to her wall clock as her fore finger prompted me to do so. It was 8.35am, by her standards, teachers were meant to resume school every morning before 7.30am. I knew better than to reply her so I just hung my head down and avoided her gaze as she kept on talking, ranting and scolding and even threatening to sack me if my late coming ever repeated itself again.
I guess she must have talked for close to ten minutes because when I finally got to my seat at the staff room, it was already 8.45am and I had missed my first class for the day.
The day went very slow as usual, I wasn't wearing my usual active and comic disposition, even while I taught in class, my students would have guessed something was wrong, a few of them had even asked me at various intervals if I was alright and I had put on a rather fake smile and answered them in the affirmative.

The teachers in my staff room didn't care after all they all had different issues bothering them, I was glad they didn't even care because I really needed to be on my own at that point.
I just couldn't get my head off the strange event that had happened that morning before I set off for school. No matter how hard I tried to write it off as probably a joke by one of my old pals, I just couldn't write it off, there was something really scary about the envelope that had being delivered to me by the mail boy that morning.
As I sat there in the staff room busy in thoughts, my mind drifted back to the morning, it was quarter to 8, I was ready to leave for school, as I made to lock the gate from outside the house, a mail boy rode his bicycle and parked right in front of me, he came up to me and first of all confirmed my identity before he handed over the brown colored envelope to me, I signed on the book, which he asked me to and stared at the envelope for some time as he made his exit.
It was rather strange to me as I had never received a mail before, I looked at the envelope again, it had my name and my address, I opened it and inside it was a photograph, I brought out the photograph and my heart would have stopped beating for a second because the image on the photograph didn't just bring back old memories, the memories brought with it a heightened sense of fear.
It was a photograph of the one we had nicknamed Sparrow, a blast from a past I thought was buried and forgotten forever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

THE ELEPHANT NEVER FORGETS

'Uncle Osas, are you not going home today?'
Aunty Elohor's voice brought me out of my reverie, I was so lost in my own world of thoughts that dwelt on the past that I didn't hear when the bell rang for closing, neither did I even take note of teachers in the staff room as they began to pack their bags ready to go home, I looked at my wristwatch, it was 2.05pm, the usual closing time, it was a Friday and so it was an evening lectures free day too.
I looked up at Aunty Elohor and smiled as I thanked her for reminding me that it was closing, She looked at me weirdly and began to walk away, she had barely counted five steps when she stopped, turned around and walked back towards me.
'Uncle Osas is everything okay with you? You have been acting rather strange all day'
I smiled again and looked in her eyes, If any member of staff cared about me, then it was Aunty Elohor, She had come to Lion Heart Academy only two months ago, She was the English teacher for all the classes from Junior secondary to senior secondary school and she was a real beauty, dark in complexion, slim and tall, she had the assets in the right places and when she spoke, you would just want her to continue speaking, she had a very lovely voice and great command of the English language too.
She had shown a huge interest in me when she came to Lion Heart Academy, she had extended her hand of friendship right from the first day and I had dived it with everything I had as I really didn't have any friend among the staff before she came.
We had bonded and we were really close until I had overstepped my boundaries and asked her for a relationship, she had politely declined but it took a negative turn on our friendship, she suddenly began to keep her distance and wasn't so close to me anymore, but despite the fact that she chose to keep her distance from me, I couldn't help but notice that she still cared as she always showed concern and care whenever the need presented itself. This was one of such times.
'I am alright, I guess I am not feeling too well today' I replied, she looked at me again from head to toe as if trying to confirm my health status.
'Have you taken any drugs yet?' I shook my head in the negative and added 'don't worry, I will be just fine, thanks for your concern'
She looked at me again and decided to believe me 'alright, if you say so, no problem, just take care of yourself' with that she turned and walked away from me as my eyes trailed behind her beholding the good and the evil and wishing she had said yes to me, just then my phone rang.
I got the phone out and looked at the screen, it was Ifeoma, my eyes suddenly brightened, I had met Ifeoma at the party the previous night and we had exchanged numbers, we had a date for 3pm, I had almost forgotten about that, I quickly picked the call.
She wanted us to reschedule the time for 6pm as an unforeseen situation had developed from her end, I was cool with it and somehow, her call coming through helped me take my mind off the disturbing mail I had received that morning.
I went straight to the house from school and I began to think less and less about the mail, by evening, when I was eventually ready to go out on the date, I had written off the mail as a prank by probably one of my old friends and I was quite sure the friend would show up and own up to the prank sooner or later.

Ifeoma was a very lively person, she had schooled at University of Benin, she was presently waiting for the next batch that would be going to serve her nation in the NYSC scheme as she was slated to serve with the next batch, she couldn't just stop talking she had so much to say about herself, We practically talked about everything there was to talk about, we stayed at the Eatery till about past 8pm before we decided to go our separate ways, with plans to hang out together again on Sunday.
We both walked out of the fast food together, I waited for her to get a taxi, I played the gentleman and paid her fare, as her taxi drove away, I stopped a bus and got in, heading for our premise at Uwasota.
I looked back and could still sight her red colored taxi as it stopped to pick up another passenger, I didn't know why but I felt very happy, somehow I was glad I had met Ifeoma, at that point in my life I really needed a new friend and she happened to be just the kind of friend I have always wanted.
I really liked her and this time I was going to take things slow, I didn't want the same thing that happened with Elohor to happen with Ifeoma. The Bus stopped at my junction and I got off the bus and walked slowly to the house, the house wasn't far from the junction, as I strolled down, I fumed at NEPA or PHCN or BEDC or whatever they chose to call themselves as it was obvious there was no electricity supply in the area, suddenly, I felt a hand in my back pocket from behind like someone was trying to steal my wallet, I turned swiftly but the pickpocket seemed faster than I was, he was already running and was ahead of me, I immediately started pursuing him, but I had barely begun to run when I stopped, I felt my pocket and my wallet was still there, I brought out the wallet and opened it, all its contents were still intact. I breathed a sigh of relief, obviously I was smarter than the pick pocket, I was faster than he was, I had caught him before he could steal my wallet. I prided myself in that knowledge, although I thought it strange that pickpockets would work in my area at a time like that, I decided to be on the safe side as I increased my footstep and walked briskly to the house, looking right and left to make sure I wasn't being followed.
When I got to the house, I walked a little past the house and waited for a few minutes, then I looked left and right again and when I was sure I wasn't being followed I went to the gate, opened it slowly and practically ran to our apartment which was behind the flats in the compound. I knocked on the door and Ighodaro opened the door for me.
'O boy, where you dey come from for night?' he enquired, 'omo, I just say make I stroll small' I answered as I walked past him as he stood by the door looking at me in a funny manner, David was lying on the tiled floor, 'welcome o, Mr. Night Rider' I smiled at him and didn't bother to say a word to him.
I took off my clothes in a bid to have my bath but as I made to hang my trousers, a folded piece of paper fell from the back pocket, the same pocket I had put my wallet. I stared at the paper in confusion then it suddenly dawned on me. The suspected pick pocket wasn't a pick pocket after all, he must have dropped the note in my pocket at the time I thought he was trying to steal my wallet.
Now, this was really scary, Ighodaro and David were concentrating on a movie so they didn't observe the drama I was putting on by staring at the piece of folded paper.
I picked it up and slowly unfolded it, it was a piece of paper that was cut from a very old edition of a newspaper, most probably many years old, the piece of paper itself looked very old and worn out, I opened it to find the broad headline staring boldly at me 'MISSING BOY FOUND DEAD BY RIVERSIDE' below the headline was a very faint picture, even though the paper was very old and worn out and the picture was also very old and looking worn out, I didn't need a fortune teller to tell me that the picture on the newspaper was the picture of the one we had nicknamed Sparrow, underneath the picture were letters in red ink, the ink didn't look old like the paper looked, certainly it was written recently. In small letters, the words were written 'the elephant never forgets'
I didn't know when hot sweat beads began to drop from my forehead.

 

 

CHAPTER THREE

THESE ARE DIFFICULT TIMES

'catch am, catch am'
I looked back and saw the angry mob coming after me with woods and whips in their hands, I knew I had done nothing, but my first impulse was to run as it was obvious the 'catch am, catch am' phrase was referring to me.
I took to my heels and the mob broke into a race too as they began to chase me with loud shouts of 'catch am, catch am'
I was a very fast runner, I always led my house to glory back then in secondary school during inter house sports competition, so I outran the mob quite easily, soon they were a few meters behind me but unexpectedly, two huge boys suddenly appeared in front of me and as they understood that I was being chased by a crowd, I guess they assumed I was a thief and as I made to run past them, one of them caught my arms, as I tried to free my arms from his hold, the other grabbed a stick and hit my head with it and that was how I went down.
As I lay there on the floor holding my head in pain, I could see a small crowd building around me, the mob had caught up with me and a few passersby had joined the scene, then it was as if, a whistle was blown because they all started beating me suddenly, with whips, sticks and everything they could lay their hands on, I kept on crying for help, I didn't even know my offence, my shouts of 'what did I do?' attracted no response.
They stopped beating me as suddenly as they had begun beating me, I could feel my body ache very badly, I guess I might have had some broken bones, I looked up at the crowd curious to know why they had stopped beating me, I saw them make space for someone to walk to the forefront of the crowd, it seemed he was the leader of the mob, he was wearing a face mask too, he stood in front of me holding a very sharp machete, the crowd began to shout 'kill him, kill him' I was perplexed as I thought to myself 'kill me?' for what? What was my offence?
The Masked Man suddenly raised his hands as a sign for them to keep quiet, then he took off the mask, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw his face, as he lifted up the machete to strike me, I shouted out in deep fear 'Sparrow, No!!!'

I woke up from the bed panting heavily, I looked at the bed and found that my two roommates were still deep in sleep, I heaved a sigh of relief as I muttered to myself 'thank God, it was a dream' But again, as I remembered I had seen Sparrow's face in the dream, fear struck me again, this time very strongly.
I didn't even know how I had managed to fall asleep, the last I remembered was that after I had discovered that note, I managed to take my bath and lay on the bed, deep in thoughts, didn't even know when I had fallen asleep.
I observed that my room-mates hadn't turned off the television and the lights as usual, I got up from the bed turned off the television and turned off the light, then I picked my phone from the table and checked the time, it was 3.05am, I scrolled to my contact list, then scrolled to a certain name, I had pushed off this call for later before but the great fear I felt at the moment, didn't allow me push it any farther, I went into the toilet and dialed the number.
It rang the first time and the call ended, there was no response, I contemplated dialing again for some seconds, then I dialed the number again, as the phone rang, I placed it very close to my ears, I had not called this number in a very long while, whenever I had to call this number especially at that time of the night, it meant there was a problem.
'Hello, Nocturnal, are we safe?' I recognized the voice immediately, it was a voice we had to recognize like it was the voice of God back in the days, it even constituted a form of test for us in those days. Nocturnal was the name they called me then too, I swallowed hard before I could reply, hearing that name 'Nocturnal' again was a blast from a past I wished I could tear off the pages of my life.
'We are all safe altogether for now and eternity' I was surprised that I still vividly remembered the lines, that was the chosen and acceptable response to that question of 'are we safe' back in the days.
'What troubles you my friend?' his voice sounded calm and reassuring, I knew at that point that I had made the right move by deciding to call him that night, I cleared my throat and replied 'It's about Sparrow'
There was silence for close to five seconds before he replied 'what about Sparrow?'
'I think someone might be trying to dig up the past' though I tried hard to sound firm, I could sense fear all over my voice.
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone, I waited for almost thirty seconds as he wasn't the kind of person you rush on the phone, after I was sure the silence would have lasted for close to thirty seconds, I spoke ' I think I am being haunted and I think it has got something to do with Sparrow'
I could feel it from my end of the phone, he was in deep thoughts too, No one would have expected this to come up now, not after all these years.
Somehow, he had predicted that this would happen, I guess that's why I had thought about calling him in the first place.
'These are difficult times my friend, I guess we would have to see tomorrow, don't inform anyone else yet, I want to know exactly what we are dealing with here, then we would know what to do, I would tell you where to meet me tomorrow evening'
His voice remained calm as usual, he never hurried his words and he had never shown fear at least for all the times that I had been with him. 'Okay, I would be expecting your call' I replied.
'Goodnight my friend' he didn't wait for me to respond to that before he ended the call, that was his way, he always liked to have the last say in any conversation.

'A problem shared is a problem half solved' I guess the people that coined that were very right, Somehow, I felt better, I didn't feel so scared anymore, I just couldn't wait for dawn, I had to see him and I knew once we reasoned the situation together, We would find a solution, we were a team at a point in our lives and that team was indomitable at that time too.

At exactly 5.00pm, he called me, we were to meet at one of the bars in G.R.A, he lived around the area though.
When I got to the bar about 45minutes later, I could see his silver colored Toyota Camry parked outside the bar, I went inside and saw him at a secluded end, smoking and there were two bottles of Goldberg on his table, one was empty, the other was half full, there were no cups, He didn't like to use a cup when he drank beer, I really didn't know his reasons for that though.
I walked towards him, and sat beside him, there were two chairs there, I ordered for a bottle of Origin and a cup, we didn't say anything to each other until the barman brought the drink and cup and left.
He seemed deep in thoughts as he stared into empty space, smoking his cigarette and puffing the smoke into the air.
After long minutes of silence, he finally spoke 'Tell me everything my friend'
I began the story from the mail boy, then down to the pickpocket and the note and finally to the dream I had.
He listened attentively as I spoke, when I was done speaking, he looked up at me, patted my arms and smiled 'These are difficult times my friend, if I say I didn't see this coming then I lie, but truth is we must survive, we are natural survivors, aren’t we Nocturnal?'
I looked into his eyes and nodded, 'yes we are, Heavy Dee'
He signaled the bar man, when the barman came, he paid for the drinks and gave him some extra money in case I wanted to have some more drinks, he patted me on the shoulder and spoke in low tones, 'I promise, I will make this go away, we would have to see someone else tomorrow, I would call you tomorrow to give you the details'
He patted me again on the back and started to leave, as he made to leave, I suddenly remembered that I had a date with Ifeoma the next day but I quickly dismissed the idea of bringing that up, I guess this was more important, I could always reschedule with Ifeoma.
Heavy Dee got to the door, stopped and turned around to have another look at me, then he smiled and said 'Goodbye my friend' with that he opened the door and left.

I didn't know why Heavy Dee had stopped to say 'goodbye my friend' but that was the last time Heavy Dee ever said goodbye to me, I guess if he had known that would be his final goodbye to me, he would have said something else, probably 'goodnight my friend'
As Heavy Dee drove away from the bar that night at about 7.45pm, another car pulled out from the car park and followed slowly behind him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER FOUR

NO ONE CAN SAVE US NOW

I stayed at the bar till about 8.00pm before I stood up from the chair and began to find my way home. The traffic on the road was pretty heavy and finding my way back to Ring road took a little while longer than the usual time because of the traffic congestion.
Finding my way from Ring road to Ugbowo was quite easier, there was no traffic congestion on that route.
I stopped by Uwasota junction and walked briskly down the street as I remembered the events of the previous night, I was just about to open the gate when my phone rang, I picked up the phone, the caller was Heavy Dee, I didn't allow the phone ring a second time, I answered the call immediately and Heavy Dee's voice came alive on the other end of the phone. 'Hello Nocturnal, I might have stumbled on something very important, if you can make it to my house very early tomorrow morning, am quite sure we would solve this mystery faster than we have ever solved any before now' He sounded excited on the phone, 'I will be right there' I answered him too excitedly, I was happy that indeed he had discovered a way out of this puzzle.
I couldn't get much sleep that night, I kept on staring at the ceiling wondering what Heavy Dee had stumbled on, many times in the night I was tempted to pick up my phone and call him to at least let me in on some details, but I decided against it, if he said the next morning, then it had to be the next morning. I looked around the room, David was sleeping on the tiled floor, he always slept there he had told us on his second night with us that he preferred to sleep on the floor, who cared? After all, it also meant that I and Ighodaro would have more comfort sharing the bed, the bed wasn't so big in the first place, though three of us would have been able to share it if we wanted to.
Ighodaro was lying on the bed beside me, snoring heavily, I was sure he had a tiring day because he didn't snore in his sleep on a regular basis, it only happened anytime he had a stressful day.
As I lay there on the bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to find the sleep that wasn't looking for me, my mind drifted back to my first class at Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma.

I was a fresher, luckily for me I had a senior cousin in the school who lived in an off campus accommodation not very far from the school. I put up with him for the first one month of my schooling at Ambrose Ali University, before I eventually moved into the hostel to squat with one of my hundred level friends.
I remembered how it was, on my first day in class, the class was rather overcrowded but I had managed to secure a seat at the front row, the classes were rather interesting and I had been actively involved in the class, asking questions and answering questions from Lecturers, after my first class, I sure became popular as I was basically the most active student that first day in class, it was no surprise when after class that day as I was walking back to my cousin's off campus residence, someone tapped me from behind, when I turned around, I saw this young handsome boy smiling at me, he stretched out his hands for an handshake as he spoke 'HI, My name is Chijioke, I am in same class as you though you may have not noticed but I did notice you in class today and I would really like us to be friends' I accepted his handshake though to me it felt rather strange that a guy like me would be offering friendship in that manner, but I guessed he was just a very polite Person, and that was how I and Chijioke became friends, He was Chijioke to me and I was Osas to him until somewhere around our three hundred level where we had to take up code names and I took up the name 'Nocturnal' and he 'Sparrow'
                               ****************

I might have drifted off to sleep as my mind was busy recalling past experiences from my university days because it was the sound of my phone's alarm clock that woke me up, I opened my eyes, picked the phone from beside me on the bed and stopped the alarm. I had set an alarm for 6.30am, it was a Sunday, I only attended church if there was an event, I had plans to get to Heavy Dee's house as early as possible. As David and Ighodaro were preparing for church, I was preparing to go to G.R.A for a special meeting with Heavy Dee.

I got there at exactly 7.35am, meanwhile before I got to his house, I had called him twice on the phone and there was no response. I pushed the gate and it was open, that was rather strange but I assumed he had left it open in anticipation of my coming.
I walked into the compound, it was a small compound, inside the compound was a small but very beautiful three bedroom flats, the owner had initially built it for residential purpose but when he had to travel abroad, he had rented out the apartment to Heavy Dee, so Heavy Dee lived all alone in the beautiful house and compound as well.
I walked to the front verandah, the protector wasn't locked either, I opened it and tapped on the door twice but there was no response, I opened the door and it opened, that was strange again, why would Heavy Dee just leave his gate, protector and door opened? I again assumed he did it in anticipation of my coming so that I can easily slide into the house without noise.
I opened the door and stepped into the sitting room, there was no one in the sitting room, everywhere looked neat and very tidy, that was one great thing about Heavy Dee, he always kept his place neat and tidy, I didn't want to make a noise by calling out his name, I was pretty sure he already knew I was in the house.
I moved towards his private room, that was where he always entertained me whenever I came visiting, I tapped on the door twice, there was no response, I softly opened the door and pushed it, as I entered inside the room, there he was sitting on his favorite arm chair directly opposite me, his reading table was in front of the chair, as I stared into his eyes, I didn't need a sorcerer to tell me, I wasn't a novice in this game, I quickly assessed the situation and disappeared from the scene as quickly as I had appeared.

'Sorry, but who are you and where are you calling from?' I ended the call before the police clerk could continue, I walked back towards the call booth and handed back the phone, and paid her, making sure she didn't have a good look at my face, per adventure the police decide to become over efficient and trace the call back to her.
I sat under a tree in a hidden spot a little distance away from the house, awaiting the arrival of the police, I had just reported the murder of Heavy Dee to the Police. I still couldn't believe my eyes, Heavy Dee sitting there helpless on the chair, his eyes staring widely and the sharp slit that ran across his neck, he obviously hadn't seen it coming, Heavy Dee wasn't a man to go down easily, I suddenly had an hunch that Heavy Dee would have been murdered by someone he was quite familiar with, that could be the explanation for the easy murder. There was absolutely no sign of a struggle.
I heard the siren sound as two police vans drove past me and stopped in front of Heavy Dee's house, the same location I had given them, I hadn't bothered to dust for finger prints or any of such, the police in my country weren't so sophisticated, moreover they would end up contaminating the crime scene and losing any possible clue before they even found any.
I waited, till an ambulance came and I saw his body being taken away, I looked at my wristwatch, now it was 11am, I stood up from my hidden spot and walked away, as I walked away, the terrible chill came upon me again, I had seen something in that crime scene that gave me very great fright. I was really shocked by Heavy Dee's death and in that instant, I had walked closer to him to pay my last respect to this fallen soldier.
If I hadn't gone close to him, I would have not seen it, it was when I got close to him that I saw it, the green colored gecko as it creeped slowly from his study table down to the floor, one of its leg was tied to the table with a long red rope, obviously, the murderer wanted the gecko to be there whenever Heavy Dee's body was discovered.
I looked at the gecko again and I knew that it had begun, just like Heavy Dee had foreseen, they were here for us now, no one could save us now, not even the Police.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER FIVE

A FATHER AND A PROTECTOR

After I left the crime scene, I couldn't afford to go back to the house for two reasons, firstly was the fact that I was scared that whoever dropped Heavy Dee might be unto me at that moment and so I didn't want to put my roommates in any kind of danger, Secondly was that I needed a place where I could be alone, where I could sit down and really think about this, Heavy Dee was gone now, it was up to me to find a way out of the situation I now found myself.
I located a bar around G.R.A and sat my sorry a*s down there, soaking myself in bottles of alcohol. I was really scared because if Heavy Dee could be hit, then anyone at all could also be hit. Heavy Dee wasn't the kind of man to go down so easily, No!! I couldn't help remembering the kind of brave man he was, I still recalled most of his deeds and it struck me as very odd that Heavy Dee could be dropped as easily as a chicken would be used for a feast.
Thoughts of the green colored gecko that was at the scene of the murder just couldn't leave my head. I tried as much as possible to shake the thoughts off as mere co-incidence but the more I tried, the more the thoughts refused to disappear.
My initial worries before now were the fact that someone was trying to bring up 'sparrow' after such a very long while when we had all relaxed our nerves and tagged the unpleasant event as 'dead and buried' but at the moment, my worries had doubled with the appearance of the gecko, now I was seriously trying hard to focus my thoughts on the possible connections between the two, this was sure going to be one hell of a task for me if I was ever going to come out of this alive.

As I sat there worrying myself sick and asking questions that no one could answer, my mind drifted back to how I met Heavy Dee.

It was when I just got into three hundred level, I and Chijioke were course mates, studying a course we always referred to as 'THE COURSE' back in the days.
We both studied mechanical engineering and though we weren't among the top students in the class, we were both sound academically, at least our cumulative G.P.A at that point was on a very solid second class upper division.
We lived together in an off campus poor looking, rickety, 'face me I slap you' one room apartment, not so far away from the school and we always went for classes and returned back to the house together.
During our second week of resumption into the first semester of our three hundred level, we had a class that stayed for rather too long and we had to go back to our off campus residence rather late at about 6.00pm as opposed to our usual 4.00pm.
As we were walking back to our house we were accosted by three boys who just jumped out from nowhere and pounced on us, they asked I and Chijioke to sit on the floor as they began to question us concerning a particular girl called Rasheeda, This had nothing to do with me and this was not the first time Chijioke was been warned concerning Rasheeda. I had also warned him on many occasions concerning this same girl because rumors had it that she was the girlfriend of a notorious cultist but Chijioke wouldn't listen, now he had also involved me in his mess, imagine me sitting on the ground being oppressed by three small boys that might even be lower than us in academic level and age.
The message was simple, they told us that the next time they saw us around Rasheeda, that it would mean we didn't value our lives, I kept on staring at them as they spoke because I couldn't understand my own fault in the issue, after all I wasn't the one who was unnecessarily close to Rasheeda, I looked around with intent to cry for help but I could observe students passing by and acting like they couldn't even see what was happening on the same road that they were passing. That was the ideal case in Ambrose Ali University, everyone learned to mind their business, a murder could even be happening in broad day light and students could pass by and act like they didn't see anything or it didn't mean anything.
The next thing that happened was that these boys asked us to submit our phones and our wallets, this was quite difficult for me, I didn't have much money at that moment and the money in my wallet was almost all I had at that time, my phone wasn't an expensive one, I bought it for about two thousand naira (second hand value) but I knew how difficult it would be to get another considering how much I had hustled to get that one in the first place.
Chijioke quickly submitted his wallet and phone but I held back and before I knew it, one of them kicked me hard on my back as I was still in my sitting position 'you dey mad? You nor dey hear word?' the bully roared in a voice that scared me. As I tried to touch my back in pain and attempted to bring out my wallet and phone, I heard another voice from behind me that was quite different from the familiar voices of the three bullies
‘what’s happening there?'
I almost screamed 'thank you Jesus' when I heard the voice, I was a hundred percent certain it was the police, we all turned back at the same time to see a very fat, huge and heavy looking guy or I would rather say man (because he did look like a man) walking towards us. The three boys stood their ground but as he drew closer to us, it seemed a sudden wave of realization hit them and they took to their heels and vanished into the bush.
The Heavy looking guy walked up to us, there were two other guys behind him though they weren't as huge as he was but they were huge as well, he extended an handshake to me and as I received his hand, he pulled me up from the ground.
Chijioke was already up, the huge guy studied us for some seconds before he spoke 'hope they weren't giving you any troubles? Next time just do whatever it takes to avoid rascals like those' He didn't wait for our 'thank you' as he began to walk away,
'Thank you' I didn't even know when I said that, he turned back and smiled and replied 'you better leave this place now before they come back' he chuckled as he said that, Chijioke quickly spoke before he could turn away 'they took my phone and my wallet'
The huge guy stopped, turned to the other two guys that stood with him and they spoke in whispers, when they were through with their private discussion, he turned and spoke to Chijioke 'don't worry, you will get your items back by evening tomorrow
After he said that, he began to walk away again, then he stopped, turned and faced us and said 'by the way, you can call me Heavy Dee, I will be in touch with you' with that he and his two guys walked away as I and Chijioke continued to stare till they were out of our sight.
True to his words, Much to our surprise at how he even located us, Heavy Dee visited us the next day evening in our poor looking one room 'face me, I slap you' apartment and true to his words he had Chijioke's wallet and phone with him when he came. Saying we were grateful to him was an understatement, we almost worshiped him.

And that was how Heavy Dee became a caring friend and big brother figure to us, he always had our backs, bought us things, helped us whenever he could, no one disturbed Chijioke concerning Rasheeda again, no one tried to bully us again, indeed Heavy Dee became like a Father and protector to us on campus, we never knew he was merely preparing us to be initiated into the league of 'THE GECKOS'.

 

CHAPTER SIX

THE LEAGUE OF THE GECKOS

We had been friends with Heavy Dee for close to three months and in that space of three months it was all sweet and rosy. Suddenly I was no longer that broke boy that always had to hustle so hard just to get a meal. Heavy Dee had money and he wasn't selfish with it, he gave cash freely and gave us gifts in abundance as well.

Heavy Dee visited us one evening and told us that a friend of his was having a birthday party and he wanted us to go with him. We joyfully got prepared and jumped into his car, of course it was going to be fun, whenever it was Heavy Dee, it had to be fun and much more fun all the way.
We drove for quite some time and were almost at the outskirts of the town before he drove into a lonely road off the expressway, drove into another street off the lonely road and stopped in front of a very big and beautiful house. He honked his car horn twice as we waited in front of the tall gate, a security man opened the gate for us to drive in.
We got out of the car, there were a few other cars parked in the very large compound too, the party had already begun, we could hear the sound of loud music coming from inside the big house that stood proud and tall in the big compound.
We followed behind Heavy Dee as he led us into the house, immediately he entered the sitting room, loud shouts of greetings and praises rent the air, indeed he was very popular among the folks there. He introduced us to his friends and they all welcomed us warmly, the party wasn't an overcrowded one, the total people in that party couldn't have been more than thirty that night, there were males and females alike, I could observe that they all dressed expensively, especially the females among them, they wore rather very expensive jewelry and clothes too but I didn't care a bit, the DJ was doing a very great job blasting good party jam and before I knew it I was rocking to the music with a female partner that I met at the party. Everyone was on dance and party mode, I turned to look for Chijioke but he was also busy dancing with one of the ladies that was in the party too.
There was enough food and drinks to go round, infact the party was made of money, we had arrived there at about 6pm, when it was 8pm, I found Heavy Dee and asked him when we would leave the party, he asked me to chill that we would leave soon.
The next time I checked the time, it was almost 10pm, I went to Heavy Dee again, he assured me that we would leave soon and asked me to stop worrying like a woman, that even if it was 12am, we could still find our way back.

I don't know if they had put something in our drinks but I woke up to find myself lying on the cold ground outside the house in the very big compound, I didn't even know when I had fallen asleep in the first place, I only remembered sitting on a chair, nodding my head to the music and waiting patiently for Heavy Dee to announce that it was time to go home. I remembered I suddenly began to have blurry visions and that was the last I remembered before I woke up in this mode.
The compound was illuminated by candles and the full moon contributed to make the compound pretty bright. I raised my head and I could observe Chijioke was experiencing the same thing I was experiencing, it appeared he had just woken up too from where he was lying on the ground. I looked around and observed there were others like us, we were six that were lying down in the middle of a circle that was formed by a set of people, they all sat legs akimbo and formed a very big circle around us. I observed they all wore green robes and every one of them had masks on too, the masks were replicas of a lizard's head, so they all looked like lizards as I looked from one face to another. I observed that we still had our clothes on and they hadn't taken anything off our bodies.
I tried to search for Heavy Dee among the masked faces but it was rather difficult as there were many huge and heavy looking guys there and they were all seated too making it a little more difficult to discern who was who.
'Good morning friends, there's nothing to fear here, you are in very safe hands, and in the spirit of friendship I would like to say Welcome to the league of the geckos'

I looked up at the speaker, he also had a mask on, but he wasn't sitting anymore, he was standing inside the circle with us. I took a hard look at him as I tried to impress his details in my head, he was very tall and lanky, his voice was rather soft and sounded like a female's voice. Even though he wore a mask, I could tell that he was a handsome fellow.
I looked again at the people that were in the circle with me, there were two girls among us.
I still felt drowsy, I was very sure they had put something in our drinks.
'Let me introduce you to the Gecko'
Then He began his long boring lecture about Geckos

'Geckos are lizards belonging to the infra order Gekkota, found in warm climates throughout the world.
Geckos are unique among lizards. They are the most species-rich group of lizards, with about 1,500 different species worldwide.........'

And he went on and on, till he was through with his speech, everyone listened attentively as he spoke, when he was through with his boring lecture about geckos, he stopped talking, paused, looked at the six of us that were sitting inside the circle to be sure we were listening then he went on
The gecko is a very harmless family, we are here to provide shield and support for all our members, you would agree with me that the gecko is a friend of the family, we fit quite easily into any environment and we are as much as the sand of the sea, he chuckled and continued 'because the gecko is a very unique brother hood, we pick only the best of the best to be members of this family and by best of the best, we mean the handsome, the intelligent and the wealthy' when he said this, I softly asked myself 'wealthy? Then what was I doing here?'
The speaker paused for effect and continued speaking but this time, his voice was in a lower tone. 'We would never force anyone to join us against their will, so before we go any further, we would give you all the opportunity to make your choices whether to join or walk away, make your choice now'
Immediately he said so, one of the guys immediately stood up and spoke out 'I can't be a part of this or any other type of brotherhood for that matter, please let me go' he was trying hard to exhibit a high level of boldness but his voice shook terribly as he spoke.
The speaker regarded him from his head down to his toes, though he wore a mask and we couldn't see his face, I could tell he did that from the way his head moved. 'Anyone else? It was the speaker that spoke again, he looked at the rest of us that were still sitting, one of the girls stood up and joined the first guy, she was crying too as she spoke 'please I don't want any of this'
At that instant, I really wanted to stand up and walk away too but somehow I didn't quite believe that these guys would just allow us walk away, no matter how they wanted to paint it, a cult was a cult, I had heard so many bad things about cults before now, I also knew that no cult allowed you walk away during an initiation rite. I guess the four of us that remained seated, shared the same views because I could see the fear in their eyes but I guess we were more scared of what would happen if we walked away, maybe joining the geckos or whatever they called themselves was a lesser evil than walking away, at least for now.
'Anyone else?' The speaker asked again, no one answered, then he looked at the boy and the girl and pointed to the gate and told them they could go, they began to walk to the gate still shaking with fear, meanwhile I was busy thinking, how could they find their way back to wherever they had come from in this dead of the night, I watched them open the gate and step out of the compound, it seemed the geckos were going to allow them walk free after all, I suddenly began to regret my decision, I began to wish I was one of those who walked away.

'Lady and gentlemen, I must congratulate you for you have made the best decision anyone can make'
Now, we would introduce ourselves.
They all dropped their masks at the same time and I could see Heavy Dee now, he was sitting behind another huge guy,

Then just as the speaker made to introduce himself, we heard the scream outside the compound, I didn't need a sorcerer to tell me, even before they brought the two bodies back, I knew what had happened, they had murdered the young boy and girl that walked away, that was when I indeed confirmed for myself that our nightmare had just begun. Heavy Dee had deceived us and brought us into the league of the geckos, there was no going back now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

THIS IS WAR

The sound of my phone ringing jolted me out of my flash back, I looked at the screen and saw that it was Ifeoma on the phone.
Oh Ifeoma, I had been completely engrossed in the unusual happenings of the day that I had totally forgotten I was meant to have a date with Ifeoma that day.
I contemplated picking the call, I wasn't sure I still wanted to see her considering the mood I was in at that moment, I simply ignored the call and continued drinking my beer. I looked at the wrist watch, it was a few minutes past 4pm, I had being in the bar for a pretty long time.
The phone rang two more times and I just had to answer the call, in spite of myself I found myself giving her directions on how to meet me up at the bar that I was chilling at
It was a few minutes past 5pm when I saw her walk into the bar, gosh, she looked amazing, she wore a rather short gown that exposed a great deal of her thighs, a large part of her cleavage also lay exposed to anyone that cared to look.
She stood at the door and tried to survey the place before she saw me waving at her, she walked towards me and drew out a chair and sat beside me.
'Are you okay?, you didn't sound okay on the phone and right now you don't look okay either, I looked into her eyes as she questioned me, contemplating whether to tell her about Heavy Dee or not, if I told her about Heavy Dee, then it also meant I would have to tell her the whole story and I wasn't quite sure I was ready to do that, at least not then.
'I feel a little sick, but I would be just fine' I heard myself saying it and I could tell that I didn't sound convincing at all by the way she looked at me.
'I would take that to mean, you don't want to talk to me about it right?'
I looked again into her eyes as she questioned me again, there was this hardness in her eyes that was making me feel I could trust her and talk to her.
But I remembered our code back then in the Gecko, any external person was a civilian and we had no business letting civilians into tactical issues.
When I didn't answer her, she stared at me for some time and decided to be quiet as I signaled the barman to take her order, she asked for a bottle of Smirnoff ice and as she was busy drinking from the bottle in silence, my phone rang
The number on the screen was unfamiliar, I answered the call and the message was quite simple and straight to the point. The caller in a deep bass voice simply said 'Royal Boulevard, 6pm, be cautious' and the phone went dead.
Ifeoma looked at me in a funny way as I put the phone back to my pocket 'what is.....' I cut her short before she finished her statement 'I am sorry, I have to go now'
She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, then she shut it again, she left her drink on the table, stood up from the chair, picked her bag and walked away without saying another word to me.
I wanted to apologize or at least say something to her but I just couldn't there was so much on my mind, I just stared on dumbly as she walked away and made her way out of the Bar, maybe I just felt it would be safer for her if she stayed away from me at least for the time being till I was able to sort out myself with my dark past that was slowly creeping up on me all over again.
I made sure I was at Royal Boulevard before 6pm, it was a garden resort at GRA, not very far from my location as at when I received the call. I didn't know who had called me but one thing was certain it had to be in relation to the events that had begun to unfold only a few days ago.
I got there a few minutes before 6pm and located myself in a shady portion in the garden away from obvious sight, I sat there probably waiting for my caller to show up, I looked at my wristwatch at different intervals, time ran fast and my caller was not forthcoming, I soon grew impatient and when it was 7pm, I stood up from the chair and was about to leave, when I heard a voice from behind me 'patience is a virtue'
I turned quickly but couldn't see anyone, then I heard the words repeat again and I looked to my left and saw him, he was wearing a dark shade and a hat, he had been sitting there all the while, I had met him there when I came and he had been stealing glances at me at different intervals, I just wondered why he chose to be quietly observing all these while.
He stood up and started walking towards me, he signaled me to sit down and I did, he sat beside me and smiled
It was already dark but the lights at the garden allowed visibility, he removed his hat and his shades and that was when I recognized him
'Sting!!' I mouthed his name softly partially in surprise and partially in recognition.
He nodded slowly as he spoke 'yes, it's me, I tried to warn Heavy Dee, yester night but he pushed the meeting to today and I guess you already know the story, he never saw today'
The wave of realization suddenly hit me, that was what Heavy Dee was trying to tell me when he mentioned an headway the previous evening, but again seeing Sting was something I couldn't understand, how could he be here, Sting was meant to be dead to us.
'But, we thought you were dead'
Sting nodded slowly, 'indeed I am, or rather, I was, that's a story for later Nocturnal, what's more important is why I have called you here, I already gave little details to Heavy Dee on the phone before he died, but for you I guess this should be the beginning with that he brought out a guardian newspaper, opened the page to a particular story and dropped it on the table for me to read.
As I turned the paper to face me, I couldn't help but remember how I had met Sting, he was there on the night I and Sparrow were initiated into the league of the Geckos, he was the third boy that was initiated that night, he was the ideal candidate for the league of the geckos, he was handsome, intelligent and wealthy too.
I hadn't taken note of him that first night, so many gruesome things happened that night that I deliberately erased so much of it from my memory, so even if I had taken note of him that night I wouldn't remember, I eventually got to take note of him on our swearing in ceremony when we had to take up code names.
We were four newbies in all that morning, we had survived three days of intensive training under harsh conditions like we were new recruits for the army, we had afterwards being considered worthy to be sworn into the league of the geckos,
Our real names were Osas, Chijioke, Iroh and Susan, I took up the name Nocturnal, considering one of d major characteristic of the gecko to be very active at nights, Chijioke took up Sparrow, considering the fact that geckos lived very close to humans and sparrows did same too, Susan took up sticker considering the fact that the feet of geckos stick easily to surfaces, Iroh took up Sting, we all wondered why the strange name as geckos obviously didn't sting but his reasons were even stranger, He said he chose sting because just like the noun form of the word sting, he was going to plan an operation that would topple the gecko leadership and he was going to hurt everyone that contributed in one way or the other to making him join the league of the gecko.
It was a really strange and rather too daring gesture but we all laughed about it and probably passed it of as a rude joke but we were quite sure the Leaders of the league didn't pass it off so easily, hence it didn't come as a shock to us when we heard about Sting's mysterious disappearance a few months later, we easily concluded that the Leaders had taken care of a future problem.

Sting tapped on the table to bring my mind back to the situation we had in our hands at that moment. I raised the newspaper to my face and saw the major stories on that page, nothing seemed to be of importance to me on the page, I looked up at Sting again as if to be sure that was the page he wanted me to look at, he pointed to the bottom edge of the paper and there I saw a rather short story, the headline was simply, Man and wife found murdered in their home.
I read the story and it went on ranting about how the couple were not seen for three days and friends were beginning to wonder what had happened until someone had busted their apartment and found them murdered in the bathroom in their own house.
The story carelessly mentioned the presence of a green colored gecko tied by his feet to the bathroom door frame with a very long rope and how weird it had appeared to the Policemen. The story went ahead to say that investigations were still being made by the Police as regards the strange murders.

Seeing the part that talked about the presence of the gecko got my heart beating very fast and just when I thought I had seen the worst, I saw the name of the couple, I didn't know the name of the woman but the name of the man was a name any member of the gecko couldn't forget in a hurry.

My jaws dropped in shock and heightened fear as I continued to stare at the name of the man. It was Abdul-Kadir.
Now it was obvious, this wasn't just a usual murder, the murder of Abdul -Kadir, the murder of Heavy Dee, the presence of the gecko at both scenes, the photos of Sparrow coming back to haunt us....
It sure wasn't a regular murder, the murderer was sending a message to us, this was war and I swear I never saw this coming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

SAVE STICKER

I did a quick calculation as I read the newspaper all over again, the paper was dated two days ago, if the bodies of the couple were discovered three days after the murder then it also meant the couple was murdered on a Monday and I received the mail from the mail boy on a Friday, same day the newspaper was released.
I couldn't help but notice the time lag between the time Abdul-Kadir was murdered and the time I received the mail, it either meant the Murderer wanted us to be aware of the first strike before coming for me or probably had difficulty locating us, but either ways, I knew the murderer had located me and would be coming for me anytime soon, the earlier I sprang into action, the more chances I had at getting out of this alive.
Sting suddenly stood up and grabbed the paper from the table, I looked at him with questioning eyes, his eyes met mine and he spoke 'I have to go now, I would keep in touch, but whatever you do, stay away from sight as much as possible and be your own watchman, I think at this point, we have to get to all others that we can reach out to, be safe' with that, he put on his hat and slid a piece of paper across the table towards me and walked out of the garden.
I watched him vanish out of sight, then I looked closely at the paper he had passed to me, a phone number was written on it, I guess it was the phone number that I could reach him on, I slowly folded the paper and put it into my pocket, I sunk back in the chair in deep thoughts, at this point I didn't know what to do anymore.

Abdul Kadir was not just a member of the Geckos, He was THE GECKO, that was the name we called the Leader of the brotherhood at every given time that they led. He conducted our initiation ceremony, he was the slim handsome guy that spoke on that night, he was a Muslim by birth but at a point in his life he had stopped believing in Allah and somehow he had become a gecko and had then grown so fast to acquire the much coveted title of THE GECKO.
Abdul Kadir was a true gecko in words and in deeds, I recalled the grace and manner with which he spoke on our initiation night and I was introduced to his firmness of character on our induction day when he unraveled to us our first tasks as new members of the league of the geckos.
We were to set the foundations for the first stage of 'Project Topple'
That was when for the first time I had a little idea of why we were probably picked to join the league of the geckos. Every one of us had unique abilities that were very necessary in achieving 'project Topple'

Sting was a computer genius, he was a king at hacking, he could hack into any security system, he was exceptional with computers and gadgets, Sparrow was the people's man, he had superb communication skills, he could fit into any crowd and practically talk his way out of any issue, he blended perfectly into any scene, Sticker was a rare piece of beauty, the kind that would make even the most disciplined of men lose their self-control, she had this breathtaking beauty and sensual voice that could melt the heart of any man and then what about me, Nocturnal, I didn't know how they knew that, but I was intelligent, creative and innovative, I was like the brain, I could access situations rather quickly and produce quick and efficient on the spot solutions. I believed the other two potential newbies that were knocked out had their own specialties but that was something we never had the opportunity to discover for ourselves.

The way and manner in which Abdul Kadir spoke, one would think he had once being an army commander, he spoke with so much passion and enthusiasm that before he even finished we were already obsessed with project Topple and we even counted ourselves lucky to be counted worthy of the project.

Hmmm, I could never forget project topple, it was our first task as newly initiated geckos and it was also the first task that opened our eyes to what the geckos really did.

The gecko was an organization that was controlled by top politicians and government officials in the state and even the country, the gecko had units in various campuses nationwide but for reasons unknown to us, every unit functioned independent of one another.
The operations of the gecko were given utmost secrecy and priority, I am quite sure it was also because of the top men that were involved in the activities of the gecko. They couldn't afford to allow the activities of the geckos come out in the open and in the process be publicly associated with the geckos.

Project Topple was a project that was meant to topple the leadership of a certain political party at the time, it was a very delicate operation that involved three stages, murder, blackmail and set up.
I shuddered at the thought of murder but our four days training had made us hardened, I really did not know what they did to us during the course of the training but the only thing I knew was that somehow I couldn't find my conscience anymore, I could even be comfortable with the thought of murder so long as I wasn't the one committing it.
But this time, the first stage of the project which was meant to be a clean and untraceable murder that would appear as suicide was entirely up to the four of us newbies, leadership had made it clear to us without mincing words, penalty for failure was death.

Our aim was to murder the chairman of the party at the local government level, make it look like a suicide and our senior colleagues would go on with stage two and three of the project that would eventually result in our own candidate being the chairman of the party.

Abdul-Kadir tagged it a clean and safe exercise and the details were quite blurry, every other detail we needed for the job was entirely up to us, we needed to get all the details we needed and execute a perfect job, that was where our skills and specialties came into play.
Sparrow and sticker were the outside faces or more like the field workers for the operation, I and Sting were the back end workers. We had seven days to achieve our task and as I sat there recalling how effortlessly we carried out our first task I couldn't help but smile despite the situation I found myself.

Just then it suddenly dawned on me, why didn't I think about it all these while? I had to warn sticker, we were still in close contact and she was in Benin too, I quickly picked up my phone and dialed her number, it rang thrice without response, I suddenly developed a strong feeling to go to her house, she lived a few kilometers away from where I was, without traffic congestion, I could get to her in thirty minutes if I took a cab.
I looked at my wristwatch, it was a few minutes to 8, It was rather late but I didn't even have anywhere to go that night as I didn't have any intentions of going back to Ighodaro's house that night, I really wanted to keep them out of harm's way, I moved quickly and found my way out of the garden.
At exactly 9pm, I was at sticker's house, she lived in a two bedroom flat, she had done well for herself, she worked with a modeling outfit, her beauty had sure paved way for her, she wasn't professional though but she was a well to do upcoming model, there were two other structures in the fenced compound, they were all two bedroom flats, her flat was the first on the block.
The gate was locked but on peeping through the openings on the gate I observed there were no lights on in her own flat, it seemed the power company had disrupted power so there was generator noise disturbing the peace of the compound most probably from the two other flats, the compound was rather dark too as most of the security lights were off, most probably in a bid to save fuel too, I assumed she wasn't home and decided to hang around the area and return later, but again I had this strange instinct to let myself into the compound and even into her apartment, I knew I could easily pick the locks if I wanted to.
Meanwhile I had sent two text messages before I left the garden, one to Ighodaro that I wouldn't be home for the night and the other to the number, Sting had left me, I told him I was going over to Sticker's house to warn her.
There was no security man at the gate, I located the lower portion of the fence from behind and softly allowed myself entry into the compound, I landed noiselessly inside the compound and assumed crouching position, I crept slowly using the shadows from the wall as my covering as I made my way to Sticker's flat, I fought with my instincts whether to enter the house or not but I decided against entering and sat in a very dark portion directly beside her bedroom window and lay low there waiting for her to return.

The sound of faint screams and struggle woke me up, I guess I had fallen asleep while I hid there in the shadows waiting for sticker to return, I opened my eyes, it was rather dark all over, the compound was only slightly illuminated by the moon, the sound of the generators might have drowned the sound of the scream from getting to the ears of other neighbors, but it was certainly loud enough to wake me up, I peeped quickly through the window into her room, the light was faint but I could easily make out the shape of a man and a woman struggling, the woman was lying on the bed and it seemed the man was trying to suffocate her, he had one hand on her neck and the other was holding something that I thought was a knife, at least that was what the poor vision I got could offer me. Her generator was on, but the light in the bedroom was off and most of her security lights were off too, probably that was why I wasn't discovered.
I looked on in shock as the struggle between both of them continued, now his hand moved to her mouth as he tried to stifle her screams, at this point, my blood pressure should have increased drastically, I couldn't believe my eyes, I was witnessing the murder of sticker, I wasn't thinking straight anymore, all that was on my mind was 'save sticker'

I quickly ran to the front door, this time I didn't care about making a noise, infact I wanted the neighbors to hear, I kicked the door open with one hard and concise kick, I moved swiftly and crossed the sitting room, straight to her bedroom, I knew my way around Sticker's house, I had being there a few times.
As I barged into the room, I was sure I had made too much noise as the man was standing now, holding a knife in his hands, apparently waiting for me, his face was still not visible under the faint light but I could see that he wore a mask, I didn't need anyone to confirm this for me now, that was enough proof already, I had found the murderer now and I was going to take him out.
I sized him with my eyes, I knew I could take him even with his knife, I had enough gecko training to knock out the fight in him.
I quickly looked towards the bed and found that Sticker wasn't there anymore
'What have you done to her?' I roared at him, he looked at me and didn't speak, his mask looked more ruthless now, he brandished the knife as if he was trying to scare me, I knew I had to be careful now, if this man murdered Heavy Dee, then he had to be very skilled with the knife too, as I made to attack him, I heard the sound from the door behind me, I knew I was too slow because as I made to turn around, I felt the murderous bang on my head, the blow connected with my forehead and my face at the same time as I turned to look, I was quite sure my skull was cracked by that attack, it must have been a really big piece of metal because in a matter of seconds I felt my life slowly departing from me, the last thought I had on my mind was a question

'Where there two murderers? Did they work together as a team?'
But none could answer my question, my knees hit the ground as my body joined my feet on the ground, I could see black stars and the last I saw was heavy blackness as my eyes closed in total blankness, oblivious to the world and probably exiting this wicked world for good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER NINE

HUNTING THE HUNTER

I opened my eyes to find myself lying in a bed, my vision was almost a blur and my head hurt really bad, just then the door opened and Sticker walked into the room
As she saw me staring at her with confusion in my eyes she burst into laughter, my facial expression gradually turned from one of surprise to one of anger, what was funny about this, by the way, what even happened to me?
As I made to speak, Sticker broke the silence, even though she still couldn't totally control her laughter
'Come on, Osas, what were you doing yester night busting into my apartment and creeping up on me and my boyfriend just like that? Come on, you almost got yourself killed.
Boyfriend? I replied in surprise, but he was trying to kill you, wasn't he?
Kill me? Come on, we were only having fun and enjoying our role play when we heard the break in, we had to be prepared for the intruder and again I would say you were very lucky, I almost killed you yester night, if I had hit you a second time, you would have being history by now, I guess my curiosity saved your life, she looked at me again and laughed in a funny way, I stared at her in a way that demanded an explanation for why she was laughing, she laughed again and spoke 'come on, you look really ridiculous with your head looking like that'

I touched my forehead and felt the bump, she shook her head and tried to control her laughter 'I am sorry Osas, but I can't help laughing, then she came closer and wore a more serious face.
'What the hell where you doing here that late yester night and what do you think you were doing interrupting my rendezvous with my boyfriend?
I looked at her for some seconds without speaking, she tried to read my eyes before she continued speaking, 'it took so much for me to convince my boyfriend that we didn't need the police, it also took so much persuasion before he left early this morning, I had to double assure him that I was safe with you, so you tell me and tell me right now, what is going on?'
I kept quiet for some time and when I was sure I had her attention, I spoke 'Sticker, there is war'
I hadn't called her Sticker in a very long while, immediately I mentioned that name, her expression changed to a rather serious one, that was exactly the kind of effect I wanted to create, she stared at me for a few seconds before she spoke
'Nocturnal, I guess we should talk about this over breakfast'
she came close to me, placed her right palm on my shoulders and repeated 'we would talk about this over breakfast, she tapped my shoulder and turned and walked out of the room.
I couldn't help noticing her exquisite figure as she walked away, her well-crafted and gorgeous hips creating the goose effect in me as it swayed from one side to the other, Sticker was indeed a beauty to behold, I laid back on the bed, thinking about the events that had slowly begun to unfold, I guess this was the time when my initiative and resourcefulness was most required.

Sticker held the fork and just continued to play around with the noodles in her plate as we sat at the dining, I had just let her in on all the events that had happened over the past few days, her face was expressionless but I could tell she was in deep thoughts, I continued to eat my noodles hungrily, that was the first decent meal I was having since the previous day. My head still ached a little and the ugly bump was still quite visible.

'How well do you know Sting?'
I looked up at her face rather strangely, I couldn't understand why she was asking, 'I don't know him quite well, I guess I know him only as much as you know him' I replied her 'but why do you ask?'
She suddenly looked at me as if I asked a weird question before she replied
‘can’t you see it Nocturnal? What if this is Sting, fulfilling his own end of his promise to himself when he said he was going to make all those that brought him into the Gecko pay?
'Come on, just stop it, we all know Sting was only trying to be funny on that induction day and moreover I didn't in anyway contribute to bringing him into the geck .....' I caught myself holding back as I was ending the sentence, then I whispered softly to myself 'I actually did' suddenly thoughts of our initiation night began to filter into my memory, it became clear to me, maybe my eyes became opened for the first time as I remembered the night at the party.

After we had spent close to an hour at the party that ill-fated night, a young looking cutely dressed boy walked up to me and was trying to start a conversation, Sparrow was there with me too, the young boy was exhibiting a certain level of fear and told us that he had certain feelings concerning this party and wanted to leave, I remembered how I had assured him convincingly that it was an ordinary party and there was no cause for alarm, I had even sounded like one of the party organizers and he had left afterwards feeling more confident and less worried about the party, only for him to have found himself being initiated in the dead of the night, I remembered now, how he had stared at me continuously during the initiation rites, I didn't know what it was then but recalling the experience now, I knew, it was anger, he had probably blamed me for misleading him or rather deceiving him, he saw me as one of his enemies.
That young boy was Sting and now he had returned from the dead to take us out, Oh my God! Why didn't I see this all these while, it had taken Sticker to open my eyes.
Now I remembered how Heavy Dee was murdered, I remembered how it had being effortless, I remembered when I had seen him that Sunday morning, I had concluded it had to be someone he knew because Heavy Dee wasn't the kind of man to go down so easily, it was all making sense now, first Abdul-Kadir had to go down because he conducted the initiation, then Heavy Dee was next, he had lured Sting to the party the way he lured us, three of the four recruits at the party that day were all Heavy Dee's handwork, only that Sting had come to the party on his own that day. And logically, I had to be next in line for Sting's vengeance as I misguided him that night, then who knows, there may be others that Sting had plans for but my vindictive nature was slowly waking up, I was going to stop Sting before he hurts any other person, by killing Heavy Dee, He had made it personal for me.

I softly muttered it though Sticker could hear me 'I am going to stop Sting'
She looked at me with an expression in her eyes that I couldn't define, 'no you are not, we are going to stop Sting'
I looked at her again, 'but this has got nothing to do with you'
She smiled wickedly 'when you touch a gecko, prepare for the alligator'
I smiled when she said that, that was one of our popular quotes as geckos, I thought about the mail and the newspaper I got, so Sting was only trying to divert my attention to what happened with Sparrow, so that I wouldn't see him coming, he was indeed very wrong, when I was through with him, he wouldn't even know what hit him, that I was very sure of.

I and Sticker immediately got down to serious planning, we were going to make the hunter the hunted now, we were going to use Sting's master plan against him, this was gecko against gecko now but he was no match for us because two geckos against one was never a fair deal, Kaymu could testify to that, Kaymu was another gecko that didn't see I and Heavy Dee coming, anyway he got what he deserved though.

Sting showed up at exactly 4pm at Royal Boulevard as we anticipated he would. I had called him on the phone and asked to meet, as I had useful information to share, I hadn't waited for long before he showed up, I told him we had a lead and this whole happenings had a lot to do with a deal that went bad back in school days, I just had to give him something that would be worth his time, I told him I would keep in touch while I on my own tried to unravel a few more mysteries, he didn't seem satisfied with what I gave him, somehow he felt there was something I wasn't saying, I guess I couldn't really hide my true emotions well enough, I really wish I could just strangle him at that moment and on that spot, but I had to stick to the plan, phase one was bringing the Lion out of the den and that we had been able to achieve, the next was finding the Lion's den and Sticker was on ground to carry out that phase.
Sting left me at about 4.25pm, as he drove out of the compound, a few seconds later, I saw Sticker's grey colored Toyota salon car pull out of the garage as she followed slowly behind Sting, he didn't for one second guess that we were onto him. Now all I had to do was wait for Sticker to get back to me, I relaxed myself in the chair as I drank my bottle of orijin, I just hoped this wasn't going to be a really long wait.
                           ***********************

I quickly grabbed my phone from the table as it vibrated, I looked at the screen and saw that it was Ighodaro calling, I ignored the call, I really was in no mood to answer any other call at that moment, I was expecting only one call and it was a call from Sticker, this was the fifth time my phone was ringing and it wasn't Sticker. I looked at the time, it was past 7pm,
That was almost three hours since Sting left the garden, I had refused to entertain fears before but I didn't know what to think anymore. Sticker's assignment was a simple locate and report, It wasn't meant to take this long, all she needed to do was trail Sting to his apartment or wherever he was hiding and report back to me, then together we go on to take him down, But three hours was a whole lot of time, I had tried to call her too but I had decided against it, I didn't want to compromise whatever position she was at that point.

I patiently waited but I just couldn't be calm, different thoughts were running on my mind, 'had Sticker attempted to take out Sting single handedly? No, that would be foolishness, Sticker should have known that she was no match for Sting alone'
I couldn't stop thinking, now I was very worried, at past 8, I knew I had to do something or I might even be in danger myself without knowing it, I picked up my phone and dialed her number, it rang for some time and just when I thought it wasn't going to be answered, I heard a male voice from the other end of the phone
'Hello!!!'
I immediately ended the call, my fears were confirmed, something had happened to Sticker, Sting was too smart for me to have sent Sticker as a tail after him, what was I thinking? I should have known better, now I didn't even know what to do, first things first, if Sting had got to Sticker, then I wasn't even safe, I had to relocate at once.

I moved fast and practically ran out of the garden, I moved closer to the darker portion of the exit so I wouldn't be very visible, just as I made to open the gate, I felt the coldness of hard metal press against my neck and a voice softly whispered in my ears 'where do you think you are going?’

CHAPTER TEN

A WILD GOOSE CHASE

I froze right there on the spot, I didn't need anyone to tell me, that was the muzzle of a pistol on my neck neither did I need anyone to tell me that was the voice of Sticker, I smiled and heaved a sigh of relief as I turned back to face her.
'You better keep that away before someone else sees it, I cautioned her, she put it into her bag and drew me close, so she could speak to me in low tones.

'What the hell happened to you? Where have you being? You scared me a little' the words came pouring out of my mouth without obstructions.
'cool down Nocturnal, you would get yourself all worked up, I guess I misplaced my phone in a bid to track our guy, he has been to so many places today, and I had to be very careful because at a point, it seemed he knew he was being followed'
'come with me, would give you the left over details in the car' with that she pulled my hands as she opened the gate and walked out as I followed closely behind her.
When we were safely inside the car and enjoying the comfort of the air conditioned car as she cruised down the road slowly, she filled me in on all that had happened while she was trailing Sting.
She was quite sure Sting was up to something, he had visited three places from the time he left the garden till when he eventually returned to the place he was lodging.
He had visited a car rental service, a local news vendor who dealt on very old newspapers and magazines and finally he had visited a blacksmith, She had lost her phone when she trailed him to the news vendor, she was sitting across the street, by a public phone booth when he had suddenly come out of the vendor's office in a haste and moved quickly into his car and zoomed off, in a bid to catch up with him, she had left her phone at the booth and she had almost risked being caught as she had driven so fast that she didn't notice he had parked just at the beginning of a particular street he had curved into, she had already driven into it with speed before she saw his car parked just off the street, she had to ride on ahead to avoid being discovered, even though she observed that he took a careful look at her car as she drove by.
After then it became more difficult to trail him as she had to be extra careful, but she was finally able to trail him to a hotel, which he eventually checked into at about 7.15pm. When she was sure he had gone in, she had used her charm to get through to one of the male receptionist, from him she had got details that Sting had lodged there since Thursday, just a day before I received my first mail, she also confirmed that he went out early and returned late more often than not and that had being his routine for the four nights he had being there.

This was very clear to me now, Sting had come back to Benin to find us after he murdered Abdul-Kadir, he came in on Thursday and sent me the warning on Friday, probably shadowed me and used me to find Heavy Dee, and then he knocked out the unsuspecting Heavy Dee on Saturday night and probably he chose to see me on Sunday so he would know my exact location and would have knocked me out that Sunday if I had not gone over to Sticker's house that night.
The part about his visit to the newspaper vendor didn't come strange to me, that was probably where he got the old newspaper that he sent me a piece of, neither did the blacksmith come strange to me too, the two murders so far were committed with a knife, the only part that struck me as strange was his visit to the rental service, what did he want with a rental service when he had a car?
I was going to save all my questions for him, we intended getting him alive, we had to know his real motive for the murders so far.

'What about the guns, did you get it?' she smiled at me and took off her right hand from the steering wheel and picked up her bag and dumped it on my thighs as she returned her hands to the steering wheel and continued driving. I opened the bag and saw two pistols inside the bag, I looked up at her and nodded, she was still the dependable Sticker I had always known, her beauty and charm still opened doors for her just the same way it used to back in school days.
She parked the car off the road and pointed to a hotel on the other side of the road, 'that's where he is lodged' she signaled me to wait in the car as she opened the door and crossed over to the other side of the road and into the hotel compound.
She returned in about five minutes and announced to my disappointment, he went out but would be returning tonight, she took her seat by the driver's seat and softly whispered 'so?'
I took a hard look at her, looked away and replied 'so, we wait'

We must have waited for over an hour before Sticker tapped me gently on the shoulder and I saw his car drive into the hotel compound, from where we were situated, we watched him get out of his car, he had a small briefcase, he locked the door and went into the hotel, the time was 10.50pm, we were going to give him thirty minutes start off time before we took him.
I didn't want us to rush this, I wanted us to do it right.
At exactly 11.30pm, I was standing by Sting's room door with a knife with an aim to force the door open with as little noise as possible, while Sticker stood at the staircase leading to the hall way to stand guard, Sting was in the second floor, As I tried to break the lock, I discovered to my joy that the door wasn't even locked, I nodded at Sticker and she joined me, I pushed the door open, and closed it again as we got in, the lights in his room were off but with the light filtering in from outside we could see him lying on the bed face down, I shook my head in disgust, had Sting grown so cold that his room was busted and he wasn't even aware. We got our pistols ready and at my signal, Sticker switched on the light.

Like hell, we weren't prepared for the sight we met, the white bedspread had turned red on the side where his head lay, the blood around his head formed a circle, he was naked except for the pair of boxers on his waist and the socks on his feet, Sticker had to cover her mouth to stop herself from screaming, despite how much I didn't want to, I just had to, I moved towards him and turned him over, just like I anticipated, there was a slit on his neck and the blood was still dripping slowly as his eyes laid open in death, it was obvious he was murdered a few minutes ago.

We were almost living the room when I saw it, the green colored gecko crawled from under the bed and was almost climbing Sticker's feet when she felt it and shifted away from it in shock. I looked at it, it was the same pattern, it's right leg was tied with a long rope to the feet of the bed, I didn't know what to do anymore, a simple look at Sticker made me understand that she didn't know what to do either, then in the midst of the confusion, Sticker pulled out her gun and pointed it at my head, as I stared at her in confusion, her finger went to the trigger.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID

 

‘What do you think you are doing pointing that at me?’

I asked Sticker, I tried so hard to remain calm despite the fact that I was completely thrown off balance and couldn’t understand why she decided to point the gun at me

She eyed me suspiciously as her finger held on tightly to the trigger

‘You have to tell me exactly what is going on here Nocturnal’

I looked at her with confusion in my eyes, ‘what do you mean? come on Sticker, you know I wouldn’t deliberately keep anything away from your knowledge, I told you everything I knew, moreover you should remember that I was the one who came to you, it wasn’t the other way round’

She continued staring at me, her finger still on the trigger and her face completely expressionless,

I continued speaking as it seemed she was listening to me now

‘Come on Sticker, we have to get out of this place right now, we really shouldn’t be hanging around here any minute longer’

She looked at me hard again for some time as if trying to discover the truth from my eyes before she spoke ‘I am sorry, I guess I just feel confused and disappointed, and that was just me taking out my disappointment on you, I am sorry, let’s leave now.

We switched off the lights and found our way out of the hotel room as quietly as we had found our way into it, Sticker didn’t say anything all through the drive back to her house, I didn’t have anything to say either we were both deep in thoughts, then just when she parked the car inside the compound and as we were about to get out of the car, she said ‘we continue from where Sting stopped, if he is not the killer then he must have being onto something’

I nodded in agreement, what was wrong with me these days, I was supposed to know that, following Sting’s trail should be the next point of action, what better place to begin unraveling this mystery all over again than following the trail that Sting already left for us.

 

 

The next morning, we were at the car rental service as early as 9am, I waited in the car while Sticker went into the building, she intended using her charm once again to get the information that we required, she came out about fifteen minutes later, wearing a disappointed look on her face, as she sat beside me in  the car, she grumbled, ‘our guy isn’t reporting for work today, he worked all through the night yesterday and only left for home this morning, she looked at my now disappointed face and smiled, ‘never mind, I got his address and we are going there immediately’ She dropped a staff magazine on my thighs and pointed at a picture in it, that was our guy. I shook my head in admiration, Sticker always knew how to get whatever she wanted especially from male folks.

She turned on the ignition and in a few seconds we hit the road, heading for Ugbighoko, where our guy lived, it wasn’t a pleasant ride, the road was bad and bumpy, it took us quite some time to locate the house he lived in as he could only afford low cost housing inside the deep parts of the area where he had trees and very few other houses for company.

The house consisted of two flats, the front flat was uninhabited and partially uncompleted, even the back flat was partially uncompleted too, but that was where our guy lived, the back flat.

The house looked like no one had being there that morning, it was locked, both doors and windows, I peeped through the windows to see if I could find anyone but it was empty, Sticker looked at me as if she expected me to tell her where our guy had gone to, I decided to look around the house if I could probably find anything useful, I had gone round the house and was about to go back to Sticker and register my disappointment when I observed a pile of zinc sheets laying close to an open well, some flies were already buzzing around there, my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to have a look, I went there and raised a portion of the zinc sheets, and there I was staring at the lifeless body of our guy, I knew he was the one, from the picture I had seen of him, I lifted the other portions of the zinc sheets and saw the wounds, he had been stabbed to death multiple times with a knife, I simply fell on my knees as I stared at the lifeless body of the murdered middle aged man, I head footsteps behind me and I turned back and saw Sticker standing beside me, she was staring at the corpse too.

Suddenly as if I was possessed, I screamed, ‘let’s go find the others before the killer does’  

Sticker understood the relevance of timing at this point, I grabbed the car keys from her hands as we jumped into the car and headed for the shop of the news vendor. When we got to ring road, I had a quick thought, it would better we split, at least we could use the power of two against the killer, he couldn’t be at two places at the same time, so we could beat him to the others. I got a cab from there straight to Oko at GRA, that was where the blacksmith lived and worked, Sticker drove on to Sapele road to find the news vendor.

I practically drove the cab with my voice, at a point I almost snatched the steering wheel from the driver because I felt he wasn’t driving fast enough. In a very short time, I was at the place Sticker described to me, it wasn’t difficult to locate, it was a rather big house, the blacksmith used it for both residential and work purposes.

It was located in a hidden place too like the car rentals guy, there were bushes all around but there were more houses around unlike at the car rental guy’s house. The house wasn’t fenced, there was no sign of life in the house, I knocked on the door and found myself praying that someone would answer. Just then my phone rang, the number was unfamiliar but I answered the call all the same, it was sticker on the other end of the phone, she went straight to the point

‘Nocturnal, our guy is dead’

Even though I understood what she said, I found myself asking ‘what do you mean he is dead?’

‘He was shot once, head shot, clean murder, I met a small crowd already gathered at his shop, the police are here too, a customer found him’

I didn’t know what to answer, just then the door opened and a short thickset man stood at the front of the door looking at me, ‘what do you want?’

I swear, I knew I was joyful at that moment, I felt like hugging the man, I didn’t even bother to answer Sticker again, I simply ended the call and asked in anxiety, ‘are you the blacksmith?’

He regarded me for some minutes before he replied ‘it depends on who is asking’

I immediately knew he was the one ‘please I need to talk to you inside, it’s a matter of life and death’

He regarded me again, this time I could see a little display of fear in his eyes, he stepped aside and opened the door wider for me to enter, as I stepped in, he stretched his head out to peep outside, probably to see if anyone had come with me and that was when I heard the loud bang, It took  me a few seconds to recognize the sound of the gun, everything happened like it was in slow motion mode, I watched the man stagger backwards as he fell back on the floor inside the house, I tried to raise him up and just then I saw the bright red hole on his forehead, it was an head shot, whoever had shot him was a professional, I jumped out of the house in a bid to chase the shooter but there was no sign of anyone anywhere, it was a long distance shot from a good marksman.

Even if I wanted to chase him. I wouldn’t even know where to begin from. There were bushes all around, I ran out of the house to probably escape before anyone came along and that was when I saw the brown envelope a few meters away from the house on the ground. I picked it up, in front of it was a laughing smiley, I opened it and saw a photograph inside it, it was a photograph of Sparrow and across the image was written in red ink ‘I KNOW WHAT YOU DID’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

A COLD CHALLENGE

 

I had managed to escape from the blacksmith’s environment before a crowd could begin to build up, One thing that was common with the Benin people was fear, I very well knew that their first reaction to the sound of that gunshot would be to lock up all their doors and windows and it would take a couple of minutes before anyone could come out to actually see what had happened. This gave me an edge and I moved out of the location as quickly as I could. And found myself at the Ogba zoological garden, I really needed some time off to myself, this whole experience wasn’t making any sense to me anymore, just when I thought we had an headway, we were again back to square one, infact at this stage I could even call it square zero.

As I sat there, I remembered the first time we had come here as a group, we had come here in company of a few geckos to have fun and celebrate the success of project Topple. It was a big success for us, especially for us the newbies, we had each gotten financial rewards, that was the first time I had counted fifty thousand naira that was my own money that I was free to spend, somehow I smiled despite my predicament, I could still remember how happy I was then, it was the first of many more financial rewards that came thereafter.

As I sat there, my mind drifted back to project topple, that was when for the first time I had come to acknowledge the wits of the other three newbies. We had taken the party chairman down on his own birthday, that was part of the plan, the other stages of set up and blackmail largely depended on taking him out on his birthday.

First task was to get ourselves to be invited into  the party, The invitation wasn’t done electronically, they weren’t that sophisticated, so Sting really had nothing to do with this one, our first player on this field was Sparrow, his job was to get all the details about the party and how to access the invitation cards,  using his ability to fit into any crowd and his great communication skills we got this quite easily as Sparrow easily befriended a friend of the family and before you could say jack, information was rolling out.

Sticker had to come in for the next stage, her task seemed difficult though, she had to befriend the party Leader himself and get an invitation to his party. Once she could get a copy of the invitation card all we needed to do was make copies of it in three places and invite ourselves to the party too.

The party Leader was a chronic womanizer and Sticker had the kind of charm that was irresistible, it only took a few positioning at the right points and being available at the right gatherings and Sticker was friends with our target, getting an invitation from him was the simple part after befriending him.

Sting was the great computer genius, the invitation cards were not just regular cards, they had security watermarks and all such add ons that should make them impossible to duplicate, but Sting was the man for the job, attempting and doing the impossible was his passion, the conclusion of the whole story was that in a few minutes after Sting got the original invitation card from Sticker, we had our own invitation cards to attend the last birthday party of the unfortunate party leader.

We had only one mission for the party, we were going to have a proper look at the house, discover all our threats and opportunities and return later that night to take him out, Sticker gave our guest very close marking, he practically showed her every part of the house, including his bed room and private places, Sparrow struck all the necessary conversations and got all the necessary answers without raising suspicions, Sting had a difficult job, he had to study all the security details, the guards, the security cameras, their controls and hack into them. My job was simple, so far I had planned the operations till that point, I just needed to be in the house and view for myself so I could create a master entry and exit strategy.

The party ended rather late and while everyone left the party with intentions to probably go and have some rest in their homes, we left with an intention to return same night.

 

Sting had successfully disabled the security and alarm systems in the house, we had gotten in, without any trouble as our visit in the day had gotten us prepared for whatever trouble we should have met.

It was 12.00am, when Mr. Kadiri woke up to find strangers inside his bedroom sitting on his bed with him, what we made him believe was that all we needed was for him to sign a certain document, the document in actual fact transferred his leadership powers to the deputy which wasn’t our candidate, he signed the document, hoping we were going to leave him alive, but indeed the police found him the next morning, hung by his neck to the fan in his bedroom as his legs dangled lifelessly, the report was that he committed murder, but only four of us knew what had happened in the room that night, Sticker had strangled the man right in our presence, she volunteered to do it and she had taken so much joy in doing it too. Sting had re enabled the security systems after our mission was complete, no one knew what had happened that night, the police were most comfortable with the fact that it was a suicide, maybe if they had dug hard enough, they would have seen there was more to it than it appeared.

 

The signed piece of document constituted the requirement for set up and blackmail, when the team for stage two visited Dr. Peter with the signed document that could link him to the death of Mr. Kadiri, he had no choice but to decline the position and the crown gracefully sat on the head of our own candidate.

 

As I remembered the fat envelope I received after our first assignment, it drew me back to the present, to the brown envelope I now had in my hand that contained Sparrow’s photograph and the scary message that claimed the killer was aware of what we did

My mind slowly drifted back to the ugly incident with Sparrow, no one except us knew the real story, yes, no one except the five of us that were there with Sparrow on that damned day, as the word five came again to my head, it suddenly dawned on me, I had being so foolish all this while, I suddenly knew the killer, the killer had being right in my face all these while and had probably been mocking me as I was being made a fool of

I slowly got of the chair I was sitting, it was time to get back into the game, I only regretted that it took me so long to know the killer and I was quite sure the killer had spared me for this long because to the killer this was a form of challenge to me, I touched my hip, to feel the pistol head, it was still safely sitting there, I stood up and began to walk out of the zoo, I knew the killer now, and I was going after the killer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

EAT OR BE EATEN

 

I was going to take the killer unawares, I didn't want the killer to anticipate my coming, I would have under estimated the killer if it were under a different circumstance but with the circumstances on ground, under estimating the killer would be a really wrong move on my part. If the killer could drop hard nuts like Abdul Kadir, Heavy Dee and Sting, then being cautious on this one wasn't just a necessity, it was an obligation.

 

I had switched off my phone so that I could really concentrate on this one. I arrived at the killer's domain almost two hours after I left the zoo.

I kept watch over the killer's house for a long time observing from my very own secure vantage point, it was time to hunt, playing the hunter reminded me once again of how I and Heavy Dee took out Kaymu, when he had broken the code and had decided to abandon ship.

 

Kaymu was a gecko, he had joined the league of the geckos a year before Heavy Dee had joined, somehow, he had made alliance with a rival group and broken the code, he even attacked two members of the geckos, Heavy Dee had being given the task of taking him out and Heavy Dee had picked me to tag along with him.

I remembered how we had trailed him to his hideout and kept watch on the hide out for straight eight hours till it was the perfect time to strike.

Somehow he was prepared for us, I guess he anticipated our coming and got some thugs ready for us but he underestimated the geckos, one gecko was equivalent to five non geckos, that was my first mission with Heavy Dee, and I guess it was after that mission that Heavy Dee confirmed my relevance to the team.

We had sprung up on kaymu suddenly at midnight, using the darkness in his abode as our cover but he had his own thugs lurking around too, waiting to surprise any surprises, when we had switched on his room lights and expected to see a shocked face, what we saw was a smiling face as three other guys suddenly came into the room to join us too, all smiling and holding clubs, To kaymu, he had taken us by surprise too and indeed Heavy Dee was but not me, I wasn't called Nocturnal for nothing, I always wanted to be one step ahead of my opponents, when my underground source had given me the code that Kaymu was hiring thugs for his security details, I had done the necessary and infiltrated his network and had the three thugs he requested substituted with my own guys.

I can still remember the shock that appeared on Kaymu's face when his own paid thugs turned against him and attacked him without mercy while I and Heavy Dee simply watched in silence. In the long run, we completed the mission, the papers of the next day carried the news.

Kaymu didn't live to tell the story.

 

My mind returned back to the present, where I sat and observed from a very secure location, awaiting the arrival of my target.

It was exactly 9.45pm when I saw the car drive into the compound, I had waited at my hideout for very long but I knew that was the only way, If I didn't stake the hideout then I might just be the hunted one at the end of the day.

As the killer got out of the car to unlock the gate, I couldn't still understand why, what was the motive? Why did the killer decide to bring back Sparrow after all these long years, as the killer got back into the car to drive into the compound, my mind went back to the unfortunate incident with sparrow.

 

It was the end of three hundred level, we had just rounded off our second semester exams, It was time for us newbies to be promoted to 'Second down geckos' in the league of the geckos, prior to this time, we were simply known as 'third down geckos' that represented the lowest realm a gecko could operate from.

I, Sparrow, Sting and Sticker were about to be integrated to our second realm of operation, having proved ourselves worthy during the session , Heavy Dee was our gang head and Abdul Kadir being 'THE GECKO' was present too.

We had the integration rites beside a very secluded river, almost away from civilization at Ekpoma, where we schooled. The river was believed to possess very great spiritual powers and many mysteries surrounded the river so, people hardly went there.

 

The process was simple, after the integration rites, we were given new commands for the session by THE GECKO and we had to swear by the river that we would uphold the creed, the sacredness of the river was meant to make us understand the sacredness of our oath taking.

 

After the oath taking and the sacred moments, we decided to have some fun, all work and no play made the geckos dull, that was Heavy Dee's favorite quote, He declared a competition and placed a tag of twenty thousand for the first of us that would swim to a certain point in the river and swim back.

We all jumped into the river and started off, Sparrow was the best swimmer of us all, he easily took the lead and he came first, Sticker came second, I and Sting trailed behind.

It was all fun as Sparrow couldn't stop bragging about being the best of the best, at a point, we dared him to prove himself the best of the best by jumping from a very high mountainous point into the river, it was just a dare, we really didn't expect him to do it, but Sparrow was just too daring, he took the challenge and before we knew it, he was up there, he took the jump and that was the last jump Sparrow took in his life time.

 

He dived from that point into the water but didn't resurface immediately as it should have been, the next we saw was red color suddenly rising upwards to the surface of the water.

Before we could even say jack, Sticker had jumped into the water, she had a thing for Sparrow, they had bonded strongly, we all jumped into the water too and when we were eventually able to find Sparrow in the water, all that was left was his lifeless body. The blood flowed from an open wound on his head, obviously he had hit his head on a piece of sharp rock, the river was indeed too shallow for that kind of jump but it was too late to cry now.

 

I can still remember how Sticker looked at us that day, she had murderous anger in her eyes, she looked like she was going to tear everyone apart. But this wasn't any fault of ours, indeed we were all sorry but no one expected this to happen. I still couldn't understand why she suddenly turned her anger towards us, I knew, I and Sting had pioneered the dare, but she and Heavy Dee had also lent their voice as Abdul Kadir had watched in silence.

Even when Abdul Kadir reminded us about the code and how we must abandon Sparrow's body and not mention it to anyone even to other members of the gecko, I could still see Sticker eyes, there was this hatred that I sure knew she would never be able to get over.

Her eyes remained in my head as my mind returned back to the present where I had been keeping watch for over seven hours.

I watched Sticker as she drove into the compound and got down to lock the gate behind her.

I should have known all along that it was Sticker, I thought about Abdul-Kadir and the presence of the wall gecko at the scene of the murder, I remembered the presence of the gecko too at Heavy Dee's murder scene and how I had believed it had to be someone he knew because the murder was too easy, he had to have been taken unawares. And then Sting, how could she have murdered Sting even when we were together? I remembered I had fallen asleep and she had being the one who woke me up that it was time to strike, She had probably sneaked out of the car while I dozed off, finished him off and came back to wake me up.

I remembered how she had pulled her weapon out on me, when we found Sting's body, maybe she thought I had got her at that point, but when she had discovered I was still dumb, she had relaxed and saved striking me for later.

It was all clear now, she had driven out early that morning with the excuse that she had some deals to attend to with her manager, I never knew she had plans to finish off the car rental's guy and the news vendor.

She had probably gone to murder the car rental's guy that morning, she could have also murdered the news vendor, the same time and then the blacksmith? That was the smartest move she had pulled. I could imagine, how she was watching me from the close by bushes as she called my phone, watched me answer her call and waited for the right moment to strike the blacksmith.

I should have known it was Sticker, She was ruthless and very vindictive, She had always blamed us for Sparrow, I didn't know she would go this length to avenge Sparrow.

Now it was just two witnesses left, I and Sticker, She had probably saved me for last as she wanted me to suffer the most before ending it for me.

 

I gave her some time to settle down and be less cautious before I moved in on her, As much as I hated to, I had to do it, it was either I took Sticker out or she took me out, I remembered another creed we upheld in the gecko, 'Eat or be Eaten'

I chose to eat rather than be eaten.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID

 

It was 10.30pm, when I eventually moved in on Sticker, I scaled the fence same way I had found my way in the last time, I had the cover of darkness and the sound of the generators too, I tiptoed to her door step and paused to hear any sounds.

The door had no external protector, all I needed to do was pick the locks and make a silent entry or make a very loud entry by kicking the door open.

I remembered the last time I had made a loud entry and the repercussion, I wasn't willing to have that happen again, I decided to pick the locks, it was a very easy one to pick, with the least noise I got myself into the house and there I was standing inside the sitting room, I knew she would be in her room, the sitting room lights were off, but there was dim colored light filtering into the passage way from her room, I waited for two minutes in the sitting room anticipating any sudden moves from her, when I was sure she didn't get startled by any sound I would have made, I tiptoed softly into the passageway and stood at the front of her room door, which was half closed, I was going to take her unawares and I wanted to make a dramatic entry.

'Hold it right there' I shouted as I kicked the bedroom door open, my pistol was in my right hand, my finger on the trigger and my hand stretched forward ready to shoot, it seemed she hadn't heard me, as I observed she was totally covered with a wrapper from head to toe as she laid on the bed, I moved swiftly and took the wrapper off her and there I was staring at a pile of pillows arranged to look like someone laid there, in that split instant of time I knew she had got me, indeed I wasn't shocked when I heard her voice right behind me.

'Drop it!!!'

I turned swiftly and saw her pointing her pistol at my head, I knew there were only two ways about it, it was either I dropped my gun and died or I took the risk of attacking her and still die.

I choose the latter, she didn't see me coming, I dove swiftly to the right and fired, we both fired almost at the same time, I knew I was hit when my body hit the hard tiled floor, I knew she had expected me to drop my weapon, her finger was on the trigger but obviously she wasn't ready to shoot, I knew that because I saw the hesitation when I dove but she shot on impulse and because I was faster, I hit my mark but she was off her own mark by only a few inches.

Her bullet connected with my right shoulder, I could feel the pain there, I didn't know where mine connected with but I knew she was badly hit, I crawled to where she lay on the floor, a pool of blood was already forming around her, I turned her to have a last look at her face, my bullet had caught her in the neck, she was bleeding profusely and there was tears in her eyes, she managed to look at me and tried to say something, but the only words her lips could form was 'why' and she closed her eyes in death.

I didn't know how to feel at that moment, logically I should have been happy because the killer was dead, but as she closed her eyes in death, it suddenly began to hurt badly, all the pleasant memories we shared started coming back to me, I couldn't understand anymore, why did she hesitate? She could easily have killed me if she wanted to but she hesitated, the tears began to drop from my eyes too, it hurt so much as I stared at her lifeless face, I had found and taken out the killer but now I felt worse than I had ever felt in all my life.

 

The bullet only grazed my shoulder the injury was minor, I knew I had to find my way out before the neighbors came around, the gunshots were loud and I was quite sure the generator sounds couldn't conceal such loud bangs.

I moved quickly and found my way out of the house, as I made my way out of the compound, I observed that there wasn't a single sound from any of the other flats, that was the norm, obviously the neighbors had heard the gunshots and had gone on silence mode, everyone wanted to save their head, no one wanted to die.

I easily found my way out of the compound, my shoulder hurt a little, I was lucky she had narrowly missed hitting my shoulder blade, I stepped into the street and began to run, I didn't even know where I was running to that night but I just kept running, probably running away from all the evils I had done, I eventually passed the night inside an open church that night, probably I felt sleeping in the house of God would protect me from atoning for all the evils I had done.

 

                                      ********************

 

Life continued normally for me, I returned back to staying with Ighodaro and David, I easily sold them a story of what had taken me away impromptu and they had believed my story easily too.

I was able to get back my teaching job after convincing the principal that I was bedridden for that period of time.

Everything went back to normal, though I couldn't get Sticker off my head, infact the death of all those geckos continued to haunt me, remembering the fact that I had pioneered the dare of asking Sparrow to jump made me feel so guilty.

I felt responsible for the deaths of everyone, the guilt thoroughly overwhelmed me, this was exactly the way I had felt after Sparrow's death. I remembered how I couldn't be myself for a whole month after the incident, how I always dreamt about Sparrow chasing me, how I saw his face in my imaginations and how guilt literally ate me up.

And just when I was beginning to forget about it, Sting had disappeared mysteriously, I remembered how it had awoken my fears and how I had strongly believed it had something to do with Sparrow's death, Even when the rumors began to fly that the gecko Leaders had taken care of him because of his threat message at his induction, I still didn't want to believe, it was until several weeks after when nothing happened to me that I had relaxed and stopped blaming myself for the death of Sparrow.

 

                                ********************

 

Adjusting to my normal life was a little difficult, I felt I had to be made to pay for the death of all those geckos, I lived every single day in fear, somehow I still felt a certain evil was out there waiting to happen to me. Ighodaro and David could observe that I wasn't myself anymore, Even Aunty Elohor could notice that in school too but I couldn't afford to open up to anyone. The only person I began to long for was Ifeoma, somehow I felt she would understand me, I felt she was the only one that I could talk to, I tried reaching out to Ifeoma again, but it seemed she had blocked me out of her life after our experience at the bar the day Heavy Dee was murdered, Her number wasn't reachable, she had blocked me too on social networks, I really needed someone at this critical point in my life but there was no one I could share with, the whole drama of Sparrow and the murders was over but my own drama couldn't just end. I didn't have a life anymore, I couldn't find my joy, I couldn't find peace, I always had nightmares where I saw the faces of the dead geckos, I thought that was the worse it could get until two weeks after the death of Sticker when I probably was beginning to get myself back.

 

It was a Friday, school had closed early as usual, I got home before Ighodaro and David, as I made to open the door, I spied a piece of brown envelope slightly sticking out from underneath the door, immediately I saw it, my heart beat increased, I picked it up, it was plain, nothing was written on it, I tore it open and it was another photograph of Sparrow, this time the photograph was stained with blood, though the blood was dried, and below the photograph was written in bold letters, it seemed it was also written in blood

'I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

CHECK MATE

 

As I stared at the photograph and the words that were written on it, I lost my power of reasoning, what did this mean? I stared hard at the word 'still' did this mean the killer was still out there and I had taken out the wrong person? Or did this mean that someone else knew about Sparrow? I just didn't know what to do anymore, I wasn't scared, I guess I felt hurt that I had taken out Sticker all for nothing and probably angry too that my deductions might have been wrong.

I turned the reverse side of the photograph and I saw tiny writings in black, I looked closely and saw that it was a personal message to me, it was simple and straight to the point

 

'How good are you at this game? Duel with me!! Those who move quickly can find my footsteps'

 

I studied the words for some time before it struck me, the killer was daring me, the killer was trying to tell me that if I looked hard enough I would find him.

I didn't even think about my actions at that moment, I simply acted on the spur of the moment, I dumped my bag at the doorway and turned back and ran to the gate, I stood outside the gate and saw nothing, I looked around again and then I saw a young boy dressed in black jeans and t-shirt, he wore a dark shade and a black face cap too, he was looking at me and smiling, I immediately started walking towards his direction, as he saw me coming, he took to his heels, I didn't need anyone to blow the start whistle, I began to run after him too, I could tell he was a very good runner with the way he outran me but I was determined, I intended ending everything for good that day.

He curved into a street and I followed, he curved into another and I followed, I was beginning to feel tired now but I just couldn't stop, I had to see the end of this, he curved into another rather lonely street, it was a street mostly occupied by bad boys in the area, usually water logged and swampy more often than not, I didn't even have time to think about it, I followed him as well, there was a public school on that street, bad boys usually smoked there after school hours, I saw him jump over the fence into the school compound, when I got to the point from where he jumped, I hesitated for a few seconds, at this time I was panting heavily, I contemplated jumping over the fence too and before I could even decide in my head, I was already trying to scale the fence, the fence was quite high and as I jumped into the compound, I fell on the floor, as I tried to stand up and find the runner, something heavy hit my head from behind me and I fell back to the ground as my eyes saw darkness and my mind experienced a total black out.

 

The feel of cold water on my face woke me up, I blinked severally to adjust my eyes to the lights that seeped in from the frameless windows, someone was standing in front of me holding a baton, I couldn't quite get a clear picture but I could tell it was a lady and she wore a mask, I quickly observed my surroundings and that was when I observed that I was tied to a chair, and I was in a an uncompleted building, the chair was the only item in the room.

The lady standing in front of me tapped my head with the baton as if to gain my attention and when I looked up at her, she took the mask off her face.

I couldn't believe it, I tried to scream her name and that was when I discovered that I was gagged too.

 

'Oh my God!!!' this had to be some sort of prank, what was Ifeoma doing here, standing in front of me, holding a baton and watching me tied to a chair, she looked straight at me and smiled.

I still didn't get it, then she picked up her bag from the ground, and brought out a black cellophane bag, she drew out a tiny red rope from the bag and revealed a green gecko, the rope was tied to one of the legs of the gecko, the rope was rather long too, I watched her as she came to my chair and tied the rope to the foot of the chair, I couldn't make a single move, I was securely bound to the chair, when she was done tying the rope to the chair and the gecko was free to move about only limited by the length of the rope, she stood again in front of me and regarded me from my head to my toes.

 

'I know you have a lot of questions but I would only answer three for you, so use your questions wisely'

After she said that, she removed the tape from my mouth and the piece of cloth that was pushed into my mouth, then she went backwards and folded her hands across her chest as she waited for me to speak.

My mouth tasted sore, I still didn't understand why Ifeoma was here, somehow I still didn't want to believe she had being the killer all these while, I thought about those geckos, it sure should take someone much more experienced and dangerous to take out those geckos.

'Who are you?' that was the only question, I could think of at that point, she looked at me and smiled as she replied 'my name is Ifeoma, okay next question'

I looked at her face again, I still couldn't convince myself that she could be responsible for those murders, I had to use my second question well or I would have wasted my chances

'Why did you have to avenge Sparrow after so many years?'

She looked hard at me as if she couldn't understand my question

'Avenge Sparrow? Who said this has got anything to do with Sparrow?

Now it was my turn to wear that look that spoke volumes of how I couldn't understand what she was saying

She looked hard at me again and her face suddenly turned to one of anger, 'this never had anything to do with Sparrow, Sparrow was only a distraction, this had everything to do with you'

Me? I still couldn't understand what she meant, suddenly she took off her wig, produced a can that contained a liquid and washed her face thoroughly and when she looked up again I was staring at the face of the gecko I had always known as Shedder.

 

'Shedder' I mouthed the words softly, I just couldn't believe it, she smiled and without provocation hit the baton on my head, god!! It hurt like hell, she held my face in her fingers and spoke through her clenched teeth, 'say it, I am better than you'

 

As she spoke the words, everything suddenly became clear to me, in that split second I understood what it was all about, it was a battle for supremacy and she had indeed made her point, this time she had really defeated me point blank, I never would have guessed, Shedder had proved herself after all these long years, so the death of all those geckos was just for her pride? I still couldn't understand why.

                                                                       ********************

 

Shedder was a fearless and daring gecko, she was initiated into the league a few months before I and my gang, she was the ideal gecko, she had money, beauty and she was intelligent too, prior to my initiation, she was the brains, she was initially meant to carry out the first stage of project topple alongside her team but Abdul Kadir had switched it to us suddenly, She didn't like it and she had spoken out but Abdul Kadir charged her for insubordination and she was even punished. After Project topple, Abdul Kadir constantly began to pitch me and her in a competition over who was more resourceful and intelligent and in the long run, she was relegated to the background and I suddenly became the main man when it came to matters of intelligence, I guess what finally broke her back was when in final year I became the number three man in the league over her, as I had proved myself better than her, I remembered how she had met me that day and promised me that she would prove to me that she was better than me, she was my sworn enemy till graduation, even though we were in the same frat, we never had anything in common and after all these long years, she had returned back to have her pound of flesh.

                                     *********************

I looked at her angry eyes, I still had one question to ask 'but why did all those geckos have to die?'

She tapped the baton on her palm repeatedly as she spoke, they had to die for your foolishness, this whole thing was a challenge to you, I expected the number three man of the league to be able to find me out, she laughed for a while and continued, I swear you suck, I even showed myself to you on three occasions, you were so gullible, you couldn't see behind the wigs, the acquired accent  and the makeups, Abdul Kadir got what he deserved, I always hated that fool, that was my first challenge to you, the number three man should have avenged the death of THE GECKO, yet you couldn't even pick it up, Heavy Dee got close to finding me but I simply paid him a courtesy visit, of course he had to welcome Shedder into his house, oh, we were once lovers in case you didn't know, slitting his throat when he least expected was a glorious moment for me, yet you still didn't have a clue, I expected you to find me then but you are so rusted Nocturnal, And then Sting had to show up from God knows where and start digging where he had no business, he had to go too, I was an old friend, taking him out was a piece of cake, the others, the car rentals guy, the newsvendor and the blacksmith were just unfortunate, Sting had contacted them, if you had met them, you would have found me too, I couldn't allow you find me so cheaply, they had to go too, I guess I overrated you, you even took out poor Sticker, aww!!! That was really poor of you.

I gave you two weeks to find me but God!!! You are so daft, I wished Abdul Kadir could see for himself now, you were never better than me, you were simply overrated, infact, Nocturnal, You bore me, this is the end of the game for you, it's check mate.

With that, she opened her bag and brought out a shining silver knife, she smiled at me as I stared in horror, 'oh, the poor blacksmith, I always got a new one from him for every new operation, I guess I wouldn't be needing him anymore now' she smiled as she said so.

 

She came behind me, held the knife to my throat and whispered in my ears 'check mate' and as I closed my eyes I heard the sound of the gunshot, I smiled as I mouthed the words softly to myself, yea 'check mate'.

 

I felt her body drop to the floor behind me, as detective Musa walked into the room, he stood in front of me and observed me, he shook his head as he spoke 'you were right after all'

He moved behind me and kicked her legs, she was dead, it was a headshot, it couldn't be done any other way.

He stood at the doorway and made the call, in a few minutes policemen rounded the building, I was taken away in handcuffs as the body of shedder was also taken away in a stretcher into a waiting van. I could see three other young men in handcuffs seating inside the van, I guessed they were the boys Shedder had used to lure me out, take me out and probably bring me here.

 

I had kept my word to the detective, I was going to pay for my crimes but I was also going to lead them to the killer.

 

The night I spent at the open church, the same night Sticker died changed everything for me. After I had shot Sticker, I knew she wasn't the killer, I knew the killer would eventually come for me, somehow spending the night at that church, beholding the crucifix and having the presence of God in that church convicted me of my sins, I wanted to pay for my sins but I wasn't just going to allow the killer go like that. I wasn't called Nocturnal for nothing, I became the perfect bait, I turned myself over to a detective friend of mine, I told him my whole story, he decided to help me despite the risks involved, we had a deal, there would be surveillance on me every day for a month so as to get the killer and if the killer didn't show up, I still get to be arrested and taken to court to pay for my sins.

I never anticipated it would be Shedder but I did see the killer coming, and I was ready to go down but not alone, I had to go down with the killer.

As an officer pushed my head into the police van with handcuffs in my hands, I felt so much hurt, I didn't have a future ahead of me anymore, it was either death or a life imprisonment sentence for me, I thought about all the evils I did in the name of the geckos, I knew I even deserved a greater punishment, but somehow I felt an inner peace within me, I knew I had done the right thing at the end, even if one right couldn't make up for all the wrongs I had done, I took solace in the fact that in my lifetime I had done one right that I could be proud of.

 

As the van drove me away to the police station, the tears began to drop from my eyes, the realization of the consequences of my choice suddenly hit me, my life was ended as it was, I hadn't even clocked my thirties, I didn't even know when I softly began to ask God for mercy, I knew I was doomed here on earth but somehow I also knew that if I asked, God could still forgive me and I could still have a future in the afterlife, the police van sped off as I sat there remembering the choices I had made and wishing I could turn back the hands of time.

 

 

 

Reviews

[AUU]

That's a lot of text!

I want to continue reading this, so is it a tall ask to have you post it separately in chapter format? It would make it easier to comment...instead of scrolling through everything.

I read through the prologue and chapter one.

The whole gecko thing was oddly interesting, and the guy who got his throat slit in the beginning was a bit quirky. I laughed when found his wife on the toilet and pondered if she was crying. I think it's because seemed to be struggling with understanding his wife, and when a girl/wife cries guys tend to not always understand why. So it was comically relatable. Don't know if that was your intention.

I feel as though you could write the opening bit where your POV gets awoken by a splash of cold water better. The "took the sleep out of my eyes," imagery was great, but the rest of that scene was kind of anemic, especially in the way the character reacted to getting cold water thrown in his face.

You're style of writing, and voice, sounds foreign. Where are you from?

Anyway. Yeah. My critique would be to split this into some chapters, and to be consistent with standard formatting. Indents for new paragraphs to start.

Great job ;)

[Emmy Phenom]

thanks a bunch, i think that was really constructive, would work on that, am from Nigeria