‘One man down. I repeat one man down. Requesting backup.’
From my sitting position, my back reclined on the kitchen counter acting as a makeshift cover, I stared at my partner, Sergeant Musa. His lifeless body laid spread-eagled on the floor, the blood seeping from his temple had began to morph into a bizarre halo around his head. Even in death Continue reading
“Blue or red wire?” I said into my com, the camera fixated on the explosive on the floor before me, transmitting the live images to Police HQ. The digital screen attached to the bomb glowed, the timer reduced as seconds ticked away. 40 seconds left.
…39…38…
“Cut the red wire.”
I stood outside Mike’s house, the cold harmattan air caressing my tear stained face. I was heartbroken. I had snuck out of the house, against my father’s “I don’t want to see your legs outside” to Mike’s house because I wanted to give him a little Christmas surprise.
I had gotten the surprise instead when I let myself into his house. I walked into Continue reading
“Not everyone knows my fiancée’s death wasn’t an accident. Even I didn’t know at first. Carbon monoxide poisoning is what they said. He left his generator set on all night, pulled a little too close to his bedroom window, they said. He died in his sleep, they said.” Amauche is looking down at her tied hands, but her gaze is unfocused, mind drifting somewhere in the past. “Victor was a deep sleeper; he never left his
Parasitic Twin. Fetus in fetu. Vanishing twin syndrome.
According to experts, some pregnancies start out with multiple foetuses. For some yet to be verified reason, during the first trimester, one of them may be absorbed by another twin, multiple or placenta. This foetal resorption is either partial or complete. The partial type leads to the discovery of extra limbs and body parts on or in the surviving twin, but when complete absorption occurs,
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After it is ascertained that Amauche Benson is still securely locked up in the psychiatric hospital at Yaba, naturally the police turn their attention to her twin sister, Chisom.
“Young lady, how do you now explain how that girl ended up in your kitchen then?” a policeman asks, tone brash, his eyes narrow with suspicion.
They are standing outside Chisom’s house; two policemen
They called her The Ember Killer.
Named after the notorious ‘ember months’, coined by superstitious Nigerians obsessed with the spate of fatal accidents and misfortune that seemed to thrive in the last four months of the year. Those were the months in which she began her murderous spree.
Mid-September had seen the discovery of what Amauche Benson claimed was the third victim, a French lecturer in the University Continue reading
It so happened that I slept by 10 p.m on Thursday, 27th of March 2002 and as it seems, woke up six months later, on the 4th of September.
I woke precisely by 1 a.m because my phone rang. Dede called to wish me a happy birthday and ended up laughing me to scorn for not remembering the day was my birthday. The call ended and I woke up again by 4p.m. to another happy birthday call. This was from grandmother. It was getting creepy. I checked the calendar on my Nokia 3310. It said 4th of September. Yes, the 4th was my birthday but how did this day arrive from yesterday? Hurriedly, I checked all the calendars in th
e house. They all were on the September page. The world had conspired to play a fast one on me. Continue reading
“Padre, I have sinned.”
The aging Priest, in his younger days, would have been very eager to hear the repenting sinner spill forth his sins and he would have administered the blessing of forgiveness on him/her. Decades of listening to hundreds of men and women coming to confess their sins to God through him had however taught him a few things.
One, man will never freely confess his sins to a fellow man – pr Continue reading
Every day, by 4:05, time pinched her.
She had begun to notice it a few weeks ago. At that particular time, something always drew her eyes to a clock, watch, phone……something with a time display. At first she had ignored the strange coincidence, but it had gone beyond that now. Now, she was scared. Continue reading
the dark notes 