🌏THE DARK NIGHT 🌏

 🌏THE DARK NIGHT 🌏

CHAPTER 3

We will talk about Manka another day. Since Lum is the main character, let’s talk about her for now. Lum was already engaged to be married. Her husband, Mr. Ngwa was a very handsome and hardworking man and he was very happy to have a woman like Lum. A few months later, they got married and Mr. Ngwa and Lum moved to Kumba and began a new life. 

A year later, Lum put to bed to a handsome baby girl. Everyone was happy, especially her parents. They had feared that after her encounter with the prophet and what he did to her in the hotel room, she was never going to be able to have children. So, it was a welcome relief to them when the news came that Lum had put to bed. Lum, her husband and their child were living a normal life in Kumba when Prophet McKenzie surfaced again. 

No one knew how the prophet got Lum’s number. However, Lum was in her kitchen one day, preparing food for her beloved husband when she heard her phone ringing from the living room. When she picked the call, she realized that it was a foreign number. It was a number from Nigeria. The prophet was the last thing to come to her mind as she picked the call.

“Hello, who am I talking to?” She asked.

“It’s me, the prophet.”

“Which prophet?”

“Prophet McKenzie. Have you forgotten me?”

“Jesus Christ!! Prophet, how did you get my number?”

“Don’t worry about that my beautiful lady. Someday, you will find out.” He laughed.

“What do you want?”

“I just called to let you know that I miss you a lot and I want to see you again.”

“Never you miss me again, you useless and heartless man. I am a happily married woman now. Stay away from me if you know what is good for you.” Lum was very angry.

“But I can’t stay away from you. You belong to me. You are my one true love. We have a covenant. You can’t love any man but me.”

“I cannot love a man as heartless as you. For your information, if you ever call this number again, I will block you.”

“You mean…”

The call was ended angrily by Lum. For a moment after she ended the call, she stood in anger, looking at the phone will all hostility as if the phone was the prophet. After a while, she calmed down and went back to the kitchen to resume her cooking. The prophet didn’t call again. 

It had been three months now. One day, Mr. Ngwa came back from work and met his beautiful daughter all alone in the living room, crying. He couldn’t understand why Lum would leave their daughter, Bih, all to herself when she was just a little more than a year old. She tried to call her number but the operator said her phone had been switched off. 

He carried Bih in his arms and went into the bedroom. After he had changed into his casual dress, he went into the kitchen and got some food for the baby. When he was done feeding her, he looked at his watch and realized that it was almost 7:00 PM and his wife had still not come. He tried her line again, but the call met the same fate. He was told that her phone had been switched off. He called her parents and asked if she had gone to Bamenda to see them. Her parents replied in the negative. He was at a loss as to what to do. So, he went to the neighbours to make inquiries. 

His closest neighbour was Mama Ebong. The latter was a veteran gossiper. In fact, she talked faster than a palm bird and made it her business to have info about everyone. Therefore, Mr. Ngwa figured she would be the perfect reason to ask. 

“I saw your wife leaving this morning. She was carrying a big bag.” Mama Ebong said. 

“A big bag? Where did she say she was going to?”

“She didn’t tell me. I even asked her where her baby was, but she refused to answer.”

“Jesus Christ!! Where could she have gone to? I have never known her to be an incompetent mother. How can she travel and leave her baby all to herself?”

“She might have gone to see her parents. Have you tried to call them?”

“Yes, I did. They said they haven’t seen her either.”

Mr. Ngwa went back to his house and prepared to retire for the night. However, when he hit the bed, he realized that he couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking and wondering where Lum might have gone. He would have loved to go to the police. But he had been told that Lum left on her own. It’s not like she was kidnapped or had simply gotten missing. Even if he did go to the police, all they would tell him was to come back after twenty-four hours. What was he going to do? 

Luckily for him, his daughter, Bih was not the type of child who worried a lot. Since she had eaten, she fell asleep almost immediately and slept all night. When she woke up in the morning, the first person she wanted to see was her mum. Her mum was nowhere to be found and no one could determine where she had gone to. After her father had finished feeding her breakfast, he left her with Mama Ebong and went to work, hoping that by closing time, his wife might have returned. 

Prophet McKenzie was sitting in his single room home in a “face me I face you” neighbourhood when his phone rang.

“Hello, hello!!”

“Prophet it is me. I have just crossed the border now. I am already in Nigeria. I am at the park in Ikom. Please, come and get me.”

“Lum, that was fast. Why didn’t you call me with your number? I have been trying to get to you.” The prophet was very happy. 

“Have you forgotten that I have crossed the border already? I can’t use Nigerian network with a Cameroonian SIM. Please, hurry.”

Prophet McKenzie got an okada and headed to the park. When he got there, he took Lum home. Lum was shocked that the prophet lived in a one room house in a poor neighbourhood. She had thought the prophet was living in affluence and riches. The man he saw at the crusade back in her home country of Cameroon during the crusade was very different from the man she was seeing now. 

“I am happy you have come. Welcome to Nigeria. I told you; you couldn’t stay away from me. Welcome again.”

“Thank you, Prophet.”

“You are still calling me a prophet? No need for all that na, I am your lover. Give me a nice pet name and put that prophet thing away.”

“Okay, love.”

“Enhe!! That sounds better. So, what should I get for you? You must be hungry.”

“Nothing for now, love. I will just rest for now. I will prepare us something to eat later.”

“Okay, my love.”

I know you must be wondering what could have caused Lum to abandon her husband and daughter to go and meet Prophet McKenzie in Nigeria. What actually happened was that, Lum, after the ritual sex in the prophet’s hotel room, had already become his captive. He was in possession of her soul and could call her to him whenever he wanted. When he tried to call Lum in a civil manner and she answered rudely, he had no choice than to use his spiritual means. He was still in keeping of the pad he had taken from Lum that day. That was their point of contact. That was what he used to draw her Nigeria. 

Lum had completely forgotten about her family. She had now become the prophet’s sex slave. He had sex with her almost every day, even when she was on her menses. To him, Lum was a sex object that he used to increase his powers. His plan was to one day open a very big church. To have a big church these days, you must be a powerful man of God, and most young pastors would do anything to have a big church even if it meant going to see the devil himself. 

Mckenzie, though he was still to have a big church of his own, had a large following online. He used his online presence to showcase his many miracles. His prophecies were mostly accurate. These had brought him a lot of followers and that was how he got invited to Bamenda, Cameroon for that big crusade. In real life however, McKenzie was a normal man who was using dark magic to perform miracles. He lived in a poor neighbourhood because he had no church yet. 

The Prophet’s neighbours could hardly understand why a girl as beautiful as Lum was living with the prophet. They suspected some foul play and decided amongst themselves that they were going to make sure that Lum went back to her country. They believed Lum was too good for McKenzie whom his neighbours see as a charlatan. 

It had been six months now since Lum went to Nigeria. All that time, her family had never seen or heard from her. The matter had been reported to the police but there was no headway. She seemed to have vanished into thin air. No one suspected that the prophet could be involved. Ngwa, Lum’s husband had never been told about his wife’s previous encounter with the prophet. Had he been told; he would have at least had an inkling as to where his wife might have gone. 

Back in Nigeria, Lum had come back to her senses. The prophet’s charm on her head worn out and lost its potency. One day, she was tidying the house when she saw a black plastic wrapping under the bed. It was meticulously tied. Out of curiosity, she decided to open it. When she did, she saw something that looked like a used pad. It didn’t even strike her that it was the one that had been taken from her. She just wondered why Mckenzie was keeping something like that in his house. She believed it was from one of his girlfriends. Out of jealousy, she threw it away. 

About thirty minutes, her eyes opened. Her brain which had been cloudy suddenly became cleared. That was when she realized that she was not in her husband’s house. She was somewhere else. She couldn’t understand how she found herself there. She looked at the wall and saw a picture of the prophet and recognized him immediately. That was when she realized what had happened to her. She was in Nigeria, and she was living in McKenzie’s house. She led out a loud scream and ran out of the house.

“What is the matter? Why are you screaming?” One neighbour who had heard the scream, and was coming to find out what had happened, asked.

“I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what I am doing here. Please, where am I?”

“You are in Ikom, my dear. But you are McKenzie’s wife na? What do you mean by not knowing what you are doing here?”

“What? God forbids!! I am not his wife. He might have used something on me to bring me here. Oh!! My husband and daughter. How long have I been here?”

“I don’t’ know. I am a new tenant here.”

“Jesus Christ!! What am I going to do? I need to leave this place before he comes back. Please, help me.”

Just then another neighbour, Mama Sarah who had just got out of her house joined them.

“I said it. I have always known that foolish man called McKenzie is a ritualist. Look at what he has done to someone’s poor child. He moves around performing fake miracles. He lied to everyone that you were a visiting pastor from Cameroon. We asked ourselves why a visiting pastor would stay for six months. Every night, we heard screams and moans coming from his room. That man is evil.” Mama Sarah complained bitterly.

“Mama please, help me. I need to go back to my family. I have a husband and a daughter. They must have been in serious pain and distress since I left. Please, mama.”

All the neighbours came together and managed to raise an emergency fund of fifty thousand Naira. They handed the money to Lum, and she went back to Cameroon. 

It was around 6:00 PM when the prophet came back from wherever he went. As soon as he got into the house, he realized that Lum had gone. He was very furious and wondered what might have happened. He went and checked under the bed to see if he could find the pad. He wanted to use it to draw her back from wherever she might have gone. Unfortunately, the pad cold no longer be found. 

He smiled and spoke to himself.

“Lum, you think you have run away from me. You think you have destroyed the pad. Do not worry, you might have escaped from me. However, your troubles have only just begun. You don’t know what I have put it you. By the time life starts torturing you, you will run back into the hands of prophet Mckenzie. When that happens, I will teach you the wickedness of mankind”

Around midnight, Lum got to her compound. She went straight to her apartment and knocked the door. Her husband, who hadn’t been sleeping, answered from within.

“Who is at the door?”

“Honey, it’s me. It’s Lum.” 

TO BE CONTINUED…✍️  Igbinosa Daniel ugiagbe

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