The Wife ESCAPED!

“Alaye, waka straight,” the erstwhile conductor hissed, kicking the staggering Timmy on the shin. He and his confederates were leading their now blindfolded and gagged victim away from the bus.

Timmy had no idea where they were, the blindfold was used halfway through the journey and the only exposed part of his head was his nose. The gag was hurting his mouth and face, but there was no means of complaining even if he dared to.

Stumbling and jumbling between two of his captors, he was taken on a short journey before they entered what seemed like a house. They asked to see ‘Oga’ and they were soon ushered into a room with rug-covered floor.

Timmy was made to sit on the ground and he tried to imagine what was going on around him. Were they going to kill him? What had he done to deserve such fate? If they didn’t want to kill him, what on earth did an Oga want with him? The only Oga he knew was Oga Donatus. It most likely was not that Oga, but what if it was? What if Donatus hated him this much for some reason? But he wasn’t given a chance to further delve deeper into conspiracy theories.

“Ah, you boys have delivered?”, a bass-voiced man asked as he came into the room.

“Yes, boss,” one of the kidnappers answered.

There was a second or so of silence which felt more than a decade to Timmy, then the man spoke.

“Ah ah, what is this? You sure say this one is good enough?”

“Sure, Baba,” the kidnapper assured.

“Ah, this one look too young o,” the man grumbled, tugging at the blindfold. “Come, loose this thing let me see his face.”

Immediately, someone rushed over to Timmy and untied both the blindfold and the gag. The sudden contact with light made Timmy bat his eyelids in an effort to get used to his bright surroundings.

“Ah, this one is a child na,” the Oga exclaimed. “I said bring me a young man and you went and brought a boy. Hey, how old are you?”

Timmy had no idea that the question was directed at him, he was more intent on surveying the room and faces around him.

“You no dey hear wetin Oga dey ask?”, the knife-wielding kidnapper growled, causing Timmy to look around in fear and confusion.

“Ode! I say how old are you?”, the man repeated, slapping him on the head.

“Huh? Uh… I’m uhh… twenty.”

“I told you na. He’s a child,” he hissed. “Anyway, just take him to the back and lock him there. We will take him to Baba later.”

One of the young men promptly rushed forward and replaced the gag and blindfold before leading Timmy to his new temporary abode.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

***

Spending hours in a tiny, dark room was not an easy thing for someone like Timmy. No phone, no TV, no food, no friends and no noise were surely some of the things that could kill a man, or so he thought. He knew that if he continued to sit and wait till they come for him, he would easily run mad in no time, so he fell to pacing.

The blindfold, gag and chords that had been used to bind his arms had all been removed. He was free to move within the length and breadth of the little room which was only accessible through a locked metal door and there was a tiny window through which air filtered into the place. From time to time, Timmy looked up at the high window and wondered if there was a way to get up there. If only the walls weren’t smooth… but they were. If only there was something to hold on to… but there wasn’t. So how on earth was he going to get out of this place?

Donatus, by now, ought to have discovered that he was missing, and what would he do? Call his parents? Call the police? He hoped it was the latter. If it was, then there was hope.

He stopped pacing and slumped down in a dark corner. Yes, there was hope. For all he knew, the police could be on their way here and they would burst through the door very soon to rescue him from this horrible place. Yes, they would. They would. And slowly, he drifted off into a deep sleep, inspired by stress and exhaustion.

Timmy was startled awake by a loud bang. Immediately, he jumped up with his eyes wide open and expectant, but instead of the armed policemen that were in his dreams, it was actually his captors with the usual gag, blindfold and chord.

He groaned in disappointment and was about to stamp his feet in protest, but one of them who was wielding a big stick looked him up and down with a glare that told him that no nonsense would be tolerated. So he relaxed and allowed himself to be tied, gagged and blindfolded. Not that he could offer much resistance though. He was very hungry and weak. He could see, just before the blindfold was fastened, that the environment was getting dark, so he must have slept for several hours.

For once, he had spent a large part of an entire day without food and he could feel the ugliness of hunger: his legs were wobbly, he could feel his stomach almost touching his spine and he could feel his heart beating faster than ever. Even breathing was harder than normal. Ah! So this was what those hungry people felt? If he ever got out of this mess alive and in one piece, he would always save a little change for hungry destitutes on the street.

As they led him out of the dark room into open air, Timmy could hear a lot of noise being made around him, but they came to his ears as muffled sounds since the blindfold material was tied tightly over both his eyes and ears. Suddenly, his captors stopped and one of them began loosing the blindfold material.

When they had taken it off, Timmy quickly took a quick look around his surroundings. He could see a very large and beautiful compound, a fleet of cars, a locked blue gate and… an armed policeman sitting beside it and staring straight at him! What the…!! Just then, the blindfold was thrown back on, a different material this time, more opaque and tied very tightly.

It came into Timmy’s mind to begin struggling, perhaps to attract the attention of the policeman. He did not know that the policeman had been staring at him from the moment he stepped out of the room.

“My friend, behave yourself,” one of his captors scolded, smacking him heavily on the head.

Timmy, confused by hunger and mental stress, only increased his resistance. But instead of police intervention, he got a clearing kick that swept his feet off the ground. Someone grabbed him by the arm and another by the legs and he was lifted off the ground and dumped into a hollow place. His legs were forced in and he had to lie in a foetal position. It was the smell of diesel and the shutting of the lid that gave him the idea that he was in a car trunk.