Escape From Sambisa Forest

Two

Jabal could hardly believe his luck. There was no doubt any longer in his mind that fate had indeed brought him and this little dark girl together. Nothing else could explain how the girl was among the last batch of three girls to be handed over to Jabal and two of his colleagues.

Accordingly, this last group of couples headed for their shelter at the farthest corner of the settlement area.

The three girls stood close together at the entrance of one of the thatched huts. Suddenly Isa, one of the militiamen, reached out and grabbed the little dark girl by the hand.

“Come here, my fine little girl,” he said teasingly. “Tonight you have a brand new husband.”

Hafsat snatched her hand away, glaring at the tall, lean boy who had taken hold of her hand.

“Leave me alone!” she said fiercely. “I’m not your wife, and you are not my husband.”

Isa laughed out loud, amused.

“Really? And you think you can stop me from sleeping with you tonight? Hahahahaha! You make me laugh.”

He tried to hold her hand again.

“Enough!” Jabal hissed. “Isa, leave that girl alone,” he said thru gritted teeth.

Isa swung round and faced Jabal.

“Really? Jabal, were you talking to me?” Isa asked.

“I said leave the girl alone,” Jabal repeated calmly. “You can choose from those other two.”

Isa’s eyes widened.

“How’s that so? I have the right to take any of these girls. I am your senior, and that gives me the right to take one before you do. And I have chosen this girl.”

“Why make it any harder on these poor girls? This girl doesn’t like you, at least she said so. Just leave her to me, okay?”

There was the beginning of a smile on Isa’s lips.

“All right then, Jabal. I can see that your tiny wee is beginning to get erection. If that’s how you want us to play, then fine by me.”

Isa took another step toward Hafsat and found Jabal directly in his path. Isa shoved Jabal aside and as Jabal rushed forward, Hassan, the third militia boy in the group, quickly stepped in between the fighting boys.

“Haba, Isa you have to take things easy sometimes,” Hassan, the mediator, said.

“This is insubordination!” Isa protested. “Wait let me teach this boy a lesson.”

“Leave the bastard alone, let him come to me and eat his shit,” Jabal spat, standing with his legs apart and his hands turned to balls.

This infuriated Isa even more.

Isa shoved Hassan, who staggered backward, and charged at Jabal like a raging bull in a circuits, and promptly saw red. But this red had nothing to do with the red cloth that bulls are taunted with in a circus. He didn’t even appear to feel the pain which tore his heart apart. He only saw the blood gushing out of his side, and then his mouth began to choke blood.

In his mad rush, he hadn’t seen the long, sharp, double-edged knife that Jabal held out in front of him, and he ran bodily into its tapered tip like butter, piercing thru the ribcage and slicing away his heart. It was only a matter of minutes before the body convulsed and lay still, dead.

Dead silence followed.

The three girls stared wide-eyed, completely dumbfounded.

Hassan, who had been mediating, stared at Jabal with disbelieving eyes. He took another look at the dead, or dying Isa with hands feebly clutching his bloodied chest. Then he saw the look in Jabal’s eyes, and decided it was safer to run for it. It all but appeared to him as though Jabal had suddenly gone bananas.