When light comes

Part 9

It had been a total of two weeks, and no one had had any peace on the farm.

The same thing happened every night at around nine o'clock.

Zebu would cry out from his sleep ,shouting in an unknown tongue , trashing about as if something had come over him .
The first night it happened, it had taken six men , four from neighboring farms, to restrain him from hurting himself or others . And for fourteen nights now , he had been locked up in a cage meant to transport pigs to the slaughter house at the market.

In the morning he would remember nothing , and eventually they would let him out of the cage each day, only to lock him back at night when his madness started again .

While in the cage , the boy's eyes would roll back into his skull, exposing only the white of his eyes. He would howl at the moon for hours, sometimes barking like a dog or growling like a lion.
Jacob had been called severally to pray for him, but no one saw much progress in the boy.
And when the Pastor approached the lad in the morning , Zebu would blatantly reject any preaching or prayers .

Finally, Jacob had told all concerned the truth, ..without the lad surrendering his life to Christ, there was nothing he or anyone could do for him.

   By the end of the second week , everyone in town had heard of the possessed boy and many avoided Solomon's farm.

Solomon had reported the matter to the Town's Police Force . They in turn had searched practically every inch of the mountain for Saluu.
But the old man's hut was deserted, even his small livestock were scattered all around the vicinity of his home. It was as if he disappeared into thin air .

After this, the Police gave up the search and advised the farmer to have the lad committed to an asylum in one of the nearby towns.

But Solomon still believed the boy could still be helped and by the third week when a stranger visited the farm, claiming he could help the boy, Solomon had been only too eager for the visitor to begin whatever he was proposing to do.

The stranger had simply asked to be left alone with the boy for a while in an enclosed room. He asked that all widows be closed in the room.
After the boy was brought to him ,the stranger locked the door behind them.

Solomon and many on the farm who heard about the strange visitor , gathered around the small room, patiently waiting and curious to see what would happen.

They heard incantations being sang by the strange man for a few minutes and then there was complete silence for almost thirty minutes.

  Some of the farm workers were already leaving when suddenly, the door to the room opened and the two emerged.
All eyes were on Zebu. From head to torso, a red and golden powder had been poured on him. The stranger pulled the lad to the  middle of the crowd, grinning from cheek to cheek and confidently assured them that the boy was completely healed.

And truly, everyone noticed the boy's rejuvenated spirit after the stranger had left.

But by nightfall, Zebu went totally berserk. The lad was even worse off than before .
This time, no one could hold him down , he became like a wild animal, growling at everyone that came near him.
In the end, Zebu had rushed out into the banana plantation and had completely vanished from sight.

Neighboring farmers and some of the town folks had formed search parties of ten that night, searching and calling out to him from every angle of the plantation, but to no avail.

By dawn, every search party had returned back and gone home , and others, to their farms , except one group .

By noon the last search party arrived and recounted the most unbelievable story about their encounter in the forest.
  Jobs , One of the local hunters in the area, had lead this group . They had gone farther into the forest than any of the other search parties. He was one of the best trackers in town, and could track any animal down . Human tracks were child's play, compared to the creatures he hunted down .

On finding Zebu's running foot prints on the plantation floor, he and his group had continued tracking it, right into the thick forest .

Finally the boy's tracks had ended at the foot of another mountain, mount kuna .
Without warning ,they had heard loud hissing sounds coming from the tall bushes in front of them . Before anyone could react , Zebu had jumped out , glaring at them like a crazed animal , hissing and spitting . They had tried to calm him down but he was delusional, ranting in an unknown tongue, that no one could make out.

" It sounded like a very old language , not indigenous to this parts" said Jobs ,.. "the intonation had this heavy hissing click to it, ..never heard anything like it".

"So where is he now" asked Solomon, looking around at Job's exhausted party of ten.
" Sorry my friend " replied Jobs ,seeing Solomon's frown , .. "there was nothing we could do".
"But you all could have cornered him off!" shouted Solomon. He was beyond himself with grief, alarmed that they had left the boy in the forest.

They were all gathered in front of Solomon's shack . Nobody noticed one of the hunters, Nma, who had been silently sitting on a stool .Nma had a faraway look in his eyes .

Suddenly he got up, and made his way towards Solomon as if to punch him in the face .
Nma stood angrily in front of Solomon, shoving him in the chest, angered by the man's ingratitude.

" You weren't there were you!", Nma shouted, .."the boy tried to attack us , he threw stones and branches at us. If not for my gun "..holding the local shotgun up for Solomon to see , "we would all have been badly injured,..I had to shoot in the air twice to scare him off, but even then he just glared at us , hissing! , ..and his face!", Nma's voice quivered,

"you should have seen his face,..."

   jobs seeing the haunted look on Nma's face, pulled him away and made him sit inside the shack.
Sensing the tension in the air, Solomon apologized to the group, feeling guilty for his callous words .

Jobs came out of the shack and called the farmer aside . "Solo , you should have seen this boy leap-up the surface of kuna, ...it was incredible" jobs exclaimed,  ..."the way he moved, ..it was abnormal, as if he was flying from one boulder to the next".

Solomon listened intently to his old classmate , astonished at what was being said about Zebu.

When everyone finally left, Solomon retired to his shack, wandering what his next move would be concerning Zebu.

What would become of this boy if they couldn't find him, Solomon thought to himself, ..the boy practically had no one and really loved no one .

Well,.. except the girl he always spoke about, 'Nainu', or something like that . But what could she  do?, speak sense into someone who , by the looks of it ,  had finally changed into a monster .
 
No, he could not involve her! .

" Father in heaven, please deliver this boy" Solomon prayed silently.

=========To be continued =================
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