His eyes shot up to take in the look on others' faces. Their expressions mirrored his; confusion, incredulity and the lingering of unacceptable fear. They looked at one another equally, before finally their gazes all landed on Jide, for he was silent, lowering his head to stare at nothing at his feet.
"I'm sorry," He muttered, before he looked up and met their gazes with an expression of remorse and subtle annoyance, "I did not realize that this wine could be so...extraordinarily intoxicating." He finished and shook his head in disappointment. He began to walk back to the room, leaving them behind. "Look at the mess you've made on this rug now. Just because ordinary print in mug," He stopped at the door, and yelled at no one in particular. "Alcohol is not for children, haven't you heard? Better come and sleep. You can't go home mad like this." He hissed.
Slowly, they returned to the room one at a time, lacking words, ashamed in their fear, afraid to be found afraid.
"What were you guys thinking exactly, that someone will plan to poison you and first go and print it on the mugs first?" Jide queried, squatting over the vomit and packing it into a packer with a tissue. "I should have printed the ingredients and expiry date of the poison also."
Juli came in wrapped in Mmesoma's soothing arms, fidgeting slightly. She looked pitiful. Almost like she was sick. "Sorry," she said, sitting on the bed and leaning on Mmesoma. "It must be the wine."
"A wine is supposed to help you relax." Jide said, gagging at the smell of the vomit. He worked nonetheless.
"It's not the wine," opined Chinedu, "It's this house, the props in the other room."
"The stench of blood and vomit." Chioma added, rubbing her thumbs.
"Yeah." Said Jide, "The wine is made of blood and brain matter." He shook his head. "I should know, I harvested it fresh last Tuesday."
"Ew!"
"Guy, what's your problem, just what is wrong with you?" Kechi yelled, fuming, his hands balled into great fists.
Others started complaining also, of his tendencies to go extra creepy, a cacophony rose, but he would not care. He stopped instead and stared menacingly at Kechi, before he started. "you're scared, eeh? Hard man, hard man..." Kechi leaped onto his feet and his knuckles cracked into a hard fist. "You're that scared huh? I've noticed you've needed to piss, but you're afraid to step out of the room and go to the bathroom alone, because obviously you can't go alone. Too scared."
Kechi stepped forward, ready to throw a fist. "Stop. Stop." Andrea pulled him in the opposite direction trying to prevent a brawl, a brawl Jide was surely going to be victimized in.
"Guys, chill." Chinedu called, stepping in between them.
"Be careful not to piss on yourself." Jide continued, staring into Kechi's eyes with an enchanting gaze, holding his soul in his hands. "After all the beer you drank today, you must be really pressed. Why are you holding it if not fear? You act all tough, but the truth is that you're afraid, afraid all the time, afraid that you will wake up one day and everyone will see through your façade and know that you're nothing like the idol you pretend to be, scared that they will realize that your Rolex is fake, afraid that someone like Jide could steal your spotlight and you would descend into nothingness, and won't like your dumb self, talk more of being liked by these girls."
"Jide, where is all these coming from?" Someone holding them back asked, but Jide could not stop to listen. He was connected to Kechi in a hypnotic trance and would not break it for a second.
"You're scared, scared that you will piss on yourself and still scared to go to the bathroom. Scared of being scared." He shook his head and continued "It's okay, bro. You don't have to be. It must be exhausting and you don't have to keep on being strong. You can just let go. Take a breather, bro." Everywhere got calmer as they just listened and gawked at the both of them. Kechi was not vibrating in anger anymore. "Life will not fall apart if you show signs of weakness for a second."
"How..." Kechi started, stopped and seemed contemplative for a second. "How did you know that I am really pressed?" he asked with an ominous tone and they all turned to Jide.
Jide laughed suspiciously. "Why are y'all so suspicious this night? We've all been drinking for hours. Surely, everyone is pressed."
"It's true sef." Chioma said. "I'm pressed. Been holding it."
"I can practically feel my urine seeping out of my...thing, in the near future if I don't do something about it now." Jide said and they all laughed.
"Where is the bathroom, biko?" Kechi asked and began to move out of the room with a lighter atmosphere.
"Take the stairs go up and amble left." Jide replied, his tone was nicer. "You will see the label on a door."
"There is no toilet down here?"
Jide laughed - his laughter, mocking and friendly simultaneously. "There is, but the pipe is bad. Anything you put in there will just rise and you don't dare try to flush."
"ugh!"
"Yea. So go upstairs, no fear. And be quick." He laughed.
Kechi shook his head, took his phone and left the room, his heart thumping softly in his chest. He put on his phone's flashlight and as he took in the hollow loneliness of the hallway, goosebumps washed over his skin, and with another look at the cobwebs that lined the edges of the walls, he felt millions of tiny spiders under his skin, laying eggs in his bone marrows. He wanted to return and ask someone to come with him, after all some others needed to piss, but it was stupid, for first that was a blatant admission to childish fears and secondly, it was stupid for them to queue up at the bathroom, peeing one after the other.
He breathed in, then moved, climbing the stone stairs.
Everything was fine, everything was better than fine, for there was a sort of joy that came with this such release as peeing. Everything was normal as he did this, on until he heard footsteps outside the bathroom, just from the other side of the wall that separated the bathroom from an empty hallway. These footsteps could only come from heels, and so it must be Andrea.
"Baby, you could not wait for me to-"
His words clogged in his throats as soon as the light flickered quickly.
"Oh shit!" He exclaimed softly as his heart jumped into his throat. It was only a natural response, he told himself, he was not afraid. But his jump had made him move, and some of the urine splattered on his trousers. Quickly he reached for his phone which was sitting at the edge of the sink by his left, but his hand was shaky, so it fell from his hand and hit the tile. "Jesus!" He exclaimed and quickly picked it up, on getting up, his eyes caught someone, or something -he couldn't be sure with his phone's dim light- just standing at the door holding the handle and peering in at him. He yelped, and in a natural reaction, lost grip of his phone. It slipped through his sweaty palms, hit the ground and tumbled towards the door. As it tumbled, the light flashed like a siren light, casting lights and shadows in quick spins, and in these spins, Kechi had caught glimpses of the door, but there was no one there anymore, except the slightly open door, and then the door was no longer open, then the phone's light went off and there was...nothing; just darkness.
Kechi was hyperventilating and all sweaty by the time the light flickered on and there was no one, nothing, just him and his phone and in the direction he was now too afraid to go. But there was no way else out of this bathroom, except the window. He tried to think, to remember, if he had shut the door himself when he came in or if...if the wind had shut it.
"Wh-who is there?" He managed to ask, feeling stupid. He cleared his throat and asked again with more authority, gathering courage. Someone was joking with him and it was most likely Jide. That little bastard could not just be a normal weirdo, timid and jealous of people like him. Instead he was his bane, a threat to the natural balance of the food chain. He needed to be taught a lesson.
Anger replaced fear and Kechi got on his feet, walked to the door, picked up his phone to find a cracked screen. He was upset now, an upset Kechi was a dangerous Kechi. He held the door handle, breathed and pulled...it didn't bulge. He tried again and the door remained tightly sealed and he felt the force of ten persons on the other side, pulling the door in the opposite direction. Chills went through his body again and his heartbeat rose, but this must still be a silly joke. Anger took over again, he gripped the handle tighter, half expecting to be hacked to death by a deranged Red Lady, he pulled the door with his entire might. With this force, the door opened and he fell back with the force, knocking down a standing towel hanger.
It fell with a metallic thud and it echoed through the silence of the night as Kechi peered into the hallway and it was just as it previously was. It was all in his head. He ran downstairs quickly.
"The thing is that, you girls don't understand how scary it is or risky for us guys to actually work up to a girl, knowing our whole fantasy could get shattered and that's usually the case." Chinedu was saying in the room and Andrea couldn't help laughing out loud at his sullen pout.
"And it's worse when you're an honest guy. First, the relationship is already a risk, a scary risk. But these girls will expect a scared honest guy to promise that he will love forever, no matter how stupid things get afterwards. That's how you girls lose honest guys. They can't woo you with certainty, because there is no honesty in promising of tomorrow. Meanwhile what you want is assurance which is unreal. You will only-" Jide was saying when Kechi barged in.
He picked up the bottle of wine with crazed eyes and read its contents with suspicion.
It was ordinary.
"Whoa! What happened?" Mmesoma asked, seeing the splatter on his jeans.
"He missed." Chinedu said and for some reason Kechi was disassociated with, they all laughed really hard, especially Andrea who was already set.
"Dude," Jide called. "Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost." He smiled.
"You think this is funny?" Kechi asked, upset.
"What?"
Kechi was holding the second bottle which was now halfway empty and upset, he took his seat and gulped down the contents of the bottle, just like Juliana - who was now fast asleep on the bed - did.
"Ha! Don't vomit o." Jide said and for reasons they couldn't fathom, this angered Kechi. He was furious and with it, he hauled the bottle at Jide who dodged swiftly and it crashed at the other end.
"Jesus!" "Whoa!" "Hey!"
"What the fuck?" Andrea was upset now. She got on her feet and, standing between gobsmacked Jide and Kechi, she scolded Kechi furiously. "You warned me that you were crazy and I thought you meant something funny or dirty. What the actual fuck is wrong with you? Have you gone completely mad?"
Others threw words around also, commenting on how he has always been unstable and out for Jide since their school days, but Kechi barely listened to even Andrea. He paced back and forth like a maniac, running his fingers through his hair and scratching his scalp in deep thoughts, rethinking the events in the bathroom. He was not sure about locking the door behind him, but one thing was sure, he did not hallucinate those koi-koi footsteps.
"Shut up!" He yelled. "Just shut up!"
Everyone became quiet, watching him. He had their attention now but what to say was lost with him.
"What is it, guy?" Jide seemed genuinely worried and exasperated, Juli still slept peacefully.
"You shut up. Just shut up." Kechi yelled.
He raised his hands in surrender and stepped back. "Fine."
"What happened, guy?" Mmesoma asked firmly with a natural authority.
"I - I saw something up there." He spoke with a little stutter. "There is something in this house and he knows about it. We are not alone."
Jide squinted in confusion. "As in?"
"You better talk, right now! I swear it I will kill you if this is a joke or if it's not."
"Jide, what is he talking about?" Chioma asked, her fear was obvious now in her shaky voice and trembling hands.
"Maybe I would know if he would stop speaking in parables." He answered. "What exactly are you afraid of, guy?"
"Oh-kay, this is actually an interesting Christmas Eve." Chinedu said and had their attention for the moment. "What really disturbs me is why I am not as drunk as you guys yet." He said and gulped down the last content of his cup as he began to move towards the door. "I'm going to go get another bottle, I must see things that are not there too."
He left and they turned their attention back to the Kechi.
"What did you see?" Andrea asked Kechi.
"When I was peeing, someone was there also, peeping at me."
"Who?" Mmesoma asked.
"I don't know. And then they shut the door."
"They? More than one person?" Jide queried.
"I don't know." He yelled. "I just don't know the gender of the person."
"Oh!"
"I also heard their footsteps...koi-koi footsteps."
"Are you sure you're not just seeing things? Maybe you're drunk." Andrea suggested.
He shook his head frantically. "I-I-I..." he stuttered. "I don't know. I've never been that drunk."
"Maybe it's just the house." Jide suggested. "It is designed to fuck with your mind." Receiving a lethal glare from Kechi, he took his hand up in surrender again. "Just saying."
"Guys," Chinedu called their attention - on return with a bottle in his hand, with a look of pure confusion and concern on his face - he walked in backwards. "I'm not sure...but, I think something terribly weird is going on." He looked a little lost, deranged even. He was looking at no one in particular as he spoke, hugging the bottle with a little too tight grasp, like someone desperate to hold onto reality. It was obvious that his mind's gear worked in overdrive as he looked into nothing and wore a mad nervous look.
"Talk naa." Mmesoma yelled, her fear had risen to surface now and in her strained voice was a desperate cry, the desperate need to find their suspicion to be nothing but an overreaction.
"So I went to the fridge to get another bottle..."
"and?"
"...and I saw a lot of meat stocked in the freezer section in a thick nylon bag." He chuckled ominously, and it sent chills down everyone's spine. "First, I thought; 'hey, plenty Christmas meat' and I even poked it hungrily before I took the bottle and came out."
"So?" Mmesoma yelled and Chinedu flinched.
"well, I'm not sure. Because you see that's the thing." He chuckled again, with deranged eyes, and for the first time, he looked up to take in the expression of everyone, he needed to see if he was crazy. "I think...I think I saw a thumb nail. And If I know my biology, I think only apes...and humans have thumb nails."
They gasped, some of them shaking, their knees threatening to buckle under them, their bladders threatening to spill its contents.
Jide spoke. "I told you guys, in the movie. The guy killed his parents and stocked them in a freezer. They are just mannequins." He said nervously and let out a forced laughter. "Why are y'all so weird?"
Chinedu laughed, but then it looked and sounded more like the onset of a grievous cry. He shivered, in anger and in fear as he spoke next. "See that's the thing that have been going through over and over in my head, trying to recall." He paced back and forth as he spoke, gesturing frantically, shivering. "That did not happen in the actual movie story you told us. It happened in the weird one you made up as a sick joke." He stressed on 'made up'.
"Oh!" Jide exclaimed, seemingly caught off-guard. He opened his mouth and closed. There was no way to explain this one anymore. He just stood there, looking at his feet instead.
"Jide..." Chioma called, crying now. "..say something, Jide. Jide, talk, explain this." She whimpered desperately. "Jide say something naa, bikonu...please."
"Tell me that man and woman are not couples who actually owned this house." Andrea pleaded, trembling.
Jide remained quiet, staring at his feet, voiceless in words, blank in expression.
"Fuck!" Kechi yelled and punched the wall. Everyone jumped except Jide who remained silent. Chioma began to cry and Mmesoma, began muttering gibberish in incredulity.
"I am going to check, the fridge. This can't be true." She finally said and ran off to the room, crossing the hallway.
"If we check and its true..." Kechi sniffed and wiped a tear from his cheek. "I will fuck you up." And at that, he followed Mmesoma. The others followed promptly, praying with the last hope of realizing a big misunderstanding. Also, no one wanted to be left behind with Jide.
The five of them reached the living room quickly and was impatient as Mmesoma struggled to unknot the knotted plastic bag with shaky hands, eager to reveal clearly what was better left unseen.
"I don't want to die. I don't want to die." Andrea muttered amidst tears. "I didn't even tell my mother that I was going out."
They shook on their knees and Chioma's bladder had let loose of its liquid contents. But they were all too engaged to notice; they were all too engaged, fixating on this tightly knotted bag, shrouding meat of a sort, that no one was watching their backs.
Impatient Kechi pushed Mmesoma aside and tore the plastic bag with his hands and as soon as he did, a strong stench hit them, the stench of death and blood and they fell backwards, covering their nostrils and mouths first...and then, Kechi drew closer again and was now about to inspect the pieces of meat and blood and bone when they all jumped at the piercing cry that could only come from someone that is being hacked to death.
"Juliana!"
It was then that they realized. They had forgotten her on the bed with Jide. Abandoning the bag, they rushed towards the scream promptly. Reaching the entrance of the room, they were paralyzed by the sight of it. Their eyes had never been more bulged, their mouths, more agape. Juli was lying lifeless, her eyes widened with such fear that could only come from witnessing your own death. Blood colored the walls of the room, tracing the lines of a swing and splatter and dyed the sheets of the bed, flowing still from her neck and pooling under her. Jide was found straddling her lifeless body with a bloody dagger in hand. On his face was a satisfied smirk, characteristic of an orgasmic experience. He turned to them and climbed off slowly from the bed.
He approached, slowly...but surely.
Andrea could be heard now, at the exit door. Banging at the door, twisting the locks desperately. She had not waited to see it all, she had made for exit as soon as she saw blood. Crying, screaming for help with a teary voice. She had run off to get a head start but there was no point. Jide and Jide alone had the keys to her escape.
"Jesus, No!" She cried desperately and banged the door with her fist, before others arrived in a hurry behind her in the dimly lighted hallway, shaking.
"Kechi, come and fuck me up." Jide said, now at the room's door in the hallway, twirling the dagger in his hand like someone had mastered the use of it. Everyone was quiet now, paralyzed and on his face was that smile again, he would enjoy this but only he would. "Come on, Kechi," he spoke softly. "you promised."
He approached slowly now and they all scurried together, each one trying to hide behind the other. Each crying and paralyzed by fear. Shamelessly, Kechi begged and hid behind Andrea, holding her forward as a shield. She cried, and pleaded, but he said sorry to her and mumbled something about Jide liking her and might not want to hurt her as much as him.
It was all mad and frantic and Jide took his time to savor the moment. Before finally, he pulled out a small remote from his pocket, grinned and then pushed a button.
The lights flickered, off and on. He had started moving, off and on, he was now sprinting towards them. Off and then...no on. His footsteps only approached, they could hear and then Andrea let out a piercing cry...and then, nothing.