People Fall Apart ( Short Fiction)
PASTOR CLIFFORD WAS SUDDENLY AWAKENED by the distress noise, seemingly coming from distance. His wife, Etia had awakened too, propping up beside him, both rattled. Suddenly, a woman’s scream further defied the night, seeming she was in danger. Then like a chain reaction, the pastor’s cell-phone began to ring annoyingly from the bedside table.
"What was that noise?", Etia asked rhetorically, hurrying to the window in her nightie to peek.
“ I think the cry came from the other street”
Through the window, all she could see was the fence that enclosed their home. Her heart rammed violently against her chest inwardly, as she shuddered immensely in fear.
Clifford's phone kept ringing, identifying sister Debbie as the caller, “ Darling, aren't you picking that?”
Sister Debbie was one of the ushers at the All Saints Pentecostal Church which Clifford headed as the parish pastor. The digital clock on the bedside table now flickered 11:52pm in red.
Wondering why she was calling at such a devil’s hour, Clifford hurriedly swung his feet off the bed to the cold tiled floor, reached the phone and picked the call.
“Put it on speaker”, Etia heaved uneasily.
"Hello?", he said, as strange bad vibes immersed him.
"Hello...pastor...", Sister Debbie's voice quivered. She sobbed between words. She was incoherent at first; however, her message rammed home.
"They butchered my husband...and I don't know the fate of my son!"
"What?! " Etia wailed, "Who did, who are they?!"
Sister Debbie snuffled, and then continued,
"They are on rampage...the indigenes. They are killing other ethnic groups or other religion. They are burning houses…my son ran into the bush…they chased him with machetes. I don't know if they caught up with him".
Now, her voice'd switched into falsetto, in the climax of her grief and lamentation.
"Where are you now Sister Debbie?" Pastor Clifford managed, his wife now holding his arm in her uneasiness, like trying to melt into him.
“Hello…hello… hello…hello, sister Debbie?...can you hear us?”
Sister Debbie was only crying now. A moment drifted by, then she managed a little hold, snuffled and said:
"I'm hiding in a gutter by the canal, down the street with my baby"
Pastor Clifford and Etia sighed simultaneously.
"Can you find your way down here safely?", Etia asked, “with your daughter?"
"No, I can’t. I can see the indigenes from here. They are everywhere, hacking anybody they don’t like down".
"Okay”, she said resignedly,” can you be careful there?"
"I don't know, maybe it's a matter of time before they found us here".
He trembled and struggled to get his wits up to work. He got up from the bed and started pacing about the room. He needed to wrap his mind around all the events.
"Go and bring the kids here"
Etia scurried out of the room immediately. Six minutes later, the children were with them. James, their first son was seven years old. David, their second, was five, while Rebecca the only girl and the youngest was three. The kids immediately ensconced themselves on their parent’s bed and resumedtheir sleep, while their mother huddled up solo beside them.
Clifford darted out of the room and then resurfaced. Now, he was holding a machete of his own. He had owned it for years for weed control around the house and for gardening.With the machete, he was going to wait in the yard to defend his family from possible marauders. Though there were fence and gates in place but he feared they could be scaled over.
Etia was livid at his idea. They argued for a while outside the bedroom. At the end, she gave in. Even so, a man like her husband wouldn’t just cower inside the house while her family's life was at threat. However, she regretted they ever moved to this region for his missionary work. This place and the people are overly volatile and hence, human’s life was worth nothing to them.
" Pray ", he said and then hurried away with his machete.
She followed him down to the living room to lock the front door after him. Once outside the house, he ensured the padlocks to the gates were still locked as he’d left them hours earlier before going to bed. He got his confirmation. The only way in for invaders was scaling the fence over. And he would be there to surprise them.
It’d been more than twenty minutes now, the tumult from the distant streets were still audible. He prayed silently as he squeezed the hilt of the machete tightly. Sheen of sweat covered his face to his arms. He could feel his heart moving towards his throat, clogging it. He knew for sure that these savages’d come to his house; he was a very notable pastor. He leaned his back on the fence and let his eyes sweep everywhere like discotheque light.
Suddenly, he caught a glimpse of a silhouette on top of the wall on his right side, trying to jump down. He was momentarily transfixed and utterly senseless, but when the figure hit the ground and tripped over, he advanced towards him with a mad speed, raising his machete to heaven and channeling strength into his grip. Suddenly, he was stopped cold when he heard the man shout in fear.
"Pastor, it's me...it's me!"
He instantly lowered his machete destined for the centre of the intruder's head, his rage vanishing. He recognized the young man who now had found his feet. He was dewilderedthough.
"Brother Edeabe?"
"Yes, pastor"
Edeabe was one of the security guards at the church. He watched him huff and puff for a moment like his life depended on it.
"They set the church on fire. Rufus and I couldn't do anything. We just ran. Rufus tripped and fell, I couldn't wait. I think they butchered him", he swallowed a lump in his throat, "They were so many"
Clifford waved his head incredulously. The news of his security-guard's death tugged his heart strings more. Rufus was a father of five.
Edeabe now groped about the bush and found a plank of wood to wield in his defense should he need it.
"Do you think they are still in pursuit of you?"
"I'm not sure pastor if I shook them off"
They agreed to man the walls vigilantly. They did so painstakingly for more than ten minutes until suddenly, they heard the sound of an approaching vehicle from the street. Shortly, headlights darted gleamingly into the compound through the openings around the gates. They hurriedly reach the gate to peek.
Outside there, a military truck patrolled. They heaved a sigh of relief and welcomed the breath of fresh air. Pastor Clifford fumbled for the keys to the padlocks from his pocket and produced them. He swiftly unlocked the gate. After hiding their weapons, they hurried out towards the truck for help. The truck halted abruptly and four uniformed men came out from the rear, holding rifles, the fifth of them stayed put behind the wheel. The soldiers' faces were morose and looked scary as death. Clifford understood this was peculiar to soldiers.
"Good morning, please help us, we are in distress and feel unsafe. My family is inside the house...", he explained.
When he was done talking, the soldiers exchanged darting glances among themselves, and then glanced at the sky. They chanted in their indigenous language:
"God is great!"
Then, they aimed their rifles at the two harmless men and fired them point blank. They both hit the ground with thuds, dying instantly. As blood slowly slithered away from their motionless bodies to gather into a pool, the soldiers began to trundle away into Pastor Clifford's house to finish the job.
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