Murder, mystery, and magic mingle in this brilliantly accomplished debut collection, of ten thrilling stories, which explores far-reaching issues – family, love, death, and sexuality – that remarkably shape our quotidian lives.


Excerpt 1: A STEP INTO DARKNESS.

THE RECTANGULAR STEEL top felt cold against my naked flesh. My hands and feet were bound, securely, with leather straps, to four, thick, shiny, and elliptical, metal poles – with intricate, primordial carvings along the length of each one – positioned at the four corners of the surface on which I was stretched out. The poles were about two meters high. And the head of each one was cupped widely – with a blue-red fire burning in all the cups.
Another leather strap ran across my brow, holding my head forcibly in place on the steel table. I lay, spread out, pretty much like Leonardo da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man. With the exception of my eyes, I couldn’t move a muscle. I didn’t know if I was paralyzed by fear, shock or something worse. My wrists and ankles, bruised raw, throbbed with pain.
The room I found myself in was lit by a series of strategically arranged candles. It looked like a temple from the medieval era. It was roughly round and cavernous. Supported by colossal columns, forged of gray granite, the ceiling soared an astonishing one hundred and fifty feet overhead. The room’s walls bore complex patterns of what appeared to be ancient symbols. Directly above me, on the ornate ceiling, was a huge, blood red, conjurer’s pentagram.
Encircling me, about three meters away, was an assembly of at least twenty people. And, from what I could see, it appeared they were all men. They all had roughly the same height and build – tall and stocky. And they were clad in black tunics and hoods – with their odd faces well-hidden behind the latter.
The strange gathering was quietly humming a weird tune. The men rocked back and forth, slowly, as if they were in some sort of trance.
My heart began to pound.
Where the hell am I?
No matter how much I tasked my memory, scouring the farthest recesses of my mind, I couldn’t quite remember how I got to this peculiar room in the first place; neither did I know why I was stretched out, utterly nude, on a surface I now realized was a metallic altar. At this point, something clicked in my mind, and the second puzzle fell precisely into place: I was about to be used as a human sacrifice in some bizarre ritual. My heart thundered faster.
O God save me!
A section of the human circle parted, just then, and a small-statured, frail-looking figure walked leisurely through. Unlike the rest of the men, he was clad in a brown habit, and wore no hood.
As the new comer – a wizened man – approached the altar, the rest of the assembly bowed their heads slightly and, in unison, said, ‘Welcome, High Master! Welcome!’ They said this thrice, their now loud voices echoing around the yawning circular space, before resuming humming the strange tune.
The bald old man gradually drew near, his decisive steps bringing him my way, and eventually stood beside me... a few inches away. The fetid smell that erupted from his small frame could kill an entire city. He looked to be in his late eighties. A massive pulsating vein ran from behind his right ear, stopping just above his right eyebrow. Both ash-coloured eyebrows were long and bushy, and their tapered ends oddly curved upwards. He had protruding ears like those of an elf. His nose was large and flat. His white beard and moustache were wild and thick. His eyes, at first glance, seemed soft and warm. But a closer look revealed a startling, fiendish glow in them. They were hard, black and cold. He looked like the sort of man who would laugh genially with you one moment, and savagely rip your heart out the next moment; a man without a modicum of mercy.
Deep down, a terror-filled voice told me that this man, this old and fragile-appearing man, was not your usual cold-blooded murderer; no, he was different; twisted and different; yes, this man, this evil man, was a no-blooded killer.
The hammering in my heart shot up another notch – crushing so intensely…so painfully against my sternum I thought it would break.
Taking his time, the octogenarian looked me over slowly – starting from my head, to my toes, and then back up. Then, riveting his eyes on mine, he smiled devilishly, displaying rust-coloured teeth. “Do you know why you’re here, Matthew?” His hoarse voice dripped with icy resentment.
I tried to open my mouth, tried to speak, but my lips remained inexplicably sealed like doors secured with lock and key.
“You’re here to die,” the man continued with unmeasured contempt.
I was scared to my scalp...not just by what he said, but also by the way he said it – like he was conducting a simple business transaction. I felt as if my heart literally wanted to explode.
The old man tilted his hairless head upward, to the left and, slowly, stroked his beard. “The gods of our beloved land are thirsty,” he said indifferently. “They require your blood, you know. Few must die to preserve many. It is a fact of life. It keeps nature balanced. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Yin and Yang principle...you know, male and female; good and evil; and life and death. You should consider yourself fortunate to have been chosen. Life runs on the wheels of sacrifice. And true sacrifice is written in blood...yes, blood. Even the Holy Book agrees that, life is in the blood. You, my condemned friend, are the perfect votive offering for the redemption of myriad…”



Excerpt 2: DESTINATION DEATH

SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP me! I don’t want to die! Timi cried inwardly as he dashed down a slightly sloped hill, sweating profoundly under the intense gaze of the afternoon sun, scared to the marrow of his bones, and breathing heavily as the dry air mercilessly stung his now burning lungs. He had been running nonstop for about ten minutes. Nearly out of breath, he kept going...kept running...kept pushing himself – putting as much distance as he possibly could between him and the ferocious beasts pursuing him with rabid intensity...hell-bent on catching him, and killing him, like they had killed Obinna.
It had been brutal.
Oh, my God. He nearly puked as the disturbing images invaded his agitated mind.
Obinna had been knocked down from a commercial motor cycle, dragged around furiously by his feet, on a dusty path, pitilessly clubbed, and repeatedly stabbed to death. And, just as he pulled his final breath, just as the final drop of life leaked out of him, he had been decapitated, and his severed head and body had been soused in fuel and set ablaze.
The horrific pictures pushed Timi on, driving him down the hill. He soon came upon a couple of herdsmen who watched, with expressions of surprise, as he thundered past them. Actually, on sighting them, from a distance, he had fleetingly considered asking for their help; asking them to save him from being slaughtered by the unhinged horde behind him. But being suddenly overwhelmed by the troubling possibility that they might just end up catching him, and holding him down for his assailants, had instantly erased the instinctive desire for their aid.
He arrived at the bottom of the hill, now, and paused momentarily to catch his lung-bursting breath; his fear-filled heart hammering powerfully against his chest. The awful images of his friend’s grisly death remained vivid.
Obinna, he thought, despairingly....unbelievingly. So Obinna is dead.
His mind twirled with incredulity at the fact that someone he had chatted heartily with – about three hours earlier – had been horrifically driven out of our material realm. Like several of his compatriots, on active paramilitary duty, he had been gruesomely executed by a band of local terrorists.
They are all dead! They are all freaking dead! And for what? Choosing to serve their Fatherland?! A country that doesn’t really give a shit about its youth?
The sun retained its angry stare...now zeroing in bitterly on Timi, like it had an axe to grind with him.
Timi wiped away the congregated beads of sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his NYSC-crested T-shirt. He knew he had to keep going, keep advancing, but sprawled before him was a large, flat area of land, with a few thatched-roof houses, sparsely distributed. He felt it would be unwise to seek refuge in any of the dwellings. The demons chasing him wouldn’t mind conducting a door-to-door search for their quarry – given that the houses were few. And, moreover, there was no guarantee the occupants wouldn’t hesitate to throw him to the beasts that couldn’t wait to spill his blood and feast on his flesh.
Timi reflexively inserted his hand into the pocket of his khaki trouser – intending to pull his cell phone out and call for help. But the phone was gone. Then he remembered he had lost it while he had been attempting to make a desperate call, as he was being hotly pursued. He had tried to call his father. And just as the call was about to connect, he had tripped on something, a small rock perhaps...tumbling, repeatedly, and losing the phone in the process.
Oh, God, help me. Please help me.
Timi withdrew his hand and looked back the way he just came. His pursuers weren’t in sight. He wondered how long he had before they caught up with him. He knew he had to relax, even for a bit, and think – think on his next viable move.
Pulling a couple of deep breaths, and exhaling slowly, and nailing down his fear as much as he could, Timi somewhat knitted together his jumbled thoughts. He suddenly realized he was on the outskirts of the town. Horror-filled, his present geographic position had escaped his notice, initially.
It isn’t unusual to lose one’s sense of place or time when you’re fleeing to keep your life from being blown out like candlelight by a group of nihilistic bastards.
Going further; Timi felt his most realistic course of action was to hurry to the border...to the security post stationed there. He knew the border, located to his west, was about one kilometre away. Despite being jaded, Timi knew he had to somehow find the strength to make it there – that is if he was still interested in keeping his place on this mortal side of existence.
He heard some noise behind him just then. He whipped his head back…up the hill. And there they were…his attackers…at the top of the hill...shouting and wielding all sorts of dangerous weapons: machetes, daggers, iron rods, and big, ugly-shaped sticks.
Jesus!
The madmen were about two hundred meters behind him. Timi didn’t have the slightest doubt that the herdsmen had pointed them in the right direction.
So much for one Nigeria.
The moment his chasers sighted him, their cries went up a crazy notch. Raising their weapons, and screaming like meth-crazed hyenas that couldn’t wait to sink their teeth into their prey’s throat, they tore down the hill after him...leaving billows of dust in their wakes.
Suddenly energized by a dreadful vision of how he too would, very likely, be murdered in cold blood – afraid it would be far worse than what the executioners after him had done to Obinna – Timi took to his heels, running in the direction of the border, his nearest point of refuge.
He had scarcely taken ten firm strides when he heard a swishing sound – like something heavy was slicing, angrily and unhindered, through the air towards him – from behind.
Unexpectedly, at that very moment, curiosity skipped over fear. Like biblical Lot’s wife, Timi looked back. However, unlike her, he didn’t transform into a pillar of salt. Instead, he suffered a different kind of fate.
A big, ugly-formed stick struck his right temple – sending waves of blinding pain rolling from the top of his head and right down to his toes. The next thing he knew...the ground was rushing up gracelessly to meet him, and then the world vaporized in an instant, as inky darkness gobbled him up.


You can continue reading IN THE ARMS OF MIDNIGHT at Bambooks: https://bambooks.io/Book/BookDetail/In-the-Arms-of-Midnight/11542