Chapter 40: Chapter 40

CHAPTER 35

Teju at first could not decide what he would do with the lifeless body that lay still and shamelessly in between the stained pieces of glass. The different lines of blood smeared the pieces of glass, making them seem luminescent. Her blood flowed on the tiled floor, and it glowed as it slid away. The blood was thick and fresh. The untainted redness of the blood reflected into his eyes as he gazed in awe at it. He knew certainly that he could not touch the corpse.

This was his first time of seeing a bloodied dead person directly. Most of the corpses he had seen were in movies and news reports. But now a dead lady was lying on the floor barely one foot to him, and what amused him was that he had killed her, though by accident. If Teju were a vampire, he would be the worst vampire in the world. By nature, he was allergic to the sight of human blood, especially the blood which was not his. He could throw up whatever was in his belly and his bowels suddenly could have become full to the brim. But this time, all his body's reaction to the sight of blood was a shocking stiffness.

He had to tell himself over and over again that she was dead and that he had killed her before he believed that it had happened. And immediately he accepted that reality, he knew instinctively that he had to make a dash for it. He turned immediately and walked briskly to the door, so anxious to get out and be miles away from Tiwa’s body.

The rain has started to come fully down, beating upon the high-ceilinged roof like a band playing angry martial music in the honour of a despot who had no honour. The rain was not a problem for Teju. The rain was going to beat him quite well, but it was so much safer for him to be in flooding rain than to be under a shelter with a corpse he had killed. He was two feet away from the doorknob when there was a bang on the door. Teju stopped in his tracks and listened.

He recognized that he might not have heard a knock on the door. With the rain beating with such violence, and the winds blowing with such rudeness, not to talk of the crashing of the thunder, it could not have been a knock. It must have been his tainted imagination. He was to take another step towards the door when the banging at the door resumed. He had not misheard this time. Whoever was behind that door made sure his or her second effort at the door was loud enough to make him dispense all manner of doubts he had about this reality.

His immediate reaction to the unexpected and certainly unwanted knock was body tautness, though mentally, he panicked, a limpness that made his feet as cold as the nose of a dog and his mind as blank as a sheet of paper. His eyes darted around him. He did not know why, but he must have thought he was looking for a stick or something that was heavy and could be swung, just in case the intruder turns that doorknob. But there was nothing he could use to knock out a full-grown human of any gender or physic.

The door was merely closed, not locked, that was the surest thing Teju could point at. If the intruder decides to open that door, he was in a mess. If there was a way to escape, it was going to that door and opening it as though nothing had happened. What happens after then? Probably he would open the door a little and peep at the person at the doorway, without giving the person a reason to be suspicious.

“Yes, what can I do for you?” he would say, fashioning an American-accented English usually showcased by the people of the high class.

“I’m here to see Tiwa” he or she might reply

“Oh, Tiwa is not home. Did she ask you to come by this time?”

“Yes, she actually messaged me to come over”

“I’m sorry, she is not home yet, I’m sure she didn’t mean to give you false info...”

“Oh, it is okay, maybe I’d check on her later tomorrow then”

“Yeah please do....”

Another bang on the door, this time much louder and desperate than the first two; Teju was settling to the idea of opening the door, and hope the dialogue would fall through just as he had imagined. But he was intimidated by the thought that it might prove to be a massive mistake to put reality at the mercies of imagination. Even if he was lucky, he might not be lucky enough when Tiwa corpse was discovered and the police had to start a proper investigation on a poorly and immaturely executed crime.

Probably he should just open the door, tell whoever was behind the door that Tiwa was waiting inside, and walk past into the rain. He would make sure his facial profile was concealed as much as possible. And when the person had entered and the door was closed behind whoever it was, he would then dialogue with his legs. He would run a sprint into obscurity. But it was too risky.

The knock came again. The persistence of the knock had started to piss him off. Not only does the thudding of the knock invade his thoughts, making them break into meaningless pieces, it also slowed down his ability to take the best decision. He was hoping the person would get tired, turn his back against the door in a resigned reaction that there was no one at home, and leave. But Teju realised that if the person behind the door was going to leave without an answer, he or she had not given it the slightest thought. Another knock, this time it was followed by a baritone voice.

“Hello! Tiwa! It’s me, Wale; please open the goddamn door, its cold out here”.

Who the hell was Wale? Yes, that was who she was expecting when he appeared, but that did not give an answer to his question, who is this guy. Time was what Teju needed to answer his questions and to decide what he would do to escape whatever calamity knocking at the door, but as it were, time was the thing he did not have. He turned his back to the sitting room quickly, scanning a perfect space that could shield a full grown man like him from being seen. Teju of all people should be able to scout for a good hideout within a split second, or else, his years of playing hide and seek with his mates in his childhood would be wholly at waste.

With the capaciousness of the sitting room, Teju could tell without a second thought that the sitting room, where the corpse lie was no place to hide. He scuttled across the sitting room, with his shoemakinga rapidko-ko sound, thanks to the rain that drowned it out. There was a stair leading up to the first floor. He remembered it was the same stairs he took when he suddenly felt a urinary pressure under him in Tiwa’s birthday party. He could easily find the restroom and hide in it. At least, when Wale finally decides to come in, he would not have the chance to think of using the restroom when he sees Tiwa’s dead body, hence, making the restroom the safest place for him to hide. He was going to ascend the stairs when the door behind him burst open, and without thinking, Teju slipped into the adjoining room from which Tiwa had earlier emerged.

“Tiwa!” Teju heard Wale call out.