The Terrorist’s Hideaway
“Tell me, what use is the government if they cannot even give us good roads?” The woman said as she crossed the road with her daughter, trying her best to jump over the muddy puddles.
“Are you not asking for too much? Is there anything good about this country?” The girl asked. She was a slim girl of average height, beautiful like her mother. They were both on their way to the market where they sold foodstuff. The street they walked on was connected to a major road still under construction after seven years of “serious” work.
It had become a haven for mad people and local criminals sometimes used it as their hideout. Unfortunately for farmers, the road which was now unusable previously led to their farmlands. The road which was supposed to bring progress and prosperity did the direct opposite as farmers now had to trek extra miles to get to and from their farmlands. The transportation hardship spurred an increase in the prices of goods in the market.
To make matters worse, the constant migration of herdsmen into the community meant there were hungry cows around. Cows who had a taste for cassava and maize, the main cash crops of the people. Farmers who tried to fight back were hacked to death, their remains found blackened and burnt. Villagers knew what it meant. To hack a body to pieces was one thing. To burn it was another. It was as though the herdsmen were leaving a promise of fire and destruction that they had no choice but to be terrified of.
At the time of this story, the standard of living of the Irusota community was at an all-time low. Endurance was following her mother to the market studiously because she knew she needed to be on her best behavior, seeing that her mother had paid so much for her WASSCE registration just last month.
Even the conversation was extra sweet. Endurance was not a girl who cared much about the government but humoring her mother was important. They got to the market, an arrangement of many small wooden stalls, and began to prepare for sales. Endurance swept the front of their stall while her mother prayed loudly for customers to come to patronize them and for God to disgrace any person who would come with the intention of causing trouble in her stall.
Endurance didn’t pray with her mother. She felt there was no need to pray, after all their morning devotion was enough prayer for that day. She would dress up later in preparation for her exams. She would leave and only look back at her mother’s stall once to see her dusting the dirt from a tray of beans. Before the woman would raise her head and look, her daughter would have disappeared around the bend.
***
It was the sight, smells, and sounds for Endurance. Her and her friends arguing and laughing as they walked down the footpath. The roasted yam, still steaming in her hands. The palm leaves swaying in the breeze, half concealing the armed men perched behind the tall grasses.
Her hands were raised in an attempt to alert her friends when the first shot rang out. All the girls fell but only one didn’t get up. It was Ifueko, tall and beautiful Ifueko who just yesterday had told them she was pregnant and would be getting married in a month’s time. The other girls scattered in different directions, wailing and screaming for their lives.
Endurance was the first to be captured. Ejiro was shot in the neck and Beauty was also taken too. They were thrown gagged, blindfolded and their mouths were tied shut. The men threw them on their shoulders. Grasses brushed their skin and then tree leaves and bark. The men were not scared of roughing up their goods at all. Beauty kept moaning loudly. Bang! Endurance heard a gun go off, for a moment she thought she had been shot but she quickly realized she was still alive.
The men began speaking excitedly to themselves but Eddy couldn’t make out even one word from the hundreds they spoke throughout the journey. They took turns carrying her. Endurance kept visualizing Beauty’s body lying somewhere in the foliage, the bodies of the other girls. Then her head connected with a large tree trunk and she blacked out.
Igha tie we kwe yen
Obu yi mwen kwe yen
Osaneramwen kwe yen
Kwe yen mwen o kwe yen
Osanijesu kwe yen mwen o
Kwe yen mwen o kwe yen
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Endurance woke up with that song playing in her head and she began to sing it as soon as she could get enough saliva to wet her throat. Now her mouth was dry, she had a swelling the size of a tennis ball where her skull had made contact with the tree and her face ached from the huge rag that had been used to gag her. The sounds of the forest were all around her and she figured that if her mouth had been left open, then they must be so far into the forest that the kidnappers were not scared that she would scream and be heard.
Her song attracted one of the men who came towards her from the tiny makeshift hut, built inside the concealed clearing they were in. He wore a torn Danshiki and carried his gun slung over his shoulders. His eyes were red and dangerous and he reeked of gin.
When he got to her, he brought his gun down from his shoulder and hit her on the mouth with it. Eddy cried out in pain. Trying to crawl on her back and away from him.
“Shut up!” He commanded. She only knew that because his finger was over his blackened lips. His words were mangled and unlike anything she had ever heard. When he raised his hand to hit her again, she began to shake her head and cower. Indicating that she would be obedient and not sing anymore. The kidnapper rewarded her with a firm squeeze to her breasts and a revolting look of sinful desire.
Later, thoughts of her mother would flash through her mind as she danced naked before the fire for their amusement. When they forced her thighs open and took turns, she was reminded of her elder sister giving her reasons why it was important to keep her virginity till marriage. The tears came until she had no water left in her body and when she woke up laughing like a crazed person, they beat her into silence.
The passage of time was the movement of her feet on the foliage as she walked towards the site where their accomplices left their food supplies. She was their bait and their sacrifice. The only easiest “member” of the group to replace. They gave her a bomb and instructed her to detonate it and kill herself should the police or a rival group capture her.
Sometimes she fantasized about detonating the bomb inside their enclosure but she didn’t have the balls for that. Asking herself questions like, what if the bomb is fake? Am I really ready to die with these people? Every night was spent emptying her mind of her earlier belief that she would be saved. The loss of hope came in stages. First, she believed that the government would come looking for her.
Then she believed that her mother would leave most stones unturned in her quest to find her daughter, her sweet Alagbode. When these were dashed against the rocks, she began to believe and hope that God would save her. That too was eroded away when night after night she was subjected to the horror of carrying five fully-grown, piss-smelling animals.
The pregnancy did not come as a shock. She knew sooner or later her belly would swell from all the semen those men pumped into her. As the pregnancy progressed, her energy levels were lowering but she didn’t dare show it. She knew that if they got wind of her pregnancy, they would kill her and replace her with another girl. It was at this time she stumbled on a bush dog having its puppies.
The dog looks at her with fear in its eyes, knowing that in its weakened state it would not be able to defend itself. Endurance dropped the parcel she was holding gently and brought out one of the canned fish and a loaf of bread. The method of food delivery was erratic, there was no way the kidnappers would know that she had taken from it. She dropped it as close to the dog as she could and walked away.
They all slept inside the small hut. Three men sleeping beside and on top of her and two outside watching for intruders. They did not allow her to sleep beside them because they wanted her safe and healthy, they did it because they wanted her accessible. She had grown used to waking up in the middle of the night because someone new was thrusting into her.
She found out they were more than kidnappers one day. That morning, they had taken her deeper into the forest and tied her securely to a tree. When their fellow terrorist group arrived she knew. There was lots of chanting and singing in Arabic. The wind carried everything to her.
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When she got back to camp, everything had changed. Before they were ordinary criminals, now they were criminals with a holy mission. They had new weapons and new clothes that bore the ISIS symbol. They began to handle her more roughly. To beat her more often into the dirt. Even the rhythm of their thrusts changed into something more animal. Fast and seeking to untether the fetus from her womb, as though they knew it was there.
She had gone to get their food again that day and branched the dogs home. The puppies were alone, at two months old, they could now walk around unsupervised. She was cutting the food in pieces for them when the butt of a rifle sent her sprawling.
“ما هذا?! ” he beat her ” امرأة البغيضة ”
He took out his machete and began to hack the puppies to pieces where they stood. Blood was everywhere. Endurance was almost convinced she was having a miscarriage but it was just the puppies. He wrenched her off the floor and proceeded to drag her through the forest, limp and hurting.
Back at the camp, the others greeted them with shouts of welcome until they saw the state of their food and their sex toy. There was an argument. The others were not pleased that he had beat her up like that for a loaf of bread. After the yelling and stomping of feet, they came to a consensus. The atmosphere absorbed the finality of their decision. Endurance knew they were going to kill her. Five months with them had taught her to understand their gestures and a little of their language.
She let them take her into the hut and begin raping her. There was nothing she could do. She was destined to die like those puppies, defenseless against harm. That was how the bomb met them, a man on top of her and two beating their meat beside her was the only reason she did not die.
After the rubble had settled, she lay beneath the blood and gore stunned into deafness and silence. She knew her right arm was gone because she could not feel it anymore but she did not want to look, she would probably pass out if she saw the state of her body, the state of the bodies of her captors.
Hours later, she crawled unseeing away from the camp, feeling her way through the foliage, following the familiar path to the puppies and their mother. When she got there, she dared to use her eyes. The dog was gone. Some of the puppies, half-eaten, and other half-buried beneath the sand. Her right arm was gone from the elbow down. She couldn’t care less. Curling among the dead bodies and the blood, she fell asleep.
The sound of police hollering into the forest was what woke her up. She lay stunned for some moments before she opened her mouth to scream and found that she couldn’t speak. Her throat had closed from lack of use and she could talk as much as the average dumb person.
Raising herself on one hand, she stood up carefully. Minimizing the pain of moving an infected stump by leaning her weight on the tree behind her. Walking was a stumble. The ground carried her weight most times and when it got tired, she fell. On and on she trekked. The police sounds were gone now but she knew she was walking outside, towards the road. The trees were getting smaller and she could see farms on either side of her.
As she neared the farm, a twig snapped behind her. Endurance shimmied to the side and hid behind a tree. There was someone behind her. She did not know if it was the police and she was not going to take any chances. The person walked forward purposefully, as though he knew exactly where she was hiding. Lowering herself, she made herself as small as she could with her stump sticking oddly out of her body.
The effort made her close her eyes in pain. Opening it, there he was standing right in front of her, the puppy killer. The bomb had not killed him. Her insides twisted in fury as he smiled at her with glee. These men had no allegiance to each other. It was clear what he wanted. Now that the others were gone, he would take her for himself.
His first gift to her was a punch to the belly. She doubled over, protecting the child she should hate with all her might. He dragged her along, offering her a firm guiding hand, back towards captivity. The road was long and hard, back into the forest. He did not allow for any rest breaks, neither did he have any food.
They were still walking as fast as they could when the dog appeared from nowhere. It was the mother of those puppies. It went straight for the puppy killer’s leg and sent him flailing. He reached for his gun and shot at the dog, killing it. She watched from a safe distance, cradling her stump. It took some seconds for him to realize the gravity of his mistake.
Endurance does not remember much after that. She does not remember when the police caught up with them or when they took her to the hospital. She does not remember how they dressed her wounds. How they sent her home after a while, convinced she would never wake up from the coma because of damage to her brain.
When she wakes up to two women looking down earnestly at her, she does not recognize either of them, neither does she remember her name.
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