THE WINDOW 

Part One

Introduction                                                    

The story is set in a township called Mdantsane, about 17km from the city of East London, in a Province called Eastern Cape, in South Africa. Philmon Ntanga is the main character. He lives in Mdantsane N.U.8 in the area of 36. It’s December 1992. He has a friend who lives opposite his home just across the street. His name is Jack Filtane. Philmon and Jack enjoy spending weekends at the places of fun. Their particular spots are Maxi’s Tavern at N.U.1 in the area of 24, and Mdantsane Sun Entertainment Centre.

On this particular Sunday morning, just after 3am, they are coming from their favourite places of fun, drunk as ever. The taxi drops them at the beginning of their street. They go down the street to their homes and part ways. Philmon goes to his room which is facing Jack’s home. He goes to the window to close the curtains. But before he touches the curtains, something so incredible catches his eye. It’s a car, a Mercedez Benz, 1990 model. It is moving in space. It’s coming from down the street going up. It stops above Jack’s home and hovers. The front windows of Jack’s home light up for a few seconds before the car rockets away at an incredible speed and disappears. The following day Philmon doesn’t ask Jack anything about what he saw. They go out to the tavern. From the tavern they go to Mdantsane Sun. After the fun they go home very late. In his  room, Philmon goes to the  window to close the curtains, and sees another strange thing in Jack' s home. Between the front door and the dining room window, somebody emerges from that small part of the wall and comes out.2 It’s a woman. She gets out of the gate and goes up the street.

Another weekend comes. Philmon and Jack go out to enjoy themselves. Philmon meets a girl at Mdantsane Sun. Her name is Margaret Myeni. After the fun, Philmon and Jack go home. Halfway down the street in their area, Jack disappears right in front of Philmon. The following day Philmon tells Margaret. Margaret takes Philmon to N.U.13 to her aunt, Nancy Myeni. Jack is the victim of witchcraft. Nancy promises to bring him back. She prepares the stuff to be used by Philmon to bring Jack back. He must use the stuff where Jack disappeared from, on the night and the time he disappeared, which is the next Sunday morning.

The time comes for Philmon to go up there, to the place of Jack’ s disappearance. Margaret calls Philmon in the afternoon and tells him she is sent by her folks to her aunt. When she returns from N.U.13 she goes to Philmon. She has brought him something incredible. Nancy herself has disappeared. That is not possible. What is going on exactly? The time to go to the spot of Jack’s disappearance comes. Philmon goes to the wardrobe for the stuff he got from Nancy. The stuff is gone too. It is unbelievable.

Nancy’s weird disappearance has taken the story much further, in its sequel, beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.

THE WINDOW     

Part One

The day is Sunday 420th, December 1992. The time is 4:17 in the morning, just 3 minutes after the dream that woke me up. I dreamed about Nancy coming home on a bus. As if I knew she was coming, I went up the street to the bus stop on the main road. I waited for the bus which came shortly. It had tinted windows which made it impossible to see anyone inside from outside. When it stopped, the door opened but nobody got out. When I got inside, my jaw suddenly dropped and my eyes lost sight for a second. One single giant pound of my heart sent a pang on my spine.

   There were about 40 seated women on the bus. They were all Nancy, smiling at me revealing their toothless gums. Before I could throw myself out of the bus, the door slammed with a startling noise and the bus took off at an incredible speed. Realizing now that I was being taken by the wicked witches, I screamed. Then I woke up. Now I know what really happened to Nancy. Though it is just not possible, the servants of Satan have taken her. I may not know it now, but the dream, in an obscure way is telling me there must be a way to bring her back and that it must be found. She couldn’t do it by herself. Her powers are useless now because she is already a victim. And that should never have happened in the first place. Where did the wicked witches go right this time?

My name is Philmon Ntanga. I live in Mdantsane, N.U.8 in the area of 36. My home faces the street that enters into my area. It’s 20th December 1992. The story began 3 weeks ago in November, Sunday morning after 3am, when we came from the tavern and Mdantsane Sun, and ended just after 9am in the morning of Sunday of this month on the 13th. The story took 2 weeks. And I’m telling it a week later. It’s the worst experience of my life.

3 weeks ago I had a friend who was my neighbour, who lived just across the street opposite my home. His name was Jack Filtane. His family comprised his 2 younger sisters, his mother and his granny. She was so old she could have been over a hundred years old. She was good for bed and basking in the sun. She never missed a single day’s scorcher. She couldn’t walk by herself. Her granddaughters always helped her out to the lawn. She had a sofa that was always on the lawn but would be taken inside at sunset. I liked her like she was my own granny. She was the nicest of all the grannies I had ever met. I would ask her about old stories and mysteries she remembered. She always remembered and always loved to tell me.

    There were some occasions when the afternoon church services were held in the house because she had been a devout member of her church in her best days. But scary enough, she would tell me up to that age, which she never told me, she never believed there was God and would never believe in the tricks of the bible. The only reason she was once a serious church-goer was to get respect. I just could not believe granny, of all people, could say such blasphemous words, about God. I wondered if anyone in the house knew about this. But I never asked even Jack.

There is a popular tavern at N.U.1 in the area of 24. It is called Max’s Tavern. And there is another very popular place at Highway. Highway is the township’s B. D. C. The place is called Mdantsane Sun Entertainment Centre. It’s everyone’s favourite place, whether you drink or not. In the afternoon of Saturday 28th November, Jack and I went to Max’s Tavern and spent the whole day there, not drinking non-stop though. We left at 8:25pm for another load of fun at Mdantsane Sun Entertainment Centre.

     The time when we left the entertainment centre, having enjoyed ourselves immensely, was just after 3am Sunday 29th. We took a taxi home. The taxi dropped us about 400m into the zone. We went down this eroded street of ours to our homes. When I got to my room I went to the windows to close the curtains. I started from the left side of the room and went to the right side above my bed. Before I even touched the curtains, something breath-taking caught my eye. It was a car, a white Mercedez Benz, 1990 model. It was incredibly and silently moving in space coming from down the street going up. It stopped above Jack’s home and hovered. The front windows of Jack’s home lit up for a few seconds before the car rocketed away at an incredible speed and vanished. I closed the curtains and slept.                                

The Following Day

I woke up thinking about what I saw, but would not dare ask Jack, unless he talked first. I made myself some breakfast. After the breakfast, I left my folks preparing to go to church. When I got across the street, Jack was taking a shower. I went to granny to chat. We started talking. She started asking me about the demons, what I knew about them. I took it she was cracking up a subject. But unfortunately I knew nothing about the demons. But I was so interested in hearing what she knew. And she was going to tell me, had I not interrupted her. It’s common for grannies (though not all grannies. It depends on the conditions the grannies in question live under), as old as she was, to have lice on their bodies. Even if we don’t see them, we can see traces of their infestation indicated by tiny blood spots on grannies’ clothes. I suddenly turned my attention to the sofa. Between the cushion and the base of the sofa on the right side, just near her knee, 2 big fat lice emerged. They were turgid with granny’s blood, so big they might have been 5 times bigger than their normal size. I slowly out-stretched my arm to snatch them. Seeing where I was looking, granny wriggled in her sofa and asked me what it was. I looked up and told her there were 2 lice just below her knee. I looked down preparing to grab them, but they were gone.

    Well, I had no idea what I did. Granny glowered at me. She was so formidable I couldn’t be brave enough to look her in the face while she snarled and barked at me, calling me by all nasty names that came to her mind first. She asked me who did I think I was, what the hell made me think there was anything like a louse near her.

    I just couldn’t believe it. I saw the lice and tried to take them away so they would not suck anymore blood from her. I thought I was saving her. I tried to speak for myself between sentences while she was flaring. Then she hiccupped, but never stopped to bark, asking me what did I want from her. I stopped talking because the hiccups could be disastrous. Fortunately, Jack came out ready to go. He told me in front of her to ignore her, it was useless arguing with her. Granny gave Jack such a bad look and shook her head. We left her furious as ever and went up the street. Halfway up Jack said,

   ‘Tell me Phil. What the dickens was that all about?’

   ‘Well, there is one thing I understand about grannies. They are supposed to be short tempered and grumpy. But that was not what I expected. I did not do anything wrong to deserve that kind of a reaction. I only saw lice on the sofa. I don’t know how she took it.’

    ‘She is like that to everyone. Sometimes I have such a hard time believing that some of the things she says really come from her. And there is one thing I know too about grandmothers. They regress to childhood. Now she is a baby.’ Jack said. I never told him the lice disappeared in a split second and that they were unusually big.

    We waited 15 minutes before the taxi arrived. It took us to Highway. From there we took another to N.U.1. The time when we got to the tavern was 10 minutes after 12pm. The place was packed already. The people were all talking at the same time, others talking without the remotest idea what they were talking about, others making weightless suggestions, others sticking their long noses in other people’s businesses and getting punched in their faces and thrown outside.

    And me too, I stuck my large ears in other people’s business who were sitting next to us. I listened to their conversation. Seeing how curious  I was, Jack joined me. The 3 guys, especially the talking one, didn’t give a damn, due to the state they were in. He was saying he forever owed his unwitting escape from death to his love for drinking. He had decided to spend that weekend with his uncle’s family in N.U.14. He arrived before sunset and spent some time before he left for fun in the shebeen.

    It was dark when he left and everyone in the house was watching TV. He only took one step on the street and the house exploded into blazes. He was supposed to hear screams from the house, but there was none. By then the people had gathered to watch unable to do anything as the heat was unbearable any step closer. A siren of a fire extinguisher was heard approaching, and a short while later it stopped at the spot.

      The Man Then Kept Quiet For A Moment, Shook  His Head And Continued

The fire was unbelievably inextinguishable, blazing high. The firemen, taking turns, spent 2 hours making not a tiny difference. They gave up and left, so stunned. The fire ceased, on its own, 40 minutes after the firemen had left. When the burnt house was rummaged for the bodies, none could be found. I looked at Jack and asked him if he believed it. Jack shook his head and said hardly. We spent the whole day there, at times leaving the place to get some food and coming back. 

We left almost at closing time. From the tavern we went to the entertainment centre and spent a few hours of fun and then left. We took a taxi home. When we arrived in our area we parted at the gates. I got to my room, never turned on the light and went to the window, like I was dragged to it. I looked across at Jack’s home. That small part of the wall between the front door and the left window, somebody emerged from it and got out. The figure walked down to the gate and got out. Until it got to the street, I couldn’t make out who or what kind of a person it was. As it went up the street I was able to see it was a woman with a hunched back. She went up so briskly I had my doubts. That small part of the wall from where she had emerged was part of granny’s room. I closed the curtains and went to sleep.

The Next Day

I woke up in the morning, opened the curtains and looked across the street. Granny was on the lawn already. In spite of what I saw the previous night, I wanted granny to tell me about the demons. She was going to tell me something because she brought the subject up. You know grannies, just like babies, they get angry this moment, and the next they have forgotten the whole thing.

    Granny would have forgotten she ever said some bad things to me the previous day. In the afternoon I went to granny. I greeted her. She was so friendly I told myself there is no better way of getting to know about the demons than now. I asked her about yesterday’s question and told her I was very interested.

     Then she took me by surprise. Like yesterday, a minute angel and a minute shrew. Suddenly she changed. My heart pounded in such a disgusting way. She said people like me with visions like the one I had the previous day didn’t deserve to know about such things. I asked her why. She said I would begin to visualize like yesterday the moment she started talking. When I said it was not true, she told me to go to Jack if  I didn’t have anything else to talk about. And I had nothing else to say. I went to Jack so disappointed.

 On the night of the same day I slept right through and woke up once, in the morning of Tuesday. And that got me wondering why I never woke up in the middle of the night and looked out the window. On Tuesday night I never woke up. On the following night too and the next night I never woke up. I began to ask myself what if this was happening only when I was drunk. If only I could wake up when I was sober and look out the window. I knew it was not about waking up because whenever I looked at the window and saw, I would be coming from the places of fun, intoxicated. Because I didn’t go anywhere, I would have expected to wake up at the same time that I would be coming from the places of fun.

In spite of that, I never stopped to chat with granny and she never stopped being nice, as long as I would not raise the subject of the demons. I was beginning to regret what I did thinking I was trying to help. After all, it was only lice. It made me sad to think she was making such a big deal out of it.

    If I had not said anything, she was on the verge of letting me in on a secret, a bad secret, apparently. Otherwise she would not have thought I would start seeing things. Maybe….just maybe, I would have discovered the cause of her disbelief in God, the bible and the church.

Late Friday

We went out to start the weekend as usual. We went to the tavern, then to the entertainment centre, then back home. And I was drunk as expected. So I went to the window, looked across at Jack’s home and saw. There were no front windows, no front door. It was only a straight wall. I was wondering where the door and the windows were when the wall became aglow. But I could not see anything inside. I looked down asking myself what the hell was going on in there. If Jack knew, he had his reasons for not telling me. Just because I was his friend didn’t mean I was the member of the family. Maybe it was a family thing, if ever he knew. A minute later I looked up and the house was back to normal. I closed the curtains and went to sleep.

The Next Day, Saturday

At 8:25 in the morning, I opened the curtains and my eyes rested on granny on the lawn. She was looking in my direction….at me, in a way that made me feel unreasonably guilty. I moved away from the window.

As expected, Jack and I went out to have fun in our favourite places. We spent the whole day at the tavern until closing time, and left for Mdantsane Sun. On the way Jack nagged me with an odd question. Because of the state we were in, I could not jump to conclusion. He asked me if I realized we were inside a certain kind of wind, seeing that I didn’t seem to notice anything strange happening. I said the wind was ready to take us home….what a flight. He urged me to be serious, and I urged him to be joking. I just wanted him to change the subject, but he would stick right to it. He said he was sweltering, the wind that had engulfed us was hot. We had gone half the distance when he grabbed my hand and told me to stop.

    ‘Philmon, we are in a ball of hot wind. When we left the tavern, we stepped outside to a cool weather. We walked and then somewhere on the road the weather changed to what it is.’

    ‘To what it is to you. I’m still feeling cool because that is what the weather is. I don’t know what you are talking about. Stop joking. Let’s just go.’

     ‘I’m not joking. I don’t know why you don’t feel it.’

     ‘Because there is no hot wind. If you are just gonna stand there, I’m going.’ I said and left him standing there. I looked back and saw him follow. Only when we passed the Empolweni Cinema did he pat me and sighed. He said he was feeling cool again. I asked myself why now that we have arrived. The place was wild. And I met a girl. Her name was Margaret Myeni. She lived in N.U.9 in the area of 6. We joined her with her 3 friends. We stayed until closing time. I promised to call her first thing in the morning. We took a taxi to N.U.8.

    It dropped us at the usual spot. We went down our bad street talking. I was specifically talking about Marg and her beauty. Now we had about 150m left and our homes in view. Then I heard a voice….Jack’s voice calling me to help. The voice went like this:

    “Phil, Philmon….Please! Help Me….Help Me! Please.…It Is Her….”

The voice started from around me. I looked beside me and there was no Jack. I turned around, there was no Jack. The voice trailed away in front of me. I ran after it, but I barged into an invisible object. I moved to the right. The solid invisible object was there. To the left it was there, blocking the way, to prevent me from following Jack’s voice until there was complete silence. I moved forward and the invisible obstacle was gone. I shivered with a pounding heart at the thought that Jack was really not joking. He was really in the hot wind. It was a bad sign that something unpleasant was coming to get him.

    During the trailing of his voice I had called out loud enough to wake everybody nearby. But the night was silent and not a single house nearby was lit. I began to panic. The reason was being responsible for Jack not getting back home when we left together. Only the lunatic would ever believe my story. Why was I left behind?

     I decided to report this strange thing to Jack’s family first thing in the morning. I could not wake them up only to tell them the bad news. I got to my room completely sober. I went to the window and stared across the street until 7 in the morning. Not a faint strange sight had leapt into view. Then I saw Jack’s sisters helping granny out to the lawn. She saw me and waved a hand. She was calling me. I thought to myself , “ God! Why?” She never called me before. 

When I got to granny, I sat on the lawn next to her. The person who scared me more than granny was Jack’s mother. She greeted me cheerfully. Why didn’t she ask me where Jack was? Jack’s sisters too never showed any signs of worry. Judging by those inexplicable sights that I had been witnessing through my room window, it did land on my mind that they might be seeing Jack in the house. In spite of that, I chatted with granny.

    We were in the middle of our chat when I was called at home. I had a phone call. I ran down to the house. It was Margaret asking a bit disappointed what kind of a person I was. I said I would call and I kept her waiting. I apologized and told her everything. She said she was sorry, she  didn’t know. She urged me to come right away. I hung up and went back to granny. I told her I was going somewhere. She surprised me by not asking where Jack was. I went inside to Jack’s mother who surprised me too. I left them, my heart hammering, as if they were going to call me back to the house and ask me about Jack. On the way to Margaret, I told myself to get a grip, there must be a good explanation for their weird behaviour. When I got to Margaret’s home she was alone waiting for me. She stood up and said,

   ‘Let’s go.’

   ‘Go? Go where?’  

    ‘N.U.13, to my aunt, Nancy Myeni. There is something I did not tell you because we had only just met. You see my friends you found me with, the dark and tall one, Andiswa Makani? Something similar to Jack’s happened to her cousin sister by the name of Busi, 15 days ago. She came from King William’s Town for the weekend. On that weekend there was a music show in town. Andiswa, Busi and my other friends you found me with last night went to the show. I was in Dimbaza on that weekend. After the show they took a taxi home. On the taxi they sat in the back. Busi sat in the right corner and Mandy next to her. Andiswa was in the left corner. The taxi arrived here. Andiswa stood up and went out.

   ‘The one next to her followed and was followed by Mandy. She stood up and bent forward leaving. But she felt something solid and heavy from an invisible entity landing hard on her right shoulder and lap, recklessly pulling her down on the seat. She looked beside her as she bounced on the seat, only to find Busi’s place empty. She made an outburst of a startling scream and the force of the invisible entity ceased to hold her.

    ‘The following day we went to my aunt. She said she could only help if there was another one opposite Busi. As you said Jack was dragged down away from you, Busi was here. So they are in opposite directions. I promise you, my aunt will bring them back from the deepest chambers of witchcraft. She will never let the God for-saken diabolists win.’ Margaret said with confidence. What else did I want more than to see her aunt? So we left.  When we got there she seemed to know we were coming. After the introduction I got to the point and told her everything. When I finished she said,

   ‘You know Phil, simple ways can achieve such colossal things. You know why you didn’t go?  Because you are under the protective strong wing of the spirits of your ancestors. And because of your courage and fearlessness, you will bring them back. This coming Sunday morning, at the time Jack disappeared, you must be at the spot where he vanished from. Marg, you will be the witness.’ Nancy said and excused herself. She went to the other room. Whatever she was doing she took 40 minutes, and how I wished I could see what she was doing.

    When she re-appeared she was holding a folded stick that, when unfolded, doubled my own height.

    ‘Now Phil, you follow my instructions, nothing will go wrong. You see here? It’s a blue powder and this one here is a red ointment. You wake up 10 minutes before the time he vanished. And Phil, please, don’t talk to anyone about this before Sunday morning. If you do, it might drift with the dirty wind and end up in the wrong ears. You see this, it’s a mixture that I have prepared to clear you out. And I’m thinking, don’t sleep at all, because if you wake up late it  won’t work. Jack is on the right side and Busi on the left.

    ‘You go to the spot of Jack’s vanishment at the right time. You swallow half of the mixture before you step out of your room. When you get to the spot you draw 2 parallel lines across the street about 90cm apart with this stick unfolded. Then you pour some drops of the remaining mixture on both lines. You smear the ointment on both ends of the stick, about 30cm from the ends. Then you sift the powder on top. The ointment will rise up to 10cm after sifting the powder on it. Make sure you don’t touch the ends. Before you start, Marg you must be as far away as possible. Otherwise Busi will come out and you will get in, and you will do it involuntarily. And you will not be able to do anything about it Phil because the preparations I have made are for Busi. After you see the rise of the ointment, put the stick down between the lines. Step out of the lines to your right and grope in the space for the invisible wall. It will be there so very close. The lines will draw it to them. When you touch the wall, jump back inside the lines. Jack will be behind it. Pick the stick up and hold it in the middle. Poke the invisible wall with the other end.

    ‘After several poking the stick will go through the invisible wall. Then step over the right line to the right side. Stick the stick out for a couple of seconds. When you feel something gripping, that will be Jack. Then step between the lines and pull. Jack will appear. The moment he grabs the stick he will never let go. All the things you did on the right, do them on the left to Busi, with Jack poking and pulling with you because he can not take his hands off the stick. Same thing will happen to Busi. Only I will separate them from the stick. You take them to your room and call me first thing in the morning. If there is anything you don’t understand, ask now.’ Nancy said. I told her I understood everything. 

On that same Sunday I had to go to the tavern, especially now that there was hope of seeing Jack again. I went to the tavern full of hope. I stayed and left at 10pm, feeling Jack’s absence. I went to the entertainment centre and stayed until closing time.

    On the way to Mdantsane Sun, I had heard Jack’s voice 4 times asking me to help him. The voice was so close it left me with a question. If Jack’s voice was that close, which Jack was, wouldn’t I reach out and hold him? Of course I would, I thought. I groped beside and around me. My hand touched nothing. I said to myself:

    “Don’t Worry. This Time Next Week We Will Be Together.”

When I got to my room I went to the window. I thought: What An Obsession! This time it was on the lawn where the sofa stood. It was a figure, and I could tell by the long dress it was a woman. Only thing was, I couldn’t see the face. It could be granny, it could be Jack’s mother. Or it could be anybody, for that matter, or anything that took on a shape of a woman. She stood still like a fixed pole. I watched for 10 minutes and decided this was ridiculous, I couldn’t watch all night. I knew one thing. She was seeing me. I closed the curtains for a couple of seconds and opened them. As I had expected, she was gone.

On the night of the following day, Monday I slept right through and never woke up until Tuesday morning. On all the week days until Friday, same thing was happening. The window showed me nothing. I kept visiting Jack’s family who behaved normal, which thing I found to be disgusting. How long would they remain unaware of Jack’s absence? Worse part, what would happen when Jack came home? Definitely, the other Jack would disappear when the real Jack came, if ever they were so stupefied by the spells of witchcraft to the point of seeing Jack in the house.

It was Friday. I was feeling a lot better because there was only one day between me and Jack. I went to the tavern at the usual time. From the tavern I went to the entertainment centre. From there I went home. As I went down my street I thought about what I would be doing this time the following night. When I got to the spot of Jack’s disappearance I stopped and gazed in the direction of Jack’s voice ahead of me. I thought by this time the following night I would risk my life to save my friend and Marg’s friend’s cousin. From what would I save them? The question made me realize something with a pounding heart. Not that I was scared. I was not prepared. What if something was watching me ready to engulf me and was only waiting for me to make the wrong move? I thought the only way of getting away from the spot before whatever might be watching me got tired of waiting, or before I took the wrong step, was to run, which I did, full speed. I ran down the street and stopped at the gate of my home panting. I looked back. There was not a dim movement. I looked at Jack’s home. It was just an ordinary house. There was not a single house that was lit in sight. I was the only one awake. I looked at my room. It was dark too like the rest of the houses. Then suddenly, my heart hammered. It was such a reasonably scary beat. I had suddenly heard someone panting behind me. Swiftly, I whirled, but there was no one behind or next to me. I sighed and grinned. It was Jack. I thought:

“My God! Jack  Has Run With Me.”

    That pause at the gate had miraculously opened up my eyes to something that I had totally been blind to, all along. While I was panting at the gate I had time to look across the street at Jack’s home. It was a normal house like my home. I got to my room, went to the window, looked and saw. And this had been happening all along. Every time I went down the street and looked at Jack’s home, it would look normal. But when I looked at it through my room window, I would see something.

    Then I thought about this window. The window might somehow be possessing a certain kind of power which exposed to the watcher any odd occurrence facing it. But then I told myself whether I was right or not, it would not help anything because there was a question of weekends and alcohol. If only I could see just once, one odd thing through my room window on weekdays, when I was sober, I would believe whole-heartedly that somehow the window was phenomenal. I would then find out how, when and why it had all of a sudden begun showing me the nasty things it was showing me. But I couldn’t because it was revealing nothing at the right time when I was sober. So I looked out the window and saw. Jack’s home was cut in the middle. The left side of the house which included granny’s room was gone. In its place was an empty dark space.

    From the other side of the house which was visible, 11 figures of naked human beings, 4 females and 7 males, appeared from the corner and went past the wall and disappeared into the dark space, one after another, in a single file. I told myself that was the worst and probably the most disturbing act of  witchcraft that I had witnessed so far, from my right room window. I knew the side of the house that was gone would not reappear while I watched. I closed the curtains and got under the blankets. 30 seconds later I heard a cough inside my room, on the chair near the left window. It was Jack. I grinned.

The Following Day, Saturday, The Day Of Jack And Busi’s Return

I woke up in the morning and went into the house to call Marg. I called her early because I didn’t want her to make any plans like the previous day. I wanted us to spend the whole day and night together until the time came for me to go up there, to the spot of Jack’s disappearance. She said she would love to stay with me until the time. But first she was going to go to her aunt. I told her I would wait at Jack’s home and chat with granny. We hung up. I made some breakfast. After the breakfast I went to granny. Granny was eating her breakfast. She asked me to join her. I politely turned down the offer. My stomach was full with my own breakfast. I sat next to her. We chatted while she ate. 

I only asked to leave when I saw Marg. I waited at the gate of Jack’s home and we went to my room. In my room she sat on the bed, sighed, looked down, shook her head and then looked up at me.

    ‘I don’t believe it Phil. My aunt is gone.’

    ‘But she will be back, won’t she?’

    ‘I don’t think so. She is gone, gone, gone. The house is empty, bare. She didn’t leave a sock. Why would she just take off like that, without telling anyone?’

    ‘But Marg, are you sure?’

    ‘Nooo Phil! I’m not sure! I’m not even sure you are asking that question….of course I’m sure! There is more. The house number is gone too.’

    ‘But Marg, that is totally crazy. Just how can a house number disappear?’

    ‘Ask me, you will find out.’

    ‘Does it bother you Marg?’

    ‘Well….no….yes. Why? Shouldn’t it?’

    ‘I know it should. But Marg, not before tonight.’

    ‘I know Phil. It’s just that I can’t quite figure it out. It’s not like aunt Nancy. It doesn’t make sense Phil. Something is just not right.’

    ‘I know Marg. I understand. Let’s worry about it after tonight, okay?’ I said. She just nodded. If I let her mind dwell on her aunt’s disappearance, she could spoil the whole thing. I thought to myself the only thing that would take her mind off it was granny. We went to granny to chat.

Sunday Morning, 2:40 pm  

The time for me to go up there came. My mind was telling me Nancy was not gone. She could not leave, not before I brought Jack and Busi back. She was somewhere up there waiting to help me. The stick, the powder, the mixture and the ointment couldn’t do it on their own. Or even worse, I couldn’t do it alone.

    Maybe the process involved a transient state of her body being non-existent, along with everything that would leave traces of her residence behind so that she could not be traced by the witches to where she was, which was obviously the spot of Jack’s disappearance. Maybe she put a spell on her neighbours. Maybe they were seeing her house normal. Maybe, they were seeing her go in and out of the house. Now I was thinking further:

    Maybe it was she who was watching me the other night, so wishing I would get out of there before I attracted anything undesirable before tonight. Maybe I was running away from her, because she got her wish across to me. There was very high possibility that my speculation was true.

    Marg asked me if I remembered the instructions. I told her like I remembered my name. I went to the wardrobe for the stuff. I opened the wardrobe and  just stared agape. I called Marg. The things were gone. They had been there all along because I had been checking them from the very first day I brought them from Nancy. On the previous night, before I went to the window, I checked them. They were all there. We looked everywhere in the room.

    ‘Marg, did you tell anyone, your friends?’

    ‘Nooo!’ Obviously, she didn’t like the question. Her response and the look she gave me said  it all. I sat on the bed and thought. Nancy had warned us to say nothing to no one about Sunday morning. What could have taken the things I was going to use? It didn’t matter what. The things could only be gone by talking about it.

    If Marg didn’t, who did? It was obvious I did. Marg’s aunt never specified the ways in which talking about it would ruin it because there was one obvious way; to tell someone. I have this problem which does not often take place, so my folks say. I talk in my sleep. I must have sleep-talked and blabbed what I was expressly told not to talk about. I must have explained everything to Jack on Friday night, since he was invisibly in my room as I heard him cough.

    I lay on the bed and stared in space not knowing what to do. Then I jumped out of bed and startled Marg. The wooden ceiling was replaced by the wall ceiling. I looked  around and the door was gone, only the wall was there. I rushed to the window and opened the curtains and was confronted by the wall. Now I panicked, especially when Marg started crying like a small child. When she wanted to scream, I stopped her and told her nobody would hear her scream, we were in the confines of solid walls. I begged her to calm down, we had about 2 hours before dawn cracked.

    We sat on the bed. She asked me what had she gotten herself into. I told her it went for me as well. I bowed my head, thought….and remembered. Considering the things I had been seeing across the street from my room window, this could be granny’s doing. I called out granny’s name so loud that Jack reappeared in a flash, like a flickering light, and in less than a second returned to invisibility saying 2 words. His words were:

   “Grandma’s Sofa.”

When he reappeared and disappeared he was standing next to the chair, on which he coughed the other night. Then we looked at each other and Marg smiled. The door  was back. Everything was back to normal. So calling granny out loud worked, I thought. I told Marg I was going to take a look at that sofa in the morning. She asked me how, granny would be sitting in it. I told her I would come up to her as if I came to chat. Then I would pull her out of it unexpectedly. By the time she tried anything, I would have seen what Jack wanted me to see. Maybe it was going to do the trick as well and bring Jack and Busi back from the abyss of witchcraft. Marg asked me a question that

sent my heart pounding against my ribs.

    ‘Say Phil, if you couldn’t remember to call granny, what would happen?’ I told her I didn’t know. She said she did.

    ‘Same thing that is happening to Jack now. We would be locked in this airless room until we died. In the morning your folks and everybody else would see your normal room and the normal us, to them, while the real us are kept in this dungeon-like confinement until we became bones.’ She said. I told her she was right and told her she had just made me realize something that could terribly be true. I could have been friends with the 2nd body of the real Jack made by the abominable diabolists when they bewitched Jack, whenever that was, and never knew because nobody could tell the difference, as the case is, as I speak.

3½ Hours Later

When I woke up at 7:30am, the sun was sizzling already. Granny would be out in the sun. I left Marg in the room and crossed the street. When I got there she was alone in the house. She thanked me for coming because they forgot to take her out. I took the sofa to the lawn first. On the lawn there were 4 small patches of dry grass the size of the legs of the sofa. I put the sofa in its usual position and took a muse on it.

    It was slightly curved in. I lifted the cushion, jumped back and stared horror-stricken. There were 1000s of fat lice. They writhed at the glaring sun. I quickly replaced the cushion and ran home. My father always kept a petrol in the garage. I poured a 750ml bottle, hid it in my jacket and rushed back to the sofa. I opened the cushion and the lice moved. I felt an irresistible urge to dip my hand into them. I swallowed hard staring down at them. They were lice alright, and they nipped. But I had no choice. I wanted to reach the bottom and discover what lay beneath. This was what Jack wanted me to do.

    I took off my jacket and rolled my shirt sleeve up to the shoulder joint. I dipped my arm and quickly noticed something. As my arm went down through their congestion, I was supposed to feel some kind of formication as they writhed. I felt nothing, like my arm was not there. I went deep down and made another startling discovery. I was not reaching the bottom of the sofa and I had reached the shoulder joint, and couldn’t go any further than that. The lice were supposed to cling to my arm and spread right up to my neck and inside my shirt down my ribs. But they did not cling.

    I pulled my arm out. There was not a single louse on my arm. But there was something else. My arm was coated with a rancid dark blue slimy substance that made me retch. I took my shirt off and wiped the thing off my arm. My arm turned pale. I poured half of the bottle on the lice and set them alight. I watched the sofa burn. Black smoke came from the sofa as it burned. I looked up at the window of granny’s room wondering if she was seeing the smoke, and would call me if she was. But she could not see the smoke. Her window was dark and misty. That surprised me because the smoke from the burning sofa was blowing to the opposite direction.

    The sofa burned to ashes and suddenly, where the sofa was, a hole, which was not there before, about 60cm in diameter, opened up and the ashes went inside the hole. I threw the remaining half of the petrol into the dark hole, lit the match stick and threw it inside. A moment later, as I watched the fire surfacing in small fragments, black smoke shot out of the hole into the air and headed the same way the Mercedez Benz took. Along with the smoke were screams of mixed voices of people so loud that everybody nearby, who had since been watching, looked up in the sky expecting to see people flying in the air. But the only thing they saw was the smoke.

Jack’s mother and the girls arrived. When she asked me what was going on, I told her I saw Jack  last night. I told her what happened. She asked where her mother was. I told her she was in her room. She rushed in and I followed. When we got inside, a beautiful woman was lying on granny’s bed. She was so pretty and so very dead. While I was in a state of real confusion, the girls frightened me. They jumped to the bed at the same time screaming, calling the dead woman on the bed their mother. I thought they had undergone a sudden transitory state of a fit of some kind. But when I looked at their real mother, she had bowed her head as an indication of some sort. Where was granny? Without a doubt, Jack’s mother had the explanation. So I demanded it. That white Mercedez Benz I once saw through my room window hovering over Jack’s home belonged to the reverend of The Meridian church. The rev’s mother died 2 years ago. Jack’s mother was the daughter of the reverend. The reverend’s mother died at the same age as granny. Granny was the younger sister of Jack’s mother who had taken up the reverend’s mother’s appearance when she died in 1990.

    The reverend’s only wish in his entire life was to become a reverend, and be recognized as a qualified reverend, who had studied theology. But his lack of education disadvantaged him. He would do anything under the sun to become the reverend.

    Jack’s real mother was his mother’s younger sister whom I had taken to be granny. Jack’s real mother’s sister never had children in her life. To have one, at least, was something she always prayed for. But God would not give.

    Under the reverend’s mother’s spells, Jack and his sisters would know their real mother’s sister as their mother, the greatest reward she could ever ask for, for keeping quiet. And she did keep her mouth shut until the last moment.

    The reverend’s mother could easily make her son the reverend he always wanted to be, and get him the highest respect of the real reverend, on one condition; that he would continue her darkest practice; the devil worshipping practice. For her son to be able to continue, the reverend’s mother would transmit her powers to her son’s younger child which would transform her into her own self, the granny that I always liked. That way the reverend would be able to do all evil, thanks to his mother. As long as they saw their granny, Jack and his sisters would remain bewitched.

    The reverend would really do anything to become the reverend he was, including becoming a diabolist. That explained why no one else other than granny ever sat in that sofa. It housed the concomitance of granny’s grandmother’s evil powers, without which the revelation of granny’s other real self occurred.

   But then it did cross my mind while I was listening that Jack knew something his aunt didn’t know. He mentioned granny’s sofa and the whole thing fell apart. But what else did Jack know besides his granny’s sofa that his aunt didn’t know? No one would ever know because Jack himself was gone. 

    That explained why he became the victim of witchcraft. Our friendship was growing stronger by the day. The reverend feared that Jack would one day wake up feeling like spilling the beans. Or he would feel as long as he didn’t let me in on a secret, we were no best friends. That meant I had been friends with the real Jack. Either way, I was not too sure.

    By the time Jack’s aunt finished, my mind was made up. I left her sobbing and the girls crying on their mother’s chest. Outside there was a crowd of people that included my folks and Marg. I went home for another petrol. I filled the bottle once more, hid it and went out, and up the street to the church. The reverend’s house was inside the church premises. Inside the church was the reverend’s wife kneeling before the altar praying. She didn’t see me as her back was turned to the entrance.

    I backed off not wanting her to see me. She was not the one I wanted. I went to the house. The door was opened. I got in and checked the reverend in all the rooms, and found him in their bedroom, lying on the bed not looking well, his eyes closed. I went there expecting him to be like that or worse, because I destroyed the significant part of him. I poured the whole bottle around the outline of his body and set the bed alight. I spurted out and locked him inside. There was no other way out. All the windows had burglar proofs. I stepped out of the house and slowly walked to the gate, expecting to hear an outburst of the reverend’s hoarse scream. I walked halfway, stopped and looked back. No scream came out of the house, but the fire had come out of the house spreading. I asked myself what the hell did I burn in there. I didn’t burn a corpse. He was alive when I got in his bedroom.

    Then I heard a wild scream coming from inside the church. I saw the reverend’s wife running out berserk saying there were screaming voices of invisible people that were shouting the reverend’s name inside the church. She ran towards the house, and then suddenly stopped. The fierce fire was leaping sky high.

Remember that story I overheard with Jack at the tavern? That must have been the rev’s doing. As for Jack, he totally ceased because from the following day Monday, to the next Monday, I never heard him breath next to me nor do all the things that convinced me he was always with me. Maybe his voice was one of those that came screaming out of the dark hole. Busi too could never come back because I destroyed the reverend, the person who knew their whereabouts.

    As for Nancy, nobody knows anything about her. It’s been 8 long days since she vanished off the face of the earth. It would have been the nicest thing, considering, if ever my speculation turned out to be true, that Nancy had gone to the spot of Jack’s disappearance to help me bring Jack and Busi back, having felt that I could not do it alone. She would return any moment as I have failed, though I did something important as well, by destroying the reverend. But if, for some strangest reasons that could not be explained, as Nancy was known to be immune to witchcraft, she really did become the victim of witchcraft and her voice was among those that came screaming out of the hole, or she was among the invisible people that were screaming inside the church, there was no hope of ever seeing her again. But what about the dream I just had about her coming home? If I had  the dream a week after what I thought was the end of the story, then without a doubt the story has not yet ended.