As she dropped at her stop, she felt a certain disquiet. The
silence of the night was not helping. Nor was the darkness. It embraced her all
around as soon as the sounds of the bus died away. Though Steph could walk home
from the bus stop in a blindfold, she’d never come this late home before.
Recent disturbances in the area had made being home on time a cardinal
principle. Her saving grace tonight was that her parents were out for the
weekend and since her older brothers took the freedom to party at a friend’s,
she was going to have the house to herself.
“If not for the traffic, se I’d have been home two hours
ago?” she spoke the words out, ostensibly to herself to break the monotonous
silence. “At least by then, there’d have still been some life on this cursed
street.”
A lone car zoomed by, its headlights illuminating the area
very briefly. It’ll have been easy to forgive thinking the driver was being
chased by the devil himself.
Steph glanced at her wristwatch. She only saw a blank wrist.
Her eyeballs enlarged as her breath caught in her throat. Her initial
consternation about how her watch could’ve been picked off of her wrist without
her knowing was quickly calmed by her recollection. She remembered she had put
it in her breast pocket to avoid that very occurrence. She heaved a sigh. She could
feel its presence as she reached for it.
The illuminated dials of the watch told her it was a quarter
to midnight. She returned it to her pocket.
In the distance, she could make out the sounds of a lone
generator. Someone must be invested in burning the scarce fuel for a reason.
Others who often left their generating sets churning all night seemed to be
rationing due to the prevailing scarcity.
Steph rummaged through her bag. She found her phone and
checked the battery level.
5 percent remaining.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 had switched to auto-battery-saver
mode. As she turned on the torchlight app, it beeped.
4 percent remaining.
“That ought to get me home,” Steph consoled herself,
shrugging.
She was going to have to use the long route, she thought as
she began to leave the bus stop. Most of the reports they had heard about
harassments and robberies have been around short cuts people took to get home
faster.
Her actions since the bus left her calmed her down some. Talking
to herself, checking for her watch and using her phone were eerily consoling. They
seemed to take her mind off the drab loneliness of the dark and hushed silence
of the night. It occurred to her that even the shrill sounds she was used to hearing
from crickets were muted tonight. Was nature conspiring to make this more
dreadful than it already was?
A draft of air blew the scarf she had around her neck and it
brushed slightly on the exposed part of her nape. Steph jerked in reflex and
turned around sharply only to realise it was her own scarf.
“Ooosh!” she exclaimed angry at the realisation, stamping
her right foot on the ground.
“If only I could call Flex,” she muttered under her breath
trying to get her breathing back under control. She dragged the scarf off her
neck and stuck it vehemently into her bag not minding the coldness of the
night.
But she knew “Flex” (the fond nickname of her eldest
brother) and Tay would both be at Kay’s place for the night. Kay wouldn’t let
his two best buds leave the party in honour of his promotion. In fact, they’d
end up turning her condition into a point of ridicule. She wasn’t about to
allow them that satisfaction.
On this night, she was alone.
Steph steeled herself against her fears and braved it. One
step in front of the other.
To take her mind off the blood pumping against her ears as
the adrenaline oozed through her system, she recalled several things she’d read
about conquering fear and triumphing against panic. Those motivational themes
that have become the stuff of social media image-sharing, liking and
commenting. Memes that have been applied across the internet in every fashion
possible. The staple for profile and display pictures.
“Fear is false evidence appearing real.” (or, “face
everything and rise”)
“The only thing to fear is fear itself.”
“Trust few. Fear none.”
“Even though I walk through the valley of death…”
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest
fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…”
“Confront your fear.”
As if on cue, she heard a sound. Just as she was beginning
to feel at ease, the shuffling to her right caught her attention. She was still
trying to turn her arm towards the sound to beam the torchlight in that
direction when it occurred to her that it wasn’t a shuffling.
It was the sound of sniffing.
As the light fell on the figure that produced the sound, Steph
felt her chest tighten. For the fraction of a second, her breathing stopped. Her
throat dried instantaneously. Simultaneously with the dilation of her pupils
was the quadrupling of her heartbeat. Transfixed by the fear of her situation,
she didn’t dare even draw a breath nor blink. The paralysis was complete. Total.
Scalp to sole.
It growled. Angrily. The reflective cones in its eyes shone
the light back at Steph, piercing her very being.
Steph willed herself to move. The impulse may have been sent
from the brain but it didn’t transmit as expected. She was still still. Seeing the
biggest canine ever, in the desolation of lonely darkness, some distance from
your place of residence and with no one to call for assistance does that to the
human physique and response system.
After what seemed like an eternity, but in purely human
terms was short of two seconds, it blinked. That seemed to break its hold on
Steph as she broke into a heart-wrenching scream that seemed to shock her
herself. And when the dog heard it, it jumped towards Steph.
Her eyes engorged.
Steph’s body needed no further impulses. All those
adrenaline sloshing through her nervous system dynamised her into action. She abandoned
the direct route to her house and after two long strides forward, swerved
sharply left.
The low fence of the Fatuki’s (an understated short cut of
her childhood days) had been raised three years before but stubborn users had
found a way through by taking off three cement bricks from the adjoining fence.
It was often a dangerous act to try at night and stories abound of residents
being waylaid on the other end. Nothing of that worried Steph at this moment.
Far from her considerations were any human threats. The breathless canine
behind her carried a far serious threat and whatever put distance between them
was game.
When she got to the fence, she realised it wasn’t as her
brothers, who used it often to laugh at the rationale of the Fatuki
fence-increment, described. Fear gripped her loins. She was sweating. And panting.
And the dog was closing in.
Flex had said he usually dragged an old crate of minerals
left by the fence and using that as leverage, scaled the fence with ease. Before
reaching the wall, Steph had used her phone’s light to scan the area around the
wall and seen no crate. Now standing here with no options of retreat and with
no crate, she forced her racing mind filled with the dreadful things that could
happen should that animal reach her first, to think. No thoughts came except
that she had to get to the other side of the wall.
She wasn’t thinking of impossibilities as she quickly moved
backwards and created space between herself and the wall. With everything she
could muster, she paced, leapt off the ground and grabbed the area of the fence
where some three bricks had been taken off and heaved the rest of her frame
over it. It was just as her feet hit the ground on the other side that the dog
came crashing into the wall, unable to halt its blind speed to get to her on
time.
As she rolled on her haunches to break the impact of her
fall, she heard the dog growling and barking violently. The sounds seemed to be
receding. But there was no time to think of that.
She turned around and dashed into the space between the
Fatukis and the Obongs. In less than five seconds, she’d made it to a path that
was a little more than a stone throw from her place. Without pausing for
breath, she flung herself in that direction.
Just as she was thinking her situation over, the dog pounced
on her from her left. She’d been blindsided. She didn’t see that coming. The force
of the attack tripped her. As she crashed to the ground with the dog virtually
on top of her, she let out another shrill scream.
In a totally reflex move, she swung her bag. The heavy side
of the bag connected with the out-hanging tongue of the dog and its jaw. The impact
tossed the dog off her temporarily. It was all she needed to find her feet. Desperately,
she struggled to stand but fear was beginning to take its effect again. She tried
harder and her left leg buckled under her and she found herself falling. She looked
up ahead, foreboding writ large all over her facial features. She was only two
doors away from her house.
As she turned around, with her back on the ground, she met
the very grim look of the now bleeding canine. It could sense its victory. It had
her pinned to the ground, paralysed by dread. Nowhere to go. She opened her
mouth to scream, but fear had taken that ability too.
Nothing came out.
As the dog approached her menacingly, she forced her legs to
kick out at it. As if expecting that, it effortlessly avoided her kicks. They were
too slow for the dog. She wanted to swing her bag again but it was no longer in
her grip. Steph wasn’t going to just stay there and become dog food. So, she
turned around and crawling on all fours tried to put some distance between
herself and the mongrel.
It jumped on her. It was heavy enough to force her down on
her stomach. She heaved herself up to disbalance it and turned around. She froze
with fright as she watched it tense, drop a little on its haunches and leap
into a dive at her. Weak from her exhaustions and seeing what little options
she had left, she screamed and closed her eyes unable to see what may result.
A second passed. And another.
Nothing.
Then it occurred to her that she was hearing growls and snapping
of canine teeth.
Slowly, she dared to open her eyes. She hadn’t been more
pleased to see another animal in her life. It was their neighbour’s dog,
Denver. Smaller than the one attacking her by a mile, it was resolutely
standing between the mongrel and Steph. Each growl that dog made was matched by
a louder one from Denver. It tried to get around Denver to Steph and Denver
equalled it with tooth and claw. They went at each other, rolling in the dirt
and snapping at one another. At a point, the bigger dog turned and fled with
Denver in pursuit.
Steph sat still. On the ground. And she wept.
Her tears weren’t only for the relief she felt. Of course
she was. But more than that, she wept because of all those in her house, she
was the most undeserving of Denver’s help. She loathed the dog. She felt it was
smelly and never satisfied. When others served it leftovers, she wrinkled her
nose in disgust. She rebuffed all its attempts to be friendly and on occasion
had cause to chase it away with a stick or stones.
As she got up, wiping her tears and picking up her belongings,
she thanked the dog in her heart. Denver had not returned when she entered her
house that night. But she knew she’d made a new friend. One who was there when
it mattered most, even if she hadn’t been friendly herself.
PHCN restored power as she undressed. She’d acquired not a
few scrapes and bruises here and there but she knew she’d survive. As she made
to plug her S4 to charge, she saw a Facebook notification. She smiled and shook
her head at the meme as she dropped her phone and went to bed. If only her
friend Facebook friend Sophie, who posted the meme, knew. If only.
It read:
“Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Courage means
you don’t let fear stop you.”
