Midnight Run

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.”