The Long Road Home

Life as a police man don’t give no one, not in the least me, the chance to explore beyond the scope of whatever the job has designed for you. There are no vacations to exotic locations, trips to The Grand Canyon or Disneyland, no kayaking or sky diving, none of those things which make other men delighted. This is why being a policeman, for me, has got to be the best job a man like me can ever wish for. There is the basics every policeman must have; a well ironed uniform, gun and its holster, a walkie-talkie to call on dispatch as at when needed, and a frown, every police man must need wear a frown to look as stern as possible. And this last bit is why I know a man like me is in the best job anyone can ever pray for as all my life, I’ve been described as devoid of facial features which might be in the least bit, appealing.

Man like me is simple, a model for other police officers, near a pariah of sorts at the work place. For what I lack in facial worthiness, I more than make up for with my dogged zeal to excel at every mission presented, and with toning my body to the most perfect proportions that it can ever aspire to be.

The Tata House by the corner, mashed into the string of buildings on String Avenue is where the lads and I go to share a drink after a long day at work, chasing bad guys. Some men get their thrills from a soft bosom and a properly lubricated twat, while others get their excitement at the end of a can of Vodka. As for me, give me a good mystery to solve, a good mission to accomplish, and watch me cum in my pants from the sheer exhilaration.

And lately, discussions at The Tata House have made me giddy with excitement. Buddy is the guy who’s tasked with filing cases at our office. Thing is while the world has evolved to using them smart phones and Apple laptops to secure files adequately, we still prefer the old paper and clip methods. Being a voracious reader as Buddy is, he always has a fresh tale to tell us. Seeing how Buddy tells his tales, it is easy to imagine that he was there in the field while the lads and I, or policemen from the past, went about business. But I never seen a man scared of guns the way Buddy is. Pull out a gun on him and Buddy becomes more honest than a d**k. In The Tata house, down by the east corner of it where the light is most dim, is where the lads and I go to share drinks at the end of the day, all five of us. Our ladies at home have so often expressed their concern over a band of policemen whiling away time that could have been spent all up in their guts, savoring them, on a place as dingy and grimy as The Tata House is. But we often wave off their warnings as idle talk, whatever tale Buddy has got to tell us is usually more interesting and if Buddy has no tales, then we take our drinks in silence and we find our ways home.

Last night, Buddy told us a tale that still gives me the chills till today. To hear him tell it was like hearing a bishop preach about the revelations and the end times.  Buddy did gesticulations, oooohed and aaahed as appropriate, and filled the lads and me with such fear as we have not known before. What was most worrying was that this tale was an unsolved mystery, made me gaggle spit in my mouth and then swallow. I’m sure the lads could see the sweat run down my neck as Buddy spoke about a file, dubbed Case X.

Here is the story as Buddy told it.

Two men walked into a bar on a hot Saturday afternoon. The men, stevedores, thirsty after a day spent anchoring ships to shore had just come in for a drink and to see the premier league game. Other workers saw them go in, and the guy at the bar could swear they sat at the corner drinking, after which, they followed a lady out. The men were never seen or heard from again. No trace. The police scoured every micro inch of the city and its surroundings but the men had vanished. And this mysterious lady was nowhere to be found as well. The only thing that the server at the bar remembered of her was she walked with a limp, and she had an overbite.  Dentists made more money in the two weeks after that than they had made their entire lives as women, and men, flocked in to have their teeth done so as to avoid being suspected.

Buddy told the story slow slow, shutting his eyes theatrically when he said the word, “vanished.” It happened again in another state, the same plot. Two men walk into a bar, they both happily leave with a limping woman, and they never return.

“La diablesse,” I whispered. I whispered it low so the lads wouldn’t hear but as I said it, I believed it had to be “La diablesse!” for she was the devil in the form of a woman, preying on the wanton souls of wayward men.

I began to feel my heart beat more patiently as I concentrated keenly on all the details Buddy gave. The men left long before I left The Tata House that night, and only a polite prompting from the waitress on duty made me leave my perch. That night, I couldn’t sleep. The lady tried to mount me but I wouldn’t budge and after she saw the futility in her efforts, she grabbed a pillow and made for the child’s room. On another day, I might have tried to seek absolution by following her and banging her on the staircase. But last night, a different kind of demon caused a stir in my head.

Today, I grab Buddy from his office and I say to him, “that story you told us yesterday…true or made up?” Buddy looks at me puzzled, and he asks,” What story?”

For a second I think that maybe Buddy made the whole thing up, but I persist, “the one about the limping woman?’

“OOOOOH,” Buddy exclaims, “it’s true as sunrise.”

‘Bring me the file, Case X, please.”

I spend the whole afternoon flipping through the pages of the bulky file and making mental notes. One thing has become solid in my mind, that the only time a sighting was made of two men led by a woman outside the bar the trio was headed down the mountain trail on east Wrapper road. I get my booths and I get my jacket, determined to follow that trail, see where it leads. I also get my gun and I pack extra bullets. There isn’t any man alive who’s seen La Diablesse and lived to tell the story. It was a thirty minute drive to Wrapper road and an hour’s drive to the mountain, El Grouchie.

On the way, simple folk with their water buckets looked at me drive past like I must be insane for approaching the mountain with such confidence. Rumors were that El Grouchie didn’t like visitors. Some men went there and came back missing a limb, others missed two limbs and would later be found in the river on the west side of the mountain, very dead.

I step out of my car and I face the towering mass that is El Grouchie. Finally, here is a mission that makes my blood boil. i don’t know which I feel more, excitement or fear. This is a good thing for me, so I take a deep breath and I approach the mountain, one steady foot after another. I must have seemed like a fool to the many locals now watching me, their eyes begging me to come back, their lips sealed. El Grouchie has a soft base, finding your way to higher ground don’t take too much intellect. Unlike Everest or Kilimanjaro, you don’t need so much in the way of tools or smarts to ascend El Grouchie. Heck, you can run up this mountain if you have solid lungs as even at the top, it is not so steep as other mountains are.

Midway through my climb, I am enveloped by a thick forest of baobab trees. I keep walking, I notice a trail of soldier ants on the rock beside me, and they move like they are following me. But this I dismiss, the ants must be following the scent of sugar somewhere.

I feel a drop of rain on my nose, and a pang of fear makes me begin to really wonder my mission to El Grouchie. What In the world do I hope to achieve? Not up to five seconds after this thought has passed through my mind, the rain begins to poor heavy.  Bats, disturbed by the rain begin to fly about, bumping into each other and into me. I start to run back, the squish squash sound I make as my booths hit the ground is the only noise I hear. The path before me, leaves reaching down and emptying their contents on the forest floor, frogs hopping away from my pounding booths, is what I notice. Till I hear a shrill, piercing voice that isn’t the squish squash of rapidly displaced mud, and I notice something new; those ants are now moving in the direction that I am moving, and they seem to be in haste as well. This brings a daunting realization to my mind.

I am the sugar.

Just when I reckon that things cannot get any worse, before me I see a glade, which was not here before.  In the middle of the glade, I see the most beautiful woman, a thread and needle in her hands, she is sewing a cloth. We lock eyes, and she smiles the most evil smile I’ve seen in my life. She is dressed in a red cloth, her neck is thin, near malnourished, yet she carries it with grace. I notice at once that the helm of the garment she wears is frayed, ripped apart as though by a ferocious animal. I am not running, I can feel water slide into my booths, and my stockings are wet. She is watching me with those eyes of hers, brown eyes, brown fingernails, all so brown brown, the color of evil.

She sees my right hand twitch and she frowns, she knows what I want to do.

“La diablesse?” I whisper, and she frowns harder, her eyes cold, icy slits.

She drops the cloth she is sewing, and she looks at me, before she gets on all fours, poised like a beast. On instinct I bring out my gun and I fire two shots. When she cleanly dodges both shots, darting this way and then that with inhumane speed, is when I drop my gun and run.

I run back, up the mountain, it gets darker and darker as I move and more and more bats bump into me, their squawking mouths the last thing I see before shoving them away. I hear her huffing and puffing after me, and I feel the panic up in my chest.

I feel hands reaching for me, and the fear in me doubles, I miss my step and I fall.

As I fall, I see La Diablesse looking down at me, with a smile on her face.

Landing on the bed of shrubbery that border El Grouchie to one side is what saves my fall from being fatal. Still, soon as I drop, I hear a crack in my arm. It takes me a second to shake off the effects of the fall, and I manage a look at my gun hand, and I see bone sticking out my elbow like white plastic, rain washing the blood down into the floor below.

I hear that evil shriek, closer and closer it comes, it feels as if La diablesse is assailing the mountain on a skate board.

This is when I pass out.

When I wake up, first thing I notice is the red eyes that watch me, and a fear more sinister than hell grips my soul. I begin to shout and scream, my heart pounding hard in my chest, and my teeth biting hard at the hands that try to restrain me.

“Shh boy!” a voice says. “We no la diablesse! We village folk who save your life!”

I notice the faces around me now, shy and apprehensive, and I fall asleep.

There wasn’t much that happened in my life after that experience. It have a reason why some of we men choose a life of silence, it have a reason why we prefer to pull the strings than to be in the act. These days, when the lads convince me about having drinks at The Tata House, I tell them,

“No sirs. Thank you.”

And I take the long road home to my lady and child.