JUST US
Chapter 3 – Is it me or is it hot in here?
The next few weeks went by quite peacefully, with everyone in high spirits after the strange happenings, give or take a few break downs and headaches. One by one they had pulled themselves together; getting back to the roles their well oiled, friendship machine had moulded them into with time. The mental link we all suddenly shared was strange, but with it was a calming effect, kind of like the light which momentarily blinded and knocked us out had it’s own blend of, for lack of a better word, I’ll just say “sedative”. We all fooled around with the connection, calling each other at work or trying to get people to do stuff, but all in all the strangeness of the situation kind of just went unnoticed by those around us, not to mention how we all took it in stride. So one Sunday morning, the day started as normal, as usual Jane was the first one up, rushing to the shower and kicking Kike, Chichi and Tosin up to get ready for church, when they all stay over for the weekend it’s always the same come Sunday morning. Tosin has this deep seated Catholic guilt thing working for him and well, the girls were just brought up right. Marcus, Lanre and me, we’re kind of a different story. Since I moved out of the homestead I felt strange going to church without the family, even back in the days of the UK hustle I had a kind of church family, so now that the folks where far away, the laziness to start again kind of won most Sundays.
Any way the point is that by the time I got out of bed Lanre was hooked up to the Ps3 kicking ass in God of war while Marcus was walking in having gone for an earlier church service. I just had to laugh at the thought of the morning routine, everyone had random bits and bobs stored at my place, emergency party gear, assorted suit jackets and even some shoes, and that went for the girls too. So getting dressed was always a group activity. There have been many occasions my mum has come over and asked why I have bright red pumps under my bed, but that’s an entirely different story.
“Morning boys” I said as I walked out in my boxered glory “nice tie Marcus”
“Hey! My mom gave me this” Marcus said flourishing his red, white and blue tie in my face. “And besides, what are you heathens up to? More veging out indoors?”
“Heathens? He goes to church every now and then and all of a sudden we’re goat worshipers. Go figure” Lanre added without moving his head.
“Come on guys, let’s actually do something today. I feel refreshed with the lords blessing today so why don’t we actually spend some time under the sun for a change?” Marcus said sitting down next to Lanre.
I walked out of the kitchen with a partially buttered piece of toast in my hand and said “so what do you want to do? Take our new fond mental acrobatics on a test run? See how much free stuff we can get?”
“Hey now that’s an idea” Lanre said perking up and pausing mid slash.
“What are you guys like? It’s a Sunday and not even 12pm yet and you’re already thinking of ripping people off?” Marcus said swiping the pad from Lanre and turning his back to avoid his attempts at getting it back. “I was just thinking we should go swimming or something. It has been a while” he concluded giving Lanre back the pad to cries of “douche bag” and “shmuck”.
Squeezing in on the couch between the two of them, toast in hand I said “I guess swimming isn’t such a bad idea, really would be nice to loosen up before the week starts up again. May not be as fun as getting into movies free and stuff but yeah, it’s best to try and keep the Sabbath day holy”
So we goofed about for a little while then actually decided to get our asses out the door. It was now about 11 am and we must have been the only people in PH that wanted to swim. Charlie’s gym was like a ghost town but it didn’t really make a difference to us because it was a hot ass day.
As I dived in, the rush of refreshing coolness swept over me and underwater I thought “-come on in guys, the waters great-” and as proof that the heard me I distinctly heard them both yell “BANSI!” before they splashed down.
We had already sent bbm’s to the rest of the clique, even though Tosin had been bugging me about how boring today’s service was and how Mrs Odumotas hat looked like a seagull had flown in and landed on her head. Also Marcus had invited some girl he’s been trying to land from the Science and Technology University. All morning we had been fooling around with our telepathy so it had slowly become part of our pack mentality. We found out Lanre could send emotions at around 5 am when we inadvertently wondered if I would come out for a drink like I always do and catch Chichi giving him a “special” kind of job. Which made Jane roll over and remind me of my no sex punishment since our recent break up due to my prodding her back in a sudden wave of pleasure as Lanre finished, which we discussed telepathically soon after.
Kike told us service was over at around 12:30 and they all went to their various homes to get their stuff and what-not, so would be with us about 1. Then Tosin told only the guys that we should add time for girly-ness. So as we lounged, ordered chicken and chips and generally just fooled around we didn’t really notice the three men casually dressed come out on pool side. By the time we had actually realised we weren’t alone they had walked to the other side of the pool opposite us and stood in a line facing us.
“Who are those goof balls” Lanre asked “and why exactly are they posing for us?”
“Maybe they think we are agents or something, or August, did they recognize you from your column and think you own the mag or something?” Marcus added looking up at them with a drum stick in his hand.
Slapping Marcus, to stop his snickering, they always made fun of my relationship column in a Nigerian version of GQ, I said “Shut up yo, I have no idea what they want and I don’t want to know. You see the size of them?”
They were quit un-assuming and casually dressed but boy were they big. Marcus being the biggest, well tallest actually, of us all was nothing compared to them and Lanres lekpasious form was really nothing to write home about. Even though I had worked out a bit and played rugby I was more like an Independence Day will smith to their Ali versions. But before we had time to do any more analysis they held hands and started screaming, their voices went loud for a second then it was completely inaudible, but my head started ringing. Next thing I knew my motor skills where the next to go. I dropped my fork laden with chips and just before I collapsed off my deck chair I said “oh not again” and then I hit the floor at the same time as my friends and was out.
……….
“-August! You too de sleep jor! Wake up-” It was Tosins voice but I as I tried my hardest I couldn’t open my eyes. “-Are you up yet?-” he added, and it was obvious he was quite upset.
“-Where are you?-” I asked “-And more to the point where am I?-”
“-Hell if I know, I just got to Charlie’s and didn’t see you guys anywere, when I asked at the front desk they just said you guys left and where really rude to some girl at the door. I’m guessing it was that Marcus’s Ozioma babe-”
“-What…We left?-”
“-Yeah, when I saw your food half eaten on pool side, that when I started trying to call your phones, but their all off. I then remembered our Vulcan mind meld shit and have been calling you guys for the last two hours. You’re the only one I could feel was awake-”
“-This is fucked up man, and I’m starting to get tired of saying that. I can’t open my eyes or move my limbs dude, so I have no clue were we are. I’m pretty freaked out man-”
“-Urm, this may sound strange though, but is it me, or is it hot where you are?-”
“-I may not know were we are but that’s one thing I do know, it’s mighty toasty were ever here is… I can feel my shirt sticking to me from the sweat. How did you know?-”
“-Well like I said, this may sound weird. Every time I tried to reach Lanre with my mind I suddenly felt stuffy and hot, it just felt like I was reaching into where he was and well, it was hot man.-“
Just then I heard a moan not too far from me. “Lanre, Marcus, can you hear me?” I shouted.
“No need to yell man. I’m right next to you.” Came Marcus’s baritone voice “Can you open your eyes or move?”
“Nope, It’s like we’re paralyzed or something, and why the fuck is it so hot?” I said in obvious agitation.
“-Marcus, you ok?-“Tosin said from the drivers seat of his car outside my place.
“-Yeah man. Any idea where we are and who those three guys with the lungs were? Cause I bet that’s where we are-” Marcus said and with that it all came back to me, the hand holding, and vocal, head fuckers. Why did they do that, how did they do it and how did they even know where we were. Even we didn’t know we’d be there but a few hours earlier.
“-Shit I forgot about that-” I said and Tosin told me her heard my thoughts just now. “-We’re in it now guys, this is like some fucked up low budget Nollywood version of X-men and it sucks that I’m mot Wolverine or someone…-”
“-What do you guys want me to do, and what the fuck do I tell the girls?-” Tosin asked.
“-Tell them what happened and get the police or something. This is serious!-” Marcus interjected and as we both didn’t respond he added “-on second thought just make something up and keep them safe at Augusts place and forget what I said about the police-”
“-Yeah I thought so-” Tosin said “-With all the kidnapping that’s been going on it would have been easy just to say “We’ll figure this shit out” but I can’t lie, my hearts racing right now and I really don’t know what to do-”
“-We need to figure it our sharply, cause I’m sweating buckets and don’t know how long this fucking paralysis is going to last, what if these guys want to use us for juju or something?-” I said “-Marcus can you move yet?-”
“-I can wiggle my toes but that’s about it and please don’t even joke like that-” He said “-I know this is not the best time to say this but dude, I fricking told you so-“
Scoffing, I said “This is not really the best time or place for I told you so’s. Now why don’t we just figure out where the fuck we are and if we can get the damn ac on or something”
Just as I said that out loud I heard a shoe shuffle about 5 feet in front of me, I tried to open my eyes or move my head in its direction but I just couldn’t. Then footsteps on hard concrete started getting closer.
“Who you de talk to dia?” came a gruff voice from above me “you don de kolo or wetin?”
“Where are we” I asked “What do you want and why can’t we move?”
“Sharrap dia, before I woze you.” The voice said with such venom “make una just de dia, eh? Make I go call oga.” He said but not as if he was talking to us “him say make we call am when dem wake. So watch dem well oh. I de come”
I thought to myself “shit, shit, shit, we’ve been fucking kidnapped” then I said “-Tosin, it just got worse-”
Th3rd Culture 