Bloodline by Ray Anyasi
Synopsis
Lazarus Mottaboh is lured into a jungle where an annual cult sacrifice is to take place by his half brother Allienah. He is promised a wild exciting getaway with beautiful girls, but in reality, he is the ritual lamb walking into his own execution.
He is already nested inside the ritual hut when he realizes what is going on and he must fight or die.
The Old Vox
He made me drive all the way. He knew so well how much I detested that stupid endeavor of sitting my butt on that narrow driver’s seat of the old Vox and my hands steadily on the rusty wheels for anything more than an hour.
Yet he made me do it for almost half a day. Allienah Mottaboh, my brother had that effect on people. He had a way of making you do what you would ordinarily rather let go an arm and a leg than have to do.
“We are only 11 miles away now, Lazarus.” He told me absently.
“Only eeelevun?” I scoffed at him, “My arms would fall off like dead wood any moment from now.”
“Please persevere, please. It would be worth it.”
Damn right, it would be worth the hellish stress.
Allienah cautiously drummed his fingers on the photograph. The seven inches wide bright photo of the four girls we plan to meet at the Murchison Falls National Park.
Allienah had phoned me last Thursday. He told me he was going for a certain professional retreat which promised to be filled with explosive fun. He wanted my old Vox as we use to call it. It was my father’s Volkswagen, Allienah and I learnt to drive with it. Allienah had his first sex -and many more- in it…till our father got too broke and decided to sell it. Then, I just got a new job in Kampala and could afford to pay him what he wanted for the old Vox.
It is best to keep the old Vox in the family. We all agreed so, and it was so.
In this retreat Allienah was planning to go for at the ever exotic Murchison Falls National Park, there’re these girls he’d been making arrangement to meet.
“They are really eager to meet me, and you too. I told them about you,” he told me that day.
He got me there. He knew how to get me when he wanted to. Dangle any chance of meeting any girl with loose morals at me and my stupid brain will begin to dance around you forever.
“You mean I can come with you?” I asked him, trying to suppress the excitement in my tone. I don’t want him to get the feeling I was still doing the little brother thing again. The little brother thing was how our father used to describe me always wanting to go out with Allienah.
“I may not be so sure about you coming with me, you will meet them eventually on a latter day, but not now.” He said slowly.
And so, I gave up the hope of going with him to see these girls. But I did not stop dreaming of the latter day I would get to meet them. The next Thursday, yesterday in the evening, Allienah came to pick the old Vox in my house. The time had come for his retreat of explosive fun. He however came with a bandaged left hand.
“What happened to your hand?” I thought it was a serious injury, it appeared swollen, and he winced each time he moved the hand more than an inch, “It must be painful.”
Allienah nodded, “I tripped while going up the stairs at the house. I had to put in my hand,” he thrust his bad hand forward in an ungainly demonstration, “to break the fall.”
“Ouch.”
“Yes, painful.”
I handed him the key. “I have a little gas in it, you’ll need only a bit top up.”
He threw the key right back at me, “Please come with me, I can’t drive like this.”
I thought so too. It was perfect that I let him mention that and ask my help.
“How sad,” I said dourly, “I have plans for the weekend already. What if you find someone else?”
“I would rather go with you. Besides, the girls now think you are coming with me.”
Oh God of Dave the papa of Solomon. The girls…
“You should have told me earlier, Allienah.”
“Drop whatever plans you made. This would be more fun than you can ever imagine. Lazarus, I swear to you these girls are easy, yet charming.” He tossed the photo my way. Across the table between us.
I glanced.
Oh God of Dave the papa of Solo the wise king. Charming was the meanest understatement for these goddesses.
Four angels, holding hands and laughing sparklingly into the rising sun by the beach. A rolling wave of white-water wall formed the background of the photo. They wore anything sinfully skimpy. From bum shorts to bikini tops. The girl on the extreme right was skinny and tall. She’s dark, as dark as a mahogany wood charcoal and her bright smile dared the sun to do better. She had only a brown transparent gown that struggled to cover only one third of her thigh. No bra…nipples poking out daringly, and G-strings whose color the transparent gown would not let me tell showed all the same.
Standing next to her was the shortest of them and I had little interest in her. She was very dark, and her lips seemed to be too much for one person. She was alarmingly odd in the photo, but something tells me she wouldn’t appear that bad if she was standing between baby monkeys. The next girl must be sisters with the first. Same dark skin, same height, same eyes and smile. She had black bum shorts and bikini tops. I could swear l’d seen her in a bikini commercial. Then on the extreme left was a Mulatto beauty.
God knows I’ve been dying to do a Mulatto damsel.
Olive oil skin, chumpy cat eyes, cupid’s bow lips and all that.
I gasped deeply at the photo then placed my thumb on the Mulatto’s belly, “This is my favorite anytime anywhere.”
“Oh well,” Allienah said agreeably, “anything you do, stay away from this,” he placed his finger on the short girl -the one that would never give me a boner even if she forced a truck load of Viagra down my throat while wearing Olivia’s costumes in that Candy Shop music video.
“As you wish,” I said.
“And this one,” he pointed at the skinny black girl next to the Mulatto, “I think she’s engaged.”
I liked her sister in transparent gown more. No problem at all.
My arms were numb, my head ached, my limbs were stiffened…yet I must go on driving. I must keep on because at the end of the road, Christina was waiting. Christina, was the Mulatto. The Mulatto with the real, long, brown hair.
I glanced at the photo for the 768th time. Four of them girls smiling at me most cheerfully. I rammed my aching right foot on the accelerator and the old Vox jerked up a tad more speed. The road was now a narrow strip of half a century old tar that can barely take two vehicles without one beating some bushes by the side.
There were a million potholes per mile of road so that the old Vox‘s shock absorber could not help but give way only after six miles into this stretch of the road. Still, we cared less, Christina was the consolation…no, the golden prize.
We left Kampala as early as six AM and by Allienah’s estimation we should be hugging and pecking the girls by five PM.
And by nine I should be humping my not-so-smart brains away.
“Lazarus, I should drive now,” Allienah said supportively. He was gently stroking his bad hand under the white bandage with the other.
“You’ll worsen your hand.”
“I think you are feeling dizzy, you will run us into a tree soon.”
I smiled a dirty smile, “Keep the photograph where I can always see them.”
He grinned understandably and slid the photo to my side of the dashboard. A dirty young man just like me. It’s silly and very awkward for a man to do that to a fellow man, not to mention an elder brother, but I stole an uncanny brief second to glance at him below the belt. Looking for a bulge. I wanted an assurance I was not alone in this. That he too was madly looking forward to tonight’s nastiness. No bulge. I looked away quickly. Naughty me.
It’s four PM and we were yet not anywhere near a human settlement. It had been 24 miles ago since we passed the last civilization and from Allienah’s oil-soiled map it was not supposed to be so. We should have been in the environs of the National Park. Somewhere in its outskirts perhaps. But no, we were on an endless stretch of road that ran through dense woodland of the rain forest of northern Uganda.
Allienah hunched over his map. Middle finger tracing a line on it and poker face dripping sweat on the left edge. “I fear we might have taken the wrong turn back there,” he declared grimly.
I immediately began to step gently on the brake pedal, “I was suspecting so all along.”
“By this moment we should have entered the township of someplace near.”
“Instead of this everlasting narrow road.” I had now pulled over for us to concentrate on figuring out our route.
“This is where I think we are,” he pointed on a spot on his map. It’s a tourist map he detached from the back of those diaries they sell to you every year end or year start in bus stations in central Kampala.
I looked at where he pointed, a hill region somewhat away from our destination. He read maps better than I did. “What does it mean?”
“If we go on like this, it will take another sixteen miles before we find the next settlement for a gas station.”
“I can’t tell how long the gas can take us.”
“We should turn and head back to that last turn.”
“That’s like 25 miles or so.”
“We can’t go on traveling into unknown regions.”
I sighed, “As if we’re not already in an unknown region.”
“So, you agree with me?”
“Were we having an argument?” I adjusted on my seat. My physical fatigue was seemingly getting to my mind.
He folded the map and faced me squarely. “I propose we turn and return to the junction we had the last turn, and you do not seem to be convinced it was a good idea.”
“That could be because sixteen miles forward before the nearest settlement is more logical than twenty-five back only for another turn. We need fuel as fast as we can get it and food too. Moreover, if we find other humans they can give us a better road description to follow than this piece of paper.” I nodded derisively at his map.
“Two is always good for a trip,” he smiled mildly; “I would have made a terrible error.”
I started the engine to continue forward. By this time, I was losing hope about fulfilling my boyhood dream of doing a Mulatto damsel by nine PM. I was certain however about the next day.
If we get to the settlement sixteen miles ahead and are able to find a gas station, we might as well be needing a motel. Because there was no way we would be risking a thirty to forty mile journey into nighttime in this part of the world. This world ruled by countless rebel groups and armed bandits. No way. Add that to the fact we do not know our way around…I wanted to see the next sunrise more than I wanted to see Christina.
Though seeing and doing the Mulatto Christina came closely right after seeing the next sunrise on the list.
