Chapter 6

The driver dropped her at her place at about 12:30 A.M. Feeling exhausted, she took a cold shower and got into bed. She texted Ebaneck to let him know she was back in Yaounde. She did not expect him to reply but he did. He said he was glad she had gotten back safely and that she should let him know if she needed anything.

She put the phone beside her and waited for sleep to take control. After several minutes, she was still dry-eyed. She looked at the time on her phone. It was 1:05 A.M. She left the bed, sauntered to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and got out a Piña colada.

She scanned the top of the fridge with her fingers for the opener but it was not there. She used her teeth. She took a long swig from the bottle. She had to sleep because she had to be at work. Her body refused to function normally if she had not had a good night's sleep.

She downed the rest of the Piña colada and went back to her bedroom. As she was about to get into bed, she coughed and a ball of phlegm came to her mouth.

She turned and went to the bathroom. She flicked on the light and spat in the sink. She cringed when she saw what came out. It was a ball of phlegm all right but it had three black objects in it. When she looked closely, she saw that the objects were ants. Three dead ants.

She stood observing the blob of phlegm in unbelief for several minutes. She then used her finger to spread out the blob to make sure she was not imagining. Goosebumps appeared and disappeared on her body as she looked.

She finally got tired of looking, cut a piece of tissue paper from the roll beside the toilet, and wiped her finger. She decided to leave the blob there until morning.

She flicked off the light and went back to bed.

Nem Taseng's words echoed in her mind. Now the Mukenge will use your body as its shrine. As from today, you will no longer be alone but the Mukenge will be with you, its priestess.

She lay on the bed until morning looking at the ceiling unable to sleep.

When cocks started crowing, she looked at her phone. It was 5:30 A.M. she got out of bed and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She had to leave the house early to evade the morning traffic.

She put on the light and looked at the blob of phlegm she had left in the sink. It was now dry and the ants were still there. She thought about calling Otafion. However, she did not because she would need to sow a seed but she did not have money in hand. She had sponsored the trip to the village so she was low on cash.

She took her toothbrush from its rack above the mirror and covered its tip with toothpaste she had found in the same rack. She put the toothbrush in her mouth, walked over to the toilet, and sat on it. She listened to the urine as it dropped into the water in the toilet.

She stood up and was about to flush it when her eyes caught something in the water. Her urine had turned the water yellow and there were ants in the water. Some were dead; some were alive. Black soldier ants paddling on the surface of the water with their tiny legs. She froze.

*

When she got to the office everyone was excited to see her, especially Ebaneck. The director, a gray-haired man in his sixties, clad in a black suit with horn-rimmed glasses on his face, asked all the regional heads and divisional heads to meet at the conference hall for a brief meeting. There he introduced her as the new regional director for Marketing. Almost everyone knew already, but they clapped anyway.

"Speech, speech, speech" her colleagues cheered.

She smiled broadly looking at the director. He made a gesture with his hand to indicate she could go ahead with the speech.

"I am highly honored to have been nominated for this position. My team and I plan to take our products to the remotest villages in this region. Our products are the best and our people deserve only the best so we will make the products meet the people. We…"

She paused to cough. Something, maybe a strand of saliva, had entered her voice box. After coughing a few times, a blob of phlegm came to her mouth but the irritation in her throat increased. She coughed more violently.

"Are you okay?" the director asked with a concerned look on his face.

She opened her mouth to say she was okay but instead of words, a stream of black soldier ants flew out of her mouth unto the director's face and some colleagues who were close enough.

The room entered a state of confusion. The director brushed off the ants from his face with his hands but he could not do so fast enough. Some of the ants bit him and he screamed. The other regional directors came to his rescue.

Asanga put her hand over her mouth and forced it shut, but before she could do so, thousands of ants had already been thrown out. They scurried to climb on anything close.

Those who were trying to help the director abandoned him and ran for their safety. Asanga herself, fully embarrassed, rushed out of the room into one of the bathrooms and shut the door.

"Kill them!" she heard the director shouting at the top of his voice then soon after, she heard light thuds of probably a broom or a book, which someone was using to kill the ants. She wished she could vanish from that room or that the ground would open and swallow her.

Her hands were trembling. Now the Mukenge will use your body as its shrine. As from today, you will no longer be alone but the Mukenge will be with you, its priestess.

She cursed Nem Taseng.

More and more people had heard the director's screams and had come into the conference hall and those who had been there were trying to explain what had happened to those that had just come in.

Asanga sat silently in the bathroom listening. Tears were running down her face. Big mammy had dealt with her, she thought. Her life was over. How was she ever going to explain away what had just happened?

She was shocked herself but not as shocked as her colleagues were because she had heard Nem Taseng. Somehow, it seemed she was expecting it especially since she had seen the ants in her phlegm and urine.

Her problem was to get out of there.

She pulled out her phone and texted Ebaneck.

'I am in deep shit. Could you come to the conference room?'

She need not have texted him, he was already on his way up from his office. The building had four floors; the offices occupied the second and third floors while the conference room was on the fourth floor.

"What happened?" Ebaneck asked when he got to the conference room. One of the regional directors, a short beefy man named Sosso explained.

Ebaneck eyed Sosso with a confused look on his face.

"Say again…" Ebaneck said

"She coughed and ants came out of her mouth. These are them nah…" Sosso said showing a few ants he had killed in his palm and pointing to some more on the floor.

"Where is she?" Ebaneck asked, still not believing what he was hearing.

Sosso pointed to the restroom where Asanga was.

Ebaneck went first to where the director stood nursing his injuries.

"Sir, are you okay?"

"Am fine." The director let out a sigh "Although I still can't wrap my head around what just happened." He looked at Ebaneck in dismay and then back at the bathroom where Asanga was.

"What happened?" Ebaneck asked

The director looked at him warily. "Ants. Madam Asanga" he made a clucking sound in his throat and then continued. "She was giving a speech after I announced her promotion when all of a sudden I saw ants everywhere. It looks as if they came out of her mouth but…"

"What?! Sir, this is…" Ebaneck did not finish his statement but turned towards the bathroom.

He knocked gently on the door but Asanga refused to open it until he announced he was the one. Her face looked white and terrified. Her hands were trembling. He engulfed her with his arms and held her close for a few moments.

He could feel her shaking.

She could barely keep from wailing.

"It's okay…I am going to get you out of here," he said "come on let's go"

He felt her body stiffen.

"I can't, I just can't…oh God I wish I was dead," Asanga said trying to pull away from Ebaneck but he held on to her

They were in the bathroom for about an hour before Ebaneck could finally make her leave. By then all the other regional directors had gone back to their respective offices to work. The director himself took the day off. His face was lumpy and swollen from the ant bites and since there was no First Aid for ant bites at the office, he decided to go home. He warned those who had been present not to breathe a word of what had transpired until they could talk to Asanga.

Ebaneck and Asanga left the bathroom and moved briskly towards the exit and to Ebaneck's car, a blue Fortuna.

They got in. Asanga lay on the backseat while Ebaneck took the wheel and headed towards his place.

His house was in Bastos; a well-furnished three-bedroom apartment standing on half an acre of land and fenced with a high-walled stone fence. Ebaneck stopped the car in front of the gate, got out, and opened the gate.

"You still haven't hired a gateman?" Asanga whispered

"No, I told you I don't need one. I can't pay someone for a job I can do myself"

"You can and you should"

"What I need is a maid to come clean once in a while"

The car lurched into the compound and Ebaneck packed it just inside the gate because he figured he would have to go back to work. He could not still believe what the director or Sosso had said. He wanted to calm Asanga down and then ask her what really happened.

When they got into the house, Asanga slumped into one of the cozy sofas while Ebaneck went to the bar to get her a drink. Asanga was still trembling, unable to come to terms with what had happened at the office.

Ebaneck came with half a bottle of Scotch and a bottle of water. He set down the items on a stool within Asanga's reach and poured her a glass of the whisky.

"Here, take this," he said, handing the glass to Asanga.

Asanga poured the contents of the glass into her mouth and swallowed it all in one go. Her nerves were unsteady and she needed to calm them down.

He poured another drink which she nursed. Ebaneck went over to another sofa and sat down.

"What really happened?" he asked

"I don't know. I have…Could we talk about this later when I have my brains in one piece?" She drank the whiskey but held on to the empty glass.

"Alright…" he replied smiling, "I think I know what will calm your nerves"

He stood up from his chair and walked over to where she sat and pulled her up by her free hand. She set the empty glass aside, stood up, and followed him to his bedroom.

*

Their lovemaking was fast-paced and passionate. Asanga felt like she was a pressure pot about to burst anytime she was stressed, and the events earlier that morning had really gotten her stressed. This was just what she needed to release the pressure. Ebaneck's body suddenly stiffened and he paused in mid-action. Asanga opened her eyes wondering why she stopped but before she could ask him why he screamed.

"What's wrong?" Asanga asked

Ebaneck did not answer but continued screaming. He tried to pull out but could not. He yelled in obvious pain. His mouth formed an ugly hole in his face as he yelled.

Asanga was confused. She tried also to pull out from the union but for some reason, she could not. She got frantic when she looked down and saw blood dripping onto the cream-white bed sheet.

"Get off! Get off!" she screamed pushing him away with both her hands and with all her strength. Ebaneck reeled backward coming off her with a deep growl. His hands instinctively wanted to grab his manhood and comfort it to ease the pain but...

There was no manhood, just a stub, with blood spurting out. Ebaneck looked at it with terror and then looked at her. Asanga herself was terrified. She was slowly pulling herself away from Ebaneck as she understood what her eyes were presenting to her.

Ants, thousands of black soldier ants started coming out of her womanhood. They formed lines as they normally would when matching through the forest. They were headed towards Ebaneck, tracking the trail of blood he was making.

They climbed on his legs some pausing to devour his flesh while others continued going up towards his head. Soon he was covered with ants, gnawing and biting and ripping with their powerful mandibles.

Ebaneck brushed away as many as he could but it took only a few seconds for more ants to replace those he brushed off. He felt the tiny creatures tearing off his skin, his eyes, his tongue, his hair…

Asanga was seeing everything as if she was in a dream. With her legs still parted, unable to move in horror, she saw the ants crawl out of her, some forcing their way out through her anus making thick formicine excreta.

She let out a shrill sound from her throat.

Ebaneck reeled over backward and crashed to the floor. He had stopped screaming and his body, legs, and arms only made quick jerking movements as the ants continued to devour him.

Asanga passed out.

*

A shrill sound rang in her ears that caused her to wake up. It was Ebaneck's phone. It was ringing somewhere in his trousers he had tossed on the floor. The bedroom was now almost in total darkness. Asanga knew it was evening. She wondered what the time was. She felt cold. Her hands wrapped around her biceps in a bid to keep herself warm.

Then she remembered Ebaneck and his screams and the ants. She cringed. Her hand touched her crotch. There were no ants there. Where was Ebaneck? She wondered.

She got off the bed, went towards the door, and flicked on the light. What she saw made her jump back in fright and fall to the ground. She let out a small sharp scream.

Beside the bed, on the place where Ebaneck had fallen, he was no longer there except for a pile of bones, picked clean by the ants. There was not even a drop of blood or anything else except bones.

Her hand covered her mouth as she burst into tears. Feelings of fear, mixed with anger and pain exploded in her chest. She felt like her chest was going to burst open from the pain she felt.

"Oh God,"

Ebaneck's phone started ringing again. She searched for it and pulled it out. It was the director calling. There were twenty-three other missed calls. She looked at the phone as it rang until it stopped ringing.

She decided to get out of his house before someone came and found her. Ebaneck lived alone but she did not want to take a chance. If anyone saw her in Ebaneck's house, she would not be able to talk her way out of being responsible for Ebaneck's death, she thought.

She stood up and hurriedly put on her clothes. Her nerves were near their breaking point. She thought she would have a heart attack from the way her heart was pounding in her chest. She rushed to the parlor and grabbed the bottle of whisky Ebaneck had left at the bar. She chugged it until the bottle was empty.

She ran back to the room. Her phone started ringing.

She fished it out of her purse and looked at the screen. It was Uncle Joe.

She answered.

"We have seen the destruction you have caused us," Uncle Joe's coarse voice came on "You have disregarded the destiny of the whole community because of your job not so?"

"Uncle I…I" Asanga could not find the right words

"It's alright. Be ready for the consequence."

"Uncle please, I am sorry"

"Priscilla, I said be ready for the consequence," Uncle Joe said and hung up.

"Oh God, what have I gotten myself into?"

Now the Mukenge will use your body as its shrine. As from today, you will no longer be alone but the Mukenge will be with you, its priestess.

Nem Taseng's voice boomed in her head as if it was from a loudspeaker.

She grabbed the bed sheet from the bed, wrapped Ebaneck's bones in it, and made a bundle. The bones made a sickening sound as she piled them on each other.

She picked up all her belongings she had come with to Ebaneck's house that day and got out of the house. Since she did not bring her car, she knew she would have to take a taxi home. She prayed to God that no one would see her leaving Ebaneck's house.

When she got to the street, there was no one particularly watching for her and it was almost totally dark. She walked away from Ebaneck's gate quickly carrying the makeshift bag of bones.