THE LAST SURVIVORS
Episode 12
Etim and Ochuma went back to digging the grave. After about fifteen minutes they stumbled on something in the grave. They had to stop digging and called Osoba to come have a look at it. All of them gathered around the grave and flashed their torch lights into it. Etim jumped back into and tried to move the pile of sand around it while he did that, Osoba shouted “Get out of there Etim!” Etim reacted quickly and tried to jump out of the grave but the object moved up and grabbed Etim by one of his ankles and pulled him back into the grave. Etim fought hard to keep off the ghostly creature. Osoba knew exactly what it was; his two friends whom he killed must have buried themselves in the grave after he left. Simon knew it would only be a matter of seconds before the risen dead in that grave would plunge its teeth into Etim’s body, so he opened fire on it. His two other guys joined him shooting at the risen dead. Their bullets could only slow it, buying Etim a fraction of time to leap out of the grave.
When Etim came out, he was breathing heavily and it wasn’t because of fear. The risen dead had lacerated much of his skin with its nails. The wounds were doing something inhuman to him. He was beginning to snarl like a beast. Osoba removed a powder from a pounch around his waist, and threw some of it on Etim. Etim hit the floor screaming as if Osoba had thrown a bucket of hot water on him. While they all paid attention to Etim, Osoba other dead colleague woke up in the grave. With amazing agility he leapt out of the grave and seized one of the young men who came with Simon. The guy shouted drawing attention his way, he tried to fight off the risen dead, but instead fell into the grave with him. In seconds the two risen dead in the grave tore him to shreds. To subdue them, Osoba cast some of the powder into the grave and the two risen dead grew quiet. They all sat down wondering who will go into the grave and finish off the digging. Without saying a word Osoba jumped into the grave, tied ropes on the three dead bodies and asked Ochuma and the other guys above ground to pull the ropes. They pulled up the three dead bodies up and Osoba began to dig the grave all by himself.
After some minutes of digging Osoba got to the coffin, he asked for the ropes and Simon who had become actively involved threw them to him, Osoba tied the ropes on the corners of the wonky, creaky coffin and asked them to pull it up. Ochuma lowered a retractable ladder they brought along and Osoba climbed out of the grave. By this time Etim had recovered considerably from the asphyxiating s£nsat!on which took over his lungs.
When they opened the coffin the shade inside had decayed considerably and a small box was found around the shade’s chest area. Osoba removed the box and cracket it open; it contained bits of undecayed human parts. “What you see here are the body parts of the risen dead who save Michael. Once we destory them Michael won’t be able to wield his powers again”. Osoba cast the powder into the coffin; he asked the other guys to bring the bodies of the other dead ones. They did, and heaped them around the coffin; Osoba covered them with the potent powder and dropped some oil which Ochuma gave to him on them and set it on fire.
As the bodies burned, a man stood afar off and watched them. He was too far for any one of them to have seen him. Osoba set the small box on the ground, scooped a handful of the powder and then did the most unexpected thing- he prayed. As he began pray, Etim and Ochuma joined him and knelt down on the ground. The others were surprised and had to kneel and bow their heads in prayer. “I appealed to you oh Most High, unleash your power and destory this evil with which hades has afflicted the living. Let the brightness of your glory and light overwhelm the powers of tartalus from where this evil has fountained up………….”
While Osoba prayed, the man who had been hiding began to run towards them, moving very fast and wielding a glistening sword. No one saw him coming nor heard his footsteps.
