OGRISM TAIL.

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 7

She sunk her teeth into his shoulder, making him yelp in pain. He thrashed as she dug deeper into his shoulder. The sword was to his right. Abednego tried reaching for it while his other hand pulled her hair, trying to rend her off of him. He was able to slip his middle finger around the trigger sword and bash her across the head with the sword.

It shocked her enough that he was able to throw her off. He lifted the sword up, with mighty power he swung it up on her head, but it missed her, sailing out of the open door of the house into the darkness. She threw herself at Abednego's legs, still screaming, and brought him to the ground. He hit her across the shoulders and upper back with the sword and kicked her off again. She was too fast for him. If he was going to have a chance at life, he had to make a decision. He looked out the door of the house and saw pool of water from the rain in the distance. He lunged out of the house into the storm. So horrible for Abednego, very astonishing.

The side of his body had hit the ground in that struggle. He ran as fast as he could, rolled down a hill, rain pelting him mercilessly. He only stopped rolling when his body hit the bottom of a ravine. His ears stung from the howl of the wind. He clambered up the hill, trying to get to the tree line. A more piercing howl rang through the night. Abednego looked back to see the woman running on all fours down the hill, shrieking with anger. He used all the strength that he could to run. Blood spilled from Abednego's shoulder, and the sword felt like a heavy weight attached to his hand.

She was gaining on him, and Abednego knew that his fate would be even bloodier than it would have been in the house. She wanted revenge. This propelled Abednego up the remainder of this obstacle. He ran across a short distance and flung himself into the woods, never stopping to look back. His legs caught across some rough thorn bushes, and he had to push limbs out of the way of his face. He could still hear her howls in the distance, but Abednego pressed onward in the dark. He could see nothing and felt like he was moving through jelly.

Abednego finally came to a more open part of the woods. He had to stop due to sheer exhaustion, even though he didn’t feel safe. The only sound he could hear now was the light sound of rain hitting dead leaves and crickets chirping. Most of the rain was caught in the canopy above, forming a roof over Abednego's head. He was thankful for this slight reprieve. He didn’t want to look at his shoulder, but he felt he had no choice. It was covered in red, blood covering it completely and running in rivulets down his chest.

He started crying. He was going to die out here, he would bleed to death, and there would be no escape. That woman would find him, finish him off, and eat his dead body. She would use his bones to make a house, whatever that meant. Abednego was at the mercy of an insane person and far from any civilization he knew of. As he became resolved to his fate, he listened to the rain. He remembered the mountain and the trees and the wind through his hair. He didn’t want to die. Not yet. That’s when he realized the crickets had stopped chirping. Something was moving through the brush somewhere in the distance.

A surge of adrenaline burst through him, and he took off in the opposite direction. He ran and ran and ran, hearing her howl as she tried to find Abednego. He kept running until he saw coloured lights ahead of him. It was the exact house Matendechere told him he will get food for the ogrism, on the other side of the forest. He started laughing when he saw it, thanking whatever force was in charge of the world for bringing it to him. He pushed the doors open. An old looking frail woman was behind the closet. Abednego smiled and collapsed.

Abednego woke up in pain. He was propped up in a booth, with a woman staring at him. He jumped when he saw her.

“Ssh,” she said. “You shouldn’t move.”

Abednego looked down at his shoulder. It was covered in gauze, but it wasn’t bleeding anymore.

“I-I need to get healing herbs,” Abednego said.

She looked at him sympathetically.

“I’m sorry, boy, It’s pouring out there. Healing herbs cannot be harvested when it raining. The herbs won't have any effect. I don’t want to risk either of us. I stopped the bleeding. You’re holding up just fine.”

Abednego looked at her blankly.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

Abednego was silent for a while and swiftly reminded himself of his terrifying encounter with the thing that stalked him like an animal.

“I don’t want talk about it,” he finally said.

The old looking woman nodded. She brought him something to eat. She introduced herself as Maimuna, She started telling him about herself. At any other time, this would kind have annoyed him, but anything that could take his mind off of the recent hours was welcome.

Maimuna had had a fairly hard life. Her stories weren’t uplifting, but they felt more horrendous, more frightening compared to what he had just faced. She talked about how she and her siblings, a brother and a sister, had been terrible harassed by Imboko, how Imboko clobbered their parents and now they are living in hiding. They weathered psychological, and physical a***e. She mentioned one home where a male pedophile called Okuyoyo had locked her and her sister in the closet while he bit up the parents cutting their fingers.

“My life was hell as a child. But, it did get better,” she said.

“I have a pretty good life now in this evil forest.

I communicate with the dead spirits all the time and there's an assurance that all shall be fine. That someday someone will avenge for them. Now, I can’t complain, I am waiting for that person who will avenge for us and those that Imboko killed,” she shrugged.

“What about your siblings?” Abednego asked.

She hung her head. Maimuna didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but she finally spoke.

“My sister couldn’t take it anymore. He committed suicide a few years later. My brother tried to get the ogrism tail. The ogrism is the only weapon that can avenge for the spirits and totally kill the king. As we speak right now, we understand that he couldn't make it, the ogrism captured him; though he wasn't eaten but will stay there for the rest of his life serving the ogrism. The witch woman Matendechere said that they made him their wife, till now, I have never heard of him. All I am left with is to wait for that person who will come, get the ogrism tail and avenge for the entire land."

Abednego looked at her.

“So, your brother is in the captivity, being detained by the ogrism?”

“You could say that.”

“What do you mean?”

She gave a small as she looked at the gauze on Abednego chest.

“I guess it would make more sense for me to explain further. The king, being brutal, got of my father, sodomized him and gauged his eyes out and bit his nose off.”

Abednego stared at her in silence, but she continued.

“They were going to lock her up, my mother, but a shrink determined that she wasn’t in sound mind and started backing like a dog. So, they sent her to the looney bin. She was only trying to protect herself and us."

" Now that you are here, you and I would go visit her. She talked about getting revenge on everyone who had hurt us. When he sodomized my dad and bit his nose off, he said that he liked the taste of the blood. So he has a guardian spirit protecting him, now the restless spirits are waiting for the one and the only one who will raise, avenge for them and the innocent souls that were burned to death. Or are you the one?" She asked Abednego.

"One more time," she said.

"Since the time my mom was put in that lonely bin, she told me that she was going to eat all of the people that had hurt us. She said that if she ate them and s**t them out, that would be sending them to hell. God wouldn’t take them, because they were s**t. Those people drove her insane. But she’s still smart. She escaped. I still see her sometimes.”

I was trembling. Maimuna looked up at Abednego the same way that a lion looks at a gazelle. She zeroed in on his shoulder.

“You met her tonight, didn’t you?” She smiled with all the evil in the world, her pale blue eyes lighting up at Abednego's terror.

Abednego remained silent. She laughed. Her voice dropped down to a whisper.

“She wants to send everyone to hell. I really do admire that in her. Sometimes, she’ll bring me something – an arm or a leg. I’ll cook it up for her. She’ll pull the meat apart like a dog. She takes the bones back with her. I followed her once. She sticks them in the ground around her. It’s like she builds a wall around herself.”

“You’re insane,” Abednego choked out.

“Maybe I could find her. I’m sure she’s looking for you. We could eat you together.”

Maimuna stares wide-eyed at Abednego as he goes by. He doesn't understand why.

When he gets inside or outside her place, he ties a tunic at his upper arm and smack my veins so he can see them and be rest that he is still alive. Finally he sees the mountains, h sees the trees, he feels the breeze and he feels alive. When the thunder booms and the wind howls, she’s there.