THE SON OF ELI

CHAPTER 5: REUNION OF THE KEMS

Within the confines of the Eden Maximum Security Prison, was a special building. The prison was a two-kilometre stretch from the main road to the imposing Sala Valley. It had a backdrop of sheer, impenetrable mountain rock and it was surrounded by a thick, fortified, twenty-feet wall with indestructible plates within.

Electrified fences, a deadly moat filled with crocodiles, state-of-the-art technology and highly-motivated staff made it unarguably the best prison in Africa, security-wise.

Within the gigantic compound were the various administration blocks and the prison cells. Within the wall at the end of the blocks was a small steel door large enough for a single man to walk through bent double. That door led to a beautiful building with a beautiful garden, swimming pool and even a waterfall. That building had the mountainside as a back wall which was impregnable. The small, low door was the only exit out of the compound.

Within that building were six rooms comprising a modern bedroom, living room, kitchen, games room, library and an ultra-modern gym.

It was a lovely house furnished with the most beautiful works of art and technology, cleaned daily, and a master chef provided food two times a day or as often as the inmate wanted.

This area was not guarded by prison wardens but by members of an elite commando unit known as the Eden Swords.

This section of the Eden prison was called The Alpha.

The only inmate in the building was a large, middle-aged man called Sali Kem.

He was the half-brother of King Eli Kem of the Kingdom of Eden.

Sali Kem had been in prison for twenty years. He was allowed to roam free on the exotic premises and the garden. He was allowed to be with a paid woman on the last weekend of every month if he so wished, but never allowed to be with the same call woman on three consecutive months. However, for three months now, Sali Kem had declined the company of any woman.

His prison was guarded by six commandos every day. Their rules of engagement included not to speak to the prisoner at any time. If he wanted anything, he had a direct line to the prison director, Philip Otwe, who would provide anything the prisoner needed as long as it fell within the list of privileges granted him.

He received a medical check-up every two months and had priority call on the resident medical officer assigned to the prison infirmary.

Under no circumstances was he allowed to go through the small door to the main prison yard.

He was a huge man, six-foot-two, and had kept himself well over the years. At forty-eight years old, with greying dreadlocks, he was still a very handsome man.

On the afternoon that the Lebedev Syndrome broke, Sali Kem was sitting in the shaded area of the garden near the swimming pool. He had finished his usual ten-lap swimming exercise and was reclining in a deck chair reading a book on his favourite subject, physics.

Two of the guards were under a shaded area near the small gate. Two were on the front and back porches. One was sitting on a low chair at the end of the pool with his gun on his laps. His head was against one of the cylindrical pillars supporting the roof over the swimming pool. The sixth guard was inside the house.

They were waiting for the evening shift soldiers to come and relieve them. They looked bored, as usual.

When Sali's body suddenly went rigid in the deck chair, and he began to spasm horribly, none of the guards noticed it at first. The lounge chair broke under his weight eventually, and he rolled into the swimming-pool where he continued to jerk alarmingly.

The soldier on the porch finally saw Sali Kem in the pool, but from that distance, he assumed the prisoner was swimming laps again with a crazy dance this time around.

Sali Kem's body, still jerking horribly, sank to the bottom of the swimming pool where, a moment later, his eyes popped out with bubbling effects, staining the water with red blood. When the three concentric circles appeared on his forehead, his empty eye sockets filled up, and that strange purple glow illuminated the floor of the swimming-pool.

Sali Kem looked at his ten-fingered hands with wonder as he began to ascend slowly to the surface of the swimming pool. It was not really surprising that he surfaced at the side the soldier was sitting and sleeping.

Sali put his big, horrible hands on the platform and hoisted himself up and out of the pool. He stood tall over the soldier and glared down at him.

The one on the porch saw how close Sali was to his colleague and his heart thudded with sudden apprehension. He lifted his rifle and activated his Comms immediately.

"Units alert!" he said hurriedly. "Target standing over Nii Armah, who appears to be asleep. Going over, stand by for possible action. Flanking best option, I guess."

The two guards at the small gate, the one on the porch, and the one inside the house quickly drew their guns and moved fast towards the pool area.

The guard from the front porch cut the comms and raised his rifle to his shoulder as he rapidly descended the steps and raced towards the swimming pool area.

The sleeping guard was now fully awake and was staring at Sali Kem with horror all over his face.

"What the f**k?" he screamed shrilly, and then in more hushed tones, he repeated his question. "What the f**k?"

Sali Kem held up his two hands with their twenty fingers and wiggled them with a look of mild disgust on his face.

"Now, those are simply quite despicable, aren't they?" he asked in a calm voice. "But I can live with them, yes. They feel quite nifty, the truth be told. Wonder if they are as strong as they look."

He opened his right hand – or whatever it was now – and clamped it down on top of the soldier's head, and tightened his grip. His fingers crunched down into the skull and dug into the soldier's head like they would into a piece of cake. His thumb sank straight into the man's forehead, and the nine other fingers slipped effortlessly into the eyes, temples and all around the man's head. This elicited an awful wail of pain from the soldier that chilled the blood of the five others who had by then formed a loose row behind Sali and watching with horror.

Blood formed rivulets around the soldier's head and face, turning his agonized face into a macabre mask.

"What the f**k?" one of the soldiers screamed with horror. "Oh, shiiiiiiiiiiiit!"

"Feels spongy in there," Sali said calmly. "Probably got your brain."

He pulled upwards savagely and yanked off the top of the soldier's head with skull and brain. Sali regarded the handful of hair, skull and brain matter in his hand and promptly bit into the grey matter of the brain.

"Jeeeeeeeeeesus!" one of the soldiers screamed and promptly turned his head as vomit came spewing out of his mouth.

"Quite nutritious and tasty," Sali said as he bit off more brains from the skull with bloodied grey matter running down his chin. "Has a peculiar plethora of tastes. Grilled chicken, roasted goat, even something close to Chinese pork noodles. Interesting, interesting."

He dropped the hollowed-out slab of the skull and watched as the soldier who had lost the top part of his head jerked spasmodically before toppling to his right with a slow-up movement. A moment later, he began to puff out alarmingly, his flesh expanding off his bones and tearing off with a muted shredding sound: phuuut!

"Jesus!" screamed one of the watching men with horror.

"Holy Moses, f**k s**t!" another cried as they watched that terrible skeleton with a half skull on the ground still making movements as if he wanted to get off the floor.

Then his heart, kidneys, lungs stomach matter phuuuted out too, disintegrating his bones so that they clattered on the floor in pieces, hollowed out of the marrow and looking as dry as ancient bones!

Sali regarded the bones with his head c****d to one side as he licked his lips of residual brain matter.

"Now that is very interesting!"

With a scream of terror, the soldier who had been on the back porch levelled his Uzi sub-machinegun and kept his forefinger down on the trigger. The harsh sounds of the screaming gun broke through the web of fear shrouding the others, and they also opened fire.

They saw the figure of Sali Kem growing less and less distinct, losing form by the second, and then… poof, he was gone.

Vanished!

Even so, none of them stopped shooting until their magazines were empty. They lowered their guns and looked at the fragmented bones of their friend with horror.

***

King Eli Kem – tall, extremely handsome, regal – was dressed in dark slacks and flowing white embroidered shirt. His rich dark hair was greying at the temples, and he ran an agitated hand through it as he turned away from the console facing him.

He had been in the Royal Conference Chamber on the eastern wing of the imposing and visually-stunning palace of Eden. The staff watched him as he walked to the latched windows and brushed the curtains aside to stare pensively at the beautifully-landscaped garden beyond.

After a while he let the curtains fall and turned to face his Executive Council grouped around the big, oval, glass-topped, conference table.

"Commander Sey," he called, referring to his army commander.

"Your Majesty," said the short but powerfully-built army commander whose eyes were hard with mounting horror at the disturbing series of events they had witnessed around the world.

"Fortify the security around the palace," the king said with a great sigh. "I have a sinking feeling that this thing… this Lebedev Syndrome, is not far from Eden."

There was a low hum of voices around the table.

The commander nodded and got to his feet.

"I'll get to it immediately, Your Majesty," he said.

Just then, one of the five coloured telephones at the head of the table where the king had been sitting rang shrilly. The king was startled and caught his breath sharply. It was the red phone, the one used for emergencies.

He walked forward quickly and snatched up the receiver without sitting down.

"King Eli Kem," he said.

They watched him as he listened, and they saw how his hand tightened fiercely on the telephone for a moment before his face fell in and he shook his head once with evident shock. He murmured his thanks and replaced the receiver with an unsteady hand. He looked across the long table with an air of doom on his face.

"Let me guess," the commander said grimly. "Your brother."

The king nodded with a haunted look still on his face.

"Yes. Sali. His guards are almost insane after witnessing him go through the Lebedev Syndrome. He killed one of them. Ate his brains, they said, then he disappeared."

The members of the executive council got to their feet with cries of horror. The army commander was already heading towards the door of the conference room at a fast trot.

"Keep inside, Your Majesty!" he threw urgently over his shoulder. "I'll tighten security around the palace!"

The king hurriedly exited the conference room by a side door that led straight to a luxurious elevator. He ignored the concerned cries of his executive members as they crowded the entrance, and the doors slid shut. He rode the elevator to the topmost floor and exited out on a carpeted corridor. There were beautiful decorated framed pictures of Eden royalty lineage on the walls.

The king walked quickly and soon broke into a trot as he meandered his way to the beautiful royal chambers.

Two guards with guns were standing on each side of the door.

"Any problem?" he asked curtly.

"No, Your Majesty," one said.

The king nodded and pushed the polished door open. He walked through the big living room without seeing its beauty but came to a stop when his wife appeared in the doorway suddenly.

She was a tall, elegant, and beautiful woman in her late forties. She was wearing a beautiful white dress with coloured leaves in them which accentuated the broad bulge of her nine months old pregnancy.

Her smile faltered when she saw him, and tears suddenly welled up in her eyes. The sight of that shattered expression, the sheer helplessness, hit something deep in him that caused great pain to grip his guts and cut off his breath.

"My love!" the king whispered and hurried towards her.

She was rooted to the spot, and when he put his arms around her, he was appalled to feel her trembling against him. His anger soared against whoever had made her so scared. His inability to be present to prevent what had scared her caused a pain in his guts.

She put her arms around him and held him tightly as he brushed her hair and smiled reassuringly at her.

"I'm so sorry, darling," he whispered against her lips. "It is alright now, my love."

"Ah, isn't it nice to see such great love?" came the voice of Sali Kem gently from the doorway to the bedroom.

Eli Kem tensed against his wife, and his face grew very dark when he looked up suddenly. What he saw, however, shocked him so much that his fury was replaced with a look of sheer dismay. Suddenly, he understood why his wife was so shattered.

Sali Kem's dreadlocks were gone!

He was completely bald and had no hair anywhere on his body. His eyes were nightmarish purple sheens, and the three red, concentric circles shone menacingly on his forehead. Wearing a long purple dress made from a mysterious material that seemed to have an inner glow, he looked an imposing figure indeed as he stood in the doorway calmly.

Perhaps, the most horrifying things about him were his huge hands and feet with their terrible-looking overabundance of fingers and toes, making it look as if Sali had snakes for fingers.

"Don't look so flabbergasted, little brother," Sali said with a gentle smile on his horrible face. "Surely, I don't look that bad, do I now?"

King Eli Kem sighed and looked at his older brother with hooded eyes.

"Do you know what has happened to you?" he asked softly.

Sali Kem smiled coldly and shrugged.

"I changed, little brother, and that is all I know. I lost hair and eyes and gained purple lights, hands and feet. I also acquired a surprising taste for human flesh, can you imagine? I guess it makes me something of a demon, but it is funny in a way if you really think about it. I mean, I've done a lot of horrible things in my life, really, but the last thing I ever imagined myself doing was becoming a cannibal. Can you imagine what I did today, a few minutes ago? I actually ate out a man's brain. Scooped out the top of his head with some brain tissues and ate it! Guy changed into some exploding weirdo, regrettably. Exploding all over the place. I was wondering if I had some kind of virus in my fingers that infected the poor sod."

"No, you didn't, Sali," Eli Kem said desperately. "The world is under siege! I'm just coming from an online meeting with some world leaders. You won't believe what I'm going to tell you, but you must!"

"Won't believe you?" Sali asked with a chuckle. "Dude, look at me! Look at how I've changed! I'll believe anything you tell me. I know you always shoot straight, and lying is not exactly your forte."

"The world is under siege, Sali!" Eli Kem said. "An entity – a purple alien – entered our earth. It crashed right here on this island, on the Sinaki Plateau. So far, it has killed many people. It has attacked individuals in various countries and given them the same appearance you are depicting now! And those individuals with the mark on their foreheads, well, they bite innocent people, and they explode, as you described it! Their flesh, organs, intestines, everything except the bones, somehow converts into fuel energy for this alien! Even the bone marrows aren't spared! That thing is wounded, and through technology superior to any we have here on earth, it has turned some of you into messengers. It is causing you to murder people so that it would get its food to grow stronger! That is what is happening, and whatever you do, you must fight it!"

Sali Kem's face tightened with sudden coldness.

"I don't doubt your story, little brother. Indeed, it makes me quite sad and makes me want to cry. Do you know why? I am sad because it took an alien from somewhere out there in the universe, to come down and free me from prison, and made a reunion of the Kems possible! That is what makes me sad, you bloody bastard!"

"That thing is evil, Sali! It is going to destroy the world!"

"Evil, yes, perhaps!" Sali said calmly. "But human beings are also evil, little brother! Just like you. You imprisoned me for twenty years. That was evil, Eli. Very evil."

"I did not imprison you," Eli hissed tightly. "You were tried by a court of competent jurisdiction and found guilty of seven counts of first-degree murder! You killed our father and your mother and your little sister. You killed four innocent guards of our father! You know the murder of a king attracts the death sentence, something you justly deserved. But I pardoned you, and converted your death sentence to life imprisonment in a house filled with everything that would give you comfort! So, face the truth and stop your damn allegations, Sali."

Sali Kem grinned widely, giving them a blast of his long, curved, wicked-looking teeth.

"I killed my father – our father – because I am the first of his two sons, the eldest, the one who should have been king! But he denied me that right, and made you king in my stead! He never acknowledged me!"

"He did not know you existed!" Eli shouted at his half-brother as pain. "Your mother never informed the king she got pregnant. He only knew me!"

"Yes, because your mother was the queen, and my mother was the w***e your father slaked his thirst on when he saw her, and she wasn't the only one! My mother made me a bastard, and that is why I killed her! Because she was a w***e! Your father's w***e! I killed my sister by accident because she was trying to stop me from slitting my w***e mother's throat!"

"You killed a king, Sali! You deserved to die, but I had mercy on you!"

"You had no right to have any mercy in the first place!" Sali screamed suddenly, and in his fury, a blast of purplish fire blasted briefly from his mouth as his lighted eyes blazed at Eli Kem. "If the man had made me a prince, I would have been king! You stole my inheritance, little brother, and I have waited for this moment for a long time!"

Eli Kem's heart sank suddenly with terror.

He was not afraid for himself but his wife, and yes, his unborn son! For a moment, he contemplated screaming for help to bring in the guards, but he knew Sali would only kill them. He knew bullets were useless against the Lebedev Syndrome carriers.

"Come into the bedroom, little brother!" Sali said in a calmer voice and grinned. "Don't let me spoil the reunion of the Kems."

Queen Anya Kem looked at her husband with desperate eyes and spoke desperately.

"Not the bedroom, Eli, no!" she cried with horror. "For Junior's sake!"

Eli Kem looked at his half-brother squarely.

"Come in here, Sali," he said calmly. "Let's do our discussions here!"

Sali looked at him with an expression of hatred for the very first time.

"And why do you have to spoil the fun like this, little brother? I said the bedroom, and bedroom it is going to be!"

He held out his hand, and the queen was ripped from Eli Kem's arms by an invisible force that made her scream sharply as she flailed her hands. Eli watched, stunned, as the force almost lifted her off her feet and slammed her through the bedroom door and out of sight.

The brothers glared at each other with wrathful expressions.

"Eli, little brother!" Sali said grimly. "Let that be the last time you disobey me! Now, will you come into the bedroom or do I have to attend my sister-in-law's needs myself?"

Trembling with helplessness, King Eli Kem walked slowly into the bedroom. Sali entered behind him and closed the door.