Stowed Away

Chapter Six

Two things woke Eno up. Three, if the fact that the bed she slept on felt a lot different from the one she was used to; the first two were the aroma of something cooking and the sound of someone moving around in the kitchenette. She flung her leg over her bed, her sight still wobbly.

Light streamed in through the blinds, accentuating the room. The gray paint fitted nicely with the white furniture, and apart from a mantelpiece chiming away on the walls, the bed, and a wardrobe, the room was empty.

“Eno,” Pauline said, maneuvering the kitchenette with her feet and two plates of steaming hot noodles in her hands. “I didn’t want to wake you up yet.”

She was about to shove a spoonful of noodles into her mouth when one of the men from the night before appeared in the doorway in all his six-foot-something glory.

“Isn’t it a little late to eat breakfast?”

The spoon stopped midway through its journey to the mouth. Her eyes did a quick dance to the wall clock that had been right in her sight, but she somehow had not seen the digits on it. Eleven AM! They were told to meet at the arena at 11:00. Just how much sleep did she get? She hadn’t even gotten the chance to eat her food. Bland or not, food was food, and she was very hungry.

He waited until they covered the food. His gun and him, even. Eno was sure that with the length of the gun, it could pass as another human.

They were the last people to arrive at the arena. There were people spread on the rocky ground, their knees raised to their chins, like prisoners condemned to a terrible fate and awaiting verdict. Eno sat on the bare floor, the coldness of the floor seeping in through her sweatpants.

The sun was dipping just across the mansion, or rising—there was no telling which it was—and the warmth was still far away from the almost freezing outdoors.

The man Eno had come to know as Chris spoke up first, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He had a scar that ran in a slant line from underneath his right eye to his left cheeks. He had to be a leader of some sort or one of the leaders.

“I talked about the introduction early this morning. When I mentioned it, I remember telling you all to meet here at 11 a.m.

Eno’s heart dropped to her stomach in an almost painful spasm. Was she going to die or be punished? She had a lot of plans, one of which was to not die before she was ready for it.

“Because we haven’t laid down rules, we’ll let it slide,” Chris said, his eyes resting on Eno. If Eno could sink into the earth, she would. It would be a plus if she could dig her way out of there while she was at it. It was only when he looked away that Eno could breathe fine. There was something about his stare that made her feel like she weighed even more than she did—like his eyes weighed her down.

He clapped, rubbing his hands against each other as though trying to get rid of dirt. “First of all, introduction.”

The remaining abductors laughed, as if on cue. They sounded like what Eno would imagine a paid audience listening to an unfunny comedian would sound like.

Another attempt at a joke fell to the ground with a thud. Heavy, like his stare made her feel. The joke was a hackneyed, now-extinct pun born from a 2000s song.

He hooked his finger In the direction of a lady with a big brown afro. “You speak first.” “What’s your name?”

“Samantha,” she said, shakily. There was something about her that looked sickly and weak, as though a light wind would tip her over.

“Your occupation?”

“Civil Engineer.”

Chris turned to another member of the gang; he too had his hair cropped close to his head and held an open book in his hands. “What does it say on the list?”

“It says here that she’s a pharmacist.”

Chris’ eyes appeared to cloud over. If black could get even darker. “You said you were a Civil Engineer?”

“I am; I swear.”

When Chris c****d the gun and aimed it at the trembling woman, Eno feared that her body and spirit were splitting into two. As though in allusion to a nursery rhyme she loved to recite when she was little while flipping paper off her nails: “Two birds are sitting on a branch. One flies away; the other follows. They both return to the branch. This time, she was almost certain that none of the birds would come home to roost.

A loud, deafening bang rung through the air. It happened fast: the bang; Samantha on the floor; and her white sweatshirt soaked through and through with blood. Number eight was dead.

Three of the men lifted her off the ground, a thick slob of clots of blood dropping from her sweatshirts to the red-tinged ground. Bile rose to Eno’s throat; she could feel her tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

“Boss, I read it wrong,” the man with the notebook said to Chris, in a whisper that was loud enough to cut through the already grieving crowd of abductees. “It says freelance writer here; I read the occupation for the next person.”

Chris shrugged. “She looked sickly anyway; we only did her a favor.”

As though they had not just shot someone, Chris hooked his finger at another abductee, a smile tugging at the corners of his thin lips. “What’s your name, fair guy?”

“Adetokunbo Lawal. “I work at the bank, sir.”

“As what? We don’t have all day.”

“A bank manager.”

When it was Eno’s turn, the sun was somewhere under the clouds, and a group of dark clouds were gathering in the sky. “I’m Eno Williams,” she said. “I’m a model.”

Of all the most unusual places in the world, this was the first place she hated having to mention her job.

One of the guards walked around them, his hands stuffed his pockets and a smug smile on his scarred face. He stopped in front of her and leaned forward.

"You look like you would jump if I shouted."

He wasn't wrong. All the bones in her body were now hollow and a slight movement would send her flying down the rocky paths for a hiding place.

"Eno Williams, eh? i********: Influencer Eno."

Eno nodded, her eyes trained on the ground. Nothing was more interesting in that moment.

"What's your handle again? The Eno Williams, no?" He tipped her chin until she was facing him. "Eno, you'll be here for a while."

She watched him strut away, those hands still stuffed in his pockets, as though they were part of his clothing. In that moment, she resisted the urge to chuck the piece of rock she had by herself at him. Partly because it was small, and could do little damage to the bulk of a man.