THE NEXT TWO DAYS

Part One

The night was unusually silent. That rarely happened at Edo Street, Ekosodin, Benin City, where students dreaded walking at night but enjoyed competing amongst themselves on who had the loudest home theatre. He was calling her for the sixth time which was also unusual. He only called twice after an argument, then called again the next day, and she never picked until the next day. Just before she decided to pick the seventh call, there was a knock at the door. Her eyes immediately located the wall clock opposite where she was standing. It was 10:40pm. That was unusual. Nobody visited her by that time.
"Who is there?" she shouted from where she was standing.
"It's Mr. Williams. I'm here on behalf of Jason. He was involved in an accident today and I'm here to take you to him."
"Oh my God!" she shouted, her hands already on the door.
She opened the first lock in less than a second but stopped midway in opening the second lock. Something was wrong. She had a serious argument with Jason and he had been calling her line. Just then, her phone blinked. She left the door and walked the two steps back to her bed. It was a text from Jason. She had no time to see the context of the text as she was distracted by an unusual noise by the door. The phone fell from her hands when she looked towards where the noise was coming from. It was not a noise, it was the sound of an instrument cutting through the iron door. She did not have the time to analyze what was wrong. She ran into her bathroom which was closer than the kitchen. She switched off the light and went on her knees. She tried to understand what was going on but an unknown voice called her name. He was already in her bedsitter room.
"Cynthia..... where... are.... you......? I promise not to hurt you... Jason took something that does not belong to him and we just need the only thing he treasures to get it back."
From the footsteps of the man, she knew the man was by the kitchen door. She could not think, her mind was filled up with fear. Her phone started ringing again, the footstep changed direction.
"He's calling you.... just come out and pick your call."
Something moved past her feet making her jolt up. Her left leg kicked a bucket as she stood up. Immediately, the bathroom door was being pushed.
"Got you" the voiced said.
Next came the sound of that instrument used earlier to open her entrance door. She immediately accepted her fate. She was going to die without seeing Jason. Just when the door had been unlocked, the face of her killer was about to surface, she heard someone calling her name. She knew that voice very well. Before she could respond there was a gun shot, followed by two gun shots fired simultaneously. There was another two gun shots fired almost the same time, then there was absolute silence.