Ancil“It’s not that hard Jed. Just find a safe place to lay low and stay there. Like a dumpster or something. Once we sort out everything we will come back for you. Just don’t die. Please.” She placed a kiss on my lip, backed away then said, “I have to go.”
“One more question!” I shouted.
“What Jed?” She asked, annoyed.
“How long should I wait?” I asked.
“I don’t know Jed. I don’t know. Just…wait for me. I’ll come back, I promise. I have to go now.” She then ran off leaving me behind all by myself. AGAIN!
I felt a little safer with some of the information that Megan had given me. I still had a lot of questions to ask her but she seemed to be in quite a hurry. I couldn’t help but try to figure out what had happened to her after the incident in San Fernando but I just couldn’t connect the dots. She seemed safe but according to her, she was still somewhat in danger. I didn’t know what had happened to the rest and I was beginning to wonder. Megan and Melanie were the Midnight Robber’s daughters so maybe he spared their life or something. I didn’t know.
Limping my way back through the town, I noticed one or two jumbies walking aimlessly. I tried my best not to make eye contact or run and it seemed to work because the jumbies just ambled past me as though I didn’t even exist. There were barely any other jumbies on the streets though, just two that I saw and recognized. One of them was Mr. Beckles who was a popular vagrant in Arima. He was very well known because he used to stand at the Dial-2X clock tower and sing old Calypso songs. A lot of people used to laugh at him but he definitely lit up the streets. His dead movements as I saw him made me feel a bit nostalgic. I would have given anything to hear him sing again or just the opportunity to look him in his face and see him smile with all the rotten teeth in his mouth. I didn’t dare look him in his eyes now though.
I ventured up Calvary Hill in Arima under the scorching hot sun that seemed much hotter due to the high humidity. It was a steep climb, lined with trees and old wooden buildings but I finally reached to the top and went down the other side to my home at the bottom of the hill. Even though my father could have still been there it was the only safe place that I could think of because I knew what I had to deal with. Maybe if I didn’t look my father in the eye we could coexist in the same house together. It was a wild guess but I was going for it. I then pondered on the fact that my father had known that I was in the house before we made eye contact. I began to think back on the events and wondered if the jumbies were also territorial and that maybe going into the house wasn’t such a good idea after all. Even though I had some doubt, I still managed to convince myself to go home.
I walked through the entrance that I had busted open the day before with the gun Megan gave me cocked and ready. I slowly and cautiously crept in, stepping over broken pieces of wood and bent nails but there wasn’t anyone around. The smell of rotting flesh did catch my attention though. It was a smell that I started to strongly associate with the jumbies. I didn’t hear any foot movements but the faint sound of groaning was heard. No, not groaning. Snoring. Very loud snoring that seemed to be coming from upstairs. I followed the snoring to my father’s room and as soon as I opened the door a torrent of flies greeted me. The room was littered with dead animal corpses and skeletal remains that heightened the already horrible stench that wafted out. There were even some skeletal remains that looked human.
My father was fast asleep and the last thing I wanted to do was wake him but I was finally able to get a good look at his face since his death. I was well aware that my father wasn’t in there anymore and that his body was just an empty shell being used to carry the jumbie around but when I saw him I couldn’t keep my emotions in check and my tears from rolling down my face. The great man who once was in there was somewhere in the afterlife cheering me on. Urging me to stay strong and keep moving forward. To survive.
His face looked tormented. Even though he was sleeping I could tell that he wasn’t happy with his state. Maggots were emerging and disappearing into holes in his face. His ears had worsened from the last time I saw him. Most of the left one was gone and a wilting chunk of the right was hanging onto his head by a decaying piece of flesh. Even as he rotted, I could see the remnants of his muscular upper body and I remembered his tremendous strength; the way he would throw me up and down when I was little and how he lifted the refrigerator with one hand and reached for whatever had fallen beneath it with the other. Knowing the man that my father was he would have hated to see himself like this and he would have hated me to see him like this too. He needed to be laid to rest for good. It’s what he would have wanted. I raised the gun but my arms wobbled. I felt the spirit of my father lifting the gun with me until it was pointed at the jumbie’s head.
“I will survive. I promise!!” After a moment of complete silence, I closed my eyes, cleared my mind then squeezed the trigger —- hard. The force of the gun flung me against the wall and shattered my father’s body into a million little pieces that made a splattered mess all over the room. He was gone.
I forced myself off the floor and managed to remain strong on my way out into the corridor. My knees buckled as my legs got weak and refused to remain sturdy. I tried to remain standing but I fell to my knees. My hands that held the gun was the next part of my body to give way to the emotional trauma. I couldn’t hold the gun in my hands any longer. It felt like a million pounds. The gun fell to the floor and the sound that it made seemed like the loudest noise ever. My eardrum’s heightened sensitivity caused me to hear every single piece of blood plasma from my father that dropped from the ceiling to the floor. The reality of everything that happened was then summed up by a stream of tears that fell from my eyes as I fell flat on the floor. “I will survive.”
