(Previously Posted on jeremytargert.wordpress.com)
For Tabitha.
I loved my girlfriend. But I love more what I did to the people who killed her.
I met Tabitha when I was in my second year. I was a total nerd, complete with thick black horn rimmed glasses. My clothes looked too big on me. I shouldn’t have been wearing my father’s leftovers but I didn’t know or care much about trends. I had never asked a girl out. I’d never had sex. I masturbated once a week to satisfy the urge that occasionally crept into my body. Otherwise, I focused more on my books and my video gaming.
I met Tabitha in an almost empty lecture room. We weren’t departmental colleagues. She loved English and I loved Mathematics. I had an exam in two hours and needed somewhere I could read without being disturbed by my colleagues. I had walked in, observed the area in one glance. A group of guys at one end. A group of girls at the other. I found a perfect spot and made for it. The universe shifted. I slipped. The Advanced Calculus textbook flew to this side. My Porpo calculator flew to the other side. I landed hard on my ass. There were a few giggles from both sides of the classroom. One or two of them said “Sorry o”. I groaned. Then gritted my teeth.
I met Tabitha when she left where she had been sitting to help me pick up my Advanced Calculus textbook while I tried to piece my Porpo Calculator back together. She asked me if I was alright. She asked if my calculator was alright. She handed the textbook to me and gave me a comforting smile. She told me to watch my steps next time. She returned to her sit. I found mine. But immediately I sat down, I couldn’t read. Couldn’t even think. I kept glancing at her. I caught her glancing back a couple of times.
I met Tabitha once more when she made to leave with her friends an hour later. I waited outside for her, and excused her from the company of her friends. I told her my name. She told me hers. We became friends.
A month later and we became lovers.
Tabitha changed me. She drastically overhauled my way of life. She treated me like I was a god to her. She said she loved my mind and my spirit. She wanted us to be together, forever and wept when she thought that far and realized that something may bring us apart some day.
She foresaw the future.
It happened on the morning of the 8th of October… two years we’d been together. I was in my fourth year. She was in her final year. It was a wet Wednesday morning. I didn’t have anywhere to go that day. Tabitha was going to come by later and keep me company. I shaved the stubble off my jaw. She said my beard tickled her whenever I placed my mouth between her legs. I made the place look nice and tried to prepare pasta the way she liked it. Just as I was slicing the onions, the call came in…
I put the phone to my ear and listened. It was Seyi. Tabitha’s close friend. Seyi sobbed as she spoke to me. Seyi couldn’t stop sobbing. Then Seyi finally told me. Tabitha had been gang-raped and left for dead. She’d been found hanging on to life at the walkway that led to the female hostels from the Humanities Faculty. She’d gone to read and was on her way back. She had gone alone. I’d warned her about going alone. She’d always said she could handle herself. I’d warned her about going alone. She’d told me that I worried too much. Then Seyi said ”She was rushed to the teaching hospital and they did all they could… but it was already too late.” At that moment… Seyi’s words drifted off. The phone was still held by my hand to the side of my head. But I wasn’t listening. I stared dead ahead. Into nothingness.
I dropped the phone on the kitchen table. I curled myself on the floor. And then, I cried.
My insanity lasted for twenty-nine days.
The psychiatric hospital released me on the 9th of November and told me that I was okay to return back to studying. My parents were glad they hadn’t lost their only son to some mental illness. I was glad to be out of the place as well although it was beginning to feel like home.
Tabitha had been all over the news. Her death had shaken the school a bit but the Vice Chancellor had managed to bring things under control. An investigation had been consulted. They had rounded up some suspects. But it was taking too long to solve the murder. I paid the Chief Security Officer a visit and told him who I was. He sympathized with me. I asked him to fill me in on what progress had been made. He told me they only had suspects but there weren’t any concrete evidence against them. I listened. He further told me that it would take time but they would get to the root of the matter. I listened, still. Then he finally told me that they’d received an anonymous tip that linked the murder to a certain Jibril Danjuma. The son of some wealthy business mogul. They brought him in for questioning but his father’s influence ensured the ‘questioning’ didn’t last more than five minutes before they let him go.
That was all I needed to know. I nodded at the CSO and then I left his filthy presence.
I found Jibril within the hour. Asked a few questions to a few people who knew other people. He was a third level student in the department of Physics. I saw him, in his expensive clothes leaning on his expensive car. He had his hands around a girl’s waist. One glance around him and I saw the two guys who sat not too far away from him. Henchmen, probably. He belonged to a secret society. He was a wealthy son of a bitch who needed protection. Nice.
I waited till later that evening before I made my move. It was 8:34pm. Darkness had replaced the light of day. The darkness that would aid my purpose. Jibril lived off campus, in some expensive students quarters only the very rich could afford. It was well secured, of course, by a single guard. I knocked on the gate. The guard asked who I was. I gave him a false name and told him I wanted to see Jibril. He called Jibril via an intercom. Jibril didn’t want to be disturbed. I told the guard to tell him that it was a very urgent matter. Jibril asked him to let me in. The guard frisked me. And showed me Jibril’s room. I thanked him, and made to move forward. As he turned to lock the gate, I made a fist and hit him with great force at the side of his neck. I felt a snap. He fell to the ground. Lifeless. I dragged him into his chambers. I stepped out. Nobody saw me. I went to Jibril’s door and knocked. There was no answer. I knocked again. A lady dressed in matching underwear opened the door for me. The same lady I’d spotted him with earlier that day. The sitting room was rank with the peculiar smell of cannabis. Smoke filled the air. On the centre table was an expensive bottle of red wine, half empty. And an ashtray with numerous butts of cigarettes and cannabis joints. Jibril sat on a couch, watching porn on TV. He didn’t bother covering up his erection. The lady closed the door behind me and returned to where she’d been on Jibril’s lap. I stood there for seconds before he finally spoke.
“So who are you and what’s so urgent that you had to disturb me at this time of the day?”
I didn’t speak. I looked at him. He sneaked a hand into the lady’s crotch and she giggled and playfully told him to stop.
“Haba. Oga, you no fit talk? Abi you be deaf and dumb?”
I reached in my pocket and retrieved a picture of Tabitha. I unfolded it and showed it to him.
His face revealed everything. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. He quickly recovered himself and asked me
“Why are you showing me the picture? Do I know her?” at that point, I could sense his defense. Everybody in the University knew that face. Jibril knew that face. And then the lady on him asked
“Isn’t that the girl that was raped who died last month?”
“Gina, will you shut up?” Jibril barked at her.
I smiled. I put the picture back in my pocket. I grabbed the bottle by its neck. Before Jibril could make to move I’d smashed the bottle on his head. It cracked immediately. Its contents spilled all over a dazed Jibril and the girl who’d began to scream. I grabbed her neck and squeezed hard, then I ran the shard of glass in my hand into her belly. Her warm blood oozed out of the gash. She gasped, shocked, I removed the shard from her belly and drove it up her jaw. Her blood spilled onto my hand. She stopped jerking and I let her drop to the floor. I looked at her for a few seconds. She hadn’t deserved what had happened to her. Wrong place at the wrong time.
I looked at Jibril. He was still dazed. The red liquor was all over him. His blood flowed from a gash where the bottle had connected with his head. He just sat there. He didn’t even flinch. I sat on the edge of the centre table and looked at him. The porn kept playing just behind me on the 40 inch Samsung TV.
“You weren’t the only one who raped her.” I said to him. “I do not plan to kill you but I could just as easily do it right here and right now. I want you to give me the names of all the guys who were involved that night.” Finally he looked at me. His lips quavered. He was losing much blood from the wound on his head and he looked a total mess.
“Are you ready to tell me?” I asked. He nodded. I retrieved my phone from my pocket, clicked on the camera and started recording.
Jibril confessed what he had done. Said how he’d been asking Tabitha out but she’d refused. And how even with his affluence and position in the secret society, a girl on campus would refuse his advances. He’d told some of his crew members and they’d planned what to do. They followed her that night, staying in the shadows. Then when she walked home alone, they attacked her. Everyone had their way with her. Four of them defiled her in every way they chose to. When she resisted they beat her up, and made her stay down. By the time they were done, she wasn’t moving. One of them had checked to see if she was dead. When they confirmed she wasn’t they left her there and departed.
By the time he had finished the story and given me the names I needed… I was seething with rage.
I picked up a piece of the shattered wine bottle from the floor. I observed it for a while.
Oh, Tabitha. I finally found the bastards who took you away from me.
I walked behind Jibril, grabbed his head and slit his throat from ear to ear. Then I walked to the door and looked back one last time. I was satisfied. I left.
In the next couple of days I’d found the other three. One I’d dismembered and fed his testicles to him. The second I’d gorged his eyes out and used a knife to spill the contents of his belly. And the third, I rammed a machete down his throat. Then on the 14th of November, I shared a copy of the confession on all social media platforms until it went viral. I returned to the Psychiatric Hospital that day and told the Doctor what I’d done. He was shocked beyond words. I smiled at him, and patted him on the shoulder.
The News of their deaths shook the school even more than that of Tabitha. A demented killer had been through there and left a number of dead bodies in his wake. And at every scene of the bloody murders… two words had been inscribed in blood.
For Tabitha.
DYSTOPIUM 