The Hangman's Replacement: Sprout of Disruption (BOOK 1)

by Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

  “Edith too? Why would she believe the plant was left for her?”

  “Not a clue. But I know her well. After Mr. Chuma stopped talking, the three of us stood in silence. I dangled the plant by the stem of the flower. We all stared at the half-eaten gall bladder that was still tangled in its roots. The clump swung back and forth like the pendulum of a clock warning us that we had little time to decide. I knew that Edith also realized she had a deadline when she whispered, ‘I need to lose weight.’”

  “That woman needs to lose her anger more than she needs to lose weight,” offered Vaida. “She could deal with both problems by focusing her rage on a treadmill.”

  “That’s not a nice thing to say, Vaida. Edith has faced many demons in her life. Her anger-management problem did not create them. It was a response to them. In between her fits of rage, she is loyal and loving. She has saved my life on several occasions.”

  “I apologize, Anala. Our confrontation left no room to discover her loveable side.”

  “Of course. Anyway, Edith’s tone betrayed a fear of something much greater than the desire to fend off obesity. I am sure she believed the plant and gall bladder had been sent by a new demon that she couldn’t dare confront with anger.”

  “A shared demon that threatened all three of you with the same frost-resistant flower. You said the vine was in bloom, right?”

  “Yes. It had a single flame lily blossom at the opposite end of the tangled fist.”

  “Do you have any idea who the sender was?”

  “None. However, I am sure it was a man. He is an emotional linguist who understands that fear is a universal language. He has taken the time to become fluent in it, to find the combination of heartstrings that can strum a tune of terror in the bravest souls. He can even manifest it in powerful men who believe they are incapable of experiencing it. One moment, they are ‘redirecting the rivers of fate’ and ‘subduing destiny’. The next moment, they are feeling the chill. Fate and destiny crumble into a messy heap on the floor. All that epic nonsense is swept out the door. It becomes irrelevant whether the two things are perfect synonyms or different beasts to be tamed in parallel. The man’s victims can no longer shape either. Once they learn of the havoc he is capable of bringing upon them, they quickly accept that aggression and defiance are not virtues they can afford to respond with. Compliance is the closest they will ever come to vengeance.”

  Anala leaned forward.

  “The man also has another linguistic gift. He wanted Edith, Mr. Chuma, and me to understand that he can personalize threats to a group of people through the same message. That he can intimidate different victims through a generic gesture. Vaida, this is the only person I know who can launch a carpet-bombing campaign and still hit all his targets with pinpoint accuracy. The three of us experienced it firsthand. My own fear drove me to turn away a client that I had already committed to helping.”

  Anala looked into the distance beyond the opposite wall of her trailer.

  “There was something evil about that plant. Too evil ... You know, Vaida, I have never feared wickedness before. That’s because I have built a tolerance to a version that is vile, but which I have grown to understand. As humans, we are more likely to overcome fear of things that we can place in a box of familiarity. In my case, I would be unimpressed if someone tried to scare me with a human organ. I am familiar with that type of badness. Even the stupidest thugs I have dealt with can murder a tramp and send his gall bladder to their enemies. But this man is different. He does not threaten with grotesque actions. He threatens by simply displaying a feat that far exceeds your capabilities.

  “But he does not stop there. The man knows that human curiosity will always lead his victims to speculate about the full extent of his gifts. After mulling over his feat, they realize that his display of incredible genius was the product of modest effort. That revelation is more frightening than the worst brutes we come across in both our worlds, Vaida. Confronting this breed of evil was terrifying for me. It raised a question I thought I had long answered: How many more strains of darkness are out there? The man knows he has such an impact on people. So if someone like this warns you against doing something, why on earth would you defy him?”

  “So how did you deal with the clients who wanted you to rescue the livestock?”

  “I contacted them that same night. It was the most difficult phone calls of my life. I started by telling him I had received a package. He casually asked what it was, but I am sure he already knew. Still, he groaned in disappointment when I told him. This client is one of the hardest men I know, Vaida. He stands out in the crowded field of hardened men who I’ve had the displeasure of meeting. Under any other circumstances, he would have threatened me with all sorts of discomforts. This time, he simply groaned. That was a momentous event. We had already spent so much money planning the livestock rescue, but he did not ask for a refund. He knew that the mission had outgrown the best service that MSG could offer. That anyone could offer.”

  Vaida took a sip of her lukewarm tea and tilted her head to the ceiling.

  “So you didn’t receive one of these vines when you delivered the gallows, but you got one when you tried to rescue livestock for the same client?”

  “Yes. I assume this means our florist approves of – or is indifferent to – the death penalty. I guess the same applies to the recruitment of a new hangman. If he was opposed to either, I would have received a flame lily before I accepted the gallows from the condom-clad Asher. But when it came to the livestock, the evil florist made it clear that he wanted the animals to remain in police custody. He sent me the flower. I got the message. So did the client.”

  Vaida threw back the last sip of her tea. It matched the room’s temperature. Anala offered her another, but she turned it down.

  “I don’t know why Asher wanted to kill you, Vaida. I may never know why he murdered my husband. But at least both of us can rest easier with the knowledge that he may never be able to step on Zimbabwean soil again. You can thank Percival and his anti-tax orgasm. And me? I am grateful that I now know where Asher is. I am sure he is alive and in hiding. A man in exile is always on the defensive. I can find him at leisure. I look forward to visiting Angola one day.

  “Anyway, my business with Mr. Black Eyes has nothing to do with the mountain you must climb. If your efforts on behalf of Abel Muranda threaten your life or the safety of your girls, you must cut him loose. You promised me, remember?”

  “I remember,” said Vaida with a noncommittal nod. Anala shook her head.

  “I know you keep your promises, Vaida. I just hope you emerge from the fog of your vaccine in time to do so.”

  “Which vaccine? The one against Abel Muranda or the one you injected me with?”

  “Same thing, different mechanism.”

  Anala looked at her watch.

  “Edith is probably waking up. You should leave. I’m sorry I was unable to connect all the dots for you. But make no mistake, they are all connected. In our world, strange events are never strangers to each other. At the very least, they are second cousins. If you fail to realize this, the last thing you will see before dying a gruesome death will be a series of apparent coincidences. Whether you end up in heaven or hell, you will not be able to look at your new neighbours in the eye and honestly claim that you did not see death coming. You already have a talent for knowing how to make good decisions with limited or unproven information. You will need that ability more than ever to thrive in a minefield of question marks.

  “Finally, take comfort in the fact that you have not yet provoked the man who sent me a plant that devoured a frozen gall bladder.”

  * * *

  The Gall

  Vaida’s tires displaced the raindrops before they could settle on the tarmac. The road leading back to Harare was deserted.

  “I lied to Anala,” whispered Vaida to herself. As the rain intensified, Vaida strained to see through the sheet of cascading water. The translucent film re-laid its
elf on her windshield immediately after her wipers brushed it aside.

  “Water,” she said. “I spiked his water …”

  She had.

  It was true that Abel Muranda had left Vaida’s place without eating. It was also true that he had fixed up her garden before his departure. But Vaida had failed to mention the most important part of the story to Anala. The day had been hot. Vaida had convinced her scandalized guest to accept three bottles of water. Abel Muranda had accepted the gift and departed. Vaida had waited for him to return. Surely, he would drink the water within the next day or so? When he did, he would think of her. Why wouldn’t he? She had put a potent dose of vigoroni in one of the bottles. Abel Muranda would only have one option for dealing with the resulting impulse. After all, she had made it clear that she was willing to address it?

  The hours had passed but Abel Muranda did not return. A whole day went by. Then another. And another. At first, Vaida was disappointed. But the shame quickly overwhelmed her like the draining force of bereavement. Relief only began to settle in a week after Abel Muranda’s departure. By then, Vaida was increasingly confident that he had resisted her attempts to tamper with his hormones. But each time this hopeful thought crossed her mind, a tiny echo trailed behind it like an empty tin can that was rolling after a fleeing magnet. “Are you sure he resisted?” the echo would ask. “Just because he did not return to you does not mean he did not act on the urges you inspired.”

  For a while, Vaida dismissed the taunting voice. It could not be trusted. It was the result of some new-found insecurity that had arisen in the wake of Hurricane Abel. Such disorientation was to be expected. After gulping a dose of wishful thinking, Vaida had concluded that Abel Muranda’s willpower had overpowered the vigoroni. For weeks, she had refused to ponder the alternatives. But as she drove back to Harare, the solitude gave her no option but to reconsider the grimmer options. The rain finally dislodged the rag that she had stuffed into the mouth of her inner cynic. The captive screamed before it even gasped for air. “Look!” it screamed. The warning cry was belated. It only worsened the impact of the ghastly image that had already revealed itself. The sight was ugly. It was painful.

  Vaida grabbed her steering wheel with far more pressure than she needed for a stable grip. The weight of her threefold sin slowly piled onto her shoulders. First, Abel Muranda was a married man. Second, she had tried to extort sexual gratification from him by spiking his water. But it was the third sin that hit her the hardest. Abel and Kristabelle? Had her devious plan simply weakened her man for the benefit of her worst enemy?

  “Who have I become?”

  Vaida lowered her foot onto the accelerator. Maybe if she drove fast enough, she could escape from the stranger who was trying to displace her from her own body? Vaida’s thoughts collapsed into chaos. Though she had led an eventful life, the disruption of the past few weeks had caught her off guard.

  Moses. Abel. Edith. James. That Kristabelle, whore! Gondo. Reinsurance. Abel. Mr. Crabworthy-cum-Percival. Mr. Black Eyes-cum-Asher. Abel. Gallows. Kristabelle the dung beetle! Lazarus. Abel. Airplanes. Mercenaries. Abel. Giant condoms. Abel without one. Mr. Chuma. The evil florist. Abel. Flame lily. A scalpel!

  Vaida suddenly pushed her foot into the brake. Her car skidded violently on the wet road. It flipped over three times before landing in a farmer’s field. She was still conscious, but her head hurt. Vaida felt around for signs of bleeding. There were none. The rain was still pouring. Even if any motorists saw her, they would probably not stop. Her car had landed upright. It was not dented enough to give a passing driver the impression of an accident, especially not through the heavy rain.

  Vaida’s hands were shaking. She calmed them by clutching the steering wheel as hard as she could. It was not her near-death experience that had plunged her into a state of shock. It was a realization that had caused her to brake so suddenly. The fog in her head had cleared to reveal the most menacing vision she had ever seen.

  A few months before, Vaida had experienced a searing pain in her lower abdomen. Her appendix needed to be removed. Since then, she had suffered from occasional bouts of nausea and abdominal pain. The surgeon had warned her of these side effects. He had also scheduled a follow-up visit, which Vaida ignored. Her life was too busy, especially once Abel Muranda walked into it several weeks after the surgery.

  Just before she sent her car spinning into the field, Vaida had seen a scalpel emerging from the fog in her mind and disappearing into the sky. After that, her face had emerged, followed by a slimy gall bladder. Both had flown in pursuit of the scalpel.

  Anala was wrong. Vaida had already received her threat. The evil florist had yanked it out of her body, placed it on a frozen warthog steak, and planted a hungry flame lily on the mess. With this simple move, he had placed Vaida’s warning on a crude timer. The fleshy device had chilled for weeks until the alarm sounded. It only did so after Mr. Chuma, Edith, and Anala had received their respective threats through the same vehicle.

  The florist had planned all this before Vaida even knew Abel Muranda existed. Before she decided to intervene against his ambitions. Before she knew she would fall in love for the first time in her life. Vaida’s future vulnerability had declared war on an enemy she had not known existed. The enemy had pre-empted her declaration on the operating table.

  But had the evil florist caused the abdominal pains that led Vaida to consent to the surgery? Did he also know that she would visit Anala? Was he responsible for Vaida’s inspiration to make the secretive journey in the first place? After all, the threat would be more powerful if Vaida learned of its sophistication from a trusted friend who staunchly believed it was aimed at her? A friend whose own employees also believed they were its true targets?

  Vaida leaned forward to restart her engine. A searing pain shot through the lower-right part of her abdomen.

  “Goodness ...” she whispered.

  Vaida tried to remember the surgeon’s face, but it eluded her. She tried to remember the sound of his voice. No matter how hard she tried, the words that echoed up from the basement of her fading memory were spoken in her own voice.

  “We are going to give you some ketamine. It will put you to sleep. Are you scared?”

  “No.”

  “Good. A brave one. I will match your courage with my medical talents. I am accustomed to holding lives in my hands.”

  At the time, the surgeon’s words had been comforting. The anesthetic had quickly put Vaida to sleep. The nightmare had started sometime during the operation. Vaida was on her back, floating in a sea of eyeballs. Their optic nerves extended far behind them. They looked like giant sperm. Each one wriggled with a single-minded focus. Overcoming the tremendous odds of dying unfulfilled required no lesser effort.

  Several eyeballs managed to tangle their optic nerves around Vaida’s neck. They were wrestling each other to press their pupils against hers. Just as one of them succeeded, another would yank it aside and take its place. With each switch, Vaida saw either total darkness or a constellation of glimmering particles.

  The writhing escalated into a frenzy. Vaida’s own eyeballs were burning, but there was little she could do to fend off the invaders. She could not move. The anesthetic had also taken effect in her dream. The optic nerves tightened around her neck. The pressure threatened to crack open her skull. Without warning, the eyeballs began to explode. They shrieked in pain. They sounded like a legion of whistling kettles boiling all at once.

  The sea of eyeballs began to recede like a layer of froth disintegrating into a badly poured beer. Vaida felt herself tumbling into the darkness as the eyeballs beneath her deflated at the speed of free fall. Then there was nothing.

  Vaida had awoken to the smiling face of a nurse who told her that her appendix had been removed. Discovering the lie had caused her to swerve off the highway. The infected appendix was still in her. It had confirmed its presence by rupturing when she tried to restart her car. Vaida knew she had to get to a hospital. Fast
. The rain was still heavy. The highway was deserted. Her engine was refusing to start. The pain was unbearable.

  She reached for her phone just as a text message came through from Anala.

  “Surprise, surprise! Got word that organ-carrying livestock to be released. MSG will do the moving. Text when you get back to Harare. PS: Never follow your heart. It rarely has your best interests in mind.”

  Vaida put all of her energy into typing her response: “HELP.” As she was about to click the “send” button, the screen of her cell phone went blank. Her battery was dead.

  Vaida decided to recline her seat and wait for the rain to stop. Screaming in pain, she summoned all of her energy to reach forward and turn on her emergency lights. When she tried to ease herself back into a resting position, the weight of her injured body overwhelmed her weakened muscles. Her back crashed into the seat with great force. The shock stifled her anguish before it even left her throat. Vaida closed her eyes. If no one stopped within the next half hour, she would take her chances and crawl onto the road. For now, she would stay put and save as much energy as possible.

  The ruptured appendix was poisoning her blood. If the toxins had a conscience, they would throttle the part of her heart that was being held hostage by an irrational emotion, a foolish sentiment that had formed around a man who would not love her back.

  Vaida closed her eyes. A chill pulsed up and down her spine. She was now on notice. If she survived this accident, her life would still be in danger. Next time, the anonymous villain would not remove the appendix. Neither would he remove another organ such as the gall bladder, which her body had learned to live without. Before he killed her in a fantastic display of cruelty, he would take the only thing that she was unwilling to sacrifice: an aspiring hangman named Abel Muranda.

  The gall.

  * * *

  THE KEY INGREDIENT?

  “Nothing prepares you for hiring a person whose only contribution to the workforce will be killing people!”