Restless – Episode 257

Restless – Episode 257

® 18+ SNVL

© Oluwatosin Emmanuel Oyinloye

UNEDITED

“Ma’am,” the man behind him connected to Florence Brown on phone. “We’ve got Carl Winston right in front of us. He’s at our mercy.”

“Did you see any of the other two?” Florence Brown asked from the other end.

“No, just him here. No one else is around. Do we get him to lead us to where the other two are?”

“No, we don’t need that, just ki*ll him. Empty your bullets in his head and make sure he cannot come back to life.”

“Noted, ma’am,” the man had an evil smile on his face as he put down the phone. “She ask…”

He could not complete his statement as a bullet pierced through his skull from the back of his head. The man on his left-hand side dropped down dead at the same time as the second bullet entered through the side of his head.

Rex appeared behind the bush path, with both pistols in his hand. Before the other two could react, Rex had released one more bullet from each gun to take them down. He moved closer quickly and fired the last two men again to ensure they were dead.

He took a quick look around before turning to his friend. “Carl, we gotta get out of here now,” he said and turned to leave immediately.

He stopped after taking two steps and noticing that Carl did not flinch. He took two steps backwards and stared at Carl’s face. That was when he noticed that Carl looked completely lost. He placed a knee right in front of Carl and stared straight into his eyes.

“Look here, man. Whatever is going through your mind now, you gotta put it aside and let us leave before other members of the Red Wolves get here.”

Henry still did not bat his eyelids or move. He kept staring blankly.

“Carl!” Rex slapped him gently on the cheek twice. “We gotta go.”

Henry finally blinked and looked at Rex’s face. His body shook all over as he took in a deep breath. He cast his gaze away slowly and looked around him, noticing the dead bodies.

“You gotta come with me now, Carl,” Rex repeated and then got up. He looked around quickly to see if anyone else was around or watching them.

Henry shook his head in negative. “No.”

“What?” Rex went down again in front of him.

“I don’t have to go anywhere,” Henry voiced again.

“The Red Wolves are searching for us,” Rex grabbed his chin and stared directly into his eyes. “We have to go before they get here.”

“I ain’t running from them, I’ll be here.”

Rex heaved a sigh of frustration. “We don’t know how many Red Wolves men are around, you may not be able to handle them alone. Besides, you don’t look like you’re in a shape for that.”

“I don’t have anything to leave here for,” Henry replied, still in his slow and grievous tone. “I lost everything already.”

“No, you still got us here, Carl. That’s why we need to leave now,” Rex grabbed his cheek again.

“Leave now, Morris,” Henry gasped and pushed away Rex’s hand. “I’ll just stay here and wait for whatever is coming.”

“I’m not going to leave here without you,” Rex insisted stubbornly. “If you don’t let us go now, they may ki*ll Sheila Jack.”

For the first time, Rex seemed to get Henry’s attention. He furrowed his eyebrows and stared thinly at Rex’s face. “Sheila?”

“Yes, Sheila. I left her back in the safe house. If we don’t get there soon, the Red Wolves will get there before us,” Rex explained and got up. He looked quickly around again. “We’re exposed here, we have to go now.”

He turned back to see Henry’s outstretched hand. He grabbed his palm and pulled him up.

“We might have to run,” Rex said and led the way towards the path.

They had already gotten into the path when Henry stopped.

Rex turned to look at him.

“The bike is here,” Henry stated before turning and walking to where he hid the vehicle.

____

Bexford, Bethanna

… Breaking News! Official sources have just confirmed that there has been some restructuring in the FOX Corporation today an hour before the explosion at Eriksen Smith’s road. This was after former FOX chairman, Mark Vincent left the FOX office immediately after ex-President Arthur announced his decision to step down. Since then, no one in the FOX has been able to reach Chairman Mark Vincent. As a result, President Jerry installed an Interim FOX Chairman earlier today, precisely ninety minutes before the explosion went off. The details behind this restructuring are not clear yet and we cannot confirm if it was done constitutionally or not. More details to come later.

The driver hissed and reduced the volume of his car radio after the breaking news. He checked the map on his phone and noticed that he was close to the location he was headed for. He reduced his speed and continued on the slow lane, looking left and right to see if he would find her. A minute later, he spotted a lady by the side of the road and concluded it would be her.

“Hey,” he stopped by her side. “You’re Maria?”

“Yes, I am,” Maria answered as she bent over to look into the car.

The driver gestured with his head for her to step into the backseat. She opened the front door instead and settled in with him.

“This road is free, but there’s a lot of traffic on the way,” the driver said without looking at her. He was busy with the phone in his hand. He finally tossed the phone away and looked at her. “It’ll take us up to an hour.”

“Just get me out of here,” Maria gasped.

“Security officers are around everywhere. They’re searching with scanners. Hope you don’t have anything on you that could get us into trouble?” the driver asked as he began the journey.

“There’s nothing on me,” Maria replied. A word from the radio caught her attention and she quickly increased the volume.

Just in… The FOX Corporation through its official Twitter handle has broken its silence about the Ericken Smith explosion. The tweet reads: we urge that everyone stays calm and continue with their regular businesses as usual. The explosion at Ericken’s Smith’s road wasn’t an accident nor was it carried out by the Red Wolves. It was an operation from the FOX targeting members of the Red Wolves who have been operating from the building. We will reveal more details at a Press conference soon. So far, the tweet has gathered over four thousand likes and a thousand retweets. At the same time, the security agents on the explosion site recovered three dead bodies from the scene. Two others have been severely injured and are being attended to by the emergency medical staff. Stay tuned and we’ll bring you more details later.

______

Anthanna

Sheila got up to her feet immediately after she heard the knock at the door. She walked quickly but as quietly as possible towards the door and checked through the peephole. Rex was standing there and Henry was behind him. She opened the door and held it for them to step in.

“Keep the doors locked,” Rex instructed as he proceeded further into the house without any explanation.

Henry was still standing outside the house motionlessly even after Rex disappeared in the hallway.

“Henry,” Sheila mentioned his name slowly. “Please, come in.”

Henry finally stepped into the house. He took only a few steps from the door and stopped, looking around as if he was observing the living room.

Sheila locked the door and came to stand in his front. She squinted into his eyes. “Henry, are you okay?”

He didn’t answer.

“Are you okay?” She asked again but he still didn’t answer until she held his arms and shook him.

“Yes, I’m okay. Are you alright?” Henry finally replied and looked at her face.

“I’m fine,” Sheila replied with her brows still raised at him. “You don’t look okay. I think you should come and sit first,” she added and led him to a seat.

She made him sit first and dragged the footstool beside him before settling on it. She stared at his face for a while. It looked pale and expressionless. The last time she had seen him like that was when he woke after recovering his memory several months ago. But something looked different this time.

“Tell me what happened,” she requested. “Are your men okay?”

He stared at her face for a while like he was not going to reply. Then he took in a deep breath. “A bomb went off at the hideout,” his lips shook as he spoke. “I don’t think any of them survived it, except for Samantha and Dave who weren’t in there.”

“Oh, sh*t!” Sheila gasped and grabbed her hair with her palm. She looked into Henry’s eyes again and then realized what was different this time. His eyes were filled with pain and grief, and it made him almost unrecognizable. She moved closer to him and lifted his chin with her palm to look straight into his eyes. “I know you feel so terrible now, but you’re gonna get over this, I promise.”

Henry shifted back and sniffed in. “There’s no getting over this, Sheila.”

She was about to say something else when Rex returned with two polythene bags with clothes in them. He had taken off his shirt, revealing his bullet wound.

“Put these on,” he handed one of the bags to Sheila. “You can go into one of the rooms to change,” Rex pointed her towards the hallway before placing the bag in front of Henry. “You need to change into this. I hope they fit,” he added and turned to walk back in.

“You’re bleeding. Ain’t you gonna need help with that?” Sheila who was still standing with the nylon bag asked, staring at the wound. The dressing covering the wound had been soaked with blood and was almost falling off.

“Just go change, I’ll help myself,” Rex replied and continued into the hallway. “We gotta leave here as soon as possible.”

Sheila turned back to Henry after Rex walked out of sight. “You should change your clothes too, I’ll be right back,” she said before getting up and walking towards the hallway.

Henry watched Sheila go before he finally looked at the bag Rex placed in front of him. He heaved a sigh of relief and finally reached for the bag.

___

Sheila noticed the door of the first room opened as she stepped into the hallway. She presumed it was the room Rex walked into and walked past but stopped when she heard a slight groan. She stepped back and peeped in. Rex was sitting on a chair beside a bowl of water and some medical equipment trying to redress his wound.

“I can help you with that,” she offered as she walked in.

“You should get dressed quickly. I want us to leave before anyone discovers us here,” Rex refused.

“If I leave you to fix it yourself, you’re going to be the one delaying us,” Sheila dropped the bag aside and took the scissors from him. He was trying to clean the wound surface with a ball of soaked cotton wool.

Rex gave in to her. She was right. It was going to be difficult for him to clean the wound and dress it up himself.

“You’re sure you can do it?”

“I volunteered in the Red Cross years ago. I can treat and dress minor wounds like this” Sheila answered. “How do you have all these here? You were travelling with them?” she asked about the first aid items on the tray.

“I ordered for them and asked them to be delivered to a location close to this place,” Rex replied. “I went to get them when I left you alone and asked you to call Carl.”

Sheila nodded silently and stayed quiet for a while. She paused for a moment when Rex let out a slight groan.

“When did you get shot?”

“A few days ago.”

“Who shot you?”

“Carl.”

“Henry?” Sheila paused again and looked at his face.

“Yes, Carl,” Rex nodded.

“What did you do to him?”

“He came to get his wife and son, and shot me because I killed Foden.”

“Who is Foden?”

“A motherf***er…”

______

Anthanna

“Over here, ma’am,” one of the guys beckoned to Florence Brown after seeing the dead bodies on the floor. He was with three other guys, all dressed in black. “I think this is why none of them has been answering their calls.”

It took some time for Florence Brown to join the men at the place. She was with three other guys.

She sighed on seeing the dead men on the floor. “Do you see Carl Winston with them?”

“No, only our men are here,” the guy replied.

Florence got to the spot under the tree and looked at the dead men’s faces.

“But they said they had Carl at their mercy,” one of the men remarked.

“He must have let them make that call before ending their lives,” Florence replied.

“From their lying positions, they seemed to have surrounded him,” another man opined.

“Maybe he got help,” Florence changed her mind. “Someone else must have been around and watching.”

“What do we do to these bodies?”

“Take off any form of identification from their bodies,” Florence replied. She stepped away from under the tree and walked a few metres away. She looked forth and back, to the route they were coming from and the one ahead of them. “They must have gone this way,” she said, pointing to the narrow bush path. “We gotta move fast if we want to get them. Call the other men and give them our direction.”

______

Henry took out the clothes from the nylon bag and noticed it was an Anthannian police uniform. He was about to unwrap them when he remembered something. He quickly took out his phone and dialled Samantha’s number. The call was answered almost immediately.

“Hey,” Henry’s tone was low.

“Yes,” Dave replied from the other end.

“Where’s your current location?”

“I don’t know, we’re just driving,” Dave gasped.

“How did you get a car?”

“I stole one, the owner was busy watching the rescue team at the explosion scene.”

Henry sighed. He thought of rebuking Dave for stealing the car but discarded the thought.

“I borrowed the car, man,” Dave put in, after sensing what Henry was thinking. “The owner is going to find it by tomorrow.”

“Where are you headed for?”

The reply was delayed for some seconds. Henry was about to talk again but heard the screeching sound of the tires and figured out that they just pulled over.

“I don’t know,” Dave repeated. “The FOX medicals have confirmed two of our men dead. Two others are being rushed for treatment. The explosion was heavy, there is no likelihood that those breathing will survive. The ones that haven’t been found, we can as well take them as dead.”

Henry’s eyes turned red as he sniffed in. He managed to keep the tears forming in his eyes from dropping.

“We failed, Henry. We failed!” Dave cried. “I and Samantha could have been there too if we returned earlier, and we would be dead. Well, I wish I was in there when it happened. It’s better to be dead right now…”

“Listen to me, Dave,” Henry interrupted. “I’m going to be coming back there as soon as I can. I want you and Sam to stay somewhere safe, where no one can find your location, not even me.”

Dave chuckled. “There ain’t nowhere safe, Henry. I may put a bullet in my head very soon…”

“Stop talking nonsense, Dave. You will do nothing like …”

“We lost the war this morning and we just lost every single person on our team, we’re finished!” Dave scoffed. “We’ve got no clues on what to do or what moves to make. Jerry is the President and Hutton Ryker is the FOX chairman,” he paused and gasped. “The Red Wolves have just become too powerful for us to fight against.”

“We’ve got a clue, Dave,” Henry mentioned. Dave stayed silent. “Maria was not in the building when the bomb went off.”

“Maria?”

“Yes, she went out before that time,” Henry replied. “If we can find Maria, we will bring them down.”

Dave remained quiet, probably out of shock.

“What I need you and Samantha to do now is find somewhere you can be safe until I get back there,” Henry added.

“Hell, no!” Dave replied.

“What?” Henry gasped. Then he heard the sound of the car engine starting again. “What are you doing, Dave?”

“If Maria f**king set us up, I’m going to find her right away.”

“You should wait for me, Dave. I’ll be back as soon tonight,” Henry replied. It sounded more like a warning.

“I ain’t gon wait and give her time to get away.”

“I don’t want her to get away too, but you can’t go looking for her right now. It could be dangerous for you.”

“I’ve lived in danger all through my life, Henry. This isn’t any different.”

“I’m not suggesting this, Dave. I order you to stop right now!” Henry commanded.

“F**k you, man! I ain’t no damn orders from you,” Dave replied and the call ended.

“Sh*t!” Henry huffed in anger and jammed his palms together. He dialled the number again but the call was not answered.

He got up to think and began to pace about the place, hitting his fists together.

“Carl, you should change your clothes.”

Henry stopped and looked up to see Rex standing at the entrance of the hallway. He stared at him silently.

“We have to leave here very soon.”

Henry replied with a nod and then turned to pick up the clothes. Rex walked back in.

_____

Bexford, Bethanna

“How the hell did Maria mess us up without anyone suspecting her?” Samantha still found it difficult to believe her ears. Her eyes were still heavy from tears and she had to sniff in now and then to keep her nose from running.

Dave seemed too fixated on the road and continued driving without responding.

“You were in charge of relating with Maria, Dave. How the f**k did you not see a sign?” Samantha voiced again after a few seconds of silence.

Dave finally glanced at her. “What damn sign do you think I should have seen? I was only in charge of communicating with her. I wasn’t monitoring all her moves.”

“Maybe you just weren’t observant enough in your conversation with her.”

“You’re gonna blame me now, yeah?”

“Where the f**k are you driving us to now?”

“To Maria’s parents,” Dave replied. “If there’s any place she’ll want to go first, it’s her parent’s house.”

“Why the f**k do you think she’ll go there?”

“She just f**ked us up, she’ll probably be on her way out of the country right now or with other members of the Red Wolves somewhere.”

“I don’t think she’s a member of the Red Wolves,” Dave replied. “She must have been manipulated by Hutton Ryker.”

____

“You think they are here?” one of the men flanging Florence asked. They were hiding inside the bush and looking at the building. There were about five other men some metres behind them.

“Yeah, that’s the only place that makes sense,” Florence answered.

Her phone rang at that moment and she answered it immediately. “Where the hell have you people been?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. We can see the building now.”

“How many of you are there?” Florence asked.

“Nine of us,” the caller replied.

Florence glanced back to see the number of men she had with her again.

It was going to be Rex, Henry, and Sheila against the sixteen of them. That was going to be enough to get the task done, she thought. Rex was probably the strongest among them at that moment. She wasn’t even sure Sheila could use a gun.

“We attack together,” she said into the phone before ending the call. Immediately, she gave a signal to the men behind them and they charged forward.

_____

Bethanna

Dave reached for the gun in his holster and held it in front of him before knocking on the door. Samantha stayed at the other side of the door and also brought out her gun. She took a quick look around the place while waiting for someone to answer the door.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere inside the house seemed tense. Maria had gotten into the house only two minutes earlier and had rushed into her room after asking her Father and Mother to pack a few of their things.

“You need to tell us what’s happening, Maria,” Mrs Nasheed insisted even after Maria ignored them. Her husband was also standing by the door, folding his arms.

Maria was packing some clothing items from the wardrobe into a small bag.

“Do we need to call the police, Maria?”

“Mum, Dad!” Maria screamed and turned. “You need to go into your room and get your things now. There’s a car waiting outside that’s gonna take us to safety.”

Mr and Mrs Nasheed looked at each other as if to decide whether or not to start packing. The man finally gestured with a nod for them to obey their daughter. They were just leaving when they heard a knock at the door.

Maria dropped the cloth in her hand quickly and turned to them.

“Are you expecting anyone?” She widened her eyes at them.

They stared back at her. “No, we should be asking you if anyone came with you.”

“Stay here and don’t move,” Maria quickly turned and opened another part of the wardrobe. She took out a big box there and dipped her hand underneath to look for a gun.

“What’s happening, Maria?” Mr Nasheed tried to hold her back.

“I’m going to check, Dad.”

The man held her arm. “We can call the police to handle these.”

“If they’re who I think they are, we’ll be all dead before the police arrive,” Maria replied and took her father’s hands off her. “I have to handle this myself.”

 

To be continued

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