The lake was cold, no one in sight asides them and the water was as dark as crude oil; the moon glowed as if it was watching them and the only sound they could hear was the sound of a howling dog from a distance.
“Abel Egwurube, Abel Egwurube” Ene called firmly, shaking her head as she placed her second hand on the gun and took a couple of steps away from Abel. “You never knew the woman you are married to and I now know that you will never know” Abel attempted to speak but she shhhhhed him. “This lake is not for talking… not for you anyway”
She waved the gun at him prompting him to lower the knife in his hand. “Drop it on the floor” she commanded and he obeyed “please don’t hurt me” he pleaded from a shaking tongue “did I not tell you not to speak? Abel I will let you live if you tell me why you brought me to this lake to kill me?”
Abel was afraid to speak, he couldn’t come up with any lie good enough to explain away the reason he was holding a knife over her head when she turned to point a gun at him. He scanned his brain but nothing “sorry, Ene I am genuinely sorry for everything that I have done to you” “including trying to stab me in a place… a lake that you know I love so much?” he nodded and then she had a burst of long, terrifying laughter.
“What do you take me for? A fool?” she asked with a petrifying smile on her face; Abel had never seen that expression on her face before. She went on to explain his life history to him; telling him how she had always known how much he loved Rita but she loved him and wanted to be with him so much that she turned a blind eye to it, because she believed that Rita will never love him back.
She told him about all the times he lied to her that he was going to church for meetings; but instead he was going to hide in the bushes of Bishop and Rita’s house just to get a glimpse of her. She even told him how she watched him sneak into their house on the nights when Bishop Chukwu wasn’t home, in order to hide in their kitchen and watch her up close.
Abel attempted to explain but she fired a bullet an inch away from his foot “now when I tell you to be quiet you will… get on your knees you Rita obsessed bastard” she ordered and he obeyed swiftly then she continued to list all the atrocities she had witnessed Abel commit. “I was there that night” “what night?” he asked subconsciously “did I not ask you to keep quiet?” “Sorry” he said realizing that that was him talking again, so he put his hand over his mouth.
“I saw you the night, you snuck into Bishop Chukwu’s house and stabbed him in their kitchen” now there were tears in her eyes as she looked at the shocked expression on his face “Abel, you are a murderer and now that you have gotten him out of the way; you brought me here to do same but you will not succeed” she aimed the gun properly at his head and he didn’t know when he stood up to beg for his life
“Wait wait wait please don’t shoot me. That man was a monster” Abel explained “and what about me? Am I a monster too… I did everything you ever wanted to make you happy but it was not enough for you, not enough until I die”
“No that is not true” he said taking a few steps closer to her but she backed away and continued to aim at his head. “What are you going to do? Shoot me and dump my body in the lake? What will you tell people? That you came to the lake with me and I disappeared?”
Before she could answer, he leaped towards her landing with a blow to her head; the blow was devastating but she managed to stop him from taking the gun away from her. Then came another blow to her head; this time she had no power to hold a toothpick talk more of a gun.
Abel took the gun from her, looked around the lake to make sure there was no one in sight “I’m sorry my dear… Goodbye” he said sending two bullets into her head. She died instantly.
He walked closer to the lake water and shot himself in the thigh then threw the gun and the knife in the water. He laid down on the floor screaming for help; screaming like a man attacked, like a man who had just lost his wife, his love. Screaming like a man who had just lost everything.
