Rokia was perfection, an intelligent, charming, and authoritative leader of the popular posse in my secondary school. I have always had the biggest crush on her, but as you can tell from me sharing this on reddit: I’m a nerd, and I have never been bothered to engage with Rokia any closer then admiring her. Things started to change for me, once Rokia invited me to a special event the cult held. The cult had not actually been something like a Manson family, rather the name of the slender and hypnotizing women Rokia surrounded herself with; Sarah, and Marisha.
She handed over her home address, and the exact time I had to arrive at her home, as explained she always found me charming, and wanted to get to know me better. The time was set at 11:45, and I rushed to tell my friend Thomas, who simply brushed off the comment as some lie, before seeing the invitation card, and begging that I bring him along. I arrogantly explained, once I got into good terms with Rokia, I would consider inviting him over.
‘Bullshit, don’t get an ego too quickly. I heard that they do messed up stuff with the people they bring over.’, Thomas said.
‘No one’s ever went there, and its just a rumour people spread because they’re jealous of them.’, I explained.
‘Its strange that such a well known event had been around for so long, and yet they never invite anyone.’, A stranger said sitting on the opposing benches.
‘They do it to sound cool, obviously. They probably watch TV, and sit around and fart.’, Thomas explained.
‘So much popularity, for doing nothing much. Strange.’, The stranger said.
I wasn’t bothered much by the sudden curiosity from the stranger and Thomas’s teasing, as I rushed home and prepared for my special night. Dodging my brother’s bad mood, my mother’s yelling, and the eventual return of my father from work (which would sour everyone’s mood). I ran over to my room. I rushed over to my special shoebox, where I stashed my mother’s razors, brother’s magnum collection, and my father’s cologne. It was difficult for me to think of anything else as I began shaving, which did not go as well as I might have hoped. My rushed nature had caused an insistent pain from razor burns, and further pain from applying an alcohol based cologne across my chest, armpit, and always being an optimist I had also applied cologne across my crotch.
I decided to head over there some twenty minutes early, just to ensure I could get to the door at the right moment. In the meantime I would wait by some bushes beside a run-down home. Taking a seat by the building’s stoep, I looked around the quaint neighbourhood, and for a moment it seemed as if I was the only person around, without the slightest noise of dogs or sprinklers. Brushing the slight isolation of the place aside, I curiously wondered what festivities I would get into once I arrived at the home. I can honestly admit this without the slightest sense of guilt – I’m seventeen, and my mind is wholly dedicated on getting laid. Having a foursome for my first time would be a hall of fame achievement, and the thought made me giggle heartedly, before a tap on my back caught me by surprise.
As I turned back, the once dark and run-down home had illuminated brightly, and with a charm.
‘You’re early.’, Rokia said.
‘This isn’t the address.’, I stammered, taken by surprise.
‘Why don’t you check the card, to be sure.’, she replied.
The invitation card had seemingly changed to fit the time, and place Rokia had just mentioned, as I remained sure that the home had been abandoned place just a moment ago. Rokia had sensed my apprehension, and comforted me, by grabbing my waist and pulling me closer to her, and into the home. It was beautifully decorated with fine Persian carpets seating on polished wooden floors, and chandeliers anchored nearly across all the rooms. Sarah and Marisha ran past Rokia and I, barely clothed, they screamed at the top of their lungs, apparently playing a game of tag. Rokia apprehended them as they reached me, and as they held onto me tightly, taking me upstairs.
‘Where are we going?’, I asked.
‘Don’t you want to get laid?’, Rokia said.
‘I never said that.’
‘But you thought of it.’, Sarah answered.
The girls giggled, as we seemed to be heading away from the bedrooms upstairs, and closer to the attic of the home. Eager to avoid the uncomfortable silence that set in, they drew the strange chalked symbols onto the attic floor. I had kept on asking, what we were doing in the musty and cramped up attic, but they seemed uninterested in answering, as they continued with their preparations. Rokia had soon turned to me and instructed me to take a seat with her. I told them I had no interest to seat with them, as I tried to leave before Sarah and Marsha shut the attic door in front of me. They undressed, and so did Rokia, as a sense of fear had slowly taken a hold of me.
Before I say anything else, I fell still. I had been left spellbound, tightly wrapped with what had felt like endless strands of rope heavily wrapped around me - I could not talk, move, and my thoughts were hazed. The only thing certain now had been a growing sense in me, that I was going to be killed here, and I was powerless, as they encircled me and began their chanting.
‘Don’t mess it up this time.’, Rokia said to Sarah.
‘I won’t, I memorised it.’, Sarah answered nonchalantly.
The panic set in me, as I tried to move, but I could not. They recited their chant; in the form of clicks of the tongues, as I realised I could move my head a bit, but slowly the direction went against my will, and I heard a strange whisper, which felt like the distillation of death, war, and hunger in its breath across my cheek. I was soon pressured down. Still unable to do much, but feel the terror as a sinister heavy breathing would be my last sensation of life.
My life was nearly over, but Sarah’s chanting had been grounded whilst I said my last prayer. I heard the slow, and gradual crushing of bones, as Rokia had simply sighed with Marisha screaming out. I could suddenly move again, and Rokia reshifted her attention to me and with it, a war-cry, as she rushed to stab me. Her hit graze my neck, instead nabbing my clavicle, as I managed to punch her onto the attic floor whilst I rushed to the door.
Marisha’s screeching had nearly ripped my eardrums apart, but her voice had begun to lower in pitch, as the vocal transformation had distracted me enough to slip across the retractable attic stairs. I recovered quickly, and started to run. What started off as the scream of a young woman, had morphed to a consistent howling, that had seemed omnipresent as I navigated through the labyrinth of the home. The doors, or my imagination had played a trick on me, as I confusingly moved through the same doors, or would find myself reopening the attic door, where Sarah and Marisha had looked reanimated.
I quickly shut a door and I would notice Rokia closing in, until I had managed to reach a window ledge on the second storey. Rokia curiously looking over me as I stood on the roof, she would soon give chase as I reacted poorly slipping off the roof. I jumped off the ledge, adding onto my other injuries, as I ran from the lawn onto the pavement and eventually down the road, with Rokia stopping in front of the home.
I was heavily wounded, and I had not been sure I could manage to go any further then the T-junction leaving the street from the cul-de-sac. I could still see her stand beside her home, I was unsure why she would wait there, when she could have easily taken me at an instant, but before I could give any more of a thought, I fainted on the intersection. Luckily within a few minutes a car had stopped, and rescued me.
‘You need to go there!’, I shouted out.
‘You’ve been through a traumatic experience, and you need some rest.’, The Sheriff patronisingly explained to me.
‘I think so too baby.’, My mother said.
‘None of you, are listening to me. She’s going to kill me and I know she will find me. You have to find her.’
‘Please don’t talk like that.’, My mother said as she snuffed her tears.
‘Its okay. It will be okay.’, My father said.
The Sheriff, a childhood lover of my mother, and in one of his rare moments of empathy towards my families weeping, had bothered to take a small group of deputies to the address written on my invitation card, which had been my only proof. It had not taken them long to find Sarah and Marisha, and with an instant they remembered the girls. They described it as a funny feeling of nostalgia seeing them. A deputies snooping around with Sarah, and Marisha were taken out my the morgue, revealed another rush in the strange nostalgia sensation – they were more bodies. I too recall having that sensation once the mass funeral for all the bodies found in the home. They found in the newly renovated home, that had no lease or sign of ownership to it.
Mayor Williamson, the athletic Kruger brothers, the business tycoon Mr. Matthews. The investigative team headed by the town’s sheriff found over twenty bodies that had been neatly hung off meat hooks. As they walked past each of the putrid corpses, they had quickly realised they had known all of them, but had their memories wiped away from them. Mr Matthews had been the Sheriff’s mentor as a young man, and it was said the stoic sheriff had broken down in disbelief, as he walked past the tycoon’s maggot riddled holes across on his cheek. A man he considered a father, who he had lost without even knowing it.
Whilst I was the person to lead them all to the bodies, the town hall conference called after the week of mourning, had been more concerned with settling the past.
‘We can’t forget about them. They might be more after all, and Rokia too might return.’, I said
‘You’re creating panic.’, an audience member said to the crowd’s jeer.
‘He just needs rest.’, an older woman explained.
My brother escorted me out of the podium, as I was still injured from all the commotion. Regardless of how much they all try and forgot what we uncovered, I couldn’t feel more vulnerable being already neglected survivor. No one truly believes what they saw that day, but one thing I know is Rokia is going to come back for me. Please read and hold onto this, its important that I’m not forgotten.