Range CHAPTER 2: THE NIGHTMARE IS REAL!
All farm equipment — a panga, four hoes, two slashers — were intact and splayed under other piles on the floor. I unintentionally picked up the 20-inches-long carbon steel panga. Stepping out of the hut with it, I hit the trail heading for the homestead exit, leaving the farm animals behind. Just outside the exit, the complete absence of trees and shrubs promised me a slight good view and aural in each direction. In front of me was an occupation of dry maize crops, choked by the regularity of thatching grass. This is where the nearest relatives’ three-acre run downed land began. On my right was the northeasterly path entrenched in quite similar vegetation yet with slight variations of black-jack. This stretched to at least four acres away. However, amidst the black-jack, a stone’s throw away, something did not seem right.
At first, it seemed like people had left some clothes in the vegetation. This was quite worrying. I decided to crane my neck forward with little motion. Indeed, it was suspiciously concerning. There were three figures resembling mannequins. Two females in yellow and black dresses had lain side by side, and stiff on their bellies. And beside them was a male in a green shirt and brown shorts. Each one’s head was covered with a grey cloth.
Startled, I dropped in the grass; laying low to keep out of sight in case it was bait. For some reason, my heartbeat had slightly relapsed except those grasshoppers that chirped and flew all over the place causing more concern. After a minute, I stretched my head up and carefully circle scanned the area. At my distant left, there were nightshades with just a few lumps of elephant grass fallows left for sale to other pastoralists. Fifty-five-year-old uncle Nyeko, the owner used the observable paddocks ahead in the same direction for seasonal goat raring, especially during the biannual wet seasons. A whistling flurry of wind cautioned me to pan quickly to my right. Only to see whirling grass particles. Keeping my head secure, I settled that no observant was just around the corner.
I forced my body up and quietly approached the figures. Getting closer, until I stood just above the figures — I knew them! Bowing down on my knees I splayed the herbs away from the lady first and then the other two. And slowly pulling away the cloths — Aunt Lucy, Omollo and Kadim. There were massive blisters in their swollen heads as well as in their respective noses, ears and mouths. The drying specks of maize flour indicated that their heads might have been brutally sunk in the boiling porridge I had left on the kitchen floor. Tremblingly opening their eyelids, not a bit did they twitch; an unsettling sight. Touching their chests; I sensed no pulsation. There was no movement of the torso and neither was any indication of breathing through their noses. They were dead!
I felt fiery electrical impulses all over my hands. My bones shook unnaturally; ligaments in my elbows and laps felt weaker and slightly disconnected. The sole of my feet itched even more. I was sweating out of control. “But no! The LRA cannot be this intricate”, I quit trembling and reasoned out. Even a brawl could not have stopped them from sparing the life of a teen girl and a youthful woman for abduction. This might have been a modus operandi familiar to a dying belief held by village elders, clan leaders and their loyalists. They were so desperate to convince those noncompliant Acholi who diverged from their value systems. They warned us of deaths in bizarre circumstances — without use of weaponry — orchestrated by ancestral spirits.
Upon reflection, I recalled our two entrepreneurial grandparents twice or thrice hinting on an enigmatic five-acre farmland. This was during at least two weekends whenever they returned from Kitgum town 52 miles away. They mentioned the owners best-known as Mr and Mrs Ogwal — a formerly affluent cultured couple. That in the early 1970s, they reared a thousand heads of cattle and around 400 goats on their land. Later, these were faulted for becoming materialistic vultures. This apparently provoked an ancestral spirit. And according to the chiefs and elders the spirit apparently kills anyone who entered the farmland. Annually, no less than 20 cases of homicides bearing close resemblance to my three dead family members were considered a testament to their initial indulgence.
Unlike me the other family members granted the geriatrics audience with safe reluctance, yet cynically regarding all their narratives as cleverly constructed pretenses aimed at make-believe. I found them rather amusing and half-believed their other lore, appreciating especially their standpoints on the fantastical elements. I often listened until they delved into themes of our heritage: love and respect for one another, decency, marriage, inheritance, productiveness and fetish for deities among others. Seriously, there was an overabundance of indefensible tales that I think had gradually diluted their planned purpose of shaping our flimsy lifestyle. I mean for civilization’s sake no clearheaded person would approve of something they have never seen.
Do not get me wrong, there was a time, after days of trying hard to assemble facts concerning the farm, a male schoolmate quite my age warned me that it was some sort of deathtrap. He said it was situated two villages away (or approximately eight miles) north of our own village and just two miles after the school I attended. But, after he denied never to have seen the farm himself, I doubted his credibility. Another critical issue was the location. The place being two miles from school — and likely within the same village — would be much easier for at least one of us (me and the schoolmate) to locate, hence the inevitability of not taking his suspicions literally. Besides, I had also never witnessed the corpses until the three I was cradling on that dreadful day.
At that point, I became quite aware that this manifestation of murder preceded the death of the other supposedly victimised family members. In that respect, I was to try beyond my limits to reach them before they were slain. So, I thought of hurrying to catch up with them, assuring myself to capably overwhelm whatever threat that would dare stand in my way as I saved my household — the only supportive people I knew. Placing back the three bodies where I had originally found them, I covered their heads just as initially. I got on my feet — still equipped with the panga — and chose the northeast to the next home. I frantically began running there: primarily to locate my family’s whereabouts, and somewhat intent to report the murder.
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