“...may the good lord heal you and may whoever is responsible for this horrible act rot in hell” Pastor James prayed as the family kneeling in front of him all chorused "Amen"
This was the third rape case the village was witnessing and unfortunately they haven't been able to catch the culprit. His three victims had all told the same story.
“He had a mask on and wore a very big cloth that covered the whole of his body” so no one was able to identify who the rapist was.
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Pastor James had gone to report to the community police but even they too couldn't do anything about the situation as their investigation was leading to no where.
It felt like no one was doing anything except for Pastor James who had immediately organized a church crusade to send the rapist to hell after the second rape case was reported, he had also taken it upon himself to gather some of the village youths for some night patrol around the village to make sure no one suspicious was walking around in the middle of the night.
Everything seemed to settle down after the second rape case for a while, probably because of the night patrol but then after about a month when everyone was starting to let their guard down, the rapist struck again. This time, it was the daughter of an elder in the church that was raped.
The youths had angrily marched to the community police station asking why the culprit hasn't been brought to book yet. It took the intervention of pastor James to prevent the youth from setting the whole station ablaze. It took the divisional police officer in charge of the station to come out and address the youths before they finally agreed to go to their various homes.
Somewhere in the crowd, the rapist watched as the divisional police officer lied about having some good leads on the case. He knew they had nothing because he always made sure to be very careful when perpetrating his act.
Four months after the third rape case, everyone was now convinced that the rapist had either gone to hell or has fled for his life after seeing how angry the youths were. That Sunday, the community did a thanksgiving service in the church, thanking God for hearing their cries and sending the rapist away from their community.
Later that evening, Amaka was fetching firewoods her mother was to use to prepare their night meal when she heard a branch snap and quickly turned around. In as much as its been four months since the last rape case, few of them still had that fear in mind of being raped. She went back to packing but this time, she decided she had had enough woods and it was time to go home. As Amaka bent down to carry the firewood, she felt a strong grip on her shoulder which made her scream in shock, it was more of a yelp than a scream. Before she could tell what was happening, she was on the floor with a masked man on top of her.
“Oh God, is this it?” Amaka thought as she struggled with the stranger.
"If he thought she was going to be an easy Prey, then he thought wrong" Amaka said inside of her as her hand searched frantically for anything to use as a weapon.
The rapist was getting infuriated with her struggles and decided to hit her in the head to weaken her a beat. A strike to the head was all he needed and she would be as still as he wanted her to be. As the rapist raised his hand to hit her, he instead got hit. Amaka's hand had touched a piece of wood just in time to stop him from making her unconscious and she had immediately struck him on the head with the wood, shattering his mask.
She didn't wait to see the face behind the mask as she quickly got up and ran for her life. By the time she got home, she was out of breath.
“Amaka, who's chasing you and your where's the wood I asked you to fetch for me?” her mom asked the moment she saw her run into the compound.
“Ra.. Rapists” was all Amaka had to say for her mother to know what the problem was. She immediately called her husband who quickly mobilized the youths to go search for the rapist before he escaped while he also instructed his wife to take Amaka to the church to go meet pastor James.
“He knows what's best to do in this situation” the husband said before joining the youths who all held different types of weapons, the time for talk was over, they were going to skin the bastard alive.
Amaka and her mom followed her father's and headed for the church. By the time they got to the church, pastor James was kneeling at the alter praying.
“Pastor, the rapist is back, he tried to rape my daughter but thank God he didn't succeed. My husband asked that I bring her here that you know what to do.”
“Give her a seat and then you can go” Pastor James replied without even glancing back at them.
He waited until he heard the church door close to make sure that she had left before he got up on his feet and turned to face Amaka.
What Amaka saw sent shivers down her spin. At the left side of pastor James face was a huge sore, the same place where she had struck the rapists.
Pastor James smiled on seeing how shocked she was. “So, where were we??”
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