The night deepened, pulling a thick, starless blanket over the wounded city. Midnight came and went. In the flat on the third floor, nobody slept. They were adrift in a sea of tense, watchful silence, the only sounds the pained, shallow breaths from the bedroom and the frantic thumping of Adekunle's own heart. He sat by the rear window, his hand hovering over the cracked screen of the tablet, the device now feeling less like consumer electronics and more like the trigger for a bomb. Ben stood at his post by the front window, a silent, grim-faced statue. Every distant shout, every dog's bark, sent a fresh jolt of adrenaline through Adekunle's system.
From the bedroom, Funke moaned, a low, delirious sound. The fever was consuming her. The sound was a spur, a painful reminder of why they were doing this. It was a risk that had to be taken.
"They're settling down," Ben whispered from across the room. His voice was taut as a guitar string. "Small-Boy is asleep on the mattress. The other two are drinking again. Ikenna is just… watching the street."
This was it. The moment of maximum complacency. Their guard was as low as it was going to get.
"It's time," Adekunle breathed, his own voice sounding foreign to him. He looked at his uncle, a dark shadow against the faint moonlight. Ben gave a single, sharp nod. The decision was made. There was no turning back.
Adekunle's finger, slick with sweat, hovered over the play icon on the tablet's screen. He took a deep, shuddering breath, held it, and tapped the screen.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, a low, almost sub-sonic hum began to emanate from the giant Wharfedale speakers. It wasn't a sound so much as a pressure change in the room. Adekunle felt it in the floorboards, in the soles of his feet, in the fillings of his teeth. It was the sound of a beast clearing its throat two blocks away. He tapped the screen again, starting the second, slightly louder audio file. The hum deepened into a recognizable, guttural rumble. It was the sound of pure, mechanical power, alien and terrifying in the dead quiet of the night.
He crept to his post at the front window, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He peered through the slit.
Below, the effect was instantaneous and electric. One of the drinking men, the one with the long hair, froze with the bottle halfway to his lips. "You hear that?" he hissed.
Ikenna was already on his feet, his head cocked, his body utterly still. He was a predator that had just caught the scent of a much larger predator. "Quiet!" he snapped.
Adekunle let the sound loop for another thirty seconds, letting the seed of fear take root. The sound was doing what they had prayed it would. Bouncing off the high walls of the surrounding buildings, it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, a disembodied, approaching threat.
He gave his uncle a look, and Ben nodded again. Phase three. Adekunle tapped the screen again, launching the third, much louder track.
The roar of the ghost truck hit the compound. The bass vibrated through the concrete structure of the building, a deep, physical assault. It sounded as if the truck had just turned onto their street. It was no longer a distant threat; it was here.
Panic erupted below.
"It's them!" Small-Boy shrieked, scrambling up from the mattress, his face a mask of pure terror. "Blade is back! He's back for us!"
The man with the long hair dropped his bottle. It shattered on the pavement, the sound lost in the overwhelming engine roar. He started gathering their meager supplies in a frantic, clumsy rush.
Ikenna stood frozen for another second, his face pale in the firelight. He stared down the empty, dark street, searching for the headlights that weren't there. But his ears were screaming a truth his eyes denied. His nerve broke. The alpha façade crumbled into dust, revealing the terrified rat beneath.
"Idiot! Leave it!" he screamed at the man gathering their things. "Grab the water! Just the water! Go! Go now!"
He didn't wait to see if they followed. He turned and sprinted for the broken gate, his earlier swagger replaced by a clumsy, desperate scramble. He ran with the unthinking, primal terror of a prey animal. He didn't look back.
The other two were right behind him. They abandoned their weapons, their food, the smouldering fire. They abandoned their tiny kingdom without a second thought, their only instinct to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the sound of the approaching engine. In less than ten seconds, they were gone, swallowed by the darkness of the streets they had, for a brief time, ruled.
Adekunle let the audio play for another full minute, a minute that stretched for an eternity, his eyes scanning the empty street, waiting for them to return, for them to realize the deception. But they didn't. The street remained empty.
With a trembling hand, he reached for the tablet and stabbed the stop button.
Silence.
It crashed down on the flat with the force of a physical blow. It was a profound, ringing silence, deeper and more complete than any he had ever known. The ghost was gone. The yard below was empty. The fire in the drum flickered, a lone, forgotten sentinel.
"They're gone," Adekunle whispered, the words feeling huge in the stillness. He looked at his uncle.
Ben stumbled away from the window and sank into his armchair, letting out a long, shuddering breath that sounded almost like a sob. He ran his hands over his face, his entire body trembling with the release of a tension that had been building for days. "It worked," he breathed, his voice full of a stunned, incredulous awe. "Sweet mother of God, it actually worked."
Adekunle felt a giddy, hysterical laugh bubble up in his chest. He choked it down. They had done it. Two men and a boy, armed with nothing but vintage audio equipment and a knowledge of the human mind, had overthrown a king. The victory was so sweet, so total, it felt unreal.
But the silence that followed was a different kind of pressure. It was the silence of opportunity. A window, open for now, but ready to slam shut at any moment. The euphoria of their victory was immediately replaced by the cold, hard reality of what came next.
"The supermarket," Adekunle said, his voice gaining a new urgency. "We have to go. Now. Before someone else takes their place. Before they realize and come back."
Ben nodded, the brief moment of relief over. He pushed himself to his feet, his face resetting into a mask of grim purpose. "You're right."
The next ten minutes were a whirlwind of quiet, frantic preparation. They filled their backpacks with what was left of their water, a few biscuits, and Ben's first-aid kit. They took their weapons—the tyre iron for Ben, the sharpened file for Adekunle. The tools of their old lives were now the instruments of their survival.
The hardest part was the goodbye. Ben went into the bedroom. Adekunle stood in the hallway, giving him his privacy, but he could hear his uncle's low, murmuring voice.
"Funke, my love," he whispered. "We have to go out. Just for a little while. To get you some medicine. We will lock the door. No one will get in. You just sleep. We will be back before you know it. I promise. I promise you, I will be back."
When Ben came out of the room, gently closing the door behind him, there were tears tracking paths through the grime on his cheeks. He wiped them away with an angry, impatient gesture. He looked at Adekunle, his eyes blazing with a fierce, protective fire. The survival of the woman in that room was now the only mission that mattered in the world.
"Let's go," he said, his voice thick with emotion.
They moved to the front door, the three locks seeming flimsy and inadequate now. Ben took the tyre iron, Adekunle gripped the file. Ben paused with his hand on the final lock. He looked at his nephew, his eyes conveying a thousand words. Be smart. Be fast. Be safe.
He turned the lock. The click was a gunshot in the silence. He pulled the door open, and they stepped out of their home, out of their prison, into the dark, silent stairwell. The air outside the flat was cooler, carrying the faint scent of smoke and dew. It smelled of danger and of a desperate, terrifying freedom. The war for the third floor was won. The battle for survival had just begun.