The Scrap Yard was not merely a place where machines went to die. It was a place where they went to be forgotten.
Located near the abandoned colonial railway tracks iron scars in the earth that had never seen a train the yard was acres of rusted metal, twisted chassis, and decaying industrial dreams. It was a landscape of tetanus and silence, baking under the relentless Sunday sun. The air here tasted of oxidized iron and old grease, a heavy, metallic tang that coated the tongue.
I stood at the perimeter fence, looking through a gap in the barbed wire. Beside me stood Collins, wiping sweat from his forehead, and Sunday, the boy who had tried to burn our house a week ago. Sunday was carrying a heavy iron pry bar over his shoulder. He was quiet, his eyes darting around nervously. He was trying hard to be invisible, to be useful, to wash away the sin of the kerosene with sweat.
"Nkem," Collins whispered, swatting a fly from his neck. "This place bad oh. People say spirits dey for inside. The iron di cry for night."
"Iron does not cry, Collins," I said, adjusting the strap of my bag. "It expands and contracts with the heat. It is physics, not ghosts."
"Physics don't bite," Collins muttered. "Snakes bite. And bad men hide here."
"We are not looking for men," I said. "We are looking for a heart."
I stepped through the gap in the fence. The dry grass crunched under my boots.
I needed a compressor. But not just any compressor. A standard AC unit from a household fridge required 220 volts of alternating current. To run that off my battery bank, I would need a massive inverter, which would waste 20% of my energy in heat loss. I couldn't afford that waste. I needed efficiency.
I needed a direct current compressor. 12 Volts. Heavy duty. The kind used in refrigerated delivery trucks to keep fish frozen on the long drive from the coast.
We moved deeper into the maze. It was a canyon of junk. To my left rose a wall of crushed yellow taxi cabs, stacked like bricks. To my right, the skeletal remains of a bulldozer. The heat radiating off the metal was intense, shimmering in the air, distorting the distance.
"Spread out," I commanded. "Look for white trucks. Box trucks. Look for the black box above the driver's cabin."
We searched for an hour. The sun climbed higher, turning the yard into an oven. My shirt was soaked through. Sunday was grunting as he used his bar to beat down the elephant grass that threatened to swallow us.
"Nothing here, Massa Nkem," Sunday called out, his voice rough. "Na only rubbish."
I wiped my eyes. I was about to call it off, to try the smaller yard in Nkwen, when I saw it.
It was buried under a collapse of corrugated roofing sheets and a tangle of creeping vines. The front grill of a Mercedes 911 truck poked out like the snout of a buried beast. It was an ancient model, the round-nose type that hauled timber in the 70s.
But on top of the rusted cab, half-hidden by vines, was a white, boxy shape.
"There!" I pointed.
We scrambled over the pile of debris. The metal groaned under our weight. I slipped on a patch of oil-soaked earth but caught myself on a fender.
We reached the truck. It was in a bad state. The windshield was shattered. The tires had rotted away decades ago. But the refrigeration unit a Thermo King looked intact. The casing was dented, but the seals held.
"Open the hood," I told Sunday.
Sunday jammed his pry bar into the grill. He heaved. The rusted latch screamed in protest, then gave way with a loud CRACK. The hood flew up.
I peered into the dark engine bay.
There it was. Bolted to the side of the dead diesel engine. The compressor. It was a block of cast iron, covered in twenty years of grime, but it was beautiful.
< Scan: > Gemini whispered in my mind. < Component Identification: Thermo King V-200 Reciprocating Compressor. 12V Magnetic Clutch. Displacement: 150cc. It uses R-12 refrigerant. Warning: R-12 is an ozone-depleting substance. Handle with care. >
"This is it," I said, a thrill of victory shooting through me. "Get the wrenches."
Collins and Sunday went to work. It was brutal labor. The bolts were seized with rust. They had to use the pipe extension on the wrench, putting their full body weight into every turn. Grunt. Click. Curse. Grunt.
While they fought the iron, I walked around to the driver's side of the cab.
The door hung open on one hinge. The interior was a time capsule of decay. The seat stuffing had been pulled out by rats. The dashboard was cracked by the sun.
I climbed up onto the running board. I didn't know why. Maybe it was the historian in me, or maybe it was Gemini prompting a search for context.
I opened the glove box. It was stiff, but it fell open in a cloud of dust.
Inside were the usual relics: a dried-up pen, a map of Cameroon from 1982, and a vehicle maintenance logbook.
I pulled out the logbook. The pages were yellow and brittle. I flipped through them.
Oil change. Filter replacement. Brake check.
Then, something fluttered out from between the pages.
It was a photograph. An old, Polaroid photograph. The colors had faded, shifting toward magenta with age, but the image was clear.
It showed the truck. It was new then, shiny white paint gleaming in the sun. Leaning against the hood were two men.
One was an older man, the driver, wearing a blue cap.
The other was a young man. A boy, really, maybe eighteen years old. He was shirtless, sweating, holding a crate of fish. He had a sullen, angry look on his face.
And on his neck, catching the light of the camera flash, was a fresh, jagged scar.
I froze. The heat of the yard seemed to vanish, replaced by a cold chill.
I knew that scar. I had seen it in the alleyway when I shocked him. I had seen it in the bar when Collins planted the bug.
Razor.
This was Razor. Ten, maybe fifteen years ago. Before he was the Bookman's enforcer. Back when he was just a loader boy on a fish truck.
I turned the photo over. On the back, written in blue ink:
Lucas & Razor. Douala Run. 1988.
"Lucas," I whispered. Not my uncle. The driver.
I looked at the logbook again. The last entry was dated October 1988.
Arrival Bamenda. Engine noise. Razor complaining about pay.
There were no entries after that.
I looked at the truck. It hadn't been scrapped because it was old. It had been scrapped because it had crashed. The front bumper was twisted. The radiator was pushed in.
"Nkem!" Collins shouted. "We get am! The bolt don commot!"
I shoved the photo and the logbook into my bag. I jumped down from the cab.
"Pull it out!" I ordered.
Sunday and Collins heaved. The heavy compressor came free from the engine block, dangling by its hoses. Sunday took a knife and slashed the rubber lines.
Hiss!
The remaining Freon gas escaped into the air.
They hauled the black iron lump onto the ground. It weighed at least twenty kilos.
"Heavy pass stone," Sunday panted, wiping grease on his shorts.
"Let's go," I said. "Put it on the cart. Cover it with the sacks."
We loaded the prize onto our wooden push-cart. We started pushing it back toward the main path, the wheels bumping over stones and debris.
We were halfway to the gate when a shadow stepped out from behind a stack of crushed shipping containers.
We stopped.
It was an old man. He was missing his left leg below the knee, leaning heavily on a crutch welded from rebar. His face was a map of deep wrinkles, his eyes milky with cataracts. He held a rusted machete in his good hand.
It was Pa Thomas, the Watchman of the Yard. The ghost who guarded the ghosts.
"Who be that?" Pa Thomas croaked. His voice sounded like grinding gears. "You thief my iron?"
Sunday stepped forward, raising his pry bar. "Move, Pa. We no get time."
"Stop," I said. I pushed Sunday back.
I walked up to the old man. I held up a crisp five-thousand franc note.
"We are buying, Pa," I said. "Five thousand for the pump."
Pa Thomas squinted at the money. Then he looked at the cart. He saw the black shape of the Thermo King compressor under the sack.
He stiffened. He looked at me, his milky eyes suddenly sharp.
"That machine..." he whispered. "You take it from the white Mercedes? The 911?"
"Yes," I said.
Pa Thomas spat on the ground. "That machine is cursed. It has bad blood."
"I know," I said. "I found the book."
The old man lowered his machete slowly. He leaned closer, smelling of tobacco and old sweat.
"You found the book?" he asked. "Did you find the picture?"
"I saw the boy with the scar," I said.
Pa Thomas let out a wheezing laugh. It was a dark, mirthless sound.
"The boy with the scar," he repeated. "Razor. He calls himself Razor now. Back then, he was just a thief. He wanted the fish money. He killed Lucas. He hit him with a tire iron. Right here."
He pointed to a spot in the dirt near the truck.
"He crashed the truck to hide it," Pa Thomas whispered. "He told the police it was an accident. The brakes failed. But I saw. I saw him take the money belt from the dead man."
I felt the weight of the logbook in my bag. It wasn't just paper anymore. It was a weapon.
"Why didn't you tell the police?" I asked.
"Police?" Pa Thomas scoffed. "In 1988? The police took the money Razor gave them and wrote 'Accident' in the file. Who listens to a one-legged watchman?"
He looked at the cart again.
"If you take that machine, boy, you take the ghost. Razor thinks this truck is gone. Buried. If he sees that pump..."
"He will see it," I said. "I am going to use it to destroy him."
Pa Thomas looked at me. He saw a ten-year-old boy with a voice like a judge. He saw the fire in my eyes not the fire of a child, but the cold burn of vengeance.
"You fighting Razor?" Pa Thomas asked.
"I am fighting the darkness he brings," I said.
The old man stared at me for a long moment. Then he reached out and took the five thousand francs.
"Take it," he said. "Take the ghost. Maybe it will finally rest."
He stepped aside.
"But listen, small man," Pa Thomas warned. "If you hunt the leopard, make sure you kill it. If you only wound it, it will eat you."
"I don't intend to wound him," I said.
We pushed the cart past him.
The wheels squeaked. Squee-clack. Squee-clack.
We walked out of the Scrap Yard and onto the main road. The sun was setting now, turning the sky a bloody red.
I looked back at the yard one last time.
I had the heart of the machine.
And in my bag, I had the evidence of a murder.
Razor had tried to burn my mother's work. He had tried to blind me. He had terrorized my father.
He thought he was the predator.
He didn't know that the ghosts of 1988 had just been dug up by a boy from 2025.
"Push faster," I told Collins. "We have a fridge to build."