Lagoon

by Nnedi Okorafor

  “We will see,” she said.

  “There’s more to this city than you imagined,” he said. He’d seen all that was happening in a three-mile radius.

  He stepped inside and shut the door behind them, leaving Oke and his followers unconscious around the foot of the plantain tree. “We should get the car ready,” he said. “Agu is almost here.”

  CHAPTER 32

  STYLISH, EXPENSIVE, AND UNIQUE

  “Who I be?” Jacobs whispered as they slowly drove down the near-empty street. He could barely hear himself think. Moziz and Tolu were arguing in the front seat about which way to go. They’d dropped Troy on the side of the road minutes before, where his machete-wielding cousins waited for him. Jacobs wondered how they planned to find the soldier who’d assaulted their cousin.

  “Dis night na him be de night wey I go bombard am,” was the last thing Troy had said, before joining his relatives. As they drove away, Jacobs saw Troy snatch a machete and thrust it into the air. Those around him shouted and did the same. Two women walking toward them immediately turned and hurried the other way.

  Jacobs leaned his forehead against the cool car window, trying to tune out Moziz and Tolu. He didn’t care which way they went. They passed a group of market women carrying obviously looted goods on their heads. Chairs, bundles of textiles, baskets of tomatoes, desktop computer towers, all of the women were laughing and singing as they passed a burning office building. A slack-jawed Philomena sat beside Jacobs, watching the women. At least she’d stopped crying.

  As they navigated the side road, Jacobs focused on the trees. If he shut his eyes, he’d only see Rome, Seven, and the other members of the Black Nexus getting beaten to the ground. He’d left them so that he could go capture some sort of being from space for the sake of making money. Was this what he’d come to? He was no better than Moziz or Father Oke.

  “Mek we comot for Lag!” Tolu was bellowing. He had tears in his eyes. They’d been shouting back and forth for the last five minutes. “Na de last place wey anybody go wan dey if true true alien wan take over, sha. Remember, dem no human person!”

  “Tolu close ya mouth. Mek I concentrate, drive,” Moziz said as he swerved dangerously close to the side of the road. “When we reach my place, we go decide.”

  “I don tell you now, mek we act fast,” Tolu said. “If we no do am now, we fit no do am again, o.”

  “Look ya front!” Philomena screamed.

  Moziz’s eyes grew wide as he tried to stop the car from hitting the woman in the road. Jacobs pushed at the seat in front of him as they screeched to a stop, his seat belt biting into his chest and neck. There was a sickening thump, and he looked up just in time to see the woman’s body thrown onto the hood. Then she slid to the ground.

  For a moment they were silent. Moziz just sat there, staring blankly at the woman lying in the street like a discarded doll. The headlights glinted off her skin. She didn’t move. Philo numbly got out of the car. Tolu reached under Moziz’s wrist and turned off the engine.

  “Oh, men!” Jacobs screamed, throwing himself out. He shoved Philo aside and ran to the woman. The road was empty and it was pitch dark, except for the headlights. In the silence, Jacobs could hear crickets singing. The woman was tall and maybe in her thirties. She wore dark blue pants and a matching top with silver and red embroidery. Stylish, expensive, and unique, he thought. One of her black high-heeled shoes had flown off. Her nose was caved in, as was her forehead. She wasn’t bleeding, but Jacobs could see the white of bone and something squishy coming out of her forehead.

  “Oh God! She don peme,” Philo said, standing beside Jacobs, as if he didn’t have eyes.

  From far off, something grumbled like an enormous empty stomach, and he looked around. “Wetin be dat?” he whispered.

  “I no know,” she whispered back, moving closer to him.

  When they heard it again, this time louder, Moziz started the car.

  Philo looked up at Moziz through the windshield. “Wetin you dey do? We no fit just leave am! De woman—”

  “Enter the ride!” Moziz shouted.

  The concrete beneath Jacobs’s feet shifted. No, not shifted; softened. He looked down. It was squashy like a pillow. From down the road came a deep guttural growl that intensified into a roar. Every hair on his body stood up. His grandmother always used to yell at him for playing soccer with his friends in the road at dusk. She said one day the road would swallow him right up the minute the sun went down.

  “Grab am!” he said. He had done enough shameful things tonight. “Help me!”

  But Philomena had already run into the car. Jacobs ran to the woman, stumbling on the soft concrete, which now shuddered with every step he took. It reminded him of the way a bull’s skin twitched when a fly landed on it. And it was warm beneath his feet. He could feel the heat right through his gym shoes. He locked his arms under the woman’s armpits. The first thing he noticed was that she was warm too . . . and light. The second thing he noticed was that she was sinking. The road was trying to swallow her.

  “Ah-ah! She no peme, o!” Jacobs shouted at the road, hysterical. “She no peme!”

  With all his might, he pulled her body from the softening asphalt and, ignoring the angry roar of a creature denied a meal, slung her over his shoulder and carried her to the car. Moziz was accelerating before Jacobs even shut the door.

  Philo, who was looking out the window as they turned and drove back toward downtown Lagos, started screaming and pointing. Jacobs wanted to slap her, until he glanced back and saw for himself. The road behind them was rearing up like a serpent of asphalt. It swayed this way and that, the two sets of yellow stripes clear in the darkness. It slapped at the trees beside the road as it rolled after them.

  “She no peme!” Jacobs shouted back at it. “She no die, o!”

  Moziz pushed the car’s speed up to eighty. It shuddered and shook but sped away from the road-monster. Breathless with relief, Jacobs plopped down in his seat and looked at the woman beside him, who should have been dead but wasn’t. She was staring back.

  Tears were flowing from her eyes, and her crushed face was pinched with pain. He quickly looked away, disgusted and disturbed. He bit his fist to keep himself from vomiting. “Papa God,” he gasped. He dragged his eyes to the back of Moziz’s head and then Tolu’s. None of them had noticed the woman was alive. Even Philomena, beside him in the back seat, was still looking out the window.

  Because Jacobs was looking away from the damaged woman, he didn’t see it happen. None of them saw it happen, which was just as well. Jacobs, Philo, Moziz, and Tolu had already seen more than they could handle. Any more strangeness and all their minds would snap. The woman’s crushed nose and forehead began to rebuild from bone to sinew to skin.

  “Wetin be dat tin in de road?” she whispered.

  Jacobs turned to the woman, and his eyes grew wide at the sight of her undamaged face. For a moment his mouth simply hung open. Then he said, “I . . . I no get any idea, at all, at all.”

  CHAPTER 33

  STICK BOY

  Agu was hiding in the shadows.

  In the street was a parade of Area Boys and a few Area Girls with machetes, sticks, and probably guns; looters, police and soldiers who’d deserted their duties, and several other kinds of riffraff. Agu could handle all of them; he just didn’t want to. Better to sneak behind buildings and through back roads than be forced to hurt or kill people.

  His nose was bleeding again after a fight with a group of guys who’d just finished destroying someone’s Mercedes SUV. Agu understood that they were angry at Lagos, angry at Nigeria, angry at the world. The alien invasion was just an excuse to let it all out. A beat-up-looking soldier in uniform was a treat for them . . . until they learned Agu wasn’t a normal soldier.

  Agu had known he was abnormal since he was twelve, when four boys had cornered him and Stick Boy b
ehind the church. Stick Boy was a poor skinny kid with a big mouth and a nose for mischief. Agu had a soft spot for Stick Boy, so he stood up for him often. This day, Stick Boy had won a large sum of money playing cards against some older boys. The card he’d been using to cheat had fallen from his pocket just as he was getting up to leave. Agu had been coming out of the church where he was an altar boy when Stick Boy ran and stood behind him crying, “They are trying to beat me, o! Help!”

  Agu grabbed Stick Boy and they ran behind the church. When Agu refused to give Stick Boy up to the angry boys, two of them shoved Agu against the wall, and one of them stepped up and slapped him hard across the face. That slap . . . It was unnecessary. They’d already gotten Agu out of the way, but that boy wanted to make Agu hurt for having the nerve to try to defend Stick Boy. And that was when Agu tore his arm from the other boy who held him against the wall. He punched the boy who’d slapped him. The force of the blow was so powerful that the boy hit the ground hard and didn’t get up.

  Everything stopped as the boy lay motionless. Agu was sure he’d killed him. His father had been a great wrestler in his day and, just like Okonkwo in the book Things Fall Apart, his father was nicknamed Agu, which means leopard. His mother had happily given the name to her son. Now it looked like more than just his father’s name had been passed to him.

  One of the boys ran to get his mother. Agu stayed. No matter the punishment, it was Agu’s duty to stay with the boy he’d hurt. Two minutes passed before the boy finally sat up, shaking his head and moaning. Those were the worst two minutes of Agu’s entire life. In those two minutes, Agu saw the future. He would be sent to jail. His brain would rot, and his body would grow malnourished from a poor diet. His soul would deteriorate from exposure to other murderers. In those two minutes, he became a useless man who, when released from prison years and years later, would go on to rob people along the road instead of going to school. He would never become a somebody, someone who protected and preserved his family. His family was his heart.

  When the boy finally stirred, Agu had decided two things: that he would become a soldier to protect the innocent and that though he might get into fights, he would never punch anyone hard again.

  But he could feel the potential inside him. It left him feeling heavy and rock solid, despite the fact that he wasn’t that big at all. It lived in him like the roots of a thousand-year-old tree in its plot of land. So because he could not be rid of it, he locked it away deep. Until Benson and his other ahoa attacked that woman two nights ago. Outrage had prompted him to unbury his ability, and he found it even more potent than when he’d been a child.

  Agu was nearly at Adaora’s house. He smelled smoke and realized the roof of the house beside him was on fire. It was one of those gated houses with a wrought-iron-topped concrete fence. How had anyone managed to set it alight?

  “Sssss!” someone hissed.

  Agu turned around. The two men were about his age and height. One of them wore a military uniform like his and the other a police uniform.

  Agu realized immediately that the police officer was badly injured. The soldier was holding him up with difficulty.

  “He’s been shot,” the soldier said.

  As he spoke, the police officer’s legs buckled. Agu could smell blood and sweat from both. He moved to help.

  There was laughter behind Agu. He groaned. A group of Area Boys. Young and armed.

  “Shit,” both he and the soldier said at the same time.

  The Area Boys swaggered into the alley, swinging their machetes and bats. There were smiles on their young brown faces, their teeth glowing white in the dark. They addressed Agu and the soldier in Yoruba, which Agu didn’t speak. But the soldier beside him did. The tone of his voice was firm, and he motioned to the injured police officer.

  Before Agu could say or do anything, one of the boys swung his machete at the soldier. Thock! The blade chopped through the soldier’s shoulder, and blood spattered onto Agu’s face. The soldier screamed. Shocked and guttural. Then the scream became high-pitched and inhuman. Like glass balls whirled around in a glass jar. Agu was running before he knew he was running. Behind him he heard the Area Boys start screaming. Then there was a wet slurping sound. He didn’t look back.

  Ayodele, he thought. That thing was like Ayodele. They were not helpless. They could feel pain. And they did not like it.

  He ran across a street clogged with women linking arms—he didn’t hear what they were chanting, but walking in front of the linked women were three women who looked as if they’d been severely beaten. He ran through two groups of people smashing and looting. He ran through a main road congested with a go-slow so tightly packed that no one was moving and the air was nearly unbreathable. He stuck to as many alleys and side roads as he could. He did not speak to anyone. He did not fight with anyone. He did not help anyone . . . unless he couldn’t avoid it. Though the night was cool and the sky was clear, Lagos was broiling.

  It had only been five hours since he’d seen Ayodele’s people walk out of the sea. Now, the gate in front of Adaora’s house had been torn down. The lawn looked as if it had been trampled by giants. Only the plantain tree was untouched. One of the windows in the upper part of the house was burned but no longer burning freely, embers glowing in the darkness. The street was relatively empty and littered with debris from garbage to tear gas canisters. Tear gas canisters? he thought. What had happened here since he’d left?

  He knocked on the door. Adaora opened it. Without a word, he took her in his arms. If he let go, he was sure he’d fly into space.

  CHAPTER 34

  FISAYO

  Fisayo was back on Bar Beach, watching the thing hovering over the water. It was undulating and glowing, and she could see other things in the water just below it. Large things that rolled beneath the alien lights. She had a chunk of cardboard on her lap. In her hand, she carried a permanent marker she’d found.

  A cool breeze swept off the water, and it felt good in her short, damaged hair. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been outside without a wig. She normally wore long wigs of straight glossy black hair, usually expensive with lace-fronts. Her scalp suffered, but her pocketbook always prospered.

  Her days of whoring seemed so long ago now. The world had changed. Lagos was eating itself. She took the cap off the marker. It looked new. Good. When she touched it to the cardboard, she felt such a strong tingle of emotion, she knew what she was doing was right.

  Slowly, she wrote. Her hand was steady. Her mind was cloudy, though she thought it was clear. She didn’t think she’d ever see her cross-dressing brother again. He would not be welcome in heaven and nor would she. Fisayo sat back and examined her work. In the moonlight and the dim beach lights, she smiled. Yes, this was perfect.

  Her sign read, REPENT. LAGOS WILL NEVER BE DESTROYED!

  Her pants were filthy. Her blouse was stained with blood—her own and someone else’s—and the dirt of the earth. Her hair smelled of sweat and was stiff with sand and smoke residue. Her face was dirty with streaks from her own tears. Her bare feet ached and bled. She could not remember when she’d lost her shoes.

  She stood up. She would tell everyone. She had seen aliens. And she knew for a fact that they could never ever be trusted. She would fight until there was nothing left to fight for because she loved Lagos. She’d shoved her wig cap into her bra and now she brought it out. She pulled the elastic string from her wig cap and tied each end to holes she made in her sign. Then she hung the sign around her neck.

  When she reached the street, which was boiling over with confused, angry, fighting, laughing, destructive, terrified, driving, walking, running Lagosians, she raised her chin and then her voice: “Repent! Everyone! The end is nigh, o! Look to your left! Look to your right! Look up! Are they your friends? Your relatives? Or are they something else? Look closely, o! Repent!”

  CHAPTER 35

>   CHRIS AND THE KIDS

  It was past midnight and Chris was still stuck in traffic, but at least everyone seemed calm. He glanced in the rearview mirror. The white man was sitting in back, and Fred was looking at him with a great smile on his face. Kola sat in the passenger seat but had twisted around to look at the white man, too. He’d spoken in Yoruba-accented English and said his name was Oluwatosin. He wore a rather expensive-looking white buba and sokoto and white leather shoes tipped with gold. He certainly dressed and spoke like a Yoruba man of means. But there was more to being Yoruba than language and style of dress.

  While driving, Chris had spotted the strange white man being harassed by a group of young men. He’d understood instantly that the strange white man was one of them. Chris had screeched to a stop and yelled for the man to get the hell into the car. They’d driven in silence for five minutes now, and Chris didn’t know what to do. At least no one was dead. Those idiots harassing him had no idea how close they’d come to being hunks of bloody meat.

  “You’re one of them, aren’t you, Mr. Oluwatosin?” Kola asked.

  The man nodded and caught Chris’s eye in the mirror. “I am.”

  Chris took a deep breath and muttered a prayer. He considered calling Father Oke and asking for his advice. Then he remembered he was through with that fraud of a holy man. “What . . . what is it you people will do?” Chris asked.

  “We are doing what is already happening,” Oluwatosin said.

  Chris was about to ask another question when Fred asked, “Can he come with us? He can join us for dinner!”

  Chris’s body clenched. He’d wanted to drop the man-thing off the first chance he got and then speed away. He still didn’t understand why he’d saved him. His actions were mad and he was endangering his children. But now his son had put him in a difficult position. Hopefully, Oluwatosin had other plans. There was always that chance.