Satisfied, Babafemi turned back to the women and children. 'Go,' he shouted.
No one moved.
'Go.' This time he fired his Slivergun at the ground near them.
Shrieking with terror the women and children fled across the road that divided Shomolu from Surulere, running towards their doom.
Abiola remained, watching them go until they were nothing more than dark shadows in the silvery moonlight.
I am a fool, he thought. Basic pack psychology. I challenged the leader so he had to deny me to reestablish his dominance.
'Come on, brother,' Babafemi sneered, 'time to go.'
The Ammits started to walk away from the garbage dump, but Abiola watching the horrorshow wreathed in shadow where two women and six children had just disappeared.
Then, without knowing he was doing it, he began walking, toward Surulere. Before the Ammits realized what was happening, he was already gone. • • •
Surulere was silence.
It was a bombed-out district empty of life, empty of hope. Rubble choked the streets. Most of the buildings had been burnt to the ground. Those that hadn't were pile of charred brick, blackened timbers reaching into the night sky like claws. Even after all this time, Surulere still smelled like charcoal.
But what really got to Abiola was the complete absence of sound. There were no human sounds of course, no laughter, no music, no shouts, but also missing were the sounds of insects and animals, absent was the whir of the giant beetle called Jauhekafer, gone were delicate flutter of batwings. Even the wind was still, as if the air itself was reluctant to visit the dead streets of Surulere.
The shuffle of Abiola's feet as he picked his way through the debris was the only sound that disturbed the funerary silence.
Surulere was a place of unmatched horror, even in Lagos.
During the first VITAS pandemic the district's entire population had been wiped out. A million people had gone to their deaths sick and panicked, crying out for help that would never come.
After the plague had run its course, nothing stirred in the district to break the silence.
Some said Surulere was still haunted by the ghosts of all those dead, others that the district had been colonized by the ghouls called sasabonsam.
Or something darker still.
A shiver wriggled down Abiola's spine.
Sure, he thought, like I need to be warned I'm in danger now.
He saw no sign of the women and children who had been chased into the darkness. It was as if the street itself had swallowed them whole.
And then, at last, he heard something.
A scream. A human scream.
Abiola ran toward the sound. He turned the corner and saw the women and children huddled together. A trio of sasabonsam circled them.
The ghouls were tall, their small bodies riding on slim legs that made them look almost like they were walking on stilts. They turned as Abiola came around the corner, and he saw smooth skulls and gaping mouths filled with sharp triangular teeth. Eyes filmed with white.
The ghouls were drooling.
Abiola roared, pouring all his pain and frustration out in a low, powerful sound that came from deep in his chest and rolled out into the world like distant thunder.
Then he dropped his AK-97 and sprayed the closest monster with bullets. The thing dropped, jerking spasmodically.
But its brothers were on him in an instant.
They skittered towards him on those long, slim legs, reached for him hungrily with their claws. Abiola pulled into his trigger and-
Nothing.
He was out of ammo. He threw the AK down and tore his machete off its lanyard, wielding the big blade like a knife in his great hand.
He would go down fighting, but he knew he would go down. He could kill these two, but not before they scratched him, infecting him with HMHVV, turning him into a ghoul.
Abiola would kill himself before he let that happen. He swallowed hard and took a step forward.
And then he heard something to his right. He and the ghouls both looked.
The old man.
He stood next to the women and children, about ten meters to Abiola's right, a placid smile on his round, dark face. Abiola's heart sank. His first guess had been right after all. The old man had been involved in the flesh trade, selling his fellow man to the sasabonsam.
This was what he thought as the old man raised his arms. Suddenly lightning flashed from the old man's palms, jagged arcs of bright, actinic light burning the ghouls down until there was nothing left but their smoking legs, somehow still standing.
'Come,' said the old man, 'it is past time we leave this place.' • • •
The two men stood on the border between Shomolu and Lagos's dark heart as the women and children gathered together what little was left of their lives. Around them the garbage fires still smoldered.
'You are a master of Surulere,' Abiola whispered.
The old man chuckled. 'Hardly. Dark things live in that district, perhaps darker even than the sasabonsam.'
'But you entered Surulere and came out again.'
'To save you, my young friend. To save you. You might say I've had my eyes on you.'
'Like Babafemi Kosoko,' Abiola said bitterly.
The old man's eyes crinkled with amusement. 'Not exactly. Though, I, too, admire your skills.'
'Why have you been following me?' Abiola asked, the words a threatening rumble from deep within him.
'Abiola means, 'born in honor,'' said the old man softly. 'Maybe I wanted to see if that name suited you.'
Abiola turned that over in his mind for a minute. Then he said, 'Who are you?'
'My name is Obi Akinlaja. I am a shaman, a master of Yoruba magic, of juju. I follow the old ways.'
He turned and pointed at the dark stillness that was Surulere. 'That may be Africa's future. Death. Evil. Darkness.' He shook his head. 'But not if good men and women will stand against it. I am putting together a team to run the shadows. I can't promise you it will be safe. But I can promise you it will be right.'
Abiola glanced at the two women and six children picking at the broken remnants of their lives. They were homeless and heartbroken and terrified. But they were also alive.
He had done that, him and this funny old man.
Abiola's throat suddenly tightened with emotion. After plunging into despair and desperation he'd come out with a prize he'd never expected.
Hope.
He reached forward and enclosed the shaman's tiny hand in his.
In Memory Of
I'd been in the noisy kafe with my handler for nearly an hour when a yellow alert flashed along the right side of my vision. A quick acknowledge of the alert produced an AR popup showing that someone in the kafe had been caught observing my conversation one too many times. I couldn't see him, so I tapped into the camera feed from my Toy Poodle, Skittles, who was sitting in her carrying bag on the chair next to mine. The superimposed feed
