by Dilman Dila
“I don’t want to know anything about her,” I said.
“She truly loves you,” she said. “She dumped you after she discovered what would happen to her husband during the honeymoon. She didn’t want you to suffer.”
“I don’t want to know,” I said, though my mouth had gone dry.
“Do you know that her entire family is dead?”
“What?”
“Come to The Mayors. I’ll tell you how they died.”
“Her parents are alive,” I said. “They live in Merikit.”
“Did you actually meet them?” She gave me a few seconds to think about that before going on. “I’m her cousin. She lived with us after her family died. I am dead too, but I’m fed up of being dead. Meg wants to be a living dead too, but she doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into. Please come. Maybe we can stop her. Maybe we can save your friend.
“You see, she needs to be married in a church for it to work. She has to do it before the next rains, which is in two months. She picked Okello because–”
A strange sound interrupted her. Later, I discovered it was the sound of a fork stabbing her throat. I heard the gurgling, as blood spurt out of her severed neck. Her phone fell to the floor, ending the call.
I ran to The Mayors.
As I reached it, I heard screams. Two waitresses, Meg’s workmates, fled out of the door, yelling at the top of their voices. I dashed in. It was not a large room, only big enough for six tables, with old and musty furniture infested with cockroaches. A torn plastic carpet was spread on the wooden floor. It being late afternoon, the place was almost empty. The lunch-time crowd had gone, and the evening revelers had not yet arrived. Three men stood uncertainly around a woman who lay on the floor. One of them, George, the manager, was shouting into the phone, maybe calling the police, maybe asking for a car to take the woman to hospital.
She was still alive. Her legs twitched. She lay on her back, weakly fighting a fork that was buried deep in her throat. She would be gone in a few more seconds. Her eyes stared blankly at the giant ceiling fan that rotated in slow motion. Blood bubbled on her neck and pooled around her, soaking the wooden floor. It looked like blackish goo. And it stank.
Shortly after I walked in, she gave up the struggle and went limp. Her fingers slid off the fork. The light went out of her eyes. A sudden silence fell upon the room. George stopped talking on the phone. I looked at the dead eyes and I knew that an evil force had killed her for trying to warn me about Meg.
#
The police came an hour later. They did not find any identification papers on the body. Her phone revealed no clues either, it had no numbers apart from the two she dialed. Mine, and my brother’s. I told Sergeant Jamil, the officer in charge of the Criminal Investigations Department, everything she had told me. He did not believe a word of it.
“Did you kill her as some sort of revenge because Meg left you?” he asked.
I did not answer his senseless question. The other witnesses testified as to what exactly happened. The woman walked into the restaurant and asked for food. The food came. She did not touch it. She, instead, made a call. No one bothered her. They did not overhear what she said because she talked in a low voice, and she sat away from everyone else. Suddenly, according to George, who was ogling her, the fork jumped off the table and dove into her throat.
The detective did not believe him either. He tapped the fork with a pen. “How can we arrest a fork?” he said, giving George a contemptuous smile.
It did not help us that Meg worked here, though she was absent that day, preparing for her wedding. The sergeant interrogated her over the phone. She denied knowing the dead woman. She said I made up all these things to spoil her love with Okello. The policeman believed her. He threw us into jail. Me, George, the two waitresses, the two men I found at the restaurant, we all ended up behind bars.
“You will rot there unless you tell us the truth,” Sergeant Jamil said.
Then, the next day, he suddenly dropped all charges against us. He was frightened. Apparently, the pathologist had noticed something strange in Nambi’s body. Her flesh was not ‘fresh’, yet not rotten. It looked like stale beef with mold. It had traces of maggots. He thought that at one time her body had started to decompose, but then something stopped the decomposition. Her body became new, trapping the maggots in its rebirth. Upon making this discovery, the doctor fled from the hospital. He rushed to the nearest Church to pray for protection, convinced that Nambi was an evil creature.
Zombie, was all I could think of. But I had seen the movies. Nambi was a pretty woman, an intelligent being who walked into a restaurant and ordered fish stewed in groundnut sauce. How could she be a zombie? Did it have anything to do with the strange stories of cannibalism in the central and western parts of the country, where abasezi resurrect dead bodies to work as slaves, and to be eaten?
#
I tried digging into Meg’s past. I went to Merikit town and asked around. Her father’s name, she had said, was Oundo Omiel. No one knew him. Merikit was a small rural trading centre where everyone knew everyone. If her family really lived there, someone would have known her father.
I was baffled, a few days later, when I met with Okello’s younger brother. He told me that Meg was taking Okello and some of his family to Merikit for the kwanjula ceremony. They would pay a dowry of ten heads of cattle. Meg’s family had insisted that the groom bring no more than ten people. Strict demands were common in kwanjula. However, limiting visitors to ten was out of the ordinary, especially since the two families lived within the same district.
On the wedding day, I hired a motorcycle and discreetly followed Okello’s entourage of two saloon cars and a lorry carrying ten heads of cattle. Just before reaching Merikit town, they turned off the road into a narrow footpath. I followed them through a small eucalyptus forest, and then to a homestead hidden inside a maize garden. I abandoned the motorcycle in the forest and tiptoed through the garden to the compound. I hid behind a shrub and examined the homestead. It had a red brick house with a green roof, and three mud huts painted red, black and white with clay and ash. Two tents had been set up for the ceremony. The groom’s family sat in one, the women in gomesis and the men in kanzus and coats. About fifty people sat in the other. Was this Meg’s family?
I had achieved my objective. I now knew where her family lived.
I raced back to Merikit town. The bars were full that Saturday afternoon. People sat on the pavements in small circles around pots, sucking malwa beer from long tubes. About thirty youths danced in the street, beside a giant music speaker that boomed Brenda Fassie’s Wedding Day. An old mechanic sat alone under a tree, mending a bicycle, oblivious to the festivities in the town. I had talked to him in my previous visit. I now walked up to him, and asked him about the homestead behind the eucalyptus forest.
“Is that the man you were asking about?” he said.
I nodded.
“And you went to his home?”
I again nodded. “My friend is there right now, in a kwanjula.”
The man’s eyes grew several inches larger. His mouth dropped open. His skin seemed to grow several shades darker.
“No,” he said. It came out as a sigh. “Nobody lives there.”
“No,” I said. “Maybe we are talking about different homesteads. I saw people there. They are having a kwanjula party.”
“That family died a long time ago,” the mechanic whispered. “The father, mother, the children, soldiers killed them all during Obote’s regime. Only one girl survived. Margret. That was her name. No one knows where she is. That homestead has been in ruins ever since. If you saw people there, then you have seen ghosts.”
“I think we are talking about different homesteads,” I said, and walked away from the man. I asked three other people, and they told me the same thing. I became confused.
I went back to Meg’s home. Before I could reach the eucalyptus forest, I heard vehicles. I hid in the bush. Okello’s ento
urage passed by. I frowned. It had been barely two hours since they arrived. The ceremony could not be over. It normally lasted at least six hours. After they had gone, I waited until I could not hear the vehicles again, and then proceeded into the forest.
The moment I walked out of the other side of the forest, I began to believe what the old mechanic had told me. Where I had seen a maize garden, nothing grew but a withered bush. For a moment I thought I had taken a wrong turn in the forest. I retraced my footsteps, but there was only one path from the main road through the eucalyptus trees. The maize garden had vanished. In its place was shriveled, yellow grass.
I could see the homestead in the distance. It was in ruins. Unable to believe, thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me, I went closer. My mouth tasted as though it was filled with salt. My knees were weak. I could not feel my feet. The footpath petered out about ten meters from the homestead. I waded through a thick, waist-high bush. The compound was empty, and overgrown with yellowed grass. The brick house had crumbled. The roof had fallen away. A small tree had grown, and died, inside one of the rooms. Its bare branches hung above the broken walls. The three mud huts now looked like anthills. There was not a living thing in sight. The vegetation looked as though a severe drought had scorched the land. No insects flew about. No birds sang. No lizards. No frogs. Not even a breeze blew.
#
I tried to warn to Okello. I called him and explained that I had something very important to say. He agreed to meet at my home. He said our friendship was too deep to be broken by a mere woman, who might leave him after a few years. When I told him what I had found in Merikit, even after I showed him the photos I had taken with my phone’s camera, his face darkened. His lips became tight.
“Boke,” he said. “I know how you feel. I understand if you never forgive me. But I’ll give you one piece of advice. Forget us. Move on with your life.”
With that, he drained his beer, belched, muttered a thank you and walked out. I was left staring sheepishly at my bottle.
#
They had a Christian wedding a week after the kwanjula. I did not go. That same evening as the two families and many friends partied, at about eight o’clock, Meg and Okello vanished. I heard about it the next day from our mutual friends. ‘You were right,’ they told me. ‘Something terrible has happened to Okello.’ The two families however did not think much of it. They refused to involve the police. Then, six days later, Okello’s younger brother came to see me.
“We should have listened to you,” he said. “I fear Okello is dead.”
It happened during the ‘dress change’ ritual, when both the bride and groom discard the costumes they wore in church and change into party clothes. Meg and Okello left their guests in the gardens of Rock Hotel, the best in town, and went into the honeymoon suite. They never came out. After an hour of knocking on the door, Okello’s brother forced it open. He found a note on the bed, in Okello’s handwriting. It simply said, ‘Don’t worry. We are on honeymoon.’ They had not yet cut the cake. The speeches had not been made. The gifts were undelivered. Both their phones were off, and for the next several days no one was able to contact them.
“Maybe they’ll turn up okay,” I said, trying to sound hopeful, but I knew something terrible had happened. She dumped you after she learnt what would happen to her husband, Nambi had said.
“Let’s go to her home,” Okello’s brother said. He was hardly twenty years, still a student, with a small goatee beard. His name was Opus.
I shook my head. “There is nobody there,” I said. I showed him the photos of the ruins. He looked at the photos for a long time, and quietly handed me back the phone.
“I don’t know where you took that picture,” he said, “but it wasn’t at her home.”
“You still don’t believe me,” I said.
“I do,” Opus said. “My brother is missing. I believe you.”
“Maybe the police will help,” I said.
“They say there is no evidence of a crime, so they cannot get involved. My parents are upset but they are not taking any action. They think there is no cause to worry. But I know there is a big problem. I can feel it. You know it too. Please, help me. We have to find him.”
The only clue we had was the homestead.
Six days was a long time. Anything could have happened in that time. But then, there was a small chance that we could still save him. I hired a motorcycle and we raced off to Merikit. We arrived at about five pm. Just as I found it earlier, the homestead was in ruins.
“This is witchcraft,” Opus said. “We had a party here just last week.”
“I told you so,” I said.
His pants darkened. He had pissed on himself. He fled from the homestead, ran very fast back up the path into the eucalyptus forest, not looking back. I wanted to run too, but if I did I would never find out what happened to Okello. We had been friends since childhood. I still loved him. If he were dead, or hurt in anyway, I had to bring Meg to justice.
I began to search. I did not know what to look for. I went through the brick house. Empty. Nothing but shriveled weeds. The mud huts were empty too. I searched the withered bushes, and was about to give up when I saw another footpath. It was overgrown. I followed it with difficulty. It led to a huge rock, twenty feet high, sculpted to look like an onion. I knew at once that it held the key to the mystery. The country was littered with beautiful rocks, artworks of nature that could be mistaken for man-made artifacts. Some still bore relics from Stone Age people, paintings, musical instruments, tools. This onion-shaped structure, with a surface as smooth as marble, could not be a natural phenomenon. The setting sun fell upon it, painting it a strange yellow. A thin strip of red light, about four feet long and running vertically, flickered on its surface. It was so straight that I thought of lamplight shining through a crack on a door.
I tapped the rock and received an echo. It was hollow. I tapped again, and the rock began to move. I jumped back, preparing to flee, when it struck me that the rock was not moving. Rather, a portion of it was opening, like a sliding door with a rattling sound, revealing a candlelit cave. A man stood at the entrance, still in his wedding suit. Okello. A strong, sweet perfume came from the room behind him.
His clothes were dirty and stained with blood, his hair matted and knotted. His eyes were bloodshot, bulging out of their sockets like those of an alien. His lips had cracked and were bleeding.
“Did you come to finish me off?” he croaked, his voice sounding like dry leaves.
I did not understand him. He ducked back into the rock and the door started to close, moving so slowly. I looked into the cave. Hundreds of candles lined the walls, lighting it up. I saw a white bundle on the floor. Was that Meg in her bridal gown? Was she asleep, or dead? Before I knew what I was doing, I dashed into the cave, squeezing myself through the tiny space as the door closed.
Okello cursed.
The cave had a diameter of about twenty feet. The smoke from the candles hung low like thin mist. The sweet smell was overpowering. A clock chimed on the wall, tick-tock-tick-tock, booming like a beating heart. In the middle of the floor, Meg lay supine on a mat in her wedding gown, the veil thrown over her face. She was so still and stiff. One look at her face and I knew she was dead. Several days dead. I jumped away in terror.
“She’s not dead,” he said. “She’s only sleeping.”
What madness, I thought. Can he not see the maggots crawling in her eyes?
I ran for the door, which was nothing but a slab of rock. No handle. No hinges. I could not open it. I tried to push it open. I tried to pull it. It would not budge.
“Open this door!” I screamed at Okello.
He was lost in his own misery. He sat down, beating his head with his fists, muttering curses as he cried.
“Why did you come in,” he said. “You’ve ruined everything. She was going to resurrect. Tonight at midnight. She was going to come back to life. But you’ve ruined it. I was supposed to wait alone. No one els
e was supposed to enter the shrine. But you’ve fucked it up.”
I looked at Okello, and for the first time I wondered how she had convinced him to take part in her evil scheme. What love potion was so powerful it could turn an intelligent fellow into a puppet? She dumped you because she loves you. She did not want me to suffer in her quest to become a living dead. Was this what Nambi meant, or did something worse await Okello?
“When I heard the knocks I thought it was the old man and I thought it was okay to open but it was you. Fuck you, Boke. Did you come to kill me?”
“No,” I said. “I came with Opus to save you.”
“Liar,” he said. “You bewitched me. You wanted to kill me but she saved my life. She paid for my life with her own life and she would be dead for only six days and then come back to life but you’ve ruined it.”
Dead for six days? That meant she had died on their wedding night.
“Please Okello,” I said. “Open the door. Let me go.”
He gave me a sad smile. “No,” he said. “You stay. When the old man comes I’ll tell him that you forced your way in then maybe I can get a second chance to bring her back to life.”
#
We waited for the old man. As time passed, Okello told me his honeymoon tale. I sat on the warm floor, dumbfounded, listening in a hypnotic state.
On the wedding night, when they went into the room to change, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his stomach, fire erupted somewhere inside and consumed him. He fell to the floor, screaming in agony. His bride held him in her arms, comforting him, shouting for the doctor, telling him it would be alright. He passed out.
