Lagoon (13 page)

Before inserting the key, Adaora tried the door knob. It turned. “Shit,” Adaora hissed. She leaned her head against the door, tears rolling down her cheeks. She focused on the voice of her children in the kitchen.

“And just because a few humans acted stupid, it doesn't mean we're all stupid,” she heard Fred add. “We learned that in school. And you're much smarter than everyone at school put together.”

Adaora smiled, wiping away her tears.

“And you can't cause all that has happened and then just leave,” Kola said firmly. “You said you had a mission! That you were the am . . . ambah-sidoor, remember?”

“I will think about it,” Ayodele said.

Adaora went into her lab. As she descended the stairs, she could practically feel it. Yes, people had been down here. The broken lock made that clear. As soon as she'd turned on the lights, she turned them right back off again. She'd seen all she needed to see. Nothing was on fire. But the floors were wet from the smashed aquarium, the limp bodies of her beloved fish already drying. The television and computer were gone. The place was ransacked.
They did all this while we were fighting for our lives in the front yard,
she thought.
What kind of people would do that?
But she knew the answer. It didn't take
much in Lagos. All it took was a semi-peaceful alien invasion to destroy everything she held dear. Well, nearly everything. Her children were alive and happy.

She went back up.

*   *   *   *

“Sit,” Anthony told Chris. The children were upstairs in Kola's room, asleep, and Adaora was watching over them. Downstairs, Ayodele watched out the window with the soldier Hassam.

In the kitchen, Chris sat down at the table. Anthony placed the large bowl of cold jollof rice before Chris and dug a spoon into it. The power was out, and it would have been crazy to turn on the generator; the noise would attract more attention. Plus, the microwave had been stolen.

“Eat,” he said.

“Do you think she's an angel, then?” Chris asked.

Anthony shook his head. “Not at all,
chale
. You need to start thinking outside the box, my friend.”

Chris frowned at him, frowned at the rice, and frowned at the spoon in the rice. He slowly picked it up. Then he ate, and as he ate, he began to feel better. Anthony crossed his arms over his chest, watching him.

Upstairs, Adaora leaned against the wall, glad her two children were asleep before her. They were okay. Both of them. She felt emotion swell in her chest as she allowed herself to remember Kola being shot. The blood. The pain on her eight-year-old face. Adaora took a deep breath and steadied herself. When she turned to go downstairs, she realized that she was floating three inches above the ground.
My idiot husband is right,
she thought numbly.
I am a witch.

Outside, Lagos rioted and aliens invaded.

CHAPTER 29

THE EKO HOTEL

They walked up the beach and into Lagos. All were well dressed. All were dry. There were about a hundred of them. They were solemn. Not serene like Ayodele. Though they did not shamble along, though they looked alive and well, they reminded Agu of zombies. It was something about the way they had walked out of the water and seemed so indifferent about doing so. As he sat there facing the ocean, his back to Lagos, he felt present at the death of something. The death of Lagos. The death of Nigeria. Africa. Everything?

He squinted, the salt on his drying face stinging his eyes. The surf slapped his ankles as it rushed in and out, slowly retreating to its normal level. The spacecraft in the sky (this was all Agu could think to call it), spread across the entire near-dark horizon, hovering above the water. Shifting and undulating, peaks rising and melting and rising again. It was too far out for him to tell just how high it hovered over the water. Or what sound it made, if it made sound.

Something huge and snakelike leaped out of the water. It arched in the air, twisting in a spiral and noiselessly dropping back into the depths. At least ten gray sharklike fins all in a row surfaced not far from shore. They—or it—sharply turned and headed farther out to sea.
What have they done to the ocean?
he wondered, pulling at his soaked clothes. He coughed as he inhaled a whiff of smoke. He could hear the distant crash of shattering glass, shouting, shots being fired, echoes of raucous laughter. Something had happened while he was
out at sea. Wet warmth dribbled down his face, and he touched the cut on his forehead.

“Dammit,” he moaned, leaning back on his elbows. His head ached, and his entire body felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds. He'd deal with the cut later. He'd deal with
himself
later. He coughed again as he pulled off his shirt. He wrung it out, the water spattering on his soaked boots, and put it back on. He was alive, and worse things had happened. He chuckled. This wasn't the first invasion of Nigeria, after all.

He trudged across the sand, then through the back roads to Adetokunbo Ademola Street. Here, the sound of many voices, honking horns, the patter of hundreds of feet increased the closer he got. He walked up an alley to the street, and for the first time, he saw what was happening.

“Shit!” he exclaimed. “What in God's name . . . ?”

He couldn't move; he became two eyes and a sinking stomach. The streets were full of people. A group of teenage girls ran by screaming, looking over their shoulders like they'd seen a ghost. There was a fight going on across the street. A group of boys was smashing car and building windows with wooden planks and hammers. They jumped on and kicked at unfortunate vehicles that had to slow down as they tried to get down the congested road.

Several buildings were on fire. Competing music blasted from multiple places. There was a sudden rush as a white man ran by, pursued by ten Area Boys all shouting, “Stranger! Kill
am
!
Kill the stranger!
” The man rounded a corner and the boys followed. After a moment, Agu heard the sounds of cheering and laughing and one voice screaming.

To step into this nightmare was to step into the unknown. He'd seen such chaos before, when he was sent north during fresh riots between Christians and Muslims. He'd learned the hard way that he could never trust people during such times. Anyone could get swept in to the mob's violent mentality at any moment.

He spotted police and soldiers trying to break up a particularly large fight between many men. He felt a stab of guilt. He was supposed to be with them, working to restore peace and order. He shook his head and stepped into the street.
No,
he thought, remembering Benson and the others assaulting the woman and then beating him up when he tried to stop it.
All that's changed.
He stepped back into the shadow of one of the beach shops and reached into his pocket, feeling for the piece of paper with Anthony's phone number on it. It was mush, soaked through from the water. Slightly panicked, he ran through the number in his head. Relief. He remembered it clearly.

“Excuse me, sir,” he called to a man rushing by. “Sir,
abeg
, may I borrow your phone?”

The man stopped and turned to him with eyes so wild that Agu stepped back.

“Eh,” the man said, frowning and stepping toward Agu. “My phone, you say?”

There was a loud crash. Agu and the man whipped around. There were cheers as someone smashed through a computer storefront window. The alarm went off as over thirty people rushed in, then it died. Agu could hear the people inside.

“Yes,” Agu said, fighting to focus. “I just . . . I just need . . .”

“Why?” the man said, now narrowing his eyes. “Why do you want to use my phone? What for?”

“To reach my friends,” Agu begged. “Please, o. Something is happening on Bar Beach, I have to—”

“Your friends? What about Bar Beach, eh? Are you one of
them
?” the man gasped, stepping farther away. He spoke in Igbo. “Do you want to communicate with
them
?”

“What?” Agu asked in English.

The man turned on his heel and ran off, as did a few others who had heard what the man said. Agu felt the air leave his lungs; something was very wrong. Looters, rioters, several of them stopped to
stare at him. Some moved toward him. A group of Area Boys gathered to his left.

“This man!” a woman shouted, pointing at Agu. She had short wild hair and no shoes. She looked like she'd just walked out of the ocean herself. “He is one of them! Look
am
. Get
am
! He is one of them! I
saw
him go into the ocean last night and come out!” Her eyes bulged with madness. “He was taken by the aliens and infected with alien disease!”

Agu felt a flash of rage toward Ayodele.
What has she done?!
But he was trapped. All he could do was turn and run like hell. The Area Boys and who knew how many others gave chase. They came at Agu from all directions, but he dodged them. He ran past a burning car. He leaped over two women fighting. He crunched over the glass of a broken window in front of a burning building. Then something smashed against the side of his head and crashed to the ground. A bottle.
Coca-Cola?
he wondered.
The gods must really be crazy.

He stumbled, his head hurting. But he had to admit, he did not feel like a man who'd just been smashed upside the head with a glass bottle. He felt . . . fine. He touched the spot where he'd been hit and pressed it. No pain. No swelling. But his hand came away bloody. The other cut was still seeping. He was okay. But the rage that was already boiling in him surged. This time toward the people who'd just tried to kill him . . . for being something he was not. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears.

A man ran up and punched him in the face. “Kill you,” the man growled. He punched Agu again. Two other men joined in, kicking him in the small of his back and kneeing him in the balls. His goddamn
balls
! Yet it didn't hurt. He felt nothing but a fresh hot flare of fury, and it filled his entire being.

He grabbed the man who'd kneed him, brought his fist back, and smashed him in the belly. The man flew back, his arm denting the side of a car before he tumbled over it and fell into a group of
onlookers like a meteorite crashing to earth. Everyone on the street went completely silent, staring at the pile of unmoving people, knocked over like bowling pins; the man Agu had grabbed lay among them, one of his legs twisted in a bizarre direction. Agu blinked, his mind calming, the red clearing.

So Agu, the soldier, trained to defend people during a time of need, who had instead probably just killed someone, turned and ran like hell.

*   *   *   *

Shouting, fighting, breaking, laughing, running, hiding: This was the scene on Adetokunbo Ademola Street. Agu needed a mobile phone. But something had happened while he was riding the manatee, and now asking to use one suddenly seemed like a bad, bad idea. Thankfully, Agu had a plan B.

He stumbled up a manicured driveway to the luxurious Eko Hotel, skirting around the over-maintained palm trees and past the locked-up gift shop. As it was a haven for expats, he'd expected the place to be like a fortress. The Eko Hotel was made for times like this. Instead it was surrounded by skittish armed security guards who barely said a word to him as he passed. They let him, because he knew every single one of them. He'd known them for years. Thank­fully, for the moment, the rioters weren't focused on the Eko Hotel, but Agu had a feeling that the respite was only temporary. Any symbol of wealth in Lagos would eventually become a target.

What struck him most when he stepped into the lobby of the posh hotel was the shiny floor. It was so shiny he could see the terrible state he was in. His fatigues were wrinkled, wet, soiled with sand, and spattered with his own blood. His face was puffy and ashy with sea salt, his lip and forehead crusty with dried blood. At least the swelling had gone down in his right eye and he could see through it now. Here, he could find out what had happened while he was in the sea. And use a telephone.

The lobby was packed with terrified tourists and expats. The
Eko was one of the few places in Lagos where, ordinarily, you saw more than a few white faces. European and American businessmen, mainly. It was no different now. To Agu's eyes, they looked bloated and red.

“The fuck if I know,” a thickset British man yelled, throwing himself onto a nearby sofa. He had a wheeled suitcase, but he didn't look like he was going anywhere. “It's a citywide 419! The whole bloody place is fucking itself !”

The businessmen around him nodded in agreement.

“I have a satellite phone. How the blazes did they hack into it?”

“That guy says they're tearing each other apart out there because everyone thinks everyone else is an alien and no one knows
what
the aliens really look like.”

“Superstitious bollocks. At least this place is safe.”

“For now.”

“How can they just shut down the airports?”

“Fucking aliens, my arse.”

Agu tucked his chin into his neck as he slipped past them. He didn't want to answer any questions. He peeked into the computer center. Every single one was in use. “Shit,” he whispered.

He rubbed his forehead as he approached the reception desk.
Focus, Agu,
he thought.
First things first. Get back to Adaora's house.

“Obi,” he said, leaning on the reception desk. A smile touched his lips, his first in who knew how long. It felt good.

His little cousin Obinna's back was to Agu as he spoke with several of his colleagues. Farther down the counter, one poor desk clerk was stuck arguing with a frazzled-looking group of white women.

“Please, just calm down,” the desk clerk begged, holding up her hands.

Two of the white women were leaning on each other and weeping as they glanced at the front doors. They were probably afraid that machete-wielding Area Boys were about to burst into the hotel.
On any other night, Agu would have sneered at such women. Tonight, it seemed, their fears were more than justified.

Obinna turned around.
“
Agu?”
He grinned. “Brother!” He leaned over the counter to give him a hug.

Agu held up his hands. “You don't want to hug me,” he said. “I smell like hell and I'm dripping with sweat.”

“You came from out there?” Obi asked.

“It's bad,” was all Agu said.

“What happened to you?”

Agu had always looked out for his little cousin. He'd been the one to get him this receptionist job. The son of his mother's closest sister, Obi might as well have been his brother. But that didn't change the fact that Agu had been aware of all his life: Obi lacked courage and imagination. When there was a fight, Obi fled. When challenged, he fled. When someone did wrong and it was time to stand, he fled. Best for him to stay at the Eko and know nothing about Ayodele or where Agu was headed.

“I just got caught up in it,” Agu said. He glanced over his shoulder and met the eyes of the flustered, red-faced British expat. The man was staring at him as if
he
were an alien.
Not again,
Agu thought. He turned back to his cousin.

“Obi,” he said. “You've got to help me.”

“Na wao,”
Obi said, looking him up and down. “Seriously, bro, what has happened to you?”

“You will never believe me,” Agu said, lowering his voice. He hesitated, reconsidering his request. But what choice did he have? “Please,
abeg
, I need . . . Internet. Let me use your laptop. I know you have it back there.”

“Why not use the public ones?” Obi asked, frowning.

“I need to send a text. But all your computers are being used,” he said.

“For?”

“I just need to contact someone.”

Obi paused, looking at him for a moment. Agu almost laughed at the ridiculousness of his little cousin looking him over as if he were some Area Boy. Obi was still the Obi he'd always known: a coward, and more loyal to his job than the cousin who got him the job.

“How do I know you're not one of . . . one of them?” Obi blurted. He looked as if he regretted the question the moment it escaped from his lips, but he didn't take his words back. Agu snorted with disgust and sucked his teeth loudly.

Two of Obi's colleagues were walking toward them. One was a tall, intense-looking man, and the other was a short woman. Toyin and Vanessa, going by their name tags.

“Who is this?” Toyin asked.

“
Abeg
, fly,” Agu snapped at Toyin, growing impatient.

“Do you know him?” Vanessa asked Obi, ignoring Agu. “We can have him thrown out. Look at him.”