It Happened

Part 1: The Search                                                                     

My son is missing. Probably dead. Officially, he is missing (if you believe the statement I made back at the police station). I am in the backseat of a squad car, on a manhunt for the prime suspect in his abduction, and we have just gone past the orphanage at Aladinma. Chuma, my first child, left home for church this afternoon to rehearse for a play that his youth group plan to stage on Sunday and has not returned since. Look. It is past nine. The police chief and I have spent the last forty-five minutes visiting some of Chuma’s friends in their homes and interrogating them. They all said the same thing: they last saw him at the rehearsal and they do not know where he went after that.

The police chief is constantly on the phone, talking to his boys, asking if they have made any progress. Every non-affirmative response he gets turns me into a nervous wreck. Lord, help me before I lose my mind. I am a poor widow whose mite comes from her earnings as a nurse at a state-run clinic, one of many outstations for the proper reference hospitals in the city. I have no one else but you, Lord. And I thank you for revealing to me the person who kidnapped my son. I speak of Ihemee, the destitute on our street. Would I even know his name if it were not for my son, whom he chose to lure? Chuma has been acting strange ever since we moved to Ikoku Avenue, almost three months ago. He says things I know cannot come from him. Setting traps for rats fascinates him. What he does with them, I don’t know. And then, there is his eagerness to take out the rubbish every evening.

Once he asked me a riddle: “Grass eats dirt, cow eats grass, and man eats cow. What eats man?” I answered ‘nothing’, and he said, “Maggots. Maggots eat man. They turn him into dirt so the grass can eat.” Unu ahu nanu ya, have you seen it? My son is only nine, by the way.

Suspicious, I asked Uchendu, my second child, to follow his brother one evening while Chuma was taking out the trash. He came home to report that he had seen Chuma laughing and chatting with Ihemee. What? My son? With that mad man? After I specifically warned him not to go near him. What sort of mind-control medicine is that homeless herbalist using on him? Ihemee of all people! How can Chuma choose to be friends with that disgusting creature, a tramp who could be carrying diseases yet unknown to man? He could even be a runaway from a mental institution, unstable and potentially dangerous? That evening, when Chuma returned, I gave him the flogging of his life and my sternest warning yet. It was the last time I let him take out the rubbish.

From the very first day I laid eyes on Ihemee, I sensed trouble. I had a feeling he was like a cat: quiet until he shocked you with teeth and claw. When it’s dark, he goes through the refuse dumps in our backyards, like a stray, looking for things to peddle. His nightly activities have woken me up many times. And sometimes, I have caught him stealing away into the shadows with a big black cellophane bag. I have always believed there was more to his foraging than looking for things to sell. Something about those big probing eyes of his tells me he is smarter than he lets on.

The police chief gets off the phone and says to me, “My men have apprehended the suspect.”

“Praise God,” I chant. “Is my son with him? Have they found him?”

“Calm down, Madam. Your son is not with him, but we will find him. I assure you.”

He tells the driver to turn the car around and our convoy of two makes a U-turn. At one point, the other car’s headlight strikes me with a blinding haze of white that catches the tears welling up in my eyes.

If my premonition misses, my son is not in a black cellophane bag and Ihemee is not a ritualist pretending to be shelter-challenged. I keep my head turned towards my window, away from the police chief, watching the dark shapes of trees as they fly by. A quick flash of light from a working streetlight ambushes me with my sad reflection.

We stop at the orphanage and turn off our siren. Two police cars are there already. One is parked near the scaffolds that support the staircase of an uncompleted block of hostels. The cherry lights of our vehicle spatter the scene with an on-and-off theme that reminds me of red blood corpuscles. I have to remind myself that I am not about to rush an accident victim into an ambulance for onward conveyance to the general hospital in the heart of the city. A crowd has thronged around and is heckling someone who is shouting back.

“Yes, I talk say I see am today, but…  How I go know that one? Me? Carry am go keep somewhere? No be me. Na your mama be kidnapper. Allow me hear word! You too talk, nya, nya, nya, nya, nya.”

I cannot see who is speaking, but I’m sure it is Ihemee. I did not know he could speak this coherently.

My phone rings. It’s my sister, Ngozi, whom I left in the house with my other two children.

“Chiamaka, can you hear me?” she says. She is shouting, like she wants to be heard over a bad connection. I worry that something else is the matter. Coroners have contacted her, perhaps.

“Yes, I can. Speak.”

“You can come home now, Chuma is here. A good Samaritan found him wandering about in the streets and brought him home.”

Could it be true? Chuma? Still alive? I release the tears I have been holding back, tears I had cried in an alternate reality where I saw my son sacrificed before an altar.

“He said he lost his way,” Ngozi says. “Wait. Let me give him the phone so you can speak with him.”

I laugh through my tears when I hear my son’s voice. ‘Mama, where are you?’ he says, as if I am the one who is missing. I am still in shock; the omens that rattled me have not fully let go.

I inform the police chief of this latest development, and he orders his men back into their cars and we head home. Until we hear from Chuma, no crime had been committed and no arrest can be made.

When we reach the house, Chuma runs out yelling ‘Mama, Mama’. I scoop him up into my arms and hold him tight, swearing never again to let him out of my sight. He is shivering. His body breaks out in quick spasms that give me concern.

“Chuma, what is it?” I ask.

He tries to explain but, except for the name ‘Obasi’, I cannot make sense of what he is saying. I turn to my sister, wondering if she had had better luck.

“He says they took Obasi,” Ngozi says.

“His friend, the orphan?”

“Yes.”

“Took him where?”

The police chief coughs. “Madam, I will need to speak with your son,” he says.

Chuma is unlike himself under the police chief’s interrogation. It is almost as if he is learning how to talk. It is so bad that when the police chief turns to ask me Chuma’s age, it feels as if he has just called my son a retard. I wonder if Chuma’s incoherence is because he is being addressed in English, a language he speaks only in school. He keeps fidgeting on the edge of his seat, hugging his folded leg around the shin and gazing at the toes of the other. The police chief abstains from asking him questions that may require more than a yes or a no.

I sense caution in my nine-year-old; he is weary of his words, afraid to let something slip. But what? What has Ihemee done to my son? What in heaven’s name had Chuma seen? A thought occurs to me and I flare up. “Chuma, I hope you have not given us all a scare because your friend was adopted and has moved away.” I spoke in English so that the police chief can see that my son is not daft.

At my tone of voice, Chuma stops his slouching, stops picking at his toes like a child with a neurological disorder, and looks up at me. “Olo,” he says.

“Speak English.”

“No, Mummy.”

“Then what? What is it? Why didn’t you come home from church, like all your mates?”

“Pastor Ikenna—he came… He said Obasi should come… Obasi did not want to go. So, he ran—he away—we ran away together… but… Pastor Ikenna… he caught… he caught…”

What is he babbling about? “Pastor Ikenna did what? Speak up before I lose my temper.”

“Pastor Ikenna takes children to a shrine. They don’t come back after that.”

“Taa! Meshie onu gi. Shut up your mouth.”

Chuma whimpers.

“Who is Pastor Ikenna?” the police chief asks me.

“He is our assistant general overseer. The orphanage belongs to our church community. He looks after it.”

“And you don’t think—”

“Sir, my son has a madman for a playmate. You saw the man yourself. He gets all kinds of ideas from him. I have done everything I can to discourage their friendship, but this boy will not listen.” I rush at Chuma to give him a good knock on the head, and he runs away.

“I saw a homeless man, madam, not a man who was insane. My job is to investigate the things I hear, no matter how ridiculous they may sound.”

“I assure you, sir, that you will be wasting your time. I am sorry for all the trouble we have caused you.”

The police chief turns to Chuma. “Who told you about the shrine, little boy?”

Chuma dithers.

“Say the truth,” I say to him. “They will put you in prison if you lie.”

“Ihemee,” Chuma says.

The police chief turns to me (again, as if my son cannot answer for himself). “Who is Ihemee?” he asks, bleating to pronounce ‘Ihemee’. 

“The madman.”

“I need to speak with this… Ihemee.” He bleats again and this time, he could have swallowed a fly.

“Do you need my permission? Please take him off our street. I’ve had it up to here with him.” I touch my chin with the back my hand.

“I want your son present when I question him, just in case he tries to deny what he said. In plain English, Madam, I am asking your permission to take Chuma back with us to the orphanage. We will bring him home once we are done.”

His request catches me off guard. He can’t be serious. He is. Incredible. Wonders shall never end. How in God’s name will Chuma’s presence make a lunatic fess up to things he said in the past and probably couldn’t recall? And who in his right senses would even think of making a lunatic account for his rambles? “Look at the time, sir. It is almost ten. Can we do this tomorrow?”

“Madam, a boy’s life could be in danger. Just think what we would have done if that were your son. Wouldn’t we be on our way this very minute?”

“Okay, okay. But I will come with you.”

“Thank you.”

“Let me get a few things first.” Angrily, I turn to Chuma. “You heard the officer. Go and wear your shoes. We are going to see that friend of yours who never has his bath.”

I leave my sister with instructions on what to do while I’m gone, grab two coats—mine and Chuma’s—and head out after the policemen, pulling Chuma roughly by the arm, rough enough to let him know I am very cross with him. Just when I thought my adventure was over, I will be back on the road again. There are forces beyond my control dictating the night. Oh, why did I snap at Chuma? I should have waited for the police chief to leave first before scolding him. Well, what else can I do but hope this misadventure ends well? What kind of son do I have? Why can’t he just run from Ihemee like all the other kids?

Back at the orphanage, we learn from Pastor Ikenna’s housekeeper that he is at an all-night prayer vigil and will not be back until six in the morning. She says Obasi had been sent to the pastor’s village to assist his aged mother. Chuma says it’s a lie and keeps insisting it is. He refuses to stop, not even after I threaten him to slap his mouth shut. Something is wrong with that boy.

 The police chief questions Ihemee through a translator. The tramp’s odour, sustained-release whiffs of a stink more irritating than it is nauseating. Flies swarm around him, collecting over his head. The boils on his face, particularly the ones around his thick lips, make me want to recede to a safe distance, taking Chuma with me. His sideburns are crumbs of hair. They are like tiny black ‘worms’ that join his mop of hair to his bushy beard. Looking at him, I realize I can hurt him with a comb. He has big toad-like eyes. They look well. Not the kind you would expect to find on someone malnourished.

The fool sounds pleased with his late-night audience. I must say his translator does a good job of making him sound less than crazy. I’m impressed.

“Ikenna cannot stomach food unless it is spoiled,” Iheme says in Igbo, “but instead of him making leftovers his chop, he kills animals and buries them in the ground for days before he goes back to them. Sometimes it is a goat; other times, a child. Tufia!” He snaps his fingers and shrugs. “If he must kill, are there not enough rats in the area? I have told Ikenna to stop doing that, but he only talks nya, nya, nya, nya, nya.”

Oh. So he is on a first-name basis with our assistant general overseer? I laugh in my heart from a sense of futility. He who takes a fool seriously must be one himself. To think I left my house to come and listen to this, on a cold, cold night. Well, I hope the police chief is happy with himself. He now has a case to crack, a nutcase.

“Okay, my friend,” the police chief says. “Where does the pastor bury the children and goats you mention?”

“In the shrine.”

“Can you take us there?”

“Yes, General. But the place is far.”

“We will use the car.”

I am not sharing a car with him. Hell no. “Our work is done here, sir,” I say to the police chief. “Can we go home now?”

“I am sorry madam but I will have to ask you and your son to wait for us here until we get back. I cannot spare any men to drive you home, at this juncture. We have an emergency. I’m sure you understand.”

I feel my forehead, checking to see if I have a temperature. Yes, I do. Chuma, Chuma, Chuma. What sort of child are you?

After a fruitless search for bodies, they come back for us at about 1:05 am.

Part 2: The Crash

I receive a phone call from Papa Onuoha, my husband’s uncle, at half-past one. He wants me to come to Asaba urgently for further discussions on the long-running land dispute over my late husband’s property. He says there has been a new development, but refuses to say what. I decide, against Ngozi’s pleas, and my better judgment, to travel that evening. Owerri––Asaba is a little under three hours if the road is clear, and even if I were to leave by eight, I could still arrive the same day.

I remember reaching the park. I remember boarding a twelve-seater going to Onitsha with plans to join another that will take me to Asaba. I remember politely turning down the ukwa the lady sitting on my right offered. I remember some parts of the journey, but I do not remember all of it. I do not remember passing Okija, or getting off that bus and boarding another one. Nor do I remember crossing the Onitsha Bridge. The last images I remember seeing were of our bus veering off the road and plunging downhill. Passengers screamed ‘Blood of Jesus’ through a jolty ride that sent heads to the roof. I remember the bus somersaulting and seeing the inverted image of colonnaded trees, so serene, before everything went black.

My legs. I could not feel my legs! I tried to lift my head to peer at them and see if they were still there. But I could only turn my neck slightly to the right—any other movement was too excruciating to execute. It was dark. I could make out a plantation. It had thin trees evenly spaced and sloping down a hill. At the base of the hill was our bus, all crumpled up. I looked hard at it and saw two roving beams of light around it. Flashlights. Two people. Searching around our damaged vehicle and carrying bodies out. Rescuers. Oh, thank God.

“Help,” I croaked.

They did not hear.

“Help,” I croaked again, putting more effort.

They whistled a tune as they went about their business. They seemed quite calm about the whole thing. One body at a time, they carried languid passengers off into the night, conversing in low voices.

I must have passed out because the sun was in my eyes the next time I looked. I scanned the hill and the men were gone. I cried. I cried bitterly, anguishedly, ruing the lost opportunity. In between, I remembered to say a brief thank you to God for sparing my life. I tried to get up but I could not lift myself, my depleted calories not helping matters.

Something nibbled at my face. I hurled myself into a sitting position, despite nerves on fire, in time to see something dark and furry dart into a thicket. The sky was again in her pajamas, a full moon shining. I must have passed out a second time. If it happened again, I would be dead for sure.

I took stock of my broken bones with a good stretch that tore at my ligaments. Resting my back against a trunk, I slithered up, taking all the time in the world. I was in bad shape but there was hope. The tree shrubs around me were of the variety called Pincushion. My grandfather used to mash their leaves and make syrup, which he drank to relieve his body pains. I cut a few and chewed them, raw, breathing hard and despising their bitter taste.

I saw a glimmer of light waxing steadily in the distance. A campfire? An outpost for soldiers on night watch? I decided I would reach it no matter what, so I rested my back on the trunk and, using it as a prop, pushed up against the ground with my feet. At almost full height, my uppermost parts swayed against the tree. I braced myself for a plunge and sprang forward, teetering and covering a short distance before dipping and falling to the ground. I clawed my way up again, stood shakily erect against another tree, and repeated the cycle. Sometimes I had the luck of soft twigs to break my fall. Each time I tipped towards the ground, I reached for the branches in front of me, trying to catch one and hold on to it. I stood, staggered forward, and fell headlong, repeatedly. Occasionally, I chose to rest on grass, happy to stay awhile to recoup my strength of mind and body.

By the time I reached the neighborhood of the source of light, the sky had brightened considerably. Vultures numbering fifteen or more were perched on the ground, looking menacing with large nostrils you couldn’t miss on their beaks. They were large. Larger than I imagined they would be. They looked like brooding doctors on ward rounds, a wingspan left to my imagination, judging from the way they folded them neatly behind them. They saw me approach but did not take to the sky. Could they even fly, considering they were nearly Uchendu’s height? I thought of turning back. No, I couldn’t. I had come this far already. Where would I find the strength to look for help elsewhere, as mentally and physically drained as I was? My best bet, should the vultures attack, was to shout and pray somebody had heard.

At the shoulder of the small hill, a putrid smell filled my lungs. But I was like a moth drawn to the strong light on the other side. I crawled up and up, taking my time, and fell on my chest near the summit. Slithering up the hill, I reached the summit and poked my head over. The first thing that caught my eye was a bright furnace. And then a man. He was naked, stark naked. He looked like the driver of our bus. Tending to the fire with a long stick was another man I knew I had seen somewhere before. On the bus, perhaps. I think he sat closest to the door.

The first man dragged an equally unclothed body by the ankles—dead from all indications—out of a pile of human remains and laid it flat on its back. It was the woman who had offered me ukwa while we were waiting for the bus to fill up with passengers. The first man—now in the glaze of firelight—who was, without a doubt, our driver lowered himself on top of the woman’s corpse and assumed the missionary position. It was a sickening sight. I could not think of anything more depraved. I could not think at all. He belched and then he puked all over her face. Strangely, his vomitus poured and poured—bucket-loads of it. And as it did, his head lurched forward, and he gurgled, “Bleeegh!” His oral discharge seemed alive, the way it swirled over the woman’s face and then over the rest of her, soiling and unsoiling her body parts. Jesus! It was a swarm. A swarm—of maggots. It began, and the driver coughed. Maggots fell out of his mouth, and then… a long worm—no, a leech. The longest I had ever seen in my life. Maggots, leeches (and God knows what other vermin there were) turned the woman’s face into a hive. The last thing I saw, before slinking away, was the driver licking the woman’s skull, slurping back the maggots and leeches, and exposing her soggy half-eaten face.

I screamed without making a sound. I rolled downhill on my side. When I reached the foot, I slumped on my back and steadied my breathing. I welcomed the fresh smell of fallen leaves and moist humus.

Still in shock, and still unable to stand, I slid away using my legs as paddles. The nerves at the base of my spine hurt. My bowels felt dreggy and loose, a fart not far off—not a loud one, please. The dawn, flame-red flickers behind a cluster of trees, seemed to beckon to me, signalling the end of my suffering.

Oomph!

I caught fluid shooting up from my stomach in my mouth and swallowed it back down. I turned over and lay flat on my belly, and felt better. Think of your children, I said to myself. You can’t leave them orphans.

Crawling on all fours, I staggered to my feet, amazed at how quickly I had evolved. I shuffled towards the trees set in aurorean background.

“Yeouwrr!”

It sounded like a whimper. I think I stepped on an animal. A puppy? A jackal? I didn’t stop. The surrounding snarls grew louder, warning me. I was close to the trees. If I could reach them, I could climb up and be safe. I hobbled on, expecting a lunge at my legs and then a bite. But I made it, instead. Yes, I made it to one tree. I wrapped my body around the trunk. My feet had left the ground, true, but I was still on the same level as I would be if I stood. I soon found out I… could not climb it. So I got off and looked around me, wondering what next to do. 

Through the shade of the forest, the light of dawn reflected in eyes that belonged to dark shapes. Hyenas! I cringed. I took two steps back, into the open hand of someone behind me.

“EEEEEEEE!”

Not a hand. But a leaf. On a low-hanging branch. It brushed my cheek. What had I done? My vocal cords had chosen the wrongest time to recover. 

I looked back and saw two shadows descending the hill, haloed from behind by the light on the other side. One of them was carrying a flashlight. I stooped behind a tree, saw the hyenas creeping closer, sizing me, sniffing my fear, but they were not my real concern now. I could hear the thumps in my chest, underneath my loud pants. I wished I could stop them both. I closed my eyes and pattered my bedtime prayer. I don’t know why. Probably because I thought it was lights out for me. I was wrong. I heard feet scuttling off. And when I opened my eyes, I saw the hyenas racing after other hyenas, charging over and down the hill. Apparently, the driver and the other passenger had left the bodies unguarded. I was as easy a meal as those corpses, but luckily, the hyenas didn’t know that.

The hyenas snarled and scuffled. The vultures moved in, too. I imagined them gliding and pouncing with canvas-like wings, two ‘couches’, spread above them. The noise waned. I heard soft thunks that sounded like feet approaching. Human feet. Then silence.

Something sharp pierced my shoulder.

Ow!  

A young woman in a white overall is sticking a needle into my deltoid and pressing down on the plunger. “Easy,” she says.

The woman is on my left and I am sitting up in a bed.

“Mummy.”

It’s Uchendu. Chuma is there too. And so is my daughter, Ada.

“Chiamaka.”

Ngozi! She is getting up from a chair at the foot of the bed. Her close friend from church—um… Adaora. Yes, Adaora—is with her.

“Where am I?” I ask.

“In hospital,” Chuma says.

“How do you feel?” Ngozi asks, her eyes the pale red of someone who has been crying.

“Excuse me. That’s my job,” the strange face in the room says. She raises her stethoscope and slips it into her ears. “Now, if the rest of you will give me a moment, I will be done here.”

I feel the cold dab of her stethoscope rubs on my chest and jerk back a little.

“So it was all a dream,” I say. “Thank goodness. But what happened? Why am I here? Doctor, did you give me a hallucinogen? You can tell me. I’m a nurse.”

“Hold still.” She pulls down my lower eyelid and shines her retinoscope in my eye. She does the same with my other eye. “I did not,” she says. “Your bus had an accident and, for all we know, you are the only survivor.” 

No. She can’t be serious. “Noooo,” I scream, alarming the young woman leaning over me.

Ada, whom Chuma is trying to prevent from clambering up into my bed, stops struggling, gapes at me for a few seconds, and then opens her mouth wide and releases a bawl.

“Mummy, what is it?” Uchendu asks.

“She is still in shock,” the woman in white overall says to my second child. “Now, I want everyone to leave so that she can get some rest. She will feel much better after she sleeps it off.”

Confused, I watch the woman lift Ada into her arms and shepherd my family out of the room.

Chukwunna, lekwa nu mo, Father, see me-o, I say to myself each time I recall my last memories before waking up.

Before the woman can shut the door behind her, an impulse prodcloudss me, and I say, “Chuma. I want to speak with Chuma.”

“Of course.” the doctor says and allows my son back into the room.

Chuma bounds over to me and the woman pulls the door shut. Chuma stands by my bed, waiting. He doesn’t know what to say. And for a while, neither do I.

“That thing Ihemee said to the police, the night Obasi went missing, did you understand it?” I ask, finally.

“Yes, Mummy.”

I blink back my tear clouds. My lips are shuddering slightly.

“Mummy, what is it? Don’t cry. You’ll be okay. The doctor says you will,” he says, switching to Igbo.

“How does Ihemee know what he knows?”

Chuma hesitates.

I reach out and touch his arm. “You can tell me. I won’t get angry. I promise.”

“He is one of them. He is like Pastor Ikenna, but he is not bad like him. He doesn’t kill and bury children so he can eat them later. He only eats dead rats and the things he finds in the garbage. Mummy, Ihemee is my friend, and he can be yours too.”

THE END

Glossary     (Igbo language – Owerri dialect)   

Chukwunna– Father-God

Lekwa nu mo– see me-o (addressing several people)

Tufia– an exclamation of disgust

Ukwa– breadfruit

Olo– no

Check out Broken Sleep by the same author