She would want to bite Lilah.
Annie wouldn’t be able to help herself.
That was how the world was.
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The rain fell and Annie twitched again. And again. The rock
onto which Annie had fallen was right there within easy reach.
But, no. That was an impossible choice.
Impossible.
Impossible.
Lilah turned her face up to the rain and wondered what to do.
Her heart was so badly broken that she could not bear to think of
moving away from this place. Annie was here and when she
woke up she would want to eat. No … she would need to eat. She
would be a small ghost, a tiny monster. What chance would she
have of ever catching food? She would wander, lost and hungry
forever.
I promise to never ever leave you. I’ll keep you safe always
and forever.
That’s what Lilah had told her, and she’d sworn to God and
crossed her heart.
Annie’s fingers opened and closed, but Lilah kept her pressed
against her. She didn’t want to see her sister open her eyes and
not find Annie in there.
I promise to never ever leave you.
The rain washed over her face and stole her tears.
It would be so easy to do nothing. To let Annie wake up. To
let Annie have what she needed. To be there for her sister. And,
afterward, if there was enough left of her, maybe Lilah would
rise, too, and they would go off together. Two sister. They were
already strange and they were already killers. Why shouldn’t
they be monsters together?
God, it was better than the unbearable thought of being alone.
Without Annie. Without George or anyone. Alone.
Annie began to struggle now. She was awake. Her fingers
clawed at Lilah, grabbing at cloth, at hair. Her mouth opened, but
Lilah held her with crushing force, not allowing her to bite.
Not unless that was the right thing to do.
“Please,” she said, begging the night and the storm. “Please.”
I promise to never ever leave you.
“I love you, Annie,” she said in her raspy, ghostly voice. “I
will always, always love you.”
Annie thrashed in her arms. All Lilah had to do was ease the
pressure just a little. Just an inch. Make the decision and join her
sister. It was the only choice that made sense. Every other choice
was completely insane. She could not live without Annie. She
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didn’t want to.
I promise to never ever leave you.
Lilah held her sister with one arm, holding on with all of the
love she had left in the cold furnace of her soul.
And with the other hand she reached for the rock.
It rained the day the world ended.
*
Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestselling novelist, five-time
Bram Stoker Award winner, and comic book writer. He writes
the Joe Ledger thrillers, the Rot & Ruin series, the Nightsiders
series, the Dead of Night series, as well as standalone novels in
multiple genres. His comic books include, Captain America , Bad
Blood , Rot & Ruin , V-Wars , and others. He is the editor of many
anthologies including The X-Files , Scary Out There , Out of
Tune , and V-Wars . His books Extinction Machine and V-Wars
are in development for TV, and Rot & Ruin is in development as
a series of feature films. He was a featured expert on the History
Channel documentary, Zombies: A Living History and a regular
expert on the TV series, True Monsters . Jonathan lives in Del
Mar,
California
with
his
wife,
Sara
Jo.
www.jonathanmaberry.com
23
One of the most unique voices working today in speculative
fiction, and one of my favorite writers, Nigerian American
author Nnedi Okorafor’s stories frequently feature African
culture and characters. Her latest is set in Ghana and focuses on
a girl with unusual connections … to death.
S A N K O F A
By Nnedi Okorafor
The moon was rising when Sankofa came up the dirt road. Her
leather sandals softly slapped her heels as she walked. Small
swift steps made with small swift feet. When she passed, the
crickets did not stop singing, the owls did not stop hooting, and
the aardvark in the bushes beside the road did not stop foraging
for termites.
Sankofa was thirteen years old, but her petite frame and
chubby cheeks made her look closer to ten. Her outfit was a
miniature version of what the older more affluent women of
northern Ghana wore—a hand-dyed long yellow skirt, a
matching top embroidered with expensive lace and a purple and
yellow headband made of twisted cloth. She’d done the
headband exactly as her mother used to when she visited friends.
Sankofa covered her baldhead with a shorthaired black wig.
She’d slathered her scalp with two extra coats of thick shea
butter, so the wig wasn’t itchy at all. Despite the night’s cloying
Decision Points
heat, the shea butter and her elaborate heavy outfit, she felt quite
cool … at the moment.
A young man leaned against a mud hut smoking a cigarette
in the dark. As he was blowing out smoke, he spotted her.
Choking on the last puff, he cupped his hand over his mouth.
“Sankofa is coming,” he hollered in Ewe, grabbing the doorknob
and shoving the door open. “Sankofa is coming!”
People peeked out windows, doorways, from around corners
and over their shoulders. Noses flared, eyes were wide, mouths
opened and healthy hearts pounded like crazy.
“Sankofa. Na come!” someone shouted in Pidgin English.
“Sankofa is here!”
“Sankofa strolling!”
“Sankofa, Sankofa, o!
“Here she comes!”
“Beware of remote control, o!”
“Sankofa bird landing!”
Women scooped up toddlers playing in the dirt and ushered
them inside. Doors slammed. Steps quickened. Car doors
slammed and cars sped off.
The girl called Sankofa walked up the quiet deserted road of
the town that was pretending to be full of ghosts. Her face was
dark and sweet and her jaw was set. The only item she carried
was the amulet bag the juju man had given her five years ago not
long after she left home. The size of a grown man’s fist, it softly
bounced against her hip. Its contents were simple: a role of
money that she rarely needed, a wind-up watch, a large jar of
shea butter, a hand drawn map of Accra and a tightly rolled up
book. For the last week, her book had been a copy of No Orchids
for Miss Blandish, a paper novel she barely understood yet
enjoyed reading. Before that, a crumbling copy of Gulliver’s
Travels.
The town was obviously not poor. There were huts but they
were well-built and this night, though dark as caves, S
ankofa
could see hints of bright light coming from within. People feared
her but they still wanted to watch television. These mud huts had
electricity. Beside the huts were modern homes, which equally
feigned vacancy. Sankofa felt the town staring at her as she
walked. Hoping, wishing, praying that she would pass through,
a wraith in the darkness.
She set her eye on the largest most modern-looking home in
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the neighborhood. The huge hulking white mansion with a red
roof surrounded by a large white concrete gate topped with
broken green bottle glass was easy to see. As she approached the
white gate, she noticed a large black spider walking up the side.
Its stretching legs and hairy robust body looked like the hand of
a ghost.
door. The spider paused, seeming to acknowledge and greet her
back. Then it continued on its way up, into the forest of broken
glass on the top of the gate. Sankofa smiled. Spiders always had
better things to do. She wondered what story it would weave
about her and how far the story would carry. She lifted her chin,
raised a small fist and knocked on the gate’s door. “Excuse me,
I would like to come in,” she called in English. She wasn’t sure
how far she’d come. Better to stick to the language most
understood. “Gateman, I have come to call on the family that
lives here.”
When there was no response, she turned the knob. She wasn’t
surprised that it was unlocked. The gateman stood on the other
side of the large driveway, near the garage. He wore navy blue
pants, a crisp white shirt and a blank look on his face. He had
prayer beads in his hand and when he saw her, he worked them
through his fingers even faster. There was a light on over the
garage and she could see his face clearly. Then he turned and
spat to the side, making no move to escort her to the house.
“Thank you, sir,” Sankofa said, walking to the large front
door. The doorway light was off. “I will show myself in.”
Up close, the house looked less elegant, the white walls were
stained at the bottom with red dirt, splashed there as mud during
rainy season. And there were large dirty spider webs in the upper
corners where the roof met the walls. A shiny silver Mercedes, a
black BMW, and a blue Honda sat in the driveway. The garage
was closed. The house was dark. But Sankofa knew people were
home.
Something flew onto her shoulder as she stepped up to the
front door. She stifled the instinct to crush it dead and, instead,
grabbed it. Gently, she opened her hand. It was a large green
grasshopper. She’d seen this one in one of the books she read. A
katydid. She giggled, watching it crawl up her hand with its long
delicate green legs.
She softly glowed a leaf green. Not enough to kill but enough
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to bath the grasshopper in a shade of its own lovely greenness. If
a grasshopper could smile this one did. She was sure of it. Then
it hop-flew off. “Safe adventures,” she whispered.
She knocked on the door. “It is me,” she called. “Death has
come to visit.”
After a few moments, the front door lights came on. She
looked up at the round ball of glass lit by the light bulb. In a few
minutes, insects would people the light. But not yet. A haggard-
looking tall man in a black suit and tie slowly opened the door.
The lights turned on behind him and she could see about ten well-
dressed adults, some in traditional clothing, others in stiff
Western attire, all pressed together, wide-eyed and afraid.
Cooled air wafted through the opened door and it smelled like
wine, champagne, goat meat and jollof rice. The air-conditioner
and the house cooks were working hard tonight. The hallway was
decorated with shiny red and green trimming and fake poinsettia
flowers, a plastic ornamented Christmas tree at the far end.
“I hope I am not interrupting your Christmas party,” Sankofa
said. She blinked. Was it Christmas? Maybe it was still
Christmas Eve? She felt a muffled pang deep in her chest and
pushed it away as she always did.
“No, no,” the man jabbered, smiling sheepishly. “Em … p-
please. Come in, my dear. Happy Christmas, o.” He wore a silver
chain with a crucifix around his neck. The crucifix rested on his
shoulder. He’d just put it on, probably as he rushed to the door.
Sankofa chuckled.
“Happy Christmas, to you all, too,” she said. “I won’t stay
long.”
The solid marble floors were cool beneath her bare feet. The
walls were covered with European style oil paintings of
European rustic landscapes. Sankofa wondered what trouble
these people went through to get these paintings all the way out
to this small affluent town not far from Accra. And she wondered
if it was worth it; the paintings were quite ugly. A large family
photo hung on the wall, too. It was of a tall fat man, a fat woman
with one fat son and two fat daughters. Happy content people and
definitely “been-tos”. If she had to guess, she’d say from
America.
In the dining room, Sankofa was asked to sit at a large table
laden with more food than she’d seen in weeks. It was nearly
obscene. She’d never imagined that been-tos ate so many native
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dishes. Kele-wele, aponchi-krakra and fufu, kenkey, waakye, red
red, jollof rice, fried chicken, akrantie and goat meat, too much
food to get her eyes around. “Oh charli,” she muttered to herself.
Behind her, the house party came in and stood around.
A young woman set an empty plate before her. She wore a
uniform similar to the gate man’s- a white blouse and navy blue
pants. “Do you …” The woman trailed off, her eyes watering
with tears. She paused, looking into Sankofa’s eyes. Sankofa
gazed right back.
“I would also like a change in clothes,” Sankofa helpfully
said. “I have been wearing these garments for a week.”
The woman smiled gratefully and nodded. Sankofa guessed
the woman was about ten years older her senior, maybe even
twenty-five. “Something like what you are wearing now?” the
woman asked.
Sankofa grinned at this. “Yes, if possible,” she said. “I like
to wear our people’s style.”
The woman seemed to relax. “I know. We all know.”
“My name is known here?” Sankofa asked, the answer being
obvious.
“Very well,” she said. The woman looked at the silent party.
“Can someone call the seamstress?”
“It’s already done,” a fat woman said stepping forward as she
closed a cell phone. Sankofa recognized her quickly. She looked
a little fatter than she had in t
he family photo. Life was good for
her. “Miss Sankofa,” the lady of the house said. “You shall have
whatever garments you like within the hour.” She paused. “The
town has always anticipated a visit from you.”
Sankofa smiled again. “That is good.”
“You would like orange Fanta, right?” the young woman in
the uniform asked her. “Room temperature, not chilled.”
Sankofa smiled and nodded. These were good people.
*
The people from the Christmas party watched Sankofa eat.
Unable to sit down. Unable to whisper amongst themselves.
Paralyzed. Sankofa was ravenous. She’d been walking all day.
The food was glorious. She gnawed on a goat bone and
dropped it on her plate. Then with greasy hands, she took her
bottle of warm Fanta and guzzled the last of it. She belched as
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another was placed before her. The young woman popped the
cap and stepped back.
“Thank you,” Sankofa said, taking a gulp. She picked up
another piece of spicy goat meat and paused. She turned to the
silent party. “Are there any children in the house?” she asked. “I
would like some company.”
She nibbled on her piece of goat meat as the adults fearfully
whispered amongst themselves. It was the same wherever she
visited. They always whispered. Sometimes they cried.
Sometimes they shouted. Always amongst each other. Away
from her. Then they went and got the children. They knew they
had no choice. This time was no different.
A plump boy of about ten and an older equally plump girl
about Sankofa’s age, shuffled in. The girl’s mother, the lady of
the house, had to shove her in. They wore their nightclothes and
looked like they’d been dragged out of bed. They plopped
themselves across from her at the table. The boy eyed a plate of
fried plantain.
“So what are your names?” Sankofa asked.
“Edgar,” the boy said. Sankofa blinked. He spoke like an
American. She’d been right in her assessment. Americans were
always so well-fed.
The girl muttered something Sankofa couldn’t catch.
“What?” Sankofa asked.
“Ye,” the girl whispered. She spoke like an American, too.
“It is nice to meet you,” Sankofa said. “Do you know who I