Nnedi Okorafor - Lagoon

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 further 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 OK. 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 amongst 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?”