Nnedi Okorafor - Lagoon

As one, the crowd forgot the President and focused on Ayodele. A cameraman swung his camera into her face and moved it down her body. Adaora shoved the camera away. “Enough,” she said. “She is not a piece of whale meat.”

“We don’t know what she is,” the cameraman muttered. He stepped back a few paces as Ayodele turned to him.

“I am taking them to the Elders,” Ayodele said. “Your leader will meet mine.”

“Why can’t we come along?” one of the male journalists asked. Adaora recognized him immediately. Femi Adewumi. He wrote features and a column for the Guardian . She’d always thought he looked handsome in his column photo – her husband used to get annoyed whenever he saw her reading Femi’s writing – and he was just as handsome in person. Adaora frowned at the direction her thoughts had taken. What am I becoming? she wondered.

“You may,” Ayodele said, after looking him over. “But only you.”

Femi grinned and stepped beside Agu.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Agu told him.

“This is the story of a lifetime,” Femi excitedly said. “Sometimes a man must throw caution to the wind!”

“Madam,” said a female journalist. “Please. Can I come, too?”

Ayodele looked her over. “You can’t swim. You stay here.”

The woman’s face fell but she didn’t argue.

Several others asked after that, including two men carrying rotting meat. Ayodele said “no” to them all.

“Let’s move on,” Ayodele said.

Agu nodded. “This way.”

There were nine of them: Ayodele, Adaora, Agu, Anthony, Femi, the President, Hawra, and Bamidele and Chucks. The sleek white speedboat was made to take ten, but this didn’t set Agu’s mind at ease. The boat, like most government-issued equipment, was a piece of shit, with leaks and a faulty motor that backfired randomly at high speeds.

“You can drive this thing?” the President asked Agu.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “Usually it takes two people, but I can drive it. My job is to patrol the water. Amphibious Division 81, five years.” As he watched everyone climb aboard, Agu shuddered. After his experience in the water, he was not in a hurry to get back out on it. How much was Ayodele going to be able to protect them?

“Put your life vests on,” he said. He undid the rope and got in. “Adaora,” he whispered.

She looked at him and said nothing. But she took his hand.

“Ayodele,” he said. “Where are we going?”

“Take us far out,” she said.

Agu started the motor.

Adaora looked out into the water as they left the shore. The morning sun was warming up, its rays penetrating deeply into the water. So deeply that she could have sworn she saw the bottom, over thirteen meters below. But that was impossible. No water was that clear when it was that deep. Adaora sat down and focused on the horizon. The water’s unnatural clarity was the least of her worries.

The trouble started minutes after they fired up the engine. The boat kept lurching up as if it were driving over wide speed bumps. The fifth bump was a big one and Hawra screeched and grabbed the President. But his attention was already elsewhere.

“What is that?” he shouted, pointing.

“God of Abraham,” Femi exclaimed, his camera up as he snapped photos. “No, no, video, video’s better,” he muttered, looking at his camera, his hands shaking.

Bamidele and Chucks were looking into the water directly below the boat, their guns drawn. But the President was pointing into the distance. Adaora followed the line of his arm just in time to see it break the surface.

It was black and looked about the size of a house. As it fell back into the water, all three of its huge tentacles slapped the surface, creating large waves that rocked the boat. Adaora shuddered. She could name most cephalopods down to their local and scientific names. But what she’d just seen didn’t have a name.

The President’s guards scrambled to the center of the boat. “Oh my God, oh my God! Oh my God!” Bamidele babbled.

“Don’t do that,” Chucks said as Femi held his camera over the boat’s edge.

“It looked like a giant swordfish,” Chucks said. “The size of a bus!”

“Ayodele,” Anthony said. “What is all—”

The boat lurched again and everyone held on.

The flash of Femi’s camera as he photographed Ayodele made her frown. He lowered his camera and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. There usually isn’t a flash in sunshine like this.”

“It’s the people of the waters,” Ayodele said. “They are tired of boats and human beings.”

“Then why’d you bring us out here?” Hawra shouted.

“Your leader must meet the Elders,” Ayodele said, matter-of-factly. “The world is not yet safe.”

“Meeting the Elders is fine, but tell the fish to leave us alone!” Adaora cried.

“ They do as they wish. They won’t listen to me. Some of my people have even mixed with them. Once we make it to the ship, we’ll be safe.”

Femi’s camera beeped as he took another photo of Ayodele.

Fifteen minutes later, a three-tentacled sea beast leaped over them, spiraling wildly through the air. It splayed all its thick purple fifty-foot tentacles wide for full effect, splashing loudly into the water.

“Keep going,” Ayodele said. “This creature is too strong. I will catch up.” Then without a word, she leaped into the water and was gone. They all looked at each other for several moments. Then Agu pushed the boat to top speed.

No one spoke, no one moved. Everyone watched the water. For several minutes, the surface was calm.

“That thing is the… ship?” Hawra asked, pointing at the undulating black and brown mass hovering above the water miles away.

“Yes,” Anthony said. “When they brought us into it last time, it was under the water.”

“Wish it stayed there,” one of the soldiers muttered. “Dat ting, na wor wor. Look like sometin’ rotten.”

BONG! The entire boat vibrated from the impact of whatever had just rammed it. Agu and Adaora fell against the stern; the President and the two soldiers tumbled onto a pile of coiled rope. Femi screamed as he tried to grab Hawra, who was dangerously close to the boat’s edge. Something slammed into the boat again, and Hawra toppled over the side, grabbing the railing at the last moment.

“Help!” she screamed. “I can’t… I can’t!”

“Coming,” one of the soldiers called, trying to get to his feet.

Adaora looked into the water. “I see it! It’s a swordfish, it’s… oh God! Hold on!”

The swordfish monster rammed the boat again and Hawra dropped into the water. Her terrified shriek was abruptly cut off as her head went under.

The President ran to the edge of the boat and looked over the water. He was sure it was full of disease. Look what it had done to the sea creatures! “Hawra!” he screamed, holding on to the railing. “Hawra!” He let go of the railing as though to jump in after her. Anthony grabbed him. “No!” the President shouted as he strained to free himself from the other man’s grasp. He slapped at Anthony. The water now roiled with hundreds of glistening, eel-like fish. “Leave me! Leave me to save my wife! LET ME SAVE MY WIFE!”

Agu stumbled over and grabbed the President’s other shoulder. “No! Don’t jump in there!” Agu shouted. “You can’t—”

“Let me die, too! Let me DIE!” he screamed hysterically. What if the water did something worse than death to her?

Agu wanted to tell the President to stay calm, that his country needed him to remain on the boat, meet the Elders, but reason was a stupid thing to request. If Adaora had fallen off the boat, he’d do the same thing the President was doing, and nothing anyone said would change his mind. So Agu held the President of Nigeria with all his might. Anthony put his arms around the two of them and did the same.