Futility E-Book

Nuzo Onoh

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 441

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

For readers of Oyinkan Braithwaite's My Sister the Serial Killer and Bella Mackie's How to Kill Your Family, this is a monstrous, gleeful, bitingly funny tale of murder, body-swapping and bloody vengeance from the recipient of the Bram Stoker Award® for Lifetime Achievement and 'Queen of African Horror'. Crackling with wit, this is a monstrous, gleeful, bitingly funny tale of murder, body-swapping and bloody vengeance from the recipient of the Bram Stoker Award ® for Lifetime Achievement and 'Queen of African Horror'. Betrayed by the men in their lives, two women seethe with rage and bitterness. When a trickster spirit offers them the gift of revenge, they cannot resist. Chia runs one of the best restaurants in Abuja, Nigeria, and is renowned among the male clientele for her captivating beauty and delicious hot pepper soup. But her hot pepper soup has a secret ingredient, and her beauty is not what it seems. Claire is a 50 year-old British woman living in Abuja with her young Nigerian boyfriend and his beautiful cousin, Shadé. Consumed by jealousy and resentment, Claire's carefully organised life spirals into chaos after a night out at Chia's infamous restaurant.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

Glossary

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise for

Futility

“Gleefully demented and simmering with such wit and verve, Futility by Nuzo Onoh is an unpredictable and fiercely inventive literary entrée centred around retribution and punishment. Onoh’s masterful prose is so unique, so captivating. She remains a singular voice in horror fiction, impossible to imitate.”

ERIC LAROCCA, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

“Vengeance has never been so thrilling. Feminist rage at its finest and so darkly funny you’ll laugh until your stomach hurts.”

NEENA VIEL, author of Listen to Your Sister

“A dark and twisted tale permeated with African spirits and horror. Nuzo Onoh brings the vivid beauty of Nigerian folklore and culture to life, alongside chilling vengeance and justice rendered. This is one book I’ll be thinking about for a very long time.”

DEL SANDEEN, author of This Cursed House

“A total blast, a twisted original full of curses and sacrifice, and two women you absolutely do not want to piss off! Revenge is anything but sweet when magic and blood rituals are involved. If you’re looking for a horror story you haven’t read before, start right here!”

CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN, New York Times bestselling author of The Night Birds and Road of Bones

“A visceral descent into the grotesque underbelly of desire, power, and ancestral wrath. Onoh conjures a story as culturally rich as it is deliciously depraved.”

LINDY RYAN, author of Bless Your Heart

“One of the best in the business! No one writes like Onoh, and this one ranks among her best.”

BRIAN BOWYER, Splatterpunk Award-nominated and Godless Award-winning author of Old Too Soon and Crazy Like You

Also by Nuzo Onohand published by Titan Books:

Where the Dead Brides Gather

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Futility

Print edition ISBN: 9781835414286

Abominable Book Club edition ISBN: 9781835416822

E-book edition ISBN: 9781835414293

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: October 2025

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Nuzo Onoh 2025

Nuzo Onoh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

EU RP (for authorities only)eucomply OÜ, Pärnu mnt. 139b-14, 11317 Tallinn, [email protected], [phone]

This book is dedicated to me

1

Chia stared at the tall man’s shrivelled penis, fighting the gloating laughter that threatened to spill from her full lips. Clothed in nothing but her naked glory, she surveyed her latest victim with unrestrained glee. The stunned look on the man’s face fed the malice in her heart and her voice dripped with syrupy viciousness when next she spoke.

“Chei-chei! Master, what is this little thing I’m seeing between your legs, oh?” She leaned low and poked the traumatised organ with a dirty finger before her victim could shield it with his trembling hands. The man’s dark eyes brimmed with shame and shock, quickly glancing at her before returning to his wizened manhood in stunned disbelief. The sight of his debasement filled Chia’s heart with savage bliss. “I thought you wanted to sex me very well today. All this time you’ve been coming to my restaurant to eat, you have been promising me big pleasure. Chei-chei! This crazy man! Didn’t you tell me that your penis is as long as a snake, eh? Look: am I not standing naked before you? This is me, Bambino Chick, the hottest woman in Abuja Capital Territory. Am I not beautiful anymore? Are you not grateful that I bothered with you at all? So tell me, why are you now insulting me with this useless dwarf penis, eh? Shegé!”

Chia hissed and shook her head with disdain as she stooped to pull on her discarded clothes. The tall man stood before her in mute mortification, still unable to defend his puny penis or his obliterated reputation. Prior to this disastrous encounter, he had been known by the prestigious name of Ebenebé, ‘The Devastation’, thanks to the impact his good looks and fancy cars had on the smitten female population in the city. Now, his reputation lay in tatters, his trusty weapon inexplicably annihilated before none other than Chia, his goddess and queen, his ultimate fantasy lay, who had now turned out to be his ultimate destruction.

Chia watched him staring at his penis with a dazed expression, wondering how his mighty organ – which had ravished over three hundred women – could have fallen before her, in his eyes the most beautiful woman in the world. She could read the frantic thoughts racing through the foggy terrain of his brain – perhaps he had been overwhelmed by the reality of finally getting to make love with his ultimate crush? Still… his penis had never shrunk to such a pathetic size in all the years he’d been sexually active. He hadn’t lied when he boasted to Chia that his organ was the length of a snake. All the women he had graced with his attention could testify to the impressive size of his manhood. Even worse, he hadn’t even managed to poke Chia once with his penis before it wilted into the shameful lump now stuck between his thighs like roasted rat-meat. Chia smirked once again at the stunned look on the tall man’s face.

“Well, I can’t waste my time here with you anymore. I have a restaurant to run.” Her cheery voice sliced through the tension in the room with brutal finality. “Maybe I’ll see you again in my restaurant when you have regrown your penis. I heard from one of my customers that there is a medicine man that can make juju potions to regrow little penises into monster sizes. I’ll ask him the name of that witch doctor when next he visits my restaurant and give it to you. Maybe next time we meet, you’ll be wearing a python instead of a snake inside your trousers. I swear, I was really looking forward to how your penis would teach my yash a proper lesson today, but I guess it’s not to be after all. Oh well…”

Chia picked up her Valentino handbag and sauntered out of the motel room, her merry laughter stabbing agonising daggers into the chest of the tall man, still nursing his ruined manhood. As she shut the door behind her, a deep frown instantly replaced the smirk on her face—Useless bastard! He should be grateful that he is my victim tonight and not my master’s own. At least, he still has his life even if he will never sex up any woman again nor impregnate any foolish girls for the rest of his rubbish life. Pity! His corpse would have been very useful. Oh well…

Chia retied her wrapper around her thick waist as she waddled down the stairs, leaving the motel where she had met up with her rich patron for their aborted amorous liaison. Despite her squat figure and pockmarked face, she walked with the confidence of a screen goddess, safe in the knowledge that all men found her irresistible. She’d had no need to look into the tall man’s pupils to see her reflection in his eyes, the image he saw when he looked at her. In all the months he had frequented her restaurant, she had seen herself the way he saw her in the glassy orbs of his mesmerised eyes. To him, she was Rihanna, complete with big hooped earrings and skimpy clothes. In his warped vision, her obese body had shrunk into a slender and curvaceous figure that oozed dangerous sex appeal and glamour. Even she had been stunned by this particular manifestation of herself in the tall man’s eyes.

The thought brought sudden rage to her heart—Useless fools! Yeye idiots who only see outside beauty and have no respect for women’s head-sense. I will make them all pay, every one of the romancing devils. That randy dog in the motel room didn’t care about his wife and children when he was just lusting after thefake-me in his eyes. Same with that love-rat, Eddie, who didn’t care about the real me when he just ran away with that Gonorrhoea-Rita. But my time will come; one of these days, I will have my revenge on all of them.

Chia hissed loudly as she quickened her steps, eager to put as much distance between herself and the Good Time Motel, which had given her anything but a good time—If only that useless British Embassy would stop denying my visa applications so I can go to London and find that useless Eddie and his gonorrhoea girlfriend. It is just my bad luck to keep getting white women for my visa interviews instead of white men. Shegé!

Chia heaved a deep and bitter sigh as she entered her gleaming black SUV in the parking lot of the motel and turned on the ignition. Instantly, the satisfying melody of Nelly Uchendu’s high-life music, ‘Waka About’, filled the car. Chia dropped her chin to her chest, her eyes shut tightly. For a while, she remained in that position, inhaling deeply and exhaling loudly. After several tense minutes, she lifted her head once more. Then she pulled down the rear-view mirror and stared long and hard at her reflection. Her eyes narrowed determinedly as she nodded her head several times with emphatic grit.

“Bambino Chick! You have done well tonight, you hear?” She spoke loudly to her reflection, waiting for the familiar feeling of manic satisfaction to pump up her self-esteem. From the time Chia first heard the word ‘bambino’ in a foreign film, it had struck a powerful chord with her, as if it had been coined specifically for her. She had no idea what it meant or what race the language belonged to. All she knew was that the word was filled with unapologetic attitude. Each time she applied it to herself, it made her feel important, imposing, powerful, and prosperous. The word, bambino, made her feel as perfect as she could ever be in an imperfect life.

“Bambino Chick!” Chia repeated her confidence mantra once again, her voice louder, stronger. This time, the words finally pierced through her mind, tanking up her heart with their familiar charmed magic. After all, hadn’t she just destroyed another swaggering man with the deadly power of her right hand? Wasn’t she the owner of the awesome mind-bending face that weaved fantastical illusions in the eyes of randy malehood?

A wide grin creased her features, filling her with grim satisfaction. It was a smile brimming with malice and pride—Bambino Chick! You are great, you hear? Soon, Chia was singing exuberantly to the high-life song from her music deck as she drove back to her restaurant to prepare her famous specialty dish for her hungry customers.

2

Claire Bellows lifted her generous bum from the faux-leather sofa and released a delicate fart. The sound was tight, a squeezed little fart more suited to an aristocratic arse that the fleshy rotundity of her peasant backside. It reeked of baked-beans overdose, her supper earlier that evening.

Claire inhaled deeply, savouring the stench from her orifice as she eyed the young woman seated across from her, scrolling on her mobile phone with feigned disinterest. She was a slender woman whose long hair extensions and false eyelashes stamped her with the cloned appearance of the female undergraduates at the various private universities in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city. The girl’s skin was flawless with the silky smoothness of melted chocolate. Once again, Claire eyed Shadé with bitter envy. In her striking tall slenderness, Shadé was the Megan Markle brand of femme fatales, the ones men either lusted after or loathed for rejecting their lust—God! I just hate young girls, especially these little men-magnets who wield a terrifying power over men of all ages and races. Fucking tarts!

She muttered the curse and released another fart. This time, the sound was explosive and Shadé’s head jerked.

“Kaja! Aunty Claire!” she exclaimed as she stared at Claire with startled disbelief.

Claire returned her look with a smirk, daring her to comment or cover her nose from the putrid reek of her fart. For several tense seconds, it looked as if Shadé might explode with fury. Her false lashes flickered manically, her blue contact-lensed eyes flashing dangerously as she leapt from her chair, brushing aside her long, gold hair extensions with an impatient hand.

Claire continued to watch her silently, her smirk growing wider, swollen with dark malignancy—Come on, babes! Say something! Go on; let’s hear what you really think of me again, you stupid little shit. I dare you to say a word about my fart. Claire was cruising for a brawl and needed a victim to vent her frustrations on tonight. Her hands clenched into tight fists at her side and her body quivered with menopausal frustration. The intense tropical heat wasn’t making things any better and the girl’s unusual rebellious stance irked her pride.

Shadé stood still for several seconds before finally lowering her head until her jaw almost rested on her chest. Finally, she straightened her shoulders, adjusted the spaghetti straps of her skimpy top, lifted her head, and turned to face Claire. A manic smile spread across her face.

“Aunty-Aunty!” Her voice thrilled with cocaine glee, her bright blue eyes glinting with ill-repressed insanity. “Kaja! This is my special oyinbo aunty! Everything about you white people is just beautiful! Even your fart smells like perfume, I swear,” she giggled manically, slapping her thighs with exaggerated mirth. When her eyes met Claire’s, the cold hardness in them belied the brightness of her smile.

Got you, bitch! Claire returned her smile with a tight twist of her thin lips. They both knew there was no love lost between them, but necessity demanded they play out the charade imposed on them by their shared interest—Kolade, where the fuck are you, you wretched man? How long does it take to get a bleedinghaircut, for God’s sake? God! I just hate this frigging city! It’s the only place I know where barbers do more business at night than in the daytime. Fucking vampires! A scowl replaced the smirk on Claire’s face.

“So, Aunty Claire, do all white women’s arse-pollutions smell like your perfumed one?” The girl’s voice cut into Claire’s dark thoughts. There was a subtle mockery in her tone that raised Claire’s hackles.

“Of course, Shadé,” Claire said, holding the girl’s gaze with her hard grey eyes, gaslighting her with shameless impunity. “White women’s farts definitely smell like perfume, especially those originating from English buttocks. In fact, in the olden days in England, the king used to gather all the women in the castle for a collective fart-fest to scent up the banquet hall before he entertained important aristocrats. That’s how beautiful our farts smell. Mind you, aristocratic women own the best farts in the world; something to do with their blue blood and all. Still, one is thankful for the superior quality of our English farts.”

Claire raised a disdainful eyebrow at the young woman still standing before her and turned her face away haughtily. She wanted to laugh at the stormy expression on the girl’s face but, once again, the familiar irritation soured her mood. Shadé’s pretty face was a bloody ulcer to her: as always, she wished that her boyfriend wasn’t so close to his young cousin. But Kolade would do anything for the wretched girl and Claire had lived long enough in Nigeria to know that the people took their family bonds very seriously. Where Shadé was concerned, Kolade was ready to defy even Jesus Himself for his cousin’s welfare.

Claire sighed deeply and reached for her phone inside her handbag. Then she paused, eyeing Shadé with vicious hostility—Why not? Let’s make the little shit dance in her own filth. Not my fault if her greed for a British visa keeps her dragging her dignity tothe floor. As long as the bitch thinks I’ll help her get her visa, she’ll remain my slave forever. But pigs will fly before I lift a finger to help the cow. She thinks I’ve forgotten what she said about me when we first met. I’ll show her that Claire Bellows has a very long memory and she never, ever, forgives a slight; never!

“Let’s have your phone.” Claire stretched out an imperious hand towards Shadé. The girl hesitated before reluctantly handing over her mobile. A panicked look replaced her scowl. Suddenly, she looked ready to snatch the phone back from Claire.

Claire placed the device on her lap as she pulled a couple of naira notes from her purse and handed them to Shadé. “Why don’t you go and buy us some suya meat while I make a private call?” she said, waving Shadé away with bored indifference. She knew the money she had given the girl was just enough to purchase the spiced beef delicacy for two people. She also knew that Shadé expected to share the treat with her. Her eyes glinted with icy malevolence as she watched the girl depart—Huh! You’ll be so lucky, bitch! The suya is for Cole and me. You can go treat yourself with your own money – or, even better, get yourself your own fucking boyfriend to treat you. It never ceased to surprise Claire that Shadé remained single despite her stunning looks and the desperate attention of all the besotted men in the city. She suspected the sneaky girl had a boyfriend hidden away somewhere but was trying to maintain a pristine and modest appearance before her cousin, Kolade—little hypocrite!

She hissed again and picked up Shadé’s phone to make a call to her psychic for her usual daily predictions. It was locked.

“Fucking bitch!” Claire screamed, flinging the phone on the floor. Hot rage flared in her heart and she prayed the screen would shatter into tiny fragments. But an inner voice mocked her wishes—You stupid cunt! You know you need the bitch’s mobile to make your call to the psychic line tonight since yourofficial phone is likely bugged by the High Commission and you’ve left your second mobile at home. That’s what you get for shagging a native. God! I hate that Kardashian-clone bitch, Shadé! Where the fuck is Kolade? Shit!

Claire jumped up from the sofa and started pacing around the small living room like a caged heifer. The leather of her heeled sandals bit into her swollen feet and she quickly kicked them away. She stooped to massage her feet but her distended stomach blocked her passage. Her arms could only stretch to her knees while the loose African bubu kaftan she wore trailed almost to the floor, sweeping the dusty linoleum. With another loud curse, she stomped into one of the two bedrooms in the small flat, Kolade’s bedroom, and slumped on the bed, cradling her head in her hands—Just take a deep breath, Claire; that’s it… slowly… deeply… that’s good. Just calm yourself… mustn’t let things get to you. Sooner or later, they’ll have to post you back to a civilised country. In the meantime, try and make the best of this damned place and its bloody women, and enjoy passionate sex with Cole while it lasts.

Claire inhaled deeply once again before lifting her face and staring into the long mirror opposite the bed. She sighed in despair. The image in the mirror did little to improve her mood. It only intensified the damaging difference between her faded looks and Shadé’s vibrant beauty, heightening her insecurities. She looked every one of her fifty years, her short hair more grey than blonde. Her skin was an angry red, more burnt than tanned and the age lines on her face made a mockery of the phrase ‘laughter lines’.

She grimaced at her image in the mirror, instinctively pushing back her stooped shoulders—Fucking beached whale! She swore at her reflection, eyeing her obese body sourly. At just over five foot three, Claire’s fourteen-stone weight sat heavy on her short frame. All the fat seemed to have congregated on her stomach, arse and thighs. No matter how hard she exercised, nothing seemed to shift the lard plumping up her hips. She guessed she should be grateful to that peculiar body defect, which had turned her into hot cake in the eyes of many Nigerian men. Their obsession with mammoth backsides ensured that her hefty arse was now in hot demand, especially with her being a white diplomat too.

While many of the local men approached Claire with genuine lust for her thunder thighs and bombastic arse, a lot of them saw her as an easy channel to British visas and English pounds. She knew that even Kolade, despite his protestations of love, viewed her as easy pickings, living off her generosity with his easy charm and sexy smile. After all, they both knew that nothing would come of their relationship; at least, not with her being twenty-four years older than him and he being as poor as a beggar. Not forgetting the racial factor and the stringent scrutiny of the Embassy. She rarely invited Kolade to her official house at the British High Commission Diplomatic Village and his phone was likely as bugged as hers—Thank God for that little bitch, Shadé. At least she has a phone I can use without getting monitored when I need it. Just wait till she comes back from buying the suya. I’ll deal with her for locking me out of her phone, the little shit!

Exhaling another weary sigh, Claire stomped out of the bedroom and returned to the sofa once again. With an impatient hand, she pulled her own mobile from her handbag and glanced at the screen—21:30hrs! Where the fuck is Cole? She debated whether to call him again as she had been doing unsuccessfully all evening; but her pride got the better of her—I’ll be damned if I show him how desperate I am for him. After all, who’s the one with the dosh here? Who’s the one with the power to get him a British visa? Who’s paying the rent for this fucking flat? Who bought the frigging car he drives? Despite Kolade’s youth and gripping good looks, Claire knew that she was the one holding the reins in their relationship and she made sure that Kolade never forgot that fact. It didn’t matter that the sex was the best she’d ever had or that the envious glares of the local young tarts whenever they saw her and Kolade together gave her the most satisfying feeling ever—Sod it all! Cole still needs to know who the boss is in this relationship. Fuck this shit!

Once again, Claire’s mood took an angry dive as she tapped her bare feet impatiently, hitting her mobile phone hard against her thigh—Where the fuck is that Shadé bitch, anyway? How long does it take to buy the frigging suya, for crying out loud? God! What’s the matter with everyone tonight?

3

The child arrived at the village just before midday on a hot and sunny afternoon. He was the size of a ten-year-old boy, his body thin and undernourished. His arrival went unnoticed by most of the villagers and even their domestic animals. The suspicious Ekuke dogs did not bark at this new intruder nor did the curious cats sniff his ankles, as was their habit. The villagers carried on with their daily chores. Those who noticed the strange child attached little importance to his presence; not even when he walked into their compounds in his dirty green shorts, dusty hair, and bare feet.

The women were busy preparing lunch for their menfolk who laboured at the farms harvesting their crops. Over countless stone tripods mounted in the various homes, pots of egusi, oha, and onugbu soups bubbled gently inside stained metal pots. The aroma of cooked foods filled the air, coupled with the familiar smells of dust, domestic animals, and faint excrement from the nearby cassava farms. With it being the peak of the harvesting season, only the children remained with the womenfolk in the homesteads, together with the Ekuke dogs and domestic animals – goats, chickens, cats, and some obese pigs.

Zeuwa was the only person that saw the filthy child arrive, his large brown eyes the only pair that actually noticed the unfamiliar presence of the strange boy in their village. Zeuwa had been lurking behind the mango tree, hiding from the other kids in their neighbourhood, when the strange boy calmly walked towards their compound with the supreme confidence of an elder.

Zeuwa’s eyes lit up with excitement as he saw the boy pause at the entrance to their compound, staring around with detached curiosity, the way a prospective buyer surveyed his goods before paying. The boy squinted underneath the bright midday sun; a small smile lurked at the corners of his lips as if he were enjoying a private joke.

With a small cry of joy, Zeuwa dashed out from his hiding spot and lumbered across to the boy, a wide smile on his face.

“Nnọ, welcome, new friend,” Zeuwa called out, stretching out his hand to touch the boy’s shoulder in friendship.

Then he groaned softly, withdrawing his arm and staring at it with eyes that brimmed with sudden tears. Intense pain radiated through his body, causing his lower lip to tremble as he fought to hold in his cries—Ouch! Silly Zeuwa has forgotten his bad hand; naughty machete! Earlier that morning, Zeuwa had cut his right hand with his father’s machete while shearing the hairy shell of a coconut pod at their farm. The wound was deep, gushing blood as freely as the sliced neck of the soup chicken. The sight of the blood had sent him shrieking all two miles home, machete and coconut abandoned at the farmland.

His little sister, Mmah, had hurriedly attended to his injury with the ubiquitous salt and ash balm applied to every cut, bite or bruise, while Zeuwa’s wails filled the compound. Soon a large crowd of avid villagers gathered, drawn by the mid-morning ruckus. By the time Mmah was done with his injured hand, Zeuwa had been forced to endure not just the agony of his injury, but also the taunts of the womenfolk and children who observed his humiliation with unbridled glee.

“Kai! What kind of grown man massacres his own hand like a toddler, just for a mere coconut?” his stepmother, Oge, mocked, shaking her head wryly as she waddled back to her soup pot sizzling over the lively fire. Oge was his father’s fifth wife and the fattest of all the womenfolk in their polygamous family.

“Only a goat-head idiot like Zeuwa, of course,” sneered Ada, his father’s fourth wife. “The fool man will insist on wielding a machete with his left hand instead of his right hand like every normal person. But then, he’s not normal, is he? Just a waste of space and good food. Ha! Mmah, why don’t you put some poison on your useless brother’s wound so he can just die and spare us the sight of his imbecilic face? If you want, I can give you the poison salve; just say the word.” Ada shook her head as she laughed, her front teeth chipped and brown in her spiteful mirth.

“No-no! Zeuwa doesn’t want to die! Mmah, don’t put poison in Zeuwa’s wound please,” Zeuwa cried out in panic, staring as his stepmother in terror. Mmah patted his arm gently, glaring at Ada with unrepressed fury.

“Ignore the useless woman, Zeze; you hear?” His sister tried to calm Zeuwa, who still shook with fear. “Look, I’m just putting on the salt and ash balm, OK? Nobody will poison our special Zeze while I’m alive, trust me. Now, try and be still while I dress your wound, OK?” Once again, Mmah eyed Ada balefully as she spoke.

Ada smirked and resumed cracking kennel nuts with a smooth rock. Ada was the only wife without a child in the homestead. She was half Oge’s size, wiry and shrivelled like a withered plant. Zeuwa’s mother Obidibo, his father’s second wife, always said it was sheer wickedness eating away the fat in Ada’s body. When Ada wasn’t busy chasing and cursing the family children, she spent the rest of her time cracking and chewing palm-kennel nuts while mumbling evils under her breath.

Zeuwa listened to the invectives heaped on his head by his two stepmothers, hiccupping and snivelling as his younger sister tended lovingly to his wound. Mmah quietly continued to ignore Ada’s spite and mockery as she cooed away his pain. When she was done, she led him into their mother’s bedroom in the large family bungalow and gave him some roasted peanuts to eat.

“Zeze, don’t cry, you hear? Your wound will soon heal and you’ll be fine in no time,” Mmah’s voice was gentle, a mother’s loving voice, just like the smile on her face. Despite her youth and small build, strangers seeing Mmah with Zeuwa frequently mistook her for the older sibling, such was the air of calm maturity she exuded. At nineteen, Zeuwa towered over Mmah’s slight sixteen-year-old physique, his moon-face wreathed in the perpetual smile that marked his unusual specialness.

After Mmah left him with his peanuts to attend to her domestic chores, Zeuwa crept out of their mother’s room and skulked over to the mango tree to take some respite from the gleeful taunts of his younger half-siblings and cousins. In the background, he could hear the rowdy shrills of their playful voices. Once again, he wished he could join their games, that he weren’t so much bigger than them in size, that their mothers wouldn’t chase him away from them in case he infected their brains with his own special brain.

Despite telling the scolding mothers that his brain wasn’t bad, that his sister, Mmah, said that his brain was special – a very good brain that won’t bring harm to anyone – they still insisted on keeping him away from their children, depriving him of precious playmates and companionship. Save for Mmah and Mama, he had no one else to chat with, since everybody tended to shade him into invisibility when he spoke in his halting yet booming voice.

As he lurked behind the mango tree, an unfamiliar feeling of extreme despair hit him. It was a feeling he had only experienced once in his nineteen years; if his brain allowed him to think deep thoughts, he would have blamed his despair on the throbbing pain of his injured hand. But all he felt was the same crushing hopelessness he’d experienced on the day his big sister, Chia, had said the very bad words to him.

Tears pooled in Zeuwa’s eyes. He’d almost started crying when he saw the stranger boy enter their compound with fearlessness. The sight had instantly killed his tears and despair, filling him with surprise and joyful anticipation—A new friend! Zeuwa is happy! Maybe new boy doesn’t have a mama that will chase Zeuwa away.

Except his injured hand now threatened to kill their new friendship before it had even started. Zeuwa nursed his throbbing hand gently, eyeing the new boy with pleading eyes.

“Zeuwa’s brain is a special brain,” he hurriedly assured the new boy, who was observing him with the small smile still lurking around his lips. “Zeuwa is good. Will not give you bad brain; no-no.” He shook his head vehemently to emphasis his words. “Here, take peanuts.” Zeuwa held out the peanuts Mmah had given him earlier, smiling winningly at the boy, desperate for his friendship.

Finally, the boy smiled, a wide smile that transformed his small face, shrouding him in a mysterious beauty that stirred an unfamiliar feeling in Zeuwa’s heart. Suddenly, more than anything in the world, he wanted to become best friends with this strange boy, to stay by his side for the rest of his life. He wanted to give this boy everything he had and even share Mmah’s precious love with him—Zeuwa will ask him to live with us forever and ever. Zeuwa likes him very much.

“Zeuwa wants you to live with us forever.” He quickly followed thought with words. “What is new friend’s name?”

“Efu, my name is Efu.” The boy finally spoke, his voice the tinkle of bells, chiming with mischief and glee.

“Efu?” Zeuwa’s brows knitted in confusion. “But how can your name be Efu? Efu means ‘futility’, and a person can’t be called futility since it is an insult to their ancestors. Mmah said that anything that isn’t good is an insult to the ancestors and Efu is not good. Zeuwa does not like Efu; no-no. Zeuwa wants you to have another name, a good name.” His hands clasped the boy’s hand, his eyes pleading with the boy as he looked down at him from his great height. “New friend, give Zeuwa another name, please.”

The boy cocked his head as if in deep thought. Then he smiled and stroked Zeuwa’s arm gently the way an adult does with a distressed child.

“Give me a name, then,” he said, looking up into Zeuwa’s now-smiling face. “And if I like it, I’ll answer the name you choose for me and reward you with a wonderful gift.”

Zeuwa’s eyes lit up, his mouth open with wonder. This time, he was careful to hold his new friend’s arm with his good left hand.

“Really? You will give Zeuwa a present if he gives you a good name? You promise? Lick the sand and promise you’ll give Zeuwa a present.”

The boy smiled and stooped to pinch some soil between his fingers before transferring it to his lips to seal their deal.

“Happy?” he asked.

Zeuwa nodded, his expression bright with unbridled bliss. “Zeuwa will give new friend a name now. New name is Ọchi, because Zeuwa likes your happy voice and wants you to laugh. So, your new name is ‘laughter’. The ancestors will be happy with your new name and will laugh with you too. Do you like the name, Ọchi? Will you give me my present now?” He waited with bated breath for the boy’s response.

Again, the boy cocked his head as if in deep thought. The longer he remained silent the more impatient Zeuwa grew. He started to stamp his feet, shaking the boy’s shoulder with an impatient hand.

“Say yes; say you like the new name Zeuwa gave you,” he urged, nodding his head to encourage the boy.

Finally, his effort was rewarded. The boy threw back his head and released a loud tinkly laugh which filled the air like the chimes of a million Christmas bells. His slight body shook with hilarity as he continued to giggle until Zeuwa thought he might choke on his own laughter. Before he could stop himself, Zeuwa joined him in the laughing spree, his voice booming and joyful. He was happy he had made his new friend laugh and even happier with the new name he had coined for his friend.

Finally, after several more minutes of manic laughter, the boy forced himself to swallow his mirth and clasped Zeuwa’s arm with a surprisingly hard grip that felt like a soldier’s hold.

“I like Ọchi, it’s a very good name. In fact, I think I prefer it to my own name,” the boy said, smiling up at Zeuwa. “What a wonderful name you’ve given me, Zeuwa! Guess what? You and I will be friends forever and ever, and to reward you, I now need you to tell me what your favourite animal is.”

“Huh?” Zeuwa looked at him, confused.

“Tell me which animal you love best in the whole world. It doesn’t matter if it’s a real animal or even one from folklore. I just need you to tell me the animal you love the best.”

“Zeuwa likes tiger with big stripes,” he promptly answered, his eyes wide with wonder—Maybe Ọchi will buy a tiger colouring book for Zeuwa, and lots of yellow and black crayons too…

“Now, tell me who you hate the most in this compound.” Efu’s voice cut into Zeuwa’s blissful daydreams. His voice was no longer the tinkly happy one he’d been speaking with since his arrival. Now, it was hard, cold, even menacing. “Look around at everyone gathered inside your father’s compound and tell me the name of the person you hate the most.”

Zeuwa shook his head. “Zeuwa not hate anybody. Hate is bad and makes ancestors sad. Zeuwa wants to be friends with everybody.”

The boy sighed deeply; his face was suddenly weary like a parent who despairs of ever potty-training their toddler.

“I forgot: Zeuwa is incapable of hate.” There was a bitter tinge in Efu’s voice. “OK, just tell me who said something bad to you today, something that made you sad or angry.”

“Stepmother Ada,” Zeuwa answered without hesitation. Once again, he felt panic rising inside his heart as he remembered Ada’s threat to provide poison to kill him. “Stepmother Ada made Zeuwa very sad today. She told Mmah to poison Zeuwa. Very bad stepmother.”

Once again, Efu’s laughter tinkled in the air, except this time, it was swollen with malice.

“Stepmother Ada it is then. Let’s go and get your tiger, little friend,” Efu said, his voice suddenly deep, the baritone of a grown man.

Before Zeuwa could process the weird change in his friend’s voice, a new sight dazzled him. A sudden dust storm began to brew around Efu like the fury winds of a tornado. In a blink, the boy started to levitate, propelled higher by the violent dust storm brewing underneath him, above him, all around him. Even as Zeuwa shrieked in panic, the sun vanished, plunging the compound into sudden darkness. The only visible sight was the glittering form of the levitated boy, who now glowed with the red light of a hundred blood-moons.

Everybody inside the compound started shrieking: children, adults – even the dogs now whined softly with terror instead of their familiar aggressive barks. The women abandoned their cooking pots, rushing to gather their children to safety. In the darkness, a new horror materialised.

Zeuwa heard Efu’s high cackle above him. He looked up to see the boy pointing at his stepmother, Ada, as she scrambled towards the safety of their bungalow. Sparks of fire sizzled on the boy’s fingers and the air around him was alight in a cackling, terrifying blaze.

Ada paused her frantic flight, jerking to a sudden halt as if pulled back by a restraining rope. Her body sizzled with sudden electric static, releasing sparks of white fire. She opened her mouth to shriek but a mighty roar issued from her lips instead. Before Zeuwa’s stunned eyes, his stepmother began to metamorphose.

Ada’s skinny body started to expand, elongate, spouting fur and fury. Dazzling stripes of gold and black streaked across her powerful body and her eyes gleamed with golden menace. Zeuwa stared at her incredible transformation, shaking his head, over and over, refusing to believe the magic in front of him—A tiger! A real tiger! Ọchi has turned stepmother Ada into a real tiger for Zeuwa! Ọchi is a powerful medicine man, even though he’s a little boy like Zeuwa! Mmah, come and see! Zeuwa’s new friend has magicked a real tiger to be Zeuwa’s pet.

Then the tiger pounced.

Before Zeuwa’s horrified gaze, the tiger lunged at the nearest child, his half-sibling, a girl of ten years and some months. In seconds, it tore the child to shreds even as her mother, his father’s third wife, rushed to save her dying child, her screams filled with horror and anguish. In blinks, she followed the same doomed fate as her daughter, dying underneath the bloodied claws of the fearsome beast that was once his puny stepmother Ada.

Zeuwa saw Mmah rushing towards him, shouting his name frantically. Terror kept him rigid, frozen beneath the dust storm whirling around him. Above him, Efu continued to cackle, his laughter wild and unrestrained, filled with red malevolence. The sound heightened Zeuwa’s panic, dowsing him with inexplicable dread. It was as if Efu wasn’t his friend anymore; as if his new friend wanted to do him harm rather than play nicely with him.

Just as Mmah reached to grab Zeuwa’s arm, the tiger turned its deadly gaze on them. With delicate steps, the beast started to stalk towards them, slowly, powerfully, confident in its strength and their helplessness. Mmah was whimpering, tugging his arm frantically, her eyes wide with terror as she weaved her gaze between the approaching tiger and the terrifying glowing boy hovering above her brother, laughing wildly like a demon from the deepest underworld.

The sight of his sister’s fear-drenched face unlocked something inside Zeuwa, a rage like nothing he had ever experienced in his life. A sudden fierce fire burned in his heart, inside his head and behind his eyes. He turned his face up to the cackling boy in his levitated glory and released a terrible scream that cloaked the compound in instant ominous silence.

“Noooo! Tiger will not hurt Mmah; no-no!” he shrieked, glaring with wild fury at Efu “Zeuwa does not want tiger anymore. It is a bad tiger like stepmother Ada. Ọchi will take away bad tiger now. Ọchi, take bad tiger away now; NOW!” His voice was a raging boom that quaked his massive body.

The dust storm vanished in a wink and Efu fell to the ground with a soft thud. A look of shock replaced the mirth on his face as he stared at Zeuwa. The tiger paused, its glare going from Zeuwa to Efu. Something flashed in its golden eyes, the look of rats abandoning a fire-ravaged hut. With a loud roar, it lunged towards Zeuwa.

Zeuwa watched in stunned disbelief as a streak of fire discharged from Efu’s outstretched hand, enveloping the tiger in instant flames. In the dying roars of the beast, he thought he heard the petrified and agonised howls of a human voice, a female voice. But he couldn’t be sure, because for the very first time in his nineteen years of life, he lost all conscious thought and slumped to the ground in a dead faint.

By the time Zeuwa awoke from his faint several minutes later, the sun was once again bright in the skies and his new friend was nowhere to be found. Pandemonium ruled as the villagers rushed to witness the unfolding tragedy inside the compound. Some people questioned the words of the witnesses to the inexplicable savage attack by a tiger, a beast that had never inhabited their world. They demanded to see the tiger’s claw prints, anything to prove that a real tiger actually appeared and killed a child and its mother. The ash pile in the middle of the compound was merely proof that something had been burnt there, but not a tiger by any stretch of imagination. And as for a glowing and flying demon-child, it was too fantastical to be entertained by any sane mind. Clearly, the trauma of the events of the day had impacted on the sanity of the poor survivors.

By nighttime, when Ada could not be found anywhere, the villagers concluded that either a wild animal had attacked the homestead for real and made away with Ada or that a dangerous criminal had burnt her to ashes, as the traumatised witnesses claimed. But definitely not a flying demon-child. Either way, the news wasn’t good.

Panic soon spread like wildfires as people shut themselves inside their homes. Zeuwa lay inside his mother’s room, quivering, burning with a sudden fever. In his delirium, he called for Efu, asking him to return his dead half-sibling to life. His booming, fever-ravaged voice drew the familiar contempt of the rest of his family.

“The pathetic imbecile, Zeuwa!” they said, shaking their heads with contempt. “The sight of the tragedy has roasted his already damaged brain cells. Now, he’s imagining a powerful witch doctor who can cast some juju spells to undo our tragedy.”

And inside the small stuffy bedroom, Mmah’s panicked eyes followed her brother’s quivering body with unrepressed terror—Oh our ancestors! What was the demon that visited us? What kind of evil is this that has entered our lives? How did Zeze find this demon? Oh, please, ancestors, don’t let that demon kill my brother, please! Save Zeze from the demon’s clutch. Save us all from the wrath of that accursed demon. I wish Mama would return quickly from visiting our horrible big sister, Chia, in Abuja. I don’t want to be alone here with Zeze in case the demon returns again…

4

Chia surveyed her restaurant from the seclusion of her tiny office through its small spy window that faced the main food lounge. The restaurant was heaving, loud afro-juju music playing in the background as tables laboured under the weight of assorted dishes and drinks. Credit cards and cash changed hands with frequent efficiency, while loud voices cheerfully conversed in between mouthfuls. Muted lighting created a cosy intimacy which added a bit of class to her restaurant – a place normally known to suffer from urban tackiness with its tired furnishings and cluttered environment. But now, under the chilled air of her noisy air-conditioning units, her customers allowed themselves to focus on the main reason they frequented the dismal-looking restaurant – Chia’s famous assorted meat pepper-soup dish and fresh palm wine straight from the palm trees, neither diluted with water nor artificially sweetened with sugar.

A small smile of smug satisfaction creased Chia’s podgy face – everything was going just the way she liked it. She took a long draw on her cigarette and perused the customers with leisurely interest, especially the rowdy male clientele in their flamboyant native attires, confident poses and loud voices. As she blew out the smoke through pursed lips, she checked out their clothing and demeanour, trying to figure out the special one she would invite back to her office later that night. Her eyes were hard, cold and calculating in their predatory detachment. A fleeting thought entered her mind—I wonder if that tall fool will dare return to my restaurant after what happened yesterday at the motel? I swear, I won’t put it past the yeye idiot. After all, everyone knows that tall men have no smartness like short men. The fools grow away their senses, unlike short men whose brains don’t have far to travel, and remain safe and strong inside their pompous little heads. Oh well…

Chia lifted her shoulders in a small shrug, returning her attention to her customers as she puffed away leisurely on her cigarette. Her gaze rested on a fat man with chubby cheeks who was rubbing his distended stomach contentedly, a toothpick stuck proudly in the corner of his mouth—Could he be the one? She studied his companion, a frumpy-looking woman in a cheap bubu and untidy curly wig. She didn’t look like someone that would have enough money to bribe the police or hire a detective. Once again, Chia smiled, this time, a smirk of triumph—He’s the one, alright. Time to get to work on him.

She turned away from the spy window and drew the curtain, sealing herself away from her customers and staff. She waddled over to her small desk and sat on the specially designed wide armchair behind it. The desk was covered in various files and paperwork, together with numerous packets of Rothmans cigarettes at different levels of emptiness. The small office reeked of cigarette smoke: Chia quickly pulled open a drawer and withdrew her Coco Chanel perfume and a small glass jar half-filled with a dark cream.

“Bambino Chick!” she hailed herself with her familiar self-accolade as she doused her body copiously in Coco, creating an overpowering fusion of nicotine and designer perfume. She liked expensive designer accessories: bags, shoes, sunglasses, wrist watches and perfumes. They didn’t show her up as clothes did; instead, they enhanced her with respectability. People always noticed when you pulled out a designer item, and she made enough money in her restaurant to treat herself to those little luxuries. The last thing she wanted was for people to notice the unsightly mass of bony protrusions on her back, the ghastly lumps that expanded her girth to resemble a rhino’s rump.

The first lump had arrived on the day she killed her first man. Initially, she had thought it was a cancerous growth, but after exhaustive tests, her doctors had informed her that there was nothing they could do. The X-rays showed that the lump was a renegade bone attached to her spinal cord. Operating on it was risky: she could become wheelchair-bound. By the time the second lump appeared, suspiciously after her second murder, she had known that something sinister had taken hold of her body.

Then the lumps began to move. Their movement was like the angry kicks of restless twin foetuses, only much worse, more violent. She had shrieked in panic and pain the first time, reaching behind her back to halt the roils and jolts of the two lumps with a frantic hand. They resisted her, pushing themselves viciously against her hand until she was forced to withdraw it.

A ghastly groan had filled the room, bringing a sudden shriek to Chia’s lips—A-ancestors! I’ve been discovered! She had turned around in panic, expecting to find someone standing behind her, staring in horror at the sight of the dead man at her feet. But there had been nobody, just her and her naked victim inside her office. She’d heaved a deep sigh of relief and turned back to the body.

The unearthly groans had returned, this time louder; a terrifying howl that doused her skin in terror-rashes—Ancestors! It’s coming from my back! The lumps are talking… they’re alive! Chia’s screams had pierced through the walls of her office, reverberating around her empty restaurant. Her shrieks fuelled their growls and soon, Chia feared she might lose her sanity as a result of the unearthly pitch emitting from her back.

“Stop! Oh, ancestors! Stop; just stop, please,” she had screeched, sobbing, banging her back violently against the wall to try and halt the violent rumbles of the bone-lumps.

Her actions worked the magic. The manic shuddering on her back ceased as the lumps howled in agony—Aahh… the hard wall is crushing them and giving them pain. Chei-chei! Yeye devil-things! I will make you suffer well-well, you rubbish somethings! Chia released a manic cackle and smashed her back once again against the wall, hard and fast. Yet again, the lumps wailed pathetically and Chia’s face twisted in a malevolent smile.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” she shouted. “Next time, I’ll smash you all with a hammer, you hear me? Rubbish things!” She kissed her teeth angrily.

The lumps didn’t release a squeak for the rest of that night or for days after – until her third kill birthed her third lump and the familiar ruckus returned. Since then, several more lumps had joined those three. Chia had now ceased to wonder and worry about their abominable presence. At the last count, she had nine bony lumps littering her back and bulking up her size until she almost resembled a hunched-back elephant—Rubbish yeye things!