Chapter Four - Mother

Can the dead still die? The undead died from the hands of other undead everyday, an unending war of misplaced ideals, power and survival. On the other hand, the question that gave us hope if answered was if we could live again. 

We had become undead, either beasts of circumstance or intelligent zombies, we were all dead. I looked up at the black sky and saw that it was as dark as my heart was, except that my heart wasn’t beating anymore.

News had it that there might just be hope for mankind. Scientists had ran a few test and had been able to cultivate a few living plants after discovering a living plant. Though they had been able to only cultivate plants of the same kind, the aim was to be able to genetically cultivate other plants using the living plant as a source. The theory was that all living things had a similar structure and that diversity was just as a result of differing alterations from the primary structure, which meant they could genetically engineer an apple seed from an orange seed.

So far the research had been positive. They had been able to create other plants from the source plant, though they still had a lot of similarities to the parent plant. With time the plan was to improve on the alterations and therefore create plants with totally different characteristics to the parent plant.

The next stage of research would be to infuse the living cells of the created plants into dead cells of dead plants creating a hybrid that would resemble that of the previously dead plant.

I believe the aim of the research was to find if life can be given to dead species of plants. If this can be done, then it’s possible to create a thriving plant life and see if that would result in the rejuvenation of the earth. The next stage would be tests on a human specimen, but the question was if the same methods would work for humans and animals- whether plant genes can be integrated with human genes to create hybrid humans, or if a living human can be found to carry out the next phase of tests.

The question that still lingered at the back of our minds was whether we would succeed? Hybrid or no hybrid, as long as we could live again, it was a signal of hope. Would they find a living human- finding a living human is only a fairy tale since we were all dead, and nobody had yet seen or heard of any living human, or would they succeed in mixing plant genes into our genes? Many questions, not so clear answers- still there was progress, and progress means there was hope. To live again should have been the desire of every dead human on the planet- but believe it, there were many who liked the chaos, the death, the immortality has they called it, they say it is man’s destiny.

I believed they were worse than the mindless beasts that roamed the earth-dead to body and soul and didn’t care much if they lived or died as long as their hunger for dead flesh was satisfied. The flesh eaters didn’t exactly chose the path of beastiality, it was thrust on them by nature, but any undead who thought mankind should remain as it is, is in a path darker than that of the flesh eaters. The undead who fail to see hope might just be the greatest enemies of mankind. Consumed in darkness, yielding to darkness, existing in darkness, living in darkness, hopeless in darkness, God forbid that should be our eternal fate.

I wept for my mother- she still had a thread of her soul in her, but she lost a bit of it each day. Now she just stared at me each time I went to see her. She had become a beaten soul, preferring to shutdown rather than have the beast take over her. Her eyes said a million words. Her soul yearned for help- I wept because I knew I couldn’t help her, for now. I wept inside...but the tears never came. I yearned for the tears to wet my face, but they never came.

I Jide Dairo as long as I still had a soul swear to free you mum, with my whole soul, I swear.

Sometimes I look into her eyes and she tries to tell me something.

Kill me.

The words seemed clear from her eyes. She was going through pain and she wanted it to end.

Kill me please.

Pain gripped my dead heart, a heart of dust.

From dust yea came and from dust yea shall return…

I wanted to comfort her, to tell her everything would be okay, but I didn’t know for sure, but as long as I remained undead, by the soul of a million undeads, I will fight. ‘I’ll cure you mum. I will never let you die.’

‘If it was the last thing my undead soul did I will. I will cure you mum.’ Pain gripped my heart...my dead heart.

Once human,

now undead,

living but dead,

the pain of an undead.

Z

General Yakubu Musa stared at the surrounding desolation from his balcony in his one hectare mansion in ikoyi. He held a rifle in his hand as he surveyed- waiting to blast any flesh eater he sighted.

He had tried to kill himself several times to no avail. What was there to live for,he had thought- the Transition had taken his family, friends, and everybody he knew. The year of the death, as some call it was the year he was going to run as senator for his constituency. Since retiring from the army he had gotten active in politics- partly for change, partly from boredom. He had businesses that were thriving so money wasn’t the primary reason he got involved in politics. He felt he could effect change in his own way- or at least that’s what he constantly told himself. He had been used to power all his life- authority was the very blood that flowed through his veins. He lived for power, and power had become an essential part of his existence.

He was from a wealthy family in Kano and as the first born in a family of 11 children from three women; he wielded the most power among the children. Through primary school to secondary school he was elected the class captain and later became the head prefect in secondary school. He felt he was born to lead. While he was in school he was sure he was going to join the army. He loved the prestige and power that came with being a military man. He joined the military after finishing his secondary education, studied political science and defence and continued his climb to the top continued from there. 

He climbed to the post of General- the highest post to be reached by most military personnel in Nigeria. For many years the military was an integral part of Nigerian Politics. He served on several cabinets, was Military Governor of Osun state for four years, was head of defence under two administrations, and even once had plans to become head of state but the country transited into a democratic system of government. Naturally, after retiring, politics was a very natural transition for him- it had become part of him.

Grenades, rocket launchers, electromagnetic guns, he was ready to blast any flesh eating beast that came his way. He had searched for something to exist for, since he was already dead. He had become a mere undead and there were only two things he had to protect, his soul and the other was something that was the very key to mankind’s second chance.

He cited a lone flesh eater a short distance from the house.

‘This one is for you’, he picked up his Remington 700 sniper rifle. He loved the classic weapons- it made him feel alive. Sometimes he preferred to think he was still in the days before the Transition, when everything was normal- when his family was around. He felt the pain stab his heart, except that his heart wasn’t beating anymore.

He aimed at the creature- he had its head right on the bull’s eye of rifle’s target view.

These creatures didn’t even know what they were doing, but they couldn’t be pitied- they were beasts and nothing more, stripped of every vestige of humanity

He pressed the trigger and in an instant, the undead’s head shattered into tiny bits.

There was hope, and he was going to protect it with all he had.

Z

Sometimes I just wonder what went on in the minds of people. I could see pain in everyone’s eyes- they had all lost someone, or lost everyone, killed someone, or killed someone close to them. Some still had hope; some thought there wasn’t any hope left, while some didn’t really care at all.

Each eyes told a story- pain, loss, and hopelessness.

A select few in the settlement held a meeting about once a week. These were the most powerful and intelligent people in the settlement, the leaders chosen by the inhabitants of the settlement. I was the head of the council, which meant I was an easy target for contempt. Some hated me, some loved me, and some just didn’t care.

Somewhere enemies that would stop at nothing to get me out of the way, some due to the sheer ambition to head the council, while some where just controlled by the poisonous human emotion -envy.

Okoro Rogers always made it known that he had chosen to take the position of number one greatest enemy. At the council meetings, he always had counter positions to most suggestions especially if it originated from me. He’d always nursed an ambition to be the Head of the Council, we had contested for the position and the people had chosen me over him.

We stared into each other’s eyes and we understood each other- this guy was going to bring me down even at the slightest opportunity. I hardly ever thought of him, but sometimes I just wondered if getting him out of the way was the best option, but then, how boring it would be to exist without opposition. I could make him disappear but I wouldn’t. He knew this, and he also knew it wouldn’t be easy for me because he had supporters of his own, people who equally hated me- touching him might just bring about obvious division in the settlement which could lead to a widespread altercation.

People like Okoro were dangerous, but he wasn’t the real enemy, even the creatures out there, the flesh eaters waiting to tears us apart if given the slightest chance were not the real enemy. My goal was to protect us from the real enemy...ourselves. The real enemy was in each and every one of us, it was the darkness that would make us hate, and leave us bitter and hopeless, the darkness that clouded our judgements and made us see a road block instead of a stepping stone, the darkness that had sucked us into itself so deep that if we didn’t find our way out would be destroyed forever by it.

I would not let myself be sucked into hate by Okoro but I also knew I had to find a clever way to get Okoro out of the way or else a confrontation that might destroy the whole settlement was inevitable.

‘I know Jide’, Okoro told me after our last meeting, ‘I know’, a devious smile on his face.

I wondered what he knew. I knew he wanted to get me out of my position, and I knew he would go to any length to do that.

Before the Transition, he had been a police commissioner. He was one of the pioneers of the settlement and was very vocal about that fact. When I joined the settlement, I was made the leader because I presented hope to them. While defence was more of an individual thing before, I formed a central defence unit based on technology developed locally, using specifications from tech colonies all over the world we were able to build a security electromagnetic fencing round our settlement and even extended our help to other settlements. Settlers where informed about developments on the research on revitalising the earth, and presented with a message of hope. I quickly gained popularity amongst the settlement and other settlements.

Though I saw a vision of hope, others chose to see doom. They debunked the thought of ever living again and thought man should accept his fate and live, they saw their strength as an opportunity to dominate others. We were all dead, so we couldn’t die again. They saw it as a form of immortality; I saw it as eternal torment.

I believed there was hope.

I tried to figure what Okoro meant when he said ‘I know’. What did he know that I didn’t? Or rather what did I know that nobody else knew?

Mother!!!

I darted for the enclosure I had put her. I had made sure it was secure with passwords, laser detectors linked to a device I carried with me all the time. How could he have gotten to her?

The building was a collapsed building that wasn’t uninhabited, perfect for the underground compartment I had built with my own hands, secured with the latest security technology that I had gotten from the black market. I had exchanged some weapons for the gadgets.

I got to the building where my mother was hidden, shifted the boulders that cover the opening leading to the entrance. I jumped into the tunnel that led to the compartment, nothing seemed out of place.

‘Mother!’ I quickly ran to the door and opened it with the security code only I knew. The door opened to the room my mother was supposed to be in- she wasn’t there.

‘Mother!’

‘Okoro!’ I was definitely going to kill him.

Nobody knew about the compartment or for that matter about my mother. I had built the enclosure myself, since the time I had noticed my mother’s deterioration, I prepared for the worst. Little by little, I sourced for what I needed, day and night I would work, building, wiring, installation, for months I worked on that place without anybody knowing.

I wondered how Okoro had discovered the place. Spy, spy gadgets, I had no idea.

I will be merciless to all those involved I promised myself.  I would take a million lives for my mother.

I headed to the settlement, ready to take my own pound of flesh. Okoro! I would definitely rip his heart out.

The settlement was totally quiet. I got a sense of foreboding as I walked through the camp.

‘Okoro!’

‘Okoro!’ I knew I was walking into a trap, and it had been well planned. Okoro had finally hit the killer blow, got me where it pained the most.

He was standing on the balcony of the town square as we called it – where the council usually met for their meetings. He had a smile on his face.

‘I’ll kill you, Okoro!’ I charged towards him, but he just stood there waiting. The settlers were outside their houses staring at what was going on. No one wanted to interfere.  As I got to the bottom of the balcony I jumped with all my strength, catching the ledge of the railing and leapt at Okoro. As I got closer to Okoro, I envisaged him in tiny bits, being torn into shreds by my bare hands.

I thought I had him already in my hands when I suddenly stiffened; I fell with a thud in front of him. Behind him I saw two settlement guards- I had been betrayed. Okoro had masterminded a coup de etat and had succeeded. Now I was the outcast.

I tried to move, but I couldn’t. I had been shot with electromagnetic pulse tranquilizers.

‘Okoro I’ll kill you,’ I could only whisper. My soul raged and trembled for not being able to rip Okoro apart. ‘What had he done to my mother?’

‘This man here’, Okoro started, ‘is a traitor,’ the settlers stared at him waiting for the story to unfold, a lot of them were curious about what was going on.

‘You all know the pains we’ve all being through in the past years,’ Okoro continued, ‘How we’ve all lost loved ones. How we’ve had our loved ones turned into beasts that ravaged us, killed us, took our very existence. Some of us have even had to take the lives of loved ones who had turned into beasts.’ Okoro had finally gotten the attention of the settlers, He smiled.

‘This man here,’ Okoro paused and looked around at the settlers, ‘has betrayed you all, he put us all in danger and was unwilling to make the sacrifice we have all made, he chose to keep one of those beasts right here in this settlement.’

The whole settlement was silent.

Okoro smiled.