Chapter Six - Yakubu

Was I dead? Yes I was. It gets really confusing to explain the fact that we were dead, yet, we were still alive, and that was the dilemma of the undead. No one really understood fully what that meant, being dead, but still moving around, talking, seeing. We still possessed some of our senses, but we were essentially dead and our hearts had stopped beating.

We couldn’t inhale the sweet fragrance of a flower or breathe in the freshness of air. We didn’t feel any hunger for food or anything for that matter; we just existed, damned between death and life.  Our souls yearned for life, and some say that is what kept us alive.

I had drifted in darkness for longer than I could remember. The last thing I  remembered was the light. I thought I was transcending to the next world, but it had just been darkness, and I had no idea when it would end. The darkness was endless, and the feeling of doom engulfed me. I heard nothing...I saw nothing...I felt nothing...I sensed nothing. I had lost all sense of time, and direction. There was no up or down. There was no today or tomorrow. There was no left or right, no right or wrong... no me.

There was just darkness, and that was all there was.

A part of me wanted to stay in the darkness and not have to worry about anything or anyone. At first it was a blur. Light slowly pierced the darkness I had floated in for as long as I could remember. Then I saw the people, blurred at first, but with time they started taking shape. I was in some sort of hospital- white room, white bed sheet, and doctors in white gowns, all the usual things you see in a hospital.

My hand was bandaged and both feet were in a caste- I must have been messed up really bad by those flesh gobblers. I felt like a mummy in all the castes and bandages and just wanted to tear myself lose and get the hell out of there. These people must have rescued me from being torn into shreds. But who were they, and where was I?

‘Hello Jide,’ a tall dark dead man walked to my bed. Finally someone to explain what was going on. ‘I’m Doctor Majekodumi; I’m the head doctor here’.

Dr Majekodunmi would have had women dying for him when he was alive.

‘You are at 25 Marina. Thank God we found you on time. Those creatures would have had you for dinner,’ the doctor smiled.

‘How did you find me?’Did they find me by luck- then I would have been the luckiest person in the world.

‘We were told about what happened at your settlement,’ the doctor spoke like he knew a lot about me; he seemed like a very friendly guy and really wanted to help. I was glad there were still good natured people in spite of the darkness that surround us all.

‘Really,’ so I still had friends in the settlement, though with more thought I wondered if such friends would stand by me when it mattered most. Nobody had stood against Okoro’s tyranny, I had been left to Okoro’s schemes without any help, but I guess they were just protecting their own skins. I was still grateful to whoever informed my rescuers, without them I would have been out of existence.

‘Yes. They told us where you were dropped. We’ve been searching for you all day. You have friends everywhere,’ Dr Majekodunmi’s smile reassured me I was in safe hands. There was this aura around him. He had a good soul. He must have been a really great doctor when he was alive. I laughed at the irony of a dead doctor trying to save some one that was already dead.

The doctor heard me laugh, ‘What’s funny Mr Jide?’

‘The irony of treating a dead man’, we both laughed.

‘I understand,’ he smiled. ‘The flesh eaters did quite some damage, but we’ve been able to cover up most of the wounds. No bone was broken, but lots of flesh was torn. What we did was merge the skin cells with a metal compound I developed; it behaves like human skin and merges with the skin cells. Though the metal parches are visible now, in a few weeks they’ll look exactly like your skin. At the end of the day your skin becomes ten times stronger and harder.’

This doctor’s invention was amazing, and it could be a deadly weapon in the wrong hands. ‘If this should get into the wrong hands...’

‘There’s still a limited amount available and our application is strictly medical. We don’t want anybody creating super strong Zombies,’ the Doctor half smiled. It was funny but he also knew the dangers.

‘Yeah,’ though the prospect of creating super zombies was funny, the seriousness of that happening was also grave. Super-Zombie armies ravaging settlements and holding everyone to ransom, I knew for sure if Okoro should get his hands on the metal compound, he would put it to maximum military use. Okoro’s military ambitions were something I was very familiar with.

‘The development of the compound has been a joint research with colleagues in other countries- India, China, US, Turkey. We just reached a breakthrough a few weeks ago, but we’ve not communicated it to the rest. We chose to keep it secret for now. We had no choice but to use it on you since the damage done on you was almost irreversible by any other means,’ I was the first successful specimen.

Since the metal compound was very unstable, and zombie cells were essentially dead, it had previously reacted to zombie cells in different ways, sometimes in extremely violent ways. The doctor told me of a previous test that was carried out – the metal compound had eaten the test’s flesh to the bones, and before anybody could do anything, the test was reduced to charred bones. Before they had used it on me they had taken samples from my skin and exposed it to the metal compound, surprisingly it blended perfectly. The most successful tests before me acted more like pastes, sealing wounds, rather than blending and merging with the cells.

‘Jide, you know if I had my way, I would want to keep you here for a few weeks for observation,’ Doctor Majekodumi smiled, ‘you are my breakthrough.’

My mother! I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Once I got all the things I needed, I was off to find her. ‘Thanks for everything you did. I need to find my mother.’

‘I know. You don’t know how much you aided our research,’ we shook hands. In his eyes I saw the pain that haunted us all. He was a good man, but his spirit had been hardened by everything that had happened after the transition. In spite of that, his soul flamed in hope. We both saw the hope in our souls, and smiled at each other, understanding. ‘There’s someone I think you should meet. He can help you with everything you need.’

Yakubu’s gait was that of confidence and experience. He moved as if he was absolutely sure of every step he took. He had a little trimmed grey beard on his chin. He must have been in his mid-sixties before the transition.

He stopped right in front of me and seemed to observe me for a while; the silence was getting uncomfortable when he finally spoke. ‘I am honored to meet you Jide. I’ve heard a lot about your previous work and I heard what happened at your settlement. I assure you, Okoro will get paid in his own coin,’ he spoke with the utmost certainty, ‘My name is Yakubu...General Musa Yakubu.’

‘Nice to meet you General,’ we shook hands, and there was a tacit understanding and familiarity between us. One I didn’t understand immediately but got to understand as time went on.

‘But you can call me Yakubu,’ he smiled.

‘Yakubu,’ I replied, ‘it’s a pleasure meeting you,’ I said nodding.

‘There’s something we need to talk about,’ Yakubu paused for a while, then continued, I wondered if he did all that deliberately, ‘something of grave importance, something that might be the only hope of the human race.’

That definitely caught my interest.

We walked down the hall, me, Doctor Majekodumi, and General Yakubu. There was utter silence as we walked; no one said a word. We got to the end of the hall to an elevator. Some workers came out of the elevator; they were all dressed in white.

‘Most of the top floors are dedicated to research and health, the middle floors are residential, while the bottom floors are dedicated to defence. We’ve had to tighten our defence since the early days,’ I could see pain in Dr Majekodumi’s eyes as he spoke.

‘The Marina settlements spanned several high rises on Marina. But the population of the flesh eaters kept increasing. They spread like a virus invading most of the Marina settlements. The settlements were torn apart, ravaged, sometimes we could see what was happening in the other buildings, but there was nothing we could do- a few of the undead were able to escape and make it here, to 25 Marina. It was a massacre. We had to fight back, and since then we’ve protected our territory and our own. It’s been a tough battle, and we’ve lost a lot of people, some had been shredded by the beasts, some, marred beyond repair’, I could see his soul was in tears even though his eyes remained stark. He paused and looked into my eyes, ‘Do you know what the saddest thing is? These monsters were once our friends, families, associates, employees, employers, mothers, fathers, and children. It’s a sad thing that has befallen our world, a very sad thing’

I understood the sadness. My whole family had disappeared. My mother was one of them and was now on the streets- a ravaging beast scavenging for human flesh. The sadness of that ate me up inside. ‘I understand.’

‘Now we have to kill those same people every day. We have to kill our own to survive. What has the human race turned into? We are all dead, and our spirits die further every day. We have to fight for our souls to stay alive. Jide, I still have hope in the human race,’ the doctor looked up to the sky and sighed.

I nodded my head. It was as if he was speaking from my dead heart itself.

‘I see the day when we’ll be able to breath in fresh air again, play with our children again, smile at each other again, and drink fresh water again. I see the day, and I see you. You’ve given a lot of us hope. I’ve followed your messages, and your efforts, and it’ll be an honour to be of help.’

I didn’t know what to say. I had kept forums that allowed people with similar beliefs to communicate, there were people all over the world who were working towards the hope, and we all had one heart, and we all prayed for the same thing… to live again.

General Yakubu, finally broke his silence, ‘I think there’s hope, and it might be closer than you think. I’ve followed the work you’re doing here. The partners in India, China, and the US, and I trust the work of Dr Majekodumi. I believe both of you might hold the key to the future. Jide, your resilience and spirit- pure and bold, and doctor, your gift and love for humanity- flowing and endless, might just be the key to the future.’

We got to the 23rd floor; it was the highest floor in the building. The elevator opened to a long white corridor. The windows where covered in white paper allowing only limited outer light to come in, instead it had bright ceiling lights, giving the room a bright aura.

At the end of the corridor we reached a door. It was a heavy steel- maximum security door. Dr Majekodumi pressed his finger to a scanner at the right side of the door,  then placed his eye on an eye scanner, the scanner scanned his eye, ‘Dr Majekodumi,’ he called out his name, as the voice recognition security lock activated before the door could open.

‘We call it ‘The Room’,’ Dr Majekodumi led us into a wide room with some sort of conference table in the middle surrounded by chairs. ‘This is where the most important decisions in the settlement are made- totally sound proof, and totally invasion proof. The door is enforced steel, impenetrable, and only a select few have access into this room. Be sure that anything discussed here today won’t leave this room’.

‘Good,’ General Yakubu said nodding his head.

We all took seats around the table.

‘General, go ahead’, Doctor Majekodumi nodded at Yakubu.

‘Thanks Doctor. Jide, we might just be at the brink of saving the whole of mankind. Hope is at hand I tell you, and hope has never been this close,’ the man, Yakubu was now the General Yakubu, strategizing for the next attack, laying out the pawns and covering all the loop holes.

What was the general going to talk about? What was it that was so important that we had to talk about in a sealed room? What advancement did the general know about that would make him so sure of a hope that had been elusive for years. Experiments had failed, and the closest we were was a living plant, which still could not be replicated in creating a living human cell.

‘Five years ago, I made the most amazing discovery- a diamond in the rot, the very hope of mankind. I was going to pick up some equipment somewhere in Aja. I had suppliers there who brought in some merchandise by boat. I couldn’t go through the express way, because the flesh eaters where all over the street. You would have thought they were cockroaches- there was so many of them. I took a detour through the streets of Lekki, and that’s where I found her. I heard the scream for help, at first; I was just going to drive by because I was in so much hurry. You know everybody has been screaming for help since the transition. Right now the earth itself is screaming for help,’ he paused and mused for a while. I wondered what was on his mind- probably the regret and sadness that all of us had in common. The memories of the good times always came back to hunt us- the days when we were all alive. Those days seemed like a dream now. I also wondered who the girl he was talking about was. What made her so special?

‘Well, I stopped and went toward the direction of the scream. I think I was also eager to have a shot at the monsters. The house where she was inside was surrounded by the flesh eaters, itching to get in. I could count about twenty scratching at the gate. I was fully equipped so it wasn’t hard for them to get what had been waiting for them,’ the general laughed, ‘ the monsters... are we not all monsters’.

We laughed in a queer way that wasn’t as laughter used to be. Forced, reflective, ironic, morose, and regretful- those were the emotions we felt, and that was the tone of the laughter that came out from our dead voice boxes.

‘In the house I found a girl,’ the general continued, ‘She was young and beautiful, most importantly...’ he paused, and drew back into his thought spasms once more.

What was she? I was caught in the suspense. What did this girl have that offered the whole of mankind hope? What was it she had?

‘She was alive,’ silence engulfed the room, even Dr Majekodumi was surprised.

Dr Majekodumi shifted in his chair, I just remained still. My mind was trying to interpret what I had just heard.

‘Do you mean alive, with breath or...’ the Dr was lost for words.

The general looked at both of us, ‘I mean alive like we once were.’

More silence...

The Dr stood from his chair and started pacing around the room. ‘Do you know what that means?’ he became suddenly reflective, speaking to us in the room, but his mind seemed to have ventured far beyond the four walls of the room, it showed in his empty blank eyes.

I hoped the general was telling truth and it wasn’t a ploy of some sort. His eyes told me he was telling the truth, but the times after the transition had taught me not to trust anybody. ‘Where is she?’

The general looked straight into my eyes, probing into them intensely as if he was reading my mind, ‘I understand Jide. We’ve lost hope for so long that hope seems impossible even if it presented itself. At a point like this, we ask ourselves if the hope we’ve fought for years is real or if it is something we just made up which we do not believe its efficacy.’

I had always preached hope. We had searched for hope for years, we had believed in it, but at this point I didn’t want to believe that hope would come to us, not this soon. Part of me, and everyone else that believed in the hope movement thought hope would forever evade us, but it was the hope we held on to that kept us Alive- the hope that gave us the reason to continue. Now, hope was offered on a platter of gold. If the general was telling the truth, then the light of hope had never shone brighter.

‘She’s at my house,’ the general spoke softly; ‘I’ll take you to her.’ Everyone in the room looked at each other. ‘I believe in both of you that’s why I came here today. In you Doctor, because I believe in your abilities and talents- I’ve done my research believe me- and in you, Jide because in you I see the future.’

‘We have to protect her at all cost. We have to move her somewhere safer,’ the Doctor couldn’t stop pacing.

‘She’s safe where she is,’ the general looked certain. I was beginning to believe him. It had been long since I saw so much resolve in a man.

I stared at my palm, they were dried and hard. I imagined them flowing with blood. Thoughts of hope filled my mind.

‘This is a dream come true’, the Doctor smiled, ‘we now have a living human, meaning we can extract living human cells.’

‘There is hope,’ I could see the future, and I saw life.

General Yakubu nodded his head, ‘There is.’

Where there is life, there is hope.