Decision Point (ARC) Read online

She would want to bite Lilah.

  Annie wouldn’t be able to help herself.

  That was how the world was.

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  The rain fell and Annie twitched again. And again. The rock

  onto which Annie had fallen was right there within easy reach.

  But, no. That was an impossible choice.

  Impossible.

  Impossible.

  Lilah turned her face up to the rain and wondered what to do.

  Her heart was so badly broken that she could not bear to think of

  moving away from this place. Annie was here and when she

  woke up she would want to eat. No … she would need to eat. She

  would be a small ghost, a tiny monster. What chance would she

  have of ever catching food? She would wander, lost and hungry

  forever.

  I promise to never ever leave you. I’ll keep you safe always

  and forever.

  That’s what Lilah had told her, and she’d sworn to God and

  crossed her heart.

  Annie’s fingers opened and closed, but Lilah kept her pressed

  against her. She didn’t want to see her sister open her eyes and

  not find Annie in there.

  I promise to never ever leave you.

  The rain washed over her face and stole her tears.

  It would be so easy to do nothing. To let Annie wake up. To

  let Annie have what she needed. To be there for her sister. And,

  afterward, if there was enough left of her, maybe Lilah would

  rise, too, and they would go off together. Two sister. They were

  already strange and they were already killers. Why shouldn’t

  they be monsters together?

  God, it was better than the unbearable thought of being alone.

  Without Annie. Without George or anyone. Alone.

  Annie began to struggle now. She was awake. Her fingers

  clawed at Lilah, grabbing at cloth, at hair. Her mouth opened, but

  Lilah held her with crushing force, not allowing her to bite.

  Not unless that was the right thing to do.

  “Please,” she said, begging the night and the storm. “Please.”

  I promise to never ever leave you.

  “I love you, Annie,” she said in her raspy, ghostly voice. “I

  will always, always love you.”

  Annie thrashed in her arms. All Lilah had to do was ease the

  pressure just a little. Just an inch. Make the decision and join her

  sister. It was the only choice that made sense. Every other choice

  was completely insane. She could not live without Annie. She

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  didn’t want to.

  I promise to never ever leave you.

  Lilah held her sister with one arm, holding on with all of the

  love she had left in the cold furnace of her soul.

  And with the other hand she reached for the rock.

  It rained the day the world ended.

  *

  Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestselling novelist, five-time

  Bram Stoker Award winner, and comic book writer. He writes

  the Joe Ledger thrillers, the Rot & Ruin series, the Nightsiders

  series, the Dead of Night series, as well as standalone novels in

  multiple genres. His comic books include, Captain America , Bad

  Blood , Rot & Ruin , V-Wars , and others. He is the editor of many

  anthologies including The X-Files , Scary Out There , Out of

  Tune , and V-Wars . His books Extinction Machine and V-Wars

  are in development for TV, and Rot & Ruin is in development as

  a series of feature films. He was a featured expert on the History

  Channel documentary, Zombies: A Living History and a regular

  expert on the TV series, True Monsters . Jonathan lives in Del

  Mar,

  California

  with

  his

  wife,

  Sara

  Jo.

  www.jonathanmaberry.com

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  One of the most unique voices working today in speculative

  fiction, and one of my favorite writers, Nigerian American

  author Nnedi Okorafor’s stories frequently feature African

  culture and characters. Her latest is set in Ghana and focuses on

  a girl with unusual connections … to death.

  S A N K O F A

  By Nnedi Okorafor

  The moon was rising when Sankofa came up the dirt road. Her

  leather sandals softly slapped her heels as she walked. Small

  swift steps made with small swift feet. When she passed, the

  crickets did not stop singing, the owls did not stop hooting, and

  the aardvark in the bushes beside the road did not stop foraging

  for termites.

  Sankofa was thirteen years old, but her petite frame and

  chubby cheeks made her look closer to ten. Her outfit was a

  miniature version of what the older more affluent women of

  northern Ghana wore—a hand-dyed long yellow skirt, a

  matching top embroidered with expensive lace and a purple and

  yellow headband made of twisted cloth. She’d done the

  headband exactly as her mother used to when she visited friends.

  Sankofa covered her baldhead with a shorthaired black wig.

  She’d slathered her scalp with two extra coats of thick shea

  butter, so the wig wasn’t itchy at all. Despite the night’s cloying

  Decision Points

  heat, the shea butter and her elaborate heavy outfit, she felt quite

  cool … at the moment.

  A young man leaned against a mud hut smoking a cigarette

  in the dark. As he was blowing out smoke, he spotted her.

  Choking on the last puff, he cupped his hand over his mouth.

  “Sankofa is coming,” he hollered in Ewe, grabbing the doorknob

  and shoving the door open. “Sankofa is coming!”

  People peeked out windows, doorways, from around corners

  and over their shoulders. Noses flared, eyes were wide, mouths

  opened and healthy hearts pounded like crazy.

  “Sankofa. Na come!” someone shouted in Pidgin English.

  “Sankofa is here!”

  “Sankofa strolling!”

  “Sankofa, Sankofa, o!

  “Here she comes!”

  “Beware of remote control, o!”

  “Sankofa bird landing!”

  Women scooped up toddlers playing in the dirt and ushered

  them inside. Doors slammed. Steps quickened. Car doors

  slammed and cars sped off.

  The girl called Sankofa walked up the quiet deserted road of

  the town that was pretending to be full of ghosts. Her face was

  dark and sweet and her jaw was set. The only item she carried

  was the amulet bag the juju man had given her five years ago not

  long after she left home. The size of a grown man’s fist, it softly

  bounced against her hip. Its contents were simple: a role of

  money that she rarely needed, a wind-up watch, a large jar of

  shea butter, a hand drawn map of Accra and a tightly rolled up

  book. For the last week, her book had been a copy of No Orchids

  for Miss Blandish, a paper novel she barely understood yet

  enjoyed reading. Before that, a crumbling copy of Gulliver’s

  Travels.

  The town was obviously not poor. There were huts but they

  were well-built and this night, though dark as caves, S
ankofa

  could see hints of bright light coming from within. People feared

  her but they still wanted to watch television. These mud huts had

  electricity. Beside the huts were modern homes, which equally

  feigned vacancy. Sankofa felt the town staring at her as she

  walked. Hoping, wishing, praying that she would pass through,

  a wraith in the darkness.

  She set her eye on the largest most modern-looking home in

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  the neighborhood. The huge hulking white mansion with a red

  roof surrounded by a large white concrete gate topped with

  broken green bottle glass was easy to see. As she approached the

  white gate, she noticed a large black spider walking up the side.

  Its stretching legs and hairy robust body looked like the hand of

  a ghost.

  “Good evening,” Sankofa said as she stepped up to the gate’s

  door. The spider paused, seeming to acknowledge and greet her

  back. Then it continued on its way up, into the forest of broken

  glass on the top of the gate. Sankofa smiled. Spiders always had

  better things to do. She wondered what story it would weave

  about her and how far the story would carry. She lifted her chin,

  raised a small fist and knocked on the gate’s door. “Excuse me,

  I would like to come in,” she called in English. She wasn’t sure

  how far she’d come. Better to stick to the language most

  understood. “Gateman, I have come to call on the family that

  lives here.”

  When there was no response, she turned the knob. She wasn’t

  surprised that it was unlocked. The gateman stood on the other

  side of the large driveway, near the garage. He wore navy blue

  pants, a crisp white shirt and a blank look on his face. He had

  prayer beads in his hand and when he saw her, he worked them

  through his fingers even faster. There was a light on over the

  garage and she could see his face clearly. Then he turned and

  spat to the side, making no move to escort her to the house.

  “Thank you, sir,” Sankofa said, walking to the large front

  door. The doorway light was off. “I will show myself in.”

  Up close, the house looked less elegant, the white walls were

  stained at the bottom with red dirt, splashed there as mud during

  rainy season. And there were large dirty spider webs in the upper

  corners where the roof met the walls. A shiny silver Mercedes, a

  black BMW, and a blue Honda sat in the driveway. The garage

  was closed. The house was dark. But Sankofa knew people were

  home.

  Something flew onto her shoulder as she stepped up to the

  front door. She stifled the instinct to crush it dead and, instead,

  grabbed it. Gently, she opened her hand. It was a large green

  grasshopper. She’d seen this one in one of the books she read. A

  katydid. She giggled, watching it crawl up her hand with its long

  delicate green legs.

  She softly glowed a leaf green. Not enough to kill but enough

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  to bath the grasshopper in a shade of its own lovely greenness. If

  a grasshopper could smile this one did. She was sure of it. Then

  it hop-flew off. “Safe adventures,” she whispered.

  She knocked on the door. “It is me,” she called. “Death has

  come to visit.”

  After a few moments, the front door lights came on. She

  looked up at the round ball of glass lit by the light bulb. In a few

  minutes, insects would people the light. But not yet. A haggard-

  looking tall man in a black suit and tie slowly opened the door.

  The lights turned on behind him and she could see about ten well-

  dressed adults, some in traditional clothing, others in stiff

  Western attire, all pressed together, wide-eyed and afraid.

  Cooled air wafted through the opened door and it smelled like

  wine, champagne, goat meat and jollof rice. The air-conditioner

  and the house cooks were working hard tonight. The hallway was

  decorated with shiny red and green trimming and fake poinsettia

  flowers, a plastic ornamented Christmas tree at the far end.

  “I hope I am not interrupting your Christmas party,” Sankofa

  said. She blinked. Was it Christmas? Maybe it was still

  Christmas Eve? She felt a muffled pang deep in her chest and

  pushed it away as she always did.

  “No, no,” the man jabbered, smiling sheepishly. “Em … p-

  please. Come in, my dear. Happy Christmas, o.” He wore a silver

  chain with a crucifix around his neck. The crucifix rested on his

  shoulder. He’d just put it on, probably as he rushed to the door.

  Sankofa chuckled.

  “Happy Christmas, to you all, too,” she said. “I won’t stay

  long.”

  The solid marble floors were cool beneath her bare feet. The

  walls were covered with European style oil paintings of

  European rustic landscapes. Sankofa wondered what trouble

  these people went through to get these paintings all the way out

  to this small affluent town not far from Accra. And she wondered

  if it was worth it; the paintings were quite ugly. A large family

  photo hung on the wall, too. It was of a tall fat man, a fat woman

  with one fat son and two fat daughters. Happy content people and

  definitely “been-tos”. If she had to guess, she’d say from

  America.

  In the dining room, Sankofa was asked to sit at a large table

  laden with more food than she’d seen in weeks. It was nearly

  obscene. She’d never imagined that been-tos ate so many native

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  dishes. Kele-wele, aponchi-krakra and fufu, kenkey, waakye, red

  red, jollof rice, fried chicken, akrantie and goat meat, too much

  food to get her eyes around. “Oh charli,” she muttered to herself.

  Behind her, the house party came in and stood around.

  A young woman set an empty plate before her. She wore a

  uniform similar to the gate man’s- a white blouse and navy blue

  pants. “Do you …” The woman trailed off, her eyes watering

  with tears. She paused, looking into Sankofa’s eyes. Sankofa

  gazed right back.

  “I would also like a change in clothes,” Sankofa helpfully

  said. “I have been wearing these garments for a week.”

  The woman smiled gratefully and nodded. Sankofa guessed

  the woman was about ten years older her senior, maybe even

  twenty-five. “Something like what you are wearing now?” the

  woman asked.

  Sankofa grinned at this. “Yes, if possible,” she said. “I like

  to wear our people’s style.”

  The woman seemed to relax. “I know. We all know.”

  “My name is known here?” Sankofa asked, the answer being

  obvious.

  “Very well,” she said. The woman looked at the silent party.

  “Can someone call the seamstress?”

  “It’s already done,” a fat woman said stepping forward as she

  closed a cell phone. Sankofa recognized her quickly. She looked

  a little fatter than she had in t
he family photo. Life was good for

  her. “Miss Sankofa,” the lady of the house said. “You shall have

  whatever garments you like within the hour.” She paused. “The

  town has always anticipated a visit from you.”

  Sankofa smiled again. “That is good.”

  “You would like orange Fanta, right?” the young woman in

  the uniform asked her. “Room temperature, not chilled.”

  Sankofa smiled and nodded. These were good people.

  *

  The people from the Christmas party watched Sankofa eat.

  Unable to sit down. Unable to whisper amongst themselves.

  Paralyzed. Sankofa was ravenous. She’d been walking all day.

  The food was glorious. She gnawed on a goat bone and

  dropped it on her plate. Then with greasy hands, she took her

  bottle of warm Fanta and guzzled the last of it. She belched as

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  another was placed before her. The young woman popped the

  cap and stepped back.

  “Thank you,” Sankofa said, taking a gulp. She picked up

  another piece of spicy goat meat and paused. She turned to the

  silent party. “Are there any children in the house?” she asked. “I

  would like some company.”

  She nibbled on her piece of goat meat as the adults fearfully

  whispered amongst themselves. It was the same wherever she

  visited. They always whispered. Sometimes they cried.

  Sometimes they shouted. Always amongst each other. Away

  from her. Then they went and got the children. They knew they

  had no choice. This time was no different.

  A plump boy of about ten and an older equally plump girl

  about Sankofa’s age, shuffled in. The girl’s mother, the lady of

  the house, had to shove her in. They wore their nightclothes and

  looked like they’d been dragged out of bed. They plopped

  themselves across from her at the table. The boy eyed a plate of

  fried plantain.

  “So what are your names?” Sankofa asked.

  “Edgar,” the boy said. Sankofa blinked. He spoke like an

  American. She’d been right in her assessment. Americans were

  always so well-fed.

  The girl muttered something Sankofa couldn’t catch.

  “What?” Sankofa asked.

  “Ye,” the girl whispered. She spoke like an American, too.

  “It is nice to meet you,” Sankofa said. “Do you know who I