Fiction / Chiadi Chineme Jessica

 

:: When they ask you what happened, what will you tell them? ::

Will you tell them how you had enrolled in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ibadan to study mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing, in your sick des­per­a­tion to leave the life of your small fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty behind? Will you tell them that you grad­u­at­ed with a pal­try sec­ond class low­er? Clos­er to third class. Will you spin tales of your hus­tle in the car­niv­o­rous city to find a job? First in your field of study when you held your head high, stretch­ing your lithe neck in pride, turn­ing your nose down at what you thought was below you. Then pur­su­ing the jobs you thought beneath you and final­ly when the heat and the shame had beat­en down your back, when the rejec­tions and frus­tra­tions caused your shoul­ders to now brack­et your head which hung low, you turned to POS sales work? 

No. But you will tell them how you had tucked your tail between your legs and bor­rowed some mon­ey from a few wastrels you had befriend­ed with emp­ty promis­es of pay­ing them back, how you ran back to Port Har­court, to your small vil­lage in Bon­ny Island. 

You will tell them how the shame weighed you down so. How you pon­dered on your fail­ure and won­dered what would become of you. The lives of the women in your vil­lage were rel­a­tive­ly sim­ple. Be born, go to pri­ma­ry school, become a sales­woman instead of going to sec­ondary school, mar­ry when your fam­i­ly decides who you will mar­ry, give birth to mul­ti­ple chil­dren, die. Not you. At least you thought. At least your father thought. But he is dead. Not there to defend you and sur­vived by five sons and one incom­pe­tent daugh­ter. 

 Maybe you will laugh when you recall that there were three mar­riage­able men left in your small com­mu­ni­ty. One was a fifty-eight-year-old wid­ow­er with three snot-cov­ered chil­dren, one was a drunk often seen stum­bling around at all hours of the day and even worse, night, and the last was your cousin. Sweet, dark, tall Fubara. So sweet in fact that when you were told by your grand­moth­er with her grat­ing and firm voice that you would mar­ry him, you had planned your death. Sur­ren­der­ing your­self to the excru­ci­at­ing watery grave that had claimed thou­sands of lives by acci­dent rather than sur­ren­der­ing to a life of mar­riage and moth­er­hood that had claimed thou­sands of lives. 

Will you tell them about his sis­ter Atili? Who had sensed your despair? Who had saved you from that life? Yes, you will. You will go into details about the night Atili had told you about Gor-shore. The com­pa­ny that owned that tow­er­ing, white build­ing on the main­land. You will tell them what Atili told you. How she spoke of this off­shore oil com­pa­ny like they were her sav­iour. What she told you about their vis­it to the vil­lage a few weeks before you came home run­ning. That they were look­ing for recruits to train. She told you that they were look­ing for women espe­cial­ly and want­ed to give back to the com­mu­ni­ties that shared the ocean with their stor­age rig. She did­n’t tell you what the job was for because she could­n’t remem­ber. 

You would lat­er find out on a small fer­ry owned by Gor-shore, where you, Atili, six oth­er recruits and two Gor-shore staff were trans­port­ed to Gor-shore’s office on the main­land, where you would spend the next six months train­ing to be an under­wa­ter inspec­tion div­er in charge of the inspec­tions of one of the fixed plat­form stor­age rigs a few kilo­me­tres from their office, deep in the Atlantic. “But not as deep as our explo­ration rigs,” a white man in a clean and crisp blue suit had said, or was it brown? You do not remem­ber but you will remem­ber that the main staff – exec­u­tives, train­ers, work­ers – were all white. The clean­ers, secu­ri­ty guards and oth­er recruits looked just like you in vary­ing shades of choco­late, brown and black. 

You will also recall that the com­pa­ny did not ask for your degree or NYSC cer­tifi­cates. You will tell them when they ask how sus­pi­cious you thought it was but in your eager­ness to escape the life des­tined for women like you, cou­pled with the eupho­ria of the promised salary, you over­looked it. You will men­tion how you and the oth­er recruits were packed into tiny, swel­ter­ing rooms with bunk beds and peel­ing wall paint while the oth­er staff enjoyed lav­ish, spa­cious rooms of cream and beige.

You will hes­i­tate to tell them about your fear of the water, just like you did to your train­ers. How you have nev­er liked swim­ming even though you grew up sur­round­ed by water. You will pon­der on it, whether you were born with the nat­ur­al aver­sion or if it was caused by the acci­dent you had when you were ten. When your father was still alive, whole and hearty. When you fol­lowed him on one of his fish­ing trips like you had done count­less times before, except this time as he regaled you with sto­ries of his child­hood and taught you to cast a net into the ocean upon your rick­ety, wood­en canoe cov­ered with splin­ters, you had flung your net too far and in the force behind your throw, you had also flung your­self into the water. 

What can you remem­ber except the imme­di­ate wave of fear when you found your­self sink­ing. Will you tell them how you thrashed like a fish out of water, flail­ing your hands in front of you, even when you sank deep­er and could not see them stretched out before your eyes? You will remem­ber the oppres­sive force of the push of the ocean above you and the pull of it below you. You will not men­tion to them that your father had swum in after you and pulled you up, nei­ther will you men­tion the feel of some­thing, some­thing strange and oth­er­world­ly, pulling you deep­er into the abyss. 

In an effort to remem­ber Atili, you will tell them how she was the best div­er of your class. How she took to water so nat­u­ral­ly that she seemed like she had lived in it all her life. How blessed her eye­sight was even in the dark­est depths. How she nev­er suc­cumbed to the pres­sure of the mind and of the water. 

Some­time lat­er, a few days after your cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and days before your trans­porta­tion to the rig, you will recall that your grand­moth­er and moth­er had come to the main­land to see you and Atili. You remem­ber how your moth­er had knelt to the ground and raised her voice to the heav­ens as she begged for you and your cousin to stay on land, to not ven­ture into the land of the Mami Water. Your grand­moth­er had joined in, not in your moth­er’s the­atrics, but in her warn­ing. She told you that the Mami Waters were hun­gry crea­tures, crea­tures of decep­tion who lay wait­ing in deep waters to claim the lives of women, and she told you that if you and Atili left, you would be sucked deep down to their lair. 

When they saw how com­mit­ted you and Atili still were, your moth­er had begun to roll on the ground while your grand­moth­er looked you in the eye like she knew of your brush with them years ear­li­er. They will come for you again,she told you. This time they will suc­ceed. Because you are stub­born, she said, because you are weak, and your poor father paid the price with his life. You will not tell them all these. You will sim­ply say that you were vis­it­ed by fam­i­ly. 

You will tell them about your first night on The Tem­ple, the third oil rig of Gor-shore which served as the final stor­age of oil from the rigs hun­dreds of kilo­me­tres out in the ocean, where it stayed before being final­ly trans­port­ed via under­wa­ter oil pipes – which you were trained to main­tain – to the main­land. That night, you had a night­mare about the time you fell into the water. Except this time, your father did not save you and the clam­my, strong feel­ing which encir­cled your ankle con­tin­ued pulling you deep­er, into the dark­ness, into the abyss. And your lungs burned, your whole body thrashed as it strug­gled against the lack of oxy­gen and the chain on your ankle, and soon anoth­er chain wrapped around your sec­ond ankle pulling you deep­er, and then your left hand. You flailed your right hand as best as the pres­sure and resis­tance from the deep sea would let you before it was shack­led, and you could do noth­ing but feel your­self sink­ing fur­ther into the wait­ing arms of some­thing. 

You had wok­en up with tears stream­ing down your face, clutch­ing at your chest as you strug­gled to take deep breaths of air. You had no time to process your night­mare before your col­league had got­ten you out of bed for your first assign­ment. 

Can you remem­ber your first day in the water? Your dry­suit snug around you as sprays of salt water dust­ed your face. You remem­ber your team chat­ting excit­ed­ly around you as your only focus was the deep, dark Atlantic. And in its murky, dim depths, some­thing await­ed you. 

You remem­ber the change in pres­sure and weight as you slow­ly descend­ed to the ocean floor. All around you, you saw your team doing the same. Some had descend­ed far­ther than oth­ers and you could sight Atili a few feet below the rest of you. You zeroed your sights on her as the only famil­iar thing in an unfa­mil­iar place. Her small­er fig­ure slow­ly get­ting swal­lowed up by the dark­ness. 

What will you tell them of the feel­ing of the ocean floor? Will you tell them how you land­ed on the uneven, rocky plane and felt your legs buck­le beneath you. How you stum­bled around before find­ing pur­chase on one of the mas­sive steel pipes which ran along the ocean floor. You will tell them how the depth and dark­ness ter­ri­fied you, how you looked above your­self hop­ing to see some­thing but instead were met with murky waters and an occa­sion­al illic­it sun ray find­ing its way between the dim­ness. You will tell them how you jerked in sur­prise and fear every time a curi­ous fish swam around you, inspect­ing you, a for­eign object in its land. Maybe you will men­tion to them how you felt cold dread seize you. Not from the chill of the sea but from the pierc­ing gaze of some­thing watch­ing you. 

Night­mares began to plague your every sleep­ing moment. You had no escape. You would descend into the Atlantic dur­ing the day and face the cold dark depths again at night in your dreams, every night­mare worse than the last. Every night you would be pulled deep­er into the dark­ness, the clam­my feel­ings mul­ti­plied each night – the hands, the ten­ta­cles, the coils wrap­ping around your limbs, your throat, pulling you to your death – and you would scream, scream out to noth­ing, des­per­ate for help, and with mouth agape, they would reach inside you and pull at your inner cheek, your tongue and jaw as water rushed inside you. So much water that you became bloat­ed, ripe for the meal. 

You for­get the day Atili died, or you try to. It is blur­ry to you now but you remem­ber that you two were paired to inspect the steel columns of the sub­mersible part of the rig. You remem­ber that you felt it again and you prayed to God that this would pass just like it had many dives before. Your prayers went unan­swered because some­thing rushed at both of you, knock­ing you against the hard met­al and dis­ori­ent­ing you. As you came to, your eyes adjust­ing to your spin­ning sur­round­ings, you saw some­thing grey and clam­my, some­thing that looked like it was damp on dry land, grab Atili and pull her. You saw Atili reach out, her arms stretched and her mouth open to scream for help instead of around her rebreather. 

A fel­low div­er had gone after you as you adjust­ed your descent to speeds you were warned against dur­ing your train­ing, to go after your cousin, to get to her quick­er, to save her. But you did­n’t and were too late. You were told that the div­er found you dis­ori­ent­ed on the ocean floor, stum­bling around as you searched for your cousin. She had brought you up to the deck and the crew dis­missed your ram­blings about the crea­ture. They said you were not sure about what you saw, that it was com­mon in divers that descend­ed too fast, that and the ring­ing in your ear. 

Your cousin was nev­er found, even after the count­less search­es, but you’re sure they know that already. The com­pa­ny had offered to send you back to the main­land with your full pay and your cous­in’s, and then some, to pla­cate you, to dis­miss you. You want­ed nei­ther. What a deci­sion it was, to choose between the grave of your cousin and the grief and anger of your fam­i­ly back home. 

The night­mares got worse, they no longer seemed like dreams. They felt like you were back in the water and some­times you would wake to your body drenched. With sweat or with water, you did not know. You dreamt of Atili. How will you describe her pres­ence to them when they ask? Will you men­tion how pale she looked in the water? How her skin had begun to fall off and the fish began to feed on her flesh? Will you men­tion how she was miss­ing an eye, the sock­et bor­ing into you? Will you tell them how her mouth was frozen open, the way it looked when she was scream­ing to you for help? Or will you men­tion how her limbs and body were twist­ed unnat­u­ral­ly? Her elbows and ankles twist­ed back at the joints and her spine bent at an odd angle. 

Maybe not. 

Maybe you will tell them that she spoke to you, that she sang to you. That she began to call to you. First to save her and then to join her. You will not men­tion that behind her you could see the grey mass. That it would speak to you through Atili, some­times tak­ing con­trol of her body and beck­on­ing you to her, to it. You will not be able to describe its inhu­man form, how it was noth­ing that you could com­pre­hend, some­thing that looked human but just not quite, how beneath it was a grungy, rough coil­ing mass of a limb that looked like an assem­bly of dead fish, sharks, peo­ple. You saw the eyes and limbs of many crea­tures amal­ga­mat­ed into the swirling mass that twist­ed and squirmed in the deep dark­ness. It dis­gust­ed you. Even more so when the limb lunged around your form, trap­ping your arms to your body, and began to squeeze. The rough­ness of its sur­face would scratch into your skin, caus­ing you to bleed as it crushed you, and you would wake. 

This time when you awoke, with the screech­ing of Atil­i’s voice in your ears and in your head, cloak­ing your thoughts, you left your room. Stum­bling around the upper deck in your mis­sion to get clos­er to the water. You had the palms of your hands cup­ping your ears in a des­per­ate attempt to block the noise but noth­ing worked, so you screamed. Loud enough to try to drown out the voice of your cousin. Will you recall how you stum­bled to the rail­ing of the deck? And how you puked your guts out although you had not eat­en for days. 

Will you be able to tell them how you looked out into the night and were met with noth­ing? The rig a lone­ly island in the Atlantic. And how you turned your gaze to the sea below you and were met with chill­ing dread. That you expect­ed to feel the famil­iar crea­ture below you and you did. It was look­ing up at you, wait­ing, except this time they were wait­ing. You were look­ing down at them. 

Can you remem­ber your name being called? Mul­ti­ple voic­es ris­ing in a crescen­do, all scream­ing your name as you rushed down to the plat­form in your mad­ness? How you stood at the div­ing plat­form a few feet below deck? This slab that was a bit elon­gat­ed from the hulk­ing mass of the rig and clos­er to the ocean. How you felt the crash­ing waves fling salt water at your feet? What you felt as you heard Atil­i’s voice plead for help. How her voice was mixed with the voice of mul­ti­ple things, call­ing you into the water. You could see them. Their heads break­ing the sur­face, limp, scant threads of hair falling over their grey scalp and skin, their eyes shin­ing black but bright in the dark­ness, and they called to you. 

You will remem­ber the dread that you felt. How you released your blad­der on your­self as your nerves lit on fire, as your brain warned you against your actions. You will remem­ber that you had tried to turn back but your body did not sur­ren­der to you. How it felt like you were march­ing to your death.

You will tell them about the cold that embraced you when you jumped, the bar­ri­er of a wet­suit or dry­suit no longer present against your skin. How the light from the oil rig dis­ap­peared as you sank and you were sur­round­ed with noth­ing but dark­ness and the voic­es of Atili and the oth­ers. How you felt the hold on your limbs as you were pulled fur­ther to your death. How your mind strug­gled but your body did not. 

Will you tell them how you were saved? Saved by the crew who saw you stum­bling around the deck con­fused and scream­ing to the dark­ness, to your­self. The crew who saw you jump into the unset­tled, cav­ernous waters of the Atlantic which crashed against the body of the rig and caused it to rock. 

No, you will not tell them. Because you are deep in the Atlantic, sur­round­ed by dark­ness and hunger, sur­round­ed by the writhing bod­ies of the crea­tures that now swarm you, wait­ing to rip into you. 

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

“What Will You Tell Them?” was one of many hor­ror lean­ing sto­ries I wrote dur­ing a short sto­ry hor­ror fren­zy. In my head, it has always been in sec­ond per­son, and I don’t know why. I had nev­er writ­ten in that style before and had hard­ly read any­thing in it either, but the nature of the sto­ry called for it. The idea came to me while I was writ­ing a dif­fer­ent space hor­ror piece and it was beg­ging to be writ­ten. 

Part of why I love the sto­ry so much is the sec­ond per­son. It crowds you. It does not let you dis­en­gage as eas­i­ly. The sto­ry is meant to be long and wind­ing, some­thing you find your­self trapped inside until you are pow­er­less to do any­thing but watch it unfold. The main char­ac­ter is name­less to rein­force this. I loved the way the style sound­ed in my head. What will you tell them? What will you say? What did you do? It feels like an inter­ro­ga­tion and an inter­nal mono­logue at the same time, one that you can­not escape. It even seems to lead towards a real­i­ty where you have escaped long enough to recall every­thing safe­ly, only for you to realise that you are not safe at all. 

I love writ­ing women, espe­cial­ly women in the wrong head­space in ter­ri­ble sit­u­a­tions, most­ly of their own doing. I thought about the dif­fer­ence between writ­ing a woman los­ing her mind in first per­son ver­sus sec­ond. In first per­son, I get to tell you what she thinks and feels as she spi­rals. But here I do not get that same priv­i­lege. It is a short sto­ry, so I can only enter her psy­che so much. If I describe too much of what she is feel­ing, I risk break­ing the immer­sion. There has to be enough space for the read­er to inhab­it her. 

The sto­ry is also impor­tant to me because hor­ror is still under­rep­re­sent­ed in the Niger­ian lit­er­ary land­scape, and I think women are espe­cial­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed in those spaces. This is my small con­tri­bu­tion, and hope­ful­ly one of many. 

It was always going to take place in the sea because it is a per­son­al fear of mine. There is some­thing hor­ri­fy­ing to me about the deep black sea and every­thing in it. I orig­i­nal­ly want­ed it to take place on a rig much deep­er in the ocean, per­haps an explo­ration rig. I loved the idea of a char­ac­ter stum­bling around the ocean floor in its dark­ness and pres­sure, but I did­n’t know how to write that in a place where the ocean bed is many kilo­me­tres down, so this was per­fect. 

Most impor­tant­ly, I want­ed to rep­re­sent three things, the exploita­tion of the region in Nige­ria due to its resources, the exploita­tive econ­o­my and work­force in the coun­try, and the exploita­tion of women, all three of which sub­tly shape the real hor­rors, the ones beyond the super­nat­ur­al, and the imbal­ance in the main char­ac­ter’s life, push­ing her towards her own death. 

Chia­di Chineme Jes­si­ca is a young Niger­ian aspir­ing author with an inter­est in read­ing, watch­ing, and writ­ing hor­ror and con­tem­po­rary fic­tion. Her inter­est in hor­ror sub­gen­res such as cos­mic, spec­u­la­tive, folk, psy­cho­log­i­cal and goth­ic fic­tion stems from both their rel­a­tive absence in the Niger­ian lit­er­ary space and her fas­ci­na­tion with the unknown and the men­tal anguish of char­ac­ters, espe­cial­ly women. She is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in writ­ing fic­tion that explores the female body, mind, and actions, as well as the suf­fer­ing and hor­rors women endure, sur­vive, inflict upon them­selves and inflict upon each oth­er.