A Killing in the Sun Read online

  Dilman Dila

  A Killing in the Sun by Dilman Dila

  First Published by Black Letter Media (Pty) Ltd 2014

  Smashwords Edition

  © 2014 Dilman Dila

  Tel: +27 11 966 8061

  Fax: 086 606 1565

  www.blackletterm.com

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  PO Box 94004

  Yeoville, 2143

  Johannesburg, South Africa

  Design & Layout

  Black Letter Media (Pty) Ltd

  Cover illustration by Rendani Nemakhavhani

  Lights on Water, published in The Short Anthology, 2014

  Fragments of Canvas, published in Dark Fire, January 2005

  Okello’s Honeymoon, published in The Swamp, 2004

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievable system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying or otherwise without prior written permission of the publishers, Black Letter Media (Pty) Ltd. Any copying or sharing of this work for financial gain is infringement of copyright.

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-0-9870198-7-5

  The Leafy Man

  Japia and a two year old boy were starving under an orange grove. He could get food in Abedo, just a mile away, but everyone in that town was dead. If he went there, he would see the rotting corpses of people he had grown up with, his neighbors, his friends, his loved ones. But if he did not go he would watch the child die of hunger. They hadn’t eaten in two days. Now the boy was too weak to cry. Japia did not know his name.

  They had enough water. A red brick house with a green iron-sheet roof stood at the edge of the orchard. It belonged to a wealthy farmer, Opata, so did the acre of oranges they were hiding in. His family had fled the morning Miss Doe attacked, not knowing that the best place to hide was right in their backyard. Japia had found food in their kitchen, but now it had run out. They would not be lacking water anytime soon, though, for the house had a rainwater catchment system with a ten thousand liter tank.

  He wondered if Opata’s family had made it to safety. They had a new van, and the roads were smooth enough for them to speed away. He dreamt about his own family every night. He did not know if they escaped the bloodbath. He did not want to find out. He feared if he did, and it turned out to be a horror, he would lose the little strength he had to survive. It was better to imagine that they had escaped.

  He had to go to Abedo.

  He put the boy in a kasero, a large basket used for keeping chicken, and secured the lid to ensure the boy does not crawl out. He then shoved the basket into the makeshift hut he had built in the grove, using plywood and grass. It did not bother him that he was caging a child like an animal. He had stayed with the boy every minute since they took refuge in the orchard, watching him, making sure he did not crawl out. Now that he had to ride to Abedo, a cage was the only way to ensure the child did not wander away from the grove. The scent of oranges protected them from Miss Doe.

  He cloaked his body, head to toe, in orange leaves. He piled a lot more leaves onto his bicycle. When he stepped out of the grove he looked like a moving shrub. Opata’s house was a little over a hundred meters away. It was black, for Miss Doe sat on every inch of the walls and on the roof. Unlike her natural predecessor the anopheles, which had a sight limited to about ten feet, Miss Doe had the eyes of an eagle. She could spot prey a mile away. The moment he emerged from the orchard, she saw him. At once, the cloud rose, like a veil being lifted off the house, revealing the bright green roof, the bright red brick walls, the bright yellow window frames. She floated in small clouds above the rooftop like whiffs of black smoke, and waited for him. She could not attack for the aroma of oranges repelled her.

  He paddled his bicycle to the house. The clouds thickened above the rooftop, as more insects flew in to join the wait. Japia’s legs felt like a sponge. He felt hollow inside. Every time he ventured out of the grove, he feared Miss Doe would mutate again, that she would learn to tolerate the smell of oranges, and then she would drain his blood.

  Not today. The citrus magic still worked.

  At the house, the buzzing was so loud that he could not hear anything else. He went to the bathroom. The bugs were so thick on the window that they blocked out the light. He flicked on a torch and stood at the sink for a long moment, looking at the mirror. Shades of gray had blossomed in his hair, which had not tasted a comb in a month. It had become knotty as dreadlocks started germinating on his head. Wrinkles had taken root on his face, making him look twenty years older than forty. He wondered if he was the last man left on earth.

  He soaked a cloth in soapy water and wrapped it around his nose. He expected to find a lot of bodies in Abedo town. The stench would be horrible. He did not want to disrespect the dead by spitting, or throwing up. He hoped the wet cloth would be a helpful gas mask.

  When he stepped out of the house, he looked toward the orchard. It was a fuzzy blur, for Miss Doe hovered around him creating a thin curtain. An urge to go back to the safety of the grove gripped him, but there he would have to face the eyes of the starving child. He took a deep breath, climbed on the bicycle, and rode to Abedo.

  Miss Doe flew all around, at a radius of about ten meters, encasing him in a cylinder as it looked for a chink in his shield. He felt as though he was in the eye of a dust devil. He could not see anything beyond the black wall of the cylinder.

  If it were not for her seething, he would have heard the music the tires made as they rolled over the sand. He would have heard the wind blowing, the leaves singing, maybe a pigeon cooing to her lover and children making a racket as they kicked a ball. He would have heard all these sounds a month ago. Now, the only thing in his ears was this buzz. It sounded like rapids raging over the Nile. The hum opened his pores and sweat drenched him.

  He rode faster. The bugs kept pace.

  #

  The government issued him this bicycle three years ago. They had decided to embrace traditional healers and include them in their health strategies, so they launched the Roll Back Malaria Campaign. Government did not recognize herbalists as proper doctors and scientists, but Japia was on a mission to change that attitude. He had served the village as a healer for nearly thirty years, from the age of ten when he inherited the healing spirits after his father died. He had dropped out of formal school, and acquired knowledge the ancient way. He became an expert in plants and diseases and he was a gifted shaman. But to the dismay of the community, he disassociated herbal medicine from spirit worship. He believed mixing the two had hindered the proper research and development of native medical science. Eventually, when they saw him performing greater miracles outside the shrine, they accepted him as a medic only. The government gave him the bicycle to promote insecticide treated nets, but he added his own agenda to the campaign. He knew of plants that repelled mosquitoes with their smell. He promoted growing these plants near homesteads to combat the disease, on addition to simple control methods like cutting bushes, draining stagnant water, and rubbing orange peelings on the skin as a repellent.

  The campaign was slowly yielding fruits, with the whole village collectively involved in fighting the epidemic. Then, a company calling itself Pest and Germ Control Corporation came up with a new method. It had modified the genes of the anopheles and created a new species that does not carry malaria parasites. It called this breed, Miss Doe. PGCC asked the government for a trial site. A powerful politician influenced the Ministry of Health to choose Abedo. He thought the project would bring employment to his people, and thus increase his popularity. The genetic scientists from PGCC then camped in the area, and introduced Miss Doe. Their plan was to out-populate and replace the natural mosquitoes with the disease
free bugs. A simple plan. A great plan.

  Only that, Miss Doe ran riot.

  She needed only a day to mature from egg to adult. Within a week, there were thousands. The village woke up one morning to find a lot of dead birds in the grass. Their blood drained. Japia at once suspected Miss Doe. When two cows were found dead later that day also with their blood drained, it confirmed his suspicion. He and other village leaders approached the PGCC scientists, who dismissed the fears. Mosquitoes do not feed on blood, they said, only the females need it for laying eggs. They had fixed that need in Miss Doe. She had no need for blood. The next day, a child was found dead in her bed. A million holes in her skin and not a drop of blood left in her veins. Panic gripped Abedo. Some people fled to neighboring towns. Japia resisted flight. He had discovered that Miss Doe dreaded orange leaves. He placed these on his windows to protect his children. Besides, he thought the worst was over. PGCC publicly acknowledged its mistake and sprayed insecticide over the village to wipe out Miss Doe.

  Instead, the chemical triggered off a mutation. Overnight, Miss Doe ballooned from the size of a normal mosquito into a monster as big as Japia’s thumb. She no longer looked for food as an individual, but in swarms that swept over the village like dark clouds. Japia had just left home early that morning, to tell his neighbors to use fresh orange leaves as a repellent, when he saw a dark cloud floating over the trees. He heard the screams. He saw people fleeing in terror as clouds of insects chased them. He saw a cloud swallowing up a woman. She fell. Her screaming stopped before she hit the ground. The insects settled on her for only a few seconds, and then rose into the air, leaving her stiff on the ground.

  Japia had been too far to go back home to his family, but luckily close to Opata’s orchard. He sped to it. On the way, he found the little boy abandoned on the roadside, covered in a blanket.

  #

  The first corpse he saw nearly made him fall off the bike. The wet cloth around his nose cut out the smell, and his vision was limited to only about ten meters, where the mosquitoes formed an opaque cylindrical wall. He did not see the body until he nearly ran over it. He gripped the brakes. Tires screeched on the sand. The dead man lay partially hidden in the bush, nothing left of him but skin and bones. He knew the coat, gray coat with black stripes. It belonged to the geography teacher, Mr. Okello. Japia used to play scrabble with him every Friday evening, when they would gather in the town square to drink malwa and eat roasted pork. Now Mr. Okello’s face stared at Japia with eyeless sockets, with teeth in a lipless mouth that seemed to snarl at him. Flies danced on the body, but he could not hear their buzz. All he heard was the seething of Miss Doe.

  He was at the top of a gentle hill. The town lay below. He could not see it through the thin black wall of mosquitoes, but he knew what it looked like. About forty small buildings with red brick walls and corrugated iron-sheet roofs stood in a perfect square enclosing a giant mvule tree. A market thrived in the square. Every Friday, traders travelled from distant districts to sell and thousands of people came to shop, or simply to make merry. The attack had happened on a Wednesday, a quiet day in Abedo, when all the shoppers and traders were locals. All the corpses he would find would be of people he knew. He clenched his teeth, bracing himself, and let the bicycle roll down the sandy road.

  Miss Doe kept pace around him, whirring, humming a song of death, stalking him, looking for a chink in his shield, waiting for a chance. He probably was the only moving thing she had seen all month.

  He wondered if she could starve to death. Was blood the only thing Miss Doe, fed on? If she killed off every living thing in the area, would she starve?

  Japia knew she could not migrate in search of food. Her creators, to protect the technology and ensure maximum profits, fixed her genes so that she could not travel beyond a certain radius from the breeding site where the first egg of the generation hatched. This way, PGCC could charge governments per square inch of land that they had freed of malaria carrying mosquitoes. But how far from Abedo could Miss Doe travel? If Japia was to make a run for it, how far would he get before the orange leaves shriveled and lost the scent that repelled the bloodsuckers?

  He rolled into town, between two buildings with roofs arched over the road to form a gate. There were dead people in the square. Fortunately, he could not see the entire market for the murderer’s veil obscured his view. A woman sprawled on what once was a pile of fish, maggots crawled in a feast. He recognized her clothing. Mama Samaki, they had all called her. The oldest fishmonger in town. Mama Godi lay in what must have been heaps of potatoes. Two youths, Obore and Kamau, lay on a verandah beside a scrabble game, the last moves still on the board, the book in which they had recorded the scores stuck under a stone. Obore still had a tile in his fingers. Japia had taught them the game just a few months ago. The attack had been so sudden nobody had a chance to flee. Maybe the tree had blocked them from seeing the attackers. Miss Doe needed only a few seconds to drain their blood.

  Shop doors were still open. He passed two, with corpses sprawled across the threshold. He recognized Masasa, Kemigisha, Oketch, Ntare. They lay rotting. Japia retched. The wet cloth on his nose was an effective gas mask but his brain conjured up a terrible odor. He tried not to spit, not to vomit, out of respect of the dead. He did not see a corpse in Natasha’s shop. It had grains, flour, and nuts, the dry foods he needed. He went in.

  A portable radio sat on a shelf, with a copper wire attached to the aerial for better reception. He jumped to it. His fingers trembled as he turned the dial. The batteries were dead. He ripped open a new packet and inserted a pair into the radio, then he tried again. At first, he only got static. He turned the dial until he heard music, the sweet voice of Juliana crooning Nabikowa. The signal was fuzzy, overshadowed by the angry seething of the vampires at the door. He searched for a station with news, but the only one he could pick up was this one playing music.

  That in itself was good news. People were still alive out there. They could afford to listen to Juliana. PGCC hadn’t lied then; their creation could not travel far from its original breeding zone. But how far was that? Japia still wondered.

  He hung the radio around his neck with a rope, so he could listen to it as he worked. He packed maize flour, pounded groundnuts, a carton of milk, a bag of sugar, and a box of batteries. He would have to make several trips to carry more food, but this would be enough to feed them for a few weeks. He was looking around for what else he could take when a voice interrupted the music.

  He listened. Fuzzy. The radio was picking up two stations. He touched the dial and then he got only the voice station, clear and crisp. Two people were talking in foreign accents. It did not sound like the conversations he used to hear on air. When one spoke there was no background noise, but the other had to shout above a steady roar, like that of a milling machine.

  “There’s a bit of wind,” the one in the noisy place said. “H4 won’t spread.”

  “It will,” the other voice said. “Target is two miles away.”

  “Roger that.”

  Wazungu. He had interacted with them on many occasions and could understand them, unlike many in Abedo who had found it difficult to pick up their language. As he wondered about the conversation, a sound grew louder outside. It cut through the seething of the mosquitoes, becoming louder every second, until he thought he could recognize it.

  A helicopter?

  Was he hallucinating?

  He dashed out of the shop, scattering the curtain of mosquitoes, and bounded into the square. He searched the skies, but the giant mvule tree blocked his view. He ran out of the market, he ran until there was no tree to block his view, and then he saw it, a white thing shining in the sky. Coming toward him.

  It was visible for only a few seconds. Miss Doe closed in around him and blocked his view. He ran again, trying to clear the air of the vampire, and he waved. Frantic. Miss Doe danced around him with increasing frenzy, but he noticed that the wall was thinning. She had also seen the helicopter
, and was converging on it.

  “There’s a black cloud just outside the town,” the radio said. Japia recognized the background noise as the roar of the helicopter.

  “It’s him,” the other voice said. “He’s waving at you.”

  A rescue. The tragedy that had befallen his village must have captured news headlines worldwide. They must have been monitoring the area using satellites, or maybe using drones, and they must have seen him riding into town to get food. But how would this helicopter rescue him with Miss Doe gathering around the machine?

  The helicopter now flew in circles, spewing a thick white smoke. At first Japia feared it was in trouble, that maybe the mosquitoes had gotten into the engine and caused it to malfunction. His only hope was about to crash. However, unlike normal smoke, the fume did not rise into the air. It fell to the ground like a solid object, and rolled over the grass like a cloud. It provoked tears out of his eyes, but the wet cloth on his nose prevented him from breathing it in.

  Almost at once, the buzz of Miss Doe relented. Japia thought the smoke was insecticide, until he saw Miss Doe shooting to the sky in pillars, and then gathering to form a huge cloud that wiped out the sky. It was only a repellent.

  “What’s happening?” the radio crackled. “We lost the video.”

  “Where is the drone?”

  “The bugs have blocked our view. We can’t see anything.”

  “They cleared the area. We are going down.”

  “Roger that. Be quick.”

  The chopper touched down. He could barely see it through the smoke. The engine shut down. The buzz of Miss Doe was faint, but still eerie coming from the sky.

  As he started toward the helicopter, four men came running out of the mist. They wore protective white clothing that covered every inch of their bodies. Each had a small tank on the back, and a spray muzzle in one hand. Emblazoned on their breasts were four letters, in bright green, PGCC. Japia’s legs turned to water. These men worked for PGCC, the people who brought this apocalypse to his village. It was not a rescue.