#HauntedHotel Entry Eight - Notiki Bello

We are slipping through the web of our own panic. We emerge from the belly of blackness that had swallowed us moments ago onto what now appear like the shelter we seek. We worry if they would allow us into their premises with this hastily constructed plank leaning on our weak shoulders.

Ba Wale had charged us twenty thousand to carry us in his Fedeco. A trip that would have cost five thousand. He said carrying posi at night was not something for the fainthearted. We would travel through Osogbo, Ilesa, Offa until we reach Oro. We must reach Oro before 8am the next morning if we must perform the rites the way we ought to. We are close yet we are faraway. The driver had slept on the wheel, leaving us to find our way.

'An le o, kini matise fun dede yin ni ida yi?' The voice lilts into our ears, too sweet to be coming from the person approaching us as we discern his frame. The man is clad in an attire that appeared milky in the starlight; he speaks a dialect of Yoruba that is different from the one we are familiar with; his eyes roll with each word he croons as if to trace the efficacy of the word as it lands inside the ears of its hearer. Ebora. We are poised.

Two weeks ago, Ba Nuru woke and pissed blood instead of piss. His head felt lighter than paper and his legs were not his own any longer. He thought it was his own eyes doing film trick on him as it had always done after shots of shepe from Iya Biliki. It was an ominous sign. Now, Ba Nuru is a corpse and we (I, Boda Saidi, Ba Moria, and Ba Isiaka) are taking him to Oro, his hometown, to lay him down to rest.

The building the man comes out from is styled the colonial way. There is an 'H' and 'T' with unusual space in-between. We conclude that the other letters had probably dropped off as the building aged: everything about it is ancient; the pillars; the concrete railings; the washed off coatings; Boda Saidi says this building is nearing its end in the way of Ba Nuru. Oldman, Ba Moria, snaps, Ma ever mock oku laye e mo! The man with the rolling eyes has not noticed – or that he removed his eyes from – the posi we are carrying. Instead, he motions us toward the reception and handed us a register that smelt like five-day ogi to write our names. Ba Moria peels off one thousand two hundred naira from his wallet and settles our hotel bill.

We left Ba Wale huddling over his steering. It was not our fault. We tried to jar him awake. He only stirred, the scent of taba and kolanut he had snuffed and chewed – to keep him alert and awake – wafting into our nostrils. Boda Saidi could have taken the wheel, but he was not familiar with the road, even the vehicle: the ignition was a maze of twirled multi-coloured wires that no one could use, except the owner. Early in the morning, we will return to the vehicle and proceed to our destination.

The sight of spirogyra on the floor of the bathtub tips me over and I'm starting to vomit. Boda Saidi asks me is there a problem. Silence. He tells me he is seeing a shadow. But he is not sure if the shadow is mine or his. I am finding it difficult to articulate my reply; something is pumping at my throat as though trying to squeeze air out of it. Relief. My voice is beginning to locate me again. I exit the bathroom.

I cannot see the shadows Boda Saidi, my hotel room partner and older cousin, is claiming to see. He is sweating under the powered thrum of the ceiling fan. I am thinking something is surely wrong with him. Then I see something myself. A white cloth. It is drifting. Toward me. I raise alarm. How can you not see this white cloth! We are not seeing the same thing: when he sees this, I see that.

The light in the room flickers. The room is overcome by the yelps of wolves and toots of owls and the clang of metals until the cacophony climax into ululations of a group of Banbianla. Saidi’s voice is coming out in soft bursts. Ina lohun e. That as I open my mouth it sends a ball of heat down his throat and settles as chill in his tummy almost setting him afire. The madness has torn us from each other: his hideout superimposed by dim light as fragile as film; mine, a darkness as hefty as death. A sudden laughter sends us scampering out of our hideouts, bumping into one another in the process. I rub at my temple, it is uneven and sore.

A wa gbe bayi. It is my cousin’s voice. There is a hint of everything in his voice except happiness, hope and their very own siblings. If he is wondering what is happening to Ba Moria and Ba Isiaka I am wondering the same, too. But we do not state anything expressly to each other. The terror of our predicament is our only means of communication. We are silent, yet our voices are roaring.

Ko! Ko! Ka! We hear footsteps, that only wooden feet could make, approach us. I shriek, Boda Saidi joins, too. An agglomeration of shrieks. A convergence of frights. We do not care about anything again, but for our chances of making it out of this place the way we had come in.

• Written by Notiki Bello