Time stopped. The sound of the creaking floorboard echoed in the sudden, absolute silence of the flat, expanding to fill every corner of the darkness. It was an answer to Ben's whispered question, but not the one they had prayed for. It was a sound of presence, of weight, of life. And in this new world, any life that wasn't their own was a potential threat.
Adekunle's blood ran cold. He felt the fine hairs on his arms stand on end. His breath hitched in his throat. Beside him, he felt his uncle go utterly rigid, a statue carved from tension. The faint moonlight filtering through the living room window did nothing to penetrate the profound darkness of the hallway where they stood. They were blind, and they were not alone.
Ben's hand shot out and gripped Adekunle's arm, a silent command. Stay. Then, he moved. Not forward, but backward, pressing them both against the solid reassurance of the front door they had just locked. It was the only defensible position in the hallway. Anyone coming at them would have to come down the narrow corridor, silhouetted against the faint light from the living room.
Adekunle's mind, which had been a storm of fear and adrenaline, went eerily quiet. A single, sharp thought cut through the fog: The file. He shifted the grip on the heavy steel tool, turning it so the sharpened point faced forward. It no longer felt alien. In the space of a heartbeat, it had become a part of his hand, an extension of his will to survive. The weight was no longer clumsy; it was reassuring.
Who was it? One of the men from downstairs? Had one of them slipped past and made his way up here while they were circling the block? Had he been here all along, waiting patiently in the dark for the flat's occupants to return? The thought was paralyzing. They had walked right into a trap, their own home twisted into a cage with the predator already inside.
A faint shuffle came from the direction of the bedroom. A soft, dragging sound. Whoever it was, they were moving. Slowly. Cautiously. They were listening, just as Adekunle and Ben were listening. A predator sensing another predator in its territory.
Ben leaned his head close to Adekunle, his lips brushing his nephew's ear. His whisper was so low it was more a vibration than a sound. "The kitchen is to your left. When I move, you go there. Block the doorway."
Adekunle understood. The kitchen had only one entrance. It was a dead end, but a defensible one. From there, he could prevent anyone from getting behind his uncle.
Ben held up three fingers, barely visible in the gloom. He counted down, tapping Adekunle's arm with each number. Three… two… one…
On one, Ben lunged forward, not into the hallway, but into the living room, using the open space to flank the corridor. He was a shadow moving against other shadows, the heavy tyre iron held up and ready. At the same instant, Adekunle dove left, his hands finding the familiar frame of the kitchen doorway. He scrambled inside, his back hitting the cool surface of the refrigerator. He flattened himself against the wall, peering around the edge of the doorframe, the file held in a two-handed grip like a short spear.
His heart was a wild drum against his ribs. The kitchen smelled of garlic and ginger, the ghosts of yesterday's dinner. The familiarity was a bizarre contrast to the life-or-death struggle unfolding in the hall.
"Who is in my house?" Ben's voice boomed, no longer a whisper. It was a roar of righteous fury, the voice of a man whose sanctuary had been violated. He was trying to intimidate, to draw the intruder out.
There was no answer. Only another soft shuffle from the back of the flat.
Ben began to advance, moving slowly down the hall, keeping to the wall, the tyre iron held in front of him. Adekunle watched from his post, every muscle screaming with tension. He was the rear guard. His job was to watch his uncle's back.
The shape appeared at the far end of the hallway, a silhouette against the slightly less profound darkness of the bedroom window. It was human-shaped, but stooped, moving with a strange, uneven gait. It wasn't tall enough to be one of the men from downstairs. It was smaller.
The shape took a hesitant step into the hall. "Ben?" a voice whispered. It was a cracked, terrified sound. A woman's voice.
Adekunle's entire body went slack with a relief so profound it almost buckled his knees.
"Funke!" Ben cried out, his own voice breaking. The tyre iron clattered to the floor. He rushed forward and enveloped the shape in his arms.
It was Aunt Funke. She let out a sob, a sound of pain and release, and collapsed against her husband.
Adekunle stumbled out of the kitchen, the file suddenly feeling heavy and obscene in his hands. He let it drop to the floor, its clang echoing the sound of his uncle's discarded weapon. He moved toward them, his legs unsteady.
In the faint light, he could see her properly now. Her clothes were torn and filthy. One side of her face was swollen and bruised, her eye a puffy, angry slit. There was a crude, bloody bandage wrapped around her forearm. She was leaning on a makeshift crutch—one of the dining room chairs, held upside down, its legs providing support. That was the shuffling sound they had heard.
"Funke, my God, what happened to you? Your face… your arm…" Ben was frantic, his hands fluttering over her, afraid to touch her injuries.
"They were at the market," she sobbed, her words muffled against his chest. "It just… happened. People screaming, falling… Then the fighting started. Everyone fighting… for nothing. For a bag of rice. For water." She took a shuddering breath. "I ran. I just ran. I fell… a man pushed me down… I think my ankle is broken."
She had crawled home. Adekunle felt a surge of awe at her strength. She had crawled through those same nightmare streets, injured and alone, and she had made it.
"And the men downstairs?" Adekunle asked, his voice hoarse.
"They came this afternoon," she said, her voice trembling with fresh fear. "I was hiding. I heard them break the gate. They tried my door, but the locks held. I pushed the big dresser in front of it and went to hide in the bedroom. I heard you at the locks… I thought it was them… that they had finally gotten a key."
The creak had been her, moving from her hiding spot in the wardrobe, ready to defend herself with the only weapon she could find—the heavy iron skillet from the kitchen.
Ben guided her into the living room, settling her gently onto the sofa. The ordeal was over. They were together. They were, for the moment, safe.
Adekunle went around the flat, his movements methodical. He checked every room, every cupboard, not because he thought anyone else was there, but because he needed to reclaim the space, to make it theirs again. He found the heavy skillet on the bedroom floor. He pushed the heavy mahogany dresser back into its rightful place against the wall. When he was done, he returned to the living room.
Ben had found the first-aid kit and was gently unwrapping the dirty bandage from his wife's arm. The cut was deep and ugly. Adekunle went to the kitchen and soaked a clean cloth in water from their emergency supply. The taps were dry. The whole city's infrastructure was dead.
He knelt by the sofa and helped his uncle clean the wound. Funke hissed in pain but didn't pull away. As they worked in the dim moonlight, a fragile sense of normalcy began to return. This, he understood. Tending to a wound. The logical application of antiseptic and bandages.
"We saw them from across the street," Adekunle explained quietly, telling her how they had gotten in. "We thought… we thought you were one of them."
Funke managed a weak, watery smile. "I am tougher than I look, eh?" But the smile vanished as quickly as it came. "Ben, what is happening? Is it the end of the world?"
Ben finished tying off the clean bandage. He looked from his wounded wife to his exhausted nephew, then stared out the window at the faint, orange glow of fires burning in the distance. He looked like a captain on the bridge of a sinking ship, surveying the ruin of his world.
"I don't know what it is," he said, his voice heavy with a weariness that went beyond physical exhaustion. "But I know this. We are on the third floor. Those men are on the ground floor. We have water for a few days, a little food. But we are trapped. This flat is no longer our home."
He looked at Adekunle, his eyes dark with a terrible new understanding.
"It is our prison."