Free That Night in Lagos by Vered Ehsani

bizarrely unperturbed. When she spoke, her voice was level and assured. “Listen well, little girl: there is no place too far or too remote for you to hide. I swear upon the head of Anansi that I will find you and I will consume you limb by limb while you scream and beg me to end your miserable existence. And eventually, I will end it.”
    And then she smiled. Somehow that radiant expression petrified me to my very core more than her threats could. I teetered down the stairs, her words ringing after me. I slipped and slid through puddles of coagulating blood, and staggered around piles of warm corpses. Only when I exited the constabulary’s grounds was my path free of bloodied madness. My legs gained some strength from the clean, salty breeze and I began to run. I didn’t stop running until I reached the abode of Mrs. Pritchard.
    My mind nearly incoherent with terror and images that clung to me like a wet dress, I had barely enough presence of mind to change into clean clothes. Abandoning my bloodied outfit, I hastily grabbed my necessities while shouting at my astonished hostess to ready a carriage to rush me to the port.
    “But my dear,” Mrs. Pritchard protested. “Surely this is a most ill-advised plan, for I doubt there are any ships setting sail for England tonight, or even tomorrow morning.”
    “It matters not,” I sobbed as I sat upon my valise in order to close it. “There is bound to be a ship leaving shortly for somewhere. Anywhere will do.”
    “Goodness, I’m all astonishment. I must protest and implore you to reconsider,” the good lady continued while standing at the doorway and eyeing my frantic efforts to prepare myself for immediate departure. “This is most alarming. Should I send for an apothecary? Or perhaps your nerves would be fortified by a small nip of sherry with an egg mixed in?”
    I declined the doctor and gratefully accepted the offer of the sherry minus the egg, although I feared I would require more than a thimbleful to soothe my frayed nerves. Indeed, Mrs. Pritchard’s alarm increased as I consumed not one but several nips and only then could I present a semblance of coherent thought.
    “I thank you, madam,” I said, my chest still heaving from my mad dash through Lagos and the flurry of tempestuous emotions that wracked my being. “And for your hospitality. Is the carriage prepared?”
    Frowning, she nodded. I could only be grateful that her husband was away, for I was certain if she had another to assist her, she would’ve forcibly insisted I remain until a doctor could attend to me. And what plausible story could I present to such a man? I would be locked away with great rapidity, and without Prof Runal’s influence to mollify the authorities I would remain thus.
    I beseeched Mrs. Pritchard to remain in her room with doors and windows firmly barred against the night, which only exasperated her perturbation. After a hasty farewell, I set out for the port. The horse couldn’t trot fast enough and I anticipated that at any moment, a nightmare would stalk out from a shadowy alley, decapitate the driver and drag me screeching into the night.
    “I shall not scream,” I said firmly to the vision my mind had conjured up. Yet my characteristic confidence was somewhat lacking, even to my own ears.
    Despite the lateness of the hour, there was activity at the port and I marveled how life could continue with such normalcy while not that far away, an atrocity had been perpetrated. Ignoring the lurid comments and whistles from inebriated sailors, I marched into the port master’s office where a sleepy African grew increasingly alarmed at my insistence that he direct me to whatever ship was departing in the morning.
    “But madam,” he said, his eyes peering up at me with consternation, “the captain, he is a-sleeping.”
    “Then awake the captain immediately,” I said in as commanding a voice as I could summon in the situation. “Or I shall tear you limb by limb…”
    The man