Travel gone wrong

There’s a reason I stopped travelling to Calabar at night, and till today, my mum still doesn’t know the real story.

I’ve wanted to talk about this for years, but every time I tried, I remembered the warning we were given after that journey.

“Whatever happened on that road, leave it there.”

At the time, I took that warning seriously.

Maybe because all of us were scared.

Maybe because none of us could explain what happened.

But it has been years now.

And honestly, sometimes I wonder if keeping quiet was even the right thing to do.

I was schooling in Calabar then, University of Calabar to be precise.

I’m from the West, so going back to school was always one long journey. Anybody who has travelled from Ibadan to Calabar by road knows it’s not something you do without preparing your mind.

You leave early and still somehow find yourself on the road when evening comes.

That particular morning, my mum woke me up before my alarm.

As usual.

She had already packed food.

So much that the guys at the park knew me for my food bag.

Then she started with her normal instructions.

“Call me when una move.”

“Keep your bag well.”

“Don’t sleep anyhow.”

“Don’t collect anything from anybody.”

“Mummy, I know.”

“You people always know until something happens.”

I laughed.

If only I knew.

I got to the park early, but of course the bus didn’t leave immediately.

We had to wait for passengers.

By the time we eventually moved, everybody had already arranged themselves.

I was sitting somewhere in the middle, by the window.

There was a lady beside me.

In front of us was a man travelling with two boys.

One looked maybe seven or eight.

The younger one couldn’t have been more than five.

There was also a corps member, he gisted us that she had paid for direct posting but it didn’t work.

Two older women, they were religious maybe even pastors wives lol.

One man who slept like he had paid specifically to sleep from Ibadan to Calabar.

A young couple.

Then a few other people I honestly don’t remember anymore.

The driver was one of those drivers who liked talking.

Anytime we stopped, he would complain about how long people were taking.

“Madam, na Calabar we dey go o, no be next street.”

Everything was normal.

We stopped a few times, at Ore we spent almost an hour.

People bought food.

One woman complained that the AC was too much.

Another person complained when the driver switched it off.

One man started preaching at some point.

Nobody told him to stop, but you know that thing where suddenly everybody starts looking outside the window or pretending to sleep.

It was that kind of journey.

My mum called me several times.

“Funke, where una don reach?”

“Mummy, I don’t know.”

“How can you not know where you are?”

“I’m inside bus now. When we stop I’ll ask.”

Later she called again.

“Funke, where una don reach now?”

“Mummy, we’re still going.”

“Ah ah, since morning?”

I laughed.

“Mummy, Calabar no near now.”

She told me to call her when we got closer.

That was the last normal phone call I had that day.

It was already getting towards evening when we met some vehicles slowing down ahead.

At first we thought it was traffic.

Then we saw a man standing by the roadside wearing one of those reflective jackets.

He came over to our driver.

They spoke for a while.

I had one earpiece in, so I wasn’t really following the conversation.

Then our driver turned to us.

He said a tanker had fallen ahead and blocked the road.

Everybody started complaining.

“How long?”

“Can we pass?”

“Driver, you know another road?”

The man outside told him there was a shortcut.

According to him, if we followed it, we would join the main road again in about thirty minutes.

Two vehicles ahead of us had already turned into the road.

That was why our driver agreed.

I remember looking at the road before we entered.

Honestly, nothing about it looked special.

Just one rough reddish road going into bush.

And if you’ve travelled around Nigeria enough, that alone won’t scare you.

We entered.

For maybe the first ten or fifteen minutes, we could still see the two vehicles ahead.

Then eventually, we stopped seeing them.

Nobody thought anything of it.

They probably drove faster.

The road was bad, so our driver wasn’t moving very fast.

At some point I checked my phone.

6:42pm.

No network.

I sighed because I knew my mum would start calling again.

The lady beside me asked,

“What’s the time?”

“6:42.”

She nodded.

We continued.

After what felt like maybe twenty or thirty minutes, she asked again.

I checked.

6:42.

I tapped my screen.

Still 6:42.

I thought my phone had frozen.

I locked it and opened it again.

Same thing.

Then I restarted it.

When it came back on, it was still showing 6:42.

I turned to the lady beside me.

“My phone is hanging.”

She checked hers.

Her face changed a little.

“Mine too.”

She showed me.

6:42.

The corps member sitting across from us heard.

He checked his own phone.

6:42.

That was how other people started checking.

Every single phone.

6:42.

Someone brought out a small wristwatch.

6:42.

One of the older women checked hers.

Same thing.

The driver looked at the dashboard.

6:42.

One man laughed.

“Na network.”

Another person said,

“Which kind network dey control wristwatch?”

People laughed, but it wasn’t really funny anymore.

The driver told us not to worry.

He said once we got back to the main road everything would correct itself.

That was when one of the older women asked him,

“Driver, how long have we been on this road?”

He said maybe forty minutes.

Someone behind shouted,

“Forty minutes ke? We don pass one hour.”

Another person agreed.

Nobody really knew.

The only thing we knew was that it was supposed to be a thirty-minute shortcut and the road was still going.

The bush on both sides was thick.

No houses.

No shops.

No motorcycles.

Nothing.

Then we saw the woman.

She was standing by the roadside.

White blouse.

Wrapper.

A yellow basin on her head.

One of the older women said,

“Driver, ask this woman where we dey now.”

The driver started slowing down.

Then the second older woman suddenly said,

“Don’t stop.”

The driver looked at her through the mirror.

“Mummy?”

“Just drive.”

People started complaining.

“Ah ah.”

“Let him ask now.”

“Madam, we are lost.”

She didn’t argue with anybody.

She just said,

“If you want to ask her, ask from inside the bus.”

That statement made me look at her properly.

The driver wound his glass down.

“Mummy, abeg…”

The woman by the road turned and looked at the bus.

I still remember her face because there was absolutely nothing scary about it.

She looked normal.

That was somehow worse.

The driver asked where the road led.

She didn’t answer.

She just looked at him.

Then at all of us.

The older woman said,

“Driver, move.”

The driver drove off.

I looked back through the window.

The woman was still standing there.

The yellow basin was still on her head.

Maybe another thirty minutes passed.

Or one hour.

I honestly don’t know.

Every time anybody checked the time:

6:42.

Then we saw her again.

Same white blouse.

Same wrapper.

Same yellow basin.

This time she was standing ahead of us.

Nobody asked the driver to stop.

One man said,

“Maybe na another woman.”

The corps member said,

“With the same basin?”

Nobody answered.

The driver increased speed.

The woman didn’t even look surprised when we passed her.

She just watched us.

That was around the time the younger of the two boys started crying.

His father asked what was wrong.

The boy kept looking behind us.

“Daddy.”

“What?”

“There’s somebody there.”

His father turned.

“Where?”

The boy pointed towards the back of the bus.

We all looked.

Nothing.

His father told him to stop.

The boy continued crying.

Then he said,

“She entered.”

I remember the older woman turning immediately.

“Who entered?”

The father got annoyed.

“Madam, leave him. He’s tired.”

But the woman didn’t take her eyes off the boy.

She asked again.

“Who entered?”

The child wouldn’t answer.

He buried his face against his father.

That was when the two older women started whispering to each other.

I couldn’t hear everything.

Then one of them brought out a small bottle of anointing oil from her handbag.

The corps member tried to joke.

“Mummy, don’t start o.”

Nobody laughed.

She rubbed some on her forehead.

Passed it to the other woman.

Then she asked the driver something.

“How many passengers did you carry from Ibadan?”

The driver told her.

She counted us.

Then counted again.

I don’t remember the exact number anymore.

But I remember her face.

She counted a third time.

Then told her friend to count.

Her friend did.

The driver asked,

“What?”

She said,

“Nothing.”

That “nothing” was enough to make everybody uncomfortable.

One passenger asked her,

“Mummy, talk now.”

She didn’t answer him.

Instead, she told everybody,

“If anybody calls your name from outside this bus, don’t answer.”

People started protesting.

“Who will call us?”

“Outside where?”

She repeated herself.

“Just don’t answer.”

At that point, I was officially scared.

Not long after, we started hearing music.

Very faint at first.

Drums.

Singing.

I thought maybe there was a village nearby.

The lady beside me removed her earpiece.

“You can hear it?”

I nodded.

Apparently everybody could.

The sound kept getting louder.

Not modern music.

It sounded like people singing together.

There was clapping.

Drumming.

Sometimes we could hear laughter.

But there was still nothing around us except bush.

No houses.

No lights.

Nothing.

The driver kept going.

Then we finally saw lights ahead.

Plenty of them.

Somebody actually shouted,

“Thank God.”

It looked like a small roadside market.

Women sitting beside lanterns.

Food on tables.

People standing around.

A few children.

For the first time in hours, I felt relieved.

At least there were people.

The driver started slowing down.

The older woman shouted,

“Don’t stop!”

This time even I was annoyed.

“Mummy, but there are people there.”

She pointed ahead.

“Look well.”

So we looked.

There were maybe twenty people.

But nobody was buying anything.

Nobody was talking.

Nobody was moving around normally.

They were just there.

Some standing.

Some sitting.

All facing the road.

One by one, they started turning towards our bus.

I felt something move inside my stomach.

Then I saw the woman with the yellow basin.

She was sitting among them.

Same face.

Except this time she was wearing red.

The driver stepped on the accelerator.

As we passed the place, someone called,

“Funke.”

My whole body reacted before my brain did.

It was my mum’s voice.

Exactly.

Not something that sounded similar.

My mum.

“Funke.”

I turned towards the window.

The older woman grabbed my wrist.

“Don’t answer!”

I looked at her.

Then I heard it again.

“Funke, where una don reach?”

I swear to God, that was exactly what my mum had said to me on the phone earlier.

My mouth opened.

I nearly said “Mummy.”

The older woman covered my mouth.

“Don’t.”

Then all hell broke loose inside that bus.

The man behind us started looking around.

“My wife is calling me.”

The corps member said somebody was calling his nickname.

One of the children started screaming,

“Mummy! Mummy!”

His father grabbed him.

The boy’s mother wasn’t in that bus.

Someone started praying loudly.

Another woman started speaking in tongues.

The driver was shouting at everybody to calm down while he himself looked terrified.

The voices followed us.

Calling.

Different names.

Different voices.

People we knew.

Then suddenly they stopped.

Just like that.

No music.

No drums.

Nothing.

Only the sound of the bus.

I checked my phone.

6:42.

One of the men shouted,

“This thing no normal again.”

By then, we had been driving for hours.

You could feel it.

My back hurt.

I had eaten again.

One of the boys had slept, woken up and was already sleepy again.

The driver said there was no way we had been on that road for less than four or five hours.

Yet the fuel gauge had barely moved.

Every phone still showed the same time.

6:42.

That was when the older woman told the driver,

“The next time you see that woman, stop.”

Everybody shouted at once.

“Stop for what?”

“No!”

“Mummy, please!”

Even the driver refused.

She said,

“If we keep passing her, we will keep going.”

Nobody knew how she knew that.

Someone asked her.

She only said,

“My grandmother used to talk about things like this.”

The driver asked,

“So what should we do?”

She looked at the younger boy.

The one who had said somebody entered.

Then she said,

“We need to know whether everybody inside this bus entered with us.”

That sentence silenced everybody.

She brought out the anointing oil again.

She asked everyone to remain seated.

Then she walked slowly from the front of the bus to the back.

As she passed each row, she touched the top of the seat and whispered something.

When she reached the last row, she stopped.

There was one empty seat there.

The middle seat.

Nobody had sat there since Ibadan.

At least that was what I remembered.

She stood there for a while.

Then she came back to the front.

The corps member asked,

“Mummy, wetin you see?”

She said,

“Driver, when you see that woman again, stop beside her.”

Not too long after, we saw her.

For the third time.

White blouse.

Wrapper.

Yellow basin.

Standing ahead.

The driver slowed down.

Nobody spoke.

As we got closer, the older woman told him,

“Don’t look at her face.”

She told all of us the same thing.

The bus stopped.

The woman was right outside.

I kept my eyes down.

The older woman wound the window down slightly.

Then she asked,

“Which one entered with us?”

Silence.

She asked again.

“Which one entered with us?”

The younger boy started crying immediately.

Not ordinary crying.

He started screaming.

His father held him.

The woman outside lifted one hand.

The older woman looked towards the back.

So did everybody else.

The empty seat.

The seatbelt was fastened.

Nobody remembered fastening it.

The older woman told the driver,

“Open the door.”

People started begging her.

“Mummy please.”

“Abeg don’t open anything.”

She ignored us.

The driver opened the door.

Nothing happened.

We waited.

Five seconds.

Maybe ten.

Then the bus moved slightly.

Like someone had just stepped down.

The kind of movement you feel when a heavy passenger comes out of a bus.

Then we heard the seatbelt at the back.

Click.

It opened by itself.

Someone screamed.

The older woman shouted,

“Drive!”

The driver moved immediately.

Nobody looked back.

I don’t know how long we drove after that.

Maybe ten minutes.

Maybe less.

Then suddenly there were headlights ahead.

A trailer passed us.

Then another car.

Then another.

We were back on the main road.

My phone vibrated.

I looked at it.

11:48pm.

Network.

Messages started entering.

Missed calls.

WhatsApp.

SMS.

My mum called almost immediately.

“Funke!”

“Mummy.”

“Where una don reach? I’ve been calling you since!”

I started crying.

Not serious crying.

That kind of crying that just comes because your body has been holding too much.

She kept asking what happened.

I told her there was no network.

Which was true.

Just not the full truth.

According to normal time, we had been inside that place for more than five hours.

But as far as every clock inside that bus was concerned, not one minute had passed until we came out.

Nobody had disappeared for days.

Nobody was declared missing.

To everyone outside, we had simply been unreachable for a few hours.

That made it even harder to explain.

We reached a police checkpoint not too long after.

The driver stopped.

He told the officers what had happened.

At first, they thought he was saying we were attacked.

Then he explained the diversion.

One of the officers asked where exactly we entered.

The driver described the place.

The policeman frowned.

“There’s no road there.”

The driver started arguing.

“We just came from there.”

The officer called another policeman.

They listened to the story.

Then one of them said there used to be a road around that area years ago, but part of it had washed away and the entrance had been covered by bush.

Our driver kept insisting.

Eventually, one officer walked behind our bus with a torch.

We all looked too.

There was no road behind us.

Just bush.

I’m not talking about a narrow road that was hard to see.

There was nothing.

The two older women didn’t look surprised.

That was when some of us started asking them what they knew.

The woman with the anointing oil said she didn’t know exactly what happened.

She only said there were stories people used to tell when she was younger about certain roads.

Sometimes travellers entered and came out somewhere else.

Sometimes they kept moving without going anywhere.

And sometimes...

something entered with them.

Someone asked her what had entered our bus.

She looked towards the back seat.

Then said,

“It has gone.”

That should have been the end of it.

But it wasn’t.

The police took our details.

They told us not to go back looking for the road.

One officer even said,

“If anybody asks you where you passed, tell them the driver missed his way. Don’t go and start telling people stories they will use against you.”

Later, another man spoke to our driver separately.

I don’t know who he was.

He wasn’t in uniform.

Before we left, he told all of us almost the same thing.

Don’t go searching for the road.

Don’t try to return there.

Don’t speak to strangers who contact us about the journey.

And if anybody asked questions, we should say the driver lost his way.

I didn’t need anybody to warn me twice.

We continued to Calabar.

For the rest of that journey, nobody really spoke.

Even the children were quiet.

When I finally got to school, I called my mum.

She wanted the full story.

I told her the driver entered the wrong road and we lost network for hours.

That was all.

For years, I left it like that.

Then one day, I was going through an old email account looking for something else.

I saw an email I had sent to myself on the day of that journey.

No subject.

Just one attachment.

I opened it.

It was a picture from earlier that afternoon.

We had just entered the shortcut when I took this picture, so I decided to share what actually happened that day.

Till today, anytime I travel and a driver says,

“There’s a shortcut.”

I don’t care how bad the traffic is.

I don’t care how long the other road will take.

I will be the first person inside that bus to say:

“Driver, abeg stay on the main road.”

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