AN INVITATION TO THE MARKET OF THE DEAD🥀💀__#55

I have never believed in ghosts until the night I followed the masquerade.

In my village in Nnewi, they tell children not to go out on the night of October 31st. Not because of Halloween — we don't celebrate Halloween like oyibo people — but because that is the night the old masquerades come out to chase away bad spirits before the new yam festival.

My grandmother called it "Ilo Mmuo" - The Night of Spirits.

"On that night," she would say, pressing my head, "if you hear drum, don't look. If you hear someone call your name behind you, don't answer. If you see light in the bush, don't follow."

I was 19. I laughed. I was doing Yahoo school in Onitsha then, I thought I knew everything. I thought ghosts were for old women.

That year, October 31st fell on a Saturday. My friends and I were coming back from watching ball at one viewing center in Nkwo. It was around 11pm, NEPA had taken light, everywhere was dark. The road that leads to our compound passes through one old abandoned primary school — Community Primary School Nnewi. No child goes there again because the roof fell.

As we were walking, we heard it.

Gbim... Gbim... Gbim...

A slow drum. Deep, like it was coming from inside the ground.

Then we saw light. Small lights, like lanterns, inside the school compound. Plenty of them. Moving.

My friend Obinna whispered, "Guy, make we run."

But I, foolish me, said, "Na hunters. Make we go see."

Pride. That is what kills young boys in Igbo stories.

We moved closer to the fence. What we saw froze my blood.

There were people — or things that looked like people — wearing white, walking in a line inside the school. Their heads were not normal. Some had no heads at all. Some had calabash for head with fire inside it. Like jack-o-lantern that oyibo people carve, but this one was real, with fire coming out of eyes and mouth.

And they were not touching ground. They were floating, few inches above the wet grass.

Then one of them turned and looked directly at me. Even though it had no eyes, I felt it see me.

It called my name.

"Amaka... Amaka... come."

My name is Amaka. My friends did not hear it. Only me.

My legs started walking by themselves. I wanted to shout, I wanted to run, but my mouth was locked. I left Obinna and followed the lights into the school.

The moment I entered the compound, everywhere changed.

It was no longer the abandoned school. It was a market. A big, noisy market in the night, full of people buying and selling, but all of them had that same pumpkin fire head. They were speaking, but their voice was like wind inside bottle.

One old woman with fire head pulled me. She had wrappers that were dripping water.

"You are early," she said. "Your people said you will come next year."

I wanted to say "I don't understand," but no voice came out.

She led me to one stall. On the stall, there were pictures. My picture. My mother's picture. My father's picture. And a small black casket.

"Choose one," she said.

I started crying inside my mind. I remembered my grandmother's warning: "If you hear someone call your name behind you, don't answer."

I had answered with my legs.

Suddenly, from far, I heard real human voice shouting.

"Amaka Amaka! WHERE YOU DEY?!"

It was Obinna. He was outside the fence with torchlight, shouting my name, but he was too afraid to enter.

That shout was like rope that pulled me.

I used all my power and shouted back, "OBINNA!"

The second I shouted, all the lights turned to face me. The market froze. The drumming stopped.

And then they screamed. Not human scream — like plenty cats being burnt.

Everything scattered.

I found myself lying on the ground inside the real abandoned school, alone, clothes full of mud and dead leaves. No market. No lights. Just darkness and that slow Gbim... Gbim... drum fading into the bush.

Obinna pulled me up and we ran like mad people until we reached my compound. My grandmother was already at the door, holding lamp, as if she knew.

She did not ask where I went. She just poured water with salt on my head and said, "I told you. Some nights, the dead do their own market. You almost bought from them."

I had fever for 7 days after that. I was seeing fire heads in my dream. My mother took me to church, to herbalist, to everything.

Until today, I have never passed that school at night again. Even when NEPA takes light and I need to go buy recharge card, I will take longer road.

Some people will say it was hallucination. That we smoked something.

But Obinna saw the lights too. And till today, if you go to that school compound in the morning after October 31st, you will see fresh footprints that are not human — round, burnt marks on the grass, like pumpkin bottoms.

And if you listen well, you will still hear small Gbim... Gbim...

So when oyibo people say Halloween is spooky because of jack-o-lantern that comes to life, I laugh.

We have our own spooky. Our own jack-o-lanterns don't need costume. They have been here before Halloween came.

And they know your name.

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IMAGE IS AI GENERATED
Prompt: The Inkwell Combined Writing Prompt #55 - Spooky
Community: The Ink Well
Fiction - Igbo Halloween / Market of Spirits
#theinkwell #spooky #fiction #halloween #igbo #nigerianfolklore #jackolantern #creativewriting #hive-naija