Between Here and There

Three days after we buried my father, he walked into our living room, dropped his car keys on the table, and asked why his food wasn’t ready.

For a few seconds, no one moved.

The broom slipped from my hand and hit the floor.
Mummy turned slowly from the kitchen doorway, her wrapper half-tied, her eyes wide like she was seeing something from a dream.
My younger brother, Chike, sat cross-legged by the TV, polishing his school shoes. He looked up, blinked twice, and whispered, “Daddy?”

The man standing there looked exactly like him — the same broad shoulders, the same scar on his left cheek, even the same wristwatch he used to wear before the accident.
Only now he had a fresh cut under his right eye and a strange black watch on his wrist that blinked faintly, like light from a phone screen.

Mummy screamed and collapsed before anyone could hold her.
Chike ran to the corner, crying.
I didn’t move. I just stood there, staring at him.

He was wearing the same white shirt he had worn the day we took his body to the mortuary — only this one was clean, ironed, and smelled faintly of petrol.

“Ezinne,” he said, his voice calm, tired, like someone returning from a long journey. “Is there no food in this house again?”

I couldn’t answer. My mouth refused to move.

He looked around as though nothing was wrong, adjusted the curtain by the window, and sighed when he saw the dust on the table.
Then, like it was the most normal thing in the world, he dropped into his old chair and leaned back. That same chair we had pushed aside when we cleared the sitting room after the condolence visits.

“Daddy,” I finally whispered, shaking. “We buried you.”

He smiled — small, quiet. “I know.”

The words rolled out so casually they made my skin go cold.

1. The Man Who Came Back

The accident had happened on a Friday — a head-on collision on the expressway. They said he died instantly.
The funeral was quick. There wasn’t much body left to show.
The black Camry he was driving had been taken to the mechanic’s yard, the engine a twisted mess of metal.

And yet, here he was. Sitting in our living room, alive.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

He looked at me for a long time, his eyes calm but distant, like he was remembering something far away.
“Somewhere between here and there,” he said softly. “But I made it back.”

Mummy stirred on the floor, murmuring prayers under her breath.
I wanted to help her up, but my legs felt heavy.
Chike stood near the doorway, watching him with wet eyes.

Then we heard it — the sound of a car engine outside.
I went to the window.
Daddy’s black Toyota Camry, the same one we parked at the mechanic’s after the accident, was now sitting in the compound, its engine still running.

When I turned back, he was humming — that old church hymn he used to sing on Sunday mornings: When the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there…

The light on his wrist blinked in rhythm with the tune.

2. The First Night

We didn’t sleep.

Mummy stayed in her room, clutching her Bible, whispering psalms until her voice went hoarse.
Chike crawled into my bed, trembling, his little hands gripping my arm.

“Ezi,” he whispered. “Is Daddy… a ghost?”

I didn’t know what to tell him.
Outside, the Camry’s engine ran all night, purring softly like a heartbeat that refused to stop.

By morning, the living room was empty.
The chair where he had sat was still warm.

Then the smell hit me — petrol and something else, something metallic, sharp. It filled the whole house.

When I stepped outside, I saw him in the backyard, watering the plants.
The same plants Mummy had forgotten since the funeral.

He turned, smiling. “They were dying,” he said. “I had to help.”

“Daddy,” I whispered, “you’re not supposed to be here.”

He smiled again, and the light on his wrist blinked brighter. “And yet, here I am.”

3. The Village Elder

By noon, half the neighborhood had heard the rumors.
Our compound filled with whispers and frightened faces.

Mummy called Pa Uche, the village elder and the church deacon, to come and pray.
When he arrived, Daddy greeted him like an old friend.
“Ah, Pa Uche! You’re still walking the earth?” he said, laughing.

The old man’s face drained of color.
He sprinkled holy water and muttered under his breath, “This is not the man you buried. This one walked from the other side.”

Mummy began crying again.
“Please, Papa, help us send it away!”

But Daddy just stood there, calm, his hands in his pockets. “Send me away?” he asked quietly. “After everything I’ve done for this family?”

“Leave this house!” the elder commanded. “Go back where you came from!”

For a moment, the air seemed to hum — low, electric.
The light on Daddy’s wrist flickered red.
The glass on the table cracked.

Pa Uche stumbled backward. “This is abomination!” he shouted. “If he stays, death will visit again!”

Then he ran out into the street.

4. The Video

That night, while everyone else was hiding in their rooms, I took Daddy’s phone from the drawer where we had kept his things.
It was still there — fully charged, though we hadn’t touched it since the funeral.

Inside, there was a video.
Timestamp: the night of the accident.

I pressed play.

The screen showed Daddy driving, singing that same church hymn.
Then, the headlights of an oncoming truck — a blinding flash — the sound of shattering glass.
After a long silence, the camera tilted sideways.
Smoke filled the frame.

And then — a whisper.
A faint, distorted voice from somewhere near the phone.
It wasn’t human.
It said, “Return complete.”

The screen went black.

5. The Third Day

By the third day of his return, Mummy refused to eat.
She sat in her room, fasting, chanting prayers.
Chike hadn’t spoken a word since the morning the elder left.

Daddy, meanwhile, acted like nothing was wrong.
He fixed the leaking tap, mowed the grass, even ironed his shirts.
He laughed at the TV like a normal person.

But there were little things — things that didn’t make sense.

He never blinked.
His reflection in the mirror lagged behind by a second.
And every night, at exactly 3:12 a.m., the blinking light on his wrist glowed bright blue, and he would walk out of the house toward the running car.

I followed him once.
He sat in the driver’s seat, eyes closed, his body trembling faintly.
Through the half-open window, I heard him whisper:
“Transmission stable. Phase two complete.”

6. The Stranger’s Call

I didn’t sleep again after that.
The next evening, my phone rang — an unknown number.

“Is this Ezinne Okafor?” a woman’s voice asked.

“Yes?”

“This is Dr. Mendes from the Lagos Institute of Neurological Research. Your father was part of a government-approved volunteer program before he died.”

“What kind of program?”

She hesitated. “It was experimental — testing a neural backup system. We implanted a micro-device to record memory patterns. It was supposed to activate only in a controlled lab environment after death.”

My heart pounded. “What do you mean activate?”

Her voice dropped. “You said he came back, didn’t you?”

Silence.

Then: “Listen carefully. If the signal on his wrist is still blinking, it means the system’s running a continuous loop — trying to stabilize. If it completes the loop, it will override everything left of his original consciousness.”

“Override?” I whispered.

“He won’t be your father anymore.”

The line went dead.

7. The Confrontation

That night, the air felt wrong — too still, too thick.

Daddy sat in his chair again, eyes closed, humming. The light on his wrist blinked faster now, pulsing like a heartbeat on fire.

I stepped closer. “Daddy?”

His eyes opened slowly.
But there was something new in them — not warmth, not even recognition. Just emptiness.

“Ezinne,” he said, voice flat, mechanical. “Why are you afraid?”

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I whispered.

He tilted his head. “I came back for you.”

“For us?”

“For the project.”

He stood up, towering over me. “They promised I could finish what I started. They said death wouldn’t stop me.”

The light turned blood red.

“Daddy, please—”

Then he grabbed my arm. His skin was warm, but the grip was inhumanly strong.
“You’ll come with me,” he said. “You’ll see. They can bring you too.”

Mummy burst from her room, holding a Bible.
“Leave her alone, demon!” she shouted, slamming holy water on his chest.

He screamed — not like a man, but like static through a radio.
His body convulsed, and for a moment, his face flickered — like a glitch on a screen.
Beneath the human skin, something metallic shimmered.

He stumbled backward, clutching his chest, gasping.
“Ezinne…” he whispered. “Help me.”

Then the light went dark.

8. The Last Drive

We thought it was over.

But just before dawn, we heard it again — the hum of the car engine outside.

I ran to the window.
The Camry’s headlights glowed in the darkness, cutting through the fog.
The driver’s seat was empty.

I stepped outside, barefoot, the wet grass cold under my feet.
The car door swung open on its own.

On the passenger seat sat the black wrist device, blinking faintly.
Next to it, a folded note in my father’s handwriting:

“They wouldn’t let me rest.
Keep this away from them.
When the light stops, bury it.
Not me — it.”

The engine roared one last time, then died.

When I picked up the device, it was warm — pulsing softly, like a living heart.
Then, for just a second, I heard his voice — faint, trembling, human.

“Ezinne… tell your mother I made it back. Just not the way I thought.”

And the light went out.

9. Epilogue

We buried the device at the edge of the compound, beside the mango tree.
The Camry disappeared the next day — no tracks, no sound, as if it had driven itself away.

The house is quiet now.
Mummy prays less but still refuses to sit in that chair.
Chike doesn’t talk about that night, but sometimes I catch him staring at his wrist, counting the seconds, listening for a hum that isn’t there.

As for me — sometimes, when the power goes out and the generator hums back to life, I swear I hear a familiar voice singing faintly through the static:

When the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there…

And every time I hear it, I whisper into the dark,

“Daddy, please don’t come back again.”