The people of Kambari lived by rules older than memory. They tilled the stubborn soil, prayed for rain when the sky turned cruel, and gathered each season to thank their ancestors for survival. But the most important rule was not written on any tablet or carved into any shrine. It was whispered from elder to child in the hush of night, when the moon was swollen and silence thick:
When you hear the drums at midnight, do not go outside.
No one in Kambari needed reminding. The warning was carved into their bones. They had seen what happened to those who broke it.
⸻
Adanna hated the rule.
She was eighteen now, too old to be coddled by superstition. Her friends obeyed without question, whispering prayers before sleep, trembling when the faint echoes rolled through the night. But Adanna lay awake on her mat, restless, heart quickening with each deep thud in the distance.
She asked her mother once, “What makes the sound?”
Her mother went pale and shook her head. “We don’t ask that question.”
Her father muttered only, “The drums belong to those who walk when we should sleep.”
No one told her more. No one ever told anyone more.
And so curiosity festered.
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On the night of her eighteenth birthday, the village held a feast. Women roasted goat, pounding yam until their arms shook. Palm wine flowed. Music and laughter carried into dusk. The elders laid blessings on her, voices heavy with pride, though Adanna barely listened. Her mind was already wandering to midnight.
When the feast dwindled and families returned to their huts, Adanna slipped away to sit by the fire’s dying embers. Her grandmother, old and bent, sat nearby like a shadow. Blind eyes fixed on Adanna, she rasped, “You have your mother’s stubbornness. It will drag you where you should not go.”
Adanna kissed her grandmother’s forehead. “I will be careful.”
But her words were hollow.
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That night, the air was sharp and cold. The stars scattered like broken glass across the sky. Adanna lay on her mat listening, every nerve awake.
Then—BOOM.
The first drumbeat rattled the walls. Dust rained from the thatch above.
BOOM.
The second strike rolled through the earth beneath her mat, sinking into her bones.
Then the rhythm began. BOOM-boom. BOOM-boom-boom. BOOM. A pattern that pulsed and shifted, fast and slow, as though a living heart were forcing hers to follow.
Adanna rose. Her body felt not her own. Each step toward the doorway matched the rhythm, her bare feet thudding softly against the dirt floor. She slipped outside into the silver moonlight.
The village slept, doors barred, shutters tight. Only the wind stirred. But the drumming was louder now, no longer distant—it circled, prowling the huts.
Adanna crept to the edge of the square and pressed herself against the great baobab tree. The shadows stretched long across the ground. Dust rose with each pulse of the drums.
Then she saw them.
Figures.
Tall, crooked, walking in rhythm. Their limbs were stretched too thin, their movements jerky yet perfectly in time. Horns crowned their heads—some antelope, some buffalo, some shapes she couldn’t name. Across their chests hung drums, swollen and dark, beaten not with sticks but with severed hands dangling from their wrists.
Adanna’s breath caught. She clamped a hand over her mouth to stop the scream rising in her throat.
The creatures marched past each hut, pounding their drums, the sound shaking doors, rattling windows. Inside, the villagers stayed silent, praying, clutching charms, pretending sleep.
But when the procession reached the square, they stopped.
The drumming ceased. The silence rang louder than the beat.
One of the horned figures lifted its head, nostrils flaring. Its voice cracked like splitting wood:
“One is watching.”
Adanna froze.
Another, deeper voice answered: “Bring her out.”
Dozens of hollow eyes turned toward the baobab.
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Adanna’s legs betrayed her. She stumbled backward, and the figures surged forward as one. The drumming resumed—faster, harder, furious. The air throbbed with it. Dust whirled into choking clouds.
She ran.
Her feet pounded the dirt in sync with the drums, as though the rhythm controlled her. Her chest burned. She darted between huts, praying they would not hear her, though the drums followed no matter where she turned.
At last she crashed into her own hut, slamming the wooden door shut. Her mother bolted upright. “Adanna! What have you done?”
“They saw me!” she gasped.
Her father’s face drained of blood. He shoved a heavy table against the door. Outside, the drums pounded, shaking the walls. Her younger brothers whimpered, hiding beneath mats.
The grandmother rose slowly from her mat, blind eyes wide with something like sorrow. “You broke the rule,” she whispered. “Now they will not stop.”
The drumming grew unbearable, rattling jars from shelves, splitting the clay walls. A voice hissed from outside, low and many-tongued at once:
“Give her to us. Or we take you all.”
Her mother clutched Adanna, trembling. “No—she is my child!”
Her father’s voice cracked. “If we refuse, the whole village will pay.”
The grandmother’s sightless eyes turned toward Adanna. “Child, you must decide.”
Adanna’s heart thundered louder than the drums.
⸻
The next morning, the sun rose over a silent village. Doors creaked open cautiously.
Adanna’s hut stood empty, its door broken clean off its hinges. The family wept inside, but said nothing of what had happened.
From the forest came the faint echo of drums fading with the dawn.
And some swore that among the rhythm, a new beat had joined—lighter, faster, as though someone young was learning to play.
⸻
Since that night, the rule in Kambari has been spoken with new urgency:
When you hear the drums at midnight, do not go outside.
But every so often, when the moon is fat and the air too still, the villagers hear laughter weaving through the rhythm. A girl’s laughter, quick and defiant, lost to the night.
