“On the Road” is a short story from Nnedi Okorafor’s Kabu Kabu collection. Chioma is a visiting her family in Nigeria. Shortly after arriving the town is hit with torrential rains in which should have been their dry season. As soon as the rain stops you have this young man come to her door. His head is bashed in. Chioma can see the blood matter. For all intents and purposes this young man should not be alive. He should not be able to walk or talk. But there he is, the monster at her door. And she lets him in.

Over the next few days Chioma senses she is being followed. There is a strange odor wafting through her house and she seems to possess a strange magnetism for the town’s lizards. She has no idea what she has awoken or what fate awaits her. But the elders of the town seem to know something. As Chioma gets thinner and weaker the women of the village prepare for what’s to come.

Okorafor does a great job with the build up. She certainly had me anxious and it definitely did not help that I was reading this story at 3 am on a rainy day when the house and neighborhood were fast asleep. Like Binti, I found that I fell right into the story and the pages of this fantasy came to life. As with the majority of Okorafor’s work After the Rain is centered on African mythology.

For the most part the graphic novel is true to “On the Road” with a few departures for clarity’s sake. I loved the artwork by David Brame and found that his illustrations really do make the story leap off the page.

I am hoping that this is a superhero origin story and that there will be a spin off or sequel to After the Rain. My only complaint with the galley was that the font was very fine and pixelated. Had I not had a copy of Kabu Kabu to read, I would have been very upset as there was no way that I would have been able get the story with the little bit that I could read. As I’m sure this will be rectified by the final printing I am not deducting any stars from my rating.