Burning Sky

by Weston Ochse

  “Lore? Criminal?” He turned around drunkenly. “Bully? McQueen?”

  He noted that his rifle and gear belt lay in a pool of cooled and hardening blood… his own.

  He reached over and felt the bandage that had been placed over his wound. Looking down, he saw the white gauze and felt grounded by it. His torso was naked underneath, and in the star light he could see the gray pallor of his skin. He looked around again. Narco’s SUV was where it had landed after the explosion. The fire was out and it wasn’t even smoking. The SUV they’d arrived in was where he’d left it in the middle of the road behind them.

  Shakily, he bent and grabbed for his rifle. His left hand wrapped around the barrel. He started walking towards the dead Taliban he’d killed with the grenades. He needed to know that he wasn’t crazy or in some alternate sideways reality. If the bodies weren’t there, he didn’t know where he was… when he was. But if they were there, then maybe there was an explanation for his entire team abandoning him. As the fog began to clear from his mind, a plausible idea formed. Maybe they’d lit out after Narco. Maybe they were just over the horizon or just beyond shouting distance.

  He stumbled and was forced to use the rifle as a cane to keep him from falling.

  Ten feet away he saw the first hint of a body.

  What if it was his TST? What if someone had come and killed them and stuffed them in with the dead Taliban? He paused, unsure if he wanted to see... but knowing he had to.

  “Come on, Starling,” he said to himself, realizing that the morphine still had him under its spell. “Get your shit together.”

  He took several deep breaths, then stepped forward until he could see every one of the dead bodies. That they were at least there gave him relief. That they weren’t his TST gave him joy. Seven dead Taliban. Several with missing arms and legs. One with a missing head. Ruined weaponry. All evidence of his two grenades.

  So everything had happened the way he remembered it.

  The only problem was that he was alone.

  He made his way back to the road. After three attempts to bend down and grab his gear, he managed to snatch his bloody utility belt and hang it around his neck. Then he spied the MBITR. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? He could radio them. He dropped his rifle and fell to the ground beside it. He held the mic with a shaking hand and spoke into it.

  “Anyone…. anyone out there.” He stared at the transmitter. He listened for a response but nothing came. He repeated the call. Still nothing. The antenna had been folded over, so he released it to its full length, thinking that might increase his chances. The system had a line-of-sight distance of twelve miles. They couldn’t have gone that far, right? He repeated the call and thought that he might have heard a voice through the static. He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled, grasping desperately at the radio with his left hand while his right hand hung uselessly at his side.

  “Hello? McQueen? Anyone?”

  A ghost of a voice spoke to him but he couldn’t understand it.

  Still, his heart exploded with hope.

  His body was suddenly filled with energy. He managed to climb onto the side of the wrecked SUV for altitude.

  “Anyone, can you hear me?”

  Then came four static-laced words. “Can’t… need… want… support…”

  “What is it? I didn’t understand. Please repeat?”

  Nothing but static responded.

  “Hello? Can you hear me?”

  Static.

  Boy Scout spun, looking for anything, even a wink of light. But there was nothing. Here in the back end of Asscrackistan, all he could see was the half moon, the stars, and a wide swathe of blackness.

  He started to run to the working SUV, then stopped. He went back and grabbed his weapon from where he’d dropped it on the ground. He struggled to hold both the rifle and the radio in one hand—his off hand—and finally managed to sling the rifle around his shoulder and run drunkenly to the SUV in a left shoulder high, limping gate. He fumbled with the door, but managed to open it. He threw the rifle, the gear belt from around his neck, and the radio into the front passenger seat, then awkwardly used his left hand to grab the steering wheel and pull himself inside. He reached for the ignition but realized the keys were in his pocket… his right pocket. The next two minutes were a slapstick gyrational series of contortions to slide his left hand into his right pocket. Eventually, he managed to liberate the keys, which he slid into the ignition and turned on the vehicle.

  The lights snapped on and he cheered, punching the ceiling with his left hand.

  He put the SUV in gear, pulled around the burned-out hulk of Narco’s stolen SUV, then began rumbling down the road. He traveled three miles and stopped. With his foot on the brake, he reached over and grabbed the radio.

  “Hello? McQueen? Lore? Anybody?”

  At first the response was nothing but static, until he heard the crystal clear words, “Boy Scout.”

  He thought it might have sounded like McQueen, but then... it also sounded like Narco.

  “Yes! That’s me! I’m here! Where are you?”

  Static was his only response.

  “It’s me. Where’d you go?” He felt his face turn red and tears come to his eyes. “Where are you? Hello? Hello? Hello?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  BOY SCOUT DROVE for another hour, ranging back and forth along the road, trying to locate his team through the radio but getting only the flat hiss of static in response. It wasn’t until the batteries ran out on the MBITR that he put the radio down and stopped trying. Without any sense of where he was or where his team could be, he drove randomly until dawn, seeing no one except Afghanis in old, rusted Toyota Corollas and pickups. They gave him odd looks, as they would any shirtless white man driving a military grade SUV. The morphine had worn off, sending jolts of electric fire through his shoulder at every bump or jostle. He’d stopped and checked the supplies stacked beneath Faood’s body. The dead dervish was beginning to smell, but Boy Scout didn’t feel it was proper to dump him on the side of the road. He found a bottle of aspirin which he popped like Tic Tacs.

  Boy Scout climbed back into the SUV. He couldn’t fathom where the team had gone. And on foot nonetheless. He’d been certain they’d gone off in search of Narco, but why hadn’t they come back? Why hadn’t one of them stayed with him? Not knowing the answers was infuriating. Not knowing whether they were even alive set his hair on fire.

  Sitting at a crossroads, he drank the last of his water from his canteen. His shoulder blazed with pain, but he set that aside. What had Faood said? If they couldn’t get Narco back to him, then find other dervishes and they might be able to exorcise him. Boy Scout remembered now that Faood had mentioned something about a palace where other dervishes lived. He struggled to recall the details. It had been partially destroyed by an earthquake in the 1970s… what was it—then it snapped into place. Bagh-e-Jahan nam Palace.

  If he could talk to the dervishes, they could help him track down the others. Faood was still in back and he could explain to them what had happened. In fact, after the death of Sufi Sam and Faood, they needed to get someone back to the cistern to keep the daeva in its fugue, if it wasn’t already gone. Or maybe McQueen and the others had captured Narco and taken him back there. It still didn’t explain why they’d left him in the middle of the road, but it made a certain sense.

  He pulled the tactical map from the glove compartment and found his location through terrain association. Once he was confident in the direction, Boy Scout headed that way. Eventually he found himself moving through the town of Kholm, its busy bazaar already packed with morning traffic. Old men sat hunched together drinking coffee. Women with no head wraps haggled over vegetables. Children chased one another just like children everywhere, idealistic and oblivious to anything but their carefree existence. Kholm was merely a town ensconced in its own pastoral life, surviving on the edge of a war-torn country. Its residents had no idea that a life-and-death struggle was going
on with Boy Scout’s TST, or that there was a supernatural creature being kept in an ancient cistern mere miles from where they slid blissfully through their daily activities. They had no idea that dervishes could shape time, or that the sky could burn with the power of an ancient god. Which was as it should be, he supposed. Such ideas, such knowledge, were nuclear blasts to the innocent, who once they had discovered it, could never return to what had been—could never return to what could have been—and were stuck in a universe where things were now never as they seemed.

  A boy kicking a soccer ball stopped in the middle of the road. He turned his head to gaze at Boy Scout, as if daring him to run him over.

  Boy Scout slowed.

  The boy continued to stare. With black tousled hair, he wore a long shirt that covered his legs. Sandals adorned his feet. His expression was neither curious nor mean. He stared like an automaton, his eyes leaden.

  It was almost like everything was in slow motion.

  Boy Scout slowed even more, until he was creeping along at walking speed. What was the boy doing? Why wasn’t he moving out of the way?

  Then the boy blinked and it was that blink that broke the spell.

  Boy Scout had spent so much time gazing at the boy he’d forgotten to check his surroundings. He could have very well driven into an ambush. Noticing the surrounding buildings for the first time, he realized that he was in a natural choke point.

  He was just checking his sides when the boy turned, kicked the soccer ball, then ran after it.

  Boy Scout stopped the SUV and stared at the spot the boy had been like there was a mine beneath it. Then he shook his head and pressed the accelerator. He was just too exhausted. He was seeing meaning where there was none.

  He continued for another two miles, then after checking his map again, turned right down a road lined with date trees. A hundred meters ahead, twin white stucco columns stood as an entrance to drive through. A ten-foot wall made of the same material extended on both the right and left. He slowed the vehicle, unwilling to drive through such an unknown chokepoint.

  Suddenly a figure appeared at the front of the SUV.

  Lore!

  She slapped her hands on the hood loud enough that it sounded like a shot. Her eyes were wide and a smile broke across her face. She mouthed the words, Boy Scout.

  He slammed on the brakes.

  She ran around to the passenger side and slung open the door. She shot into the seat, shoving his things onto the floor. She slammed the door and pointed off to her left. “Drive there,” she commanded.

  Boy Scout had a thousand questions, but immediately complied. He went where directed and drove behind a copse of date trees. McQueen stood over the body of Criminal. A piece of cloth was draped over the dead man’s face. Once the SUV was completely behind the trees, Lore hopped out and ran around the front of the vehicle. Boy Scout was just getting out when she plowed into him, throwing her arms around him in a vicious hug.

  He cried out in pain, causing her to let go.

  “We thought you were dead!”

  “What gave you that idea?” Boy Scout said, both insanely happy, yet getting more and more pissed as he realized they’d intentionally left him behind.

  “Uh, no heartbeat,” McQueen said, walking up and clasping Boy Scout’s unwounded shoulder.

  “I got a heartbeat now,” Boy Scout said, pretty sure he was correct in what he was saying.

  “I swear to you that you didn’t,” McQueen said. Seeing the expression on Boy Scout’s face, McQueen stepped back and clasped his hands in front of him like a hopeless beggar. “I swear to you, Bryan. You were dead.”

  Boy Scout couldn’t help frowning. “I’m here, aren’t I?” He glanced down at Criminal’s body. “What happened?”

  “Narco shot you,” Lore said. “And we went after him.”

  “How did Criminal die?”

  “Narco,” McQueen said. “He came up behind him and stabbed him in the face.”

  Boy Scout bent over and pulled aside the cloth. Criminal stared back at him with a single filmy eye. The other was a black, crusted gash savaged by a blade. Narco’s blade. Son of a bitch. He replaced the cloth and stood.

  “Where’s Bully?” he said.

  “Recon. She’s due to be back in five mikes,” McQueen said.

  “Why didn’t you take the vehicle?” He wanted to add, why’d you leave me? but didn’t.

  Tears had formed in Lore’s eyes. “Narco had us on a serious chase. Once he killed—I mean shot you—we went after him. By the time he took us over the mountain, it didn’t make sense to go back.” She jerked her chin toward the palace. “We tracked him here and were waiting for dark to go inside.”

  He couldn’t help saying it. “You left me.”

  Although McQueen couldn’t meet his gaze, he was the one who spoke. “I checked your pulse three times. You weren’t breathing. I swear to you.” Then he met Boy Scout’s stare. “I would never have left you behind if I thought you were alive.” He shook his head. “I am so ashamed.”

  “Didn’t you hear me on the radio?” Boy Scout asked.

  “We didn’t hear anything.”

  “So you weren’t the ones responding to me?”

  “I’m telling you, man, I didn’t hear a thing.”

  Boy Scout stared at McQueen for a long moment. Finally, he said, “Well, apparently, I’m not dead.” He leaned against the SUV.

  McQueen was about to speak when Bully appeared. She let out a little yip when she saw Boy Scout.

  “You’re alive!” she cried.

  “If enough people say it, it might actually be true,” he said, now definitely sick of the situation.

  She ran towards him with the intention of hugging him, but he shied away.

  “Shoulder,” he said, stopping her in mid hug.

  Why everyone felt the need to hug him was beyond his ken. All he wanted to do was to get to a point where they could save Narco, if they still could, and hopefully get some relief for the pain.

  “How… we thought you were—”

  “Dead,” he finished her sentence. “My demise seems to be a popular mythology.”

  Her smile was ear to ear and her eyes were bright with happiness. “I knew you were alive. I heard you on the radio… or at least I thought I did… that was you, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded. “I spoke with someone but the connection wasn’t… was you?”

  “Yes, I think so.” She beamed at him. “I just can’t believe you’re alive.”

  “That seems to be the consensus.” He sighed. All he wanted was a bottle of good single malt and a handful of Vicodin. He was exhausted and the pain in his shoulder was wearing on him. He turned to McQueen and said, “Report.”

  “Narco is somewhere inside. We watched him go through the front. He shot the guards and blasted his way into the palace. That was three hours ago. Since then, we’ve been sitting here waiting for darkness.”

  “Why are we waiting? Aren’t the dervishes our friends? Why didn’t you go in and help them fight Narco?”

  “About that,” Lore said.

  “What about that?”

  “How do we know they’re our friends? I mean, they’ve trapped us as much as they trapped the daeva.”

  He stared at her. “I’m listening.”

  “I saw Narco embrace one of the dervishes, then enter. We heard gunfire after.”

  “Now that is an interesting turn of events. Could it be that he tricked his way inside and shot them?” Boy Scout asked, glancing at McQueen.

  “I don’t think so,” Lore said.

  “What do you think it means, then?”

  “You should listen to her. She makes sense,” McQueen said.

  Boy Scout usually found that Lore made more sense than any of them. She’d grown up in the shadow of her domineering preacher father and had spent her life trying to be the smartest person in the room. Most of the time she succeeded.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. “On the
surface this seems to be a simple matter of Sufi mystics entrapping old Zoastrian angels. Now with Narco we’ve discovered that there’s the whole ghosts in the Sefid business. For a dervish to embrace Narco, it would suggest the idea that that dervish was also possessed by a ghost from the Sefid, or at least the ghost in Narco was recognized. If that’s the case, what really are those ghosts and why?”

  “Do you have an idea of what they are?” he asked.

  She made a face and shook her head. “No idea at all, and that’s what scares me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  IN THE END, their plan was a simple one. McQueen and Bully would remain outside and cover them with rifles, while Boy Scout and Lore went inside. They drove the SUV straight to the front door of the palace. The impressive piece of architecture was three stories tall and about seventy feet across. Although it was called a palace, it was really more of a mansion. Still, with its white marble walls and tile decorated sunken windows, it was striking.

  The main doors opened as soon as the SUV came to a stop. Two dervishes strode down the marble entrance stairs, their hands on the pommels of their scimitars. One stood at the base of the steps, while the other came to Boy Scout’s window. He was tall and had a burn on the right side of his face. He wore silver beaded pants tucked into knee-high black leather boots. Atop this he wore a silver and white whirling shirt that dropped to mid-thigh. He’d hitched the right side up and tucked it over the bejeweled pommel of his scimitar, where his hand now rested.

  “What is it, friend?” he said with an English accent almost as polished as Faood’s.

  Boy Scout spoke through the open window. “In back. Faood. He’s dead.”

  The man frowned and glanced at his partner, who went to the back window and looked in. When he saw Faood’s body, he called out in Persian and out came two more dervishes. These held AK47s.