The two demons simply stared back at him with their empty eye sockets.
8. Lament
Iraq
Every part of him was covered in dust. It had seeped into his boots, through his socks and now he could feel the fine grains of sand in between his toes, not to mention his armpits, his beard, and in his ears. He was covered in sand as if he had taken a bath in it. He was hungry, thirsty, and wounded, but he had to keep on running. He was alive and he still had a job to do. He was a warrior and he would keep fighting until they killed him.
Patrick Gyle knew it was high noon judging from the way the sun was positioned directly overhead through the muddled sky. The dust storms that covered the entire region weren’t uniformly just blowing buckets of sand around him all of the time, there were long periods of quietness, of a haze-filled atmosphere with dust that seemed to be suspended in space. Like some gloomy fog up in the northern hemispheres, only instead of water droplets, it was made of sand. It gave everything a washed out, surreal look, and it coated everything in hues of light brown and grey. At night, when the winds weren’t blowing, he couldn’t see anything at all as he would stumble from one step to the next, never knowing what would be in front of him until the last second. His flashlight had already run out of batteries and his hydration pouch was empty. Gyle’s right forearm had an improvised bandage from where the creatures tore at him. He barely got out of the way before Matt had sacrificed himself by trying to ram into one of them. But the creature just kicked the armored Humvee and it flew backwards like a toy car. He thought he was dead too, but the creature just seemed to have moved away and didn’t even bother with him. He was able to get to the wreckage of the vehicle and cradled Matt’s head in his arms, just as his partner coughed blood from his mouth, and then convulsed and finally lay still with his eyes open.
He salvaged what he could from the Humvee. He also tried to get anything from the other wrecked vehicles in what was left of the convoy; then started making his way south on foot. He was hoping to get back to any sort of HQ, so he could warn all remaining US forces about what had happened. He tried to stay hidden in the daytime, resting while half burying himself behind sand dunes, then avoiding any built-up areas as he worked his way southwards at night. It was one of those evenings when he thought he ran into some packs of creatures with glowing eyes that he could see through the dusty haze. He used up most of his ammunition while firing into what he felt was their positions. Gyle was terrified of the clicking noises throughout that night. It was as if the shrill chirps of insects were combined with blood curdling sounds of demon dogs. Those cries haunted him all through the darkness as he kept scanning around with his flashlight, hoping he could shoot those things before they got close. When morning came, he fell asleep almost immediately from pure exhaustion, but when he woke up a few hours later, his M4 carbine and pistol were gone, along with his food supply.
He had been walking for hours now. Although his training dictated it would be better to move at night to avoid the harsh exposure of the sun, Gyle felt that the dusty haze all around him had provided sufficient protection to keep on going. And the second, most important reason was to find a source of water and find it quickly; he had already gone over a day and a half without anything to drink. Even though he had no food either, Gyle knew that finding potable water was the most important thing right now if he wanted to keep on living.
By late afternoon, he had noticed a cluster of stone buildings out on the flat horizon a few miles in front of him. He had been sticking close to the highway and he estimated that he was near the outskirts of Tikrit, just a little over a hundred miles north of Baghdad. He had tried going into a few nearby houses in the past few days, but he found nothing but sand and dust along with a few dried out corpses. He was now hoping that there would at least be a nearby well that wasn’t filled in with sand. Hurrying along, Gyle soon made his way to the edge of the compound as he crept up behind a dust-covered car without any wheels and surveyed the place for signs of movement. After waiting for fifteen minutes without seeing anything, he quickly moved towards a cracked wooden door at the back of the two-story structure. The dust-covered door was barely hanging on by its fixture so he pulled it open with a slight creak as its hinges gave way. Peering inside, he still didn’t see any movement, and so he stepped into what looked like an abandoned kitchen.
Pulling off the bandana that filtered his mouth and nostrils down to his neck and then unstrapping his goggles, Gyle quickly began to rummage through cupboards and cabinets, hoping to at least find some containers with water or any drinkable liquid. Hidden behind some boxes underneath a dirty sink was a brown rope sack. Gyle untied the top and quickly let out a cry of joy as he pulled out a small can of a locally produced coconut juice drink. The sack also contained some raw potatoes and onions.
Gyle quickly tore the tab off the top of the juice can and started sipping it slowly. It was a bit too sweet for his liking, but he needed the liquid. The onions and potatoes had mold growing on them, but he could probably just eat around that, provided he had more water. After retying the sack and putting it back where he found it, Gyle walked into an adjoining room where he quickly sensed movement near the side of the door.
Rapidly turning and taking a fighting stance, he saw that they were two people huddled in a corner at the side of the corridor from where he had entered. They were wearing abayas, the ubiquitous full-body cloak and black robes worn by women in these parts. One of them was half the size of the other and let out a shriek, huddling behind the taller one. They were veiled so he could only see their glaring brown eyes through the narrow slits of the niqab. As both sides kept their distance and waited for the other to make a move, Gyle made a rapid assessment and seeing that it looked like they were harmless, slackened his shoulders and held out his open palms in a gesture of peace.
Gyle smiled. “As-salamu Alaikum.” It was the universal greeting in Arabic. He didn’t know much of the language beyond a few basic words and phrases.
“Wa-Alaikum salaam,” the taller one said.
Gyle gestured at the two to take their veils off. As both of them did, he noticed that the taller one seemed to be a brown, middle-aged woman while the small one looked to be a girl of about eight or nine years old. Gyle sighed with both surprise and relief. These were the first people he had found alive after several days out in the desert. The little girl smiled back at him as the woman walked forward and shook his hand.
Gyle made a drinking gesture. “Water? Maya?”
“Nem,” the woman said as she walked over to a cabinet, opened it, and took out a metal box with a spout on it and gave it to him.
Gyle tipped the liquid into his mouth. The water was tepid, but he needed it badly, drinking until his stomach was full. Wiping his mouth with his left wrist, he smiled again and gave the container back to the woman. “Shukraan,” he said, thanking her.
“Ahlan bik,” the woman said as she put the container back into the closet and closed it.
Gyle sat down on the dusty carpet. He needed to rest while his body rehydrated. Already the pounding headache at the back of his head had begun to subside as he groaned and leaned back on the wall of the living room. Just as he began to doze off, he quickly snapped back to attention when he felt something touch his bandaged forearm. The woman let out a cry and fell backwards before Gyle mumbled an apology. She got back up and began to examine his arm once more.
“Jurh?” the woman said, indicating that he might have been hurt. Gyle nodded. With that, the woman got up and began rummaging through the closet again, this time producing a cardboard box containing some white linen that she began cutting up, and turning into homemade bandages using a pair of rusty scissors. The little girl sat on the edge of an old sofa and stared at him intently. An hour had passed as the woman carefully unwrapped the t-shirt around his arm and saw the raw, red laceration that had cut into him when he narrowly jumped out of the Humvee, just as a nightmarish creature landed on top of it several nigh
ts before. The wound had begun to fester a bit as there was a clear film of liquid on top, but the woman took out a small bottle of what looked to be some local antiseptic. She poured it over his arm which made Gyle gasp in pain. By the time she was finished he had a fresh bandage over his arm for which he thanked her a second time. Indicating that he needed to rest, she helped him onto the sofa and he soon began to doze off as the winds began to pick up outside.
His sleep was deep and his dreams were that of a black and empty void. There was also the recollection of that last battle in which Matt had lost his life. He wasn’t sure how long he had slept, but it must have been at least a day. When he started to wake he could hear the woman and the child shouting and screaming. There was light coming from the outside. That was when he realized that he had gotten complacent and he should have checked the area first as his eyes opened. Gyle saw two men standing over him, one was aiming an AK-47 assault rifle at his face while the other one was slapping the woman around with a pistol. The child cried and screamed, trying desperately to hold onto her. The one who had the rifle trained on him wore a faded black shirt and jeans, with empty ammunition pouches strapped to his chest while the other one wore desert fatigues. Both wore black ski masks and were covered in dust, like him.
“Kun hadyaan!” the man in the fatigues said to the woman to be quiet as she collapsed in front of him, crying and holding onto the little girl.
“You American?” the man with the black t-shirt said to Gyle as he pointed the barrel of the AK at his face. His accent sounded like that of an Australian.
“Yes,” Gyle said softly.
“Are you alone?”
Gyle nodded.
“You better not be bullshitting me, mate,” the man in black said as he glanced around nervously before pointing the rifle back at him again. Gyle figured he could probably get his hands on the guy and disarm him before he could get a shot off, but he was worried about the second guy with the pistol, who might end up shooting the woman and the child before he could take the rifle and kill the two IS fighters with it.
“Look,” Gyle said to the man in black. “The war is over for us, so why don’t you ask your friend over there to leave the two girls alone.”
The man in black’s finger tightened on the trigger of his rifle. “You don’t give us orders, mate! Where is the rest of your unit?”
Gyle sighed. “I’m the only one left alive, just as I’m sure you and your friend are the last of the Daesh, so let us make peace and go our separate ways as friends.”
“I am not your friend, yank,” the man said. “You’re a prisoner of the Islamic State and you will be judged as an invader and infidel according to Islamic law.”
“Look around you,” Gyle said. “This war is over, pal. My entire unit is gone. I’m just making my way south until I can find transport to take me home. You and your friend can have this country. You win, okay?”
The man shook his head. “No, mate, you’re going to pay for invading the caliphate. You’re a soldier and captured soldiers will face a trial.”
The other man in the fatigues turned around and stood beside the IS fighter with the black t-shirt and started talking to him in Arabic. Gyle couldn’t make out the whole conversation, but it seemed that the other man just wanted some water and they needed to get out of there. The woman cowered behind them as she held onto the child and was trying to calm her down. Looking at them, Gyle figured the guy with the AK-47 had less than a full magazine of ammunition on him, but he couldn’t tell if the other guy had more rounds for his pistol. Gyle figured the two IS men were amateurs, they were standing too close to him and he could take them both down, but he would need a distraction of some sort. He needed to be patient, to wait for just the right moment to strike.
“We’re no threat to you, please tell your friend that,” Gyle said. He needed to get the guy to calm down because his trigger finger was way too itchy right now. “All American forces are leaving this region. You will have your caliphate, the one you’ve always wanted. That’s what you want, right? So why not just let me and the two girls go?”
The man with the black shirt’s eyes brightened when Gyle said that US forces were leaving. He said something to his partner in Arabic and the man in the fatigues shouted, “Allahu Akbar!” a few times. The Australian jihadist had turned to his partner when he told him that and Gyle almost had them, but in a split second, the Aussie quickly turned back to face him again. He needed to keep them complacent and try again. The next one should do the trick, Gyle hoped.
“What’s your name?” Gyle said to the man with the black shirt. “You sound Australian, mate. I’ve been down under a few times and I love the country.”
“If it’s any of your business, you can call me Abu Ozy for short,” the man said as he began to relax the grip on his weapon. “But it won’t help you to try and make friends with me. You will face an Islamic Sharia court no matter what happens, mate.”
“Look, if that’s what you want to do with me then so be it. But could you just let the two girls go? They mean nothing to you,” Gyle said.
“You think you can bargain with us, mate?” Abu Ozy hissed. “You’re not in a position to negotiate.”
“Alright then, take me to your leader, your imam,” Gyle said.
“What?” Abu Ozy said. “I don’t need to take you anywhere, mate. I can shoot you on the spot right here if I wanted to.”
“That’s not the way it works though,” Gyle said. “You have to take me before the Shura, only the council can make a judgment. You did say I have to be tried first, didn’t you?”
Abu Ozy got visibly angry. “Shut up! We’re in charge here.”
“There are no Shuras left, is there?” Gyle said. “How many in your unit are left? You two are the only ones alive, aren’t you?”
Abu Ozy brought the rifle up to his shoulder and aimed it at Gyle’s head. “I’ll shoot you right now, mate, if you don’t shut up!”
“Did you see the monsters?” Gyle said. “There are monsters out there, right? They wiped out my unit just as they surely wiped out you guys, didn’t they? You ought to be saving your ammo for them.”
Abu Ozy’s hands began to shake. “No, those are … demons sent to test us. Allah sent them!”
“If those demons were sent to test you, then you all failed,” Gyle said. “Daesh has been destroyed, not by the forces of the West, but by the gods, yes? Perhaps Allah is not the true god after all?”
Abu Ozy was now enraged as his finger began to squeeze the trigger on the rifle. “How dare you speak blasphemies, infidel!”
The wind outside began to howl. The dust storm once again intensified and they all could hear faint clicking noises not too far away. The older woman began screaming as she tried to tug at the other jihadist’s legs. Gyle figured she might have encountered those creatures of the night just like him. She was obviously begging to either be let go so she could hide with the child or that they needed to protect her. It was at that moment that Abu Ozy turned his head to look at the frosted glass window behind him.
Now. Gyle sprung from the sofa as one hand pushed away the barrel of the AK, while his other hand reached into the inside of his boot and pulled out a small knife. Abu Ozy instinctively pulled the trigger as the assault rifle went on automatic fire, but the cascade of bullets narrowly missed Gyle as he had successfully turned the barrel to where the other jihadist was positioned, just as he plunged the knife into Abu Ozy’s throat, right at the exposed skin just above the bottom of the ski mask. The Australian jihadist began to gurgle out his own blood as Gyle was able to plunge the three-inch knife deep into his throat, severing the carotid artery and puncturing the trachea. As the man fell to the ground and began to convulse, Gyle brought up the bloody knife and dove on top of the second jihadist, who had fallen on the ground after he took a few shots from Abu Ozy’s assault rifle. Gyle stabbed the other man repeatedly in the neck and at the back of the head until the jihadist was no longer moving.
Still clutching the knife, Gyle stood up as the adrenaline rush began to subside. It was then that he noticed both the woman and the child were on the ground as well. Kneeling down beside them, he began to see what he could do. As he took off the older woman’s niqab he could see that she took a bullet to her forehead and had died instantly. It was then he heard a small coughing noise and he quickly moved to where the child was lying. As he took off her veil he could see that she was spitting out blood. Ripping off her black robe he noticed that she was wearing a dress underneath, it used to be white with some embroidery, but it now had a large red stain in the center of her chest. Quickly using his knife to expose the wound, Gyle could see that the bullet had punctured the middle of her breast bone. Gyle moaned as he turned the child over on her side, but it was clear that the bullet didn’t go through, it was in her body somewhere.
“No, no, no!” Gyle screamed in frustration as the little girl heaved one last breath and then her eyes glazed over. He tried CPR a few times, but nothing had come of it.
For a while, he did nothing but sit there among the dead. When he finally did get the motivation to get up, he wiped the blood off his knife with Abu Ozy’s black shirt before putting it back in his boot. He checked the magazine of the AK-47, but there weren’t any rounds left. Racking the slide of the other man’s pistol, he noticed that it was empty too. By this time night had fallen, he could hear the clicking sounds just outside of the building he was in. Gyle opened the closet and wedged himself in by crouching down underneath the lower shelf, right beside the metal can that still had some water in it. With his knife at the ready, he grabbed the edge of the closet door and slowly swung it backwards until it was closed and tried to control his breathing.
It was then he heard the front door open and the clicking noises were getting really close. Even though he had the knife ready to strike at anyone who would open the closet, his hands were trembling. For what seemed like an eternity, he heard the terrible whispering and the chattering all around him as he gritted his teeth and covered his ears with his hands.
The Glooming (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 1) Page 10