Cellular Activity- The Djinn

by Francesco Mazzotta

  The fuck Ebola!, Thompson thinks to himself.

  «Janet, get me in touch with Ironside, right now please.»

  Algerian desert

  Berber village

  The boy nods, almost unable to take his eyes off the hypnotic stare of his older brother.

  All these stories about the desert that kills...

  They want to challenge me, definitely...

  I have to show them that I'm no longer a child...

  Suddenly, the braying of a donkey draws their attention. They turn their head in unison, becoming aware of a sound never heard before, a noise between a resounding thunder and a whistle, whose intensity is growing, plus a hissing sound, which is also getting louder. A dog starts barking, soon echoed by the verses of donkeys, dromedaries, other dogs, and finally some women.

  Yidir rushes out. Ahmed takes a few moments to sheathe the knife he has just received, then he takes his targui and follows his brother, along a tiny path that leads to a raised area in the center of the village.

  The scorching sun, still high above the horizon, is blinding. Ahmed follows the gaze of other people looking up. The boy shields his eyes, until he sees it.

  There is something in the sky, it's big and he has never seen anything like that. Not so close, anyway.

  Its shape resembles that of a bird, but it's completely white, glistening. It doesn't flap its wings, and has a row of dark eyes running along the sides. The muzzle is black and rounded but doesn't seem to have a mouth, and the tail is split into three parts.

  Ahmed hastens to join his brother, while the unusual volatile flies in the sky over their heads.

  The boy has already seen airplanes before, but they were nothing more than small dots of light in the night sky. During the day they were often followed by a long white trail. «Yidir, is that a plane?», asks Ahmed, full of unconscious excitement.

  His brother doesn't reply, his look is a mixture of surprise and fear. He realizes that something isn't going as it should. No airplane has ever been so close to the ground or has ever flown so low, and the inclination seems to be completely wrong.

  It's plummeting...

  Two smaller planes run in the sky, staying at a higher altitude than the other one and starting a long circular loop, then they come back drawing invisible circles in the blue.

  «Yidir, that's one of the planes that we always see, the ones that fly high in the sky?»

  His brother nods slowly, without saying a word.

  «Why is it so low? It is coming down, look!»

  Only then Ahmed realizes the astonished looks of those present, the litany of sorrow sung by some of the older women that start pulling their hair in panic.

  «Shut up Ahmed!», Yidir answers abruptly.

  The boy turns to look thunderstruck and he is about to reply something when his brother adds: «For God's sake, can't you see that it's plummeting?!?»

  Nobody speaks in the following moments. They all look at the airplane passing a few hundred meters above their heads, tilted to one side.

  The huge flying monster flies over a long stretch of desert, getting lower and lower. For some moments it disappears over the crest of a high sand dune on the horizon. In the same point where, seconds later, a huge fireball rises into the sky, drawing a thick column of black smoke with swirling flames.

  A sound like a distant thunder reaches the village in less than a minute, echoed by the cries of women and the noises of the terrified animals. A threatening rumble, far away.

  An uncertain and oppressive feeling falls on the village.

  Ahmed stares at the silent desert, so familiar until few minutes ago, as if seeing it for his first time. Then he turns to his brother, but he is no longer at his side. Yidir moved away, with two other men. They discuss with each other, while they make gestures toward the point where the plane has just fallen. One of the three men splits, moving rapidly towards the area where the dromedaries are tied, joining other people who try to restore order.

  * * *

  Ahmed hastens for his hut to better accommodate his targui and fixes firmly the ties that bind his new knife to his left arm. He makes sure that the blade is not visible under the sleeve of his suit before going out. The wool fabric is essential to insulate his body and to allow him to survive the heat of the sun and the cold of the icy Saharan nights.

  His brother has just left with Abdel and Wahid, his most trusted friends, heading for the place where the plane crashed.

  There may be injured people, survivors that needs immediate help. You won't come, Ahmed. It's not going to be a pretty sight...

  These are the last words that his brother Yidir told him, before leaving. But Ahmed refuses to accept them, he is a man now, he must deal with his responsibilities.

  Determined not to get too far back, Ahmed waits just long enough so that the group of rescuers reaches some distance from the village.

  He then quickly makes a dromedary kneel so that he can climb on its back, then he makes it get up again, and starts at a steady pace out of the village.

  The men who precede him, including his brother, seem like tiny dots that swing like a mirage in the warm atmosphere of the desert. Shortly thereafter they disappear over the dunes.

  * * *

  The three men hasten to reach the disaster area, they know that every single moment is extremely precious. In the silence of their pace they don't seem aware to be followed. Not until a dog, the friend of Ahmed, surpasses them, running forward, to stop on top of a sand dune. The animal turns back to the group of men, barking.

  Yidir turns, watching the solitary dromedary about a hundred meters behind them, ridden by the boy.

  «Don't pretend not to have seen him before... Your brother Ahmed left the village shortly after us», exclaims the man to his right.

  «I know, Wahid... I know», is the worried reply of Yidir.

  «He's a man now, Yidir», adds Abdel with a singsong voice. «It's time for him to start living and acting like that.»

  The face of Yidir, covered with a thick linen bandage, draws a grimace of concern, as if the idea didn't sound good at all to him. He urges his dromedary to move faster, leaving the others a couple of meters back. «Just pretend you haven't seen him yet, so he will stay back and we will be able to do something if we find some danger ahead. Keep your eyes and ears twice wide open.»

  * * *

  The light wind brings the smell of death and the bitter stench of burning things. The three realize that they are reaching their goal while making the last few meters to the top of a high sand dune.

  The sun is still a bit high above the horizon, when they reach the top.

  The scene before their eyes is terrible. The airplane has dug a long furrow in the sand of the desert and shattered into a myriad of pieces. One of the engines, half-buried in the sand, is still wrapped in violent flames, and large pillars of black smoke sprout everywhere.

  Abdel murmurs a silent prayer in his language, gesturing slowly with his hands as if to ward off invisible dangers.

  «It's unlikely that any one survived», Wahid whispers softly, almost afraid to talk louder.

  The dromedaries are nervous, shaking their heads and letting out plaintive verses. They refuse to go further.

  «The animals are scared», exclaims Yidir. «Abdel, stay here with them, we will go down on feet and see. Be sure that my brother stays here with you when he arrives.» Then he turns to the other friend: «Let's move, Wahid. Stay sharp, I want to leave before dark.»

  The two dismount from their dromedaries and begin their slow and clumsy descent down the high dune that overlooks the scene of the disaster. The dog stays back with Abdel, growling nervously.

  Ahmed reaches the top of the dune a few minutes later, moving beside the man that's watching the scene before him. His dog is crouching, and seems to growl at an invisible enemy, waving his tail nervously. The dromedaries are very nervous too. The boy dismounts, approaching the dog. «Ssssshh, easy, easy boy. What's wrong with
you?»

  However, the dog keeps barking frightened. He cowers behind Ahmed with his tail between his legs, letting out a long plaintive cry. Abdel tries to hold the dromedaries at stance. Two of them manage to escape, and flee quickly back the way they came. Busy to hold off the other dromedaries, Ahmed and Abdel can't do anything to stop them.

  * * *

  Yidir and Wahid split, walking between the remains of the smoldering wreckage, always keeping an eye at Abdel and the dromedaries on top of the dune. The experience has taught them that in the desert you can get lost easily if you don't have static reference points.

  Unrecognizable wreckage lies everywhere, sometimes unidentifiable bloody shreds emerge from the sand.

  «Poor people», Yidir mutters to himself, as he watches a child's hand, severed just after the wrist, thinking that no one could have survived that tragedy.

  While walking slowly among the debris, his attention gets drawn by something with a grotesque shape. It lies on the ground, like a burned tree, planted and twisted sideways in the sand. Yidir comes nearer, and as he approaches the mysterious thing, he can notice more and more details. A sense of instinctive revulsion and fear takes over his soul.

  It's not a tree at all, even if it vaguely remembers one. Yidir can't even understand what he is staring at. The object vaguely resembles a trunk, carved with mastery by the hand of a raving madman. Abnormal appendages like blackened and deformed human limbs sprout from a large central strain, like distorted branches. There are aberrant and impossible geometries, out of proportion, horrible to behold.

  Yidir hesitates to approach, cautiously turning around that thing that seems a strange sculpture and discovering other disconcerting details. Rough caricatures of human heads emerge from the main piece that has a globular form. The faces are distorted and some of them have their mouths unnaturally open: terrifying jaws petrified in their last cry. One of them fades into something vaguely reminiscent of a reptile head not completely defined. Behind this one emerges a bulbous protuberance that opens into a mouth that has a double row of black and sharp teeth, some of which are longer than a finger of Yidir himself. Beyond those deformities, what terrifies and scares the man who's watching is the feeling that seems infused in that twisted and distorted mass: pain, fear, and an agony as deep as a very dark abyss.

  The sun begins to sink behind a distant dune, and the many fires that still burn in the area draw moving shadows all around the place. In that light, reddish and flickering, Yidir has the distinct feeling that there is still a breath of latent life in those grotesque shapes.

  Wahid's scream breaks the terrible spell in which Yidir has fallen, drawing his attention.

  «Yidir, come here! There's something moving!»

  The man steps back, feeling an instinctive fear at the idea of giving the back to that nameless horror. After half a dozen steps he heads to follow the voice of his friend, happy to finally look away from that thing spitted out of hell. Wahid's voice comes from behind a big piece of the fuselage, miraculously still intact.

  With a brisk pace, and looking back to make sure that the abominable trunk is still in place, Yidir walks around the obstacle, and almost crashes into Wahid.

  «Wahid, you should come and see, there is something really weird over there. I think we should leave right now, and fast too.»

  The friend doesn't reply. He squats before the remains of a row of seats. Yidir must move to see what lies on the ground ahead of him.

  In one of the seats, there is a man. He is bald on top of his cranium, but his hair grew long around the lower part of his head. He has a long mustache too. The old man is pale, perhaps because of the patina of ash and dust that covers his skin. His breath is barely audible, his chest moves just as barely. One leg is bent at the knee in an impossible angle.

  «I think he's the only survivor, and it's a miracle if he is still alive», says Wahid, while working with a knife to cut one of the safety straps that block the body of the old man to what is left of the seat.

  «Perhaps there are other survivors, but I don't feel safe here. Wahid... I've seen... I don't even know what I've seen, but it's disgusting. Perhaps it's better to come back tomorrow morning, with light.»

  «Tomorrow may be too late, Yidir...»

  When the last strap is cut, the man almost falls forward, and it's the prompt intervention of Yidir and Wahid that keeps him from hitting the ground. The movement affects his broken leg, and the man lets out a moan, followed by a string of expletives.

  In this moment they hear the shout of Abdel. The two quickly raise the survivor, and without another word, make their way to the dune and their mounts.

  As they proceed, Yidir looks back to make sure once again.

  The trunk, that horrible totem born from a crazy and unfortunate mind, is still in its place.

  * * *

  Ahmed walks down the dune, facing Yidir and Wahid, to help them bring the survivor atop. Abdel is holding the dromedaries at stance. The beasts are getting more and more nervous as the sky darkens. Yidir throws a stern look to his younger brother, but actually he is grateful for its presence.

  «We must go, Yidir, we have seen lights, and two of the dromedaries have escaped.»

  «Put the survivor on Ahmed's mount», exclaims Yidir, aware of the younger brother reproachful look.

  The man ignores the boy, keeping talking to the group. «Ahmed is the youngest and strongest of us, he will walk first. We will alternate walking, after all the distance isn't too big and the sun is gone altogether. One of us will give him the change later.»

  The boy willingly nods without a murmur. That hint to his strength has been enough to raise his pride, wiping out the rest.

  Suddenly Yidir freezes, watching the horizon over the expanse of debris. The others turn too.

  They can see a glimmer in the distance. A tiny worm of lights that appears and disappears in the dunes.

  «That's why I called you», says Abdel. «Those aren't desert people. Those are cars and trucks.»

  «They may be a rescue team», whispers Yidir, «but also a gang of robbers. Better if we don't let them see us. You never know what those mavericks can do. Let's move away.»

  The animals are nervous, the dog keeps growling and barking with his teeth uncovered, alternately facing the valley below them and the survivor. The dromedary chosen to transport the wounded man refuses to get closer.

  «Good, good, you stupid beast! Help me getting hold of it», shouts Wahid.

  However, there is no way to calm the animal. It's only after blindfolding it that the three can put the old man on its back, securing his body with leather straps.

  «The animals are nervous, perhaps for the fire and this stench... Let's hurry and leave. And you, Ahmed, keep that little bastard away, its growls are getting on my nerves.»

  The small caravan heads for the desert, on that time of magic and restlessness when the sun has gone down and the violet sky on the horizon gets tinged with pink and orange shades.

  * * *

  The silence is broken only by the grunts of dromedaries, whose irritation doesn't subside despite the group moving away from the accident site.

  Wahid is talking: «Yidir, you said you've seen something over there...»

  Yidir broods for a while before giving voice to his thoughts. «Yes, it's true. I have no idea what it was, but whatever it was... I've never seen anything as absolutely disgusting as that. It looked like a piece of carved wood, a kind of statue. There were arms... legs... heads of people and beasts...»

  Yidir waits, as if to find the right words, «... but they were wrong, you know? Distorted. Put together as if they were a single body. And you know what's the worst thing? They seemed alive.»

  «What do you mean by that?!? Did they move?»

  «No, no, not moving, thank God, but... Whatever. Don't talk about it anymore. I really hope I never see such a thing again in my life.»

  Meanwhile, Ahmed keeps walking, even if it's dark. The sand beneath
his soles is still very hot. He has moved away from the group, because he is slower and to keep away the dog, which keeps growling nervously to the others.

  «Easy», he murmurs to the animal. «It's just an old man, speaking an incomprehensible language that we can't understand. He's also badly injured, he can't hurt us anyway.»

  Suddenly, a blinding light turns on in the darkness, right in front of the group that precedes the boy a few tens of meters.

  Obeying his instincts, Ahmed rushes to get down, frightened, hiding behind a small dune. The dog snaps toward the lights, he can't do anything to stop his pet.

  Voices...

  Shouts...

  Ahmed leans just enough to see what's going on, but the intense lights make his vision blurred and indistinct.

  There are at least two cars, maybe jeeps. He already has seen one of them in the past and once he was allowed to take a ride, along with his brother and other villagers. That was the first time he had seen men who didn't belong to his own people. They had pale skin, blond hair... and a car! Mohamed-the-Elder told him they were crazy people, men and women who used to challenge the desert just for curiosity, to have fun watching the world with those little boxes that capture the images. His personal way of defining tourists or explorers.

  «What kind of fun is there in the desert?», asked the elder. Ahmed, however, had a different opinion when later they took him on board for a quick run up and down the dunes.

  The hoarse voices he hears now have nothing in common with the kind and smiling men he had met that time. The two cars, which are now a few tens of meters in front of him, don't seem to carry friendly people. The voices have a sense of violence, shouting orders, but Ahmed is far away and he can get only a few sentences.