The Glooming (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 1) (13 page)

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.

When he finally woke up, all was quiet once more. Slowly opening the closet, Gyle held out the knife and looked around. The dead were still where they were. Gyle put the knife back in his boot and took the water canister and walked over to the kitchen so he wouldn’t have to see the corpses. After taking a long draught of the tepid water, he poured the rest into his military hydration pouch. He took a few potatoes and bit into them, carefully spitting out the dirty skin and chewing the raw bits thoroughly before swallowing. He ate both onions, making sure he didn’t chew on the moldy parts. When he was done, he took the rest and put them in his pockets. Going back to the living room, Gyle took one long look at the woman and the child before taking the empty AK assault rifle and slinging it over his shoulder. Then he went out through the front door and continued on southwards.

Arizona

For the fifth time that afternoon, Tara Weiss gave the thumbs up sign at the passing car but as before it just drove on by without even stopping. It was no use. The fifteen-year-old sighed and walked back from the edge of the highway, past the empty parking lot, and back to the front of the deserted strip mall. The pueblo-style storefronts were all locked down. A few even had steel shutters over them. Tara could probably use a rock to try and break in and steal some stuff, but she wasn’t like that. She wasn’t a thief, so she just sat down behind one of the columns to shield herself away from the afternoon sun, while placing the old blue denim backpack she was carrying in front of her.

When she had finally decided to leave the house for good, her father shouted at her not to bother coming back just as she walked out the door. Tara was tired of getting beaten and slapped around, but she didn’t really blame him since he hadn’t had a job for two years after mom left him and the rest of the family. She had been sleeping on the street for three days now, but she remembered everything as if it happened just a few minutes ago. The whole scene kept repeating over and over: her putting her best clothes into the beaten-up backpack that her mom had bought her so many years ago, breaking the piggy bank in her room that had been with her since she was five so she had some money, and finally the part where Timmy had stood before her, crying and pleading for her to stay.

That was her one regret, her little brother Timmy. Oh how she hated having to leave him behind. But he was only six. There was no way she could take care of him since she had nothing. A single tear rolled down Tara’s right eye as she hugged her knees. She would go and get a job or something and come back for him. Yeah, she would come back in a white limousine and Timmy would get all excited and run into her arms. Then she would say, it’s all over now and I’ll take care of you from now on. After a few minutes, she just shook her head. It was time to get back to reality. She was just a nobody and she was getting really hungry.

Tara sighed as she undid the top strap of the backpack. Then she opened it to check how much food she had left. After rummaging through her clothes, all she could find was half a chocolate bar. It was part of the pack of twenty that the Pakistani guy running the convenience store had given her. Two days before, she was a few blocks away eating a two for a dollar hotdog sandwich at the guy’s store, when suddenly a whole bunch of people swept in and started to take everything. The poor store owner tried to fight them off, but he was beaten up and left bleeding on the ground as everybody just took what they could and left. Tara just stood there as a couple of burly fat guys wearing baseball caps went right past her, then they started throwing everything off the shelves into a grocery cart that they brought along with them. There were all sorts of people in that mob: young and old, men, mothers, teens, and even a few kids. Most of them went after the canned goods, candies, and packaged snacks. Meanwhile, three men armed with guns helped themselves to most of the beer and liquor. By the time they were done, it was as if a whirlwind had smashed through the store, took everything, and left a pile of empty metal shelves behind. Tara had walked over to the store owner and helped him up. The man cried for a bit as he wiped the blood off his face from an embroidered handkerchief before thanking her. As she started walking out past the broken glass and the smashed door, the man called out to her. When she turned around, he gave her a small cardboard box full of chocolate bars that the mob had missed because it was in a hidden alcove behind the counter. Tara said she didn’t want it because she was out of money, but the man just said it was okay so she thanked him and left. When she walked by the place again just yesterday, she noticed it had been abandoned, along with the other stores in the area.