Due South - Karib's Adventures Book One

Chapter 8c

The sound of semi-automatic firearms in the distance. Engines roaring, animals grunting, and people screaming.

I woke up on the ground of an empty room. I was lying on the bare floor. Cob walls around me and light beams as a roof over me. I could see some stars in the interstices of the ceiling.

Someone had laid me in the corner, below the window. There were no artificial lights, only the moonlight and moving shadows coming in from outside.

A clay jug next to me, filled with water — It felt heavy in my shaky hands. When I started drinking, it tasted like the jar was dissolving between my lips. I kept drinking until it was empty and then inspected the flask: solid.

The water made me feel alive: as if I was back into the world. Could the past events had been a bad dream? I pushed on the wall to stand up and wiped my face. Pieces of something fell to the ground in muffle thuds. A thick layer of clay covered my body; it peeled off with every movement.

The previous events came back to me, and a quick three-sixty told me that the ointment had healed the superficial wounds. My cracked lips were gone, and I was still missing nails, but any other cuts were no longer bleeding. Internal injuries were hurting whether I stayed still or moved around.

The internal pain was waking up and threatened to soon invade my mind-space. Then the perception of combat outside of the house registered. It sounded like an armed group attacking a silent enemy hiding within a herd of goats. It didn't make sense at first.

There were two all-terrain cars with the distinctive sound of diesel motors and suspensions working on the desert ground. Semi-automatic rifles and larger calibre guns firing. One of them was a Desert Eagle; I had learned to recognise these by sound. Radio static and voices booming over a cheap speaker; men shouting in Hebrew.

I could only hear animals screaming in pain as they were shot down. Did someone organise a raid to slaughter herds up north? Was I still over the border? The room I was in didn't look like anything I'd ever seen in Israel. Was the army engaging with terrorists who hid among goats?

Before I could move to look at the window, two Arab teenagers barged into the room and pushed me into hiding below the window. They talked fast, their hands holding me and removing the clay from my body. One of them had a teenage moustache growing. We must have been around the same age, but they looked ancient. It was as if they had lived longer and harder days than I had.

I felt sorry for them; I wanted to help them. Seeing the two boys brought up conflicting emotions. I lost my parents early in life, and still, I immediately felt their life was harsher than mine. How could it be? What could scar people more than becoming an orphan? I felt like I was in a position to help them when they were the ones who helped me heal my wounds. How entitled was I?

They kept talking to me, asking me questions. One walked in a crouch and laid a blanket over my shoulder. And I started to think about politics for the first time in my life. Were those the horrible Arabs who wanted to kill us?

Pieces of the cob wall fell on us. I started registering sounds again: the boys talking in Arabic and the soldier outside shouting in Hebrew.

"Can you walk?"

"Fucking Hezbollah!"

"What is your name?"

"In the house!"

"You have to hide under the blanket."

"Let's move in!"

"Something is moving."

The boy with the moustache held both of us by the shoulders. "You stay hidden here, Daniyal. You hide under the blanket and wait. When I am back, we will leave safely."

Daniyal held him in his arms. "Be careful, Abbas. I love you, brother." He pushed me into the corner and sat with me, holding the blanket in front of us up to shoulder level.

Abbas exited the room armed with one shepherd stick. I watched his silhouette disappear in the door frame.

A voice in Hebrew. "I got one!" Hundreds of bullets were fired at once. Abbas cries of agony. Part of the window frame exploded, and thick bloody chunks splattered the walls inside. Abbas' torso and arms hung over the window, most of his head missing.

The radio crackled. "Do you confirm hitting a terrorist?"

Rifle magazines clinked as the soldier recharged his weapon. "Positive. The fucker came at me with a rifle."

Daniyal was already under his brother's body and moved to carry him inside over his back. A dark shadow extended from outside and covered Daniyal and his brother's lifeless bodies.

"Fucking beasts!" The man extended his arms inside and aimed his weapon down. The bullets pierced through the two boys, almost cutting them both in half. Daniyal didn't have the chance to scream before the two brothers' bodies turned into goo and lumps before me.

A scream came from the soldier. I looked up: he was holding his face, blood pouring through his left hand.

Someone over the radio asked. "Are you ok? Do you need backup?"

He removed large splinters from his eye. "Fucking animals. The terrorists attacked me, but I got them good. With those two dead, the mission is over."

"Roger that. You certainly transformed a bad situation into a success. Let's get you back home."

"I need a medic, though."

"I will ask Bar'am to get some doctors ready to fix you up before we head back to HQ."

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Hello there! Mowgli, here! ── ✦

Thank you for reading through Chapter 8. Let me know how your experience was! ── ✦

Which character did you feel the strongest about? And what type of emotion?── ✦

Was it what Lior had in mind for Karib from the start? ── ✦