The Glooming (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 1) (12 page)

Barton looked away. “You may think you’re the king of Mexico, but you’re just another drug dealer.”

One of El Paco’s men cursed as he leveled a Tavor TAR-21 assault rifle at Barton. Even El Paco became slightly annoyed at the boldness of such a man who would dare insult him in his own house, but he waved off his men, who quickly stood back.

“I’m a businessman,” El Paco said nonchalantly to Barton. “I sell goods to people in your own country. If you want to blame the misery of your citizens on something, then you can look in the mirror because the answer is staring right back at you.”

Barton rubbed his palms together, wiping away the sweat. “Do you know why there’re no drug cartels in Chile even though they pioneered the cocaine business? It’s because General Pinochet had them all shot and the lucky survivors moved to Colombia and started everything there. If only we had more Pinochets in Colombia and in Mexico we could have won this damned drug war.”

El Paco grinned. “You Americans are so stupid. Even if we had dictators here and in Colombia and even if they had us all killed, then someone else in some other country would have been selling drugs to your people. It is the American public who are to blame for your stupid drug war, you consume the most drugs out of any other country in the world, yet your foolish government keeps trying to ban it. You people are the true idiots of this world, you make your own enemies, and you’ve brought this disaster onto yourselves.”

Barton threw his hands up. “Alright, whatever. But be that as it may, my offer to you still stands. Stop the transporting of drugs up north and you have my solemn word that we leave you all alone, otherwise we’ll be going in. Do we have a deal?”

El Paco put the cigar back to his mouth and puffed it. “No, I will go on my own. And the best way for me to send this message to your superiors is by giving them your head in a box.” With those words he snapped his fingers as his men aimed their rifles at the now visibly shaken Barton.

Barton stood up as the sweat began to drip from his forehead anew while El Paco’s men surrounded him. “You can’t do this. My government will hunt you down like a dog if you do this.”

El Paco was giggling as he leaned back on his leather chair and crossed his legs. “Your government will fall, just like what happened here. Who knows, maybe I can even take over your country when that finally happens.”

Just as Barton cursed at him, there was a flash of lightning that briefly blinded everyone. It was followed by the nerve-cracking sound of thunder as the storm increased its ferocity. When one of the bodyguards grabbed Barton by the arm, sounds of gunfire and plenty of screaming could be heard all around them. El Paco’s bodyguards instantly surrounded their master. Less than a minute later, the electric power was cut and the whole house was plunged into near darkness with only a few emergency lights that had automatically activated, and the frequent flashes of lightning which gave everyone a brief form of illumination.

El Paco stood up as the sounds of gunfire continued. He strode over to Barton as he drew his gold-plated .357 Magnum revolver from a shoulder holster and pointed it at the DEA agent. “Your men are attacking me, you lying traitor!”

Barton put his hands up as he knelt down. “No, El Paco! I swear to you, there are no DEA agents or police in this whole area. Your own men picked me up and drove me here!”

El Paco cursed aloud. Perhaps it was his arch enemies, the Zetas, who were mounting a surprise attack. “Let’s get to the escape tunnel. We’ll bring this American fool with us as a hostage just in case,” he told his bodyguards as they readied their weapons.

At that moment, two shadowy figures entered the other side of the courtyard from where the kitchen was. Just as everyone turned to face them, Barton could not get a close look at the intruders due to the very dim lighting. As the two approached, they looked like very thin women with long dark hair that hid their faces and they were wearing pleated skirts and nothing else. El Paco and his men were confused, the strangers didn’t seem to be armed and being men, they could never be afraid of women. When the two got to within thirty feet of the group, there was another flash of lightning.

The bodyguards screamed first. Barton simply had his mouth open in shock. El Paco stayed rooted like a statue as the lightning flash revealed their true forms. Although the two looked like women, each one had deathly pallor like that of a corpse. It was not that they were thin, in fact the two were essentially skeletons as it was clear their protruding ribcages had nothing beneath them. Their skeletal arms ended with black clawed hands, while their thin, stick-like legs ended with talons. But the most terrifying aspect was their skull faces, empty sockets where their eyes should have been, with no noses and long, fanged teeth.

Barton finally screamed as the bodyguards opened fire with their rifles set on automatic. But it was of no use as the monstrous, demonic women tore out their organs and ripped their flesh to shreds in less than a few seconds. El Paco knew he couldn’t fight them and simply aimed his revolver at Barton’s head and fired, killing the DEA agent. His corpse slumped forward onto the bloody brick floor.

Then a curious thing happened, instead of attacking the drug lord, the demonic women simply stopped and stood in front of El Paco as he wailed like a madman. “What are you waiting for, hurry up and kill me like what you did to my men!”

The two demons simply stared back at him with their empty eye sockets.

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 nights 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.