Sticks and Stones - Part 3 of 3

 

Photo by Dylan Hunter on Unsplash

3

Reluctantly, Christoffer started for the dumpster and climbed into it without looking back. And then, for a long time, nothing happened. He must’ve stayed in the container for several minutes when he finally dared to lift the lid and stick his head out, at which point, it had become dawn and the sky was painted in the shades of twilight.

Neither Betül nor Farouk was around when he climbed out, stinking worse than he could smell. But their absence was not the only perplexing thing. All around him, scattered at random, were what he could only call human body parts in all shapes and colours, as well as different stages of decay. Even the soil beneath his feet was full of bits of flesh here and there, sticking to his shoes like glue.

But before he could wrap his head around what had happened during those hours he stayed hidden in the container, he staggered back only for something to get caught underfoot, something that he immediately recognised upon picking up. It was a stone, one that belonged to Farouk. But what was it doing here?

He retraced his steps back to his apartment, taking in the bloody carnage all around him but unable to make sense of it. But the worst had yet to come, only he didn’t know then. When he finally arrived at the third-floor landing, the door to his apartment gave way without resistance and unlocked. Inside… nothing. Only traces of blood – a lot of it – on the striped wallpapers, on the floorboards that had become swollen. Neither his mum nor Reila was around, though. In their stead, something else was.

In the kitchen was a large pot bubbling away. As he crept closer, each step warier than the last, he lifted the shaking lid and came face-to-face with a stew made of human body parts. One of the severed fingers had a ring on it, one his mum had been gifted by his deceased father and never took off. This realisation made him stagger back, and his breath became shallow and laboured, and that was exactly when the living room door slammed shut with a deafening bang across the kitchen.

He whipped around and sprinted out the gaping front door, not looking back even once, not until he made it safely out of his apartment and was back outside. When he looked up at the third floor, however, a faceless shape waved at him from the kitchen window, and he fled that instant, springing wherever his feet took him. Once he came back to his senses, he was back at the site of the dumpster, or rather, back inside it, counting the seconds, wishing upon the stars for a miracle that this was only a nightmare and that he would soon wake up from it.

Once nighttime came, however, nothing changed. Stuck in a bad dream with nowhere to go, he climbed out and picked up more stones on the damp soul, and as if to keep himself from losing his senses completely, began to play by himself like a madman.

He must’ve played for several hours by the time he noticed the approaching footsteps and quickly hid back inside the container. Through a small gap, he saw the homeless people returning, each one of them chewing on a human body part. They settled at the dumpster site and drank all night, oblivious to his presence, and when morning came, they left.

This repeated for a few more nights, with the homeless people returning to the container with human body parts and then leaving only to return the next night. One morning, however, instead of waiting in dread for dusk to come, Christoffer decided to follow the homeless people who seemed to be unaware of him, no matter how much noise he made.

They wound up a dark pathway through an empty field or some kind of overgrown pasture no longer used and kept walking for hours on end without respite. And when darkness fell once more, the pathway came full circle, and they were back at the site of the dumpster, only now Christoffer knew where the source of all those human body parts came from.

During this nocturnal walk with no aim or purpose, the homeless people picked up wooden sticks now and then, and by the time night came, those sticks became human body parts. But the homeless people weren’t even aware of this, for they were far gone and unsound of mind to think straight and get back to their senses to realise they were caught in a loop of some kind, reliving the same day over and over, and somehow, he had ended up in that loop, too.

By the second week, he decided to pick up some sticks himself to quench his growing hunger, and although the sticks tasted weird and gamey, like rotten flesh, he did not mind since he knew the sticks were anything but human. The taste even grew on him after the fourth fortnight, and he ended up joining the homeless people, who did not mind him following them around and mimicking them.

Then, one night, as they were having a feast by the fire, something that had never happened happened. One of the homeless people turned to him as they were about to get back on their feet and follow the dark pathway till dusk. This was the first time they ever talked or acknowledged him, as if mimicking them had somehow allowed him to become visible again.

“You stay here, climb the container.”

And so he did.

When morning came, he climbed out only to find himself back in the normal world, no longer bound by the time loop. But several years had passed since then, although he had stayed the same age as when he disappeared. Everyone he knew had long since either passed away or moved to another place – everyone save his good friends Betül and Farouk, who had grown grey and as old as the hills.

They recognised him immediately, although it took him a second to recognise them. None of them could explain what had happened that night, only that he disappeared after climbing into that dumpster. Betül had told the police what had happened, but the police refused to believe her story, and so he was registered into the system as another runaway. When they asked what exactly had happened during the time he was away, he couldn’t tell the truth – or rather – the whole truth.

The two of them passed away not long after this fated reunion, dying almost a week after one another. The entire neighbourhood was in mourning during the funeral, and Christoffer had attended it with those stones that Farouk always carried with him, the ones he found in the nightmarish loop. But as he was paying his respects to his two friends, he heard a familiar rustle in the clump of bushes near the Muslim cemetery, and he decided to take a look at what it was.

There, hiding in the bushes, were some wooden sticks arranged in a neat circle. Without realising it, he picked some up and started chewing, slowly making his way back to the funeral attended by the whole neighbourhood. When they saw him approach, they gasped collectively and pointed fingers at him. When he looked down at the stick, it had turned into a human leg dripping with fresh blood.

Then… a chilling scream.

A woman rushed from the clump of bushes with a child in her arms, one of its legs missing. When she saw him, with his teeth still dug into the tender flesh, she let out another bloodcurdling scream, and before he knew it, the people around him tackled him to the ground and kept him there until the police arrived. When the police asked for his name, he gave them the one his parents gave him, but they wouldn’t believe him, saying he couldn’t have stayed this young after all those years.

Now he was locked up in an asylum, counting the days. His psychiatrist said he had been cured of his illness and that he would be able to return to normalcy once the related paperwork had been sent off to court. In the meantime, to kill some time, he played stones by himself and occasionally chewed on his own arms to satisfy his hunger. Once he returned home, the first thing he would do was to climb into the dumpster. That way, only a child stupid enough to come near a place like that would go missing, and the police would write them off as simple runaway cases.

Sticks and Stones - Part 2 of 3

 

Photo by Foad Roshan on Unsplash

2

“Argh! I told you guys to listen to me! My mum’s going to kill me!”

Betül and Christoffer locked eyes, both apologetic, as Farouk crouched down in defeat and looked devastated as the phone kept ringing in the background. He lived two blocks away from themand would have to walk for several minutes in the gloom to get home.

Also, everyone in their neighbourhood knew that his mum was really strict. She had become so after having lost her husband in a work-related accident seven years ago, and so they feared that she might actually thrash Farouk as a form of discipline for not returning home in time to take his epilepsy pills.

Christoffer, “Hey, don’t beat yourself up too much, dude. You can just stay over at my place, and I’ll have my mum call yours, say that you had a seizure and couldn’t make it home?”

Farouk looked up with misty, bloodshot eyes.

“Then she’ll only get more upset!”

“No, I think Chris has a point. Would you rather she thinks you’ve spent the night at the playground?”

“Of course not! Are you mad!? She’ll kill me if—”

“Then, it is decided,” she said, gesturing at Christoffer. “Hey, lend me a hand and let’s bring this idiot to your place.”

“What about you?” Christoffer said as they each wrapped an arm around Farouk, who was still quite out of it to even lift a finger or move on his own.

“I’ll be fine. My apartment’s not too far from your place.”

“No, I meant, like, won’t your parents, I don’t know, say something?”

“My parents? No, why would they? It’s not like it’s the first time,” she said, changing the subject before he could inquire further. “You had a little sister, right? What was her name, again?”

“Reila,” he said, adding, “she’s not really my sister, though.”

“How so?”

“My mum remarried when I was a toddler to some Japanese guy, who dated her for the green card and then, yeah…”

“Oh, I see. But I thought you two looked pretty close the other day.”

“The other day?” Christoffer repeated, adjusting his grip on Farouk, who was dragging his feet through the pavement with a hollow look on his face as if his whole world had shattered and fallen apart right in front of him.

“Yeah, at the supermarket. You know, the one near the gas station.”

“Ah, right! Yeah, Mum brought us along grocery shopping, but I wouldn’t say we’re that close.”

“Really? Why not, though? You guys must’ve basically grown up together, like real siblings, no?”

“Reila can be… difficult, sometimes, you know?”

“Difficult? Like to elaborate on that one? How difficult can she even be for you to say this?”

“Hard to explain… Not sure where to start…”

“Well, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I just thought you looked close, but—”

“It’s just that she creeps me up, sometimes. Especially as of late. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s older or her teenage hormones acting up, but…”

“But?”

Christoffer cast a look at Farouk as if to make sure the other was too lost in his own misery to pay attention to their conversation.

“It’s like she’s possessed. I keep seeing her wake up at night, going through the entire fridge. Mum thinks I’m the one doing that and won’t believe me.”

“And your step-dad?”

“He’s, uh, not around anymore. Been dead for two years already.”

“Oh, sorry ‘bout that. I didn’t know…”

“Don’t be.”

“And you and your mum’ve been taking care of her all this time?”

“Yeah…”

“Wow, I’m not sure my mum would do that,” she said matter-of-factly before suddenly coming to a halt and seeking his confused eyes. “Hey, did you just say she was going through your fridge every night?”

“…Yeah, why?”

“So, basically, she’s hungrier than usual? Right?”

“I’m not following.”

Betül let go of Farouk and helped him settle on a wooden fence, which only reached to their ankles at either side of the pavement.

“Lamia! She must’ve been possessed by her!”

“I said she was going through the fridge, not eating children, dude.”

“Yeah, so what? Maybe that’s just how it begins? And then, when the hunger grows, she might—”

“Betül! Hemen buraya gel!”

They both turned in the direction of the kiosk just around the corner, where the silhouette of a dumpy woman with a hijab made some angry gestures at Betül. It sounded like her mum, it even looked like her from this angle, but why was her face completely swallowed by the darkness? Not to mention the way she moved her arms seemed so… stiff? Unnatural, even.

“Is that your mum?”

“I…”

“Betül!”

“Hey, you okay?” Christoffer said. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

“Huh? No, I’m… I’m fine. I’m just… confused.”

“Confused?”

As she was about to reveal what was going through her mind, Farouk suddenly rose to his feet between them. In a trance, he then pointed in the direction of the corner where the silhouette was, before going into a seizure with his eyes rolled back into the sockets. They barely caught him in time, and when the worst of the convulsions were over, the silhouette in the corner was gone, too.

“What… what was that?” Christoffer managed, his voice cracking. “Hey, talking to you, Betül! What the heck just happened?”

“I’m not—”

She never finished her sentence, or rather, could not. A nauseating odour arose from the kiosk, right at that shadowy corner, the smell a cross between charred flesh and the sweet and greasy smell of swine mingling. Then, that voice came again, this time from somewhere behind them, and Farouk went into another seizure.

“Gel! Gel! Gel!”

Behind them was nothing but darkness and several apartments lined up on one side. But not for long. Through the shadows, where the eyes could not penetrate at nighttime, several figures emerged, their chilling voices repeating like a broken record the same words over and over again.

“What do they say? Betül!”

“Come,” She met his bewildered gaze, just as fraught with dread as her own. “They are telling us to come.”

“Come? Come where?”

“I-I don’t know! How would I—”

“Reila?”

Betül followed his eyes back to the strange figures moving closer and closer to them by the second, and that was when she saw the girl she had seen at the supermarket the other day. But like her own mum, the girl’s features were hardly visible in the gloom, as if her entire body had been drowned in a sea of shadows and become one with the darkness.

And as Christoffer was about to rush towards her, Betül seized his arm. “What are you doing? Can’t you see it’s not her?”

“…What?”

“Look at them, look carefully! See, Farouk’s there too! But he’s here, isn’t he? Whatever these people are, they are mimicking people we know, trying to lure us closer!”

“How is… how is this even possible? What’s going on?”

Betül, on full alert, “Now’s not the time for asking questions! If we don’t move any time soon, we might not make it!”

“Make it?”

“Listen,” she said, “we have to hide. And that quick!”

“But where? Look at him.” Christoffer gestured at Farouk, who had finally stopped convulsing but was still unconscious. “Does it look like he can move to you?”

“Who said we’re bringing him with us?”

“Uh—what?”

“Quick! Hide in that dumpster over there! Hurry!”

Christoffer followed her gaze to the corner and arched his brows.

“Isn’t that where those homeless—”

“Stop asking questions and just go! Hurry!”

“What about you?”

“I’ll try to distract them! Now go! Go, Chris! Go!”

Sticks and Stones - Part 1 of 3

 

Photo by Luca Maffeis on Unsplash

1

”No! You missed it, dude!” Farouk snapped as the huge piece of stone failed to hit the smaller ones lined up on the sandy ground, rising to his feet from where he was crouched and utterly devastated that his team was losing. Again. “How can you even miss it twice in a row!?”

Betül rolled her eyes before picking up the carefully chosen stone with the uneven edges, one she had successfully used over the course of a year without once missing the mark. That is, until today. She couldn’t say what it was, but something felt off. Whether it was the overcast weather, the increasingly darkening sky, or just something innately inside her, she did not know, but whatever it was, it made her skin crawl and mouth run dry like her whole mouth was made of sandpaper.

Christoffer, on the other hand, was a team of his own and older than them by a year. He celebrated his miraculous win with his signature gesture, shaking his shoulders in an Egyptian dance and making loud noises to annoy Farouk on purpose – going as far as turning his back to them and shaking his butt like a real Arabian belly dancer.

“Woohoo! Losers!” he said, making a huge ‘L’ with his hand, before extending his hand. “Now give me everything you stole!”

Farouk, cheesed off, “Stole!? We won it fair and square, you little—”

“Hey, easy, you two! And you,” Betül said with a firm voice as she turned to face Farouk. “Give the guy back his stones and shut it.”

“Uh… what’s with her?” Christoffer mumbled.

“Do I look like I know?” Farouk said. “Here, these were yours, right?”

Christoffer studied each piece of stone as if it were a jewel. Farouk had fetched from his pockets a full of valuables and picked up three jagged stones seemingly at random. It was a mystery how those huge stones even fit into his pocket, not to mention on top of all those smaller ones in there, too.

“Yeah, seems like it,” Christoffer said, placing the stones inside his folded shirt since he did not have pockets of his own. “When on earth did you even win all those stones? You have no social life or something? No school?”

Farouk lifted his head with a proud smile, so much in fact that Betül thought for a brief moment that his crooked nose would stay suspended mid-air and wanted to smack him back to his senses. But she didn’t do that, of course.

“Dude, like, who do you think I am? I am the Farouk!” he said. “I always have time for victory!”

“Victory?” Betül repeated, her tone laced with sarcasm. “More like defeat! Besides today, have you ever truly won without my help? Like ever?”

Farouk met her sarcasm head-on, his eyes narrowing and lips curling into a pout. “You’re seriously going to live as if stuck in the past? What matters,” he said, grinning wide, “is what we win today, in the present. Which means, I win. Not you, sor-ry!”

“You’re so dumb, you know that?”

“Who you calling dumb!?”

As the two teammates were about to clash and get into a huge fight, one in which Betül would emerge as the winner since she was larger in build than Farouk, who hardly had any meat on him, Christoffer nimbly intervened and separated them before they could start throwing punches.

“Yo, calm down, you two! Hey, you guys hear me!? Geez! Stop it! Both of you!”

Betül ran a hand down her hair as she was the first to retreat, before Farouk too calmed down enough for Christoffer to stop holding him back. “You guys are craaaazy. How did you even end up being friends?”

“Friends? More like enemies!” Betül said, adding. “I recruited this idiot after seeing him win once, and then he just kept losing ever since!”

“You mean twice! I won twice!”

“Dude,” Betül exclaimed as she realised what he was referring to. “Winning against those homeless people… you call that a win? Like, seriously!?”

“Well, you didn’t dare, remember?”

“Yeah, but only because they are homeless, duh!” she said, adding in one single breath before he could interrupt, “and don’t act like you don’t know the rumours, you idiot!”

“What rumours?” said Christoffer.

“Don’t mind her, they’re just rumours!” said Farouk. “See! Nothing bad happened to me!”

“Just because it didn’t happen that one time, doesn’t mean it won’t happen ever! Just how stupid can you even be?”

Farouk glared, rolling up his sleeves to throw another future punch when Christoffer interrupted. “Hey, guys, what rumours?”

Betül and Farouk both turned to Christoffer at the same time as he was about to repeat himself, both of them seeing red and too furious to explain stuff to him. “SHUT IT!”

“Uh, what?” Christoffer said, the tone of his voice giving away just how offended he was at being shouted at out of nowhere. “You guys… got some loose screws or something? Dude, I was just asking.”

Betül, now a tad calmer. “You haven’t heard the rumours? Is that it?”

“Why would I ask if I knew?”

Betül then exchanged a knowing look with Farouk before gesturing each of them to come closer, so that they hunched down in a tight circle of three.

“I’m not sure where the rumours come from or who spread them,” she whispered, dragging each word on purpose to get her words across. “But I don’t doubt them. Not even for a second.”

Farouk, “Me neither.”

Christoffer, utterly confused, arched his brows low and whispered, “What do you mean? You’ve… seen something?”

Betül drew a deep breath before finally speaking, letting her brown eyes sweep over the two boys for the briefest of moments as if to prepare them for what she was about to reveal.

“I was walking home from school one day two years ago. My sister was sick, so this was my first day going home on my own, and as you both know, our apartment is right around that dumpster those homeless people hang out at, drinking and pissing all over themselves. Like, ew, so, so disgusting… Anyway, so I was walking home, and then I felt something strange, like someone watching me. So, I looked around…” She paused, letting the silence stretch on for a tad longer than either of the boys wanted. “And, then I saw one of those people was staring straight at me!”

“W-What happened next?” Farouk croaked.

“Then he waved me over, of course!”

“And did you?” asked Christoffer.

Betül broke the tight circle. “Of course I didn’t, idiot! If I did, would I be here, you think?”

“I don’t get it. What’s this whole rumour thing, then? To me, it just looks like the guy wanted to chat or something…”

“It hasn’t been long since you moved here, right?” she said.

“Yeah, it’s been about four months or so. Why do you ask?”

Farouk, “There was this girl, let’s call her Ida for convenience. One day, as she was walking home from school, she disappeared. Just like that! The whole neighbourhood tried to find her, but when night came, she was reported missing to the police. According to the rumours, someone saw her talk to one of those homeless people before she vanished!”

“She was… never found?”

“No,” Betül said, “she wasn’t! The police wrote off her case as a typical runaway, but the poor girl was only eight years old when she went off the radar, only two or so years younger than what we are today.”

“You think… there’s some truth in those rumours, then?”

“Of course!”

“But didn’t you,” Christoffer turned to face Farouk, “just say that you played and won against those homeless people? If the rumours were true, then you wouldn’t be here, would you?”

“Yeah, but I was not by myself! All the neighbourhood kids were there too! Just imagine if I’d been there all alone?” Farouk shivered at the thought. “I’d be long dead!”

“Still, something doesn’t add up. Maybe the police are right? Maybe she just—”

“An eight-year-old runaway?” said Betül, adding before he could protest. “Come on, dude! Get real! No kid that age runs away, unless…” Betül gestured them to come closer again, closing the circle, “…something else happened to her.”

“Like what…” Christoffer said, his voice cracking from the growing dread in the air around them. “…exactly?”

“You two ever heard the story of ‘Lamia’?”

“Lami—what?” said Farouk, who was getting increasingly unsettled by the stuff they were discussing as the sun fell below the horizon every passing second in the background, casting the entire playground in deep shadows.

“It’s originally a story from Greek mythology, one only a few know, and luckily for you two, I’m one of those people in the know…”

“So?” said Christoffer. “What’s the story about?”

“Okay, so there was this super pretty queen named Lamia, and Zeus, the king of the gods, liked her – like, liked liked her – and his wife, Hera, got soooo mad. She was jealous and made Lamia go totally nuts! She took away her kids and made her into this scary children-eating monster!”

“Children…”—Farouk, peeking over his shoulder at once as if something had moved in the deepening shadows and crept closer to them—“…eating monster?”

“And get this, you two,” she continued without missing a beat. “Lamia could never close her eyes, like ever, so she just wandered around all night, looking creepy and sad and angry. Then she started stealing kids from their beds, and she’d eat them! Eat them all!”

As she said the last sentence, she raised her voice on purpose, and Farouk almost had a heart attack as he jolted up with a gasp and took shelter behind Christoffer. Christoffer, although equally scared, tried to play it cool.

 “What a stupid story. Why would a monster from Greek mythology even be here, in our neighbourhood? Stop making up stuff just to scare Farouk—”

“But I’m not making any of this up!” she interjected.

“Everyone knows you’re a bookworm,” Christoffer said. “You’re just telling us stories you’ve read! Anyone can see that, so stop pretending!”

Betül, “I didn’t read about it anywhere! I swear! I heard it from someone!”

“Really? Like from whom? Come on, go ahead. Tell us!”

Farouk, sensing the growing tension between those two, with his weak and antsy voice, then tried to intervene. “Hey, uh, maybe we should go home now? It’s getting dark and—”

“I-I promised not to snitch!”

“Promised!?” snapped Christoffer. “Since when do you keep your promises?”

“Are you saying I don’t?”

“Just admit it, Betül! You’re just making stuff up to scare us!”

“I already told you—”

“Guys, listen to me, it’s getting really dark and—”

“Shut up!” they both said in sync.

And for a while, the heated conversation continued back and forth with neither of the two backing off or throwing in the towel, not until the streetlights on the playground turned on and they found themselves way past their curfew, at which point it was too late to rue the day because Farouk’s phone now rang and pulled the three friends back to reality.

The Cull - Still the Wheel Turns (Epilogue)

Photo by Nika lukava on Unsplash

I was discharged from the psychiatry ward three weeks after the police found us. In order to reintegrate into society, we promised to keep our silence about the pilot project and the fate that befell a great many.

They had no idea we caught it all on camera. I saved all the records on a USB drive, just in case history repeated itself – as it always does.

Three years later, I found myself standing in front of a classroom as a teacher. Things went back to normal. But not for long.

I thought it was all over. The project, the experiments, and my own part in all this. I was wrong. Deadly wrong.

“Is your anne taking a nap too? Just like mine?”

Ali’s voice broke the silence as I crouched in front of my mother’s grave. He stood behind me, watching as I tenderly ran my fingers through the parched soil, imagining it was her soft skin.

This was my first time visiting the place where she was put to rest. There was a time when I thought I didn’t deserve to see her. I thought she’d hate to see her murderer pay a visit. But Ali encouraged me to break this train of thought.

I glimpsed behind me and smiled. The cool breeze brushed against my face.

“I hope she is. Are you cold?”

Ali shook his head, carefully, and then mustered up the courage to ask me something that took me by surprise.

I stood there, at a loss for words, unable to find the right way to express myself. I could tell he knew I was having a hard time.

I wondered just how long he had been lost in this thought, contemplating this very question, and what had prevented him from voicing it sooner.

“What… happened to her?”

“It’s… it’s a long story. I don’t know where to begin…”

He squeezed my shoulder.

“It’s okay, Elin. You can tell me some other time.”

Standing up, a lopsided smile slowly appeared on my face. I wrapped my arm around him and kissed his head.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I didn’t take Ali under my wing. Instead of pursuing motherhood, I chose to be a solid pillar of support for both Ali and his brother. I wasn’t cut out for that kind of stuff, anyway.

A young couple reached out with open arms to embrace him and his baby sister. I was grateful towards them. Despite me being a stranger, they entrusted their son to my care.

I had the chance to visit them a few times too and see what kind of life Ali led.

The way they looked at the unfortunate siblings told me that he wasn’t just someone they adopted. He had become their flesh and bone. It was the same for Ali.

“Wanna grab a bite before we catch the train?” I asked to change the topic.

“No, I’m good.”

“I’ve got cash, you know,” I said, my voice trailing off as he shook his head. “How about some ice cream, then? You like ice cream.”

He shook his head again, his hair tousling with each movement. Every time I asked if we should eat something, he would do that.

Not that I was short on cash, but my earnings were just enough to make ends meet, and this little fellow seemed to know all about this. Since when did he grow up this much?

As the clock ticked closer to afternoon, we rushed to catch the train before it departed. It would take us a solid two hours to arrive at the capital, and then an additional half-hour bus ride to reach Ali’s two-storey house.

The train was packed with people, leaving little room to manoeuvre. It was a stroke of luck that we came across two empty seats, perfectly positioned to face each other in the aisle.

I plonked down next to an older man in his fifties, while Ali took a seat next to a girl of similar age. The man’s worn leather jacket emitted a faint scent of tobacco.

Since we had a long ride ahead, I plugged in my earphones and let the heavy metal music drown out the noise of the train, lulling me into a peaceful sleep.

I jolted awake roughly forty-five minutes later when the man lightly tapped me to get off the train. I moved to the window seat, taking in the breathtaking view outside, and then waved Ali over.

But he was engrossed in a conversation with the girl, so I drifted back to sleep. Once again, however, something stirred me awake. A loud, jarring noise shattered the silence.

Someone dropped a leather bag on the seat next to me. I looked around me, hoping to catch someone else’s attention, but everyone seemed too absorbed in their own affairs to pay me any mind.

There was no sign of the owner anywhere. I moved past the bag and scanned the aisle, catching snippets of hushed conversations that floated through the air.

Regardless of which direction I looked, there was no one searching for the bag. I eased back into my seat, my gaze locked on the mysterious leather bag, my thoughts racing with a thousand unanswered questions.

After waiting for nearly thirty minutes, I unzipped the bag to look for the owner’s contact information.

The weight of the bag was the first thing that immediately grabbed my attention. It was surprisingly heavy.

While trying to figure out what could be inside, something else caught me by surprise. The pungent smell.

I jumped back and moved away from the bag. There were several black trash bags inside.

Seeing my distorted expression, Ali asked if everything was all right. When his eyes landed on the leather bag, I zipped it up and excused myself.

I secured the WC door and unzipped the bag again. My hand rose to cover my nose from the pungent odour that hit me. The foul odour was one I knew all too well. So why couldn’t I bring myself to open the trash bags and check if I was right?

A chilling sensation ran through my veins, causing my blood to curdle. I drew a deep breath, my heart racing as I cautiously opened one of the trash bags, only to be overcome by a grotesque scene.

I moved away, my eyes shifting rapidly, consumed by a sense of terror. Every inch of my body shook and my mind became flooded with despairing thoughts.

Inside the black bag was a decapitated, boiled head. Its features were distorted and unrecognisable, but something told me I knew who it was.

With my thoughts scattered all over the place, I mustered the courage to reach inside the bag and place the boiled head in the sink.

 Rummaging through the black plastic bag, I found a blood-stained letter hidden inside it. My name was written on it.

The bag hadn’t been dropped by accident.

I read the letter, absorbing every word as I went through it. My hands were shaking like there was no tomorrow.

Images of the double-decker bus, the three men, and the carnage flooded my mind. The air felt heavy and thick, making it hard for me to take a full breath as my throat tightened.

My chest rose and fell with each laboured breath. My face lost colour as the tears I thought were long gone threatened to spill.

To Elin,

State Library, 1999. The Cryonics Lab.

Let’s finish what we started.

Sincerely, Mark.

The Cull - The Dawn of the Damned

Photo by aboodi vesakaran on Unsplash

As my eyes cleared, I noticed I was back in the cave. How did I manage to come back here? My last memory was a jumbled mess, like a puzzle with missing pieces. I couldn’t remember anything.

To make matters worse, my head throbbed with excruciating pain. How long had I gone without water? I shook my head vigorously, trying to clear the fog that clouded my thoughts.

Then I heard a chorus of voices breaking the silence and I sat upright. The others were huddled in one corner, their voices rising in a heated debate that filled the cave with tension.

Noor was among them. I heaved a sigh of relief as soon as I spotted her. She had made it. A weight lifted off my shoulder.

As I groaned and stumbled to my feet, I approached the others, panic rising in my chest the second I noticed the infant was missing.

The words escaped from my parched lips, slipping away like fleeting whispers in the wind, before I could hinder them. The survivors fell into silence, their eyes wide with fear, as they turned to face me.

But I was too preoccupied by what had happened to the infant to notice this at first. The old woman was the first to brush past me and return to her little corner, followed by Niclas, so that only me, Noor and her dad were the only ones standing up.

“Where is it?” I asked, frantic. “The baby.”

“Don’t worry. Yudes is taking care of it.” Noor said, pointing to the corner.

My frantic gaze scanned the cave until it settled on the old woman, clutching something concealed under a blood-stained fabric. Ali sat right beside her and was sound asleep.

“I found some milk powder while I was looking for you. It’ll keep it alive for now I guess. But it needs breastmilk and a warm place to stay.”

“I know,” I said, my voice trailing off as the pain in my head reached another height. “I know. I-I’ll figure something out.”

“Elin,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. I shifted my focus from my feet to her eyes laced with concern as she continued. “Don’t you have something to tell us?”

“What do you mean?”

She paused for a brief moment before posing another question. I could tell by the way her eyes kept flickering that she was nervous.

“I saw you. You were talking to one of them. I followed you back to the vehicle when you split up. Then you passed out.

“You followed me?”

“Why did he let you go? Elin? Elin, please…”

I scratched the back of my head. Were they literally thinking I was cooperating with those bastards or something? Then again, it did seem like that from the outside, didn’t it?

“Listen, there’s a misunderstanding—”

“You confess you talk them?”

“Not quite like that, Omar. I just… He talked to me. It’s not what you’re thinking. There’s something I can’t tell you, some kind of connection between me and this-this messed-up project, okay?

“But that’s not what matters right now. He told me there was a rat among us, okay? We need to find out who it is and—”

“How can we trust you?” Noor said, adding. “And what’s the connection between you and this project? Elin? You gotta tell us!”

“I-I can’t, all right? You’ll just have to trust me on this one! If we don’t act now—”

“Let’s pretend you’re right. Okay? Let’s just do that for a sec. But why would that murderer tell you something like this, then? Knowing he’ll put one of his own in danger.”

“He…or the person who’s responsible for putting us through this hell knows me. That’s what he said, okay? He was instructed to keep me safe. I- I don’t know why. Don’t look at me like that, Noor! I wouldn’t risk my life if I were one of them, would I?”

“How he know you?” Omar said.

“I’m-I’m not sure. I have an idea but that’s not what’s important right now. We need to find out which one of us is lying.”

“What about the bag?” Noor asked. “Did you find it?”

“I did, sort of. There were no weapons in it though, just gasoline to dispose of the bodies.”

“Dispose of the bodies? Why? Or rather, why now?” Noor said, adding. “You said some of the cadavers were at least a few weeks old. They didn’t dispose of them before, so why now?”

 “I think something didn’t go according to their plan.” I took a deliberate pause, making sure to look at them both in order. “I think the police are on their way.”

“A-are you sure? Elin? Are you—”

“I think so. I’m not sure but… it sounded like that to me. Just don’t say anything to the others for now.”

“Why no?” Omar said.

“We don’t know who the rat is. If that person finds out about the police, they might do something reckless.”

“So what do we do now, just wait or what? What if you’re wrong and the police never come?”

“I’ll go look for something we can use to defend ourselves with – just in case. I think they’re hiding weapons somewhere in the forest. I’ll see if I can find something to eat, too. If we’re lucky—”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, stay here. Keep these people safe. We don’t know who the rat is yet, Noor. You’re the only person I can trust. Please…”

She nodded, albeit reluctant. “Then stay safe. No matter what. Do you hear me? Don’t do anything stupid and risk your life! We need you here.”

I didn’t reply. I wasn’t going to keep a promise I couldn’t keep. I was already dead on the inside. I was more comfortable with the idea of putting my life at risk than with the alternative.

When I returned to the double-decker bus, I noticed that everything inside the baggage compartment had been emptied this time.

Someone had gone to great lengths to ensure that we would be defenceless, leaving nothing for us to find.

As I nibbled on my dry lips, contemplating my next move, I turned around and gazed up at the looming bus.

It was rocking. Before I could react and make a break for it, the lawyer guy stepped out. The gun he held was steady, its barrel aimed directly at me. How did he know I would come here?

Conrad followed closely behind him, a sinister grin stretched across his face like the wicked thing he was. A living human animal, the first of its kind.

“I think we should start by gouging her eyes out and then shoot her. What’d you think Henrik?”

Conrad approached with outstretched hands. His eyes were wild with delirium. I clutched to the bus, feeling the rough texture of the metal against my fingers as I backed away.

The other guy seized his arm just inches from getting to me. “We don’t have time for that, you dickhead.”

“Come on, dude! You’re seriously gonna let her off that easily? Seriously, after everything we did, after all the fun we had, you’re just gonna shoot her?”

“All right. I’ll give you thirty seconds. But if you fail, we’ll do it my way. You got it?”

So, this was the fate that awaited me? A smirk spread across my face as I envisioned the macabre scene of my eyeless, hollow sockets and rigid corpse consumed by the roaring flames of the bonfire along with the rest of the passengers.

What a glorious end it would be to become a macabre toy in the hands of those, who deserved death more than any other species.

At that very moment, just as Conrad forced my eyes wide open, a surge of greed washed over me. I wanted to know why we were brought to this place and why we were subjected to such merciless treatment.

“Why are you doing this to us?”

Conrad broke off. His grin faded, perhaps annoyed, as if I had interrupted his playtime – his only means of entertainment.

But Henrik didn’t seem bothered by my question; instead, a faint smile appeared on his face as if he found my question entertaining.

“‘Cause you’re part of a project granted by the government. But we already told you that…”

“What government would kill its own people?”

“We don’t go after regular folks who pay their taxes. We’re after people like you who are just a burden to everyone else – people like you who are wasting our resources.”

Burden? It took me a while, but I eventually understood the intention behind his words. It was evident that most of the passengers were devoid of any life goals, their futures uncertain and undefined.

They were forever shunned by the society they lived in, their differences bringing upon condemnation. He was right, we were burdens, a constant source of frustration and resentment to the rest of society.

But we didn’t choose this path for ourselves – this world, this inhospitable planet filled with avarice, starvation, and malevolence caused our demise.

I couldn’t suppress the smirk that crept onto my lips upon hearing this.

“How do you plan on using those resources, then?” I already knew the answer. I was the one who came up with the project.

“It’s gonna be a whole new world after this and you people are the key to this big change.”

“Big change, huh? Sure, if that’s what you want to call this massacre.”

Henrik stepped closer. A wide grin stretched across his face, revealing the excitement brewing in his disturbed mind.

I knew what he was going to say even before he said it. Still, it took me a few seconds to process everything and come to terms with the reality I was now confronting.

 “Do you believe in cryonics, miss?”

A chilling sensation ran through my veins. This word was not unfamiliar to me. Of course, it was not. This place, the double-decker bus, the mayhem, the damn project…

They were all part of the research paper I wrote when I still had my whole life ahead of me. This carnage was my creation. But I never finished it.

Blood splashed onto my clothes, leaving behind a vivid crimson stain. Gasping, I looked up. The dirk knife stuck out right between the lawyer’s forehead, who, still conscious, lost his grip on the gun.

As he turned around to see his murderer, he collapsed sideways, his limbs splayed out in an awkward position. Despite being frozen in one spot, I saw my chance and acted swiftly, leaping forwards to pick up the dagger and plunging it right into the back of Conrad’s skull as he looked in the direction of the ominous forest.

When he fell to his death, I locked eyes with the one who threw the dagger and saved my wretched existence. He really went all out to make sure I stayed alive, huh?

Taking my chance, I snatched the gun and made a break for it, swearing under my breath as I wiped off the blood on my face with the back of my arm.

As I made it back to the cave, panting still and out of it, Noor and the others were yet again huddled together in one corner. I was about to break the news that two of the guys had been killed when Noor cut me off.

I could see a glint of doubt and suspicion in her gazelle eyes. Her voice carried a bitter tone as she accused me.

“You’re the one! You’re really—”

“What…? What’re you going on about? Look, I-I got this gun from one of the—”

“I saw you, Elin!”

“Saw what?”

“He helped you! That-that guy, he helped you!”

“Look, I already told you that there’s a connection between this programme and me! I can’t tell you what it is, okay? Just know that—I’m not what you think I am…”

I stopped mid-sentence as she made a face at me. I frowned, not sure what she was trying to do at first, but then it all dawned on me.

I glanced at Omar without really knowing why and he returned my gaze with a confirming nod. What was going on? It didn’t take me long to figure it out, though.

I scanned the hideout until my eyes landed on the old woman, who now stood upright and was ready to apprehend me. Now that I took a second to study her, she wasn’t as old as I thought she was all along.

Sure, she was at least in her mid-seventies, but not more than that. Wait… It was her? But how did Noor and her dad figure it out? In any case, this was for the better. The sooner we got rid of the mole, the better our chances of survival were.

I decided to play along.

“I’m really not lying. You gotta trust me.”

“You hide something in hand. I no lie. Allah big. Allah see me, how should I lie?”

Oh, that was it. They must’ve seen something under the quilt. A gun? Maybe a knife? But I couldn’t act recklessly. Both Ali and the infant were too close to her.

I took a deliberate step closer to Yudes without taking my eyes off Ali, whose desperate eyes told me he was the one who discovered the mole.

Without completely letting go of the dagger, I shifted my focus to the woman. Our eyes met. That was when Omar shouted something unintelligible but I could tell that he wanted me to take action.

I lunged forwards and felt the impact as the woman shoved me to the wall and tore my cheek open. A knife, it was…

As she went for Ali and the infant, I leapt forwards and shielded them both with my bare hands. The blade cut through my palms and fingers as I held her back just enough for Noor to carry the infant away.

Distracted momentarily by Niclas’s cries, Yudes pushed me against the wall. I shut my eyes, grimacing, as I waited for the fatal strike. Why was she so strong? But it never came.

When I regained back my senses, Omar was stooping over me, shouting at me, but I couldn’t hear what it was until a few seconds later. My mind was a hazy mess.

That’s when I realised what had happened. She took Ali. That darned piece of shit! I rose to my feet and stormed out of the cave and sprinted towards the vehicle down the slope.

I ran with all my might.

Although I was as unfeeling as a stone and as cold as ice, the thought of a little kid dying an unjust death was unbearable to me.

I promised his mum I would keep him safe, and I was determined to fulfil that promise. I had to.

I caught up with her. The distance between us grew shorter with each step until we reached the double-decker bus, where her accomplices were surrounded by a swarm of flies already and rotting. But she didn’t know that.

She came to a sudden halt and turned to face me, positioned on the opposite side of the bus, by the slope, and remained oblivious to the fact that her accomplishes had already met their demise.

She sneered at me, her upper lip curling upwards in a wolfish grin.

“Oh, we’re so gonna wipe you all out! You can bet on that, you little shit! None of you will make it out of here alive, do you hear me!? Human animals like you don’t deserve to live!”

“Ali’s just a kid. The only animal here is you!”

“He’s a Muslim terrorist! He’s going to murder us all! I have to get rid of him!” In a disturbed combination of laughter and delirium, she shouted at the top of her lungs. “He’s going to chop off the heads of forty babies! Forty babies! Forty babies! Forty babies!”

I stared at the poor kid upon hearing this. He trembled. A sharp pang of pain surged through my chest. I looked away. Although he couldn’t decipher her words at such an age, I could tell that he could feel the waves of hatred reverberating from her voice.

The thought of living in a world where the oppressors had control over the oppressed sickened me. If that wasn’t the portrayal of a heartless creature, what else could it be? Spreading lies and twisting the truth with such indifference, with such arrogance!

Forty babies, huh? What a bunch of derailed fuckers. Even a child could come up with a more plausible lie.

“He’s just a kid, whether you see him as one or not. He wasn’t born to be a terrorist, he was born to die at the hands of those who oppressed him!”

She grinned, her wicked eyes growing wider and more sinister.

“You know why I took this job?”

“Because you regretted not murdering more Arabs in order to take over their country for good? The illegal settlement wasn’t enough?”

“It’s not theirs! It was given to us! Yahwe chose my people to rule this land so the Messiah can come! We’re above these human animals!”

“Ah, the Messiah thing, huh?” I said. “So convenient to use religion as a shield, right?”

“That’s what Yahwe wants! We’re the chosen people! We’re above law and reason!”

“Sure. Whatever you say. But that doesn’t mean you can just go around and kill people or distort the truth to get what you want. I’m sure your Messiah would agree with me.”

“You don’t know anything about my people!” she said. “You think I don’t know who you are!? You’re the one who started all of this!”

“I didn’t start anything. You pieces of shit did! Just like you always do by distorting the truth in your own fucking favour!”

“This project was all you, Elin!” With a maniacal expression on her face, she surveyed the surrounding bloodshed and laughed. “Look! You’re just as guilty! You have blood on your hands, too!”

I observed her until she stopped laughing her head off. She was right. I had blood on my hands. I should’ve seen this coming when I first sat down to write that paper. But I didn’t.

I never considered that something I discarded would come back to haunt me. Then again, looking back, there was no way I could have predicted this outcome.

Someone finished my paper. Was it the person who so desperately wanted me to stay alive? Maybe it was. I would probably never know. I was going to die here.

But first, I had to save Ali. He wasn’t a terrorist. He wasn’t a human shield. He wasn’t a human animal. He… he was a child. Just a child.

“They’re all dead,” I began, pausing to see her reaction. “And the police are on their way.”

“The government is on our side! The world is on our side! There’s nothing you human animals can do!”

“This place, what you’ve done to us… It’s all over social media as we speak.” It wasn’t entirely false. We captured every moment on film, but we did not have the opportunity to share it with the world yet. “Even with the heavens on your side, you can’t hide the truth. It’s over. Let the kid go.”

“You think I’d fall for that?”

“Call your accomplishes and see for yourself, then.”

She had Ali in a chokehold as she reached for her phone. As the ringing reverberated from the other side of the bus, she made her way around, never taking her eyes off me.

Seeing them there, lifeless and bathed in their own blood, her eyes grew wide. The confusion etched on her hardened face was easy to read. I could almost hear her thoughts: ‘How in the world did you pull this off?’

“This is your last chance. Let the kid go or rot in prison.”

The faint croak of sirens soon reverberated in the vicinity, announcing that help had come at last. I thought it wouldn’t come. As the noise grew louder, I briefly glanced behind me, trying not to show my surprise.

Yudes released her grip on the kid and made a break for it. However, my heart couldn’t find any reason to celebrate as Ali leapt into my secure arms. He clung to me, his grip so tight that I could feel his fingers digging into my skin as he wept uncontrollably.

Peering into the dense forest ahead, a shiver ran down my spine, fully aware of the lurking presence of the man in the white shirt there.

I smirked. Why was it that, whenever I made up my mind to end my life, fate found a way to keep me alive? What a joke…

The last thing I anticipated was the arrival of the police. I thought I could deceive the woman, put Ali in Noor’s care and then off myself with the gun the lawyer left behind.

Worst-case scenario, I was going to use the bullets on that piece of shit and save one for myself. But she ran away like the coward she was. Fucking human animal.

When the police brought us to safety, they searched high and low, but Amina was nowhere to be found. I scoured every corner, but it was as if she had vanished without a trace.

In the ambulance, when I asked Noor about Amina, she told me something that left me in disbelief. Amina was never there. She was a mere creation of my thoughts and existed solely in my mind – a mirror image of my former self.

I created her as an escape from reality. The death of my mother was too difficult for me to cope with, so I created her as a comfort to my unsound and deteriorating mind.