Büyü – Part III [Final Part]

Photo by Alessandro Benassi on Unsplash

“Hello, hello. My name Mustafa.” The bookstore owner pointed at himself. “Not Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, best leader of Türkiye. You know Atatürk?”

The owner was in his mid-fifties. His round glasses were tinted and his Hawaiian shirt was something you’d expect to find in more tourist-populated cities like Antalya or Bodrum.

Kerem cracked a bitter smile. “I’m sorry, uhm, can I ask a question?”

“Tabii ki de! Ne istersen! Yes, anything you like! You ask, come on!”

“As far as I’m aware, the natives of Turkey are not known for their reading. But the bookstore’s open at night, nonetheless.”

“Türkiye,” he corrected me, leaning closer after making sure we were the only ones present in the bookstore. “Bir sır verim mi delikanlı?”

‘Want me to give you a secret, young man?’.

Kerem frowned upon hearing this. What secret? Wasn’t this just a bookstore operating at odd times?

As if the bookstore owner could read his mind, he retreated with a fake smile and said he was just joking in Turkish. Apparently, even the owner did not know why the bookstore had to be open at such a peculiar hour.

Mustafa was raised in Istanbul, Fatih, and had no real connection to Konya, Karapınar. The only nephew of an elderly couple, he inherited the bookstore along with the couple’s all assets and belongings – on one condition.

Anatolia had a rich history of folklore and myths. The elderly couple believed in ‘büyü’ or, in English terms, ‘magic’. While ‘büyü’ is recognised in the Islamic religion, it is not permitted.

That, however, did not keep the locals from engaging in it. Especially in these rural parts, where the majority were illiterate and superstition ran deep. It wasn’t unheard of to seek a ‘büyücü’, that is, a ‘magician’, when in need of non-urgent help.

The elderly couple had become rich overnight. From what Mustafa could gather, everything changed when they started opening the bookstore at night.

He followed the couple’s will at first and opened only at nighttime. When this became a tiring task and his wife complained about it, he switched things up.

Only one day later, he was on the brink of bankruptcy.

But since he was getting older and had no children of his own who could take over the business, he sought someone who could help him along. That’s where Leyla comes into the picture.

A distant relative of Mustafa’s wife, Leyla uploaded an announcement on social media about the cashier's job.

Someone unknown to both him and Leyla called two days later and told her that he would hit her up in a week.

In a week …

In a week …?

The guys from the headquarters hadn’t phoned him at that point, and Mia wasn’t supposed to be missing, either. What was this? Some kind of messed-up joke?  

Even as the bookstore owner left, he couldn’t wrap his head around what was going on. First, it was the uncannily similar fake ID, then this whole thing about the massacre, and now this?

Then a thought hit him.

Was Mia even missing?

He picked up the phone to call her when he realised that this analogue phone only permitted calls from within the country.

Why hadn’t he thought about calling Mark before he departed?

Then again. Would he be able to? Those people put a tail on him. He could neither return to his apartment nor bid farewell to his friends at the headquarters.

Moreover, was this whole talk about aliens and whatnot just made up?

No matter how hard he twisted and turned the matter in his head, there was no answer – not a plausible one, that is.

The bells rang.

He looked in the direction of the front door made of glass. Whoever had entered was no longer visible. The door closed.

It had only been some thirty minutes since Mustafa left. He hadn’t expected to see a customer for at least an hour.

The entire street was drenched by the downpour, and no one roamed around as far as his eye could see from where he stood behind the counter.

Ten minutes.

Fifteen minutes.

Twenty minutes passed by.

Kerem glanced at the ticking clock on the wall across him and counted the seconds. Apart from the slow and deliberate footsteps reverberating through the store, nothing else revealed the presence of the customer.

Thinking they might need help, he trudged from bookshelf to bookshelf, from aisle to aisle, in search of the customer whose footsteps kept getting fainter with each passing second.

When he reached the last bookshelf, he became acutely aware of one thing.

The footsteps never ceased or stopped.

It kept moving.

Everything plunged into darkness.

The lights switched off.

“Merhaba? Kimse var mı?”

No response. Maybe they couldn’t understand his heavily accented Turkish. He tried again.

“Hello? Is anyone here?”

Still no response.

This was getting ridiculous, he thought. After getting accustomed to the darkness, he made his way back to the counter and fetched a flashlight from the drawer.

Wheezing, he pointed to the flash of light wherever he thought he saw some strange movements. Even so, he failed to catch a glimpse of the person who kept on walking in this haunting rhythm that sent chills down his spine.

He jolted and lost his footing. The flashlight slipped from his grasp and rolled away.

Something emerged from the other side of the window beside him and scared the living daylights out of him.

A pair of youngsters broke into a peal of laughter, pointing at him and screaming their heads off. Relaxing his shoulders, he drew a deep breath before stumbling back on his feet.

The bells rang again.

The footsteps disappeared.

The lights turned on.

No one was near the closing door.

But that wasn’t what made him back away and open his eyes wide. ₺1,000, approximately $29 was rung up on the cash register. How many books did that translate to? More than a handful, that was certain.

As he was having these ruminations, his eyes drifted to the security camera in the corner. Recalling that the owner provided him with a notebook with important information, he rummaged through the drawers until he found it.

“8921…”

He turned on the computer, tapping his feet repeatedly and keeping his darting eyes on the front door. Come on! Open!

The monitor hummed back to life. Opening the computer was the easier part, he noted, than finding the software programme for the security cameras.

Although he wasted a few minutes trying to find it, he eventually succeeded.

“Shit!”

There was no record, only live footage. What kind of bullshit was this? Why in the world—the bells rang.

His eyes drifted from the monitor to the front door. There was no one there. Thinking he must be mistaken, he went through all the footage as thoroughly as possible.

Still, there was no sign of anyone here. Apart from the footsteps, that is.

The lights flickered, turning on and off in a deadly trance, and making a fool out of him.

Fumbling to fetch his phone and call the bookstore owner, he lost his grip on it.

As soon as he crouched down, the lights went off again. This time, however, something was a little different.

The footsteps were not becoming fainter.

Through the gap under the counter, he spotted a pair of red high heels that drew closer.

He held his breath.

The figure came to a standstill in front of the counter. As he stood there, too afraid to make a sound or confront whatever or whoever waited for him, he heard something he could only describe as someone wrinkling a piece of paper.

The strange figure headed for the front door. Only when the bells rang and the door closed did he get back on his feet.

Once again, a large amount of Turkish lira was rung on the cash register. But that was not the only strange thing. As he had guessed, a piece of paper rolled or squeezed into a ball was on the counter, too.

“Kaç.”

Run…? Why? He took a gander at the clock on the wall only to realise it hadn’t moved since an hour ago. Fearing the worst, he picked up his belongings and headed for the exit.

Above him, the flickering lights kept switching on and off faster and faster, almost in time with his racing heart.

When he reached the front door and grabbed the door handle, an invisible force pushed him to the ground.

Crawling backwards, the silhouette of a creature on four legs materialised from the thin air before him.

The lights went amok. The bookstore’s customers showed up on the other side of the windows, screaming in unison with their shrill voices, and placing their bloody hands all over the glass.

Among the sea of spirits, a familiar face arrested him. Mia…?

Her gaping mouth was hollow, her eyes devoid of a soul, and her limbs convulsing with rigour mortis.

The creature from outer space grew taller and taller before him until its head reached the ceiling and beyond.

When it lurched down to get him with unprecedented speed, Kerem noticed another strange thing among the sea of dead souls.

Some were engulfed by flames, others disfigured so that their limbs were all mixed up, and yet others had their stomachs slit open so that their guts were out in the open, hanging loosely.

Through the blazing fire, a man who looked identical to his deceased father showed up. He opened the door with his invisible hand scorched to oblivion, liquified beyond rescue and soundlessly begged him to hurry.

When the thing reached out its meaty tongue towards him, he rolled to the side and leapt forwards with all his might.

As soon as he snatched the door handle and stormed out, the downpour stopped and the darkness of night faded away.

Before him was a busy street during broad daylight full of people from all walks of life. Someone honked at him and cussed him off.

He stepped away from the fast-flowing lane and looked behind him.

The mysterious bookstore faded into the background only to be replaced by a haunting graveyard in the middle of the city.

“What the fuck…?”

“Hi! Kerem, isn’t it?”

Kerem followed the sound of the voice. It was her. Leyla. He wanted to ask a lot of questions, but nothing escaped from his mouth. Not because he lost his ability to speak or was out of words, but because the person before him melted into liquid.

Somehow, he was the only one rooted to the spot and watching the bizarre spectacle.

He must have looked quite out of it because two kids passing by mimicked his frightened expression and made fun of him.

He collapsed.

His feet gave way under him.

As the locals surrounded him and asked if he was okay, his deceased uncle reached out a hand with a reassuring smile.

When he returned home, none of his coworkers in the headquarters knew what he was talking about. Those people he met, they didn’t exist. At least, not in the sense either of them were familiar with.

Had he been subjected to some kind of black magic? What was it called, again?

Right.

Büyü.

Büyü - Part II

Photo by Maria Orlova on Unsplash

This could hardly be called a lodge, he thought, as he entered the dilapidated guesthouse located in the more remote parts of the city.

The people staying here were all foreigners, most of them Arabs by the look of it, and those who were native to Turkey seemed too high to even speak their own language.

As soon as the floater left, a Syrian guy called Ahmad, the clerk, ushered him to a stinky room on the second floor.

The first thing that crossed Kerem’s mind upon passing the threshold to the room was how it was possible for something to look so clean yet reek of urine.

Then he spotted the stains on the walls and floorboards, which spoke for themselves. Out of every place they could find him, they gave him this pigsty of a place, huh?

But the thoughts of spending several days in this place were soon replaced by other thoughts. What now, he thought to himself, what now?

Apart from telling him to come down here and memorise his new identity, they told him nothing else. Now that he thought about it, the fake ID they gave him was odd in its own right.

Arda Karaman. A 26-year-old university student on an exchange programme, studying Mechanical Engineering. Both parents were Turkish immigrants living abroad and he had no siblings.

What kind of university student booked a room at a place known for being the hideout of junkies and criminals? Moreover, why was the fake ID almost identical to his real identity?

Something about this whole thing didn’t sit right with him. But what was it? The thing that kept bothering him.

It was like his mind was a blank page and all thoughts a jumbled mess. What was wrong with him? And just what exactly was he supposed to do here?

The answer came sooner than he expected.

Someone banged on the door.

But no one was beyond it save a fragment of a torn newspaper on the Persian rug. A message directed to him was written on it and a phone number that started with +90.

Kerem twisted and turned the piece of paper, trying to find any mention or hint of the sender’s name. What he noted instead was the choice of heading on the torn newspaper.

The Madımak Massacre.

In 1993, in the province of Sivas, a hotel was set on fire. In the wake of the arson, thirty-seven people, of whom were mostly Alevi, were killed. The two perpetrators, two Islamists, were also killed during the incident.

He was roughly six years old when the arson took place. His dad flew to Turkey after the arson, he recalled that vividly, and didn’t return until two weeks later.

One of their relatives had succumbed to the flames. He didn’t know it at the time but learnt later on that the person who bit the dust so untimely was his uncle, Cemal.

As he looked around in the dim hallway one last time before closing the door, he couldn’t help but feel unsettled.

Both his parents passed away a decade ago and they hadn’t been in touch with their relatives ever since they relocated.

The more he thought things over, the more he was convinced that all this gibberish about an extraterrestrial form was made up. Someone lured him to Turkey. But why?

“Alo, kiminle konuşuyorum?”

‘Hello, who am I talking to?’

The voice belonged to a woman. She couldn’t be a day over twenty.

He hung up.

This kind of voice didn’t belong to someone who would work for the Secret Service. It sounded too ordinary for that.

Moreover, how was he supposed to reply? He understood Turkish, he was taught to speak it at home, but the more he diverted from his roots, the less he talked over the years.

No matter what he did, it sounded too awkward to speak in his mother tongue. But speaking English in a predominantly Turkish-speaking population wasn’t a good idea, either.

He had to come up with another way to—the phone rang. It was that phone number.

“Is this Arda?”

She knew English. But that wasn’t what surprised him. She… she had no accent.

While he admitted that Turkey became more globalised over the years, it wasn’t to the point where people spoke perfect English.

She wasn’t a native, not in the traditional sense, perhaps an immigrant like him, but definitely not someone who had lived her entire life in Anatolia.

“Yes, who’s this?”

“Oh, hi! My name’s Leyla. I heard a lot about you!”

“You… did?”

“Hmm! You’re looking for a job I heard?”

He hesitated. A job? What job?

“I’m sorry, can you brief me on who told you about me?”

“Hold on, I just—there you go! What’d you say, again?”

“I… Never mind. You said your name was Leyla, right?”

“That’s correct. I’m sorry, I’m hanging the laundry and things are not going as I planned!”

“No, uh, it’s okay. You were talking about a job…”

“Oh, right! Sorry! Yeah, so, basically, there’s a bookstore across the guesthouse. The owner is looking for a cashier who can work at night.”

“At night?”

“Yeah, I know, it’s kinda odd. But the owner’s even odder. You’ll know what I mean when you see him later today.”

Kerem stuttered. “Today?” He cast a look at the clock, which read a quarter past nine o’clock in the evening. “But it’s—”

“You’ll start your shift right away, so come prepared, all right?”

Before he could object and speak his mind, the young woman ended the call.

Büyü – Part I

 Photo by Dale Nibbe on Unsplash

“Agent Tan? Please, get in.”

A black sedan pulled over in the busy street and a woman he hadn’t seen before rolled the tinted window down. She wore a solemn expression on her face and was in her late fifties.  

It was twelve o’clock in the witching hour and it was raining cats and dogs. The downpour reflected off the bright LED displays on the towering skyscrapers and tinted the entire capital in vibrant colours.

When a call came through two hours earlier from the headquarters, getting drenched in the frigid weather wasn’t what he had on his mind on a Sunday night. He was on leave and didn’t expect to be called in just three weeks later.

“What’s this about?”

The woman, “Please get in. I’ll tell you everything.”

Kerem looked away briefly. He was trained to follow instructions without questions. But the nature of this whole thing bothered him more than he wanted to admit. Something was off. He didn’t know this woman. Why had the headquarters sent someone he was unfamiliar with?

“Where’s Mia? Does she know—”

“She’s missing. Please, don’t ask any questions and just get in the car. We don’t have much time left.”

Mia Aberman wasn’t the type of person who just went up in smoke and disappeared from the face of the earth.

He worked alongside her for many years and knew that she was one of the most capable agents the Secret Service ever raised. Just what was going on?

The one-hour drive through the country came to an end in front of a barred roadway in the middle of nowhere with a sign that read ‘WARNING. MILITARY INSTALLATION. OFF LIMITS TO UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL’.

Two guards escorted them inside the facility after scanning the woman’s hand. Only when they were behind four walls did the woman explain why he was brought here on his break.

There were two other people in the room with them. One of them wore a military uniform while the other looked like another agent.

Kerem took a seat at the table in the centre of the room, while the woman carried on to the back where a screen popped up.

“Two of our agents have gone missing since the beginning of code 202. Mia Aberman, a first-rank agent from the Department of Defence, and Faruk Demirtaş, a floater placed in Turkey. Agent Aberman has been in contact with Demirtaş until the 21st of August. They went off the radar the same day.”

“Who’s Faruk Demirtaş? Why was Mia in contact with him?” Kerem asked.

“We received a cryptic message two weeks ago from Anatolia, Turkey. The sender, which we believe to be Demirtaş, notified our spies deployed to Ankara that an undisclosed entity had been found in the Karapınar district.”

“An undisclosed entity?”

The military officer, “We lost contact with Demirtaş before he could give any details. But from our previous conversations with Agent Aberman, we believe this to be an extraterrestrial life form.”

Kerem averted his gaze, trying to process what he was hearing.

He was familiar with the Karapınar district. His parents immigrated from Konya when he was three years old.

While his knowledge of the country itself was limited to what his parents told him growing up, he knew that Karapınar Çölü was the only dessert in present-day Turkey. Not a lot of people knew that, though – not even the locals.

“Do we know what happened to them?” he said.

The other agent, “We thought you’d help us find out.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re the only agent with a double nationality. The Turkish don’t have you on their radar, neither do our spies in Ankara and Istanbul.”

“You want me to be a cut-out?”

The woman, “More like a double agent.”

Kerem smirked. “Is that supposed to be a pun? Double nationality, double agent?” The smile on his face faded. “In any case, forget it. I’m not getting involved.”

The military officer, “This is not a request, Agent Tan.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“We’re only asking for your cooperation,” the agent said. “We don’t want to use force…”

“But you will if I don’t do as you say? Is that it?”

The woman, “Agent Tan, please sit down and let’s talk this over. Thank you.” She took a pause. “If we had other alternatives, we’d gladly leave you alone. But something about this whole thing is not sitting well with us. As you are aware, Agent Aberman is one of our most high-ranking agents. It is in our interest to locate her and bring her back to her family.”

“You didn’t tell Mark yet?”

“He believes her to be in Afghanistan right now… Please. If not for our sake, then for those two kids’ sake. Help us bring her back home.”

“What… what exactly do you want me to do?”

“Your flight is scheduled to depart at three am. One of our floaters will help you into your temporary lodge. Do not bring your smartphone or any other electronic devices. We’ll provide you with an analogue phone and a fake ID. Memories your name, occupation, and reason for stay as soon as possible.”

“Three am? That’s—”

“You have exactly one and a half hours on you,” she interrupted. “What do you say? You gotta give me a reply, Agent Tan. We don’t have much time left. Please.”

“All right. I’ll…” He knew he would regret this later on. “I’ll do it.”