Holocaust
Page 23
Chapter Twenty
Sirte Desert (Thirty six hours later)
Thirty six Bedouin soldiers crouched low in the desert sand. The masks’ covering the lower parts of their faces was coated with white dust. This prevented dust from entering their lungs. The combat painted vehicles parked about a mile away were hidden from view by the rocky state of the terrain.
The Sirte desert lay along the Gulf of Sidra and it separated Tripolitania and Cyrenaica giving a rugged coastline to Cyrenaica forming a plateau encompassing Benghazi, Darnah and Al Bayda. Not far from where they were towards the south were oases like Al Jaghbub and Jalu. Libya lacked perennial rivers, so these oases were God sent for the area’s watering needs.
The soldiers’ eyes weren’t fixed on the rugged coastline or the Mediterranean sea beyond it, their gazes were levelled on the desert landscape to the north.
The tall bulky man in front who was their leader had a pair of binoculars pressed against his forehead. His face was grimmer than the others had ever seen it.
“What do you see Tareq?”
He paused lowering the binoculars to the sand beneath him.
The man’s worried gaze swept over his leader’s stiff body and he crawled forward till they lay side by side. Tareq handed him the binoculars without another word.
He took a deep breath raising it to his eyes. Strong winds shifted the desert sand in a barely concealed fury. His first thought was it was simply dust devils having their fill of the loose sand covering the surrounding landscape. He was wrong. The wind changed direction and the dust covered haze cleared somewhat. His eyes grew so wide they threatened to pop out of their sockets.
It was the giants ___ huge metallic looking beasts that put the fear of Allah into him. They were over a hundred feet tall with hard scaly skin that glittered in the hot sun. Behind walked thousands of black muscular creatures whose top halves seemed too big for their lower parts. Their eyes were red and they twirled in their sockets in a disturbing uncoordinated way.
The sky above them was suddenly lit by fiery red flames and huge dragon like creatures burst out streaking ahead of the horde heading their way.
The man lowered the binoculars and wiped his eyes in a bid to assure himself that what he was seeing wasn’t real. He took another look and shook when he saw the apparitions were still there.
Tareq looked as if he was on the verge of bursting into tears. So great was his fear. That made his subordinate even more frightened. Tareq was leader of one of the largest militia controlling most of Libya’s south. Men quivered in fear when they heard his name. Since Ghaddafi lost his life several years before, the country had plunged into chaos with hundreds of militias springing up all over the place. Tareq headed the most feared.
As long as he’d known him, he never believed him to be afraid of anything. But looking into his eyes now he saw great fear. Fear was something he recognized easily. He’d seen it in the eyes of hundreds of men since his leader’s rise to power and significance. His words when they came were shaky and quavering.
“What do we do sir?”
Tareq levelled his terrified gaze on him. “We run Hamza! We run for our dear lives.”
They took off at a run heading towards their vehicles. They reached them after an almost twenty minute sprint. The drivers started the engines putting the cars into drive and they were off, heading deeper inland towards their strongholds.
Collins looked up at the house on top of the slope to his right. It looked abandoned, but who could tell. Judith crouched in the back seat quavering. His eyes narrowed at her wan look. She was exhausted. They both were. He’d been driving for almost ten hours straight. It was time to rest.
His hand started to drift to the door handle when it stopped frozen by Judith’s words.
“You sure it’s safe up there?”
“We don’t have that much of a choice darling. We both have to rest and catch our breaths for a bit.”
“Can’t we sleep in the car? I am not sure I’d feel comfortable in that house. What if an infected person is still in there?”
“We can’t stay in the car Judith. One of the windows is smashed for one and two it would be too dangerous. The house is more defendable. You stay in the car. Take this __” he said handing her a sidearm. “__ just point and shoot. Let me go check it out.”
She nodded slowly still looking unconvinced. The car door opened with a slight creak. He winced stepping out. Metal was dinged rather badly around the lock area. He must have run into something in his haste to get away.
His eyes drifted to the house growing troubled when he recalled Judith’s words. ‘What if an infected person is up there?’
A thrill of fear ran down his spine. What if she was right? What if it wasn’t one but dozens?”
He swallowed trying to take a deep breath at the same time almost choking in the process. His rifle came out of the car next followed by box of shells. He loaded them quickly and stepped towards the house and his destiny.
The veranda was dark and forbidden looking. He sighed stepping towards the door. It creaked open before his hand reached the handle. His eyes narrowed and he stepped back. The little of the inside he could see was it was shrouded by darkness.
He took another deep breath and pushed the door open with his foot, turning on the torch on his phone as he did so. It opened into a large sitting room, it was expensively furnished with plush leather seats, quality POP ceilings and crème coloured walls all around.
He stepped in twirling around slowly to ensure no infected person hid in any corner of the room. The light from the torch cast eerie shadows everywhere. A faint scuffling sound erupted from the back. He swung around with his weapon raised shinning the light of his torch on the floor. A mouse scuttled away from the light’s faint glare. He sighed in relief heading for the bedrooms. They were all empty, devoid of any infected activity.
His search complete he made his way back to the front door. Judith was shifting about nervously in the back seat as he approached. Her eyes were wide and frightened. Calmness filled them when she saw him approach and he could see a faint tired smile lift the corners of her lips slightly.
“The house is empty?”
“Yeah it is ___”
She nodded and reached for the door’s handle. He opened it for her and she stepped out taking a deep breath of the cool evening air.
“We best go in quickly. It’s not safe to be wandering around at night.”
She nodded and started for the house. He looked into the car to check if there was anything they had forgotten. It was empty. His eyes grew dark with concern. They left in such a hurry. There were supplies in that house in the forest. Supplies they needed. He’d been too afraid to stop on the way to gather stuff they might need. Well he’ll cross that bridge when he got to it. First things first ___ they had to get a good night sleep.
The walk to the house was quick and hurried. After shutting the door he made sure it was securely locked and bolted. He led her to the bedroom laying her down gently on the mattress. The sheets smelt fresh and sweet with a hint of pine about it. They had obviously been washed recently.
When she was settled he turned and made his way to the kitchen. A large gas cooker stood beside the back door. It had two large pots on it. Opening the lids, he was pleasantly surprised to see one filled with still warm vegetable soup. The second had a rice and beans mixture in it.
He bent low and took a whiff. The contents of both pots smelt alright. That meant the owner of this house had either turned or was still coming back.
That thought made a thrill of fear run down his spine. He ran back to the sitting room. As he made his way towards Judith he caught a slight movement out of the corner of one eye. He twirled around; the window in front of him was opened slightly. Out of the crack he saw a dark shape moving in the hedge of rose bushes.
He cocked his gun and strode for window keeping as low as he could. Peering over the edge of the sill he wat
ched the infected woman strolling around aimlessly heading back the way they’d come. She was dressed in short white nightgown. Her hair was wrapped and packed in a hair net and her eyes shone like twin red globes.
He didn’t allow her to see him. She paced restlessly for two haunting minutes before walking off into the distance eventually disappearing from view. Only then did his racing heart settle into a pace of normalcy. Something told him the woman outside was one of the former occupants of this house.
Taking a deep breath he returned to the kitchen. When he had filled two plates with good helpings of rice and vegetable soup he walked to the Judith’s room pausing outside the door.
A sad smile lit up his face as he stared at his sleeping companion. She must really be tired. There was a chair to his left. He went to it and sat placing both plates on the floor beside him. He continued to watch her for a total of fifteen minutes before he too drifted to sleep.