Path of Jen: Bloodborne

by Sidney Wood

  “Freedom birds?” Jen asked as she looked through the goggles.

  “Watch the sky to the north and east. You should see ‘em coming just before they light this place up." Deep South chuckled.

  Jen turned to look out of her side window. She was about to ask for more specific directions when she saw flashing beacons approaching unbelievably fast in the grainy-green sky. “Wow, these goggles are awesome!” she said. There was a flash from each of the beacons and streamers shot toward the light green compound. The goggles were snatched off of her head just as the sky lit up. “Hey!” she complained.

  “Trust me, you don’t want to see that with the goggles on. It’s way too bright,” explained the Staff Sergeant.

  The sky was flashing brilliant orange and yellow, and explosions were flooding the compound area. Jen had to admit, she was glad she was watching it like this rather than in shades of green. “Awesome!” she laughed with excitement. “What were they? The airplanes, I mean.”

  “Fast movers. Sometimes it’s drones, but those were F-22’s,” he explained. “Okay, we should get rolling. You good?" He switched on the headlights and spun the vehicle around.

  “I’m good,” Jen answered. “But how can you be sure those F-22’s won’t start shooting at us?”

  Deep South pressed the accelerator and they sped off down the highway toward the east. “We’re the good guys remember? We have IR strips on the roof that shine like lights for those guys. They know who’s blue and who’s red,” he said.

  “Blue and red? You don’t make any sense, Staff Sergeant,” Jen said shaking her head.

  “First of all, you’re not in the Army. It’s fine if you just call me Dustin, okay?”

  Jen looked at the big soldier for a minute while he stared ahead at the road. “Okay, Dustin. Sounds weird to call you that, sorry. Maybe if you call me by my name too? Call me Jen okay?”

  “Okay then. You got it…Jen. So the short version is, blue means good guys, red means bad guys. The Army speaks a whole different language, so if I say something weird, just ask,” Deep South said with a slow southern drawl.

  Jen liked his accent. She was suddenly glad it was dark because she knew she was blushing. She covered her mouth inconspicuously with her hand and looked out of the window. Jen was grinning, and she couldn’t help it. “I haven’t felt this close to normal in two years!” she thought.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was mid-day and Jen had her window down. It was cooler with the window up and the air conditioning on, but there was just something about driving with the window down that felt like freedom. Dustin didn’t seem to mind, so she kept it down and let her hand float in the wind just outside. Jen remembered playing like that when she was a girl. She imagined her hand was an airplane flying next to the car, and she moved it up and down with help from the wind.

  Her clothes felt dirtier now that she was sitting still in them for so long. The salt from days of sweating was making white patterns in the fabric of her shirt, and her collar was stiff and chaffed her neck. Jen considered how much more comfortable she would be if she could unbutton and shrug out of the men’s shirt she was wearing. She imagined how good it would feel if she were just wearing the thread bare white t-shirt underneath. The problem was that the outline of her bra could clearly be seen through it, especially since it contrasted with her tan skin. She suddenly flashed with anger at the thought of Dustin ogling her in her t-shirt. “Whoa, where did that come from?” she wondered.

  She rolled the window up and sat back in her seat to let the air conditioning work its magic on her. Still hot, she stripped the hijab off of her head and tried to forget about the uncomfortable clothes. “Dustin? How much farther until we reach a safe zone?” she asked. They had talked off and on most of the night as they drove, but Jen was starting to get nervous about what lay ahead.

  Deep South glanced at her and swallowed. He looked back to the road. Her skin was perfectly smooth and the color of light honey. Now that she removed her hijab he could see that her hair was chestnut brown with sandy highlights. He pictured her carrying an AK47, looking like a female soldier of fortune. He whistled softly.

  “Why are you whistling? Did you hear me?” Jen asked. She looked at him with a quizzical expression.

  Deep South nearly choked. He hadn’t realized he whistled out loud. “Uh, sorry. I mean, I think we’ll be in friendly territory in a couple of hours,” he said nervously. The awkwardness kept coming out. “Whew! It’s hot in here. I’m thirsty. You thirsty? Let’s stop and catch a break. We need to gas up and we might as well stretch our legs, huh?”

  The vehicle pulled over to the side of the road and Dustin immediately got out. “What the heck is getting at him?” Jen wondered, feeling self conscious and a little bit irritated because of it. She opened her door and stepped out to walk and stretch while he retrieved a five gallon jug of gasoline from the back and emptied it into the fuel tank.

  She walked along the roadside, away from the front of the vehicle for a few yards and then back. Dustin was still filling the gas tank, so she continued walking past the rear of the vehicle for several yards. She stopped and began stretching her aching muscles. “Oh man that hurts,” she thought as she stretched her back and then her chest. She continued stretching her sides, her abdominals, and then her hamstrings. Finally, she sank into a deep side lunge on each side to stretch her groin and bottom. She stood and said, “Thank you Lord,” as the warm sun washed over her face. She stood still and enjoyed the moment of piece and the feeling of closeness to her creator.

  Deep South was aware of Jen as she walked by to the rear of the SUV. He tried not to look at her as she passed, but it didn’t last. He turned his head to watch her while he held the fuel jug suspended above the filler port. “Dear God,” he whispered. When she stood and closed her eyes toward the afternoon sun, he shook his head. “Beautiful…”

  “What was that?” Jen asked, turning back toward the SUV. She walked toward him with a questioning look and he nearly dropped the fuel jug.

  “Um, I said we’re about full.” Deep South pulled the spout out of the filler port and replaced the gas cap. He lifted the nearly empty fuel jug back into the vehicle and slammed the hatch closed. He gritted his teeth and chastised himself, “What the heck am I doing? She’s freaking eighteen! Plus, and a hell of a lot more importantly, she’s carrying a deadly disease!”

  Jen returned to the truck and hopped in.

  Deep South didn’t say a word. He just walked around to the driver side and climbed in. The vehicle started at the turn of the key, and he steered it back onto the road. He clenched his jaw and stared straight ahead as he drove. After a few minutes, he seemed to relax a little, and Jen asked if he wanted some water.

  “Yeah, thanks Jen,” he said and he tried to accept the plastic bottle she held out. He watched his hand nearly connect with the bottle, and then grasp nothing. The bottle floated and rotated before being eclipsed by a haze of smoke and debris. There was something familiar about this experience. He wasn’t afraid, but he knew it was bad. He felt loss and sadness tempered with a tightening in his chest and a hardening of his will. This is something he had lived through before.

  He felt his body being shaken like a rag doll, and finally slammed to the ground. His head exploded with pain and panic almost got the best of him as a feeling of being trapped underwater flooded over him. Instead of panicking, Deep South went through a familiar exercise to focus and ground himself. He took inventory. “Can I breathe?” he wondered. He couldn’t hear the air filling his lungs as he inhaled, but he felt his chest rise easily enough. “I can breathe. Can I see?” he asked himself. He blinked away the dust and soot and opened his eyes. He saw glass and twisted metal all around him. “I can see. Okay, can I move?" He tried to move his arms and found them sluggish, but obedient to his commands. He tested his legs. Something wasn’t right. His legs moved, but barely. And he felt searing pain in his right thigh when he moved it. “Okay, stop moving for
now. What do I hear?” he asked. “Ringing and the ticking of fatigued or heated metal,” was his answer. “What do I taste?” he asked. “Blood,” he said out loud. “What happened?” he asked as he looked around. “IED,” he realized.

  He looked around again to survey the damage. That’s when he saw her. “Oh no!” he shouted. “Hey, Jen! Can you hear me?” he called out. “Jen! Are you okay?" Crumpled against her door, and suffering many superficial lacerations was Jen’s body. Deep South watched her for signs of breathing. “There!” he thought. “Her chest is moving!" He started to reach for her and stopped. The whole center of the SUV was torn out. There was a gaping hole in the floor between them. It looked as if someone or something had punched the transmission up and out of the vehicle with one mighty blow. Ignoring the sharp edges and hot metal, Deep South reached across to Jen’s side. Just before he touched her arm, he froze. “Blood,” he thought. “Damn it!"

  Deep South shouted again at Jen, but she didn’t respond. “Lord, if you ever were going to help me, now is the time." He looked down at his legs and saw the right leg was punctured by a sharp piece of the firewall that had curled back and speared into his thigh. “Great. Nothing comes easy." He pulled the latch and pushed against the door to open it. It creaked but only opened an inch. He pushed harder and it creaked just a bit more. A sudden burst of anger overtook him and he smashed his left arm into the door. The door flew open and clattered to the ground beside the damaged vehicle.

  The pain in his leg was excruciating, but he pushed himself to his left anyway. The twisted metal in his leg tore at his muscles as he moved away from it. He slid out of the open doorway and fell onto the pavement. He smelled gasoline and remember the jugs in the back of the vehicle. It was a miracle that they had not exploded when the IED went off. If they had, he and Jen would certainly be dead. “Thank you God,” he said as he pushed himself up to his feet. He kept his weight on his good leg and removed his shirt to wrap the other. “That’ll have to do for a few minutes,” he thought. His leg was bleeding, but it wasn’t gushing out.

  Deep South hobbled to the other side of the SUV and jerked on the door handle. It didn’t budge. At the same time he smelled acrid smoke. It began billowing from under the car and filling up the interior. “”Jen!" Grasping the door handle and the open window frame, Deep South hunched down and set his feet wide apart. “One more time God,” he prayed. “Help this girl. She doesn't deserve this." The big soldier threw all of his strength and body weight into tearing the door away. The warped steel was too strong and it held fast.

  The smoke was getting thicker in the car, and he saw flames coming up through the hole in the center of the vehicle. Deep South knew it was nearly too late. If the smoke and heat didn’t kill her, the gas cans in the back would explode any second, not to mention the SUV’s own fuel tank. Growling with anger, and motivated by fear Deep South shouted, “Come on God! Let me save her, damn it!" He took hold of the door frame again and pulled against it with all of his might and rage. He felt it slowly give, and he yelled in frustration and pain, pulling even harder. Little by little, and then all at once, the door pulled free and Jen fell out onto the ground. Deep South took her by the ankles, the only place he could be sure to hold onto her without touching her blood, and drug her away from the burning vehicle.

  Once Jen was safely away, he dashed back and tried to salvage at least one of the rifles. He saw the buttstock of one rifle near the passenger door and yanked it free of the smoke and flames. It was Jen’s AK47. He limped back over to where she lay near the grass and fell down next to her. He lay his head back and felt the world start to spin. “Uh oh,” was his last conscious thought before the pain and fatigue overtook him and he passed out.

  Deep South woke up on the back of a cart. It was evening and the cart was bumping and bouncing along at a leisurely pace behind the swaying rear end of a gray donkey. He lifted his head and saw a smiling boy, about ten years old, sitting on an overturned milk crate and driving the cart. The cart was a conglomeration of scavenged boards anchored to an old truck axle and harnessed to a scrawny old donkey. Jen was sitting up next to Deep South with her feet dangling off the back of the cart. She smiled at him, seemingly glad that he was awake. She held her AK47 across her lap, and wore some torn cloth around her head as a hijab. He gave her a wink and closed his eyes again.

  “How did you get me onto the cart?” he asked without opening his eyes. He imagined her and the boy, working together to drag him onto the cart, and his eyes snapped open. He started to sit up.

  “Relax cowboy,” she said with a laugh. “You’re safe. I didn’t touch you." Her gaze lingered on his face and her eyes softened.

  “Must of been hard for you,” he joked. “Most ladies can’t keep their hands off of me.”

  Jen’s eyes narrowed and she gave him a disapproving look. Then she cracked a smile and looked away.

  “Still got it,” he said with a laugh. The boy driving the cart also laughed, but Deep South was pretty sure he had no idea what they were saying. “Any idea where this little vagabond is taking us?” he asked Jen.

  “Ahmed is taking us to his father’s house. He said they have clothes and clean water. According to him, his family will be happy to help us get on our feet again." She looked at Deep South with a smile and said, “He thinks you’re some kind of superhero. He couldn’t stop talking about how cool American soldiers were." The smile left her face and Jen looked down at her lap. She took a breath and said, “Dustin, I saw the car. I know you pulled me free." Looking him in the eye, she said, “Thank you.”

  Deep South shrugged and said, “Wasn’t me darlin’. Not really anyway. That was all God. I just did what he helped me to do."

  Jen stared at him with a strange look on her face. “Is he for real?” she wondered. “Could he actually be a Christian? Out here, across the world, in the heart of Islam?" She closed her eyes. “Thank you dear Lord." A tear escaped her eyelids and trailed down her face. She sniffed and wiped it away.

  “Wake me up when we get there,” he said. He was suddenly feeling incredibly tired, and the constant rocking and gentle bumping of the cart was lulling him to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Fouzia answered the phone in the kitchen and instantly recognized Mahmoud’s voice. “Najid!” she shouted up the stairs. “Your brother is on the phone!" She pulled a chair out at the kitchen table and sat down with the phone. “How are you Mahmoud? Is Fatima well?” she asked.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” he said. “I have news, Fouzia. The taxi driver led the inspector to arrest many of the thugs and criminals who hurt young women in our country. Is Najid with you? I’d like my brother to hear this.”

  Najid sat at the table near Fouzia and kissed her cheek. “I am here brother,” he said. “What do you wish to share?"

  Mahmoud told them how the inspector arrested the men who transported Jena to the border, thanks to testimony from the taxi driver. The taxi driver was sentenced to twelve years in prison for the two abductions they were able to prove, including Jena’s. The other abduction was of a teenage girl from the airport just a few days before Jena and her father arrived in Tehran. That girl was finally located in a brothel and returned; although not undamaged, to her family more than a year later.

  Apparently, the taxi driver was working for the crime syndicate to keep his ailing mother in a nursing home. What was most appalling was that his own sister had been abducted in a similar fashion when he was a teenager. He kept her necklace in hopes that some day he would see her again. All the while he was sending other children to oblivion and sentencing their families to the same terrible fate of waiting and hoping for something that would never happen.

  Fouzia and Najid thanked Mahmoud for the information, and wished him and Fatima their best. After saying their goodbyes, Fouzia and her husband prayed together at the table. As usual, they prayed for Jena, that she would come home safely. Then they prayed for the other girl who was abducted and returned. They pra
yed for her recovery and asked God to bring peace to her family. Lastly, they prayed for the taxi driver. They prayed his heart would be changed, and that the holy spirit would come to him and make him a new man.

  Najid took the phone and called their pastor. For a month now, they attended the baptist church Sarah’s family the Callahan’s belonged to. Najid and Fouzia were in regular contact with the pastor and his wife, as well as several other acquaintances from their bible study classes. As new believers, they were overwhelmed by the love and support they were given freely.

  Sarah’s parents were shocked to the point of shedding tears when the Amahdi’s attended for the first time. They walked in quietly and sat in the back of the sanctuary, hoping to be unnoticed, but that was not to be. Mrs. Callahan noticed them and was so surprised and excited, she made their whole family immediately pick up and move to the back to sit next to the Amahdi’s. Fouzia and Najid were invited to lunch at the Callahan’s after church and they shared their testimonies through many tears, laughter, and hugs.

  Sarah, who was slightly taller than Fouzia now, and had stylishly cropped blond hair, was polite and seemed truly grateful to see the Amahdi’s. She was glad to hear of their conversion, but there was a certain sadness there too. She missed her best friend. Fouzia held her face and looked her in the eyes like she often did to her own daughter. “Sarah,” she said with kindness and compassion. “Thank you for being a true friend to Jena. Without your friendship, none of our family would be safe in Christ. You are a true blessing to all of us." Fouzia wrapped her arms around Sarah and hugged her tightly. She said, “Jena will come home soon. I promise to call you as soon as I hear any news.”

  Sarah nodded and cried silently on Fouzia’s shoulder. “I miss her everyday,” she whispered.