by James Dean
Kyle smiled, though you could not see it in the dark room. “Yeah. They say a lion tried to eat you.”
“No child,” Saul chuckled lightly, “that is not what happened.”
“So, what happened?” Kyle persisted.
“It is not a story for children.”
Kyle frowned. “After everything I’ve seen today, Saul, I don’t think it could be much worse.”
Saul’s mood darkened. The child wants to know my horror story. He thinks it is nothing compared to what he has seen. Fine, we will see if he still thinks that after I am done. “What do you know of Africa?” Saul asked.
“Not much. I mean, we reviewed it in geography,” Kyle answered, and then smiled. “I know there are lions.”
Saul sighed, but ignored the comment. “Have you heard of Rwanda?”
Kyle perked up. “Yes! It is just north of Congo, right?”
“Yes, it is,” Saul replied sadly.
“And that’s where you’re from?” Kyle asked, beginning to feel Saul’s sorrow.
“Yes, child,” Saul said in a low voice. “Do you know of my country’s history?”
“No,” Kyle shrugged.
“My country has been plagued with numerous civil wars throughout the last sixty years—”
“And you got hurt during the wars?” Kyle interjected.
“Let me finish!” Saul barked, and then lightened his tone. “You asked for the story, so please, let me tell it.”
“Okay,” Kyle mumbled.
Saul inhaled deeply. The rest of the story had been repeated a thousand times in his head, but he had never spoken of it. “When I was nine, revolutionaries came to our village. We were simple people, with no political attachment to any side. The revolutionaries did not care. I hid my younger brother Kennan, but they found me. They drug me out to the middle of the village where they had all the adults standing on one side, and the children on the other.”
Saul grimaced before he continued.
“I watched them rape my mother and mutilate my father. Soon after, all the adults were slaughtered,” he said dejectedly.
Kyle sucked in a breath, appalled.
Saul reconsidered telling the rest of the story to Kyle. If he thought that was brutal…no, he would tell the rest. The child would understand. “They took me and the rest of the children with them. They gave us khat—”
“What is khat?” Kyle interrupted.
Saul groaned, but decided to explain. “Khat is a drug found in eastern Rwanda and the horn of Africa. It is…much like cocaine. You chew on the leaves and you feel, well, you feel like Superman. That is how they controlled us…how they brainwashed us. We were addicted. When high, we felt unstoppable. When not high, we were irritable, angry.” Saul sat up, and stared off in the distance. He was in another place. Horrifying images started to return.
“They sent us into villages, armed with guns. Told us to kill everyone. The older boys raped, while ones my age and even younger would kill indiscriminately.”
Kyle stayed silent, trying not to envision the story Saul was telling him. He failed.
“For over a year this happened. Soon, the government was restored, and the revolutionaries were weakened and pushed back into the jungles. It was there that my uncle found me. He rescued me and brought me to a missionary camp. It took more than two years for them…” Saul paused, gathering himself as he remembered the long nights, thrown fists and kicks, and sacrifices the missionaries made for him. “It took a long time for them to bring me back.”
Kyle was about to ask when Saul got hurt, but Saul continued before he could say anything.
“I moved in with my uncle after I was better. I cannot express how happy I was to learn my brother Kennan was still alive. When I came of age, I moved to a nice village and met the most beautiful woman. We married and later had a son. Soon, I was known as the best hunter in the province. I could skewer a wildebeast in one throw of a spear.”
Kyle could feel the tension growing, even though he could not see the dribbles of tears flowing down one of Saul’s cheeks.
Saul spoke ominously. “War came back to my country. Soon, our village was visited by more revolutionaries. I feared for my son, who was only six. When they came in their trucks, one of them recognized me. They called me traitor.”
Openly sobbing, Saul continued. “They began to rape my wife as they restrained me. I broke free of their grasp, and killed two of the revolutionaries with my bare hands. One of them shot me in my leg, and then, they took my arm.” Saul choked and swallowed. He cleared his throat and said, “They cut off my wife’s breasts and then took her legs. I no longer felt the pain, I charged again, only to be beat down with chains and machetes. That is when I lost my eye. I had to hear my son scream as they skinned him alive and then hung him. My wife bled to death before I passed out from loss of blood. They left me for dead. I wish I had died. I awoke three days later in a Red Cross shelter. I prayed to God every day that he would let me die. But God was punishing me for what I had done as a child. He did not grant my wish. It took months to heal, but I survived.”
Kyle was sobbing now, too.
Saul wiped his face and sucked in his gut, attempting to change the tone of the story. “Because of my situation with the revolutionaries, my uncle and the Red Cross put me on the refugee list. I was accepted and my uncle and brother gave me all their savings and sent me to America. Here, I have refugee status and was given money simply for that reason, not to mention they considered me disabled. It has been two decades since I have seen my home.”
Saul stayed silent, letting Kyle know he was done with his story. Saul didn't feel the sense of victory he thought he would have by scaring Kyle with his tale. Instead, he felt the old pain return.
“That’s a horrible story, Saul,” Kyle said after a few minutes of silence. “You are very brave.”
“You know nothing!” Saul spat. “Brave? I let my wife and child die! I killed innocent people! I am no more brave than a cockroach!”
Kyle pulled himself up to his feet. “That’s not true!”
“What do you know about it?” Saul growled.
Kyle stood his ground. “Only what you told me,” he replied. There was no return anger in his voice. Instead there was pity, love, caring. This irritated Saul even more.
“I told you no such thing!” Saul argued.
“You did,” Kyle said, taking a step closer to Saul. “You told me Butter was brave when she died. See, Butterscotch was weak, old, and there was no way she could fight off those monsters. She did the best she could, but in the end, she died. Bad things still happened to her.”
Saul glared up at Kyle’s silhouette, but Kyle kept talking.
“Bad things happened to you. You were a child. Evil men forced you to do things, but you fought back when you were rescued. You were saved.”
“And God still took my wife and child,” Saul snarled.
“Don’t you see?” Kyle asked. “God didn’t take them. Evil men did. There was nothing you could do. You fought as hard as you could, almost dying in the processes. You should have died. Bad things happen. It happened to my father. I could blame the doctors for not saving him, but why? I just read my dad’s letters, even the one that was meant for my eighteenth birthday. In that letter he said, ‘The measure of a man isn’t how much he wins, but how he handles defeat.’”
Saul blinked, trying to make sense of what the teenager was saying. He didn’t sound like a thirteen-year-old. He sounded like a village elder. Worse, it was starting to make sense to Saul, and that angered him more. He needed his pain. It was like when he was addicted to khat. He didn’t know how to live without it.
It was as if Kyle could feel Saul’s hatred for himself slipping away. He did not give Saul time to recover. Kyle knelt in front of Saul. “You are a good man, Saul. Mourn your family, but let go of your pain.” With that, Kyle leaned in and hugged Saul.
Saul struggled at first, almost pushing the much smaller body off of him, but Kyle held fast.
And as Kyle pulled him in tighter, there was a warmth that came from the teenager. It was familiar to Saul. The same warmth that engulfed him when he dreamt of his brother.
Neither remembered falling asleep that night.
*****
June 25th 6:00 AM
Saul woke up and wiped away the crust in his right eye. To the side of him lay Kyle, sleeping soundly.
Saul felt…different. Revitalized. The big man stood up and glanced outside the store’s front windows. His truck was still there, along with two zombies who stood near the entrance. Just past them were chunks of golden fur and a barely recognizable skeletal frame of a dog. The monsters had eaten almost every piece of flesh from Butterscotch. Saul glanced down at Kyle, who was breathing evenly and had a slight smile on his face. He seemed peaceful to Saul.
“You are not just a child,” Saul whispered and turned back to the entrance of the pawn shop. Saul decided that he didn’t want Kyle seeing the remains of his beloved dog. He attached the iron poker and harness to his left arm and grabbed the crowbar.
The zombies were indifferent as Saul silently opened the gate and then the glass door to the shop. He was--after all--one of the best hunters in his home country, and could still prowl like a jaguar. The smell hit Saul like a wall. It wasn’t coming from the two zombies in front of him. It was like the whole city had been shrouded in death. It was everywhere and Saul could taste it on his tongue.
He was out the door and four feet away from the first zombie before it took notice.
The woman had died horrifically. Her throat had been torn out and half of her face had been eaten away. She wore a business suit that was covered in dry blood.
Slowly, she turned to Saul who quickly dipped down and used the hook on the long crowbar to trip her, sending her crashing to her back.
The other zombie noticed, but moved even slower than normal toward Saul. His left leg was crushed, with bone and muscle protruding out in odd places. He could still stand, but the knee would never bend again. Saul wasted little time, and jammed the poker into the zombie’s eye, putting her down permanently.
He recovered, and ended the second zombie with a harsh swing of the crowbar. The brute force jammed the hooked end into its skull. It fell, but was nursed to the ground as Saul firmly held onto the crowbar.
Saul then removed the remains of Butterscotch, stashing them in a trash can on the side of the strip mall.
Kyle woke up and saw Saul was gone. Nervous, he quickly stood just as Saul emerged through the front doorway.
“It is clear, child. We should get going.”
Kyle smiled. There was no malice in Saul’s voice. He seemed content…serene.
The two of them gathered what little gear they still had to load up in the truck and left the pawn shop. Saul tossed the crowbar in the bed of the truck with the rest of the gear and decided to carry one of the handguns he had liberated from the pawn shop. It was a large .45 caliber. Saul had used plenty of guns, but most had been rifles. He figured adapting would not be hard. He loaded it, keeping a wary eye on his surroundings. Still, no more zombies showed up.
They both jumped as gunfire erupted in the distance. Someone fought the dead, and from the sounds of it, there were a lot of dead.
“Hurry,” Saul exclaimed as he finished loading the .45 pistol. It wasn’t easy one handed, but he managed.
“Where do you thinking you’re going?” a gruff voice called out from the corner of the strip mall. A short, skinny man stood there wearing a baseball cap and a flannel shirt. In his hands he held a .22 rifle.
“We are leaving,” Saul said cautiously, hoping the man didn’t notice his .45.
“Leaving with my stuff!” the man retorted. “This is my shop. What did you steal?”
“We didn’t really steal it, sir,” Kyle pleaded. “We were just getting a few things to help us survive.”
“We do not want trouble,” Saul came in as he rounded the truck toward Kyle. “You can have your stuff back. We just want to leave peacefully.”
“Empty your pockets and get to walking,” the man said, motioning toward the road with his rifle.
“We will empty the truck. You can have everything, but we need the truck,” Saul argued.
“Look, asshole, I’ve already had to kill two people. Both of them were trying to steal from my house. You think I’ll hesitate to kill you?” The man took a step forward, focused squarely on Saul. “Leave the truck and I—”
He never finished the sentence.
A loud bang erupted, followed by a sharper, less intimidating gunshot. The man’s eyes went wide as a trickle of blood ran from a dime-sized hole in the middle of his neck. A gurgling noise followed as the man dropped to his knees, the rifle he once held fell harmlessly to the sidewalk next to him. He grabbed his throat as he rocked onto his back, slowly kicking, fighting to stay alive.
Saul stood perplexed. Kyle held the .38 revolver. A small wisp of smoke danced from the end of the barrel.
Saul grabbed Kyle’s shoulder and spun him around. “Why did you do that?” he asked, not sure if he was angry or not.
“He was going to kill us. I know he was,” Kyle replied.
“You know…?” Saul frowned and pushed Kyle toward the passenger side door of the truck. “We must go. The gun shot will bring more of the dead to us.”
The two jumped into the truck just as the lifeless body on the ground rose.
*****
June 25th 6:43 AM
“Are you okay, child?” Saul asked as they turned down a dirt road. Kyle was pale, sunken...
“No,” he replied softly. “You need to pull over, Saul.”
“Why? We will be there in twenty minutes.”
“Because,” Kyle said, turning to Saul, “I can’t go with you.”
“What are you talking about?” Saul said dismissively. He thought the teenager was in shock from killing the man back at the pawn shop. Kyle, moved his hand from his side. Cupped in his palm was a pool of blood. Saul stopped the vehicle.
“What happened?” Saul gasped.
“The man…his gun went off. It hit me,” Kyle said softly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Saul asked harshly as he opened the driver side door. He marched over to Kyle’s door and flung it open. The full weight of the injury could be seen. Kyle’s lower half of his shirt on his right side was drenched in blood. Saul was surprised Kyle wasn’t in pain.
“I-I didn’t feel it hit me. The pain came just a little bit ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me? Why?” Saul pulled Kyle from the truck and laid him on the ground. He tore the young man’s shirt open to see the wound. It was small, barely bigger than a pin hole, but blood still seeped out of it with each beat of Kyle’s heart.
“When I…I realized,” Kyle said, half in a daze, “I…well, I knew I was dying.”
“No!” Saul barked and covered the wound.
“It’s too late, Saul. I…I knew I was going—” Kyle coughed. “I knew it was going to happen.”
“How?” Saul said, still covering the wound and staring into Kyle’s fading eyes.
“Last night I dreamt of my mother. She…she is dead,” Kyle said barely above a whisper. “She said I was done and-and would be…with her soon.” Kyle lightly coughed again, as if he barely had the energy.
Saul glanced around the woods and then back at Kyle. “What…what should I do?”
Surprisingly, Kyle smiled. His eyes were down to slits and his lips had turned blue. “Leave me,” Kyle whispered. “I-I have one more thing…I need to do.”
“I don’t understand,” Saul sobbed, tears now flowing down his right cheek.
“You don’t…have to,” Kyle wheezed. “But you must… go now,” Kyle hissed. “Before I-I change.”
“But child…” Saul said, leaning back.
“Go!” Kyle said with all the strength he could muster. “Just… just leave my pack.”
Saul slowly nodded and stood. He grabbed Kyle’s backpack fr
om the cab of the truck and laid it down beside the teenager.
Kyle’s eyes opened over halfway. “Saul?”
“Yes, child?” Said responded as he wiped his face.
“Can you call me Kyle?”
In spite of the situation, Saul actually smiled. “Of course,” he said both grinning and crying.
“Don’t be sad, Saul,” Kyle said, exhaling. After a few short breaths, he continued. “We… all have our part. I’ve done mine.”
Saul knelt next to Kyle and touched his face. “You are a brave man, Kyle. Your mother… and father raised a fine young man.”
Kyle smiled and coughed again. “Goodbye, Saul,” Kyle said, his eyes now closed.
“Goodbye, Kyle.” Saul turned his head, not wanting to see Kyle pass into death, and entered the truck. Three minutes later, the truck was out of sight.
Kyle still had enough energy to reach over to his backpack and pull out the binder that held his father’s letters. He squeezed it to his chest as the light slowly faded.
*****
June 25th 11:40 PM
Saul had finally fallen asleep. He had been angry and confused. Why had his brother told him to rescue the child if the child was going to die anyways? Did he fail? Kyle had said that he knew he was going to die. If it was fate, then why did his brother send him on the quest to rescue him?
The mist approached, as it did before. This time, Saul was not in a dark place. Instead it was a giant, white room. Saul eerily remembered the room Kyle had described in his dream. This was similar, if not the same.
The mist weaved around Saul until it took the form of his brother, slowly adding color, depth, and substance.
“Brother,” Kennan said with a smile. His ethereal voice lightly echoed throughout the room.
“Why?” Saul shot back, his voice sounding normal. “The child died! You said I had to save him!”
“No, brother,” Kennan grinned as he approached Saul. His hand once again touched Saul’s breast. And, once again, warmth overcame Saul. “I told you to save the child to save yourself.”
