There is a door at the back of the cellar. Release her and she could be gone before anyone knows.
“You’re not like him. I can tell. You don’t want to do this.”
Akrim again looked at the woman, though this time his eyes remained on her.
“My name is Sarah Clement.”
Akrim felt his own tears forming as he responded.
“My name is Akrim – Akrim Al-Saddi.”
Akrim watched in amazement as the woman smiled at him, awed by her grace and strength despite the threat she and her unborn child faced.
“Nice to meet you, Akrim…can you please help me?”
Akrim found himself moving toward the woman without giving thought to do so. He felt as if he was a spectator watching his own hands unlocking the chain from around the plumbing pipe and then looked down to see his feet moving quickly along the concrete cellar floor toward the back of the room where an exit was located.
He slid a single bolt back from the middle of the door frame and pulled the door open with a loud, wailing groan to reveal a set of narrow stone stairs leading upward into the light of day. Akrim then handed Sarah a set of car keys.
“Here, take these. It’s the older, brown four-door about seventy feet from where you’ll emerge behind the mosque. Go as quickly as you can and drive as far as you can. They may come looking for you again. You won’t be safe at home. They’ll find out where you live. This whole city isn’t safe for you or anyone anymore.”
Sarah paused, her eyes initially indicating confusion and then alarm.
“You’re not coming with me?”
Akrim peered behind him at the stairs and then shook his head.
“No, I’ll stay here and give you more time. Now go – hurry!”
Akrim gently pushed Sarah up the stairs and then closed the door behind her as his mind issued a silent and urgent prayer.
Allah, protect her and her unborn and give them safe passage from this place.
Akrim looked around the cellar and found nothing he could use as a weapon. He had no choice but to simply wait.
He didn’t have to wait long.
The Imam once again made his way down the stairs with four other men following closely behind him. As before, Hussan Ali gripped the same ten-inch blade in his right hand.
“Where is the woman?”
Akrim didn’t answer. Instead his eyes travelled to where the tallest of the four men stood just behind the Imam on the right. The man’s name was Malik. He was a thirty-two year old Lebanese immigrant who had shared Akrim’s bed on more than one occasion. Akrim knew it wasn’t love, but rather two men sharing in the experience of lives the required discretion. Akrim would never have thought Malik to be one to follow a radical like Hussan Ali, and yet there he was doing just that.
“Akrim, I asked you where the woman is! Answer me!”
Akrim straightened his posture and stared back defiantly at the Imam.
“I let her go. She’s gone from this place.”
The Imam’s eyes widened.
“You did what?”
“I freed her. She did not deserve what you intended. She was with child. It cannot be Allah’s will to kill the innocent.”
The four other men’s mouths fell open as they looked at Hussan Ali, wondering how the Imam would react. They received their answer seconds later in the form of a hissed, contemptuous command.
“Hold him down.”
Akrim didn’t attempt to fight back. He knew doing so would only increase Hussan’s pleasure in taking his life.
“You violated my will, Akrim. You chose the side of the infidel whore over to the detriment of Allah. Since you allowed the woman to go free, you will now take her place.”
Two sets of hands pressed down on Akrim’s shoulders. The man to his right was Malik.
“Get on your knees, Akrim.”
Akrim kept staring directly into the Imam’s eyes as he slowly lowered himself to the ground, noting how Hussan appeared slightly confused over how unafraid Akrim appeared even as the Imam raised the knife so that its tip was no more than a few inches from Akrim’s face.
“May Allah have mercy on you, Akrim.”
Though he spoke the words, there was no mercy to be found in the Imam’s tone.
“Hold him.”
Akrim felt the hands tighten over him as the Imam moved himself behind where Akrim knelt and then brought the blade to rest on the back of his neck. It was the Imam’s hope the sensation of the blade touching his skin would cause Akrim to finally panic.
Instead, Akrim remained unmoving and silent, his eyes closed and his face without emotion as the Imam’s hot breath washed over the left side of Akrim’s face as the blade moved to the area just under his chin.
“Was it worth it, boy? Letting the Catholic whore go, was it worth it?”
Akrim’s eyes opened for what he knew would be the last time. He fought to keep his voice steady, the words clear, and his faith strong.
“It was Allah’s will.”
The Imam cursed and then pressed the blade’s edge more deeply into the soft flesh of Akrim’s neck, causing a trickle of dark red blood to slowly form where the skin began to cut open.
“I am Allah’s will, you fool! And it is my will that now separates your traitorous head from its body so that I might send your soul to hell!”
It was at that moment Akrim Al-Saddi’s life as he knew it was ended…
---------------------------------
EPISODE SEVEN:
Dearborn, Michigan
Allah, let Hussan’s knife be quick…
So went Akrim’s silent plea as he awaited the inevitable pain that would announce the blade’s cutting of his throat.
He closed his eyes tightly and held his breath, trying to remain brave in the face of his own imminent demise. Tears stung the corners of his eyes as he found fear welling up within him.
The forty-year old Akrim Al-Saddi was not ready to die.
“Hold him!”
The Imam snarled the order as he tightened his grip on the knife handle.
And then the room exploded in a cacophony of gunfire.
Akrim felt the blade drop from his throat as Hussan-Ali stumbled backwards while the other four men dove toward the cellar floor, their eyes wide with shock and fear.
At least three more gunshots echoed against the walls, the sound causing Akrim to lift both of his hands against his ears. He saw a blur of motion to his right and then he crouched low with his face against the floor as yet more gunfire erupted around him.
“Is this him?”
A familiar voice answered.
“Yes, that’s Akrim. He’s the one who saved me.”
Sarah Clement returned to do for Akrim what he had so recently done for her – save his life.
“Can you stand up?”
The man’s tone was deep, assured, yet hinting at the need for Akrim to get moving.
“Yes.”
Akrim stood up and was greeted by the strong-jawed face of a tall, powerfully built black man holding a semi-automatic pistol in his right hand. He was dressed in a pair of faded blue jeans, a white t-shirt, and a torn and tattered, dark leather jacket. The shorter and slightly older Akrim extended his left hand in gratitude. The other man ignored the gesture, instead motioning for Akrim to follow him upstairs.
Both men stopped and turned to look at the Imam struggling to stand up, a single bullet wound in the upper right half of his chest having already painted the front of his tunic dark red.
Akrim watched as the black man’s jaw clenched tight and his eyes narrowed, seeming to hesitate over what to do next. That very brief moment of hesitation suddenly dissipated as he took two long steps toward Hussan-Ali, raised the handgun, and fired into the Imam’s forehead, delivering swift and absolute justice like some dark avenging angel from on high.
“We got to get moving. That was my last round.”
The black man moved quickly up the stairs without looking back. Sarah
waited at the top near the cellar exit, her eyes staying on Akrim for a half-second before she too turned to make her way out of the cellar as Akrim hastened to keep up.
Thirty seconds later found all three making their way toward the same back parking lot area Sarah Clement had emerged into during her own earlier assisted escape from the Imam’s blade. Low clouds covered Dearborn in a sullen grey gloom. Night was no more than a few hours away.
“You two follow me in the car, and don’t stop for anyone. We’re heading to a home about four miles from here.”
Akrim watched the black man make his way to a light blue scooter that had two red plastic, five-gallon gas cans strapped to both sides of the back of it along with what appeared to be a small green metallic oxygen tank. If not for the threat to their safety should more of the Imam’s followers return, the sight of the large man positioning himself over the rather effeminate-looking scooter would have provided an amusing image. Akrim jogged toward the car that he had little more than an hour earlier given Sarah the keys to. He waited for Sarah to slide into the passenger seat and then started the 1980’s-era brown four-door and mashed down on the accelerator pedal, grateful for the chance to be putting distance between himself and the place where he was nearly decapitated by a lunatic religious fanatic.
Both Akrim and Sarah were struck with how deserted the normally busy Dearborn streets were. Occasionally a face could be seen peering out from behind a curtained window only to abruptly withdraw as the car passed by. Some vehicles appeared to have been abandoned in the middle of the street, while others sat like silent sentinels with their windows broken out, unmoving markers of recent neighborhood violence. In the distance, emergency sirens could be heard wailing mournful cries of warning.
“Who is he?”
Akrim pointed toward the scooter that raced some forty yards in front of them.
Sarah’s eyes remained fixated on the seemingly empty homes that passed by outside.
“His name is Preacher. I flagged him down a block from the mosque and begged for him to help me save you.”
Akrim shook his head several times.
“And he did, just like that?”
Sarah turned her head to glance at Akrim as she nodded.
“Yeah – just like that.”
“Why? Why would someone…”
Akrim’s voice trailed off before Sarah gave her reply.
“Why did you help me? Whatever is going on in this country right now at least some of us haven’t forgotten what it is to be human beings. I’m just glad he showed up when he did otherwise you’d be dead by now.”
The car’s interior went quiet as both Akrim and Sarah became lost in their own thoughts over just how differently their lives would be if each had not taken a moment to risk everything to help the other.
Preacher turned to the right onto a narrow side street lined by well-kept single-story homes as Akrim followed close behind. Both he and Sarah looked up through the car’s windshield as a low-flying military jet thundered by overhead and then disappeared back into the cloud cover.
“Does your radio work?”
Akrim nodded and turned it on.
“It just gets AM though.”
The car filled with the sound of white noise being broadcast through decades-old speakers until finally a loud baritone voice was heard originating from the far end of the dial.
It appears to have started in Chicago but like the worst kind of pandemic it has spread from coast to coast, folks – sea to shining sea we are facing our own self-destruction. I am getting reports of city-wide looting in New York, Atlanta, Miami, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Seattle, Wichita, Raleigh, Houston, Dallas, San Diego…the list is only getting longer. The Border States are under a state of emergency. Entire towns are said to have been wiped out, thousands of deaths. Washington D.C. is a military operation now and I hear it’s only a matter of days or even hours before a national state if emergency and martial law are declared. Tanks are stationed around the perimeter of the White House! Do you hear me out there? Tanks around the White House! Over half the regular commercial flights have been eliminated. A third of the electrical grid is down. Without the generator I couldn’t be broadcasting this show right now! The food supply is dwindling. The stock market hasn’t re-opened for three consecutive days. Canada has closed the entire American-Canadian border out of fear the chaos will spread to their country. The United States has become the world’s pariah.
It’s a race-war apocalypse, folks. I warned you for years this day would come. We’ve been pushed into this very scenario by the powers that be, but I don’t think they were counting on it spreading so fast or becoming this uncontrollable. My advice to you, and I mean this sincerely, is to arm yourselves and get ready because we ain’t seen the worst of this just yet. Whatever is left of Internet and cell service will likely be gone too.
This might very well be my final broadcast. My producer tells me we’ve been warned multiple times by the authorities to stop talking about what’s going on out there. Apparently they even threatened to come and arrest us. We’ll see…we’ll see. Until then try and stay safe and don’t lose hope.
As for me, I’ll be sitting here locked and loaded…
Sarah turned off the radio and then bit down on her lower lip, a longtime habit from her childhood days when she was troubled by something.
“I knew it was bad but I didn’t think it could ever get this bad. Not in America. It doesn’t seem real.”
Akrim said nothing, instead focusing on turning the car left to follow Preacher up yet another side street. The scooter moved onto a narrow driveway that sat on the left side of a freshly painted white rambler-styled home with dark blue trim. The blinds were drawn closed and no lights could be seen on from outside.
“Looks like we’re here.”
Akrim parked the car on the side of the street and got out. A second later and Sarah stood to his right as they both looked at Preacher and the house that sat behind him.
“Hurry on in. We shouldn’t stand out here in the open for too long.”
Sarah glanced up and then down the street. Though she saw no-one, she couldn’t deny the feeling of being watched. Her right hand protectively rubbed the small bump that was the growing child inside of her before she made her way toward the home’s back door entrance, suddenly overcome with an urgency to get herself inside the house as quickly as possible.
Preacher paused at the back door, looked around to make certain they had not been followed, and then knocked lightly.
A moment later the door opened and Preacher walked in while he motioned for the other two to follow.
The small home was clean and welcoming despite the dated furnishings and thick, brown shag carpeting that had seen better days. The back door opened into the small kitchen and from there the main living area where an old black man and woman sat on the couch looking back at the newly arrived visitors.
Preacher motioned to the aged couple.
“This is my uncle Joe and Aunt Nadine. They’re the last family I have and I was determined to get all the way up here from Texas to make sure they were ok. Here’s a new canister of oxygen, Uncle Joe.”
It was then Akrim understood why the oxygen tank had been strapped to the back of Preacher’s scooter. His uncle’s skin was an ashen grey tinged with a shade of blue around the lips. The rail thin, white-haired old man was a lifelong smoker and in the last stages of emphysema.
“How’d you get it, Atlin?”
Preacher shrugged and then handed the oxygen tank to his aunt who quickly connected a hose to it and placed the other end underneath Joe’s nose. Once the oxygen was turned on Preacher’s uncle took several deep slow breaths and then gratefully nodded his head.
“Yes, that’s better. Thank you, boy…thank you.”
Aunt Nadine was a short, smiling woman with deep set dark eyes that looked out from underneath a pair of white and black brows. Like her husband, her hair was nearly white as well and thinning on the top
. She pushed herself up from the couch and then shuffled toward where Akrim and Sarah stood.
“It’s so very nice to meet you two. Any friend of Atlin’s is welcome here. Are you hungry? We don’t have much but I can still put something together if you like.”
Sarah waved away the offer, sensing the likelihood that very little food was left in the home.
“No thank-you.”
American Survivalist: RACE WARS OMNIBUS: Seasons 1-5 Of An American Survivalist Series... Page 7
