He could hear the shouting and screaming much clearer now, and along with the smell of slaughter and blood, he could now smell burning in the air. He looked around and saw the distant dancing glowing of fire at various points in the distance. It was pure chaos outside. What a bunch of savages.
He opened the built-in smaller door of the gate carefully but quickly closed it and slid the rusted latch in when he heard a group of people approaching. He had caught a glimpse of them, wearing various forms of shalwar kameezes and carrying blazing torches like in medieval times as they shouted and screamed. When they walked past the gate, he tried to discern what they were saying in Punjabi, but besides the prayers and incantations they proclaimed out loud, it was too garbled for him to understand. Their tone was almost animal-like, and it looked like they were searching for someone. Faizan dreaded to think who they were looking for.
When the coast was clear, he stepped outside into the streets and began moving towards the mosque, the only real landmark he had in mind. He was hoping that they had somehow made their way there and were waiting for him so that they could escape this godforsaken place. He prayed that Daniyal had somehow managed to get the car working.
The streets were dark as the red in the sky continued to darken, as if the blood on the horizon was slowly congealing. Initially, he thought that the water in the open gutters on either side of the street were just reflecting the light in the sky giving the impression of blood, but then he realised it was actually blood. The flowing water was mixed with blood and filth and it remained consistently so as far as he walked. It looked like the gutters were the veins of the street, as if it had been dead all this while and had been resurrected by the blood of whatever had been sacrificed to it. He dreaded to think what imaginable horror caused it. Even the slaughter on Eid didn’t bring out that much blood, he thought as he walked carefully in the streets, thankful he had his sneakers on that would make sure he could move carefully and quietly.
The closer he got to the looming minar on the other side of the village, the closer he felt he was approaching the heart of chaos. He could hear shouting, mostly of men, and screaming, mostly of women, all over the village and it made his legs weak with fear. Blood-curdling screams and bloodthirsty shouting mixed in with the blazing fire made him feel like he was approaching hell itself. The groups of wandering villagemen were becoming more frequent and Faizan had to sink into the shadows or diverge into connecting streets, praying that they did not find him.
The blood in the running gutters was starting to become an even deeper red as he made his way ahead. He started to fear for the worst when bits and pieces of meat started to flow down as well; cartilage, torn flesh and chunks of collected, congealed blood floating in the murky water. He wondered if that was his friends in the water that flowed the other way, as if warning him to go the other way lest he suffer the same fate as them.
His luck of not being found out did not last, however, when he ran into another group of villagers in a street where there was no escape on either side. Instinctively, he sank against one of the outer gates of a nearby house, and it opened inwards which was something he did not expect. He tripped over the small beam at the bottom of the gate and fell inwards, the metal door moving with the same momentum and crashing hard against the mud brick wall. The villagemen exclaimed out loud as they heard the commotion, even over the general shouting, screaming and fire blazing that could be heard as loud as ever.
“Oye, someone’s over there,” one of them shouted and they ran to the source of the sound. Faizan was, initially, frozen in fear but quickly got up and ran, scanning his surroundings. He was in a house with a huge open courtyard where he could see the murky shadows of farm animals; cows, goats and chickens. Adjacent to these were the small buildings where the rooms were. He turned to look at the one on the left where a pale yellow light filled a small room, on the wall of which he could see the elongated shadow of a man hunched over. There was a woman screaming inside that slowly turned into sickly gurgles as the shadow made a sudden movement. He hadn’t noticed the puddle of blood until he stepped into it. He looked down and caught a glimpse of the dark liquid forming a small river until it collected into an indented region of the worn out stone floor. He didn’t have any time to wonder what the reason was but the extra fear injected more adrenaline into him and he ran faster. He was sure now that the blood in the gutters belonged to actual people, like the woman who had just been silenced.
He heard the gate slam open behind him again as the group of villagemen turned around into the house, slowly down as the door inside the gate formed a chokepoint.
“Oye, there’s a sinner running in your house, get him! He’s from the city, he’s wearing jeans, he’s a huge sinner!”
He caught a glimpse of a man coming out of the room, who Faizan thought wore a red shalwar kameez until he saw the blood drenched all over his hair and face. He was wiping his hands with a bloodied cloth.
He was laughing. “I’ve killed a lot of sinners today. Killed my wife and daughters, the sins she birthed, who should’ve been sons.”
Faizan had his eyes set on the small, uneven staircase that led to the roof of the other building that bordered the courtyard. Back on the terrace, he had noticed how the roofs in the villages were all connected to each other, like favelas, and all he had been able to think was how they would be a parkourer’s dream. That was what his instincts and fears led him to as he ran up the stairs, taking two at a time while the villagemen behind said some of the nastiest slurs he had ever heard.
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He stopped at the top of the roof, assessing his surroundings to make sure there would be a safe path to take. The building he stood on was much closer to the chaos unfolding, and yet high enough for him to see clearly what was going on. He saw the movement of people now which he hadn’t been able to before and froze. There were scores and scores of villagemen, gathered in groups in various courtyards and open spaces on the streets, slaughtering other men and women while chasing the others. They were proclaiming God's name as they slaughtered them from the neck, ignoring their various screams, cries and pleas. His stomach turned at the sight of blood gushing out of so many gashed throats and heads rolling around, some of them piled up like small mountains of heads among which he saw buzzards and strays dogs, chomping on cheeks, eyeballs and whatever meat they could get their hands on. After the slaughter was done, their headless corpses were being hung onto hooks or placed on reed mats so that they could be further cut and meat prepared for cooking. He noticed the sickly smell of cooked human meat in the air and let out a mouthful of bile before getting control of his body. He didn’t have time to hurl, he had to get moving.
Before he jumped down, he heard the loud whistle of a speaker being turned on that echoed all throughout the village, followed by a loud thumping of a mic being adjusted. The whistle died down as Faizan landed onto an adjacent lower roof of another house. He winced as the muscles at his heels stung; he had landed with too much force on his feet but had luckily suffered no injury. He continued running forward as someone coughed into the mic, a man’s voice. He noticed that the source of the sound were the speakers attached to the giant minar of the masjid, looming higher than ever into the night sky. Had it increased even more in length or was he just imagining it? Faizan jumped from roof to lower roof, climbed up higher roofs or simply jumped across as he ran right among the chaos that was louder than ever. The screaming, yelling and the putrid smells followed him wherever he desperately ran. Tears ran down his eyes at the thought of being caught by the pursuers. Some of the ones down on the ground joined up with them. Being from the city had painted a target on his back. The same had probably happened to his friends as he looked at the massacre going below but he pushed the thought back. He had to escape before he could think about looking for them. He hoped that they were safe. The voice from the masjid spoke.
“Greetings, my fellow Muslim brothers… and sisters. God is so proud of the work you have done today to remove the sinners from this village, so proud, that he has given you a third Eid. Rejoice, my fellow brothers! You are the very best of his servants,” said the imam of the masjid who Faizan could tell was an elderly man based on his voice
The villagemen replied with a huge uproar as they praised God, so loud that he felt the whole village shake. The villagemen had their whole attention turned to the mosque now and the slaughter had briefly been stopped. His pursuers had also been slowed down because of the distraction but had not relented the chase.
“God has blessed you with this third Eid so that you may sacrifice the believers and cleanse his Earth of all the filth. By ingesting them, they will become a part of you and their souls will be purified by the noor inside your bodies. Eat them, eat all of them and save some for me,” he said with a chuckle.
The villagers laughed, their voices combining and sounding like a ferocious beast laughing maniacally from the pits of hell deep below them. Laughter sounded like a foreigh concept, like a memory, in the hellscape he was currently running through. It was sickening how someone could be able to muster even a smile in the situation they were in.
“Sharpen your blades, brothers and press the knives against the necks of the sinners right now. Do it right now, leave everything else.” said the imam and the screaming that had quietened down during the sermon had started up again as Faizan heard the clatter of blades as they were picked up or sharpened against stones. The air in the whole village held its breath as they all readied their blades against the throats of their victims, waiting for the imam’s cue.
The imam took a deep breath and then loudly proclaimed his blessings in the form of a religious incantation. The whole village repeated after him in unison and slid their knives across the throats together, as blood spurted out of throats like fountains, letting out another river of blood into the gutters. Faizan would’ve been driven to the verge of insanity as he heard the hundreds of screaming voices that changed into sickly gurgling sounds dotted all around him as far as he could hear, if not for the adrenaline coursing through him.
He was taken aback too as he looked towards the masjid and he could’ve sworn it had grown even longer, almost the size of a small building. He felt another surge of energy as he looked at it and felt overwhelmed with the giddiness that filled up his body. It was the same energy he had felt when the statue had pierced his skin, but this one was much stronger.
His legs felt like jelly and eventually he ended up tripping on a small pile of bricks lying on a rooftop. He fell headfirst over the edge of it, bracing for impact with his shoulder and landing quite fortunately in a huge pile of stinky hay. His pursuers had been too focused on the sermon and were now perplexed by his disappearance. Faizan dug deeper into the hay, grateful that the musty smell covered up the horrifying smells he’d had to endure all throughout the pursuit.
“This Eid is a blessing for you, my brothers!” continued the imam after the uproar had died down. “Enjoy it! And take special care with eradicating the witches and the people from the city, they are dangerous with their magic and their forbidden knowledge. But let it be known, God will give you a special place in heaven, among me and the prophets themselves, if you brave the risk to purify them. May God be with you all as you enjoy this third Eid. Farewell!”
“Where is that motherfucker?” he heard one of them proclaim as they ran after him with more determination. “How did he just disappear like that? He’s been running like crazy for so long?”
Through a gap among the hay covering his face, he could make out a few of them jumping over the edge of the roof to look around while a few of them stayed behind. They were perplexed.
“This must be the work of witchcraft,” the other replied. “If he has escaped to the ground below then he is out of our hands. Phelwan will take care of him. We let go of a special place in heaven my brother. But God blesses who he wishes to and who is a better servant of the imam than Pehlwan himself.”
With that, he heard his pursuers walk away but he did not dare make a single movement until he was sure that the coast was clear. He could hear the soft sounds of farm animals nearby but he wasn’t bothered about them in the least. The muffled sounds of the chaos continued and the adrenaline in his body started to distill into pure fear. He had begun to process everything that had happened and it was too much for his brain to handle. Slaughter, witches, death, human flesh, third eid, the god awful smell. What was he supposed to do? Move. He had to move. He willed his body to do so but it wouldn’t budge, it was frozen in fear. Move. He had to save his friends. His legs still refused to budge. Then he heard a whisper, he wasn’t sure if it was the actual voice or merely a memory but he heard her calling his name. Faizan, she called. Come to me, in a delicious sensuous whisper that made the hair on his body stand up.
Hina.