Bang!

Faizan felt the wet splatter of something sloppy hit his face. He looked towards the sound of the bang, towards the right, expecting to see Pehlwan's giant smiling face but instead saw a smoking heap of meat and shotgun pellets staring at him. Half of his head had been completely blown off while the other had been disfigured beyond recognition, and the only thing he could make out were the eyeballs that were oozing out a jelly-like substance.

Pehlwan’s grip around Faizan had instinctively hardened and he struggled to breathe as the towering body toppled over, shaking the ground as it landed. The fall had loosened the grip and Faizan had to use both his hands to get free, sucking in the precious air as he lay on the ground. He could hear the little creature shrieking in fear and looked up to see that his left arm had been completely reduced to shreds and it was clutching at the stringy red muscles and veins.

Faizan looked towards the source of the shotgun blast and was shocked to finally see a familiar face. And a familiar weapon.

It was the same 12 gauge shotgun that he had seen with the landlord the night before but this time, it was clutched by his wife. She wore a fiery red shalwar kameez with silver embroidery on it that shimmered from the moonlight. She had fire in her eyes as she stared down at the creature who was blabbering to itself in pain. When the creature looked up at his assailant he raised his hands in surrender but the landlord’s wife slowly walked forward, the shotgun aimed at him.

The creature realised there was no convincing her and ran back, clutching its shredded arm but soon enough, after another loud bang, his whole body was a pile of steaming flesh just like his brother’s head. Mrs. Malik then turned to look at Faizan and gave him a beaming smile that calmed him down, something he hadn’t felt ever since he had left her house, and he fell down on his back and took deep breaths. He wanted to thank her but was so drained that all he could manage was a Thank you! in his head as he nodded at her in appreciation. He was sure she understood.

“Are you alright?” she asked him in Punjabi, doing her best to add some urdu words as well, letting the shotgun rest on her side. “I’m so sorry about what has happened here?”

Faizan nodded, feeling the muscles in his body relax until he remembered his friends, his girlfriend. Hina! He stood up immediately. “Where are my friends? What happened to them? Please, do you know anything about what happened here?”

She shook her head, guilt in her eyes. “Something bad has happened here. A curse, or something. I don’t know what it was but suddenly everyone was attacking each other. Your friends went to go explore the fields when it started, I don’t know what happened. Everyone got lost, including my husband but it seems like I’ve found him…”

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Faizan looked to where she was gesturing and saw the hooked prisoner, who he had completely forgotten about because his moaning had become background noise for him during the chase. For a second, he didn’t even recognise the squirming, bloodied husk of a man until he realised he was looking at the landlord himself. His face looked ghostly pale and thin, and it was covered in all sorts of cuts and bruises, no doubt the handy work of the creature. He thought there was fresh tobacco in his mouth until he realised it was a mixture of coagulated blood and pus that oozed out of the open cavities in his mouth from where his teeth had been pulled out. His body hung limply, as if he had lost all control of his body, which Faizan figured had to do with the rusty bloodied hook jammed into his spine. He could not possibly imagine how much pain the man was in.

He watched as the landlord’s wife pulled out the hook from his back, a bit too roughly, and he screamed in pain so loudly that he could feel the pain deep in his soul. She looked down at him in disgust but nonetheless asked Faizan for help as they flung each of his arms on their shoulders and led him to the nearby building that had a light on. Mr. Malik yelped in pain the whole time, the pitch rising everytime they hit an uneven spot on the ground. He could hear the tinkling of something falling and saw that the landlord’s piss was running down his bloodied shalwar. He wanted to stop there and then so that they could find a more comfortable way for him to be carried but his wife shook her head and insisted they continue this way. He wondered what kind of treatment the landlord had subjected her too but then realised he was in Pakistan. Whatever it was, it would not be a surprise.

They entered through the narrow doorway of the house into a musty looking sitting room with drab, dusty curtains and sofa that were so bland they looked like they blended into the walls. There was a very dim light tube on the ceiling, but it looked as bright as the sun after the darkness he had had to run through to escape. They set the landlord down onto the sofa, Faizan propping him up into as comfortable a position as he could. He heard a flutter of curtains from the other doorway that connected to the corridor, and saw that it was their daughter. She pushed past Faizan and began tending to her father, examining his wounds. There were tears running down her eyes after seeing her father like this.

“We can’t help him. Leave him! Take care of Faizan,” Mrs. Malik said sternly to her.

“I’m fine, please,” said Faizan as the daughter glared at him fiercely with tears in her eyes. There was blood spattered on his face and glass embedded in his skin but he ignored it. “Please, you need to tend to him.”

“He is already dead,” said Mrs. Malik in a booming voice, with finality. There was an insanity brewing in her eyes that Faizan could see now in the light. He did not like it.

“I can help him, I know a way. I know... some people in the caves near the fields. They can help him if I ask them too,” she implored with tears in her eyes.

“You want to save your father?” she asked, as if her daughter had said something outrageous. “Save him after everything he has done with us, forcing us to live here like prisoners. Now you finally have a way to get out, by marrying this city boy right in front of you. He has a car and a house and everything. You will be set for life. Shikhar would’ve been perfect too but you had to go and try to kill him with that shotgun.”

Wait, what…

“Shikhar wanted to kill me and my ‘friends’ in the caves! And now you want me to marry this guy now?!” said her daughter, outraged, and shoving him aside as she darted towards her mother. “I don’t want to marry anyone. I don’t even know him!”

“I didn’t know your father either,” said her mother, raising her shotgun. “But he is a savage living in a village, and he would have you remain a savage in this village too. I can’t have that happen to you.”