T. Bunn - Drummer in the Dark

“How long will it last?”

“Sometimes hours, sometimes days.”

Trilling did not complain again.

They hammered through the village with their horn blaring a constant frantic note, scattering chickens and donkey carts and snarling dogs. Children pointed and danced, laughing at the outsiders who feared the desert beast.

Just beyond the village, the khamsin attacked with vehemence. As they descended into the valley, the cavern walls with their wind-etched shapes became as indistinct as waves at night. Pellets and sand rattled the car. Overhead poured a dismal stream, laced with dark tongues of ocher and brown.

Where the road began rising into the storm, the attackers struck.

Bullets slapped down the right side of the fender and the hood, then erupted against the windshield and right side window. Wynn was showered with glass. Sand and dust streamed through the shattered windshield. Nabil spun the car over hard to the left, or perhaps he fell that way and pulled the wheel with his body. They tumbled off the road at full speed, braked not by Nabil but by scraping along the canyon. Then the wall opened and they shot into darkness, slamming into the cave’s opposite wall. Wynn was catapulted over the seat in front of him, landing atop Nabil.

Before he had managed to unwind, the car was pounded from behind with blasts of automatic fire rattling across the trunk, shattering the rear windshield. Kay screamed. But it was another sound that froze his blood, the sound of a woman gasping and choking. Drowning in a sea of dust and wind.

Wynn pushed himself back down, pounded open his door, and fell to the sand. He pried open Nabil’s door and shouted, “Get out!”

Feebly the Egyptian tried to obey. His left arm and hand were streaming blood. Wynn wriggled forward, gripped Nabil with both hands, and pulled hard.

The Egyptian spilled down onto him just as the next spray of bullets spattered overhead, showering them with rocks and sparks and whanging noise. Kay screamed again and piled out by his feet, crawling with the adrenaline panic of one who had not been injured, or at least not badly. From Sybel there was no sound except a frantic search for air.

Wynn crawled through the door and up across the seat. “Oh, no, no, Sybel, please.”

She sat against the far door, watching him with the wide-eyed expression of a terrified little girl. Her front was splotched and stained almost black in the poor light. The same color pooled about the seat.

As gently as he could, Wynn pulled her across the seat and out of the car. He took her weight in his arms as she spilled helplessly onto the sand. Her eyes never left his, not even when the next shower of metal hail rang about them, chipping stones and sand and sending Kay into another screaming fit. She had pulled Nabil back into a narrow alcove, a cave within a cave, scarcely large enough for them to fit with legs drawn up tight against their chests. There was blood on the sand in front of them, but not much. Kay’s only injury appeared to be a gash across her forehead and the frantic dread in her eyes.

Wynn half-pushed, half-carried Sybel into a neighboring alcove, its wind-carved surface smooth and cool. Sybel rested in the position he placed her. He did not want to let her go, not even when another round of gunfire pelted the car and the opposite wall. But a single glance at the blood drenching him, all of it hers, left Wynn in no doubt that to stay would doom her as surely as another bullet.

Wynn crawled past Kay and Nabil, then crouched by the rear left wheel, and searched the empty space beyond the cave. It did not matter that there was neither sense nor hope to his actions. He raised his head a fraction and saw the pinpoint flashes of light from an alcove on the road’s opposite side. He crouched, ready for the rush he knew would be his doom.

“Wynn!” Kay’s shriek seemed joined to the demented wind. “ No! ”

Then he heard a different roar, and realized a single threat of hope had just entered the storm-blasted canyon.

As soon as the great square shape appeared in the shadows, Wynn was up and sprinting. When the truck rumbled past, he raced up alongside, jumped up on the running board, and flung open the passenger door.

The driver was caught in the act of laughing and speaking to his mate, who sprawled in the cubbyhole behind the two seats. They both froze and gaped at Wynn, who stretched out one hand far enough to see the blood coating his fingers, his shirt, his body. He felt the stickiness on his face as well, when he opened his mouth and screamed so loud he felt the muscles of his throat tearing loose, “STOP! NOW!”

Whether or not the driver understood the words, or whether he thought Wynn pointed a bloodied weapon into his face, he rammed on the brakes with both feet. The second driver tumbled out of his perch and down upon Wynn. Together they fell out of the truck and onto the ground. The terrified Egyptian raced off screaming, losing himself in the desert and the wind, headed pell-mell in the direction of Wadi Natrum and safety.

Before the truck had shuddered to a full halt, Kay Trilling was already moving, her arms locked around the badly limping Nabil. Wynn raced back to the cave, the truck blocking him from the attackers. His mind was filled with images of them appearing at any moment, splattering him with close-range fire. He hefted Sybel and raced back. Kay stood half in, half out of the truck, waving him forward and shouting words he could not hear.

Together they managed to pull Sybel inside the cab. Wynn slammed the door and shrieked, “ Drive! ” But the truck was already moving.

Wynn looked around to see Kay staring with dread at the bloody mess of Sybel’s chest. Nabil was sprawled in the rear cubbyhole, eyes shut, taking shallow breaths. Wynn attacked him with an elbow. “Don’t you pass out on me! Don’t you dare! ”

Nabil groaned and opened his eyes. Wynn shouted, “Tell him where to go!”

Nabil moaned the words, received a distraught and trembly response from the driver, then collapsed.

As they joined the main desert highway, the wind keened a new note. Which was strange, since they were jammed inside the cab of a battered produce truck, the windows shut tight against the swirling maelstrom and the engine racing. Wynn could not even hear Sybel’s gasping, though he knew she was making sounds because he could see the frantic search of her eyes and feel her lungs struggling within his sheltering arms. He did not need to urge the driver on. The truck bounced and rattled at a frantic speed. The driver either looked in horror at them or held his chin inches above the wheel and squinted through the yellow fog, swerving to avoid slower-moving vehicles only at the last minute.

Even so, Wynn heard the change to the wind’s shrieking melody. A new note, higher than the rest, not a keening of grief so much as one of separation. Higher and higher it sang, as Sybel’s struggles grew weaker and her eyes glazed. Finally her clutching hands released him. Higher still it climbed, far beyond the range of mortal ears, until only his heart heard the tone. His poor, shattered heart.

Friday

As soon as they arrived at the hospital, even before she had her head seen to, Kay Trilling called the American embassy. Within minutes the ambassador’s staff had slipped into well-oiled gear. A seemingly countless number of earnest young men and women appeared like magic, as well as three Egyptians drawn from the embassy’s security office. From that moment, Wynn was not left alone for an instant, not even when he noticed the truck driver still standing in the corner and watching the scene with frightened village eyes. Wynn asked the American now attached to his side, “Do you speak enough Arabic to thank him properly for the ride and his help?”