One Night Only

Dante

A ringing in my ears is what caused the sound of the explosion. I open my eyes and see Franco getting to his feet and walking towards me. My head hurts as I feel everything around me spinning. This is when I hate having drunk so much alcohol that night.

“Sir, are you okay?” he helps me to my feet.

Before I can respond, the gunfire reaches us. They’ve found us.

And as Franco said, they’re completely covered in cloths all over, only their eyes visible, and heavily armed.

“We need to get back to the road and see if there are any intact trucks left,” Franco speaks again.

The headache prevents me from thinking or saying anything, so I just nod and let him lead me. We take cover among the sand dunes as we crawl towards the road.

When we reach the edge of the road, we see three trucks exterminated by fire. Two are missing, and there’s no trace of them. Maybe they managed to escape. I don’t know if Enzo managed to get away from all this mess.

It’s just Franco and me in the middle of nowhere. No way to communicate or signal for help.

Then a bullet grazes me, passing dangerously close to my body, as Franco throws himself to cover me. The bullet hits him in the leg. He falls with me to the ground. I drag him to cover us with what’s left of the vehicles.

“Damn it, I don’t want you to fight with me. Leave me here, they’ll be distracted. I’ll cover you while you leave. You tell me when you’re ready to go.”

“Are you crazy? I’m not leaving you here alone,” I refuse to leave him here. “I would never run away while abandoning one of my men. We either get out of this together or we die right here.” It’s more of an order.

He nods. He’s losing blood. I tear a piece of cloth from my shirt and cover his wound to prevent him from losing too much blood and also to protect him from the sand.

We have very few bullets left. That’s why I didn’t fire any shots anymore. I want to save them for emergencies.

After a long few minutes, we no longer hear any gunfire. I help him to his feet with his good leg, trying to get away from there, but we don’t get far when we’re ambushed again. I manage to throw myself to the ground with him. I try to pull out my other gun to shoot them. I finish them all off. When I see that there’s none left, we continue and take the road to get away. We walk several more kilometers. I don’t know how many, I just know that we’re getting away from the site of the massacre. I lost several of my men. It infuriates me even more to see their bodies lying in the sand.

When I think we’re safe, I see a somewhat lonely village, but some people can be seen in it. Seeing us injured and with some blood, they run to take refuge in their homes. I know they’re afraid and don’t want to get into trouble, but I just want to ask for water for Franco and me. He needs his wound washed, or it will get infected. Apparently, we’re very far from Morocco. I don’t know exactly where we are, but from what I can tell, it’s another region somewhat distant from where we come from.

An older man approaches us with a pot containing water. I don’t speak his language, it’s one of the few languages I don’t know, so I try to communicate with him in English. Maybe he’ll understand better.

“Do you know if there’s a clinic or doctor around here?”

Franco is still leaning on my shoulder. He looks very bad, pale and weak. He’s lost a lot of blood. I need to find a doctor or at least a healer.

The man shakes his head. I don’t know if in response to my question or because he doesn’t understand my words. I sigh. I feel exhausted. My right arm is injured. When we ran from the explosion, I fell on it and fractured it. I can’t move it, so I only have my left arm.

The old man gestures for us to follow him to a stable. With some mistrust, we walk behind him. I can’t trust anyone. Maybe an old and tired man isn’t dangerous, but at this point, I don’t trust anyone. I have to stay alert. With all that we’ve been through, I know they’re coming for me, and since they didn’t succeed, sooner or later they’ll come back to fulfill their mission.

After a few moments, the man helps us, and I manage to wash Franco’s wound, who passes out from the pain since I had to remove the bullet.

I can’t fall asleep, so I stay awake until nightfall. I make an effort not to fall asleep.

We’re lying on the floor of the old man’s small barn. It’s not comfortable, but it’s a good place to hide. I’ll wait for Franco to recover so we can leave. I can’t wait for Enzo and the others to come looking for us. If we wait any longer, the enemy might come back sooner than my colleagues.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

Footsteps put me on alert. I pull out my gun to aim at the shadows approaching. It’s the old man with a child. They raise their hands, frightened, while the man shakes his head and says some words in his language. I sigh and lower the gun. The child comes closer.

“Hello, I’m Hasan,” he introduces himself. He knows English. “And he’s my grandfather. He doesn’t know your language, but I do.” I smile. It’s a sincere smile. “What’s yours?”

I furrow my brow.

“Mine?”

“Yes, your name. What’s your name?”

I don’t know whether to tell him my name or my nickname. Either way, they’ll eventually find out who I am, but more so if I give them the Devil’s Advocate. They don’t seem like bad people, on the contrary.

“My name is Dante, and he’s Franco, my friend,” I point to my unconscious guard.

I can’t tell them he’s a killer or anything like that. I don’t want to scare them and make them distrust us. Our goal isn’t to harm them but to get out of here alive.

“Nice to meet you, although your friend is sleeping,” he chuckles. “My grandfather has prepared some soup for dinner, it’s not much, but it should help to ease the hunger. We’re poor and only have enough for water, broth, and sometimes a piece of bread.” He tries to smile. “My mother used to say that where two can eat, three or even more can, you just have to know how to portion well.”

He seems like a kind, good-hearted kid. He seemed nostalgic when he talked about his mother. I think she’s no longer around from his words. That reminds me of my childhood, where I always had everything and lacked nothing, but those same words my mother said in some moments. I used to throw tantrums for not wanting to eat.

I accept their invitation to dinner. I just tell them I can’t leave my companion, so I eat alone in the barn.