Free The Killing Sea by Richard Lewis

the gun barrel aimed at his chest. It didn’t have a flash suppressor, and the hole looked so big that he imagined he could see the grooves that would spin the bullet into his heart. After all he’d been through, this was how he was going to die? If he weren’t so scared, he’d be laughing at the absurdity.
    â€œWait.” A word of command, spoken by the man with the dead white eye.
    The other rebel lowered his rifle.
    The man strode up to Ruslan. His dead eye seemed as penetrating as his good one. “Your father is Yusuf the mechanic, you said? And he went to his wife’s relatives in Ie Mameh?”
    Ruslan nodded, his legs trembling at this sudden reprieve. He tried to hold them still, not wanting the rebels to see how frightened he’d been.
    One of the rebels laughed and pointed at Ruslan’s crotch. “Look. He’s peed himself.”
    Ruslan looked down. A big, fresh wet spot marked the front of his drying jeans. His face burned with shame.
    â€œAw, little boy,” the man who’d pointed the gun said. “You didn’t think I’d really shoot you, did you?”
    The leader said, “What’s your mother’s name?”
    â€œTjut Intan,” Ruslan mumbled. “She was a schoolteacher.”
    â€œWhat happened to her?”
    â€œShe was killed in a firefight when I was three.”
    The leader murmured with the scarred man and then told Ruslan, “You come with us.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œWherever we tell you.”
    â€œBut I need to get to Ie Mameh.”
    The leader’s smile didn’t reach his good eye. “You’re with us now. We’re your family. We need a pair of strong shoulders like yours. Lots of stuff to carry.”
    Ruslan knew that rebels occasionally forced young males into service, sometimes for months. He had toescape from these men. He had to get to Ie Mameh. But for now, he had to play it smart and go along.
    They gave him a zippered gym bag to carry that was as heavy as a rock. What was inside? Ammunition for the rifles? Grenades? He hiked in the middle of the group, the men spread out and keeping a casual but close eye on him. They came to a destroyed village, houses obliterated down to the foundations, with trails of smashed bricks and tiles pointing like arrows away from the coastline. The rebels scavenged through the debris. They found a carton of bottled water, the seals unbroken. These they divided among themselves, two each. The leader made sure Ruslan got his share, which he put in his knapsack on his back.
    The scarred rebel found a gold headdress in a broken wardrobe. He unzippered Ruslan’s gym bag to put the headdress inside. Other gold objects glittered within. There were also wads of money.
    Ruslan said nothing.
    They came to two bodies, a shirtless man, a woman in sarong and headdress. The scarred rebel patted the male’s pockets. He shook his head. But the female had a gold chain that he unfastened from her neck and handed to Ruslan.
    Ruslan backed away in horror. “This is sacrilege!”
    The leader turned to Ruslan, piercing him withthat dead eye. “If we don’t take it now, somebody else will take it later. There are survivors with us we must feed. Take the chain.”
    The scarred rebel held his rifle as though ready to use it on Ruslan for real this time.
    Ruslan added the chain to his bag.
    The leader stood over the corpses and murmured a quick prayer.
    The band made their way along a littered road to the edge of a broad brown river twirling away to the coast and the small town of Teunom. Even this far inland the bridge’s roadway had been torn out by the force of the flood, but one metal beam, and the cable that supported it with guy wires, still spanned the hundred yards to the other side of the river. The first rebel slung his rifle over his shoulder and climbed up onto the girder to start crossing.
    An idea popped into Ruslan’s mind. He faked a