Free Never Fear by Heather Graham Page B

Messiah.” “You have been
hiding a non-believer?”
    “ Waleed did not know I am
Christian. He merely did his duty by giving me charity.”
    “ Why else would you need
to flee unless you were a kafir ? And why else would you hide
a kafir from us
unless you were an apostate. There is only one way to deal with
these crimes.”
    A burst of gunfire ripped loose and
Sabra screamed into Mother’s hand. Mohammad, his mother, and
brother screamed briefly and then went silent.
    “ ...be our protection
against the wickedness and snares of the devil,” Mother continued
to pray while smothering Sabra’s screams with her hand. Qadir did
likewise, one hand over Fahim’s mouth while his other arm held the
younger brother tight to keep him from flailing.
    Father and Waleed shouted at the militants and Sabra heard them struggle with
their attackers until the unmistakable sound of a rifle stock
against a skull quieted Waleed .
    “ You bastards! God sees
your crimes! He sees your sins!” Father shouted.
    “ No, Kafir , he sees our righteousness. He
sees us punishing the non-believers and traitors for their sins.
You feared the Caliph’s laws? I will give you a reason to fear
those laws. Bring me a knife,” Asadullah commanded.
    Father shouted and Waleed whimpered, then he screamed, then he fell silent. Sabra heard
a torrent of blood splash into a muddy puddle. She gagged as
Mother’s hand kept her from ejecting the vomit rushing from her
throat. The bile shot back down her throat and she retched again,
the warm fluid squeezing out between Mother’s fingers.
    “ No!” Father struggled.
Sabra could hear him fighting against the men holding him. He
shouted and cursed like Sabra had never heard him before.
“ Ayreh feek. Kess
ikhtak! ” Father’s curses and demeaning
commentary of Asadullah’s sister ended in his screaming. His scream
lasted longer than Waleed ’s, the militants taking
their time with the kafir . Soon enough, the screams died
down and the same gush of blood declared Father’s death as it
had Waleed ’s.
    Sabra stopped crying, she stopped
trying to scream, and her brain stopped trying to think. It was as
if she were asleep, unable to move or speak but unable to close her
eyes. She could not pray everything she had heard was a bad dream,
her mind too cluttered, too numb to wish she would awaken and be
safely away in her bed on Christmas morning.
    “ Rahman!” Asadullah
shouted. “Quit standing there like a fool. Go and check on the hole
this kafir crawled from.”
    Qadir and Mother both cursed as
footsteps stopped beside the petrol drums. The militant kicked the
curious goat aside and groaned when he rolled one of the heavy
barrels aside. Fahim’s weeping pried Sabra from her emotionless
trance.
    She looked up and saw a young man, a
pathetic attempt at a beard spotting his cheeks and a Kalishnokov
rifle slung over his back, looking down at them. The man’s eyes
were tired, not from too little sleep, but from seeing too much of
the worst mankind could offer in too few years.
    “ Please,” Mother whispered
to him, clenching her hands in prayer. “Mercy.” The man paused, the
consternation plain in his eyes. He did not have the look of
someone capable of killing.
    “ There is no one here. It
is empty,” the man called back to Asadullah.
    “ Come, Rahman. Let us go
then. The kafir said his family has moved on. We may still be able to find
them.”
    Rahman put a finger to his lips. Then
he stood and ran to his leader’s side.
    The family waited until the truck had
sped off. Qadir crawled from their space first and helped Mother to
her feet before pulling Fahim out from the dirt. Sabra, her senses
recovered, crawled under her own power from beneath the house that
had once been their sanctuary.
    A soft scream grew within Mother’s
throat. She ran beside Father’s corpse and collapsed. Qadir cursed,
throwing rocks at the goats lapping at the blood-soaked mud. Sabra
covered Fahim’s eyes, but could not