Lion

Asad scored his third goal, leading his soccer team to a rare victory. His compact build and agility made him a perfect striker. His best friend, Hasan, lifted him off as if he were performing a Heimlich maneuver. Asad looked around and relished every crumb of his team’s adoration, making his smile wider and his back straighter. Coach would now pick me to lead my high school team, he thought.

Sun plunged below the horizon, and the cemetery walls cast a long shadow over the soccer field. The warm orange clouds turned to a fiery red. Everyone started waving goodbyes and scattered. Asad was running late and needed to go home to take care of his sick mother. He could either go around the cemetery and be late or walk through it. He had promised his mother he would never walk through the cemetery after dark. His dad told him his mother’s ghost stories about the cemetery were just that. Stories. The growl in his stomach made the decision for him. I’m not scared. I’m Asad-Allah, the Lion of Allah, he told himself with a chuckle.

Asad squeezed through the rusted bars of the cemetery gate. An icy breeze of twilight wind slapped him in the face. He buttoned his jacket and turned up his collar. The moon hung low, and the headstones cast long shadows. Asad’s feet crunched on through the dead leaves, creating a rhythmic whooshing sound. As Asad passed the graves, he glanced at the names. He stopped at the grave of Mr. Ahmadi. He was Asad’s next-door neighbor who lent money to Asad’s dad, knowing well his dad could not pay him back. Asad remembered Mr. Ahmadi was proud of his golden ring topped with a big black stone.

“The stone is from Mecca. Like the black stone of Kabbah,” Mr. Ahmadi said. He died in sleep. They found him with his eyes open with a frozen, scared look.

Asad heard a noise and turned around. A gray rat scurried away and disappeared below the dried maple leaves. He grinned and remembered his late aunt Pari. She believed jinns are all around us. To break free of an evil jinn, she told him, “Asad, shout Allah over and over again and they will stop their torments.”

Asad continued walking and daydreaming about his mother, soccer, and school. Halfway through the cemetery, he found himself in the middle of freshly dug graves. A thin layer of cold sweat covered his body. He started running over the fresh mound of earth between the empty graves. Whenever he thought he had reached the end of the open graves, more fresh graves appeared around him. The moon’s rays shined through the clouds, keeping him from falling into a grave. Something appeared in his peripheral vision. He stopped. A dirty neon-green glow started emanating from the graves.

“Hey, are you hungry?” a raspy voice behind him asked. He turned around, almost losing his balance. Leaning over the edge of a grave, a man beckoned him to come over. His face looked normal but had a mustard-yellow sheen. Asad tiptoed backward. “I’m sorry if I scared you,” the man said. “I’m D. I know this looks weird,” D grinned. “We just finished digging and are having dinner before starting our next shift.” Asad froze. Something grabbed his left ankle. Something cold. Asad turned and looked down. A naked jinn, skin-and-bone, showed his sly blackened teeth. Another one next to him stood, gnawing on a rotten arm with a hand hanging from it. Is that Mr. Ahmadi’s ring? Asad asked himself. He lifted his head. Jinns were popping from every open grave. They were all naked with patchy green discolored skin. A putrefied stench filled the air.

“Don’t mind them. They all work for me,” D said. “They don’t like it when their dinner is interrupted,” D beckoned him again. “Come and eat with me, and then I’ll take you home on my new Harley.” A bike with a blood-dripping skull and bones on the gas tank was parked next to D. “We’ll have the wind in our hair and bugs in our teeth,” D said, baring his rotten black teeth.

Asad surveyed his surroundings. D was his best option. He ambled to D and looked down into the grave. D stood next to a big feast with plates of food and pitchers of drinks.

Asad cleared his throat, “I wanna go home to take care of my mom.”

“I know your mom. Don’t worry, my boy,” D offered his hand, but Asad didn’t take it. While holding eye contact, Asad sat at the edge and hopped in, careful not to land on the food. The grave now looked as big as a room, connected to other graves at the bottom through a two-foot-high network of passages crawling with jinns. The grave walls wept a dirty brown slime.

“Sit. Let’s eat,” D said. Asad sat clutching his knees. “Look at me,” D said. Asad swallowed hard and couldn’t avoid his stare. D’s face was now the color of a rotten dark tangerine with a lighter color around his eyes. D beamed a kind smile, but his yellow eyes revealed his true intent.

“Eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Your stomach sang a different tune.”

“I have to go home.” Asad bit his quivering lip and tried to smother a whimper. A jinn crawled next to him. Asad jumped.

“Don’t mind them. They won’t harm you,” D’s eyebrows were no longer visible, and his eyes sank deeper in their sockets. “Sit,” D said. “These are your favorite foods. Herb stew. Your mother’s recipe. Look at that freshly squeezed pomegranate juice,” D tried to distract him. “Tell me about yourself.”

“My name is Asad-Alla—,” D took a swing and slashed Asad’s forehead. Blood started trickling down his face. D’s pupils dilated down to pinpricks; his face looked like snakes were crawling below his skin.

“I hate your name,” D growled. “Don’t say it if you want to live,” he bared his black matchstick teeth and curled up his thin lips. Asad lurched back with his lower body almost inside the passage. He stammered with an unintelligent moan and slowly got to his feet.

“SIT DOWN BOY.” Asad sat and kept eye contact with D.

“Run,” Mr. Ahmadi said. He squatted next to D but his lips were stapled together.

“I’ll deal with you later,” D said as Mr. Ahmadi bolted out of sight.

The jinn who touched his ankle moved closer to him and started stroking himself. His eyes were flat and glistening like fisheyes. Asad recognized him. He was his religious teacher who raped his friend’s little brother.

“You’ve too many fans here. They’re all dying for a lick.” D’s facial muscles were gone, and his nose shrunk to two dark slits.

“You said you will take me home.”

“Yes, but first you need to break bread with me.”

Asad sat cross-legged. The cloth spread on the ground was his mother’s floral tablecloth, covered with blood splatters. Waves appeared on the surface of the herb stew. Something was slithering inside the bowl. The rice on the platter was undulating with maggots. A vomit threatened to come up, but Asad forced it down. The taste of acid flooded his mouth.

 “Either you eat with me, or they will have you,” D said and poured himself a red liquid that was too thick to be pomegranate juice.

“Why are you called D?” Asad asked to steel himself and kill time.

“Daeva. Devil. Diablos. Demon. Or, perhaps, Deus. Deity. You pick.”

“My Zoroastrian teacher said Daeva didn’t know the difference between truth and lies.”

“They didn’t appreciate greatness,” D tore the bread by hand and offered a piece to Asad. The bread had large tunnel like holes with one-eye creatures scurrying away deep inside the loaf.

Mr. Ahmadi reappeared behind D and motioned to the sky. D turned and smacked Mr. Ahmadi out of sight. When D turned around, Asad bolted up and yelled, “Allah... Allah...” Blinded and in pain, D shrieked and pulsating boils covered his face. Asad jumped and hung from the grave edge. He couldn’t pull himself up. Something touched his feet. Asad turned. It was Mr. Ahmadi, pushing him up with his right shoulder. Asad was out. Then, D leaped out.

“Alla—,” D interrupted Asad by flashing his palm, looking like a menacing claw.

“Don’t say it.”

“Let me go,” Asad said. The moonlight bounced off D’s long black teeth. He pulled a skull from his pocket and threw it at Asad. The skull with rows of snapping fangs hurtled toward Asad. With a quick reaction, Asad kicked the skull into a grave.

“Allah. Allah. Allah...” Asad screamed and ran. The fresh graves disappeared. He ran through the cemetery and passed the back gate, and didn’t stop until his house was in view. He turned, and no one was following him.

His lungs were burning. He bent and caught his breath and vomited all over his right shoe. He looked toward the gate, and the full moon cast a soft glow over the cemetery. Nothing moved. The smell of the apple orchard next to him filled the air.

When he walked into the house, his dad was waiting for him.

“Take off your shoes,” he said. Asad sniveled something, but his dad didn’t hear him. “I’m running late for work. Mrs. Ahmadi will check on you. Call me if there are any changes with your mother. Lock the doors,” his dad said and rushed out. Then he came back. “What happened to your forehead?”

“I...I...” Asad said. His dad looked at his wound.

“It is not bad. Just clean it and put some antibiotic ointment on it. I’ve to go.” Asad followed him to the front door and locked it.

He went upstairs to his mother’s room and sat by her bed. She had been in a coma for the past six months, and doctors said she needed a miracle. The room smelled of medicine filled with the rhythmic whooshing sounds of a ventilator and the beeping of monitors. Asad hugged her and let out a quiet whimper. Her arms wrapped around him. She mumbled something. Asad sat up.

“Mom?”

“D is back,” she cried and looked straight through the window.

Asad rushed to the window to call his dad, but his car was gone. Shadows were moving behind the azalea bushes. He followed a single muddy tire track to a shining Harley leaning against the shed.