Engaged Ride

The man seemed to appear out of nowhere.

Kuljit Singh slammed on his brakes. A split
second and he would have crushed him. The
car behind him suddenly swerved to the left
to avoid tailing his bumper. It horned angrily
at him as it passed him by, throwing him the
finger. Kuljit barely paid attention. Part of the
job. He double parked his car illegally, waiting
for his near-victimized passenger to catch
up. The day had been pretty dry. Any money
was way better than no money.

`Khalid Al Walid Street. Fast.' The voice was
heavy, cracked, hoarse, like that of a sunburnt
80-year old man who had outlived his time.
Kuljit looked into the rear-view mirror. It was a
young dark-skinned boy, with long hair falling to
his shoulders. Hardly the kind to own that kind
of speech. Typical beach fare, white shirt and
electric blue shorts. Dark glares, the kind the
cool kids wore. A long chain dangling from his
neck with a toothy symbol showing. Hmm. A
familiar symbol. Where did he see it ? Some
flea market probably. No place to hide a gun or
a knife. No luggage, no papers. Maybe he's just
playing hooky and his Dad appeared from some
-where. He looked exhausted, as if he had been
running hard, but his white slippers were brand
new. Time to get some answers.

`Everything okay with you, brother ?'

`Huh ? Yeah, fine, fine. Just get there as fast
as you can please.' Even without looking back,
Kuljit knew the passenger was looking from
side to side rapidly as he spoke. A definite sign
of being chased.

`As fast as these tyres can take me. Say, uh,
where are you from, bro ? I can't place your
looks.'

`Better you can't. For me and you.'

He looked at his passenger again. He could
barely be 17. Did he even have money to pay
? The shirt had a transparent pocket that hid
nothing but air, and the upper three buttons
were open . No, wait. Kuljit looked again.
They were not open. They were missing.

`Why's that ? You don't like your country ?'

`Let's just say they don't like me.'

`That's really too bad. A man should always
feel there's one place in the world he really
belongs to.'

The boy sighed. `If those people had their
way, my body would belong to the Baron
right now.'

Kuljit's looked into the rearview mirror, and
his eyebrow rose. He had heard the name
somewhere. `Baron who now ?'

The boy's voice seemed to lose part of its
tension. He spoke with a smile. `Baron
Samedi. It's a superstition in our parts. He's
the Lord of the Dead.'

Now he was definitely warming up. `Sounds
like you got some real big trouble on your
hands.'

His passenger seemed to freeze up again.
Uh oh. Too fast on the draw, Kuljeetay.

`I've got some people on my back, friend.
And I'm running out of ways to escape em.'

`Well, maybe I can help. Take you to a safer
place than Khalid bin Walid. What kind of
people are after you ?'

The young man in the back stirred again. He
seemed to have taken position next to the
right door, ready to open it at any time and
rush out into the street. He was surprisingly
heavy, Kuljeet thought. He could feel the
pressure on the tyres shifting considerably.

`Have you heard of the QLO ?'

`Nope.'

A pause. `What's your name ?'

`Kuljeet. Singh.'

`Kuljeet.' The boy took something out of his
pocket, a pipe of some sort, made of ivory.
Kuljeet stared.

`That looks expensive.' He couldn't stop him
self. `I mean, expensive and unique. Are you
an art dealer or antique buyer ?'

The boy lit it with a flick of his fingers, puffed
a dark maroon fume out and laughed. It was
a monstrous belly laugh that shook Kuljeet's
eardrums. `No, friend Kuljeet. I deal in some
thing far more valuable than that.'

Kuljeet's heart skipped a beat. He was feeling
drowsy all of a sudden. He tried to open the
window, but his eyes played tricks on him. He
could barely hold the steering wheel straight.

`I know all about you, Kuljeet Singh. You like to
watch old American movies by Charlie Chaplin.
You speak 5 languages. You have a wife and
two daughters back in India. And you have a
particular taste for very young virgin girls.'

Kuljeet's mind fought to stay awake. `What ?'

The boy blew another round of smoke into the
cab. It was getting so cloudy he couldn't see
the road clearly.

`And I know, it's hard to find very young girls
here. But not for a busy cab driver like you. A
man who knows all the routes in and out of
the city.'

Kuljeet could not see. He was completely en
closed in the blood-red fog. His lungs burned
and he had to squeeze his eyes closed to keep
the smoke from getting in.

`So you pick up girls from the little back alleys,
girls from families of fifteen, whose fathers and
mothers are gone, living with relatives who can't
wait to be rid of them. And you take them to the
graveyard off the Emirates highway, and you let
them scream and shout. And you enjoy it. Oh,
you enjoy it. Then you finish with them, and take
out your little shovel from the back of your cab,
a tap on the head, then you bury them quietly.
Isn't that right, Kuljeet ?'

He couldn't breathe and he couldn't move. His
throat wanted to scream and scream, but it felt
like someone had pressed the mute button on
a remote control labelled `KS'. His arms and
legs were frozen as if glued to an invisible board.
A fly in a mousetrap.

`So you went out last week, with a new young
friend, and you took her to see a beautiful meteor
shower the middle of the night. But, surprise surp
rise, plans changed, and you ended up pulling
down her panties and showing her what a big boy
you are.'

Kuljeet was now floating off somewhere, he was
not sure whether he was in his body. He could
only hear vaguely, he was back in his mother's
womb again.

`You are a very perceptive man, Kuljeet, but we
all make errors. You didn't happen to notice the
little mark behind the knee of your friend, a mark
that you have seen since then. Do know where
you saw it, Kuljeet ?

He felt life come back to him again. His senses
returned as quickly as they had left, and the fog
had thinned enough for him to open his eyes.
He looked back in desperate fright.

Grinning at him from the passenger's seat was
a giant bald man, easily over 300 pounds, with
white and red markings on his forehead. His
chest was bare and grotesque. 3 small protrus-
ions rose from both sides of his sternum, as if
his ribcage had tried to escape and got stuck
there. His ginantic arms lay like fat serpents
sleeping by its side. A hundred necklaces hung
from his double chinned neck, each ending in
a luminiscent toothmark.

The mark he had seen on the girl when he moun-
ted her. He suddenly remember her voice, scared,
but not like the others. A deeper, more intelligent
fear: `Ni, ni. Dabaru, dabaru.'

The car suddenly stopped. Kuljeet looked ahead.
It was the graveyard. The full moon, not to have
arrived for another two weeks, looked focused,
almost like a torchlight, one a recently dug grave.
His shovel lay beside it.

`That mark signified that she would be a bride,
Kuljeet. To pay off the debts on the heads of her
fathers. A debt owed to me.

`And now, Kuljeet, our bride is waiting for you.
She has asked me to bring you back.' The black
man smiled. `You never did ask my name, Kuljeet.'

He backed up against his door as the black man
rose. His voice was too hoarse, too thick, not his
own: `Who are you.'

His passenger removed his glasses. The pinpoint
eyes flashed with living fire. His voice shook the
car. `Greetings from Baron Samedi.'

`No, I don't believe it. I don't believe in God. I don't
believe any of that junk.'

`I don't need you to believe in God. I only need you
to believe in the devil.' The ground began to shake.