Akwar, west of Marial Bai, South Sudan
Father Alfred peddled his bike through the desert.
On these early-morning rides, he felt very close to God indeed. He left Marial Bai before the sun was up and made his way into the vast desert, following the barely discernible thread of a road using equal parts instinct and eyesight.
His flock was scattered across the land. On the first Sunday of the month he traveled south, the next Sunday north, then east. But on the fourth Sunday of every month, he traveled west. It was twenty miles to the village of Akwar, but he could make it in a little under two hours if he stayed steady on the pedals.
As the packed-earth path rolled beneath his tires, Father Alfred liked to sing. There was no one around and he bellowed all his favorite tunes in as many languages as he could remember. Most were hymns, like the ones he had learned from the missionaries when he was a boy. The songs of the Mother Church made the miles fly by.
He just finished the last verse of “Rock of Ages” when Akwar came into view.
It was a tiny speck of human existence in the midst of a vast desert, barely earning even the title of “village.” It rarely appeared on maps, and no roads other than the one he was on passed through it.
The whole of Akwar was ten mud-brick dwellings and one open pavilion with a thatched roof where he conducted Sunday services. The cross atop the pavilion was etched against the morning sky, a sight that always filled him with pride.
Father Alfred stopped pedaling and let the bicycle coast to a stop. The breath of life sang in his ears like music. He was doing God’s work, spreading His Word among the war-weary people of South Sudan. Moments of stillness like this one made it all worthwhile.
Normally, four or five boys from the village would have spied him by now and trotted out to meet him, but this morning the road was empty. Even Simon wasn’t there.
Simon was a bright eight-year-old with a gap-toothed smile and the voice of an angel. At services, he sat in the front row with his beautiful mother by his side, her hand staying the inexhaustible energy of his active young frame.
Alfred pedaled into town trailing a thin rooster tail of dust behind him. The doors of the village homes were all closed tightly, and he did not see any movement behind the open windows.
He struck up another verse of “Rock of Ages” as he rode to his open-air church. The sun was up, but it was still cool as he unpacked his kit from the back of the bicycle. He spread a clean white linen across the rough altar and unpacked a single candle, holy water, a chalice, and a small package of communion wafers. He kissed the embroidered stole, said a blessing, and placed the narrow strip of cloth around his neck.
He was ready for his parishioners, whenever they deigned to join him.
Father Alfred walked through the church straightening the rough pews, picking up a bit of trash, and shooing out the chickens that liked to wander through his service. He sat on the last bench and waited as the sun climbed higher in the sky.
Still, no one showed up. He walked to the top of the street and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Simon,” he called. “Simon, Father Alfred is here.”
Still no answer.
With a sigh of frustration, he walked to the nearest house and rapped his knuckles on the door. The silence was starting to unnerve him and he hummed a hymn under his breath.
There was no answer, so he went to the next house, Simon’s home.
He knocked loudly. “Hello?”
Nothing, but just as he was about to walk away, he heard something move inside the building. He pushed the door open a few inches. “It’s Father Alfred. Is someone in there?”
He definitely heard a groan this time. Alfred pushed the door all the way open. The stench from within stopped him like a slap in the face.
Gagging, he retreated a few paces and searched in his pocket for a handkerchief. He approached the open door again with the cloth pressed against his face.
“Hello?” he called into the dark interior. “Is someone in there?”
A groan, fingers scrabbling on hard ground—these sounds made him move closer. Someone was alive in there. Someone who needed his help.
Breathing a silent prayer, he stepped inside the door. His eyes took precious seconds to adjust, and when they did, he wished they hadn’t.
It was Simon’s family—or it had been, at least. The adults were dead, their bodies bloated and deformed. Alfred stepped closer, the handkerchief clamped over his nose and mouth.
The corpses had melted, their skin like black candle wax. Streams of thick black blood flowed from their noses, mouths, and eyes. The white of the eyes were dark with blood. The smell of rotten death clung to Alfred’s skin like a soggy blanket.
To his right, on the dirt floor, Alfred saw movement. A scrawny arm rose, fingers splayed.
Father Alfred knelt over Simon’s body and took his pulse. The boy was barely alive. His eyes were nearly swollen shut and a thick line of bloodied mucus ran from his nose.
“Simon, can you hear me?”
The arm rose again. He took the tiny hand in his. “I’m here, Simon.”
He carried the child close to the door, where he could get some fresh air but stay out of the sun. A fresh flow of blood ran from the boy’s nose. When he placed the tiny body on the ground, something rolled out of Simon’s blanket.
Alfred picked up a small cylinder. It was machined metal, heavy like steel, with a small black plastic square that read “00” in red numbers and a raised metal nipple covered with white residue. He twisted the top off and inside was a single empty test tube with the same white powder inside.
“Where did you get this, Simon?” he asked. But the boy was unconscious.
He left the open canister on the ground and raced through the village, kicking open the doors of each house, knowing already what he would find.
By the time he had made a complete circuit of the village, Simon was dead.
Father Alfred was the only living human being in Akwar. He staggered back to the church and collapsed onto a pew. This was an epidemic of some kind, some horrible disease. He needed to tell someone. He needed to get to a hospital.
Alfred dug into his pocket for his mobile. His fingers shook as he tried to scroll through his contacts. Then, in the distance, he heard the hum of a car engine and the bite of tires on a dirt road. He squinted into the sun and saw a plume of golden dust.
Someone was coming. Someone who could help. He slipped his phone back into his pocket and raced into the center of the road, waving his arms wildly.
“Stop! Stop, please!” he shouted. The black SUV halted ten meters away, the dust slowly rolling past the vehicle toward Alfred. A woman got out of the car from the passenger side and stood behind the door. She was dressed in traditional Muslim garb, but he could see that under her hijab she had bright blue eyes.
“What are you doing here?” the woman called to him.
“I’m the priest,” he said. “It’s Sunday. I say Mass here on Sundays—well, not every Sunday, but the fourth Sunday of every month and…” His voice trailed off when the woman ducked her head back into the car and spoke to the driver.
The driver was a hulk of a man with brawny shoulders and a muscled belly that pressed against his shirt. He was dressed in green like a soldier. Alfred had seen enough death in South Sudan to recognize Janjaweed. He eyed his bicycle.
The man walked toward him. He pulled a handgun from a holster and pointed it at the priest. “You should not be here, priest,” he said in Arabic.
Alfred clenched his eyes shut. If it is your will, Father—
The gun went off and Father Alfred was knocked to the ground. His chest went numb as if his whole torso were being squeezed, and he couldn’t breathe. Then his breath returned and with it a searing bolt of pain. He tried to scream but all he managed was a wheezy gurgle.
Alfred knew that sound. The bullet had entered his lungs. He would drown in his own blood.
The man and woman passed him, both dressed in white bodysuits with masks and goggles.
“Find it,” the woman said. “We’re not leaving here without the dispersal unit.” The man moved from house to house with plodding steps like a ghostly giant. When the man got to Simon’s house, he bent down. He came back to the woman holding the disassembled steel container in his hands.
“Found it,” he said.
The woman held out an open plastic bag. The man dropped the disassembled pieces into the opening. She sealed it and set it aside.
“Get the incendiaries,” she ordered the man. She approached Father Albert and squatted down next to him. She held up the sealed plastic bag, and said, “Did you take this apart, Father?” Her voice was muffled through the face mask.
Alfred nodded his head feebly. The sun was so bright. All he wanted was a drink of water. He tried to say “Water,” but the word wouldn’t come out.
She patted him on the shoulder. “I’m really sorry about this, Father. You were not supposed to be here.”
The man returned carrying a box. He dropped it into the dirt next to the woman. Father Albert squinted through a wave of dust at the label: AN-M14 TH3 INCENDIARY HAND GRENADE.
“What are you waiting for?” she said in an impatient voice. “Get started.”
The man gathered an armful of red canisters and began jogging through the village. At each house, he pulled out the grenade pin and lobbed a canister through the open door. A few seconds later, a flash of blinding white seared Alfred’s eyeballs. The houses began to burn.
The last house was Simon’s house.
“I’ll do this one,” she said. “You carry the priest in.”
The sun was blocked out by the bulk of the man standing over him. He seized Alfred’s collar and dragged him through the dust. Alfred tried to pray but the words were just out of reach.
His legs bumped over the doorsill and he was inside, out of the sun. Simon’s tiny body lay next to the door like some macabre melted wax figurine.
Alfred’s body dropped to the dirt floor. He rolled on one side. The wound in his chest didn’t hurt anymore … that was probably a bad sign.
Alfred heard the man grunt and he raised his eyes. The woman stood in the doorway, a gun in her hand.
She shot once, twice, three times, a tremendous noise in the enclosed space. The big man’s knees buckled. He collapsed next to Alfred.
He could see her bright blue eyes sparkle as she pulled the pin from the last grenade and tossed it into the house. This woman was enjoying herself.
“You picked the wrong week to say Mass, Father.”
Alfred closed his eyes as she walked away. In his mind, he was in the desert on his bicycle. It was early morning and he was singing a hymn at the top of his voice.
He looked at the sun and it grew brighter and brighter …