Modern Somali Mythology Ch. 07

What is a Ghoul? According to pre-Islamic Arabian mythology, Ghouls are demonic creatures, characterized as monstrous humanoids. They were thought to eat human flesh, and seen as monstrous, malevolent beings in folklore. Meet a new type of Ghoul, one who seeks revenge upon those who slaughtered her family. Doomed to wander the earth while pursuing the wicked, this Ghoul is an avenging angel of the worst kind, one which the vilest of men wouldn't want to run into...

The Somali government has its hands full with problems of infrastructure, healthcare and national security. The Somali forces are spread too thin to be effective against the unpredictable hordes of the insurgents. While the major cities such as metropolitan Mogadishu, sturdy Hargeisa and culturally significant Burco have police and military protection, the small towns and villages of the Somali countryside are vulnerable to attack from the insurgents who disagree with the direction of the country.

In Somalia, ninety eight percent of the population follows Islam, and has done so for numerous centuries. Islam has been a way of life in Somalia for over a millennium. Sharia Law is woven into Somali tribal law. Still, that is not enough for the insurgents, who are both bloodthirsty and intolerant. The insurgents feel that Somalia is wandering away from true Islam by cooperating with foreign governments and adopting western-style democracy. They take advantage of the fact that Somalia's government cannot protect its people from domestic terrorism...

"You are not true Muslims," said the masked leader of the insurgents, and with that, he ordered his men to gun down every soul inhabiting the village of Beled, in the Gedo area of Somalia. Masked, and armed to the teeth, they descended upon the village shortly after dawn, and rounded up the locals. Men and women, old and young, everyone was brought to the village square, and the leader of the insurgents passed judgement upon them. These downtrodden souls from the Somali countryside had no luck at all...

"Please, spare us," pleaded Sheikh Abdul, the Chieftain of the village. The leader struck him in the face with the butt of his rifle. As the villagers looked on, the leader put a bullet in the old man's brain, ending his life. The villagers soon shared their chieftain's fate. The hapless men and women of the village fell to the ground, riddled with bullets. The blood of innocents seeped on the rough, hot ground, and the insurgents set the village ablaze, not caring one bit about those they'd slain. The dead would be left for the jackals and the vultures, and that would be all...

Nimco Aswad lay on the ground, beside the bleeding corpses of her husband Mohamud Aswad and their son Issa. With a bullet in her torso and another in her chest, all she could do was lie down and await Azrael, the Angel of Death. Bleeding profusely, Nimco prayed for death. As the spirit descended from the heavens, drawn by the carnage, he saw the slain men and women of the Beled township, and gathered their souls before taking them to Seoul, where they would await the Day of Judgement. Nimco, however, was left behind...

"You will not come with me, Daughter of the Somali Heartland, you will rise to visit horrors upon those who slaughtered the innocent, and only when wickedness has vanished from this land will I claim you, for heaven or Hell," Azrael said firmly. The Angel of Death, wearing the guise of a tall, dark-skinned, robed and turbaned man, gently bent down and laid his hand upon Nimco's forehead. The dying Somali woman shuddered upon feeling the Angel's touch. With a smile, Azrael departed for the Ether...

Azrael has seen countless horrors during his eternal tenure as the Angel of Death, but the atrocities which Somali insurgents visited upon their brethren sickened him to his core. The Most High made all human beings, and revealed His ways to them by way of the Prophets. If mortals only knew how much all of Heaven was irked by their ceaseless religious wars. Azrael knew there was a special corner of Hell reserved for those who kill the innocent in the name of religion. Such evil men ought to be taught a lesson...

As night fell, Nimco finally breathed her last. Surprising, the unfortunate woman's soul did not depart her body, but rather, a frightening transformation took place. When the Angel Azrael touched Nimco, he unleashed a portion of his power, and thus she was trapped somewhere between the living and the dead. Nimco rose to her feet, neither alive nor dead, but as some kind of ghoul. Confused and tired, Nimco wandered away from the burning village of Beled, after burying her slain husband and son.

Nimco wandered across the desert, and although the sun burned her skin and she could not find food or water, she did not die. How could Nimco die, when she was already dead? Near dusk, Nimco ran into a bushpig, and fell upon the beast with a speed and ferocity which astonished even her. Nimco sank her teeth in the bushpig's throat, and drank its rich, warm blood. As Nimco tore into her prey, her teeth elongated and sharpened, and her fingernails morphed into six-inch, wicked claws. Nimco feasted upon the bushpig, savoring its tender flesh and rich blood. The beast's flesh and blood nourished Nimco, and by the time she was done, only bare bones remained...

By the pale moonlight, Nimco tracked the insurgents across the desert. They went to their camp, located in a wooded area near an oasis. The majority of the insurgents were young Somali men who'd been brainwashed by radical preachers into taking up arms against their own people, supposedly because they weren't Muslim enough. At a time when Somali women were fighting for access to education and government services, and Somali sexual minorities such as gays, lesbians and bisexuals were expressing themselves openly, many felt that Somalia was losing its way.

The insurgents felt that if Somalia were to be put on the right track, women and sexual minorities, along with men with progressive leanings, needed to be put in their place. That's why the insurgents bombed urban population centers, and slaughtered innocent people left and right. Nimco followed the insurgents tracks as easily as a leopard or lion tracks down antelopes and gazelles across the African savannah. She arrived at their campsite, where dozens of them gathered around the campfire.

"We killed a lot of infidels today," said Mahfouz, leader of this local band of insurgents. He sat at the campfire, flanked by his second-in-command, a portly young man named Malik, and his lover Mouna, a tall, curvy young Somali woman. Mahfouz cut quite the imposing figure as the charismatic leader of their little band. A tall, dark-skinned and bearded young Somali man of only twenty three years, Mahfouz had killed hundreds of people over the past few years.

Leading his band, Mahfouz struck at infidels in places like Ethiopia and Kenya, and was now fighting to remove western influence from Somali society. If Somalis wandered away from Islam, they wouldn't be true Somalis anymore. Mahfouz would burn down the country before he let that happen. Far too many Muslim nations followed the ways of the west, allowing women to gain too much power, tolerating sexual immorality, and deviating from the ways of true Islam. Something had to be done...

"We sure did, my love," said Mouna as she laid her hand on top of Mahfouz's, and he smiled at her. The two of them had known each other for a long time. Mahfouz and Mouna came from the same village near the environs of Hargeisa, Somalia. After his father and uncles died fighting against American soldiers, Mahfouz grew up with a hatred of all things western. Mahfouz vowed to destroy all non-Islamic influences in Somalia, and heaven help anyone foolish enough to get in his way...

"Mouna, you are a true Somali Muslim woman, and everything worth fighting for," Mahfouz said, and he kissed her hand lovingly. Mouna smiled and kissed Mahfouz passionately, then embraced him. They were two rebels as devoted to each other as they were to their cause. Mouna wanted to get married, but Mahfouz wanted to wait until Somalia was on the right track. Why marry and start a family if their country was losing its way by deviating from true Islam? Mahfouz's friend Malik wished the couple goodnight and retired to his tent. The two lovebirds looked like they wanted their privacy anyways.

Nimco waited until Mahfouz, the insurgents leader, and his woman Mouna retired to their tent, and only a few gunmen remained on watch. Everyone was soon asleep. Nimco moved silently in the night, with a grace and speed that a panther couldn't match. Empowered by the Angel of Death, and with the blood of the slain bushpig fueling her strength, Nimco felt a surge of power the likes of which no mortal woman ever possessed. Nimco looked like a woman, but she had the power of a Monster. The insurgents would soon feel her wrath...

Ahmed stood guard at the front of the camp, shivering in his tunic and cape. While the Horn of Africa is one of the hottest regions of the world, it can get quite cold at night. As Ahmed stood guard, smoking some good Khat provided to him by Mahfouz, the young Somali insurgent hefted his rifle and wished he were elsewhere. Mahfouz had it good since his woman Mouna had joined him in the struggle. Ahmed hadn't been with a woman since he visited a bawdy house during a raid in Ethiopia. Intercountry rivalries be damned, Ahmed liked Ethiopian women...

"Dammit I hate this shit," Ahmed said to his fellow sentry Aden, and the other man chuckled in agreement. To Ahmed, it felt unfair that he would spend half the night on his feet while everyone else got to sleep. The desert was largely empty, and even caravans stopped crossing the land separating Somalia from nearby countries like Yemen and Ethiopia. The only threats that Ahmed could think of were the hyenas, the African wild dogs and the odd lion or leopard that wandered into desert country. These animals were usually scared of man, and kept their distance from campfires...

"Ahmed, next time we're in town, remind me to get some pussy, maybe a big-bottomed infidel slut," Aden said, and he laughed, then fell silent when he realized that Ahmed wasn't laughing with him. Aden whirled around, and saw that Ahmed was struggling with...something. A shadow fell upon Ahmed, and although the tall young man tried to resist, the shadow drew him to the ground, and sank its teeth into his throat. Ahmed made a weird gurgling sound as he died...

"What the fuck?" Aden cried out, and he raised his rifle, and fired shot after shot at the shadow. The shadow let out a strange yelp, and went after Aden. As it drew close, Aden realized that it looked like a woman, a disheveled, dark-skinned woman with glowing red eyes, and sharp fangs. The monstrous woman pounced upon Aden, and he soon suffered the same fate as his poor companion Ahmed. After ripping out Aden's heart and devouring it, the Ghoul licked her lips, and then went after the others...

"What the fuck?" Mahfouz said as he grabbed his revolver and bolted to his feet. Mouna got up as well, reaching for her rifle. The couple emerged from their tent, as did their fellow insurgents. They quickly realized that the camp was under attack. The sound of gunfire was everywhere. At first, Mahfouz thought that the Somali military had come after them, or perhaps those damned African Union Troops. Upon realizing what threat they faced, Mahfouz trembled, for a living shadow, moving at unnatural speed, was going after his men...

"It's a demon from Hell," Mouna shouted, and she raised her rifle and fired at the living shadow as it tore into a pair of insurgent warriors, and ripped them to pieces. In no time at all, the living shadow killed all of the insurgents, except for Mahfouz and Mouna. The couple readied their weapons, and braced themselves. The demon was coming for them, and they would face it bravely. Mahfouz began to pray, invoking the name of the Most High as the unnatural creature drew near...

"You do not get to pray to the Creator, not after you slaughtered my husband, and my son, and my entire village," the shadow cried. The creature drew near, and the living darkness coalesced into the form of a tall, curvy, attractive but disheveled Somali woman in her thirties. The Ghoul faced those who had destroyed her world, and tears of blood flowed down her lovely face. Mahfouz blinked in surprise as he recognized the woman from the village.

"I've killed you before," Mahfouz said, and he raised his revolver and fired a single bullet into Nimco's forehead. The monstrous woman fell to the ground for the second time that day. Mahfouz and Mouna drew near, until they stood over the woman's corpse. A bullet to the forehead kills just about everything that lives upon this earth. Mahfouz grinned as he stood victorious over the strange woman-thing that had killed his men.

"We should decapitate her and burn her body, she is a demon," Mouna said, and Mahfouz smiled at her, nodding in agreement. As Nimco lay there, awaiting death, she remembered the words of Azrael, the Angel of Death. For as long as there was wickedness in Somalia, the Angel of Death would deny Nimco a place in the afterlife. Nimco would not be allowed to await the Day of Judgement in Seoul along with the souls of every man and woman who has ever lived. Such was her undying curse...

"I'll bring you Hell," Nimco roared as she surged to her feet, and at once her wounds healed. The monstrous woman fell upon Mahfouz and Mouna, and although they shot her and stabbed her, it was to no avail. Even ferocious, murderous insurgents cannot kill that which is already dead. The Ghoul tore into her enemies, and took her sweet time killing them. Mahfouz and Mouna's screams of pain mounted into the night, as did Nimco's cackle, filled with wrath and glee. This was her sweet revenge, and it was well deserved...

Nimco burned the bodies of the insurgents, and wandered into the desert. Shortly before dawn, she reached a rocky outcropping and rested in a tiny cave, sleeping away the daytime hours. When night fell, Nimco the Ghoul continued her long trek from Gedo to the City of Mogadishu, Capital of Somalia. Three hundred and eighty two kilometers separate the region of Gedo from Mogadishu proper, and Nimco hunted both man and beast during that time, slaughtering the brigands, the insurgents and others who prey upon their fellow man...

Somalia is a beautiful but troubled land, where wicked men sometimes kill the innocent in the name of religion. The Somali government is helpless to deal with the insurgents, and the international community has written Somalia off as a failed state and a lost cause. The innocent have earned a respite from the wicked, for Nimco the Ghoul now wanders the vastness of Somalia, searching for evil men to slaughter and devour. Any man who kills the innocent is fair game, whether motivated by religious intolerance, or simple greed, bloodlust or general wickedness. Let the evil ones beware...