First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [102]
Outside, people are scattered everywhere, screaming and crying as they run in every direction, bumping and pushing each other. Kim and Chou hold hands and run ahead of me, yelling for me to keep up. We don’t know where to run to, we just run. Kim stops running and looks back at the shelter.
“I left behind the backpack,” he yells.
“Keep running … I’ll get it and catch up!” I scream to him, and before he can answer, I am gone. I know he has to take care of Chou. Entering the destroyed warehouse, the thick smell of burnt flesh quickens my pulse. Black smoke obstructs my vision, stings my eyes. Stepping over slabs of concrete and parts of the wall that has fallen, I make my way to our spot. My heart drops at the sight of Pithy’s mom holding her corpse to her chest, weeping. Pithy is limp in her arms, her blood soaking into her mom’s blouse. So much blood everywhere. Then I see that Pithy’s mom is also injured. She is bleeding from her stomach and arms. Pithy’s brother squats beside them, urging his mom to leave. His voice quivering, he tells her the Khmer Rouge soldiers are crossing the river and will be upon them any minute.
I grab the backpack, ignoring the pleas and cries for help. Looking straight ahead I jump over the dead and run to meet my brother and sister. I see them waiting for me and scream for them to run ahead. The rockets have stopped, but the Khmer Rouge soldiers are getting closer. I hear their bullets whiz past me. I dare not turn and look. I know they are there. I run for my life. In front of me, a man falls from a bullet. His body stops midstride, his chest jerking forward before he falls to the ground. Many people get hit and drop one by one to the ground all around me. Some lie still while others crawl on their elbows trying to reach safety.
After I catch up with Chou and Kim, we all run and do not look back. We see an old remnant of a cement wall. It sticks out of the ground three feet tall by four feet wide. We crouch behind it. Chou covers her ears with her hands and squeezes her eyes shut. Kim is white, leaning against the wall for support. We stay there for what seems like hours until all is quiet again. No longer deafened by the bombs, I finally notice something circling and buzzing over my head. Then I feel like many tiny pins are pricking my skin.
“Hornets!” I scream. We get up to see that we have disturbed a hornet’s nest. Big red welts cover our arms and legs. We were so scared we did not feel the pain when we got stung. When we believe it is safe, we leave to find our foster family. Finally, we spot them near the Youn camp.
“You all stay here with the women and children,” the father tells us. “Stay here until we come back for you. The men must clean the village of its dead bodies,” he says before he goes off to the village that afternoon. He tells us that the Youns have retaken our village from the Khmer Rouge a few hours ago.
“It is worse than anyone could have imagined,” the father says to the mother after returning from his village. “One couple was hiding in their dug-out bomb shelter, which is only a hole in the ground. The soldiers threw a grenade in it, killing them both. We also found many of the victims’ heads, hanging by the hair in front of their door or tossed about on the streets. The Khmer Rouge soldiers surely feel these people betrayed them by staying with the Youns.”
Stories about victims of the Khmer Rouge attack spread like fire. There were stories about a baby thrown in the air and speared with a bayonet; the body of one mutilated man lying naked on top of another; a man’s torso found in front of his house and the bottom