‘Thank you for your help!’ I said.
‘You’re welcome, kiddo. If you were in my place, you would’ve done the same,’ he said in a grave voice, dusting off the ashes from his blood-stained clothes.
‘Here’s your gun,’ I said and passed the weapon, then made a few steps aside so as not to stand in his way. But I gave it a thought–would have I done what he did if I were him? Maybe it depended more on the situation itself and whether I would be in the position to help at all.
‘What’s your name, boy?’ the Officer asked. Now I could overcome my fear and tell him.
‘I’m Nolan, Nolan Stokes, Sir,’ I said right away and stretched my hand out as a sign of respect and gratefulness. He shook my hand feebly, as though he did not want to do it, yet he saw it in my eyes that I did it solely as a form of “thank you”.
‘I’m Lieutenant Milev. Are you all right, we had a bad fall?’ he asked after introducing himself.
‘Yes, my arms and legs are a bit bruised, but it’s nothing serious,’ I replied even though my blouse was torn at the shoulder.
‘We’ll need men, do you want to help?’ he asked out of the blue. What could I possibly help with? I had never been trained for a soldier or for anything they needed here and I had never held a gun before. Maybe we, the surviving civilians and crew members on board American Pride, had to help out the rest of the soldiers so we could at least get back into the fight.
‘I’ll help in whatever way I can,’ I readily responded since there was no other way. I could choose between two options–hiding in the crowd or doing something of significance.
‘All right, that applies to all of you who can carry a weapon,’ he spoke in a booming voice. ‘Tell me, young fellow, what do you do for a living?’ he added.
‘Before we came here I was a report for the English National TV,’ I shared, keeping it short. The Officer thought for a few seconds and then looked me in the eye.
‘I think you’ll be of use to us. Go get your wounds cleaned and I’ll be waiting for you in an hour. We’ll be in the front part of the hall,’ Milev said and left for the indicated place. Was it possible that that man remembered me from our two previous meetings? I could not know, but the interesting part was what was I going to help with? Later it was going to get as clear as daylight to me. While I was wrapping my head around the situation, I spotted a place in the crowd where medical help was being provided. They quickly tended to my wounds and put on them a paste that was going to speed up the healing process ten times. As if by some miracle, there were not many wounded or mutilated people despite the bloody war that unfolded literally right in front of my eyes. I expected to find here hundreds of humans, groaning in pain, praying for someone to put an end to their misery. But most of them were like me–bruised and grazed. There was a more serious fracture here and there, but that was all. Despite that positive statistics, I was not happy. It was not that I did not want the media to have news to cover, on the contrary, but that came to show how effective the assault of the grayish-white was; I got goose bumps just picturing their sinister image in my head. The victims were thousands, we did not even know the exact number and the heavily injured and trampled people whom I saw with my own eyes, were probably abducted and lost forever. Some say that shortly after the doors were sealed, they heard people screaming for hours on end in the long cold corridors that had already turned into tombs. And now we were cramped and locked here, hiding behind the thin walls, but it was doubtful they were going to stop them. There was only one truth and it was quite a painful one. Our newly made enemy was fierce and, from the looks of it, unbeatable. But we were going to find that out very soon . . .
With my wounds cleaned and with a new shirt on, one I had somehow managed to procure for myself despite my lost baggage, I headed for the place Milev had appointed. The AP system announced: “Every man who can carry a weapon and has any military training should come forward to the temporary military posts at the front of the mess hall.” They mobilized the men in next to no time, we had to protect the women and the children because if we lost them, we would lose everything. After a bit of a tour around the hall, I finally reached the arms check points. Suddenly, as if by magic, the kitchen rose up before my eyes. There was a tent set up in front of it with many military officers darting around, consumed by their tasks. There were many civilian men, queuing up in front of a two-member committee which quickly sent them to different groups for shortened military training and assigned them weapons. Everything was organized in the blink of an eye and at that very moment it started to really smell like war to me. But was this mobilization going to make up for the hundreds of lost elite commandos who fell in the battle? I did not believe in that, but we were expected to become the new fighters and to prove how fearless and fierce we could be when we were put in a tight corner. Just how optimistic that sounded . . . I waited in the line together with the rest, stood there for about ten minute before Milev came out of the tent with a thick hat on, escorted by a few men. Then I decided to go up to him and disregard everybody else’s turn. I walked straight towards him, but fifty feet later I was blocked by two burly uniformed folks who told me to go back to the line. But I needed to draw his attention.
‘Lieutenant!’ I called out a few times. That provoked the two men to push me back with more force this time. But he looked at us, probably out of sheer curiosity for the commotion that was created or simply because he had decided to search for me in particular–one way or the other, I had crossed his visual field. He raised his hand high up and scolded the bodyguards to let me in right before they were to drag me back into the crowd and force me to get last in line.
‘Leave him alone and bring him to me!’ he ordered and they obeyed like puppies. Obviously he was definitely someone important here. Probably the big boss, the person who held in his hands the survival of every soul on board that ship.
‘You were the reporter, right?’ he asked me, holding a thick folder in his right hand that was now lowered by his side.
‘Yes, Sir, that’s me,’ I responded right away, expecting him to tell me something important or at least to give me a specific location to go to. But instead I had to hear something vastly different and odd, yet completely accomplishable.
‘I have a very important task for you. And now that I think of it, it is also involves a lot of responsibility. Come with me,’ he said and gestured for me to go inside the tent which was supposed to keep the military into a private bubble. There they could talk and share information, forge a plan of immediate action despite the noisy crowd. There were officers discussing matters with technicians from the maintenance and pilots from the ship’s commanding crew. But he did not take me to where they were, we kept walking and went deep into the tent–into its most hidden part. He stopped at one of the corners and called me to go see something that was placed on top of a plastic chair. Or, in other words, a uniform fitted with equipment.
‘Look what I managed to find for you. An outfit, shoes and a special helmet. Take a good look at it.’ He made me examine it thoroughly. It was unlike the ordinary ones–fireproof, Kevlar-clad with a tiny camera mounted on the right shoulder and another one fastened to the helmet. ‘Here, you have gloves that will protect you while in battle. There’s a submachine gun behind you–it will be your main weapon and here, in the suit, you’ll find a holster for an old but flawlessly functioning nine millimeter pistol. You also have a knife, tucked in a special compartment in the leg. But as I expected, you noticed something, didn’t you?’ Milev asked.
‘I saw the cameras, but I doubt all the men you’ve mobilized would have ones,’ I said, not having seen such a military uniform ever before.
‘No, they won’t. These two beauties here were put in place a while ago especially for you so that you can capture every moment that is about to follow. I want you to be our principal war reporter and cameraman. Can you do that?’ He made me a very serious offer that I could not turn down. This was going to be not only important, but it would als
o give me the chance to be of service with something I loved doing and, what was more, something I was good at. I had to give him an answer on the spot without any beating about the bush–the Lieutenant was not from the patient kind.
‘I think I can, but I’m afraid I don’t know how to use weapons,’ I accepted, thrilled at the proposition that made me feel like an incredibly important and valuable asset in the face of the ongoing war.
‘Don’t worry, get dressed and I’ll send someone to train you personally. You’ll definitely need that as you will have a front-row seat at the spectacle right behind the defense line. I want you to get the best frames you can, as a reporter you will most probably have a better eye for the photographs than any of us. From now on you’ll have to take notes, to put the events in chronological order and to keep record of the details because your work here will most probably be part of the new era of human history.’ At first I did not really see just how important his words were, but I kept listening. ‘We don’t have that many hours to prepare, but for whatever time we have at our disposal we need to train you how to shoot at movable targets and to teach you the main military techniques for survival in combat. In the meantime we’ll try to get in touch with one of the other ships, hopefully some of them are still extant. If no one comes to our rescue or contact us with good news, you, me and everyone who can carry a weapon will have to take upon ourselves all the burden of earning back our ship,’ the Officer said.
‘I believe we’ll get it back,’ I added with a grain of optimism in the all too tense situation.
‘Even if we do, you’ll need a lot of gigabytes to record the unseen heroism we’ll put on,’ he winked at me, smiling, despite the pain and the sense of failure that were tearing him apart on the inside. He was so sure of the final success that managed to imperceptibly infect us all like a light virus in a warm February.
After the conversation was over, I stayed behind alone, I pulled the suit with all the equipment on and I picked up the weapon–it was heavy and dangerous. Milev sent one of his men, entrusting him with the tasks to teach me all that I would need and to not let me out of his sight. Without further ado, I left with the stranger for an impromptu constructed shooting range where we started with the first skill, how to fire a gun, which was if not much else, at least an interesting beginning; from then on I was going to pick up more survival skills to use on the battlefield. I did not know if I would learn anything under such stress and uncertainty for the next twelve hours to come, but I wanted to give my best because I felt that I should not let down people like Milev, because of whom I was still here, alive and well. A camouflage suit, a helmet and a camera–I believed that was all I need to rise above my current self. I was going to enter the battle lines playing the part of the fearless reporter and if I wanted to become him, I had to become a little insane, too. It was going to be bravery bordering insanity . . .
Chapter Eight
Fight for Supremacy
We were all caught in a trap. Even if the massive steel doors kept us out of the beasts’ reach, the peril of dying from starvation would have walked right through without even bothering to knock first. The vast mess hall full of thousands of faces that I was probably seeing for the first and last time, produced an echo that bounced off the high ceiling that we could barely see because of the blinding light that obscured it. But the sound of something much more sinister came from outside. The cacophony grew considerably quieter during the training session and the levels of noise got significantly lower. During the breaks of the training hours, as we rested in the gigantic hall, we started hearing bizarre and ill-boding things. Those of us who were inside got startled and froze with horror a few times. That led us to one single thought. The monsters were still on board. A myriad of rumbling roars permeated the body of the ship and curdled our blood, but that was not the worst part. The almost imperceptible last cries and moans of those who had found refuge elsewhere on that metal bird waned little by little and with that our chance of coping with the situation seemed to be lost for good. Chills ran down my spine, but I was still trying to hold up. The people around me, though, were unable to stay as composed as I was. Soldiers and civilians went paper white, cold sweat broke out on their foreheads and you could see how it evaporated in the coolness of the hall. You could hear people crying here and there, but it was more of a quiet sniffling as though we were saluting our tenebrous destiny. Was all that really happening? The evil omen was viciously scratching on the door with its nails while the excruciating famine was waiting its turn on the other side of that door. Even the gloomiest pictures that my imagination painted did not foresee us falling into such a dead-end predicament. No one wanted to suffer that sort of fate, but, alas, we could not choose otherwise and there was no one to offer us any option anyway. Maybe the honor to die an inglorious death fell to us, we were supposed to perish forgotten like mere rodents in that dimly-lit hall without anyone who could help, the last of the human kind . . .
That’s what I wrote on my phone when I sat down once we were over with the draining training. The information I was given during the training was so much that I could not fathom most of it as it was delivered to me in just a few hours. But was there any point in them teaching me how to behave in a combat situation in the midst of a war? We did not even know if we stood a chance of walking out and getting three feet away from the exits and remaining alive. A while later, some weird crackling noise came out of one of the tents. The men inside were making attempts to contact the other ships and in the end the hours of waiting paid us off. I got up from the place I was sitting and headed towards that tent, hoping to find out what was happening, since I was already more or less part of the military units. Or at least that was how Milev ordered the other soldiers to treat me like. That was quite an honor for me, but the better part was that I secured myself access to the tent.
‘German Ascend 1 here, are there any survivors, I repeat, are there any survivors among the passengers?’ came over the radio station right when I stepped inside. That was felicitous piece of news, the first grain of hope that arrived somewhat on time, but because of the fervent anticipation it felt like eons had passed.
‘This is the commander-in-chief of American Pride, we are trapped. We’ve suffered a lot of losses, but there are still many survivors. We’re locked in the mess hall, what should we do? I repeat, what should we do?’ the Balkan responded, sitting in a chair with his back to me, trying to get a relevant answer.
‘We survived the first wave!’ They announced the incredible news that I found particularly hard to fathom. None of us managed to contain our emotions and we exploded into cries of joy and clapping. ‘There’s a torrential rain outside that is blocking the creatures. While the heavy downpour is still lashing, there will be no mass attacks against us or against you. According to the forecast, the rain will continue until the early hours of tomorrow morning.’ The message came with some disturbances, but it was still clear enough for us to make out. Then the voice of hope went on, ‘We need to take immediate action, otherwise we may not have another such chance. We’re not far from you–about three hours’ away at a brisk pace. We’ll come with whatever vehicles we have and pile the women and children on. The men will come on foot. Get ready, we’ll come as soon as we can!’ The communication was cut off after that. I felt charged with a tiny surge of calmness–over the last few days I had almost forgotten how it felt.
‘We need to prepare the civilians,’ the Bulgarian officer said, rose from his chair and stepped outside the tent. Standing close by the exit, I decided to follow him so I could find out what he was up to. He waved at a man who was waiting at the sidelines and handed him a small microphone which was probably connected to the AP system in the mess hall. After that he jumped on top of one of the tables in the center of the hall, right under one of the spotlights, so that we could have a clear view of him.
‘This is the commander-in-chief of American Pride. I repeat, this is the commander-in-chief of American
Pride,’ he announced, standing up there with the light engulfing him and bringing additional focus on his address. All the commotion died down little by little and all eyes got fixed on him. ‘Salvation is coming!’ he spoke. ‘I want all of you who are listening to this address to know that German Ascend 1 has withstood the attack.’ Those words were followed by cries of encouragement and deafening applause, but they did not last for long. ‘We’ll be evacuated soon, get ready. We’ll walk through the woods on foot, but the passage won’t be a difficult one–it’s raining buckets outside. I want you to take with you only the bare essentials. The women and the children will be a priority, so help them out! Don’t let me down, you’re the future of our race!’ He finished his short speech and got off the table. Weariness was clear in his eyes, yet he possessed such an indomitable spirit that he would not let himself falter physically. The clamor was renewed after his words, but there was a strong new flicker of hope. No more weeping of women and children could be heard, now only panicked preparation and euphoria reigned the hall. Maybe that was what we needed, some confidence so that we could succeed.
‘Eat, kiddo, we don’t know when we’ll have a chance to do that again. I want you close by my side when we get out there. You will be both a reporter and a soldier,’ the Officer walked around me and patted me on the shoulder. Then he left, probably heading to get done some other useful thing regarding the evacuation.
I was a bit confused and I felt unprepared to be part of the resistance. Was it a good idea to look for trouble amidst the bullets and the hellish suffering? Maybe I just should have been like most other passengers and I should have just bowed my head and hoped not to fall victim to the herd. But i wanted my destiny to be a matter of choice. I did not want to believe that everything that happened to me had already been written by something or someone. I did not want to believe that some higher power obliged me to stick to a predetermined path and that it was throwing me straight into the beast’s maw just for fun. And there was my chance, I was not going to allow for that to be my fate because I had to do something and hoped not to be the only one who thought that way. I wanted to believe I was on the right track because I was delegated the responsibility to not only carry a weapon but also to cover befittingly the events to come and there was no one else around who could capture the horror of the war in first person as well as I could . . .
Dawn of Hope- Exodus Page 42