The White Book

by George Shadow

  “As long as I got to you,” Kimberley said with a smile. “No hard feelings.”

  “Okay with the drama,” Benjamin Haddad said. “We’ll leave you meddlers here until the Kannibals invade. Your punishment will then come. Until then, bye for now.”

  “You forget the boy from the past, Master,” Mariah reminded him as she glared at Aiden.

  “Ah, yes,” the professor said. “We’ll separate him when we return.”

  “And Rachel?” Kimberley asked.

  The professor-turned-elderly-Sikama’s eyes lit up. “She’s as useful as her dead father,” he said. “Come, Mariah, we’ve got to prepare a welcome party for our invading guests.”

  “Good luck handling Grubb, Mr. Haddad,” Jeremy quipped. “Let’s hope he’s as accommodating as you are in his dealings with enemies who become allies overnight.”

  Benjamin Haddad grinned. “I am Grubb.”

  * * *

  Jeremy looked around at the little girl on his left, the boy opposite him across the lab table, and the resolute woman on his right, who’d shown him what courage looked like in the last few days. “Unbelievable,” he whispered. “Who would have known?”

  Grubb’s party had left the four captives sitting on long stools in the research laboratory, their hands tied behind their backs. Only the humming sound of plant machinery resonated throughout the long hall.

  Rachel didn’t look up. “He fooled all of us.”

  “Imagine he’d worked at Genetix since the war’s end. Who knows when he switched?” Jeremy continued.

  “Switched to being a Kannibal?” Kimberley asked.

  “Switched to eating human flesh,” Jeremy put more bluntly.

  “Yuk!” Aiden said.

  “Guess he has a human barbecue around here,” Jeremy joked.

  “Not funny,” Aiden said.

  “Who knows how many city residents he had killed since he switched?” Kimberley asked. She frowned. “Since he switched?”

  Jeremy felt concern for the sergeant. “What’s wrong?” he demanded and she turned to him.

  “Jeremy, I am beginning to remember.”

  “Remember what, Kim?” Aiden asked.

  “What happened at the Slum?”

  “And what do you mean, Kim?” Rachel demanded.

  “I think Professor Baruch Goldenberg maintained a presence at the Slums and the underground cities by switching between two personalities from time to time,” Kimberley stated.

  “You’re saying he changed personalities?” Jeremy blinked.

  “Yes, I can now remember him being absent from the Slums for long periods and then reappearing all of a sudden. He must have been switching between roles then, shuttling between the Slums and the underground cities whenever he wanted to.”

  “Meaning he had inside help in the underground cities?” Aiden asked.

  Jeremy frowned. “Doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Back at the settlement, Grubb’s always wore a large hat that hid his face,” Kimberley continued. “Now, we all know why he kept that up.”

  “And what of Mariah?” Rachel wondered.

  “Well, she quarreled with Grubb at the Slum, that I remember,” Kimberley said. “But just as you and Aiden are doing right now, I can’t remember any other thing.”

  Aiden looked away. “Right,” he murmured. “But it’s not our fault that we…”

  “Wrong,” Mariah cut in from outside. The laboratory doors slid open and a line of armed men dressed in black military garb trooped into the room. Professor Baruch Goldenberg, also known as Benjamin Haddad, also known as Grubb, accompanied his protégé at the tail end of this line of Kannibal troops. “I knew all along where we were, Kim,” Mariah said with a smile. “I simply deceived all of you into thinking I didn’t know a thing by showing that I didn’t know a thing.”

  “The idea was to bring the Bookbearer and her friends to me in the long run,” the professor continued, smiling at his longtime assistant. “Glad I played a small part in this little plan.”

  “Brilliant,” Aiden said dryly.

  “And what of the quarrel between you two at the Slum?” Kimberley asked Mariah. “Don’t lie to me, because I know that happened.”

  “Oh, that,” Mariah began. “That was an incident I keep wishing you never accidentally witnessed.”

  “We had issues about the way forward and we mistakenly argued about it at the settlement,” Ben Haddad said.

  “That’s a good explanation,” Kimberley agreed, looking away.

  “What now?” Rachel wondered.

  “You have new companions,” Professor Goldenberg said, waving at a Kannibal trooper at the door. “You’ll be surprised by how quickly this invasion concluded.”

  “And we can see that you’ve now dressed the part,” Kimberley said, looking the man over. Grubb’s attire consisted of a neat lime-colored shirt tucked into dark-green pants and showing through a long black overcoat with an upturned collar. A pair of leather boots completed this attire. “What of your hat?” the Portwood sergeant asked her captor.

  “I don’t need it anymore.”

  “Don’t you think you’re a bit…overdressed?” Aiden wondered.

  “Silence!” the professor bellowed, turning to the soldier at the door. “Drego, bring them in.”

  The foot soldier nodded and turned towards the lab door. He ushered in well-dressed ladies and gentlemen who had their hands tied behind their backs.

  “Unbelievable,” Jeremy muttered.

  “The cities’ council members and chairman,” Kimberley let out. “What will you do with them?”

  Grubb smiled and grabbed the nearest man in the new group of prisoners. He pulled a shaken Kevin Smith, chairman of the Resilience City Council, to the front of his little audience. “I and my black troopers will hunt you all down at the shelters any moment from now.”

  “Except Rachel and Aiden,” Mariah added. “If they agree to help with the book.”

  “You have the book already,” Rachel said. “You don’t need any help.”

  “Okay then,” Mariah said. “If they agree to join us.”

  “I’m not eating human flesh,” Aiden grumbled.

  “You’ll join us, boy,” Grubb said. “Whether you want to or not. The girl can go. We don’t need her.”

  “So, you need the boy, eh?” Kimberley began. “What for?”

  “He’s Avigdor in the flesh,” Mariah said. “Haven’t you been paying attention?”

  “You think we’ve been lying about him?” Grubb asked Kimberley. “Why not ask your little friend here about that?”

  Rachel looked away when Kimberley turned to her. “Is that true, Rachel?”

  No response.

  “Very well,” Mariah enthused. “This will be an exhilarating hunt!”

  “Cannibals,” Mr. Kevin Smith spat out. “Disgusting, all of you!”

  “Yep, that’s what we are,” Mariah agreed. “We don’t have a choice.”

  “You do have a choice,” Kimberley started, glaring at her former friend. “You can move away from all this with your friend using the white book. Who knows what the world would look like in the near future?”

  “No, thanks,” Professor Goldenberg chuckled. “I don’t think an opportunity to make money like this would ever come my way, and besides, I have come to love human meat.”

  Mariah looked away and Kimberley noticed. “And you love human meat as well, eh Mariah?”

  “I will, very soon,” the female Sikama snapped.

  “Enough,” Grubb said. “Rewder, take them to the shelters with the other prisoners. Let the hunt begin.”

  “Right away, sir.” Rewder waved at his men and they forced up the captives from their long stools. Except Aiden.

  A distraught Rachel turned to the boy as she fell in line with the other prisoners. “Aiden!”

  “Hey, I’m not staying back,” Aiden whined.

  “You have no choice,” Mariah told him.

  “Enjoy it while it
lasts, boy,” Grubb said. “While we still think we have need of you.”

  “We’ll come back for you, Aiden,” Kimberley said as a soldier pulled her up from her stool. “That I promise you.”

  “Where are they taking us, Kim?” Rachel wondered out loud.

  “Move!” a trooper shouted behind her.

  “The shelters above Resilience,” Jeremy told her. “I hope we’ll get hazard suits; we won’t survive out there without those.”

  “Of course, you’ll be suited up,” a familiar voice said beside him. “No need to poison our food with the red dust, right?”

  “Akron?”

  “So you remember me?” the Kannibal smiled. “How does it feel to be on the receiving end for a change, scum?”

  “It’s not over yet,” Jeremy pointed out.

  “It soon will be for all of you,” Akron snapped. “I’ll personally make sure of it for you and your girlfriend over there.” He nodded towards Kimberley’s direction.

  “No, you won’t,” Jeremy murmured. “Keep dreaming.”

  Outside the laboratory, Grubb’s dystopian dictatorship had established itself. Men and women in the bizarre black uniform had overrun the place. These were the core Kannibals, whose love for cannibalism knew no bounds. Some of these characters were busy at a construction site comprising many buildings outside the complex and the prisoners gaped at the massive project as they filed into X9 units.

  “I know you’re wondering what they’re doing,” Akron said to the approval of his colleagues. “They’re building a human settlement farm for the employees of Genetix, he he he.”

  “One of the many to be sited in Bravery,” a female Kannibal added.

  “And here we go,” Jeremy said. “The fools have taken over.”

  Akron laughed. “You’re the fool, my friend. You should worry about your two sisters now languishing somewhere in Resilience waiting to be cooked.”

  Jeremy started. “Ginia and Tilia! Gosh, I forgot about them. No!”

  Raucous laughter accompanied this dire revelation.

  “Don’t worry,” Akron told Jeremy. “I will link them to you when we get to Resilience. Finally, I’m not all that bad, eh?” His colleagues mumbled their agreement all around him.

  Jeremy said nothing as he ducked into an X9 unit with Kimberley and the little girl. “I guess so,” he finally muttered under his breath.

  The mobile units moved out of Genetix, Grubb’s A2 leading the lineup. More detailed infantry patrolled the streets of Bravery. Here and there, these human eaters herded more civilians in groups like cattle.

  Rachel stared at this bizarre scenario through the X9’s glass aperture nearest to her seat. She only had Aiden on her mind. “What do we do now?” she wailed.

  “We could cause a revolt,” Kimberley began. “Or we could have decided not to hand over a certain mystical book to our enemies.”

  The little girl looked away. “They forced me to hand over the book, Kim. They did so by threatening to kill you and Aiden.”

  “Did they now?” Kimberley boiled.

  “Well, newsflash, everyone,” Jeremy proclaimed. “They still want us dead.”

  “If we let them,” Kimberley said, looking around at the human cargo in the mobile unit’s voluminous interior. “They all appear weak…docile…”

  Jeremy nodded in agreement, looking around. “You’re right, now that I think of it; they all look inebriated.”

  Rachel frowned. “And what does that…”

  “It means ‘drunk,’” Kimberley cleared. “Wonder why we’re not affected by whatever affects them.”

  “Is it installed in this unit?” Jeremy began. “Some sought of gas expeller?”

  “Why are we not affected?” Kimberley asked again.

  “Can the book still be protecting us?” Rachel wondered, staring at Jeremy. “Has the book ever protected him?”

  “Good question,” Jeremy said.

  “And why is that?” Kimberley frowned as she went through her pockets. Carl Bain’s tiny silver box was no surprise. The piece of paper, however, brought back cold memories.

  Jeremy blinked twice. “What’s that?”

  “Is that a piece of the book?” Rachel demanded.

  “I-I think so,” Kimberley stammered.

  The X9 stopped and its doors swished open. Kimberley tucked Carl Bain’s unremarkable item and the piece of paper into her pocket just before the Kannibals appeared on the open unit doors.

  “Get out, all of you!” a troop leader barked at the prisoners.

  “Act drunk!” Kimberley whispered before getting up from her seat and tailing the last individual to leave the unit.

  Rachel and Jeremy followed her lead and stepped out of the mobile unit behaving like the other prisoners.

  Grubb’s A2 slid open and the chief Kannibal jumped out of the vehicle wearing a dark-green hazard suit and carrying a VG lazer gun. Mariah and Rewder joined him from another unit dressed in hazard suits. “Good, the drug is working from the look of things,” the professor observed.

  “That will make it easier to pick them off during the hunt, Master,” Mariah said. “Though for some reason, our new acquaintances have refused to be affected by the poisonomial gas.” She stared at Kimberley trying to appear drowsy like the other prisoners.

  “Hey, don’t blame us,” the Portwood police officer defended. “Maybe your gas is ineffective owing to our time-traveling adventures?”

  Mariah’s eyes turned to slits. “It will still be my pleasure and honor to hunt you down and kill you, my dear.”

  “Move along now,” Grubb exclaimed. “No time to waste now. We still have three other cities to invade after the hunt.”

  “And what makes you so sure that they aren’t preparing to attack you right now, wise guy?” Jeremy asked the chief Kannibal.

  “Because they’re cowards just like you and your friends right here,” the cannibal chuckled. “The fools have forgotten how to wage war and must be barricading their precious cities right now while shaking in their skins.”

  “Exactly what they’re doing, sir,” Rewder said behind his master. “Our spies report this.”

  “Wow, he has spies,” Jeremy muttered. “What else is new?”

  “My men inside those three cities will help me seize them from within after the hunt,” Grubb said.

  “And what of the rest of the world, huh?” Rachel snapped. “Will they just stand by and watch you devour them?”

  “They have no choice,” Grubb replied with a smile. “I have the white book now, remember?”

  “Trust me, you won’t get far with that,” Kimberley said.

  “Says our new Bookbearer,” Mariah mocked. “May I suggest you focus on staying alive and leave the thinking to wiser folks?”

  “To use the book on many people, you must have met them in person first, or know their full names,” Rachel pointed out.

  “I was the chief scientist at Genetix for years, little girl,” Grubb said. “Trust me when I say I’ve met so many world leaders during my scientific tours and conferences. Now, enough of this. Enjoy your lives while it lasts.” He left the forlorn group to inspect his men.

  “That was a waste of our time,” Kimberley accessed.

  “Where are we?” Rachel began.

  “Resilience,” Jeremy said, looking around. “I must find my sisters.”

  Guarded by the black-clad invaders, the city’s poorest residents had lined up before their living quarters. Heaps of dead bodies lay at road junctions in-between the blood-splattered walls of various residencies. Jeremy stared at the incredulous imagery with a hopeless expression on his face. The dead must have opposed the cannibalistic invaders in exchange for their lives.

  “Grubb will start with the poor and downtrodden,” Rachel said. “That’s just not right.”

  “They will be herded into the human farms,” Jeremy whispered beside her. “Despicable.”

  “Obviously, his soldiers will celebrate their victory by cooking
the people they just killed,” Kimberley said. “Gross.”

  “We have to use the paper, Kim,” Rachel urged.

  Kimberley nodded. “When we’re alone.”

  “That opportunity might never come,” Jeremy said, pointing with his head. “They’re bringing hazard suits for us.”

  A large B4 unit stopped before the civilians emerging from the X9 units and its doors swished open to reveal hazard suits lined up in rows inside the vehicle. A Kannibal trooper handed out the safety wears as the prisoners filed past.

  “If you want to do something, do it now,” Jeremy whispered behind Kimberley.

  “No, they might kill you if we disappear,” Kimberley said.

  “Just stop Grubb,” Jeremy insisted. “I can face death without fear.”

  “Then who’s gonna save your sisters?” Kimberley shot back.

  Jeremy stopped in his tracks and the drowsy fellow behind him pushed him forward. “My sisters,” he began. “I just forgot to figure them into all this.” He spotted Akron talking to some prisoners in the line and spat out. “The cannibal lied to me.”

  “Did he?” Rachel asked.

  “Ginia! Tilia!” Jeremy spotted his sisters sitting on the ground beside Akron. “If they join us I have a fighting chance of saving them.”

  “I think so, too,” Kimberley said, staring at the two girls as she got to the B4 unit’s door and received a hazard suit. Akron had called up both girls. Kimberley wondered what the Kannibal wanted to tell them.

  “He’s pointing at us,” Jeremy said. “They’re coming this way.”

  “Here are your sisters for what it’s worth,” Akron yelled at him. “They’ve decided to join you outside.”

  Jeremy embraced his two siblings. “Thank you,” he told the Kannibal. “I’ll never forget this.”

  “Don’t bother,” Akron chuckled. “You’ll all still die out there.”

  “That was mean,” Ginia muttered after the man had moved on.

  “But he’s right,” Kimberley pointed out.

  “For now,” Jeremy said, receiving his hazard suit and making way for his sisters to get theirs. “We’ll make our move once we leave Resilience.”

  The Kannibal troopers herded the small crowd of prisoners from the X9s into a huge cave harboring an atmospheric filtration unit ten times the size of the one Jeremy led the time-travelers through some days back. Heavy doors slid open and a gargantuan cube revealed itself. Another set of doors opposite the first set probably led one out of the underground cities. Grubb’s men pushed the drowsy prisoners into the voluminous compartment.