I’m speechless. I get to my feet, surprised by how sore my knees are and how stiff my legs feel.
“Jana,” I say. Her bottom lip quivers. I’m not sure what’s been going through her mind over the past few hours, but it’s as though she’s in chains, unable to move. “Hey, it’s...” I can’t bring myself to say okay again. Clichés are the cruelest of lies.
I take her by the arms and she rushes to me, burying her head in my shoulder and almost collapsing. She sobs, heaving as she cries, unable to suppress the grief overwhelming her.
“Easy,” I say, helping her over to a log and getting her to sit in front of it. She won’t let go of me, which makes it difficult to sit next to her, so I turn sideways. Her fingers grip my arms like a steel vice. It’s all been too much.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say. “I’m right here.”
Although I’d like to offer more words as comfort, it feels good not to lie, so that’s all I say. My silence, though, is an admission of loss.
Strange, but helping Pretzel and calming Jana is keeping me grounded. Just when I felt as though I was falling apart, I find myself pushing to help, getting outside myself.
Pretzel steps into the water, wading gently beside Garcia. Ripples spread out over the still water.
“Come with me.”
The wounded soldier gets to his feet, but he can barely stand. Pretzel hoists one arm over his shoulder, dragging him out of the filthy pool and onto the beach. He rests Garcia against the log, sitting him on the sand beside Jana, and turns his attention to Mordecai.
“Join us,” Pretzel says. He takes his hand, leading him over as though he were guiding a child, and sits him on the other side of me. Although Mordecai’s only gone a distance of a few feet, there’s something symbolic about getting everyone together. We need each other.
Pretzel says, “First aid, water and food.” It’s not a complete sentence, revealing the stress he feels and how he’s barely holding himself together, but I understand.
“There’s a pack over there,” I say, pointing at the pool beneath the waterfall. One of the backpacks has washed up against the rocks. I have to pry Jana’s hands from my arm, reassuring her I’ll be right back. Slowly, I work my way around the edge of the filthy water, clambering over rocks and fallen trees. It feels good to be doing something.
I manage to salvage the three packs. I hoist one on each shoulder and drag the third back to the beach, wading through the rock pool. Pretzel has begun the arduous task of placing rocks around Dr. O’Brien’s body, slowly entombing her where we fought for her life. A thin strip of cloth has been placed over her face, for our sake, not hers. I guess Pretzel did that, but I didn’t see him. Perhaps he took a moment to say a few words in honor of her life, words spoken in quiet, words meant only for the dead.
I leave the packs on the sand and help him collect rocks, wondering about the alien invaders, wondering if there will be anyone left to bury us.
Without saying anything, Pretzel leaves me, bumbling over to the packs, stumbling on the rocky beach, mumbling to himself like a madman.
“Fallout determined by blast height... prevailing winds... but what was the yield? Why destroy what they came to find? And why now? Why not while they were above the atmosphere? And radiation… how are they going to deal with the contamination?”
He dithers, taking probes out of the pack, stacking them neatly on the sand and then putting them back in again.
“Pretzel,” I say, abandoning Dr. O’Brien’s impromptu, incomplete grave and joining him. He’s distracted. I tap him on the shoulder, repeating his name, but this time, my voice wavers. “Pretzel, please.”
“Hmmm. Ah, yes. Josh.”
“You’re scaring me.”
His bloodshot eyes go wide. Pretzel blinks several times. It’s as though his brain is rebooting.
“I need you. We need you,” I say, realizing he’s struggling in the moment, lost like all of us.
Pretzel nods, straightens and speaks with his peculiar Indian accent, honed by British rule over hundreds of years and still quite distinct. “First aid kit, right? That’s what we’re looking for.”
“Yes,” I reply. The pitch of his voice has changed as he mentally regains his footing. We’re all in shock, on the verge of shutting down. A sense of purpose is all I have left to cling to. Doing something, anything is the only way to stay sane.
Pretzel rummages through the packs, looking for the first aid kit. He tosses probes on the ground, discarding them like empty coke cans. Garcia is shaking, only his motion is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s almost a shimmer. With all the blistering on his fingers I almost missed it.
“I’ve found some painkillers,” Pretzel says, crouching before Garcia. “I’m going to put them in your mouth, okay?”
Garcia opens his mouth wide. Saliva sticks to his lips, stretching at the corners. His teeth are stained pink with blood. Pretzel crushes each tablet between his fingers, sprinkling the fine powder into Garcia’s mouth, crumbling the pills on his tongue, slowly feeding him four tablets.
“More.”
Pretzel nods, breaking up a few more tablets. Garcia crunches them, chewing the big bits beneath his molars. He picks up a canteen, saying, “Here’s some water.”
Garcia tips his head back and Pretzel pours slowly, allowing just a trickle to pass the soldier’s lips, giving Petty Officer Garcia time to swallow. I cannot even begin to imagine the level of pain Garcia is in. Even swallowing is difficult for him.
Pretzel screws the cap back on the bottle and rests it in Garcia’s hands. The blind soldier grabs at the bottle as though it were a life raft in a storm, clutching it to his chest.
“I’m going to bandage your eyes, okay?”
Garcia nods.
“There’s some antiseptic cream in the kit. It’s probably going to sting, but we need to stop infection from taking hold. You understand?”
Again, Garcia nods. He’s trying not to shake, trying to hide how badly he’s suffering, but he can’t. His body seems to demand more than he can handle, and he’s wracked with spasms every ten to fifteen seconds. His shoulders shift with a jolt as though he’s been shocked with electricity.
Pretzel needs my help. He gets me to hold some non-stick bandages face-up while he applies the medical cream to the slick surface. Then he places them gently over Garcia’s eyes and wraps a compression bandage around his head, holding the pads in place. Through it all, Garcia is subdued, desperately trying to control the convulsions seizing his body.
“Are you going to be okay for a few minutes?”
Garcia nods. With that, Pretzel returns to Dr. O’Brien’s body, again picking up rocks and packing them next to her. He’s strangely distant, not having said anything to me, but I want to help. It’s all I can do. Jana and Mordecai watch us intently. Before long, and without any prompting, Jana joins us, pushing through her own mental anguish. We start at Angela’s feet, slowly building a mound around her, only ever placing stones on top of her with the utmost care and respect.
Mordecai joins us as we reach her waist. Pretzel crosses her arms over her chest. He talks to her, speaking under his breath, but it’s so quiet in the decimated jungle, we can all hear him.
“Don’t you worry about Charlize… I’ll take care of her, I promise… You know me. I’m Methuselah... Ain’t no alien gonna get me... I’ll live to be nine hundred… She’s in old hands, but good hands, Ange… I’ll care for her like she was my own… I—I know this guy at Princeton. Geoffrey Archer. You’d like him. Dean of Physics. He’s a good guy. We go way back. I taught him how to ride elephants in Jaipur... I’ll make sure Charlize gets a good education. The best. Whatever she wants. Regardless of cost. I’ll make it happen. I promise.”
Tears run down his cheeks. Pretzel stacks rocks gently around her head, fussing with their position, rearranging them with care. At this point, we simply hand the rocks to him. Somehow, it’s more dignified this way.
“I’m sorry, Ang
e. I’m so sorry,” he says. The last rock is the heaviest of them all. Physically, it’s small and flat, but emotionally it weighs a ton. Pretzel places it slowly, positioning it as though he were an artist working with a sculpture.
Brother Mordecai crosses himself. Jana and I hold each other. Pretzel whispers, “Farewell, my dear friend.”
Nightfall
In the tropics, night falls fast. Given we’re normally surrounded by the jungle canopy blotting out the sky, it’s not unheard of to be caught unawares away from the village and end up traipsing back through the jungle in darkness. Tonight, though, the forest has been leveled. The skies are clear, almost magical, which is cruel given all we’ve been through. As the sun sets, the gradient of color stretching over us is as vibrant as a painting, reaching from a brilliant golden yellow to red, orange, pink, light blue and then the deep, dark of the coming night.
“Where are they?” I ask.
Pretzel takes his bearings from the setting sun and points. “Out there somewhere.”
“Why can’t we see it?” I ask. “The rope or ladder or whatever it is?”
“Given it’s quite thin, it’s probably not visible beyond a few thousand meters. If we were up on that ridge line, we might be able to see the base station dangling beneath it.” But Pretzel’s no longer looking at the sky. He searches through the packs. His thin, frail, aging hands move with purpose. Physically, he’s a slight figure, and yet I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone with more strength. The world is crumbling around us, quite literally, but he’s bounced back. He’s focused. Somehow, he’s found his reserves.
“What are we going to do?” Jana asks.
“Good question,” Pretzel replies, and I get the feeling he doesn’t know and is stalling for time, making things up as he goes, which is fine by me. I’ve always been deeply suspicious of people that have all the answers. I’d rather honesty over conviction.
“Look,” Brother Mordecai says, pointing. As the sky darkens, sparks flicker, forming a faint line disappearing into the night, rising straight up in the air. Like lightning breaking away from a storm cloud, there are flashes of electricity dancing through the sky high above the cliff. “Is that them?”
“I guess so.”
“What is that?” I ask.
“I don’t know? Electrostatic discharge? It’s probably been there all along but is only now visible.”
Mordecai speaks with slow deliberation. To Pretzel’s credit, he lets him finish. I wouldn’t. I feel as though Mordecai and my father are relics from another era.
“And their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth... lightning.”
Pretzel just nods, not offering any other commentary. Finally, he takes his cue from those words and says, “We’re going to need a fire.”
I’m keen to show Pretzel my support, so I say, “I’ll collect wood.”
“Is that wise?” Jana asks. “Lighting a fire?”
Mordecai says, “We’ll give away our location.”
Pretzel thinks for a moment. “I really have no idea… but we’re no threat to them.”
“They just nuked us,” Mordecai says, somewhat flabbergasted at Pretzel’s relaxed tone. “They declared war on us.”
He’s got a point, but I note that Garcia is quiet, not taking either side. Blood seeps from beneath the bandages wrapped around his head, but he’s listening intently. Like Pretzel, I suspect he’s finding his resolve.
“I wouldn’t presume to know their intentions,” Pretzel says. “For all we know, they were simply sterilizing the land to reduce the likelihood of microbial interaction.”
“What???”
Mordecai’s one-word response in reply to Pretzel’s long winded explanation is brutal. Pretzel explains his reasoning, but he’s rambling, searching for answers, wanting to believe in something.
“Given their technological sophistication, having traversed between star systems and built a space elevator from raw materials, the difference between us and them is beyond any terrestrial equivalent. This isn’t a meeting of equals. This isn’t even akin to Europeans in warships discovering naked aborigines in a canoe. The disparity is more like us trying to interact with squid.”
I must look confused as he clarifies.
“Only we’re the squid.”
Mordecai shakes his head in disagreement. Regardless of what Brother Mordecai thinks, though, Pretzel has my attention. Jana and I are silent, listening carefully. Garcia is quiet, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. I’m not sure what those painkillers were, but they’ve helped him rebound.
Pretzel says, “I doubt we could hide from them anyway. Right now, our biggest threat is the elements. I know it sounds strange, but we’re in shock. All of us. Not just Petty Officer Garcia. A fire will do us good. Warmth. Raise our spirits. Who knows? Maybe they’re afraid of fire?”
He shrugs. None of us are buying that, but Pretzel doesn’t care. Besides, I agree with him. We’re on the edge of the mountains here in the jungle and often get a cool breeze at night, especially as the evening wears on. It’s nothing like a North American winter, but given we’re in thin, damp clothing, it’s easy to catch a chill. At a guess, the temperature’s already around 70F and falling. Without the jungle canopy trapping the heat, I suspect it’s going to get a lot colder after midnight.
“I’ll get some kindling.”
“I’ll go too,” Jana says, joining me.
If there’s one advantage to being by the water it’s that all directions lead up, meaning we won’t get lost. If we backtrack to the stream we can easily find the pool again.
I grab an empty backpack and we start gathering firewood, looking for dead branches of various sizes.
“Do you think he’s right?” Jana asks once we’re out of earshot.
“I don’t think even he thinks he’s right,” I say, trying to smile. On one level, starting a fire feels forced, almost futile. On the other, it’s important to try. We’ve lost Dr. O’Brien, while Petty Officer Garcia has been badly injured by the blast. We almost died plummeting into the rock pool. Jana’s family is dead. My father—I don’t even want to think about that. I hope he’s still in Ubandi. We’ve got nothing. Uncertainty clouds our future. If anything, a fire will help us feel alive.
“I think he’s right,” Jana says, and I know what she means. It’s not any one thing she’s latching on to, rather his attitude and resolve. My dad’s an optimist. In his sermons, he’d often say, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” I suspect he’d probably argue with Pretzel even more than Brother Mordecai does, but I think he’d agree with his approach. Don’t stop. Keep going. I hope my dad is doing something similar wherever he is. I know him. He’ll be helping someone. He’ll be doing all he can to comfort survivors, just like Pretzel.
We get back to the beach to find Pretzel kneeling before a broken branch. He’s got a thin straight stick and is rubbing it back and forth between his aging palms. Mordecai helps, cupping his hands around the tiny indentation that’s formed on the branch, keeping a smattering of dry leaves and fine twigs close. Pretzel blows softly as a few sparks fly, catching on the fine tinder.
Jana and I lay out our branches in order of size, putting the smallest twigs down first.
“Good work.” Pretzel begins building a teepee around the infant flame, coaxing it to life. “Easy, now.”
Slowly, flames rise. Mordecai feeds the fire, breaking branches and carefully placing them. Pretzel was right. Just the sight of the flames causes a weight to lift. Even Garcia seems to warm, relaxing as we make progress, regardless of how feeble our efforts may be.
Jana and I empty the backpack and return to the jungle, looking for more firewood. Most of the debris is still green, but we find an old log roughly six feet in length. It looks like a nest for ants, but they’ve fled or died. We carry it back between us.
“Oh, perfect,” Pretzel says. “Lie it just there, with the fire nestled into the bend.”
We place the log between the fire and the water, forming a low barrier from the wind coming in over the rock pool, giving the fire something sizable to consume. We’ll have to shift the burning ends as the night goes on, but a log like this will keep throwing out heat til dawn.
The jungle is unusually quiet. With nightfall, I’m expecting insects to start calling, but there’s nothing. It’s as though we’re the only living things on the planet—which is unnerving. I wonder what’s happening outside of the jungle. What are the military doing? How will they respond to the attack? What’s being said on the news? Crazy—we’re so damn close to this thing but we know less than anyone about what’s actually happening.
Pretzel finds some military rations in one of the packs. He cuts them open, dividing the two bars between us. I’m not sure what I’m eating, and it’s barely more than a mouthful, but food is good, kickstarting my system. I feel as though we have purpose—a plan—even though we don’t. The mind is easily fooled, I guess.
Garcia turns down his piece. “Give it to someone else.”
“You’ve got to eat,” Pretzel says.
“Me?” Garcia shakes his head slowly. Given the extent of his injuries, he’s surprisingly coherent. “You guys need that more than me. Give it to Josh.”
I couldn’t accept his portion. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”
“Tell him, doc.”
Pretzel is quiet.
“I ain’t going anywhere, kid. With the amount of radiation I took, it’s just a matter of time before I’m vomiting my guts and bleeding internally.”
The fire crackles. Sparks rise into the night.
“I’m a dead man. One by one, my internal organs are shutting down.”
Jana’s hands tremble. She’s shaking. “We’re going to die. We’re all going to die.”
3zekiel (First Contact) Page 10