In almost a whisper, Pretzel says, “But we don’t know that.”
“You disappoint me, father. It was your idea, but you didn’t like the conclusion, and yet it was inevitable—that we would need to protect ourselves from First Contact. Invasive species always win. You said so yourself. The more isolated a species is, the more vulnerable it is to harm, and what could be more isolated than a planet floating in space?”
Pretzel shakes his head. “Look at what you’ve done. You’ve declared war on an alien species.”
“Oh, that’s bullshit and you know it.” Sergei grows in anger as he bellows, “Our world. Our rules. They came to us—not us to them. We have a responsibility to protect life on this planet. This is our biosphere. They have no rights here. None. We meet on our terms, and those terms are a sterile patch of dirt.”
“You fool,” Pretzel counters, seemingly forgetting the guy standing next to Sergei has a machine-gun slung over his shoulder and a pistol drawn. Pretzel points at Sergei’s face, hammering home his reasoning with his finger, on the verge of punching Sergei. “You think you can control this? You’re an idiot. You sterilize the ground and in blows the wind, bringing trillions of microbes with it.”
“What about that shit?” Sergei counters, pointing at the green gunk glowing on the surface of the water. “How does that fit into your little playbook, Pretzel? What do your pathetic little probes tell you about that junk? Still think I’m wrong? Well, do you?”
“You killed Ange,” Pretzel says, ignoring him, gesturing to the rocks piled on the beach. “You killed her, Sergei. You did. You might as well have pulled the goddamn trigger.”
Sergei is unmoved, which upsets Pretzel. “You don’t care, do you?”
The soldier beside Sergei is nervous at the hostility in the argument. He holsters his sidearm, swinging the AK-47 down from his shoulder. Sergei, though, seems oblivious to the escalating tension.
“There were always going to be casualties. When it became clear the Americans wouldn’t act to preserve our world, we stepped in. We had to.”
“And what about us? What happens to us?”
“We will escort you down the mountain.”
“You asshole.” Pretzel looks as though he’s about to tear Sergei’s head off. His fists clench, while his knuckles go white. “Let me guess, you don’t want anyone to figure it out. Bullet holes in the back of the skull would raise too many questions, right? What’s the plan, Sergei? Walk us off a cliff? Claim it was an accident? Or just leave us to rot, starving to death in some cell?”
He goes to grab Sergei when the barrel of an AK-47 pokes him in the chest, reminding him of the power imbalance.
“Now, Pretzel,” Sergei says, smiling with delight.
“Don’t patronize me. At least be man enough to be honest.”
Sergei doesn’t reply, but to my horror, he nods ever so slightly while struggling not to grin.
“No, you can’t do that,” Jana calls out.
“And what about Ezekiel?” Brother Mordecai blurts out, speaking over the top of Jana.
“Ezekiel?” Sergei looks perplexed.
“He means, the aliens,” Pretzel says.
Brother Mordecai marches forward across the loose pebbles on the beach, which makes him the focus of the Russian soldier beside Sergei. The soldier levels his rifle at him. The barrel threatens to erupt in anger at the slightest twitch of his trigger finger. Sergei raises his hand, signaling not to fire.
Mordecai mumbles, “The wheels within wheels, the four-headed creature, the fire going forth like lightning.”
Mordecai’s rude, pushing Pretzel roughly to one side as though he were rushing through a crowd to address Sergei. “We have waited for two and a half thousand years. You don’t understand. The prophecy will be fulfilled. It must.”
“What the hell is he talking about?” Sergei asks.
Pretzel starts to speak, but Mordecai cuts him off, stepping forward and quoting what I guess is from the Bible. “When all men are blind, there is but one who can see.”
I feel a hand on my shoulder, pulling me back. It’s Petty Officer Garcia. He seems to anticipate what’s coming.
“Get behind me, kid,” he says, reaching for the small of his back.
Mordecai pulls his hand from his jacket pocket, tossing something in the air. I’m confused, it looks like a can of soup but without a label. For a second, it seems to hang before him, almost floating at chest height.
“Grenaaaade!” is yelled by one of the Russians at the same time the world turns white. For a fraction of a second, the outline of the missionary glows like the surface of the sun. Light streams past Mordecai’s arms and legs, surrounding him in a halo. It’s as though he’s been transformed into an angel. Pretzel is thrown backwards by the explosion, but Mordecai never moves. His clothing billows with the blast. Bullets tear through his body as the Russians open fire, but he seems to be consumed by the light.
The compression wave resounding out from the grenade causes me to stagger.
Following the deafening boom, my ears are left ringing, but I can still hear the rapport of gun fire. I can barely see anything beyond the imprint of light on my retina. It feels as though someone just hit my head with a baseball bat, and I shuffle, struggling to maintain my footing. Garcia, though, is shooting at the Russians. He may be blind, but he knows exactly where they’re standing.
Apart from the soldiers, everyone cringes, cowering from the blast even though it’s already passed. Petty Officer Garcia squeezes off round after round with astonishing precision. I’ve seen handguns fired before. My dad had me shoot one so I understood how it would kick. He showed me where he kept it in his bedroom, in a pouch taped beneath the bed. He said he never thought either of us would need it, but if we did, it was there—insurance. Now, though, watching Garcia, it’s as though there’s no kick whatsoever. His arm seems to absorb the recoil as though the gun were an extension of his body. Empty shell casings fly from the breech as he squeezes off shots with surprising accuracy. He pivots, firing again and again.
Several Russian soldiers fall. Pretzel grabs him, pulling him away, pushing us on and we run through the decimated forest toward the caves, clambering over logs and scrambling beneath fallen trees. Garcia continues firing, although now he’s firing for effect, simply to deter our pursuers.
I’ve never run so hard in my life, even when the forest was decimated yesterday. My heart and lungs feel as though they’re on fire. Once Jana and I are well clear of the beach, we turn and look back. Occasionally, I get a glimpse of Pretzel and Garcia, following along behind us, but there’s no sign of Brother Mordecai.
Jana
“We need to get to the caves,” Jana says, dragging me on. I want to wait for the others. I keep looking back, hoping to see Brother Mordecai, but I know he’s dead. He gave his life to buy us a chance.
Sporadic gunfire erupts, echoing off the cliff face. Garcia fires behind him but doesn’t have any hope of hitting anyone. He’s simply trying to slow the Russians.
Closer to the cliff, the trees have fared better. They’re scorched, but most of them are still standing, making it easy to wind our way between them. Within a hundred yards, we’re hidden by their thick trunks.
“This way,” Jana says, tugging on my arm. I’m slowing her down, but I have to. I can’t abandon Pretzel and Garcia. “Josh, we have to get out of here.”
“And go where?”
“There’s another track. It’s steep, but it leads up to the plateau.”
“We have to help them,” I say. To my surprise, it’s only now Jana realizes we’ve become separated from the others. She looks around, confused not to see Pretzel and Garcia beside us. I let go of her hand, darting back through the undergrowth, catching sight of the two men moving through the trees. To my surprise, it’s Garcia that’s helping Pretzel. The seemingly indestructible Indian scientist has been hit in the leg. A bullet has ripped through his upper thigh and he grimaces with each step as blood runs
down his trouser leg. Petty Officer Garcia has Pretzel’s arm slung over his shoulder. Together, they’re rushing through the saplings and bushes, with Pretzel providing direction.
“Josh,” Pretzel says as I run up to them. Beyond simply greeting me, he’s letting Garcia know I’ve arrived. “Keep going. Don’t wait for us.”
I ignore him, of course, grabbing his other arm and looping it over my shoulder. Between Garcia and me, we lift Pretzel off the ground, allowing us to run. I take over the role of steering wheel, pulling and pushing as we weave through what’s left of the forest. Garcia responds like a horse beneath a set of reigns, trusting my judgment. Jana sees us coming and continues on, leading us around the rocks. I swear, if I didn’t know better, I’d think Garcia was cheating, peeking from beneath his bandages. His boots never falter.
Jana comes to a halt.
“This is it.”
I don’t see anything. The cliff before us is imposing. Dark, jagged rocks bar our way, reaching up to a vertical section with a cliff face as smooth as a concrete wall.
“I—I need to sit,” Pretzel says.
I go to rest him on a rock at the base of the cliff when Garcia says, “Not there.” How does he know? “Not anywhere he could leave a bloodstain.” Without looking around, he says, “On the ground. Preferably on grass, something we can mess up or cover. We can’t leave any sign, any indication we came this way.”
I lower Pretzel to the mud. He grimaces, keeping his right leg straight, asking, “How bad?” I’m not sure who he’s expecting to reply. Garcia can’t see anything, and neither Jana nor I have any idea about gunshot wounds. He can see the injury for himself. He probably knows better than us, but shock has a funny way of playing on the mind.
I pull off my shirt and try to rip the long sleeves off, wanting to turn them into bandages, but apparently that only works in movies. I try again and a couple of the stitches give, but I’m a long way from tearing it apart.
“Hold still,” Jana says. Unlike western dresses, Jana’s got deep pockets sewn into the sides of her clothing. She rummages around and pulls out a pocket knife. Jana saws at the seam of my partially torn shirt with a rusted blade, slowly cutting the threads.
Garcia crouches beside Pretzel, holding onto his shoulder with one hand and working his way down Pretzel’s body with the other, allowing his fingers to skim over the scientist’s legs. He reaches the wound and Pretzel stiffens.
“Aw, you got scratched,” Garcia says.
“Scratched?” Pretzel says, somewhat indignant.
“Clean entry and exit. Outer thigh. Muscular damage, but no broken bones, no ruptured arteries. You’re our lucky charm.”
He laughs. Pretzel’s not laughing. I don’t think he likes Garcia making light of his injury. Jana and I shred the rest of the shirt, tearing it into strips.
“We’ve got bandages,” I say.
As usual, Garcia is characteristically blunt. “Save ‘em.”
I’m confused. Jana shrugs.
Garcia explains. “They’ll only ever slip down. The thigh tapers, so it’s notoriously difficult to wrap without a compression bandage.” He pauses, holding his open palm out. “Knife.”
How did he know Jana had a knife? For a man without sight, his level of perception is astonishing. Jana places the knife in his hand with the blade facing outward.
“Now, this is gonna hurt.”
“What?” Pretzel says, his eyes going wide in alarm.
“Just kidding.” Garcia laughs, pinching Pretzel’s trousers just below the knee. He slips the knife through the thick material with ease. I know how blunt that knife is, but Garcia works with it as though it were a razor blade.
Pretzel shifts on the ground, moving slightly backwards.
“What’s the matter?” Garcia asks. “Don’t trust a blind guy with a knife?” He’s rough, sawing at the seam running down the side of the trousers. “No sudden movements, okay?”
After working the knife all the way around Pretzel’s lower leg, he flips it in the air, catching it by the blade, with the hilt facing Jana. She takes it from him, looking at me somewhat startled. My turn to shrug.
Garcia starts rolling the torn trouser leg up, working it over Pretzel’s thigh. As he moves higher, the material becomes tighter. By the time it reaches the wound, it’s quite thick, applying pressure on his leg. He takes Pretzel’s hand, placing it on the rolled-up fabric. “Hold this… Hey, Jana, are you wearing a bra?”
“I—ah…”
“I need wire. Are you wearing an underwire bra?”
“Yes.”
“Can I have it?”
Jana hesitates, looking at me, wanting me to say something either way—in support or protest. She’s looking for some direction, but I’m still trying to process the request.
“You can have it back—the bra. It’ll still work. Just won’t be as rigid.”
“Okay.” She looks at me and then turns away, unfastening the clasp by grabbing at the strap through her dress material. As her dress is traditional, it’s breezy, with large, baggy sleeves, so she can slip the bra over her shoulders and out through the opening with ease.
Garcia says, “Make a small incision at one end of the cup and feed the wire out. That should leave the bra usable. I’ll need the wire and the knife.”
“Okay.” Jana hands the bra to me and picks at one edge with her knife, working the wire out before swapping, handing both the wire and the knife to me as she takes the torn bra from my hands. I’m more than a little bewildered by the whole process.
“Here,” I say, crouching and placing the wire in Garcia’s hands. With astonishing contortion, Jana puts her bra back on, but without taking her dress off. I try not to stare, but I’m fascinated by her motion. Given she lives in a single hut with her parents and brothers, she’s probably quite used to this.
Garcia makes several small incisions in Pretzel’s trousers, cutting through the fabric just above the wound. He squeezes the plastic-coated wire around the makeshift bandage, holding it in place directly on the bloody mess. He winds the wire back and forth, twisting the ends together.
“There—that’ll keep the bleeding to a minimum.”
“What? What was all the talk about a barbaric bomb?” I ask, still trying to process all that’s happened in the past half hour.
“Thermobaric,” Garcia replies. “It’s a grass-cutter, air-fuel. Not a nuke.”
With a rush of euphoria that even I recognize is misplaced, I say, “So you’re not going to die?”
Garcia laughs. “Everybody dies, kid. Whether it’s the Russians, the aliens or old age, none of us are getting off this planet alive.”
“We should keep moving,” Pretzel says, getting to his feet.
“Josh,” Garcia says, keeping one hand on Pretzel, using him as a guide. “Make sure there’s no sign of blood.”
“On it.” I ruffle the grass, grabbing a handful of dirt and sprinkling it over the patches of blood. I drag some branches and leaves over the area, scattering them liberally.
“Up here,” Jana says, climbing the rock face. Doesn’t look like a track to me. Jana presses herself hard against the rock, with her arms above her head, searching for handholds as her boots stab at narrow footholds. Her dress blows in the breeze.
“I can’t climb that,” Pretzel says.
“There’s a ledge,” Jana replies, pointing, “just up there, beneath those bushes. From there, we can reach the plateau.”
I help Pretzel onto the rocks, getting him to place his feet where Jana did. As they’re roughly the same height, I’m sure he can make it. Jana leans down from the ledge, stretching out a hand to help pull him up. Blood gets smeared on the rocks as Pretzel hauls himself over the rocks. Once he reaches the ledge, I grab a handful of dirt, rubbing it on the bloodstains, trying to lessen them, but my efforts aren’t convincing.
“You’re next,” I say, taking Garcia by the arm and leading him to the cliff. I talk him through where to place his hands and feet
, and then follow him up the rock face. Although the ledge is low, barely twenty feet off the ground, we can see through the broken canopy for several hundred yards. Being set below the cliff, this section of the jungle survived most of the blast. The trees are scorched, but still standing. Quietly, Pretzel points out movement in the distance. The Russians are following one of the other trails, one that circles around back to the rock pool.
Jana leads us up the cliff face. Far from being a track, we’re following the jagged edge of the rocks, often climbing in steep crevasses, but they’re set on an angle. They have small trees and bushes growing out of them, giving us both handholds and cover from below. If the soldiers down there have seen us, it’s not apparent as they don’t shoot at us. As Garcia’s blind and Pretzel’s injured, our ascent is slow. Sweat drips off us as the sun rises high overhead. It’s noon by the time we reach the plateau.
I thought I was ready for the devastation given what we’d seen by the rock pool, but the jungle has been leveled. To me, it looks like the battlefields of World War One—churned earth, splintered trees, smoke still drifting from the ruins. A bluish white haze hangs in the air. Fires rage in the distance. We sit huddled in the root ball of an overturned tree, using it as shade from the sun and for cover from anyone on the prowl. It’s a crater, a muddy shell hole from the battle of the Somme.
Jana is visibly distressed. No one could have survived in the village.
I put my arm around her, pulling her in tight, trying to provide some reassurance, but of what? We’re caught in the middle of a war. The great superpowers of our age are fighting over who gets to talk to the first visitors from another world, only I’m not convinced those guys are going to want to talk to anyone down here. After seeing the fighter plane destroyed and the green goo in the water, I think we’re running in the wrong direction.
3zekiel (First Contact) Page 13