Of Salt and Sand

by Barnes, Michael

  It was a pour decision.

  Zen had just given her the location of the gathering SS—he had been uncannily accurate, as usual—when he began to convulse. Ruthanne had tried everything her timid frame would allow to help her brother. But nothing seemed to work. By the time the awful spasms ceased, Zen lay lifeless at her lap. Ruthanne feared the worst. Her brother was dead. He had finally pushed his capricious abilities too far and paid the ultimate price . . . or so she supposed. In the deepest of lamentation, the girl placed her brother’s head in her lap, and wept. As she sobbed, she grasped for solace, finding her only reprieve in a wisp of memory deep and distant. The soothing recollection came to her from her past, as a nostalgic balm. It was a sweet and tender memory; it was all she had left. Ruthann remembered a tune her mother once sang to comfort her when she was just a baby. Without realizing it, she started to hum the melody, pure and sweet. It flowed gently from her quivering lips to the ears of Zen. It was that tune, and subsequently all calming music, with its countless variations and techniques–-tones, pitch, frequency, wavelength, amplitudes, vibrations and resonance—that held the antidote. The very means to saving Zen’s life.

  Music, Ruthanne had accidentally discovered that awful night, caused a flooding of Zen’s mind just as violently as did the overrun of the chaotic data, but with one vitally important difference: order. Order was the one characteristic which the raw flow of data, lacked. The methodical composition of simple notes proved to be the life-giving cathartic. It was a raging current, yes, but one which Zen could mentally grasp, focus and therefore manage. This amazing process allowed for the coalescence of millions of variables into one course. One perfect symphony: a symphony of order.

  Since that time, when Zen insisted on a session interaction, Ruthanne was ready, standing aloof like a quite sentinel, coiled to counter a runaway chain reaction with the only tool she had: her songs. And like rain to the conflagration, her sweet melodies, with their harmonics, notes and tones, brought the promise of Zen’s safe return back from oblivion.

  Zen opened his eyes. “Thanks, Ruthy. I’m okay now,” he whispered, his face beaded in moisture; his smile tainted by weariness. “I’ve got things back under control.” He took a deep breath and swallowed hard. He calmed his worried sister with a pat on her head then moved from the door and pushed up against the wall on one side. Now he could take a few moments and recover himself. “What happened?”

  “I think something dropped. There was a loud noise.”

  “Noise,” Zen muttered back disappointedly. “Typical rotten luck.”

  “Yes, typical.”

  “Well, wherever the guard is, he’s out of range now.” Zen exhaled a frustrating blast and banged his head against the wall. “I lost him. I’m sorry, Ruthy.”

  “It is alright Zenny. He must be close, probably just down the next block. We will get the information we need soon enough. I need time to rest now anyway.” Ruthanne’s voice was reassuring, but belied a sense of disappointment. She rubbed his arm soothingly.

  Zen looked down on her soft face. She had been seven years old when they were taken from the camp and brought to the GGRC. She was still lovely, but her once full cheeks were emaciated and sunken. Her skin was pale, and her hair thin and straight. He remembered how she used to look—her hair up in ribbons and her cheeks radiant and full of life.

  He was her only sibling. And although just a kid when she was born, he had taken it upon himself to be her self-appointed guardian. And he had done a good job of it, too. Their father had often trusted Zen to be the man of the house when he was away on business. It had instilled a sense of vicarious responsibility deep within the boy which had never diminished.

  So often now, as Zen pondered better days, he regretted the complaining, usually to his parents, regarding his sister’s silly requests. Things he had thought to be stupid, or just too ridiculous for a grown-up kid to deal with.

  He pondered, kissing her head; he would give his soul to step back in time and coddle her every wish.

  As he kissed her, Ruthann’s chin came up, and she smiled at him. But Zen turned his head hastily away. He still struggled to meet her gaze . . . to look into those blank eyes. Those eyes which had once sparkled in radiant amber; a hue so brilliant as to cause even the most perfect of golden twilights to pale in comparison.

  Zen fought back an old anger, an insatiable hatred which he continually held at bay. He blinked away the tears. Why didn’t they take his sight? Why Ruthy? Why couldn’t they have chosen him instead of her that day?

  Ruthann’s probing regard continued its blind barrage, tearing deep into the fabric of guilt which wrapped around the boy like a cold wet cloth. When Zen couldn’t stand averting his sister’s gaze any longer, he simply bent and kissed her forehead one more time, then moved back to the wall.

  Ruthanne had remained in darkness for weeks after the experiment. The injections had been administered daily, and with each, her eyes had clouded slightly more. It was as if the Nazi’s had taken not just her vision, but the very essence of her life.

  Zen grimaced just recalling the terrible event. It had taken more spirit from him than any single brutality yet forced upon him—to watch and do nothing, as they came each day and dragged his little Ruthanne from her cell. Separated by steel bars, he had been utterly powerless to intervene. His pleas had been answered with hisses, threats and finally a gun barrel to his face. In the most despondent of submissions, the boy had crumbled to the floor and sobbed uncontrollably for the first time since they had arrived at the vile facility.

  Zen knew then that he would be forever changed. And changed he was. He would never feel the innocence of his youth again.

  Chapter 3:

  Ruthanne’s strange telekinetic abilities began just weeks after her last experimental dosing. She found that she was able to feel what her vision could no longer provide. This was the only way she could describe this vague aptitude to her brother. And although the child remained in darkness, she somehow began to sense her surroundings and knew exactly where she was and what was happening around her. But there was more to come.

  Even before she could recoil from this mysterious mutation, it changed again, and Ruthanne . . . evolved. Her power extended, became more pronounced, and even more cryptic. She began to exhibit an odd proclivity for knowing the thoughts of individuals within a short distance from her position. The more accurate their location, in respect to her own, the more she could decipher from their thoughts. The awakening came quite by accident, and in a more violent manner than either she or Zen could have possibly imagined. It happened on a cold January night, nearly four months after the first sign of her extrasensory abilities.

  Ruthanne had awakened abruptly in the middle of the night. She instantly became aware that something was wrong . . . or felt wrong . . . or was perceived wrong. She didn’t know what. But a sudden sense of panic ensued as she realized that she was not in her normal cell. Had they moved her during the night, drugged and unaware? Terrified, she began a perceptual search for her brother, Zen. And she found him! Right where he was supposed to be, sleeping on his cot at the far side of the block.

  A tremendous relief poured over her. A terrible dream, she supposed. But something still hovered in her intuition, like a bad smell in a fragrant garden. She decided to check herself again. This time with very different results.

  A horrifying gasp brought home an unthinkable realization. It wasn’t her brother lying in the cot, but Eli, the nine-year old boy who had also been brought to the GGRC. But Eli’s bunker was located in Block-two, three sections east of where Ruthanne and Zen were held? How was this possible? This couldn’t be right! Then the awful truth came to her in a blood-freezing confirmation: the clinic administration had moved her to another cell! To Eli’s cell!

  Eli had also been trying to sleep that same night, but the corridor outside his cell was exceptionally cold, as the concrete walls were barely more than a damp cave. The boy had been awakened because he was
freezing. As he lay there shivering, a very strange sensation slunk in and added itself to the numbing sting around his toes, fingers, ears and face. It was not a perception Eli had experienced before—those day-to-day maladies common in their awful conditions. No. This was unknown . . . and frightening. The foreign sensation came to him, bringing with it an incredible wave of anxiety. The assault was so forceful that Eli leaped from his cot and jumped impulsively to his feet. But before he could ponder further, he was overcome with the need to run! To run as far and as fast as he could! Now! Run! Get away! he heard his mind command. And so he did. Panicked and nearly completely incoherent, he just ran! But it was only feet. For within seconds he had slammed hard into the back wall of his bunker.

  For several long minutes the boy lay stunned on the cold floor. Finally, he wrenched himself back onto his cot, feeling so week and drained of life, he could hardly lift his body at all. But as he dropped back onto his slab, hoping that whatever nightmare had come to his slumber was gone, he again felt the unknown presence slither back, like a poisonous viper, for a second strike. He went stiff. Was this the effect of one of the Nazi experiments? Had the administration injected him with a hallucinogenic while he slept? But before the boy could reason further, the attack came with unharnessed voracity. It encompassed and swallowed him, tearing at every nerve like a thousand hot needles pushed against his skin!

  Eli tried to scream, to cry out for help—he would have been ignored—but instinctively, he tried to shout all the same. But try as he might to force the muscles in his throat to respond, no sound would come. And he was left helpless to whatever thing had come to finish him off. Eli surrendered himself to the inevitable. He would not survive. The Nazis would have one less rat, . . . one less catalase in their inventory of human stock.

  In the moments that followed, the helpless child winced and contorted until he felt as though he would be ripped in half. In is agony, seconds were minutes and minutes were hours. Finally, his body helpless to defend the foreign entity which had ravaged it, reacted with the only defense it had left: to expel whatever had entered it, and the boy vomited profusely.

  It had been then, in that awful moment, that Zen awoke. Even now, in his recollection of the event, he didn’t know what had roused him that night, but something had. His eyes had instantly leveled on his sister’s cot. And there she was. Her figure upright, her gaze transfixed and terrible.

  Zen knew instantly that Ruthanne was no longer in control of her body, distorted as she was. But it was her eyes . . . those glaring, tormented eyes which he had never forgotten. It was as if she were in some horrific trance. He rushed to her side and shook her, screaming out her name: Ruthanne! Ruthanne! Only then did his sister respond. And in that same instant, Eli was released from her unintentional death-clutch. And just in time.

  Indeed, Ruthanne had been in Eli’s cell, but not in any physical sense. Like an unseen specter, the child had somehow channeled her presence into the boy’s bunker, releasing an involuntary, yet none-the-less, assaulting energy upon him.

  Zen had never forgot that expression of reckoning on Ruthanne’s face. That hideous countenance which rolled over the child’s expression like a torch to fresh flowers; when she knew what she had done. Somehow, like the scrolling of sins at the moment of accountability, she knew, absolutely, and with unequal clarity.

  Zen recalled how Ruthanne had reached out to him with trembling hands, how her milky eyes, red-rimmed and veined, had mirrored her anguish, and how the remorse of her actions that awful night had nearly killed her.

  Zen shivered. The memory haunted him still.

  Ruthanne had cried for days for hurting one of their own, but in retrospect the event had been a necessary evil. The altercation had come unintentionally, and released upon an innocent boy. But Eli had made a complete recovery, and more importantly, the episode had given Ruthanne a taste of how powerful, and dangerous, this forced genetic curse was. And it had shaken her to the core.

  Now, nearly a year later, she had all but mastered her odd ability. And like the lion-trainer who enters the cage armed with nothing but the crack of his whip, she too had tempered the beast, and knew when to lash, and when to stay out of the cage altogether. But with this mastery, this acceptance, came a frightening consequence, the fine print scribbled at the bottom of a binding contract: she—as well as her brother and possibly more of the surviving children—had in fact morphed into the very creatures the Nazis so desperately wanted.

  In a sick sense of reality, the GGRC had accomplished just what it set out to do. At the cost of blood, torture and murder, their rats had been tainted, had been altered, and had acquired extraordinary abilities. Yes, these innocent children had developed qualities beyond that of normal human beings. Extraordinary qualities, yet loathed and unwanted qualities. But these were vengeful rats.

  The GGRC administrators were constantly watching with Medusa-eyes. Testing and monitoring each child for any sign that their Fuhrer’s golden egg had finally been laid. But how to know? What would be the signs of a genetically altered child? They were, after all, cultivating in unexplored territory. No other group on the planet would have encroached so boldly, nor ravaged so callously in the name of supremacy.

  The truth was, the administration didn’t know the signs. They remained benighted and unaware. But the children knew. They understood the terrible intent of their captors. In an unimaginable comprehension, they knew. A clinical success now would be seen by Hitler as a pivotal turning point for Germany’s waning war; an arcane weapon which neither the Red Army nor the Americans would understand, or see coming. Through the process of gene replication, Hitler could release unthinkable devastation on the Allies. But this would never come to light. Devastation to the Allies, if it came at all, would not come by way of Hitler’s GGRC. Never! The children would see to that.

  These precocious ones—the innocent turned catalysts—had gained an insight far beyond their years. And with unparalleled courage they had forged a secret alliance. An oath of allegiance to themselves, to their companions, and to their God. They would conceal their abilities at all cost, even that of their lives. These, after all, were not gifts, but came at the cost of blood—no Nazi regime would ever benefit from them. Ever!

  “We will try again tomorrow, Zenny,” reassured Ruthanne. She turned and headed slowly to a cement slab raised just off the floor with dimensions slightly longer than she was.

  There was a small blanket folded neatly on one end. It was badly worn and frayed at the edges, but if the lighting in their bunker had been sufficient, the faded cloth could tell a story of its own, having once been patterned with a series of small, intricate flowers, threaded in brightly colored hues. But now, like the child it covered on so many cold nights, it too seemed to have taken on the tone and feel of the surroundings: a lifeless, dirty gray.

  Ruthanne had just laid down when Zen suddenly arose and craned his head just slightly. He held his breath. “Listen!” he whispered as loudly as he dared. “I think the guard is coming back this direction. Do you still want to try, Ruthy?”

  His brave little sister was already upright and moving toward the cell door. “Yes,” she replied, a bit apprehensively. “But I need him close. And I need to know his exact location, Zenny.”

  She did not need to explain why. Zen knew. His sister was becoming more frail and weak with each passing day. And with each of her psychic episodes, more of her life essence drained away.

  “Yes, yes! Here he comes.” Zen peered through the hole. He turned and sat with his back against the door. He reached and took hold of his sister’s hand. His eyelids fluttered, but his gaze was solid and controlled. “Twenty-two-meters, eighteen—”

  “Yes!” Ruthanne cried, her voice burdened and uneasy. “I can see him now!” Her heart was racing inside her. More than anything else, she needed to be careful. Very careful. But it was not the fear of being discovered, or even the resulting punishment that filled the child with apprehension. It was her con
cern for the guard. Ruthanne’s memory of what had happened to Eli still haunted her. And even though this vile mercenary of a man had repeatedly kicked her, spat on her, knocked her to the ground, and threatened her life, hers was a concern simply unfathomable by any reasoning mind. For revenge and hatred were unwelcomed feelings in the girl’s innocent mind, and she would not be poisoned by them. She would temper her assault at all costs, and get only what was needed from the guard’s mind.

  Zen had steadied and moved to his sister’s side. Her body and mind were already wrapped in the interaction of the conceptual lock. “Are you sure you want to do this, Ruthy?” he questioned one last time.

  She bit down hard on her lip and nodded. “We must know what is happening,” she replied. “All of our lives depend on it.” Then in her next breath, she suddenly stiffened. “I’ve got him.”

  Zen watched the emotional battle play out on his sister’s pale face; he hated this part of the process!

  “Zenny,” she muttered, squeezing his hand.

  “I’ve got you, Ruthy girl. I’ve got you.” He put his arm around her and held her close and waited. His heart now matched the rapid pulse of his sister.

  Ruthanne understood her limits. She had come to know them as an unwanted presence. In the months that followed her blindness, she had consigned herself to this Nazi mutation. In so doing, she had also understood the need to control it, or at least control the danger attached to it. She had willingly strode into murky waters, testing her ability on animals only. Rats mostly, but several times she was also able to alter the aggressive character of some of the guard-dogs. Of course there was no communication factor between the child and canines, just an unexplainable ability to calm the most aggressive of the pack. Ruthanne could feel their rage and was able to instill a consoling influence. Afterwards, however, the dogs would no longer show aggression and were regrettably replaced. But the meld between human minds was infinitely different than the lesser intelligent creatures.