by Rob Mclean
Akil knew that his brother meant well. He felt his own anger ebb away to be replaced with compassion. He joined the embrace. “Sorry, brother. I know you care for me and that it frustrates you, but I really don’t think there’s any danger. I only see opportunity.”
Tarek broke away from them. “You’re crazy.”
“Crazy yes, maybe,” Akil agreed, “but stupid? No.”
Akil knew that he would never get ahead by following what everyone else did. He saw this as his chance and he was going to take it.
“What’s all the noise and shouting?” demanded an elderly man leaning on a walking stick in a bedroom doorway.
“Nothing, Papa,” Yasmin said, moving over to his side.
“Don’t tell me, nothing Papa. I can see all the mess.” He waved his walking stick at the remains of the monitor. “Have you boys been fighting? I won’t have brothers fighting in my house.”
“No, Papa,” Akil said. “It’s nothing. An accident. That’s all.”
“Yes,” Tarek said, “an accident. We will fix it later.” He looked to Akil, who smiled with thanks in return.
“But first Tarek and Yasmin will take you for a drive.”
“A drive? Where?”
“We thought we’d surprise you. You haven’t seen your brother-in-law for ages, have you?” Yasmin said.
“In Asyut? I’ll be going nowhere,” he declared. Yasmin and Tarek groaned. “Not until I’ve had my coffee.”
“I’ll pack some things for Papa,” Akil said.
Tarek followed him to their father’s room. He put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about your computer. I lost my temper,” he said.
“It’s okay,” Akil replied.
“No, it’s not. Please forgive me. I will fix your computer.”
Akil tried not to laugh out aloud. Instead he grinned widely. When he saw Tarek’s puzzled look, he explained that the computer was fine.
“Oh, well, I will fix the other things.”
“No, you don’t have to,” explained Akil. “In a little while the city will be almost empty and there will be thousands of screens and keyboards that I’ll…”
“Steal?” Tarek asked. “My brother will not become a thief because of me.”
“It’s not stealing,” Akil shrugged, “more like borrowing.” Tarek nodded. “Long-term borrowing,” Akil added. When Tarek started to object, he added, “Besides all the computer shops will be closed. We can sort things out later.”
Akil opened a suitcase and began to pack his father‘s medications in it. Tarek gathered up some clothes.
“Are you so sure there will be a later?” Tarek asked.
“You’ve been watching too many American movies,” Akil laughed. “This is not ‘The War of the Worlds’ or ‘Independence Day.’ If they wanted us dead, they could have done it safely from outer space, where we can’t reach them.”
Tarek had a strange look on his face. It was as if he was seeing his little brother for the first time.
Akil went on, undeterred. “If you were an alien invading this planet, ask yourself, why go face to face, shooting it out with an all-American hero, in the streets of his own hometown?”
Akil paused, collecting his thoughts. His head felt a little dizzy. He spoke them out aloud, more to get them straight for himself as well as for Tarek. “It just wouldn’t happen anywhere but in a Hollywood movie. Then it would only happen for entertainment, to sell lots of movie tickets. It’s not what would happen in real life,” Akil pointed in the direction of the alien spaceship. “They would have a million ways to destroy us, if they wanted to. For them to come announcing their arrival and to park in full view of our weapons, as useless as they might be, tells me they come in peace.”
Tarek put down his father’s clothes and hugged Akil fiercely.
“My mind tells me you are right, Akil,” Tarek held his brother by his shoulders at arm’s length so he could look into his eyes, “but my heart tells me to run. Run like the wind, for fear fills my soul I am ashamed to say.”
“Then we must pray,” Akil said.
They called Yasmin into their father’s bedroom. The three of them knelt at the end of the bed as they had done since they were children. Like the time their mother had been killed in a bus rollover, leaving their father with brain damage. Under the Coptic crucifix that hung on the wall above their father’s bed, once more they said a prayer asking for guidance.
With renewed strength and courage they continued the job of packing and the daunting task of leaving the city.
Chapter 13
In his dream, John was on patrol again. Grace, Kent, Akeem and Marcus were with him with the rest of his squad. Inexplicably, it made perfect dream sense that his brother, Jarred would be needed to also be on patrol with him as a technical advisor.
The woman in yellow hadn’t died, even though she had bled buckets of blood. She had escaped, but they had traced her to this shopping centre. In his dream it was midnight and the place was dark and deserted. Jarred had a hand-held detector that showed the target’s position with a yellow blinking dot on the screen. It hadn’t moved as they moved into the empty shopping mall.
They met up with the shopping mall’s hired security, a rotund, bespectacled, grey-haired, pug-faced loudmouth who looked like he spent most of his time securing the food court. In the holiday season he probably filled in as a grumpy Santa. His partner was his wife, who had grown to look like him in the same way that owners tend to end up looking like their dogs, except she didn’t have the cigarette-stained moustache.
“Last saw her in the bookstore,” Santa said. He shone his Maglite down the unlit plaza, in the general direction of the bookshop, but its light was swallowed by the darkness. He kept his other hand on the baton that hung under his ample belly.
Santa’s helper stood behind her man, trying to look brave, but her face was ghostly pale. “We’ll leave it to you then?” she asked.
“Thanks,” John said, trying to peer through the shadows. He thought he could just make out a glow in the direction of the bookstore. Jarred checked his detector and gave John an eager grin and a thumbs up.
Grace jerked her thumb at the pair of locals. “Make yourself useful and organize the lights, will ya?” It wasn’t like her to be so blunt, but then John saw that her torchlight was shaking and heard the tension in her voice, despite her outward bravado.
‘Won’t do any good,’ his father’s voice said within his head. ‘You’ll see her better in the dark.’ John dismissed this gloomy advice with a shake of his head. Normally his father’s voice was helpful and uplifting, but now it had a tone of resignation about it.
“Okay folks, let’s get into formation and get this felon busted,” John said. He drew his pistol, lined it up with his torch. He motioned for Jarred to get behind while he led his troops into the darkness. The rest of his squad followed, spreading themselves out across the width of the mall in a V-shape, their torch-lights randomly flitting from one darkened shop to another.
They passed a clothes shop. The mannequins in the shop-front window watched them as they approached. Out of the corner of his sight, John thought he saw one of them move. He watched them watching his squad pass. Their limbs remained in their various poses, but their heads turned to follow John as he and his squad crept past. The rest of his squad didn’t notice anything; they were oblivious to the sinister watchers as they crept past and their focus was the bookshop. John saw that his flashlight did not alter the mannequin’s ominous, soulless smooth faces, but all of their eyes were on him while he moved. He knew with a dream certainty that they were reporting their progress back to the woman in yellow, but he also knew that his squad would not believe him if he were to tell them, so he kept moving. Occasionally he turned back to check on the menacing mannequins, and each time he thought they had shifted themselves closer to the window.
Outside the bookshop, John saw a display of on-sale items. His rational self knew that they should have been dra
gged back into the shop when it had closed for the day, but the security roller-doors were open and there was a glow coming from within the store. His dream self took a step closer, but some books in the sale display caught his eye.
One book said ‘Courage to Trust.’ He grinned to himself and was tempted to pick it up, despite his current mission. Then he saw the one next to it that was titled ‘The Harmony of TrUSt.’ As he looked at the title, the words ‘us’ and ‘trust’ shimmered and merged and for a moment he read it as ‘Trust us.’
A noise of breaking glass outside the bookshop made all his squad swing back around. Their flashlights all converged on a naked mannequin that had fallen through the clothes shop window and was now lying motionless on the floor in the middle of the mall walkway.
“Half of you come with me.” Grace signalled and directed the squad accordingly. She was already moving off to investigate and was directing her squad into a flanking position.
John stood motionless. He knew that it was a bad idea, that it was a trap and that horrible things were going to happen to them, but he couldn’t make his mouth move to warn them. He had to watch them disappear, one by one into the clothes shop.
When he turned back into the bookshop, he saw that the books that he had been looking at before had changed into bottles. Their labels were the same, but they contained swirling concoctions that glowed with a pulsating golden light. With a mechanical inevitability, John watched his hand pick up one of the ‘Trust’ bottles. He brought it to his mouth. The lid had magically come off and wispy fumes spilled out.
“Is dat a good idea, boss?” Marcus asked. On one level John saw how stupid it would be to drink something that was glowing yellow and spewing out toxic fumes, but in his dream, he waved away the concerns. In his mind he told himself it would help him to get the woman in yellow.
He put the bottle to his lips, but all that came out was more of the dry ice-like fumes. They fell out of the bottle, filled his mouth with a dusty taste, then overflowed and cascaded down his body, swirling and pooling about his feet, covering his boots in a yellowish glow. He tipped the bottle back upright and examined it closely, but found it had turned back into a book, but it was one that did not open. It was just a cardboard box with the printing of a book’s cover on the outside. He wanted to throw it away in disgust, a feeling of disappointment welling up from deep inside. He had hoped the bottle-book would have been that elusive something he had been searching for. He should have known he wouldn’t have found it in a shopping mall.
“Hey, bro’,” Jarred broke into his reverie. “We got movement.” The green light from Jarred’s detector bathed his face, bringing it into a harsh chiaroscuro that did nothing to hide his fear. “Getting multiple readings…”
His panicked voice was cut off by screams from the clothing shop next door and the hammering of gunfire. The rest of John’s squad rushed off to help their comrades, but John knew with a morbid finality that they were already lost. There were more shouts and the peppering of light arms fire, but soon the last strangled cries were cut-off and silence fell suddenly like an executioner’s axe.
“The readings are off scale.” Jarred was so totally absorbed in his instrument that he was oblivious to the danger all about them.
John scanned the room with his pistol and flashlight as he turned towards the exit, expecting at any instant to find their escape blocked by a phalanx of mannequins. “Come on lil’ bro, we’re leaving.” John fought to keep his voice calm but he felt a mounting urgency.
Jarred looked up briefly from the display and John saw his brother’s eyes widen as he backed away. “What’s happened to you?”
“What do you mean?” John asked, but he knew that something was wrong when he tried to step towards his brother and found that his feet were stuck. The golden, glowing mist coiled around his feet and was now wrapping itself around his legs, anchoring him to the spot.
“You’re glowing, man.” Jarred had stopped backing away and John saw that his scientific curiosity had prompted him to probe him with the detector. “It’s you,” he said, his voice a mixture of wonder and revulsion. “It’s definitely you. You’re showing up…wait a minute…”
John saw the woman in yellow glide in silently behind Jarred. Ragged bullet holes still oozed crimson stains. Her hair clung in dried, bloodied strands across her face. Her tanned skin was pale, almost blue and her lips white from blood loss, but it did nothing to diminish her menacing presence. Gossamer yellow fabric billowed about her like the wings of a falcon as she loomed up behind his geek of a brother who was rubbing his forehead, still trying to work everything out. “Whoa, big spike now. It’s going off-scale…”
John wanted to scream out a warning to his brother, but his voice wouldn’t work. He lifted his arms to try for a shot, but saw that his arms had changed. His uniform and gun were gone, and his skin now had a porcelain, plastic smoothness that and his arms grew increasingly harder to move.
Jarred was still studying the detector display when John saw the wraith-like woman in yellow envelop his brother and pass around and through him. Her glowing translucency allowed John to see his brother cough and shiver uncontrollably. Jarred hunched over and propped himself by clutching at a book-stand, while his body was wracked by a burbling fit of coughing. It sounded to John like he was drowning in mustard gas. The detector’s screen lit up in a brilliant green flash, before going completely blank.
The woman in yellow swept around behind John. He could only barely turn his head to follow her. He felt the heat of her breath in his ear. He forced his body to turn to face her. His feet were firmly rooted to the spot, and he felt his skin cracking as his torso and neck twisted around. Flakes and chips of mannequin skin fell to the floor.
Through the book-shop door, he could see his squad gathered in the mall outside. He could recognize their faces and the larger bulk of Marcus and Akeem, but they all had become mannequins. They now stood, smooth skinned in genderless nakedness amid their conquerors, some of whom had huge chunks missing.
As he stared at the mannequins, music started. The scene changed to the nightclub complete with lasers and strobes. The mannequins gyrated mindlessly under ultra-violet light, their sleek bodies rendered in harsh brilliance.
“Do you want to be like them?” the wraith woman’s voice whispered inside his head. “Is that what you want?” He could not see her and he couldn’t turn around anymore. His cracked skin had reformed, smooth and hard, trapping him in a backward, twisted stance. He could not hear Jarred coughing anymore and knew that he too had turned into a mannequin.
“Come, join with me.” The malice in her voice echoed in his mind over the background music. Her arms felt hot as she wrapped them around his body. Writhing burning tentacles snaked around his body seeking to assimilate him. “We shall become as one forever.”
John struggled with renewed rage and panic. With a guttural cry, he strained against the hard plastic body that imprisoned him. He felt his stiff body tilt and over-balance. He fell, head first, tumbling like a toy soldier, over and over into a gaping, dark endless chasm.
Chapter 14
John woke a little before midday bathed in sweat. Hot late morning sun poured through the open curtains and his top sheet had wrapped itself around his body. His clock radio pumped out the latest offering from some newbie rapper. A bad dream, he told himself, but the trapped feeling persisted.
His thoughts then turned to Angela. He remembered that she had left her number. He was tempted to ring Angela straight away, but thought it better to talk to Jarred first. Although he was his little brother, he was so much smarter in many ways. Also their three-year age difference didn’t seem to matter so much now that they were both in their twenties as it did when he was seven. Besides, he would be glad to get some different perspective on the situation. He found Jarred having another break from study with the PlayStation.
“Hey, bro.”
“What’s up man?”
“You remember that d
rugged girl from the other night?”
“The one you don’t think about very much?”
“Yeah, that’s her. Angela’s her name.”
“Okay, what about her? Did she turn up last night at the club?”
“Yeah, she gave me her number.”
“That so?” said Jarred, putting the game on pause. “What’s the plan then?”
“She wants me to call her before five.”
“A deadline? Not a timewaster, is she?”
“Apparently not. A woman on a mission, it seems.”
“Man, that almost seems a little scary,” Jarred said, “especially ‘cause she looked a bit out there, you know.”
“Nah. Last night she was dressed normally. Looked kinda nice. She came to say sorry for the other morning.”
“Ha! Women, can never figure them out. They’re totally foreign.”
“Totally.”
“So, you going to call her? I mean, like, are you ready for another relationship? You know, after Nat?”
Her name brought back a flood of memories in an instant. Natalie had been the one. He had committed himself to her and only her. In his mind they were to be forever, but then, suddenly she was gone. “Yeah, I miss Nat, but…” it still hurt to say and he sighed from the depths of his heart. “You’ve got to move on, don’t you?”
“Sure, you know; if you’re ready, why not?”
“Ain’t getting any younger.”
“Yeah, and the world might end tomorrow.”
“Might end today,” said John. “You saw the alien spaceship last night didn’t you?”
“Yeah, didn’t zap anyone.”
“You almost sound disappointed,” John said.
“I don’t think it’s here to take over. At least, not right away.”
“Oh, yeah? That’s just what Angela was saying too.”
“Well, she must be smarter than she looked.”