by J. D. Laird
When Gabriel first hears the rustling he isn’t sure it is real. He thinks the sounds are coming from the void. It is trying to speak to him in a distant and foreign tongue. But as reality comes back to him, as Gabriel feels his head resting heavily on his crooked arm, he knows that the sounds are nearer to him rather than hidden in some deep abyss.
Gabriel straightens his back and perks up his head. His head is on a pivot and his eyes are wide. It is still dark, night, but the moon is bright and casts a pale gray glow on everything in the library. Gabriel listens for the rustling more intently. He pinpoints its location as coming from the opposite end of the room. There are two entrances to the library, one at either end. Gabriel has fallen asleep near the one closest to the front. He is hidden from anyone peering into the room by a wall of books, but the shelves are low, They had been built to be accessible by the intended users of the space. Every book is within reach to a curious child, even on its highest shelf.
Remembering this, Gabriel curls his head into his chest as he slowly rises to a kneeling position. The rustling sound, like papers being sorted through, is getting closer. Gabriel hears whispers too. There are two voices, one male and one female.
“Are you sure it’s here?” The male speaks. His voice is a rich and deep. An older man, Gabriel figures.
“Of course. And why the hell are we whispering?” This was the female. Her voice is soft and higher pitched. She is young,
“Out of reverence for the dead.” The male says solemnly. Gabriel can tell he means every word.
“What? You afraid of waking up ghosts?”
“Yes.” The word is like the stamp of a courtroom gavel. It is the final verdict on the matter at hand.
There is a faint glow, two of them, like distant flames. The light is accompanied by the sound of sloshing in metallic canisters as the mysterious strangers move. They have handheld gas lanterns, Gabriel figures out. The radiating beams of light shine over the bookcases as they drew nearer, and Gabriel can tell now what they are doing. He can hear them as they pulled books off the shelves. They flip through them and then toss them aside. They are searching the rows of bookshelves. It won’t be long before they get to his shelf. Gabriel wraps his hand around the grip of the empty revolver he had gotten off the corpse in the alley. He pulls the barrel from his waistband.
Gabriel slows his breathing and holds still. His grip on the gun is tight. There is no way of knowing who these people are. They may be lost ones, like him. People seemingly abandoned in this parallel world to the one they had once known. Or, they could be the ones who turned the world around to begin with? Gabriel braced himself for the inevitable confrontation.
He knows the gun’s ammo chambers are empty, but it is dark, and his companions will only be able to see the shape of the weapon in the shadows. Gabriel will have to use the time he has to gain some ground before they realize his bluff. If he is lucky, he might even get some answers. Gabriel hopes that these strangers don’t have weapons as well, and if they do, that theirs aren’t loaded as well.
“Found it!”
The words cut through the air sharply and Gabriel’s body reacts in a way he doesn’t expected. He springs out from behind the bookcase and points the gun in the direction where he had heard the voice. His barrel faces the female on the other side of the bookcase. He holds the barrel of his gun inches from her nose. She looks terrified. Her eyes are wide orbs of pure fear.
“Woah!” Says the man off to Gabriel’s left-hand side. Gabriel sees his hands are up, showing his palms. He loosely holds a lantern handle with a curled up pinky finger. He is pumping his hands at Gabriel, signaling him to stop before he can even go. Gabriel realizes he has all the power.
“We don’t want any trouble.” The man says. He is heavyset, black, and has a grey beard that wraps around his chin. He is wearing a wool sweater and khaki pants. There is a backpack on his back and a cotton cap on his head. He looks concerned.
The woman is trembling. She too is African American. She is younger, a daughter perhaps. Her hair is in braids and tied back behind her head. She wears a grey hooded sweater and blue jeans. She has her own backpack slung around one shoulder. Around her forehead she has wrapped a scarf. It has brilliant colors that Gabriel can make out even in the dim of the moonlight.
“What are you doing here?” Gabriel’s voice sounds strange when he speaks. It is odd to hear his voice out loud. It feels even stranger to be having a conversation. He tries to push these queer feelings aside and maintains his assertive stance. He keeps his gun pointed at the young woman.
“Just looking for something.” The man says, daring to edge himself closer. “Just let us go and we’ll leave you alone.” His eyes are dancing between the young woman and the gun.
“Stay back!” Gabriel shouts. The volume of his voice echoes off the walls of the library making the place seem even emptier than it is. It feels even more like a tomb. The man stops his advance and takes a step back.
“Please.” He begs, “Don’t hurt her. We’ve all lost so much already.”
It was the truth and Gabriel feels it, but he doesn’t trust these people. He wants to trust them, but he needs to stay alive. He needs to stay alive for his daughters who might still be waiting for him to rescue them.
“Answer my question.” Gabriel says. “What are you doing here? What were you looking for?”
“It’s stupid.” It was the woman this time. Gabriel turns to look at her. Her eyes are fixated on the gun. Gabriel sees her for the first time, a woman, but only just. Perhaps she is only just over eighteen years old. She still has blemishes on her skin and the lines around her eyes and mouth are faint. The signs of youth. To her chest she clutches a book, the title facing away from Gabriel.
Gabriel gestures to the book, using his gun as his indicator. “The book, what is it?”
The woman looks to the older man for approval and then stares down at her feet. “I told you, it’s stupid.” She is embarrassed. She stands at the end of a gun and she is ashamed by what she holds in her arms.
“Show him, Tayna.” The man edges the girl on. He flicks his lantern in her direction, like a gentle nudge. The light cascades over her small frame.
Begrudgingly the young woman turns the title of the book around so that Gabriel can see it. He can barely make out the cover image in the moonlight, but the glow of the fire in the lanterns of the others in the room helps. On the cover is a picture a short person, a child perhaps, only with a head that is too big and with eyes that are just two large black ovals. The person is naked and their skin is gray. Above the figure is a flat, round object with another round dome atop it. It is metallic and the whole object looks like an old time bowler’s hat. Above it are three letters that tell Gabriel that the person on the cover of the book isn’t a person at all. There is a subtitle too.
The full cover reads, “U.F.O.s: What we know about them and what they know about us.”
16 Madison
Something black and solid strikes the face of the ventilation hatch and the sharp slits that make up the grating cuts into Madison’s face. She yelps and tilts her head back. Her neck aches she is unable to move any further due to the confines of the shaft.
“Shut the hell up!” Somebody yells. It is a raspy voice, like someone shouting a whisper. Madison can’t see where the person is, but knows they are a woman. She senses them standing just below the ventilation duct’s opening.
“Hello?” Madison says, matching the tone of her unseen companion. “Please, help.” The words escape from her like the last bit of steam escaping from a dilapidated vehicle, overheated, its engine burned out.
“Just hold tight and shut up.” The voice says.
Madison doesn’t care what she is holding tight for. For all she knows this person was one of the ones that had attacked the base and caused the roof below to cave-in. But in that moment Madison doesn’t care. It would be better to die by a bullet then stay trapped in that tight space forever.
Madison rests her forehead against the grating. Her whole body has relaxed into complete complacency. There is nothing left to do but wait. She can hear rustling sounds below her. It is the sound of a metal object being dragged across the floor. Madison closes her eyes and just listens. The sound of another living being is comforting in comparison to her lonely struggle up and out of the maintenance tunnel.
She then hears boots on metal and a muffled grunt. Madison lets her eyelids peel open and sees the face of a woman with strong lines and a black complexion staring back at her from the other side of the ventilation hatch. She has the barrel of a rifle pointed at Madison’s head.
“Who the hell are you?” The woman says. She is young, in her twenties. She has black curls tied back behind her head in ponytail. Round almond-colored eyes can be seen behind a squinting and suspicious brow. Madison can tell by her fatigues that she is a part of the Air Force Security Forces.
“Comm’s officer.” Madison manages to squeeze out of her lips. “Madison Hart, First Lieutenant.” It sounds weird to hear her own name said aloud. She had never expected to hear it again.
“What’s the e-code ?” The woman shouts back. She closes one eye, lining the barrel of her rifle up. She is aiming it between the slits in the venting at the space between Madison’s eyes.
E-Code? Madison mind is blank. It is empty from hunger, dehydration and utter fatigue. She is emotionally spent and her body is running on empty. Her mind tries to grasp what the woman is saying.
“The e-code!” The woman says louder, though still cautious of the volume of her voice. She seems afraid that someone might hear them.
E-codes are sent out weekly, Madison seemed to remember. The “e” stands for emergency. It was sent via a confidential e-mail to all base personnel. It changed every week, presumably just for this situation. So that when two base personnel met they would know that the other was not an intruder. So that both would know that they were both supposed to be there. But what was the code? Madison had made a conservative effort to remember it. But that was back when she had the mental energy for such a task. She had remembered it just in case one of her superiors decided to quiz her while in the hall. The code was stuck somewhere in her brain, she just had to pry it loose.
“Three…” The woman with the rifle starts counting. Madison assumes when she gets to one Madison would have a bullet in her brain. She tries to make that same brain work now. She tries to remember what the secret password was that would spare her life.
“…two…” Security personnel no doubt took the e-codes more seriously than everyone else. It was a part of their jobs to know the codes and to enforce them. Had Madison been talking to anyone else, in any other department, they would see her uniform, she that she had clearly been in some distress, or heard her rank, and immediately helped. But this woman is from security. It is her job was to keep everyone safe by following procedure.
“…one.” The woman tightens her grip and the muscles on her fingers around the trigger of her rifle tighten. Madison braces herself for the potential pain that will follow. It will be quick, Madison reminds herself. Death will be instant. That is, as long as this soldier is an even half-decent shot.
Shot! The word rattled around in Madison’s head shaking something loose.
“Whiskey-Bravo-Tango-Alpha-Alpha-Nine-Two-Three.” Madison stammers. The words explode out of her just like she had rehearsed them a thousand times. They spill forth from her frigid memory. Her brain is thawing. It is the same effect that a shot of whiskey has after a hard day.
The woman holding the rifle freezes. Her teeth are clenched and her pupils are dilated. The muscles in her neck are stretched taunt. She is ready to fire the rifle in that moment, but instead she lowers it. Throwing the rifle over her shoulder where it dangled by its strap, both women’s bodies relax.
“Well, why the hell didn’t you say so to begin with?” The security woman’s mouth and brow are still firm flat lines. They are calloused features set in stone from grim thoughts. She is a woman hardened by military service. Madison ses that her eyes are softer now though. They have lost their ravenous fire. “I nearly shot you, you know?”
“Please, get me out of her.” Madison wheezes. She had been holding her breath in anticipation of her death. When she speaks, she releases all of her fear and associated tension.
“Yea. No problem, Sir.” The woman pulls a knife out of her utility belt and works the blade into one of the screws holding the grating onto the wall. With a few flicks of her wrist she works the screw loose and it falls to the floor. Madison wonders why she didn’t carry a knife herself. How much easier it would have been to open the ventilation hatch in the tunnel below had she had a knife and not of had to use her decorated stripes. They were not just decorated, they were decorative, Madison thought. If she survived this she suspected somehow she would get more.
The grating that had previously kept Madison from any hope of survival pops off the wall. The other woman gently lowers the hatch onto the box she is standing on. She then reaches inside the ventilation shaft with two powerful arms and wraps them around Madison’s shoulders. She pulls while Madison pushes. Madison’s body shoots out of the shaft like a pressurized cork. Madison spills onto the metal box the woman has been standing on and nearly knocks them both off.
“Geezus!” The woman in security fatigues exclaims. “You must either be damn skinny or able to suck it in real good. How the hell did you fit in there?”
“I had to.” Madison manages to say. Her body is draped across the top of the box, limp. “No other way.”
Madison’s body feels like a spring that has been uncoiled. Every muscle and joint sparks to life as blood flow rushes through her body, returning to numb limbs and digits. She feels a brief sense of elation as the feeling of renewed wellness floods her brain. She is alive and she is free. Soon there may even be rescue.
“Now get up, Sir.” The other woman says this as she pulls Madison from her dream-like euphoria. She leaps down from the box and gestures for Madison to do the same. But Madison is content to just lay there. She is happy to never move again until a medic comes by to carry her off to the nearest medical base for help.
“We gotta move.” The woman prods Madison again.
It is now that Madison remembers what she had learned in the control room. The memory is like yet another shock to her system. There were no communications. For all she knew no one is talking to anyone. No one knows that she is there in that base. She has no choice if she wants to live but to push herself a little farther.
Madison rolls over and off of the box. She flops forward and the other airman catches her. She steadies Madison until she finds her balance. To Madison it feels weird to use her feet again.
“What happened?” It was the only question Madison could think to ask. The cave-in had come so suddenly, but had not affected this wide entryway. It was after all designed to be invulnerable to a cave-in or any attack.
The security woman drapes Madison’s arm around her back, supporting Madison’s weight. The two of them cross the floor of the open entry space in tandem, careful to avoid fallen bits of rock that had seeped through. “We got hit. That’s what happened.” The woman replies.
“But how is that possible?” Madison’s head was still swimming. She pushes her body further as they make their way in the direction of a small security hut. It is a cubical structure, only five feet by five feet. There is a single door and windows all around the brim. The small hut stands in the middle of the entryway, with two lanes of traffic on either side. One lane for vehicles going out and one lane for vehicles coming in. All were checked by security personnel at this small building.
“Us...this base...nobody knows we exist. How did we get attacked?” Madison says this between heavy breaths.
“Somebody knew.” The woman responds. “Our government knew. They were the only ones.” She is growling as she voices her assumption.
“You think our own government bombed us?” Mad
ison is shocked. The thought had not even been a seed within which to grow in her mind. She had no concept for the scope of the betrayal.
“They’re the only ones that knew we were here, right?” The woman says as they near the security building. “And you know this program would have been unpopular with the public. Maybe they took us out before some politician could get a bum rap.”
When they got to the security shed, the woman nudges the door open with her foot. Madison wobbles inside on her own. The woman steps inside after her, locking the door shut behind her as she enters. “It wouldn’t be the first time the government tried to cover up its own covert operations. Remember Roswell and Area 51?”
17 Gabriel
“Aliens?”
The idea is absurd. Images of little green men with ray guns flash in the eye of Gabriel’s mind. That, and the images of those that had called him an ‘alien’ as a boy. His father had been an immigrant, and to some, an unwanted invader. The word held an emotional power that reminds Gabriel of the bronze color of his skin.
“I know it sounds ridiculous.” The older man says as he scratches at his beard. “But when you’ve ruled out all rational and natural explanations, it is time to look at the irrational and unnatural.” The man shakes his head, clearly uncertain he even believes the idea himself. “I don’t have any other word for it. No other concept. I’m putting together what I can with what I can. Aliens, U.F.O.s, extraterrestrials. Whatever you want to call them. Something came and took over this planet and those are the only words I have to describe what I’ve seen.”
Gabriel is in disbelief. He leans back in his chair. From their initial confrontation in the library, Gabriel, the older man and the young woman had all migrated down to the school’s abandoned teachers’ lounge. There were no bodies here. A large window overlooked the playground and let in a lot of moonlight. The man, whose name Gabriel had found out was Jules, had a camping lantern that was fueled by gas. He had lit it and set it in the center of the table to give them extra light.