Harvest Earth

by J. D. Laird

  As if someone has pulled out the electric cord on an earthquake, the shaking of the fire escape stops instantly and the light disappears. Gabriel knows, however, that the vessel is not gone. He knows it has landed only a flight of stairs away. The direction of the vehicle, the way the vibrations and the lights had stopped, all of it tells Gabriel where the object had gone.

  Gabriel grips the barrel of his firearm and decides to investigate.

  34 Madison

  The second time that Madison wakes up she is lying in a bed with the covers drawn up over her. She is still wearing the same outfit she had been wearing the night before. They are the same borrowed clothes from the woman whose son had beaten and kidnapped her. Madison’s jaw still aches from where he had struck her and now the side of her forehead aches too. Madison reaches up and touched her head, relieved to see that there is no blood. She is even more relieved to find that this time when she wakes up her hands aren’t tied.

  Tobias is sitting near her in a wooden chair staring at the floor. He is holding himself and rocking. Madison debates springing out of bed and tackling him before he notices she is awake, but decides against it when she realizes where they are. It is a bedroom decorated in southwestern décor. There is a horseshoe over the mantle of the bed and the fan overhead has horses painted on the fan’s blades. The realization of what has happened comes quickly.

  “Tobias.” Madison says his name softly this time, trying not to startle the young man.

  Stopping his rocking, Tobias peers up at her from underneath his draping bangs. She knows he won’t talk to her, but that’s fine because all Madison wants is for him to listen.

  “You brought me here, didn’t you?”

  Tobias shakes his head in confirmation. It is a nod that is so subtle Madison barely notices it. The light in the room is dim, it is dark outside. While she had slept, Tobias had lit a candle that provided them with a low light in which to communicate.

  “I’m sorry I hit you but you understand why I did that right?” Madison is trying to remain calm, to remain rationale. She wants to give the man who had kidnapped her the benefit of the doubt. He hadn’t killed her after all. If he had wanted her dead she would be. He wants something else and Madison wanted to know what that something is.

  Tobias nods. He seems remorseful. Madison can’t be sure, but it looks as if he has been crying.

  “You can’t just take people places against their will.” Madison is lecturing Tobias now. “That’s not how you treat other people.”

  Tobias pauses.

  Madison realizes she must have struck a chord deep in Tobias’ own heart. Tobias after all had been taken away from his own home as a teenager. Who had taken him Madison wasn’t entirely convinced of, but she was certain that something traumatic had happened to the young man. Maybe that is why he had taken her, she thinks, to show her what it was like. It is a dark thought for a dark situation.

  “Tobias, did you mean to hurt me?” It is an important question but one that Madison is beginning to think she already knows the answer to. This man, who seems more child than adult, appeared unable to control his behaviors. He rocks himself, can’t speak and seemed incapable of eye contact. She is beginning to understand his limitations.

  Tobias shakes his head ‘no’ in response to her question. Madison lets the next couple of moments pass in silence.

  She props herself up in bed to study him further. Tobias has cuts on his exposed forearms, presumably from shattered glass. Madison wonders if he had been wearing his seatbelt when the truck had flipped. She can’t remember. She had been too focused on her own escape, too focused on regaining some control.

  “Tobias,” Another question comes to mind. “Who taught you how to drive?” Madison immediately notices her error when Tobias doesn’t stir. It was an open-ended question, one that he can’t answer. She rephrases it, “Did your mother teach you to dry.”

  He shook his head ‘no’.

  “Did somebody else teach you, a friend or a neighbor?”

  Another ‘no’.

  “Then-“ Madison pauses, trying to carefully phrase her next question. “Tobias, were you taking me somewhere to show me something?”

  He nods in affirmation, again he moves slow, almost hesitant.

  “Were you taking me to the people that attacked us?”

  Again, another slow nod.

  “Were these the same people that took you?”

  He nods ‘yes’, still staring at the floor.

  “Then you know where they are?”

  This time Tobias doesn’t nod, instead he stands. Madison suddenly is filled with anxiety. She braces herself for another confrontation, not willing to be caught unaware again. However, instead of moving towards her Tobias goes to a small bookshelf that is on the other side of the bed. He methodically peruses the shelves. He looks past the romance novels, the self-help books and the history tomes. Instead he finds an encyclopedia and flips it open. He starts to browse through the pages, flipping through them clumsily, his thick fingers sticking to the pages.

  Madison moves slowly to the edge of the bed as Tobias does this. She is careful to try not to disturb him though. She rises up carefully, testing her legs and is grateful that they aren’t too sore. Her bare feet roll across the hardwood floor of some stranger’s bedroom as she moves around the side of the bed to get closer to Tobias. Madison remains ever cautious should the young man’s mood suddenly change and he suddenly turn on her.

  When he finds the page he is looking for, Tobias turns to Madison and hands her the book sluggishly. She is grateful that he is moving so slowly, perhaps aware of her mistrust for him. She looks at the encyclopedia page. Pictures of the Lincoln Memorial, the White House and the Washington Monument dot the page. At the top, the title of the page reads, ‘Washington D.C.’.

  Tobias holds up one finger slowly, careful to show Madison that he does not intend to hurt her. Seemingly without looking, his eyes still on the floor, his finger then points to one image on the page. It is the picture of a tall structure. The one where one man had once recited the words ‘I have a dream’, and many after him had attempted to recapture that same energy.

  “This is where we’re going?” Madison asks.

  Tobias taps the picture twice in affirmation.

  “All right, then.” Madison closes the booked and hands it back to the man. “But this time I’m driving.”

  35 Gabriel

  The gun in Gabriel’s hand rattles as Gabriel climbs the ladder that leads from the fire escape to the roof. He tells himself it is the Fall air making him shake. He tells himself that because the alcohol is wearing off that only now can he feel the chill of autumn on his skin. However, the jittery feeling in Gabriel’s gut doesn’t lie. He has tremors because he is scared.

  His body is still weak from his binge and his head is sore. Gabriel tries to focus but it hurts to think. Gabriel wonders what he is doing even as he is doing it. Why did he feel this need to investigate? Maybe he should have just done it. Just pulled the trigger with the barrel of his gun pressed against his temple and ended it. Why did he feel the need now to see the thing that had landed on the roof of his apartment building? Why did it matter to him?

  It was a part of his healing, he resolves. The discovery will be a part of Gabriel’s new commitment to start to put the pieces of himself back together. He has to know. It is a biological imperative, perhaps, a man’s need to explore the unknown. It is a part of the human condition. Gabriel can’t live without knowing. He will never be able to fully heal without exploring this new world and all the mysteries it holds.

  Gabriel had spent years doing things because he had been told to but without ever knowing why. He had never questioned his superiors. They seemed too distant to him, they lived lives that were foreign and that Gabriel couldn’t understand. They spoke their own language of hedge funds, 401ks and exotic places Gabriel had never heard of. They would ask him to clean up their messes. To do things that were beneath them to
even give a second thought. Gabriel had gone through the motions and had done what he had to. For his daughters, he had told himself. He did it all in order to provide for them. But they were gone now and so was that old world.

  Gabriel no longer wanted to cruise through life without asking the important questions. This is his time to get some answers. It is time to take control.

  At the top of the ladder, Gabriel peers up over the edge of the overhang. His eyes take in the scene and his numb brain absorbs the images passively at first.

  There is the saucer. It sits on the roof like something out of a movie. It is round and metallic. It is shaped like a dish with a concave circle on top. Its diameter total is probably twenty-five feet and it stands fifteen feet off the rooftop at its highest point. Yet, Gabriel notices the saucer isn’t resting on the tar of the roof. Rather, it is hovering. Just a few inches off the surface the saucer is floating. Along the object’s surface are a circular string of lights and a few portholes that are darkly tinted so that Gabriel can’t see inside. He wonders if whatever is inside can see out. Gabriel wonders if whatever being piloted the vessel could see him.

  There is movement then, caught by Gabriel’s periphery vision. He ducks his head and presses his body against the ladder and the side of the building. He is careful to keep his head low. He listens.

  There is the sound of something shifting off to his left-hand side. Something is moving towards the front of the building. Gabriel hears the sounds of tiny pebbles on the roof being shuffled around. There is also the sound of heavy footsteps taking a few paces. Then they stop.

  After a sufficient time of waiting and with no more sounds of movement, Gabriel dares a glance up onto the rooftop again. He hadn’t noticed earlier but there is a large humanoid creature standing on the edge of the roof. It stands peering out over the lifeless city. Whatever the creature is it is tall. It is probably seven feet tall, and has broad shoulders and a hunched back. The strange creature is covered in armor. It is covered in a metallic padding from head to foot. Whatever the being is it isn’t human. Gabriel knows this instantly when he sees the long tail. On it are scales, like a reptile.

  The thing seems unaware of Gabriel’s presence. It peers out over the landscape that Gabriel had once known as his neighborhood. From the side of its head a device projects a green light that seems to be scanning the scene wherever the creature moves its head. It is scouting for something, collecting data with the light. What the creature is searching for, Gabriel has no idea.

  Gabriel watches the creature for a while and loses track of time. His mind is still as he takes in his own data. Gabriel’s brain feels motionlessly as he wonders at the surreal nature of the moment. Yet, Gabriel knows this isn’t what he is supposed to do any more. Gabriel’s brain finally starts back up again. He isn’t a mindless drone. He is a human being. He is someone who will engage in the world. And with this creature, there is only one way Gabriel wants to interact.

  Anger wells in Gabriel’s chest and he feels his body swell with renewed strength. His daughters are gone and in some way this being had participated in the taking of them from him. Gabriel had wanted to die. In this moment, however, Gabriel’s grief bursts open and erupts as an overflowing wave of rage. Gabriel feels anger like he has never known before.

  Clenching the handle of his gun, Gabriel bounds up and onto the rooftop as stealthy as he can. He pauses for a moment, waiting for the creature or the bizarre saucer to lurch. Neither does.

  Gabriel’s nares flare and he grinds his teeth. Creeping, careful to roll his foot from heel to toe with each step, Gabriel approaches the creature from behind. The barrel of the gun Gabriel keeps pointed at the strange being. He holds the gun with two hands to steady himself. Twenty feet from the creature, Gabriel stops and drops to one knee. The rooftop is ablaze with light from the saucer but still Gabriel feels like a shadow. He is as dark and twisted as the city itself has become. He is this city now, one of the last of its people. To Gabriel this moment feels like humanity’s last stand. A last effort to repel a force that he is sure had taken the world by storm and obliterated its population in their sleep.

  Yet, Gabriel had woken up. Through some fault of these creatures he had survived. And now, for his daughters and all those children who would not know the joy of life Gabriel was going to exact revenge. He would kill this creature for all those who were overpowered by forces bigger than themselves.

  The sound of the first bullet from the forty-five caliber pistol is like a cannon’s roar in the still night. The kick of the gun shutters through Gabriel’s body and makes him feel invincible.

  Everything that followed happens quickly.

  Before the echo of the gunshot can bounce off the first brick, the saucer to Gabriel’s side shoots up and into the air. The now familiar vibrations rock the rooftop and a strange humming sound floods Gabriel’s head. Just as quickly it all stops. The saucer streaks across the sky and disappeared.

  The creature turns.

  Gabriel’s bullet has found its mark but disintegrates before making contact with the beastly form of his target. There is an aura around the creature, Gabriel realizes, something shielding it that causes the bullet to evaporate within inches from striking the being’s armored shell.

  When the creature turns Gabriel sees its face. It is reptilian, just like its tale. Its eyes are slanted and its pupils are dark vertical slits. The being’s nares are flat against its face. The mouth is long. The ridges of where its lips should be are just creases that run up to where the being’s ears should be. However, instead of ears, there are only two round circles on the side of the creature’s face. Attached to its face are prosthetics. They are metallic implants, including the green light that shines from the side of the creature’s face.

  With the light from the saucer is gone, Gabriel is in the dark alone with the beast. The monster roars, exposing rows of razor teeth and a long serpent’s tongue. The creature’s roar is horrifying, like the wailing of an animal that Gabriel had only ever seen in his nightmares and knows was never meant to truly exist. It is like staring at something from the darkest places of imagination, only now it is only a few strides away and Gabriel is poking it with a stick. Gabriel fires his gun several more times. He fires his gun as quickly as he can. Gabriel desperately hopes that with each shot that he can send the creature back to the pits of darkness where it had no doubt been born.

  But the bullets have no effect. Each one dissipates into nothingness as they strike the aura around the strange beast.

  The creature reaches for a device strung from the being’s hip. It holds grips the objects with its talon-like claws and points one end of the strange device at Gabriel. In an instant Gabriel recognizes the device’s shape. It has a handle, a nozzle and a trigger. Gabriel knows what would come out of the open end of the object that faces him and so he instinctively rolls onto his side.

  The blast that follows creates a crater where Gabriel had once been. A green flame bursts onto the rooftop and the impact of the minor explosion throws Gabriel’s body off-balance. The force is immense, unlike any he has seen from such a small firearm. Gabriel’s body skids across the tar on the roof. His hand loses its grip on his own weapon and the forty-five caliber pistol goes flying into the air. When Gabriel’s momentum stops, he finds himself on his stomach. He is vulnerable and without a way to protect himself.

  There are quickened footsteps behind him. Gabriel rolls onto his back to see the creature racing towards him. Its weapon is pointed at him. The being is shrieking as it runs, exposing it mouth. Its tongue is flailing out of its mouth. Gabriel knows that his death is near. All the being will have to do is to fire another blast from its weapon and Gabriel will be disintegrated.

  Yet Gabriel isn’t finished. He isn’t going to submit, not anymore. Not to anyone or anything.

  He looks for something to protect himself. Gabriel looks for something to save him as death looms only moments away. Something disg into Gabriel’s side as he scrabble
s in search of help. He gropes around his belt loop and finds his flashlight. It is the one that had been given to him as a Christmas present all those years ago. It is the same one that he had carried with him out of the basement, the one that he had attached to his belt, just like he did every day. Gabriel grabs the flashlight and flicks on the switch. The beam catches the creature in its eyes.

  There is another blast and another flash of green light, but this time it strikes off-mark. The creature shrieks louder than before, averting its gaze from Gabriel’s light. It doesn’t like the light, is blinded by it. Gabriel realizes he has made the creature even angrier.

  A desperate need for survival overcomes Gabriel. It is something primal all beings feel in the face of a predator. Gabriel springs to his feet and bolts back towards the fire escape. As he runs he keeps the beam of his flashlight trained on the face of the creature. The creature fires blindly at him, rays of green passing by Gabriel and exploding into bursts of emerald flame.

  Getting to the end of the roof, Gabriel jumps just as a burst of green flame erupts behind him. The air is filled with shrapnel pieces of brick and tar. Landing on the fire escape grating below, Gabriel’s knees buckle and he falls forward onto the railing. Luckily, Gabriel is able to brace himself as he nearly gets thrown off the fire escape from the force.

  Only a few moments of respite. Gabriel attaches his precious flashlight back to his belt buckle. He doesn’t have time to think, just act. He moves towards the stairs, hoping to race back down them to his apartment where he can regroup. But by the time Gabriel’s hand reaches the bannister it is already too late.

  The heavy form of the creature kicks him in the chest, like a wrecking ball, knocking the air out of him. Gabriel spirals backwards as the creature lands on the fire escape beside him.