by Glen Johnson
Shit!
I knew Dartmoor National Park was also – apart from an animal reservation – an army training ground. Many square miles were the property of the Ministry of Defence. In numerous places warning signs advertised that live rounds and explosives were being used in the area. This truck was possibly en route to one such training ground.
Would they have been stupid enough to carry the two items together? I hoped so. They certainly had enough soldiers to defend it if they had.
I had to pull the two bodies from the back to be able to get access to all the containers, which was sickening, considering they were in more than one piece.
All together there were eleven boxes similar to the one I had opened, all with the same red label, blazing across the front. But two boxes were different.
I opened one, the same way as I did with the first box, and was rewarded with a collection of small plastic devices, that I prayed were the detonator switches. On the back of the device was a simple metal pin sticking out. From the movies I had seen I believed this was punched into the putty like explosives. The small devices looked like a kitchen timer, the sort you switched on to count down to the appropriate length of time required to cook something. I even remember my third wife using one. My other two wives were similar to me when it came to cooking – order out.
Eleven boxes of what could be C4, and thirty-six detonators.
Bing-fucking-go!
“Thank God,” I muttered.
Hadn’t the old man said they had provided us with the Gods, with beliefs? Isn’t it ironic that I would be thanking something they had created. As I said, it would take me a while to adjust. Maybe that’s how smoking man knew so much about the bible; possibly he was one of the ones that had helped write it up in the first place?
Enough daydreaming. How was I going to get all this to the farmyard, which was a good five minutes away?
I looked around. A bonnet of a car lay upside down on the road. I pulled a length of rope from inside the army truck, which had probably, at one time, held all the containers together. I tightened it around the holes on the underside of the bonnet. I placed four metal boxes onto the bonnets wet metal surface and a box of detonators.
Rain was still streaming down like the biblical flood.
I leant inside the truck to smash open one of the remaining containers, then pushed a detonator into it. Leaving the seven remaining explosive containers inside the truck. The timer was set for twenty-five minutes. With enough luck the little firework display would attract some of their attention away from what I was about to do.
I wrapped the blood soaked rope around my hand, wedged it firmly on my right shoulder. Leaning forward I started pulling my cargo towards its final destination.
39
Rock the Earth
Sweat poured from my body, hair plastered to my face; my heart felt like it was going to explode inside my ribcage. I remembered thinking something like; the dye was still in my hair even after all the rain I had been doused with. And I couldn’t remember where my baseball cap had gone.
When the body is tired the brain randomly picks things to meditate on. I pushed the stupid thought aside.
I had pulled the bonnet that was carrying the four boxes of C4, and one box of sixteen detonators, all the way to the embankment. Then dragging two boxes at a time, by there handles, I struggled with them across the field towards the crashed ship.
I sat completely exhausted against the silvery surface of the craft that was wedge tightly in the ground.
The tall crane above had its powerful halogen lights blazing; the whole area around me was now illuminated like artificial daytime.
The rain pelted down as I sat there, not sure of how much time I had left. Or whether the reapers were pouring through right now. But didn’t they need me as a Key?
I looked up; the cool rain was refreshing, as I looked at the halo of water cascading down around the powerful light, my tired mind slipped to all those long relaxing days sat inside my conservatory, simply watching the famous wet English weather. I could, and would, sit for hours, going into a kind of hypnotic trance, while staring at the relentlessly moving thunderhead clouds and their falling mother load.
I hadn’t seen another being since I had escaped the evil midgets. Not counting the many dead upon the highway. My mind was now accustom to seeing death. I don’t know if I could ever look at the living the same way again. As the bible said, we are simply a fading mist, as soon as we are born the inevitable fading starts. And just like the morning mist, who will miss us?
A line from the song After the Storm, by a group called Mumford & Son’s, came to mind: you must know life to see decay.
I was considering placing the C4 around the outside of craft that was protruding from the ground, but I didn’t know if it would even warm its surface, let alone blow it up. But I simply wanted a diversion, but why not go for the complete show?
I opened the box of detonators and filled up the pockets of the tracksuit. It turned out the gaudy tracksuit, with its big baggy pockets, came in useful after all. Then, carrying a box of C4 under each arm, I headed towards the crafts entrance.
I was half expecting it to be guarded, but it wasn’t. All busy at the portal. The door swished open and I ran inside. I sort of knew my way around. With the single corridor running at a slightly downwards angle. I soon reached the first doorway.
Inside I used the small pocket-knife – which I had taken from the dead soldier – to cut away a small section of the C4. Like putty it adhered to the surface I pushed it against. Then I shoved in the grey plastic timer. I repeated this in three of the soul chamber rooms. All the while trying not to look at the green swirling mass of souls swimming about inside. I hoped this would release them, give them the rest they deserved.
Then on the last soul chamber that I put the explosives in, I pulled the two items from a pocket that I had gathered from the massacre upon the highway. On one section of glass where I pushed the C4 against, I pressed one corner of the photo into the greyish explosive surface, before forcing the timer in place. For all I knew the woman that I had prized the photo from, could at this very moment be watching me from the mass of moving souls on the other side of the glass. Then on another tank, after securing the plastic explosives, I pushed the timer in then hung the small pink knitted baby boot from it.
Their lives will be avenged.
I stood outside the last chamber. The chamber that held the tank with the strange articulated aliens inside. I simply left what remaining C4 there was by the closed door and then ran with all my might back the way I had come.
I was confused that there was no one was around to stop me. I would have welcomed a small alien half-pint to fill with lead from my acquired gun. But alas, none jumped from around a corner.
To be on the safe side I wedged a timer in one of the remaining two containers and ran a little way back inside the ship, leaving it on the metal decking.
One container left.
I sat hiding in the trees, the box beside me. I cut the loaf of C4 into five parts, each about the size of my hand, then I pushed timers into them and placed three back into the box and one in each of my pockets. They could come in handy.
I was so engrossed that the time had passed unnoticed. I was almost startled to death when a loud and powerful explosion knocked me back to my knees, as I was trying to stand up. The seven containers left inside the army truck had ignited.
I had no idea that C4 was so powerful, that’s if it was C4?
The fireball shot heavenwards, reducing all the down pouring rain to steam. The ball of flames raced outwards consuming a long line of stationary vehicles. All the petrol tanks added to the fireball. The trees around me bent under the onslaught of the shock wave. Heated air washed over me. The ground continued to tremble like an earthquake. The sound was phenomenal, making me press my hands firmly against my ears. The sound of rendering metal shrieked across the distance.
Silence ensued, as if
all the air was being used up at once by the heaven reaching flames. Through the trees I could see the extent of the explosion. The fireball now disbanded like a vast reddish-yellow mushroom.
Flames continued to shoot heavenwards as more vehicles gave way under the onslaught, adding numerous small explosions to the musical symphony.
Branches from the trees lay around me. I was covered in pine needles, dead leaves, dust and soil.
I could now hear the sound of metal falling back down to earth. A couple sections of what could be from the bus, landed in the field, along with smoking chunks of the highway. The explosion must have left a crater thirty meters wide.
I hoped it caught their attention. They would have had to be blind and deaf to have missed it.
I could see figures racing across the field. Possibly to check it wasn’t their craft that was going up in flames.
Soon, I hoped.
The old woman and her large son came bounding across, closely followed by five or six pygmy aliens, and a handful of fiery eyed mothmen.
I picked up the remaining container and wedged it under one arm, and held firmly to the gun in the other. I set out heading around the fringes of the trees towards the rear yard. Adrenaline enabling my aching body to move.
I stopped beside a tumbling down wall, straining my eyes trying to see what was happening by the entrance to the craft. I could just make out a midget holding a dark object against his chest, the old woman and son standing beside him trying to figure out what the object was.
They didn’t get time to examine it too closely, because one or possibly all the charges I had placed inside the craft detonated.
It started with a deep rumbling sound that seemed to seep from the ground itself, as if a huge powerful geyser was about to erupt.
I placed my remaining C4 down on the ground and perched behind the wall, hoping the rest wouldn’t tumble down on me.
The flames billowed out of the entrance, which ignited the container the midget was holding, and because he was now outside the fireball expanded.
All the figures disappeared in a bight white-yellowish encompassing circle of death. They must have been incinerated instantly; because even from the distance I was I had to duck behind the wall. Loose rocks dropped, just missing my head, with dust billowing from the gaps between the boulders. A hissing sound came from the rocks heating up.
Suddenly all went eerily silent.
It seemed like ages later when I eventually looked over my protective, now steaming barrier.
Earth and stones rained down from the sky. There was a crater where the entrance was, but the craft was still intact. The entrance was blown away, ripping open a large section of the metal hull. Metal was twisted and bent upwards, revealing sparking wires and hissing steam from numerous pipes. But the rest of the ship stood the same as before. Tons of soil had been blow away, revealing more of the craft beneath.
But not for long.
The large cranes lights had been blown out. The towering metal structure was also bent double; its extended arm lay twisted on the steaming ground. The rest came crashing down, with a cacophony of twisted, screeching metal.
The other charges now went off; possibly the build up was still going on deep inside, because suddenly the silver hull seemed to shimmer for an instant, thousands of small cracks appearing on its pewter surface, that welled blinding white light, before the whole vessel exploded like a supernova going critical.
I was blown back, landing hard, knocking the wind out of me. I quickly rolled onto my front when I saw the debris raining down.
The ground finally stopped shaking, and I shook the mud and fragmented stones from my back. I slowly climbed to my unsteady feet. The wall I had been hiding behind was flattened, along with one whole section of the farmyard, from what I could see. Dust was still settling. Dense smoke was rising to replace it.
I looked across to where the craft had been imbedded in the earth. It was now a gaping hole, immense in size. Fires raged around its circumference. Sections of now blackened metal stuck out from the bubbling soil. Small avalanches of boiling mud ran down the pits deep sides.
Smoke churned out from the hole as if it led directly to hell and someone had just poured untold amounts of water on hells fiery furnaces.
I looked around for the remaining C4 box, but with the falling wall and billowing mud it had been covered over. I dug around on hands and knees, but couldn’t locate it.
Shit!
Amazingly the gun was still held in my shaking grasp.
Most of the surrounding area was destroyed. The trees were all flattened. Fires still burning here and there on what remained of the tree trunks. Stones lay scattered everywhere. Was the farmyard flattened? I couldn’t tell because of all the dust in the air, and the mud still falling, not to mention the churning smoke; as thick as fog.
I couldn’t believe I had just survived the explosion that had decimated the vicinity. Luck was on my side. Hopefully it would hold out for a little while longer.
I started picking my way towards where I believed the gateway was situated. Hopefully it had been melted under the intense onslaught. With that thought my hand flew to the amulet. It was still hanging from my neck, under my tracksuit top. I gave a sigh of relief.
Then something made me stop.
A noise resonated, almost beyond my hearing. It could just be made out above the sound of falling debris. It sounded like a million voices crying out in mixture of happiness and deep sorrow. Then from the dark pit a swirling mass of whitish green hazy figures started climbing its steep sides.
There were hundreds of wispy images pouring over its rim, soon becoming thousands. Naked figures walking in all directions. Tall ones, short ones, some looking like they were holding hands, and even babies. It was the souls of those that had been inside the vast holding tanks. As they walked twenty or so steps the figures started to fade and disappear – vanish. Merging to wherever the souls go to after death. It looked like a few even looked in my direction.
Animals also poured from the hole of all sizes and descriptions. Ghostly shadows of birds took to flight like a startled flock.
A man and a woman were stood directly ahead, holding hands. The man was holding a baby to his chest. The woman raised a hand in thanks, the man nodded. Then they walked a few steps before fading away.
That one instant gave me hope.
They might have invented our Gods for us, but those souls were heading somewhere. Wherever it was, it was better than becoming an alien races power source for their engines of war.
Hopefully, I wouldn’t find out too soon just where.
40
The Opening
I could have stood and watched the ethereal images of those departing souls all night if I didn’t have a more pressing matter to attend to. One thing I did know was from that moment on death no longer frightened me. Even though I would rather not die anytime soon.
Just as that though was passing through my aching, tired brain, I felt a hand grip me around the throat with an unbelievable amount of strength. I was under no illusions that that hand could send me off in to the unknown if it so desired.
My eyes swivelled in their sockets to settle upon the remains of the bus driver, his already ripped open neck now had other injuries added to it. The upper side of his head was caved in, but no blood ran from the gapping wounds, because the host’s heart had stopped pumping long ago. His head must have been hit by flying debris, because one whole section of it was missing, with only a circle of bones protruding through the hanging flesh. It looked like he was wearing a skeletal crown.
The smoking mans one remaining bloodshot eye fixed upon my wide, frightened face.
“You fucking human,” he managed to squeeze between clenched teeth. I noticed the bottom half of his features, just above the rip in his neck, was pretty much unaffected by whatever had crushed his cranium in.
Then without another word he started to drag me, my feet raking along the ground. With
my fists I punched as hard as I could. Then I tried gouging, but my fingers came in contact with sticky cold skin. How do you hurt someone who’s already dead?
My pummelling had no effect on him, his hand was still clenched around my throat. I struggled for breath, having given up tossing my body around and concentrating on pulling as much air through my constricted airway as possible. My hands were now trying to remove his iron grip.
I could feel myself starting to slide into unconsciousness.
Inhale...
Exhale…
Stay awake you fucking pussy!
I was dragged bodily through the rubble that was once the outbuildings of the farmyard. To one side most of the large old farmhouse had collapsed in on itself. The wall running around the compound was flattened, and hardly any trees were left standing. Fires raged in some areas, greasy pitch-black smoke rising to meet the relentless heavy rain.