Carey growled as he ran to my feet and lifted his paws up onto my thighs. I scratched his head and looked up at the men. They hadn’t said anything yet, but they both raised their hands in an attempt to show a calming demeanor. Whether they were trying to tame me or Carey was unclear.
“Mr. Parker, we aren’t here to hurt you. Quite the opposite,” the first one said.
“My friends are going to come find me, and they have big guns.” The threat sounded weak as I said it.
“You can’t turn that device off. It will doom your planet. We want to help you,” the second one said, in the same voice as the first.
“How will it doom us?” My voice felt shaky as I asked. Both other cases of seeing these guys, they had started to say much the same. It was time to hear them out.
The first one paused as if to weigh his words and choose them carefully. “Janine was one of us, Dean. She stood against them. That device was indeed planted here centuries ago, by us. That much is true. But it is not a device to bring your people back. It is there to stop the Kraski from setting foot on your planet.”
“What the hell is a Kraski?” I asked, pulse racing.
“Kraski are a species from far away. They take over planets, expanding their reign of the universe. The half-breeds probably told you a story about the planet being poison to them. That’s only true because of the device being on. Janine and the others were created with human DNA and bred to fulfill the Kraskis’ motives. They’re a patient race. The plan has been in the works for a long time.”
My mind was reeling from this information. Were they telling me the truth? They seemed to know who I was, and who my wife was. But Vanessa’s story was so compelling. Was she using us to meet the Kraskis’ needs?
“So, what...the Kraski convince loved and loyal ones to turn this device off for them after they beam the people off the planet?” What this meant for Earth just crossed my mind. “This means there’s no way to bring everyone back, is there?” I could tell from the looks on their faces I’d hit the nail on the head.
“Not the way they told you, Dean. But there is a way. Don’t tell anyone about us yet. Get to the device first. You can’t let the others turn it off. All hope is lost if this happens. And keep an eye out for infiltrators. You never know who has been turned, and who you can trust.” They twisted and started down the alley, running away from us. The first one stopped and called to me. “Don’t tell anyone about this. We’ll be there when you need us.” And with that, they were gone down another alley.
Minutes passed and I just stood there sweating, my head aching from the heat and the news I just heard. Voices started calling for me, and Carey ran down the road, back toward the Jeep.
“Come on,” Magnus called. “Quit messing around; we have time to make up.”
I followed him back to the vehicle and got in, keeping my silence. The whole time I was wondering if I should tell the big man about the twins I spoke with. Don’t tell anyone about us yet. I didn’t know why, but for some reason, I heeded their advice.
EIGHTEEN
“What would you like? We have dried meats; a jerky of some kind. Maybe alpaca?” Magnus shrugged. “It’s Peru. We also grabbed a variety of fruit, but you’ve had some of that today.”
I spotted some bread, butter, and cheese. It looked so good at that moment, but my stomach was feeling extra heavy after the conversation I’d just had. Hunger for some good food won the quick battle. I grabbed my pocket knife and went to town on a sandwich, whipping one up for the others too. There I ate what I claimed to be the best post-invasion sandwich the world had ever seen.
The terrain was beautiful here and we moved down what must have been a secondary road, with few cars sitting on it. We kicked up dust as we made for the southern part of Peru. Grass greener than any I’d seen before scoured the landscape for miles, and we laughed when we saw the alpaca roaming on the hills beside us.
“You were right, Magnus. Unless those are llama. Then you’re so far off it’s not even funny.” I even said it with a straight face. I glanced back to Natalia and got a scowl for my trouble. Not only did she not talk, apparently her funny bone was malfunctioning too. I let it slide, knowing what horrors she must have been through. I gave her a soft smile and started to turn back. Carey was staring at his new friend in the rear seat, and I saw her give him a piece of meat and a pet. She did have the ability to melt the ice on occasion. I wondered if she and Magnus were more than friends, and felt a moment of jealousy that they got to go through this quest with someone they knew before it all happened.
“You okay there?” Magnus asked, and I realized I was sitting staring out the window with a half-eaten sandwich in my hand.
“I’m good. Just a lot to think about,” I replied, wishing I could share the burden I had pressed upon me back in town.
“Why Machu Picchu? Kind of a messed-up place to put some crazy alien device, don’t you think?” he asked.
“It actually makes a lot of sense, if you think about it. It’s one of those bizarre phenomena. They think the Inca built it for some emperor or something. Maybe he was really one of those hybrid guys and his magic, or technology, made them think he was a god. Also makes sense to put it somewhere it’ll be protected. Do you think any group of fanatics could go up there unnoticed? Probably not. Not a busy tourist destination that you can’t desecrate. Although they claim to have put it there hundreds of years ago. If by ‘hundreds,’ they meant the fourteen hundreds, then that would put it spot on with the building of the mountaintop city,” I guessed.
“How do you know so much about it? All I knew was the picture I once saw on a calendar.”
“Bit of a History Channel buff.” He looked at me sideways. “I know. I haven’t got out much the past couple years.”
Natalia tapped Magnus on the shoulder and passed him the GPS unit she had in the back with her. She pointed to the map and he veered off after a few minutes.
“That should take us around the next valley and save us some time. Thanks, Nat.” He winked through the rear-view mirror at her.
“What do you figure, Magnus? We have about two hours of light left now. I know you guys have been going through the nights, but do you think it’s more dangerous now?” I asked, trying to see where his gut was at. I wanted to get there tonight to see if we had any sign of Mary, Ray, or Vanessa.
“I have yet to see a ship, and we’re making good time. Have about what, three-fifty to go here?” Natalia must have given him the nod from the back seat. “Thanks. Let’s do it. Should get there by nine. With any luck, your buddies will already have arrived and we can do this thing. How do we get up to the top?”
“It’s so remote. Tourists usually take a train to this little town, Aguas Calientes; from there it’s up the mountain via switchbacks. We researched this...or Vanessa had researched this. If it’s raining, they say the roads can be treacherous. Hence the trains are the most used way to get there.” I was surprised they didn’t have any of this information. “Didn’t you guys know where this thing was? I thought your buddies told you all of this.”
He looked a little ashamed. “They told Natalia and asked her not to tell me until it happened. Really doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I guess they didn’t want anyone to go early, tamper with it, and maybe break something?”
A lot of things weren’t making sense to me. On one hand, Vanessa told us that they were brought here to save the world. That the bad aliens, who remained nameless, were going to whisk us all away, kill the majority, keeping a handful as slaves. Like her people. But if they trusted her people so much, how had they planted this device and then come here to warn us?
Then I had the lookalike aliens, who claimed the Kraskis couldn’t survive because of the device they’d planted here in Machu Picchu, of all places, known for its speculation of being tied to aliens. They also told me Janine was in on it. Was that why she chose me instead? She picked a battle side and thought maybe that I would figure it all out? Did she have that mu
ch faith in me? Why hadn’t she just outright told me all about it?
I had far too many questions and none of the answers. The way Vanessa so coldly shot the first one, and the fact they did nothing to harm me each time I saw them. I just needed us to get there before the others, if there were others still, so I could try to make the right decision. All of the military, mercenary, air force, and engineers, and the accountant was the one who had the fate of the world on his shoulders. My head hurt. It felt like tax season.
“They told Natalia, assuming she wouldn’t tell anyone, hey?” I felt suspicious of everyone at the moment. Maybe I was the only one who was really human. Mary felt human, but so had Janine. “We’re woven deep into this web of mystery. Natalia, I’ll take another chunk of emu jerky, please.”
Magnus and I laughed as we cruised down the road in the Jeep, the sun sinking on our right as we went.
______________
For the first hour after the sun went down, Magnus accepted my suggestion of keeping the lights off, but as we got close to our destination, the terrain was terrifying at moments. The narrow roads often flirted with the edges of hills that turned into small mountains. It had recently rained, and everything was covered in a thick, gooey layer of mud. I had to ask that he slow down. “We need to make it there alive to do this,” I’d said.
At seven thirty, he put the lights on, and I was sure that it saved us a dozen times on the last stretch there. Natalia got him to change course, and everything looked great. Then the storm hit. Flash floods hit fast down there, and in mere minutes, not only could we hardly see out the Jeep’s windows, but the roads were washed out completely. We fought it for a while and tried to find routes to get us to the little town at the base of Machu, but it was hopeless.
Magnus pulled over and rested his head on the steering wheel. Carey whimpered in the back seat as lightning flashed, followed by the booming thunder, telling us we were close to the source.
“You said there were trains, right?” Magnus asked, looking excited.
“Yeah, right to town,” I said, picking up on what he was suggesting. “Natalia, can I see the GPS, please?” I asked, moving to the east to look for the tracks. There they were, heading from the northeast. “Looks like there’s a side road over there, back a couple minutes. It’s going to be a crapshoot heading down there in this storm, but I think we’ll intersect the train tracks a short way down.”
Magnus lifted his head from the steering wheel and slowly looked at me, his blue eyes intense even in the darkness. The Jeep was lit up by the glowing orange lights coming off the dashboard, and I felt the desire to scan the sky for a ship. Did they not know we were here? It seemed to me there were two sides, and they both knew exactly where the thing was. If that was the case, why wouldn’t they just blow the damn thing to smithereens?
“Let’s do it! Train tracks it is!” he shouted, throwing the Jeep into reverse. We splashed and slid down the muddy mess, making a sharp turn at the road that would lead us to the tracks. Lightning flashed a few times, and I saw how deep the water on the street really was. I said a little prayer that the lightning wasn’t going to hit the water and shock us. I couldn’t remember if that was an old wives’ tale or not, but I made sure I wasn’t touching any metal.
“I can’t slow down! I won’t be able to get started again in this mess!” Magnus yelled over the storm.
We raced down the road mostly blind, water beginning to seep in the bottom of the doors.
“We better get there soon, or we’re going to be stuck,” I shouted.
The tracks elevated slightly from the ground beside them, and the Jeep climbed the incline eventually after sliding down the slick, muddy hillside. Once on top, we stopped to regroup. The storm was still raging; raindrops the size of quarters were falling hard on the windshield.
“Here we are, Dean. On the tracks to our second-to-last stop before the big moment. There’s no turning back now,” Magnus said as he put it into drive. The ride was an extremely bumpy one, even with the twenty-two-sized tires and suspension on this beast. We bobbled up and down like marionettes, and it wasn’t the first time I’d felt like the aliens’ puppets today. I checked to see if Carey was okay, and he was firmly sitting in Natalia’s lap. It was quite the sight.
“What happens if there’s a train ahead?” I asked.
“We try to go around it. Should be simple. Let’s just hope there’s not, and if there is, that it’s firmly parked outside town so it won’t matter,” Magnus said.
Our headlights shone up and down in numerous directions as we jostled about on the wet tracks. The clouds made it pitch black out at this point, but there was no sense in worrying about the aliens seeing us. We were all in. Committed to the job.
I could tell we were climbing some elevation, as my ears popped. Lightning flashed and I looked out the window, to see nothing but a cliff beside us to the right.
“Whatever you do, don’t veer to the right. Straight down to Deathsville that way,” I said, trying to sound like I was calm, completely betraying the hysteria I was fighting inside.
The miles piled on, and my back was already sore from bouncing up and down. We had mainly been riding alongside the mountain for the past hour, and Magnus had slowed down a bit. The rain still fell, but not as ferociously as before; the thunder and lightning duo only came to visit every few minutes now. We slowed down, and my stomach sank. There was a train on the tracks, a few hundred yards in front of us.
“Is there anywhere to pass on the left?” I asked, hopeful.
“I think there might be, but it’s pretty steep over there too.” Magnus clenched his jaw.
“Options?”
“Not many. Go around, or we climb over it and start to hike. Not an idea I want to explore much further. If we were only ten miles, I might say it’s a good idea. I figure we have another fifty or so.”
We didn’t have the luxury of time. I needed to beat the others there. “We go around with the Jeep,” I said firmly. He nodded at me and pulled off the tracks. We instantly tilted to the left twenty or so degrees. We followed the train for a hundred yards, and then we saw something that was going to ruin our whole plan. The mountain jutted up, and the train was in a tunnel. There was absolutely no way around the thing now.
“Damn it!” he yelled.
I racked my brain for ideas, but nothing was coming to me. If we walked, we were committed to the tracks. If we went to find a road, they could all be washed out, and even if we found a car out in the middle of nowhere, we might not be able to get through.
Natalia drummed her fingers on the console between the front seats. We both turned to her, and she rolled her brown eyes at us, like we were so obviously missing something simple. I’d seen that eye roll before. It was saying, “Men!”
“What? Do you have some brilliant plan, lady?” Magnus asked her softly, like he knew a secret about her and didn’t want to share.
She just pointed at the train and got out of the Jeep.
“You heard the woman. To the train.” Magnus got out of the Jeep and started to take his gear out of the back. “You coming, or you just going to sit there and have a nap?”
Carey had already jumped out and was running around, getting soaked again. I guess he was in on the joke too. We were going to take the train there? It sounded kind of crazy, but maybe it wasn’t. I guessed that by remaining silent, Natalia had a lot of productive thoughts going on in that head of hers.
I got out and helped grab the rest of the gear. Natalia was way ahead of us, walking in the dark with a flashlight lighting her path. When we had everything we needed to bring, we followed her. Carey walked over to me and jumped on my leg with his wet paws. He looked happy, like he was on the biggest, most fun adventure of his life. I supposed we all were. I bet Carey couldn’t wait to get home and tell his mommy Susan all about it, if we could get her back along with everyone else.
“You ever driven a train before?” I asked the big Swede.
He shoo
k his head. “Nope. I’ve driven a lot of things, but not a train. How hard can it be? You don’t even have to steer,” he said with a laugh.
“You have me there. If anything, we’ll show up in style.”
We approached the front cab of the train, and saw that Natalia was inside it.
“She doesn’t waste any time,” I said.
“Never has,” he replied and climbed up the steps to the doorway. The train was bright blue. I hadn’t been able to tell until we were right up close and I saw it in the flashlight beam.
“Nice looking train too. Looks brand new. Check out the cow catcher on this thing,” I said, nodding my approval.
“You’re some sort of train expert too, I take it?” Magnus asked.
“No. I was raised in farm country, and we had a lot of trains passing through when I grew up. My dad loved train sets and took me to some museums about them when I was little. I always laughed at that name. Cow catcher. I was sure they didn’t catch cows as much as kill them and toss them to the side. Probably more wild animals than cows too. I knew two people that were killed walking the tracks. Murray Lindberg died when I was in high school. He’d been listening to Guns N’ Roses on his Walkman at the time. My parents didn’t let me listen to Axl in the house after that, because the town called it devil worship. Sorry, I’m rambling.” I had no idea what drove me to go on like that, but maybe it was just the pent-up nervous energy I was harnessing.
We were in the cab now, and I was surprised by the amount of room in it. Natalia was looking around, and in a moment, she hit something, waited for the light to come on, and started the engine.
“Diesel, I guess,” Magnus commented.
“Think so. These days most are a hybrid of diesel and electric, and this thing looks new.”
The Survivors Box Set Page 13