Below him he heard Grant Dillon, who was swearing at the main valve of the oil spring. “The damn thing is jammed! I can’t close it. Pump wrench. Someone bring me a pump wrench!”
Stanislav Radinkovic ran over to him with a metal case. “Why don’t you have your tools with you?”
“Oh, screw you!”
Several feet away, Dr. Cashmore and young Peter Richards were busy with the distillation column. Although he was only fourteen, Peter was already nearly a foot taller than Dr. Cashmore. Marlene had agreed through gritted teeth that a few of the boys could join the expedition, because they needed all the help they could get. Both generations, Earthlings and New Californians, were fighting together for the future of their colony. The chemist and his helpers mounted a hose with which they could channel the precious liquid to the tanks on the trailer.
“We’re pumping!” Cashmore called over to Ben, who was standing on the driver’s seat coordinating the men and women.
“How much longer will it take?”
“About another hour.”
“Good! Let’s hope that we don’t get any unwelcome visitors in that time.”
Ernie Lawrence had positioned himself at the gate of the compound and had his eyes trained on the nearby forest, his weapon at the ready. His wife stood a few feet away from him and kept a lookout to the east. Sammy Yang and Allison Hadcroft were working on the refinery. They were both trying to secure it as firmly as possible, so that they could put it back into operation as soon as possible after the flood.
“Something’s going on here,” shouted Ernie Lawrence.
Russell looked over to him. The noise of all the work going on drowned out any sounds from the jungle. Every damn animal in the wider vicinity must have realized by now that they were here. But there was nothing to be seen.
Ben ran over to Ernie and the bullish soldier pointed in the direction of the nearby jungle. Russell could not understand what the two of them were saying.
Ben gave a short whistle and called over several men with automatic rifles. Eric Grant kneeled down and took aim. Cookie Shanker kneeled down next to him and also cocked his rifle.
Damn it, what’s out there?
Russell aimed his gun at the spot beyond the outer fence and looked through the scope. He adjusted the focus, but could only see tree-trunks and leaves swaying gently in the breeze. Then he scanned the compound again.
Ernie whispered something to Ben and the officer craned his neck to look at the edge of the forest. They weren’t moving, and clearly were waiting for something to happen. Whatever they had heard, it seemed to be close. After several long minutes, Ben relaxed and took a deep breath. Then he shook his head and turned around. Ernie took his hand off the trigger and shrugged.
False alarm! Russell breathed a sigh of relief.
But at that moment it happened. Three wotans shot out of the undergrowth and ran straight toward the perimeter fence of the compound. Ben screamed.
Holy shit!
Russell aimed quickly and pulled the trigger. The shot missed the creature at the back by a good three feet. A cloud of dust indicated the spot where the bullet had hit the dry ground.
Ernie also raised his weapon and fired. He hit the front wotan, which died mid-bound. Blood sprayed from the wound onto the animals storming up from behind. Due to its speed, the hulking creature collided full force with the perimeter fence. The steel post bent like a matchstick and the barbed-wire fence sagged to the ground. The carcass collapsed on top of the crushed wire. The other two wotans used the torn-down fence as a ramp to get across the inner barbed wire and leaped into the compound.
Eric Grant hit one of them from behind. The heavy-caliber shot tore off a complete leg. The acidic blood of the animal dissolved the metal of the fence. The third wotan ran full throttle at Eric.
Russell held his breath, aimed and fired.
Strike!
The dead body skidded across the gravel toward young Grant. It would squash him! Ernie Lawrence jumped and pulled the boy to the side, but his own leg got caught under the wotan. Lawrence screamed and tipped backward, his lower leg bent forward at a horrible angle.
Andrea raced over to her husband.
The whole spectacle had lasted no more than fifteen seconds. Now they had one wounded man, a boy who had almost died and a big hole in the perimeter fence.
Holy crap! And that was just three of the beasts!
Why were the wotans so aggressive? Of course the monsters were dangerous, but the way they rushed in so wildly without regard for their own lives was something new. The beasts must be starving. What would happen if a whole herd streamed into the compound? Even with all their weapons, they wouldn’t last five minutes. And the worst thing was: it was inevitable if they stayed here any longer than absolutely necessary.
Ernie Lawrence was writhing on the ground and grinding his teeth. The jagged end of a tibia bone was poking through his uniform, projecting from his leg like a bizarre clothes hanger. Ben held the brawny soldier down while Andrea Phillips tended to her husband’s injury as best she could.
“How long do you need still?” Ben shouted over to Cashmore.
“Twenty minutes.”
“Make it less!”
Ben turned to Eliot Sargent, who had appeared behind him. “Fix the gap in the fence. Put it back up and shore it up with logs.”
Sargent nodded and went off. A few seconds later he reappeared with two men. Stanislav was holding a heavy pickaxe. He climbed on the fence and swung it into the body of the dead wotan. Together with Eliot he dragged the heavy carcass backward into the compound. The fence sprung up again slightly once it no longer had to bear the weight of the monster.
Maxwell Lindwall, the strapping son of the doctor, dragged over two logs and together with Eliot Sargent re-erected the fence.
Russell scanned the nearby forest edge through the scope of his rifle. There was nothing to be seen, but that didn’t have to mean anything, considering how fast the three wotans had just burst out of the forest.
“We’ve secured the distillation column, the oil well is closed,” Russell heard Dr. Cashmore call out. “The tanks on the hangar are nearly full. Two or three more minutes.”
“We’re almost ready,” called Linda Ladish. “We’re just loading the last barrel of kerosene.”
“Good,” said Ben. “It’s time for us to get out of here.”
“Damn! There’s something in the forest again!” screamed Patrick Holbrook, who was guarding the back of the compound.
Ben and Eliot ran over to the boy. Russell couldn’t see anything, but repositioned his weapon so that he could react quickly if necessary. Damn! The rectification column blocked his view of the back fence. This isn’t going to work.
With a groan, Russell swung his weapon over his shoulder and climbed down, only to be suddenly overcome by a wave of nausea. He fell to his knees and feared he would have to vomit, but he spat only a bloody ball of slime onto the gravel. With a pounding headache, he stood up and swayed over to Ben, Eliot and Patrick, who were staring at the edge of the forest beyond the fence.
Now Russell could hear it, too. A constant cracking, rustling and hissing, as if a whole army were marching through the nearby forest.
There must be dozens of them!
“There are too many,” he whispered to Ben, who gave him a brief sideways glance and then nodded.
“Retreat slowly,” he said calmly, his weapon at the ready.
They had moved back barely fifteen feet when the forest exploded. Nine wotans rushed at the fence simultaneously. Russell had prepared himself mentally, and immediately shot down three animals, which fell on top of one another on the grass in front of the fence. Ben had also hit one, Eliot had missed his target and the five remaining wotans were now pounding against the fence. The force ripped two observation posts out of the ground. Entangled in barbed wire, the beasts flew into the compound.
Russell, Ben and Eliot didn’t stop firing at the jumble of wire, bo
dies, and legs. Red and yellow liquid sprayed in all directions. Wherever it was hit by blood, the barbed wire dissolved with a hiss. The stench was almost unbearable, sweet and heavy like in a slaughterhouse where the slabs of meat were left untended for weeks. Russell retched. At least the beasts were dead. But a fifteen-foot section of the fence had been ripped down. And there were more cracking sounds coming from the forest.
“Jesus Christ!” said Ben. “Everyone over here!”
Andrea, Maxwell, and Stanislav ran over and directed their weapons at the gap. Ben shouted at Dr. Cashmore, who was still busy with the distillation column. “Stop pumping immediately! We have to get out of here.”
Russell heard Cashmore cursing.
“Stop right now!” screamed Ben. “Leave everything and get out! Start the vehicles. Lee, open the gate and into the jeep!”
Ten wotans appeared simultaneously as if from nowhere. Russell shot, as did the other colonists beside him. Some of the animals dropped down dead, but others had reached the compound in a few quick bounds. At the same time, more beasts stormed out of the undergrowth. A seemingly endless stream came pouring out of the jungle. The onslaught had begun.
Russell killed another wotan that was coming right at him. The hulking creature slid forward a few more feet before coming to a standstill. Two others jumped over the dead body and were blown into pieces by a detonating hand grenade. Patrick screamed as his arm was hit by a spurt of acidic blood. He dropped his weapon and ran to one of the jeeps.
“Don’t break formation! Keep shooting!” roared Russell.
The entire area between him and the edge of the forest was covered in blood, carcasses, and the body parts of torn-apart wotans. So far, they had managed to shoot them dead before they reached the barrier, but more wotans were appearing all the time.
“We have to leave! Come on, we’ll give you cover,” Russell heard Ben shout from behind.
“Fuck! They’re also coming from the right,” shouted Stanislav. Russell looked round. Dozens of the beasts had ripped down the fence on the right and were running toward the vehicles.
The engines roared. The convoy had started and had almost reached the gate.
“Run!” screamed Russell. He ran as fast as his painful lungs would allow him. There was no time for an orderly retreat. Now it was only about saving their own skins. He ran to the nearest jeep and grabbed a hand that was held out to him. Dr. Cashmore pulled him into the vehicle. Russell fell hard onto the back seat, but immediately turned around and shot at two wotans that were approaching from the side. He got the first one, then there was just a click.
Fuck! Empty again!
He grasped into his pocket to fish out a spare magazine.
Behind him the stragglers had made it to the last jeep. Patrick and Andrea jumped in. Two wotans had almost reached them. Ben put his food down hard on the accelerator. Stanislav, who had wanted to jump into the passenger seat, lost his balance. He stumbled und somersaulted onto the gravel.
“Stop, we’ve lost Stanislav!” shouted Andrea. Russell saw Ben looking round briefly before disengaging the clutch completely. The first monsters had already reached Stanislav. Russell turned around in order not to watch his friend being dissolved by the acid of these beasts of prey. But he couldn’t block out the inhuman screams of pain. He looked stubbornly ahead, as the screams gave way to a weak gurgling. Then it was over and Russell breathed a sigh of relief.
His suffering is over! Thank God!
Then he was overcome by rage.
I’m the one with a ticket to the hereafter! I should have been in his place!
“They’re pursuing us,” screeched the chemist, sitting next to him, and shot wildly behind him with his pistol.
“Careful that you don’t hit one of the jeeps behind us,” Russell bellowed into his ear.
A whole herd of wotans had left the compound of the oil spring through the main gate. They were chasing them at over thirty miles an hour. The animals were faster than the fleeing jeeps, which kept having to swerve around pieces of fence and potholes. Patrick and Andrea fired in a frenzy. Scores of animals fell down dead on the stony track, but more and more came up from behind.
Ben shouted something to the young Holbrook, but Russell couldn’t hear what. Patrick climbed over the seat onto the truck bed and busied himself with a barrel of kerosene.
Russell guessed what he was up to and hoped that the plan worked. The jeep swayed to the side and Patrick was almost thrown out, but he held onto the ropes with which the barrels were secured to the truck bed.
Patrick undid the ropes securing the barrel at the back and it fell to the ground with a loud thud before rolling across the tack. Andrea aimed and fired.
The barrel went up in a huge ball of fire. It was so bright that Russell had to shut his eyes. When he opened them again, the whole road up to the edge of the forest was engulfed in white flames. Even the jungle was shrouded in smoke. The stench of burning kerosene was so pungent, that Russell coughed and held his breath. The heat was almost unbearable. Patrick used a cloth to stamp out a little fire on the truck bed.
Finally, Russell took a deep breath. No wotan would make it alive through that hellfire. They’d done it. Despite the heat, he got goose bumps. Imagine what would happen if tens of thousands of these beasts attacked the colony?
Russell leaned out of the window of the jeep and vomited violently.
Chapter 22
Marlene looked at the two oblong holes in the ground and at the two coffins beside them. Paulina Hall was quite a talented carpenter—she had taught herself the craft after arriving in New California. She had had years to work on these two coffins and the other three that stood in the workshop.
Marlene tried to remember when the last funeral had taken place. The death of Jim Rogers was almost twenty years ago. She had always known that the time would come, and considering the dangerous wildlife of this planet, it was a miracle that it had taken this long. But she had hoped that during her time as president, she wouldn’t have to conduct a funeral. Neither Igor nor Stanislav had been religious, so it fell to her to speak a few words. She waited until all the men, women, and children had gathered around the graves.
Standing next to Igor’s grave were his wife Dorothy Moore and their three children. Igor and Dorothy hadn’t fallen in love right away. Marlene still remembered how Dorothy had made fun of his first awkward advances. But the following fall, at the Thanksgiving party following the harvest, something had sparked between them. Or they had both decided they were sick of being alone; nobody knew for sure. In any case, Dorothy was now in floods of tears, even her children were unable to console her. Alexander, the eldest, kept speaking softly to his mother, and even the two younger children, Arkady and Natasha, seemed far more collected than Dorothy.
The other coffin was empty. They had had to leave Stanislav’s body back at the oil spring. Marlene doubted that the wotans would have left any part of him in any case. They dissolved their prey with acid and absorbed the resulting liquid through their skin. Marlene shuddered. How Stanislav must have suffered in his final moment . . . a heavy animal on your back, immobile, as your own body slowly dissolved . . . Marlene would rather shoot herself than go through that.
Sophia O’Hara stood beside Stanislav’s coffin with a blank expression. Her two daughters stood beside her and looked down at the grave with red eyes.
Only half of the colony was present. Ten men and women were guarding the observation post, and Ty Grazier and John Dressel were heading up the final preparations for detonating the atomic bomb. In two hours, it should be ready. Marlene would have preferred if the funerals could have taken place afterwards, but once the danger had been warded off, they would have to get straight back to working in the fields, in order to save as much of the harvest as possible.
Marlene looked up at the sky and saw a few thin wisps of cloud floating across the otherwise clear sky. A stiff breeze was blowing down from the mountains into the valley. The giant redwoo
ds swirled the air around and gusts of wind kept blowing her hair into her face. The moon—which could now be seen clearly—had risen in the west. Every day, a little bit more of its surface became visible. By now, a good half of the big white orb was looming over the nearby hill.
The murmuring died down, and Marlene seized the moment to make her little speech.
“When we came here, we all knew that we were up against a hostile, alien environment. That didn’t stop us from conquering this planet. We defended ourselves against the wild animals that threatened us during the first winter, and banished them completely from our immediate environment. Although the odds were against us, we build a settlement in which we could live safely. We even survived the first years of food shortages. We sowed fields and brought in the harvests. In recent years, we started to feel increasingly safe, and to see this planet not just as a temporary refuge, but as a new home. Many of us, even if we were given the chance, would not want to return to Earth. We can be proud of what we have achieved here.”
Marlene looked into the faces of as many of the people standing before her as she could. She knew that her speech was straying away from a standard funeral oration, but it seemed to her that the circumstances demanded something more. The very existence of the colony was under threat, at least until they’d cut off the pass. She was of the opinion that this crisis marked a turning point in their history on this planet, and she wanted everyone to grasp this. She hoped that it would forge a closer bond between the inhabitants of New California, because many of them still saw themselves as citizens of Earth.
“As colonists, we belong to a group of people that ceased to exist on Earth a hundred years ago. Colonists . . . you have to think about the meaning of this word and how it has shaped the history of humanity. Colonists are people who leave their homes to subjugate and settle in new lands. We are the first colony of humans on a distant planet. We have achieved something here that we can be proud of. Igor and Stanislav helped to fulfill this dream, and now they have died for it: in our fight against the environment and the dangers of this planet, and for our children, who, even more than us, regard this world as their home. Our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will look up into the sky and hardly be able to believe that we once came here from another planet. They will ask questions about us, the first generation. And they will discover the names of the fallen. The first ones to give their lives to secure their safety in this world were Igor Isalovic and Stanislav Radinkovic. They died as heroes and will be remembered in the history of this world as heroes.”
Transport 2_The Flood Page 17