The Girl Who's Made of Leaves: Post Apocalyptic Science Fiction

by H. R. Romero

  “Can I have a look at your research, doctors? What have you got so far?” says the big man.

  “There was an attack at Camp Able. We weren’t able to collect anything before we were forced to leave,” says Shaw.

  “It all happened so fast,” says Dr. Valentine.

  “We’ll start with a blood draw and a few of the less invasive tests, to begin with,” says Leo turning and leading the way to his laboratory.

  Rose doesn’t want to be afraid, but she’s very afraid.

  “The blood is very interesting, there is an element I’ve only seen in the pediatric, less mutated population. It’s thick and sticky like syrup,” says Shaw.

  “It’s red, that’s where the similarity ends. There’re some human components remaining, but it’s being replaced with something else. Gradually acclimating the host's body to the mutation,” says Leo.

  “I figure there’s a plant-component,” says Shaw.

  “And, you’d be correct,” says Leo.

  “It’s basically sap. The children have a large volume of dissolved sugars and minerals. Sap. There’s also traces of chlorophyll in all the Turned, not just the children. Whatever the Turned are, there’s one indisputable matter. They’re plant-based lifeforms. Or rather, human-plant hybrids.”

  They arrive at the lab, and Rose is led to a large chair. The big man tells her to take a seat. It’s so big that she feels it’s swallowing her up. She loves it because it feels soft and comfortable, but it smells like the big man, and so it doesn’t smell too good.

  The big man has a metal tray, just like they had at Camp Able, complete with tourniquets and tubes and sharp things to poke into a child.

  “Just a pinch now.”

  “It’s okay, I’m used to it,” Rose says, and she holds out her arm.

  The big man slides the needle into the vein. He doesn’t use a glass tube to suck up her blood like they did at Camp Able. Instead, he just drains some of it into a small, round dish.

  She tries to focus on something else. Letting her eyes dance across the room, and roam the haphazard layout of pictures, and diagrams, and notes pinned and taped to the walls until she finds a photograph which makes her forget about the stick of the needle. But it’s the image that makes her breath catch in her throat. It’s the flying machine. The same one that Dr. Shaw showed her once before. Except in this photo, it’s not flying anymore. It’s sprawled out on the ground. Most of it is laying in an immense chasm, in which it crashed. The symbols, the ones she couldn’t read before, are taking shape in her brain. They lift off the page to meet her eyes, the alien language finally making sense to her. The words indicate the name of the craft. The best translation in English would be Whorl of Leaves. She opens her mouth, wanting to tell Dr. Shaw about the photo, but the big man says something first.

  “There now, we’re done with that.” He wipes her skin with a cotton ball dipped in alcohol and bends her arm for her, to stop the puncture from bleeding. He takes the round dish to the microscope, places some of her blood on a slide, and calls the doctors over to have a look. Then curiously he offers to let her have a look too. She approaches the instrument cautiously. Standing on the tips of her toes, she very carefully gazes into the eyepiece, blinking her eye a few times to focus. She’s gentle and avoids touching the microscope with her hands. She’s never seen her blood up close, like this, before. It’s so interesting. She laughs out loud in the excitement of seeing the blood cells, sluggishly, crossing the slide.

  The big man touches the blood smeared on the plate with the tip of a pencil, teeth marks pressed into the soft yellow paint. He pulls the tip away from the glass, and the blood stretches like molasses.

  “How close are you to knowing what makes them tick?” says Shaw. “Not just the children, but all of them.”

  “What is it you’re really asking?” says Leo.

  “What I’m asking is, is there an off button on the things that we can punch at the same time?”

  “Ah, great minds… Dr. Shaw. A kill switch… Not that I’ve found yet, no. At least not anything that can be used as a weapon of mass destruction and not take us out with it. I’m thinking whatever the answer is, it’ll entail taking them out as groups. Sorting them out, kind by kind, discovering a common factor which will destroy each unique manifestation. I’m closer to discovering the answer to dealing with the children than any of the others. I know I’m close. I’m very close. The answer is right in front of my nose. I may not be able to see it just yet, but I can smell it. We need to perform some tests on her. I haven’t had the pleasure of working with a living specimen. Of course, unfortunately, we’ll have to eventually perform more invasive testing, I’m afraid.”

  Rose, hearing the big man, looks to Dr. Valentine, hoping she won’t let them do anything to hurt her, but Dr. Valentine is a million miles away.

  It’s Dr. Shaw who oddly enough moves to stand in between Leo and Rose. “Of course. We can start with the less invasive tests, but nothing too advanced should be done without my knowledge or approval first. “

  “Of course, Dr. Shaw, you have my word. I expect you two must be very hungry. You can go to the mess hall and get something to eat. I’ll start working with her.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul.”

  -Dave Pelzer, A Child Called “It”

  The first good thing she’s had to eat in weeks. Bread and beans with a small bit of pork and some old cookies, but Dr. Valentine can’t make herself do more than pick at the food. She doesn’t bother to look up when someone sits across from her.

  “What’s going on with you?”

  It’s Dr. Shaw, and she’s too tired to care about how she feels about the man.

  “You didn’t even so much as flinch when Leo told us what would have to be done with Rose.”

  “I can’t stop seeing it.” Still not looking at him, she smashes her beans with the tip of her fork until they’re rendered into a light brown paste.

  “What’s “it”?”

  “The thing you dug out of Lily’s brain.”

  Shaw remains quiet, staring at her. She looks up. Her eyes redden. She’s too dehydrated to cry, but she can feel the heat of the absent tears gathering behind her eyes. She expects him to gloat. “And what’s going on with you? I saw you move to stand in front of her.”

  “I don’t know. Ever since the satellite base, when she stood in front of me to keep Connors from beating me to a pulp. I just… she’s not like the others.”

  “I want to believe that. But what is there left to save?”

  “We’ve been through a lot. We are exhausted and hungry. Try to eat. You’ll feel better.”

  “When did you start caring about anyone other than yourself?”

  “When did you stop caring?”

  “I haven’t stopped caring about anything. Especially Rose, but I must come to terms with this, and face indisputable proof. It may not be possible to save her, or anyone else.”

  They were quiet for a while. Dr. Shaw finishes his plate and goes back to the serving line for seconds. When he sits down again Dr. Valentine, who has barely managed to eat more than a few bites of her food says, “You were right.”

  “About what?”

  “I did the right thing. I know it now. Savannah would have been like Rose.” Dr. Valentine’s eyes brim with tears, only a single drop runs down her cheek. She doesn’t even have the strength to wipe it away.

  “Rose has done nothing to hurt us. In fact, it’s been quite the opposite. She’s shown qualities that only the innocence of a child can. She’s more human than most… including me. You were right, too, you know?”

  “What?”

  “Rose is different than the others.”

  “I’m not sure I can…”

  A soldier interrupts Dr. Valentine. “Dr. Shaw? Dr. Valentine?”

  “Yes,” they say together.

  “Mr. Montgomery
requests your presence in the lab.” After delivering the message, the man spins and walks toward the serving line.

  Dr. Valentine shrugs her shoulders and bites her lower lip.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he’s found something,” says Shaw, as if he read her mind.

  Am I wrong? Can she be saved? What hope does she or any of the affected have now? She follows Shaw to the lab building. She stops in her tracks. Is he actually holding the door for me? She forces an anemic smile. He follows behind her. “Uh, thank you.” She tries to forget this gesture. Trivial niceties mean nothing. It’s not hard, her stresses and despair flood back into her thoughts like the return of the high tide.

  “You wanted to see us?” she says.

  Leo is beaming ear to ear. “I have it. It’s been here all along. But I needed a live subject to be sure. It was here the whole time…”

  Dr. Valentine feels a small thread of hope tugging at her insides. “What did you find?”

  “What is it? The answer? A way to…,” Shaw realizes Rose is listening and doesn’t want to say anything to frighten her. “… a way to resolve… the issue?”

  “Okay,” says Leo. He parts Roses hair which has grown longer since leaving Camp Able, revealing the girl’s scalp. There’re small green threads running along it. “I’m not entirely certain, it will take a bit more time to be sure, but rest assured…”

  “Leo, just tell us,” says Dr. Shaw.

  A loud bell is clanging outside. Someone is hammering on it. Dr. Valentine runs to a nearby window and looks outside.

  “That’s the alarm bell, something’s happening,” says the big man. He quick-limps to the window, standing next to Dr. Valentine. “We better go check it out.”

  “Rose, come with us,” says Dr. Shaw.

  Outside the street is thrumming with activity. Soldiers running, yelling at one another. They are carrying rifles and pistols. Some are toting heavy rucksacks full of ammunition and other items for battle. Tall men are dressed all in red, standing at the end of a long and narrow road. They aren’t doing anything. They’re standing there, immobile, yet threatening, dripping with malice. Watching. Waiting. Chests and shoulders heaving in anticipation.

  Behind the gates, the soldiers are taking shelter behind sandbags and cement-filled metal drums, mountains of tires, and a derelict bus of which the windows are used as gun ports.

  The Colonel and Major Connors have taken positions, allowing them to view the enemy and determine the strength of this new type of Turned. They shout commands to the soldiers who are following the orders exactly and without question.

  Rose is watching the men who are dressed in red. She knows that they are not really men dressed in red, it only just looks like it. They are made this way. Much stealthier than the Doldrums, more cunning than the Wicked Briars, and more ravenous than Grubs. Their reddish color comes from the hard armor that has sprouted from the corpses of the remnants of human bodies, of which only shreds remain. Snakes shedding the old skin, revealing the brightness of their venomous nature in the rebirth of what they have become.

  Standing behind the red army is a tall figure, calculating her next move. She calls out something to her red men. Rose can’t hear what she is saying, but each time she speaks, her army does something in response. They’re following every order she gives them. Rose suddenly realized who she might be because thousands of years ago someone wrote about her in the Holy Bible. Satan. The red men are her legion of demons. They’ve come to collect the souls of all the sinners of the world.

  She shouts out some important command. Rose can hear it, carried to her on the slight dusty draft, floating down the old bricked-paved street. The army parts like steel doors opening to either side and through the throng, remnants of human beings, genetically altered, comes a strange sight. A red soldier, different than the rest. His appearance, heavily altered, and he is unique unlike the others, who all look as if they were cast from the same mold. Into his hard exoskeleton, there are carvings; a series of symbols and shapes that are unfamiliar, yet familiar all at the same time. They fill Rose’s heart with dread. He carries a very long pike in one hand. He’s riding out on a Wicked Briar, harnessed with old scraps of leather and chains. He’s coming closer and approaches at a galloping speed, making the soldiers nervous.

  “Hold fire. Only fire on my orders,” says the Colonel, as he strides cautiously, to the perimeter fence.

  Connors sidles up next to him. They wait until the red rider pulls up on the reins of his steed and skids to a stop, kicking dust and debris, until he’s fewer than seven yards from the perimeter fence. The major and colonel are stoic and wait for the red messenger to make the first move. The red man is curious about the base and the humans in it. He tilts his head from right to left, as if he’s considering how small and fragile the humans before him are.

  Rose thinks that maybe the red man doesn’t remember being human at all, but the remnants of a human corpse are still embedded into his frame, clearly seen in the lower pair of arms. The red man’s upper pair are much stronger and present as armored sleeves and gauntlets, just like the knight in the Lady Guinevere Cigarettes advertisement.

  Then the red rider addresses them. It is a blend of a faintly human voice and overlaid with a stronger voice that seethes with disgust, hatred, and malice for the trivial creatures before him. The Wicked Briar shifts impatiently.

  “I am sent…,” says the red man. He searches for the right words. It probably hasn’t spoken the human words in which it used to be so fluent for a long time, “She who rules commands you to give the queen to us. If you do, we will leave you in peace.”

  Rose wonders who this queen is that the Turned is speaking of. She looks up to Dr. Valentine; she must be a queen. Perhaps that’s why Rose is so drawn to her. Dr. Valentine is beautiful and strong, just like a queen should be. Just Like Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, or Esther, in the Bible, who risked her own life to save her people.

  “I don’t know what you mean. We don’t have any ‘queen’ here,” says the colonel. “What are your intentions?”

  Then, without warning, the red man launches his pike through the air. Rose is shoved hard. Her light body soars through the air and lands roughly on the ground. Dr. Valentine and Dr. Shaw land on top of her, covering her body with their own. And when Rose looks she can see, the red man’s pike is stuck into the big man, and it’s sticking out the other side of him.

  “MEDICS!” shouts Connors, rushing over to help Leo.

  “You have until the sun rises to give her to us. If you do not, everyone here will die.” The red man yanks on the reins, pulling them hard to the side. The Wicked Briar is a stubborn mount, and reluctantly moves back the way they came, and just like that, the red army withdraws and disappears. It was as if they had never been there at all.

  “They killed the big man,” says Rose, pointing at Leo’s impaled body.

  Dr. Shaw gets up and runs to help Leo. Dr. Valentine helps Rose to stand. She can feel the woman running her fingers across the top of her head, and the feeling is inebriating, much like the first time she experienced the effect of the sun on her youthful body. Except… when Dr. Valentine pulled her fingers across her scalp, Rose could feel small threads where the woman’s fingers caressed the skin.

  Rose had never felt that sensation when she would touch anywhere on her own body. She reaches up and touches the spots on her head. They are all covered by her hair. Small bumps; rash-like, have erupted from the skin and fibrous thin vines wind through her hair. She knew they were growing there, but she never said anything to anyone because she was afraid of what it could mean. The big man seemed to think that whatever is growing there is important.

  The big man’s body is taken away, leaving a dark pool of blood where he fell. The colonel orders that the men double up on guard duty so that there are more people watching in case the Turn decide to pay them another visit. He orders snipers to take positions high up on the rooftops.

  The Colonel rem
inds Rose of Major Connors in a lot of ways. They seem to be cut from the same cloth. Much like brothers would behave. The Colonel also reminds her of Dr. Shaw treated her before, at Camp Able; like a thing instead of a child.

  “Private Lindsey, Corporal Peters,” the colonel calls, and two men come running up. “Escort the Turned to the brig. No one knows what that thing could do to us in here. I don’t mean to make myself comfortable with the thought of sleeping with a dragon runnin’ loose.”

  “It’s okay, I’ll be fine. But, can you come visit me?” Rose says to Dr. Valentine, and she turns to Dr. Shaw. “Do you remember the picture you showed me of the thing over the city?”

  “Yes, Rose, I remember. What about it?” says Shaw.

  “I saw it again.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s hanging on the wall in the big man’s lab, but it’s a different photograph.”

  Private Lindsey and Corporal Peters are leading her away when she turns back and says, “It’s laying on the ground. I think it fell from the sky.”

  “Thank you, Rose. I’ll take a look at it,” Shaw calls after her. Watching the little girl being led away, he returns to Leo’s lab.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer-both in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams.”

  -Bram Stoker, Dracula

  “That was some block party,” says Connors, “I wish we’d known your neighbors were throwing a welcoming…”

  “…We’ve never seen them before, and it’s not a coincidence, major, you were tailed, it’s just that simple” says Colonel Collier.

  Connors can’t understand, no, he doesn’t want to face the fact that he was tailed, but how could it be. The spear in the tire? No, he thinks, that was days ago. Nothing could have followed them that far and kept pace on foot. Then he understands. “The spear.”