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

by H. R. Romero

  “What?” Dr. Valentine says.

  “It was a spear that blew our tire. It can’t be a coincidence,” says Connors, he stops trying to rationalize away the obvious truth. They were followed.

  “Hell, and high water. Have you ever seen anything as all fire scary as that bunch?” the colonel says, his nerves shaken. He wipes sweat from his brow.

  “Gentlemen… and ma’am,” the colonel acknowledges Dr. Valentine. “Let’s take this inside.”

  “Unbelievable,” says Connors, he dusts the seat of one of the meeting room chairs with his hand, even though it isn’t all that dusty, and sits down on it. He replays the tape in his head. He measures it out frame by frame, breaking it down so he can analyze it.

  Dr. Valentine takes one of the available chairs in the meeting room. A soldier brings in a pot of coffee, not the insta-shit like back at Camp Able, but a real pot of steaming, black, carried on the back of a burrow’s ass, coffee. A little plate of food is brought in too, containing mostly fresh vegetables and something which looks like pulled-pork, and some stale crackers.

  Moments later Dr. Shaw pushes into the room, and he’s holding something; a piece of paper, in his hands. He hands it to the major.

  “What is his colonel?” says the major turning the front of the photograph to his old friend and now, a superior officer. The same man, that years before, he jumped in front of and took a bullet for. It wasn’t during a battle, but rather a bar fight, while on shore leave.

  “It’s the alien ship. The one they shot down over L.A., what’s left of it. I’ve wanted to get up there and see what’s in that friggin thing. Was plannin’ on goin’, but frankly, this base doesn’t have the combined firepower of a bottle rocket.”

  “I don’t know how us being here is going to change that. We only have half a shoebox full of things that go boom, ourselves,” says Connors.

  “That’s what you think,” counters Collier. He grins like a schoolboy who got a good long look up a school girl’s skirt. “Private,” he says to a man sitting at the table. “Go out and have a couple of the others help you bring in the cases that the major liberated from Fort Worth.” The Colonel walks to a wooden roll-top desk and gathers several rolls of tattered maps. He searches them to find the one he’s looking for. He takes a thumb tack and pins one corner to the wall. He looks for more tacks to secure the corners to the cheap wall paneling. Not finding any more, he reaches for a roll of clear tape pushed to the back of the roll top and pulls enough tape free to secure the last three corners revealing the coffee-stained map of Arkansas. Someone had previously placed a large red ‘X’ to mark the estimated place that the spacecraft crashed.

  “That’s a long way from here,” says Dr. Valentine, looking defeated. “We lost so many men just getting here. Oh god, it can’t be that far.”

  “It is what it is,” says Connors. He glances in her direction. She looks ashen. She holds her injured hand and lowers her head. She looks as bad as he feels. He doesn’t disagree with her, it’s a long way away. But he keeps it to himself. Unless the colonel has a card trick or two up his sleeve, or a convoy of tanks sitting around somewhere, the chance of getting to the ship will be next to impossible.

  The door to the meeting room opens, and a couple soldiers are carrying in one of the long crates the Major brought back. A few other soldiers are coming in behind them carrying other crates as well.

  “What’s in those?” says Connors.

  “Just you wait, Major, just you wait,” says the colonel, moving over to pry open one of the wooden boxes, but to his chagrin, the nails holding the lid on were pried out and bent, some missing altogether. “What… what,” he says, it’s not a question, but just words. He removes seven nails that are loosely holding the lid on. He throws open the lid, nearly hitting Dr. Shaw in the face. Inside there is an assemblage of rusty forks, spoons, paring knives, and other cooking utensils, they’re covered in blood which has dried to a deep red lacquer, and rust.

  The soldiers take over and crack open the other crates. They open far too easy. Inside, the crates are stuffed with garbage, just like the first crate had been. A soldier nearest to the door says, “Hey, colonel this here box is nailed tight.”

  The Major calls for a hammer or something to take out the nails. Nervous sweat blossoms from his pores and streams down his face. There’s no hammer, but there is a small pry bar, it will do. He takes it from a soldier and digs the teeth of it into the soft, brown, wood of the crate. It takes some work to pry the lid up, and then he slams it down to reveal enough of the nails to pry them out. He throws each to the ground. The lid can be removed now, but he stands up and takes several deep breaths. He looks at the assemblage of people in the meeting room, too nervous to really focus on their faces. He bends down to where the crate rests on the floor. He digs his fingers under the lip of the lid and lifts it just a little at first, but it’s not enough to see inside, then he lifts it, and it falls to the floor.

  Inside the crate is something that Major Connors recognizes instantly. It’s a long hollow pipe with a small, round handle protruding from the bottom. And beside it, a small elongated mushroom-shaped device is pressed gently into the foam padding surrounding both objects.

  “What is that?” says Dr. Valentine.

  “That is a whole-lotta-hurt,” says Connors.

  “This here’s what you call a Bazooka, ma’am,” says Collier. “A certified tank killer.”

  “Is there just the one bullet?” says Dr. Valentine.

  The colonel looks at Connors, hoping they found more.

  “No, there weren’t any other crates,” says Connors. “We took out everything that was in that godforsaken place. It was just these few crates.”

  “Okay, so what are we going to do?” says, Shaw. “They can’t have Rose. How are we going to keep them from taking her?”

  The room is silent. Connors is moving things around in his head. Placing them together to see how they fit. Then, he takes them apart again and tries new pieces until the answer comes to him. “Colonel, when we drove into Fort Worth, we passed a large industrial factory with hydrogen storage tanks. Do you know if those tanks are still full?”

  “We’ve had no need for hydrogen, so except for scavengin’ a few supplies in the beginnin’, we haven’t been back there,” says the colonel.

  “Do you know if the hydrogen storage tanks are full?” the major says.

  “What do you have in mind,” asks Dr. Valentine.

  “Well if the queen wants the girl so much, I say we hand her over,” says Connors.

  “What? No,” pleads Dr. Valentine.

  “No, we can’t do that.” Dr. Shaw agrees. It’s one of the few times that Dr. Shaw and Dr. Valentine have ever agreed on anything.

  Connors asks for something to write with and some paper. A soldier hands him a worn-down pencil and a crinkled piece of notebook paper. He draws out the hydrogen plant on the paper, what he can recall from memory, the rest is guesswork, but it’s enough to get his idea across.

  “If those things out there, want her so badly, they won’t stop until they have her. They know we came here in the Flying Fish, right? So, if we were to set a trap at this location…” says Connors, pointing to the place on the map where the hydrogen factory is located. “…using the right bait, then just maybe, we can take some of them down… if not all of them. And hopefully, we can get the queen.”

  “I don’t understand,” says Dr. Valentine. “How is getting them to follow us to the plant going to help? They’re stronger than us. They will kill us and take Rose. You can’t hope to win a battle with them. They outnumber us at least five to one.”

  “I don’t think a battle is what the Major has in mind,” says Shaw.

  Dr. Valentine looks to Shaw and back to the major, then to the bazooka. “Surely, you can’t be serious?”

  “Tonight, I’ll take that little gem,” says Connors, nodding his head toward the bazooka, and try and to get them to follow me to the plant. When
I get’em inside… well, you’ll know if I’m successful or not. The explosion will be more than impressive, to say the least. As soon as you see that they’re following me, you get the kid and get out of here. Head toward the ship and see if there is anything there that could possibly help to fix this messed up world.”

  “It’s a death sentence. You’ll never make it out,” says Dr. Valentine. The look on her face is one of deep concern and sickened terror.

  “No, it’s not a sure thing, but if I can draw them in, and then get clear in time, I should be able to take the shot from a safe distance. It’ll be damn tricky, but I think I can do it,” says the major.

  “It’s a good plan,” says the colonel, “except for one thing.”

  “What’s that, sir?” says Connors.

  “You’re not the ranking officer here. I am,” says the colonel, tapping himself on his chest with his thumb. “Are you tryin’ to make me look like a slacker in front of my men, Major?

  “No, sir… but… um,” says Connors.

  “But um, nothin’,” says the colonel. “We have the plan, but there will be one small change. I’ll be doing it, and you’ll go to the crash site.”

  “But, sir,” says Connors.

  “But nothing Major Connors, that’s an order.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The sun seemed to fall faster than naturally possible. There wasn’t much time to make a solid plan, so they decide that they can’t take a chance and wait any longer. The Colonel loads up the payload into the back of the Flying Fish, while the soldiers busy themselves making scarecrows to closely resemble both Dr. Shaw and Dr. Valentine, and a smaller one that is supposed to look like Rose. The place the decoys into the old ambulance so they can be seen through the windows.

  Another vehicle is brought from somewhere in the compound. Connors likes this better than the Flying fish because it runs quieter and because of the reinforced grating welded over the windows and the large, flat, steel plates placed over the wheels to protect them from another well-aimed spear.

  “Showtime, Major,” comes the voice of the colonel through the radio. “Remember to give me enough time to get the Turned into the plant before you move out.”

  Connors lifts the mic and squeezes the button to respond. “Will do. Good luck.”

  It’s quiet, too quiet at the soldiers open the main gate just wide enough for the Flying Fish to slide through. Men are posted up high and searching the perimeter for any movement. Someone calls out “No sign of hostiles.” And Connors watches as the colonel builds speed to draw the attention of the Turned army. The old ambulance rattles as it builds up speed and travels across the bricked streets.

  At the outermost edge of the binocular’s lenses, Connors catches a splash of dark crimson, which grows like a puddle of blood against a moonlit sky. “Colonel, movement at your 2 o’clock.” Connors thumbs the dial in the center of the binoculars to focus in on the crimson heard moving toward the Flying Fish as it hurries onward to the hydrogen plant.

  Something in Connors’s gut tells him something is off. Something doesn’t feel right, but he’s not sure what. His attention is distracted by the crackling voice of the colonel, who radios back to say he has eyes on the enemy. He’s going to get the herd to follow him in through the plant’s entry gates, and when he does, that’ll be Connor’s signal to get moving. Connors responds that he understands and pushes down on the clutch with his left foot. He takes the parking brake off, and the truck rolls forward a few inches toward the front gate of Last Command.

  “Get ready, Major. When I’m in, you go,” says the colonel, dropping the mic to the floor of the Fish.

  Connors hands the binoculars to Dr. Valentine and tells her to let him know when the Turned are all inside the plant. She nods her head, showing him that she understands. Then she tells him that the Colonel’s lead isn’t as large as it should be and that the Red Army has closed much of the gap. Moments later, Dr. Valentine tells the major that it’s safe to move out and that all the Turned are inside, but she also sounds very concerned because the colonel didn’t come out the other side of the plant, as was the plan.

  Connors can’t help him now. Whatever happens, they must get Rose to the wreck site. He turns to see the small girl. She has squeezed herself into a gloomy corner. She looks frightened, and she’s gripping that old bible in her sweaty little hands. He turns forward and puts the truck into motion, squeezing through the gap in the gate just as the colonel had done a few minutes ago.

  The Flying Fish bounces and shudders on the bricks as they slide beneath the balding tires. The colonel presses the accelerator to the floor. He finds himself hoping that there are no surprises waiting inside.

  I hope this works, he thinks. His palms sweat, and he turns for an instant to reassure himself that the payload is safe and sound in the back of the ambulance where he loaded it. Glancing at the rearview mirror, he notices that the herd is moving faster than he would have believed possible. He can’t see the queen. Where are you? Surely, she’s in there amidst the cluster of demons blazing a trail after him. They’re coming after the girl, or so they think. The colonel lowers the sun visor to admire the photo he taped there, his wife and children, all long gone, casualties of the war between human beings and the Turned. He runs his index finger across the faded photograph and his eyes flood with tears. It’s been so long he was beginning to think he’d forgotten how to cry.

  She and her kind, her inferiors, stand quietly swaying in the moonlit evening on a planet that she will rule. Her mind is organized chaos. When she dreams, she dreams of death. Not hers, but the death of those who are not like her or her kind. The moonlight dances off her armor. She used to be like the pale soft things, the human things, but she has forgotten almost all of what it meant to be human, and she hates the tiny parts, the leftover scraps of her physiology that used to be human.

  The human soldiers cannot be trusted to do as she wishes. She owes them nothing, nor they, her. They are at odds. Maybe the soldiers use the word: war. But she doesn’t think of it as war, as much as she thinks of it as a systematic eradication of all weak, human, life. A cleansing.

  She understands that some change has happened to her and the Turned who are like her, changing them from disgusting soft things into something else. To her mind, it is the way it must be. In her mind, the evolution of the human being must eventually come to this. If not, then why has she become the powerful creature that she has evolved into. She is ashamed of the memories of her human past that even now slip away from her like grains of pollen carried on the wind. She and her brood will rise above all others and take the lead as only nature, no, as only evolution could have intended.

  She calls her generals. They congregate around her like an evil cloak laid upon the shoulders of evil itself. She is a great queen, she knows this. But, what do her kind think of her? Do they feel she is great, or do they follow her out of fear? She decides that she doesn’t care why. One reason is as good as the other. She only cares that they do as she bids, without question. She must be smarter and wiser than the humans. She will wait for them to make the first move and she finish victorious, no matter what deceit the humans may attempt.

  She is discussing with her kind her plans when a scout comes to her to inform her of movement at the human camp. As she had surmised; the small beings will try to escape. She moves to a place where she can see a vehicle that carries the little queen with a second vehicle waiting behind the first. They are trying to leave, and she cannot let this happen. Should the little queen mature, and be able to have offspring, it would jeopardize the future of the Red Queen and her army. She senses a deception and works to put a plan together. There isn’t much time to act. She readies her army and puts her plan into action.

  The Colonel whips the Flying Fish into the parking area of the plant and bust through several barricaded areas. He drives toward the large hydrogen storage tanks with a legion of the red army on his heels. He needs to clear the plant and exit the other
side in time to take his shot. The resulting explosion will vaporize him if he’s too close.

  He slams the brake down, pressing it so hard to the floor that he’s afraid it will snap in half. His escape route is directly in front of him, but something else is waiting. The queen and her soldiers are there blocking his exit, while the others close in behind him. He is surrounded and trapped. Mere moments separate his life from violent death.

  He knows what must be done. He switches his foot from the brake to the accelerator. He swings the Flying Fish around plowing overs some of the Turned. Others try to latch on to the vehicle but are dragged along with it. The colonel pulls up to the front of a massive hydrogen tank. He grabs the bazooka. It’s loaded and ready to fire. He exits the vehicle, nearly falling. The soldiers close in on him, sneering, screeching, and drooling. They reach for him. He closes both eyes, and pulls back on the trigger, sending his missile into the tank.

  Rose crawls across the floor of the big truck. Old blankets are stacked in piles, along with some boxes of food and ammunition. The back of the truck has a large rectangular window which has a steel grating covering it. She moves slowly toward it. Rose uses her fingers to reach up and grab the lip of the window. She rises slowly to look back toward the base. Rose expects to see the devil following after her, but no, she and her army of lost souls have gone into the plant. No one is following. A brilliant flash fills the cabin, and a split moment later a loud explosion causes the ground to quake. Dr. Valentine sits up as straight as a board trying to look out of the rear window, but she must close her eyes to protect them from the glare. Rose squeezes tightly against Dr. Valentine, and for a moment she is blinded by the sudden flash. She can feel the truck picking up more speed. The major floors the accelerator pedal and takes them as far away from Fort Worth as fast as he can.

  When Rose opens her eyes again, she finds Dr. Valentine looking out the window at the massive glowing cloud of explosive debris. Rose thinks to herself. Goodbye, Devil. Everyone is very quiet now, and the truck races on toward Arkansas.