I remembered, with a pang, one summer when I was a boy. I must have been about eight or nine years old. My mom and dad took me to an A&W drive-in. I had a Teen burger, and in the spirit of fun, my mother ordered a Mama Burger and, of course, dad ordered a Papa Burger. The taste of that day hit me like a blow, and I felt tears sting my eyes. I straightened and said, “Mr. Cline, you are not stupid…you know that we eat no animal by-products because there are none. I can arrange to have some meat and cheese cubes brought in if you really want some…”
He waved a hand and growled. “Forget it. Just bring me another beer.” I saw the smile on his face, and I realized that his words were a just another ploy to illicit a response from me. I gritted my teeth at the knowledge he had succeeded.
He sat back with his beer and looked at the ceiling. “Things went pretty good, at first. We stuck to the freeways, which were pretty much deserted by now, but even when cars did come up on us, they gave way pretty quickly when they saw over a hundred soldiers of God marching shoulder to shoulder and armed to the teeth!” For a moment, Cline’s ravaged face shone with pride at this fond memory.
“We mainly walked west on Highway 2. The car and truck wagons rolled smoothly on the blacktop and every day, as long as the people we ran across had something to offer the Second Coming Coalition, we gained new followers. By the time we hit the Idaho/Montana border, we were 300 strong.
“We sang hymns as we marched, and sometimes the sound of our music echoed back at us from the mountain peaks like a celestial choir. It was a wonder. Someone had stocked up on tin foil, for some reason. I guess that tin had a place in this new world, although for the life of me, tin foil was the last thing on my mind…but it, too, was put to good use. One day, about sixty miles into our march west, a giant tin-covered, cardboard cross was lifted up into the air. It was beautiful and reminded me of the Crusades back in olden times.” Cline fell silent for a moment, and the smile faded from his face.
“It all stopped when we got close to the Idaho border. It was alien central…and I don’t mean of the ‘wet-back’ variety, neither.” He glared at me as though I was personally responsible for the frenzied harvest of the Urkuli and Tatulori.
“I had heard rumors, of course…that Idaho was a beehive of Deep Underground Military Bases. I was kinda interested, you know? I figured there must be a lot of weapons down there, and food and first aid supplies for when the Russkies attacked. What I didn’t count on was that those bases were made for the aliens! Christ on a crutch! I knew that our government was stupid, but even I didn’t know they would actually cave in to the demands of a bunch of freakin’ Razor-bills, and Blue-men! I need another beer!”
The last sentence was delivered in a hysterical shout and I pushed back from the table in alarm. The door whooshed open and the servo-bots hovered behind two prison guards, one of whom growled, “Cline, behave yourself, or you’re going back to your cell!”
“Sorry…sorry,” he mumbled, and I could see that Cline was shivering. I fetched him another beer and he grabbed it as though it was a lifeline to safety.
“The first time we saw them, they came swooping down on us from the sooty sky like a deadly flock of eagles. We lost more than half our troops in less than a minute. We were close to the town of Libby, and the only reason we weren’t destroyed completely was because there was a John Deere dealership close at hand. We ran helter-skelter toward a large storage building, and those of us who made it inside watched as men, women and children were incinerated by a blue light that turned red as it swallowed its victims.”
He looked me in the eye, adding, “I’m not afraid of a little killing, you know. That’s just part of being human. The thing I didn’t like was the fact that those Razor-bills didn’t even come back to finish the job! They just sailed on into the horizon like we were no more than bugs a person steps on when they’re walking down the sidewalk.”
I could see that Cline was in mental turmoil. His face was white now, and I called for a guard.
Just before he left to go back to his cell, he turned to me and said, “What I will never understand is why those fucking aliens spared people like you, but destroyed me and mine!”
I stepped back as he screwed his lips up and spat on the floor by my feet.
Chapter 9
Michael Anderson –
Michael awoke with a gasp. He ran his hands over his body, cringing at the damp and bloody clothes. He was confused…disoriented. Although he was sore in places, specifically his left shoulder and ribs, when he lifted his hoody and peered down, his skin was bruised but intact.
“Also,” he wondered uneasily, “how did I get back into the car?” His long legs were stretched out on the pavement while the rest of his torso lay prone across the two front seats. He felt more discomfort from the gearshift that seemed to be worming itself into his kidney than from the bullets he could distinctly remember entering his body.
Suddenly alarmed, Michael sat up with a groan, peering around the parking lot. The cars were still there, although they were parked some distance away now. They were lined up as neatly as piano keys. He could see smoke rising up out of the engines into the bright morning sunshine.
“Gary…” he croaked, looking around fearfully.
“I’m here, bro,” Gary’s quiet murmur came from the back seat. Michael turned around. He studied his brother’s face and body, noting the blood soaked clothes.
“What happened, Gary? Do you know?”
Gary shook his head. “I really don’t know. I just woke up, but…” a beautiful smile crept across his face. “I had a dream…those little guys, you know? The little gray aliens were talking to me. They told me to hurry; there was work to be done. I think they healed us, Michael!”
Michael gasped as a memory surfaced. He realized that it was no dream. The aliens did speak to him and his brother. Now that he remembered, he could see the tiny gray creatures as they bent over him with strange instruments in their fragile, three-fingered hands.
He cleared his throat. “I remember, too. They want us to go to some place called Harmony, right?”
Gary nodded. “I’m tired and sore…I think we would be goners, though, if it wasn’t for them.” He sat up, wincing. “Bruised pretty good, but I think we can do it.” He heaved his body out of the back seat, and stood up. “Ow,” he groaned.
Michael blanched when he saw the back of his brother’s shirt. There was a hole in it the size of a cantaloupe. He understood that there was no way he and his brother would have survived the encounter without the aliens’ help—help no human doctor would have been able to administer. He also realized he and his brother were now on some sort of mission. The aliens had spoken to him, showed him something important, although he couldn’t recall the particulars.
It took two tries, but Michael managed to extricate himself from the car. He joined his brother, who was standing a few feet away, staring to his left into the scattered trees.
“Look…” he murmured.
Michael looked to where Gary pointed, and saw a number of bodies on the ground. He saw that they were moving slightly, and he could hear muffled cries. There was a sort of net pinning them to the ground, a network of living green tendrils, like vines that moved and stretched, but nevertheless kept the brothers’ attackers firmly in place.
“Cool!” Gary grinned.
“Let’s get going, Gary.”
Michael felt a renewed sense of urgency, as though an imperative had been inserted into his brain even as the bullets were removed from his body. He only hoped that his marching orders were beneficial; that he and his brother were not puppets now, in thrall to something evil.
Michael and Gary changed clothes again, but when they walked away from the car to empty their bladders, they both stopped short. There was some sort of gluey barrier around the car. It was transparent, but impenetrable. Michael realized that the aliens had placed them in some sort of protective bubble. Suddenly, he felt more confident than he had since the trip
began.
Gary seemed to come to same conclusion and exclaimed, “We’re going to make it, Michael! It’s going to be okay!”
Michael looked at his brother. He realized he had never seen Gary look so happy. His eyes were alight with excitement, and he couldn’t stop smiling. Michael shook his head in wonder. Although he loved his little brother, Gary had always carried a chip on his shoulder. He was the epitome of “the angry black man.” Nothing Michael, his moms, or his grandma said wiped the defensive and suspicious glare from his eyes. Now, it was as if all the hostility, fear, and insecurities were wiped clean…somehow the aliens had made a tabula rasa of his brother’s soul. Michael wasn’t sure whether he should be thrilled, or terrified.
They got into the car and drove out onto the highway. It was easy enough to see through the little bubble that surrounded the car, although every once in a while the shield would shimmer, or warp at the occasional bug or leaf that hit its surface.
Within a few miles, both brothers knew that without the shield they would be dead men. There was a spectacle of activity in the sky overhead. The deadly wedge shaped aircraft were vying for control with a different and larger ship. These ships resembled the little grays ship in that they were perfectly spherical, like silver marbles. That’s where the resemblance ended, however, as these ships were at least fifty times bigger than the Urkuli’s boomerangs.
They descended out of the heavens two and three abreast, and every time they drew near, a mighty horn sounded. The first time they heard the blast, both Michael and Gary cried out and covered their ears. It sounded like a thousand train whistles, amplified a thousand times…it was soul shattering.
They were about thirty miles outside of Lewiston and Michael was marveling at the sudden knowledge that their car was invisible. This part of the highway was busy with fleeing refugees. Within a few moments of approaching the outskirts of the city, Michael and Gary saw four separate incidents of road rage and outright robbery.
Gary’s smile fled, and the pistol was back in his hand. Even when they slowed down to make their way around two stalled cars, the men and woman who were standing outside the vehicles didn’t turn to look at them as they cruised by.
“They can’t see us…” Gary breathed.
The Urkuli gunships appeared in the sky. Michael gunned it, and they wove through the stalled traffic like thread through a needle. They screamed when the red rays etched the ground around them, and howled in fear as cars, vans, RV’s and semi-trucks exploded, rising into the air on miniature mushroom clouds of destruction.
Twice, Michael thought they were hit, but their small bubble of protection held. He was almost through the worst of the attack when the new spaceships arrived with their signature howl. The noise was so fearsome that Michael inadvertently clapped both hands to his ears, even as he slammed his foot on the gas pedal. They shot forward, seemingly out of control, but when Michael shouted and tried to seize control of the steering wheel, he realized that the car was actually driving itself.
He sat back, shaking, as the little car drove through the obstacle course on the highway with the unerring accuracy of a heat-seeking missile. The horrible horn sounded again, and the brothers watched as yet another giant sphere joined in the fray. They turned in their seats and stared out the rearview window as the larger ships destroyed what was left on the ground, and then turned on the wedge-shaped Urkuli ships. Colorful beams shot back and forth in the heavens. Within a few seconds, the smaller Urkuli ships fled through the flotsam of their own destroyed spacecraft. Now that Michael understood that his vehicle was programmed somehow to take them to a pre-designated destination, he sat back in the driver’s seat and closed his eyes. His ears were still ringing.
“What the hell are those things? Did you hear the broadcasters talking about those things, Gary?”
There was a note of hysteria in his voice that Michael didn’t like. He cleared his throat. “No, I think these ones are new.”
Gary shook his head. He turned in his seat and added, “Michael, those little guys…they must have known. That’s why they put this…this force field thing around us. What do they want from us?”
Michael shrugged. “Don’t have a clue, but right now, I’m not arguing about it, either.”
They kept a steady pace, although in truth, Michael and Gary had very little to do with it. They were both so weary, in some ways it was a relief to sit back and relax. They rummaged around in their box of food. Although most of it was gone, they found an eight pack of chocolate bars and more peanuts. There was a gallon of Pepsi and a quart of orange juice in the built-in cooler. Since they were running on batteries only, the cooler wasn’t functioning properly. It was a relief to sit back and eat and drink without fear, even though the beverages were warm.
Both brothers dozed and awoke later with a start. Michael knew where they were immediately—about ten miles west of Spokane. As he gazed toward the city, his heart sank. Even from this far out, they could see that the city lay in ruin. Smoke darkened the skyline and the horizon was red with flames. The sky above was littered with alien spaceships, which seemed to be attacking one another with as much enthusiasm as they attacked the ground, the buildings, and the people below.
The car slowed and began to drift to the left and down into the median, which was a good thing since the freeway was almost completely blocked by stalled and wrecked vehicles. Michael and Gary gasped, shaking their heads in sorrow as they rolled by the devastation. Semi-trucks were jackknifed over all three lanes, and hundreds of cars were smashed together in bloody embrace. People littered the shoulder of the road and the blacktop like road kill. Gary groaned. “Look out!” he shouted.
Michael clutched the steering wheel with a cry as the car made a beeline toward a man and a woman who were hurt but trying to make their way through the carnage. Once again, the car responded…not to Michael, but to some other power. Just before it hit the wounded couple, it rose into the air and sailed over the top of the screaming humans.
“My God,” Michael whispered as the car continued to rise above the fray. It flew into the air, and banked north toward Canada.
“No! We’re going the wrong way!” Michael pounded the steering wheel in frustration, but the car continued to fly to its own set of instructions. Knowing there was nothing he could do about it, Michael sat back in his seat, slumped in exhaustion.
“Look!” Gary exclaimed.
They were flying due north over what was once one of the busiest roads in Spokane: Division Street. They looked down, and saw that strip malls were alight with flames, and as was the case on the freeway, the road below was choked with wrecked and burning vehicles. Dead bodies were lying everywhere, but they saw that there were plenty of live bodies, as well. Unfortunately, it looked as though every person who still lived was engaged in some sort of battle, either with the aliens, who chafed the ground below in deadly red rays, or with each other.
As Michael’s little Prius, encased in its protective bubble, flew through the air, Michael and Gary watched in horror as a group of men ran a woman down and started tearing the clothes from her body. Although they could not hear, they saw the screams pour from her mouth until the mass of men fell on her in a heap. Then one of the wedge-shaped craft flew up from behind them, painting the ground red. There was an explosion, and the brothers turned around in their seats, trembling with shock.
Gary was weeping. “We don’t get to go ho…home!” He turned to his brother. “Why won’t they let us go home, Michael?”
Michael shook his head. “I don’t know, Gary. Maybe Mom and Grandma are already…” He hung his head, covering his face with his hands, while the car sailed blithely on, despite their tears.
Finally, they reached the northern-most edge of the city. Things were bad here as well, but the numbers of casualties on the ground were not so high. Perhaps it was because all of the people who could flee the city had done so already. Once again, Michael seized the steering wheel, thinking that he could ma
nhandle the car into compliance, but the car refused to respond.
Instead, a tiny spinning disk blinked into existence. It was a shimmering, silver-dollar sized wafer that, after a moment, resolved into the image of a large black eye. Michael and his brother stared at the eye and suddenly, the disk spoke.
Chapter 10
“Now I lay me down to sleep…”Children’s prayer
Harmony – September 2015
Something broke inside of me the day Henry died. Some final straw of strength bent and shattered when I saw the lion tear a huge chunk of Henry’s face and throat out before falling under the rain of bullets that killed it.
I think that the fight or flight response kicked in after the initial tragedy, the earthquakes that killed my parents and countless others. Feelings like panic, loss and despair were held at bay by the need to do everything possible to survive. I think that, in my mind at least, I thought things were bound to improve, that we would survive the earthquakes, the tsunamis, the dam, and eventually, things would return to normal.
I know now that I was in denial. For some reason, the sheltering veils of hope were lifted from my eyes the day Henry died. My uncle had the dead lions skinned and the meat was put by in special bins with the venison, pork, beef, lamb and poultry. He then instructed Mr. Truman, a science teacher from Spokane, to stuff and mount the heads on tall poles by the front gates.
When we returned home with Henry’s ruined body in the wagon, I went to bed, and stayed there for the rest of the week. I was unable to eat and afraid to sleep for fear of the nightmares that roared to life whenever I closed my eyes. I felt guilty because I was not doing my part to help with the daily chores. Guilt though…anxiety, fear, anger, and frustration; none of these feelings were able to pierce the deep depression that enveloped me after Henry’s death. Five days after I took to my bed, my uncle and brothers came to my room. I could hear their heavy footsteps outside my bedroom door, and I burrowed deep under the covers. I winced when I heard a knock on the door.
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