Stephen finished his task at hand and decided to venture down to the drop off. When he was almost at the bottom of the hill, the ground he stood on suddenly gave way to a ledge that had been covered by fallen leaves. Stephen stumbled to the ground and began sliding down the rest of the hill on his back. He futilely groped about at the loose leaves and twigs on the ground, hoping to catch a sturdy tree, but there were none nearby. An instant later, the ground disappeared out from underneath him, and Stephen plummeted into the darkness of the ravine.
The pounding in his head forced Stephen to keep his eyes shut and to remain silent. His concentration on the throbbing head-wound was too intense for Stephen to redirect his attention to his lips and utter a groan of pain. He only lay quietly on his back, his legs drawn up into his stomach and his hands clasped firmly behind his head - protecting the open wound.
He knew he had fallen in the ravine, but he did not care. He remembered the image of the green leaves rushing up at him, and then all had gone dark. The moisture in the dirt soaked through Stephen’s clothes, making him even more miserable. With his eyes still shut, he could sense that there was little or no light where he was. But occasionally, a small ray from the sun would penetrate his eyelids, and he knew that there must be many trees overhead, filtering the sunbeams.
After a few moments, his pain began to dull, and Stephen rolled over onto his side. His hand touched a hard, cold object. He knew it was the rock his head had landed on. The frigidity of the rock he felt slowly turned to warmth as he loosened his grip on the wound, allowing a little blood to trickle through his hair and over his fingers. Stephen’s senses began to return. His pain was now weaker and distant, but he remained still and held his eyes shut a moment longer.
Stephen then noticed the smell - a stale odor of damp decay nearby. Concerned that he might have stumbled into some native beast’s den, he opened his eyes to gather his bearings, but his vision was blurred. The darkness of the shallow ravine and the impact on his cranium had caused Stephen’s eyes to lose focus. He closed them hard, squeezing out some accumulated moisture, and then opened them again.
This time, Stephen could distinctly make out the image of a large, dark figure standing over him. Fear swelled within him and he reached down for his rifle. He then remembered that it was sitting where he left it, on the side of the hill. His fear then doubled within a single heartbeat, and he readied himself to jump up and run. Sensing that he could now see well enough, Stephen relaxed his brow and opened his eyes. He was horrified at what he saw.
The body was long since dead, but still horrifically decomposing. The flesh on the skull had partially vanished, leaving a screaming expression on the gruesome face. Stephen’s next horror arrived when he saw that the dead body was, indeed, a badly massacred human - hanging from a vertical pike through its midsection. He screamed and stumbled to his feet, only to see dozens more of the terrifying apparitions behind the first. He then turned aside and discovered that the entire valley was crowded with hundreds of the carcasses, in every corner. Some hung from trees; others lay in pieces on the canyon floor. But for the most part, they were all dangling from similar poles with their hands outstretched as if reaching for something.
In panic, Stephen began running wildly, not knowing where to go, but hoping he could find a way out. He then turned his head back to glimpse the carnage as he ran, but when he turned around again, he was forced to a halt in his tracks.
The body was headless. It hung lifelessly - suspended six feet off the ground on a spear that had been forced through its midsection and then rammed into the ground. The spear had an array of finger-like prongs near the top, which extended upward and punctured deep into the skin that surrounded the point of entry. This was keeping the carcass from sliding down the spear’s shaft. In an instant, Stephen recognized the clothing on the corpse. He quickly leapt backwards and screamed in full terror, causing a few small scavengers that had been feasting on his friend’s entrails to scatter into the shadows.
Michael ran down the hillside, following the direction of Stephen’s cry. Close behind him, trailed the other party members - their rifles poised to fire. About halfway down the slope, Michael stopped to examine Stephen’s abandoned weapon, and allowed the others to catch up to him. He then looked further ahead, and noticed the trail of scattered leaves where Stephen had slid across the ground and then over the edge of the small ravine. He quickly moved to the left of the leaf-trail and ran along the edge of the gorge until he spotted a series of scattered boulders he could use to climb down into the valley.
Hand over foot, the search party darted over the rocks and descended into darkness - not knowing what trouble may await them within. Upon reaching a bottom laden with mud and moss, Michael ran to the area where he guessed the leaf-trail had stopped, and he froze in shock.
Through the scattered rays that shone down through the swaying leaves, Michael saw a boy’s body suspended in the air - his outstretched arms beckoning for help that would never come. On the ground at the base of the supporting spear, Michael saw a slimy pile of coiled innards. In front of it lay a severed head with its eyes gouged out and scalp removed, revealing a skull pasted with blood and tissue. More horror arrived when Michael saw, behind the carcass, a mass of several hundred dead human bodies.
He heard the others running up quickly behind him, and threw his arm out to signal a halt. But it was not necessary. They all stopped on their own as soon as they saw the carnage. Michael then spotted Stephen, crouched in an alcove of rocks a few meters away, his body turned aside from the gory scene. Michael looked back to see the rest of the men staring forward - their mouths agape. Two of the men immediately dropped their guns and knelt down to vomit. Michael then returned his attention to Stephen, trying to ignore the sounds of the two men emptying their stomachs behind him.
Michael calmly approached the area where the corpse dangled, and he shielded his nose from the stench. He stepped over the pile of emptied intestines - trying not to look at the boy’s mutilated face, or any of the similar faces beyond it, as he moved over to Stephen. The startled scavengers then returned quietly in Michael’s shadow to resume their feasting.
Stephen was squatted down, nearly sitting on the ground. He held his arms about him and stared at the rock wall, avoiding the mess behind him. Michael knelt down beside him and noticed the small stream of blood flowing over Stephen’s hair. He frowned and placed his hand gently on Stephen’s shoulder. Stephen jerked from the sudden touch, but did not turn around. He just kept watching the rock face.
Michael exhaled and looked down. He then pulled a large black bag from his pack and tossed it onto the ground behind him.
“Ancil!” Michael yelled. “You and Jackson take care of that.”
“Yes, sir,” both men replied, as they wiped their mouths.
3
Stephen never said a word as the men were lifting his friend’s lifeless body from the ground and placing it in the dark bag. The medieval spear had been strapped to the side of a makeshift stretcher on which Ancil and Jackson now carried the youth’s corpse. Stephen silently led the party as they all hiked out of the ravine, stepping back into warm sunlight. He stopped for a moment to let the rest of the party members assemble at the top.
Michael walked up to Stephen’s side and pointed to his head. “You’re bleeding,” he said.
Only then did Stephen show any sign of life. He raised a hand to his head and winced when he felt the wound.
“Thanks,” he said calmly. He proceeded to tear a strip of cloth from his garment and tie it around his head tightly, with the knot a few inches to the side of the wound. “What are we going to tell the Governor?” he asked, as he casually flipped the straps of the bandana behind his shoulders.
Michael was somewhat surprised at how calmly Stephen was handling what he had just seen, but did not let his impression show. Perhaps Stephen was merely trying to keep hidden how he was really feeling at the moment, just as Michael was trying to hide his ow
n sensations of worry and pure fright. He gazed upon the ground and nodded, as if contemplating the question.
“We’ll have to tell him…his son is dead.” Michael paused for a moment and looked at Stephen, who made no motion. “But we’ll wait until we return to tell him. A broken radio transmission is no way to tell someone their son is gone.”
Stephen nodded solemnly. “We’ll also wait to tell him we found the people from the other ship?”
“Yes. This whole ordeal needs to be discussed in person.” At this, Michael turned to address all the men. “We’ll take a shorter route back to the city, straight west over this hill,” he said pointing to the large rise in front of them. “We should be back in a couple of hours.”
Michael watched every man’s face as they nodded in compliance, and saw that they all still bore a pale expression of fright. He knew that nothing could have prepared the men for what they had just seen, and he became worried about how they would handle themselves if matters grew worse in the future. As the men lined up to begin the trek, he apprehensively gave one final order that he wished he did not have to give.
“Be sure to keep your guard up, men,” he said. “We haven’t been this way before. Stay quiet and ready.”
At that moment, Michael could almost feel the morale of the men plummeting into oblivion.
At the top of the hill, Michael walked up to the front of the troop of men, where Stephen was leading. He had wanted to make his presence known, and to make Stephen feel welcomed around him. Michael was not normally the type of person who would behave compassionately toward anyone other than his daughter, but he somehow felt it was only right to extend a friendly hand to this young man. The two walked together in silence for a moment, several meters ahead of the rest of the men.
Stephen too felt that he needed a person in whom to confide in during this uncertain time. He tried not to dwell on the facts of what was happening, in order to refrain from losing control of his composure. His only friend in life had just been murdered, after Stephen had left him alone. This guilt was eating away at him inside, whether he let it show or not. He felt that having Michael’s presence nearby would help ease the suffering. Why, he did not know.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” Michael said suddenly. “I know his father well.”
Stephen welcomed conversation at the moment, even if it was concerning the very subject that mortified him.
“I know your dad too,” Michael added.
Stephen immediately wanted to change the subject. “What kind of creatures would do that to him and all those people? What have we done to warrant an attack like that?”
Michael shrugged. “Maybe just our presence. If there is some native species that has staked off a claim in the area we’re living, it may just be trying to get us out.”
Stephen did not like this theory. ”Do you think we should leave the city?” he asked.
“It may be the best thing to do,” Michael replied. “But first we need to find out just where this territory begins and ends, so we’ll know what direction to go. If we travel deeper within the zone, we’ll most likely meet with the same fate those poor souls did.”
Stephen looked up suddenly, as he realized what Michael was thinking.
“You believe they had the same idea? They left the city trying to get out of some hostile enemy’s territory?”
“Yes,” Michael replied. “But there’s a part of that theory that doesn’t make sense.”
“What’s that?” Stephen asked, genuinely intrigued.
“What happened to make the people want to leave the city? Even if it was in the middle of a hostile territory, it seems there would have been adequate supplies to make a formidable stand there. But there doesn’t appear to be any battle damage to the city. And we’ve seen nothing for ourselves that should really cause us to want to leave yet either. So what happened to these people?”
Stephen pondered the question silently, never expecting to come to a reasonable conclusion. He hoped Michael would come up with the rest of the theory. Then an idea came to him. ”Maybe what was left of the people got back onboard the ship and took off. Maybe they just left,” he suggested.
Michael frowned at this. “It’s possible, but if that’s so, then we have a severe problem on our hands. We don’t have the luxury to get up and leave at will like they did. Our ship will never leave the ground.”
Stephen mimicked Michael’s frown and looked to his feet. “Well, maybe they didn’t leave. Maybe those people back there are all that came here. Then we could just leave in their ship.”
Michael could not help but be bitter in his reply, “Sure thing. Do you know where they parked it?”
Michael then proceeded to walk ahead of Stephen. He did not like to waste time in pondering over what could have happened. ‘Best left to the powers that be,’ he thought to himself.
At the top of the hill, Michael slowed because he became aware that he was quite far ahead of the others, but he did not stop. The more time he spent in the dense forest, and the more time he dwelt upon the horrors he had just seen, the more anxious he became to get back to the city. He didn’t feel any danger in the area where they were, and there was certainly no reason to believe that a search party, especially one as heavily armed as they were, would be in danger of ambush by creatures using primitive spears. But still, Michael kept in mind that they were alone in an unfamiliar territory.
Stephen too noticed that the party behind him was becoming quite strung out and he decided to slow his own pace, to let all the men regroup before they trekked on. He felt defensive against Michael at the moment, but he did not resent him. Stephen knew full well what kind of man Michael was just by observation, and he knew him not to be the kind that would restrain a feeling or opinion.
Stephen looked forward and noticed that Michael had stopped marching altogether, just over the rise of a hill. He looked as if he were waiting for the others to catch up. Stephen came up behind him slowly, but was stopped when Michael quickly threw a hand back and clenched Stephen’s shirt without looking.
Michael then turned around and put his other hand up in a sign for the men to halt. Everyone stopped immediately and drew their weapons.
In Michael’s eyes, Stephen saw a fearful look that he recognized as the same expression that must have been on his own face when he found the bodies. Michael’s gaze then met with Stephen’s and he pointed down over the hill, to what he had been looking at. Stephen looked down and saw, in the midst of the green carpet below, a very large and very dark metallic mass that was obviously man-made.
The shell of the ship was badly burned and corroded on all sides, and the foliage around it had begun to grow up within it. Twisting vines and roots groped the destroyed vessel like dark fingers searching for life within. The top of the ship had a large, gaping hole in it where something had apparently punctured it. All around this hole, the metal of the hull was spread outward like petals of a black flower.
Stephen immediately recognized the familiar shape of the ship’s body as being of the same make as the ship on which he and his fellow humans had arrived. At the ship’s nose, the enormous ‘α’ symbol was still barely visible. When he comprehended that what he was seeing was the wreckage of the first Earth vessel, sent out into space so many years before their own, his jaw dropped open and he felt weak.
“Wow…” Stephen muttered.
Michael released Stephen’s shirt and lowered his arm. “They never left,” he said. He then turned his attention to all the men and whispered loudly. “Fan out, ten meters apart. Move quietly and keep your weapons ready until I say otherwise. Leave the body here until we secure the area.”
At this, Ancil and Jackson immediately lowered the stretcher and drew their weapons.
From up close, the wreckage looked to Stephen like a bloomed flower. The mass of the ship’s hull was spread outward in sheets, like charred petals. It was obvious the vessel had exploded from the inside. Two thick, black cords dangled from
an open hatch on the underside of the wreckage, where Michael had just sent two men inside to search for clues as to what happened. The rest of the men rummaged about the area in awe, gazing upward at the long, flat bottom of the ship in silence. Only Michael and Stephen spoke.
“What happened?” Stephen asked, looking up to the belly of the gigantic ship.
Michael craned his neck and shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun. “How would I know? If the men can find the log book somewhere inside, we may get some answers.”
Stephen nodded. “It looks like it exploded from inside...the way the metal is bent outward and all.”
Michael sighed. He sensed another theoretical conversation in the making. “Yes, it does. But didn’t you see it from the hillside? There’s a big hole too. It looks almost like it was bombarded by something from above and then exploded.”
Michael began to walk toward the hatch where the men had entered, leaving Stephen staring upward dumbly by himself. He looked inside the hatch but saw only darkness. At that moment, a small explosion from somewhere inside the ship caused all the men to jump.
“What was that?” Michael yelled up at the hatch.
A moment later, a bouncing light inside began to come towards the hatchway. Soon after, one of the young men he sent inside appeared, with a face covered in soot. “We had to blast through a doorway that was jammed shut. We’re almost at the bridge.”
Michael shook his head and looked down. “Be careful inside there! You know that structure can’t be very stable.”
“Yes, sir,” the man replied, embarrassed. “We may have to blast through one more before we’re done though. Sorry, sir.”
Michael spat in distaste. “Don’t be sorry, just get it done.”
“Yes, sir,” the man replied, and then disappeared back inside the ship.
Stephen could sense Michael’s frustration, and he knew that the fear Michael was experiencing along with everyone else must have been magnifying his irritation. He decided not to spark another conversation at the moment, but was then surprised to see Michael approaching him.
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