Envelopment

by Bernard Wilkerson

Jayla couldn’t stop screaming. Shots echoed around her, clumps of rock and pavement sprayed in the air. Blood and brain covered her face.

  Fifth Under Captain Third Assault lay heavily on her. She thought he was dead until he put his hand over her mouth and said something in his language.

  She screamed through his hand.

  “Please,” he begged in English, the word spoken with a Mexican accent. “Please.”

  She looked at where the Over Sergeant had stood next to her just seconds before, the top of his head gone, the gore from it spattered all over the buckled roadway and on her. The Under Captain also had gray and red flecks on his face and in his hair.

  Jayla sobbed.

  One of the soldiers with them raised his hand weapon over the top of the crater rim and fired blindly. A shot hit the gun, knocking it out of his hand, and he pulled his hand down, cradling it in his stomach. It was covered in blood.

  Her Daddy had once told Jayla that a wise man keeps his head while everyone around him, or her, he added for her benefit, lost theirs.

  The Over Sergeant had certainly lost his.

  And Jayla was losing hers.

  She tried to block out what had just happened. She tried to block out that the Over Sergeant had become her friend. He, as her interpreter, had been part of every intimate conversation and moment of sharing she’d had with the Fifth Under Captain. He had always been kind and understanding. He had helped her see the Hrwang as human beings, just like her, not as alien monsters. The humans, not the aliens, were the monsters.

  Human monsters had raped and tortured her sister.

  Human monsters had stolen everything from her at the hospital and made her flee the safe haven it had been.

  Human monsters had grabbed her and had tried to rape her.

  The Hrwang had saved her.

  The Hrwang had been her friends.

  And now one of her friends was dead, killed by another human monster.

  She needed to do what she could to save her most important friend. She needed to do what she could to save the Under Captain.

  She had to listen to him.

  She stopped crying.

  He put his finger to his mouth, a universal gesture to be quiet. Jayla nodded, staring at him through tear filled eyes.

  He motioned for her not to move, then he crawled over her, crawled over his sergeant’s corpse, toward his other men.

  She desperately wanted to cling to him, to not let him get away or leave her alone, to not let him be the hero that saved her life again, sacrificing his own this time. She begged in her mind, begged God, to spare her captain.

  But she controlled herself and let him command his men.

  One of his men crawled back toward her, respectfully moving the sergeant’s body out of the way and getting to her. He took out a small hand towel and wiped her face gingerly. She took the towel from him and started to sit up, but he pushed her back down, holding her shoulder to the ground.

  She had to stay low.

  She scrubbed her face with the towel, cleaning herself, wiping the tears and blood away, wiping away the snot that filled her nose and the dust that covered her. She must be a sight.

  Jayla tried to hand the towel back to the soldier, but he gestured for her to keep it.

  “Thank you,” she whispered and held on to it. He probably didn’t want to put something filled with her snot back into his pocket anyway.

  She looked past him and saw the Fifth Under Captain moving away farther, past his men.

  “Where’s he going?” she whispered, panicked.

  The soldier shrugged. He didn’t understand her.

  She started to crawl, but the soldier held her, keeping her low.

  More shots rang out, more dust and asphalt and rock showered them, and the soldier sheltered her with his body.

  She lost sight of the captain as he moved around the circle of the rim.

  How did women send their men to war?

  Since time began, women had sent their husbands and brothers and sons to fight, on land, at sea, or in the air, never knowing if they would return. Her Daddy had told her a famous man once said that war was hell.

  War may have been hell for those who fought it, but war was just as much a hell for those who stayed behind.

  The minute or so that the captain was out of sight seemed like the end of the world to Jayla. He came scrabbling back, crawling for the safety of his men. He ordered them and they started moving toward Jayla. The soldier with her pushed her, pushed her away from the corpse of the dead Hrwang, away from the direction of her captain.

  She kept her head. She would be proud of herself later for that. She crawled in the direction she had been pushed.

  They crawled, the jagged pavement, asphalt, rock, and gravel, digging into the palms of her hands, tearing through the black uniform jumpsuit she wore and bloodying her knees.

  The soldier behind her, with gentle pushes on her rear, urged her to crawl faster. She started to get up a little, to use her feet instead of her sore knees, but his hand on the small of her back kept her down.

  She just tried to crawl faster.

  A voice, it sounded like the Fifth Under Captain’s, yelled something, and the soldier behind her grabbed her and pushed her down, his body covering her again as a shield.

  An explosion rocked the earth.

  Debris and dust rained on them. Jayla’s ears rang.

  Eventually, she learned the story. The Hrwang did not believe in any form of wireless communication. Too insecure. They used prearranged pings to communicate certain things but didn’t believe in carrying radios or other broadcast devices. She wondered what their teenage girls did without cell phones.

  They had not expected an attack at the crater, so the Fifth Under Captain and his soldiers had no way of signaling the rest of the squad that they needed to return to rescue them. Instead, the Under Captain had bundled several large grenades together, had carried them as far away as he could without getting shot, and had detonated them, thus making a signal that hopefully the rest of his men would hear.

  They did.

  The Hrwang craft appeared in the air, then descended until it hovered just above them. Staccato shots ricocheted off its metal sides and Jayla saw several of the tiny drones detach and head in the direction of the shooting.

  The hatch opened, the craft tilted, and hands reached out. The Over Sergeant’s body was the first to be lifted in, then Jayla, then the rest of the men. The Under Captain entered last, jumping high enough to grab the rim of the hatch and be pulled in by his men. As soon as the hatch closed behind him, the craft lifted in the air, drones reattached themselves with slamming and clicking noises, bullets continued to spray the sides of the vehicle, and they jumped.

  Jayla recognized the spot in the southern desert where they had camped a few nights before. The soldiers busied themselves with setting up camp, starting a fire, and cooking something. Two rigged what looked like a solar shower, filling a black basin with water from the Hrwang craft. Jayla tried to help, but without the ability to communicate, she couldn’t do much. She went through the hatch, back inside, and saw the Fifth Under Captain and another soldier zipping the Over Sergeant’s corpse into a white body bag. She wanted to cry again but didn’t let herself.

  When he finished, her captain looked up at her, sadness in his eyes.

  He took out a fresh uniform and a towel from a storage locker and escorted Jayla back out of the craft. He led her to the shower and indicated she should get under. He turned the water on and the cold shocked her, but the Under Captain made sure she was sufficiently wet before he shut the water off. He put some shampoo in her hair and started to wash it.

  Jayla’s first reaction was to do it herself, but his hands massaging her hair felt good and she let him continue. He rinsed her with cold water again, then handed her the soap
, miming that she should clean her face and her body. He stepped out, pulled the makeshift cover in place, and sat down in front, facing away from her.

  The cover didn’t completely wrap around the shower, but it protected her from view of the soldiers as long as they stayed in the camp. She unzipped the jumpsuit and pulled it off, surprised at the amount of blood soaked into it. The stains would never come out and she would never wear that particular article of clothing again. She took her underwear off and set it on a clean spot on the jumpsuit, trying to keep them off the ground and from getting muddy. She soaped up, washed her face, her body, put more shampoo in her hair, and then turned the icy cold water on again. It ran out.

  “There’s no water left,” she said quietly, the resignation in her voice obvious to her, but the Under Captain was already walking away.

  She heard men return. She shivered in the cold, naked and covered in soap, and put one arm across her chest and the other lower.

  But somehow the men refilled the shower without embarrassing her and she finished quickly, rinsing the soap and the blood and the dirt and a little of the pain away. The Fifth Under Captain handed her a towel around the corner of the cover and she took it, drying herself as best she could, her bare feet quickly getting muddy again.

  He handed her a clean uniform and she put it on without underwear. It didn’t fit well, but it would do.

  She tried to pick up her dirty clothes, but the Under Captain took them and pointed her toward the cooking food. She nodded understanding, not realizing at the time that she would never see her things again. She would have to be satisfied with wearing men’s t-shirts and jockey shorts for underwear after that.

  They ate. They washed. Jayla helped clean up and the soldiers let her.

  She wondered what would happen next. She couldn’t speak to them now that their English interpreter was dead. She only knew a few phrases of high school Spanish and the Under Captain didn’t really know much either, not having had a chance to practice it since he had come to Earth.

  After everyone settled around the fire, she received the answer to her question.

  The Under Captain pointed at her and said, “You learn me English.”

  She nodded and replied, “You learn me Malakshian.”

  He nodded back in reply.

 

  That night, the Under Captain slept outside the Hrwang craft. Jayla found him and lay next to him on a blanket, but he opened his sleeping bag for her. She crawled in next to him, her back to his chest, and he held her, his face in her hair.

  He was a man, and she knew that at some point there were things he might want. She was prepared to give them to him. But she was grateful that he just held her and cried with her when she mourned.

  The next morning she awoke before the Under Captain but stayed snuggled in his arms. The Hrwang protected her. He protected her. She recalled the thoughts she had had in the hospital about the women who’d slept with the men, how their actions had repulsed her, giving them their bodies for personal protection.

  She remembered history lessons and how her Daddy had taught her that women had given themselves to men for protection for millennia, but in modern times, women could be strong and didn’t need a man’s protection.

  But Jayla knew there was another truth. A woman could give herself to a man because she wanted to, because she loved him, and she felt safe with him. She knew he would protect her, she knew he would keep her safe, but that wasn’t the reason. Love was.

  And Jayla loved the Fifth Under Captain.

  No one prepared breakfast, so Jayla busied herself stoking up the fire. She didn’t know how to use the Hrwang stove, it was much different from the camp stove her Daddy had taught her to use, but she did know how to cook over a fire. Perhaps she could leave out the terrible spices the Hrwang always used when they cooked, and maybe the soldiers would like it.

  But before she could get started, the Under Captain put his hand on her arm and shook his head no.

  “I can do it,” she said.

  He shook his head ‘no’ again and pointed at the Hrwang craft.

  Two soldiers stepped out of the hatch bearing the white body bag. Two more soldiers carried it from the back.

  The four walked a distance away, up over a small rise. Jayla and the Under Captain followed.

  Other soldiers had been at work and Jayla recognized a funeral pyre. It quickly became obvious that the Hrwang were going to burn the dead Over Sergeant’s body much like Vikings burned their dead.

  She couldn’t keep herself from crying. The Under Captain put his arm around her.

  After the white body bag was placed on the small pyre, two soldiers poured a liquid over it and the wood underneath it. The Fifth Under Captain stepped forward and spoke for a few minutes, then stepped back next to Jayla, putting his arm around her again. Other men stepped forward and spoke and then there was a pause. The Under Captain gently pushed Jayla forward and she walked to the place where the others had spoken. She stood there wondering what to say.

  “I know you can’t understand me, and I didn’t expect this. I’m not prepared.” Tears flowed and she wiped her eyes. “It’s important to recognize a life. I’ve only known you a little while. I only knew him a little while. But he was kind and gentle. You have all been so kind to me.” Tears filled her eyes, mucus flowed from her nose, and she couldn’t talk. She wiped her nose with her sleeve.

  “Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely to the white body bag and fled back to her captain’s side.

  A man took a small torch and lit the pyre.

  The liquid accelerant they had placed on the fire flashed, the white body bag, obviously designed for this purpose, burned hotly, and Jayla had to shield her eyes and her face. Others did the same.

  The body quickly turned to ash.

  The soldiers took small scoops, someone handed one to Jayla, and they each scooped up the ash and scattered it around the area. Jayla copied their example, filling the scoop with the hot material, but she walked farther away from the cremation site, hiking up a small hill.

  At the top, she looked around and decided it was a nice view. She carefully dumped her scoop on the ground.

  “I hope you enjoy this spot in the Resurrection,” she said quietly. She didn’t really know if she believed in the Resurrection, like she’d been taught in the Baptist Sunday School her Daddy made her attend as a child, but now that someone close to her had died, she knew she wanted to believe in it. She wanted to believe she would see others again.

  Maybe, if there were a Resurrection, she’d eventually meet her mother, who died when Jayla was three.

  She felt a peace inside but didn’t know why.

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