by Jeff DeMarco
Bob’s mouth hung open, a mix of shock, anger, fear and truth; as though Taylor had looked right through him and put his judgment on display in a sentence. Ellen’s heart began beating from her chest, as Taylor calmly opened the pot sitting at the center of the table.
“More stew…” his tone indifferent to the comments that had just come from his mouth. “Tell me Bob, what is it that you want?”
“You can start…” His face twitched into a sneer. “… by getting the hell outa this camper, boy.”
“Bob…” Ellen’s voice not angry, nor motherly, but terrified. “You should be-“
“No.” Bob’s anger spilt over. “I won’t have some punk kid talk to me that way, disrespect me in my...”
Taylor stared at him under his brow, silent.
“Bob.” She rose. His face sheet white, breathless. She rushed around the table, setting him back down on the seat. She grabbed his wrist, feeling for his pulse – erratic. She looked to Taylor, her eyes pleading.
“Oh, alright.” He slumped his elbow to the table, waved his hand. His fist pressed to his cheek.
Bob drew in a breath, the color returning to his face. They ate their meal in an anxious silence.
CHAPTER 45
“Roots and grubs again,” Ari mumbled, as she dug alongside a tree with her knife. “Can’t you guys whip up something edible? Maybe a five-course meal, something Italian.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Erica said.
Ari pulled a ripe grub from the earth and handed it to Michael. “C’mon, just lure some furry woodland creatures our way.”
“I would,” Michael examined the wriggling mass of white flesh. “If the hunters hadn’t eaten all of them.”
Ari pulled out another grub and threw it to Kristen.
Her hands shot up in repulsion as it bounced against her chest.
“Reminds me,” Ari said. “We’ll need to find a skunk, keep the hunters off our scent.”
Erica gnawed on a root. She recoiled as the taste hit her tongue. “We can keep the hunters away.”
“There’s a limit to your power.” Michael swallowed the grub without chewing. He felt it shift in his throat and gagged. “If they decide to mass on us… Learned that the hard way.”
Erica tossed the root aside, her stomach in knots. She stood and stretched; her mind focusing, she reached out. A rustle in the distance moving steadily toward them.
Ari picked up her stolen M4, flipped the red light attached to the stock. Then more rustling, like an avalanche of dried leaves.
“Do your thing.” Erica turned her back to the noise. “Don’t make me watch.”
Kristen snatched a bunny, snapped it’s neck clean and threw it to Ari.
Michael’s stomach turned. “What’d they do to you in there?”
She looked up at him with wild, guarded eyes.
He immediately regretted asking.
“Anyone have a bottle?” Ari snatched a skunk and pointed the tail end away from the group. She punctured the glands, the pewtrid liquid, immediate and revolting.
Erica bent down, her stomach in her throat as she wretched. She could hear the rustling turn into a ‘thump,’ then a ‘thump, thump.’ “Guys…” she wiped her mouth. “I think we may need to-“
Kristen shot up, shoved Erica out of the way and ran forward into the darkness.
They went after her, Ari’s light illuminating the brush.
Kristens hands clenched slowly in front of her chest, then shot out – The rustling died as dead flesh slumped to the ground. She walked back, silent, her face devoid of emotion.
“I’d hate to piss her off,” Erica whispered.
“Yea, don’t do that,” Michael whispered back. “She’s got a great long game too. Hurt you in ways you haven’t even thought of.”
CHAPTER 46
Terry took off ahead at a four-legged gallop; his nose pressed to the ground, searching for scent. His head lifted and shot across the open plain.
The pace quickened, Gloria spun backwards in her wheelchair and drug behind a Soldier. “What’s happening?” She whispered, between bumps and ruts in the field.
Flanked on either side by a column of them, Bariac struggled to keep up.
Terry rounded a thicket of mesquite and bramble; a huddling mass of a dozen hunters, clinging to one another. “It’s ok.” He put his hands up and head down, submissively. “won’t harm you.”
The alpha male bound out, inches from his face, sniffing and tasting the air. It let out a low screech, a click of its jaws.
Terry shook his head. “Don’t understand.”
The alpha male closed his eyes, seemingly lost in thought. A grumbling, gravelly sound as he sucked in air. “Ghhhwwww…” He blew out. “hhhieee.”
Terry cocked his head. “Why?”
The alpha rose slightly, his head bobbing in a nod; he rapped on Terry’s chest with his knuckles.
“Why has this happened to you?” Terry studied the alpha’s body language. “Why am I here? Why what?”
His head bobbed in a nod, so ardently that his whole body shook with it.
Terry waved his hand, summoning the others forward.
Lieutenant Alexander was first in – the alpha’s muscles coiled, his teeth bared at her.
“The gun,” Terry garbled. “put it away.”
She handed it off and knelt down in the clearing, the alpha settled only slightly, his eyes scanning the Soldiers outside. “Back up!” She waved off the Soldiers outside, while pointing to the doctors.
Bariac took hold of Gloria, wheeling her towards the clearing.
“They want to know why?”
“Well?” Gloria looked up at Bariac.
He shook his head, ashamed of the words he would need to speak. “A virus. You understand?”
The alpha nodded, its eyes neutral – neither anger nor hostility. “Ghhhww… hhhiee,” it echoed once more.
“I created it.” He stared at the ground, as though confessing his sins. “Rather, I was forced to weaponize a virus, after I was captured.” He looked up at the alpha briefly, as though hoping for some reprieve.
Neither judgement, nor pardon issued from its face.
“I had seen it before, worked with it. First in Israel, then Russia.” He let out a nervous sigh. “Was genetic material, you understand… blood. Do you know what that means?”
The alpha tapped the side of his skull, then reached over, tapped at the side of Bariac’s, as if to say, ‘My mind is still human.’
“Very well.” He shifted to a more comfortable seated position. “Three vessels… building blocks of life; all missing some key genetic structure…” A thought crept through his mind; a ‘what if,’ that he dared not try. “For your sequence, we tried many applications. Introducing material to an unborn fetus; the results… disturbing.” ‘I wonder what happened to project Watcher,’ he thought. ‘Maybe I could try.’ “In the end we stripped its DNA, introduced a virus as the host, targeted the gene HLA-DQA1 - Diabetes. They weaponized it in mass… unleashed it all over the world.”
The alpha stared down at its hands, examining the talons at the tips of its fingers. It’s garbled words formed a question – ‘Fix?’
“I have.” Bariac stared down at the dirt. “I’ve brought you back.”
His eyes showed a sadness, familiar to all.
“Come.” Bariac stood. “We need samples, convert more of your kind.”
The alpha hunkered down in a squat.
“You won’t be harmed,” Terry whispered. “promise.”
The alpha snapped his jaws in a click.
‘Maybe the word for no,’ Terry wondered. “There’s food…”
The alpha looked back at his hungry pack, the Soldiers standing before him; lifted himself out of the bramble, gated laboriously out onto the plain.
CHAPTER 47
“Decide yet?” Dustin asked.
Lieutenant Engel stared down, his brown eyes fixed. “Not much of a choice, ya know?” h
e muttered in a thick Minnesotan accent, then ran a hand through his short, sandy brown hair. “I’ll take the veggie omelet.”
Dustin recoiled into a revolted sneer. “You’re a better man than I.” He leaned down to the cardboard box, grabbed the brown plastic Meal Ready to Eat and handed it off.
Engel plopped down next to Dustin on the prison cot and tore into it, rifling through its contents and immediately pocketed the book of matches, included among its contents.
Flanked on all sides by Soldiers in the open bay cell, Dustin whispered, “Whatcha doin’ there, Macguyver?” His mirrored tone mocking Engel.
Engel looked around for guards, or anyone else that might be listening. “If things go south, I don’t plan on staying.” He lifted up his pantleg; long black socks rolled down over his boots, concealing a wad of an unknown substance.
Dustin grabbed the last remaining MRE, Chilli with beans. He ripped the bag open with his teeth, and palm down, slipped the matches over to Engel. “What’re we waiting for?” he whispered.
Engel pocketed the second book of matches. “If and when I need it, I’ll-“
“Now.” Dustin’s eyes wild at the prospect of freedom, his voice noticeably agitated. “I need to get the hell out of here.”
Engel jumped back. “Shhh.”
His upper lip curled into a sneer, visibly quelling the rage inside.
“Ari and Erica will be fine, for now,” he whispered. “You will too, so long as you shut the hell up.”
Dustin glared at him, his rage quickly shifted to that of surprise.
Engel leaned back on his hands, pleased.
“What are you?” His mind quickly raced. The thought of Erica or Taylor or Luca, at the things he had seen; nothing seemed out of the realm of possibility now. “How can you know that?”
“I’m a Navy SEAL, ya know?” He laughed at his own bewildering statement. “I know a lot of things.”
“Tell me,” Dustin whispered. “Are you like them, or something?”
Engel chuckled. “Or something…”
Dustin edged in, pressing for more.
“Oh, fine.” Engel held his right hand out, as if to shake hands. “But don’t be weird about it.”
Hesitantly, Dustin took it. In a flash, his mind was pulled high above, flying over land and sea; features whizzing past him at incredible speed. His body dropped alongside a rock wall, flat on his face.
“Sorry.” Engel grabbed under his arm, lifting him to his feet. “Easier once you’ve done it a few times.”
He looked up at the giant stone pediments, carved directly into the rock. “What in God’s-“
“No, no,” Engel interrupted, while brushing the dirt off him. “Not God’s…” A man walked past them, fully dressed for combat, oblivious to their presence. “Look,” he whispered. “That’s me.”
Dustin stared at Lieutenant Engel, then back at the young man; the likeness unmistakable as he laid his weapon beside him and knelt down to prayer. From the hollow entryway flew a thrush, its feathers brown with a white speckled belly, chirping what seemed at random; it landed in front of the young man.
“See there?” Engel pointed at the bird. “That’s me too.” The young Engel stared down at it, seemingly mesmerized by its green eyes. “Wait for it…” The bird’s mouth hung open wide, a harmony of particulates spun from its beak.
Dustin stared, bewildered. “Can he-“
“No,” Engel said. “My little guy can’t do much, but he can do visions.”
The young Engel cocked his head, though listening to the bird, then whispered the word, “Yes.” The particulates shot into him; his hands covered his eyes and mouth as he bowed his head to the earth.
Dustin shook his head and whispered, “What the hell…”
“No, no,” Engel said once more. “Not that either.”
Dustin looked over. “A parasite?”
Engel smiled. “I’m still me, just with a little bit more… knowledge.”
“I’m sorry,” his voice frank. “but can you cut the crap and tell me what’s going on here?”
Engel rolled his eyes and chuckled. “You first.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You think they just hand out gifts to anyone?” Engel’s tone now equally as blunt. “I’ll give you this much… you need to know this more so than anyone on this earth now.” As he spoke, the scene changed. The stone visage in the holy city of Peetra expunged; the stone rim lowered, as sands of time blew away. “I don’t know what part you’ll play in the days to come, but an important one, nonetheless.” The earth now dark, the air dense and hot.
Dustin looked at his eyes, now glowing green.
“I am Haziel and this is my time,” Engel whispered in an ethereal tone, now lacking an accent. “In the beginning…” He looked up; a fire in the sky that seemed set upon them. “we escaped a dying planet.” The ball of flame shot into the earth, burying itself deep underground. “So many lives, so much knowledge destroyed in the want and greed for the power of perfection.” Beings exited the crater; their form like that of a human, though their features of an odd proportion.
Dustin could sense in the distance, not by sight or sound, but of knowing, that other beings less advanced existed on this earth. Awestruck with the vision of this ancient earth; a meeting of the two.
“An awakening,” Engel whispered. In the distance, one of many travelers extended its hand towards the primitive human. The mist, not unlike what had issued from the thrush just moments before.
The timeline flashed forward once more, through the rise of a civilization. The primitive humans now putting knowledge to use, in the development of buildings and written language. Through the changing form of the many generations that passed before him, it was apparent that the beings were not only co-habitating, but procreating with the host population. “As we expired,” Engel said. “Our essence, our mind was returned; stored within a suitable host, or within the vessel in which we arrived.”
Time ticked on and Dustin noticed another fire in the sky shoot down some distance over the horizon. Engel pointed up. “Shayateen.”
Dustin looked over, cockeyed. “English, please.”
“Enemy,” he whispered. At that, the prosperity that generations had seen was gone. An army of humans marched out of the west, armed with bronze swords and shields, massacring their fellow men. At that painful wound, the door was open for Shayateen. He came, like a thief in the night, infecting them with lust and want for retribution and power. “The very thing we escaped, delivered to us.”
“We were now fully engaged in war.” Engel whispered, as an army raised before him; unearthly banners on the march. “Where Shayateen struck first, we struck last and best. We destroyed his forces in fire.”
“And you support this?” Dustin asked. “The destruction of human life?”
“Yes.” Though his answer was certain, he appeared in conflict. “A last resort.” The vision advanced into a great sadness; the whole of the populated world descended into warfare. “As victory was assured, the enemy scattered his essence among many lives; assuring that he would neither win, nor lose; but live on until the day that he would become one again.”
“But why now?”
“We are not gods, Dustin. As the world’s satellite network shut off, he realized he had lost a link to what other parts of him exist. When all the world lived on the same continent, it was easy for him; knowing that we would not eradicate humanity to extinguish his life. As the network restored, so too did Shayateen.”
“And where is God in all this?”
“I don’t know exactly.” Engel put his hands out. “Everywhere… nowhere. It would be foolish to assume anything so infinite could be understood by such finite beings as us.”
Dustin’s brow furrowed. “And Jesus? Is he one of you?”
“You’re one of us, Dustin. As those of us that lived among you are part of your genetic makeup. We’re among the Bible, and the Quaran, Hindu Vedda�
��s, Buddhist Sutra’s, Norse Sagas…”
Dustin crouched down, as if hard pressed to absorb the information. “Been a weird few months,” he mumbled to himself.
“Take your time.” Engel crouched down beside him.
“So, you’re an alien, and I’m apparently part alien, and what’s Erica? She part alien too?”
“With the many generations our races have mixed, we found that we could no longer fully assimilate into your bodies. All I’m able to do here, is parlor tricks compared to what Erica could do.” As he spoke, the scene changed again. They were no longer in Petra, rather back at the prison. “We needed to change your DNA altogether, so we left seeds; three vials, meant to be administered in gestation…”
Dustin settled himself back onto the cot.
“… Mixed with our DNA, designed to create the ultimate weapon; that which can destroy Shayateen.”
“Erica’s a weapon then?” Dustin rubbed at the tension in his temples. “What the fuck?”
Engel laughed. “That’s a little more appropriate, actually.”
“That’s not funny.” Dustin glared at him, a newfound weight at his predicament. “It’s my girls out there.”
“Sorry.” The Minnesotan accent had returned. “Ya know what the little birdie told me?”
Dustin raised his eyebrows, uninterested.
“He asked me if I’d be willing to die, out of love.”
CHAPTER 48
Taylor strolled around the hospital, his hands folded behind his back. Curious at the groaning, he peeked in a door, his steps quiet as he entered. The patient: a man, heavily sedated; his leg bandaged, cut short at the thigh. “Changing bandages?” he asked the nurse.
She looked over, not sure what to make of him.
“You must be new.” He walked over to the bedside. “Let’s have a look, shall we?” He reached for the limb.
“Stop!” She grabbed his arm.
He spun, the tips of his fingers flipped outward, driving her into a wall, unconsious; he turned to the patient. “You’d like your leg back, I assume?”