Aliens, Tequila & Us: The complete series

by Michael Herman

  Just like that, all males are banned from Sonnet’s room while Twizzle, Kitoko, and two female aides to the doctor remain. Outside of Sonnet’s room, many of the Bangala Elongó gather, waiting. The festive and colorful patterns on their clothes belie their somber and worried mood. A few kneel in prayer for her.

  “Let’s see what we can do for these guys,” Zed says, pointing towards the haggard and gaunt man emerging from the helicopter.

  Bull is limping so I offer my shoulder for support. He takes it with a half-smile of thanks.

  “Anything broken?” I ask while we walk to the other building.

  “I don’t think so, but some of the other guys may not be so lucky.”

  The damaged and wasted security men, rescued and flown back to the compound, slowly shamble into our makeshift recovery room where their fellow security personnel administer first aid to them. It’s clear one man needs to be evacuated to a Kinshasa hospital for more extensive repair. I turn Bull over to two village women who peel off his clothes and haul him out to an outdoor shower on the side of the building. It’s no time for modesty and everyone acts accordingly. Two more skinny men are led out of the building to take Bull’s place under the showerhead after he finishes.

  I hear my name called, turn and see Twizzle waving me over. When I get there, she informs me I am to go to the village and get Kinshasa. It’s Sonnet’s request.

  “Sonnet is awake?”

  “If that’s what you want to call it. She looks awful. Says she’s infected and only Kinshasa can help her.”

  “Huh!” The idea of Sonnet being infected is worrisome. While the second security team searched for her, there were reports of a mysterious sickness sweeping the northeastern area of the DRC and parts of Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi. I hope this isn’t what she refers to when she says she’s infected because the sickness is reported to kill swiftly. Worse, there is no word of a cure for it. The crew searching for Sonnet had come upon whole villages devastated by the disease. Luckily, they never reported back that any of the team became afflicted.

  I jog to the village and find Kinshasa just finishing nursing her baby. She asks about Sonnet and the men and says she was on her way to come and see them. She bundles her baby up in colorful cloth and carries her swaddled on her back. On the walk back to our compound the conversation between us revolves around her newborn’s growth and her caring for the baby. As we near the compound, I say, “Sonnet says she’s infected. Says you are the one to help her.”

  She give me a hard look.

  “What sickness can you cure?” I ask her.

  She says she’s as much in the dark as I am. In fact, it worries her that she’s asked to come in contact with a person who is ill with disease.

  By the time we arrive at Sonnet’s building, Kinshasa has grave doubts about entering. She doesn’t want to expose herself, and more importantly, her baby.

  I empathize with her. I’d probably feel the same if the circumstances were reversed. “Wait out here while I go in and speak to Sonnet,” I say. Before I enter, I’m met at the door by Kitoko who pushes me back.

  “Women only” she says and brushes past me to Kinshasa. She drops to the grass in front of Kinshasa and has her kneel facing her. She takes Kinshasa’s hands in hers and together they begin a silent conversation of eye blinks and facial movements that lasts for many minutes. Kinshasa’s baby that she carries bundled on her back remains still and silent the whole time. Their conversation concludes and Kitoko jumps up from the ground. She pulls Kinshasa up and drags her through the surrounding Bangala Elongó over to me.

  “Take the baby,” she commands, thrusting the child into my arms. Then the two of them disappear into the building and the door closes behind them.

  Her baby is small in my hands, so young and so new to the world. With her little eyes closed tight, she’s oblivious to the change in handler. My biggest fear when holding a newborn is accidentally harming it. I’m never sure of myself and it usually shows. I cradle her in my hands for a while until one of the village women, apparently watching me and my uncomfortable awkwardness, offers to take the baby from me. I carefully hand the child over to the woman who laughs at my cautiousness. She lets me know children are not porcelain dolls that are easily broken. She holds the baby high over her head, does a twirl and then dances away in mirth.

  While my attention is focused on her, a hand is laid on my shoulder and Twizzle’s voice remarks from behind me, “It’s like voodoo in there with Sonnet, Kitoko, and Kinshasa. Butterflies appear out of thin air to become medicine that is then swallowed by Sonnet and them. Worms, bugs, even a small snake are all devoured or bled into their mouths. They eat, chew, and then spit the chewed things into and on Sonnet. So damn primitive! I couldn’t take anymore. Let them do their magic and we can clean up after.” She runs her hands through her hair, pulling it back from her face in nervousness again and again. I touch one of her hands and she becomes conscious of her nervous tic. She stops with a guilty look.

  “Sorry. Thanks for stopping me. Next thing you know I’ll be pulling out small patches of it.” She takes my hands into hers and looks me in the eyes. “I’m so damn worried about her. She looks crazed. She acts crazed. What the hell has she been through? My imagination is running wild. She spoke of being captured by bandits. God only knows what they might have done to her. At least she has all of her limbs.” Firsthand accounts of women having an arm chopped off and then cooked and eaten loom large in her mind. Her grip on my hands tightens. “She spoke of watching people eat human parts, cooked and burnt. What the hell, Forbes? What did we allow her to get herself into?” Emotion strains her voice. “We were fools to let her leave with only a few men. What was I thinking?” Her face crumples into a cry and she buries it in my chest, sobbing and hugging me, saying over and over, “Forbes. Oh God, Forbes!”

  I try to remain steadfast and let her run herself out, suppressing my own emotions and just looking off into the distance.

  The Bangala Elongó around us progress into organized prayer and chanting that is somehow pacifying and medicinal. After a few minutes, Twizzle’s body relaxes in my arms, her sobs trail off and she begins to whisper quietly along with the chants of the Bangala Elongó. Before long, I find myself chanting along, becoming more of one mind with them. My mood calms, and surprisingly, I feel Sonnet’s presence increasing in strength. I sense our outpouring of concern flowing into her, making her healthy and strong.

  Twizzle pulls from my arms and then faces the Bangala Elongó. Her chanting grows louder and more singsong. A few of the Bangala Elongó start to dance to the rhythm, clapping their hands and smiling. Slowly, the mournful tide turns and there is not a somber face in the crowd. Everyone is smiling and happy until the door to Sonnet’s building opens and Sonnet steps out onto the grass and dirt.

  Everyone stops and all eyes turn to her. No one moves. No one speaks. Everyone waits in expectation.

  Her hair is washed and wet and stringy. Her skin is clean. Her visible wounds are bandaged. Her pale skin doesn’t seem so translucent and the bags under her eyes are not so grey. An odor of disinfectant and soap surround her. A loose drab-patterned short-sleeve dress loosely covers her to her knees. In weariness, she reaches up to the doorway jamb and leans her body against it. Her somber eyes slowly take in the crowd, going from face to face. Finally, the edge of her mouth curls up, she smiles a big smile for everyone and then bows in thanks, saying in Lingala, “Blessings upon you all, balingami Bangala Elongó. It is only because of your prayers and your concern that I am still alive. Thank you all. I...” and then her eyes close, her body wavers unsteadily, and she drops in slow motion.

  Before she falls to the ground, the doctor, Bijanji is behind her, catching her in her arms and lowering her into a sitting position. She scolds Sonnet for thinking she had enough strength to walk and stand.

  I rush to help Bijanji and together the two of us carry her back to her bed where her body contours itself to the mattress.

&nbs
p; “Sorry. Thought I could do more. It was the power of the Bangala Elongó that made me feel strong for those moments.”

  Kitoko and Kinshasa stand off to the side looking drained and tired. They hold hands and simply stare at Sonnet in silence. Kitoko’s eyes meet mine and she reads my unspoken question about Sonnet’s well-being. She tells me, “The many of Molingami Sonnet must merge. They must cease their warring with each other. They do damage to the vessel that is Molingami Sonnet. She is only human. They must respect her condition and frailty. They must respect future purpose. Kinshasa and I must stay with Molingami Sonnet to remind them until they are one.” She lowers her eyes and a look of doubt crosses her face. “It will take time, much time, maybe many days, maybe weeks. They are metals that must be joined by fire.” She meets my eyes again. “Kinshasa and I will give ourselves to this. You must protect and care for Kinshasa Míbalé while we are at Molingami Sonnet’s side.”

  “Kinshasa Míbalé will be well provided for, Kitoko. The Bangala Elongó and I will treat her like she is birthed from our own seed. But what of the two of you?”

  “Bijanji will oversee all of us. She and her women will provide for us. Now you must leave us while we war with the many. You are distraction.”

  I turn to Sonnet. “You okay with all this?”

  She gives me a weak smile and says, “I’m in good hands, Uncle Forbes. I’ll get better. I just need some time to recuperate. Stupid thing getting out of bed.” She closes her eyes, breathes deep and then opens them with a small smile. “It finally smells like home again. I missed you all so much.” She closes her eyes and settles into the pillow and bed to get a much needed deep rest. I acknowledge Kitoko and Kinshasa and tell Bijanji to let me know if there is anything more I can do and then I walk out of the building.

  Sonnet’s Legacy Chapter 12

  Bull is sitting on the edge of a wooden chair. His left arm is laid out on the wooden table in front of him. A security man slowly threads clear stitching through Bull’s skin, closing up a diagonal slice across his forearm. Bull’s eyes are focused in a thousand-yard stare off to nowhere. A woman applies ointment to a smaller cut on his forehead. His nakedness is covered by a fresh pair of boxer shorts. Bruises, scrapes, and scratches cover much of his body. One of his fingernails is missing and I notice that the pinky finger on his left hand is missing the distal and intermediate phalanges. The stump is bloody and yet to be covered. His hair is wet and uncombed. There is a small triangular divot on his forehead that has yet to be treated and slowly drips blood. The odor of soap and disinfectant is strong on him.

  Twizzle, seated next to him, daubs antiseptic onto a cut on his other arm. An open box of bandages, tipped over, its contents spilled, sits on the table in front of her. Quiet, she frowns in concentration. The men and women assembled to treat the rescued team that just disembarked from the Foundation helicopter make small chatter. One of the rescued men is groaning and being readied for transportation to Kinshasa for further medical treatment.

  I grab a chair and pull up behind the man who is just now finishing his stitching on Bull’s arm. The security man ties off the thread, cuts it and then places bandages over the stitched area. When he finishes, he announces he needs to stitch up one of the other men. He grabs his supplies, stands and walks away. I take his seat in front of Bull.

  “What happened, Rafa?” I ask, worry and anger mingling in my voice. “We lose communications with you the day after you land in Goma and then you disappear for months. We thought the worst. Hope dimmed the longer you stayed lost from us. And Sonnet talks about bandits capturing you?”

  Bull blinks away his stare into space, slowly turns and focuses on me. He grimaces and shakes his head. “Volcan Mikeno was wrong. There was nothing there. Unless you count the rebels and poachers. The trip was a disaster right from the start. After we landed at Goma, getting transport was impossible. Everyone was fleeing Goma trying to get away from the advancing rebels. It was chaos. It was only Sonnet’s sixth-sense connection to the Bangala Elongó that enabled us to find something suitable, if that’s what you can call an old broken down Toyota pickup. Sonnet, and the local Bangala Elongó and I, sat in the front seat. The rest of my crew rode in the truck bed with our supplies. We made it to the foot of Volcan Mikeno, left the local Bangala Elongó with the truck and then hiked on foot from there. Never found anything except trouble. Poachers mistook us for government agents and fired on us. Killed our radio man and his radio and then vanished when we returned fire. We searched for a week in the mountains, avoiding the rebels who arrived shortly after we did. They weren’t interested in Volcan Mikeno or us. It was the hunters that we had problems with. Sonnet was no help for us. She said she could no longer conjure up avatars. She was defenseless.

  “It was only when we ran into a camp of her Bangala Elongó that had killed two adults of Kinshasa’s people and were about to kill their child that our path changed. We killed her Bangala Elongó and rescued the child who was convinced that Sonnet was one of her people. The child told Sonnet that the cave she sought was to the north and that the child could take us there.

  “That meant we would have to walk or drive into the oncoming rebel tide as well as navigate the cannibalistic pygmy tribes that lived in the area of the cave. Sonnet and I argued about proceeding north. I wanted to wait and go better prepared; she maintained it was absolutely necessary that we get there as soon as possible. Time was of the essence for the unification of her and her Gi.

  “So we trudged on, spending much of our time traveling by nightfall and moonlight. Very hazardous and slow. The kid was a curse. She kept telling us it was only a little farther, and a little farther, and a little farther. I had to quell mutiny again and again from our guys and I don’t blame them. It was madness. Our brushes with the pygmies, our skirmishes with bandits, our constantly dodging rebels. I don’t know how we ever managed to finally find the damn cave, but we did and that was the beginning of a different set of problems.

  “The inside of the cave was a whole new hell. Snakes—snakes everywhere—and big snakes. Snakes the size of fairytale dragons. Snakes with claws. Snakes that spewed acid venom. Sonnet is the only reason we survived there. They back away from her. She fended them off as we traveled deeper and deeper into their lair. Finally, we came to a huge cavern with glowing walls where this Gi snake monster dwelled.

  “Only Sonnet could approach it. It was like something out of a nightmare. Beauty and the beast. It came to her and coiled its huge self around her, raising her up to its terrible face. I don’t know how she braved her way to face it. She reached out touched its snout and just froze there for ten minutes or so. Then it lowered her to the ground and dissolved into white fireflies. It swarmed over her, covered her in light dropped from her like sand particles, dead and grey.

  “She collapsed. We rushed to her fallen body and found her still conscious which was a damn good thing because as soon as the light things vanished, the edges of the cavern came alive with those evil snakes. They slithered toward us from all sides, hissing and snarling and roaring. Can you believe snakes snarling and roaring? We assumed this was the end until Sonnet waved her arm and conjured up her own light things. She pushed the lights out in a radial pattern around us and killed every last one of the snakes.

  “What a noise! I thought I’d heard it all, but those things let out screams that ran ice water over my bones. When it was over, there was just Sonnet, us, and a thin white snake with a blood-red tongue wrapped around her neck. Even its eyes were white. It was wrapped around her throat several times like a piece of jewelry. But it was alive and pulsing like it was a part of her. She told us not to remove it, that it was not harmful to her. I asked her what had happened between her and the big demon snake. She said it gave her fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I asked her what she was talking about and she said that the Hebrew story of Adam and Eve was not the story of the creation of earth, but instead, of the universe. She looked at me and, using her hands, mimic
ked an explosion and said, ‘Thus was the creation of all.’ Biblical nonsense, as far as I was concerned. She was the riddler that I couldn’t interpret.

  “When I carried her out of that cavern back into the tunnels, that snake’s eyes never left me. Gave me the willies. When her neck was leaned up against me, I felt its flesh throb. Its skin was cool and slippery. But the other snakes weren’t through with us. Walking back the way we came, we heard a rumbling noise up ahead, a noise like rocks tumbling and earth falling. Sure enough, the snakes had dislodged the ground and caused the tunnel to collapse.

  “When we got to the cave-in, all we found were dead snakes under debris and no exit in sight. We had no alternative but to go back and navigate through uncharted tunnels. But they didn’t take us far. There was little in the way of possible alternatives for escape. The only positive was an underground stream through the large cavern that kept us supplied with water and some food. The cavern walls gave us adequate light and...” he closes his eyes and shivers, “...the dead snakes. We ate them for food. But there was only so much we could take and they began to rot. So we lived off of bugs and worms and the few fish we got from the stream.” He makes a small laugh. “We actually got used to the stench from the dead and rotting snakes. Imagine that.”

  This was amazing. “How long were you trapped? You obviously got out.”

  “Yeah, we got out. Above ground, the rainy season was in full swing. The water level of the stream was rising, forcing us to higher ground. What started out as just a stream cutting through the cavern turned into a small underground lake that found a new exit on one end of the cavern.

  “We were trapped for over two months down there until Sonnet’s avatar ability started returning. She sent creatures into the water to follow the flow and see where it daylighted, but her conjuring was premature. They dissipated before they could find anything. So she stopped and waited for her powers to grow. The problem was the waters were rising, forcing us higher and higher with less and less land to stay on.