“Damn it! Get away from it!” I yelled.
“Ouch!” Tommy lurched up, tripped, and fell forward, landing on his face.
“Noooooo!” I screamed. I climbed down the crater’s wall and ran, but I had to slow my pace. Clusters of mostly buried egg-shaped objects blocked my direct path. I had to zigzag through the deepening and widening crater.
Rant reached him first, flipped him over on his backside, and knelt next to him. “Where are you injured?”
“Something bit me.” He held up his bleeding finger. It was a minor puncture wound.
“Well, you deserved it,” Big Al shouted, sulking under a lone tree apart from the rest of us.
“Let’s get out of here!” I pulled Tommy to his feet and attempted to drag him out of the crater.
“Man. Get off my back!” Tommy yelled. “You’re not my father. You don’t control me.”
“Something is controlling all of us,” I responded.
“Leave me alone or I will…”
“Or you will what?”
Tommy pulled out a pair of scissors from his back pocket and lunged at me. I quickly dodged the first jab from his rusty blade and jumped back. I wanted to do something but I did not have the heart to injure Tommy, even if my life depended on it. I felt trapped.
“You’re the cause of all of my troubles. You’re the biggest fucking twat in the world.”
Tommy grew angrier and started to chase me. He swung his small weapon like a fencing sword. I pulled out my pistol and aimed it at his chest. I began to feel a strong impulse to blast him to kingdom come and be done with it. At first, I was scared, but now I was growing enraged by his combative actions. I had built up a reserve of grudges against him and his stupid antics. My sudden display of a gun surprised Tommy. He froze in mid-air. He did not blink his eyes for what seemed like an eternity.
“Go on! Shoot me! Like you did to Jack.” Tommy’s face contorted into a rage of fury. He sneered with contempt and shouted, “Go ahead! Shoot me! You’re just a stinking murderer!”
As Tommy came closer, I began to lower my gun. I could not kill my best friend. Instead, I reached out with my right arm for protection. I could not believe he would harm me. With a wide slash of his arm, Tommy thrust his scissors into my forearm. I stumbled backward and fell, bleeding like a stuck pig. I sat there in a daze. How could he do this to me? I guess I deserved it. I was too trusting. I was always looking for the goodness in people. In return, I was being paid back with insults and savagery.
As Tommy approached me, I could see his eyes widening with a half-crazed glare of pleasure. He moved closer, arching his weapon above his head, ready to swoop in for the kill. I was toast.
Suddenly, Rant snuck up from behind and coldcocked Tommy in the back of the head. He went down and out. Holding my bleeding arm, I crawled next to him. This was my fault. I should have never gotten him involved. I knelt over my old pal to see how seriously he was injured. Tommy was not responding. I shook him. Nothing.
Meanwhile, Rant turned and approached the strange object with a flurry of uncertainty. She tilted her head to one side and half-arched her eyebrow. She appeared to be on the verge of expressing a frown mingled with doubt and fear. Walking haltingly, she held her gun next to her right side and reached out with her other hand. She moved cautiously closer. Her fingertips were inches away from the egg-shaped rock surface. Suddenly, she hesitated, swallowed with a deep breath, and slowly backed away. “It’s just a rock. There’s no such thing as little green monsters,” Rant mouthed softly, trying to reassure herself.
She slowly circled the mysterious object, squinting at it with a contemptuous grimace. Then she leaned over and spied a lizard scampering across the object’s smooth surface. “But I do believe in little green reptiles… Maybe.”
As Rant continued to study the strange object amidst the chaos, Sarah rushed over and jerked out the scissors protruding from my arm. The blood spewed out like a geyser. My arm throbbed with intensity, feeling as if the blade had lodged deep into my bone. Sarah wrapped my arm with a white piece of cloth. After a few moments, she took my hand, lightly squeezing it. She was in no hurry to release her grip. Without a single word, she leaned over and planted a long kiss on my cheek.
As she kept fussing with my bandage, I noticed that the white bandage had grown dark red. It was amazing how much blood could gush from such a small, deep wound. I wondered if it would ever stop gushing.
“You’ll need a tetanus shot,” Sarah advised as she tightened the dressing. “Tommy’s cutting tool was extremely rusty.”
I nodded.
“We must go,” Sarah insisted.
With Sarah’s help, I attempted to stand. That little rise in elevation caused an immediately dizzy spell and disorientation. I fumbled about, drowsy to the point of almost passing out, not positive what was happening. I had a faint idea that we had to flee the area as soon as possible. “Every man to his lifeboat,” I shouted. “Fire the flares. Sound the sirens.”
“Honey,” Sarah said gently with a faint smile. “We need to settle down and rescue our friend.” She pointed to Tommy’s listless body, lying flat in the dirt, face down.
With a clearer mind and steadier arms, I helped Sarah lift Tommy’s body up and dragged him to the base of the crater wall. With Lenny’s assistance, we pulled him up and deposited his lifeless body several feet higher on the flat land, assuming it was safe. At least we hoped we had escaped from the danger zone.
Rant remained in the crater, momentary. Like a rooster guarding his paltry hens, our female Rambo protected our rear guard, making sure that danger would not overtake us. Gun pressed against her cheek, her watchful eyes and loaded Glock concentrated on anything reeking of strangeness. After a while, everything appeared safe. Adopting a more relaxed manner, she causally slipped on her dark sunglasses, beaming with confidence. She climbed out of the crater.
“Well, what did you find?” I asked Rant.
“From what I could see, nothing. There was no devilish xenomorph or any type of alien predator. Just a little green lizard. A cute one at that.”
Tommy finally stirred and opened up his eyes. He was not particularly happy to hear Rant’s all-clear assessment.
“But the thing lunged at me, man! Not cool! Not cool at all!”
“Maybe you should keep distance,” Lenny said. “Little playthings can kill. I should know.”
“I know how to handle a lizard,” Tommy said as he sat up and shook his head.
“Maybe it just couldn’t handle you,” Rant chuckled. “We should not let our fears control us.”
I agreed with Rant, but I knew there was something out there. We just couldn’t see it.
* * * * *
We followed a cow path for hours, sneaking across meadows, around barns, and down dry washes in weather too hot to breathe. The heat was sapping my strength and taking away my desire to escape to Riverside. But at least my arm wound had stopped bleeding through my cloth bandage.
When the land became flatter, we moved farther away from the rocky cliff hills. We passed through fields of brown oats and reached an overhanging bluff. Columns of smoke dotted the horizon as far as the eye could see. That was probably the front line with all its chaos and murderous spectacle. Thousands of men, perhaps several divisions of infantry, were advancing north to Riverside, while an equal number attacked from the east. We were definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“We better wait for dark,” Sarah suggested.
“Yeah.” I looped my arm around her waistline and drew her closer as we watched the battlefield. This was better than any late-night John Wayne war flick. Now, if only I could find some buttered popcorn.
“We’re not getting through,” Rant interrupted us with her stern assessment of our situation. “We’re trapped.”
“Maybe,” I nodded and told everyone to find a place to hide out until nightfall. We fanned out, and Tommy was the first to discover rows of freshly dug trenches and foxholes. They w
ere perfect for our circumstances, except dozens of Army Rangers already occupied them.
We waited to proceed any further. When darkness hid our movements, we crept on hands and knees between two widely spaced foxholes. We heard no sounds and saw no human movement.
“Don’t move!” shouted one black soldier hiding in a foxhole. He popped up and swung his rifle at Tommy’s head. With a quick hand motioned, I signaled Rant to circle behind our armed adversary. She immediately followed my orders.
In a moment’s time, Rant had sneaked up behind the soldier. She crawled next to him and nudged her cold barrel against his head. “Boo!”
The soldier raised his shaking hands and threw down his rifle. He turned around and faced Rant, pleading in a soft whisper, “Don’t shoot me! Don’t eat me! I surrender.”
I glanced around to see the reaction of Sarah and Tommy. They both wore stunned and bewildered faces. What was our captive ranting about, I mouthed silently? Who eats people?
“I have Hepatitis C. My liver would kill you.”
I leaned back completely dumbstruck. Our captive must be afflicted with some craziness pathogen. As I tried to decipher the soldier’s message, Rant silently checked out the adjacent foxhole. She crept to the nearest one and spied a row of military men occupying the trench-like pit. I could see the tops of their heads peeking above the ground. As she prowled nearer to the edge of the foxhole, the enemies appeared asleep or incapacitated. She was plainly visible to the enemy combatants, yet they failed to shout out an alarm.
“Are they asleep?” I questioned the soldier in a low voice.
“Are you for real?” the man laughed nervously.
I found nothing funny about my question. It was almost past twilight, but the air was still sizzling with heat. They might be suffering from heatstroke or hyperthermia.
“They’ll stay put,” the soldier chuckled more loudly. “Yeah, they won’t need their dancing shoes anymore.”
I scrambled over to foxholes, peered down, and confirmed his story. Indeed, they were all dead, pale-faced, and missing an array of body parts. It was startling. Most of the bodies were devoid of legs and arms as if a meat-market butcher had skinned them alive. Even stranger, the ones still with legs were bootless. Their bare feet were gashed and smeared with blood.
I climbed into the trench and warily tiptoed among the mangled men. I felt nauseated. I struggled to avoid trampling over severed body parts or slogging through red pools of blood. That feat was becoming harder. There was little unspoiled ground. I could not help but crush or trip over the heaps of dismembered bodies. It almost looked like the men were sliced and diced with a meat cleaver. For some reason, the butcher left the bare bones sticking out past their fleshy parts. Who would do such a thing?
I had to get out. To make matters worse, swarms of buzzing flies were assaulting me, acting as if I was also on their menu. It was indeed the land of the dead. I clawed my way out of the trench and stumbled back to the black soldier, my head spinning in a daze. I peered down at him. “Why would anyone sever human body limbs? Why?”
“They refused to fight,” the black soldier said in a pain-stricken voice. He looked away and swallowed. “That’s the whole terrible truth. I’m alive because I obeyed. By God, I wanted to resist. But I also wanted to live. I turned pragmatic. I shot at my fellow man out of fear. I killed my brothers to save my skin. God will never forgive me. I’m an untouchable.”
I glanced at Rant and Tommy. They were just as shocked and disgusted as I was. No decent words could adequately describe my feelings. He was a man chained to a life of repentance, sorrow, and deep misery. He cradled his sadness with a heavy sadness of guilt. All I could do was offer our condolences and find out the quickest route away from this hell. I tried to show my kindest smile and most sympathetic eyes. “Well, can you show us the way to Riverside?”
“You won’t get through,” the black soldier snapped back. “Don’t you know? “
“Know what?” I was almost afraid to hear the answer.
“That’s World War III erupting out there. Your timing’s impeccable.”
At that moment, I decided to be more understanding. I introduced my wandering troupe of ragtag survivors to him. The soldier capitulated and told us he was Sergeant Cliff Jones. He was under the command of the 8th Army Rangers. He said he was a reservist who never expected to do actual duty again.
“Our position was raked by aircraft this morning. Everybody wanted to retreat. I stayed.”
“Why didn’t you retreat?” Rant asked.
“I knew our commander would take drastic measures to stop any deserter,” Cliff divulged. “I could see it Captain Manuel’s eyes. He had this nervous tick when people disagreed with him. He would start pulling out the hairs from his eyebrows. At other times, he would cut notches in his arm, slices out little strips of flesh, and eat them. We called him ‘Manuel the Cannibal.’”
“Are you from Hemet?” I asked.
“Sun City.”
“Which side are you on?” Tommy asked, sitting down next to Cliff, ears fixated on his every word. Rant moved closer to hear what our captive had to say. Like always, she fiddled with her gun. Sarah squatted and listened with curious attention. Big Al sat under a tree, looking miserable. Other things had distracted Lenny. He spent his time munching on a cache of recently uncovered candy bars. In fact, Lenny had rifled through most of the dead men’s pockets and backpacks. Who could eat at a time like this?
I faced the soldier and asked him the same question. I needed to know. I needed to know now. “Where do your loyalties lie?”
Cliff looked away uncomfortably. I decided to break the ice and tell him about our position. Someone had to make the first move.
“We’re escaping from Hemet on our own,” I said. “We›re just trying to get away.”
Cliff looked relieved. “You’re not one of THEM?”
I shook my head.
“Me neither. I should not even be here. I was visiting my mother in Sun City. A bunch of jackboot thugs marched into town, set up checkpoints, and took over. They rounded up all the young men and women and forced them to join the military.” Cliff lowered his face. “We had to fight. They told us they would kill our families if we refused. What kind of people live in Hemet anyway?”
“Did you see the shooting star several months ago?” I asked.
“Who cares what I saw?”
“Answer the question.” Rant towered over him like perched buzzard with a bad attitude.
“Sure. I saw it. Everyone did. So what?”
Sarah knelt next to Cliff. “They said they would kill your whole family if you refused to join them?” She asked with a slight tremble in her voice.
“Would I lie about that, sister?” Cliff took out of a pack of cigarettes and lit one up. “Never saw anything like it.” He looked over his shoulder. “By the way, do you have any pain meds or antibiotics?”
We all shook our heads in unison.
I felt obligated to ask. “Why?”
“I’ve been injured,” Cliff said as he noticed my injury. “And you?”
“It was just a stupid accident. “Friendly fire.”
“Not for me,” Cliff moaned in a harsh, throaty voice. “They made me suffer on purpose.”
“You’re welcome to come with us,” I offered.
“I suppose that’s a generous offer.” Cliff looked uneasy again. “But I’m not going anywhere.”
“All of your buddies are dead,” I tried to reason with him. “Anybody who checks up the status of your unit will think you also perished. Your family will be safe. Just switch dog tags with one of the corpses.”
“I can’t.” He glanced down at his feet. “They cut us. Our feet. So we couldn’t retreat.”
I leaned back. I had this nagging feeling that he was not telling me the whole truth. Perhaps he was still under a blackmailed threat. His military commander might have warned him that his family would be executed if he had any contact with the enemy.<
br />
At this point, I motioned Tommy to follow me. We slowly meandered away and took a short walk along a low ridge.
“He’s lying,” I said. “Nobody could be that cruel.”
“Think again,” Tommy disagreed. “During the Gulf War in the nineties, the Iraqi military cut the Achilles’ tendon of any soldier they thought might become a deserter. Like they did not care about their men. Dictators never do.”
“My God!” My injured arm began to ache in pain. I had never heard of anything so savage. Tommy was a tremendous wealth of information on every possible subject. He was more valuable to us than I had ever thought.
Cliff started to move. Using his hands, he painfully crawled out of the trench, dragging his feet behind. He sat near a pile of dirt. “They butchered all our feet. Hard to run away without an Achilles tendon.” He lifted up both feet and showed us his bloody wounds.
“For added insurance,” Cliff disclosed, “they stole our boots. I’m not going anywhere, no how.”
“We won’t leave you behind,” Tommy became more sensitive to Cliff’s plight. “We could carry you out.”
“I’m not worth it. The infection will probably kill me. They dipped their knives with some type of slow-acting toxin. At least that is what they said they had done. Listen, you are in dangerous and occupied territory. It’s at least five miles to sanity.”
I sat next to Cliff and tried to soothe his worries. “My father fought in World War II as a U.S. Marine. He said the Marine Corps’ sacred duty was to leave no man behind. That sounded like a good policy to me.”
“I know. I know. You don’t have to preach to the choir.”
“So, you will come with us?”
Cliff shook his head in disgust. “Yes. Fine. But this war makes no sense. What’s wrong with you people in Hemet anyway?” Cliff bit down on his lip and stared at me with his resentful eyes. “I was just heading out to seminary school. I was planning to become a minister of a Baptist church. Then wham, all of a sudden the world goes to hell.”
“It should never have happened,” I said.
“Then how did all of this crap start?”
“The roads,” Tommy interrupted. “They wanted to control our driving habits. Tell us when and where to drive. They said it was more efficient.”
We Are Them Page 26
