It dawned on him that there were other people in the room. He squinted his eyes to see better. A large room, more like a dark corridor because he could not see where it ended. All around him, strewn on the floor were numerous human bodies. Dead or alive, he had no idea.
He bent over, feeling for the face of the body he had stumbled over. He was breathing. He felt another body by its side. He felt up the body inching up towards its face, unmistakably female, not breathing.
Dead.
So both dead and alive people in the room, strewn all over in a heap.
Alex sat up, propped up against a body on the floor. There seemed to be numerous other bodies on the floor, as far as his squinted vision could see. He was twenty meters from a door, his path littered with more bodies on the way. He felt a stirring behind him, the body on whom he had stumbled, now stirring to life.
Alex shook him up, trying to wake him further into consciousness.
‘Hey! Can you hear me?’ Alex shook up the groggy, awakening body.
Only guttural sounds came from him
‘No…leave me. Not me. Leave me.’ Alex did not understand anything more than that. Obviously he was still not conscious enough. He lapsed into unconsciousness yet again, his body going limp in Alex’s hands.
At that moment, a hissing sound started, like the nozzle of a gas cylinder leaking gas. The noise was followed by a sweet smell wafting into Alex’s nose. His instincts kicked in. He immediately stopped breathing, dove into his neighbor’s clothes and clutched them close to his mouth to force himself from breathing the gas that slowly started filling up the room. He was quite sure that it was lethal. They were being gassed to death, or at the least, into unconsciousness. Or maybe this was a gas chamber filling up with an incendiary gas, about to be lit, to burn them all to cinders. He had no doubt that these aliens were capable of it. He had seen them pry-open graves in a graveyard. Surely, they wouldn’t think twice before incinerating the lot of them. If humans could do this to their own kind, then surely aliens, who shared no kinship with us, were capable of the same if not more.
What could be worse than that?
His military diving training and his brag-worthy ability to hold his breath for up to five minutes under water, came to his aid now. He calmed his nerves and held on till what seemed slightly longer than four minutes, and then the hissing stopped and the entire room was flooded with a greenish hue coming from lighted bars on the ceiling. Alex looked up at the bar, barely holding on to his breath. He took a quick glance around and saw that it was indeed a room and not a corridor. It was about thirty meters in length and twenty meters wide, with bodies all around, piled one on top of another, especially towards the corners. He was right in the middle of the room having crawled down from one of the corners. The bodies were fewer in the center and as he was looking around, it struck him. The bodies were fewer there because they were being dragged from the center out.
He immediately scrambled to his right, climbing over the bodies, careful not to step on their faces and managed to hurl himself onto a corner, atop the pile of bodies. His agility was the result of him having found his breath back. The sweetness had gone off the air now and he could breathe. Just as he reached the top of the pile in the corner, the door in the center of the room creaked open with a screeching noise. Alex was barely breathing, lying as still as he could. He decided to play dead, and buried his head under a dead woman’s corpse, hiding his eyes behind her dress, so that he could observe what is happening through the material of the dress, without being noticed.
The doors opened to let two long, fat shadows in. They were big, six feet plus in height and packing close to five hundred pounds each, at least. They moved clumsily and had some sort of masks on their faces. They were hairless with some sort of apron tied on to their backs. They walked on their feet but were hunched nevertheless, as if ready to get on their fours at any time. They vaguely reminded Alex of a Grizzly that he had encountered during one of his trekking trips. Only these appeared heavier and balder than the Grizzly. He stopped breathing yet again, deciding to play dead as in a bear attack. The alien grizzlies had a large hooked bars in their hands, their wrists strapped on to weapons of some kind. They forked and dragged bodies from near the door and then prodded further in, turning and tossing bodies till they found what they were looking for. They dragged a smaller body from the heap, a smaller frame, probably that of a child and hauled it out of the room, along with the other bodies. They hauled out about nine or ten bodies out of the room before turning and leaving the room. Alex saw the door ajar for about a minute while they were perhaps piling up the bodies outside the door. Then they pulled the door shut. The ceiling lights turned themselves off half a minute later, plunging the room back into darkness.
Alex rushed to the center of the room, feeling up for the familiarity of the living face he had touched a few moments ago. He could not find that form anymore. He had been dragged out along with the other bodies by the alien monsters. Alex immediately felt a lump forming in his throat, feeling a sense of loss for someone whom he had met only minutes ago. His mind needed to vent out the grief and the feeling of hopelessness that was building inside him.
He fell on his knees, terrified. He did not know what had happened to his daughters and what had happened to his wife. He did not know what was to become of him. He was trapped in the alien ship, far away from his family. It was possible that soon, he too would be forked and dragged out of the room to whatever end that greeted those taken away from that room.
He lifted a dead body from the floor, and burst out crying, wailing for the loss of an unknown life. He was scared and trapped and realized that he may not see Si or his daughters ever again. He needed to grieve and to vent and he cried, holding on to the body from the floor.
Chapter 7
Underground
Secret Service Hideout
Maryland
24th Jan, 2019
When Sienna came to, the first thing she noticed was her naked form under a white sheet on a narrow cot in the small closed space of a bunker bed. She sat upright, hitting her head against the metal belly of the cot above. There was a bandage on her head and an intravenous line punctured her left forearm. She gathered the sheet over her naked breasts and looked all around the room. The door was closed, but probably not fully so, as she could still see the light coming in through the edges. She looked down at her legs and wiggled her toes.
There was another bunk over her bed and an intravenous line went into someone Sienna could not see. She sighed, holding the bandage on her head again.
Where was she? What happened after the attack on the copters? How much time had gone by since the attack? She could not recollect anything after that attack. She got up from her bed, closed, unscrewed and capped her i.v, gathered the sheet around her body and limped to the door. She felt very weak, having to make an extraordinary effort, just to walk a few steps to the door. The door was not bolted. She pushed against it and it creaked open. She was in a corridor that extended on either side with a row of rooms on both the sides.
‘Ms. Dunbar. You shouldn’t be out of your bed.’ Sienna turned towards the voice. It came from a recess in the wall to her left. A lady in military fatigues with a stethoscope around her neck stood behind a desk, writing notes on a clipboard. There were about a dozen clipboards lying in front of her on the desk.
‘I am Dr. Amy Brent. I am your physician here. Good to have you back. But, you should be in your bed. You are too weak to be walking around’ there was compassion in her voice. She walked out from behind her desk and held Sienna by her arm, applying a firm pressure, urging her back into the bunker.
‘Where am I?’ Sienna looked around the anteroom opposite the recess, which was a makeshift reception with a few benches on one side and a desk on the other.
‘We are in a secure military location. You must remember the attacks. Do you?’
Sienna nodded.
The doctor continued, ‘You were among
the survivors from the attack on the White House. You were brought here yesterday. You had a concussion to your head and were flitting in and out of consciousness, largely unconscious, till just about now. I will notify my senior colleague that you are awake.’ She smiled at Sienna as she ended her narration.
Sienna hobbled back towards the door, supported by Dr. Amy and got into her bed. She felt too tired by the exertion of walking those ten steps. She closed her eyes and drifted back into sleep.
Sienna got up with a scream, sweating profusely and hitting her head yet again on the cot above. She had a terrifying nightmare. In her nightmare, she saw herself at the White House, being escorted to the Helicopter by Alex, in an Army Major’s uniform. Alex recognized her and asked her to keep quiet, by a furtive glance and a finger to his lips. She kept on wondering how Alex had got there but she was delighted to have Alex back in Army fatigues. She was led to the copter and then as she took off, Alex saluted after her, smiling his broad affable grin at her. At that moment, all hell broke loose. The alien ship in the background of the White House, attacked the helicopter and she saw herself going down with the helicopter, Alex still standing in the salute position. She was shouting frantically for him to take cover but he just stood there, smiling. And then, a loud explosion ripped apart the ground near where Alex was standing and he disappeared in a fog of smoke around him.
Sienna was panting for breath and on opening her eyes, found herself all alone in the room. She got up and stood on her feet, a lot steadier than she was before. She was wearing a hospital robe now. She did not remember getting into one. Had she passed out again? She pulled herself off the bed, stood on the railings of her bed and looked into the bunk above her bed. It was empty now.
She climbed down and slowly ambled out of the door, clutching at her hospital robe and out into the corridor outside her room. There was no one at the nurse’s station in the recess.
‘Hello’ she shouted.
Her voice came out a bit squeaky. There was no response. She walked to the end of the corridor and turned to her right. There was a door, a couple of meters from the turn. She turned the knob of the door and it clicked open, opening into a large anteroom with a military officer behind a desk and the space outside filled with rows of chairs and a food line at one side. There was a coffee-vending machine in a corner of the room. The room was sparsely occupied with a few people, amongst whom was the Officer from SIDC, whom she had met a couple of days earlier at the NSA headquarters.
‘Lieutenant Carter. Yep, Carter was his name.’ Sienna remembered him.
At that moment, a lady officer noticed Sienna and rushed towards her
‘Here let me help you. I am Officer Madison. Have you come in from the sick bay?’
Sienna nodded
‘Yeah. I think so. Can you tell me where are we?’
‘Sure. Come on. Let me take you back to the sick bay.’ Officer Madison held Sienna’s arm and prodded her towards the door she came in through. By this time, others had noticed her in the room and Lieutenant Carter came up to her.
‘Hi. I hope you remember me. Lieutenant John Carter from SIDC. We met at the NSA briefing. How are you? We were worried about you.’
She acknowledged him with a nod
‘I am fine. Feeling a lot better. Where are we? I need to call my husband.’
‘Sure madam. Officer Madison, please take her to the sick bay and see if she can join us in the Situation room for the 1400 hrs briefing.’
He turned to Sienna
‘You meet us at the briefing in the afternoon. I will get that phone call arranged for you.’
She nodded again and mumbled a thank you.
In a couple of hours, Sienna was at the situation room of the complex, decked in a fresh skirt and a shirt that Officer Madison had arranged for her. Officer Madison had answered her questions. They were in a secret military base. Most of them had no idea where. It was evident that it was underground. They had been approached one by one and had been advised, offered refuge or herded to this place within the last twenty-four hours. It was rumored that the President was also in the complex and that this was going to be her war office. Officer Madison had personally been knocked out under some anesthetic or sedative before she had been brought here. So had been the other junior staffers whom she had talked to. She understood the importance of no one knowing about this place, and therefore had put up with the seemingly draconian measures.
The situation room had metallic walls, lined by visible ducts and pipes that lined the upper part of walls around the room. The lighting was bright, contrasting the dull lighting of the sickbay and the anteroom she had walked into from the sickbay. The room was populated with mainly military types, most with a grim look on their faces. She identified many from the briefing in the NSA offices. Her eyes were searching for Lieutenant Carter, whom she found sitting behind an important looking old man in military fatigues, a Major General perhaps.
She walked towards Lt. Carter and seeing her coming, he excused himself from the General and walked up to her.
‘Hi, you are a different person now, in these clothes’ he quipped.
Sienna forced a smile
‘I am sorry Lieutenant but about that phone call.’
‘Yeah right. We have as a precaution, restricted the usage of telephony from here. This facility is top secret and we don’t want that to leak out.’
Sienna’s forehead immediately wrinkled up and her mouth formed an ‘O’ in protest. Lt. Carter held up his hand and continued
‘However, I have arranged a call from the base radio station. That is a secure line and that should be coming through in about half an hour.’
Sienna nodded.
‘Thanks.’
Lt. Carter smiled and then took the mobile numbers of Alex, Carrie and Susan from Sienna. Thereafter, he led her to a seat behind his, around the round table in the center.
The meeting was about to start and once everyone was in their seats, General Marshall called the meeting to order. A tiny door to the left front creaked open and President Sarah was ushered into the room by men in Secret Service uniforms. Everyone in the room stood up and so did Sienna. The President waved everyone into their seats and turned to General Marshall
‘So what has been our progress General?’
Everybody in the room turned their gaze towards the General. The President was all business. This was no time for introductions or for pleasantries. Or it was possible that Sienna had missed a couple of earlier meetings and the pleasantries had all been done with.
General Marshall looked around the room, nodded his head and started
‘I am afraid the news is not good. We have thrown everything at the alien aggressors and have not been able to inflict any sizable damage on them. In fact, we have not been able to inflict any damage at all. At the moment our strategy is evasion and we are concentrating our forces on evacuating people from densely populated areas directly in the path of the alien ships.’
There was a pall of gloom around the room. No one said anything for half a minute and then a Major General of the Army spoke
‘What do you mean by ‘in the path of’? We thought that they were stationary over fixed targets.’
‘Well that is no longer the case. Now the ships are on move, attacking people and buildings with impunity. We are advising people to get underground if they can. Or else to get to remote places, far away from the moving ships. We are issuing directions to people as we gather a stream of intelligence regarding the ships. From what we have gathered, the aliens are probably looking at people as a source of organic matter, probably as some sort of energy source. This looks like a fueling stop for the aliens’
The President immediately asked
‘Why do you say so?’
‘Well, they are very non-selective about what they are taking up into their harvester ships. They are gathering people – alive or dead, animals and even trees. They are attacking buildings and ships and planes with what lo
oks like lasers and then these harvester planes come up, harvesting people with claws, clasps and harpoons.’
The President nodded her head in animated agitation
‘We are chicken to them. How are they going about in their attack? Is there any strategy? Any formation?’
The General nodded his head
‘They have these large alien ships which are parked in the sky over almost all major cities. These ships are akin to battleships, which harbor different kinds of planes, drones and large harvesting ships, what we have been calling ‘harvesters’. Upon initiation of attack on any city, the alien battleship spews these in huge numbers which go about attacking and harvesting people, animals and trees.’
‘Why the continuous solar eclipse?’ President McGee edged in another question.
‘That is the mother ship. It is huge. A humungous artificial planetoid, roughly one-fourth the size of our moon, placed four times closer to Sun at just the right place to cast a near-total eclipse of Sun on Earth.’ Before someone asked, the General continued ‘We think the purpose is twofold, starve Earth of sunlight and energy in case the war drags on and they must have deployed some kind of solar energy harvesting device on the other end of the mother-ship to harness that power for themselves.’
The President nodded her head
‘What are our options?’
‘Well the only option left to us is to use a thermonuclear device. We have been thinking about that for some time now. I have discussed it with the Service Chiefs and they seem to agree with me.’
‘You mean, nuke them! Right?’
The General nodded rather tamely
‘Yes madam.’
President McGee shook her head
‘I have a very uneasy feeling about using a nuclear device. What kind of collateral damage are we looking at?’
Exodus (The Domus Series Book 2) Page 6
