3zekiel (First Contact)

by Peter Cawdron

  “It’s me,” she says. “You know me. Remember? Me and Lady. We’d talk. I brought your troop potatoes, yams, crab apples. Lady was my friend.”

  The mention of Lady seems to raise a semblance of awareness. He grunts softly in acknowledgment. Muscles surge and ripple. Hairy arms stretch out along the branch. Dark fingers reach for Jana. Weighing in at close to five-hundred pounds, the silverback shifts his weight and the fallen tree rocks. He sits on his bottom, pushing with his legs, trying to get to his feet before slumping back against the tree.

  “Lady. Where’s Lady?” Jana asks.

  Tiny turns his proud head to one side, showing his thick jawline and the crown at the back of his head. He’s becoming more lucid by the second. His lips curl, almost as though he’s trying to speak, while his eyes cast up and to the right. He grunts in reply, as though suggesting a direction.

  “Jana, please,” I say, but neither Garcia, nor Pretzel or I move. We’re some twenty feet away, with hearts pounding in our chests and muscles coiled, ready to flee, but Jana inches closer. Garcia looks nervous. He reaches with his hands, feeling for the branches around him, testing the ground with his boots, clearly thinking we’re about to be attacked, but Jana’s right. These are the Great Ape’s last moments.

  Her tender, petite fingers brush against dark, leathery, wrinkled fingers.

  Tiny lets out a sigh. His nostrils flare.

  Garcia whispers. “This is not good. We should keep moving. That gunfire would have echoed for miles. There could be more soldiers closing in on this area.”

  Without turning back to face us, Jana says, “We’re not leaving.”

  “But—”

  “No.”

  Jana is resolute. There’s no negotiation. Garcia could press the point, but he knows. Pretzel too is quiet. Logically, this is the wrong decision, but sometimes life demands more than cold, uncaring facts, sometimes emotions are more important.

  Tiny wheezes. His breathing is labored. Sticky blood seeps from bullet holes in his chest. Jana runs her hand over his arm, clawing at his fur with her fingers.

  “Touch is important,” she says, looking deep into his dark eyes. He vocalizes in reply, relaxing, not feeling threatened by her presence.

  I creep up beside her and to my surprise, Tiny holds out his other arm, turning his hand up so his palm is open before me. I trace the lines in his skin, touching gently at his hand. His fingers close over mine, but without any force, surprising me with their size, easily dwarfing mine. My heart races, but I refuse to panic. Tiny breathes deeply, releasing me. Like Jana, I touch at his arm, wanting to comfort him as his life fades. His fur is coarse, with each strand of hair being much thicker than any of mine. It’s almost like the bristles of a brush. There’s texture to his muscles. They’re lean and tough and yet I can feel the life draining from them with each passing second.

  “Give him this,” Garcia says. I turn. He’s holding out his Fentanyl stick.

  “I’ll give him mine.”

  Garcia says, “Place it just inside his mouth, on the outside of his teeth, against the soft flesh of his cheek.”

  Edging closer to a fully grown, injured Silverback is unnerving. He eyes me with suspicion. His brow narrows and his nostrils tighten. With his lips, he tries to speak in whatever guttural tongue is used by the gorillas, but his voice fails.

  “Easy,” I say, slipping the Fentanyl stick from my mouth and holding it out so he can see it. I’m hoping he’s noticed I’ve been sucking on it.

  Jana says, “Food,” signing with her hand. She bunches her fingers, dipping them into her palm and then positioning them before her mouth, making as though she were about to eat. Tiny copies her. I’m not sure if he understands or is just mimicking her. Certainly, he’s seen Jana sign with Lady so he knows we talk with our hands as well as our lips. I’m hoping that’s a universal sign. I reach out, holding the Fentanyl stick before him and he opens his gaping jaws wide. Large canine incisors threaten to tear my right hand a part, but I’m not afraid. Slowly, gently, I slip the Fentanyl stick in the side of his mouth, pushing it up against his cheek. His breath stinks. It’s hot and heavy. Slowly, he closes his mouth, seemingly realizing we’re doing something to help. There’s a soft grunt and a sigh.

  “That’s it,” Jana says. Her voice is gentle, soothing him even though he can’t understand her words. Garcia slumps against the fallen branch, sliding to the muddy ground. Pretzel sits on the opposite branch.

  None of us know what the future holds. The temptation, the impulse is to do something—anything—to stay on the move, to push on, to go somewhere, but being busy is an illusion. We’re no better or worse off by staying with Tiny. We have no guiding light, no plan, as Garcia would put it. We could continue on along the edge of the cliff and run into more Russians.

  “Are you sure this will work?” Jana asks.

  “We’re all apes,” Pretzel says. “If it works on humans, there’s a better than fair chance it’ll bring him some relief.”

  Tiny’s eyes begin to glaze over. His breathing becomes shallow. Whereas before his nostrils would flare when spasms of pain tortured his body, now he seems at peace. The shadows grow long. The setting sun lights up his face, softening his features, giving warmth to his dark skin. He holds my hand. Jana continues grooming his fur, combing her fingers through the hair on his broad shoulders, soothing him.

  As the sun dips below the horizon and darkness falls across the land his body goes limp, sagging. With his head bowed forward and his arms resting on his thighs, he breathes his last, falling silent.

  Jana cries.

  I say, “Thank you.”

  First Contact

  My arm aches.

  Pretzel retrieves what’s left of the Fentanyl stick, rinsing it with water and giving it to me, but it seems to have lost its mojo.

  “We need to get out of here,” Jana says, and I know what’s coming next. These should be the words of Pretzel or Garcia, but they’re not, and that has me on edge. “I should go.”

  “No,” I say almost instantly. “We stick together.”

  “Josh,” Pretzel says. “She’s right. She’s the only one of us that can make good time out there. She knows the lay of the land.”

  “She doesn’t stand a chance alone.” I don’t know that. It’s not logical, but it’s what I feel.

  Pretzel says, “She’s more likely to slip past unnoticed alone. Jana can travel farther and faster than any of us.”

  Garcia’s quiet. He’s thinking, but doesn’t say anything. Pretzel elaborates. “She can tell the others where we are. Jana is our only hope of getting out of here alive.”

  “Jana,” I say, lost for anything more.

  Garcia leans forward, pulling a handgun from the small of his back.

  “It’s Russian,” he says, holding it on the flat of his hand before her. I never even saw him retrieve it from one of the fallen soldiers. He points. “There’s a round chambered. This is the safety. Flick it up with your thumb and it is good to fire. It holds ten to twelve rounds.”

  Jana takes the gun from him, running her fingers over the handle, examining the safety.

  “Don’t aim.” At first, I’m confused, but Garcia’s serious. “Just point and squeeze, then run. Remember that, point and squeeze, and run. You don’t need to hit anyone, just keep them at bay. The less you fire, the better. Save your ammo. Stay on the move. If you come under fire, shoot back and go, go, go. Don’t stay in any one place for more than a second or two or they will pin you down. Moving targets are hard to hit. Distance is your only ally.”

  She nods. Even though he can’t see, Garcia seems to realize she’s acknowledged him. “Bullets need line-of-sight. If they can’t see you, they can’t hit you. Rocks are better than trees. Trees are better than buildings. Buildings are better than nothing at all. Whatever happens, keep moving.”

  Pretzel says, “God speed.”

  Jana looks at me for barely a second and then disappears over the fallen branch
we’re sheltering beside. I was expecting her to say something. I wanted to say something to her, to tell her to be careful, to tell her that I love her—however crazy that may be for a teen still learning about life—but she’s gone. I turn, leaning over an upturned root, watching as she darts between the dead standing trees devoid of leaves and branches.

  “She’ll be back,” Pretzel says.

  “Liar,” Garcia replies, and I’m glad he said that. He’s right. Even if she makes it, she won’t be back—not her. At best, the US Army will dispatch someone to get us, but even that’s wishful thinking. We all saw what happened to the Russian plane. Besides, there’s a war being raged down there on the open plains to the north.

  Burning military vehicles release long thin columns of dark pungent smoke, still visible in the twilight. Explosions light up like flashes of lightning, but there’s no accompanying thunder—the battle is too far away. I keep my eyes on Jana, watching as she disappears into a hollow, dropping from sight before emerging on the far hillside. The further she gets the harder it is to make out anything other than a slight blur of motion in the growing darkness.

  Suddenly, there’s screaming.

  Gunfire shatters the silence of the coming night.

  One, two, three shots, staggered, not in rapid succession. I’m on my feet. A fourth shot rings out and I’m climbing over the branch, trying to identify the location of the gunfire but the sound is echoing around us. I can’t see her. I know where she was moments ago, but the shots seem to come from behind me, which is confusing.

  “J—”

  A hand clamps itself over my mouth. I’m dragged back and down into the ditch between the branches. I struggle to break free from Garcia’s grip, swinging with my arms and pushing off the ground with my feet, but Garcia holds me firm, with his head pressed hard next to mine and his lips right beside my ear.

  “One shooter,” he whispers. “Only one.”

  I don’t understand. Pretzel does.

  “She’s not shooting at the Russians.”

  My blood runs cold as my body falls limp. An overwhelming sense of futility drains the strength from my arms.

  There, barely visible in the twilight, towering over the decimated ruins of the jungle, is a machine unlike anything ever seen on this planet. Long, spindly legs descend from a barely visible fuselage. Smoke drifts through the fallen trees, causing the needle thin legs to disappear into the darkness.

  “Describe it,” Garcia says, intuitively realizing we’re looking at something that originated on another world, around some other star. He releases my mouth but continues to hold me back. “We need to learn everything we can about it.”

  Pretzel is beside me. I’m expecting him to speak, but he’s dumbfounded.

  Garcia asks, “Is it moving toward us?”

  “No,” I reply, unsure what I’m looking at. I’m trembling uncontrollably, unable to command my body to come to a halt. In contrast, Garcia is relaxed.

  “Is it airborne or ground-based, like a tank or a helicopter?”

  “It’s not like any tank I’ve ever seen. It has legs.”

  “Good, good,” he says, not referring to the machine, but to my description of it even though I’m horribly vague, still being in shock. I’m shaking at the thought Jana was just killed by that thing. “Tell me more.”

  “Ah, it’s tall.” My voice breaks as I speak. Tears fall from my eyes, but Garcia can’t see that.

  “How tall? Think in terms of buildings. How many stories? Three? Five? Ten?”

  I understand what Petty Officer Garcia’s doing, keeping me focused, getting me to talk in general terms. In one breath, he’s trying to distract me from what happened and understand the threat looming on the hillside just beyond the creek.

  “At least twenty,” I say. “It’s as tall and thin as a construction crane. I—I don’t know how we didn’t see it. It’s quiet, silent, moving like a ghost.”

  “How many legs?” he asks in a whisper as Pretzel and I watch the machine walk on.

  “I don’t know. There are too many to count. They move independently, at different times, stabbing at the ground. There’re no hinges, no knees. The legs are like snakes—thin, slithering metallic snakes hanging from its belly.”

  “And the body, how big is it? The size of a car, a van, a truck, a bus?”

  “A van, maybe? A small truck.”

  Garcia asks. “What are you thinking, Doc?”

  Pretzel is pale. His eyes are wide. Sweat beads on his forehead.

  “Stay with me, Doc.”

  Garcia releases his grip on me. As the realization of what has happened sinks in, the desire to run to Jana’s aid is gone. I’m lost, unsure what I feel. Garcia, though, seems jubilant, something I don’t understand, but I guess that’s because he can’t see this thing and is relying on us to describe the machine. He reaches out with his hand, feeling for Pretzel, finding his knee and squeezing it.

  “Hey, Pratul? Dr. Khatri-Lagharin?”

  “Ah,” Pretzel says.

  In a whisper, Garcia says, “Talk to me. Tell me what you’re looking at. What is that thing?”

  “It’s—It’s.”

  “It’s reflecting the stars,” I say.

  Garcia doesn’t understand. Neither would I if I couldn’t see this strange alien machine for myself.

  Pretzel says, “It’s body. It’s like a mirror. A sphere, or an orb. There are no lights. No front or back. No aerodynamics. I can see the shattered ground reflecting beneath it, the dead trees below and the sky above.

  “Wait. There are more of them.”

  Pretzel and I both lean on the fallen limb, peering out through the tangle of broken branches across the hillside. The machine we saw is just one of many towering over the ruins of the jungle.

  “They’re moving in unison,” Pretzel says. “Marching over the plateau.”

  “That’s bad,” Garcia says, creeping over next to us, with his blind, bandaged eyes facing out at the machines as they pass.

  “Why is that bad?” I ask.

  “Because they’re forming a line—and we’re behind it.”

  The machines are on either side of us, some on the plateau, others down below near the rock pool, although their silvery bodies reach up above the cliff.

  “I need options, Doc,” Garcia says. Seems the Navy SEALs thrive on options and plans. “Talk to me. You’re the expert. What are they doing? Is this an invasion?”

  “No,” Pretzel turns away from the hillside, slumping to the mud with his back against the fallen tree. Garcia and I join him. “They’re scout craft. Too small to go any real distance. Good for a few miles, not hundreds of miles or thousands.”

  “So they’re securing a perimeter?” Garcia asks, translating Pretzel’s science-speak into military terms. “What kind of offensive capability are they likely to have?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  “Well, they’re too small to carry much in the way of projectiles, but they could have lasers or some other kind of energy weapon.” From the way Pretzel is speaking, I can tell he doesn’t like talking in these terms. He’s uncomfortable, feeling forced to provide a commentary he doesn’t believe in.

  “Like whatever brought down the Russian fighter?” I ask.

  “Maybe,” is all Pretzel will offer in reply. “We really don’t know.”

  “We do know,” Garcia says, insisting on making his point. “We know they shot down an aircraft. We know they killed Jana. We know they’re circling the wagons around their craft.”

  In a soft voice, Pretzel says, “She’s alive.”

  Aliens be damned, I’m on the verge of yelling as I reply, “What?”

  “She was drawn up into that machine.”

  “You saw her?” I ask.

  “She was still moving, struggling, held in the grip of those mechanical arms.”

  “We’ve got to go—” I don’t get to complete my sentence as Garcia cuts me off.

  �
��Go and do what? We’re injured. We’re unarmed. We’re outnumbered and outgunned.”

  I thump my fist against the ground, frustrated, angry. It was a dumb move as the shock that reverberates up my good arm rattles my bones, making my wounded shoulder ache.

  “But—But Jana.”

  Garcia says, “But nothing, kid.”

  I don’t think he means to, but I’ve never felt more humiliated and belittled in my life. It hurts to admit he’s right. I’m a kid. I’m not an adult. I’m nothing compared to these machines towering hundreds of feet above the devastation around us. With dangly legs, they walk on with impunity, set high above our world.

  This is all wrong. I feel cheated. Jana has been stolen from us and yet Garcia’s right. What am I going to do? With one good arm, just what do I think I could do against these alien spider pods that defy any mechanical device on Earth. For all I know, they’re indestructible by our standards. Their curved, mirrored surface reflects the stars from whence they came, while their lanky legs seem to defy gravity, propelling them on with ease, allowing them to cover hundreds of yards in a single stride, refusing to buckle even though they appear frail.

  Pretzel speaks softly. “We’re still seeing this through the prism of our own experience. We wage war, so we assume we’re under attack. They could simply be defending themselves. They could have seen the Russians clearing the jungle and interpreted that as a hostile act.”

  Lightning breaks through the night, casting an eerie, pulsating glow over the debris scattered across the jungle floor. Pretzel and I shift, peering out over the cliff at the open plains some fifty miles away. The jungle below the cliff is largely intact, being outside the blast radius of whatever the Russians dropped. Beyond the rolling canopy lies farmland.

  Bolts of lightning rain down on the plains, but there’s not a cloud in the sky. The machines have advanced off the plateau and are towering over the jungle, wading through the trees like a child might walk through water at the beach. Flashes of lightning cut through the night, lashing out from the alien machines, following jagged paths, twisting and stuttering into the distance before arcing back toward Earth. Explosions rock the plains. There are hundreds, if not thousands of strikes. At times, the waves of raw power arrive in sheets. Given the distance we are away from the plains, they must be several miles in length, carving up the ground.