I know it’s morbid, but I don’t feel repulsed by the arm, more curious. I wonder about the owner. Is owner the right word? This was someone once. Not anymore, though. Now, it’s nothing more than Sir Clucks-a-lot with us teens running after it as blood spurts from its neck, staining its immaculate white feathers in a brilliant red.
The skin is rough. Veins run over the back of the hand. There are calluses on the fingers. Perhaps it’s a little macabre, but this is who we are as humans. We interact with the world using our hands, and yet we never think of them in mechanical terms. This could be me, which is a chilling thought.
In a single, swift motion, the arm flexes, shifting, rolling under mine and then whipping over the top, grabbing my wrist. Fingers like iron seize my arm and I scream, pulling away.
Light flashes around me as Pretzel rushes back down the tunnel. The more I pull, the tighter the hand holds me. As my other arm is in a sling, I’m helpless.
“Get it off. Get it off me,” I yell.
Pretzel runs up beside me, leaving Garcia somewhere further along the tunnel.
“Easy,” he says, quickly assessing what’s happened. He shines the light up and down the arm, looking at where it protrudes from what appears to be a mechanical socket.
Pretzel holds me tight, wrapping his arms around my chest, which hurts. He lifts me off the ground, moving me closer, which is precisely where I don’t want to be.
“Relax. Don’t struggle. The more you fight, the more it’ll hold fast.”
I’m not sure how he knows that, but even in my panicked state I can see the logic. Pulling away caused it to tighten. Although it’s my natural, instinctive reaction, it only makes the severed hand squeeze harder.
I’m hyperventilating.
“Raise your arm, reduce the pressure,” Pretzel says, and as I do so, the fingers relax. They don’t let go, but I can feel them easing.
“Slowly,” he whispers, scanning the arm with the flashlight, looking at the strange alien device it’s attached to like the ball and socket of a shoulder. Hundreds of tiny red and green lights flicker rapidly, no doubt processing the interaction. Without provoking it further, he guides my hand backwards, slipping my wrist from the cold, dead fingers. As soon as I can, I whip my hand away, down beside me.
Pretzel runs the flashlight slowly over the arm, spotting tiny silver threads embedded in the skin, forming an elaborate mesh, looking at it with what I can only describe as admiration, something I do not feel at all.
“They’re exploring the mechanics of our biology.”
I’m quiet.
“Don’t touch.”
“Yeah, I got that,” I say. “This is all part of the plan, right?”
Pretzel just smiles, trying not to laugh.
Jolly Ranchers
I’m shaken by what just happened, but I’m okay. Pretzel shines the flashlight in each of my eyes, although I’m not sure what he’s looking for. All he seems to accomplish is the destruction of my night vision and for the next few minutes, everything outside of the flashlight rippling across the tiered shelves is pitch black.
“Do you want to go back?” he asks.
“No, I’m good.”
“You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“I know.”
“You could wait outside.”
“I’m fine.”
He doesn’t say anything, but my trembling hands scream, “Liar!” I know he saw them as his flashlight rippled across my chest and arms, checking for injuries. In the darkness, things scratch the walls. Things, not creatures. These things are not whole, just parts. A wing flexes in the shadows. Claws stretch. Somehow, dismembered heads groan. Deep down, I want to turn back, but I can’t. I have to know.
Within a few minutes, Pretzel is back to his usual inquisitive self, absorbed in what he’s seeing around him and forgetting we’re in the bowels of some alien laboratory with partially dismembered and dissected animals all around us. They’re alive and yet they’re not.
There are numerous smaller side-tunnels branching off from the main walkway, but they’re thin and narrow. Some of them are quite low, being something I could only crouch within. Pretzel shines his light down them as we pass. I’m not sure what he’s expecting to see, but chrome legs scurry back into the darkness, staying out of the light. A few of these areas are little more than alcoves recessed in the lower tier, others appear quite deep and curve away from the main tunnel.
One thing I notice is that there are very few straight lines within the platform, which is strange. I guess I’m so used to human architecture where everything is based on squares and rectangles, or shapes like triangles. The alien structure, though, is dominated by curves.
“Hey, look at this,” Pretzel says, pointing at a clear container on the lower tier. “What does that remind you of?”
He taps on what looks like a plastic tray, but probably isn’t. There are three elongated bright red pellets lying next to each other, each roughly the thickness of my little finger.
“What are they?” I ask.
“Dunno, but they look like Jolly Ranchers?”
I get what he’s doing. He’s trying to find something, anything to take my mind of what just occurred, but it’s not happening—we’re in the depths of an alien base station with severed arms and legs mounted on the walls.
There’s a leopard skin with the skull intact. The eyes move, following our motion as though the creature is about to pounce. A severed elephant trunk flexes, mounted on a silver approximation of a skull. The dismembered face of a Mandrill yawns, stretching its jaw and baring its teeth as the flashlight ripples over it. Birds slowly flap their wings, making as though they’re about to take flight, but they’re securely fastened to the middle tier with metallic footings.
Silver threads surround torn fragments of various trees, with fine tendrils reaching into the bark. Vines and leafy branches are mounted inside what appear to be glass cabinets, only like everything else, the glass is curved, being akin to vast test tubes turned upside down. This place is a nightmare, but Pretzel’s trying to distract me with something I might find familiar. I don’t have the heart to tell him, but I’ve been in Africa for just over four years—I haven’t seen candy since I was thirteen. As for those “Jolly Ranchers,” I wonder what they’re actually made from? Dried-up blood? If so, whose?
Jolly Ranchers do remind me of my childhood, though.
My dad saw the light in prison. He’d lived a life of hard drugs, stolen motorcycles and bar brawls. Along the way he robbed the odd 7-11 for rent money, but it was Jolly Ranchers that landed him in jail.
With tattoos on his arms and shoulders, stretching up the back of his neck, Dad wasn’t the most congenial guy to run into in a swanky shopping mall. The way Dad tells it, he was frisked by a couple of cops in the food court because he matched the description of a rapist—which seems to be the excuse the cops would use for just about any stop-and-search. For once, Dad really was going to the store for diapers. I was a year old and my Mom was still living with us. The police found a bunch of old Jolly Ranchers in the upper pocket of his jacket. They’d been there for months and were nasty, which made the cops think they were a cover for something else—meth colored in disguise.
A field test of the sticky, gooey, not-so-Jolly Ranchers came back positive and Dad was thrown in jail on a $500,000 bond. Needless to say, neither Mom nor Dad nor any of our relatives could stump up half a million bucks so he sat there in jail for four months until the backlogged judicial system finally brought him to trial.
Oh, they figured out the Jolly Ranchers weren’t drugs after about two weeks, but no one connected the dots—not the least his court-appointed attorney. It wasn’t until the arresting officer was called as a witness by the prosecution that the matter was cleared up. False positive, they said. Dad threatened to sue, but thought better of attracting more scrutiny from the cops.
During that time, though, Dad found the Lord—or the Lord found him. He tells the sto
ry both ways. His cellmate had a passion for teaching from the King James Bible and Dad had nothing but time to listen. When he got out, he said he was a new man because of something Saint Paul said in Corinthians. Mom didn’t believe him. She left. That she left us both still bothers me. Him, I can understand. The stress of being falsely accused and thrown in jail, and knowing the real thing could occur with the right witness stepping forward was too much for her, but why didn’t she take me with her? I guess she looked at me and saw him.
For the most part, I was raised by my grandmother on my dad’s side of the family, with Dad living in the basement.
After a few months volunteering at the local church and helping out as coordinator of the local addict group, Dad applied for seminary college. He was rejected, of course, but he never took no for an answer and through self-paced study and night school finally made the grade.
No one was going to tell my dad where to go or what to do. In some ways, I think the local bishop was glad when Dad shipped off from Boston as a missionary, as Christian or not, Dad still had a fiery temper and could raise the roof in an argument.
Whoever thought Jolly Ranchers could change someone’s life?
Pretzel’s flashlight falters, threatening to plunge us into near total darkness were it not for the binary flicker of the soft greens and reds from within the laboratory. Spider-like legs cast shadows around us as alien machines creep over the walls and ceiling. Call me paranoid, but I think they’re watching us, following us. Haven’t we seen enough? Can’t we go back now? I’m about to say something when Pretzel holds out his hand, signaling for me to come to a halt.
“Josh,” he says. “Go back to the entrance.”
“What?” I reply, suddenly defiant. Back when he was blinding me with the flashlight, it was a suggestion. This is a command, and that provokes a backlash. It feels wrong so I push the point, asking, “Why?”
“Josh. Please. Just go.”
I turn and look behind me. There’s a dim glow on the walls of the tunnel, barely enough to navigate by. Not enough to avoid bumping into something again. The thought of being grabbed by another dismembered arm is less than appealing.
“But—”
“Josh?” another voice says, only this isn’t Pretzel or Garcia. This is a voice I’d recognize anywhere.
“Dad?”
“Josh,” Pretzel says with a commanding voice that doesn’t suit him. “Get out of here now.”
“Dad, is that you? Where are you?”
“Josh?” my father replies. “What are you doing up at this time of night. Go back to bed.”
I’m confused. I creep forward beside Pretzel, who shines the flashlight at his feet. He holds his finger to his lips. I nod, unsure why, resisting the temptation to call out to my father.
“Josh? Are you there?” Dad asks.
Pretzel shakes his head, holding me back with an outstretched arm, wanting me to retreat.
“You can’t do this,” I whisper. “He’s my father.”
“He’s not your father,” Pretzel says, trying to block my view. “Not anymore.”
“I have to see him.”
Pretzel says, “Don’t do it, Josh. There are some things you can’t unsee.”
“I must,” I say, pushing past and taking the flashlight from him. For his part, Pretzel doesn’t fight me anymore. He could wrestle the flashlight away or refuse to give it to me, but he doesn’t. He must understand. I could never leave here without knowing what happened to my father.
Pretzel whispers, “Don’t get too close.”
A lump rises in my throat. Like Pretzel, I keep the flashlight low, pointing just in front of my boots. Darkness surrounds me like a cloak.
“Josh, is that you?”
My voice is soft, but I have to say something, even though I’m unsure who or what I’m replying to in the darkness. “Yes, Dad.”
“I don’t want you seeing her, do you understand me?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“I forbid it. You will have nothing to do with that girl.”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Say it. I want to hear it from your lips... Say it, Josh. Say you won’t have anything to do with her.”
It’s then I realize, Pretzel’s right—this isn’t my father. Here in the darkness, all I’ve done is agree with him, but he can’t process that. Whoever or whatever this is, it’s not my father, not as I knew him.
Slowly, I bring the light up. There are four tiers on the wall, each just a couple of feet high and acting as a ledge for the various workstations used by the machines clambering over the tunnel with their shiny chrome legs.
The lower level has more of the instruments we saw earlier, shaking samples and spinning them, growing cultures and making comparisons. Some of them include insects seemingly frozen in resin. The second has a series of holograms, each dim, awaiting a hand or some other movement to brighten and spring into life, each looking like a tangle of wool. The third has body parts, but they’re burnt or have been violently severed—the tail of a monkey, the hind legs of a leopard, the wings of a once majestic bird, coiled vipers, branches, vines.
The upper tier has larger, more complete animals. A bonobo languishes with its arms hanging limp and its head rolling to one side. Its fur is badly burnt and it has lost a leg, something that would be fatal within seconds in the jungle. Blood drips from the stump below its waist. Shiny chrome fittings anchor its back to the wall. It twitches, but not with life, not as I know it. To me, the bonobo is more reminiscent of those headless chickens we’d kill for supper, going through the motions of life without any hope of life itself. Nerves fire, muscles respond, arms move, but it’s dead.
A pangolin has been mounted on the ledge beside the bonobo, but its overlaid scales, which normally act as natural armor, have been largely stripped away, revealing burnt flesh. Its snout samples the air. Beside it is the upper torso of one of the villagers. The man’s body seems to grow out of the wall. The pseudo-concrete surrounding him gives way to precision machined parts extending into his ribs. His arms twitch, while his head occasionally moves, responding to the light even though his eyes are blind, with just the whites visible. Yellow gunk oozes from wounds in his chest, running down his skin, dripping onto the next tier.
My father is next to him. A lump rises in my throat. The left side of his face is badly burnt. He’s lost his hair and one ear, with only a mass of raw, angry flesh remaining. His body is more complete than that of the villager, extending from his waist, but his legs are gone, replaced with metallic stubs. His left arm is badly injured while his hand is black and has shriveled up like a burnt twig. The skin has peeled away from his shoulder, revealing muscle and sinew. Black soot lines his neck, hiding his tattoos. Spider-machines crawl over his bare chest, apparently probing him as we speak.
“Dad, I—”
His head moves with a tick, as though he were more machine than man, like the animatronics in a theme park. His eyes too are blind, staring into the darkness, not looking at anything in particular. “You have to understand. We’re different.”
I know what he’s saying. He’s not talking about here and now. This is our conversation from the morning the soldiers and scientists arrived, and yet it’s equally true for us in the depths of this alien base station.
Tears fall from my eyes. I can still hear the helicopters roaring overhead on that fateful morning, shaking the manse, causing the plates on the table to rattle as the downdraft pounded our home. The surprise in his eyes, his sense of alarm at the coming danger, his instinctive reaction to protect me. I remember how abruptly our conversation ended without any conclusion. Perhaps that’s why it’s seared into his memory and replaying now.
“It’s a ticket out of the jungle.”
Back then in the safety of our home, he was referring to Jana wanting a way out of the village, but not now. Perhaps I’m reading too much into his words, but I feel as though he’s trying to tell me something by recalling that particular conversati
on. Perhaps this is all he has left. Perhaps this is all he can do to help me one last time. Perhaps what little of him remains is somehow reaching out to me by repeating that conversation.
“Do this for me, Josh.”
Yellow fluid drips from his lips, running down his neck and onto his burnt chest.
“Okay,” I say.
“Joshua, I’m talking to you. Do this for me, Josh.”
“I will, Dad.”
In the silence that follows, his shoulders stoop and his head hangs.
Pretzel is standing behind me with a hand resting gently on my good shoulder. He’s not trying to pull me away, merely to comfort me. I turn to him. Our eyes meet and I see the anguish in his soul. Tears run down his cheeks. Garcia has his head bowed. This moment hurts us all.
With the light no longer on him, Dad is still.
“Let him rest,” Garcia says. I nod and Pretzel leads me back toward the opening of the tunnel. I’m a mess, sobbing, burying my head in his shoulder as he comforts me. Is this what happened to Jana? Has Lady been subject to some cruel alien experiment as well? If we continued on up the tunnel, would we find them mounted like trophies on the wall? Pretzel was right, I would have rather not known.
“Why did they do this?” I ask as we approach the opening of the tunnel and step out into the bright sunlight. Birds soar past. Beetles crawl over the broken branches. Ants wind their way along the debris, busily, hurriedly going about their work. Life, it seems, refuses to stop for death.
Pretzel hangs his head, not making eye contact. “I don’t know.”
“It’s not fair,” I say, feeling angry. Emotions well up within my chest, causing me to choke. “It’s not.”
“No. It’s not.”
I turn, furious, wanting to direct my anger somewhere, at someone, and it’s then I realize Garcia’s not with us. I look around, confused, wondering if he’s still coming down the tunnel, but he’s not. My heart races. Pretzel seems to arrive at the same realization as his expression is one of horror.
“Garcia!” he yells, resting one hand on the opening of the tunnel and yelling into the darkness. “Petty Officer Garcia?”
3zekiel (First Contact) Page 22
