by Mark Tufo
“Huh?” I said as a bead of sweat rolled down my forehead.
Nurse Hitchins either did not notice or did not speculate on my odd behavior. She rolled my wheelchair out of the lobby towards two huge glass doors, guarded by two heavily armed, that I can only describe as, freaks of nature.
The one on the right was the smaller of the two. He looked to be about six foot, five inches, two hundred and fifty or maybe two hundred and seventy-five pounds. The guy on the left was of approximately the same height but he had to be over three hundred pounds, and not an ounce of it looked like fat.
Both took a good long glance at me, and then dismissed me. Probably thinking that I hadn’t done a hundredth of what the stories circulating said I had done. Can you blame them? I was pale as warmed-over death, sitting in a wheelchair and wearing a stupid backless contraption that should have been outlawed years ago.
The men turned away from me and began speaking in French and laughing, never looking back at me, which gave me the distinct impression that they were talking about me. “Tsk tsk! That’ll be enough of that, Jean-Paul and Freire!” my nurse spoke up. Oh great. Not only did I look feeble, but now my guide was defending my honor. What next? Should I just wet myself and get it over with?
“Jess, we were just playing,” the guys said almost in unison. They weren’t sorry about teasing me but they definitely didn’t want to cross swords with the nurse. She had, on more than one occasion, sewn both of them up. She had actually saved Jean-Paul’s life a couple of years back when he got into a street brawl. Jean-Paul had been in a street fight with a man, when the man's friend had come up behind him and stuck a six-inch knife, almost to the hilt, into his spleen. It was Nurse Hitchins’ quick thinking and medical expertise that saved him from bleeding out. She was known around the place as being completely fearless and everybody respected her.
At first glance, I thought perhaps that I was having another one of my grand illusions. Surely that’s a bird, a big bird perhaps, do they have pelicans here? Naw, too big for a bird; it must be a plane. But I was told that most aviation had come to a screeching halt since the attacks. Maybe it’s a private plane. It’s a little big for a private plane, but hey, Trump has his own jumbo jet, maybe it’s him. The plane-bird seemed to be flying straight at us.
I hadn’t noticed earlier; I had been too distracted by the banter next to me, but my gut was screaming in agony. Something was wrong. Terribly, wrong. And then it happened. Piss streamed out of me in long hot rivulets. I still had no clue what was going on but my body sure did. I looked down at the spreading wetness in my lap, trying to figure out how I was going to explain this to Hulks One and Two. Luckily, or rather unluckily, that wasn’t going to be necessary.
Nurse Hitchins paused in her reprimanding as she noticed my distress, which was now clearly visible on my lap. Then she looked up and over Hulk One’s head. I’ll tell you what, that lady sure had a head on her shoulders. She didn’t say a word as she wheeled my chair around and, straight out, ran for the elevators.
Jean-Paul and Freire had seen the stark terror in her face but couldn’t, for the lives of them, figure out what was going on. They had seen Hitchins in combat situations with body parts flying and she had never batted an eye. Freire turned around first and quickly grabbed his friend’s shoulder, pulling him down to the ground with him.
Jean-Paul said something in French, which I can only assume from the tone and emphasis were swear words. He had just begun to finish off the last of his obscenities when the rumbling began. It started as a belly grumble and quickly rose to the crescendo of a freight train, barreling full speed and out of control on a steep mountain pass. The doors to the elevator were just closing as the first of three alien scout ships flew overhead. Dust shook down from the high ceiling in the lobby while the elevator began its hasty descent.
The door opened to a clamor of doctors, nurses and aides who wanted to go up to see what all the fuss was about. Most quickly began to rethink their position when they saw the ashen faces of my guide and me.
“What’s going on?” a concerned Dr. Fenoir said as he positioned himself at the front of the cacophony. “Our air raid alarms are going off!”
“They’re back!” was all Nurse Hitchins was able to mutter as she quickly headed back towards my room.
I think that you could have probably heard a pin drop in that room, except, of course, for the incessant wailing of the air raid sirens overhead. A few ventured onto the elevator, but most headed to the phone banks to make sure that their loved ones weren’t in any direct harm. I thought that pretty much everybody right then was in direct harm.
My gut was still roiling. Was this the second phase of the invasion? The occupation? Were these three ships just a small sample of what the rest of the world was seeing? Somehow I just didn’t think so, thoughts alone weren’t going to allay my fears. Nurse Hitchins had diligently wheeled me into my room before she headed off to where, I can only assume, she was making a phone call.
So there I sat. Tired and weak but pumped up with adrenaline, I wheeled myself out of the room, looking for I wasn’t sure what, but if I stumbled across it, I’d know. People were running around in hysterics and the place was complete bedlam. Nobody paid me the least amount of attention as I circled around some of the more robust people that were panicking.
I rolled up to the telephone bank, only to find people three deep in line, waiting. I grabbed the arm of the man nearest to me. At first, he either ignored me or truly couldn’t acknowledge my existence.
“Excuse me!” I said as I yanked a little harder on his cuff.
“Pardonez-moi?”
Damn! No luck there; I didn’t know French and something told me I wasn’t going to have enough time to learn it, even if I wanted to. I gathered what little strength I had left and blurted out in one long breath: “Does anyone here speak English?” Over the din, most of the people chose to ignore me. Finally, one little girl of about ten or eleven popped out from underneath the arm of her mother who was next in line for the phone.
“Oui, Monsieur. I speak Eengleesh.”
It wasn’t great but it sounded oh, so sweet right now. I caught a few breaths before I began hoping that the little girl would have at least some sort of clue about what I was asking. I wanted to be as clear and concise as possible because there wasn’t much left in the reserve tanks.
“Thank you!” I shouted over the noise. I wanted to hug the little girl just for acknowledging me. She looked at me with her large brown eyes, probably wondering if I was going to ask her something or not. She was beginning to look a little bored with the whole procedure. I pressed on. “Is there a radio room here?” I exaggerated the word radio so it came out more as Ray-Dee-Oh. I don’t know what I was thinking. She was French, not stupid.
“Monsieur?” She cocked her head a little bit to the side.
“Radio,” I repeated again as I held an invisible microphone to my mouth.”
“Oui, sir, le telephone.”
“No, no, munchkin! I’m looking for a way to get in touch with the United States, specifically, one place.”
“Oui, oui, you want a telephone!” she said excitedly.
“No,” I said as I shook my head slowly from side to side. I was attempting to turn my chair around in the crowd when she yelled out again.
“Oui, sir. You wish to contact your friends at the Fortress on the Hill?” I stopped dead in my tracks, or at least my wheelchair did.
“You know about Indian Hill?” I asked incredulously.
“Everybody does, sir. My mama, my brother, and I are going there next month.” I was having a hard time swallowing the fact that Paul would let so many people in on his secret after all the security measures he had in place.
“Have you been there?”
“No, silly,” she laughed. “None of us have been there. We don’t even know exactly where in your country it is. But my mama told my brother and me that it is a safe place for us to live away from the bad croc
odiles.”
“You have no idea how bad they are,” I muttered under my breath.
“Sir?”
“Nothing. So where is this radio?”
“Telephone, sir. It is, I believe, a direct line to the Fortress on the Hill. At least, that is what my mama has told me.”
“Could you show me where it is?”
The girl turned back to her mother who was frantically dialing her home number. When the girl decided that she could make it back before her mother even noted her absence, she nodded in ascent. I put my hands on the wheels of the chair and began, or at least, tried to begin, to get my chair moving. I wasn’t sure if it was because my arms felt like spaghetti or the wheels were glued to the ground. I couldn’t get the thing to move. The little girl, Suzanne, (I found out later), saw my dilemma and never said a word as she got behind my chair and started to push it towards our destination.
Weeks later, I was so happy to run into her back at Indian Hill. I feared that she had died in France along with the countless other millions when the aliens decided to level the countryside in an attempt to find what they had come for.
Chapter 35
Indian Hill
“Sir, I’ve got a Captain Talbot on the direct line from Paris,” the radio operator told his supervisor hesitantly. The static coming over the line made the communication nearly impossible.
“Sir, he says it’s an emergency, something about them being back. Is it true, sir?” The radio officer turned to look at his commanding officer, hoping that whoever was on the other end was mistaken.
“Well, Private, nobody has said anything to me about ‘them’ being back. Let’s just hope he’s some crackpot who broke into the radio room. In the meantime, you find out more information and I’m going to get Major Salazar.”
“Yes, sir,” the private said as a fresh bead of sweat broke out across his brow.
***
“Yes, sir; he says his name is Captain Talbot” Major Salazar had been busy preparing the duty roster and guard duty for the tunnels when the lieutenant stepped into his office. The major’s hand froze when he heard that name.
“Did you say Captain Talbot, Lieutenant?” the major said as he slowly raised his head up from the paperwork crowding his desk.
“Yes sir, it’s not a great connection. There is a lot of discharge over the lines today. We’ve been running all sorts of tests but we can’t seem…”
“That’s enough, Lieutenant. Is the captain still on the line?”
“Sir, he was when I left the com room about five minutes ago.”
“Lieutenant! Get Colonel Ginson and have him meet me in the com room,” the major said as he breezed past the semi-stunned lieutenant.
“Ah, yes, sir,” the lieutenant said to the receding back of the major.
***
“Captain Talbot? Captain Talbot? Is that you?!” the major shouted into the static-laced headset. “This is Major Salazar!”
“Major Salazar? Frank? This is Captain Talbot. Can you hear me?” I shouted with what was left of my strength.
“Barely,” the major answered.
“Same here, Major. Listen! I might not have much time, but they’re back!!”
Goosebumps rose up on the major’s arms.
“Is there any activity over there?”
“That’s a negative, Captain; say again that’s a negative. The skies over the States are four by four clear.” Why are they there? The major was thinking. Even when the world was in a full-on assault, the French had done little to prove the effectiveness of their fighting. They almost rolled over as easily against the aliens as they had against the Germans in World War II. If it hadn’t been for the presence of some NATO troops, the major was sure it would have fallen even more quickly. So why now? What are they doing?
“Are you being fired upon, Captain?” the major shouted over the incessant static.
“Not yet, sir. Early indications seem to have them circling the skies.” Almost like vultures looking for rotten meat popped into my head, and I quickly did my best to suppress the idea, but there it was. It’s like trying not to think of a pink elephant. Go ahead. I dare you.
“Circling? What are they looki…” And then the line went dead.
“Private! Reconnect me NOW!” the major said, rather calmly but the private was under the impression that the stony calmness was just a ruse. He thought if he didn’t reestablish communication instantly, he would be bucked down even further in rank than he already was. Almost as if on cue, Colonel Ginson walked in. The private now began to have images of firing squads flashing before his eyes.
“What’s going on, Frank? The lieutenant here was a little too out of breath to get anything more than someone was on the phone and you wanted to see me here.”
“Sir,” the major responded, “Captain Talbot just called.”
“Great! I was hoping he’d be up and about by now. How’s he doing?” the colonel asked almost jovially. The private relaxed a little bit, thinking perhaps that maybe he would just make it through this whole thing intact. The colonel’s smile quickly faded as he saw the grave expression on the major’s face. The private redoubled his efforts with a renewed vigor, doing his best to try to ignore the two most senior officers on the base.
“Colonel, he said the aliens were back.” Paul reacted as if he’d been sucker-punched in the abdomen. Frank noted his distress. “Yes, sir; that’s exactly how I felt when I heard,” Frank answered solemnly.
“Have our scouts reported anything?” the general asked.
“Nothing, sir,” Frank answered.
“What about any of the other encampments?”
“Nothing, Paul. From the lack of news coming in from any parts of the world, I have to assume that this is a fairly isolated incident.”
“Did he say what they were doing?”
“Circling, sir.”
“Circling? For what?” Then the truth hit him. He didn’t know why he knew; he just knew that he knew. “They’re looking for him.”
“Him, sir? How could they possibly know he’s there?” the major asked perplexedly.
“I don’t know how they know. Maybe someone dropped the box and it opened. It doesn’t really matter now how they know. The point is that they do know. And I’ve got a feeling that they’re not going to stop until they find him.” The colonel stopped to think for a moment. “Major, as soon as the communications come back up, I want you to begin evacuation of key personnel at the Bastille. Have them lay low in Europe until it’s safe to bring them here. For now though, I want all of our people out of Paris,” the colonel said as he whirled back towards his office, and undoubtedly, a few days without sleep.
The major turned back towards the private. “Anything yet, Private?”
“Nothing yet, sir.”
“Very well, let me know the instant you have reestablished communications.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” the private answered as the first of many sweat beads fell to his desk.
Chapter 36 - Mike Journal Entry Seven
The Bastille
The first impact, for what else could it be? Shook the ancient prison to its very foundation. We would later learn that the blast struck southern Paris, more than fifty miles away. But at the time, I would have sworn that it was a fifty-thousand-pound-bomb smacking dead center on one of the many turrets that occupied the place. It was almost comical the way that everyone, including myself, went stock still after the first blast. I guess at the time, we were just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It did drop and in a big way, just not within the seemingly endless span of our collective breaths.
It was after a minute of standing still that people began to realize another impact wasn’t imminent, and again there was a huge rush for the phone banks. This time, there would be no sweet solace in hearing a loved one on the other end. All circuits were busy according to the automated voice. We knew better though, all circuits were destroyed.
Nothing happened that day or even th
e next, for that matter. But Southern Paris was burning. All efforts to stifle the flames had been ineffectual. Whatever the aliens dropped had made the city a molten pit. Fire crews couldn’t even get close enough to attempt to quench the insatiable blaze.
One water plane had been dispatched to the area but never got within twenty miles of the fire. An alien vessel had swooped down and literally obliterated the tanker. The massive water carrier had simply been there one-second and then vanished into a mist of water vapor as the aliens discharged a seemingly smaller version of their city killer.
In the ensuing two days, people had begun to travel out of their homes or shelters or hidey-holes or wherever else they had sought refuge. Life still had to go on, even if three huge alien ships were parked a mere twenty-five miles above in the atmosphere. And for another two days, after the tanker had been downed, still nothing happened.
People tried to do what was necessary to survive, but it’s hard to get anything accomplished when the executioner’s axe is poised above your head and you can see its shadow. Southern Paris was still ablaze but it was significantly less than it had been. Crews were now making progress against the inferno, and still nothing happened.
It was on the brink of dawn on the seventh day when the aliens made another move, this one seemingly even more inexplicable than the last. They began to broadcast a message over the radio waves. What frequency you ask? Every one of them. Their message was going to be heard, of that there was no question.
I spent most of the seven days in my room or down at the rec center on the treadmill trying to get some wind back into my sails. I had no desire to venture outside in the least. I wanted to blame it on my recuperation, I was beginning to feel like my old self again. Of course, I mean the “new” old self, but that’s beside the point.
