The Newcomers: a novel of global invasion , human resilience, and the wild places of the planet

by Pamela Jekel

  He rolled to one side, loving the way their skin stuck together, as though reluctant to release. She took one finger and traced down his damp chest. “What’s this, then?” she murmured with a coy cat smile.

  “Love sweat,” he said.

  She slowly licked where her finger had traced. “They can’t take that away from us. Tell me.”

  “They can’t take that away from us,” he assured her.

  “Thank you.”

  He stroked her awhile longer and then eased himself away from her, back to his own bed. He knew now he would sleep well.

  The next morning, they gathered together again for breakfast, just what they’d expected, powdered eggs, a slice of bread, oatmeal, one glass of juice, and another of powdered milk, certainly nothing to linger over.

  “Jonathan got ‘lected!” Miranda announced. “He’s our team captain! Me and Stacey voted for him.”

  “Stacey and I voted for him,” Skylar said automatically. “Did that storm last night scare you?”

  She shook her head, her mouth full of bread. “Stacey said she heard worser ones before. I just pulled the covers over my head.”

  They walked Miranda to her classroom and then hurried back to the dormitory, where a soldier organized them in groups by floors. One man from each floor was chosen as team captain. Jack shook their new team captain’s hand and introduced Skylar and himself.

  “Man, I don’t know why they picked me,” Tyler Harris shook his head. “I sure don’t want the job.”

  “Well, we’ll all pitch in,” Jack said. “Ours is not to question why—“

  “You a Marine?” another man from their floor asked. “Semper fi!”

  “No, I’m not, I’m sorry,” Jack said. “But I guess we’re all in the service now.”

  “Listen up, people,” a soldier announced, “we will be pulling out in ten minutes, from the east parking lot where you first came in, just follow the signs. We will not be back until dinner; box lunches and water will be provided onsite. Porta-johns are also available onsite. You will be working outdoors, so I would suggest you dress accordingly and lather up with sunblock, if you have it.”

  “What will we be doing?” She was heavy-set; her face was anxious. “It’s such a hot day—“

  “Your work tasks will be assigned when we get onsite. Anyone who misses the bus will be sent to the infirmary. This door,” he indicated the door to the dorm, “will be locked behind me in ten minutes. Saddle up.”

  “It couldn’t be December,” Skylar said. “It had to be August.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Jack said. They hurried up the stairs, took turns in the bathroom, layered on the sunblock, and got back to the parking lot as the buses were boarding.

  They boarded by teams, and Tyler was assigned a seat upfront by their unit’s guard. His wife sat next to him, looking both proud and uncomfortable at her husband’s new position. They drove through the streets which seemed as empty as they had the day before, except for the mounds of garbage. This time, they saw no dogs; only the gulls and the crows squabbled over the debris.

  “The gangs they’re talking about must only be out after dark,” Jack whispered. “I haven’t seen any evidence of gangs at all.”

  “They probably keep away from where the soldiers are,” Skylar replied. “I would. I’m going to need more block. These shorts are too short. I’m going to get burnt if we’re outside all day.”

  “Yeah. I wish I had a hat.”

  The man in front of them turned and said, “Hey, you’re the mechanical engineer at Lockheed, right?”

  Jack nodded, wondering how he knew such a thing.

  “You have any idea what those explosions were last night? It wasn’t a natural storm, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. “But if it was a storm, where was the rain?”

  “Well, it coulda been heat lightning, I heard it that bad before, but never in the city. Only to the north, in the mountains. You think it was heat lightning?”

  Jack hesitated.

  “Hey, sorry, I’m Buster Sparks. Ex-cop, Marietta.”

  “We’re from Marietta, too.”

  “I know.” He grinned. “Ex-cop, right? So what you think? Not natural?”

  “I don’t know. But if I had to bet, I’d say it wasn’t a natural occurrence. Could be the military, clearing debris or something. Maybe testing weapons.”

  “In downtown Atlanta? I put it at about midtown. Not that far from Emory.”

  Jack shrugged. “You know, there’s so much I don’t know these days, I’m afraid to hazard a guess.”

  “I hear that.”

  “Well, listen, you’re a cop. What are your theories about what went wrong, Buster? How did we get in such a mess that aliens have to come down and put us all in prison camps, just to get it sorted out?”

  He furrowed his brow and squinted, trying to decide how much to say. He dropped his voice even more. “I think it’s God,” he said. “Not having one, I mean. I was raised with it, choir boy, Sunday school, the whole song and dance. You?”

  “I’m Catholic,” Jack said, shrugging. That said it all, to his mind.

  “Then you know,” Buster nodded. “And you learned about good and bad, right? God and the Devil. You knew there was something bigger than you, and it wasn’t just your old man. So it’s in you. Even when you got to be a mechanical engineer, it’s in you, right? You know what’s good, and you know what’s bad, and you got something to fear. You got a soul. Tell you, Jack, what I seen out there? These perps ain’t got no souls, most of ‘em. They’re killers, plain and simple. Top of the food chain, and they don’t give a shit for nobody. Nothing matters. No humanity. Blow some kid up for his sneakers, right? They ain’t human. I don’t want to catch ‘em and lock ‘em up. I want to shoot ‘em dead like rabid dogs. Because I know they’ll be out on the streets someday, and there’s no redemption there. They just get harder and tougher. Empty shells. Predators with no souls.”

  “So you think it’s the lack of God in our lives that has made us screw up this planet?” Jack looked around and kept his voice low.

  “Well, I don’t think it’s any accident that Utah, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Ohio have high levels of survivors who aren’t comin’ in. Mormons, Amish, and Mennonites, right? They take care of their own, and they live their faith.”

  “You think the aliens have come down here to show us God?”

  “No, man. To teach us fear. To teach us respect. Just like my old man out at the woodpile, right? To make us get the point.”

  “Well,” Skylar murmured, “I think they’re getting that one home. I’m terrified. They can go now.”

  “Yeah,” Buster nodded. “I hear that. Good to talk to you, man. Good luck to you both.”

  Jack said, “Same to you.”

  After driving about a half-hour, a dozen buses pulled up by an open area, at least as big as a football field. It was empty of trees, empty of grass, and the red Georgia clay was tossed and ripped open, with open potholes and craters pocking the wide expanse. Gray dust lay over the field in clumps, as if it had been fertilized, but haphazardly. Dark objects stuck up at intervals, jagged pieces of what looked like broken obsidian, and the field steamed slightly.

  “Offload, people,” the soldier upfront said. “Leave any belongings on the bus. You’ll be eating lunch onboard. Team Captain, get your team in line along the side of the bus for assignments.”

  They followed directions, lined up, and Tyler Harris said, “Okay, here’s the deal. They want to deal with the team captains only, so I’m supposed to tell you what we’re doing, and I’m supposed to figure out who does what. I’ll tell you right now, I don’t want this job, but they don’t give me a lot of choice.”

  “Were you in the Army?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah. Sixth Battalion, Benning. Guess that’s why they picked me. So what we’re doing here is this. We’re cleaning up this field and getting it ready for the plows. See those shovels over there?”
He pointed to a bus being unloaded of shovels, pick-axes, and wheelbarrows. “We dig up this field to about two feet down, working in that gray dust. We drag out anything that could break a plow, and we pile it over there,” he pointed to a brushy area to one side of the field. “Another team’s going to bury it. Porta-johns are over there; water’s next to them. I would say, we do this in teams of two. Husband and wife if that works; if not, just pair up, if you’re singles. One shovels, one uses the pick-axe as necessary, then trade off. Guys, don’t try to do it all yourself, or you’ll wind up in the infirmary, and you won’t be much good to your wives there, I’ll tell you. If I stand here talking much longer, we’ll be doing it by hand, because I don’t see enough tools there for this crowd. We break for lunch at noon. Pace yourself, people. This is going to be a long day.”

  With grim faces, the teams quickly moved to pick up shovels and pick-axes, piled them in wheelbarrows, and pushed off to the edge of the field. Tyler swiftly divided their part of the field into quadrants, pointed them towards their sections, and they began to dig. Soldiers stood guard all around the perimeter.

  Jack and Skylar’s portion of the field was right in the middle of their quadrant, so they were surrounded by team members and far from the guards. Skylar took the shovel, Jack took the axe, and they began to work the soil. The dust smelled metallic, and although it steamed slightly, it crumpled easily under the shovel. “What is this?” Skylar asked. “Doesn’t smell like fertilizer.”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said, pulling at a piece of black glass. “This stuff looks almost volcanic.” He tossed a piece in the wheelbarrow. “We need gloves for this. I hate to think what we’re breathing.”

  They worked for an hour, and they were already wet with sweat. Skylar was light-headed with the heat. “We need water,” Jack said. They dropped their tools and walked to the porta-john, where large coolers were waiting in the shade, paper cups in columns by their sides. They drank the cool water gratefully, leaned up against the shady side of the nearest porta-john, and Skylar asked, “What would they do if we just refused to work?”

  “Hustle us off to the infirmary, I guess,” Jack said. “About a third of these people will be there soon enough.”

  “I don’t see any younger women out here. Wonder what they’ve got them doing?”

  “Probably cleaning the dorms. You want to switch?”

  “Ask me again in about another hour,” she said, spilling a cup of water over her face.

  They worked the fields for another two hours, digging, pick-axing, wheeling their debris to the pile, dumping it, and then back again to the fields. Finally, their team captain called them to break. People were red-faced, wet with sweat, and men had already taken off their shirts and wrapped them around their heads for protection from the sun. Some women had done the same, leaving them with only their bras for modesty. They staggered back to the bus, collected their sack lunches, and clustered on the ground in what shade they could find. These weren’t the nice box lunches they’d had before, no fruit, no cookies, but at least they were cool.

  “We got forty-five minutes, people. Don’t spend the whole time sitting, or you’ll stiffen up,” Tyler advised them. “We got another four hours until we quit.”

  “You have any idea what happened here?” Jack asked him. “This stuff isn’t fertilizer, is it?”

  “Like they’re gonna tell me? I’m just trying to get by, man. Just like y’all.” His wife was leaning on his shoulder, her eyes closed. Her hands were wrapped in strips she’d torn from her shirt. “They should’ve told us what we’re gonna be doing. We could’ve jerry-rigged hats, some gloves, something.”

  “Maybe they didn’t know until the aliens told them,” another man said. “I got a feeling they don’t know any more about what’s going on than we do. I’ve been in the Army, I know. They act like there’s a plan, but usually, there ain’t. Just the same old freeze-dried bullshit.”

  “That’s a stone fact,” another man said.

  A woman asked Jack, “You’re the doctor, right?”

  He shook his head. “Not a medical doctor.” She looked too fine-boned and frail to be out in this heat.

  “Yes, I know, but you have a doctorate in mechanical engineering? I wondered if you knew what this is?” She handed him a piece of melted metal, dull and flattened. “I found it in the dirt.”

  “Yeah, I found a piece a’ that, too,” another man said.

  Jack took it and turned it in his hand. It looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it in the moment. “I’m not sure,” he said. “May I keep it?”

  She shrugged. “Of course.”

  The break went too fast, the hours dragged on, and the heat was unrelenting. At one point, when Skylar and Jack went for more water, a soldier took their wheelbarrow and gave it to another team. “You need to share,” he said when Jack protested. “Buddy up with somebody who has one.”

  Finally the day was over, and they dragged themselves back onto the buses. Jack could feel his own sunburn stinging; he knew Skylar’s would be painful that night. His blisters were burning; hers were actually bleeding in places. They were too tired to speak. When he tried to gently take her hand, she winced and drew away. Back on campus, the cool air of the dorm was an incredible relief, as were the showers they took as soon as they had recovered enough strength. Jack sat with the metal piece, digging at it slightly with a penknife, turning it in his hands.

  “We need to go pick up Miranda in a few minutes,” Sky said. “Did you figure out what that is yet?”

  “I think it’s a piece of an engine block,” he said.

  “Like from a car?”

  He nodded. “It would be the last thing to survive intense heat. But it’s so welded, the heat must have been extreme.”

  She sat down slowly on the bed. “So you think it has something to do with those explosions we heard last night?”

  He frowned. “No, because it would still be too hot. But it could have something to do with the explosions other people heard a few nights ago.”

  “So they’re exploding cars? That’s what that dust is? Cremated cars?”

  “And the pieces that look like black glass could have been the asphalt they were parked on.”

  “Our cars?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe all the cars they collected off the streets. It’s pretty odd that we haven’t seen any parked cars. There should be hundreds of them.”

  She crossed her arms in front of her. “But why go to all that trouble to destroy all the cars? It’s not like there’s much gas for them anyway, and they say the electricity’s off. Maybe it’s not really off?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe to keep people in the city?”

  She thought for a moment. “So then they’ll burn up our cars, too?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know much of anything anymore. But if I were trying to control people, I guess one of the first things I’d do is keep them immobile. Or make them think they were.”

  She sagged down on the bed. “God, you can’t trust anybody. You can’t know the truth about anything.” She closed her eyes. “I haven’t been this tired since I gave birth.”

  There was a quiet knock at the bathroom door. Jack went to open it, and Jim came in, his face lined and worn. The man looked five years older than the night before.

  “I just wanted to you to know that we’re going to the infirmary. Judy can’t take another day of this. I feel pretty lousy myself. I’m sorry. I know you’ll have to get used to strangers again, but I need to do what’s best for her. Hell, I could keel over from a heart attack out there, myself.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Jack said. “I’m sure you two won’t be the only ones. It was awful out there today.”

  “Yeah, and from the looks of that field, we’re going to be at it for a few more days at least. We can’t take that kind of heat.”

  “May I see her?” Skylar asked.

  “Sure. She’s just resting.” He led Skylar into thei
r room.

  Jack heard the two women murmuring together. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. He wondered what he would do if Skylar fell ill. Would he take her to the infirmary or try to make it back to the cabin? How would he get her there? Would they take Miranda? Would they be allowed to take Miranda? He ran several break-out fantasies through his mind, walking his girls back to Watkinsville, hiding in the forests at night, starting campfires and eating the fish he’d catch, the game he’d trap. He was so exhausted, right now it seemed a challenge just to get up to meet his daughter for dinner.

  Skylar came back into the room and closed the door behind her. “She looks like she’s going to stroke out.”

  “I’m not surprised. I bet there’ll be twenty-percent fewer people at breakfast tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, Jim says there are two more couples on this floor going over right after dinner tonight. We need to go get Miranda.”

  He forced himself to rise and smile. “I’ll bet she had a better day than we did.”

  Indeed, Miranda had. She happily chattered through dinner about her class, her friends, and her lunch. “And then we had our scavenger hunt! We got to go in secret houses and collect all the food and bring it back, and our team won a red prize!”

  “Secret houses?” Jack asked, pushing the meatloaf around on his plate. There was not much meat in it, and he was almost too tired to eat anyway. “You mean regular houses with nobody in them?”

  “Yeah, places where bad guys used to hide out! But they’re all gone now, and so we got all their food, and the soldiers put it in the trucks. Next week, we’re gonna eat food we captured back from the bad guys!”