by Glen Johnson
I went to open my mouth to ask a question, but his hand rose to silence me.
“First we simply studied your world, the flora and fauna. Why it does what it does. Why it is the way it is. We have watched your world evolve from the primordial soup, into what it is today.
“One species stood out though. Had great prospects. The hominidae, from the taxonomic family – apes. Or known taxonomically as Homo sapiens – you.
“Your forefathers weren’t too bright, just a small step above the other apes that inhabited the planet. That is until we stepped in. A small nudge, a little mutagenesis. We changed a few item in your deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA as you know it.
“Within a generation you had changed, your brains now three times the volume. You went from a cave dweller, which scavenged off the land and hunted with rough, stone sharpened spears, to a civilization that used language and the written word, mathematics and sophisticated metallurgy. You now built vast cities and megalithic constructions – all with our continued help.
“We passed between time frames, dimensions, affecting your world in subtle ways. Making a difference here and there. An advanced race helping a lowlier one. We had set you on your way, it was only right to keep helping – a watchful eye.
“There were always some of us here. We guided and instructed. Teaching you everything you needed to know.
“We created a vast floating city – the vessel was huge and had everything we needed to accomplish our needs – which we brought over into your dimension. From this one large location we supervised, taught, and subtlety steered you in the right direction.
“We placed it in a central location, just off the nine islands of Azores, almost smack in the middle of the Atlantic ocean –”
“Atlantis!” I blurted.
“Yes,” he mused, “Plato did refer to us as the Atlanteans in his famous stories, Timaeus and Critias. Of course, this was long after we had returned to our own dimension. He was going on second hand information, and he got his dates a little mixed up.”
“Your ancestors, at the time, simply use to call us The Watchers.
“We took control of humans from the nine Azores islands, using their bodies as a way to move about on your planet, we never showed our true form. It was a great privilege to be picked. They even raised their children in certain disciplines, hoping they would be picked for the honour.”
He sort of shuffled, making himself more comfy. Strange considering this was an illusion, a mishmash of memories pulled from my mind.
“That’s when it happened, about a hundred years before the start of your Gregorian calendar; a large natural phenomenon affected our world.
“We are far more advanced, but we were studying and helping your world more than we were paying attention to our own. We didn’t see it coming. It affected everything; the disaster swept our world, billions perished.” A solitary tear rolled down one cheek, disappearing off his smooth chin. The droplet had momentarily reflected the harsh light of the storm in the distance.
“Over half of our world is now uninhabited, incapable of supporting life. All our worlds’ resources almost exhausted. To put it simply, we were dying.”
A wicked looking series of bolts shook the ground in the distance, as if the dance was affected in some way by the old mans mood. The deep bass vibrational harmonic percussions could be felt through my whole body.
“We had been studying and changing your race for many thousands of years. We know more about your kind than you do. We practically created you.
“We also knew that life forms here produced energies similar to what we needed to drive our machines, grow our food and power our world. That was what drew our attention to your world in the first place.” He looked down away from the spectacle before us.
“Our souls,” I whispered.
“Yes.” He looked back up, towards me this time.
“Our people split in two. We had been harvesting for as long as we have been visiting your world. Taking from the life forms of your planet.” He gave me a sad look.
“Don’t look at me like that. We are no different than you. Humans have been using the byproducts of long dead plants and animals to run your world ever since you discovered oil and natural gas – the compressed and decomposed remains of other living things.”
He let out a long sign, then continued. “Like you we only use the dead. Never creating death.
“The split between our people happened because some decided that the humans had now become too aware – sapience. We were meant to be using lower life forms, but humans were advancing in technology and science. It wasn’t right to use a sapient species.” He gave a gruff laugh.
“Sods law. Humans had a soul that was twenty fold more powerful than any other creature on your planet. When we had altered your genetic code, we had inadvertently boosted not just your intellect, but also your ability to be a power source for us!
“Then after everything that had happened to our world, a war broke out between the two groups.
“The remaining land was split in two. The two groups separating. One group tried to survive on what our world had left to offer. The second group went ahead with its plan. Almost forty years later, your time, that group passed over and collected the first Harvest of energies it needed to survive. In the thirteen-forty’s almost seventy-five million human souls were collected to run their machines and provide needed energies for their survival. No longer did they wait for the soul to leave the body in death, rather they now took it, ending the human life.
“The first group was appalled. The war restarted. But,” he seemed to shrink in size, “we were struggling to survive with what was left. They now had unlimited power. They grew far stronger than us. We were exiled back to the unproductive, dead land; to eke out a living with the little we had remaining.”
My eyes never left the storm, the dark clouds circling far above, moving with unnatural speed and phenomenal energy. Parts of buildings and what could be vehicles were being pulled up into the sky by ferocious, battering winds.
“Then in nineteen-eighteen they returned for more power. Almost one hundred million souls were taken. They have returned continually in the years between to Harvest.” He looked at me with sadness in his eyes.
“When cattle are in the field grazing upon the grass, chewing the cud, do you think they realize they are simply food for a more advanced species? And like keeping animals, they provide everything your race needs to be kept content.
“You were growing in intelligence and had more time on your hands now due to the rise of agriculture, and wanted answers to where you came from, and why. So you were provided with Gods and beliefs. Anything to keep you from realizing what you really are.
“Mankind is now simply a harvesting ground. A power source. Mere cattle.
“Every war ever thought. Every mysterious natural phenomenon. Every untimely death is them taking a little here, a little there, providing them with the power they need. A steady continuous supply.
“Especially now, we, their exiled brethren, have returned from the barren lands and have started the battle once again, trying to stop this abomination.
“They have returned, hoping to collect enough souls to give them sufficient power to destroy us once and for all. It will take three quarters of earth population to succeed in this endeavour of theirs. Humans and animals alike.
“They will leave just enough over to repopulate, so they can continue to harvest in the future. Of course man will label it a natural phenomenon, a virus of some kind, always refusing to see things for what they really are.”
I sat cross-legged, muscles burning from the strain of the position, but I could no more move than I could grow wings and take flight. We were nothing but cattle. Allowed to breed then culled.
The small man slowly turned to face me. His eyes looking halfway between oriental and Indian, seemingly half closed, studying me through their silted gaps. His white hair flying wildly about his thin tanned face.
“You have thirty-one minutes left to put an end to this, before the merging beings and the reapers pour through.
“We are at present surrounded by their forces on our world. With only enough spare energy to talk to you.
“You were being prepared to be a host. This has conditioned your body to withstand the effect of the reapers.”
So that’s why I wasn’t affected when they came in close proximity to me when I sat in the stolen white car.
“They also need one human to use as a Key. Because you have been conditioned, you will also become a substitute Key, saving them time in conditioning another.”
I looked down at the amulet around my neck; the small chip inside seemed dark against the background of the lightning’s extraordinary power.
“You need to get close enough to insert that amulet into the gateways main turning ring. The necklace will do the rest.” His head lowered, his chin touching his chest. He then whispered, “You are mankind’s last hope… and ours. Please do not fail us.” With that his image began to shimmer, and then blinked out like a spent light bulb.
I went to move, to workout how to exit this strange illusion. But as I went to stand the world spun, and I found myself standing in the middle of the open field. The rain was hammering down hard.
The farmhouse stood in the distance, powerful lights shining from its rear yard.
So I’m a fucking cow, huh?
It’s time this mad cow trampled the farmer.
38
Bingo
I stood motionless with the rain running down my body. I was freezing. Chills shook me all over. But I think it was more to do with what I needed to accomplish, rather than from the rain and the wind.
Throw the amulet into the turning ring, the old man had simply stated.
Instead of heading directly towards the farmyard I turned to the left and headed towards the cover of the trees.
I might have just spoken with an alien, who is fighting a war on his home world as we speak. And he might have given me a lot of useful information, but that doesn’t mean I’m crazy enough to stroll over and announce that I’m here to shut them down. Buffing the amulet with the sleeve of my wet tracksuit in the process, with a big smile plastered across my face, while at the same time being ripped to pieces by ten foot high, red eye beasts. I might be unaffected by their harvesting powers, but I’m sure my skin wouldn’t be impenetrable to those wicked looking talons. What had happened to the poor cow was still vivid in my memory.
I navigated around the deep pit the craft was in, heading into the dense pine trees. Surely they would still be looking for me? I could see the barn I had been tied up in, it was an inferno.
I reached the tree line. The smell of the wet pine needles was reassuring, a familiar smell, something I could associate with, reminding me of where I was.
I needed a plan of action. I needed more than just a necklace. I needed a weapon of some kind. I had a nagging doubt that I had already seen the answer, and it rested on the tip of my tongue. It then hit me, the army truck that was on the motorway along with all the other twisted wreckage. Did it have weapons inside? I would soon find out. I should’ve looked earlier.
I ran to the fence climbed over and stumbled down the wet slippery embankment, for what felt like the tenth time. Then I ran along the wet tarmac, rain pelting down and bouncing off the dark motorway. I jumped over melted tyres, carcasses and around vehicles, past the burnt-out bus, past numerous other decaying bodies that didn’t realize when they got up that morning that it was going to be the last day of their lives.
Hosea chapter 13 and verse 3 reads: Therefore, they will disappear like the morning mist, like dew in the morning sun, like chaff blown by the wind, like smoke from a chimney. How fitting.
For fuck sake, since reading some of the bible, it has been permanently imprinted on my brain.
I reached the small army convoy. First I checked the two humvee’s. Nothing. Just the decomposing remains of four soldiers in each. I found only one hand gun, it had been twisted by the physics of the crash. The others were possibly thrown from the wreckage.
I reached the patchwork green truck, which had turned over onto its side. It didn’t have green material stretched over a metal frame at the back; instead it was like a metal security van. I hadn’t noticed this the first time I passed.
It lay on the right side; the left side front door had been ripped off. I climbed the metal underside, using the axel as a step. I gagged as I peered in. A body left in the sun and rain for a few days gives of a grotesque smell that overpowers even the strongest individual. One body lay pushed up against the right side door. If there was another passenger on the left he’d obviously been thrown out, as the door was ripped free.
But there was no small door for entering into the back of the truck. Only through the back thick metal plated double doors. I flicked several switches on the dashboard, after having climbed in. Nothing. No power left in the battery. If any of the switches opened the doors that is.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the dashboard, reflecting off the fragmented glass windshield. Also off the keys hanging from the single occupant’s green belt. I twisted and turned the keys, trying to unhook them. Then on the keyring I noticed a small pocket-knife. I twisted it and used it to cut the large key ring from the dead soldier’s belt.
Also, as I pulled up his jacket to get at the belt, I notice a small handgun. I had no idea what sort it was, a .9mm? .22mm? A Glock or possibly a Smith & Western? To me it was simply a gun, a weapon of destruction, point and shoot. BAM – dead. I had used several guns in many of my novels, but I always had to investigate appropriate names and calibres. It was possibly just a standard sidearm that the government issued to all British army personnel.
I had seen films of how to cock the weapon and check to see it had sufficient bullets left in the magazine. But even as I twisted and turned it, I had no idea how to check it. I also had no idea handguns were so heavy?
I know I had lived around weapons in America for the thirteen years I had lived there – when I had moved back. But guns didn’t interest me. I didn’t hate them and I wasn’t anti NRA. Its just I had never needed to use one before.
I simply pushed it into my baggy pocket, hoping it didn’t go off and blow one of my testicals away – that would be just my fucking luck.
I climbed out, after checking the rest of the cab for anything useful. Nothing, apart from the keys and the gun. I now stood at the back of the metal truck, trying to fumble with the keys. Rain was running into my eyes. Lightning blinding me as it reflected off the stark dented metal.
After the sixth key the lock clicked.
The truck was resting on its side, and as I opened the lock the weight of the door made it drop open. I jumped out of the way as it thudded down into the wet tarmac, the handle burying an inch into the dark ground. The other sections of door hung where it was, even with all my strength I don’t think I could have been able to swing it up. Not that I needed it to, there was plenty of room for me to climb through.
Two bodies lay strewn about in the back. The heavy containers having rattled around inside as the truck crashed onto its side. This had taken its toll on the two passengers; they were a little worse for wear after being pummelled with the metal boxes. It was like placing two delicate rosebuds in a blender with stones.
I turned one container over and was instantly rewarded with a sticker advertising explosive materials. It was a red diamond shape, with explosives wrote across the middle and a picture of something blowing up above it, with a series of letters and numbers on the bottom. Bingo! What were the chances of that? Someone was looking down from above. If I believed in all that, I would have thanked them.
Shit, there I go again, with the theology. It would take a while for all the information I have received to sink in. For the years of having religion pumped into me by my catholic grandmother to start fading.
I pulled one container free. It was heavy but not
ridiculously so; I could carry it with relative ease. I pulled it to the back open door, while still standing outside in the rain, leaving the box under the protection of the metal covering.
There was a strange clipping devise that kept the container closed. After trying to open it with no luck, I resorted to using a scrap of metal that lay on the wet tarmac, and proceeded to hammer away at it until it broke open. I wasn’t worried about it blowing up, if simply hammering on it would do that, then it would have detonated when the truck rolled over.
Inside lay a greyish putty-like block, possibly the size and shape of a large loaf of bread. Probably a brick would be a better description. No fuse or switch? It could be C4 or Composition Four as its otherwise known? It could be anything. But whatever it was it most probably needed a timer or detonator of some kind. Then again I’m no expert.
