Xenophobia

by Peter Cawdron

  “No,” she screamed. “This is not fair.”

  “Fair?” Adan cried in reply. “Fair? You bomb us with your Raptors, you occupy our country, you force your systems and beliefs upon us, you destroy our traditions, and you want to talk to me about fair? Ha. I say, you have as much chance down there as we do against your troops.”

  Another shove in the back brought her to the edge of the abyss.

  Concrete crumbled beneath her boots.

  Elvis jumped out before her, clearing the torn strands of reinforced steel bars protruding from the shattered concrete. He landed on a mattress, rolling on his good shoulder as he fell forward.

  Bower jumped. She had to. If she’d been shoved, she knew she would have fallen awkwardly and missed the mattresses. Breaking a leg on the concrete floor didn’t seem like such a smart idea, so she jumped. Jumping was her only option and yet it felt like suicide.

  Bower didn’t make it as far as Elvis had, and she had no idea about rolling to soften the blow. She landed on a single mattress off to one side, and was shocked to feel the jarring impact resound up through her ankles, knees, hips and spine. She collapsed in a heap, pain tearing through her body.

  Elvis staggered up against the crushed remains of a wooden crate, using it to help him stand. Bower got to her feet, but her ankles ached, the soles of her feet felt like someone had been pounding on them with a sledgehammer.

  “Bullets,” Elvis cried. “Get the bullets.”

  Bower looked around.

  From the ground, the layout looked entirely different. She swung around, looking at the pile of mattresses, trying to get her bearings. Above her, the soldiers roared with excitement. She could see Adan standing there, laughing, gloating. From his position, she was able to orient herself. She had to be within a few feet of the bullet that fell to the left.

  Elvis staggered over to where the revolver lay in a pool of fresh blood, crushed bone and shredded body tissue. She could see he was in excruciating pain. His movements were coarse. His shattered arm hung by his side, nothing more than a bloody mess.

  Instinctively, Bower ran her hands through her short, dark hair. She wasn’t sure why, but it helped her think as her eyes scanned the ground, looking for the bullet. Small rocks and splinters of wood lay scattered on the floor. Patches of blood marred the ground.

  Her eyes darted back and forth, manic in their desire to find the bullet. Long streaks of blood and splatter patterns stained the support pillars.

  Something moved in the shadows. Thousands of blades seemed to slash at the air, cutting through the darkness.

  Bower looked up. Her heart raced. She couldn’t help herself. Although she knew she should keep looking for the bullet she had to see it, she had to see this alien creature from another world. There, in the darkness, she saw the faint outline of the monster, just a glimpse of spikes and tentacles as the creature moved along the far wall. Above her, the rebels were chanting, willing the creature to attack.

  Elvis was on his knees, using his one good hand to pull himself on. He grabbed the gun and leaned up against a concrete support pillar. The physical toll of his injuries had sapped his strength. She could see him struggling, fighting against fatigue and shock. His gloved fingers gripped the revolver. He wiped the gun against his clothing, trying to clean it.

  “Doc, I need those bullets,” he yelled again.

  Bower was down on her hands and knees. She was sure this was where she’d seen one of the bullets come to rest. Her hands pushed through the debris, her fingers desperately wanting to clutch at metal and not wood or stone.

  The alien roared. Within the darkened floor, there was a sound like the rush of a storm in a forest. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the monster closing in on Elvis.

  “Where’s that goddamn bullet?” Elvis cried. He pointed the gun into the shadows, bluffing.

  Bower moved to where she’d landed, searching frantically for the first bullet. The mattress she had fallen on had slipped off the pile and lay to one side. She was almost directly below Adan. She couldn’t see the general, but she could hear him gloating and calling out with delight.

  “Get me that FUCKING bullet,” Elvis scream.

  Elvis staggered. His legs could no longer carry him. He fell awkwardly, crying out in pain as he sprawled on the concrete.

  Bower was manic, searching on her hands and knees for the bullet.

  Above them, the rebel soldiers laughed.

  Elvis rolled on his back, pushing frantically away from the alien creature as it slowly advanced on him. His boots slipped in the blood of his fallen comrade.

  Adan and his troops cheered for the alien.

  The creature reared up above Elvis, its tentacles slashing at the air. As the alien moved into the light, Bower got her first good look at the monster. Mentally, she struggled to process what she was seeing. Rather than a single creature, such as a lion or a tiger, the alien appeared to be a chimera, a hybrid, a combination of various creatures melded together.

  What she’d thought of as tentacles were flexible blades. Bower was tempted to think of the alien as a giant sea urchin or a western tumbleweed, with an inner core like that of a basketball. Spikes protruded in all directions, but the heart of the creature was a seething mass, constantly moving, rippling and changing shape. She couldn’t articulate why, but the two concepts didn’t mesh, they seemed incongruous.

  Rigid spikes rested on the ground like pikes or poles or crutches, while the upper spikes flexed like whips, giving the top half of the creature the appearance of an octopus thrashing around with its tentacles. As the alien moved, these soft, flexible fore-limbs became stiff, changing their function from what had presumably been like that of human arms to stiff legs. As the creature rocked forward, the dark, seething mass at the heart of the alien compensated for the motion, swarming and staying still relative to the rotation of the legs.

  “BULLETS,” Elvis yelled again. “I need those bloody bullets now.”

  Elvis struck out with his legs, trying to push himself along the ground away from the alien.

  Bower couldn’t take her eyes off the creature. She was terrified. Her hands continued to run over the debris on the floor, but she never looked down. Then, under the fingers of her left hand, she felt the smooth cylindrical shape of a bullet casing. Her fingers picked up the shell and felt for the bullet at its tip to ensure this was not an empty brass case.

  “I’ve got it,” she proclaimed, as though merely finding the bullet had solved their problems.

  Elvis backed up next to her, sweat dripping from his brow.

  The creature seemed weary of leaving the cover of darkness. Could it be that the alien was light-sensitive? Probably not, she figured. More than likely, its behavior was to avoid the rebel’s taking pot-shots.

  With one hand, Elvis opened the revolver, pushing on the main cylinder so it swiveled out to one side of the Magnum. Elvis pushed the ejection rod against his knee, knocking the spent brass casing out of the gun.

  His hand was shaking. He held the revolver so Bower could feed the lone bullet into one of the empty chambers within the cylinder block, but she struggled to get the bullet into the revolver. Although it only took fractions of a second, she felt like she was fumbling for upwards of a minute.

  Elvis had his back up against one of the mattresses. His head rolled lazily to one side as he flicked the chamber back into the Magnum. He rested the gun on his chest and moved the cylinder so the bullet was in place, ready to fire. Bower hadn’t thought about it, but it was only then she realized she should have placed the bullet in the upper chamber. She was horrified to think she’d slowed the whole process.

  While they were preoccupied, the monster retreated into the shadows, apparently sensing the gun was now loaded. Bower could see the alien understood the danger represented by this weapon, even with only a single bullet.

  “Three minutes,” one of the rebels yelled out above her. Although to Bower it felt like three hours. Sweat dripp
ed from her forehead, running down her neck. Her hands were shaking, but she knew what she had to do.

  Bower scrambled up the pile of mattresses as Elvis called out, “Find the other bullet.”

  She was already on it.

  From the spongy mattress top, Bower could see the creature moving around behind Elvis, forcing him to turn. Elvis had no strength left; she could see that. He struggled to turn himself, putting the revolver down and pulling with his one good hand as his boots slipped on the bloodied concrete. He was exhausted. He couldn’t turn to face the alien.

  Above them, General Adan laughed and cried out with glee, enjoying the spectacle. The creature was almost directly below the general, but he was safe, well back from the edge, with just his upper torso visible from the ground floor.

  Bower pulled herself away from staring at the creature, her eyes scanned the floor for the second bullet. It was impossible. There was too much debris. She could see several spent shell casings, any one of them could have been the second bullet, but from where she was, she couldn’t tell for sure. She went to jump down the other side of the mattresses and start searching, but she was aware the creature was moving in to kill Elvis. She couldn’t leave him. She couldn’t abandon him when he was helpless.

  For his part, Elvis had rolled over onto his stomach. He had both arms out in front of him, even though one had been torn off and was little more than a bloody stump. He was trying to bring the gun to bear on this creature from another world.

  This was wrong, so wrong. Ever since the aliens had arrived, Bower had visions of a peaceful encounter, a sharing of knowledge and of culture, of art and music. How had mankind’s first encounter with another intelligent sentient being come to enmity and warfare? Intelligence should be about caring, not fighting. Reason should rule, not base survival instincts. Her heart sank at the bitter reality that faced her.

  Bower slid down the mattresses, landing by Elvis.

  The gun was shaking so violently in his hand he couldn’t have hit the side of a barn.

  Bower pulled the gun from his feeble fingers and his arm collapsed, falling to the concrete.

  The hammer on the Magnum was cocked, ready to fire.

  Bower had one shot. She had to make it count, but how? She had no idea how many people Adan had sentenced to death in his so-called colosseum, but that none of them had stood a chance against this monster was plain to see.

  The alien braced itself, drawing its tentacles in, protecting its central core. Although Bower hadn’t seen what the creature had done to protect itself when Bosco fired, she had seen what happened next. One bullet wouldn’t make a difference. She knew what to expect. Her hand trembled, shaking as she tried to gain some composure. Sweat dripped from her forehead, stinging her eyes. Her fingers shook. The gun felt so heavy, as though it had a will of its own and wanted to fall back to the floor.

  Adan was laughing. His white teeth glistened in the low light.

  Bower raised the gun.

  Gripping the stock with both hands, she breathed deeply, calming her nerves. Her index finger squeezed the trigger. The sudden crack surprised her, while the recoil from the Magnum threw her hands up over her head and she lost her grip on the revolver. The gun clattered across the concrete somewhere behind her.

  Whip-like tentacles lashed out before her, a blaze of deep-red knives slashing through the air.

  Bower sank to her knees, grimacing, waiting for the inevitable.

  Above them, Adan reeled to one side, having been struck by the bullet in the chest. Bower caught sight of blood spraying through the air as he fell from sight.

  She closed her eyes, not wanting to see what happened next. Although she could hear voices calling to each other on the upper floor, the yelling and cheering of the rebels had stopped. Those voices she could hear sounded muted and distant. Silence followed her thunderclap of violence.

  She couldn’t kill the alien creature and she knew it, but then she didn’t want to kill something from another world. Perhaps it was misplaced idealism, but she wanted to think that two intelligent species from different parts of the universe could meet as intellectual equals, regardless of their technology and background. And perhaps, just perhaps, she would have her revenge on Adan for murdering Bosco.

  She’d struck Adan in the chest, of that she was sure, but quite where was difficult to tell. She had to have caught one of the lungs, but she doubted whether she had hit his heart. If anything, she was surprised she’d hit him at all. Would he have a medical team skilled enough to save him from such major trauma to the torso? She doubted that.

  Bower could hear the alien moving toward her. She grimaced, keeping her eyelids pressed shut, not wanting to watch the horror unfold. Loose stones and debris crunched under the creature’s tentacles as it edged forward. Bower huddled, making herself as small as possible. Warm tentacles ran over her face, through her hair, across her shoulders and down her body. She was shaking violently with fear, resigned to her fate, but slowly, the alien withdrew, leaving her kneeling in a puddle of her own urine.

  After what seemed like an age, Bower opened her eyes. The alien was gone. She looked up at the shattered concrete lining the hole above. No one was there.

  Elvis was unconscious.

  Bower felt alone, and yet something watched her from the shadows.

  Chapter 10: Water

  Night fell. Dark shadows crept across the floor. Moonlight shone through the gaping hole in the roof above the shattered upper floor.

  Bower hadn’t heard anyone walking around or talking since the shooting, at least no one human. The alien creature moved around sporadically, but seemed to be giving her a wide berth, and that was fine with her.

  Elvis gave her something to focus on. He hadn’t regained consciousness, and she was worried about him. There was no way of knowing just how much blood he’d lost. The shock of a major amputation would have killed most people, but Elvis was a fighter. Bower’s medical training kicked in and she set about caring for him.

  Hah, what a joke, she thought, caring for a severe trauma case with no medical equipment while locked in a cellar with a murderous alien. Only it wasn’t a cellar, was it? The windows had been sealed from the outside with steel plates, but she could see through the cracks into the moonlit street outside. And it wasn’t a murderous alien, at least not in her case, not yet anyway.

  Bower felt she had to stake out some territory. She didn’t feel comfortable remaining in plain sight beneath the gaping hole in the upper floor, but she didn’t want to chance upon the alien either. She dragged a mattress from the center of the floor, dragging it across beneath one of the steel plates blocking the windows. A thin strand of light pierced the cracks between the plates. Somehow, having a faint glimpse of the outside world gave her hope.

  Two of the mattresses near the bottom of the pile were still in their original plastic wrapping. Bower smiled, lost in thought. This would be the closest she’d come to anything sterile. She moved those two as well, leaving the rest of the mattresses where they lay.

  Bower tore the protective sheeting off one of the mattresses and reversed the plastic, reasoning that these strips of plastic and cloth taken from a sealed mattress were the closest thing she’d get to fresh bandages and dressings.

  Elvis was more difficult to move than the mattresses. Bower pulled him over to the darkened window by grabbing him under his armpits and dragging his legs. She laid him on the plastic she’d turned inside out, with the mattress beneath him, all the while aware she was being watched by otherworldly eyes.

  In the half-light, she got her first good look at his arm. The tourniquet was tight, much tighter than she remembered, but that was good. Not only would the tourniquet stem the flow of blood and compress the nerve channels, it would stop the spread of bacteria back into his body. Looking at Elvis, there wasn’t much that could be done for him outside of arranging a medi-evac, and that wasn’t going to happen.

  Even if she could get a medi-evac, there wasn’
t much that could be done for him in-country. In any other circumstance, he would have been sent to a specialist US military hospital, either stateside or in Germany. He needed skilled surgeons working on him. The nerves and arteries would require microsurgery to close off properly. His body armor had protected his torso, otherwise the blast would have killed him outright. Bower counted five scraps of shrapnel in his vest, each one larger than a silver dollar.

  Bower figured an experienced surgeon would probably amputate the remains of his arm right around where the tourniquet was set. It wouldn’t leave much of an arm, but he’d live. She was daydreaming and she knew it. In reality, she was surprised he wasn’t dead already.

  Combat morphine, she suddenly thought. No, it was fentanyl they carried these days, something much stronger than morphine, and it wasn’t in a syringe, it was like candy, something to suck on. From memory, it looked like an elongated lollypop, only without the stick. Bower rummaged through his pockets and the packs lining his belt. Nothing. As Elvis lay there, she inserted her finger gently into his mouth and felt around on the inside of his cheeks. She could feel a sticky substance inside his left cheek. He’d self-administered, and rightly so, and that had been how he’d endured the pain as long as he had.

  Using a jagged scrap of metal, Bower cut into the edge of one of the mattresses and tore long strips of material to use as bandages. She wanted to clean and treat his wound as best she could. It was pointless; deep down she knew there was nothing she could do for him. He’d probably linger on for a few hours, perhaps a day, but then he’d die. She had no way of replacing the fluids he’d lost, let alone the blood, and no way of providing him with antibiotics or an intravenous feed, no painkillers, no antiseptics. She was staying busy while he died regardless, and that realization broke her heart.

  Bower sobbed.

  “Don’t you die on me, Elvis. Don’t you dare. You’re a soldier, damn it. You need to fight for your life.”