In the Aftermath: Burning of the Dawn

by Coleman Thompson

  “Yes, ma’am,” Raymond politely replied. Ian and Hernando looked to one another unsure of what to think of Raymond’s revelation. “We have one more radio tower we need to reach.”

  “Where’s it at?” Serena inquired further.

  “Colorado.” Raymond answered

  “Well, well, well…” Mary mocked. “My ol’ stompin’ grounds. You’re going for Hoyt, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” Raymond was surprised and delighted that Mary had knowledge of the place he planned on venturing to; yet he knew full well that she would hold that information over him, mostly for her own amusement. “Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated, Miss Mary.”

  “I bet it would be.” Mary admired the man’s boldness.

  “I guess there’s a radio tower in Hoyt.” Anthony spoke. “Why’s it so special?”

  “It’s a big fucker,” Mary answered. “Assuming it’s still standing.”

  “You really think we can make it to Colorado?” Ian questioned Raymond. “Just travelling upstate nearly got us all killed.” Ian dared to glance at Mary, who returned his gaze with a smile.

  “With a little more help from our gracious hosts, yes, I believe you and I can make it.”

  “And what about me?” Hernando protested. “You can’t leave me behind.”

  “Your injury needs time to heal, my friend.” Raymond hated leaving Hernando behind, but what concerned him more was convincing Serena and Anthony to look after his fallen friend while he and Ian continued on. “We must move quickly, and there could be more battles. You will only slow us down.”

  “Fuck that!” Hernando refused to be branded as useless.

  “Yes, fuck that!” Mary concurred as she violently stared down Raymond. “You think we’re gonna take care of him? You’re outta your damn mind, motherfucker. Do you not get how this works? You’re suppose to be paying us back for all of our help… and for me not killing you! Not askin’ for more!”

  “I know I am asking a great deal from everybody here, but doing this could save many lives…” Raymond knew that Mary would not be convinced, but Serena and Anthony might be more open-minded. Going that route, however, came with a big risk. “Including your own, Mary. Hernando can lead you back to Los Angeles…”

  Mary snatched Serena’s gun away from Anthony. She then pulled back the slide to chamber a bullet and then aimed the weapon down on Raymond. She then spoke, “Wanna know where I’m about to lead you right now, asshole?”

  “Mary, no,” Serena calmly protested. “He’s not going to fool me with nonsense notions of paradise in Southern California, but I do want to hear what he has to say. And please, I don’t wanna see anyone die. It’s too nice a day for that.”

  “Fine,” Mary replied as she lowered her aim. She then looked over to Serena. “As lovely as Lake Tahoe is, it wasn’t just the scenery that made me wanna stay here, Mama Bear.” Mary looked back to Raymond. “So talk Mr. Raymond, tell my friend what is waiting for her on the other side of these mountains.”

  There was no easy way to put it, or at least no easy way that Raymond could think of at that moment, so he put it bluntly, “Cultists… a lot of them. More than we anticipated.”

  “Cultists?” Serena did not like the sound of that any bit whatsoever. “Where?”

  “All over central and northern California.” Hernando answered spitefully.

  “Some things never change…” Mary commented. “Umbra Diaboli.” Those words sent a noticeable shudder through both Ian and Hernando, and neither of them hesitated to stare down Mary this time.

  “What does that mean?” Anthony dared to ask.

  “The Devil’s Shadow,” Mary answered. “And no, I was never a member, so don’t anyone even think about askin’!”

  “Are they worse than what we faced in Nevada?” Serena inquired.

  “Are they as organized and well-armed? No.” Mary answered. “But they’re indoctrinated: zealous, righteous, fearless. So yeah, in my opinion, they’re worse.”

  “You’ve faced them before?” Raymond now pried for answers.

  “I have! Around a dozen of them tried to start a commune near Battle Mountain, but my former friends and I put an end to that.” Mary commiserated with that memory for a moment as she pulled a chair over and straddled it. “They had no guns, notta one, but they still killed three of my people. It takes a truly special kind of psychopath to cook up an IED stuffed with white phosphorous. It was kind of impressive, I guess… in a horribly dehumanizing sorta way.”

  “They are monsters, no doubt,” Raymond spoke. “But you can’t stay here forever. Winter is coming and you’ll be trapped. Where will you go?”

  “We haven’t decided yet,” Serena answered. “The Pacific Northwest maybe: Oregon, Washington.” She then noticed an odd look on all three men’s faces. They knew something about the Northwest, something unpleasant. “What is it?” Serena asked.

  “I’d change that plan if I were you,” Ian implored. “There’s a bit of war going on up there.”

  “There’s a bit of a war goin’ on everywhere,” stated Mary. “Wars to the east, west, south, north; human’s fighting humans; stupid humans attempting to fight the Sayona…”

  “There are no humans in this war.” Ian replied.

  Mary was not expecting that reply. Was it some kind of riddle?

  “What does that mean?” Serena questioned.

  “Our uninvited guests of honor – the ones we defeated.” Ian put down what remained of his meal while he spoke. “At least the Sayona hate something out there more than they hate us.”

  “The invaders, the alien aggressors, the ones that attacked our planet? They’re still here?” Serena could not believe it.

  “Beaten and broken, but not all dead.” Ian pontificated in his own inimitable way. “We destroyed their ships, so they have no way home. Not that it would matter; they have no home left. A friend of ours back in L.A., her name’s Josie Lynn, she witnessed it herself…”

  “Hold up,” Mary interjected. “None of this shit is makin’ any sense. The Sayona are at war with the things that brought them here, because their own planet got fucked up somehow?”

  “Is this that exchange of information thing we were talking about earlier?” Ian foolishly inquired.

  “No, honey,” Mary aimed the handgun at Ian. “This is the exchange.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m sorry,” Ian apologized as he put his bound hands into the air; knocking what remained of his food into the floor. “Very sorry.”

  “As you should be,” Mary put the gun away, again. “Now, do explain, you’ve aroused my curiosity.”

  Ian took an uneasy breath. He’d had far too many weapons aimed at him over the last week and it was not getting any less frightening. He eventually continued his lecture.

  “Okay, where to start…” Ian recalled all of the information he had gathered over the many months since the war first began. It wasn’t a very complicated tale; it had just been a while since he last told it. “The planet that the Sayona and the ‘alien invaders’ came from, it was similar to ours, but also different. There was one giant difference in fact: their planet did not rotate; it didn’t spin on an axis like ours does. Therefore, one side of the planet was in constant light while the other side was in perpetual darkness. The side in the light flourished: it was warm, fertile, civilized, and bountiful. And the dark side of the planet was a gloomy, desolate, violent place. Giant seas of boiling water, mega earthquakes, monster volcanos; all within a never ending night. Still, some creatures lived in this dark world. One in particular dominated them all. And we all know what that is.”

  The Sayona…

  “Where did you get all this from?” Mary wondered out loud. “How could anyone possibly know this?”

  “By process of elimination mostly,” Ian answered confidently. “Our leaders did make contact with those bastards before they invaded our planet. Some information was handed down that way. Scientists, researchers, and military
personnel provided useful tidbits here and there, too. I sifted through all of the information I’d acquired and separated the possible facts from the plausible fictions. It wasn’t easy, and there could still be errors, but I think I’m right… for the most part.”

  “Fair enough,” Mary admitted. “Do continue.”

  “Well, only half a planet means only half the resources. There was a lot of untapped potential in the dark half of our mystery planet, and the occupants of the light side wanted it; so eventually they went after it. Living in the harsh world that they lived in, the Sayona evolved into near indestructible monsters and master hunters of the night. The Lingerers, the aliens from the light side of their planet, are very similar to us in how they evolved: physically capable to a certain degree, but definitely more thinkers than fighters.”

  “Lingerers?” Serena pondered.

  “The name for the ones that were left behind,” Hernando answered. “Eventually it just stuck for all of them.”

  “Lingerers huh? I kinda like it,” Mary commented. “It’s a lot better than Invaders or Alien Aggressors.”

  “The Lingerers, on their own planet,” Ian continued. “Started making forays into Sayona territory to get at these resources that the Sayona themselves had no use for. The Sayona, of course, were not very fond of these overconfident visitors… except when eating them. Both the Lingerers and the Sayona are very arrogant, so a peaceful compromise was never even considered. The Lingerers took and the Sayona attacked. These proxy wars went on for decades. Hell, maybe even centuries.”

  “These Lingerers were obviously intelligent, I mean, to make it all the way to our planet and nearly conquer it,” Anthony noted; though the lingering alien survivors didn’t much interest him. His real curiosity was taken with their much more vicious adversary. “But how smart are the Sayona?”

  “They’re smart, man,” Ian answered unenthusiastically. “Very smart. They’re so damn fast and deadly they don’t bother wasting their time with technological feats such as weapons or vehicles, but they can strategize as well as any human.”

  “Why our planet?” Serena asked. “Why did these alien-Lingerers attack us? And why did they bring their enemy with them? Did they use up all their own resources? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “This is where it gets interesting.” Ian spoke almost piously in his eagerness to impart his knowledge. “No, they had more than enough resources, and even if they didn’t they had the technology to harvest resources from other planets a lot closer than ours. Problem was, those planets weren’t livable; especially not for their entire population.”

  “They had to evacuate their whole fuckin’ planet?” Mary found an odd delight in the Lingerer’s former strife. “Ha! Dickheads.”

  What would cause their alien adversaries to evacuate their entire planet? The question was on both Serena and Anthony’s minds and tongues. Ian, however, was ready with an answer before they could ask.

  “The Lingerers lived a thousand lifetimes in the light,” he spoke; energetic, yet forlorn. “And then the darkness came. Be it an impact of an asteroid or some other insane gravitational force, the exact causes are unknown, but for whatever reason their planet begun to rotate. Most Lingerers had never seen a night before and that first one was most of ‘em’s last. The Sayona simply followed the darkness – a hundred million of them. God only knows how many they killed on that first night. Those that survived took to the skies. They attempted to fight the Sayona to take back their world, but yeah, we know how well that works. Eventually, they gave up the fight. The Sayona now ruled their world entirely. But, the Lingerers knew of our planet. We shared a galaxy, so they’ve probably been aware of our presence for… who knows how long. They needed a new place to live, so they decided to take it from us. During their world war with the Sayona, the Lingerers learned that it was much easier to capture the monsters than it was to kill them. They captured about a million of the ugly bastards and brought them along for the ride: either to leave them to rot out in space, or to use them for a bit of spite just in case their invasion of Earth didn’t go as smoothly as they were hoping. And it did not go smoothly for them, not at all. We kicked their asses and they made us pay for it, dearly. They took our planet away by giving it to the enemy that had taken theirs.”

  Ian ended his lecture. Anthony looked disturbed, Serena looked confused, and Mary looked entertained. To Anthony, the Sayona were a macabre fascination; the more he learned about the monsters the more they frightened him. If an advanced alien race could not contain the vicious beasts then what hope did humankind have? No hope, Anthony surmised. Mary was right. The Sayona did not interest Serena. The alien Lingerers still lingering on this planet were what seized her attention. Unlike the Sayona, the Lingerers had no issues with daylight; they could be a threat at any time. They also used weapons. Serena had seen the remnants of their magnetic railguns. She had never seen one in action, but the stories of their destructiveness haunted her nightmares. Ian was a decent storyteller, Mary could give him that much. None of the information he imparted during his lecture proved to be any use to her whatsoever, but hell, time wasted is time well spent – so goes life according to Mary.

  “Have you ever seen any of these Lingerers?” Serena asked.

  “During the war? Oh yeah,” Hernando answered. “In L.A., we kicked the shit out of ‘em. Shot down three of those damn bombers before they even came anywhere near our city.”

  “Then they tried to send in infantry,” Raymond added. “A ground battle. Their technology is impressive, but they are no warriors. Get around their weapons and they are little to fear.”

  “Those that survived retreated to the north,” spoke Ian. “Our people pursued them, but they released the Sayona before we could finish them off.”

  “You tell a good tale,” confessed Mary. “But you haven’t actually told us anything useful.”

  “Well, we did tell you about the Lingerers; you didn’t know about them,” Ian respectfully pointed out. “You were about to walk right into a warzone.”

  “I still might,” Mary could not deny the potential fun in hunting down and killing the decrepit creatures that had brought death and destruction to her planet. “The Sayona helped me take out my enemies; maybe I should return the favor.”

  “The Sayona would kill you without hesitation,” declared Raymond.

  “And I’d do the same to them,” Mary countered. “If only I knew how! You claim to have killed one. So, how’d you do it? Tell me something useful for a change.”

  “Dinah killed it.” Raymond admitted.

  “And how did she do that?” Mary fervently pressed on.

  “With a 30 millimeter chain gun.” Raymond answered.

  “Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” Mary laughed out loud. “Well shit, motherfucker, I’ll just run right out and pick me up a goddamn automatic cannon. Seriously? That’s all you’ve got? Popping off a few rounds from a grenade launcher might kill one, too. Tried that yet?”

  “It probably wouldn’t actually,” Ian spoke up. “The Sayona are well armored and extremely lightweight. Explosions usually send them flying, but don’t really do a whole lot of damage overall. The shrapnel doesn’t properly penetrate their…”

  “Oh shut up,” Mary demanded of Ian. “Before I properly penetrate you.” She then looked back to Raymond. “You disappoint me, big guy, as most men tend to do.”

  “Grenade launchers, chain guns,” Raymond aimed a condescending smirk towards Mary. “These are large weapons. I’m not sure you could handle them.”

  “Then you’re an idiot,” stated Mary with an equally condescending glare. “Big guns just happen to be my specialty.”

  “You’ll need ‘em.” Hernando declared. “The Sayona have no weaknesses. We’ve tried poisons, gases, chemicals – nothing works.”

  “And be very careful of rumors.” Ian added, apprehensively. “There’s talk of white phosphorous being effective against them – it’s really not. Or that there’s a wea
k spot on the back of their heads… again, not true. Don’t believe the myths.”

  As the day carried on, the men were eventually allowed to roam the house under supervision. There was not much to see, but the place was still peaceful. The fact that they had been fed and given medical care eased the worries for Ian and Hernando. It did not make sense for Serena to do these things just to let Mary kill them later. Mary herself became slightly more cordial; even offering to accompany the men when they required a bathroom call, which had to be done outside. None of them dared to refuse her. Eventually, Raymond was able to inveigle Mary into imparting her knowledge of the terrain and dangers that lie ahead if he and Ian continued on in their mission to Hoyt, Colorado. Mary told them everything she could remember about the men in the desert and the Sayona she had set loose upon them. She also informed them of areas to avoid in both Utah and Colorado. She avoided telling them anything too personal; nothing was mentioned of Jodelle.

  Anthony spoke mostly to Ian, as they both had common interests in gadgets and technology. Ian offered to look into restoring power to the current residence, being that it was primarily self-sufficient energy-wise, but that notion was not well received and everybody but Anthony made sure that Ian understood how foolish of an idea it was. No chances could be taken when lying low this deep in Sayona territory. Anthony shared the videos he had discovered on the tablet with the three men. All were appalled, yet equally impressed. Their knowledge and experience with the Sayona was greater than that of Mary’s and the McCoys’, but the collision of the Sayona ships above Lake Tahoe was still an impressive sight that required multiple viewings.

  As the impending night came closer, everybody was rounded up and herded into the loft. Climbing a ladder with bound hands was no easy feat, especially for Hernando, but he, Ian, and Raymond all managed with no complaints. Ian and Hernando were then bound together on one side of the loft while Raymond was tied to a support pillar on the opposite side. No man protested out loud; they all knew they were lucky to be alive and to have found such accommodating hospitality, even if it wasn’t very accommodating at that moment. The place was safe and relatively warm, their stomachs were full, and they were all dreadfully exhausted. Sitting back-to-back, Ian and Hernando were both soon asleep as the dark of night fell upon Emerald Bay. Raymond and Mary also drifted off to sleep after a terse conversation.