by The Behrg
“Ah, thank God,” Morley said, flinging one of the arms of the native away. The arm only rolled back, fingers brushing at Morley’s belly. “Get this thing off me!”
“What, the equipment or the native?”
Morley gave him a deadpan stare.
Dugan’s eyes kept returning to the native’s limp body until he finally realized what was wrong with it. From the angle he laid, Dugan had thought at first that the native’s legs had been buried by debris as well. But not so. His torso had been cut clean in two.
He turned back to the scientist that he both revered and loathed, one of the few men he was frightened of. The man was a monster. A genius, sure, but one of the most dangerous men Dugan had ever met.
Not so different, are we, he thought, a trail of smoke spilling from his nostrils.
“I thought I told you … no smoking.”
Dugan smiled, despite himself. “D’you do that to the body or is that from this quake?”
“What do you think?” Morley said. Each time he tried to wiggle free from the weight atop him, the native’s arm flopped back down. He swatted it away. “Come on, this hurts like a bitch! Think my hip’s shattered …”
“Oh, I’ll help you, as soon as you tell me.”
“I don’t know!” Morley shouted. “His incision … they’re all a blur.”
“Still think we’re chasing shadows?”
“Damnit Dugan,” Morley said, his face red with pain.
“Well, do you?”
The native’s arm flopped back toward him. This time Morley let it stay. “Look, Dugan, if your man did this? God help us if you actually do find him.”
Verse XXIX.
Although the ground had stopped shaking, Grey took every step with a measure of caution. He felt like he did after riding one of those flat moving escalators at the airport and then stepping off onto normal ground – the surprise at having to lift your feet in order to move.
Standing at the roll-up door of the building he had come from, he surveyed the lumber yard. He wasn’t sure if he had ever seen this scale of destruction.
Dust and smoke still swarmed up from the ground like an early morning fog. The tower that had been spraying sawdust had toppled, its bent metal scraps like a giant’s carcass splayed out on the ground.
Cranes had overturned, their loads either falling or rolling free from the standing stacks of uncut logs near the front. Tree trunks had collapsed onto buildings, crushing vehicles and laborers alike. A fire burned in the distance, visible flames no incinerator held contained.
He wondered if this was what it felt like walking the streets after a war. An almost out of body experience. The corpses lying around you nothing but decoration, like props on a movie set.
Voices yelling, screaming in distress, were heard but unregistered, as if he had buried himself beneath a body of water. All of the noise and chaos taking place above might as well have been in another dimension. Another plane of existence.
Laborers roamed the grounds like zombies, staggering directionless. A woman, leaning heavily against another man, paused briefly, turning to look back at Grey. Half of her head was caved in. Her skull looked like a pumpkin that was rotting from the inside, her forehead dimpling inward. One of her eyes, he realized had turned blood red. Despite everything he had seen today, he couldn’t stop from staring.
Grey felt something grip his insides. And then he vomited.
He stumbled past the pile of puke, noting the woman and man had continued on. Then he caught sight of Donavon moving toward him. He had one arm wrapped around Sir William’s shoulder, his other held close to his chest as if injured. A gash ran down his cheek that looked more like makeup than the real thing. Add in his limp and he looked just like a warrior strolling out from a battle he should never have survived.
All that was lacking was the triumphant background music.
Grey reached up and wiped at the blood on his own eyebrow with Faye’s shirt. His whole left eye was stuck closed, sticky with the gore. But unlike Donavon he probably looked like an injured imbecile.
Sir William gave him a sweeping grin, his suit now covered in a thick film of dust.
“That was incredible,” he shouted with a hoot. “Utterly incredible! Imagine the headlines – Mother Nature Strikes Back! The Earth Avenges it’s, uh, Whatever! It’s bloody brilliant. Theatrics, pyrotechnics, the world is going to love it.”
As they drew closer the lanky Englishman wrinkled his face, squinting at Grey. “Your head is bleeding, chap.”
Grey brought the beige, crumpled shirt up – now more black than beige – and pressed it hard against his head.
“Have you seen Faye?” Donavon asked.
Grey managed to nod and pointed over his shoulder. “Inside. She’s fine,” he said, but Donavon had already moved past. You’re welcome, he wanted to add.
Thinking of Faye made his heart beat faster. He felt a flutter in his gut and wondered if he was going to vomit again but no, this wasn’t that kind of anxiety. He pictured her tearing her shirt open and ripping it off without a second’s thought; the way she had moved into him – deliberately. In control. And God, that kiss.
Once the earthquake had finally ceased, Grey offered her his hand to help her up but she refused, brushing him off. As if the moment they shared had already been forgotten.
“Where’s your camera?” she had asked.
He didn’t know.
“You mean you missed all of this? Me almost dying!”
“I was too busy saving your life!”
It’s what he should have said. What he would have, if he hadn’t been so confused by the complete reversal of her attitude towards him. Even now he felt his anger and desire mix together, a slew of emotions he could no more control than the ground that had been shaking mere moments ago.
He had to be careful.
He supposed they all did.
“What about the others?” Grey asked. “Malcolm? Kenny?”
“The, uh, larger fellow made it beneath a cab and chassis; seemed to be alright. I never saw the Asian, thought he stayed behind with you,” Sir William said.
Grey pushed past the old man, searching in the debris filled yard. He counted six bodies before seeing Kenny wriggling out from between two giant wheels. The loader he had huddled beneath seemed to be intact.
Kenny spotted him and shouted, “Dude!”
“You seen Malcolm?” Grey asked.
Kenny scrambled out only to fall back to the earth, tripping over a dislodged sheet of metal. He got back to his feet. “Dude I got it! The money shot!”
“What are you talking about?”
Kenny held up his camera triumphantly like a trophy. “Donavon! He totally saved some dude’s life – came out of nowhere and caught this tumbling block. I got it all on tape!”
Of course you did, Grey thought, knowing no one had filmed him risking his life for Faye. Would she even tell them? Probably not.
“He looked hurt,” Grey said.
“He’s gonna be a hero after this! Hold on, I wanna shoot some of the wreckage.” Kenny brought his camera up to his shoulder then paused. “What happened to your camera?”
“Long story. Did you see Malcolm?”
“Nah, man, I was just hauling ass, you know.”
Grey nodded, circling back through the yard. The intern couldn’t have gone far; Grey just prayed it wasn’t his body lying beneath one of the scattered logs or twisting metal rails.
He passed two Venezuelan workers who shied away from him as if he were the one who caused the damage. Others ignored him, heading toward the front gate, seeking escape rather than to help their fallen brethren.
Grey headed back to the building he had left, Sir William still standing sentry at the front. “Lord I need a drink,” the old man said beneath his breath. “And you need a bath.”
Grey ignored him, reentering the labyrinthine maze of fallen scaffolding and collapsed machinery. He stayed hidden as he spotted Faye huddled i
n Donavon’s arms. The movie star kept his left arm back, holding it away from her protectively.
“And he got it on camera?” Faye asked. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah, he caught the whole thing.”
“Oh, thank God!” Faye grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him. “This is perfect!”
Grey suddenly felt the urge to vomit again.
Or break something.
Or someone.
“We should leak some of the footage immediately rather than holding it for the documentary,” Donavon said.
“You may be right. I’ve got to check with Frantz first, we may want to coordinate …”
Grey left them, wandering further into the building.
That kiss.
The taste of puke on his breath.
When he found Malcolm, he recognized him not by his face but by the clothing he wore – his long striped basketball shorts and Adidas shirt, his neon blue tennis shoes. Where Malcolm’s head should have been, however, was nothing but the pulp of a grape that had been squished. Caught beneath a log or rail that had since rolled off, his brains and skull had splattered in a crest extending out from the bulk of his chest that hadn’t been flattened.
It was the first time Grey could remember thinking how grateful he was he didn’t have a camera. Still, he knew this image would be forever engrained in his mind.
He kicked a piece of timber out of the way and sat beside the body trying to remember how to breathe.
None of them had signed up for this, to risk their lives for a cause. It was just a paycheck, a way to pay the bills while that low-budget film project they were all working on – because what videographer didn’t have a project they were secretly working on – got a little closer to being ready.
He reached out and touched Malcolm’s outstretched hand, his arm undamaged. He was surprised and disturbed to find it still warm.
“Oh, man, I’m sorry,” Grey whispered. “So sorry.”
Sorry he had chosen the wrong person to save.
To look out for.
But who was looking out for him? For any of them? Certainly not Faye. And if she remained in charge, how many more of them would end up dead?
“I’ll tell your parents. Tell ‘em what a bunch of assholes they were for not understanding …” Grey picked up a thick bolt lying at his feet and threw it against the crumpled rails nearby. It twanged loudly, a deep resonant sound. “But maybe they were right, you know. You should have stayed in school, should have realized this dream was just that – an impossible wish. Everyone wants to be famous until they are and then, well, they just want to take it back. Like you. Now you’re famous. Or you will be; I’ll make sure of that. It’s just – no one ever tells you what it’s going to cost, you know. And I think it costs everything. Everything we have.
“I don’t want to be famous. And I shouldn’t have to be, to be treated with … respect.”
Just like the metallic twang still vibrating, Grey felt an inner note inside him thrum to life. A dissonant chord, struck with distortion and rage, only this note grew louder with every passing second until even thinking was an impossibility.
Only one thought remained in its wake, pressing through the pounding in his skull and the beating of his heart.
Someone has to pay.
End of Chapter One
“The axis mundi, in certain beliefs and philosophies, is the world center, or the connection between Heaven and Earth … At this point travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms … The spot functions as the omphalos (navel), the world’s point of beginning.”
--Wikipedia: “Axis Mundi”
used under the creative commons license
“In a time of destruction, create something.”
--Maxine Hong Kingston
“And God said, Let there be a firmament … And God called the firmament Heaven.”
Genesis Chapter 1, Verses 6-8
AXIS MUNDI
_________________
Chapter Two
Verse I.
In Defense of “Pre-Shocks” – Crisis in Venezuela
– Associated Press
Just days after the first earthquake in recorded history in the Canaima National Park, located in Southeastern Venezuela, a second quake struck, decimating the region. The U.S. Geological Survey says the magnitude 8.8 tremor struck at precisely 8:43 in the morning, local time (UST).
“This really is unprecedented,” said Dr. Skip Krocher, director of the USGS Earthquake Science Center. “We expect aftershocks to follow an earthquake, not precede it. The fact that something of this magnitude could take place within a week of the former event; well, it just shows how little our understanding is when it comes to seismology.”
Effects of the quake were felt as far as Boa Vista, Brazil, an estimated two-hundred-and-twenty-four miles from the epicenter of the quake. Government officials have asked for support from foreign countries, though President Maduro has made it clear they will not accept help from the United States.
All satellite activity and communication near the quake have been disrupted, preventing both imagery and communication within the immediate area. Spectacular rumors abound, from the region becoming a new magnetized pole to a testing ground for experimental weaponry.
The USGS says they expect hundreds of aftershocks to occur in the next several days, though of much smaller magnitude.
Verse II.
There is a quiet beauty to destruction, a serenity that takes place after the tumult. When the crossbeams and mortar of fallen houses have settled, furniture and cherished keepsakes sinking within a petrified wave of debris; when the howls and shrieks of parched throats have silenced, pandemonium replaced with dull acceptance; when a warm breeze tosses scattered relics against a cold arm ending in block and rubble, loose papers fluttering while the arm is not.
All that man has made, all he has accomplished, and yet how little he has learned.
Guayanata stood amongst giant sentries. Their army of leaves dangling from heavy boughs swayed today just as they had yesterday, before the earth quaked. Nature acknowledges destruction only in the moment of its passing.
His wrists were pink and tender, the deep gashes worn from yesterday’s escape already healed. Like the kapok or fig tree, he too had already forgotten, pain becoming a distant whisper of leaves blowing in the wind.
What he had not forgotten, indeed, could not forget, was the man known as the Spider. Inktomi. The white devil. His calloused web still clung to Guayanata.
He felt it in his blood, moving through his veins, in the slowness of his thoughts. There were no marks where the Spider’s darts had sunk into his flesh, but its poison took time to disperse. Soon it would be but a slippery dream one cannot grasp upon awakening, and then Guayanata would return. Return to crush the Spider, and protect what he had sworn to protect.
What they had all sworn.
A pair of red macaws with yellow and blue tipped feathers darted from a branch, frightening another dozen smaller birds. They disappeared in the hanging guaco vines.
So skittish. As if they were afraid.
Of him?
He was one with Nature; they could no more fear him than the branches on which they settled. But Guayanata recognized he too was afraid.
He collected the warm sap from the base of the chicle tree, where his small gash in the bark was visible. Rolling it in his hands, he moved quickly through the jungle growth, a shadow travelling in darkness. In the trees, in the plants, in the dirt beneath his bare feet, he felt his world tremble and quake.
Not as before.
This was no physical tremor, nor was the earth quaking. It was the trembling of a child before the raised hand of an elder, knowing punishment was just and must be delivered. Or unjust, yet a rite of passage, from child to something more.
The quivering of fear.
Nature didn’t care for what had already passed, but it trembled before what was coming. Yes, there was a
quiet beauty to destruction, but when Nature contemplates its own mortality, even men who do not fear begin to tremble with it.
Verse III.
A thin layer of dirt and dust, displaced only by the tread of panicked footfalls, covered the concrete flooring. A few fallen tiles from the ceiling, an overturned plate of spaghetti, meat sauce slowly inching down a corridor wall. Here, a woman’s loafer; a sheaf of papers, like an incomplete collage, trampled and spread across several sections of hall space.
In other parts of the Facility, entire wings had collapsed from the earthquake, steel beams and plaster burying lab equipment, terminals, and the occasional unsuspecting worker. Most of the colossal structure had fared better than the underground graveyard where the epicenter of the quake had begun, that epicenter coming in the form of a possessed native child.
James Dugan continued through the empty corridors barely listening to Zephyr’s report of damage. His left hand throbbed from where he had bitten into his own flesh, a thick bandage slapped over the wound. His right knuckles ached, in turn, from striking the young boy in the Freezer. Yet they were small prices to pay for putting an end to the perverse earthquake.
While signs of upheaval were everywhere, they were fortunate the underlying structure of the Facility hadn’t been constructed under Venezuelan standards. Dugan wondered how the town of Santa Elena had fared.
Oso silently strode beside them, Zephyr continuing his report. The carport and garage were intact but their helicopter had apparently seen its last flight. A dislodged block of concrete from the outer barracks had buried itself within the copter’s hull.
What a mess.
It would take weeks to get back to some semblance of normalcy though, Dugan supposed, the inspection would likely be postponed. At the moment, however, that seemed the least of their concerns.
