Blood of the Scarecrow: Book 3: Solstice 31 Saga

by Martin Wilsey

  “Echo, has anything happened? I'm...off, slightly, this morning.”

  He turned the lights on in the bathroom. Then, he saw himself in the mirror and was taken aback.

  “All is well. We are fifteen days ahead of schedule,” Echo replied.

  His hair was long with more gray than he remembered. He had a beard, wild and mostly gray. But it was his gaunt face that shocked him, as well as his hollow eyes.. He slowly pulled off the T-shirt to look at his body. His skin seemed too thin. His muscle fibers trembled as he moved. His body fat was far too low.

  “Echo, how long have I been here?” Hagan asked, as he brought his face closer to the mirror. He looked, more closely, at the deep set of his eyes.

  “Wes, you asked me to play this recording, if you asked me that.”

  A display window opened in his HUD; it was fixed in front of the mirror.

  It was him.

  “Look, Wes. If you are watching this, we are probably ready to activate the warning beacon. We decided that we'd stop the rations when the work was done. I am programming this to play after you wake up. The triggers will be these questions: 'How long have I been asleep?' or 'How long have I been here?' or 'Who am I?” or 'What have you done to me?' and a bunch more.

  “The only things that will remain to be done is to connect the power cables and set an activation trigger. Then, we need to get the hell away from here.”

  “Echo, pause.”

  Hagan stared at his now frozen face in the display.

  “Did I really believe this would work? I know that the schedule was 186 days.”

  He turned, and Echo stood there in the room with him. She met his eyes.

  “It's the drugs in the rations, isn't it?” he asked; she was already nodding.

  “They not only make the soldiers more efficient and clear of mind, it helps them forget. Maybe forget is the wrong word. It softens the memories.”

  He looked from Echo to the video display, “Continue.”

  The vid started again.

  “There is a chance the planet has the ability to destroy the beacon from there. I...we are willing to take that chance. But we are still going to relocate to watch. So, don't give Echo any shit about continuing the rations. And stop being such a whiny bitch when you're sober. You're going to die. So what. All men die.”

  The vid stopped; the display window closed.

  Wes looked at Echo, and said, “Get out. I still have to take a piss.”

  ***

  Wes drank his coffee and had a breakfast of hot cereal and fruit. It was unreal. He felt like he was inspecting someone else's work even though he remembered doing it all. It was just a blur.

  He had used one of the combat drop suits for the comms gear it contained. The comms were powerful but not powerful enough. He had installed DS-01 at the base of the antenna just outside the tunnel opening. That meant all that was required was to run base power out to the suit and the signal booster already connected to the antenna. Opening the airlock at the base end of the tunnel and connecting the power for the antenna's transmission gear was all that remained doing. He could even shut down the base systems because this airlock door had a release that was also manual.

  The beacon could potentially last for a couple of centuries.

  Wes spent the day performing an organized shutdown of the base. Once he put on his pressure suit, he wanted to be ready to go. He purged the shop to vacuum, so he could open the airlock and attach the power cables that lay there ready, on each side of the tunnel door.

  The lifeboat he had christened the Sariska was prepped, and all the drop suits were loaded and docked. All the water tanks were topped off, and everything was ready

  Hagan waited for the status lights, before he walked to the door and happened to glance out the window into the long corridor that led to the antenna tunnel.

  She stood there, with her nose almost touching the glass, staring in.

  She blinked.

  The handle started to turn before Hagan came back to himself.

  “Echo, are you seeing this? Or, have I finally lost it,” Wes said, as the wheel kept moving.

  She had red hair that was knotted and wild. Her skin was gray with dirt from the regolith. She wore what looked like a make-shift poncho that was once a white tarp with a head hole cut into it. It was tied at her waist with a strip of the same material.

  Just as the airlock swung in, Echo responded.

  “Warning: L-Matter detected. Warning: Subject is not human. L-Matter detected. Warning: Uncatalogued Scarecrow. Warning: Very Dangerous.”

  As soon as the door opened enough, she slipped into the shop. Her mouth moved as if she was forming words, but there was no sound in a vacuum. She paced back and forth in front of the bench of tools. It looked like she was ranting. She became more and more agitated. Her body was now surrounded with HUD-augmented data. None made sense to him. Data about a species called Scarecrow. Even that was a translation of a language he did not recognize. She finally just sat on a shop stool, put her elbows on her knees, and held her face in her hands.

  “Echo, what should I do? Close the airlock and re-pressurize the shop?”

  Hagan glanced toward the open airlock. DS-12 stood there. Weapons were all activated and trained on the woman.

  After a long moment, Echo replied, “This unit’s original mission was to locate and to retrieve the Scarecrow being held captive on the planet Baytirus. Ferris and his team were all killed in the attack when we arrived in orbit. There was no contingency plan based on this series of events. We had no indication that a Scarecrow occupied the moon.”

  “How can she be alive? The vacuum, the extreme temps, the radiation. And she is running around out there barefoot. How is that possible!”

  “She isn't made of meat.”

  “What did you say?” Wes asked, not expecting a reply as the airlock closed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: The High Keeper’s Garden

  “BUGs were already watching the High Keeper. But whose BUGs were they? Why are only selected events in the narrative?”

  --Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: General Patricia Chase, senior member of the Earth Defense Coalition.

  <<<>>>

  The silence was broken by dozens of heavy feet. The Scarecrow sighed heavily. He already smelled the crackling ozone of many charged plasma rifles. Eventually, the room at the end of the cell corridor filled with men in creaking leather. He could tell they were disciplined soldiers by their ability to become still when readied.

  He heard the huge key turn in the locked gate of spiked bars at the end of the hall. Bare feet padded in and the guard locked it again.

  He knew it was her.

  Enough light spilled on the floor that he saw her shadow as she walked to his cell. The shadows showed what she carried. He already knew. He flexed his fingers in to and out of fists, knowing what was coming.

  She stopped in front of his cell and dropped all that she carried with a loud clunk in the silence, then lifted a key that was strung on a leather cord around her neck. She didn't say a word. She knew they were listening. She knew they had permission to fire for any reason they saw fit.

  Just before she slid the key in the lock, he pushed the bars forward and opened the cell. It was already unlocked.

  She stepped back as the door swung out into the hall.

  He turned to face the men and slowly knelt on his knees, sitting back on his heels and holding his arms out.

  She lifted the six-foot-long metal rod and first affixed one end to his right wrist and then the other to his left. After this, he stood, and she applied manacles to his legs, attached together by a short chain.

  He leaned over then, slowly, so she could place a black bag over his head.

  “Stay here,” he whispered. “They won't notice you. I'll be fine. They can't hurt me.”

  She knew he lied. But she would wait for him in the dark, anyway.

  He walked down the hallway in a slow shuffle all
owed by the chains. He felt the six cruel loops slip over his head and two more over each wrist. The loops were at the end of long poles. They unceremoniously drove him down the next corridor. His feet were barely able to keep up.

  He was dragged up flight after flight of stairs, until he emerged into full daylight. He felt it on his skin. He enjoyed it while he could because he knew what was next.

  Many hands lifted and dragged and pulled him into position above the timbers. He didn't resist as they took the metal bar away. He didn't cry out when they nailed his arms to a great X of timbers. Six large, iron nails with large heads went in each of his arms. His legs were tightly wrapped in chains.

  The whole thing was set vertically on wheels, and they dragged him from the flat, smooth, shuttle landing pad on the roof of the Citadel into the gardens and artificial meadow there.

  The High Keeper ripped the hood off his head.

  The Scarecrow opened his eyes slowly, looking at him. The loops were still tight around his neck, holding his unsupported head back as if he might try to bite the High Keeper.

  Out of the folds of his tunic, the High Keeper produced a Telis blade. It was an eight-inch-long, tailbone spike, from a Telis Raptor. Without a word, he plunged it into the Scarecrow’s guts and twisted it back and forth.

  Drawing it out quickly, he said, “I know it hurts.”

  The High Keeper looked at his blade. There was no blood on it, but blood ran down the Scarecrow’s belly.

  “It's like you are not really here.”

  Looking up at him, he saw the Scarecrow smiling.

  “I have seen your death, Atish,” he whispered. “And the death of millions more. A horror will soon walk the face of this planet and it will not be stopped.”

  With those words, he took a deep breath; and as he did, all the blood from his wounds was drawn back into his body, and the wounds closed. They even healed around the spikes, like an earring piercing. Steam rose around the spikes.

  All the soldiers took a step back.

  The Scarecrow’s face sobered then. Atish saw his face; he knew what was coming next.

  Soldiers dragged ten young women forward by their braids.

  “Tell me how you do it.”

  The High Keeper stepped up and took the braid of the first girl in one hand. He cut the single button from the white dress, and the entire garment spilled to the well-manicured grass in the garden. The Telis blade went to her throat.

  The Scarecrow said nothing.

  The High Keeper slashed her throat and threw her to the grass as he grabbed the next one. He cut her dress away in the same manner. She stood there naked, hands clasped at the base of her spine. Tears ran down her face.

  “Did I mention that every one of these 123 girls were born on the day you were imprisoned? I thought it would make a special treat for you. To watch all 123 of them die, knowing you could have saved them.”

  Atish raised the knife.

  “Don't be afraid, child. Your mother, Gail, and father, Jolson, are waiting for you. You will be with them soon,” the Scarecrow said.

  She stopped crying, and she opened her eyes.

  “I will tell you, Atish.”

  He knew the High Keeper hated it when he used that name. But he let the girl fall to the grass, still alive. The Scarecrow’s whisper drew him closer.

  “All men die because they are made...of meat.”

  The Scarecrow ripped his right arm free. Some nails came away from the wood, others remained and tore massive wounds in his flesh. Before his backhand swing could impale the spike—still in his right hand—into the High Keeper’s skull, four men opened fire with plasma rifles. Three shots struck the Scarecrow’s body, and one directly on the face.

  The Scarecrow’s body was on fire. No one moved to douse the flames. The timber frame eventually collapsed as it burned. The now naked, charred remains lay on the ground with the huge spikes still protruding.

  “Take him back to his cell, before he wakes up and kills you all,” the High Keeper said.

  “My Lord?” the commander of the guard asked.

  “JUST. Do. It. you fool...”

  Atish’s voice trailed off as the charred corpse moaned and moved.

  “That has got to hurt,” he said, smiling, as he walked away.

  ***

  She heard them coming.

  The pool of light that surrounded them was like a bubble of fear. The air was thick with it.

  Four guards carried his body, and four more had fully charged plasma rifles trained on him, as they threw him into the cell, slammed the door of bars closed, then literally ran.

  She had been hiding in a cell, two down and across the hall. When the guards left, she moved to his cell, reaching through the bars, searching for him as she sobbed. The first thing her hands found was the top of his head.

  “No, no, no, no, no...” she sobbed.

  All his hair was gone. His beard was gone. His skin was a solid, rocky scab.

  “No, no, no, no...we were to go. Together.”

  Her words were cut off when she felt dry, empty eye sockets.

  A perfect hand came up and rested over hers. She felt his head turn, a slight bit.

  “Don't cry, Peanut,” he said to her, in a ruined, whispering voice. “Have you ever been swimming? When we go, you and I are going swimming. I can see it. I will tell you secrets while we swim. I will swim with your children, too. And their children.”

  He moved himself closer to the bars, so he could reach an arm through to hold her.

  “I see it.”

  “I want that,” she sobbed.

  “I will tell you a secret now, if you like.”

  His whisper was even quieter.

  “Yes, yes, yes...” she cried, clinging to him through the bars.

  “I can't die,” he choked out. “Even if I wanted to. Atish knows it. It's what he seeks from me.”

  “Don't die. Please, don't die,” she begged.

  “I will tell you another secret, Peanut.”

  She calmed at these words. His voice sounded stronger.

  “You know how you remember the past. You think, and you know things that have happened to you, things you have seen and said.”

  His thumb dried her tears.

  “That's how I see the future. It's like I remember it. It just hasn't happened yet.”

  “Is that why you're sure we will leave this place together?”

  She wasn't crying anymore.

  “Yes. And the closer an event gets, the clearer it becomes. Just as you remember what happened yesterday better than what happened a year ago.”

  His voice grew stronger still.

  “You knew they would do this to you? Why did you let them?”

  Her whisper was almost a scolding. He now knew she believed he would live.

  “Today, I saved 122 girls, the same age as you.”

  “When will we go?” she asked, believing.

  “The day you eat the bread offered by the Man from Earth.”

  She heard the smile in his voice.

  “That is the day we will be free.”

  ***

  The airlock pushed open, and she just stood there, like she was made of gray stone.

  Slowly, she stepped over the airlock’s threshold and moved into the center of the room. Laser dots covered her chest.

  Echo stood before her, unseen, as Hagan closed the door.

  “I’ve gone mad,” Wes said, as the hatch closed and locked. The room began to pressurize.

  Hagan’s HUD indicated the increase in pressure. The higher it got, the more distressed her face became. Her hands covered her ears, and her mouth opened in a silent scream.

  She collapsed to her knees and fell to her side on the floor. Hagan made no move to catch or to assist her. She was unconscious and limp when full pressure was reached.

  Wes took off his helmet and one glove. He checked her pulse at her throat. She was impossibly cold, but there was a pulse.

  “Ec
ho, what the…report,” Hagan barked.

  “This being is a Scarecrow. She was once human, but at some point in the past, every cell in her body was replaced at the atomic level. The process makes them…durable,” Echo reported.

  “Replaced with what?”

  “It has been labeled L-Matter, and a way to detect it has been added to the Warmark’s scanning system and your HUD implant,” Echo said, while pulsing the overlay data in Hagan’s HUD.

  “How is it detected?”

  “The primary atomic phase contains dual vibrations.”

  Echo seemed to kneel down and look at her more closely.

  “It’s a temporal anomaly, detected only in strange matter that is a by-product of heavy metal, mass collider experiments. Knowing all this tells us nothing about its nature. Only the detection of it.”

  Echo stood then.

  Without waiting to take off his pressure suit, Hagan lifted her from the floor and carried her to one of the vacant crew quarters. He was surprised to find the bed made, even though he must have made it.

  The Warmark loomed in the doorway, most of its weapons blocked by the wall. Hagan shook his head, knowing the wall mattered not at all.

  She stirred, just as a maintenance-bot came in with a glass of water. Wes picked it up, sat on the edge of the bed, and waited.

  She suddenly gasped and, with a massive inhale, coughed out a literal cloud of dust. She opened her eyes, saw the water, and grabbed it from his hand, spilling half of it on the way to her mouth.

  She tried to speak, but only unintelligible croaks came out. She struggled to her elbows, then upright, just as the bot returned with another glass of water. She took this one more carefully and drank half of it. She looked up to the ceiling; and with her eyes fully open, she poured the rest of the water on her own face.

  “My name is Wes Hagan,” he said to her, slowly. She nodded, swallowed hard, and took a deep breath.

  “Shower,” was all she managed, in a scratchy whisper.

  Wes stood and opened the bathroom door, reached around to the shower controls, and activated it.

  She stood and untied the belt around the tarp poncho. She flipped it over her head onto the floor; beneath she wore the remains of a tattered flight suit that was once white. The suit’s legs and arms were gone or in complete threadbare tatters. With both hands, she simply tore the remains off her body as she moved to the shower.