“God, I’m going to miss you.” he said, turning as he climbed into the car.
Their eyes locked for a moment, then Piper shrugged, shaking her head slightly, before blowing him a kiss.
“Go fast Tom.” She shouted.
Then she turned abruptly and ran up the steps to the Time Sphere, checking her watch, there was five minutes to retrieval. She could hear police cars howling in the distance as she climbed into the Pod and closed the hatch. Strapping herself into the seat as quickly as she could, she braced herself, she knew there would be no warning.
Tom sat in the Audi, letting the engine tick over. He couldn’t see the sphere above him, but he watched anyway. With no warning at all, there was a loud clap of thunder and a flash of light. Piper was gone. Tom put the car into gear and moved off, wiping away the tears with his sleeve.
• • •
Piper had dreamt of her homecoming so many times in the past, the satisfaction and excitement of a job well done, the anticipation of the reception she would receive. The plaudits she’d get from the ‘good and great’, the TV interviews, fame, fortune and maybe even a promotion. But the bleak reality was nothing like the dream. Piper faced retrieval, emotionally drained and full of regrets, she knew that this would be a white-knuckle ride, so, exhausted, she braced herself for whatever pain there was to come.
When it hit her this time the pain was bad again, but nothing like the first time.
“Perhaps it gets easier the more you travel,” she told herself.
There was a slight bump, the hurt in her body and joints began to dissipate. Unstrapped and waiting for the hatch to open, she took a tissue and wiped her face, trying to freshen up, so that she’d be ready to face the world when the hatch opened.
Despite the exhaustion, Piper did feel some excitement, she knew that nothing could change until she got back. So, now that she’d returned to her own Timeline, the changes that the world was waiting for, would finally have happened. The target cities would have suddenly re-generated, everyone who had died in a flash of nuclear fire, would miraculously have been brought back to life.
Thoughts of Tom surfaced again and snickered through her mind. Although there was nothing she could do, she was anxious at how little time he had left for his journey. It would be a miracle if he made it and got down below Rome before it was destroyed.
Italy could not escape its fate, sixty years ago the bombs did fall and despite all the changes that Piper had just made, that historical Timeline was fixed forever, history had to be made before it could be changed. It was only now, that the old Timeline could be sealed off and Italy’s new one initiated.
CHAPTER 11
Lieutenant Colonel David Connors, Battalion Commander of the Venice retrieval unit, swung his legs down from his desk and climbed to his feet. A dapper little man, shaved head and a small featured face that was complemented by a well-trimmed salt and pepper moustache. Zhang Wei, chief engineer and assistant civilian controller, looked up from his computer.
“Not long now colonel,” he said, feeling the tension in the tented office that they shared.
“No Zhang,” he replied, massaging his neck, “about five minutes I’d say. The sphere’s due back in this timeline at 7.00 pm. This is where we see if the scientists have nailed it, their proverbial moment of truth. Are we all wasting our time here, has there been a massive miss-calculation, or will something monumental and life changing happen?”
He looked out of the window, rubbing the condensation from the plastic. The great armada of pontoons almost filled the Venetian Lagoon, an engineering triumph, linked to numerous jetties lined with guardrails, giving direct access into the city. Banks of arc lights turned the evening into day. The eight hundred men and women under his command were out on the boards, waiting. Places of worship had been built, the hospitals were ready, tents erected and the feeding stations were in operation.
Then, without warning, momentous forces came into line and it began. Everybody’s stomach lurched at the same time, the floor dropped away from under their feet and they were weightless, suspended two feet above the ground, it felt like time moved slowly, there was no sound. Gravity snapped back on without warning, and everybody was thrown to the floor. Struggling to their feet, they were then hit by an incandescent flash of white light, followed by a deep continuous rumble of sound. As Zhang struggled to his feet, he tried to rationalise the experience as a nuclear explosion in reverse
In the near distance, the wreckage of Venice was cloaked by a gigantic, black, swirling Tornado that towered into the late evening sky. A soft keening scream filled the air, a Banshee of tormented souls wailing into the gathering storm, growing ever louder. Everybody had their ears covered, the pain was excruciating. Then, suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown, the screaming stopped, the air cleared and a heavy silence lay all around them. The colonel was rooted to the spot, mouth hanging open, unable to speak, instead he pointed. Everybody on the pontoons were bewildered, staring. Zhang followed their gaze. The city stood before them in all its glory, untouched and unscathed. But something was wrong.
The retrieval teams, that were stood nervously on the pontoons, had been rigorously trained to expect hundreds, if not thousands, of dazed and disorientated people to come staggering and stumbling out of the city towards them. The celebration of the cities re-birth was therefore somewhat dampened and the resurrection of its population overshadowed by the fact that nobody had appeared.
Team leaders quickly organised groups into their alphabetic unit’s, ready to move out to the city, Marines, medics, first aiders and groups of twenty stretcher carriers at a time. They’d lost contact with the other retrieval sites, communication had always been intermittent, but since the ‘event’, all forms of tele-communication had ceased. The Tannoy system had burst into life and was now working overtime, marshalling the teams into dispatch order. Both the Colonel and Zhang Wei had a feeling that the other sites were probably experiencing the same difficulties as they were. Their main priority was clear, they had to do what they could to help and welcome the resurrected.
Colonel Connors was taking point with the first group as they began to move off, then there was a noise. Someone at the front of the pontoons, down by the feeding station was shouting, they’d seen some movement on the edge of the main square. Putting the bi-noculars to his eyes, the Colonel scanned along the waterfront, taking in the area known as St Marks, there was a child, stood all alone, staring back at them. The lone child, for some reason, sent shivers down his spine, although it was a welcome sight, it gave no clues as to where the rest of the population were.
The battalion moved out, at walking pace, followed by fifteen ambulances, forming a small convoy at the rear. They moved methodically in the gathering darkness, drawing nearer, Connors realised that the child that was waiting for them was as a young girl. She appeared to be about ten years old, wearing a smart red dress and grey jacket, black, well combed, shoulder length hair, tied back with a pristine white bow, he smiled and waved to reassure her but there was no response. He ignored her for a while and looked around the seafront and the large square behind her, searching for some of the many thousands that were living here when the bomb went off, but there was nobody, the child was alone.
Drawing nearer, he managed to get a better look at the girl and was struck by her complexion, she was deathly pale and her skin had an unusual lustre, it was waxy, almost burnished. As he studied her, she burst into a smile and she skipped towards him, he stopped and waited, greeting her in Italian but again, she made no reply. More children, began to slowly appear out of the shadows, hesitantly at first, in one’s and two’s, suddenly turning into a flood, hundreds of them, running silently towards the other members of the team. Connors found it unsettling and un-natural, where were their parents he asked himself? Watching these long dead children sent shivers down his spine, he couldn’t help feeling that they were like cockroaches, pouring out of a newly opened tomb.
He spoke
to the little girl at his side again, asking her if there were any adults about, she nodded, so he asked her to show him where. She reached up and took his hand, a perfectly normal, heart-warming gesture, that somehow left him feeling deeply anxious. Her hand was ice cold and there was a foul smell about the child that made him want to retch, raw sewage was the best way to describe it. His mood grew darker as he realised that her cold little hand had suddenly heated up, it was like holding a hot coal in his palm, she walked at his side, guiding him towards the shadows and he obediently followed her.
Everything was changing, he felt muddled and confused, aware that his hand was literally burning, in fact he couldn’t stand it anymore. He looked down, his hand was glowing with a bright yellow light, he did his best to let go of the little girl’s hand but couldn’t. An awful feeling of panic overcame him, this was all wrong, he’d gone too far, he had to stop it now, but somehow, he knew that that was impossible. The child kept her head down, refusing to look up at him, so he lifted the hand that was holding hers and grasped the girl’s wrist tightly with his other hand.
Turning her wrist was almost impossible without her co-operation, he was amazed at her strength, but eventually, after a struggle, he could see what was happening. There was no his or hers anymore, the two hands were perfectly fused, one loop of living tissue. He and the girl were joined, their blood mingling. All around him he could hear the shouts and screams of the teams that were following.
He tried to turn, but the whole right-hand side of his body had become so heavy that he couldn’t move. There were gunshots behind him, with difficulty, he managed to pull out his own pistol with his left hand. He instinctively knew that something terrible was happening, filled with fear and revulsion, he held the gun to the back of the child’s head and then pulled the trigger. The bullet passed through her skull, and ricochets from the pavement, she finally turned to face him, there was no trace of a wound, her head was intact and she was still smiling.
“They’re all coming now,” she said, her voice, a deep male Baritone.
Ominously, Connors could hear slithering, sliding and shuffling sounds coming out of the gloom, along with a light breeze, laden with the rank stench of raw sewage. His own stomach turned in protest as he heard the splatter of vomit behind him, that was soon followed by the sounds of people gagging and retching, overwhelmed by the disgusting odour. Some started to scream for help, others began sobbing with terror, some of his team, that were nearby, began quietly praying, pleading for forgiveness, he tried turn to turn around and look behind him, but was held fast by the child.
They came slowly, out into the fading light, monstrosities, dragging what was left of their humanity with them, moving as best they could. What had once been their clothes, were now filthy, torn rags, hanging off them in shreds and trailing behind. Things that no one should ever have to look at, abominations that had no place in nature. They were joined together randomly, their humanity botched and broken, things that jumped, hopped and skipped, others that ran crablike on four arms and four legs.
Crude lumps of skinless flesh, with sets of eyes at one end and a mouth at the other, self-aware, conscious of what they’d become, yet still struggling to live, pulling themselves along with only an odd arm or leg. Some of the creatures were leviathans, dragging themselves slowly through the horror, absorbing anything organic that got in their way. Shades of Bosch and Bruegel as dreadful mutations slithered by in their tens of thousands, each one looking for a home, determined to drag themselves there, or crawl, in whatever way they could, seemingly unaware of the appalling stench that they carried with them.
Everything behind him was quiet now, the light had gone, darkness cloaked the nightmare and the screaming had stopped, he hoped and prayed that everyone was either dead or unconscious. Connors looked down, almost basking in the joy that he could still move his neck, there had been some progress, the girls arm and leg had melded into his, he was irretrievably joined.
The horror of the situation, had somehow passed him by, something was calling him, calling all of them and strangely, he felt beyond fear, unable to process and translate the information that his eyes were giving him. There was instead, a great sadness that filled him, he had no pain, but he knew that his life was ending, the one that he’d jealously guarded all these years, was over. But there was still something inside him that couldn’t leave it like this, he knew it was futile, but he wanted to speak, to scream his defiance at this grotesque ending that fate had given him. Then, without warning, a disembodied voice suddenly filled his mind, there was no sound coming through his ears, it was just there, in his head.
“Will you stop struggling, I’m finding this hard enough on my own, the least you could do is help. We don’t want someone else joining in do we? Two’s enough, three would spoil it, so the faster we get done and get out of here, the better.”
“Excuse me but this is my body, who the hell are you?”
• • •
Tom hammered the stolen Audi as he travelled south. The night was cloudless, full of stars as he whisked down the A9 towards Bern in Switzerland. Traffic was steady, nobody was aware of what was coming, it was just another evening. He stopped only for petrol and coffee, thankful for the money that Piper had left him, but aware that this journey was life and death.
He eventually arrived in Bern on the A6 at three in the morning, just as the nuclear fire began marching across the continent. One by one, vibrant, historic cities were destroyed, millions were dying as he sped on towards dawn. When the first weapons exploded radio reception died, Electromagnetic pulses destroyed the National Grid, all electrical connections failed.
The roads emptied, and grimly, Tom pushed on, trying to outrun the missiles. Skirting a silent Milan by six, he turned towards Florence, shoulders aching with tension, expecting death to fall out of a cloudless blue sky. He was on the outskirts of Florence by seven thirty, knowing he wouldn’t make it, he was an optimist, but not a fool.
He saw the bright flash just before his eyes melted, then he heard the deep roar of the explosion. He saw Piper stood before him, there was a smile on her lips as she said, “I promise when this is all over, I’ll come back and I’ll find you.” Then the blast hit him.
• • •
“What the hell are we going to do Frank? We are in deep shit right here. I said it was a mistake, right from the start. This whole damn shooting match was madness, what were we thinking of?”
Clara Powell, President of the United States of America was sat in the country’s Embassy in Naples, having breakfast with her Chief of Staff. The Chinese had just announced their withdrawal from the Sino American Council with immediate effect, following the European time travel debacle. Forcing an emergency summit between America and her remaining allies, to discuss the worsening situation in Northern Italy.
“The damn Chinese,” the President continued, “how did they put it? Their intention was to, “retreat, withdraw and consolidate,” what a load of crap. Bottom line is they’ve left us holding the Goddamn baby.”
She was pouring coffee when her Chief of Staff interrupted.
“Latest intelligence shows that the Chinese aren’t retreating ma’am.”
“What are you getting at Frank?”
“I’ve a dossier here,” he reached into his briefcase and passed her a blue folder, “if you look at that, it clearly shows that the Chinese are crossing into what was the Russian Federation, they’re also committing copious amounts of their resources. What intelligence we have on the ground out there, tell us that they are hell bent on resurrecting a couple of Russian cities, just to test the new technique.”
“But that’s madness Frank,” the president said, pushing her hair behind her ears, “why would they want to do that? They know only too well what’s happened here. Jesus, we’re living in a nightmare, why would they want to create another one?”
“They believe they have the solution,”
“Like what? Have they spotted somethin
g that we’ve missed?”
“They intend using a Neutron bomb. It’s an enhanced radiation weapon, ma’am. Minimal structural damage, but the neutron dose would kill all life within two days. The radiation dissipates almost immediately, allowing troops to take over an empty city.”
“Why can’t we use that? Sounds like a clever idea,” the President was becoming animated, “It would even things up, buy us a little time and get the military off the back foot. According to the Chiefs of Staff, they’re disappearing in droves, believed to have been assimilated by the Newcomers. We’ve found nothing that’ll slow them down, let alone kill them. If this Neutron thing works, why aren’t we using it, why has no one suggested it before? What are our General’s playing at?”
“It’s a bit delicate madam President,” Frank looked down at the table, avoiding eye contact, “we’d be killing ‘innocent people’ on an industrial scale. The other thing is, we don’t know for sure if the radiation will kill them, like you say, nothing else has. But, if it does work, it’s felt that the American public won’t go for it. These Italian citizens, who, don’t forget, have already died once, are not criminals and probably have relatives living back in the States. So, I don’t think the Electorate would be best pleased if it looked like we were bringing innocent people back to life, just to kill them all over again.”
The President was frowning, fists clenched.
“But they’re hideous monsters, not human like us,” she protested, “they’ve turned into something horrendous, arms, legs, hands and feet, stuck together in a completely random fashion, death has changed them into mutated abominations and quite frankly, they terrify me. Those empty, soulless husks are killing our troops, strange looking ‘drones’ with swords instead of hands, are hacking our soldiers to bits and taking the bodies. We can’t kill them, if you blow them to bits, they join back together, you’ve seen the pictures, it’s sickening. Whichever way you dress this up, they’re evil. Good God Frank, the American people have all seen the pictures, surely they can see what we’re up against?”
Soul Taker Page 12
