At first, in the darkness of the night, you could hear the sounds of alarms and sirens going off here and there. These were just a few of the alarms that were still being fed by the batteries of the cars but before long, all of them died down and the night went silent. A silence that was filled with the sounds of the rain. A serenade of countless sounds, sounds produced as the rain hit against various surfaces and objects. The darknessand the rain together formed a thick curtain that made one feel besieged, isolated from the rest of the world, as if the planet was not bigger than just a few feet. One thing that felt odd was that under the rain everything seemed to vanish. When the sun shines in the sky, you can see the bustling of the city and people and animals seem to share the limited free space. Now that night and rain covered everything, it lookedas though all living creatures had disappeared. The rain fell steadily without diminishing its intensity, only the force of the wind was different. When the wind blew, the rain drops appeared to fall in all directions. In that dark night everyone could lose track of time, making one feel as though minutes were hours and hours were days.
Listen, we'd better give the boy to the police - it’s not the same to be accused of murder thanto be accused of robbery.
Cagalubias listened without saying anything. León regretted getting into this mess, he was not a thief, he had always been honest and now he was involved in two deaths, his partner’s and his neighbour Elías’. His patience was exhausted, he was not willing to be swayed by the follies of an addict who seemed to be getting every time more aggravated. He had to do something, he was no vigilante, no hero, but he could not watch Cagalubias letting Elías die. Cagalubias was totally out of his mind and could easily worsen the situation by injuring or killing someone. So despite not being a man of action, León hatched a plan in his mind and waited for the right time to carry it out. As soon as Cagalubias was distracted, he’d surprise him by attacking him from the back and would take the weapon. Once reduced, the cops could take Elías to a hospital. The latter part of the plan wasn’t very clear, since the situation didn’t look good outside and the rain was still falling heavily.
This was it, this was the time León had been waiting for. Cagalubias was watching what unfolded outside through one of the windows in the room and was distracted, not paying attention to the events inside the house. León said to himself, it’s now or never, and then pounced on him, grabbing him by the neck. He clutched him from behind surroundinghis neck with onearm and with the other hand he tried to seize the gun butthat man was pure nerve and León was not able to reduce him. The situation was critical because during the struggle to control the gun, the barrel was being jolted from one side to the other, increasing the chances of it being shot at any time. It was just like playing Russian roulette. León clenched his teeth and pulled the weapon. In that very instant, there was a shot. The gun had been fired and León was feeling a burning sensation in the stomach. Then his legs slackened off and he fell to the ground. Initially, he didn’t even noticed it but the impact of the pellets had struck him in full. Later, due to all the effort, he lost all the colour on his face and turned white as milk, writhing on the floor in pain while Cagalubias laughed at him.
There was a noise, first like a whistle, then it transformed into a sound similar to those made by Australian Aborigines playing a hollow reed. Then, a ratty noise, and suddenly, from the drains of the kitchen sink and the bathroom, there shot out a powerful stream of dirty water that reached the ceiling. The drains must have blocked, and the pressure caused by the high water flow whooshing down from the higher part of the city, forced it out through the pipes. A huge amount of water was coming out of the toilet as well, reeking water that filled the house with a foul smell. Leon and Elías, still lying on the ground, were surrounded by this putrid liquid. The whole house was flooded. León was writhing in pain. The shotgun pellets had pierced his guts and he pressed his fingers against his abdomen as blood dripped everywhere. The police had no clue what was unfolding in the house because it was raining so heavilythat the noise caused by the drops falling on the water made it impossible for anything to be heard. The rain was so thick that formed a curtain and you could not see beyond a few meters.
Elías, who appeared dead, began to convulse. His mouth released a long scream first in a very low volume and then increasingly louder. He paused for a few seconds and then he began to speak in tongues, languages that were so old that no one remembered them already, words so ancient that no one had pronounced for thousands of years.
A light began emanating from the ancient relic, a warm light that grew in intensity. The high temperatures turned the old statue a reddish colour and a white smoke exuded from it. Finally, the statue melted completely exposing an object, an artefact made of a strange metal, something incomparable to anything manufactured by any man-made machines. The strange device started to emit a whistle, a loud beep that deafened even the police outside. Elías shook and thumped his head against the floor. The police motorcyclist was planning on entering the house and was discussing it with the captain while standing in the water that by now reached them above the waist.
The plan was this: while the chief of police was to keep his position and call the abductor over the megaphone, the other agent would enter the house through one of the back windows - although entering one of those round windows did not look easy. As they prepared to put their plan in motion, a deafening whistle, thousand times more powerful than a train whistle sounded in the house, causing the police to cover their ears.
Inside the house, the floor and the walls began to vibrate. León was still squirming in pain while Cagalubias had gone completely crazy and did nothing but talk alone, as if arguing with a ghost. The sound stopped and the police decided to carry on with their plan - the situation called for exceptional measures. They couldn’t wait any longer. The night was finally coming to its end.
The motorcyclist stealthily crawledtowards the house. In some areas he was forced toswim below the front windows of the house. Now, in order not to be discovered, the chief would have to distract the kidnapper. So he grabbed the megaphone in his hands and began to speak but it was impossible to hear anything. The megaphone was soaked with water and did not work. Then he began to scream to get the attention of the hijacker inside the house. Cagalubias didn’t seem to be in this world, he heard nothing, he was still arguing and fighting with beings that only he could see. He used the shotgun to throw punches in the air as if he was defending himself from large flying insects. Then he began kicking, screaming to have them removed from him and began banging his legs with the barrel of the shotgun, flagellating his own limbs.
The chief of police shouted louder but nothing, nobody was paying attention. He had to distract the kidnapper as his companion needed to break the glass of one of the rear windows to enter the house and the noise would attract the attention of the kidnapper, who could end up killing the hostages and even the police man himself if he was caught before going through the small window. It didn’t matter how much the police screamed, there was no effect. Finally, when he noticed the silhouette of the kidnapper behind a window, he grabbed the megaphone in his hands and threw it hard, shattering the glass on impact and making it fall inside the house.
I’m go go going to kill, kill you! Cagalubias shouted at the chief of police.
At last something had worked - he managed to capture the attention of the kidnapper and now he would be able to start negotiating with him. The hijacker still demanded ransom money and a helicopter. The police man explained that the helicopter was on its way and that the money was ready in bags as he requested. He would say anything just to give his colleague enough time to enter the house. As they spoke, they heard the sound of breaking glass but the chief quickly distracted Cagalubias by asking him if it was ok for the money to be handed to him in differently sized bills. While they were talking, the motorcyclist crawled until the back of the house, stood below one of the windows, wrapped his jacket around his arm and banged it a
gainst the window pane. This shattered the glass and the broken bits fell on the floor of the house, causing a very loud noise. The police froze thinking that the racket could alarm the kidnapper and make him take reprisals against the hostages. He listened carefully in silence, and heard the police captain talking to the kidnapper. This meant that he had not heard it and could continue with his mission.
Entering the house through the window was not an easy task. The policeman wasa big man and the window was very small so as soon as he started sliding through it he was quickly trapped. Then, he paused and moved slowly to get his muscles to relax and minimise their thickness. He entered the house that was almost in darkness - only the light coming from the room where the kidnapper was dimly lit the rest of the building. The water on the floor was a foot high. This complicated things because not being able to see where he was going he could trip over anything. He walked cautiously towards the door of the room where the hostages were located. At the very end, peeking through a window, the kidnapper, who was still talking to the chief of police. The room was lit with a red light that came from the strange object in the ground.
The device started emitting that same ear-splitting sound again, a piercing sound that forced the kidnapper and the police to cover their ears with their hands, but even so, the noise was more powerful than ever and it was unbearable. Cagalubias and León began to bleed from their ears. Elías started convulsing again, his muscle spasms making him splash water all over the room. Cagalubias was also shrieking as a result of the pain caused by the loud sound. The police who wasquite close to the object was not able to withstand the pain and fell to the ground, being then spotted by Cagalubias. Elías stopped convulsing, his jerky movements ended, leaving him lying on the ground, as if dead. Then the sound stopped completely.
Elías opened his eyes. Right at that very moment, Cagalubias quickly raised the shotgun in his hand and pointed it at the police and trying to rise from the ground, pulled the trigger and shot. The shells fired at high speed out of the barrel of the shotgun toward the police but quickly lost speed and fell. Elías sat up slowly. It seemed impossible that he was alright. Then Cagalubias pointed at him but before he was able to pull the trigger, right when the pressure was reaching the point needed to trigger the firing pin, the police sprinted across the room and reached his face with a tremendous punch. The kidnapper flew across the room, four teeth whooshing out of his mouth. Then he fell to the ground like a sack of cement thrown from the top of a truck.
About María
THE NIGHT ushered the morning in and the group of survivors remained united and complete. The indomitable rain continued falling incessantly but that didn’t matter. Out of the blue, just as it began to rain, it stopped, the unremitting noise of the drops pounding on everything ceased, giving way to silence, a silence that was broken by the voices of joy from the survivors, a joy they will never again feel in their lives.
After a few moments the clouds retreated to expose a gleaming sun. The water disappeared rapidly as if the gates of a dam had been opened, revealing the land, a land full of debris, full of bits and pieces like a battlefield after the war.
Nobody except Maríanoticed that their canine companion was missing. Throughout the night he had been in the water with them, occasionally circling the group to make sure no one was missing, as a sheepdog would circle its herd. María had liked him from the start but that was not unusual as she had always loved animals. But with this dog, she’d felt something a bit special, as if it was hers and had already made up her my mind to stay with the animal, and she even thought it would be fun to walk with it around the woods when things went back to normal again.
María asked the group about the dog. Everyone agreed they had seen it not too long ago but when the rain had stopped the dog seemed to have simply vanished without a trace. It was a very smart dog and would have notrouble finding its owner, María thought. After surviving a disaster like this, one doesn’t seem to react logically, no one knew what was going through the survivors’ heads. All you could see was their happy faces, marked by the depth of the eyes thathad recordedthe images of the tragedy.
The group broke up when the water receded enough to be able to walk safely on the ground. Each one of them took a different direction, a new course that made them resume their lives.
The Relic
NIGHT ended and the new day arrived but it did not start any differently - the rain kept on falling hard and the town was completely flooded, its lower areas having become fully submerged under water. The whole city was in complete chaos. Survivors took refuge wherever they could, perching on trees or rooftops.
León was still wriggling on the floor, his blood dripping between his fingers, mixing with the water in the room and dying it red. Elías stood upand the strange artefact produced a sharp sound but this time it had less intensity. Then it produced a bluish light that illuminated the entire room. León's blood now mixing with the water and floating on it, stopped expanding and began to return back to his body, as a movie that is being rewound. Before long all the blood entered his body and the wound closed. León looked at his hands, but there were not stained with blood. Then he looked at the wound but could only find a hole in the sweater - there was no trace of the wound. He sat up slowly and stood amazed at not being hurt, feeling his body with the palms of the hands, making sure he really waswell.
Nothing of the sort had happened to Cagalubias because his teeth did not return to his body. The police motorcyclist call out the chief, who was still outside the house. He came in quickly. Then a lot of strange things started happening. First León’s miraculous healing. Then Elías looked up to the ceiling of the room, but in a way that seemed as if he could see through it, as if he was looking directly at the sky. Then, the rain stopped, the water stopped falling like a shower tap that had been turned off. Then the clouds receded and the sun shone brightly overhead. Elías smiled.
The chief of police entered the house and was surprised by the scene and by that strange object that emitted the sound and that now radiated a dim blue light.
- Handcuff this one and I'll take care of the other one -, said the motorist to the chief pointing at Cagalubias with his hand. It was then that Elías approached the police intensely looking at him and after studying him carefully he said:
- Mouse! Mouse! Is that you?
- Sir, I believe you are confused as a result of the shock you’ve suffered - the motorist replied. He was a robust, tough looking man with huge hands which, had hurtled Cagalubias up onto the air leaving his mouth ready for a plastic denture, the kind that haveall the teeth together in one single piece. The chief of police handcuffed the kidnapper, who didn’t resist, except for a few moans when the handcuffs were being tightened. The chief helped him to his feet, pulling him from under one arm. Then they left the house and headed for the car still in the driveway.
The water level had dropped significantly and at a surprising speed, but it still covered the wheels of the car and when he opened the back door to push the detainee in, a lot of water rushed out from the interior. The motorcyclist remained inside the house observing León and after a while he said:
I think we are all starting a new life today. There is a lot of work to be done in the city and I know you can help.
And without another word, he let him go. He could have taken him prisoner, but what good would that have done. Deep inside he was not a bad man and now they were in dire need of people to help the victims and to rebuild the city. So León walked toward the back of the house, leaving through the same window the police had previously entered through.
During all this time, Elías continued to stare at the police intently. When the two of them were alone inside the house, the big man looked him straight in the eyes and smiled, then said:
-Elías, keep the secret, since our nursery days only my mother calls me Mouse.
Elías smiled back as he headed towards the exit door, put his hand on his shoulder for a moment, and left t
he house.
About Elías
I went down the steps leading to the porch of the house. The chief of police did his best to get the water out of the car before putting the detainee in. I was leaving behind my old nursery friend, Mouse. As I walked down the last step of the porch I stretched my leg to take the next step. The sidewalk was flooded but as I extended my foot to the height of the water, it moved sideways leaving the pavement completely dry. I stepped over it and continued to advance step by step. The waters parted making way for my feet, forming a kind of wave that stretched as far as the eye could see.
The Relic
MY MAIN POWER CELL had been damaged during the wars in China and as a result, my performance was somewhat limited as I had to rely on the secondary power cell and could not control the governing parameters of the planet with precision. Because of my inaccurate mathematical calculations, the planet began to suffer abrupt changes that often ended in tragic disasters. These errors increased over time as they created a cumulative degenerative misconfiguration. “Hazel Eyes’” children learned to live with it and called them natural disasters. I spent thousands of years trying to solve the problem because I felt responsible for the situation–“Hazel Eyes”had asked me to look after her family and I was failing her.
The Relic Page 15
