New Enemies

by Melony Paradise

  “How long you been here, Frank?”

  “Oh, well, about two years now, I guess, but I’ve been in and out for years getting chemo and treatments that only stalled the cancer.”

  “So, you must’ve seen a lot of casualties come through here…”

  “Oh, sure,” Frank said, puckering his lips as he thought a moment. “Before you came along, I had a new roomie each week, sometimes two or three. I knew things were getting bad out there when the patients started getting younger and younger.”

  “I know it’s not politically correct to say, but when they’d bring in girls all busted up and bloody, I just wanted to up and leave. They were the hardest to watch suffer.”

  A knot formed in Sebastian’s throat, and he had to set his spoon down, unable to finish eating. Tears threatened to spill as visions of Becky played through his mind. I wish I could go back and make her stay home. She’d have tried to kick my ass, but she’d still be alive.

  Pushing the tray away, Sebastian lowered the bed and turned away from Frank, hiding the tears he couldn’t hold back.

  “You okay, Sebastian?”

  “Yeah, Frank. I’m just tired.”

  “Get some rest, then. They’ll probably come for you in the morning to put you through your paces.”

  Chapter 6

  September 1, 2020

  “So, today’s the day, eh?” Frank asked, his eyes drooping with sadness even as he offered an encouraging smile. “You think you’re ready to go out there on your own?”

  “On my own? Probably not.” Bas sat on the edge of his bed, a duffle bag full of the few clothes and supplies he’d acquired over the last three weeks. In his hand, he held his father’s battered watch, the only thing that had survived his short stint as a soldier.

  “Well, you’re all healed up. Even that head wound is looking good.”

  “Thanks to the aliens, my recovery’s been easy. Even the doctor seemed surprised when he said I was fit enough to leave.”

  “They going to make you go back to the military, be part of that mishmash they put together with them aliens?”

  “No, they gave me a medical discharge,” Bas said, shaking his head, which still ached behind the healing scar.

  “You got any plans? Anywhere to go? You’ve never mentioned family…”

  “Family…” He stared at the cracked watch face, the hands swinging loose as he turned it over and over. “I suppose I should look for them. I’d like to make sure my baby brother is okay, but I’m not so sure I’m ready to be part of a family yet. Things aren’t what I thought they’d be, you know? My girl’s gone, the world has changed, I have to go out there and see what kind of life there is to live, if it’s even worth the effort.”

  “Don’t give up, kid. It might not seem like it, right now, but you got a lot to live for, and many years to find your purpose.”

  “I guess,” Bas said, hanging his head as a wave of despair crashed through him. “I just didn’t think I’d be going at it alone, you know? I thought she’d be right there with me the whole way.”

  “Sure, sure. I know how you’re feeling, been there myself, once upon a time.” Frank reached over to open the top drawer of his nightstand, grabbing something from inside. He tossed Bas a keyring with a single key on it, a small leather swatch hung limp and weathered from the metal ring. “Maybe you can take care of my Lenore for me. You two can keep each other company. She’s seen better days, but you’ll never find a car as dependable as her. Just be careful not to kick too much rust off her, not much else is holding her together.”

  “You sure, Frank? You don’t want to give your car to someone in your family, a kid, or grandkid or someone…”

  “Naw, boy. What little family I had already left this world. I pray, now the war’s over, you’ll find your family safe and sound. Let Lenore carry you home, Sebastian.”

  All the time Bas spent recovering in a bed next to the old guy, he’d marveled at how cheery and kind the man stayed, even knowing cancer would take him soon.

  “Thanks, Frank. I’ll take care of her.” He shook Frank’s thin, fragile hand. “And you… let them take care of you. Let them use the alien medicine to ease your pain. No need to suffer when you could be flirting with the nurses until your last breath.”

  “Go on, now,” Frank said, shooing Bas away.

  With one last glance at the ornery old man, he grabbed his bag and left the room. As the doors of the hospital slid shut behind him, Bas shuddered as an empty ache filled his chest, his body a hollow husk, his heart broken beyond repair.

  ***

  The ancient rust bucket, Lenore, a 1966 Ford Mustang, waited in the hospital parking garage gathering dust. Sebastian stuck the key in the lock and twisted it back and forth until it finally turned. The hinges protested as he opened the door, the sharp squeal echoing through the hollow garage.

  “Hey, Lenore,” Bas murmured, sliding into the bucket seat, and tossing his bag to the floor in the back. “Frank says you’re going to take me home, wherever that is.”

  He looked around the interior, getting familiar with the dash, the pedals, and the shifter. Good thing she’s an automatic, or I might’ve been stuck walking.

  “Okay, girl, let’s give this a shot. I’ve only driven a car once, so you’re going to have to be patient with me.”

  Grateful for an older car with simple controls, Sebastian searched his memory for the time one of his mother’s many boyfriends had let him drive because he’d been too drunk. Only a few vehicles were scattered throughout the parking garage, so he took a few minutes to practice driving, and get the hang of the sticky shifter and the stiff steering wheel.

  After nearly bouncing off a concrete wall and ramming a minivan, he felt confident he could manage well enough. “Well, I’m not the best driver, but I think we can do this, Lenore.”

  This is crazy. I don’t even have a driver’s license. Becky would give me hell for my crappy driving. He choked down a lump in his throat.

  As he slowly drove through the streets, he spotted minuscule signs of efforts to repair the damaged city. Seattle and all its neighboring cities and towns had taken quite a beating. Picking his way through the outskirts of Seattle, Bas headed north.

  When he finally made it to the house that never felt like home, Bas stopped in front, nearly forgetting to put the car in park. The windows of the one-story, dilapidated bungalow stared out at him, dark and empty. He walked up the stairs, pushing through the front door that sat ajar, missing two panes of glass.

  “Mom! Jordy! Anyone here?” Bas wandered through the empty house, only silence greeting him.

  It appeared as if his mother had packed up only the essentials and about half of Jordy’s toys. The only room still intact was his own.

  “Well, at least I can get some fresh clothes.” Bas wandered back into the kitchen and found a note stuck to the fridge with one of Jordy’s alphabet magnets.

  Bas,

  The aliens are coming with buses to take us to a safe zone. I don’t know where we’re going, but we’ll be okay. Find us if you can. We’ll look for you.

  Love you, Mom

  Leaning his forehead against the cool, fridge door, Bas silently wept. Tears rained from his eyes to the linoleum floor—tears for his brave Becky, tears for scruffy, little Jordy, even tears for his irresponsible mother. Quiet sobs echoed through the deserted house.

  Straightening back up, he wiped his face dry with a flowered dishrag, sniffling and pulling in big gulps of air. Looks like you’re on your own for now, man. That one word reminded him of Rick the medic, and he wondered if the guy ever made it out alive. Probably not…

  As quickly as he could, Bas packed up some fresh clothes, the few toiletries that’d been left behind, some canned food and a can opener, and the biggest, sharpest knife he could find left in the kitchen drawers. He searched the house, even dug through his mother’s closet, but couldn’t find a single family photo. His heart ached, wanting something—anything—to fill the
void.

  Loading his gear into Lenore’s backseat, since the trunk had rusted out holes everywhere, he contemplated driving to Becky’s house for a picture to remember her by, but quickly nixed the idea. Just the memories hurt too much… A picture won’t erase that last image of her burned in my brain.

  With one final look at the last place he’d called home, Bas got in the car and headed south.

  ***

  The devastation of war scarred the Pacific Northwest, as it did every corner of the world. It took Bas hours to get through Seattle. Taking whatever street looked clear, in a general southerly direction, he passed through cities and towns that once thrived, and had names most Washingtonians recognized. Now, each place blended with the next, all in the same state of decay.

  Having no idea where the aliens took his family, or where they might’ve set up ‘safe zones’, Bas decided to leave his life to chance and follow the road. He had a vague idea he drove somewhat parallel to Interstate 5, and that seemed like a good enough route as any.

  Normally a three-hour trip, Bas approached the Columbia River and Vancouver about seven hours later. Night had fallen, and he’d had to slow way down to avoid damaged roads, occasionally driving into fields to get around giant gaps in the asphalt. When he’d stopped at a gas station after three hours of driving, Bas worried how he would pay for fuel, but no one manned the station.

  I haven’t seen anyone since I left the hospital. I guess the aliens really did round everyone up.

  Exhausted and hungry, he parked in a shopping mall parking lot for the night. Sleeping cramped up in the backseat, Bas woke the next morning hurting worse than he did after the crash training at the military base. He lay there, staring up at the blue sky, remembering how amazing that best night of his life with Becky had been.

  Flashes of her smile and the feel of her silky skin brought tears to his eyes. With a shake of his head, Bas sniffled and sat up, nearly bashing his head.

  “What the hell am I going to do?” Bas looked down at his hands, his skin soft and clean after months in the hospital. “I’m only fourteen fucking years old.”

  In a fit of frustration, he punched the back of the front passenger seat. The pain shooting down his arm reminded him he’d just been released from the hospital and had had no physical therapy. Five months in a coma, even with alien medicine, weakened his body. His arms and legs had barely any muscle tone, and ached from the driving and sleeping in the cramped backseat.

  Determined to get into some sort of shape, Bas got out of the car and stretched his aching muscles. A handful of pushups, a few jumping-jacks, and some sit-ups wore him out. Considering a nap, he shook the thought away, anxious to get back on the road.

  Repeating the same driving tactics as the day before, Bas made his way over the river into Portland, Oregon. The farther he got from the river, the more damaged the area became. The whole northern part of the city looked as if an F5 tornado had leveled it, with only an occasional structure, or parts of structures still standing.

  Bas made it about five miles in before the rubble-strewn street started to dip dramatically, and a giant crater opened up ahead. Stopping the car, he got out and walked the last few feet that looked stable.

  Fissures reached out in several places along the downward sloping edge of the crater. It looked as if the ground gradually lowered toward the crater for maybe half a mile where it appeared to drop off completely. The whole of Portland and its surrounding suburbs and towns had vanished, like God himself reached down to scoop the land up in his hand.

  After ten minutes of gawking, Bas gave up trying to see the other side and returned to Lenore. Carefully, he turned her around and drove back over the bridge, surprised it had survived the blast. With no interest in heading east, he pointed the Mustang west, and thought about driving straight into the ocean.

  Would I get to be with Becky, or would I end up in hell, like Mom’s pastor used to say about suicide? Would God care if one more soul left this world? Do I care if he does? Hell, do I even care if he exists? No… I don’t think I do.

  Chapter 7

  September 3, 2020

  After another long stretch of driving, and a second night sleeping in the car, Bas finally made it into Oregon. When he caught sight of the ocean, he stopped the car and just stared at the water. A single tear rolled down his cheek as his thoughts darkened.

  “This could be it, Lenore. We could just drive right into that water and be done with all this shit.” What point is there to keep going? I’m a kid who’s been through hell, with nowhere to go. No one would miss me. No one even knows I’m alive.

  As he put his hand on the shifter, his eyes and thoughts trained on that inviting ocean, he could’ve sworn he heard Becky urging him to “keep on driving. Don’t give up.” And for his beloved Becky, he kept on driving.

  Resigned to living another dreary day, Bas stopped at an abandoned department store to scavenge for food, water, and camping gear. Filling Lenore’s tank again, he stared out over the empty parking lot, watching the coastal rain drizzle down, filling a large puddle in the center of the lot.

  The highway that followed the coastline had fared better than all the roads he’d driven so far. In the last forty-five minutes, only the occasional abandoned vehicle or road damage had slowed him. As he neared the end of another small beach-town, Bas caught sight of movement ahead.

  Slowing down, he warily approached what looked to be a roadblock. A fifteen-foot-tall cyclone fence crossed the road, disappearing into the trees on both sides. At first, Bas thought soldiers guarded the fence, but as he looked closer, he realized those soldiers stood taller, looked thinner, and all had absolutely no hair.

  “Son-of-a-bitch.” He shoved his hand through his shaggy, uncombed mop. “So that’s what the almighty saviors look like.”

  The Szu’Kara soldiers looked his way, and he noticed their eyes were strange, but they were too far away for him to see clearly. One soldier marched to where he’d stopped Lenore, and Bas bit his tongue as he tried not to cower away from the imposing figure. Don’t be a baby, dumbass.

  “You must turn around,” the soldier said, after Bas rolled down the squeaky window.

  The alien stared down at him, stooping a little, sending chills down Bas’ spine. Standing at least seven and a half feet tall, maybe eight, the alien looked like a stretched-out human, with large, solid silver eyes that had a thin vertical pupil, similar to a cat. Completely hairless, from what Bas could see, its smooth, dark blue skin shimmered in the sunlight. He almost admired the beauty of the alien, but his fear blocked out all other thoughts.

  “Boy, you must turn around. You cannot drive this way.”

  Bas shook himself, regaining some composure. “Uh… is the road damaged this way? It’s a long way to drive back. I’d have to go all the way around the crater just to get back to the coast.”

  “You cannot drive this way. We have cleared a detour around this area. It is through mountains, but it is safe. We have ensured the route is passable. Turn around, and you will see the signs we have posted for the detour.”

  “O-okay.” Bas maneuvered the car around, driving back the way he came.

  Looking in the rearview mirror, he watched the alien stand there, where he’d left it. As it got smaller and smaller, something in the distance, over the alien’s head, caught Bas’ attention. Slowing to a stop, he turned around in his seat and gaped at the top of a giant alien ship.

  “Holy fuck!”

  Just over the tree line, a shiny, black tower loomed. Judging by the distance, Bas guessed the ship to be nearly five hundred feet tall, maybe four hundred feet wide, with rows upon rows of dark windows reflecting the sunlight. The tower seemed cylindrical, but from this far away, he couldn’t quite tell.

  Thinking back to the night he first saw the alien ship over Seattle, he assumed this one had a similar shape. Frank had said something about hundreds of giant ships planting themselves into the ground all over the world, but Bas hadn’t tho
ught much of it. Remembering the alien ship meant remembering Becky dying, and he didn’t want to do that.

  Clenching his jaw, and swallowing his emotions, Bas drove on, taking the detour designated by a rudimentary sign with block letters and a giant arrow. The dirt road seemed to be cut out of the ground with a laser, leveled to a point that as the terrain rose and fell, the road kept even and clean. Every so often, the alien detour passed through pre-existing country roads that he briefly considered turning onto, maybe going back to get a look at that ship, but he kept going.

  Eventually, the cut-out road curved back around to the coastal highway, and Bas followed the ocean. He drove until twilight, reaching a small, abandoned town where he stopped at another empty gas station, all its windows busted out and the interior ransacked. After scrounging for food to add to his stash, he drove to the edge of the beach to camp for the night. Sitting in the sand, listening to the waves, he imagined bringing Becky here.

  “You would’ve loved this, Rebecca. It’s so peaceful. We could’ve gotten married on a beach like this. Who knew we’d never get a chance to get married, have kids, and be regular people… together? I never thought about it. I’m so sorry I never thought about our future. I’m sorry you didn’t get a future, baby.”

  ***

  Black smoke swirled over the broken cobblestone street. Shadows hid all but the faint outlines of the surrounding city ruins. A hazy glow emanated up ahead, like a beacon leading the way.

  Distant whispers, calling his name, beckoned Bas to leave his shelter behind the burned-out shell of a car. An urgent pull drew him forward to the market he knew lay beyond the light, which grew brighter the closer he got.