The Traveler

by Melissa Delport

  “Yes,” he answers, watching my reaction intently.

  “Where are you from?”

  “A planet called Venon,” he answers candidly and my legs buckle beneath me but I manage to stay standing.

  “What do you want?” I ask for the third time, and I am finally rewarded with an answer.

  “Your resources.”

  “Get your own,” I am on the verge of hysteria. “What makes you think you can just come here and take what you want?”

  “Because we have done it before,” he answers hollowly.

  “Why don’t you just ask? There’s plenty to go around. Surely a peaceful approach is better than this?”

  “That’s not how it works, Rachel.” The intimate way he speaks my name is too much and I lose my fragile grip on my self-control.

  “So, what? You’re just going to kill everybody? Billions of people?”

  “Yes.” His answer is so certain, so final, that this time I collapse, my knees going out from under me.

  “You’re a monster. Stop torturing me. If you’re going to kill me just get it over with.” He crouches down beside me on the tarred street and I flinch away from him.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.” His voice is a mixture of regret and anger.

  “Why?” I yell, “Why, Dex? What makes me so special? Is it the fact that you screwed me all those years ago and now it's messed up your master plan?” My body heaves with the sobs I have been trying so hard to contain. I have spent seven years remembering him, keeping his memory alive. He was everything to me, the only man I ever loved, emotionally and physically. I gave my soul to this man. I may as well have sold it to the devil himself.

  “I should never have done what I did,” he mutters angrily, almost to himself, but I can hear a note of pleading in his voice. As if he needs my forgiveness.

  “Why, Dex? Is your guilt getting in the way of your world domination? What were you doing here seven years ago, anyway? You sure as hell didn’t come all the way here for a summer fling.”

  “I was here on an exploratory mission. Plans needed to be made and for that we needed information. I learned what I needed to and then I went back to report.”

  “And us?” My brow rises in disgust, “You and me? Was that part of your exploration? Or was I just an earthly perk; a way to pass the time?”

  “No...” he trails off, his face conflicted.

  “You’re a murderer,” I hiss, all the anger and humiliation pouring out of me, black and ugly. “You killed those pilots. You shot their jets out of the sky. And you killed Bill. And Peter,” I add, the image of the brave man’s death still burned in my consciousness.

  “I had to. I had to distract Voka; she would have killed you,” he replies matter-of-factly, and my mouth drops open in surprise and horror.

  “You killed them to protect me from your homicidal girlfriend?”

  “Voka isn’t my girlfriend, Rachel, she’s my sister.” I can’t believe that with everything that is going on, I actually feel relieved to hear that.

  “Please Dex,” I implore, changing my strategy as I sense his resolve weakening. “You don’t have to kill us. You’ve already proved that we can’t stand against you. Surely we can reach a compromise...”

  “I came here to conquer, not to compromise!” he roars, his icy indifference finally slipping and I bite my lip.

  “Well then conquer,” I scream back, “kill me and get on with it! Or, if you don’t have the balls, let me go. I need to find my friends.”

  “They’ll be dead soon,” he utters casually.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’ll never make it out of New York. We have soldiers stationed at all the exits.”

  “Oh my God!” I breathe and then I scramble to my feet, sprinting in the direction the news-van was headed.

  “Rachel!” he yells, his voice echoing down the street but I pump my legs even harder, forcing my body to its limits.

  I tire far too easily, and I curse the fact that I gave up track the same day that Dex left. I ignore the stitch in my side and keep running, not looking back. Dex is the enemy and I know which side I’m on. Eventually I round a corner and I see the van just a short distance ahead. Jason is reversing back down the street, another massive canyon just ahead preventing him from going any further. I wave my arms above my head as I race for the van and he screeches to a halt a few feet in front of me.

  “Jesus, Rachel! Are you okay?” he assesses me briefly as I hop in before spinning the wheel and heading up a detour street.

  “I’m fine,” I answer curtly, not wanting to get into it.

  “How the hell do you know...”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I snap and he nods grimly, letting the topic go for now, but I know that I will have to give them answers eventually. “We’ve got a problem,” I add, filling him in on what Dex told me about the exits. Kate and Darren listen intently behind us.

  “So what do we do?” he asks.

  “I have no idea.”

  “We need to get underground,” Darren insists.

  “I agree with Darren,” Kate is wringing her hands nervously. I understand the appeal of escaping the carnage up here but I can’t suppress the feeling that this would be a bad move.

  “We’ll be trapped,” I moan, racking my brain for another solution. Before I can even ask Jason if he knows another way out of the city, Kate gives a shriek of fright and I turn to see one of the tunic-clad men heading straight for us. “Go!” I scream at Jason and he starts to reverse. After only a few seconds he slams on brakes again and I glance back to see why he’s stopped.

  “Shit!” I curse. There is another man approaching from behind. We’re trapped. I quickly scan the street but we are hemmed in, there is nowhere to escape. “We’re going to have to make a run for it!” I whisper urgently and Kate whimpers in fear. I understand her terror – there is no way we can out-run their abilities. As if to prove this, the man ahead raises his hand and the van gives a lurch to the left as the ground heaves beneath us.

  “Head for that department store,” I whisper and Jason and Darren nod. Kate is clutching Darren’s sleeve. “Now!” I yell and I wrench open my door as the others do the same. Instantly, it is blown shut and I glance up to see that, in the blink of an eye, the storm is back in full force. The wind is staggering and, judging by the grunts coming from the others, they can’t open their doors against the buffeting wind either. I hear a shout and, as I glance through the windshield, my heart skips a beat. Dex is standing in front of the van, his back to us. He raises his hand and a bolt of lightning streaks from the heavens hitting the first assailant squarely in the chest. He collapses in a heap on the ground and Dex turns, calmly making his way to the back of the van. Another bolt of lightning lights up the sky, the noise resonating in my head and then suddenly everything goes quiet.

  “Go!” I hiss and Jason needs no further prompting. He shifts the car back into drive and slowly eases his foot down on the gas. The van starts to creep forward, but as I check the rear-view mirror I see that Dex is gone. Alarmed, I glance around, but there is no sign of him. I slump back in my seat, releasing the breath that I didn’t know I was holding, but my relief is short-lived as the driver’s door is suddenly wrenched open. Jason automatically slams on the brakes and I hit my head painfully on the dashboard.

  “Get in the back,” Dex orders. To my surprise, Jason scrambles between the seats without argument. Dex’s glowing green eyes meet mine and he seems to be giving me a silent warning.

  “They’re not worth it, Rachel. I can save you. Not them.” His disregard for the lives of the three people behind me is infuriating.

  “You save all of us,” I spit out, “or none of us.” I meet his gaze unflinchingly. “The choice is yours.” With an angry snarl he leaps into the driver’s seat and pulls the door shut. A second later we surge forward, the tires squealing in protest as we race toward the Lincoln Tunnel.

  Chapter 9

  “Rachel, wha
t the hell is going on?” Jason’s voice is hard, his face reflecting both anger and distress. I open my mouth to explain but my attention is diverted as the van careens to the right and an enormous explosion blasts just to the right of me, the heat searing my face. The fireball just missed us, but only because Dex swerved in the nick of time. I locate the source; just up ahead is the entrance to the Lincoln tunnel and standing in front of it are four of Dex’s soldiers. Three men and one woman. They look so normal, so human, is my first hysterical thought. Two are dark-haired like Dex and Voka, but the third man and the lone woman are fair. Other than their strange eyes and the black tunic-like outfits, I wouldn’t suspect them of being anything but ordinary humans.

  Dex’s hands tighten on the steering-wheel and, as they do, it’s as if the storm itself closes in on us, focusing all its energy on the small area surrounding us and the tunnel. I watch, fascinated, as his eyes burn and glow even brighter than before. He rams his foot on the gas and we streak forward, heading straight for the four figures in black. I watch as they each raise their hands, unable to comprehend their power. The first holds his hands palms down, and the earth begins to buck and heave below his outstretched arms.

  “Earth,” I hear Darren whisper behind me, as he too watches intently. Dex flexes his fingers on the wheel and a bolt of lightning streaks from the sky hitting the earth-user. He falls to the ground and I hear Dex’s mewl of despair beside me. In order to protect me, he is killing his own kind. Regardless of how terrible he is, this small display of remorse makes him seem somewhat less of a monster.

  The woman in the center is obviously the one responsible for the recent explosion and is already holding another fireball in her hands.

  “Fire,” Darren whispers. Dex’s fingers flex again, but a moment too late. The lightning-bolt strikes her a second after she has sent the burning mass streaking toward us. Dex spins the wheel to the right, so that the explosion hits his side of the van instead. It strikes the top of the windshield, only the very edge making contact with the van, but even so the heat shatters the glass which showers over us. I hear Kate scream in the back and Dex’s grunt of pain beside me. To my horror there is a glowing, smoldering ember on his chest. It has already burnt a hole in his black tunic and I can smell the sweet, nauseating smell of burning flesh. Without thinking, I grab the pebble-sized glowing coal in my left hand. I scream as it singes my skin, tossing it out of the gaping hole where the windshield was.

  “Air,” Darren’s low murmur behind me rids my mind of everything else and I see the third man standing with his arms raised. The wind that hits us a second later takes my breath away, and presses me back against my seat. I feel like my chest is being compressed and the pressure is excruciating. I can’t even turn my head to look at Dex. Then, suddenly, the weight is lifted and I suck in a huge breath of air, coughing and spluttering. I squint up ahead, but the air-user is still standing with his arms raised. Trying to figure out what is stopping his onslaught, it takes me a moment to register that he and the last soldier beside him, are both being pushed backward by an invisible force. That’s when I notice the debris. Leaves, waste paper and litter are all being blown past us, in the direction of our attackers. I glance across at the concentration on Dex’s face and I realize that he too can control the wind and he’s fighting back. All of this happens in only a matter of seconds and I pray silently that we can reach the tunnel. But then I see it, and I don’t need Darren’s disbelieving “water” to know that this is the end, as a sheer wall of water rises up from the Hudson ahead of us.

  My eyes travel up to the top of what I could only call a tsunami. It’s at least fifty feet high and growing, pulsating and pounding as if it has a life of its own. The last black figure, his hands raised at chest height, palms up, is obviously manipulating the water. Kate’s screaming behind me echoes through my head and I register that Dex is so preoccupied keeping the wind off us that the van is losing speed. I lean across him, slipping my leg between both of his, and ram my foot over his on the gas pedal. The van surges forward, heading at breakneck speed towards the tunnel. I keep my eyes on the enormous, deadly wave looming over us, praying that we make it.

  The lightning that streaks out of the sky hitting the water-user is only an instant too late. He has already thrown his arms forward and his own demise cannot stop the impetus of the tsunami. I watch as it surges forward, thundering toward us and gaining even more height as it moves across the relatively short expanse of the river itself. Jason’s bloodcurdling yell joins Kate’s relentless screaming and I can hear my own voice shrieking, “Come on!” We are so close, the tunnel is just ahead and, as we hit the wind-user, his body hurtling over the roof of the van, I close my eyes and brace myself for impact.

  A liberal spray of water drenches me at the exact moment that it suddenly goes dark and I hear Dex’s rich baritone voice beside me.

  “Rachel, I need you to move your leg. Now!” His voice is low but urgent and I open my eyes. Much to my astonishment we have reached the relative safety of the Lincoln Tunnel but we’re going way too fast. I leap off him and back onto my seat as he uses the brakes and brings us to a more manageable speed. I swivel around to check on the others and sag in relief as I realize that we are all okay. Shaken up, but alive.

  “Where are we going?” Dex asks, his eyes back to normal.

  “We thought we’d get underground? Into the subway?” He would know far better than we where we will be safe. He frowns, considering this.

  “That will only buy you time, they will find you eventually and kill you,” he adds tonelessly. He regards me steadily and then he seems to come to a decision.

  “The only chance you have is to get to one of the smaller islands. Remote, as inaccessible as possible. They won’t concern themselves with those.”

  “Okay,” I nod, feeling hope flare in my chest. “Then that’s what we’ll do. But first we need to figure out where. So we’ll get underground until we come up with a plan.” I nod at Darren, whose suggestion it had been in the first place. “Thank you,” I add awkwardly, facing Dex once more, “for saving us. I’m sorry about your... your friends.” This is not really true. I am not sorry, not even a little bit. I wish they would all die. Dex seems to guess my thoughts because he casts me a dubious look.

  “They weren’t my friends. They were my soldiers.”

  “Your soldiers?” I prompt.

  “Yes. I’m their General. I’m leading the invasion.” He is so matter-of-fact.

  “You’re joking?”

  “I don’t joke, Rachel. You should know me better than that.”

  “Stop the van,” I murmur, feeling the nausea overwhelming me again.

  “No,” he shakes his head. “Not here, they’ll send others soon. We need to get you somewhere safe.”

  “Call them off!” I gasp, a thought suddenly occurring to me, “If you’re their General just call them off. Stop this, stop the whole invasion!”

  “I can’t.”

  “You mean you won’t?” My throat constricts with the agony of disappointment.

  “No,” he corrects, casting another sidelong glance at me, “I mean I can’t.”

  Dex falls silent and I am too angry and repulsed to be near him right now, so I crawl between the seats to join the others in the back.

  “Rachel,” Jason hisses the second I take a seat beside him, “what the hell is going on? How the hell do you know him?”

  “I met him years ago; it’s a long story,” I sigh, too tired to explain.

  “Were you..., I mean, did you...” Jason trails off.

  “Yes,” I scowl at his look of disgust. “But believe it or not, Jason, it never actually occurred to me that I might be sleeping with an alien.” He falls silent.

  “Do you think he’s going to help us?” Kate’s voice is thick with emotion.

  “I don’t know,” I shrug, wishing I could give her a definite answer. “So far he seems to be on our side, but I just don’t know, Kate. He’s one of them
. Who knows what he’s capable of?” I know that Dex can hear me. He always hears me, I recall, even from thirty feet away. I close my eyes and the memories flood back into my head overwhelming me with their clarity, as though him being here has opened the floodgates.

  “I’m sorry,” Dex’s voice was unusually pained and I tried to raise my head to look at him, but his arms tightened around me and he rested his chin on my head.

  “Why won’t you look at me?” I asked in a small voice.

  “Because I should never have done this to you,” he muttered, his voice hoarse. This is not what I imagined it would be like. My first time. I had been lost; my body and mind had floated away on a sea of the deepest desire. Dex had owned me, controlled me, his every touch had set a million nerve-endings in my body on fire and even the blood pumping through my veins seemed to call out for more. It was ecstasy, pure bliss and the sweetest agony, a perfect balance between heaven and hell. I had wanted to stay lost in the moment forever, but now he was saying things that made my face flush in mortification and left a bitter taste in my mouth.

  “Why would you say that?” I cried, pushing at his chest with my arms. He held me even tighter, crushing me against his beautiful nakedness and I struggled wildly against him, tears streaming down my face.

  “Hush, Rachel,” he pleaded, his strong hands stroking my back, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. Please stop crying; please.” Eventually his words soothed me and my sobs subsided. I fell asleep in his embrace, feeling safer than I ever had before, but his words weighed heavily on my heart and my dreams were troubled. When I finally opened my eyes I had a terrible foreboding that they might be a premonition.

  “I better go; your parents will be home soon,” he murmured into my hair as we kissed goodbye at the front door. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he added, and then he walked out into the night disappearing quickly into the blackness.

  A long moment passed, but I knew he would still hear me.