“Where is this attaché case?”
“A manlike beast attacked me on the way here and destroyed it.”
“So, the time has come,” he muttered, his eyes widening. “This is very grave, Ozzy, very grave indeed.”
“What’s going on, Professor?”
“The creature that attacked you is named Zarr. He is a Luxorg.”
“That thing? How do you know this? And how can my name be on an attaché case that was buried in prehistoric Africa?”
“The same reason why Mars is now dead, lad. It’s because of the Luxorgs.” The professor explained how the Luxorgs came and destroyed every living thing on its surface. They drained the planet of all her natural resources and reduced the red rock to a wasteland.
Thurgood’s eyes teared and his face winced in pain as he spoke of the Luxorgs. “They are vile creatures from beyond our galaxy,” he said. “The Luxorgs claim a planet only to decimate all life on it for sport. Now they want the lives on earth, and Zarr is their leader.”
“This is the same thing that attacked Ozzy?” said Milo.
“He is a cruel and single-minded creature, unyielding in his mission to destroy the human race. Once he is dead, all other Luxorgs will retreat from our solar system.”
“How do you know all this?” I said, grimacing from the pain in my wrist.
“Let me see your wound,” he said, ignoring my question. The professor gently took my hand into both of his and cradled it. I felt a weird tingling sensation that seemed to pass from his tender grip to my skin, the muscles in my hands, and then my very bones. Power surged through my entire body. I stared at my hand, disbelieving. The bandages had fallen away and the painful and bleeding gashes they once covered were reduced to tender pink scars.
“Thanks,” I said, dumbfounded. That sounded flat to my ears, but I couldn’t conjure the words to express my amazement and gratitude at what he’d just done.
“Don’t thank me,” he said. “I am the being who will crush your most cherished beliefs into dust.”
I heard Milo cough as he extinguished his cigarette.
“Prepare yourselves, for what I am to tell you is the brutal truth,” the professor said. He placed his old hands on my shoulders. “I tried to tell you during your trip to Africa, but you weren’t ready to hear it. The earth is alive, like you and me. She is our mother and created all life on our world. I’m sad to say our mother is slowly dying at Zarr’s hands. Bless her soul.”
“Earth has a soul?” It was a concept I’d never considered.
“Indeed, a worn and tattered one.”
“These Luxorgs don’t seem so likeable, Doc,” Milo said.
“They are wicked parasites.”
“So, what did Zarr do to the earth?” I wasn’t sure I was ready for the answer, but I couldn’t help but ask.
“Lads, this may be hard for you to accept.” The professor sighed as if the weight of worlds rested on his shoulders. “Two million years ago, Zarr invaded the mother. Our earth burned and shook that day and much life was lost. However, many species survived, including the hominids, which could be a threat to him and the other Luxorgs.”
“How did this Zarr respond to the hominid threat?” Milo said.
“Zarr savagely raped thousands of the young hominid females just for fun. He injected your distant ancestors with his perverse genes. Zarr altered their DNA, eventually polluting the entire gene pool.” Thurgood paused. I could see by his scowl, he was disappointed in the look of disbelief projecting from Milo’s face.
I tried to be more receptive to the news, although the tale seemed like something right out of a B-grade sci-fi flick.
“So what happened to them?” I asked.
“The Earth Mother molded and evolved them into vicious and intelligent creatures.”
“What kind of creatures?”
“Human beings.”
“Get the hell out of here, Doc,” Milo said. It was clear he didn’t buy the story.
“I’m afraid Zarr is the father of all humanity.”
I somehow knew he spoke the truth.
Milo lit another Marlboro and looked up at the giant globe. “Ozzy, do you believe him?” He turned and gazed at Thurgood. “Doc, I think you need to either take some really good drugs or quit the shit you’re on!” He took a deep drag on his cigarette. Its fiery head burned as bright as Thurgood’s flickering opal eyes.
“You doubt me, Mr. Moss? I am a son of Mother Earth. I assumed this form ages ago—I am eternal. I am immortal!”
“Yeah, right,” replied Milo.
Thurgood pulled out a sharp, shiny knife from underneath his coat in freakish slow motion.
“Wait a minute, Doc, there’s no need for violence,” warned Ozzy.
The professor brought the blade up to his face. He smiled as he sliced a gaping hole across his throat. We stood there, spellbound. A jet of hot blood spurted outward toward us. Milo shrieked and his blood-speckled Marlboro fell from his mouth. It hit the white marble floor the same instant Thurgood did. And our reality seemed to close in around us, drawing our world tight.
I will never forget the sight of the deep, rich blood exploring the bright white marble floor. But suddenly the expanding puddle stopped and then retracted into Thurgood’s pale, immobile body. The great wound closed up and disappeared. Thurgood’s eyelids blinked, and then he opened them wide. He looked at Milo as I cautiously helped him to his feet. It took the old man a moment to speak.
“I’m disappointed in you, Mr. Moss.”
“He’s as good as new!” Milo proclaimed.
“We believe you,” I said, hoping to reassure him.
“All humanity is doomed if Zarr isn’t destroyed, Mr. Crevaliz.” Thurgood closed his worn eyes. “The Earth Mother has felt Zarr in Central Park. Find him. You must be careful whenever you’re outside. He sends the storms of rain and snow. They are his eyes, his ears. Do not speak of him. Keep your teeth together!”
The specter of uncertainty haunted my mind. Confusion filled my thoughts. I felt like one of those characters in a Stephen King novel, suddenly caught up in something you can’t understand and waiting for the monster to come after you.
Central Park at night can be a deadly place. By eleven thirty, the air had turned much colder than earlier in the day. The snow had gotten deeper as fear spread inside me. Milo followed tentatively a step behind. We had been searching for an hour when we came upon a hill near the pond just north of the zoo.
Milo stopped. “There’s something down there,” he said.
I pointed my flashlight onto a dense group of bushes and trees. As I panned my flashlight slowly, the small red reflection of Zarr’s eyes stared back at us.
“That’s him!” Milo gasped. He took a drag from his cigarette and threw it into the snow.
We slowly walked down the hill into the darkness of the dense thicket. Soon the path came to a fork. I took the left path. Milo treaded along the other. Quietly, I searched alone. The frozen bushes and trees stood tall in the cold night, collecting snow. They seemed to surround me. I became more anxious with each deep footprint in the deep snow. I heard a crackle of electricity and saw bright blue flash of light through the thicket of branches. Moments later, I heard Milo yell for me. I could hear his footsteps crunching the fresh snow and I ran toward him.
“Milo, where are you?” I yelled.
I saw him running toward me. Somehow, he had an undamaged, pristine attaché case in his hands.
“Run, Ozzy, he’s coming!”
I didn’t see Zarr, but I ran anyway.
Milo was a step behind me. “Take it,” he wheezed as he handed me the attaché case. “I can’t run anymore. Head toward Fifth Avenue. I’ll meet up with you later.” His eyes told me otherwise.
“I won’t leave you,” I said. I slung him over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “Take my gun!” I tried to run for my life, though in truth I couldn’t manage more than a clumsy lumbering. Milo started shooting. The shots rang in my
head. I stumbled toward the orange glow of the street, not stopping until we reached a subway station.
Milo climbed off of me and together we scurried down the icy steps. I fell once, my buttocks bumping down part of the way. There’d be bruising there tomorrow, I had no doubt. If I had a tomorrow.
We caught the uptown 4 train, dashing off into the labyrinth of tunnels cut out of old bedrock and Manhattan schist. Milo looked different. His hair had changed to a chestnut brown and it was shorter, his body language now displayed purpose not fear, and he looked older.
“Thanks for not leaving back there,” he said.
“Hey, I wouldn’t leave you to die. Friendship is forever.” I glanced at our booty. This inconspicuous attaché case in a crowded train in the middle of the night had caused us so much trouble. “I saw Zarr destroy this case. How can this be?”
“Dude, we’ve been enlightened to the age-old questions of the creation and the purpose of humanity. Let’s get back to Doc’s house. He’ll know the answer.”
I looked at him and smiled. He was a weird one, my friend. “You always seem to clear the fog from my thoughts.”
When we departed the train at the 86th Street station, we could hear the angry howl of the wind. We proceeded through the freezing subway station with caution, and then climbed a multitude of urine-stained steps until Milo suddenly cried out, “Oh shit, it’s a blizzard!”
I saw the thick waves of anger-driven snow sticking to all it touched. Zarr still searched for us. We turned around and hurried back down the steps.
“Go find something to cover the case,” I said.
Milo searched the littered station. He returned with a black plastic trash bag.
“Perfect,” I said, hoping it really was. We covered it the best we could and ascended the stairs once again. “Cover up and remember, teeth together!” I wondered what dilemma would happen next.
Shivering and silent, we slogged against the relentless storm. Every step we pushed forward tested our wills. My face felt frozen, and there was ice in my eyelashes.
We arrived at Professor Thurgood’s house. He met us in the foyer, and before we could say anything he spoke with urgency. “I was worried, lads. Zarr searches for the attaché case as we breathe. Our time here is fleeting.” Quietly, we followed him down to the giant globe room.
“Professor,” I said, “how can this attaché case be undamaged, and why is it important to Zarr?”
“Your attaché case is a time device. It will allow you to cut through the fabric of spacetime.”
“How does it work?” I ran my hand over it, the memory of seeing it ripped apart and crushed still fresh in my head.
Milo answered me in a firm and friendly tone. “It works by bending spacetime. Given a certain configuration of matter, the actual spacetime fabric of the universe can be altered and a time bubble is created.”
“You will be able to travel anywhere, to any time,” Thurgood said.
I was beyond disbelief and had no more energy for doubt. I accepted them both at their word, yet I paused to think for a moment, considering an idea.
“Professor, I could go back and stop Zarr.”
“You could do much more, lad.”
“Wait a second. This creates a time paradox. If we destroy Zarr, won’t we erase our own existence?”
Professor Thurgood raised his voice. “You have been betrayed by your ignorance, Mr. Crevaliz. Such ends are not yet written.”
I began to understand and raised the attaché case. “I want to open it. Does the finger print scanner unlock the case?”
“Good powers of deduction,” Thurgood responded.
I placed the source of my determination onto a small table carved from solid granite, feeling like I was opening gifts on Christmas morning. I placed the middle finger of my right hand on the scanner. The magnetic lock disengaged and the case sprang open.
“Wow! Look at all of that sweet technology!” Milo laughed with glee. “Whoever created this is a genius.” He gazed at the friendly green and blue buttons beside a hand-shaped sensor. The display screen remained dark and silent. Milo fiddled with some buttons and a small panel opened. Thin curved metal rods popped out and unfolded into a working gyroscope. The entire case began to hum.
Anxiously, I joined him at the control panel and placed my left hand in the aptly shaped sensor. Red and green lights flickered to life. The display screen came alive with an array of split prism colors. Today’s date lit up on a panel. To my delight, a friendly female voice spoke to me.
“Hello, Mr. Crevaliz. What destination, please?”
I knew it was silly, but I liked the fact that the phrase rhymed. Suddenly, we heard a loud crash from high above. Professor Thurgood jumped up and sniffed the air. He grabbed us both.
“Zarr is here, lads. We must leave.”
A long, painful, angry howl echoed throughout the vastness of the domed room.
“Where are we going?” I said. Were we really going to travel through time?
Thurgood glanced at me with urgency. “We must go to where this all started.”
I understood what he meant, but had no idea how this was going to happen.
“Hello, Mr. Crevaliz. What destination, please?”
“Northern Tanzania,” Milo said. “Two million years ago!” He flashed a confident smile.
“Destination confirmed,” the device replied. Zarr’s incessant howl grew louder.
“Wait,” the professor said. “I cannot leave Zarr to run amok in my home. We must find him.”
Each of us scanned different areas of the room, looking for Zarr.
“Do you see where he is?” Milo asked.
“There!” Thurgood said, pointing aloft. “He’s placing some type of device onto the main cables that hold up the globe. I fear it may be some type of explosive device.”
Zarr leapt from atop the enormous globe and crushed a chunk of the marble floor where he landed. He stood underneath the enormous globe urging us for a fight.
“Milo, hand me my gun.” I asked. He reached into his bag and complied. Thurgood flashed me a look of stern derision. “I have an idea,” I added.
I dashed into the tree elevator and ascended to the top floor of the domed room. When the doors slid open, I rushed down a catwalk to the edge of a platform overlooking the room. My eyes found what I was looking for. I aimed my revolver at the bolts that anchored a thick, compressed cable attached to the faux world. I emptied the gun of its deadly fruit, but amid the sparks and smoke, I soon realized this to be a fruitless effort.
I strained my eyes and saw the bomb. To my horror it had a timer. “Holy shit!” I ran back to the tree elevator and joined my friends in the standoff below.
“Zarr knew the human would lead me here, old fool,” the beast said.
“Foolish wretch,” Thurgood replied loudly. “It is I who has led you here!” From his hands, Thurgood shot beams of amber light at Zarr. Again and again he shot the beams into his nemesis. Zarr became smothered in a sticky sap, which held him at bay, trapping him underneath the giant hanging globe.
“Zarr shall cut you open and bathe in your blood.”
“Professor, we have thirty seconds left. We need to kill Zarr and leave.”
“No, we must destroy the Zarr from two million years ago,” Thurgood said. “Come with me. The time device is set.” He locked eyes with me. “Leave the gun here.”
I complied with his wish and took position in front of the time device, placing my hand in the hand sensor. The warm voice echoed in the vast room.
“Destination confirmed.”
I became scared—the bomb would explode any second. “How I do I make it work?”
“Ozzy, I think you just need to tell it to proceed,” Milo replied.
“Do it,” I said.
The spinning gyroscope created a growing field of energy. A crackle of blue and red lightning surrounded us. We were soon enveloped in a whirling ball of colored light within a time bubble.
We heard the bomb explode and saw a flash of light. The bomb destroyed everything Thurgood had built. We were unaffected, however, and I now sensed the lonely silence of the universe as we rode the lightning into the past. When the lightning dissipated, I felt a chill from the clean, crisp wind of Tanzania. The three of us stood in a boggy marsh. I gave the time device to Thurgood to hold and clambered onto dry land.
I felt safe for now. I shouldn’t have.
“We must find him,” Thurgood said as he joined me.
My eyes scanned the grassy landscape and a nearby lake. A stand of trees blocked the horizon to our right. We searched the area, using the tall grass to keep ourselves out of sight.
“This is definitely the place and time. Look there,” Thurgood said, pointing to the other side of the lake.
My attention quickly focused on three screaming hominid males of the type that scientists would later call Australopithecus. I was both terrified and fascinated at making this discovery. We made our way around the lake to get a closer look.
Each hominid was covered in a layer of bristly hair and had an apelike face. Underneath the large, extended brow sat two forward-facing, very human-looking eyes. The hominids were running toward the lake and carrying wooden spears. Suddenly they stopped and raised their spears in defense. Zarr stood at the shoreline. They let out a series of grunts and intimidation calls to deter their foe. They threw their spears, but the beast easily swatted the primitive projectiles away. The hominids retreated, yelling in fear. Zarr bolted from the water’s edge and grabbed one of them.
Without effort, Zarr ripped off the creature’s head and tossed it away like one of Milo’s finished Marlboros. The other terrified hominids scattered and Zarr chased them into the trees and out of our sight.
“This way. Follow me,” I said.
“We must kill him before he finds the females,” Thurgood yelled.
We trudged through the thick muddy landscape toward the trees. Puddles of blood lay on the ground. I knew we were getting closer and soon heard terrible screams.
“What’s that?” I said and ran to a clearing. I saw him. His eyes were on fire as he beat and kicked a small female. “Give me that knife of yours, Professor.” He handed it over without trepidation. “Milo,” I added, “let’s finish this.”
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