Secret of Mars

by Eric Johnson

  The lizardman dragged them and sounded an alarm. Tom thrust his leg at the lizardman, aiming for a soft spot. Emmett kicked at his shin. The lizardman cried for help. They broke free and retreated back into the cave.

  An explosion rocked the cave and dust rolled up the tube over them. Coughing, Emmett said, “We’re in trouble now. They’re shooting at us.”

  “I think they’re sealing us in here.” Another explosion sounded and the dust became so thick it was hard to breathe.

  “Oh no, a light.”

  “They’re not sealing us in, they’re using their guns to open up the cave and get us.”

  Three explosions shook the cave in rapid succession.

  Tom choked, “Move back, go back.”

  Five more explosions rattled them as they crawled up the cave passage. Rocks bounced off their backs, gravel and sand got into their eyes.

  Emmett stopped at the edge of the bottomless pit. “If they keep shooting, we will have to go back up.”

  Anidea called from a ledge high up in the shaft. “Here! Winston is with me.”

  “I don’t think I can climb up carrying the bomb,” Tom said. “I’m not leaving it.”

  “We don’t even know if it works,” Emmett said.

  “I have to find out. It’s the only thing that we have to use against the lizardmen.”

  “If I had time, I could figure it out.”

  Two more explosions rumbled down the passage behind them. Tom moved toward their attackers. “I’ll get you the time.”

  “What are you doing, Tom?”

  “When they get close, I want you to charge a couple of those crystals and throw them at the lizardmen. That’s when I’ll strike. With luck I can get one of their guns and take them out.”

  “That’s insane.”

  Another explosion knocked them to the ground. “What choice do we have? They must be close now, start charging the crystals.”

  Rocks tumbled down on top of them. Emmett popped the case open. “I only have two crystals. You’d better get this right.”

  The crystals glowed and grew hot in Emmett’s hands, he bounced them back and forth like hot potatoes.

  The tunnel shook again. “The cave is collapsing in on us, we have to do it now,” he said.

  The lizardmen advanced rapidly. One shouted, “We see your light. You have nowhere to run. Give up.”

  “Throw them now!” Tom said.

  Emmett grunted and threw the charged crystals as hard as he could. They exploded at the lizardmen’s feet.

  Tom moved swiftly, keeping low to tackle their legs.

  The walls and ceiling caved in, pinning his leg.

  The lizardmen reeled from the crystal flash.

  Before his eyes slime spurted out from a fissure in the ceiling, washing over the rocks towards the fleeing lizardmen.

  With a rumble the ceiling burst open and a giant worm crashed into the cave, followed by a wake of slime and smaller worms.

  The lizardmen’s attack had penetrated its rocky nest. To Tom’s lizard eyes it looked mad. Its flesh undulated, and then it recoiled and sprung like a slinky toward the retreating lizardmen.

  “Emmett,” Tom called. “Are you okay? Help me, my leg is stuck.”

  Dragging the nuke with him, Emmett emerged from the dust cloud. “You look beat up.”

  “Get this rock off my leg,” Tom said as hungry little worms crawled toward him. “I really don’t want these worms eating me.”

  Emmett lifted the rock, rolling it away. “What happened?”

  Tom pried a gun from the hand of a dead lizardman and wiped the slime away. “Didn’t you see? One of those giant worms fell from the ceiling and went after the lizardmen. They dropped their guns.”

  “Yeah, dropped. Fell like stones. I guess your plan worked.”

  “No time to talk, we have to get Anidea and Winston down here.”

  At the mouth of the newly enlarged passage the worm lay still. “It’s blocking the exit,” Emmett said, “It smells sweet and sweaty like when we were outside the spaceship at school. They must have used worm scent to attract the creatures.”

  “The worm’s not moving,” Tom said. “It must be dead. We’ll have to crawl through that gap to get out.”

  They peered out from between the rock and the worm; lizardmen stood guard.

  “We can’t see them all.”

  “Get ready to fire. They must think we are dead.”

  “Wait,” Emmett said, “if they think we are dead that’s good. We can see what’s at the end of the map.”

  “I’m not backing down. We need to end this,” Tom said.

  “Now you’re acting like Winston.”

  “Do you think that it’s such a bad idea? Because I don’t. Since when have you cared about being cautious?”

  “I haven’t,” Emmett said, “but just for a change we don’t have to run with what we have. We’re not being forced and we have choices. This is an opportunity to make a better plan.”

  “The only plan we need here is to not get killed. Is that a problem?”

  Tom opened fire. The lizardmen on the edge of the group scattered and the ones in the middle melted, “Move. They are running.”

  They squeezed past the worm out on to the balcony. Lizardmen had taken up position down below.

  “Surrender!” A lizardman called up to Tom and Emmett.

  Tom returned his answer in a beam of purple fire, disintegrating rock and lizard until the lizardmen returned fire forcing him to retreat back into the cave.

  “This isn’t working.” Emmett said. “What are we going to do?”

  Dust and debris flew up in the air, the walls around them disintegrated and plants vaporized. Winston and Anidea appeared crawling from the back of the tunnel.

  “Anidea, take the bomb,” Tom ordered. “We shoot everything and I mean everything, that should keep them off us. We have nothing to lose.”

  Tom charged out of the cave and down the hill, shooting wildly with the trio on his heels. The lizardmen were driven back into buildings and out of range.

  “I still don’t know how the bomb works,” Emmett said.

  “We can’t stop now. How much further?”

  “200, maybe 300 feet. The map has a mark on that building at the end of this street.

  Disrespectful Children

  Fanged creatures orbited ornamental ponds with flowering plants, and bathed in their waters at each corner on the street. The air smelled like dank soy sauce and tasted like dandelion milk. Unharried they moved onto their target.

  “This is better than being stuffed in a cave with a bunch of slime-spitting carnivorous worms,” Anidea said.

  Near the building they crouched behind a half wall. “There are no lizardmen guarding the entrance. We’re in luck,” Winston said.

  “It’s a trap. Has to be a trap,” Winston said.

  “They are hiding,” Emmett added.

  “We can’t just walk in there,” Anidea said.

  “Well, we are.” Tom moved. “I’ll shoot left, Winston take the right. We’ll go as fast as we can.”

  “They’ll shoot us,” Winston said.

  “No, they won’t. They want me alive, remember,” Emmett pointed out. “We’ll stay huddled together, they won’t risk it.”

  “We still don’t know what’s in there,” Anidea said.

  “See how the side of the building has been ground down,” Emmett said. “That tells me all I need to know. It was human and they destroyed it to hide the truth from their people. That they weren’t the first here.”

  Through the door they entered a long hallway that went left and right. It was lined with benches and small recesses that held statues. Strange creatures were depicted under the feet of triumphant humans.

  “Doors.” Tom pushed.

  In the middle of the room, a statue was bathed in blue light. Its arms were outstretched and its head pointed upward.

  “A statue?” Anidea asked. “Now what, genius? If you listen
ed to me in the first place. We wouldn’t be here.”

  Winston limp-hopped to the center of the room; there was still blood dripping from his leg but it had slowed down. “It can’t be just a statue. There has to be something. The map brought us here.”

  Tom hung his head down and reached out to touch the statue. “I don’t know what to do next. I have no more plans.”

  “You promised to get us home,” Winston said.

  “We have a problem,” Emmett added.

  “What?”

  Lizardmen burst into the room. “Disrespectful children. You thought you could escape.”

  “I should have known,” Tom said.

  The lizardmen spread out from the doorway as they came in with their weapons drawn.

  “I don’t think we can shoot our way out of this one,” Anidea said.

  “Now is the time to figure out how the bomb works. Get on it, Emmett,” Tom said.

  Emmett opened the case.

  “Go on, kill us!” Tom yelled to the lizardmen.

  “We have no intention of killing you. Your flesh will be consumed and your knowledge will live on in us.”

  Tom fired at the lizardmen. “I don’t think so!”

  The lizardman in the lead vaporized, the rest scattered and retreated back through the door. Anidea, Winston and Emmett crouched behind the statue.

  “Run, you stupid lizards,” Anidea said with satisfaction.

  Tom fired wildly, disintegrating the entrance way. “They aren’t firing back. Kill them all.”

  Emmett opened the case and inserted the key. “Code card. I need the code card. We don’t have it.”

  “What’s that, Scaleface?” Anidea pointed to a hard plastic-covered card in the case pouch. “For someone so smart, you’re really stupid.”

  He typed the code in. “That’s it! How long should I set it for?”

  Tom positioned himself to fry the first Lizardman who came through the door. “Three minutes.”

  “They’ll come in here sooner or later.”

  “They don’t know we have the bomb.”

  Emmett positioned the case at the base of the statue to give it cover. “Okay, set.”

  “Listen up, lizards,” Tom yelled. “We have an Earth bomb. One that will destroy the whole city.”

  A lizardman appeared from around the door and stepped into the room. It was the leader. “A bomb? You don’t want to detonate it. You’ll never see your father again if you do. This is your only way home.”

  “How can you know about my dad, that’s not possible.”

  “Believe me, food animal, it is. A garage door came to mind when I tasted your blood. I don’t know what it means, but it caused you much distress.”

  “Why is this room so special? Tell me now.”

  “You don’t know?” the leader said. “Look around you. What do the pictographs on the walls tell you? Don’t you feel your ancestry or are you too primitive?”

  “This isn’t a school field trip, tell me.”

  “You will have no way of returning to your home if you destroy this room.” The leader took a step forward. “Your transformation is near complete. Even if you made it back to your filthy, polluted planet, what will you do when you look like us?”

  Tom fired, vaporizing the leader. “I’ll figure that out later.”

  “Tom!” Anidea screamed.

  Lizardmen charged into the room, Tom fired, vaporizing the first to enter. Lizardman arms hooked around the doorway and fired. Their shots going wild, melting holes in the walls, ceiling and floor.

  Winston lay prone and fired, disintegrating the walls and exposing the lizardmen’s positions. “Ha! ha!” he cheered. “Die! Die!”

  The roof shook and large chunks of ceiling fell around them, giving them some much needed cover.

  “Two minutes.” Emmett held onto the statue for cover.

  The light around the statue widened and a console rose up next to it. “What did you do, Emmett?” Anidea asked.

  “I touched the statue, that’s all.”

  “Get us outta here,” Tom said.

  The statue exploded, debris hitting Emmett in the head, and collapsed across his chest, pinning him to the floor.

  “Emmett!” Anidea yelled.

  Tom ducked and weaved. “Make it work, Anidea.”

  “There’s nothing on it except for a hand print. My hand doesn’t fit.”

  “Winston, you do it.”

  “Neither does mine. Our fingers are grown together like the lizardmen’s. We need a human hand to make this work.”

  “Emmett’s hands haven’t changed, look,” Anidea said.

  The lizardmen retreated and Tom stopped firing. “My hand will fit.”

  “One minute to go, Tom,” Emmett said weakly. “This machine will send us back to earth. See the pictures on the console, they are like the drawings in the engine room of the spaceship. It’s what the lizardmen wanted to learn how to use and it’s why they needed us. With an open corridor to Earth they would have free access to anywhere on the planet. They could infect any area they wanted to, if not the whole planet. Then they would colonize.”

  Tom pulled Emmett free using all of his strength. “When I activate it, you have to enter into the portal.”

  “I’ll stay,” Emmett said. “My dad and mom are dead I have no reason to go back. What would my life possibly be like without them? I have no other family, I don’t want to live like that.”

  “We’re brothers, twins, two halves of one! If you’re not going back, then neither am I.”

  “No way,” Tom said, “I promised to get you home. I have to finish this so they won’t come back to Earth. We have to destroy the machine.”

  “What?” Anidea said. “You just can’t stay here. You’ll die!”

  “We don’t know if it will work, it’s probably too old,” Tom said. “And now that they know how to use the machine, we can’t let them have it. If they use our DNA to mutate themselves, they will be able to activate the portal.”

  Winston pulled Emmett to his feet.

  “Thirty seconds,” Emmett said.

  The room vibrated and ribbons of electricity danced in the air from a glowing ball in the ceiling. The beam of light projecting from floor intensified, and a portal of swirling black and purple opened.

  “Tom, you helped us,” Emmett said. “Now it is our turn to help you. Fifteen seconds left, no time to argue. Do you trust me?”

  But Tom took the initiative and pushed both twins through the portal. They grasped for him as they fell backward, trying to pull him with them.

  “What did you do?” Anidea said.

  “The right thing. Tell me why you stole the garage door?”

  She touched his cheek and stepped forward kiss him. “I thought that was obvious.”

  Tom smiled, and pushed her into the portal. Balls of electricity swirled around Anidea and her body disintegrated into the light. The Nuke’s timer counted down 3, 2, 1, then everything went black in a flash of light.

  *

  The world was a blur of color through their lizard eyes. Distance and shapes were indistinguishable, neither near nor far, round or square. It took a moment for their senses to come back. Tom and Anidea found themselves outside of the lizardmen’s spaceship on the schoolyard. Their bodies shivered from being pulled apart and reassembled.

  “No!” Tom screamed and fell to his knees. “I was supposed to stay.”

  Anidea threw her arms around Tom. “I knew you’d chicken out!”

  “I didn’t enter the portal. Something went wrong.”

  “Does it matter?”

  He searched the area. “Where are Winston and Emmett. Did they make it?”

  “I just got here, they couldn’t have gotten far.”

  “Emmett!” Tom called. “Winston!”

  “The spaceship?” Anidea stood rigid. “How is it possible it’s here when we went to Mars in it?”

  “Anidea, if I have learned anything through all of this; i
t is to accept that there are many things that are beyond our control.”

  “But we’re still lizards!”

  The rough breathing and moan of a creature came from behind a smashed ambulance. Tom pulled Anidea down to hide behind a melted slide. “Crap, they’re everywhere.”

  “Tom.” Anidea squeezed his arm, “Your tail just fell off.”

  “I don’t think we have to run. The lizardmen are immune to the virus.”

  Anidea pointed with her claw. “There’s your dad’s truck.”

  “There’s my dad!”

  “What’s he doing?”

  Tom broke into a run. “He’s leaving the note for me. I don’t know how, but we must have traveled back in time a few days. Follow me.”

  They ran across the destroyed schoolyard past crushed vehicles, burnt school books, test packets and the remnants of children eager to learn.

  “Dad! Dad!” Tom called. “Wait! It’s me, Tom!” But all he heard was the hissing of a lizardman, his eyes bulged and he ran.

  “We’re still lizards!” Anidea tried to stop him from chasing his dad. “He’s scared, we’re still lizards. What are we going to do now?”

  Tom smiled. “We are going to catch him.”

  “Then what?”

  Soldiers appeared from behind a school bus and fired their guns. Anidea pulled a dart from her neck. “I thought we were done?”

  A dart pierced Tom’s chest. “Run.” He turned, but fell.

  Together they collapsed and the soldiers surrounded them. Tom’s vision blurred, he could barely keep his eyes open.

  “They’re changing into humans,” a soldier spoke. “What should we do with them, sir?”

  A man in a lab coat stepped forward. “That’s because they are human. Take them to the facility. I’ll erase their memories and implant new ones. They will be relocated to California, everyone’s a crazy abductee there and if anything goes wrong no one will believe them. Oh, and get that man too, we can’t have him causing trouble.”

  “What will you make them think?”

  “This was all an unfortunate tornado. Global warming is taking its toll on the Earth. Yes, that’s it, an unfortunate tornado.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Continue the Adventure!

  Razor Point