Charger the Soldier (12 page)

The professor seemed shaken by the response.
"I never would have guessed you for a priest. You're so Rambo."

Ben responded quickly, "Well, I never would
have pegged you for a professor. Your actions were less than
intelligent when you got us stuck in this closet. I thought hiding
in the vault of the abandoned bank across the street wiser; it has
a better door."

After an awkward silence, Ben relaxed a bit
and asked, "What about you? I know you're a professor, but a
professor of what?"

"I'm a retired professor now, but in my day I
was a member of an elite American academy of advisors to the
president. My specialties were astrophysics and math. But these
days I occupy my time on an archaeological dig site." Shuffling his
feet against the base of the splintered closet door, he continued.
"My students and I are rediscovering an ancient site in Turkey,
called Gobekli Tepe."

"Never heard of the place," Ben said.

"Good, then we can be civil to each other.
The church is not happy with my efforts to dig up this old site." A
broad smile lit the old man's heavily lined face.

"Well, I'm sure the church has its reasons
for not liking you. God knows I'm not fond of you right now
myself," Ben said, with an equally broad smile. "But seriously, why
should the church care what you do in your retirement?" He rubbed
his back gently.

"It seems that after the site was built, it
was deliberately buried. A few years back, a group from the
University of Chicago began digging it up and was stopped by the
church, which had the place again reburied. Then I found intriguing
references to the site in some old papers and got permission from
the Turkish government to dig it up yet again."

Ben found this interesting. "So why would the
church insist that the site remain buried? Did you ever get an
answer from the Diocese?"

"Actually I got a letter directly from the
pope, with only a simple message, 'Stop at once. You know not what
you do.' Curious that they seem to think they know more about this
site than archaeology can teach us, don't you think?"

With the continuing gunfire becoming fainter,
Ben thought that the silence outside the closet might mean that the
aliens were preoccupied with a new fight. Now might be a good time
to find another place to hide. Standing up and peering out the
broken door, Ben said. "Get up; let's move! If we hurry, we might
be able to get out of this building and hook up with the guys who
have the guns."

"Good," the professor said. "Then we need to
get to the military. With their help, and my knowledge of what can
save us all, we stand a fighting chance."

Not waiting, the professor stood up, stepped
past Ben out into the hallway, and almost into the arms of a
waiting alien. The creature raised one appendage holding what
appeared to be a weapon and fired a razor-sharp spike, with barbs
along the edges, straight into the chest of the old professor.

He screamed and collapsed. The alien's
peculiar semi-transparent form bent to inspect the professor's
body, then straightened. Suddenly Ben realized the alien was
refocusing its weapon at him.

Ben drew some incredible luck. He turned back
to grab a mop handle he thought might make a good weapon. At that
same moment, the alien leapt full force toward Ben and, missing him
by just inches, blew past and struck the electrical wall panel.
Sparks shot everywhere. The alien seemed to have merged with the
panel; liquid spilled to the floor. The hard portion was receiving
the full electrical current, frying like bacon on a grill until it
fell to the floor. There it lay, quite still.

Ben turned from the alien to find the
professor choking on his own blood. He knelt beside the dying man
and began praying for his soul.

"Frequency in hertz 823.43 from Stonehenge,"
moaned the professor.

"What are you saying?" asked Ben.

"The answer… 823…"

The professor's body jerked once and it was
over. He was dead.

Ben held the professor for a few minutes.
They had become friends in their short time together. They had
shared a plane ride from hell in an attempt to escape the chaos,
got trapped in a closet and now, after being terrorized, the
professor was gone, and Ben was once again in the company of the
church's old nemesis, death. Yet he was not alone, for the alien
was now rising behind the mourning man.

Ben sensed the alien stirring, jumped to his
feet, and ran for the exit. Outside, in the intense sunlight, Ben
shaded his eyes and looked toward the noise of gunfire just down
the street. A pretty young girl caught his gaze. She seemed so out
of place, blasting continuously with a large shotgun at an
advancing alien. The thing bearing down on her appeared to be
passing solid mass through liquid as the impact of the shotgun
rounds sheared fragments off its body. Yet still the alien advanced
on her.

She was yelling, but Ben couldn't hear the
words over the noise of the guns. Straining to see, he could just
make out the figure of another young girl who was shooting at
several aliens moving rapidly toward her. Ben realized that it was
the sound of these guns that had drawn the aliens from the closet
where he and the professor had been hiding. Across the road was the
bank he first considered as a hiding place. More importantly, there
was the bank's armored truck. Ben raced to the truck, pulled out
the dead body of the driver, climbed in, and started the
engine.

Roaring full speed down the road, Ben sent
the truck smashing into the closest alien.

The impact slowed the truck, but tore the
hard portion of the alien's body away from the liquid part, as it
disappeared under the front of the vehicle.

The young girl jumped into the cab. Several
hard rods smashed in through the back of the truck, just missing
the two occupants. Ben floored the gas pedal and the truck lurched
forward.

Aliens had surrounded the second young girl.
As they turned toward the truck, Ben crashed headlong into the
mass, again scattering alien bodies which splattered into fragments
both liquid and solid. The second girl threw herself into the cab,
and Ben drove on, aiming for the military base he hoped was close
by.

"D
anny Opinhimmer isn't the smartest guy that ever
lived," Suzie said to her girlfriend. "I used to think maybe he was
a little handicapped, but the day he spoke, I mean really spoke to
me, it was like someone else had crawled inside his head and took
over."

Bambi knew that Suzie loved Danny with all
her heart, for she only ever talked about him. Didn't matter what
subject came up; all her conversations revolved right back to
Danny.

"I thought he was going to be just another
useless boyfriend." Suzie checked the bathroom mirror and added a
bit more lip gloss. "I've seen them come and seen them go, but
Danny is different."

Both girls had spent way too long in the
bathroom, Danny thought. He could imagine what a vast network of
gossip was being transmitted to all parts of the reservation from
inside that barroom can. It never failed; everyone seemed to know
what was happening in his relationship with Suzie before he
did.

As the two girls returned to the booth where
the three had been drinking beer, they took no notice of the
silence that had fallen over the bar. The girls just kept chatting
until Danny finally turned to them and said, "What the hell, man!
Can't you see what's happening on the tube?" The girls turned their
attention to the TV.

"To repeat," the newsman said, "we ask that
everyone remain calm, and stay indoors. Both the military and
police are using the roads as access to the areas of these
explosions. Please stay off the streets to help emergency vehicles
and services. As soon as we get more information, we will be
letting the public know where the explosions are taking place." The
newsman's confused expression made it obvious that he really had no
idea what was happening.

"You hear that? Sounds like huge parts of the
white man's world are blowing up," Danny said, with a smirk. "Guess
there really is a god." Then he started laughing.

"Shut the hell up, Danny, people are hurt,"
Suzie said, scowling. "Geez, sometimes you're such a freakin'
idiot!"

Looking down at his half empty beer mug,
Danny said, "Was just a joke…fuck."

"That's right," Suzie said. "Everything's
always just a big joke to you, isn't it?"

The TV became the focus of their beer
drinking. As the night wore on, it became clear with each news
update that something was going very wrong out there beyond the dim
lights of the bar, beyond the reservation, beyond the world they
knew.

Then everything just stopped. No TV, no
phones, no radio, no sound at all. For a moment the bar was dead
silent, then the questions began.

"What's happening?"

"What the fuck?"

"Is the world coming to an end?"

Danny turned to the two girls and said,
"Maybe we should head back home. Seems whitie has spoiled the night
yet again." Both Bambi and Suzie chewed out Danny as they picked up
their stuff and headed for the truck.

As morning brightened the horizon, Danny's
friend, Bobby Running Bear, burst into Danny's house. Bobby was so
thin that Danny sometimes said you could just spread maple syrup on
him and have him for breakfast. Suzie scrambled for some
clothes.

"Did you hear? Did ya? It's a goddam alien
invasion!" Bobby sounded hysterical, though he was staring intently
at Suzie's half-naked body. "The whole damn world's on fire and
Emma says her sister in Maine saw the whole goddam thing. Just
before the power went down, Emma's sister said she saw army trucks
and soldiers shooting at something, and there were tons of
explosions and houses on fire and, shit, man! It's aliens, real
fucking aliens!"

"What the hell, man? Like Mexicans or
something?" Danny asked as he fumbled for his pants.

"No! Listen to me, Danny. I mean, like real
aliens, like space aliens, like fucking aliens from Mars!" Bobby
grabbed Danny by the shoulders and shook him.

"Get off me, man," Danny spat. "What the
hell? You on crack or something?"

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion
while Bobby frantically waved his skinny arms and Danny and Suzie
tried to take in what he was saying. After they moved to the
kitchen, Bambi came in and looked at them sitting around the table.
"What's all the yelling about?" she asked as she rubbed the sleep
from her round face.

"That's it, man," Bobby said. "We got to get
the hell out of here, go to the hills and hide." His gaze shifted
to Bambi. "And start repopulating Earth."

"Yeah, like that will ever happen, you
pimple-face dweeb," Bambi said as she stared right back into
Bobby's eyes.

"No, wait, Bobby's right," Danny said. "We
got to get to the hills. My dad showed me an old cave out there
once. We can hide out in the cave till we know what's really
happening."

Bambi seemed about as impressed with Danny as
she was with Bobby, but after a little more argument, the move to
the hills was what they decided to do.

As they loaded gear into the back of the
truck, Bambi asked, "Should we tell our folks where we're
going?"

Bobby replied, "Do you even know where your
folks are?"

"I guess not," Bambi responded sadly.

Danny knew where his folks were. In the
graveyard. His uncle was still around, but he was over in Turkey
somewhere, digging history out of the ground. The old guy had done
research on aliens, too, and maybe he'd know what was going down.
But he was too far away to do them any good right now.

Danny's friends had had a rough upbringing in
the deserts of Arizona. Set apart from the town communities, they
mostly spent their days watching television or playing video games
online. Gaming was good for Danny, for it gave him the chance to be
with people who did not judge him by the color of his skin. He
liked online combat games and they liked him. He was often the
leader of small groups of gamers who battled monsters or
evil-doers, spending hours honing and sharpening strategies that
would be the envy of most military colleges.

The drive up into the hills to the caves had
Bobby really revved up. He sat with Bambi on his lap, and every
rough bump was heaven for him.

"Down, boy," Bambi chided. "Remember the
aliens. That's the only reason I would ever ride anywhere with
you."

Nothing could deflate Bobby's ego at that
moment. They made the caves by midday, set up camp in a dark area
deep inside, and built a small fire. There they sat, eating
homemade bannock and beef jerky the girls had brought. As night
fell, Danny and Bobby went out into the darkness and climbed to the
top of the hill. They could see the town's faint lights off in the
distance.

The air felt thick and heavy, as though all
Earth's cool breezes had gone stale. The starry sky was slowly and
relentlessly turning black, and the hairs on Danny's arms were now
standing up straight. Suddenly, a bluish blaze of light, followed
by an intense white beam, streaked down from the clouds and slammed
into the small town on the horizon. The two heard a faint puff,
then a moment later were knocked flat on their backs from the
stunning impact of air hitting them square in the chest. Scrambling
back to their feet, they saw that the town was gone. Now a dark
rolling cloud containing arcs of wicked light was striking outward
in all directions.

"Shit, that's coming toward us," gasped Danny
as he yanked on Bobby's shirt. They both scurried back down the
hill to the cave. They raced along the tunnels and, when they
reached the girls, yelled, "Hide, hide!" and kicked sand onto the
fire.