Escape From Asylonia, page 4
part #1 of The New War Series
'Aw man, you’re kidding me,' he mumbled as he saw the display on his alarm clock through half-closed eyes. It was two thirty in the morning.
'Dammit,' he mumbled again.
Picking up where she had left off before David’s nightmare took over, his mother manifested herself in his brain, only now she was not the woman he had known growing up; broad without being outright fat, rigid in posture, always dressed in a knee-length dress and dark brown stockings, with a charm and finesse about her character reserved for everybody but David himself. Instead she was the way he had last seen her, as a slouch, pale-skinned woman in a white dressing gown, with unkempt blonde hair and a face full of confusion. What if she was out there? What if she had been wandering the marshes all this time, keeping herself hidden from him without really meaning to? What if whatever was out there had struck her down? As unlikely as it was, the idea both disturbed David and yet gave him hope.
Hauling his exhausted body upright, he stumbled towards the window and prized the curtains open. His eyes drifted to the streak of silvery Temüjin gunk stuck to the window like the secreted mucus of a snail’s trail. His mother’s image vanished just as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by the screaming jaws of a severed head flying towards the window. Beyond that window, beyond a mountain of fallen oak trees, a dark, muddy-green beam shot through crackling sheets of orange and ginger, waning against the backdrop of a pre-dawn sky.
'The hell?' David yawned.
Though his body took its sweet time to get a grip on the art of being awake, his mind was already racing away. Whatever it was he was looking at, he doubted that it had anything to do with the battles between the UEF and the Temüjin that sometimes spilled out onto the marshes. When the Temüjin attacked, a barrage of horror, gunfire, and bloodshed polluted the marshes for weeks.
There was none of that tonight. No terror in the air nor panic in the streets. No rattling of guns nor tremors of bombs. Nothing. Calm. An almost eerie tranquility upset only by the suspicious blaze and a distant projector beam.
David shut the curtains. Prodding at the cold flesh of his cheeks, a new idea struck him. Quickly, he fumbled his way into a pair of oversized black denim jeans and slipped a featureless, navy blue hooded top over his Superman t-shirt. Stamping his size eleven feet into camo-print boots, he lugged a canvas tool belt from the shelf above his computer station and fastened it snugly against the blubber of his waist.
Drawing a deep breath, David ran his fingers along the belt to ensure everything was in place.
Flashlight. Telephone. A black-handled, double-edged trench knife and a 21st century Phazzer Enforcer 4.5 million volt stun gun. Two photographs, one of his mother, the other of his father, both tucked into the side pocket. All present, correct and accounted for. Fighting his way into a black and red flannel jacket, David hopped out of the bedroom door with a nimbleness that defied his large frame.
He bounded along the pitch black corridor. The eyes of long departed family members followed him down the hall, their faces immortalised in faux gold picture frames hanging against copper coloured wallpaper. In his haste, David smacked his leg against the corner of an antique sideboard and sent a large photograph of Alan Attreus crashing to the floor. He hobbled down the stairs with a wince, then bustled through the front door, its dark brown paint peeling, and the number 41 hanging crookedly on the wall beside it.
David tugged his flannel jacket around him and hunched his shoulders upwards to protect his neck from the bitter chill. The light of the fire still danced in the air. Its allure tempted him closer, the sparkle and pop of flames calling out to him through the silence. As he stepped out into the country lane where earlier that day he had watched Michael Mobaus and his cronies sway and sing, David felt a sickening crunch beneath his boot. Grabbing the flashlight, he pushed it swiftly down to his feet and flung the crushed frog from his boot, watching it soar through the kaleidoscope of charcoals and bloodshot purples that dominated the early morning sky.
He used an upturned jetcar as a bridge to cross the messy stream of dingy water and stale blood running between the road and the lip of the marshes, almost fell in when climbing down again, steadied himself, and pushed on. All the while, he imagined himself in the role of General Fallon, a warrior savant on a critical mission to infiltrate the enemy camp, slay the Temüjin soldiers and rescue some noble member of the Royal Family.
Not for the first time, David hoped against hope that the real General Fallon would somehow appear before him, roused from his hiding place in order to help David on to victory. He imagined the two of them rescuing his mother before heading back to base, where they would pat one another on the back, and smoke enormous cigars like they did in the movies. The General would explain that he had been held captive by some hitherto unknown race of cyborgs for the past several years, and had escaped thanks to his sheer skill and cunning. In David’s fantasy, he and Noah would go on to form the greatest team known to all history, a deadly duo feared by their enemies and revered by their allies. They would kick ass, rid the universe from all evil, and restore peace.
Captivated by his own imagination, David failed to spot the jumbled hoard of fallen oak trees drawing closer in his path. Lumps of rotted oak crumbled underfoot as he fell into it, his bulk breaking several branches which burst into gnarled splinters and scratched neat cuts beneath his right eye and around his mouth. He licked the blood into his mouth and spat it out again, the metallic taste sending a cold chill through his spine and shoulders as he moved over the oak mountain on all fours.
Reaching the other side, David was greeted by the disembodied wing of a United Earth Force Salvage Ship. It stood bold in defeat, adorned in a cloak of reds and yellows.
There was something else too, something his heart instinctively knew was a thousand times worse, but which was hidden from view by a loose pyramid of rocks, and gravel, and soiled wood. Afraid and yet feeling more alive than he could ever remember, David put one foot forward to climb over the rocks.
A single stone gave way, taking his feet out from under him and then jabbing at his coxis as he landed on it. Rivulets of dull pain trickled across his spine from the central point where the edge of the stone grated against his bones. Ignoring this as best he could, David tried to stand. Again he slipped and landed on the stone, the rivulets expanding into flowing streams, carrying their misery down to his buttocks and up to his shoulders. Taking their cue from the murderous stone, more gave way beneath David. He toppled awkwardly down the bank of rocks like they were a playground slide, until the ground took his weight, backside first.
Regaining his composure, David padded at his flannel jacket with open palms and stepped forward with caution, reaching once more for his flashlight and waving it in the area surrounding the mysterious fire. He was drawn to the discarded salvage ship wing, and followed its torn edge to the point where it sliced into the earth as though somebody had planted it there on purpose. Like a flag, David thought in the second before the taste of vomit filled his mouth. The mangled corpse of Patrol Sergeant Hogan Ferris looked up at him through ruptured eyeballs hanging out of their sockets by the optical nerves. David looked into the dead man’s eyes and gagged. He distracted himself, watching a giddy flame cavorting at the bent lips of a Slayer Rifle, which rested on the shattered bone of a Temüjin hand.
David chucked his flannel jacket to the ground and drove the side of his boot into the severed appendage, sending it back over the ruins of the stone pyramid until it was out of his sight.
An avalanche of rain washed the blood across his frigid cheeks, painting him a crimson mask as he tottered backwards, feet slipping on the wet ground, and collapsed against the remains of a United Earth Force F-19 Gen-X Thunder Fighter Security Ship. Angry blasts of cold wind and rain began to soothe the flames. The smell of charred flesh and splattered organs baking in the heat riled his nostrils. A cocktail of smoke and grievance flushed tears from his eyes.
A low, involuntary grunt pursed his blood-spattered lips and rumbled at the back of his throat. David shook his head, slapping the sleeve of his hooded top against his cheeks to wipe away both tears and blood.
'Get a grip, David.' He told himself.
Trying to do just that, his mind fell back to his father.
What would Wing Commander Attreus do?
Probably nothing. He was the greatest pilot of his time, but ground operations had not been his forte. His thoughts changed tack.
OK, so what would General Fallon do?
Getting back to his feet, David put the handle of the flashlight between his teeth and strode through fire and rain.
The wing of the Thunder Fighter had pinned the Earthman to the ground. David reached above him and hooked his fingers around the edge of the wing. Rising on his toes for extra leverage, he began to rock back and forth, the muscles of his arms and legs contracting then expanding as he tried to unlodge the wing from the ground.
The wing refused to yield, but the pressure of David's weight against it put pressure on the corpse, making it jerk suddenly. Its arm shot up, slapping David across the thigh. He fell backwards in surprise and dropped the flashlight.
Engulfed in darkness, the dead soldier seemed completely reanimated. David thought that at any moment it would slither towards him, the wing sticking out of its spine like a shark’s fin, whistling a spiteful melody. A fear rose from his stomach to his throat that he could no longer swallow down. He opened his mouth and screamed into the heat.
‘Come on man, get a hold of yourself. You’d see a whole lot worse if you were out on the front line,’ he thought as he hugged himself and looked around for the flashlight. Placing it back between the rows of his teeth, he tried again. Again, nothing happened. For a moment, David simply stood and stared. He thought of Noah Fallon again, then Alan Attreus, and was struck with an idea.
'Ha!'
He thrust his fist into the air, punctuating the noise, turning away from the wreckage and darting back towards his house, falling half a dozen times and tripping over rocks in the process. When he got there, David shoulder-barged his way through the front door and raced up the stairs. He charged into his room, swiped a set of keys from a small china dish beside his bed, and made his way back downstairs, stooping low en route to return the picture of his father to its rightful resting place.
Leaving the house, David crossed the yard. This time, instead of falling and flailing, he moved almost gracefully, as though momentum and adrenaline were carrying him, making his every step effortless. He ran like a star athlete going for gold in the Olympics, leaping over discarded jetcar parts, tools and broken engines until the final hurdle - a wheel axis from an old aircraft - clipped him around the ankle and brought him crashing to the gravel in front of an old barn. The keys leapt from his pocket and skidded across the dirt.
'Man! Ow!’ He cried.
Hands stinging and body numb through the impact of flesh on gravel, David scurried to his feet, retrieved the keys, and slipped one into the padlock bolted on the front of the barn. The lock opened with a satisfying click as David slipped his fingers around the edge of the right-hand door and hauled it wide open. Wasting no time, he ran to the left-hand door and pushed that ajar too.
Night sky invaded the old, wooden barn, a relic from a century long gone. Once upon a time, when the land the Attreus family called home had still been a working farm, the barn had been a vital part of daily operations. In the time since then, it had been used, first by Alan Attreus, and then by his son, as a kind of hangar-cum-workshop. On the outside, the slats of timber had endured countless coats of burgundy paint which now, in the obscurity of the night, looked to David like streaks of dried blood. Larger beams, their white paint chipped and grubby, zig-zagged their way across its sides for support. Inside, the hour forced shadows from the ominous silhouettes of the things David had inherited.
Running his fingers along the walls, he found the light switch, flicked it on, and blinked as his eyes adjusted to the artificial light spilling over work counters, tool boxes, engine parts, draws overflowing with leads and wires, and repurposed coffee jars stuffed with nuts and bolts. The counters ran along the back and sides of the barn, creating an untidy, unfinished frame around the thing which sat in the centre of the room, covered in a large plastic dust sheet.
Brushing dirt from his grazed palm, David made his way to the thing and cast the plastic sheet aside to reveal a PiperSport PS-50 aircraft. The plane, a short, sturdy machine coated mostly in white, with red racing stripes along its body and wings, was a 2025 model Alan Attreus had picked up from an antiques trader. It was the first machine David had seen his father fly in, and the first machine David himself had learned to fly.
Slipping the flashlight into his pocket, David found two reels of industrial-strength cable on a nearby counter top, and bundled them into the aircraft. He hiked his heavy body onto the wing and scrambled his way to the cockpit. Taking the keys from the plastic tub under the pilot seat where he had left them, David fired up the PiperSport and rolled her across the yard. Occasionally, she leapt a few feet into the air before landing again on her three wheels as she skirted across the marshes and back towards the disaster zone.
There, he brought the plane to a standstill and looked up, praying to the heavens for help but receiving only a ruthless shower of rain in response. Bringing one of the reels of cable down with him from the aircraft, David wrapped one end around the axle of the PiperSport and the other around the wing of the Thunder Fighter. Returning to his craft, he took off once more. The wing put up a fight, holding its own and threatening to snap the cable. The effort of his endeavour revealed itself in gritted teeth and squinting eyes of his face, his cheeks glistening with rain, even in the dark. David throttled the yoke and pushed down on the controls until finally the wing gave way and he was able to extract it from the ground, still with the body of the dead Earth Force man hanging from it like a snagged trout.
David once again brought his plane to a halt and leapt down from it. The damp ground sagged and squelched beneath his feet. A grievous wind blew flurries of rain at him from all angles, glueing his messy hair to his cheeks and transforming it, from a sandy blonde to a glossy dark brown. The cold ate away at the grazed flesh of his hands as he swept wet, disordered strands of the stuff from his face and eyes. His hands moved from his own face to the body of the dead soldier still skewered on the end of the wing.
'I'm sorry, friend,' he yelled into the screaming wind as he pushed one hand against the stomach, one on the chest, rose up on his toes for extra leverage, then pushed down at the body, the raw strain of his muscles making him sick as he drove and twisted the body down the wing, until at last it slipped from the metal and landed unceremoniously in the dirt.
As the final flicker of fire fell before the battering rain, David carried the body of Hogan Ferriss into what remained of the Patrol Sergeant’s ship, entering through the hole left behind by the decapitated wing. He swiped the Slayer Rifle from the Temüjin's hand and stuffed it into his belt, then dragged the creature’s cumbersome corpse towards the Thunder Fighter, throwing up en route at the sight of the slimy, grotesque skin. When he reached the ship, David hurled the dead Temüjin into it, and felt a cold streak rush his veins.
Dying embers of smoke got at his eyes and nose. David squinted and sneezed, and brushed them away. The acid taste of vomit lingered on his throat and the palms of his hands let out stinging cries. He ignored them, unravelled one end of the cable from around the severed wing, and fastened it securely around the axle of the Thunder Fighter.
Hurling himself back onto the wing of the PiperSport, David shuffled along it and fell clumsily into the cockpit. Sitting upright, he pushed down on the acceleration, drew back on the yoke and hurtled the broken ship, dead bodies and all, back towards his house.
*
Later, in the dying hours of darkness, when the rising sun threatened to banish the wind and rain back to their hiding place, David Attreus returned to the crash scene in his Pipersport, and brought home the remains of the United Earth Force salvage ship.
VI.
The rain splattered, thick and belligerent, through the waking sunlight of the Asylonian morning. It pounded at the reinforced windows of Manor SL69 with a sound like a thousand pick hammers hacking at the cold steel. It hounded the walls and the windows, and it stomped against rooftops, and yet it did nothing to rouse General Noah Fallon from his fitful sleep.
He wore a brown leather cowboy boot on his limp left foot. His right foot, bare besides a deep scar which ran from big toe to heel, twitched quickly and violently, shooting great spams upwards through the decaying muscles of his aching legs. His stomach and chest rose and deflated, rose and deflated
Naked, apart from a pair of grey cotton boxer shorts and a thin, white vest, with a hole in the chest where rogue cigarette ash had singed the fabric, he lay like a dying sea mammal, washed up on the shore and drowning in oxygen.
His biceps, once tight and impressive, now loose and unremarkable, bobbed against the cushions of the old, worn-down sofa that was his bed. His right arm bore a tattoo, a bronzed eagle, hunched over with one eye open, and a single silver bullet clutched between the strong bone of its beak. The eagle's wings spread, revealing the fifty three stars and four bold stripes of the New United States flag on the underside of the left wing, and the old Union Jack of Great Britain on the right. Inscribed beneath each wing were the names of comrades who had died beside and before him in battle. The eagle's powerful talons clasped to the proud emblem of the United Earth Force.
