Gabriel’s Watch - Book One: The Scrapman Trilogy Page 3

  The one in purple placed a hand on my shoulder. “Take all the time you need.”

  And so I did.

  The Visitors continued to rid the city of its remaining corpses, turning its streets and buildings back into places worthy of further human habitation, and although the Visitors seemed very much like a branch of military, they did not strike us as malevolent in the least. They’d earned our trust rather quickly, in fact, since we found them friendly, approachable, and quick to answer a great many questions involving the extent of destruction.

  The Visitors informed us that the situation was worldwide.

  Despite the fact that our city had one of the highest survival evaluations, it still seemed humanity had managed to set itself back a few thousand years. All the major cities had been wiped out, survivors scarce even in the most densely populated areas, while the fluke of our continued existence could be credited to the ironic result of ... simple human error.

  It seemed the missile, dispatched with the purpose of obliterating all that was left of our city, had met too premature an end. We heard the thunder of its eruption, watched its fury lift the distant landscape with a burst far brighter than the sun—it was the energy of a star, harnessed by the hands of men, with which to kill the children of our children.

  But the lone missile had never made it close enough to do the damage that was intended of it.

  It had, by the curse of a miracle, fallen enormously short.

  Beneath the protection the Visitors’ presence offered, I discovered my refuge the following day, a quiet place beyond the city’s northern border, where I was finally able to lay my wife and daughter to rest. It was a private dwelling, and privacy is what they deserved.

  But as quickly as the Visitors had arrived, they left, packing up their containments and instruments and boarding their vessel just before that enormous thing returned them to the heavens.

  They saw to leaving something behind, however, something of extreme importance.

  A “catalyst for evolution” is the term the Visitors had used just before their abrupt departure, to describe their parting gift.

  If one had been a careful observer, one might have noticed that, during their brief stay, the Visitors were quietly gathering samples of our environment: soil, air, flesh. They later confessed to using the data they’d collected in hopes of creating something that would aid in the continuation of intelligent life on Earth.

  And, according to them, it had been a mighty success.

  That was when the strange creatures first emerged from within that gigantic vessel, coming to stand alongside the remaining, dumbfounded survivors. There were perhaps fifty of them, appearing somewhat human, with features slightly distorted and reddened like the sands of our new earth. It was then that the Visitors introduced them as our “new family.” These beings had been biologically engineered to survive the devastation we’d inflicted upon our own planet. In addition, they’d been bred from the double-helix of human DNA. So, despite the obvious differences between this engineered species and what remained of humanity, the Visitors had kept their structure just close enough to match as potential mates.

  Through this new species, the Visitors told us, our civilization would continue to endure, continue to rebuild, and begin to thrive. And with this final gift, they wished us luck, and left.

  It’s amazing, what history reveals about humanity. As individuals, we are gifted with extreme potential; and along with this we’ve been given a choice of direction with which to focus it. Within our relatively short history, human beings, bringing our best and brightest together, had done great things, unbelievable things. We’d accomplished such amazing feats of technological advancement that it seemed our potential had been bound only by the limits of the universe.

  And human beings, each and every one, are capable of the purest form of love, a love that travels deeper than the confines of intellect or conscious perceptions can allow. Still, there were some who actually reached it, some who actually grasped at its purity, a love based not on the simplicities of race, gender, culture, or desire, but instead on the very fabric in which each of us is divinely woven—as equal.

  So, when reflecting upon the motivations of the Visitors, perhaps it’s possible to understand their farewell gift. One might even appreciate their gesture as a fresh start, a new beginning, an opportunity for Hope to exist. But those that survived the war did not see Earth as a place rich with future promise. We witnessed the worst humanity could possibly offer, experiencing countless horrific realities as we crossed that precarious path from sanity to chaos. The “new family” was not seen as a gift of new hope, but as yet more competition for limited resources; foreigners come to infiltrate and ultimately bring an end to our race, an end to humanity. The insertion of this new variable could lead to only one possible result:

  Blood.

  Unfortunate that we could be the bearer of such unspeakable, treacherous acts, and tragic that this was the only face of humanity our “new family” was introduced to. And it is with the utmost displeasure that I must reveal the destiny which this new species was left to endure. For a few days following the arrival of our “new family,” in a massacre exhibiting the worst of humanity, they were hunted, they were shot, and they were killed.

  4

  MOHAMMAD

  Morning came with the sounds of yet another screeching raccoon. As I arose and rounded the shop, intent on silencing the creature and slicing him into thick breakfast steaks, I stopped at the workbench. The unmistakable shine of previously coated oil still remained. Small puddles had pooled beneath certain hydraulic cylinders, where Alice had been seemingly unable to reach with a rag. The musky scent of grinding and welding filled the immediate area.

  The machine had been very nearly completed during the night; its joints connected, its abdomen assembled, and its wires run through ruggedly formed conduit alternates—she’d surely outdone herself this time. Perhaps Alice would be sleeping in past noon today, but I’d say she deserved it.

  Climbing the stairway and peeking through the refrigerator door, I saw no one occupying the desolate road ahead. The raccoon was irate, howling and wailing as it snapped and clawed the air around it. I removed a hunting knife from a sheath at my side as the creature fixed me in little beady black eyes, growing fiercer at my sight. I’d really been losing my tolerance for raccoons; I would have loved to come out one morning to find I’d magically captured a turkey or a quarter-pounder with cheese. That would be the day—but until then, raccoon it was.

  “Friend!” someone started shouting from behind me, “Friend!”

  I turned toward the road to see a man I’d somehow missed, walking to the barbed-wire fence surrounding the junkyard. I knew this man. I’d traded with him several times before. Food, supplies, anything you could ask for—he was apparently the man for the job. He’d come with a bag around his shoulder and something draped over his arm as he motioned for me to meet him at the gate.

  Approaching this man, I saw he was holding five pigeons, each dangling from thin pieces of twine wrapped around his wrist. I greeted him with a smile, “Hey, Mohammad. What brings you to my neck of the woods?”

  “I come with news and a possible trade,” he revealed.

  Mohammad was a dark-skinned man—mid 40s— from Fiji. His clothes were loose and baggy, equipped with flaps, pouches, and pockets used to hold all kinds of random valuables up for barter. While I considered myself an extremely good judge of character, it was greatly possible to be too trusting in this world. After all, it was the gullible that were the first to go—then the sentimentalists who’d had too much trouble detaching themselves from who they’d been before.

  In this world you needed a thick skin. I classified three types of people left on this planet. First there were the Snakes; they were the slimy critters that crawled the wasteland. The three hoodlums I ran into downtown—Snakes, the whole lot of ’em. Then there were the Turtles, strong in their own right but constantly had predators coming to test the durability of their protection. The old man at Zolaris was a Turtle.

  And then you had guys like me and Mohammad, guys who were not easily intimidated or threatened, and still believed greatly in human decency. We were the strong, we were the brave, and we were the Rhinos who roamed the vast remains of this land. Mohammad here was one in a million; I’d have bet my life on it. Allowing him to enter, I surely was.

  “Something happened last night,” Mohammad said. “Something pissed off the government and made them all stir-crazy.” He looked back around and over his shoulder, surveying the area as if he’d been followed—just for the dramatic effect, I guess.

  “Yeah, what?” I asked, fairly certain I knew where his story would lead.

  “Someone took out three government agents in that Zolaris building downtown—beat ’em up real good, too. No weapons either—just bare hands. Broke one of their arms, crippled another, and one of them still hasn’t woken up. All they found was some old guy, but he doesn’t know anything.”

  “Wow.” Bare hands, huh? I’m turning into quite the legend out there.

  “That’s not all—the guy who hasn’t woken up, he’s one of the boss men’s nephew. He says someone’s gotta pay. The only thing anyone saw was some guy on a motorcycle, heading out of town—out this way.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, so I hear they’re coming out, looking for that guy—gonna be askin’ questions and makin’ examples. That’s why I’m getting as far from here as possible—I suggest you do the same.”

  I smiled at him, thankful he’d come to deliver the warning. There were seldom times when I got to witness the beauty of humanity outside my own secret world beneath the earth.

  “Thanks for that. Now you say you got somethi
ng to trade?”

  “I sure do.” He dropped the pigeons from his wrist-twine. “Breakfast! I ever tell you how I would hunt pigeons in Figi as a kid?—Smart little mothers, Man. Not like here— here I think they’re all inbred or something. In Figi you couldn’t get too close, and you could only find them on one kind of tree—not like here. Here I could have herded them into a paper bag.”

  “Fascinating,” I said, honestly interested in his childhood stories.

  “They’ve gotten smarter though—over the years. They finally know I’m not coming with a bag full of feed. They finally realize that I’m the enemy.” He held up his quarry. “These were actually a challenge.”

  “What do ya want for ’em?” I asked as Mohammad seemed to be peering behind me, trying to locate the source of the screeching.

  “You got a raccoon in a trap back there?” he asked, licking his lips.

  “I sure do, but I’m looking forward to some raccoon steaks this morning.”

  “These are freshly shot within a half hour—meat’s still good for cookin’,” he began to offer. “I’ll give you all five for that ‘coon back there.”

  “Deal!” I said, trying to conceal my enthusiasm and failing quite horribly.

  We started walking toward the junkyard when I asked, “You got any guns for trade?”

  “Guns?” he questioned. “You need a new gun?”

  “I just need a gun,” I revealed as Mohammad stopped dead in his tracks.

  “You don’t have a gun?!”

  “No.”

  Mohammad opened his coat, plucked out a Colt 45 M1911 pistol with an extended magazine, and handed it to me.

  I felt the weight of the weapon in my hands as I shifted it from one to the other—its cold steel feeling almost damp within my grip.

  The gun unsettled a memory I found floating to the surface of my psyche. It was a memory I was far from proud of, but still something I wouldn’t hesitate to do again, if I had to.

  “What do you want for it?” I asked.

  Mohammad thought for a moment. “You know what? I’ll trade you something for it,” he began. “I’ll trade it for your continued existence, because surely you would not survive without it. And this would just be another lonesome road without the promise of these conversations—which I do look forward to. So, call it a gift—if you must.”

  I looked at him, truly touched by his gesture.

  “How on Earth have you gone without one for so long?” he wondered out loud. “You must have had a death-wish or something.”

  This suddenly didn’t seem so out of the question; in fact, it seemed entirely logical.

  “Possibly,” I shrugged.

  “You know,” he started, “people are saying that God has left us. What do you think?”

  “I think He has, too,” I said, tucking the gun into the back of my pants. “But He’ll be back—and He’ll want to see what we’ve been up to in his absence.”

  “You see?!” he shouted, slapping the side of my arm. “That’s why I like you! With the world on its knees, and still you have faith—simply amazing.”

  Mohammad pulled out a hunting knife, and making his way to the raccoon, struck it with assassin-like precision. The animal flinched in that sharp moment and then fell instantly silent—only the sounds of cleaving flesh remained.

  He wrapped up the carcass, shook my hand, and left in a hurry.

  “Good luck, my friend,” he said as I closed the gate. “I hope to see you again soon.”

  “Me too—be safe out there, huh?”

  “You got it.”

  I watched as he walked the road ahead with the skinned animal glistening at his side. I wondered what he planned to do with it, where he would go, and where he would rest to eat.

  I’d learned to let questions like these go, hoping to hinder the addition of clutter inhabiting the already untidy inner workings of my mind. Whether they were truly disappearing or just filling up random subconscious compartments, I didn’t know. In the end, they might just be yet another set of riddles to toss onto my infinite pile of conundrums.

  I started a fire and decided to stash the motorcycle downstairs—just in case I had unhappy visitors. An hour later the delicious scent of dark meat had filled every tiny crevice in the junkyard. Mohammad even left behind a small assortment of spices, which had added an extra sense of zest as the aromas wrapped around my clothes, my skin, and every single strand of unkempt hair. Eyes burning from the smoke and mouth watering from the smell, I could only hope this amazing fragrance would last us the next few days.

  I tore off a chunk of breast and tasted it.

  Beyond delicious.

  Surely Alice could smell breakfast on its way and had gotten up to prepare our modest dining room table for whatever feast had created such an enticing aroma. Or perhaps she’d just been pacing back and forth in some hunger-crazed form of anticipation. Either way, breakfast was ready, and I started to gather each pigeon into a sheet of clean newspaper to bring downstairs.

  It was then I heard a howling off on the horizon, something approaching from the west in a flurry of tires and metal. My first impulse was to run and quickly take shelter somewhere within the confines of my home. I flinched a bit— even knelt to a sprinting position—before my logic engaged to supersede the reflex.

  If I were to hide—they would be back. If I were to fight—they would be back. So, there in the open, tucking our breakfast into a bag beside the fire pit and burying my gun beneath the cooling coals, I watched the white SUV come to a screeching halt beyond the gate and saw five men exit the vehicle. I tossed a forced smile and waved in their direction, a greeting I’m sure they saw through the moment it was offered. They did not return the gesture. Their faces hardened at the sight of me, arms growing stiff and knuckles wound tight over clenched fists.

  They were agents if I ever saw any.

  “You better open this gate!” one of them shouted, clearly the lead of this brigade. He was taller than the rest, holding himself upright to almost a fault. His spine arched backwards and his shoulders were spread as if harnessing a pair of invisible wings. I mentioned before that I’m not easily intimidated, but looking at the apparent strength of this man, and the way with which his presence commanded so much respect, I can honestly say that I was ... troubled.

  The sudden absence of cold steel pressed to the base of my back reminded me of further unavailable options.

  Should I have kept it? Should I go back?

  I momentarily pondered the possibility of defending myself—of grabbing the gun and firing off the entire magazine, but facing five men with a 45 wasn’t as much heroic as it was stupid, granted they themselves were armed as well.

  “No problem,” I said, swiftly making my way to the gate and unlocking it. “What can I do for you fellas?”

  They didn’t answer. The leader instead took a good look at my face, his chilling expression surely enough to make others overt their eyes to the ground. I held his gaze and offered another smile, one which again was not reciprocated.

  The leader then looked behind him as a sixth man began to climb from the vehicle, stumbling a bit upon his exit and straightening up the best he could. This man’s right leg was in a makeshift brace as a generous portion of dried blood saturated the lower part of his pants.

  It was the man I’d met in Zolaris—right before stealing his pry-bar and smashing his knee open.

  He looked grumpy.

  “Is this the guy?” the leader asked, shoving a finger hard into my chest bone. I stumbled back a little, exaggerating my clumsiness in the hopes of appearing the coward.

  The young man stared me dead in the eye.

  “Yeah, that’s him.”

  I was suddenly grabbed by a handful of loose shirt and hurled against the inner wall of the gate. It shook and clattered under the violent collision as he began to speak—something stale and sour spilling out from the depths of his open mouth. The other men pulled out the weapons I’d anticipated them carrying. Some of them began beating blunt-ended objects into the palms of their hands, while others trained shiny projectiles in my direction.