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Geri
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Oh God, I thought Sean was dead. I watched that monster crush the life out of him then throw him away like a broken doll. Yet somehow, miraculously, he’s alive.
We have to get out of here. This is utter madness. This is Alice in Wonderland kind of shit, and I don’t want to be a part of it anymore. Yeah, sure, aliens and Bigfoot duking it out in the Canadian wilderness is the biggest breaking story of the century, but I’m quickly coming to the realization that I don’t want to die for it.
The first time that giant man-crocodile swatted me away as though I was an annoying fly, I broke my arm when I hit the ground. And did I learn? No. When I thought it killed Sean, I went feral. I ran at it like a savage screaming a battle cry at the top of my lungs. I think I even bared teeth and nails, absolutely out of my mind with the single intent of ripping it limb from limb, but all I did was piss it off. So now I’m struggling to scrape myself off the ground and stand up on legs that have become two gelatinous masses as I try to breathe through the searing pain shooting through my chest and right side.
If I can just get to Sean, I can help him get up, and we can try to get out of here—go for help and send someone back for Karl. Because there’s no way we’re going to defeat Godzilla. I’ve watched Sean attack it repeatedly, all rock-hard muscle combined with the speed and agility normally reserved for superheroes on the silver screen. And then there’s Karl, who’s the closest in height and breadth to Reptile Man, getting the crap kicked out of him.
My legs almost buckle out from under me when I finally get to my feet, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get enough air into my lungs. I can work through it, though. I don’t have any other option if I want to live... if I want Sean to live.
It has occurred to me that I stand a better chance of escaping on my own, as opposed to grabbing Sean with my one good hand and dragging him behind me. However, while I was lying on the ground looking at Sean’s motionless body, I experienced a reckoning—maybe death with Sean was better than living in a world without him.
Sounds melodramatic, I know, and maybe it would be on an average day when my mortality is the furthest thing from my mind. But when I thought Sean was dead, I suddenly became very conscious of the fact that ever since I met Eastman eleven years ago, not a day has gone by that he hasn’t been lurking in my thoughts. From walking the school halls and looking for his face in the crowd, to playing hockey with the big boys, to buying my first pair of heels to impress him with my feminine wiles, to kissing him behind the shed—it’s all there in living memory, still very much a part of me. Even after he left Pembroke and I went on to finish high school and university then moved to New York City, I continued to look for his face in the crowd, dreaming... no, anticipating the day I would see him again. Because that kiss behind the shed set the bar for every boy I’ve ever dated since. And forget hockey—that sport lost a huge chunk of appeal when Sean was no longer around to outskate.
So there’s no question he’s coming with me. We’re both getting out of here.
I take a shaky first step, holding my broken arm close to my body and stretching the other straight out to help with my balance. I’m encouraged to take another step when I don’t fall over, but when I look to where Sean is lying, trying to estimate how many steps I need to take, I find the spot empty.
Where’d he go?
The sound of a struggle finally penetrates its way into my preoccupied brain, and I twist around to face it, the movement causing an excruciating jolt of pain through my chest. Darkness creeps across my vision, and what little balance I had is gone. I hit the ground on my knees, falling forward to support myself with my good arm as I wait for the rush to recede.
When the pain subsides and my vision clears, I see Reptile Man do a face plant into the ground. Sean is standing a mere two feet away from its motionless head, his fists curled and body tensed as if he’s waiting for it to get up and finish the fight. Not far from Reptile Man’s feet is Karl, a dark brown furry lump that’s not moving.
“Sean?” My voice is barely above a whisper. “Sean,” I say again, trying to be louder this time, but I can’t seem to turn up the volume.
He whips around. “Geri.” He starts toward me.
“As in Geri McKenna?” A voice asks.
Sean halts mid-stride, and both of us turn our attention to the owner of the voice. Two men dressed head to toe in typical brown-green hunting camouflage are walking down off the woodpile, the same pile I stood on top of when I found Karl. Both men are armed to the teeth, each gripping high-powered rifles outfitted with scopes, knives strapped around their ankles, and pistols holstered around their waists.
They know my name.
They must be the men we were running from, the same men we were signaling when Sean asked me to turn on his phone. The evil cavalry. It’s difficult to see their faces clearly under the rim of their ball caps, but the shorter one is muscular in a bulky sort of way, and the taller one is lean and wiry.
I feel vulnerable down on my knees, but I need help getting up.
“Your timing is impeccable, Bale.” Sean’s voice is laced with sarcasm. “And—is that you, Tom? Tom Whitman?”
“That was quite a show, Eastman,” says the shorter man. “What are you? Genetically enhanced?”
“Are you telling me that you witnessed the fight, Bale?” Sean asks.
Bale nods.
Sean huffs, shaking his head. “Nice of you to help out, asshole.” Then he turns his back on them, as if dismissing them, and continues on his path to me. “Where are you hurt? Is your arm broken? Do you think you’re going to pass out?” He kneels in front of me and brushes my hair away from my forehead to inspect it. His thumb comes away with blood on it.
I didn’t even know I was cut there. “I’m okay.” I’m still unable to get my voice above a whisper. “Karl needs your help more.”
The men continue to advance onto the battlefield.
“You think I’m going to take on a Saurian with just a gun?” Whitman asks, oblivious to the carnage around him. “Nothing but a bee sting to that armor. Besides, you didn’t look like you needed help.”
Sean halts his examination of me to twist around and look at him. “Hey, officers, if it’s not too far outside of EUC standard operating procedures, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind putting your training to use and assist the Migoi? We need to stabilize him and get him back to the warren.”
Karl moans again, as if on cue.
Bale draws his pistol and aims, his eyes staring down the barrel at me. “I have some official business to take care of first.”
Before I even have time to suck in my breath, Sean transforms into a blurry streak and doesn’t come back into focus until he stops—or maybe my head is just swimming. I’m not sure. When I finally do see him clearly, he has Bale’s gun to the other man’s head with Bale’s hand still wrapped around the grip. Bale’s arm is shaking with the effort of trying to remove his hand from Sean’s grasp, but it’s not budging.
“Take it easy, Eastman,” Whitman says.
“You’re obstructing an EUC directive,” Bale interjects, his top lip taut against the pain Sean’s inflicting on his hand. “You know that carries severe consequences.”
“First, how many times do I have to tell you that I don’t work for the EUC? Second, I just killed a representative of the Saurian Ninth Royal House. Do you honestly think I give a shit about killing you, Bale?”
Bale opens his mouth to say something but then firmly closes it.
“What you just witnessed me do,” Sean continues, “is several zeros above your pay grade. So how do you think the EUC is going to solve the problem of you two red shirts knowing what I’m capable of? Any guesses?”
Bale suddenly pales and starts to look as worried as Tom.
And I’m wondering if Sean will do it. I’m wondering if he’ll kill them to protect me, because I’ll never forgive myself if he does.
I find my voice, which is still weak. “Nobody has to find out.” God, I wish I could just catch my breath. “Seems to me we all stand to lose unless we help each other.”
Bale only flicks a glance at me, his focus staying on Sean.
“The story on the aliens has already been retracted as a big April Fools’ joke,” I continue. “I’ll reinforce that claim with a few more posts and return the spotlight to the Sasquatch hunters. Unless of course I turn up dead, which will only fuel the conspiracy theorists.” That took a lot of breath to say, and my head is swimming from the effort.
“She’s right,” Sean says.
Karl groans again.
I should go to him and see what I can do to help because all I’m currently doing is kneeling in front of men who have come to kill me. What a pathetic way to die.
Using my good arm, I push up off the ground and slowly straighten up while the world tilts right then left, back and forth like a boat on a rough lake.
“We have our orders, Eastman,” Bale says. “You understand that.”
“I understand that the situation has changed, and killing the target is no longer the best course of action. But since you two drones aren’t allowed to make that decision, get your phone out, Whitman, and call the commandant.”
Whitman, with a gun to his head, does as Sean instructs, taking his phone out of the breast pocket of his camo jacket and thumbing the screen.
“Put it on speaker,” Sean says.
The rhythmic white noise of wind whispering through the pines is abruptly joined by the sound of the phone ringing through to the other line. It’s such a nostalgic sound, one I associate with my busy office in New York City, or better yet, my bedroom late at night when I call my sister to chat about our day. But the familiar noise has no place here in this parallel universe I seem to have fallen into.
As soon as I get my equilibrium, I start the trek toward Karl. I stagger past the men, who are frozen in the same position like a frame from The Three Stooges. The call finally connects, and Whitman says his name and identification number. After a moment of silence, an automated voice says, “Voice identification successful.” It begins to ring again, then a voice asks, “What can I do for you, Officer Whitman?”
Karl is very still, and I stand there for a few moments before I catch the slight rise and fall of his chest. His right eyelid has swelled to the size of a baseball, his top lip has a deep gash, and the fur on the right side of his head is matted with blood. His right arm looks broken, and that’s in addition to his already broken leg.
I look back at the men to see if they’ve sorted things out yet and see Sean watching me while he remains frozen with the two stooges. Whitman is saying, “Not just a Saurian, Commandant, but a member of the Ninth Royal House,” to which the commandant responds with a stream of expletives.
“He needs help right now,” I say, not sure if they even heard me. I wonder how the hell bureaucracy and covering your ass could possibly take precedence when there’s a life at stake.
But then again, they’re here to kill me, so there’s that.
Take your time boys, I think to myself.
I spy the remnants of Sean’s t-shirt, the ripped strips that we tied together before Reptile Man dropped in on us, and stagger toward them like a drunkard. Bending down to pick up the strips causes a return of that searing shooting through my chest, making it difficult to catch my breath. I straighten up as quickly as I can, sucking in as much air as I can get, and wait for my head to clear.
On the return trip back to Karl, I spy the end of a bottle of water sticking out of Bale’s jacket pocket, so I stop by and grab it.
“You okay?” Sean asks me, still holding Bale’s armed hand to Whitman’s head.
I nod, because talking takes too much air. From the phone, I hear, “The emissary is being contacted as we speak. Get that Migoi...”
I don’t stay to listen. I’ve only got so much energy left.
“Geri,” I hear Sean call after me.
But I can’t stop and answer him. I’m on a mission to help Karl, and I’m pretty sure it’s the only thing keeping me alive right now.
I don’t exactly kneel next to Karl—I just give in to the weakness and let myself fall. I let out a squeal when my knees slam down on a rock or a tree root or something, then I get to work sopping up the blood on the side of Karl’s head. There’s more than I originally thought, his fur having soaked up quite a bit, and I realize he probably needs fluids. So instead of using the water to clean him up, I put the bottle to his lips and pour some in his mouth, relieved when his swallow reflex kicks in.
Then Sean is kneeling next to me, picking up the shirt strips. “Thank you for helping him.” He presses a wad of material against the wound on the side of Karl’s head.
“Are they going to kill me?” I ask with a matter-of-fact detachment that catches me by surprise. I care if they kill me, right? I’m pretty sure I do.
“Geri?” Sean asks with concern. I turn my head to look at him, wondering what’s wrong. “Oh my God, your lips are blue. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Blue? I shake my head. “Nina said red lipstick. I don’t have blue.”
“I don’t think you’re getting enough oxygen,” he says, and I’m speechless, shocked actually, by the insult. That was a put-down his old girlfriend, Michelle Asston, always used.
I open my mouth, ready to tell Sean what a rude thing that is to say, but then he asks the killers, “Can you two take over here?”
The two men move, come into view, and I look at Sean as if he’s lost his mind. “You’re going to let killers get to Karl?”
“Lay down, Geri.” He grips both my shoulders and applies gentle pressure to ease me onto my back.
“What are you doing?” I demand, looking from Sean to the killers and back to Sean. “Are you going to let them kill me too?”
“No one else is going to die today, sweetheart. I just want to take a look at you, okay?”
I don’t have the strength to fight him, and before I know it, I’m laid out on the cold, wet ground, treetops and sky spinning above me. “I’m fine.” I try to get up, thinking I might barf.
“Yeah? How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two.” Then I reconsider. “Wait, three. No, two. It’s two.” Now he’s undoing my jacket and lifting my shirt. I was already cold, so the freezing air against my exposed skin makes me shiver uncontrollably. “I’m cold.” I use my good hand to pull my jacket back over me, again thinking I’m going to vomit.
He presses his fingers against my side, and a blinding jolt of pain rips through my chest, so strong that it steals my breath. My vision dims, darkness replacing the spinning sky, and this time, I can’t fight it.