H Romero - The Girl Who's Made of Leaves - Post Apocalyptic Science Fiction

Rose watches the whistling green man walk in a stagger, encircling the jeep, he approaches the passenger side. He reaches in and pulls out a bayonet. He draws its blade from a hard-cased sheath. The blade makes a scraping sound against the hard casing.

Private Osbourne is coming to lead them back inside. Rose doesn’t move, even a little, when Ivy tugs on the cable to lead the way back into the hospital. She’s too enthralled by the whistling green man’s actions, He lifts the bayonet directly in front of his unshaven face. He admires the bayonet as if it’s a beautifully sculptured idol. His eyes tear. His lips pucker. He whistles. Mirroring Hawthorne’s tune exactly, note for note, inhaling and blowing through dry, pursed lips and plunges the bayonet into his abdomen. The blade, bloodied, is withdrawn from his protruding guts and the driven into his side. The man’s face doesn’t show the least bit of pain. It’s not registering as pain. He is numb to the self-induced violence and continues to whistle while he carves great holes into his weakening body. Blood spurts and sprays the ground where it soaks into the dirt. Stabbing and stabbing himself, over, and over again.

Other green men come to life in response to what’s happening. The approach the man, to stop him, to render aid to him, but before they can get to him, they, each, in turn, stop dead in their tracks and whistle too. They’ve become a macabre choir acting as one, and the conductor of death is a little boy. Hawthorne has them all under his influence. His mind has taken their individual will away and has replaced their need to self-preserve with suicidal intent.

One of the green men climbs a ladder leading up to a water tower. Another draws his service revolver and tries to put a bullet smack dab into the center of his brain, but he overshoots, the power of the weapon comes out the other side of his head, hitting someone in the shoulder. The green man who’s climbed the tower reaches the top and throws herself to her death as if the act itself is effortless. Her neck breaks with a wet snap where she lands.

Not all the green men are acting under falling victim to Hawthorne, only those who have come to help the whistling man. There’s a sphere of influence surrounding the man, instantly affects anyone who steps into it.

Dr. Valentine and Dr. Shaw, horrified at this awful thing taking place, and both are backing away from the three children grouped in the yard, so they don’t get caught up in it too.

Private Osbourne and his companion in the courtyard are shouting at their comrades through the diamond-shaped holes in the fence, trying to stop them from acting in such a grisly manner. They’re shouting out to others to go and help, but then, they quit shouting, and together they drop their weapons to the ground. Hawthorne has them under his control too. The guards grip the fence and bash their heads against the support-posts repeatedly. The grate their faces across the galvanized chain link panels. Their faces are soon reduced to the consistency of ground meat in record time.

Ivy smiles at what carnage her brother has created. She resembles a feral animal drooling over the kill. Rose spins around. Her intent is to do what she can to make Hawthorne end the bloodshed, but before she can do anything at all, a shot echoes throughout the base and a sticky spout of blood sprays her directly in the face.

A bullet has pierced flesh and bone, and Hawthorne’s head cracks open like a thin-shelled egg. The metallic smell of fear permeates the air. Rose is familiar with it. There is always a hint of it carried on the air and permeating the uniforms of the green men. It coats the inside of her nares. The odor is robust, and hangs in the air like fog, concealed from her eyes, only registering on her sense of smell and taste.

Ivy, in shock by what has happened to her brother, screams at the very top of her lungs. The nature of the scream is unearthly. It’s so loud that it’s painful. All over Camp Able, people hurry to cover ears, struggling to protect the thin tympanic membranes from Ivy’s sonic bombardment.

Noses dribble blood in response to the change in atmospheric pressure that the sound is creating. Faces of the men and women here demonstrate clearly, the indescribable pain that Ivy’s scream is inflicting.

Rose has covered her ears instinctually but lowers her hands. Ivy’s wailing isn’t affecting her in the same way that it’s affecting everyone else. Forcefully, she takes Ivy’s hands in hers, in desperation she shakes her, but it doesn’t make her stop screaming. Nothing makes her stop. She shakes Ivy harder, still no effect. Ivy’s wail is a continuous assault. Doctors Valentine and Shaw have fallen to their knees and are covering their heads with their arms as if they’re being physically beaten. Rose is screaming, pleading for Ivy to stop, and then silence, but only because Ivy is drawing in another deep breath, so she can cry out again. In that moment of short, but blessed ringing-silence, a second shot splits the terror down the middle. Ivy falls to the ground, exhaling her final breath from her lungs.

Rose is sticky with the blood of the dead brother and sister. She stands motionless, in the courtyard, still holding onto Ivy’s lifeless hand. She locks eyes, filled with anger, on the man who had just murdered two of her kind. He’s kneeling next to an old bomb service truck, his handgun aimed, and his sights are glued on her. The little hairs stand up on the back of her neck, and a cold ripple of horror trickles down her spine. She knows that she’s the man’s next target.

Dr. Valentine staggers across the courtyard, wiping the blood from her nose, she’s shouting urgently. Rose stands her ground, looking death-daggers at the assassin with the gun. Dr. Valentine rushes to stand in front of her, waving her arms in the air, and saying, “No, Major Connors. No! She was trying to stop it! Please, don’t shoot her!”

It seems like forever before Connors grudgingly lowers his sidearm and casts a stare so intense that Rose can feel its invisible punch. He gives orders for the body of a man named, White Deer, who had succumbed to his injuries and burns to be taken to the morgue.

Hollander steps out from the driver’s seat and assists in attending to the injured and dying men.

“Shaw, Valentine, my office, one hour!” says Connors, who also goes to the aid of the fallen.

Connors’s office is centrally located, next to the parade grounds. The office once belonged to the base commander, Bantam was his name, A dusty name-plate still sits on the desk, bearing his name.

Bantam had been forced into early retirement by a Grub. The thing had buried itself near a latrine, this was the story he’d heard from some of his men. What a crappy way to go. Literally. Either way, the office was vacant, so he assumed command, and moved right in after he arrived from California. The officer in command at the time was relieved in more ways than one, not wanting to shoulder the weight of leadership, happily turned the base over to him.

He can feel his insides begin to quiver as adrenaline peters away, and he thinks about how the world has changed, how many men have died under his command, since Los Angeles.

No one could have possibly foreseen such a thing happening. The object which flew into our atmosphere and settled above the Los Angeles skyline changed everything in the wink of an eye. The spaceship sent humanity sprawling headfirst into a race for its existence.

During the first days following the disaster, Dr. Valentine had said she’d seen a crack open in the bottom of it. Something must have leaked out, wreaking destruction on a scale never before witnessed by human beings; an extinction event.