Nathan Hystad - The Event

Pwwwwing ! A tree shot bark out behind me, as I heard the echo of a gun down the small valley we were in. Carey perked up and growled, his hackles raised like a cat on the prowl. I looked for the source of the shot but couldn’t see anything. I wasn’t sure what to do. Run? Drop to the ground? Head into the trees?

Pwwwing. Another tree, this time closer. I figured the aliens weren’t using rifles to shoot at me, so I took a gamble. I raised my hands in the air, and walked to the middle of the road, out in the open.

“I’m not armed! Why don’t you come out and we can talk this over?” I called out, hoping that whoever was firing at me could hear me, and wanted to talk.

My heart raced in my chest and sweat ran down my face as I anxiously waited to hear a reply or get shot for my trouble. Wouldn’t that be the way to go? Travel halfway around the world to get shot in the middle of the road, miles from the Peruvian border. I moved to wipe the sweat from my face.

“Stay right there! Don’t move!” a rough, slightly accented voice exclaimed.

I tensed and raised my arms straight in the air. Carey was barking loudly and pacing back and forth between me and the voice. He was trying to protect me. If I didn’t fear for my life, I would have petted him and thanked him for caring so much.

“My arms are up,” I said as two bodies came from the trees on the other side of the road. The man was huge, sleeveless vest revealing tree-trunk-sized arms. The woman was petite but dangerous-looking. Her steps were measured and sleek, like an animal’s.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“I’m Dean. Dean Parker from upstate New York.” My arms were still high in the air, a gun still pointed at me. The woman was carrying a handgun. These folks looked like the real deal, like who the rebel faction really wanted to have turn the device off. Compared to them, Carey, Vanessa, Ray, and I looked like the peewee team. Mary could have stood with them, though. I hoped I wasn’t going to get shot before I could tell Mary how I felt. The memory of her lips touching mine, albeit for a brief second, was enough to keep me going.

“Dean, hey? Are you alone?” he asked.

“Just me and the dog, Carey.” Carey had stopped barking, but he stood angrily at my feet, and I doubted he would take his eyes off the targets for a minute.

They walked up to me, and the woman came close and patted me down. She nodded at him and he lowered the gun from my face finally. I dropped my arms and felt the urgent tension leave my body for a moment. The heat and fear took over and I stumbled, almost passing out. Black spots danced over my eyesight, and the man stuck his hand out and steadied me. Great, I made myself look even more like a wiener next to this monster of a man. I guessed seeming even less harmful was a way to be nonthreatening. I tried to tell myself that lie, but even my dizzy conscience wasn’t buying it.

“I’m Magnus. This is Natalia. I didn’t think I would ever see another person again. I definitely wasn’t expecting to see one walking alone with a dog, like he was on a stroll. What’s your story, fella?”

He had a slight accent and I was putting him as a Scandinavian. His light skin had a tinge of red from the sun out here. Natalia was clearly Russian, or at least Eastern European. I saw the ring on Magnus’ pinky finger, green stone tiny against his meaty hand. Natalia noticed me looking and she pointed to her ears; both had green stone earrings in them.

I pulled out my chain and showed them the pendant. They both smiled and Magnus came in and hugged me, like I was his long-lost brother.

“It is good to meet you, Dean. It’s been a long few days, and it’s really nice to see another who is joining us on our struggle. Come. We have a Jeep just a little way down. We’ll share what we have and tell our stories to each other,” he said, already moving and waving for me to follow.

I had no idea what to think about the pair, but I was on their team now.

I grabbed my knapsack and offered them a mango. Natalia accepted with a graceful nod of her head, and she was peeling the skin off with a knife that hadn’t been in her hand only a moment before. I hoped I was on the same side as these two.

Their Jeep was indeed close by and soon we were heading down the road, Carey hesitantly sitting in the back with Natalia, quickly warming to the woman who was scratching him behind the ears.

Magnus had insisted I sit up front with him to share stories. I asked for theirs first, just to make sure it all added up. Vanessa had turned out to be something we hadn’t expected, and these two almost-too-perfect people could have been on the wrong side for all I knew.

“I’m from Sweden. Used to be a bodybuilder. Won some serious awards at it too. Before that I was a soldier. When I decided to get out of the show business, I realized I missed soldiering. There were a lot of causes out there that I felt were unjust, and I found a mercenary group who shared my ideals. Rolled with those guys for almost a decade. We didn’t fight too often, but mediated a lot of crap in Northern Africa and in the Middle East.” He turned his head to the left as he drove. “Killed when we had to kill. Anyway. One of our missions, we found a bunch of people in a container in Egypt. Half of them were dead, the other half scared out of their wits and starved. Natalia was one of them. I carried her out of that container; she weighed almost nothing. She hasn’t left my side since. Has never said a word, either. Isn’t that right?” He looked in the rear-view mirror and smiled at her. I saw her smile back, and for a minute, she let her hard exterior soften.

“How did you get the anti-alien beam gear?” I asked, truly curious. Their story was quite a lot different than any of ours over in the States. Of course, there would be others on the same mission from around the world. Maybe we would even get close only to have someone beat us to the punch. I realized I would be okay with that. I sure wasn’t doing this for the glory.

He smiled. “A few years ago, we had two people contact us to join the group. They came with glowing recommendations from the British army. A man and woman, both strong as oxen. We let them in and they proved to be invaluable. They got us out of some tight situations and were quite often great at negotiating out of other situations that should have gotten sticky. We grew very close, like a big family. Natalia here trained so hard with us, and soon she was one of our own. More deadly than most… a hunger to prevent the darkness of her life from becoming anyone else’s path.” He paused and took a drink of water; beads of sweat dripped down from his close-cropped hair. “Our new friends each got sick. Really sick. The woman was dead a few months later; the man not far behind. He asked for Natalia and me to come to the hospital to see him, just the two of us. He told us a tale of such imagination, either he was an author, or it was true. I’d felt betrayed, but days later, I felt I understood his reluctance to tell us from the start. They were recruiting people around the world. He said some were doing like them, getting into groups like ours, or the military. Others were recruiting by marrying prospective targets. I imagined any betrayal I’d felt would be so far amplified for those who had married someone to find out they were being used.” He paused and looked at me, unsure which side of the fence I was sitting on.

“Go on,” I urged instead of answering his questioning eyes.

“Sure. So he told us about the device that they’d planted all those years ago, and how it was the only chance humans had of survival. That if we brought them back, the race would leave us, looking for easier plunder.” Another drink of water. “I don’t feel like we’re getting the full story here. Either these guys recruiting us were just naïve, or what? Say this device does bring back our people. What then? The invaders just leave us be? Maybe they don’t have any weapons.”