CHAPTER NINE - MASSACRE
The truck rumbled across the long stretch of barren mud plains. The headlights were dim but the lack of illumination did little to conceal the vehicle when the engine growled furiously as it rumbled over the landscape, awakening every creature that had bedded down for the night.
The sun had long since set in an ominous display of blood red and puss yellow that gaped over the land like some sickening wound that spilled onto the ground. It seemed like a reminder of the gory battles that had been fought here before when the Gerai had owned the land.
Brian stared through the window and tried to imagine what the land was like before the war. Maybe there had been thick grass concealing secret bluebells and dainty buttercups. Or there could have been tall trees towering high in vain to reach the precious sunlight. In his mind he painted a picture carefully shading in the sparkle of the dappled sunlight as it blazed through a green canopy before falling onto a fresh lake of coolness.
Whatever had been there, it was gone now leaving behind only a thick haze of permanent destruction to cling to the weak tree skeletons while a cold wind blew across the open plains to chase the ghosts of the fallen. So many Gerai battles had transformed beautiful locations into worthless wastelands which not even the weeds dared to inhabit.
Beside him Nick shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. His hands were supporting his head as he gazed in futile despair at his knees.
Another base had already run to the aid of Aaron’s village, but Nick had begged Darren to be allowed to round up a back up team in case further help was needed. Behind them another truck followed, laden with weapons to help liberate the village.
“We’re almost there,” Kevin said from behind the wheel as the truck lurched slightly as they hit more bumpy ground, alive with faint strips of grass.
Nick nodded, but his face remained ashen grey with pale lips and dull eyes. Despite living apart, Nick was still exceedingly close to his brother.
Brian gently stretched a hand out to clasp Nick’s. He squeezed it slightly. “Aaron’s old enough to take care of himself. I’m sure he’s fine.”
Nick smiled weakly. “Sammy’s all grown up now but you still worry about him don’t you?”
Brian looked down for a moment. “I do.” He thought for a moment. Obviously Brian’s relationship with Sammy was different to Nick’s and Aaron’s but still came down to family.
Nick squeezed his hand back. “Aaron’s all I have left now,” he said sadly. “My only family.”
Brian never knew what happened to the rest of Nick’s family. The younger man would never talk about it. He knew that recently one of his sisters had died of illness and ever since Nick had been more and more worried about Aaron. The only thing that prevented Nick from joining his brother in his village was his dedication to his job at Darren’s base.
The truck bounced as it hit rocky ground and Brian clutched hold of the seat behind him to prevent himself from flying into Nick.
“Sorry about this,” Kevin grunted as he fought to steer them down a steep hill.
Nick copied Brian and they were forced to hang on tighter as Kevin steered them through a small spiny made up of thin trees. When they finally emerged they could see the village on the hill above… and the gunfire that lit up the air like a sick display of neon fireworks.
“Oh God…” Kevin whispered grimly as he saw the villagers fleeing from the village and scurrying down the hill like rabbits that had been gassed and cheated out of their warren.
“They’ve set another village alight,” Brian whispered, staring at the orange glow upon the hill above them where the village stood.
Nick did not, could not, say a word. His eyes had glued upon the burning glow and the smoke that drifted and curled in the air like filthy ghosts revelling in carnage and destruction.
“The base nearby has sent help,” Kevin said as he pointed to several trucks parked nearby where a small group was trying to bundle people up in the back. “We have to help too. We can fill our truck.”
The truck was in the style of a pick up truck so that they could easily transport supplies without having to carry everything. Unfortunately the lack of petrol meant that they could only be used in emergencies. This seemed to be one of those times.
Kevin pushed on the gear stick and the truck sprang to life again as they began to drive closer. Now Brian could see the panic and the horror upon the people’s faces and the horrible burn marks that scored the flesh of others. Already terrified people were beginning to leap up into the open back of the truck. He found himself staring into the eyes of a young boy, no older than B, only this one stood alone like some strange phantom. His sleeves were torn and burnt flesh showed through. Brian found his eyes glued to him, imagining that it was B he was looking at. As Kevin ground the truck to a halt, he watched as someone picked the boy up and placed him in the back, recognising the white stripes around the vehicle that showed they were offering aid. He turned slightly, thinking of the burns that had covered B when he carried him from their own village.
Nick was already wrenching the door open and leaping out into the crowds. “Aaron!” he screamed, hoping to try and locate his brother, but he froze as he saw what lie before them: the injured and the frightened… some of them only children. All were horribly burnt from the flames and some women cried as they cradled babes in arms, poisoned by the thick smoke that churned from the village atop the hill.
Nick lowered his head, almost in shame as he realised that there were children in help. He could not just allow all of his time to be consumed by the search for his brother. Aaron was an adult, these were tiny children, some of them alone with no parents.
Brian followed him and placed a hand upon his shoulder as Nick scooped a tiny girl up into his arms, her face burnt and creased. “She’s dead,” Nick murmured placing her back down upon the ground.
Brian knelt down beside her body. She was only about seven years old and her legs were coated in angry red burns. How she had even walked down the hill, Brian would never know. He reached out a hand and gently pushed a strand of red hair back across her face. How unjust could this be?
He slowly stood up and stared about them, his eyes were growing moist, but there was no time for sensitivity now. If he cried for the dead and injured and the maimed, then he would break down.
There were not many people about them, probably only a crowd of about twenty… but the village on the hilltop had been huge. Where was everyone else? Were they dead? Had the Gerai murdered them?
“We have to get these people in the trucks!” the second truck had arrived and the three volunteers had begun discarding weapons from the back to make room for people.
Brian touched Nick’s shoulder. “Nick, we have to help these people. Aaron could be anywhere. There’s no telling if he even exited this side of the village.”
Nick nodded and turned to begin shepherding people towards the trucks, but Brian could see the worry in the lines in his face. He knew that Nick was convinced that Aaron had become cold and dead just like that little girl.
“Hey, are you from Darren’s base?” a voice cried anxiously as a dark haired woman rushed towards him.
Brian realised that she was talking to him and he nodded while he guided an elderly woman to the two trucks. “We have two trucks here and weapons to fight the Gerai.”
She nodded. “Good. I’m from Loci base.”
“Run by… Paul?” Brian asked. All the bases had code names but it was always difficult to decide what code went with whose base. Darren’s base was simply known as Daz because it was easier to recall. The Loci base was nearby to this village and the leader Paul was a close friend of Darren’s.
“Yes, can you help us get these people out of here? Take them to your base if you have too! Our trucks are full! We want to move them as soon as possible. You’ve already seen the destruction, the Gerai were shooting people as they left the village. They surrounded it and not many escaped. There’s more on the other side and we have more trucks there.”
“No problem,” Brian replied. “But we can’t take many.” He stared about him once more, seeing that most people were now crammed into the back of the trucks while a few of the male visitors scouted around the ground fro fallen, but living, people. “Where’s everyone else? This was a big village!”
Her face grew grim. “Most people left from the front end of the hill instead of this back end, there’s Gerai there! There’s not many and the villagers did well to hold them off until the Gerai began throwing grenades. There’s none this side yet because a fight broke out the other side between rebel villagers and the Gerai, but it won’t last long! We have other teams the other side of the hill rounding all the survivors up!”
“MOVE!” a voice suddenly screamed frantically.
Both of them turned and Brian only just threw himself to the ground in time as laser fire was thrown this way. Three Gerai were running down the hill from the village towards them with guns in hand. He stared about him and then choked as he saw that the woman beside him had been too slow. Her back had a hole in it and blood dribbled out along with curls of red entrails. He gasped and turned his face away but there was another dead man to his side who had been shot in the face.
“Brian!”
Someone was suddenly pulling him up and he turned vacantly to see a man with grubby blond hair staring at him. “Aaron?” he whispered. He tilted his head and smiled at the face he saw. The blond nodded briefly in reply before they both ducked as another streak of laser came ominously close. There was a scream from behind them as it found a victim. All around Brian could see that most of the crowd had fallen.
Aaron had a gun in his hands and he raised his hand just enough to fire in reply. “We have to get out of here! More are coming! It’s a massacre!” Aaron hissed. “They are killing everyone they can! I only just escaped myself!” He fired once more and then began to crawl towards Kevin’s truck.
Brian glanced towards his cousin and saw that they had now armed their own weapons and were anxiously firing back. Aaron and Brian took the diversion to leap to their feet and dash to the truck.
“Brian, Aaron, get in! We have to leave now!” Kevin roared.
“But there are more people the other side of the village!” Brian cried. “There are still people here!”
“The other fighters from Paul’s base will handle that! We have limited weapons and we don’t know the terrain! Besides - ”
A scream distracted them and when Brian turned he saw that another ten Gerai had begun to scramble down the hill towards them.
Kevin threw his weapon over his shoulder and clambered inside the truck. “We have to get these civilians in the back of the truck out of here! Do you want more people to die Bri?”
Brian turned and saw that the back of the truck (usually used for transporting large crates or weapons) was now full of frightened families. He stared at Kevin and sighed in defeat. There was no choice. Aaron looked grim as well as he continued to fire at the Gerai using a pathetic mini laser.
“Where’s Nick?” Brian shouted above the screams of panic and the whine of laser fire.
Kevin suddenly looked worried. “I - ”
“I’m here!” Nick screamed as he leapt over a rock to reach them. “Kevin we gotta move! There’s Gerai circling around us! We’ll be trapped unless we get going!”
“Nick, Aaron’s fine,” Brian said, feeling the need to tell Nick that his brother was alive. Something bright and good in all of this death…
Brian pointed to the blond firing to the left and Nick smiled, but there was little time for a reunion when they were in such dire danger.
“Everybody get in!” Kevin cried.
Aaron fired one more round before leaping into the back of the truck while Nick helped one last injured, but alive, young woman into the back.
Brian took one last desperate look about him, ducking as laser fire was aimed at him. He could see the movement of fallen bodies upon the ground and hear moans of agony… but they couldn’t wait any longer…
Nick was dragging him into the front of the truck and then Kevin was slamming them hard into reverse to follow the second truck that had already left. Brian stared in the mirror and saw that the trucks from the second base were retreating as well before they became trapped and the civilians they carried murdered.
He lowered his head in a prayer for the ones who had fallen in the mud under the Gerai’s laser fire, but it was short lived as a laser shot suddenly smacked the truck’s right wing mirror.
“Move!” Nick screamed as the people exposed in the open back of their vehicle began to scream.
Kevin turned them so that they were facing forward and then smacked the accelerator hard to send them crashing through the trees. Brian winced slightly and prayed that no one in the back was hurt in the process as sticks and branches smashed into the windows.
Finally they erupted from the trees and the slow slog up hill began. The ground was rough and inhospitable and they bounced about crazily.
“I don’t think they’re following! They went after the other trucks!” Nick said, trembling slightly. “We’re clear.”
“Good,” Kevin said. “We’d be dead on the open plains.”
When they reached the top of a hill tough, a figure suddenly sprang out waving a gun at them. He didn’t have time to fire before Kevin knocked into him. Brian felt sick as his stomach writhed at the blood that had suddenly appeared on the windshield.
“You hit someone,” he whispered.
“A Gerai,” Kevin grunted. He glanced in the mirror. “He’s on his own.” He slowed the truck slightly.
“Kev stop!” Nick said suddenly. “I have an idea!”
“What?”
“Just stop!”
Kevin complied and Brian watched in astonishment as Nick opened the door and began to dash towards the fallen Gerai.
“Nick, what are you doing?” Brian called as he saw Nick struggling to carry the Gerai.
“Brian, help me here!”
Brian jumped out of the vehicle and ran to grab an arm of the unconscious Gerai, wincing slightly at the blood that had covered one leg. He found himself quivering in disgust. Brian did not normally feel hatred, but the Gerai had kept him from his family. B hated him because the Gerai had kept him captive. All the years he had spent begging to survive and be with B and Sammy and when he did survive, he was kept apart from them. He could not forgive the Gerai for that.
“Nick… why?” he asked. These Gerai were like animals in their barbaric standards… he still remembered the cold hatred with which they pursued his sweet son.
“A prisoner,” Nick grunted. “He can tell us what’s going on.”
Maybe they could finally get some answers at long last.
They approached the back of the truck where the civilians were huddled together. One of them spat at the sight of the Gerai. Brian was inclined to copy them, but something of his old self stopped him. His parents had always taught him not to spit.
“Don’t kill him!” Nick warned. “We need this man to tell us why the Gerai are attacking villages and what they are planning to do! It’s important that you don’t hurt him anymore than he already is!”
Aaron nodded in understanding but the others still looked like they would tear the man apart as Nick pushed them away to make room for the prisoner.
“I’ll keep them in order,” Aaron promised.
Nick smiled at his brother before running back to the front of the truck. Brian allowed his eyes to linger upon the Gerai for a moment longer before following his friend.
A part of him sympathised with seeing another human being hurt in such a brutal way, but another part of him wished to see the man dead. The Gerai had taken so much… He thought of the bodies that had littered the ground where he had stood a few minutes before and the nameless woman who had been so maliciously shot.
He turned and followed Nick and leapt into the truck. “Let’s go,” he said. Seeing so much death reminded him of the time when it had almost been B and Sammy’s corpses who had fallen at his feet. He wanted them with him now, to hug them and cry in relief. In the back of the truck he had heard one woman screaming for a dead baby that lie in her arms. He had tried to avert his eyes but how could he not feel tears streaming down his face when it hit home so deeply and so hard? How many times had he almost cried for his sons because he believed them to be dead or in mortal danger?
The truck rumbled to life again and Kevin rapidly drove them towards their home base. For a long time none of them spoke. How could they speak? How could words express the massacre of a ground writhing with the limbs of the deformed and mutilated they had just seen upon the ground?
“I don’t believe this,” Nick whispered. “It’s just like it was before. The Gerai attacking and destroying everything. Why are they doing this?”
“They’re plotting something,” Kevin said grimly. “I fear there is worse to come. Much worse.”
Brian closed his eyes. “B is a part of their plan,” he said slowly. They wanted his boy, his angel, his baby… He would rather die then let them have him again. They had already corrupted his innocent childhood by murdering his mother, snatching him from his brother’s arms and performing cruel, torturous experiments upon him like he was nothing more than an animal. That incident would always have its scar upon B’s mind. Brian would not allow him to receive another.
“They want the computer chip,” Kevin corrected.
“I’ll talk to B,” Brian promised. “As soon as we get back. We’ll find out what it is that they want.”
If he didn’t then other massacres like this would take place.