Pahnyakin Rising (26 page)

Greg’s glasses were missing.  Dresden scoured the surrounding earth for the spectacles and her eyes finally picked out broken glass and bent frames in the overgrown grass. 

She gestured her finger-gun to Nia but the girl shook her head.  She pointed her fake weapon to the left and placed the tip of her left index finger at the end of the barrel.  Nia pointed her left index finger to the right.

‘Great,’
thought Dresden. 
‘Nobody in this group can shoot.’

More Pahnyakin troops moved in.  Dresden’s next move was uncalculated.  She snatched the backpack dangling from Dodge’s shoulders and fumbled three times before she was able to unzip the pack.  He shook her shoulders and his head, but the troop responding to the flames were approaching quickly and the group was fighting a losing battle.

Just as she lifted the olive grenade from the bag, she saw the Assistant’s extended metal hands disappear in the center of Nia’s chest.  Her dirtied gray thermal shirt became saturated in blood.  It started as a thick drop and spread within milliseconds to an uneven stain that spread up and down the waffled fabric.  Nia looked to Dresden in shock before dropping in front of the Pahnyakin. 

Dresden stood and shoved the backpack against Dodge’s chest.  She stared against the Assistant’s black visor, daring it to look in her eyes, and pulled the pin on the grenade. 

The heavy green object soared in the open night until it landed between two silver boxes that stood to Dodge’s hip.   The boxes were connected to wires at the back of the northern silo.  She prayed the reaction would take the next silo down as well, but the buildings were 40 feet from one another. 

Dresden shoved Dodge towards the Assistant and ran.  Dodge, in turn, gripped Greg’s upper arm and pulled.  Troops paused their individual fights with Easton’s people to look at one another and to the silo, as if asking what they could do at the last minute to save the workspace.  Dresden’s group wasted no time assuming what had been done and ran in the opposite direction. 

The teenager wanted to watch, wanted to see the silo’s pointed roof fly upwards before it came smashing to the flames below.  She wanted to see the Pahnyakins’ reactions when
she
took something from
them.
But Dodge pulled her to the ground and huddled over her crouched body with his hands and upper arms protecting her head and his torso guarding her spine. 

A series of bangs interrupted the deafening hum of machinery.  Dresden could hear squealing and swore she heard a heap of metal zoom by overhead.  She wriggled under Dodge’s weight, determined to be the first to witness the destruction, but he shouted above the noise.

“It’s not safe yet,” he told her. 

“I have to see it,” she replied.  She continued to squirm.  “I have to see it, Dodge.”

She forced her elbows against his pillowy chest and rolled over, forcing him from her. 

The silo’s walls were gone.  Rounded sheets of metal came to rest on top of dead Pahnyakin troops or in the charred field surrounding what was left of the building.  Dresden shrieked at the sight of a Pahnyakin head looking at her from just inches away.  She extended her hand to tear the mask from the Absorber’s face but instead jumped to her feet when she noticed 30-something creatures stomping in unison in the group’s direction. 

There was a sharp ringing in her ears.  She could still hear a hum, but speaking over it was manageable, even if everyone had to yell. 

She didn’t have to ask Dodge for another grenade.  With only three M67s left, he reached for one and pulled the pin.  He pulled his arm back and tossed the grenade effortlessly.  It glided 40 feet through the air and landed too far from the approaching troops.  The Pahnyakins were shaken but largely unmoved by the explosion.  They continued onward.

Greg ran to the two leaders and pushed Dodge’s hand away from the bag.  He grabbed another grenade and nodded his head in request for approval. 

“Throw it,” Dresden shouted urgently. 

Dresden heard pleas of help behind her and turned her head.  Two of the women in Easton’s group knelt over the gap-toothed man and had their hands pressed tightly around two separate holes in his chest. 

As Dresden approached the three, she saw long shards of metal protruded from the wounds.  The metal poking out from his rib was thin and needle-like.  Dresden’s eyes traveled up the man’s shirt and to the center of his chest.  It was unlikely, judging by the width of the metal protruding from the wound, that the man’s heart
was not
pierced.  He was bleeding out.  There was no way anyone there could save him.

The teenager knelt beside the man and took his trembling right hand.  She gripped his palm with her left hand and topped his hand with her right.

“You’re going to be okay.”

She shouted lies.

His lips curled to a smile and his once-yellowed teeth were stained in milky red. 

“You saved a lot of people tonight,” she nodded to the man.  She struggled with the tears forming in her eyes.

He smiled.

“You have to save him,” begged the blonde-haired teen on the man’s left. 

Dresden’s eyes met the girl’s icy blues.  She looked sadly to the girl but said nothing.

“No,” the girl argued.  “You have to save him.”

Dresden jumped at the sound of Greg’s grenade exploding.

In her rage, the girl’s hands slipped from around the man’s chest wound and blood projectile-spurted like an erupting volcano.  The man gasped one last time before his chest stopped rising or falling. 

The girl stood and sobbed. 

“Why didn’t you help?” she begged.  “We could’ve saved—.”

Dawn’s eyes rolled upward and blood trickled from the right corner of her mouth. 

Standing two-feet above and behind her was another Assistant.  Its hands withdrew from the front of her abdomen and exited from her back.

Her body fell immediately with no support.

The woman on Dresden’s right screamed in fear and fell as she tried to back away.

The Assistant lurched for Dresden.  She didn’t know why she did not react.

Dodge turned to check on Dresden and his eyes widened upon the sight of the Pahnyakin standing over her as she remained kneeled in front the body on the ground. 

His lips curled and he was filled with rage.  He pulled the sword from the loop on his jeans and stomped towards the Assistant. 

Dodge’s first attempt at stabbing the Pahnyakin proved to be a failure.  The blade bounced away from the Assistant’s armor and Dodge was jolted back two steps by the force in between. 

The Assistant faced him and its hands extended swiftly, barely missing Dodge’s left side. 

Dodge swung the sword again and the blade clanked against the Pahnyakin’s chest plate.  The plate cracked down the center and Dodge took his shot.  With both hands he forced the blade of the sword in the cracked armor.  He could feel the blade slice through the alien’s chest. 

He looked to Dresden and back to the Pahnyakin. 

Dodge used the pad of his right thumb to press the black button on the sword. 

Easton’s group turned at the snapping that echoed over the sound of the remaining generators. 

Bethany’s inattentiveness brought her fall.  She never saw the Absorber approach.  Its wiry tentacles wrapped twice around her neck and she squirmed as her face began to turn purple.

As the voltage flowed through the Assistant, Dresden counted in her head. 

One one thousand.  Two one thousand.  Three one thous—.

The tentacles around Bethany’s neck relaxed and she gasped for air.  She jumped in fear away from the Absorber’s body. 

In a ten-foot radius, Pahnyakins dropped left and right. 

Twenty creatures fell from the sword’s contact with one.

Dodge guided his sword to the ground as the Assistant smoked and fell.

Dresden raced to his side. 

“Dodge,” she called.  “There are more.”

He gritted his teeth and pressed the button on the sword so hard that his knuckle was ghost-white.

Dresden placed her hand on his left shoulder and shrieked, “Dodge, there are
more.
”

Out of the left-most silo poured 30 more troops.  Dodge reached for another grenade, but Dresden shook her head. 

“You have to shoot the generator.”

“I don’t have a gun,” he shouted.  “I can’t do it.”

The teenager ran back to Braydon’s body and lifted his shirt.  She snatched a pistol from his belt loop and returned to Dodge.

Pahnyakin troops were closing in.  Easton’s group backed up in intimidation. 

Dresden pointed to three silver generators behind the farthest silo.  “I’m going to distract them, and you’re going to shoot the generators.  You can’t miss, Dodge.”

“You can’t do this.  They’ll come from the other silos and take you.”

She bit at the flesh on the inside of her right cheek.

Dresden blinked long and hard.  “Let them take me now.  It will take the attention from the rest of you.”

“No,” Dodge cried.  “It’s not down to that.”

The troops were feet away.

“Yes it is,” she said calmly.  “Dodge, I know you’ll make this right.  When they take me, you get everyone else to take out the smaller generators.  Do it quickly.  Once they have me the rest are probably going to come out here and try to kill you.”

His head was shaking wildly.  “No.  No.”

Dodge tore the backpack from his shoulders.

“No,” she ordered sharply.  “You save those.  Dodge, you promised me.  You have to let me go for now.”

The whites of his eyes turned red and glossy.

“They’re not going to kill me,” she assured him.  “I’m gonna be okay.  It’s all gonna be okay.  You
have
to let them take me.  It will be the way it’s supposed to be, I swear.  I do love you.  I think I always have.”

“Okay,” he replied blankly. 

She quickly threw her arms around his neck.  He held her loosely, lost in his own devastation. 

Dresden pulled herself from Dodge’s chest and offered him a soft, sad tight-lipped smile. 

She was scared…not because she thought she was going to die or be reprogrammed, but because she was almost positive she had lied to Dodge. 

It was improbable she would live, that any of them would.

Dresden raised her hands to the night sky and approached the Pahnyakin troops. 

“Take me,” she demanded. 

Her steps were steady and her voice was strong.

“If you want me,” she taunted, “
TAKE ME.
”

And they did. 

-26-

Greg was the first to fire at the troops. 

“Don’t,” Dodge shouted in trepidation.  “You could hit her.”

Margaret, with her two orange braids bouncing over each of her trembling shoulders, was sobbing and screaming. 

“Why is she going?  You said this was a mission.  Why is she leaving us?  Dodge, why are you letting this happen?”

He never took his eyes from Dresden.  The troops broke from their attacks and surrounded the girl until she was lost among them.  They walked her to the door of the center silo and it opened outward.

“You told us we’d win this,” Margaret continued to shriek madly.

Dodge turned to face her.  His cheeks were glowing and there were lines of tears streaming down his face and into his bushy beard.

“Take out the generators,” he ordered in a low voice through a deep sniffle.  He exhaled.  “Now.”

“But all that will do is cut their power.  What are we going to do if they come back?” Greg questioned.

Dodge swiped his left palm upward against his nose and sat on the ground with his knees drawn halfway to his chest.

“You have to do something,” Margaret demanded.  “Get up and
do something.
”

“What do you want me to do?” Dodge shouted.  “She let them take her to save you, to save all of us.”

Margaret argued.  “But they’re not going to let us live.  They’re going to come back out here and slaughter us.”

“I KNOW,” he screamed.  His throat tickled from the vibrations of his shouts and he coughed. 

He moved the pads of his index fingers to the inner corners of his eyes and pressed in efforts to release pressure from his brain. 

“Just shut up for a second,” he said softly.  “I can’t think right now.  I can’t think.”

It was happening all over again.

Dodge closed his eyes and was taken back to the night Amos Reesling stumbled back to Easton’s south gate holding his intestines inside his body with his own bloodied hands. 

“Where’s Dresden?” Dodge demanded, out of breath from running a block at the sight of the middle-aged man.