Sondranos: The Narrative of Leon Bishop (9 page)

I wondered what Annalise,
Melanie or Davion saw.

I must have looked ridiculous.
Falling free down a hillside that had only scared me before because
of its drop; acting like this was all part of my plan, because
nothing else seemed to work. If Melanie believed I was here on
vacation still, I could at least lie again and maintain that I was
a hero. At the time, I had no considerations of dying, just pain.
Lots of pain. I’m not proud that my miscalculation had been played
off as deliberate, but it achieved the same results I’d originally
hoped for. Good enough?

The boy caught me by the shirt
before I hit the tree, ripping the underarm of my sleeve. I heard
the crack of something heavy against wood all the same - a
sickening crunch that reminded me of someone cracking open the
shell of a lobster or crab. Part of me wondered if it was the sound
of my own body snapping against the trunk of one of the trees. I
thought it was the sound of my arms or legs breaking.

But what had happened was
different than my body’d said. I’d hit the Belovore with the force
of a cannonball. We rolled and he pushed me away. The boy and the
girl had jumped out from the tree-line and raced after me. He
caught up when we rolled over the miniature crag. When he’d caught
me, I spiralled into the girl, knocking her over until I’d ended up
in her lap. She smelled of sweat and lavender. With my eyes
swimming back and forth, unable to focus, I had come to a
controlled stop at the bottom of the hill.

The boy helped me up, but I
didn’t have the energy to stand. He pulled on my arm, and moved me
enough to rest flat on the ground. The girl scooted away. I let my
head fall into the sudden patch of grass beneath my head and closed
my eyes.

The young man yelled, “Be
careful, go slowly!”

A few moments later, Annalise
was by my side. The others continued a very slow climb down the
decline.

“
What was
that about?” Annalise asked.

I opened my eyes. When I looked
up, refusing to move my body – my legs were stiff and sore, my arms
throbbed, and I was certain the top of my head had succumbed
completely to a future of perpetual migraines – Melanie and Davion
finished their crab step down the hill

It seemed Annalise had started
coming down as soon as I’d started my tumble. “Were you trying to
be an idiot?”

“
It was all I
could think to do,” I said.

She started laughing. “It
worked, I think. Hasn’t moved since it landed.”

“
You must
have been the guy who brought a nuclear warhead to a water balloon
fight, huh?” Melanie tried to add something in. She lowered herself
over the crag, letting her stomach bundle over the edge until she
pushed away and landed.

Sitting up, I shook my head
slowly and winked. Annalise dusted dirt and refuse off my
shirt.

For all they knew, I’d always
fought back, and this was normal.

I wasn’t going to correct them:
it hurt my head to do so.

The pain still sang a high G in
my ears, which throbbed and pulsated behind my eyes.

After Annalise forced me to
stand and take a couple disjointed steps, we all stepped closer to
the Belovore – the two kids joined us. The girl looked more
interested in the beast; the boy stepped close. The Belovore had
impacted against the tree hard enough that the second chelimb
snapped off where it connected with the lower vertebrae. It lay
horizontally on the ground. On closer look, the Belovore’s spine
had also been crushed. Parts of the vertebrae sat nearby on the
ground. Other, sharper, bits embedded in the trunk of the tree. And
behind that, the tree itself had been dented. One stiff push could
dislodge it completely.

The Belovore’s eyes closed. Its
arms were still, and its legs bent up behind its torso.

While we stared at it, Davion
hoisted the boulder Annalise had rolled down into his arms and
walked up to us. He feigned that it was light, but the strain
caused his neck to pulse and a vein atop his head – right where his
hairline touched forehead – bulged. The vein was a deep blue, and
the skin around it crimson.

“
What do you
think it wants?” Melanie asked.

Annalise shot her a ‘really?’
expression, but didn’t say anything.

“
Will not be
forgiven,” the Belovore whispered. The sound made us all jump. I
don’t think any of us expected it to speak English, much less still
be alive. “You will not –“

Melanie, behind me, pushed
forward from behind even though I refused to budge. I felt her
breasts pushing into me, and as a result felt how heavy her
breathing had grown.

“
What does
that mean?” she whispered.

Before I could answer, Davion
skirted by and dropped the boulder on the Belovore’s head. Its
skull cracked instantly, and a flow of something deep red poured
out.

Annalise shouted and Melanie
nearly tripped, avoiding a large chunk of something I could have
only guessed was brain. The kids looked more concerned with what
had happened than with Davion having killed it. The girl’s eyes
were red, and her cheeks the same. The boy struggled to breathe
past the urge to vomit. Annalise folded her arms against her chest.
I expected her to say something.

I could have sworn I’d heard a
guttural sibilant come from the Belovore.

A ship penetrating the sky had
chosen that moment to break atmosphere, sounding like another
detonation screaming towards Sondranos.

Chapter
Five:

Introductions

The roar from
the sky
startled us all.

The sound was the sonic boom of
a ship crashing through the atmosphere. We all turned towards it.
It descended from the apex of the sky; we followed its controlled
fall in our semi-sanctuary between the hillside and the makeshift
woods. Far enough away so that we weren’t in immediate danger, but
big enough to carry at least a million passengers. A dark black
cloud lingered on the skyscape, pinpointing the former city. The
ship plunged through, shoving all cloud wisps aside. Flames and
red-hot singes stressed the bottom of the ship as it moved
downwards. It slowed halfway between the ground and the apex of the
sky. The ship strained against gravity, and four large thrusters
spat out blue flame to keep steady. The silver hull glistened in
the sun. The shape reminded me of something old, like the rotting
arm of a rocking chair. Large steel struts and beams connected and
crossed to form the exterior shell, and nooks and crannies – which
must have been as wide as the transport I’d come in on – dotted the
surface.

Hundreds of darts poured out
like gnats bursting from its exoskeleton. None of them started
towards the ground as the strafing darts had. Instead, they
patrolled around the ship.

When it disappeared behind the
trees – the engines still roaring and thumping – we all looked at
each other, then to Davion. He nodded, knelt and looked down. None
of us knew how to react. Melanie bowed her head and closed her
eyes, breathing deep. I wondered if that was still her attempt at
keeping in his good graces. Annalise and I bowed as well, but
looked at each other from the corners of our eyes. The two kids
held close together.

“
A Belovore.
The exoskeleton is clear enough. They darken with age. That one
must have been three, possibly four hundred years old,” Davion
began. He was too calm for this to be a surprise.

“
They have
ships?” Melanie asked.

“
No. They
have ours,” Davion sighed. “The
Irene
was the colony ship which
landed here. Admiral Perry retrofitted it for them back when they
first initiated the will for space travel. I would be willing to
place a great deal of faith that the ship we just saw is her. The
Belovores are a slow species, methodical and precise. They must
have never seen the need to expand or create more than what they’d
already had. What we’d given them.”

“
How could
they do this?”

“
Think,
Melanie. You’ve lived your entire life on this settlement and never
heard of a Belovore before today,” Davion rasped. “How many
generations have passed since Sondranos was colonized?”

“
You knew the
moment you saw the darts,” Annalise said.

“
Yes. Who
would have the want to destroy Sondranos, and who would be using
such outdated technology? I had been praying things would have been
different.”

“
I guess your
God doesn’t answer all prayers,” Annalise said.

“
I don’t
understand,” Melanie interrupted.

I added my own thought: “What
do the Belovores have against Sondranos?”

“
History,
young man,” Davion chided me. “We are always victims of our past.
When the attacks begin, simply look to the eldest of your
enemies.”

“
You seem to
be awfully informative all of a sudden. Did you expect this?” I
asked. My jealous anger towards him had returned. Behind it was a
curtain reminding me that I hadn’t been brave enough – good enough
– to be the leader of our little group.

“
Young man,”
Davion started, looking at me cock-eyed.

“
I mean, I
don’t want to insult you, but it’s rather convenient that you’ve
come to this conclusion so quickly, and just so happen to
know…”

“
Answer him,”
said Annalise, interrupting me before I could say something I
wouldn’t be able to take back. “Did you?”

“
Davion,”
Melanie inched forward. “What’s going on?”

“
Do you think
I’m not terrified?” Davion broke. I hadn’t realized how hard we’d
been pushing. The will to force him into something lesser than
myself had been uncontrolled and unnoticed until Davion spat these
words back at me, as if I was the only one pushing him for answers.
“Do you think I haven’t been repeating every prayer I know since
this happened? What kind of man do you think I am – what kind of
man are you to say that my silence, my will to get us to a safe
place implied complicity with what has happened? Damn you, sir –
for you shall be damned! I am a student of the past. I have lived
in Sondranos and on the outside; I have made choices to study the
world that we have come from. How dare you accuse my life choices
of being anything less than my attempts at bettering
myself!”

“
I don’t
think he meant it like that,” Annalise stepped between us. “Like he
said, it’s just – it is a bit convenient that you had ideas of who
attacked before any of us.”

“
If you had
never read the Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde, would you accuse me
of murder for knowing that Hyde is the manifestation of Jekyll’s
evil?”

I held my tongue. Davion
breathed hard. His ire had been raised, that much was certain. One
point had become clear – he might have had answers to a small
portion of the puzzle, but our combined fear had elevated those
pieces into something larger than all of us. I decided to drop the
subject, offering my surrender by backing up a few steps and
apologising. My knees throbbed under each placement.

After a
moment, Davion continued. “Come, let us move to towards the
commune, I will tell you of the first years of the
Irene
. Perhaps you will
understand as I do.”

“
About that,”
Annalise stopped Davion, putting a hand on his shoulder before he
could walk past. “This neighbourhood beyond the woods – it’s where
I was headed before this happened. We can hide out
there.”

“
No!” Davion
turned on her, still sensitive. “I will not allow more to
die.”

“
I’m not
saying we not go to the commune. I have something in my garage that
can get us out of here quicker.”

Melanie said, quickly, “I’m all
for that.”

I agreed, nodding and looking
at Davion for approval. He took a moment. He scuffed at the ground
with his shoes and looked at the Belovore with its head crushed in.
He sighed and then said, “If the Lord wills it.”

“
I’m
Lancaster, and this is Kayt,” the young man appeared from behind
us, poking his head out of the trees. We all looked around,
embarrassed. In the argument, we’d completely forgotten about them
both. He escorted Kayt out from the trees, took her hand, and she
startled at the gesture. She pulled away from the hold and
scratched her neck. Lancaster’s voice trembled, on the edge of
tears. “Do any of you mind if we join you? We kind of don’t have
anywhere else to go.”

“
The flock
can always be expanded,” Davion said. He pointed this to Annalise
as if to turn her suggestion into his own; whoever we found in the
neighbourhood would be saved on his terms, his tone said. The boy
sighed, and the girl nicked him in the side with her elbow, pulling
the side of her lips upwards in an ‘I told you so’ look.

“
Hello
Lancaster. Call me Lise. This is Melanie and Davion,” Annalise
extended her hand, but looked at me as Lancaster entered the group
to take it. “I don’t know this man’s name, but I’m sure he’ll jump
headfirst into introducing himself.”

I was taken aback.

Had I really not introduced
myself?

I watched Annalise and tried to
gauge her response. Her expression hadn’t changed. She was serious.
I stammered, unable to speak.

‘
This is what
you do,’ imaginary Daniel said.

The rain falls
and keeps
coming until the roads are slick
enough with engine grease and synthetic fuel that the number six
bus careens off the road and into the entranceway to Turner House,
just off Princes Street. The bedroom Leon rents when coming to
visit Daniel is on the top floor. When the sandstone and concrete
foundation cracks and lets the building come crashing down, nothing
Leon owns in that room comes out salvageable.