The Fate of Nations Book II The Harvest (22 page)

Adam was confident that he would get out of there, now, along with all of the children. He quickly formulated an idea to escape the holding pen. Sarah and Mikel were the solution to their escape from this wretched world. He would leave with them.

“We will be waiting at the ship you
came in”
he told Sarah. Adam's gaze never faltered as he told her these things. His face remained expressionless, his lips never moved. Sarah felt Mikel's hand on her arm.

He turned her quickly around and gripped her arm tightly. Mikel immediately looked over the crowd of children directly at Adam. Adam smiled at Mikel.

Mikel turned, still holding onto Sarah's arm and followed the Grays as they continued their tour. “I told you not to walk off by yourself” Mikel said sternly.

“Do not do that again.” Once again, the warning of “or else” in his tone. Mikel was not a hurtful being, but he would punish Sarah if she didn't listen to him.

Mikel's punishments were swift and painful, but mercifully brief and Sarah didn't normally have to be warned twice. He could deliver a blow to her mind that felt like a hammer pounding her head in. It was blinding, and excruciatingly painful, but quick and very effective. Sarah tried her best to avoid getting punished.

The children looked up pitifully from where they sat cross-legged on the floor, the hope slowly fading in their eyes as the group left their area, except for Adam, who looked at Sarah and smiled.

Adam sat with Cherish on his lap, tugging

pitifully on his sleeve. “Adam, are you going to finish the story or not,” she asked sadly. Adam suddenly remembered that he had been telling the children an old Crios story. He blinked his eyes slowly and looked down at Cherish.

What a beautiful little girl she is,
he thought,
with
her black hair and pale porcelain skin.
Her eyes were a striking dusky violet color. She was from the large planet called Grewsta, a planet of endless orange seas, from the Grewsta human colony there. He recognized their distinctive features in her.

It was said that the the chemical calebra, found in the bright orange seas gave them their fair appearance, their violet eyes, their polished porcelain skin, almost marble like. She didn't look real. She was so intensely beautiful, and here she sat, on his lap, in the middle of this disgusting meat plant, awaiting her turn to be selected for a banquet.

Adam's anger rose frighteningly in his mind. He wanted to lash out at the Grays with all of the ferocious hatred of them he felt. “Of course I'll finish the story angel,” Adam cooed softly to Cherish, who looked up at him with her wide beautiful eyes. “
What do you want of
me?
” Mikel suddenly spoke in his mind.

“You are Mikel?”
Adam asked hesitantly.
“None
other,”
Mikel replied casually.
“We need your
help,”

Adam said, Cherish now tugging at his sleeve impatiently again.
“I cannot take all of you,”
Mikel replied cautiously, already gleaning from Sarah's mind the question Adam would be asking.

“My
ship is only a small craft, there is not
enough room for you all.” “No!”
Adam cried,
“I can't
leave
anyone here, Mikel, there must be some way to
get them all in your ship! You see what they're doing to
humans here, don't you? You know what will happen to
the ones we leave behind!”

Mikel spoke carefully and softly to Adam,

“Adam, you must choose fifty from among you. That is
as many as my craft can hold. I would take all of the
humans from here if I had a ship large enough,
but I
can't. You must choose.”
Tears slid down Adam's face, dropping onto Cherish's raven black hair,
“I
understand,”
Adam said, after a few minutes,
“I will do
as you say, thank you Mikel. We will meet you at your
ship.”
Mikel had no doubt of this. He had encountered humans from Crios before and they were very inventive, very resilient.

As the tour of the unimaginable meat plant was winding down, the Grays decided to show Mikel and Sarah the killing process they used. It was quite effective and was enjoyable to watch, the leader told Mikel. The people were picked at random. A group of one hundred humans were herded out by the Gray Guardians with their barbed tails and forced into a room where they were cleaned first.

They were sprayed with a purplish liquid that instantly removed all of the grime and dirt from their bodies. If they had long hair, as some of the women and men did, their hair was first pulled to the tops of their heads and bound with a clear band that sized itself tightly around the hair, forming a pony tail.

Sarah looked at this in wonder, not understanding why they would fix their hair that way when they were going to kill them. The people selected were then placed in a single-file line. As they waited, they speculated on what was going to happen next. As Sarah listened to them talking, her heart wrenched in her chest. They thought they were being set free. They were happy.

They still did not have the faintest idea of what was happening to them. Screams soon erupted as the claw like machine descended from above each of them.

It grasped them cruelly around their necks, the claws digging into their flesh, long ribbons of blood streamed down from the deep punctures. Their eyes were wide and horrified as the claws lifted them into the air. With a quick jerking motion, their necks were snapped.

They dangled from the claws like rag dolls, blood frothing from their mouths, their noses, their ears. Some of their limbs were still jerking spasmodically as a table slid into view underneath them and they were dropped unceremoniously onto it. The table slid out of view, taking the bodies to be processed further inside of the building, and the next hundred people were lined up, oblivious to what had just happened to the hundred before them, laughing excitedly as they stood in line.

They were able to prepare a hundred at once, so as one group was being killed, the next was being cleaned and processed.

New arrivals of humans daily, kept their supply fresh. Most of the humans they were bringing in were not from Earth, but from other planets scattered through the Universe. There was a never ending stream of humans coming into the meat plant.

Adam looked up from where he sat in his

enclosure. A Guardian was approaching. “Get ready Jacob,” he whispered. “You know what to do.”

The fifty children that Adam had chosen stood in a group beside of the only entrance or exit to the enclosure. The small machines were quietly scanning the room for activity. By moving very slowly, Adam and the children had managed to escape their notice and avoid the painful stings they delivered. Adam wasn't sure how long their luck would hold out during their exit, it just depended on how long Jacob and the others could keep the Guardian distracted.

“Remember what I told you,” Adam whispered softly to the gathered children, “walk slowly, don't push each other, and don't run.” They each nodded their small heads solemnly, their small faces marked with fear and anticipation.

The Guardian entered the enclosure. He towered over Adam, standing over seven feet tall. It was hard for Adam not to be intimidated by its' presence.
His mind
, Adam reminded himself,
isn't like
mine, I can do this.

Adam concentrated on the Gray's mind.

Sarah trudged along beside of Mikel, surveying the massive machines arranged along the far wall designed for processing humans through the meat plant.

Adam's voice sounded emphatically in her mind.

“Sarah, distract the Grays around you. We will
be passing by you in a few minutes. You have to distract
them to give us time to get to the exit.”
Sarah silently acknowledged Adam. She staggered and fell against one of the huge machines, knocking off a large pile of mixed ghastly organs and entrails onto the dirty gray floor of the plant.

Mikel rushed over to where she lay, reaching to help her up. The Grays screeched in horror as the organs and entrails slid off of the machine's surface and quickly formed a ring around them, picking them up carefully and hurriedly placing them back on the machine. They didn't notice as Adam led his small group quickly and silently by them, hugging the wall closely as they slid past.

Mikel helped Sarah to her feet, gesturing and screeching his apologies for her clumsiness. The Grays were not easily placated. Mikel gestured carefully, keeping his screeching tone low and apologetic until the Grays finally returned to a calm state. They stared coldly at Sarah and bared their teeth menacingly.

They were led towards the exit of the plant and Mikel and the tour leader exchanged farewells. Sarah and Mikel stepped outside into the perpetual dimness of the planet's landscape. They walked slowly back to Mikel's ship, trudging through the dark gray dirt, exhausted.

They were met at Mikel's ship by Adam and the children that he had gathered, along with him. They were the youngest ones, who couldn't distract the Grays the way the older ones could, and the older ones insisted that they be taken, they were, after all, in the most danger.

Jacob, Adam's closest friend, elected to stay behind to give the smaller ones a chance to escape.

Sorrow and pride for his friend tore at Adams emotions, and was evident on his tear stricken face. Mikel placed his small hand on Adam's, reassuring him wordlessly, as they boarded the small craft.

The Trip Home

Sarah carefully placed her doll on the shelf beside of her bed. It was an old rag doll, dressed in yellow gingham. It was a gift from her Grandmother. Sarah only took it down from the little shelf to cradle it when she was afraid. She had not played with it for years until recently. She found herself reaching for it more and more.

Sarah had been alone for a week now. She

marked off each day on her Kitty Calendar that sat on the small white desk in her room. She had remembered to draw all of the curtains closed and not to use the electricity.

The power was out now, and the water. It came from the well behind of their house and the pump needed electricity to bring the water out of the ground.

Sarah had filled the tub, and all of the containers she could find with the cool well water before the power went out.

Her mother had just made a trip to the grocery store before vanishing into one of those ships along with the rest of Sarah's family, so there was enough food to feed her and the animals for months.

Mare, her cat, wouldn't come into the house.

Sarah called to her and held the door open when the dogs ran in, but Mare sat outside on an aging oak tree stump, licking her paw contentedly and stared silently up at the hovering crafts. She didn't even come in when Sarah offered her her favorite meal, a can of tuna. Sarah held the can at the door and Mare only looked at her for a moment, and then resumed her grooming, watching the activity of the overhead ships intently. Sarah finally had to close the door and bolt it, praying silently that Mare would be alright.

The dogs were safely indoors with Sarah, they ran into the house as soon as her family walked outside to their dismal fates. The dogs, Casey and Cocoa, stayed with Sarah now, never leaving her side as she crept through the silent house. They weren't barking the way they normally did. They weren't wagging their tails or playing with the toys Sarah gave them. They only sat, or walked beside of her, pressed closely against her legs, occasionally growling low in the back of their throats at something Sarah couldn't see or hear.

Sarah sat on the floor of her room. She sat with the dogs pressed tightly against her on either side. She stroked Casey's red fur absently as she thought about the trip home from that distant dark world and about Mikel. Casey's eyes were fastened on the window in Sarah's bedroom while Cocoa slept soundly beside of her.

They sat quietly as Mikel piloted his small ship away from the Gray's world of Kryox. Adam sat with the children he had led out of the grim prison and sobbed softly, his thoughts with Jacob. The fifty children were fast asleep in the living quarters of Mikel, stretched out side by side on the cool bare hematite colored floor.

Sarah exhaled her relief as she saw the planet getting smaller and smaller. She was so glad to be away from that horrible place. “I have so much to tell you Sarah,” Mikel said after some time. He turned to her and began, halting only long enough to check his controls or to answer one of Sarah's many questions.

“Mikel, why did you want to go to that planet?”

Sarah asked. “I didn't,” Mikel replied. “Serel sent me there to find two more Grays to work on board his ship.

The two that were there have left. I thought that since I was going anyway, that it would be a good time to show you what they have planned for the people of your planet.” Sarah thought about this for a minute and then asked “Why won't you stop them Mikel?”

“I cannot interfere with what will take place there,” Mikel said. “Then why did you help Adam and the children today?”
I was compelled,
Mikel thought.

He wasn't sure of the reason, himself. Although he abhorred the meat plant, he knew, as every other being in the Universe knew, that what went on there could only be permitted or ended by the Highest, but when Adam asked for Mikel's help, he knew that he could not refuse.

What made Adam so different from the countless others who reached out to him there, begging for his help? Mikel wasn't sure, he only knew that he should help him, he was
compelled
to help him. “I did what I could do Sarah,” Mikel responded. “If the Grays had discovered Adam's escape, I could not have helped. It would have sparked a conflict, but since they were able to escape unnoticed, the Grays are unaware of anything amiss.”