I Am Number Four - Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34

IMAGES FLICKER, EACH ONE BRINGING ITS own sorrow or its own smile. Sometimes both. At the very worst an impenetrable and sightless black and at best a
happiness so bright that it hurts the eyes to see, coming and going on some unseen projector perpetually turned by an invisible hand. One, then another.
The hollow click of the shutter. Now stop. Freeze this frame. Pluck it down and hold it close and be damned by what you see. Henri always said: the price
of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings.
A warm summer day in the cool grass with the sun high in the cloudless sky. The air coming off the water, carrying the freshness of the sea. A man
walks up to the house, briefcase in hand. A younger man, brown hair cut short, freshly shaven, dressed casually. A sense of nervousness by the way he
switches his briefcase from one hand to the other and the thin layer of sweat glistening on his forehead. He knocks at the door. My grandfather answers,
opens the door for the man to enter, then closes it behind him. I resume my romping in the yard. Hadley changing forms, flying, then dodging, then
charging. Wrestling with one another and laughing until it hurts. The day passing as time only can under the reckless abandon of childhood's invincibility, of
its innocence.
Fifteen minutes pass. Maybe less. At that age a day can last forever. The door opens and closes. I look up. My grandfather is standing with the
man I had seen approach, both of them looking down at me.
"There is somebody I would like you to meet," he says.
I stand from the grass and clap my hands together to knock away the dirt.
"This is Brandon," my grandfather says. "He is your Cepan. Do you know what that means?"
I shake my head. Brandon. That was his name. All these years and only now does it come back to me.
"It means he's going to be spending a lot of time with you from here on out. The two of you, it means you are connected. You are bound to one
another. Do you understand?"
I nod and walk to the man and I offer him my hand as I have seen done many times by grown men before. The man smiles and drops to one knee.
He takes my small hand in his right and he closes his fingers around it.
"Pleased to meet you, sir," I say.
Bright, kind eyes full of life look into mine as though offering a promise, a bond, yet I'm too young to know what that promise or bond really means.
He nods and brings his left hand on top of his right, my tiny hand lost somewhere in the middle. He nods at me, still smiling.
"My dear child," he says. "The pleasure is all mine."
I am jolted awake. I lie on my back, my heart racing, breathing heavily as though I had been running. My eyes stay closed but I can tell the sun has just risen
by the long shadows and the crispness of air in the room. Pain returns, my limbs still heavy. With the pain comes another pain, a pain far greater than any
physical ailment I could ever be afflicted with: the memory of the hours before.
I take a deep breath and exhale. A single tear rolls down the side of my face. I keep my eyes closed. An irrational hope that if I don't find the day
then the day won't find me, that the things in the night will be nullified. My body shudders, a silent cry turning into a hard one. I shake my head and let it in. I
know that Henri is dead and that all the hope in the world won't change it.
I feel movement beside me. I tense myself, try to remain motionless so as not to be detected. A hand reaches up and touches the side of my face.
A delicate touch done with love. My eyes come open, adjusting to the postdawn light until the ceiling of a foreign room comes into focus. I have no idea
where I am, nor how I could have gotten here. Sarah is sitting next to me. She brings her hand to the side of my face and traces my brow with her thumb.
She leans down and kisses me, a soft lingering kiss that I wish I could bottle and save for all time. She pulls away and I take a deep breath and close my
eyes and kiss her on the forehead.
"Where are we?" I ask.
"A hotel thirty miles from Paradise."
"How did I get here?"
"Sam drove us," she says.
"I mean from the school. What happened? I remember that you were with me last night, but I don't remember a thing after," I say. "It almost seems
like a dream."
"I waited on the field with you until Mark arrived and he carried you to Sam's truck. I couldn't stay hidden any longer. Being in the school without
knowing what was happening out there was killing me. And I felt like I could help somehow."
"You certainly helped," I say. "You saved my life."
"I killed an alien," she says, as though the fact still hasn't settled in.
She wraps her arms around me, her hand resting on the back of my head. I try to sit up. I make it halfway on my own and then Sarah helps me the
rest of the way, pushing on my back but being careful not to touch the wound left by the knife. I swing my feet over the edge of the bed and reach down and
feel the scars around my ankle, counting them with the tips of my fingers. Still only three, and in this way I know that Six has survived. I had already
accepted the fate of the rest of my days being spent alone, an itinerant wanderer with no place to go. But I won't be alone. Six is still here, still with me, my
tie to a past world.
"Is Six okay?"
"Yes," she says. "She's been stabbed and shot but she seems to be doing okay now. I don't think she would have survived had Sam not carried
her to the truck."
"Where is she?"
"In the room next door, with Sam and Mark."
I stand. My muscles and joints ache in protest, everything stiff and sore. I am wearing a clean T-shirt, a pair of mesh shorts. My skin is fresh with
the smell of soap. The cuts have been cleaned and bandaged, a few of them stitched.
"Did you do all of this?" I ask.
"Most of it. The stitches were hard. We only had the ones Henri put in your head to go on as an example. Sam helped with them."
I look at Sarah sitting on the bed, her legs pulled underneath her. Something else catches my eye, a small mass that has shifted beneath the
blanket at the foot of the bed. I tense, and immediately my mind returns to the weasels that sped across the gym. Sarah sees what I am looking at and
smiles. She crawls to the bottom of the bed on her hands and knees.
"There's somebody here who wants to say hello," she says, then takes the corner of the blanket and gently peels it back to reveal Bernie Kosar,
sleeping away. A metal splint goes the length of his front leg, and his body is covered with cuts and gashes that, like mine, have been cleaned and are
already beginning to heal. His eyes slowly open and adjust, eyes rimmed with red, full of exhaustion. He keeps his head on the bed but his tail gives a
subtle wag, softly thumping against the mattress.
"Bernie," I say, and drop to my knees before him. I place my hand softly on his head. I can't stop smiling and tears of joy surface. His small body is
curled into a ball, head resting on his front paws, his eyes taking me in, battle scarred and wounded but still here to tell the tale.
"Bernie Kosar, you made it through. I owe my life to you," I say, and kiss the top of his head.
Sarah runs her hand down the length of his back.
"I carried him to the truck while Mark carried you."
"Mark. I'm sorry I ever doubted him," I say.
She lifts one of Bernie Kosar's ears. He turns and sniffs at her hand and then licks it. "So, is it true what Mark said, that Bernie Kosar grew to thirty
feet tall and killed a beast almost double his size?"
I smile. "A beast triple his size."
Bernie Kosar looks at me. Liar, he says. I look down and wink at him. I stand back up and look at Sarah.
"All of this," I say. "All of this has happened so fast. How are you handling it?"
She nods. "Handling what? The fact that I've fallen in love with an alien, which I only found out about three days ago, and then just happened to walk
headlong into the middle of a war? Yeah, I'm handling that okay."
I smile at her. "You're an angel."
"Nah," she says. "I'm just a girl crazy in love."
She gets up from the bed and wraps her arms around me and we stand in the center of the room holding one another.
"You really have to leave, don't you?"
I nod.
She takes a deep breath and exhales shakily, willing herself not to cry. More tears in the past twenty-four hours than I have ever witnessed in all the
years of my life.
"I don't know where you have to go or what you have to do, but I'll wait for you, John. Every bit of my heart belongs to you, whether you ask for it or
not."
I pull her to me. "And mine belongs to you," I say.
I walk across the room. Sitting on top of the desk are the Loric Chest, three packed bags, Henri's computer, and all the money from the last withdrawal he
made at the bank. Sarah must have rescued the Chest from the home-ec room. I place my hand on it. All the secrets, Henri had said. All of them contained
within this. In time I'll open it and discover them, but that time is certainly not now. And what did he mean about Paradise, that our coming wasn't by
chance?"
Did you pack my bags?" I ask Sarah, who is standing behind me.
"Yes, and it was probably the hardest thing I ever had to do."
I lift my bag from the table. Beneath it is a manila envelope carrying my name across the front of it.
"What is this?" I ask.
"I don't know. I found it in Henri's bedroom. We went there after leaving the school and tried to grab everything we could; then we came here."
I open the envelope and pull out the contents. All of the documents Henri had created for me: birth certificates, social security cards, visas, and so
on. I count through them. Seventeen different identities, seventeen different ages. On the very front sheet is a sticky note in Henri's writing. It reads, "Just in
case." After the last sheet is another sealed envelope, across which Henri has written my name. A letter, the one he must have been talking about just
before he died. I don't have the heart to read it now.
I look out the window of the hotel room. A light snow sifts down from the low, gray clouds overhead. The ground is too warm for any of it to stick. Sarah's
car and Sam's father's blue truck are parked beside each other in the lot. As I stand looking down at them a knock sounds at the door. Sarah opens it and
Sam and Mark walk into the room; Six limps behind them. Sam hugs me, says he's sorry.
"Thank you," I say.
"How do you feel?" Six asks. She is no longer wearing the suit but is now dressed in the pair of jeans she wore when I first saw her, and one of
Henri's sweatshirts.
I shrug. "I'm okay. Sore and stiff. My body feels heavy."
"The heaviness is from the dagger. It'll eventually wear off, though."
"How badly were you stabbed?" I ask.
She lifts her shirt and shows me the gash in her side, then a different one on her back. All told, she was stabbed three times last night, and that's
not to mention the various cuts along the rest of her body, or the shot that left a deep gash in her right thigh, now wrapped tightly with gauze and tape, the
reason for her limp. She tells me that by the time we made it back it was too late to be healed by the stone. It amazes me that she is even alive.
Sam and Mark are wearing the same clothes as the day before, both filthy and covered in mud and dirt with smatterings of blood mixed in. Both
with heavy eyes as though they've yet to sleep. Mark stands behind Sam, shifting his weight uncomfortably.
"Sam, I always knew you were a wrecking machine," I say.
He laughs uncertainly. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," I say. "How about you?"
"Doing okay."
I look over his shoulder at Mark.
"Sarah told me you carried me off the field last night."
Mark shrugs. "I was happy to help."
"You saved my life, Mark."
He looks me in the eye. "I think every one of us saved somebody at some point last night. Hell, Six saved me on three separate occasions. And
you saved my two dogs on Saturday. I say we're even."
I somehow manage to smile. "Fair enough," I say. "I'm just happy to find out you're not the dick I thought you were."
He half grins. "Let's just say that had I known you were an alien and could kick my ass at will, I might have been a little nicer to you that first day."
Six walks across the room and looks at my bags atop the table.
"We really should get going," she says, and then looks at me with implicit concern, her face softening. "There's really only one thing left undone.
We weren't sure what you wanted us to do."
I nod. I don't need to ask to know what she is talking about. I look at Sarah. It's going to happen much sooner than I thought. My stomach turns. I
feel as though I could vomit. Sarah reaches out and takes hold of my hand.
"Where is he?"
The ground is damp with the melting snow. I hold Sarah's hand in mine and we pass through the woods in silence, a mile away from the hotel. Sam and
Mark walk in the lead, following the muddy footprints they created a few hours before. Up ahead I see a slight clearing, in the center of which Henri's body
has been laid out on a slab of wood. He is wrapped in the gray blanket pulled from his bed. I walk to him. Sarah follows and places a hand on my
shoulder. The others stand behind me. I pull the blanket down to see him. His eyes are closed, his face is ashen gray, and his lips are blue from the cold. I
kiss his forehead.
"What do you want to do, John?" Six asks. "We can bury him if you want. We can also cremate him."
"How can we cremate him?"
"I can create a fire."
"I thought you could only control the weather."
"Not the weather. The elements."
I look up at her soft face, concern written upon it but also the stress of time at our having to leave before reinforcements arrive. I don't answer. I look
away and squeeze Henri a final time with my face close to his and I lose myself to grief.
"I'm so sorry, Henri," I whisper in his ear. I close my eyes. "I love you. I wouldn't have missed a second of it, either. Not for anything," I whisper. "I'm
going to take you back yet. Somehow I am going to get you back to Lorien. We always joked about it but you were my father, the best father I could have
ever asked for. I'll never forget you, not for a minute for as long as I live. I love you, Henri. I always did."
I let go of him, pull the blanket back over his face, and lay him gently on the wooden slab. I stand and hug Sarah. She holds me until I stop crying. I
wipe the tears away with the back of my hand and I nod at Six.
Sam helps me clear away the sticks and leaves and then we lay Henri's body on the ground so as not to dilute his ash with anything else. Sam
lights an edge of the blanket and Six makes the fire rage from there. We watch it burn, not a dry eye among us. Even Mark cries. Nobody says a word.
When the flames end I gather the ashes in a coffee can that Mark was astute enough to bring from the hotel. I'll get something better the second we stop.
When we walk back I put the can on the dashboard of Sam's dad's truck. I feel comforted to know that Henri will still travel with us, that he'll look out over
the roads while we leave another town as the two of us have done so many times before.
We load our belongings into the back of the truck. Along with Six's things and mine, Sam has also loaded in two bags of his own. At first I'm
confused, but then I realize that between him and Six some agreement has been made that Sam will come with us. And I'm happy for that. Sarah and I
walk back into the hotel room. The second the door closes she takes my hand and turns me towards her.
"My heart is breaking," she says. "I want to be strong for you right now but the thought of you leaving is killing me inside."
I kiss her on the head.
"My heart is broken already," I say. "The second I get settled I'll write. And I'll do my best to call when I know it is safe."
Six pokes her head in the doorway.
"We really have to go," she says.
I nod. She closes the door. Sarah lifts her face to mine and we kiss standing there in the hotel room. The thought of the Mogadorians returning
before we've left, and thus putting her in danger yet again, is the only source of strength I can find. Else I might collapse. Else I might stay forever.
Bernie Kosar still lies waiting at the foot of the bed. He wags his tail when I carefully take him into my arms and carry him outside to the truck. Six
starts the truck and lets it idle. I turn and look up at the hotel and am saddened that it's not the house, and that I know I'll never see it again. Its peeling
wooden clapboards, broken windows, black shingles warped from excessive sun exposure and rain. It looks like Paradise, I once told Henri. But that will
no longer hold true. Paradise lost.
I turn and nod to Six. She climbs into the truck, closes the door, and waits.
Sam and Mark shake hands but I don't hear what they say to each other. Sam climbs into the truck and waits with Six. I shake Mark's hand.
"I owe you more than I'll ever be able to repay," I say to Mark.
"You don't owe me a thing," Mark says.
"Not true," I say. "Someday."
I look away. I can feel myself wanting to collapse under the sadness of leaving. My resolve is being held by a tattered string ready to snap.
I nod. "I'll see you again someday."
"Be safe out there."
I take Sarah into my arms and squeeze her tightly, never wanting to let go.
"I'll come back to you," I say. "I promise you, if it's the last thing I do I'll come back to you."
Her face is buried in my neck. She nods.
"I'll count the minutes until you do," she says.
One last kiss. I set her on the ground and I open the door to the truck. My eyes never leave hers. She covers her mouth and her nose with her
hands pressed together, neither one of us able to look away. I close the door. Six puts the truck in reverse and pulls out of the parking lot, comes to a stop,
puts it in gear. Mark and Sarah walk to the end of the lot to watch us on our way, tears streaming down both sides of Sarah's face. I turn in my seat and
watch from the rear window. I lift my hand to wave and Mark waves back but Sarah just watches. I watch her for as long as I can, growing smaller, one
indistinct blur fading in the distance. The truck slows and turns and both of them vanish from sight. I turn back around and I watch the fields pass and I
close my eyes and I picture Sarah's face and I smile. We'll be together yet, I tell her. And until that day you'll be in my heart and my every thought.
Bernie Kosar lifts his head and rests it in my lap and I place my hand upon his back. The truck bounces down the road, driving south. The four of
us, together, heading for the next town. Wherever that might be.

Categories: I Am Number Four

I Am Number Four - Chapter 33

CHAPTER 33

THE HAZY IMAGE SHARPENS. THROUGH THE exhaustion and pain and fear, a smile comes to my face, coupled with a sense of relief. Henri. He throws the
shotgun into the bushes and drops to one knee beside me. He face is bloodied, his shirt and jeans in tatters, cuts down the length of both arms and on his
neck, and beyond that I see that his eyes are fear-stricken from what he sees in mine.
"Is it over?" I ask.
"Shhh," he says. "Tell me, have you been stabbed by one of their daggers?"
"My back," I say.
He closes his eyes and shakes his head. He reaches into his pocket and removes one of the small round stones I watched him grab from the
Loric Chest before we left the home-ec room. His hands are shaking.
"Open your mouth," he says. He inserts one of the stones. "Keep it under your tongue. Don't swallow it." He hefts me up with his hands beneath my
armpits. I get to my feet and he keeps an arm on me while I regain balance. He turns me around to look at the gash on my back. My face feels warm. A
sort of rejuvenation blooms through me from the stone. My limbs still ache with exhaustion, but enough strength has returned so that I'm able to function.
"What is this?"
"Loric salt. It'll slow and numb the dagger's effects," he says. "You'll feel a burst of energy, but it won't last long and we have to get back to the
school as quickly as we can."
The pebble is cold in my mouth, tastes nothing like salt--tastes like nothing at all, actually. I look down and take inventory, and then brush off with my
hands the ashen residue left from the fallen beast.
"Is everyone okay?" I ask.
"Six has been badly hurt," he says. "Sam is carrying her back to the truck as we speak; then he is going to drive to the school to pick us up. That's
why we have to get back there."
"Have you seen Sarah?"
"No."
"Mark James was just here," I say, and look at him. "I thought you were him."
"I didn't see him."
I look past Henri at the dog. "Bernie Kosar," I say. He is still shrinking, the scales fading away--tan, black, and brown hair taking their place--
returning to the form in which I have known him most recently: floppy ears, short legs, long body. A beagle with a cold wet nose always ready to run. "He
just saved my life. You knew, didn't you?"
"Of course I knew."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because he watched over you when I couldn't."
"But how is he here?"
"He was on the ship with us."
And then I remember what I thought was a stuffed animal that used to play with me. It was really Bernie Kosar I was playing with, though back then
his name was Hadley.
We walk to the dog together. I crouch down and run my hand along Bernie Kosar's side.
"We have to hurry," Henri says again.
Bernie Kosar isn't moving. The woods are alive, swarming with shadows that can only mean one thing, but I don't care. I move my head to the
dog's rib cage. Ever so faintly I hear the th-tump of his beating heart. Some glimmer of life is still left. He is covered in deep cuts and gashes, and blood
seems to seep from everywhere. His front leg is twisted at an unnatural angle, broken. But he is still alive. I lift him as gently as I can, cradling him like a
child in my arms. Henri helps me up, then reaches into his pocket, grabs another salt pebble, and plops it into his own mouth. It makes me wonder if he
was talking about himself when he said there was little time. Both of us are unsteady. And then something catches my eye in Henri's thigh. A wound
glowing navy blue through the gathering blood around it. He's also been stabbed by a soldier's knife. I wonder if the salt pebble is the only reason he's
now standing, as it is for me.
"What about the shotgun?" I ask.
"I'm out of ammo."
We walk out of the clearing, taking our time. Bernie Kosar doesn't move in my arms but I can feel that life hasn't left him. Not yet. We exit the
woods, leaving behind us the overhanging branches and bushes and the smell of wet and rotting leaves.
"Do you think you can run?" Henri asks.
"No," I say. "But I'll run anyway."
Up ahead of us we hear a great commotion, several grunts followed by clanking of chains.
And then we hear a roar, not quite as sinister as the others, but loud enough so that we know it can only mean one thing: another beast.
"You're kidding me," Henri says.
Twigs snap behind us, coming from the woods. Henri and I both twist around, but the woods are too dense to see. I snap the light on in my left
hand and sweep it through the trees to see. There must be seven or eight soldiers standing at the entrance of the woods, and when my light hits them they
all draw their swords, which come alive, glowing their various colors the second they do.
"No!" Henri yells. "Don't use your Legacies; it'll weaken you."
But it's too late. I snap the light off. Vertigo and weakness return, then the pain. I hold my breath and wait for the soldiers to come charging at us.
But they don't. There follows no sound aside from the obvious struggle happening straight ahead of us. Then an uproar of yells behind us. I turn to look.
The glowing swords begin swaggering forward from forty feet away. A confident laugh comes from one of the soldiers. Nine of them armed and full of
strength versus three of us broken and battered and armed with nothing more than our valor. The beast one way, the soldiers the other. That is the choice
that we now face.
Henri seems unfazed. He removes two more pebbles from his pocket and hands one to me.
"The last two," he says, his voice shaky as though it requires a great effort just to speak.
I plop the new pebble into my mouth and bury it beneath my tongue despite a small bit of the first still remaining. Renewed strength rushes through
me.
"What do you think?" he asks me.
We are surrounded. Henri and Bernie Kosar and I are the only three left. Six badly hurt and carried away by Sam. Mark just here but now nowhere
to be found. And that leaves Sarah, who I pray is tucked away safely in the school that lies a tenth of a mile ahead of us. I take a deep breath and I accept
the inevitable.
"I don't think it matters, Henri," I say, and look at him. "But the school is ahead of us, and that is where Sam will be shortly."
What he does next catches me off guard: he smiles. He reaches his hand out and gives my shoulder a squeeze. His eyes are tired and red but in
them I see relief, a sense of serenity as though he knows it's all about to end.
"We've done all we could. And what's done is done. But I'm damn proud of you," he says. "You did amazing today. I always knew you would. There
was never a doubt in my mind."
I drop my head. I don't want him to see me cry. I squeeze the dog. For the first time since I grabbed him he shows a slight sign of life, lifting his
head just enough so that he can lick the side of my face. He passes one word to me and one word only, as if that is all his strength will allow. Courage, he
says.
I lift my head. Henri steps forward and hugs me. I close my eyes and bury my face in his neck. He is still shaking, his body frail and weak beneath
my grip. I'm sure mine is no stronger. So this is it, I think. With our heads held high we will walk across the field to whatever awaits there. At least there is
dignity in that.
"You did damn good," he says.
I open my eyes. From over his shoulder I see the soldiers are near, twenty feet away now. They have stopped walking. One of them is holding a
dagger that pulsates silver and gray. The soldier tosses it in the air, catches it, and hurls it at Henri's back. I lift my hand and deflect it away and it misses
by a foot. My strength leaves me almost immediately even though the pebble is only half dissolved.
Henri takes my free arm and drapes it over his shoulders and places his right arm around my waist. We stagger forward. The beast comes into
view, looming just ahead in the center of the football field. The Mogadorians follow behind us. Perhaps they are curious to see the beast in action, to see
the beast kill. Each step I take becomes more of an effort than the one that preceded it. My heart thuds in my chest. Death is forthcoming and of that I am
terrified. But Henri is here. And so is Bernie Kosar. I'm happy not to have to face it alone. Several soldiers stand on the other side of the beast. Even if we
could get past the beast, we would then have to walk straight into the soldiers, who stand with drawn swords.
We have no choice. We reach the field and I expect the beast to pounce at any moment. But nothing happens. When we are within fifteen feet of it
we stop. We stand leaning against each other for support.
The beast is half the size of the other but still big enough to kill us all with no great effort of its own. Pale, almost translucent skin stretched over
protruding ribs and knobby joints. Various pinkish scars down its arms and sides. White, sightless eyes. It shifts it weight and lowers itself, then swings its
head low over the grass to smell what its eyes fail to see. It can sense us in front of it. It lets out a low groan. I feel none of the rage and malice that the
other beasts radiated, no desire for blood and death. There is a sense of fear, a sense of sadness. I open myself to it. I see images of torture and
starvation. I see the beast locked up for all its life here on Earth, a damp cave where little light reaches. Shivering through the night to stay warm, always
cold and wet. I see the way the Mogadorians pit the beasts against one another, force them to fight in order to train, to toughen them and make them
mean.
Henri lets go of me. I can't hold Bernie Kosar any longer. I gently place him in the grass at my feet. I haven't felt him move in minutes and I can't tell
if he's still alive. I take one step forward and drop to my knees. The soldiers yell around us. I don't understand their language but I can tell by their tones that
they are impatient. One swings his sword and a dagger just misses me, a flash of white that flutters and tears the front of my shirt. I stay on my knees and I
look up at the beast hovering over me. Some weapon is fired but it sails over our heads. A warning shot, meant to move the beast to action. The beast
quivers. A second dagger darts through the air and hits the beast below the elbow of its left arm. It lifts its head and roars in pain.
I am sorry, I try to tell it. I am sorry for the life you've been forced to live. You've been wronged. No living creature deserves such treatment.
You've been forced to endure hell, plucked from your own planet to fight a war that isn't yours. Beaten and tortured and starved. The blame for all the
pain and agony you've experienced lies with them. You and I share a common bond. Both wronged by these monsters.
I try with everything to pass along my own images, the things that I've seen and felt. The beast doesn't look away. My thoughts, on some level, are
reaching it. I show it Lorien, the vast ocean and thick forests and verdant hills teeming with life and vitality. Animals drinking from the cold blue waters. A
proud people content to pass the days in harmony. I show it the hell that followed, the slaying of men, women, and children. The Mogadorians. Coldblooded
murderers. Draconian killers destroying all that lies within their path due to their own recklessness and pathetic beliefs. Destroying even their
own planet. Where does it end? I show it Sarah, show it every emotion that I've ever felt with her. Happiness and bliss, this is how I feel with her. And this is
the pain I feel in having to leave her, all because of them. Help me, I say. Help me end this death and slaughter. Let us fight together. I have so little left
but if you stand with me, I'll stand with you.
The beast lifts its head to the sky and it roars. A roar both long and deep. The Mogadorians can sense what is happening and have seen enough.
Their weapons begin firing. I look over and one of the cannons is aimed right at me. It fires and the white death surges forth, but the beast drops its head
in time and absorbs the shot instead. Its face twists in pain, its eyes squeeze tightly shut, but almost immediately they snap back open. This time I see the
rage.
I fall face-first in the grass. I'm grazed by something but I don't see what it is. Henri cries out in pain behind me and he is flung thirty feet away, his
body lying in the mud, face up, smoking. I have no idea what has hit him. Something big and deadly. Panic and fear hit me. Not Henri, I think. Please not
Henri.
The beast throws a hard sweeping blow that takes out several of the soldiers and quiets many of their guns. Another roar. I look up and see the
beast's eyes have turned red, ablaze with fury. Retribution. Mutiny. It looks my way once and swiftly rushes off to follow its captors. Guns blaze but many of
them are quick to be silenced. Kill them all, I think. Fight nobly and honorably and may you kill them all.
I lift my head. Bernie Kosar is motionless in the grass. Henri, thirty feet away, is motionless as well. I place a hand in the grass and pull myself
forward, across the field, inch by inch, dragging myself to Henri. When I get there his eyes are open slightly; each breath is a fight. Trails of blood run from
his mouth and nose. I take him into my arms and I pull him into my lap. His body is frail and weak and I can feel him dying. His eyes flutter open. He looks
at me and lifts his hand and presses it to the side of my face. The second he does I begin to cry.
"I'm here," I say.
He tries to smile.
"I'm so sorry, Henri." I say. "I'm so sorry. We should have left when you wanted to."
"Shh," he says. "It's not your fault."
"I'm so sorry," I say between sobs.
"You did great," he says in a whisper. "You did so great. I always knew you would."
"We have to get you to the school," I say. "Sam could be there."
"Listen to me, John. Everything," he says. "Everything you need to know, it's all in the Chest. The letter."
"It's not over. We can still make it."
I can feel him begin to go. I shake him. His eyes reluctantly reopen. A trail of blood runs from his mouth.
"Coming here, to Paradise, it wasn't by chance." I don't know what he means. "Read the letter."
"Henri," I say, and reach down and wipe the blood off his chin.
He looks me in the eye.
"You are Lorien's Legacy, John. You and the others. The only hope the planet has left. The secrets," he says, and is gripped by a fit of coughs.
More blood. His eyes close again. "The Chest, John."
I pull him more tightly to me, squeezing him. His body is going slack. Breaths so shallow that they are hardly breaths at all.
"We'll make it back together, Henri. Me and you, I promise," I say, and close my eyes.
"Be strong," he says, and is overtaken by slight coughs, though he tries to speak through them. "This war...Can win...Find the others.... Six.... The
power of...," he says, and trails off.
I try to stand with him in my arms but I have nothing left, hardly enough strength to even breathe. Off in the distance I hear the beast roar. Cannons
are still being fired, the sounds and lights of which reach out over the stadium bleachers, but as each minute passes less and less of them are being fired
until there is only one. I lower Henri in my arms. I place my hand to the side of his face and he opens his eyes and looks at me for what I know will be the
final time. He takes a weak breath and exhales and then slowly closes his eyes.
"I wouldn't have missed a second of it, kiddo. Not for all of Lorien. Not for the whole damn world," he says, and when that last word leaves his
mouth I know that he is gone. I squeeze him in my arms, shaking, crying, despair and hopelessness taking hold. His hand drops lifelessly to the grass. I
cup his head in my hand and hold it close to my chest, and I rock him back and forth and I cry like I've never cried before. The pendant around my neck
glows blue, grows heavy for just a split second, and then dims to normal.
I sit in the grass and I hold Henri while the last cannon falls silent. The pain leaves my own body and with the cold of the night I feel my own self
begin to fade. The moon and the stars shine overhead. I hear a cackle of laughter carried on the wind. My ears attune to it. I turn my head. Through the
dizziness and blurry vision I see a scout fifteen feet away from me. Long trench coat, hat pulled to its eyes. It drops the coat and takes off the hat to reveal
a pale and hairless head. It reaches to the back of its belt and removes a bowie knife, the blade of which is no less than twelve inches long. I close my
eyes. I don't care anymore. The scout's raspy breathing comes my way, ten feet, then five. And then the footsteps end. The scout grunts in pain, and
begins gurgling.
I open my eyes, the scout so close that I can smell it. The bowie knife falls from its hand, and there in its chest, where I assume its heart must be, is
the end of a butcher's knife. The knife is pulled free. The scout drops to its knees, falls to its side, and explodes into a puff of ash. Behind it, holding the
knife in her shaky right hand, with tears in her eyes, stands Sarah. She drops the knife and rushes over to me, wrapping her arms around me with my
arms around Henri. I hold Henri as my own head falls and the world dims away into nothingness. The aftermath of war, the school destroyed, the trees
fallen and heaps of ash piled in the grass of the football field and I still hold Henri. And Sarah holds me.

Categories: I Am Number Four

I Am Number Four - Chapter 32

CHAPTER 32


AFTER ALL THIS TIME, ONLY NOW DO I UNDERSTAND. The morning runs when I would run too fast for him to keep pace. He would disappear into the woods,
reappear seconds later in front of me. Six tried to tell me. Six took one look at him and she knew immediately. On those runs Bernie Kosar went into the
woods to change himself, to turn himself into a bird. The way he would rush outside each morning, nose to the ground, patrolling the yard. Protecting me,
and Henri. Looking for signs of the Mogadorians. The gecko in Florida. The gecko that used to watch from the wall while I ate breakfast. How long has he
been with us? The Chimaera, the ones I watched being loaded into the rocket--did they make it to Earth after all?
Bernie Kosar continues to grow. He tells me to run. I can communicate with him. No, that's not all. I can communicate with all animals. Another
Legacy. It started with the deer in Florida on the day that we left. The shudder that ran up my spine as it passed something along to me, some feeling. I
attributed it to the sadness of our leaving, but I was wrong. Mark James's dogs. The cows I passed on my morning runs. The same thing. I feel like such a
fool to discover it only now. So blatantly obvious, right in front of my face. Another of Henri's adages: Those things that are most obvious are the very
things we're most likely to overlook. But Henri knew. That is why he said no to Six when she tried to tell me.
Bernie Kosar is done growing; his hair has fallen away, replaced by oblong scales. He looks like a dragon, but without the wings. His body is thick
with muscle. Jagged teeth and claws, horns that curl like a ram's. Thicker than the beast, but far shorter. Looking every bit as menacing. Two giants on
opposite sides of the clearing, roaring at one another.
Run, he tells me. I try to tell him that I can't. I don't know if he can understand me. You can, he says. You must.
The beast swings. A hammer swing that starts in the clouds and pours down with brutality. Bernie Kosar blocks it with his horns and then charges
before the beast can swing again. A colossal collision in the very center of the clearing. Bernie Kosar thrusts up, sinks his teeth into the beast's side. The
beast knocks him back.
Both of them so quick that it defies all logic. Bleeding gashes already down the sides of each. I watch with my back against the tree. I try to help.
But my telekinesis is still failing me. Blood still pours down my back. My limbs feel heavy, as though my blood has turned to lead. I can feel myself fading.
The beast is still upright on two legs while Bernie Kosar must fight on four. The beast makes a charge. Bernie Kosar lowers his head and they
smash into one another, crashing through the trees off to my right side. Somehow the beast ends up on top. It sinks its teeth deep in Bernie Kosar's throat.
It thrashes, trying to tear his throat out. Bernie Kosar twists under the beast's bite but he can't shake free. He tears at the beast's hide with his paws but
the beast doesn't let go.
Then a hand reaches out behind me, grabs my arm. I try to push it away but I'm incapable of doing even that. Bernie Kosar's eyes are closed
tightly. He is straining under the beast's jaws, his throat constricted, unable to breathe.
"No!" I yell.
"Come on!" the voice yells behind me. "We need to get out of here."
"The dog," I say, not comprehending whose voice it is. "The dog!"
Bernie Kosar is being bitten and choked, about to die, and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it. I won't be far behind. I would sacrifice my own
life for his. I scream out. Bernie Kosar twists his head around and looks at me, his face scrunched tightly in pain and agony and the oncoming death he
must feel.
"We have to go!" the voice behind me yells, the hand pulling me up from off the forest floor.
Bernie Kosar's eyes stay fixed on mine. Go, he says to me. Get out of here, now, while you can. There isn't much time.
I somehow reach my feet. Dizzy, the world cast in a haze around me. Only Bernie Kosar's eyes remain clear. Eyes that scream "Help!" even while
his thoughts say otherwise.
"We have to go!" the voice yells again. I don't turn to face it, but I know whose it is. Mark James, no longer hiding in the school, trying to save me
from this clash. His being here must mean that Sarah is okay, and for a brief moment I allow myself to be relieved, but then that relief vanishes as quickly
as it came. In this exact moment only one thing matters. Bernie Kosar, on his side, looking at me with glassy eyes. He saved me. It's my turn to save him.
Mark reaches his hand across my chest, begins pulling me backwards, out of the clearing, away from the fight. I twist myself free. Bernie Kosar's
eyes slowly begin to close. He's fading, I think. I won't watch you die, I tell him. I'm willing to watch many things in this world but I'll be damned if I'll watch
you die. There's no response. The beast's bite hardens. It can sense that death is near.
I take one wobbly step and pull the dagger from the waistband of my jeans. I close my fingers tightly around it and it comes alive and starts
glowing. I'll never be able to hit the beast by throwing the dagger, and my Legacies have all but vanished. An easy decision. No choice but to charge.
One deep, shaky breath. I rock my body backwards, everything tensing through the ache of exhaustion, not an inch anywhere on me that doesn't
feel some sort of pain.
"No!" Mark yells behind me.
I lunge forward and sprint for the beast. The beast's eyes are closed, jaws clamped tightly around Bernie Kosar's throat so that the moonlight
glows in the pools of blood around it. Thirty feet away. Then twenty. The beast's eyes snap open at the exact moment I jump. Yellow eyes that twist in rage
the second they focus upon me, sailing through the air towards them, dagger in both hands held high over my head as though in some heroic dream I
never want to wake from. The beast lets go of Bernie Kosar's throat and moves to bite, but surely it knows that it has sensed me too late. The blade of the
dagger glows in anticipation, and I jam it deeply into the eye of the beast. A liquid ooze immediately bursts out. The beast lets out a blood-curdling scream
so loud that it's hard to imagine the dead being able to sleep through it.
I fall flat on my back. I lift my head and watch the beast totter over me. It tries in vain to pull the dagger from its eye, but its hands are too big and
the dagger is too small. The Mogadorian weapons function in some way that I don't think I'll ever understand, because of the mystical gateways between
the realms. The dagger is no different, the black of the night rushing into the eye of the beast in a vortexlike funnel cloud, a tornado of death.
The beast falls silent as the last of the great black cloud enters its skull, and the dagger is sucked in with it. The beast's arms fall limply to its sides.
Its hands begin to shake. A violent shake that reverberates throughout the entirety of its massive body. When the convulsions end the beast hunches over
and then falls to the ground with its back against the trees. Sitting, but yet still towering some twenty-five feet over me. Everything silent, hanging in
anticipation of what is to come. A gun fires once, very close so that my ears ring for seconds afterward. The beast takes a great breath and holds it in as
though in meditation, and suddenly its head explodes, raining down pieces of brain and flesh and skull over everything, all of which quickly turn to ash and
dust.
The woods fall silent. I turn my head and look at Bernie Kosar, who still lies motionless on his side, his eyes closed. I can't tell if he's alive or not. As
I look at him, he begins to change again, shrinking down to his normal size, while remaining lifeless. I hear the sound of crunching leaves and snapping
twigs nearby.
It takes all the strength I have just to lift my head an inch off the ground. I open my eyes and peer up into the haze of night, expecting to see Mark
James. But it's not him standing over me. My breath catches in my throat. A looming figure, indistinct with the moon's light hovering just over it. Then he
takes one step forward, blotting out the moon, and my eyes widen in anticipation and dread.

Categories: I Am Number Four

I Am Number Four - Chapter 31

CHAPTER 31

ANOTHER ROAR CUTS THROUGH THE NIGHT AIR. through the walls of the school, a roar that makes my blood turn cold. The ground begins to rumble under the
footsteps of the beast that must now be on the loose. I shake my head. I saw firsthand how big they were during the flashbacks of the war on Lorien.
"For your friends' sake and ours," Six says, "we better get the hell out of this school while there's still time. They'll destroy the entire building trying
to get to us."
We nod to one another.
"Our only hope is to get to the woods," Henri says. "Whatever that thing is, we might be able to escape it if we can stay invisible."
Six nods. "Just keep ahold of my hands."
Needing no other motivation than that, Henri and I each take a hand.
"As quietly as we can," Henri says.
The hallway is dark and silent. We walk with a quiet urgency, moving as swiftly as we can while making little noise. Another roar, and in the middle
of it, another roar begins. We stop. Not one beast, but two. We continue on and enter the gymnasium. No sign of the scouts. When we reach the very
center of the court, Henri stops. I look over but can't see him.
"Why are we stopped?" I whisper.
"Shh," he says. "Listen."
I strain to listen, but hear nothing aside from the steady hum of blood filling my ears.
"The beasts have stopped moving," Henri says.
"So what?"
"Shh," he says. "There's something else out there."
And then I hear it too, slight high-pitched yipping sounds as though coming from small animals. The sounds are muffled, though obviously growing
louder.
"What the hell?" I ask.
Something begins banging at the stage hatch, the hatch we are hoping to escape through.
"Turn your lights on," he says.
I let go of Six's hand, snap them on, and aim them towards the stage. Henri looks down the end of the shotgun barrel. The hatch bounces up as
though something is trying to force itself through but lacks the strength to do so. The weasels, I think, the stout-bodied little creatures that the guys in
Athens were terrified of. One of them hits the hatch so hard that it breaks away from the stage and rattles across the floor. So much for thinking they
lacked strength. Two of them come bursting forth, and upon catching sight of us, come racing our way so swiftly that I can hardly make them out. Henri
stands watching with the gun aimed, an amused grin on his face. Their paths diverge and both leap from about twenty feet away, one jumping at Henri, the
other coming at me. Henri fires once and the weasel explodes and covers him with its blood and guts; and just as I'm about to rip apart the second with
telekinesis, it is snatched out of midair by Six's unseen hand and spiked to the ground like a football, killing it instantly.
Henri cocks the shotgun. "Well, that wasn't so bad," he says, and before I can respond, the entire wall along the stage is smashed in by the fist of a
beast. It draws back and punches again, smashing the stage to smithereens and exposing the night sky. The impact pushes both Henri and me
backwards.
"Run!" Henri yells, and he immediately unloads every shell in the shotgun into the beast. They have no effect upon it. The beast leans forward and
roars so loudly that I feel my clothes flutter. A hand reaches out and grabs hold of me, turning me invisible. The beast charges ahead, moving straight for
Henri, and I'm gripped with terror at what it might do.
"No!" I scream. "To Henri, get to Henri!" I twist under Six's grip, finally grabbing hold of her and pushing her away. I become visible; she stays
hidden. The beast surges towards Henri, who stands firm and watches it come. Out of bullets. Out of options. "Get to him!" I scream again. "Get to him,
Six!"
"Go to the woods!" she yells back.
All I can do is watch. The beast must stand thirty feet tall, maybe forty, towering over Henri. It roars, pure wrath in its eyes. Its muscled and bulging
fist rushes high in the air, so high that it breaks straight through the rafters and the roof of the school gymnasium. And then it falls, speeding down with such
swiftness that it becomes a blur, like the blades of a spinning fan. I cry out in horror, knowing that Henri is about to be crushed. I can't look away, Henri
seeming tiny standing there with the shotgun limply at his side. When the fist of the beast is a split second from him, Henri disappears. The fist crashes
through the gymnasium floor, the wood splintering, the impact sending me crashing into the stands twenty feet away. The beast turns to me, blocking from
view the place where Henri had just stood.
"Henri!" I yell. The beast roars so that any response that might have come is drowned out. It takes one step towards me. To the woods, Six had
said. Go to the woods. I stand and run as fast as I can to the back of the gym, where the beast had just broken through. I turn to see if the beast is
following. It is not. Perhaps Six has done something to divert its attention. All I know is that I'm on my own now, alone.
I leap over the pile of rubble and sprint away from the school, running as hard as I can for the woods. The shadows swarm around me, following
like villainous wraiths. I know that I can outrun them. The beast roars and I hear another wall crumble. I reach the trees and the swarming shadows seem to
have disappeared. I stop and listen. The trees sway under a light breeze. There is a wind here! I've escaped whatever dome the Mogadorians have
created. Something warm collects at the waistband of my pants. The cut I suffered at Mark James's has reopened on my back.
The school's silhouette is faint from where I stand. The entire gymnasium is gone, a pile of brick. The beast's shadow stands tall in the rubble of
the cafeteria. Why hasn't it run after me? And where is the second beast we all heard? The beast's fist falls again, another room demolished. Mark and
Sarah are there somewhere. I told them to go back and I realize how foolish it was. I didn't anticipate the beast destroying the school if it knew I wasn't
there. I have to do something to get the beast away. I take a deep breath to gather my strength, and as soon as I take that first step, something hard hits
me in the back of the head. I fall face-first into the mud. I touch where I've been hit and my hand is covered in blood, drips of it falling from my fingertips. I
turn around and see nothing at first, and then it steps out of the shadows and grins.
A soldier. This is what they look like. Taller than the scouts--seven, maybe eight feet tall--its muscles bulging beneath a black ragged cloak. Large,
raised veins traverse the length of each arm. Black boots. Nothing covering its head, and its hair falling to its shoulders. The same pale, waxy skin as the
scouts. A grin of self-assurance, of finality. In one of its hands is a sword. Long and shimmering, made of some kind of metal I've never seen here on Earth
scouts. A grin of self-assurance, of finality. In one of its hands is a sword. Long and shimmering, made of some kind of metal I've never seen here on Earth
or in my visions of Lorien, and it appears to be pulsing, as if it is somehow alive.
I begin to crawl away, the blood dripping down my neck. The beast at the school lets out another roar, and I reach for the low branches of a nearby
tree and pull myself up. The soldier is ten feet away. I grip both hands into fists. It motions the sword nonchalantly towards me, and something comes out
of its tip, something that looks like a small dagger. I watch the dagger twist in an arc, leaving a slight trail behind it like smoke from a plane. The light casts
a spell that I can't look away from.
A flash of bright light devours everything, the world dimming away into a soundless void. No walls. No sound. No floor or ceiling. Very slowly the
shapes of things return, the trees standing like ancient effigies whispering of the world that once was in some alternate realm where only shadows reside.
I reach out to feel the nearest tree, the only touch of gray in an otherwise white world. My hand goes through it and for a moment the tree shimmers
as if it were liquid. I take a deep breath. When I exhale the pain returns to the gash on the back of my head and the tears down my arms and body from the
James house fire. A sound of dripping water comes from somewhere. Slowly, the soldier takes form, twenty or thirty feet away. Giantlike. We take each
other in. Its sword glowing more brightly in this new world. Its eyes narrow and my hands again clench into fists. I've lifted objects far heavier than it; I've
split trees and I've caused destruction. Surely I can match its strength with my own. I push everything that I feel into the core of my being, everything that I
am and everything that I will be, until I feels as though I'm about to burst.
"Yahhhh!" I yell, and I thrust my arms forward. The brute force leaves my body, raging towards the soldier. At the same time it sweeps the sword
across its body as though swatting a fly. The power deflects into the trees, which dance for a brief moment like the grain in a wheat field waving in a light
wind, and then they become still. It laughs at me, a deep, guttural laugh meant to taunt. Its red eyes begin to glow, swirling as though lava filled. It lifts its
free hand and I tense myself against the unknown. And without my knowing what has happened, my throat is in its grip, the gap that had separated us
closed in the blink of an eye. It lifts me, one handed, breathing with its mouth open so that I can smell the sour stench of its breath, the smell of decay. I
thrash, try to pry its fingers from around my throat, but they are like iron.
And then it throws me.
I land on my back forty feet away. I stand and it charges, swinging the sword at my head, which I duck and counter by pushing it as hard as I can. It
stumbles back but stays standing. I try to lift it with telekinesis but nothing happens. In this alternate world my powers are dimmed, almost ineffectual. The
Mogadorian has the advantage here.
It smiles at my futility and raises the sword with both hands. The sword comes alive, turning from shimmering silver into ice blue. Blue flames lick
across the blade. A sword that glows with power, just as Six had talked about. It swings the sword in my direction and another dagger comes flying off the
tip, straight at me. This I can do, I think. All the hours in the backyard with Henri preparing for this very thing. Always the knives, more or less the same as
a dagger. Did Henri know they would use them? Certainly, though in my flashbacks of the invasion I had never seen them. But I had never seen these
creatures, either. They were different on Lorien, not quite as sinister looking. On the day of the invasion they looked sickly and starved. Is it Earth's fault for
this convalescence, have the resources here caused them to grow stronger and healthier?
The dagger literally screams as it rages towards me. It grows and becomes consumed in flames. Just when I am about to deflect it, it explodes
into a ball of fire, and the flames jump to me. I'm trapped within it, consumed in a perfect sphere of fire. Anyone else would burn, but not me, and somehow
it causes my strength to return. I'm able to breathe. Without the soldier knowing it, it has made me stronger. Now it's my turn to smile at its own futility.
"Is this all you've got?" I yell.
Its face turns into rage. It defiantly reaches one hand over its shoulder and returns with a cannonlike gun that begins conforming to its body, the gun
wrapping around its forearm. Its arm and the gun becoming one and the same. I pull the knife from my back pocket, the knife that I grabbed from home
before returning to school. Small, ineffectual, but better than nothing. I open the blade and charge. The ball of fire charges with me. The soldier squares its
body and brings down its sword with force. I deflect it with the pocketknife but the weight of the sword snaps the blade in two. I drop the remaining pieces
and swing as hard as I can. My fist slams into the soldier's gut. It doubles over but comes right back up and swings the sword again. I duck beneath the
blade at the last second. It singes the hair on top of my head. Right behind the sword comes the cannon. No time to react. It hits me in my shoulder and I
grunt and fall backwards. The soldier regroups and points the cannon in the air. I'm confounded at first. The gray from the trees is being pulled away and
sucked into the gun. Then I understand. The gun. It needs to be charged before it can be fired, needs to steal Earth's essence in order to be used. The
gray in the trees isn't shadows; the gray is the life of the trees at its most elemental level. And now those lives are being stolen, consumed by the
Mogadorians. A race of aliens that depleted their planet's resources in the quest for advancement, now doing the same thing here. That is the reason they
attacked Lorien. The same reason they will attack Earth. One by one the trees fall and crumble into heaps of ash. The gun glows brighter and brighter, so
bright that it hurts the eyes to look at. No time to spare.
I charge. It keeps the gun pointed at the sky and swings the sword. I duck and plow straight into it. Its body tenses and it writhes in agony. The fire
surrounding me burns it where it stands. But I've left myself open. It swings the blade feebly, not enough to cut me, but there is nothing I can do to prevent
its fall. It hits me and my body is hurled backwards fifty feet as though I've been struck by a bolt of lightning. I lie there, my body shaking with
postelectrocution tremors. I lift my head. Thirty piles of ash from the fallen trees surround us. How many times will that allow him to fire? A slight wind kicks
up and the ash begins filtering across the empty space between us. The moon returns. This world to which it has brought me is beginning to fail. It knows
it. The gun is ready. I wrestle myself up from the ground. Sitting a couple feet away, still glowing, is one of the daggers it fired at me. I pick it up.
It lowers the cannon and aims. The white surrounding us is beginning to dim, color returning. And then the cannon fires, a bright flash of light
containing the ghoulish forms of everyone I have ever known--Henri, Sam, Bernie Kosar, Sarah--all of them dead in this alternate realm and the light so
bright that they are all I can see, trying to take me with them, raging forward in a ball of energy growing as it nears. I try to deflect the blast but it's too
strong. The white makes it as far as the fiery enclosure, and when the two touch an explosion erupts and the power sends me backwards. I land with a
thud. I take inventory. I am unharmed. The ball of fire has extinguished. Somehow it has absorbed the blast, has saved me from what I am certain would
have been death. Surely that is how the cannon works, the death of one thing for the death of another. The power of mind control, manipulation that plays
on fear, possible through the destruction of the elements of the world. The scouts have learned to do this weakly with their minds. The soldiers rely on
weapons that produce a much greater effect.
I stand, the glowing knife still in my hand. The soldier pulls some sort of lever on the side of the cannon as though to reload it. I sprint towards it.
When I'm close enough, I aim for its heart and hurl the knife as hard as I can. It fires a second shot. A torpedo of orange raging its way, the certainty of a
white death coming mine. They cross in midair without touching. Just when I expect that second shot to hit, to bring upon that death, something else
happens instead.
My knife strikes first.
The world vanishes. The shadows fade and the cold and the dark return as though they had never left. A vertiginous transition. I take a step
backwards and fall. My eyes adjust to the dearth of light. I fix them on the dark figure of the soldier hovering over me. The cannon blast didn't travel with us.
The glowing knife did, the blade sunk deeply into its heart, the handle pulsating orange beneath the moonlight overhead. The soldier staggers, and then
the knife is sucked in deeper and disappears. It grunts. Spurts of black blood pump from the open wound. Its eyes go blank, then roll back into its head. It
falls to the ground, lies motionless, and then explodes into a cloud of ash that covers my shoes. A soldier. I've killed my first. May it not be the last.
Something about being in the alternate realm has weakened me. I place my hand on a nearby tree to steady myself and catch my breath, only the
tree is no longer there. I look around. All the trees surrounding us have collapsed into heaps of ash just as they did in the other realm, just as the
Mogadorians do when they die.
I hear the roar of the beast and I look up to see how much of the school is left standing. But instead of the school there is something else, fifteen
feet away, standing tall with a sword in one hand and a similar-looking cannon in the other. The cannon is aimed right at my heart, a cannon that has
already been charged, glowing with power. Another soldier. I don't think I have the strength to fight this one as I did the last.
There is nothing I can throw, and the gap between us is too great to charge before it fires. And then its arm twitches and the sound of a gunshot
rings through the air. My body instinctively jerks, expecting the cannon to rip me in half. But I am fine, unharmed. I look up confused, and there, in the
soldier's forehead, is a hole the size of a quarter spurting its hideous blood. Then it drops and disintegrates.
"That's for my dad," I hear behind me. I turn. Sam, holding a silver pistol in his right hand. I smile at him. He lowers the gun. "They passed right
through the center of town," he says. "I knew it was them as soon as I saw the trailer."
I try to catch my breath, staring in awe at Sam's figure. Just moments before, in the first soldier's blast, he was a decaying corpse sprung from hell
to take me away. And now he just saved me.
"You okay?" he asks.
I nod. "Where did you just come from?"
"I followed them in my dad's truck after they passed my house. I pulled in fifteen minutes ago and got swarmed by the ones that were already here.
So I left and parked in a field a mile away and walked through the woods."
The second set of lights we had seen from the window of the school came from Sam's truck. I open my mouth to respond but a clap of thunder
shakes the sky. Another storm begins to brew, and relief courses through me that Six is still alive. A bolt of lightning cuts the sky and clouds begin rushing
in from all directions, being pulled together into one giant mass. An even greater darkness falls, followed by a rain so heavy that I have to squint to see
Sam five feet away from me. The school is blotted out. But then a great bolt of lightning strikes and everything brightens for a split second, and I see that
the beast has been hit. An agonizing roar follows.
"I have to get to the school!" I yell. "Mark and Sarah are somewhere inside."
"If you're going, then I'm going," he yells back over the rumble of the storm.
We take no more than five steps before the wind comes howling, pushing us back, torrential rain stinging our faces. We're soaked, shivering and
cold. But if I'm shivering then I know I'm alive. Sam drops to a knee, then lies on his stomach to keep from being blown backwards. I do the same. Through
squinted eyes I look into the clouds--heavy, dark, ominous--swirling in small concentric circles and, in the center, the center I'm trying mightily to reach, a
face begins to form.
It's an old, weathered face, bearded, tranquil looking as though it sleeps. A face that looks older than Earth itself. The clouds begin to lower, slowly
nearing the surface and consuming everything, everything darkening, a dark so deep and impenetrable that it's hard to imagine that somewhere,
anywhere, a sun still exists. Another roar, a roar of anger and doom. I try to stand but am quickly knocked back down, the wind too great. The face. It's
coming alive. An awakening. The eyes opening, the face upturned into a grimace. Is this Six's creation? The face becomes the look of rage itself, a look
of revenge. Coming down fast. Everything seems to hang in the balance. And then the mouth opens, hungry, its lips curling to show teeth and its eyes
squinted in what can only be described as pure malice. A complete and utter wrath.
And then the face touches down and a sonic blast shakes the ground, an explosion reaching out over the school, everything illuminated in red,
orange, and yellow. I'm thrust backwards. Trees break in half. The ground rumbles. I land with a thud, branches and mud falling atop me. My ears ring as
they've never rung before. A boom so loud that it must have been heard fifty miles away. And then the rain stops, and everything falls silent.
I lie in the mud, listening to the beat of my heart. The clouds clear away, revealing a hanging moon. Not a single gust of wind. I look around but
don't see Sam. I yell for him but get no response. I yearn to hear something, anything, another roar, Henri's shotgun, but there is nothing.
I pull myself up off the forest floor, wipe away the mud and the twigs as best as I can. I exit the woods for the second time. The stars have
reappeared, a million of them twinkling high in the night sky. Is it over? Have we won? Or is it just a lull in the action? The school, I think. I have to get to the
school. I take one step forward, and that's when I hear it.
Another roar, coming from within the woods behind me.
Sound returns. Three successive gunshots ring through the night, echoing so that I have no idea from which direction they have come. I hope with
everything inside of me that they are from Henri's shotgun, that he is still alive, still fighting.
The ground begins to shake. The beast is on the run, coming for me, no mistaking it now, trees broken and uprooted behind me. They don't seem
to slow it down at all. Is this one even bigger than the other? I don't care to find out. I take off running for the school, but then realize that's the absolute
worst place I can go. Sarah and Mark are still there, still hiding. Or at least I hope they are.
Everything returns to the way it was before the storm, the shadows following, looming. Scouts. Soldiers. I veer to the right and sprint along the treelined
path that leads to the football field, the beast hot on my trail. Can I really expect to outrun it? If I can make it to the woods beyond the field, maybe I
can. I know those woods, the woods that lead to our house. Within them I'll have the home-field advantage. I look around and see the figures of the
Mogadorians in the schoolyard. There are too many of them. We're greatly outnumbered. Did we ever really believe we could win?
A dagger flies by me, a flash of red missing my face by mere inches. It sticks into the trunk of a tree beside me and the tree ignites in flame.
Another roar. The beast is keeping pace. Which of us has the greater endurance? I enter the stadium, sprint straight across the fifty-yard line and pass
through the visiting team's side. Another knife whizzes by, a blue one this time. The woods are near, and when I finally sprint into them a smile forms on my
face. I've led it away from the others. If everyone else is safe then I've done my job. Just when a sense of triumph blooms within me, the third dagger
strikes.
I cry out, fall face-first into the mud. I can feel the dagger between my shoulder blades. A pain so sharp that it paralyzes me. I try to reach to pull it
free but it is up too high. It feels as though it's moving, digging itself deeper, the pain spreading as if I've been poisoned. On my stomach, in agony. I can't
pull it free with telekinesis, my powers somehow failing me. I begin dragging myself forward. One of the soldiers--or maybe it's a scout; I can't tell which--
places a foot on my back, reaches down, and pulls the knife free. I grunt. The knife is gone but the pain stays. It takes its foot off of me but I can still feel its
presence, and I wrestle myself onto my back to face it.
Another soldier, standing tall and smiling with hatred. The same look as the one before, the same type of sword. The dagger that was in my back
twists in its grip. That is what I felt, the blade turning while imbedded in my flesh. I lift a hand towards the soldier to move it but I know it's in vain. I can't
focus, everything blurry. The soldier raises its sword in the air. The blade tastes death, starts glowing in the night sky behind it. I'm gone, I think. Nothing I
can do. I look into its eyes. Ten years on the run and this is how easily it ends, how quietly. But behind it lurks something else. Something far more
menacing than a million soldiers with a million swords. Teeth every bit as long as the soldier is tall, teeth glowing white in a mouth too small to hold them.
The beast with its evil eyes hovering over us.
A sharp intake of breath catches in my throat, and my eyes open wide in terror. It'll take us both out, I think. The soldier is oblivious. It tenses and
grimaces at me and starts to bring the sword down to split me in two. But it is too slow and the beast strikes first, its jaws clamping down like a bear trap.
The bite doesn't stop until the beast's teeth come together, the soldier's body cut cleanly in half just below the hips, leaving nothing behind but two stumps
still standing. The beast chews twice and swallows. The soldier's legs fall hollowly to the ground, one dropping to the right, the other to the left, and quickly
disintegrate.
It takes every ounce of strength I have to reach out and grab the dagger that has fallen at my feet. I tuck it into the waistband of my jeans, and begin
crawling away. I feel the beast hovering over me, feel its breath upon the nape of my neck. The smell of death and rotting meat. I enter a small clearing. I
expect the beast's wrath to fall any second, expect its teeth and claws to rip me to shreds. I pull myself forward until I can go no more, my back against an
oak tree. The beast stands in the very center of the clearing, thirty feet away from me. I look at it fully for the first time. A looming figure, hazy in the dark and
the cold of the night. Taller and bigger than the beast at the school, forty feet, standing upright on two hind legs. Thick, gray skin stretched tightly over slabs
of bulging muscle. No neck, its head sloped so that its lower jaw protrudes farther out than its upper. A set of fangs points towards the sky, another set
points to the ground, dripping blood and drool. Long, thick arms hang a foot or two above the ground even while the beast stands straight, giving it the
appearance of slightly leaning forward. Yellow eyes. Round disks at the sides of its head that pulsate with the beating of its heart, the only sign that it has
any sort of heart at all.
It leans forward and brings its left hand to the ground. A hand, complete with stubby short fingers with claws like a raptor, claws meant to rip apart
anything they touch. It sniffs at me, and roars. An ear-splitting roar that would have pushed me backwards if I weren't already against a tree. Its mouth
opens, showing what must be fifty other teeth, each one every bit as sharp as the next. Its free hand thrusts away from its side and splits in half every tree
that it strikes, ten, fifteen of them.
No more running. No more fighting. Blood from the knife wound runs down my back; my hands and legs are both shaking. The dagger is still
tucked into the waistband of my jeans, but what's the point in grabbing it? What faith is there in a four-inch blade against a forty-foot beast? It would be the
equivalent of a splinter. It'll only make it angrier. My only hope is to bleed to death before I am killed and eaten.
I close my eyes and accept death. My lights are off. I don't want to see what is about to happen. I hear movement behind me. I open my eyes. One
of the Mogadorians must be moving in for a closer look, I think at first, but I know immediately that I am wrong. There is something familiar about the loping
gait, something I recognize in the sound of his breathing. And then he enters the clearing.
Bernie Kosar.
I smile, but the smile quickly fades. If I am doomed, there is no point in him dying too. No, Bernie Kosar. You can't be here. You need to leave
and you need to run like the wind, get as far away as you can. Pretend you've just finished our early-morning jog to school and that it's time to return
home.
He looks at me as he walks up. I am here, he seems to say. I am here and I will stand with you.
"No," I say aloud.
He stops long enough to give my hand a reassuring lick. He looks up at me with his big, brown eyes. Get away, John, I hear in my mind. Crawl if
you have to crawl, but get away now. The blood loss has made me delusional. Bernie seems to be communicating with me. Is Bernie Kosar even here, or
am I imagining that as well?
He stands in front of me as though in protection. He begins to growl, low at first, but it grows to a growl every bit as ferocious as the beast's own
roar. The beast fixates on Bernie Kosar. A staredown. Bernie Kosar's hair is raised down the center of his back, his tan ears pinned to his head. His
loyalty, his bravery very nearly make me weep. He's a hundred times smaller than the beast yet he stands tall, vowing to fight. One quick strike from the
beast and all is done.
I reach my hand out to Bernie Kosar. I wish I could stand and grab him and get away. His growls are so fierce that his whole body shakes, tremors
coursing through him.
And then something begins to happen.
Bernie Kosar begins to grow.

Categories: I Am Number Four

I Am Number Four - Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

WIND FROM THE OPEN WINDOW RUSHES INTO the home economics room, the refrigerator in front of it doing little to prevent the cold air. The school is already
chilly from the electricity being off. Six is now wearing only the rubber suit, which is entirely black aside from a gray band slicing diagonally down the front
of it. She is standing in the middle of our group with such poise and confidence that I wish I had a Loric suit of my own. She opens her mouth to speak but
is interrupted by a loud boom from outside. All of us rush to the windows but can see nothing of what is happening. The crash is followed by several loud
bangs, and the sounds of tearing, gnashing, something being destroyed.
"What's happening?" I ask.
"Your lights," Henri says over the sounds of destruction.
I turn them on and sweep them across the yard outside. They reach but ten feet before being swallowed by the darkness. Henri steps back and
tilts his head, listening to the sounds in extreme concentration, and then he nods in resigned acceptance.
"They are destroying all the cars out there, my truck included," he says. "If we survive this and escape this school, it'll have to be on foot."
Terror sweeps across both Mark's and Sarah's faces.
"We can't waste any more time," Six says. "Strategy or no strategy, we have to go before the beasts and soldiers arrive. She said we can get out
through the gymnasium," Six says, and nods at Sarah. "It's our only hope."
"Her name is Sarah," I say.
I sit in a nearby chair, unnerved by the urgency in Six's voice. She seems to be the steady one, the one who has remained calm under the weight
of the terrors we have seen thus far. Bernie Kosar is back at the door, scratching at the fridges that are blocking it, growling and whining in impatience.
Since my lights are on, Six has a good look at him for the first time. She stares at Bernie Kosar, then squints her eyes and inches her face forward. She
walks over and bends down to pet him. I turn and look at her. I find it odd that she is grinning.
"What?" I ask.
She looks up at me. "You don't know?"
"Know what?"
Her grin widens. She looks back at Bernie Kosar, who races away from her and charges back to the window, scratching at it, growling, the
occasional bark in frustration. The school is surrounded, death imminent, almost certain, and Six is grinning. It irritates me.
"Your dog," she says. "You really don't know?"
"No," says Henri. I look at him. He shakes his head at Six.
"What the hell?" I ask. "What?"
Six looks at me, then at Henri. She emits a half laugh and opens her mouth to speak. But just before any words escape something catches her
eye and she rushes back to the window. We follow and, as before, the very subtle glow of a set of headlights sweeps around the bend in the road and into
the lot of the school. Another car, maybe a coach or teacher. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
"It could mean nothing," I say.
"Turn your lights off," Henri says to me.
I turn them off, clench my hands into fists. Something about the car outside causes anger within me. The hell with the exhaustion, with the shakes
that have been present ever since I jumped through the principal's window. I can't take being confined in this room any longer, knowing that the
Mogadorians are out there, waiting, and plotting our doom. That car outside may be the first of the soldiers arriving on the scene. But just when that
thought pops into my mind, we see the lights quickly retreat from the lot, and speed away in a hurry, down the same road they came.
"We have to get out of this damn school," Henri says.
Henri sits in a chair ten feet away from the door with the shotgun aimed right at it. He is breathing slowly though he is tense and I can see the muscles
flexed in his jaw. None of us say a word. Six made herself invisible and slipped out to do some exploring. We're just waiting, and finally it comes. Three
slight taps on the door, Six's knock so that we know it's her and not a scout trying to enter. Henri lowers the gun and she walks in and I return one of the
fridges to block the door behind her. She was gone for a full ten minutes.
"You were right," she says to Henri. "They've destroyed every car in the lot, and have somehow moved the wreckage to block every door from
being opened. And Sarah is right; they've overlooked the stage hatch. I counted seven scouts outside and five inside walking the halls. There was one
outside this door but it's been disposed of. They seem to be getting antsy. I think that means the others should have been here already, which means they
can't be far."
Henri stands and grabs the Chest and nods at me. I help him open it. He reaches in and pulls out a few small round pebbles that he sticks in his
pocket. I have no idea what they are. Then he closes and locks the Chest and slides it into one of the ovens and closes the door. I move a refrigerator up
against the oven to keep it from being opened. There really is no other choice. The Chest is heavy, it would be impossible to fight while carrying it, and we
need every available hand to get out of this mess.
"I hate to leave it behind," Henri says, shaking his head. Six nods uneasily. Something in the thought of the Mogadorians getting ahold of the Chest
terrifies them both.
"It'll be fine here," I say.
Henri lifts the shotgun and pumps it once, looks at Sarah and Mark.
"This isn't your fight," he tells them. "I don't know what to expect out there, but if this thing goes badly you guys get back in this school and stay
hidden. They aren't after you, and I don't think they'll care to come looking if they already have us."
Sarah and Mark both look stricken with fear, both holding their respective knives with white-knuckled grips in their right hands. Mark has lined his
belt with everything from the kitchen drawers that might be of use--more knives, the meat tenderizer, cheese grater, a pair of scissors.
"We go left out of this room, and when we reach the end of the hall, the gymnasium is past double doors twenty or so feet to the right," I say to
Henri.
"The hatch is in the very middle of the stage," Six says. "It's covered with a blue mat. There were no scouts in the gym, but that doesn't mean they
won't be there this time around."
"So we're just going to go outside and try to outrun them?" Sarah asks. Her voice is full of panic. She's breathing heavily.
"It's our only choice," says Henri.
I grab her hand. She is shaking badly.
"It'll be okay," I say.
"How do you know that?" she says in a more demanding tone than a questioning one.
"I don't," I say.
Six moves the fridge from the door. Bernie Kosar immediately starts scratching at the door, trying to get out, growling.
"I can't make you all invisible," Six says. "If I disappear, I'll still be nearby."
Six grabs hold of the doorknob and Sarah takes a deep, shaky breath beside me, squeezing my hand as tightly as she can. I can see the knife
quivering in her right hand.
"Stay close to me," I say.
"I'm not leaving your side."
The door swings open and Six jumps out into the hall, Henri close behind. I follow and Bernie Kosar races ahead of us all, a ball of fury speeding
away. Henri points the shotgun one way, then the other. The hallway is empty. Bernie Kosar has already reached the intersection. He disappears. Six
follows suit and makes herself invisible and the rest of us run towards the gym, Henri in the lead. I make Mark and Sarah go ahead of me. None of us can
really see a thing, can only hear each other's footsteps. I turn my lights on to help guide the way, and that's the first mistake I make.
A classroom door to my right swings open. Everything happens in a split second and, before I have a chance to react, I am hit in the shoulder with
something heavy. My lights shut off. I crash straight through a glass display window. I'm cut on the top of my head and blood runs down the side of my face
almost immediately. Sarah screams. Whatever it was that hit me clubs me again, a hollow thud in my ribs that knocks the wind from me.
"Turn your lights on!" Henri yells. I do. A scout stands over me, holding a six-foot-long piece of wood that it must have found in the industrial arts
classroom. It raises it in the air to hit me again, but Henri, standing twenty feet away, fires the shotgun first. The scout's head disappears, blown to pieces.
The rest of its body turns to ash before it even hits the floor.
Henri lowers the gun. "Shit," he says, catching sight of the blood. He takes a step towards me and then from the corner of my eye I see another
scout, in the same doorway, a sledgehammer raised over its head. It comes charging forward and, with telekinesis, I throw the nearest thing to me without
even knowing what that thing is. A golden glinting object that speeds through the air with violence. It hits the scout so hard that its skull cracks on impact,
and then it falls to the ground and lies motionless. Henri, Mark, and Sarah rush over. The scout is still alive and Henri takes Sarah's knife and thrusts it
through its chest, reducing it to a pile of ash. He hands Sarah back her knife. She holds it out in front of her, between thumb and forefinger, as though she's
just been handed a pair of somebody's dirty underwear. Mark bends down and lifts the object I had thrown, now in three separate pieces.
"It's my all-conference trophy," he says, and then can't help but chuckle to himself. "It was given to me last month."
I stand. It was the trophy case that I crashed through.
"You okay?" Henri asks, looking at the cut.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Let's keep going."
We rush down the hall and into the gymnasium, sprint across the floor, jump up onto the stage. I flip my lights on to see the blue mat being moved
away as though of its own volition. Then the hatch is thrown up. Only then does Six make herself visible again.
"What happened back there?" she asks.
"Ran into a little bit of trouble," Henri says, climbing down the ladder first to make sure the coast is clear. Then Sarah and Mark go.
"Where is the dog?" I ask.
Six shakes her head.
"Go on," I say. She goes down first, leaving only me on the stage. I whistle as loudly as I can, knowing full well that I'm giving away my position by
doing so. I wait.
"Come on, John," Henri calls up from below.
I crawl into the hatch, my feet on the ladder, but from the waist up I'm still on the stage, watching.
"Come on!" I say to myself. "Where are you?" And in that split second when I have no choice but to give up, but just before I drop down, Bernie
Kosar materializes on the far side of the gym and comes sprinting my way, ears pinned to the sides of his head. I smile.
"Come on!" Henri yells this time.
"Hold on!" I yell back.
Bernie Kosar jumps onto the stage and into my arms.
"Here!" I yell, and hand the dog to Six. I drop down, close and lock the hatch and turn my lights on as brightly as they'll go.
The walls and floor are made of concrete, reeking of mildew. We have to walk in a low crouch to keep from hitting our heads. Six leads the way.
The tunnel is about a hundred feet long and I have no idea what purpose this could have served at one time. We reach the end; a short flight of steps
leads to a pair of metal cellar doors. Six waits until everyone is together.
"Where does this open?" I ask.
"Behind the faculty lot," Sarah says. "Not far from the football field."
Six presses her ear to listen in the small crack between the closed doors. Nothing but the wind. Everyone's face is streaked with sweat, dust, and
fear. Six looks at Henri and nods. I turn my lights off.
"All right," she says, and makes herself invisible.
She inches the door up just enough to stick her head out and have a look around. The rest of us watch with bated breath, waiting, listening, all of us
wracked with nerves. She turns one way, then the other. Satisfied we've made it unnoticed, she pushes the door all the way open and we file out one by
one.
Everything is dark and silent, no wind, the forest trees to our right standing motionless. I look around, can see the busted silhouettes of the twisted
cars piled in front of the doors of the school. No stars or moon. No sky at all, almost as though we're beneath a bubble of darkness, some sort of dome
where only shadows remain. Bernie Kosar begins to growl, low at first so that my initial thought is that it's done for reasons of anxiety only; but the growl
grows into something more ferocious, more menacing, and I know that he senses something out there. All of our heads turn to see what he is growling at
but nothing moves. I take a step forward to put Sarah behind me. I think to turn on my lights but I know that will give us away even more so than the dog's
growl. Suddenly, Bernie Kosar takes off.
He charges ahead thirty yards before leaping through the air and sinking his teeth deeply into one of the unseen scouts, who materializes from out
of nowhere as though some spell of invisibility has been broken. In an instant, we're able to see them all, surrounding us, no fewer than twenty of them,
who begin closing in.
"It was a trap!" Henri yells, and fires twice and drops two scouts immediately.
"Get back in the tunnel!" I scream to Mark and Sarah.
One of the scouts comes charging towards me. I lift it in the air and hurl it as hard as I can against an oak tree twenty yards away. It hits the ground
with a thud, quickly stands, and hurls a dagger my way. I deflect it and lift the scout again and throw it even harder. It bursts into ash at the base of the tree.
Henri unloads more rounds, the shots echoing. Two hands grab me from behind. I almost deflect them until I realize that it's Sarah. Six is nowhere to be
seen. Bernie Kosar has brought a Mogadorian to the ground, his teeth now sunk deeply into its throat, hell ablaze in the dog's eyes.
"Get into the school!" I yell.
She doesn't let go. A clap of thunder breaks through the silence and a storm begins to brew, dark clouds now forming overhead with flashes of
lighting and thunder tearing through the night sky, loud pounding thunder that makes Sarah jump each time one booms. Six has reappeared, standing
thirty feet away, her eyes to the sky and her face twisted in concentration with both arms raised. She's the one creating the storm, controlling the weather.
Bolts of lightning begin raining down, striking the scouts dead where they stand, creating small explosions that form clouds of ash that drift listlessly
across the yard. Henri stands off to the side, loading more shells into the shotgun. The scout that Bernie Kosar is choking finally succumbs to death and
bursts into a heap of ash covering the dog's face. He sneezes once, shakes the ash from his coat and then rushes off and chases the closest scout until
they both disappear into the dense woods fifty yards away. I have this unbearable fear that I've seen him for the very last time.
"You have to go into the school," I say to Sarah. "You have to go now and you have to hide. Mark!" I yell. I look up and don't see him. I snap around.
I catch sight of him sprinting towards Henri, who is still loading his gun. At first I don't understand why, and then I see what is happening: a Mogadorian
scout has snuck up on Henri without his knowing it.
"Henri," I scream to get his attention. I lift my hand to stop the scout with its knife raised high in the air, but Mark tackles the thing first. A wrestling
match ensues. Henri snaps the shotgun closed, and Mark kicks the scout's knife away. Henri fires and the scout explodes. Henri says something to Mark.
I yell for Mark again and he sprints over, breathing heavily.
"You have to take Sarah into the school."
"I can help here," he says.
"It's not your fight. You have to hide! Get in the school and hide with Sarah!"
"Okay," he says.
"You have to stay hidden, no matter what!" I yell over the storm. "They won't come for you. It's me they want. Promise me, Mark! Promise me you'll
stay hidden with Sarah!"
Mark nods rapidly. "I promise!"
Sarah is crying and there's no time to comfort her. Another clap of thunder, another shotgun blast. She kisses me one time on the lips, her hands
holding tightly to my face and I know she would stay like this forever. Mark pulls her off, begins leading her away.
"I love you," she says, and in her eyes she is staring at me in the same way that I had stared at her earlier, before I left home ec, as though she
may be seeing me for the final time, wanting to remember it so that this last image might last a lifetime.
"I love you too," I mouth back just as the two of them reach the steps of the tunnel, and as soon as the words leave my lips, Henri cries out in pain. I
turn. One of the scouts has thrust a knife into his gut. Terror sweeps through me. The scout pulls the knife from Henri's side, the blade glistening with his
blood. It thrusts down to stab Henri a second time. My hand reaches out for it and I rip the knife away at the last second so that it is only a fist that hits
Henri. He grunts, gathers himself, and presses the barrel of the shotgun to the chin of the scout and fires. The scout drops, headless.
The rain starts, a cold, heavy rain. In no time at all I'm soaked to the bone. Blood leaks from Henri's gut. He's aiming the shotgun into the darkness,
but all of the scouts have moved into the shadows, away from us, so that Henri can't get a good enough aim. They're no longer interested in attacking,
knowing that two of us have retreated and a third has been wounded. Six is still reaching for the sky. The storm has grown; the wind is beginning to howl.
She seems to be having trouble controlling it. A winter storm, thunder in January. As quickly as everything started, it all seems to stop--the thunder, the
lightning, the rain. The wind dies away and a low groan begins to grow from off in the distance. Six lowers her arms, all of us straining to listen. Even the
Mogadorians turn. The groan grows, unmistakably coming our way, some sort of deep mechanical groan. The scouts step from the shadows and begin to
laugh. Despite our killing at least ten of them, there are many more than before. From far off a cloud of smoke rises over the tops of the trees as if a steam
engine is coming around the bend. The scouts nod to one another, smiling their wicked smiles, and re-form their circle around us in what is an apparent
attempt to get us back into the school. And it's obvious that that is our only choice. Six walks over.
"What is it?" I ask.
Henri hobbles, the shotgun hanging limply at his side. He's breathing heavily, a gash on his cheek below his right eye, a circular puddle of blood on
his gray sweater from the knife wound.
"It's the rest of them, isn't it?" Henri asks Six.
Six looks at him, stricken, her hair wet and clinging to the sides of her face.
"The beasts," she says. "And the soldiers. They're here."
Henri cocks the shotgun and takes a deep breath. "And so the real war begins," he says. "I don't know about you two, but if this is it, then this is it.
I, for one...," he says, and trails off. "Well, I'll be damned if I'll go down without a fight."
Six nods. "Our people fought back till the end. And so shall I," she says.
A mile off the smoke still rises. Live cargo, I think. That is how they transport them, by oversized semi-trucks. Six and I follow Henri back down
the steps. I yell for Bernie Kosar but he's nowhere to be seen.
"We can't wait for him again," Henri says. "There isn't time."
I look around one final time, and slam the cellar doors shut. We rush back through the tunnel, up onto the stage, across the gymnasium. We don't
see a single scout, nor do we see Mark and Sarah, and I'm relieved by that. I hope they are well hidden, and I hope Mark keeps his promise and that they
stay that way. When we make it back to the home-ec room I slide the fridge out of the way and grab the Chest. Henri and I open it. Six takes the healing
stone out and thrusts it against Henri's gut. He is silent, his eyes closed, holding his breath. His face is red under the strain but not a single sound
escapes. A minute of this and Six pulls the stone away. The cut has healed. Henri exhales, his forehead covered in sweat. Then it's my turn. She presses it
to the gash on my head and a pain far greater than anything I've ever felt before rips through me. I grunt and groan, every muscle in my body flexing. I can't
breathe until it's over, and when it finally is, I bend over and catch my breath for a full minute.
Outside the mechanical groan has stopped. The semi is hidden from view. While Henri closes up the Chest and places it back in the same oven
as before, I look out the window hoping to catch sight of Bernie Kosar. I don't see him. Another set of headlights passes by the school. As before, I can't
tell if it's a car or truck, and it slows as it drives by the entrance, then quickly speeds away without turning in. Henri pushes his shirt down, picks up the
shotgun. As we move towards the door, a sound stops the three of us dead in our tracks.
A roar comes from outside, loud, animal-like, a sinister roar unlike anything I have ever heard before, followed by the sound of the metallic clicks of
a gate being unlocked, lowered, and opened. A loud bang snaps us all back to attention. I take another deep breath. Henri shakes his head and sighs in
what is an almost hopeless gesture, a gesture made when the fight is lost.
"There's always hope, Henri," I say. He turns and looks at me. "New developments have yet to present themselves. Not all the information is in.
Don't give up hope just yet."
He nods and the tiniest trace of a smile forms. He looks at Six, a new development that I don't think either of us could have imagined. Who's to say
that there aren't more waiting? And then he picks up where I left off, quoting the exact words he spoke to me when I was the one who was discouraged,
the day I asked how we could possibly expect to win this fight, alone and outnumbered, far from home--against the Mogadorians, who seem to take great
joy in war and death. "It's the last thing to go," Henri says. "When you have lost hope, you have lost everything. And when you think all is lost, when all is
dire and bleak, there is always hope."
"Exactly," I say.

Categories: I Am Number Four