The Voice Read online

  As we made our way down the road, all we could see was destruction. One home after another lay in smouldering ruins. The stink of smoke was thick in the air. Power lines and tree limbs cluttered what was once sidewalks and lawns.

  The road itself was remarkably unscathed, much like the voice said it would be. If it wasn’t for the devastation all around us, the road itself would have appeared to be a normal suburban street.

  We had walked maybe a mile when my bald friend spoke, “Any thoughts on what this is all about?” he asked, although I had a feeling he had some ideas of his own as well.

  “I wish I knew, I can’t even remember my name,” I said, as we marched along. “Do you have any memory at all? I can’t remember anything about who I am.”

  “I wish... I know I’m not crazy, but...” The man paused a long moment. “This is a dream, another reality.” He finally said, convinced that could be an answer.

  I thought long and hard about that, but this was no dream. I was also not crazy, and I knew the difference.

  Kicking some loose rocks as I walked, I asked. “Does any of this look familiar?”

  “No, I’ve been looking for a reminder...Something...None of this looks even remotely familiar. It’s so strange because I feel like I know my name, It’s as if it’s on the tip of my tongue. I feel like I even know who I am...it’s almost as if my brain won’t let me go there.”

  As nonsensical as that may have sounded, I had the same sensation. I didn’t feel like I had lost my identity completely, just that my brain was keeping it from me, like a secret it wouldn’t let me in on.

  We walked for what seemed like a couple of miles. More of the same all around. Smoke, waste, total destruction.

  Then the humming started again. Did we somehow displease the voice? Were we to be exterminated next?

  “This has been an assessment,” the voice said. It was just as loud as we heard it before, but no sign of where it was coming from.

  “We want to share our world with a being that is intelligent.” The voice continued. “But we also want to be sure you are in suitable physical condition for the transformation.”

  The bald man hit me on the shoulder, “The voice,” he whispered. “I know where it’s coming from.”

  The voice continued, “Four of you will not be needed from this point on, Thank-you for your compliance but we do not feel your bodies will be physically capable of surviving the transformation.”

  It wasn’t until that moment that I realized that my bald friend and I were many steps ahead of the others. Four of the eight had drifted and were maybe fifty yards or so behind us.

  The humming started again. Increasing in volume and tone. The emerging drone of annihilation.

  Looking back, the four survivors who lagged behind disappeared from sight as the hum came to an abrupt halt.

  “Now, continue.” the voice said calmly.

  After a moment, I turned toward my bald friend. “The voice, where is it coming from?” I asked.

  “It’s not coming from anywhere,” the man said. “It’s in our heads.”

  - CHAPTER 5 -

  Within moments of the wind kicking up, a vibrant red light shone from the bottom of the pool. This was followed immediately by a thunderous rumbling as the wind continued to howl.

  The pool water started to spill up onto the patio and splash violently as the red light became ever more ominous, thicker and brighter.

  Marie wondered why no one was running and then she realized why. As she tried to move her feet she became aware of the fact that she could not move at all. “I can’t move,” she screamed in terror.

  “I know, neither can I,” said John. “My legs are numb, I can’t feel anything!”

  Some force greater than their might was now in control. As hard as every guest tried to move, they were unable to pick their feet off the ground. They were helpless statues forced to watch.

  Then, suddenly, a huge amount of water shot from the pool and splashed up onto everyone. The water was boiling and oppressive.

  Their cries were only silenced by the roar.

  The sound of the bellowing roar which followed made quiet all their screams. Reverberating from the bottom of the pool, it was spine tingling and deafening.

  And then they saw the creature for the first time.

  Eyes shooting a beam of red light everywhere, it’s massive and muscular torso rising from beneath the water. A giant of a man, towering over all of them, it’s flesh was sodden, beige and slimy.

  Emerging from the water, the beast-man stood before them in the center of the pool. It’s entire body was heaving and startlingly human-like, immense and powerful. It’s eyes emitting vivid red light, like pools of blood soaked carnage.

  Marie and John were still standing there, squeezing each other as tightly as they could. Marie found herself blinking furiously, hoping this would all just go away when she opened her eyes each time.

  John was trying with all of his strength to move his feet, it was a feeling of complete helplessness as he tried again and again. There was nowhere to go, they were at the complete and total mercy of this creature that stood before them.

  The beast positioned itself facing Marie and John. It’s mouth open and drooling. A crimson tongue lapping side to side. It’s teeth were not teeth at all, they resembled thick nails emerging from the gum-line. Serrated and mammoth, they could instantly rip apart any prey.

  Suddenly, it’s arms darted forward directly at Marie. As she screamed with hopeless abandon, the beast separated John’s arms from around her and bound Marie up into a cocoon of his own.

  The beast lifted Marie up like a man would a fly. Marie could smell it’s breath as she approached it’s mouth. It was a disgusting odor, muddled with vomit and refuse. Marie thought it’s breath was foul, no doubt, from the scores of victims before. She ceased to scream, accepted her fate, death was upon her.

  As she closed her eyes and waited for the pain, she took several deep final breaths. Her body was completely wrapped in the beast’s hands, except for her face. She could feel the pressure of the slippery fleshy tissue of the beast, compressing her body as she gasped for what she undoubtedly felt were her terminal breaths.

  Let it happen, she thought. Just get it over with, I’m ready!

  But nothing happened, the beast just stood there, looking at her, some drool falling from it’s face onto the fingers still grasping her. She looked directly into death, saw it’s bloodshot red eyes, felt the steam from the radiant glow.

  Go on, if this is it, then do it! Just do it!

  But still, nothing happened. This monster of a man just stared through her, easily becoming more and more serene with each passing breath.

  Then, she locked onto it’s eyes. There was no movement as the beast and Marie just looked at each other.

  Marie had a feeling something was saving her. The creature’s grasp had slackened.

  She had faced death, so she thought, but now, she knew instinctively this would not be the end for her. Something inside her said to relax, it was going to be all right.

  - CHAPTER SIX -

  We walked along for maybe another two miles before we could clearly see the end in sight. The last part of the road was just up ahead.

  My bald friend turned to me and spoke with heavy sarcasm, “Looks like the end of the road, maybe literally and figuratively.”

  The devastation was more widespread than we could have imagined, and seemed to go well beyond just this town. As we approached the end of the road, we were able to see the horizon. It looked as if the sun had scorched the earth all around us. Smoke and some flames curled up toward the sky in every direction. Automobiles had swerved and crashed. The cars that we saw were mostly flattened, almost all of them had been burned to a crisp. Every home and small building was razed to the ground. No structure stood for as far as we could see. Smoldering trees and brush spread out before us into the distance. Quite simply, everything had been demolished.

  A
s the road ended, it merged into what seemed like a grassy and heavily wooded area, maybe a park. The trees were all black and gray from the onslaught of fire, white ash covered the land.

  The four of us that remained stood at the end of the road, not really sure if we were supposed to continue or not. I knew what we were waiting for...The voice!

  It seemed to make sense that the voice would speak to us now, especially because of our present confusion. Still, there was no voice, no instructions.

  The two men that were left with us looked no different than me and my bald friend. They were equally unkempt, dirty and lost. One of them had what I thought was probably red hair, I could see a little of it coming through the filth on his brow.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “I say we wait,” Red head answered, even though I wasn’t talking to him.

  Without any warning, the hum began again. I remembered what the voice said earlier.

  Talk to no one except your partner!

  The hum was beginning to take on a life of it’s own, emerging from the silence and becoming the terminating drone we knew it to be.

  As the hum reached it‘s climax, red head suddenly was no more, vanishing right before our eyes. The hum decreased in volume and was gone as well.

  Now there were just the three of us, and fright was undoubtedly tightening the choke hold.

  My bald friend and I just looked at the third man. There was nothing we could say, and we feared trying to communicate through some other means would be fatal. The voice seemed to know everything, who were we to defy it after experiencing it’s wrath.

  I remembered the voice said to travel Northeast, as far as I could tell, we were still heading in that direction.

  I took a step onto the scorched grass.

  Then another.

  Nothing happened. The voice must want us to continue on.

  And so we did.

  We walked for another ten minutes, before we saw what I felt had to be our destination.

  Looming large in front of us, revealing itself in more detail as we approached. There it stood, our destination, maybe our ultimate fate.

  The fear the three of us felt was suddenly being replaced by an insurmountable and intense curiosity.

  At last, an answer was upon us!

  - CHAPTER SEVEN -

  The stench of the beast was overwhelming and Marie could bear no more. She slipped into unconsciousness and her mind began to whirl.

  She remembered her childhood. All the stories her Dad used to tell her about how special this place was. How lucky they all were that the voice had allowed them to continue on.

  Like the rest of her childhood friends, they were all taught the ways of the voice. What they should expect and, most importantly, what they needed to comply with. The most important lesson was to always listen to and obey the voice.

  This was the agreement the voice made with humanity when it invaded Planet Earth almost three hundred years ago. They were permitted to keep all the technology they had acquired, allowed to celebrate the same holidays, keep the same culture, mirror every part of the society they had grown accustomed to. The only catch was that their ancestors would be transported to their new home planet of Sebulese, where they all lived now. Shortly after transporting the population of Earth to Sebulese, a task which took close to four years to complete, Earth was transformed into a docking port for galactic space travelers.

  The voice then made it clear to everyone, they had but one rule to abide by. Never question and always obey the voice. That was the agreement, and it was not negotiable.

  As Marie slipped in and out of consciousness, she waited for the voice to tell her something, anything! What had they, or she, done wrong? There must be a reason for this creature’s appearance.

  The beast lifted it’s giant feet from the pool and stepped up onto the patio.

  Laying it’s claw-like feet down, the creature outstretched the arm holding Marie and set her down gently under him.

  Marie, still struggling to remain alert, caught a glimpse of John, tears in his eyes, as he tried in vain to break free and rescue her.

  There would be no rescue.

  The massive monster looked around the yard once, shooting the glow of miserable red as his eyes assessed the crowd.

  Then, with no warning and extreme prejudice, the red beam turned to flames. Scorching, red, fiery flames shooting from the creatures eyeballs down upon its prey.

  Flesh soon was devoured by the blaze, seared instantly into ash.

  It only took moments for the entire yard to be filled with death. Marie watched in horror as John disintegrated beneath a fury of crimson fire and smoke.

  There was time to hear only a few muffled screams as the fire stretched out quickly and ferociously over the victims. Marie could feel the steam on her face and body as she tucked her head down beneath her arms and started to wail.

  Except for Marie, no one was spared.

  - CHAPTER EIGHT -

  There it was, right in front of the three of us. This was the spacecraft, no doubt, that lay ruin to this town.

  It was huge, almost four stories high I would suspect. Shiny black, metal exterior with small blue and green lights affixed to the periphery. Halfway up the front of the craft, one enormous landing light jetted straight out. Right above that was a glassy tubular cockpit area, the glass was shimmering making it impossible to see anyone inside.

  It looked no different than any other spacecraft I remembered seeing flying over Sebulese. While I still could not remember my name, Sebulese I suddenly and instinctively remembered quite well. Like a rainstorm, the memories started to flood into my brain.

  It was the planet my Father was born on, and the planet where I was raised before we were sent to Earth to work at the docking port. I remember my Father saying that he had disobeyed his superior when I was still very young and our punishment was to be hard work at the docking port for at least the next generation.

  I think I remembered Sebulese so well, mostly because my Father talked about it so often. We left there when I was still a boy, and working at the docking port on Earth was the only life I ever knew.

  The only elder we ever answered to there was an extremely tall man named Quata. My Dad would remind me daily how important it was to follow Quata’s orders at all times. Failure to comply with Quata and his men would certainly spell doom for all of us. And so, that was my life before this.

  It was funny, I hadn’t remembered any of this until we stood before this spacecraft. The spacecraft must have jogged loose this memory. Unfortunately, my name was still a mystery.

  My bald friend turned to me and said, “Are you remembering also?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I worked at the docking port on Earth.”

  “So did I,” said my bald friend. “I think we worked together, I remember your Father, very protective but a good man.”

  “I am starting to remember him also,” I said, a hint of nostalgia floating through.

  My bald friend stared up at the massive spacecraft and said, “This ship is already equipped for travel, looks fully fuelled and polished to me.”

  I knew we would never see a ship in this good a condition on Earth unless it was ready for takeoff. Ships that came to earth were there for fuel and cleanup mostly. This ship was ready for a voyage.

  “We are not on Earth,” I said. “We must be on Sebulese.”

  “Why?” Said my bald friend, simply.

  “They want something from us, we better behave!” It sounded amusing at first, saying it that way, like a child afraid of his abusive parents. The truth, however, was just that.

  The spacecraft made a noise, it was the hum. Not nearly as threatening as the times we had heard it before. The sound hovered over us calmly. Serene, tranquil, infinitely more friendly.

  Then, the voice spoke to us. “So now you know what you once were, slave workers on Planet Earth. For the last twenty five years, you have been working there, servicing o
ur spacecraft. The two of you have done well. However, we only need three of you for the transformation.”

  I immediately spun my head around, there were three of us here. What was the voice talking about? Only three? That’s all there were.

  Then the voice explained it all to us. “We have selected a woman to journey with you after your transformation, she will be your female counterpart, your mate. You will meet her shortly. We have done our best to transport most of the life forms here on Sebulese in the last three days. Through the use of conflagration and our own enhanced telekinetic energy we have extinguished their physical presence here and recreated them on Planet Earth, they will be the next generation of slave workers. We did not kill anyone, you should know that. We are not the barbarians the human race has proved themselves to be, we kill no one. To use a term you are familiar with, we recycle everything.”

  The voice paused for a moment, apparently giving the three of us a chance to take it all in. Then, the voice continued, “You will soon remember everything about your previous life, including your names. Then, you will be transformed and your mission will be fully explained to you. We are sorry but since we can only take two of you along with the woman, one of you must be relocated to Planet Earth now.”

  The third man stood up straight. My bald friend and I anxiously awaited the verdict. The hum turned ominous and threatening once again, increasing in volume.

  Then, suddenly, I remembered my name. I turned toward my bald friend and instantly knew who he was. He worked with me on Planet Earth since I was a child, my older Brother, Peter.

  “That is correct Adam,” said the voice. “This is your Brother, Peter. Do not be afraid, we will keep you together.”

  The third man froze, realizing his fate.

  Within moments the sound had increased once again and the voice spoke, “Adam and Peter, the man standing next to you was not a slave worker on Planet Earth, he lives here on Sebulese. We took him along because of his close connection to the female we have chosen. He may be of use to us some day, but not today.”