Day 129 - Babel - Chapter 25 (1767 words)

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BABEL

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 25

Victor had woken more than once, though only for moments at a time, before coming fully back to consciousness. First it had been on his back spitting water with an arm wrapped around his throat and a screaming noise in his ears, a desperate and high pitched whine that sounded like an engine pushed to hard for too long. He was in water, out of control and blacking out with someone throttling him, but he had no choice and no chance to fight back, just drop out of consciousness again.

The next time was the sensation of bring dragged, then propped up against a wall, dripping wet and the horizon spinning out of control. The solidity of the building was comforting and steady through every other sense he had sending him the message that he was spinning and dangerously out of control. He could not focus on anything in his field of vision, his head lolled about like he was drunk, but he knew that he had been in an explosion and was miraculously alive thanks to a shadowy figure, someone he could see in vague terms but his eyes only caught glimpses, refusing to track as his head bobbed like a bay's unable to support the weight.

The next time he was somewhere else, moving rapidly the wind whistled past his head as he tried to sit from a lying down position. He could feel the vibration of an engine, and smell the salt in the air, he was at sea in a boat. He could not hear the outboard, but from the gas smell and the salt air, the speed at which they moved and the aluminium hull he was lying in, with some slight backwash under the struts occasionally splashing him he figured it must have been. He was closer to being right this time, but the effort required to sit up and get a better view and maybe even assess the situation was very draining and he fell back again to a prone position. Before his eyes closed again he managed to see that there were two people in the boat, a man, the one who had dragged him from the water possibly, and a woman who was reaching for him to settle him when his eyes closed once more.

Then he woke with a start, though it felt like it was seconds since he shut them on the boat it had obviously been a long time, it was pitch black and he was no longer on the water, he was on dry land again, inside a building.

Sitting up, Victor looked about for signs of the two people he was with when he had awoken previously but he was alone lying on a single cot bed in a dark room. He sat up and even though he knew that the room was silent there was a screaming in his head still, the same leftover shrill that had followed him from the water to land and back again the whole way. The ringing in his ears was so very loud and inescapable but totally and utterly inside his own skull. He reeled a little as he sat up and held his head to buffer a sound he could not affect, but he righted himself and took a good look as his eyes adjusted to the dark.

There were curtains and they were pulled, but a diffuse light was coming in, pale blue and soft obviously the full moon. In the room, which was small, there was the cot and a desk with a chair pulled up, a lamp sitting on the desktop. There were also boxes, stacked against the far wall near the door through to the next room. He could not hear anything over the noise in his eardrums, but the light at the bottom of the door, where the gap was just big enough for a draft and a sliver of flickering, dancing candle projected light.

He tested his feet on the floor, he could not tell if they creaked or not, there was no way for him to hear anything over the shrieking inside. Victor wobbled a little on his feet, holding out one hand to steady himself against the wall, the bed and anything he could touch to stand swaying on his own two feet. The room pitched suddenly backwards, his body falling forwards against the tilt, only to have it bounce back the other way and he magically was still standing as the motion see sawed to a stop vertically again.

He took a tentative step to the door feeling that the time was right to move, he stumbled but quick stepped to slam his shoulder bodily into the door frame, alerting everyone if not with the noise then with the profanity that spewed from his mouth at the shock, the jarring that he felt all the way through to his bones. His head was spinning, either from his disorientation and concussion or from the new pain just introduced, but he was determined to moved forward, doggedly persistent not wanting to drop unconscious again when the door to his saviours was right in front of him.

The few feet he had moved seemed like a marathon, and the thirty seconds like hours but he still stood at the door exhausted when it flung open to show the two people he had seen earlier silhouetted by the candle light, their expressions unreadable as the light source was behind them and their faces were cast in shadows. They opened their mouths but no sound came out, none that Victor could hear anyway as the ringing still outweighed reality.

He saw them grabbing for him as he pitched forwards again and fell into the room where they were. The last thing he saw this time was the big bay window in the main room where they were, it was looking out over water to Rangitoto and the Alien ship that was perched in the air atop it. It was casting off a blue hue, like the moon had hovered in a technically beautiful model made of metal and glass in the night. So closer than he had ever been, it was detailed, smooth and massive this far in, almost underneath it, bathing in the glow that he had thought was the moon.

When he awoke again it was day and he was back in the bed, but no longer alone as one of his saviours, the woman, was sitting in a chair reading a book and drinking from a cracked, enamel mug some kind of hot drink, with steam rising from it. As he moved she spoke to him and he could hear her just, at the edge of his hearing.

“You're awake, how are you feeling?” Her voice was distant and tinny, like it was shouted from the opposite end of a very long tunnel, and he shook his head to try and clear it, which only gave him stabbing pains to accompany the dizzy feeling and the ringing noise which had lessened from a scream to a shriek. He grasped his head at the pain and the woman called out, turning her head towards the door he had fallen through the previous night.

“George? He's awake George! Come through!” At her voice a man, the man who had rescued him, came in to join them, eyeing him cautiously and moving very slowly, one arm out of sight, either holding a weapon or making him think there was one out of sight.

“How are you feeling mate?” He asked, not kindly, more guarded than his companion who looked genuinely concerned.

“My head, I can barely hear you … the noise, the ringing.” Victor winced as his jawed worked up and down on the words, each one hurting his ears.

“Cup of tea?” George asked, it seemed like an autonomic response, any drama that needed settling was obviously best dealt with by a initial step of taking tea. Victor nodded and again, winced at the pain holding his head once more in both hands, leaning into a foetal position before sitting up again, When he did he saw that the woman had apparently tried to come to his aid, but the man George had a hand on her shoulder and kept her in place, the consternation plain in her expression.

“Barbara, why don't you go fix the man a cup of tea yeah?”

So that was her name, Barbara. “Barbara, George... Victor.” Each word was a stab in the ear, so he kept it short, but he saw that George understood.

“Victor, nice to... well I guess it's not that nice, but it's good to have a name to put to the face we have been dragging about for the last two days.

“Two days?” Despite the pain the idea that he had been unconscious for two days was a shock to his system.

“Yes, it has been two days since the explosion, just rest you can tell us all about that later. I think I saw some Ibuprofen in the medicine box, in the station room, I'll go have a look if you want?” George was standing the doorway ready to go at the first sign of acqueisence.

“Station?” Where were they, thought Victor.

“Right, yeah you have no … this is Motukorea Island. Brown's Island, a conservation reserve. This is a rangers station, it's for DOC workers and students for studying I guess, there's loads of weather tools and journals, a zip, a water tank, plumbing, power from a generator and even some handy equipment. This is a good place to hide, and right under their noses.”

Barbara came back in with a cup of tea, and in the other hand she had small blue capsules of UHT milk, the kind they had on the planes.

“Milk? Mr...?” She was angling for the name but George beat Victor to it.

“Victor, Barbara. Barbara, Victor.” He took the tea from her and handed it and a mini carton of milk to Victor who took it ans struggled with it, his hands shaking. George took over, opening the tear top for him and then pouring it into the tea until it was all thing the enamel cup, which was hot and burning Victors palms.

The pain clarified his thoughts, pushed out some of the dopiness and fuzzy edges in his brain, so Victor kept burning the skin of his palms with the scalding surface of the enamel cup.