Apocalypse Before Finals by Julie Steimle (electric book reader txt) 📕

eyes to another part of the stage, and then another. Brian followed his eyes. But because of the brightness of the stage lights, he could only make out shadows. There were other people on the stage besides him and his friends. He wondered who. And why. The word demonstration had sent a chill through him. If it was like the 'lesson' that other man was going to give his Calculus class the day before, he knew he was not going to like it.  

"First, let us know each other for who we are, shall we?" Dural Kelz said, waving his arm to his left.

From the left, the soldiers trotted out a row of their classmates--each one dressed up in crisp Martian-style suits. They were trotting, Brian soon saw, because the soldiers at their flank were shoving them ahead with the butts of long guns. One by one Brian recognized the faces of his schoolmates. His friends did also, cringing and staring in confusion. But the last sulky miserable face in the line was Jennifer McLenna's. And she looked like she wanted to die.

"Oh, no." Darren gasped. "Oh, no. They found out."

The other three boys turned to look at him.

"Found out what?" Mark snapped under his breath. He would have said more, but the soldier behind him struck him with a hot stick.

"Silence," the soldier commanded, halting right behind Mark to make sure he was obeyed.

With beaming pride, Dural Kelz greeted the eight individuals who had been forced onto the stage, making them stand in line in front of the entire student body. Then he turned to face the audience. "These are your new elite."

Brian craned his neck to see, trying not to step out of line. Jennifer's dejected face--all the dejected faces of everyone in the line--had one thing common. Besides being on the pale side, none of them wanted to be there.

He glanced once more at Darren. Darren had closed his eyes, looking like he wanted to stop up his ears also.

"Welcome the eight High Class blood students and honor them," Dural Kelz said with a tone that seemed to be waiting for a drum roll. "Their Arrassian names are and forever will be from this day forward... Rriiz Yiiaz," he said pointing to Rupert. He then pointed to each student in succession. "Asai Duiin, Kerlz Mo'ron, Kelz Yiiaz, Pren Pransk, Huiin Sor, Darr Siirii, Kerr Briik, and Jiin Lenna."

Brian nearly fell. For that matter, so did Jonathan and Mark, almost collapsing from total shock. The guards at their sides jerked all of them by their shirt collars to force them erect. They struck each boy sharply with a hot stick. Dural Kelz looked back once to see what the commotion was. A soldier that was standing near him whispered into his ear. He nodded, amused.

The headmaster continued his speech. "You are to defer to these elite from now on. You are dust under their feet."

Jennifer started weeping when he said this.

Brian stared in disbelief, rubbing his sore skin, yet not daring to move from his spot in the line.

The eight were cordially dismissed, and their guards shoved the teenagers off stage with the butts of their guns.

"The next order of business," Dural Kelz announced, gazing across the stage toward their side. Brian and the rest tensed immediately. However, the man's gaze rested behind them. Two soldiers brought forward a severely beaten yet still alive man. Burns like bites, cut chunks out of his once nice suit coat. His shirt was torn, his tie like a noose and in pieces, hanging from his neck. Brian gasped when he saw the man's face.

"Mr. Humphries!" he exclaimed without thinking.

The soldier behind Brian struck him with the hot stick again. Brian's body stiffened against the pain, and he closed his mouth. But there on the stage in front of those soldiers, forced in one of the hot spotlights for all to see, was his English teacher who looked like he had been locked up, tortured and starved just as badly as he and his friends had been.

"This man defied my orders and smuggled students out of the school," Dural Kelz barked out with disgust.

"Yeah!" escaped Brian's lips before he could stop himself, but he wasn't the only one. Several people in the audience also cheered.

However, the soldiers at the end of their class rows tackled each one and beat them into silence. Brian's guard whacked him to the ground. Brian now knelt on the stage, unable to stand. His back smoked.

Mr. Humphries glanced back at him, squinting into the dark, but Brian doubted that the teacher saw anything more than shadows.

"Such defiance will not be tolerated," Dural Kelz spat angrily. "Not by anyone."

The soldier standing next to the new headmaster pulled out his pistol and pressed a button. It hummed loudly, echoing off the stage. The soldier strode over to where Brian's English teacher stood on unstable feet. Mr. Humphries panted, closing his eyes. Everyone could see fat drops of sweat build up on his face. The soldier pressed the gun mouth to the teacher's forehead.

"No!"

With energy Brian didn't even think he had, he sprang off the floor and dived not more than eight feet away from where he had stood, pouncing on the soldier with the gun. The gun flew out of the soldier's hand, setting it off. The shot burned a sharp hole into the curtain. He rammed the soldier's throat and spine into the wooden stage floor.

Initially stunned by Brian's outburst, guards immediately surged out of the sides of the stage, flailing their clubs onto his back as soon as they reached him. Brian howled, releasing the soldier. Curling up on the stage floor as they beat him, he screamed.

"Enough!" Dural Kelz bellowed.

The soldiers turned their glowing, smoking sticks off, pulling back. In one marching step back from the boy, squaring their shoulders at attention, they left Brian crouching over on the ground. The back of his shirt was entirely burned into his skin now with bloody blisters and cauterized flesh. The rest fell off as ashes. The front of his once perfect tee shirt hung in tatters by his neck and burnt arms. His back smoked.

"Pick him up," Dural Kelz ordered.

The soldiers lifted Brian by his arms, dragging him to the center of the stage next to Mr. Humphries where they dropped him on his knees. Brian stared at the floor, breathing hard. His eyes teared as the pain was too much. Under the heat of the spotlight, they both kneeled, waiting for their doom.

Mr. Humphries turned his head just a little, gazing at the student who had extended his life for just a few minutes. Painful gratitude shown in his eyes. Brian just stared at the floor, bracing for the fatal blow.

The words from their school dictator boomed over them like thunder.  "This boy wishes to die for this wretch?"

Brian clenched his fists.

"Answer me!" The P.M. kicked Brian in the side.

A sympathetic moan erupted from the crowd. Some cries for the headmaster to stop echoed out of the darkness. Brian recognized the voices of his brothers. Possibly his sister. There were several other cries, but they were still alive. Most of the other students could hardly sit and watch. Many closed their eyes and wept, their sobs echoing in the hall like a wail.

"Do you wish to die?" Dural Kelz said again.

"No," Brian answered through clenched teeth. "But he's my teacher, and I don't want him to die either."

Mr. Humphries closed his eyes.

Dural Kelz laughed. He laughed, and laughed long and cruelly at the two people at his feet. Brian could not stand up for the pain. The backs of his legs were also cooked and sore--though he tried to hold himself as best as possible.

"I see why Zeldar chose you for a friend," Dural Kelz said after a while, wiping his eyes. "You have such romantic notions of honor."

Brian flushed. Before he had realized that Jeff had been lying to him, before meeting the People's Military and hearing Jeff was a criminal where he had come from, before all that, it never bothered him. They had been friends and they had such common feeling. But now, after he had learned the truth from a bunch of alien invaders the day before, he hated Jeff with all his might for destroying his life. And yet...this nasty man describing Jeff and him having 'romantic notions of honor' filled Brian with indignation. If Jeff had been a criminal, he realized, then being an honorable man in Jeff's world must have been a crime. No wonder Jeff had seemed so haunted when they had first met. No wonder Jeff had been so twitchy, always watching his back, always so defensive. The world where Jeff had come from must have been nasty.

Dural Kelz forced Mr. Humphries off the ground and spoke in a magnanimous manner. "So be it. The teacher lives for the sake of romantic honor of a Zeldar.

"Third order of business," Dural Kelz said, as if dictating the steps to putting together a bicycle while they hauled the teacher away. "Bring the other boys out."

The guards that stood by Jonathan, Mark, and Darren shoved them forward. All three walked faster than they had originally intended. They all wanted to help Brian up--but Dural Kelz stood in their way. The guards at their sides herded them with their hot sticks.

The pale headmaster peered down on Brian. Brian tried to stand, but found his back and legs in too much pain for it.

Dural Kelz set one of his booted feet onto Brian's back and shoved him to the ground.

Brian howled. The blisters on his back ruptured. His burns broke open and bled. His voice echoed in the cafeteria over the heads of every student in Pennington High. His two friends writhed in anguish, watching it happen. Darren closed his eyes.

"These boys are conspirators and terrorists," the headmaster announced, putting more pressure on Brian's back. "They have allied themselves with a known fugitive and criminal, Jafarr Zeldar...his alias here being Jeff Streigle."

The whole of the school gasped. Jeff? A criminal? Impossible! Whispers passed through the room like a surging wave, echoing and hissing, some repeating things like, "But didn't someone say he was involved in an organized crime ring, or knew someone who was?" and "He did have all those scars," and "He did break that Monroe wrestler's knee that time." Many of the questions echoed and filled the room. These exclamations were allowed to some extent, at least to the discredit of the boy. The soldiers watched and listened, gripping their guns and lifting their heads in watchful approval--except a girl in an acid rock tee shirt jumped up and screamed, "Jeff is a good guy! If he is fighting against these creeps we should be cheering them on!"

Guards in the audience converged on her, and she was soon screaming for mercy.

"These boys, further, have allied themselves with Alea Zormna Clendar who is now a rebel and traitor to her country for joining said Zeldar." Dural Kelz seemed to take great delight in defaming Zormna, grinning happily.

But the murmurs over her were not so negative. In fact, many of her schoolmates shook their heads and thought more approvingly of Zormna than they ever had. Since the inquiries around the campus, the majority had figured out Zormna's relationship to them by nationality. Zormna looked like one of them and talked like them. Even Michelle Clay wanted to cheer for her teammate. The girl in the acid rock shirt jumped up to do just that, but got pulled down by her classmates and smothered to keep her alive. Rumbles of approval over Zormna swelled in the crowd. If Zormna was a traitor to these brutal people, then she was an absolute saint.

 But Dural Kelz continued on with his announcement: "You will shun these boys. Furthermore, anyone else found to have been friends with either Zeldar or Alea Zormna will be punished severely." He glared down upon them all, pushing hard on Brian's back