Apocalypse Before Finals - Julie Steimle (bts book recommendations .TXT) 📗

People's Military crime division. I make it my business to apprehend criminals and vagabonds. Zeldar is both."

Both boys swallowed. Darren shuddered, his knees were on the verge of buckling.

"Now, I would prefer that you two would not become criminals on my list. If you tell me what I want to know about Zeldar, then you will be released to return to your class. If you do not," he said with warning, raising his voice tightly, "I will be forced to take the information from you."

Brian's disbelief got the better of him. "Like how?"

The Dural seemed surprised. He stepped back. Then he motioned to a nearby guard who was carrying nothing except for a plastic-looking rod that looked like one of those a glowing sticks for waving down aircraft.

"Dural Kerr, if you please," Dural Korad said.

Immediately the man with the glowing stick grabbed Brian by the base of his hair and jerked him sharply out of the line. He whacked Brian with the stick repeatedly. The stick now glowed hot red. On impact, it burned welts on Brian's back and shoulders like an iron, searing through his shirt.

Jonathan leapt to help him. Yet after only two steps, Dural Korad pulled out his weapon and rammed it under the Jonathan's chin.

"Give me a reason to shoot. One friend of Zeldar's is enough." Korad's dark grin curled back menacingly.

Jonathan stiffened, breaking into a sweat, panting like a caught fugitive though his eyes remained on Brian. Darren whimpered louder.

The man with the club continued to ruthlessly beat on Brian. He didn't let up until Dural Korad causally gave the word.

Brian curled into fetal position on his knees. His shirt and back smoked with a rank odor. Some pieces flaked off like ash. Trembling, Jonathan fought back tears. He had to look away from his friend's raw and blistered back, the remains of Brian's charred shirt hanging on at the top and bottom.

The Dural grinned smugly, almost amused. "Are you ready to tell me where Zeldar is now?"

Brian panted as his skin still cooked. Clenching himself, yet not daring to touch the burns, he looked up at Dural Korad with an expression not often found on Brian's face - fear mixed with hate. "I don't know where he is!"

Dural Korad nodded to the man with the stick.

The man started beating on Brian's back again.

"No! Stop! Stop!" Darren threw himself on the man with the burning stick.

Jonathan's eyes went wide. Though he had never really liked Darren (tolerating him for Zormna's sake), with awe he watched the tall and skinny geek grab the armed soldier's shoulder, attempting to pull him off Brian. The man with the stick swung back, striking Darren across his cheek while throwing him backward. Darren thumped hard on the carpet, clenching his burning face. But he did not stop screaming. "Stop! Stop! He doesn't know! Jeff didn't tell them! Only I know!"  

Dural Korad raised his eyebrows and lifted his hand. "Cease!

"You know?" the PM exclaimed with convincing doubt. "How do you know?"

Brian dropped back on his least burnt-and-bruised side, staring up at Darren Asher as the space-crazed geek shook in desperation. Jonathan writhed under the grasp of the other soldier, unable to believe this was true.

Darren whimpered, almost crying as he spoke. "He told me yesterday that people had come for him and..." Darren looked around wildly, holding back any mention of Zormna, "...and he said that he had to leave...go back home. So he left."

Dural Korad tromped to Darren, grabbing him by his shirt front. He jerked him up to his face. "Did he say how he was going to leave? Did he say exactly where he was going?"

Darren shook his head. "He never does. But I know without him telling me. He probably took a spaceship and went back to his planet."

Jonathan moaned. "Gads, Darren, not that Martian stuff again."

Exasperated, Brian's mouth hung open. Yet that Dural Korad nodded seriously and dropped Darren on the floor - not in any way, shape, or form annoyed by such a ludicrous report. Without looking back, Korad signaled to his two other soldiers.

"It seems we have been trying to get information from the wrong boy. Dural Hren was right. This boy does know more than a normal Parthan should know."

Jonathan's mouth dropped open. "You don't mean that you believe him? You're absolutely mad!"

However, Dural Korad smirked at Jonathan. He then looked down at Brian.

"Interesting." He glanced back at Darren with complete bored amusement. "Two boys, definitely the type Zeldar would have for comrades - so kept in the dark about the true nature of Jafarr Zeldar and his interesting origins." He laughed as if the most amusing joke alive had just been told to him. "And this weak kid, nothing like Zeldar would ever willingly associate with, knows not only who Zeldar is, but who we are. Very interesting."

Brian paled. He attempted to stand. "Well, maybe he's not such a good friend."

Dural Korad laughed. So much amusement was in his eyes as he stepped toward Brian who could only manage to kneel.

"On the contrary, boy. Zeldar has been a better friend to you than to that pitiful boy. He has spared you a real beating in any chance that we should meet." He then motioned to the soldiers to drag Darren out of the room. "I believe now that you are telling the truth. Jafarr Zeldar somehow knew we were coming. Be thankful he wasn't so honest with you."

With that, he left the room. His soldiers dragged Darren out by the scruff of his shirt. He was now openly weeping. They left both boys alone in the room, locking them in.

Jonathan jumped to Brian's side at once.

"Brian, are you ok?" he asked, peering over his still smoking shirt.

Brian nodded, though his legs were quaking and his back seared so bad. His ears had started ringing and he was feeling faint. "I'll be fine."

Jonathan sighed and glanced at the door. He then looked back at Brian. "What just happened? I just don't think I get it."

Brian nodded again and winced. "I think..." The entire idea sounded crazy, yet there it was, staring like an insane truth and standing as firm as his belief in his own two feet. "I think we have just been invaded by a Martian army."

Jonathan choked. "You...you can't be serious."

But Brian nodded and leaned again on the round table in Mrs. Ryant's room. "Everything points to it."

Jonathan still stared with disbelief.

"Look, I know it sounds stupid, but think about it. These guys are an army from some place we have never heard of, right? I mean, what is an Arrassian?" Brian said, leaning back to look at his friend. He flinched at the touch of the back of the chair against his skin when he went too far back. He leaned forward again.

Jonathan nodded. "Yeah?"

"Ok, so, these crazy people take over our school and one comes looking for Jeff, right?" Brian continued.

His friend nodded. "Yeah, right. So?"

Then Brian said what he had been thinking. "Haven't you noticed the people in the suits? Their faces are just as white as Zormna's, and for that matter, Jeff's too. Haven't you noticed? Jeff and Zormna are a lot alike. They are both deathly pale. They both have the strangest, darkest eyes, and occasionally they have these private jokes that no one gets. Think about it. Jeff claims to know Zormna in some school in Ireland. But he never mentioned that school until she got here. And all the stuff he knows about her - No matter what he says, nobody can know all that in just a couple weeks. Or even a month. They are countrymen...and not Irish."

Jonathan vigorously shook his head. "I can't believe that. Zormna is Irish."

Brian closed his eyes. "She's not."

"How do you know?" Jonathan retorted. He didn't want to believe Darren's Martian story at all.

Sighing, Brian replied. "Think about it. She never talks about Ireland except when a teacher assigns her to do a report on it. And then she makes up excuses about how little she knows about it by saying something like she never really spent time out of her military compound. Baloney! Jeff's right. She's a better liar than we thought."

He slumped against the table.

Jonathan leaned near him. "But why do you believe Darren's story that they are Martians?"

Thinking for a moment, Brian shrugged. "That is the only thing that makes it crazy. I'd doubt it myself, except for all the weird spur-of-the-moment trips Jeff and Zormna have gone on." Then he looked up. "Think about it. Why would the FBI be so interested in an Irish girl? Why have they been watching Jeff lately? Why did they go to NASA in November? What was the reason for them to suddenly sneak off to Arizona? Why are they gone now?"

"Uh...." Jonathan stared at the table. He had no answer.

Brian nodded. "And that guy took Darren seriously when he talked about spaceships and planets and things. If they aren't Martians, then they're aliens, and that's pretty much the same thing."

Jonathan shrugged painfully. "I guess so."

 

It was an hour before Darren was tossed back into the room, sobbing, red and scarred, crouched over in pain. Dural Korad took one look at the two boys and glared at them. After one more minute, another soldier shoved Mark into the room. He had a big black eye, and he was nursing a burned arm that had been hit with the hot stick.

"Mark!" Jonathan cried out, running over to him. Helping him up, he cast a glare at the People's Military officer in the green suit who stood in the doorway checking the cuffs of his perfectly white gloves.

"It seems," the Dural said with a slow smugness. "That Zeldar's friends aren't as valuable to the student population as they believe. This boy and you here were turned in by several of his classmates."

"Stinking Michelle," Mark muttered under his breath. "What? Was she trying to kill me?"

The Dural smirked, but then narrowed his gaze. "However, I have heard a rumor that I did not like, and I want to have it cleared at once. This boy refused to tell me, and the helpful Darren also closed his mouth on this one."

Brian looked to Mark and then the People's Military officer.

Mark was still grumbling. "Jealous bitter wench. I oughtta...."

"One girl said that Zeldar is also friends with a certain girl, a Zormna Clendar. Is that true?" the Dural asked, jerking on his glove cuff to straighten it.

Mark opened his eyes and shook his head to his friends to not say a word. Darren was doing the same. Brian glanced at Jonathan. He shrugged and stood up.

"Never heard of her," Jonathan said.

Dural Korad marched over and slapped Jonathan in the face. "Liar!"

Jonathan stepped back and swallowed, remembering the hot sticks and the guns, but he continued to watch Mark and Darren shake their heads.

"Maybe this will return your memory!" Dural Korad slammed an open book onto the table.

Brian and the rest hesitated to look down at it. It was a copy of last year's yearbook. Resting on the page was the picture of Zormna and Jeff, post tug-of-war wrestle during last year's school Olympics. Standing ankle deep in mud, not far from defeated Jeff, her green camouflage tee shirt and khaki shorts were plastered with mud, and a large smear of it was in her wild fiery hair. Zormna was grinning triumphantly. Below her, sitting in the mud, Jeff was scowling. His once white tee shirt (with red splotches on it) was now almost a deep chocolate brown. Legs stood around them like pillars.  It was one of the favorite picks of the yearbook, captioned: "Other wars in the pit."

"Explain this, then," Dural Korad said, pointing at the picture.

Brian raised his eyebrows. "They look very dirty."

"Insolent boy!" Dural Korad roared at this very Jeff-like answer. He turned immediately to his guards, speaking in a strange language. The guards stepped forward, lifting their hot clubs and reaching out to seize them for a beating.

Before