Evelyn Earth Part 34

After a moment’s pause though I realised that it would be useless to track down Sebastian and the others as they could be anywhere. Frankly it would take too long. My best option was to follow the group of men and find out what they were doing. It was my job after all. If they had ill intentions towards the Earth then I would need to neutralize them. How did you even determine such a thing though? It was all so confusing.

                I grumbled to myself as I paced up and down the roof of the shop. I really didn’t want to get into a fight, but my inner instincts were telling me to run after the men.

                “Dammit” I whispered before taking a step towards the edge. I concentrated a small mass of darkness in my legs and the balls of my feet and stepped off the barrier. I landed with a thud on the sidewalk and a rim of concrete dust billowed out around me. I left two size seven foot imprints behind me as I launched into a run.

                

At the end of the street I stopped and looked both ways. I had come out somewhere near Chinatown and thankfully the street sloped downwards so I could clearly see the group of men as they moved closer to Russel Street. I slunk into the shadows as I followed their footsteps.

                They had continued what seemed to be the same line of conversation as before. Lots of laughter and shoving was involved as well as loud exclamations and arguments where some of the men jumped up and down and made kicking motions with their feet. I imagined that if only they had a ball they would be kicking it up and down the city streets instead of roaming them and reminiscing about sports.

                I sharpened my vision and began to slowly examine the group. There were nine of them in total and they all seemed to be around the same age group; barely adults, probably around eighteen or seventeen years old. I had mistaken them for men because of their fairly masculine builds and sharp angled features. Their clothes looked like rags and a few of them were wearing faded baseball caps that looked like they belonged to ancient tradies.

                One thing was for sure, they weren’t from Melbourne. The longer I followed them the more confused I became. They had somehow managed to get lost and wander around in a circle until they came out next to Chinatown once again. The group stopped and some of the boys split up, coming back empty handed.

                The conversation between them had also changed to something more sombre and their expressions harboured a tinge of fear. One of the boys sat down on the curb and put his head in his hands. They held no weapons, not even a simple stick to defend themselves and they seemed completely and utterly lost. Definitely not scavengers.

                “Hello” I stepped out from my hidden position in a shop alcove. The boy sitting down jumped to his feet as the others all moved closer to each other. We stared at one another until he said something in their language.

                “Do you speak English?” I asked. Almost all of the boys shook their head in unison, “Portuguese?”

                “Sim” they all echoed, followed by a jumble of words I didn’t understand.

                “What are you doing here?” I pointed to the ground and made a puzzled gesture. One of the boys stepped forward and began explaining something to me followed by frantic hand movements which ended with him yelling “boom!”

                I frowned at him and put a finger to my lips. He looked apologetic and mumbled “desculpe.”

                “So you’re all from Portugal?” I asked again. They all nodded and repeated “Portugal sim, sim.” I pointed to the sky and mimed an aeroplane, but the first boy shook his head “nao, atraves da luz!” he pointed at the sun and my eyes widened.

                They must have come here with one of the angel flocks, but why would they be in the city? They should have been transported somewhere completely off the grid if all of our theorising was correct.

                “Why here?” I asked again, pointed at the city and the few skyscrapers still left standing, “why aren’t you in the forests, or the bush?”

                The boy stepped forward once again, but I made no move to back off. If anyone should be afraid it should be him. He crouched down and motioned for me to look. He took a fragment of stone out of his pocket and began to trace lines onto the side-walk.

First the sun was formed, with wavy heat lines. Then dots of sand and a tree, which he pointed at and then crossed out, which I understood to mean there were no trees where they were, only sand.

 He then drew more wavy lines for water and crossed them out too, while looking at me he said “sem agua, sem comida” he mimed eating and made a cross on the ground. He then began to draw many stick figures all crowded together followed by one figure apart from the rest, which he surrounded by the same heat lines as the sun. He pointed at it furiously and then made flashing light motions with his fingers finally followed by an outstretched hand pointed in the direction of the huge looming buildings around us. `

So it looked like an angel had taken a large group of Portuguese people into a desert, realised that they were in a bloody desert and then transported them here.

“Where are the rest of your people?” I pointed at the group of stick figures. The boy shook his head and mumbled something. I motioned for him to give me the stone with which he was drawing. He handed it over cautiously and watched me as I drew up a rough map of the city.

“We’re here” I pointed to the middle right of the gridded square I had come up with, “this is the river here” I pointed at the wavy line I had drawn underneath the square, “and this is the beach” I made more lines with small houses on them roughly where Port Melbourne should be.

More of the boys had crowded around me while I drew to get a better look of the map. One of them pushed past the one I had been talking too and grabbed the stone out of my hand. He traced a line from the river down away from the city, but stopped before hitting the water of the sea and drew a new circle of water.

“They’re in Albert Park” I said to myself and nodded to confirm that I had understood what he had shown me.

“How many of you?” I took the stone back and wrote the number nine, pointed at them and then pointed at the stick figures and put a question mark next to them. A couple of them began to argue amongst themselves before agreeing on a number, he took the stone and scribbled out “700.”

“Fuck” I swore. If there were seven hundred Portuguese refugees in Albert Park then they would soon start to wonder into the city, just like these boys. If they were in the city when the other warrior arrived and we began our cleansing then they would all die.

As I looked at all of their frightened faces I didn’t know how I felt about that. Certainly not good.