The Collector

Short story

A science fantasy of 2,000 words

The Collector

​

The desert air penetrated my body with an intense almost unbearable heat. The rock surface burnt my hands as I manoeuvred forward in a vain search for a semblance of shade.

 

‘You know the rules,’ Tom had said. ‘Don’t leave the vehicle.’

‘I know where we are.’ I pointed to the map. ‘We’re not too far from Amset and I know there are oases before that. It’ll be about an hour or so’s walk.’

‘I’m not convinced we’ve even crossed the Mali border into Algeria.’

‘That was bloody hours ago. Trust me.’

 

Tom looked at me clearly unconvinced. He was a beginner when it came to the Sahara.

 

‘There’s no point us both staying here,’ I said. ‘By the time someone comes across us we’ll be toast. All that patience and hope of yours is going to be a bit irrelevant then.’ I got out of the land rover. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be back in a few hours with a camel.’

 

I knew these parts. Well not like the locals, when you can find them. But enough for Tom and me to arrange a drive to the Tassili cave paintings. From Timbuctu it’s about a thousand kilometres and there’s virtually nothing in between. It wasn’t a reckless journey. I’d got all the right equipment. But then sod’s law takes over and the rad springs an irreparable leak.

 

I’d never been to the cave paintings but had seen photos. They depicted lions, sheep, buffalo, antelope and village life all showing that, at the time, the Sahara was still savannah and forest. A few crackpots had other theories. One or two drawings seem to depict one eyed monsters in diving suits so the UFO brigade have thrown up their hands and shouted ‘aliens’, like they do.

 

Anyway, I was now stuck with a mobile phone without a signal and down to my last litre of water. How could I have lost my way? That wasn’t something I did. An arrogant bugger, me. Thought I knew it all. Got to my fifties by living off my wits. I’d kept a body that wouldn’t have shamed a thirty year old, 160 pounds of prime beef. Not big, just tough. I always assumed I could survive anything.

 

The rocky terrain I’d now reached would, I thought, give me a chance of survival until morning. At night the desert can reach freezing point but rocks act like storage heaters and release their warmth over hours. But the plan dissipated like steam out of a kettle as I stumbled round the next rock.

 

I had entered a small plain of scrub. Rocks bounded it like an amphitheatre. About twenty feet in front of me was a dead gazelle lying neatly as though asleep. Next to it was another and beyond that a baby elephant and then several young camels. They stretched on in lines, rank after rank. Every tropical animal seemed to be lying here prostrate as though in a museum. Their bodies should have perished within days in this furnace. That’s if other animals hadn’t come along and had their fill first. Why were they so pristine as though they’d died just a few moments ago? And what the hell were they doing here, alive or dead? I walked slowly down the ranks and files like I was inspecting troops and then stood motionless. Between a baby giraffe and a young gnu was a man. He lay peacefully in his Tuareg cloak with his hands by his side as though he’d decided it was time to die. Within a few minutes I’d found several more dotted around the grotesque menagerie.

 

If I didn’t mind raw meat this looked like my salvation. I bent down to touch the soft fawn down of a gazelle. It was like glass. I could feel no texture, not even temperature. The broiling sun appeared to have no effect whatever as though the animal wasn’t even there. At that moment I heard a high pitched hum coming from my left by the cliff face which formed much of one end of the amphitheatre. Scrabbling out of the ground like a giant turtle was something silver. As it glided towards me, now looking more like a huge egg, two arms began to extend from its front.

 

I ran back out of the ring of rocks but sat down exhausted within minutes. Exertion in the afternoon desert sun was madness. My shirt was soaked. Once the sun had set and the cold had started to penetrate my flesh, a wet shirt could have been fatal. Apart from that, the contraption seemed to move at little more than a steady walking pace. I could easily outrun it. I took a swig of water. Then I heard the machine again as it crept out from behind the rocks.

 

‘Bugger off,’ I shouted. ‘I’m not going to touch your bloody animals.’

 

But its arms extended further as it crept closer. This wasn’t just a guard. The monster wanted me as well. I climbed on to a boulder and stood above it. The thing slid over the stony detritus below without effort until it reached the base of the boulder. It was now only a few feet away and reminded me of a silver jelly mould. It had no features except an eye of sorts at the front, a light sensitive mass of cells I presumed, like a fly. And the incessant hum shot though my head like a sword.

 

The machine bent its back slightly and started to climb the wall of the boulder. I turned and scrambled down on to the scrub, then on to the next boulder and sat down. I was getting frightened now. This cyclopic monster may be slow but I now realised I could never outpace it in the long run. I decided to climb on to the highest peak. That would give me a chance but for how long without food or water?

 

The sun was now low on the horizon. At this latitude it drops out of sight like a stone and the light disappears as though switched off. I started to scramble over the rocks and quickly came to the cliff face at which the machine had begun its hunt. I looked down briefly at the hundreds of animals and men lying in neat rows like a piece of modern art, everyone chased to exhaustion. I shivered. The scene looked uncannily like the paintings at Tassili, only in three dimensions. As I began my climb the temperature started to fall slightly though my hands were still getting blistered. I found a fissure, collapsed into it and took one more swig of water. The next would be my last. I wanted to sleep but knew that would be the end. I started to think things through to keep my mind active.

 

What was it? What was it doing here? Surely that UFO nonsense couldn’t have any truth in it? Though the notion that some alien had left it here to collect specimens, then gone home and forgotten it, did make some sort of perverted sense. Doing its job for several thousand years, without means of switching itself off, would certainly explain the animals. And anyone who’d found the place was now lying motionless on the ground below. Odd that they were so uniform in size, no tiny ones and no goliaths. Maybe the machine was programmed only to retain bodies within a weight range. Just my luck that I seemed to fit.

 

I could hear the hum below me. I leant forward and saw it sliding slowly but effortlessly over the outcrop. It reached the edge of the nearly vertical cliff as the sun touched the endless line on the horizon. Light started to fade. The monster curved its back until it had almost formed a right angle and began its climb, its cyclopic eye suddenly reminding me of the paintings again. Then it stopped. The hum disappeared and the desert silence fell on me like a heavy blanket. The damn thing required light. At last a weakness to exploit. I had to get off these rocks and away before the morning.

 

Daylight had almost gone by now. The moon was bright but it was still impossible to detect every crevice and hand hold. And I had to climb down by a different route. I was not going to creep by the thing only to find that it was playing tricks. I grabbed a protruding rock with both hands and swung my legs down but what I thought was a foot rest was not. I tried to hoist myself back up but was too tired. I felt myself slipping. I awoke from a concussion lying in a crevice, my head and ankle in severe pain. I tried to sit up, saw the ground was not too far away and scrambled towards it. With several hours advantage, now was my chance to get away.

 

I awoke to a fierce burning heat once again. The sun was low in the sky but it takes but a few minutes of morning light before the sand begins its climb to furnace temperatures. I must have collapsed. The pain was unbelievable. There was blood on the sand from my head wound and my ankle had swollen grotesquely. I took off my shoe. The sun would roast my foot even through my sock before the day was out but then the same fate would befall my head. I had lost my hat. I looked around and saw the outcrop. Though plainly visible, I was impressed that I’d got so far, a couple of miles anyway. But my clothes were saturated and torn. My skin was dry and scratched and stretched over my body like parchment. God knows how much weight I must have lost.

 

I had to get going but really didn’t feel like it. The enormous soporific silence of the desert cradled me as though things no longer mattered. Then I heard the faintest hum. I could see, perhaps a mile away, the faint glint of sunlight on silver. I struggled up and moved on, limping badly. The sand was already hot and my foot started to bleed. The machine was advancing on me. I couldn’t move fast enough. My head was burning, my eyes were blinded and I hadn’t had any water for many hours. I was now living off what fluid was left in my body and not far from being defeated. There was no sensible reason to move on but my spirit insisted. That bloody silver Easter egg was going to have to work for it. I lost consciousness again.

 

I woke to find myself being prodded. The monster had arrived, its giant eye staring at my body, the hum penetrating my skull. Its arms slid themselves under me and. I felt myself being lifted. Then the hum stopped. It remained motionless for a few moments then slowly lowered me back onto the desert floor. Its arms retracted and in complete silence it turned and slid back towards its rocky home.

 

I wasn’t far off death when I was found by a group of nomads. Tom was found by the land rover several weeks later, poor bugger. I tried to explain what had happened once I’d recovered but I don’t know the language. But I learnt the outcrop was sacred. They’re nearly all Muslim round here but the old tribal animism still persists. The place was the home of one of the spirits so nobody ever went near it. But I knew that infernal machine would not have been interested even if they had. These were lithe people, little more than skin and bone. Ironic that its pursuit had reduced my body to a weight at which it was no longer interested.