Into the Fire (13 page)

Whatever was scaring them, it wasn't that far away. It sounded like the beating of a thousand different drums, a hundred different surfaces, the mass crying of countless angry emotions. I also realized there was a glow beginning to color the night, not of fire, but lights. I promptly turned and ran back to the church. Whatever was coming, it was going to roll right over us.

“Go back down!” I shouted.

Delilah and the kids didn't need a second bidding, Jimmy followed them down, wailing to himself, convinced it had something
to do with him. But Lena hesitated, trying to get her eyes working, squinting through the smoke.

“Can you see?” I asked her.

“Something,” she told me, repeatedly blinking. “Maybe we should make a run for it?”

“It's too late,” I told her.

We went down after the others and I dragged the old gravestone that had been used to disguise the entrance when we first arrived back into place. The only thing was, it left us in complete darkness; our wind-up camping lights had run down as usual and hadn't been rewound.

Moment by moment, time-slither by time-slither, the sound and that heavy vibration grew. It was starting to take form now: there were vehicles amongst it, heavy ones, by the sound of it. I could hear the straining of an engine being asked to do a difficult task, another one joining in, revving, roaring, then a loud crash. That was something going over—a wall or a building. Jeez, maybe Lena had been right, we should've made a run for it. The pounding was getting ever nearer, and that war cry of a chorus, and then we heard the wall tumble over at the far end of the churchyard.

We huddled together for strength in the darkness, fearing the church walls, maybe even the ceiling, were about to come crashing in on us. Delilah started to weep, sparking off little Arturo. Gordie told them to shush, but they were only silenced by the screaming of an engine, growing louder and louder, 'til we realized something monsterous was right overhead, lurching this way and that, colliding with everything in front of it, 'til finally something big must've given way. The impact on the stone floor above us was like the deep-throated shuddering of an avalanche.

“Shit!” I gasped, convinced we were about to be buried alive.

The yelling and shouting came next, and more drumming, and for the first time I realized that whoever was doing it wasn't only beating something they were carrying but also everything they passed, as if they were marking their territory, hitting everything before them: buildings, walls, trash cans, posts, anything that would resonate to their threat.

It crashed over us like syncopated thunder while we waited helplessly below. Lena buried her face in my chest, hugging me with all her strength, as if determined to crush us into one before that last moment came. All of us were waiting for the crack, the first specks of dust that would tell us the floor was about to give way—and yet slowly, so slowly that at first I couldn't be sure, the noise started to recede. Whatever it was was moving on into the night.

I waited 'til I was sure whatever it was had moved on, then fumbled my way up the steps, forced the gravestone off the entrance and peered out.

There wasn't a lot left of the church, just a few stumps of wall, the rest piles of rubble. Jeez, we'd been lucky: bricks and stones had fallen almost everywhere but on top of the entrance. Just a few more inches our way and we would've been buried under several tons of rubble, and the crypt would've played host to more lifeless bodies.

I scuttled across a pile of broken stones, keeping as low as I could, anxious to see who our visitors had been. No prizes for guessing: there were hundreds of Infinity Specials, all in a line stretching from this side of the street to the other, every one equipped with riot gear and beating their shields and anything else they came across, shouting at the tops of their voices. They were so loud they could be heard above the massive earth-moving equipment in front of them. Overhead, spotlights blazing, were a couple of Dragonflies. I tell ya, it was a full-blown army.

Through the smoke, I could just make out the silhouettes of those fleeing before them. It was like they were being herded, driven like sheep. Infinity were forcing them out of the area, clearing the City of those they didn't want, and yet, even when I'd come to that conclusion, even though it was the only possible explanation, I knew it didn't entirely fit.

I started to follow, keeping at a safe distance, my curiosity well and truly aroused. Something about this seemed somehow familiar. A time long ago . . . when I was a kid . . .

And then—oh God!—finally I realized what was going on.

I glanced behind me. Gordie and Arturo were following and I frantically waved them away, telling them to go back.

Jameson Circle is three-quarters of a mile or so down the street from the church. In the old days, and I mean long before I got sent out to the Island, it was an impressive address. Now, just like the rest of this area, it's all a bit run-down: the grand houses have been allowed to deteriorate, divided up into apartments, or mostly just rooms for those who never stay for more than a month or two. In the middle there was once a well-tended communal garden, but now it's just an open grassless area with a few dying trees—nowhere you'd want to visit, day or night, but I had a strong feeling that was where this circus was headed. And sure enough, as we approached the swell in the street, an order was given and the Specials stopped their beating and shouting and formed themselves into a wall several persons deep—a move, I noticed, that was being replicated on the far side of the Circle, where there was another access—and all those caught inside were trapped. There was a moment of sickening silence, like the feeling of nausea just before you vomit, and I realized my fears were about to come true.

Once when I was a kid visiting relatives in the country, I was asked if I wanted to go beating. They were paying a few bucks, so yeah, I volunteered, despite having no idea what it was. The following day we were up before dawn, dozens of us, and driven out into the middle of nowhere, where we had to form this long line right across the hillside and slowly advance, beating everything with sticks, shouting at the tops of our voices, making a helluva racket. The aim was to flush out any game in the vicinity, to drive them toward the guns of the hunters waiting ahead. I had realized that was what was going on here.

There was nothing I could do, had no way to stop it. I wouldn't have even made it through the wall of Specials. Another signal was given, a couple of shots rang out, and then all hell broke loose. It was deafening, partly 'cuz it was echoing away inside the enclosed circle, bouncing off the walls, but also 'cuz of the sheer weight of weapons being discharged—hundreds, maybe even thousands of
them. It went on for the longest couple of minutes I've ever known, then finally came to a sporadic spluttering halt. The smoke from their weapons added to the smoke already there, making it impossible to see anything. Into that brief and terrible silence other noises started to be heard: people screaming for mercy, the wailing of the wounded and dying. Those still able ran at the Specials' shields, trying to force their way out, but they were clubbed and thrown back to await the next spattering around of gunfire. They were helpless. On the nearest roof and in the windows of surrounding buildings I could just make out men and women equipped with firearms, all kinds, eagerly taking aim at those hemmed in below.

It was a straight-out massacre. I guess they couldn't get rid of those they didn't want by sending them out to the Island anymore, so they'd started culling them here, taking advantage of what was going on to “cleanse” the Mainland.

I don't know how many were killed; with all the smoke I couldn't really see. Certainly there wasn't a lot of movement amongst those lying on the ground. As I turned and slipped away they were already bringing up the white trucks and the clear-up operation was underway.

Jesus, this place
was
worse than the Island. Far worse. A lot of those shooting didn't look to have the faintest idea about guns; I'm not even sure they'd held one before. They were just wildly blasting away, shooting randomly like it was some kind of fairground attraction.

I turned and hurried back toward the churchyard feeling shocked and bewildered, the way you do when you're forced to realize the gap between you and other members of the human race is far wider than you ever could've imagined. It was so ironic: on the very day that Lena regained her sight, she could've been witness to this.

A little ways down the street I came across Gordie and Arturo hiding in a doorway.

“I told you two to go back!” I said, turning to check no one was following.

“What happened?” Gordie asked.

“Nothing.”

“Did they kill them?” Arturo asked, looking a little distressed.

“Just get back to the crypt, will you,” I said, really not wanting to answer that question.

“Why did they kill them?” Gordie persisted, knowing my anger was a sign of admission.

“I don't know,” I replied, leading them away. “I guess they don't want some people in their city . . . It don't matter. As soon as the Doc gives Lena the all-clear, we're going anyway. Even if I have to put out every fire myself.”

For a while we walked in silence, both kids looking very thoughtful.

“It's like us back on the Island,” Gordie eventually commented.

“Nah. You didn't know any better,” I told him, glancing back to see Arturo starting to lag behind. “Hey! Come on!”

“Can I have a horse in the country?” he asked as he caught up, his thoughts a million miles away from where I expected.

“What?”

“A black one, with a white star here,” he said, pointing at his forehead.

I shrugged, a little perplexed. “I dunno.”

“You never even seen a horse,” Gordie said dismissively.

“Seen pictures.”

“I seen one,” Gordie told him.

“When?” Arturo asked, with obvious disbelief.

“In the park, when I was a little kid.”

“Did you ride it?”

“Nope.”

“I'm gonna ride mine,” Arturo said, as if he'd regained the upper hand.

It's quite something the way kids do that, draw you into their world, their values. Scores of people had just been massacred but these two were far more interested in which of them had ever seen—or ridden—a horse. Maybe, in a way, it's kind of comforting; as if, by hanging on to a little of their innocence, we can stave off some of our harsh reality.

We were almost back to the churchyard, Arturo still telling us about all the other animals he was going to have once we got to the country: pigs, sheep, a tiger. In a way, I s'pose it was that sense of normality, of listening to the kind of conversation I'd heard a thousand times before, that made me relax a little, maybe even forget something of what I'd just seen.

Suddenly there was the sound of a powerful engine roaring up behind us. I turned around, hoping it had nothing to do with us, but in that precise instant we were hit by a bank of spotlights.

“Run!” I shouted, knowing it meant trouble. “
Run!
”

I protected them as best I could, keeping myself between them and our pursuers, but I realized immediately we couldn't go into the churchyard, that it would endanger everyone. “Don't go in there!” I screamed, “Keep going!”

That was a helluva thing to have to say: I mean, we were utterly exposed, caught in those spotlights with nowhere to go—and I'd just run past our only possible refuge.

We skirted around the edges of a pile of rubble that had spilled out across the street at a junction, giving us the opportunity to slip down a side road, but whoever was chasing us just bumped over the rubble and accelerated after us and was soon only yards behind, holding station, as if to make it perfectly clear that they could run us down any time they liked, that this was just a game. I felt, rather than saw, this big white pick-up. The driver was repeatedly revving the engine as loud as it would go. I shepherded the kids closer to the wall, hoping there'd be some shelter somewhere, but suddenly a shot rang out. I glanced back at the pickup, looking for something I could do, some way of stopping them. There was a group of four men and two women in the back, all taunting us, guffawing away as they drunkenly swayed around, trying to aim their rifles.

“
Move it!
” I screamed at the kids, hoping to put the fear of God into them, to make them run faster than they ever had in their short lives. There was a sudden flurry of gunfire, as if someone had given the order, and bullets were flying everywhere, ricocheting and whining through the air—and one of the kids gave a little moan.

I turned to Arturo, the youngest, the most vulnerable, but he was running as fast as ever. Gordie also appeared to be moving freely. I was just on the point of assuming it was nothing, of urging them on even faster, when suddenly Arturo faltered, clutched at his side and fell to the ground, rolling over and over.

I stopped and ran back; in the street the pick-up screeched to a halt. Arturo was just lying there, making this kind of gurgling sound, his eyes rolling back in his head, blood spreading out from his body at an alarming rate. I squatted down, took him in my arms and went to stand up but there was another volley of shots and I got clipped in the shoulder.

I'd dropped the little guy before I realized, but I recovered enough to try to scoop him up again—but there was so much fire coming my way I had to scramble into this small recess in the wall, next to a tree. Again and again I tried to get out to grab Arturo, but each time I was met by more bullets snapping and pinging around me.

Gordie had managed to scramble over the wall a few yards further on, but he must've worked his way back 'cuz suddenly his voice came from behind me: “Clancy!”

“Yeah!”

“Is Arturo okay?”