Overrun (18 page)

The report from the assault
weapon blast echoed thunderously through the dark.

* * *

The assault rifle fired and then
fired again both times making her body lurch. The soldiers still stood directly
in front of her.

“Oh, my god,” she heard one of
them whisper.

The soldier standing stepped
cautiously around the one still crouched on his heels. He kept his weapon
raised and moved slowly away down the corridor.

Mel’s arms and legs began to
shake uncontrollably as the panic started to overtake her. Tears rushed from
her eyes making it impossible to see. She swallowed hard against the whimpers
and sad quiet cries that tried to push past her lips.

She pressed her hands against
her ears trying to make the world go away. She pulled her arms and legs
together into a ball. She rested her head down on the cavern floor and stayed
there without moving until the sound of their voices again reached her ears.

* * *

Still crouched down on his
knees, Hartinson held his assault weapon against his shoulder with his left
hand and reached into his pack for a flashlight with his right. He clicked it
on and pointed it down the passageway. The beam centered across Kastoric’s back
then moved toward what was lying across the floor.

Kastoric moved closer. Hartinson
followed him with the beam. Kastoric took another two steps and then slowly
lowered his weapon and set it across the ground. Hartinson ran the beam across
what lay in the gloom.

“Fuck,” Hartinson said quietly
lowering his head.

He clicked off the light leaving
Kastoric alone ahead in the dark.

Hartinson raised his hand and
did the sign of the cross like he had been taught a long time ago in church. He
hadn’t done that in years. He had never felt the need. At least not until now.

* * *

Mel felt a seizing horrific pain
which she thought was death finally coming for her heart. The soldier in front
of her lowered his head and rested his weapon down at his side.

“What should we do?” the one
further ahead whispered back.

“Bring him back,” the other
answered quietly. “Bring them both. We’ll leave him with the others.”

The first soldier returned
silently back into the passage Mel hid within. Faint light from the distant
flames lit his frame slightly in the darkness. He walked slowly and carried
something carefully in his arms.

Mel slid her back further
against the wall and pulled her knees up tighter against her chest. The soldier
walked directly past her. His eyes not did not pick her from the dark.

“I couldn’t bring them both,” he
said to the soldier still crouched on his heels.

“I’ll get him,” the other said
slowly getting up.

The second soldier stood in
front of both of them and gently lowered what he carried at their feet.

It was all Mel could do to
stifle her screams.

* * *

“Can’t be more than eight,”
Kastoric said so softly his voice could almost not be heard.

The young boy lay between them.

“Probably,” Hartinson said
clicking on his light. The boy’s body was on its side between the tips of their
boots. “Mine’s about that size.”

“Look at him,” Kastoric spoke
again. “He was sick like the rest of them. I don’t think he had much time
left.”

Hartinson didn’t respond.

"His time would have been
real short. Probably wouldn’t have lived out the year."

"I know,” Hartinson
answered softly. “Probably not…probably the same for most of them down here…but
I don’t know if that makes it alright.”

He ran his fingers down across
the boy's eyes and closed them to the night.

* * *

Mel rolled over on her hands and
knees and began to crawl away from them down the corridor. When she was far
enough away, she slowly stood. Her tears and sadness were suddenly gone.

She felt a cold emptiness sweep
into her soul like a damp wind. Her body shook with an icy shudder. Within that
emptiness, she dug into an even deeper void. And it was something there,
something deep within, that awoke in her body and forced it to act.

She stood up and started to run.
The voices of the two soldiers fell quickly behind. She could hear her own soft
footsteps echo through the halls.

Her body ran for safety while
her mind and soul drifted away looking for her young companion. Trying to find
him. Wanting to help him. To guide him. To be with him when he made his trip
into an even deeper unknown.

She hoped he would wait for her.
When her own exit from this world was complete.

Mel sprinted down the corridors
until there was no breath left inside her lungs. When her body was completely
spent and there was no more energy to make her legs continue to run, she
stopped and leaned against a wall to rest.

After a few moments of standing
motionless in the dark, she tilted her head back to see a small light coming
from the gloom overhead. She walked beneath the sewer opening and gazed up.

Scaling an old access ladder
bolted to the side of the wall, she made her way to the top and maneuvered her
tiny frame through the opening and out into the street. The sandy ground burned
her face when she rolled out into the outside world once again.

She glanced hurriedly around and
ran from the center of the street. She ducked beneath a nearby car when a large
group of soldiers walked quickly by.

Soldiers marched from every
direction. They lined every section of the street and poured into every
building along its sides. Some huddled behind large maps while others spoke and
pointed at some of the city’s citizens they had found.

Mel jumped from where she hid
and darted up the block towards what she hoped was the outside of town. After a
brief distance, she ducked beneath another decaying car to catch her breath and
waited for another group of soldiers to pass.

When they were gone, she sucked
in a deep lungful of air and jogged into a nearby alley.

Rain began to fall burning
lightly against her skin.

She pulled the lid from a
garbage dumpster and quickly hopped inside. She wrapped her arms around her
knees and lowered her head. Hoping sleep would rescue her from this dream, she
rocked nervously back and forth and prayed with all her heart.

She prayed to see the faces of
her father and brother once again. And she prayed that the boy, whose name she
had never even come to know, would wait for her. Wait before he embarked on the
journey that would take him forever away from the world she was now trapped within
alone.

The rain fell harder outside and
sizzled against the metal lid. While she listened, she prayed to make the
journey with him. To hold his hand. To stand there with him when he finally
reached its end.

After receiving the driver's
clearance authorization, the watchtower sentry opened the front gates. Through
the reference points of his rifle sight, he watched the fifth bus of prisoners
to arrive that day as it pulled into the facility.

Eight similar watchtowers
surrounded what was once a prosperous farming home. Almost four square acres
had been sectioned off and enclosed by barbed wire, land explosives and heavily
armed J.G.U. security troops.

It was one of fifteen
interrogation facilities in New England alone and one of more than ten thousand
total in the area once controlled by the United States.

The bus crawled slowly through
the front gates to the center of the property. The farmhouse that had long
since been at the property’s center had been replaced by a single tall steel building.
Large communication towers jutted into the sky throughout and cluttered its
terrain.

Two mammoth steel doors cracked
open slightly in front of the bus. The driver held his hands over his eyes
against the sharp glare of the sun from their metallic surfaces. He pressed the
brake and brought the vehicle to a halt in a light swirl of warm sand.

Three figures stepped through
the doors to the narrow set of stairs leading down towards the front of the
vehicle.

The director of the camp stood
thoughtfully just outside the doors at the top of the staircase. His two
personal guards stood next to him, one on each side. Their faces were hidden by
the same assault shields worn by the soldiers in active combat.

The director's face was
uncovered and unprotected from the burn of the weather. He refused to wear the
face shield in the presence of prisoners. It was just too damn hot. And he
wanted them to see him. He wanted them to actually feel what it was he had to
say.

More guards appeared from the
surrounding buildings and took positions around the bus. The director stepped
down the narrow stairwell followed closely by his personal guards.

Weapons were raised to shoulders
when the bus door cracked open allowing the artificial atmosphere inside to
escape with a loud swoosh. The driver yelled behind him into the rear of the
bus and then stepped hurriedly out.

Two soldiers rushed past him and
disappeared into the back. A few seconds later, its passengers made their way
meagerly from the vehicle. Their eyes blinked furiously beneath the blazing
onslaught of the sun overhead.

"This way," the
director ordered and walked away from the vehicle toward an open section of the
courtyard centered within rifle shot of all eight of the towers. “I want them
over this way.”

His guards followed just behind
him matching his pace step for step.

Prodded by the sharp jabs of the
guards, the prisoners followed after him in silence. Their heads faced the
ground, and the chains around their ankles made clinking sounds when they
walked.

A soldier leading the group
raised his hand and motioned them to stop when they reached the center of the
courtyard.

The camp director faced his
newest batch of prisoners for a long quiet moment and carefully scrutinized
their bent faces.

He wiped his head with a cloth
sticking from his sleeve before giving a loud sigh and walking towards the
front of the group. With a sharp motion of his hand, he signaled his personal
guards to wait behind.

The prisoners took careful steps
back away when he started to step among them.

"My dear men and women of
the United States, I would like to welcome you to my war prisoner processing
facility," he said to them in English. "As you know, we are patriots
of Japan's Great Union. We are in your country today fulfilling a divine and
sovereign mission. We are here to save the world…"

He paused for a moment to let
his words settle over them. The guards surrounding them pressed in closer while
he ventured deeper into the group. After a short silence, he lowered his head
and resumed his speech.

"You have my deepest
condolences for all you have lost. As well as my personal apology for not being
able to keep you here at great length. But we are all standing here at a time
of war. And our men are needed elsewhere to help ensure the completion of our
mission.

“Though, I will make you a
promise. I will make sure that when your time comes, it will be quick,
dignified and humane. I will remove as much of the tragedy as I possibly can
from what must occur. Provided you are able to provide to me what it is that I
need to know."

Many in the group started to
cry. Others only continued to stare at the ground.

"We are here to rescue the
entire world from the selfish tyranny of the United States," the director
continued. "We all know the dangers of the sun, and we all know that the
United States possesses great knowledge and technology in terms of dome
construction. What you might not know is that your government has discovered a
means by which all people may live. The entire world can and will be saved when
we have helped your selfish country complete its selfish technological
ambitions.

“What many of you do not know is
that, protection, the domes, they do exist. Technology to protect. It all
exists right now. But your scientists and your government, they will not share
it."

The director paused again. A few
prisoners looked up from where they stared across the ground.

“They will not share it with the
J.G.U. They will not share it with the other dying countries in the world
today. And, they will not even share it with its own people. The United States
Administration has decided that it would rather hide this new technology. Hoard
this wisdom.

“Never in a time before has a
world been put in more danger. These selfish few have decided to allow their own
citizenry, their own flesh and blood, to rot and die rather than share this
survival technology with the rest of the sick countries of the world. We find
this to be abhorrent and intolerable. And, we, the people of the J.G.U., cannot
and will not stand for this. The sun is not getting any less dangerous, and the
population of this planet is as sick as it has ever been. The Earth and
everything on it is dying."

The director walked slowly
through the prisoners to the rear of the group. His guards followed after him
walking outside the crowd on either side. They stood next to him again when
they reached the back.

The director turned and
addressed the prisoner group from behind.

"Our armed forces are here
to save the world. We will stop at nothing until the secrets of the mysterious
domes and the great medical discoveries shamefully kept secret by your country
there have been shared."

The director moved back again
into the quiet crowd. The guards in the towers overhead kept their weapons
pointed down at its center. Hot yellow dust blew from the ground. The air was
stiflingly hot and still. The director dabbed absently with his cloth at a line
of sweat that broke out continuously across his forehead.

"The people running your
country have deemed you a necessary sacrifice. They have begun to bomb your
homes…, and they are killing your children. We feel they know not what they
give up. And they sacrifice too much.

“There is knowledge out there,”
the director said pointing to the blowing sands outside the barbed wire walls
of the camp. “There is knowledge in here. In you. Way too much to just be
discarded.”

The director stopped again
momentarily and cast his eyes around the captives. Only a few now dared to look
up.

"What we need to know is
where they are. In these, the early days of conflict, we have not yet been able
to find their locations. And the massive barbaric bombings your government is
using to mount its defense is costing us too much. Too much knowledge is being
lost out there…along with too many of our men.

“We are here today to bring this
to an end. We want to know what you’ve seen in your lives on the outside.
Some…many of you do know the domes exist. Deep in my heart I know this to be
true. You’ve heard. You may have seen. We want to know it all. Share with us
what you can. Anything. Anything that might help us locate the domes. In the
end, you will help save many lives by bringing conclusion to this conflict now
being waged on your mother soil.

“And if you know nothing,” the
director wrung his hands together and turned his back to the group. “Then,
unfortunately, there is not much more here we can do. We do not have the
resources to keep you here for long. Surely not until the final outcome of this
conflict.

“It’s just not possible. For
this I can only apologize. I am a soldier doing his best with what he has been
given in this, a time of war."

The director turned around again
to face the front of the crowd. The guards in the towers and on the ground at
the sides of the group tightened their grips across their weapons.

The director set his jaw and
with two quick steps approached one of the men at the front of the crowd. With
a quick jabbing motion, he pulled his sidearm from its holster and pressed it
to his skull. With a flash and the sound of a thunderbolt, a gaping red hole
opened in the middle of the man’s forehead.

The soldiers quickly pressed in.

The director took a step back
and wiped at the spray that covered his eyes. The man’s body slumped to the
ground at his feet. Blood poured from his head. It formed a small pool of red
sludge in the sand.

The sound of the shot echoed in
the air. Many of the prisoners took shocked steps back. Others dropped their
shoulders and began to retch.

The director walked back into
the crowd and stepped carefully over the body. This time his personal guards
followed him in.

"As I've said, it is
unfortunate that I can’t offer you life, despite our best intentions,” he
continued calmly amongst the numerous panicked shrieks and cries that now
filled the air. “But we have something different to propose to you. It’s of
deep merit and should be strongly considered.

“We’re offering to fill the deep
void of abandonment you will feel when your end is about to come. We offer a
chance of retribution against those that have forsaken you. And a dignified
means of leaving this world. We offer a way to make your deaths not a total
waste.

“I feel I offer a great
lot."

When he said these words, some
of the cries coming from the group abruptly stopped.

The director reached the far end
of the crowd and walked out. He took several steps away from the group and
pressed in closer to his men.

He raised his hand to the side
of his head, held up two fingers, then balled his fist and quickly dropped his
arm.

In a single motion, a few of the
surrounding troops raised their weapons to their shoulders and fired short
bursts into the assembly.

Five more bodies collapsed
limply to the sandy ground. Blood flowed freely from their freshly opened
wounds. Their eyes stared blankly towards the hot sky and were quickly
blackened by the onslaught of the sun.

Like a runaway wave, panic swept
through the prisoners. They pushed and fell against each other trying to
distance themselves from the bloody bodies at their feet.

The director took an
uninterested step back while his two guards stepped between him and the
frenzied crowd.

He again took the cloth from his
uniform pocket and mopped apathetically at the sweat running down his neck. He
covered his eyes protectively against the sun's glare and stared away from the
growing riot up towards the guard towers.

He dropped his eyes back to the
ground when the rifle shots finally came.

The shots ripped into the
prisoner group kicking dirt up along the ground. The director’s guards raised
their own weapons and fired into what had now become a hysterical mob.

More bloody and torn bodies fell
to the earth. Some ran for the barbed wire fences and were quickly shot by the
guards in the watchtowers.

The grotesque stink of blood and
spent ammunition filled the air. The sound of weapons fire made it impossible
for anything else to be heard other than the terrified screams.

The director returned the cloth
he had been holding back to his pocket and took a step in closer to his
personal guards. They had begun to press him back towards the nearest
watchtower and the cover offered by the thick walls of its base.

One of the prisoners broke from
the crowd and swung a large rock at the director’s face. It grazed across the
skin of his right cheek and smashed across the face shield of the guard in
front of him. The blow knocked the guard from his feet face down into the sand.

Trying to exude more composure
and calmness than he actually felt, the director stepped backwards as the
second guard wrestled the prisoner brutally to the ground.

With his hand still wrapped
firmly around the rock, the flailing prisoner brought it down hard again across
the second guard's shoulder and stood quickly up.

A single shot rang from the
tower overhead.

The prisoner’s head snapped
violently back towards the director. The director stepped around the guard
closest to him and moved in front of the prisoner. He stared into the man’s
dying eyes while he sank slowly to his knees.

The soldiers stepped away while
the prisoner clutched desperately at the giant wound that had opened in his
chest. He looked up sorrowfully into the director’s cold dark eyes and grabbed
him by the wrist to keep from falling completely across the ground.

A second shot ripped through
air, and his body dropped motionless at the director’s feet. The camp again
fell quiet. More than half of the prisoner group was now lying dead or bleeding
in the blazing sand.

Those that were still alive
tripped and fell across each other to avoid the bodies.