Overrun (27 page)

Kirken's feet flew from the
stairs. Flame thundered from his weapon. The nose of the first soldier as well
as his front teeth disintegrated in a loud flash.

And then Kirken landed on top of
him.

All three men toppled through
the small space of the stairwell to the ground. Kirken's weapon continued to
roar obliterating the decayed stone of the bank wall into a powdery rain around
them.

The second soldier pulled
desperately at his weapon pinned by its strap between his shoulder and the
ground. Kirken thrust himself viciously across the dead soldier's bleeding body
and grabbed ferociously for the other’s throat.

The second soldier pulled
quickly away. Kirken's hands rammed squarely across his chest knocking him off
balance and tumbling down the next flight of stairs. Kirken toppled
end-over-end next to him down the concrete steps. They crashed in a tangled
heap across a small square landing in front of the access door to the next
floor.

The soldier' face struck the
concrete wall with a sickening crunch. Kirken's full weight landed across his
own injured shoulder. The sudden ferocity of the new pain brought a horrific
shriek from his lips.

Their torsos and limbs writhed
indistinguishably intertwined for a moment while they both tried to haul
themselves back to their feet.

The soldier was the first to
find his balance and fully stand. Through the corner of a ripped bloody mouth,
he spit out pieces of damaged teeth and stood menacingly over Kirken whose arm
stretched grotesquely to his side.

The soldier raised his foot high
over Kirken's head and stomped it savagely across his damaged shoulder. Kirken
howled again at the agony tearing through his limbs.

The soldier stepped back away
and picked up his weapon. He turned it around backwards, raised it high over
his head and struck viciously again at Kirken's tortured shoulder.

He then raised his arms and
brought it down heavily again.

Kirken's screams fell silent at
the second blow. Except for a slight twitch in his foot, his body didn’t move.
Shortly thereafter, his foot was also still.

The soldier stood over him and
looked at him carefully while wiping blood from his battered face with a ripped
sleeve. He turned his assault rifle around in his hands and pulled it up
against his right shoulder.

With it centered across Kirken's
chest, he moved cautiously towards him.

Through slightly raised bloody
lids, Kirken watched him come. His hand moved slowly beneath his body toward
the weapon fallen next to him at his side.

The soldier leaned close to
Kirken's face and lowered his head so that his ear was just above Kirken’s
lips. Kirken willed his body and lungs not to breathe. The tip of the soldier's
weapon rested directly across his chest.

Satisfied Kirken did not move,
the soldier stood quickly and pulled a transmitter from his belt. He lowered
his rifle to the floor and began to step away. His eyes moved from Kirken’s
motionless form when another voice spoke back to him from the transmitter.

It was then Kirken struck.

His hand jerked for the weapon
near his body, and his fingers slipped like lightning across its trigger.
Before the soldier could react, he jabbed its muzzle hard into the center of
his foot and fired two rounds into its bone and skin.

The first ripped four of the
toes away. The second took away what was left of the soldier's bloody foot. The
soldier dropped his rifle and fell to his knees screaming horribly. Kirken
kicked his weapon away and drove his elbow hard into the man's bloody face.

"Son of a bitch!"
Kirken screamed allowing the fear and hatred in his chest to momentarily
overcome him. He enjoyed the sudden onset of rage and didn’t resist as it moved
to consume him.

"Son of a fucking bitch!
How does that fucking feel?!!"

The soldier fell back against
the wall. His mouth was wide open in an anguished howl. Kirken pounced across
his chest and slammed his fists one after the other into the soldier's bloody
jaw. He brought them crashing again and again into the side of his face until
his own hands were covered in blood. Until the soldier ceased to move.

When his cries finally no longer
came, Kirken leaned over and rested his head against the man’s face.

At that same instant, the pain
from his own injured shoulder rushed through his mind. Bright lights ripped at
the backs of his eyes which were then followed by clouds of chilling darkness.
He laid across the soldier’s body for a few moments gulping in the hallway's
stale air and trying to bring his mind back from the screaming pain-filled
void.

After a minute or two, the
intense stabbing sting subsided enough to allow the world to focus again around
him. Sirens wailed from every direction, and heavy footsteps pounded towards
him up the stairwell.

Kirken rolled from across the
soldier's body and fumbled to harness his pack across his shoulders. The
movement brought more burning rushes of pain coursing through his limbs. The
feeling was so intense it was almost a tangible sound in his ears.

Soldiers now rushed from the
stairwells both above and below him towards where he crouched. There wasn’t a
door or anywhere else in sight for him to make an escape.

Kirken reached into his pack and
pulled out the last grenade. With one hand, he flipped its pin from its arming
mechanism. With the other, he hauled the dead soldier to his feet.

Holding the body like a
gladiator shield in front of him, Kirken charged at the soldiers rushing up the
stairwell. Curses and screams bellowed from his lungs.

Semiautomatic weapons fire
ripped across the dead man's chest and grazed by Kirken's side. Kirken stuffed
the grenade into the soldier's gear and threw the bullet-shredded body across
the soldiers coming up the stairs.

He then turned around and
covering his head with his arms dove to the bloodstained ground. The falling
body knocked several soldiers running up the stairs across their backs and then
exploded with a sickening muffled pop. White and black smoke along with a small
amount of flame filled the air.

Kirken scrambled to stand and
dashed across severed bodies and destroyed bone and skin to a door on the
landing of the next floor. As the smoke cleared and the wounded screamed, he
tore the door open wide against its hinges and fled from the stairwell into an
office level hall.

He came to another door and
ducked into a mostly barren room lined with a few shelves, some chairs and a
large desk. Kirken ran for the desk and ripped his pack from his wounded
shoulder. The loud voices chased after him from the stairwell and grew louder
as they came further down the hall.

Kirken kicked the door shut
behind him and pulled one of the few remaining explosives from his pack. He
slapped it down hard across the edge of the desk and knocked its back cover
off. With shaking hands, he armed the timer and dropped it in the top drawer.

The voices were just outside of
the door. Kirken grabbed his pack from the desktop and ran for the small
opening of the only window in the room.

The door behind him exploded
inward, and the first of the soldiers crashed through.

Kirken lowered his head and
sprinted toward the glass. Automatic weapons fire spewed around him mercilessly
chewing up the room.

Kirken felt the weight of his
body suddenly leave his feet and the rush of air soar around him. Flying
through a shower of shattered glass, he dove through the small opening.
Thousands of screaming bullets chased after him and streaked past his head.

The air rushed up and around
him. His arms flailed out into the night and clutched desperately at anything
that would stop his fall. The ground raced quickly toward his body until a
piece of jagged metal caught his shoulder and jerked him violently to a stop.

Hanging with his shoulder hooked
across a beam that jutted from the building's ancient fire escape, Kirken let
out another scream. Above him, soldiers stuck their heads out from several open
windows and pointed to where he hung.

Pushing away the unconsciousness
trying to overtake his body, Kirken swung his weight back and forth towards the
building’s side.

When he was finally able to hook
his legs across a metal ladder along its wall, he pulled his shoulder from the
mesh of broken metal. Finding his footing on the steps of the ladder, he
lowered himself to the next level of the fire escape. Standing on its metal
platform, Kirken looked up to see the soldiers extend their weapons through the
window openings.

Still fighting the daze his
injuries had caused throughout his body, Kirken pulled an assault weapon from
across his back. Pointing it upward, he started to blindly fire. The soldiers
poking their heads through the windows quickly pulled back inside.

Kirken ran a few steps along the
metal platform to a small window that shattered with three quick jabs of his
feet. He threw himself into the building through the opening as additional
weapon rounds from soldiers along the ground ripped into the building behind
him.

Kirken ripped the last explosive
charge from his pack and hurriedly set its detonation codes. Holding his
assault weapon firmly in his left hand and the final explosive tightly in his
right, he ran for the door. He left the supply pack he used to haul the
explosive charges empty along the floor.

He dodged through the throngs of
soldiers darting through the halls and ran for an open elevator at the end of
the corridor. He dove through its open doors and pressed his back against the
wall.

He waited for the doors to
slowly close in front of him. When they had sealed, he dropped to the ground
and went to work.

The last charge was in place
before the elevator reached the bottom floor.

Mel stood in the center of the
empty street and stared at the yellow country hills less than a mile away. She
closed her eyes and felt them beckon her. But, the relief she thought she'd
feel by escaping the town was not there. If anything, the thought of escaping
Beuford alive made her fear worse.

Turning away from the hills back
towards the city, she walked to the storefront on the side of the street.

It had been more than a day
since she had seen any sign of J.G.U. troops.

She walked to the edge of the
deserted decayed corner store. Like many of the others close around, all of its
windows were still intact.

She crouched down and fumbled
around in the dirt in the dark until her tiny fingers found a large rock. She
looked cautiously around hoping no one heard the faint crack of broken glass as
it echoed down the deserted street.

Mel reached through the broken
door window and quietly let herself inside. Her stomach screamed with hunger.
It had been more than a day since water had touched her lips.

Hurriedly, she walked behind the
counter looking for food and anything else she could take with her when she ran
for the hills outside the city.

Behind a counter further back in
the store, she found a working sink and a refrigerator still partially filled
with food. She dropped to her knees and used both hands to splash dirty brown
water across her weather-burned face.

After a few moments, the water
began to cool. She ducked her entire head under the faucet and took a deep
drink. When she was through, she took the food from the refrigerator and
stuffed it in a small pack she found nearby. She moved back to the edge of the
counter and walked to the outside door.

She stepped carefully through
the broken glass and stared out into the street. Not seeing anything moving
except for the blowing sand, she stepped back out. The yellow hills outside the
city, and the final escape they offered, stood straight ahead.

She pulled the small pack of
supplies she had found across her shoulders and began to run.

She was only a short distance
down the street when an uncovered jeep carrying four soldiers turned around a
corner toward her. She stepped quickly toward the shadows of the storefront,
but she had already been seen.

The jeep's headlights splashed
across her back and accelerated towards her. Mel threw her pack on the ground
and sprinted back in the direction of the city.

She ducked into a side alley
with the jeep’s engine revving loudly behind her. The soldiers inside the jeep
laughed and cheered loudly encouraging their driver to continue the chase.

Mel darted into the darkness
around another corner and fell heavily across several garbage cans lying in her
path. She rolled quickly free from the fresh wet muck that spilled from inside
and stood to run again.

Like a pair of prying eyes, the
jeep's headlights landed again across her back. Its engine continued to become
louder.

With ragged breath, Mel kept
running until suddenly a quiet voice from somewhere deep inside begged her to
cease. Mel stopped in the middle of the street and dropped slowly to her knees.
In an instant, the jeep was beside her and the men inside were jumping out.

Mel stayed on her knees and
didn’t turn around. She breathed in deeply the unsettled dust from the jeep as
it slowly permeated the openings of her eyes, nose and throat. Still not
looking directly at them, she sensed the men, no longer shouting, make their
approach.

They all exited the jeep and
were far enough away where she still had a chance to run. She looked longingly
towards the hills. It was an easy run. It would be impossible for them to chase
her on foot and keep track of her into the night. There was still a chance to
avoid what was inevitably to come. But something inside her body still would
not let her go.

And then she felt the stinging
kick of a boot jab sharply into the small of her back. Her body lurched forward
and her face landed hard in the dirt. Fearfully, she looked up at a pair of
feet that had now appeared before her eyes.

She rolled over passively as a
pair of hands pulled her from behind. She felt the urge to scream welling deep
inside her gut, but that was as far as it was able to go. Her lips remained
silent, and her eyes opened wide.

On her back, she stared up at
the men looming over her. One nudged at her with his boot. Another ran his eyes
luridly across the length of her body. A last soldier looked uncomfortably away
and raised a glowing match to a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

Again, she felt the flash of
pain from the boot. This time it crashed against the tiny organs around her
chest. All of her breath left her body in one sudden painful rush. She rolled
on her side and struggled to breathe.

Through teary eyes, she gazed
up. Her look was met by a sharp slap to the face. Her head dropped back in the
dirt. Partially due to the pain and somewhat due to fright, even with her eyes
wide open it was now difficult to see.

The excited sound of men
speaking in words she could not understand became louder and descended around
her. With her sight returning slowly, she stared towards their noise.

In front of her, the man with
the cigarette left to stand behind the jeep while another took out his sidearm
and pointed it at her face. Mel lowered her eyes slowly towards the ground.

And it was then she saw the
sight that finally made her scream.

When she did, they were quickly
upon her. Some became even more excited by her kicks and shrieks. They pulled
at her clothes and forced her arms back. One shoved a rag he wore around his
neck into her mouth. They pulled her forcefully in front of the jeep's
headlights and threw her roughly into the dirt at the center of its beams.

Mel spit out the rag and
continued to scream. She stopped to take a breath and shrieked again.

The young boy was still there.
Standing next to them. He followed at the heels of the soldiers carrying her
and stood watching her at their sides.

Only when the three soldiers had
finally wrestled her to the ground did he show himself plainly in the night.

The vision was intensely vivid.
So much so she felt her soul turn ice cold. She choked on her shrieks and felt
her heart leap up only to die at the center of her throat.

The boy moved closer and stared
at her. He took another step until he was in front of her and looked directly
into her eyes.

It was then she knew what had
stopped her. What had prevented her from making her escape to the hills. Upon
this realization, she closed her eyes and accepted her fate.

She sensed the boy come and
stand at her side. She felt his breath, apart from the others, breathe coolly
across her face. And she felt his gentle skin brush faintly against her cheek.

She stopped thrashing and
hurtling her body about and allowed the soldiers to descend on her like a pack
of wild apes

She accepted what was about to
happen as just and deserved for allowing the small boy to die down in the
caverns alone in the dark. In the wild grasps of the jabbering men, her arms
fell still in the warm night.

* * *

Only a few minutes had passed
since Brandon had slipped through the barricades and soldier patrols back onto
Beuford's streets. It was then he first heard the shrieks. A faint glow of
light came from up the block and around the corner ahead.

Stealing into the shadows of the
surrounding storefronts, he moved quickly towards the sounds. The screams
echoed louder through the empty roadways.

He approached the corner and
pressed his body firmly against a building that was slowly crumbling to the
ground. He stuck his head cautiously around its side.

Four men stood outside an empty
jeep just a few feet further ahead. One, separated away from the main group,
pulled out a cigarette and walked to the rear of the vehicle.

Brandon brought his head slowly
back from around the corner not yet able to see the source of the panicked
shrieks. By now the sky was almost completely dark.

Brandon ran to the rear of the
decrepit structure he hid behind and carefully pulled down the ladder to the
fire escape. Its ancient metal creaked quietly beneath his weight as he quickly
climbed its rungs.

When he reached the roof, he ran
to the ledge and looked down. One man still smoked at the back of the jeep
while three others struggled to wrestle a young girl writhing between them down
to the ground.

Brandon's breathing slowed and
his muscles tensed when by the light of the jeep's headlights, he saw they were
holding his sister, Mel.

Brandon backed away from the
ledge and ran to the opposite side of the building. He threw his legs over the
edge and jumped.

His body dropped through the air
alongside the fire escape until his legs crashed across the hard metal of a
trash dumpster. He leapt again and landed upright in the dusty street. He ran
towards the men gathered around the jeep. Not once did his legs break their
stride.

Hidden well by the evening
shroud of blackness, none of the soldiers saw him come.

Almost nearing the back of the
jeep, Brandon reached behind and unhooked the tire iron from his pack. The
soldier standing there looked up only in time to see its hard metal come
crashing into his face. The bones in his head buckled with a sickening crunch.
The lit cigarette dropped lightly from his mouth.

Brandon hurdled the soldier’s
falling body and scrambled up the back of the jeep. He bounded across the
length of the vehicle and out onto the hood. He pounced through the air across
the backs of the soldiers and brought the tire iron down hard across the
shoulder of the closest one.

The soldier dropped to the
ground and howled in pain. Another blow at the center of his throat quieted his
cries. The other two soldiers let Mel's arms fall away and stepped back in
stunned surprise.

Brandon lunged at one of them
and punched his fist into the center of his teeth. In the same motion with his
other hand, he slammed the tire iron into the other’s knee.

Mel rolled to her side slowly,
but did not stand up. As if still lost somewhere in a trance, she only raised
her head and looked away.

Brandon stepped across her body
still lying prone across the ground and swung his tire iron again at the
soldier he had hit in the teeth. Jaw bones crumpled like paper beneath the
blow. The soldier’s neck lurched back with a loud snap. His body fell sprawled
and motionless across the jeep's hood.

"Mel, get up!" Brandon
screamed. "Get up!"

The final man still standing in
the group rushed Brandon from behind and grabbed him around his shoulders.
Brandon ducked his body down and reached behind to grab the soldier around his
head.

The soldier slammed his fist
into Brandon's side. With a surge of crazed strength, Brandon flipped him up
and over. The soldier landed on his back at Brandon’s feet.

Brandon snatched the assault
rifle still hooked across the man’s shoulder and fired two rounds into the
center of his chest. He then turned around and fired twice more into the body
lying across the jeep.

At the sound of the weapons
fire, Mel scurried away to the back of the vehicle.

Brandon turned slowly around to
face the last soldier struggling to balance his weight across his shattered
knee. Brandon took two steps toward him and lowered the weapon down to his
side. He centered its tip across the soldier's chest.

With a look of cold satisfaction
behind his eyes, Brandon watched the soldier fall twice and then finally win
his determined struggle to stand. When he was completely upright, Brandon fired
three quick bursts into his chest.

At the back of the jeep, Mel
lowered her head into her arms and started to cry.

Brandon dragged the soldiers’
bodies back to the jeep and piled them roughly inside. Blood from their open
wounds immediately stained the jeep’s interior a dark red. Giant patches of the
same color also marked where each had fallen dead in the sand.

Brandon walked back to the rear
of the jeep and held his hand out to Mel. Large bruises covered her arms and
both sides of her face. A small fingernail cut ran across her left cheek.

"C'mon," Brandon
whispered his voice hoarse and cold. "Please get up. We’ve got to
go."

Mel took his hand and slowly
stood next to him.

"Over there," he
instructed softly and nodded to the storefronts at the side of the street. “Go
over there.”

Mel didn't look at him or even
speak. Her body moving almost mechanically, she turned her back and walked
away.

Still clutching the bloody tire
iron in his fist, Brandon walked to the front of the jeep and reached towards
the ignition switch inside. The exposed skin of his arm touched the warmth of
what had once been the face of the soldier sprawled in the driver's seat.

The soldier’s blood dripped
across Brandon’s arm. He did not pull it away.

He turned the key and roared the
engine to life. Shifting it into gear, he walked next to it and steered it away
from street’s center. When he had guided it around the building's corner into a
darker alley, he switched off the engine and waited for it to roll gently to a
stop.

When it had completely stopped,
he rolled his sleeves back up to his elbows and roughly pulled at the men's
pockets until he found a pack of matches. He ran to the back of the jeep and
snatched a spare fuel container secured behind the rear seat.

He quickly emptied its contents
across the grim remains of the four men and threw the empty container across
their laps. He lit the match and started to back away. After taking a few
steps, he threw the match into the backseat and turned to run.