Skyfire (3 page)

JESSICA

“The darker the night, the brighter the stars.
The deeper the grief, the closer is God!” –Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821 – 1881)

“Jessica, get your knapsack, honey,” said Miranda, a late-20s single mother of one.

“Mommy, do we have to go?  Can’t we just stay here?”

“No, we need to go now.  It’ll be better. We’ll find a car and go to Auntie Marie’s in West Milford.”

“Mommy, no! I hate Aunt Marie’s house!  She’s so weird!  She’s got all that stuff everywhere and it smells like dirty socks!  And those disgusting fiber crackers you like instead of good snacks!”

“Shush, you love your Aunt Marie, baby.”  Miranda’s sister was a full-blown hoarder with undiagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder. 
Mom looks really tired… 
It was clear Miranda just wanted to get away from the city. She wanted to get away from whatever the hell was going to happen next.  Everyone had heard the news before the power went out; all sources said the military was providing temporary relief at Liberty State Park for anyone close enough to make it there.  Most people had ignored this announcement, wanting to get as far away from the city as possible.  The guidance from the government and the local media was useless to Miranda.  Anyone with eyes could see the full scope of the problem simply by looking at the Manhattan skyline. 

“Mommy, I don’t wanna go to Auntie Marie’s!” screeched Jessica.

“Honey, be quiet!  Do you have Duckaboo?”  Duckaboo had been Jessica’s favorite stuffed animal since she was a baby.  It was the only consistent thing in her life beside her mother.  Duckaboo had remained loyally by her side through her mother’s divorce, her two boyfriends since the marriage, three moves, and two different schools.  All this before Jessica’s eighth birthday. 

I would never forget Duckaboo,
Jessica said to herself
.
  “Yes Mom, I have him and everything you told me to bring in my knapsack.” 
Mom is acting weird.  Why can’t we just stay home?  I bet the TV will come back on soon and we can watch Adventure Time together like we always do before bed.
  “Mom, do you think Auntie Marie will have beds for us this time?”

“I don’t know sweetie, put this sweater on.”

“But I’m not cold and it looks stupid!” complained Jessica.

“Goddamn it, Jessica!  Put the fucking sweater on and come with me!”

Uh oh.  But I don’t know what I did wrong. 
“Mommy, I’m sorry.”  Jessica began to tear up.

“Shhh, shhh. Jess, everything’s going to be OK.  I know Auntie Marie is a little freaky with her foot-cracker house in the woods, but it’s the best place to hide for a few days while this gets taken care of.”

“Mommy, what’s going on?  I’m scared.”

“I have no idea.  That’s why we need to go to a place where there’s not a lot of people, so we can let this thing work itself out before we come home.  It’s just to be safe.  Now, come on.  Please, Jess.  Don’t be difficult.  I need you to listen to me.  Do what I say.  I’ll make it up to you when we get to your Auntie’s house.”

“OK,” said Jessica.

“OK. Now, as always: cash?”

“Check!”

“Watch?”

“Check!”

“Knapsack and sweater?”

“Check!”

“What’s your address?”

“6127 Bergenline Avenue in West New York, above Sal’s Pizza.”

“Good girl. Phone number?”

“Mom, the phones are dead, remember?”

“Jess, please.”

“917-0801.”

“Good girl.  Let’s get going.  Remember baby, just because you’re a little girl doesn’t mean you can’t be strong.  Just remember that for me.”

They walked out of their second floor apartment, into the small, enclosed stairwell bordering the pizzeria of their three-story, mixed-use real estate building.  They stepped over a fresh corpse as they descended the stairwell.

Ewww, that guy’s face looks like Patrick from Sponge Bob,
thought Jessica
.
“Mommy, why does that man look like that?”

“Honey, just keep moving and stay with me.  No more talking.”

“But maybe we can help him!”
Why won’t mommy stop to help him?

“Jessica! Come now!”

They moved down the stairs, into the afternoon light.  Jessica could see her mother was now petrified with fear.  The man in the stairwell had only been a precursor to what was on the street. 

They stepped outside.  Their neighborhood was ordinarily a nice place to live.  To outsiders it often seemed odd that there were so many individually owned small businesses.  In an age when everything was chain stores, chain restaurants, chain everything, Bergenline Avenue had remained true to its immigrant roots.  There was the man who personified the traditional and dying view of the “American Dream:” who had come over from Guatemala as a teenager and opened up a medical practice after qualifying for collegiate scholarships.  The British man who immigrated by marriage and opened up a soccer supply store.  The Mexican family who owned and operated “El Pollo Loco,” making chicken with more flavor than most Americans would ever taste.  The seemingly never-ending drag of small businesses and multi-level, mixed-use real estate was a monument to the old-school local zest most of the United States had kicked to the curb in the 90s.  Many outsiders’ reactions were that this area was “ghetto.” All they saw was brown-skinned people paying cheap rent in a pitiable effort to live out their own little American Dream.  Many associated this type of living with the typical plagues of lower-income neighborhoods – crime, lack of municipal services, and general unpleasantness.  But this area was different.  Although it may have presented the outward status of poverty, it hummed with the unusual vitality and vibrancy of a group of people striving to succeed.  Here, people cared.  They wanted a better life for their families, and took great pride in striving for that life. Miranda always said her neighborhood was a beacon of what America used to be, and what it could be again. 

But now, Bergenline Avenue was riddled with bodies.  Miranda had no idea whether they were unconscious, dead, sleeping, or something else.  “We’re going down by the river,” she said to Jessica.  “We can find a car and get on the highway.  It has to be better than here.”

“OK, mommy.” 
What’s going on?  Why is everyone lying on the ground?  Are they sick?  Are they sleeping?  Are they dead? 

Miranda walked hand-in-hand with Jessica until they reached the intersection of Boulevard East and 61
st
Street
.
“Honey, this is a main road going into the tunnel.  Let’s keep walking on it.  We’ll find someone and get a ride.”
Mom’s scared…
  “Hey, how’s Duckaboo doing?”

“Duckie’s good, mom.  Let’s keep going.  I don’t wanna be here anymore.”  Jessica wondered if her mom knew what she was doing.

HUGHES

Down we go. 
Trent lowered himself from a pile of rubble that had once been a playground. He was twenty blocks south of the building he’d been living in for seven years with his wife. 
Where the fuck is Emma?
The destroyed playground was partially hanging off the cliff, with most of the road around it in the parking lot of a shopping center sixty feet below.  It was eerie seeing a place filled with laughing children less than a week ago now completely destroyed.  The road near the playground was impassable to vehicles because of the nearby car accidents.

I guess I’ll keep walking for a while. 
Trent kept his most valuable items in an old assault pack from when he’d been on active duty.  He’d sold about $500 worth of old uniform items and equipment to a military surplus store outside Fort Drum, New York, when he left the Army at the age of twenty-seven.  His remaining few items were partially sentimental; he jokingly referred to them as the “zombie apocalypse survival kit.” 

The assault pack was an aftermarket olive drab backpack from a company called Tactical Tailor.  It was referred to as an “extended range” model because of its combination of size and ergonomic stability.  It was perfect for holding approximately two weeks’ worth of provisions.  It had contoured straps perfectly adjusted to Trent’s shoulders, a belt clasp adjusted to evenly distribute the weight of his one hundred and ninety pound, six feet-three inch frame.  Inside the bag Trent had packed one two-quart soft plastic canteen within a worn cloth case, fastened on each side with a nylon strap.  He had also included two hard plastic one-quart canteens, as well as a Camelback water bladder with its hose straw affixed by a clip to the right strap of the pack.  To top it off, he had an emergency supply of bottled water he’d been storing in his apartment.  It was an old lesson he’d learned from the Army’s Ranger School - always carry seven quarts of water prior to the start of any operation.  Trent also had food: ten “Meals Ready to Eat” (MREs), broken down into their most essential components to reduce the amount of bulk.  Most people, civilians and veterans, kept MREs as a novelty.  Now, for Trent, they were necessary. 

Also among Trent’s provisions were several packets of baby wipes for personal hygiene, seven thirty-round magazines for his carbine, three fifteen-round magazines for his Beretta 92 pistol, and a first aid kit.  The rounds in each magazine had been painstakingly wiped down, lightly oiled, and loaded to one round less than maximum capacity.  This prevented jams at inopportune times due to a lack of cleanliness or worn magazine springs.  The magazines were carefully placed in an exterior compartment looped through the mesh gridding. The compartment could be affixed to his belt during an operation for quicker mobility.

Clothing was heavy and bulky but necessary.  Trent’s extended range pack contained five T-shirts, one pair of jeans, a pair of black tactical cargo pants used by SWAT teams, and two sweatshirts.  One sweatshirt was plain black and the other one had the New York Jets logo.  The latter was thoroughly worn from years of Metlife Stadium tailgate parties.  For shoes, Trent was wearing his usual gray everyday sneakers, and had packed his favorite black jungle boots from Ranger School.  The boots were lined on the sides with green nylon cloth.  The heels were worn, but the boots provided familiarity and consistency amidst the chaos.  The last of the clothing was ten pairs of socks.  All the clothing was neatly folded into individual ziplock bags.  A rubber waterproof bag lining the interior of the assault pack held it all. 

Finally, the top flap of the assault pack contained batteries, weapon oil, a weapons cleaning kit, a semi-flattened, twenty year-old New York Yankees hat, ten packs of Marlboro Reds, and a large flask of Irish whiskey with an engraving of the West Point crest.  Trent had been prepared for this journey since the day he’d left the Army.  His friends gave him shit when they saw his little cache carved out in the closet. Now, he wished his bag and weapons were still there.  Unneeded. 

He dropped down three feet to a portion of the playground that had once held a fountain.  Pieces of the fountain now lay in the wreckage of the strip mall below. 
I hate heights.
  A five foot piece of what was once the sidewalk angled down off the cliff, toward the strip mall. It was dry outside, but making his way across the rubble was still dangerous.  Trent shuffled side to side across the narrow strip of concrete, taking extreme care not to look down toward the strip mall.  As he approached the end of the strip, he heard a commotion in the distance.
What the hell?
A hundred meters down the street he saw three Hispanic men in their thirties or forties and a woman in her late twenties. The woman walked with a young child, seven or eight. 
Are they fucking with that chick?
  Trent had a soft spot for underdogs and those who couldn’t defend themselves. 

He took a knee behind a car that had crashed into a street light pole on the east side of the boulevard.  Removing a set of binoculars from his pack, he examined the situation.  His binoculars were small.  They had imprints of vertical and horizontal axes on the lens.  He had used them primarily in his other life, to observe and measure calls for indirect fire during the war.  Trent immediately sensed something was amiss with the group of people he now observed.  It was clear these men had never met this woman or the little girl. Trent couldn’t make out most of the words they spoke, as much of it was in Spanish.

“Es muy peligroso aqui, mami,” said what appeared to be the lead man. 

No shit asshole,
thought Trent.
At this very moment you’re adding to the peligroso-ness of the situation. 
Trent quietly removed his assault pack and placed it in the back seat of the car to conceal it. He left the car door slightly ajar to avoid any noise.  He readied his rifle, pointing it down to the ground, keeping his left thumb just above the selector lever that he could flick from “safe” to “semi” in the blink of an eye.  Trent’s scalp tingled and felt hot, as if he knew he was about to walk into an ambush in Iraq again.  His tricep muscles twitched in anticipation. 
I hate adrenaline sometimes.
  He took a quick pull from his flask. 
Breathe.  You’ve done this before.  Be confident.  These dumb bitches are about to have a bad fucking time.
  Trent stood and walked in plain sight toward the group of people.  Their conversation became audible.

“Oooo mami, we take care of you,” said one of the other men.

Trent waved his arm in a manner intended to appear as nonthreatening as possible, considering he was carrying a rifle. 
OK, one tree to the left, two cars on the right. A foyer in the Overlook Terrace Apartments entryway on the west side of the road.  All decent cover.
              “Hey!” Hughes yelled.  His brisk walk turned into a slow jog.  He was careful not to remove his left hand from the pistol grip of his carbine.

“Look at this puto,” said the lead man. 

Trent noticed a distinct look of apprehension on the woman’s face
.
“Hey guys, what’s going on?  Everyone OK?”

“Keep walking, faggot,” said one of the other men.

“Dude, why would you say that?  Look in front of you!” Trent gestured toward the smoke rising from what was once the beautiful view from his balcony.  “Shouldn’t we all be in that helping mode we were in right after 9/11?”

The man who’d called him a faggot moved aside his oversize sweatshirt, exposing a pistol stuck into the front of his pants.

“I’m getting called a faggot by the dude who’s one step shy of Plaxico Burressing himself in the middle of the street?” said Trent.  “Look again, you fucking ass-tard.  This place is burning and I’m the dude with a rifle who can probably shoot all three of you before you can figure out your weapons’ safeties.  Stop being fucking gravel-bellied, chili-shitting, criminal Mexican fucks and do something good for a change!” 

A switch suddenly seemed to go off in the men’s brains.  They became sickly and haggard looking within seconds. 
They’re borderline catatonic!

“Dharsayati… abhisahya…” moaned the third man. 

Trent was truly confused.
What the fuck was that?  It sure as shit wasn’t Spanish.

The lead man let out a horrific screech as the other two turned to Trent and raised their weapons.  They seemed to be heavily under the influence of an aggressive upper or maybe even PCP.  Trent wasn’t sure.  Their skin was rubbed raw and their eyes were severely bloodshot.  Reasoning with them no longer seemed a good option. 
Shit. This again.

Trent flicked the selector lever to “semi” in less than a second. 
BANG-BANG! BANG-BANG!
Shots rang out. Two of the men were dead from chest and head shots before they hit the ground.  Trent ran to the Overlook Terrace foyer to take cover and engage the final man.  He exhaled, did his best to control the adrenaline shaking his left hand.  He retracted the plastic butt stock into the meaty part of his left shoulder, maneuvered the faint red dot of his EO-Tech site onto the target. 
Fuck, I took too long.

The Hispanic man grabbed the young woman and tried to hold her in front of him as a human shield. She fought back.  Trent watched the scuffle in what seemed like slow motion. 
I don’t have a shot!  Fuck!
  He sprinted toward them just as they went to the ground.  The man was wrestling with the woman as she screamed in desperation. The child cried uncontrollably. “Mommy!”  The man was in between her legs, holding her down, trying to reposition her to shield him.  The young woman kept screaming and clawing.

Hughes ran as fast as his legs could carry him. 
No, no, no, no!

Bang!
A single shot rang out. 

What the fuck
?
 
The woman stopped fighting instantly because of an apparent gunshot wound.

Blood was everywhere around the woman.  Instead of being red, it was a black sludge, as if it wasn’t oxygenated.  The man rolled off the wounded woman and stumbled away.  Hughes stopped and put two rounds in his back, killing him.  But he was too late.

“Mommy!  Mommy, you can’t go!” wailed the child. 

Trent sprinted to his assault pack to retrieve first aid supplies.  He returned to the woman and knelt beside her, pulling out a velcro nylon tourniquet from his pouch and two pressure dressings.

“My name is Trent.  You’re going to be OK, I promise.” He slung his carbine over his shoulder and stuck his hands into the black sludge to determine the source of bleeding.  He felt sinewy flesh between his fingers.  It felt like an uncooked chicken breast that was severely over-tenderized.  “What’s your name?”  He found the bullet wound seven inches down on the inside of her left leg.  There was a massive exit wound on the other side. 
Fuck, it’s her femoral . . .

The woman stared up at Trent.  She grabbed his collar with a last gasp of strength as he cut off the left leg of her jeans with a set of medical shears from the first aid kit.  “This is Jessica.  Please, I have no one else.  Please take care of her.”

“Mommy, no!” Jessica buried her face in the neckline of her mother’s blood-stained shirt.

“Shut up lady, you’re going to be fine! And this is going to fucking hurt! A lot!” Trent continued working on the woman’s leg.  He tied off the tourniquet three inches above the wound.  He did his best to tie the two pressure dressings as efficiently as possible.  “This is going to be the worst part!”  He elevated her leg and put extreme pressure on the wound with his knee.  The woman let out the most chilling groan Trent had ever heard as she passed out from the pain. 
Oh God, now what?  How the fuck do you call 911 when the phones aren’t working? 

Jessica’s wails turned to whimpers as the flow of blood from her mother’s leg slowed to a trickle and finally stopped.  The woman was dead.

“Mommy?  Mommy?” Jessica was frantic.

Trent released the pressure from the wound and dropped the woman’s leg to the pavement. He stood and leaned against a nearby car, lit up a cigarette.  His hands and arms were covered in blood to his elbows and he was shaking.  Last week Trent had been scheduled to work each day at a regular job, supervising construction projects in Manhattan. 
I’ve killed four times today.  Saw a child orphaned before my eyes.  This isn’t happening.  God, I know we’re not on great terms, but if you exist . . . Please. Help me.  What do I do now? And what the fuck was that thing in the park? Have I finally gone off the rails?  Is any of this real?  Am I in the Walter Reed mental ward? 

Trent finished his cigarette. He was about to light another when he decided it could wait
. A child just lost her world and I am the only adult around. I am far too sober for this shit.

“Hey. Jessica.” 

The little girl remained silent.  She didn’t even raise her head from her mother’s bloody corpse.  She was still whimpering. 

“Jessica, I need to get you to—”

“Mommy, no!” Jessica got up and threw her arms around Trent. She sobbed for what seemed like an eternity. 

“Jessica, my name is Trent.  We need to leave.  It’s not safe.”                Trent donned his assault pack and picked up the girl. She was dead weight. Around them, the scene was apocalyptic: Manhattan burning, military aircraft flying low overhead.