The Lover's Parable Through A Seven World Journey (39 page)

The automatic fire from the deserters still raged fiercely against the few remaining agents holed up inside the Adelaide building. The cloud of dust was beginning to settle, and the visibility was such, that the men and women closing in upon them appeared as shadows scurrying about in the silhouetted hills of rubble strewn across the streets outside.

With the clanking of several cans rolling into the middle of the street, followed by the eruptive popping of their triggering mechanisms, the deadly gas began to evacuate into the surrounding atmosphere.

“Gas,” came the screams of the deserters.

The exclamation was repeated throughout the immediate vicinity by a quantity of soldiers greater than John had anticipated. They were not a mere squad, nor a platoon size unit. He, along with the last few men under his command, was facing a formation, perhaps two. Tossing out a few more canisters, he advanced his way to an opposing street that ran parallel to the Adelaide, taking up a position in a building to the rear of the enemy.

With the gas forcing them back, John was able to observe them from his hidden vantage point. They were fleeing to their awaiting transporters, speeding off in the opposite direction from his position. Removing his map from his pocket, John could see that they were escaping towards the distant Red deserts, which began approximately twenty kilometers to the far side of the ruins.

As the last two squads of deserters struggled over the wreckage of the fallen building, the first four-man team to scale the destruction sprinted to one of their awaiting machines. With a dust trail following close behind it, the retreating vehicle disappeared into the ruins, leaving the few remaining survivors without support. John could tell by the manner in which the former squad had hastened in their escape, showing little regard for those unable to keep up, that they would not be returning to help, even if the last of the soldiers required it.

Raising his rifle to his shoulder, he hesitated to pull the trigger until all the rebels had exposed themselves in the open. The two members standing at the top of the ruinous heap were approximately three hundred fifty meters out. They appeared to be waiting for the rest of their team before making the final dash. Assisting one of their wounded comrades over the rubble, they were finally exposed… and alone.

With a limping gait, an injured soldier draped his arms over the shoulders of both a female deserter on one side and a male on the other. Behind them, another female carrying several weapons over her shoulders covered their rear. John steadied his aim, keeping his iron sights covering the body of his already suffering target. He was wholly prepared to place a bullet into the man’s mask-covered
face.

As they reached the base of the mound, John squeezed the trigger, sending a single projectile spinning from the muzzle of his rifle. The explosive impact of ruby mist dropped the wounded deserter dead in his tracks, bringing his two helpers to the ground with him. Firing off another shot, he watched the female at the rear fall to her knees, writhing in pain as she grasped at her leg.

As John was about to release the death blow into her body, a shot from the last remaining male soldier whizzed past his head, ricocheting off the wall behind him. Rushing to take cover inside the building, he headed down the stairwell leading to the street below.

Cautiously clearing the exit, he ran behind the charred and rusty remains of an old vehicle just outside. As he peered around its edge, he caught a glimpse of one of the deserters ducking down on the other side of the high-walled remains of an ancient courtyard another three hundred meters along his line of sight.

Advancing to a low-lying wall twenty meters ahead, John was able to gain the advantage of concealment and mystery, allowing him to close in on his unsuspecting prey. Firing into the air in order to keep them constantly guessing as to the number of men they were fighting, John was testing their psychological strength, initiating the tormenting trials upon his enemies that he had learned through his years of practical application on the battlefield. He knew that the growing anxiety would skew their judgment, causing them to make mistakes. Eventually, their fear would allow him to narrow the gap between them to such an extent that they would be dead before they even knew he was in their presence.

After nearly forty minutes of cautiously progressing towards their holdout, John was finally within a stone’s throw of the courtyard. Pulling the last two canisters of poison from his vest, he removed the pins. Pulling his arm back, he hurled them in one at a time.

As the explosive follow-up indicated that the gas was being released, John waited for the visible, rising cloud of death before moving to finish them off.

Kneeling down and pressing his shoulder against the broken wall of concrete he was using for cover, the shadows of the buildings overhead slowly began drawing back towards the Great Star. Reaching its arms over the city, the Giver of Light dropped its particles upon the gray and deadly streets.

A soft breeze began to develop, rustling the papers and ashen soot that littered John’s surroundings. It was the first time since he had entered the ruins that the stillness of the air had been naturally broken. Feeling the warmth of the Savior running along his shoulders as its illuminating essence continued up towards the skin of his arms, John pulled his sleeves into his hand, covering himself from its rays.

The rising plume from the courtyard signaled to him that the target environment was saturated with his murderous chemical. Gripping his weapon tightly, he prepared to make his move.

Raising the rifle to his shoulder, John stood from his cover, advancing the last ten meters towards the threshold of the courtyard, surveying its entrance and noting the details of its outer walls. There was no disturbance from within: no coughing, no movement. From his crouched, battle-ready stance, he fast-walked up the sidewalk leading to the open entryway, keeping a steady aim, ready to engage, or rather, destroy, the first deserter he came into contact with.

Each step forward was like a rhythmical drum, the beat of which was orchestrating the crescendo of the soft breeze as it began to dance to his tempo. Picking up speed, it swirled the gaseous cloud through the air.

Recognizing the potential for diluting its potency and effectiveness upon his adversaries, John realized that he only had seconds before losing his advantageous ground. Leaping over the corpse of his first victim, he subconsciously gave his own body over to the spell of rote motions.

Entering through the walkway, the breeze suddenly became a strong gust of air that lifted the thick fog of poison into the heights above, swirling it into the windows and gaping wounds of the war torn structures of the city street. With a cleared visibility, John was able to catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of the circular eyepiece of his chemical respirator. Rotating his rifle’s sights towards the stirring creature, he found himself staring down the barrel at a bleeding woman lying on the ground, her muffled scream barely audible through the fogged lenses of her gasmask.

The light of the Savior fell upon her as he squeezed the trigger. He heard the crack of his rifle. Through the aperture of his rear sight, he fell into a hypnotic awareness of the bullet as it traveled mid-flight, a sluggish motion of surreal imagery of a projectile shattering into a cloud of particles. Splattering into the concrete behind her, the woman’s unblemished silhouette was the resultant effect: an ornamental mural etched upon the wall. Without hesitation, he squeezed the trigger again. As he heard the audible crack of the shot, the stock end of a deserter’s rifle caught him across the back of his helmet, breaking the strap of his mask, sending his next bullet to bury itself deep into the ground beside the woman’s leg.

Crashing to his knees upon the fragmented slab beneath his feet, John’s respirator followed close behind, slamming down beside his knee. The reflective face protector of his helmet subsequently fell into its closed position, covering his face.

Partially dazed, but still running on years of repetitive conditioning, John pulled the knife from the small of his back, stabbing and slashing wildly behind him, thrusting the dagger into the belly of the deserter that had struck him. Ripping the knife out, he slashed it again across the cheek of the man’s gas mask causing his enemy to fall backwards, dropping his weapon and screaming out in
pain.

Lifting the knife above his head, John prepared to plunge it into the man’s heart. The pain in his skull and the throbbing of his neck were justification enough for him to eliminate the rebel from the living.

As the blade made its downward fall, an explosive impact against John’s face-shield sent heavy shards of its fibrous material ripping into the skin of his face and the side of his head, tearing away the lobe of his right ear, staggering him with its deafening ring.

Momentarily disoriented by the blow, John stumbled about, shielding his eyes. He could feel the warmth of his own blood oozing from his facial wounds and smearing across the palms of his hands. Through the spaces between his fingers he could see the only deserter that he had not wounded, pistol at the ready. Her hands were trembling and struggling to keep her aim. Her dampened, distressed cry was scarcely audible through the thick rubber of her respirator. His own hearing and sight had been amazingly spared from harm.

Feigning to be struck blind by her bullet, John continued to stumble around moaning and screaming, inconspicuously inching himself closer to her. The woman appeared to be falling for his act. As her weapon began to lower, her attention moved to her wounded mate that lay at her feet.

With her arm within reach, John grabbed the soldier by the wrist, tearing the firearm from her hand and jerking her towards him before throwing her down. She hit the ground hard, landing beside her wounded female companion.

Taking aim at the writhing man groaning at the end of his barrel, John’s passing glance caught the eyes of the woman that had shot him. She was staring deep into his soul, as if to plead with him for mercy. She was exactly where he wanted her: witnessing the end of her comrades. He could see the terror in her expression, horrified from behind the plastic windows of her mask. The satisfaction he was experiencing warranted the dramatic delay in all of their executions.

Behind her, the other woman continued to bleed out from her leg, laboring to unstrap her respirator. Panting, pale and sweaty, she deserved her pain, he thought.

As the latches of her mask unhinged under the trembling of her frail, weak fingers, it fell from her face. John stepped back, dropping his aim. In all the years of peering into the eyes of death, he had somehow found himself gazing once again into the familiar sky-blue eyes of a life once lost.

“Don’t shoot, John,” she spoke through the quivering lips beneath her tears. “It’s me, Sofia.”

Overcome with amazement and a sudden sense of dread, John looked about in the courtyard, visually taking in the familiarity of the battlefield destruction: it was something real, something that could ground him in reality. All he needed was an item of material value to let him know that he was merely hallucinating.

The womanly apparition appeared all too veritable, too genuine. He could not look into its eyes again without killing it. Raising his pistol towards its head, he fired a single shot. The bullet exited the darkness of the barrel, entering into the world of light. And, just as some unseen force thwarted John’s previous attempts, so too did this projectile’s end come in the same manner, shattering into a million pieces before his eyes.

As if there was a beckoning from above, John turned his face to the Savior, and began to curse. He was hallucinating… there was no other way to explain what he had just seen.

Over the shoulder of Maryanne, John was standing in the rays of light that fell through the splintered beams that crossed over the yard. Sofia wanted nothing more than to run to his arms and hold him. Ignoring the pains from the wounds in her leg, she fought against her body’s desire to stay and rest, giving in to the yearning of her heart.

“John,” she called to him. “Please, come to me.”

Slipping his helmet off his head, John let it drop to the ground. It landed at his feet, settling beside a crack in the concrete through which a tuft of red grass had grown. Rolling away from him, it settled beside the crimson pool that formed under the dripping blood from the deserter that was struggling to his knees behind him. The hatred was burning him up. He had no desire to give into his wishful thinking. Closing his eyes would make it all go away, he thought.

Undoing the straps that were tangled in her hair, Maryanne crawled beside Sofia. Removing her gasmask, she motioned to her mate, Stephen to remain still.

“That’s John, Mary,” Sofia said. “He’s here to save me.”

Removing the backpack from her shoulders, Maryanne unsnapped the pouch on its side, pulling out a small folding knife.

“You’re hurt, dear,” she said nervously, trying not to call the Sweeper’s attention to them. “You’re going to be alright, Sofia. We just need to stop the bleeding.”