Under a Broken Sun (25 page)

“No time for reunions," she said.  "We gotta move.”  I looked in a side room in the cabin, and there were our supplies.  I grinned and grabbed my backpack.  The others did the same.  Outside, the gunfire quieted down as the explosions subsided.  People were discovering it was a diversion.  They were coming for us.

She turned and I cut the plastic tie around her wrists.  Tommy turned and I did the same to him, then Bill.  “Let’s go,” I said.

I opened the door and saw a horde of white ghosts running towards us - two, maybe three hundred yards away - illuminated by their torches.  They looked like a mass of bobbing trick-or-treaters.  We had only one horse, but down towards the lake I could make out a dock and a row boat.  “We need to split up,” I decided.  “Ashley, come with me on the horse.  Tommy, Bill and Louie take that boat across that lake.  It’s dark, they won’t see you.  Go!”

We split up and Ashley and I jumped on the horse Louie and I just rode in on.  “Hang on,” I said as she tightened her grip around my waist.  Rifle shots echoed in the distance.  The grass to our left exploded as a bullet hit.  I kicked the horse into high gear, and it didn’t need to be convinced.  Two more rifle shots rang out. 

We disappeared into a grove of trees and started following the lake’s shore.  The crack of a rifle shot reminded us of their closeness, and now sounds of angry dogs joined the shouts and explosions.

I steered the horse more towards the shore, into the water, hoping that running in the water would cover our tracks.  Ashley turned and saw the lights of the torches as they came to the lakeshore.  They turned our way. 

I kicked the horse again, trying to keep it in the water, but more worried about putting distance between us and that mob.  I turned and saw one of the torches move, like it was falling.  But it wasn’t.  A smaller flaming dot detached itself from the torch, and with a snap flew through the air towards us. 

“Holy shit!” I said, kicking the horse into a gallop.  Fuck covering our tracks, we had to get the hell out of there.

We couldn’t lead them to the others, we had to lose them first. 

We got as much distance between them and us as we could, flaming arrows still igniting the land behind us, almost like a guide for them.  “How fast can you swim?” I asked.

“Are you shittin’ me?” Ashley exclaimed.  “That water’s near freezing.”

“We don’t have a choice,” I said, scanning the lake.  “C’mon.”  I jumped off the horse, smacked its ass to get it moving, and it scurried away.  “Take your clothes off.  Try to keep them dry,” I said, while taking my sweatshirt and jeans off.  “The drier the better so we can put them back on.”

“Where are we going?”  Ashley asked as she slipped her shirt off.

“There – a diving platform in the middle of the lake, maybe a hundred yards out.  Piece of cake.”

“What the fuck kind of cake do YOU eat?” Ashley asked.  Clothes off, we stuffed everything we had into Ashley’s backpack.  It was more modern, plastic, and seemed the best to be waterproof.  I brought the army backpack along for the ride – we’d been through too much together. 

We stood at the edge of the lake, dogs barking in the distance and the torches getting closer.  “Go!” I shouted, and we both slipped in quietly. 

The water cut through me worse than my knife ever did.  I sucked in as much air as I could, not to hold my breath, but out of protest from my body.  Fingers went numb, every muscle tensed in preparation for the shivering.

Breaststroke.  Quick but quiet.  I was no expert swimmer, but Ashley seemed to have had a lesson or two.  She got ahead of me in no time.

The torches reached the spot where we slipped off.  They paused.  Ashley and I treaded water in the darkness, shivering.  I hoped like hell my chattering teeth wouldn’t give us away.  The mob was only fifty yards away.

The horde turned to the left, away from the lake, following the horse’s tracks.  Perfect.

The diving platform floated still more than a hundred yards away.  About halfway there my breathing began to go south.  Every breath was like inhaling glass.  Ashley grabbed my backpack shoulder strap and pulled me along.  “C’mon,” she grunted under her breath.  “Not that much further.”

But it was.  It seemed to stretch out further away with every stroke.  Finally, just as my last breath left my locked up lungs, my hand hit wood.  Ashley sat on the platform, shivering from the constant shockwave that flowed through her.  She helped me climb up, and I immediately collapsed on the platform.  She tore the backpack off of me, and quickly got it open.  Our clothes spilled out onto the dock, more dry than I expected.  Ashley threw her sweatshirt and pants on, then tossed me my tunic.  I looked at it, and realized I couldn't put it on.  Too bright - I'd be a human beacon.  I threw the tunic into the water behind us.

"What the hell are you doing?" Ashley asked. 

I looked back and watched the torches approach the shore where we stood not ten minutes ago.  “Tr....trying...not....to get caught...can’t do...another run,” I said.  I folded down onto the dock.  Ashley wrapped her arms around me and rubbed.  The air, the water, and the cold numbed every nerve in my body.

The torches stopped at the waters' edge.  We didn’t move.  “Adam,” someone shouted to us.  Tolbert.  How?  He could barely tell there was a diving platform – I know, because I could barely tell.  The slide on the platform was a light blue, but dirty enough not to be too visible.  How the fuck could he-?

The scope.  His fucking sniper rifle. 
We might as well drown ourselves.

"I see your cut is healing nicely," Tolbert shouted. 

I could barely hear another voice next to him. "Take him out."  It was Reynolds.  I knew that voice, even from fifty yards away.  I leaned back against the slide and it shifted.  It wasn't even bolted down.  Damn thing almost fell over.

"Adam!" shouted Tolbert.  He didn't want to fire.  If he did, we'd have been dead already.

"Take him out!"  Reynolds shouted.   I grabbed Ashley and covered her head.  Tolbert fired, the thick sound of the rifle shot echoing across the lake.  Before I could even react the slide whipped backwards from us and fell with a splash into the water. 

Tolbert missed.  He couldn't have.

I heard him say, "Target's down, sir."

“Light it,” Reynolds commanded. 

"I said target is down, sir."  Tolbert yelled. 

"I heard what you said, soldier.  Now stand down while we torch the remains."  One of the torches dipped again, and the Robin Fucking Hood character they had fired another lit arrow at us.  It landed in the water with a sizzle just to our left.  Ashley started to panic.  I scanned the area.  Behind us I could just barely make out the image of a boat.

Another lit arrow, this time it landed right in the middle of the platform and exploded tiny flames around. 
At least we’ll die warm
, I thought for a quick second.  I turned around again and saw the boat a little more clearly with the flames.  Ashley noticed what it too and stood up to yell.  I covered her mouth.  “No!  They think we're dead, remember?”

Another arrow hit, and the flames grew.  The platform started to burn for real.  We couldn’t go in the water again – we’d die just from hypothermia.  We couldn’t call the boat, we could give us all away.  We had to hope that they’d see us.  The fire provided good cover, but the platform was only about twenty feet square.  The wood beneath us grew warmer, and the smoke thicker.  Flames pushed us to the edge of the platform, like a bully at summer camp picking on the nerdy kid.

The torches disappeared, sure that their job was done.  How many mother, walked away satisfied that they killed Satan’s child, instead of two innocent people?  How many kids would hear stories of false heroism, their fathers' acting so bold and brave in the face of faceless danger?  Fuck you, I wanted to yell.  Fuck you all.

The boat drifted closer.  I could make out the image of a man rowing frantically.  I could feel the occasional sting of a flame stabbing my bare skin behind me.  Ashley wanted to jump in after them, but I held her back.  We were already close to hypothermia, saved only by the fire our enemies lit to kill us.  If we jumped in, we’d fall into shock for sure.

We inched towards the edge of the platform, all but out of room entirely.  I nearly toppled over as the board underneath me gave way.  That shifted the whole platform, which danced on the waves like the earthquake in Pittsburgh.  We held our balance as best we could, arms waving frantically, flailing for support that wasn’t there.

Ashley fell over first.

Bill caught her just as the boat pulled up next to the diving platform.  I turned and tried to balance and get into the boat as carefully as I could.  Too much jostling and we’d all go over. 

Tommy and Louie balanced it.  I took Bill’s hand, crouched as low as I could on what seemed like the last few floating boards, and stepped into the boat.  The board underneath my feet snapped in two, and flames wrapped themselves around my ankle.  I brought the other leg in with a grunt, and practically fell on the boat.  It bobbed from side to side, but it didn’t tip over.

Bill started rowing like a madman.  He got us away from the platform, then turned back north in the direction he was originally heading.  We were safe.

“Thought that was you,” Bill said.

I smiled, shaking, huddled close to Ashley. 

“Water cold?” Tommy asked.  Ashley elbowed him.  He wrapped his arms around her and started rubbing vigorously.  She folded herself into his arms.

“You ok to go on?”  Bill asked. 

I nodded, and said between chattering teeth, “Can’t stop.  They’ll find you…missing…any minute…now.”  We had to get ourselves away from here sooner than soon as possible.

After about ten more minutes the boat scraped on the shore with a harsh metallic sound.  Up ahead we saw the dark shadow outlines of huge houses – plastic McMansions, cushy little hovels for executives without companies to work for. 

The other three got out, pulled the boat to shore, and helped Ashley and I out.  We hurried in the comparatively warm air,  still just above freezing, and me with no protection except my boxers.

We knocked on the door of the first house we came to.  No answer.  No shuffling, nothing.  Tommy went to the side of the house, picked up a large stone, and threw it through the basement window.  The sound would’ve alerted anyone no matter how deeply they slept.  A couple of neighbors seemed to stir - I could see the dim light of candles dancing in upstairs windows.  People staying home to wait this thing out.

We went around to the other side and kicked open the door to the garage.  Inside, we could just barely make out the neatly organized, symmetric lines of shelves in a spotless garage.  Daddy probably drove his kids into servitude keeping this thing clean.

If he had kids.

The answer hunt on the wall of the garage behind us: four bikes; two adult and two kid-sized.  One of the adult bikes had a kid seat in the back.  Bill grabbed Tommy, saying, "Run inside and find dry clothes for Adam and Ashley.  Grab any thick coats or sweatshirts you can for the rest of us. Louie, you go with him.

Bill took the bikes down.  “Here’s how we get out of here.  We’ve only got a couple of hours until daytime.  We'll get as far as we can.  Can you ride?”  He stood the one bike up, then took down the other.  I nodded.  I could feel my strength returning already.

Tommy and Louie bolted out of the door to the house with a bundle each.  They threw it on the ground and Ashley and I changed.  The other three put on whatever sweatshirt or sweater or jacket they could find.  The warmth of the clothes loosened me up a ton.

“There’s only four bikes,” Ashley observed.

Tommy pointed to the kid seat, “Um-”

Ashley pushed him again before he could finish.  “Don’t even think about it.  I’m not
that
small.”

Bill grabbed her hand.  “Ride with me.  I can stand up most of the way.”

“I call this bike,” Louie said, taking the smaller boy’s bike.  I had my hand on the other adult bike, so that left Tommy with a tiny, pink, Hello Kitty bike.

I patted him on the back.  “Hey, at least it doesn’t have training wheels.”

Bill rolled up the garage door.  “We best be going.”  He climbed on his bike, and Ashley climbed onto the seat, holding his waist.  The three boys mounted our mechanical steeds, and shoved off.

25.   

We rode around the state for three days, riding at night, sleeping during the day with someone always on watch.  Our hiding places became less obvious – no more homes, we slept in barns or under blankets of camouflage.  Bill turned about to be an expert in how not to be seen.  The temperature seemed to stabilize: really fucking hot during the day and really fucking cold during the night. 

One day, at dawn, Bill and I sat talking around the fire we had built, while the others got ready for bed.  I had the first watch.  I asked Bill a question that’d been burning in my mind since my time with the nutjobs.  Colonel Reynolds.

“What about him?” Bill asked.

“When he stared at me, I could tell he really believed what he was fighting for.  But I couldn’t believe that he would kill for this idea, something so...I dunno.  Whacked out.  How could he look at me like that?  Like I was subhuman?”

Bill tore a leg off a well-done rabbit we’d caught.  “We’re trained to dehumanize the enemy.  Doesn’t matter who they are.”

“Yeah, but who told him I was the enemy?  How could he be convinced of that so easily?”  I refused a bite when he offered it to me.

“Look around you.  It’s the way of man – explain the inexplicable by Gods.  And if there are Gods, there are always anti-Gods.  It’s human nature.”  He spit out a huge chunk of fat into the fire.  The fire sizzled in response.

“Yeah, but it was different than that.  With him, it looked like he was…”

“Enjoying himself?” Bill added, tossing away the bone, wiping his hands on his pants.

“Yeah.”

Bill poked a stick into the fire like he was remembering something he didn’t really want to.  “Soldiers come in two types, Adam.  Those who want to fight, and those who have to fight."