Under a Broken Sun (30 page)

Another whistle.  Another explosion.  This one closer.

“Here they come,” I yelled.  “Get in position.  Now!” 

Another explosion.  Then another.  Closer.

Tommy yelled to me, “Mortar fire.”

We ran up the street as quickly as we could, dodging debris that dropped as the bombs ripped the city apart.  Dust fell like snow all around as each explosion brought forth a small earthquake.

The temperature began its roller coaster ride down to freezing, and people spilled out of buildings like feed coming out of silos.  Soldiers mixed in with civilians.  The soldiers knew where they were going.  The civilians didn’t.

We stopped a block from the base of the Sears Tower, just as another explosion hit above us.  We ran under shelter to hide from the falling glass and concrete.  The tower moaned, its steel innards bending ever so slightly.  The fucking thing teetered on the brink of collapse.  Memories of 9/11 came forth, but instead of falling straight down like a controlled demolition, this baby was gonna topple over, and take half the city with it.  And if it
was
like 9/11, the city would be covered in dust and debris.  An entire army could walk in under that cover and take us all.  Night had become day, but night was still dark.  The perfect time to attack.

We were fucked.  Still no sign of the enemy. 

I looked at Ashley, who had taken out her little nine millimeter pistols and checked the ammo like Bill showed her.  I looked at Luigi.  He wasn’t a fighter.  He wasn’t prepared for this.  But I didn’t want the little guy to leave my side.

Rain fell.

The temperature dropped so fast, that rain morphed into sleet, then hail, then snow, all in a matter of minutes.  A tattered Bengals hoodie provided some buffer against the cold. Adrenaline provided the rest..

“We’re dead here,” Tommy said.  I ran up a fire escape that provided a better view.  I could see down the highway we had walked up just yesterday.  The entire fucking highway had become a sea of white movement.  Occasionally rockets flew overhead, mortars whistled and exploded into the side of buildings, and huge drifting snowflakes mingled with ash and debris creating a surreal mixture of nature and man. 

Tracer bullets lit up the sky, some in a straight line, some hitting their targets dead on, some flying randomly high into the night.  Visibility shrank from a few blocks to a few feet.  The snow started falling sideways. 

Fuck this.  I turned to the others.  “We’re doing no good back here.  This is what we’ve come to do, and I’m not about to give up just yet.  We’re gonna have to fight.  You guys ready?”  They just smiled and nodded.  We ran towards the fighting, screaming.  Two months of pent up anger, two weeks of no cutting, and I was ready to take someone’s head off. 

The first platoon came into view a block ahead of us, under the overpass of what used to be a highway.  They were fighting, but I couldn’t see their opponent.  They made slashing gestures with their rifles against the snow. 

We drew closer and saw the figures in white.  Hill’s army, decked out in their white robes, their white jumpsuits, blended in perfectly with the storm, making them practically invisible. 

The ground soaked up the red blood like a dark red slushy, then fresh snow almost immediately buried it.  The road grew slippery, and my tennis shoes begin to soak in the piling snow.  Louie and Ashley darted ahead, Louie with an Uzi, aimed and ready but not firing until he was sure.  Ashley pointing her two pistols ahead

Louie flew backwards in a quick, jerking motion, dropping his Uzi.  A tall, thick guy lifted him up by the throat.  I pointed my rifle at him and pulled the trigger.  Two quick bursts and red exploded from the chest of the guy just as he pulled out a knife.  He flew backwards as Louie dropped like a sack.  I expected a look of terror in Louie’s eyes, but when he turned to me, anger flared in his eyes.  He ducked and rolled away.  I saw another white ghost moving towards us and I fired, still running forward.  The body fell backwards from the impact of my bullet hitting the mark.

It felt great.

Ashley pointed her forty-five, firing rounds and screaming like me, leveling the person in front of us.  I couldn’t tell whose bullets rocked them but it didn’t matter.  We were in the thick of it. 

One last bullet ripped past and nailed a national guardsman behind me.  I heard his grunt as he fell, then silence.  I turned as his face had turned blood red, his eyes staring up at the snow falling into them.

I ran forward and jumped on the first white-robed person I saw, slamming the butt of my rifle into their skull.  As the person dropped I noticed her middle aged features.  Probably doing her laundry two months ago, now fighting to the death, a death caused by me. Then I noticed the pistol she clutched in her hand.

A fist from another person in white landed square my jawbone, knocking me over.  I fell on my shoulder in a few inches of snow, my head bounced off the pavement and the world swerved.  A red alarm bulb went off in my brain, throbbing in rhythm to some unheard beat.  I looked up and saw the man in white standing over me, smiling, raising a forty-five at my head.  He cocked it, pointed it at my face.

Tommy flew into him with a brutal tackle.  I stood up, woozy, and saw Tommy stand up from on-top of the guy.  He held a buck knife, probably seven or eight inches long, covered in blood and smiled at me.  “Got ‘im,” he said.  “We’re even.”  He lowered his hand to help me up.  Good guy to have on your side.

Our numbers seemed fewer.  Ware ran up beside me, out of breath, bleeding from her scalp.  "Sir," she huffed.  "My platoon's almost gone.  Verdin is dead, and his troops have scattered.  What now?"

A path.  We had to funnel them.  Even if it meant letting them get to the Sears Tower.  Maybe the other army had fallen back too.  Maybe they had reserves.  "Line the streets.  Guerrilla warfare.  Fall back and let them come, then when they're funneled into the street open fire.  They'll be coming down that main road to the tower.  Pull Verdin's troops and consolidate with yours.  You’re in charge.  Got it?"  She snapped a salute and I faked one back.  As she disappeared in the night I looked around and saw national guardsmen lying dead next to people in white, the snow already covering their bodies in a natural shroud.  And still for every one of our guys four or five of theirs surrounded them.  The fighting devolved into brutal hand-to-hand combat.  Most of us had probably used up our ammo or were too afraid to shoot.  Or too pumped.  I looked for Ashley.

I found Marilyn.

I didn't know her, my rage had clouded my vision, and anyone in white was going to die.  I grabbed her by the throat before I noticed who it was, and immediately felt the point of a short stiletto in my gut.  She didn't know me either.  Thankfully she didn't drive the knife forward or I'd have been skewered.

We stared into each other for a split second.  Our mutual threats then turned into the most passionate kiss I've ever felt.  

A rocket flew overhead and slammed into something high and far behind us.  Marilyn dropped the knife and grabbed my arm.

"We gotta move," she shouted above the noise.

“Where’s Eve?”  I asked.  I couldn’t believe I even cared.

“With Hill.  She’s safe.  C’mon.  You’re outnumbered.”

Whatever was hit behind us started to groan.  Whatever it was, it was gonna fall.  I turned but couldn’t see past the driving snow.

Ashley came behind me, then Bill, Tommy and Louie behind her.  The groaning to the north sounded like steel bending.  “Adam,” Bill said, bent over and breathing heavy.  “Order your men to fall back to the left.  It’s the Sears Tower.  It’s gonna go.”

Marilyn yanked on my arm.

"They're aiming for the tower," Marilyn said.  "They want it to fall.  To create chaos.  We've gotta move!"

I turned, and saw the remaining men in my company.  “Fall back to the left!”  I yelled.  “To the Stock Exchange!   Tell everyone to fall back to the Stock Exchange!” 
Jesus, would Ware get the message?  I just sent those troops into the worst place in the city to be.

Other voices echoed my order.  Soon stragglers of men came running out of the snow towards us.

The groaning grew louder.  The fighting stopped as both sides looked in the direction of the collapsing building.  We couldn’t see it, the snow drove too hard into our face.  But we could feel it.  The ground trembled, and inside, everyone just knew.  The crowd scattered, screaming.  I followed Marilyn up another street heading east. 

We ran for two blocks or so, fighting off the occasional enemy along the way.  I threw a punch at one, but she ducked, then came up slashing with a knife.  Cut me right across the bicep, which hurt like a bitch.  She stared at me.  “C’mon,” she said.  “Bring it motherfucker.”

Normally that would’ve impressed me.

But two bullets blasted into her gut, doubling her over to her knees.  I turned around and saw Louie pointing a small forty-five, slowly lowering it, his eyes as wide as spotlights.

“Not like a video game, is it bud?”

He didn’t know what to say.  I had to grab him and drag him along.

“C’mon,” Bill yelled, turning back to us.  “It’s collapsing.”  He saw a growing blood stain on my hoodie sleeve, and a rip on the sleeve that wasn’t there before.  “You ok?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”  I sucked in a ton of air.  Another explosion rocked overhead behind us.  The groaning increased in pitch.

  The tower collapsed about four blocks behind us.  We ducked into a tall office building with a sign next to it reading “Chicago Stock Exchange”.  We ran to the stairwell, followed by rows of soldiers, and even some of Hill’s army.  The American soldiers couldn’t see the enemy in Hill’s army.  To them they were just Americans, about to be stuck in a catastrophe. 

Outside an explosion like a train smashing through glass erupted.  The buildings in the way of the tower fell like dominos.  Building after building collapsed around us.  Dust and concrete rained down around us as the roar continued.  Seconds took hours; worse than Pittsburgh.  I grabbed Marilyn and wrapped myself around her, drawing in Ashley as best I could.  Tommy pulled Louie in to him, protecting him like a little brother.  A soldier ran by and pointed to me.  “Sir, your family ok?”

My family.  I nodded.

Then the stairwell collapsed, and the lights went out in my brain.

28.   

A plate clanked on the floor, waking me up.  Reynolds stood outside the barred door across from me.  “Eat it.  You’re gonna need your strength,” he said.  I barely took the time to register what it was: sweet potatoes, grilled steak, beans.  Gone.  Fingers as forks, shirt as napkin.  Barbaric, but hell, I was too hungry for manners.

My brain reluctantly returned, hung up its coat and hat and got back to work.  “Where are the others?” I asked, looking around.  I sat in a small holding cell, probably inside a courthouse or police station.  Been in plenty of these.

“Hidden.  Safe.  Going through reeducation.”  Reynolds took a sip of his own water.

“Marilyn?” I asked.

Reynolds grinned.  “With Hill.”  He watched me slow down my eating, then stop.  He leaned forward to the bars.  “It’s over, Adam.  We won.  Chicago’s fallen.  Marilyn's done her job well.  She led you right into our trap."

"Fuck you.  She saved us.  You just can’t deal with it," I said.  I remembered her eyes when she found me.  She could’ve killed me right there, but she didn’t.

"Believe what you want.  Doesn't matter now."

I shook my head.  “Where’s my dad?”

“He’s dead.”  I looked up at him and stared into his eyes.  "Same with Tolbert.  Killed him when we found out he let you go."

“Bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit, Adam.  We’ve won, as I thought we would.  Reverend Hill has an army more passionate about their faith than any other extremists the world has ever seen.”

I stood up and went to the barred door of the holding cell.  “Wait.  You really don’t believe all this bullshit.  This whole time, you've been acting.  Playing a part that would get you in good with Hill."

He stared right at me.  “You've been acting too.  Acting like a leader.  Like you give a shit about your dad or this life.  I believe in staying alive.  You barely believe in living.”

He tried to get under me, but I'd changed.  I knew who I was.  “You're just a fucking mercenary.”

“No, I'm a survivalist.  I do what I have to.  These people are more powerful than any sect in the history of the world.  Die for their cause?  These people think they already have.  They don’t think they are going to heaven.  They think heaven has come to them.  They think they've risen from the dead, just as Revelations said they would.  They think they’re fucking invincible."

“Then why are they afraid of me?”  That fear was my only bargaining chip.  The rest of the casino was loaded against me.  “Do they know the truth?  That I’m just a man?  I’ve got issues like they all do.  Secrets that we don’t want anyone to know about.  Forces against us that we fight every single fucking day.  Just like them.  Just like you.  Do they know that?”

Reynolds didn’t say anything.  I took silence to mean I struck a nerve.  I went on.  “They don’t, do they?  And Hill isn’t about to tell them that.  He needs their fear.  Hell, he even had you convinced when you first went into my tent.  You were afraid.  You thought he might be right, but then you knew.  But you kept your mouth shut because you know they need someone to blame.  Because their GOD wouldn’t let all of this HAPPEN to his flock without a FUCKING REASON!”

Reynolds grabbed my hoodie through the bars.  “Do you want to see how desperate these people are?  Huh?  Do you?”

I jerked away.  “My dad’s not dead.  I know you’re lying.”

A soldier entered the holding cell area. “Clean him up,” Reynolds said.  The soldier jerked to attention like Reynolds just yanked on some invisible string.  “The Reverend wants to see him in ten minutes.”

The door slid open, the soldier pointed an automatic rifle at me.  We left the room.  I knew what I had to do.